U.S. professors call for academic, cultural boycott of Israel for first time

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Written by Raphael Ahren Raphael Ahren

Published: 29 January 2009 29 January 2009

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In the wake of Operation Cast Lead, a group of American university professors has for the first time launched a national campaign calling for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel.

While Israeli academics have grown used to such news from Great Britain, where anti-Israel groups several times attempted to establish academic boycotts, the formation of the United States movement marks the first time that a national academic boycott movement has come out of America. Israeli professors are not sure yet how big of an impact the one-week-old movement will have, but started discussing the significance of and possible counteractions against the campaign.

"As educators of conscience, we have been unable to stand by and watch in silence Israel's indiscriminate assault on the Gaza Strip and its educational institutions," the U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel stated in its inaugural press release last Thursday. Speaking in its mission statement of the "censorship and silencing of the Palestine question in U.S. universities, as well as U.S. society at large," the group follows the usual pattern of such boycotts, calling for "non-violent punitive measures" against Israel, such as the implementation of divestment initiatives, "similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era."

The campaign was founded by a group of 15 academics, mostly from California, but is, "currently expanding to create a network that embraces the United States as a whole," according to David Lloyd, a professor of English at the University of Southern California who responded on behalf of the group to a Haaretz query. "The initiative was in the first place impelled by Israel's latest brutal assault on Gaza and by our determination to say enough is enough."

"The response has been remarkable given the extraordinary hold that lobbying organizations like AIPAC exert over U.S. politics and over the U.S. media, and in particular given the campaign of intimidation that has been leveled at academics who dare to criticize Israel's policies," Lloyd wrote in an e-mail to Haaretz Monday. "Within a short weekend since the posting of the press release, more than 80 academics from all over the country have endorsed the action and the numbers continue to grow."

Asked if the group would accept the endorsement of Hamas supporters, Lloyd said, "We have no a priori policy with regard to the membership or affiliation of supporters of the boycott so long as they are in accord with the main aims stated in the press release."

He argued that, "on several occasions Hamas has sought direct negotiations with Israel, a pursuit that constitutes de facto recognition of Israel, and has openly discussed abandoning its call for the destruction of the state of Israel conditional on reciprocal guarantees from Israel."

Lloyd wrote that to the best of his knowledge, all supporters of the anti-Israel boycott were also opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Asked if logic wouldn't dictate that he and his colleagues boycott themselves, he responded, "Self-boycott is a difficult concept to realize. But speaking for myself, I would have supported and honored such a boycott had it been proposed by my colleagues overseas."

Durban bred, British approved

The idea of an academic boycott against Israel originated in 2001 at the "World Conference Against Racism" in Durban, South Africa. A first attempt to implement a boycott was undertaken by British professors in the wake of Israel's 2002 Operation Defensive Shield and the Jenin massacre claim. Since then, British academics tried several times to establish boycotts, with the latest such effort failing because legal advisers a few months ago pointed out that academic boycotts are discriminatory and thus illegal. Yet, analysts say that another British boycott campaign is to be expected in the follow up of Cast Lead.

In the U.S., on the other hand, only a few professors have supported the idea of an academic boycott. In 2006, the American Association of University Professors declared its objection to the British boycott, saying members, "especially oppose selective academic boycotts that entail an ideological litmus test."

In 2007, nearly 300 university presidents across the United States signed a statement denouncing the boycott, under the motto "Boycott Israeli Universities? Boycott Ours, Too!"

First indications that the climate might change in light of the Gaza operation could be seen earlier this month when the Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario proposed, "Israeli academics be barred from speaking, teaching or conducting research at the province's universities unless they condemn Israel's actions in Gaza," as the Inside Higher Ed Web site reported.

Not a mass movement

Israeli academics are hesitant to sound the alarm bells in light of the recent development. "One has to look at this with some degree of caution," said Gerald Steinberg, the American-educated chair of Bar Ilan University's political studies department. "Yes, the organization's declarations are coming from the United States, but this is not at all yet a mass movement."

Jonathan Rynhold, who also teaches political science at Bar Ilan, explained that boycott movements are rare in America, "because the U.S. has much stronger political culture and laws about freedom of speech than the UK. In America, there is stronger sense that one should be able to think and say whatever one wants."

"What they're trying to do," Rynhold continued in his analysis of anti-Israel boycotts, "is blurring the distinction between criticism of Israeli policies and criticism of Israel's existence. Their game is to move the liberals, who accept Israel's right to exist and don't think Israel is wrong every time but criticize Israeli policies as and when they think it's right, and turn them into radical left-wing critics [who believe] Israel is racist in its core and everything it does is wrong."

Rynhold and Steinberg said that the new U.S. campaign is a clone of its British predecessors. The two professors, who were both born in England, speak out of experience. When the original boycott movement arose - initially attacking only Bar Ilan and Haifa University - they were among the co-founders of the International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom, which was fighting the boycott but ultimately folded for lack of funding. Although none of the previous boycott efforts were successful, Steinberg is concerned about every new round. While he said that it's too early to predict the impact of the U.S. boycott, he sharply criticized the Israeli government and local universities for their handling of the previous boycott.

"The government and the universities have completely neglected not just the academic boycott but in general this kind of soft war," he said. "The military prepared to go into Gaza for two and half years. But in terms of the boycott movement, both the ministry of education and the foreign ministry - which had pledged support for the existing anti-boycott frameworks - completely failed to prepare their own portfolios for this."

"The battle is just beginning now," Steinberg added. "The main response will have to come from American academics who find this kind of bias to be unacceptable and will fight it. But for those of us in Israel who are interested in helping to be a catalyst in that process, the funding has been completely cut off. There was the naive view that having won a few battles in Britain meant the war had been won." Yet, giving the boycotters too much attention might be counterproductive, Steinberg emphasized.

Effective counterattacks need to be prepared, he said, "but at the same time we must not overreact and provide stimulation and amplification to this process - that is precisely what they're seeking."

Other pro-Israel advocates are less hesitant and soft-spoken in their assessment of the U.S. boycott.

"The usual anti-Israel suspects in U.S. universities may sign on to the petition, but it won't amount to much," predicted Mitchell Bard, executive director at the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, which seeks to strengthen the pro-Israel camp at American colleges. "If it becomes a widespread effort, I'm sure some effort will be given to countering it, but it is out of touch with the mood in the country," he said. "Israel has near record high support, [U.S. President Barack] Obama has just taken office with a positive message and the focus will be on moving the peace process forward, not sideshows by anti-Semites and cranks among American pseudo-academics."

Who will rebuild Gaza? Politics takes precedence while ordinary people suffer

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Written by Heather Sharp, BBC News Heather Sharp, BBC News

Published: 28 January 2009 28 January 2009

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 Who will rebuild Gaza?

By Heather Sharp
BBC News, Jerusalem

Even as aid agencies struggle to meet the immediate needs of those left injured, homeless and traumatised by the Israeli operation in Gaza, concerns are growing that reconstruction efforts could become bogged down in a complex political tangle.

Initial Palestinian estimates said rebuilding would cost $2bn (£1.4bn) and take three to five years, even without the host of obstacles Gaza faces.

International agencies are still assessing the scale of the destruction in preparation for a drive for reconstruction pledges.

But with the international community refusing to deal directly with Hamas, the militant group which controls Gaza, it remains unclear how the money could be spent.

Israel is determined that Hamas should in no way benefit from international aid funds. It also controls everything entering the Gaza Strip.

It is demanding strict controls on building materials - urgently needed before the fighting and now required in vast quantities - which it says could be used to build rockets and launching sites.

Waiting to see

Then there is the long-standing feud between Hamas and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) - both battling for popularity among Palestinians and vying for international recognition.

Hamas spokesmen say they are the legitimate authority in Gaza and the PA is corrupt and cannot be trusted with reconstruction money.

US President Barack Obama and the European Union favour channelling aid through the PA - although the European Commission Representative in Jerusalem, Christian Berger, said the EU was waiting to see the outcome of Egyptian-brokered reconciliation talks between the Palestinian factions.

But as Hamas has purged PA figures from many of Gaza's institutions, it remains unclear what the PA could achieve on the ground.

Along with Israel, the US and EU regard Hamas as a terrorist organisation.

The Middle East Quartet, which brings the US and EU together with the UN and Russia, refuses to talk to Hamas unless it renounces violence and recognises Israel's right to exist.

But UN agencies do co-ordinate with Hamas, which won elections in 2006 and consolidated its control in Gaza by force a year later.

'Yes, they're Hamas'

UN relief agency Unrwa says it has contacts with Hamas "even at ministerial level", but strictly on technical issues related to the delivery of its humanitarian services in line with wider UN policy.

And the distribution of some World Food Programme aid is carried out by Hamas - albeit with strict monitoring in place to ensure it reaches the people it is intended for.

"In every country that we work in, we deal with the authorities - so in Gaza we deal with the Ministry of Social Affairs.

"If the next question is 'Are they Hamas?', then the answer is 'Yes they are'," says spokesman Robin Lodge.

The EU, a major donor which has spent 3bn euros ($3.9bn, £2.8bn) in the Palestinian territories since 2000, channels much of its funding through such UN agencies.

It is widely expected that the UN's agencies - including the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, UN Development Programme, and the World Health Organization - will end up playing a major role in Gaza's reconstruction.

But even Unrwa, which has the largest UN presence in Gaza, is primarily focused on - and experienced in - food aid, schools and primary health clinics, not major construction projects.

"I don't think they have the capacity by themselves," says political analyst George Giacaman of Birzeit University.

A further question is whether the rebuilding of the roads, health, education, water, power and sanitation infrastructure can be carried out by UN agencies if their contacts with Hamas are limited only to essential, technical co-ordination for the delivery of humanitarian services.

"Some projects may well be feasible, others will be very difficult," says the WHO's acting head of mission, Tony Laurance.

He gives the example of training programmes for medical staff: "It looks like a fairly straightforward activity - but still requires the assent of the relevant authorities."

Unity bid

And if past experiences are anything to go by, the power struggle between Hamas and the PA is likely to further complicate matters.

Last year strikes by teachers and doctors in protest at the replacement of key staff with Hamas loyalists disrupted health and education services.

And the UN had to step in to supply fuel for water pumps because a row over control of the Palestinian Water Authority paralysed some of the body's operations.

The PA and Hamas have both accused each other of diverting aid for their own benefit, according to Israeli press reports.

Egypt is pushing to broker some form of unity government, but the sides remain far apart.

Hamas has, however, indicated it may support the formation of a Palestinian body, including the Arab League, to manage funding.

A further problem is bringing in the necessary construction materials and spare parts for things like generators, sewage plants, power infrastructure and medical equipment.

A solution to the question of the crossings into Gaza is a key issue in ceasefire talks.

Hamas wants the total lifting of Israel's 18-month blockade, which permits little more than food, grain and medicines to enter Gaza. Israel wants to ensure Hamas cannot re-arm if borders are re-opened.

Israeli Defence Ministry spokesman Peter Lerner stressed that Israel wanted "each and every pipe accounted for", along the lines of a project-by-project approvals process used for a small number of projects in the past.

But international aid officials say the approach was inadequate before the war, and fear it will spell disaster for reconstruction attempts on the necessary scale.

For Gaza's health system as a whole - much of which is run by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health - it would be "a nightmare," says Mr Laurance.

"The health sector has not been able to get essential medical equipment into Gaza… it can be incredibly convoluted going through these approval procedures," he said.

The prospects for reconstruction hang on the outcome of the political process, but it remains unclear when - and what - it will eventually deliver.

"What may happen is that ordinary people will suffer - we're witnessing the political interests of the parties taking precedence over the actual work that is needed," says Prof Giacaman.
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Published: 2009/01/28 14:23:50 GMT

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Israeli troops killed Gaza children carrying white flag, witnesses say

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Written by Dion Nissenbaum | McClatchy Newspapers Dion Nissenbaum | McClatchy Newspapers

Published: 28 January 2009 28 January 2009

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Israeli troops killed Gaza children carrying white flag, witnesses say

By Dion Nissenbaum | McClatchy Newspapers

EZBT ABED RABBO, Gaza Strip — Nasser Abu Freeh was one of the first to see the Israeli soldiers as they entered this pastoral Gaza neighborhood overlooking the Israeli border on Jan. 3, hours after the Israeli government ordered the first ground forces into Gaza.

Abu Freeh's two-story hilltop home is a favorite spot for Israeli soldiers, who used it as a command post during three previous attempts to deter Gaza militants from firing crude rockets into Israel from the surrounding cattle farms, orange groves and dirt alleys.

Scouts from the militant Islamist group Hamas also favored the hilltop as a place to watch for approaching Israeli soldiers, and the fighters tried to lure the Israelis into a trap by planting land mines outside Abu Freeh's home.

As the Israelis moved in, neighbors said, the Hamas scouts put up little resistance and quickly fell back into the more densely populated part of the neighborhood.

Within hours, the Israeli soldiers took over Abu Freeh's house, moved the seven people living there into one room and began interrogating the adults. The questioners were angry because one of their soldiers had been killed nearby in the early hours of the ground offensive, and they wanted to know what traps Hamas had set for the Israeli forces.

"Where are the tunnels?" Abu Freeh said the soldiers asked in Arabic. "I will kill you if you don't tell me."

Israeli tanks and bulldozers soon took up hilltop positions around Abu Freeh's home, and Khaled Abed Rabbo's five-story house in the valley below was one of those in the line of fire.

More than 70 members of his family crowded into one apartment for days. On Jan. 7, Abed Rabbo said, the shelling intensified, and they heard an Israeli solider calling for people to come out of their homes.

Abed Rabbo said he gathered his wife, their three daughters and his mother, Souad. Souad Abed Rabbo said that she tied a white robe around a mop handle and two of her granddaughters waved white headscarves as they walked outside.

When they opened the door, they saw an Israeli tank parked in their garden about 10 yards away.

"We were waiting for them to give us an order," Khaled said last week as he stood in the ruins of his home. "Then one came out of the tank and started to shoot."

Souad Abed Rabbo said she was shot as she pushed her son back inside and her granddaughters fell on the stairs. When the shooting was over, she said, 2-year-old Amal and 7-year-old Souad were dead.

The allegation is one of at least five such white flag incidents that human rights investigators are looking into across the Gaza Strip. It's part of a growing pattern of alleged abuses that have raised concerns that some Israeli soldiers may have committed war crimes during their 22-day military campaign in Gaza.

"The evidence we've gathered in two of the cases so far is exceedingly strong," said Fred Abrahams, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch working in the Gaza Strip. "All the research so far suggests they shot civilians that were leaving their homes with white flags."

Along with the white flag incidents, Human Rights Watch is calling for an international investigation into widespread charges that Israel prevented medical teams from helping wounded Palestinians trapped in their homes and needlessly demolished hundreds of houses, including dozens in Ezbt Abed Rabbo.

"This was not a rogue unit," said Abrahams. "The needless civilian deaths resulted from concrete decisions made by the military."

The Israeli military, which Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called "the most moral army in the world," said it's investigating the increasing number of war crimes allegations, but it rejected any suggestion that its soldiers had targeted civilians.

"IDF forces have clear firing orders," the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement in response to questions from McClatchy. "But in the complex situation in which fighting takes place inside towns and cities, placing our forces also at great risk, civilian casualties are regrettably possible."

Throughout the war, Israeli officials said Hamas militants put Palestinian civilians in danger by booby-trapping homes and firing on soldiers from crowded buildings.

However, residents living near Khaled Abed Rabbo all said that Hamas forces quickly abandoned the outlying neighborhood once the Israeli forces took over.

With his daughters bleeding to death, Abed Rabbo said, the family screamed for help.

Samieh al Sheik, an ambulance driver who lived in an adjacent home, heard the shouting. Without thinking about what could be waiting outside, Sheik said he ran to his ambulance, turned on the emergency lights and drove toward the screams.

As he turned the corner and headed for Abed Rabbo's home, Sheik said he came face-to-face with the Israeli tank unit. The soldiers ordered him to get out of the ambulance and told him to walk straight out of the neighborhood.

"I didn't see what happened to the family that day because I couldn't reach them," said Sheik, who returned to find the ambulance crushed under a demolished building.

Faced with his dying children, Abed Rabbo gathered up the wounded and sought to escape, even if the Israelis opened fire.

With Israeli soldiers shooting at the ground near their feet, Abed Rabbo said, the family walked more than a mile to the main road, where they finally found help. His surviving 4-year-old daughter, Samer, was one of the few to be allowed out of Gaza to receive special medical care in Brussels.

Halima Badwan was less fortunate. As Abed Rabbo rushed his surviving daughter to the hospital, she lay dying in a house nearby.

Halima and her husband, Ahmed, a retired 63-year-old Palestinian Authority general, were among nine people who'd gathered in one room during the fighting. The previous day, Ahmed Badwan said, a tank round had smashed into the room, killing a neighbor and seriously injuring his wife.

Badwan didn't think he could carry his wife to safety. Red Cross officials in Gaza said that Israeli military officials repeatedly denied their requests to send medical teams to the neighborhood.

So, when the Israeli military began declaring a short "humanitarian pause" to the shooting each day, Badwan said he took his wife's gold necklace and left her lying nearly unconscious in the ruins of their home.

As he walked out of his neighborhood, Badwan said, he stopped at a nearby ambulance station and asked for help. The International Committee for the Red Cross was powerless to do anything.

Iyad Nasr, a Red Cross spokesman in Gaza, said Israeli soldiers had fired at ambulances that tried to reach some areas, even when medical officials had received approval from the Israeli military to enter certain neighborhoods.

"Our request for Ezbt Abed Rabbo was just pending and pending and pending and pending day after day," Nasr said.

Israel's widespread denial of access to medical crews in Gaza appears to be a breach of humanitarian law, said Yuval Shany, a legal scholar at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

"In international law, there is obligation to facilitate access to the wounded and even to treat the wounded," Shany said. "In this area, I think there was a deviation from the international standard and this should be investigated."

When Badwan, Abed Rabbo and scores of other residents of Ezbt Abed Rabbo finally returned to their neighborhood after Israel declared a unilateral cease-fire on Jan. 17, they were stunned to discover that their neighborhood was reduced to rubble.

Using bulldozers, tank shelling and explosives placed in the houses, the Israeli military had leveled entire blocks of homes.

Badwan found his wife's body buried under the rubble of their building.

The destruction didn't come as a complete surprise to Taysir Abed Rabbo, who lived in a two-story home near Badwan's that Israeli soldiers had used as a temporary post.

Abed Rabbo, a member of the Palestinian Authority presidential guard, was among dozens of men who were rounded up nearly a year ago during an operation called Operation Warm Winter and taken to Israel for interrogation.

The interrogators gave Abed Rabbo a prophetic warning.

"They said if we did not stop the rocket fire, they planned to make this area 'a red area,'" said Abed Rabbo, who said he wasn't sure at the time what the Israelis meant.

Israeli leaders are moving swiftly to insulate their soldiers from any penalties for their actions during the offensive, which left more than 1,200 Palestinians dead, destroyed more than 4,000 buildings and caused $2 billion in damage.

The Israeli military has barred reporters from printing the names of military leaders who took part in the Gaza campaign, known as Operation Cast Lead, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has created a legal defense unit to protect any soldiers accused of war crimes.

In a defense of his military on Sunday, Olmert accused Israel's critics of using "moral acrobatics" to question Israel for using its military to try to halt the Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza that's killed 12 people since September 2005.

"The soldiers and commanders who were sent on missions in Gaza must know that they are safe from various tribunals, and that the State of Israel will assist them on this issue and defend them just as they bodily defended us during Operation Cast Lead," Olmert said.

While human rights groups are investigating the allegations, Shany said, Israeli leaders should take the lead and investigate allegations of wrongdoing.

"It makes sense to try to protect the soldiers, but it would also make sense to investigate where needed," Shany said. "They should investigate, and when actions were justifiable they should protect, and when not, they should prosecute."

(Special correspondent Cliff Churgin contributed to this article from Jerusalem.)

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New evidence of Gaza child deaths

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Written by Christian Fraser, BBC News, Gaza Christian Fraser, BBC News, Gaza

Published: 28 January 2009 28 January 2009

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Four-year-old Samar Abed Rabbu is a little girl with a captivating smile to melt the heart of the most hardened correspondent.

Samer Abedrabou

When we first came across her in the hospital in the Egyptian town of El-Arish, just over the border from Gaza, she was playing with an inflated surgical glove beneath the covers.

The doctors had puffed air into the glove, trying to distract her from the further pain they had to inflict inserting a drip.

Samar had been shot in the back at close range. The bullet damaged her spine, and she is unlikely to walk again.

At her bedside, her uncle Hassan told us the family had been ordered out of their home by Israeli soldiers who were shelling the neighbourhood.

A tank had parked in front of the house, where around 30 people were taking shelter.

The women and children - mother, grandmother and three little girls - came out waving a white flag and then, he said, an Israeli soldier came out of the tank and opened fire on the terrified procession.

Samar's two sisters, aged seven and two, were shot dead. The grandmother was hit in the arm and in the side, but has survived.

Young victims

One of the most alarming features of the conflict in Gaza is the number of child casualties. More than 400 were killed. Many had shrapnel or blast injuries sustained as the Israeli army battled Hamas militants in Gaza's densely populated civilian areas.

But the head of neurosurgery at the El-Arish hospital, Dr Ahmed Yahia, told me that brain scans made it clear that a number of the child victims had been shot at close range.

Samar's uncle said the soldier who had shot his niece was just 15m (49ft) away. ''How could they not see they were shooting at children?'' he asked.

Read more: New evidence of Gaza child deaths