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Uri Rosenthal: Israël, Wit-Rusland & NGO's
Lik mijn Vestje - 14.01.2011 10:35
ICCO sprak met minister Rosenthal van Buitenlandse Zaken over de financiering door ICCO van de website Electronic Intifada (NGO). ICCO ziet geen reden om haar beleid te wijzigen. Internationaal recht is de belangrijkste leidraad. Het steunen van deze site staat volgens de minister 'diametraal' tegenover het Nederlands buitenlands beleid en wil ICCO bestraffen. De minister tikte recent Wit-Rusland op de vingers voor het onderdrukken van oppositie en NGO's. Hypocriet en gevaarlijk.
Recent op indymedia -
 http://www.indymedia.nl/nl/2011/01/72644.shtml
Cnaan Lipshiz doubles as anti-"delegitimization" operative
Ali Abunimah - 04.01.2011 21:42
________________________________
'ICCO ondermijnt kabinetsbeleid'
Minister Rosenthal van Buitenlandse Zaken
ANP
Toegevoegd: donderdag 13 jan 2011, 16:27 - Update: donderdag 13 jan 2011, 21:30
Minister Rosenthal van Buitenlandse Zaken vindt dat de ontwikkelingsorganisatie ICCO het kabinetsbeleid ondermijnt door financiële steun te geven aan de website Electronic Intifada.
Op de site wordt onder meer opgeroepen tot een boycot van Israël. Rosenthal vindt dat dit in strijd is met het kabinetsbeleid. Als ICCO de medewerking aan de site niet staakt, kan dit gevolgen hebben voor de subsidie, zegt Rosenthal.
ICCO is niet van plan om gevolg te geven aan de oproep. De organisatie vindt dat Israël zich aan het internationaal recht moet houden en verwijst naar VN-resoluties.
Bouw muur
Volgens ICCO is het goed gebruik dat maatschappelijke organisaties zelf hun beslissingen nemen, maar de minister vindt dat ICCO daarin in dit geval te ver gaat.
ICCO wijst erop dat er meer dan 170 Palestijnse en enkele Israëlische organisaties zijn, die oproepen tot een boycot. Zij doen dat nadat het Internationaal Gerechtshof in Den Haag in 2004 verklaarde dat de bouw door Israél van een muur om Palestijns gebied illegaal is, evenals de bouw van Israëlische nederzettingen.
http://nos.nl/artikel/211420-rosenthal-en-icco-blijven-het-oneens.html
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"In 2004 verklaarde het Internationaal Gerechtshof in Den Haag dat de door Israel gebouwde muur illegaal is, omdat die voor het grootste deel gebouwd is op Palestijns grondgebied. Het Hof bevestigde verder de illegaliteit van de Israëlische nederzettingen. Het hof riep staten op zich te onthouden van steun aan de bouw van de muur. Deze uitspraak is bevestigd door de Algemene Vergadering van de Verenigde Naties (UN General Assembly resolution A/RES/ES-10/15 of 20 July 2004). Nederland heeft hier vóór gestemd.
Ondanks de uitspraak van het hof en vele VN-resoluties, zet Israël de bouw van de muur en nederzettingen door.
(..)
Het is in Nederland goed gebruik dat maatschappelijke organisaties zelfstandig hun beslissingen nemen. ICCO ziet dan ook geen reden haar beleid te wijzigen.
http://www.icco.nl/nl/actueel/persberichten/674/icco-wijzigt-beleid-niet-na-gesprek-minister-rosenthal
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Icco steunt antisemitische site Electronic intifada
"ICCO meldde in een reactie dat er geen enkel bewijs is dat de bedoelde website antisemitisch is, aldus een woordvoerster. De organisatie gaat graag een gesprek aan met Rosenthal maar is verrast over zijn wens hiervoor, omdat volgens de woordvoerster alle informatie bekend is op het ministerie."
http://isreality.nl/icco-steunt-site-electronic-intifada/
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Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
The Guardian, Saturday 10 July 2004 00.02 BST
World court tells Israel to tear down illegal wall
"The world court yesterday branded Israel's vast concrete and steel barrier through the West Bank a political not a security measure, and a de facto land grab. The judges told Israel to tear it down and compensate the victims.
The International Court of Justice at The Hague said signatories to the Geneva convention, such as Britain and the US, are obliged to ensure Israel upholds the ruling.
It condemned what it described as the widespread confiscation and destruction of Palestinian property, and the disruption of the lives of thousands of protected civilians, caused by construction of what Israel calls the "anti-terror fence". It also called on the UN to consider measures against Israel. Sanctions appear unlikely in the face of US opposition, but Palestinians hailed the ruling as a landmark judgment that could mobilise international opinion.
"Israel is under an obligation to terminate its breaches of international law; it is under an obligation to cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall being built in the occupied Palestinian territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, to dismantle forthwith the structure therein situated," the court ruled."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jul/10/israel3
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Dutch will look into NGO funding of anti-Semitic website
By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
11/26/2010 01:12
NGO Monitor slams Dutch ICCO for funding 'Electronic Intifada'; Dutch FM says if true, will have a 'serious problem' with the Palestinian site.
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=196852
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maandag 29 november 2010
GroenLinks-Kamerlid Arjan El Fassed betrokken bij ICCO-schandaal
http://luxetlibertasnederland.blogspot.com/2010/11/arjan-el-fassed.html
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Nov 29th 2010 - Bjorn - De Dagelijkse Standaard
Uri Rosenthal boos om subsidie aan ‘Israëli’s zijn nazi’s'-website van Tweede Kamerlid GroenLinks
"De onderzoeksorganisatie NGO Monitor doet al lange tijd het werk dat de 150 Tweede Kamerleden en de Nederlandse media laten liggen: het controleren van de ondoorzichtige stroom van Nederlands belastinggeld naar dubieuze anti-Israël organisaties. Vandaag had men weer beet (h/t Lux et Libertas):"
http://fp.dagelijksestandaard.nl/2010/11/uri-rosenthal-boos-om-subsidie-aan-israeli-s-zijn-nazi-s-website-van-tweede-kamerlid-groenlinks/
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Content: NGO Monitor. Israël minded.
LATEST REPORT
HRW in 2010: More Bias, Even Less Credibility
Jan 6, 2011
NGO Monitor´s annual review of Human Rights Watch, describing the NGO´s disproportionate focus on Israel and soft approach to systematic abuses in closed societies. MORE »
FEATURED REPORT
Spain: Government funding for NGOs promoting the Palestinian narrative
Mar 10, 2010
As reported by Palestinian Media Watch, the Spanish government was identified as a sponsor of an ad on PA TV, promoting the boycott of Israeli goods. MORE »
OP-ED
NGO inquiry committee has wrong focus, framework
JTA, Jan 12, 2011
Jason Edelstein and Gerald Steinberg on why the focus should be on Europe´s role in funding NGOs involved in delegitimization. MORE »
REPORT
Human rights NGOs silent on persecution of Palestinian blogger
Dec 7, 2010
NGOs ignore the arrest of Palestinian blogger Waleed Hasayin on charges of expressing blasphemous opinions. HRW finally released a statement one month after the arrest. MORE »
IN THE MEDIA
Agents of influence
Jerusalem Post, Jan 7, 2011
In her criticism of B´Tselem, Caroline Glick uses NGO Monitor analysis of the NGO´s role in leading the international campaign against the security barrier. MORE »
DIGEST
September-October 2010 Digest (Vol. 9, No. 1)
Nov 16, 2010
Head of Israeli-Arab NGO admits to spying; Israeli Flotilla Commission questions NGO credibility; Amnesty’s lawfare calls MORE »
ANALYSIS
NGOs Lack Credibility on the Death of Jawaher Abu-Rahmeh
Jan 4, 2011
NGO and media sources allege that Jawaher Abu-Rahmeh died after inhaling tear gas during an anti-security barrier demonstration. Initial findings point to significant inconsistencies regarding the factual claims. MORE »
http://www.ngo-monitor.org/index.php
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Harriet Sherwood Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Friday 7 January 2011 16.03 GMT
Israeli military 'regrets' killing wrong man in Hamas raid
Unarmed Palestinian Amr Qawasme was shot dead during IDF operation to arrest militants in Hebron
"The Israeli military has said it regrets shooting dead an unarmed 65-year-old Palestinian man who, according to his family, was asleep in bed in the West Bank city of Hebron when soldiers mounted a raid in search of Hamas militants.
The Israeli defence forces (IDF) launched an investigation into the death of Amr Qawasme, the fifth Palestinian to die as a result of Israeli military actionsince the start of the year. One death is disputed by the IDF: that of Jawaher Abu Rahma after inhaling teargas fired by soldiers."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/07/israeli-military-regrets-killing-wrong-man
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Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 6 January 2011 17.44 GMT
Israeli military and Palestinians clash over death of West Bank woman
The death of Jawaher Abu Rahma, 36, who collapsed after inhaling teargas has sparked a war of words, threatening a controversy akin in scale to 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura's death in 2000
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/06/abu-rahma-teargas-death-west-bank?INTCMP=SRCH
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EU NGO funding - Trojan Horse Israël
IR AMIM: EUROPEAN-FUNDED POLITICAL LOBBYING ON JERUSALEM
NGO Monitor
April 22, 2010
Funding
NGO Monitor’s analysis shows that direct funding from foreign governments provides approximately 67% of Ir Amim’s budget. The balance is provided indirectly by European governments (via Oxfam NOVIB), and by the New Israel Fund, Ford Foundation, Open Society Institute, etc.
Ir Amim received a two-year, €397,839 grant from the European Commission (through September 2010) for a project entitled “Keeping the Options Open for Final Status in Jerusalem.” In 2004-5, the EC provided €475,160 for a similar project.
Ir Amim is also supported by the governments of Sweden, Norway, and the Czech Republic, and received British government funding in previous years.
http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/ir_amim_european_funded_political_lobbying_on_jerusalem
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30 november 2010
Waarom NGO-Monitor de Electronic Intifada aanvalt, ofwel een aanval van extreem rechts op de vrijheid van meningsuiting
"Oorspronkelijk gepubliceerd op http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11651.shtml
Vertaald door G. Daniel Bugel-Shunra, http://dutch.shunra.net
De lastercampagne van ‘NGO Monitor’ tegen de ‘Electronic Intifada’ richt zich op de steun die deze nieuwssite van een Nederlandse stichting ontvangt.
‘NGO Monitor’, een extreem-rechtse groepering met nauwe banden met de Israëlische regering, het Israëlische militaire apparaat en Joodse kolonisten op de Westoever, met een man in de organisatie die is veroordeeld werd wegens het misleiden van het Amerikaanse Congres, en met banden met notoire Islamofobe personen en organisaties in de Verenigde Staten, is een campagne gestart tegen de steun die door een Nederlandse stichting aan de ‘Electronic Intifada’ wordt gegeven. ‘NGO Monitor’ beticht deze nieuwssite, die in februari 2001 is opgericht en door dagelijks door duizenden wordt geraadpleegd, onder andere van “antisemitisme”.
De lastercampagne van ‘NGO Monitor’ tegen de ‘Electronic Intifada’ (EI) heeft nu de steun die deze nieuwssite van de Nederlandse ICCO ontvangt op de korrel genomen. ‘NGO Monitor’ oefent druk uit op de Nederlandse overheid, die ICCO subsidieert, om de steun aan EI te beëindigen. Minister Uri Rosenthal van Buitenlandse Zaken zou de lastercampagne tegen EI steunen.
De aanval van ‘NGO Monitor’ is onderdeel van een goed geoliede en door de Israëlische overheid gesteunde poging om verslaggeving over en kritiek op Israël de mond te snoeren door het afschieten van zogenaamde “delegitimizers” – personen en organisaties die documentatie over de schendingen van mensenrechten verspreiden, de boycot en sanctiebeweging (BDS) ondersteunen, of voor gelijke rechten voor Palestijnen opkomen. In februari dit jaar meldde EI dat een toonaangevende Israëlische denktank adviseerde om critici van Israël gericht te saboteren, bij wijze van regeringsbeleid (“Israel’s new strategy: “sabotage” and “attack” the global justice movement”, 16 februari 2010)."
http://aliabunimah.posterous.com/waarom-ngo-monitor-de-electronic-intifada-aan?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AliAbunimah+%28Ali+Abunimah%29
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Friday, January 14, 2011 - Eurasia review, news & analysis
Israel’s Knesset Targets Leftist Organizations
By Stephen Lendman
On January 5, Israel’s Knesset, by a 47-16 vote, approved forming a parliamentary committee to investigate leftist Israeli organizations. Among them, B’Tselem issuing a same day press release headlined, "B’Tselem proud of its activities and completely transparent. The Knesset’s decision is what harms Israel’s international status,"
http://www.eurasiareview.com/opinion/opinion-opinion/israels-knesset-targets-leftist-organizations-3-10012011/
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5 Jan. '11: Press_Release
B’Tselem proud of its activities and completely transparent. The Knesset’s decision is what harms Israel’s international status
In reaction to the Knesset's decision to establish a parliamentary committee of enquiry to "examine the activities of Israeli organizations involved with the collection of information about soldiers and follow their funding sources”, B'Tselem, one of the organizations named in the decision, says:
We are proud of our work to promote human rights in the Occupied Territories, which is conducted legally and with complete transparency. Persecution and attempts at silencing will not stop us. In a democracy, criticism of the government is not only legitimate – it is essential. B'Tselem calls on all members of Knesset to hold an informed debate on the information provided by human rights organizations, instead of harassing and smearing those who dare to question and criticize.
It is absurd to claim that a committee of enquiry with no real powers can uncover information unknown to the Israeli Registrar of Non-Profits. The purpose of the inquiry is not to establish the facts, they are well known. B'Tselem's list of donors is available online. Our financial reports are available at the office of the NGO Registrar, which just recently issued B'Tselem a Certification of Proper Administration. Therefore, it is clear that the motive behind the investigation is an attempt to hinder our work through smears and incitement.
If the Members of Knesset who supported this decision genuinely care about Israel's international standing, they should stop promoting parliamentary initiatives that will only cause it to plummet even further.
http://www.btselem.org/English/Press_Releases/20110105b.asp
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Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 5 January 2011 17.55 GMT
Knesset approves investigation of Israeli human rights groups
Commission of inquiry into groups monitoring activities of the Israeli military in occupied West Bank denounced as 'McCarthyite'
"The funding of Israeli human and civil rights groups is to be investigated amid claims they are acting against the country's interests, members of the Israeli parliament decided today – a move described by opponents as "McCarthyite".
A bill brought by members of the rightwing Yisrael Beiteinu party, whose leader is the controversial foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, proposed a parliamentary commission of inquiry into groups monitoring the activities of the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank.
The supporters of the bill claimed the groups' work was "delegitimising" Israel and was funded by anti-Israeli international bodies.
The bill was approved by 47 votes to 16 following a heated debate in the Knesset, during which security guards were present."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/05/knesset-approves-investigation-israeli-human-rights-groups
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Rosenthal heeft pittig gesprek met ICCO
Nieuwsbericht | 13-01-2011
Minister Rosenthal van Buitenlandse zaken heeft vandaag een openhartig gesprek gehad met ontwikkelingsorganisatie ICCO. Aanleiding voor het gesprek was de financiering door ICCO van de website Electronic Intifada, waarop onder meer oproepen te zien zijn tot boycotactiviteiten tegen Israel.
De minister vindt dit rechtstreeks in strijd met het Nederlandse regeringsbeleid en heeft er bij ICCO op aangedrongen dit te herzien. ICCO ontvangt jaarlijks rond de 75 miljoen Euro subsidie. ICCO stelt weliswaar dat de steun aan de website wordt betaald uit particuliere donaties, maar dat is een 'vestzak-broekzak' redenering volgens de minister.
De minister heeft de organisatie er op gewezen dat doorgaan met activiteiten die strijdig zijn met de regeringsopvattingen, gevolgen kan hebben voor het subsidiebeleid. 'Kritisch zijn mag natuurlijk, rechtstreeks tegenwerken niet', aldus minister Rosenthal. De minister gaat de vinger aan de pols houden, waarbij hij ook andere ontwikkelingsorganisaties betrekt.
http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/nieuws/2011/01/13/rosenthal-heeft-pittig-gesprek-met-icco.html
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VRIJDAG 14 JANUARI 2011
Uri Rosenthal. Een Nederlandse Minister 20
De Interkerkelijke Organisatie voor Ontwikkelingssamenwerking, ICCO, laat zich niet chanteren door de dreigementen van de pro-Israel minister van Buitenlandse Zaken.
http://stanvanhoucke.blogspot.com/2011/01/uri-rosenthal-een-nederlandse-minister_14.html
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Nederland veroordeelt geweld na verkiezingen Belarus (Wit-Rusland) - gepubliceerd op 21 december 2010.
Minister Rosenthal veroordeelt het geweld na de presidentsverkiezingen in Belarus. De mishandeling en arrestatie van een aantal oppositieleiders, mensenrechtenverdedigers en demonstranten baren hem grote zorgen. 'Ik roep de Belarussische autoriteiten op de arrestanten direct vrij te laten. Het gebruikte geweld en de detentie van leiders van de oppositie is onaanvaardbaar', aldus Rosenthal (Buitenlandse Zaken).
Vanmiddag kwam de OVSE/ODIHR met haar eerste bevindingen van het verloop van de presidentsverkiezingen. De verkiezingen waren niet aan de maat.
Vooral de manier waarop het tellen van de stemmen heeft plaatsgevonden, roept vragen op, aldus de OVSE. Rosenthal: 'Ik betreur ten zeerste dat opnieuw geen werkelijk vrije en eerlijke verkiezingen hebben plaatsgevonden.'
Nederland zet zich in de EU sterk in voor aandacht voor vrijheden en democratisering in Belarus. Nederland zal naar aanleiding van het verkiezingsverloop en de gewelddadigheden een kritische positie in de EU blijven innemen over de toekomst van de EU-relatie met Belarus.
http://www.europa-nu.nl/id/vild9r190ezf/nieuws/nederland_veroordeelt_geweld_na?ctx=vg09llkoqvyz
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Review-Chronicle of Human Rights Violations in Belarus in December 2010
13.01.2011 Chronicle of Human Rights Violations
"
1. Freedom of association
The draft law On Non-profitable Organizations elaborated by the Ministry of Justice and the Center of Legislation and Legal Research doesn't take into account the position of the Belarusian NGOs. An appropriate statement was made by the Assembly of NGOs. The civil sector is alerted by the fact that the text of the draft law, which is being finalized, hasn't been presented for public discussion. 'The process of working out the Law On Non-profitable Organizations by the Ministry of Justice is similar to the organization of public hearings concerning the construction of the nuclear power plant in Astravets. The hearings were formal and the organizations that wanted to take part in them and had some important information on the matter, were pushed away,' commented the Head of the Working Group of the Assembly of NGOs Siarhei Matskevich. That's why the Assembly called on the responsible state organs to postpone the passing of the draft law to the Chamber of Representatives until a wide public discussion is held."
http://spring96.org/en/news/40637
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Secretary Clinton's Meeting with Belarusian Human Rights Activists
Press Statement
Philip J. Crowley
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Public Affairs
Washington, DC
January 6, 2011
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2011/01/154072.htm
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Beantwoording kamervragen over de presidentsverkiezingen in Belarus
PDF document | 5 pagina's | 48 KB
Kamerstuk: Kamervragen | 06-01-2011 | BZ
"Daarnaast veroordeel ik sterk de invallen bij NGO's en de arrestaties die daar zijn verricht."
http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten-en-publicaties/kamerstukken/2011/01/06/beantwoording-kamervragen-presidentsverkiezingen-belarus.html
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| Read more about: antimilitarisme europa media vrijheid, repressie & mensenrechten | | supplements | | Uri Rosenthal wil beleid aan ICCO opleggen | Ziofragma - 15.01.2011 11:56
De Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken duldt geen gesubsidieerde NGO (in dit geval Icco) die een ander geluid laat horen dan die van het regeringsbeleid. De nieuwe machthebber en Israël-adept heeft nog niet laten weten of hij zijn dreigementen - die ook op radio1 waren te beluisteren - bij nader inzien, beter zou kunnen laten varen.
http://www.radio1.nl/contents/24488-icco-ondermijnt-kabinetsbeleid
| | Rage against the Death of Jawaher Abu Rahma | Corporate Watch - 16.01.2011 11:49
“The Israeli government and its army have been for years now using the West Bank and Gaza as their testing ground. The Palestinians are their guinea pigs. The Israeli army uses tear gas that would probably be banned in any other countries in the world. They shoot tear gas, directly at protesters, once again, an illegal act. But a very rewarding one. Israel’s security industry is booming. It’s never been this good. Countries all over the world are buying Israel’s expertise in security, crowd control and weaponry every day. Israeli soldiers are training other countries commandos all over the planet”[1]
From the blog, Bil’in: A Village of Palestine, 02/01/11
On New Year's Eve 2010, whilst much of the world was celebrating, over 1,000 people demonstrated in the Palestinian village of Bil'in against Israel's encroachment on the village's land. Israeli tear gas and rubber bullets rained down on the protesters and Jawaher Abu Rahma, who was watching the demonstration from the sidelines, choked to death as the allegedly non-lethal gas enveloped the village.
A report from Bil'in residents said that Israeli soldiers fired tear gas “from the moment protesters entered their sight.” “It is obvious that, for the army, the mere presence of unarmed demonstrators is reason enough to use chemical weapons against them,”
There is clearly a symbiotic relationship between the Israeli and international security industries. The people of Palestine provide a constant source of test subjects for weapons which are rolled out by states against people worldwide.
The corporations complicit in Israel’s continued repression have a global reach. The resistance can be global too.
There have been calls from residents of Bil'in for renewed boycott actions, a call from US activists for action against CSI, and an anonymous call for actions against Combined Systems (CSI) and BAE (owners of Defense Technology)
In Tel Aviv hundreds of activists blocked a main street in anger at Jawaher's death and CSI tear gas canisters were returned to the US ambassador.
On Friday 8th January hundreds of people, including Subhiya Abu Rahma, Jawaher's mother, demonstrated in Bil'in and were immediately fired at with tear gas and rubber bullets.
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[1] Bil’in, A Village of Palestine, Happy New Year from the Occupation Forces: The Story of the Abu Rahme Family, http://www.bilin-village.org/english/articles/different-look/Happy-New-Year-from-the-Israeli-Occupation-Forces-The-Story-of-the-Abu-Rahme-Family, 02/11/2011.
CSI Palestine - more details in schNEWS 753
Links: Bil'in-village.org| Popular Struggle Coordination Committee| Corporate Watch
full article with references (06.01.2011 11:20 GMT):
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/01/471645.html
| | Protesters Tel Aviv "Government of Darkness” | Thought Police Isr-ael - 16.01.2011 19:30
Published 19:56 15.01.11
Peace Now at Tel Aviv rally: Lieberman threat greater than Iran
Protesters in Tel Aviv carry signs with slogans such as 'Danger! End of Democracy Ahead' in response to Lieberman's call to investigate funding sources of Israeli human rights groups.
By Ilan Lior
Thousands of activists from left-wing movements and human rights organizations marched in Tel Aviv on Saturday in protest of the Knesset's decision to set up a committee of inquiry to probe the funding sources of leftist groups.
The protest march, under the headline "Demonstration (since it's still possible) for democracy", left from Tel Aviv's Meir Park toward the plaza in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, where a rally took place in which Knesset members from Kadima, Meretz, and Hadash as well as officials from Peace Now and human rights groups delivered speeches.
Protesters chanted in support of democracy and free speech, and carried signs with slogans such as "Awaiting Democracy", "Danger! End of Democracy Ahead", "Fighting the Government of Darkness" and "Democracy is Screaming for Help".
Peace Now Director-General Yariv Oppenheimer said during the rally that "the Lieberman threat" is more serious than the Iranian threat.
"The Lieberman threat should worry us all. It is a greater threat than Iran. We must go out and protest," said Oppenheimer.
Kadima MK Meir Sheetrit said: "I, like you, came here to protest this foolish and undemocratic action. I want to remind my friends in the Likud that [Ze'ev] Jabotinsky would turn over in his grave if he saw them supporting this action that is contradictory to his beliefs. This decision by the Knesset is offensive and dangerous to the state of Israel, causing grave damage to the name of the state, as it makes Israel one of the states of darkness."
Sheetrit called on leftist organizations to show contempt for the probe if it is established, since, according to him, the probe would be illegal and the Knesset would have exceeded its authority.
Meretz MK Nitzan Horowitz spoke during the rally and said that no one should be surprised if the inciting words against Israeli human rights groups will turn into actions and that the persecution will turn into knife blades and bullets.
"We are here in opposition to religious radicalization, racist laws, and sickening incitement against foreign workers and against those who are not loyal to Lieberman. And now they are putting human rights organizations in the crosshairs. They don't want to investigate the Carmel fire, so what do they investigate? The free people."
Horowitz added that Netanyahu is to blame, since he is "encouraging the racist celebration in the Knesset." He addressed Labor chairman Defense Minister Ehud Barak, asking "How are you not ashamed Mr. Barak? You and your party are supporting and enabling the existence of the most racist government in the history of the State of Israel. You are responsible just as Liberman, Yishai and Netanyahu."
The executive director of The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Hagai Elad, said during the protest that "the thousands of people who are here understand that our democracy needs protection against its destroyers. We are voicing a clear voice in support of human rights and democracy, and against racism, McCarthyism and future destruction. We will continue to fight for democratic values, freedom of speech, equal rights for citizens and the end of the occupation."
Right-wing factions criticized the demonstration and its leftist organizers. MK Danny Danon (Likud), one of the initiators of the bill calling for a probe into human rights groups, said the protesters were "fighting for the democracy of foreign countries and not of Israel," and said that they are carrying out the protest solely for money.
MK Michael Ben Ari (National Union) said that the protest would not aid the leftists. "Movements on the extreme left have proven that they are some of the people who would like to see the State of Israel destroyed. They are betraying the state and therefore there is no escape from taking steps against them. We will reveal that they are funded by enemy states and we will treat them like Hezbollah," said Ben Ari.
The Knesset plenum voted last week to order the House Committee to consider establishing a parliamentary panel of inquiry into left-wing Israeli organizations that allegedly participate in delegitimization campaigns against Israel Defense Forces soldiers.
Forty-seven legislators voted in favor of the motion while 16 voted against.
The initiative, brought forth by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu faction, called primarily to investigate the sources of funding for these groups. The panel will essentially be charged with looking into where these groups have been attaining their funds, particularly whether this money is coming from foreign states or even organizations deemed to be involved in terrorist activities.
------------------------------
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/peace-now-at-tel-aviv-rally-lieberman-threat-greater-than-iran-1.337188
Protesters were chanting in support of democracy and free speech, and carried signs with slogans such as “Awaiting Democracy”, “Danger! End of Democracy Ahead”, “Fighting the Government of Darkness” and “Democracy is Screaming for Help”.
http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/01/16/thousands-protest-in-tel-aviv-against-knesset-probe-of-ngos-—-israeli-occupation-archive/
| | Antiwar & Palestinian sol. activists attacked | FifthFreedom - 16.01.2011 20:44
FBI Expands Probe into Antiwar Activists
democracynow - December 23, 2010
The FBI’s probe into antiwar activists is growing. In September, FBI agents raided the homes and offices of activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. Subpoenas that were withdrawn have been reactivated, and a new subpoena was served to a Palestinian solidarity activist in Chicago. We speak with two of the people targeted and two former FBI agents.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/23/fbi_expands_probe_into_antiwar_activists
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US Spy In Antiwar Groups Before FBI Raids
democracynow - 13.01.2011 22:48
There are major new developments in the case of the peace activists targeted by FBI raids last September. Lawyers for the activists in Minnesota and St. Paul have learned a government agent infiltrated their group and conducted extensive spying. Going by the name "Karen Sullivan," the agent began attending organizing meetings of the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee in the lead-up to the Republican National Convention.
Sullivan then took an active role in the group, chairing meetings, handling bookkeeping, and communicating with dozens of other organizations. Anti-War Committee activist Jess Sundin spoke to Democracy Now! on Wednesday.
Jess Sundin: "Karen came to weekly meetings. We’re all volunteers, and so we make decisions together at those meetings, and she participated in those discussions, sometimes even chairing the meetings. Karen had a key to our office, a key which she later used—or the FBI used—to raid the office on September 24th and let themselves in. And she also at times assisted with our bookkeeping and had full access to our financial records, our membership lists and everything else we’re involved in."
Sullivan even accompanied two activists when they tried to visit the Occupied Territories in 2009. But upon landing in Israel, Israeli agents were already aware of their trip and refused to grant them entry. The activists’ attorneys have also learned prosecutors are focusing on a small donation the two activists wanted to give to their host in the Occupied Territories, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees. The group is not listed as a terrorist group by the U.S. and is a registered NGO with the Palestinian Authority. Sullivan left the Twin Cities last fall, shortly before the raids of September 24th.
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/1/13/headlines#15
http://indymedia.nl/nl/2011/01/72887.shtml
| | Shame on you Uri Rosenthal | No-Apartheid Ya Basta - 16.01.2011 21:07
Global Condemnation of Israeli Armed Attack on Gaza-Bound Freedom Flotilla:
At Least 10 Dead, Hundreds Remain in Detention
It was early Monday morning as Israeli soldiers stormed the Gaza-bound international aid convoy called the Freedom Flotilla in international waters about forty miles off the coast of Gaza. The six ships had nearly 700 international activists on board and 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid. They were aiming to break the three-year-long siege of the Gaza Strip. Israeli commandos landed on the lead ship in the convoy, the Turkish Mavi Marmara, which had about 600 activists on board. At least ten and as many as nineteen civilians on board the ship have been reported to have died in the attack. Israeli troops proceeded to seize the Mavi Marmara and the five other ships and take them to the port of Ashdod. Hundreds of activists are being detained in an Israeli prison, and nearly fifty others have been deported. The United Nations Security Council has condemned the attack and called for the immediate release of the ships and the civilians held by Israel and called for an impartial investigation. All the permanent members of the Security Council except for the United States explicitly called for Israel’s three-year blockade of the Gaza Strip to be lifted. Turkey has compared Israel’s actions to state terrorism. We speak to Adam Shapiro, Amira Hass, Ali Abunimah and Richard Falk.
(..)
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you all for being with us. I want to thank Adam Shapiro in New York; also Amira Hass of Ha’aretz, speaking to us from Ramallah; Ali Abunimah in Chicago; Richard Falk, speaking to us, UN special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories. Two more boats are headed to Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid. Mairead Maguire is on one of them, among many. She is the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/1/global_condemnation_of_israeli_armed_attack
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Ali Abunimah discusses US presidential candidates on Democracy Now!
Transcript, Democracy Now!, 25 January 2008
As the news out of Gaza makes international headlines, Democracy Now! took a look at where the Republican and Democratic presidential contenders stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Democracy Now! spoke with Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah on 24 January:
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Chicago to Ali Abunimah, the co-founder of the online publication The Electronic Intifada, author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.
(..)
And just yesterday, he apparently sent a letter to Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador at the UN, to urge the US not to allow any resolution to pass criticizing Israel and saying how Israel was forced to impose this barbaric medieval siege on [Gaza].
None of the other candidates in the mainstream have spoken out for Palestinian rights. The only ones who have taken forceful positions opposing the current US strategy are Dennis Kucinich on the Democratic side and Ron Paul on the Republican side. The mainstream are all perfectly comfortable with the war crimes that Israel is committing, no matter how much they talk about human rights elsewhere.
AMY GOODMAN: Hillary Clinton, her view on the Israel-Palestine conflict, specifically also what's happening now in Gaza?
ALI ABUNIMAH: Again, we saw Hillary Clinton, the moment her political ambitions became pronounced, shift. You'll remember, when she spoke in the 1990s in favor of a Palestinian state, since then she has become one of the most anti-Palestinian hawks. For example, a couple of years ago, she went and staged a photo opportunity in an Israeli settlement by the apartheid wall and talked about how the wall was necessary. This wall, of course, which has been condemned as illegal by the International Court of Justice, which has ordered Israel to tear it down, Hillary Clinton went and stood in front of it and endorsed it.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9254.shtml
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Related Links
How Barack Obama learned to love Israel, Ali Abunimah (4 March 2007
Democracy Now!
BY TOPIC: Israel declares Gaza "enemy entity" (19 September 2007)
| | One State or Two? 'No' to Israeli Occupation. | Democracy Now! - 19.01.2011 14:00
One State or Two? Rashid Khalidi & Ali Abunimah on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Two leading Palestinian-American intellectuals discuss their new books: Rashid Khalidi’s "The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood" and Ali Abunimah’s "One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse."
LISTEN
We turn now to the latest from Israel and the Occupied Territories. But first, an unusual moment last night on American television. Appearing on CNN’s Larry King Live, former President Jimmy Carter fiercely critical of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He was talking about his new book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" which is generating heavy controversy here in the United States.
President Jimmy Carter: And the oppression of the Palestinians by Israeli forces in the Occupied Territories is horrendous. And it’s not something that has been acknowledged or even discussed in this country. The basic problem-–
Larry King: Why not?
Jimmy Carter: I don’t know why not. You never hear anything about what is happening to the Palestinians by the Israelis. As a matter of fact it’s one of the worst cases of oppression that I know of now in the world. The Palestinian’s land has been taken away from them. They now have a encapsulating or an imprisonment wall being built around what’s left of the little tiny part of the holy land that is in the West Bank. In Gaza, from which Israel is now withdrawing. Gaza is surrounded by a high wall, there’s only two openings in it, one into Israel, which is mostly closed, the other into Egypt, the people there are encapsulated. And the deprivation of basic human rights among the Palestinians is really horrendous. And this is a fact, it’s known throughout the world. It is debated heavily, constantly in Israel. Every time I am there the debate is going on. It is not debated at all in this country.
Carter’s comments come as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gave a major speech Monday in which he said he was prepared to offer Palestinians concessions to make peace. Olmert said Israel would return parts of the West Bank towards the creation of the Palestinian state. He called on Palestinians to renounce violence, give up the right of the return, and accept a prisoner exchange for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Olmert’s comments marked the first time he has endorsed the idea of a prisoner exchange since Israel launched its attack on Gaza in June.
Olmert did not give new ideas on some of the most contentious issues, including Israeli settlements and the status of Jerusalem. But he said peace would be based on the Bush administration’s position that any new agreement would reflect the reality of Israel’s annexation of large parts of the West Bank for its settlements.
Olmert’s speech comes one day after Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip as part of a new ceasefire. Israel’s five-month offensive in Gaza has killed more than 400 Palestinians including at least 74 Palestinians under the age of 18. Fighting continues in the West Bank where Israeli forces arrested thirteen Palestinians overnight.
Well today, we spend the rest of the hour with two leading Palestinian-American voices.
Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies and the Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University. His new book is called "The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood."
Ali Abunimah, creator and editor of The Electronic Intifada and more recently of Electronic Iraq. His new book is "One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse."
AMY GOODMAN:Today, we’ll spend the rest of the program with two leading Palestinian-American voices. Both have new books on the Israel Palestine conflict. Joining me here in our firehouse studio, is Rashid Khalidi, He is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies and director of Middle East Studies Institute at the Columbia University. His new book is called The Iron Cage: the Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood. We welcome you to Democracy Now!.
RASHID KHALIDI:Thanks for having me, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN:It’s good to have you with us. First your response to this former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his book.
RASHID KHALIDI:I certainly couldn’t agree more with what he said on CNN last night. There’s no question that there’s been a blanket of silent for 39 and a half years and running in most of the mainstream media about what is happening daily in the Occupied Territories. The very fact that they are occupied territories, and that it’s been 39 and a half years, is never, never mentioned in most news reports.
AMY GOODMAN: The fact that he’s an American President talking about this, is this unusual?
RASHID KHALIDI:Well, that’s why he got on Larry King. It’s very, very hard to get those kinds of words across something like CNN. It is important. I mean this is a man whose gone around the world and I think very ably represented this country in terms of, standing at elections, watching them, supervising them. And, I think he’s a man who has enormous credibility, though it’s amazing how the Democratic Party is twisting and turning on the issue of his book.
AMY GOODMAN: Why do you think that is, the Democratic Party?
RASHID KHALIDI:Well, the politicians who have disassociated themselves from President Carter, are all Democrats, interesting enough.
AMY GOODMAN: Who?
RASHID KHALIDI:I can’t remember each specific Senator or Congressman, but there was a lemming-like rush way from the President on the part of a number of them. I think because anything that is said against Israel arouses enormous ferocious emotional response among some people, and politicians are afraid of that. The media are afraid of that. And so I don’t think that we get anything like a balanced discussion of the issues. In fact, a discussion of the issues is what many people would like to avoid. I think that, that’s what the President himself said. We don’t have these things discussed in this country. They certainly are in Israel, as he said. They are discussed everywhere else, they’re just not discussed here.
AMY GOODMAN: Why did you call your book The Iron Cage?
RASHID KHALIDI:I call it The Iron Cage cause that was the metaphor that occurred to me in trying to explain the kind of constraints the Palestinians operated under during the mandate period. And then I realized that’s still true today, in a sense. They are within, bounded within, both physical and constitutional and legal constraints that make it, very, very hard for them to operate. The focus of the book is not on that. However, it’s on what they have done or not done within those constraints.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about Ehud Olmert’s speech, and what he is offering, in the context of, and I think as you say, without this discussion, people don’t even understand the history.
RASHID KHALIDI:Right.
AMY GOODMAN:And the context of history as you talk about the story of the Palestinian struggle for statehood.
RASHID KHALIDI:Well, there’s deep history and there is current history. The current history is 39 and a half years of occupation. The deeper history, which I try and go into in this book, has to do with what happened before 1948, in 1948 and since. The problem doesn’t just go back to 1967. So, what Olmert is--is talking about, is a rearrangement of the current status of the Occupied Territories, with Israel, as you said, keeping much of what it occupied in 1967. What President Bush in April, 2004 basically granted Israel, the so called settlement blocks, which are undefined areas which cut the West Bank into at least three pieces. But, which could expand--continue to expand as they have been over many, many years. So there’s nothing new in the proposal as far as I can tell. And it essentially involves a rearrangement of the status quo, before 2000.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, go back. Go back in time, we have time for this. Talk about the deep history.
RASHID KHALIDI:Well, the deep history has to do with a country that had a majority that was Arab, in which the British helped the Zionist movement to establish, what was called in the Balfour Declaration, a National Home for the Jewish People. That was understood by the British and by the Zionists to mean a Jewish state in all of Palestine. And that was--that was the objective I think from the beginning.
What nobody really took very seriously into account was that Arab majority, the fact that it had a national consciousness, that it saw itself as having rights. And that, even by the documents that the British themselves had helped to produce, the Covenant of the League of Nations, that population did have rights, a right of national self-determination.
What I talk about in the book is how that right was never granted. How, the Palestinians were never able to achieve it, how obstacles were thrown in their path. And then 1948, involves the expulsion of a majority of the Palestinians from their homes. It involves the establishment obviously of Israel, but the non-establishment of an Arab state, which the United Nations had called for. And, I go into why that happened as well.
AMY GOODMAN: The difference between the British rule and Israeli rule?
RASHID KHALIDI:Well, there are some similarities, the emergency regulations that the British passed in 1945, are still applied, for things like administrative detention. An innovation which are law now, includes in the form of the Military Commission’s Act, where you can just be just put in jail on the say so of some government official. So, there are obviously other differences. The British pretended that they were trying to fairly judge between the two sides, in fact they had a very deep commitment to Zionism. It was only tempered in 1939, when they came to realize how impossible it was to ram the Zionist project down the throats of the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world.
AMY GOODMAN:How did the Israelis expel the Palestinians?
RASHID KHALIDI:By force. By--by fear. In many cases people fled without actually having been attacked, out of terror, after hearing of massacres, or reports of massacres else where. It was absolutely necessary that 55% of a country that had a 65 % Arab majority, which was to become a Jewish state under the Partition Plan of 1947, that 55% had almost parody between Arabs and Jews. You wouldn’t have had a Jewish state in that 55, unless that population or large part of it had been expelled. So, more over, most of the property in that—in that 55 was Arab owned. So, it was almost a necessary and inevitable prerequisite for the establishment of a Jewish state, in a country that had 65% Arab majority.
AMY GOODMAN:What about your family’s own story?
RASHID KHALIDI:Well, I mean my family comes from Jerusalem, my father’s family. Some of the members of my family were involved, deeply involved in politics. One of them was, I--I mentioned him and other in various of my writings, played a pretty important role in the ’30’s and ’40’s. I’m critical of that whole generation of leadership in the book, because I think they really failed to meet the challenge that they faced. But I, I-–
AMY GOODMAN:What do you think they should have done?
RASHID KHALIDI:Well, there are many things that they should’ve done. One thing they should not have done, is to react the way they did to the British. The British came there and put into place a series of constraints that they should not, under any circumstances, have accepted. Many of them, not just the Mufti, not just my uncle, not just a number of other people accepted positions in a British mandatory administration, which was predicated on the denial of their national existence. That was a mistake obviously. They made many other mistakes. I mean, there was only a moment in which a compromise might have been possible, when the Zionist movement, when it was weak, late ’20’s early/ ’30’s. They didn’t take that chance. There was only a moment when real resistance to the British might have changed things, as it did in Iraq, in Egypt, in Syria in the ’20’s. The Palestinians didn’t revolt until the end of the ’30’s and it was a popular revolt-–
AMY GOODMAN:Why?
RASHID KHALIDI:That’s a hard question to answer. I mean I actually don’t answer it in the book, because I’m not sure why. Everywhere else you had major armed national revolts against colonial imperial rule, not in Palestine until the very end of the ’30’s.
AMY GOODMAN:We’re talking to Professor Rashid Khalidi, he’s the Edward Said Professor of Arab studies at Columbia University. Author of a number of books, his latest is called The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood. Joining us in studio in Chicago, is Ali Abunimah. He is the creator and editor of the Electronic Intafada, and more recently of Electronic Iraq, his new book is called One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Ali Abunimah, thank you for joining us, layout that proposal, please.
ALI ABUNIMAH: Thank you, Amy. What I layout in the book is really an old idea, which I think needs to be revived and discussed most vigorously. And really it’s the proposition in the title One Country, recognition that what we have in Palestine-Israel is one country. It is an Israeli ruled country in which half the population, 5 million Israeli Jews, has a monopoly on political, economic and military power. And the other half, Palestinians, are disenfranchised either partially or totally.
And what I’m arguing is that--that really the conventional wisdom, that partition is the solution is completely wrong. And in fact, partition is the problem. I think Rashid’s book which is really an important and a major new light on some of this history, helps illuminate that partition has always been associated with ethnic cleansing, with the dispossession of the Palestinians really from when it was first suggested in 1937, when the British suggested the partition of Palestine. They said that you would have to forcibly transfer hundreds of thousands at that time, nearly the majority of the Palestinian population, in order to create a Jewish State. And as Rashid said, Israeli could only come out of the continued dispossession of the Palestinians.
What I’m saying is that we need to do the work of imagining a different kind of future. One in which, Israelis and Palestinians can start to see themselves together. That’s very, very hard work in the current context. But, I think looking at other examples around the world, like South Africa, like Northern Ireland, even like Canada where they are still struggling with these issues as we see today. There is a different path that we have to see other than the Apartheid reality Israel is creating with the world’s complicity.
AMY GOODMAN:Ali Abunimah, on the issue of a one-state solution, I wanted to go back for a moment to former President Jimmy Carter. During his appearance on CNN last night he was asked about this one state idea.
JIMMY CARTER: To incorporate the Occupied Territories into Israel and have just one state, I don’t think that would work, and I’ll tell you why. First of all, the Palestinians, if they were given a right to vote on an equal basis with all Israelis, they would play a major role in making decisions about the whole country. And with the rapid population growth of the Palestinians, which in Gaza is 4.7% a year, one of the highest of the world, and in the foreseeable future the Palestinians would actually have a majority in that nation. So I think the only real practical solution is to have two states, side by side, in their own territories living in harmony and peace. That’s I think the best and most likely approach.
AMY GOODMAN:That was former President Jimmy Carter on CNN Larry King Live. But I also wanted to ask you about the charge that advocating a one-state solution, in fact helps the strongest opponents of Palestinian rights. The argument has been made by people like, well, MIT Professor Noam Chompsky, who says he favors the two-state solution, not because it’s the most just, but because it’s the most realistic. He writes, "in my opinion, it’s improper to dangle hopes that will not be realized before the eyes of people suffering in misery and oppression. Rather constructive efforts should be pursued to mitigate their suffering and deal with their problems in the real world." Your response.
ALI ABUNIMAH: Well, I think those views are both reflections of a flawed conventional wisdom and I take that on directly in the book. Consider this reality, Amy. There is a multibillion dollar peace process industry that has been out there for decades saying the only solution is the two-state solution. And as we see there is no Palestinian state. It was promised, President Bush promised a Palestinian State in 2005, we’re close to 2007.
It is the hope of a Palestinian state that has been dangled cynically in front of the Palestinians for decades. And what President Carter is saying, and I applaud, I am thrilled by his interventions, by his book, and by his interview on Larry King Live. But, I think on this particular issue he’s reflecting a flawed conventional wisdom. Because what’s he saying? He’s saying that the reason to oppose a one-state solution is because it would be democracy. That Palestinians would have an equal rights, one person, one vote, and an equal share in deciding the future of the country.
What I argue in the book, of course this isn’t about destroying Israel. It isn’t about turning things over from one day to the next. Palestine-Israel is not the only country that faces this sort of power struggle along ethnic, religious, and other lines. We have to look for structures, and I talk about this in some detail in the book. How they did it in South Africa, where by the way, the same sorts of arguments were made against ending Apartheid and against one person, one vote. We have to look at countries like Belgium, we have to look at Northern Ireland.
There are many models out there for dealing with those sort of things. So that you have one person, one vote, full democracy, full equality, while at same time, ethnic communities, the Israeli-Jewish community, the Palestinian community, will have mechanisms for expressing their national identity, for decision making over issues that concern them. We have to stop thinking this very simplistic, binary way. And this is where I’m trying to take the discussion with this book.
AMY GOODMAN:Let me ask Professor Rashid Khalidi, your response. Which do you feel is the most viable solution today?
RASHID KHALIDI:Well, I would say two things, the first is that anybody who wants to talk about a two-state solution has to talk about how you would reverse the trends that have been ongoing for at least four decades. The annexation of Palestinian land, the usurpation of Palestinian property in order to create the settlements, the chopping up of the West Bank into cantons, the erection of a matrix of control, where by every important decision the Palestinians take is ultimately passed through an Israeli screen, and there are Israeli arbiters, Ministry of Interior, security services, military, control everything. I’m talking birth/death, entry/exit, export/import, everything, of importants.
You would have to reverse that whole process, before you could even talk about the 23% of Palestine, which is the West Bank and the Gaza Strip becoming a Palestinian State. And I see those processes as having been given enormous additional impetus by President Bush’s saying that the settlement blocks are realities that have to be taken into account in any settlement. So, reverse US policy first. Reverse everything Israeli has done for almost 40 years in the Occupied Territories and then come and talk about a Palestinian state.
The second thing that has to be taken into consideration in my view is that both Palestinians and Israelis are very attached to the idea of having their own state. Now, these are not just ethnic communities, these are peoples that have developed powerful senses of national identities, in part in conflict with one another. And to talk about how you move them towards a future of peace, in which you have one state and are operating within a single political system, involves not just a whole process of education and structures, which Ali does talk about in his book, but overcoming what seems to be very strong majority views in both peoples about how they want to organize their national life.
There are people in Israeli and more in Palestine, but minorities in both cases, who want some kind of one state solution. They don’t all want the same one by the way, but they are distinct minorities. So, I think you have to address both of those things, irrespective of which solution you want.
AMY GOODMAN:Ali Abunimah?
ALI ABUNIMAH: Well, I think Rashid is pointing out the key obstacles. People who say the two-state solution is realistic are ignoring the reality on the ground. That there is one state already, it is basically a greater Israel in which Palestinians are disenfranchised. These people are inseparable. And I think that for many people, the idea of two states acts as a sort of a placebo. It gets us off the hook from looking at the reality that these people are deeply intertwined. They are as inseparable as blacks and whites in South Africa, as inseparable as Nationalists and Unionists, Catholics and Protestants, in Northern Ireland. And like South Africans and like people in Ireland, they have to start dealing with that reality.
On the issues of what people on both sides think it’s clear that the majority of Israelis are deeply attached to their own state, a state in which they are dominant, the dominant class, as whites were in South Africa. I think with Palestinians, it’s much more mixed. When you look at the opinion poles within the West Bank and Gaza, it’s remarkable how high support is for a single democratic multiethnic state, not an Islamic State in which there are no Jews, but a multiethnic democratic state, is remarkably high given that there are no Palestinian leaders out there openly advocating this.
And support for a two-state solution is remarkably tepid given the fact there is this multimillion dollar industry promoting it and all the parties say that they’re for it. When you look at Palestinians, the rest of the Palestinian community, the more than a million Palestinians living as Israeli citizens, second class citizens have been struggling for decades for a state of all its citizens. So, I would see them as supporting the goal of the state of equal rights and for Palestinians in the Diaspora, the issue of a two state solution has always remained contentious. Because, the way Israel conceives of it, as Ehud Olmert put it just yesterday, it means that the vast majority of Palestinians would have to give up their rights. So, in the book, and I talk about these discussions both among Palestinians and Israelis moving towards this new sort of vision.
AMY GOODMAN:We just have about a minute and a half to go and I want to tie this into what’s happening today in Iraq. How you see it related? Do you see solution to the Palestinian-Israel conflict essential to peace in Iraq as well?
RASHID KHALIDI:I think what’s essential is that the mind set that has dominated American policy--policy making has to change fundamentally, whether in Iraq or Palestine, or Lebanon, or elsewhere. That we won’t talk to you unless you do what we want syndrome, that this administration has perfected, is bankrupt and has lead us into the abyss. Much of what we think, the conventional wisdom about places like Palestine will have to be discarded. I would, I’d love to say I see a new horizon in Iraq and Palestine because of what Olmert has done, or because the Democrats have won the election, unfortunately, I don’t. There’s a huge body of conventional wisdom which is entirely wrong, and which has led us where we are. And more of it than we realize is marked bipartisan on the Middle East. All of that has to change unfortunately.
AMY GOODMAN:Ali Abunimah, solution right now, on Iraq?
ALI ABUNIMAH: Well, I agree absolutely with what Rashid has said. I think the most important thing we can do what Jimmy Carter said on Larry King, we have to start talking about this. Shattering the conventional wisdom, shattering the silence that has made free discussion of Palestine-Israel such a taboo in this country for so long.
AMY GOODMAN:Ali Abunimah and Professor Rashid Khalidi, I want to thank you both for being with us. Ali Abunimah’s book is called One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israel Palestinian Impasse, and Professor’s Khalidi’s book, The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood.
http://www.democracynow.org/2006/11/28/one_state_or_two_rashid_khalidi
| | Student protest - University of Michican | Democracy Now! - 19.01.2011 19:52
Why we walked out
Ahmad Hasan and Danielle Bäck, The Electronic Intifada, 3 December 2010
Students across the US are protesting a public relations campaign that brings soldiers from the Israeli army to speak on campuses. These tours are an attempt to justify recent war crimes committed by the army and are coordinated by various organizations, the most well-known being the Zionist organization StandWithUs.
Our protests have drawn attention to the massive Israeli human rights abuses in the occupied Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The protests started on 20 October 2010, when two Israeli army soldiers visited the University of Michigan campus. Students, staff and community members collectively engaged in a silent walk-out in memory of and in solidarity with the Palestinian children who were silenced by the Israeli military during Israel's three-week bombardment of the Gaza Strip in winter 2008-09.
As students at the University of Michigan, we simply could not let these soldiers attempt to justify atrocities on our college campus. We decided that a silent protest would be a creative way to give voice to the victims of these human rights abuses, but we had no idea that our protest would spark such momentum, strengthening the growing sense of collaboration and unity across the nation and inspiring international solidarity across college campuses. Specifically, it was the protest footage that allowed our actions to resonate with many other universities and communities across the world (video available on YouTube).
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11657.shtml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrna_jNArqk&feature=player_embedded
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October 29, 2007
University of Michigan Press to Continue Publishing Joel Kovel’s "Overcoming Zionism" After Initially Dropping Book Due to Rightwing Criticism
Last week the University of Michigan Press voted unanimously to continue distributing books from the London-based independent publishing house Pluto Press. The controversy began earlier this summer when the university press initially decided to stop distributing Joel Kovel’s "Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine."
We turn now to an important victory in the battle for free speech here in the United States. Last week the University of Michigan Press voted unanimously to continue distributing books from the London-based independent publishing house Pluto Press. The controversy began earlier this summer when the university press decided to stop distributing a new book by author and activist Joel Kovel published by Pluto Press. It’s called "Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine."
The press dropped Kovel’s book in August after receiving a series of threatening emails from a rightwing pro-Israel group called Stand With Us. But faced with a growing campaign led by fellow academics and civil libertarians, the board overturned its earlier decision regarding distribution of Kovel’s book. Last week’s key decision to continue ties with Pluto Press came in the midst of a series of events organized around what rightwing groups called "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week."
Joel Kovel is an antiwar activist and former Green Party candidate for Senate. He is the author of over ten books. "Overcoming Zionism" is his most recent book. He joins me now in the firehouse studio in New York.
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/10/29/university_of_michigan_press_to_continue
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Israel & Palestine
http://www.democracynow.org/tags/israel
http://www.democracynow.org/search?query=israel&commit=Search
http://www.democracynow.org/search?query=palestine&commit=Search
| | Israël keurt aanval op Gaza h-konvooien goed | Gereutel - 25.01.2011 20:03
Israeli inquiry rules that flotilla raid was
Sunday, 23 January 2011
An Israeli inquiry cleared the government and military today of wrongdoing in the bloody seizure of a Turkish aid ship that tried to breach the Gaza blockade, saying passengers were to blame for the violence.
The Turkel Commission, whose report will form the core of Israel's submission to a UN inquiry into the May 31 incident, endorsed the sea closure but urged Israeli reviews of how to focus sanctions on Gaza's Hamas rulers and spare its civilians.
"By clearly resisting capture, the Mavi Marmara had become a military objective," the commission said in a 245-page report, referring to a converted cruise ship which Israeli marines boarded on the high seas after it ignored orders to turn back.
Nine pro-Palestinian Turks were killed in the ensuing brawls. The commission accused the IHH, a Turkish Islamist charity that owned the Mavi Marmara, "of planned and extremely violent" resistance which was "directly connected to the ongoing international armed conflict between Israel and Hamas".
The findings were unlikely to be welcomed by Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country that had been in alliance with the Jewish state and which has demanded an Israeli apology for the raid and compensation over the casualties. Israel has refused.
In September, three international experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the attack said it had been unlawful and resulted in violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.. Israel said the investigators' mandate was biased.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon set up his own inquiry into the incident, which is still in progress.
In its report, the Israeli commission said the Gaza blockade was justified given the threat of gun-running to Hamas and Israel's efforts to maintain humanitarian supplies to ordinary Palestinians there.
"Even if the naval blockade ... had been considered not to meet the requirements of international law, individuals or groups do not have the right to take the law into their own hands and breach the blockade," the report said, alluding to the IHH and other pro-Palestinian activists behind the May flotilla.
Marines who boarded the Mavi Marmara from helicopters and dinghies used sound tactics, resorting to gunfire when passengers threatened their lives, it said, echoing the conclusions of an Israeli military inquiry from July.
Using video from marines' helmet-mounted cameras and confiscated from passengers, as well as testimony from witnesses, the commission examined 133 instances in which the boarding party used guns or non-lethal violence, a panel official said.
In 127 of the cases, marines responded appropriately to passengers who attacked them, the official said. The other six cases - three of which involved gunfire - were inconclusive.
Around 100 of the some 600 passengers put up a fight and should therefore not be considered civilians but "direct participants in hostilities" whom marines could regard as combatants, the commission said.
Footage showed some of the passengers pummelling, clubbing and stabbing marines and the Israelis have said gunfire was also used against them, an account disputed by activists.
Asked whether the nine dead Turks, one of whom was also a US national, had been "direct participants in hostilities," the panel official said this could not be determined given that forensic information on how they had been shot was lacking.
The commission heard testimony from Israeli Arabs who had been passengers on the Mavi Marmara, but its call for Turkish and other foreign witnesses to come forward was largely ignored. Transcripts of the interrogation of passengers by Israeli police after their detention was also examined.
Two foreign observers, Canadian military jurist Kenneth Watkin and Northern Ireland statesman David Trimble, approved the Turkel Commission's findings. The panel also consulted two international experts on warfare.
Marines who participated in the raid did not testify and their accounts were relayed by senior officers. The commission also questioned top generals, Defence Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a series of hearings.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israeli-inquiry-rules-that-flotilla-raid-was-legal-2192307.html
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voor achtergrond oa.
http://www.democracynow.org/search?query=flotilla&commit=Search
| | Maar niet echt, toch meneer Hague.... | Zeer Ernstig - 27.01.2011 01:24
Oppositie Minsk wil met Nederland in zee
Uitgegeven: 22 december 2010 17:57
MINSK - De Wit-Russische oppositiepartijen hebben in de aanloop naar de presidentsverkiezingen van zondag Nederland gevraagd om een bijeenkomst te faciliteren voor het opzetten van een oppositiepartij.
Nederland heeft dit geweigerd. Minister Uri Rosenthal (Buitenlandse Zaken) zei woensdag desgevraagd dat hij niet uitsluit dat Nederland alsnog steun gaat verlenen.
Hoe de hulp eruit kan zien en of Nederland bijvoorbeeld de oppositie gelegenheid biedt voor onderling overleg in Nederland, kon hij nog niet zeggen. ''Maar ik sta wel open voor assistentie'', zo zei hij telefonisch tijdens een bezoek aan Londen.
Rosenthal had juist de ''zeer ernstige kwestie'' in Wit-Rusland met zijn ambtgenoot William Hague in Londen besproken. Beiden vinden dat de Europese Unie een robuust standpunt aan de leider in Wit-Rusland moet afgeven.
''Het geweld gaat alle perken te buiten en is onaanvaardbaar. We moeten gezamenlijk opkomen voor de belangen van degenen die opgepakt zijn'', zei Rosenthal.
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