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Right for the Wrong Reasons

Two Truthful Statements From Avigdor Lieberman

By RANNIE AMIRI | December 31, 2010

The foreign policy mantra of Israel’s radical, Moldovan-born foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, can be accurately summarized in just four words: always blame the victim.

He may be more vocal than most, but it is the paradigm by which all Israeli ministers operate: the victims, not the perpetrators, are responsible for their own suffering. Whether it was the July 2006 war on Lebanon or the 2008-2009 assault on Gaza, the innocents killed effectively brought Israel’s wrath upon themselves.

The doctrine also applies to those accidentally/deliberately killed (always a murky distinction) by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for standing up for Palestinian rights, such as when an armored bulldozer crushed American peace activist Rachel Corrie to death as she tried to prevent a home’s destruction; or when an IDF sniper shot British activist Thomas Hurndall in the head while he was rescuing  Palestinian children in the line of fire; or when American student Emily Henochowicz lost an eye after being shot in the face with tear gas grenade as she peacefully protested the Israeli raid on the Turkish flotilla.

So when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogen demanded a formal apology from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the May 31 commando raid on the MV Mavi Marmara (the Gaza Freedom Flotilla’s lead relief vessel aboard which nine Turkish aid workers were murdered) Lieberman replied that it was Ankara who owed Israel the apology for attempting to break the inhumane Gaza embargo.

“I think the matter of an apology borders on chutzpah or beyond. If anything, we are waiting for an apology from the Turkish government, and not the other way around.”

But in the midst of his speech to Israeli ambassadors, two rare statements of truth emerged from the mendacious Lieberman.

Mahmoud Abbas is an illegitimate president

“It is forbidden for us to reach a comprehensive deal today with the Palestinians. To put it clearly, you have to understand that their government is not legitimate … It is a government that has postponed elections three times, that lost elections, that does not hold elections, does not plan to hold elections and there are no guarantees that next time they do hold elections, that Hamas won’t win again.”

Peace is certainly not dependent on an elected party or person to take effect. It remains true, however, that the four-year term of the Palestinian Authority’s ostensible leader, Mahmoud Abbas, expired on Jan. 9, 2009 (he unilaterally extended his term for an additional year thereafter). Abbas’ authority can thus legitimately be called into question.

Because he holds no love for Hamas—the landslide victor in the January 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections—Abbas has remained in the good graces of the United States and is regarded by Israel as a leader with whom they can do business.

Little headway has been made in Fatah–Hamas reconciliation ever since Fatah was ousted from Gaza in June 2007 when Abbas dissolved the unity government and declared he would rule by presidential decree. Indeed, his protestations of Israel’s brutal December 2008 attack on the tiny enclave were notably feeble, if not mute.

Lieberman is technically correct in his statement although it remains the hollowest of excuses, meant solely to avoid substantive negotiations with the Palestinians (and an ironic one, considering what Israel was able to accomplish under the docile Abbas).

Peace is impossible

“It’s not only that it is impossible [to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians], it is simply forbidden.”

Once again putting aside the ridiculous assertion that peace is “forbidden,” Lieberman is correct in contending that it is impossible at present.

Peace cannot occur when West Bank land is being expropriated by new and expanding settlements. Peace cannot occur when Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are evicted from their homes. Peace cannot occur when 1.5 million residents of Gaza are not free to obtain medical care, leave their open-air prison to visit relatives in the West Bank, or adequately rebuild their homes, hospitals and schools.

For once Avigdor Lieberman got it right … for all the wrong reasons.

Rannie Amiri is an independent Middle East commentator.

Source

December 31, 2010 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

Book Review: Europe’s Alliance with Israel

Sarah Irving, The Electronic Intifada, 30 December 2010

From the eastern side of the Atlantic, it’s easy to pin all the world’s ills on the United States. Other Western countries may have perpetrated their share of imperialistic crimes but since World War II, Washington’s global might has meant that other nations’ evils can often be chalked up as following-the-leader, willingly or otherwise.

David Cronin’s immensely valuable new book, Europe’s Alliance with Israel: Aiding the Occupation, does not entirely reject this position. But in charting how the European Union (EU) and its member states back Israel, Cronin dispels the idea that the US is the only game in town (and that those of us who aren’t resident there can therefore change nothing), while also offering activists new targets for institutional lobbying and boycotts.

The bulk of Europe’s Alliance with Israel is a meticulous documentation of the ways in which a variety of institutions — the European Union (and its major constituent bodies, the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council of Ministers and the European Commission), North American Treaty Organization (NATO) and various European states — have, despite superficial commitments to the “peace process,” consistently sold out Palestinian rights and interests. And the list is a long one.

Cronin starts by cataloging European toleration of Israeli human rights abuses and infringements of international law. He cites the fact that just five EU states (Ireland, Cyprus, Portugal, Malta and Slovenia) supported the UN General Assembly acceptance of the Goldstone Report into war crimes in Gaza, with the remaining 22 opposing or abstaining. This is contrasted with the strong EU positions taken on, for example, the Georgia-Russia conflict of summer 2008, controversies over the treatment of civilians by the Sri Lanka government during its offensive against the Tamil Tigers in spring 2009, or attacks on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

Cronin quotes senior EU figures such as Javier Solana and Benita Ferrero Waldner on the ever-nearer relations between the EU and Israel. At a presidential conference in Jerusalem in October 2009, Solana even claimed that the relationship was closer, even, than the EU’s ties to new and recent additions like Croatia. “There is no country outside the European continent that has this type of relationship that Israel has with the European Union,” the then EU foreign policy chief was quoted as saying in Israeli newspaper Haaretz, going on to joke that: “I am sorry to say, but I don’t see the president of Croatia here. His country is a candidate for the European Union, but your relation today with the European Union is stronger than [our] relation to Croatia.”

Cronin’s background and experience as a journalist covering European affairs is evident in these and other details. The direct quotes from senior — often anonymous — sources and access to obscure or confidential correspondence and reports demonstrate his exhaustive knowledge of the famously Byzantine workings of the EU’s institutions.

Cronin examines Israel’s progressive integration into the EU’s scientific research and development programs, and the collaboration of EU researchers with Israeli arms manufacturers.  He notes that Israel was the first country outside the EU to be brought into its research funding programs and cites the huge sums involved — 204 million euros during the 2002-2006 finance round and possibly over half a billion euros in 2007-2013.

Discussing the incorporation of Israel into supposedly civilian aviation and aerospace projects such as the “green” Clean Sky initiative and the Galileo satellite project, Cronin quotes his interview with Janez Potocnik, the EU commissioner for scientific research from 2004-2009, whose position he calls “Jesuitical and deceptive.” Responding to questions on whether working with the Israeli military had been excluded as an option for European-funded researchers, Potocnik said, “Defense is not part of the 7th Framework Programme [on scientific research]. We have space and security as themes for the first time [neither were included in previous versions of the multi-annual programs]. But there is nothing that would be defense-related in any context.”

But Cronin also quotes contacts within the EU who have confirmed that Israeli ministry of defense staff were present at negotiations on EU bankrolling of research projects. He reports that some Commission negotiators were concerned about the pressure being exerted by Israeli officials at their meetings, but that, “As part of a tacit policy of trusting the Israeli authorities, the Commission does not normally carry out background checks on Israeli officials that it deals with. ‘These guys [defense officials] are present in the system,’ a Commission insider told me. ‘It is unbelievable that their backgrounds aren’t checked.'”

According to Cronin, millions of euros in research funding have also gone to Israeli companies with major military operations, including direct funding of drone development by Elbit and Israel Aviation Industries.

Cronin’s access to EU officials willing to talk off the record also illuminates the huge gap between EU claims to fund and collaborate only with organizations within “Israel’s legally recognized borders,” and the reality of its relationship with Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights. Research finance has, according to Cronin, reached academic institutions in settlements in both the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights, while cultural funding has ended up with organizations based in occupied East Jerusalem.

In the case of funds allocated to corporations, he recounts how EU officials on the ground are denied information which would reveal whether they were in fact dealing with settlements. “After they were made aware of how grants they were administering were going to Israeli settlements, EU officials pledged to do what they could,” writes Cronin. But instead of making firm commitments to block settlement products taking advantage of trade preferences, Palestine solidarity activists reported that the EU kept its promises verbal, and that its rules remained painfully easy to get around. “All a firm in a settlement would have to do is set up a front company in Tel Aviv or another Israeli town or city and it could apply for EU funding, without EU officials knowing that its real work is done on occupied land,” Cronin concludes.

EU bodies are also revealed to have dragged their feet over excluding settlement goods from trade preferences (which mean they can be imported into Europe without duties being paid), with the German and Dutch governments “staunchly opposing” efforts to stop settlement products getting preferential treatment.

Even after the bar was in theory enforced, evidence that settlement produce was being illegally sneaked into Europe without taxes being paid on it was sidelined. “Although they learned through the grapevine that the British authorities had discovered that two out of 26 companies based in Israeli settlements that they had investigated were benefiting illegally from EU trade preferences, Brussels officials said they could not do anything until a dossier had been transmitted to them through formal channels,” writes Cronin.

By actively bankrolling parts of the Israeli military-industrial complex and settlement economy, Cronin argues that the EU is both ignoring its legal duties and cheating its own taxpayers by enabling Israel to abdicate its responsibilities under international law. The EU makes much of its status as the largest donor to the Palestinian Authority (PA), arguing that this demonstrates its commitment to the welfare of the Palestinian people and its position as an “honest broker” in the Middle East conflict.

But as Cronin demonstrates, the 1907 Hague Regulations impose upon occupying powers the duty to ensure the welfare of occupied populations. But by continuing to pay for food and other basic aid, the EU is assuming Israel’s responsibilities under international law and underwriting its occupation. In addition, the huge sums spent on aid to the PA often go straight to Israeli food and utility companies, many of which are directly complicit with human rights abuses such as the siege on Gaza, now in its forty-second month.

On top of this, Cronin says, senior EU figures have consistently shown “cowardice” in refusing to pursue the Israeli military for the cost of European-funded infrastructure projects which have been damaged or destroyed in repeated Israeli invasions. “Privately, EU officials acknowledge that the aid policies they are implementing have become hugely problematic. ‘Are we subsidizing activities that should fall on Israel as a consequence of its responsibilities as an occupying power?’ a well-placed Brussels source said to me. ‘The answer is unquestionably yes,'” writes Cronin.

While the EU’s continued aid to the PA is said to be part of a “tacit division of labor” with the US, whereby Washington holds the political reins and Europe the financial ones, Cronin provides examples of US refusal to allow joint donor statements which criticized Israel for damage to donor-funded projects illustrating the EU’s junior role in that relationship. In the meantime, the EU’s “aid” is also revealed by Cronin’s writings — both in the book and for The Electronic Intifada — to include the far-from-benign training given by European police organizations to PA security forces.

Cronin offers a range of causes underlying the EU’s sometimes pyrrhic support for Israel. He cites the power of justifiable Holocaust guilt, whilst pointing out that this doesn’t excuse imposing military occupation on a Palestinian population which had nothing to do with the Shoah. The common fear of “militant Islam” also raises its ugly head.

Cronin mentions the economic interests which European companies such as Volvo and Dexia maintain in Israel, and the fascination which Israeli technological development seems to hold for EU officials. Economic influences have included, says Cronin, the “‘EU-Israel business dialogue,’ a forum in which senior businessmen (with perhaps one or two women) could brainstorm on how best ‘barriers to trade and investment’ can be stripped away.”

The strength of the European Israel lobby is a key point in the book’s arguments. Cronin highlights groups such as European Friends of Israel, the highest profile pro-Israel lobby in the European Parliament with links to better-known US campaigners such as AIPAC, or the pseudo-respectable Transatlantic Institute (its opening graced by senior EU figures like Javier Solana). The Transatlantic Institute is an offshoot of the American Jewish Committee which also runs the UN Watch organization that infamously called author Naomi Klein “Goebbels-like” for her criticisms of Israel.

First and foremost, Cronin sees the US dominance of foreign policy — of the EU itself and of many of its member states — as key to the EU’s support for Israel. Whether through the desire of European states like the United Kingdom to maintain their “special relationship” with the US, or through the influence of US-based lobby groups and the impact of their lobbying and “monitoring” activities on parliamentarians, officials and the press, the hand of American politicians and lobbyists is seen as a major force shaping EU policy and practice.

David Cronin has written a very important book. Its detailed cataloguing of the links between European institutions and the Israeli state and economy is long overdue. The book benefits from Cronin’s journalistic roots and is written in a readable style.

If any criticism can be leveled at Europe’s Alliance with Israel it is that it presupposes, or deems unnecessary, a level of knowledge about the workings of the EU and other European institutions that many readers won’t possess. The activities of the European Union, European Parliament, Council of Ministers, European Commission and other institutions in relation to Israel are discussed without explanations for the uninitiated of how these organizations interact, what their powers and spheres of interest are or what countries and regions they represent.

This book should be required reading for anyone trying to understand the scale of international support for the State of Israel, for any European Palestine Solidarity activist looking to assess how their energies are best used, and for students of the EU wanting to understand the workings and wider impacts of European policy.

Sarah Irving is a freelance writer. She worked with the International Solidarity Movement in the occupied West Bank in 2001-02 and with Olive Co-op, promoting fair trade Palestinian products and solidarity visits, in 2004-06. She now writes full-time on a range of issues, including Palestine. Her first book, Gaza: Beneath the Bombs, co-authored with Sharyn Lock, was published in January 2010. She is currently working on a new edition of the Bradt Guide to Palestine and a biography of Leila Khaled.

December 30, 2010 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

Fear and unrest in Silwan as soldiers surround village

26 December 2010 | International Solidarity Movement & SilwanIC

Since early this morning, Israeli forces have been surrounding the village of Silwan, creating fear among the villagers that a Palestinian family will be evicted. A new wave of unrest has overcome Silwan in the past few days, with two houses demolished on Christmas day, and clashes sweeping through the village on Friday after a young Palestinian was shot with a rubber bullet.

The Silwan Information Center claims to have received exclusive information that an Israeli court has approved the eviction of a Palestinian family, in order to resettle the soon-to-be evicted settlers of the Beit Yonatan Settlement. Israeli courts have ordered that the Beit Yonatan settlement be evicted, so authorities are attempting to take over the Abu Nab on the grounds that it was once the site of a Yemenite Synagogue.

This controversial eviction was planned to take place today, the 26th, while the international community is preoccupied with the holidays. However, Jerusalem Police issued a statement claiming that the eviction would not take place today, with no further information about when it would happen.

While Yemenite pilgrims did for a time inhabit the Baten al-Hawa district of Silwan, they were only relegated to the area after being rejected by the Jewish people living in the Old City. After a short time they left to resettle elsewhere.

In what is becoming an argument increasingly employed by Israeli expansionists in Jerusalem however, land that was ever owned or inhabited by Jews in the past must become property of modern-day Jewish owners. Similar arguments have been employed throughout the complex legal battles that have taken place in Sheikh Jarrah for several decades now.

While Israeli authorities may attempt to find legal loopholes allowing a Jewish “right of return” to historical lands, a decisive law that ensures just the opposite has existed for Palestinians for some 60 years: the notorious Absentee Property Law. The Law has enabled the Israeli state to become “custodian of absentee properties”, that is, all land abandoned by Palestinian land-owners during the Nakba in 1948, when the creation of the Israeli state forced some 900,000 Palestinians to flee their homes and land, the vast majority of which had been in their families for centuries.

December 26, 2010 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment