Joint Palestinian-Israeli Popular Struggle: The Face of a Future of Peace and Equality

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Written by Peter Miller Peter Miller

Published: 16 May 2011 16 May 2011

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Community Calendar Announcement

EVENT: Joint Palestinian-Israeli Popular Struggle: The Face of a Future of
Peace and Equality, a free public lecture by Stanford University Professor
of Middle East History, Joel Beinin.

TIME: 7:30PM

DATE: Saturday, June 4th, 2011

PLACE: Room 271, Cramer Hall (1721 SW Broadway, downtown Portland),
Portland State University Campus.

CONTACT: Jewish Voice for Peace – Portland (503) 888-7455

Please join the newly formed Portland chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace for
a special evening with Stanford University Professor of Middle East History,
Joel Beinin. The topic for Professor Beinin's talk will be "Joint
Palestinian-Israeli Popular Struggle: The Face of a Future of Peace and
Equality."

The lecture and discussion to follow, free and open to the general public,
will take place at 7:30PM on Saturday, June 4th, in lecture room 271 of
Cramer Hall on the Portland State University campus in downtown Portland
(1721 SW Broadway). Also co-sponsoring this event are Students United for
Palestinian Equal Rights, Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights, the
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Portland Code Pink, War
Resister League of Portland, Friends of Sabeel - North America, Portland
Peaceful Response Coalition, Lutherans for Justice in the Holy Land, and
others. For more information, please contact Jewish Voice for
Peace-Portland at 503-888-7455.

Read more: Joint Palestinian-Israeli Popular Struggle: The Face of a Future of Peace and Equality

Israel Admits To Cancelling Residency Rights For 140,000 Palestinians

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Written by Kevin Murphy - IMEMC and Agencies Kevin Murphy - IMEMC and Agencies

Published: 11 May 2011 11 May 2011

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Haartz has today revealed files showing that Israel cancelled the residency of up to 140,000 Palestinians between 1967 and 1994.

The paper reports that the files, obtained by the Centre for the Defence of the Individual upon filing a request under the Freedom of Information Law, show a clear procedure of removal of residency rights for Palestinians during the period. Haaretz claims the procedure was unknown to Palestinians leaving the country, often for work and study purposes abroad.

Between the occupation of the West Bank in 1967 and the Oslo Accord of 1994 those wishing to travel from the West Bank into Jordan via the Allenby Bridge were required to leave their identity cards at the border and were issued with an exit visa valid for three years. Unbeknownst to Palestinians, the Centre has claimed, those who failed to return within six months of the cards expiration would be declared NLR, or No Longer Resident, without warning, and prevented from returning to their homes.

Read more: Israel Admits To Cancelling Residency Rights For 140,000 Palestinians

Conductor Daniel Barenboim holds Gaza 'peace concert'

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Written by BBC News BBC News

Published: 03 May 2011 03 May 2011

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Daniel Barenboim at the Rafah crossing (3 May 2011) Daniel Barenboim was forced to enter the Gaza Strip through Egypt's Rafah crossing

Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim has led an orchestra of European musicians in a "peace concert" in Gaza.

Hundreds of Palestinians, many of them schoolchildren, attended the first performance in the coastal territory by an international classical ensemble.

Israel forbids its civilian citizens from travelling to Gaza, so Barenboim entered via Egypt with 25 musicians.

For years, Barenboim has used music to try to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

The conductor, who accepted honorary Palestinian citizenship in 2008, famously set up an orchestra made up of young Arab and Israeli musicians, known as the East-West Divan orchestra. In 2005, it performed in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

But Tuesday's concert in Gaza City was one of his most ambitious moves, says the BBC's Jon Donnison in Ramallah.
'Not political'

Barenboim was greeted with thunderous applause as he entered the hall of the al-Mathaf Cultural House.

He said the members of the orchestra had two things in common.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Ibrahim al-Najjar

This visit is very important to us”

End Quote Ibrahim al-Najjar Al-Qattan music school

* Audio slideshow: Gaza music school

"They are tremendously good musicians... and they are musicians who care about humanity," he explained.

"This is a unique gesture from the whole of Europe for you, Gaza."

The so-called Orchestra for Gaza includes musicians from five leading European orchestras, including the Berlin and Vienna philharmonics.

The programme included pieces by Mozart including Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and the G minor symphony.

"This visit is very important to us for many reasons, both cultural and civil," Ibrahim al-Najjar, director of al-Qattan music school, the only such establishment in Gaza, told the AFP news agency.

"And from a political perspective, it is important to show that Gaza is a safe place," he added.

Gaza is governed by the Islamist group Hamas, which Israel regards as a terrorist organisation.

The impoverished coastal strip has been subjected to a crippling Israeli blockade since 2006. The embargo was eased somewhat last year following international outrage over the killing of Turkish activists on an aid flotilla.

The Israeli government has previously blocked attempts by Barenboim to perform in Gaza, and Israeli law bans citizens from entering the territory.

The concert was therefore co-ordinated in secret with the United Nations until invitations were distributed earlier this week.

Barenboim's entry through Egypt's Rafah crossing comes amid Israeli criticism of plans by Egypt's new military rulers to open up the border, our correspondent says. Former President Hosni Mubarak tacitly supported the blockade.

One Word about Palestinian reconciliation . . . Bravo!

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Written by Uri Avnery Uri Avnery

Published: 29 April 2011 29 April 2011

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One Word

IN ONE word: Bravo!

The news about the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas is good for peace. If the final difficulties are ironed out and a full agreement is signed by the two leaders, it will be a huge step forward for the Palestinians – and for us.

There is no sense in making peace with half a people. Making peace with the entire Palestinian people may be more difficult, but will be infinitely more fruitful.

Therefore: Bravo!

Binyamin Netanyahu also says Bravo. Since the government of Israel has declared Hamas a terrorist organization with whom there will be no dealings whatsoever, Netanyahu can now put an end to any talk about peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. What, peace with a Palestinian government that includes terrorists? Never! End of  discussion.

Two bravos, but such a difference.


THE ISRAELI debate about Arab unity goes back a long way. It already started in the early fifties, when the idea of pan-Arab unity raised its head. Gamal Abd-al-Nasser hoisted this banner in Egypt, and the pan-Arab Baath movement became a force in several countries (long before it degenerated into local Mafias in Iraq and Syria).

Nahum Goldman, President of the World Zionist Organization, argued that pan-Arab unity was good for Israel. He believed that peace was necessary for the existence of Israel, and that it would take all the Arab countries together to have the courage to make it.

David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s Prime Minister, thought that peace was bad for Israel, at least until Zionism had achieved all its (publicly undefined) goals. In a state of war, unity among Arabs was a danger that had to be prevented at all costs.

Goldman, the most brilliant coward I ever knew, did not have the courage of his convictions. Ben-Gurion was far less brilliant, but much more determined.

He won.


NOW WE have the same problem all over again.

Netanyahu and his band of peace saboteurs want to prevent Palestinian unity at all costs. They do not want peace, because peace would prevent Israel from achieving the Zionist goals, as they conceive them: a Jewish state in all of historical Palestine, from the sea to the Jordan River (at least). The conflict is going to last for a long, long time to come, and the more divided the enemy, the better.

As a matter of fact, the very emergence of Hamas was influenced by this calculation. The Israeli occupation authorities deliberately encouraged the Islamic movement, which later became Hamas, as a counterweight to the secular nationalist Fatah, which was then conceived as the main enemy.

Later, the Israeli government deliberately fostered the division between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by violating the Oslo agreement and refusing to open the four “safe passages” between the two territories provided for in the agreement. Not one was open for a single day. The geographical separation brought about the political one.

When Hamas won the January 2006 Palestinian elections, surprising everybody including itself, the Israeli government declared that it would have no dealings with any Palestinian government in which Hamas was represented. It ordered – there is no other word - the US and EU governments to follow suit. Thus the Palestinian Unity Government was brought down.

The next step was an Israeli-American effort to install a strongman of their choosing as dictator of the Gaza Strip, the bulwark of Hamas. The chosen hero was Muhammad Dahlan, a local chieftain. It was not a very good choice – the Israeli security chief recently disclosed that Dahlan had collapsed sobbing into his arms. After a short battle, Hamas took direct control of the Gaza Strip.


A FRATRICIDAL split in a liberation movement is not an exception. It is almost the rule.

The Irish revolutionary movement was an outstanding example. In this country we had the fight between the Hagana and the Irgun, which at times became violent and very ugly. It was Menachem Begin, then the Irgun commander, who prevented a full-fledged civil war.

The Palestinian people, with all the odds against them, can hardly afford such a disaster. The split has generated intense mutual hatred between comrades who spent time in Israeli prison together. Hamas accused the Palestinian Authority – with some justification – of cooperating with the Israeli government against them, urging the Israelis and the Egyptians to tighten the brutal blockade against the Gaza Strip, even preventing a deal for the release of the Israeli prisoner-of-war, Gilad Shalit, in order to block the release of Hamas activists and their return to the West Bank. Many Hamas activists suffer in Palestinian prisons, and the lot of Fatah activists in the Gaza Strip is no more joyous. 

Yet both Fatah and Hamas are minorities in Palestine. The great mass of the Palestinian people desperately want unity and a joint struggle to end the occupation. If the final reconciliation agreement is signed by Mahmoud Abbas and Khalid Meshaal, Palestinians everywhere will be jubilant.


BINYAMIN NETANYAHU is jubilant already. The ink was not yet dry on the preliminary agreement initialed in Cairo, when Netanyahu made a solemn speech on TV, something like an address to the nation after an historic event.

“You have to choose between us and Hamas,” he told the Palestinian Authority. That would not be too difficult – one the one side a brutal occupation regime, on the other Palestinian brothers with a different ideology.

But this stupid threat was not the main point of the statement. What Netanyahu told us was that there would be no dealings with a Palestinian Authority connected in any way with the “terrorist Hamas”. 

The whole thing is a huge relief for Netanyahu. He has been invited by the new Republican masters to address the US Congress next month and had nothing to say. Nor had he anything to offer the UN, which is about to recognize the State of Palestine this coming September. Now he has: peace is impossible, all Palestinians are terrorists who want to throw us into the sea. Ergo: no peace, no negotiations, no nothing.


IF ONE really wants peace, the message should of course be quite different.

Hamas is a part of Palestinian reality. Sure, it is extremist, but as the British have taught us many times, it is better to make peace with extremists than with moderates. Make peace with the moderates, and you must still deal with the extremists. Make peace with the extremists, and the business is finished.

Actually, Hamas is not quite as extreme as it likes to present itself. It has declared many times that it will accept a peace agreement based on the 1967 lines and signed by Mahmoud Abbas if it is ratified by the people in a referendum or a vote in parliament. Accepting the Palestinian Authority means accepting the Oslo agreement, on which the PA is based – including the mutual recognition of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. In Islam, as in all other religions, God’s word is definitely final, but it can be “interpreted” any way needed. Don’t we Jews know.

What made both sides more flexible? Both have lost their patrons – Fatah its Egyptian protector, Hosny Mubarak, and Hamas its Syrian protector, Bashar al-Assad, who cannot be relied upon anymore. That has brought both sides to face reality: Palestinians stand alone, so they had better unite.

For peace-oriented Israelis, it will be a great relief to deal with a united Palestinian people and with a united Palestinian territory. Israel can do a lot to help this along: open at long last an exterritorial free passage between the West Bank and Gaza, put an end to the stupid and cruel blockade of the Gaza Strip (which has become even more idiotic with the elimination of the Egyptian collaborator), let the Gazans open their port, airport and borders. Israel must accept the fact that religious elements are now a part of the political scene all over the Arab world. They will become institutionalized and, probably, far more “moderate”. That is part of the new reality in the Arab world.

The emergence of Palestinian unity should be welcomed by Israel, as well as by the European nations and the United States. They should get ready to recognize the State of Palestine within the 1967 borders. They should encourage the holding of free and democratic Palestinian elections and accept their results, whatever they may be.

The wind of the Arab Spring is blowing in Palestine too. Bravo!