Gilad Atzmon: Jewish Democracy for Dummies

Monday, July 18, 2011 at 10:17AM Gilad Atzmon

In the 'Jews Only State', democratically elected politicians are suspended from the Parliament for basically being Palestinians and representing Palestinian interests. I can only guess that this is what the Israelis mean when they insist upon being called the ‘Only Democracy in the Middle East’.

The Knesset's Ethics Committee decided today to suspend MK Hanin Zoabi (Balad) from all Knesset activities until the end of the current session which ends in two weeks, following her participation in last year's Gaza flotilla. According to the Ethics Committee, 'participation in flotilla does not fall within an MK's legitimate freedom of action.'
I guess that Israel doesn’t really need enemies, it brings itself down pretty effectively.

To read more: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4096788,00.html

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Do not speak, do not resist - Israel rules out non-violence

Jonathan Cook

Jul 18, 2011

It was an Arab legislator who made the most telling comment to the Israeli parliament last week as it passed the boycott law, which outlaws calls to boycott Israel or its settlements in the occupied territories. Ahmed Tibi asked: "What is a peace activist or Palestinian allowed to do to oppose the occupation? Is there anything you agree to?"

The boycott law is the latest in a series of ever-more draconian laws being introduced by the far-right. The legislation's goal is to intimidate those Israelis who have yet to bow down before the majority-rule mob.

Look out in coming days for a bill to block the work of Israeli organisations trying to protect Palestinian rights; and another draft law investing a parliamentary committee, headed by the far-right, with the power to appoint supreme court judges. The court is the only, and already enfeebled, bulwark against the right's ascendancy.

The boycott law, backed by Benjamin Netanyahu's government, marks a watershed in this legislative assault in two respects.

First, it knocks out the keystone of any democratic system: the right to free speech. The new law makes it illegal for Israelis and Palestinians to advocate a non-violent political programme - boycott - to counter the ever-growing power of the half a million Jewish settlers living on stolen Palestinian land.

As the Israeli commentator Gideon Levy observed, the floodgates are now open: "Tomorrow it will be forbidden to call for an end to the occupation [or] brotherhood between Jews and Arabs."

Equally of concern is that the law creates a new type of civil, rather than criminal, offence. The state will not be initiating prosecutions. Instead, the job of enforcing the boycott law is being outsourced to the settlers and their lawyers. Anyone backing a boycott can be sued for compensation by the settlers themselves, who - again uniquely - need not prove they suffered actual harm.

Under this law, opponents of the occupation will not even be dignified with jail sentences and the chance to become prisoners of conscience. Rather, they will be quietly bankrupted in private actions, their assets seized either to cover legal costs or as punitive damages.

Human rights lawyers point out that there is no law like this anywhere in the democratic world. But more than half of Israelis back it, with only 31 per cent opposed.

The delusional, self-pitying worldview that spawned the boycott law was neatly illustrated this month in a short video "ad" that is supported, and possibly financed, by Israel's hasbara, or propaganda, ministry. Fittingly, it is set in a psychiatrist's office.

A young woman, clearly traumatised, deciphers the images concealed in the famous Rorschach test. As she is shown the ink-splodges, her panic and anger grow. Gradually, we come to realise, she represents vulnerable modern Israel, abandoned by friends and still in profound shock at the attack on her navy's commandos by the "terrorist" passengers aboard last year's aid flotilla to Gaza.


Immune to reality - that the ships were trying to break Israel's punitive siege of Gaza, that the commandos illegally boarded the ships in international waters, and that they shot dead nine activists execution-style - Miss Israel tearfully recounts that the world is "forever trying to torment and harm [us] for no reason". Finally she storms out, saying: "What do you want - for [Israel] to disappear off the map?"

The video - released under the banner "Stop the provocation against Israel" - was part of a campaign to discredit the recent follow-up flotilla from Greece. The aid mission was abandoned after Greek authorities, under Israeli pressure, refused to let them sail.

Israel's siege mentality asserted itself again days later as international activists staged another show of solidarity - this one nicknamed the "flytilla". Hundreds tried to fly to Israel on the same day, declaring their intention to travel to the West Bank.

Israel threatened airlines with retaliation if they carried the activists and it massed hundreds of soldiers at Ben Gurion Airport to greet arrivals. About 150 peaceful protesters who reached Israel were arrested moments after landing

Echoing the hysterical sentiments of the woman in the video, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, denounced the various flotillas as "denying Israel's right to exist" and a threat to its security.

Although Mr Netanyahu's comments sound delusional, there may be a method to the madness of measures like the boycott law and the massive overreaction to the flotillas.

These initiatives, as Mr Tibi points out, leave no room for non-violent opposition to the occupation. Arundhati Roy, the award-winning Indian writer, has noted that non-violence is essentially "a piece of theatre. [It] needs an audience. What can you do when you have no audience?"

Mr Netanyahu and the Israeli right appear to understand this point. They are carefully dismantling every platform on which dissident Israelis, Palestinians and solidarity activists hope to stage their protests. They are making it impossible to organise joint peaceful and non-violent resistance, whether in the form of boycotts or solidarity visits. The only way being left open is violence.

Is this what the Israeli right wants, believing it offers a justification for entrenching the occupation? By generating the very terror he claims to be trying to defeat, does Mr Netanyahu hope he can safeguard the legitimacy of the Jewish state and destroy hopes for a Palestinian state?

 Jonathan Cook is The National's correspondent in Nazareth, Israel. He won this year's Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism

MK Zoabi removed from Knesset over flotilla participation
Israeli navy encircles “Dignity” at sea

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Haneen Al Zoabi: Racists impose the rules of the political game in Israel

MEMO – Middle East Monitor - 10 June 2011

The Arab member of the Israeli Knesset, Haneen Al Zoabi, has condemned the initiative led by a Jewish member, Yariv Levin, to ban her from traveling outside the country and to prevent her from participating in the Freedom Fleet 2. She described the move as an unparalleled form of racism.

In a press statement made by Tuesday (7/6), Al Zoabi said that “Levin does not decide my movements and I am not waiting for either him or anyone else to ratify my political work”. She added derisively that, “the next step is that Levin would give me a detailed list of what is politically permitted and probably tell me what to do, what to think, and what to support or oppose.”

She stated that this MP who chairs the Knesset is operating with an understanding that “racism has no end in Israel, and racists are the ones who set the rules of the political game which will be reflected on all levels of the political spectrum in Israel”.

She stressed that the real political struggle is to hold on to the ethical, humanitarian and national positions in every sphere; ranging from the struggle against land confiscation, demolition of Palestinian homes, the fight for recognition of the Palestinian identity, and the struggle to end the Israeli occupation.

It is noteworthy that MK Levin had approached the Legal Counsel of the Israeli government with a  request to issue an order banning Al Zoabi from traveling outside the country and participating in the Freedom Fleet 2 to Gaza.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Living with the Nakba revisionists- our sunshine is not for franchise.

THE NAKBA REPRESENTS 63 Y
EARS OF ISRAELI OCCUPATION

by Tim King / My Catbird Seat

SALEM, Ore.) – Each year as we approach 15 May, Palestinians and humanitarians all over the world but particularly those in Palestine, observe the Nakba (Catastrophe) Day that marks Israel’s 1948 creation in historic Palestine. This happened 63 years ago. Fleeing the events of the Holocaust in Europe, those behind the establishment of Israel displaced more than 700,000 Palestinians, forcing them into different Arab countries, the West Bank, Gaza, and into graves. More than 500 historic Palestinian villages were razed during the Nakba and the destruction of private property in Palestinian hands continues frequently to this very day. This behavior of Israel’s led to almost five million Palestinians becoming refugees, many among them fully destitute.

Westerners regularly observe the tragedy represented by the Holocaust that wiped out human beings in Europe and Asia by the million.
There are endless movies, museums, school programs, and lists of resources for those who want to study the Holocaust and learn about this terrible time for Jewish people and many other cultures.
However in Israel if you seek to honor the Nakba event, the resources are limited to a pair of shiny silver handcuffs, though they might just use those terrible tie things that they like to bind the wrists of Iraqi citizens with.

PALESTINIAN REFUGEES

Israel Rewriting History?

The ‘Nakba bill’ levies state fines against local authorities and state-funded bodies that organize or fund events commemorating the Palestinian ‘catastrophe’ of Israel’s creation in 1948.

I agree that the numbers regarding the Holocaust could be different from what many claim, but nobody will ever convince me that it isn’t the most atrocious catastrophe in world history. There is no way to put our minds around that kind of cruelty, and we believe this because we have been educated, the facts and figures and images have made us all an indirect witness to the Nazi savagery.
The Israeli government is outlawing observation of the Nakba, and I have to say that the connections between Nazi doctrine and Israel’s politics are startling.

The obvious intent of this Israeli law is the denial of education, and let’s just come out and say it: a dismissal of facts.

But what Israel would like to throw to the wind, refuses to take flight. The Palestinians will no more let this history slide into obscurity, than the Jews let the Holocaust fade from our minds.
It typifies the disrespect that the Palestinian population there is afforded. It doesn’t amount to much. We already know that there are separate laws and roads and other governmental services for Jews and non-Jews, and that bigotry does not begin or end with the Palestinian Arabs.
Also in the gun sights of Israel ‘hasbara’ policy are Christians, and Jewish people who don’t subscribe to the madness of Zionism. (Zionist Jews believe that they have a right of return to Israel through Biblical prophesy, and it is ironic because they in turn deny Palestinians the right of return)

A Palestinian woman, living in the Bourj El Barajneh
 refugee Camp in Beirut, Lebanon, clinging to
her identity, holds up her ID card. (Rania Matar)

Matters like this should never arise. They frustrate and aggravate and fail to address responsibly or adequately, the terrible tragedy of the theft of Palestine, based on Israel’s establishment.

On the 23rd of March this year, Israeli media reported the Israeli parliament’s passage of two bills that ban events commemorating the Nakba and restrict residency in the Galilee and Negev.

The ‘Nakba bill’ levies state fines against local authorities and state-funded bodies that organize or fund events commemorating the Palestinian ‘catastrophe’ of Israel’s creation in 1948.
The bill was criticized for vague language that prohibits any activity “which would entail undermining the foundations of the state and contradict its values.”
The bill, proposed by lawmakers from the right-wing party Yisrael Beiteinu, was revised from a three-year prison sentence to a fine of three times the event’s cost, which would double if it is violated again within two years.
That is not the only proposed change to existing law. A second bill establishes ‘admissions committees’ for communities of less than 400 families in the Galilee and Negev.

Ma’an News Agency writes:The committees are legally authorized to reject potential residents based on a number of criteria, including failing to fit in with the community’s “socio-cultural” character.


The bill was also revised from its original form, proposed by Yisrael Beiteinu and opposition party Kadima, in which its provisions were not restricted to the Galilee and Negev, nor a maximum size of 400 families. An amendment was added banning rejecting residents based on “race, religion, nationality or physical handicap.”


The Nakba bill was supported by 37 members of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, and opposed by 25, and the residency bill passed by 35 to 20.


The bills sparked furious debates on the Knesset floor, with United Arab List parliamentarians slamming the bill as racist and uproar over allusions to Nazi persecution of Jews, with Knesset member Uri Ariel of National Union yelling at UAL lawmakers, “Go back to Ramallah,” according to reports in the Israeli press.


After the bill passed, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel immediately filed a petition claiming the bill sanctions discrimination against Arabs, Mizrahi Jews, amongst others, referring to cases in which members of these communities were rejected by admission committees without explanation.


The following Sunday, more than a dozen Israeli intellectuals issued a statement criticizing the Nakba bill as against “the principle of separation of powers.”

HANEEN ZOABI, PALESTINIAN MEMBER
OF THE ISRAELI KNESSET.

Another person who was aboard the Mavi Marmara just less than a year ago as it was ruthlessly attacked by the Israelis, is Haneen Zoabi, Palestinian member of the Knesset.

She told The Electronic Intifada:

“Law will not influence the way we commemorate the Nakba. On the contrary, we must prove to our people and to the state that we will not be afraid from this law and that this will not succeed in oppressing our feeling or our identity. We will commemorate the Nakba in a much more impressive way this year than we ever did.”
Zoabi continued, “This is a kind of law to control our memory, to control our collective memory. It’s a very stupid law which punishes our feelings. It seems that the history of the victim is threatening the Zionist state,”
Elected in 2009, this Arab Knesset member represents the Balad party (National Democratic Alliance). She is the first woman to be elected on the list of an Arab party in Israel. She was one of 25 members of the Israeli Knesset (MKs) to vote against the bill on 22 March, compared to 37 MKs who voted in favor of it.
“The Nakba is not just part of the Palestinian history,” Zoabi explained.”
“It’s also part of the Jewish history of this land. Because you need two in order to make Nakba. You need the victim and you need the oppressor. It was the Israelis who expelled the Palestinians and destroyed their towns and their villages and stole their land.”
Human being tend to not take things like this in stride, There are simply too many wound up activists, millions of pissed off Arabs in the Middle east and worldwide, the dissenting Knesset members, the opinions of reknowned scholars, and then that nagging element called “world opinion.”

Response

THIRD PALESTINIAN INTIFADA MAY 15 2011

This business of outlawing the observation of tragedy, particularly an event that led to such a massive Diaspora, is in part what has led to the Third Intifada which kicks off in just a few hours.

Israel has pushed and pushed and remained relentless in its pursuits of subjugating the native Palestinians, who had always lived with indigenous Middle east Jews throughout history, right up until the Nakba in 1948.
There are many interesting developments taking place. Turkey has officially requested the names of the Israeli Defence Forces soldiers who stormed last year’s Freedom Flotilla, killing nine unarmed peace activists in international waters, who were passenters and crew of the Mavi Marmara which our writer Ken O’Keefe of Gaza, was aboard.
This is particularly interesting because a film released a few months ago, “Valley of the Wolves- Palestine”, is specifically about a Turkish ‘Rambo’ style character who, along with his team, hunts down the IDF military assassins that attacked the Mavi Marmara, and blows them right into oblivion.
Never has a film shown so many members of the Israeli military being killed.
After losing nine citizens to Israeli bullets last year, Turkey’s government remains extremely supportive of Palestine, and it isn’t alone.
Egyptian activists will protest the illegal Israeli siege on Gaza, vowing to express their solidarity with the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.
And don’t forget the bond of brotherhood that exists between all of today’s Revolutionaries and Resistance fighters in the Middle east.
They have been fully exploited and violently treated for too long. It might be time to put the seatbelt on.
Israel’s decision to outlaw observation of the Nakba is an outrage; it bespeaks a hate for those who are different.
It also is perfectly consistent with the apartheid laws that Israel expressly enacted to maintain a degree of prejudicial control over a population that lived on the land now called ‘Israel’ for hundreds and hundreds of years.

We are raised to understand that this type of treatment for human beings is not acceptable, but is one group’s needs ever more important than the next?

The Israelis will tell you that yes, their needs are more important than the Palestinians, that is because they are raised to believe they are literally superior, and we ‘Goyam’ are here to serve them. This is Zionism, and it absolutely does not represent the belief system of every Jewish person. In fact more Jews than ever are speaking out and verbalizing the disassociation with the Zionists, inspired by Theodore Hertzl, who had been an anti-semite prior to becoming the founding Godfather of the modern Zionist movement.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

For me, all of this discussion; the establishment of a nation on other people’s land, the resulting Diaspora that continues in force today, inevitably leads back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; a theory in psychology, proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation.

Many psychology students are familiar with Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; it is a theory of psychology that Maslow proposed in his 1943 paper, A Theory of Human Motivation.

Wikipedia describes Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a pyramid consisting of five levels:
The lowest level is associated with physiological needs, while the uppermost level is associated with self-actualization needs, particularly those related to identity and purpose.
The higher needs in this hierarchy only come into focus when the lower needs in the pyramid are met. Once an individual has moved upwards to the next level, needs in the lower level will no longer be prioritized. If a lower set of needs is no longer be met, the individual will temporarily re-prioritize those needs by focusing attention on the unfulfilled needs, but will not permanently regress to the lower level.
For instance, a businessman at the esteem level who is diagnosed with cancer will spend a great deal of time concentrating on his health (physiological needs), but will continue to value his work performance (esteem needs) and will likely return to work during periods of remission.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtzXPcQu41g
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Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcodiFkotgk
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Israeli Apartheid and The Nakba

Produced by: Anthony Lawson

Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com’s Executive News Editor. Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines. Tim holds numerous awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), first place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several others including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Tim has several years of experience in network affiliate news TV stations, having worked as a reporter and photographer at NBC, ABC and FOX stations in Arizona, Nevada and Oregon. You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com: His website: http://salem-news.com/

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Zoabi: Palestinians entitled to defend themselves

[ 12/04/2011 - 05:49 PM ]

NAZARETH, (PIC)-- Arab member of the Israeli parliament Hanin Zoabi said that Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions are entitled to fire rockets for the sake of attaining their people’s freedom.

She was quoted by Hebrew daily Maariv as saying on Monday that those living under siege and miserable living conditions do everything in their power for the sake of their freedom and the Israeli occupation authority should understand that.

The Israeli parliament had withdrawn Zoabi’s diplomatic passport and other privileges after charging her with “betraying Israel” for participating in the Freedom Flotilla last year that was carrying humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

THE ONGOING GAZA MASSACRE

But the tragedy does not end with those who were killed. Along with thousands permanently injured, there is the incalculable psychological cost of children growing up without parents, of parents burying their children, and the mental trauma that Israel’s offensive and the ongoing siege has done to almost everyone in Gaza. There are the as yet unknown consequences of subjecting Gaza’s 700,000 children to a toxic water supply for years on end.

The Gaza massacre and the struggle for justiceAli Abunimah

27 December 2008: Israel began its deadly three-week assault on Gaza. (Hatem Omar/MaanImages)

The Gaza massacre, which Israel launched two years ago today, did not end on 18 January 2009, but continues. It was not only a massacre of human bodies, but of the truth and of justice. Only our actions can help bring it to an end. 
 
The UN-commissioned Goldstone Report documented evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in an attack aimed at the very “foundations of civilian life in Gaza” — schools, industrial infrastructure, water, sanitation, flour mills, mosques, universities, police stations, government ministries, agriculture and thousands of homes. Yet like so many other inquiries documenting Israeli crimes, the Goldstone Report sits gathering dust as the United States, the European Union, the Palestinian Authority and certain Arab governments colluded to ensure it would not translate into action.
 
Israel launched the attack, after breaking the ceasefire it had negotiated with Hamas the previous June, under the bogus pretext of stopping rocket firing from Gaza.
 
During those horrifying weeks from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009, Israel’s merciless bombardment killed 1,417 people according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza.
 
They were infants like Farah Ammar al-Helu, one-year-old, killed in al-Zaytoun. They were schoolgirls or schoolboys, like Islam Khalil Abu Amsha, 12, of Shajaiyeh and Mahmoud Khaled al-Mashharawi, 13, of al-Daraj. They were elders like Kamla Ali al-Attar, 82 of Beit Lahiya and Madallah Ahmed Abu Rukba, 81, of Jabaliya; They were fathers and husbands like Dr. Ehab Jasir al-Shaer. They were police officers like Younis Muhammad al-Ghandour, aged 24. They were ambulance drivers and civil defense workers. They were homemakers, school teachers, farmers, sanitation workers and builders. And yes, some of them were fighters, battling as any other people would to defend their communities with light and primitive weapons against Israel’s onslaught using the most advanced weaponry the United States and European Union could provide.
 
The names of the dead fill 100 pages, but nothing can fill the void they left in their families and communities (“The Dead in the course of the Israeli recent military offensive on the Gaza strip between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009,” [PDF] Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 18 March 2009).
 
These were not the first to die in Israeli massacres and they have not been the last. Dozens of people have been killed since the end of Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead,” the latest Salameh Abu Hashish last week, a 20-year old shepherd shot by Israeli occupation forces as he tended his animals in northern Gaza.
 
But the tragedy does not end with those who were killed. Along with thousands permanently injured, there is the incalculable psychological cost of children growing up without parents, of parents burying their children, and the mental trauma that Israel’s offensive and the ongoing siege has done to almost everyone in Gaza. There are the as yet unknown consequences of subjecting Gaza’s 700,000 children to a toxic water supply for years on end.
 
The siege robs 1.5 million people not just of basic goods, reconstruction supplies (virtually nothing has been rebuilt in Gaza), and access to medical care but of their basic rights and freedoms to travel, to study, to be part of the world. It robs promising young people of their ambitions and futures. It deprives the planet of all that they would have been able to create and offer. By cutting Gaza off from the outside world, Israel hopes to make us forget that the those inside are human.             
Two years after the crime, Gaza remains a giant prison for a population whose unforgivable sin in the eyes of Israel and its allies is to be refugees from lands that Israel took by ethnic cleansing.
Israel’s violence against Gaza, like its violence against Palestinians everywhere, is the logical outcome of the racism that forms the inseparable core of Zionist ideology and practice: Palestinians are merely a nuisance, like brush or rocks to be cleared away in Zionism’s relentless conquest of the land. This is what all Palestinians are struggling against, as an open letter today from dozens of civil society organizations in Gaza reminds us:
“We Palestinians of Gaza want to live at liberty to meet Palestinian friends or family from Tulkarem, Jerusalem or Nazareth; we want to have the right to travel and move freely. We want to live without fear of another bombing campaign that leaves hundreds of our children dead and many more injured or with cancers from the contamination of Israel’s white phosphorous and chemical warfare. We want to live without the humiliations at Israeli checkpoints or the indignity of not providing for our families because of the unemployment brought about by the economic control and the illegal siege. We are calling for an end to the racism that underpins all this oppression.”
Those of us who live outside Gaza can look to the people there for inspiration and strength; even after all this deliberate cruelty, they have not surrendered. But we cannot expect them to bear this burden alone or ignore the appalling cost Israel’s unrelenting persecution has on the minds and bodies of people in Gaza or on society itself. We must also heed their calls to action.
One year ago, I joined more than a thousand people from dozens of countries on the Gaza Freedom March in an attempt to reach Gaza to commemorate the first anniversary of the massacre. We found our way blocked by the Egyptian government which remains complicit, with US backing, in the Israeli siege. And although we did not reach Gaza, other convoys before, and after, such as Viva Palestina did, only after severe obstruction and limitations by Egypt.
Yesterday, the Mavi Marmara returned to Istanbul where it was met dockside by thousands of people. In May the ship was part of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla which set out to break the siege by sea, only to be attacked and hijacked in international waters by Israeli commandos who killed nine people and injured dozens. Even that massacre has not deterred more people from seeking to break the siege; the Asian Convoy to Gaza is on its way, and several other efforts are being planned.
We may look at all these initiatives and say that despite their enormous cost — including in human lives — the siege remains unbroken, as world governments — the so-called “international community” — continue to ensure Israeli impunity. Two years later, Gaza remains in rubble, and Israel keeps the population always on the edge of a deliberately-induced humanitarian catastrophe while allowing just enough supplies to appease international opinion. It would be easy to be discouraged.
However, we must remember that the Palestinian people in Gaza are not objects of an isolated humanitarian cause, but partners in the struggle for justice and freedom throughout Palestine. Breaking the siege of Gaza would be a milestone on that march.
Haneen Zoabi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament and a passenger on the Mavi Marmara explained last October in an interview with The Electronic Intifada that Israeli society and government do not view their conflict with the Palestinians as one that must be resolved by providing justice and equality to victims, but merely as a “security” problem. Zoabi observed that the vast majority of Israelis believe Israel has largely “solved” the security problem: in the West Bank with the apartheid wall and “security coordination” between Israeli occupation forces and the collaborationist Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, and in Gaza with the siege.
Israeli society, Zoabi concluded, “doesn’t feel the need for peace. They don’t perceive occupation as a problem. They don’t perceive the siege as a problem. They don’t perceive oppressing the Palestinians as a problem, and they don’t pay the price of occupation or the price of [the] siege [of Gaza].”
Thus the convoys and flotillas are an essential part of a larger effort to make Israel understand that it does have a problem and it can never be treated as a normal state until it ends its oppression and occupation of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and fully respects the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinian refugees. And even if governments continue to stand by and do nothing, global civil society is showing the way with these efforts to break the siege, and with the broader Palestinian-led campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS).
Amid all the suffering, Palestinians have not celebrated many victories in the two years since the Gaza massacre. But there are signs that things are moving in the right direction. Israel begs for US-endorsed “peace negotiations” precisely because it knows that while the “peace process” provides cover for its ongoing crimes, it will never be required to give up anything or grant any rights to Palestinians in such a “process.”

Yet Israel is mobilizing all its resources to fight the global movement for justice, especially BDS, that has gained so much momentum since the Gaza massacre. There can be no greater confirmation that this movement brings justice within our grasp. Our memorial to all the victims must not be just an annual commemoration, but the work we do every day to make the ranks of this movement grow.

Israeli MKs call for assassinating Bishara, expelling Arab MKs from Knesset

[ 15/12/2010 - 09:38 AM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Deputies in the Israeli Knesset (parliament) have called for assassinating former Arab MP Azmi Bishara, describing him as "terrorist".

The Knesset had endorsed the first reading of what came to be known as the Azmi Bishara draft law, which stipulates stripping the former MK of all his financial dues paid to him in accordance with the laws.

Bishara resigned from the Knesset after the Israeli authorities filed a lawsuit charging him with collaborating with the Lebanese Hizbullah. He is now living in Qatar.

Heated debates during the discussion of the draft law were witnessed between Arab and Jewish deputies during which MK Michael Ben-Ari said that Bishara's fate should be like that of Mabhouh and Mughniye, who were assassinated in Dubai and Damascus respectively in what is widely believed to have been Israeli intelligence operations.

Other Jewish deputies launched a ferocious campaign against the Arab MKs Jamal Zahalka and Hanin Al-Zoabi, pledging to work for their expulsion from the Knesset.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Fundraising Dinner with Haneen Zoabi: The New Generation of Palestinian Leadership

Fundraising Dinner with Haneen Zoabi: The New Generation of Palestinian Leadership Ottawa, Ontario, Thursday, November 18, 2010, 06:30 PM ADDRESS Thursday, Nov. 18, 2010, 6:30 p.m. Delta Ottawa Hotel and Suites The Delta Reception Room 361 Queen Street, Ottawa, ON K1R 7S9 TICKET INFO $80 per person, includes dinner Seating is limited, so purchase your ticket early to avoid disappointment. To make your purchase online, click here. For additional information, please feel free to contact CJPME at http://www.cjpme.org/ or 438-380-5410. Please see info on Ms. Zoabi further down (below the map).

MAPS & DIRECTIONS

Haneen Zoabi: Guest speaker at CJPME’s annual fundraising dinner

Haneen Zoabi (41) is the first Palestinian woman in Israel elected to the Israeli parliament (Knesset) as member of an Arab party. Elected in the February 2009 elections, she is an articulate defender of the rights of Palestinians in both Israel and the Occupied Territories, as well as a proponent of a fully democratic Israel, free of laws and practices discriminating against its indigenous Arab population. In an act of solidarity with fellow Palestinians in Gaza, she was on the Gaza Aid Flotilla when Israeli forces raided it in international waters and killed nine civilians on May 31.

Ms. Zoabi will speak about her challenges as an elected Palestinian leader in Israel, and the challenges that she and her people face in Israel. Her talk at the Gala will also focus on her experiences aboard the Gaza Aid Flotilla and its aftermath, and about the elements needed for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Born in Nazareth in northern Israel in 1969, she holds an M.A. in Communications and Media from Hebrew University, Jerusalem. In 2003 she co-founded the I’lam Centre for Arab Palestinians in Israel—an NGO dedicated to the “democratization of media policies, media practices, and the media landscape in Israel”—and was its first executive director.

On Zoabi’s return to the Knesset following the Gaza Aid Flotilla attack, she was the target of racist and sexist remarks and physical threats by various MKs. She received over 100 death threats in the first two weeks following the raid. The Knesset voted 34-16 to strip her of three of the privileges normally enjoyed by MKs. Zoabi has withstood these acts of aggression with dignity and courage.

Since its founding in 2004, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) has made impressive progress in fulfilling its objective of empowering Canadians to promote justice, development and peace in the Middle East. Proceeds from this gala will be used to support CJPME’s continued advocacy work with politicians and other policymakers, the media, and the Canadian public.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Jonathan Cook: Israeli police shoot Haneen Zoabi in back

By Jonathan Cook, www.jkcook.net – 28 Oct 2010

Protest met with rubber bullets: Israeli police shoot ‘hated’ Arab legislator in back

Israeli police injured two Arab legislators on Wedensay in violent clashes provoked by Jewish rightwing extremists staging a march through the northern Arab town of Umm al-Fahm.

Haneen Zoubi, a parliament member who has become a national hate figure in Israel and received hundreds of death threats since her participation in an aid flotilla to Gaza in the summer, was among those hurt.

Ms Zoubi reported being hit in the back and neck by rubber bullets as she fled the area when police opened fire. In an interview, she said she believed she had been specifically targeted by police snipers after they identified her.

Police denied her claims, saying they had used only tear gas and stun grenades.

Some 1,500 police were reported to have faced off with hundreds of Arab and Jewish demonstrators in the town.

Shimon Koren, the northern police commander, admitted special paramilitary forces had been used against the Arab counter-demonstration, as well as an undercover unit more usually deployed at Palestinian protests in the West Bank.

An officer disguised as an Arab demonstrator, from the so-called “mistarvim unit”, was among the injured, apparently after police fired a stun grenade at him by mistake.

Ms Zoubi harshly criticised the police violence. “The police proved that they are a far more dangerous threat to me and other Arab citizens than the fascist group that came to Umm al-Fahm,” she said.

The march was organised by far-right settlers allied to Kach, a movement that demands the expulsion of Palestinians from both Israel and the occupied territories. The movement was formally outlawed in 1994, but has continued to flourish openly among some settler groups.

The organisers said they were demanding the banning of the Islamic Movement, which has its headquarters in Umm al-Fahm.

The Islamic Movement’s leader, Sheikh Raed Salah, has angered Israeli officials by heading a campaign in Jerusalem’s Old City to highlight what he says is an attempted Israeli takeover of the Haram al-Sharif compound that includes the al-Aqsa mosque.

He was also on the Mavi Marmara aid ship to Gaza in May, and claimed at the time that Israeli commandos had tried to assassinate him. Nine passengers were killed, some of them by close-range shots to their heads.

The sheikh is currently serving a three-month jail sentence over clashes with the Israeli security forces close to the al-Aqsa mosque.

Michael Ben Ari, a former Kach member and now an MP with the rightwing National Union party, who attended the march, said Israel must not be a “stupid democracy and let people who want to destroy us have a voice”.

Baruch Marzel, one of the march organisers, told Israel Radio: “If the Kach Party was outlawed, then the Islamic Movement deserves to be outlawed 1,000 times over.”

On hearing of Ms Zoubi’s injuries, he added: “It was worth going to Umm el-Fahm. She is our enemy.”

Afu Aghbaria, an Arab MP with the joint Jewish-Arab Communist party, was also hurt. He said he had been hit in the leg.

Arab leaders said the clash had been triggered by undercover police who began thowing stones from among the demonstrators — a tactic that the unit has been caught on film using at protests in the West Bank.

Mohammed Zeidan, head of the Higher Follow-Up Committee, the main political body for Israel’s Arab citizens, who comprise a fifth of the total population, condemned the police actions.

“Racism is no longer found only in documents or on the margins, like with Marzel, but has become a phenomenon among decision-makers and carried out on the ground. What happened today in Umm al-Fahm is a menacing escalation.”

The committee demanded a state investigation into what it called “exaggerated violence” by the police.
Police said nine Arab demonstrators had been arrested for stone-throwing.

Four police officers were reported to be lightly injured. The far-right marchers were escorted away by police, unharmed.

Ms Zoubi, a first-term MP, shot to notoriety this summer after she was among the first passengers to be released following Israel’s violent takeover of the Mavi Marmara.

Ms Zoubi contradicted the Israeli account that the nine passengers had been killed by commandos defending themselves, accusing the navy of opening fire on the ship before any commandos had boarded. She also claimed several passengers had been allowed to bleed to death.

She was provided with a body guard for several weeks after receiving a spate of deaths threats and general villification in the parliament.

The Israeli police have been criticised in the past for lying about the strong-arm methods used to quell protests by the country’s Arab citizens.

A state commission of inquiry found in 2003 that the police had used live ammunition and rubber bullets, in violation of its own regulations, to suppress solidarity demonstrations inside Israel at the start of the second intifada.

Thirteen Arab citizens were killed and hundreds injured in a few days of clashes in 2000. Police had falsely claimed that the deaths had been caused by “friendly fire” from among the demonstrators.

A recently parliamentary report revealed that there were only 382 Muslims in Israel’s 21,000-strong national police force – or less than 2 per cent.

The establishment of the undercover “mistarvim” unit against the country’s Arab population caused outrage among civil rights groups when it was first revealed last year.

The far-right march in Umm al-Fahm was timed to coincide with the twentieth anniversary this week of the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, who founded Kach. At a commemoration service in Jerusalem on Tuesday, Rabbi Yisrael Ariel told hundreds who attended that the government was allowing the Palestinians to “establish an Ishmael state in Israel”.


Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

A version of this article originally appeared in The National, published in Abu Dhabi.

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Zoabi: The peace talks behind Israel's violations against the 1948 Palestinians

[ 18/10/2010 - 12:15 PM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Arab Knesset member Hanin Zoabi said that the main reasons for the escalation of Israel's violations against the Palestinians in the 1948 occupied lands are the Palestinian Authority's frivolous peace talks and security cooperation with Israel.

"The occupation state has never recognized our identity and our collective national rights, but it considers us at best that part which must be domesticated and whose identity must be distorted," Zoabi said in a press statement.

"The occupation state practically closed the file of its preoccupation with the West Bank through its negotiations and security coordination [with the PA] and the file of Gaza through the blockade, so it is now preoccupied with strengthening the identity of the state and its borders and no longer busy with the occupied territories," the Knesset member underlined.

She also stressed that the citizenship law which stipulates pledging allegiance to the Zionist state means that every Palestinian has to acknowledge the legitimacy of Israel and apologize for the Nakba (catastrophe) and the national project.

The lawmaker added that this law would block any real opportunities for the return of refugees and legitimize Israel's racist acts against the 1948 occupied people.

The lawmaker noted that the Israeli occupation needs its negotiations with the Palestinian side because they protect it from external pressures and isolation, and warned that the peace talks weakened the Palestinian cause and destroyed all Palestinian political achievements made over years of struggle.

In a separate incident, an Israeli court issued a six-month suspended sentence against senior official of the Islamic Movement in the 1948 occupied lands Suleiman Igbaria and fined him 15,000 shekels on a charge of his participation in Al-Maghariba gate events at the Aqsa Mosque.

Suleiman stated that this sentence was unjust, but it would not deter him or the Islamic Movement from continuing to defend the Aqsa Mosque.

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Gilad Atzmon: On Jewish Loyalty

Monday, September 20, 2010 at 11:25AM Gilad Atzmon

Recognizing Israel as uniquely Jewish is one of the key demands made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the latest talks with the Palestinians. However, Foreign Minister Lieberman took it one step further. He demands all Israelis swear an oath of loyalty to the Jewish state. Liebermann’s campaign slogan is "no loyalty, no citizenship."

"We can't continue to ignore issues like that of Hanin Zuabi, who identifies completely with the other side," Said Lieberman on Sunday.

He was referring to an Israeli Arab member of Knesset who was stripped of her parliamentary privileges after sailing aboard the heroic Mavi Marmara, and being witness to the Israeli massacre in high seas.

So here we are : Israel is basically a Western liberal ‘multi cultural’ society where all different ethnicities and minorities are demanded to swear loyalty to the ultimate form of chauvinist Jewish tribal practice.

Issues to do with loyalty are of the essence within Jewish political discourse. It was the doubt regarding Dreyfus’ loyalty that transformed Herzl into a Zionist. It was loyalty to the Jews that made Jonathan Pollard betray the USA. It was Mordechai Vanunu’s ethical and universal commitment that pushed him away from Jewish loyalty. As we know, he still pays a heavy price for that commitment. As it seems, ‘loyalty to the Jews’ is a crucial demand within the Zionist discourse.

But here we face a clear difficulty. Though it is clear that political Jews demand loyalty, it is far from being clear what this loyalty is. Neither Liebermann nor anyone else has ever suggested what ‘loyalty to the Jewish state’ stands for. Clearly, no one, not even the Jewish left has ever managed to point to a Jewish universal, moral or ethical value system for there is no such a system.

I guess that Jewish loyalty is an empty signifier: it is a dynamic notion; it changes constantly; it is impossible to pinpoint. As it happens, Jewish loyalty is removed from any notion of universalism, ethics or integrity. All it means in practice is, ‘Jews come first’.

In his recent video Max Blumenthal managed to collate a few Jewish morbid youngsters who were enthusiastic to swear loyalty to the Jewish state, its Jewish army and its commanders. Clearly the Goldstone report didn’t make enough waves in Israel or young Zionist circles around the world. One of the American Jewesses was happy to send Palestinians away from her land if they fail to swear an oath to Jewish primacy. Another Jewess admitted that when it comes to loyalty, Israel comes first while her motherland, Canada, comes second. This obviously raises a question. Political Jews; who are they loyal to?

Since loyalty is crucial within the Zionist discourse we may want to extend our study and challenge those who identify and operate politically as Jews to tell us about their loyalty. I would love, for instance, to know about Lord Levy, the number one fundraiser for the Labour party at the time this party dragged us into a criminal war : who is he loyal to, Israel or Britain? And what about Jewish Chronicle writers David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen: are they primarily loyal to this Kingdom or to the Jewish state?

I wonder because they both rallied for the Iraq war in the British national press. And what about David Miliband, the leading candidate for the Labour premiership, who is also listed on an Israeli Propaganda site as an Israeli propaganda writer, who is he loyal to? I guess that every member of the Labour’s, Conservative’s and Lib Dem’s Friend of Israel had better be challenged and the sooner the better.

However, in case you think that Liebermann is alone in his demand for loyalty, you are pretty wrong. Here in Britain, Lord Goldsmith, (yes the same Goldsmith who kindly offered Tony Blair a ‘legal’ green light to invade Iraq in 2003) is also enthusiastic about loyalty.

Back in 2008 Goldsmith recommended the introduction of ceremonies for all school-leavers to mark "the passage from being a student of citizenship to an active citizen". He said he favoured an oath of allegiance to the Queen but the statement could alternatively be a pledge of loyalty to Britain.

Lord Goldsmith was quoted by The Independent suggesting that Britain did not face a crisis of shared citizenship, but added that national pride had declined over the past 20 years, particularly among the young. He warned that “one third or more of black people did not identify with their home country.”

I guess that Goldsmith may be correct, there is a possible decline in British pride but this decline is not 20 years old. It is actually the direct outcome of some disastrous policies he himself was supposed to stop. What exactly Goldsmith is expecting our kids to be ‘proud of’ or identify with? Is it the criminal wars he himself approved legally? Is it the fact that Britain doesn’t find the legal strength to deal with the people who dragged us into these wars and made us all complicit in a genocide?

The similarity between Liebermann and Goldsmith is pretty obvious. “One third or more of black people did not identify with their home country” says Goldsmith. Like Liebermann, Goldsmith somehow knows in advance, who may not pass the ‘loyalty test’. The image of an ‘inclusive policy’ is there to enhance differences and marginalize minorities. Like Liebermann, Goldsmith at the time failed to suggest what the British values are. Instead, he reverted to symbolism and legalism as a substitute to ethical thinking.
The days of Israel are numbered, there is no way to rescue the Jewish state for it is founded on tribal and racist ideology. However, Britain can still liberate itself of its Neocon phase. All it has to do is to de-Zionise its political system and media. Instead of being loyal to states, we had better stay in tune with ethics and universalism. Instead of succumbing to moral interventionism, we just have to search in ourselves for moral guidelines.

Lieberman pushes to deport Palestinians

[ 19/09/2010 - 06:10 PM ]

NAZARETH, (PIC)-- Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the principle Israel must stick to during peace talks with the Palestinian Authority is exchanging land and populations instead of trading land for peace, noting that all Palestinians "living in Israel who show clear opposition to Israel should be exiled to PA-controlled territory".

Strong opposition from the Arab League and PA in Ramallah in accepting Israel as a “state for the Jewish people” has forced Israel to make the Arabs in Israel issue one of the central issues in the peace talks, Lieberman said Sunday on Israel radio.

“Any Israeli citizen can occupy any position, and any Arab citizen in Israel can be a pilot and occupy any positions even in the Mossad,” he added.

He went on to say that figures such as MK Hanin Zoabi who openly oppose Israel should compete for positions in Gaza or the PA.

In a separate context, Lieberman confirmed that Israel will continue building on Palestinian lands after Israel’s partial settlement activity freeze ends later this month.

Israeli radio reported that Lieberman said in a phone conversation with his British counterpart William Haig that the Palestinians wasted nine months out of the ten month freeze before going into negotiations only after they were pressured and not on goodwill.

Lieberman claimed Israel has made enough goodwill gestures, and now it is time for the Palestinians to make gestures of their own.

Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also decided to commit to ending the settlement freeze due to end Sept. 26.

Speaking at a Likud conference Sunday, Netanyahu refused to go into details about discussions held in Sharm el-Sheikh and Jerusalem last week with Palestinian de facto president Mahmoud Abbas and U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton due to the sensitive nature of the discussions.

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