Category: In the Media

Quiet slicing of the West Bank makes abstract prayers for peace obscene

Slavoj Zizek | The Guardian

18 August 2009

On 2 August 2009, after cordoning off part of the Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in east Jerusalem, Israeli police evicted two Palestinian families (more than 50 people) from their homes; Jewish settlers immediately moved into the emptied houses. Although Israeli police cited a ruling by the country’s supreme court, the evicted Arab families had been living there for more than 50 years. The event – which, rather exceptionally, did attract the attention of the world media – is part of a much larger and mostly ignored ongoing process.

Five months earlier, on 1 March, it had been reported that the Israeli government had drafted plans to build more than 70,000 new homes in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank; if implemented, the plans could increase the number of settlers in the Palestinian territories by about 300,000 Such a move would not only severely undermine the chances of a viable Palestinian state, but also hamper the everyday life of Palestinians.

A government spokesman dismissed the report, arguing that the plans were of limited relevance – the construction of homes in the settlements required the approval of the defence minister and the prime minister. However, 15,000 have already been fully approved, and 20,000 of the proposed housing units lie in settlements that Israel cannot expect to retain in any future peace deal with the Palestinians.

The conclusion is obvious: while paying lip-service to the two-state solution, Israel is busy creating a situation on the ground that will render such a solution impossible. The dream underlying Israel’s plans is encapsulated by a wall that separates a settler’s town from the Palestinian town on a nearby West Bank hill. The Israeli side of the wall is painted with the image of the countryside beyond the wall – but without the Palestinian town, depicting just nature, grass and trees. Is this not ethnic cleansing at its purest, imagining the outside beyond the wall as empty, virginal and waiting to be settled?

On the very day that reports of the government’s 70,000-home plan emerged, Hillary Clinton criticised the rocket fire from Gaza as “cynical”, claiming: “There is no doubt that any nation, including Israel, cannot stand idly by while its territory and people are subjected to rocket attacks.” But should the Palestinians stand idly while the West Bank land is taken from them day by day?

When peace-loving Israeli liberals present their conflict with Palestinians in neutral, symmetrical terms – admitting that there are extremists on both sides who reject peace – one should ask a simple question: what goes on in the Middle East when nothing is happening there at the direct politico-military level (ie, when there are no tensions, attacks or negotiations)? What goes on is the slow work of taking the land from the Palestinians on the West Bank: the gradual strangling of the Palestinian economy, the parcelling up of their land, the building of new settlements, the pressure on Palestinian farmers to make them abandon their land (which goes from crop-burning and religious desecration to targeted killings) – all this supported by a Kafkaesque network of legal regulations.

Saree Makdisi, in Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, describes how, although the Israeli occupation of the West Bank is ultimately enforced by the armed forces, it is an “occupation by bureaucracy”: it works primarily through application forms, title deeds, residency papers and other permits. It is this micro-management of the daily life that does the job of securing slow but steady Israeli expansion: one has to ask for a permit in order to leave with one’s family, to farm one’s own land, to dig a well, or to go to work, to school, or to hospital. One by one, Palestinians born in Jerusalem are thus stripped of the right to live there, prevented from earning a living, denied housing permits, etc.

Palestinians often use the problematic cliché of the Gaza strip as “the greatest concentration camp in the world”. However, in the past year, this designation has come dangerously close to truth. This is the fundamental reality that makes all abstract “prayers for peace” obscene and hypocritical. The state of Israel is clearly engaged in a slow, invisible process, ignored by the media; one day, the world will awake and discover that there is no more Palestinian West Bank, that the land is Palestinian-frei, and that we must accept the fact. The map of the Palestinian West Bank already looks like a fragmented archipelago.

In the last months of 2008, when the attacks of illegal West Bank settlers on Palestinian farmers became a regular daily occurrence, the state of Israel tried to contain these excesses (the supreme court ordered the evacuation of some settlements) but, as many observers have noted, such measures are half-hearted, countered by the long-term politics of Israel, which violates the international treaties it has signed. The response of the illegal settlers to the Israeli authorities is “We are doing the same thing as you, just more openly, so what right do you have to condemn us?” And the state’s reply is basically “Bde patient, and don’t rush too much. We are doing what you want, just in a more moderate and acceptable way.”

The same story has been repeated since 1949: Israel accepts the peace conditions proposed by the international community, counting on the fact that the peace plan will not work. The illegal settlers sometimes sound like Brunhilde from the last act of Wagner’s Walküre – reproaching Wotan and saying that, by counteracting his explicit order and protecting Siegmund, she was only realising Wotan’s own true desire, which he was forced to renounce under external pressure. In the same way the settlers know they are realising their own state’s true desire.

While condemning the violent excesses of “illegal” settlements, the state of Israel promotes new “legal” building on the West Bank, and continues to strangle the Palestinian economy. A look at the changing map of East Jerusalem, where the Palestinians are gradually encircled and their living area sliced, tells it all. The condemnation of anti-Palestinian violence not carried out by the state blurs the true problem of state violence; the condemnation of illegal settlements blurs the illegality of the legal ones.

Therein resides the two-facedness of the much-praised non-biased “honesty” of the Israeli supreme court: by occasionally passing judgment in favour of the dispossessed Palestinians, proclaiming their eviction illegal, it guarantees the legality of the remaining majority of cases.

Taking all this into account in no way implies sympathy for inexcusable terrorist acts. On the contrary, it provides the only ground from which one can condemn the terrorist attacks without hypocrisy.

Slavoj Zizek is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities szizek@yahoo.com

Free Mohammed Khatib and the non-violent activists from Bil’in

The People’s Voice

18 August 2009

At 3AM on Monday, August 3, the Israeli army raided Bil’in and arrested Mohammad Khatib, along with six other Palestinian community activists and one American human rights observer from the village. This move is an attempt by Israeli authorities to silence a popular resistance movement gaining international attention and inspiring other Palestinian communities. This West Bank agricultural village, known for its weekly protests against the Israeli apartheid wall, has become a symbol for the Palestinian popular resistance to Israel’s ongoing military occupation.

While many are quick to condemn Palestinians when they resort to armed resistance, Israel has been left free to harass, imprison and sometimes kill Palestinians who nonviolently resist the confiscation and destruction of their land in Bil’in and elsewhere.

In June 2009, Mohammed Khatib traveled to Canada for preliminary hearings on an historic lawsuit launched by Bil’in village against two Quebec-based companies, Green Park International and Green Mount International. Both companies are building illegal Israeli-only settlements on Bil’in’s land.

Mohammad’s arrest is just one in a series of many carried out by the Israeli military in Bil’in since June 2009, coinciding with the beginning of these legal proceedings. Video of the ongoing struggle in Bil’in, including interviews with Mohammad Khatib and Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard, can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TySr95aKSlU.

To date, 25 people (most under 18) have been arrested, and 18 of them remain in detention. Having experienced Israel’s interrogation/ intimidation/torture tactics, two of the arrested minors ‘confessed’ that the Bil’in Popular Committee urges the demonstrators to throw stones. Then based on these forced ‘confessions’, Israeli forces arrested Mohammad Khatib and other leaders in Bil’in. They have been charged with “incitement to damage the security of the area.”

An August 13, 2009 statement issued by the Bil’in popular committee declared that Mohammad Khatib, Adeeb Abu Rahmeh and other leaders of the Palestinian popular struggle, “are being targeted because they mobilize Palestinians to resist non-violently. “Israel is stealing our land from us and then prosecuting us as criminals because we struggle non-violently for justice,” said the statement.

In September 2007, after four years of Friday afternoon protests in Bil’in that underscored the violence and injustice of the Israeli occupation, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled in favor of the village. Contrary to the Opinion of the International Court of Justice, the Israeli Supreme Court did not find the apartheid wall was illegal. But it did find the wall’s route through Bil’in was not designed to separate settlers from potential Palestinian terrorists; it was designed to make Modi’in Illit, the giant orthodox Jewish settlement next to Bil’in, bigger by about 2,000 dunams of farmland owned by Bil’in villagers. The Court ordered the army to reroute the fence and give the people of Bil’in back at least part of the land taken from them.

The very next day, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled to legalize the Israeli settlement of Mattiyahu East (part of Modi’inIllit’s expansion), built on Bil’in’s land to the west of the wall, which separates the village from 60% of its farming land. The villagers vowed to continue their resistance against the wall and settlements on its land and hundreds of them along with other Palestinians, international and Israeli supporters are still protesting every week.

Israeli soldiers are still injuring and killing them every Friday afternoon with Billy clubs, tear-gas canisters fired at close range, and rubber bullets. With no justice from Israeli courts, the villagers of Bil’in turned to the international arena and, with the help of Canadian lawyers and backed by the Canadian solidarity movement, filed litigation in Canada.

Mohammad Khatib’s arrest is an attempt by Israel to thwart such international support for justice for Palestinians.

Mohammad Khatib joins an estimated 11,000 Palestinian prisoners – including over 400 children -detained by Israeli authorities, many without charge or trial. According to a recent report from Amnesty International, many Palestinian prisoners “face medical negligence, routine beatings, position torture and strip searches by Israeli prison authorities.” According to the Palestinian section of Defense for Children International, “each year, hundreds of Palestinian children are arrested, interrogated, abused and imprisoned by the Israeli military authorities often amounting to torture.”

Lamya Khatib, whose husband, Mohammad as well as her younger brother, Abdullah, are both imprisoned at Ofer military base, stated: ” It is obvious that the Israeli authorities will do all they can to prevent Palestinians and Israelis from working together towards a just peace, but I know that Mohammed, Abdullah and I, and everyone in Bil’in, will continue our struggle for justice.”

Inspired by their commitment and dedication, the Free Gaza Movement stands with the Bil’in resistance movement and the Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice throughout the occupied West Bank, Gaza and Palestine48.

U.S. group invests tax-free millions in East Jerusalem land

Uri Blau | Ha’aretz

17 August 2009

American Friends of Ateret Cohanim, a nonprofit organization that sends millions of shekels worth of donations to Israel every year for clearly political purposes, such as buying Arab properties in East Jerusalem, is registered in the United States as an organization that funds educational institutes in Israel.

The U.S. tax code enables nonprofits to receive tax-exempt status if they engage in educational, charitable, religious or scientific activity. However, such organizations are forbidden to engage in any political activity. The latter is broadly defined as any action, even the promotion of certain ideas, that could have a political impact.

Financing land purchases in East Jerusalem would, therefore, seem to violate the organization’s tax-exempt status.

Daniel Luria, chief fund-raiser for Ateret Cohanim in Israel, told Haaretz Sunday that the American organization’s registration as an educational entity stemmed from tax considerations.

“We are an umbrella organization that engages in redeeming land,” he said. “Our [fund-raising] activity in New York goes solely toward land redemption.”

Although Ateret Cohanim also operates a yeshiva, Ateret Yerushalayim, in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, fund-raising for the yeshiva is handled by a different organization: American Friends of Yeshivat Ateret Yerushalayim.”

American Friends of Ateret Cohanim was founded in New York in 1987. Like all tax-exempt organizations, it must file detailed annual returns with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. An examination of them reveals that the organization describes its “primary exempt purpose” as: “[to] provide funding for higher educational institutes in Israel.”

“That’s because of the tax issue,” Luria said, explaining that due to American law, the American Friends organization “has to be connected in some fashion with educational matters.”

He also estimated that 60 percent of Ateret Cohanim’s money is raised in the U.S.

The Friends organization’s most recent return, filed in 2008 for fiscal 2007, shows that it raised $2.1 million in donations that year. Of this, $1.6 million was transferred to Ateret Cohanim in Israel.

The remainder was used to cover administrative overhead, including fund-raising expenses and an $80,000 salary for Shoshana Hikind, the American organization’s vice president and de facto director, whose husband Dov is a New York state assemblyman and well-known supporter of the Israeli right.

The organization also raised substantial sums in previous years: $1.3 million in 2006, $900,000 in 2005 and about $2 million in 2004.

By comparison, American Friends of Yeshivat Ateret Yerushalayim raised only $189,000 in 2007.

In its IRS returns, American Friends of Ateret Cohanim said its purpose is to “promote,” “publicize” and “raise funds for” Ateret Cohanim institutions in Israel. These institutions, it continued, “encourage and promote study and observance of Jewish religious traditions and culture.”

In reality, Ateret Cohanim in Israel focuses mainly on purchasing Arab property in East Jerusalem. Since its founding in the 1970s, it has bought dozens of Arab buildings for Jews to reside in. Just this April, for instance, it moved Jewish families into an Arab house it purchased in the Muslim Quarter.

One noteworthy donor to its Friends organization is casino magnate Irving Moskowitz, a well-known supporter of rightist causes, who also owns the Shepherd Hotel in East Jerusalem. That hotel made headlines recently when Moskowitz obtained a permit to build 20 apartments for Jews there, sparking angry protests from the U.S. government.

In response, Ateret Cohanim chairman Mati Dan insisted that the Friends organization “is an independent organization that decides for itself whom to fund.” Moreover, he added, “we engage in education constantly … I don’t know what Daniel Luria told you, but we are active in the field of [educational] institutions.”

As of press time, no comment had been obtained from the Friends organization.

Nir Hasson contributed to this report.

Gaza fishermen demonstrate at UN in protest of Israeli attacks on their livelihoods

PNN | Fishing Under Fire

14 August 2009

Fishermen in the Gaza Strip are the frequent targets of Israeli forces. Israeli naval ships sometimes open fire, or board boats, arrest the fishermen, even confiscate nets and the boats themselves.

Today in Gaza, Palestinian fishermen are demonstrating against the Israeli policies that are destroying their livelihood. The Palestinian fishing industry has lost millions in revenue since the siege began three years ago, that has led to a ban on exports of fish, imports of equipment, and an increase in attacks by the Israelis.

During the three-weeks of major Israeli attacks in late December and January the losses to the agriculture and fishing sector, for which statistics are combined, were 311,000 USD in those three weeks alone. The head of the Fishermen’s Association, Nizar Ayash, reported as long ago as March of 2007 that losses incurred in the fishing sector due to Israeli practices amounted to 16 million dollars. There are approximately 3,000 Palestinians engaged in the fishing trade, which translates into 40,000 people living on that income.

Palestinian Legislative Council member and Chairman of the People’s Committee against the Blockade, Jamal Al Khudari, said today that Palestinian fishermen are maintaining their profession and their right to fish in the Sea of Gaza, despite the intense Israeli attacks. Under Article 11 of the Israeli-Palestinian Protocol, it is stipulated that Palestinian fishing boats have the right to go out 20 nautical miles from the coast in a specific region. The number has been reduced by the Israelis several times and is now down to three miles, yet still some fishermen on the shores face fire.

During a march on the United Nations headquarters in Gaza City, Al Khudari reiterated what a serious threat the fishermen and their families are under.

He said that by reducing the area allowed for Palestinian fishing in Gaza territorial waters from 15 to just three nautical miles, the occupying forces are contradicting signed agreements.

A call was issued to the international community to pressure the Israelis to abide international law and agreements, and to stop the harassment of the Palestinian fishing trade.

Morality’s chief of staff

Gideon Levy | Ha’aretz

16 August 2009

Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi is a moral and ethical paragon who stands atop an organization that is no less moral or ethical. Last week, he broke his silence and proved his acute sensitivity to matters of conscience: “We have not one gram of tolerance,” the chief of staff said in a loud and clear voice, referring to those who had hazed soldiers. “We ought to view this incident as a reminder of the high ethical threshold expected of us,” he said in a clear and crisp voice, referring to the affair involving Brig. Gen. Imad Fares.

However, on the same day the chief of staff – who brags of his “high ethical threshold” – made his statements, a report commissioned by U.S.-based Human Rights Watch was made public. It stated that during Operation Cast Lead, the Israel Defense Forces killed 11 civilians, including five women and four children, who were carrying white flags, an act that has been characterized as a war crime. This should have been far more shocking, but we did not hear one word about it from the chief of staff. For this, he had kilograms of tolerance.

The IDF under Ashkenazi, who demanded that the army “scour with a steel comb every platoon and squad” in response to the hazing incident, did not investigate the killing of white-flag bearers. All of a sudden the IDF – whose spokesman, Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu, launched a disgraceful delegitimization campaign against the rights group Breaking the Silence for daring to take shocking testimonials from soldiers – is backing an investigation of every tent. “We ought to encourage revelations,” the fearlessly investigating chief of staff said of those hectoring soldiers, as the IDF stifles any possibility of revealing suspicions of war crimes.

If only our camp were clean, clean of those who abuse soldiers, purged of the minor liars. Allowing a child to drive an IDF-issued all-terrain vehicle? Forbidden. Killing children carrying white flags? Allowed. Lying about allowing your wife to drive an army-issued car? Forbidden. Killing women? Allowed. Administrative minutiae – a wife driving her husband’s car, a son driving an ATV and the hazing of fresh recruits – are grave matters. Mistakenly killing civilians is permitted. This is the message.

If abusing soldiers is forbidden and abusing Palestinians is permitted, we are talking about two sets of morals. The result is a double standard and dehumanization. When Ashkenazi says, “As officers we are measured in our ability to serve as a worthy personal example,” he is referring to trifling matters, like the Fares farce (and now we can add to this the grotesque case of the stolen credit card). He is not referring to ethical issues or problems of conscience. The extreme care given to such trivial matters is a wonderful fig leaf for the IDF because it allows it to prove “morality” and whitewash all allegations of war crimes.

Fares, like Brig. Gen. Moshe (Chico) Tamir before him, committed minor sins. Tamir, he of the ATV, was involved in far more grievous actions, including the errant killing of civilians in Jenin and Gaza, acts for which nobody thought to demote him. When the IDF responds with such force against two accomplished officers – boy, are they ever accomplished; all our combat officers are automatically labeled with this tag – it tries to blur their real crimes and those of their colleagues.

The IDF Spokesman’s Office occasionally issues official statements that do not always jibe with the truth, though for this we will forgive. Maj. Avital Leibovich, an IDF spokeswoman, told Al Jazeera in English on Thursday that the IDF does not fire on children. Then how did hundreds of children die during Operation Cast Lead? Was it an act of providence? Nobody objected to her deceitful propaganda. But when Fares lies on the fateful question of who drove his car, his fate is sealed. We have yet to see an officer whose service was terminated due to the errant killing of Palestinians in Gaza, but when it comes to lying to a car-leasing company, that’s another matter. These are the standards by which morals are judged in the most moral army in the world. No other organization in Israel speaks so often about “morals” while committing so many flagrantly amoral acts.

The previous chief of staff, Dan Halutz, was tainted by his “light shudder on the wing” comment when asked what he felt after he dropped a bomb. And he was only referring to one bomb. He claimed that he was misunderstood. Ashkenazi is made of Teflon; nothing sticks to him, not even after the unbridled assault on Gaza and the mass killing of civilians with countless bombs. Now he can also be thought of as a sensitive chief of staff whose like we have not seen when it comes to morality. Oh, how shocked he was to hear of the wet towels that were hurled at soldiers’ backs.