tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29706558342186582082024-02-18T18:02:55.826-08:00Crazy CountryAdam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comBlogger419125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-26135909529032600092018-09-29T07:20:00.000-07:002018-09-29T08:18:31.738-07:00This week: Ruling the air and women’s empowerment <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In
February this year, an Iranian drone flew into Israel's airspace and was shot
down after a few minutes<span style="color: red;">.</span> A week later, Prime
Minister Netanyahu – in one of his trademark gimmicks - presented a fragment of
the Iranian drone to the Munich Security Conference,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>stating: "Iran committed an act of
aggression last week, launching a drone into our airspace!" Then Netanyahu
turned directly to the Iranian Foreign Minister and waved the drone fragment: "
Do you know this, Mr. Zarif? It's yours.”<span style="color: red;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black;"></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black;">The
State of Israel does not exactly respect the airspace of others. Already for
decades, the Israel Air Force has taken the liberty of regularly flying in the skies
of Lebanon. With the outbreak of the civil war in Syria, this liberty was
extended to the Syrian skies as well. There, Israeli planes began to carry out
attacks and bombings "preventing the creation of an Iranian presence.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first, Israel denied any involvement. But
later the pretence was dropped. Recently the Israeli Air Force announced –
openly and rather proudly - that it had carried out no less than 200 attacks in
Syria.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><o:p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The
Israeli presence in Syria's skies was made possible through coordination with
Russia. Netanyahu agreed with Putin that Israel would not interfere with
Russia's efforts to restore Assad's rule and would not intervene in any way in
the mass killing carried out against Syria's "rebellious" citizens.
In exchange, Russia would not intervene in Israeli bombing of Iranian targets
throughout Syria. This partnership culminated a few months ago with Netanyahu being
invited as the guest of honor at the military parade in Moscow's Red Square,
and… on the night of his return to Israel he sent the air force to a
particularly intensive attack on Iranian targets in Syria.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But
the <span style="color: #222222;">bromance</span></span></span> was short lived. This
week, Assad's army, having only an obsolete <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and ineffective air defense system, tried in
vain to block an Israeli attack on the post of Latakia - but accidentally hit a
Russian plane and shot it down, with all its 15 crew members killed. Suddenly,
Netanyahu discovered, instead of the friendly and affable President Putin, an angry
Russian bear. Unwilling to listen to Israeli explanations and apologies, the Russians
placed the full blame on Israel and announced that they would provide the
Syrian army with an updated air defense system. In vain did Netanyahu cry out to
Putin that "placing the S-300 ground to air missiles in irresponsible
hands would exacerbate the situation." Commentators tend to say that the
downing of the Russian plane was but an excuse for an already planned Russian
volte face in Syria. The restoration of Syria as a sovereign state, under
Russian patronage, is nearing completion. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And a sovereign state is supposed to be able
to protect its airspace ...<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Netanyahu
does not give up easily. He declared that Israel would keep at all costs the
freedom of flying in the skies of Syria, and in his speech at the UN General
Assembly added <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>casually that this Israeli
freedom is soon going to be extended to the skies of Iraq as well. <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Our
Prime Minister might not be aware of the definition of anti-Semitism widely accepted
in Europe – and which he himself recently pressured the British Labor Party to adopt.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It includes in its definition “those who
practice double standards” regarding the policies of the State of Israel and who
set for Israel different rules of conduct<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>than those prevailing in other countries. Anyone who acts in such a
manner is liable to be denounced as an anti-Semite - so maybe our PM should be a
bit more careful<span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="HE"><span dir="RTL"></span>.</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="HE"><span dir="LTR"></span> <span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL"><span dir="RTL"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Israeli
intelligence did an excellent professional job and located in the Iranian
capital Tehran a secret warehouse housing radioactive materials. Prime Minister
Netanyahu revealed the exact address on the podium of the UN General Assembly
platform and invited the International Atomic Energy Agency to carry out forthwith
an inspection there. A good idea, without a doubt.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No
complicated intelligence operation is needed in order to know where the Dimona
nuclear reactor is located. It's no secret, the reactor’s location has been
well known for decades. But in all these years, no IAEA inspector has ever set foot
there. Not even after a former employee of this reactor, named Mordechai
Vanunu, published detailed testimony indicating that nuclear bombs are produced
there by the hundred - even then, the Atomic Energy Agency <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>was not invited to make an inspection. But
maybe, even if it's a few decades late, the time has come at last? After all,
no double standards, Mr. Netanyahu!<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><o:p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieXpJQiDXTyFDP_f-c550QAw3S3VUR-THKRVCYFXfagaVgjRZeQCpm-yDh0G_5yV3aR6zwqO029FqXGfY6E_BHXQCfxBL11cFXwR0zzSvM82ccGzp7Itj2b2M9KCoJTu311qpuBYLSSg/s1600/bear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieXpJQiDXTyFDP_f-c550QAw3S3VUR-THKRVCYFXfagaVgjRZeQCpm-yDh0G_5yV3aR6zwqO029FqXGfY6E_BHXQCfxBL11cFXwR0zzSvM82ccGzp7Itj2b2M9KCoJTu311qpuBYLSSg/s320/bear.jpg" width="320" /></a></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em><span style="font-family: "georgia";">Biderman/Haaretz</span></em></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em></em></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
***</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><o:p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></o:p></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
The Israeli Navy declared with joy and pride that, for the first time, a woman selected
to command a gunboat patrolling off the coast of the Gaza Strip. And Israeli newspapers
featured a picture of the new captain, Lieutenant Dana Abudi, smiling at the
wheel of her ship. "I am grateful for the confidence that was placed in
me, to lead a fighting crew and a fine vessel in one of the most operationally challenging
theaters of The Sea Arm." As reported, Squadron 916, one of whose Deborah
gunboats will from now on be commanded by Lieutenant Abudi, "is in
constant<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>daily friction with the Gazan
population, particularly the sector economically dependent on the fishing
industry."<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> “Friction”
is something of an understatement to describe the daily relations between the
fishermen of Gaza and the navy of the State of Israel. In fact, very little is
published about the subject in the Israeli media. In order to learn a bit more,
one needs to turn to the Palestinian news outlets and to international human
rights organizations. For example, the testimony of Rajab Khaled Abu Riela, 30
years old, who at midnight on June 8, 2016 let the port of Gaza together with his
brother and two cousins. “We were out at sea, fishing, until 1:30 am. When we
started our way back to the port, an Israeli warship approached. The soldiers
started insulting us through the megaphone, and soon opened up with live
ammunition at our two small boats. Then the warship directly rammed us. I tried
to escape, but was shot in the leg. They took me and my brother to Ashdod port,
where they wouldn’t give me any medicine or treatment for the injury I sustained.
I was left bleeding until 9:30. Finally they<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>sent <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>me back to Gaza. An
ambulance took me directly from Erez Checkpoint to the Shifa Hospital and there
immediately into surgery. The doctors managed to remove the bigger pieces of
the bullet – but many small fragments still remain in my leg, and probably I
will have to live with them for the rest of my life”. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><a href="https://palsolidarity.org/2016/06/testimony-of-one-of-the-latest-attacks-against-gazas-fishermen/"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">https://palsolidarity.org/2016/06/testimony-of-one-of-the-latest-attacks-against-gazas-fishermen/<o:p></o:p></span></span></a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The
next time that Gazan fishermen come under a barrage of live fire from an
Israeli warship, they will be honored to be attacked by a ship with a female
captain… <span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span dir="RTL" lang="HE" style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><o:p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ieWlMU3F0RPGN3RMxsbKHQIFcm4Erzo0s885hyphenhyphenNC3zVhM0LbC5MPvGMPvZk3zdwL5NrYsOlmkyUwI2RJ-gSReoWBEcOKUp9dsxf6R1J7kSBe6y9uJ-Gz-8e5BMg0h5ZBRj3i32KVJg/s1600/Fisherman1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="694" data-original-width="879" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6ieWlMU3F0RPGN3RMxsbKHQIFcm4Erzo0s885hyphenhyphenNC3zVhM0LbC5MPvGMPvZk3zdwL5NrYsOlmkyUwI2RJ-gSReoWBEcOKUp9dsxf6R1J7kSBe6y9uJ-Gz-8e5BMg0h5ZBRj3i32KVJg/s320/Fisherman1.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><em> <span style="font-size: small;">A proud captain at the wheel - Yediot archive</span></em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieXpJQiDXTyFDP_f-c550QAw3S3VUR-THKRVCYFXfagaVgjRZeQCpm-yDh0G_5yV3aR6zwqO029FqXGfY6E_BHXQCfxBL11cFXwR0zzSvM82ccGzp7Itj2b2M9KCoJTu311qpuBYLSSg/s1600/bear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a> </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYF8-a_LBzLNiM5mJX9WQ6OsEuaP6KSbh4fE51PVkdM0DP10qhRngC4oqn9M5Z_kB3sdirQ_hx35okNZ9AeLrH1GNAE_ZQbOJlmeSUInrBHHHIbagp3w8_u8rM39gUAh38OG65LiK0KQ/s1600/Fisherman2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="337" data-original-width="600" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYF8-a_LBzLNiM5mJX9WQ6OsEuaP6KSbh4fE51PVkdM0DP10qhRngC4oqn9M5Z_kB3sdirQ_hx35okNZ9AeLrH1GNAE_ZQbOJlmeSUInrBHHHIbagp3w8_u8rM39gUAh38OG65LiK0KQ/s320/Fisherman2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"><em>A wounded fisherman tells his story - ISM</em></span></div>
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Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-84019316934535787072018-09-29T06:43:00.003-07:002018-09-29T06:43:31.447-07:00My Fifty Years With Uri Avnery <pre class="m_-852160148081010367gmail-_ad_q1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #5f6368; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.3px; orphans: 2; text-align: right; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: nowrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">Aug 25, 2018<div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #5f6368; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.3px; orphans: 2; text-align: right; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: nowrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></span></span> </div>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #5f6368; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.3px; orphans: 2; text-align: right; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: nowrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"></span>How to sum up in a few words 50 years of political partnership, which was also an intensive friendship, with the person who, I believe, had the most influence on me?
The starting point: summer of 1969. A 14-year-old from Tel Aviv, during the summer between elementary school and high school, I notice an ad in HaOlam HaZeh newspaper asking for volunteers at the election headquarters of the “HaOlam Hazeh – Koah Hadash” (“New Force”) party. I went. In a small basement office on Glickson Street, I found three teenagers folding propaganda flyers into envelopes. To this day, the smell of fresh print takes me back to that very moment. Two hours later, we heard a commotion outside. Knesset Member Uri Avnery, the man whose articles brought us to this office in the first place, walked in. He was returning from an election rally in Rishon LeZion. He exchanged a few words with the volunteers, thanked us for our help, and went into a meeting room with his aides.
At that point, it was not Uri Avnery’s opinions on the Palestinian issue that motivated me to volunteer for the campaign. My own opinions on the matter were not fully formed yet. Only two years prior, in June of 1967, I had shared with many others in celebrating the fact that Israel expanded into “new territories.” I would not have imagined that I would eventually dedicate most of my life to trying to get Israel out of those territories. I was attracted to Uri Avnery’s party primarily because it was a young, fresh political party that challenged the old, rotten establishment parties, and because it was opposed to religious coercion, and advocated for separation of religion and state, public transportation on Shabbat, and civil marriage.
A few weeks after I began volunteering, I left a note on Uri’s desk with a few questions: Can we really make peace with the Arabs? Should we give back all the territories Israel occupied, or only some? And what will happen with the settlers? (The settler population at the time was a tiny fraction of what it is today.) A week later, I received a letter in the mail – three pages of detailed answers to each one of my 10 questions. I still have that letter. I have no doubt that Uri wrote it himself – his writing style seeps out of every word. He took the time and energy, in the middle of running a political campaign, to provide thorough answers to the questions of a 14-year-old. I think it turned out to be a profitable investment.
The end point: Friday, August 3, 2018. A years-long political partner of Uri Avnery, at 63 years old, I receive his weekly column, as I do every Friday. In this article, he wrote about the Jewish Nation-State Law and Israel’s national identity, and whether it was Jewish or Israeli (he of course advocated strongly for an Israeli identity). As I had done many times before, I wrote him an email commenting on the substance of the article, raising some fundamental objections. He suggested we discuss them further next time we meet. I asked for his opinion on the protest against the Nation-State Law, scheduled for the following day by the Druze community. He said he was convinced that the demonstration would not focus on the Druze’s exclusive standing in Israeli society, or the unique bundle of rights they get for serving in the military, but that it will tackle the fundamental principle of equality for all citizens.
The last which I will ever hear from him was a one-line message on my computer screen: “I am going to the Druze protest tomorrow.” I assume that he did read what I had written him, that on that night he went to sleep in his bed and that he woke up the next day with the intention of participating in the protest. In the evening, when I was standing amidst the large crowd that amassed in the Rabin Square, I assumed he was standing somewhere around. I rang his phone twice, getting no reply and chalking it up to bad reception (which is common during mass rallies when very many people use their mobile phones all at once). In retrospect I know that by then he had already been admitted to the emergency room at Ichilov Hospital, never to regain consciousness. It was the activists who planned to give him a ride to the demonstration who had found him lying on the floor of his apartment.
What filled the 50 years between the start and end points? The HaOlam Hazeh – Koah Hadash party, which merged into Peace and Eqaulity for Israel, a political party known as Shelli in Hebrew; the Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, which held meetings with the Palestinian Liberation Organization and became a faction of Sheli; the Progressive List for Peace, which we joined after Shelli broke up; and then Gush Shalom. So many meetings, marches, protests and conversations. So many memories.
Standing side by side, holding posters at a protest to prevent the closure of Raymonda Tawil’s news agency in East Jerusalem. The photo that Avnery’s wife, Rachel, took of that demonstration is still up on the wall of the room I am writing these very words in. A conversation with Avnery the day that HaOlam Hazeh, which he edited for 40 years, officially shut down. I Said: “I know this is a difficult day for you”. He answered: “The paper was a tool, serving a purpose. We shall find other tools.”
It is early 1983. Uri Avnery, Matti Peled and Yaakov Arnon, known us the “Three Muskateers”, come back from a meeting with Yasser Arafat in Tunisia. As soon as he lands at the airport, he hands me photos of the meeting, and I bounce from one newsroom to another across Tel Aviv to distribute them in person. I then take a shared taxi to Jerusalem where Ziad Abu Aayyad, editor of the Palestinian Al-Fajr (“The Dawn”) newspaper, waited for me.
A bit later in 1983, the radio announcing the assassination of Issam Sartawi, a PLO member who often met with Avnery and was a close personal friend to him, and my phone call to Uri informing him of the sad news. The frustrating endless phone calls, in the couple of days that followed, proved to us that it was impossible to rent a hall in Tel Aviv to commemorate a PLO man – even one who advocated for peace with Israel and was killed for it.
December 1992. Prime Minister Rabin, who had not yet signed the Oslo Accords and had not yet become a hero of peace, expels more than four hundred Palestinian activists to Lebanon, and we put up a protest tent in front of the Prime Minister’s Office. A cold Jerusalem winter, and it is snowing, but inside the tent that was donated by Bedouins from the Negev, it feels warm and cozy. Uri, Rachel, myself and my wife Beate join other activists in a long conversation with Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, on Judaism and Islam, and how religion and politics converge and clash.
In 1997, in the middle of a protest in front of Har Homa – Netanyahu’s flagship settlement – Uri’s stomach wound, which he had been carrying since the war in 1948, breaks open. A Palestinian ambulance clears him to Al-Makassed Hospital in East Jerusalem; we are all very anxious. Rachel tells me, “even though I do not believe in God, I am praying.” But Uri recovers and lives on for 21 more years of intensive political activity.
May 2003, the Muqata’a (Presidential Compound) in Ramallah. That afternoon, there was a suicide bombing in Rishon LeZion, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon drops a broad hint that he might send an elite IDF unit to “handle” Yasser Arafat that night. We are among 15 Israeli activists who go to Ramallah to serve as human shields. We call the media and tell them that “for the Prime Minister’s information, there are Israeli citizens sitting outside of Arafat’s door!”
Arafat shows Uri his gun and says, “if they come, I have a bullet in here for myself.” We spend an entire night at Arafat’s door, having conversations with young Palestinian guards in a mix of Arabic, Hebrew, and English, paying attention to every sound. Then it is dawn, and we understand that we made it through the night safely, and that the soldiers will not be coming.
Another long, relaxed conversation when we stopped to eat something on our way back from a Progressive List meeting in Nazareth: “The Crusaders were here before us, they came from Europe and established here a kingdom that lasted 200 years. Not all of them were religious fanatics. Among them were people who spoke Arabic and had Muslim friends. But they were never able to achieve peace with their neighbors or adapt to this region. They had temporary agreements and ceasefires, but were not able to gain real peace. Acre was their ‘Tel Aviv,’ and when it fell, the last Crusaders were thrown into the sea - literally. Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.”
“If I ever get the chance to serve as a minister, I would want to have Education Ministry. That is the most important portfolio in the cabinet. The Defense Minister may be able to send soldiers to die in war, but the Education Minister can shape children’s consciousness. The policies of today’s Education Minister will still bear manifest results in 50 years, when today’s children become grandparents and talk to their own granchildren. If I were the minister, the first thing I would do is remove the [Biblical] Book of Joshua from the curriculum. That book advocates genocide, plain and simple. It is also a historical fiction – the events it describes never happened. Rachel was a teacher for 40 years, and every year she succeeded in avoiding teaching this trash.”
Rachel accompanied him everywhere, an active partner to everything he did, editing his articles and dealing with the all the logistics of organizing protests. We all knew she was a carrier of hepatitis B - a time bomb that might explode at any moment. And when it finally did, Uri spent six months with her in the hospital, day and night. He almost disappeared from political life. One day, I happened to bump into him in the hallway of Ichilov Hospital as he was pushing her in a wheelchair, from one checkup to another.
In her final weeks, someone told Uri of an experimental treatment that might save Rachel’s life. Although he knew the chances were slim, Uri spent large sums of money to purchase the medication in America and have it flown to Ben Gurion Airport, and from there, transported directly to the hospital. When she passed away, Uri asked that nobody contact him for three days, and he completely disengaged from the world. Once those three days were over, he went back to his routine of protests and political commentary or so it seemed.
How to finish this article? I will go back to 1969, to an article by Uri which I read under the table during a very boring class in eighth grade. I still remember it, almost word for word; it was a futuristic article that attempted to imagine what the country would look like in 1990. The page was split into two parallel columns, representing two parallel futures. In one of the futures, Independence Day in 1990 is marked by a tremendous manifestation of military power, with new tanks on display in Jerusalem. Prime Minister Moshe Dayan congratulates IDF soldiers who are on alert in the Lebanon Valley and the Land of Goshen near the Nile, and declares: “We shall never give up the city of Be’erot (formerly Beirut), this is our ancestral homeland!”
In the second future, on Independence Day in 1990 festive receptions are being held at Israeli embassies across the Arab world, but the most moving photo was captured in Jerusalem, of a warm embrace between Israeli President Moshe Dayan and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #5f6368; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: Roboto, RobotoDraft, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.3px; orphans: 2; text-align: right; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: nowrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://972mag.com/israeli-peace-activist-uri-avnery-enemy-generations/137438/&source=gmail&ust=1538314651321000&usg=AFQjCNGKx6RTQ_zjDn0r8OB3D0r77-Xlow" href="https://972mag.com/israeli-peace-activist-uri-avnery-enemy-generations/137438/" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: monospace; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" target=""><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">A version of this appears in +972</span></em></a></span></span>Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-78794725300658169202017-09-08T08:38:00.003-07:002017-09-08T09:08:11.829-07:00An enemy image is a vital munition of war<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #783f04; font-size: large;">1) A shooting in Hebron shakes the Israeli society</span></span></div>
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The following article is due to be published in German by Internationaler Versoehnungsbund, the Austrian branch of the International <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR).</span></div>
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<span class="gD" data-hovercard-id="office@versoehnungsbund.at" email="office@versoehnungsbund.at" name="Internationaler Versoehnungsbund OFFICE (IFOR Austria)" style="color: #222222; display: inline; font-size: 12.8px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;"> </span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On
March 24, 2016, a young Palestinian named Abdel Fattah al-Sharif tried to stab
the soldiers guarding an enclave of extreme-right Israeli settlers in the heart
of the city of Hebron on the West Bank. The soldiers shot and severely wounded
him. Eleven minutes later, another Israeli soldier arrived on the spot, named
Elior Azaria. A medic by training, Azaria did not try to give medical help to
the severely wounded man lying on the ground. Instead, Azaria deliberately pointed his gun
at al-Sharif’s head and shot at point blank, instantly killing him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A
field worker of the B’Tselem Human Rights group was able to photograph the
entire event, on a hidden camera. The footage was later that day released to
the Israeli and international media. Faced with this unequivocal evidence, the
military authorities had no choice but arresting Azaria and starting military
judicial proceedings against him – which they probably would not have done had
this video footage not existed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This
was by no means the first case in which an Israeli soldier or policeman deliberately
killed an unarmed or disarmed prisoner. Nor was it the worst such case.
Nevertheless, the Azaria Affair marked a very disturbing first in Israeli
history. Never before did such a big part of the Israeli society rally to the complete
and unequivocal support of a soldier who had killed an unarmed prisoner. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Extreme-right
groups held incendiary demonstrations outside the military court when Azaria
was brought there, chanting “He is a hero! Release him – kill the Arabs!”.
Alarmingly, this was no fringe phenomenon. Opinion polls indicated that a great
part of the Israeli public – a majority in some polls – failed to see anything
wrong in what Azaria did. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It
was of no avail that the Army Chief of Staff and the entire IDF High Command
reiterated, again and again, that soldiers are authorized to shoot only in face
of a threat, and that a disarmed opponent
must not be harmed; that soldiers are given unequivocal orders to that
effect, and therefore a soldier acting otherwise must be punished for his
disobedience. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Israelis
have a habitual, deep-seated admiration for the country’s armed forces, usually
tending to place greater credence in army generals than in civilian politicians.
Not in this case, however. Whatever the generals said, large parts of the
public continued to hold to an opposite doctrine – i.e. that “Arab terrorists
deserve to die” and that soldiers could and should kill them “without the formality of a trial” and regardless of
whether they are armed or disarmed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Outside
the military court building, the extreme-right mobs started with chants jeering
the IDF high command and sometimes voicing explicit threats against the life of
Lieutenant General Gadi Eisenkot and other high-ranking officers. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In
the Israeli peace movement we had our own intensive debate. There were those
who thought we should have our own strong presence outside the court building<span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="HE"><span dir="RTL"></span>.</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span dir="LTR"></span> Others felt it would be a mistake to be
perceived as hounding one specific young man, however guilty he was, and that
we should rather treat this affair as an indication of what prolonged
occupation and oppression of the Palestinians is doing to the Israeli society. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Elior
Azaria was born when Israel’s occupation rule over the Palestinians had already
lasted for three decades - and when he was put on trial, the occupation was
nearing its fiftieth anniversary. There were good reasons to regard Azaria as a
pawn in the game of much greater forces, and not to endorse uncritically the High
Command’s ’ position. After all, it was the generals who daily maintain the
occupation, rather than a lowly Sergeant in Hebron. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Moreover,
the generals were well aware that there were other soldiers, more than a few of
them, had also killed disarmed prisoners – only without a camera present. The
high publicity around the Azaria Trial helped create a far from accurate image
of a morally upright army, holding its soldiers to high standards of behavior
and making an example of a single “rotten apple”. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All
of these bring me to reflect on the changes which fifty years of occupation had
wrought in the Israeli public discourse and specifically in how Israelis
perceive and refer to the Palestinians. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Shortly
after the Six Day War ended in 1967, a book came out which at the time made
quite a bit of a stir in Israeli public opinion. Called “Siah Lohamim” (“Talk
of the Fighters”) it included the record of extensive interviews and
discussions with dozens of young soldiers who had participated in the June 1967 fighting. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A
significant number of those interviewed – especially young Kibbutzniks, who at
the time comprised a significant part of the IDF combat troops – spoke of nasty
scenes and acts which they had witnessed, and in many cases participated in
themselves. Many of them engaged in prolonged soul-searching, grappling with
moral dilemmas over what they had witnessed or taken part in. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At
the time, people further to the political left used to jeer at such
soul-searching conducted after the war was over, using the term “Yorim Ubochim”
(“Those who shoot and then shedding a tear”). Yet these fighters of the 1967
generation, grappling with moral dilemmas and a sense of guilt, compare
favorably with later crops of combat troops who can be characterized as “Those
who shoot and afterwards laugh”. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“When
the bomb is released, I feel a slight blow against the plane’s wing. Nothing
more”. So did Dan Halutz, Commander of the Israeli Air Force and afterwards
Chief of Staff of all the Armed Forces, comment on the 2002 bombing in Gaza
when a one-ton bomb was dropped in order to kill Salah Shehade, a senior Hamas
man – and ended up killing fourteen civilians living in the same building.
Halutz refused to express any regret or remorse. “A slight blow on the wing”, a
phrase emblematic of complete and callous disregard for moral considerations,
entered the Israeli public discourse side by side with the often-repeated
sanctimonious assertion that “The IDF is the Most Moral Army in the World”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All
this can be traced to the corrosive influence of fifty years of occupation. It is
now more than forty years since the Yom Kippur War, when Israel’s armed forces
were last engaged in a “classical” war of army against army; none of the
soldiers and officers now serving can recall taking part in that. Since then,
Israel made peace with some Arab countries (Egypt and Jordan) while others
disintegrated, and their armies with them (Iraq, Syria, Libya). The Israeli
army was left with the primary task of maintaining military rule over an
occupied, restive population which again and again bursts out into all-out
rebellion. The tasks which Israeli soldiers are given consist primarily of
“restoring order” by violently dispersing Palestinian demonstrations and
protests, and the capturing or outright killing of various
terrorists/guerrillas/freedom fighters (or whatever name one may attach to
them). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To
this should be added the army’s role as facilitator or protector of settlement activity on the West Bank. It is
the army which declares parcels of land to be “State Lands” and hands them over
to the settlers. It is the soldiers who arrive to enforce the decree, who stand
guard as the land in question is made into “a closed military zone” and who lob
tear gas grenades at the Palestinians who hitherto considered themselves its
owners. And once the new settlement has been completed, soldiers stand guard at
its perimeter day and night. Soldiers are instructed, whenever encountering a
confrontation between settlers and Palestinians, to first of all come to the
settlers’ help and only afterwards inquire what the quarrel was all about. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The
up to date heroes, to whom new Israeli recruits are expected to look up and try to emulate, are mostly those who had
fallen in fighting “Palestinian terrorists” of one kind or another. And such a
massive indoctrination does not fade off also when has ended the three years of
obligatory military service. Attitudes and opinions acquired during military
service often remain with a person in civilian life, too. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: small;"><span style="color: #783f04; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">2)
How hope turned into bitterness</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There
had been one great opportunity to fundamentally change Israel’s relationship to
the Palestinians, break through the enemy images and indeed end the enmity itself. It was totally missed,
and indeed in many ways made things worse. In September 1993, Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzchak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White
House lawn, signing an agreement which was supposed to lead to peace (and which
many mistook for a peace agreement itself). At the time, there was a
groundswell of support for peace, in both the Israeli and the Palestinian
society – of which only a sad memory now remains. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> It would take an article longer than the
present one to analyze in detail how and why the Oslo peace process failed. Suffice it to say here that Oslo
envisioned an interim period of limited Palestinian self-government, starting
in 1994 and ending in 1999, which was supposed to end with a Comprehensive
Agreement. Palestinians fully expected that this Comprehensive Agreement
would include an end to the occupation
and the creation of a fully independent Palestinian state; Israelis expected a
complete end of any manifestation of Palestinian and Arab hostility to Israel.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This
might or might not have become a reality had Prime Minister Rabin not been
assassinated. As it was, there never was any Comprehensive Agreement; the
“interim” situation which should have ended in 1999 remains in 2017, and at
least the present Government of Israel has no intention of ever changing it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Instead
of an independent state, the Palestinians are stuck with an almost completely
powerless Palestinian Authority, a military occupation maintained with all
severity, settlements continually expanding at the expense of Palestinian land,
and a tight siege which suffocates the Gaza Strip’s economy and social
life. Instead of achieving peace,
Israelis are faced with an intense hostility from the occupied Palestinian
population, which on occasion bursts out into deadly violence, and which
increasingly takes up religious themes and becomes mixed up with Islamic
radicalism. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If
remembered at all, the handshake of Rabin and Arafat which aroused so many
hopes, is nowadays remembered as an act of deception and perfidy. That is,
Israelis and Palestinians alike think of it as representing the deception and
perfidy of the other side. “We wanted to make peace with them. We tried so
hard, we made so many efforts, such huge concessions. But it was all in vain.
They don’t want to make peace, they just want to kill us and take our land”.
That is how both an average Israeli and an average Palestinian would likely sum
up the last twenty years. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The
creation and elaboration of monstrous enemy images is part of making war. Most
human beings do have some basic reluctance to kill other human beings. In order
to efficiently overcome such scruples and engage in the organized killing of
others, human beings need to find some kind of justification. To have a way of
convincing themselves that “we” are the Good Guys and “they” are the Baddies,
that they are nasty people doing nasty things while we are good and righteous
people who do good things – and therefore, it is right for us to kill them
while it is a monstrous wrong for them to kill us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Such
a creation of enemy images has always been a necessity of war. Whether fought with bows and arrows or with
intercontinental ballistic missiles, the
enemy image is an indispensable munition of war. Israel is certainly no exception.
Israelis have largely come to accept Netanyahu’s version: Peace with the
Palestinians is impossible; the Palestinians seek to gain the entire land
between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, and they will never accept a
Jewish state in whatever borders; manifestations of Palestinian violence are
just part of a worldwide “Islamic Terrorist
Wave”, no different than attacks in Paris, Manchester or Barcelona; therefore,
giving up territory is of no avail, and the evacuated land would simply be used
to launch missiles at Israeli cities. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Accepting
this view of the situation leads to regarding the conflict as a matter of
survival – “It is either us or them”. And of course, human beings who perceive
themselves as fighting for survival can become more callous and unscrupulous.
Even with Israel possessing the strongest army in the Middle East (and one of
the strongest in the world), Israelis often tend to call up images of the Holocaust, of gas chambers and
crematoria. Young Palestinians who try to stab Israelis (and in most cases get
killed before even getting near to an Israeli soldier) are magnified into the
harbingers of “fanatic hordes, coming to
slaughter us all”. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: small;"><span style="color: #783f04; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">3)
Is oppression Feminist?</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One
of the most significant implications of the creation of enemy images concerns
young Israeli women. Already at its foundation, Israel had enacted conscription
of women, but until the 1990’s most women soldiers were simply uniformed
secretaries. However, in the past
decade, the Israeli armed forces are making a considerable effort to involve
female soldiers in combat duties - which includes, very prominently,
involvement in maintaining military rule over the Palestinians. In the
so-called “Border Guard” – the militarized police force charged with maintaining
the day to day routine of the occupation
– women already constitute more than a third of the troops, and their
proportion continues to rise every year. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Two
women Border Guard officers had been killed in incidents at the Damascus Gate
of the Old City of Jerusalem – a perennial “trouble spot”. A massive propaganda campaign is conducted in
the mainstream media to make these two fallen women soldiers into matchless
heroines, the role models which young Israeli women should seek to emulate.
Serving in the Border Guard and “fighting the Arab terrorists” is depicted as a
the new form of “Women’s Empowerment”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It
is an effective propaganda, and a considerable number of young women are indeed
induced to fill the ranks of the Border Guard. But there is also a growing
number of young Israeli women who reject out of hand this form of “Feminism”
and “Empowerment”. There is an
increasing number of young Israeli women who declare their total refusal to
join and army of occupation and take part in the oppression of millions of
Palestinian men and women.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Such
refusers face the normal routine meted out by the Israeli army – being called
up, declaring their refusal and being sent to a month in prison, then released
and again ordered to enlist and again sent to another month behind bars and so
on and on and on. Eventually, the army would get tired of it and let them go –
but there is no way of knowing when that will be.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As
I write, the latest two such refusers - Noa Gur Golan and Hadas Tal – are
undergoing this process of repeated, open-ended imprisonment. “I know that my refusal,
in itself, will not end the occupation” said the 18-year old Hadas Tal on the
eve of going to prison. “I refuse because it is important not to let this oppressive
system continue existing without offering resistance, in order to raise awareness and create a public discussion.”
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So
long as the Israeli society can produce such young people, hope is not lost. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvfI3MDDWicQslxH6EP2i0xOCqIjo5wnTmOzGc8XyRP5_Jlp-6OKD1AHKj7V9Ctvn4p4i0Dv_BxOItT6NDtBRhHbkntcj2TASSFiPw6z31NLhKzknXje8A9Ks-dQi7KgDzBdLj6tmRaA/s1600/111111.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="530" data-original-width="758" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvfI3MDDWicQslxH6EP2i0xOCqIjo5wnTmOzGc8XyRP5_Jlp-6OKD1AHKj7V9Ctvn4p4i0Dv_BxOItT6NDtBRhHbkntcj2TASSFiPw6z31NLhKzknXje8A9Ks-dQi7KgDzBdLj6tmRaA/s320/111111.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Elior Azaria, imprisoned for killing a disarmed, severely wounded Palestinian. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9JkBoXhnd0SlepG69-pl2VJCQXJbjE8ljNDhzKcmdcvXtN-lMqeeJeiNFSrMBWgkwQEDwX4AWos0B_usHhzxyaU2fHNu5HjIQ1rzr-a4FfwD4BsMSE0woK3HS0kcST-yG50oIM0bm0w/s1600/222222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9JkBoXhnd0SlepG69-pl2VJCQXJbjE8ljNDhzKcmdcvXtN-lMqeeJeiNFSrMBWgkwQEDwX4AWos0B_usHhzxyaU2fHNu5HjIQ1rzr-a4FfwD4BsMSE0woK3HS0kcST-yG50oIM0bm0w/s320/222222.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Hadas Tal, imprisoned for refusing to join an army of occupation and take part in acts of oppression. </div>
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Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-44619920724846389912017-09-05T06:29:00.000-07:002017-09-08T09:15:53.340-07:00Is there any hope left?<b>The following was written for the September issue of "Jewish Socialist", magazine of the Jewish Socialist Group in London. </b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The symbolic date of June 5, 2017 – fiftieth anniversary of Israel’s military occupation of the Palestinians – had come and gone. It was marked by a reasonably large </span><span style="font-size: large;">rally held at Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, plus a few more political and artistic events. A week later, it was again occupation as usual. One more reason for doubts </span><span style="font-size: large;">whether the Two State Solution is still a realistic option.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Can hundreds of thousands of settlers be removed from the West Bank, or did their numbers already reach “a point of no return”? There had been some 8000 settlers in </span><span style="font-size: large;">the Gaza Strip - and in 2005, having soldiers physically pick up each and every one of these settlers was a very big strain on the IDF resources. On the other hand, </span><span style="font-size: large;">back in 1962, France’s De Gaulle did manage to remove a million and half French settlers from Algeria by the simple expedient of removing the soldiers and letting the </span><span style="font-size: large;">settlers remove themselves. An Israeli De Gaulle (if we ever get one…) might be able to do the same on the West Bank.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A much bigger problem is that most Israelis no longer believe peace to be possible. Indeed, there can be no doubt that the Oslo Process, as actually carried out by </span><span style="font-size: large;">actual Israeli governments, ended in miserable failure – though one can argue endlessly over why it happened and especially whose fault it was. So, if you define </span><span style="font-size: large;">“Oslo” as “Peace” it would be is quite reasonable to conclude: “We tried to make peace, and it did not work”. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">As to the reason why it did not work, most Jewish Israelis have come to accept the official narrative: that Israel made “great concessions” and “generous offers”, to </span><span style="font-size: large;">which the Palestinians responded by suicide bombings and the lobbing of missiles; that Palestinian violence is endemic, motivated by a blind hatred, part and parcel </span><span style="font-size: large;">of a worldwide “terrorist wave”. Can counter-arguments be offered? Sure they can, but only a minority are willing to listen.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Opinion polls still indicate most Israelis willing to give up the Occupied Territories in return for peace – but they regard this as a hypothetical possibility only. </span><span style="font-size: large;">If a peace deal were to be presented to the Israeli electorate as a done deal, it is likely that the majority would vote “yes”. But until and unless this happens, they </span><span style="font-size: large;">would not lift a finger to bring it about – neither mass peace demonstrations, not a mass voting for peace-oriented parties. Which leaves us in the position of waiting </span><span style="font-size: large;">for outside pressure.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">From 2008 up to 2016 we kept hoping for Obama to have an all-out confrontation with Netanyahu – but every time when it seemed in the offing, Obama backed off. Had he </span><span style="font-size: large;">let the UN Security Council condemn the settlements in the first month of his first term, rather than doing it as an ineffective parting shot by a powerless lame duck, </span><span style="font-size: large;">things might have been different. But Obama didn’t. And the European Union, Israel’s biggest trading partner, never showed a real inclination to use its economic </span><span style="font-size: large;">leverage – not even in times when the EU was in a much better shape than it is now.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">So, is the Two State Solution dead? If it is, it means that the Solution is Dead, period. The idea of taking up instead the One State Solution – i.e., that Jewish </span><span style="font-size: large;">Israelis rejecting a Palestinian State on the West Bank would be ready to embrace millions of Palestinians as their new fellow citizens of Israel – completely ignores </span><span style="font-size: large;">the most basic realities of Israeli society and politics.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Yes, it is quite possible that the Solution is Dead. We are not living in a Hollywood film, and nobody guaranteed us a Happy End. It is quite possible that there will </span><span style="font-size: large;">be no solution, that Israel will just go on becoming ever more oppressive, more racist, more nasty and disgusting – as long as Israel maintains its military </span><span style="font-size: large;">superiority and as long as the US is able and willing to fully back Israel. (And when Israeli superiority and/or American backing come to an end, several outcomes can </span><span style="font-size: large;">be conjectured – most of them nasty, too.)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Is there any cause for optimism? I can point to no strong, coherent, clear-cut cause. But some glimmers can be discerned in the dark.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">* Netanyahu is deeply mired in corruption investigations, and his term seems near its end. There is no guarantee that he will be replaced by somebody better – but </span><span style="font-size: large;">perhaps... </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">* In the recent crisis around Temple Mount / Haram A Sharif Compound, the Palestinians for the first time used the methods of large-scale, non-violent civil </span><span style="font-size: large;">disobedience – and it worked and gained them an important moral victory. This might have long-term results.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">* Among many other drastic effects, the Trump Presidency might bring about a final discrediting of the American monopoly over mediation between Israel and the </span><span style="font-size: large;">Palestinians. Eventually, a better, more even-handed mediator might emerge.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">* Perhaps most important: An increasing number of American Jews, especially young ones, are strongly critical of Israeli government policies. The advent of Trump has </span><span style="font-size: large;">widened the rift – most American Jews are disgusted and horrified by him, most Israeli Jews are rather pleased with Trump. A historical precedent: one of the factors </span><span style="font-size: large;">which made the Portuguese finally give up their colonial empire was coming under strong criticism from the Brazilians, with whom Portugal shares language and history…</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">* Today Hadas Tal, an 18-year old Israeli girl, begins her second month in the military prison, and her fellow refuser Noa Gur Golan is already on her third. The two </span><span style="font-size: large;">of them reject the idea, widespread in the Israeli media and public discourse, that female soldiers’ participation in holding down the Palestinians constitutes a form </span><span style="font-size: large;">of “Women’s Empowerment”. Rather than take part in this kind of state-sponsored Feminism, Hadas and Noa prefer to spend a prolonged period behind bars. So long as </span><span style="font-size: large;">Israeli society can produce such young people…</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzi6K7mnw8NknCxLjHocwVoAxX0xzP1Y0E_ZulIhg5mljIp74JLG1W7oDjR485jp27agMdCtRbyRHXjVY-eX_AMR_qvsa3p0d654rWWDP0Qg9idOvr8PqVavTf1RtUWGjOXTwDSm1XGQ/s1600/Two%2527separate%2527flags.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzi6K7mnw8NknCxLjHocwVoAxX0xzP1Y0E_ZulIhg5mljIp74JLG1W7oDjR485jp27agMdCtRbyRHXjVY-eX_AMR_qvsa3p0d654rWWDP0Qg9idOvr8PqVavTf1RtUWGjOXTwDSm1XGQ/s320/Two%2527separate%2527flags.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">Will these two flags ever fly, side by side, </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"> at the border crossing between the State of Israel and the State of Palestine?</span></div>
Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-35764093557919357542017-06-03T07:15:00.004-07:002017-06-03T14:01:53.618-07:00Being a peace activist - after fifty years <span style="color: #222222;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Written for De Brug, Amsterdam, where it will appear in Dutch)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span></i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #222222;">I started being politically involved in the summer of 1969, when I offered myself as a volunteer to do menial work at the elections campaign headquarters of Uri Avnery’s "HaOlam HaZeh </span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span lang="HE"> /</span></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span lang="EN"> New Force" Party. Uri Avnery, then a radical young Member of the Israeli Parliament, had been one of the first Israelis to call for creating a Palestinian state in the newly-occupied territories. As a matter of fact, it was not this which initially drew me to the party – but rather its opposition to "the rotten old parties" which dominated Israeli politics, as well as the call to separate religion and state. HaOlam HaZeh was, in fact, rather similar to the Dutch D-66 party, launched at much the same time. It was only gradually, over a period of some two years, that I fully accepted the idea of Israel making peace with the Palestinians and getting out of the Occupied Territories.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">There was a key moment – an evening in 1971 when I was sitting with some twenty other youths in the a dingy basement of a house in downtown Tel Aviv, and heard a soldier in uniform who had just come from the Gaza Strip. He was telling of horrors: extrajudicial executions, the victims’ bodies thrown into dry wells; torture; soldiers beating up passers-by on the streets of Gaza "just for the fun of it"… We were shocked, we did not want to believe it, we said "This can’t be true, our army does not do such things!". The soldier said:"Yes, it is true. I have done it myself, and now I can’t sleep at night". Later that night, we went out with some three thousand leaflets, badly printed on an old stencil machine, which contained what the soldier had told. We put them into postboxes around Tel Aviv – "To let the people know what the government was hiding from them" – and looked behind our shoulders to make sure there were no police patrol cars in the streets. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">There followed the daily exhausting routine of activism – distributing leaflets on street corners, endless debating with passers-by, going after midnight to write graffiti and paste inflammatory posters on the walls, visits to Palestinian villages, protest vigils of a few dozens outside government offices, sometimes a bit bigger demonstrations which required weeks of intensive preparations and sometimes had disappointing results…</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Even if the going was difficult and there were many setbacks, for some decades we felt we were making a headway. PM Golda Meir said that "There is no such thing as Palestinians". Gradually, the idea that the Palestinians are indeed a people and deserve to have their own state became widely accepted in the mainstream of Israeli society, and Golda Meir’s opinion is nowadays held only by the extreme right lunatic fringe. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">When Egyptian President Anwar Sadat landed in Israel and spoke on the Knesset podium, there was a month of peace euphoria. Peace stopped being an unattainable dream and became a concrete, real possibility, peace rallies grew from hundreds to thousands and to tens of thousands, sometimes to hundreds of thousands. When it became clear that Menachem Begin wanted peace only with the Egyptians and had launched an invasion of Lebanon in order to crush the Palestinians, there was for the first time in Israeli history an active grassroots anti-war movement, with large rallies on the streets and soldiers going to prison for refusing service in Lebanon and eventually the protest of soldiers’ mothers forcing the government to terminate the Lebanon adventure. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The outbreak of the First Intifada convinced many that continued occupation was both immoral and impractical. For decades, the PLO had been considered "a terrorist organization", and the activist and philanthropist Abie Nathan served two six-month prison terms for the "crime" of having met Yasser Arafat and shaken his hand. "We will meet the PLO only on the battlefield" was what Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin said in the earlier part of his career, and he ordered soldiers to "break the bones of rioting Palestinians". Little did Rabin realize that eventually he himself would shake Arafat’s hand on the White House lawn, in a blaze of worldwide publicity – or that he would pay for that courageous act with his life and become after his death the archetypal Martyr for Peace, at the focus of vast annual memorial rallies. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">At the time when Rabin signed the Oslo Accords with Arafat, we felt that our task was nearly done, that peace between Israel and the Palestinians was at hand and only a few last details needed to be worked out. Even after the assassination of Rabin, peace activists were far from losing heart. The first time that Netanyahu got elected, we in general regarded it as a regrettable accident to be soon corrected. Many of us considered Netanyahu an altogether illegitimate Prime Minister – a bit like many Americans consider Trump nowadays – and the three years of Netanyahu’s first term were stormy, full of intensive demonstrations and protests.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In 1999 Ehud Barak was elected, claiming to be Rabin’s successor and complete Rabin’s unfinished task. The fact that this claim got wide public credibility enabled Barak to give the Israeli peace movement the most grievous blow it ever suffered. In August 2000 Barak, Arafat and Clinton were closeted for intensive negotiations in Camp David. Opinion polls in Israel indicated that, if an agreement was reached and presented to the Israeli voters, it would have gotten at least 70% support and possible as much as 80%. A vast coalition was formed, including the Labor Party and more or less everybody to its left. Gush Shalom (The Peace Bloc), on whose behalf I took part in this coalition’s meetings, was the most radical and critical participant – but we, too, were ready to throw our full backing behind a Barak-Arafat deal. A full-scale campaign was planned in great detail. A very beautiful color poster was prepared, with a large dove and the words "Back the Agreement – Vote YES for Peace". Everybody in the room fell in love with it - If things had gone as we hoped, a hundred thousand copies would have been printed and everybody around the country would have seen them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">What did happen is that Barak came back with the announcement that he had made "generous offers" but the intransigent Arafat had rejected them, and there was "no partner". Shortly afterwards, Barak allowed Sharon to stage his provocation at the Temple Mount, the most sensitive spot in the entire Middle East – resulting in 13 dead Palestinians, the outbreak of the bloody years of the Second Intifada, and the increasing isolation of the peace movement. There had never been a more difficult and uphill task, in all my years of peace activism, as the effort to convince Israelis that Barak’s "generous offers" had not been so generous at all. The general Israeli public just refused to listen, convinced that "Barak offered EVERYTHING to the Palestinians and they reacted with bloody terrorism and suicide bombings". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">There was a partial upsurge in 2003, when hundreds of prominent Israelis and Palestinians met in Geneva and signed a draft peace agreement – just needing the signature of the official leaders on the dotted line. But the crafty Sharon, Prime Minister by then, diverted this political energy into a unilateral move in Gaza. Israeli settlers were removed from the Gaza Strip, but direct military occupation was replaced by a suffocating Israeli siege of the Strip – and on the West Bank occupation and settlement expansion continued unabated. There followed several rounds of fighting in and around Gaza, shooting of missiles at Israel and large scale bombings by the Israeli Air Force – altogether cementing the feeling of ordinary Israelis that "peace is impossible" and that "every territory given to the Palestinians will just become a Hamas shooting pad". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">And so we come to the present – the incredible fiftieth anniversary of the occupation, which none of us really believed we would see. There was an impressive big rally on the Rabin Square, and numerous smaller protests and events are planned at various locations. But there can be little doubt that Netanyahu – now far more firmly seated than he was twenty years ago – fully intends to continue and perpetuate the occupation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">So why should we continue being active under these inauspicious conditions? For two overlapping reasons. Because it is immoral to occupy and oppress and dispossess another people – and when your country is committing injustice, to be silent is to be an accomplice. That would be true in any country – and doubly true in a country which prides itself as "The State of the Jewish People", given the centuries-long history of Jews suffering injustice and discrimination and persecution. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">But also, we must continue to act and strive and protest and hope against hope because of sheer self-interest. Because Israel’s present course is a deadly threat to our future. As things now stand, the survival of Israel depends of three factors: On Israel’s military superiority in the Middle East, on the American domination of the world and the United States being willing and able to give Israel unlimited political, military financial and diplomatic support. An undermining of any of these three would put Israel in very grave trouble. And history shows conclusively that no military superiority, regional or global, lasts forever – nor are there any eternal alliances. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Only a peace agreement, making Israeli a legitimate part of its geographical environment, can truly ensure our long-term survival. And only the Palestinians can sign such a peace. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Ultimately, the reason to continue being a peace activist in Israel is very simple: we just can’t afford to stop it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span>Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-66790205196180961552017-03-11T11:15:00.001-08:002017-03-11T12:01:16.591-08:00Women and the army<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><strong>- with such rabbis, who needs Trump? </strong></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><strong>- women enter tanks and military prison</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This week, Rabbi Yigal Levinstein made a new provocative pronouncement. To the students whom he is educating and preparing for their term of military service in his pre-military academy at the settlement of Eli in the northern West Bank, the Rabbi he told to "marry a warm woman, a religious woman who did not serve in the army" and embarked on a barrage of condemnations for the service of women in the IDF in general and the military service of religious women in particular: "Our women are holy and chaste. What is the mission of a woman? The Talmud says it clearly: to bring up the next generation. That is their destiny. Only our holy women know how to do it. What is she going to be? Commander of an infantry company? Madness, this idea belongs in the lunatic asylum. They are making our girls crazy, recruiting them into the army. They go in as Jews, but they will not come out Jewish in the end. Their values and priorities will be totally disrupted; home-career, everything falling into confusion. It must not be allowed!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Rabbi Levinstein was not religious in his youth, having "seen the light" as an adult, and he is very familiar with the Israeli secular society. He knew full well what the reaction would be for his making such a statement precisely on International Women's Day - just as six months ago, he knew what the response would be to the statement he made on the eve of the Gay Pride Parade ("Those perverts have broken with full steam into the army - and no one dares to open his mouth about it").</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Indeed, the responses were immediate - women's groups issued a series of sharp condemnation of the Rabbi’s intolerable words, joined by secular politicians from various parties as well as parts of the religious community. Michal Nagen, who herself maintains a pre-military academy to prepare and encourage young religious women to join the army, wrote: "I was shaking with grief and shame at the words you uttered before the very Ark in your synagogue. I felt that God's name was being desecrated. I have had enough of men telling ‘the girls’ what they should do and think. The army is not your private property, Rabbi Yigal, as it is not the property of the liberal secularist or of the women. The army belongs to all of us, to the entire people. I cry for your students who laugh at your banter which insults their sisters, their women friends, and sometimes even their mothers at home."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the big wave of vehement response, the women who enlist in the IDF - especially those who in increasing numbers join combat units and take up belligerent tasks –were held up as a shining example of women's empowerment as well as of Zionism and patriotism. "The warrior women of the IDF and the Border Police, as well as the heroic women police in the streets of Jerusalem, are taking an active part in safeguarding the security of Israel, they are part and parcel of the nation’s defense system, and we are proud of them" said Prime Minister Netanyahu. For his part, Defense Minister Lieberman said: "Since the establishment of the State of Israel, women have served in the IDF and contributed enormously to the security of Israel. Rabbi Levinstein damages not only the women but also the heritage of the IDF and at the basic values of the State of Israel. I intend to re-examine the status of Rabbi Levinstein and his competence to prepare young people for service in the Army."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Rabbi Levinstein, however, was not really bothered by all the fuss. He feels secure of his backing deep in the political establishment , which would prevent anyone touching the funding and official status of his pre-military academy. Like no concrete steps were taken after his inflammatory remarks about the homosexual perverts. Standing his ground, the Rabbi reiterated: "In recent years, a deep cultural process is taking place. A feminist approach is infiltrating the IDF, which is completely incompatible with Judaism." Other senior rabbis met with the cabinet ministers of the Jewish Home Party to ask their help in a counter-offensive: "The army is being stolen from us! The previous Standing Orders regarding women's service in the army, were formulated with the aim of reaching a consensus and maintaining dignity and respect for the divergent lifestyles of all who serve in the IDF. Now, there is a new and completely different set of Standing Orders, which were composed in secret, behind everybody’s backs. These are infused with radical liberal and feminist agendas prevalent on the extreme left. Trying to force religious people to serve in mixed units of men and women, contrary to Jewish law and to the Jewish lifestyle upheld by our ancestors for countless generations. The result would be to push them altogether out of the army. "</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Also two hundred reserve officers who were disciples of Rabbi Levinstein gave him their public backing: "Recently, the Rabbi sounded a warning about the changes and the transformation in the military, particularly with regard to the integration of women in combat units. These changes might severely and painfully damage the army. Being highly familiar with the military system, we well understand the problems of which the Rabbi was speaking and the inherent dangers. The grave criticisms which he made come of a great heart, full of love and pain, having before his eyes nothing but care for the IDF and of the State of Israel. The Rabbi’s position reflects the opinions expressed by the greatest of Sages and the generations-long rulings of the Chief Rabbinate on the issue of integrating women into the army."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Amid this debate - almost forgotten the position of young Israeli women who have no shred of sympathy for Rabbi Levinstein and his ranting and who yet refuse to seek women’s empowerment via service in an occupation army, whose main function already for many years is to maintain an oppressive Israeli rule over millions of Palestinian men and women.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This week, the IDF Spokesperson published statistics on the immense efforts which the army makes to reduce the number of women soldiers serving as secretaries in military offices, and to move more and more of them to service in combat units. The idea of training women tank crews is still in the stage of an experiment which for the time being includes no more than fifteen women. However, in the Border Police, the military-police force handling the daily routines of maintaining Israeli rule in the Palestinian territories, the number of women already reached 35 percent - more than a third. The trend is expected to increase, so that in future women will comprise a full half of the Israeli soldiers holding on roadblocks throughout the West Bank and late at night carrying out raids to remove"wanted terrorists" from their homes and transfer them to interrogation under "moderate physical pressure." As it turns out, not all young women relish such a role. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Under the slogan in the "Neither secretary nor tank crew – a refuser and a Feminist", three young women this week repeated the ritual which the IDF forces upon those who were examined by the army’s "Conscience Committee" and ruled to be lacking a conscience. Again and again, those who refuse military service (male or female alike) are called to present themselves at the Tel Hashomer Induction Center. There, they are given an order to join the army, which they disobey and are promptly sent off to a month in jail - after which the ritual will repeat itself. The "Two Tamars", Tamar Alon and Tamar Ze’evi, have this week gone through this procedure for the sixth time. Atalia Ben-Aba, a refuser of a bit shorter seniority, was now sent to prison for the second time. The military authorities took care to separate the three and send them to different prisons.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Vered Lee, reporter of Ha’aretz who was there, wrote: "Tamar Alon was radiant, inspiring optimism among the accompaniers. When asked where does she get her optimism, she laughs and replies: 'Also the girls imprisoned with me do not understand my optimism. They wonder how I can smile with such a long-drawn incarceration.' The other prisoners, she says, got there for going AWOL, for disciplinary offenses or for drugs.' Never before did they meet a real, actual leftist. They thought of us as traitors, enemies of the state. During our stay in prison, they learned to look at us differently, see us as human beings. Not that it was always easy. When we got to prison the first time we had a sudden shock to find ourselves behind bars. We felt suddenly alone. We asked ourselves again and again whether this act is significant, whether anyone cares. But yes, there are many who do care. "</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Muhammad Awda of East Jerusalem, who is active in Combatants for Peace during the last nine years, said at the modest ceremony: " I realize that there are at this moment only three female objectors in the Israeli army, and no male ones. I see them and I salute them. I see them and I think about my daughter who is their age and who is also struggling for a just society. They deserve support, not only from the immediate family but from everybody. I'm speaking here, not only for myself but for many Palestinians who could not come and express support for you today, because of the policies of the occupation rule which denies them freedom of movement. We are proud of these young brave women, who are struggling for our rights and for justice and freedom. Thank you, from all of us! " He then added, with a smile: "We'll meet again in freedom. Freedom for all!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A woman graduate of the Border Police training course, en route to the Occupied Territories</span><br />
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<span lang="HE"></span><br />Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-22807768415552689192017-02-24T10:27:00.000-08:002017-02-24T10:28:35.942-08:00Scales of Justice <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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On September 13, 2015, young Palestinians from the neighborhood of Sur Baher in East Jerusalem threw stones at Israeli cars near the neighborhood of Armon Hanatziv, one of the Israeli neighborhoods built after 1967 on confiscated Palestinian land. A stone hit the car of Alexander Levlovitz, causing him to suffer a heart attack. Levlovitz began to convulse, swerved into a ditch and hit a pillar. He was seriously injured and died in hospital the next day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">There is no reason to claim that the Palestinians who threw the stones specifically meant to kill Alexander Levlovitz, of whom they never heard, nor that they at all intended to kill anyone. In fact, the vast majority of stone throwing cases end without casualties. Certainly, however, it can be argued that anyone throwing stones at moving cars is responsible for this act and should have taken into account that the outcome might be fatal.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">By an intensive action of the Israeli security forces, the Palestinian stone throwers were apprehended. The 19 years old Abed Rabu Dawiat, described by police as "The stone-throwers’ ringleader" was charged with manslaughter. After lengthy legal proceedings, he signed a plea bargain whereby he got a term of eighteen years' imprisonment only. The Israeli media widely publicized the protests of the Levlovitz Family at the plea bargain and the leniency of punishment. "We had hoped for complete justice against my father's murderers. The judges should have been free to proceed to the full severity of the law, to impose the maximum penalty. I strongly object to the mitigation of punishment," said Nir, Levlovitz’s son. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">On March 24, 2016, Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, a resident of Hebron, approached the Israeli soldiers guarding the settler enclave at Tel Rumeida, in the heart of Hebron. He stabbed one of the soldiers, and was then shot by other soldiers and severely injured. As clearly seen in footage taken by the hidden camera held by a field worker of the B'Tselem Human Rights organization, al-Sharif was lying on the ground, constituting no threat to anyone. A 19-year old soldier, Elior Azaria – a medic, arrived on the spot and deliberately aimed his weapon at the head of al-Sharif, shot and killed him .</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Elior Azaria was detained by military police and charged with manslaughter. During the prolonged trial, the defense lawyers argued that Azaria felt subjectively threatened and suspected that al-Sharif was hiding explosives on his body. However, the evidence of Azaria’s commanding officer and of other soldiers who had been there convinced the court to dismiss such contentions out of hand. Rather, the judges ruled that Azaria had shot and killed al-Sherif out of seeking revenge and from the perception that "terrorists" should be killed without trial, whether or not they still pose a threat. This is a perception shared by quite a few people in Israel, some of them much older than the conscript soldier Elior Azaria, among them Knesset Members, cabinet ministers and newspaper columnists. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">After the media reported that the prosecution was seeking to have Elior Azaria sentenced to three years in prison, his mother collapsed<span lang="HE"> </span><span lang="EN">and had to be taken to hospital, full of fright and pain at the severe and cruel punishment facing her son. The media reported extensively on the difficult situation of the worried mother.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the end, the judges resolved to impose on Elior Azaria a sentence of 18 months. Opposite the court room, hundreds of Azaria’s supporters demonstrated in protest of the severity of this sentence. Senior politicians from several Israeli political parties joined the protests and demanded an immediate amnesty to Azaria: "He already suffered enough, he should not have to sit in jail. End the story now, just send him home!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Coincidentally or not, this week also saw the culmination of a long struggle over the appointment of new judges to the Supreme Court. Members of the Jewish Home Party have long asserted that Israel's judicial system is biased in favor of the Arabs and does not give due weight to national and patriotic considerations. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked of the same party, redressed this negative tendency, making a successful effort to change the composition of the Supreme Court and include more conservative judges, especially some who belong to the Religious-Zionist sector. A particular success was recorded with the appointment of David Mintz – a British-born jurist who came to Israel in 1970 and immediately moved to the West Bank settlement of Dolev. His judicial career has been marked by strict and rigorous treatment meted out to foreign nationals accused of illegal entry to Israel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">David Mintz’s neighbor at the settlement of Dolev is Knesset Member Moti Yogev, also a member of the Jewish Home Party. Yogev became known for his way of objecting to a ruling of Supreme Court: "We just need to go to the the Supreme Court with a D-9 bulldozer and raze it right off the face of the earth."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The new Supreme Court Justice David Mintz will not bulldoze the Supreme Court. He will enter by the main entrance and sit in judgment to consider petitions on human rights violations.</span><br />
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<span lang="HE"></span></span></span>Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-61326180576964383262016-11-09T06:08:00.002-08:002016-11-09T16:12:16.282-08:00The bitter morning <span style="font-family: "miriam"; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "miriam"; font-size: small;"><span lang="HE"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUfObUvVIiPmTMPT4IuYamxbljXCZmjQ7hvlopPWDeNI_w4Ox8BLX9BEphOLIQ6qxKZqhRKrvh1V4hOBU3ml6KI_TfankV_YQpCAHFbyTy_PC9cqGMxUSD8X97eah6lUWZgDMMbvX11Q/s1600/tramp%2527cartoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUfObUvVIiPmTMPT4IuYamxbljXCZmjQ7hvlopPWDeNI_w4Ox8BLX9BEphOLIQ6qxKZqhRKrvh1V4hOBU3ml6KI_TfankV_YQpCAHFbyTy_PC9cqGMxUSD8X97eah6lUWZgDMMbvX11Q/s320/tramp%2527cartoon.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "miriam"; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "miriam"; font-size: small;"><span lang="HE"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "miriam"; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "miriam"; font-size: small;"><span lang="HE"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "miriam"; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "miriam"; font-size: small;"><span lang="HE"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">So, the nightmare really came true. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">After the East Shore polls closed at 2am Israeli time, I continued watching on CNN the unfolding drama, following the discussions of the elections experts, with their sophisticated maps and detailed knowledge of every county in every state. There were the initial moments when Hilary Clinton still seemed headed to win Florida and North Carolina. But then, in state after state the same specter was repeated: the vast red-colored regions of countryside and small towns<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red;"> </span></span>overwhelming the embattled blue Democrat dots of the big cities. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Behind these red expanses on the CNN maps were the people whom Michael Moore depicted in his film: The workers left behind in "rust belts" when the industries went away to countries where the salaries are much lower. Embittered and hopeless, they were ready to embrace Donald Trump’s demagoguery and his promise to "Make America Great Again" – a vast tide under the surface, which the pollsters altogether missed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the time ahead of us there would be many recriminations. What if the Democrats had paid more attention and given better answers to the blue-collar workers who had once been their party’s mainstay? What if the Democratic Party had voted Bernie Sanders as its Presidential candidate? What if Hilary Clinton had not arrogantly taken Wisconsin for granted, but had bothered to pay that state some visits during the campaign? What if she had not cast herself for the second time for the role of The First Woman President, but rather promoted for that role a younger woman not associated with unsavory past affairs? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Many things are <span lang="HE"> </span><span lang="EN">seen clearly in hindsight which should have been clear in real time, many roads not taken. The road which was taken has led to President-Elect Donald Trump making a jubilant victory speech to his gathered followers. How sincere were his conciliatory words? Would he be able - even if he wanted - to put down the flames of hatred which he had constantly fanned in his year of wild campaigning? Could he get rid of this blazing hatred, even if he tried? Does Trump have anything real to offer to the hopeless people to whom he gave a fleeting hope – and if he disappoints them, to whom and to what will they turn next? </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Thinking of President Obama, being saddled with this very unwanted successor who personifies the undoing of all Obama stood for. Maybe this might increase Obama’s willingness to use his remaining two months in order to leave at least one final lasting legacy– i.e., removing the American veto and letting the UN Security Council adopt a binding resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict for whatever it is worth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Too thin a crumb of hope on a bitter morning. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<br />Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-86583552066532549872016-11-09T06:08:00.001-08:002016-11-09T06:11:10.352-08:00The bitter morning <span style="font-family: "miriam"; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "miriam"; font-size: small;"><span lang="HE"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">So, the nightmare really came true. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">After the East Shore polls closed at 2am Israeli time, I continued watching on CNN the unfolding drama, following the discussions of the elections experts, with their sophisticated maps and detailed knowledge of every country in every state. There were the initial moments when Hilary Clinton still seemed headed to win Florida and North Carolina. But then, in state after state the same specter was repeated: the vast red-colored regions of countryside and small towns<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red;"> </span></span>overwhelming the embattled blue Democrat dots of the big cities. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Behind these red expanses on the CNN maps were the people whom Michael Moore depicted in his film: The workers left behind in "rust belts" when the industries went away to countries where the salaries are much lower. Embittered and hopeless, they were ready to embrace Donald Trump’s demagoguery and his promise to "Make America Great Again" – a vast tide under the surface, which the pollsters altogether missed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the time ahead of us there would be many recriminations. What if the Democrats had paid more attention and given better answers to the blue-collar workers who had once been their party’s mainstay? What if the Democratic Party had voted Bernie Sanders as its Presidential candidate? What if Hilary Clinton had not arrogantly taken Wisconsin for granted, but had bothered to pay that state some visits during the campaign? What if she had not cast herself for the second time for the role of The First Woman President, but rather promoted for that role a younger woman not associated with unsavory past affairs? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Many things are <span lang="HE"> </span><span lang="EN">seen clearly in hindsight which should have been clear in real time, many roads not taken. The road which was taken has led to President-Elect Donald Trump making a jubilant victory speech to his gathered followers. How sincere were his conciliatory words? Would he be able - even if he wanted - to put down the flames of hatred which he had constantly fanned in his year of wild campaigning? Could he get rid of this blazing hatred, even if he tried? Does Trump have anything real to offer to the hopeless people to whom he gave a fleeting hope – and if he disappoints them, to whom and to what will they turn next? </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: red; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Thinking of President Obama, being saddled with this very unwanted successor who personifies the undoing of all Obama achieved. Maybe this might increase Obama’s willingness to use his remaining two months in order to leave at least one final lasting legacy– i.e., removing the American veto and letting the UN Security Council adopt a binding resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict for whatever it is worth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Too thin a crumb of hope on a bitter morning. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<br />Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-49913904926320684652016-10-01T09:57:00.000-07:002016-10-02T05:06:17.668-07:00A man of peace? Not exactly. But still…<div dir="LTR">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The first demonstration I ever attended was at the end of 1967. On one school day, the principal went through all parts of the school, announcing: "The last two classes are canceled, everybody is going to demonstrate at the French Embassy!". We broke into a great cheer and went through the school gates. En route to the embassy we encountered the pupils from other schools, all joining in the great organized spontaneous demonstration. Someone started chanting "De Gaulle / Has a big nose!" (it rhymes in Hebrew) and everybody joined in.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the Israel of late 1967 it was very fashionable to hate France, and in particular to hate French President Charles de Gaulle. As we read in newspapers and heard from our teachers, France had betrayed Israel and violated the alliance with us at the crucial moment and imposed an arms embargo on Israel. (Israel won the war anyway, but that's another issue.) And to add insult to injury, we were told that de Gaulle had said anti-Semitic things, though we did not know exactly what. Therefore, we were very happy to demonstrate at the French Embassy instead of studying. Some of us also wanted to throw stones and break the embassy windows, but the police prevented that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As it happened, a few weeks later I was browsing at a dusty back shelf in my favorite lending library. There a book with an intriguing title: "A Bridge Over The Mediterranean". On the front page appeared a large photo of the Israeli Minister Shimon Peres shaking hands with French President Charles de Gaulle, both smiling broadly, over the background of the Eiffel Tower and the Paris skyline. I read the first chapter in which Shimon Peres spoke at very great length about the strategic alliance between Israel and France. As described in the book, it was a strong and enduring alliance, serving the best interests of both countries. (As far as I can remember, the one thing Peres did not mention was the French aid in building the Dimona Nuclear Pile…). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Actually, it was not such an old book. It had been published just three years earlier, in 1964, but it seems somebody at the library decided to exile it to the back shelf. It was then, at the age of 12, that I was first introduced to Simon Peres "the man of great visions and designs" (not always the same visions and designs...).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In 1976, during a brief leave from the army, I participated with several dozen youths at a Tel Aviv protest against the new settler movement, "Gush Emunim" (Block of the Faithful), whose members were determined to establish themselves at the heart of the Biblically-hallowed "Judea and Samaria". After the demonstration, we sat in a cramped office and listened to the news on a tiny, black and white TV set. "Again, Gush Emunim activists managed to evade the military checkpoints, reach the old railway station in Sebastia and barricade themselves in." said the announcer "Evicting them is expected to result in violent clashes with soldiers". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"What is this nonsense about their evading the checkpoints?" cried one of the organizers. "Defense Minister Shimon Peres is the settlers’ best friend. What more do you want to know? It's a con game, pure and simple". In that small office, we all felt a very visceral hatred of Shimon Peres.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The next morning, in the bus on the way back to base, I read of "compromise agreement" reached late at night with the blessing of Defense Minister Peres. The Gush Emunim settlers were allowed to remain "temporarily" at a nearby military base. Later, temporary became permanent, the settlers stayed and the it was soldiers who eventually left, and the military base became the settlement of Kedumim. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Shimon Peres definitely had a major share in this outcome.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">May 1981 – a crowded meeting at the Tzavta Hall in Tel Aviv, to celebrate the election of Francois Mitterrand as President of France. The keynote speaker was Shimon Peres – Leader of the Israeli Labor Party, Leader of the Parliamentary opposition and Vice President of the Socialist International. "Europe is becoming a Socialist Continent!" cried Peres. "This is the wave of the future, and we in Israel should become part of it!" It was the first time I heard Shimon Peres praising Socialism, and it did not last long. (In truth, Mitterrand himself, as well as the other members of the Socialist International, have not shown a real commitment to the principles of Socialism…)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">September 1982: the First Lebanon War had been raging for three months, culminating with the terrible massacre in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. A wave of demonstrations and protests throughout the country, I have spent the previous night at the Abu Kabir Detention Center in south Tel Aviv. A crucial meeting between major activists of the "Committee Against the Lebanon War" on one hand and the leadership of "Peace Now" on the other. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">- "Peace Now wants to have on Saturday night a very big rally, a huge one, on the Kings of Israel Square. It should really be a mass event, bigger than anything anyone of us ever did before. But you of the Committee got first to the police, you have the permit for using the square on that night. If you don’t pass it on to us, Peace Now will not be able to do it. And you, too, know that if you mobilize only your own supporters, the rally would be much smaller." - "OK, we are ready to give you the license." - "But there is a problem. The Labor Party is ready to join, to change their position. They are going to stop supporting the war in Lebanon start speaking out against the war. Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin are willing – they very much want - to mount the podium and speak very sharply against Begin and Sharon. But I hate to say this, Peres and Rabin are not willing to share the podium with anyone from the Extreme Left. "</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">All eyes in the room turned to the radical poet Yitzhak Laor, who was going to be the keynote speaker for the Committee Against The War. After a moment of silence he muttered a pungent oath and said: "The hell with it! No one will be able to say that I spoiled a big rally against the war crimes. Let Rabin and Peres have the podium to themselves and welcome!". So was born the memorable "Demonstration of the Four Hundred Thousand", the biggest public event in Israel's history until then.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Some two or three years later - again a small demonstration of several dozens, and again sitting afterwards to see the TV evening news at a dusty office (color TV this time). In this demonstration, as in many protests and events held at the time, we chanted "Talk peace / With the PLO / Now, now, now!"/ . We distributed to the indifferent Tel Avivian passers by leaflets about the meetings which activists of the Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace held with PLO officials, and about the positive messages which they got from the Palestinians.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">On that evening TV interviewed Shimon Peres, Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s cabinet. Peres rejected out of hand the option of negotiating with the PLO - "It is a terrorist organization, they are opposed to peace, they have nothing positive to contribute – absolutely nothing." Conversely, he greatly praised King Hussein of Jordan - "The King is a serious, reliable partner. The real option for peace is the Jordanian Option!" </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"What an idiot!" said one of the people sitting next to me. "He wants to give the Territories to Jordan. And then the Palestinians will say that the agreement does not bind them, and will continue fighting Israel. What a clever deal - pay the full prize and get nothing in return! How can such a stupid person get so high?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As we learned later, at that time Peres had held a secret meeting with King Hussein in London and reached a draft agreement, but Prime Minister Shamir vetoed it and the initiative failed. We did not share Peres’ outrage and protest at "The loss of a historic opportunity".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">April 1990 - the government coalition crisis which came to be known in Israeli history as "The Dirty Trick". With the outbreak of the First Intifada the Jordanian Option was definitely off the agenda. The Americans suggested that Israel negotiate with a Palestinian delegation not officially representing the PLO but including representatives from East Jerusalem. Prime Minister Shamir rejected the proposal out of hand and accused Foreign Minister Peres of discreetly encouraging the Americans. Peres and the other Laborites resigned and brought down the Shamir Government in a parliamentary vote of confidence. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Thereupon, Shimon Peres announced that he had managed to form a new government headed by himself, and that it would be presented to the Knesset on the morning of April 12. But on that morning, as we waited, the hours passed and there was no sign of the new cabinet. There were increasing rumors the ultra-Orthodox have abandoned Peres at the last minute and deprived him of the expected parliamentary majority. This turned out to be true. By noon, Peres appeared on the screen, tense and pale, and announced "a delay in presenting the new cabinet". "Damn!" said one of my friends. "This means that we remain stuck with Shamir, and he will continue to block everything. God damn the ultra-Orthodox to Hell! "</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">1994 - After the Nobel Peace Prize Committee announced the award of Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres for their part in the Oslo Agreements, Yedioth Ahronoth published a nasty commentary. The writer attacked Peres harshly, accusing him of being "a publicity stunt man" who had "pushed through the signing of the horrible Oslo Accord" for the sole purpose of getting the Nobel Prize.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">So I immediately sat down and wrote a Letter to the Editor. I don’t have the exact text (at that time, such things were not yet preserved on the computer), but I remember quite clearly that I expressed unreserved support for Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. I wrote that he was a statesman of the first order, of whom any country could be proud. I wrote in that letter (as I wrote and said very often, at the time) that Shimon Peres deserved praise and the Nobel Prize for understanding that Israel must end the occupation and achieve peace with the Palestinians - not only for the sake of the Palestinians but also for its own future. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I praised Peres for understanding that in order to talk to the Palestinians one needs to talk with those that the Palestinians themselves regard as their representative – namely, the Palestine Liberation Organization and its Head, Yasser Arafat. I also wrote that Peres deserved to be praised for having managed to overcome his bitter rivalry with Yitzhak Rabin, work closely with Rabin and convince the Prime Minister to shake hands with Yasser Arafat. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">For all these reasons, I concluded, Shimon Peres fully and rightly deserved the Nobel Peace Prize - more so than many others who got it before him. "Yediot Ahronot" shortened my letter, but the essential parts did get published on the next day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">November 1995 - The bitter night of the Rabin Assassination. A very successful peace rally on the square, the big crowds who came to express confidence in the Peace Process that began in Oslo, Rabin and Peres on the podium singing the Peace Song. The rally over, hundreds of young people dancing merrily to the tune of Brazilian Samba music from the loudspeakers. Suddenly the honking of a long column of police cars, wild rumors of a terrorist attack, the news that Prime Minister Rabin was hit by an assassin’s bullets, hundreds of people running all the way to the gate of the Ichilov hospital, Cabinet Spokesperson Eitan Haber appearing and reading out the communiqu<span lang="HE">י</span><span lang="EN">: "The Government of Israel announces with shock ...". </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Returning to the square. Sitting in mourning circles around the lighted candles. The radio reported that the cabinet convened in the middle of the night for an emergency session and elected Shimon Peres as Prime Minister Pro Tem, pending Knesset approval. Several youths walk to the wall of the nearby Tel Aviv Town Hall and spray paint a huge graffiti: "You will never walk alone, Shimon Peres!". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Already that night, we started talking about what Peres should do. Immediately dissolve the Knesset and call new elections, so as to win a large majority? Act firmly and strongly against the settlers, now that their public standing is at a low ebb?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Alas, Shimon Peres did not follow any of our "advices". Instead, he soon got entangled in a completely unnecessary, bloody military operation in Lebanon - "Operation Grapes of Wrath". In April 1995, after <span lang="HE">106</span><span lang="EN"> Lebanese civilians were killed by a stray Israeli artillery shell at the village of Qana, I was at a protest outside the home of Prime Minister Shimon Peres in Ramat Aviv. It was a militant demonstration, with very sharp slogans chanted against The Prime Minister, including such terms as "murderer", "assassin" and "war criminal". We collided with the police cordon which barred our way, and came very close to spending the night in custody. Yet, during the dispersal I told my fellow demonstrators: "There is no choice. Despite everything, in the elections we will have to vote for him." - "What? For this bastard?" - "What else? Do you want Netanyahu as Prime Minister?".</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">At that moment, the expression "Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu" still seemed a kind of science fiction, a remote and highly unlikely eventuality. But a bare month and a half later, it became a reality that accompanies the state of Israel up to the present. On elections night we sat awake, with the predictions showing a victory for Netanyahu – a victory by a narrow but clear margin. Hour after hour we sat in front of the screen, hoping against hope for a change - until with the morning light, predictions became certainty and Shimon Peres lost irrevocably his last chance at holding Israel’s helm of state.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I could continue this article on and on and specify more moments in the life of Shimon Peres - lights and shadows, contrary landmarks, times when we were very angry with him for agreeing to serve Netanyahu and represent him on the international arena and other times when Peres tries at least to some degree to face up to the leader of the Likud and take all sorts of initiatives to promote peace. There was the failed attempt to be elected as the (purely titular) President of Israel and a second attempt which succeeded. And the last years, when he was very popular with the general Israeli public and increasingly pushed aside the vision of peace and of The New Middle East and chose to focus on a new, non-political dream and vision – i.e. the intensive promotion of nanotechnology and of the enormous blessings nanotechnology could give to mankind.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Still, now that Shimon Peres’ long career definitely ended in a huge state funeral in the presence of Heads of State and assorted VIP’s from all over the world, I'd rather finish my personal review with that decisive moment of failure in the 1996 elections.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Was Shimon Peres a Man of Peace? Many of my political friends are skeptical about that, to say the least. It is not difficult to gather damning evidence and point to black spots all along Peres’ career.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As for me - I would have been very happy indeed if it were possible to turn the wheel backwards, go back to May 1996 and give Shimon Peres the extra thirty thousand votes which would have made him a Prime Minister for an extra four years and reduced Netanyahu to a forgotten footnote in Israel’s history. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Shimon Peres of 1996 was completely committed, politically and personally, to the Oslo Accords. There is good reason to believe that, with a solid mandate for four more years, Peres would have embarked with his typical energy and determination on the Permanent Status negotiations with the Palestinians. That he would have seriously tried to reach an agreement by the May 1999 deadline agreed upon. And that with an agreement reached, he would have worked very hard to implement it on the ground. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Would he have succeeded? Would we now be living in a completely different situation, in a real New Middle East? Or would Peres have wasted this chance, too, and ended in a dismal failure? We will never know. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In reality it is impossible to go back in time and change history. Hopefully, we will still succeed to change the future.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVRkU064Y41U6kj7WAh-c-wS53HVBys6vEfvSAHcnmLKrrI1K3Udzvy4DLDsJd8ztbi72kirtByaElo-O1mwqDYisYxblIUB7kz7jfVqZzDutEngL6HpnFCMD7KCTAo6tK3MWtRo5Gnw/s1600/Peres%2527arafat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVRkU064Y41U6kj7WAh-c-wS53HVBys6vEfvSAHcnmLKrrI1K3Udzvy4DLDsJd8ztbi72kirtByaElo-O1mwqDYisYxblIUB7kz7jfVqZzDutEngL6HpnFCMD7KCTAo6tK3MWtRo5Gnw/s320/Peres%2527arafat.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="HE"></span></span>The photo which no Israeli paper published this week - Peres, Arafat and the Oslo Accords</div>
Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-69776723638413786582016-08-12T03:00:00.002-07:002016-08-12T08:32:59.920-07:00Thirst and narrative<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT6gvQrqowv5xIrb-NZ5p57lz3fd72p8XvlV54C4LmqBy06MKP22d37yCZTe4k9thJ-lx4G9VMx27gYiVX0Ew_rgkIBTBEh4hFnNZvwStDlyCFlGyhd4Pq7YV9E-CkxqkXxEdp92CQwA/s1600/SAM_3302.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT6gvQrqowv5xIrb-NZ5p57lz3fd72p8XvlV54C4LmqBy06MKP22d37yCZTe4k9thJ-lx4G9VMx27gYiVX0Ew_rgkIBTBEh4hFnNZvwStDlyCFlGyhd4Pq7YV9E-CkxqkXxEdp92CQwA/s320/SAM_3302.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
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</span><span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">"Here at Fasayil, in the Jordan Valley, we
get water twice a week," explained our host, to the group of activists
from Tel Aviv. "Twice a week the water is flowing through this little
water pipe which you see here on the ground, a pipe with a 20 mm diameter. When
the large container is full we distribute the water among all the families, it has
to last for three days. And by the way, we are more fortunate compared to the Palestinian
communities more north. To them, Israel does not give any water at all, and
often the soldiers even confiscate the water which they buy for themselves. That<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is because the area where they live had been declared
as a firing range, and the army says they are living there illegally. So far,
they did not declare Fasayil a firing range. "<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasayil">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasayil<o:p></o:p></a></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">So what could we do about it – we, fifty
Israelis who had followed the call of “The Water Coalition" and came to Fasayil
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>on a Saturday afternoon? We could say a
few words of sympathy and encouragement, and express shame at the acts of the
country whose citizens we are. We could take down from our bus the 120 bottles
of mineral water which we brought with us as a completely inadequate gesture of
solidarity. (The tanker which we intended to bring got stuck on badly paved
roads, and came only the following day.) But at least a cardboard box full of
toys was immediately assaulted by the Fasayil children with cries of joy. We
could help build a simple playground from local materials and sit down with our
hosts for a modest meal. And to raise big signs “Open the tap! Water is a right”
towards the camera of the Social TV. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
then we got back on the bus and went back to our homes in Metropolitan Tel Aviv
where the water is always flowing in the taps. Always.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://tv.social.org.il/en/water">http://tv.social.org.il/en/water</a></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Two days later, there were other visitors
arriving at the village of Fasayil. In the morning, soldiers of the Israel
Defense Forces came to Fasayil, accompanied by bulldozers. Two residential
buildings were destroyed in less than half an hour. Twelve people, including
seven minors, were left homeless.</span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Was that in any way related to our visit? Probably
not. B'Tselem documents in recent weeks a sharp rise in the number of house
demolitions carried out by the army throughout the Occupied Territories. At the
Al-Moarjat community, also is the Jordan Valley, four residential buildings
were demolished, leaving homeless 14 people, including two children. And five
buildings were destroyed at the community of Umm al-Kheir in the South Hebron
Hills, in this case leaving 27 homeless people, including 16 minors. And so on
and so forth. Seven more Palestinian communities have gotten a destructive
visit from the army in the past week.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://youtu.be/B-GEt8qYq6E" style="font-size: small; text-align: right;">https://youtu.be/B-GEt8qYq6E</a></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The day on which <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the soldiers and bulldozers came to the
village of Fasayil in the Jordan Valley was also the day when Sima Vaknin, Director
General of the Ministry for Strategic Affairs, attended an urgent session at
the Knesset in Jerusalem. She informed the Knesset Members of a severe
situation - "Israel is perceived in the world as a Pariah State". But
hope is not lost. The Ministry for Strategic Affairs has established an ten-member
inter-ministerial team, charged with formulating an alternative narrative, and Israel
will make every effort to get it accepted by the world. The ultimate goal is to
instill this alternate narrative globally during the next ten years, until
2025. "For me, victory means a narrative change in the world’s perception
of Israel. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That the world will no longer
equate Israel with Apartheid" she noted.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.735598">http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.735598<o:p></o:p></a></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">How exactly is that to be achieved? Vaknin,
who until a few years ago served as the Chief Military Censor, refrained from
providing Knesset Members with any detailed information. "The fight
against the de-legitimization of Israel is a very sensitive topic. I'm pushing the
ministry to work in utmost secrecy, and I asked for the minister in charge, Gilad
Erdan, to refrain from public statements regarding the work of the ministry. We
want most of the work of the Strategic Affairs Ministry to be classified. There
are very many sensitivities. I can’t even explain in an open forum what these sensitivities
are... Much of what we do goes under the radar. I can explain in detail only at
a close session of the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Foreign Affairs
and Defense Committee, with an absolute prohibition on publishing anything said
there. All I can say here is that the operating budget on the campaign against de-legitimization
of Israel comes to 128 million in 2016. "<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Still, some of the methods to be used were exposed
two days later. Strategic Affairs Ministry officials held a work meeting with
their colleagues from the Interior Ministry and the Interior Security Ministry,
and informed them that "Dozens of international organizations are active
on<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the West Bank, under various guises.
They are gathering information on IDF operations in the Territories. Foreign
activists then make use of this information to promote a boycott and isolation of
Israel. Boycott-supporting activists are agitating Palestinian residents of the
West Bank, inciting them against the IDF forces and disrupting military
operations.” It was <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>estimated that
“there are several hundred such foreign activists, who enter either through Ben
Gurion Airport or via the Allenby Bridge, and pretend to be tourists. Some
activists are leaving after a short stay, but some remain in the West Bank for
long periods".<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Therefore, Ministers Gilad Erdan and Aryeh Deri resolved to establish a joint team tasked with preventing such activists
getting through passport control and expelling those who already managed to enter
the country. Among other things, the team will collect intelligence on foreign
activists who are in the country in order to establish a judicial case justifying
their deportation. Also examined by the team’s legal advisers is the option of "criminalizing"
entire organizations, so as to be able to deport or deny access to anyone who
is a member with no need of gathering specific evidence against each activist
separately.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.jta.org/2016/08/07/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/israeli-government-task-force-formed-to-locate-deport-bds-activists">http://www.jta.org/2016/08/07/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/israeli-government-task-force-formed-to-locate-deport-bds-activists</a></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">On the pages of "Israel Today" (aka
the Bibinews) Itai Reuveni spelled out<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>who is meant: "For a long time, various agencies are sending to
Israel extremists disguised as tourists, in order that they will document ‘Human
Rights violations' [quotation marks in the original]. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“The most blatant example is the Ecumenical Accompaniment
Program in Palestine and Israel, a project founded in 2002 by The World Council
of Churches. Its declared purpose is to bring volunteers to ‘experience life
under occupation and influence the International Community's involvement in the
conflict’. This project is sending activists from dozens of countries for a
period of three months, after a training in their home country which includes ways
of dealing with the military and briefing to get into Israel. When arriving,
they get a further briefing and then go into the field, wearing brown vests
with the program logo. They are deployed at the crossings and points of
friction, and even in the Old City of Jerusalem, and make one-sided documentation
of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>alleged Israeli violations. At a peak
moment activists positioned themselves at the Wailing Wall and documented the
security forces’ activities. At the end of three months, many activists return
to their home countries and promote various anti-Israeli campaigns at the explicit
request of the program managers. An end should be put at last to the activity
of this and other organizations of the same type such as the International
Solidarity Movement (ISM) and The American Friends Service Committee of the
Quakers, who until now got humanitarian visas."<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=16901">http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=16901</a></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">This morning, the radio news reported that the
French Government condemns the demolition of buildings in Nabi Samwil, north of
Jerusalem, whose construction was financed by France. “It is the third time
this year that Israel is destroying or confiscating humanitarian aid structures
which were erected by France, including a school which was destroyed six months
ago. The increasing pace of demolition is in contravention of International
Law.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps the French Ambassador should be
expelled, too?<span dir="RTL" lang="HE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<br />
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<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span>Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-49509312834591903062016-08-12T03:00:00.001-07:002016-08-12T08:34:38.938-07:00Thirst and narrative<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmLppAPkjYZ-q0Osia-PDIOhWeUY47nz-WIQmaUTlZjHZpDuEedK7ZREVU3LPe1b6bYW-ao7j6A9PNVQOOp_Xo9lHKQRBjJZjWoQJDsSN5-wpjFZNqNxpN2VvcRRr5_wYWuYGhdc8e5Q/s1600/SAM_3302.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmLppAPkjYZ-q0Osia-PDIOhWeUY47nz-WIQmaUTlZjHZpDuEedK7ZREVU3LPe1b6bYW-ao7j6A9PNVQOOp_Xo9lHKQRBjJZjWoQJDsSN5-wpjFZNqNxpN2VvcRRr5_wYWuYGhdc8e5Q/s320/SAM_3302.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">"Here at Fasayil, in the Jordan Valley, we
get water twice a week," explained our host, to the group of activists
from Tel Aviv. "Twice a week the water is flowing through this little
water pipe which you see here on the ground, a pipe with a 20 mm diameter. When
the large container is full we distribute the water among all the families, it has
to last for three days. And by the way, we are more fortunate compared to the Palestinian
communities more north. To them, Israel does not give any water at all, and
often the soldiers even confiscate the water which they buy for themselves. That<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is because the area where they live had been declared
as a firing range, and the army says they are living there illegally. So far,
they did not declare Fasayil a firing range. "<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasayil">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasayil<o:p></o:p></a></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">So what could we do about it – we, fifty
Israelis who had followed the call of “The Water Coalition" and came to Fasayil
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>on a Saturday afternoon? We could say a
few words of sympathy and encouragement, and express shame at the acts of the
country whose citizens we are. We could take down from our bus the 120 bottles
of mineral water which we brought with us as a completely inadequate gesture of
solidarity. (The tanker which we intended to bring got stuck on badly paved
roads, and came only the following day.) But at least a cardboard box full of
toys was immediately assaulted by the Fasayil children with cries of joy. We
could help build a simple playground from local materials and sit down with our
hosts for a modest meal. And to raise big signs “Open the tap! Water is a right”
towards the camera of the Social TV. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
then we got back on the bus and went back to our homes in Metropolitan Tel Aviv
where the water is always flowing in the taps. Always.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://tv.social.org.il/en/water">http://tv.social.org.il/en/water</a></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Two days later, there were other visitors
arriving at the village of Fasayil. In the morning, soldiers of the Israel
Defense Forces came to Fasayil, accompanied by bulldozers. Two residential
buildings were destroyed in less than half an hour. Twelve people, including
seven minors, were left homeless. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Was that in any way related to our visit? Probably
not. B'Tselem documents in recent weeks a sharp rise in the number of house
demolitions carried out by the army throughout the Occupied Territories. At the
Al-Moarjat community, also is the Jordan Valley, four residential buildings
were demolished, leaving homeless 14 people, including two children. And five
buildings were destroyed at the community of Umm al-Kheir in the South Hebron
Hills, in this case leaving 27 homeless people, including 16 minors. And so on
and so forth. Seven more Palestinian communities have gotten a destructive
visit from the army in the past week.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://youtu.be/B-GEt8qYq6E"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 20.8px;"></span><span class="mw-headline" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 20.8px;"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">https://youtu.be/B-GEt8qYq6E</span></span></span></a></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The day on which <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the soldiers and bulldozers came to the
village of Fasayil in the Jordan Valley was also the day when Sima Vaknin, Director
General of the Ministry for Strategic Affairs, attended an urgent session at
the Knesset in Jerusalem. She informed the Knesset Members of a severe
situation - "Israel is perceived in the world as a Pariah State". But
hope is not lost. The Ministry for Strategic Affairs has established an ten-member
inter-ministerial team, charged with formulating an alternative narrative, and Israel
will make every effort to get it accepted by the world. The ultimate goal is to
instill this alternate narrative globally during the next ten years, until
2025. "For me, victory means a narrative change in the world’s perception
of Israel. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That the world will no longer
equate Israel with Apartheid" she noted.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.735598">http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.735598<o:p></o:p></a></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">How exactly is that to be achieved? Vaknin,
who until a few years ago served as the Chief Military Censor, refrained from
providing Knesset Members with any detailed information. "The fight
against the de-legitimization of Israel is a very sensitive topic. I'm pushing the
ministry to work in utmost secrecy, and I asked for the minister in charge, Gilad
Erdan, to refrain from public statements regarding the work of the ministry. We
want most of the work of the Strategic Affairs Ministry to be classified. There
are very many sensitivities. I can’t even explain in an open forum what these sensitivities
are... Much of what we do goes under the radar. I can explain in detail only at
a close session of the <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Foreign Affairs
and Defense Committee, with an absolute prohibition on publishing anything said
there. All I can say here is that the operating budget on the campaign against de-legitimization
of Israel comes to 128 million in 2016. "<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Still, some of the methods to be used were exposed
two days later. Strategic Affairs Ministry officials held a work meeting with
their colleagues from the Interior Ministry and the Interior Security Ministry,
and informed them that "Dozens of international organizations are active
on<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the West Bank, under various guises.
They are gathering information on IDF operations in the Territories. Foreign
activists then make use of this information to promote a boycott and isolation of
Israel. Boycott-supporting activists are agitating Palestinian residents of the
West Bank, inciting them against the IDF forces and disrupting military
operations.” It was <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>estimated that
“there are several hundred such foreign activists, who enter either through Ben
Gurion Airport or via the Allenby Bridge, and pretend to be tourists. Some
activists are leaving after a short stay, but some remain in the West Bank for
long periods".<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Therefore, Ministers Gilad Erdan and Aryeh Deri resolved to establish a joint team tasked with preventing such activists
getting through passport control and expelling those who already managed to enter
the country. Among other things, the team will collect intelligence on foreign
activists who are in the country in order to establish a judicial case justifying
their deportation. Also examined by the team’s legal advisers is the option of "criminalizing"
entire organizations, so as to be able to deport or deny access to anyone who
is a member with no need of gathering specific evidence against each activist
separately.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.jta.org/2016/08/07/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/israeli-government-task-force-formed-to-locate-deport-bds-activists">http://www.jta.org/2016/08/07/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/israeli-government-task-force-formed-to-locate-deport-bds-activists</a></span></span></span></span><br />
<div>
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">On the pages of "Israel Today" aka
the Bibinews, Itai Reuveni spelled out<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>who is meant: "For a long time, various agencies are sending to
Israel extremists disguised as tourists, in order that they will document ‘Human
Rights violations' [quotation marks in the original]. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“The most blatant example is the Ecumenical Accompaniment
Program in Palestine and Israel, a project founded in 2002 by The World Council
of Churches. Its declared purpose is to bring volunteers to ‘experience life
under occupation and influence the International Community's involvement in the
conflict’. This project is sending activists from dozens of countries for a
period of three months, after a training in their home country which includes ways
of dealing with the military and briefing to get into Israel. When arriving,
they get a further briefing and then go into the field, wearing brown vests
with the program logo. They are deployed at the crossings and points of
friction, and even in the Old City of Jerusalem, and make one-sided documentation
of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>alleged Israeli violations. At a peak
moment activists positioned themselves at the Wailing Wall and documented the
security forces’ activities. At the end of three months, many activists return
to their home countries and promote various anti-Israeli campaigns at the explicit
request of the program managers. An end should be put at last to the activity
of this and other organizations of the same type such as the International
Solidarity Movement (ISM) and The American Friends Service Committee of the
Quakers, who until now got humanitarian visas."<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=16901">http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=16901</a></span></span></span></span>
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">This morning, the radio news reported that the
French Government condemns the demolition of buildings in Nabi Samwil, north of
Jerusalem, whose construction was financed by France. “It is the third time
this year that Israel is destroying or confiscating humanitarian aid structures
which were erected by France, including a school which was destroyed six months
ago. The increasing pace of demolition is in contravention of International
Law.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps the French Ambassador should be
expelled, too?<span dir="RTL" lang="HE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
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<span class="mw-headline"><span style="border: 1pt; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span>Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-74534609527541765042016-07-09T13:38:00.002-07:002016-07-09T13:54:40.479-07:00"It can happen to anyone!"<span style="color: #666666;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"We are deeply concerned at the news that the Israeli government published plans to further expand settlement construction on the West Bank. This seems to be another step in the process of systematic takeover of Palestinian land which undermines the foundations of the two-state solution" said the State Department spokesperson in Washington. Prime Minister Netanyahu got the news during the high-profile trip to Africa and was quick to respond during a press conference held in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. "What the hell? We don’t agree with the Americans. Construction in the settlements is not at all what hinders the achievement peace. The only obstacle is Palestinian incitement, only that!".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who was standing next to Netanyahu at the press conference, added: "I, too, am criticized in the West - and I criticize the criticizers. They accuse us of having no democracy? Those who say so don’t understand Rwanda. I do what is best for our people." The fact is that Kagame holds power in Rwanda for sixteen years already, and only recently his people went to the polls and decided by a 98% majority to grant their beloved President yet another seven years. To quote from the report of Boaz Bismut of Israel Hayom, (nicknamed Bibinews), who accompanied the Prime Minister's entourage in Africa: "Kagame, one of the most impressive leaders in Africa, has a world view very similar to that of Netanyahu. Both of these leaders understand each other and trust each other, they know they can depend on each other."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As part of the government's conspicuous pampering of the settlers, five million Shekels were allocated for the establishment of bicycle paths in the settlement of Kiryat Arba. On the radio news bulletin, Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel - who was deeply involved with this decision, though it had nothing to do with agriculture – was asked: "Are there so many cyclists in Kiryat Arba? Would it not it be better to invest the money in creating more bicycle paths in Tel Aviv?" - "How can you even ask such a question, when a family in Kiryat Arba is still in mourning for a 13-year-old girl murdered just a few days ago?" Replied the minister. "The settlers have suffered a severe trauma, they feel threatened, their morale must be raised."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Indeed, the 13 year old Hallel Ariel was killed last week by a Palestinian who infiltrated into the settlement. The Israeli press repeatedly published photos of her young face, and Yediot Aharonot gave a banner headline to her mother's "Goodbye, My Princess!" at the gravesite. It is unlikely that in the course of her short life she ever heard the words "occupation" or "land grab". How would she have heard of such unpleasant things at the bossom of her loving family, in a home surrounded by vineyards at the edge of the settlement?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Hallel Ariel was killed by Muhammad Taraireh from the nearby Palestinian town of Bani Naim, who was himself killed a few minutes later by the Kiryat Arba security squad. He was 17, and he wanted to avenge the death of his cousin Yusef Taraireh, who was killed by the army on March 14, as well as of a neighbor woman killed last week. Probably he also had other reasons for wanting to die. Less than a week before he killed and was killed, Taraireh wrote on Facebook: "Grave, where are you? Are you waiting for me? Angel of Death, don’t you miss me?".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Military forces laid a tight siege to Bani Na'im and revoked the work permits of 2400 townspeople. Soldiers photographed and measured the Taraireh family home in advance of its demolition. Carrying out the demolition depends on getting the court‘s approval - but in the vast majority of cases the judges do approve such demolition orders, even if there is no proof of any involvement of family members. The government and the security services assert that demolishing the homes of families is needed in order to create deterrence. Israeli judges do not tend to argue with what the security services assert is needed for security.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Currently, the Supreme Court already approved the implementing of two previous demolition orders at Qalandiya refugee camp, for the homes of two young Palestinians who had carried out an attack in the Old City of Jerusalem and were then killed on the spot. Carrying out a demolition order in Qalandiya is far from a trivial affair. No less than a thousand soldiers and police were mobilized in order to achieve this aim. They entered the camp, met with the expected resistance of local youths and immediately opened up with tear gas and "rubber bullets" (i.e., rubber-coated metal bullets). Even Red Crescent ambulances trying to reach and evacuate the wounded were met with a barrage of tear gas. Eventually the mission was accomplished: closely guarded by the soldiers, the bulldozers did their job and the homes of the Assaf and Abu Habsa families were razed to the ground. Was deterrence achieved?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> The parents of the Palestinian boy Mohammed Abu Khdeir, who was kidnapped and burned to death by three Israelis, petitioned the Supreme Court to order the government to demolish the homes of the families of those murderers as well. So far, the government rejected such calls out of hand. According to the Defense Ministry and the security services, there are only a few isolated cases of Israeli Jews who want to harm Palestinians - and therefore, when it comes to Jews they do not need to create a deterrent, and therefore there is no reason to demolish family homes. What will the Supreme Court justices decide?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Meanwhile, at the Jaffa Military Court the trial is continuing of the famous (or infamous) Sergeant Elor Azaria, who while on service at the city of Hebron shot and killed a Palestinian who was lying wounded on the ground. Earlier this week, extensive media attention was given to the emotional (in some views, well rehearsed) courtroom outburst by Charlie Azaria, the defendant's father: "They are framing my boy! Don’t you see it? They want to put him in jail - for what? Where have we come to? What do the prosecutors know about Hebron? Had any of them ever been in Hebron? Did one of them sent an 18-year old boy to serve in Hebron? Day and night, I hear the soldiers. They talk to me. They are haunted by fear. They don’t sleep at night. They can’t walk a single meter without the fear of being stabbed. Our people are being blown up, being murdered. Is it for that that I sent my son to be a combat soldier? So that they will send him to jail? Where is the Prime Minister?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In Yediot Ahronot, Nahum Barnea wrote:"The Israelis who demonstrate in support of Azaria do not care what the law says. They are convinced that there is no difference between shooting a terrorist who is charging , knife in hand, and shooting a terrorist who is lying helpless on the asphalt. Terrorists should be killed under all circumstances. The Israelis who commiserate with his parents on the social networks do not care about the norms in the army. They regard a 20-year old soldier as a child, who should not be held culpable - certainly not when it comes to killing a terrorist. "</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><a href="http://www.yediot.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4825622,00.html"><u><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">http://www.yediot.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4825622,00.html</span></span></u></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Of course, Azaria’s lawyers can’t openly present such arguments to the judges. The defense line is based on the attempt to prove that Azaria felt sincerely threatened, fearing that the person lying on the ground might be carrying an explosive device and that that was why he deliberately shot him in the head. Officers took the witness stand, one after the other, refuting such assertions and stating explicitly that Azaria had no grounds to feel threatened, and that it was up to his commanding officer who was on the spot to deal with any threatening explosive device. Thereupon, Azaria’s fans filled the social media with wild abuse and some death threats against the testifying officers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This week, the B'Tselem Human Rights organization presented new evidence regarding the circumstances under which the 27-year-old Sarah Hajuj was shot to death at the Tomb of the Patriarchs on the morning of July 1. The police version is that she was shot when holding a knife and threatening to stab a female police officer who was about to conduct a search. Witnesses assert that she had been already subjected to massive quantities of pepper spray directly in the face which completely overwhelmed her, and that she no longer constituted any kind of threat when a policeman killed her by four consecutive gun shots. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This time, B'Tselem did not come up with a video to show the exact circumstances of the killing. No official body in Israel would consider launching yet another sensational and controversial trial, based solely on the testimony of Palestinian witnesses. The adherents of Sergeant Azaria assert that "He only got in trouble because B'Tselem took that video of him" – and they are likely right. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Also this week, the army’s "Conscience Committee" heard the arguments of Conscientious Objector Tair Kaminer, who is already for six months going in and out of the military prison, and in again. Unlike Azaria, who is not being handcuffed when taken to the military tribunal, Tair Kaminer was brought from the military prison to the Conscience Committee room with handcuffs on.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">When given the opportunity to speak, she told the senior officers constituting the Conscience Committee that it would be against her conscience to take part in what she regards as the cycle of bloodshed and violence. She is not </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">prepared to accept the committee’s narrow definition that "conscience" consists solely of pacifism and of absolute refusal to serve in any army whatsoever, under any circumstances. "Prior to the date of the call-up, set for me by the army, I did a year of community service, working with children in Sderot on the Gaza border and experiencing the harsh reality of the Israeli children who grow up in that area. The situation is also harsh for Palestinian children who grow up in Gaza or the Occupied Territories. They all learn to hate the other side. When I look at all these children together, at the future generations of both sides and the reality in which they grow up, I see an endless continuity of trauma and pain. Already for years, there is no effort to achieve a political solution, no attempt whatsoever to bring peace to Gaza and Sderot. By opting for a violent military way, we are perpetuating on both sides a hatred which would just worsen with every new generation. Therefore, I cannot take an active part in maintaining a status quo which in my view must be completely changed. That would be completely contrary to the dictates of my conscience. "</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Thirty-nine well-known jurists, including five former deans of Law Faculties at Israeli universities, wrote to the head of the IDF Legal Branch, calling upon the army to recognize Tair Kaminer’s right to Freedom of Conscience. The Military Conscience Committee is in no hurry to make a decision. Tair’s parents call every day - and every day they receive the reply that the Commission continues to deliberate on her case. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">And this, too, took place this week: Israeli circus artists - and three Palestinian circus performers from Nablus - converged on the Nahalat Binyamin pedestrian mall in Tel Aviv to express solidarity with the Palestinian clown and circus artist Mohammed Abu Saha, who is already seven months imprisoned without trial. "No to Administrative Detention!" "They arrest clowns, too!" said the placards waved towards the crowds strolling to the nearby Artisan Fair. In the middle of the street, a clown was sitting in a cage. Next to him, an activist spoke through a loudspeaker: "The so-called Israeli Administrative Detention is nothing but imprisonment without trial. Without trial, without any charge, without a lawyer, without anyone telling you of what you are accused and how long you can expect to stay behind bars. Imprisonment without trial, and it can happen to anyone! It can happen to any one of us, at any time! " At this point, two other activists approached, who played the role of soldiers. They gagged the speaker while he shouted: Help! Help!, tied his hands and pushed him into the cage next to the clown.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This little performance greatly moved one of the passers-by, who tried to burst in and release the detainees inside the cage. But the police, who were present in order to maintain order, rushed up, grabbed the man and dragged him away. While being dragged off, the man screamed: "He is right! It really can happen to anyone!"</span><br />
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Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-82926348344005363582016-06-10T10:54:00.000-07:002016-06-12T10:39:28.368-07:00Israel 2016: A house divided<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Sunday, June 5, 2016 - forty-ninth anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This year it intersected with "Jerusalem Day," when the government of Israel and the extreme right celebrate according to the Jewish calendar what they call "The Liberation and Unification of Jerusalem". It also coincided with the start of the Muslim fast of Ramadan. On that day I stood among several hundred demonstrators on the balcony of the Jerusalem Town Hall, to protest the annual "Dance of the Flags" held by the young Nationalist-Religious-Messianic of all types. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Along Jaffa Street below us the procession flowed, a forest of Blue and White Israeli national flags and sprinkled among them some flags of the Movement for Building the Temple and a Yellow flags held by fans of the notorious Beitar Soccer Club. The chants made by protesters on the balcony included "You have no shame - no holiness in an occupied city!" and "Jews and Arabs Refuse to be Enemies". There were signs "Standing together against the occupation! "," Standing together to build hope!"and "The one who shouts 'Death to the Arabs" is not a Jew! ". The most enraging for the Flag Dancers on the street was a big banner reading in Arabic and Hebrew: " Ramadan Karim – we wish our Muslim friends an easy fast". Many of them approached us with their flags, furiously shaking their fists, on their way to the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. They repeatedly sung the national anthem "Hatikva", followed by "No fear, Jews / No fear! / For rampant lions you are/ Rampant lions! / When the lion roars / Who is not afraid?. This was answered by the incessant drumming of the Peace Drummers, each drum roll accompanied by the thundering chant "End the occupation! End the occupation! ". Only a short distance separated us from them. Five steps on which the police stood guard to prevent any direct contact. </span><br />
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<em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">On the following day Jerusalem Post published my article:</span></em><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Israel 2016: A house divided</span> </span></span></span></span><br />
<a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Israel-2016-A-house-divided-455680"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Israel-2016-A-house-divided-455680</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A hundred and fifty-eight years ago, an American politician named Abraham Lincoln, running for the Senate, made a famous campaign speech: "A house divided against itself cannot stand.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it on the course of ultimate extinction – or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, North as well as South."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Our own Israeli house became divided, its government "half slave and half free," in that week of glorious victory in June 1967. Since then, inside the Green Line we have an elected government, issuing from reasonably free multi-party elections. On the other side of the Green Line, the same government is a military dictatorship. It rules by force over millions of disenfranchised Palestinians, making no pretense that its rule there is based on anything remotely resembling the consent of the governed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This was supposed to be a strictly "temporary" measure, pending unspecified negotiations at an unspecified future time. Forty-nine years later, Israeli military rule over the Palestinians is still an overwhelming reality, not substantially changed by the creation of a powerless "Palestinian Authority." Nor was the essential fact of Israeli domination changed by the "disengagement from Gaza," whereby direct military rule was replaced by a harsh siege, strangling Gaza’s economy and effectively making it a huge open-air prison.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Come Knesset elections time, a polling station is placed at the heart of Hebron. Entitled to cast their votes there are about a thousand Israeli settlers. Excluded from the vote are some 200,000 Palestinian Hebronites.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">These 49 years of Israeli military rule have seen the relentless advance of the settler movement, spreading in ever greater numbers over the West Bank and taking up still more Palestinian land. Religious-Nationalist Messianism, which burst on the scene in those euphoric days of June 1967, is becoming ever more militant, ever more powerful and dominant.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Israelis who still adhere to such concepts as democracy, or human rights, or simply common decency, increasingly feel beleaguered and threatened – and not only left-wingers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Moshe Ya’alon, defense minister until a week ago, a peace skeptic and outspoken supporter of continued military rule, still had some scruples about the outright killing of a disarmed prisoner. His place is being taken by the blatantly brutal Avigdor Liberman – guaranteed free of such squeamishness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Israel of 2016 is getting increasingly out of tune with the international community. It is also getting out of tune with a growing number of Jews worldwide – especially the younger generation of Amercian Jews, deeply imbued with those same democratic values which are under threat in the Israeli society. It is strange and unsettling to Israelis who have not given up the hope of peace to find that we can rely on the government of France rather than on the government of Israel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A year from now, Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians will be 50 years old. It is common to call a 50-year anniversary "a jubilee" – a word which is derived from the Hebrew "yovel" and from the Jewish scriptures. There, it denotes far more than the simple passage of 50 years.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A Jubilee was supposed to be a very special kind of year – a time when slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven, and alienated land returned to its owners.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Inspired by this biblical verse, American Civil War soldiers sung "Hurrah! Hurrah! We bring the Jubilee!" when marching to set slaves free.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"You shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. You shall make the fiftieth year holy, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants" so says the Book of Leviticus. Shall we still live to see the coming of the Jubilee to our land?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-90241625025707649442016-04-23T15:35:00.003-07:002016-04-23T15:50:07.715-07:00The Return of the Desert God <br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Happy Holiday of Liberty!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">(Palestinians crossing the Taybe Checkpoint)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"We are commanded to recount the Exodus from Egypt." "The more you recount the Exodus, the better." "In every generation, every person must see himself as if he came out of Egypt." So does Jewish tradition tell us.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Historians and archaeologists may well continue to argue for many more years about whether there is any historical basis to the story which appears in the Biblical Book of Exodus. But whether or not it reflects any actual historical events which took place in the land of Egypt more than three thousand years ago, there can no doubt that this story had a profound effect on how Jews perceived themselves throughout the ages. Also this year Jews everywhere were recounting the Exodus - even if many of them only recited traditional texts and did not devote much reflection to its meaning.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">It was not only the Jews who were influenced by the story of the Exodus. Christianity took it up in whole, as part of the Old Testament, and as such took care to have it translated into all languages and spread throughout the world. Also Islam took up the story of the Exodus and included its own version in the Qur'an. The story of the slaves who chafed under oppression and of the great liberator named Moses has become part of the common heritage of humanity, a source of inspiration and hope to all who suffer from oppression and dream of liberation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Especially, as is well known, this story was a major fount of hope for the Blacks in America. Brutally torn from their homeland and shipped in a horrific journey across the ocean, to a life of slavery in a foreign country - where their language and culture and religion were taken away from them, and they were forced to take up instead the master’s language and religion. And then, it was exactly in the Scriptures of the new religion which was forced upon them that the Black slaves found a source of hope, a powerful story about people who were enslaved like themselves and who had cried out to God - who sent them a savior and liberator. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Thus, during generations of slavery under the overseer’s whip, and later generations of repression and severe discrimination, Black people in America dreamed of the day of liberation and of their own Moses who would cry out "Let My People Go!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Harriet Tubman, born a slave in the southern United States, was able to escape to freedom - and then returned many times to the South, to help other slaves escape. She became a legend among the slaves, and was nicknamed "Moses".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">And after all this history – this year, too, Passover came around, the time when the Jews who gave this story to the world are commanded to recount the Exodus from Egypt, the more the merrier. During Passover it was that Prime Minister Netanyahu, who considers himself the leader of the Jewish people everywhere, spoke on TV and wished a Happy Holiday to all Israeli citizens, but especially the soldiers of the IDF and the Police and the Border Guards. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Passover Seder ceremonies were held in military bases across the Palestinian Territories, in which took part the soldiers manning the roadblocks on the highways of the West Bank roads, and going on night raids and detentions in Palestinian towns and villages, as well as the crews of the gunboats enforcing the tight blockade of the Gaza coast. Also the settlers living under the army’s protection on confiscated Palestinian land celebrated with great pomp the Holiday of Liberty and recounted the Exodus until the late hours of the night. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In fulfillment of the ancient commandment "Thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt", the Israeli National Police launched on Passover an especially intensive hunt for Palestinians staying in Israel without a permit, police commanders impressing on their subordinates the importance of swiftly apprehending all such offenders. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In one particular Israeli home, this year’s celebration of the Holiday of Liberty reached a high peak. Sergeant Elor Azaria, who last month in Hebron shot in the head a wounded Palestinian lying on the ground and was photographed in the act by a Human Rights activist – was given a special leave from detention in order to spend the Holiday at home with his loving family. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As indicated in opinion polls, a majority of Israeli Jews think that a person who is considered a terrorist should be killed even if disarmed and no longer posing any threat. Therefore, they concluded that Sergeant Azaria should not be charged with murder, nor with manslaughter – rather, he should be released and perhaps even given a citation and a medal.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In order to understand the deep roots of the present situation in the State of Israel, it might be worthwhile to take a look at another part of the Bible, a far less enticing one - the story of the Conquest of Canaan. After the great liberation from bondage in Egypt, the freed Hebrew slaves wandered the desert for forty years. They were reluctant to undertake the mission which God sought to impose on them, i.e. to embark on a big war and conquer by force the Promised Land; for that reluctance, the Bible brands them as cowards. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The mission fell to their children, who did not remember the time of slavery in Egypt. Under the commander of Joshua, Son of Nun, they ferociously attacked the Land of Canaan and conquered city after city. At the command of God they then massacred all the inhabitants, men and women, old and children - in some places, even the domestic animals. At the happy end, they proceeded to divide and parcel out the land which had been emptied of its inhabitants.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">At least, that is how it is described in the Bible’s Book of Joshua. Many of modern researchers and historians doubt the veracity of this depiction. If so, then this book - which gained a sacred status as part of the Jewish Scriptures – must have been authored by a person with a particularly morbid imagination. This text, too, was fully taken up by Christianity, which got it widely translated and distributed around the world. And it, too, served as a source of inspiration. It was easy enough for European settlers in North America and South Africa to identify themselves with Joshua’s Hebrew warriors and regard Blacks of Native Americans as the new Canaanites.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">It is noteworthy that Judaism itself, which originally introduced this text to world culture, has taken an increasing distance from it over the centuries. The distant descendants of those savage nomads – they who had broken out of the desert with blood-dripping swords and destroyed the cities of Canaan - had themselves become the quintessential urbanites in all in many countries where they lived. Above all they admired scholars and sages, and kept their distance from warlike activities (in truth, there was in any case little opportunity for them to get involved with such...). Also the God in which Jews believe – A Universal God who holds eternal sway "From end to end of the world" was far removed from the bloodthirsty tribal God of the ancient nomads. The Jews also abandoned the blood sacrifice of animals, which had made the temples of the ancient world into veritable slaughterhouses, and replaced it with public prayer – a custom adopted also by Christians and Muslims.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Book of Joshua - plus other bloody verses and chapters - remained part of the Bible. Observant Jews must not omit even one letter from the Scriptures, let alone a whole book. But it is completely permissible to provide softening interpretations and glosses. Also, it was perfectly possible to put off dealing with all such issues until the coming of the Messiah, until when they would be irrelevant to the actual lives of Jews in the here and now – and such indeed was the normal practice of Rabbis and Great Sages. For centuries, this was not at the focus of Jewish faith and tradition; among the many sacred dates and holidays on the Jewish calendar, no date was set to commemorate Joshua and the conquest of Canaan.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">So it was until the rise of the Zionist movement in Nineteenth Century Europe - which even before reaching the Promised Land and meeting face to face with Arabs had already begun to cultivate dreams of "A Muscular Judaism". In 1899 Saul Tchernichovsky - a young Jewish student who came from the Ukraine to study medicine at the University of Heidelberg, and who was destined to become one of the main Zionist poets – wrote one of his most memorable poems: The people have grown old—their god with them / Passions, stifled by unmanlike folk / Have arisen from a thousand years of slumber! / I bend the knee to life, to beauty, to power / To all the wondrous glories, of which / Corrupt and degenerate walking corpses / Have robbed the mighty God / Of the vast uncharted deserts / The God of the conquerors / Who took Canaan by the storm / But these have bound him up in straps, in phylacteries!</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.poetrynook.com/poem/statue-apollo"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">
</span><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">http://www.poetrynook.com/poem/statue-apollo</span></u></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">One hundred and seventeen years have passed since a passionate young poet wrote down these words. A hundred and seventeen years in which the Zionist Movement and the State of Israel were engaged on the task of releasing the God of the Conquerors of Canaan from his chains. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The ultimate fruit of these efforts, the visage of the rampant God of the Desert, could be glimpsed in the video released this week with footage from a demonstration in Tel Aviv, an enthusiastic rally called in support of that aforementioned Sergeant Elor Azaria, who had aimed his rifle and shot point-blank at the head of an injured person lying on the ground. "Muhammad is dead! Muhammad is dead!" chanted the crowd, and then "We will burn down your village! Burn, village, burn!" and "A Jew Has a Soul – an Arab is a Whoreson!" followed by "A Leftist is a Whoreson!" and "Fuck the Media"and concluding with a plain "Death to the Arabs! Death to the Arabs! Death to the Arabs! "</span><br />
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</span><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">https://www.facebook.com/ShalomAchshav.PeaceNow/videos/vb.198917210119704/1239886762689405/?type=2&theater</span></u></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Undoubtedly, the God of the Conquerors of Canaan is by now rampaging, completely unrestrained, throughout the State of Israel and the territories under its ongoing military rule. And where can we find, these days, somebody to try binding him up again? Maybe at Boston, Massachusets. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">On the same day that the video from the Tel Aviv rally landed on the Facebook pages, there arrived also another video – showing members of a Jewish organization called "If Not Now" who tried to hold a Liberation Passover Seder on the premises of AIPAC. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The footage shows activists being arrested by Boston Police on charges of trespassing, being taken handcuffed one by one into a police car. Their fellows outside the building are shown accompanying them with singing and the waving of banners: "End the occupation!" / "Occupation is a plague", "Next Year – Freedom and Dignity for All!"/. A statement issued by the organizers read: "Thousands of American Jews will do what it takes to make sure the next President – whoever they may be – knows that the strongest movement in history to end the occupation is rising in the Jewish community".</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><u>https://www.facebook.com/IfNotNowOrg/videos/1020845291335772/</u></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The name of this organization is also derived from the traditions of Judaism. The First Century Sage Hillel, well-known for his humane interpretation of Jewish tradition, had said " Hillel says, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?". And he also said "In a place where there are no people , strive to be human". </span>Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-62454792699277120662016-04-05T15:31:00.000-07:002016-04-05T15:49:50.996-07:00Three masked soldiers and an arrogant cat<span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The debate already started when we were waiting for the bus in Tel Aviv and continued all the way to Jerusalem, across the Green Line to the Tunnels Checkpoint. Of course, it was about the hottest topic these days – the soldier filmed in Hebron when he shot a "neutralized" Palestinian in the head.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">- "Did you see? They already moved this murderer to "open detention in a military camp". They wriggled out of charging him with murder. Mark my words, he will probably be put up on charges of ‘careless use of his gun’ or something like that, and he will get one week on probation."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">- "What do you expect when the polls show such a majority supporting this bastard? Quite simply, most Israelis think he acted fine. This country is really going to the dogs!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">- "We should have gone there, to the Castina Military Court during the preliminary hearing. We should have confronted the fans of this soldier, all this crowd who said how much they loved him. We should have been there with a counter-demonstration, chanting "Murderer - to prison! Jail the Murderer! ". Then, the whole country would have seen that there are two sides to this debate. The international media would have broadcasted in a big way."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">- "Do you really want to go butting heads, have an all-out fight with all those hot-heads, the Beitar football fans, La Familia, the rest of this trash?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">- "They don’t scare me. If we get scared of a handful of Fascists, we can as well go out of business right now."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">- "I am not scared of them, either. If there is no choice I'm not shying away from a fight. But if we had gone there, we would have been accused of picking on the little cog, on a simple soldier. That we were leaving alone the higher-ups who give the orders and determine policy."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">- "A small cog? Somebody who makes a conscious decision to kill, points his gun and pulls the trigger and shoots in the head a helpless man lying on the ground? It that a small cog? In my book, that is a very big cog, it is a man who decided to become the Angel of Death. He's a murderer, pure and simple. A murderer!".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">- "But if you focus on that soldier, you walk right into the trap which was laid by Defense Minister Ya’alon and his gang. Ya'alon pretends that all the soldiers in the IDF are righteous and pure and moral, and there is only one bad apple in this barrel. Just two weeks ago, Ya'alon said that ‘Breaking the Silence’ are traitors, now he is the pure stainless knight who holds soldiers to high standards of moral behavior. Do you want to become a Ya'alon cheerleader? I don’t".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">- "I'm not exactly a Ya'alon fan, but somebody from the military and political establishment says something good for a change, and then gets heavily attacked for it by the extreme right, I don’t mind standing up for him."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">- "But what Ya'alon said is not really something good. He said that the occupation is OK, the soldiers are all swell guys, only this one soldier is bad. This is hypocrisy, first class hypocrisy."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">- "Hypocrisy? Maybe. I prefer hypocrisy to those who say that a murderous soldier is a hero. Those who talk like that may not be hypocrites. They are outspoken fascists".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">- "Think for a moment what all this looks like to ordinary people. People who are not political activists like us, people who get their information only from the mainstream media plus some shit which is passed on through the social media. Everyone knows there were many other soldiers who did exactly the same thing, soldiers who deliberately killed Palestinians who did not pose any threat. Soldiers who killed for revenge, or killed for the sake of killing. The only difference is that with those other soldiers there was no camera to catch them in the act and provide clear proof. So, for Ya'alon and the Army Chief of Staff, all these other soldiers are fine. Perhaps they even deserve a commendation. Do you really want to be part of this organized hypocrisy? I think that's exactly the reason why the extreme right succeeded in mobilizing so much public support for this soldier. The public feels that this is hypocrisy, that one soldier is made the scapegoat for all the others who go scot free."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">- "By the way, Senator Leahy, quite an important American Senator, demands an investigation of all the Israeli soldiers did killings in recent months. Not only this particular soldier, also the many others before him. This shows that AIPAC's power is slipping. However much they clap for Trump, their control of Capitol Hill is shaking ".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">- "That is true. At least one bit of good news on this lousy week. Look, we're already near the Tunnels Checkpoint, the Palestinians are already waiting for us."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">- "Actually, that's our real answer to this soldier and to all those who embrace him. That's the answer, Israeli and Palestinian demonstrators who march together and struggle together against the occupation."</span><br /><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Before the doors opened, a representative of the organizers took the microphone: "Remember, our goal here is to march, jointly and nonviolently. Israelis and Palestinians who march together and struggle together - that is more than enough, this fully conveys our message, loud and clear. Our goal is to steadily increase the number of participants, each month having more marchers than on the previous march, more Israelis and also more Palestinians. Marching nonviolently means we do not make provocative acts towards soldiers or settlers. It also means that we do not respond to their provocations, even if they do something very annoying. Remember, one second of ill-considered action can get the entire event depicted in a light which we definitely don’t want. "</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">We go down. We have arrived in a full bus from Tel Aviv, another busload came from Jerusalem, and quite a few private cars were there from various other places. We were joined by several dozen Palestinians who had arrived before us - some of them from this area south of Jerusalem, some from the Qalqiliya Area where "Combatants for Peace" has extensive activity. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The new initiative called "Standing Together" had started at the beginning of the Third Intifada (the "Wave of Terror", as part of the mainstream Israeli media still insists on calling it). There were demonstrations in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Be’er Sheba. Then there started a routine of holding a joint march on the first Friday of every month, a "Freedom March" at the Tunnels Checkpoint south of Jerusalem - a place that both Israelis and Palestinians can reach quite easily, and for which Palestinians need not ask for permits. Today, it is the fifth Freedom March.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A high wall separates us from the Palestinian town of Beit Jala. The wall was built with the proclaimed aim of protecting the settlers of the Gush Etzion "settlement bloc". A great number of settlers make daily use of this highway which the government of Israel built for them and the two tunnels which were dug in mountain rock at a huge expanse, so as to shorten the settlers’ route to Jerusalem. Along that highway we are going to walk for several kilometers. At the foot of this wall, to which somebody made an effort to give a little aesthetic appearance so as to disguise its nature.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Israelis and Palestinians meet and mingle within seconds. Here and there, old friends shake hands and stand together, some of them spreading out large banners which require three or four people to bear them. Organizers hand out signs in Hebrew, Arabic and English: "There is another way" / "It will not end - until we talk!" / "Stand together against occupation and violence" / "Stand together against racism and hatred" / "Theft of land breeds violence" / "Our tears all have the same color" / "Building together a new hope." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Gush Shalom round placards, bearing the flags of Israel and Palestine are quite popular among the marchers, and also taken up by some Palestinians. Some others wave the flag of Palestine alone. Two Palestinians hold up a giant cardboard figure of ''Handala", the archetypal child refugee created by the late cartoonist Naji al-Ali who has become the widely used symbol of Palestinian identity. Many participants hold aloft olive saplings, which are to be planted at the end of the march.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">On the other side of the road stands a lone settler with a giant Israeli flag. He will be with us in a counter-demonstration along the entire route.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Drummers’ Band start marching and drumming and accompanying their drumming with the chanting "Down with the Occupation! Down with the Occupation!" Following is the entire crowd, two or three hundred people who came here to swim against the tide. One of the organizers, holding a megaphone, starts the chanting: "Israel and Palestine - two states for two peoples!" / "Occupation is a disaster – Peace, the solution!" / "From Beit Jala to Bil'in, liberate Palestine!" / "Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies!" / "No to Occupation! No to Violence! No to Settlement!" / "One, two, three, four – Occupation no more! Five, six, seven, eight – Stop the killing, stop the hate!". Some marchers start, without a megaphone, a chant of their own:"There can remain / Little doubt / IDF is terrorist / That’s a fact!". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">On the high ledge above us, near the top of the Wall, the march is followed by three soldiers whose faces are covered with dark cloth masks, only their eyes visible, and who carry particularly large rifles. Along the highway itself, we are followed by a military jeep, with an officer at the rank of major (his face, at least, is visible…). Gershon Baskin, Jerusalem activist known to be involved in very creative forms of "alternative diplomacy", goes to the jeep. "Excuse me, officer, can I ask why your soldiers are covering their faces?" - "These are the Standing Orders, so as not to let them be photographed and recognized." - "Is that so? Not to let them be photographed and recognized? Indeed? Are they by any chance planning to engage in some kind of illegal activity, which makes them reluctant to be recognized later?" - "No, of course not. Covering the face is routine, part of the Standing Orders". - "Whose Standing Orders are these?" - "These Standing Orders were issued by a person authorized to issue Standing Orders. I am not obliged to specify to you the entire Chain of Command." The officer returns to the jeep and continues forward. The three masked soldiers who did not utter a word, continue to follow the demonstration. A few steps behind them walks a very big ginger cat, tail held high, who looks arrogantly at the strange games human beings engage in.</span></span><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">End of the route, and the railing at the side of the road becomes a makeshift podium. Arabic speeches are translated into Hebrew, and vice versa.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"Peace be upon you! I, Bayan Tabib, Mayor of Izbat al-Tabib and member of the Qalqilya-Tel Aviv Chapter of Combatants for Peace, greet all who had come to walk here. This march is held very near to the date of Land Day, which all Palestinians mark on March 30. For my village, Izbat al-Tabib, Land Day is an especially important time. All the time, the settlers are trying to take our village’s land by force. We resist, we cling to the land and defend it, and our Israeli friends help us defend it!. On this day I want to say to the occupation forces, to the Netanyahu government which is the settler government: you will not break us! We will struggle, struggle together with our Israeli partners, our Israeli friends. We say No to the Occupation, and again No to the Occupation, and yet again No to the Occupation! We will struggle and struggle, on and on, until peace is achieved between our two states. I invite you all to visit us next Friday for a demonstration of the residents of Izbat al-Tabib together with our friends of Combatants for Peace, a demonstration to save and preserve the village's lands!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"I'm Ron Gerlitz, co-director of the NGO 'Sikuy’ ["Give a Chance"]". It is an association which unites Jews and Arabs, which aims to create a new, different relationship between the two peoples. I am proud to stand here today. I am proud to be part of the joint struggle against the occupation. I am proud of my fellow activists in the Human Rights activists, who are nowadays constantly attacked and slandered and accused of all sorts of trumped-up charges. I am proud to stand together with Israel's Arab citizens, against whom a massive with hunt is being conducted. This campaign reached its peak this week with the Knesset voting to pass the disgraceful so-called Suspension Law, whose immediate aim is to throw out of the Knesset the Balad Party. They want to require the Arab citizens of Israel to bend and contort themselves in order to fit into the very narrow space of political expression that the extreme right is pleased to ‘allow' them. They don’t accept this, they demand the freedom to express themselves freely, just like any other citizen, and they are completely right! (…) When one sees such horrific things as the high percentage of public support for the soldier shot and killed in Hebron, it is very easy to lose hope and give up. But we do not despair! We know there is no future for us in this country if we cannot build a society founded on democracy and coexistence. Without this, there is no future for anyone, not for the Jews and not for the Arabs, not for Israelis nor for Palestinians. We do not despair! We will continue to struggle together, we will build our future together, all of us! " </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The last speaker was Taalah, a 16-year-old schoolgirl from Ramallah who came straight from having taken part in the Bethlehem Marathon earlier in the day. "We are here, Israelis and Palestinians together. We are together and we will stay together, like olive saplings planted deep in the ground! We're together, we fight together for peace and honor and life and freedom, peace for all of us, freedom for all of us, against the occupation and against violence, we are fighting together, Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Muslims... [shouts from the crowd: "And Christians! Christians too! "] Yes, we are fighting together, all of us, Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Christians and Muslims, we fight together and we will win together, we are together till the end of the occupation, till the peace between our peoples!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">An organizer takes megaphone: "We come now to the final stage of today’s event - the planting of the olive saplings which we brought with us. The place we selected for planting them is on the other side of the road. We are asking everyone to be careful while crossing. Aside from all political considerations, this is a busy intercity highway. We really would not want to have some stupid accident. "</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">We carefully begin to cross the road. Suddenly, five activists step forward, carrying cardboard copies of the "Separation Wall" and place them squarely in the middle of the road, completely blocking the way for dozens of settler cars. Behind them, the demonstrators go on crossing the busy road. "It would not hurt the settlers to taste for five minutes what the Palestinians have to endure all the year around – to encounter a wall that looks just like this, a wall that blocks their way and which they are not allowed to cross."</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A moment of tension. But, the settlers continue to sit in their cars. Also the three masked soldiers, and a dozen non-masked soldiers who joined them, wait patiently. All marchers crossed safely, the cardboard wall was put aside and the steam of settler cars on the road resumed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Big red sign at the entrance to the side road stated: "This road leads to the A Area, controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Entry is forbidden for Israeli citizens. Such entry endangers your life and constitutes a criminal offense". We pass the sign and continue to walk a bit further and reach the plot which had been selected in advance. Volunteers take up spades, dig holes, and within a short time all seedlings are planted and the soil packed tightly around them and upon completion of the planting everybody claps. "We need the help of people s with cars who can come here periodically to water the seedlings" says a representative of the organizers. "We will continue to hold marches on the first Friday of each month. We hope to see you in May and June, you and also your friends who did not come today. And I want to remind you - in a week there is a demonstration of our friends in Izbat al-Tabib. That, too, is very important – transportation will be available. See you! "</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">On the way back could be seen out of the bus window the ginger cat, now walking alone on the empty route of the march. </span><br />
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</span></span><span lang="HE"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">For more photos:</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">
<span style="color: #141823;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://972mag.com/there-is-another-way-palestinians-israelis-march-together-against-the-occupation/118323/">http://972mag.com/there-is-another-way-palestinians-israelis-march-together-against-the-occupation/118323/</a></span></span></span>Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-64296142518334029442016-03-27T09:26:00.001-07:002018-02-26T05:57:38.571-08:00"I am in prison and you are with me on the outside"<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The murderous attack in Brussels once again aroused the kind of Israeli responses to which we've gotten used in earlier cases, from 9/11 to the attacks in Paris. Once again we heard the wild hope that the Europeans will at last "start understanding us", that they would cease badgering Israel about Palestinian statehood and settlement construction. This was followed by a call upon the Belgians - and the Europeans in general – to "stop eating chocolate," drop the democracy and human rights nonsense and join with Israel in an all-out war on Islam. And all that is quite tame compared with some of the people who fill the net with very wild "talkbacks". Having given up on the Europeans ever changing their tune, they resort to crude gloating: "The Europeans deserve it", "They are Anti-Semites", "This is a retribution for the Holocaust."</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Channel One TV commentators were a bit more subtle. Still, they too discussed at length the question of whether the European security services will now begin to "work seriously" and take up the methods of the Israeli Shabak, and whether European courts would stop splitting hairs over Human Rights and start emulating the Israeli Supreme Court in facilitating "the intensive interrogation of terrorist suspects." After half an hour of discussion, the experts in the TV studio reached a conclusion: "No, the Europeans are not really going to change. They take Human Rights seriously, and will not give up on them. Maybe they will undertake some emergency measures, but if there are no further attacks in Belgium for a year they'll be go back to normal." </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Only towards the end of the discussion did one commentator venture to say with an apologetic smile: "Actually, maybe it's for the better that Europe will remain Europe. Better that there will remain somewhere in the world a lighthouse to which people could look with hope. After all, the number of people who come from the Middle East to Europe in the expectation of getting there the rights that they are denied in their own countries is greater by far than the number of people who come from the Middle East in order to kill Europeans". The other commentators looked at him with amazement, but it was the end of the panel discussion.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Meanwhile Purim has come around, the Holiday which Jewish tradition had set to commemorate events which happened (or perhaps did not actually happen) in the Persian Empire some 2,500 years ago. As with many of the stories in the Bible, one can find in the Book of Esther whatever one wants to find there. It can well be read as the story of a religious and ethnic minority, subject to hatred, prejudice and persecution, and faced with a very concrete threat of genocide includes - which was saved at the last moment thanks to the courage and resourcefulness of a young woman. It is also possible to read the Book of Esther as the story of aggressive and vengeful Jews, transformed from persecuted into persecutors. Jews who were not satisfied with hanging the one who plotted to kill them but also hanged on a high tree all ten of his sons - including the youngest who (as Jewish tradition tells) was a young innocent child – and who then went on to commit acts of mass, indiscriminate massacre. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">It is the second interpretation which is current at the settler enclave in Hebron. Annually, they hold their Adloyada (Purim Carnival) on the city streets under heavy military guard, while Palestinian residents are required to stay indoors and wait until the settlers have finished their celebration. Quite often, in these processions, settlers commemorate Dr. Baruch Goldstein, who in the Purim of 1994 murdered 29 Muslim worshipers during prayers. And this year, during the holiday of Purim at the nationalist-religious settler enclave in Hebron, it happened that a soldier pointed his gun at a Palestinian lying on the ground, who no longer posed any threat, and shot a fatal bullet at his head. What this soldier posted on his personal Facebook page clearly indicates that he fully shared the views of the settlers which he was guarding.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">On Thursday morning I did not yet know what happened in Hebron when I went to see the Purim Adloyada in Holon. Actually, the large crowd gathered there did not dwell too much on the Book of Esther and whether it is the humanist or the nationalist interpretations which should be preferred. For the inhabitants of Holon, a predominantly lower middle class city south of Tel Aviv, Purim is primarily an occasion for holding a carnival and walk the street in a great variety of colorful costumes and masks. One by one, dinosaurs and scary monsters paraded through the main street. When a monster bent down towards the bystanders, revealing rows of sharp fangs, the children screamed in fear – only to burst into laughter when a child riding on the back of the tyrannosaur waved to them.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"We welcome the Israel Police who came here in great numbers to defend us and allow us to celebrate, safe from all threats. We especially welcome Police Commissioner Ronnie Alsheich who honors the Adloyada with his presence" boomed the speaker. I looked at the kids dressed up along the sidewalk. Among the superheroes and their friends the kings, fairies and pirates, I saw a significant number of children in blue or black police uniforms. On the other hand, unlike previous years there were hardly any young soldiers. Only one girl aged three or four was wearing a military uniform, her shoulder badges declaring her to be a Lieutenant General...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">On the sidewalk, a makeshift stall offered toys for sale. The vendor was moving to the music from the speakers and displaying his wares - a large, black, menacing submachine gun in one hand and a soap bubble tank in the other. From what I could see during the quarter of an hour that I stood there, it was mainly the soap bubbles which interested the customers...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">From there I went to Tel Aviv, to a Protest Adloyada held in solidarity with CO Ta’ir Kaminer, who had been going into the military prison and out and in again and again ever since declaring her refusal to join an army of occupation charged with oppressing the Palestinians. She had already gone through this process three times. This weekend she is supposed to be released from prison, to spend two days with her parents and Sunday to return to the Induction Center – there once again get the order to let herself be inducted and mobilized, again inform the officer in charge of her refusal and again go to prison for another month. Until the army gets tired of this...</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the call for this action which circulated on the Internet, the organizers said: "This Purim we are going to hold an Adloyada to cheer Ta’ir up and support her – all the way! You are invited, please come in costume. You can dress up as your favorite Chief of Staff of the World’s Most Moral Army! Bring with you masks, rattles, funny hats, glitter and a holiday spirit". To tell the truth, not all participants followed this script, many of them in plain clothes without Purim costumes. Some activists, though, painted their faces very bright white and stood behind symbolic prison bars. For their part, members of the Anarchist Drumming Band, firmly opposed to any state authority, wrapped their drums with bright red police ribbons bearing the inscription "Police! Passage Absolutely Forbidden! ".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Micah Kaminer, father of Ta’ir, spoke from an improvised podium, followed by artistic performances of a Palestinian rapper from East Jerusalem and an Israeli youth who sang protest songs and played the guitar. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"We came here to pay homage to a brave young woman, who conducts a struggle there, alone within the prison wall, in order to continue following the dictates of her conscience," said MK Dov Hanin. "Contrary to what all kinds of politicians and commentators try to tell us, those who follow their conscience do not constitute a threat to the fabric of Israeli society. The true danger of that comes from blind obedience to immoral orders! </span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"Occupation, that occupation which we were told can be 'managed' and made tolerable, is now exploding in our faces. There can be no security with occupation, there is no hope with occupation, no future with occupation! [Applause]. We have seen the face of the occupation in the horrible footage which today came out of Hebron. This video is not about one heinous act by one single soldier. The true culprit can be found much higher, among the politicians openly calling for lynching, calling for people to be killed even when they no longer pose a threat. Israeli society must do a thorough soul-searching, to realize the terrible direction in which we are moving without paying notice. Ta’ir is in jail for all our sakes, she does it in order to give a warning sign to the society in which we live."</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">At the last moment, organizers managed to establish direct contact with Ta’ir Kaminer herself, speaking from the public phone in the prison yard and her words broadcast over the loudspeaker: "Thank you very much! The last time I went through the army’s Disciplinary Proceeding, the officer told me 'It is very nice of your friends to accompany you to our gate, but now they are going back home and you are going to jail, you are going all alone in jail. But it is not true. I know we're all together in this. We all stand together, I am in prison and you are with me on the outside. Thank you very much! "</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Purim or not Purim - the Palestinian clown and circus artist Mohammed Abu Sakha continues to languish in Israeli prison, under Administrative Detention without trial. Nine years ago, when he was 14, Mohammed Abu Sakha enrolled at "Circus Palestine". Four years later he was already a proficient circus artist and became a teacher in the same school; a bachelor, he lives in a house adjacent to the circus school, and he works day and night.. He performed in the West Bank and abroad and worked to help people with special needs – adults and especially children. He wrote a book describing how circus arts can be used in teaching children with special needs. This he put into practice with hundreds of children who regularly come to the circus in order to have a bit of respite from a harsh reality and enter – even if only for a few hours - a magical wonderful world. His friends say that children who were unable to walk made their first steps with his help.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Today, Abu Sakha can no longer reach the circus, and the special children's program was closed down in the absence of a replacement. In December 2015, Abu Sakha went to visit his parents in the Jenin area. When the taxi passed through the Za'atara Checkpoint, he was detained by soldiers who made a random search, taken off the car and into custody. Shortly afterwards, a warrant was issued for his Administrative Detention without trial, and since then he is held in the Megiddo prison. The Shabak Security Service’a spokesperson asserted that Abu Sha had been detained due to "recently updated information regarding his being active in the Popular Front organization" and because of "the danger he poses to security in the region" - but did not produce any evidence to substantiate these allegations, or any specific charges as to any acts which Abu Sakha allegedly committed or planned.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In the court session where his Administrative Detention was approved, Abu Sakha said: "I am an artist in a circus. I'm a clown. I've traveled a lot in Europe and I have seen many people, Palestinians, Israelis, Americans. I have no intention to commit any violent acts. Even on Facebook I have a lot of friends from different cultures . I work in Ramallah as a circus clown, and with the circus we travel around Europe. I am also a social worker in a voluntary organization". The Shabak representative in the hearing refused to hand over to Abu Sakha, or to his attorney Mahmoud Halabi, any details of charges against him, which remain completely secret. The Administrative Detention was approved by the judge, in force until June 2016 (and subject to indefinite extension at the Shabak’s discretion).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">There was a worldwide wave of protests by circus people – "a snowball" as one of his friends put it. "We contacted circuses where he had been invited to perform, and they sprung into action. For example, Abu Sakha had undergone circus training at Toulouse in South France, and they took up his case immediately after hearing what happened." Among other things, a special Facebook page was set up, where circus performers from around the world posted their creative protests. Making street performances, jumping on a pole or doing other acrobatic exercises – all while carrying the sign "Free Abu Sakha!". Some uploaded videos of the protest in their own circus, and American indie singer David Rovics wrote a song about him ( "He could have been a fighter, like many of his friends... but he chose to become a circus artist, work hard and delight children!"). Amnesty International called his immediate release. The protest organizers are planning a big demonstration of circus artists in London, to be followed in other capitals as long as his Administrative Detention continues.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Also in Israel, some circus artists organized to demonstrate and protest. "We already held two demonstrations on Abu Sakha’s behalf, one in front of Megiddo Prison where he is held, the other at the Ofer Detention Center which is focus of the wholesale detentions carried out by the occupation authorities," says Hanita Handelman. For many years already, she is running multicultural social projects at the Kfar Yehoshua Circus School, in order to bring Jews and Arabs closer together. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"We conducted a spontaneous performance at the prison parking lot" she told. "It was a bit amusing to see the artists toss circus rods back and forth, in the air above the cops’ heads. Of course, in the demonstration call we made a reference to Purim, and once there we tried to create a bit of a Purim atmosphere - though the case is far from funny."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As of now, the Supreme Court of the State of Israel only agrees to release Palestinian Administrative Detainees in cases where they go on prolonged hunger strikes and bring themselves to the verge of death or of irreversible brain damage. And so far, Mohammed Abu Sakha has not taken such measures.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In a message from prison, Abu Sakha says: "I'm holding on, and I try to amuse my fellow prisoners."</span> </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3WcgVfF1e44-QHZVYR4uH5KtsGrJ1cwVPxu6_J-SyhbLdQew9HzNozJ81idglyGEAmvxbLyMhPRdEFicIRiBzW1U3UhXAtJf3pPQr2Dt-0Ia5kzAi1wEhQ_FbYqBkpNBVion94hCL3A/s1600/circus%2527demo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3WcgVfF1e44-QHZVYR4uH5KtsGrJ1cwVPxu6_J-SyhbLdQew9HzNozJ81idglyGEAmvxbLyMhPRdEFicIRiBzW1U3UhXAtJf3pPQr2Dt-0Ia5kzAi1wEhQ_FbYqBkpNBVion94hCL3A/s320/circus%2527demo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #7f5f5f;"></span><span style="color: #7f5f5f;"></span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/625237030960856/"><u><span style="color: blue;">https://www.facebook.com/events/625237030960856/</span></u></a><span style="color: #7f5f5f;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7f5f5f;"></span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1523373767964325/"><u><span style="color: blue;"><br />
https://www.facebook.com/events/1523373767964325/</span></u></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/iw/contents/articles/originals/2016/03/palestinian-circus-shin-bet-administrative-detention.html"><u><span style="color: blue;">http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/iw/contents/articles/originals/2016/03/palestinian-circus-shin-bet-administrative-detention.html</span></u></a><br />
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</span></span></span>Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-77044776541962036632015-11-28T09:51:00.000-08:002015-11-28T10:06:43.936-08:00So what is to be done?"This is the fight of Civilization against Barbarism!" declared Prime Minister Netanyahu to his distinguished guest, US Secretary of State John Kerry. "The whole world is under attack by radical Islamists and the forces of terror. Israel is ever at war with these terrorists. The entire international community should support our efforts - it's not just our struggle, it is everybody’s struggle". Do they get the point at last, these Americans and Europeans? Maybe this time they finally realize what they did not understand after September 11 and after Charlie Hebdo? Maybe they will finally accept that Israel stands at the forefront of the West’s Clash of Civilizations with Islamic Barbarism? Will they at last stand foursquare behind us and stop all this stupid nagging about the Palestinians and the occupation and the settlements?<br />
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No, also this time it did not happen. True, the American visitor did express complete support for Israel's right to defend itself against Palestinian terrorists wielding knives or scissors. However, he also asked Israel to make goodwill gesture to help build confidence and calm the situation, for example granting building permits to Palestinian villages which hitherto saw frequent visits by Israeli bulldozers destroying "illegal houses". And when Netanyahu wanted to counter-balance building permits to Palestinians by also legitimizing Israeli construction in "settlement blocs" the immediate response from Washington left no room for doubt: "The answer is – one big NO" followed by "The United States government has never supported of defended the construction of settlements, nor gave them legitimacy. Democratic and Republican Administrations alike regarded the Israeli as acts undermining the two-state solution ".<br />
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And what of the Europeans? After all, the ISIS attack on Paris took place exactly forty-eight hours after the EU resolved to label the settlement products offered to European consumers. What is this, have they no regrets? Did they not sober up? Even after what happened in Paris, do they not understand that they should line up with Israel and forget all this settlements nonsense? Alas, no. President Hollande declared that France is at war with ISIS and sent his war planes to join the Russians in the heavy bombing in Syria. Nevertheless, he still expects Israel to emulate France, which already more than fifty years ago gave up its rule in an Arab country called Algeria and removed more than a million French settlers from there. As the British left India and the Dutch quitted Indonesia and the Belgians gave up Congo, they all expect from Israel to grant independence to its colony in the West Bank. In Brussels, Belgium's capital city which was this week paralyzed with apprehension of a new terrorist attack, is located The Belgian Tropical Museum - a museum which a few years ago underwent a thorough change of display and orientation, becoming dedicated to documenting the crimes of Belgian colonialism.<br />
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So, the world does not forget the Palestinians and the occupation and the settlements, it always pops up again, and Israeli diplomats and politicians must rush here and there and try to put out the brushfires. Here, the American Anthropological Association decided to boycott Israeli academia as long as it cooperates with the occupation and oppression of the Palestinians. And then a Berlin department store which was founded by Jews and confiscated by the Nazis and is now owned by a Thai corporation decided to remove settlement products from the shelves - but it was possible to reverse this by a massive dose of Holocaust evocation and an overwhelming appeal to the German feeling of guilt. And now the British Labor Party decided to boycott the international security company G4S because of their involvement with the incarceration of Palestinians in Israel (as well as "dodgy deals" in other parts of the world…). <br />
<br />
But as of now, such things constitute no more than pinpricks from Netanyahu’s point of view. The world has not forgotten the Palestinians - but they are also not really a priority, when politicians and generals and security officials are scurrying among so many other crises. At least in the near future, no one is going to subject Netanyahu to unbearable pressure. During seven years of his presidency, there were several instances in which Obama seemed on the verge of a head-on confrontation with Netanyahu - and he always backed off at the last minute. Only once did the President of the United States go through with it - and that was not over the Palestinians, but about the deal with Iran. In that instance, Obama acted most determined and resolute towards both Netanyahu and Netanyahu's supporters in Congress, utterly routing all opposition. Resting on the laurels of this victory, Obama came to the conclusion that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians would not come to an end during his tenure, and that the maximum which could be done would be "damage control".<br />
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But apparently, Secretary of State Kerry could not achieve even that much. Netanyahu made it clear that there will be no good will gestures towards the Palestinians until the "Intifada of the Knives" come to an end. And of course, even if all Palestinians were to keep completely calm, a settlement freeze would never be on the agenda. But if the violence were to stop, it is possible that the Prime Minister would care to look in his hat for some gestures to pull out, benefitting Palestinians in their daily lives. What exactly? Well, first of all they should stop their terrorism, violence and incitement, than we'll see.<br />
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And what about these pesky Palestinians who do not belong to any organization and are not controlled by anyone, and who one by one, day after day, are ready to take a knife (or a pair of scissors), and take action which would probably end in death or serious injury? Most likely, they had not even paid any attention to the attenuated media reports of the Israeli PM’s meeting with the US secretary of state.<br />
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And so, the wheel of bloodshed continues to roll, every day brings its own heroes and heroines, villains and villainesses to their moment in the limelight (and who is a hero and who the villain? That depends, of course, which side of the conflict publishes the story...).<br />
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The 18-year-old Mohammed Tarda of Yatir village near Hebron went to the Israeli town of Kiryat Gat, stabbed and wounded four Israelis in the streets. The 13 year old Liam Yutko, who was stabbed, was able to bandage herself and the Israeli meida praised her resourcefulness. The Palestinian 16-year-old Ashaqat Qatanani of Nablus arrived at the Huwara junction south of Nablus and took out a knife, the settler leader Gershon Masika who happened to be there ran her over with his car and knocked her to the ground, and before she could get up a soldier and a settler shot and killed her. The 21-year old Hadar Buchris, who recently moved from Safed in north Israel to one of the Gush Etzion settlements on the West Bank, was stabbed to death while waiting for a bus at the junction near the settlement. The attacker, 34-year old Wissam Tawabte, from the nearby village of Beit Fajar, was immediately shot and killed by soldiers. Newspaper front pages on the next day carried the photo of Buchris during a recent trip to India, a beautiful girl at the beach in Goa. The next day came two Palestinian girls from Kalandia Refugeee Camp, the 14-year-old Norhan Awwad and her 16-year old cousin Hadeel Awwad, went to the Mahane Yehuda Market in central Jerusalem and tried to stab passersby with their scissors. Hadeel was shot by a police officer and killed on the spot, and Norhan seriously injured. "Little girl terrorists" was how the headlines in the Israeli press dismissed the affair. It turned out that Hadeel’s elder brother was two years ago struck in the head by a "rubber bullet" fired by Israeli soldiers and died after nine months in coma. Later that day, the Israeli soldier Ziv Mizachi was stabbed to death at a gas station on Route 443, which links Jerusalem to Tel Aviv by way of the West Bank. It turned out that Ziv's uncle had been killed 12 years ago in the bombing of a Jerusalem restaurant. And so on and so on, event following upon event, day by day and sometimes hour by hour, dead Israelis and wounded Israelis, dead Palestinians and wounded ones (at much bigger numbers). The heroes of one side being the villains of the other, making it very difficult to follow and remember what happened when. And just now, as I sit here at the computer and write this article, a Palestinian car ran over six soldiers at the entrance to the refugee camp of Beit Ummar between Bethlehem and Hebron, the soldiers being injured and the Palestinian driver immediately shot dead. As usual, Israeli media summed up with the usual formulation: "The terrorist was neutralized."<br />
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So what is to be done? The Army’s high command decided it is no longer a "wave of terrorism" but "a limited uprising". "Limited", because as yet not all Palestinians are participating, the attacks carried on mainly by individuals who usually do not belong to any organization and who in many cases appear to have decided on the action just a few hours before. It is still possible, according to the army, to "contain" this uprising by undertaking – in parallel with "pinpoint" acts of repression – also some good will to the general Palestinian population. The army also recommends strengthening the Palestinian Authority by providing weapons and armored vehicles. All these recommendations were rejected out of hand by Netanyahu and his ministers.<br />
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Unlike the military commanders, who still regard the Palestinian Authority and its security forces as a trusted ally, the government tends to point to the PA as "The Main Inciter" and accuse the Palestinian TV and radio of urging Palestinian youths to go out on the streets with knives in their hands. Reportedly, some of Netanyahu’s ministers "would not be sorry to see the Palestinian Authority collapse." Paradoxically, such expectations on the right-wing flank of the Israeli cabinet intersect with the attitude of growing parts of the Palestinian society, who would like the PA to be dismantled or at least put an end to its security cooperation with the Israeli army, considered to be an act of collaboration with the occupation.<br />
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In yesterday’s morning news bulletin on the radio, senior army commanders were quoted as saying that the killing of Palestinians should be minimized, since any such killing is fueling the flames of insurrection and revolt and threatens to turn it into a general conflagration – by its explicit name, an intifada. "When a child tries to stab with scissors and is trembling with fear, it is enough to kick her or at most shoot her in the leg. There is no need to pierce her with ten consecutive bullets" said the unnamed senior commander. But if such is the intention of the senior commanders, they seem unable to make it clear to the lower echelons, the soldiers on the ground.<br />
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Hagai El-Ad, Executive Director of the B’Tselem Human Rights group, wrote to Netnayhau: "Your government permits – and encourages – the transformation of police officers, and even of armed civilians, into judges and executioners. The disparity between words and actions is a stark one. It has been claimed that there has been no change in open-fire regulations and that security forces are employing reasonable force not exceeding that required to thwart perpetrators. It is ostensibly taken for granted that it is unlawful to shoot an injured person who poses no danger. Yet in practice, [your] full support for the documented instances of unlawful killing reflects a completely different reality and grants it legitimacy. During your term of office, a new pseudo-normative reality has effectively emerged, in which a "shoot to kill" approach must always be adopted, no matter the circumstances, even when the suspect no longer poses any danger whatsoever. This reality is a direct consequence of inflammatory statements by senior members of your government, who draw support from your silence. The upshot is that there can only be one outcome in cases that combine an individual with Arab appearance and a knife: execution on the street."<br />
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<a href="http://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20151115_letter_to_pm_on_extrajudicial_killings"><u><span style="color: blue;">http://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20151115_letter_to_pm_on_extrajudicial_killings</span></u></a><br />
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Yesterday afternoon some 300 Israelis and Palestinian held a joint march along the "Tunnel Road", which was built with a huge investment of resources for the use of the Gush Etzion settlers. For an hour they marched to the sound of drums, chanting slogans against settlements and occupation, against violence and in support of Jewish-Arab cooperation. At the concluding rally, next to the military checkpoint, activist Meital Lukov of "Combatants for Peace" said: We are living in a difficult period, innocent people are dying every day and it is hard to see an end to these events. But we must not lose heart. The right thing, the right response, is what we are doing here, To stand together, Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians. To find a common ground and build a common future, to break the cycle of violence and create a new tomorrow."<br />
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Mohammad Barakeh, former Knesset Member and head of the Monitoring Committee, leadership body of Israel’s Arab citizens, noted that the vehicular attack by a Palestinian on soldiers, and the attackers subsequent killing, had taken place a short time before the march, just a few kilometers down the same highway. "We don’t want a single drop of blood to be spilt," Barakeh said, "but he who creates this situation needs to understand that only peace will bring security. The blockade, the checkpoints, the abuse, the settlements — they are the root cause of all that is happening here. We stand together and condemn this extremist government. We stand in support of life in peace – life in peace both for the State of Israel and for the independent Palestinian state to be established."<br />
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<a href="http://972mag.com/jews-arabs-march-on-israeli-checkpoint-to-demand-an-end-to-occupation/114258/"><u><span style="color: blue;">http://972mag.com/jews-arabs-march-on-israeli-checkpoint-to-demand-an-end-to-</span></u></a><br />
<u><span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://972mag.com/jews-arabs-march-on-israeli-checkpoint-to-demand-an-end-to-occupation/114258/">occupation/114258/</a></span></u><br />
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Photographer: <a href="http://www.activestills.org/images.php?type=photographer&id=1274">Mustafa Bader</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: small;"><span lang="HE"></span></span></span>Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-2329670664677157342015-11-13T21:39:00.003-08:002015-11-15T03:36:03.111-08:00The Terrorist Grandmother, the Terrorist Child and Harry Potter <br />
<em>The following was written before the horrible events in Paris tonight. It is far too early to predict what the effects over here will be. </em><em>As it happens, these events have touched me personally – close family members, on holiday, were in a Paris restaurant this evening - close enough to clearly hear the shooting, fortunately far enough not to be hit.</em> <br />
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“It's not an intifada." Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon insists and reiterated that this is not an intifada, that an intifada is something entirely different. Currently, the Israeli media remain convinced. They do not call it an Intifada, they continue to call it “The Wave of Terror". A wave of terror that lasts and lasts and lasts and whose end no one can see. But in fact, does it make so much difference exactly what it is called? What is clear is that Palestinians in increasing numbers, regardless of gender and age and social background, are rising up against the Israeli occupation which is quickly approaching its fiftieth anniversary.<br />
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A week ago at Halhul Junction, north of Hebron, Israeli soldiers opened fire, killing the 72-year-old Thawarat Ashrawi of Hebron while she was driving her car. According to the soldiers Ashrawi, a widow and grandmother, had tried to run them over in her car, and they had therefore acted in self defense. This was taken up unhesitatingly by the Israeli media, who were quick to define her as a terrorist "even if one with a rather unusual profile." Palestinians trying to cast doubt on the official Israeli version were rejected out of hand - "It seems that the desire to carry out attacks is stimulating not only the young but also their grandparents. There can be no doubt of her complicity, after all she was a member of a terrorist family, her late husband was killed by soldiers in Hebron during the first Intifada." (In those days there had been no doubt about using the term "Intifada”…)<br />
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<em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Thawarat Ashrawi a few months ago - photo: Resist4pal</span></em></div>
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Rasha Awissi, 23-year-old student from Qalqilya, was killed by soldiers at the Eliyahu Checkpoint west of her hometown - two weeks before the time she was going to get married. The soldiers said she had tried to stab one of them. In the letter found on her body Awissi wrote: "I don’t know what will happen to me at the end of the road. I am doing this with a clear mind, because I can’t stand any more what I see. I am doing it for the defense of my homeland, to protect the boys and the girls. I'm sorry for what will happen to me, I'm sorry that this is the way I will end. Father, Mother, my brothers and sisters, please forgive me for what I am going to do. I love you all. Especially my fiancé." The letter was widely quoted in the Israeli media - especially as conclusive proof in this case there was indeed an attempt to harm soldiers. <br />
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The 14 year old Ali Alkam, a resident of the Shuafat Refugee Camp in northern Jerusalem, tried on his way home from school to stab a Light Rail security guard. "I did it to avenge the killing of my cousin by soldiers" he said in police interrogation. His brother Muawiyyeh Alkam, 11, who also participated in the stabbing attempt, could not speak and explain himself and his actions. He was shot by the security guard, and was taken to hospital in serious condition, sedated and on a respirator. The headlines had much to say about "The 11-year-old terrorist" and commentators expressed their concern about the fact that children aged 11 are not criminally responsible – which meant that “the Palestinians might have found a legal loophole”. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked has promised to try to plug this loophole, and look for legal ways to lower the age of criminal responsibility.<br />
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And immediately after the 11-year-old terrorist, the headlines shifted to the Undercover Unit, the celebrated Mista’rvim soldiers who know how to dress up as Arabs and mislead Palestinian passers-by until the moment they pull out their guns and charge. This time they have surpassed themselves when penetrating into the Al-Ahli Hospital in Hebron and there detaining (or kidnapping – terminology depends on who does the reporting...) the 20-year old Azzam Shalaldeh, suspected of stabbing and wounding an Israeli settler two weeks ago. Abdullah Shalaldeh, Azzam's cousin, tried to resist the soldiers and was shot dead on the spot. Israeli media praised the resourcefulness and creativity of the undercover troops, one of whom was dressed up as a heavily pregnant woman and put on a wheelchair, while others pretended to be relatives of the "woman" and so manage to penetrate deeply into the hospital without arousing suspicion. The concern was raised that once the Palestinians published the footage taken by the hospital security cameras, the faces of undercover soldiers will be become known and their usefulness be at an end. But a specialist reassured TV viewers, "Their talent for acting and disguise is virtually unlimited undercover, next time they will look very different, completely unrecognizable”.<br />
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To the growing collection of photographs fitting into the genre of "The Pornography of Death" were added the photos of the pools of blood covering the floor of the Al-Ahli Hospital, which were published by several media outlets and spread with lightning speed through the social media.<br />
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Unlike other cases, the undercover soldiers did not take with them the body of Abdullah Shalaldeh, the cousin shot to death. His funeral was organized within hours, with a crowd of thousands following his coffin and chanting calls for revenge. In the following days there were more demonstrations in Hebron’ leading to clashes with Israeli forces. When soldiers shot at one of these, another young man was severely injured and taken to the same Al Ahli Hospital, where he died of his wounds. In his funeral were renewed calls for revenge. While I was writing this article an armed Palestinian was waiting at the side of the road, a few kilometers south of Hebron and opened fire at a car of Israeli settlers. Two settlers – a 40-year-old father and his 18-year old son - were killed. The army began conducting extensive searches in all the surrounding villages, and on the news there was an ominous talk of “the need to impose limitations on the Palestinians’ freedom of movement”. <br />
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”It is time to start calling it an Intifada" wrote the military commentator Amos Harel in Haaretz, noting that the IDF Supreme Command has already concluded that the forces of the regular army would not be enough. Four battalions of reservists have already been mobilized, and the army plans to bring tens of thousands more of reservists in the coming year, working on the assumption that the confrontation will last a long time. Meanwhile, TV broadcast a long favorable news item on the young women combat soldiers who take a major part in standing at the checkpoints during the day and raiding deeply into the villages at nighttime. “This is women’s empowerment at its best, a Feminist dream come true” gushed the reporter. <br />
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And amidst all the events of this week, the Israeli Prime Minister met with The President of the United States. Ahead of the meeting, Netanyahu was asked for the meeting to take confidence-building measures toward the Palestinians, so as to help calm down the situation. The Inner Cabinet met and duly resolved to increase the number of permits for Palestinians to work in Israel, approve zoning plans for a number of Palestinian villages where hitherto houses had been destroyed as having been “built without a permit”, and allow the establishment of a Palestinian cell phone system which the Israeli authorities had delayed for many years. "These measures will help to separate the terrorists and inciters of violence from the silent majority of Palestinians, who just wants to live their daily life" announced the PM. But he firmly refused any idea of a settlement freeze as a good will gesture to the Palestinians, explaining that any attempt to go in this direction would immediately lead to the collapse of his government. <br />
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Obama will not press on the issue of a settlement freeze. In fact, he just did not press. Both Netanyahu and Obama had an interest in presenting to the media a show of reconciliation after their head-on confrontation over the agreement with Iran. So the meeting was held – “very good meeting" (according to Netanyahu) or "an OK meeting" (Obama). It was agreed that Israel would receive an increased military aid package from the US, the details to be negotiated later. On the Palestinian issue, Obama condemned the violent attacks by Palestinians on innocent Israeli civilians (not mentioning attacks by Palestinians armed with knives on Israeli soldiers armed with rifles). Netanyahu, for his part, declared himself to be “still committed to the vision of peace, based on the principle of two states for two peoples". So that no one will take this statement too seriously, a clarification was published in a banner headline of "Israel Today", the PM’s personal newspaper - "Netanyahu: there is no peace, because of the Palestinians – when we meet leaders ready to recognize a Jewish state, there will be peace”. <br />
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The most interesting part of Obama's meeting with Netanyahu was the media briefing by the President's top aides ahead of his meeting with the Israeli PM. White House Middle East Coordinator Rob Malley told reporters not to hold out for a major announcement: "For the first time since the first term of the Clinton Administration, we face a reality where the prospect of a negotiated two-state solution is not in the cards for the remaining time [of the Obama presidency].” <br />
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”Since the first term of President Bill Clinton." It was in Clinton’s first term that the Oslo Agreement was signed with a burst of hope and enthusiasm on the White House lawn. A historic handshake took place in front of the cameras between the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, for whose assassination the twentieth anniversary was marked last week at a mass rally in Tel Aviv, and PLO leader Yasser Arafat who died ten years later under circumstances that remain controversial, with his headquarters surrounded and besieged by Israeli soldiers. Over the twenty-two years since that handshake, the Americans kept to the same format – trying again and again to get Israelis and Palestinians sitting at the negotiating table, in the hope and expectation an agreement will result. Apparently, Washington has now arrived at the conclusion that this model is bankrupt. You can push the Israeli government to sit down at the negotiating table - this does not necessarily mean any real intention or inclination to end the occupation.<br />
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What, then, is the conclusion? The radical columnist Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man has a clear answer: Netanyahu has won. By accepting that the two-state solution will just have to wait until Israel is ready to accept it, the White House has effectively conceded to Netanyahu's strategy: declare support for two states - in theory - while continuing to deny Palestinians their most basic rights and liberties”. <br />
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<a href="http://972mag.com/netanyahu-won-heres-how-to-beat-him/113776">http://972mag.com/netanyahu-won-heres-how-to-beat-him/113776</a><br />
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This, however, is not the only possible interpretation. It might be more than a coincidence that two days after the meeting between Obama and Netanyahu, the European Union at long last made the decision which had been talked about for several months already. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, adopted the guidelines for marking products from settlements in the West Bank and the Golan Heights, presented at retail chains all over the continent. Under the guidelines, a product’s origin in a settlement should be clearly marked with the words "Product of the West Bank (Israeli settlement)" or "product of the Golan (Israeli settlement)." Omitting this essential geographical information would constitute misleading the consumers. The guidelines would be binding in regard to fruit and vegetables, wine, honey, olive oil, eggs, poultry, organic products and cosmetics. In addition, the Guidelines document states that the EU does not recognize Israeli sovereignty beyond the 1967 lines, regardless of the status of those territories under Israeli law, and that regulations and legislation in Europe should reflect this position. Enforcement of the guidelines will be entrusted to the authorities in the 28 EU Member States<br />
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Nowhere in the European resolutions is the word "boycott" mentioned. No ban of any kind was imposed on the entry of settlement products to the European market, the decision whether or not to buy them left entirely to the personal preference of the European consumers. Nevertheless, from ministers and Knesset Members of the Netanyahu Government, as well as parts of the “Opposition" came the highly predictable chorus of angry responses: “A reward to terrorism!" “An anti-Israeli and and anti-Jewish resolution!" "European hypocrisy and hatred for Israel!", "Anti-Semitism!", "Reminiscent of the Nazi Yellow Star!" "We should impose a counter-boycott of European products!". The most sophisticated response were self-righteous expressions of commiseration with Palestinian workers employed in the settlements, who might now lose their jobs. David Lahyani, head of the Jordan Valley settlers – who are the ones most involved in agriculture – said that “in fact the boycott began long ago. Until about six years ago, Europe was taking up some 80 per cent of everything we produce, about 450 million Shekels a year. But it dropped to 10 to 20 percent nowadays - the UK has started marking products already eight years, the EU does not recognize our certificates for organic produce, does not recognize our veterinary certificates, even before the latest decision they have found plenty of ways to hurt us”. <br />
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Obama refused to condemn the action of the Europeans, and in fact gave it his backing: "The United States opposes a boycott of Israel, but the European decision should not be considered a surprise, in light of the continued Israeli settlement construction. We understand that the goal is to provide EU consumers with correct information about the origin of products, as required by European law. The EU made it clear that the measures do not constitute a boycott and that the EU opposes a boycott of Israel. The EU does not regard the settlements as part of Israel. Neither does the United States.”<br />
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26 United States Senators signed a letter of protest addressed to the European Union. In this case, it is the number which is significant. 26 Senators who signed mean, by definition, that 74 Senators did not sign. It seems that AIPAC, battered in the hopeless struggle against the agreement with Iran, lost the ability it once had to obtain the signatures of at least 80 Senators on virtually any text it chose. <br />
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In the UK, there was in recent weeks a particularly stormy debate about the boycotting of Israel. Petitions and counter-petitions were published in the British press. London Mayor Boris Johnson held a highly publicized visit to Israel, where he dismissed the adherents as “a very small minority of foolish corduroy-jacketed lefty academics”, while in the streets of his city there were stormy demonstrations protesting the participation of British chefs in the “Round Tables Culinary Show” sponsored by the Israeli government and the Tel Aviv municipality. An opinion poll conducted among British Jews indicated an increasingly sharp criticism of Israeli government policies, particularly among younger people. A quarter of those polled expressed their support for economic sanctions against Israel, if that would help achieve peace in the Middle East. <br />
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JK Rowling, author of Harry Potter books, was inadvertently caught in the eye of the storm when she signed a petition opposing a cultural boycott of Israel and called instead for “a cultural dialogue". She was flooded with angry protests of Harry Potter fans, who compared Israel with the evil wizard Voldemort. Vainly did Rowling try to appease the angry readers by expressing solidarity with the Palestinians: "The Palestinian community has suffered untold injustice and brutality. I want to see the Israeli government held to account for that injustice and brutality. Boycotting Israel on every possible front has its allure. It satisfies the human urge to do something, anything, in the face of horrific human suffering. What sits uncomfortably with me is that severing contact with Israel’s cultural and academic community means refusing to engage with some of the Israelis who are most pro-Palestinian, and most critical of Israel’s government. Those are voices I’d like to hear amplified, not silenced. A cultural boycott places immovable barriers between artists and academics who want to talk to each other, understand each other and work side-by-side for peace.”<br />
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Rowling's position in favor of the Palestinians caused great disappointment in the Israeli mass media. Yedioth Ahronoth published an extensive news item entitled "Harry Potter no longer on our side" – while at the same time, many pro-Palestinian fans continued to attack Rowling for her “unforgivable” opposition to boycott. <br />
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In one well-known episode of the Harry Potter series, the British Prime Minister discovers that there are in his country real magicians and wizards, capable of doing powerful magic. Naively, he thinks that a solution was found to all the Kingdom’s problems: "You can do magic, you can do anything!". The head wizard is quick to dampen his enthusiasm: "Unfortunately, Mr. Prime Minister, the other side can do magic, too”…</div>
Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-12610299205268025902015-10-29T18:00:00.003-07:002015-10-29T18:09:01.912-07:00Living by the sword - on a powder keg<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">On Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Street I saw earlier this week a taxi billboard with a giant Israeli flag under which appeared the slogan "Together we will win!" (along with the logo of the shopping chain which funded the ad...). It is not a new phenomenon. Again and again in recent years, at times of mounting crisis, bloodshed and war and, shrewd business people and advertisers discover the value of patriotism for promoting sales.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">On Ibn Gvirol Street, pretty close to where I saw the taxi with the sign, there were thousands of demonstrators marching on the Saturday night two days earlier, loudly chanting "We stand / together / without hatred and fear!" as well " We stand / together / without racism and fear!". The same call was heard in Jerusalem a week ago, and it is intended as the main slogan in the rally scheduled for Haifa next Sunday. What is the difference between the "togetherness" of the ad on the taxi and the one of the protesters in the street? Primarily, the fact that the second togetherness specifically and explicitly included Jews and Arabs alike, marching together on the street and dreaming together of a future of peace in this miserable country.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGrnilbLC98pZT2W_KH7b2APApaP1e8Q6TZlgFStkSIzBa26m-S9_NdIBlt36ap8jbGlq9beLuKNE4n8I_Bn56AuTZwRg7DFaoxOwsaD9LCvGb3WIqmTJnXNkbajbdV5neigunW_HR4g/s1600/Captured%2527child.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGrnilbLC98pZT2W_KH7b2APApaP1e8Q6TZlgFStkSIzBa26m-S9_NdIBlt36ap8jbGlq9beLuKNE4n8I_Bn56AuTZwRg7DFaoxOwsaD9LCvGb3WIqmTJnXNkbajbdV5neigunW_HR4g/s320/Captured%2527child.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">One of more than 600 Palestinian minors detained this month, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">Photo: Palestinian News Agency </span></div>
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</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">On Monday, many Israeli news websites carried the photo of a dead body lying on the ground - a clear example of the fast-growing genre which some columnists term "the pornography of death". The man whose body was photographed by one of the soldiers who killed him five minutes earlier was the 22-year-old Raed Jaradat – a student from Sa’ir village, northeast of Hebron. According to his friends, he had been very upset by the killing of Dania Irsheid, a 17 year old girl who was last week shot by soldiers at a Hebron checkpoint, allegedly when she tried to stab them. <span lang="HE">)</span><span lang="EN">These allegations will probably never be impartially investigated). Like many youths, Jaradat was an intensive user of the social media. To his last Tweet was attached a photo of her blood-soaked body with the words: "Imagine that she was your sister."</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">In the morning Raed Jaradat went to the Anun Junction north of Hebron, where Israeli soldiers were on duty. They were Armored Corps personnel who, as part of the reinforcement of forces on the West Bank, were removed from their tanks and stationed on foot to maintain security at the junction. Raed Jaradat took advantage of the soldiers’ lack of vigilance and managed to stab one of them in the neck - and was then shot and killed by other soldiers. The medical teams which picked up the stabbed soldier Gile’ad Mazmur provided life-saving emergency care in the ambulance, all the way to the intensive care ward in Jerusalem.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Quite unusually, the Israeli TV First Channel provided some coverage of the Palestinian side of this news item. The reporter visited the village of Sa’ir and showed the dead man’s brother crying out: "Raed! Raad! Just an hour before it happened I saw him, he looked just as usual, I can’t believe I will never see him again!" Behind were dozens of village youths - lighting tires, chanting "Raed – the Blessed Martyr! We will follow on Raed’s path!" and preparing for the confrontation with the soldiers entering the village. The reporter then moved to the soldier's father, who was at his bedside when he woke up after three days’ coma: "This is the second time that it happens to me. Last year my elder son Niv was wounded in Gaza and I rushed to his hospital bed, now it is the younger one, Gil’ad. The murderer tried to kill our Gile’ad, a good child, a talented musician beloved by everybody. Look at how those children in the village admire the killer and want to follow in his footsteps. I fear that this situation will still last very much longer. "</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">I have been writing this article on and off in the past three days. Since I started, there were several more such cases, more Palestinians killed in their attempts to stab Israeli soldiers, more dead bodies piled in the Israeli morgue’s refrigerators. The government resolved that the dead bodies will not be returned to their families, since "every funeral becomes a mass demonstration." The government's decision itself precipitated a whole series of mass demonstrations throughout the Occupied Territories, demanding the return of the bodies to the families. The spokesperson of the State Hospital in Hebron said that, following the demonstration demanding the return of the bodies, the emergency room was filled with the wounded, including ten who were injured by live fire and three injured by rubber bullets. Others were severely effected by inhaling gas. At least, this demonstration did not, produce more dead bodies…</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">In the early days of "The Third Intifada" or "The wave of terrorism" or whatever one chooses to call it, many knife-wielding Palestinians went out to Israeli cities and stabbed random civilians. In the past two weeks, almost all such acts of stabbing are directed against armed soldiers in the Territories.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">The conflagration whose end no one can see began in East Jerusalem, set off by acts of settlers and Israeli politicians who made blatant attempts to change the status quo at the Old City mosque compound in Jerusalem, allowing Jewish prayers there – which for many of the participants would be but a preliminary step toward rebuilding the Jewish Temple on the site of the mosques. US Secretary of State Kerry, in his attempt to calm down the situation, concentrated on the issue of the mosques and managed to get Netanyahu's agreement to place cameras at this sensitive site, broadcasting 24 hours a day, in order to "ensure that Israel does not violate the religious status quo". This seems too little and too late. Moreover, so far no cameras are in place, Israeli police removing the ones which were placed by the Muslim religious authorities. It is yet to be determined who would place the cameras, and at which precise locations on the sacred Mount, and who would be authorized to view the footage and publish it. Each and every one of these points could well become the subject of negotiations lasting months - perhaps years.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">The Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported that President Mahmoud Abbas was asked by Kerry how to calm down the area, and quoted the Palestinian President's response - saying that the manifestations are led by "angry young people who have lost all hope, people who are seeking their people’s independence." Also Ha’aretz quoted Palestinian officials saying that "Calming down the tensions around the compound in Jerusalem is essential, but Palestinian anger is also about the continued occupation, the settler aggression and the lack of any political solution on the horizon. If Mr. Kerry thinks the camera transmissions from the Al-Aqsa Mosque would in themselves lead to calm, he is dead wrong. We have gone on the streets to say - enough, we are fed up with the occupation."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Beyond the issue of the cameras, Prime Minister Netanyahu was far from holding out any encouraging news to the Palestinians (or for that matter, to Israel’s own citizens...). At the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the PM stated explicitly that "At this time and for the foreseeable future we must retain control of all the territory.(…) People ask me if we will have to live by the sword forever? Yes". Then he added that he does not want a binational state – meaning that he has no plans to formally annex the territory and apply Israeli law, which would require the granting of Israeli citizenship and the right to vote to the Palestinian residents. The Prime Minister would obviously prefer to continue indefinitely the current situation, Israeli "temporarily" rule continuing "until conditions changed in the Middle East"...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Against this background, initiatives such as that of New Zealand seek to have a UN Security Council resolution seeking to facilitate the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations by a series of mutual confidence-building measures (Israel enacting a settlement construction freeze and ceasing to destroy Palestinian homes, the Palestinians reciprocating by refraining from appeals to the International Court in The Hague). But when the head of the Government of Israel declares openly his intention to keep control of the entire territory, what is there left to negotiate about?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">At a conference in the Netanya Academic College, a warning was voiced by Brigadier-General Guy Goldstein, Deputy Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories: "We are in the midst of a confrontation whose end is nowhere in sight. Abu Mazen does not conduct a policy of terrorism, he is trying to calm the situation, but without a political process involving both Israel and the Palestinian Authority this ongoing confrontation is not going to end. Even if there is a certain calm, and I do wish that there will soon be quiet days with no further attacks, basic conditions will remain the same. We sit on a kind of powder keg ". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">All of this happens to coincide with marking the twentieth anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The fact that there is an official anniversary prescribed by law required several prominent politicians to resort to complex verbal acrobatics in order to express grief over the murder of a Prime Minister, without having to refer to the elephant in the middle of the room - that is, to the Oslo Accords which Yitzhak Rabin signed and for which he was murdered<span lang="HE">.</span><span lang="EN"> </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Naftali Bennett - head of the settlers’ Jewish Home Party who was appointed Minister of Education, had to deliver a speech eulogizing Rabin at a governmental memorial attended by hundreds of youths, broadcast live by the Educational TV network. Bennett spoke of Rabin as a great patriot and Zionist, a military man who dreamed of Israel before it came into being and who had a significant role in fighting for its creation in 1948, a courageous military man who was in command of the great victory in 1967 and had "unified Jerusalem" and who later had some kind of a political career and was murdered under some unspecified reasons – which was obviously a terrible thing which teaches us all how important it is to maintain tolerance and pluralism. Also the other speeches in this gathering did not contain the word "Oslo" and rare was the word "peace". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Nor are these words to be found in the official call published by organizers of the mass memorial rally, scheduled to take place on Saturday night at Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square and expected to attract a crowd in the tens of thousands. "All the ‘tribes’ of Israel, all parts of our society, must unite and commit themselves to resolving any dispute among us by democratic means only. Israel is facing the need to make difficult, crucial and historical decisions. Such decisions must be taken only through the democratic process and in accordance with ethical values. The assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin must serve as a dire warning sign to Israeli society." But what is the nature of these difficult necessary? Peace? Territories? Occupation? Palestinians? The rally organizers deliberately refrained from any such reference, with the stated goal that also right-wingers be able to participate.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Daniel Bar-Tal, a Professor of Sociopolitical Psychology at Tel Aviv University and the Head of a Jewish-Arab Coexistence institute, collected and spread extensively some quotes from Yitzhak Rabin's speeches in the last few years of his life - quotes so conspicuously absent from the official speeches:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">"It is no longer inevitable that we be a people who dwell alone, nor is it true that the whole world is against us. We need to break out of the sense of isolation which held us in its grip for almost fifty years. We must come aboard the great journey towards peace, reconciliation and international cooperation. If we don’t, we will remain alone in an empty station" (July 13, 1992).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">"We can lock every door, cut off any attempt at making peace. Morally, we have the right to refuse to sit at the negotiations table with the PLO, refuse to shake a hand which had held a knife or pulled a trigger. We can reject with disgust any overtures from the PLO – which would mean we will stay trapped in the same cycle in which we had lived up to now: endless war, terrorism and violence. But we have chosen the other way, the way which gives a chance, which gives hope (September 21, 1993).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">"We are certain that both peoples can live on the same piece of land, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, as prophesied by the Prophets. We can give to this land of rocks, to this land of tombstones, the rightful taste of milk and honey. At this time I appeal to the Palestinian people and say: Our Palestinian neighbors, a full century of bloodshed has implanted in us a hatred for each other - today you and us extend our hands to each other in peace "(May 4, 1994).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Yigal Sarna wrote in Yediot Ahronot today: "On Saturday night I will go to the rally because that is all that is left. I will be there, at the spot where the blood was spilled – which half the population tries to forget, and which the Religious Zionists consider as a just punishment meted out to the evil Rabin. So I will go once again to the rally, to mourn the horrific consequences of the transition from Rabin’s Israel to that of Bibi. To listen to the lament of gloom of those who once led this country and whose place was usurped by those who seek to rebuild the Temple even at the cost of eternal war with a billion and half Muslims. I will stand there and remember Rabin - and my father, who was half a generation older than him - who both wanted the same thing: an Israeli state that will live as part of the Middle East, a prosperous member of the Family of Nations – not a ghetto bent on revenge and bloodshed".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Peace Now and Meretz issued a call for their supporters to take part in the Rabin rally as a big solid block – "So that our presence will emphasize Rabin's path to peace and the Two States - for which he was murdered - and the urgent need to go back to this path today. We will stand together in the Rabin Square and tell the Prime Minister that we do not accept living forever by the sword. There is hope, and hope will prevail."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Also we of Gush Shalom will be in this rally, to address the young people who were not yet born on the day Rabin was assassinated and who are Israel’s last best hope. Always, every year, these young people enthusiastically take up the stickers bearing the flags of Israel and Palestine, side by side, and wear them on their clothes. Even if the issue of peace with the Palestinians is absent from the speeches to be heard from the podium.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Three days ago before the rally I went through the Rabin Square, which was still empty. I passed the monument where the murder took place and moved on. All around the square the official rally organizers had hung large photographs of Rabin's life. The photos were carefully selected. Conspicuously absent was the historic handshake with Arafat, nor were there any other photos from the Oslo era. There was indeed a photo with King Hussein of Jordan – the peace with Jordan, involving no territorial concessions, is much less controversial. There were photos of Rabin in uniform during his military career, and one with US President Gerald Ford at the time when Rabin was the Israeli ambassador to Washington. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Remarkably, one of the photos shows a visit by Rabin to Ramallah - a pre-Oslo visit. That was still the old Rabin, the one of "We will meet the PLO only on the battlefield" and who ordered soldiers to "Break the rioters’ arms and legs". But, even so, it was quite daring for him to stand on a Ramallah street and talk with a big group of Palestinian passersby. His expression in the photo gives the clear impression that Rabin was seriously listening to what they had to say.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span lang="HE"></span></span><br />Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-18629044718906020472015-10-20T04:22:00.002-07:002015-10-20T05:54:30.535-07:00Overcoming fear<br />
<i>I am happy to host here the words of Alon-Lee Green, one of the organizers of the demonstration held last Saturday night in Jerusalem under the call "Standing together - not giving in to despair". </i><i>After the links to media reports read about the planned Peace Now demo in Tel-Aviv, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/PeaceNowIsrael?nr">Sat. Oct. 24</a></i><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On the minute when we got to Jerusalem, en route to the demonstration, a young woman asked us to accompany her to the Zion Square because she was afraid that “an Arab might come by”. We froze for a moment and looked at one another, two people who had come to take part in a demonstration against occupation and racism, but quickly we nodded and told her that sure, we will accompany her. We could well understand her very real fear, alone on that deserted street, even though it was expressed in a racist generalization which bothered us. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is the same fear that I heard in the morning in the words of Arab friends which I asked if they were coming to the demonstration, and they explained that they did not feel safe to come to Jerusalem and be surrounded by so many armed security forces. And later, when we did get to the march, I saw the same fear in the eyes of many protesters at any time when a heckler on the sidewalk shouted "Death to the Arabs!" and "Traitors!". I felt this fear - not a direct personal fear but a collective one hovering over an entire community, making everybody wary and jumpy – all throughout the march and rally. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But somehow, at the end, after listening to the Arab and Jewish speakers from the podium and seeing so many determined people all around me, I knew that on that night we were able to accomplish something very special. We have beaten the fear. Although dozens of extreme right goons were standing nearby, screaming racist abuse and dire threats, and even though the rally was surrounded by numerous police, I think that all of us who were there, Jewish or Arab, felt a a kind of confidence and strength which we had not experienced since the wave of violence began. The security and intensity of standing together.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHeNbbBIEIsqopeofUwfOmOUp2a8U2p3UlOBXeDEKcJvNGETNz2wJ9A3juU-0S8Jkrv7OpvkJiUAHLgWI8gkIR7pfGzEB4ojpO2f8M5dD1kVfb3Yd6pGXIF2X8nASlXoOopcgL4ua80w/s1600/despair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHeNbbBIEIsqopeofUwfOmOUp2a8U2p3UlOBXeDEKcJvNGETNz2wJ9A3juU-0S8Jkrv7OpvkJiUAHLgWI8gkIR7pfGzEB4ojpO2f8M5dD1kVfb3Yd6pGXIF2X8nASlXoOopcgL4ua80w/s320/despair.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>Photo: Olivier Fitoussi, </i><i> Ha'aretz </i></div>
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<i>Account by Nir Hasson, Ha’aretz, Oct 18, 2015</i><br />
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<span style="color: #b45f06; font-size: x-large;">Jews and Arabs Rally for Coexistence in Jerusalem</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Protesters march in the capital amid a wave of violence. 'Only together can we break the bloody cycle of occupation and hate," MK Dov Khenin says at the rally.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Some 1,500 Jews and Arabs demonstrated on Saturday evening in Jerusalem under the motto “we will not surrender to despair.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The demonstrators marched from Gan Hasus ("Horse Park") in the center of the city to Kikar Hahatulot (“Cat Square”). A small group of right-wing protesters demonstrated at the endpoint of the march, with police separating the two sides.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The main demonstration was organized by a new joint Jewish-Arab group called “Omdim Beyachad” (“Standing Together”), which was formed in response to the current wave of violence. Members of the group have called for an immediate stop to the violence and the end of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Among those attending the rally were Knesset members and representatives from Jerusalem’s Max Rayne Hand in Hand Hebrew-Arabic bilingual school. One of the rally organizers, Alon-Lee Green, said the timing of the demonstration during the current period of “despair and fear” sends “a message of hope and of another way.” He called for an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord and an end to the occupation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">At the rally, Meretz party chairwoman Zehava Galon called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to reject a new French-sponsored proposal at the UN Security Council that would have international observers sent to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. “At a time of unceasing and explosive tension when the national dispute is about to become a religious conflict, the government needs to take steps and back international initiatives to restore quiet and enable a calming of passions in advance of dialogue,” she said.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Joint Arab List Knesset member Dov Khenin welcomed the joint Jewish-Arab protest: “It is only together that we can stop the foul wave that is threatening to drown us all. It is only together that we can break the bloody cycle of occupation and hate and advance a peace of independence and justice for both peoples.”</span><br />
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<i>Links to articles about the demonstration</i><br />
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<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.680921">http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.680921</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.680921?date=1445333706510">http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.680921?date=1445333706510</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Israelis-and-Palestinians-come-together-for-Jerusalem-solidarity-march-426245">http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Israelis-and-Palestinians-come-together-for-Jerusalem-solidarity-march-426245</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-18/israeli-jews-arabs-join-for-demonstration-in-jerusalem/6864198">http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-18/israeli-jews-arabs-join-for-demonstration-in-jerusalem/6864198</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.google.co.il/search?q=Jews+and+Arabs+march+together+in+Jerusalem&biw=981&bih=518&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CCsQsARqFQoTCPz52dqxzMgCFQLHGgodVKYM6Q&dpr=1">https://www.google.co.il/search?q=Jews+and+Arabs+march+together+in+Jerusalem&biw=981&bih=518&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CCsQsARqFQoTCPz52dqxzMgCFQLHGgodVKYM6Q&dpr=1</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/89411-151018-jews-and-arabs-refuse-to-be-enemies">http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/89411-151018-jews-and-arabs-refuse-to-be-enemies</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.vosizneias.com/217715/2015/10/17/jerusalem-israelis-and-palestinians-march-together-in-jerusalem-solidarity-rally/">http://www.vosizneias.com/217715/2015/10/17/jerusalem-israelis-and-palestinians-march-together-in-jerusalem-solidarity-rally/</a><br />
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<span style="color: #b45f06; font-size: x-large;">Stop the Madness! </span><br />
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<span style="color: #b45f06; font-size: large;">Peace Now march, Tel Aviv, Saturday evening, October 24</span><br />
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/PeaceNowIsrael?nr">https://www.facebook.com/PeaceNowIsrael?nr</a><br />
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<i>Join our march this Saturday, invite your friends and share the event:</i><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">These difficult days - days of violence, fear and pain - are only reinforcing our understanding that there will not be real security here until there's peace through a negotiated solution.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Only a political process that will lead to the end of our control over millions of Palestinians will end the bloody conflict between the two peoples and allow Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and quiet. The only way to prevent further deterioration is through a two state solution.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Join us this Saturday - </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">*To protest the government actions that are pushing us away from a solution.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">*To protest extreme right-wing provocations.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">*To call upon Israeli society to choose a different path.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Saturday, October 24, 7:30 PM - marching from Rabin Square to the Defense Ministry gate on Kaplan St., Tel Aviv</span><br />
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<br />Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-75806310080287097322015-10-09T14:59:00.000-07:002015-10-14T14:00:42.270-07:00To show that we care, that we do not give up<span style="color: #222222;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><em><a href="http://www.connection-ev.org/article-2169">German translation</a></em></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">When listening to news broadcasts is painful and hearing the politicians and commentators is infuriating, one is waiting for the phone to ring and the voice to say: "Tomorrow we take to the streets, to sound our voice, the voice of protest! Come, get there, it's very important!" Yesterday afternoon, at last such a call came. Noa Levy told of the initiative taken by Hadash, to gather on Friday afternoon at King George Street. "The Women in Black are standing there every week, already for many years. But in the present situation it is not enough that they will be there. Many more people should be there to show that we care, that we do not give up, that we take a stand! ".</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Time to prepare and send messages in Hebrew and English to activist lists and media list: </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">"The reality of ‘managing the conflict’ is now exploding in our faces. Moment by moment, the occupation becomes ever more violent and dangerous. This right-wing government is a grave danger to all who live here. We all, on both sides, pay the price – and it becomes ever higher, with every passing day. (…). There is only one way to end the escalation and break the cycle of violence and death: a political agreement/ Ending the occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem, side by side with the State of Israel in its internationally recognized 1967 borders." </span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">In the middle of preparations, another phone call: "How dare you? How dare you put out an ad comparing the Palestinian Intifada with our liberation struggle against the British Mandate? Our underground groups hit only British soldiers, while they, your Palestinian friends, are killing us indiscriminately!" - "In the time of the Mandate there was no British civilian population here, there were only soldiers." - "It does not matter, they are vile murderers - and you support them!" - "And what would you say if the Palestinians were taking very great care not to harm Israeli civilians, but direct their fire only and solely at IDF soldiers?" - "What? You are calling for our soldiers to be murdered? You traitors! I don’t talk to traitors, I am going to call the police! "</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">The bus to the center of Tel Aviv took a long time through the traffic jams. On the floor of the bus was lying yesterday’s copy of "Yediot Ahronot". Each case of an Israeli being stabbed by a Palestinian got an entire page to itself (four in all). No mention of the hundreds of police invading the Shuafat Refugee Camp, and their confrontation with thousands of camp residents, ending with one Palestinian dead and many injured. (This event had made it into Haaretz, but nowhere else). One of the reports in Yedioth Ahronoth mentioned that following the stabbing attack in Petah Tikva on Wednesday, extreme right-wingers rushed to the spot, chanting "Death to the Arabs! " and "Burn down their village!". But the paper’s reporter also quoted the words of a Petah Tikva resident named Yehudit: "Oh God, what terrible things are happening here, and I'm afraid this is just the beginning. It is not correct to chant ‘Death to the Arabs!’. They, too, want to live, and we must find a compromise. But in the meantime, they have nothing to lose. I don’t know how we got into this situation, I am very scared. "</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Already at the precise starting time announced, signs were crowding the intersection at the corner of King George and Ben Zion. A lot of red placards with "Jews and Arabs Refuse to be Enemies" with here and there the colorful Gush Shalom round two flags signs, and "The Occupation is killing us all!" – a slogan from the days of the Second Intifada which had become all too relevant again. A gray-haired woman was holding a handwritten sign brought from home: "What will be the end?". The Women in Black, who stand here every week, continued to hold their normal signs – the black palm inscribed by "Down with the Occupation!".</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">A spirited young man took the loudspeaker and presided over the chanting of slogans: "No escalation – War is not our fashion!" / "No more death, no despair – push occupation off the stair!" / "The occupation is a disaster - only peace is the answer!" / "Right-wing in power – security nowhere!" / " "Right-wing in power – a solution nowhere!" / "Answer the right-wing hate – Israel and a Palestinian state!" / "No killing, enough bereavement - occupation must be finished!". The loudest chanting was reserved to the slogan inscribed on many of the signs: "Jews and Arabs - Refuse to be enemies! Refuse to be enemies! Refuse – to be – enemies!".</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Three Knesset members arrived - Ayman Odeh, Dov Khenin and Abdallah Abu Marouf. One by one, they took up the loudspeaker and delivered short speeches. "These are days of fear and often of despair. Especially on such these, it is essential that a different voice will be heard. Endlessly we hear demagoguery, a demagoguery of hatred, a demagoguery of war. We remember that twenty years ago, there was a man who came out against such demagoguery, a man named Yitzhak Rabin . We know what happened to Rabin, here in the city of Tel Aviv - and we will continue the struggle! Often it seems like a voice crying in the wilderness, but the silent majority on both sides wants a future of peace. We say it here, loud and clear. We say yes to negotiations, yes to sincere, real negotiations, negotiations leading to an end to the occupation and to a Palestinian state alongside Israel - certainly by Israel’s side, not at Israel’s expense! We speak in two languages, Hebrew and Arabic, and in both we express a single political message. We are here, Jews and Arabs, and we do not want to be enemies! We want to live in peace, we want both our peoples to live in peace! We will not surrender to the logic of killing and death, fear and hatred. There is another way! There can be new hope to mothers and fathers who panic every time a child leaves home, new hope to young people in the refugee camps and on the streets of Tel Aviv. We can free both our peoples of the occupation, bring peace and justice to everybody."</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">"There were a lot less hostile responses than I feared, and quite a few favorable comments of passers-by. The situation is just a little bit less terrible than it appears when you sit alone in front of the screen," said a veteran woman activist. With participants dispersing, an organizer called on the loudspeaker: "Tomorrow there is a countrywide demonstration in Nazareth. There will be transportation from Tel Aviv and Jaffa. Anyone who can, please come there, too. And everybody, see you here next time!"</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Back home, the computer screen gave updates of the latest crop of news items: "Five or six Gazans killed and 35 wounded by IDF gunfire when hundreds of Palestinians marched towards the border fence, in solidarity with West Bank residents / At Hebron, Bethlehem and Beit El clashes broke out, described by Palestinians as the worst since the outbreak of the riots, 118 injured / Stabbing attacks in Jerusalem and Kiryat Arba, two slightly injured / MKs accuse that Afula stabber was shot at close range, probably from several weapons, while she stood motionless and presented no threat / a revenge attack: three Palestinians and a Bedouin were stabbed in Dimona, one of the victims ran through the streets with the bloody knife stuck in his back / The Jewish terrorist has a psychiatric history, explained the stabbing of four by saying that "All Arabs are terrorists" / Commentary: "We know how it started - nobody knows how it will end" / Clashes break out at Arab towns in Israel...</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">There is also a message about the demonstration scheduled by Meretz for tomorrow night, in front of the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem:</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">"Another violent attack and yet another one, every part of the country is touched by the flames, but instead of shouldering the responsibility the right-wing government whines and blames the whole world - except themselves. For six years, the right-wing government clings to power without offering any hope, vision or action plan to the citizens of Israel. For six years, the only things which Netanyahu and his ministers have to offer are settlements, annexation, incitement and brute force. Can anybody pretend to be surprised that the conflict – which they insist on managing rather than solving – is now blowing up in all our faces?</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">On Saturday night at 20:00 we will gather in front of the Prime Minister's Residence in the wounded and sorely aching city of Jerusalem. Near the residence of the PM who had brought us into this impasse. We will gather to say that we don’t accept the continuation of the bloodletting, that is time to end the cycle of killing, that we are fed up with violence and incitement. We have no interest in revenge, knowing that an Eye of an Eye will only get us all blinded. The only way to stop moving from one war to the next and to live securely in this country is through hope and a persistent striving for peace. "</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Transportation will leave from Tel Aviv at 18:30. Hurry to register - space is limited.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"><em>The horror continues. But at least we have started struggling against it.</em></span><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://youtu.be/Mjw5QPVv9tI"><u><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times New Roman;"><strong>https://youtu.be/Mjw5QPVv9tI</strong></span></span></span></u></a></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span lang="HE"></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"></span></span>Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-88786571217679056912015-10-03T04:40:00.002-07:002015-10-03T14:41:03.090-07:00The finger on the grenade<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">East Jerusalem this week - photo AFP</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Sometimes, on the battlefield, a soldier takes a hand grenade and pulls out the pin but does not yet toss it. It is possible. As long as a finger is kept on the spot, the grenade will not explode - but this is a dangerous expedient, which is very inadvisable to continue with for long. If the finger slips, or somebody jogs the soldier's hand and the grenade falls, it can explode at an unexpected place and time and with unpredictable results. And once the pin is pulled from the grenade, it is not so easy to put it back.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) went to the UN Assembly General a much-troubled man. Ten years have passed since he was elected to replace Yasser Arafat, and not much to show.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Since Abbas was elected, he had adhered to a clear and consistent position – </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Palestinians should avoid armed struggle, which had reached its peak during the second intifada. Acts such as suicide bombings sully the Palestinians’ international reputation and bring upon them destructive and deadly Israeli reprisals. Instead, the Palestinians should take political action, mobilize international public opinion, build up a position in international diplomatic institutions, and simultaneously conduct on the ground a Popular Struggle mobilizing big numbers of people in demonstrations and protests, in which no violent means will be used beyond stone throwing. For ten years he led the Palestinians on the basis of this policy – with practical results on the ground remaining close to nil.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">True, on the international diplomatic arena the "State of Palestine" won recognition in a great variety of international forums, culminating I this week’s ceremony of raising the Palestinian flag, among the flag of all the other nations, in front of the UN headquarters in New York. In principle, the Palestinians posses a far stronger international diplomatic recognition than the Zionist movement had in the aftermath of the Balfour Declaration, which promised no more than "a Jewish National Home" whose precise nature remained unclear.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">However, also to the thousands of Palestinians gathered in Ramallah to view the New York flag raising ceremony in huge TV screens it was clear that as of now, it is a virtual state, whose presence in the world of diplomacy sharply contrasts with its absence in reality on the ground. Over his ten years in office, Abu Mazen was unable to change in any significant way the situation in which the Palestinian Authority exercises and extremely limited degree of control over a string of narrow enclaves surrounded by Israeli military forces and ever- expanding settlements. To this should be added the deep divisions among the Palestinians themselves, between Fatah and Hamas, West Bank and Gaza Strip. All attempts to bridge over these divisions and establish a united Palestinian government ended in dismal failure.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Among Palestinians, there is a growing discontent with the status quo, especially against the "security cooperation" between the security services of the Palestinian Authority and those of Israel. Two weeks ago, there was widespread protest following the publication of videos showing Palestinian Police in Bethlehem beating up a Palestinians boy during an attempt to prevent demonstrators from getting to the Israeli Separation Wall surrounding the Tomb of Rachel – to hold a protest there. Increasingly, Palestinians feel that continuation of the status quo serves the Israeli side, the Palestinian Authority providing a force of subcontractors who "manage the occupation" and who facilitate the appearance of "Palestinian self-rule" which reduces criticism of ongoing occupation. One of the most prominent advocates of dismantling the Palestinian Authority and "handing the keys to Israel" is none other than Saeb Erekat, one of Abu Mazen’s closest aides and advisers (who headed the negotiating team with Israel, as long as there were negotiations...) .</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">As soon as Abbas let it be known that he was planning to "throw a bomb" during his speech at the UN. Immediately, European and American diplomats came rushing to restrain him. But from what was leaked to the media, they did not have much to offer. Reportedly, Secretary of State Kerry promised an emergency aid of 300 Million Dollars, which would keep the Palestinian Authority alive but would in no way change the underlying conditions. And in his own speech at the UN, President Obama did not mention the Palestinians at all - nor did Russian President Putin.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Until the last moment it was unclear what exactly Abbas would say in his speech. The first twenty-five minutes of it he devoted to rhetoric which sounded very similar to what he said on previous years. Railing against the iniquities of the occupation, particularly the offensive of Israeli extremist groups against the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, and the killing of an entire Palestinian family in the arson of their home at the village of Duma. This was followed by compliments to the European Parliaments which recognized Palestine in the past year, most especially to the government of Sweden, as well as to Pope Francis who had canonized two Nineteenth Century Palestinian nuns. There was also a quote of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (of whose assassination the twentieth anniversary will soon be marked) who said that if Israel remains in the Occupied Territories it will become an Apartheid state.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">An editor at CNN evidently reached the conclusion that he was not going to say anything of practical significance, and that there was therefore no point in continuing to broadcast the entire speech live with a simultaneous translation. This was a mistake - because just after the live broadcast on CNN ended, Mahmoud Abbas at last got to his "bomb" – just in time caught on Al-Jazeera.</span><br />
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</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #222222;">"Continuation of the status quo is completely unacceptable because it means surrender to the logic of the brute force being inflicted by the Israeli Government (...) .The transitional Oslo Agreement stipulated that the agreements would be implemented within five years, ending in 1999 with full independence for the State of Palestine and the termination of the Israeli occupation. But Israel stopped the process of withdrawing its forces. (...) We will not remain the only ones committed to the implementation of these agreements, while Israel continuously violates them. We therefore declare that we cannot continue to be bound by these agreements. (...)</span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span lang="HE"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span lang="EN">I</span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span lang="HE"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span lang="EN">must reiterate: the current situation is unsustainable. Our people need genuine hope and need to see credible efforts for ending this conflict, ending their misery and achieving their rights. The State of Palestine, based on the 4th of June 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, is a State under occupation, as was the case for many countries during World War II. Our State is recognized by 137 countries around the world and the right of our people to self-determination, freedom and independence is recognized globally as being inalienable and unquestionable. Either the Palestinian National Authority will be the conduit of the Palestinian people from occupation to independence - or Israel, the occupying Power, must bear all of its responsibilities."</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #222222;">In principle, here are - but no date set for implementation - all of the measures discussed and debated in recent months, from the cessation of security cooperation with Israel up to a complete dissolution of the Palestinian Authority, handing over the keys to Israel and demanding that it fill its obligations as the Occupying Power. Options with a very volatile potential. What would tens of thousands of armed members of the Palestinian Security Forces do when no longer required to prevent their own people from acting against Israel? What if the Palestinian security forces are completely disbanded, their members dispersing, holding on to their weapons but getting no salaries? And what would happen to the Palestinian health services and schools without a Palestinian Authority to manage them</span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span lang="HE"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span lang="EN"> and pay the doctors and teachers’ salaries? Would Israel, as the Occupying Power, assume this financial and administrative burden - as was the situation until the Oslo Accords? And if Israel will not, who will?</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">A lot of questions, a lot of troubling scenarios. There is no doubt that in any situation of chaos, the first to suffer would be the Palestinians themselves. But, sometimes, the willingness to suffer is a way to accomplish. That is what hunger strikers do - cause harm to themselves in order to get attention to their grievance. As it happens, just this week the famous hunger striker Mohamed Alan won his prolonged struggle, with the State of Israel agreeing to release him from Administrative Detention – along with two others of his fellow hunger strikers as well. But to achieve this, Alan had to skirt very close to suffering irreversible brain damage.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">On a larger scale, chaos in the West Bank may force the Americans and the Russians, currently focusing on solving the crisis in Syria, to pay similar attention to the Palestinian crisis.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">It is clear that the Palestinian President really does not want such scenarios to be actually enacted. He still hopes that to have placed the threat on the international agenda would be enough; that diplomats and politicians would mobilize and devote to the Palestinian problem more than lip service; that the Palestinian National Authority would indeed become the conduit of the Palestinian people from occupation to independence - and that the bomb would not have to be actually set off. But the decision might not remain in his hands.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">One day after Abu Mazen's speech at the UN, some armed Palestinians went in a car on a road used by Israeli settlers in the Nablus area. They passed a car in which a couple of young settlers were travelling with their four children, and opened fire. The couple, Naama and Eitam Henkin, were killed on the spot. Their children, who were in the back seat, were not injured. And today the situation heats up with acts of random revenge by settlers, and violent demonstrations by right-wing extremists, and the arrival of large military reinforcements, and Palestinian villages being surrounded and subjected to extensive searches. Fiery declarations were made to a crowd of thousands at the funeral of the couple ("The war on terror demands determination, an iron fist and a lot of endurance. We are fighting a bloodthirsty and ruthless enemy, we will chase after them, we will not rest until we lay hands on the murderers and those who sent them" said the Defence Minister).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">The settlers and their representatives in the Netanyahu government - and there are many of these - are trying to change the status quo - in their direction. They demand "a disproportionate punishment " of the Palestinians, the blocking of Palestinian traffic from the roads, and above all settlement construction - extensive new construction in existing settlements plus the creation of a new settlement at the very spot where the couple was killed. Education Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home Party, declared that in his view "Israel has no interest in the continued existence of the Palestinian Authority". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">In the meantime, the conflagration continues in Jerusalem, where once again the entry of Muslim worshipers to the Al-Aqsa Mosque was restricted, and those who were denied entry clashed with police in the nearby streets. Also in Issawya, one of the perennial "hot spots" of East Jerusalem, a large crowd confronted the police. "A young man who tried to throw a Molotov cocktail was shot by police officers below the waist. His fellows spirited him away. The police is now conducting searches to find and apprehend him" was the on the spot report of the evening TV news, which then went on to the extensive clashes in Hebron. The commentator spoke of "typical intifada images" – stone throwing, exploding tear gas canisters and burning tires.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">As of now, the Palestinian security services did not yet get any instructions for a change of policy. They continue to maintain security cooperation with Israel. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">The finger is still on the grenade.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "Sylfaen","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;">Combatants For Peace emergency
protest: Break the Cycle of Bloodshed!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "Sylfaen","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;">Tonight Sat. Oct. 3, Habima Plaza,
Tel Aviv<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "Sylfaen","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;">An emergency protest tonight!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "Sylfaen","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;">In the past months of the conflict
is growing, the cycle of violence and bloodshed is fast escalating. There is a straight line between
the settler “Price Tag” violence and deadly arson at the village of Duma, this
week’s shooting attack and the countless incidents of violence on both sides
which we witnessed recently. Israelis and Palestinians are killed - and the Prime
Minister keeps silent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "Sylfaen","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;">Deterioration and escalation lead but
to further hatred and incitement, , revenge
and counter-revenge. The Prime Minister, in his UN speech, did nothing to break
the political deadlock. Both sides must return to negotiations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "Sylfaen","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;">We , activists and those shocked by
the terrible events, come to say: There is another way! The voice of the
moderate majority and sane opposition to violence must be heard. We will rally
tonight, Saturday Oct. 3, at 19: 30 Habima Square in Tel Aviv We must stop the cycle of violence!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #141823; font-family: "Sylfaen","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Sylfaen;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1477958275866144">https://www.facebook.com/events/1477958275866144</a><span dir="RTL" lang="HE"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-60401388602731407182015-09-26T09:49:00.002-07:002015-09-26T13:17:57.219-07:00Volcano<span style="color: #222222;"></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh-Kod16Epx_zkK_XTjgFJtZIOFdgp6X1bWHTe2xm8LK41BBZGFRHSW6ByjTwzEo9pu44FXEkcmkHPwBaN5RjunpLTyU8Om3o54BwRwPQ1sjs_Q7xvHmj4M2VKsOuZlxHgMicZjTgjBA/s1600/volcano.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh-Kod16Epx_zkK_XTjgFJtZIOFdgp6X1bWHTe2xm8LK41BBZGFRHSW6ByjTwzEo9pu44FXEkcmkHPwBaN5RjunpLTyU8Om3o54BwRwPQ1sjs_Q7xvHmj4M2VKsOuZlxHgMicZjTgjBA/s1600/volcano.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"></span> <span style="color: #222222; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Photo: </span><a href="http://www.geo.mtu.edu/"><u><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">www.geo.mtu.edu</span></span></u></a><u><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></span></u></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Two weeks ago, a volcano erupted in downtown Reykjavik, capital of Iceland. At least, that is how the Foreign Ministry of the State of Israel defined the resolution taken by the Reykjavik City Council, which called for a boycott of goods from Israel "in order to show support for the Palestinians' right to independence, and to put pressure on the Israeli authorities to end the occupation of Palestinian territories." In the summary of the Foreign Ministry spokesperson: "A volcano of completely blind and unreasoning hatred against Israel." For its part, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith threatened to initiate a boycott of Iceland in the United States – quite a threat to a small country in whose economy exports to the US play a significant role.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">In Ha’aretz, Gideon Levy remarked: "Once upon a time Reykjavik loved Israel very much, sending the best of her sons and daughters to volunteer on kibbutzim. Reykjavik, like most of the world, hates the Israeli occupation. She hates injustice, and apartheid, and colonialism, and violations of International Law. Reykjavik which once loved Israel cannot keep silent anymore."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #222222;">Eventually, the mayor of Reykjavik issued a clarification, stating that the intention is to boycott settlement products and not all Israeli products. Thus, Reykjavik fell into line with the European Parliament which resolved by an overwhelming majority to conspicuously mark settlement products reaching the European market. Particularly, the Icelandic Social Democrats, all of whom dominating the city council, aligned themselves with the unanimous position of the Scandinavian Social Democrats, all of whom are committed to struggle against the Israeli occupation and settlements and for the realization of the two-state solution. (The Copenhagen City Council already adopted a few months ago a resolution to boycott settlement products, which did not cause so much commotion…)</span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="color: #222222;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Another diplomatic volcano - this time on Yehuda Halevy Street in Tel Aviv, location of the Brazilian Embassy to Israel. It was visited by a delegation of former Israeli diplomats who became very sharp critics of the policies enacted by the current government of Israel. Heading the group were Alon Liel, former Foreign Ministry Director General; Ilan Baruch, former Israeli Ambassador to South Africa; and Eli Bar Navi, former Ambassador to France. The three met with the Brazilian Ambassador and asked him to forward a message to Dilma Rousseff, President of Brazil, containing an unusual request – that she refuse to accept the Israeli ambassador-designate Danny Dayan. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Danny Dayan is a talented man who successfully filled various public positions. He is also a native of Argentina, Brazil's neighbor, and speaks fluent Spanish. But a large part of the public positions held by Dayan were within the Judea and Samaria Council, leadership body of the Israeli settlers on the West Bank, which he for some years headed. He is not just a settler, but a settler political leader and ideologue, nicknamed "the foreign minister of the settlers." The three dissident diplomats stated that if the Brazilian Government accepts Dayan as Israel’s Ambassador to Brasilia, it would be tantamount to a recognition of the Israeli settlement enterprise in the Occupied Territories. "Dayan is a settler, ideologically committed to a policy which the government of Brazil defines as illegal and in violation of International Law. Dayan is staunchly opposed to the two state solution. Brazil’s accepting his appointment would send a very negative message to all Palestinians and Israelis who support this solution."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">According to diplomatic protocol, a country seeking to appoint a person to the position of its Ambassador to another country should formally request the written consent of the host country. If the host country does not issue such a letter of consent, the appointment cannot take place. In practice, only rarely is there an official outright rejection of a designated Ambassador – since usually such appointments are agreed upon in preliminary, informal contacts between the two governments. In this case, Netanyahu was in a hurry to announce the appointment in Brazil, as a reward to Danny Dayan who supported him in the last election, and apparently without completely clarifying it in advance with the Brazilians. The President of Brazil had expressed unofficially her displeasure with the appointment, although so far she did not officially reject it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Upon publication of the diplomatic rebels’ act, there arose a veritable storm of verbal attacks against them. The main "opposition" leader Yair Lapid, Yitzchak Herzog and Shelly Yechimovitz publicly announced their full support for the appointment of Danny Dayan and asked the Brazilians to accept. Yechimovitz went as far as publishing a warm testimonial of her personal friendship with Danny Dayan: "He is a most worthy appointee – a military officer, a talented high-tech entrepreneur, an economist, an elected official, a public servant - so what if he lives in a settlement? Many people in various positions of authority live in settlements"). Indeed, there are many settlers who hold senior positions of all kinds in the State of Israel – the soon to be appointed new commissioner of the Israel Police will also be one of them. Usually, however, the appointments of settlers to influential positions does not require the consent of the government of Brazil…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Meanwhile the situation on the ground continues to sizzle. True, as of now the situation in the highly sensitive holy site of Temple Mount / Haram al-Sharif has calmed down. But in many other places, less famous and less sacred - in fact, almost at any spot where Palestinians are living under an occupation which has become unbearable - daily incidents continue: confrontations, shooting and the hurling of stones and Molotov cocktails. Is it the Third Intifada, which had been so much talked of and awaited with apprehension? The Israeli mass media no longer bothers with this vexing question, having invented a new term: "Terrorism of the Stones ". This solves the problem. Obviously, if it is a form of terrorism it must be stamped out. So cries out daily the Prime Minister Netanyahu, from whom the threat of the Iranian Bomb was snatched and who is in urgent need of a replacement. So it appears every day, with banner headlines and lurid colors, on the pages of "Yediot Ahronot" – a paper which in elections times opposes Netanyahu and supports any candidate running against him, but which now gives the PM a big boost in The War Against Terrorism of the Stones. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Netanyahu is strongly pushing for three interconnected measures: police snipers to be stationed to shoot stone throwers from afar; long mandatory prison terms for those who make it alive to the dock; and heavy fines imposed on the parents of stone-throwers who are still under the age of criminal responsibility. The third one might prove the most draconian. If the parents of a stone-throwing boy are unable to pay the heavy fine imposed on them - and there is no doubt that such will often be the case - then according to Netanyahu's proposal they would be denied their Social Security allowance, a small pittance which is the only thing keeping many impoverished East Jerusalem families afloat. But whether the imposition of a harsh utter poverty would prove the right method of bringing stone throwing to an end, remains doubtful. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Remarkably, Attorney Yehuda Weinstein has placed obstacles in the way of approving the Prime Minister’s measures, making various well-reasoned objections on grounds of civil and human rights, due process and the independence of the judiciary system. Remarkably – because Attorney General Weinstein was specifically selected to his job in order to pliant and not place obstacles in the PM’s path. </span></div>
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</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #222222;">Also IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot is not really enthusiastic about Netanyhau’s highly publicized campaign. "Already, since the beginning of this year, 19 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire in the West Bank, in clashes due to the throwing of stones and Molotov cocktails. This is a high figure</span><span style="color: #222222;"><span style="color: #222222;"><span lang="HE"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #222222;"><span lang="EN">which is not conductive to calming down the situation."</span></span> <span style="color: #222222;">Therefore, according to the report by Amos Harel of Ha’aretz, "Eizenkot and OC Central Command, Roni Numa, do not succumb to pressures exerted on them by settler leaders and right-wing MKs to use more force during crowd dispersal or issue more lenient open-fire regulations to soldiers on the ground."</span></span></span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">However, since the above was published last Sunday, the figure of 19 dead Palestinians is no longer up to date. On Tuesday - in the midst of Yom Kippur, the day set aside by the Jewish religion for believers to reflect on their sins and tensely await God’s verdict – a young Palestinian woman was shot dead by soldiers in the city of Hebron. According to the army's version, the 18-year old student Hadeel al-Hashlamun went through the checkpoint; the electromagnetic system beeped an alarm; the soldiers shouted for her to stop but she continued on her way; they shot several bullets towards the floor to warn her, and then saw she was holding a knife – whereupon they shot several more bullets which proved lethal. The testimonies collected by B’tselem indicate that, while she indeed had a knife, there was a 1.2 meter metal barrier between her and the soldiers, and certainly after she was shot in both legs and was lying on the ground she posed no threat of any kind, and there was no justification for the lethal shooting to the torso. "The military command’s knee jerk defense of the soldiers, as expressed in the army’s official response to the incident, sends soldiers on the ground a clear message that there are very little limitations when it comes to using force, including lethal force, against Palestinian civilians" said the B’tselem activists. Precisely the opposite message to what the army’s supreme commander seemed to convey a few days earlier. </span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><a href="http://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20150922_hadil_al_hashlamun"><u><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span lang="EN">http://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20150922_hadil_al_hashlamun</span></span></span></u></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is preparing for his long-anticipated speech at the United Nations next week, on 30 September. For several weeks, Abbas has raised expectations and promised to "drop a bomb". The nature of this "bomb" was not explained and prompted a wave of speculations: The overall abrogation of the Oslo Accords; a declaration of the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority and the handover of responsibility to Israel as the Occupying Power; the cessation of security cooperation between the security services of the Palestinian and those of Israe; a declared founding of "a Palestinian state under occupation" which would seek the protection of the International Community; an appeal to the Security Council to admit Palestine as a full UN Member State.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;"><span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">In the past days, there were rumors of Abbas being strongly pressured by </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">American and European diplomats, making him agree to tone down his intended speech - reduce the size of his "bomb". Even so, with the occupation going on and no sign of hope on the horizon, sooner or later a bomb would be dropped, not necessarily a diplomatic one. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Or a new volcano would erupt. </span></div>
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2970655834218658208.post-74984757230845658952015-09-18T10:12:00.003-07:002015-09-18T16:30:06.184-07:00Conflagration on the island of stability<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Photo: Jerusalem Fire Department</em></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #141823;">On Sunday</span><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="color: #141823;"><span lang="HE"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #141823;"><span lang="EN">last week, Prime Minister Netanyahu sent an official greeting to the citizens of Israel on the occasion of the Jewish New Year, telling them how lucky they all were. "Over the past year we have seen how special is the State of Israel. All around us, the ground is shaking - but Israel is an island of stability, of prosperity. We have established here a magnificent country, a free, vibrant, creative democracy, a beacon of sanity and progress" said the Prime Minister, adding, "Our first priority is to continue to surrounding the State of Israel with security fences." </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Two and a half days after that graceful greeting, the Prime Minister chaired an emergency cabinet meeting concerned to address the conflagration raging in the city of Jerusalem, not far from his bureau - widespread riots, widespread clashes between police and Palestinian demonstrators, dramatic footage from Jerusalem getting to the focus of world news...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">As in many past cases the spark that set off the Jerusalem conflagration came from the holy compound known to Jews as Har Ha-Bayit (Temple Mount) and to Muslims as Haram a-Sharif (The Noble Sanctuary). </span><br />
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<span style="color: #141823;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">This is the place where the Jewish Temple had stood - rather, two consecutive Temples, the second one of which had been destroyed by the legions of the Roman Empire in 70 AD. The Jews carried the memory of the Temple with them throughout their wanderings, and in their collective consciousness the Temple was cleansed from the corruption that characterized its priests during much of its existence and became the very quintessence of beauty and perfection, the ultimate dream of redemption for countless generations. After centuries of later Roman and early Byzantine rule, during which the site was used as a garbage dump, the armies of Islam came to Jerusalem. The Muslims cleaned up the garbage and constructed there the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is for the past 1300 years the third holiest site in Islam, immediately after Mecca and Medina. According to Muslim belief, this is the place where the Prophet Muhammad arrived in his miraculous Night Journey on the back of his flying horse.</span></i></span><br />
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</span></i><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">For many generations the Jewish religion was led by wise Rabbis who were well aware of the dangers inherent in a religious conflict over such a sensitive site. They found a sophisticated theological way to defuse this bomb, instructing the faithful that the Temple is too holy a place, not to be violated by the passage of mundane feet. Ascent to this awesome place should be postponed until the arrival of the Messiah. In the meantime, observant Jews were instructed to go on praying at the Wailing Wall, a remnant of the Temple - as they have been doing for generation after generation, century after century.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Nowadays, however, the Jewish religion – at least in the version dominant in Israel – has undergone a mutation. Increasingly, religious leaders are calling on their flock to ascend en masse the Temple Mount, to hold prayers there, drive a wedge of Jewish presence into the site and eventually destroy the Mosque and build the Third Temple instead. Once, this kind of "Temple Seekers" had been tiny groups, considered crackpots even in the right-wing milieu. Not anymore. Like other "wild growing weeds" in the Israeli society, they grew and greatly multiplied, gaining the open support of what passes for mainstream Knesset Members, including cabinet ministers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">The official position of the government of Israel is that Jews - and other non-Muslims - should have the chance to visit the mount. To that, as such, the Muslim authorities did not express any opposition – indeed, they sell admittance tickets from which a considerable source of income is derived. But in recent months, there is a constant increase in the number and size of organized groups of extreme right Jewish Israelis, who make no secret of their intentions and desire to become not visitors but landlords and eventually dispossess the Muslims. This inevitable brought an increasing number of incidents and confrontations. For some time the police began to prohibit the entry of Muslim aged less than fifty, but continued to allow the entry of Palestinian women. Thereupon, groups of Muslim women organized and clashed with right-wingers, who demanded that Muslim women be banned as well. In the past months police began a new procedure, to altogether prevent Muslims from ascending the mount in the morning hours, so as "to prevent attacks on Jewish visitors" - which aroused the suspicion of an intention to create a new status, with some hours reserved for Jewish prayer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">And so we came to past week - the week of the Jewish New Year. Most Israeli citizens took advantage of it for relaxation and recreation and barbequing in public spaces. But hundreds of religious nationalists announced their intention to celebrate the New Year by ascending Temple Mount and holding there a public prayer. They were led by Uri Ariel, Agriculture Minister in the Netanyahu Government, and among them were also the Young Guard of Netanyahu's Likud Party, declaring their determination to "assert Jewish Sovereignty." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">To get around the police limitations, dozens of young Palestinians rushed to defend their Holy Site, arriving already on the previous night and camping at the mosques in order to face the Israeli right-wingers. In the early morning, a large police force raided the mosques in order to "safeguard the visit of the Jews" and had a very violent clash with the youngsters. Dozens of young Palestinians were detained and others were pushed into the mosque and the doors barred, whereupon Minister Ariel and his fellows arrived under heavy police guard. The Minister held an ostentatious prayer on the Mount and promised to return the next day. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Hearing the news, many hundreds of Muslims flocked to the mosques. The police began preventing the entry of "Muslim troublemakers" on the basis of lists of names and photographs compiled by the Security Services. The people denied entry clashed violently with police in the alleys around the perimeter of the Sacred Mount. The clashes quickly spread all over East Jerusalem. All along the winding "Seam Line" - separating Arab neighborhoods from the Jewish ones built on confiscated Palestinian land - there broke out riots, clashes and the hurling of stones, firecrackers and petrol bombs. An Israeli driver, the 64-year old Alexander Levlovitz, was killed in a car accident. Police determined that the accident was caused by stones hitting his vehicle, causing him to lose control.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Israeli media focused mainly on the death of Levlovitz - much less on the events which preceded it. The mass circulation papers competed in composing inflammatory headlines: "Alexander was murdered on the way the from holiday dinner" / "Rampaging Stone Terrorism!" / "The Stone Kills, A Stone is a Murder Weapon" / "Stop the Murderers!" / "In the Streets of Jerusalem, Terrorism Never Sleeps" / "A Capital City Under Attack!"/ "Stop the Leniency to Stone Throwers! "/ "Needed – an Iron Fist!". Indeed, in the emergency cabinet meeting, held at the heart of the PM’s Beacon of Stability and Progress, Netanyahu pushed through a whole series of harsh measures against stone throwers and against the parents of stone-throwers - heavy fines, requiring judges to impose long prison terms, changing the rules of engagement to give police more freedom to shoot, placing snipers to target stone-throwers from a distance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Meanwhile, reactions in the international arena tend to point at the source of the problem – the attempts of a Jewish take-over of a Muslim Holy Place. Russia, the EU, the UN and the State Department all issued stern calls upon the government of Israel to strictly maintain and preserve the status quo and not permit any change on the Mount. King Abdullah of Jordan, whose Kingdom is accorded under the 1994 peace agreement an official status at the Holy Places in Jerusalem, warned that "Any further provocation or confrontation of police with Muslim worshipers at Al-Aqsa might damage relations between the two countries". For his part, King Salman of Saudi Arabia conducted a whole series of urgent and highly publicized phone calls with world leaders – starting with Putin in Moscow, through European Prime Ministers and Presidents and culminating with Obama - asking for their intervention to prevent a conflagration in Jerusalem. Just a few days before, Netanyahu confidential adviser Dore Gold, recently appointed Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, boasted of the good relations which developed in recent years between Israel and Saudi Arabia...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">And this morning, the UN Security Council unanimously and firmly called upon Israel to maintain the status quo at Haram A-Sharif – calling it by this and no other name. In vain did the Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor complain of "a one-sided text which did not mention Palestinian stone-throwing". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">At the same time, however, Netanyahu got on a different issue a far from inconsiderable consolation prize. At the urging of the US and with European support, The International Atomic Energy Agency rejected out of hand a proposal to subject Israel’s nuclear pile at Dimona to international inspection. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">The combination of the two resolutions on the same day implies a wishy-washy message from the International Community: Israel is asked to thread carefully in its relations with Palestinians as a people and with Muslims as a religious community – but is given at the same time a free hand to maintain behind the scenes a nuclear monopoly, complete with submarine-mounted missiles which can wipe off the map any city in the Middle East - such an island of stability.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="HE"></span></span>Adam Keller אדם קלרhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07578376900742725646noreply@blogger.com