The State of Israel vs. Citizens of Israel

Gadi Algazi, 28 July 2010

[See the JNews report Bedouin in the Negev under attack 27 July 2010]

Today an entire village was demolished in Israel; a non-recognized Bedouin village: al-Arakib in the northern Negev, a few miles north of Beer-Sheva, next to Highway 40. Hundreds of police and Special Patrol Unit forces, bulldozers, and security personal participated in the operation. Thirty left-wing activists from different parts of the country managed to reach the site at the last moment in a sign of solidarity with the residents and to protest the destruction. But against such superior forces, crippling forces, there was not much of a chance. The police created a buffer between the Bedouin residents and their homes; they formed a human wall between the activists and residents and the homes – and while doing so arrested several activists. Women and children were removed from their homes. Then, before the eyes of the people of al-Arakib, bulldozers demolished their homes and fields.

There is nothing even similar to the demolition of a home.

We know: there is deprivation and discrimination, there is neglect and privatization – not only in Israel. Even in countries that Israeli politicians often dream they belong to, ‘white and well-ordered states’ – there is racism and discrimination and deprivation. But not every state wages war against its own citizens, up to demolishing their homes.

When the authorities mobilize hundreds of security forces, Special Patrol Units, and police for an operation that is to begin with the first morning light; when you bring in bulldozers to demolish the homes of civilians; when you declare them to be a potential enemy and act preemptively to prevent an imagined risk using destruction and violence – this is war. Modern war, of course: war whose arsenal includes not only tanks, but bulldozers; not only planes, but building permits and decisions of planning commissions. And the government of Israel, on behalf of the State of Israel, is waging an ongoing war against its discriminated-against citizens, against the poor and the disadvantaged. This government does not simply neglect these citizens – it dispossesses, it threatens, and it destroys.

We have to remember: It was the people of al-Arakib who, in the past, saw their fields sprayed with pesticides from the air, had their health impaired and their fields destroyed. In the Knesset, those who defended these actions argued about the exact dose of pesticides to be used. Were people really suffering from headaches and side-effects as alleged? Was it perhaps possible to use a more reasonable dose? It took several years until the Supreme Court finally decided that the spraying of these field from the air is a clearly illegal act.

The Enemy Within

So why bring upon the people of al-Arakib this destruction? Just the day before the demolitions, the recent remarks of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the proposed Loyalty Law were published. Netanyahu stated his position clearly:

“We are a nation state, which means that the overall sovereignty of the country is reserved for the Jewish people. [...] Today, an international campaign is being waged against the definition of Israel as a Jewish state. I do not want to leave things as is [without a revised loyalty oath, GA], because we are under attack on this matter. The significance of these attacks is that various elements are liable to demand their own national rights and the rights of a state within the state of Israel – in the Negev, for example, if it becomes a region without a Jewish majority. This happened in the Balkans and constitutes a real threat.” (My emphases; Netanyahu’s declaration was included in Haaretz Hebrew edition (26.7.2010), but not in the English one)

The words are clear: the state belongs to the Jews, not to all its citizens. Full civil equality of its citizens – individual and collective – constitutes a threat. Then the mirror effect: imagined aggression (“under attack”, “real threat”) justifies actual aggression. The Bedouin in the Negev are transformed into a “real threat,” because something might happen there; Netanyahu doesn’t say what but refers to the Balkans. There were several cases of ethnic cleansings in the Balkans. Proponents of ethnic cleansing often explain that they are merely defending themselves from a minority group, whose very existence is for them a threat.

What are the Bedouin accused of? How did their very existence become a “real threat”? The Negev, says Netanyahu, might become a “region without a Jewish majority.” This is truly a good one: you can move from region to the next throughout the country and discover that in a particular area within Israel, there isn’t a Jewish majority, for example between Kafr Qara’ and Umm al-Fahem, or between Sakhnin and ‘Arabe. Well, then don’t we have to do something against this threat? Yes, of course, and so we do! Think about the project of establishing the city of Harish in Wadi ‘Ara, not as a solution to the housing shortage with which the current residents of the area must contend, and not as part of development plans that will benefit all residents of the region, but rather as an attempt to to use the housing shortage of the ultra-Orthodox as a tool against the Arab resident of the area – while at the same time preventing Arab citizens from developing and expanding their own communities. Just like the lookouts that were established in the North to surround and divide, to combat the “threat” of Arab communities in the Galilee.

This is an ongoing war, a war of attrition against part of citizenry of the country, a war whose arsenal includes prohibitions of construction and orders of demolition, and whose soldiers are building inspectors and the Green Patrol.

And while all of this is going on, demands are made upon Arab citizens to perform national service and to prove their loyalty to a state that is not loyal to them. Just a few weeks ago, near Shoket Junction in the Negev, in the context of everyday home demolitions, a Bedouin Soldiers Club was demolished. So what’s the message? Clearly: No service, whether military or civilian, will guarantee equal rights. The Druze of the Galilee [who perform military service] don’t exactly enjoy equality, do they?

Evacuate, Move, Expel, Build, Evacuate

Bulldozers destroying al-Arakib

Why do the people of al-Arakib have to be evacuated? Why are they being driven out? The residents of al-Arakib are not ‘invaders’ of state land. Their village exists from before the founding of the state. Like thousands of other Arab Bedouin in the Negev, they were expelled, evacuated, and moved “temporarily,” with or without promises of being allowed to return, for a week or six months, but in fact for good – and then their lands were confiscated. The Negev is full of Bedouin communities that were evacuated and transferred to different locations. It’s easy for the state to believe that the Bedouin are landless, that they are simply nomads with no rights. It’s convenient fiction the state can recite to itself in order to justify their forced transfer from place to place. In actuality, it’s the state that has retransformed the Bedouin back into what Hana Hamdan has called forced nomadism.

People are told that the state is trying to make the Bedouin sedentary, make them “modern.” In fact, it’s the state that’s busy making them nomadic again, undermining their hold on their lands. In the towns where the state is attempting to fence them in, while ignoring their way of life, their traditions, their culture, their rights – there the Bedouin will not become tied to the land. They’ll become a source of cheap labor.

The Bedouin can be transferred from place to place for reasons of national security, like in the early 1950’s, and then again they can be transferred for reasons of peace, like in the late 1970’s, following Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt, so that new army bases could be built in the Negev. They can be evacuated for ecological reasons, because they’ve taken hold of “open spaces” – and then these same thousands of acres can be allocated to “individual ranchers,” Jewish ranchers, of course, who will “guard the national lands,” by taking hold of these very same “open spaces.”

Indeed, without the public’s having even noticed, on July 17 the Knesset passed one of the most important bits of recent legislation: a law that retroactively legalizes massive takeovers of land and resources, and clearly illegal unauthorized settlement; a law that grants the allocation of land to intruders – but positive intruders, the Jewish “adventurers” who have established for themselves individual ranches in the Negev.

Who Are the Intruders?

For whose benefit did the people of al-Arakib have to be evacuated? For the planting of forests by the Jewish National Fund. No less. Evacuate people for trees – the trees, like the Jewish National Fund had to admit, are being planted with no master plan and for no ecological or agricultural rationale. These are not beneficial trees, but rather intruding trees. Trees that are designed to ensure control.

Trees like these can be seen elsewhere. We’ve seen such trees next to settlements in the West Bank; hundreds and hundreds of saplings, sometimes simply planted in barrels, to ensure holding on to fields which Palestinian farmers are forbidden to enter. If you visit ‘Ajami (in Jaffa) or Kfar Shalem (in southern Tel Aviv), you can also see such decorative woods: woods planted to ensure control, acre by acre, to ensure the rights of real estate sharks or simply limit the use of the land by local residents. And around al-Arakib you really can see hundreds and hundreds of such trees: barren hills denuded of grass, on which stand erect, like soldiers in formation, hundreds of trees designed to prevent the people of al-Arakib from working their land. These trees are a fence, a living fence.

al-Arakib is but a single case: two additional non-recognized villages in the northern Negev, Um-Hiran and ‘Atir, where the residents have been living for more than fifty years (they were transferred here from their previous location by order of the Martial Law Authorities), are supposed to disappear so that their place will be taken by a forest – the Hiran Forest. Today, you have look really hard to see a forest there, because there are currently no trees. The forest is a project, and the present residents of the location are simply an obstacle to its fruition. But hiding behind the virtual forest a virtual community, a new community, for Jews only – Hiran. This is how the Negev is made Jewish.

The new development plans for the Negev are plans of dispossession. Bedouin Arabs were inundated by a huge wave of dispossession during the early 1950’s; they again paid the price for the peace treaty with Egypt, and were forced out of the little that remained for them, from the places to which in certain cases they were transferred by the Martial Law Authorities, to other, often unviable locations. And now we stand before the next big wave. It’s important to note that this brutal wave, destroying any alternative regional development possibilities that could benefit all the Negev’s residents for the sake of Judaizing the region –is the result of a well-planned collaboration between private capital and corporations with the state.

The future plans for the Negev (Blueprint Negev) were prepared by an American consulting firm, McKinsey & Company (the first private consulting firm whose services were used by the Israeli army); the initiative led by the Jewish National Fund of the United States (JNF-USA). This is huge partnership between the State of Israel and private, foreign capital. And, yet, these are the ones who dare demand loyalty, when their own loyalty is to overseas interests! Is it really surprising to learn that Shimon Peres pushed the plan forward with such enthusiasm? The other partner can’t be forgotten: the project is the “baby” of the JNF-USA’s chairman’s right-wing billionaire Ron Lauder. And the new settlement plans are being developed by the JNF in conjunction with “Or – National Missions”, with the aim of Judaizing the Negev and Galilee.

Special police forces in al-Arakib

Those who today witnessed the evacuation of al-Arakib can easily reach the wrong conclusion and believe that the Bedouin citizens of Israel are only up against the security forces. That is not the case. They are standing up for their elementary rights. But they are facing a powerful coalition that’s working against them, composed of both state authorities and non-state players – the JNF and the security forces, private corporations and settlers. And we must stand together with them.

Behind all of this hides a basic premise that infuses every aspect of our lives here: Problems are solved by dispossession and transfer, by bringing in “strong populations” in place of “weak populations,” Jews instead of Arabs (but only loyal Jews, of course!). Evacuation and construction, more evacuations and more construction, and so on, round and round it goes. This premise not only dispossesses people of their assets and offers them to other people – to the “correct” people go the “right” places – open spaces, the land, the landscape; but it also destroys the social fabric of neighborhoods and communities, by uprooting, disintegrating, and resettling. In this way they also want to dispossess the people of the non-recognized village, Dahmash, in the center of the country, between Lod (Lydda) and Ramla. This is also what they’re proposing to the residents of Ajami (in Jaffa): to evacuated for the benefit of “strong populations.” Israeli governments believe in replacing people. We need to replace this system – not the people who live here.

Rumours of displacement plans for the Bedouin of the Negev desert

The demolition of more than 40 houses in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Araqib in the Negev desert on Tuesday has triggered fears for the future of other Bedouin communities, who see Araqib as a test case in the long-standing struggle against Israeli government attempts to ‘judaise’ the Negev.

The inhabitants of Araqib are in the midst of a legal struggle for the recognition of their ownership of their land, which they claim they held for generations until the state redefined it as a military zone in 1951.

Their struggle was prompted by works begun by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) to plant forests on the land and on this issue they won a temporary victory, when the Israeli High Court of Justice conceded that government plans for the region did not officially allocate these lands to forestation.

But the chances of long-term success in their ownership claim look slim.

Bedouin hopes generally were raised when a government-appointed Commission headed by Justice Eliezer Goldberg was appointed in 2007 to look into their case.

In 2008 the Goldberg Commission recommended mechanisms for the recognition of a majority of Bedouin villages – not including Araqib – by the state. The Commission submitted its recommendations to Ehud Prawer, head of the Policy Planning Division of the Prime Minister’s Office, and the latter has reportedly written an operative plan of action based partly on a watered-down version of these recommendations, and submitted it to Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu for approval.

According to sources in the Israeli government who wish to remain anonymous, Prawer’s plan involves partial recognition of some of the 45 villages defined as ‘unrecognized’ – and mass eviction of the remainder to government-designated townships in the north of the Negev desert.

Hints of this plan emerged following an official appeal submitted by the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages (RCUV), a Bedouin NGO, and several other rights groups, to the Beersheba Planning Authority, in response to a new development plan proposed for the Beersheba region, including the Bedouin villages within it. The appeal resulted in recommendations being adopted last Tuesday (20 Jul 2010) according to which up to 25 of the unrecognized villages would be partly or fully recognized by the state.

These recommendations represent a landmark decision, despite the fact that in some cases they propose inappropriate removal and transfer of populations among the villages in order to align them with other state development plans, such as roads. The recommendations ignore the historical bond between the local inhabitants and their specific plots of land, and rights groups have responded by saying that many of the recommendations may be doomed to failure if the local population is not fully included in the planning process.

More significantly, activists speaking to government authorities have concluded that any villages not included in the definitive plan for the future of the Bedouin – about 20 villages – will be evacuated, destroyed and their lands transferred to state hands for development of Jewish towns, roads and farms.

Their residents will be required by law enforcement authorities to move to government-designated townships in the northern Negev, such as Laqiya or Hura, despite severe housing shortage and long waiting- lists in both townships. If such a plan were put into practice it could affect tens of thousands of Bedouin currently living in unrecognized villages.

The same activists claim that the recent demolition actions at Araqib and in another community, Tawil Abu Jarwal – both of which are excluded from recognition under the new development plan – are trial runs in which Israeli special police forces [YASAM] and other officials are attempting to gauge expected responses by Bedouin communities to mass evictions, and the likelihood of resistance.

Bedouin inhabitants at Araqib and other community leaders have made clear that they will insist on their right to remain on their lands and have already announced plans to rebuild any demolished structures.

Israeli press items in recent weeks, notably in the right-wing daily ‘Maariv,’ as well as in the liberal daily ‘Ha’aretz’ have focused on the Bedouin community as law-breakers and described their claims to the land as fraudulent. Activists see this negative coverage as initiated by the Israeli government in preparation for the displacement plan.

The Unrecognized Villages

About 150,000 Bedouin live in the Negev Desert.

The Bedouin have lived and travelled in the region since long before the establishment of the State of Israel, engaging in grazing, cattle breeding and land husbandry throughout the the Negev and the Sinai deserts.

In 1948 the majority of Bedouin were expelled from the Negev Desert to the Egyptian Sinai. Those who remained within Israel were granted full Israeli citizenship.

However, in the years following the establishment of the State, the Bedouin were limited to a certain part of the northern Negev region [termed ‘Syag’], and some of their lands were redefined as military zones or as state lands for future development or for non-rural uses.

Some of their villages were recognized by the state, but about half, defined by the state as a ‘diaspora,’ were neither recognized nor marked on the map, and their residents were required to move away from their lands to townships built for them. Most residents refused, saying that there were no employment opportunities in the designated townships, and that their own traditional way of life would be lost.

As a form of pressure, the government and courts have consistently refused to connect the ‘unrecognized’ villages to drinkable water, sewage treatment and disposal services, electricity, roads and other essential public services such as adequate primary healthcare.

More than 80,000 Bedouin live in unrecognized villages today, and the dire circumstances of their lives are demonstrated by the fact that infant mortality rates among the Bedouin are five times as high as that of the average Jewish rates – a gap only partly explained by congenital defects as a result of consanguinity, and clearly connected to degraded sanitary conditions and an environment hazardous to health.

Since the 1990s an array of Bedouin and human-rights groups have waged a determined battle in the courts and in the parliament for recognition of their rights, with partial success. At the same time, Jewish farmers were granted rights by the state to purchase and control lands that overlapped with those of the Bedouin.

Authorities charged with government policies regarding the Bedouin include the Negev Department of the Ministry of Interior, the ‘Green Brigade’ of the Israel Lands Authority (ILA), and a new authority for Bedouin affairs within the Ministry of Construction and Housing.

Catrina Stewart in Jerusalem, 28 July 2010

Here is the reaction of the Board of Deputies

David Cameron signalled a toughening stance on Israel yesterday by comparing the besieged Gaza Strip to “a prison camp” and urging Israel to end its three-year blockade.

Mr Cameron’s comments will carry additional diplomatic weight because they were made in Turkey, which has threatened to sever ties with Israel after its deadly assault on a flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza.

In a stopover on his way to India, Mr Cameron launched a diplomatic offensive aimed at bolstering Turkey’s bid to join the European Union and enlisting its support in the efforts to stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb.

In comments that will play well in Turkey, Mr Cameron frankly addressed the situation in Gaza. Speaking to business leaders in Ankara, Mr Cameron condemned Israel’s land and sea blockade of Gaza, aimed at weakening the Islamist group Hamas, which seized control of the strip in 2007.

“Let me be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change,” said Mr Cameron, reiterating comments that he made earlier to the House of Commons. “Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp.”

Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, applauded Mr Cameron’s words, and repeated his condemnation of the flotilla assault in international waters, comparing it to Somali piracy.

Israel’s relations with Turkey, already strained after the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict, further deteriorated when Israeli commandos boarded the lead ship of a flotilla aimed at breaching the Gaza blockade. Israeli troops killed nine activists, mostly Turks, prompting an international outcry.

Mr Cameron yesterday reiterated earlier comments that the attack was “unacceptable” and called for a “swift, transparent and rigorous” investigation of the raid.

Israel has closely linked the continuing blockade to its own security concerns and to Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier taken captive by Islamic militants four years ago.

“The people of Gaza are the prisoners of the terrorist organisation Hamas,” said Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to the UK. “The situation in Gaza is the direct result of Hamas’s rule and priorities.”

Nevertheless, Israel conceded recently that its blockade has strengthened, not weakened, Hamas, and bowed to international pressure to allow in more goods, including some building materials.

The blockade has shattered Gaza’s economy, forcing some 80 per cent of Palestinians on to international handouts. Unemployment is rife, and Israel does not allow the export of goods, forestalling any economic recovery.

Critics say that Israel’s overall policy has not changed. Palestinians are still not allowed in and out, other than in exceptional circumstances, and the inflow of goods, mostly consumer, is still inadequate for Gaza’s needs.

Sari Bashi, executive director of the Israeli Gisha human rights group, said Israel’s policy was “collective punishment”. “Innocent people are being prevented from accessing education, economic opportunities, family members and even medical care,” she said.

Mr Cameron was in Turkey to woo Ankara, a strategic ally in the Middle East that has acted as an important bridge between East and West.

Throwing his support behind Turkey’s stalled bid to join the European Union, he said the club would be “not stronger but weaker” for its absence. Mr Cameron added: “I’m here to make the case for Turkey’s membership of the EU. And to fight for it.”

Turkey’s bid, however, is likely to encounter resistance from France and Germany, which have both blocked it since accession talks began in 2005. Stumbling blocks include Turkey’s refusal to recognise Greek Cyprus and its treatment of the Kurdish minority.

Mr Cameron said, though, that Turkey had earned its place in the club. “When I think about what Turkey has done to defend Europe as a Nato ally, and what Turkey is doing today in Afghanistan alongside our European allies, it makes me angry that your progress towards EU membership can be frustrated in the way it has been,” said Mr Cameron. “I believe it’s just wrong to say Turkey can guard the camp but not be allowed to sit inside the tent.”

He said that Turkey, which wants to strengthen ties with Iran, remained one of Europe’s few allies who would carry influence in Tehran to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon. “It’s Turkey that can help us stop Iran from getting the bomb,” he said.

The Board issued a brief statement yesterday (27 July) regarding PM Cameron’s comments in Turkey:

Vivian Wineman, Board President said:

“If the new Government wishes to be a credible player in the Middle East Peace Process, it should avoid one-sided, emotive language.”

Tales from the South Hebron Hills

ACRI lists the most troubling initiatives of the Knesset’s summer session 2010

[See also the JNews report Draconian repressive legislation planned in Israel 25 May 2010]

Update: 27 July 2010

On July 21, the last day of the Knesset’s summer session for 2010, ACRI appealed to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, warning of an alarming trend taking shape in the current Knesset, which flourished during the last session: the use of democratic processes by the majority, specifically legislation, to hinder freedom of expression, to harm our system of checks and balances, and to violate the rights of minority groups in Israel. For details and to read the full letter in Hebrew, click here.

Below is ACRI’s list of the 14 worst draft bills of the season:

1)     Knesset Members Declaration of Allegiance Bill (MK David Rotem, Yisrael Beitenu): Members of Knesset would be obliged to declare allegiance to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, its laws, symbols, and anthem.  The bill would essentially delegitimize and exclude minority groups from participating in Israeli democracy.

2)     Preventing High Court from Ruling on “Citizenship Law” Bill (MK David Rotem and 44 additional MKs): This attempts to bypass the High Court as an independent judicial authority with regards to the Citizenship Law, which the Court has yet to abolish.

3)     Constitutional Court Bill (MK David Rotem): An explicit attempt to delegitimize the Supreme Court by establishing an alternative judicial authority.

4)     Nakba Bill (MK Alex Miller, Yisrael Beitenu): Anybody marking the establishment of the State as a day of mourning (”Nakba”, catastrophe in Arabic, is the term used by some Palestinian Israelis to denote the anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel) will be denied public funding. Such legislation constitutes a violation of freedom of expression in which the majority is attempting to silence a particular political position.

5)     Prohibition of Incitement Bill (MK Zevulun Orlev, Habayit Hayehudi-New National Religious Party): The existing prohibition on incitement would be expanded to include a rejection of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

6)     Declaration of Allegiance for Citizens Bill (MK David Rotem): Every citizen would have to declare allegiance to Israel as a Jewish, democratic, and Zionist state, and perform military or civic (national) service.

7)     Acceptance to Communities Bill (MKs David Rotem, Israel Hasson and Shai Hermesh, Kadima): Endorsement of community admissions committees to reject candidates who do not match the community’s worldview.

8)     String of draft bills proposed by the cabinet, aiming to limit the opposition’s power in the Knesset, among them: seven MKs would be able to split from a faction and form a new faction, instead of 40 (one-third of the Knesset); increase the majority needed to approve a budgetary draft bill to 55; if a prime minister cannot form a government after a vote of no-confidence, the previous, failed parliament would once again be instated; and more.

9)     Foreign State Funding Bill (MK Zeev Elkin, Likud, and additional MKs): A number of strict measures would be taken to limit foreign funding of Israeli non-profit organizations. The bill was strategically designed to target certain organizations of a certain political bent and human rights organizations in an attempt to control the actions of Israeli civil society.

10)  Pardon for Disengagement Protesters Bill (MK Reuven Rivlin, Likud, and additional MKs): Though legislation acknowledging the right to political protest is welcome, this particular bill, granting pardons to individuals who were prosecuted for various protest acts against the disengagement from Gaza in 2005, favors a specific political-ideological group because of the Knesset majority’s need to placate its constituents. Instead legislation should be general for all cases in which pardons for political activity are acceptable.

11)  Prevention of Infiltration Bill (Cabinet): Among other clauses, this draft law would render infiltration punishable with 5-7 years of imprisonment including those who assist the infiltrator. The bill aims to delegitimize civil society and refugee aid associations.

12)  Boycott Prohibition Bill (MK Zeev Elkin and additional MKs): Anyone who initiates, advances or publicizes material which serves as a basis for a boycott of Israel would be prosecuted for a criminal offense and would be forced to pay damages to those who suffered from the boycott. Any foreigner who does so will be prohibited from entering Israel for 10 years.

13)  Revocation of Citizenship for Individuals Found Guilty of Treason or Terrorism Bill (MK David Rotem): Citizenship is a basic right and revoking it in such cases would consequently violate other related rights. Israel’s legal system has ample laws aimed at dealing with individuals found guilty of terrorism or treason.

14)  Film Bill (MK Michael Ben Ari, Ichud Leumi): Public funding of films would be conditioned on a declaration of loyalty to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state by the film’s entire staff.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel

www.acri.org.il

From Indian Express website

An Indian vessel is set to join a new international campaign named ‘The Audacity of Hope’ to press for an end to the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, months after nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed in an attack on an aid ship bound for Gaza. An e-mail circulated by pro-Palestinian activists in the US said an American ship named after US President Barack Obama’s autobiography, will join a flotilla of other vessels from Europe,  Canada, India, South Africa and the Middle East in an additional attempt to break the Israeli naval blockade in early autumn.

The new campaign comes amid an increased international hue and cry to force the Jewish state to lift its siege of the

coastal territory.

The effort is supported by several prominent figures, including Prof Rashid Khalidi, a well-known critic of Israel whose friendship with the US President has raised eyebrows here.

It aims to raise USD 370,000 next month to obtain possession of a ship that could accommodate between 40 and 60 people, and for operational expenses, the email said.

Right-wing columnists immediately seized on the involvement of Khalidi, whom they portrayed as a friend of Obama who was supporting Hamas.

Khalidi said he does not know what the ship will ultimately be named, but added the White House should not be embarrassed by the name ‘The Audacity of Hope’, and should

instead call for Israel’s naval blockade of the Hamas-controlled territory to be lifted, the report said.

The Columbia University History Professor, a US national born to a Palestinian refugee, Khalidi said that although he will participate in the fundraising event for the ship, he will not be sailing in it himself.

“Given the national-religious hierarchy which determines what the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) can do to

whom, the fact that the ship is American will make it harder to deal with it as the Mavi Marmara was dealt with,” he said referring to the Turkish aid ship raided by Israeli Naval commandos on May 31, on which nine activists were killed in the ensuing fight.

Khalidi characterised the blockade as a measure “imposed on a population of 1.5 million people who are effectively imprisoned, and most of whom are deprived of living a normal life”.

This form of collective punishment could constitute a war crime, he said.

When asked by the Israeli daily if he was aware of the proposed name of the ship and whether the choice of name was appropriate, the professor said, “I am not one of the organisers of this effort, and had no knowledge that this name had been chosen”.

Khalidi said if the name is a problem for the Obama administration, it can simply insist publicly that Israel lift the siege.

“That of course would require it to respond to the systematic mendacity of those in Congress and elsewhere who support the siege. It is shameful that the US and Egyptian

governments are complicit in this indefensible siege,” he asserted.

He said the fact that the ship is American would bring attention to the Gaza issue, which had begun to have an impact on American public opinion.

“This has not been the result of the ineffective efforts of the two feeble Palestinian ‘authorities’, nor has it mainly been the result of the work of activists, important though this has been,” he said.

“It has primarily been a natural response to the actions of successive Israeli governments,” he said.

He said the actions have appeared more and more unjustifiable to growing segments of US public opinion, and asserted that the only place that has remained largely impervious to this change has been the US Congress.

“This is especially the case among younger people, who can detect the deception and chicanery which are an essential part of ’selling’ such rotten goods as occupation, discrimination, and attacks on civilians.

“It is also visible in widening sectors of the American Jewish community”, he noted.

Khalidi argued that Israel’s blockade of Gaza was punishing civilians while having little effect on the militant Hamas administration.

He insisted that the siege is not imposed on the Hamas government, or on a ‘terrorist entity’, as the Israeli government describes the entire Gaza Strip but on the population as a whole.

“Moreover, it hardly affects that government, as has been amply reported… and other organs not known for their sympathy for Hamas”, he pointed out.
(ends)

Meanwhile, David Cameron, in Turkey to promote their membership of the EU, has called the raid on the flotilla in June “unacceptable” and said “Gaza … must not remain a prison camp”, on Ynet – they also report that Turkey is actively working against future maritime convoys.

Bil'in village - photo: Gianna Pasini

In Non-violent resistance in Palestine we reported on the fifth Bil’in International Conference on the Popular Struggle which had taken place earlier in April, 2010.

Heather Sharp produced a good report Bilin marks five years of West Bank barrier protest for the BBC which is reproduced below.

Bil’in hs its own website Bil’in, A Village of Palestine which documents the life of the people and their struggle for survival.

The Bil’in struggle continues and every Friday the weekly demonstration against the wall and the confiscation of Bil’in lands takes place. It is documented and a video available on YouTube. It usually meets with Israeli tear gas, rubber bullets and arbitrary arrests. Here is the latest:

Bilin marks five years of West Bank barrier protest

By Heather Sharp, BBC News, Bilin, West Bank

Despite the barrages of Israeli tear gas, sound grenades, foul-smelling spray and sometimes bullets – rubber coated and occasionally live – the protesters at the Palestinian village of Bilin keep going back for more.

And as they mark five years since their first protest against the barrier Israel has built on their doorstep in the occupied West Bank, they seem as determined as ever.

The villagers – together with Israeli and international activists – see their weekly Friday demonstrations as a leading example of Palestinian non-violent, grassroots protest.

They march to the wall, chanting slogans and carrying flags, and have even tried dressing up as characters from the film Avatar, and kicking around a football to mock an Israeli mobile phone advert.

But they say the protests are marred – it is hotly debated how often – as masked Palestinian teenagers use slingshots to hurl rocks at Israeli security forces.

The barrier, here a tall wire fence, snakes over a rocky hillside covered in olive trees, cutting the villagers off from – according to their lawyer – about 2 sq km (200 hectares or 500 acres) of their land.

Barrier moved

Last week, Israel finally began implementing a court order dating back more than two years to reroute the barrier near Bilin.

But the new route puts only a third of the land the villagers claim as their own on the Palestinian-controlled side.

Some of the remainder had previously been designated Israeli state land and allocated for the expansion of a Jewish settlement – the Palestinian ownership of the rest is uncontested.

Mahmoud Samarra, 64, says he will get only a tiny fraction of his 93 dunums (9 hectares or 23 acres) of land back.

He points over the hill beyond the coils of barbed wire and the towering mesh of the fence.

“It was like paradise,” he says, describing how he planted olive trees with his children and watched them grow over 17 years.

Bilin residents are allowed to access their land during the daytime, through a pedestrian gate in the fence. But Mr Samarra has been only once.
BBC map

The direct road for cars is long gone. Mr Samarra needs a stick to walk, and says he can barely cover the 1.5km to his land on foot.

And anyway, he says, much of the land is surrounded by the Jewish settlement of Matityahu. He says that his trees were uprooted when it was built, and now he is too afraid of the settlers to visit.

The Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the fence’s route could not be justified purely on security grounds.

This settlement and the land around it was part of the controversy.

“I feel really, very sad,” says Mr Samarra. “To whom we can complain?”

Despite the Supreme Court ruling, as he sees it, “the judge and the enemy is the same”.

‘Sacrifice’

Back in the village, Subhiyeh Abu Rahma, 55, uses her headscarf to wipe away the tears that start to flow as she talks about her son, Bassem, who died last year, aged 31, after he was hit in the chest by a tear gas canister during a protest.

“I miss him every minute,” she says, sipping coffee in a small, bare concrete house, adorned with posters of her dead son.

He had brushed aside her suggestions that he renovate his house and look for a wife, focusing instead on the demonstrations, week after week.

“One has to sacrifice everything for his homeland – even if it’s a high price,” she says.

Bassem’s brother Ahmad says he believed in peace and a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He even once suffered criticism among the villagers for choosing to wear a T-shirt showing the Israeli and Palestinian flags side by side, Ahmad adds.

‘Violent riot’

Israeli military spokeswoman Avital Leibovich said his death took place during “a violent riot”. But there is no obvious stone-throwing taking place in video footage of the incident, which can be seen on YouTube.

Palestinians say Bassem was hit by a high-velocity tear gas canister – a type which has been blamed for severe injuries at other protests.

Ms Leibovich would neither confirm nor deny that they are used.

She insists that these are not quiet protests “in which protesters come and sit on the ground”.

“Those rocks they’re throwing can kill people,” Ms Leibovich says.

Damage costing hundreds of thousands of shekels has been done to the fence and 77 Israeli soldiers have been injured in the past two years, she adds.

“They go to the fence and tear it down, then we have no choice but to show up and defend the fence. And then they start throwing rocks.”

Live ammunition is used only “rarely”, in cases of “life and death for our forces”, she said.

But the Bilin organisers deny trying to damage the fence, although a few sympathetic blog posts mention the use of wire cutters.

Suicide bombers

They say they try to discourage young protesters from hurling stones, and this happens only infrequently as a reaction, when the soldiers fire tear gas and rubber bullets first.

“We don’t have planes or tanks or rifles, all we have is the rock. And they are afraid of the rock,” says Mrs Abu Rahma.

Israel says the barrier was established to stop Palestinian suicide bombers entering from the West Bank.

But Palestinians point to its route, winding deep into the West Bank around Israeli settlements – which are illegal under international law – and say it is a way to grab territory they want for their future state.

In 2004, the International Court of Justice in The Hague issued an advisory ruling that the barrier was illegal and should be removed where it did not follow the Green Line, the internationally recognised boundary between the West Bank and Israel.

Ratib Abu Rahman, a protest organiser and university lecturer in social work, says the rerouting of the barrier is just a partial victory.

“We hope it will be all our land. If the wall is destroyed, that will be a big achievement,” he says.

He says he has been injured about 10 times, and his brother, another organiser, is still in an Israeli prison. Some 1,200 protesters have been hurt, and 85 arrested, he says.

“We pay a big price,” he says, “but we are in the right, this is Palestinian land.”

In Israel Ishai Menuhin, of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, has drawn attention to former Israeli judge and current legal affairs editor for the right-leaning and largest Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Aharonoth, Boaz Okon, who has “called a spade a spade using both the forbidden words; apartheid and fascism…” Janan Abdu writes about the persecution of her husband Ameer Makhoul as pressure on Israel’s Palestinian citizens is ratcheted up. Gush Shalom sees Israel’s proposed anti-boycott legislation as fueling the world-wide boycott movement.

Avrum Burg former speaker of the Knesset, former Chair of the Jewish agency, and author of The Holocaust is Over: It is time to Move On, is planning to found a new party in Israel, with ‘total commitment to equality, without a trace of discrimination and racism’. Richard Silverstein of Tikun Olam is ambivalent, and the Magnes Zionist ask some probing questions of Burg…

A former high-up in Likud, former defence and foreign minister, Moshe Arens is talking of a one-state solution. And he is not the only right-winder doing so, as Noam Sheizaf chronicles at length. Ali Abunimah welcomes this development, but Uri Avnery is horrified by it.

The Israeli military investigation into the assault on Gaza has published a further report which, surprise, surprise, says veteran South African journalist Allister Sparks, has vindicated Richard Goldstone, so vilified earlier by the official bodies of the Jewish community in South Africa – and of course elsewhere.

Mustapha Barghouti, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, talks on YouTube about the rise of the Palestinian non-violent movement, complementing our recent posting Palestinian non-violent resistance

In the UK, the coalition government is moving to make the application of universal jurisdiction much more difficult. Some MPs are protesting…

The Institute of Jewish Policy Research published its report on the results of the new survey of Jewish opinion in Britain and Tony Lerman, author of the previous 1997 report, comments on it. And Continuum announces the publication of Keith Kahn-Harris and Ben Gidley’s Turbulent Times: The British Jewish Community Today, the first book-length study of contemporary British Jewry.

Chris Patten, now president of the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, urges a bolder EU approach over Middle East conflict, calling the blockade a “terrible failure – immoral, illegal and ineffective” – which had “deliberately triggered an economic and social crisis which has many humanitarian consequences”; implicitly criticising US dominance of the Middle East quartet; and recognising the need to talk to Hamas.

Finally, OR Books announces the forthcoming publication of Midnight on the Mavi Marmara in which “a range of activists, journalists, and analysts piece together the events that occurred that May night, mixing together first-hand testimony, documentary record, and illustration, with hard-headed analysis and historical overview”.

Janan Abdu, The Electronic Intifada, 13 July 2010

See earlier postings:
Ameer Makhoul charged with espionage by Richard Silverstein, 28 May 2010;
The Security Argument by ACRI Attorney Lila Margalit, 1 July 2010

I used to tell my husband, Ameer Makhoul, “One day, they’ll come for you.” As chairman of the Public Committee for the Protection of Political Freedoms he’d begun to organize an awareness-raising campaign to push back against the security services’ harassment of our community, the Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Come for Ameer they did, late one night this May, pounding at our door, ransacking our house and terrifying our two teenage daughters. And now I’ve joined the ranks of Palestinian prisoners’ wives, many thousands of us from the occupied territories as well as within Israel. His 13 July hearing — persecution really — could begin the legal nightmare that ruptures our family for many years. This is the likely course of events unless Ameer gets a fair trial and his coerced statements are rejected or suppressed by the court.

“Democracies don’t fear their own people,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in her 3 July speech in Poland at the 10th anniversary meeting of the Community of Democracies. “They recognize that citizens must be free to come together to advocate and agitate.” But the head of Israel’s General Security Services said three years ago that Palestinian citizens’ organizational efforts for equality constitute a “strategic threat,” even if pursued by lawful means.

That’s not how democracy works. We may be a minority of 20 percent, but our rights to organize and insist on full equality and civil rights ought to be sacrosanct. That’s what our entire community believes. The Public Committee that Ameer chaired was established within the framework of the High Follow-up Committee for the Arab Citizens of Israel, the community’s overall coordinating body. It’s a vital position and the leading organization protecting our civil rights.

And now he faces the most serious charges leveled against a Palestinian citizen of Israel since the creation of the state in 1948. He is accused of being a spy (for the Lebanese militant group Hizballah) and having contact with a foreign agent. His trial will likely last for months.

After his arrest, Ameer was held incommunicado for 21 days and tortured. Then Israeli officials pressed their charges, based on the “confession” he made during this time, when he was deprived of sleep, shackled in a painful position to a small chair and not allowed to see his lawyers.

Ameer denies all charges. As he said in his first letter from Gilboa Prison, he was “forced to explain to them in a very detailed way how exactly I did what I didn’t do, ever.” And if the prosecution needs any more information to make its case, all they have to do is use “so-called secret evidence, which my lawyers and I have no legal right to know about.”

Clinton’s Krakow speech focused on civil society: Ameer is a civil society activist. He directs Ittijah, the Union of Arab-Based Community Associations — a coalition that brings together 84 nongovernmental organizations. Clinton criticized several governments by name — but not Israel — for intimidation and assassination of activists. Why does America’s drive to promote human rights stop at Israel’s door?

Throughout his life, Ameer has struggled for the rights of the Palestinian citizens of Israel — there are more than 35 laws on the books that discriminate against us — as well as those of the Palestinian people overall. He has the ability to lead and to convene diverse viewpoints, bringing them together across sect and ideology. His ability to network locally, at the Arab level, and internationally, coupled with his clear strategic vision — this is what Israel is trying to silence.

The youth also look to him for leadership, which infuriates the Israeli security services. They told Ameer so when they hauled him in for questioning during our community’s protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza in December 2008-January 2009.

During that interrogation they threatened to put him away if he kept up his activism, saying, “We can ‘disappear’ you. You should know that the next time we bring you in you will not see your family again for a long time.”

The few times we’ve been allowed to visit him thick glass has separated us and our meetings were taped. Ameer asked me for a copy of my new book to read in jail, but they wouldn’t let me even take him that. My daughters really miss their father. They often say, “If only we’d been able to hug him before they took him away.” That’s one of the things that hurts them most, not being able to hug their father.

Ameer still suffers from the torture and abuse inflicted on him, and they still try to break his spirit. They only allow 20 people into the courtroom even though it can hold many more, so when he sees it empty, he thinks no one cares. But far more people want to attend the trial than they allow in — family, community activists, politicians and supporters from all over the world.

I have never thought of myself as a “wife” but rather as Ameer’s partner in life and in activism. But these days, as I wait with the other wives for our allotted visit, I find myself reflecting on the traditional Christian marriage vows: “What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” No man, I think, unless he’s an Israeli jailer.

Clinton spoke of “the cowardice of those who deny their citizens the protections they deserve.” Ameer deserves the protection of the law: the right to meet his lawyers in private — Israeli officials have been taping those meetings too; the right to see the evidence against him, much of which the prosecution plans to withhold on security grounds; freedom from torture; and inadmissibility of confessions secured under torture. When will Clinton call for a Palestinian activist’s human rights and an end to his persecution?

Janan Abdu is a social worker, feminist activist, and researcher with Mada al-Carmel, the Haifa-based Arab Center for Applied Social Research.

Former EU commissioner Chris Patten calls Gaza blockade an immoral failure and says bloc must be more independent

Harriet Sherwood in Gaza City, 18 July 2010

The European Union must shake off US dominance and take a bolder approach in pressing for a settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the former EU commissioner Chris Patten said today on a visit to Gaza.

Israel’s policy of blockading Gaza had been a “terrible failure – immoral, illegal and ineffective”, he said, which had “deliberately triggered an economic and social crisis which has many humanitarian consequences”.

In an interview with the Guardian, the former Conservative cabinet minister suggested it was time to reassess the isolation of Hamas, saying that approach had failed to weaken it.

Patten’s visit, his first since 2002, coincided with a lightning second trip by the EU foreign policy chief, Lady Ashton, who called on Israel to open Gaza’s borders rather than merely allow in more consumer goods.

Ashton’s second visit since her appointment last December “showed a preparedness to be more independent-minded,” said Patten. “The default European position should not be to wait to find out what the Americans are going to do, and if the Americans don’t do anything to wring our hands. We should be prepared to be more explicit in setting out Europe’s objectives and doing more to try to implement them.”

He implicitly criticised US dominance of the Middle East quartet – the US, EU, UN and Russia – by saying he concurred with the description of it by the leader of the Arab League as the “quartet sans trois“.

Patten, who found it “easier to get into a maximum security prison in the UK than to enter Gaza”, said Israel’s relaxation of its blockade had not gone far enough. “It’s moved from about minus 10 to about minus eight. It doesn’t do anything to help restore economic activity in Gaza.

“It’s difficult to understand what preventing exports has to do with security. It has everything to do with the view that Gaza should be collectively punished to discredit Hamas. Unfortunately there are some centuries, if not millennia, of history that show that does not work. Presumably the international community as well as Israel wants at some stage – sooner rather than later – to be able to persuade Gaza and its political leadership to take a course which will lead to reconciliation and peace and stability. It’s difficult to know how you accomplish that if you deny the people of Gaza any social or economic progress.”

On earlier visits, he said, he had observed “a community that was poor, but at least economic activity was taking place”. Since the blockade, “economic and commercial life has been squeezed out of Gaza in what looks and feels and is like a medieval siege”.

Israel’s change in policy was not a “fundamental shift in its position but it has plainly deflated some of the criticism” following the lethal assault on the aid flotilla on 31 May. That, he added, was “a terrible own goal” for Israel.

On negotiations with Hamas, Patten referred to his involvement with the Northern Ireland peace process, which “would not have been successfully concluded if we hadn’t – with considerable American encouragement – agreed to talk to Sinn Fein/IRA.

“You don’t always agree with people you talk to – indeed sometimes you find them despicable – but you need to ease them out of the corners into which they’ve painted themselves rather than lay on the paint much thicker.

“I think it’s wholly reasonable to say we couldn’t deal with Hamas unless they agreed to a comprehensive and complete ceasefire. But do we need to insist on them accepting all past agreements? Has Israel accepted all past agreements? If you simply isolate them, do you weaken them?” In fact, he said, “you strengthen people who are even more extreme than they are”.

Before crossing to Gaza with the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, of which he is president, Patten visited the West Bank and was shocked by the “huge new settlements”.

“We’re told there is an ‘unprecedented freeze’, but I saw large numbers of houses and flats being built as we speak. One of the key elements of a final agreement [between Israel and the Palestinians] will be how you cope with settlements. The more difficult it is to secure a viable and contiguous Palestinian state, the more difficult a final agreement will be.”

If two states were no longer possible, then there would have to be one state on the land, he said. “But can you have that and retain a Jewish state which is democratic? I haven’t heard anyone argue that convincingly.”

He said public opinion in Europe and Britain was moving in favour of a change in Israeli policy towards Palestinians, but that could be endangered by growing demands for a boycott of Israel.

“I don’t think a boycott would help,” he said. “It could have the reverse consequences to those intended.”

•

Knesset members,
From Kadima to
The Kahanists,
Signed a bill that says:
Boycotting the products
Of the settlements
Is tantamount to
Boycotting the
State of Israel,
And will be punished.

A law that says that
The settlements and Israel
Are one and the same –
Will inevitably intensify
The world-wide boycott
On the State of Israel.

By Chris Spannos, 24 July 2010

Woods Hole is a village in the township of Falmouth, just a short ferry ride across from Martha’s Vineyard, with a proud reputation that far exceeds its size. This place is home to an internationally renowned scientific community hosting the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, the US Geological Survey, the Marine Biological Laboratory, and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, among other facilities. It is a year-round revolving door for scientists and researchers and a place where the exchange of ideas aims to advance our scientific understanding of the way the world works. In the summer it is bustling with vacationers who enjoy its pristine beaches and ocean. In the winter, the local population is left to themselves, dwindling down to about 900 people, as life slows to a crawl.

It is here that a few of us local film lovers and social justice advocates decided to start a weekly movie and discussion group, primarily in the winter months, by starting a chapter of Cinema Politica—joining a Canadian non-profit documentary network. Our goal was to show political films covering issues of social justice, and also to stimulate discussion about subjects covered in the films.

Since our first screening in November 2008, we have aspired to Cinema Politica’s mission of “screening truth to power” by showing almost 60 films in the former Woods Hole Firehouse.  During that time we have won a sizable following in the community. Our efforts proved very rewarding, with plenty of room to grow, that is, until the Woods Hole Community Association (WHCA), a group that manages buildings in the community, including leasing the old Firehouse from the Town of Falmouth, suspended our use of that space, raising the question of whether or not power cares about truth. In small areas like Cape Cod, and especially in Woods Hole, limiting access to community space by curtailing freedom of speech removes diverse perspectives in an area where there are already too few.

The association’s decision came following our June 4 screening of the award winning documentary “Occupation 101: Voices of the Silenced Majority.” It is a film by American brothers Sufyan and Abdallah Omeish that, as the movie’s own description says, “details life under Israeli military rule, the role of the United States in the conflict, and the major obstacles that stand in the way of a lasting and viable peace.”

As with all our films, we try to tie our programming into current events. Our decision to show “Occupation 101” was based on the breaking news that the Israeli military had carried out a bloody raid on the Free Gaza flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian-aid to the people of Gaza—killing 9, injuring dozens, and arresting hundreds more, including part-time resident of Woods Hole, Katherine Sheetz.

Last Sunday, back in Woods Hole, Sheetz reported her experience aboard the Challenger One, a ship just 300 feet away from the infamous Mavi Maramara, to a local church group, the Ad Hoc Committee for Peace in the Middle East. Sheetz’s experience was recounted in the July 15 Falmouth Enterprise, where she explained that, while the resulting deaths were tragic, the point of the Free Gaza voyage was to draw attention to a growing humanitarian crisis.

The night that Cinema Politica screened “Occupation 101” was one of our best with over 50 people in attendance and with very lively post-film discussion. After the film, I began by asking if anyone knew the year-round population of Cape Cod. A young woman very quickly responded “230,000.” I then asked if anyone knew how many people live in Gaza. Answer: 1.5 million. I then explained that Gaza is just over half-the-size of Cape Cod and that 1.5 million Palestinian’s live sandwiched together in a space 25 miles long and 4-to-8 miles wide, making it one of the earth’s most densely populated areas.

“Occupation 101” was released in 2007. Relating the film to current events, I asked if anyone knew why the flotilla was on its way to Gaza. After a moment of silence, I explained that the population of Gaza has long been under siege; the Israeli blockade that has been imposed since June 2007 was in response to the Palestinian vote that democratically carried Hamas to political power in January 2006.

Discussion that night continued late into the evening, ranging from issues of human rights to voices not heard in the mainstream media. Most present agreed on the need for an alternative perspective and expressed appreciation of Cinema Politica’s role in the community. Others were able to draw from personal experience to broaden the discussion, for example the young Jewish woman who traveled to Israel in 2009 and said that Israelis are much more aware and critical of the human rights situation in Palestine than we are here in the U.S.

Perspectives in the U.S. that are critical of Israel’s occupation don’t receive the visibility they deserve for much the same reason the WHCA suspended Cinema Politica. For example, Amnesty International U.S.A titled their report reviewing Israel’s December, 2008 attack on Gaza, “22 Days of Death and Destruction.” This Israeli operation, named “Cast Lead,” subjected the captive population of Gaza to a wave of air strikes, reducing the homes and public infrastructure to rubble, and leaving nearly 1,400 Palestinians dead—a majority of them civilians—and more than 5,380 wounded. Amnesty also reported that “Palestinian rocket attacks killed three Israeli civilians and caused severe injuries to 4 people, moderate injuries to 11, and light injuries to 167 others.” 10 Israeli soldiers were killed in the fighting, 4 of them by “friendly fire.”

Other critical perspectives come from the international scientific community and, by using research, illuminate the human effects of Israel’s occupation. For example, this month, July 2, 2010, The Lancet medical journal updated their 2009 series “Health in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” with 16 newly published abstracts of peer-reviewed research (“Health in the Occupied Palestinian Territory 2010“). One of the main findings include a detailed appraisal of what took place after the 2008 Israeli attack on Gaza by surveying over 3,000 households there. The survey provides reliable data demonstrating that a third of the population was displaced during the war, that homes were destroyed, that a large number of the population incurred injuries and disabilities, that the quality of life worsened with increased insecurity, fear, stress, and suffering—all attributable to the war and occupation itself. Half the population does not have reliable access to water, electricity, and gas. One of the most a “horrifying” cases, according to Lancet editor, Doctor Richard Horton, was the report of white phosphorus burns on an 18 year old male civilian where 30 percent of his body was covered in wounds caused by the chemical burns of white phosphorus, which was used by the Israeli forces to attack civilians during Operation Cast Lead, an act prohibited by the United Nations. The findings demonstrate that the human suffering in Gaza is attributable to the siege, the Israeli occupation, the latest war, and internal Palestinian fighting.

The Lancet abstracts show the broader affects on health and the impact of the occupation throughout the Palestinian territories and give a sort-of “report card” on what life is like in this situation. Although the WHCA is not a scientific body, one would hope that those proud to live in a scientific community such as Woods Hole, would appreciate facts and reason. Yet it is not surprising that there are some who do not want to bring attention to these human rights violations and the collective punishment of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Palestinian people are not responsible for the violence and suffering imposed upon their lives and they have every bit of a right to life as we do on Cape Cod. So why are some in our small community so uncomfortable, and in some cases even angry, by a small volunteer run, non-profit film and discussion group?

Catherine Bumpus and Steve Junker, co-presidents of the community association that formerly rented the Old Firehouse to our group, say they have been receiving complaints from Woods Hole residents about Woods Hole Cinema Politica for more than a year and suggested that we give the association advanced notification prior to our showing films about Palestine and Israel. Initially they said the decision to suspend Cinema Politica for the remainder of the summer was based on a “breakdown in communication” and not because of the content of the films. They call the problem a “user issue,” and claim that the association “does not censor programs in its buildings.”However, at this week’s WHCA annual meeting the association finally explained that they thought our films constitute “propaganda” and “hate speech.” Does this mean that the WHCA would likewise classify the human rights reports and scientific research cited above in the same way?

In over 18 months Woods Hole Cinema Politica has shown only 5 films relating to Israel and Palestine—all framed within the context of international and humanitarian law, which is fundamental to understanding Israel’s occupation of Palestine. The community association’s suggestion that we give them advance notice of screenings on this issue—even though more than a few are on our email list and receive our month-to-month program already—was raised in December 2009 and was based on the agreement—which they fail to acknowledge anywhere—that the board would notify us of any conclusions it had made regarding what films we could or could not show at our Fire House venue. Our hope was that after they made their decision we would be able to determine if we wanted to take our film screenings elsewhere or not. In the 6 months after that meeting we did not hear from the association nor did we happen to show any films about Israel or Palestine. That we did not hear from the board about this until our June 4 screening of “Occupation 101” is exemplary of the kind of “communication breakdown” they speak of.

In the 6 months of silence from the community association (before their meeting earlier this week) they were unable to communicate:

(1)   any reason why we should give them advance notice of our film screenings on Israel-Palestine other than so they could better prepare themselves for complaints…

(2)   explain what any of the complaints people from within or outside the community, or on the board, had been regarding our films (although now we know the association itself thinks the films are “hate speech” and “propaganda”)…

(3)  allow us to respond to any such complaints during that  6 month period…

(4)  tell us what films they do or do not want us to screen…

(5)  explain how giving them the right to preview a film or asking for advance notice of our showing it, based on the films content, is consistent with free speech, or…

(6)  tell us how their suspending our showing films in a publicly-owned building is better than allowing the people of Woods Hole to decide for themselves what films they want to see.

And since their meeting earlier this week, we can now add to this list the association’s failure to explain how, in their view, these films are “hate speech” and “propaganda” and likewise how their own actions suspending our usage of the old Firehouse, are not a violation of free speech.

So far the community association has not been able to handle this issue in a credible manner. Our commitment to showing films that are not usually seen in the mainstream media is based on the importance of people having access to a variety of information sources in order to effectively participate in a democracy. It is also based on respect for universal human rights, scientific reason, and international law. The failed process of the WHCA has become a microcosm of the failed Mideast peace process that is writ large on the world stage.

Chris Spannos is staff at ZNet and a member of Woods Hole Cinema Politica.

Endgame

It’s an idea for solving the conflict that sounds like a vision of the end of days: Grant Israeli citizenship and equal rights to all the Palestinians in the West Bank. And who is proposing the one-state solution? Right-wingers and settlers

Noam Sheizaf, 15 July 2010

See also Ali Abunimah Israeli right embracing one-state?, Al Jazeera 20 July 2010

and Uri Avnery’s acid criticism in Rosemary’s baby, 24 July 2010

These remarks, which to many sound subversive, were not voiced by a left-wing advocate of a binational state. The speaker is from the Betar movement, a former top leader in Likud and political patron of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a former defense and foreign affairs minister – Moshe Arens. On June 2, Arens published an op-ed in Haaretz (”Is there another option?” ) in which he urged consideration of a political alternative to the existing situation and the political negotiations. He wants to break the great taboo of Israeli policy making by granting Israeli citizenship to the Palestinians in the West Bank. Arens is not put off by those who accuse him of promoting the idea of a binational Jewish-Palestinian state. “We are already a binational state,” he says, “and also a multicultural and multi-sector state. The minorities [meaning Arabs] here make up 20 percent of the population – that’s a fact and you can’t argue with facts.”

As Washington, Ramallah and Jerusalem slouch toward what seems like a well-known, self-evident solution – two states for two nations, on the basis of the 1967 borders and a small-scale territorial swap – a conceptual breakthrough is taking place in the right wing. Its ideologues are no longer content with rejecting withdrawal and evacuation of settlements, citing security arguments calculated to strike fear into the hearts of the Israeli mainstream. Their new idea addresses the shortcomings of the status quo, takes account of the isolation in which Israel finds itself and acknowledges the need to break the political deadlock.

Once the sole preserve of the political margins, the approach is now being advocated by leading figures in Likud and among the settlers – people who are not necessarily considered extremists or oddballs. About a month before Arens published his article, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud ) said, “It’s preferable for the Palestinians to become citizens of the state than for us to divide the country.” In an interview this week (see box ), Rivlin reiterates and elaborates this viewpoint. In May 2009, Likud MK Tzipi Hotovely organized a conference in the Knesset titled “Alternatives to Two States.” Since then, on a couple of occasions, she has called publicly for citizenship to be granted to the Palestinians “in gradual fashion.” Now she is planning to publish a position paper on the subject. Uri Elitzur, former chairman of the Yesha Council of Settlements and Netanyahu’s bureau chief in his first term as prime minister, last year published an article in the settlers’ journal Nekuda calling for the onset of a process, at the conclusion of which the Palestinians will have “a blue ID card [like Israelis], yellow license plates [like Israelis], National Insurance and the right to vote for the Knesset.” Emily Amrousi, a former spokesperson for the Yesha Council, takes part in meetings between settlers and Palestinians and speaks explicitly of “one land in which the children of settlers and the children of Palestinians will be bused to school together.”

It’s still not a full-fledged political camp and there are still holes in the theory. But although its advocates do not seem to be working together, the plans they put forward are remarkably similar. They all reject totally the various ideas of ethnic separation and recognize that political rights accrue to the Palestinians. They talk about a process that will take between a decade and a generation to complete, at the end of which the Palestinians will enjoy full personal rights, but in a country whose symbols and spirit will remain Jewish. It is at this point that the one-state right wing diverges from the binational left. The right is not talking about a neutral “state of all its citizens” with no identity, nor about “Israstine” with a flag showing a crescent and a Shield of David. As envisaged by the right wing, one state still means a sovereign Jewish state, but in a more complex reality, and inspired by the vision of a democratic Jewish state without an occupation and without apartheid, without fences and separations. In such a state, Jews will be able to live in Hebron and pray at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and a Palestinian from Ramallah will be able to serve as an ambassador and live in Tel Aviv or simply enjoy ice cream on the city’s seashore. Sounds off the wall? “If every path seems to reach an impasse,’ Elitzur wrote in Nekuda, “usually the right path is one that was never even considered, the one that is universally acknowledged to be unacceptable, taboo.”

Dead end

A year ago, in a seminar sponsored by the Geneva Initiative group, Uri Elitzur astonished an audience of parliamentary assistants with pointed, clear remarks about the desirable political framework. “The worst solution,” he said, “is apparently the right one: a binational state, full annexation, full citizenship.”

Among those who were not surprised were leading figures from the settlers’ movement Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful ). Elitzur has been trying to sell them his idea for some time. “At first I was in splendid isolation,” he says, “but lately more and more people are willing to move in my direction. I think it’s the only practicable solution. The two-state formula has been kicked around for 10 years or more. All the politicians say – aloud or in a whisper – they are for it, but it’s still not happening. The differences between left and right, over which they kill each other in hatred, are really very small. But everyone is convinced that moving a fraction of an inch from his viewpoint will mean the country’s destruction. Neither the one side nor the other is to blame, nor even the Palestinians. The Arab world simply does not want to reach a compromise with us, and even if the formula is found, it won’t endure.

“The existing situation is also a dead end,” Elitzur continues. “It can’t last forever. The problems Israel has faced in the international community in the past five years are due to the fact that the world is fed up. The international community is telling us, ‘You claimed it was a temporary situation, yet that temporary situation has already lasted 40 years. We are ready to agree to another decade, but we want to know where things are going.’ The Israelis are also starting to grasp this. I want us to look for the solutions on the other side of the scale, which lies between the existing situation and the annexation and naturalization of all the Palestinians.”

In internal forums and in front of a home audience, Elitzur is even more outspoken. “There are many softened or newspeak variations of apartheid,” he wrote in Nekuda, which devoted an entire issue to the search for an alternative policy to the two-state solution. “Some suggest that the Palestinians should be under Israeli rule but vote in the elections for the Jordanian parliament. There are ideas involving autonomy, cantons, powerless self-government. It’s not by chance or by neglect that none of these proposals became the official policy of Likud or of the right. In the end, they all go back to a dead end: a whole population living under Israeli rule without civil rights. That is unacceptable on a permanent basis. It’s a situation that can exist only temporarily and faces mounting pressure, both internal and external, to bring the temporary situation to an end at long last.”

What do you say to the allegations that you have joined the radical left?

“There’s a clear separation between us. I am talking about a Jewish state, the state of the Jewish people, which will contain a large Arab minority. The left is talking about an Arab state containing a Jewish minority, even if they do not explicitly think that. The leftist demonstrators in [the West Bank village of] Bil’in have totally joined the Palestinian cause.”

Still, in terms of the political plan, there are points of convergence between you and them.

“In terms of the political plan, yes. But so what? I have many points in common with the extreme left. I am in favor of refusing an order to dismantle settlements, they are in favor of refusing an order to serve in the territories, and both of us are against the [separation] fence. I am not frightened at the fact that there are Jews with whom I profoundly disagree on one issue but with whom I share views on other issues. But I will not enter into a political alliance with the Anarchists [Against the Wall] even though I too am against the fence. We have common ground, but beyond it we have a very deep disagreement. As I see it, the State of Israel was established in order to preserve the rights of the small Jewish minority in the Middle East – six million vs. 300 million – and that is its main purpose. After fulfilling its main purpose, it is also a democratic state. That’s why it has to grant human rights to everyone, Jew or non-Jew.”

Indeed, Elitzur no longer needs the left to wrench him out of his splendid isolation. Hanan Porat, for example, one of the iconic founders of Gush Emunim, though rejecting what he terms “the automatic citizenship that Uri is proposing, which is naive and is liable to lead to grave consequences,” also suggests gradually applying Israeli law in the territories, first in regions where there is a Jewish majority, and within a decade or a generation, throughout.

And the Palestinians?

Porat: “In my view, every Arab has three options. First, those who want an Arab state and are ready to implement that goal by means of terrorism and a struggle against the state, have no place in the Land of Israel. Second, those who accept their place and accept Jewish sovereignty, but do not want to take part in the state and fulfill all their obligations, can be considered residents and enjoy full human rights, but not political representation in the state’s institutions. By the same token, they will also not have full obligations, such as military or national service. Third, those who say they are loyal to the state and to its laws and are ready to fulfill the obligations it prescribes and declare loyalty to it, can receive full citizenship. I consider this a moral and human principle: citizenship is not forced on anyone or granted just like that. We tried this in East Jerusalem, and the fact is that we failed.

“There is no point in threatening us with the idea of a state of all its citizens,” Porat continues. “Already 30 years ago, we in Gush Emunim were against solutions of fear – both withdrawal and transfer – and said that in the Return to Zion there is room for the Arab population who desire this, as long as we are not naive about the process.”

Lower price

A few weeks before he published his article in Nekuda, Elitzur spoke at the conference Hotovely organized in the Knesset on alternatives to the two-state solution. Despite the participation of serious speakers, such as former chief of staff and present minister for strategic affairs, Moshe Ya’alon, and Major General (res. ) Giora Eiland, a former head of the National Security Council, Hotovely came out of the conference disappointed. “It made a lot of headlines and had resonance, but I did not see a genuine vision,” she says. “The ideas ranged from the status quo to ‘Jordan is Palestine.’ Most of the speakers rejected the alternative put forward by the left without putting anything positive on the table.

“This approach has characterized the political discourse of the right wing for years,” she continues. “The right, you could say, had a Qassam for every argument of the left. We had deep ideological roots which said that this is our land, but beyond that we did not put forward a real solution. Only Uri Elitzur took a different approach.”

Since then, Hotovely has become increasingly convinced that the idea of giving the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria citizenship must be part of the political horizon. At the moment, she envisages this as a long-term process, perhaps lasting a generation, during which the situation on the ground will stabilize, while the symbols and character of the Jewish state will be enshrined in a constitution. But the goal must be clear: annexation and citizenship, or as she puts it, “removing the question mark from above Judea and Samaria.”

Hotovely: “My outlook has two motivations. First, my deep belief in our right to the Land of Israel. Shiloh and Beit El settlements are, for me, the land of our forefathers in the full sense of the term. The second thing is that I do not ignore the fact that there are Palestinians here. Both the left and the right chose to shut their eyes to the fact that there are human beings here. The left chose to do it by building a fence and deciding that they just don’t want to see them, and the right simply said, ‘We will continue and see what happens.’ We have reached a critical point, a situation in which the entire Zionist enterprise is under threat, because the international community now disputes the legitimacy of our defense of Sderot and Ashkelon, not the legitimacy of building a settler outpost.”

The international community takes that stance because we are still occupiers. There will be greater legitimacy when the occupation ends.

“We did not get legitimacy in return for our previous withdrawals. Worse, the harm we are inflicting on the Palestinian population has become far more mortal. Our instruments of defense became tanks and planes, and that is always worse than policing operations that are done when you control the ground.

“The assumption of the left is that once it hides behind the international border, everything will be permitted. But it’s clear already now that not everything is permitted and that the principle of proportionality is shackling Israel in Gaza – so what will happen in Judea and Samaria? In fact, it goes even deeper. There is a moral failure here. After all, the left has long since stopped talking about peace and is resorting to a terminology of separation and segregation. They are also convinced that the confrontation will continue even afterward. The result is a solution that perpetuates the conflict and turns us from occupiers into perpetrators of massacres, to put it bluntly. It’s the left that made us a crueler nation and also put our security at risk.”

Could a country with such a large non-Jewish minority still be Jewish?

“At the moment, we are talking about citizenship in Judea and Samaria, not Gaza. In Gaza there is an enemy regime that rejects Israel. It is outside the political discourse, including the two-state discourse. There are 1.5 million Palestinians in Judea and Samaria. I want it to be clear that I do not recognize national rights of Palestinians in the Land of Israel. I recognize their human rights and their individual rights, and also their individual political rights – but between the sea and the Jordan there is room for one state, a Jewish state.”

The fact is that the state is having a hard time containing a minority of 20 percent even now. How will it cope with 30 or 40 percent and also preserve its character?

“Every choice entails a price. The status quo carries a heavy price, the two-state idea carries a heavy price, and the approach I am now presenting also carries a price. Coping with the Arab minority is a lower price than the danger of the Qassams, the delegitimization and the immoral actions we will commit in coping with them, and also preferable to giving up parts of the homeland, including Jerusalem.”

Once the Palestinians become citizens, things might lurch out of your control. Some will say you are playing with fire.

“Everyone is playing with fire. There is no solution that is divorced from the world of risk in the Middle East. The risks in the two-state conception are not virtual, they have already been actualized. The risks I am talking about can be addressed in a rational process lasting a generation.”

Of the two dangers you discern – a binational state or a Palestinian state – which would you choose?

“Unequivocally the binational danger. In the binational process we have a degree of control, but the moment you abandon the area to the Palestinian entity, what control do you have over what will happen there?”

51 percent majority

In a political reality of increasing polarization between the country’s Jewish and Arab citizens, talk of a shared space between the Mediterranean and the Jordan does not always get a serious hearing. Some of the right-wing spokesmen understand this. For Moshe Arens, integration of the Arab population into Israeli society is a prior condition – only afterward will it be possible to talk about granting citizenship to the Palestinians in the territories. “If we are incapable of integrating Israel’s Arab citizens, how will we be able to offer the others citizens?” Arens says. “If I wanted something to happen after my article was published, it was for an emphasis to be placed on the attitude toward the Arab population inside Israel. I have spoken to the prime minister about this dozens of times. It’s the biggest problem in the country. If we do not integrate the Arabs, it will simply be a disaster.”

There is one large party that says they simply have to be transferred into a Palestinian state.

“The platform of Yisrael Beiteinu is nonsensical, an attempt to curry to the lowest common denominator in the country,” says Arens sharply. “Where will the transfer be carried out? Will Galilee be transferred to the Palestinian state? The Negev to Egypt? It’s not doable. They are just causing damage to 20 percent of our population, insulting them by saying they want to be rid of them, strip them of Israeli citizenship. Who ever heard the like?

“I repeat: first of all, we need to take care of the Israeli Arabs who are citizens. That is also essential if we are thinking of giving citizenship to Palestinians from Judea and Samaria. Only if they see that the Arabs have it good in Israel will they think it might be good for them, too.”

Your opponents will say that by publishing an article like this, you are strengthening Sheikh Ra’ad Salah [a leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel] and that you will introduce a fifth column into the country that will spell the end of the Jewish state.

“Only those who don’t grasp the full depth of the issue will say that. I have written dozens of times that the policy must be two-pronged: against the Islamic Movement – to outlaw them, because they are a subversive, seditious movement – and, at the same time, to work against feelings of discrimination among Israel’s Arab citizens. It is untenable for these people to be hewers of wood and drawers of water – doing the dirty work in the industrialized and advanced country that is Israel.”

Have you been accused of becoming a post-Zionist in the wake of your article?

“That’s a lot of nonsense. Was [Revisionist leader Ze'ev] Jabotinsky a post-Zionist? He talked about a Jewish state with a Jewish majority, but for him a majority meant even 51 percent, too. In his last book, he suggested that the president might be a Jew and the vice president an Arab, and also the opposite. Jabotinsky was no post-Zionist.”

If there is anything that unites the political establishment – Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni and now Netanyahu, too – it’s the view that granting the Palestinians citizenship is dangerous and that only separation will ensure a democratic Jewish state.

“Demagoguery. If Zionism means ‘as little as possible for the Arabs,’ I have to say that I do not accept that. Jabotinsky did not accept it, either. You call that Zionism – as few Arabs as possible in Israel? That is the Zionism of [Avigdor] Lieberman. If what is implied by the rhetoric of Tzipi Livni is that we need as few Arabs as possible in Israel, it’s not so far from Lieberman. “People should not exploit what I said for their purposes. My intention is that, to begin with, we have to focus on the Arab population in Israel, and especially the Muslims. It’s definitely a dual-stage process. Only then, many years from now, will it be possible to consider additional minorities, and then maybe the Arabs across the Green Line will say that things are simply good in Israel – not in order to overcome us demographically, but simply because things here are good. We haven’t yet reached that point.”

One land

If Elitzur, Hotovely and Arens represent the political aspect of the idea of a joint state, Emily Amrousi is interested in its everyday side. Amrousi, who lives in the West Bank settlement of Talmon, is active in Eretz Shalom (Land of Peace ), an organization that arranges meetings between settlers and Palestinians, focusing on the local interests of both sides, not necessarily on the political pitfalls. She, too, admits that in the distant future there will have to be citizenship for everyone. “But don’t make me out to be a one-state advocate,” Amrousi says. “In the end, it might arrive at that, but that’s still a very long way off. Let’s talk first about one land, one strip of ground. We are not like the Canaanite movement: we are not forgoing the State of Israel and the flag of Israel.”

And until we reach the coveted equality, will we have to make do with the status quo?

“No, I don’t like the status quo either because it’s really not moral. It’s impossible to go on like this, with a situation in which my Palestinian neighbors have to cross three checkpoints to get from one village to another. There is a distortion here – true, for security reasons, for logical reasons – but something went wrong along the way, and we can’t go on accepting this.

“The word ‘citizenship’ is very national and very political. In the Eretz Shalom initiative we do not talk about citizenship, but about concepts of neighborly relations. There are no neighborly relations here, because either it’s relations between enemies or we are transparent to them and they to us. And the relations that do exist are like those between horse and rider. There must be an initial basis before we talk about citizenship and a judicial system. We need to speak their language and we can even have a joint swimming pool here, because both they and we need separation between men and women. That may be a bit far off, but we have to think first about everyday life. I know that sounds like conditional citizenship – saying they must first be my good neighbors and then I will grant them rights – but I really do want to talk about a process that starts from below.”

From below or from above, in the end we reach a state whose demographic and geographic parameters are very different from what we have today.

“Demography is definitely a threat, but the other threat is bigger. The harder price is to cut up this country, with one part topographically higher than the other. I can’t speak with the Israeli public now about citizenship and Palestinians on the beach in Tel Aviv, because that’s a threat to the public. The whole situation now is wrong. We made a mistake, we arrived at the wrong place and we have a long way to go, but in the end there has to be one space here. We will yet talk about one state, but in the meantime we can talk about one land.”

One can take a cynical view of Eretz Shalom, of Amrousi’s decision to learn Arabic or of the project being organized by the settlers in Talmon: to build a lean-to for Palestinian workers awaiting a security check before entering their settlement. Fashionably late, one could say, and under the threat of evacuation, Gush Emunim is discovering the enlightened occupation. But there is another side, too: the impression that the Israeli center, in its addiction to the separation idea, has sloughed off the question of relations with the Arab population, on both sides of the Green Line. Is it a coincidence that Amrousi chose to describe the reality in the Land of Israel as “one space,” a term used by critical sociologists from the radical left?

Prof. Yehouda Shenhav, formerly from the Sephardi Democratic Rainbow and editor of the journal Theory and Criticism for the past decade, believes that the concept of reality for people on the right, as quoted above, is far more accurate and honest than the two-state concept of the left. In his recent book, “The Time of the Green Line” (Am Oved, Hebrew ), Shenhav returns to what he terms the true foundation of the conflict, namely 1948, and not “the obliterating and blurring paradigm according to which everything was swell until 1967, and then things went awry, as David Grossman writes in ‘The Yellow Wind.’” Shenhav rejects both the two-state idea and the “state of all its citizens.” He argues that the only possible stable model is one that will recognize the distinctiveness of different communities – among both Palestinians and Jews – in the one space between the sea and the Jordan River.

“The diagnosis of the right-wingers is accurate,” Shenhav says, and immediately adds, “But let’s be precise: it’s not the whole of the right. Most of them do not speak in those terms. But there is a minority that reads reality in a far less denying and less repressive way than all the people on the left who support the two-state solution. The majority of the left does not understand a spatial concept that does not permit homogeneity. The Jews and the Palestinians are Siamese twins. The ideology of the Jewish state espoused by the articulate spokespersons of the left tries to sever the different Palestinian groups, and takes their severance as a fait accompli. In contrast, Rubi [Reuven] Rivlin and Moshe Arens understand that those on both sides of the Green Line are Palestinians.

“I am not in favor of the wrongs being caused by the settlements,” Shenhav continues, “but in their political diagnosis the settlers are right. In one way or another, we too will ultimately learn this, and the only question is how much bloodshed it will entail. I wrote exactly what the right is saying today: the war in Gaza is the model that will be repeated in the future if there is separation.”

The 1967 lines are accepted by the international community. The left is against the plunder of land that is taking place to the east, against the fact that a settlement like Ofra is situated on private Palestinian land.

“What exactly is the difference between Ofra and Beit Dagan, which is situated on [the former Palestinian village of] Beit Dajan? Do the 19 years from 1948 to 1967 make one settlement moral and the other immoral? In my book I quote Uri Elitzur, who says, ‘You [the left] expelled the Palestinians in 1948, did not allow them back, established settlements on all their villages and afterward built the separation fence, and then you come to us with complaints, even though we have not destroyed even one village in the West Bank – not even one – to build a settlement.’

“The 1967 paradigm is intended to make it possible for the left to live in Tel Aviv and feel good about itself,” Shenhav continues. “The settlements will be sacrificed in order to atone for what they did to the Palestinians in 1948. The settlers will pay the price of the sins of the left. Yossi Beilin and his Geneva Initiative and all the rest want to preserve the achievements of the Ashkenazi elite.

“Don’t get me wrong: I am not in favor of the vision of the right wing. All I am doing is recommending that the left listen to what the right is saying. To take the right wing’s diagnosis and develop it into normative and moral left-wing viewpoints, to create a horizon that reflects leftism – not nationalism, not a Jewish empire.”

Are you now a person of the left or the right?

“I don’t know. I wrote in favor of the [Palestinians'] right of return and I am against the evacuation of settlements. So where does that leave me?”

Great candor

The supporters of the two-state concept always warned against closing a window of opportunity to establish a Palestinian state. Now that the right has started to talk about a one-state solution, is the window closed? Definitely not, says Gadi Baltiansky, director general of the Geneva Initiative: “But I appreciate the sincerity of those who speak clearly at this time. The right always spoke in negative terms. Tzipi Livni once noted that the Likud’s platform always starts with the word ‘no.’ No to a Palestinian state, no to withdrawal, no, no and more no. Now there are people on the right who are saying with great candor what must be done, even if some of them are still hesitant about going public.

“I never liked the division into the ‘peace camp’ and the ‘national camp,’” Baltiansky continues. “The fact is that I am no less national than the right and they want peace no less than I do. In Israel there is a two-state camp and a one-state, binational camp, and the choice is between them. But the right should not delude itself: one Jewish state will not be a solution, but a continuation of the conflict. There will be fights over the flag and over the anthem and over the school curriculum, and the situation will be untenable.”

As of now, giving citizenship to the Palestinians is not on the political agenda of the right. According to the head of the Yesha Council, Danny Dayan, “the idea is unrealistic. In the present circumstances, it could put Israel’s character at risk. Morally, the fact that the Palestinians will not have full political rights in the foreseeable future is the fault of the Palestinians themselves. They rejected every compromise and chose war and are now paying the price of their mistakes. It’s not apartheid, it’s their choice.”

So what’s the solution?

“The solution for the coming decades is the present status quo, with improvements of one kind or another. Of all the possibilities, that one affords the most stable balance. It is also important to say that even so, the Palestinians have more political rights than any Arab citizen in the Middle East, with the possible exception of the Lebanese.”

Faithful to his outlook, Dayan last week – ahead of Netanyahu’s meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama – was busy cobbling together a coalition of the leaders of the right-wing parties in the Knesset. The aim: to compel Netanyahu to end the construction freeze in the territories at the end of September, as promised. Other MKs who are against the two-state solution, such as Aryeh Eldad (National Union ) and Danny Danon (Likud ), also told me that giving the Palestinians citizenship is not on their agenda, not even in the face of the emerging two-state plan.

Still, the impression is that even those who are against the idea have modified their approach recently. Adi Mintz, a former director general of the Yesha Council, presented a plan whereby after the security situation stabilizes, Israel will annex 60 percent of Judea and Samaria, whose 300,000 Palestinian inhabitants will be granted Israeli citizenship. The status of the rest of the population and of the area will, in this view, be settled within the framework of a comprehensive regional solution in the more distant future.

The right-leaning newspaper, Makor Rishon, recently devoted an issue to the possibility of leaving settlements under Palestinian sovereignty if the two-state plan is implemented. Logic says that if supporters of such an idea are truly serious, it should not be a problem for them to agree to live in the one state that will extend from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, whatever its character.

In any event, it will soon become clear whether renewal of the political process will lead to the removal from the agenda of every option except the establishment of a Palestinian state, or whether the opposition to such a state will generate momentum for supporters of the one-state alternative. Those who espouse this idea admit that its main drawback is that no genuine discussion of its merits and shortcomings has ever been held. Thus, key issues, such as the transition period leading up to citizenship, the refugee problem, the status of Gaza and even the bizarre question of how many Palestinians there really are have not been seriously addressed.

For this reason, Hotovely wants to publish a position paper on the issue, perhaps with the aid of an American research institute. “I want people to understand the issues, not to say that [MK Ahmed] Tibi and I are from the same party. The taboo that forbids talk about any option other than the two-state solution is almost anti-democratic. It’s like brain-gagging.” W

Israeli right embracing one-state?

Proposals to grant Israeli citizenship to Palestinians in the West Bank are being pushed by some prominent activists among the West Bank settler movement

Ali Abunimah, 20 July 2010

One might expect that any support for a single state among Israeli Jews would come from the far left, and in fact this is where the most prominent Israeli Jewish champions of the idea are found, although in small numbers.

Recently, proposals to grant Israeli citizenship to Palestinians in the West Bank, including the right to vote for the knesset, have emerged from a surprising direction: Right-wing stalwarts such as knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin, and former defence minister Moshe Arens, both from the Likud party of Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister.

Even more surprisingly, the idea has been pushed by prominent activists among Israel’s West Bank settler movement, who were the subject of a must-read profile by Noam Sheizaf in Haaretz.

Unlikely advocates

Their visions still fall far short of what any Palestinian advocate of a single state would consider to be just: The Israeli proposals insist on maintaining the state’s character – at least symbolically – as a “Jewish state,” exclude the Gaza Strip, and do not address the rights of Palestinian refugees.

And, settlers on land often violently expropriated from Palestinians would hardly seem like obvious advocates for Palestinian human and political rights.

Although the details vary, and in some cases are anathema to Palestinians, what is more revealing is that this debate is occurring openly and in the least likely circles.

The Likudnik and settler advocates of a one-state solution with citizenship for Palestinians realise that Israel has lost the argument that Jewish sovereignty can be maintained forever at any price. A status quo where millions of Palestinians live without rights, subject to control by escalating Israeli violence is untenable even for them.

At the same time repartition of historic Palestine – what they call Eretz Yisrael – into two states is unacceptable, and has proven unattainable – not least because of the settler movement itself.

Some on the Israeli right now recognise what Israeli geographer Meron Benvenisti has said for years: Historic Palestine is already a “de facto binational state,” unpartionable except at a cost neither Israelis nor Palestinians are willing to pay.

‘Horse and rider’

The relationship between Palestinians and Israelis is not that of equals however, but that “between horse and rider” as one settler vividly put it in Haaretz.

From the settlers’ perspective, repartition would mean an uprooting of at least tens of thousands of the 500,000 settlers now in the West Bank, and it would not even solve the national question.

Would the settlers remaining behind in the West Bank (the vast majority under all current two-state proposals) be under Palestinian sovereignty or would Israel continue to exercise control over a network of settlements criss-crossing the putative Palestinian state?

How could a truly independent Palestinian state exist under such circumstances?

The graver danger is that the West Bank would turn into a dozen Gaza Strips with large Israeli civilian populations wedged between miserable, overcrowded walled Palestinian ghettos.

The patchwork Palestinian state would be free only to administer its own poverty, visited by regular bouts of bloodshed.

Even a full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank – something that is not remotely on the peace process agenda – would leave Israel with 1.5 million Palestinian citizens inside its borders. This population already faces escalating discrimination, incitement and loyalty tests.

In an angry, ultra-nationalist Israel shrunken by the upheaval of abandoning West Bank settlements, these non-Jewish citizens could suffer much worse, including outright ethnic cleansing.

With no progress toward a two-state solution despite decades of efforts, the only Zionist alternative on offer has been outright expulsion of the Palestinians – a programme long-championed by Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu party, which has seen its support increase steadily.

Israel is at the point where it has to look in the mirror and even some cold, hard Likudniks like Arens apparently do not like what they see. Yisrael Beitenu’s platform is “nonsensical,” Arens told Haaretz and simply not “doable”.

If Israel feels it is a pariah now, what would happen after another mass expulsion of Palestinians?

Lessons from South Africa

Given these realities, “The worst solution … is apparently the right one: a binational state, full annexation, full citizenship” in the words of settler activist and former Netanyahu aide Uri Elitzur.

This awakening can be likened to what happened among South African whites in the 1980s. By that time it had become clear that the white minority government’s effort to “solve” the problem of black disenfranchisement by creating nominally independent homelands – bantustans – had failed.

Pressure was mounting from internal resistance and the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions. By the mid-1980s, whites overwhelmingly understood that the apartheid status quo was untenable and they began to consider “reform” proposals that fell very far short of the African National Congress’ demands for a universal franchise – one-person, one-vote in a non-racial South Africa.

The reforms began with the 1984 introduction of a tricameral parliament with separate chambers for whites, coloureds and Indians (none for blacks), with whites retaining overall control.

Until almost the end of the apartheid system, polls showed the vast majority of whites rejected a universal franchise, but were prepared to concede some form of power-sharing with the black majority as long as whites retained a veto over key decisions.

The important point, as I have argued previously,is that one could not predict the final outcome of the negotiations that eventually brought about a fully democratic South Africa in 1994, based on what the white public and elites said they were prepared to accept.

Once Israeli Jews concede that Palestinians must have equal rights, they will not be able to unilaterally impose any system that maintains undue privilege.

A joint state should accommodate Israeli Jews’ legitimate collective interests, but it would have to do so equally for everyone else.

Moral currency devalued

The very appearance of the right-wing one-state solution suggests Israel is feeling the pressure and experiencing a relative loss of power. If its proponents thought Israel could “win” in the long-term there would be no need to find ways to accommodate Palestinian rights.

But Israeli Jews see their moral currency and legitimacy drastically devalued worldwide, while demographically Palestinians are on the verge of becoming a majority once again in historic Palestine.

Of course Israeli Jews still retain an enormous power advantage over Palestinians which, while eroding, is likely to last for some time.

Israel’s main advantage is a near monopoly on the means of violence, guaranteed by the US.

But legitimacy and stability cannot be gained by reliance on brute force – this is the lesson that is starting to sink in among some Israelis as the country is increasingly isolated after its attacks on Gaza and the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

Legitimacy can only come from a just and equitable political settlement.

Perhaps the right-wing proponents of a single state recognise that the best time to negotiate a transition which provides safeguards for Israeli Jews’ legitimate collective interests is while they are still relatively strong.

Transforming relationships

That proposals for a single state are coming from the Israeli right should not be so surprising in light of experiences in comparable situations.

In South Africa, it was not the traditional white liberal critics of apartheid who oversaw the system’s dismantling, but the National Party which had built apartheid in the first place. In Northern Ireland, it was not “moderate” unionists and nationalists like David Trimble and John Hume who finally made power-sharing under the 1998 Belfast Agreement function, but the long-time rejectionists of Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party, and the nationalist Sinn Fein, whose leaders had close ties the IRA.

The experiences in South Africa and Northern Ireland show that transforming the relationship between settler and native, master and slave, or “horse and rider,” to one between equal citizens is a very difficult, uncertain and lengthy process.

There are many setbacks and detours along the way and success is not guaranteed. It requires much more than a new constitution; economic redistribution, restitution and restorative justice are essential and meet significant resistance.

But such a transformation is not, as many of the critics of a one-state solution in Palestine/Israel insist, “impossible.” Indeed, hope now resides in the space between what is “very difficult” and what is considered “impossible”.

The proposals from the Israeli right-wing, however inadequate and indeed offensive they seem in many respects, add a little bit to that hope. They suggest that even those whom Palestinians understandably consider their most implacable foes can stare into the abyss and decide there has to be a radically different way forward.

We should watch how this debate develops and engage and encourage it carefully. In the end it is not what the solution is called that matters, but whether it fulfills the fundamental and inalienable rights of all Palestinians.

Ali Abunimah is author of One Country, A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse and co-founder of The Electronic Intifada.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

Rosemary’s Baby

Uri Avnery, 24 July 2010

SINCE I witnessed the rise of the Nazis during my childhood in Germany, my nose always tickles when it smells something fascist, even when the odor is still faint.

When the debate about the “one-state solution” began, my nose tickled.

Have you gone mad, I told my nose, this time you are dead wrong. This is a plan of the Left. It is being put forward by leftists of undoubted credentials, the greatest idealists in Israel and abroad, even certified Marxists.

But my nose insisted. It continued to tickle.

Now it appears that the nose was right, after all.

THIS IS not the first time that a kosher leftist plan leads towards extreme rightist consequences.

That happened, for example, to the ugliest symbol of the occupation: the Separation Wall. It was invented by the Left.

When the “terrorist” attacks multiplied, leftist politicians, headed by Haim Ramon, offered a miracle-solution to the problem: an impassable obstacle between Israel and the occupied territories. They argued that it would stop the attacks without recourse to brutal actions in the West Bank.

The Right opposed the idea vehemently. To them it was a conspiracy to fix the borders of the state and promote the two-state solution, which they saw (and still see) as an existential threat to their designs.

But suddenly the Right changed its tune. They realized that the wall offered a wonderful opportunity to annex large tracts of West Bank land and turn them over to the settlers. And that is what happened: the wall/fence was not put up along the Green Line, but cuts deep into the West Bank. It takes away large areas of land from the Palestinian villages.

Nowadays leftists are demonstrating every week against the wall, the right is sending soldiers to shoot at them, and the two-state solution has been set back.

NOW THE rightists have discovered the one-state solution. My nose is tickling.

One of the first was Moshe Arens, former Minister of Defense. Arens is an extreme rightist, a fanatical Likud member. He started to talk about one state from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, in which the Palestinians would be granted full rights, including citizenship and the vote.

I rubbed my eyes. Is this the same Arens? What has happened to him? But this apparent mystery has a simple solution.

Arens and his companions are faced with a mathematical problem that seems insoluble: turning the triangle into a circle.

Their aim has three sides: (a) a Jewish state, (b) the whole of Eretz Israel, and (c) democracy. How to combine these three sides into one harmonious circle?

Between the sea and the river there now live about 6.5 million Jews and 3.9 million Palestinians – a proportion of 59% Jews to 41% Palestinians (including the inhabitants of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and the Arab citizens of Israel.) This number does not include, of course, the millions of Palestinian refugees who are living outside the country.)

Several “experts” have tried to dispute these numbers, but respected statisticians, including Israelis, accept them with tiny changes here and there.

The proportion, alas, is rapidly changing in favor of the Palestinians. The Palestinian population is doubling every 18 years. Even taking into account the natural increase of the Jewish population in Israel and the potential immigration in the foreseeable future, one can predict with almost mathematical precision when the Palestinians will constitute the majority between the Jordan and the sea. It’s a matter of years rather than decades.

The inescapable conclusion: one can reconcile between any two of the three aspirations, but not all three at once: (a) a Jewish state in the entire country cannot be democratic, (b) a democratic state in the entire country cannot be Jewish, and (c) a Jewish and democratic state cannot include the entire Eretz Israel.

Simple. Logical. One does not have to be Moshe Arens, an engineer by profession, to see this. Therefore the Right is looking for another logic that would allow the creation of a Jewish and democratic state in the entire country.

LAST WEEK Haaretz published a stunning sensation: prominent personalities of the extreme Right – indeed, some of the most extreme – accept the solution of one-state from the sea to the river. They speak about a state in which the Palestinians will be full citizens.

The rightists quoted in Noam Sheizaf’s article do not hide their reasons for adopting this line: they want to obstruct the setting up of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, which would mean the end of the settlement enterprise and the evacuation of scores of settlements and outposts throughout the West Bank. They also want to put an end to the growing international pressure for the two-state solution.

Among some leftists in the world, who advocate the one-state solution, the news was greeted with great joy. They pour scorn on the Israeli peace camp (leftists enjoy nothing more than deriding other leftists) and heap praise on the Israeli Right. What magnanimity! What readiness to break out of the box and adopt their opponents’ ideals! Only the Right will make peace!

But if these good people would read the texts, they would discover that it ain’t necessarily so. To be precise, it’s the very opposite.

ALL OF the six rightists quoted in the article are united on a number of points which deserve consideration.

First: all of them exclude the Gaza Strip from the proposed solution. Gaza will no longer be a part of the country. Thus, the number of Palestinians will be reduced by 1.5 million, improving the menacing demographic balance. (True, in the Oslo agreement, Israel recognized the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as one integral territory, but the rightists consider the Oslo agreement anyhow as the tainted product of leftist traitors.)

Second: the one state will, of course, be a Jewish state.

Third: the annexation of the West Bank will take place at once, so that the building of settlements can go on undisturbed. In a Greater Israel, the settlement enterprise cannot be limited.

Fourth: There is no way to grant citizenship to all Palestinian forthwith.

The author of the article summarizes their positions thus: “a process that will take from about a decade to a generation, and at its conclusion the Palestinians will enjoy full personal rights, but the state will remain, in its symbols and spirit, Jewish…This is not a vision of ‘a state belonging to all its citizens’ and not ‘Isratine’ with a flag combining the crescent and the Star of David. The one state still means Jewish sovereignty.”

IT IS worthwhile to listen well to the explanations provided by the initiators themselves (emphasis added by me):

Uri Elitsur, former director general of the Judea and Samaria Council (the leadership of the settlers, known as “Yesha”): “I speak of a Jewish state which is the state of the Jewish people, and in which there will exist an Arab minority.”

Hanan Porat, a founder of Gush Emunim (the religious settlers’ leadership, and the man who called upon the Jews to rejoice after the Baruch Goldstein massacre in Hebron): “I am against the automatic citizenship proposed by Uri Elitsur, which is naïve and could lead to grievous consequences. I propose the application of Israeli law to the territories in stages, first in the areas in which there is (already) a Jewish majority, and within a time-span of a decade to a generation in all the territories.”

Porat proposes dividing the Palestinians into three categories: (a) Those who want an Arab state and are ready to realize this by terrorism and struggle against the state – they have no place in Eretz Israel. Meaning: they will be expelled. (b) Those resigned to their place and to Jewish sovereignty, but not ready to take part in the state and fulfill all their obligations towards it – they will have full human rights, but no political representation in the institutions of the state. (c) Those who declare that they will be loyal to the state and swear allegiance to it – they will be granted full citizenship. (They will, of course, be a small minority.)

Tzipi Hutubeli, a Member of Parliament on the extreme fringe of Likud: “On the political horizon there must be citizenship for the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria…That will happen gradually …This process must take place over a long time, perhaps even a generation, in the course of which the situation on the ground will be stabilized and the symbols of the Jewish state and its character will be anchored in law…The question mark hovering over Judea and Samaria will be removed…First comes my deep belief in our right over Eretz Israel. Shiloh and Bet-El (in the West Bank) are for me the land of our ancestors in the full meaning of the term…At this moment we speak about conferring citizenship in Judea and Samaria, not in Gaza. Let it be clear: I do not recognize political rights of Palestinians over Eretz Israel…Between the sea and the Jordan there is room for one state, a Jewish state.”

Moshe Arens: “The integration of the Arab population (inside Israel) into Israeli society is a prior condition, and only afterwards can one speak about citizenship for Palestinians in the territories.” Meaning: Arens proposes focusing on the integration of the Arab citizens of Israel – something that has not happened in the last 62 years – and only afterwards thinking about the question of citizenship for the West Bank population.

Emily Amrussi, a settler who organizes meetings between the settlers and the Palestinians of the neighboring villages: “Don’t describe me as one pushing for the ‘one state’. In the end we may arrive there, but we are still very far from there. Let’s talk first about one country…We don’t talk about citizenship, but in terms like relations between neighbors… First let them become my good neighbors, and then we shall give them rights…In the far future, it will be necessary to move towards citizenship for everybody.”

Reuven Rivlin, Speaker of the Knesset: “The country cannot be divided…I oppose the idea of a state belonging to all its citizens or a bi-national state and am thinking about arrangements of joint sovereignty in Judea and Samaria under the Jewish state, even a regime of two parliaments, Jewish and Arab…Judea and Samaria will be a co-dominion, held jointly…But these are things that take time…Stop waving demography in my face.”

THE REGIME described here is not an apartheid state, but something much worse: a Jewish state in which the Jewish majority will decide if at all, and when, to confer citizenship on some of the Arabs. The words that come up again and again – “perhaps within a generation” – are by nature very imprecise, and not by accident.

But most important: there is a thunderous silence about the mother of all questions: what will happen when the Palestinians become the majority in the One State? That is not a question of “if”, but of “when”: there is not the slightest doubt that this will happen, not “within a generation”, but long before.

This thunderous silence speaks for itself. People who do not know Israel may believe that the rightists are ready to accept such a situation. Only a very naive person can expect a repetition of what happened in South Africa, when the whites (a small minority) handed power over to the blacks (the large majority) without bloodshed.

We said above that it is impossible to “turn the triangle into a circle”. But the truth is that there is one way: ethnic cleansing. The Jewish state can fill all the space between the sea and the Jordan and still be democratic – if there are no Palestinians there.

Ethnic cleansing can be carried out dramatically (as in this country in 1948 and in Kosovo in 1998) or in a quiet and systematic way, by dozens of sophisticated methods, as is happening now in East Jerusalem. But there cannot be the slightest doubt that this is the final stage of the one-state vision of the rightists. The first stage will be an effort to fill the entire country with settlements, and to demolish any chance of implementing the two-state solution, which is the only realistic basis for peace.

In Roman Polanski’s movie “Rosemary’s Baby”, a nice young woman gives birth to a nice baby, which turns out to be the son of Satan. The attractive leftist vision of the one-state solution may grow up into a rightist monster.

Spades, Human Rights and Undemocratizing Israel

Rela Mazali of Jewish Peace News introduces An Assault on Democracy by Ishai Menuhin, of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, published in Haaretz, 16 July 2010

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Boaz Okon, former Israeli judge and current legal affairs editor for the right-leaning and largest Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Aharonoth, has called a spade a spade using both the forbidden words; apartheid and fascism. In his article, “Draw Me a Monster,” translated into English by the Coteret website, he described a long and still-growing list of recent moves by Israel’s authorities. “These dots,” he wrote, “are growing evidence of the lack of the spirit of freedom and the emergence of apartheid and fascism. If you look at each dot separately you might miss the bigger picture. Like a child watching a military brigade march, and after seeing the battalions, the batteries and the companies, asking: “And when is the brigade finally coming?” the answer is that while he watched the marching of the battalions, batteries and companies, he was actually watching the brigade. So is the situation in Israel. You do not have to ask where the apartheid is. These events, which are accepted
with silence and indifference, together create a picture of a terrible reality.”

A major channel of civil resistance to these developments, the Palestinian-led worldwide movement to face Israel with Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), is gaining ground and drawing the worried attention of government and media in Israel. The Israeli part of this is now becoming a target for new repressive moves on the part of the legislature (that has just passed a preliminary bill that would criminalize support for BDS), the government and the security services (that have recently called in at least one BDS activist for questioning.

The item below is an analysis of a current right-wing campaign to suppress and dismantle another substantial, resilient and longtime channel of resistance to Israel’s open adoption of full-fledged fascism. This is a campaign targeting human rights organizations working to demand the accountability of Israel’s officials and official organs, to document its systemic human rights violations and, to some extent, to redress the survivors and victims of these violations. What seems to be a comfortable front of far-right “non-governmental organizations” is doing, or at least leading, the government’s dirty work on these campaigns, conveniently retaining a governmental façade of democracy. Ishai Menuhin, of the Public Committee Against Torture, describes this campaign, its mechanics and its very serious significance.

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white

An assault on democracy

Ishai Menuchin, 16 July 2010

Dr. Ishai Menuchin is executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. This piece is based on an address he gave in June before the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights.

The time has come for an Israeli party, a Jewish-Arab party, that will carry the banner of total commitment to equality, without a trace of discrimination and racism.

Avraham Burg, 23 July 2010

[For commentary see Richard Silverstein Avrum Burg to Found New Israeli Political Party: Shivyon Yisrael; and the Magnes Zionist poses some probing questions in Avrum Burg's New Party-Concept]

Even though the old forces are worn out and exhausted, and the new forces are full of vitality, no real change is blowing in the wind. Television personality Yair Lapid and former chief of staff Dan Halutz are plotting, justifiably and with skill, to fill Kadima’s shallowness. Aryeh Deri is checking the temperature of Shas’ corpse and Eli Yishai, at the behest of the Rabbi of course. The veterans of the Labor Party’s young guard are still sitting, as can be expected, with former minister Uzi Baram and planning their grand attack. And even Meretz’s remnants are weakly trying to revive the coals that burned out long ago.

All of them are justified because the political system in its present form deserves a thorough shake-up; its dead branches must be trimmed, its weeds and other unnecessary parts must be uprooted. These people are justified, but they are boring; they are the same types as before. Their efforts are an attempt to replace the dead fish with other fish that will also die. That is because no one is prepared to admit that the water is polluted and the sea must be changed.

In almost every area of the Israeli rift we need a new and clean political ocean: on issues of war and peace, in the realm between religion and the state, in the spaces between the insensitive Jewish majority and the oppressed minorities. There is also a gap between the rich who grow richer and the have-nots who have less and less all the time.

The current political situation is still built on the basic concepts of the first days of Zionism. The chasm between Zionism and ultra-Orthodoxy became a fixture at the beginning of the 20th century. The challenge of the Israeli Arabs has been stagnating since 1948. And very soon Israel will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the occupation and its injustices. There is an abundance of passionate history, while the offerings of the present are poor.

The greatest internal threat to Israel’s existence is the erosion of Israeli democracy, which has already lost its internal substance – the values of freedom and total commitment to all its citizens.

The time has come for a new proposal, one that is exciting and challenging. The time has come for an Israeli party, a Jewish-Arab party, that will carry the banner of total commitment to equality, without a trace of discrimination and racism. It will be without Meretz’s complications and Hadash’s emotional baggage. A party that will sail far beyond the paradigms of classic Zionism, which to this day ignores the place of Israel’s Arabs. A party that will demand full equality for all Israel’s citizens, the kind of equality we demand for the Jews in the Diaspora wherever they live.

The party Israel Equality (Shivyon Yisrael ) – with the acronym Shai in Hebrew, gift – will fight for a state that will be a total democracy; everything else will be either personal or on the community level. The party will wrestle with the sanctimonious internal contradiction of “a Jewish and democratic state,” which means a great deal of democracy for the Jews and too much Jewish nationalism for the Arabs. It will be the party of those who are committed to the supreme universal and Israeli cultural values of human dignity, the search for peace and a desire for freedom, justice and equality.

Those who vote for it and its candidates will accept the definition of Israel as “a state whose regime is democratic and egalitarian, and which belongs to all its citizens and communities. The state in which the Jewish people have chosen to renew their sovereignty and where they realize their right to self-determination.” The practical expression of this commitment will be a supreme effort to change the social balance of power, which is unjust, to give equal opportunities to the entire population in Israel, regardless of national background, ethnic origin, race, sex or sexual preference.

The new party will cooperate with anyone willing to return to peaceful borders, to help end the occupation and all the injustices that spring from it. This party will always be at the forefront of the struggle against hatred and incitement; it will be for everyone who has given up on the current Israeli political scene. It will offer the possibility of good tidings for everyone who is fed up with everything that is impossible in the current situation.

Avrum Burg to Found New Israeli Political Party: Shivyon Yisrael

Today’s Haaretz brings the interesting news that Israeli iconoclast, Avrum Burg is founding a new political party to be called Shivyon Israel (Equality Israel).  It will represent one of the few attempts by a mainstream political leader to form a post-Zionist party.  Here is Burg on its platform:

The time has come for an Israeli party, a Jewish-Arab party, that will carry the banner of total commitment to equality, without a trace of discrimination and racism…A party that will sail far beyond the paradigms of classic Zionism, which to this day ignores the place of Israel’s Arabs. A party that will demand full equality for all Israel’s citizens, the kind of equality we demand for the Jews in the Diaspora wherever they live.

The party, Israel Equality (Shivyon Yisrael ) – with the acronym Shai in Hebrew, gift – will fight for a state that will be a total democracy…The party will wrestle with the…internal contradiction of “a Jewish and democratic state,” which means a great deal of democracy for the Jews and too much Jewish nationalism for the Arabs. It will be the party of those who are committed to the supreme universal and Israeli cultural values of human dignity, the search for peace and a desire for freedom, justice and equality.

Those who vote for it and its candidates will accept the definition of Israel as “a state whose regime is democratic and egalitarian, and which belongs to all its citizens and communities. The state in which the Jewish people have chosen to renew their sovereignty and where they realize their right to self-determination.” The practical expression of this commitment will be a supreme effort to change the social balance of power, which is unjust, to give equal opportunities to the entire population in Israel, regardless of national background, ethnic origin, race, sex or sexual preference.

Frankly, I’m ambivalent.  It’s all well and good for this new party to embrace the idea that Israel is a state in which Jews renew their sovereignty and their right to self-determination.  But frankly there is an Arab nation too within Israel and its dreams are no less vivid than those of its Jewish citizens.  Besides, the history of Israeli politics is littered with new political parties and catchy acronyms which don’t live up to expectations.

Further, I wonder how Burg, who soured on Israeli politics several years ago and decamped to France where he’s pursued a business career, will explain his absence.  It will be all too easy for the Israeli political barons to categorize Burg as the jilted Israeli pol who took his marbles home when he couldn’t realize his political ambitions there.  How does he avoid being tarred as a Johnny Come Lately, smelling of French Bordeaux and other decadent foreign tendencies?

I also wonder how this party will differ from Hadash.  He complains in this article that the latter party has “emotional baggage.”  By which he means that it is hated by many Israeli Jews.  But why is it hated?  Because it has a mainly Arab constituency and because it has forged an alliance between Jews and Arabs.  So why does Burg not think that his party won’t be tarred with the same brush since it appears to have an overlapping agenda?  Why the need for two parties representing a similar program?  Isn’t this just the left cannibalizing itself?

One welcome outcome of this should be the long-awaited demise of Meretz, the liberal Zionist party which claimed the mantle of the Jewish left but never really embraced it with vigor, forthrightness or courage.  It may also mark the further weakening of Labor, a party of which Burg was once a crown prince, and which also deserves to be put out of its misery.

In closing, let me say that I’m all in favor of the general outlines of this initiative (with the few caveats above) and wish it well.  Israeli politics is so f*#%ed up that anything would be better than what we have now.

Avrum Burg’s New Party-Concept

Jeremiah Haber, 23 July 2010

The time has come for an Israeli party, a Jewish-Arab party, that will carry the banner of total commitment to equality, without a trace of discrimination and racism. It will be without Meretz’s complications and Hadash’s baggage. A party that will sail far beyond the paradigms of classic Zionism, which to this day ignores the place of Israel’s Arabs. A party that will demand full equality for all Israel’s citizens, the kind of equality we demand for the Jews in the Diaspora wherever they live.

The party Israel Equality (Shivyon Yisrael – with the acronym Shai in Hebrew, gift – will fight for a state that will be a total democracy; everything else will be either personal or on the community level. The party will wrestle with the sanctimonious internal contradiction of “a Jewish and democratic state,” which means a great deal of democracy for the Jews and too much Jewish nationalism for the Arabs. It will be the party of those who are committed to the supreme universal and Israeli cultural values of human dignity, the search for peace and a desire for freedom, justice and equality.

Those who vote for it and its candidates will accept the definition of Israel as “a state whose regime is democratic and egalitarian, and which belongs to all its citizens and communities. The state in which the Jewish people have chosen to renew their sovereignty and where they realize their right to self-determination.” The practical expression of this commitment will be a supreme effort to change the social balance of power, which is unjust, to give equal opportunities to the entire population in Israel, regardless of national background, ethnic origin, race, sex or sexual preference.

Hats off to Avrum Burg for thinking outside the box. Politically, this is very different from the Jewish parties that trace back to 1948. And he talks the language of liberal democracy unapologetically.

Most Zionists will label Burg’s party as “post-Zionist” but it is Zionist, since Israel is described as “The state in which the Jewish people have chosen to renew their sovereignty and where they realize their right to self-determination.” But Burg and his party need to elucidate more here, and I have some questions:

1. Exactly how is Jewish sovereignty realized in a state of all its citizens? What is the relationship between Jewish sovereignty and Israeli sovereignty, between the Jewish nation and the Israeli nation? A people can have self-determination in an ethnic state, or as an ethnic majority in a multiethnic state, or even as an ethnic minority in a multiethnic state. But sovereignty? That sounds odd, unless Burg is referring to sovereignty over the Jewish people, not the Israeli people.
2. Why does Burg use in his op-ed the old-fashioned term “Israeli Arabs” rather than “Palestinian Israelis,” which is preferred by many of them? Sometime in the late sixties, American blacks starting calling themselves, “Afro-Americans” or “African Americans” rather than “Negroes” or “Colored.” That decision was respected by the white majority. Is he using the old Zionist term to appeal to a traditional Israeli electorate?
3. Is the new party a Jewish party with a sprinkling of Arabs, or a genuine Jewish-Arab party? If the latter, then wouldn’t it have been better to have a roll-out with a Jew and an Arab? Once again, my fear is that sensitivity to the electorate’s ethnic biases and paternalism will doom the partnership from the beginning.
4. In the op-ed Burg says the party will be free of the “complications” of Meretz and the “baggage” of Hadash. To what “baggage” is he referring? To its origins as the Israel Communist Party? Surely that means nothing nowadays to its electorate. Or does he mean the “baggage” associated with an Arab-Jewish party that has been regularly demonized by the Jewish electorate and permanently in the opposition? I suspect that Burg’s new party is intended to be a hybrid of both Meretz and Hadash without the associated stigmas in the eyes of the Israeli Jewish electorate. Ideologically, however, it appears closer to Hadash. And so then the question becomes, why add a new party? And the answer presumably will be pragmatic; even though many more Jews vote for Hadash than ever before, the party’s attractiveness to Jews is limited. So we now need a Jewish version of Hadash to appeal to a progressive Jewish electorate (and its supporters) who cannot bring themselves, for ethnic reasons, to support Hadash. If that is the case, then the party will not hurt Hadash as much as it will hurt Meretz.

If this party is really a new and improved version of Meretz, a Meretz, “re-Gifted,” as it were, then that would indeed be interesting, but not sufficient. Meretz was combined originally from the parties of Mapam, Ratz, and Shinui. I would be happier with a party combined of Hadash and Shay – a “New Gift”, as it were. That would be not just interesting but exciting

But it is still much too early to form a final judgment. Welcome back, Mr. Burg, to Israeli politics.