Remarks to General Assembly on International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

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Written by Peter Miller Peter Miller

Published: 05 December 2011 05 December 2011

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UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY

COMMITTEE ON THE EXERCISE OF THE INALIENABLE RIGHTS OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE

SOLEMN COMMEMORATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE

United Nations

New York

November 29, 2011

Remarks by Peter Miller

President, Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights

Co-Chair, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Secretary-General, Mr. President, Excellencies:

I am honored to speak to you today on this solemn commemoration of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. I am but one voice among many from global civil society who are deeply concerned about the plight of Palestinians resulting from Israel's policies of occupation, settlement, siege and the denial of Palestinian rights. Many civil society activists around the world have dedicated their lives seeking a just resolution to the Palestine-Israel conflict. Some have paid a huge price for their efforts. And why must civil society pay such a high price? It is because of the failure, your excellencies, of the United Nations and governments to implement international law.

As an American, I am deeply disturbed, as are many Americans, by the role that my government plays in preventing Palestinians from achieving their aspirations and their human rights. The U.S. unconditionally gives Israel $3 billion every year in military aid and ignores Israel's many systematic and continuing human rights violations. Those include the illegal use of military weapons against civilian populations, the ever expanding Israeli settlements, the expansion of its separation wall on Palestinian lands, the treatment of its Palestinian citizens as second class human beings and the denial of the rights of Palestinian refugees. One of the challenges to the UN and the international community, if you truly are committed to upholding the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, is to confront the deeply negative role of the U.S. in perpetuating injustice and enabling Israel to continue to violate international law and destroy the possibility of realizing Palestinian aspirations.

The admission of Palestine into the UN Organization UNESCO is a great victory for the UN and the voice of people around the world. 107 countries, representing over 75% of the world's population voted to include Palestine, truly “We the Peoples of the United Nations.” Unfortunately, the Obama administration was eager to enforce archaic U.S. laws and cut off U.S. dues to UNESCO. Also unfortunate is the fact that the Obama and earlier U.S. administrations have failed to uphold other U.S. laws conditioning military aid to countries, such as Israel, which use U.S. supplied weapons against civilian populations. The UN is challenged to uphold its Charter in the face of all the various anti-democratic pressures the US brings to bear, whether it is spying on UN officials, pressuring independent countries economically and politically, or threatening the UN itself with economic sanctions. The UN must defend its founding principles despite these pressures and the global community must be ready to increase economic and diplomatic support for the UN and UNESCO.

One of the great advancements of civilization has been the development of the concept of the rule of law, that human beings have universal rights, and that there should be international institutions that work to safeguard these rights, especially in times of conflict and military occupation. The principles embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, and other laws lay out this framework. The challenge for the UN is not to develop new laws or to express new sentiments, but to implement these existing universal principles and its existing resolutions to protect Palestinian human rights. The whole concept of universal rights and protection of civilians is endangered when powerful nations can pick and choose, in defiance of international bodies and global opinion, to whom these laws apply and for whom they are ignored. The law should be universal.

For Palestinians, the UN and other established institutions have failed to implement these universal principles, and have been unable to hold the powerful accountable for their oppression of the weak. So it has become necessary for global civil society to step into the void. This is what is happening around the world, including in the United States, on behalf of Palestinian human rights. This is why there is a growing movement of boycott, divestment, and sanctions to bring non-violent pressure on the State of Israel to end its systematic violations.

The Russell Tribunal is yet another expression of global civil society responding to the failure of the UN and governments to uphold the law. One of Bertrand Russell's last accomplishments was the establishment, with French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, of the Russell Tribunal to investigate the role of the United States in the war in Vietnam. The tribunal was established as a means for civil society to bring to the light the evidence of war crimes ignored by the United States government and by other nations and international institutions. Russell declared “May this Tribunal prevent the crime of silence.”

A new Russell Tribunal on Palestine has been reconvened with three sessions to date to examine Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. The most recent session was held November of this year in South Africa, with judges including Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire, emeritus judge of Spain’s Supreme Court José Antonio Martin Pallin, African-American poet Alice Walker and South African writer and activist Ronald Kasrils. They examined the question of whether Israel is engaged in the crime of Apartheid. Israeli human rights activist Jeff Halper, director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions said,

“States, along with the United Nations, are obligated to enforce international law and human rights conventions. When they don't, as in their failure to apply to Israel and its Occupation the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, the people themselves must rise up and demand that they do. Civil society forums such as the Russell Tribunal may not carry formal authority, but they represent millions of people the world over who believe that simply leaving governments free to pursue their narrow agendas driven by power, sectarian ideology, militarism and the profits of a few is to doom us all to continued war, bloodshed and injustice.”

The Tribunal concluded that Israel does indeed engage in the crime of Apartheid:

"Israel subjects the Palestinian people to an institutionalized regime of domination amounting to apartheid as defined under international law.... The Palestinians living under colonial military rule in the occupied Palestinian territory are subject to a particularly aggravated form of apartheid. Palestinian citizens of Israel, while entitled to vote, are not part of the Jewish nation as defined by Israeli law and are therefore excluded from the benefits of Jewish nationality and subject to systematic discrimination across the broad spectrum of recognized human rights. Irrespective of such differences, the Tribunal concludes that Israel's rule over the Palestinian people, wherever they reside, collectively amounts to a single integrated regime of apartheid."

The Russell Tribunal is not the first time Israeli apartheid has been identified. In 1961 Hendrik Verwoerd, then president of South Africa and considered the architect of the system of apartheid, stated, “Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.” Both Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela have expressed concerns that Israel's behavior was similar to what they experienced under South African apartheid. Mandela remarked that

“The UN took a strong stand against apartheid; and over the years, an international consensus was built, which helped to bring an end to this iniquitous system. But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

In 2009, the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa issued a report concluding that Israel practices both Apartheid and colonialism. In 2010, Henry Siegman, former national director of the American Jewish Congress said, "Israel has crossed the threshold from 'the only democracy in the Middle East' to the only apartheid regime in the Western world." Now in 2011, we can add the conclusions of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine.

Palestinian rights must no longer be held hostage to the domestic politics of the United States. Israel should not escape UN censure simply because it refuses to cooperate with international institutions. International law demands condemnation of Israel's violations and crucially, Your Excellencies, decisive action to reverse them. Palestinian dignity is assaulted on a daily basis. Both the Palestinian and Israeli people are diminished each passing day as you allow these Israeli policies to continue. Every day, a tree is destroyed or a home is demolished. Every day, a Bedouin village inside Israel is ground down by bulldozers or Palestinians in the West Bank are attacked by settler pogroms that turn their lives into lives of fear. Every day, critical medicines go lacking in Gaza, and Gazans are forced to drink brackish water unfit for human consumption.

The so-called “Quartet” has failed. But while many question whether the UN should have ever agreed to participate in such sham diplomacy, you can still play a constructive role by moving quickly to implement the necessary pre-conditions for serious and honest negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians based on the enforcement of international law. Excellencies, you must separate Israel’s legitimate security concerns from its illegitimate political agenda. The International Court of Justice ruling on the illegality of Israel's wall made just this sort of distinction: determining that Israel may build its wall on Israeli land, but Israel cannot build its wall on Palestinian land, destroying Palestinian farms and homes, and separating Palestinian villages and towns from each other. It is illegal, not simply “unhelpful,” for Israel to build settlements on Palestinian lands. Israel violates international law when it imposes collective punishment on the people of Gaza. UN-based solutions must be found to mitigate all of these issues. The international community must demand that Israel end its assaults on Gaza that kill and injure civilians, and destroy civilian infrastructure in an endless cycle of international development assistance repeatedly destroyed by Israel's U.S. supplied bombs and missiles and Israel's U.S. supplied Caterpillar bulldozers. All that is lacking is your will to impose solutions rooted in international law.

One of the great privileges of working within civil society for Palestinian justice is witnessing the coming together of people from many origins working together for justice. In my own small group, we have Jewish Americans, Palestinian Americans, Christians, Muslims, and secular people who recognize in each other our common humanity. This is replicated around the world. We in global civil society seek to rise above narrow national and tribal self interest and truly believe that peace is possible when our common humanity is recognized and justice is implemented. We honor the efforts of those Israelis who recognize that peace for Israel comes through justice for Palestinians, we honor the efforts of activists and UN workers from around the world, many who have risked their comfort and sometimes their lives in the name of justice. Though there are wide ranges of opinion about what the various solutions might be, we are united in the recognition of our common humanity and our dreams of living together, as equals, on this small blue planet.

Thank you.

-- END --

Binyamin Netanyahu attacks Arab spring uprisings

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Written by Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem

Published: 26 November 2011 26 November 2011

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Israeli PM claims 'Islamic, anti-western, anti-liberal, anti-Israeli, undemocratic wave' vindicates tough stance with Palestinians

Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem. Photograph: Baz Ratner/Reuters

Binyamin Netanyahu has launched a scathing attack on the uprisings in the Middle East, saying that Arab countries are "moving not forward, but backward" and support from the US and European countries was naive.

The Israeli prime minister said the Arab spring was becoming an "Islamic, anti-western, anti-liberal, anti-Israeli, undemocratic wave".

Speaking to the Israeli parliament amid renewed protests and violence in Egypt, Netanyahu said concessions to the Palestinians were unwise in a period of instability and uncertainty in the region.

"In February, when millions of Egyptians thronged to the streets in Cairo, commentators and quite a few Israeli members of the opposition said that we're facing a new era of liberalism and progress … They said I was trying to scare the public and was on the wrong side of history and don't see where things are heading." But, he told the Knesset, events had proved him correct.

When he cautioned Barack Obama and other western leaders against backing the revolt against Hosni Mubarak's regime, he was told he failed to understand reality. "I ask today, who here didn't understand reality? Who here didn't understand history?"

Those calling for a swift resolution of Israel's conflict with the Palestinians in the context of regional upheavals were misguided, he said. "Israel is facing a period of instability and uncertainty in the region. This is certainly not the time to listen to those who say follow your heart … I remember many of you urged me to seize the opportunity to make hasty concessions, to rush to an agreement.

"We can't know who will end up with any piece of territory we give up. Reality is changing all the time, and if you don't see it, your head is buried in the sand."

The foundations of stability and security were essential for any peace deal with the Palestinians, he said.

Israel has been monitoring renewed confrontations between protestors and security forces in Cairo and other Egyptian cities, and has concerns about the outcome of elections next week.

It fears Islamist parties will be a pivotal bloc in the next parliament, will strengthen ties with Hamas in Gaza and may seek to renegotiate parts of the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

"It's expected that the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist parties will dominate the government, and we are concerned that their success will encourage other Islamic radical parties in the Middle East to act more openly to achieve their goals," said Eli Shaked, a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt.

Diplomats have so far failed to persuade Israel and the Palestinians to return to talks. Israel says the Palestinian effort to win recognition of a state at the UN was a "unilateral" move which it rejected.

It refuses to negotiate with a Palestinian unity government which includes Hamas, which is possible should reconciliation talks between the two factions make progress.

The Palestinians say they will not return to talks while Israel continues to build and expand settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Judge Goldstone's offensive apology for apartheid

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Written by Udi Aloni Udi Aloni

Published: 10 November 2011 10 November 2011

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Judge Goldstone's offensive apology for apartheid
Udi Aloni

Don't tell me Israeli apartheid doesn't exist. My father implemented
agrarian apartheid policies long before 1967

I write as an Israeli Jew who was brought up and molded at the very center
of secular, Zionist Israel. My parents, Reuven and Shulamit Aloni, exemplify
everything that is good and just about Israel for humanistic Jews like Judge
Richard Goldstone, the noted South African jurist, who in a recent New York
Times Op-Ed, denied the practice of apartheid in Israel.

My mother founded the Civil Rights Movement in Israel, was a member of the
Knesset and a Minister of Education in Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's
cabinet. She fought for equal rights for women, gays and lesbians, and, of
course, Palestinian Arabs too. My father helped create the Israel Land
Administration and managed all government lands.

As a youngster embedded in a humanistic Zionist ideology I was unaware that
my father's daily business for the state consisted of, among other things,
appropriating land from Palestinians who had been living on it for
generations and granting it to Jewish newcomers. Only a strong ideology can
explain the degree of blindness necessary to avoid recognizing that my
father was implementing agrarian apartheid policies - and long before the
occupation of 1967.

As I grew up, served in the army, and participated in efforts to make Israel
a better place, the contradiction in my own home between the struggle for
civic equality and the ongoing appropriation of more and more Palestinian
land made me question the moral and legal compass by which Israel plotted
its course. Ultimately, I had no choice but to face the world without the
ideological lens I had looked through since childhood.

Apartheid in the state of Israel is different than it was in South Africa.
The two states embody different sets of interests and power structures, and
while in some ways it has been crueler in Israel, in others it is more
liberal. The main difference between the two is that in South Africa
apartheid was an explicit tenet of the judicial system, while in Israel the
entire judicial system conceals and cleanses the praxis of government-led
apartheid.

Judge Goldstone's arguments not only offend his and my core humanistic
Jewish values, they also inflict irreversible damage to the prospects of
Israel's existence as a democratic state. Goldstone denies Palestinians the
right to function as a sustainable cultural, economic and political unit,
while fully granting this right to the Jewish community.

The fact is that there is today a single political and geographic space
between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The whole area has been
under Israeli sovereignty and control for the past 44 years. The skies,
seas, borders, water rights, the judicial system as well as military and
civic government are all controlled by Israel. Palestinians have municipal
rule; not sovereignty.

Goldstone's article inadvertently exemplifies the racist strategy of
continued Jewish-Israeli control by means of violent maintenance of a
demographic majority and the breaking of the Arab-Palestinian nation into
pieces. There are 6 million Jews and almost as many Palestinians living
today in this space. While the Jews live as one people tightly linked to
world Jewry, and any Jew can become an Israeli citizen at any time, the
Palestinians are broken into five separate pieces that cannot function as a
people: There are approximately 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, 1.5
million Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship, 2.5 million Palestinians
in the West Bank, 300,000 residents of Jerusalem, and finally the
Palestinian Diaspora scattered throughout the world that Israel does not
allow to return.

Judge Goldstone is, in fact, legitimizing apartheid. He describes the
current condition as a precursor for a future two states. That utopian
vision of an always yet-to-come future enables the ongoing cruelty of
apartheid. Some examples: 1) Half a million Israelis have settled in the
area that was conquered in 1967. The lands these settlers occupy have been
robbed from Palestinians, simply because of their ethnicity, and have been
transferred to Jews simply because of their ethnicity. These seized lands
are being settled by Jews from other countries, especially the U.S., with
the help of huge subsidies provided by Israeli and American taxpayers. In
contrast, a Palestinian in Ramallah cannot even dream of moving back into
his father's home in Haifa or Jaffa, nor even marry an Israeli and live with
her in Israel. Is that not apartheid?

The Supreme Court issued an evacuation order against Palestinian families in
the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah and gave their homes to Jewish
families who showed proof to the titles of the homes predating 1948.
Millions of Palestinian refugees, however, cannot regain land or houses on
the basis of such proof.

Israel attempts to maintain a semblance of equality under the law for Jews
and Palestinians inside the Green Line, but all the zoning plans and
investments in infrastructure discriminate unequivocally against the
Palestinian Israeli population and thus reveal an administrative apartheid
that's quite distinct from the legal apartheid reserved for Palestinians in
the territories. For example, in the mixed city of Lydda there are 700
houses marked for demolition, all of them but one belong to Arab citizens of
Israel. llegal Jewish houses, however, received retroactive approval.

Israeli law separates Palestinians into fictitious subcategories. By
annexing eastern Jerusalem, Israel applies Israeli law on the physical
territory but not on its Palestinian inhabitants, thus creating a new class
of "citizens" lacking the right to vote. Even departing their house for a
certain period of time can serve as the basis for the state to revoke their
already crippled citizenship status and their right to live in Jerusalem.
These examples show that a clear policy exists to maintain a Jewish
majority, a policy whose execution involves the systematic abuse of
fundamental civil rights.

Goldstone claims that the theoretical two-state solution to come provides
the legal justification not to consider the Israeli regime as practicing
apartheid. Yet the state of Israel created and continues to develop the
settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for 500,000 Jews, and
only for Jews, while not building for the Palestinians from the refugee
camps and elsewhere. This is sufficient to call this Israeli practice a form
of apartheid.

A couple of years ago I approached my ardently Zionist mom, a woman who
carried a weapon for the Jewish community of Jerusalem in 1948, and asked
her a simple question: "Mom, is all this apartheid?"

With the sigh of a betrayed lover she indicated that, yes, this is
apartheid. My heart broke.

Udi Aloni is an Israeli writer, filmmaker, and the author of the new book
"What Does a Jew Want?: On Binationalism and Other Specters," Columbia
University Press.
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/09/goldstones_offensive_apartheid_apology/

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Sarkozy and Obama's Netanyahu gaffe broadcast via microphones: "He's a liar"

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Written by Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem and Angelique Chrisafis in Paris Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem and Angelique Chrisafis in Paris

Published: 08 November 2011 08 November 2011

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Sarkozy and Obama's Netanyahu gaffe broadcast via microphones

French president called Israeli PM a liar in exchange with US president inadvertently shared with journalists

French president Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly said he could not stand Binyamin Netanyahu
The French president Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly said he could not stand Binyamin Netanyahu. Photograph: Alfred/Witt/Sipa/Rex Features

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, described the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, as a "liar" in a private exchange with Barack Obama at last week's G20 summit in Cannes that was inadvertently broadcast to journalists.

"I cannot stand him. He's a liar," Sarkozy told Obama. The US president responded by saying: "You're fed up with him? I have to deal with him every day."

Read more: Sarkozy and Obama's Netanyahu gaffe broadcast via microphones: "He's a liar"