Month: October 2016

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Why Israel Refuses to Choose

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Photo courtesy of Rina Castelnuovo / The New York Times

By Roger Cohen / The New York Times
October 28, 2016

“Two states are not achievable in the foreseeable future,” the former Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, told me. “It has become a process about a process, and not real.”

There is agreement on very little in the fractious Holy Land, but on one issue there is near unanimity these days: A two-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more distant than ever, so unimaginable that it appears little more than an illusion sustained by lazy thinking, interest in the status quo or plain exhaustion.

From Tel Aviv to Ramallah in the West Bank, from the largely Arab city of Nazareth to Jerusalem, I found virtually nobody on either side prepared to offer anything but a negative assessment of the two-state idea. Diagnoses ranged from moribund to clinically dead. Next year it will be a half-century since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank began. More than 370,000 settlers now live there, excluding in East Jerusalem, up from about 249,000 in 2005. The incorporation of all the biblical Land of Israel has advanced too far, for too long, to be reversed now.

Greater Israel is what Israelis know; the smaller Israel west of the Green Line that emerged from the 1947-49 war of independence is a fading memory. The right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with its contempt for Palestinians and dissenting voices in general, prefers things that way, as the steady expansion of settlements demonstrates. The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, has lost the legitimacy, the cohesion and the will to do much about it. The cancellation of municipal elections in the West Bank and Gaza that had been set for this month was another sign of paralyzing Palestinian infighting. . . .

Within Israel, where Netanyahu has now amassed more than a decade in power, the political and cultural drift is toward ever more assertive and intolerant nationalism. Criticism is increasingly equated with treason. Groups like B’Tselem, which focuses on allegations of human rights violations against Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territories, are under withering attack. The Messianic religious Zionism that holds all the West Bank to be Israel’s by biblical decree is ascendant. The left is in feeble disarray.

[Continue reading here . . . ]

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A Shepherd’s Story

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Photo courtesy of V. Steen / EAPPI

“Life has become as small as a ring”

By the South Hebron Hills Team / EAPPI
October 26, 2016

“And the army sees everything but does nothing,” Jibrin says. “A settler can ride a quad bike through a grazing flock and no one cares.” Jibrin still challenges intruders, though. “Why are you here?” he asked one settler who was walking on his land. “I am here for the Israeli Government,” the settler replied. “But you are poor people. You are here for nobody.”

Jibrin sits with quiet dignity and explains the effects of the occupation, “Life has become as small as a ring,” he says.

ibrin was born in Qawawis, a community of shepherds in the South Hebron Hills. His family had fields of wheat and barley, sheep and olive trees. Then, in the mid-1980s, the Susya settlement, illegal under international law, was established by the Israeli government on Palestinian land just across the road. Things started to change. The settlers let their animals into the Palestinian fields and damaged the crops. They threw stones at the shepherds. Jibrin’s family moved nearer to the village for protection.

But the harassment didn’t stop: it got worse. The settlers carried guns. The last twenty years have seen fatalities and serious injuries among the shepherds. Two died after stepping on an improvised explosive device placed on a shepherding path. Jibrin’s neighbour has a plastic stomach as a result of being shot by a settler. Another has a damaged voice box after being shot in the neck and speaks with difficulty.

[Continue reading here . . . ]

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Privatizing the Occupation

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Photo courtesy of Mohamad Torokman / Reuters

 How Israel is privatizing its occupation of Palestine — enriching the security industry and allowing the country to evade accountability for human-rights violations

By Antony Loewenstein and Matt Kennard / The Nation
October 27, 2016

 “Earlier this year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report, ‘Occupation Inc.,’ that detailed how ‘Israeli and international businesses have helped to build, finance, service, and market settlement communities.’ It added, ‘In many cases, businesses are “settlers” themselves.’”

It is 4:30 a.m. with the moon still high in the sky, but Palestinians from across the West Bank are already disembarking from buses outside the Qalandia checkpoint near Jerusalem. They’re about to begin a day’s work on the other side of the separation wall, in Israel.

Qalandia is one of the busiest checkpoints through which Palestinians with the required work documents can travel from the occupied Palestinian territories to Israel. With unemployment around 26 percent in the West Bank (in Gaza, it’s far worse — among the highest in the world, according to the United Nations), it’s always extremely busy at this early hour, because Palestinians need work, which is more readily available in Israel, especially in construction, manufacturing, and agriculture. . . .

The warehouse-like checkpoint looks like a cattle pen on the inside: Metal bars on either side and above form a narrow chute, enclosing and herding the workers—many of whom have traveled from villages more than an hour away—toward the point where their documents will be checked by Israeli officials. They then wait on the Israeli side for transport from their employers.

For years, these checkpoints were manned by personnel from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israeli Border Police. But starting in January 2006, gun-toting private security guards joined the soldiers and police. Today, there are 12 checkpoints in the West Bank and two on the Gaza border that use such guards. Israel is slowly privatizing its occupation.

[Continue reading here . . . ]

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Palestinian Women Wage Peace

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Photo courtesy of Hadas Parush / Flash90

How thousands of Palestinian and Israeli women are waging peace

By Riman Barakat / +972 Blog
October 25, 2016

“The thousands of Palestinian and Israeli women who marched in Jerusalem and Jericho this month are not only demanding peace from their societies, they are reaching through stereotypes and artificial boundaries to find true partners.”

Less than a year ago a group of Palestinian and Israeli women spent a weekend in Tantur, situated between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, brainstorming what we could possibly do to break the cycle of violence and political stagnation. Everyone had their own personal reason for being there, whether it was the Israeli mothers who had to send their children to war or the Palestinian women who were exhausted by the daily incursions of the Israeli army, checkpoints, and the inability to live freely and imagine a hopeful future for their children. Personally, I felt torn apart having seen Jerusalem split into a hundred pieces, a place that should be the inspiration for coexistence instead oozing with the blood of Palestinians and Israelis on a near daily basis. . . .

“We need to think outside of our surroundings,” Lily kept saying, and together we visualized the March of Hope, a march of togetherness — a cry to the whole world, coming from a mother’s womb, to stop the violence. We resolved not to stop, even in the midst of most terrible acts of violence. We met and shouted out, “ Enough! Enough!” in Arabic, Hebrew and English. We resolved to propose a shared language of hope, of humanity, of an unshakable commitment to peace, and we rejected the language of separation.

[Continue reading here . . . ]

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Photo courtesy of Flash90
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Israel’s Jewish Character?

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Photo courtesy of Rusty Stewart / CC

If Israel Lets in Palestinian Refugees, Will It Lose Its Jewish Character?

By Joshua Schreier and Mira Sucharov / The Forward
October 17, 2016

“Consider a post-peace Israel where refugee claims have been settled, where the everyday brutality of occupation no longer precludes normalcy, and where the work of truth and reconciliation has begun. While still remaining alert to outside threats, Israel would be able to relax its disproportionate focus on security. After all, war and occupation take a toll on creative expression, while massive defense spending diverts focus from cultural investment.”

We watched with admiration as Hagai El-Ad of B’Tselem and Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now appeared recently before the U.N. Security Council to urge action against the Israeli occupation. The session was framed as a discussion of settlements in the context of “peace” and a “two-state solution.” But behind the occupation lurks an even more vexing issue: that of the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees. We feel we need to unpack this issue — and the assumptions about demographics that animate it — if we’re going to make real headway on countering the occupation.

The vast majority of Israelis, even most on the Israeli left, argue that admitting the Palestinian refugees would lead Israel to lose its “Jewish character.” For them, a Jewish-majority state provides the Jewish people with a degree of security and justice. Yet many Palestinians and their increasingly numerous and vocal supporters in North America and Europe see no justice in Israel’s exclusionary policies allowing all Jews, but no Palestinians, to “return” to the country.

Israelis’ anxious focus on ethnic demographics inflicts harm on those within the state as well. An array of discriminatory laws and practices currently marginalize the 20% of Israeli citizens who are Palestinian. These laws and practices not only make it difficult for Palestinian citizens to embrace the state as their own, they also preclude justice, equality and peace.

[Continue reading here . . . ]

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Sukkot on the Farm

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Photo courtesy of Rennie Coit

Unsure of shelter, yet praying for rain

By Sarah Stern / +972
October 27, 2016

“Spending the Sukkot holiday on a Palestinian farm highlights the stark contrast between a holiday in which Jews celebrate in temporary structures, and a reality in which Palestinians are forced into an existence of impermanence and military demolition orders scattered across hilltops.”

Daoud Nassar carries 54 keys on his belt loop, in rotation. His sprawling family property, on the last Palestinian hilltop in the middle of the Gush Etzion settlements, is dotted with tented structures, caves, and gated areas, all fastened with a lock. As the family orients me on the property for a long weekend of volunteer work, they remind me to lock each time I exit the kitchen, or anywhere else for that matter. They say it’s to keep out mice and stray dogs. . . .

I head to Tent of Nations from Jerusalem on a Friday morning. The city of Jerusalem is temporarily stacked with its own impermanent structures — sukkot — lining the stone apartments of Nachlaot. I wonder whether Tent of Nations is a more appropriate place to be celebrating this holiday, despite Jerusalem’s renown for the holiday of Sukkot.

Upon moving to Jerusalem a few years ago, the ramshackle huts popping up in the streets once a year struck me as quaint; a nice excuse for city-folk to sit under the stars and eat good food with their families. It seemed nice. Upon arriving in the heart of Gush Etzion, I saw a more sinister backdrop to the impermanent structures at the Tent of Nations.

[Continue reading here . . . ]

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UNESCO Resolution on Jerusalem

The facts lost in the PR frenzy

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Image courtesy of Palestine Unbound

Justine Berg / Palestine Square
October 25, 2016

“The resolution prompted Israel to suspend cooperation with UNESCO, however an analysis of its actions reveals that Israel has not been keen on cooperating with the world cultural organization for almost ten years. In fact, the drama Israel has caused around this resolution may be a way to entrench its continued non-compliance with UNESCO decisions.”

In the days leading up to the adoption of a UNESCO resolution on Occupied Palestine, the media has focused almost exclusively on Israel’s allegation that the resolution denies Jewish heritage in the Old City of Jerusalem. A deeper look at the text of the resolution, as well as a review of developments in the Old City over the past decade, offer insight into the possible reasons for the creation of this media narrative. Simply put, it is part of a long series of repeated Israeli attempts to deflect attention from the ways in which Tel Aviv has refused to comply with previous UNESCO decisions on Jerusalem.

The flurry of news articles following the acceptance of the resolution on October 18th have continuously recycled Israeli claims that it is “contentious” and “anti-Israel” because it “ignores” and “denies” Jewish connection to Jerusalem’s holy sites. The text, however, specifically “[affirms] the importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls for the three monotheistic religions,” and references other UNESCO documents that do the same. (For instance document 200 EX/25, which states “the Old City of Jerusalem is the sacred city of the three monotheistic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and . . . each of its communities has a right to the explicit recognition of their history and relationship with the city.”)

The resolution prompted Israel to suspend cooperation with UNESCO, however an analysis of its actions reveals that Israel has not been keen on cooperating with the world cultural organization for almost ten years. In fact, the drama Israel has caused around this resolution may be a way to entrench its continued non-compliance with UNESCO decisions.

[Continue reading here . . . ]

“Israel, the occupying Power, had not complied with any of the 12 decisions of the UNESCO Executive Board as well as six decisions of the World Heritage Committee that request the implementation of the reactive monitoring mission to the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls.”

 

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Campus Speech Under Siege

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Image courtesy of Eric Risberg / Associated Press

Keeping campuses safe for free speech

Saree Makdisi, Los Angeles Times*
October 25, 2016

“These sorts of attacks on academic freedom, in which Israel’s defenders have played a disproportionate role, are all too common on campuses across the country, with devastating results. They have led to the intimidation of students, the silencing or firing of faculty and the cancellation of classes.”

Last week, my email inbox and Twitter feeds were flooded with hateful messages impugning my integrity. The source of this invective was a shadowy organization called Canary Mission, which maintains what it hopes will function as a blacklist of professors and students it accuses of “promoting hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on college campuses.” My public criticism of Israel’s policies of military occupation and apartheid — its unequal treatment of Palestinians — has earned me a spot on the list, there being no distinction, apparently, between criticism of the policies of a foreign power and “hatred” of an entire ethnic group.

Were I a more junior professor, or untenured — or a student — the charges it levels, although they are untrue, could be damaging. And that is the point: In language only recently excised from its website, Canary Mission makes explicit its intention “to ensure that today’s radicals are not tomorrow’s employees.” Daniel Pipes — a prominent member of what the Center for American Progress calls “the Islamophobia misinformation experts” — writes approvingly of the project: Students should understand that “attacking” Israel “can damage … future careers.”

[Continue reading here . . . ]

* Saree Makdisi is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA.