The Latest from Mondoweiss |  |
- The bubble inside the bubble
- Nothing, absolutely nothing, prevents Israel from demolishing Palestinian homes
- 65 years ago today, WW II ended
- Even 'Haaretz' has moral blindness re Gaza
- 'NYT' profiles Sidney Harman,
- Talk to me, Harvard, what are you feeling?
- 'Miami Herald' breaks US taboo on describing Palestinians' second-class citizenship
- Kafka's siege (or why it makes sense to invest in a warehouse)
- Where is the Gandhi of India?
- Meet Handala (you probably know him already, I'm new to all this)
| Posted: 15 Aug 2010 07:30 PM PDT I spent the past weekend on a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, attending my nephew's post-wedding festivities. The last time I was in the vicinity of this particular settlement was about ten years ago, when I went – together with a group of Israeli peace activists - to the adjacent village, to express solidarity with a Palestinian farmer whose vineyard had been destroyed by settlers. The last time I had been to the settlement itself was on a high-school class trip, nearly thirty years ago. My sister has lived there for the past 15 years or so, and her children have grown up there, but this was the first time I had been to her home. When she told me, years ago, that she would be moving to a settlement, I made it clear that I would not come to visit. Last week, mitigating circumstances led me to make an exception to my longstanding rule and I do not regret it, although I will have to make sure my sister and her family understand that it was just that, an exception, and that my opposition to the illegal and immoral settlement project has not "softened" in the least. I wonder if the ultra-nationalists I spent the weekend with would be more or less shocked by my general anti-Zionism and views on the Nakba, for example, than the left-wing Zionists I have spoken to in the past (Yehouda Shenhav-Shaharabani's book on the subject, The Trap of the Green Line, is next on my reading list). I kept my mouth shut, for my nephew's and sister's sake, and because a political discussion with some of the most extreme Zionist nationalists you'll ever meet would probably have been rather pointless. Interestingly enough, especially considering the ideological nature of this settlement and reputation of its residents, I heard no political discussions of any kind (Netanyahu, Obama, Abbas, Hamas,Turkel Committee, peace talks, settlement freeze), although much of the conversation seemed to take various religious, political and historical ideas for granted. I met a lot of very nice people and saw a lot of cute kids (I cringed a little when my brother-in-law called kids "our no. 1 industry"). The sermon at Saturday-morning services (this is a religious settlement and nearly everyone goes to services) was rather philosophical and seemed to address my own dilemma in deciding to make an exception to my no-settlement-visit rule. The speaker discussed the conflict between ideological purity and consistency, and individual conscience and judgement. A conversation with a former classmate also touched upon the compatibility/incompatibility of Rabbinic Law and humanistic ideals. I saw no uniforms and very few guns (only a couple of handguns, obviously worn by residents on guard duty). From the inside, isolated even from the Palestinian village only a kilometre or two away (although the muezzin did seem a little too quiet in those reverberating, scrub-clad hills), it all seemed so normal, even idyllic. Beneath the attractive veneer however, is a society, a reality, rooted in religio-ethnic supremacism. As a left-wing Zionist pointed out to me last week, talk of Palestinian land and dispossession is dangerous, because "it could bring the entire Zionist enterprise into question". I couldn't have put it better myself, but there is something different about settlements like this one. The protective shell of denial and self-righteousness is much thinner, the act/s of dispossession more recent, more patently deliberate and much harder to justify beyond the self-referential bubble. This difference is the basis for belief in the two-state solution, and the lifeblood of denial of the earlier and more profound injustices of 1948. The post-1967 Zionist colonial project also offers self-styled moderates, Israeli and non, something they can sink their reasonable compromise-seeking teeth into, without rocking the boat too much or questioning Israel's "right to exist". This illusion of fairness and morality is better constructed, far easier to spin and promote but is, in fact, no less of an illusion than the blatantly supremacist bubble that allows the most extreme settlers to sleep at night, in their ostensibly nurturing, model communities. |
| Nothing, absolutely nothing, prevents Israel from demolishing Palestinian homes Posted: 15 Aug 2010 07:20 PM PDT On August 11, Jeff Halper, director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), sent out the following piece about the unending project of colonizing the West Bank, mocking the peace process and consolidating one sovereign entity. It was posted on ICAHD today. Yesterday, the day before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began, at 2:30 in the morning, workers sent by the Israeli authorities, protected by dozens of police, destroyed the tombstones in the last portion of the Mamilla cemetery, an historic Muslim burial ground with graves going back to the 7th Century, hitherto left untouched. The government of Israel has always been fully cognizant of the sanctity and historic significance of the site. Already in 1948, when control of the cemetery reverted to Israel, the Israeli Religious Affairs Ministry recognized Mamilla "to be one of the most prominent Muslim cemeteries, where seventy thousand Muslim warriors of [Saladin's] armies are interred along with many Muslim scholars. Israel will always know to protect and respect this site." For all that, and despite (proper) Israeli outrage when Jewish cemeteries are desecrated anywhere in the world, the dismantlement of the Mamilla cemetery has been systematic. In the 1960s "Independence Park" was built over a portion of it; subsequently an urban road was built through it, major electrical cables were laid over graves and a parking lot constructed over yet another piece. Now some 1,500 Muslim graves have been cleared in several nighttime operations to make way for…..a $100 million Museum of Tolerance and Human Dignity, a project of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. (Ironically, Rabbi Marvin Hier, the Wiesenthal Center's Director, appeared on Fox News to express his opposition to the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan, because the site of the 9/11 attack "is a cemetery.") The month-long period between Netanyahu's July 6th visit to Washington and the start of Ramadan has provided Israel with a window to "clear the table" after a frustrating hiatus on home demolitions imposed by the "old," mildly critical Obama Administration – although there is no guarantee that Israel will not demolish during Ramadan, especially if it wants to exploit the period until the November elections, knowing that until then Obama will not overtly oppose anything it does in the Occupied Territories. In fact, the process of demolishing Palestinian homes never ceased. On June 6th, for example, a year after the demolition of more than 65 structures and the forced displacement of more than 120 people, including 66 children, nine families of Khirbet Ar Ras Ahmar in the Jordan Valley, totaling 70 people, received a new round of "evacuation orders." A week later the Israeli High Court ordered the Civil Administration to "step up enforcement against illegal Palestinian structures" in Area C, the 60% of the West Bank under full Israeli control. And so, on July 13th, upon Netanyahu's return (Palestinian homes are not demolished without an OK from the Prime Minister's Office), three homes were demolished in the Palestinian East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya, followed by three more homes in Beit Hanina. The Jerusalem Municipality also announced the planned demolition of 19 more homes in Issawiya this month. In the West Bank, the Israeli "Civil" Administration demolished 55 structures belonging to 22 Palestinian families in the Hmayer area of Al Farisiye in the northern Jordan Valley, including 22 residential tents and 30 other structures used to shelter animals and store agricultural equipment. According to the UN's Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA): "This week [July 14-20, the week of Netanyahu's return from Washington] there was a significant increase in the number of demolitions in Area C, with at least 86 structures demolished in the Jordan Valley and the southern West Bank, including Bethlehem and Hebron districts. In 2010, at least 230 Palestinian structures have been demolished in Area C, forcibly displacing 1100 people, including 400 children. Approximately 600 others have been otherwise affected." Two-thirds of the demolitions for 2010 have occurred since Netanyahu's meeting with Obama. More than 3,000 demolition orders are outstanding in the West Bank, and up to 15,000 in Palestinian East Jerusalem. The demolition of homes is, of course, only a small, if painful, part of the destruction Israel wreaks daily on the Palestinian population. Over the past few weeks a violent campaign has been waged against Palestinian farmers in one of the most fertile agricultural areas of the West Bank, the Baka Valley, steadily being encroached upon by large suburbs of the settlement of Kiryat Arba, in Hebron. Israel already takes 85% of the West Bank's water for its own use, either for settlements (settlers use five times more water per capita than Palestinians, and Ma'aleh Adumim is currently building a water park in addition to its four municipal swimming pools and the huge fountains constantly flowing in the city center) or to be pumped into Israel proper – all in flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an Occupying Power from using the resources of an occupied territory. Accusing the farmers of "stealing water" – their own water – the Israel water company Mekorot, supported by the Civil Administration and the IDF, has in recent weeks destroyed dozens of wells, some of them ancient, and reservoirs used to collect rain water, which is also "illegal." Hundreds of hectares of agricultural land have dried up as irrigation pipes have been pulled out and confiscated by the Civil Administration. Fields of tomatoes, beans, eggplants and cucumbers are dying just before they can be harvested, and the grape industry in this rich valley is threatened with destruction. "I'm watching my life dry up before my eyes," says Ata Jaber, a Palestinian farmer who has had his home demolished twice, most of whose land lies buried under the Givat Harsina neighborhood of Kiryat Arba and whose plastic drip irrigation pipes are destroyed annually by the Civil Administration just before he can harvest. "I had hoped to sell my crop for at least $2000 before Ramadan, but all is gone." Settlements continue to be built, of course. The much-trumpeted "settlement freeze" amounted to no less than a temporary lull in construction. (Indeed, Netanyahu never used the word "freeze"; in Hebrew he refers only to a "pause.") According to the August report of Peace Now's Settlement Watch, at least 600 housing units have started to be built during the freeze, in over 60 different settlements – meaning that the rate of construction is about half of that during the same period in an average year when there is no freeze. Given that the approval process has never been halted – the Israeli government announced the planned building of 1600 housing units in the settlements when Vice President Biden was visiting, if you recall – making up for lost time when the "freeze" ends in late September will be an easy task. According to Ha'aretz, some 2,700 housing units are waiting to be constructed. The fact that the so-called settlement freeze did not really end settlement construction is obvious. The American government seems ready to accept lip-service only from Israel, as against overt and brutal threats towards the Palestinians if they do not acquiesce to the charade. Palestinian negotiators revealed last week that the Obama Administration threatened to cut all ties with the Palestinian Authority, political and financial, if they continued to insist on a genuine freeze on settlements or even clear parameters on what the sides will negotiate. (Netanyahu refuses to accept even the elementary principle of the 1967 borders being the basis of talks.) Just as destructive of any real peace process, however, is the fact that the focus on settlement freeze deflects attention from attempts by Israel to create "irreversible facts on the ground" which will defeat the very process of negotiation. Even if Israel did respect a settlement freeze, there is no demand, no expectation, absolutely nothing to prevent it from continuing to build the Wall (the enclosing of the Shuafat refugee camp inside Jerusalem and the town of Anata is being completed in these very days, and the village of Wallajeh, some of which spills into Jerusalem, is losing its lands, ancient olive trees and homes even as we speak). Nothing is preventing Israel from continuing to impoverish and imprison the Palestinian population through its twenty-year economic "closure," including the siege on Gaza, having reduced the Palestinian economy to ashes. Nothing stands in the way of completing a system of parallel (though not equal in size and quality) apartheid highways, big ones, going through Palestinian lands, for Israelis; narrow ones for Palestinians. Nothing keeps Israel from expelling Palestinian from their homes so that Jewish settlers can move in – on July 29th nine families living in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, returning home at night from a wedding, found themselves locked out of their homes by settlers and prevented from entering by the police. (Palestinians, of course, have no legal recourse to reclaiming their properties, whole villages, towns and urban neighborhoods, farms, factories and commercial buildings, confiscated from them in 1948 and after.) Nothing prevents Israel from terrorizing the Palestinian population, whether by its own army or the surrogate militia founded by the US and run by the Palestinian Authority to pacify its own population, whether by settlers who shoot and beat Palestinians and burn their crops with no fear of arrest, or by undercover agents, aided by thousands of Palestinian forced to become collaborators, many simply so that their children could receive medical care or so they could have a roof over their heads; whether by expulsion or the myriad administrative constraints of an invisible yet Kafkaesque system of total control and intimidation. Nothing opposes Israel's boycott of the Palestinian people, isolated from the world by Israeli-controlled borders, or policies that effectively boycott Palestinian schools and universities by preventing their proper functioning. And nothing, absolutely nothing, stops Israel from demolishing Palestinian homes – 24,000 in the Occupied Territories since 1967, and counting. Perhaps this way of welcoming Ramadan comes as no surprise in terms of the Occupied Territories. It took on an entirely different cast when, on July 26th, more than 1,300 Israeli Border Police, the shock-troops of the police's Yassam "special operations" unit and regular police, accompanied by helicopters, descended upon the Bedouin village of al-Arakib, just north of Beer-Sheva, a community within Israel inhabited by Israeli citizens. Forty-five homes were demolished, 300 people forcibly displaced. One of the most grotesque and dismaying parts of this operation was the use of Israeli Jewish high school students, volunteers with the civil guard, to remove the belongings of their fellow citizens from their homes before the demolition. Besides reports of vandalism and contempt for their victims, the students were photographed lounging in the residents' furniture in plain sight of its owners. Finally, when the bulldozers began demolishing the homes, the volunteers cheered and celebrated. Over the next week, as Israeli activists helped the residents pick up the pieces and rebuild their homes, the Jewish National Fund, the Israeli Land Authority, the Ministry of the Interior and the "Green Patrol" of the Ministry of Agriculture (established by Ariel Sharon to prevent Bedouin "take-over" of the Negev) sent in police and bulldozers and had the village demolished twice more. Although al-Arakib is one of 44 "unrecognized" Bedouin villages in the Negev – of which only eleven have even rudimentary education and medical services, no electricity, extremely limited access to water and none have paved roads (see http://rcuv.wordpress.com) – it is nevertheless populated by Israeli citizens, some of whom serve in the Israeli army. While demolitions of Arab homes within Israel is not a new phenomenon – last year the Israeli government demolished three times more houses of Israeli (Arab) citizens inside Israel as it did in the Occupied Territories (the destruction of up to 8,000 homes in the Gaza invasion aside) – it signifies that the term "occupation" cannot be restricted to the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza (and the Golan Heights) alone. The situation of Arab citizens of Israel is almost as insecure as that of the Palestinians of the Occupied Territories, and their exclusion from Israeli society almost as complete. While around 1,000 cities, towns and agricultural villages have been established in Israel since 1948 exclusively for Jews, not a single new Arab settlement has been established, with the exception of seven housing projects for Bedouins in the Negev where none of the residents are allowed to farm or own animals. Indeed, regulations and zoning prohibit Palestinian citizens of Israel from living on 96% of the country's land, which is reserved for Jews only. The message of the bulldozers is clear: Israel has created one bi-national entity between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River in which one population (the Jews) has separated itself from the other (the Arabs) and instituted a regime of permanent domination. That is precisely the definition of apartheid. And the message is delivered clearly in the weeks and days leading up to Ramadan. It is papered over with fine words. Netanyahu issued a statement saying: "We mark this important month amid attempts to achieve direct peace talks with the Palestinians and to advance peace treaties with our Arab neighbors. I know you are partners in this goal and I ask for your support both in prayers and in any other joint effort to really create a peaceful and harmonious coexistence." Obama and Clinton also sent their greetings to the Muslim world, Obama observing that Ramadan "remind[s] us of the principles that we hold in common, and Islam's role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings." Both the White House and the State Department will hold Iftar meals. But the bulldozers and other expressions of apartheid and warehousing tell a much different story. |
| 65 years ago today, WW II ended Posted: 15 Aug 2010 07:17 PM PDT On August 15, 1945, Japan agreed to the unconditional surrender demanded by the Allied Forces in the Potsdam Declaration that was made three weeks earlier. My father and mother were then homeless. Though members of a minor Chinese community in Japan, the American firebombs had not spared their houses. My mother and her classmates stopped practicing defending themselves against the invading American army with sharpened bamboo spears. The news of the preceding three weeks included two atomic bombs, the announcement that the Emperor was no longer divine and the mass suicides in front of the Imperial Palace. The Great Wars finally ended. The first of two World Wars started between the Hapsburg Empire and Russian-backed Serbia in August, 1914 in the town of Sarajevo, when Gabriel Princip, a Bosnian-Serb anarchist, assassinated Archduke Ferdinand. The theme of a minority population as problem people is a common and recurrent one in history. An anticipated two-months war ended up with the Bolshevik Revolution, the breakup of several empires--the Austrian-Hungarian, Imperial German, and Ottoman--and thanks to Chaim Weizmann, the Balfour Declaration. Never mind the King-Crane Commission and the Hussein-McMahon Letters; if the Poles, Czechs/Slovaks, Romanians can have their own country, why not the European Jews? The Brits have said earlier: We are a Christian country. We don't want too many non-Christian Jews from Slavic Europe. Let's give them Palestine instead, now that the League of Nations has given Britain its Mandatory Powers. Victors define history and thus Sudeten Germans couldn't be part of the new Germany. No, they had to be a minority population under Czechs. Too bad for Germans. As for the remnants of the Ottomans, Sykes-Picot agreement nicely divided the oil-rich Middle East, ignoring indigenous rights. France and Britain now ruled the Middle East, blocking the Turks, Russians, and the Germans. In the mean time, a dark-haired ex-corporal from Linz, Austria came to the conclusion that there was something foul in the land: Germany is broke and the Communists are taking over the world. And so, National Socialism rose partly as an anti-Commy effort. In the process, anti-Semitism became mixed up with anti-communism because many communist leaders and intellectuals were secular Jews. Italy must fight Communism, says Il Duce. Imperial Japan must fight Communist Soviets for control of China and free the American-, British-, Dutch-, and French colonies in Asia. There is nothing like a common enemy to excite the people. Fight Communism and fight Colonialism become part of the mantra. WWII erupted, killing 100 million people including millions of European Jews. Sorting out the resulting mess was a massive challenge. After V-E Day, the Potsdam Conference (Churchill, Attlee, Stalin, Truman) was held to plan the future. Massive ethnic cleansing was still tolerated then. At least eight million ethnic Germans (some living in Volga regions for hundreds of years) were deported to Germany. It was Poland for the Poles, Czechoslovakia for Czechs/Slovaks etc. etc. European countries were made 98% homogeneous except for Yugoslavia. No more minorities. It took Hitler, Stalin, and the Potsdam Conference to construct the basis of modern Europe. It is in this context that Jewish Israel was born. Having aided in the anti-Axis war efforts, the colonial populations from Indonesia to Africa demanded and obtained independence. Fast forward 65 years. Israel-Palestine and Kashmir-India are unresolved issues from WWII aftermath. If the Zionists had expelled all the Palestinians in 1947-48 from Israel, we probably wouldn't be discussing much about Israel. If Kashmir became part of Pakistan, as the demographics indicated in 1947, we probably wouldn't be talking about it now. And thus, the mess created by the disintegration of colonial empires and ethnic cleansing haunt us now. Victors dictate what happens after war and creates some absurd situations. Two examples come to mind. In the 1950's and 1960's, Taiwan (Republic of China) as represented by Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist government represented China. The Taiwan Lobby (led by powerful Henry Luce of Time-Life) in Congress made sure that this charade continued until Nixon went to Beijing. This was a remnant of the American support for the Nationalist Chinese during WWII against Japan. As corrupt as it was, they were "our" friends. I think of the Palestinian Authority as the modern-day equivalent of Nationalist Chinese. In addition, the Israel Lobby, particularly in Congress, works in a similar way to the Taiwan Lobby. Finally, did you wonder why an Israeli helicopter crashed recently during a joint military exercise in Romania? Or why Romania just last week declared support for Israel in case of war? Here are some clues: Romanian Jews, on the whole, did better than other European Jews during WW II; and 90,000 Romanian Jews emigrated to Israel at the founding of Israel. Did you know that the first ever female foreign minister in the world was Ana Pauker, a Jewish Romanian born in what is now Moldava? The current Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, was born in Chishinau, Moldova, and his mother tongue is Romanian. It is no coincidence that Romania is pro-Israel and its influence will be felt more as a member of the EU. History continues to haunt us. |
| Even 'Haaretz' has moral blindness re Gaza Posted: 15 Aug 2010 06:49 PM PDT This morning's Haaretz has an only too revealing editorial. The editors are "troubled" by statements by the IDF's chief of staff, Gabi Ashkenazi, concerning the lessons of the Israeli attack on the ship carrying goods to Gaza in defiance of the Israeli siege and blockade, an attack that killed nine Turkish civilians. It is worth quoting from the editorial at some length:
The editorial concludes:
Note that even Israel's most liberal newspaper, its acclaimed voice of what remains of Israeli reason, morality, and self-criticism, does not question whether Israel has any right at all to continue its occupation, repression and economic siege of the people of Gaza. On the contrary, it starts from the premise that Israel has both the right and need to blockade even civilian goods—just that it shouldn't use force in that case, or at least not if its soldiers enforcing the blockade are not in danger. And, by further implication, the restrictions on the use of force are even further relaxed if the ships are carrying weapons. Weapons, that is, that are intended to fight the Israeli occupation. You know, like the clandestine weapons flow to the Zionist movement during the 1940s, designed to resist the British occupation and establish an independent Jewish state. What accounts for this astonishing moral blindness, all the more painful considering its source as well as its concern about the "ethical profile" of Israel? Two possibilities suggest themselves: either the editorialists share in the blindness, or they fear that if they question not only the methods but the purpose of the Israeli occupation and blockade, they will lose any chance of convincing their fellow countrymen to reconsider the Israeli occupation and blockade of the Palestinians. Either way, it is hard to find reasons for optimism about the future of such a society. This piece is a crosspost from Jerry Slater's blog. |
| Posted: 15 Aug 2010 05:51 PM PDT new owner of Newsweek, and leaves out any reference to his wife Jane's Israel troubles or fondness for AIPAC. P.S. The piece's author, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, quoted Ali Abunimah last week regarding the Islamic Center near Ground Zero. And she mentioned the Nakba in a piece about George Bush in Israel on the country's 60th birthday. |
| Talk to me, Harvard, what are you feeling? Posted: 15 Aug 2010 11:22 AM PDT Israeli business site. No motive. (Thanks to Seham)
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| 'Miami Herald' breaks US taboo on describing Palestinians' second-class citizenship Posted: 15 Aug 2010 08:16 AM PDT Wow. Californian George Bisharat and Nimer Sultany (a civil rights attorney in Israel now at Harvard Law School Ph.D. program) have a fabulous op-ed in the Miami Herald, challenging Americans to demand equal rights for Palestinian Israelis as part of any peace deal. They emphasize what I always emphasize, and what Michel Warschawski emphasized in Toward an Open Grave, and what we Amerians decided was wrong in 1964, when blacks were kept out of the presidential nomination process: the exclusion of Palestinians from governing coalitions.
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| Kafka's siege (or why it makes sense to invest in a warehouse) Posted: 15 Aug 2010 07:52 AM PDT Each needle wrapper must have manufacturer's stamp, each nail must be photographed and accounted for, every inventory line endlessly debated with Israelis............ |
| Posted: 15 Aug 2010 07:50 AM PDT LA Times piece says that demonstrators in Kashmir, where anger against the occupation is "palpable," use rocks as the "weapon of choice." No lectures here about nonviolence.
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| Meet Handala (you probably know him already, I'm new to all this) Posted: 15 Aug 2010 05:52 AM PDT
Who's that little cartoon figure on the right? I've seen him on the wall in Palestine. He's Handala, a boy whose back is always turned, Palestinian symbol. Turks are now organizing an international cartoon contest in honor of the Palestinian cartoonist who created Handala. Najl al Ali died in London in 1987, assassinated on his way to his office at a newspaper. He said of his creation:
Here is electronic intifada's fine report on al Ali's life and murder (two theories). Cartoons go to an address in Turkey. By November 22. Update, more on Turkey, from Coteret: Turkey's P.M. did not invite the Israeli ambassador to an iftar (Ramadan fast-breaking) that other diplomats were invited to. The Israelis are p.o.'d. |
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