Israel’s strategic aim is to prevent the creation of anything that can even remotely be described as a sovereign Palestinian state; to colonize as much as possible of the best Palestinian lands; and to confine the Palestinians to a series of disconnected enclosures not so much like Bantustans (which were a useful reserve of exploitable labour power for the South-African apartheid regime), but like US Indian reservations, or open prisons. The Gaza Strip has already been converted into the largest prison camp in the world.
Occupation
We are outraged to learn that US Rep. Howard Berman, Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is trying to push through Congress today a resolution “condemning unilateral declarations of a Palestinian state.”
The book’s stark – and inevitably highly political – conclusion is contrary to the view that “Israel is withdrawing from the Palestinian Territories slowly and with the appropriate caution and security”. The IDF soldiers quoted “describe an indefatigable attempt to tighten Israel’s hold on the territories, as well as on the Palestinian population”.
Palestinian Authority: “It’s not clear how the same firefighters who got permits to go out and help snuff the fire now are now refused permits to their honoring ceremony… We did this despite the occupation because it was our humane duty… We knew the occupation would still be here after our assistance.”
10 year old Palestinian boy: “One of the men grabbed me from behind and started choking me. The second grabbed my shirt and tore it from the back, and the third twisted my hands behind my back and tied them with plastic cords. ‘Who threw stones?’ one of them asked me. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. He started hitting me on the head and I shouted in pain.”
Fostering the illusion that the conflict is ending doesn’t bring a solution closer; in fact, the focus on the final-status talks offers an alibi for deepening the occupation. The high and mighty words about two states for two peoples silence the protest voices of a nation that for more than 43 years has lived under the occupation of another nation.
The idea of dissolving the PA has many supporters – both inside the Palestinian territories and among the Palestinian diaspora. But this must not be a leap in the dark: the Palestinians must be prepared for the consequences of such a move and it must be undertaken as part of a clearly defined resistance strategy.
Settlement leader: “European countries must understand that without a state of Israel there is no one to stop the Muslim wave from eroding Europe, and without Judea and Samaria, Israel is unable to exist.”
Washington’s pathetic capitulation to Israel while pleading for a meaningless three-month freeze on settlement expansion—excluding Arab East Jerusalem—should go down as one of the most humiliating moments in U.S. diplomatic history.
UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk: “The Palestinian experience suggests the need for a new protocol of international humanitarian law… some outer time limit after which further occupation becomes a distinct violation of international law, and if not promptly corrected, constitutes a new type of crime against humanity.”
Israeli democracy at its best: The entire people will decide on the next peace arrangement, but not on the question of settlements and annexation, and not on the question of wars. Israeli trickery at its best: Legislators pass laws relating to the day an arrangement is forged whose point is to defer that day’s arrival for as long as possible. And Israeli morality at its best: A manifestly immoral question is formulated for a referendum, and insult is added to injury because only we Israelis, members of the chosen people, will decide on the fate of another people which has for generations lived under occupation, and we dare to call all this tomfoolery democracy. In fact, this is Israeli chutzpah at its worst.
Two days ago in Rafi’ah
nine Arabs were killed,
yesterday six
were killed in Hebron,
and today — just two.
Last year
as we were marching
from Shenkin Street
The sixth Annual Edward Said Memorial Lecture organized by the Department of English and Comparative Literature, American University in Cairo, by Judith Butler.
Knesset approves bill mandating referendum before decision to withdraw from Israeli territory, but does not enable appeal against decision to reject a peace agreement… The wording of the question contradicts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that the referendum “enables to pass with strong public support an agreement that answers the national interests of Israel.”
Palestinian resident of the building: “The settlers arrived in the morning and began to break the lock… We were frightened. The children are scared of them and of their guards… Why do they come here? They have a whole country. So why here of all places, in our house?”
Top Palestinian officials, including President Mahmoud Abbas, are engaged in “very serious” discussions about whether to abandon negotiations with Israel and seek United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state, a senior Palestinian official said yesterday.
Israeli political analyst Yossi Alpher: “In effect, [the new law] weakens the authority of the Knesset to decide these issues and turns it over to a system that has never been tried in Israel. It’s extremely difficult to predict how the [new] system will behave. It is clearly intended to make it more difficult to approve withdrawal from these territories. It really strikes at the heart of the Israeli parliamentary system.”
IOA Editor: Why is this important? The new law makes Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and of Syria’s Golan Heights more permanently secured by making a negotiated compromise by a future Israeli government (however theoretical and hard to imagine) much more difficult to carry out.
For historical context, read about the 1967 expulsion of Syria’s Golan Height population, which was strikingly similar in methods and means to Israeli actions in the 1948 Nakba:
At the beginning of his term, Barack Obama became the first US president to call for a halt in Jewish settlement construction in the Israeli occupied Palestinian territories as a prerequisite for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But if a deal that stipulates a partial 90-day freeze of settlement building in return for US military and political incentives is reached, he will become the first US president to legitimise the Jewish colonies.
Many analysts and observers fear that life in the west Bank is taking on an increasingly authoritarian hue. “I feel real concern that we are reaching the level of a police state,” says Shawan Jabarin, the director of al-Haq, a Ramallah-based human rights group.
I was eager to return to Palestine, to see what Edward Said called “Zionism from the standpoint of its victims.”
According to Dror Etkes, who has been researching construction in the settlements for several years, at least 25 springs are undergoing development for tourism. “Access to these springs has been blocked to the Palestinians, and there are dozens of other springs that the settlers have marked as targets for takeover,” he says.
Amira Hass has been a correspondent in the Occupied Territories for the Israeli daily Ha’aretz since the early 1990s. Hass describes her work as “writing about the Israeli occupation and Apartheid regime and about Israelis through the experiences of Palestinians.” She also covers internal Palestinian issues. She is the author of the widely acclaimed Drinking the Sea at Gaza and two books of collected articles.
A press that excels in many ways has shirked its task in covering the occupation; it’s the occupation’s greatest collaborator. It helps Israelis feel that there is no occupation. Without the dehumanization campaign in the press, Israelis would feel less self-satisfied, and perhaps more moral doubts would be raised about what we are doing.
Al-Shabaka Policy Advisors discuss strategies for Palestinians and their supporters if peace talks “succeed.” Over the past few weeks, Al-Shabaka Policy Advisors Bashir Abu Manneh, Ali Abunimah, Naseer Aruri, Diana Buttu, Mary Nazzal-Batayneh, Mouin Rabbani and Samah Sabawi commented on Nadia Hijab’s policy brief, What if Peace Talks “Succeed?” Their comments are published here.
Among the strategies used in the struggle for human rights, the Palestinians urgently need to identify the most effective ways to stay on the land of Palestine… Israel is still relentlessly carving up the West Bank and depopulating the Jordan Valley and East Jerusalem, as it is [in] the Negev and other areas where Palestinians are the majority inside Israel. Without Palestinians on the land of Palestine, as Israel knows only too well, the Palestinian cause will be impossible to sustain.
Followed by comments by Al-Shabaka Policy Advisors Bashir Abu Manneh, Ali Abunimah, Naseer Aruri, Diana Buttu, Mary Nazzal-Batayneh, Mouin Rabbani and Samah Sabawi: Strategies if Talks “Succeed”?
As … Netanyahu knows very well, it is not “settlements” per se that are illegal. It is the transfer of an occupier’s population into the occupied territories that violates the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory. Such transfers are illegal irrespective of where they take place—whether in settlements in the West Bank countryside or in apartment buildings in East Jerusalem.
In addition to the concession in the Jordan Valley and the [$3.00B] offer of combat jets that would effectively double the annual aid from the US, the deal is said to include a promise by Washington to veto for the next year any UN resolutions Israel opposes and to refrain, after borders have been agreed, from demanding any future limits on settlement growth.
According to a June 2010 fact sheet on the USAID Internet site, last year American taxpayers funded the paving of 63 kilometers of asphalt roads in the West Bank.
Unlike the Peace Now Settlements Task Force, which has played an important role in documenting and exposing illegal Israeli West Bank settlements, the Tel Aviv leadership of Peace Now is reported to be collaborating with Israel’s propaganda ministry under Lieberman’s leadership.
An extraordinary meeting, the first such meeting of the Lieberman era, took place some days ago at the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, when Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon met behind closed doors with a delegation of senior officials of the Peace Now movement.
IOA Editor: The Peace Now Settlements Task Force has played an important role in documenting and exposing illegal Israeli West Bank settlements. As delineated by the author, this is quite apart from the Tel Aviv leadership of Peace Now, which is reported to be collaborating with Israel’s propaganda ministry under Lieberman’s leadership.
Throughout the Arab areas of Jerusalem, as in the West Bank, the government is pressing ahead with land expropriations, demolitions and settlement building, making the prospects of a Palestinian state ever more improbable. More than a third of the land in East Jerusalem has been expropriated since it was occupied in 1967 to make way for Israeli colonists, in flagrant violation of international law.
“A number of Knesset members and ministers from Yisrael Beitenu and Likud and other right-wing figures are calling for cutting off funding to artists that this week called for a boycott of the cultural center in Ariel… Threats of this type … do not scare us… As Israeli citizens, the refusal of these theater actors to perform in Ariel, which is not within the borders of Israeli sovereignty, is a democratic right.”
Asad Ghanem: “The core of the negotiations for Abbas is about ending the occupation, but he has progressively conceded to Israel its very narrow definition of what constitutes occupied land. The rights of the refugees and other Palestinians to be included in the Palestinian nation now exist chiefly at the level of rhetoric.”
Matan Cohen, Israeli who disrupted PM’s speech: We were raised on human rights. Youngster who heckled Netanyahu during GA address in New Orleans says US Jews distancing themselves from community due to “expectation of blind loyalty to Israel.”
IOA Editor: “Raised on human rights” is well intentioned, and an understandable comment when facing the likes of Netanyahu and Lieberman, but it is misleading. Although plenty of individual Israeli (Jewish) families raised their children “on human rights,” Labor Zionism was racist from the very start but, unlike today, mostly below the surface: instituting land laws designed to deprive Arab citizens of most natural and national resources; putting activists under administrative detention without trial, and much more.
Now things are far more out in the open: raiding people’s homes in the middle of the night and putting them away — via trials without the standard rules of evidence that would be required in the West (e.g., most recently, Ameer Makhoul); the ability to legally exclude any Arab citizen from living in much of Israel that is, in effect, designated as Jewish-only; and an “informal,” but well organized and sanctioned by “Higher Authority,” terror campaign against renting to Palestinians when they venture into Jewish towns (even when those had been mostly-Arab towns before 1948), lest their sort mix with our precious daughters (see Jonathan Cook’s Rabbis’ edict bars renting to Arabs). Today’s conditions are far more blatant, and outright scary, but they evolved over a long period of time, starting from the political foundation put in place by Labor Zionism.
