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Serious Problems with a “One-State” Solution |
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Written by G. Schramm
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Tuesday, 03 August 2010 |
A few loud and passionate voices now call for a “one state solution” to the conflict in Palestine/Israel. Those holding this position are a distinct minority. I don’t doubt their sincere desire for peace and justice, yet I believe their logic is deeply flawed and that their stance seriously threatens to derail the work of other pro-peace activists. With full respect for their concern about this issue, I see major and (and to my mind) insurmountable problems with a one-state solution.
First, at no time in my 8 years in the Middle East did any Palestinian (or any other Arab, or any Muslim) ever mention, let alone promote a one-state solution. To my knowledge, neither does any major Palestinian political party. I believe we should support Palestinians in their legitimate quest for justice, not try to dictate a particular strategy or solution to them. To try to dictate the kind of settlement they should accept smacks of the worst kind of imperial arrogance. Haven’t the Palestinians suffered enough from solutions imposed on them by foreign sources? I don’t question the absolute right of Palestinians to promote any kind of peace agreement they like. But it is quite different for non-Palestinians (who never really have to suffer directly if their approach proves to be wrong) to ignore the mainstream Palestinianposition and to promote a solution that a majority of Palestinians don’t currently support, but would have to live with.
Second, if Palestinians are denied a viable second state we will all have to deal with the serious problems surrounding a one-state solution anyway. Why urge Palestinians to rush to their only fallback position just when the tide seems to be finally turning in favor of their getting a real two-state solution? At this point, for Americans to urge a one-state solution on Palestinians is hardly the kind of support they need.
The third point is strategic, but it touches on a very real problem: US pressure on Israel is widely accepted to be a crucial element of any peace agreement. American policy helped create the problem and has made it worse over the years. Only a real change in US policy (away from Israel and towards justice for Palestinians) has a credible chance of correcting those tragic mistakes. Yet, in the US, the Israeli propaganda machine has always had an overwhelming advantage over those who have tried to provide an accurate account of the conflict. A serious push for a one-state solution(even as Israel inevitably says, “No thanks. Too late!”), will simply hand a total victory to Israeli propagandists in the US. Their spin machine will inevitably make the following egregious points:
See! We were right all along! All the violence in resisting Israel up to this point was gratuitous and unnecessary! The Palestinian desire to live under an Israeli tent is PROOF that Arabs prefer Israeli governance to that of their own leaders. It proves the incompetence and retrograde nature of Arab leadership. Indeed, the only reasonable conclusion is that all the violence up to now simply proves that Arabs are violent, unstable, and unpredictable by nature. Their desire to become part of one state NOW is a stamp of approval on the whole Zionist project and clearly demonstrates the legitimacy of the Israeli state. (And by the way, sorry, but we don’t want to rule such people).
In the context of this kind of fallacious, ugly, stereotypical (and yet almost inevitable) line of argument, all the real sacrifices made by the Palestinian people so far will be demeaned, misrepresented, trivialized and even reviled as the folly of regressive minds. No one should doubt the ability of the Zionist PR machine to put this kind of false and self-serving message across. They have made Americans buy into much more absurd arguments before. The result will be a strengthening of the false belief among Americans that you should never trust an Arab, and that you should always let the Zionists call the shots. Haven’t we all suffered enough from these grossly misguided notions? Palestinians have always been behind in the PR battle: adopting a one-state solution would be the final nail in the coffin.
On a practical level too, arguing for a one-state solution at this time—when all the major players except Israel’s current government* have finally come out in support of a two-state solution— will likely lead to total confusion among American activists. In particular, what do we tell people to do? Should we encourage people to write letters to the US Congress urging them to ask Israel to annex the occupied territories? Why mention international law between states if you believe it’s all one state? Why protest the building of settlements if it is all going to be one state? All the pertinent UN resolutions up to now, and all other international law between states, become meaningless in the context of a one-state solution. And why boycott Israeli companies when Palestinian workers will suffer the most. And so on, and on, and on...
Further, a one-state solution would make the treatment of Palestinians an internal Israeli state security matter. The brutal, totally unfair treatment of Palestinians which has been the norm for Israeli-Arabs (i.e. Palestinians within Israel), as well as Palestinians under occupation, will merely become a domestic issue in Israel. Given how little attention Americans have given to Israel’s gross violations of international law the details of Israeli domestic law will likely become a total non-issue in the US. In light of American attitudes toward security issues in a post 9/11 world, where is our already severely limited leverage as peace activists then? Israel’s construction of the separation wall will fade from being the outrageous act it really is, into being merely part of a huge Israeli investment in making itself a giant “gated community”—something that is taken for granted as “natural” in the US.
Fifth, If there is little support for a one state solution among Palestinians, there is even less among Israelis. Israel is far less likely to accept Palestinians into Israel as true equals than it is to accept a real two-state solution. Zionism is, and always has been, about the misguided dream of an exclusively JEWISH state. The British white paper of 1939 was a one-state solution—Zionists rejected it out of hand and responded with the terror campaign of the Stern Gang and Irgun. When Israel began its ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1947, Palestinians called for reconsideration of the one state option that had been promoted by the minority report of the UN partition commission. But Israel wasn’t interested. The reason is simple: the JEWISHNESS of the state of Israel is the whole point of its existence. That is why Zionists have always treated the issue of the return of Palestinian refugees not as the simple justice enshrined in international law that it truly is, but as a sneaky way to destroy Israel. A one-state solution (with true equality for Palestinians) will never be accepted by the Zionists who control Israel unless the whole mindset behind Zionism magically disappears. If that happened, of course, well, there wouldn’t be any problem at all anyway.
Finally, in a very real sense, we already can see what a one-state solution would look like if the Zionist mindset is left intact—it is simply the existing reality of occupation that we decry everyday: the continued theft
of Palestinian land by means of house confiscation and demolition, zoning ordinances, discriminatory laws, etc. etc. Will we have more ability to change this sickening reality if it becomes enshrined in a formal one-state solution? How long will it take to bring true equality to such a state? Is it right for American activists to promote this kind of change in Palestinian policy at this point? I don’t think so.
Advocates of a one-state solution often link their approach to the independence movement in India and to the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. These comparisons are misleading. In both cases the oppressed were huge majorities. Palestinians in Israel are not a majority and will not be big majority even if the occupied territories were annexed. In a one state solution (inevitably dominated by Israel) there is no reason to think Israel will refrain from deporting enough Palestinians to reduce them to a minority. To advocate a one-state solution at this point is almost like telling Black South Africans, on the cusp of their victory in the early 1990’s, to go back to 1950 and start suffering all over again. I, for one, can’t and won’t do that. Not unless I see a clear majority of Palestinian people vocally advocating that kind of radical shift in strategy.
Fundamentally, the one-state solution argument has the cart before the horse—it is predicated on the notion that we (or the Palestinian people) can somehow break the stranglehold of Zionism by simply ignoring its existence, or enforce the fair treatment of Palestinians in a Zionist controlled Jewish state, before creating better mutual understanding between Palestinians and Israelis and without deconstructing the basically expansionist and imperialist nature of Zionism itself. It is predicated on the existence of some mysterious outside force that will bring millions of Palestinians under Israeli rule and at the same time magically transform the quality of that rule. I can't see what that force might be. I’m sorry to say this, but so far it certainly hasn’t been us American activists.
To my mind promoting better understanding of the Palestinian situation, of the grotesque misrepresentations that shape current attitudes towards the conflict in the US, and of the simple historical and moral realities surrounding this situation, are all parallel ways of getting Americans (and eventually Israelis) to acknowledge the rights and wrongs of this conflict. Only when those issues are squarely confronted will all parties be able to see each other as equals and to address their other problems in the light of their shared humanity. And only when that starts to happen will true equality have a chance to become established in law and behavior. At present, strong pressure on American politicians and the wide implementation of a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions strategy are the most effective ways that Americans can move Israel to make the real changes in policy needed to achieve real peace.
To sum up then, promoting a one-state solution at this point in the struggle doesn't really reflect the views and aspirations of most Palestinians. It will likely lead to total confusion and paralysis in the crucial American peace camp. It doesn’t open the way to a workable strategy that Americans activists can immediately promote; and (realistically) a single state where Palestinians (Christian, Muslim, or Druze) and Jewish Israelis are truly equal isn’t something that Zionists would ever consider. For Zionists such a state would mean repudiating their entire program. We are much more likely to get a clean two-state solution on the basis of UN 242 and 194 than a sudden abandonment of the Zionist dream or an Israeli state that sincerely embraces their much abused Palestinian cousins.
For these reasons, few things can harm the Palestine cause more deeply than for American activists to publicly advocate a one-state solution at this time.
That said, I believe that Palestinians can promote any discussion among themselves that they like. I recently read Ali-Abunimah’s One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. It is filled with valuable historical detail and insight that peace activists engaged in the Palestine/Israel conflict should know. The author’s good intentions and flexibility are obvious and he provides interesting accounts of how ethnic difference has been successfully addressed in various other countries. Unfortunately, he does all these things instead of effectively and realistically addressing the basic issues I have raised.
Ali Abunimah honestly notes that a one state solution is “not advocated by any senior Palestinian leader.” Until it is, I suggest that the one state solution option be discussed by Palestinians in private—not blindly promoted by Americans who don’t fully grasp what it entails. Ali Abunimah also admits that “a successful strategy for democratic transformation in Israel/Palestine will in part require Palestinians to present a vision that meets the concerns of ordinary Israeli Jews...”(p 161) This is quite true, but a few pages later, he also observes that “any serious argument for an Israeli-Palestinian democracy in a single state must confront the reality that, at present, Israeli Jews overall are deeply hostile to the idea, viewing it as an invitation to commit suicide.” These two realities just can’t be reconciled in the present circumstances. Finally, he describes changing this attitude as a “long and difficult process may not happen for years.” (171). In other words, his plan sounds like a prescription for a very long delay—and every day the seizure of land and the oppression of Palestinians goes on.
Sadly, Ali Abunimah simply fails to realistically address how these crucial gaps can be bridged. Without this kind of detailed explanation, his plan is merely wishful thinking. In fact, One Country doesn’t fundamentally address a single one of the real concerns I have detailed here. I say that with regret, for I went to his book for answers. Still, just because he is Palestinian, doesn’t mean I have to totally suspend my critical faculties to be supportive.
Let’s be realistic. It took the PLO until 1988 to formally except a two state solution. They signaled willingness to negotiate along two-state lines as early as 1974. Fourteen years were lost as Israel continued to settle in occupied territory. More were lost during Oslo. Since then more and more people have become convinced that a two state solution is the only viable way to secure a just and comprehensive peace. The key now is to generate enough pressure to get a REAL Palestinian state—an autonomous and contiguous state on 1967 borders—without any more delays, territorial concessions, conditions or reneging on UN resolutions being inflicted on the Palestinians who have already conceded 78% of their land. Promoting a one state solution that no one involved is really ready for is a big league distraction. The kind of delay involved in trying to promote a one state solution is a gift to those who would like to have a perpetual “peace process” that never results in the concessions needed to bring real peace.
* As his policies prove this every day, Netanyahu’s stated “support” for a real two state solution is hardly sincere.
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The Other Side: Israel's Treatment of the Palestinians |
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Written by Stephen Kerpen
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Sunday, 01 August 2010 |
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(Note: Showing has been extended through August!)
A photo essay by Stephan Kerpen
July 2nd - August 31st
Oblique Coffee House 3039 SE Stark St.
Portland, Oregon 97214
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Israel intensifies West Bank Palestinian home demolitions |
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Written by Amnesty International
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Wednesday, 21 July 2010 |
Please see below for today's web-piece:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/israel-intensifies-west-bank-palestinian-home-demolitions-2010-07-21
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21 July 2010
Amnesty International has today
called on the Israeli authorities to stop the demolition of Palestinian
homes and other buildings in the West Bank, after a further 74 were destroyed
in the Jordan Valley earlier this week.
The demolitions were carried out by the Israeli military in the villages
of Hmayyir and 'Ein Ghazal in the area of al-Farisiya on Monday, displacing
107 people, including 52 children.
According to UN figures, at least 198 Palestinian structures in the West
Bank have been demolished this year, resulting in the forced displacement
of almost 300 Palestinians, half of them children, while 600 others have
also been affected.
"These recent demolitions intensify concerns that this is part of
a government strategy to remove the Palestinian population from the parts
of the West Bank known as Area C, over which Israel has complete control
in terms of planning and construction," said Philip Luther, Amnesty
International's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Among the property destroyed by the Israeli military on Monday were residential
tents, separate kitchens and washrooms, agricultural buildings, and animal
pens.
The army also damaged water tanks, wheat for human consumption and animal
fodder.
The demolition came three weeks after the military handed out eviction
orders in the village. Residents were told they had 24 hours to leave the
area.
Unlike many other areas of the Jordan Valley, the communities of Hmayyir
and 'Ein Ghazal had not experienced demolitions in the past.
According to Palestinian and Israeli media reports the Israeli military
authority said the evictions were ordered because the homes are in a "closed
military zone".
Most of the Jordan Valley area of the occupied West Bank has been declared
a "closed military zone" by the Israeli army or has been taken
over by some 36 Israeli settlements.
In a "closed military zone" Palestinians are forbidden from carrying
out building construction and development.
On 24 June, the Israeli military also served eviction notices on two families
- 15 people including five children - in the village of 'Ein al-Hilwe in
the northern Jordan Valley and on a building for housing livestock in the
nearby village of 'Ein al-Beida. Both villages are in Area C.
The buildings have not yet been demolished.
On 15 July, two buildings situated in a part of Area C southwest of Hebron
in the West Bank were destroyed.
According to a report in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz on 19 July,
the Israeli military authorities in the West Bank are acting on government
orders to intensify its enforcement against what they deem to be "illegal"
building in Area C.
Under the Oslo Accords, the Israeli authorities retain both civil and military
control over areas designated as Area C, which make up more than 60 per
cent of the West Bank.
The estimated 150,000 Palestinians living there face severe restrictions
on building and also on their freedom of movement.
There are no Palestinian representatives on the planning institutions for
Area C and, moreover, Palestinian residents in these areas have only very
limited ability to submit objections to eviction and demolition.
"The current system whereby the Israeli military has sole responsibility
for what Palestinians can or cannot build in the majority of the occupied
West Bank is unacceptable," said Philip Luther. “Planning and building
decisions should lie with the local Palestinian communities.”
-------------------------------------
East Mediterranean Team
Amnesty International, International Secretariat
Peter Benenson House, 1 Easton Street
London WC1X 0DW
United Kingdom
E-mail:
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Tel: +44 (0)20 7413 5500
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www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/israel-intensifies-west-bank-palestinian-home-demolitions-2010-07-21
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Sign Jewish Voice for Peace petition asking TIAA-CREF to divest from Israel's occupation! |
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Written by JVP
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Thursday, 15 July 2010 |
Please sign JVP's petition asking TIAA-CREF, one of the largest financial
services in the United States, to divest from the Israeli Occupation.
Will you join me? You can sign here: www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org .
TIAA-CREF invests in companies such as, CATERPILLAR, which profits from
the destruction of Palestinian homes and the uprooting of Palestinian
orchards; and VEOLIA, which profits from the construction and expansion
of illegal Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank, including East
Jerusalem.
This has got to stop.
Please help me convince TIAA-CREF to do the right thing. Join me in signing this petition: www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org
Thanks!
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www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org.
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Ilan Pappe: What drives Israel? |
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Written by Ilan Pappe
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Wednesday, 14 July 2010 |
Probably the most bewildering aspect of the Gaza flotilla affair has been the righteous indignation expressed by the Israeli government and people.
The nature of this response is not being fully reported in the UK press, but it includes official parades celebrating the heroism of the commandos who stormed the ship and demonstrations by schoolchildren giving their unequivocal support for the government against the new wave of anti-Semitism.
As someone who was born in Israel and went enthusiastically through the socialisation and indoctrination process until my mid-20s, this reaction is all too familiar. Understanding the root of this furious defensiveness is key to comprehending the principal obstacle for peace in Israel and Palestine. One can best define this barrier as the official and popular Jewish Israeli perception of the political and cultural reality around them.
A number of factors explain this phenomenon, but three are outstanding and they are interconnected. They form the mental infrastructure on which life in Israel as a Jewish Zionist individual is based, and one from which it is almost impossible to depart – as I know too well from personal experience.
The first and most important assumption is that what used to be historical Palestine is by sacred and irrefutable right the political, cultural and religious possession of the Jewish people represented by the Zionist movement and later the state of Israel.
Most of the Israelis, politicians and citizens alike, understand that this right can’t be fully realised. But although successive governments were pragmatic enough to accept the need to enter peace negotiations and strive for some sort of territorial compromise, the dream has not been forsaken. Far more important is the conception and representation of any pragmatic policy as an act of ultimate and unprecedented international generosity.
Any Palestinian, or for that matter international, dissatisfaction with every deal offered by Israel since 1948, has therefore been seen as insulting ingratitude in the face of an accommodating and enlightened policy of the “only democracy in the Middle East”. Now, imagine that the dissatisfaction is translated into an actual, and sometimes violent, struggle and you begin to understand the righteous fury. As schoolchildren, during military service and later as adult Israeli citizens, the only explanation we received for Arab or Palestinian responses was that our civilised behaviour was being met by barbarism and antagonism of the worst kind.
According to the hegemonic narrative in Israel there are two malicious forces at work. The first is the old familiar anti-Semitic impulse of the world at large, an infectious bug that supposedly affects everyone who comes into contact with Jews. According to this narrative, the modern and civilised Jews were rejected by the Palestinians simply because they were Jews; not for instance because they stole land and water up to 1948, expelled half of Palestine’s population in 1948 and imposed a brutal occupation on the West Bank, and lately an inhuman siege on the Gaza Strip. This also explains why military action seems the only resort: since the Palestinians are seen as bent on destroying Israel through some atavistic impulse, the only conceivable way of confronting them is through military might.
The second force is also an old-new phenomenon: an Islamic civilisation bent on destroying the Jews as a faith and a nation. Mainstream Israeli orientalists, supported by new conservative academics in the United States, helped to articulate this phobia as a scholarly truth. These fears, of course, cannot be sustained unless they are constantly nourished and manipulated.
From this stems the second feature relevant to a better understanding of the Israeli Jewish society. Israel is in a state of denial. Even in 2010, with all the alternative and international means of communication and information, most of the Israeli Jews are still fed daily by media that hides from them the realities of occupation, stagnation or discrimination. This is true about the ethnic cleansing that Israel committed in 1948, which made half of Palestine’s population refugees, destroyed half the Palestinian villages and towns, and left 80% of their homeland in Israeli hands. And it’s painfully clear that even before the apartheid walls and fences were built around the occupied territories, the average Israeli did not know, and could not care, about the 40 years of systematic abuses of civil and human rights of millions of people under the direct and indirect rule of their state.
Nor have they had access to honest reports about the suffering in the Gaza Strip over the past four years. In the same way, the information they received on the flotilla fits the image of a state attacked by the combined forces of the old anti-Semitism and the new Islamic Judacidal fanatics coming to destroy the state of Israel. (After all, why would they have sent the best commando elite in the world to face defenceless human rights activists?)
As a young historian in Israel during the 1980s, it was this denial that first attracted my attention. As an aspiring professional scholar I decided to study the 1948 events and what I found in the archives sent me on a journey away from Zionism. Unconvinced by the government’s official explanation for its assault on Lebanon in 1982 and its conduct in the first Intifada in 1987, I began to realise the magnitude of the fabrication and manipulation. I could no longer subscribe to an ideology which dehumanised the native Palestinians and which propelled policies of dispossession and destruction.
The price for my intellectual dissidence was foretold: condemnation and excommunication. In 2007 I left Israel and my job at Haifa University for a teaching position in the United Kingdom, where views that in Israel would be considered at best insane, and at worst as sheer treason, are shared by almost every decent person in the country, whether or not they have any direct connection to Israel and Palestine.
That chapter in my life – too complicated to describe here – forms the basis of my forthcoming book, Out Of The Frame, to be published this autumn. But in brief, it involved the transformation of someone who had been a regular and unremarkable Israeli Zionist, and it came about because of exposure to alternative information, close relationships with several Palestinians and post-graduate studies abroad in Britain.
My quest for an authentic history of events in the Middle East required a personal de-militarisation of the mind. Even now, in 2010, Israel is in many ways a settler Prussian state: a combination of colonialist policies with a high level of militarisation in all aspects of life. This is the third feature of the Jewish state that has to be understood if one wants to comprehend the Israeli response. It is manifested in the dominance of the army over political, cultural and economic life within Israel. Defence minister Ehud Barak was the commanding officer of Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, in a military unit similar to the one that assaulted the flotilla. That background was profoundly significant in terms of the state’s Zionist response to what they and all the commando officers perceived as the most formidable and dangerous enemy.
You probably have to be born in Israel, as I was, and go through the whole process of socialisation and education – including serving in the army – to grasp the power of this militarist mentality and its dire consequences. And you need such a background to understand why the whole premise on which the international community’s approach to the Middle East is based, is utterly and disastrously wrong.
The international response is based on the assumption that more forthcoming Palestinian concessions and a continued dialogue with the Israeli political elite will produce a new reality on the ground. The official discourse in the West is that a very reasonable and attainable solution – the two states solution – is just around the corner if all sides would make one final effort. Such optimism is hopelessly misguided.
The only version of this solution that is acceptable to Israel is the one that both the tamed Palestine Authority in Ramallah and the more assertive Hamas in Gaza could never accept. It is an offer to imprison the Palestinians in stateless enclaves in return for ending their struggle. And thus even before one discusses either an alternative solution – one democratic state for all, which I myself support – or explores a more plausible two-states settlement, one has to transform fundamentally the Israeli official and public mindset. It is this mentality which is the principal barrier to a peaceful reconciliation within the fractured terrain of Israel and Palestine.
How can one change it? That is the biggest challenge for activists within Palestine and Israel, for Palestinians and their supporters abroad and for anyone in the world who cares about peace in the Middle East. What is needed is, firstly, recognition that the analysis put forward here is valid and acceptable. Only then can one discuss the prognosis.
It is difficult to expect people to revisit a history of more than 60 years in order to comprehend better why the present international agenda on Israel and Palestine is misguided and harmful. But one can surely expect politicians, political strategists and journalists to reappraise what has been euphemistically called the “peace process” ever since 1948. They need also to be reminded that what actually happened.
Since 1948, Palestinians have been struggling against the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. During that year, they lost 80% of their homeland and half of them were expelled. In 1967, they lost the remaining 20%. They were fragmented geographically and traumatised like no other people during the second half of the 20th century. And had it not been for the steadfastness of their national movement, the fragmentation would have enabled Israel to take over historical Palestine as a whole and push the Palestinians into oblivion.
Transforming a mindset is a long process of education and enlightenment. Against all the odds, some alternative groups within Israel have begun this long and winding road to salvation. But in the meantime Israeli policies, such as the blockade on Gaza, have to be stopped. They will not cease in response to feeble condemnations of the kind we heard last week, nor is the movement inside Israel strong enough to produce a change in the foreseeable future. The danger is not only the continued destruction of the Palestinians but a constant Israeli brinkmanship that could lead to a regional war, with dire consequences for the stability of the world as a whole.
In the past, the free world faced dangerous situations like that by taking firm actions such as the sanctions against South Africa and Serbia. Only sustained and serious pressure by Western governments on Israel will drive the message home that the strategy of force and the policy of oppression are not accepted morally or politically by the world to which Israel wants to belong.
The continued diplomacy of negotiations and “peace talks” enables the Israelis to pursue uninterruptedly the same strategies, and the longer this continues, the more difficult it will be to undo them. Now is the time to unite with the Arab and Muslim worlds in offering Israel a ticket to normality and acceptance in return for an unconditional departure from past ideologies and practices.
Removing the army from the lives of the oppressed Palestinians in the West Bank, lifting the blockade in Gaza and stopping the racist and discriminatory legislation against the Palestinians inside Israel, could be welcome steps towards peace.
It is also vital to discuss seriously and without ethnic prejudices the return of the Palestinian refugees in a way that would respect their basic right of repatriation and the chances for reconciliation in Israel and Palestine. Any political outfit that could promise these achievements should be endorsed, welcomed and implemented by the international community and the people who live between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea.
And then the only flotillas making their way to Gaza would be those of tourists and pilgrims.
Ilan Pappe is professor of history at the University of Exeter, and director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies. His books include The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestine and A History Of Modern Palestine. His forthcoming memoir, Out Of The Frame (published this October by Pluto Press), will chart his break with mainstream Israeli scholarship and its consequences. |
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www.heraldscotland.com/comment/guest-commentary/essay-of-the-week-what-drives-israel-1.1032971
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Anti-BDS bill makes its way through the Knesset |
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Written by Adam Horowitz
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Wednesday, 14 July 2010 |
Haaretz
reports on a bill which would make it illegal for an Israeli to
"launch or incite" a boycott against Israel: Under the
new law, any group could sue damages of up to NIS 30,000 from anyone
who launched a boycott against them, or incited a boycott, without
having to prove that damage was indeed caused. An additional sum could
then be demanded once damages were proven. The bill comes in
response to a wide range of boycotts – financial, academic, and others –
that have recently been encountered in Israel. Elkin said Tuesday that
"we mustn't accept boycotts against Israel, whether academic or
economic. The state must protect itself from the increasing processes of
delegitimization, and provide compensation to those harmed by it." "The
wall-to-wall support of this bill proves that members of Knesset
recognize the need to maintain a balance between democratic rights and
the premeditated targeting of Israeli bodies," Elkin went on to say.
The
article references a U.S. law "forbidding Americans from participating
in boycotts on U.S. allies, including Israel." I don't think this is
factually correct. My guess is that it's referring to the 1977 law making
it illegal for U.S. citizens to participate in the Arab League boycott
of Israel. This law is irrelevant to today's BDS movement as the BDS
call is not related to the Arab League boycott, or called for by a
foreign country. For more on this issue see this resource from the US Campaign to End
the Israeli Occupation - Impact of Federal Anti-Boycott And Other
Laws On BDS Campaigns (PDF). |
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mondoweiss.net/2010/07/anti-bds-bill-makes-its-way-through-the-knesset.html
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9th Annual National Organizers' Conference, July 23-25 |
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Written by US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
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Wednesday, 14 July 2010 |
9th Annual National Organizers' Conference, July
23-25
Join us in Kansas City, MO for our next annual national organizers' conference. |
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www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?list=type&type=340
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Palestinian homes bulldozed as Israeli freeze on demolitions appears to end |
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Written by Harriet Sherwood, in Jerusalem
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Tuesday, 13 July 2010 |
Palestinian homes bulldozed as Israeli freeze on demolitions appears to end
East Jerusalem families hit by destruction order
Demolition of a Palestinian home An unfinished Palestinian home in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Isawiyya being bulldozed by Israelis today. Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli bulldozers destroyed at least three Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem today, breaking an unofficial moratorium on house demolitions since the end of 2009.
At least one of the homes was occupied by a family of seven, who removed their belongings shortly before the building was razed.
"They can build hundreds of settlements but I'm not entitled to live in a shack?" Linda al-Rajabi was quoted in the Israeli media as saying.
Two of the demolished homes were in the last stages of construction.
Jerusalem city authorities said all the homes were built without proper planning permission, which Palestinians say is almost impossible to obtain.
Under pressure from Washington, Israel has largely refrained from carrying out demolition orders since last November, when a temporary and partial freeze on settlement construction was agreed.
Approval was given yesterdayfor the building of 32 new homes in the settlement of Pisgat Ze'ev, in East Jerusalem, which is exempt from the freeze. A further 48 housing units are expected to be approved next week.
All settlements on land which Israel occupied in 1967 are illegal under international law.
"The rule of thumb in this part of the world is that in the run-up to US elections Israel has a free hand," said Jeff Halper, of the International Committee against House Demolitions. "Israel is now taking advantage of that."
Meanwhile, the Israeli navy said it had made contact with the Libyan aid ship Amalthea, which is attempting to break the sea blockade of Gaza. The ship, carrying 2,000 tons of supplies and 15 activists, is expected to reach territorial waters off Gaza sometime tomorrow.
Israel has urged the ship's captain to divert to the Egyptian port of el-Arish, but insists it will intercept the boat if it continues on course to Gaza.
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