Israel's leaders must change mindset, engage in dialogue with Palestinians
In a few months, we will mark 40 years of "enlightened" occupation by our famed army in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. Israel pretends to be an enlightened state and signatory of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which rules that "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies" (Israel ratified the Convention in 1951.)
Over the years we deported, robbed land and stole water, destroyed crops, uprooted trees, turned every village and town into a detention camp, and set up hundreds of communities on land that doesn't belong to us.
We allowed the settlers to make a living by providing them with huge amounts of money (more than 5 times per capita compared to residents of southern development towns.)
We paved roads for Jews only, a case of blatant apartheid, while defending it using witty Jewish self-righteousness in the absence of fair and public reporting of the budgets involved, deeds committed, expropriation of land, and disregard for vandalism.
Morality, justice, law and order stopped at the Green Line. Lawlessness prevailed right under the noses and protective and soothing hand of the IDF and police, as lawbreaking settlers made their own laws undisturbed, and at times with the kind help of authorities.
Every illegal settlement enjoys water, hydro, and a paved road. The permanent residents, the natives, which the Israeli regime had to take care of, became seemingly non-existent. As if they are there but not there at the same time. The government only notices them if they bother it by filing complaints.
It's no wonder that the leader of a political movement in Israel and a Knesset member can declare that we should expel the Palestinians (and also Israel's Arab citizens) in order to take over what is still left to them.
But as we usually present it – we're the victim while they're the murderers with blood on their hands. We never report the number of Palestinians we murdered from the sky and killed by fire – women, children, the elderly, whole families, thousands of them.
No wonder they hate us
Aerial bombings kill wanted suspects, while eliminating many civilians – yet the hands of the pilot are "clean" of any blood. After all, the victims were killed at the press of a button while their killers returned home safely. None of them committed suicide to kill wanted suspects, who by the way are not a "ticking bomb" and no evidence exists against them.
At times it appears that the IDF, particularly during the last, needless Lebanon war, turns the Gaza Strip into live-fire training grounds for all army branches. Is it a wonder they hate us, and is it a wonder they elected Hamas in free elections, the same Hamas whose establishment we encouraged in order to undermine the PLO?
Many peace-making windows were opened over the years. We hindered all of them, because we coveted the whole of the Territories. We had the Oslo agreements. Twenty countries, which in the past had no ties with us, recognized Israel. We had welfare, international ties were blossoming, peace was at our gates – but we didn't want to make concessions.
Rabin was murdered for the sake of the settlers, and the job of burying peace-making attempts was completed by Ehud Barak with his "There's nobody to talk to!" spin. In order to establish himself in power, Barak also allowed Arik Sharon to visit Temple Mount with armed escorts, even though he was asked by Arafat the night before not to allow this due to the frustration and fury among Palestinians.
Now, another possibility for dialogue has opened. Yet our government is again turning its back on it. They don't know how to and don’t want to talk. Just now we brutally destroyed half of Lebanon at an immense cost and turned a million civilians into refugees in their own country.
Another superb achievement by the IDF and government of Israel. We're willing to resort to any provocation and blow any incident out of proportion, just to hold on to the regular pretext that "There's nobody to talk to", and that we don't talk to terrorists.
Kahane won
Yet the acts we undertake by starving, curfews, deportations, the theft of water and land, false arrests, and targeted killings – all those are, of course, not terror, because the acts are undertaken by a national army through the power of a decision made by legitimate government.
Wonderful, it turns out we forget the fascist states (including Stalin's USSR) that were very legitimate according to their own logic, while committing a plethora of terror acts.
The time has come for the government of Israel to start talking peace, and end the excuses for disqualifying and boycotting Palestinian representatives. The use of arms does not have to be the first reaction. Starvation, imprisonment, and expropriation by an occupying force attest to an unwillingness to reach an agreement and an addiction to greed.
This is reminiscent of Benny Elon's comments: "We'll embitter their lives so that they transfer themselves elsewhere."
One cannot escape the impression that the racist and brutal declarations by Effie Eitam gave public expression to government policy over the years. We must note that the courts – the defenders of law and order, including the High Court of Justice – were partners to the developments that led to the legitimization of parties and Knesset members reminiscent of the racist, crude words uttered by MK Eitam.
In fact, it appears that Meir Kahane won, and we continue in his path – we don't talk, but rather, only kill, raze homes and roads and bridges, cut off electricity, fill prisons with women and children and elected officials, because all of them are the "terrorists" while we, the Jewish state, need to be defended from them. We're always the ultimate victim.
As Golda Meir said: "I don't forgive the Arabs for forcing us to kill them." There you go, she's the killer, yet she's the victim.
For our sake, the citizens of Israel, and for the sake of brining peace and quiet – government leaders, start talking and keep doing it until you reach an agreement.
Unruly sons will be brought back into the country, we'll be respecting UN decisions and international conventions, we'll earnestly memorize the universal human rights declaration and our own declaration of independence, we'll rehabilitate our soul, and we'll attempt to establish a democratic country governed by the law and justice. Shana Tova.
* Shulamit Aloni, lawyer, teacher, journalist, broadcaster (on human rights and women’s rights), is a prominent member of the Israeli peace camp. Leaving Labour in 1973 to found the Ratz party on a platform advocating electoral reform, separation of religion and state, and human rights (she was also a founder of BTselem), she was leader of Meretz in 1992 and served as Minister of Education. Later, she became Minister of Communications & the Arts, Science and Technology until her retirement in 1996. She also founded the Israel Consumers’ Council, is a recipient of the Israel Prize and in 1998 was awarded the Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Appeal by Israeli Negev Bedouin of A-Sira to UN to prevent demolition of entire village
22 September 2006
To:
Mr. Miloon Kothari
Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
Mr. Rodolfo Stavenhagen
Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people
Appeal for an urgent action: To halt the intention of the Israeli government to destroy an entire indigenous Bedouin village in the Negev (Southern Israel)
The village of A-Sira is home to 350 indigenous Arab-Bedouins. On September 7th, approximately 200 police officers and inspectors raided the village and posted 45 demolition notices as well as an additional six houses that had been given a prior warning. This means that all of the houses and structures in the village are to be torn down. As of today, no alternative housing solution has been found for the residents
1. General Information
The Indigenous Arab-Bedouins are a unique community that has lived in the Negev for centuries. In 1948, they constituted the vast majority of the population of the Negev. However, after the establishment of Israel, only a small fraction of the population was left in the Negev, the rest having left or been expelled to Jordan and Egypt. The Israeli authorities did not recognize the indigenous Arab-Bedouins' traditional ownership rights. Dispossessed of the lands they had owned for centuries, today the 160,000 Arab-Bedouins are the most disadvantaged citizens in Israel. Almost half of the indigenous Arab-Bedouin citizens live in seven failing government-planned towns. The remainder lives in 45 villages unrecognized by the government. These villages do not appear on the official maps of Israel and do not receive basic services such as running water, electricity, garbage collection, etc. One of these villages is the unrecognized village of A-Sira.
One of the principal methods by which the government hopes to resettle this indigenous community in the townships is by demolishing their 'illegal' houses in the unrecognized villages, and by not providing any avenues for legal construction within the villages. During the past three years alone, 560 houses were demolished in the unrecognized villages, leaving thousands of people homeless.
2. Identity of the persons concerned
The village of A-Sira is home to 350 indigenous Arab-Bedouins. The village is located near the Nevatim Air-Force base (10 km southwest of the city of Arad). The 50 houses of the village stretch over 4 square kilometers. The residents have lived in this area for generations, throughout the Ottoman and British mandates. Seven different wells and cisterns, as well as documents of land acquisition during the Ottoman rule, prove their connection to the place.
3. Information Regarding the Alleged Violations
In 1980, the Israeli authorities passed “The Negev Land Acquisition (Peace Treaty With Egypt) Law" that allowed the expropriation of the village lands for the purpose of establishing the Nevatim Air-Force Base. Although the village lies outside the air force base, all of the village lands were declared a military zone. The residents were not informed of this decision and they gave no consent to this decision.
Three months ago, dozens of police officers and officials from the Ministry of the Interior posted seven warning notices of impending house demolitions. The residents of the village went to court to fight the injunction. One house was destroyed by the residents themselves after one of the judges asked if anyone was living in the house. This house was being constructed for a divorced woman with four children who suffer from a number of health problems (retardation, deafness). After the judge was told that the house was under construction, he ordered it to be demolished. The woman and her children are now living in a makeshift lean-to.
On September 7th, approximately 200 police officers and inspectors returned to the village and posted 45 demolition notices as well as an additional six houses that had been given a prior warning. This means that all of the houses and structures in the village are to be torn down. As of today, no alternative housing solution has been found for the residents. The building inspector in the Ministry of the Interior asserts that his job is just to demolish the houses. The Bedouin Authority, which is responsible for settling this population, has not offered any concrete solutions to the problem.
When the injunctions were distributed on September 7th, a pregnant woman in her sixth month, who is a mother of five, had an anxiety attack. She was taken to the hospital where she gave birth to a premature infant. The baby died after several days, on September 17th.
4. Steps Taken by the Victims
The residents went to all of the authorities that are connected to the topic and had initiated a number of meetings with government officials.
On June 4th, 2006 - there was a meeting with the commander of the air force base which is next to the village. He told the villagers that although there is a plan to enlarge the base, there is no plan to enlarge it in the direction of the village and that the base does not need their land.
On June 6th, 2006 – A meeting was held with Mr. Ilan Sagy, the construction inspector of the Ministry of Interior for the southern region. He promised to wait three months before demolishing the homes. He noted that he could not make any recommendations or suggestions for housing since he is in charge of demolitions.
On June 8th, 2006 – A meeting was held with Mr. Ilan Yifrach, of the Bedouin Authority, about housing solutions. No immediate solution was put forth. The idea was raised to move the residents to a future settlement, called Mar'it, or to the town of Rahat, which is located 40 kilometers from A-Sira.
On July 7th, 2006 – A meeting was held with Mr. Ya'acov Katz, the head of the Bedouin Authority. He said that he had no solution and that he would check the options of Mar'it, Rahat and Lakia (another Bedouin town). He asked the village representatives to consider asking one of the clans in Lakia for permission to move there. This was a clear attempt to create conflict between the Bedouin tribes, in order to divide and conquer.
All of these meetings made it clear to the residents of A-Sira that the State of Israel has no real housing solution for them. The attempt to destroy the village and to expel the residents from their ancestral lands clearly violates the right to housing, land ownership and the indigenous rights of the villagers. An urgent action is needed in order to prevent the danger that is hanging over the heads of the 350 residents of the village. They may find themselves with no roofs over their heads in the very near future.
5. Identity of the Persons Submitting the Form
Village Committee of A-Sira
Mr Halil Al-Amour
Mr. Ahmad Al Nasasra
Tel: +972-52-2700365
Email: ycantmeetu@hotmail.com
Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality
Mr. Ariel Dloomy
Tel: +972-50-7701118 Fax: +972-8-9390185
Email: ariel@dukium.org
By e-mail: urgent-action@ohchr.org
By fax: +41 22 917 90 06
CAMPAIGNS TARGETING THE OCCUPATION
(Delivered by Angela Godfrey-Goldstein at the recent UN International Conference of Civil Society in Support of the Palestinian People, in Geneva – September 7/8)
Israel’s war on Lebanon – its blitzkrieg - has resulted in an almost unprecedented level of international protest, activist organising and even rebuke of Israeli policies from national governments. The feeling is not only that enough is enough, but time is running out for the moderates.
It has also increased the peacemaking role of the United Nations and the EU, whilst possibly weakening the United States’ position as regional power-broker, because it championed and armed a defeated Israel, which is now less of a strategic ally. Since neither side “won,” the hope is that war itself is now seen to be increasingly fruitless, as is unilateralism.
The Israeli government is somewhat paralysed by its defeat, so it’s vital for us all to work fast towards solving the situation, which could spiral further downwards, as predicted by the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defence Plan (a 20 year war on Islam), or as engineered by an itchy Israeli defence establishment (situated in the midst of civilian Tel Aviv) which wants to try to reclaim its image of deterrence. Amir Peretz, previously tipped as a future prime minister, is at an all time low, and may be replaced as party leader and defence minister. Some predict national elections within a year. We have a window here.
So we must now be even more focused in saying no to occupation, no to war and militarism, no to unilateralism, no to colonialism and no to racism. If we shilly-shally on this, we could find ourselves in a Christian Zionist wet dream of Rapture, otherwise translating as nuclear holocaust. Here in civilised Geneva that sounds sensationalist scaremongering, but on the ground there’s talk of Al Qaida muscling into the chaos Israel has been part of creating in Gaza.
And now Israeli civilians know they’re front-line participants in war, as never before, and missiles may come at them soon over that so-called Security Wall. Those of us against the Wall were talking of rockets and tunnels years ago.
Whilst we can’t blame Israel for all the Palestinians’ ills, Occupation is at the heart of the matter. At a UN meeting in Vienna, Israeli Member of Knesset Ms. Colette Avital said to me that the wretched checkpoints are the problem. No, Ms. Avital, the settlers and landgrab of settlement expansion, serviced by the checkpoints, apartheid road system, Wall, permit system, home demolitions and Closure – the Occupation in all its misery, its whole Matrix of Control – is the problem. And so is the inherent racism that views another people as lesser humans, with a lesser value for life, and deserving less from life. Coming from a people whose religion teaches that God created everything on the earth, they singularly fail to value LIFE and the sanctity of all life. The sacred nature of all beings, all equally created by whatever we call God.
I was recently told by someone connected to our Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs that “first we have to neutralise Lebanon and Syria, and then we can make peace with the Palestinians and end the Occupation.” If the Israeli government’s game plan, neutralisation, means further massive aerial bombardment and attacks by F-16 and Apache helicopters, cluster bombs, uranium depleted or phosphorous bombs, it’s a further slide down the slippery slope into regional war; this will also translate into terror attacks elsewhere, maybe even here. What a helluva policy! Maybe Olmert’s declaration yesterday that he will soon be holding talks with Mahmoud Abbas means that even that policy is already passé. Insha’allah. But let us not get our hopes up, especially when we see what the facts on the ground are.
So what about the campaigns? Significantly, one example: the MoveOn internet campaign ran a Ceasefire Petition garnering 300,000 signatures in three days, demanding an immediate ceasefire, which it presented to the Security Council. They’re now mobilising their extensive internet resources to press for a return to peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine, an end to Occupation and a viable Palestinian state. A few years ago, I wrote to them asking them to work on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and received a negative response. Now the time is right, and it’s become unavoidable.
Recently there was even a unanimous statement of the Irish government’s Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, condemning civilian deaths, the damage done to civilian infrastructure in Lebanon on such a scale as to render over 750,000 people homeless, the attack on a UN outpost which killed four peacekeepers, and the slaughter at Qana. It also called for an immediate ceasefire.
Critically, that call recommended:
“That Ireland raise at the next meeting of the EU Council of Ministers the implementation of sanctions on Israel under the terms of Article II of the Euromed Trade Agreement on grounds of human rights abuses;"
"That consideration be given to taking legal action against Israel for compensation for its killing of UN personnel and the civilian population and destruction of facilities;"
It "condemned the seizure of water resources by Israel in the region and urged the UN to establish a permanent specialized team to control and ensure the fair distribution of all water resources."
The Irish further "called for a rejection of militarism and a sustained engagement by the European Union and the UN on a set of political proposals as would support the establishment of a viable contiguous Palestinian state, and would enable true security to be provided for Israel based on accepted borders and withdrawal from occupied territories;"
"For the Irish Government to advocate at EU and UN level the establishment of an internationally sponsored Peace Process, with a permanent secretariat, to bring together all sides including Israel and the United States for negotiations.”
One thinks, too, of past anti-war on Iraq street protests, huge waves of demonstrators reaching unprecedented numbers, but which failed to stop the Occupation of Iraq. Despite failing to leverage governments, who remained steadfastly deaf to their own civil society’s huge pressure, nonetheless those massive demonstrations underscored the claim that the war in Iraq was immoral, illegal under international law, unnecessary, denied all principles of democracy (proving the lie that the war was an attempt to introduce democracy to the Middle East) and – in Harold Pinter’s famous diatribe delivered when he received the Nobel Prize for Literature –
“was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading - as a last resort - all other justifications having failed to justify themselves - as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.”
Post-9/11, campaigning has become – at least in the short-term – increasingly frustrating because even when civil society is in uproar, as recently when watching the conflict in Lebanon and Israel on its TV screens or reading personal testimony by articulate Lebanese bloggers, world governments stood by for too long and allowed it to happen. A BBC journalist covering Gaza said to me, in despair, that he couldn’t understand why the world was allowing it all to happen. Certainly there are many times when we campaigners ask ourselves why don’t people care about Palestine? Is it that they don’t value human rights? Or international law? Real democracy? Freedom? Maybe life itself? Here in Geneva, the birthplace after the 2nd World War of the Geneva Convention and home of the Intnl. Committee of the Red Cross, we hope for recognition by the Swiss that the benchmarks must be reclaimed and the standards regained, so that they have value at all.
Yet, as I said, from around the world, we now hear increasingly in this post-War period of boycotts, divestment actions and even talk of international sanctions, as part of a movement towards peacekeeping and peacemaking, increasingly centred on Europe and the UN.
Our work in reframing the conflict and ending its central cause, the Occupation, has become infinitely easier now that Israel is so patently seen not to be the victim, a role it’s always played to the world stage. Israel’s militarism has been totally exposed, with its lack of regard for such niceties as the Geneva Convention, human rights or international law, or even proportionality. Now the asymmetry is out in the open, just as the huge infrastructure on the ground – all those settlement cities – cannot be hidden. And the world has seen Israel as a huge thug, demolishing a neighbouring country’s infrastructure, while collectively punishing the Lebanese and the Gazans and West Bankers. Wherever Israelis go today, they must know they are hated for that. They can’t use the old rebuttal of “anti-semitism” when it’s so obvious that criticism has nothing to do with anti-semitism. (A useful joke to deflate some of that “Jewish lobby” knee-jerk: ‘Once upon a time, an anti-semite was someone who hated Jews. Today an anti-semite is anyone the Jews hate!’)
The focus must now be to continue to highlight facts on the ground – which are increasingly obvious – almost half a million settlers are not easy to disguise. Nor is the huge Wall snaking all over the West Bank. We at ICAHD have for many years been guiding diplomats (including heads of mission or delegations), international journalists, aid workers, church groups, foreign parliamentarians and many members of civil society and become partners in co-ordinated campaigns of advocacy (for example every year rebuilding a demolished home, as an act of civil disobedience, with international volunteers). We’re developing an anti-apartheid campaign, and work to target power, through education, lobbying and advocacy. We were the first Israeli NGO to support BDS – boycott, divestment and sanctions. Our organisation works closely with Palestinian counterparts and has three Palestinian staff members. Our grassroots work actively supports Palestinians, whether by taking demolition cases to court, or fighting the route of the Wall, or by taking guided tours also to the Negev or Galilee or Lod, to show what The Only Democracy in the Middle East is really all about. Trust me, it’s not about democracy. Any more than the Israeli Defence Force is about defence. Or the Civil Administration civilian. Or Jerusalem an undivided city.
The idea of boycott is a way for civil society to make its feelings felt. It isn’t focused against Israel per se, but against its Occupation policies – policies which even Ariel Sharon said were unsustainable. Once the Occupation ends, Israel will be able to rejoin the international community. But it can't expect to carry on a normal life (with film festivals, participation in international cultural events, European league football, the Olympic Games, Eurovision and the rest) while it blatantly disregards human rights and international law, and practices racist policies which sink it ever deeper into corruption, anarchy and moral and ethical stagnation. We have to learn how to say NO. That’s all.
Trade unions around the world are becoming increasingly involved – as they did in the days of anti-apartheid. Civil society organisations are growing in number and coherence, organisation and strategy. Leading figures such as film director Ken Loach are coming out against the Occupation, together with Israeli and Palestinian film makers, calling for Israel to be culturally boycotted at film festivals and other artistic events. Other artists are gradually plucking up courage to go public in criticism of Israeli policies (300 prominent British Jews signed a public statement in the Times of London, denouncing the Lebanon debacle). Palestinians also tell of leaders of the American Jewish community who say they are beginning to understand what a monster they have helped to create. And so one hears more and more voices in the Jewish world in Europe or North America starting to push for an end to Occupation; recently South African minister Ronnie Kasrils explicitly condemned Israel’s apartheid policies, and South Africa is now working to bring to trial any South African Israelis who served in Lebanon.
Racism, fascism and colonialism have never been the Jewish way, so the rise of politicians such as Avigdor Lieberman – an outright fascist – should be deeply troubling to those who cherish an idealised vision of Israel. Settlement expansion has been so vast and so illegal, even under Israel’s laws, that it can no longer be disguised. When between half a million to one million Israelis have chosen to leave, and one in three are under the poverty level, including 40% of the country’s holocaust survivors (170,000 people), and when increasing numbers of Israelis are on Viagra or other drugs, even the naysayers must stop and think. And the Gaza withdrawal sent a message to the right-wing settlement movement that it had failed in its mission to redeem the biblical land of Israel, that that dream is over. And that a Palestinian state is being born. The question of course is whether Condoleezza Rice’s New Middle East is having birthpangs or is aborting, stillborn – cut off from an oxygen supply by Israeli closure and international sanctions.
In England, the United States and Belgium, human rights lawyers are taking a stand against Israelis whom they accuse of war crimes, and that’s only beginning. There’s now serious discussion about sending international peacekeepers not just to South Lebanon, but also into Palestine.
Some more ground rules in this campaign:
Israel is the strong party in the conflict. Her people perceive themselves as weak, but the truth is it’s the 4th largest army in the world, the 4th largest nuclear power, the 3rd largest arms producer. It is not David, it is Goliath. And we have to reframe this so it’s clear.
The Occupation is pro-active, not defensive. The settlements, apartheid roads, the Wall, home demolitions, land expropriation and closure have nothing to do with security or defence and everything to do with control, suppression, ethnic transfer and de-development of Palestine, while Israel claims the entire country and denies Palestine a viable independent state.
We have to remember that only conflict resolution, based on international law and principles of social and economic justice, will end all this. Military win-lose thinking (such as was the rule during the Oslo years) only escalates the violence, just as militarism per se is always an escalating force. (Some say Weapons of Mass Destruction are firmly in the hands of terrorists - naming George W. Bush and others as state terrorists.)
Both the Israeli and Palestinian publics want an end to Occupation, but Israelis aren’t campaigning in any numbers for this. They’ve bought into the lies of Ehud Barak that the Palestinians don’t want peace, so only international pressure will bring change.
The Palestinians and the Arab world support a just peace. The Beirut Declaration and the Prisoners’ Document (even the Geneva Initiative) prove the lie of Israel which says there’s no partner.
We believe that Israel isn’t going to end the Occupation by pressure from within. Only international pressure, coming from civil society, will tip the balance, as it did for South Africa. Whilst George W. Bush has certainly managed with his War on Terror to stem the power of civil society to leverage governments, he’s on the way out and we must now work to regain democracy. As Arundhati Roy says, in THE ORDINARY PERSON’S GUIDE TO EMPIRE: “The people of the world do not need to choose between a Malevolent Mickey Mouse and the Mad Mullahs.”
We need to get serious about funding, about co-ordination, maybe about developing leaders (for we don’t have a Mandela, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Dalai Lama or Jimmy Carter to lead this). We must develop focused, strategic campaigns – such as a campaign to apply the Fourth Geneva Convention to the Territories, or a campaign to prevent governments trading in arms with Israel, and of course BDS. Boycott, divestment and sanctions. Having lived in South Africa under apartheid, I can tell you that Israel’s policies towards Palestinians are far far worse than the policies of the South African apartheid regime. We have to fight that Israeli apartheid, and expose it for what it is, and in so doing liberate even the Israeli people themselves, who suffer as oppressors, albeit less than Palestinians under occupation.
As we gear up to the 40th year of Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (which has not yet been liberated at all), we must use that date. And the following year – 2008, the 60th anniversary of the Naqba, the Disaster. We must hear from refugees. Refugees everywhere. Lebanon. Syria. Jordan. Egypt. Gaza. Israel. The West Bank. Or elsewhere in the Palestinian "diaspora".
And if those of us in the conflict zone can’t provide leadership, then international civil society must take on that responsibility, too. As Jeff Halper of ICAHD says: “An approach that generates a pro-active strategy of advocacy has the ability to become a global movement akin to the anti-apartheid struggle. Under Palestinian guidance, in co-ordination with the Israeli peace movement and international activists and advocates, it must provide direction, effective forums for strategizing (such as this), reframing and the formulation of focused and strategic campaigns. It must impart a vision, principles, red lines and alternative scenarios. These are critical steps at this historical moment. As the old slogan has it: ‘When the people lead, the leaders follow.’”
Israel’s war on Lebanon – its blitzkrieg - has resulted in an almost unprecedented level of international protest, activist organising and even rebuke of Israeli policies from national governments. The feeling is not only that enough is enough, but time is running out for the moderates.
It has also increased the peacemaking role of the United Nations and the EU, whilst possibly weakening the United States’ position as regional power-broker, because it championed and armed a defeated Israel, which is now less of a strategic ally. Since neither side “won,” the hope is that war itself is now seen to be increasingly fruitless, as is unilateralism.
The Israeli government is somewhat paralysed by its defeat, so it’s vital for us all to work fast towards solving the situation, which could spiral further downwards, as predicted by the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defence Plan (a 20 year war on Islam), or as engineered by an itchy Israeli defence establishment (situated in the midst of civilian Tel Aviv) which wants to try to reclaim its image of deterrence. Amir Peretz, previously tipped as a future prime minister, is at an all time low, and may be replaced as party leader and defence minister. Some predict national elections within a year. We have a window here.
So we must now be even more focused in saying no to occupation, no to war and militarism, no to unilateralism, no to colonialism and no to racism. If we shilly-shally on this, we could find ourselves in a Christian Zionist wet dream of Rapture, otherwise translating as nuclear holocaust. Here in civilised Geneva that sounds sensationalist scaremongering, but on the ground there’s talk of Al Qaida muscling into the chaos Israel has been part of creating in Gaza.
And now Israeli civilians know they’re front-line participants in war, as never before, and missiles may come at them soon over that so-called Security Wall. Those of us against the Wall were talking of rockets and tunnels years ago.
Whilst we can’t blame Israel for all the Palestinians’ ills, Occupation is at the heart of the matter. At a UN meeting in Vienna, Israeli Member of Knesset Ms. Colette Avital said to me that the wretched checkpoints are the problem. No, Ms. Avital, the settlers and landgrab of settlement expansion, serviced by the checkpoints, apartheid road system, Wall, permit system, home demolitions and Closure – the Occupation in all its misery, its whole Matrix of Control – is the problem. And so is the inherent racism that views another people as lesser humans, with a lesser value for life, and deserving less from life. Coming from a people whose religion teaches that God created everything on the earth, they singularly fail to value LIFE and the sanctity of all life. The sacred nature of all beings, all equally created by whatever we call God.
I was recently told by someone connected to our Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs that “first we have to neutralise Lebanon and Syria, and then we can make peace with the Palestinians and end the Occupation.” If the Israeli government’s game plan, neutralisation, means further massive aerial bombardment and attacks by F-16 and Apache helicopters, cluster bombs, uranium depleted or phosphorous bombs, it’s a further slide down the slippery slope into regional war; this will also translate into terror attacks elsewhere, maybe even here. What a helluva policy! Maybe Olmert’s declaration yesterday that he will soon be holding talks with Mahmoud Abbas means that even that policy is already passé. Insha’allah. But let us not get our hopes up, especially when we see what the facts on the ground are.
So what about the campaigns? Significantly, one example: the MoveOn internet campaign ran a Ceasefire Petition garnering 300,000 signatures in three days, demanding an immediate ceasefire, which it presented to the Security Council. They’re now mobilising their extensive internet resources to press for a return to peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine, an end to Occupation and a viable Palestinian state. A few years ago, I wrote to them asking them to work on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and received a negative response. Now the time is right, and it’s become unavoidable.
Recently there was even a unanimous statement of the Irish government’s Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, condemning civilian deaths, the damage done to civilian infrastructure in Lebanon on such a scale as to render over 750,000 people homeless, the attack on a UN outpost which killed four peacekeepers, and the slaughter at Qana. It also called for an immediate ceasefire.
Critically, that call recommended:
“That Ireland raise at the next meeting of the EU Council of Ministers the implementation of sanctions on Israel under the terms of Article II of the Euromed Trade Agreement on grounds of human rights abuses;"
"That consideration be given to taking legal action against Israel for compensation for its killing of UN personnel and the civilian population and destruction of facilities;"
It "condemned the seizure of water resources by Israel in the region and urged the UN to establish a permanent specialized team to control and ensure the fair distribution of all water resources."
The Irish further "called for a rejection of militarism and a sustained engagement by the European Union and the UN on a set of political proposals as would support the establishment of a viable contiguous Palestinian state, and would enable true security to be provided for Israel based on accepted borders and withdrawal from occupied territories;"
"For the Irish Government to advocate at EU and UN level the establishment of an internationally sponsored Peace Process, with a permanent secretariat, to bring together all sides including Israel and the United States for negotiations.”
One thinks, too, of past anti-war on Iraq street protests, huge waves of demonstrators reaching unprecedented numbers, but which failed to stop the Occupation of Iraq. Despite failing to leverage governments, who remained steadfastly deaf to their own civil society’s huge pressure, nonetheless those massive demonstrations underscored the claim that the war in Iraq was immoral, illegal under international law, unnecessary, denied all principles of democracy (proving the lie that the war was an attempt to introduce democracy to the Middle East) and – in Harold Pinter’s famous diatribe delivered when he received the Nobel Prize for Literature –
“was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading - as a last resort - all other justifications having failed to justify themselves - as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.”
Post-9/11, campaigning has become – at least in the short-term – increasingly frustrating because even when civil society is in uproar, as recently when watching the conflict in Lebanon and Israel on its TV screens or reading personal testimony by articulate Lebanese bloggers, world governments stood by for too long and allowed it to happen. A BBC journalist covering Gaza said to me, in despair, that he couldn’t understand why the world was allowing it all to happen. Certainly there are many times when we campaigners ask ourselves why don’t people care about Palestine? Is it that they don’t value human rights? Or international law? Real democracy? Freedom? Maybe life itself? Here in Geneva, the birthplace after the 2nd World War of the Geneva Convention and home of the Intnl. Committee of the Red Cross, we hope for recognition by the Swiss that the benchmarks must be reclaimed and the standards regained, so that they have value at all.
Yet, as I said, from around the world, we now hear increasingly in this post-War period of boycotts, divestment actions and even talk of international sanctions, as part of a movement towards peacekeeping and peacemaking, increasingly centred on Europe and the UN.
Our work in reframing the conflict and ending its central cause, the Occupation, has become infinitely easier now that Israel is so patently seen not to be the victim, a role it’s always played to the world stage. Israel’s militarism has been totally exposed, with its lack of regard for such niceties as the Geneva Convention, human rights or international law, or even proportionality. Now the asymmetry is out in the open, just as the huge infrastructure on the ground – all those settlement cities – cannot be hidden. And the world has seen Israel as a huge thug, demolishing a neighbouring country’s infrastructure, while collectively punishing the Lebanese and the Gazans and West Bankers. Wherever Israelis go today, they must know they are hated for that. They can’t use the old rebuttal of “anti-semitism” when it’s so obvious that criticism has nothing to do with anti-semitism. (A useful joke to deflate some of that “Jewish lobby” knee-jerk: ‘Once upon a time, an anti-semite was someone who hated Jews. Today an anti-semite is anyone the Jews hate!’)
The focus must now be to continue to highlight facts on the ground – which are increasingly obvious – almost half a million settlers are not easy to disguise. Nor is the huge Wall snaking all over the West Bank. We at ICAHD have for many years been guiding diplomats (including heads of mission or delegations), international journalists, aid workers, church groups, foreign parliamentarians and many members of civil society and become partners in co-ordinated campaigns of advocacy (for example every year rebuilding a demolished home, as an act of civil disobedience, with international volunteers). We’re developing an anti-apartheid campaign, and work to target power, through education, lobbying and advocacy. We were the first Israeli NGO to support BDS – boycott, divestment and sanctions. Our organisation works closely with Palestinian counterparts and has three Palestinian staff members. Our grassroots work actively supports Palestinians, whether by taking demolition cases to court, or fighting the route of the Wall, or by taking guided tours also to the Negev or Galilee or Lod, to show what The Only Democracy in the Middle East is really all about. Trust me, it’s not about democracy. Any more than the Israeli Defence Force is about defence. Or the Civil Administration civilian. Or Jerusalem an undivided city.
The idea of boycott is a way for civil society to make its feelings felt. It isn’t focused against Israel per se, but against its Occupation policies – policies which even Ariel Sharon said were unsustainable. Once the Occupation ends, Israel will be able to rejoin the international community. But it can't expect to carry on a normal life (with film festivals, participation in international cultural events, European league football, the Olympic Games, Eurovision and the rest) while it blatantly disregards human rights and international law, and practices racist policies which sink it ever deeper into corruption, anarchy and moral and ethical stagnation. We have to learn how to say NO. That’s all.
Trade unions around the world are becoming increasingly involved – as they did in the days of anti-apartheid. Civil society organisations are growing in number and coherence, organisation and strategy. Leading figures such as film director Ken Loach are coming out against the Occupation, together with Israeli and Palestinian film makers, calling for Israel to be culturally boycotted at film festivals and other artistic events. Other artists are gradually plucking up courage to go public in criticism of Israeli policies (300 prominent British Jews signed a public statement in the Times of London, denouncing the Lebanon debacle). Palestinians also tell of leaders of the American Jewish community who say they are beginning to understand what a monster they have helped to create. And so one hears more and more voices in the Jewish world in Europe or North America starting to push for an end to Occupation; recently South African minister Ronnie Kasrils explicitly condemned Israel’s apartheid policies, and South Africa is now working to bring to trial any South African Israelis who served in Lebanon.
Racism, fascism and colonialism have never been the Jewish way, so the rise of politicians such as Avigdor Lieberman – an outright fascist – should be deeply troubling to those who cherish an idealised vision of Israel. Settlement expansion has been so vast and so illegal, even under Israel’s laws, that it can no longer be disguised. When between half a million to one million Israelis have chosen to leave, and one in three are under the poverty level, including 40% of the country’s holocaust survivors (170,000 people), and when increasing numbers of Israelis are on Viagra or other drugs, even the naysayers must stop and think. And the Gaza withdrawal sent a message to the right-wing settlement movement that it had failed in its mission to redeem the biblical land of Israel, that that dream is over. And that a Palestinian state is being born. The question of course is whether Condoleezza Rice’s New Middle East is having birthpangs or is aborting, stillborn – cut off from an oxygen supply by Israeli closure and international sanctions.
In England, the United States and Belgium, human rights lawyers are taking a stand against Israelis whom they accuse of war crimes, and that’s only beginning. There’s now serious discussion about sending international peacekeepers not just to South Lebanon, but also into Palestine.
Some more ground rules in this campaign:
Israel is the strong party in the conflict. Her people perceive themselves as weak, but the truth is it’s the 4th largest army in the world, the 4th largest nuclear power, the 3rd largest arms producer. It is not David, it is Goliath. And we have to reframe this so it’s clear.
The Occupation is pro-active, not defensive. The settlements, apartheid roads, the Wall, home demolitions, land expropriation and closure have nothing to do with security or defence and everything to do with control, suppression, ethnic transfer and de-development of Palestine, while Israel claims the entire country and denies Palestine a viable independent state.
We have to remember that only conflict resolution, based on international law and principles of social and economic justice, will end all this. Military win-lose thinking (such as was the rule during the Oslo years) only escalates the violence, just as militarism per se is always an escalating force. (Some say Weapons of Mass Destruction are firmly in the hands of terrorists - naming George W. Bush and others as state terrorists.)
Both the Israeli and Palestinian publics want an end to Occupation, but Israelis aren’t campaigning in any numbers for this. They’ve bought into the lies of Ehud Barak that the Palestinians don’t want peace, so only international pressure will bring change.
The Palestinians and the Arab world support a just peace. The Beirut Declaration and the Prisoners’ Document (even the Geneva Initiative) prove the lie of Israel which says there’s no partner.
We believe that Israel isn’t going to end the Occupation by pressure from within. Only international pressure, coming from civil society, will tip the balance, as it did for South Africa. Whilst George W. Bush has certainly managed with his War on Terror to stem the power of civil society to leverage governments, he’s on the way out and we must now work to regain democracy. As Arundhati Roy says, in THE ORDINARY PERSON’S GUIDE TO EMPIRE: “The people of the world do not need to choose between a Malevolent Mickey Mouse and the Mad Mullahs.”
We need to get serious about funding, about co-ordination, maybe about developing leaders (for we don’t have a Mandela, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Dalai Lama or Jimmy Carter to lead this). We must develop focused, strategic campaigns – such as a campaign to apply the Fourth Geneva Convention to the Territories, or a campaign to prevent governments trading in arms with Israel, and of course BDS. Boycott, divestment and sanctions. Having lived in South Africa under apartheid, I can tell you that Israel’s policies towards Palestinians are far far worse than the policies of the South African apartheid regime. We have to fight that Israeli apartheid, and expose it for what it is, and in so doing liberate even the Israeli people themselves, who suffer as oppressors, albeit less than Palestinians under occupation.
As we gear up to the 40th year of Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (which has not yet been liberated at all), we must use that date. And the following year – 2008, the 60th anniversary of the Naqba, the Disaster. We must hear from refugees. Refugees everywhere. Lebanon. Syria. Jordan. Egypt. Gaza. Israel. The West Bank. Or elsewhere in the Palestinian "diaspora".
And if those of us in the conflict zone can’t provide leadership, then international civil society must take on that responsibility, too. As Jeff Halper of ICAHD says: “An approach that generates a pro-active strategy of advocacy has the ability to become a global movement akin to the anti-apartheid struggle. Under Palestinian guidance, in co-ordination with the Israeli peace movement and international activists and advocates, it must provide direction, effective forums for strategizing (such as this), reframing and the formulation of focused and strategic campaigns. It must impart a vision, principles, red lines and alternative scenarios. These are critical steps at this historical moment. As the old slogan has it: ‘When the people lead, the leaders follow.’”
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