Israeli religious forces on the march
By Marwan Bishara | Al-Jazeera | May 10th, 2010
If the number of religious Zionists in the Israeli army continues to grow, it will take a miracle to evacuate Israel’s illegal settlements in the context of a two-state solution, argues Marwan Bishara.
As the Israeli Palestinian ‘peace process’ marches in place, religious-Zionism is marching into the leadership of the Israeli army, rendering an improbable peace mission impossible.
If as expected their number continues to increase at the same rate, no future Israeli leader will be able to evacuate Jewish settlements in the context of a peace agreement.
The radicalisation of Israeli society and polity is evident not only in the most right wing government in the country’s history, but also in the make up of its professional military.
Recent revelations in the Israeli media show how the Israeli military, which was once a bastion of ‘secular Zionism’, is slowly but surely falling under the influence of extreme religious Zionism with a wider role for radical rabbinical chiefs.
The disproportionately high numbers of religious-nationalists in elite units and the combat officer corps is transforming the Israeli military and its relationship to the occupation and illegal settlements.
Dramatic increase
In 1990, the year before the peace process started between Israel and its neighbours, two per cent of the cadets enrolled in the officers’ course for the infantry corps were religious; by 2007, that figure had shot up to 30 per cent.
Moreover, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz:
“This is how the intermediate generation of combat officers looks today: six out of seven lieutenant colonels in the Golani Brigade are religious and, beginning in the summer, the brigade commander will be as well. In the Kfir Brigade, three out of seven lieutenant colonels wear skullcaps, and in the Givati Brigade and the paratroopers, two out of six. In some of the infantry brigades, the number of religious company commanders has passed the 50 per cent mark – more than three times the percentage of the national religious community in the overall population.”
Worse still, according to the Israeli Peace Now organisation, the number of religious nationalists continues to grow at a worrying rate.
Its sources estimate that “more than 50 per cent of the elite combat units now are drawn from the religious nationalist sector of Israeli society”.
Professor Stuart Cohen of Bar Ilan University estimates that during the second intifada (2000-2002) the overall number of religious Zionist soldiers – as defined by those who wear knitted caps, or kippah seruga – in the infantry units may be roughly twice their proportion of the Jewish male population as a whole.
Many of these soldiers live in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Some live in so-called ‘illegal outposts’, which the International Quartet (the US, UN, EU and Russia) insists on dismantling and which Israel considers ‘unlawful’ according to its own narrow standards.
And increasing numbers live in the so-called “illegal outposts”, or those new Jewish settlements considered illegal by the International Quartet (the US, UN, EU and Russia) and according to Israel’s own narrow standards.
Despite Israel’s commitment under the 2003 ‘roadmap for peace’ to evacuate tens of these outposts, they remain standing and are even expanding.
A ‘higher authority’
Clearly, many of those who live in the settlements cannot be expected to help evacuate their own homes if such a time comes. And they are making it known.
Recently, soldiers in the infantry brigade waved placards with the slogan “we did not enlist in order to evacuate Jews” as they paraded in Jerusalem to mark the end of their training.
A number of rabbis have issued religious edicts against such evacuations.
Most of these religious Zionist settlers see settlement in the occupied West Bank (using their biblical names Judea and Samaria) or the overall “land of Israel”, which includes the territories occupied in 1967, as a religious duty.
Although Ariel Sharon, a former Israeli prime minister, succeeded in evacuating the marginal Gaza settlements in 2005, it is doubtful that any such evacuation from the tens of small scattered settlements in the West Bank is possible.
The nationalist religious camp is making it clear that the ‘word of God’ as they see it, takes precedence over the secular leadership.
Reportedly, the top military brass is quite fearful of such a scenario.
Soldiers and settlers
Lately, there have been reports about tensions between the Israeli military and some of the most violent settlers as the military tries to reign in some of their more extreme provocations.
In general, however, the military has been the settlers’ best friend and defender in the occupied territories.
And despite increased settler violence and vandalism against adjacent Palestinian towns and villages, the occupation army has been no less than complicit in the daily harassment of Palestinian residents and farmers.
Many settler-soldiers seem to deploy around their settlements, allowing them to man check points and harass and humiliate Palestinians at road blocks, turning the country’s military into their own private militias.
In the process, Palestinians find themselves held hostage by an Israeli government that has neither the will, nor increasingly the capacity, to deal with the settlement issue – the engine of violence and the terminator of the two state solution.
Eventually, they will march straight into a destructive religious war that is far harder to contain in or outside the ‘Holy Land’.
Bending the Rules for Israel
By NADIA HIJAB | May 11, 2010
Israel’s inexorable accession to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development country club — is set to be confirmed this month barring last-minute hitches. Although several OECD members have doubts about Israel’s qualifications both on technical grounds and lack of shared values, no state has dared publicly oppose.
Instead, public opposition has been left to a loose and unusual network of Palestinian and Jewish organizations that have been hard at work lobbying European countries, Turkey, the United States, and other members. It has also provided a rare point for common action between Palestinian official and civil society organizations.
The “technical issues” that worried the OECD include corruption, particularly in the arms industry; intellectual property rights, particularly in the drugs industry; and the occupation.
More specifically about the occupation, Israel included data covering its illegal settlements and annexed territories in its economic report, according to a leaked OECD document cited by 18 Irish parliamentarians who called on their government to oppose Israel’s membership. The OECD has apparently resolved this issue by inserting a disclaimer. It will use Israeli data without prejudice to the status of the occupied territories, as Avi Shlaim and Simon Mohun wrote in their Guardian comment calling for OECD conditions on Israeli membership.
However, prominent legal experts have raised serious problems regarding state obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention if OECD member states pursue this planned course of action. And this may still throw up a last-minute hurdle.
Besides, as Israeli economist Shir Hever of the Alternative Information Center has pointed out, the data give an unrealistic picture of Israel’s standard of living because settlers receive more services than Israeli citizens within the Green Line. He also notes that were the Palestinians under occupation to be included Israel “would have to be refused accession because of the enormous disparities in wealth.”
Most seriously, from a human rights perspective, the OECD has completely ignored its own Road Map for Israel’s accession, which states that Israel has to demonstrate a commitment to pluralist democracy based on the rule of law. Indeed, only a democracy can join the OECD. A 17-point memo to the OECD by the worldwide Palestinian coalition BNC (the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee) listed the many ways in which Israel does not uphold the rule of law at home or abroad.
As if on cue, Israel has just provided a compelling illustration by arresting one of its most respected citizens – Ameer Makhoul – and depriving him of due process. The indefatigable Makhoul heads Ittijah, the coalition of 64 major civil society organizations representing the Palestinian citizens of Israel. He was seized at 3 am and separated from his wife and two daughters as the police ransacked their home.
In formalizing Makhoul’s detention, Israel’s security forces ordered him deprived of an attorney for at least two days. Israel recently prohibited Makhoul from travel for two months. In an article he had just written about the ban — published by Electronic Intifada on the day of his arrest — Makhoul pointed out that the accusations against him are based on “secret evidence that I am not allowed to see.” In yet another suspension of democratic norms, Israel imposed a blanket media gag on the arrest — a bizarre move since the news spread round the world in minutes, and a Facebook page was established within hours.
The OECD hopes to influence Israeli behavior from within the organization, according to groups lobbying against accession. Who knows? Maybe the OECD will have better luck than the United Nations. Israel pledged to let Palestinian refugees return home when it become a UN member state. Sixty-two years on, we’re still waiting…
Outrageous though it is, OECD member states are swayed more by economic than political arguments. Indeed, the OECD has praised Israel for liquidating the welfare state, privatizing government assets and undermining workers’ negotiating power.
“It’s like a trade agreement so it’s not used to lobbying based on human rights,” explained Miri Weingarten, who heads the London-based JNews, a platform for news and comment by anti-occupation Jewish groups. Anti-occupation — and in some cases — anti-Zionist groups opposing Israeli actions have flowered in Europe since the Israeli attack on Gaza in December 2008. Several have joined in the European Jews for a Just Peace network, which has led the effort against OECD membership for Israel until it upholds the law.
The determined, multifaceted outreach to member capitals in Europe, Asia and the United States had chalked up previous successes. For example, the European Union’s planned upgrade of relations with Israel was put on hold in the wake of Israel’s Gaza attack. Intensive lobbying by several churches and non-government organizations — including three Israeli human rights organizations, B’Tselem, HaMoked and Physicians for Human Rights — has helped prevent it from being acted on since.
Despite the OECD setback, parliamentarians and civil society are now mobilized in their demand that governments use economic measures to hold their peers accountable. As Ameer Makhoul wrote just before his arrest, “Injustice unites us; we are all together in this struggle.”
Nadia Hijab is a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies.
University of California execs say they’ll only divest from occupation if US gov’t finds genocide
By Jeff Blankfort and Phil Weiss on May 11, 2010
Yesterday Phil Weiss wrote that Elena Kagan’s nomination calls on American Jews to recognize our prominence in the elite of American society. Here’s some more evidence. According to wikipedia, Marc Yudof, an educator who is president of the University of California, is Jewish and has sterling Zionist credentials:
In 1993, he and his wife, Judy, were the co-recipients of the Jewish National Fund Tree of Life Award. Judy Yudof became the first female international president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in 2002
The Jewish National Fund was the chief means of taking former Palestinian lands and making them Jewish in Israel and Palestine.
Sherry Lansing is vice chair of the University of California Board of Regents. The big movie executive, she is also Jewish. We don’t know if she is a Zionist.
But yesterday, responding to Blankfort’s email, Yudof sent back a statement signed by himself, Lansing and Russell Gould, who is chair of the board of regents, slamming the divestment-from-the-occupation campaign by students at two schools in the system:
…In 2005, the Regents stated that a policy of divestment from a foreign government shall be adopted by the University only when the United States government declares that a foreign regime is committing acts of genocide. It was also noted at the time that divestment is a serious decision that should be rarely pursued.
We share The Regents’ belief that divestment needs to be undertaken with caution. We firmly believe that if there is to be any discussion of divestment from a business or country, it must be robust and fair-minded. We must take great care that no one organization or country is held to a different standard than any other. In the current resolutions voted on by the UC student organizations, the State of Israel and companies doing business with Israel have been the sole focus. This isolation of Israel among all countries of the world greatly disturbs us and is of grave concern to members of the Jewish community.
We fully support the Board of Regents in its policy to divest from a foreign government or companies doing business with a foreign government only when the United States government declares that a foreign regime is committing acts of genocide. The U.S. has not made any declaration regarding the State of Israel and, therefore, we will not bring a recommendation before the Board to divest from companies doing business with the State of Israel.
Note the concern for the Jewish community. Note the deference to the US government (we thought college was supposed to teach you to think for yourself!). Note that if such a line had been held in the ’80s, no one would have divested from Apartheid South Africa.
Senate unanimously approves measure to audit the Fed
Bill would have Fed disclose names of bank recipients of emergency loans
By Ronald D. Orol | MarketWatch | May 11, 2010
WASHINGTON — A compromise measure requiring the government to conduct a one-time and unprecedented audit of the Federal Reserve’s emergency-response programs was unanimously approved Tuesday by the Senate as part of sweeping bank reform legislation.
The amendment also calls for releasing the names of institutions that received in total more than $2 trillion in loans from the central bank during the peak of the financial crisis.
The provision received a vote of 96-0, with support following a compromise reached late Thursday.
“This makes it clear that the Fed can no longer operate under the kind of secrecy it has been operating under,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the measure’s author.
The legislation is attached to sweeping bank-reform legislation under consideration on Capitol Hill. It would need to be reconciled with a more expansive audit-the-fed provision approved in the House last December.
The Senate measure would — for the first time in the central bank’s 95-year-history — require a Government Accountability Office audit of the financial institutions that borrowed from the Fed during the financial crisis.
In addition, the legislation would require the Fed on Dec., 1, 2010, to put on its Web site all of the recipients of the central bank’s emergency assistance between December 2007 and the date of the statute’s enactment.
Sanders agreed to make several changes to the legislation to garner the support of the Obama administration and wavering senators who had concerns with the original measure. With the changes, Sanders obtained the support of Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., which he said was important to bringing on board other senators needed to obtain the 60 votes necessary for passage.
The legislation originally would have left open the possibility of future audits, however, Sanders eventually compromised to stipulate that it would be a one-time audit. The measure’s house counterparty, which was introduced by long-time Fed opponent, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, permits continuing periodic audits.
The Senate measure originally would have required the names of bank recipients of the Fed’s emergency lending to be posted within 30 days of the reform bill’s approval, but the section was later changed so that the names need only be posted on Dec. 1, 2010. The original measure would have required posting of names annually.
With the compromise language, the GAO is also prohibited from conducting studies on the Fed’s interest rate policy. This change was in response to concerns from the Fed and others that such studies would impact the central bank’s independence when it came to monetary policy such as whether to raise or lower interest rates.
It also prohibits the GAO from auditing the Fed’s so-called normal discount window lending. However, it does permit an audit of the discount window emergency lending programs, such as Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, in response to the financial crisis. The discount window is a government lending facility through which commercial banks and, in response to the crisis, investment banks borrowed reserves.
The GAO would be required to begin its Fed audit within 30 days of enactment and completed within a year.
House vs. Senate on audit the Fed
The House measure’s language is much shorter, yet in its brevity it gives the GAO leeway to conduct continuing periodic audits of a wide-range of issues beyond the Fed’s financial crisis response.
The Senate bill is more specific. The House bill says the GAO “may” post the names of recipients of Fed emergency loans where the Senate bill requires the GAO to do so. The Senate measure instructs the GAO to look into conflicts of interest at the Fed, while the House bill doesn’t provide any such instructions.
The measure has the backing of senators with wide-ranging political backgrounds, including Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. It seeks to make clear that the audits won’t interfere with the Fed’s monetary policy.
Backers pointed out that no scrutiny would be placed on transcripts and minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee meetings, through which the central bank sets policy on interest rates.
“We should allow the GAO to audit the Fed since they have moved far beyond their traditional role of monetary policy,” said Grassley.
The Fed has argued that it would weaken its traditional independence and hamper its ability to protect the financial system. The central bank argues that institutions would be afraid to borrow from the discount window when they need to because they would be stigmatized as troubled firms, and the result would be a more troubled economic situation.
Next up: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
The Senate is expected next to vote on a controversial measure introduced by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that would end the government’s control of mortgage finance giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae within two years of the enactment of the overall bank reform legislation.
Fannie and Freddie have been under government control since September, 2008. The measure, which has broad Republican support, would cap the amount of assets held on the entities books to 95% of the mortgage assets it owned at the end of the prior year. The measure would also have the entities pay state and local taxes.
However, Dodd is opposed to the measure arguing it is reckless because it doesn’t provide any alternative structure for the entities.
Ronald D. Orol is a MarketWatch reporter, based in Washington.
###
See also:
Senate Rejects Vitter’s Audit the Fed Amendment 37-62
By RonPaul.com on May 11, 2010
Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, put forward an amendment that would have mirrored Ron Paul’s tough Audit the Fed language, but the Senate rejected it today. The vote was 37 to 62.
Before the vote, Vitter appealed for support: “I urge all of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, to support both amendments to have full openness and accountability and transparency with all the protections that are included against politicizing individual Fed decisions.”
EU Open to Iran Nuclear Talks
DPA | May 10, 2010
Brussels – The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said Monday she was ready to give direct talks with Iran another chance, while warning that United Nations sanctions against its nuclear programme could be adopted “very rapidly.”
Turkey, which currently sits on the UN Security Council as a non- permanent member, last week suggested the EU could have another shot at finding a compromise with Tehran in order to avert new UN sanctions.
Speaking in Brussels at the end of regular monthly talks between the EU’s foreign ministers, Ashton said those sanctions were only “four to six weeks away.”
But she added that “if Iran wishes to contact me directly to propose that we have real discussions on the issue of nuclear weapons capability, (I would) be pleased to discuss that with my 3+3 colleagues and to move forward.”
The so-called 3+3 includes EU’s France, Germany and Britain, as well as Russia, China and the United States.
A spokesman said that during a meeting which followed on from the foreign ministers’ talks, Ashton asked Ankara’s top diplomat Ahmet Davutoglu to help arrange a meeting with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeid Jalili.
Davutoglu later told reporters that after meeting Ashton and later speaking on the phone with his Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, he was “positive and optimistic.”
“Our efforts will continue in the coming days and I hope that these diplomatic efforts will help to solve the problem without having to resort to any type of sanctions,” the Turkish foreign minister stressed.
Ashton’s predecessor, Javier Solana, negotiated with Iran on behalf of the 3+3 for years, but never succeeded in convincing the country to subject its nuclear programme to international scrutiny.Ashton, who took office last December, has so far not been asked by the six-country group to continue Solana’s work.
She stressed the negotiations could restart on the condition that they focus only “around the specific and only subject … of nuclear weapons for Iran.”
The EU’s foreign policy supremo said the international community is still following a “twin track” approach with Iran, meaning that it is open to dialogue while at the same time preparing for stronger sanctions if no positive signals came from Teheran.
“We are supporting the process at the (UN) Security Council on new restrictive measures. I believe a proposal will be adopted very rapidly,” she said.
“They are expecting to bring in some kind of resolution over the coming weeks,” she added. “So I anticipate we are talking about the next four to six weeks, though I can’t be certain at this stage.”
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said negotiations would continue throughout May at the UN to convince China, a permanent Security Council member with veto powers, to back the move.
“At the beginning of June, it will be possible to discuss a resolution,” Frattini indicated.
Israel Bars Arab Parties From Elections
Left Claims Ban is “Patriotic”
By Jonathan Cook | May 11, 2010
The only three Arab parties represented in the Israeli parliament vowed yesterday to fight a decision by the Central Elections Committee to bar them from running in next month’s general election.
In an unprecedented move signalling a further breakdown in Jewish-Arab relations inside Israel, all the main Jewish parties voted on Monday for the blanket disqualification. Several committee members equated the Arab parties’ vocal support for the Gazan people with support for terrorism.
The decision follows the arrest of at least 600 Arab demonstrators since the outbreak of the Gaza offensive and the interrogation by the secret police of dozens of Arab community leaders. The three parties — the National Democratic Assembly, the United Arab List and the Renewal Movement — have seven legislators out of a total of 120 in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.
The elections committee barred all three from putting up candidates for the Feb 10 election on the grounds that they had violated a 2002 law by refusing to recognise Israel as a Jewish state and by supporting a terrorist organisation.
Ahmed Tibi, the leader of Renewal, denounced the decision as “a political trial led by a group of fascists and racists who are willing to see the Knesset without Arabs and want to see the country without Arabs”.
A petition against the disqualification will be heard by a panel of Supreme Court justices this week.
Hassan Jabareen, the director of the Adalah legal rights group, which represents the Arab parties, noted that the disqualification motion had been introduced by far right-wing parties.
Such parties include Yisrael Beiteinu, which campaigns for the country’s 1.2 million-strong Arab minority to be stripped of citizenship.
“It is absurd that the committee is backing a motion from racist parties in the Knesset to exclude the Arab parties whose platform is that Israel must be made into a proper democracy treating all its citizens equally.”
The elections committee is composed of representatives from all the major parties. Although it has voted for disqualification of Arab candidates before, it is the first time both that the left-wing Labor Party has backed such a motion and that all the Arab parties have been included in the ban.
Mr Jabareen accused the right-wing parties of exploiting the war atmosphere. Labor’s secretary general, Eitan Cabel, called his party’s conduct in voting for the disqualification “patriotic”.
All the Arab parties have harshly criticised the attack on Gaza. This week Mr Tibi described Israeli actions as “genocide”, while Ibrahim Sarsour, of the United Arab List, said Israel was seeking to “eliminate the Palestinian cause”.
In the past, Arab Knesset members have also upset their Jewish colleagues by travelling to neighbouring Arab states, defying a change in the law to prevent such visits.
Following the vote on the ban, Avigdor Lieberman, leader of Yisrael Beiteinu, suggested his party had additional goals: “The next battle is making [the National Democratic Assembly] illegal because it is a terrorist organisation whose objective is harming the state of Israel.”
Mr Lieberman and other legislators have been hounding the NDA for years, chiefly because it is led by Azmi Bishara, an outspoken proponent of equal rights for Arab citizens. Israeli secret police forced Mr Bishara into exile two years ago, accusing him of treason after the 2006 Lebanon war.
During the 2003 election, when the committee barred the NDA and Mr Tibi from running, the decision was overturned by a majority of the Supreme Court. But few of the justices from that hearing are still on the bench.
“There are reasons to be fearful,” Mr Jabareen said. “The Supreme Court is also susceptible to the current war atmosphere and its authority has been greatly eroded over the past year. It has been forced on to the defensive over claims from the Right that its decisions support the Left.”
If the ban is upheld, some Arab representation in the Knesset is likely to continue. The joint Arab and Jewish Communist Party is allowed to stand, and the three major Jewish parties include one or two Arab candidates on their lists, though not always in electable positions.
Meanwhile, Israeli police admitted they arrested about 600 people involved in protests against the Gaza offensive, some of them for stone-throwing. Adalah lawyers said more than 200 people, most of them Arab, were still in jail.
“We’re talking about mass arrests,” said Abeer Baker, adding that Israel was exploiting a 30-day window before an indictment had to be filed to hold suspects without producing evidence.
In addition, the Shin Bet, Israel’s secretive domestic security service, has called in dozens of Arab leaders for interrogation. Ameer Makhoul, head of the Ittijah organisation, which promotes Arab causes in Israel, was detained last week. He said a security official who interrogated him threatened to jail him over demonstrations he helped to organise in support of Gaza.
“The officer called me a rebel threatening the security of the state during time of war and said he would be happy to transfer me to Gaza,” Mr Makhoul said.
Haaretz, a leftist Israeli daily newspaper, has called the interrogations “intimidation tactics to prevent legitimate protest”.
Shin Bet deports Spain’s most famous clown upon arrival in Israel
Ben Gurion Airport security officials detain Ivan Prado for six hours, accusing the Spanish entertainer of ties with Palestinian terror groups.
Barak Ravid | Haaretz | 09 May 2010
Ivan Prado, the most famous clown in Spain, did not expect to be put on a return flight back to Madrid soon after arriving at Ben-Gurion International Airport late last month, after spending six hours with officials from the Shin Bet security service and the Interior Ministry. The officials accused Prado of having ties to Palestinian terror organizations.
Foreign Ministry officials, meanwhile, say the incident caused grave damage to Israel’s image in Spain.
Prado, director of the International Clown Festival in Galicia, arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport on April 26 with a Spanish national of Arab origin. They planned to go to Ramallah to help organize a similar festival, but at passport control Prado was taken aside by a Shin Bet officer who asked him about his planned visit to the West Bank and about his connections to various Palestinian organizations. He and his female companion were held for six hours, during which they were questioned repeatedly, and their passports were confiscated.
They were sent back to Spain after an Interior Ministry official informed them that they would not be permitted into Israel.
After Prado returned to Madrid he launched a media campaign denouncing Israel and comparing the situation of Palestinians in the West Bank with Jews in Poland.
The incident sparked tension between the Israeli Embassy in Madrid and the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, prompted by questions to the embassy from Spanish journalists and fueled by the diplomats’ anger at the Foreign Ministry’s explanation that Prado was turned away at the airport “for security reasons.”
The Shin Bet issued a statement to Haaretz lacking significant details about the reasons behind the decision. “We recommended to the Interior Ministry to prevent his entry into Israel after the findings of the security check produced suspicions about him,” the statement said. “The man declined to provide complete information to the security people, especially in regard to his links with Palestinian terror organizations.”
Israeli official says East Jerusalem building to continue
Ma’an – 11/05/2010
Bethlehem – Israel will continue building housing units in occupied East Jerusalem and its outskirts, an Israeli cabinet official said Monday, with no timetable announced to avoid derailing proximity talks, Israeli media reported.
Speaking to Israel’s Army Radio, cabinet secretary Zevi Houser said construction in the occupied part of the city “will start soon” and that “construction in Jerusalem is going on as normal.”
Houser’s comments contradicted recent Israeli government statements that a slow-down in construction, particularly in the East Jerusalem illegal settlement of Ramat Shlomo, would be enforced in a bid to encourage Palestinian officials to remain in US-brokered proximity talks, which were derailed in March when the settlement expansion was announced.
President Mahmoud Abbas called on US to respond to reports that another settlement in occupied Jerusalem was underway, defying alleged US guarantees that all settlement construction would be halted for the duration of indirect talks.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesperson, Nir Hefez, told the Army Radio that “a timetable for construction in East Jerusalem will be arranged in order to avoid diplomatic embarrassment,” referring to Israel’s announcement in March during US Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to the region in a bid to kick start talks.
Meanwhile observers in the Jordan Valley reported dozens of trucks loaded with construction materials entering the illegal Israeli settlement of Nahal Maskyyot, followed by trucks full or workers building homes despite a government freeze on Sunday.
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The lies about the 1967 war are still more powerful than the truth
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
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