Of mayors and elephants

On the day after mayoral elections at a chance meeting peace and social activists from different cities exchanged experiences.

The Tel-Avivians among us felt frustrated by the fact that Mayor Ron Chuldai was re-elected, the man who prefers prestigious towers for the rich over affordable housing for ordinary people. The social protest movement of two years ago, starting from Tel-Aviv, manifested itself mainly by complete absence from the polls (instead crowding massively at the performance of Rihanna), 

Some Jerusalemites, for their part, have cast a protest ballot paper bearing the words "Down with the Occupation!" They could not express this in any other way - with the only choice being between the incumbent  Barkat who strongly supports settler activity in East Jerusalem, and the challenger Moshe Leon, who was nominated by the notorious Lieberman, and who called for creating a national park on the eastern slope of Mount Scopus "in order to prevent Arab construction there, because Arab construction will increase crime".

In Carmiel, there was a joint Jewish-Arab list which did not succeed to get into the city council, but did manage to confront racist phenomena and make it a significant issue during the elections campaign. 

The people of Givatayim were, as a matter of fact, happy about a local overturn in their city, and the unexpected victory of an independent oppositionist over a much-disliked incumbent.

For quite a bit of time we talked about these municipal elections -  not immediately plunging in occupation matters. But in the end, the elephant in the room could no longer be ignored. On the list of  the election results appear among the cities also such places as Ariel, Ma'ale Adumim, Karney Shomron and Kiryat Arba - settlements in the depths of the West Bank, which the election law considers full-fletched Israeli cities.

In Kiryat Arba Mal'achi Levinger, son of the notorious Rabbi Levinger, won a very narrow victory over a local rival. Not that we were really interested in the titanic struggle between settler candidates. We did enter a discussion on whether the settlement have  passed the point of no-return; on how to dismantle them if at all.  

I hesitantly mentioned the negotiations and Kerry's promise that they would be finalized within nine months. "From this pregnancy there will not a baby", said a veteran activist who had been struggling for peace even before 1967. "And if there will be, we will be sorry that there had been no abortion".

During the hours that Israeli citizens were invited to the polls, a life and death struggle was going on in the fields near the village of Bil'in on the West Bank. Many hundreds of soldiers on foot and in jeeps and in helicopters hovering above took part in a hunt for a single person: a 28-year old Palestinian named Muhammad Assi. He refused to surrender, hiding in a cave and from there returning fire to the soldiers, until bulldozers were brought in, destroying the cave and enabling the soldiers to shoot on him an anti-tank missile.

According to the army communique, Muhammad Assi was an activist of the Islamic Jihad, and was one of those who planned an attack on a Tel-Aviv bus on November 21, 2012, when the Israeli Air Force was bombing the city of Gaza. It seems that since the cease-fire in Gaza, he did not try further such attacks but according to the communique "he constituted during the past months a grave threat to military forces in Judea and Samaria". In the headlines on the mass circulation Israeli papers was expressed satisfaction with the "liquidation of the dangerous terrorist" and the success of the army to settle accounts. The term "liquidation" usually refers to an operation where it was decided in advance that the hunted person will not come out alive. And indeed, when a flesh and blood person is shot with a missile designed to penetrate the steel plating of a tank the result cannot be in any doubt.

Following these events in their fields, the youths of Bil'in who are rather used to skirmishing with the army, rose up to hours of  clashes. On them, the soldiers did not shoot anti-tank missiles, only very many salvos of tear-gas and rubber-coated metal bullets which sent several TV-crews to days of hospitalization. Only towards the evening the struggle in the fields of Bil'in ended - until  next time.

Also on the same election day, there was another struggle, in other fields. A smaller event than the manhunt, just a chase after shepherds. Shepherds from the tiny village of Ein el-Hilweh, which does not appear on any map,came close with their herds to the fences of the Maskiot settlement. Settler security officers arrived and started a chase, and alerted military forces to join them. The soldiers who soon arrived arrested two young shepherds, named Yasir Qadri and Jilal Adel. The other shepherds were warned by the soldiers never again to come near the settler fences. If it happens again, the army would not only arrest shepherds but also open fire on their sheep.

That godforsaken hamlet Ein el-Hilweh, not appearing on map - I was there bit more than a year ago, in July 2012, and here is what I then wrote:  

When the people of Ein al-Hilweh put their ears to the ground, they faintly hear the gurgling of water going through pipes underneath – pipes to which they have no access.  The water comes from a spring nearby, a spring which had sustained the life of this community for generations and indeed gave it its name - "Ein al-Hilweh" means  "The Sweet Spring" in Arabic.

The name still remains – but the spring itself, like almost all water sources in the Jordan Valley, has been taken over by "Mekorot", 
the Israeli governmental water company. The sweet spring has been enclosed and surrounded by fences, and industrious pumps installed to channel every single drop into the system of pipes.

http://adam-keller2.blogspot.co.il/2012/07/non-occupation-and-water-tanks.html

Since these words were written nothing changed, except for a great increase of the army's pressure on isolated Palestinian villages in the Jordan Valley - ever since the Jordan Valley became a top issue in the "peace talks." As it happens, exactly now these negotiations centre on the water issue. Dr. Saeb Erekat, the veteran Palestinian negotiator, raised (and not for the first time) the unfairness of the division of water in the West Bank, asserting that Israel is taking for itself most of the water available. It was not published what was the reaction of Justice Minister Livni on behalf of Prime Minister Netanyahu.

One day later, Secretary of State Kerry invited Netanyahu to meet him in Rome, and asked him for his concept of the future borders and  what he suggests to overcome the deadlock in the talks. Seven hours the discussion lasted in which also participated the senior aids of both, and also the US ambassador to Israel and the Israeli ambassador to the US. But a lot of results there were not, at least to conclude from the prime minister's words at the concluding press conference. Like on many previous occasions, Netanyahu re-iterated his strong wish and desire for peace, at the same declaring that under no circumstances would he give up "territories vital for the security of Israel" (i.e. the Jordan Valley).

So, what is going to be the next step of Secretary of State Kerry, and how does he intend to reach an agreement within the stipulated 9 months? It seems that nobody asked that  question in the Rome press conference.

A state within a locked cage? No, thank you.

Until last week Lieutenant General Benny Gantz was not especially known as a demagogue. A professional military officer who had been steadily promoted until reaching the head of the pyramid, and his public appearances were rather dry and matter-of-fact. But at Bar Ilan University he entered with considerable skill into the sphere of horror propaganda, setting out a long list of nightmare scenarios: cybernetic damage to vital services, disrupting daily life in Israel; blood and fire on the Golan Heights;
salvo's of precise and destructive missiles all over the country; and ever more troubles which are about to come down on our heads - unless the government ministers come to their senses and immediately cancel the cuts in the Defence Budget.

Among  his gruesome speculations the Chief of Staff included  "the blowing up of an explosive tunnel, directly under a Kindergarten in a community near the Gaza Strip border." When he delivered his speech, the Chief of Staff already knew that a unit of the army under his command  uncovered a long and well-built tunnel beginning in the Gaza Strip and penetrating several hundred metres into Israeli territory. He knew well that the tunnel ended under ploughed fields, and not near to any Kindergarten whatsoever, and that there was no indication that those who dug the tunnel intended to harm a Kindergarten. The last time when such tunnel was dug from the Gaza Strip, he diggers used it to attack a military camp and capture an Israeli soldier in order to exchange him for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. But "the blowing up of a Kindergarten through a tunnel from Gaza" sounds much more dramatic and frightening.

As public opinion polls have shown over the years and also recently, the citizens of Israel have confidence in the IDF and its commanders. Much more confidence than they have in civilian politicians, communications media, courts of law or any other civilian institute. The Chief of Staff said something? Then, certainly, he knows what he is talking about. Some of the right-wingers with whom I correspond regularly, wrote this week: "Did you hear what your Palestinian friends intended to do? To blow up a Kindergarten! Are these the people with whom you want to make peace?"

Exactly this week, right-wing Knesset Members launched a big offensive against "the incitement by heads of the Palestinian Authority"...

Meanwhile, what is going on in the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks?
So far, it seems nothing much. Veteran journalist Shalom Yerushalmi penetrated this week much of the black-out over the talks in two extensive articles, which were published front page by Maariv:

"Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians are on the verge of of collapse over the issue of the borders. Israel demands that the IDF be permanently stationed on the border with Jordan, is not willing to consider any alternative, and is also opposed to placing international forces in that area instead. One of the `creative proposals` brought by the Israeli negotiators was that the Palestinians will let the Jordan Valley to Israel under a long-term lease. The Palestinians rejected it out of hand and demanded that it would be their own forces and only them which will be placed in the Valley on the border line, as any other state guards its sovereign borders. The Israeli firmly refused.

"`We are willing to give you a demilitarized state' said the Israelis in the latest round. `What is a demilitarized state?' asked the Palestinians. `A demilitarized state is a state where we control the air space, the sea traffic and the border crossings', answered the Israelis. `A state with such limitations is not a state. It is not even an Autonomy' answered the Palestinians and threatened to break up  the talks. `We demand to have control of our borders, our own international airport, and are own deep water sea port, without any control by you.' We prefer the present situation over getting a demilitarized state within a locked cage.' "

Last Saturday night some 35000 people gathered at the Rabin Square in Tel-Aviv, to mark the 18th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin. Most of them were young, including many who were not yet born 18 years ago. The keynote speech was delivered by Rabin's grandson, Yonathan Ben-Artzi:

"Mister Prime Minister! My grandfather was murdered for the sake of peace, and you owe us, all of us, to achieve the peace. Sir, you have a unique opportunity to bring us peace. For the first time in years there i9s a special global and regional situation to achieve peace, to resolve simultaneously the Iranian issue as well as the Palestinian one, within a single framework and with the support and encouragement of the entire world. It will not be easy, and certainly will not always be popular, but that is how history shows that leaders are tested. It seems to me, this is your time. From here I call upon you to make use of this opportunity, and bring us peace."

"The word `peace` aroused the youngsters on the square to very prolonged applause", reported Eyal Levy in the NRG news website. The same was observed by Gush Shalom activists who were in the crowd distributing stickers with the two flags side by side; the flag of Israel and the flag of Palestine.

A few days later there was in Jerusalem the State Memorial. There, Rabin's children Daliya and Yuval said similar things in the presence of Netanyahu. So did President Shimon Peres, who had been Rabin's rival and partner. After a bit of lip-service to Rabin the person and general condemnation of assassinations, the prime minister answered all of them bluntly: "Peace you make with enemies, but peace you make with enemies who want peace. We will not let enemies have a foothold in territories which are vital for the state of Israel." In other words: the Palestinians remain our enemies, we don't believe they mean peace, and we are not going to give them the Jordan Valley.

So, what is going to happen? According to several well-informed commentators, some time in the beginning of next year the Americans will come up with their own bridging proposals. And if even so the negotiations will end in failure, the question is who will be saddled with the blame. "We might get into a very difficult situation" says Amnon Lord, the commentator who is very close to Netanyahu. "The Palestinians might bring us back to the harsh diplomatic battlefield in the United Nations, and this time without the American protecting umbrella,

All this will happen some time next year. Meanwhile yesterday morning a Palestinian riding a tractor tried to break into an Israeli military camp in the West Bank area north of Jerusalem, and was shot to death by the soldiers. The latest incident in a lengthening chain of Palestinians who are not members of any organization, who have no contact with each other - all of them fed up with life under occupation and having no expectations of these talks. The writing is on the wall.

A little girl and a little boy and 120 years of history

Psagot is an Israeli settlement created in 1981 at the top of a mountain overlooking the twin Palestinian cities Ramallah and Al-Bireh. The settlers came and made an accomplished fact placing mobile homes at the mountain. The Palestinian landowners turned to the Supreme Court in Jerusalem but their appeal was rejected. Since then, the settlement has developed and grown and nowadays some 300 families live there. All of them are national-religious families who believe that the whole of Eretz Yisrael was promised to the Jewish people and that it is the right and he duty of Jews to settle in any place of it.

Many times the settlement of Psagot was the focus of violent confrontations, during the first Intifada and the second one, and also in between, continuing after the Oslo Agreement and the creation of the Palestinian Authority. The inhabitants of Ramallah, the PA capital, can see from far Psagot on the mountain top, surrounded by high fences and guarded by soldiers.

Last weekend, a hooded Palestinian cut the fence and entered into Psagot. He encountered a 9-year old girl, named Noam Glick, who was playing in the backyard, and wounded her. The girl cried out and the Palestinian escaped. The girl's father, Israel Glick, who is among the founders of the settlement, told the media representatives who had immediately arrived: "My daughter is a heroine! She saved all of us." The girl was taken to hospital and her wound fortunately turned out to be light.

This case is known to everybody in Israel, even to those who give the news only a brief glance. It was the banner headline in all the papers. In Yediot Aharonot, the whole of the three first pages were devoted exclusively to the heroic child-victim Noam Glick and the anger of her parents and the other Psagot settlers, and the settlers in general, and the right-wing politicians who immediately demanded far-reaching measures against the Palestinians, and Prime Minister Netanyahu.  Also the international media, especially the American, took up this news item.

On exactly the same weekend there was another event, also centered on a child - at the entrance to the el-Fawwar Refugee Camp south of Hebron.

The  el-Fawwar camp was created in 1949 to shelter  Palestinian refugees from Bait Jibrin and Beersheba. Now about seven thousand people live there in crowded circumstances - the original refugees and their descendants. Like other Refugee Camps, el-Fawwar had always been a focus of agitation and militant Palestinian nationalism. Often, the camp youth confront Israeli soldiers who pass at the main highway near the camp, or penetrating into it. So also in recent months. There is certainly felt there the general warming up of the situation in the occupied territories. The same escalation about which Israeli experts again and again make statements such as: "It is not (yet) a third intifada."

Also on this weekend a confrontation developed between soldiers and stone-throwing youths at the gate of el-Fawwar.  The soldiers blocked the gate and started shooting tear gas as well as what is called "rubber bullets". In fact these bullets are of metal, covered with a layer of rubber and - when used   at short range - could be lethal.

On this occasion the range was not that close. Some 40 meters separated the soldiers from the Sarahneh family who were returning home to el-Fawwar after visiting relatives. The 6-year Musab Srahneh was holding his mother's hand when the rubber bullet hit him directly in the eye. He was immediately taken to hospital, but the eye could not be saved. "I still can't believe it. I went out of the home with a child, whole and healthy, and I come back with my little son having to live with only one eye until his last day," said the father to the Palestinian Ma'an press agency. The Palestinian media was the only press reporting on this case.

Two days after the weekend that the Israeli girl and the Palestinian boy were wounded, the prime minister of Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu, delivered a speech at Bar Ilan University. He had once before spoken at this same location - four and half years ago. The 2009 Bar Ilan speech was the occasion where Netanyahu uttered for the first time the words "a Palestinian state", without specifying where it would be and what would be its borders. Also in the 2nd Bar Ilan speech, of this week, Netanyahu did not disperse the fog. He did present a long and substantive list of pre-conditions which Palestinians must meet before the possibility of creating their independent state comes on the agenda. They must give up the Right of Return, and agree that Israel has wide and deep security arrangements within the territory of their state, and of course "recognize Israel as a Jewish state".

Netanyahu drew his arguments from how he sees the history. "The conflict started in 1921 when Arab Palestinians attacked the Immigrants House. That was not because of occupation or territories but because they opposed the immigration of Jews into the country."

The above, at least, is how these lines were translated into English. But it is an inexact translation, since the Hebrew which Netanyahu used included terms whose connotations cannot really be conveyed in any other language. It was not "the immigrants house" but "the house of the Olim", not "immigration of Jews into the country" but "Aliya to the historic Homeland". The term "Aliya" means that a Jew who moves to this country from any other place has ascended upwards, performed a virtuous deed deserving  praise. This good deed can only be performed by a Jew. For example, Jews who came here from Egypt are "Olim" (i.e.: they came back from exile to the land of their ancestors). On the other hand, Muslims or Christians who did the same track from Egypt to here are not considered such. By this ideology, they are considered as "invaders, and unwanted guests in the Jewish ancestral land."

The concepts "Aliya" and "Olim" and the ideology behind them, the Palestinians refused and refuse to accept - in 1921 and nowadays. Also in the year 2013 the Palestinians will not declare the Zionist project to have been justified all the way, and proclaim that it was by right that the Jews have come to inherit the lands where their biblical ancestors lived - even if the Palestinians do accept the accomplished fact, called "the State of Israel" and are willing to make peace with it in the borders which it had until June 1967.

The right-wingers, who had been a bit apprehensive, sighed in relief after hearing Netanyahu - quickly congratulating the PM for "good, strong, Zionist words." Only Yossi Beilin, of Oslo agreement fame, spoiled the party, delving deeper into the depths of Zionist history. In 1891, precisely 30 years before the attack on the House of Immigrants, there arrived in this country Asher Ginsburg, better known as "Achad Ha'am", who was among the founders and important thinkers of the Zionist movement. He visited the first Zionist colonies and was quite disturbed by what he saw. After going back to Russia, he wrote an article which was called "Truth from Eretz Yisrael." This article is usually not included in the curriculum of Israeli schools, which gives precedence to his less controversial ones. But Yossi Beilin took care to publish significant quotations this week:

"Abroad, we are used to believe that the Arabs are all desert savages, who don't see and don't understand what is going on around them. But this is a big mistake. The Arab, like all Semites, has a sharp mind and is full of cunning. The Arabs, and especially the city dwellers, see and understand what we are doing and what we are trying to achieve in the country. However, they keep silent and pretend not to understand, because at the moment they don't regard our acts as a danger to their future. But if the moment will come when the life of our people in Eretz Yisrael will develop to the point that we will displace, to a lesser or greater extent, the people of the land, these people will not easily make place. (...)

"This certainly we could have learned from our past and present, that we must be careful not to arouse the anger of the people of the land by despicable acts. We must be very careful in our behavior towards the strangers among whom we come back to live, behaving to them with honor and respect, and needless to say: with justice. And what do our brethren in Eretz Yisrael do? Precisely the opposite! Slaves they have been in the land of their exile. And suddenly they find themselves in boundless liberty, wild liberty as can only be found in such a country as Turkey. This sudden change has aroused in their hearts a tendency towards despotism, as always happens when 'the slave becomes a king.' They are behaving to the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, unjustly trespass on their land; beating them shamefully without any sufficient reason, and even boast of all these deeds. There is nobody to stand in the bridge and stop this despicable and dangerous tendency. Indeed our brethren are right when they say that the Arab respects only who shows him strength and courage. However, this is only when he feels that his opponent is right. It is not like that when he has good reason to consider what his opponent does as outright injustice and robbery. In that case, though the Arab may keep silent and restrain himself for some time, he will keep the grudge in his heart and there is nobody like him to take revenge."

Hundred twenty two years after Achad Ha'am wrote these lines, Lior Dayan went to Ramallah. Lior Dayan, an Israeli writer and journalist, grandson of the general and politician Moshe Dayan, and son of the actor and film director Assi Dayan, has prepared an extensive TV reportage of what he has seen among the Palestinians in a city which is half an hour drive of the center of Jerusalem and which most Israelis never visited.

In addition to what was broadcast on TV, Lior Dayan expressed his impressions also verbally: In Ramallah I felt anger in the streets. Everywhere you get the feeling that you are on the threshold of a flare-up. My feeling, when I was there, that it is just a matter of time until the next Intifada breaks out. On the day when I came back from Ramallah, there already started stormy demonstrations following the hunger strike of the Palestinian detainees in Ofer Prison. Therefore there is in my eyes supreme importance to seeking an agreement with the Palestinians and moving to a two-state solution. That's what I understood in Ramallah: we live on boroughed time, we are two minutes before the next explosion. I saw it in the looks of the people, in the graffiti on the unpainted walls, in the eyes of Arafat and Abu Mazen which looked to me from framed photos everywhere where I entered; from the despair of the taxi driver who told me that his two sons can't find a job.

It is important to admit that this fury has good reason. To go through the Qalandiya checkpoint is as enjoyable as going through a meat grinder. From day to day there are more settlement buildings on the Ramallah horizon, and on the way to Ramallah you pass Refugee Camps which provide the human eye with unendurable sights."

The similarity to the warning of Achad Ha'am, not heeded by his generation, may not be accidental.

About ambiguity and hypocrisy

In the midst of the intensive debate about the Iranian nuclear program (the uranium enriching centrifuges “turning round and round in underground installations protected with thick layers of concrete”) suddenly, there came nuclear news from Israel’s own past. Simultaneously in the United States and in Israel was published the recorded testimony of the late Arnan Azaryahu  - a former senior ministerial adviser who had been party to many secrets. He told of what occurred on the 7th of October 1973 , the second day of the Yom Kippur War - when the admired Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was badly rattled by the initial successes of the Egyptian and Syrian armies. He therefore asked Prime Minister Golda Meir to authorize a "demonstrative use" of Israel's nuclear arsenal , and brought with him to the Inner Cabinet meeting the Head of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission, so that  preparations for this nuclear demonstration could begin immediately.

What would have happened, had Dayan got the authorization to demonstratively set off a nuclear warhead - probably in the air over an uninhabited area in Egypt or Syria or both? The Soviets had already placed in Egypt (still their ally at the time) nuclear armed missiles of their own. The United States declared at that time a high alert - higher than then  at any other time except for the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Moshe Dayan was definitely playing with fire . Fortunately Prime Minister Golda Meir and her close adviser, Minister without Portfolio Israel Galili , along with Dayan’s great rival Yigal Allon, immediately removed the matches from Dayan’s hands. Which is quite a positive moment in the career of people otherwise remembered mainly for having conducted a policy of nationalist arrogance in the years after 1967 and having laid the foundations for the settlement enterprise in the Occupied Territories.

Ultimately, Israel successfully conducted the war by conventional means and it ended without an unequivocal victory to either side - and such wars are often the ones most likely to end with peace. But Israel's nuclear arsenal remains in place, like a sword hanging over the Middle East , though not pulled out of its sheath.

This is far from the first revelation regarding the history of Israel's nuclear program, what Prof. Avner Cohen called "Israel’s worst-kept secret”. Quite a lot has already come out, in one way or another. It is known that as part of the military alliance which Israel forged with France and Britain in order to launch the attack on Egypt in 1956, then Deputy Defense Minister Shimon Peres gained French assistance in establishing the nuclear reactor in Dimona. It is known that Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion became entangled in a prolonged conflict  with U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who insisted on monitoring what was going on in what Israel  the officially termed "The textile factory in Dimona”. It is known that sophisticated means of deception were used, including the erection of an entire fake floor in the Dimona Pile, so that it could be presented to  the American inspectors who were eventually allowed to get there. (The similarity to the means of deception used forty years later by the Iranians to hide their own nuclear program might not be entirely coincidental.) . And despite all the sophisticated deceptions, it is known that President Kennedy remained suspicious of the Israeli reactor at Dimona right up to the moment when the assassin’s bullet ended his life at Dallas.

In the end, a mutually-satisfying solution was found. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol who replaced Ben Gurion reached an agreement with President Lyndon Johnson who replaced Kennedy, an agreement establishing the  "nuclear ambiguity " which persists to this day. The State of Israel has never officially declared its possession of nuclear weapons nor did it hold any test of such a weapon. ( At least, not a test whose origin can be clearly attributed - the question of who it was who once detonated a nuclear device over the Indian Ocean, thousands of miles from the coasts of Israel, remains unanswered).

So long as the State of Israel does not announce its possession of nuclear weapons , there is no reason to invoke against Israel the clause of U.S. law which mandates the cessation of all aid to a country which developed nuclear weapons. That is, apparently, why the government  of Israel continues to prevent the "Nuclear Whistleblower " Mordechai Vanunu from leaving Israel's territory , even many years after his having served the eighteen- year prison term imposed on him. Were Vanunu to show up on Capitol Hill and hand to Senators and Representatives signed affidavits, testifying to his having witnessed the manufacture of nuclear arms in Dimona , would it cause a stop of all U.S. aid to Israel? That is not very likely. It would, however, cause a headache to American and Israeli policymakers, who would need to find a creative face-saving formula , such as the one found to explain that the seizure of power by the Egyptian Army is not really a military coup . Rather than having to go through that, it is far more simple  and easy to have the Minister of the Interior  extend each April by one more year the administrative decree which prohibits Mordechai Vanunu from leaving Israel's borders and even approaching  the gates of a foreign embassy.

Professor Avner Cohen , an Israeli who dwells in the United States and from there researches the Israeli nuclear program , is a nuclear whistleblower of a completely different type than Vanunu . Not for him Vanunu’s way of entering into an all-out confrontation with the entire military and political hierarchy, disclosing all that he knew and paying  the full heavy price . Avner Cohen is collecting written documents and interviewing people who had been present at crucial decisions and who in their old age agreed to disclose some of what they had heard and seen. Over many years he is writing articles and books and playing cat and mouse games with the state authorities and the military censorship . No one would seriously consider sending Mossad agents to kidnap this  Research Fellow from the Woodrow Wilson Institute in Washington D.C. and haling him to an espionage trial in Israel. He and his associate, journalist Ronen Bergman in Yediot Aharonot , have steadily nibbled at the Israeli Nuclear Ambiguity. So did quite a few other. By now, there is not a lot left to reveal.

On the pages of  "Makor Rishon", the right-wing columnist Amnon Lord this week pointed out what seems to him a grave new threat : "The outlines of the sophisticated new Iranian strategy can already be discerned. It is a strategy similar for that used by the Palestinians. As the Palestinians suceeded in internationally de-legitimizing Israel through the so-called "occupation", so might Iran do in the nuclear sphere . ( ... ) There is reason to think that the Iranians might begin calling upon the International Community to strip Israel of its nuclear option . They might take this as their task for the coming decade”.

 For the time being , this is no more than a small cloud on the horizon . For the time being, the United States is formally committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons , by diplomatic means if possible , while at the same time being careful not to look what lies behind Israel’s Nuclear Ambiguity. For the time being, the State of Israel can stridently demand a further exacerbation of the economic sanctions which already brought Iran’s economy to the brink of collapse, and the very same time  strongly demand of the Dutch government to avoid such a minimal step as marking settlement products , a move that could lead consumers in Amsterdam to take their own decision on whether or not to purchase them. It is still possible to demand that the Iranians freeze the enrichment  of uranium while negotiations continue on the fate of their nuclear program - and at the same time firmly reject the demand that Israel freeze settlement construction while it is negotiating the fate of the territory where the settlements are being established.

Still, ultimately, the main argument for the State of Israel to demand a preferential treatment and the exclusive right to hold nuclear weapons in the Middle East is based on its being "The Only Democracy in the Region",  a supposedly respectable and responsible member of the family of Western democracies . With every year that the Israeli occupation of millions of Palestinians continues to deepen, this argument sounds ever more hollow.

Succot in Sderot and Hebron and a temporary reversed destruction

Yesterday morning there was an unusual event in the town of Sderot on the Gaza Strip border . Fifteen activists of Masad, the Social Democratic Coalition, celebrated the holiday of Sukkot. They set up in the town  center a Peace Tabernacle with the declared goal of "Expressing  support for the Peace Talks, as only peace can bring an end to bloodshed”.  And they also came to express support for the factory workers of Sderot ‘s "Negev Textiles ", who stand to lose their jobs .

Workers of the threatened factory arrived, headed by the Arab woman engineer Rodina Milsah who became the leader of their struggle, and held aloft the placard: "Give grants to factories, not  to settlers”. Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, who boasts of the huge budgets he procured for settlements in the Occupied Territories and for Yeshiva seminaries, refuses to transfer the comparatively minute grant of three million shekels required to save the plant.

Still, a public action to Support the Peace Talks is far from a simple thing to undertake in Israeli society as of now (or for that matter, in the Palestinian society today) . Only a very optimistic and tireless person would undertake it, such as the veteran activist Naftali Raz, the driving force of Masad, who always reiterates the words of the Song of Peace from the 1970’s: " Do not say 'A day will come’ – bring the day!" .

Meanwhile, the ongoing peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians do not get much media coverage , and what occasionally leaks out does not exactly arouse a thrill. The talks are conducted quietly and deliberately kept low profile, while the center stage is taken by events that do not really conduct to the spirit of peace.

In the weeks since Secretary of State Kerry managed to let negotiations resume, there are often heard bitter voices on the Palestinian side. " What peace talks are these, when at the same time the Israelis go on building and expanding settlements, when every night their soldiers raid towns and villages and refugee camps, arrest people, shoot and injure and kill?" These kind of voices were heard also this week from Palestinians, but on the Israeli side there were heard parallel bitter voices : "What peace talks are these when they go and kill two of our soldiers?". Within forty-eight hours two Israeli soldiers killed. The Israeli media tended to lump the two cases together, but in fact they were quite different from each other .

Sergeant Tomer Chazan died very far from his place of service and his military capacity. When working as a dishwasher in a restaurant while on leave, a Palestinian fellow worker lured him to come to a Palestinian village in the West Bank and there killed him. A despicable act by any standard, which seems almost deliberately designed to spoil whatever good collegial relations between Israelis and Palestinians there are.

Sergeant Gal ( Gabriel ) Kobi was killed in the line of his duty in the army of occupation. He was sent by his superiors to guard the enclave of Israeli settlers in Hebron, an especially heavy task during Sukkot . On that occasion the settlers every year invite hordes of supporters from across the country, to take part in the aggressive dancing intended to show that Hebron belongs to the Jews and to them only. Sergeant Kobi was conscripted two years ago and had a high motivation for service in the Israel Defense Forces. A few day before he was killed by a sniper shot  he wrote on his Facebook page: " Once again I find myself at night in the villages of the Arabs. What will be the end?"

"Is this a new wave? Is this going to be the new Palestinian modus operandi?" wondered the media commentators. "There is no indication of any coordinated planning. This is a tragic coincidence" stated Chief of Staff Ganz. Did he manage to reassure all the soldiers’ parents? For his part, Netanyahu promised to hasten the transfer of another house in Hebron to the settlers, and generally stated that "With one hand we are fighting terrorism and with the other  we strengthen the settlement of our land."  Negotiations with the Palestinians are apparently dealt with by the Prime Minister’s feet.

Is there a connection between the fact that some Palestinians kill Israeli soldiers and the fact that Israeli soldiers sometimes destroy Palestinian villages? It is likely that the average Israeli, if asked such a question, will  outright and angrily reject any such connection. Indeed, there does not seem any reason to assume a direct causal connection between the killing of two soldiers within 48 hours at the beginning of this week and the destruction of the village of Khirbet Makhoul at the beginning of the previous week. Apart from the fact that it is all connected with the same occupation.

Even very few activists had heard of this village until last week; there was even a  debate about how its name should be spelled. A small place, home to about one hundred and twenty adults and children, living the poor life of shepherds . Like with other villages in the Jordan Valley, the occupation authorities consider Khirbet Makhoul an annoyance to be gotten rid of – especially when negotiations are taking place in which Israel demands to hold on to the Jordan Valley.   Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court issued an unenlightened ruling which did not get much attention, approving the demolition of the village. Within a few days,  soldiers and bulldozers arrived and wiped it off the face of the earth.

It was Gideon Levy, who specializes in casting light on dark places, who arrived on the scene first and met the people who were left homeless and destitute. Levy wrote an extensive report for the Sukkot holiday issue of "Haaretz." The Red Cross arrived and gave tents - but the army returned two days later and confiscated the tents, too. No big news.

Then occurred the incident which made headlines - diplomats from the European Union and France , the UK , Ireland , Spain and Australia all got directly involved, more directly than was the habit  on similar cases in the past. They went to Khirbet Makhoul with a new shipment of tents and emergency supplies, and the troops received them with volleys of concussion  grenades  - which is the long-established army reaction to foreign busybodies from Human Rights organizations . The tents were confiscated by the soldiers, and Reuters flashed worldwide the image of Marion Castaing, Cultural Attaché at the French consulate in East Jerusalem, lying on the ground with a soldier pointing his gun at her.

Probably the soldiers did not know that this was an official representative of the government of France and that they were violating the Vienna Convention which requires states to respect the diplomatic immunity of foreign representatives. The French government filed a protest, as did the European Union. Israeli government officials were far from ready to apologize, but rather threatened to expel Castaing: "The role of diplomats is to build bridges and not to make provocations." However, the French Consulate in East Jerusalem is not accredited to Israel, and serves essentially as the de-facto French Embassy to the future State of Palestine. It could be said that Ms. Castaing did fulfill quite effectively the role of building bridges with the Palestinians.

This morning there was going to be a major show of solidarity by Israeli peace activists, a convoy of buses going to Khirbet Makhoul by the same route where the diplomats were blocked. Ilana Hammerman published in "Haaretz” an  article about this, under the title "There are laws which must be broken".  But yesterday afternoon the news came that Adv. Tawfiq Jabbarin got the same Supreme Court now to issue a temporary injunction, for the time being forbidding the military from destroying houses or expelling inhabitants. The sword was removed from the throat - at least until pending further judicial proceedings.

What is and what isn’t remembered on Yom Kippur

Afternoon , Friday, 13 September 2013. The eve of Yom Kippur . In the street outside the sound of the last cars is diminishing to silence. In a few hours we would hear the happy cries of children racing their bicycles in the center of the road. This is the secular Israeli Yom Kippur which has nothing to do with any Jewish tradition and no parallel in any Jewish community outside this country.  It came about accidentally, due to an odd compromise . Secular and traditional Israelis were willing to accept the demand of their religious fellow citizens: “Can’t you give up your cars, for at least one day in the year?" and so, without anybody planning it, the State of Israel got what environmentalists in Europe and America dream of. A Day Without Cars in which the bikes reign supreme even on the intercity highways. The bikes , and the roller skates, and skate boards,  and baby strollers pushed by mothers and grandmothers and young couples, and the old women quietly walking their dogs in the middle of the road. There are cars to be seen traveling there - but only the tiny toy cars driven by the swinging legs of enthusiastic kids. The Rabbis greatly disliked all this, and have firmly stated again and again bicycle riding is also a desecration of the Holy Day, and roller skates too. But it was too late, the Israelis just refused to listen.

Today could have looked completely different. We might have woken up this morning to a ceaseless stream of the radio news flashes of American Tomahawk missiles raining down on targets in Syria , and an endless debate among experts about whether or not Assad will retaliate by firing missiles at Israel. Right now, our ears would have been straining to hear air raid sirens which might sound any second, and mothers would have sternly warned their children not to dare leave the house , and the little bikes would have remain forgotten in a corner. In such a  situation we would most likely have been, had George W. Bush still been in the White House.

But  President Obama did not really want to stage a military attack, and he deliberately left open the option of a diplomatic solution. While his Presidential visit to Russia looked like a Cold War style direct confrontation, Vladimir Putin was given the time to suggest a dignified way out and prevent the attack which  no one in America really wanted. The sigh of relief could be heard from the White House and Capitol Hill and the American public at large and in fact from most of the world. Only In Israel did ​​the government and many of the commentators voice disappointment and criticism of Obama for not properly fulfilling his duties as a the policeman of the world.

"If I’m not for myself - who will be for me?" said Netanyahu, citing the ancient Rabbi Hillel (some said he grossly misrepresented the intent of one of the greatest of all Jewish sages). So, is Netanyahu worried that one who didn’t bomb Damascus in punishment for the use of gas probably is also not going to send American planes to destroy the Iranian nuclear project ? And does  Netanyahu intend to take this task upon himself and the Israeli Air Force? Meanwhile, in the short term the Prime Minister is going to hold at the UN General Assembly a verbal duel with the new Iranian president. Rohani is going to make a big effort to show to the world a moderate and compromising face. Netanyahu will try to convince everybody that he is cheating, but it will be difficult. Where is Ahmadinejad when you need him?

Meanwhile , Syria has come down from the headlines and Iran has not yet gotten into them, and the media focuses on the traumatic war of 1973,  exactly forty years ago now. Old battle stories come up and get published again, and there are some new disclosures . For example, that on war's second day  Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was filled with panic, felt that all was lost and contemplated using non conventional weapons ( What kind of weapons, exactly? This the now published diaries of General Bar Lev do not specify). And on the last day of the war, after cease-fire had already been declared, Dayan sent troops to conquer the city of Suez, without sufficient planning and preparation, in order  to “gain a prestigious achievement”. A prestigious achievement there was not, and eighty soldiers did not come back alive from the ambush into which they rushed head-on. Moshe Dayan, who had gained unprecedented fame and admiration in six days of war in 1967, lost everything in the three weeks of 1973. Also after him there were Israeli generals who successfully entered politics , but thank God none of them gained so much enthusiastic and blind support as Dayan had between 1967 and 1973.

Very many articles and discussion and commentaries about the fortieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War . And very few articles on the other anniversary which fell on this very day, the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords. The twentieth anniversary of the moment when Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn and I was sitting here in this room at this table and writing an article entitled "Hope Reborn” .  

Hope was indeed reborn then. There was then an atmosphere of enthusiasm and euphoria among Israelis and Palestinians alike, peace seemed at hand and its opponents were marginalized . An atmosphere which melted away and disappeared long since, buried under a huge pile of disappointments and frustrations and accusations and counter-accusations . And very  much bloodshed - three bullets which were fired at a square in the heart of Tel Aviv on the night of November 4, 1995, and buses exploding in Israeli cities, and a rain of bombs falling on Gaza, and a lot of smaller incidents of bloodshed now remembered only by the families of the dead Israelis and the dead Palestinians. And on both sides people say the "Peace? That’s impossible, they don’t want peace." They, the Palestinians, say the Israelis. They, the Israelis, the Palestinians say .

It happened that exactly on this week, the Twentieth Anniversary of Oslo which  few bother to remember, I had two very similar conversations with two people who have never met each other, though I know both of them quite well.

"These negotiations which the Americans began are not going anywhere" said G., owner of a small electrical appliances store in the center of Holon. "And if we get out of the Territories, what then? They will fire missiles at us, like after we left Gaza. Missiles on Tel Aviv, on Haifa, everywhere. Why give them a chance to do that? Peace? What peace? They will not honor any agreement , we have already seen what they are like." And N., a  Ramallah resident whose husband was involved in the First Intifada and who herself participated in many demonstrations against the occupation, told me :" What if there is an agreement ? Believe me, it will do nothing but make our situation worse. They will not give us a state with territorial contiguity. Not on your life! What could happen is that they will draw for us horrible borders, borders of strangulation. More checkpoints , more pressure, they will put us under siege as in Gaza. I don’t  want my girls to grow up in the same kind of horror as the children of Gaza ! Is that the agreement I am supposed to hope for? "

This week, Secretary of State John Kerry re-affirmed to Arab Foreign Ministers in Paris that the purpose of the negotiations is to reach a full agreement between Israel and the Palestinians within nine months. No partial agreement , nor an interim agreement , nor a "Palestinian state with provisional borders ," but a full, comprehensive peace agreement solving to mutual satisfaction all aspects of the conflict. To do that , he would have to pull a very big rabbit out of the hat...

Meanwhile, on September 13 - the Oslo anniversary - Israeli  troops escorted hundreds of settlers and Orthodox Jewish believers into the Balata Refugee Camp in Nablus , in order to hold prayers at the holy site known as Joseph's Tomb . The entry of the settlers and the army into the refugee camp sparked off riots and clashes and stone throwing and shooting and several woundings. "The IDF is committed to the Freedom of Religious Worship ," said a military spokesman.  But Major Avi Ohayon, who commanded the escorting military force, revealed in an interview with the extreme-right newspaper "Makor Rishon" : "Jews have a deep spiritual experience here at the tomb of one of the Fathers of the Nation, and to the army this gives an opportunity to increase the military presence in Samaria. More than an entire battalion is involved in the accompaniment of the worshipers - regular troops , recon, reserve forces and intelligence. The more soldiers in this area, the better for the settlements’ security”.

Also this week the army closed the investigation regarding Bassem Abu Rahme, Bil'in resident who was killed in April 2009 when hit in the chest  by a tear gas canister during a demonstration against the Separation Fence. Three videos filmed during the demonstration proved that Abu Rahma had not used violence or endangered  the soldiers in any way , but they were not sufficient to identify any soldier who could be held responsible for his death and or stand trial for it.

http://972mag.com/escaping-justice-who-killed-bassem-abu-rahme/78780/

Not so the case of Lieutenant Colonel Shalom Eisner, who had hit a demonstrator from Denmark with his rifle butt and for whose guilt the footage from the event left no doubt. But he did get a plea bargain. He will do two months of community service, will not be promoted any further and retire from the army in a year and a half. Rightists made a loud outcry about this trial and claimed that this was “an abject surrender to Anarchists” and that it may deter officers from fulfilling their duties .

And then some good news from the courts - the verdict rendered in the libel suit filed by the movement “Im Tirzu” (“If You Will It”) movement. Members of this movement waged a widespread public campaign against the Human Rights groups and against theaters and cultural institutions and against anyone who they considered as not being sufficiently Zionist or Israeli patriotic. They demanded of the  universities in Israel to impose a Zionist and Israeli Patriotic control on the curriculum and lectures in the various faculties, especially in the Humanities, and to fire professors judged by them as to be non-Zionist or non-Patriotic or helping Israel's enemies. When the Hebrew Wikipedia defined “Im Tirzu” as  a right-wing organization, the organization so defined threatened to file a libel suit against the Wikipedia editors. And when eight young people organized a Facebook group called " If You Will It, a Fascist movement is here", the movement to whose name a reference was made did file for libel. After protracted and complicated proceedings, the court rejected seven of the eight libel charges, determining that there indeed existed certain parallels between the ideology and activities of “Im Tirzu” and those of Fascist movements . Only one charge was accepted by the judge, who ruled that no correlation was found between “Im Tirzu” and the Nazi race theory, and therefore asserting such was indeed libelous. One should not go too far.

Another good surprise: a hearing was concluded over an  incident which took place in the midst of the "Cast Lead” bombings in the  Gaza Strip. Specifically, on the early morning  hours of January 2, 2009,  beginning at 6:34 am, near the entrance to the Air Force base at Sde Dov in north Tel Aviv. As the indictment noted, "There was a gathering of nearly 20 young people there, including the defendants , [who came] to express protest at the IDF operation in Gaza. Most of them were dressed in white robes stained red and wearing masks on their faces, some carrying signs condemning the operation. Most participants lay down on the road or threw at soldiers standing at the gate flyers with the headline ‘War Crimes’.” According to the police, even if the whole thing lasted just a few minutes, but people "carried signs, on which were written harsh statements about the conduct of the IDF in Gaza, and wore provocative outfits designed to convey the message that the IDF was committing an improper massacre (sic) in Gaza and in this way they tried to inspire others to respond in ways which could have led to disturbing the peace”. Therefore, the police was justified in immediately arresting all of them, keeping them for several days in detention and prosecuting them. The Court, however, ruled otherwise this week, dismissing all charges and finding all defendants completely innocent.

A bit of encouragement towards protesting the next war…

A troubled first week & the good sewage news

Rosh Hashana. The Jewish New Year. A national holiday throughout Israel. People greet each other with “Shana Tova”, Happy New Year, and the media is busy summing up the passing year in politics and economy and sports. Still, few Israelis outside the religiously observant minority could tell without looking it up what year it was which ended and which is the new one. Heh Tav Shin Ayin Dalet, which according to the numerical value of Hebrew character translates into 5774 – 5774 years after the creation of the world. An average Tel Avivian, when asked what year is it, would most likely answer: 2013 – the Civil Year which still has three months to run, and whose end on December 31, the Sylvester Night, would be marked by quite a lot of young Israelis even though it is not a national holiday and though the Chief Rabbinate greatly frowns at those marking it.

Count the coming week as we would  – as the first week of 5774 or the second one in the last quarter of 2013 – it would see some momentous events. Within a few days we might witness the launching of an American military strike at the Assad regime in Syria. And it could turn to be as advertised, a simple and quick affair lasting no more than a few days. Or it could turn out to have unpredictable effects and results and implications and complications, some of which might be quite nasty, and some might touch directly upon us in Israel. (It was Helmuth von Moltke, well-known 19^th German general with a considerable experience of making battle plans and implementing them, who formulated the maxim that "No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy").

Alternatively, the coming week might mark no military confrontation in the Middle East, but rather a major public humiliation administered to the President of the United States by his country’s Congress. And next week’s vote might go further than the issue of what the rest of Barack Obama’s second term would look like, and extend into an effective  abdication of the United States from the Global Imperial role which was assumed in 1945. Which would also carry very many weighty implications for Israel, as for the whole Middle East and the entire world.

All of which does not mean that everybody in this country is waiting with bated breath for the vote due on Capitol Hill. Our own affairs go on full steam ahead, while the world looks elsewhere. For example, a sizeable number of Israel’s Religious Nationalists found the New Year’s eve an auspicious time to stage a major provocation at  one of the most sensitive spots in the whole world: The compound in the Old City of Jerusalem which Judaism venerates as Temple Mount, the site of the Temple destroyed by the Romans two thousand years ago, while for a billion Muslims it is Haram A Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary from where the Prophet ascended up to Heaven.   

To mark the New Year, some three thousand of the “Temple Mount Seekers” marched round and round this sensitive compound, blowing the shofar ram’s horns as loudly as they could. The notorious Rabbi Shamuel Eliyahu, undaunted by his failure to become Chief Rabbi, proclaimed “On Rosh HaShana we crown God, and the Mount will become God’s Palace”. And in order for it to become God’s Palace,  the venerable 1300-year old Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam third holiest site, would “in one way or another disappear”.

Sheikh Ra’ed Salah of Umm El Fahm has long been warning the Muslim faithful that “Al-Aqsa is in danger!”. The shofar-blowing march and Rabbi Eliyahu’s speech added credibility and urgency to the Sheikh’s warning, and many of his followers were aroused to a march of their own. Israeli police promptly arrested Sheikh Salah on charges of “making inflammatory speeches”, but many of his followers did make it to the Mount, and there followed several days of violent clashes, stone throwing and large-scale arrests. Not an auspicious time for the holding of yet another round of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations (but when has there been such a time?). Though unlike on several previous occasions, police took care not to use live ammunition and create new Palestinian martyrs.

There were more jarring notes accompanying this week’s round of talks. Last week’s round was accompanied by the announcement of new construction of houses in Israeli settlements on the West Bank. This week there was its mirror image – the demolition of Palestinian homes.

Specifically, the home of the Rashayda Family in the Jordan Valley.

Unlike the events in Jerusalem, this was not about an especially holy site. It was of importance mainly to the family of twelve who built the house and lived in it, who would have liked to get a building permit from the Israeli authorities but found this to be impossible, and who perforce had built without a permit. Not a holy site, but dear to family members who tried to defend it as best as they could. Also and especially the family’s women. Five of these women were wounded in confrontation with the soldiers and taken to hospital. With them out of the way, the Israeli Defense Forces bulldozer made short work of the family home.

Palestinian Chief Negotiator Dr. Saeb Erakat must have felt uncomfortable going on the same day into the negotiating room with the representatives of the Netanyahu Government. At least, he issued a strong condemnation stating that  “This new act of aggression, today's brutal escalation of Israeli violence against Palestinian civilians, is further proof that members of the Israeli government wish to undermine the negotiations process.”

The veil placed on the negotiations as per Kerry’s guidelines a month ago was this week drawn aside by well-placed leaks from the Palestinian side. As could have been predicted, there was not so much to reveal. So far, it seems that in fact negotiations had not really started, the two sides engaging mainly in a debate about setting the agenda.

Palestinian negotiators wanted to hear a clear Israeli position about the future border between Israel and Palestine, and specifically whether or not Netnayahu is ready to accept the principle of the 1967.  Had Tzipi Livni been speaking for herself, she might have taken up this challenge. Speaking as Netanyahu’s emissary without any real power base of her own, she proposed instead to talk first of “Security Arrangements” – read, continued presence of Israeli troops in considerable parts of the West Bank. Chief among these, and not by chance, is the Jordan Valley where the Rashayda Family home was destroyed, and where there is a long-standing policy to regard the presence of Palestinians as a nuisance to be gotten rid of.

Alternately, there was an Israeli offer to discuss borders – but only “temporary ones”. Netanyhau would be ready to accept  a “Palestinian State in Temporary Borders”, comprising about 60% of the West Bank.

Pending a future discussion of the permanent borders, which would take place, either before or after the coming of the Messiah, Israel would be left in possession of about 40% of the West Bank: settlements, military bases, strategic highways and – once again – the whole of the Jordan Valley. Needless to say, the Palestinians found this generous offer completely unacceptable.

None of this is surprising or unexpected. In fact, it is what commentators predicted virtually unanimously in advance, on the basis of extensive previous experience.  From the start, it was assumed that the negotiations could only bear any fruit if there was a high-profile American involvement . In practice Secretary of State Kerry, having invested considerable  personal attention and energy in re-launching the negotiations, had since then let them drift rudderless.

Reportedly, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has asked for an urgent meeting with Kerry, to take up the situation of the negotiations, and it seems that they are to meet in London, Most likely,  Abbas would bring a copy of the letter which Kerry sent him two months ago, committing the US to support negotiations based on the 1967 borders, and ask how seriously should such American obligations be taken. But that would be on the very eve of the crucial vote on Syria, with Kerry more than any other member of the Obama Administration committed to punishing Assad for the use of chemical weapons in Damascus.  So, it would be quite surprising at this moment to see a full-fledged, high-level US involvement on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Where the involvement of the American government is uncertain at best, one can look for some flickering lights elsewhere. For example, to the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, of whose composition and orientation the right wing (so far) failed to seize control, and whose rulings on at least some occasions serve to block the most blatant abuses.

A case in point was this week’s proceeding regarding the Palestinians of the South Hebron Hills, which suffer untold daily harassment from army and settlers – due to this area, like the Jordan Valley, being slated for eventual annexation to Israel and Arabs being considered, also there, a nuisance . About a thousand people in this area, have been living for fourteen years under the constant threat of wholesale deportation.  Twelve tiny Palestinian communities, poor and marginal in the Palestinian society itself and with some of them actually living in caves, are threatened with destruction, In the eyes of the state, they are “squatters without rights” and the area, known as “Fire Zone 918”, was proclaimed a vital training area for the army’s ground troops.

Israeli and international peace activists, human rights groups and prominent artists, writers and academics have been conducting an intensive campaign in the media and an ongoing presence on the ground. Towards the crucial Supreme Court session, the signatures of

Nobel Peace Laureates and other international VIP’s were obtained. And for their part, the state representatives made some cynical statements such as that “if the Arabs are allowed to stay, soldiers will have to travel longer to and from training”.

The Supreme Court  judges were plainly unhappy with the entire hot potato falling into their lap, and suggested that the state enter into a mediation process with the villagers and their lawyers. While not completely removing the Damocles’ Sword from above their heads, at least  it was moved  further away. 

http://972mag.com/israels-high-court-sends-south-hebron-hills-evictions-to-mediation/78324/   

A small ray of light also came this week from the Netherlands, concerning such a prosaic subject as sewage treatment.  

Raw sewage in and around Jerusalem is flowing into the Kidron, a creek which had been a nice and scenic place (it is even mentioned in the Bible), Some of this sewage comes from Palestinian communities and others from Israeli settlements – both being inhabited by human beings having indoor plumbing in their houses. Therefore, a respectable Dutch company named Royal Haskoning was asked by the government of Israel to prepare for the  construction of a wastewater treatment plant.

As envisioned by the government planners, a system of sewage treatment would be constructed dealing with the settlements and the Palestinian communities as a single system. Implicitly, the plan took for granted that the settlements are there to stay, that overall Israeli control is there to stay, and that strategic planning decisions (in this as in other fields) would be taken by Israeli officials, who would then condescend to  inform the Palestinians of what they decided.

Like other European companies concerned with settlement-related projects on the West Bank, Royal Haskoning was pressured by its government to terminate such involvement. For their part, the company’s  Israeli government interlocutors asked the company’s directors to “forget about politics and get on with the sewage treatment project”.

To no avail. Yesterday, Royal Haskoning officially “advised the client of termination of the Kidron contract”, since “Royal Haskoning carries out its work with the highest regard for integrity and in compliance with international laws and regulations. In the course of the project, and after due consultation with various stakeholders, the company came to understand that future involvement in the project could be in violation of international law.”

It’s harder and harder to get rid of occupation sewage.

http://www.royalhaskoningdhv.com/en-gb/news/royal-haskoningdhv-terminates-its-involvement-in-the-wastewater-treatment-plant-in-east-jerusalem/727