After End of Freeze, Settlers Plan Major Building [July 4 – July 10]

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Written by MIFTAH MIFTAH

Published: 12 July 2010 12 July 2010

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While US President Barack Obama described the meeting on July 6 between himself and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as "excellent", the Palestinians remain wary that any positive outcome will come as a result. Many have dubbed the reunion the "makeup meeting" after months of tension between Israel and the US. This time, however, Obama was sure to shower praises on the Israeli leader, calling the bond between the two countries as "unbreakable."

Obama also said Israel's decision to allow more goods into Gaza was '"real progress" and hoped there would be further confidence building measures that would pave the way for direct negotiations. However, the President ensured Netanyahu that the US would "never ask Israel to do anything that undermines its security."

In return, Netanyahu said he was ready for direct negotiations with the Palestinians, evading offering any direct response to questions on whether Israel would extend the 10-month moratorium on West Bank settlement construction, due to expire in September.

On July 8, the Israeli premier told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York that if direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians began, it would be possible to reach a peace deal within a year. While Netanyahu paid lip-service to "two states for two peoples," he followed it up with the condition of Israel's security being guaranteed, and the creation of a "demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the State of Israel."

Netanyahu was sure to throw the diplomatic ball into the Palestinian leadership's court by offering to start direct negotiations, something the Palestinians say can only happen if settlement expansion is stopped completely both in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

"I use this forum today to say, President Abbas, meet me, and let's talk peace. And I say let's start it right now, today, tomorrow, in Jerusalem, in Ramallah or anywhere else. Let's get on with the business of talking peace and concluding the peace agreement," he said. Unfortunately, Netanyahu never mentioned anything about a freeze of settlements or a sovereign Palestinian state.

On July 9, three days after the Washington meeting, Obama phoned President Mahmoud Abbas to brief him. During the phone call, Barack reportedly reiterated his administration's support for Abbas' leadership and its commitment to peace. Abbas, while also expressing his own commitment to peace, framed it within the framework of a 'serious process that would end the occupation" and result in the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

Earlier in the week, on July 4 and apparently in preparation for the Obama-Netanyhau meeting, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad met for the first time in months. While the meeting was closed, the two were said to discuss issues such as the lifting of the Gaza siege, Israeli measures in Jerusalem and the Israeli army incursions into the West Bank. Palestinian opposition groups such as Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine criticized Fayyad for meeting with Barak, saying this was a validation of the occupation's measures and a kowtowing to Israeli and US pressures.

Palestinians are mostly concerned with the continued settlement construction in east Jerusalem and even in the West Bank despite Israel's so-called freeze. While Netanyahu remains non-committal to whether his government would extend the freeze or not, settler groups in the West Bank are revving up for a major construction boom the second the moratorium ends. According to a report published in the Israeli daily Haaretz on July 5, regional councils for West Bank settlements have plans to build at least 2,700 housing units come September 27, the date the 10 month freeze expires.

Furthermore, according to the Israeli human rights organization, B'Tselem, the aforementioned settlers and their organizations control 42 percent of West Bank territory even though technically speaking, the built up area of settlements only accounts for one percent, due to what Israel claims is "state owned land" which is largely privately owned Palestinian land.

What is equally as disturbing is a report released on July 6 in an article in the New York Times which revealed that some $200 million in tax free funding from American donors has made its way to West Bank settlers and illegal settlements thanks to tax breaks. According to the report, at least 40 American groups raised the abovementioned amount in tax-deductible gifts for Jewish settlers over the past 10 years.

Finally, Israel has apparently come to an agreement with Greek authorities not to allow a Libyan ship to set sail for Gaza today. Israel had previously launched intensive efforts in the UN urging the international community not to allow the humanitarian ship to try and break the siege of Gaza. On July 10, Israel's foreign ministry announced the ship would most likely not set sail at all and if it did, it would change its course to dock in Al Arish, Egypt.

Palestinian villagers battle plans to wall them in

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Written by Selim Saheb Ettaba, AFP Selim Saheb Ettaba, AFP

Published: 12 July 2010 12 July 2010

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AL-WALAJAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Omar Hajaj says he will soon be caged "like a zoo animal," with an electric fence encircling his house and his village hemmed in by the notorious West Bank barrier.

The rumble of bulldozers has become a common sound around this Palestinian village on Jerusalem's southern outskirts as earthmovers work on a huge trench which will be filled with towering slabs of concrete.

After years of interruptions, work finally got under way in April to lay the foundations for another stretch of Israel's "security fence" -- a section which will completely encircle this southern West Bank village.

At the moment, villagers have more or less open access to the nearby city of Bethlehem. But not for much longer.

"It is the only village in the West Bank that will be completely surrounded by the wall," says Willow Heske, of the Oxfam humanitarian group, which is helping villagers make their voices heard.

Since the 1967 Middle East War, half of Al-Walajah was annexed by Israel as part of municipal Jerusalem, while the other half remained in the West Bank.

The initial route would have sliced the village in two but following intervention by Israel's high court, it was changed to incorporate the rest of the village -- with one exception: the Hajaj family.

When the towering concrete wall is erected, it will cut directly through Hajaj's property, leaving half on the Al-Walajah side, and the rest -- including his house and nine acres of land -- on the Israeli side.

This would normally have given him free access to Jerusalem.

But last week, government officials told Hajaj his property would be hemmed in by an additional barrier -- a five-metre (16-feet) high electric fence.

His only way into the village will be via a gate in the concrete wall.

From his house, Hajaj can just make out Jerusalem's biblical zoo -- and fears his fate will soon be like that of the animals.

"Anyone one seeing my house closed off will think they are looking at a zoo with caged animals."

Oxfam's Heske said the electronic fence would also cut off Hajaj from his olive trees and a well which are also on the Israeli side. "He would have been the only person who was not going to be closed in by the wall, but now that is no longer the case."

For now, at least, there is little visible evidence of the construction, except for a deep trench which cuts off the village from the vineyards of the Cremisan Monastery whose Salesian monks are famed for their wine.

Villagers say one of the biggest concerns is how they will reach Bethlehem on which they depend for employment, health care, education and other services.

Ahmad Saleh Barghout, a white-haired farmer in his 60s, said he has filed a petition asking for access to his orchard, where his parents and grandmother are buried.

"It's the family graveyard," he explained. "We are Muslims but my brother married a Christian woman and this is the only place where they could be buried together."

Blue flags mark the planned route along which dozens of trees have been uprooted to make way for the wall, including olive trees.

Al-Walajah is home to one of the oldest olive tree in the world -- a knobbly giant that is considered to be around 7,000 years old.

Locals also fear that construction of the wall could spell the demise of the village. "All the young people are talking of leaving the village and going to Bethlehem so that they won't be trapped," said Saleh Helmi.

Helmi, who heads the village council, also rejected the argument that the barrier serves to protect Israelis from Palestinian attacks. "The stopping of suicide attacks is, above all, a Palestinian decision," he said.

"The proof? The wall still isn't finished and there are no more attacks."

Israel has completed 413 kilometres (256 miles) of the planned 709-kilometre (435-mile) barrier since construction began in 2002 following a wave of bombings. When it is completed, 85 percent of the barrier will have been built on occupied West Bank land.

Six years ago, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a non-binding ruling condemning the barrier but Israel has ignored the ruling and continued building.

Israel says the fence is essential to its security, but the Palestinians, reject it as a crude "land grab" whose purpose is to steal Palestinian land.

"Simply put, the wall is an integral part of a regime intent on heading in the direction of apartheid," said chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said in a statement marking six years since the ICJ ruling.

Washington’s state of denial claims yet more casualties

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Written by Tony Karon Tony Karon

Published: 12 July 2010 12 July 2010

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From time to time, the Palestine Center distributes articles it believes will enhance understanding of the Palestinian political reality. The following article by Tony Karon was published in The National on 11 July 2010. To view this article online, please go to http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100712/OPINION/707119950/1080

"Washington’s state of denial claims yet more casualties"

By Tony Karon

You’d be surprised how much can be revealed in a 140-character “tweet” on the Twitter social network. Octavia Nasr, a 20-year veteran editor at CNN, has managed through one such mini-message to demonstrate the extent to which the Middle East discourse in Washington is shrouded in a bubble of delusion that entirely precludes rational policymaking.

Nasr, in keeping with her company’s policy for journalists to express themselves on social media platforms, last week tweeted on the death of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, calling him “One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot”. That statement would scarcely have seemed controversial in the Middle East.

Her tweet (as tweets do, given their miniature scale) may have mischaracterised Fadlallah’s relationship with Hizbollah – he had inspired the movement, but was independent of it, and was widely recognised as a moderating influence. While Hizbollah is dismissed in Washington as nothing more than a terrorist organisation, in Lebanon it’s in the government and an intractable part of the democratic process.

While Fadlallah’s advocacy of violence against Israel counts him as an extremist in Washington, in the Arab world his views were hardly beyond the pale. Here, he was more noted as an opponent of theological intolerance, an advocate for women’s rights within Islam, and perhaps the most credible counterweight to Iranian influence in the Shiite world.

Britain’s ambassador to Lebanon, Frances Guy, was far more loquacious than Nasr, lamenting on her own blog that “Lebanon is a lesser place” for Fadlallah’s passing, and declaring that “the world needs more men like him willing to reach out across faiths, acknowledging the reality of the modern world and daring to confront old constraints”. Those comments enraged Washington, and the British Foreign Office apologised for them, even though these days Britain has quietly opened up a conversation with Hizbollah, much to US chagrin.

But what might seem perfectly reasonable to those who deal with Middle East realities can be deemed apostasy in the US mainstream, where domestic politics dictates that the region must always be viewed through the prism of Israel’s preferences. So there was no surprise when hawkish Israel advocacy groups demanded that CNN act against Nasr’s “impropriety”, pointing out that the US had designated Fadlallah a terrorist and that he “was a vocal supporter of terrorism against Israeli targets”. CNN dutifully dismissed her for what it called her “error in judgement”.

Israel’s staunchest backers in Washington must wish it were as easy to get an Iraqi prime minister fired as it is to get a CNN editor cashiered. After all, Nouri al Maliki didn’t bother to tweet on Fadlallah; he flew to Lebanon to attend the funeral of the man whom he had taken as his own spiritual guide. Fadlallah had, in fact, helped form the Dawa Party which is at the centre of the government whose creation the US had enabled in Iraq.

Nor was that the first time Mr al Maliki had rocked Washington’s Middle East fantasy bubble.The Iraqi prime minister enraged many on Capitol Hill during a visit in 2006 at a moment when Israel was pummeling Lebanon, and the US-backed Iraqi leader refused their demand that he denounce Hizbollah and instead blamed the crisis on “Israeli aggression”. That no popular or democratically elected leader in the Middle East would do otherwise was utterly lost on those who make America’s laws.

Hawkish ignorance on the Middle East hardly disqualifies someone from political office in Washington. During a recent speech at a synagogue in Washington DC, for example, the New York senator Charles Schumer complained that “Palestinian people still don’t believe in the Jewish state, in a two-state solution”, and that “they don’t believe in the Torah, in David”. He added: “Since the Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas, while certainly there should be humanitarian aid and people not starving to death, to strangle them economically until they see that’s not the way to go, makes sense.”

A relatively liberal US senator not only betrays his ignorance of Islam, but also advocates throttling the Palestinians until they choose leaders more acceptable to Israel. That which is unacceptable to Israel, as the Nasr saga demonstrates, cannot be tolerated in Washington – even if the result is that the US isolates itself from mainstream opinion within the Middle East.

Where once it was deemed prudent for the US to mediate between Israel and its Arab neighbours, today the requirements of political survival appear to require a parroting of Israel’s own positions – as President Barack Obama’s capitulation to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week demonstrated.

Inside Washington’s bubble, those in the Middle East who advocate confronting Israel are the radicals who must be crushed; those who co-operate or passively accept its behaviour are deemed moderates to be propped up at all costs. Lately, we’re told that even Turkey, by virtue of its willingness to stand up to Israel and challenge US orthodoxy on Iran, has crossed into Tehran’s orbit, its Nato membership, efforts to join the EU and recent vote to admit Israel into the OECD notwithstanding.

Before the Iraq invasion, neoconservatives had hoped US military power could force the Arab world into embracing Israel and marginalising those who would challenge it. If anything, the opposite has occurred. But the response in Washington has been to retreat further into the shell of denial, where the the rising influence of those it dismisses as radicals can simply be wished away, and where those who allude to that influence can simply be stomped on.

By avoiding reality, the US has diminished its own influence in the Middle East – because many of the key players in the region have realised that they’re doomed if they rely on Washington to make rational choices, much less give a lead. After all, if Mr al Maliki, to take one example, had worked for CNN, he too would long ago have been fired.

Tony Karon is an analyst based in New York who blogs at www.tonykaron.com.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Jerusalem Fund.

Israeli academics hit back over bid to pass law that would criminalise them for supporting BDS

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Written by Rachel Shabi in Jerusalem and Peter Beaumont Rachel Shabi in Jerusalem and Peter Beaumont

Published: 12 July 2010 12 July 2010

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Israeli academics hit back over bid to pass law that would criminalise them

Backlash over threat to outlaw supporters of boycott movement aimed at ending the continued occupation of the West Bank


    * Rachel Shabi in Jerusalem and Peter Beaumont
    * The Observer, Sunday 11 July 2010
    * http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/11/israel-academics-bds-boycott

Palestinian protest against the expansion of the Israeli settlements A Palestinian woman shouts at an Israeli soldier as clashes erupted with Palestinian protesters on Friday during a demonstration against the expansion of the Israeli settlements at Nabi Salih village near the West Bank City of Ramallah. Photograph: Alaa Badarneh/EPA

An academic backlash has erupted in Israel over proposed new laws, backed by the government of Binyamin Netanyahu, to criminalise a handful of Israeli professors who openly support a campaign against the continuing occupation of the West Bank.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel has gained rapid international support since Israeli troops stormed a Gaza-bound flotilla of aid ships in May, killing nine activists. Israeli attention has focused on the small number of activists, particularly in the country's universities, who have openly supported an academic boycott of Israeli institutions.

A protest petition has been signed by 500 academics, including two former education ministers, following recent comments by Israel's education minister, Gideon Saar, that the government intends to take action against the boycott's supporters. A proposed bill introduced into the Israeli parliament – the Knesset – would outlaw boycotts and penalise their supporters. Individuals who initiated, encouraged or provided support or information for any boycott or divestment action would be made to pay damages to the companies affected. Foreign nationals involved in boycott activity would be banned from entering Israel for 10 years, and any "foreign state entity" engaged in such activity would be liable to pay damages.

Saar last week described the petition as hysterical and an attempt to silence contrary opinions. While the vast majority of the signatories do not support an academic boycott of Israel, they have joined forces over what they regard as the latest assault on freedom of expression in Israel. The petition states: "We have different and varied opinions about solving the difficult problems facing Israel, but there is one thing we are agreed on – freedom of expression and academic freedom are the very lifeblood of the academic system."

Daniel Gutwein, a history professor at Haifa University who is one of the signatories, described the minister's intervention as an attempt "to make Israeli academia docile, frightened and silent".

Although the BDS campaign – in various forms – has been running for over half a decade, it has become an increasingly fraught issue inside Israel in the past year since a small number of academics publicly declared support for a boycott, including Neve Gordon, author of Israel's Occupation and a former paratrooper who was badly injured while serving with the Israeli Defence Force.

Speaking to the Observer last week, Gordon said that many Israelis saw support for the BDS as "crossing a red line". Adding that he had received recent death threats, he said: "I am worried about what is happening to the space for debate in Israel. I find that there is a proto-fascist mindset developing. One of the slogans you hear a lot now is no citizenship without loyalty. It is an inversion of the republican idea that the state should be loyal to the citizen."

Israeli campaigners believe the Gaza flotilla incident represents a tipping point in raising support for boycotts. Musicians including Elvis Costello, Gil Scott Heron and the Pixies have cancelled shows in Israel. Hollywood actors also snubbed Jerusalem's international film festival and internationally acclaimed writers have supported the BDS movement, which is gaining support in dozens of countries.

"It's a different world to what it was even a month ago," says Kobi Snitz, member of an Israeli BDS group. "Suddenly, all sorts of people are supporting it – people that you wouldn't expect."

What is most interesting, however, has been the impact in Israel itself. Israeli journalist and blogger Noam Sheizaf wrote recently that such actions are now forcing Israelis "to think about the political issues and about their consequences… For a country in a constant state of denial regarding the occupation, this is no small thing." Sheizaf does not promote the boycott, but says: "I will gladly return concert tickets if that is the price for making Israelis understand that the occupation cannot go on."

Adi Oz, culture editor on the Tel Aviv weekly Ha'ir, appeared on Israeli national radio explaining her support for recent boycott activity. "When the Pixies cancelled their concert here I was disappointed," she says. "But I was not critical of the Pixies, I was critical of our government, because they are responsible for Israel's isolation." She adds that, post-flotilla, the cultural boycott is "something that everyone has a stand on – and some people are realising that they are in favour of it, without having thought about it before." There has also been a spate of boycott-related discussion in the financial press. The daily business newspaper Calcalist ran an uncritical profile of the Israeli campaigners behind Who Profits, an online database of Israeli and international companies involved in the occupation of the West Bank.

The project's co-ordinator, Dalit Baum, of the Coalition of Women for Peace, says: "Every day there is an article about this issue in the Israeli media, which creates a discussion about the economy of the occupation and raises the fact that there's a problem."