Temper Tantrums in US, Canada over Falk Comments to RT
By Richard Edmondson | December 22, 2013
Separate tirades against highly esteemed international law authority Richard Falk were launched one day apart from each other in Washington and Ottawa over remarks Falk made last week to RT.
A week ago RT’s program “The Truthseeker” aired a segment on the recent findings of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal—a segment that also included comments from Falk, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Palestine, as well as footage of flooding of Gaza’s streets.
The tribunal found Israel guilty of genocide against the Palestinians, and in his remarks to RT Falk stated, “When you target a group, an ethnic group, and inflict this kind of punishment upon them you are in effect nurturning a kind of criminal intention that is genocidal.”
Hardly a controversial statement. However, Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird called the comments “appalling” and said they “underscore once more the complete and total absurdity of his (Falk’s) service as a UN Special Rapporteur.” Baird also demanded the UN Human Rights Council “remove Falk from his position immediately.”
Not to be outdone, US State Dept. mouthpiece Jen Psaki lambasted Falk’s remarks as “despicable and deeply offensive” and called upon Falk to step down from his UN post—once again substantiating Washngton’s reputation as “Israeli occupied territory.”
Coming up in a few days the world will mark the fifth anniversary of Operation Cast Lead, a frenzy of military high-tech bloodshed that left 1400 Gazans dead, approximately a third of whom were children. In that 22-day assault, Israel bombed homes, schools, and hospitals, fired upon ambulances, and unleashed white phosphorous munitions that melted human skin and burned people alive. And then after the assault was over, the Jewish state continued its blockade of Gaza, making it difficult to outright impossible for people to get building supplies to rebuild their destroyed homes. Shortages of food and medicine were also reported, and in one notorious case the Israelis even blocked a shipment of pasta.
To say that Israel “targets” an “ethnic group” is undeniably true. To say that it is “nurturning a kind of criminal intention that is genocidal” is, if anything, an understatement. But Falk has a history of speaking truthfully that is rare in a public official—and of course this is what Israel and its puppets in the US and Canada really find so objectionable about him.
The interview below with Falk covers a lot of ground—from the UN’s helplessness to confront Israel to the upcoming bleak Christmas faced by Gazans. Falk is interviewed by Stuart Littlewood, author of Radio Free Palestine and whose articles appear frequently on a number of websites. (H/T Uprooted Palestinians)
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Creeping annexation, ethnic cleansing and ‘the politics of fragmentation’ inflicted by criminals who strut the world stage and thumb their noses at international law
By Stuart Littlewood
As the international conspiracy to rob Palestinians of their freedom and homeland is exposed a little more each day, observers and activists still puzzle over the duplicity of the United Nations in the decades-long illegal occupation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Territories, not to mention the true intent of Palestinian leaders. So when Richard Falk, professor of international law at Princeton and UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Occupied Palestine, visited Norwich recently, I took the opportunity to put some questions to him.
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SL – Can we start with the so-called peace process, please? Does the resignation of the Palestinian negotiation team, and the reasons given, effectively end the already discredited ‘peace talks’? Should the Palestinians walk away or carry on playing a pointless game for another 6 months?
Richard Falk – It is difficult to know how to assess the current suspension of peace talks. The Palestinian Authority seems always ready to bend to pressure, although with some outer limits. In this respect, the future of this phase of ‘peace talks’ will be determined not in Ramallah, but in Washington and Tel Aviv. It should be evident 20 years after Oslo that the peace talks serve Israel’s interest in ‘creeping annexation’ of the West Bank and ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem, while diminishing Palestinian prospects, and even harming the Palestinian image by disinformation that blames the Palestinian side for the breakdown of the process when and however it occurs. It would be a welcome sign of PA independence if they come forth and denounce this peace process for what it is.
The sad reality is that this is almost certain not to happen, and more likely than not the period of negotiations will be extended beyond the nine months set aside, on the entirely false claim that the parties are on the verge of resolving all their differences, and with a little patience, the prospects for a deal are quite bright.
SL – The negotiators said they were resigning because of the ‘unprecedented escalation’ of settlement building and because the Israeli government wasn’t serious about a two-state solution and had failed to fulfill commitments given before the present talks were resumed. I now read that Erekat has already been back to Washington for more talks with Tzipi Livni (Israel’s lead negotiator), Kerry and US envoy Indyk. Far from denouncing the process they are once again endorsing it, which makes your point.
In any case, how acceptable is it for a weak, demoralised and captive people like the Palestinians to be forced to the negotiation table with their brutal occupier under the auspices of a US administration seen by many people as too dishonest to play the part of peace broker?
Richard Falk – Even if the United States was acting in good faith, for which there is no evidence, its dual role as Israel’s unconditional ally and as intermediary would subvert the credibility of a negotiating process. In fact, the US Government signals its partisanship by White House appointments of individuals overtly associated with the AIPAC lobbying group as Special Envoys to oversee the negotiations such as Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk. It is hard to imagine the fury in the West that would exist if the conditions were reversed, and the UN proposed a one-sided ‘peace process’ biased in favour of the Palestinians. The unsatisfactory nature of the current framework of negotiations is further flawed by weighting the process in favour of Israel, which enjoys a position of hard power dominance.
SL – There can be no peace without justice, so is it right for final status ‘negotiations’ to be held before competing claims are tested in the courts and the many outstanding rulings under international law and UN resolutions are implemented? In any case, shouldn’t a neutral UN peace commission be supervising the final settlement of this long struggle, rather than the US or the Quartet?
Richard Falk – Yes, if the priority were to attain a just and sustainable peace, a framework would be developed that had two characteristics: neutral as between the two sides and sensitive to the relevance of rights under international law. Such sensitivity would favour the Palestinians as their main grievances are all reinforced by an objective interpretation of international law, including in relation to settlements, Jerusalem, refugees, borders, water.
SL – How much legitimacy does President Abbas enjoy, having overstayed his term of office?
Richard Falk – This question of political legitimacy of President Abbas turns on the subjective mood of the Palestinian people. Because the PA is a political entity so vulnerable to pressures and manipulation, the status of its presiding leader seems to be widely seen as a secondary matter of limited significance. When President Abbas has articulated the case for Palestinian statehood during the last three years at the United Nations he gained considerable personal respect among most governments and for many Palestinians. He seems a leader caught between the realities of his compromised position and the occasional opportunities to express the national ambitions and support the rights of the Palestinian people. The division with Hamas, and the failure to find a formula to restore Palestinian unity in relation to the West is a further source of weakness for PA claims to represent the Palestinian people as a whole. The failure to hold scheduled elections highlights the insufficiency of PA and Palestinian leadership.
SL – Do you believe a two-state solution is still feasible?
Richard Falk – No. I think Oslo has been dead for some years, primarily due to Israeli policies designed to encroach upon the remnant of Palestinian territorial and symbolic rights, especially by the continuously expanding settlement archipelago, the unlawful separation wall built on occupied territory, and the demographic manipulations in East Jerusalem. The pretence that Oslo plus the Roadmap point the only way to peace serves American and Israeli purposes in quieting growing complaints about the persistence of the conflict. It represents a diplomatic attempt to deflect criticism, and to divert attention from Palestinian grievances and a growing global solidarity movement.
SL – The 1947 UN Partition was unworkable as well as immoral. Shouldn’t the whole territory (of historic Palestine) be returned to the melting pot and shared out more sensibly? Shouldn’t Jerusalem and Bethlehem become an international city, or ‘corpus separatum’, as the UN originally intended?
Richard Falk – For me the fundamental flaw with the partition proposals contained in GA Resolution 181 was the failure to consult the people resident in Palestine at the time. A secondary flaw was the unfairness of awarding 55% of the territory to the Jewish presence as represented by the Zionist movement which in 1947 accounted for only one-third of the population owning around 6% of the land . This idea of determining the future of Palestine by outsiders, even if well intentioned, which seems not to have ever been the case, is incompatible with the historical trend toward resolving the future of peoples by way of the dynamics of self-determination. In Palestine’s case, at least from the issuance of the Balfour Declaration onward, this effort to control the future of Palestine has been justly condemned as the last major example of ‘settler colonialism.’ It is a particularly acute example as the settlers have no mother country to which to return, and take a poker player’s high risk posture of ‘all in.’
SL – Turning to the role of the International Criminal Court, this is an organ of the UN. So why doesn’t the ICC initiate its own prosecution of Israeli crimes based on UN reports and the mountain of evidence available to it, especially in view of Palestine’s upgraded status?
Richard Falk – There is no authoritative explanation of ICC passivity in face of the Israeli criminal violation of fundamental Palestinian rights. As a matter of speculation it is plausible to assume an absence of political will on the part of the prosecutor’s office to initiate an investigation that would be deeply opposed by Israel and the United States. The ICC has been recently criticized for its Western bias, and its failure for instance to consider whether the United Kingdom and the United States violated the Rome Statute’s enumeration of international crimes by initiating and conducting the Iraq War. The African Union has complained about the seeming focus on the criminality of African leaders, and the bypassing of grievances directed at Western behaviour.
SL – We hear you and others calling for intervention to prevent humanitarian catastrophes, e.g. the Gaza water crisis. Who exactly are you calling on? What is the chain of responsibility for intervening.
Richard Falk – There has been evolving within the UN and in international society more generally a sense that there is a ‘responsibility to protect’ peoples subject to severe threats of humanitarian catastrophes or natural disasters. Such sentiments are part of a process I have described as ‘moral globalization.’
In fact, R2P diplomacy has been discredited by being used as a geopolitical instrument, most dramatically as the normative foundation for the UN endorsement of the NATO 2011 military intervention in Libya. With respect to Libya the justification was protection against a feared massacre of civilians in the city of Benghazi, but the actual military operation from its outset seemed designed to achieve regime change in Tripoli. When it comes to Gaza where the present crisis has passed into a zone of desperation, the UN and world community are silent as if stone deaf to this deepening human crisis of survival.
SL – We have just seen the UN intervening to bring fuel into Gaza as it teetered on the brink of a full-blown public health crisis. There are many such emergencies thanks to Israel’s continuing blockade. Why doesn’t the UN take over the supply of fuel full-time? And indeed the supply of medicines, drugs, medical equipment and spares?
Richard Falk – The tragic situation in Gaza cannot be understood without taking account of the political context, above all the split between Fatah and Hamas, and the Israeli posture toward Gaza after its ‘disengagement’ in 2005 and the imposition of a punitive blockade in mid-2007 after Hamas took over the governance of Gaza. The UN has no capability to override geopolitical priorities, and so long as it is useful for Israel and Washington to treat Hamas as ‘a terrorist organization’ the UN will be limited in its role to being a provider of a subsistence existence for the Gazan people, long victims of unlawful Israel policies of ‘collective punishment’ unconditional prohibited by Article 33 of the 4th Geneva Convention.
After the Egyptian coup of July 3rd of this year, the subsistence regime evolved in Gaza is itself in jeopardy. The tunnel network has been substantially destroyed by Egyptian military action and the Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt has been mainly closed, isolating the people, and creating emergency conditions due to fuel shortages that have made electricity only available in very limited amounts.
The results are horrifying: sewage in the streets, insufficient power to run machines needed to keep the terminally ill alive, fuel shortages that virtually preclude economic activity, and closed borders that seal the fate of 1.6 million Gazans. Long before this dramatic further deterioration of life circumstances, observers were calling Gaza the largest open air prison in the world.
“The wrongful appropriation by Israel of Palestine’s water, land, and energy resources has been a massive crime against the Palestinian people…”
SL – What is the UN doing to protect Palestine’ s precious aquifers and offshore gas field from being plundered by the Israelis?
Richard Falk – Again, the UN has no independent capability, or ever will, to challenge Israel or to protect Palestinian rights. It is a case of geopolitical manipulation and Palestinian victimization. The wrongful appropriation by Israel of Palestine’s water, land, and energy resources has been a massive crime against the Palestinian people that has been continuous with the occupation that commenced in 1967.
SL – Why is the requirement, often repeated, to allow Palestinians free and unfettered movement in and out of Gaza not implemented? Gaza and the West Bank are supposed to be a contiguous territory but, for example, Palestinian students in Gaza are prevented from attending their excellent universities in the West Bank. And why are Gazan fishermen still restricted to a mere fraction of their territorial waters, despite agreements to the contrary, and regularly fired on? Why is Israel not prosecuted for acts of piracy in international waters against humanitarian traffic to Gaza?
Richard Falk – As earlier, the hard power realities of Israeli military dominance, as politically reinforced by American geopolitical muscle, overrides all of these Palestinian claims of right. In this respect, such injustice and suffering can only be challenged by Palestinian resistance and international solidarity. The specific abuses can and should be delimited to raise public awareness and contribute to the mobilization of support for the Palestinian struggle, but it is pointless to expect the UN to do more than its capabilities allow. The whole structure of the Organization, combined with the method of funding, gives geopolitical pressures great leverage in relation to specific situations. The veto power given to the permanent members of the Security Council is a major expression of this weakness that was built into the constitutional structure of the UN from the moment of its establishment.
SL – People reading what you say here will be alarmed that US geopolitical power and Israeli military might can so easily override international and humanitarian law. After Nuremburg our legal institutions were strong enough to bring Nazi era criminals to book, but present-day war criminals walk free and thumb their noses. What hope is there for mankind and our brave new world if this is allowed to continue?
Richard Falk – The Nuremberg experience was based on ‘victors’ justice,’ holding the defeated leaders after World War II criminally accountable, while exempting the crimes of the victors from accountability. There was a promise made at Nuremberg that in the future the rules by which the Germans were judged would be applicable to all who committed state crimes in the future. This Nuremberg Promise has not been kept. The political and military leaders of the main states enjoy impunity while the leaders of defeated countries (e.g. Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic) or sub-Saharan African countries are prosecuted by international tribunals. Double standards prevail, and it is questionable whether an international criminal law that punishes the weak and exempts the strong is to be treated as legitimate even if those accused receive a fair trial and are convicted and punished only if they were guilty of grave misconduct.
The bottom line is that we live in a world in which the primacy of hard power prevails in the relationship among states. Geopolitical leverage enables Israel to defy the most basic principles of international law, and yet their leaders are not held accountable. There are only two paths available that challenge this result. National courts can be empowered by what is called ‘universal jurisdiction’ to investigate, indict, prosecute, convict, and punish anyone accused of state crime that can be personally delivered to the relevant court. In 1998 the Chilean dictator was detained in London after the Spanish Government requested that Pinochet be extradited. After lengthy litigation is was found that Pinochet could be extradited for torture committed during part of his reign, but in the end he was sent back to Chile because of health reasons, and never faced trial in Spain. Yet such a possibility exists in relation to Israeli political and military leaders, and seems to have discouraged their travel to countries whose criminal law contains the authority to invoke universal jurisdiction.
The other possibility is by convening a peoples tribunal of the sort constituted in the past by the Bertrand Russell Foundation in Brussels and the Lelio Basso Foundation in Rome. The Russell Foundation sponsored four sessions devoted to various allegations of criminality attributed to the government of Israel. It produced convincing documentation of the charges, and issued judgements that called for civil society initiatives. Such a tribunal, although acting on evidence and in accord with the relevant provisions of international criminal law, possesses no formal authority and lacks implementing capabilities. Its role is limited to documenting the case against a government, and providing symbolic support to those who contend that there have been violations of international criminal law. Such outcomes may influence public opinion, and help change the balance of political forces by undermining the legitimacy of an established order of oppression as exists with respect to Israel’s relationship to the Palestinian people and the denial of their collective right of self-determination.
SL – What are the chances as you see them for achieving unity between Fatah and Hamas, and how should the Palestinians play their cards in future?
Richard Falk – There is a near unanimous belief among Palestinians and their supporters that unity is needed to move the struggle forward. Such unity existed throughout the early decades of the Palestinian National Movement, despite many ideological differences relating to tactics and goals, but within a shared resolve to achieve national liberation. The unifying image provided by Yasser Arafat’s uncontested leadership was also important.
Israel has pursued a policy I describe as ‘the politics of fragmentation’ designed to undermine Palestinian unity, and it has been alarmingly successful. Oslo contributed to this end by dividing up the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C, by splitting the administration of Gaza off from the rest of Palestine. The emergence of Hamas highlighted Palestinian fragmentation, a result welcomed by Israel even as it was condemned. Fatah appears to have been inhibited in reaching some kind of functional unity with Hamas by pressures to refrain from such moves mounted in Israel and the United States. So long as Hamas is treated as a terrorist organization, even in the face of its turn from armed struggle and entry into the political process back in 2006, there will be strong opposition to moves toward unity, which were attempted in the Morsi period of leadership in Egypt, and seemed on the verge of success.
SL – Finally, Richard, your robust defence of Palestinian rights has ruffled many feathers and led to demands from ‘the usual suspects’ for your dismissal. Should the people you speak up for be concerned about this?
Richard Falk – The attacks on me, and others who have tried to bear witness to the directives of international law and political justice, are part of a deliberate campaign by Israel, and its cadres in civil society, to deflect attention from the substantive grievances of the Palestinian people. It is what I have described as ‘the politics of deflection,’ go after the messenger so as to deflect attention from the message. The media has been largely compliant as have Israel’s powerful governmental friends, including the United Kingdom, US, and Canadian governments. Of course, many NGOs and elements of the public push back against such tactics. In my case the defamatory efforts of UN Watch, in particular, have been unpleasant, but have not altered my effort to do the job of witnessing to the best of my ability and in accordance with the canons of truth telling.
SL – Thank you for being so generous with your time and sharing your assessment of the situation. But before you go, what sort of Christmas can the children of Gaza look forward to?
Richard Falk – We can only imagine the horror of Christmas this year in Gaza for young and old alike: from life amid raw sewage to freezing cold, scarcities, desolation, and a sense that the world is elsewhere, indifferent to such acute suffering, such sustained injustice, such blind hate.
And yet also knowing many Gazans makes me believe that even in such dire circumstances there remains space for some laughter, and much love, and that such a spirit of resistance lives on among the children of this place haunted by the evils of our world. If present these days in Gaza it would likely make me feel a mystifying blend of sadness and inspiration.
At the very least those of us living in comfort should not turn our gaze away from the children of Gaza this Christmas: we should demand empathy from our leaders and be as personally attentive as possible, whether by commentary, prayer, donations, a compassionate scream! We should not allow these days of celebration and renewal to pass this year without moments of reflection on selfish joys and cheerful carols, as contrasting with the miserable destiny bestowed upon the innocent and abused children of Gaza
Let us look the children of Gaza in the eye if we can. And if we can’t, as I could not, seize the moment to reflect on what it means to be (in)human during this holiday season.
Related article
The state of American pro-justice activism
By Dr. Sarah Marusek | MEMO | December 22, 2013
As the New Year approaches and we step back to reflect upon 2013, it becomes increasingly obvious that cracks are emerging in Israel’s most special relationship.
While the occupation of Washington continues uncontested, more and more Americans are carving out other spaces of resistance that challenge the hegemony of the Zionist narrative and confront Israeli occupation and apartheid. These efforts are starting to rupture the deeply entrenched political and ideological frameworks that enable the US government to spend vast public resources to help Israel oppress the Palestinian people, without any public backlash.
There is still an extremely long way to go, but there is no doubt that Zionists in the US and Israel are beginning to see that the writing is indeed on the wall.
Last week, members of the American Studies Association (ASA) voted to endorse the boycott of Israeli academic institutions by a margin of two to one. While largely a symbolic move, the decision generated widespread media coverage debating the issue from both sides, with mainstream newspapers like the New York Times calling it a “milestone achievement” for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement launched by Palestinian civil society in 2005.
The newspaper quoted a leading Israeli scholar who said: “It’s almost like a family betrayal… It’s very grave and very saddening that this [has happened], particularly so in the US.”
In response, Brandeis University and Penn State University at Harrisburg have withdrawn their membership of the ASA. Last month Brandeis also suspended its relationship with Al-Quds University after the Palestinian university’s condemnation of a student rally deemed offensive to Israelis was, well, not quite condemnatory enough. Subsequently, a group of Brandeis faculty involved in the partnership issued a report in favour of Al-Quds President Sari Nusseibeh’s handling of the matter and the university’s ethics board has recommended that it should resume the academic partnership.
Only days after the ASA endorsement, the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association announced that it was following suit. Last April, the Asian American Association was the first to respond positively to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
But it is not only American professors who are mobilising increasingly in solidarity with Palestinians struggling for equal rights and justice. The number of American students who are taking an active stand against occupation and apartheid is also on the rise.
Although students continue to face harsh punishments for standing up for Palestinian rights, as I have previously reported for MEMO here and here, Al Jazeera English noted earlier this month: “A sort of backlash to the backlash is gaining momentum. Over the past couple years there has been an upsurge in pro-Palestinian human rights activism on college campuses across the US.”
For example, despite being targeted by the California State Assembly, which passed a resolution in August 2012 equating criticism of Israel with “hate speech”, students in California have continued to organise events critical of Israeli rights abuses and campaigns in support of BDS.
In November 2012, the student council at the University of California at Irvine voted unanimously in favour of the college pulling its investments from Israeli companies. This year, student councils at the Universities of California at Berkeley, Riverside and San Diego also voted to divest.
Challenging the hegemony of Christian Zionism, US churches are also proving to be spaces of resistance against occupation and apartheid. In May 2012, the General Conference of the United Methodist Church decided to call for an explicit boycott of all Israeli companies operating in the occupied Palestinian territories. The following July, the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted to boycott all products from Israeli settlements and in May of this year, the United Church of Canada launched a campaign to support a boycott of all products produced in the settlements.
A small space of resistance even emerged in Hollywood this year, when the 86th Academy Awards nominated Five Broken Cameras for an Oscar. The celebrated film offers a first-hand account of Palestinians’ nonviolent protests against the separation wall in Bil’in, in the West Bank.
At the same time, more and more American Jews are becoming disenchanted with an apartheid state that refuses to end its occupation of Palestine and continues to build illegal settlements, all the while claiming that it is acting on behalf of Jewish people around the world. Two recent developments, in particular, stand out.
Earlier this month, the Hillel chapter at Philadelphia’s Swarthmore College sent shockwaves throughout the Zionist community when it declared in an open letter that it would not comply with its parent organisation’s policy of censoring speech critical of Israel. Hillel, the Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, is the largest Jewish student organisation in the world and a staunch supporter of the State of Israel. With an annual budget of tens of millions of dollars, every year Hillel organises travel to Israel for thousands of students and participation in various training programmes in the US; it also coordinates national tours for pro-Zionist speakers to speak on college campuses.
The Swarthmore letter is worth quoting at length: “Across the country, Hillels’ suppression of the freedom to speak and believe things that are not narrowly pro-Zionist are the direct result of Hillel International’s Israel Guidelines. Right after stating in their ‘Political Pluralism’ section that they object to excluding ‘students for their beliefs and expressions’, they declare that they ‘will not partner with, house, or host’ – in other words, they will exclude – groups and speakers that espouse certain beliefs about Israel. These contraband beliefs include denying the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state and supporting boycotting, divesting, or sanctions against Israel. They also ban those who ‘delegitimize, demonize, or apply a double standard to Israel.’ No further explanation is provided to clarify these guidelines, but their ambiguity has done nothing to ease the stifling effect they have on individual Hillels’ freedoms of speech, belief, and association.”
The letter continues: “Therefore, we choose to depart from the Israel guidelines of Hillel International. We believe these guidelines, and the actions that have stemmed from them, are antithetical to the Jewish values that the name ‘Hillel’ should invoke. We seek to reclaim this name. We seek to turn Hillel – at Swarthmore, in the Greater Philadelphia region, nationally, and internationally – into a place that has a reputation for constructive discourse and free speech.”
The letter concludes that Swarthmore Hillel declares itself to be an Open Hillel. “All are welcome to walk through our doors and speak with our name and under our roof, be they Zionist, anti-Zionist, post-Zionist, or non-Zionist. We are an institution that seeks to foster spirited debate, constructive dialogue, and a safe space for all, in keeping with the Jewish tradition.”
The Open Hillel movement was launched in November of last year after the Hillel chapter at Harvard University refused to host an organisation supportive of the BDS movement. However, Swarthmore Hillel is the first chapter to actually declare itself to be an Open Hillel.
Responding to this declaration, Hillel International President Eric D. Fingerhut insisted that no organisation that welcomes “anti-Zionists” would be permitted to use the Hillel name.
The second development worth noting is the audience response to a “community discussion” last week that was organised by the 92nd Street Y in New York City on the question of “What it means to be pro-Israel in America”. Founded in 1874, the 92nd Street Y is a well-known cultural and religious institution in Manhattan that served initially as a Jewish association for men. Today the organisation is guided by Jewish principles, but serves people of all races and faiths.
As Haaretz blogged, “based on the course of the debate, ‘being pro-Israel in America’ means ideological chasms, professional rivalries, frayed nerves, inflamed tempers, one of the participants storming out in a huff and then exchanging barbs and insults on the internet with the moderator.”
The participant who stormed out was John Podhoretz, editor of the right-wing Commentary magazine and a former presidential speechwriter. He left after being booed by the audience when he attacked Jeremy Ben Ami from J Street, the liberal Zionist lobby in Washington, for contextualising the ASA decision to boycott Israeli academic institutions by pointing out critically, “Israel’s own policy of continuing occupation” and its ill treatment of Palestinians. Shortly after Podhoretz left the event, he blogged that the audience was “hostile”.
A tiny but vocal group of far right supporters of Israel has also been holding monthly rallies outside the 92nd Street Y to protest against its hosting of “Israel-haters working to destroy the Jewish State”.
In fact, Israel’s problem with Americans Jews may be even worse than we know. In October, a report commissioned by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs found that 30 per cent of American rabbis who were surveyed said that they are afraid to reveal their true opinions about Israel, with the majority of these rabbis supporting more progressive views than they feel they are able to express. The survey also found that these progressive-leaning rabbis are experiencing a much greater fear of reprisal and censure than those rabbis who hold more hawkish views.
In what may be regarded as a sad irony, there are so many American Jews who oppose Israel these days, that some in the US solidarity movement have started rightfully to critique the over privileging of Jewish voices in the struggle for equal rights for Palestinians. After all, our inspiration has always been the resilience and courage of Palestinians themselves.
In any case, the growing resilience of Palestine solidarity activists, not only in the US but also around the world, coupled with the rising disenchantment among American and international Jewry, is definitely creating fear and desperation in Israel.
The Associated Press reported earlier this week that more than 100 Israeli leaders gathered with Jewish-American counterparts in Jerusalem last month “with a daunting mission: to save Jewish life in North America.” AP pointed out that Israeli leaders are increasingly aware that they “cannot ignore the alienation that many Americans feel over perceived religious intolerance, Israel’s construction of West Bank settlements and the continued control over millions of Palestinians.”
The wire service described how participants at the meeting, which was organised by the Israeli prime minister’s office, spent two days brainstorming ways to bring young “unaffiliated Jews back to their roots”. Adding that the gathering was part of a campaign “to strengthen Jewish identity among young Jews and solidify their connection to Israel”, AP noted that some 120 representatives from Jewish organisations around the world, mostly from North America, and a number of Israeli government ministries pledged to formulate a plan by next year “to address assimilation”.
In addition to spending $125 million on bringing Jews around the world to Israel, the government has also formed a task force to reverse the disenchantment trend.
Other efforts that illustrate the growing sense of desperation in Tel Aviv include a related initiative of the prime minister’s office to establish covert units at Israeli universities to engage in online public diplomacy, or hasbara. As Haaretz reported in August, “A diplomacy group will be set up at each university and structured in a semi-military fashion.” Those students who head each group are to receive full government scholarships while other students are paid stipends.
When a government has to pay its own youth secretly to counter the increasingly negative image of its country abroad, pro-justice activists can take courage in the struggle in the year to come. Despite it being a long road ahead, it really does look like the beginning of the end.
Related articles
- Anti-boycott academics demonstrate lack of excuses in supporting Israel (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Noam Chomsky and ‘Left’ Apologetics for Injustice in Palestine (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Murad Eshtewi, head of the Popular Committee of Kafr Qaddum, has been arrested
International Solidarity Movement | December 21, 2013
Kafr Qaddum, Occupied Palestine – Yesterday morning, Murad Eshtewi, the head of the Popular Committee of Kufr Qaddum and leader of the Friday demonstrations was arrested and is still being held by Israeli forces.
At around 3:00 on Friday morning, Israeli soldiers entered the village of Kafr Qaddum, in Qalqilya district, arresting two citizens on the accusation of having taken part in the regular Friday demonstrations held in the village. The men were released the following morning without charges.
The house of Murad Eshtewi, the head of the Popular Committee of Kafr Qaddum, was also raided during the night incursion and he was subjected to aggressive questioning.
Later, at approximately 10:00 on Friday morning, two hours before the demonstration was due to begin, Mr Eshtewi was walking on the outskirts of the village and was ambushed and arrested by soldiers. He did not resist this arrest and yet Israeli forces were extremely aggressive in their use of both pepper spray and stun grenades. He has not yet been released.
His attorney, Lymor Goldstein, stated that, “Contrary to the fundamental principles of due process we have not been presented with the accusations against Murad nor has he been interrogated since his arrest. “
In recent weeks there has been a steady escalation of night raids, increasingly violent repression of Friday demonstrations, flying checkpoints and seemingly arbitrary arrests. In the past month alone there have been more than twenty night raids on houses in the village.
Last month a new army commander responsible for the area gave a verbal warning to villagers stating that, unless they suspend their Friday demonstrations, the military harassment outlined above would be increased.
A typical night raid will involve up to around fifty soldiers surrounding and entering a particular house. Tear gas is often released and live ammunition may be fired into the air to intimidate residents. Israeli soldiers may break windows and doors in order to enter the houses.
Arrestees are blindfolded and handcuffed before being taken for questioning to another location. Interrogation may take place in the back of an army jeep, on the ground at the side of the road, or within the police station. Frequently they are subjected to verbal and physical abuse. When released, the detainees are often left in the road, kilometers from their homes.
The villagers of Kafr Qaddum are currently unable to access much of their land due to the closure by the Israeli army of the village’s main and only road leading to Nablus in 2003. The road was closed in three stages, ultimately restricting access for farmers to the 11,000 dunams of land that lie along either side to one or two times a year. Since the road closure, the people of Kafr Qaddum have been forced to rely on an animal trail to access this area; the road is narrow and, according to the locals, intended only for animals. In 2004 and 2006, three villagers died when they were unable to reach the hospital in time. The ambulances carrying them were prohibited from using the main road and were forced to take a 13 km detour. These deaths provoked even greater resentment in Kafr Qaddum and, on 1 July 2011, the villagers decided to unite in protest in order to re-open the road and protect the land in danger of settlement expansion along it.
Related articles
- Month-old child injured during Israeli raid in Kafr Qaddum (altahrir.wordpress.com)
- Israeli forces attack protests commemorating Mandela across West Bank (altahrir.wordpress.com)
- PHOTOS | Israeli forces open fire on West Bank protests, injuring dozens (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)
Mr. Baird: Stop Slandering Richard Falk
By Hanna Kawas, Chairperson, Canada Palestine Association | December 20, 2013
Open letter to John Baird, Canadian Foreign Minister
Mr. Baird:
Your latest call for the removal of Richard Falk, the U.N. Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories, smacks of hypocrisy and racism; it also exposes your (and your government’s) blind support for Israeli war crimes and Apartheid.
While your government officially claims that “Canada does not recognize permanent Israeli control over territories occupied in 1967 (the Golan Heights, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip)”, you are nonetheless supporting not only settlement building but also settlement products that are not exempt under the “Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA)”. You, your Prime Minister and your government also support unconditionally the discriminatory policies of the “Jewish National Fund” (JNF), which is financing illegal Israeli settlements and the infamous Canada Park that is built on the rubble of three Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank. By doing so, you are violating the Fourth Geneva Conventions to which Canada is a signatory.
Your comments not only “undermine the fundamental values of the United Nations”, they also deny the terrible suffering and the slow genocide of the Palestinian people since the Zionist ethnic cleansing started in 1947/48. Recently, your spokesperson Rick Roth dismissed the new mini-genocide, the “Prawer Plan” which the Israeli government is planning for the Bedouin Israelis, as an “internal Israeli matter”.
You called for Prof. Falk to be fired “for his numerous outrageous and anti-Semitic statements”. However, it is your statement that is outrageous and libellous considering that he is a Jewish international law scholar that fought all his life for the truth, justice, equality and peace (contrary to what your government stands for). Once again it is you Mr. Baird that is promoting anti-Semitism by claiming that everything Israel does falls on the shoulders of all Jews. We asked you previously, clearly to no avail: “Mr. Baird: Don’t Equate Zionism with Judaism”.
Stop taking your marching orders from Tel Aviv and start, if you care for your dignity and humanity, listening to the vast majority of Canadians who yearn for peace and justice.
Related article
- UN rapporteur accuses Israel of “genocidal intentions” (altahrir.wordpress.com)
Noam Chomsky and ‘Left’ Apologetics for Injustice in Palestine
By Noah Cohen | August 23, 2004
It’s particularly interesting in the case of Palestine to see where US intellectuals and progressives decide that it’s necessary to be “realistic” and where “principled;” where they choose to accept more or less the general media consensus about “the boundaries of acceptable discourse” and where they reject it. In the case of Palestine, people who are generally on record as calling for forthrightness and honesty in the demand for justice in political discourse, who criticize a false “pragmatism” oriented toward the corporate media and academic political consultants and who question generalizing statements about popular consensus, suddenly become believers in pragmatism and the limits of what the discourse will allow. An interview with Noam Chomsky published on Znet under the title “Justice for Palestine?” (Znet, March 30, 2004) is an exemplary contribution to this genre of left apologetics. Since it contains so many of the arguments generally advanced to legitimize some form of continued existence for an Israeli system of colonialism and Apartheid—and to shore up rear-guard support for it among US progressives—it is worth examining in full. In general, the argument rests on two pillars:
(1) Israel’s history of colonial occupation and expansion must be separated from all other colonial histories as a special case and special consideration must be given to Zionist colonial settlers as a historically vulnerable group;
2) Since this “historically vulnerable group” also has massive military power, nuclear weapons, and U.S. military and economic support, calling for an end to the colonial regime is unrealistic; it only hurts the colonized, and should be redirected to more useful activities.
The first is a tortured attempt to meet arguments about justice; the second is an attempt to make them moot by arguments about realism.
These essentially are the two arguments that Chomsky advances against calls for democracy and equal rights for all the people of historic Palestine. In this case, their particular form runs as follows: a democratic Palestine, in all of historic Palestine, with equal rights for everyone would only end up making Jews an oppressed minority (moral argument); such calls are unrealistic in any case, and will only be used by Zionist extremists to further justify their program of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians (pragmatic argument). Palestine is thus not like South Africa morally, where in the discourse against Apartheid the fact that whites were a minority was not supposed to give them the right to maintain special privileges by military force—they were a colonial-settler regime, and special privileges were exactly what the anti-Apartheid movement was opposing. Somehow in the case of the “Jewish state” a colonial-settler minority is supposed to be able to maintain a privileged status by force on land seized through military aggression. Palestine is not like South Africa pragmatically, since calls for an end to the colonial-settler regime are doomed to failure because they will never get sufficient international support to be effective.
As in the famous case of Freud’s “leaky-pot logic” of dreams, one should ask oneself whether these two arguments don’t rather cancel each other out—the first providing the unspoken assumptions and motivations of the second.
2.
Here is how the discussion works in Chomsky’s hands. Asked by interviewers Stephen S. Shalom and Justin Podur how he views the possibility of a “single-state solution, in the form of a democratic, secular state,” he responds as follows:
“There has never been a legitimate proposal for a democratic secular state from any significant Palestinian (or of course Israeli) group. One can debate, abstractly, whether it is ‘desirable.’ But it is completely unrealistic. There is no meaningful international support for it, and within Israel, opposition to it is close to universal. It is understood that this would soon become a Palestinian state with a Jewish minority, and with no guarantee for either democracy or secularism (even if the minority status would be accepted, which it would not). Those who are now calling for a democratic secular state are, in my opinion, in effect providing weapons to the most extreme and violent elements in Israel and the US.”
Reading these comments, one wonders how Chomsky understands the words “legitimate” and “significant.” Do Palestinians ever qualify? Both the PDFLP and the PFLP explicitly proposed a “democratic secular state” in all of historic Palestine as early as 1969, and the foremost official representatives of the larger PLO umbrella organization expressed this goal within the same year. This continued to be the vision of the core left within the PLO for years to come. More importantly, the Palestinian idea of liberation expressed in the PLO charter of 1968 rejected the colonial construction of ethnic and religious division: all the historic people of Palestine, regardless of religion, were considered Palestinians; all were entitled to freedom of worship. The PLO rejected not Jewish people, but colonial settlers and the state created for their exclusive interests. The “democratic, secular state” espoused by a significant portion of the Palestinian movement throughout the 1970s was an implicit concession to the settler community—a generous attempt to include settlers and their descendants in a liberated Palestine, provided that they were willing to renounce special privileges. This generosity was never answered by any significant movement within Israel. Does this Israeli rejection condition then the limits of justice for which Palestinians and their supporters should struggle?
What’s clear is that Israelis will necessarily determine the limits of the discourse for Chomsky; anything that they do not accept is “unrealistic.” Pressed again on the subject, Chomsky becomes even more emphatic:
“The call for a ‘democratic secular state,’ which is not taken seriously by the Israeli public or internationally, is an explicit demand for the destruction of Israel, offering nothing to Israelis beyond the hope of a degree of freedom in an eventual Palestinian state. The propaganda systems in Israel and the US will joyously welcome the proposal if it gains more than even marginal attention, and will labor to give it great publicity, interpreting it as just another demonstration that there is ‘no partner for peace,’ so that the US-Israel have no choice but to establish ‘security’ by caging barbaric Palestinians into a West Bank dungeon while taking over the valuable lands and resources. The most extreme and violent elements in Israel and the US could hope for no greater gift than this proposal.”
This last threat is rather curious. When I visited Palestine in the summer of 2003, the Israelis were in the process of caging Palestinians into a system of open-air prisons in the name of “security,” and were busily annexing their land to settlements, even as representatives of the Palestinian Authority were meeting with Sharon and Bush to discuss the “Road Map to Peace.” None of this required anyone proposing a “democratic, secular state”—since that, according to Chomsky, wasn’t even on the table.
3.
It’s especially disturbing to see Chomsky so consistently placing the limits of activism at the limits of the prevailing discourse—what is “taken seriously” by “the Israeli public” or “the US public” or “internationally”
In his article “The Bounds of Thinkable Thought” (The Progressive, 1986), Chomsky argued that a genuine criticism of U.S. imperial policies in Vietnam had been kept out of the mainstream political debate largely through a process of self-censorship oriented toward the boundaries of acceptable discourse. According to Chomsky, anyone not wishing to be considered “beyond the pale” knew that it was necessary to funnel all opposition to U.S. policy through the discourse of “winability”—not to challenge U.S. goals in Vietnam, but rather to challenge tactics and strategy. The prevailing discourse allowed for two positions:
1) the U.S. was successfully defending democracy in Vietnam, and could win the war by intensifying its military operations;
2) the U.S. was attempting to defend democracy in Vietnam, but its possibilities for success were increasingly poor, and casualties both to U.S. soldiers and to the Vietnamese made the war unsupportable from the perspective of a cost-benefit analysis. According to this model, even those within the mainstream debate who may not have supported the basic assumptions of the discourse—e.g. those who recognized that the U.S. was in Vietnam in order to pursue U.S. regional hegemony, against the interests of the people who lived there—learned to couch their opposition within the acceptable terms. This was done to preserve “credibility” and to serve the pragmatic goal of ending the war.
As Chomsky observed, this means that the basic assumptions at work in U.S. propaganda for its various wars of expansion and domination are never significantly challenged within mainstream debate. This makes it difficult to build a movement that opposes basic policies. Even a limited “pragmatic” victory for the opposition—e.g. success in shifting U.S. policy away from troop deployment in Vietnam—can be effectively absorbed within the overall system of empire. The subsequent writing of history created what was called the “Vietnam syndrome”—narrowly understood as a tactical problem in winning ground wars against guerilla resistance in foreign lands—and George Bush the First was thus able to declare the “syndrome” broken after the intensive aerial bombardment of Iraq and the deliberate massacre of tens of thousands of retreating troops and fleeing civilians on the Basra highway in 1991. By then the “Vietnam syndrome” did not include the deliberate massacre of civilians and other war-crimes, but only significant losses to U.S. forces.
From someone with this analysis regarding Vietnam, it’s all the more distressing to see Chomsky’s repeated insistence on what the discourse will allow in the case of Palestine. To say that one should not speak on behalf of a democratic Palestine with equal rights for everyone because there is no broad support for that position and it will only play into the hands of Israel’s right wing supporters is rather like the equivalent argument continually advanced within certain sectors of the anti-war movement in the case of Vietnam (and still continually advanced today): Talking about U.S. goals in Vietnam as “imperialism”—or worse, speaking of “the right of the Vietnamese people to defend themselves against U.S. invasion”—will only make us all look like a bunch of left-wing fanatics out of touch with the rest of America; that’s exactly what the pro-war crowd wants us to do; we had better confine ourselves to criticizing the “winability” of the war and decrying U.S. casualties.
Now listen to Chomsky on the right of return:
“there is no detectable international support for it, and under the (virtually unimaginable) circumstances that such support would develop, Israel would very likely resort to its ultimate weapon, defying even the boss-man, to prevent it. … In my opinion, it is improper to dangle hopes that will not be realized before the eyes of people suffering in misery and oppression. Rather, constructive efforts should be pursued to mitigate their suffering and deal with their problems in the real world.”
The right of return—a fundamental human right that Palestinian refugees possess both collectively and individually, and that cannot be bargained away on their behalf by anyone—is thus dispensed with in a few sentences referring to prevailing “international support.” Notice the kindly paternalism with which Chomsky refuses to “dangle hopes that will not be realized before the eyes” of the Palestinian people—as if the right of return were something that he, or “we,” could offer or withdraw to an oppressed community that is entirely passive and dependent on his benevolence, and not a right for which the Palestinian refugee community has organized itself in an international struggle. The right of return is not a “hope” which Chomsky can “dangle before the eyes” of Palestinians; it is a right which they possess and which they are actively fighting to realize. He can either support their struggle or fail to support it.
It is a striking fact about the entire interview that Palestinians nowhere occur as a people with historical agency. When Chomsky tells us that a majority of Israelis and US citizens now support a two-state solution, he fails to mention that the very recognition of the existence of the Palestinian people—in the face of half a century of genocidal Israeli attempts to negate their society, their history and their culture—is a direct product of Palestinian resistance against overwhelming military, economic and political odds. It also seems that Chomsky’s assessments of “international support” are very much out of touch with the global opinion on the streets. Wherever one finds masses of people showing serious opposition to U.S. and European systems of empire—whether against imperial wars, or against the instruments of economic conquest—the Palestinian resistance has captured the imagination and sympathy of the global community. “Globalize the Intifada!” is now a rallying cry from Europe to South America.
4.
Against the call for justice and equal rights for everyone—a call that we are being told is at once unjust and too idealistic—Chomsky offers his realistic compromise of justice: a two-state solution based on the Geneva Accords. (That is to say, if only the US would back it—which it just might do if we deluded pro-Palestine activists would devote our energies to that realistic solution.) Here is Chomsky’s calculus of compromise:
“Which compromises should be accepted and which not? There is, and can be, no general formula. Every treaty and other agreement I can think of has been a ‘compromise’ and is unjust. Some are worth accepting, some not. Take Apartheid South Africa. We were all in favor of the end of Apartheid, though it was radically unjust, leaving highly concentrated economic power virtually unchanged, though with some black faces among the dominant white minority. On the other hand, we were all strenuously opposed to the ‘homelands’ (‘Bantustan’) policies of 40 years ago, a different compromise. The closest we can come to a formula—and it is pretty meaningless—is that compromises should be accepted if they are the best possible and can lead the way to something better. That is the criterion we should all try to follow. Sharon’s two-state settlement, leaving Palestinians caged in the Gaza Strip and about half of the West Bank, should not be accepted, because it radically fails the criterion. The Geneva Accords approximates the criterion, and therefore should be accepted, in my opinion.”
It’s notable that Chomsky recognizes, in the case of South Africa, that the compromise ultimately reached falls short of justice: even the official end of Apartheid does not undo the immense inequality in the concentration of wealth and power among white South Africans. In the case of Palestine, “realism” demands that Palestinians strive not even for this much, since Chomsky’s solution is to impose some version of what the anti-Apartheid movement rejected in South Africa 40 years ago: a militarized state “for Jews only” next to a system of demilitarized Bantustans. Make no mistake—in spite of all of Chomsky’s claims, this really is the solution offered by the Geneva Accords.
5.
It’s good that, at least in this case, we know what the “realistic” demand for a two-state solution looks like. In the usual variants of this argument from pragmatism, there is the added wrinkle that the spokesman only believes in a highly idealized, utopian two-state solution, which he can’t quantify exactly with details. It’s usually a two-state solution that isn’t like any of the proposals advanced so far; one that “really gives both sides equal rights” and has them living happily ever after “along side one another” and “in peace.” Here Chomsky at least does give us something specific and historical—a solution based on the Geneva Accords.
What the Geneva Accords are in reality—what they actually are meant to accomplish for Israel—is best expressed by one of their foremost negotiators and spokesmen, Amram Mitzna (the Israeli Labor candidate famous in the US as a candidate for “peace,” and infamous among Palestinians as the man who instituted the bone-crushing policy against Palestinian children during the first Intifada). The following passages are culled from Mitzna’s article on the Geneva Accords published in Haaretz (“They are Afraid of Peace,” October 16, 2003). I quote them here at some length because they demonstrate, better than any discussion I might give, that “negotiation” is here merely a continuation of colonial war by other means:
“If the prime minister decided to implement the Geneva initiative, he would go down in history for confirming the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, by agreement. That would be even more important than the declaration of the state in 1948, since that was unilateral and recognized by only a few other countries at the time.”…
“For three years the prime minister brainwashed the public on the grounds that only force will bring victory.
“He and his colleagues made the public believe that there truly is ‘nobody to talk to,’ that ‘the IDF can win’ and that if we use more force, the Palestinians will break.
“They told the citizens that if we are strong, the terror will end. But the situation only worsened. The assassinations became the government’s only policy and instead of eradicating terror threaten to wipe out all that remains of the country.
“The terror is intensifying, the economy continues to collapse, and society to break down, and the demographic reality threatens the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. But none of that has made the government change course and try a different tack.”…
“…We conducted battles for Jerusalem, the Temple Mount and Gush Etzion. We fought for the permanent borders of the state of Israel, for the very existence of the state and its character, and we reached many achievements.
“For the first time in history, the Palestinians explicitly and officially recognized the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people forever. They gave up the right of return to the state of Israel and a solid, stable Jewish majority was guaranteed. The Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter and David’s Tower will all remain in our hands.
“The suffocating ring was lifted from over Jerusalem and the entire ring of settlements around it—Givat Ze’ev, old and new Givon, Ma’ale Adumim, Gush Etzion, Neve Yaacov, Pisgat Ze’ev, French Hill, Ramot, Gilo and Armon Hanatziv will be part of the expanded city, forever. None of the settlers in those areas will have to leave their homes.”
Two things are clear from Mitzna’s discussion: 1) the second Intifada has been far more successful than anyone would imagine from the press here in the US, or from Chomsky’s discussion, in threatening the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state; 2) the Geneva Accords were meant to accomplish by means of negotiation what the Sharon regime has failed to accomplish by means of force—to break the Palestinian resistance, to give full and permanent international legitimacy to ‘48 occupied land, and to increase by one huge bound the amount of ‘67 occupied territory that would belong to this now fully legitimate “Israel.” As Mitzna puts it, it is a matter of trying “a different tack.”
At the same time, the Geneva Accords would be an international treaty giving legal legitimacy to a set of conditions on the ground that set the stage for Israel’s then inevitable ongoing colonial expansion. The agreement would ensure that the “Palestinian state” has no means of defending itself against Israeli aggression and that Israel would maintain the de facto power to invade at any time. The dense settlements around Jerusalem, which contain the highest concentration of settlers in the West Bank, and which effectively cut the West Bank in half, would be conceded as part of “Israel” forever. The only guarantee that Israel would not continue to expand these settlements, build more of them, and re-invade militarily whenever Palestinians attempt to defend themselves from these encroachments is a vague promise that the majority of Israelis “really want to live in peace.” Once again, neither the history of Israel nor the general history of colonial projects is supposed to guide us in assessing the realism of this “realistic” scenario.
A far more realistic assessment of all such treaty negotiations was written during the Oslo process by Norman Finkelstein. Entitled “History’s Verdict: the Cherokee Case,” the article is a sustained comparison between the Zionist project in Palestine and the US colonial-settler project of dispossessing the Cherokee people of all of their native land through a combination of settler encroachment, military assault and treaty negotiations. Within this process, settlers steal land; natives defend themselves; self-defense is widely published as “savagery” or “terrorism”; this propaganda is then used to justify military attacks as acts of “self-defense;” and finally treaty negotiations are employed to enlist a certain number of the indigenous people—either those who are simply exhausted by the sustained military assault, or those who can be bribed into collaborating—to cede more of their land to the settlers with the guarantee that the remaining land will be theirs “in perpetuity.” Perpetuity lasts for about 10 to 20 years, and then the cycle begins again (if it doesn’t simply continue unabated). The treaty negotiations are particularly useful in dividing the colonized within themselves over their possible hopes; stopping resistance struggles under the guise of a negotiated peace; and finally giving a spurious appearance of legitimacy to the entire process.
6.
There is unmistakable racism in the way in which Chomsky evaluates the realism of different scenarios: he tells us that it’s entirely unrealistic to imagine that Jewish people could live safely as a minority in a Palestinian state based on principles of democracy and equal rights. More disturbingly, this concern over the possible fate of Jews as a minority in a Palestinian state is so significant in his mind as to justify opposition to ending an actual situation in which Jewish people live as privileged colonizers on Palestinian land. Here we are supposed to apply the author’s concept of realism. On the other hand, it’s supposed to be realistic, in spite of all proven history to the contrary, for Palestinians to expect that a neighboring Israel, under a two-state solution, will respect their territory even though they have no arms to defend themselves. Or, even more amazing, that the US, under pressure from US citizens, could be expected to protect them. His hope for this rests apparently on the good will of Israelis and US citizens. (Even in the aftermath of decades of genocidal US policies in other countries, and protest movements that have never reached a level capable of stopping a US invasion.) Here idealism is supposed to apply.
In deciding what is realistic, we are supposed to ignore the most obvious historical facts: that Palestine had centuries of religious co-existence before Zionism—a co-existence to which all parties in the history of the Palestinian struggle for liberation have officially committed themselves; that the US, Europe and now Israel have an unbroken history of violating treaties and international agreements (including the highest conventions of international law) respecting territorial integrity—especially the territorial integrity of native peoples—and that this process has generally ended in near total genocide wherever such peoples have put down their arms and ceased to defend themselves.
7.
Chomsky’s concept of “realism” has a striking resemblance to the colonial discourse of “manifest destiny”: Good or bad, right or wrong—so the argument goes—these are the facts on the ground; this is the way of history. In the name of this “realism,” activists and intellectuals in the international community have simultaneously asserted themselves as pro-Palestinian, and yet taken it upon themselves to concede every fundamental right to which the Palestinian people lay claim. In pointing to the Geneva Accords as a legitimate compromise, Chomsky concedes all of the following rights on their behalf:
• the right to reclaim sovereignty over the land stolen from them in 1948;
• the right of refugees even to return to this land;
• the right to reclaim the most densely settled land in the West Bank;
• the right to freedom of movement within the new Palestinian “state” (since the West Bank settlements—to be declared permanently a part of “Israel”—cut that territory into isolated cantons, and these cantons are in turn separated from Gaza);
• the right to full sovereignty over borders and airspace;
• the right to maintain an independent military capable of self-defense;
• the right to full control of resources.
In general, this means that the “best possible compromise,” that promises to “lead to something better,” requires first that Palestinians officially concede all of the material conditions on which the right to self-determination depends. It’s hard to see how these concessions could possibly lead to “something better.”
More importantly for our purposes—however one evaluates the realistic possibilities available to the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation—it’s impossible to see how anyone in the international community can help their struggle by conceding ground on matters of fundamental principle. Honesty in these matters is our minimum responsibility; if we believe that colonialism, racism and Apartheid are unjust, we should oppose them systematically on principle and fight them with every means at our disposal.
Faced with the apologetics of pragmatism, a friend long active in the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa, and now equally active in the struggle for justice in Palestine, put the matter succinctly: Since when is it the role of solidarity activists from the society of the oppressor to make concessions on behalf of the oppressed?
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See reply to Noah Cohen by Noam Chomsky, August 26, 2004 at:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=6110
Then see reply to Noam Chomsky by Noah Cohen here.
Related article
Israeli Navy Chases Fishermen, Confiscates Fishing Equipment in Gaza Waters
Palestinian Center for Human Rights – December 19, 2013
Israeli Naval Forces stationed off Beit Lahi shore, in the northern Gaza Strip, opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats in 4 separate incidents, while sailing between 600 meters and 3 nautical miles. Israeli naval forces also confiscated 24 fishing nets.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) expresses concern over the continued targeting of fishermen and their livelihoods.
Economic and social rights of fishermen have been violated by the illegal naval blockade imposed by Israeli authorities on the Gaza waters since June 2007.
According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 10:40 on Wednesday, December 18, Israeli gunboats opened fire at a Palestinian fishing boat that was sailing about 600 meters off al-Wahah shore in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip.
Two gunboats surrounded the fishing boat which was boarded by 3 fishermen: Mahmoud ‘Ali ‘Arouq (16); his brother Mohammed (22); and Jom’aah Amin ‘Arouq (24).
Israeli naval forces then ordered the men to stop fishing and give themselves up, but they refused and fled.
The naval forces confiscated 14 fishing nets, a total length of 840 meters.
Mahmoud ‘Ali ‘Arouq (28) said that they left the waters, to the shore, and watched the gunboats, hoping that they would regain their fishing nets.
However, the gunboats confiscated the nets and left the place.
In another incident, at approximately 12:30 yesterday, December 18, Israeli gunboats opened fire at a fishing boat belonging to Khalid ‘Awad al-Kafranah, from Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip, while sailing at approximately 1.5 nautical miles off al-Wahah shore in Beit Lahia, also in the northern Gaza Strip. Israeli naval forces then confiscated 10 fishing nets.
In a third incident, at approximately 06:00 on Tuesday, December 17, Israeli gunboats stationed off al-Wahah shore in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, opened fire in the vicinity of Palestinian fishing boats that were sailing approximately 3 nautical miles offshore.
The shooting continued for about 10 minutes, so the fishermen were forced to flee, for fear of being attacked.
In a fourth incident, at approximately 14:10 on Monday, December 16, Israeli gunboats stationed off al-Wahah shore in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, opened fire in the vicinity of Palestinian fishing boats that were sailing at approximately 3 nautical miles offshore.
The shooting continued for about 15 minutes, so the fishermen were also forced to flee, for fear of being attacked.
PCHR condemns the continued Israeli attacks against Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza Strip, and:
1. Calls for the immediate halt of the policy of chasing and arresting Palestinian fishermen, and allowing them to sail and fish freely;
2. Demands compensation for the fishermen, for the physical and material damage caused to them and their property as a result of these violations;
3. Calls upon the international community, including the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, to immediately intervene and stop the Israeli violations against the Palestinian fishermen and to allow them to sail and fish freely in the Gaza Sea.
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For more information please e-mail: pchr@pchrgaza.org
Related articles
- Army Kidnaps Two Palestinian Fishermen In Northern Gaza (imemc.org)
- Under Israeli fire, Gaza fishermen plan protest tent to “free the Holy Land sea” (palsolidarity.org)
- Palestinian fisherman injured and his finger amputated as Israeli naval troops fire at fishing boat in Gaza sea (palsolidarity.org)
- Israeli forces attack, detain Gaza fishermen near Beit Lahiya (gazasolidarity.blogspot.com)
Palestinian media forum condemns NBC plan to produce drama series in Jerusalem
Palestine Information Center – 19/12/2013
GAZA — Palestinian media forum (PMF) has strongly condemned the plan of American TV company (NBC) to film a drama series, in partnership with the occupation municipality, in Silwan in occupied Jerusalem.
PMF said in a statement on Thursday that NBC is preparing to produce and broadcast a drama series in the “City of David”, with the aim of strengthening the Israeli narrative about the city of Jerusalem, which would give legitimacy to Israel’s policies of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and colonization in occupied Jerusalem.
According to Israeli and American media, the NBC network is cooperating with Israeli authorities, film makers and the Keshet Media Group to produce an action series entitled DIG mainly in occupied East Jerusalem, near the Old City.
Most of the filming will take place in the so-called “City of David national park”, which is established on Palestinian property in the neighborhood of Silwan and which is operated by the Israeli settler organization El’ad and the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority.
The PMF asserted that the production of this drama series comes within the framework of the falsification of history and the Judaization of Jerusalem.
The Poor Man’s Sheep
December 18, 2013
Soldiers break into the wrong house at night, go on a rampage – and make off with a woman’s savings from 15 years of work
One night in early September, the members of the Kavajeh family in Tarqumiya were woken by IDF troops breaking into their house. According to the despicable custom of the last few years, some of the soldiers wore ski masks; before our apathetic eyes what used to be the premier line of fashion among criminals has become common military attire.
From this moment on, everything went as per the routine – a routine known to every soldier who has ever served in the occupied territories: the soldiers gathered all the family members in one room, not giving them time to dress properly. They then searched the house, found nothing, and as they left, the head of the family, ‘Issa, heard the soldiers say to one another that they had raided the wrong house. Needless to say, the soldiers did not apologize to the family. The soldiers told them not to leave the house while they were still present.
When the family realized the soldiers were gone, they began to estimate the damage. Here the words of Issa are worth quoting: “We began moving around the house and saw the horror.” The contents of the cupboards had been spilled, and the soldiers had thrown bedding, clothes and equipment onto the floor. The kitchen was the real calamity zone: the soldiers made certain to spill the flour on the floor, mix the sugar, the lentils and the salt together, poured the tahini into the kitchen sink, and, finally, broke the eggs.
Now, certainly some IDF spokesperson, whether an official or a self-appointed one, will manage to find a way to explain why there was a pressing military need behind this wanton destruction of food; we’ll probably find a fool who would explain why there was a need to break the eggs – how do you know what they might have hidden in there? And anyway, why don’t you show us what happened before? And do you know what happened in 1929?
But as the family members finished examining the results of the small green storm that passed mistakenly through their home, the real disaster was discovered: the savings of one of the family members, Thahani, had been stolen. These were two gold bracelets and a gold ring. Thahani had saved the money to buy the jewelry from working in a seamstress shop since 1998.
Fifteen years of savings. Fifteen years of painstakingly gathering, day by day, an ounce of meager pay. A slow collection culminating in 65 grams of gold, each one of them worth 60 Jordanian Dinars, each Dinar the equivalent of about $1.7 USD. Fifteen years of savings left Thahani with some $8,005 USD; a bit more than $385 USD a year, or $1.25 USD a day. This was Tahani’s portion of all her labor. Now it lies in the pocket of a soldier. Perhaps he’ll give them to his lover, who will be grateful and not ask where he got such gold bracelets and such a ring; perhaps they’ll end up in a pawnshop. Perhaps, loyal to the value of comradeship, he already split the loot with other troops in his section.
In the morning, the family complained both to the Red Cross and the Israeli police. This was a futile gesture: good luck finding the looter among dozens of troops, some of whom were hooded and all well-versed in covering for one another. But before the MPCID rushes to close the case claiming it couldn’t find a suspect, one more thing must be said.
Looting is a war crime. It is defined as such in the Fourth Geneva Convention. During wartime, armies often harshly punish looting soldiers, if only because looting is bad for military discipline. At best, looting soldiers have to lie to their commander, which opens the door to more lies; at worst, the commander will take a commission off the loot. Armies who don’t punish looting harshly quickly cease to become armies and turn into militias at best, gangs at worse.
Israel, as is well known, does not have laws against war crimes on its books. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t commit them. And as long as the MPCID does not shake itself up and find the thief, and as long as Israel does not compensate Tahani, it allows a war criminal – not a mere thief, but a war criminal – to roam freely. And since we know nothing of him but the colors of the uniform he wore, he besmirches through his act all those who wear them. And if the IDF wants to remove this stain from its uniform – admittedly, they are spotted with quite a few of them – it had better find the guilty party, and throw the book at him. Hard.
Related article
Israeli forces leave Bethlehem village following military drill
Ma’an – 18/12/2013
BETHLEHEM – Israeli forces vacated the Bethlehem village of Arab al-Rashayida on Tuesday after conducting military drills in the area for several hours, locals said.
Fawaz al-Rashayida, head of the local village council, told Ma’an that 5,000 heavily armed Israeli soldiers arrived in the village at dawn on Tuesday.
Locals are used to Israeli forces performing drills on the outskirts of Arab al-Rashayida, but this is the first time they have raided homes and local institutions in the village, Fawaz al-Rashayida said.
The drills, which took place in between residential homes, caused damage to the village’s water grid, he added.
Israeli forces also issued demolition orders for six properties belonging to Ali Awda Mohammad Rashayid.
The population of Arab al-Rashayida is around 2,000 and the majority of residents live in cement houses, while others live in tents and dwellings made of steel and tin.
On Monday afternoon, Israeli forces deployed in a nature reserve east of Arab al-Rashayida known locally as al-Muteirda, displacing nearby families and declaring it a “closed military zone.”
During military drills, Israeli forces can enter Palestinian homes and involve Palestinian civilians in their operations without warning them that the raids are mere practice.
In November, Israeli human rights group Yesh Din said Israeli troops had been using a Muslim cemetery in Hebron as a location for military drills and practice.
Approximately 18 percent of the West Bank has been designated as a closed military zone for training, or “firing zone,” which is roughly the same amount of the West Bank under full Palestinian Authority control.
Over 5,000 Palestinians reside in the firing zones in 38 communities.
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