Tag: The Guardian - Page 5 - International Solidarity Movement

A recipe for resentment

Ahmad Samih Khalidi | The Guardian

26 May 2009

The Obama administration is gearing up for its impending and possibly decisive moves towards relaunching the Middle East peace process, with a series of consultations with Arab leaders, including the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, later this week. After meeting with Barack Obama in Washington last week, the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, pressed his demand that the Palestinians should recognise Israel as a Jewish state, posing it as the sine qua non for any future agreement. This demand seems to be gaining some traction in the US and in western capitals.

But Washington and the international community should be very wary of progressing any further down this path; for behind what may appear an innocuous demand to accept Israel for what it deems itself to be lies an ideologically motivated attempt to force the Palestinians into an unprecedented repudiation of their history. Palestinians’ recognition of Israel as a Jewish state implies the acknowledgment that the lands they lost in 1948 are a Jewish birthright. This runs contrary to the heart of the Palestinians’ historical narrative and their sense of identity and belonging.

It invalidates the history of the Palestinians’ century-old struggle and in effect demands that they should become Zionists; for the essence of Zionism lies in the belief that these lands are (and always were) the homeland of the Jewish people, and that the history of Jewish dispossession was rightfully rectified by the emergence of Israel in 1948.

Despite their current split, the majority of Palestinians – including Hamas – have accepted the political reality of Israel. The Palestine Liberation Organisation has gone further in acknowledging Israel’s right to live in peace within secure borders. The PLO has also accepted that the loss of 77% of the Palestinians’ historic homeland within Israel’s pre-1967 borders cannot be reversed by force. Even Hamas has indicated that it can accept long-term peaceful coexistence with Israel if it withdraws from the territories that it occupied in 1967.

Accepting the notion of Palestinian-Israeli coexistence and an end to violence is one thing. Acknowledging Israel’s historic and moral claim to what were once Palestinian Arab lands is another thing altogether.

But there is more to this Israeli demand. The underlying purpose is to preempt the Palestinians who were driven into exile in 1948 from continuing to claim the “right of return” to their lost lands and properties. But the Palestinian desire to “return” is not about undoing Israel’s Jewish character. It is lodged in the sense of a broader historical injustice that is in need of acknowledgement, restitution and compensation.

The Palestinian leadership is aware that Israel cannot be compelled to take back any refugees against its will, and that any resolution of the refugee problem will have to be negotiated and agreed by mutual consent.

The fact is that the demand to acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state is meant less to block the prospects of being swamped by Arabs – as Israeli propagandists claim – and more as a covert attempt to wrest Palestinian absolution for Israel’s “original sin” in taking over their homeland.

There is another vital matter relating to Israel’s Arab citizens – currently about 20% of its population. Acknowledging Israel as a Jewish state would undermine their status and jeopardise their very presence, especially in light of the rise of ultra-right parties that are already seeking to deny the country’s Arab citizens their most basic civic rights.

The Palestinian leadership has made it clear that it will not accede to Israel’s demand. But even in the unlikely event that it eventually succumbs to Israeli pressure and misguided western arm-twisting, this would remain an insincere and disingenuous concession. It would weaken and subvert the existing Palestinian order and create new and dangerous splits within it.

Far from being a prerequisite for peace and coexistence, this is an unnecessary and dangerous diversion – and a recipe for deep future resentment, revanchism and renewed conflict.

Israel must think again about whether there is any real utility – besides disruption and delay – in pressing this issue. The west must steer well clear of adopting this ideologically loaded formula, or seek to impose it on an already weakened and divided Palestinian polity, or to add to the burdens of the already tenuous and very uncertain prospects for peace.

Ahmad Samih Khalidi is a senior associate member of St Antony’s College, Oxford and a former Palestinian negotiator.

Why Palestinians are calling for a boycott of Israeli universities

Amjad Barham | The Guardian

26 May 2009

Palestinian academics have been heartened by the outpouring of solidarity with our people on the part of British academics and students – the latter attested to by the creative “student occupation movement” in the wake of the brutal Israeli war against the Palestinian people in Gaza last December and January.

What does the Palestinian academic community expect from international colleagues?

It has sometimes been suggested that solidarity with Palestinian academics is best expressed in fostering academic links between British and Palestinian universities, with the aim of strengthening the capacity of Palestinian academic institutions that have suffered from the long siege imposed by Israel’s colonial regime.

While we value academic and institutional forms of support, we feel that this is not sufficient. Decades of life under military occupation have taught us that no sustainable development, including in the academy, is possible without freedom from occupation and oppression.

We are keenly aware that British intellectuals and academics have been at the forefront of many international campaigns for justice, the most illustrious and successful of which was the fight against the apartheid regime in South Africa. What we ask for is moral consistency: if it was acceptable for British academics to support unreservedly the academic boycott of South Africa with a view to ending the system of apartheid, then the same should apply in the case of Israel.

It is the duty of civil society to shoulder the moral responsibility of isolating Israel in the international arena through various forms of boycott and sanctions to compel it to obey international law and respect Palestinian rights.

It is well documented that Israeli academic institutions are deeply complicit in Israel’s colonial and racist policies against the Palestinian people. Not only do Israeli universities and research institutions co-operate closely with the security-military establishment through research and other academic activities, they have never dissociated themselves from the occupation regime, despite the more than four decades of the systematic stifling of Palestinian education.

Israeli universities have never condemned the entrenched and institutionalised system of discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel within the Israeli polity, society and even the academy.

Israel and its supporters have argued that the Palestinian call for institutional boycott infringes the universal principle of academic freedom. Palestinians find this argument biased and hypocritical – not to mention based on false premises.

The privileging of academic freedom above more basic human rights conflicts with the very idea of universal human rights, as it assigns far more importance to the academic freedom of a sector of Israeli society than to the fundamental rights of all Palestinians to live in freedom and dignity. Is upholding the academic freedom – in our view, the privileges – of Israeli academics a loftier aim than defending the freedom of an entire people living under a brutal and illegal occupation?

“Constructive engagement” with the Israeli academy is often suggested to us as a more effective mechanism to address the injustice inflicted upon us by Israel. We have tried this method, only to realise that as long as the terms of the relationship between the Israelis and the Palestinians are those of occupier and occupied, and oppressor and oppressed, the engagement process only results in normalising the occupation on the ground and whitewashing Israeli atrocities abroad.

I can give an example from my own personal experience. Once, as I was crossing one of the hundreds of military checkpoints on my way to my university, I was stopped by an Israeli soldier who turned out to be a fellow mathematician at an Israeli university. But our collegiality ended here: he told me that I could cross the checkpoint if I was able to answer a mathematics question correctly! What kind of engagement can be possible here?

As to the charge that the boycott is discriminatory, it is completely false. The Palestinian boycott call is institutional; it simply does not target individual Israeli academics and cannot, therefore, be “discriminatory” in any real sense of the term. Endorsing and applying the boycott does not in any way prevent individual Israeli academics from participating in international academic conferences and research projects, so long as the projects themselves are not based on institutional links with Israeli universities and research centers.

Moreover, being enshrined in universalist values and principles, the boycott call adopted by an overwhelming majority in Palestinian civil society categorically rejects all forms of racial discrimination and racism, including Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.

Finally, we of course recognise and deeply appreciate the steadily increasing support for the boycott we are witnessing among Israeli academics, who have reached the conclusion that only sustained pressure on Israel and its complicit institutions can bring about a just peace.

Our struggle for justice and peace is best supported through actions that aim at ending Israel’s impunity by compelling it to respect international law and our rights. Boycott is the most effective among those.

Dr Amjad Barham is president of the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE)

Palestinian patients ‘interrogated before leaving Gaza for treatment’

Rory McCarthy | The Guardian

4 May 2009

An Israeli medical human rights group said today that an increasing number of Palestinian patients from Gaza were being interrogated by Israeli security services before being allowed to leave the strip for treatment.

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel said at least 438 patients had been summoned for interrogation by the Shabak, the Israeli general security service, at the Erez crossing out of Gaza between January 2008 and March this year.

It took evidence from several patients and found they were “forced to provide information as a precondition to exit Gaza for medical care”. The group said the ratio of applicants being interrogated rose from 1.45% in January last year to 17% in January this year. Their research also suggested the number of interrogations increased sharply from the beginning of this year, after Israel’s three-week war in Gaza.

One unnamed patient, who had been referred for orthopaedic treatment to a hospital in east Jerusalem, told the group that as he was trying to leave Gaza he was asked to give information on the people in his neighbourhood and was asked if he knew any Hamas members.

When he refused to give any information, he said his interrogator replied: “I understand that you don’t want to answer me and that you don’t want to work with us, so go back to Gaza.”

Another patient, who was trying to reach a hospital in east Jerusalem, said he was asked: “If you tell me which members of your family belong to the Hamas and which to the Islamic Jihad, I’ll let you leave Gaza for the hospital.” When he refused, he was told he would be sent back to Gaza.

The group said that patients were photographed by the security services holding a card with their name and identity card number on it, sometimes by coercion.

Others described being insulted during the questioning and being locked up at the crossing, sometimes for several hours without explanation.

Physicians for Human Rights said it took on average six to eight hours for each patient to cross. The group said it believed the Israeli security services were violating international laws on torture and coercion.

“PHR-Israel reiterates its claim that the way in which the GSS [general security service] is exploiting patients’ medical conditions by exerting pressure on them, be it overt or hidden, constitutes coercion prohibited under the fourth Geneva convention,” it said.

“The exacerbation of the situation is the outcome of failure of public bodies in Israel to take effective steps to restrain the GSS.” It was to present its findings to the UN Committee Against Torture in Geneva.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli government, rejected the allegations. He said: “The idea that there is a conditionality that people who come into Israel for medical treatment must provide intelligence co-operation is simply untrue.”

He said 13,000 Palestinians from Gaza were allowed into Israel last year for medical treatment and said they had to go through “legitimate” security checks.

End Palestinian demolitions in Jerusalem, UN tells Israel

Rory McCarthy | The Guardian

1 May 2009

The United Nations has called on Israel to end its programme of demolishing homes in east Jerusalem and tackle a mounting housing crisis for Palestinians in the city.

Dozens of Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem are demolished each year because they do not have planning permits. Critics say the demolitions are part of an effort to extend Israeli control as Jewish settlements continue to expand. The 21-page report from the UN office for the co-ordination of humanitarian affairs is the latest round in an intensifying campaign on the issue.

Although Israel’s mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, has defended the planning policy as even-handed, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, in March described demolitions as “unhelpful”. An internal report for EU diplomats, released earlier and obtained by the Guardian, described them as illegal under international law and said they “fuel bitterness and extremism”. Israel occupied east Jerusalem in the 1967 war and later unilaterally annexed it, a move not recognised by the international community.

The UN said that of the 70.5 sq km of east Jerusalem and the West Bank annexed by Israel, only 13% was zoned for Palestinian construction and this was mostly already built up. At the same time 35% had been expropriated for Israeli settlements, even though all settlements on occupied land are illegal under international law.

As a result Palestinians in east Jerusalem had found it increasingly difficult to obtain planning permits and many had built without them, risking fines and eventual demolition, the UN said. As many as 28% of all Palestinian homes in east Jerusalem were built in violation of Israeli planning rules.

“Throughout its occupation, Israel has significantly restricted Palestinian development in east Jerusalem,” the UN report said. It said 673 Palestinian structures had been demolished in the east between 2000 and 2008. Last year alone 90 structures were demolished, leaving 400 Palestinians displaced, the highest number of demolitions for four years. Similar demolitions are carried out regularly by the Israeli military across the West Bank.

The UN said it was particularly concerned about areas facing mass demolition, including Bustan in Silwan, just south of the old city, where the threatened destruction of 90 houses would lead to the displacement of 1,000 Palestinians.

Families who lose their homes are faced with the choice of moving into crowded apartments with relatives or renting new homes. They face “significant hardships”, including having their property destroyed and struggling with debts from fines and legal fees, the UN said.

A 2007 survey, quoted in the UN report, found that more than half of the displaced families took at least two years to find a new permanent home and often moved several times in the process. Children missed out on school and suffered emotional and behavioural problems for months, with poor academic records over the longer term.

The authorities in Jerusalem challenged the UN report and denied “the accusations and numbers throughout”. Israel’s Jerusalem municipality accepted there was a “planning crisis” but said it was “not just in eastern Jerusalem but throughout all of Jerusalem that affects Jews, Christians and Muslims alike”. It said the mayor would present a new plan for the city.

“Recent events indicate that the Jerusalem municipality will maintain, and possibly accelerate, its policy on house demolition,” the UN report said. “Israel should immediately freeze all pending demolition orders and undertake planning that will address the Palestinian housing crisis in east Jerusalem.”

Last week, Barkat, who won election five months ago, rejected international criticism of demolitions and planning policy as “misinformation” and “Palestinian spin. There is no politics. It’s just maintaining law and order in the city,” he said. “The world is basing its evidence on the wrong facts.The world has to learn and I am sure people will change their minds.”

Barkat said he wanted to improve the life of all the city’s residents, Jewish and Arab, but that he was committed to maintaining a Jewish majority. Jews make up around two-thirds of the city’s population.

The UN said nearly a third of east Jerusalem remained unplanned, meaning there could be no construction. Even in planned areas there were problems, including the number of small privately held plots, poor infrastructure and few resources.

Although the number of permit applications more than doubled between 2003 and 2007, the number of permits grants remained relatively flat, the UN said. There was a gap between housing needs and permitted construction of 1,100 housing units a year. “Due to the lack of proper urban planning, the under-investment in public infrastructure and the inequitable allocation of budgetary resources, east Jerusalem is overcrowded and the public services do not meet the needs of the Palestinian population,” the report said.

Jerusalem’s mayor defends demolition of houses in Arab area

Rory McCarthy | The Guardian

23 April 2009

Israel’s mayor of Jerusalem defended the demolition of houses in the Arab east of the city today and insisted Jerusalem could not be a future capital of a Palestinian state.

Nir Barkat, a secular businessman elected as mayor five months ago, rejected international criticism of demolitions and planning policy in east Jerusalem as “misinformation” and “Palestinian spin”.

There is growing international concern about Israeli house demolitions and settlement growth in East Jerusalem, an area captured by Israel in 1967 and later annexed in a move not recognised by most of the international community. Critics of Israeli policy point out that planning permits are rarely given to Palestinians in East Jerusalem and that space allowed in the east for building is heavily restricted.

Last month the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, described demolitions as “unhelpful” and an internal EU diplomatic report, obtained last month by the Guardian, described them as “illegal under international law” and said they “fuel bitterness and extremism”.

But Barkat told reporters: “There is no politics. It’s just maintaining law and order in the city.” Since January, he said, there had been 35 demolitions, of which 20 were in the east. Asked about the international concern, he said: “The world is basing their evidence on the wrong facts … The world has to learn and I am sure people will change their minds.”

But others on the council disagree. Meir Margalit, an elected councillor from the leftwing Meretz party, said while the demolitions in the east were of Palestinian apartments and houses, in the west of the city they were nearly all small structures added on to buildings, including shopfronts.

Margalit said fewer than 7% of planning applications submitted by Palestinians in East Jerusalem had been successful so far this year, against 14% from the west, while 41% of Palestinian East Jerusalem planning applications had been rejected, against 20% from the west. He said this followed a pattern established over many years, before Barkat’s election.

“The discrimination here is more than ideological,” Margalit said. “It is part of a cultural structure that is the norm in the municipality.” He also produced research showing the municipality spent less than 12% of its budget in the east, where roads are often potholed and services are poor.

He said he could not accept East Jerusalem becoming the capital of a future Palestinian state. “Jerusalem, both ideologically and practically, has to be managed as a united city, as the Israeli capital, and must not be divided,” he said.

Barkat said he wanted the Israeli government to build a Jewish settlement in an area of the occupied West Bank east of Jerusalem known as E1, a project the US has opposed. He said E1 was part of the “holy land of Israel” and could serve to allow the city’s Jewish population to expand outwards. “I see no reason in the world why the Israelis must freeze expansion and the Palestinians can build illegally,” he said. Under the US “road map”, which remains the basis of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, Israel is committed to freezing all settlement building. Settlements in occupied land are widely regarded as illegal under international law.