After 77 days on hunger strike, Thaer Halahleh is losing his hearing and he is vomiting blood. He now weighs less than 55 kilograms and the prison doctors have told him to expect death at any moment.

Bilal Diab, who began his hunger strike on the same day, is suffering from hypothermia and has lost sensation in his feet. He too is at imminent risk of death.

When Mr Halahleh was arrested in June 2010 he was not charged with a crime. Instead, he was placed in a prison cell without trial. The 33-year-old father of one has spent six and a half of the past 12 years jailed in this way. At no time was he presented with any evidence to justify his imprisonment. Mr Diab, too, is incarcerated without charge, trial or access to the material upon which his detention is based.

These men are part of a group of more than 2,500 Palestinian prisoners who are engaging in a mass open-ended hunger strike in protest against the inhumane and illegal treatment meted out by the Israeli Prison Service (IPS). Six others have been on hunger strike for between 52 and 70 days. All are in critical condition. They are responding to prolonged isolation, physical abuse, the denial of family and lawyer visits and the denial of education materials in the most non-violent and dignified way imaginable, and more prisoners are joining every week.

In response, the IPS is fining prisoners up to $130 (Dh477) per day as a punitive measure. Many have been placed in solitary confinement. More have had their water and electricity supply cut off. Almost all are being denied access to their lawyers and families.

The illegal policies of the IPS have long been overlooked by the international community. It is, in many ways, a microcosm of the belligerent occupation; Israel escapes meaningful condemnation despite violations of international law, resulting in impunity and a free rein to add to those breaches.

These abuses are imprinted on the faces of many. Mahmoud Issa has already spent 10 years in isolation. Imagine the psychological effects of such cruel and inhumane treatment. Imagine the loneliness of 10 years without family visits, without contact with humanity. Na’el Al-Barghouti, who spent 10 consecutive months in isolation, has spoken of his interactions with prison cats, how he used to record their meowing on a smuggled voice recorder and listen to the sound later, when he was alone.

When the Palestinian struggle for independence was driven by violence, the world’s media gorged itself on stories of Dalal Mughrabi and Laila Khaled, of hijackings and night raids and attacks in Tel Aviv. Today, the conflict has been reshaped by the non-violent demonstrations in Nabi Saleh and Bil’in. Violence has largely been cast aside, and the resistance is being played out on the floor of the United Nations and in stop-start negotiations that ignore the ever-expanding settlements and Israel’s systematic policies of discrimination.

Regrettably, peaceful resistance does not hold the same attraction for the world. It is only in recent days that the world community has begun to sit up and take notice of what is taking place in Israeli jails.

Today, more than 300 Palestinians are detained without charge or trial by Israel. Elected officials, human rights defenders and political scientists are among those who are held captive on the basis of “secret material” that is revealed neither to the detainees nor their lawyers.

While administrative detention is allowed under international humanitarian law, Israel’s practice goes far beyond what is permitted by the Fourth Geneva Convention. More than 60 years since the drafting of this Convention, and at a time when more and more attention is given to the realisation of human rights worldwide, Israel continues to ignore its provisions.

According to the Israeli authorities, the “test of a democracy is how you treat people incarcerated”. With this in mind it is worth recalling the case of Hana Shalabi. Following her arrest in January she was blindfolded, forcibly strip searched and assaulted. She was given a six-month administrative detention order and spent the first three days of her internment in solitary confinement. Ms Shalabi, like Khader Adnan, was shackled to her hospital bed despite being close to death. On her 33rd day of hunger strike she was violently dragged across the floor. There is nothing exceptional about her story. Similar experiences can be recounted by thousands more Palestinian families.

In March of this year, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called for Israel to end its policy of administrative detention, declaring it to be discriminatory and in violation of international law. The European Parliament resolution of September 4, 2008 made the same demand and urged Israel to ensure that the minimum standards of detention be respected. Both the UN Human Rights Committee and the Committee Against Torture have declared that prolonged administrative detention constitutes ill-treatment that exposes the detainee to torture and other violations of human rights.

Yet rather than address the problem and the legitimate demands of the prisoners, Israel has responded with the suppression of dissent and more degrading treatment.

Let us praise the pride and the humanity of these prisoners. Their strength is to be marvelled at. We must support Mr Halahleh and those with him in peaceful protest with all our might. However, only the international community has the power to save the lives of the hunger strikers now. To do so, they must intervene strongly before it is too late for the lives of those striking and for the improvement of the conditions of the Palestinian people as a whole.

Shawan Jabarin is General Director of Al-Haq, an independent non-governmental Palestinian human rights organisation based in Ramallah.

Original article here. (The National)

Is the mass Palestinian prisoner hunger strike the beginning of the Palestinian Spring?

Settlement expansion and targeted killings have increased as Palestinians move towards political restraint and away from violence [GALLO/GETTY]

Santa Barbara, CA - Can anyone doubt that if there were more than 1,500 prisoners engaged in a hunger strike in any country in the world other than Palestine, the media in the West would be obsessed with the story? Such an obsession would, of course, be greatest if such a phenomenon were to occur in an adversary state, such as Iran or China, but almost anywhere it would be featured news, that is, anywhere but Palestine. It would be highlighted day after day, and reported on from all angles, including the severe medical risks associated with such a lengthy refusal to take food, with respected doctors and human rights experts sharing their opinions. At this time there are two Palestinians who were the first to start this current wave of resistance to the practice of administrative detention, Thaer Halalheh and Bilal Diab, enduring their 70th day without food. Both men are reported by respected prisoner protection association, Addameer and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, to be in critical condition with their lives hanging in the balance. Examining doctors indicated recently that both detainees were reported to “suffer from acute muscle weakness in their limbs that prevents them from standing” and are under the “dual threat” of “muscle atrophy and thromohophilia, which can lead to a fatal blood clot”. Despite this dramatic state of affairs, until today there has been scant notice taken by Western governments, media and even the United Nations, of the life threatening circumstances confronting Halalheh or Diab, let alone the massive solidarity strike that is of shorter duration, but still notable as a powerful expression of nonviolent defiance. In contrast, consider the attention that the Western media has been devoting in recent days to a lone blind Chinese human rights lawyer, Chen Guangcheng, who managed to escape from house arrest in Beijing, find a safe haven at the US embassy, arrange a release and then seek an exit from China. This is an important and disturbing international incident, to be sure, but is it truly so much more significant than the Palestinian story as to explain the total neglect of the extraordinary exploits of thousands of Palestinians who are sacrificing their bodies, quite possibly their lives, to nonviolently protest severe mistreatment in the Israeli prison system, and by extension, the oppressiveness of an occupation that has gone on for 45 years? “Hana Shalabi was among those released in the prisoner exchange, but then barely recovering from her prior detention period, was rearrested in a night arrest raid, once again confined by an administrative detention decree for a further four months in Israeli jail.“ Except among their countrymen, and to some extent the region, these many thousand Palestinian prisoners have been languishing within an opaque black box for more than four decades, are denied international protection, exist without rights of their own, and cope as best they can without even a proper acknowledgement of their plight. There is another comparison that comes to mind. Recall the outpouring of concern, grief and sympathy throughout the West for Corporal Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who was captured on the Gaza border and held captive by Palestinians for five years. A powerful global campaign for his release on humanitarian grounds was organised, and received constant reinforcement in the media. World leaders pleaded for his release, the UN secretary general exhibited concern and Israeli commanding officers even told IDF fighting forces during the massive attacks on Gaza at the end of 2008 – that killed more than 1,450 Palestinians – that the real mission of Operation Cast Lead was to free Shalit, or at least inflict pain on the entire civilian population of Gaza for his capture, a grotesque instance of unlawful collective punishment. When Shalit was finally released in a prisoner exchange a few months ago there was a joyful homecoming celebration in Israel that abruptly ended when, much to the disappointment of the Israeli establishment, Shalit reported good treatment during captivity. Shalit’s father went further, saying if he was a Palestinian he would have tried to capture Israeli soldiers. Hunger strikes, administrative detention and Palestinian witness This current wave of hunger strikes started on April 17, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, and was directly inspired by the recently completed long and heroic hunger strikes of Khader Adnan (66 days) and Hana Shalabi (43 days), both of whom protested against the combination of administrative detention and abusive arrest and interrogation procedures. It should be understood that administrative detention depends on accusations contained in secret evidence not disclosed to the detainee or defence lawyers and allows Israel to imprison Palestinians for six months at a time, without bringing any criminal charges, with terms indefinitely renewable as they expire. Hana Shalabi was among those released in the prisoner exchange, but then, barely recovering from her prior detention period, was rearrested in a night arrest raid, once again confined by an administrative detention decree for a further four months in an Israeli jail. Consider, also, the experience of Thaer Halahla. Despite the fact he is only 33 years of age, he has been placed in administrative detention eight times for a total of six and a half years, despite the absence of any signs that he was involved in any violent activity. “Israeli prison guards and authorities are doing their best to intensify the torments of hunger… the strikers are being subjected to belittling harassment and a variety of punishments... “ Both Mr Adnan and Ms Shalabi were released through last minute deals negotiated at a time when their physical survival seemed in doubt, making death seem imminent. Israel apparently did not then want to risk agitating Palestinians by such martyrdom. At the same time, Israel, as usual, did not want to seem to be retreating under pressure, or draw into question its reliance on administrative detention and imprisonment. Israel has refused, until the present, to examine the grievances that gave rise to these hunger strikes. In Hana Shalabi’s case, her release was coupled with a punitive deportation order, which cruelly confines her to Gaza for the next three years, away from her family and the familiar surroundings of her home village of Burqin near Jenin in the West Bank. There are some indications that Ms Shalabi was not fully informed about the deportation feature of her release, and was manipulated by prison authorities and the lawyer representing her interests. It may now be with the continuation of the hunger strikes, and their rapid expansion, that Israel has altered its calculations – thinking that deaths among strikers would lead those still alive to abandon their hunger strike. It is difficult to assess the direction of the Israeli response at this stage. There are reports that some of the current hunger strikers have been offered similar conditional releases, but have so far steadfastly refused to resume eating if it means deportation or exile. A fierce struggle of wills between the strikers and the prison authorities is underway, between those with the advantages of hard power domination and those relying on the soft power resources of societal solidarity and moral and spiritual courage. As the strikers repeatedly affirm, their acts are not meant for their own release alone, but are on behalf of all prisoners, and beyond even them, in support of the wider Palestinian struggle for dignity, self-determination and freedom from oppression. The torment of these striking prisoners is not only a consequence of their refusal to accept food until certain conditions are met. Israeli prison guards and authorities are doing their best to intensify the torments of hunger. There are numerous reports that the strikers are being subjected to belittling harassment and a variety of punishments, including constant taunting, solitary confinement, the confiscation of personal belongings, denial of family visits, disallowance of examination by humanitarian NGOs and hardhearted refusals to transfer medically threatened strikers to civilian hospitals - where they could receive the kinds of medical treatment their critical conditions urgently require. As of April 2012, there were 322 Palestinians being held in ‘administrative detention’, according to the Addameer NGO [GALLO/GETTY] There are also broader issues at stake. When, in the past, Palestinians resorted to violent forms of resistance they were branded by the West as “terrorists”, their deeds were widely covered by dwelling upon their sensationalist aspects, but when Palestinians resort to nonviolent forms of resistance, whether hunger strikes or BDS or an intifada, their actions fall mainly on deaf ears and wooden eyes. Worse, there is a concerted propaganda spin to depict a particular tactic of nonviolent resistance as somehow illegitimate, either as a cheap trick to gain sympathy or as a dirty trick to subvert the state of Israel by drawing its legitimacy into question. All the while, Israel’s annexationist plans move ahead, with settlements expanding, and now recently, with more than 100 settler outposts, formerly illegal even under Israeli law, in the process of being retroactively legalised. Such moves signal once and for all that the Netanyahu leadership exhibits not one iota of good faith when it continues to claim that it seeks to negotiate a conflict ending peace treaty with the Palestinians. It is a pity that the Palestinian Authority has not yet had the diplomatic composure to call it quits when it comes to heeding the hollow calls of the Quartet to resume direct talks with Israel. It is long past time to crumble this long bridge to nowhere. Liberal hypocrisies That rock star of liberal pontificators, Thomas Friedman, has for years been preaching nonviolence to the Palestinians, implying that Israel – as a democratic country with a strong moral sensitivity – would surely yield in the face of such a principled challenge. Yet when something as remarkable as this massive expression of a Palestinian commitment to nonviolent resistance in the form of this open-ended hunger strike, dubbed “the war of empty stomachs”, takes place, Friedman – along with his liberal brothers – is stony silent. The news sections of the New York Times were also unable to find even an inch of space to report on these dramatic protests, weeks after Khader Adnan and Hana Shalabi had ended their hunger strikes. Not until the 65th day of the ongoing strikes of Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahla, along with the 1,500 or so Palestinian prisoners who commenced their refusal of food around April 17, did the Times report on them. “[A hunger strike] is both scary and physically taxing even for a day or so, and to maintain the discipline and strength of will to carry on such a strike for weeks at a time requires a rare combination of courage and resolve.“ Robert Malley, another influential liberal voice who had been a Middle East advisor to President Bill Clinton, while more constrained in offering advice to Palestinians than Friedman, suggests that any sustained display of Palestinian nonviolence, if met with Israeli violence, would be an embarrassment for Washington. Malley insists that if the Palestinians were to take to the streets in the spirit of Tahrir Square, and Israelis responded violently, as the Netanyahu government could be expected to do, it “would put the United States in an … acute dilemma about how to react to Israel’s reaction”. The dilemma depicted by Malley derives from Obama encouragement of the democratic aspirations of a people who he has repeatedly said deserve their own state on the one side, and the unconditional alignment with Israel on the other. Only a confirmed liberal would call this a genuine dilemma, as any informed and objective observer would know, that the US government would readily accept, as it has repeatedly done in the past, an Israeli claim that force was needed to maintain public order, and even more assuredly during a heated presidential campaign. In this manner, Palestinian nonviolence would be once more disregarded, and the super-alliance of these two partners in crime once more reaffirmed. Self-sacrifice and the Palestinian search for peace Let there be no mistake about the moral and spiritual background of the challenge being mounted by these Palestinians. Undertaking an open ended hunger strike is an inherently brave act that is fraught with risks and uncertainties, and is only undertaken in situations of extreme frustration or severe abuse. Of course, others have engaged in hunger strikes in the past to protest prison abuse, including the 2011 strikes in California prisons that lead to the death of Christian Alexander Chavez, a 27-year-old prisoner serving a life sentence for a murder he may never have committed. A prison hunger strike is never an act undertaken lightly or as a stunt. For anyone who has attempted to express protest in this manner, and I have for short periods as a free citizen during my decade of opposition to the Vietnam War, it is both scary and physically taxing even for a day or so, and to maintain the discipline and strength of will to carry on such a strike for weeks at a time requires a rare combination of courage and resolve. Very few individuals have the psychological makeup needed to adopt such an extreme tactic of self-sacrifice and witness, especially when the ordeal is aggravated by punishments and tauntings by prison officials. For a hunger strike to be done on this current scale of collective action underscores the horrible ordeal of the Palestinians that has been all but erased from the political consciousness of the West in the hot aftermath of the Arab Spring. It also suggests that a new Palestinian uprising may be in the offing, which would present Washington with the dilemma Malley worries about. The world has long refused to take notice of Palestinian one-sided efforts over the years to reach a peaceful outcome of their conflict with Israel. It is helpful to keep reminding ourselves that, in 1988, the PLO officially accepted Israel within its 1967 borders, a huge territorial concession, leaving the Palestinians with only 22 per cent of historical Palestine on which to establish an independent and sovereign state. In recent years, the main tactics of Palestinian opposition to the occupation, including on the part of Hamas, has been largely to turn away from violence, adhering to a diplomacy and practice that looked toward long-term peaceful coexistence between two peoples. Israel has refused to take note of either development, and has instead continuously thrown sand in Palestinian eyes. The official Israeli response to Palestinian moves toward political restraint and away from violence has been to embark upon a program of feverish settlement expansion, extensive targeted killing, reliance on excessive retaliatory violence as well as an various forms of intensifying oppressiveness that gave rise to these hunger strikes. One expression of this oppressiveness is the 50 per cent increase in the number of Palestinians held under administrative detention during the past year, along with an officially mandated worsening of conditions throughout its prison system. Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has authored and edited numerous publications spanning a period of five decades, most recently editing the volume International Law and the Third World: Reshaping Justice (Routledge, 2008). He is currently serving his third year of a six-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.  Follow him on Twitter: @rfalk13

Rep. Joe Walsh’s one-state solution

What would happen if a lawmaker advocated solving Israeli-Palestinian dispute with a one-state solution and encouraged one of the parties to the conflict to, well, leave to facilitate this outcome?

That’s the position advocated by Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) Of course, in contrast to those critics of Israel who back a one-state solution, the one state that Walsh proposed in his Washington Times op-ed this past weekend would be uniformly “Israel” and the folks he would encourage to leave would be Palestinians. Should they decide to stay they would be subject to “limited” voting rights.

Walsh wrote:

Those Palestinians who wish to may leave their Fatah- and Hamas-created slums and move to the original Palestinian state: Jordan. The British Mandate for Palestine created Jordan as the country for the Palestinians. That is the only justification for its creation. Even now, 75 percent of its population is of Palestinian descent. Those Palestinians who remain behind in Israel will maintain limited voting power but will be awarded all the economic and civil rights of Israeli citizens.

This is a fairly surprising policy proposal — at odds with the stated positions of the leaders of both the United States and Israel. So why the crickets, heard chirping here, by Robert Wright at the Atlantic.

Wright writes:

Offhand, I don’t recall a member of Congress in my lifetime saying anything so grotesquely at odds with American ideals about ethnic relations and for that matter basic human rights. Will the Anti-Defamation League denounce Walsh? Will the American Jewish Committee? Will AIPAC have anything to say about the congressman whose strongly pro-Israel views its newsletter approvingly highlighted? If not, why not?

It is certainly the case that Israel critics who have made similar arguments on behalf of the Palestinians have been roundly denounced.

For example, we know what would happen to a journalist who proposed that Jews should leave to accomodate Palestinian aspirations. Witness: Helen Thomas’ career.

We also know what would happen if a Democratic candidate were to embrace a one-state solution: Witness one-stater and Israel critic Marcy Winograd, and the Democratic establishment’s repudiation of her bid to unseat Jane Harman (then a Californian rep.) two years ago.

And we know what would happen if a Democratic lawmaker engaged with folks who encouraged one-state: Witness J Street’s bringing to heel of Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) two years ago.

Incidentally, Walsh got $2,500 this year from a pro-Israel PAC, Allies for Israel. Here are its donors.

(Click here to watch the film.)

A film by Benny Brunner

When the Arab-Israeli war raged in 1948, librarians from Israel’s National Library followed soldiers as they entered Palestinian homes in towns and villages. Their mission was to collect as many valuable books and manuscripts as possible. They are said to have gathered over 30,000 books from Jerusalem and another 30,000 from Haifa and Jaffa.

Officially it was a ‘cultural rescue operation’ but for Palestinians it was ‘cultural theft’.

It was only in 2008 when an Israeli PhD student stumbled across documents in the national archive that the full extent of the ‘collection’ policy was revealed.

Using eyewitness accounts, this film tries to understand why thousands of books appropriated from Palestinian homes still languish in the Israeli National Library vaults and why they have not been returned to their rightful owners. Was it cultural preservation or robbery?

Netanyahu, Barak, and Mofaz are delegitimizing Israel

Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Mofaz are telling their nation and the world: We are leaders in a country of dwarfs, its citizens are all boors and idiots, and we can sell them any lie.

By Gideon Levy

The delegitimization of Israel has been accelerating at a dizzying pace these past couple of weeks − only this campaign is being waged here, in Israel, not by critics abroad.

This latest attack of delegitimization is much more serious than what goes on in the rest of the world. This time the country is being delegitimized in the eyes of its own people. In the end, not only will the world stop believing Israel, Israelis themselves will stop believing in it or its institutions.

So the international organizations are asked to hold their fire. The people at the top here are doing the work for them. A line, albeit a crooked one, connects the mischief leading to the “unity” government to the state’s mischief in the case of Beit El’s Ulpana neighborhood, and this line spells out only one thing to Israelis, particularly younger ones: Fraud and lies are the way to go.

Those clucking their tongues at the wildness of today’s young people might want to remember that the rot starts at the top. The next time a teenager exits a courtroom, he can say what he learned from his prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that he’ll “consider” and “think about” what he’ll do in view of the verdict; and the next time someone is accused of fraud, he can point to his role model, Shaul Mofaz.

These two have shattered the fragile structure of Israeli governance more than any of Israel’s critics have done. The damage they’re causing doesn’t just harm our image; it gnaws at our essence. This required class on fraud and crime proves our country’s leaders are not just cynical figures, but anti-educational. Too bad we cannot remove them from our curriculum.

Civics teacher Benjamin Netanyahu has been giving a lesson on the rule of law. He’s teaching his students that after a final court ruling, the convicted party decide how to respond. The court doesn’t decide, the guilty one decides. His colleague in the teachers’ room, his new deputy Shaul Mofaz, says that he “believes in the rule of law,” as if the rule of law is a matter of faith, and if you don’t believe, you need not obey.

The Israel Police has also been conducting anti-civics lessons, teaching us that protesters are enemies. After they jailed demonstrators who hadn’t even left their offices on the eve of Independence Day, they behaved violently at Monday’s demonstration against the new government. What will young people think about their country? What do they have to look forward to?

But these were just a prelude to the most anti-educational lesson of all: Presenting the inclusion of Mofaz in the coalition as a step that will benefit the country. This blatant lie is apparently being accompanied by illegally hiding secret clauses in the new coalition agreement.

How fascinating that this process was cooked up by Natan Eshel, Netanyahu’s former top aide who allegedly sexually harassed a co-worker. Once upon a time, someone in his situation would seclude himself at home in shame; now he gives television interviews. A private attorney is managing the so-called negotiations with the Palestinians and a disgraced former aide is putting together Israeli governments. What stellar examples of the delegitimization of government institutions.
In 1956, Rahamim Kalanter, a Jerusalem city councilman, agreed to remain in the governing coalition even though his party, the National Religious Party, walked out, and in return he was named deputy mayor for religion and sanitation. Since then, the act of crossing party lines in exchange for government goodies has been called “Kalanterism.”

In 2005, Alex Goldfarb bolted his party, Tsomet, and cast one of the votes that allowed the Oslo II accords to pass by two votes. In return he was given a government post that came with a big car.

Kalanter and Goldfarb were once symbols of shame. But now we must apologize to them. Mofaz managed to go much further than either of them; he joined the government just to assure another year-and-a-half in the Knesset for himself and Kadima colleagues such as Ronit Tirosh, and no one will even bother making up derogatory terms for this.

But the biggest damage of all here is the message that emerges from these scandals: Your leaders, dear citizens of Israel, take you for fools. Is there any more serious delegitimization of a country that this affront to its people? If this is what Israel’s leaders think of their countrymen, then what will they say in New York or London?

Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Mofaz are telling their nation and the world: We are leaders in a country of dwarfs, its citizens are all boors and idiots, and we can sell them any lie. If we tell them day is night and spitting is rain, they’ll believe it.

We are also leaders of a country where court verdicts are merely suggestions. Now we are not only flouting international law, but our own law.
And if that isn’t delegitimization, then what is?

(original here)

For younger Jews, Horowitz BDS smear is cynical exploitation

For previous articles on this, see NY Times fails to publish professors’ letter of protest at Horowitz advert,  and  Massive US support for BDS revealed by hate advert in NY Times

Horowitz smear will only invigorate boycott Israel campaign

David Letwin, Opinion, The Electronic Intifada
07.05.12

On 24 April, The New York Times featured a large ad in which David Horowitz smeared the Palestinian campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

According to Horowitz, BDS represents a Nazi-like boycott of Jewish businesses, bears indirect responsibility for the recent murder of a rabbi and three Jewish children in France, and contributes to “calls for a new Holocaust throughout the Middle East and Europe.”

To a growing number of Jewish BDS supporters like myself, these charges are a cynical exploitation of our ancestors’ suffering in Europe meant to distract from Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people.

The truth is, the Palestinian BDS campaign targets neither Jews nor Judaism, but rather individuals and institutions — regardless of ethnicity — that maintain the Israeli apartheid state. In this, BDS resembles numerous social justice boycotts, including those against Nazi Germany, segregated buses in Alabama and apartheid South Africa.

No response necessary
As for the hysterical claim that BDS contributed to the barbaric murders in Toulouse, no response is necessary; the movement explicitly condemns all forms of bigotry and racism — including anti-Semitism.

Moreover, Jews do not face widespread threats of ”a new Holocaust” in Europe, the Middle East, or anywhere else. Indeed, it is not Jews, but Arabs, Muslims and other immigrants who are targeted by systemic racism and repression in the US and Europe: the “new anti-Semitism” is Islamophobia.

Desperate attempt to prop up Israeli myths
There is, however, method to Horowitz’s madness. It reflects a desperate attempt to prop up the myth that Israel is a benevolent democratic haven for a persecuted people, a victim whose efforts for peace are frustrated by irrationally violent neighbors motivated by age-old anti-Semitic hatred.

Zionism’s crimes have taught the world otherwise.

We now know, thanks to unflagging Palestinian resistance, more honest scholarship and social justice movements like BDS, about more than six decades of Israeli ethnic cleansing, racism, dispossession, murder and occupation — all designed to achieve and preserve a “Jewish state.”

We know that Israel was founded through the forced dispossession of 750,000 indigenous Palestinians, and erasure of more than 500 Palestinian towns and villages.

We know that Palestinians who managed to remain within the areas of historic Palestine upon which the State of Israel was declared — today, numbering 1.2 million (or 20 percent of the population in Israel) — are permanently separated from their families in exile, subject to more than 20 racist and discriminatory laws affecting all phases of life, treated as a “demographic threat” and threatened with mass expulsion on the basis they are not Jewish.

We know Israel’s illegal military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip — including the destruction of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, checkpoints and pass system in the West Bank, massacres of civilians in Gaza — is not an exception to some fictional Israeli “democracy,” but the logical extension of dispossession and oppression of Palestinians without which, as Zionists themselves frequently point out, the “Jewish state” could not exist.

“Was Auschwitz their fault?”
We know Palestinian resistance is motivated not by anti-Semitism, but by this ongoing colonization and ethnic cleansing. As David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, freely admitted, “If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. … There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?” (Nahum Goldman, The Jewish Paradox, p. 99).

We know that veteran South African freedom fighters have declared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians “worse than apartheid.”

We know that just as the United States once armed apartheid South Africa, in the past ten years alone, it has — with overwhelming bipartisan support — armed Israel with $17 billion in military aid; over the next decade, it will give another $30 billion.

We know that contemporary anti-Jewish sentiment — however indefensible — is often a predictable response to Zionist insistence that Israel’s crimes speak for, and are embraced by, all Jews.

We know it is the injustices of the Israeli regime — what the Palestine calls “a single integrated regime of apartheid” — that defines the BDS movement’s holistic demands: an end to the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and country, and full equality throughout historic Palestine.

Above all else, we know none of these rights can be realized until the “Jewish state” is dismantled and replaced by the only just, sustainable alternative: “a community,” in the words of a recent Palestinian declaration of opposition to anti-Semitism, “where all are free, all are equal and all are welcome.”

Horowitz concludes his attack with a thinly-veiled threat against anti-apartheid professors who dare speak their conscience. But he will discover, like many have before him, that such witch-hunting tends to invigorate rather than intimidate.

In that spirit, I thank David Horowitz for the opportunity to reaffirm my support for the cause of Palestinian freedom and its campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

David Letwin is a Palestine solidarity activist in New York.

Israel’s decision to give recognition to three illegal outposts in the West Bank has outraged the international community, and highlighted again its indifference to concluding a peace deal with its Palestinian neighbours. The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network has called on the Australian government to recall the Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation Bill Shorten who is currently on an official visit to Israel as leader of an Australian business delegation.

Last week the Israeli Government attracted worldwide condemnation, including from the US State Department, the UN Secretary General and other world leaders, for giving legal recognition to the outposts of Bruchin, Sansana, and Rechelim. Outposts as well as settlements are illegal under international law. Israel has ignored countless UN resolutions calling on it to cease settlement activity.

In the same week, the Israeli Government also blocked moves to implement a High Court of Justice order to demolish the outpost of Ulapuna. It also issued orders to a Palestinian village to demolish over 1,000 income-generating Olive Trees from their own land, while nearby settlements expand.

While Australia has spoken out against human rights abuses in other places around the world, on this it has been silent.

“Israel’s recent actions have been both arrogant and aggressive, and deliberately undermine what limited prospects there are for a resumption of negotiations for a just and lasting settlement” said APAN Vice President Robert Newton. “Israel continues to act in breach of its obligations under international law. Under its illegal military occupation of the West Bank and its blockade of the Gaza Strip, it continues to violate Palestinian human rights on a daily basis. Australia should condemn Israel’s behaviour unequivocally”, he said.

Mr Newton said APAN was calling on the Australian government to recall immediately Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation Bill Shorten who is currently in Israel. “Rather than having a Minister lead a trip organised by Israel lobbyists, the Australian government should be strongly condemning all of Israel’s breaches of International law”, he said.

Mr Newton added he was puzzled and disappointed by the failure of Australia’s Foreign Minister to condemn these latest outrages by Israel against a civilian population under its occupation.

Minister Bill Shorten is leading a Business Mission to Israel co-sponsored by the Israeli Embassy and the Australia- Israel Chamber of Commerce until May 5.

Links:

Ulapuna: http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=267927

Recognition of Settlements:

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2012/sgsm14252.doc.htm

http://translations.state.gov/st/english/texttrans/2012/04/201204244507.html#axzz1taYdekSe

http://www.timesofisrael.com/leaders-blast-
government-move-to-legalize-three-west-bank-outposts/

Bill Shorten’s visit:

http://www.aicc.org.au/attachment/news/Bill%20Shorten%20MP%20-%20EXPRESSION%20OF%20INTEREST.pdf

Demolition of Olive trees:

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-s-civil-administration-orders-palestinians-to-uproot-1-000-young-olive-trees-in-nature-reserve-1.427401

The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network is a national group representing churches; trade unions; Jewish, Palestinian, aid and human rights groups; academics; professional groups and former diplomats and other public servants.

Justice requires action to stop subjugation of Palestinians

By Desmond Tutu, special to the Tampa Bay Times.

A quarter-century ago I barnstormed around the United States encouraging Americans, particularly students, to press for divestment from South Africa. Today, regrettably, the time has come for similar action to force an end to Israel’s long-standing occupation of Palestinian territory and refusal to extend equal rights to Palestinian citizens who suffer from some 35 discriminatory laws.

I have reached this conclusion slowly and painfully. I am aware that many of our Jewish brothers and sisters who were so instrumental in the fight against South African apartheid are not yet ready to reckon with the apartheid nature of Israel and its current government. And I am enormously concerned that raising this issue will cause heartache to some in the Jewish community with whom I have worked closely and successfully for decades. But I cannot ignore the Palestinian suffering I have witnessed, nor the voices of those courageous Jews troubled by Israel’s discriminatory course.

Within the past few days, some 1,200 American rabbis signed a letter — timed to coincide with resolutions considered by the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA) — urging Christians not “to selectively divest from certain companies whose products are used by Israel.” They argue that a “one-sided approach” on divestment resolutions, even the selective divestment from companies profiting from the occupation proposed by the Methodists and Presbyterians, “damages the relationship between Jews and Christians that has been nurtured for decades.”

While they are no doubt well-meaning, I believe that the rabbis and other opponents of divestment are sadly misguided. My voice will always be raised in support of Christian-Jewish ties and against the anti-Semitism that all sensible people fear and detest. But this cannot be an excuse for doing nothing and for standing aside as successive Israeli governments colonize the West Bank and advance racist laws.

I recall well the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail in which he confesses to his “Christian and Jewish brothers” that he has been “gravely disappointed with the white moderate … who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action;’ who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom. …”

King’s words describe almost precisely the shortcomings of the 1,200 rabbis who are not joining the brave Palestinians, Jews and internationals in isolated West Bank communities to protest nonviolently against Israel’s theft of Palestinian land to build illegal, Jewish-only settlements and the separation wall. We cannot afford to stick our heads in the sand as relentless settlement activity forecloses on the possibility of the two-state solution.

If we do not achieve two states in the near future, then the day will certainly arrive when Palestinians move away from seeking a separate state of their own and insist on the right to vote for the government that controls their lives, the Israeli government, in a single, democratic state. Israel finds this option unacceptable and yet is seemingly doing everything in its power to see that it happens.

Many black South Africans have traveled to the occupied West Bank and have been appalled by Israeli roads built for Jewish settlers that West Bank Palestinians are denied access to, and by Jewish-only colonies built on Palestinian land in violation of international law.

Black South Africans and others around the world have seen the 2010 Human Rights Watch report which “describes the two-tier system of laws, rules, and services that Israel operates for the two populations in areas in the West Bank under its exclusive control, which provide preferential services, development, and benefits for Jewish settlers while imposing harsh conditions on Palestinians.” This, in my book, is apartheid. It is untenable. And we are in desperate need of more rabbis joining the brave rabbis of Jewish Voice for Peace in speaking forthrightly about the corrupting decadeslong Israeli domination over Palestinians.

These are among the hardest words I have ever written. But they are vitally important. Not only is Israel harming Palestinians, but it is harming itself. The 1,200 rabbis may not like what I have to say, but it is long past time for them to remove the blinders from their eyes
and grapple with the reality that Israel becoming an apartheid state or like South Africa in its denial of equal rights is not a future danger, as three former Israeli prime ministers — Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert and David Ben Gurion — have warned, but a present-day reality. This harsh reality endured by millions of Palestinians requires people and organizations of conscience to divest from those companies — in this instance, from Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions and Hewlett Packard — profiting from the occupation and subjugation of Palestinians.

Such action made an enormous difference in apartheid South Africa. It can make an enormous difference in creating a future of justice and equality for Palestinians and Jews in the Holy Land.

Desmond Tutu, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, is archbishop-emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa.

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/justice-requires-action-to-stop-subjugation-of-palestinians/1227722

From +972 Magazine

Monday, April 30 2012|Larry Derfner

“The tendency toward conflict is in the essence of the Arab.” — Benzion Netanyahu, the prime minister’s father, who died Monday (from a 2009 interview).

Below are excerpts from a lengthy April 3, 2009 interview in the Israeli daily Maariv conducted by Sari Makover Belikov with Benzion Netanyahu, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s father, who died Monday morning at age 102. They were translated into English and published the same day by Noam Sheizaf on his personal blog, Promised Land. Benzion Netanyahu, who had a deep, formative influence on the prime minister’s thinking, and who will be widely remembered as a great Zionist visionary, held views on Arabs and war that were simply horrific.

According to the interview, Professor Netanyahu, then 99, a world-renowned historian of the Spanish Inquisition, spoke with perfect lucidity; in fact, he was about to leave for a working visit to the United States. The professor gave the interview without first telling the Prime Minister’s Office.  As walla.co.il reported, the prime minister tried to prevent its publication and even called Maariv’s publisher, Ofer Nimrodi, on the matter. Finally it was agreed that because of Prof. Netanyahu’s age, his son Iddo would be able to go over the father’s answers prior to publication. Noam felt this gave even further confirmation that Prof. Netanyahu was in full control of his faculties during the interview, since his son Iddo surely would not have let Maariv publish a text which did not reflect his father’s personality and views.

Excerpts:

On the “essence” of Arabs

Prof. Netanyahu: The Jews and the Arabs are like two goats facing each other on a narrow bridge. One must jump to the river – but that involves a danger of death. The strong goat will make the weaker one jump …  and I believe the Jewish power will prevail.

Q: What does the Arabs’ “jump” entail?

A: That they won’t be able to face [anymore] war with us, which will include withholding food from Arab cities, preventing education, terminating electrical power and more. They won’t be able to exist, and they will run away from here. But it all depends on the war, and whether we will win the battles with them.

Q: I suppose you don’t believe in the peace process.

A: I don’t see any signs that the Arabs want peace. …  We will face fierce attacks from the Arabs, and we must react firmly. If we don’t, they will go on and Jews will start leaving the country. …  We just handed them a strong beating in Gaza, and they still bargain with us over one hostage. …  If we gave them a beating that would really hurt them, they would have given us Gilad Shalit back.

Q: Operation Cast Lead was one of the worst beatings we ever handed on a civilian population.

A: That’s not enough. It’s possible that we should have hit harder.

Q: You don’t like the Arabs, to say the least.

A: The Bible finds no worse image than that of the man from the desert. And why? Because he has no respect for any law. Because in the desert he can do as he pleases. The tendency toward conflict is in the essence of the Arab. He is an enemy by essence. His personality won’t allow him any compromise or agreement. It doesn’t matter what kind of resistance he will meet, what price he will pay. His existence is one of perpetual war.

Q: Is there any hope of peace?

A: Out of an agreement? No. The other side might keep the peace if it understands that doing anything [else] will cause it enormous pain. The two-state solution doesn’t exist. There are no two peoples here. There is a Jewish people and an Arab population. …  There is no Palestinian people, so you don’t create a state for an imaginary nation. …  They only call themselves a people in order to fight the Jews.

Q: So what’s the solution?

A: No solution but force …  strong military rule. Any outbreak will bring upon the Arabs enormous suffering. We shouldn’t wait for a big uprising to start, but rather act immediately with great force to prevent them from carrying on. … If it’s possible, we should conquer any disputed territory in the Land of Israel. Conquer and hold it, even if it brings us years of war. We should conquer Gaza, and parts of the Galilee, and the Golan. This will bring upon us a bloody war, since war is difficult for us – we don’t have a lot of territory, while the Arabs have lots of space to retreat to. But that’s the only way to survive here.

There is valuable experience [on this matter] we don’t pay notice to. I mean the Ottoman rule over the Arabs. The Turks ruled over the Arabs for 400 years, and there was peace and quiet everywhere. The Arabs hated the Ottomans, but every little thing they did brought mass killings and hanging in towns squares. They were hanging people in Damascus, and Izmir …  every town had hanging posts in its center. … The Arabs were so badly beaten, they didn’t dare revolt. Naturally, I don’t recommend the use of hangings as a show of force like the Turks did, I just want to show that the only thing that might move the Arabs from the rejectionist position is force.

On the peace process

Prof. Netanyahu: The problem with the Left is that it thinks the war with the Arabs is like all the wars that nations around the world are conducting. These wars end with a compromise after one side wins or after both sides get tired from war and understand that victory is not possible. But in the Arabs’ case, their nature and character won’t allow any compromise. When they talk of compromise, it’s a way of deceiving. They want to make the other side stop giving its best efforts and fall into the trap of compromising. The Left helps them with that goal.

Q: If compromise replaces war, what is the damage?

A: Compromise is not realistic. It weakens our positions and brings us to a state of limpness, of false believes, of illusions. Every illusion is weakening.

On Arab citizens of Israel

Prof. Netanyahu: We don’t have a real partnership with them. The Arab citizens’ goal is to destroy us. They don’t deny that they want to destroy us. Except for a small minority who is willing to live with us under certain agreements because of the economic benefits they receive, the vast majority of the Israeli Arabs would chose to exterminate us if they had the option to do so. Because of our power they can’t say this, so they keep quiet and concentrate on their daily life.

I think we should speak to the Israeli Arabs in the language they understand and admire – the language of force. If we act with strength against any crime they commit, they will understand we show no forgiveness. Had we used this language from the start, they would have been more careful.

I am talking about strength that is based on justice. They should know that we will maintain a just attitude toward them, but a tough one. You don’t kill or hurt people or deny their right to make a living just like that. In the villages that we rule, we need to grant them all the rights – infrastructure, and transportation and education …  but they have to give things in return. If the teachers are inciting the students, we should close the schools and expel the teachers. …  We should preserve their rights, but also ours.

On his son, Israel’s prime minister 

Prof. Netanyahu: Benjamin, or Bibi, is, in several aspects, a great man. He can influence and motivate people to do what’s necessary. …  He is loyal to his people, and has a sense of responsibility. …  He is not one who prefers the comfort of compromise just to rid himself of pressure.

Q. Is he influenced by your opinions?

A: Sometimes I feel Bibi is influenced by them from a very early age, and sometimes I don’t. We don’t always have the same opinions…

Q: And still, how much do you think you’ve influenced his opinions today?

A: I have a general idea. Bibi might aim for the same goals as mine, but he keeps to himself  the ways to achieve them, because if he gave expression to them, he would expose his goals.

Q: Is that your wish?

A: No, I just believe that this could be the case. Because he is smart. Because he is very careful. Because he has his ways of handling himself. I am talking about tactics regarding the revealing of theories that people with a different ideology might not accept. That’s why he doesn’t expose them - because of the reaction from his enemies as well as from the people whose support he seeks. It’s an assumption, but it might be correct.