Saturday, September 21FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE
Dorothy Online Newsletter
NOVANEWS
Israeli society now wraps itself in a self-righteous cloak of self-praise: How concerned we are about the fate of a single soldier. And what about the fates of many soldiers, of an entire army, an entire people? [Gideon Shalit, item 4 “Shalit is returning to a state in psychosis]
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Dear Friends,
The paragraph above concludes Gideon Levy’s article that Shalit is returning to a country in psychosis, and is decidedly the most important statement in the piece. Indeed, so much to-do over Shalit, but how about us—the average Israeli? About all of us? That matters not to our leaders as they continue drumming the war drums, expanding, colonizing, etc. while making way for the return of Gilad Shalit (item 4).
Two lighter items (from the standpoint of length) lead off of the 5 items below. Both are about the situation in Israel.
The first, a Haaretz editorial, shows that the fascist forces in Israel continue to be busy—now with a law that will eliminate free speech in the press, thereby eliminating a press that is free. Gone will be our Akiva Eldar, Amira Hass, Gideon Levy and others if this law passes. Or, at least, our favorite commentators will have to severely tone down their criticism should they be allowed to continue writing
The second is about tampering with the results of the deliberations of the committee set up to help the government find a way to greater social justice—the recommendations of the Trajtenberg Committee–so as to deny Arabs (and I believe also others) of equal rights. Nothing new. Israel has been doing that from the beginning.
Item 3 reports on an upcoming conference to be held in Cape Town, SA in November—where the Russell Tribunal will engage the question “Do Israeli Policies Constitute Apartheid?” Given the facts on the ground, the persons on the judges panel, and the speakers, I am quite certain that the judgment will be a resounding “yes.” We can only hope that this will have some impact on how governments will thereafter treat Israel.
Item 4 is Gideon Levy’s piece.
The items close with ‘Today in Palestine.’ If you are too pressed for time not to glance through the whole, please at the least read the first 2 pieces on prisoners. Actually, the first of these is a video of about 8 minutes.
All the best,
Dorothy
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1. Haaretz Editorial,
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Free press in Israel is in danger
For some years now, democracy in Israel has been under attack from the right-wing parties. This turbid wave must be stopped – the Knesset plenum must reject the libel bills of Levin and Sheetrit and preserve the status quo.
Right-wing Knesset members who are working to destroy the democratic component of Israel’s definition as a “Jewish and democratic state” have set themselves a new target: Silencing the free press through the threat of libel suits that would jeopardize the economic foundations of the media outlets.
The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, whose chairman is MK David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu), last week approved for a first Knesset reading a private member’s bill introduced by MK Yariv Levin (Likud) that calls for increasing the compensation for libel from NIS 50,000 to NIS 300,000, with no need to prove actual damage. That sum could rise to NIS 1.5 million if the complainant’s response is not published in full. As in previous votes on antidemocratic legislation, this time, too, the right found common cause with MKs from Kadima. Leading the charge was MK Meir Sheetrit, who submitted a similar bill that increases compensation for libel to NIS 500,000.
Arguing on behalf of his draft law, Levin claimed that “freedom of expression is not freedom of transgression,” while Sheetrit called for protecting citizens from “the great power of the media.” Neither cited statistics to support their claims that existing laws are insufficient. In the guise of concern for civil rights, their bills constitute an attempt to silence the press and keep it from exposing and criticizing government officials, their cronies and prominent businesspeople. Given the financial straits of the Israeli media, the risk of having to pay out a fortune in compensation will functio.wn as a form of economic censorship of them, and help the government and “heads of the economy” to prevent criticism of their actions.
For some years now, democracy in Israel has been under attack from the right-wing parties, which control the current Knesset and enjoy the protective support of Kadima MKs in their efforts to establish “Jewish supremacy” using the tools of law. After the “Boycott Law,” aimed at silencing criticism of the settlements, now it’s the turn of the free press to be a candidate for punishment and elimination. This turbid wave must be stopped. The Knesset plenum must reject the libel bills of Levin and Sheetrit and preserve the status quo.
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2. Haaretz,
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Israel’s social ‘change’ mustn’t come at expense of its Arab citizens
In Arab society, the employment rates are much lower than those in Jewish society. Gaps in the investment in education and the lack of employment areas, public transportation and childcare day centers, are just a few of the factors that make it difficult for Arab citizens to fit into the work market.
Tags: Israeli Arab Benjamin Netanyahu Israel protest Israel housing protest
It was hard to imagine the Trajtenberg Committee recommendations being any less generous to the Arab community, but now it seems that even the little the committee recommended is likely to disappear. All of the Trajtenberg recommendations were indeed approved by the cabinet, but not before changes were introduced at the behest of Yisrael Beiteinu. Budgets that were supposed to deal with the very problems over which the social protest broke out, and to create a society that is more just, turned into political bribes for the natural partners of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In this way, for example, the government changed the criterion for granting help with housing – from the number of children, as the committee recommended, to the earnings of the two spouses. In Arab society, the employment rates are much lower than those in Jewish society. Gaps in the investment in education and the lack of employment areas, public transportation and childcare day centers, are just a few of the factors that make it difficult for Arab citizens to fit into the work market. It is therefore a double injustice to add to these employment difficulties a salary criterion in order to get housing assistance.
An additional change made by the government – likewise responding to a demand from Yisrael Beiteinu – is granting benefits to people who served in the army. Since the establishment of the 18th Knesset, Yisrael Beiteinu has raised numerous proposals that harm the rights of Arab citizens, including the most basic right to equality in the distribution of resources – through the criterion of army service, which sometimes has no bearing whatsoever on the proposed benefit.
An example of this is the party’s initiation of a draft law, according to which army veterans will have priority in getting work in the public sector. In other words, this is discrimination against, and exclusion of, groups which anyway suffer from under-representation in the public service – such as Arabs, ultra-Orthodox Jews and persons with disabilities. Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said the draft law turns the public service into “a tool for political goring,” while the attorney general, Yehuda Weinstein, wrote to Netanyahu that the proposed law “creates discrimination that is difficult to justify when tested constitutionally … and is accompanied by a feeling of insult and humiliation which can also be considered as harmful to human rights.”
That being the case, it is not possible to justify every benefit by military service. The Trajtenberg Committee thought it right to recommend certain benefits for army veterans but not other benefits. When it was decided that the budget framework should not be breached, making Yisrael Beiteinu’s support for the committee’s recommendations conditional on excessive benefits to army veterans, it meant that other assistance – to Jews and Arabs – would be negatively affected.
Now the Trajtenberg Committee’s recommendations are going to the Knesset and there is a fear that the erosion in the cabinet was merely the opening move. Moshe Gafni, chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee, has already announced that he plans to hold a separate debate on every recommendation, and there is a worrisome possibility that those recommendations relating to populations that are politically excluded will be erased, while the Trajtenberg budgets will be diverted to the benefit of narrow political interests.
Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg must object vociferously to attempts to distort the recommendations his committee submitted. The leaders of the social protest movement – Daphni Leef and Stav Shaffir on the one hand, student leader Itzik Shmuli on the other – without making concessions about their central claim against the recommendations in general, must fight against the appropriation of the Trajtenberg budgets by Knesset members and ministers.
The writers are co-executive directors of the Abraham Fund Initiatives for enhancing coexistence and equality between Jews and Arabs in Israel
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3. Al Jazeera,
15 Oct 2011 17:31
Do Israeli policies constitute apartheid?
A citizens’ tribunal will examine whether or not Israel is violating international law’s prohibition on apartheid.
In 1966, British philosopher Bertrand Russell founded a tribunal examining US intervention in Vietnam [GALLO/GETTY]
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP) is a citizens’ initiative that is sustained by contributions from individuals, associations, organisations and solidarity movements. Its independence relies on the great variety of volunteers and on the material and financial help it receives from multiple sources.
Thanks to a network of National Support Committees (Spain, United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, France, Italy and Portugal), two successful evidence sessions have taken place in Barcelona (March 2010) and London (November 2010), creating a significant impact on the audiences and receiving considerable media attention. At the time of writing, preparations are in hand for two further sessions, first in Cape Town (November 2011), where the focus will be on the crime of apartheid, and a final session in 2012 in the US, which will focus on possible UN and US complicity in Israel’s violations of international law.
From the experience of past Russell Tribunals – on US military intervention in Vietnam (1966-1967) and internal repression (with outside interference) in Latin America (1973-1975), and judging from the conclusions of the first two sessions of the RToP, it is clear that findings of the tribunal provide a legally grounded body of arguments, constituting an important tool to be used by those who seek to ensure respect for the rule of international law, and the rights of the Palestinian people.
The RToP is an international people’s tribunal, created in 2009 as a response to the failure of the international community to act appropriately to bring to an end Israel’s recognised violations of international law. In particular, the organisers of the RToP were very concerned by the inadequate international response to the Advisory Opinion of July 9, 2004, of the highest judicial body in the world, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), on the legal consequences of the establishment of a wall in the occupied Palestinian territories – which called for the wall to be dismantled and which reiterated the need to respect past resolutions of the United Nations.
International law is very clear when it comes to Israel/Palestine, and should be at the core of any negotiations. Many UN resolutions (181, 194, 242, 338, 1322, 1397 and 1435) call for a State of Palestine to be established, while the right to self-determination was at the heart of the Advisory Opinion. The Advisory Opinion also placed a strong emphasis on the duties of third-party states to ensure that the Palestinians are able to exercise their right of self-determination.
Indeed, the International Court of Justice went on to articulate the duty that states have to bring to an end the practical and legal consequences of the wall (and by clear implication any other established systematic violations of Palestinian human rights).
Despite the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion, the Court’s above injunction has yet to be acted upon: The wall is planned to be 810 kilometres long, but whereas around 300 kilometres had been constructed in 2004, by the summer of 2010 it was already at least 520km long (ie: almost two-thirds complete).
Background to the RToP
The RToP stems from a long history of popular tribunals dating back to 1966 with the establishment, by Lord Bertrand Russell and French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, of the Russell Tribunal on Vietnam. The inaugural people’s tribunal investigated US foreign policy and its military intervention in Vietnam. The extent of US aggression was little known at the time by the general public and the tribunal, through its detailed analysis and thorough testimonies, helped engender a well-informed and enormous peace movement that, from the late 1960s, made the continued US intervention in Vietnam more and more difficult. The Russell Tribunal on Vietnam had a very positive effect on US university campuses and highlighted the hypocrisy and lies of the US government at the time. Sessions were held in Sweden and Denmark.
This was followed in the mid-1970s by the Russell Tribunal on Latin America. After examining the US war against Vietnam, a war of aggression, the second people’s tribunal this time focused on the internal wars waged by military juntas all over Latin America. One crucial historical event led to the creation of the second Russell Tribunal, namely the coup that removed Chile’s socialist President, Salvador Allende, on September 11, 1973. On this day, fighter jets bombed Chile’s capital city, Santiago, and destroyed La Moneda Palace. This coup was led by General Pinochet but was financed, planned and executed with CIA support.
Pinochet established the first military junta in Latin America. A few years later, most Latin American countries were governed by repressive military regimes. Dissent was not authorised, torture became widespread, the number of political prisoners grew by thousands, and thousands more simply vanished. They became known as “the desaparecidos” – the disappeared.
The tribunal was chaired by Hortensia Bussi de Allende, Salvador Allende’s wife, and took place in Brussels and Rome. It led to the creation of the Permanent People’s Tribunal in Rome in 1979.
Al Jazeera’s Inside Story looks at whether war crimes may have been committed during ‘operation Cast lead’
On March 4, 2009, more than 35 years after the Tribunal on Latin America and a few weeks after the end of “Operation Cast Lead” (Israel’s assault on Gaza, which left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, including hundreds of women and children), a press conference in Brussels, chaired by the Tribunal’s general coordinator Pierre Galand, launched the RToP. Ken Loach, Paul Laverty, Stephane Hessel, Jean Ziegler, Raji Sourani, Leila Shahid, Nurit Peled-Elhanan and the late Ken Coates explained to an audience composed mainly of local and international press, as well as various European political figures, why the Russell Tribunal on Palestine was needed and why such a tribunal could, by its nature, have a very powerful and lasting impact on public opinion.
The RToP proceedings, which comprise a number of sessions, deal with different aspects of the complicity and responsibilities of states, international organisations and corporations in the ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories by Israel and the perpetuation of the violations of international law committed by Israel. They also aim to highlight the continuity and comprehensiveness of Israeli policies that appear to have the ultimate aim of preventing the exercise of Palestinian self-determination.
The tribunal is also interested in empowering civil society and reinforcing the work of already existing campaigns by providing additional legal arguments and ideas that will assist in future litigation and legal lobbying. Most people outside the region do not realise the profound domestic legal consequences of the Israel-Palestine conflict. By actively providing Israel with financial, political, military and even moral support, governments, international organisations and corporations make the resolution of this conflict impossible. They are deeply involved in the fact that, more than six decades since it was raised, the Palestine question is still waiting for an answer.
The sessions
Following the first two sessions that took place in March 2010 in Barcelona (focusing on EU complicity) and in November 2010 in London (focusing on corporate complicity), the third international session will take place in Cape Town, South Africa and will focus on the topic: “Are Israeli practices against the Palestinian people in breach of the prohibition against apartheid under International Law?”.
While the title seems complicated for most people, the session will in look into very simple things: facts.
A stellar cast (including Alice Walker, Mairead Maguire, Michael Mansfield, Ronnie Kasrils, Stephane Hessel, Yasmin Sooka, Aminata Traore, Jose Antonio Martin Pallin and Gisele Halimi) will overlook the proceedings, acting as the jury, and after hearing more than 20 witnesses and legal experts over two days, will issue an opinion or recommendation.
This session will go back to the roots of the conflict and, taking place in one of the most symbolic venues of South Africa, the District 6 museum, will bring a human perspective to the work of the tribunal.
The session will be opened by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a key figure of the resistance against apartheid South Africa, who has since then been active in defence of human rights and the oppressed all over the world.
Then the audience will hear from people that lived during apartheid South Africa, such as Winnie Mandela, John Dugard, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Ran Greenstein, Max Du Plessis and Zwelinzima Vavi (the Secretary General of the Congress of South African Trade Unions). Those people will give an overview of what was life under a white nationalist regime that thought of other people as lesser people.
The focus will of course mainly be on Israel/Palestine. Some key people, both Israelis and Palestinians, will give the jury a reality check of what the situation on the ground is. Lawyers and international law specialists such as Lea Tsemel, Emily Schaeffer, Mahmoud Hassan and Raji Sourani will explain where the law stands when it comes to Israel/Palestine.
They will be followed by people that will talk about the facts, something often forgotten in this conflict. Jeff Halper will talk about house demolitions and the matrix of control that the Israeli government has put in place, over the years, to suffocate the Palestinians. Activists such as Jamal Juma’a, Rafeef Ziadah, Mohammed Khatib, Jazi Abu Kaf, Shawqi Issa and Ingrid Jaradat Gassner will talk about resistance and what the people on the ground are doing to fight Israeli policies. Parliamentarian Haneen Zoabi will talk about the pressure she faced for exercising her freedom of speech and about the Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Finally, international legal specialists, such as Rafaelle Maison, Francois Dubuisson, David Keane, Luciana Coconi and Joseph Schechla will put the session in the context of international humanitarian law and various international conventions (including the fourth Geneva Conventions).
The whole exercise will therefore give the jury, the audience, and the media an exhaustive overview of the past, the present and what is possible in terms of legal actions and civil society resistance in the future.
Because the future is ours.
Frank Barat is a human rights activist and coordinator of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine.
He has edited two books: Gaza in Crisis (Haymarket/Penguin) with Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe, and Corporate Complicity in Israel’s Occupation (Pluto Press) with Asa Winstanley.
To follow the Russell Tribunal South African session, including a live stream, follow the Tribunal on Facebook: facebook.com/russelltribunal
This weekend even Gilad Shalit’s aftershave was a topic for discussion. A top-drawer commentator reported to the galvanized nation, in infinite earnestness, that the psychology experts of the Israel Defense Forces recommended that his family pack a bag containing his favorite aftershave, to ease his return. An electronic sign at the entrance of a Tel Aviv bar flashed a message that was no less grotesque: “Special prices for shots of Absolut and Finlandia … Welcome home, Gilad Shalit.”
Shalit will return on Tuesday to his home, as has been hoped. He will return not to a country but rather to a telenovela in which emotions are forever and always the only language. It must be hoped that he will return in good mental health, but he certainly won’t be returning to a healthy society. He will return to a society in psychosis. The national psychosis surrounding his fate began the day he was captured, and is now reaching its peak. The IDF readied a few sets of uniforms for him, it was reported, in the event that the national boy lost a great deal of weight – the main thing is to show him off in uniform, as befits a war hero.
Yedioth Ahronoth has already launched a sales campaign disguised under the banner of “Do you want to write to Gilad?” and the hundreds of thousands of yellow ribbons that fluttered from every tree and the side mirrors of every car will flutter for the last time in the autumn breeze. Israel will once again pat itself on the back in sticky solidarity, in brotherhood and in mutual responsibility – there’s no one like us.
Over the weekend a retired brigadier general already wrote, “That’s exactly the difference between us and them.” (What exactly is the difference? That wasn’t clear. ) And a general in the reserves declared: “Hamas has a heart of stone” (as if someone who detains tens of thousands of Palestinian prisoners, some of them political, some of them without trial, some of them held for years with no family visits, has a heart of gold ).
In the last five years not a single Israeli has remained apathetic about Shalit’s fate. That is how it should be, and it is cause for pride. That humanization of a single soldier, with a (pale ) face, with (noble ) parents and a (worried ) grandfather, and even his having been turned into a “boy,” is a sign of a humanitarian society. One can even somehow accept the frenetic nature of Israeli society, which goes from one extreme situation to another in a flash. The two soldiers who were killed during Shalit’s abduction are unknown soldiers, Shalit became an iconic hero; Yitzhak Rabin turned overnight from a despised prime minister into a saint. MIA soldiers have been forgotten, other captive soldiers never became national symbols, and only Shalit became what he became.
Five years with only a rare news broadcast that did not mention his existence. Apparently there was something about Shalit and about his parents that captured the nation’s heart. And this too is only for the good.
The problem starts with the ridiculous crowns we claimed for ourselves and with the hypocrisy, emptiness and blindness characterizing them. The campaign to free Shalit, which was not free of repellent aspects, such as the efforts to prevent visits to Palestinian prisoners, turned into a campaign of the state, a pressure release valve for the demonstration of caring and civil involvement – hollow and shallow, just like the “candle youth” who sobbed over Rabin’s murder and voted for Netanyahu in the next election.
Who isn’t against terror and for Shalit’s release? But that same sobbing society did not for a moment ask itself, with honesty and with courage, why Shalit was captured. It did not for a moment say to itself, with courage and with honesty, that if it continued along the same path there will be many more Gilad Shalits, dead or captured. In successive elections it voted, again and again, for centrist and right-wing governments, the kind that guarantee that Shalit will not be the last. It tied yellow ribbons and supported all of the black flags. And no one ever told it, with courage and with honesty: Shalit is the unavoidable price of a state that chooses to live by the sword forever.
No one ever asked it: Why is it permissible to negotiate with Hamas over the fate of a single soldier yet prohibited to do so over the fate of two bleeding peoples?
Instead, Israeli society now wraps itself in a self-righteous cloak of self-praise: How concerned we are about the fate of a single soldier. And what about the fates of many soldiers, of an entire army, an entire people?
