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.’”