Category: In the Media

Israel has secret plan to thwart division of Jerusalem

Akiva Eldar | Ha’aretz

10 May 2009

The government and settler organizations are working to surround the Old City of Jerusalem with nine national parks, pathways and sites, drastically altering the status quo in the city. The secret plan was assigned to the Jerusalem Development Authority (JDA).

In a report presented to former prime minister Ehud Olmert on September 11 last year, the JDA described the purpose of the project as “to create a sequence of parks surrounding the Old City,” all in the aspiration “to strengthen Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel.”

The program, sponsored by the Prime Minister’s Office and the mayor of Jerusalem, is secret and did not engage in any form of public discussion.

According to an analysis by Ir Amim, a non-profit organization dedicated to Jerusalem issues that impact on Israeli and Palestinians which exposed this detailed, confidential government plan, the motivation is to create Israeli hegemony over the area around the Old City, “inspired by extreme right-wing ideology.”

“This program integrates with statutory program 11555, approved by the Jerusalem municipality in November 2007, designed to accelerate development [to six housing units per dunam, or some 24 units per acre] in one of the most important archaeological sites in Israel. The array of escalators, cable cars and tunnels included in the plan portend blatant signs of a biblical playground populated by settler organizations,” which the organization says will be carried out by ousting Palestinian residents.

Ir Amim charges that by exposing the existence of the program the public is granted, “for the first time, a comprehensive view of how the government and settlers, working as one body, are creating a “biblical” territorial reign which connects Armon Hanatziv and Silwan in the south, Ras al-Amud and the Mount of Olives in the east, and Sheikh Jarra in the north, by connecting all of the land east of E-1.”

In a letter sent in the fall of 2006 by David Barry, founder and director of the Elad organization, to state officials and bodies involved in the project such as the Israel Nature and National Parks Authority and the Israel Antiquities Authority, he explains that he cannot detail the project because “we still cannot talk about them,” but hopes that the results will be evident in the near future.

In the letter Barry also writes that “… the widespread tourist activity, at whose center is the creation of the “Ancient Jerusalem” campus connecting the three sites – the City of David, Mount of Olives and Armon Hanatziv – in each of the three sites we are holding tourist activity on a daily basis.”

The map of Elad’s “Ancient Jerusalem” is, as Ir Amim explains, very similar to the map of the current historic basin project of the Old City.

Attorney Danny Seidemann of Ir Amim says that if the historic basin surrounding the Old City is transformed in the spirit of extreme rightist organizations, “there is a dangerous interface between the program and settler projects whose goal is the prevention of a future political solution in the heart of the conflict.”

Ban Ki-moon’s moral failure

Hasan Abu Nimah | Electronic Intifada

6 May 2009

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at a press conference in Gaza City outside the UN headquarters, still smoldering from the Israeli bombardment of the facility, 20 January 2009. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at a press conference in Gaza City outside the UN headquarters, still smoldering from the Israeli bombardment of the facility, 20 January 2009. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)

Late last week, according to the BBC Arabic news website, a report was submitted to the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon about the scale of destruction Israel inflicted on UN installations in Gaza. This was also mentioned on a BBC news bulletin on 1 May, but I could find little trace of this story anywhere else.

The brief news item stated that the UN report contained secret information supplied by Israel about an incident in which more than 40 Palestinian civilians were massacred when Israeli shells fell “outside” a UN school where many Palestinians were taking shelter. The secretary-general is reportedly considering how much of the information he can release without revealing the information supplied by Israel, the news item said, adding that the UN report concluded that Hamas fighters were not inside UN buildings but close to them.

Commenting on the report, the BBC said that it was informed by a diplomatic source, that the United States has informed Ban’s office that the report should not be published in full due to the damage that that could cause to the Middle East peace talks; in other words (mine, in fact) to Israel.

The point here is neither to pass any premature judgment on an unpublished report — despite obvious inconsistencies regarding shelling “outside” a UN installation that was somehow severely damaged — nor to predict how much of the report the secretary-general will finally decide to publish.

(As this article was being prepared for publication, details about the UN inquiry team report were published. The inquiry, led by Ian Martin, former director of Amnesty International, accused Israel of failing to protect UN facilities and civilians, dismissed as “untrue” Israeli claims that Hamas fighters had been firing from UN facilities, held Israel responsible for all deaths and injuries in six out of nine incidents, and called for further investigation into possible war crimes. Ban has rejected calls to pursue the probe, but called on Israel to pay $11 million in reparations for the damage it caused to the UN.)

But nor can we forget the dark days just past when Israel was slaughtering the innocent people of Gaza and the world stood by, even blaming Hamas — which had scrupulously observed a negotiated ceasefire until Israel broke it — for bringing on the apocalypse.

As the dust from the Israeli bombing began to settle, Ban decided to visit Gaza. That raised hopes that the UN was finally determined to act with courage and responsibility. Gaza had been off limits to international figures because supposedly a politically contagious terrorist organization had taken control of the place and no one was supposed to risk contact with it, even if compelling humanitarian considerations required that.

Well, the secretary-general decided on 20 January to defy the norm and go to Gaza. But his courage only went so far. His highly-protected convoy took him straight to the still smoldering compound of the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) whose warehouses of food and fuel were destroyed by Israeli attacks along with their contents. He must have noted that the massive destruction could not have resulted from “shelling outside” the installation. “I am just appalled,” he said, “Everyone is smelling this bombing still. It is still burning. It is an outrageous and totally unacceptable attack against the United Nations.” This flash of anger was limited however only to UN facilities. He spoke as if the rest of Gaza — where more than 7,000 people lay dead or injured, and thousands of homes, schools, mosques, universities, police stations and government buildings were destroyed — did not exist, or were not of UN concern.

Whisked around in his convoy, he did not bother to stop and talk to any of Israel’s victims — the families who had just dug the remains of their loved ones from the rubble or those with horrific injuries in Gaza’s overstretched hospitals. These are the very people, the Palestinian refugees, that the UN is in Gaza to help, but there was it seems no time for them.

Ban did say, however, that he had “condemned from the outbreak of this conflict the excessive use of force by the Israeli forces in Gaza,” and added “I view the rocket attacks into Israel as completely unacceptable.” He also said that he would dispatch a humanitarian needs assessment team led by the UN special coordinator.

What he was saying in effect is that he found Israel’s attack on Gaza perfectly acceptable, but he disagreed only with the tonnage of high explosives that should be dropped by Israeli planes. Indeed, he should specify exactly how many dead children, how many demolished houses, how many burn victims, how many destroyed mosques he would tolerate as not being “excessive.” Would half the number killed and half the damage inflicted be reasonably non-excessive, or perhaps one-third? It would be helpful for both sides to know so that the Israelis would limit their killing to the UN-specified quota, and the Gazans would know how many of their community to sacrifice for the sacred UN-sanctioned killing.

For Ban, then, Israeli bombing is good — although he would like perhaps to see a little bit less. But, in tune with his political masters, he considers Palestinians to have no right to any form of self-defense against the Israeli occupation, constant aggression and the Israeli, internationally-supported, deadly siege, with whatever means they have at their disposal.

In order to maintain the false sense of balance between aggressor and victim, Ban had to visit the Israeli settlement of Sderot. When he patiently inspected the scars left by Hamas rockets that killed a total of three Israelis, he stated, “the projectiles are indiscriminate weapons, and Hamas attacks are violations of basic humanitarian law.” This is the same Ban who did not once invoke the law with respect to Israel’s ongoing massive violations.

It’s also notable that the rockets fired by Palestinian resistance factions are not so much “indiscriminate” as unguided. There’s no reason to believe that if Palestinians had access to the American-supplied guidance systems Israel has that they would not target Israeli military bases (indeed they tried to do that although Israeli military censorship did not allow reporting of hits on its military installations). Israel’s bombing on the other hand, and as Ban did not note, is very discriminate — deliberately targeting civilian homes and facilities.

In Sderot, Ban also urged Israel to end its crippling blockade on Gaza, but not because the blockade is a flagrant violation of international law, the Geneva conventions, inhuman and wrong. He worried only that the blockade would strengthen Hamas; otherwise, like a measured dose of bombing, it would be perfectly fine.

Ban ought to have inspected the destruction in Gaza, and visited and spent time with Israel’s Palestinian victims before setting foot in any UN installation. But it seems he actually avoided that on purpose to send a signal that he was not showing sympathy to “terrorists” or the people accused of harboring them, in order to inoculate himself from criticism by Israel and its chorus of apologists. He certainly saw the example of the UN special rapporteur for human rights, Princeton professor emeritus and international law expert Richard Falk, who was expelled and vilified by Israel and the US administration for faithfully and truthfully carrying out his mandate.

This is but one of the many sad stories of how the UN top leadership has betrayed and failed its mission. The UN does not exist only to protect its personnel and installations. The UN flag alone ought to provide that kind of real protection — immunity which no state dares to violate without fear of the consequences. But Israel has repeatedly attacked UN facilities, schools, peacekeeping forces and personnel in Palestine and Lebanon knowing full well that it, not the UN, enjoys immunity for its actions. The next time Israel attacks a UN facility, part of the responsibility will lie with those who failed to act correctly this time around.

Hasan Abu Nimah is the former permanent representative of Jordan at the United Nations. This essay first appeared in The Jordan Times and is republished with the author’s permission.

An open letter to Leonard Cohen

An Open Letter to Leonard Cohen | British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP)

Dear Leonard Cohen:

Your songs have been part of the soundtrack of our lives — like breathing, some of them. But we can’t make sense of why you’ve decided to perform in Israel in September this year.

If we understand anything about Buddhism – your practice of which is public knowledge – it’s that Buddhism advocates ‘right action’. We accept that this precept, like the injunction to ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’, is probably honoured more in the breach than the observance. But we can’t believe you didn’t weigh up performing in Israel in the light of ‘right action’. And apparently you’ve decided that it’s right to take your unavoidably starry and
very newsworthy presence there.

But what does this say to the Palestinians? If you had just emerged from three weeks of unfettered bombing from land, sea and air, with no place to hide and no place to run, your hospitals overwhelmed, sewage running in the streets and white phosphorous burning up your children, what would the news that the great Canadian musician Leonard Cohen had decided to play for your tormentors say to you?

You will perform for a public that by a very large majority had no qualms about its military forces’ onslaught on Gaza (in fact wanted it to continue). You will perform in a state whose propaganda services will extract every ounce of mileage from your presence (they will use it to whitewash their war crimes). As someone who lives in the US, you are saying ‘yah boo sucks’ to the American academics, musicians, film-makers and others (including poet Adrienne Rich), who earlier this year launched the US Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel. And you are telling the Palestinians — who had nothing whatsoever to do with the Holocaust in Europe but have endured the torments of exile and military occupation ever since they were driven out of their country in 1948 — that their suffering doesn’t matter.

Have you come across an Israeli woman called Dr Nurit Peled- Elhanan? She lost her 13 year old daughter to a Palestinian suicide bomber in 1997, but Dr Peled – showing the compassionate greatness of which human beings are sometimes capable – didn’t retreat into rage, revenge or depression. Instead she co-founded an Israeli-Palestinian network called ‘Bereaved Parents for Peace’. When the 10 year old daughter of a Palestinian colleague was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier, Peled said: ’I sit with her mother Salwa and try to say, “We are all victims of occupation”. But my daughter’s murderer had the decency to kill himself. The soldier who killed Abir is probably drinking beer, playing backgammon with his mates and going to discotheques’.

Or going to a Leonard Cohen concert in Ramat Gan. Is this really what you want to be part of?

Yours sincerely,

Professor Haim Bresheeth
Mike Cushman
Professor Hilary Rose
Professor Jonathan Rosenhead

London
22 April 2009

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write to Cohen’s manager asking him to cancel the concert in Israel

You can write to him through his manager, Mr. Robert Kory rkory@rkmgment.com

schedule a protest outside his concerts

USA (May 5-17, May 29-June 2): Minneapolis- Minnesota, Edmonton and Calgary – Alberta, Chicago – Illinois, Detroit- Michigan, Columbia – Maryland, Philadelphia- Pennsylvania, New York City-NY, Boston- Massachusetts, Denver- Colorado

CANADA (May 19-26): Hamilton, Kingston, London, Ottawa-Ontario, Quebec City- Quebec

FRANCE (July 6-9): St. Herblain, Paris, Toulouse, Vienne

UK (July 11,14): London, Liverpool, Belfast (July 26)

IRELAND (July 19-23): Dublin

NORWAY (July 16-17): Langesund, Molde

PORTUGAL (July 30): Lisbon

SPAIN (July 31-August 15, September 12-17): Sevilla, Palma De Mallorca, Girona, Madrid, Granada, Bilbao, Barcelona

ISRAEL (September 24, if we are not successful): Tel Aviv

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Israelis call on musician Leonard Cohen to cancel concert | Electronic Intifada

29 April 2009

Dear Leonard Cohen,

We are Jews, Palestinians, Israeli citizens, who hold your poetry and music in high esteem, and it is because of this respect for your artistic contributions and your moral Buddhist commitment to “save all beings” that we hope that our appeal to you to cancel your planned performance in Israel will not fall on deaf ears.

Israel is facing one of its most immoral historical moments. Its ruthless, criminal bashing of the Palestinians has been met with little international criticism or curbing. The silence of most of the world’s governments continues to embolden successive Israeli governments to commit more violent acts. Israel has violated numerous international laws, but so far for Israeli Jews life in Israel goes on as if nothing happened. Indeed, your people, Cohen, have built “a new Dachau, And call it love, Security, Jewish culture,” as you have so perceptively put it yourself in “Questions for Shomrim,” but only a few voices have been raised against these injustices.

It is left for us, citizens of the world, to condemn Israeli atrocities and crimes against humanity. Dissociating ourselves from Israel’s brutal policies is the only nonviolent way now to avoid becoming complicit in the killing, the wounding and the maiming, and the robbing of Palestinians. Faced with all this and more, Palestinians are calling on all people to support their struggle for their basic rights. Unfortunately, recognizing Palestinian rights will require a fundamental shift in Israeli society. We suspect that this change will be achieved only via external pressure. The least that one can do in such a situation is not act as if it is business as usual. We see our society becoming more and more calloused and racist and given your longstanding, vocal commitment to justice, we cannot envision you cooperating with continued Israeli defiance of justice and morality; we cannot envision you playing a part in the Israeli charade of self-righteousness. We appeal to you to add your voice to those brave people the world over who boycott Israel. We urge you to cancel your planned performance in Israel.

Undersigned:

Noa Abend, Adv. Ahmad M. Amara, Iris Bar, Yoav Barak, Ronnie Barkan, Smadar Carmon, Adi Dagan, Dr. Aim Deuelle Luski, Yvonne Deutsch, Diana Dolev, Shai Efrati, Prof. Nomi Erteschik-Shir, Naama Farjoun, Eva Ferrero, Racheli Gai, Prof. Rachel Giora, Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, Amos Gvirtz, Tal Haran, Iris Hefets, Ruth Hiller, Tikva Honig-Parnass, Dr. Irit Katriel, Gal Katz, Adam Keller, Yael Lerer, Yossef Lubovsky, Olivia Magnan, Ya’acov Manor, Eilat Maoz
Dr. Ruchama Marton, Dr. Anat Matar, Haggai Matar, Rela Mazali, Dorothy Naor, Dr. David Nir, Dr. Nurit Peled, Leiser Peles, Jonathan Pollak, Yonatan Shapira, Dr. Kobi Snitz, Kerstin Sodergren, Amir Terkel, Adi Winter, Beate Zilversmidt

New York protesters call for Mother’s Day boycott of Leviev diamonds over Israeli settlements

Adalah-NY

9 May 2009

On the day before Mother’s Day, 40 New York human rights advocates gathered at the Leviev jewelry store on Madison Avenue and called on throngs of weekend Madison Avenue shoppers to boycott Israeli diamond mogul Lev Leviev over his companies’ construction of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land in West Bank villages including Bil’in and Jayyous. Mother’s Day is one of the biggest jewelry shopping periods in the US annually. The New York protest came as controversy is growing in Norway over Norwegian government investments in Leviev’s company Africa-Israel. The New York protesters also commemorated Bassem Abu Rahma from Bil’in who was shot to death by Israeli soldiers last month during a peaceful protest against the construction on Bil’in’s land of Israel’s wall and of the Mattityahu East settlement by a Leviev company.

http://blip.tv/play/8zyBgMAoiep1

Riham Barghouti of Adalah-NY explained, “Thousands of New Yorkers heard our message today that Leviev should not be allowed to exploit this holiday honouring mothers while his companies are ruining the lives of Palestinian mothers by stealing their land for Israeli settlements.” Alexis Stern from Adalah-NY added, “The government of the United Kingdom, UNICEF and Oxfam are all now boycotting Leviev. We’re calling on New Yorkers, and the government of Norway to join them.”

The Norwegian government is under increasing pressure to divest from its pension holdings in Leviev’s Africa-Israel. An April 28 article in the UK’s Guardian by Abe Hayeem of Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine urged Norway to follow the UK’s example and sever its relationship with Leviev’s companies. The villages of Bil’in and Jayyous then wrote to Norwegian officials asking them to divest from Leviev’s companies, citing the devastating impacts of settlement construction on their villages’ agricultural land. This was followed by a May 5th letter from Adalah-NY and ten national and international organizations and networks from Europe, Palestine, Israel and the US calling on Norway to comply with its ethical guidelines for investment and divest.

During the New York Mother’s Day protest, the terrible impacts of Leviev’s settlement construction were brought home in a commemoration of Bassem Abu Rahma from Bil’in. Video from April 17th shows that Abu Rahma, a dedicated nonviolent activist, was participating in a peaceful protest in Bil’in against the settlement and the wall when he was suddenly shot directly in the chest with a teargas canister from a short distance by an Israeli soldier. One New York activist read aloud a tribute to Bassem written by his friend and colleague from Bil’in Mohammed Khatib. Two Jewish-Americans who have protested in Bil’in with Bassem then spoke of the courage of Bassem, of the people of Bil’in and of the millions of Palestinians confronting Israeli repression daily, and urged people in New York and around the world to stand with them.

Inspired by Bil’in’s four-year nonviolent campaign, that continues despite Bassem’s death and the injuring of 1,300 civilians, New York protesters chanted, “Your mama didn’t raise you that way, don’t buy from Leviev on Mother’s Day!” They passed out hundreds of copies of the cartoon flyer, Who Is Lev Leviev?, and carried signs saying, “Embrace moms, don’t displace moms.” Customers sitting outside at an upscale restaurant near Leviev’s store listened as protesters sang, “Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to build settlements,” and, to the tune of “Mama Said” by The Shirelles:

Mama said don’t build settlements,

don’t build on other people’s lands,

Mama said don’t buy diamonds,

from a guy with blood on his hands.

Leviev has also been criticized for human rights abuses in Angola where his companies mine diamonds.

Fayyad calls for end to land expropriation

Ali Waked | Ynet News

8 May 2009

Palestinian prime minister attends Friday prayer in east Jerusalem, promises residents to thwart Netanyahu government’s plan to confiscate property in Abu Dis area.

Battle over east Jerusalem lands heating up: Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Friday took part in a prayer held on disputed lands in the Abu Dis area, where protest tents have been set up following the Israeli demand to expropriate lands.

Fayyad participated in the prayer held by Kadi Taysir Tamami, head of the Palestinian Authority’s Sharia courts, near Area E1, which is the focus of a dispute between the Palestinians and Israel, which seeks to build the community of Keidar and connect between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim. Hundreds of Jerusalem residents attended the prayer.

The Palestinian prime minister stated that “the PA will not agree to all the Israeli plans”, and promised that they would not succeed.

Talking to Ynet, Fayyad’s advisor for Jerusalem affairs, Khatem Abdel Kader, said that the prime minister’s arrival at the area served as a message to Israel that the PA would fight the expropriation plans.

“This is also a message to the international community, that it must work to implement the principle that these are Palestinian lands which will be an inseparable part of the Palestinian state,” Abdel Kader added.

“And it is also a message to the Palestinian people, that the PA will not abandon them in the face of the plans that (Interior Minister) Eli Yishai and his friends are working to implement.”

Apart from the area near the community of Abu Dis, PA officials have also expressed their fear this week that Israel plans to confiscate dozens of acres including dozens of buildings with some 1,000 residents near the neighborhood of al-Bustan, next to Silwan, as part of what they referred to as “an extensive expropriation campaign”.