As I posted on “Arabs Feel the Squeeze” where Robert also posted the above articles, I agree with the sentiments expressed in both. Israelis who grasp the deep immorality of this must protest loudly and effectively. And remind, over and over, Netanyahu and Lieberman of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s words: that in second state Palestine, Jews will be welcome and given all the rights of Israeli Arabs.

The True Height of Insecurity

“The War is With the Arabs”

By HANNAH MERMELSTEIN

“I saw this sign as I was entering Nablus last week, again on my way to Ramallah, and again near Bethlehem.  The phrase is printed in Hebrew, presumably by Israeli settlers, on huge signs throughout the West Bank.  Israeli racism rarely shocks me anymore, but its blatant display still makes me stop and catch my breath as I translate it into other contexts.  Imagine driving through the middle of a predominantly black neighborhood in a US city or town and seeing a enormous sign that says, “The war is with the Blacks.”

I think about security.  Israel’s abuse of the word has rendered the concept almost meaningless in the region, but the importance of security on individual and communal levels cannot be underestimated. However, most discussions I see in the media about security ignore the Palestinian people’s right to security.  “The war is with the Arabs” is a new sign, as far as I know, but for years in the West Bank I have seen stars of David scrawled on Palestinian shops and homes, and signs like “Death to Arabs” and “Kahane was right” (Kahane was an extremist political leader who promoted ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people; this sign is essentially equivalent to “Hitler was right” in the middle of a Jewish neighborhood).

But signs are not only created; they are also destroyed.  Since 1948, Palestinian people inside Israel have experienced erasure and denial of their identities that is perhaps stronger than that of any other group of Palestinian people.  I visited a friend in Lyd last week who lives on Giborai Yisrael (“Heroes of Israel”) Street.  Driving around the Palestinian neighborhoods in Lyd, we passed roads bearing the names of Herzl, Jabotinsky, and other Zionist leaders.  None of the old Arabic street names remain.  Even large cities with considerable Palestinian populations are now seeing Arabic names officially erased from signs.  In Arabic script, “Yaffa” will become “Yafo,” “Nasra” will become “Natzeret,” and “Al Quds” will become “Yerushalayim.”

Lack of security goes beyond denial of identity and history as visually expressed through signs.  A Palestinian friend with Israeli citizenship told me he has heard a rumor that a huge piece of land in Jordan is being cleared and built up for the eventual arrival of the Palestinian population of Israel after they are transferred from their homes.  “It may be conspiracy theory,” he said, “but I don’t know.”

“I’d like to think that Israel couldn’t get away with that,” I responded.

“Of course they can,” another friend from Lyd said, “and if the conditions are right, they will.”

Imagine living day to day thinking you might be expelled from your country in the near future.  Or in Gaza, wondering if you will be killed tomorrow, or if you will ever be able to come in and out of your country at will.  Or in the West Bank, if your son will be arrested, or if you will be able to get through the checkpoint in the morning to get to work.  Or in Jerusalem, if your residency will be stripped or your house destroyed.

Imagine little correlation between choice and consequence, an arbitrary relationship between cause and effect.  If you are just as likely to get shot and killed sipping tea in your doorway, or sitting in your fourth grade classroom, or participating in a demonstration, or joining the armed resistance, is it any surprise that some choose each?

A friend of mine from the West Bank once told me that she never feels safe, so safety is not a consideration for her in making decisions. As much as I may try, I cannot truly imagine this lack of control.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/mermelstein07242009.html

July 23, 2009

Ghettos, Demolitions and Housing Shortages

The Reality of Israel’s “Open” Jerusalem

By JONATHAN COOK

Jerusalem

“No one would have been more surprised than Fawziya Khurd by the recent pronouncement of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, that Israel operates an “open city” policy in Jerusalem.

Mr Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday that Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem following the 1967 war—what he called the city’s “unification”—meant that all residents, Jews and Palestinians alike, could buy property wherever they chose.

“Our policy is that Jerusalem residents can purchase apartments anywhere in the city,” he said. “There is no ban on Arabs buying apartments in the west of the city, and there is no ban on Jews building or buying in the city’s east.”

Mr Netanyahu was trying to justify recent construction in East Jerusalem by settler organizations in defiance of demands from the US that Israel halt all such work. In particular, US officials are objecting to the recent takeover of property by settlers in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, where Mrs Khurd used to live, as well as the Old City, Silwan and Ras al-Amud.

According to experts, however, the reality is that in both a practical and legal sense Mr Netanyahu’s “open city” is a fiction, extended only to the settlers and not to Mrs Khurd or to the 250,000 other Palestinians of East Jerusalem.

Mrs Khurd, for example, has been forced to live in a tent after settlers ousted her from her East Jerusalem home of five decades in November. She also has no hope of moving back to the house taken from her family in Talbiyeh, now in West Jerusalem, during the 1948 war that established Israel.

In addition, movement restrictions mean that almost all of the nearly four million Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza are banned from entering the city or visiting its holy sites.

Inside Jerusalem, as in the West Bank, Israel enforces a strict programme of segregation to disadvantage the Palestinians, says Jeff Halper, of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

Israeli Jews have the freedom to live in both parts of the city, with 270,000 in West Jerusalem and a further 200,000 living in East Jerusalem in rapidly expanding settlements heavily subsidized by the state.

Palestinians, meanwhile, are denied the right to live both in West Jerusalem and in many residential areas of East Jerusalem. Even in their tightly controlled neighborhoods in the city’s east, at least 20,000 of their homes are subject to demolition orders, according to Mr Halper.

Daniel Seidemann, a Jerualem lawyer, says that in his 20 years of handling residency rights cases for Palestinians he has never heard of a Palestinian with a Jerusalem ID living in West Jerusalem.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/cook07232009.html

On July 4th this year at the Aspen Institute, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told the conference that Jews would be welcome in the Palestinian state with all the rights Arabs in Israel enjoy. (You can see more of his speech in the American Jewish Congress’ monthly Middle East roundup.) So far he has only delivered this one speech with that message in one place, but if he repeats it to different audiences and in Arabic as well, it will be a huge move forward toward the second state solution. It will also make the Israeli Likud/religious/hawks look pretty foolish. The genius of it, to me, is that it will ease Israeli fears of being outnumbered by burgeoning Arab birthrates (which are equalled, it should be said, by the religious settlers in the West Bank)—and the fear of dhimmihood (second class citizenship) that exists in Israel, particularly among Jews descended from those living in Arab countries.

AJC is bringing this speech to the attention of various Israeli groups. I see it as extending a hand to the Israelis, and hope Shimon Peres will make a large thing of it as I doubt Netanyahu will. In fact, it’s a little depressing that it took this long to be circulated. Mr. Fayyad should be immediately invited to address the Knesset. Now it’s Israel’s turn to say something reasonable.

PS—Sodium, your well-thought out comment was a pleasure to read. I’m glad you’re back on Truthdig, commenting; you’ve been missed. I hope this return signals that your wife is in better health.

And the anticipated primal scream from “The Contingent” is right on schedule, complete with accusations that Pfaff has sold out AND is a dupe.

Why don’t you Obama-haters join up with the right-wing-nut “birthers” and claim the President wasn’t born in the US and therefore isn’t really the President?

Add it to the list of conspiracy “theories”.

To everyone:

Has anyone ever seen in a daily newspaper how much aid we give to Israel?  I’ve read it in academic papers:
 
Mearsheimer , Walt
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html

But I’ve never seen it in daily newspapers.  Nor I have ever seen information or hard numbers about how much aid we provide to Egypt, to Jordan, to the Palestinian Authority. 

What’s the difference between aid and military aid?  What is a loan guarantee? 

Kesey Seven

There is no longer a two-state solution. That was 20 years ago. There is only a one-state solution with equal rights.

The United States cannot impose a grilled cheese sandwich.  How does it expect to “impose” a two-state solution?  Nonsense!

“Siegman says that Obama is determined to establish a settlement based on U.N. resolutions, agreements Israel has signed but ignores, and international law.”

By Paolo, July 22 at 10:40 am #
•  “As a firm believer in non-interventionism, I thing Obama is wrong to try “imposing” any solution to a problem on the far side of the globe where we have absolutely nothing to gain.”

Well Paolo,
Nothing here indicates that President Obama is personally ‘imposing’ a solution to a problem on the far side of the globe that we have created ourselves. (Israel couldn’t have done what they’ve done for 60 plus years without financial and logistical support from YOUR tax dollars, if you happen to contribute.)

And in reality, we have EVERYTHING to gain from abiding by the laws to which we have committed ourselves over the years since the UN was established. Yes indeed, in the 21st Century, you’ll discover that we have everything to gain by complying with international law. Thing is, many US citizens are unaware of that because for the past 3 decades, we’ve been defying international law and multiple other treaties to which we are obligated. It would appear that you might be confusing the concepts of what you perceive as ‘intervention’ and the rule of law.

The rule of law obligates the International Community. (yes, we actually ARE a part of that community, even though the last regime in Washington did their best to completely destroy our reputation within that community)

In other words, there isn’t anything ‘interventionist’ about resolution 181. It’s the law. On the other hand, I’d say there was a definite ‘interventionist’ tone to us loaning and gifting Israel with billions of dollars over the past 60 plus years, regardless of what they do with the money. Since we know that they use it to commit massive and on-going human rights violations and other International War Crimes, that makes our ‘intervention’ even more heinous.

So, President Obama is the epitome of non-intervention if you look at it that way. All he has to do is make sure that we (the US) are in compliance with International Law. This is as good a start as any. In fact, it makes my day. Another good move from our genuis President. I’ve been trying to read his mind for a while now, and most times, he ends up doing exactly what I thought or hoped he would. Not always; but usually. In this case, I’ve always said that all he needed to do was to get the power of the office behind him, and the already established legal system would do the rest…as long as the US was no longer playing an obstructionist role (on behalf of Israel) in the global legal community.

Pfaff’s piece is wishful thinking combined with the traditonal bullshit.  Pfaff, like any knowledgeable observer who identifies with the long range interests of the US, wants an end to the Israel oppression of the Palesitinians and war against Muslims, which is making the US a righteous target of the world’s people.  And the US can end it, since Israel is totally dependant on US aid and trade.

all Obama has to do is say so:  ” two states or we suspend aid and trade, and apply sanctions.”  But he can’t say so because his regime is dependant on Zionist support, as are both parties.  The US ruling class would have to turn against their Zionist members, perhaps a quarter of the ruling class, and you can’t make no money that way. 

Eileen’s hope that the American people will put pressure on Obama is, unfortunately, unlikely.  The American people simply don’t care much about foreign policy and know less.  Pfaff’s piece simply provides cover for Zionist liberals like Sepharad and Inherit, while the settlements continue apace.

Not incidentially, someone argued with me stating that there is not much wrong with Zionism as Israeli nationalism if those Zionists sincerely and effectively supported a peaceful two-state policy, instead of just pretending to and quoting Aipac bullshit. 

And he was right.  Uri Urgany was an Israeli nationalist who led Gush Shalom, but he capitualated to the right wing. I happen to be very unpatriotic myself but there are US Patriots, like Scott Ritter, whose critiques tend to strenthen US long range intersts.  But if there are Zionists like this, I don’t know of them.

So it is not really Zionism that is the problem, but Zionist fascism, ziofascism.  If there were a two state solution with mutually benefically trade, Zionism would simply be like all other nationalisms.
But for such a movement to develop, they would have to oppose Aipac the way Aipac opposes what Sepharad contempuously calls the ‘peaceniks.’  No such movement currently exists, since there is no Zionist movement that vigourous and effectively opposes ziofascism.

And what will you do, Mr. President, if the Israeli’s will not buy your product?

Snore.

When I read the headline I thought this would be about dividing California into two states, an excellent idea.

Thank you Mr. President, and about time!  The only language the Israeli hardliners understand is money, fine!  If the Israeli’s continue their bs about “natural growth” I say divest - period!  For far too many years the Israeli’s have acted as though they owned the block, when the truth is they have manipulated the world into believing that they are the “victims” of a conflict of their own making!

I say they should go back to the 1967 borders as mandated by the United Nations, and the Palestinians should be allowed to govern themselves!  The “security wall” (that ensures Palestinian subjugation to Israel) should be torn down where it crosses into Palestinian farmers fields!  As the genocide of Palestinians has increased and the US government has winked and looked the other way, and the American media has been complicit in not reporting the atrocities that Israel has committed against the Palestinians - it has not made either Israel or the US safer!  American credibility has seriously suffered, and Israel while they may “fear” for their own safety, have only themselves to blame!  I say it’s about time someone takes a stand and justice needs to be given to the Palestinians!

The painful truth

Israelis don’t pay price for injustice of occupation

07.19.2009 | Haaretz
By Gideon Levy

“Really, who needs all this? The U.S. president is devoting a considerable amount of his precious time and goodwill trying to be persuasive about the need to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Europeans are ready to act, half the world is waiting, but let’s admit the truth: Why all the commotion about us? The settlers might scream and block highway intersections. The Israel Defense Forces would become less important and the news could actually become boring. The vineyard in the Golan Heights is liable to close, as might the boutique winery in the settlement of Ofra.

Life in Israel is just peachy, and who wants to think about peace, negotiations, withdrawals, the “price” we have to pay and all this unnecessary mess? Cafes are bustling and restaurants are packed. People are vacationing. The markets are surging. Television dumbs us down, highways are jammed, and the festivals are blaring. La Scala performed in the park and Madonna is to follow, and the beaches are full of foreign tourists and locals. The summer of 2009 is wonderful. So why should we change things?

The Israelis aren’t paying any price for the injustice of occupation. Life in Israel is immeasurably better than in most countries. The global financial crisis has hit Israel less than other places. It has poor people but not like in the developing world, and the rich and middle class here have not been critically harmed.

The security situation is also in good shape. No terrorist attacks. No Arabs. And when terrorism subsides, as it has over the past several years, who remembers that there is a “Palestinian problem”? The army and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can continue to scare us with the terrorism threat, but for the meantime, at least, it doesn’t exist. The Iranian nuclear threat is also just a vague option at the moment. Life in Israel is currently secure.

True, every few years a wave of violence erupts, but it usually happens in the country’s outskirts and doesn’t interest anyone in the center. Qassam rockets in Sderot or Katyushas in Kiryat Shmona? Who cares? This is followed by another period of quiet, like now. The separation fence, media, education system and political propaganda do a great job in creating an illusion to make us forget what we need to forget and hide what needs to be hidden. They are there and we are here, and here life is a bowl of cherries, if not a blast. Like Switzerland? Even better.

We always knew how to add a measure of significance to the pleasures of life. We practice the cult of security, society’s true religion, and we perpetuate the memory of the Holocaust. You can enjoy yourself in Israel and also play the victim, party and gripe. Where else is there a place like this?

The Israelis don’t pay any price for the injustice of the occupation, so the occupation will never end. It will not end a moment before the Israelis understand the connection between the occupation and the price they will be forced to pay. They will never shake it off on their own initiative, and why should they?

Even the most cruel terrorist attacks to befall the country haven’t instilled an understanding among the Israelis about the connection between cause and effect - between occupation and terrorism. Thanks to the media and the politicians - two of the worst agents for dumbing down and blinding Israeli society - we learned that the Arabs were born to kill, the whole world is against us, anti-Semitism determines how Israel is dealt with, and there is no connection between our actions and the price we pay.

Neither an international blockade nor terrible bloodletting appear to be on the horizon, to our great fortune. So why should we worry? It’s true that the world is beginning to scowl at Israel. So what? The world hates us anyway, Israelis are convinced.”

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/the-painful-truth/

Killing “Everything That Moves”

The Johnny Procedure

By Uri Avnery

“July 20, 2009 “Information Clearing House”—- LIKE THE ghost of Hamlet’s father, the evil spirit of the Gaza War refuses to leave us in peace. This week it came back to disturb the tranquility of the chiefs of the state and the army.

“Breaking the Silence”, a group of courageous former combat soldiers, published a report comprising the testimonies of 30 Gaza War fighters. A hard-hitting report about actions that may be considered war crimes.

The generals went automatically into denial mode. Why don’t the soldiers disclose their identity, they asked innocently. Why do they obscure their faces in the video testimonies? Why do they hide their names and units?

How can we be sure that they are not actors reading a text prepared for them by the enemies of Israel? How do we know that this organization is not manipulated by foreigners, who finance their actions? And anyhow, how do we know that they are not lying out of spite?

One can answer with a Hebrew adage: “It has the feel of Truth”. Anyone who has ever been a combat soldier in war, whatever war, recognizes at once the truth in these reports. Each of them has met a soldier who is not ready to return home without an X on his gun showing that he killed at least one enemy. (One such person appears in my book “The Other Side of the Coin”, which was written 60 years ago and published in English last year as the second part of “1948: A soldier’s Tale”.) We have been there.

The testimonies about the use of phosphorus, about massive bombardment of buildings, about “the neighbor procedure” (using civilians as human shields), about killing “everything that moves”, about the use of all methods to avoid casualties on our side – all these corroborate earlier testimonies about the Gaza War, there can be no reasonable doubt about their authenticity. I learned from the report that the “neighbor procedure” is now called “Johnny procedure”, God knows why Johnny and not Ahmad.

The height of hypocrisy is reached by the generals with their demand that the soldiers come forward and lodge their complaints with their commanders, so that the army can investigate them through the proper channels.

First of all, we have already seen the farce of the army investigating itself.

Second, and this is the main point: only a person intent on becoming a martyr would do so. A solder in a combat unit is a part of a tightly knit group whose highest principle is loyalty to comrades and whose commandment is “Thou shalt not squeal!” If he discloses questionable acts he has witnessed, he will be considered a traitor and ostracized. His life will become hell. He knows that all his superiors, from squad leader right up to division commander, will persecute him.

This call to go through “official channels” is a vile method of the generals – members of the General Staff, Army Spokesmen, Army Lawyers – to divert the discussion from the accusations themselves to the identity of the witnesses. No less despicable are the tin soldiers called “military correspondents”, who collaborate with them.

BUT BEFORE accusing the soldiers who committed the acts described in the testimonies, one has to ask whether the decision to start the war did not itself lead inevitably to the crimes.

Professor Assa Kasher, the father of the army “Code of Ethics” and one of the most ardent supporters of the Gaza War, asserted in an essay on this subject that a state has the right to go to war only in self defense, and only if the war constitutes “a last resort”. “All alternative courses” to attain the rightful aim “must have been exhausted”.”

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23099.htm

As a firm believer in non-interventionism, I thing Obama is wrong to try “imposing” any solution to a problem on the far side of the globe where we have absolutely nothing to gain.

I do think, though, that we should end all foreign aid to both Israel and Israel’s opponents.

Regarding the two-state solution, I think we should let the opposing parties decide that for themselves, and keep our meddling hands out of it. Speaking theoretically, I don’t support a two-state solution. I think both Jews and Palestinians should be granted the “right of return,” and be allowed full citizenship in the Levant, in a single, non-sectarian state.

I think the only language Israel is going to understands from Obama is NO money as long as you continue with your despicable policies towards the Palestinians.

Right, Obama means business about the two-state solution and to show it, he continues to give Israel approximately 3.2 billion free American taxpayer dollars per year and all the free hardware - including nukes - that the Israelis little heart may desire.

Please, don’t insult our intelligence!  The guy will do as much about that as he’ll do about ending the war in Afghanistan.

It is going to take an active engaged citizenry to put the starch in Obama’s spine to change USA policy in Israel Palestine.

The US Campaign to end the Israeli Occupation is working to do just that:

We believe that US citizens have a duty to hold their government and corporations accountable.

We seek to educate US citizens on the way that these institutions function to undermine the rights of the Palestinian people and mobilize them in support of human rights.

Without justice grounded in human rights, peace will never prevail.
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/

Ever single settlement is illegal according to international law.

The Wall eats up over $1.5 million USA tax dollars per mile and the Court of Justice deemed it illegal 5 years ago and demand it come down where ever it does not follow the Green Line.

We the people cannot compete with AIPAC money, but we have the truth on our side and a slice of it is that:

“AIPAC’s illegal tactics harm America…[and] corporate crime inflicts far more damage on society than all street crime combined…Harvard economist Thomas Stauffer estimated the total cost of [the] prolonged conflict in the Middle East at $3 trillion [in 2002 USA dollars and he] lays a good deal of the blame for this at the doorstep of AIPAC.”-
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=959&Itemid=202

Thanks, William.  I’ll be looking forward to anything you may wish to add to this as things develop.

Good on Obama. It’s about time someone told Netanyahu
“not on our dime.” Maybe it will get Bibi to cool his jets for awhile. Otherwise, Inherit already said what I think; no point repeating it. Only thing left to add is that a lot of Israelis will be glad to hear this.

I sincerely hope President Obama succeeds in this endeavor to bring peace to the Middle East. He is taking this initiative at great political risk. 

Kesey Seven

I, for one, am re-assured that Obama is serious about forcing a 2-state solution.  Pfaff seems both surprised and delighted by this development, and one should note 2 facts Pfaff cites.

1) There is an excess of housing available within Israel, meaning settlements are not only not necessary for housing, they are HURTING the housing market in Israel.
2) Most American and Israeli Jews do NOT support continuing the settlements or, worse expanding them.

Interesting.  This is PRECISELY the kind of escalating pressure I have suggested the President needs to put on the Netanyahu government.

Prediction:

Expect a primal scream from “The Contingent” trying to explain how this is all a big phony, how Obama is REALLY caving in, how Israel is REALLY dominating our foreign policy, and how Pfaff has “sold out” or been duped.

That’s because it ain’t easy always being so wrong (though, as usual, it’s what I expected).