Tag: Los Angeles Times

Action Alert: Write the LA Times in support of Bil’in

4 November 2009

The LA Times has published a great article (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-nonviolence4-2009nov04,0,226753.story?page=1&track=rss) about Bil’in and the popular struggle in today’s edition (November 4th).

As past experience teach us, an assault by Israel’s supporter is sure to follow immediately, and be directed at both the paper itself, its editors and the reporter.

These attacks are beyond mere nuisance – they apply real pressure on those targeted, and often dissuade major media from covering Palestinian issues in an objective and truthful manner.

Media coverage generally and articles such as this are of great importance for us here on the ground, and we would like to do everything within our power to counter the attacks that threaten them.

I urge you to dedicate just a few minutes of your time and send a supportive letter to the LA Times and to the reporter, Richard Boudreaux.

The emails to send letters to are, respectively:
letters@latimes.com and boudreaux@latimes.com

Original letters are of course better, but also feel free to use or model yours after the sample letter attached below.

Please bear in mind that letters to the editor in the LA Times have a word limit of 150, and must include your full name, mailing address, daytime phone number, and e-mail address. This information is seen only by the letters editors and is not used for any commercial purpose.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Dear LA Times,

I was very pleased to see Richard Boudreaux’s article “Palestinians who see nonviolence as their weapon” in your November 4th edition.

As readers, we have gotten so used to seeing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict solely through the perspective of the barrel of a gun, that any civic engagement in it erroneously appears marginal and unimportant to most audiences.

This misguided view of the Palestinian struggle is too often the one that dominates the media’s discourse. Most Palestinians, like most people everywhere else, are not gun-toting fanatics hell bent on violence, but rather are ordinary people determined to attain freedom and justice from under an unbearable military occupation. Articles like Boudreax’s, which depicts Palestinian resistance, as it is – multifaceted and diverse – are as important as they are rare.

I hope the LA Times will continue to defy the governing notions in the media about Israel-Palestine, and publish articles true to the reality on the ground.

Yours,

The language that absolves Israel

Saree Makdisi | The Los Angeles Times

19 June 2009

On Sunday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech that — by categorically ruling out the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state — ought to have been seen as a mortal blow to the quest for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On Monday morning, however, newspaper headlines across the United States announced that Netanyahu had endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state, and the White House welcomed the speech as “an important step forward.”

Reality can be so easily stood on its head when it comes to Israel because the misreading of Israeli declarations is a long-established practice among commentators and journalists in the United States.

In fact, a special vocabulary has been developed for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the United States. It filters and structures the way in which developing stories are misread here, making it difficult for readers to fully grasp the nature of those stories — and maybe even for journalists to think critically about what they write.

The ultimate effect of this special vocabulary is to make it possible for Americans to accept and even endorse in Israel what they would reject out of hand in any other country.

Let me give a classic example.

In the U.S., discussion of Palestinian politicians and political movements often relies on a spectrum running from “extreme” to “moderate.” The latter sounds appealing; the former clearly applies to those who must be — must they not? — beyond the pale. But hardly anyone relying on such terms pauses to ask what they mean. According to whose standard are these manifestly subjective labels assigned?

Meanwhile, Israeli politicians are labeled according to an altogether different standard: They are “doves” or “hawks.” Unlike the terms reserved for Palestinians, there’s nothing inherently negative about either of those avian terms.

So why is no Palestinian leader referred to here as a “hawk”? Why are Israeli politicians rarely labeled “extremists”? Or, for that matter, “militants”?

There are countless other examples of these linguistic double standards. American media outlets routinely use the deracinating and deliberately obfuscating term “Israeli Arabs” to refer to the Palestinian citizens of Israel, despite the fact that they call themselves — and are — Palestinian.

Similarly, Israeli housing units built in the occupied territories in contravention of international law are always called “settlements” or even “neighborhoods” rather than what they are: “colonies.” That word may be harsh on the ears, but it’s far more accurate (“a body of people who settle in a new locality, forming a community subject to or connected with their parent state”).

These subtle distinctions make a huge difference. Unconsciously absorbed, such terms frame the way people and events are viewed. When it comes to Israel, we seem to reach for a dictionary that applies to no one else, to give a pass to actions or statements that would be condemned in any other quarter.

That’s what allowed Netanyahu to be congratulated for endorsing a Palestinian “state,” even though the kind of entity he said Palestinians might — possibly — be allowed to have would be nothing of the kind.

Look up the word “state” in the dictionary. You’ll probably see references to territorial integrity, power and sovereignty. The entity that Netanyahu was talking about on Sunday would lack all of those constitutive features. A “state” without a defined territory that is not allowed to control its own borders or airspace and cannot enter into treaties with other states is not a state, any more than an apple is an orange or a car an airplane. So how can leading American newspapers say “Israeli Premier Backs State for Palestinians,” as the New York Times had it? Or “Netanyahu relents on goal of two states,” as this paper put it?

Because a different vocabulary applies.

Which is also what kept Netanyahu’s most extraordinary demand in Sunday night’s speech from raising eyebrows here.

“The truth,” he said, “is that in the area of our homeland, in the heart of our Jewish homeland, now lives a large population of Palestinians.”

In other words, as Netanyahu repeatedly said, there is a Jewish people; it has a homeland and hence a state. As for the Palestinians, they are a collection — not even a group — of trespassers on Jewish land. Netanyahu, of course, dismisses the fact that they have a centuries-old competing narrative of home attached to the same land, a narrative worthy of recognition by Israel.

On the contrary: The Palestinians must, he said, accept that Israel is the state of the Jewish people (this is a relatively new Israeli demand, incidentally), and they must do so on the understanding that they are not entitled to the same rights. “We” are a people, Netanyahu was saying; “they” are merely a “population.” “We” have a right to a state — a real state. “They” do not.

And the spokesman for our African American president calls this “an important step forward”?

In any other situation — including our own country — such a brutally naked contrast between those who are taken to have inherent rights and those who do not would immediately be labeled as racist. Netanyahu, though, is given a pass, not because most Americans would knowingly endorse racism but because, in this case, a special political vocabulary kicks in that prevents them from being able to recognize it for exactly what it is.

Saree Makdisi is a professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA. He is the author of, among other books, “Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation.”

L.A. Times: In West Bank, a risky quest for peace

Ruth Morris | Los Angeles Times

Activists’ use of human shields is questioned after two members are killed by Israeli forces.

TULKARM, West Bank – Wearing sandals and amber-colored earrings in a region where soldiers don bulletproof vests, Radhika Sainath stepped up to the driver’s side of an Israeli military jeep on the dilapidated outskirts of the West Bank and demanded an explanation for the armored personnel carriers roaring past.

“Why aren’t you in Israel?” asked the disbelieving soldier at the wheel. “You’re like a superman. You come to fix all of the world.”

“I’m hoping if I’m standing in front of Palestinians, you won’t shoot,” Sainath countered.

Halfway around the globe from the boat slips and glossy swells of her native Newport Beach, 24-year-old Sainath has signed on as a human shield with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement – one of the most controversial and ill-fated activist groups patrolling the battle lines of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Dubbed terrorist sympathizers by some, martyrs by others, ISM has seen three of its volunteers killed or seriously wounded by Israeli security forces in just over a month. That turn of events has focused a harsh light on the group’s high-stakes brand of activism and raised some tough questions for organizers: When does gutsy activism cross the line into unwarranted risk? How can activists stay above the fray in communities where dangerous militants mingle with smiling civilians? In a world of heavy armor, how far is too far?

“I don’t know what too far is. I think we could all go a little further, frankly,” said Fred Schlomka of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, a group that works alongside ISM to block armored Israeli bulldozers from razing Palestinian homes.

Besides kneeling before hulking bulldozers, ISM volunteers ride along with Palestinian ambulance drivers to negotiate quick passage through Israeli checkpoints. They bust military curfews and try to be present when Palestinian youths are hurling stones at tanks. When they hear firefights at night, they go outside to bear witness.

To Palestinians, who see the Israeli army as abusive and trigger-happy, ISM’s losses have brought a degree of credibility and clout to the organization. To the Israeli security forces, pitched into a public relations quagmire, the group’s members are meddlesome and naive.

Schlomka’s group was particularly saddened by the death of ISM volunteer Rachel Corrie, 23, of Olympia, Wash. Corrie became the group’s first international “martyr” in late March when she tried to obstruct a mammoth D-9 bulldozer, used by Israel to clear anti-tank mines and demolish Palestinian homes along the Egyptian border.

Israeli security forces say that the bulldozer’s driver couldn’t see Corrie from his perch and that ISM acts provocatively by protecting structures used by terrorists to dig gunrunning tunnels. Witnesses charge that the driver purposefully buried her under a mound of gravel.

Kneeling before an armored Israeli bulldozer “is either foolhardy or extremely courageous,” Schlomka said. “I prefer to think of it as extremely courageous.”

A few weeks after Corrie died, ISM volunteer Brian Avery, 24, of Albuquerque, suffered a gunshot wound to the face while investigating a gun battle in the West Bank city of Jenin. ISM said an armored personnel carrier fired toward Avery and another member of the group while they stood in plain view, in reflective vests, hands above their heads.

Military sources said Israeli troops in the area that evening didn’t report the incident, although they did fire to disperse four youngsters who appeared to be building primitive bombs.

In the most recent violence to befall the group, British ISM activist Tom Hurndall was shot in the back of the head while shepherding a group of children to safety under sporadic fire from an Israeli observation tower. Israeli security forces are investigating the shooting; Hurndall remains on full life support in an Israeli hospital.

Throughout the bloodshed, Israeli critics have cast ISM’s foreign activists as a nuisance.

“They come into a war zone without experience. They don’t know how to behave, and they think that because they’re holding an international passport, nothing will happen to them,” said Sharon Feingold, spokeswoman for the Israel Defense Forces.

The Israeli army says its incursions into the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip are meant to root out terrorists before they reach Israeli streets. In the nearly 31 months since the Palestinian uprising, or intifada, began, hundreds of Israelis have died in suicide bombings and armed attacks.

“The split second a soldier hesitates to make sure he’s not shooting the wrong guy, he puts himself in danger,” Feingold added.

ISM’s defenders say the group’s run of misfortune is a reflection of hardhearted Israeli military tactics, not reckless activism. Under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, “soldiers have had a license to do more and more severe things,” said David Nir, an Israeli activist with the group Taayush, which targets Israeli activities it considers discriminatory against Palestinians. “Once they’re used to one level of brutality, they can go on to the next.”

At ISM headquarters in the West Bank town of Beit Sahur, a poster of Rachel Corrie – blond hair tucked beneath a head scarf – adorns an outer wall lined with tattered and rain-stained posters, mostly of civilians killed during Israeli incursions into the Palestinian territories.

The group is “about being open to radical change and higher levels of danger,” said Ghassan Andoni, one of its founders. Small-framed and intense, Andoni said 40% of ISM’s foreign members register over the Internet, while others are referred by support groups working abroad.

ISM has 40 to 100 foreign volunteers rotating through at any given time, who are accompanied by Palestinian members, Andoni said.The group lightly screens foreign volunteers, and everybody undergoes a day and a half of training after arriving in the region.

“International participation was necessary to provide a level of protection. We’re talking about a scenario where pulling the trigger is easier than drinking water,” Andoni said.

Volunteers vary from pony-tailed bohemians to politically minded professionals to deeply religious conscience-raisers. Most come on three-month tourist visas, and all pay their own airfare. Accommodations are provided – usually a rollout mattress on a hard floor – and the group recommends bringing $200 to $300 a month to pay for pita sandwiches and phone cards. Alcohol is strictly forbidden.

Sainath, the Newport Beach volunteer, has sometimes stayed with olive farmers in villages outside Tulkarm.

“It’s not very comfortable,” she said. “But with what I’ve seen these people go through, I can’t complain.”

One recent training session for a batch of new volunteers was led by a veteran activist known as Starhawk, a frizzy-haired writer on feminist politics and pagan spirituality.

“Ground a little more. Put those roots down,” Starhawk told the recruits as she went from one to another pushing her fists into their chests and shoving them backward. Between plastic cups of dark, sugary tea, she also showed them how to protect a shoulder socket while being dragged across the floor and how to use their peripheral vision while maneuvering through volatile crowds.

Andoni admits the training is limited and says some volunteers have lost their composure during heated confrontations. But after a “painful” review of recent events, he concluded that ISM was not at fault in the shootings and standoffs that killed and injured the three members.

ISM first made headlines last spring, when its activists slipped past Israeli soldiers in the West Bank city of Ramallah and entered the headquarters of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat as it was pounded by Israeli shells. Other volunteers entered the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and stayed through the end of a five-week standoff with Israeli troops.

The group’s most recent move that infuriated Israeli security forces occurred several weeks ago, when members stationed in Jenin took in a wanted Palestinian fleeing from Israeli troops. The two ISM volunteers accused of harboring the suspect later said that he had come into their office from the roof, frightened and dripping wet, and that they didn’t know he was being chased.

“I’m a mainstream American. I’m not an activist,” said Jennifer, who is one of the ISM volunteers accused of protecting the wanted man and who asked that only her first name be used.

Around the corner from where she spoke, Palestinian militants in black hoods discharged automatic rifles into the sky and waved Palestinian flags to commemorate the first anniversary of a deadly Israeli incursion into the Jenin refugee camp.

“There was a curfew. There was gunfire. Knowing that it’s dangerous for anyone to be in the street during curfew, we indicated he could stay,” said Jennifer. “Harboring a terrorist? It’s not even something I thought about.”

As far as ISM’s future is concerned, there doesn’t seem to be any immediate threat. Despite the controversy, risk and living conditions, new recruits are signing up at a record pace, Andoni said.