Written by Jason Kunin, he extensively goes through the boycott campaign of Israel.
"To be sure, there are may terrible things going on in the world, and much suffering being inflicted upon people by despotic governments. Yet what makes Israel a target for boycott is that boycott has the potential to be an effective, peaceful tool by which ordinary people can bring about change, and many Jewish people – including me – support it for precisely the reasons I have listed above. As George Bisharat wrote just as I was completing this article, “‘the worst first’ has never been the rule for whom to boycott. Had it been, the Pol Pot regime, not apartheid South Africa, would have been targeted in the past. It was not - Cambodia's ties to the West were insufficient to make any embargo effective. Boycotting North Korea today would be similarly futile.”13 Israelis have deep ties to the West and generally like to see themselves within its liberal traditions. Like people anywhere, they are no less prone to wanting to be liked and thinking well of themselves. They are no more lacking in personal decency than people anywhere else. And like people in many places – most places, perhaps – they have been ruled by bad leaders and indoctrinated since birth into accepting an unjust status quo. As in apartheid South Africa, a boycott campaign has the potential to reach ordinary Israelis – to appeal to their sense of decency and invite them into the family of “ordinary” nations they so long to join. All they have to do is end their apartheid now."
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Hamas the moderates
Even though Israel continues with increased force on Gaza, Hamas is attempting to limit the retaliation in a bid to show they are serious about talks:
"re was a time when the killing of six Hamas gunmen, which Israel said it did Monday in an airstrike on the Gaza Strip, would have propelled the Islamic militants to unleash a barrage of rockets into southern Israel.
But despite angry vows of revenge, Hamas continued to uphold Tuesday an undeclared policy, established after its takeover of Gaza in June, of limiting rocket attacks on Israel."
Despite Israel's incursions, they refuse to acknowledge that Hamas wants to play the politics game.
"Though many observers argue that Hamas's political agenda dictates different behavior from its days as underground opposition to the Palestinian Authority (PA), Israel's army continues to see Hamas as a group driven by an extremist agenda. Still, a military spokesperson acknowledged that Hamas has recently resisted the kind of sustained barrages on Israeli cities that provoked escalations in the past."
What have we been saying all along?
"No political process can take place without involving the party which represents a major force in Palestinian society," wrote Ahmed Yousef, the political adviser to former Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, in an op-ed in the daily newspaper Al-Quds. "The way that the international community deals with Hamas decides the way the Islamists deal with the West, either in the shape of coexistence in the shape of confrontation."
Nothing but a more militant group can arise out of the boycott of Hamas. It is time to let them play the politics game.
"re was a time when the killing of six Hamas gunmen, which Israel said it did Monday in an airstrike on the Gaza Strip, would have propelled the Islamic militants to unleash a barrage of rockets into southern Israel.
But despite angry vows of revenge, Hamas continued to uphold Tuesday an undeclared policy, established after its takeover of Gaza in June, of limiting rocket attacks on Israel."
Despite Israel's incursions, they refuse to acknowledge that Hamas wants to play the politics game.
"Though many observers argue that Hamas's political agenda dictates different behavior from its days as underground opposition to the Palestinian Authority (PA), Israel's army continues to see Hamas as a group driven by an extremist agenda. Still, a military spokesperson acknowledged that Hamas has recently resisted the kind of sustained barrages on Israeli cities that provoked escalations in the past."
What have we been saying all along?
"No political process can take place without involving the party which represents a major force in Palestinian society," wrote Ahmed Yousef, the political adviser to former Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, in an op-ed in the daily newspaper Al-Quds. "The way that the international community deals with Hamas decides the way the Islamists deal with the West, either in the shape of coexistence in the shape of confrontation."
Nothing but a more militant group can arise out of the boycott of Hamas. It is time to let them play the politics game.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
What the MKs really think
We can peak into the mindset of the Israeli Knesset members when one of its leading members, Arieh Eldad, muses that "Jordan Is Palestine". All thanks to a misguided revival of the Jordanian Option, which was originally a plan to overlook the PLO twenty years ago and refuse to grant sovereignty for the Palestinians by seeking "moderates" to be the suitable partner for Israel. (Does that sound familiar to anyone?)
Eldad astutely quotes Rabin, "a Palestinian state will rise only on the ruins of Israel". Typically Eldad wants to promote the idea that the Palestinians want the demise of Israel (as some of them would welcome after sixty odd years of oppression), but unintentionally invokes the hardline that no Palestinian state will ever be given unless its 'on the ruins of Israel'. In crude lamen's terms, you'll have an independent state "over my dead body".
The Jordanian Option is demurred, because Eldad wants the world to recognise that:
"Jordan is Palestine. Between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, only one country has a right to exist, the State of Israel. Palestinians have a state across the river. They are 70 percent of its citizens."
Woah. Exchange the word "Israel" for "Palestine", and you would have the typical perception that has conditioned public opinion for decades. But this is taboo, is it not? No. Eldad is just stating openly what every MK (besides the Arab ones) in the Knesset, past and present, have been thinking. They clearly do not want any state resembling viability next to them. ALL of the area between the Mediterranean to the Jordan River is reserved for the Jews. Not exactly a partner for peace, is it?
Eldad gives the statistic that 70 % of Jordan's citizens are Palestinians. Interestingly enough, what was left out is that these citizens are part of the Diaspora that Israel helped create since 1948. According to the Global Exchange website,
"Jordan has received the largest number of Palestinian refugees. An estimated 100,000 of all refugees fled across the Jordan River in 1948. A large majority of Palestinians are Jordanian citizens. Since the return of over 300,000 Palestinians from Kuwait in 1991, between 45% and 70% of all Jordanians are Palestinians from the West Bank. Although Palestinians suffer from discrimination and a large number still live in camps, Jordan has granted full citizenship to the Palestinian refugees and their descendents."
One wonders if a state can conveniently displace the indigenous population to the neighbour states, and then audaciously announce that they had no connection to the land and are really part of the country they inhabit in refugee camps.
Eldad continues:
"The land of Israel was already divided into two countries when Churchill tore what lies across from the Jordan River from our national home and gave it to the Arabs in 1922. And even if this was an historic crime against the Jewish people, it is already an historic fact we failed to change."
Nevermind that Transjordan was created by the British Empire for lovely oil purposes, Israel was founded in 1948, not 1922. Zionism was marked down in the land of Palestine and to this day, they still feel it an injustice that they were not only given 100 % of Palestine, instead of only 55 % (which they then forcefully took the rest from the Palestinians during 47-48), but the true part of Eretz Israel, even east of the Jordanian River. Statistics have shown that the Jewish population represented quite the minority even in 1922, at 11%. Up until the creation of the state, they only represented a third of the total population. And yet it is "an historic crime against the Jewish people". What kind of a crime is it against the Palestinians? Oh right. They are Jordanians, correct? In addition, wasn't all of this part of a sham self-determination policy that aimed to placate the indigenous population while being under the control of empirical satraps?
What Israel wants is expulsion. Whether it is with Eldad's "voluntary transfer", or with Olmert's slow destruction. No Palestinian state is negotiable for Israel: they want them expelled to the east of the River Jordan.
Eldad astutely quotes Rabin, "a Palestinian state will rise only on the ruins of Israel". Typically Eldad wants to promote the idea that the Palestinians want the demise of Israel (as some of them would welcome after sixty odd years of oppression), but unintentionally invokes the hardline that no Palestinian state will ever be given unless its 'on the ruins of Israel'. In crude lamen's terms, you'll have an independent state "over my dead body".
The Jordanian Option is demurred, because Eldad wants the world to recognise that:
"Jordan is Palestine. Between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, only one country has a right to exist, the State of Israel. Palestinians have a state across the river. They are 70 percent of its citizens."
Woah. Exchange the word "Israel" for "Palestine", and you would have the typical perception that has conditioned public opinion for decades. But this is taboo, is it not? No. Eldad is just stating openly what every MK (besides the Arab ones) in the Knesset, past and present, have been thinking. They clearly do not want any state resembling viability next to them. ALL of the area between the Mediterranean to the Jordan River is reserved for the Jews. Not exactly a partner for peace, is it?
Eldad gives the statistic that 70 % of Jordan's citizens are Palestinians. Interestingly enough, what was left out is that these citizens are part of the Diaspora that Israel helped create since 1948. According to the Global Exchange website,
"Jordan has received the largest number of Palestinian refugees. An estimated 100,000 of all refugees fled across the Jordan River in 1948. A large majority of Palestinians are Jordanian citizens. Since the return of over 300,000 Palestinians from Kuwait in 1991, between 45% and 70% of all Jordanians are Palestinians from the West Bank. Although Palestinians suffer from discrimination and a large number still live in camps, Jordan has granted full citizenship to the Palestinian refugees and their descendents."
One wonders if a state can conveniently displace the indigenous population to the neighbour states, and then audaciously announce that they had no connection to the land and are really part of the country they inhabit in refugee camps.
Eldad continues:
"The land of Israel was already divided into two countries when Churchill tore what lies across from the Jordan River from our national home and gave it to the Arabs in 1922. And even if this was an historic crime against the Jewish people, it is already an historic fact we failed to change."
Nevermind that Transjordan was created by the British Empire for lovely oil purposes, Israel was founded in 1948, not 1922. Zionism was marked down in the land of Palestine and to this day, they still feel it an injustice that they were not only given 100 % of Palestine, instead of only 55 % (which they then forcefully took the rest from the Palestinians during 47-48), but the true part of Eretz Israel, even east of the Jordanian River. Statistics have shown that the Jewish population represented quite the minority even in 1922, at 11%. Up until the creation of the state, they only represented a third of the total population. And yet it is "an historic crime against the Jewish people". What kind of a crime is it against the Palestinians? Oh right. They are Jordanians, correct? In addition, wasn't all of this part of a sham self-determination policy that aimed to placate the indigenous population while being under the control of empirical satraps?
What Israel wants is expulsion. Whether it is with Eldad's "voluntary transfer", or with Olmert's slow destruction. No Palestinian state is negotiable for Israel: they want them expelled to the east of the River Jordan.
Monday, August 20, 2007
The longer it lasts, the harder it will be to stop
Uri Avnery lets the cat out of the bag:
"The most grievous expression of the situation in the occupied territories under Olmert and Barak is the daily killing. Almost no day passes without a new atrocity. A pupil is run over, his injuries are critical, he is kept at the roadblock over an hour until he dies. The army issues a laconic statement: he was on the list of those "forbidden to enter Israel". Five soldiers seize a boy waiting at a bus stop and beat him to death. A sick woman arrives at a roadblock and is detained there for no apparent reason until she dies.
Such stories have become routine and no longer cause a ripple. Two or three journalists do still get upset and report them, the rest just ignore them. Senses have been blunted. It's not news."
It's tough to change this when they become automatic. They don't even warrant a news story, and if so, it's buried in the back pages or given fifteen seconds of air time.
Palestinians only real hope is the international community to say enough is enough. But with the media inured to what has been a forty year debacle, its just another day of the occupation.
"The most grievous expression of the situation in the occupied territories under Olmert and Barak is the daily killing. Almost no day passes without a new atrocity. A pupil is run over, his injuries are critical, he is kept at the roadblock over an hour until he dies. The army issues a laconic statement: he was on the list of those "forbidden to enter Israel". Five soldiers seize a boy waiting at a bus stop and beat him to death. A sick woman arrives at a roadblock and is detained there for no apparent reason until she dies.
Such stories have become routine and no longer cause a ripple. Two or three journalists do still get upset and report them, the rest just ignore them. Senses have been blunted. It's not news."
It's tough to change this when they become automatic. They don't even warrant a news story, and if so, it's buried in the back pages or given fifteen seconds of air time.
Palestinians only real hope is the international community to say enough is enough. But with the media inured to what has been a forty year debacle, its just another day of the occupation.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Occupation 101
Historiographer Ilan Pappe's movie, Occupation 101, which was aired around Toronto not long ago, can be viewed here.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
No American President can stand up to Israel
Former member of the Reagan Administration, economist Paul Craig Roberts, writes about the Israel Lobby and its hold over foreign policy wonks in DC:
"On June 8, 1967, Israel attacked the American intelligence ship, USS Liberty, killing 34 American sailors and wounding 173. The Israelis even strafed the life rafts, machine-gunning the American sailors leaving the stricken ship.
Apparently, the USS Liberty had picked up Israeli communications that revealed Israel's responsibility for the Six Day War. Even today, history books and the majority of Americans blame the conflict on the Arabs.
The United States Navy knew the truth, but the President of the United States took Israel's side against the American military and ordered the United States Navy to shut its mouth. President Lyndon Johnson said it was all just a mistake. Later in life, Admiral Moorer formed a commission and presented the unvarnished truth to Americans...
Many Americans are unaware of the influence of the Israel lobby. Instead they think of the US as "the world's sole superpower," a macho new Roman Empire whose orders are obeyed without question or the insolent nonentity is "bombed back to the stone age." Many Americans are convinced that military coercion serves our interest. They cite Libya, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now they are ready to bring Iran and Pakistan to heel with bombs...
So what does explain the complicity of the Democratic Party in a policy that the American public, and especially Democratic constituencies, reject? Perhaps a clue is offered from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune news report (August 1, 2007) that Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison will spend a week in Israel on "a privately funded trip sponsored by the American Israel Education Federation. The AIEF--the charitable arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)--is sending 19 members of Congress to meet with Israeli leaders. The group, made up mostly of freshman Democrats, has plans to meet with Isreali Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and [puppet] Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The senior Democratic member on the trip is House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who has gone three times. . . . The trip to Israel is Ellison's second as a congressman."
According to the Star-Tribune, a Republican group, which includes Rep. Michele Bachmann (R, Minn), led by Rep. Eric Cantor (R, Va) is already in Israel. According to news reports, another 40 are following these two groups during the August recess, and "by the time the year is out every single member of Congress will have made their rounds in Israel." This claim is probably overstated, but it does show careful Israeli management of US policy in the Middle East."
Who else could stop a tenureship, defame a former President, and smear a book before it is even released? And we're meant to put our hopes on those who represent the "people" to do the right thing and form a solution out of Israel-Palestine conflict? The Lobby holds their balls so they stay in Congress. This is our honest broker to negotiations.
"On June 8, 1967, Israel attacked the American intelligence ship, USS Liberty, killing 34 American sailors and wounding 173. The Israelis even strafed the life rafts, machine-gunning the American sailors leaving the stricken ship.
Apparently, the USS Liberty had picked up Israeli communications that revealed Israel's responsibility for the Six Day War. Even today, history books and the majority of Americans blame the conflict on the Arabs.
The United States Navy knew the truth, but the President of the United States took Israel's side against the American military and ordered the United States Navy to shut its mouth. President Lyndon Johnson said it was all just a mistake. Later in life, Admiral Moorer formed a commission and presented the unvarnished truth to Americans...
Many Americans are unaware of the influence of the Israel lobby. Instead they think of the US as "the world's sole superpower," a macho new Roman Empire whose orders are obeyed without question or the insolent nonentity is "bombed back to the stone age." Many Americans are convinced that military coercion serves our interest. They cite Libya, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now they are ready to bring Iran and Pakistan to heel with bombs...
So what does explain the complicity of the Democratic Party in a policy that the American public, and especially Democratic constituencies, reject? Perhaps a clue is offered from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune news report (August 1, 2007) that Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison will spend a week in Israel on "a privately funded trip sponsored by the American Israel Education Federation. The AIEF--the charitable arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)--is sending 19 members of Congress to meet with Israeli leaders. The group, made up mostly of freshman Democrats, has plans to meet with Isreali Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and [puppet] Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The senior Democratic member on the trip is House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who has gone three times. . . . The trip to Israel is Ellison's second as a congressman."
According to the Star-Tribune, a Republican group, which includes Rep. Michele Bachmann (R, Minn), led by Rep. Eric Cantor (R, Va) is already in Israel. According to news reports, another 40 are following these two groups during the August recess, and "by the time the year is out every single member of Congress will have made their rounds in Israel." This claim is probably overstated, but it does show careful Israeli management of US policy in the Middle East."
Who else could stop a tenureship, defame a former President, and smear a book before it is even released? And we're meant to put our hopes on those who represent the "people" to do the right thing and form a solution out of Israel-Palestine conflict? The Lobby holds their balls so they stay in Congress. This is our honest broker to negotiations.
Still no hint of negotiations
As was predicted earlier, the Abbas and Olmert summit has not and will not be an efficacious conference:
"PLO Executive Committee member Yasser Abed Rabbo told the Arabic-language paper Al-Quds Al-Arabi that no negotiations are currently taking place between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on core issues standing in the way of the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The statements come just days after sources in Jerusalem said that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud and Abbas have begun been negotiating a new document on the core issues.
These issues include the permanent borders of the future Palestinian state, the question of jurisdiction over holy sites in Jerusalem, and the Palestinian refugee problem.
Abed Rabbo told the paper, which is published in London, that Israel refuses to discuss the issues before the U.S.-backed Mideast peace conference set for the fall.
He said that if Israel continues to refuse, the conference will be useless."
"PLO Executive Committee member Yasser Abed Rabbo told the Arabic-language paper Al-Quds Al-Arabi that no negotiations are currently taking place between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on core issues standing in the way of the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The statements come just days after sources in Jerusalem said that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud and Abbas have begun been negotiating a new document on the core issues.
These issues include the permanent borders of the future Palestinian state, the question of jurisdiction over holy sites in Jerusalem, and the Palestinian refugee problem.
Abed Rabbo told the paper, which is published in London, that Israel refuses to discuss the issues before the U.S.-backed Mideast peace conference set for the fall.
He said that if Israel continues to refuse, the conference will be useless."
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