Clare Short Breaks the Silence on Palestine: Turning Tides

The Fanonite

“…for the last forty years, our thought has been trapped in hollow structures of language, a stale, dead but immensely successful rhetoric. This has represented, in my view, a defeat of the intelligence and of the will.” — Harold Pinter

Turning Tides: Clare Short Breaks the Silence on Palestine
July 8th, 2007

Following is Clare Short’s powerful indictment of the crimes of the Israeli state, the British Government’s complicity and EU’s hypocrisy with regards to Palestine. For those who don’t know, Kim Howells is a former chair of the UK Israel lobby group, Labour Friends of Israel. Kudos to War on Want for their unrelenting campaign against the Apartheid Wall and to the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions for their role in exposing Israel’s matrix of control.

Clare Short (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Ind Lab):

I tabled this debate because I visited recently the Palestinian occupied territories with a delegation organised by War on Want. It consisted of War on Want staff, myself, and Rodney Bickerstaffe, the former general secretary of Unison. I am grateful for the opportunity to report on our findings, and I hope that the Minister will take account of them.

I have previously visited the west bank and Gaza on a number occasions in the late 1980s and early 1990s, at the time of the first intifada—a Palestinian uprising involving peaceful disobedience or, at worst, children throwing stones at soldiers. Despite the injuries inflicted on children by the Israeli army, the intifada was full of hope, and it led to the negotiation of the Oslo peace accord and the return of Yasser Arafat to Palestine. I was hopeful at that time that a two-state peace—Israel and Palestine—was possible, that the new Palestinian state would be based on 1967 boundaries with East Jerusalem as its capital, and that there would be a negotiated settlement on Palestinian right of return. Those are the three essential components of a negotiated peace. I was hopeful; but it is now impossible to believe that there will be such a peace. Instead, I fear that unless we change policy, we face the prospect of years and possibly decades of bloodshed and conflict.

I have followed developments in the middle east carefully over many years, and I was well aware before my recent visit how bad things are for the Palestinian people. Nevertheless, I was deeply shocked by Israel’s blatant, brutal and systematic annexation of land, demolition of Palestinian homes, and deliberate creation of an apartheid system by which the Palestinians are enclosed in four bantustans, surrounded by a wall, with massive checkpoints that control all Palestinian movements in and out of the ghettos.

The Israelis are clearly and systematically attempting to take the maximum amount of land with the minimum number of Palestinians. As things stand, Israel has taken 85 per cent of historical Palestine, leaving the remaining 15 per cent for Palestinian ghettos. More shocking than that is that the international community, including the UK and the EU, does nothing to require Israel to abide by international law, despite all the claims made about European support for human rights and international law.

During its visit, the delegation spent a day with the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which is the agency responsible for humanitarian emergencies. It briefed us on the way in which the wall, the closures, the settlements and the separate system of settler roads were imprisoning the Palestinians. It published a map in the Financial Times to mark the 40th anniversary of the occupation, which is available for all to see.

The delegation spent the second day of its visit with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, an organisation that I greatly admire. The committee took us on a tour of East Jerusalem and showed us how the combination of formal and informal settlements, and systematic house demolition, was encircling East Jerusalem and how that constrained, displaced and ethnically cleansed the Palestinian population. When we were with ICAHD, we witnessed a house demolition. A massive machine with “Volvo” emblazoned on its side destroyed a substantial house that was built by a Palestinian family on their own land and in territory that belongs to the Palestinians under international law—formally, it is occupied territory.

Women relatives of the occupants quietly wept at the side of the road. Later, a young man was held back by his friends—he wanted to throw himself at the soldiers who were protecting the demolition, to do something about the destruction of his family home. The representative of ICAHD, a young Israeli, said that the demolition was, of course, a war crime. The point about that is that under the Geneva convention, an occupying power is not entitled to impose new laws or to settle in occupied territory. Houses are being demolished because Palestinians do not have permits to build, even on their own land. However, Israel is not entitled to introduce such a permit system. It never gives a permit to build a house, or after a house has been built. When Palestinian families expand, they must live somewhere, but Israel will never issue a permit because of its determination to drive Palestinians out of East Jerusalem.

According to ICAHD, Israel has demolished 18,000 Palestinian homes in the way I described since 1967. Each demolition was a war crime. More shocking than that is the fact that no action is taken to force Israel to adhere to international law. Later, the delegation visited a family whose house had been demolished and rebuilt by volunteers from ICAHD—Israelis and Palestinians worked together to rebuild a home for a Palestinian family. ICAHD is committed to acts of peaceful civil disobedience in order that international law is upheld. The family said how grateful they were to once again have a home. A Palestinian who works for ICAHD said that his house had been demolished four times. He said that most Palestinian homes in Jerusalem were subject to demolition orders, so everyone lives with the fear and insecurity that when they arrive home, they might find that their home has been destroyed. He said that when the Israelis arrive to demolish a person’s house, they give them 15 minutes in which to collect their family and belongings.

Normally, people refuse to co-operate. The ICAHD worker told me that in such a situation, the demolition people use tear gas. He told me that he stood there, with his wife fainting and his children crying while their property was being thrown out of their house on to the ground. He said that it made him feel like a useless man who could not even protect his family in their home, and that three possible courses of action passed through his mind.

• First, full of hate and anger, he thought about obtaining a suicide vest and destroying his own life and that of others.
  
• Secondly, he thought about whether he could get out of Palestine and Jerusalem, being unable to bear the pressure being put on him and his family, but that would be to co-operate in the ethnic-cleansing that he opposed.
  
• Thirdly—he said that this kept him sane—he said he thought about working for ICAHD to rebuild the demolished homes in peaceful civil disobedience.

I understand that ICAHD has given a pledge to rebuild all the demolished homes in this, the 40th year of the occupation, and that—poignantly—an American holocaust survivor is funding the work. I hope that all people of good will will support ICAHD financially and politically in that endeavour. Importantly, the organisation brings radical Israelis and Palestinians together and creates a space for hope in an otherwise hopeless situation.

The delegation’s third day was hosted by the Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, which is War on Want’s partner in Palestine. We were briefed about how the closures have destroyed the Palestinian economy—that has subsequently been underlined by a World Bank report—and also how more and more Palestinians are forced to work for the Israeli settlements to produce agricultural products and other goods that are exported largely to the European market, to which trade agreements give Israel privileged access. Illegal settlements using Palestinians as cheap labour is another element of the new apartheid system in which the EU and the UK fully collude.

The delegation went to visit the Jordan valley with a representative of the Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. The situation there is truly terrible. All fertile land near the river has been confiscated by Israel, supposedly for security purposes under the Oslo peace accords. In the remaining territory, there are occasionally settlements, some of only one person, which lead to Palestinian families being removed from their land for security reasons. There are acres of plastic greenhouses that are organised and worked by settlers and which are strategically located over water sources. They grow organic herbs and other agricultural produce for the European market and yet, when we visited a totally impoverished nearby Palestinian village, we found that there was no school and, that day, no water—the one tap in the village gave no water. The impoverished Palestinians must buy water by the bucket from the settlers.

We visited farming families whose relatives had lived on the land in the Jordan valley for generations to grow crops, herd sheep and goats, and to make cheese. They were being threatened and moved constantly as new settlements of only one or a few people brought in the army, which claimed that they had to move for security reasons. We stopped to talk to another family who had a compound at the side of the road. A house bought for their son and his family on their own land had been demolished, and their aubergine crop was rotting in a heap in front of the house because they could not get it to market.

There is terrible poverty and abuse of human rights in the Jordan valley. The people there are being grossly neglected. I appeal to the Minister, the Department for International Development and all the humanitarian and non-governmental organisations to do more in the Jordan valley—it is in a terrible situation, and more could be done to bring instant relief.

My conclusion is pessimistic, and the prospect of a two-state solution is being destroyed.

• Instead, we are allowing a new, brutal apartheid regime to be created with the Palestinians being confined to ghettoes and used as cheap labour by the settlers.
• The Hamas takeover in Gaza is not the cause of the problem, but the consequence of it.
  
• The refusal of the UK and the EU to provide aid to the Palestinian Authority following the Hamas election victory has helped to create the problem.
• The arming of Fatah by US and Israeli forces to enable it to fight Hamas in Gaza made the takeover inevitable.
• Now it seems that efforts are to be made to offer money and inducements to President Abbas to accept the monstrous ghettoes as the promised Palestinian state.
  
• As Uri Avnery, the great Israeli peace campaigner, said, they want him to act as a quisling, and that will not bring peace.

• In conclusion, the situation in the Palestinian territories is deeply distressing and depressing, and the Government and the EU are colluding in that oppression and the building of a new apartheid regime.
  
• In particular, Israel has privileged access to the EU market under a trade treaty that, like all EU trade treaties, contains human rights conditions.
  
• I hope that the Minister will explain why those conditions are not invoked to insist on Israeli compliance with international law.
  
• That is a big lever, and Israel would be frightened of losing access to the EU market. I wish that we would make use of that for everyone’s benefit.

I fear continuing bloodshed and suffering, and further destabilisation of the middle east. The situation in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories is fuelling the anger of the Muslim world, which is acting as a recruiting sergeant for the ugly ideology of Osama bin Laden and those who advocate similar ideas.

It is in the interests of the people of Israel, the Palestinians and the wider middle east that there should be a two-state solution to bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but that possibility is being thrown away by Israel, which is determined constantly to expand its borders in total breach of international law. The UK and the EU are, sadly, colluding in that, and the consequences are causing terrible suffering, and endangering the future. I truly hope that our new Prime Minister will reconsider that policy, and that the Opposition parties will reconsider and bring pressure to bear to bring the situation back from the brink and to ensure that the centrepiece of UK policy is a just peace and Israeli compliance with international law.

The Minister for the Middle East (Dr. Kim Howells): I thank the right hon. Lady for initiating this debate and for her comments. I also thank her for her eye-witness account of the illegal activities of the Israeli defence forces and others in demolishing houses along the route of the wall, the barrier or fence, where it incorporates Palestinian land illegally. I agree entirely with the right hon. Lady that that not only breaks international law but generates huge resentment, not just in Palestine but throughout the region. We have constantly urged the Israelis not to do that, and it is ironic that lawyers in Israel have given Palestinians their redress only about the route of the wall. Sometimes that route has been altered as a consequence of legal action that Palestinians have taken, especially in and around Jerusalem.

The right hon. Lady’s point about generating sympathy for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda is prescient, and we ignore such warnings at our peril. I take her message about the Jordan valley needing the attention of the Department for International Development. I, too, was shocked when I saw the extent to which so much of the Palestinian economy on the west bank has collapsed. I shall come to Gaza in a moment.

This is one of those times in history when, from an appalling tragedy of Palestinians killing Palestinians in Gaza, one hopes that the Israelis and everyone else will take a real step forward, remove the barriers on the west bank, and allow people to trade properly. The right hon. Lady referred to a crop of aubergines that were rotting in the field, and we have heard such stories so many times.

Here is where Howells switches to LFI mode.

I understand, as I am sure can everyone, why Israel has built barriers, and I know why it has built the wall. On my last visit but one, I went to see some old lefties—I do not know how to describe them—in a kibbutz up on the old Jerusalem road. Very reluctantly, they told me that life had become easier since the barrier was built because they were not worried about their kids going out, as suicide bombers were finding it much harder to come in from Nablus and other towns. I tried to argue then, and I argue now, that they will find ways of getting in and killing innocent citizens, because resentment will continue to build up unless the core issue is tackled.

Clare Short:

I simply want to say that, ugly and regrettable as the wall is, if it were on the 1967 boundary it would be one thing, but it is taking great swathes of Palestinian land and dividing communities from their land. That was found to be illegal by the International Court of Justice, and there is no excuse for it.

Dr. Howells:

The right hon. Lady is absolutely correct. I was quite shocked even to discuss with Labour Ministers in Israel some time ago their unwillingness to build tunnels, for example, to join cantons together. It is hard to believe that a viable state, albeit small, could emerge from such a geographical configuration. It is difficult to see how it could work. We must keep pressing the Israelis.

I do not agree with the right hon. Lady about sanctions—she did not refer to sanctions, but I have heard people talk about them. She referred to withdrawal of the preferential trade agreement with the EU. It is a fair subject for debate, although I am sceptical about making such moves, but that is my subjective assessment. It is a subject that should be discussed, and it is widely discussed throughout Europe. I tend to feel that there is already so much tension and there are so many difficulties that I am not sure that that would advance the cause of peace.

If the right hon. Lady will allow me, I shall say something about Gaza, because we share her deep concern about what has happened there. It is a tragedy, and it underlines the urgent need to maintain international engagement and the current political processes.

We are also concerned, as is the right hon. Lady, about the welfare of Alan Johnston, the BBC journalist, whose family must be going through the most dreadful time. We condemn the release of the latest video, which can only add further distress to his family and friends. We urge his captors, as I know does the right hon. Lady, to release him immediately. There should be a general release of captives on both sides— Corporal Shalit, the soldiers who were kidnapped by Hezbollah, the councillors and elected parliamentary representatives of the Palestinian people. Now is the time to make such moves, and I hope that after the disaster in Gaza there will be a sense that this historic opportunity should not be missed, and that misery should not be heaped on the existing misery.

I also extend our thanks to the Egyptian Government for initiating the meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh yesterday between President Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan, whom I had the privilege of speaking with just last week. He brought to the situation a sharp series of observations, which the right hon. Lady complemented today, and he understands the gravity of the situation. If the west bank statelet—that group of cantons—fails, one wonders where the conflict will spread to next. Jordan, with its huge Palestinian population, would be in grave danger, and King Abdullah is well aware of that. He was at Sharm el-Sheikh, as were Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas.

We welcome Prime Minister Olmert’s statement that he will work, with President Abbas as a true partner, towards the establishment of a two-state solution and the implementation of the road map. There are some positive aspects, but I agree with the right hon. Lady that it is a pretty bleak picture. It is as bleak as I can ever remember it, but the decision by Prime Minister Olmert to transfer the withheld revenues is probably a positive step forward, and we look forward to the implementation of the commitments to increase freedom of movement and expand trade connections in the west bank. Such actions are not rocket science; they can easily be done and they could make a big difference, if only to that family about whom the right hon. Lady spoke, with their crop of aubergines.

Such actions are vital to the Palestinian people, and they have helped to improve the humanitarian and economic situation, which is critical. We welcome Prime Minister Olmert’s pledge to ensure the continued supply of humanitarian aid to Gaza. As the right hon. Lady knows, we have earmarked funding for that project. It does not address the central issue that she has raised today, but there is an immediate humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which the international community must address. It is important that the international community works together to help all Palestinian people.

President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad’s Government have our full support, and we share their aim of restoring security and improving the economic and humanitarian situation. We continue to work with all people, including President Abbas, who are dedicated to a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

The right hon. Lady did not mention this point, because time is always limited in such debates, but President Abbas, among others, has said that there ought to be an international peacekeeping force in Gaza certainly, if not on the west bank. I can see the right hon. Lady shaking her head, and one cannot imagine who would donate the troops to such a force. They would have to fight their way in, there would be bloodshed and mayhem on a huge scale, and quite frankly, I cannot see the idea coming off.

To reinforce what the right hon. Lady said, we must understand the gravity of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, address it and at the same time, urge Israel as hard as we possibly can to think again about its policy of incorporating Palestinian villages and land within the confines of that wall. As she said, the Israelis have a perfect right to defend themselves, and if they want to build a wall, it is up to them, but it ought to be along the agreed frontier—such as it is—that was defined in 1967. It ought not to encroach on Palestinian territory.

It is important that we receive such reports in the House. In so many ways, that is what such debates are for—so that we are reminded constantly of the reality of what can sometimes look like great, strategic trends and events on the world stage. However, for the family whom the right hon. Lady described so vividly, the reality is that their lives have been shattered. Many other families’ lives have been, too. I have always considered myself to be a friend of the Palestinian people and the Israeli people. I was brought up in a home in which the dreams of everybody who was interested in the subject were about people living alongside each other peacefully, not even in separate states.

I shall not apportion blame; I have been around too long for that. I have seen the successive invasions of Israel, and what the Israelis have done in an attempt to head off what they perceive as threats to the Israeli heartland, which has usually meant extending territory. My message to the Israelis is simple; if they are to live in peace side by side with their neighbours, the Israelis must help them become viable states with economies that can live in a competitive world. They need the education, skills, infrastructure and wherewithal to do all that, but most important, they need the self-respect and dignity that we enjoy as members of sovereign states.

Clare Short:

May I press the Minister to reconsider his view on Israeli access to the EU market? If we invoked the human rights conditionality in that treaty, we would have a lever with which to press Israel to do what he calls for. Does not our failure to use that leverage mean that we are colluding in the breach of international law? Will he reconsider his position on that point?

Dr. Howells:

I certainly do not believe that we are colluding in any shape or form. I was going to come to that point, but with respect to the right hon. Lady, “colluding” is certainly the wrong word to use. I know that she chose that word very carefully, but I do not think that it is the right one. I can speak only subjectively from my meeting with other European Ministers. She, too, met her counterparts from the EU and other nations many times. There is at one extreme a sense of hopelessness, which she also described today in a very grim analysis of the situation. I am at the other extreme. I keep telling myself that we have material to work with, and that it is a very small part of the world. What is Gaza? Ten miles wide, and at the most, 35 to 40 miles long. It has a wonderful beach on the Mediterranean, and I remember vividly the first time I ever walked on it, thinking, “Why is this a poor part of the world? Why haven’t people here got any jobs?” It seemed mad to me.

The right hon. Lady expressed the hope that my right hon. Friend the new Prime Minister would take the issue by the scruff of the neck and try to do something with it. She knows that he has been very interested for a very long time in trying to work with the Israelis and the Arab countries in the area to do something about that economy and that infrastructure. I disagree with her about the effect of that general sense of good will towards Israel and Palestine—the desire throughout Europe that there should be a good outcome, and peace and prosperity in the future. In the end, we disagree about whether applying a screw to the Israelis on the question of human rights compliance would achieve a great deal.

We should at every possible opportunity engage the Israelis on human rights and on compliance with their undertakings, which, as a consequence, enable them to enjoy access to the European market. We should talk to them about that, but I have a feeling that there are already far too many strictures on all sides to add another one. It would just create more tension, and we should try to build on what we have, aim for the high ground and figure out how we can get there by engaging with both sides.

Red Rag - Prosecuting Mordechai Vanunu

Red Rag - Prosecuting Mordechai Vanunu
By: Gideon Spiro

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

To the Hon. Yoel Tzur,
Deputy to President of The Magistrates Court in Jerusalem
6 Heshin St.
Jerusalem, 95156

On Monday, July 2nd, 2007, you sentenced whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu to six months in prison, non-commutable, after finding him guilty of violating an administrative injunction issued by the General Commanding Officer (GCO) of the Central Command prohibiting Vanunu from speaking with foreign journalists.

The State's indictment was a spiteful and vindictive act. It was instigated by Israeli security services, using the judicial system as a means to continue the persecution of Mordechai Vanunu perpetrated by the Israeli government, after serving his 18 years sentence as a prisoner of conscience.

The Shin-Bet (General Security Services), Yehiel Horev - Chief of Security at the Defense Ministry, the police, and the State Attorney's Office continue to harass Mordechai Vanunu by imposing restrictions that impinge on his rights to freedom of speech and movement. They cannot forgive him that after 18 years in prison, 11.5 of them in solitary confinement, he refuses to repent his democratic act (the public's right to know) of revealing to the Sunday Times in 1986 that Israel has a nuclear arsenal, and for remaining dedicated to the struggle against nuclear weapons.

The real criminals, Mr Tzur, are those who produce nuclear weapons without our permission, putting our lives and our neighbours' lives in danger, and polluting the planet. Not the person who alerts us to these dangers.

I attended all the sessions of the trial and was impressed by the calm and relaxed atmosphere you maintained. At the end of one session I even said to Mr Vanunu's lawyers, Avigdor Feldman and Michael Sfard, that your pleasant judicial air gives hope that the incredible will happen, and Vanunu will be found innocent. But I knew that the chances of an Israeli judge not succumbing to the Shin-Bet, especially on the issue of Vanunu, is less likely than Rabbi Ovadiah Yossef renouncing religion.

You convicted Vanunu for speaking with foreigners. The indictment did not mention the content of these conversations. He was not charged with revealing secrets (incidentally a prohibition which I cannot accept - as a journalist I revealed classified information when I thought it was of public interest). He was charged and convicted for simply speaking in violation of the GCO's injunction.

Assuming that you are a reasonably educated person, you should know what kind of corrupt, tyrannical and dark regimes allow generals to determine what civilians may or may not do. Your ruling, affirming the general's decree, lends support to this kind of regime.

Although Israeli judges capitulating to the security services is an exasperating routine, I am always astonished by the capacity of judges to turn a blind eye and ignore basic principles of human rights, such as freedom of speech, and by the unbearable ease by which they will take away a person's freedom.

It is not every day that a judge has the opportunity to rise above the routine and make history by issuing a ruling that could be a landmark in the chronicles of the struggle for civil rights.

Vanunu's trial was your opportunity. Civil rights activists in Israel and around the world would have lionized you had you ruled that it is intolerable and insubmissible for an army general to restrict the freedom of a civilian and to determine with whom he may or may not speak. You could have issued an opinion that would have been a ray light in our democracy, combining wisdom, reason, and good judgment had you ruled that the Emergency Laws in Israel, which allow the military to restrict human rights, violate Israel's Declaration of Independence and all the international treaties ratified by Israel. As such, the Emergency Laws are clearly illegal, and therefore Vanunu is completely innocent, and no one has the right to infringe on his personal sovereignty to converse with Israelis, tourists, journalists or cobblers.

Too bad that you did not rise to the occasion! Your verdict is yet another smelly fart in a string of stinky and disgraceful rulings, in which judges acted as the government's loyal dog. You can only console yourself with knowing that you are not alone in the kingdom of yea-saying fools, and that the District and Supreme Court judges have been no better than you on the issue of Vanunu. You are all in the same stinking swamp.

When you and your friends fade into the black hole of history, Mordechai Vanunu will remain the bright light who contributed greatly to the regional and world struggle against weapons of mass destruction. It is for good reason that he has received several important peace prizes, and is a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. If there is any light your dark ruling - an unintended consequence – it is that it may hasten him getting the Nobel Peace Prize.

Gideon Spiro

Copies to:
Dorit Beinish, President of the Supreme Court
Meni Mazuz, Attorney General
Daniel Friedmann, Minister of Justice
Dan Eldad, Prosecuter

* Translated from Hebrew by Ilana Hairston.

Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah, right? Wrong!

Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah, right? Wrong!

The assault on Lebanon was premeditated - the soldiers' capture simply provided the excuse. It was also unnecessary

George Monbiot
Tuesday August 8, 2006
The Guardian
Comment

Whatever we think of Israel's assault on Lebanon, all of us seem to agree about one fact: that it was a response, however disproportionate, to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah. I repeated this "fact" in my last column, when I wrote that "Hizbullah fired the first shots". This being so, the Israeli government's supporters ask peaceniks like me, what would you have done? It's an important question. But its premise, I have now discovered, is flawed.

Since Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000, there have been hundreds of violations of the "blue line" between the two countries. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) reports that Israeli aircraft crossed the line "on an almost daily basis" between 2001 and 2003, and "persistently" until 2006. These incursions "caused great concern to the civilian population, particularly low-altitude flights that break the sound barrier over populated areas". On some occasions, Hizbullah tried to shoot them down with anti-aircraft guns.

In October 2000, the Israel Defence Forces shot at unarmed Palestinian demonstrators on the border, killing three and wounding 20. In response, Hizbullah crossed the line and kidnapped three Israeli soldiers. On several occasions, Hizbullah fired missiles and mortar rounds at IDF positions, and the IDF responded with heavy artillery and sometimes aerial bombardment. Incidents like this killed three Israelis and three Lebanese in 2003; one Israeli soldier and two Hizbullah fighters in 2005; and two Lebanese people and three Israeli soldiers in February 2006. Rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel several times in 2004, 2005 and 2006, on some occasions by Hizbullah. But, the UN records, "none of the incidents resulted in a military escalation".

On May 26 this year, two officials of Islamic Jihad - Nidal and Mahmoud Majzoub - were killed by a car bomb in the Lebanese city of Sidon. This was widely assumed in Lebanon and Israel to be the work of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. In June, a man named Mahmoud Rafeh confessed to the killings and admitted that he had been working for Mossad since 1994. Militants in southern Lebanon responded, on the day of the bombing, by launching eight rockets into Israel. One soldier was lightly wounded. There was a major bust-up on the border, during which one member of Hizbullah was killed and several wounded, and one Israeli soldier wounded. But while the border region "remained tense and volatile", Unifil says it was "generally quiet" until July 12.

There has been a heated debate on the internet about whether the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah that day were captured in Israel or in Lebanon, but it now seems pretty clear that they were seized in Israel. This is what the UN says, and even Hizbullah seems to have forgotten that they were supposed to have been found sneaking around the outskirts of the Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab. Now it simply states that "the Islamic resistance captured two Israeli soldiers at the border with occupied Palestine". Three other Israeli soldiers were killed by the militants. There is also some dispute about when, on July 12, Hizbullah first fired its rockets; but Unifil makes it clear that the firing took place at the same time as the raid - 9am. Its purpose seems to have been to create a diversion. No one was hit.

But there is no serious debate about why the two soldiers were captured: Hizbullah was seeking to exchange them for the 15 prisoners of war taken by the Israelis during the occupation of Lebanon and (in breach of article 118 of the third Geneva convention) never released. It seems clear that if Israel had handed over the prisoners, it would - without the spillage of any more blood - have retrieved its men and reduced the likelihood of further kidnappings. But the Israeli government refused to negotiate. Instead - well, we all know what happened instead. Almost 1,000 Lebanese and 33 Israeli civilians have been killed so far, and a million Lebanese displaced from their homes.

On July 12, in other words, Hizbullah fired the first shots. But that act of aggression was simply one instance in a long sequence of small incursions and attacks over the past six years by both sides. So why was the Israeli response so different from all that preceded it? The answer is that it was not a reaction to the events of that day. The assault had been planned for months.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that "more than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to US and other diplomats, journalists and thinktanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail". The attack, he said, would last for three weeks. It would begin with bombing and culminate in a ground invasion. Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, told the paper that "of all of Israel's wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared ... By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we're seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it's been simulated and rehearsed across the board".

A "senior Israeli official" told the Washington Post that the raid by Hizbullah provided Israel with a "unique moment" for wiping out the organisation. The New Statesman's editor, John Kampfner, says he was told by more than one official source that the US government knew in advance of Israel's intention to take military action in Lebanon. The Bush administration told the British government.

Israel's assault, then, was premeditated: it was simply waiting for an appropriate excuse. It was also unnecessary. It is true that Hizbullah had been building up munitions close to the border, as its current rocket attacks show. But so had Israel. Just as Israel could assert that it was seeking to deter incursions by Hizbullah, Hizbullah could claim - also with justification - that it was trying to deter incursions by Israel. The Lebanese army is certainly incapable of doing so. Yes, Hizbullah should have been pulled back from the Israeli border by the Lebanese government and disarmed. Yes, the raid and the rocket attack on July 12 were unjustified, stupid and provocative, like just about everything that has taken place around the border for the past six years. But the suggestion that Hizbullah could launch an invasion of Israel or that it constitutes an existential threat to the state is preposterous. Since the occupation ended, all its acts of war have been minor ones, and nearly all of them reactive.

So it is not hard to answer the question of what we would have done. First, stop recruiting enemies, by withdrawing from the occupied territories in Palestine and Syria. Second, stop provoking the armed groups in Lebanon with violations of the blue line - in particular the persistent flights across the border. Third, release the prisoners of war who remain unlawfully incarcerated in Israel. Fourth, continue to defend the border, while maintaining the diplomatic pressure on Lebanon to disarm Hizbullah (as anyone can see, this would be much more feasible if the occupations were to end). Here then is my challenge to the supporters of the Israeli government: do you dare to contend that this programme would have caused more death and destruction than the current adventure has done?

www.monbiot.com

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SonnyBoyBlue
August 8, 2006 2:17 AM

Nice article Mr. Monbiot. For all the pro-Israeli dupes unable to mount any argument and who resort to insults, even honest Israeli commentators plainly state that this invasion was in the works for many months. There are thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese being held ilegally, there have been dozens of Palestinians kidnapped and assasintaed by the Israelis. Yet you fall for this feeble excuse they have proffered as a defense to slaughter hundreds and destroy a nation.

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Just4all
August 8, 2006 2:28 AM

In response to goog1, I believe to be fair we should include the following excerpt from the same Wikipedia piece : "In 1995 Nelson Mandela presented him with a United Nations Global 500 Award for outstanding environmental achievement. He has also won the Lloyds National Screenwriting Prize for his screenplay The Norwegian, a Sony Award for radio production, the Sir Peter Kent Award and the OneWorld National Press Award"

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No, Rivkele, The Jews Weren't Driven into Exile by the Romans

No, Rivkele, The Jews Weren't Driven into Exile by the Romans

Sunday, July 29, 2007

"In A.D. 70, and again in 135, the Roman Empire brutally put down Jewish revolts in Judea, destroying Jerusalem, killing hundreds of thousands of Jews and sending hundreds of thousands more into slavery and exile."

Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, May 5, 2006

"Well, now: We were expelled from the land and taken into captivity in the year 70 of the Common Era."

Leonard Fein, The Jewish Daily Forward, May 11, 2007–07–23

"After Bar Kochba…Jewish emigration, a more or less permanent feature of ancient Palestinian demography, now assumed alarming proportions."

Salo Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews (New York/Philadelphia, 1952), vol. 2, pp. 122-3.

Despite their ideological differences, what unites columnists like Charles Krauthammer and Leonard Fein, and what distinguishes them from Salo Baron,the greatest historian of the Jews in the twentieth century, is inter alia their acceptance of the myth that the Jews were forcibly expelled from the Land of Israel, and taken into captivity by the Romans. To this day, most lay people, Jews and non-Jews, accept the myth of the exile, whereas no historian, Jew or non-Jew, takes it seriously.

This post will look at the disconnect between popular and scholarly belief and try to examine the origin of the myth several centuries after the event occurred. I will follow pretty closely the first part of a comprehensive article on the subject by Hebrew University professor, Yisrael Yuval, which is available here . Because this article is under copyright, I can’t quote more than a few passages, and so I will just be paraphrasing him. But I urge you to read the article, especially his copious footnotes.

The myth was not invented by the Zionists, although it was greatly used by them, in part, to justify the return of the Jews to their ancestral homeland. For the tacit assumption of the Zionists was that if the Jews had left the land willingly, if they had merely “emigrated” because they found opportunities beckoning in the Diaspora, then they would have betrayed their allegiance to the land, and their return would have been less justified. That is one of the reasons why Zionists argued for years that the Palestinians left Palestine of their own free will – if they were forcibly expelled, then somehow their claim to the land would be stronger. Of course, the putative expulsion by the Romans was not the only claim of the Jewish people to the land – many peoples have been exiled from their lands, and the Zionists were not claiming that all of them had a right to return -- but it dovetailed nicely with the historical view of the wandering Jew that finds no rest outside of his native place from which he was expelled. The first point to make is that well before the revolt against Rome in 66-70 c.e., there were Jewish communities outside Palestine, most notably in Babylonia and in Egypt, but elsewhere as well. References to the dispersal of the Jewish people throughout the civilized world are found in the book of Esther, Josephus, and Philo. There is no indication that these communities were small, satellite communities. Second, there is no contemporary evidence – i.e., 1st and 2nd centuries c.e. – that anything like an exile took place. The Romans put down two Jewish revolts in 66-70 c.e. and in 132-135 c.e. According to Josephus, the rebels were killed, and many of the Jews died of hunger. Some prisoners were sent to Rome, and others were sold in Libya. But nowhere does Josephus speak of Jews being taken into exile. As we shall see below, there is much evidence to the contrary. There was always Jewish emigration from the Land of Israel, as the quote above from Baron indicates. The first mention of the exile of the Jews occurs in remarks attributed to the third century Palestinian rabbi, R. Yohanan that are found in the Babylonian Talmud, a work that received its final recension several centuries later (c. 500 c.e.): “Our House has been destroyed, our Temple burnt, and we ourselves exiled from our land” (Gittin, 56a). The editor/s of the Talmud referred this statement to the Roman exile. Similar statements can be found elsewhere in the Babylonian Talmud attributing to rabbis living in the Land of Israel the view that the Romans were responsible for the destruction of the House, the burning of the temple, and the exile from the land. But if one examines other Babylonian sources, and most sources from the Land of Israel, the statements most likely refer to the First Temple, and the exile by the Babylonians. There is, after all, something odd in having rabbis living in the Land of Israel bemoaning an exile from the Land of Israel. Yuval summarizes the sources as follows: “In other words, it seems that the triple expression—destruction of the House, burning of the Temple, exile from the land—originally (in the sources from the Land of Israel) referred to the First Temple and were applied to the Second Temple only in Babylonia.10 In the Tannaitic and early Amoraic sources, Rome is accused only of destroying the Temple, not of exiling the people from their land.11 A broad historical and national outlook, one that viewed the “Exile of Edom” (Rome being identified with the biblical Edom) as a political result of forced expulsion, did not survive from this period. Nor would such a view have been appropriate to the political reality and the conditions of Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel, which were certainly very well known to the members of that generation.” In fact, Chaim Milikowsky, professor and past chairman of the Talmud department at Bar Ilan university, has argued that in 2nd and 3rd century tannaitic sources, the Hebrew term rendered as “exile” has the meaning of political subjugation rather than physically being driven from the land (cited in Yuval, p. 19, n.1) This, by the way, dovetails nicely with the Zionist historiography that emphasizes the loss of political independence, rather the physical removal of the Jews from the Land of Israel. For Zionists were somewhat at a loss to explain how Jewish rabbis could create the Mishnah and subsequently the Talmud of the Land of Israel if there was a mass exile. This much of Yuval’s essay is uncontroversial and based on widely-accepted historiography. What follows is speculative and fits well the general trend of Yuval’s work, which is to see much greater Christian influence on the formation of rabbinic Judaism than has hitherto been recognized. Yuval points out that in early Christian sources, following the failed Bar Kokhba rebellion, there is an attempt to interpret the removal of the Jews from Jerusalem as punishment for the sin of rejecting Christ, and the depletion of the Jewish population of Jerusalem in light of the Biblical prophecies of exile. The Jewish reaction, on his reading, was to emphasize that Jews were still very much in the Land of Israel – which contemporary Jews, for the first time, interpreted to include not merely the Northern Kingdom of Israel, but the entire land. Only later, during Talmudic times, was the Exile from the Land incorporated in Jewish collective memory. What implications does the exposure of the myth of the Roman Exile have for Zionism, the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, etc., etc. None, in my opinion. It is less important that the Jews were actually carried off into Exile than that they thought they were. The rabbis, and even earlier Jewish scholars, tended to conflate the Babylonian exile with the later loss of independence among the Romans. As a formative moment in Jewish religious consciousness, the destruction of the first temple and the exile was vastly more significant than the destruction of the second temple; some, like Bible scholar Adele Berlin, have argued that parts of the Bible, and maybe even the Torah, were edited in light of the trauma of the Babylonian exile. What this means is that in Jewish (and Christian) consciousness destruction, exile, and return, became significant categories in light of which history was read. If there is any argument for a right to return, it is not based, in the case of the Jews, on being driven out of the land against their will. It is more because of the Land of Israel playing such an important role in the consciousness of many (though not all) Jews. This is a more modest claim than is generally heard; it certainly does not in itself justify Jewish hegemony over Palestine. But it does put on the table the very real connection (imagined or not) between the Jewish people and Palestine. That, to me, is what is reasonable about Zionism. In the words of J.K. Rowling, just because it is in your head doesn’t mean that it is not real.

http://themagneszionist.blogspot.com/2007/08/why-jnf-lands-were-acquired-improperly.html

The Magnes Zionist

Friday, August 3, 2007

Jeremiah (Jerry) Haber is the nom de plume of an orthodox Jewish studies professor based in Israel. The picture is not of me, but of my kind of Zionist, Judah Magnes. Why do I write under a pseudonym? Not because I am afraid of being hounded, like Norman Finkelstein -- thank God, I have tenure. But because I want to keep my academic persona and my polemical persona distinct. Writing under a pseudonym allows me to be more "unbuttoned." Maybe that's a copout; maybe not. But if your really insist on knowing who I am, contact me off-blog at jeremiah.haber@gmail.com

Why the JNF Lands Were Acquired Improperly -- Now According to Bar Ilan Researcher Yossi Katz

Bar Ilan University, that bastion of religious Zionism, issued a press release in which one of its researchers, Prof. Yossi Katz, explains how the Jewish National Fund acquired its lands. From this press release, which purports to justify the bogus land sale, we see how the JNF and Israel stole the land from the Arabs.

Thank you, Prof. Katz,

I am pasting below the press release in Hebrew. Basically, it says that all the lands that the JNF own was bought at market value by the Jews. Fine, what Prof. Katz doesn't say -- and what he knows, but is too embarrassed, apparently, to admit -- is that the land that the Jews bought from the government was acquired as part of military conquest and sold without the knowledge, and presumably, without the consent of the owners. So, the JNF paid good money for land that did not belong to the government legally to sell! Even the legal advisor to the government at the time questioned the legality of the sale. Of course, all this is irrelevant to the present bill -- because even if the Arabs sold their lands willingly to the JNF, the present racist bill discriminates in sale against Arabs. Abe Foxman knows that and Moshe Arens knows that -- that is why they oppose it. I am not surprised that Bar Ilan doesn't get it -- is this a serious university, or what? (I am embarrassed to be in its employ) Shabbat Shalom from the city of Herzl

Jerry Haber

The Magnes Zionist

פרופ' יוסי כץ: "אדמות קק"ל נרכשו מתרומות של יהודים" --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- פרופ' יוסי כץ: "על בסיס מקורות הארכיונים ומחקרים מובהקים רכישות הקק"ל נעשו בכספי תורמים מרחבי העולם היהודי" ■ "2.3 מליון דונם שנרכשו מכספי יהודים, נרכשו בכסף מלא, במחירי השוק ואף למעלה מזה, חייבים להישאר בידי קק"ל" --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- על בסיס מקורות הארכיונים ומחקרים מובהקים שהתייחסו לנושא מוכיח פרופ' כץ כי כמעט כל קרקעות הקק"ל נרכשו בתקופה שמראשית המאה ה-20 ועד ראשית שנות החמישים והם הסתכמו בכ- 2.3 מליון דונם. מליון דונם נרכש עד 1948 – רוב רובו מערבים ומקצתו מיהודים. היתר, כ- 1.3 מליון דונם נרכשו בשנות החמישים הראשונות מידי המדינה. כל הקרקעות הנ"ל (2.3 מליון דונם) נרכשו בכסף מלא, במחירי השוק ואף למעלה מזה, כדי להבטיח את בעלותה המלאה של הקק"ל. אין שחר לטענה כי המדינה העבירה לקק"ל קרקעות ללא תמורה או בתמורה נמוכה מערכן הריאלי. עוד עולה ממחקריו של פרופ' כץ כי המדינה מכרה לקק"ל בראשית שנות ה-50 כ- 1.3 מליון דונם. המכירה ותנאיה סוכמו בין המדינה לקק"ל בחוזה והמחירים שיקפו ערכים ריאליים של הקרקעות הנמכרות. המדינה לא ויתרה בעניין זה; השמאי הממשלתי היה מעורב בעסקות ועל רקע הפיחותים והאינפלציה הוצמדו המחירים ועודכנו. רכישות הקק"ל נעשו בכספי התורמים מרחבי העולם היהודי. צורות התרומה היו מגוונות; מ'הקופה הכחולה' ועד מפעלי התרמה בהם שותפו קהילות שלמות. יש לציין שתשלום הקק"ל למדינה עבור ה-1.מליון דונם נעשה בחלקו עוד לפני שישראל החלה לקבל את כספי השילומים מגרמניה. בעקבות החלטת הכנסת מלפני שבוע, לאשר בקריאה טרומית את הצעת החוק של ח"כ אורי אריאל הקובעת כי מנהל מקרקעי ישראל אינו רשאי להחכיר את קרקעות הקק"ל למי שאינם יהודים, שיגר הבוקר פרופ' יוסי כץ, ראש הקתדרה ללימודי תולדות קק"ל ומפעליה באוני' בר-אילן, לראש הממשלה מכתב. פרופ' כץ קובע כי 1.3 מליון דונם קרקעות שבבעלות קק"ל נרכשו כדין מתרומות של יהודים מכל רחבי העולם. לפיכך, קובע פרופ' כץ כי על הממשלה לתמוך ולהוביל את הצעת החוק שעברה בקריאה טרומית.

Removal of Roadblocks and Checkpoints in the West Bank - June 2007

Removal of Roadblocks and Checkpoints in the West Bank - June 2007

Based on Btselem and Ocha data

• Total Number of Roadblocks and Checkpoints: 560
Manned Checkpoints - 93 (16.61% of total)
Permanent Roadblocks (Gates, cement blocks, earth mount) - 467 (83.39% of total)
Total - 560

• Total Number of Manned Checkpoints: 93
Checkpoint into Israel - 35 (37.63% of total)
Internal Checkpoint - 43 (46.24% of total)
Internal Checkpoint in Hebron - 15 (16.13% of total)
Total 93

Internal Checkpoints
More than half of the manned checkpoints (and almost all of the roadblocks) are internal, and are not the last point before entry into Israel. As such no Palestinian can pass through these roadblocks/checkpoints without passing another checkpoint before entering Israeli territory. Thus there is no immediate security necessity in order to prevent a terror infiltration into Israel.
These roadblocks restrict the freedom of movement for the majority of Palestinians, as a short journey between areas is turned into a trip with lengthy waiting periods at each checkpoint.

Safety Concerns for the Soldiers
The checkpoint is a dangerous place for the soldiers manning it. Soldiers are required to man one area for lengthy periods of times and come in close contact with the Palestinian population, raising the risk of a suicide attack. Each checkpoint requires at least 6 soldiers per shift for many hours of the day, using a large portion of the army’s personnel.

Examples: Effects of the Roadblocks.

Trip Between Nablus and TulKarem: (Through Rd 557)
Distance: 30 KM
Time of Travel: Around 25 mins on open road (1hour in traffic)
Checkpoints: 2 – Beit Iba and Anabta - around 30min-1hr waiting time on average at each point.
Transportation: Only authorized vehicles allowed to enter Nablus, other cars to be left at entrance to city.
This journey is lengthened another 2 hours as a result of the checkpoints.

Trip Between Nablus and Ramallah:
Original Distance: 47 KM (This main road has been permanently blocked by earth mount between route 60 and 465)
Distance on alternative routes: 52 KM through Bir Zeit or 62 KM through Qalandia
Time of Travel: Approx 1 hour
Checkpoints: 3 – Hawara, Tapuch Junction, Atara or Jaba (Lil)
This journey is lengthened by 1-2 hours as a result of the checkpoints and roadblocks

Between Ramallah and Hebron:
Original Distance: Around 60Km through East Jerusalem
Distance on alternative routes: 80 KM through Qalandia, Ma'ale Adumim, Wadi Naar, Halhul East, Hebron)
Time of Travel: Approx 1.45 hours (road is windy and narrow)
Checkpoints: 4 –Jaba (Lil), The Container, Halhul East, Halhul Bridge
This journey is lengthened by over 2 hours as a result of the checkpoints

Enlarge Checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank

Why Wolfensohn Quit. A Warning to Tony Blair

Why Wolfensohn Quit
A Warning to Tony Blair
By URI AVNERY
July 30, 2007

Last week, James Wolfensohn gave a long interview to Haaretz. He poured out his heart and summed up, with amazing openness, his months as special envoy of the US, Russia, the EU and the UN (the "Quartet") in this country - the same job entrusted now to Tony Blair. The interview could have been entitled "A Warning to Tony".Among other revelations, he disclosed that he was practically fired by the clique of Neo-cons, whose ideological leader is Paul Wolfowitz.

What Wolfensohn and Wolfowitz have in common is that both are Jews and have the same name: Son of Wolf, one in the German version and the other in the Russian one. Also, both are past chiefs of the World Bank.

But that's where the similarity ends. These two sons of the wolf are opposites in almost all respects. Wolfensohn is an attractive person, who radiates personal charm. Wolfowitz arouses almost automatic opposition. This was made clear when they served, successively, at the World Bank: Wolfensohn was very popular, Wolfowitz was hated. The term of the first was renewed, a rare accolade, the second was dumped at the earliest opportunity, ostensibly because of a corruption affair: he had arranged an astronomical salary for his girl friend.

Wolfensohn could be played by Peter Ustinov. He is a modern Renaissance man: successful businessman, generous philanthropist, former Olympic sportsman (fencing) and Air Force officer (Australia). In middle age he took up the cello (under the influence of Jacqueline du Pre). The role of Wolfowitz demands no more finesse than that of the average gunman in a western.

But beyond personal traits, there is a profound ideological chasm between them. To me, they personify the two opposite extremes of contemporary Jewish reality.

Wolfensohn belongs to the humanist, universal, optimistic, world-embracing trend in Judaism, a man of peace and compromise, an heir to the wisdom of generations. Wolfowitz, at the other end, belongs to the fanatical Judaism that has grown up in the State of Israel and the communities connected with it, a man of overbearing arrogance, hatred and intoxication of power. He is a radical nationalist, even if it is not quite clear whether it is American or Israeli nationalism, or if he even distinguishes between the two.

Wolfowitz is a standard-bearer of the neo-cons, most of them Jews, who pushed the US into the Iraqi morass, promote wars all over the Middle East, advise the Israeli Prime Minister not to give up anything and are ready to fight to the last Israeli soldier.

To avoid misunderstanding: I don't know either of the two personally. I have never seen Wolfowitz in person, and heard Wolfensohn only once, at a Jerusalem meeting of the Israeli Council for Foreign Relations. I admit that I liked him on sight.

Wolfensohn arrived in this country some months before the "separation plan" of Ariel Sharon. He says now that the separation would have succeeded "if the withdrawal had been accompanied by the second part of the separation, which, according to my understanding, would have created an independent entity that would become a Palestinian state." He believes (mistakenly, I think) that this was the intent of Sharon, whom, unlike his successor as Prime Minister, he respects.

Wolfensohn envisioned a blooming Gaza Strip, flourishing economically, open in all directions, a model to the West Bank and a basis for the new state. To this purpose he raised eight billion dollars. Unlike other idealists, he invested several millions of his own money in the greenhouses left behind by the settlers, hoping to turn them into the basis of the Palestinian economy.

He stood at Condoleezza Rice's side during the signing ceremony for the document that was to prepare the way to a brilliant future: the agreement for the opening of the border crossings. The crossings between the Strip and Israel were to be again wide open, Israel undertook to fulfill at long last the obligation it took upon itself in the Oslo agreement (and has violated ever since): to open the vital passage between Gaza and the West Bank. On the border between the Strip and Egypt, a European unit was already taking control.

And then the whole edifice collapsed. The passage between the Strip and the West Bank remained hermetically sealed. The other border crossings were closed more and more frequently. The products of the greenhouses (together with Wolfensohn's investment) went down the drain. The frail economy of the Strip disintegrated altogether, most of the 1.4 million inhabitants descended into misery, with 50 per cent and more unemployment. The inevitable result was the ascent of Hamas.

Wolfensohn's complaint stresses the immense importance of the border crossings. Their closure - ostensibly for security reasons - spelled death to the Gaza economy, and, by extension, to the hope for peaceful relations between Israel and the Palestinians. Before the Hamas victory, Wolfensohn saw with his own eyes the awful corruption that governed the crossings. Relations between Israelis and Palestinians there were openly based on bribery. The Palestinian products could not cross without payment being made to the people in control on both sides.

Wolfensohn lays at least some of the responsibility for the ascent of Hamas on the Palestinian Authority - meaning Fatah – which was infected by the cancer of corruption. The victory of Hamas in the democratic elections both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip did not surprise him at all.

What caused this idealistic person to resign?

He puts the main blame on one person, who belongs to the clique of Wolfowiz: Elliott Abrams. Like Wolfowitz, Abrams is a Jew, a neo-con, a radical Zionist beloved by the Israeli Right. He was appointed by President Bush as deputy advisor for national security, responsible for the Middle East. With this appointment, Wolfensohn says, "all the elements of the agreement achieved by Condoleezza Rice were destroyed". The passages were closed, Hamas took over.

Wolfensohn accuses Abrams openly of undermining him, in order to get him out. True, the Quartet is not under the authority of Abrams, but a person in this position cannot function without solid American support. Abrams pushed him out in cooperation with Ehud Olmert and Dov Weisglass, Sharon's confidant, whose plans were menaced by Wolfensohn's activity. It was Weisglass, it will be remembered, who promised to "put the Palestinian issue in formaldehyde."

In the eyes of Wolfensohn, both sides are to blame for the current situation, but he clearly blames Israel more, since it is the stronger and more active party. No doubt, Israel is very important for him. He had a lot of sympathy for it (In World War I, his father was a soldier in the Jewish battalions which were set up by the British army and sent to Palestine.) He gave the interview to the Israeli paper in order to voice a severe warning: time is not working for us.

The demographic clock is ticking. Today, Israel is surrounded by some 350 million Arabs. In another 15 years, it will be surrounded by 700 million. "I don't see any argument that supports the idea the Israel's situation will get better."

As an expert on the global economy, with a world-wide perspective, Wolfensohn could also point out that the importance of the US in the world economy is gradually declining, with new giants like China and India rising.
We, the Israelis, like to think that we are the center of the world. Wolfensohn, a person with a world-wide outreach, sticks a pin into this egocentric balloon. Already now, he says, only the West considers the Israeli-Palestinian issue so important. Most of the world is indifferent. "I have visited more than 140 countries: you are not such a big deal there."

Even this limited interest will also evaporate. Wolfensohn rubs salt into the wound: "A moment will come when the Israelis and the Palestinians will be compelled to understand that they are a secondary performance … The Israelis and the Palestinians must get rid of the idea that they are a Broadway performance. They are only a play in the Village. Off-off-off-off-off Broadway." Knowing that this is the worst one can tell an Israeli, he adds: "I hope that I am not getting into trouble by saying this, but, what the hell, that's what I believe, and I am already 73 years old."

I do believe him - and I, what the hell, am already 83.
The metaphor from the world of theater looks to me even more apt that Wolfensohn himself imagines.

What is happening now to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is mostly theater, and not the best in town.

The actors drink from empty glasses, recite texts that nobody believes, put on false smiles and embrace heartily while loathing each other.

The best scene so far was the Gaza "separation". Contrary to Wolfensohn's belief, it was merely a performance, melodrama at its best, directed by Sharon and the chiefs of the settlers, the army and the police. Many tears, many embraces, many sham battles. This week the performance was again in the media, with a huge propaganda machine trying to show how immense was the pain, how the poor evacuees have remained without villas, how many more billions will still be needed. The intended conclusion: it is impossible to dismantle the settlements in the West Bank.

The new actor on the stage, Tony Blair, is exuding charm and joviality, embracing and kissing. We, the audience, know that his lot will be exactly like that of his predecessor. Like him, he is the "special envoy of the Quartet". His terms of reference are exactly the same as those of Wolfensohn before him: much of nothing. He is supposed to help the Palestinians to build "democratic institutions", after the US and Israel have systematically destroyed the democratic institutions that were set up after the last Palestinian elections.

He has embraced Olmert, kissed Tzipi Livni, smiled at Ehud Barak, and we know that all three of them will do their utmost to disrupt his mission before he reaches a position that would enable him to realize his real dream: to conduct peace negotiations, as he successfully did in Northern Ireland.

All that is happening now is theater. Olmert pretends that he really wants to "save Abu Mazen", while doing the opposite. At Bush's request, he allowed the transfer of a thousand rifles, with a lot of fanfare, from Jordan to Abbas, so he can fight Hamas - understanding full well that to an ordinary Palestinian this will look like collaboration with the occupier against the resistance. He enlarges the settlements, keeps the "illegal outposts" and closes his eyes while the army is helping the settlers to put up more outposts. That is a foolproof recipe for a Hamas takeover in the West Bank, too.

Everybody knows that there is only one way to strengthen Abu Mazen: immediately to start rapid and practical negotiations for the establishment of the State of Palestine in all the occupied territories, with its capital in East Jerusalem. Not more discussions about abstract ideas, as proposed by Olmert, not another plan (No. 1001), not a "peace process" that will lead to "new political horizons", and certainly not another hollow fantasy of that grand master of sanctimonious hypocrisy, President Shimon Peres.

The next scene of the play, for which all the actors are now learning their lines, is the "international meeting" this autumn, according to the screenplay by President Bush. Condoleezza will chair, and it is doubtful whether Tony, the new actor, will be allowed to take part. The playwrights are still deliberating.

If all the world is a stage, as Shakespeare wrote, and all the men and women merely players who have their exits and their entrances, that is true even more for Israel and Palestine. Sharon exited and Olmert entered, Wolfensohn exited and Blair entered, and everything is, as Sakespeare wrote in another play, "words, words, words."

Wolfensohn can view the next parts of the play with philosophical detachment. We, who are involved, cannot afford that, because our comedy is really a tragedy.

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is one of the writers featured in The Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's hot new book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.

Tomgram: Tony Karon, Bush's Palestinian Fantasy
posted July 19, 2007 09:50 am

Yes, Bush Is Naked, What of It?

On the Middle East Catwalk with the Bush Administration
By Tony Karon

President Bush's announcement of a new Middle East summit is being dutifully reported as a move to "revive" the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, designed to culminate in a two-state solution. But the meeting, if it ever comes about, will be nothing of the sort. U.S. officials have already made clear that the gathering's purpose will be

"to review progress toward building Palestinian institutions, look for ways to support further reforms and support the effort going on right now between the parties together."

Mushy? Of course it's mushy. The Bush speech simply restated the key term of the administration's long dead "roadmap" -- before there can be peace talks, the Palestinians will be required to destroy Hamas. In other words, there will be no peace talks, just a lot of wishful thinking. As White House Press Secretary Tony Snow put it,

"I think a lot of people are inclined to try to treat this as a big peace conference. It's not."

The Hans Christian Andersen fairytale about the emperor's new clothes might accurately describe current U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- except for one important detail. In the fairytale, the emperor's courtiers are careful never to let on that they can see their monarch's nakedness; in the case of U.S. Middle East policy, there is what playwright Bertolt Brecht might have called an epic gap between some of the actors and their lines. Plainly, very few of them believe the things that the script requires them to say.

In this absurdist take on the old fairytale, whenever anyone points out that the emperor has no clothes, they are simply told "duh!" before the players get back acting as if it's fashion week in the palace.

The parlour game in all of this might be deciding which of Bush's courtiers is the most craven and cynical. The competition is fierce, but here's a handicapping of the race:

1. The Israelis

The Israeli leadership recognized Hamas' takeover of Gaza's security as an opportunity -- but not, as they still tell gullible journalists, to pursue a peace agreement with Palestinian "moderates." Quite the contrary, it's been viewed as a free pass to fend off any conceivable U.S. pressure to conclude, or even work toward, a final-status agreement with the Palestinians. All they now have to do is make wan gestures of support for Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian National Authority, while using the fact that he speaks for half or less of all Palestinians to prove their case that, as ever, "there is no Palestinian partner for peace."

According to the respected Israeli political correspondent Aluf Benn, there is now a cast-iron consensus across the Israeli political spectrum that withdrawal from the West Bank is inconceivable for the foreseeable future. "In this atmosphere," Benn writes, "it is clear that any talk about a ‘two-state solution' and [Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's] declarations at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit about ‘new opportunities' and ‘accelerating the process toward a Palestinian state' are bogus. This diplomatic lip service, disassociated from reality and real expectations, is meant to assuage the Americans and the Europeans and deflect pressure on Israel."

Such duplicity is fine with the Bush administration and various European powers, Benn writes, precisely because they are doing the same thing: "The international community is participating in the show, and gradually is losing interest in the conflict." When it comes to pursuing any kind of deal to end Israel's occupation of the territories it captured in 1967, the Bush administration's policy can be summed up in three words: Look reasonably busy.

Israel's longstanding, but constantly shifting, argument has been simple enough: It has no Palestinian partner. First that was thanks to PLO leader Yasser Arafat's duplicity; then it was Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' weakness; next, it was Hamas' victory in the January 2006 elections (that the Bush administration had sponsored), followed by the decision of Abbas to join it in a "unity" government; now, with Hamas left to starve and die in blockaded Gaza, and Abbas setting up his own unelected government on the West Bank, we're back to Abbas' weakness as an explanation.

The Bush administration has faithfully echoed Israel's zigzagging evasion of talks with the Palestinians, a course that began when Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister in February 2001. Even as, in op-ed after op-ed in U.S. papers , Hamas signals its desire to engage, and even as Israel continues to negotiate a prisoner exchange with Hamas, Israeli leaders insist that negotiations with the organization are impossible. Hamas, after all, has waged a terror war against Israel and adamantly refuses to recognize the Jewish state.

Few now remember that Israel used the same argument to avoid talking to Arafat's Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Fatah, too, had engaged in terrorism against Israelis (and still does occasionally) and refused to revise its charter to recognize Israel until 1998, five years after Arafat and Prime Minister Yizhak Rabin had their historic handshake on the White House lawn. Non-recognition of Israel is the default starting point for Palestinian nationalism, as Hamas deputy head Abu Marzook recently made clear in the Los Angeles Times, not because of some religious absolutism but because, for Palestinians, Israel's creation in 1948 meant their violent dispossession. Hamas believes it is being ordered to legitimize this dispossession before negotiations can even begin, and it refuses to do so.

The fact that Fatah did eventually recognize Israel -- and got so little in return -- has cost the organization dearly on the Palestinian street. Nine months into the Western financial blockade that followed Hamas' election victory, a survey conducted by the Western-funded Palestinian Center for Social and Political Research found 54% of Palestinians dissatisfied with Hamas' performance in power and only 40% ready to vote for it again. Nonetheless, when asked whether Hamas should recognize Israel in order to get the siege lifted, 67% said no.

The Israelis will continue to play along with the American fantasy that a peace can be concluded with a self-appointed Palestinian autocracy, while war is waged on the elected Palestinian government. However, they know perfectly well that Abbas is in no position to deliver -- and that's fortunate to their way of thinking. After all, from the time that Sharon became prime minister, a peace agreement with the Palestinian leadership has not been what Israel had in mind. His election campaign promises involved putting an end to the Oslo peace process. He left no doubt that he believed the sort of comprehensive peace envisaged at Oslo was impossible. In an interview shortly after his election, he called instead for "a long-term, gradual solution that will enable us to examine the development of the relations between us and the Palestinians over time." Curiously enough, this is exactly the position Hamas leaders have taken on the issue. They opt for long-term "truces," aimed at calming relations between the two peoples, rather than final agreements. That outlook earns Hamas the label "rejectionist"; Bush called Sharon "a man of peace."

Buoyed by the post 9/11 environment in Washington, Sharon led the Americans on a giddy dance. First, he got them to agree that peace talks were impossible because Arafat was autocratic and deceitful. So the U.S. demanded that, prior to any progress in the "peace process," President Arafat would have to cede control over Palestinian finances and security forces to the democratically elected legislature as well as the cabinet and prime minister it picked.

Then Arafat died and the U.S.-favored Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas became President. Sharon promptly declared Abbas too weak for peace, a prophecy he helped fulfill by showing the Palestinian electorate that Abbas would achieve nothing through patient, plaintive conversations with Washington.

Still, those dopey Americans didn't seem to get the joke; so, perversely, they pushed for Palestinian elections, which Hamas duly won. Blindsided, the Bush administration promptly rushed out the patently naive explanation that Hamas had won because of Fatah's corruption (even as it continued to coddle some of the most corrupt elements in Fatah). As former European Union (EU) special Middle East adviser Alastair Crooke makes clear, the election result was indeed primarily a repudiation of Fatah and its policies. International experience has shown that voters will tolerate a measure of corruption on the part of political leaders as long as they deliver on some of their promises. (Brazil's current government is a perfect example of this.) But Palestinian voters recognized that Fatah had led them up a blind alley -- almost 20 years of negotiations had not ended Israel's de facto control of Gaza and had seen the steady expansion, in the form of settlements, of its occupation of the West Bank.

Palestinian democracy had returned the "wrong" party to power. The U.S. response was best summed up in Brecht's quip about an official East German statement claiming "the people" had forfeited the confidence of the government: "Wouldn't it be easier to dissolve the people and elect another in their place?"

The Bush administration quickly adopted a policy of collective punishment. The Palestinians were to be choked until they relented and reversed their electoral decision. An undoubtedly amused Israeli leadership now watched as Washington reversed everything it had said about Palestinian governance, demanding that all authority over security, finances, and anything else that came to mind must be placed, as in Arafat's time, in the hands of the president. More important, it also began fomenting coup plans in which U.S.-backed Palestinian security forces answering to Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan would seize control of Gaza. We now know how well that worked out.

As the Bush administration's vaudeville act spins on, Israel will play along, while damning the hapless Abbas with faint gestures of encouragement. Israel has agreed to begin trickling funds -- belonging to the Palestinian Administration, but withheld since Hamas' election victory -- into Abbas' coffers (but not all at once, mind you, lest he get the idea that he has any freedom of action). It has also agreed to release some 250 of the more than 9,000 Palestinian prisoners it holds (and only lower-ranking members of Abbas' faction at that). These two "gestures" are an indication of just how little Israel seems ready to do to "bolster" Abbas.

By contrast, Hamas is using its capture over a year ago of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit to negotiate the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners -- and they have taken care to make sure that their lists include prisoners from all factions. You can guess which approach will prove more popular among Palestinians.

Whether it's an enfeebled Abbas or an unyielding Hamas, Israel will simply continue to argue that there is no real Palestinian partner in sight. The show of creating one will go on, but it is designed to fail.

2. Mahmoud Abbas

Mahmoud Abbas has looked like a very unhappy camper for a very long time. As well he should. As former Clinton negotiator Rob Malley and former Palestinian adviser Hussein Agha noted four years ago, Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) had an ambiguous role in the script written by Ariel Sharon and green-lighted by the Bush administration:

"Let Abu Mazen succeed in order to marginalize Arafat, end the armed intifada, and achieve for Israel a measure of security. But let him succeed only so far and no further. Let him bring about a more peaceful situation without benefiting from its potential political returns. For Abu Mazen's success could bring him strength, and his strength would revitalize the threat of a unified Palestinian movement that his rise was meant to thwart."

Having gambled his political life on the willingness of the United States to press Israel to conclude a two-state deal, Abbas has long been glumly aware of just how bare the negotiation cupboard really is. For years now, he has had to stand by silently being damned, in the eyes of his own people, by the minimalist praise and parsimonious gestures occasionally tossed his way.

Whatever the rhetoric, it's not going to get much better. After all, the Bush administration abandoned the role of seriously mediating between Israel and the Palestinians almost as soon as it took office. Since then, its efforts can best be summed up by the all-nighters Secretary of State Condi Rice pulled in Jerusalem, as if engaged in real diplomacy. She would then crow about how she had gotten a border crossing into Gaza opened (that would invariably close within days of her departure). As if that wasn't sufficient humiliation for Abbas, he had to endure periodic scoldings from Rice over his failure to provoke a Palestinian civil war with Hamas.

Abbas' problem is that neither Bush -- even if he wanted to, which he doesn't -- nor any successor president, is likely to risk the domestic political aggravation attached to pressing Israel into a peace agreement. Bush's Middle East policy director Elliot Abrams recently reassured pro-Israel groups in the U.S. that all of Secretary of State Rice's shuttling around the region was simply "process," designed to placate the Arabs and win their support for putting more pressure on Iran. The President, Abrams said, had no intention of actually pressing Israel back to the negotiating table.

The Palestinian electorate knew the game was up long before the Fatah leadership faced up to that fact. As Alastair Crooke noted:

"Hardly any Palestinians now believe that Palestinian 'good behaviour' -- as promised to Israel by Fatah -- will induce the U.S. to ignore its domestic Israel lobby and exert pressure on Israel to withdraw from the lands occupied in 1967... Palestinians have seen their putative state in the West Bank salami-sliced away by settlements, army posts, military zones, fences and Israeli-only roads that cut the territory into enclaves in which 2.5 million Palestinians are confined, their movements heavily curtailed... The U.S. and the [European Union] argued that Palestinian violence was the problem; but the Palestinians noted that in periods of quiet more rather than less of their land fell to the Israeli salami-slicer -- yet still the international community remained silent."

So Abbas is a very lonely man. And the corruption all around him is but a symptom of the way his movement has lost its political identity and become instead just a vehicle for personal power and enrichment. The fear of losing the power of patronage, poorly wrapped in rhetoric about national goals, was what prompted Fatah's leaders to press Abbas, from the moment the election results were in, to overturn them. The regime Abbas is now creating will prove little more than a carbon copy of the decrepit, autocratic Arab regimes in the region most willing to follow U.S. dictates. As Beirut Daily Star editor-at-large Rami Khouri observed earlier this year, such regimes tend to speak for their immediate entourages, their security chiefs, and little more. The Americans and Israelis know that Abbas (like those regimes) has few cards to play and is likely to have no choice but to take whatever he's given.

Abbas' domestic problems are not limited to the influence of Hamas. Analyst Khaled Amyreh points out that his faction within Fatah is very small and its willingness to accept American tutelage is rejected by those who had been closer to Arafat. Perhaps recognizing the danger of his isolation (even within his own party), Abbas appears now to have sacrificed Dahlan, his national security chief (as well as Bush and Condi's anointed favorite). It's hard not to suspect that Abbas may yet consider the possibility of some kind of rapprochement with Hamas.

3. The Arab regimes

The Arab autocrats whose presence is now required whenever Bush puts on one of his no-clothes shows recognize themselves in Abbas' predicament. They, too, have precious little to show their people in return for allying with Washington. Their citizenry, too, has watched them stand by helplessly as Washington has sanctioned and encouraged the systematic trampling of the Palestinians, the pulverizing of Lebanon, and the chaotic destruction of Iraq (which now produces a 9/11-equivalent death toll at least every few weeks). Those citizens, too, see that only the Islamists seem willing to stand up to the U.S. and Israel. The autocrats, too, beg and plead with Washington to enforce a two-state solution based on Israel's 1967 borders and face the same smug dismissal of their concerns or the same meaningless ritual endorsements.

How many times do they have to be reminded by administration officials that President Bush was the first American leader to publicly call for a Palestinian state? Of course, he was also the first to formally endorse Israel's right to the massive settlements built in the occupied West Bank in violation of international law.

So cavalier were Bush's tailors in the early days of his Mesopotamian expedition that they actually envisaged getting rid of longtime U.S. trusties in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and elsewhere. They imagined a "democratic tsunami" that would sweep the region, replacing previous allies with a cadre of Ahmed Chalabis, Fouad Ajamis, Kenan Makiyas, Amir Taheris, and other neocon-approved Middle Easterners.

The Hamas victory last year made clear that the beneficiary of any Arab democracy would initially be the Islamists, so Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and the Kings Abdullah of Jordan and Saudi Arabia as well as their entourages will have to do for now. Their function in the Bush schema, however, is simply to serve as a "native" cheering section as he tilts at Iran, while bolstering Abbas in his role as Palestinian gendarme.

4. The Europeans

Unlike the Arab allies smiling painfully as they quietly agitate for President Bush to put on some clothes, the Europeans, bizarrely enough, have stripped down to the buff and joined Bush on the catwalk. Europe, too, is enforcing a financial siege against the elected Palestinian government in the vain hope that this will force a symbolic surrender from Hamas. (The Arab regimes, at least, have the excuse that the U.S. is using its dominant position in the international banking system to prevent them from sending money to Gaza; the Europeans are not doing so as a matter of policy.)

And it's not just critics who think they should know better; they admit that they do know better: U.S. national security analyst Mark Perry reveals that, after he and Alastair Crooke briefed European leaders on the arguments for engaging with Hamas despite U.S. pressure for a boycott, one ambassador responded: "We know you are right, really we do. But we will not break with the Americans. We just cannot do it."

If a willingness to strangle the Palestinians in Gaza is the test of loyalty to the U.S., it also takes the Europeans out of any meaningful role in the region -- as Tony Blair will discover as soon as he embarks on his fool's errand of "mentoring" Palestinian institution-building under occupation and siege -- on terms that exclude the democratically elected government from his mentoring, no less. Sadly, the end of an independent European role will have tragic consequences for the Israelis and the Palestinians, as well as for the rest of us. After all, as the Europeans have surely noted, under President Bush and his top officials the U.S. has made itself part of the problem, not part of any prospective solution in the Middle East.

That really is one great tragedy of the Bush administration, which essentially outsourced its policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Ariel Sharon. Sharon's ideas are now so deeply embedded in the mainstream of both parties on Capitol Hill that Congress is even more anti-Palestinian than the administration. As the presidential candidates of both parties fall over one another to take ever harder-line stances on the Palestinians, Iran, and any other subject of concern to Israel, it's an odds-on bet that the naked imperial fashion show will continue, no matter who replaces Bush on the imperial throne.

Tony Karon is a senior editor at TIME.com where he analyzes the Middle East and other international conflicts. He also runs his own website, Rootless Cosmopolitan.

Copyright 2007 Tony Karon