A bird’s eye view of Zionism’s and Israel’s strategic aim

By Uri Avnery

26 May 2012

”In a bird’s eye view, the Zionist-Israeli policy looks like a river (SNAKE) striving towards the sea. When it meets an obstacle, it goes around it. The path deviates to the right and to the left, sometimes even going backwards. But it perseveres with a wondrous determination towards its goal.

“The guiding principle was to accept every compromise that gives us what we can get at any stage, but never let the final aim out of our sight.

“This policy allows us to compromise about everything, except one: an Arab Palestinian state that would confirm the existence of an Arab Palestinian people.” (Uri Avnery)

On 15 May, the anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, its Arab citizens observed a day of mourning for the victims of the Nakba (Catastrophe) – the mass exodus of half the Palestinian people from the territory which became Israel.

Like every year, this aroused much fury. Tel Aviv University allowed Arab students to hold a meeting, which was attacked by ultra-right Jewish students. Haifa University forbade the meeting altogether.

Some years ago the Knesset debated a Nakba Law that would have sent commemorators to prison for three years. This was later moderated to the withdrawal of government funds from institutions that mention the Nakba.

Nakba denial

“The ‘only democracy’ in the Middle East may well be the only democracy in the world that forbids its citizens to remember a historical event. Forgetting is a national duty.”

The “only democracy” in the Middle East may well be the only democracy in the world that forbids its citizens to remember a historical event. Forgetting is a national duty.

The trouble is, it’s hard to forget the history of the “Palestinian issue”, because it dominates our life. Sixty-five years after the foundation of Israel, half the news in our media concern this one issue, directly or indirectly…

The founding fathers of Zionism adopted the slogan “a land without a people for a people without a land” (coined much earlier by a British Christian Zionist). They believed the “promised land” to be empty. They knew, of course, that there were some people in the country, but the Zionists were Europeans, and for Europeans at the end of the 19th century, the heyday of imperialism and colonialism, coloured people – brown, black, yellow, red or whatever – did not count as people.

When Theodor Herzl put forward the idea of a Jewish state, he was not thinking about Palestine but about an area in Argentina. He intended to empty this area of all its native population – but only after they had killed all the snakes and dangerous beasts.

In his book Der Judenstaat [The Jewish State] there is no mention of Arabs – and not by accident. When Herzl wrote it, he was not yet thinking about this country. The country appears in the book only in a tiny chapter added at the last moment, titled “Palestine or Argentina?”

Therefore Herzl did not speak about evicting the Palestinian population. This would have been impossible anyway, since Herzl was asking the Ottoman sultan for a charter for Palestine. The sultan was a caliph, the spiritual head of all the world’s Muslims. Herzl was too cautious to bring this subject up.

”Total opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state – at any time, anywhere in the country, at all costs”

This explains the otherwise curious fact: the Zionist movement has never given a clear answer to its most basic question: how to create a Jewish state in a country inhabited by another people. This question has remained unresolved to this very day.

“The main effort of the Zionist/Israeli movement is to achieve a Jewish state in all of Eretz Israel – the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. In other words, the prevention of an Arab Palestinian state.”

But only seemingly. Hidden somewhere underneath it all, on the fringes of the collective consciousness, Zionism always had an answer. It is so self-evident, that there was no need to think about it. Only few had the courage to express it openly. It is imprinted on the “genetic code” of the Zionist movement, so to speak, and its daughter, the state of Israel.

This code says: a Jewish state in all the land of Israel. And therefore: total opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state – at any time, anywhere in the country, at all costs.

When a strategist plans a war, he first of all defines its aim. That is the main effort. Every other effort must be considered accordingly. If it supports the main effort, it is acceptable. If it hurts the main effort, it must be rejected.

The main effort of the Zionist/Israeli movement is to achieve a Jewish state in all of Eretz Israel – the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. In other words, the prevention of an Arab Palestinian state.

When one grasps this, all the events of the last 115 years make sense. All the twists and turns, all the seeming contradictions and deviations, all the curious-looking decisions make perfect sense.

In a bird’s eye view, the Zionist-Israeli policy looks like a river striving towards the sea. When it meets an obstacle, it goes around it. The path deviates to the right and to the left, sometimes even going backwards. But it perseveres with a wondrous determination towards its goal.

The guiding principle was to accept every compromise that gives us what we can get at any stage, but never let the final aim out of our sight.

This policy allows us to compromise about everything, except one: an Arab Palestinian state that would confirm the existence of an Arab Palestinian people.

All Israeli governments have fought this idea with all available means. In this respect, there was no difference between David Ben-Gurion, who had a secret agreement with King Abdullah of Jordan to obstruct the setting up of the Palestinian state decreed by the UN General Assembly’s 1947 resolution, and Menachem Begin, who made a separate peace with Anwar Sadat in order to get Egypt out of the Israeli-Palestinian war.

Not to mention Golda Meir’s famous dictum: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people.” Thousands of other decisions by successive Israeli governments have followed the same logic.

The only exception may be the Oslo agreement – which also did not mention a Palestinian state. After signing it, Yitzhak Rabin did not rush forwards to create such a state. Instead, he stopped in his tracks as if stunned by his own audacity. He hesitated, dithered, until the inevitable Zionist counterattack gathered momentum and put an end to his effort –- and his life

The present struggle over the settlements is an integral part of this process. The main aim of the settlers is to make a Palestinian state impossible. All Israeli governments have supported them, openly or covertly. They are, of course, illegal under international law, but many of them are also illegal under Israeli law. These are variously called “illegal”, “unlawful”, “unpermitted” and so forth. Israel’s august Supreme Court has ordered the removal of several of them and seen its rulings ignored by the government.

The settlers assert that not a single settlement has been set up without secret government consent. And indeed, all the “unlawful” settlements have been connected at once to the water and electricity grids, special new roads have been built for them and the army has rushed to defend them – indeed the Israel Defence Forces have long ago become the Settlements Defense Forces. Lawyers and shysters galore have been employed to expropriate huge tracts of Palestinian land.

One famous woman lawyer discovered a forgotten Ottoman law which says that if you shout from the edge of a village, all the land where the shout cannot be heard belongs to the sultan. Since the Israeli government is the heir of the Jordanian government, which was the heir of the sultan, this land belongs to the Israeli government, which turns it over to the settlers. (This is not a joke!)

While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems in abeyance and “nothing happens”, it is really going on with full force in the only battlefield that matters: the settlement enterprise. Everything else is marginal, like the awesome prospect of an Israeli attack on Iran. As I have been saying all along, that will never happen. It is a part of the effort to divert attention from the two-state solution, the only peaceful solution there is.

Ethnic cleansing

Where is the negation of the Palestinian state leading to?

Logically, it can only lead to an apartheid state in the entire country between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. In the long run, that would be untenable, leading to an Arab-majority “bi-national” state, which would be totally unacceptable to almost all Israeli Jews. So what is left?

The only conceivable solution would be transfer of all the Arabs to the other side of the Jordan. In some ultra-right circles, this is openly talked about. The Jordanian monarch is incensed by it .

Population transfer already happened in 1948… But 1948 is long gone. The world has changed. What was tolerated from post-Holocaust brave little Israel would not be tolerated tomorrow from mighty, arrogant Israel… Today it is a pipe-dream – like similar dreams on the other side that Israel would somehow disappear from the map. (It will Mr. Settler)

It has often been said that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a clash between an unstoppable force and an immovable object. This will dominate our lives and the lives of generations to come.

Unless we do something that looks almost impossible: to change the main effort, the historic direction of our state. Substitute for it a new national aim: peace and coexistence…


River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

A Particularly Bitter Nakba Day

A girl leans on a chain, during a protest to mark the 64th anniversary of Nakba, at Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp near Sidon 15/05/2012. (photo by REUTERS/Ali Hashisho)

By:Amjad Samhan posted on Tuesday, May 15, 2012

On May 15, Palestinians commemorated their 64th year of continued injustice. On this day, ever year since Israel displaced 750,000 Palestinians from their lands and homes, the Palestinians commemorate the Nakba (or “Catastrophe”). This year, however, Nakba Day is far more bitter for Palestinians, as Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are still struggling for basic rights.

Hajja Um Anaam is a Palestinian refugee from the Qaddura camp in Ramallah. She keeps the memory of her village, Deir Tarif, close to her heart. She remembers its stones, houses, alleyways, squares and gardens. Yet, today Um Anaam lives in a small room in a crowed camp in Ramallah. The warren of tiny streets and concrete houses, which have recently done away with their tin roofs, best reflects Nakba Day.

“Oh, how I yearn for my childhood days. Today, I am 75 years old. I remember our home and family. Now, they are but a fading memory. We have been displaced and killed. We will not forget. Our grandchildren will be given the keys,” Um Anaam told Al-Safir. [Clarification: the reference to keys is to those which will unlock the houses left behind by the Palestinians in 1948.]

About this Article

Summary: Palestinians observed Nakba Day, which commemorates the displacement of Palestinians from their homes after the creation of Israel, Monday. Amjad Samhan on how this year is a particularly bitter Nakba, as Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are still struggling for basic rights Publisher: As-Safir (Lebanon) Original Title: Palestine: 64 years of Calamity, and Flame of the Anniversary is in the Intestines of the Prisoners Author: Amjad Samhan Published on: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 Translated On: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 Translator: Sahar Ghoussoub Categories :Culture & Society Reports / Studies Israel Palestinian Authority

According to her, the Palestinian people are still living in an ongoing Nakba. “Every day is Nakba to us. Our children are being killed and imprisoned. Our houses are being demolished and our land stolen, yet, the world does not lift a finger.”

Not far away from Hajja’s house in the camp lives 78-year-old Mohamed Ibrahim. The long years have taken their toll on the old man. The years weigh heavy on him, forcing his head to the ground. “Today, I do not feel like I exist. Although I still live among my family here, I am not at home. My house there was taken away from me. But I must return one day,” he told Al-Safir.

The Qaddura camp’s narrow streets are another reflection of Nakba Day. They reflect not only the painful consequences of that day, but also the dire conditions under which Palestinians live in the camps.

Many events were organized to mark the Nakba Day throughout occupied Palestinian cities, in both the West Bank and in modern-day Israel. Palestinian cities will be on a general strike. A main rally for Earth Day is scheduled to take place in the city of Al-Loujoun, inside the Green Line. Palestinians are planning to set up tents to commemorate the eve of the Nakba.

Israel has approved a law, known as the “Nakba Law,” which penalizes all commemorations of Nakba Day. The Palestinians are not intimidated.

In the West Bank, Palestinians will begin marching from late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s tomb in Ramallah. Warning sirens will sound in all Palestinian city centers, and then Palestinians will march towards the Qalandia checkpoint despite the possibility that clashes could erupt between the protesters and the Israeli army.

Many Palestinians believe that this year’s Nakba Day is bitterly painful as it also coincides with the Nakba of the Palestinian prisoners still in the Israeli jails.

Palestinian prisoner Thaer Halalah has been on hunger strike for 78 days now. His father told Al-Safir that “This year, Nakba Day marks two tragedies in my life: the tragedy of my people and the tragedy of my son, whom I feel will die soon. Yet, no one cares. This is our fate. We are doomed to live in the Nakba for the rest of our lives. We and our children will pay the price, just as our ancestors did before us.”

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The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Nakba Day and Israel’s Ministry of Thought Control

Nakba Day and Israel’s Ministry of Thought Control

by Roy Tov

Monday, May 14th, 2012

Israel’s failure to implement censorship

Can a democracy censor? Despite Western-propaganda, the answer is yes. However, unlike the situation in totalitarian regimes, democratic censorship is invariably disguised as something else; in this aspect, totalitarian regimes are more honest than what nowadays is wrongly referred to as democracies.



The events surrounding 9/11 and the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq are a good example of that. Despite American media sanctimonious claim of being balanced, one won’t find a balanced report on these issues.

When was the last time the Taliban’s leader got the Times’ front page?

How can censorship in a democracy be achieved?

Let’s answer this question by illustrating the topic with a current event. In the case of Israel, how can the state censor events linked to Nakba Day? Oddly enough—and I would be accused of anti-Semitism if I were to add the obvious—Israel does that through the Ministry of Finances.

Palestinian PR Victory

They Call it “Independence” … We Call it Nakba

Nakba Day is the “Disaster Day” on May 15, when Palestinians remember Israel’s Independence declaration. Israelis celebrate it at a different date. Formally, civil affairs in Israel are conducted using the Hebrew calendar, thus official events change in their Gregorian date because the Hebrew calendar is lunar in nature, meaning it wobbles in cycles of 19 years.

On all official documents issued by Israel, the Hebrew date is proudly stated; however, since this calendar wobbles, everybody uses the Gregorian calendar as the main reference calendar.

He returned on Nakba Day, Martyred on Naksa Day,
Millions will follow

This includes offices from the Israeli Administration; all appointments with them are arranged using the Gregorian calendar. Most of the calendars sold in Israel show the Gregorian date in large digits and the Hebrew date in small—almost illegible—digits. Actually, most Israelis would fail if asked to list the names of the Hebrew months in their correct order. “Independence Day is in April or May” they’ll say hesitantly, mixing up the Hebrew and Gregorian calendars. Since the Palestinians stick to Gregorian dates, they have an easy job promoting Nakba Day, a much easier task than Israelis face with the wobbling Yom Haatzmaut, Independence Day (see Is this Israel’s last Independence Day?).

The Zionists’ Deepest Fear 

“Yom Hanakba” Nakba Day Logo by Zionist Channel 7 note the Hebrew letters styled as Arabic ones

 The extent of mind-control the Israeli administration attempts on the population it rules is astonishing. Prime Minister Golda Meir claimed Palestinians do not exist, and expected the people to answer: “amen!” Things didn’t improve much since her departure; for many years possessing a Palestinian flag—even if hidden in a dark drawer—was a punishable crime in the state claiming to be “the only democracy in the Middle East.”

The Zionist leaders’ deepest fear is that their people will realize they have been deceived by them; they fear that the people will realize that the Zionist dream is nothing but a hollow, meaningless dream built atop solid Palestinian structures. After all, most of the Israeli towns had been built by Palestinian workers. Thus, the attempt to suppress the commemoration of events like Nakba Day was to be expected. Considering the extent of the protests taking place on that day across Israel, the task was herculean even for roughish Zionist administrators. The logo below belongs to the Settlers’ Channel 7 (see “Juden Raus!” says Israel) and was featured in their articles covering the Nakba Day this year. Even the settlers—who often draw maps of the West Bank which ignore Palestinian cities—cannot ignore this event.

Beginning Administrators’ Error

On paper, the Israeli administration gave a “proper Zionist Answer,” (“tshuva tzionit olemet” in Hebrew). This is a popular phrase used in Israel against any event that is perceived as a threat. It implies violence, though nothing specific is said. In this case, the implied violence came in the form of state censorship of an event it dislikes; beginner administrators as they are, they thought that by controlling the people’s pockets, they will gain control of their minds. On Monday 14, 2012, they woke up into their worst nightmare.

Nakba Day Protests | Tel Aviv University

Today, Tel Aviv University—a perceived stronghold of the Jewish establishment—commemorated Nakba Day. Tel Aviv University’s dean of students had previously approved a ceremony to commemorate Nakba Day in the plaza adjacent to the “Naftali” social sciences building. However, University security services decided that due to the “possibility of disturbances,” the event will be held at “Antine Square,” located next to the University’s main entrance. The pictures brought here are from the protests; the distinctive buildings of the university dormitories across the street can be clearly seen. “Every year different political bodies organize events focusing on the Nakba, in an attempt to make it the focal point of relations between Jews and Arabs in the area. What has never been done, and the time has come to do it, is to commemorate the Nakba in an alternative way, accessible to and created for the Israeli public—an event to remember the tragedy and great loss that befell the people who were here before ’48, many of which still live here,” said Noa Levy, a law student and organizer of the Nakba Day ceremony.

The pictures are incredible. The fact that 400 participants crowded the small plaza and that they read an alternative version of Yizkor, the Jewish prayer of mourning is even more so. The names of pre-1948 Palestinian villages inside what is today Israel, were read and the event included a moment of silence. For non-Israeli readers I must clarify this resembles very much Holocaust Day. Following this, the horrified Israeli government might declare a new Holocaust Day to commemorate the defiling of its Independence Day by its own citizens. “The education minister is of the opinion that the decision is wrong and infuriating,” said the minster’ spokesman, while referring to the university’s decision to allow the event. Beginners and unprofessional as they are, the Israeli administrators forgot to cover in their censorship law spontaneous events that come out of people’s warm hearts and not out of cold government’s budgets. However, if expanding on this one may be denounced as anti-Semite by the censoring, undemocratic, Israeli government. Isn’t that so, Mr. Netanyahu?

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The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Celebrate the "reunion of Jerusalem"

Saturday, June 4, 2011 at 8:46AM Gilad Atzmon

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Cruel and sadistic intoxication of power

Cruel and sadistic intoxication of power

My family updated you using my email on what happened on Nakba day (the three messages are now posted at my blog. Hundreds of us were kidnapped by the apartheid soldiers from demonstration and hundreds were injuried and scores were martyred.  Before I give my report I wanted to thank every one who took action. I have far too many emails to thank each of you who wrote me and I do not know who are the hundreds of others who called or wrote to officials, media etc (I do know from inside information that hundreds did write just to the US embassy as an example).  The level of communication and action around Nakba was inspiring and critical around the world.  Ben Gurion said about the ethjnic cleansing of Palestine that "the old will die and the young will forget".  

Coming on the heels of an Israeli Knesset law to bar and suppress any comemorations of the Nakba, the day would actually turn out to be amazing. This day was the most important May 15 event since the weeks after May 15, 1948 when thousands of refugees "infiltrated" (as the Zionists labeled it) the borders to return to their homes and lands (a return that also meant many of them were shot on sight or re-expelled).

Our day started in the beautiful village of Al-Walaja at 11 AM as the villagers symbolically burned a refugee tent and decided to walk to their lands, much of it lies beyond the 1948  “Green line” ( itself dissolved by the Israeli occupation 1967 ).  I was video documenting this historic event on the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba (the ethnic cleansing of 500 Palestinian villages and towns). Some 800 people from Al-Walaja, other Palestinians, and internationals walked down the hills to the valley that delineates the 1948 green line. Army jeeps gathered on the road between us and the old land of Al-Walaja. Shireen and Basil approached the officers in an attempt to talk and explain that it is a peaceful march and that we just wanted to visit our lands.

The answer was an empathic “get back” and an immediate attack by soldiers on the peaceful demonstrators. I noticed Ahmed down on the ground, pepper sprayed in his eyes and mouth and obviously in severe pain. I tried to help him while trying to film at the same time, within 3-5 minutes I was led away with 4 others including Ahmed. As they roughly and sadistically hit and pushed us into their military vehicle, Ahmed's conditions was worsening and he was refused medical care. The 4 youth were handcuffed in the back and I was handcuffed in front (perhaps due to my age). As we drove off, we started to hear the sounds of tear gas canisters and stun grenades.

I and the other pleaded with the soldiers and officers to provide medical care to Ahmed, but they would not even give us a paper-towel or a cloth to wipe his face (fluids running down his nose, mouth and ears). I finally used my T-shirt (which says “Got human rights? Palestinians don´t “!) to wipe the pepper spray off his face. Time passes slowly when you are in pain physically and psychologically.  But while all of us had bruises (the pharmacist Basil Al-Araj even suspected he has fracture in his rib), we all focused on encouraging and helping Ahmed.  2 hours later we did get paper towels but I was the only one capable of helping Ahmed because my hands were in front of me. We were first transferred to border police vehicle (with a particularly nasty woman soldier). We arrived at the military camp near Rachel’s tomb area. Half an hour after we arrived there (2+ hours after our detention), the doors to the container opened and 8 internationals stream in including one girl. They are not handcuffed and they relay that the soldiers after taking us near the green line chased villagers into the village and began arresting everyone they encountered including internationals. Everyone was just trying to run away they said. We remained at this camp for another 2 hours. I managed to get free from the plastic handcuff which really angered the soldiers when they discovered it, and I was tightly shackled with “Hatts-Made in England” metal handcuffs.

 "Musta'ribeen",

We are then all loaded to drive to the military compound called Atarot. I have been there in my last arrest, the soldiers and the interrogation rooms are elevated and a holding container is about 2 meters “depression” with metal roof. There we are to wait without using our phones (but we do in a clandestine way). Soon 5 more people form Al-Walaja were brought in including 2 children (twins ages 12). The children and 2 of the adults were taken from their houses (one in his slippers).  For the rest of my life I will not forget the terrorized look and tears of the children (we tried to encourage and joke with them).   Soon 15-20 more  people are brought in (arrested at Shufat refugee camp). I noted at least 4 masked undercover plain-cloth thugs accompanying them (these are the notorious "Musta'ribeen", Israeli undercover agents who infiltrate demonstrations, sometimes throwing rocks to incite others and give excuse for the uniformed officers to shoot.) We are told that hundreds of Palestinians were injured and and hundreds arrested from around the Jerusalem area (Shufat, Qalandia, Eisawiyya). 

Two youths from the Shufat group are badly injured; one had his head bandaged by a Palestinian paramedic earlier. The other whom I examined had contusions on his face including what appeared to me a broken bone (zygomatic arch) and a huge swelling around his left eye. He is shaking, dizzy, and in pain. I asked the officers to get him urgent medical care. One officer finally says: wait here. Then he goes and gets another officer who has the form that we all had refused to sign (the one that says “we did not get hurt during our arrest"). The message was clear: sign and we will get you medical care. The guy can´t even see to sign and he refuses. After much fuss and later (to quiet us down) they came back and took the two injured away; we hope they are cared for properly.

After much nagging on our part, one interrogator comes and asks if the two young children have celebrated their 12th birthday yet. The answer was no and he had no choice but decide to "question" them (more though scaring and screaming at them) then tell a fellow officer in Hebrew to call their parents to get them. (This takes another 1.5 hours). Israeli law allows charging and jailing Palestinians above age 12.  As I would find out when they took me to prison, the prisons are full of 12-18 year-old kids.

As night fell and we kept nagging, we are brought sandwiches at around 10 PM, fully 10-11 hours after our arrest. Then painfully slow, 40+ remaining prisoners began to get questioned. My turn comes around 12:30 AM (13 hours after our arrest). The lawyer says, you should not say anything; I instead take this opportunity and many others before and after to engage with these apartheid officers to get them to see the absurdity of it all. The bureaucracy meant that actually between the time of our first handcuff and our final release, we interact with over 150 apartheid officials and it is in my opinion good to try to talk to those who would talk (most tell us to shut up).  The interrogater tells me I am charged with participating in an illegal demonstration and throwing stones. I tell him I wrote a book on popular nonviolent resistance. He refuses to discuss politics; I refuse to sign paper that had his notes in Hebrew about what we discussed I go back to the pin. More waiting in bitter night coldness that we are not dressed for. The internationals are released once they sign a paper that say that they will not get near the wall and friction points for 15 days (if they do they would have to pay 5000 Nis or $1200 USD). We wail more and our spirits are high as rumors spread of successful Nakba events around the world. Many activists are released; five of us are left from the demo in Al Walaja and four from the Shufat demo. The later will go to Maskubiyya (the Russian compound) and we will go to Ofer. We finally leave this cold miserable place to Ofer at 4 AM. At Ofer, we are transferred to a military jeep with particularly nasty border police that insist I keep my head down. They use foul language and threats and occasional smack. They keep us like sardines in this jeep till 6 AM. We are then taken for “processing” which takes more than two hours from strip-search to photographs in prison uniform (mug-shots), to finger printing, to getting all our belongings logged in and stored, to being asked to change to the dark green prison uniforms. Each step involves changing handcuffs (I lost count how manytimes but must be at least 10 times in those few hours). The five of us get prison numbers 1932710 to 1932714.  We are put in a 3 m x 3 m holding cell for one hour they put us in and we are moved around 11 am to another area of the prison.

There an officer asks us individually which faction block we want to go to (Fatah, Hamas, PFLP etc.). He insists there are no sections/blocks for independents like me so I told him that I cannot choose other than to suggest that since we from the Walaja demo have the same lawyer, we should probably be assigned together.  He says he will see. Three of us end up in block 15 (Fatah).  After some checks, the gate to block 15 opens and they remove our handcuffs and we enter a hall that includes 12 rooms (on two floors).  Each small room accommodates 10 inmates. Today the block is near maximum capacity of 120 people in a space is this size of an average famil house in the US. We are greeted by a very friendly “dober” (Liaison between the block and the authorities). Who then takes us into one of the rooms to meet some key inmates and explains the rules to us. I am tired and can't focus but also I am honored and privileged to meet good people. I was surprised at how many youths are around. I am assigned room 5 with 7 other people already in it (two of whom are teenagers). In a way I was lucky because the room-head (Mohammed Saleh) is also head of the culture/education committee. After a shower (pajama provided kindly by the inmates), I was relaxing in my bed as he held his daily workshop to some 8 teenagers. The subject was the trilateral attack on Egypt and Egyptian-Palestinian relationship.

Prison life is regimented and orderly.  When roll call came, we stand up in our rooms next to our beds and the room metal doors are unlocked and several officers are standing tehre and they look at us as vultures while they call either our first or last name and we supply the rest of our name information. Time out is till 6 PM and during time out of rooms, the room doors are opened every half hour for 3 or so minutes in case you want to get something or return to your room.  I am told the Palestinian Authority pays Israel 17 dollars /day to keep each prisoner. Israel wants to maintain prisoner number (now in the thousands) as bargaining chips. I am impressed by how organized and clean the prisoners kept their crammed quarters. We agree that if I end up staying, I will learn Hebrew and teach English. In their weekly gathering I was also asked to give them a seminar on my book on history of Popular Resistance in Palestine. They bring me a book about Hebrew and I start to jot down notes about English and give the first two pages about alphabet and pronunciation to Mohammed. We discussed many things.

Around 10:30 PM and as I was beginning to doze off, I heard loud knowck on the locked metal door and my name is called.  I am told I am going and to get my things.  I quickly change back to the prison uniform, stick my hands out the opening of our room door to be reshackled.  The door is open and I find Ahmed (the other Ahmed, not the one injured) sitting and waiting.  Then they bring Basil.  By that time all the block is up at the doors and small windowns chewcking out what is happening wishing us good wishes.  Tears well up in my eyes as we are slowly led away leaving those good people behind.  After some processing, change of cloths, reshackling (our feet also shackled), we are loaded onto the a rison transport vehicle.  We are told our lawyer must retrieve our identity cards and valuable belongings (wallet, phone). We are dumped with no money and no phone in the middle of the night outside of the prison.  The mistreatment upon release is intended to send a message not come back (actually that was the last thing the officer told me). We manage to find a way home.

The first thing I did when I got home after reassuring my immediate family and quickly scanning emails was to watch the video of the amazing and inspiring breach of the borders at Majdal Shams area.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekgkuAaTjPg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPlLc9uge-0

We are sad that 20 people were murdered in trying to peacefully cross the borders (created by an apartheid racist system).  We are sad that Munib Masri Jr, 22 year old Palestinian-American and grandson of the famous Palestinian Philanthropist Munib Al-Masri was critically injured (among many hundreds) after being shot by an Israeli sniper using bullets that are paid for by US taxpayers. We are sad and angry about all of this and much more.  But we are also inspired and energized by the remarkable collective effort.  We are all  more certain than ever that this apartheid system is destined to fail like the one in South Africa failed.  Perhaps 15 May 2011 will be looked at as the beginning of the end. The Arab Spring is chipping the Apartheid system. The light is at the end of the tunnel.  Let us follow it up.

A reporter asked about my arrest at the US State Department Press Briefing.  This and your efforts must have had a hand in our quick release http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2011/05/163509.htm#ISRAEL

New York City march on Nakba day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZcpZKi3BKg

Al-Walaja story (7 new home demolition orders)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sXbWvAnm2w

Posted by Qumsiyeh at 5/17/2011

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Tim King : Is Israel Waging a Military Assault on Intellectuals?

Via MCS

- 18. May, 2011 

An unprecedented number of arrests, it just doesn’t make sense.

Tim King Salem-News.com

(SALEM, Ore.) – Yesterday we reported the arrest of Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh, a Salem-News.com writer and high profile educator and peace activist in Occupied Palestine, who in the past has been a professor at both Yale and Harvard.

It seems clear that Israel fears no boundaries, and that occupational forces are acting with a blatant disregard for even their own public image.

More than the fact that arresting peaceful men for speaking out is unconscionable; there seems to be a particular level of vengeance connected with this case.

According to what we are hearing, he will be released soon, though two other activists arrested with him who were American, were released while Dr. Qumsiyeh remained in custody.

Lawyers in Palestine say Mazin and two other Palestinians will be released on bail within the coming hours. Their cases will be reviewed later, and if there is no evidence to bring charges then the case will close and bail money returned.

Mazin’s family advised:

“We can all breathe a sigh of relief now. Your support and prayers meant so much to our family and made us strong. We thank each and every one of you. Next message hopefully will be coming from Mazin himself. In the meantime, our work continues until the rest of them are free.”
Salem-News.com published contact information for the Israeli embassy in yesterday’s report, urging readers to contact embassy staff in their respective countries and demand that the professor be released.
At one point it was relayed via the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem, that:
“They are aware of the many calls people made calling for Mazin’s release. They said at this moment, any additional calls would not change Mazin’s status.”
However, it appears that may not have been the case.

Targeting Intellectuals

We continue to be horrified and amazed that Israel targets intellectuals in this way, but then the first thing the Nazi’s did to Jewish resistance was to eliminate the ranks of academics and journalists.
This is the way of oppressive occupational armies that believe they are part of a supreme race. There is no reason to mince words over it. Zionist Jews consider themselves superior to non-Jews, or ‘goyam’, and a lower species, here to serve the needs of Zionist Jews.
We’re talking about a wide breadth of humanity who doesn’t qualify. Problems in Israel don’t stop there either. Dark complected Jews receive a lower level of regard and in some cases they are not allowed to attend schools with white Jewish students. There are many reported assaults and worse on Jews of color in Israel.
This is not the first time Mazin has been arrested for participating in peace protests in occupied Palestine. We have in fact reported three prior arrests:

May-15-2011: Demand the Release of Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh and Others – Salem-News.com
Dec-22-2010: Israelis Arrest Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh and Others Again During Peaceful Protest – J. Qumsiyeh for Salem-News.com
Jun-11-2010: Israeli Forces Release Distinguished Educator Under Threat of Future Harm – Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh Salem-News.com
Jun-09-2010 Salem-News.com Writer Arrested After Protest Near Bethlehem – Tim King Salem-News.com
May-09-2010: Israeli Occupation Forces Arrest Former Yale Professor – Mazin Qumsiyeh for Salem-News.com
Mar-02-2010: Israel Does Not Give Peace a Chance – Tim King Salem-News.com

Does anyone see a pattern here? He had never been arrested in his life, and then all of a sudden, while touring the U.S., he learned that:
“The Israeli army invaded our neighborhood at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, waking up my mother, wife and sister. Heavily-armed soldiers blocked roads during ‘the operation’. When my family opened the door, they demanded to see me. They were told I have already left to the U.S. After many more questions, they left a paper that states I am to appear at the military liaison office next Monday.”
It only got worse from there, and the fact that they did this when he was on tour is even more of an insult.

During the early morning IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) raid on his otherwise peaceful neighborhood, his sister and wife told the soldiers that the professor will not be back by the court date they had set. All because he participated in peace activity- that was their only beef with him.
He said at the time, back in March 2010, that was really disturbed him was the effect on his family and thousands of friends around the world who care.
“My 76-year old mother asks on the phone that I not go back and that I work in the U.S. for a while, a very painful suggestion for a mother to make about her only remaining son near her! I try to assure her that I have done nothing wrong and will not leave her… but she brings up many examples of people who also did not do any violence and were arrested, imprisoned, and their families had to go through a lot.”
That is everyday life for Palestinians, but Americans need to comprehend that the most accomplished professors here, people who would normally be granted a great deal of respect, are treated brutally and illegally.

Hope from Israel

It is important to note that the Israeli population is not all Zionist, and a growing contingent of Jews are standing up and speaking out over the terrible inhumane treatment of Palestinians.
Equally important is the fact that hundreds and hundreds of young Israelis are imprisoned for refusing to be a part of their oppressive military system. Israel is such a militant government that every single individual is forced to enter the Israeli Apartheid Forces at the age of 18.

Nakba – Palestine’s Continuing Catastrophe

The Palestinian catastrophe, known as the ‘Nakba’ began sixty three years and one day ago, when Israel became independent and began an ethnic cleansing program of indigenous Palestinian people. It was at a demonstration where people object verbally and peacefully to these policies, on this historic day, where Dr. Qumsiyeh was arrested.

Apartheid

Alison Weir

In Israel, speech can be a crime.

In Israel, laws are specifically designed to discriminate against Palestinians, people exactly like Professor Qumsiyeh, whom in my opinion, is one of the world’s greatest champions for peace and fairness.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with Israel’s practices, a simple answer is to watch this highly informative documentary called Occupation 101 which features another highly valued Salem-News.com writer, Allison Weir of IfAmericansOnlyKnew.com.
The very best thing you can possibly do, is stop what you are doing and watch this riveting, compelling documentary about Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
The problems are far from new, and in fact they are as old as Israel itself, which is a diaper laden infant of a country that badly needs to be changed.
In the January/February 1998 edition of Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Dr. Israel Shahak wrote in the article Israeli Discrimination Against Non-Jews Is Carefully Codified in State of Israel’s Laws:

The legal system of the State of Israel can be described as a weird mixture of advanced democracy and retrogressive discrimination, combined with clumsy attempts to hide the discriminatory reality. For example, in all Israeli laws except one, the Law of Return, the word “Jew” does not appear. The term employed when the law gives discriminatory privileges to Jews is that those privileges are granted to “persons who would have benefited from the Law of Return had they been outside the borders of Israel.” The Law of Return specifies that its benefits can be given only to Jews. However, Israeli propagandists calculate, correctly in my view, that a great majority of the opponents of discrimination would not dare to criticize this law. The second trick, especially beloved by the Meretz Party and other “leftist” hypocrites, is to campaign for and then pass a high-sounding law in favor of equality or human rights. Such laws, however, always contain one little paragraph stating that their provisions will not affect any laws or regulations enacted in the past. The high-sounding preambles of the new laws then can be solemnly quoted without mentioning that since discriminatory laws and rules were passed in the 1950s and early 1960s (by Labor, of course), the new laws cannot change the existing discrimination. When one understands those two tricks, one comprehends that Israeli laws, and even more so government regulations on all possible subjects, are full of discriminatory measures which, if employed against Jews anywhere else in the world, would be regarded as anti-Semitic.

The problems Mazin and so many others are wrestling with today, date all the way back to Israel’s conception, as Dr. Shahak described above.
They were wrong and unacceptable in a human sense then, and today this unwarranted apartheid legal system of Israel’s runs totally afoul of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

The bottom line is that people all over the world are watching this treatment of Dr. Qumsiyeh like hawks. All will remain vigilant and I suspect I am far from the only one who will continue to write about this frequently. It all serves as a distraction from the point Professor Qumsiyeh has been trying to make about the very place where he was arrested: Al- Wahala. The reports about this place are numerous and tragic and it seems proper that we list not all, but just some of the stories we have carried about this historic Palestinian town whose people deserve to live in peace, but have no such luck.

Nov-10-2010: Justice Delayed is Justice Denied – Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD. Salem-News.com
Nov-03-2010: Come to Al-Walaja Friday and to Palestine this Christmas – Mazin Qumsiyeh Salem-News.com
Aug-21-2010: Viva, Viva Negotiations! – Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD Salem-News.com
Aug-14-2010: First Friday of Ramadan: When 5 Seconds Seems Like Five Minutes – Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD Salem-News.com
Aug-08-2010: Follow Up on Incident at Al-Walaja – Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD Salem-News.com
Jun-22-2010: Popular Resistance Continues at Home and Abroad – Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh Salem-News.com
Jun-08-2010: Soldiers Uproot Agricultural Lands Near Bethlehem – Salem-News.com
May-25-2010: Bob Birch Reports from Palestine’s Occupied Territories – Bob Birch Special to Salem–News.com
May-22-2010: Arrests and Injuries at Al-Ma’sara – Mazin Qumsiyeh Salem-News.com
May-08-2010: Palestine’s Popular Resistance Continues – Mazin Qumsiyeh for Salem-News.com
Apr-14-2011: Human Rights: Optimism and Change – Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh Salem-News.com
Jan-16-2010: Tunisia and Reshaping the Arab World – Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh Salem-News.com

Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh

More on Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh

Mazin Qumsiyeh teaches and does research at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities in occupied Palestine. He previously served on the faculties of the University of Tennessee, Duke and Yale Universities.
He served on the board/steering/executive committees of a number of groups including Peace Action Education Fund, the US Campaign to End the Occupation, the Palestinian American Congress, Association for One Democratic State in Israel/Palestine, and BoycottIsraeliGoods.org.
He is now president of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People and coordinator of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Sahour. He advised many other groups including Sommerville Divestment Project, Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project, Palestine Freedom Project, Sabeel North America, and National Council of Churches of Christ USA.  He is an active member of a number of human rights groups (Amnesty, Peace action, Human Rights Watch, ACLU etc.).

He published several books the most acclaimed of which is “Sharing the Land of Canaan: human rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle” which was also translated to spanish.

He also has an activism book published electronically on his web site (http://qumsiyeh.org).  His main interest is media activism and public education.  He published over 200 letters to the editor and 100 op-ed pieces and interviewed in TV and radio extensively (local, national and international). Appearances in national media included the Washington Post, New York Times, Boston Globe, CNBC, C-Span, and ABC, among others. He also regularly lectures on issues of human rights and international law. He has a new book out shortly titled “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope and Empowerment” which reviews resistance going back to the beginning of the Zionist project in the 19th century until today.

Tim King is Salem-News.com Editor and Writer He 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 awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Silver Spoke Award by the National Coalition of Motorcyclists (2011), Excellence in Journalism Award by the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs (2010), 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. Tim was a member of the National Press Photographer’s Association for several years and is a current member of the Orange County Press Club.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Amira Hass: Israel turned the Nakba into a 63-year process

Amira Hass

18 May 2011

By Amira Hass, Haaretz – 18 May 2011

Israel crowns itself as the winner in the global competition of victimhood; yet it manufactures methods of oppression and dispossession.

How natural it is for Israeli spokesmen to assert that the Nakba Day marches from Syria and Lebanon were the product of incitement and foreign calculations. The state, which bases its existence on 2,000 years of longing for and belonging to this country, shows contempt toward palpable displays of belonging to and longing for the same country of those who we expelled 63 years ago – and of their descendants.

The memorial day for the Holocaust, and the memorial day for the Nakba, are behind us. So the time has come to write about them both. “Holocaust” and “Nakba” are mistaken definitions, because they do not distinguish between natural disasters and man-made catastrophes. But the definitions gained currency. So too did negative attitudes, such as the denial of the historical occurrence and its political implications. For example, that Jewish survivors became refugees in their own lands of birth, or that Palestinians in the diaspora and those who remained in the country share a close bond.

Another example would be the refusal to acknowledge the suffering endured by the other. Here it will be said “the Arabs started the war”, and there it will be said “the Jews caused the Nakba – the expulsion of the Palestinian people from its homeland, whereas the Palestinians bear no responsibility for the Holocaust – the genocide of the Jewish people.”

In a private, personal sense, the Holocaust did not become the “past;” for those who survived it, it continues until they die. Something of this ever-painful continuousness is dictating – to a greater or lesser degree – our own lives, as the offspring of the survivors.

In contrast, with regard to the Jewish collective that came into existence after 1945, the Holocaust has a beginning and an end. The Allies’ victory before Germany had time to extinguish additional Jewish communities, the establishment of the State of Israel, Germany’s acknowledgment of the murder industry it established – all such events marked the end of this chapter of history.

The same for individual Palestinians, their beloved one who were murdered by Jews or killed in battles, the painful uprooting from homes – never turned into sheer memory. But 1948 is just a first chapter in a series that hasn’t ended yet. For those who haven’t experienced expulsion and bereavement – Israel provided ample opportunities to share such fate.

How much skill has Israel displayed in the wrong-doing to refugees in Gaza? How many times a week do the “present absentees,” refugees who live within the borders of the state, pass by lands which were given to Jews at the behest of the legislators’ cunning? What are the statistics of chronic poverty and structural discrimination faced by the “Arab sector” in Israel, and by Palestinian Jerusalemites, if not a nakba by other means?

And what is the sickening similarity between the pressuring of Bedouin away from Negev lands today and the removal of 1948 refugee Bedouin in the Jordan Valley? How is it that after 1967 tens of thousands lost their right to live in the West Bank (including Jerusalem ) and the Gaza Strip? Israel did not overcome its instinct to expel, and is today focusing on the Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Every Jew in the world, whether a citizen of the U.S. or Morocco, has rights in this one country, from the river to the sea, that we denied to those who live in it today, and those who were born in it and grow old as refugees in Lebanon or Syria. And the Oslo process? Israel devised it as a stratagem to impose the solution of reservations.

Israel makes capital out of the six million to justify policies of destruction and expulsion not just in the past, but in the present and future. As the state which claims to be the heir of the Holocaust martyrs, Israel crowns itself as the winner in the global, historical competition of victimhood. Yet it manufactures methods of oppression and dispossession of the individual and the collective, methods which turn the Nakba into a continuing, 63-year process.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian