The end of Sicarii Zionism
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- Written by Dov Yirmiya Nahariya Dov Yirmiya Nahariya
- Published: 24 June 2010 24 June 2010
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I am one of the remaining veterans of the Haganah, who had served in the British Army and thereafter were among the initiators of the Ha'apala [illegal immigration] of Holocaust survivors, struggling with the forces of victorious Great Britain for the right to arrive at the shores of this country.
Its warships and soldiers, those who had just fought and defeated the worst of all enemies, went over to attacking with fury and hatred our cockleshell boats which set to this country from the shores of Italy, full of survivors of the Nazi hell. The warships chased after them, closed around them, sometimes actually crushing them - and shot at them, killing and wounding many of their passengers.
And now I have observed with horror and a broken heart the repetition of the same scenes – but with the roles reversed. It is the soldiers and sailors of the force which boasts of being the "Israeli Defense Forces" who are now the pursuers and killers. There is no limit to the disgrace, the cruelty and the hypocrisy which wrap our criminal acts with words of lie and malice.
I am depressed to the bottom of my heart ... how could we have fallen so low??? How did we become an unjust and cruel people, turning from persecuted to persecutor?
Yes! It could have been expected! For 19 years we have "contented ourselves" with a system of a military government over the Arab minority which remained with us after the War of Independence, dispossessing and discriminating them. There followed the 43 years of intoxicating nationalist bravado, which spread through our people like an addictive drug after our victory in 1967, which brought the Greater Israel movement to the power which it since then holds in Israel.
Our golden opportunity as victors, to make peace with the Palestinian people, vanished at once. The fascist Zionist regime, governing in the style of the Italian in North Africa, violent conquest and rapist settlement of the land of Palestine and its people… But with the latest move, the tragicomic charge of the ridiculous Zionist "armada" in an effort to tighten its stranglehold on an enclave of a million and half miserable Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, our arrogant little people have clearly gone too far.
The huge burden of injustice and mad villainy with which Sicarii Israel is loaded brings about quick disaster. Already in the foreseeable future it is about to finally destroy Israel's chances of survival. The "Mene Mene" of destruction is already inscribed in blood on our walls. Woe to our children, our grandchildren and great-grandchildren to whom we leave such a legacy...
Dov Yirmiya Nahariya
* Comment is free Why Palestinians are second-class citizens in Lebanon
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- Written by Ahmed Moor Ahmed Moor
- Published: 24 June 2010 24 June 2010
- Hits: 3627 3627
I moved to Beirut from New York nine months ago and began looking for an apartment. After 10 continuous years in America, I wanted to return to the Arab world – and returning to my family's roots in Palestine wasn't an option.
I knew that in Beirut, I likely wasn't going to be renting from a faceless, impersonal property company; real people mostly own the real estate here – and often, they are interested in knowing their tenants personally. That's how I learned, to my dismay, that being a Palestinian in Beirut is mostly a liability; anti-Palestinian racism is a fact of life here.
During my second month in Lebanon, I responded to an ad for an apartment in East Beirut, which is now predominantly a Christian district. The building owner called me and we arranged a viewing. The apartment seemed fine, and on my way out, the owner invited me into his apartment on the first floor of the building for a coffee.
The coffee turned out to be an interview – or rather, an interrogation. It began with a series of inquisitive but reasonable questions. Why did my family leave Palestine? What was my business in Lebanon? Why didn't I go back to Palestine? Why didn't I go back to America?
But from there, it became aggressively adversarial. The man suggested my father had behaved in a cowardly fashion by leaving Palestine – or that he left for love of money. I was shocked, and only said that it was clear that the man resented Palestinians. Needless to say, he didn't want to rent the apartment to me and I didn't want to rent it from him.
But my experience here in Lebanon has been a privileged one. I have the luxury of looking for an apartment in East Beirut – and I can afford the rent. Furthermore, I'm an American citizen, which makes life immeasurably easier. The vast majority of the 400,000 Palestinian refugees (10% of the population in Lebanon) who were born and raised in Lebanon do not have anything approaching the privilege I do. Today, Lebanon is the most hostile country to Palestinian refugees after Israel. They are second-class citizens here, but they are not the only ones.
Foreign guest workers also have a notoriously hard time in Lebanese society. Racism is so widespread (see Nesrine Malik's recent Cif article) that African and Asian guest workers are openly barred from attending the beaches where Lebanese people frolic. And that's saying nothing of the often inhumane working conditions they are subjected to on a daily basis.
There is an anti-Syrian current, as well. I remember encountering a barking dog while hiking somewhere in the northern part of the country. The owner rushed up and quieted the animal, remarking to me: "See how quickly he calmed down when I told him you're not Syrian."
The difference, of course, is that the Syrians, Ethiopians, Filipinos and others have consular support and countries to return to (although that is a serious problem for many guest workers, who are functionally indentured servants). The Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have no such recourse.
Lebanese hostility to the Palestinian refugees is far from uniform. But it's explosive and dangerous where it exists. For instance, the Lebanese Forces militia massacred up to 2,500 Palestinian refugees and others in the Sabra and Shatila camps in 1982 in coordination with the Israeli army. In the 1980s, the Amal militia besieged the camps, killing hundreds and starving thousands. More recently, the Lebanese army bombarded the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in the north of the country in an attempt to root out terrorists unaffiliated to the camp.
The Arab world is rife with hypocrisy when it comes to the Palestinian issue. Arab leaders frequently and rightly cite the chronic human rights violations in which Israel engages, but fail to address the marginalisation of Palestinians within their own societies. Historically, Lebanese citizens have declared that naturalising Palestinians will act as a disincentive to their eventual repatriation and the exercise of their inviolable right of return. But this is a specious and cynical misrepresentation of the issue.
First, many diaspora Palestinians who have been naturalised in foreign countries, including myself, still seek to return to Palestine. Second, an individual ought to have the right to lead a complete and fulfilling life in his/her country of birth, irrespective of national or racial identity; it is not up to the Arab leaders to safeguard the Palestinian right of return against the prospect of a meaningful life lived outside Palestine.
More plausibly, Lebanon's miserable record regarding the human rights of Palestinian refugees (and others) is a result of the country's sectarian structure. Lebanon has never been a cohesive political entity and remains divided by sectarian allegiances. Most Lebanese citizens are members of one of three communities: the Sunni community, the Shia community and the Christian community (each of which is further subdivided into competing forces). The country is less divided today than it was in 1991, in the aftermath of the 15-year-long civil war, but it remains fractured.
In this context, it matters that the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are mostly Sunni Muslims. There is a fear that if Palestinians are integrated, they will upset the delicate confessional balance that prevails here. It is therefore difficult to see how Lebanon will undertake to improve the lives of the refugees before the Lebanese solve their own sectarian problems.
There has been some official movement on the issue, however. The current prime minister, Saad Hariri, recently remarked that "we included the ministerial statement with an article related to the Palestinians that guarantees their human and public rights".
Major parliamentary leaders, like Walid Jumblatt and Nabih Berri, favour extending civil rights to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, but their efforts are being stalled by others like National Liberal party leader, Dori Chamoun. At the end of parliamentary proceedings on the issue last week, Chamoun said: "We hold on to Lebanon first and foremost and not onto the Palestinian cause at the expense of the Lebanese cause, and the Christians speak one language in this regard."
But the issue is far from deadlocked. Elias Muhanna, a prominent blogger, writes that "several analysts are very optimistic that the law will be passed when it comes up again, thereby rolling back several decades' worth of institutionalised discrimination against Palestinians in Lebanon."
Barriers, Borders, and Blockades: Policing Movement and Controlling Information
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- Written by Leah Hunt-Hendrix for MIFTAH Leah Hunt-Hendrix for MIFTAH
- Published: 23 June 2010 23 June 2010
- Hits: 3082 3082
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To keep some out. To fence others in. To police movement, instill fear, uncertainty, and instability. Palestine is a land cross-hashed with separation barriers, walls, fences and checkpoints. For many people, these structures make one either an exile or a prisoner, barred from returning or unable to leave. But in addition to the policing of movement, these mechanisms correspond to a policing of information, a control of what truths are able to travel beyond the borders of these territories, to reach the world outside. Crossing borders always leads to new experiences. But one of the first things I noticed upon arriving in the West Bank is the very particular and peculiar transition that takes place when the border one is traversing is Israeli. Before I passed through Allenby Bridge, which provides entrance from Jordan into Israel, I thought I had an idea of the situation here. But until you come face to face with a machine gun-carrying-19-year old, the frightening nature and intense stranglehold of the occupation is hard to imagine. Without the experience, it is hard to understand how, despite complete innocence, one can be made to feel like a criminal, what it feels like to be interrogated, held for hours, and finally cast outside in the darkness of the night. And the experience of a foreigner is nothing compared to the harassment of those with Palestinian documents. Once you are finally able to cross that border, however, something odd begins to happen. The reality of the situation becomes so obvious, that it is suddenly difficult to remember that there was ever a time when one didn’t grasp the severity of the occupation. It becomes hard to believe that others might not be fully aware of what goes on within Israel’s borders, under its control of Gaza the West Bank and east Jerusalem. But this creates a dilemma, a kind of information gap. For those on the outside, it is almost impossible to wrap one’s head around the fact that this level of oppression can still exist in the modern world. Meanwhile, those on the inside are perplexed at how others don’t seem to understand. In a world as technologically advanced and information-saturated as ours seems to be, the lack of accurate representations of the conflict in Israel and Palestine in mainstream western media is astounding. As much as the borders and walls around Palestinians lands hinder people’s movement, they also seem to hinder the spread of reliable information. The blockade of goods into Gaza mirrors a kind of blockade on the speech and perspective of Palestinians, a silencing of their voices. Unless one knows where to look and actively seeks out the right websites and news sources, one is otherwise barraged with faulty information and mischaracterizations, which shape public opinion internationally, and become yet further mechanisms of domination. A recent poll, commissioned by the Israel Project, shows that 56% of Americans think the American government should support Israel, and only 7% think it should support Palestine. This is related to the fact that most Americans think Palestinians are the ones stalling the peace process. At a ration of 2 to 1, Americans think that Palestinian “incitement” is a worse obstacle to peace than settlement-building in Jerusalem. The claim that Palestinians are engaging in incitement through their media and school curricula, however, is itself, in large part, an Israeli media creation – yet another warping of the perspective that makes it into the public arena. Palestinian Media Watch is an organization that aims to expose the use of extremist language in Palestinian media, which glorifies terrorism and creates a culture of hostility towards Israel. The organization claims to work in the interest of peace, and its materials are cited by a wide variety of institutions. It is a central informational link on the website of the Israeli foreign ministry and its founder, Itamar Marcus, has testified before the American congress and participated in a conference with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. While PMW is received as an objective and unbiased resource, however, what goes unnoticed is that it is actually connected to right-wing Israeli funders, and Marcus himself lives in a West Bank settlement. This is highly ironic. For while PMW spreads the message globally that Palestinians are engaging in vicious incitement, the almost unanimous opinion within the borders of the West Bank is that the main obstacle to the peace process is precisely the issue of settlements, like the one in which Marcus resides. Despite the fact that the Middle East Peace Quartet and the international community have declared the building of settlements illegal, Israel persists in the establishment of these communities. Continued construction of settlements not only undermines trust. It is also, day by day, destroying the possibility of a two-state solution. This is another fact that seems to be inadequately captured in international media. Many abroad see the situation here as the same as ever, just another year in a never-ending struggle. But for a large number of people on the ground, there is a sense of real urgency. With each new settlement, more Palestinian land is illegally claimed, land which may never be returned. As the walls and fences enclose Palestinian villages and cut them off from their land, they sever the world from the critical voices and perspectives that must be heard. For a moment, it seemed like the Turkish Freedom Flotilla fiasco might penetrate the blockade on public opinion. But as Al Jazeera reported, information was once again confiscated and altered, with only two minutes of film released out of hours of footage, and the world largely buying into the incredible Israeli story of fanatic humanitarians. Like the contrived arguments of PMW, the physical and informational controls that Israel exerts are working against the possibility of peace, and creating barriers between Palestine and the rest of the world that must be rejected. In the past, the international community rose up and challenged regimes of apartheid. It is unconscionable that in the present, through its inaction and unwillingness to demand accountability from Israel, the international community (in the shadow of the United States) is implicitly supporting the system of separation and segregation here, and is complicit with an ongoing system of apartheid. At some point, the walls will fall, and the barriers will be broken through. The question is whether or not the US and international community can shake off their blindness and be a part of a peaceful solution before it is too late. Leah Hunt-Hendrix is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
http://www.miftah.org |
A Flash of Lightning
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- Written by Uri Avnery Uri Avnery
- Published: 19 June 2010 19 June 2010
- Hits: 2445 2445
And suddenly – a flash of lightning. For a fraction of a second, the landscape is lit up. For this split second, the terrain surrounding us can be seen. It is not the way it used to be.
OUR GOVERNMENT’ action against the Gaza aid flotilla was such a lightning flash.
Israelis normally live in darkness as far as seeing the world is concerned. But for that instant, the real landscape around us could be seen, and it looked frightening. Then the darkness settled down over us, Israel returned to its bubble, the world disappeared from view.
This split second was enough to reveal a dismal scene. On almost all fronts, the situation of the State of Israel has worsened since the last flash of lightning.
The flotilla and the attack on it did not create this landscape. It has been there since our present government was set up. But the deterioration did not start even then. It began a long time before.
The action of Ehud Barak & Co. only lit up the situation as it is now, and gave it yet another push in the wrong direction.
How does the new landscape look in the light of Barak’s barak? (“barak” means lightning in Hebrew.)
THE LIST is headed by a fact that nobody seems to have noticed until now: the death of the Holocaust.
In all the tumult this affair has caused throughout the world, the Holocaust was not even mentioned. True, in Israel there were some who called Recep Tayyip Erdogan “a new Hitler”, and some Israel-haters talked about the “Nazi attack”, but the Holocaust has practically disappeared.
For two generations, our foreign policy used the Holocaust as its main instrument. The bad conscience of the world determined its attitude towards Israel. The (justified) guilt feelings – either for atrocities committed or for looking the other way – caused Europe and America to treat Israel differently than any other nation – from nuclear armaments to the settlements. All criticism of our governments’ actions was branded automatically as anti-Semitism and silenced.
But time does its work. New tragedies have blunted the world’s senses. For a new generation, the Holocaust is a thing of the remote past, a chapter of history. The sense of guilt has disappeared in all countries, except Germany.
The Israeli public did not notice this, because in Israel itself the Shoah is alive and present. Many Israelis are children or grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, and the Holocaust has been imprinted on their childhood. Moreover, a huge apparatus ensures that the Holocaust will not disappear from our memory, starting from kindergarten, through ceremonies and memorial days, to organized tours “there”.
Therefore, the Israeli public is shocked to see that the Holocaust has lost its power as a political instrument. Our most valuable weapon has become blunt.
THE CENTRAL pillar of our policy is our alliance with the United States. To use a phrase dear to Binyamin Netanyahu (in another context): it’s “the rock of our existence”.
For many years, this alliance has kept us safe from all trouble. We knew that we could always get from the US all we needed: advanced arms to retain our superiority over all Arab armies combined, munitions in times of war, money for our economy, the veto on all UN Security Council resolutions against us, automatic support for all the actions of our successive governments. Every small and medium country in the world knew that in order to gain entrance to the palaces of Washington, the Israeli doorkeeper had to be bribed.
But during the last year, cracks have appeared in this pillar. Not the small scratches and chips of wear and tear, but cracks caused by shifts of the ground. The mutual aversion between Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu is only one symptom of a much deeper problem,
The Chief of the Mossad told the Knesset last week: “For the US, we have ceased to be an asset and become a burden.”
This fact was put into incisive words by General David Petraeus, when he said that the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict is endangering the lives of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The later soothing messages did not erase the significance of this warning. (When Petraeus fainted this week at a Senate hearing, some religious Jews viewed it as divine punishment.)
IT IS not only the Israeli-American relationship that has undergone a fateful change, but the standing of the US itself is changing for the worse, a bad omen indeed for the future of Israeli policy.
The world is changing, slowly and quietly. The US is still by far the most powerful country, but it is no longer the almighty superpower it had been since 1989. China is flexing its muscles, countries like India and Brazil are getting stronger, countries like Turkey – yes, Turkey! – are beginning to play a role.
This is not a matter of one or two years, but anyone who is thinking about the future of Israel in ten, twenty years must understand that unless there is a basic change in our position, our position, too, will decline.
IF OUR alliance with the US is one central pillar of Israeli policy, the support of the vast majority of world Jewry is the second.
For 62 years, we could count on it with our eyes shut. Whatever we did – almost all the world’s Jews stood at attention and saluted. In fire and water, victory or defeat, glorious or dark chapters – the world’s Jews did support us, giving money, demonstrating, pressuring their governments. Without second thoughts, without criticism.
Not anymore. Quietly, almost silently, cracks have appeared in this pillar, too. Opinion polls show that most American Jewish young people are turning away from Israel. Not shifting their loyalty from the Israeli establishment to Israel’s liberal camp – but turning away from Israel altogether.
This will not be felt immediately either. AIPAC continues to strike fear into Washingtonian hearts, Congress will continue to dance to its tune. But when the new generation comes to man key positions, the support for Israel will erode, American politicians will stop crawling on their bellies and the US administration will gradually change its relations with us.
IN OUR immediate neighborhood, too, profound changes are underway, some of them beneath the surface. The flotilla incident has exposed them.
The influence of our allies is decreasing constantly. They are losing height, and an old-new power is on the rise: Turkey.
Hosni Mubarak is busy with his efforts to pass power to his son, Gamal. The Islamic opposition in Egypt is raising its head. Saudi money is trumped by the new attraction of Turkey. The Jordanian king is compelled to adapt himself. The axis of Turkey-Iran-Syria-Hisbollah-Hamas is the rising power, the axis of Egypt-Saudi Arabia-Jordan-Fatah is in decline.
BUT THE most important change is the one that is taking place in international public opinion. Any derision of this reminds one of Stalin’s famous sneer (“How many divisions has the pope?”)
Recently, an Israeli TV station showed a fascinating film about the German and Scandinavian female volunteers who flooded Israel in the 50s and 60s to live and work (and sometimes marry) in the kibbutzim. Israel was then seen as a plucky little nation surrounded by hateful enemies, a state risen from the ashes of the Holocaust to become a haven of freedom, equality and democracy, which found their most sublime expression in that unique creation, the kibbutz.
The present generation of idealistic youngsters from all over the world, male and female, who would once have volunteered for the kibbutzim, can now be found on the decks of the ships sailing for downtrodden, choked and starved Gaza, which touches the hearts of many young people. The pioneering Israeli David has turned into a brutish Israeli Goliath.
Even a genius of spin could not change this. For years, now, the world sees the State of Israel every day on the TV screen and on the front pages in the image of heavily armed soldiers shooting at stone-throwing children, guns firing phosphorus shells into residential quarters, helicopters executing “targeted eliminations”, and now pirates attacking civilian ships on the open seas. Terrified women with wounded babies in their arms, men with amputated limbs, demolished homes. When one sees a hundred pictures like that for every picture that shows another Israel, Israel becomes a monster. The more so since the Israeli propaganda machine is successfully suppressing any news about the Israeli peace camp.
MANY YEARS ago, when I wanted to ridicule the addiction of our leaders to the use of force, I paraphrased a saying that reflects much of Jewish wisdom: “if force does not work, use brains.” In order to show how far we, the Israelis, are different from the Jews, I changed the words: “If force doesn’t work, use more force.”
I thought of it as a joke. But, as happens to many jokes in our country, it has become reality. It is now the credo of many primitive Israelis, headed by Ehud Barak.
In practice, the security of a state depends on many factors, and military force is but one of them. In the long run, world public opinion is stronger. The pope has many divisions.
In many respects, Israel is still a strong country. But, as the sudden illumination of the flotilla affair has shown, time is not working in our favor. We should deepen our roots in the world and in the region – which means making peace with our neighbors – as long as we are as strong as we are now.
If force doesn’t work, more force will not necessarily work either.
If force doesn’t work, force doesn’t work. Period.
Join the Labor/Community Picket of an Israeli Ship, Port of Oakland Sunday June 20th 5:30am
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- Written by Labor / Community Committee in Solidarity with the Palestinian People Labor / Community Committee in Solidarity with the Palestinian People
- Published: 18 June 2010 18 June 2010
- Hits: 3942 3942
Don’t sleep in, make history!
Join the Labor/Community Picket of an Israeli Ship
Sunday, June 20 5:30 A.M.,
Berth 58, Port of Oakland
Protest Israel’s Attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla!
Boycott Israeli Ships and Goods!
Lift the Blockade NOW – Let Gaza Live!
Bring Down Israel's Apartheid Wall!
Unions, labor federations and other organizations around the world have condemned Israel’s
deadly attack against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on May 31, 2010. Nine
people were killed and dozens seriously injured in the Israeli commando
attack in international waters on ships attempting to bring
humanitarian cargo to the suffering and blockaded people of Gaza. Six
people aboard the ships are still missing and presumed dead.