The anti-Palestinian consensus among Canada’s three main political parties is crumbling and NDP members could bury it this weekend.
After taking an all-expense paid trip to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s conference in Washington and participating in a Jewish National Fund event in Israel 14 months ago, the NDP’s foreign critic has begun challenging Canada’s contribution to Palestinian dispossession. Hélène Laverdière has repeatedly criticized the Trudeau government’s silence on Donald Trump’s decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem. In response she tweeted, “a devastating day for those who believe in peace, justice and security in the Middle East. Where is Canada’s voice in protest of Trump’s decision on #Jerusalem? I urge Canada to condemn this decision in the strongest of terms.”
The party’s foreign critic also asked the federal government to condemn Israel’s detention of 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi and hundreds of other Palestinian children who are usually tortured by Israeli forces. Similarly, Laverdière has pressed Ottawa to properly label products from illegal Israeli settlements and submitted a petition to Parliament calling “upon the Government of Canada to demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”
Two weeks ago I received an email on behalf of party leader Jagmeet Singh titled “all people deserve the same human rights”, which listed the party’s recent support for Palestinian rights. It noted, “the NDP shares your concerns about Palestine. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and his team of New Democrats have a consistent record of defending Palestinian rights as well as raising concerns over Islamophobia.”
A series of factors are likely driving Laverdière’s shift. She probably never backed former NDP leader Tom – “I am an ardent supporter of Israel in all situations and in all circumstances” – Mulcair’s position. Additionally, last year’s NDP leadership race unleashed ever bolder expressions of support for the Palestinian cause.
Amidst the campaign, Laverdière was criticized for speaking at AIPAC’s 2016 conference in Washington and participating in an event put on by the explicitly racist Jewish National Fund. In August the NDP Socialist Caucus called for her resignation as foreign critic and it has submitted a motion to this weekend’s convention calling for her to be removed from that position.
Ottawa’s high-profile abstention at the UN General Assembly after Donald Trump announced that he would move the US Embassy to Jerusalem has given the NDP an opportunity to distinguish itself from the Trudeau government. And media coverage of subsequent Palestinian resistance, most notably Ahed Tamimi’s courageous slaps, has provided additional opportunities to highlight the Liberal’s extreme anti-Palestinianism.
The NDP leadership is also trying to head off members’ calls to boycott Israel (according to a 2017 Ekos poll, 84% of NDP members were open to sanctioning Israel). At least five resolutions (among more than ten concerning Palestine/Israel) submitted to the convention call for some type of boycott of Israel. The NDP Socialist Caucus has called on the party to “actively campaign” in support of the (just nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize) Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions‘ movement’s demands.
With probably more backing than any of the 100+ resolutions submitted, 30 riding associations and youth committees endorsed “Palestine Resolution”, which calls for “banning settlement products from Canadian markets, and using other forms of diplomatic and economic pressure to end the occupation.” Of course, party leaders fear the media response to any type of boycott resolution being adopted.
Whatever the reason for Laverdière’s shift away from anti-Palestinianism, it remains insufficient. As I’ve detailed, the NDP continues to provide various forms of support to Israel and the party has an odious anti-Palestinian history. In the mid-1970s the party opposed Palestinian Liberation Organization participation in two UN conferences in Toronto and Vancouver and party leader Ed Broadbent called the PLO “terrorists and murderers whose aim is the destruction of the state of Israel.”
That year NDP icon Tommy Douglas also told the Histadrut labour federation: “The main enmity against Israel is that she has been an affront to those nations who do not treat their people and their workers as well as Israel has treated hers.” (Douglas’ 1975 speech was made while Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai, after it repeatedly invaded its neighbours and ethnically cleansed 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland.)
A progressive party worth its salt campaigns on an international issue in equal measure to its government/society’s contribution to that injustice.
Over the past century Canada has played no small part in Palestinians’ dispossession. Hundreds of Canadians provided military force to realize the crassly anti-Palestinian Balfour Declaration and this country’s diplomats played a central role in the UN’s decision to give the Zionist movement most of Palestine in 1947.
Today, Ottawa regularly votes against Palestinian rights at the UN and subsidizes dozens of charities that channel tens of millions of dollars to projects supporting Israel’s powerful military, racist institutions and illegal settlements. Additionally, Canada’s two-decade-old free trade agreement with Israel allows settlement products to enter Canada duty-free and over the past decade Ottawa has delivered over $100 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority in an explicit bid to advance Israel’s interests by building a security apparatus to protect the corrupt Palestinian Authority from popular disgust over its compliance in the face of ongoing Israeli settlement building.
Hopefully, in the years to come the NDP can help Canada make up for its sad anti-Palestinian history. Perhaps this weekend the party will finally bury official Canada’s anti-Palestinian consensus.
February 15, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Canada, Israel, Jerusalem, Palestine, Zionism |
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An Israeli occupation military court issued a renewed four-month administrative detention order against Palestinian journalist and prisoners’ rights advocate Bushra al-Tawil on 12 February 2017. Al-Tawil, 26, from el-Bireh, has been jailed by the Israeli occupation without charge or trial since 1 November 2017. Originally ordered to six months in administrative detention, her detention was reduced on appeal to four months; now, an additonal four-month order has been imposed upon her.
Al-Tawil has been detained on several occasions in the past; she is an active defender of Palestinian rights and works with Aneen al-Qaid, an organization that defends Palestinian prisoners. The new order was issued as a “final” order, which ostensibly means it will not be renewed. Administrative detention orders are usually indefinitely renewable, and Palestinians can spend years at a time in jail with no charge or trial under repeatedly renewed orders.
Al-Tawil’s mother said on Tuesday, 13 February, that local and international silence on the prisoners must end, urging unity in action to free the prisoners. Al-Tawil is one of approximately 450 Palestinians currently jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention, among a total of approximately 6,200 Palestinian political prisoners. Administrative detainees have announced that they will boycott Israeli military courts and administrative detention hearings beginning on 15 February.
February 14, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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As Syria is effectively emerging from more than seven years of conflict by successfully purging its territory of militants, the United States and allies are becoming increasingly vocal in their criticism of the governments who helped Syria clear the mess.
In comments dealing with a recent escalation of events in Syria’s border with the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has blamed Iran for the continued bloodshed in Syria, saying Tehran should end its “destabilizing” presence in Syria and allow peace to be restored to the Arab country.
However, many wonder who is really destabilizing Syria. Is it Iran, a country that has gone to any length to protect the legitimate government of Syria, or was it the US, which from the onset of war in March 2011 began to designate the heavily-armed militants and military defectors as the so-called moderate opposition of Syria and continued to generously support them through providing weapons, funding and training.
Washington cannot hide its anger at Iran and Russia becoming the saviors of Syria after an all-out war, which in the beginning was to change the political and security equations in the Middle East. For a long time, Syria was a major front in regional confrontation with Israel. It openly supported governments and fighters that countered Israel’s occupation of Palestine and its violation of the sovereignty of countries such as Lebanon.
The fall of Syria, as it was envisaged in the West, could mean an end to Damascus’ anti-Israeli policies and could create a sense of relief for the regime in Tel Aviv. That dream actually failed to materialize and after more than seven years, Israel and the US, as its main ally, feel more insecure than ever as Syria is regaining control over many parts of its territories. Moreover, Syria has established stronger military and political ties with Iran and Russia, the two countries that backed it in the war on terror, and it has become more engaged with the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, an arch enemy of Israel.
Now, US officials are becoming more fearful about Israel’s grim future and what could happen to it in adjacency of a revitalized Syria. To offset those concerns, they now try to highlight Iran’s continued presence in Syria as a threat, pretending that Tehran is fueling the violence.
Tillerson said on Wednesday that Iran should withdraw from Syria, saying Tehran was responsible for a recent escalation on Syria’s borders with the occupied territories. He even accused Iran of hampering the United Nations’ efforts to restore peace in Syria.
“We are quite concerned about the recent incident involving Israel and Iranian assets inside of Syria. And I think this again illustrates why Iran’s presence in Syria is only destabilizing to the region,” Tillerson said, adding “Iran needs to withdraw its military, its militia from Syria, and allow a hope for the peace process to take hold in Geneva.”
Tillerson made the comments in Amman, the capital of Jordan, a kingdom which borders Syria’s province of Dayr al-Zawr, where government forces have managed to liberate key cities and towns relying on Iranian and Russian support. Russia, which unlike Iran, has a direct military presence in Syria, has repeatedly accused the United States of trying to hamper Syria’s full victory against the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group. Moscow has released evidence showing that US forces stationed in Dayr al-Zawr’s border regions and in Jordan have been collaborating with Daesh and other militants through providing intelligence about Syrian and Russian forces.
Tillerson’s comments came just days after the US military admitted it had carried out heavy bombardments on Syrian pro-government forces in Dayr al-Zawr, an attack that reportedly killed more than 200 people, including private Russian military contractors.
Russia is in Syria based on an official request by the government. Iran also helps Syria through its military advisors based on similar demands by Damascus. Lacking such a mandate and authorization, the US has operated around and inside Syria’s borders over the past years and reports show that it is increasing its deployment in the Jordanian border, a clear sign it is wary of the turn of events in the region.
So, the question is who is really behind the protracted violence in Syria and who is really destabilizing the country now that it is back on its feet?’
Syria has on several occasions called on the UN to force Washington to stop its aggression against on the Arab country’s sovereignty. It has designated as a violation of Syria’s territorial integrity the US airstrikes that are as part of a so-called campaign against Daesh, which began four years ago in neighboring Iraq and then expanded into Syria. US warplanes have targeted civilians in hospitals and schools as part of their alleged fight against Daesh. They are now becoming increasingly involved in attacks against government forces and allies in Dayr al-Zawr, where Iran played a huge role in bringing Daesh to its last legs.
Iran has officially called on the US to end its military adventures in Syria and allow the country to re-establish authority on its territories. Ali Akbar Velayati, a former foreign minister and a senior foreign policy adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, said on Wednesday that it was Washington, in fact, that was an unwelcome guest and a destabilizing force in Syria.
“Those should leave Syria who are there without the permission of the legal Syrian government,” said Velayati while reacting to Tillerson’s latest comments.
February 14, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Wars for Israel | Hezbollah, Iran, Israel, Syria, United States, Zionism |
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Israel’s war on free speech continues
Tracking the consequences of Israel’s apparent conviction that it should never be bound by the rules and conventions that constrain the behavior of other countries sometimes leads one into dark places. The daily torments inflicted on the Palestinians is increasingly a horrific tale that has no apparent end, while Benjamin Netanyahu struts and boasts of his power to do more and even worse, openly calling for war with Lebanon, Syria and Iran on a world stage where no one seems willing to confront him.
I have chronicled how Israel does terrible damage to the United States, through inciting war, its financial demands, and its unparalleled ability to make Washington complicit in its war crimes and general inhumanity. But, as bad as it is, in some areas the worst is yet to come, as Israel and its hubristic leaders know no limits and fear no consequences, thanks to the uncritical support from the American Establishment, a large percentage of which is Jewish, that is unwilling to take a strong stand against Netanyahu and all his works.
Israel has been particularly successful at promoting its preferred narrative, together with sanctions for those who do not concur, in the English language speaking world and also in France, which has the largest Jewish population in Europe. The sanctions generally consist of legal penalties for those criticizing Israel or questioning the accuracy of the accepted holocaust narrative, i.e. disputing that “6 million died.”
Those attacking Israeli government policies can be found guilty of antisemitism, which is now considered a hate crime in Britain. Under the new law, passed in December 2016, Britain became one of the first countries to use the definition of antisemitism agreed upon earlier in the year at a conference of the Berlin-based International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).
A statement from British Prime Minister Teresa May’s office explained that the intention of the new definition was to “insure that culprits will not be able to get away with being antisemitic because the term is ill-defined, or because different organizations or bodies have different interpretations of it”.
May went on to elaborate how the law “… means there will be one definition of antisemitism – in essence, language or behavior that displays hatred towards Jews because they are Jews – and anyone guilty of that will be called out on it.” The Guardian, in covering the story, added that “Police forces already use a version of the IHRA definition to help officers decide what could be considered antisemitism.”
The British government’s own definition relies on guidance provided by the IHRA, which asserts that “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews” and elaborated that it could be considered antisemitic to accuse Jews of being “more loyal to Israel or their religion than to their own nations, or to say the existence of Israel is intrinsically racist.” In other words, even if many Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the countries they live in and even though Israel is intrinsically racist, it is now illegal to say so in Great Britain.
The British government’s subservience to Jewish and Israeli interests is nearly as enthusiastic as in the United States, though it is driven by the same sorts of things – Jewish money and Jewish power, particularly in the media. A majority of Conservative Party members of parliament have joined Conservative Friends of Israel and the Labour counterpart is also a force to be reckoned with on the political left.
Last November there was a major scandal when Britain’s Overseas Development Minister Priti Patel was forced to resign after she held 14 “unofficial” meetings with Israeli government officials, including Netanyahu. The meetings were during a “vacation trip” in Israel arranged by a British Jew with the improbable name Lord Polak who functions as a lobbyist for the Jewish state. During her visit, Patel visited an Israeli military hospital in the occupied Golan Heights. When she returned to Britain, she began to work on the feasibility of sending U.K. aid money to the Israeli Army for its alleged humanitarian work. None of the meetings were reported to the British Foreign Ministry.
Here in the United States, the friends of Israel appear to believe that anyone who is unwilling to do business with Israel or even with the territories that it has illegally occupied should not be allowed to do business in any capacity with federal, state or even local governments. Constitutional guarantees of freedom of association for every American are apparently not valid if one particular highly favored foreign country is involved.
Twenty-four states now have legislation sanctioning those who criticize or boycott Israel. And one particular pending piece of federal legislation that is also continuing to make its way through the Senate would far exceed what is happening at the state level and would set a new standard for deference to Israeli interests on the part of the national government. It would criminalize any U.S. citizen “engaged in interstate or foreign commerce” who supports a boycott of Israel or who even goes about “requesting the furnishing of information” regarding it, with penalties enforced through amendments of two existing laws, the Export Administration Act of 1979 and the Export-Import Act of 1945, that include potential fines of between $250,000 and $1 million and up to 20 years in prison
According to the Jewish Telegraph Agency, the Senate bill was drafted with the assistance of AIPAC. The legislation, which would almost certainly be overturned as unconstitutional if it ever does in fact become law, is particularly dangerous and goes well beyond any previous pro-Israeli legislation as it essentially denies freedom of expression when the subject is Israel.
Israel is particularly fearful of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement because its non-violence is attractive to college students, including many young Jews, who would not otherwise get involved in the issue. Benjamin Netanyahu and his government clearly understand, correctly, that BDS can do more damage than any number of terrorist attacks, as it challenges the actual legitimacy of the Israeli government and its colonizing activity in Palestine.
Israel has recently passed legislation criminalizing anyone who supports BDS and has set up a semi-clandestine group called Kella Shlomo to counteract its message. The country’s education minister has called BDS supporters “enemy soldiers” and has compared them to Nazis. Netanyahu has also backed up the new law with a restriction on foreigners who support the BDS entering the country. This has included a number of American Jews who have been critical of Netanyahu, bringing home to them for the first time just how totalitarian “the Middle East’s only democracy” has actually become.
The British experience as well as a recent case involving New Zealand illustrate just how insensitive Israel is to the interests of other nations and should serve as a warning to Americans of how Netanyahu and company are heedless of fundamental rights like freedom of speech and association. A prominent New Zealand singer who goes by the name Lorde canceled a planned tour to Israel based on her concerns about the mistreatment of the Palestinians. End of story? No. She was promptly lambasted by the usual suspects including Howard Stern and “America’s Rabbi” Shmuley Boteach and was then punished by the Grammys ceremony in New York City on February 8th, where she was told that she would not be allowed to sing one of her own songs even though she was up for album of the year. She was the only finalist who was blocked in that fashion and no one in the media, predictably, linked the two events and recognized that she was almost certainly being punished for not performing in Israel.
Now Lorde is in the middle of a lawsuit initiated by the Israeli government supported lawfare organization called Shurat HaDin. In line with its own anti-boycott legislation, Israel now believes it has the right to sue anyone who supports BDS no matter what country they live in or where they indicated their support. In this case, Israel is intent on silencing New Zealanders who exercised their freedom of speech in New Zealand.
Shurat HaDin is no stranger to foreign courts, though it has lost more cases than it has won. In February 2015, a lawsuit initiated by it led to the conviction of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization of liability for terrorist attacks in Israel between 2000 and 2004 even though there was no evidence demonstrating that there had been any direct involvement by either body. A New York Federal jury and judge, always friendly to Israeli or Jewish litigants, awarded damages of $218.5 million, but under a special feature of the Anti-Terrorism Act the award was automatically tripled to $655.5 million. Shurat HaDin states that it is “bankrupting terror.”
In the New Zealand case two New Zealand women who used publicly accessible social media to convince Lorde to cancel her concert are being blamed by Shurat HaDin for the mental anguish of several Jewish concertgoers who apparently have been in a state of shock since the Lorde cancellation was confirmed. They are suing for “moral and emotional injury and the indignity” and also for the New Zealanders having violated the anti-BDS legislation “to give real consequences to those who selectively target Israel and seek to impose an unjust and illegal boycott against the Jewish state.”
Based on past experience, Shurat HaDin might even win the case inside Israel while finding that the ruling will not be accepted or enforceable in New Zealand as it is in violation of that country’s constitution. But the real intent is to intimidate critics and, as in some cases brought in the U.S., to force opponents to spend money on defense lawyers, making critics of Israel reluctant to go public or even willing to settle out of court. Friends of Israel make sure that any criticism of the country they love above all others becomes toxic. Florida State Senator Randy Fine is, for example, currently demanding that Tampa and Miami cancel upcoming April concerts by Lorde to punish her for her “anti-Semitic boycott” of Israel. He is abusing his position as an elected public official to silence someone he doesn’t agree with out of deference to a racist foreign country that has nothing to do with the United States.
It is important for Americans to realize that Israel not only spies on the U.S., digs its paws deep into our Treasury, and perverts Washington’s Middle East policy, it is also attempting to dictate what we the people can and cannot say. And Congress and much of the media are fully on board. This is absolutely insufferable and must be stopped. Groups like Shurat HaDin flying into New York to exploit friendly Manhattan judges and juries to advance Israel’s toxic agendas should be told to go home upon arrival.
Israel’s complete hypocrisy was highly visible in yet another news story last week. The Polish government has passed controversial legislation, subject to judicial review, to criminalize any claims that Poles were responsible for the Second World War prison camps that the Germans set up in their country. This has been strongly and vociferously opposed by Netanyahu speaking for the Israeli government, which is apparently concerned that its claim on perpetual and universal victimhood is being challenged. Washington is also, to no one’s surprise, lining up with Israel, threatening that the new law might damage bilateral relations with Warsaw.
Characteristically, no one in the U.S. mainstream media, which is generally supportive of Bibi’s complaints, is noting that the proposed Polish legislation is not too dissimilar to any number of existing anti-free speech laws criminalizing holocaust denial in Europe or criticism of Israel in the United States. Nor is it different than some laws in Israel, including the criminalization of anyone who speaks or writes in support of BDS. As usual, there is one standard for Jewish issues and Israelis and a quite different standard for everyone else.
February 13, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | AIPAC, Human rights, Israel, Randy Fine, UK, United States, Zionism |
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Writing The Canada Israel Nexus, I came across many ironies.
- Israel is a country, but without borders,
- it has created the largest refugee population in the world (6m Palestinians), rivaling its own diaspora (7m), both ‘exiles’ amounting to half their peoples. However, the Jewish diaspora is comfortably ensconced in the world economic elite or close to it, while the Palestinians mostly live in what amount to outdoor prison camps, or if lucky, snag a ‘landed immigrant’ status somewhere (there are 31,245 in Canada).
- Israel admits it is an occupying force, which implies that it will, according to international law, care for its victims, and leave, leaving behind the civilians and their homes intact. But the occupation is unending (70 years and counting), Israel has never paid to provide sustenance to its prisoners, the civilians persecuted daily, in full sight, and eliciting world condemnation. The EU foots the bill, as Israelis regularly bomb their meagre donations. The result—permanent occupation, theft and all the time more refugees.
- Israel is a ‘nation,’ but without a constitution. What?!
- That brings us to the biggest conundrum—the bright blue Israeli passport. As with all passports, the key box is ‘nationality.’ So there is an Israeli nationality? Which means all Israelis are citizens of Israel, their nation? Right?
Not. The passport is a fraud, or if you prefer the more genteel term, a confidence trick.
Israelis, both Jewish and non-Jewish, when asked at borders what their nationality is, answer politely, ‘Israeli,’ with an ironic smile if they bother to think about what they’re saying. Inside they are saying ‘Israeli Jew’, ‘Muslim’, ‘Christian’, whatever.
The Jews can cavalierly throw around ‘Israeli,’ but the non-Jews know it isn’t really referring to them. They are unwanted guests of the Jewish state. The passport is a lovely dream world, an act to trick the outside world into letting the inhabitants of the Holy Land travel abroad, but is more a laissez-passez, a proto-passport.
The holders return to “the only democracy in the Middle East” or what was proposed in 2011 in the Basic Law, a “Jewish and democratic state.” They go about their lives, but they live in two different worlds. Their real identity is buried at the state registry, with the label ‘Jewish’ or ‘non-Jewish,’ which appears only in your records and determines your civil rights.
- This brings us to the fact that there are two citizenship laws governing their lives, the famous Law of Return of 1950, which gives every Jew in the world the right to come to Israel and instantly receive citizenship. The much less known Citizenship Law, passed two years later, confers citizenship, in very restricted circumstances, to non-Jews.
“Nationality” sleight of hand
A constitutional committee was set up in 1949, but almost 70 years later, whatever rights there are for Arab Israelis are trumped by Jewish Israeli rights. Palestinians make up 20% of the population of Israel, 60% of overall population including the occupied territories. Those who reside in the occupied territories have no rights as citizens at all.
A constitution implies equal rights for all the nation’s citizens. To be a democratic nation, Israeli must be the nationality of Israel, with the Israeli state composed of ethnicities with equal rights. ‘Jewish’ is not even considered a distinct ethnicity anymore, at least according to the US census. Nationality in most cases more or less conforms to ethnicity, but if it differs, nationality trumps ethnicity as a signifier.
As of 2005, ethnicity is not printed on Identity Cards either; a line of eight asterisks appears instead. Sounds good. But the registry knows everyone’s ethnicity and their respective civil rights. Some major violations of civil rights result from this:
- A non-Jew can’t obtain citizenship unless married to a Jewish spouse who is a native Israeli. They must marry abroad or the non-Jewish spouse must convert under the supervision of the Orthodox rabbinate, very difficult. Palestinians who marry Israeli citizens cannot immigrate to join their spouses in Israel.
- Non-Jews, even relatives of Israelis, are not automatically allowed to immigrate to Israel, blocking relatives of Palestinian citizens from returning to join their families.
- The only Arabs who can be Israeli citizens are those born in Israel, i.e., the descendants of those Arabs who were not expelled in 1948 and 1967.
- The Jewish National Fund directly or indirectly controls 93% of the land in Israel, chartered to benefit Jews exclusively. The law claims that Arabs have equal rights, but only Jews are offered land for settlement, Jews do not have land confiscated as do Arabs, and disputes mostly go against Arabs.
- Many services and privileges are granted only to veterans, which means only Jews.
Even the US condemns Israel on these violations of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
Forward-looking Israelis have since the 1950s petitioned to be assigned an Israeli nationality and are denied. In the latest decision in October 2013, the Israeli Supreme Court again denied the request to recognize Israeli as a nationality. This would compel Jewish citizens of Israel to choose between being Israeli and Jewish. Most Israeli Jews would be forced into an impossible predicament, seeing themselves as both Jewish and Israeli. The implication would be that Judaism is not a nationality but solely a religion, as indeed it is.
This idea is antithetical to the fundamental doctrine of Zionism as the national movement of the Jewish ‘people.’ If the nationality of Jewish Israelis is defined as Israeli rather than Jewish, then the national bond which binds together Jews in Israel and Jews in the Diaspora would be severed.
Arab irony
The supreme irony is that the only countries following international norms with respect to Israel are the Arab states that refuse to recognize Israeli passports, which claim a nationality that doesn’t exist. That is why Israeli governments feel it is so important to get these Arab countries and the stateless Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. That would supposedly legitimize Israel without worrying about declaring an Israeli nationality for all Israelis, Jew or Arab.
But that is why it is impossible to do, as that would automatically validate Israel’s de facto dispossession of its non-Jewish citizens. Unlike Canada with the native peoples, the Israelis are not seeking Arab assimilation into Judaism, nor do they want to assimilate them as Israelis with full citizenship. Were it not for the international acceptance of the duplicity of the Israeli passports, the Israeli Arabs would de facto be stateless. One can only marvel that Israel managed this confidence trick with most of the non-Arab world.
The West violated international law by recognizing Israel, a nation with no fixed borders, accepting without question its claim as a Jewish state. The requirement from 1948 onward was to recognize Israel as a normal state, abiding by international norms, without a formal demand on Israel’s part for recognition as a “Jewish state,” which is not an international norm. A clever deceit, but the Arabs saw through it. The latter became an issue only after the Oslo Accord in 1993, where the PLO recognized Israel as a normal state, but when asked to do so as a “Jewish state,” rightly balked. Israel ‘forgot’ to demand this from Jordan. “Why didn’t they present this demand to Jordan or Egypt when they signed a peace agreement with them?” PLO chair Mahmoud Abbas asked the Arab League when they too refused.
The contradiction in attempting to craft a democratic state based on the Jewish race is epitomized in the Kahane amendment to the Basic Law in 1985, which forbids “negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people, negation of the democratic character of the State, incitement to racism.” But limiting democracy to ‘Jews only’ is by definition both undemocratic and racist. Most Israeli Jews (79%) don’t see the contradiction, agreeing that Jews deserve preferential treatment in Israel. They do not see an inherent contradiction between a Jewish homeland and a functioning democracy providing equality before the law for non-Jews.
Irony of ironies: Israel as a religious state
The US census effectively undermines Israel’s claim as a Jewish state. As ‘races,’ the US census shows White/ Black/ Asian/ Native/ Polynesian. For ethnic subdivisions, there is no Jewish ethnicity. Jews are considered members of some other ethnicity (European, Russian, Moroccan, etc.). Jewish is only a religious category and the census doesn’t do religion since the 1950s (a blowback from Nazism).
Ergo, a Jewish state can only be a religious state a la Iran/Saudi Arabia, presumably with the titular head of state a chief rabbi, though with laws protecting all citizens equally. All ethnicities have equal rights, and the various confessions either abide by a generally agreed legal system or operate legally according to their religious laws.
Iran uses sharia but as interpreted by the elected government. Israel, in line with Saudi Arabia, uses religious law as issued by the religious establishment (though less and less, mostly limited to family issues), already admitting it is at least the pretense of a religious state, but still falling short of the ‘equal rights’ bit. Wait! Yet another irony: Rather than its enemy, Iran is in fact more a model for Israel as a viable religious state than, say, Saudi Arabia.
This does not please Rabbi Avi Shafran, a spokesman for Agudath Israel of America, “While Judaism is a religion, the Jewish people is a people. Peoplehood, at least Jewish peoplehood, transcends ethnicity and race.” (I’m not making that up.)
Sorry, Rabbi Shafran. The Zionist dream of a Jewish state was built on sand, and is still, 70 years after declaring independence, and fighting to gain international acceptance. Not a shred of “justice and hope” in sight. Almost all Jews wanted no part of this a century ago, when Zionism’s founding father, Hertzl, launched the Zionist Organization. Many Jews and non-Jews have continued to resist this “idea,” though until recently, Jews were cowed, too polite to protest, worried they would be perceived as traitors to their ‘race,’ and be cast out of the tribe.
Any people who recognize the problem, especially Jews, are hounded as “anti-Semites,” the Jewish ones as “traitors” or “self-hating Jews,” including the ultra-Orthodox Jews who reject the very notion of a Jewish ‘state’.
Why this hysteria, 70 years after the state came into being? How will normality ever be established? In researching the history of Canada and the Zionist project, you find unremitting slander, the creation of ever growing mechanisms and institutions to defend the indefensible, avoiding the underlying catch-22.
Canadian Eric Walberg is known worldwide as a journalist specializing in the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia. A graduate of University of Toronto and Cambridge in economics, he has been writing on East-West relations since the 1980s. He has lived in both the Soviet Union and Russia, and then Uzbekistan, as a UN adviser, writer, translator and lecturer. Presently a writer for the foremost Cairo newspaper, Al Ahram, he is also a regular contributor to Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Global Research, Intrepid Report, Al-Jazeerah and Turkish Weekly, and is a commentator on Voice of the Cape radio. His latest book is The Canada Israel Nexus.
February 13, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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Candidate Donald Trump may have promised to extricate us from Middle East wars, once ISIS and al-Qaida were routed, yet events and people seem to be conspiring to keep us endlessly enmeshed.
Friday night, a drone, apparently modeled on a U.S. drone that fell into Iran’s hands, intruded briefly into Israeli [occupied] airspace over the Golan Heights, and was shot down by an Apache helicopter.
Israel seized upon this to send F-16s to strike the airfield whence the drone originated. Returning home, an F-16 was hit and crashed, unleashing the most devastating Israeli attack in decades on Syria. Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu says a dozen Syrian and Iranian bases and antiaircraft positions were struck.
Monday’s headline on The Wall Street Journal op-ed page blared:
“The Iran-Israel War Flares Up: The fight is over a Qods Force presence on the Syria-Israeli border. How will the U.S. respond?”
Op-ed writers Tony Badran and Jonathan Schanzer, both from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, closed thus:
“The Pentagon and State Department have already condemned Iran and thrown their support behind Israel. The question now is whether the Trump administration will go further. … Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (has) affirmed that the U.S. seeks not only to ensure its allies’ security but to deny Iran its ‘dreams of a northern arch’ from Tehran to Beirut. A good way to achieve both objectives would be back Israel’s response to Iran’s aggression — now and in the future.”
The FDD is an annex of the Israeli lobby and a charter member of the War Party.
Chagai Tzuriel, who heads the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence, echoed the FDD: “If you (Americans) are committed to countering Iran in the region, then you must do so in Syria — first.”
Our orders have been cut.
Iran has dismissed as “lies” and “ridiculous” the charge that it sent the drone into Israeli airspace.
If Tehran did, it would be an act of monumental stupidity. Not only did the drone bring devastating Israeli reprisals against Syria and embarrass Iran’s ally Russia, it brought attacks on Russian-provided and possibly Russian-manned air defenses.
Moreover, in recent months Iranian policy — suspending patrol boat harassment of U.S. warships — appears crafted to ease tensions and provide no new causes for Trump to abandon the nuclear deal Prime Minister Hassan Rouhani regards as his legacy.
Indeed, why would Iran, which, with Assad, Russia and Hezbollah, is among the victors in Syria’s six-year civil war, wish to reignite the bloodletting and bring Israeli and U.S. firepower in on the other side?
In Syria’s southeast, another incident a week ago may portend an indefinite U.S. stay in that broken and bleeding country.
To recapture oil fields lost in the war, forces backed by Assad crossed the Euphrates into territory taken from ISIS by the U.S. and our Kurd allies. The U.S. response was a barrage of air and artillery strikes that killed 100 soldiers.
What this signals is that, though ISIS has been all but evicted from Syria, the U.S. intends to retain that fourth of Syria as a bargaining chip in negotiations.
In the northwest, Turkey has sent its Syrian allies to attack Afrin and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened Manbij, 80 miles to the east, where U.S. troops commingle with the Kurd defenders and U.S. generals were visible last week.
Midweek, Erdogan exploded: “(The Americans) tell us, ‘Don’t come to Manbij.’ We will come to Manbij to hand over these territories to their rightful owners.”
The U.S. and Turkey, allies for six decades, with the largest armies in NATO, may soon be staring down each other’s gun barrels.
Has President Trump thought through where we are going with this deepening commitment in Syria, where we have only 2,000 troops and no allies but the Kurds, while on the other side is the Syrian army, Hezbollah, Russia and Iran, and Shiite militias from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan?
Clearly, we have an obligation not to abandon the Kurds, who took most of the casualties in liberating eastern Syria from ISIS. And we have a strategic interest in not losing Turkey as an ally.
But this calls for active diplomacy, not military action.
And now that the rebels have been defeated and the civil war is almost over, what would be the cost and what would be the prospects of fighting a new and wider war? What would victory look like?
Bibi and the FDD want to see U.S. power deployed alongside that of Israel, against Iran, Assad and Hezbollah. But while Israel’s interests are clear, what would be the U.S. vital interest?
What outcome would justify another U.S. war in a region where all the previous wars in this century have left us bleeding, bankrupt, divided and disillusioned?
When he was running, Donald Trump seemed to understand this.
Copyright 2018 Creators.com.
February 13, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Israel, Middle East, Syria, United States, Zionism |
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On Saturday, when Israeli jets undertook yet another bombing raid – this time an audacious attack on a drone base at the T4 airbase in Homs province deep inside Central Syria – a nasty surprise awaited them. They were confronted by the Russian-made S-200 air defence system. One Israeli F-16 jet was shot down; a second jet was hit but managed to make it home; and, two pilots parachuted – one heavily injured and in serious condition.
The last time an Israeli jet was shot down was in 1986 in Lebanon. The incident on Saturday is a humiliating experience for Israel. But, more importantly, it contains a stark message – namely, that Israeli air attacks from now onward on Syria may come only at an unacceptable cost.
The Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani summed up the message to Israel this way: “There is an important point in the recent events and in targeting an Israeli fighter jet: the Syrian army showed to the Zionists that the era of hit-and-run has ended.” In political terms, Tehran has justified the retaliation by the Syrian forces. The influential senior advisor on foreign policy to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Akbar Velayati said today, “If the Zionist regime wants to make aggression against Syria or any other state’s airspace, the regional countries are entitled to use their space and the Syrian government and nation was entitled to respond to the Zionist regime’s aggression to make them regret.”
The same sentiments are echoed in the remark by the Deputy Secretary-General of Lebanon’s Hezbollah Resistance Movement Sheikh Naim Qassem lauded the Syrian army and said “Shooting down the Israeli fighter jet means that the era of unanswered attacks has ended.” He warned that henceforth, Israeli aggression will be met with counter-attacks.
The impression becomes unavoidable that the rules of engagement in the Syrian conflict have changed and Israel has been duly notified of the change. It is inconceivable that the Syrian air defence system would have opened up without the knowledge of the Russian forces in Syria. Russia controls the Syrian air space. On the other hand, neither Moscow nor Tehran has hyped up the incident on Saturday. In effect, they are letting the message to Israel to sink in.
The reset of the rules of engagement has become inevitable now that the Syrian government and its allied forces are registering more successes in the conflict. Israel has been so far acting with impunity, having conducted air attacks on Syrian territory more than a hundred times during the conflict. Interestingly, Israel can only expect verbal support from the US, since American presence is very thin on the ground in Syria and the Trump administration has its hands full at the moment what with the cascading tensions with Turkey that may lead to a nasty confrontation.
The pro-Israeli US media, which is heavily under the influence of the Jewish lobby, is conjuring up the spectre of a massive Israeli retaliation against Iran. But the fact of the matter is that the Israelis are hardcore realists. They’d have no difficulty to grasp the message that their plans to insert themselves into the Syrian endgame to extract concessions in terms of legitimizing their illegal occupation of Golan Heights as part of any settlement might as well be abandoned now.
Equally, the Israeli game plan to drive a wedge between Russia and Iran is simply not working. It comes as no surprise that amidst all this, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has chosen to defend Iran’s ballistic missile program. The Russian news agency Sputnik quoted Lavrov as saying in an interview with Russian TV, “There are other countries in the (Middle East) region with such programs. We must look at it as a whole. It is hardly justified to mix nuclear affairs with human rights and put the issue on the agenda that Iran should stop taking certain steps in the region… to my mind, a frankly discriminatory, biased and unjustifiably captious approach can be seen behind these US actions.”
All in all, as the veteran Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri says, “What happened (on Saturday) is larger than a battle and a little less than a war. It will create new balances and rules of engagement in the region. This event is the first of its kind in tens of years. However, no escalation is expected. Things will end here; they will not develop into an all-out war.” If Berri says so, they must be words of wisdom. The shrewd politician after all has been holding the post of parliament speaker in Beirut continuously since 1992.
February 12, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Hezbollah, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Russia, Syria |
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How many Americans are aware that every two years the United States military engages in large scale exercises with the Israeli Defense Forces that simulate wars against Israel’s neighbors? Three thousand American soldiers are in Israel right now involved in maneuvers that are focused on countering a missile attack from Lebanon. When the exercise, known as Juniper Cobra, was run in 2016 the U.S. commander Lt. Gen. Timothy Ray, who appeared to confuse American national security with that of a small Middle Eastern state, described it as the European Command’s “highest priority” drill that year. He then added that “this exercise increases our military readiness, but just as importantly it also signals our resolve to support Israel.”
Ironically, Lebanon has an army of its own that is in part financially and logistically supported by Washington, though not at the level that the U.S. supports Israel, which means that the U.S. is participating in war games that pit one friendly country and military aid recipient against another. Israel has warned that in any future conflict it will target the Lebanese Army equally with Hezbollah as both are “enemies.”
The truly most interesting aspects of the current exercises in Israel is that the United States has never had any formal alliance with Israel and has absolutely no national interest in becoming involved in Israel’s wars at all. The assumption that the U.S. might be called upon to help defend Israel is not based on any strategic reality, which is not to say it might not happen if Congress and the White House have their way, but it would likely be a double war of aggression, with Israel attacking the militarily much weaker Lebanese followed by the United States weighing in to finish the job after Hezbollah tries to fight back with its batteries of rockets.
That Washington is the Israeli poodle in the current situation is made clear by the recent opening of the first U.S. military base in Israel. It is described as a base within a base as it is completely contained by an Israeli air force installation and operates “under Israeli military directives.” It has no function in support of U.S. regional interests but is instead a shell headquarters with limited support facilities that can be ramped up considerably if Israel goes to war and calls for American assistance. Together with billions of dollars-worth of U.S. military equipment that is pre-positioned in Israel and can be used by the Israelis as needed, it is all about supporting Israeli war-making and has nothing to do with American security or defense interests.
Maneuvers are supposed to simulate possible future military actions, bloodless battles that provide lessons learned for future engagements, suggesting that some genius in the Pentagon who initiated these biennial exercises under George W. Bush, expects American soldiers to assist in the Israeli mission to remake the Middle East in their favor. Pentagon number two Paul Wolfowitz, who had an unseemly close relationship with Israeli military visitors, comes to mind as a possible candidate.
Israel has actually been planning to invade Lebanon. Last September it held its largest military exercise in over twenty years around the theme of a ground invasion of Lebanon. Israeli soldiers even dressed as Hezbollah militiamen as part of the training. There have been repeated warnings by Israeli government officials that there are several red lines that will bring about an Israeli attack, to include evidence that Iran is aiding the development of sophisticated “missile plants” in either Lebanon or Syria. The evidence for such plants is otherwise reported to be apocryphal or perhaps even fabricated, known only to Israeli intelligence, but they should perhaps be seen as a pretext for war and not necessarily based on fact.
Apart from having no compelling interest to get involved in the latest round of bloodletting, the U.S. would be well advised to keep its distance from Benjamin Netanyahu’s schemes to destroy Hezbollah’s power as crushing Lebanon would produce the same kind of regional catastrophe as did the U.S. led Iraq invasion of 2003. Israel’s Minister of Transportation Ysrael Katz recently warned that Lebanon will be “razed to the ground” and “returned to the stone age” if Hezbollah proves able and willing to fire any missiles at Israel.
Israel is itching for a fight and working hard to get Washington involved, not a difficult task given the belligerent proclivities of those who gather to discuss national security strategy in the White House. Viewing Israel’s recent actions relating to Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, it is clear that Netanyahu’s government is the aggressor and is both willing and able to destabilize the entire region without any regard for what happens next. It has already warned that its expected conflict with Lebanon will also involve Syria and that the ultimate target is to eliminate Iranian influence in the area.
Bombings of neighboring Syria by Israeli aircraft have also intensified, leading to the shooting down of an Israeli jet by Syrian air defense forces. The U.S. media covered the story but largely ignored the fact that Netanyahu has launched hundreds of airstrikes against a country with which it is not at war, again using the false claim that Israel is acting defensively and it is Iran that is doing the “interfering.” Of course, the United States in Syria has done much the same thing, lying about developments before setting up an ambush last week that killed 100 Syrian soldiers.
That Washington is dancing to the tune being played by Israel to dismember the Middle East makes the American government an accomplice when the war actually does break out. And it will undoubtedly also have to do much of the fighting. That the United States appears to be committed to defend Israel, even if Israel starts the war, is deplorable and is particularly so as there is no reciprocity. Israel has never fought side-by-side with the United States and if Washington actually finds itself in a situation where it needs Israeli military assistance or support don’t count on it.
*(Juniper Cobra 2016. Image credit: Israel Defense Forces/ flickr)
February 12, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Israel, Lebanon, Syria, United States, Zionism |
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The Israeli occupation authorities arrested a 14 year-old epileptic Palestinian girl for begging. As punishment they dumped her in the Gaza Strip where she knew no-one and was cut off from her parents.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports how the girl was arrested as an “illegal alien” in East Jerusalem (Palestinian territory as everyone knows), her cellular telephone confiscated and a lawyer from the Public Defender’s Office appointed to represent her. She was released on bail and taken to the Gaza Strip because it was listed in Israeli records as her father’s place of residence. She told officials at Erez checkpoint on the Gaza border that she didn’t live in Gaza but in the West Bank.
The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court ordered her release on bail after her uncle paid 1,500 shekels. The authorities checked with records and found she was registered as a Gaza resident although her mother is registered as a West Bank resident. Her father, on the other hand, is registered as a Gaza resident and is classified as an illegal alien in the West Bank because he didn’t receive an exit permit from the Strip, which he left in 2000. This administrative muddle, which is deliberate and widespread, hardly makes for happy family life in the illegally occupied territories.
Representatives of HaMoked Center for the Defense of the Individual, who assisted the girl’s family, said she had never been to Gaza. Nonetheless Civil Administration officers instructed the Co-ordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) to pack the girl off to Gaza despite her protests. Only after being deposited in Gaza did she get her phone back.
A HaMoked lawyer said: “With obtuseness that cannot be justified, nobody bothered to tell the minor where she was or made sure the family knew of her release, as is required in view of her age.”
The Guardian reports that, according to HaMoked, twenty-seven Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank were forcibly sent to Gaza last year…. condemned to be shredded, incinerated or at least deeply traumatised the next time Israel ‘war-tests’ its weaponry on this tight packed open-air prison where the inhabitants have nowhere to run. It was the first time they had heard of someone as young as 14 being sent there.
Despicable
There’s nothing new about the Israelis’ urge to hurt the most vulnerable. If there’s one thing they are good at its making war on women and children. The self-styled “most moral army in the world” especially loves targeting Palestinian university students. Back in 2009 I wrote about Merna, an honours student in her final year majoring in English. Israeli soldiers frequently rampaged through her Bethlehem refugee camp in the middle of the night, ransacking homes and arbitrarily arresting residents. They took away her family one by one. First her 14-year-old cousin and best friend was shot dead by an Israeli sniper while she sat outside her family home during a curfew.
Next the Israelis arrested her eldest brother, a 22-year-old artist, and imprisoned him for 4 years. Then they came back for Merna’s 18-year-old brother. Not content with that the military came again, this time to take her youngest brother – the ‘baby’ of the family – just 16. These were the circumstances under which Merna had to study.
Israeli military law treats Palestinians as adults as soon as they reach 16, a flagrant violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Israeli youngsters by comparison are regarded as children until 18. Palestinians are dealt with by Israeli military courts, even when it’s a civil matter. These courts ignore international laws and conventions, so there’s no legal protection for individuals under Israeli military occupation.
As detention is based on secret information, which neither the detainees nor their lawyers are allowed to see, it is impossible to mount a proper defence. Besides, the Security Service always finds a phony excuse to keep detainees locked up “in the greater interest of the security of Israel”. Although detainees have the right to review and appeal, they are unable to challenge the evidence and check facts as all information presented to the court is classified.
Despite the horrendous mental stress of it all, Merna determined to carry on with her studies. The most moral army in the world may have robbed her brothers of an education, but she would still fight for hers.
Cruel beyond belief
Dumping students in Gaza to disrupt their studies is nothing new either. Five years earlier the Israelis forcibly removed four Birzeit University students from their studies in the West Bank and illegally sent them back to the Gaza Strip. All four were due to graduate by the end of that academic year. There was an outcry from around the world and the Israeli Army Legal Advisor was bombarded with faxes and letters demanding the students be allowed to return to their studies.
The world’s most moral army agreed that the students might be allowed to return to Birzeit if they signed a guarantee to permanently return to the Gaza Strip after completing their studies. This effectively exposed Israel’s plan to impose a final separation between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, even though the two are internationally recognized as one integral territory. Under international law everyone has the right to freely choose their place of residence within a single territory, but Israel doesn’t give a damn about international law. The racist regime makes it virtually impossible for Gaza students to reach the eight Palestinian universities in the West Bank. In 1999 some 350 Gaza students were studying at Birzeit. By 2009 there were almost none.
To get to Bethlehem University, or any other, many students have to run the gauntlet of Israeli checkpoints. “Sometimes they take our ID cards and they spend ages writing down all the details, just to make us late,” said one. Students are often made to remove shoes, belt and bags. “It’s like an airport. Many times we are kept waiting outside for up to an hour, rain or shine, they don’t care.” The soldiers attempt to forcibly remove students’ clothes or they swear and shout sexual slurs at female students.
Some tell how they are sexually harassed on their way to university and spend the rest of the day worrying what the Israelis will do to them on their way home. This constant humiliation of course undermines student motivation and concentration.
It was no surprise, then, to hear from Bethlehem University at around that time (2009) that Berlanty Azzam, a 4th year Business Administration student was being held by the Israeli military authorities with the intention of deporting her to Gaza “for trying to complete her studies at Bethlehem University.”
Berlanty, a Christian girl, was originally from Gaza but had lived in the West Bank since 2005 after receiving a travel permit from the military to cross from Gaza to the West Bank. She was detained at the Container checkpoint between Bethlehem and Ramallah after attending a job interview in Ramallah. She too was robbed of her degree at the last minute.
The 21 year-old was due to graduate before Christmas. The most moral army in the world blindfolded and handcuffed her, loaded her into a jeep and drove her from Bethlehem to Gaza, despite assurances by the Israeli Military Legal Advisor’s office that she would not be deported before an attorney from Gisha (an Israeli NGO working to protect Palestinians’ freedom of movement) had the opportunity to petition the Israeli court for her return to classes in Bethlehem.
When they’d crossed the border the world’s most moral army dumped Berlanty late at night and simply told her: “You are in Gaza.”
Berlanty had informed Gisha on her mobile phone before the soldiers confiscated it: “Since 2005, I refrained from visiting my family in Gaza for fear that I would not be permitted to return to my studies in the West Bank,” Now, just two months before graduation, she was arrested and taken to Gaza, with no way to finish her degree.
Bethlehem University was trying to mobilize people from around the world to protest. I contacted the Palestinian ambassador in London, who happens to be a former vice-president of that excellent seat of learning. “Have you contacted the Israeli ambassador for an explanation of this outrage?” I emailed him.
Next day, having heard nothing, I emailed again: “Update… She has been removed to Gaza blindfolded and handcuffed! What is the Embassy doing about this please?” Another 24 hours went by and no response. It wasn’t unusual for the Palestinian embassy to be fast asleep or out to lunch for days on end and no-one covering.
I had simultaneously emailed the Israeli ambassador asking him, please, to make enquiries. “On the face of it, this seems a senseless outrage. The student concerned has, I believe, just started her final year. I wonder what Mr Prosor or Mr Netanyahu would say if the education of their sons and daughters or grandchildren was disrupted in this manner.” Next day, having heard nothing, I sent the same update about Berlanty’s removal to Gaza blindfolded and handcuffed. Another 24 hours… still nothing, not even the courtesy of an acknowledgement from Israel’s press office, which usually responds like lightning to anything with news value.
If this had been a Jewish girl deprived of her university degree and life chances the Israeli embassy would be having hysterics and hurling accusations of religious hatred and anti-semitism. But this was the Jewish state screwing up the young life of a Christian, so that was alright then.
Administrative ‘laws’ designed to foul up every aspect of Palestinian life
Eventually, the Israeli embassy explained that Ms Azzam held a permit to stay in the West Bank back in 2005 and since the permit had expired she’d been living there illegally. “Every Gaza resident who stays in the West Bank requires a permit, failing to do so is a breach of the law. As Ms Azzam has failed to provide a valid permit she was deported back to Gaza.”
The embassy added that if Ms Azzam wished to complete her studies at Bethlehem she should apply for a permit to the relevant authorities (COGAT) in Gaza. But Bethlehem University’s senior management weren’t impressed. According to them 12 students from Gaza had applied to COGAT to attend the University in the previous year and NOT ONE received permission. Did they all pose a security threat to the democratic state of Israel? The Israeli reply simply raised more questions.
To give them their due, the Israelis eventually provided a detailed explanation attempting to unravel the complexities of the ever-changing permit rules and admitting procedural mistakes, but insisted these were not sufficient to justify a different decision.
It was a classic example of how Israel’s administrative ‘laws’ are framed to interfere to the nth degree in Palestinian lives and ride rough-shod over citizens’ rights enshrined in international law, and to disregard its own obligations entirely.
For example, there was no recognition in the Israeli court’s decision that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are one integral territory and under international law everyone has the right to freely choose their place of residence within it. Nor was there the slightest acknowledgement by Israel’s judiciary of the state’s responsibility under the Oslo Agreements to “respect and preserve without obstacles, normal and smooth movement of people, vehicles and goods within the West Bank, and between the West Bank and Gaza Strip”.
While Israel announced its ruling on Berlanty’s fate, its ambassador here was whining about the arrest warrant issued in London against ex-foreign minister Tzipi Livni for alleged war crimes. Livni had overseen Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza in December/January 2008-9, which killed 1400, including a large number of women and children, maimed thousands more and left countless families homeless. Israeli top brass, including Ehud Barak, Livni and retired general Doron Almog, had to cancel engagements in London for fear of being arrested.
Israeli prime minister Netanyahu’s office issued this arrogant statement: “We will not agree to a situation in which [former prime minister] Ehud Olmert, [Defense Minister] Ehud Barak and [opposition leader and former foreign minister] Tzipi Livni will be summoned to the bench. We utterly reject the absurdity that is happening in Britain.”
What’s absurd? If Berlanty, who had committed no crime at all, wasn’t allowed to come and go as she pleased in her own country, Palestine, what made Netanyahu and Israel’s ambassador think that the blood-soaked Livni, and others like her, could come and go as they please in the UK?
The following year the incoming Conservative government, said to comprise 80% pimps for Israel, changed UK laws relating to ‘universal jurisdiction’ to prevent such arrest warrants being issued in future. Under universal jurisdiction all states that are party to the Geneva Conventions are under a binding obligation to seek out those suspected of having committed grave breaches of the Conventions and bring them, regardless of nationality, to justice. There should be no hiding place for those suspected of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
But the British government, to its everlasting shame, has turned the UK into a safe haven for Israeli psychopaths. As a result, we have to endure obscene spectacles like the red carpet love-in between Theresa May and Netanyahu at the Balfour centenary celebrations in London before Christmas.
February 11, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, Israel, Palestine |
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The Russian Foreign Ministry has called to respect Syria’s sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the countries in the Middle East following the aerial attacks of Israeli Occupation Forces against the targets in central Syria.
“Moscow is deeply concerned with the latest developments and attacks on Syria. The danger of the escalation of tensions within and around the de-escalation zones, which has become an important factor in reducing violence in Syria is of particular concern,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement posted on its website.
The statement reads that the Syrian government forces “are complying with the existing arrangements to provide the consistent functioning of the de-escalation zone in the south-west of the country.”
“We urge all the involved parties to exercise restraint and avoid any steps that could lead to aggravation of the situation. We consider it necessary to unconditionally respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria and other countries of the region.”
February 10, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | Israel, Russia, Syria, Zionism |
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Shortly before Syria downed an Israeli F16 fighter jet on Saturday, the occupation army claimed that an “Iranian drone” had violated the so-called “Israeli airspace”.
Tel Aviv aimed from this move to say that its strikes on military posts in Syria were just “defensive” or that they come in the context of “retaliation.”
However, the Command of Syria’s Allies dismissed such claims, stressing that the drone which the Zionist regime was talking about was operating over the Syrian airspace.
“Our drone took off from Tifur airport and was carrying out a normal anti-ISIL mission over Syrian Badiyah,” Syria’s Allies Command said in a statement.
“We hail the brave retaliation of Damascus,” the statement said referring to the downing of the Israeli F16.
It also vowed that any new Israeli aggression on Syria “won’t go unanswered.”
The Zionist entity tried since the first moment to justify its aggression on Syria. However, such claims were immediately refuted, in a clear message to the Zionist entity that says: “The era when you can strike Syria without any retaliation has gone!”
And this conclusion falls in line with Israeli daily Haaretz comments soon after the attack.
“Syrian President Bashar Assad has shifted from stage of threats to stage of action after his army regained control of 80% of Syria’s territory,” Haaretz said.
February 10, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Israel, Syria, Zionism |
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At next week’s New Democratic Party convention in Ottawa Palestinian rights are set to be a major flashpoint.
The NDP Socialist Caucus has submitted a resolution calling on the party to “actively campaign in support of the demand of Palestinian unions, civil society and unions across Canada and around the world which call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the Israeli state until it dismantles the apartheid wall, allows refugees to return home, ends its demolition of Palestinian homes and olive groves, lifts the siege of Gaza, ends its occupation of Palestinian lands, and terminates its apartheid practices.”
A more moderate “Palestine Resolution: renewing the NDP’s commitment to peace and justice” has been endorsed by two dozen riding associations. The motion mostly restates official Canadian policy, except that it calls for “banning settlement products from Canadian markets, and using other forms of diplomatic and economic pressure to end the occupation.”
Already the Canadian Jewish News, Electronic Intifada, National Post, Ottawa Jewish Bulletin, Toronto Star, Le Devoir, Mondoweiss, Canada Talks Israel Palestine and Rabble have published stories regarding the resolutions. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs has called on the party leader to “push back against marginal elements within the party” promoting Palestinian rights while the more explicitly antidemocratic Canadian Friends of Simon Wiesenthal has “Urged NDP to Disallow Anti-Israel Resolution at Upcoming Convention”.
Unfortunately, corporate-media-focused party operatives may heed the CIJA/Wiesenthal call. Party insiders will no doubt do everything in their power to avoid discussing the Socialist Caucus BDS resolution and will probably seek to block the Palestine Resolution from being debated publicly on the convention floor. If their backroom procedural shenanigans fail to stop the resolutions from a public airing expect a great deal of concern about associating with the international BDS movement.
For NDPers scared of BDS here is an alternative resolution that places no demands on Israel:
1. The NDP will refrain from excluding electoral candidates who speak up for Palestinian rights.
(During the 2015 federal election the NDP responded to Conservative party pressure by ousting as many as eight individuals from running or contesting nominations to be candidates because they defended Palestinian rights on social media.)
2. NDP MPs will refrain from participating in any Israel parliamentary group until the party is represented on a Nigerian, Algerian or Spanish parliamentary group.
(Vancouver Island MPs Randall Garrison and Murray Rankin are currently members of the Canada Israel Inter-parliamentary Group.)
3. The NDP foreign critic will refuse requests to participate in all expense paid trips to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference.
(Hélène Laverdière spoke at the 2016 AIPAC conference in Washington DC.)
4. NDP MPs will participate in all expense paid lobbying trips to Israel at no greater rate than Paraguay, which is of similar size and distance from Ottawa.
(A 2014 calculation found that 20 NDP MPs had been to Israel with a Zionist lobby organization and 13 months ago recently elected party leader Jagmeet Singh went on an organized trip to the country.)
5. NDP officials will abstain from attending events put on by explicitly racist organizations.
(In 2016 Hélène Laverdière participated in an event in Jerusalem organized by the openly racist Jewish National Fund while NDP MP Pat Martin spoke at a JNF event in Ottawa to “recognize and thank the people that have helped to make JNF Canada what it is today.” Owner of 13 per cent of Israel’s land – which was mostly taken from Palestinians forced from their homes by Zionist forces in 1947-48 – the JNF openly discriminates against the 20% of Israelis who are not Jewish. Its website notes that “a survey commissioned by KKL-JNF reveals that over 70% of the Jewish population in Israel opposes allocating KKL-JNF land to non-Jews, while over 80% prefer the definition of Israel as a Jewish state, rather than as the state of all its citizens.”)
My alternative resolution makes no demands of Israel so it’s hard to link it to the BDS bogeyman. Best of all, the party has the power to immediately implement this small gesture of support for the long-suffering Palestinians.
I will be speaking about “What’s Wrong with NDP Foreign Policy?” on the sidelines of the convention.
– Yves Engler is the author of Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid and a number of other books.
February 9, 2018
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | Canada, Israel, NDP, Palestine |
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