Children from Kufr Qasem develop their own activities to educate one another about history, geography and their rights as part of Badil's Youth Education and Activation project, August 2009. Badil

This article is based on my personal experience as a teacher of Palestinian students in Israeli public schools and through my work as school inspector and history curriculum team coordinator for Arab schools from 1975 until 2004. During this period I was engaged in efforts at textbook reform, and on research about Israel's education system which I undertook for my doctoral dissertation.

¹

Background
 
Israel has a highly centralized public education system which is operated and controlled by the Ministry of Education. The only major exception is the ultra-orthodox Jewish education system which enjoys autonomy for ideological reasons.² The state education system operated by the Ministry is composed of two separate streams: the public secular stream, and public national religious stream.
 
Palestinian students make up one quarter of all students in the Israeli state education system.³ All public schools in Palestinian communities in Israel belong to the public secular stream; no public religious schools are available for Palestinians. Public education for Palestinians is administered by the Department for Arab Education, which is a special administrative entity within the Ministry of Education and under its direct control. The Department for Arab Education has no autonomous decision making authorities.
 
Up until 1987, the Department for Arab Education was headed by a Jewish-Israeli director who was appointed by the Ministry and involved in policy making to ensure control over the Palestinian population.⁴ Since then, Palestinians have been appointed to lead the Department but have been excluded from policy decision making as a result of parallel organizational reform which provided for the integration of Arab public schools into the Jewish public education system and its local authorities. Thus, while the Department for Arab Education continued to exist and came to be headed by a Palestinian employed by the Ministry, the heads of Arab Education have held no real power. The Department is only meant to oversee the education of Palestinians and answer to Jewish-Israelis who continue to be in charge.⁵
 
From the beginning, Israeli politicians saw in the state education system, an instrument to realize Zionist political objectives: the founding of a Jewish nation with a shared identity rooted in Zionist beliefs.⁶ Conversely, the educational system was used to ensure a complete lack of Arab and Palestinian identity among the Palestinian citizens of the state.⁷
 
In 1953, Israel passed the Public Education Law with the aim to centralize the education system. In this context, the goals of public education were defined and formalized for the first time. The first goal stated that the educational system seeks to raise youth on the values of Israeli culture, and love of the [Jewish] nation and people of Israel.⁸ This goal remained in place throughout subsequent amendments of the law. No positive goals have been formulated for the education of Palestinians based on the values of Arab, Muslim, and Christian culture and the Palestinian nation. Thus, the teaching of Palestine's history in Israeli schools, both Jewish and Arab, is based on the Zionist narrative which holds that Jews are one people that formed their identity in the land of Israel (Palestine) more than one thousand years ago, and returned to it to form that identity again.⁹
 
Of course Palestine was, and has remained, inhabited by its Arab-Palestinian population, who have marked it with its culture, landmarks, and language. But the Zionist narrative avoids facing this reality. This is expressed in Israeli educational texts and curricula through:

• the secularization of myths from the Torah, i.e. their transformation into facts: the myth of the promised land, for example, is turned into an actual land of the forefathers and the presentation of Israel as the historical homeland of the Jewish nation;
• promotion of a system of social beliefs, such as we are victims, we call for peace, our wars are defensive, our arms are pure, Palestinians hate us, they are the aggressors;¹⁰
• selectiveness in the choice of facts and explanations, ignoring contradictory arguments, especially facts connected to Arab-Palestinian history, or at best, presenting them as a narrative that is part of distorted history.

 
Main findings from research
 
In 1953, the Ministry of Education issued the first history curriculum for Jewish public and religious elementary schools.¹¹ This curriculum was translated into Arabic with some adjustments,¹² and Palestinian students were expected to learn the same narrative as their Jewish peers. Arab and Jewish teachers were subsequently charged with the task of preparing textbooks according to that curriculum. History at that time was taught in a complete chronological cycle, with ideas introduced in elementary school (fifth through eighth grade), revisited and expanded upon in High School (ninth through twelfth grade). In my research, I undertook, among others, to investigate how Zionist history has been presented to Palestinian students in history textbooks up until 1975.
 
Early history textbooks for Palestinian fifth graders,¹³ tell the history of Palestine from the perspective of the [Jewish] people of Israel based on the Torah. Exceptions are a few scattered paragraphs which state that the Canaanites colonized the mountains of Judea and the Negev, the Jebusites colonized the mountains of Jerusalem, and that Palestinians differ from Canaanites and are not Semites.¹⁴
 
As expected, the texts were strongly driven by the Torah: The Hebrews were begot from Abraham, who crossed the Euphrates and settled in an area which naturally splits into three parts, including the middle region, called Sharon, and the northern region, which is separated from the middle region by the Jezreel Valley.¹⁵ Canaanites that lived in that area are described as the primitive tribes.¹⁶
 
The textbook then mentions Jacob, calling him by his last name, Israel: Israel became the father of the Israelite tribes.¹⁷ It then describes the exile of the Israelites to Egypt, and their flight from Egypt, led by Moses: The exodus of the Israelites led by Moses was an important event in their history that remained in the nations mind with the passing of eras. It was a great event that placed them in history as a nation.¹⁸ When the book gets to Joshua Ben Nun, it points to his heroic feats and the sacrifice of his people, which secured victory for them against their enemies.¹⁹
 
The textbook follows the narrative from the Torah, era after era, until the destruction of the temple and the Babylonian capture. From there, the Jews return from captivity during the reign of Cyrus the Great. The book does not deviate from heroic descriptions of the Israelites, justifying all of their wars, and describing the indigenous population of Canaanites and others as enemies and primitive people while using contemporary Hebrew names for names of places and localities, and ignoring their original names.
 
This method is repeated with regard to the history of Palestine under Hellenic rule. The main thrust of the text here concerns the heroic deeds of the Maccabees and their wars, Judah Maccabee went forth with his brothers to secure the foundations of governance and protect the people from enemies, battling the Adamites, and Omarites and the inhabitants of the Galilee, as well as standing up to military campaigns of the Seleucids.²⁰
 
Sixth grade history textbooks do not differ in method or content. The history of Palestine under Roman rule is the history of Jews in Israel until the destruction of the temple in 70 BC. About seven hundred years of the indigenous Palestinians' history is absent from the pages of the book until the onset of the Arab-Islamic conquest. It briefly mentions the Arab conquest of Jerusalem under the heading The Conquest of Jerusalem, with one sentence in particular standing out: Omar [the second Muslim caliph] treated the Jews, who helped the Muslims, well, left them their property and pardoned them from paying taxes.²¹ The aim of this sentence is to provide assurance of a Jewish presence in the city at that time.
 
Although this book revolves around Arab-Islamic history and Islamic civilization until the fall of the Abbasid empire, it does not mention Palestine until the start of the crusades. It also remains silent about Arab initiatives in Palestine, such as the building of Ramla by Sulayman bin Abd al-Malek, and the construction of the Hisham Palace in Jericho. Casual mention is given (pp. 155-156) of the building of the Dome of the Rock, and then the Aqsa mosque, during the reign of Abd al-Malek ibn Marwan.
 
Returning to the history of Palestine, a history textbook for seventh graders called Yearning for Zion contains the following sentence: facing [the Christian oppression of Jews in Europe], their attachment to their beliefs grew and their desire to return to Zion, the land that the Romans forced them out of in the first century AD, deepened.²² Under the heading The Relationship Between Jews in Diaspora and the Land of Israel the book reviews at length stories of individuals or small groups of Jews that immigrated to Tiberias, Safad, and the villages of Galilee between the years 1141-1662. It describes their achievements in every field, portraying them as the ones who made the area blossom.
 
To sum up, the textbook omits the history of Palestine from 638 to 1791 except insofar as it pertains to Jews. The two main exceptions are the construction the walls of Jerusalem by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1542, to protect the city from Bedouin attacks (p. 186), and the mention of Napoleon's siege of Akka (p. 301).
 
The Zionist historical narrative is completed in the eighth grade history textbook²³ which presents the contemporary history of Palestine. The topic is divided into two units: The English in Israel (instead of the British Mandate in Palestine) and The Founding of the State of Israel. Thirty of sixty class periods that eighth graders must attend are devoted to this second chapter. In the spirit of the curriculum, the narrative in this book revolves around subheadings with suggestive meanings, such as The Continuous Yearning for Return and National Independence (pp. 178-182). This chapter, as well as the chapters that follow, address at length everything that has any connection to contemporary Jewish history from the perspective of the Zionist historical narrative, until the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. Under the heading War of Independence (p. 222), the book states that the armies of the Arab countries entered the country in May of 1948 and fought against the Israeli forces . . . which were able to push back these armies until the four countries that have shared borders with Israel were forced . . . to sign a truce. As for Arab-Palestinian society, it is completely absent in the textbook. Moreover, not even one word is spent on the Palestinian refugees.
 
This trend repeats itself in the high school curriculum and textbooks, and which are all translated from Hebrew, with the only exception of the book The History of Arabs prepared by Salman Falah (a former education inspector) who writes that Omar Ibn al-Khatab divided greater Syria into the regions of Hims, Hama, Aleppo and Israel [sic].²⁴
 
Efforts at educational reform
 
In 1975, I began my work as school inspector and coordinator for the history team in the Arab schools and set out to change the situation. A first success came in 1976 when a new curriculum was issued for elementary and middle schools.²⁵ The new curriculum differed from its predecessor in the following ways: 

• The name Palestine was inserted into the curriculum for the first time, instead of the land of Israel. Places were named using their original Arabic names rather than the Hebraized names of the older curriculum;
• The emphasis on the Torah narrative was reduced, and the histories of other peoples, like the Canaanites, were highlighted. Emphasis on the Zionist narrative of the history of Palestine was reduced, and an Arab-Palestinian historical narrative was introduced for contrast. For instance, a new headline read: The beginning of Jewish colonization and the Arabs in Palestine²⁶ instead of the previous Yearning for Zion and the Return to Israel. In other words, the focus of the curriculum shifted from the Zionist historical narrative of Israel towards a history of Palestine.

 
Following the publication of the new curriculum, I also oversaw the preparation of a series of books that replaced the previous textbooks. A new book which most strongly related to Palestinian history was a history textbook for the sixth grade.²⁷ It said, for example, that The Torah states that the prophet Moses . . . (p. 26), and that Joshua Ben Nun resorted to subterfuge in his battle against the Canaanites (p. 28). This stylistic change, which makes mention of the Torah in reported language, improved the objectivity of the text, allowing for a critical approach towards the Torah-Zionist narrative. A seventh grade textbook surveying at length the history of Palestine under the rule of the crusaders, moreover, notes: The crusaders also built relationships with the Muslims in their everyday life by hiring Arab craftsmen, as well as being influenced by their Eastern style of dress and manners.²⁸
 
Part two of the history textbook for the eighth grade contains the heading Palestine in the Age of Political Organizations, and says: For forty years in the nineteenth century, the Ottomans tried to control the inhabitants of Palestine by recognizing local leadership.²⁹ In this way, the Arab-Palestinian narrative began to gain ground in textbooks, albeit in a limited fashion.
 
As for high school, I oversaw the preparation of a new curriculum in 1999, which was only approved by the Education Ministry after a two-year long battle. This curriculum included an entire unit called Modern Arab-Palestinian Society.³⁰ It covers the Palestinian presence on the land until 1948. In the unit on The War of 1948, we prepared a chapter titled The Origin of the Refugee Problem (Expulsion? Escape?).³¹ By the time I stopped working with the Ministry of Education in 2004, a version of the textbook that included this chapter had not yet been published. The Arab-Palestinian narrative did however appear in a general, brief form in the three sections of textbooks over which I oversaw preparation.³²One chapter ends with the sentence, many Palestinians whose cities and villages were occupied were forced to leave their homes and became refugees, because of the dangers of war and its destruction, and because of a number of massacres that were perpetrated against them, such as the Massacre of Deir Yassin in April 1948.
 
The ideological backlash
 
In April 2004, I left my post at the Ministry of Education, but I continued to follow the government's development of the curriculum. A new high school curriculum was issued in 2007³³, which was followed in 2008 by a new curriculum for elementary and middle school levels,³⁴ replacing both the 1976 and 1999 curricula. The new curriculum for elementary school completely erased modern Palestinian history. Also erased was the unit called The History of Arab-Palestinian Society in the Modern Era for high schoolers. Again, the Zionist historical narrative is imposed on Palestinian students in history textbooks which ignore the history and culture of the Palestinian people. Just as in the period before 1975, anything connected to the history of the Palestinian people has been erased in the revised curricula of 2007 and 2008.
 
Such orientation will leave a negative impact on students in the long term. First, the connection between the Palestinian-Arab students and their history, culture and identity is severed. This effect is reinforced by the lack of extra-curricular educational activities in Arab schools, such as the commemoration of important events, including the Nakba, massacres, and important political events. This in addition to the prohibition on commemorating national personalities and thinkers such as Ghassan Kanafani, Mahmoud Darwish and Edward Said. Such commemorations are now about to become explicitly banned by the Ministry of Education. Severing this connection means that the cultural wellsprings, which allow students to build their collective history and identity, are dried out. As a result, students are likely to slide towards alienation from their homeland, and opportunities for reflection on the Palestinian people's history and their ongoing Nakba, which are vital for students to form their world view, are missed.
 
The second impact of a Zionist historical narrative in curricula, including the use of Hebrew names and the Hebraization of Arabic names of places in textbooks, is to raise students on the idea that the country, Palestine, called Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel), belongs to Jews. Palestinian students are inculcated with the idea that Jews are the original and oldest inhabitants of the land and the most attached to it. Raising Arab-Palestinian students on this idea, while not providing adequate cultural and historical knowledge to challenge it, encourages alienation from their homeland.
 
Feelings of alienation will later on undermine the capacity of students to tackle oppressive policies, especially in matters of land and social culture, and transform them into easy prey for the dominant Israeli political discourse which can be summarized as follows: this is the land of the Jewish people. We returned to our rightful historic homeland and built it up. You Arab-Palestinians are just passers-by, strangers to this land, and a source of annoyance to our presence. This is the discourse underlying Israeli political demands for the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.
 
Palestinian history teachers can do little to correct this negative trend. They are limited by the state curriculum and textbooks, and banned from deviating from these texts. They are also monitored by officials in the schools, and by the Ministry of Education. Ultimately, Palestinian students have no choice but to memorize history as it is presented in the textbooks, because they will take their final high school graduation exams (bagrut), in which the Ministry of Education prepares the questions and evaluates the students' answers.
 
Some would argue that history classes and textbooks are no longer central for students to get to know their history and build a collective memory and identity. New means of communication, as well as the role of television and computers, have become the vectors of that memory. Scholars, however, agree that school textbooks, and especially history textbooks, have remained central in building memory and fashioning identity.³⁵ This, because students, like others in society, absorb information from various sources in a haphazard and unsystematic manner, and usually in an individual setting. History classes on the other hand, meet day after day, year after year, and from an early age until maturity. School history education is delivered through systematic, didactic and pedagogical methods, and in a collective setting with peers. History classes and history textbooks therefore remain the central and strongest element in the fashioning of identity, and play a crucial role in building collective memory, or, as in our case, erasing it.
 
Endnotes
1 Barghouthi, Said: Ideology, Education and Multiculturalism: A Study of Jewish Education in Israel Submitted for PhD, The Faculty of Social and Environment Studies, The University of Liverpool, 2003
2 The Structure of the Education System in Israel (in Hebrew) www.ab-lifeschooling.com
3 The State of Arab Education at the start of the 2009/2010 school year, The Committee for the Monitoring of Arab Education (in Hebrew), a study without date.
4The establishment of separate Arab departments was a common practice in the early period of Israel's existence as a means of control over the Palestinian population in all aspects of daily life. Key positions in the Department for Arab Education were held by Jews, the majority of whom were intelligence officers. (See: Ian Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State. Israel's Control of a National Minority; University of Texas Press, 1980; also: S. Mar'i, Arab Education in Israel, Syracuse University Press, 1978.)
5 Text of a Job Vacancy posting for Principal of the Administration for Arab Education, The Ministry of Education 20003, (in Hebrew).
6 Bin Eleizer, Uri, A Nation in Military Uniform and the War: Israeli in its Early Years, Zamaneem, 49 (Summer 1994) pg. 51, (in Hebrew.)
7 Al-Haj, Magid: Education, Empowerment and Control: The Case of the Arabs in Israel, State University of New York, 1995, pg. 128
8 Eideen, Shafeeh, The Goals of Education in Israel, Tel Aviv 1976, pg. 10 (in Hebrew.)
9 Prior, M, Zionism and the State of Israel. London, 1999 pg. 205-211
10 ibid., pg. 228
11 Curriculum for State and State Religious Elementary Schools, Ministry of Education and Culture, Jerusalem, 1953 (in Hebrew.)
12 Curriculum for State Arabic Elementary Schools, Ministry of Education and Culture (no date or place of publishing)
13 Hadad, Ezra, Daniel, Ilyas: The History of Fifth Grade in Elementary School, according to the new curricula, Taburski, Tel Aviv, 1957.
14 ibid., pg. 60
15 ibid., pg. 61
16 ibid., pg. 61
17 ibid., pg. 63
18 ibid., pg. 65
19 ibid., pg. 68
20 ibid., pg. 149
21 Ibrahim, Hayla and al-Thahur, Abd al-Karim: History for Sixth Grade in Elementary School According to the New School Curricula, Taburski, Tel Aviv 1963, pg. 117.
22 Abu Manneh, Butrus, History for Seventh Grade in Elementary School according to the New School Currricula, Taburski, Tel Aviv, 1964, pg. 205
23 Falah, Salman, History for Eighth Grade in Elementary School According the the New School Curricula, Dar al-Nahdha, Nazzereth, 1975.
24 Falah, Salman: History for Arabs in 10^th Grade, pg. 46
25 History for the Elementary and Middle Levels, Ministry of Education and Culture, The Center for Educational Curricula, 1^st Printing, Arshelem, Jerusalem, 1976.
26 ibid., pg. 36
27 Barghouthi, Said, Zubi Yousef, Frances Fayhim, The History of Peoples Civilizations around the Mediterranean, The Ministry of Education and Culture, Education Administration, Department of Educational Curiculla, Arshliam, Jerusalem, 2004, revised edition, pg. 285.
28 Barghouthi, Said, History Lessons for Seventh Grade, the Ministry of Education and Culture, Education Administration, Department of Educational Curricula, Urshalim al-Quds, 2004, revised edition, pg. 285
29Barghouthi, Said, Bashara Zahir, Zubi Yousef, Kabha Moustafa: History for Eight Grade, Part Two, according to the history curriculum for Arab schools, first printing, Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, The education secretary, p. 158.
30 History Curriculum for High School in Arab Schools (10^th 12^th Grade), The Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, Education Administration, The Center for Educational Curricula, Experimental Printing, Jerusalem, 1999, pg. 28-33.
31 ibid., pg. 33
32 The first was called The Palestinian Question in the book Modern Middle Eastern History Barghouthi, Said and others, The Modern Middle East, Part Two according to the curriculum for teaching history at advanced levels in Arab Schools, Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, Education Administration, Department of Educational Curricula, and The University of Haifa, Department of Educational Curricula, 1998, pg. 276 319; the second The General History of the Arabs in Palestine in the book The Arab Citizens of Israel Al-haj majid (editor), Barghouthi Said (Education editor): The Arab Citizens in Israel, Chapters for High School Civics, The Ministry of Education and Culture, The University of Haifa and the Van Lear Institute in Jerusalem, 1992, pg 12 29; the second The General History of the Arabs in Palestine in the book The Arab Citizens of Israel; the third was called The Geographical, Political, and Historical Context of the Founding of Israel in the book Civics for High Schools. To Be Citizens in Israel, Civics Text for High Schools, Ministry of Education, The Education Secretary, The Center for Curriculum Planning and Development, 2008
33 Educational for the teaching of history for high school, Ministry of Education (tarbiyya wa t3leem) the secretary of Education, The Center for Curriculum Planning, Jerusalem, 2007
34 Educational Curriculum, History for Elementary and Middle School Levels in Arab Schools, The Ministry of Education (tarbiyya wa t3leem), The education secretary, The Center for Curriculum Planning and Development, 2008
35 W. Jacobmeyer, International Textbook Research, Goteborg, 1990, pg. 8-9

Source: http://www.badil.org/en/al-majdal/item/1265-palestinian-history-and-identity-in-israeli-schools in the issue of Al Majdal: http://www.badil.org/en/al-majdal/itemlist/category/158-nakba-education-on-the-path-of-return

Attempts at reform which have come in from the outside world and been imposed from the West over the past 200 years have remained as state and government projects, due to the unwillingness of the powerful elite to engage in democratic processes, which is, in turn, why these attempts at reform are not usually internalized by society as a whole. Those who set out with the goal of changing this situation first need to think carefully before taking steps. Unfortunately, what happens in Turkey is that we first take steps forward, and then start thinking. This could be seen as a bit of an Ottoman tradition, actually.

Of course, in making reforms, we will reap benefits from the West. But we also need to make some semantic interventions into our conceptual framework. The key concepts arising from Western or other cultural wealth of experiences naturally include world views, philosophies and background plans which are directly related to other nations' institutions and political structures. If we simply import these concepts without altering them, they cannot help us; these are concepts which need to be arranged according to our own physical, social and historical development. After all, the Quran itself changed some of the meanings in the language of the society to which it came. While Arabic words maintained the same form, their meaning underwent deep-rooted changes. Likewise, the philosopher Farabi borrowed some basic concepts from Greek metaphysics and philosophy, altering them, and even re-defining some entirely. Had Muslim scholars not done this, Greek philosophy would have remained an archaic resource, and would have been useless in the creation of modern knowledge.

It was in the 19th century that this opportunity presented itself to us. But the figures of the Tanzimat, the Meşrutiyet and the Republic eras of Turkey all formed their relations with the West on a symbolic level, not thinking to form relations on a conceptual level. It was Sultan Mahmut II who first formed these incorrect relations: borrowing jazz music, offering alcoholic drinks at official meetings, changing outfits, replacing the sarık with the fez, then later the fez with the hat, banning the headscarf, intervening in the wearing of beards by men, and so on. These were all models accepted in the 20th century which derived from Mahmut II.

I talked a bit above about the relations between the Abbasis and Greek philosophy, and how it was not on the level of “awe and symbols,” but rather on a smart and conceptual level. This was true also for their relations with Indian, Babylonian, Iranian, Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures. Note that Muslims did not translate Greek literature, mythology, tragedies and poetry into Arabic. They translated instead the philosophy and knowledge. Their goal in doing this was to benefit from the wealth of experience and knowledge of other cultures and civilizations, and to use their own religion and abilities to engage in their own semantic changes to all this. Looked at from this perspective, the modernization of Ottoman-Turk was unsuccessful; it cannot be an example to the Islamic world. What we need to take instead as an example is the above-mentioned Abbasi model.

We could use these Abbasi methods today to help us in finding solutions and providing new frameworks through which to interpret and understand our problems with democracy, civil society, and so on. Of course, this does not mean we will simply affect whichever changes grab us at the moment with these concepts. But at the same time, we ought not to simply import concepts from the West as they are, and should instead alter and shape them according to our own culture, history and society. When we grapple with the process of societal change, and deal with it according to this sort of framework, then we can use our own inner dynamics to change.

Todays Zaman (via TimeTurk)

source: http://en.timeturk.com/ali-bulac-what-we-get-from-the-west,-and-how-to-use-it–894-yazisi.html

On the afternoon of November 3, 2009, the United States House of Representatives voted in favor of House Resolution 867 (H.Res.867), an AIPAC-backed bill that urges both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to "oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the "Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict," referred to commonly as the "Goldstone Report." With this vote, the US Congress has not only enshrined its opposition to investigations into war crimes and crimes against humanity found to be committed during last winter's Israeli massacre of over 1,400 Palestinians in the closed-off Gaza Strip, but has also affirmed its outrageous and unconscionable commitment to Israel's continuous unfettered aggression and singular unaccountability to international law, rules of military engagement, human rights and basic morality.

In their successful effort to (yet again) shield the State of Israel from any and all scrutiny or criticism over its illegal use of collective punishment and excessive force against an imprisoned, impoverished and defenseless civilian population, Congressional supporters of H.Res.867 sought to discredit the UN's 575-page report of meticulously-documented human rights violations. After visiting Gaza, conducting 188 individual interviews of victims and witnesses, studying more than 300 reports, submissions and other documentation including medical reports and forensic analysis of weapons and ammunition remnants collected in Gaza, amounting to more than 10,000 pages, and reviewing over 30 videos and 1,200 photographs, the Mission, led by South African Justice Richard Goldstone, concluded that "violations of international human rights and humanitarian law and possible war crimes and crimes against humanity" were committed by both parties (Israel and Hamas) during the Israeli assault on Gaza (A/HRC/12/48, p.423).

Goldstone's impeccable and unimpeachable credentials cannot be overstated. As a member of the South African Standing Commission of Inquiry Regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, Goldstone was responsible for uncovering and publicizing allegations of the extensive violence committed by Apartheid South African security forces, paving the way for subsequent investigations by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after South African democratization. He served as a judge for the Constitutional Court of South Africa, chairman of the Independent International Commission on Kosovo, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and was a member of the International Panel of the Commission of Enquiry into the Activities of Nazism in Argentina (CEANA), tasked to identify and prosecute Nazi war criminals who had emigrated to Argentina. In 2004/5, he was a member of the Volker Committee investigation into the UN’s Iraq oil-for-food program.

The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports that, according to a lecture Goldstone delivered in Jerusalem in 2000, he "believes bringing war criminals to justice stems from the lessons of the Holocaust," which he described as "the worst war crime in the world." In Goldstone's view, the atrocities committed by the Nazis and the lessons learned by the international community in the wake of their discovery have "shaped legal protocol on war" and "constituted the basis for the concept of universal jurisdiction."

Not only this, but in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, his own daughter Nicole (once a resident of Israel) even described Goldstone, who is Jewish, as "a Zionist" who "loves Israel." Goldstone currently serves as a trustee at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Nevertheless, the harrowing conclusions and reasonable recommendations of the UN commission were quickly denounced by many US officials (not to mention the pathetic 'who, me?' outrage and phony self-righteousness exhibited by their Israeli counterparts), most of whom had not even read the report in its entirety; their smug derision of the dispassionate facts presented in the report made perfectly clear their intention to cover-up Israeli war crimes and, in so doing, legitimize and endorse Israel's ongoing suppression, dehumanization, starvation, occupation and slaughter of the Palestinian people.

As it has in the past, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, led by Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) and Ranking Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), rushed to Israel's defense. This is the same team that, almost two weeks into the Israeli bombardment, co-sponsored House Resolution 34, a Pelosi-led non-binding declaration that "recogniz[ed] Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza" and "reaffirm[ed] the United States strong support for Israel." H.Res.34 called upon the House of Representatives to express "vigorous support and unwavering commitment to the welfare, security and survival of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with secure borders, and [to recognize] its right to act in self-defense to protect its citizens against Hamas's unceasing aggression," in addition to claiming that Israel had "facilitated humanitarian aid to Gaza" during the assault. The resolution also called on "all nations" to "condemn Hamas for deliberately embedding its fighters, leaders and weapons in private homes, schools, mosques, hospitals and otherwise using Palestinian civilians as human shields, while simultaneously targeting Israeli civilians" and "to lay blame both for the breaking of the 'calm' and for subsequent civilian casualties in Gaza precisely where blame belongs, that is, on Hamas."

The resolution made no mention whatsoever to the crippling Israeli blockade, the devastating and ceaseless air and ground assaults by the Israeli military, or the fact that it was the IDF that had, in fact, broken the ceasefire in the first place. The resolution passed almost unanimously (390-5) on the very same day that the Palestinian death toll in Gaza reached 765, half of them children and women, with thousands more wounded, including hundreds in critical condition. As Congress affirmed its "vigorous support [of] and unwavering commitment" to Israel, municipal buildings, homes and mosques in Gaza were shelled relentlessly by the Israeli military using US weaponry. Five days earlier, the Israeli Air Force had launched an attack on a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya, killing over 40 people and wounding over 100 more.

Over seven months later, when the Goldstone Report was released, Representatives Berman and Ros-Lehtinen returned to the drafting table.

Howard Berman, the self-described liberal who voted for the invasions of Iraq in 1991 and 2003 as well as the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, was described in an article in the Jewish Daily Forward as a "staunch supporter of Israel" and "a cautious backer of the peace process" whose "interest in the Jewish state was one of the main reasons he first sought a seat on the [House Foreign Relations] committee." Berman, possibly in an effort to one-up Joe Biden, boasts that "Even before I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist." Larry Weinberg, an AIPAC board member, confirms Berman's ethno-supremacist credentials saying, "I have known Congressman Berman for many years, and I am continually impressed by his personal commitment to strengthening the bond between the United States and Israel…He is not only a leader on our issues, but he is a friend to many in the pro-Israel community."

Berman is adamant about placing harsh sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, which he constantly mischaracterizes as a "nuclear weapons" program. He, along with his trusty sidekick Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, has recently proposed HR 2194, the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, which seeks to impose sanctions on companies that help Iran to import refined petroleum products or that help it to increase its domestic refinery capacity. In a September speech, Berman claimed that the United States "will be in a much stronger position to maximize our ability to obtain crippling sanctions because of our sincere effort to engage [Iran]." What an enticing proposal for Iran to engage! The speech also contained this brilliant nugget regarding the terrifying menace of a nuclear-armed Iran: "We’re not talking about a regime that has the same calculus – that same sense of restraint – as we do about the use of such a weapon." Perhaps the Congressman forgot that, in addition to being the biggest stockpiler of nuclear weapons on the planet in clear violation of its obligations to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the United States is also the only country in the history of the world to ever use nuclear weapons. And it used them on innocent civilians. Twice.

Ros-Lehtinen, meanwhile, is not only the most senior Republican woman in the US House, a hawkish Zionist, and a supporter of the Patriot Act, the invasion of Iraq, the Military Commission Act, drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the military coup in Honduras. She is also against the funding of stem cell research, affirmative action (scoring a 31% favorability by the NAACP), and civil rights (scoring a dismal 14% by the ACLU) encourages continued sanctions against Cuba (the country of her birth), and has openly called for the assassination of Fidel Castro.

Additionally, as journalist Franklin Lamb points out, Ros-Lehtinen, along with Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, is a pillar of the “fake US Congressional Human Rights Caucus, founded in 1983 which in its quarter century of self congratulatory investigations of Human Rights abuses has yet to find a single human rights abuse by Israel, irrespective of any murders, slaughtering of innocents, home demolitions, political incarcerations, religious bigotry, illegal use of American weapons, illegal siege of Gaza and serial invasions of Lebanon, and the continuing theft of Syria’s Golan Heights. Over the past few years the CHRC has become an Iran-bashing forum for all manner of Zionist zealots and kooks spreading falsehoods and defamations against Islam and the Islamic Republic."

Once H.Res.867 was drawn up, it was rapidly co-sponsored by over 200 other representatives before hitting the House floor for a vote.

The resolution itself neither addresses nor disputes any of the Goldstone Report's actual findings or conclusions. Instead, via a series of deliberately misleading, factually inaccurate and unrelated "whereas" clauses, it seeks to delegitimize the entire Fact Finding Mission as a whole, oftentimes personally attacking its members in an effort to show anti-Israel tendencies or bias. What the resolution actually amounts to is a repetition of Israeli propaganda and Zionist apologia masquerading as a legal and moral defense of indefensible Israeli military aggression.

The wide support it received in Congress demonstrates that the United States House of Representatives is determined only to promote human rights and international law with regards to how it relates to the protection of Israeli Jews and, in equal measure, proves its unequivocal and unabashed disregard, if not outright contempt, for the rights and lives of Palestinians.

The text of H.Res.867 is rife with blatant inaccuracies, decontextualized mischaracterizations and a thorough lack of historical perspective. Many of these factual errors were addressed and corrected in a letter written by Judge Goldstone himself to both Berman and Ros-Lehtinen on October 29.

For instance, in one of its 33 "whereas" clauses, the resolution claims:

"…the mandate of the 'fact-finding mission' makes no mention of the relentless rocket and mortar attacks, which numbered in the thousands and spanned a period of eight years, by Hamas and other violent militant groups in Gaza against civilian targets in Israel, that necessitated Israel's defensive measures."

This is a deliberate, decontextualized falsehood. The mandate called for the UN Mission "to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after." (A/HRC/12/48, p.13)

Palestinian rocket attacks, in addition to Israeli military operations, were clearly included in this mandate. Additionally, had those who wrote and supported the House resolution actually read the contents of Goldstone Report rather than simply making things up, they would have been well aware that, in addition to Palestinian rocket attacks and their consequences being mentioned at length in the report's Introduction, there is also an entire 20-page chapter (XXIV, p.346-366) entitled "The Impact on Civilians of Rocket and Mortar Attacks by Palestinian Armed Groups on Southern Israel," which practically begins with the following statement: "Since April 2001, Palestinian armed groups have launched more than 8,000 rockets and mortars from Gaza into southern Israel."

After exhaustively documenting the impact of these rocket attacks, including Israeli fatalities, physical injuries, psychological trauma, mental health, damage to property, the impact on the right to education and on the economic and social life of affected communities (both Israeli and Palestinian within southern Israel), the Mission states that "There is no justification in international law for the launching of rockets and mortars that cannot be directed at specific military targets into areas where civilian populations are located" and concludes that because these rockets cannot be aimed at specific targets, "one of the primary purposes of these continued attacks is to spread terror," an act which it explicitly states is "prohibited under international humanitarian law." (A/HRC/12/48, p.365) It continues:

"…the launching of unguided rockets and mortars breaches the fundamental principle of distinction: an attack must distinguish between military and civilian targets. Where there is no intended military target and the rockets and mortars are launched into civilian areas, they constitute a deliberate attack against the civilian population…

…From the facts available, the Mission finds that the rocket and mortars attacks, launched by Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, have caused terror in the affected communities of southern Israel and in Israel as a whole. Furthermore, it is the Mission’s view that the mortars and rockets are uncontrolled and uncontrollable, respectively. This indicates the commission of an indiscriminate attack on the civilian population of southern Israel, a war crime, and may amount to crimes against humanity. These attacks have caused loss of life and physical and mental injury to civilians and damage to private houses, religious buildings and property and have eroded the economic and cultural life of the affected communities." (A/HRC/12/48, p.366) (emphasis mine). 

The Goldstone Report is perfectly clear. The House Resolution is deliberately false. Furthermore, as Jeremy R. Hammond of Foreign Policy Journal deftly points out, the resolution "ignores the fact that even if Israel’s military operations were justifiable as 'defensive measures,' Israel would still be legally obligated to conduct its operations in accordance with international law, and to conduct investigations into alleged war crimes conducted by its own forces."

The resolution and its supporters repeatedly refer to the Goldstone Report as "one-sided," referencing comments made by both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan E. Rice, who called its initial mandate "unbalanced, one sided and basically unacceptable." However, as Goldstone himself explains, "the House resolution fails to mention that notwithstanding my repeated personal pleas to the Government of Israel, Israel refused all cooperation with the Mission. Among other things, I requested the views of Israel with regard to the implementation of the mandate and details of any issues that the Government of Israel might wish us to investigate," continuing,

"This refusal meant that Israel did not offer any information or evidence it may have collected regarding actions by Hamas or other Palestinian groups in Gaza. Any omission of such information and evidence in the report is regrettable, but is the result of Israel’s decision not to cooperate with the Fact-Finding mission, not a decision by the mission to downplay or cast doubt on such information and evidence."

The Israeli government even denied the Mission entry to Israel in order to interview witnesses and tour affected communities such as Sderot [sic; the real name of the town is Najd] and Ashkelon [sic; the real name of the town is al-Majdal]. Israeli witnesses had to be flown to Geneva or Jordan to be interviewed. Other interviews were conducted over the phone and via the internet. "I believed that Israel would cooperate," Goldstone told Ha'aretz. "It turned to be a naïve expectation."

So what was Congressman Berman's response?

"Justice Goldstone is correct. The Government of Israel decided not to cooperate with the Mission, based on its biased mandate, as well as the UNHRC's long history of anti-Israel bias. I find that position, at the least, understandable."

Understandable or not, Berman's resolution omits Israel's refusal to cooperate, while at the same time claiming that Hamas, which did cooperate with the Mission and allowed its members full access to Gaza, was "able to significantly shape the findings of the investigation mission's report by selecting and prescreening some of the witnesses and intimidating others." In turn, Goldstone replied, "The allegation that Hamas was able to shape the findings of my report or that it pre-screened the witnesses is devoid of truth. I challenge anyone to produce evidence in support of it."

Berman's only "evidence" is his subsequent claim that "the commission conducted some of its proceedings through holding televised open hearings in Gaza. Given its total control of Gaza and its ability to intimidate, Hamas almost certainly would have been able to control the access and message of each witness attending a televised open hearing. What is beyond doubt is that witnesses were keenly aware that Hamas was monitoring the televised proceedings and likely to inflict reprisals for any unwelcome testimony." The only thing that seems "almost certainly" "beyond doubt" is Berman's ceaseless proclivity to make baseless assumptions about a place he's never been and an incredibly stalwart and resilient people he's never met.

It is doubtful that Berman would also conclude that past testimonies given by Israeli soldiers regarding the gross misconduct and war crimes committed in Gaza were also the result of militaristic intimidation, most likely agreeing with the aborted military probe that, unsurprisingly, found the allegations to be "based in hearsay" and "rumors," and declared an end to the probe. According to Congressman Berman, the only apparent trustworthy source on what happens in Gaza is the Israeli government. What a relief.

In reality, the Goldstone Report's findings are unequivocal and unambiguous. Among many other conclusions, it found that Israel's "repeated failure to distinguish between combatants and civilians appears to the Mission to have been the result of deliberate guidance issued to soldiers, as described by some of them, and not the result of occasional lapses" and that "the destruction of food supply installations, water sanitation systems, concrete factories and residential houses was the result of a deliberate and systematic policy by the Israeli armed forces. It was not carried out because those objects presented a military threat or opportunity, but to make the daily process of living, and dignified living, more difficult for the civilian population." (A/HRC/12/48, p.407)

The Mission found that Israeli operations, in many cases, constituted "an assault on the dignity of the people" and included not only "the use of human shields and unlawful detentions sometimes in unacceptable conditions, but also in the vandalizing of houses when occupied and the way in which people were treated when their houses were entered. The graffiti on the walls, the obscenities and often racist slogans, all constituted an overall image of humiliation and dehumanization of the Palestinian population." (A/HRC/12/48, p.407)

Because the Israeli government has consistently claimed that all phases of "Operation Cast Lead" were thoroughly and extensively planned, that legal opinions and advice were given throughout the planning stages and at certain operational levels during the campaign, and that, according to the Government of Israel, almost no mistakes made during the planning or operation itself, the Goldstone Report concludes that "what occurred in just over three weeks at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 was a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability." Furthermore, "Whatever violations of international humanitarian and human rights law may have been committed, the systematic and deliberate nature of the activities described in this report leave the Mission in no doubt that responsibility lies in the first place with those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw the operations." (A/HRC/12/48, p.408)

Clearly, these revelations are far too damning for the US Congress, which funds the Israeli military apparatus to the tune of $3 billion each year and provides devastating weaponry with which to slaughter Palestinians by the hundreds, to bear and therefore must be buried. With this in mind, it is all too obvious that H.Res.867 is meant to be a distraction from the truth; it is a deliberate and disingenuous deflection of well-documented, substantiated, and widely corroborated evidence of Israeli war crimes that, in its reflexive self-righteousness, reveals itself to be no more than a study in double standards, moral relativism and selective outrage.

As such, the resolution and its uncreative backers in the House, resorted to obvious repetitions of hasbara in a well-coordinated effort to silence all criticism of Israeli actions, cover-up evidence of Israeli war crimes, and condone any and all military aggression, invasion, and occupation – no matter how illegal, inhumane, or truculent – committed by any so-called "democracy" in the name of "self-defense."

When the resolution made it to the floor of the House on Tuesday afternoon, Congress members from all over the country lined up to lend their vocal support to Reps. Berman and Ros-Lehtinen and the resolution. They all basically said the same thing: that the wicked, blood-lusting terrorists of Hamas used Palestinians as human shields and that a victimized, peace-loving, democratic Israel, via the findings of the Goldstone Report, is being unfairly condemned for merely acting out of self-defense.

Ros-Lehtinen, in her defense of H.Res.867, called the Goldstone Report a "575-page hatchet job" that "persecut[ed] Israel for defending herself," claiming that the Mission "disregarded evidence that Hamas and other such groups in Gaza used innocents as human shields and deliberately launched attacks from schools, from hospitals, from mosques." (Congressional Record H12234 11/3/09)

By the time these statements were made, Judge Goldstone had already addressed them thusly: "It is factually incorrect to state that the Report denied Israel the right of self-defense," he wrote in his letter to Berman. "The report examined how that right was implemented by the standards of international law."

The Report itself even addresses Israel's claim to self-defense. It concluded:

"While the Israeli Government has sought to portray its operations as essentially a response to rocket attacks in the exercise of its right to self-defence, the Mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole.

In this respect, the operations were in furtherance of an overall policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population for its resilience and for its apparent support for Hamas, and possibly with the intent of forcing a change in such support. The Mission considers this position to be firmly based in fact, bearing in mind what it saw and heard on the ground, what it read in the accounts of soldiers who served in the campaign, and what it heard and read from current and former military officers and political leaders whom the Mission considers to be representative of the thinking that informed the policy and strategy of the military operations." (A/HRC/12/48, p.406)

In response to the unsubstantiated, albeit constantly repeated, claims that Hamas militants hide behind innocent civilians as a defensive strategy, Goldstone notes that the Mission found no conclusive "evidence that Hamas forced civilians to remain in their homes in order to act as human shields. Indeed, while the Government of Israel has alleged publicly that Hamas used Palestinian civilians as human shields, it has not identified any cases where it claims that civilians were doing so under threat of force by Hamas or any other party."

Nevertheless, because the issue of Hamas using civilians as "human shields" is so deeply ingrained in the Zionist propaganda talking points of both Israeli and American apologists for Israeli atrocities, any contradiction of this assumed justification for the willful murder of vast numbers of innocent Palestinians by the Israeli military is brushed aside as an absurd fabrication and distortion of reality. As such, despite relevant facts and evidence to the contrary, it is repeated again and again by Israeli and American officials, parroted by an uncritical media, and in entrenched in the psyche of the gullible public to become indisputable doctrine.

Desmond Travers, who was one of the four members of Goldstone's UN Mission, addressed the "human shield" allegation in a recent interview with Harper's Magazine. A retired Colonel of the Army of the Irish Defence Forces and the former Commandant of its Military College, Travers has also served in "command of troops with various UN and EU peace support missions." In response to a question regarding whether "Hamas deliberately inserted its fighters among civilians" and therefore was responsible for deliberately increasing the civilian death toll of the conflict, Travers said this:

"We found no evidence that Hamas used civilians as hostages. I had expected to find such evidence but did not. We also found no evidence that mosques were used to store munitions. Those charges reflect Western perceptions in some quarters that Islam is a violent religion. Gaza is densely populated and has a labyrinth of makeshift shanties and a system of tunnels and bunkers. If I were a Hamas operative the last place I’d store munitions would be in a mosque. It’s not secure, is very visible, and would probably be pre-targeted by Israeli surveillance. There are a many better places to store munitions. We investigated two destroyed mosques — one where worshippers were killed — and we found no evidence that either was used as anything but a place of worship."

As part of the House floor debate, Congressman Ron Klein (D-FL) claimed that the Goldstone Report "does nothing to advance peace and security in the Middle East" but rather "serves to reinforce the deep mistrust that pervades the region and excuses the actions of terrorist groups and their state sponsors." He did not discuss how identifying war crimes and human rights violations would be anathema to promoting peace and security.

"The Goldstone Report ignores the facts," Klein continued. "The terrorist threat surrounding Israel's defensive actions in Gaza require a decisive response, and any sovereign nation would have and should have done what Israel did," adding, "I would urge U.N. member states to devote time and thoughts to the realities of human rights around the world, not Israel." (CR H12233 11/3/09) Clearly, for Ron Klein, the 'realities of human rights around the world' and 'Israel' are mutually exclusive.

Eliot Engel (D-NY) claimed that the Goldstone Report is "part of an ongoing effort at the U.N. to single out Israel and to deny Israel the same rights accorded to other nations" and that it "equates Israel's long-delayed acts of self-defense [sic] with Hamas' 12,000 intentional, indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians since 2001." He closed his comments by urging Congress to "stand by" Israel. (CR H12235 11/3/09)

Eric Cantor (R-FL) claimed that "For years, without provocation, Hamas and other terrorists in Gaza launched thousands of deadly rockets at Israeli civilians. The attacks laid siege to entire swaths of Israelis. By last December, Israel said enough was enough." (CR H12235 11/3/09)

Steny Hoyer (D-MD) echoed Cantor's statements, saying,

"The Goldstone Report largely neglects the context within which Israel's action took place. Why is that context so vital, and why is the report so empty without it? Because for years — for years — Israel has been the target of asymmetrical warfare for terrorists who hide behind civilians and aim to kill civilians. For 8 years before Operation Cast Lead, Hamas, aided by Iran and others, launched deadly rockets and mortar fire into Israel, even after Israel dismantled its Gaza settlements, even after it withdrew its military. More than 6,000 rockets have fallen indiscriminately on southern Israel’s cities and towns. I can't imagine there is one of us in this Chamber that if Canada or Mexico rained down six missiles on our civilian population — not 6,000 on our population — that there would be a Member here who would not want decisive response to stop that assault." (CR H12238 11/3/09)

Dan Burton (R-IN) also chimed in with a short speech that sounded like it was written in a joint fit of Alzheimer's disease and Tourette's syndrome. In it, he declared that "Israel has been our friend forever," which is an odd thing to say considering that Burton was already ten years old by the time the colonial European Zionist founders of the State of Israel unilaterally declared its independence. Burton continued:

"Ariel Sharon tried to reach out in a peaceful way to give Gaza back to the Palestinians [sic]. And what happened? Hamas goes in there and starts launching missile after missile after missile at innocent people, blowing them up, trying to kill them. They want to destroy Israel, as does Iran [sic]…

…There shouldn’t be one vote, not one vote in this place against Israel.

And the people who are making these comments on the other side of the aisle really bother me, because Israel has been such a great friend of ours and they have been trying to reach peace over there forever [sic]. And, instead, they keep getting rocket attack after rocket attack, and then they are criticized for human rights problems because they defend themselves [sic].

If we launched missiles into Michigan, I guarantee you, Michigan would be really ticked off at us and would want to stop it and would do everything they could to stop it. We ought to support Israel." (CR H12236 11/3/09)

Against her better judgment, even Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) decided to lend her version of recent history to the Congressional Record:

"In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza to allow the Palestinians to begin building a state. They didn’t. Instead, Hamas used the Gaza to terrorize the Palestinian people and as a launch pad to rain missiles on Israeli cities, 8,000 rocket attacks in a 3-year period. In the fall of 2008, even more rockets fell on innocent Israelis and the situation became untenable…For those who suggest that Israel used disproportionate force, I say Israel used extraordinary restraint: missile after missile, injury after injury, death after death, and year after year." (CR H12236 11/3/09)

The issues raised by these Representatives are indicative of a staggering amount of misinformation that permeates the halls of Congress and beyond. Hoyer's suggestion that the Goldstone Report neglects to contextualize last winter's assault is a statement devoid of all fact, due either to the Congressman's intentional desire to obfuscate the truth or, perhaps more likely, his unfamiliarity with the Report's actual contents. Part One includes extensive historical background of Israel's policies toward Palestinians, including the devastating three-year blockade (A/HRC/12/48, p.82-85), and Palestinian resistance to ongoing oppression, subjugation, apartheid, and aggression in both Gaza and the West Bank (albeit beginning in 1967, thereby omitting the true context of a century of Zionist colonization in Palestine, the Nakba, and almost two decades of martial law for Arab citizens of Israel; chances are, however, this is not the missing information Steny Hoyer wishes to include). The Report clearly states the importance of context:

"The Mission is of the view that Israel's military operation in Gaza between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009 and its impact cannot be understood or assessed in isolation from developments prior and subsequent to it. The operation fits into a continuum of policies aimed at pursuing Israel's political objectives with regard to Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole. Many such policies are based on or result in violations of international human rights and humanitarian law." (A/HRC/12/48, p.404)

Also included is the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005. Whereas the Representatives speaking in favor of adopting H.Res.867 refer to the withdrawal as an Israeli move toward peace that was met by Palestinian violence, the Report provides a much more fact-based assessment of the Gaza narrative, revealing that under the disengagement plan, "the Israeli armed forces continued to maintain control over Gaza’s borders, coastline and airspace, and Israel reserved 'its inherent right of self-defence, both preventive and reactive, including where necessary the use of force, in respect of threats emanating from the Gaza Strip.'" (A/HRC/12/48, p.49)

Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, in an article written in the midst of the Gaza massacre early this year and published in the Guardian, elaborates on the implications of the Israeli withdrawal:

"To the world, Sharon presented the withdrawal from Gaza as a contribution to peace based on a two-state solution. But in the year after, another 12,000 Israelis settled on the West Bank, further reducing the scope for an independent Palestinian state. Land-grabbing and peace-making are simply incompatible. Israel had a choice and it chose land over peace.

The real purpose behind the move was to redraw unilaterally the borders of Greater Israel by incorporating the main settlement blocs on the West Bank to the state of Israel."

The Goldstone Report, both in its "Context" section (A/HRC/12/48, p.46-61) and Chapter IV (entitled "Applicable Law," p.71-81), discusses how the Israeli military occupation of Gaza did not end with the withdrawal, stating,

"Israel removed both settlements and military bases protecting the settlers from the Gaza Strip, redeploying on Gaza’s southern border and repositioning its forces to other areas just outside the Gaza Strip. In addition to controlling the borders, coastline and airspace, after the implementation of the disengagement plan, Israel continued to control Gaza's telecommunications, water, electricity and sewage networks, as well as the population registry, and the flow of people and goods into and out of the territory while the inhabitants of Gaza continued to rely on the Israeli currency." (A/HRC/12/48, p.49)

Shlaim is even more direct in his description of the aftermath of Israeli "disengagement":

"Gaza was converted overnight into an open-air prison. From this point on, the Israeli air force enjoyed unrestricted freedom to drop bombs, to make sonic booms by flying low and breaking the sound barrier, and to terrorise the hapless inhabitants of this prison."

The focus on the number of Palestinian rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into southern Israel (a statistic that ranges generally from 6,000 to 8,000) is oft-repeated and used, most recently by members of Congress, to demonstrate the "asymmetrical warfare for terrorists" in Gaza inflicted upon the innocent Israelis.

A quick look at the facts reveals a very different perspective of what "disproportionate" really means. The Goldstone Report states that, in the mere fourteen months from the September 2005 disengagement until November 2006, "the Israeli armed forces fired approximately 15,000 artillery shells and conducted more than 550 air strikes into the Gaza Strip. Israeli military attacks killed approximately 525 people in Gaza. Over the same period, at least 1,700 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel by Palestinian militants, injuring 41 Israelis." (A/HRC/12/48, p.51-52)

Such statistics show that for each homemade rocket we are told terrorizes and traumatizes the children of Sderot, there are at least nine Israeli shells on Gaza that bring death and destruction to Palestinian children who are already forced to live in constant horror and humiliation.

In all of 2007, five Israelis, none of whom were children, were killed in Israel in incidents involving Palestinian violence. The same year, over three hundred Palestinians in Gaza, 29 of which were children, were killed by Israeli violence (another 91, including 14 children, were killed by Israeli or settler violence in the West Bank). The following year, up through October 2008, a total of 30 Israelis, including 4 children, were killed by Palestinian violence. In contrast, in the first ten months of 2008, 389 Palestinians, including 69 children, were killed by Israel in Gaza alone, not to mention the 56 Palestinians killed in the West Bank and Israel. Between December 27, 2008 and January 21, 2009, the Israeli air force, navy, and army murdered 926 Palestinian civilians, including 313 children, 116 women, 497 civilian men, and 255 non-combatant police officers, wounded over six thousand, and left tens of thousands homeless. 236 Palestinian combatants were also killed. Disproportionately, 10 of the 13 Israelis killed in those 26 days were Israeli soldiers, four of whom died by friendly fire.

The actual "asymmetry" of Israel's bombardment of Gaza is also evident when considering that, as Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups fight with conventional weapons, homemade rockets, and thrown stones, the IDF employs tanks, helicopters, fighter jets, unmanned drones, howitzer artillery, as well as the illegal use of such destructive weaponry as white phosphorous, flechette missiles, dense inert metal explosive (DIME) munitions, and even depleted and non-depleted uranium. (A/HRC/12/48, p.194-199)

Although resolution advocates like Eric Cantor describe Palestinian rocket attacks as being initiated "without provocation," the truth reveals something completely different. It is clear from such New York Times, Reuters, Ha'aretz, Guardian, Yediot Ahronot, The Times (UK), BBC, and Amnesty International reports that Israel broke the ceasefire, leading to an escalation of events eventually culminating with Operation Cast Lead. It has even been conclusively proven that, with regard to who breaks ceasefires more often, the Israeli military or Palestinian militants, "a systematic pattern does exist: it is overwhelmingly Israel, not Palestine, that kills first following a lull. Indeed, it is virtually always Israel that kills first after a lull lasting more than a week."

Even the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a governmental think tank that, according to its own website, "serves shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress" and whose "experts assist at every stage of the legislative process" providing "Congress with the vital, analytical support it needs to address the most complex public policy issues facing the nation" found in a February report titled Israel and Hamas: Conflict in Gaza (2008-2009):

"For the first five months [of the Egyptian-mediated, six-month tahdiya beginning in June 2008], the cease-fire held relatively well. Some rockets were fired into Israel, but most were attributed to non-Hamas militant groups, and, progressively, Hamas appeared increasingly able and willing to suppress even these attacks. No Israeli deaths were reported…" (CRS R40101, 2/19/09)

This corroborates the reporting of New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner, who wrote on December 18, 2008 (over week before Israeli launched its ruthless assault) that, in its efforts to abide by the truce, "Hamas imposed its will [over other armed resistance groups] and even imprisoned some of those who were firing rockets."

In fact, the terms of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas included, not only the halting of rocket fire from Gaza, but also the Israeli agreement to lift its brutal economic blockade of Gaza, which had been in place before Hamas was even voted into power. The siege, nevertheless, continued unabated. Therefore, whereas Hamas upheld their obligations to the ceasefire, Israel did not. Hamas leaders even offered to extend the ceasefire beyond its December 19 expiration date. Israel ignored the proposal, opting instead to carpet bomb civilian neighborhoods and incinerate, mutilate, and dismember children with banned and experimental weaponry.

Essentially, the Congressional claims of relentless and unprovoked Palestinian aggression against a peaceful Israeli population are not only unfounded, they assume the exact opposite of the truth. The "What-if-Mexico or Michigan" analogies also fall short under even the most cursory scrutiny. All real evidence turns such suggestions into a preposterous joke at which no one is laughing.

At one point, during the Congressional debate over H. Res.867, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer's effort to place the blame for Israel's brutal blockade, deprivation, starvation, collective punishment and massacre of Palestinians in Gaza squarely on the democratically-elected leadership of Hamas took a tellingly racist turn. "Tragically, civilians in Gaza suffered and continue to suffer. They suffer in major part from the determination of their imposed leaders to pursue indiscriminate terror," he began.

"Is there anybody here who doubts that if those children living there for decade after decade after decade were European children or American children or Jewish children that they would still be there in those [refugee] camps? I say to you, not the case. Why are they there? Because the Arab community does not want to absorb them, and their leaders will not seek a meaningful peace. That is why they’re there." (CR H12238 11/3/09)

Why Hoyer believes that "the Arab community" would be responsible, let alone obligated, to "absorb" Palestinians is never explained. Palestinians in Gaza don't ask for absorption elsewhere; their home is Palestine, not Jordan, Lebanon or Egypt. They were expelled from what is now Israel and, under international law, are entitled – not to be "absorbed" by other countries – but to return to their homes.

Gary Ackerman (D-NY), who actually traveled to Israel with NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg and police commissioner Ray Kelly (on the Mayor's private jet) during the Gaza Massacre to show his support for the murder of hundreds of defenseless Palestinians by the Israel military, entered his remarks into the Congressional Record, calling the Goldstone Report "a pompous, tendentious, one-sided political diatribe" that, for all its "facts" and "context" contains "very little truth" and "very little wisdom." (CR H12244 11/3/09)

Ackerman makes clear his contempt for the authors of the Report by stating, "In the self-righteous fantasyland inhabited by Judge Goldstone and his colleagues, there's no such thing as terrorism; there's no such thing as Hamas (and if it does exist, it's certainly nothing to fear); there's no such thing as legitimate self-defense; and war is like a sporting event, rather than the most ghastly, destructive, chaotic phenomenon we human beings are capable of creating." Ackerman himself could benefit from a reality check in the form of testimony by a young Israeli reservist who, upon reflecting on his role as a remote operator of Predator drones conducting airstrikes on civilian centers and residential neighborhoods in Gaza, said the following:

"It feels like hunting season has begun…Sometimes it reminds me of a Play Station game. You hear cheers in the war room after you see on the screens that the missile hit a target, as if it were a soccer game."

Although Congressional opponents of H.Res.867 were few and far between, a number of courageous Congress members took up the mantle of human rights, international law and even American legislative process by voicing their dissent and urging their colleagues to side with morality and legality, rather than denial and impunity.

Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison led the opposition, stating that the resolution "should be opposed because it suppresses inquiry, inquiry that is the hallmark of democratic societies" (CR H12234 11/3/09) and asking, "Why are we going to pass a resolution without holding a single hearing? Why is the House voting for a resolution which condemns a report that few Members have fully read?" (CR H12235 11/3/09)

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) addressed Palestinian rocket attack and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, remarking, "The urgency and the gravity of these harsh realities on both sides require that Congress act always with an eye toward peace and reconciliation." She concluded that supporting H.Res.867 "doesn’t lead us to securing Israeli peace and security nor Palestinian peaceful coexistence and for their citizens a life of respect." (CR H12235 11/3/09)

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) called the resolution "blatantly biased," stating that it "damages U.S. credibility" and "seeks to hide the ugliness of the Gaza war by covering up violent excesses committed against innocent civilians by both Hamas and the Israeli Defense Forces," including the use of "American-made white phosphorous shells" in civilian areas and the needless killing of "hundreds of Palestinian women and children and elders." McCollum also noted that the resolution calls for double standards when evaluating war crimes. "There must be only one standard for respecting human rights," she said. "A single standard by which we must hold ourselves and our friends and our adversaries accountable. Establishing situational standards for respecting human rights is dishonest and only encourages actions that destroy human dignity and life." (CR H12239 11/3/09)

Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA) called the resolution "a deliberate diversion" and challenged Congress "and the committees of jurisdiction to invest their time and resources into more constructive efforts that further the cause of peace." (CR H12236 11/3/09)

Rep. John Dingell (D-NY) rose to oppose the resolution by stating, simply, "This is a bad bill. It’s a bad resolution. It is unfair. It is unwise. It contributes nothing to peace. It establishes a bad precedent, and it sets up a set of circumstances where we indicate that we’re going to just arbitrarily reject a U.N. finding and a U.N. resolution and that we’re going to have that as a precedent. This is bad." Dingell spoke to the universality of international law:

"Neither Israel nor Hamas, nor any other country or other non-state political act is exempt from international human rights laws or free of consequence for violations of them. If nothing else, the Goldstone Report should serve as a document from which Israel and Hamas, and the rest of the international community can use to ensure that future human rights violations do not take place in civilian areas and that their militaries and fighters are actively working toward minimizing civilian casualties in the future." (CR H12237 11/3/09)

Two of the strongest opponents of the resolution were Brian Baird (D-WA) and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). Baird, in a statement released the night before the vote, stated, "if our own country is truly to stand for human rights and the rule of law, and if facts matter, how can we do other than insist that legitimate questions and evidence are followed by further investigation and, if necessary and warranted, appropriate consequences?" The statement continued:

"H.Res. 867 is very serious business. If, as Goldstone asserts and the evidence I have seen supports, there were in fact gross violations of international law and human rights on all sides, we cannot in good conscience support H.Res. 867.

This is about much more than just another imposed political litmus test that we are all too often asked to perform. This is about whether we as individuals and this Congress as an institution find it acceptable to drop white phosphorous on civilian targets, to rocket civilian communities, to destroy hospitals and schools, to use civilians as human shields, to deliberately destroy non-military factories, industries and basic water, electrical and sanitation infrastructure. This is about whether it is acceptable to restrict the movement, opportunities and hopes of more than a million people every single day." 

On the floor of the House, Baird, who has visited Gaza and seen first-hand the affects of Israel's assault, made one last appeal to his colleagues. "Do not pass this resolution. Support this fine jurist," he said. "Give justice, true justice, a chance to be heard." (CR H12237 11/3/09)

Kucinich reprimanded fellow Congress members for their suppression of the truth in supporting H.Res.867, declaring, "Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist," continuing, "Behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the totalitarian." The Ohio Representative stated that "if this Congress votes to condemn a report it has not read concerning events it has totally ignored about violations of law of which it is unaware, it will have brought shame to this great institution." He accused resolution supporters of "tacitly approv[ing] violations of international law and international human rights" and warned that "if we close our eyes to the heartbreak of people on both sides by white-washing a legitimate investigation?" (
CR H12237-8 11/3/09)

Nevertheless, despite the noble objections of these representatives and the call of numerous human rights organizations to oppose the bill and support the Goldstone Report's findings and recommendations, Congress voted overwhelmingly to pass H.Res.867, thereby white-washing war crimes in a successful bid to allow Israel to unconditionally slaughter Palestinians with impunity.

Brooklyn Representative Yvette Clarke was one of only 36 members who voted against the legislation. The day after the vote, a statement appeared on her website, explaining her position. "Consideration of this resolution completely circumvented the legislative process, preventing an accurate and thorough vetting of the findings of the Goldstone Report," she wrote. "This highly unusual legislative maneuver, which denied members a single subcommittee hearing, raises questions regarding the claims in this resolution." She also stated that the "language stating that it should be U.S. policy to 'oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration…in multilateral fora' is excessively broad and inconsistent with our national commitment to human rights and the rule of law."

This national commitment to human rights and the rule of law was recently affirmed by Dr. Esther Brimmer, Assistant Secretary of the US Bureau of International Organization Affairs in her September 14, 2009 remarks to the High-Level Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, in which Brimmer declared that the United States was pleased to rejoin the community of nations on the United Nations Human Rights Council due to the Obama Administration's renewed efforts to advance "one of the most fundamental roles of the state: to protect and advance human rights." Brimmer continued,

"We can not pick and choose which of these rights we embrace nor select who among us are entitled to them. We are all endowed at birth with the right to live in dignity, to follow our consciences and speak our minds without fear, to choose those who govern us, to hold our leaders accountable, and to enjoy equal justice under the law. These rights extend to all, and the United States can not accept that any among us would be condemned to live without them."

During a press briefing two week later, Brimmer added that the United States "must do everything in our power to end the suffering of innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians." Addressing the findings of the Goldstone Report, she said, "We encourage domestic investigations of credible allegations of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law."

The United States Congress, at the bidding of AIPAC and the Israeli government, did not heed this call, nor did they act as true representatives of their constituents. A Rasmussen poll from December 31, 2008, taken just days after Israel launched its devastating assault on Gaza when Israeli propaganda was at its height and revelations of war crimes were far from being exposed, found that Americans generally "are closely divided over whether the Jewish state should be taking military action against militants in the Gaza Strip." While the American public at large slightly favored Israeli aggression (44-41%, with 15% undecided), Democratic voters overwhelmingly opposed the Israeli offensive – by a 24-point margin (31-55%). Despite such a majority of Democratic disapproval of Israeli military action at the time, a staggering 70% of Democratic Representatives (179 out of 255) voted in favor of H.Res.867 on Tuesday.

On January 2, 2009, Salon.com commentator Glenn Greenwald posed the following query:

"Is there any other significant issue in American political life, besides Israel, where (a) citizens split almost evenly in their views, yet (b) the leaders of both parties adopt identical lockstep positions which leave half of the citizenry with no real voice? More notably still, is there any other position, besides Israel, where (a) a party's voters overwhelmingly embrace one position (Israel should not have attacked Gaza) but (b) that party's leadership unanimously embraces the exact opposite position (Israel was absolutely right to attack Gaza and the U.S. must support Israel unequivocally)? Does that happen with any other issue?"

The answer is a resounding no because the US Congress adheres to the strict doctrine of "Israel Über Alles" at all times, no matter what the facts are.

The late Edward Said wrote, "The paramount thing is that the struggle for equality in Palestine/Israel should be directed toward a humane goal, that is, co-existence, and not further suppression and denial."

The Goldstone Report came to the same conclusion, echoing the voices of those struggling for the universal values of human rights, social justice, legal equality, and basic morality, when it stated:

"The international community as well as Israel and, to the extent determined by their authority and means, Palestinian authorities, have the responsibility to protect victims of violations and ensure that they do not continue to suffer the scourge of war or the oppression and humiliations of occupation or indiscriminate rocket attacks. People of Palestine have the right to freely determine their own political and economic system, including the right to resist forcible deprivation of their right to self-determination and the right to live, in peace and freedom, in their own State. The people of Israel have the right to live in peace and security. Both peoples are entitled to justice in accordance with international law." (A/HRC/12/48, p. 404)

With the passing of H.Res.867, two days after what would have been Edward Said's 74th birthday, Congress made perfectly clear that it not only seeks to deny and suppress the truth, but is itself, in the words of its own resolution, "irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy."

Not only does the United States House of Representatives not accurately represent the views of the American people, let alone those of the rest of world, it is – unequivocally – no home to morality.

*****

As it happened, Obama cancelled his scheduled contribution to the proceedings in order to address the memorial service for the 13 who were killed in the shooting on the U.S. Army base at Fort Hood in Texas. (At the risk of giving offense where none is intended, I have to say that I think the conference agenda could easily have been re-arranged to provide the President with an alternative podium slot if he had wanted it. He did, in fact, put in an appearance at a reception for Jewish leaders attending the conference, but he didn’t talk about foreign policy. Instead he delivered a 20-minute homily on Jewish values of charity and the importance of health care reform). 

Obama’s place as the main speaker was taken by his chief of staff (and Zionism’s number one minder in the White House) Rahm Emanuel. Reviewing his address to conference as a whole, I saw no reason to disagree with what Paul Craig Roberts wrote. Emanuel “surrendered for his boss”. 

It would seem that a very similar thought was in the mind of Uriel Heilman who wrote an analysis piece for the JTA (Jewish Telegraph Agency). Under the headline Obama shifts to Israel’s corner, but tries not to show it, Heilman noted that “when the chief of staff took to the podium… he sounded almost exactly like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a day earlier”. 

It’s true that Emanuel did say that “Israel must halt settlement construction on the West Bank” (not the occupied West Bank, just the West Bank); but in the context of his whole speech, that was mere lip-service to a presidential call that had been rejected by Netanyahu and served only to confirm that it’s Zionism’s stooges in Congress who call the policy shots on Israel/Palestine, not the White House. 

According to Emanuel, Israel seeks a lasting peace. The truth telling of that day was left to French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. He said, in Paris, “Israel’s desire for peace seems to have completely vanished.” (That, of course, is not completely true. Israel does want peace, but not on terms virtually all Palestinians and most other Arabs and Muslims everywhere could accept). 

Emanuel went on: “Make no mistake, the path toward peace is not one that Israel should be asked to walk alone” (my emphasis added). That, it seemed to me, was the chief of staff’s coded way of saying, “The Arabs are to blame for the fact the President’s efforts to kick-start a peace process are going nowhere”.

At the time of writing there are signs that the growing despair of the occupied and oppressed Palestinians will trigger a third intifada at a not too distant point in a foreseeable future. 

In terms of realpolitik, there’s a case or saying that could be a good thing to the extent that Israel’s brutal suppression of it would probably inspire more global sympathy and support for the Palestinian claim for an acceptable amount of justice. But there’s a much stronger case for saying that it could be catastrophic for the Palestinians. A third intifada could give Zionism’s in-Israel mad men the pretext they will one day invent if they are not presented with it on a plate to complete the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. 

The price of President Obama’s refusal to tell truth to Jewish power might well be blood and destruction on a scale not yet seen in Israel/Palestine and far beyond.  

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East.

He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor

See also:

President Obama's opportunity to speak truth to power: Part 1 »

Open Letter to President Obama: Change the Rules of the Game

An Appeal to the American People

Zionism's Jewish Enemy

These sad and bankrupt organizations are always the first to condemn any tragedy that happens here or anywhere for that matter, when the perpetrator(s) are of the Muslim faith or are Arabs or of Arabic heritage.

Their actions are responsible for the continued discrimination against us. Instead of issuing condemnations of crimes that take place, and making it look as if being Arab or Muslim is the reason for committing the crime, they should have a backbone and either shut up or take the stand that will challenge the right wing and the system in the United States and make it clear to them that Islam and or Arabs are not reasons crimes take place.

No human being should condone the killing of people anywhere and that's why we should all be shocked to see crimes such as the one committed by Nidal Hasan take place.

Crimes always take place and they are carried out by people who for whatever reason(s) commit them, and we all should take a clear stand against these crimes, but the Muslim and Arab organizations in this country should not be waiting for crimes carried out by Muslims and or Arabs to take place so they can be the first to condemn them, but their job should be to combat racist acts and rhetoric that is taking place on daily basis, which goes without any challenge.

Since the first second that media outlets in the US learned that Hasan was a Muslim, they started attacking the religion and those who believe in it and the condemnations by Muslim and Arab groups did nothing but add fuel to these racist attacks on us.

This should be clear to those organizations, because this always happens. And even though some Jason Rodriguez went into his former work offices in Orlando Florida and started shooting and killing people there, media outlets said nothing about this guy's religion and its role in having him commit this outrageous crime, nor did Christian organizations issue any condemnations - even though no one group in the history of the world has committed more crimes than Christians.

So why do these Muslim and Arab organizations keep doing this?
Go figure.
Source: http://wewillreturn.blogspot.com/2009/11/muslim-and-arab-organizations-in-us.html
Yousef

Please visit
http://wewillreturn.blogspot.com

Futility Much Anticipated With Israel's Occupation

In a measure that has already vexed the internal Palestinian political arena, Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmud Abbas has called for "presidential and legislative elections" to be held in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank, East Al-Quds and the Gaza Strip on January 24, 2010.

The decision is expected to widen and deepen the  state of contention between Fatah and Hamas, the two largest political groups in occupied Palestine.

Fatah, which have been in control of the PA security agencies connived with Western powers and also Israel against Hamas after the Muslim liberation group won the 2006 elections.

This prompted Hamas to oust Fatah militias from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007.

The cold-bloodedness between the two sides has evolved into a kind of unprecedented enmity as all Arab, especially since Egyptian efforts to reconcile the two groups, have so far failed.

It is not exactly clear what prompted Abbas to embark on this feat now, especially with reconciliation efforts going nowhere and with the current Israeli government of Benyamin Netanyahu refusing to freeze Jewish settlement expansion despite constant American demands.

Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip, has castigated the decision to hold elections without consultation or coordination with Hamas, as a "grave blunder that would have serious repercussions on the Palestinian national cause."

For his part, Abbas sought to defend his decision, arguing that the elections were a "legal, national and constitutional imperative."

To this, Hamas retorted that it is futile to speak  of constitutional imperatives when Israel controls every street and corner in the West Bank, and when Abbas himself, as the head of the Palestinian Authority, cannot even move from his office in Ramallah to the next street without getting Israel's consent beforehand.

Palestinians, Hamas argued, must not get themselves accustomed to the "normality" of living under the Israeli military occupation.

Objective Facts

In a certain sense, Hamas is correct. The West Bank, which will be the main theatre of the scheduled elections, is still tightly controlled by the Israeli occupation army. 

Indeed, every Palestinian town where the PA enjoys nominal and symbolic "authority" is actually controlled and by the Israeli army, either directly or in collaboration with American-trained Palestinian security forces.

This means that Israel, not the PA, has the final say in all matters pertaining to elections. If Israel says "No", Abbas obviously cannot do much. He will probably succumb to the Israeli decision, and perhaps complain to Israel's guardian-ally, the United States.

Hence, it is probably safe to say that Israel will not allow the organization of real, fair and transparent elections in the West Bank and East Al-Quds if the Jewish state does not receive an "appropriate price" from the weak and vulnerable PA government.

In 2006, when Israel felt that Hamas was poised to win Palestinian legislative elections, it unceremoniously rounded up hundreds of pro-Hamas candidates for PA parliament and local (municipal) councils.

In the West Bank, nearly all elected Muslim MPs were arrested and sentenced to lengthy periods of imprisonment ranging from 32 months to 48 months. Their only "crime" was their participation in elections under the umbrella of a "terrorist organization".

On October 26, 24 MPs, including formers ministers, such Sheikh Nayef Rajoub, are still languishing in Israeli dungeons on no ground other than the fact that they earned the trust of their people in a fair election that was okayed by Israel and the United States and meticulously observed by observers from around the world.

This means that there is no guarantee whatsoever that Israel will not resort to the same draconian measures again. If so, one would really wonder if it is wise to hold elections under such conditions.

Police State Without a State 

To be sure, Israel is not the only obstacle impeding the organization of fair and truly democratic elections. The PA itself is very much a police state without a state. A police state because there is a nearly total absence of the rule of law in the West Bank as human rights and civil liberties are routinely and constantly violated.

 And "without a state" because the PA has no sovereignty of its own and is thoroughly subservient to Israel's whims.

Needless to say, an atmosphere of fear now prevailing throughout the West Bank inhibits organizing truly democratic elections.

People suspected of holding "non-conformist" views, such as sympathizing with Hamas, will be dragged to jails and interrogation dungeons where they are often beaten, humiliated and even tortured. 

At least 10 pro-Hamas sympathizers have been tortured to death at the hands of PA interrogators since 2007.

In addition, thousands of people have been detained and hundreds are still languishing in PA jails without charge or trial.

The police state atmosphere is so rampant in the West Bank today that a petty act like hoisting a green Islamic flag bearing Islam's article of faith (I bear witness that there is no God but Allah, and that Muhammed is His messenger) is enough to make one land in a PA interrogation center.

Hence, it is only logical to question the plausibility, let alone wisdom of holding elections under such circumstances.

This is not to say that "elections" cannot be organized at all. They can, but it is highly likely that they would be seriously rigged in daylight, although this would not prevent the PA's Western donors and bankrollers , such the United States and the United Kingdom, from hailing the elections as "democratic and honest".

Hard Questions

The PA leadership claims that it will respect the outcome of the elections, regardless of which party wins the polls. However, any serious observer of the Palestinian arena can hardly take this claim for granted.

Let us suppose for the sake of argument that Hamas would win the elections, even by a narrow margin. Would Fatah then cede power to the victorious party?  Would the United States and Britain and Israel's Western allies come to terms with the results? Would Israel recognize Hamas as the true representative of the Palestinian people? Would the American-trained PA security forces agree to be answerable to the new government?

Obviously, the answer for all these crucial questions is absolutely "No".
It is amply clear that Abbas is not intending to hold elections for the elections' sake.

His ultimate goal is to avenge Fatah's defeat in Gaza more than two years ago, as well as to outmaneuver Hamas into a serious  political predicament.

Ultimately, Abbas wants to get rid of Hamas as a key political player at the Palestinian arena in order to be able to give Israel all or most of the concessions it is now demanding without  facing any serious Palestinian opposition.

Abbas and his aides did try to achieve this ominous goal, namely to decapitate Hamas in 2007, in concert with US intelligence through such people as Elliot Abrams and Keith Dayton.

However, Hamas managed to outsmart them when its "Executive Force" defeated and ousted Fatah's militias from the entire Gaza Strip.

Moreover, Fatah and Hamas differ sharply on the entire rationale behind the elections. Hamas views the elections as part of an overall program for resistance that would eventually enable the Palestinian people to wrest freedom from the Israeli occupation.

On the other hand, Fatah views the election as an opportunity to "settle scores with Hamas" and to willy-nilly re-impose the group's erstwhile hegemony over Palestinian lives, using a variety of stick-and-carrot tactics.

Fatah is bent on remaining in "power", a term which in the Palestinian context is devoid of any real meaning since the PA has no real power and only functions as a submissive sub-contractor for the Israeli occupation.

In light, there is no doubt that holding elections in the West Bank  under the present circumstances would seriously complicate and exacerbate the internal Palestinian crisis and might lead to an irreversible divorce between Gaza and the West Bank.

Certainly, this is not what most Palestinians want.

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1256034022358&pagename=Zone-English-Muslim_Affairs%2FMAELayout

- The ramification of the Goldtone report and growing calls not only to hold Israeli leaders accountable for specific acts that amount to war cries and crimes against humanity (e.g. in Gaza) but to clearly identify Israel as the racist, colonial state at its core (from which emanates all these atrocities tat include ethnic cleansing).

- The intensified Israeli assault on the AlAqsa compound and the whole of the Holy City of AlQuds/Jerusalem in a final push to Judaicize the city and erase Arab Christian and Muslim heritage.  Home demolitions, denial of basic rights of residence, denial of rights of worship and movement, and outright military assaults on the "city of peace" belie a culture of impunity and disregard for International law that has been allowed to grow.  Leaders of Western, Arab, and Islamic world meanwhile oscillate between outright facilitation of the atrocities to collaboration to indifference (and I am not sure those are distinct or meaningful categories).  Many of us began to think that should Israel destroy the holy sites and build a Jewish temple in its place, we would see merely a few more declarations and statements. [Stand-up for Jerusalem is new website to help families being ethnically cleansed http://www.standupforjerusalem.org/ ]

- Self-created weaknesses. The continued split between Gaza and the West Bank with two "authorities" in essence as if two wings of the prison are being ruled by separate prison factions while the jailer is happy watching the prisoners waste time cursing each other.  I looked into this and read and interviewed many people.  My thought is that it is essential to speak the truth regardless of which prison section we are in.  I noted that both leaderships stated things that are patently untrue about the reality of what transpired over the past three years.  But also both ignored the fact that this situation is directly related to the original and huge mistake of signing Oslo and going down the path that led to an "authority" whose job it is to control the local population while the occupation remains.  It is far better to simply state NOW that Oslo was supposed to be an interim 5 year arrangement, it is now 16 and it is time to declare it dead.  Let us not bicker about "elections" in the West Bank and Gaza and instead make an agreement to dissolve those authorities and implement the agreement already signed by all factions on the revival/reactivation of the PLO. If we want to have more courage, these factions would take a political initiative like supporting the one state solution.  We will explore these issues in the Arabic newsletter sent to those who indicated interest/wanted to be subscribed.  

ACTION 1: Join the Gaza Freedom March http://www.gazafreedommarch.org
 
ACTION 2: Petition to create special tribunal for Israeli war crimes (33,300n already signed)
http://www.petitiononline.com/EAFORD09/petition.html

ACTION 3: Join PACBI Listserve to stay abreast of academic and cultural boycott issues
http://www.pacbi.org/mailinglist.php

ACTION 4: Campaign to free Palestinian prisoners held in Egyptian jails, at least one of whom was clearly tortured to death (Arabic)
http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/EE154C1C-BE12-4FD6-AEA3-8D757675B2B7.htm  

In many parts of the West, certain political parties or movements are treated as if they come from the Moon or are alien to any body politic. Their existence among the people is always scrutinised as negative, transitory and something created in a boardroom or a backroom, imposed upon an unsophisticated public that is unable to differentiate a true political programme from empty and simplistic rhetoric. These parties or movements are depicted as if they only address the margins of society who are disenfranchised from any “normal” democratic bodies, and thus, are ramshackle bands that represent a minority constituency. Given their oppositional nature to pre-existing parties, they are outfitted with the label that will serve to keep them isolated from the structures that are already in operation. All of this is to destroy the party or movement by propaganda work rather than analysis of reality.

An entire mythology has been built around the Palestinian resistance movement (which morphed into a party) Hamas. This construct has actually taken on more legitimacy as a factual interpretation of Hamas than the facts themselves. In most of the Western media, no matter if it is on the right or the left, and in some of the “moderate” media in Arab countries, the very name of the party is coupled with terms such as “fundamentalist”, “radical” or “terrorist”. Clearly, this serves to create a fear trigger that will remove the word from being critically and honestly evaluated. The listener will immediately identify Hamas with a negative connotation and is removed from responsibility for understanding that this is a manipulation of reality. The listener is expected to accept the claims that Hamas is “anti-democratic” and “fanatical”. It is child’s play to then convince the listener that Hamas is Bad, that it is the Enemy of all We represent (in our own eyes, tolerance, democracy, Goodness itself). It is possible to then extend that reading to the belief that action must be taken against them, that they are a “cancer that must be gotten rid of”, as quoted by the institutional peacenik, Noa. How does one eradicate a cancer, once it has been diagnosed? By extirpation or bombardment. With cancer treatment, one “bombards” even the healthy parts of the body with toxic agents, waiting to see if after the battle there were enough healthy parts remaining to allow the organism to continue to exist. Once you have set into the minds of millions of people the idea that destruction is good, because the enemy is just so damaging and evil if allowed to exist, the risk of bringing the entire organism to its grave by weakening it dramatically is taken as a viable risk to run. This is a way to make them justify actions that their own eyes don’t see as therapeutic, but are pure horror and evil.

How did it work that the world was so fooled and allowed Israel to destroy Gaza to “get rid of Hamas”? It was quite simple, and it’s always the same answer: Israel and its allies keep people disinformed. Those who actually will go slightly below the screaming headlines of the newspapers might find out a few facts buried that that will contradict the spin, but not that many people will go that far, given that they are exposed to something with an element of truth buried deep within. If that were not problematic enough, even the “progressives” have done meritorious services to rendering Hamas untouchable. They might accept them as a “resistance movement” but they won’t allow their personal ideological bias to see Hamas as a progressive force for their own people’s advancement. This may be out of conviction, convenience or even lack of research or a blindspot that does not allow variations on the theme of the class struggle, where everything is “international” and the same type of rules and ideals should be considered applicable and necessary for all, going so far in some cases to “import democracy” under various more or less aggressive forms.

These people, many of whom are armed with good intentions, have chewed, swallowed, and are spitting back quite a few of the outright lies and distortions that are part of the mythology created by opponents of Hamas, created in Israel and the West, primarily.

What are the components of that mythology?
1) Hamas was created by the Israeli Mossad.
2) Hamas represents a marginal portion of the Palestinians.
3) Hamas turned democratic enough just to be able to obtain some legitimacy to later take over and turn the Palestinian Territories into an Islamic State.
4) Their victory in the polls was nothing more than a protest vote against the corruption of Fatah.
5) Hamas is comprised of a bunch of illiterates and their electors are sucked in by their own ignorance.
6) Hamas is a fundamentalist group and therefore inflexible and incapable of any modification or evolution. The oft cited Charter is used against them to stress that they are simply a radical, destructive group poised for Holy War.
7) Hamas does not seek any kind of compromise with other Palestinian political parties or factions, and are therefore the divisionary element that prohibits of the unity of the people.
8 ) Hamas operates to indoctrinate their people with hate propaganda in order to utilise them as cannon fodder.
9) Hamas is a terrorist group that exists only thanks to financing by “fundamentalist regimes”.

That Hamas is merely a resistance movement has been thoroughly disproved by the elections, but this seems to be the safe place that activists can cluster in order to allow themselves to be able to tolerate Hamas, while wishing for their quick demise. They are not viewed then as having a true heritage as a political party that can be compared to those of “democratic nations” of the “international community”, and thus, analysis of them can remain at an elementary level, lending itself to hasty generalisations.

I ask my readers to kindly forgive all the inverted quotation marks, but these words do become ironic and empty of true meaning when they are applied to the objects indicated by the spin doctors, whose task it is to do the bidding of the hegemonic powers. How can a minority of a handful of nations that always pits itself against the will of the remainder of the world community in the UN be considered as the “international community”? It’s a boy’s club that excludes practically everyone. How can a country that puts in office the candidate who obtains the lesser amount of votes be called a “democracy”? It is when we start to question our own foundations that we can detect that there is a lot of convenience in presenting any opposition as being an enemy and outside of paradigms that we consider to be core to our expectations of how to establish a just and equitable world.

It’s time to debunk a few of these myths with facts.

1) Hamas was not created by Mossad. Although Israel does like to claim credit for many things, this one is not their doing. Political Islam in Palestine has had a presence since the early 40s in Mandate Palestine, and Hamas was born as part of the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan), with many of its early leaders formally affiliated. It was the experience of refugeehood that turned Hamas into a more autonomous element with a particular nationalist basis to it, a natural result of the urgent and real human situation of displacement and loss of their cultural and national identity.

There were close relations of this group with the Egyptian base, and the first offices of the Ikhwan in Palestine were created in Gaza in 1945, led by a member of one of the most important families of the zone, Sheykh Zafer al Shawwa. During the first Arab-Israeli war, Islamist volunteers reinforced the ranks, coming primarily from Jordan and Syria, and this support showed the refugees that the Ikhwan had the courage to defend itself, even during the “Israeli War of Independence”. The growing number of refugees gave a stronger identity and sense of purpose to the Islamist movement in Palestine. Therefore, in the civil society and in the population in general, a motivation from any other source was not required to be able to pledge: “I promise to be a good Muslim in defending Islam and the lost land of Palestine. I promise to be a good example for the community and for others.” These were the words spoken by those who swore their loyalty to the Ikhwan in Palestine (source: Beverly Milton Edwards, “Islamic Politics in Palestine”, p. 43). The local Ikhwan had its own agenda, defending its lost land. It didn’t require fanaticism, outside influence or even propaganda. The refugees themselves were living proof of the horrors of deportation and suffering. The identification as part of an international movement was concomitant with the recognition of the particularity of the Palestinian experience. The official foundation, dating 9 December 1987, was only the culmination of an organisation in the works for decades. Organised Islamic resistance was further utilised when the situation precipitated dramatically in 1967 and a new generation was born as refugees. For this generation, a return to Islam was considered as a necessity for the moral and political future of a people that was being literally destroyed. The cause of the Nakba was seen by many as the result of the distancing from a normal society, the Palestinian one, in which the ethical, religious, cultural and traditional values had been devastated by the occupation, and the descent into further degradation, poverty, disenfranchisement and social instability was seen not only as the result of the occupation, but part of its cause.

The “international community” would not come to the rescue of these people, the rest of the Ummah was not caught up in their national struggle, largely because they were not directly involved or were even prohibited from involvement. The extreme pain and disgrace of losing one’s land at that time was a new element to the area, where previous colonisation avoided expelling the indigenous inhabitants, and throwing off the usurpers was not complicated with the total loss of roots and a base. The basis for the formal dimension of Hamas was thus present for decades prior to its official birth. In order to operate, being under the thumb of the occupation, these organised groups that existed had established charities and benefit organisations for their people. These institutions were tolerated by Israel in the Occupied Territories. Israel conceded some operating space through granting of licenses. As General Yitzhak Sager said in an interview to the International Herald Tribune in 1981, the Israeli government “…gave money that the military governor allocated to the mosques […] the sums were used both by the mosques and the religious schools, with the purpose of reinforcing a subject that would contrast that of the Left that was in favour of the PLO.” If there was some motivation for Israel to be involved, it was really as an act of ‘divide and rule’, a bit of tolerance, a bit of economic support to the various religious associations in order to see if an opposition to the nationalists of the PLO could develop. They really were only looking for a way to see the weakening of the PLO, which was gaining some support in the West, and they did not found, provide major financing or in any way influence a movement that they would in some way infiltrate or control. That is pure mythology. Why give Israel credit where none is due?

2) That Hamas represents only a marginal portion of Palestinians is another myth to debunk. It is indeed true that all Palestinians are not refugees, and it is also true that virtually all of the leaders of Hamas were born in exile or at some point were subjected to the experience of expulsion and loss of their homes and possessions. This is a core Palestinian experience, and it is true that even those (few) Palestinians who were not uprooted can identify with the loss of their cultural and national identity, and all of them know that their national aspirations and cohesion as a group have been destroyed by Israel. Thus, even a movement or party that has its own identity in the refugee camps and in exile or in religious roots, is recognised as an intrinsic, legitimate and natural representative of Palestinians as a whole. They even obtained the majority vote in areas of the West Bank that were not considered as Hamas strongholds, as well as obtaining votes from many Christian areas.

3) The myth that Hamas turned “democratic enough” just to get its foot in the door as the first step of forcing an Islamic State upon the entirety of Palestine is a very widespread one, especially in the progressive circles that do not recognise the popularity of the movement or who have an ideological prejudice against any religious movement. There is much to be said in favour of separation of church and state, but this of course is something that cannot be imposed from afar, and furthermore, there are many levels of separation to take into consideration. Those who subscribe to this position of “Hamas buying time before introducing the Sharia” tend to deny that a democracy has certain characteristics, and it is not necessarily a synonym of “secularism”. When the word “democracy” is applied correctly, it has certain characteristics, and Hamas meets these. Hamas has popular consensus. It has an internal structure that is autonomous and recognised as legitimate by its constituency. It follows the rules of elections, meeting the requirements for participation. Once elected, it assumes its role within the existing system, not having overthrown or staged coups against established structures. It is a political movement with several factions (some of them armed, as is true of many parties in areas under occupation, Fatah included) with a history and an organisation. There is widespread discussion among its constituencies, including those who are political prisoners, prior to making decisions, and the majority decides the actions to be undertaken. If one thing must be said about it to set it apart from parties that Westerners are familiar with, highest level leaders generally do not assume the governing roles. This is understandable in a party where a great quantity of the leaders are routinely assassinated by Israel. That the current political director, Khaled Meshaal, must live in exile after having once been victim of an attempted assassination says more about this anomalous situation than a thousand words can.

4) That Hamas’s victory in the Legislative Council election was nothing more than a protest vote (another pet theory of the left) was brilliantly illustrated as false by Paola Caridi in her very good book (despite the sensationalist subtitle) “Hamas, What it is and what the Radical Palestinian Movement Wants”, published by Feltrinelli and only available in Italian at this time. I am translating a few paragraphs that deal with this question.

“There is a precise political reason for which the majority of Palestinians voted for Hamas. It is a reason that concerns the decision made by the Islamist movement formally on 23 January 2005. (translator’s note, a year prior to the Legislative elections): a unilateral truce, reached together with the Islamic Jihad (that had instead broken it on several occasions), which had turned words into facts: that there would be the end of the season of terrorist attacks made by Hamas inside Israel as indicated within the confines of the 1949 armistice, the Israel within the Green Line, in other words. The ending of suicide attacks in Israeli cities, substantially bringing an end to the Intifada as well as (Hamas’s) participative choice is interpreted by the Palestinian population as a precise political proposal: an alternative to those who had governed and controlled them, holding the hegemony up to that moment. A proposal that poses at the same time new de facto limits to Hamas’s resistance strategy. The Islamist movement has not been, therefore, chosen only as a protest against the corruption, patronage and inefficiency of Fatah, which as a party is often confused with the PA. Corruption, patronage and inefficiency that are related, at least from a temporal point of view, with the failure of the Oslo Accords and the “facts on the ground” realised by the Israelis.

“The people of Hamas were considered people who are serious, who did not enrich themselves at the expense of the population, in fact, they continued to live in normal neighbourhoods and in the refugee camps.” (Caridi, p. 171).

5) An extremely offensive smear, oft repeated, is that Hamas’s followers and its leaders are a “bunch of illiterates” or “religious fanatics”. Almost all the leaders are (or were, given the number of assassinations within their ranks, the past tense is de rigueur) university graduates in fields ranging from medicine and physics to jurisprudence, economics and theology, is testament itself that this smear is merely to throw dirt on them and paint them as having read only religious texts and therefore “under-developed” when compared to other movements. Education has always been one of the pillars of Hamas and its charity work. The people of Palestine don’t need to be told this, it is a reality for them, where in many cases without this foundation, Palestinians would be left wanting in this area.

6) The inflexibility of Hamas is another myth, especially yanked out when speaking of the 1988 Charter (Mithaq). Shiekh Hamed Bitauri, “religious authority of Nablus, president of the Union of the Palestinian Ulemas, known for his radical positions had no problem confirming that ‘the Charter is not the Qu’ran. We can change it. It is only the synthesis of the positions of the Islamist movement in its relations with the other factions, and its politics.’ Aziz Dweik, founder of the Department of Geography of the University of Nablus, later to become the spokesman of the Palestinian Parliament after the 2006 elections, and imprisoned in Israeli jails since the summer of that year, went even further, declaring the political and pragmatic necessity of distancing from the Mithaq of 1988 to Khalid Amayreh, Palestinian journalist that is sensitive to Islamist positions, he said that ‘Hamas would not remain as a hostage to rhetorical slogans of the past like those of the ‘destruction of Israel’.” (Khalid Amayreh, Hamas Debates the Future: Palestine’s Islamic Resistance Movement Attempts to Reconcile Ideological Purity and Political Realism, in “Conflicts Forum”, Nov. 2007, p.4) (Caridi p. 90).

Haniyeh has mentioned on many occasions that the Charter has been surpassed in its substance by the other official documents, the most important of which, the Electoral Programme of the Reform and Change List (the list in which Hamas ran for office). This programme is structured like a document that goes far beyond the needs of a political campaign, according to the leader of Hamas, and it indicates the policy of the movement. It was not written in the heat of the revolution of the Intifada, and reflects the evolution of the party. The changes present are not ideological so much as ones of a strategic and political nature. The positions have been reiterated so many times in interviews and public interventions, it seems incredible that the complexity and maturity of Hamas should by now not be apparent to everyone. It is clear that they are still dedicated to the liberation of Palestine, but they are attempting to achieve it through reaffirmation of the rights of the people, knowing full well that as a party, Hamas is not equipped to overthrow the occupation in any practical way or to destroy what they recognise as a reality.

Many of us who follow events in the Middle East hope that they do not surrender to pragmatism so far as to recognise Israel not only as a reality, but as a “Jewish State”, however, we must watch from the sidelines and evaluate facts. The people of Palestine will be vigil about what rights are being surrendered, if any, and many of us believe that backs to the wall, they will not capitulate and lose what they know is theirs for reasons of political expediency. Hamas too is aware of this fact.

7) Hamas has been far less divisionary than its principle counterpart, Fatah. The Gaza “coup” that shocked and saddened the world was actually a preventive measure to the thwart the planned takeover by the Fatah forces faithful to Dahlan (in collaboration with Israel). That Hamas was the party that was awarded victory by its own people has never been recognised by the “international community” that nevertheless pushed for elections and insisted that this was the necessity for Palestinians, because this would mean that the resistance had been granted legitimacy and would become policy within the governing body, the rejection of negotiations as sub-alternates with Israel, which was Fatah policy, had been officially sanctioned by the populace and it would only be a matter of time before the programme would become policy. So, any steps by the Fatah “Security Forces” to overtake Gaza would actually have been the coup. But in the backwards way of viewing events, fuelled by disinformation, the tragic bloodbath between Palestinians prevented the real overthrow of democracy that would have taken place had Dahlan had the chance. Again and again, Hamas has sought to work together with the opposition party, and this is something they would not tolerate in the vain hope that their economic advantage and political nulla osta from the boy’s club would allow them to command even in absence of the popular mandate to do so.

8 ) It’s not necessary to use propaganda to show to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and in exile, and even to many within Israel, the ongoing destruction of the Palestinian civilisation and people. Blockades, bombardments, assassinations, war, checkpoint humiliations, restrictions, separation of families, imprisonment and further abuses are not isolated incidents, but they are the daily bread and water of Palestinian life. No one needs to invent a rage over a phantasmagoric enemy. There is a real one that is subjecting the people of all ages and conditions to humiliation, deprivation and death. Showing a man in a mouse costume to insist that children are being indoctrinated in hate might go down well with the uninformed masses, but a glimpse into the reality makes Farfur look like the sweetest kind of way for a child to assimilate and tolerate that he or she is a prisoner doomed for life to suffer in the most atrocious way for being born as a lesser being in the oppressors’ eyes.

9) The worst smear against Hamas is the one to keep them as the symbol of evil: that they are a terrorist group, financed by “rogue States in the axis of evil”. Bearing in mind that their financing is abysmally inferior to the gigantic economic and “military aid” package given to Israel by America, Canada and many other nations in the “international community” in an official way, why should the claim of foreign financing be considered as unacceptable when it is simply the way the that Israel keeps afloat through billions of dollars annually, up front, and heaven only knows what other financing comes in through the thousands of “charities” that are really little more than fronts for mass immigration to Israel to curtail Arab growth? If Zionism and its charities are considered as legitimate and noble, why are Islamic ones put on blacklists and the donors treated as if they are financing terrorism? There is a double standard here.

That Hamas has rejected terror operations against civilians and did its best to do so in the service of achieving a realistic improvement for the life conditions of its people is an authenticated fact, corroborated by none other than the USA Congressional Research Service, a Think Tank that basically presents its conservative and Israel-friendly positions to the Congress so that they become policy. In fact, in the document coordinated by Jim Zanotti http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/R40101.pdf  Israel and Hamas, Conflict in Gaza (2008-2009), we see that the quoted “reason” for the onslaught of Gaza to “cleanse it of Hamas”, the rockets fired into Israeli territory, was nothing but an excuse that the West drank down with gusto as if it were cherry juice. The extremely rudimentary rockets were recognised as NOT having been launched by Hamas, and not only that, Hamas was viewed as being able and willing to suppress the attacks. It is significant that the first victims of the Israeli attacks in Gaza were the regular police forces who had just been trained, perhaps also for this purpose. Zanotti writes:

For the first five months, the cease-fire held relatively well. Some rockets were fired into Israel, but most were attributed to non-Hamas militant groups, and, progressively, Hamas appeared increasingly able and willing to suppress even these attacks. No Israeli deaths were reported (although there were injuries and property damage), and Israel refrained from retaliation.

Nevertheless, each party felt as though the other was violating the terms of the unwritten ceasefire. Hamas demanded—unsuccessfully—that Israel lift its economic blockade of Gaza, while Israel demanded—also unsuccessfully—a full end to rocket fire and progress on the release of Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit from Hamas’s captivity.

Israel cited the sporadic rocket fire as justification for keeping the border crossings and Gaza’s seaport closed to nearly everything but basic humanitarian supplies. Hamas, other Arab leaders, and some international and non-governmental organizations involved in aiding Gazan civilians complained that Israel was reneging on its promises under the unwritten cease-fire agreement.

If that were not enough, the author, certainly not sympathetic in any way to Hamas, makes statements about the aftermath of the war where even Israel admits that Hamas was not responsible for the rockets:

Since Israel’s unilateral ceasefire began on January 18, 2009, there have been about 40 sporadic rocket launches into southern Israel, far fewer than occurred on average per day just before Operation Cast Lead. Moreover, Israeli officials believe that smaller militant groups, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, and not Hamas, have fired the rockets, as they did during the cease-fire (although it is possible that Hamas is enabling or acquiescing to these attacks while preserving deniability).

So, Israel used the excuse of Hamas rocket launches to justify the elimination of Hamas (by means of destruction of the entirety of Gaza) through what they call “military operations” but the rest of humanity knows is war, while they were aware that Hamas was neither the author nor the facilitator of the rockets, any kind of excuse they pull out of the magic hat to justify their actions should fall on deaf ears. Complaints about arms smuggling through the most rudimentary of tunnels should stink to high heaven when we see the Defense Budget Appropriations for US-Israeli Missile Defense Programs in that same Congressional Report. Iron Dome, David’s Sling and other “military aid” costing the American people billions of dollars are described briefly. For every five ineffective bottle rockets that are smuggled through a tunnel, the USA is flying in full cargoes of arms and cases of cash to be spent by Israel for their military “needs”. The double standards here also draw innocent blood in violation of international law at the expense of your hard-earned money. Again, from the Congressional report:

Israel may have used weapons platforms and munitions purchased from the United States in its military operations in Gaza, reportedly including, among others, F-15 and F-16 aircraft, Apache helicopters, and, according to Israeli press reports, GBU-39 small diameter guided bombs approved for sale by the 110th Congress following notification in September 2008.

Additionally, all unilateral truces between Israel and Hamas (called by Hamas, not by Israel) were broken in every case by Israel. In many cases, making incursions into the Occupied Territories, which legally they are prohibited from doing, as civilian populations under occupation (even if the “settlers” have left, Gaza is kept under siege by Israel) are required to be protected by the occupier, not attacked. Israel, using weapons and planes supplied for them by the good graces of the people of the United States, bombarded streets where their targets (politicians and clerics that Israel terms as “militants” if not worse) were located, killing in an indiscriminate way anyone in the range, children included. If that’s not terrorism, the word has no meaning.

These are only a few of the myths in circulation. They represent just a portion of the lies, disinformation and hasbara that circulates about one of the major Palestinian parties, born from within, developing as all parties do, from below, and legitimised by fair and legal elections. Debunking these lies is a duty. One doesn’t need to agree to the entire programme of Hamas, but one is obligated to recognise that they are entirely different from the image that they have been straightjacketed into. What Jessica Rabbit said in the film, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” could very well apply to Hamas: “I’m not bad, they just draw me that way.”

This article is part of the Palestine Think Tank and Tlaxcala initiative The First Word War against Disinformation. If you would like to contribute your own original articles to this initiative, send them to contact@palestinethinktank.com or to tlaxcala@tlaxcala.es

visit www.tlaxcala.es and www.palestinethinktank.com

The site witnessed violent disturbances two weeks ago when Israeli paramilitary police stormed the Haram Al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) in an effort to arrest Palestinians who had repulsed an attempt by a group of Jewish fanatics who were trying to arrogate "prayer rights" at the Islamic shrine.

Dozens of Palestinians were injured, some quite seriously.

Following the incident, hundreds of Muslims from Jerusalem and also from Arab towns and villages in Israel decided to maintain a constant presence at the mosque in order to repulse new attempts by Jewish extremists to seize a foothold at Al-Aqsa compound. On many occasions, Israeli police forces threatened to storm the Noble Sanctuary if the sit- in didn't end. Meanwhile, they maintained a constant presence outside the compound. But on Sunday, the Israeli government decided to lift the siege, effectively allowing participants in the sit-in to leave peacefully.

The deal apparently was part of a behind-the-scenes understanding between Israel and Jordan whereby Israel agreed to reinstitute the status quo ante at the site and to refrain from provoking Muslim sensibilities. According to the Jordanian-Israeli Peace Treaty, Jordan retained the role of custodian of Al-Aqsa Mosque. Jordan had harshly criticised Israel for the "standoff", and unconfirmed reports indicated that the Jordanian government threatened to expel the Israeli ambassador from Amman if the provocations continued.

Indeed, King Abdullah II warned in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz last week that the irresponsible Israeli behaviour with regard to Al-Aqsa Mosque could spark off a huge conflagration in the region and "destroy everything". Jordan and other Muslim countries witnessed large anti-Israel protests following Friday congregational prayers.

In addition to Jordan, several Muslim countries also filed protests with Israel, warning the Israeli government that any attempt at a gradual Jewish takeover of Islam's third holiest site would be viewed as crossing an ultimate red line by Muslims, and would also put an end to any semblance of peacemaking efforts in the region. The protests prompted Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to publicly deny that Israel was harbouring hostile intentions with regard to Al-Aqsa Mosque.

"Last week extremist figures tried to undermine Israel's stability. This is an extremist minority that spread lies about Israel digging under the Temple Mount [Haram Al-Sharif]. This is a lie," he said.

Another Israeli official, Trade and Labour Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer warned that Israeli Arabs were beginning to "link up" with Hamas against Israel. "A certain alliance is forming between Israeli Arabs, specifically the Islamic Movement, and Hamas," Ben-Eliezer told Israeli state-run radio, adding that Israel would eventually pay a heavy price if this was permitted to continue. Muslim leaders in Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories scoffed at these statements, calling them "brash lies".

"Israel is trying to tell the Muslim world that this is a confrontation with Hamas. This is a lie, because Al-Aqsa Mosque belongs to the entire Muslim umma (nation) and Israel is trying to demolish the mosque or at least arrogate part of it in order to build a temple for Jews," said Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the Islamic Movement in Israel.

Salah was arrested briefly last week on charges of "incitement against the state" and of "making contacts with a terrorist organisation" — an allusion to Hamas. Both Salah and his deputy, Sheikh Kamal Khatib, have also been barred from entering Jerusalem for 30 days. Israel has accused Salah and other Muslim leaders of carrying out "subversive activities" and "orchestrating" claims about an Israeli conspiracy against Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The restoration of calm at Al-Aqsa Mosque seems to vindicate the view of Muslim leaders that the main source of tension was Jewish provocations, particularly the repeated attempts by messianic Jewish fanatics to enter the mosque — not as ordinary tourists, but as provocateurs and troublemakers. Sheikh Ikrema Sabri, a chief imam and preacher at Al-Aqsa Mosque, said Muslims in Jerusalem and the rest of Palestine would never stop resisting and protesting efforts by Jewish intruders to establish a foothold or gain "prayer rights" at the Muslim shrine.

The current relative calm is unlikely to last for long, however, given the determination of messianic Jewish groups that are bent on demolishing Islamic holy places in Jerusalem in order to build a Jewish temple on their ruins. Some of these groups, such as the Temple of Faithful, believe that Jews won't attain redemption until Al-Aqsa Mosque is destroyed and a Jewish temple is erected in its place. According to extremist Jewish doctrine, the ensuing violence that would see the death of a huge number of people would expedite the appearance of a Jewish Messiah, or Redeemer, who would bring about salvation for Jews and rule the world from Jerusalem.

Messianic Jewish groups, which exert a lot of influence on the Israeli government and parliament, and even the army, seem to show little deference to any government decision to maintain status quo ante arrangements at Al-Aqsa Mosque esplanade where the Muslim Waqf (religious endowments authority) has been managing the holy site since 1967. A few days ago, a number of Jewish intruders disguised as foreign tourists entered the mosque despite tacit Israeli assurances to the contrary. Similar attempts, coordinated or uncoordinated with the government, are expected in the coming days and weeks.

Moreover, it seems that the current right-wing Israeli government fully identifies with the declared and undeclared goals of the extremists, despite any public stand to the contrary. Indeed, not a single member of the current government has criticised — let alone denounced — the fanatics for their repeated provocations.

This week, Sheikh Salah alluded to Israeli government collusion with messianic fanatics. He said nothing short of a full liberation of Al-Aqsa Mosque from the Israeli occupation would shield the Muslim sanctuary from harm. "The Israeli government is the prime mover of all plots against Al-Aqsa Mosque. The important thing is not what they say to the media, but what they do at, around and especially beneath Al-Aqsa Mosque."

The recent Turkish decision to exclude Israel from an aerial military exercise over Turkish territory is another indication that Turkey will not allow itself to be blackmailed by criminal international Zionism.

Following the decision, Zionist officials and media sought to mitigate its impact on the increasingly troubled relations with Turkey by claiming that it had little to do with the genocidal blitz which the Israeli army carried out in winter against the Gaza Strip.
However, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister of Turkey, and other Turkish officials  have made  it amply clear that the cancellation of the military drill is consistent with the feelings of the vast bulk of  the Turkish masses vis-à-vis the Nazi-like atrocities in the Gaza Strip.

This week, Erdogan once again invoked the mass killings by the Israeli army of hundreds of Palestinian children, using white phosphorus shells and other weapons of death.
The Turkish premier argued convincingly that Turkey has an influential public opinion and that it was the government’s duty to take it into consideration.

His remarks have effectively silenced Zionist pretensions and attempts at self-assurance that Turkey would budge to Zionist pressure.

To be sure, Israel is unlikely to succumb to the new reality of Turkish-Israeli relations, namely that the quasi-Islamic leadership of  Turkish republic will not just play deaf and dumb and look the other way if the Zionist regime keeps up its genocidal crimes against the helpless and innocent civilians in occupied Palestine.

Zionist circles, incensed by their inability to intimidate or bully the Turkish leadership, are likely to be devising ways and means of retributions against Turkey.

These might include instigating the Jewish-controlled American congress to declare the anti-Armenian campaign of 1915 a “genocide” or even a “holocaust.” More importantly, Israel and its Zionist circles are likely to step up efforts to incite the traditionally secular Turkish military establishment to topple the democratically-elected government.

Israel has had a reputation of inciting the Turkish military against civilian governments that dared deviate from the Zionist line.

A classical example was the Zionist-envisaged coup against the first Islamic Prime Minister of modern Turkey, Necmittin Erbakan in 1997.

Moreover, Israel could still manipulate a vast network of Freemason agents to destabilize the Turkish government.

Zionism played a pivotal role in effecting the downfall of the Ottoman state after Sultan Abdul Hamid II adamantly refused repeated Jewish solicitations for a national Jewish home in Palestine.

Nevertheless, Israel would have to be extremely cautious about any provocative interference in internal Turkish affairs since this could boomerang badly on Israel and cause irreparable damage to Israeli-Turkish relations.

Also, the increasingly stable relations between the Turkish government and the military establishment are likely to make any Zionist-inspired conspiracies against the stability of Turkey more difficult than ever before.

The exclusion of Israel from the Anatolian Eagle exercise seems to be a popular measure for most Turks who are disquieted by recurrent efforts by government-backed Jewish extremists to arrogate a foothold at the Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem, one of Islam’s holiest sanctuaries.

In addition, the decision is manifestly morally right. After all, which country, let alone an Islamic country, would host warplanes that only a few months ago were raining death on helpless and unprotected children throughout the Gaza Strip, killing, maiming and incinerating thousands of innocent people, and utterly destroying thousands of homes, mosques and other civilian buildings?

The Zionists will always try to defend or cover up their evil crimes, now exposed by the Goldstone report, with obscene lies.

They would claim, as the former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni did this week, that the virtual genocide in Gaza was not an anti-Palestinian act but rather an “anti-terrorist act.”
But such claims are nothing short of a fornication with language.

After all, it is well-established that the vast majority of the victims of the Gaza blitz were innocent civilians. This fact is readily recognized by human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and even Israel’s own B’tselem group which monitors Israeli army crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories.

So could it be that the entire world is wrong about what happened in Gaza while the Judeo-Nazi thugs in Tel Aviv are right?

The Turkish leadership should therefore be applauded for its moral commitment toward  the helpless Palestinians, many of whom have Turkish ancestry, who are languishing under an unmitigated Nazi-like military occupation.

This Turkish approach to Israel, an entity whose very existence constitutes a gigantic war crime, or a crime against humanity, is the least any Muslim country can do to prevent a possible genocide against the Palestinians.

This is why, other Muslim (and non-Muslim) countries with diplomatic ties with the Israeli regime ought to learn a moral lesson from Turkey and stop having “business as usual” with the Nazis of our time.

I am saying this  because it is a Nazi act par excellence to employ the most advanced technology of death  to exterminate innocent civilians who are even denied access to food and fuel as well as  some of the basic amenities of life, on the ground that a few Israeli settlers were killed and injured by primitive projectiles fired by desperate Palestinian resistance fighters who found themselves very much in a situation resembling  that which faced the anti-Nazi resistance fighters in Europe during the Second World War.

I am sure that conscientious people around the world, including many Jews, know in the depth of their hearts that what Israel did in Gaza ten months ago, and what it has been doing to the Palestinians for decades, belongs to the same moral category under which Nazi atrocities are listed.

This is why it is a moral obligation of the highest order upon all people of conscience and honesty, irrespective of religion and race, to condemn, expose and isolate this nefarious regime that is trying to consolidate the law of the jungle in place of international law.

Failing to do so, God forbid, means that the law of the jungle will prevail.

            –Famed British Historian Professor Arnold Toynbee

I wholeheartedly agree with Professor Vasillopulos's assessment on the hypocrisy, double standards and marked subjugation of U.S. foreign policy vis à vis Palestine to Israel's interests and its powerful American lobbies who have unprecedented influence on Congress. Israel's very creation arose out of Western colonialism, first the British who had the audacity to gift a land they did not own, a land under Ottoman rule, to European Jews out of domestic political expediency, followed by America, a government ruled by corporations and special interests, in this case the powerful Jewish lobby.  Israel's ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians from their land in 1948 – 1949, its total destruction of 450 Palestinian villages, including the destruction of mosques and churches, was simply accepted by western colonial powers as a necessary consequence of an Arab military onslaught on the small Jewish state, something that was a proven blatant lie as documented by Israel’s own documents. Tragically Israel’s brilliant propaganda, media campaigns and effective political public relations to indoctrinate the Western population were successful. The Arabs were too incompetent to even understand the use and power of such instruments.    Israel’s prowess to influence and determine Western public opinion has allowed it to defy all international agreements, laws, U.N. Resolutions, world opinion, even U.S. policy as evidenced by Obama’s forced backtracking on his initial call for Israel’s freezing illegal settlements.   

Obama’s silence on the Goldstone Report once again shows who runs U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

While Israel can tell the world “No”, the Arabs sadly don’t even know the word exists.   

In 1949 President Truman was so outraged (the man responsible for Israel's creation) by the mass expulsion of Palestinian refugees he convened the Lausanne Conference in Switzerland to pressure Israel to stop its ethnic cleansing and accept UN Resolutions 181 (Partition of Palestine) and 194 (right of return of Palestinian refugees).  

Israel rejected Truman's proposal while the Arabs accepted it prompting his envoy Ambassador Mark Etheridge to write Truman: " Since we gave Israel birth we are blamed for her belligerence and her arrogance and for the cold-bloodedness of her attitude toward refugees…Israel must accept responsibility….her attitude toward refugees is morally reprehensible….Her position as conqueror demanding more does not make for peace.”

Since then many U.S. politicians have quietly expressed their anger and frustration at Israel's continued Zionist expansionism in the Holy Land, but none have ever had the courage to stand up to this little nation while in office that manipulates the most powerful nation on earth to pay and die for Israel's wars from Lebanon, to Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the Gulf, Afghanistan, and now the deja vu campaign to "bomb, bomb, bomb" Iran.

Yet while we as Arabs and Muslims can reiterate the historical facts regarding the rogue nation of Israel and its chosen method of existence that wholly depends on wars, assassinations, terrorism, mass imprisonment and the wholesale starving siege of Gaza, we should be honest with ourselves and proclaim that Arab political and economic incompetence, paralysis, hypocrisy, backbiting, and self sabotage regarding Palestine is the other side of the coin to decades of Palestinian suffering. Fifty-seven Muslim nations, 1.6 Billion Muslims, 50% of the world's oil wealth, 60% of its gas wealth, trillions of dollars of investment in Western governments and institutions, are shamefully paralyzed to face one small nation of 6 million Jews.  Western politics revolves around money, media manipulation, myths, lies and propaganda, something Arabs are well accustomed to in their own nations.

There is no true political, economic, social or media presence for Arabs and Muslims in America. They are silent, fearful, uneducated and inexperienced in living and dealing with America's culture, tend to herd themselves by ethnic group and fight whether there should be a barrier between men and women in the mosques, or whether Muslim men and women can gather for a lecture, yet allow such women to mingle, work, and go to school with Non-Muslims.

I strongly believe that we as Muslims must blame ourselves for our state of affairs and avoid the usual scapegoating that "powerful forces" such as Israel, the E.U., and America hinder our progress or our justified right to reclaim our lands and resources. Our "intellectuals" have adopted and imitated the Western mantra that progress can only come if one abandons religion. Rather than Islam being the problem, Muslims are the problem and Islam is the solution.

That is why as a Muslim I am deeply proud of the Turkish government and the Turkish people for being the sole Muslim nation to publicly repudiate Israel on its slaughter in Gaza. While Arab leaders convene "summits" on Palestine their private agenda is to attack Hamas and Hezbollah, the only two resistance parties in the entire MidEast against Israel. The shame and betrayal of Mahmoud Abbas to withdraw consideration of the Goldstone Report is another hallmark that even Arabs don't value Arab blood as long as their chairs are protected.

Muslim wealth is bailing out Western economies and not benefiting the current confused Muslim generation lost between little faith and overwhelming American cultural influence.  Why is our wealth not building schools, hospitals, better roads, working on finding precious water, creating manufacturing jobs, building sewage plants, collecting garbage and using the media to improve our knowledge of Islam, its morals, and goodly behavior.  We build towers, buy luxurious toys such as planes, cars and camels, while neglecting the betterment of human lives.    Arab Satellite channels open their programs with readings from the Quran only to follow up with a music video of barely dressed women gyrating their bodies to the most obnoxious simplistic drum beat.

Each of us as Muslims is responsible for learning, implementing, and protecting our faith. Each of us is responsible for ourselves, our families, our neighbors, community, nation, and Ummah. Our silent acceptance of our corrupt till death do we part rulers has led to our failed societies. 

We need a renaissance of intellect, of education, scientific and analytical and skills, in fact, a rebirth of a highly motivated Ummah that rejects the status quo and begins the journey to a faith based enlightenment that can only result in our victory against our own demoralizing failures and the ultimate victory of salvation in the hereafter.

I share the pessimism of Muslims around the world that we're not ripe for a personal and nationalistic revolution, but what's the alternative? Should Muslim blood saturate the earth to replace our stolen oil before we awaken to our demise?

Either we change, die, or die trying.

As an early and enthusiastic Barack Obama supporter and a professor of international relations who teaches Middle East politics and American foreign policy, I have been often asked in class and in public forums, “What do you think Obama will do regarding Palestine?”

My answers came down to that there was likely to be a dramatic improvement in the tone of American-Arab relations and with the Muslim world in general, but only within the limits of a continuing stalemate in Palestine.

This prediction has turned out to be all too true, as welcome as better general relations are. I am more pessimistic now, nine months into the Obama administration. I would say now that even when or if the domestic agenda calms down, if some form of health care gets passed, the economy recovers and the withdrawal of troops in Iraq takes place as planned, there will be no substantive improvement in the plight of the Palestinians. Israel will continue its policy of changing the facts on the ground, each day making concessions on settlements, Jerusalem, the wall and a multitude of other anti-Palestinian activities all the more difficult.

I have two reasons for this view — one direct, one indirect. Although far from Palestine, the war in Afghanistan is now Obama’s war. This increasingly evident futile effort — to do what? — eliminate al-Qaeda? bring democracy to the country? secure Pakistan? The list grows with each headline. I realize the pledge to root out terrorist bases was largely a promise driven by the campaign. Democrats are eager to show they are as murderous as Republicans on any issue related to national security, especially during an election campaign. Obama, however, seems sincerely committed to his policy. “The right war, the right time. It is not a war of choice but of necessity.” So goes the rhetoric. What president ever says a war he supports is the wrong war fought at the wrong time and is not necessary? And of course the war in Afghanistan remains a politically cheap way to establish Obama’s national security credentials. How many Americans object to the killing of Muslims, so long as any connection, however tenuous, can be made with terrorism, however ill defined? Given the interconnectedness of political issues, Obama cannot afford to lose any domestic support. Muslims will thus continue to provide the pound of flesh demanded by the Shylocks of national security.

Foreign policy elite retains hold on Palestine issue

Although I more or less anticipated these dreary developments, I retained my hope for Obama’s Palestinian policy. Perhaps, I reasoned, by demonstrating “strength and resolve” in Afghanistan, he would buy some leeway in Palestine? Always a slender hope, this thread now seems severed. Despite the appointment of George Mitchell, the foreign policy elite which has dominated Palestinian issues for decades remains intact. Apart from some rhetorical flourishes, almost immediately recanted or “put into the context of our undying commitment to our greatest ally, Israel,” nothing has changed. Settlements expand, despite their manifest illegality and official condemnation by the UN, the US included sort of. The wall continues to lengthen, creating more misery for Palestinians. The military incursions continue at the slightest excuse, killing and maiming civilians, including women and children.

I realize that Obama is much more skeptical than Bush-Cheney of Israel’s ultranationalist religious right. But how much difference will this make since the only viable opposition is also a right-wing party with a Palestinian platform virtually indistinguishable from the current extremist government that has avowed anti-Palestinian racists, like Avigdor Lieberman, in the cabinet? Let me suggest why I believe the Obama administration is not committed to substantive change in America’s policy toward Israel, which is to say America’s virtual absorption of the Israeli point of view in Palestine and the entire Middle East. Again, we must make an inference, since it is foolish to go by US rhetoric in this region. For any positive change to take place in Palestine, if America is to be taken seriously as an “honest broker” in the region, still the official policy, despite being thoroughly discredited, I believe it is imperative for Obama to discuss the danger of Israeli nuclear weapons.

My principal reason for pessimism is that every time Obama or Hillary Clinton refer to the unacceptability of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, they refer to non-existent Iranian weapons and ignore hundreds of Israeli nuclear warheads. The American mantra reconfirmed by Obama-Clinton is “no nuclear weapons in the Middle East.” Who can disagree with this? Who wants nuclear weapons in the Middle East or anywhere else for that matter? The difficulty with the American mantra could not be more simple or compelling. It is false in its premises and false in the facts. Americans have accepted nuclear weapons in the Middle East, so long as they are Israeli. And Israel has had nuclear weapons for over 30 years, hundreds of war loads and missiles capable of reaching every capital in the region. Every time an American official intones the mantra that “nuclear weapons are unacceptable in the region,” the hypocrisy bell clangs. Therefore, my critical indicator of change in American policy regarding Palestine is this: Would Obama say that all nuclear weapons in the Middle East are unacceptable, including those of Israel? So far there has been a resounding silence, except for the hypocrisy bell. Clang! Clang!

Much more is at stake than political consistency and the credibility dependent upon it. There is a much greater problem entailed in the mantra than a flagrant double standard. The very stability of the region, one of the principal objectives of American foreign policy, is being held hostage to this absurd mantra. So long as Israeli nuclear weapons are ignored, there can be no nuclear stability in the region. As every nuclear strategist knows, it is inherently unstable for only one adversary to have nuclear weapons. Nuclear deterrence, that is, nuclear stability, requires mutually assured destruction (MAD). This doctrine holds that stability requires that each nuclear power has the ability to retaliate effectively after the most devastating attack possible. This is called “second strike capability.” To be effective, it must inflict unacceptable damage to the nation which struck first. This has been the logic of nuclear stability ever since the Soviet Union developed its ability to strike the US. Its only assumption is the belief in the sanity of those who hold the nuclear triggers. Like it or not, precarious or not, MAD has worked. There is no reason to believe its fundamental logic no longer applies. It has applied regionally as well, as the case of India and Pakistan demonstrates.

Of course, the assumption of sanity is properly called into question by religious and other fanatics. No one wants such true believers to have control of nuclear weapons. “Aha! Therefore, we have to stop the Iranians!” The problem with this corollary of the American mantra is that it ignores Israeli fanatics, who are more firmly in control of Israel and its nuclear weapons than Islamic fundamentalists are in control of Iran and its non-existent nuclear weapons. No one doubts that Israel would use nuclear weapons on the Arabs, whether or not they have been attacked with such weapons. Everyone fears that Israel, rather than be defeated, would resort to nuclear Armageddon. Indeed this is one of the principal reasons that America does all it can to avoid an Israeli defeat. To the degree this is true, American foreign policy is held hostage to the existence of the Israeli monopoly of nuclear weapons, a fortiori, when Israel is controlled by right-wing fanatics, as is the current case.

There are alternatives to giving in to the threat of Masada. One is of course the denial of the American mantra. This would recognize the logic of deterrence by allowing Iran to develop a second strike capability vis-à-vis Israel. Or America could provide the second strike force by guaranteeing the nuclear security of every country in the region. America has provided nuclear deterrence for Japan for 60 years. America has made it clear that a Soviet or Russian attack on Europe would be considered an attack on the US. One can only wonder, however, if this protection applies to Muslim Turkey. If so, it has been kept very quiet. Or, thirdly, nuclear stability can be obtained by disarming Israel. Each of these options requires American acknowledgment of the existence and danger of Israeli nuclear weapons.

Nuclear instability a risk

Failure to do so condemns the region to nuclear instability, because (1) it gives Israel a free hand and (2) it gives other powers in the region an overwhelming incentive to develop their own deterrent capability. The American mantra that “nuclear weapons are unacceptable in the Middle East” is thus far more than hypocritical. It undermines American interests in the region, chiefly oil. And it imperils the lives and property of hundreds of millions of people. As a political realist, neither of these factors would, by itself or in combination, condemn American policy, if there were a reason to run these tremendous risks. What is this reason? The survival of Israel? There are two things wrong with making Israeli survival the predominant objective of American Middle East policy. It assumes that 5 million Israeli Jews are more important than more than 200 million Arabs, to say nothing of Turks and Iranians. No one even makes this argument in public, except the religious zealots of the Chosen People. Moreover, leaving human life aside, it assumes that resourceless Israel is more important than energy-rich Arab lands. Can one imagine an American capitalist making such an argument? Or an American motorist? From the realist perspective, unless it can be reasonably argued that Israel helps America meet its strategic objectives in the Middle East, America’s unquestioned support of Israel is absurd. One need not even get to the question of morality, the murder and oppression of millions of Palestinians, to conclude that America’s alliance with Israel comes at much too high a price.

It is important to note that this conclusion does not even broach the difficult topics surrounding a viable Palestinian state. My point is that no serious discussion of these topics can be undertaken until American policy makers acknowledge the facts of Israel’s nuclear monopoly. For Israeli nuclear weapons have emboldened right-wing Israeli governments to further and deepen their oppression of the Palestinians. And Israeli nuclear weapons have intimidated American policy makers who do believe that a Palestinian state is not only just but necessary for good relations with the Arab world.

I am compelled to warn that the next time we hear Obama intone the mantra that “nuclear weapons in the Middle East are unacceptable,” we should hear more than the “clang! clang!” of hypocrisy. We should hear the bell sounding the knell of political rationality. And what will take its place, if not the irrational forces of hatred, bigotry, racism and fanaticism?

Nevertheless the question of Palestine is much more complicated than the question of settlements which composes only a portion of the question. But if we use this example as a barometer to measure the intention of Israel to integrate in the region the conclusion is more than obvious. Israel, like all racist and fascist states in history cannot live without oppressing and stealing the natives land and consequently cannot live without war. In the final analysis the essence of  the Palestinian question  is about displacing native Palestinians by a racist and murderous ideology to bring  people from all over the world nothing link them except they are Jews. But, the fact which the world still overlooks is that the absence of a comprehensive approach which considers all elements in the conflict it is difficult to see a sign of hope of a political settlement.

The question today is, what will the US be doing in light of the Israeli rejection of the American peace plans, will Obama realize at last that backing an apartheid state is absolutely against the interest of America which its image was greatly damaged in the whole world, or will Obama puts more pressures on Israel to comply with the peace plans?

Most Arab political circles fears that the USA which failed to put pressures on Israel to freeze settlement building for a year will press the Arab party to give more concessions to normalize the relation with the Jewish apartheid state. The meeting which took place in New York this week between Obama, Abbas and Netanyahu is considered a success to Netanyahu who could boast that he challenged Obama and rejected to comply with the American proposals.

Arab states say that they have given concrete proposals and the ball now is in the Israeli ground. The Beirut summit of 2002 which Israel ignored proposed a full diplomatic relation with the state of Israel for a full withdrawn from the west bank. For that reason Arab circles in the Middle East are concerned about the Obama demands from some Arab countries in the North Africa and the Gulf region to deliver some “normalization gestures” towards Israel which in return will continue building “only” 3000 units in the occupied Palestine. In the light of this Arab circles began to pose questions about the capability of the new administration to break with the previous American biased position.  A Palestinian politician whom I spoke with after the Obama speech at the UN wonders what Obama means by using the term halting the Palestinian agitation against Israel.  He asked: “Do Palestinians need somebody to agitate them against Israel when they see with their eyes how Israel makes their life hell on daily basis? Does Obama expect Palestinians to dance when Zionist Jews steal their land and humiliate them daily on 600 check points which most of them has no security significance for Israel but rather to humiliate Palestinians and to break their will of freedom?”

The historical speech of the Libyan leader at the UN has posed serious questions about the role of the UN towards several third world cases, Palestine is one of them. Most Arab observers consider that this speech was the clearest Arab protest towards the UN which failed to prevent more than 65 wars and failed to provide justice to Palestinians. We cannot see that the UN is for the whole world, Al Qaddafi said. Indeed the strong states do what they like and nobody question them while the UN is strong on the small states.  The Palestinian question is the sharpest example: Israel occupies, murders and steals Palestinian land  under the shadow of the American veto which consolidates the Qaddafi argument about the biased position of the UN. However the political view in the occupied Palestine has witnessed no change on the ground.

The apartheid state of Israel changes its propaganda tactics between time and time but the strategy remains the same. To steal as much as they could of Palestine and to reduce as much as they could of Palestinians by various forms of terror which is the preferable methods of the Zionist apartheid state. The reality on the ground is which speaks, and this reality demonstrates clearly that Jewish settlement increases creating facts on the ground which makes the establishment of a small Palestinian state impossible. Major Palestinian cities like Qalqilya  are surrounded by a wall from three directions leaving only one entrance to go into town in one of the  biggest prisons in modern history is a small  example of the huge destruction which Israel  caused  and is still causing to the Palestinian land and the Palestinian life.  If an earthquake or any natural catastrophe strikes the town hundreds of thousands of its population will find no place to escape to since the Zionist walls are surrounding the city from three directions. According to a source in the Palestinian civil defense whom I met recently several fires were not extinguished because the Palestinian fire fighting cars were stopped from half to one hour on the Israeli check points and the result is that the cars reached the place when the fire had already destroyed everything. The Jewish fascism is getting stronger with each day and the hopes of reaching a reasonable solution disappearing too. All this is contributing in creating an atmosphere of hopelessness and pessimism in the region and consolidating the view that the international community is unable or unwilling to make Israel respect the international law.

In the view of many Arab observers the failure of the American plan will push the region sooner or later towards a comprehensive war which would be the logical result of the aggressive Zionist policy. Are we heading towards the eighth Arab Israeli war, it is difficult to tell, but what is sure that the absence of a serious pressure on Israel is creating an atmosphere of despair and militancy which will sooner or later lead to the eighth Arab Israeli war which many observers predict it will be catastrophic.

 * Dr. Salim Nazzal is a Palestinian-Norwegian historian in the Middle East, who has written extensively on social and political issues in the region. – snazzal@ymail.com

SOURCE: http://www.amin.org/articles.php?t=ENews&id=3045

Mary Rizzo: Could you briefly tell us about the work you do? 

Khalid Amayreh: I am a journalist who since time immemorial has found himself, first as a human being, and second as a journalist, right in the middle of the fray of the enduring Palestinian plight. For example, I remember I knew all the details of Israeli commando operations and massacres when I was merely 7 years old. 

When I went to the US in 1976, I wanted to study Computer Science, then Business Administration. However, as I saw Zionist circles on campus at the University of Oklahoma try somewhat successfully to change the black into white and the big lie into a virtual truth, I decided to study journalism. 

Which I did.  Now, I am fully-engaged in my work, writing nearly daily columns for a host of media outlets on three continents. Eventually, the internet became my ultimate domain because what I do say, and I always have much to say, is not particularly liked by the politically-correct media. Hence, I can say that in a certain sense, the internet has substantially freed us from the traditional media colonialism. 

I am quite satisfied with what I have been doing. My articles are published and posted around the world in several languages, including Arabic, English, French, Spanish and other European languages. Many of my articles are posted on my website. It is www.xpis.ps.   

MR: You have in the past several years faced some difficult situations. Two of these that we are aware of are your denial of a visa to leave the West Bank for conferences in Europe and the other was your arrest and brief detention. Both of these were the doing of the Palestinian Authority. Why do you believe they have put these restrictions on you? 

KA: Yes, my success as a journalist, especially my ability to communicate the Palestinian narrative to Western audiences drew negative reactions from the Israeli security authorities. You know the Shin Beth, Israel’s chief domestic security agency, controls nearly every aspect of our life despite the existence of the Palestinian Authority. Hence, the Shin Beth constantly sought to persecute and harass me in the hope that I would tone down my outspoken criticism of the Israeli occupation and its often barbaric treatment of our people. In this context, they refused to grant me a press card, they refused to allow me access to Jerusalem. And finally, they imposed a harsh travel ban on me. In fact, I am still barred from leaving the West Bank. This is the behaviour of a country that claims to be a democracy.

As to the PA, it is very much slave of Israel. This is why I am also constantly harassed by the PA security apparatus. The PA doesn’t like my writings, and seeing that neither carrot nor stick would stop me, they often incarcerate me for a short period until a media outcry ensued in which case they would release me, hoping that next time I would exercise self-restraint, or more correctly self-censorship.  

MR: You live in one of the areas where settlers have made any kind of co-existence in the same territory as the indigenous population impossible. In your view is the Hebron experience a typical one that would be reproduced whenever there would be closer contact between Jews and Palestinians, or is it in some way different? 

KA: The settlers are mostly genocidal fanatics who would go to any extent, including cold-blooded murder, to reach their goals. And their goals can be summarized in one phrase, and that is the annihilation of the Palestinian people. 

I’ve met numerous settlers, and from my conversations with them, I can say that most of these people represent the Nazis of our time. What else can one say of a people who tell you that you either agree to be enslaved by them or you will be deported and expelled from your own country? And if you said ‘NO’, then you would have to be physically exterminated.  These people are really depraved and sick. They would quote strange quotations from a host of religious books to justify their genocidal ideology. The brutal ugliness of their mentality has no limits.

What is more dangerous is that they don’t stop at the theoretical and ideological levels. They often translate their venomous and virulent views into cold-blooded murder of innocent Palestinians.  And in most cases, the pro-settler Israeli justice system turns a blind eye to their murderous behaviour and lets them get away with impunity.

MR: You often refer to the actions of today’s Israelis as being similar to those of the Nazis, and you present in detail many of these crimes and abuses against especially unarmed civilians that indeed are strikingly similar. Do you believe there is a danger or risk in the use of this analogy?

KA: Well, this is a very good question. First of all, we have to remember that the holocaust didn’t start with Auschwitz or Bergen Belsen and other concentration camps. It started much earlier with comparatively innocuous things like the enactment of anti-Jewish laws in the early 1930s. Earlier, there was Hitler’s infamous book, Mein Kampf. Eventually there was the Kristalnacht, and we know the rest of the story.

Today, any serious observer scrutinizing the collective psychology and behaviour of the Israeli Jewish society would most certainly find many serious similarities between the Jewish state and the Third Reich. In Germany, they had the master race mantra, here in Israel they have the chosen people mantra.

In Germany they had the expansionistic concept known as Lebensraum; and here in Israel they have the settlement scheme. In Germany, they had the racist classification of people into Übermenschen and Untermenschen, while here in Israel almost everything is defined through the prism of being  either Jewish or Goy. The list goes on and on.  Do you know that there are rabbis in Israel who openly teach that non-Jews are animals and whom the Almighty created in a human shape only in deference to Jews. I am not speaking about marginal or obscure figures. I am speaking about rabbis with thousands of followers who are backed by powerful political parties represented in the government and the Knesset.

Ask any average settler how he or she views Palestinians or non-Jews in general, and they will tell you that they are animals and that their lives have absolutely no sanctity.

In short, the Zionist-Nazi analogy is more than legitimate. It is an objective reality.

MR:  Is it possible that there is the danger of a new Palestinian genocide comparable to that of ’48 with the discussions of “population transfer” of the Palestinians who live in Israel that are heard by several political movements that are in power in Israel, or is this population somehow protected and facing more danger are those in the Occupied Palestinian Territories?

KA: The answer is definitely yes. I am saying so because Palestinians have always relied for their very survival on the good will of the international community and world public opinion. Hence, should the world community go into a brief slumber, I have no doubt that Israel would seize the opportunity and embark on the unthinkable.

More to the point, we must view the criminal Israeli onslaught on the people of Gaza nine months ago as a precedent that could be repeated again and again.

Finally, it is crystal clear that the Israeli Jewish society is drifting menacingly toward fascism. For example, today the very survival of the Benyamin Netanyahu’s government depends to a very large extent on the support of three manifestly racist political parties representing the extreme religious right. These are “Habayt ha’Yahudi,” “Echud Leumi,” and Shas, a formerly moderate Charidi party which has been moving steadily toward religious jingoism.

I am speaking about religious parties that see nothing wrong with the mass murder of innocent people. They always can quote from ancient books to justify their morbid ideology. Also, imagine how the world will look like when these racist groups reach power in Israel and seize control of Israel’s huge nuclear arsenal.

And this is not a matter of “if” but rather a matter of “when” it will happen, because it is only a matter of time before the fanatics of Gush Emunim and other Judeo-Nazi elements reach power in Israel. 

MR: Palestinians in Israel comprise twenty percent of the official population. Why is it that, after Azmi Bishara, whose fate is now in exile, and a very few others, this large sector of population is under-represented in their parliament? Would it not be helpful to have more representation? 

KA: The Arab community in Israel is under-represented because of a host of factors. But the main factor is that the Israeli system is designed to keep the Arab community marginalized. Today, Israeli leaders from “right” and “left” are increasingly brazenly advocating ultimate ethnic cleansing of Israel’s Arab citizen. Tzipi Livni, the leader of Kadima, said on numerous occasions that Israeli Arabs would have to seek national fulfilment in the future Palestinian state. Her remarks are nothing short of a euphemism for expulsion and ethnic cleansing.

If this is the view of a respected  “liberal,” and “centrist” politician, imagine the kind of attitudes the right with its religious and secular camps would have toward Israel’s Arab citizens.

MR: You have documented many of the acts against the Palestinian people. If you could put things in an order of those that should be resolved before the others, out of this selection, what would your suggestion be and why: the ending of the siege of Gaza, the dismantlement of the checkpoints, the dismantlement of the Wall, international recognition of Hamas as the legitimately elected representatives of the Palestinians and in the 2006 Legislative elections, release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, release of Palestinian prisoners from Palestinian jails, a freeze on settler expansion in the West Bank and Jerusalem?

KA: I think all aspects of the Palestinian plight are inextricably entwined. For example, the internal Palestinian problems stem mainly from the Israeli occupation. It was Israel after all which took draconian measures against our people following the 2006 elections when Hamas won the polls. This eventually led to the contention between Fatah and Hamas which culminated in the ousting by Hamas of Fatah militias from Gaza following a failed coup attempt against the elected government by Fatah forces backed and armed by the United States.

But, it is true, we just can’t solve and resolve all the problems facing our people in one fell swoop.  The situation in Gaza remains very harsh and the survival of our people there is imputed first and foremost to their tenacity, resilience and steadfastness, not Israeli magnanimity.

The Palestinian prisoner issue is also a nagging nightmare that is constantly haunting our people. We are talking about nearly 10,000 prisoners many of whom are held without charge or trial because of their non-violent opposition to the Israeli occupation. Their continued detention is undoubtedly a repulsive reflection of the brutal ugliness of the Zionist mentality.

MR: Do you believe that the Palestinians should aim at establishing a new popular uprising, or should they wait and see if the Palestinian Authority can find a unity government or bring an end to Israeli occupation by themselves.

KA: Normally, uprisings, especially in the Palestinian context, are not planned. They just happen when the powder keg reaches the boiling point. But I tend to accept the hypothesis that another Intifada is only a matter of time, given the unmitigated occupation and repression as well as the scandalous failure of the peace process.

As to forming a new unity government, it is really difficult to accord this subject a lot of importance. After all, what is the point of forming a government that has no sovereignty and is subject to the draconian restrictions of the Israeli occupation?

MR: Do you hold out hope that the Obama Administration can bring about at least a bit of improvement for Palestinians, or is it equally subject to the Israel Lobby? 

KA: No, not any longer. Until recently, I thought, probably naively, that Obama might prove himself to be a man of his word. However, his utter failure to stand up to the arrogant Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has exposed the American president as just another functionary of the establishment.

Moreover, what many in the West doesn’t realize is that for Israel to give up the spoils of the 1967 war, the Jewish state would have to be forced, even physically, to do so.

However, in light of Obama’s obsequious discourse vis-à-vis Netanyahu, especially with regard to the settlement issue, it is increasingly obvious that the US leader is not mentally or politically capable of doing what it takes to force Israel to end the 42-year-old occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

The task of forcing Israel to end the hateful occupation would require a radical transformation, even a revolution, in American political thinking. And I just don’t see this happening in the foreseeable future.

MR: Why, in your view, have the Palestinian Islamist parties, especially Hamas, not had the strong support of the Ikhwan in other Arab nations, especially following the rejectionist stance of the so-called International Community following the democratic elections? Is it because the project of Hamas has a stronger nationalist nature to it, or might there be other reasons that you have reflected upon?

KA: I think they do as evidenced in the huge demonstrations organized by Islamic organizations throughout the Muslim world during the Israeli blitz against the Gaza Strip. However, we have to keep in mind that most Islamic parties and organizations are based in despotic and authoritarian states. Hence, the often tight restrictions imposed on Islamist activism do have a detrimental impact on the extent to which Islamists can render tangible material support to Hamas.

But the Islamists are giving extremely viable financial support to Palestinian Islamists without which Hamas would have had a much harder time facing international sanctions.

We also have to remember that Hamas is mainly an asset, not a liability, for Islamic activism around the world, which means that support for Hamas by Islamic groups in the Arab-Muslim world is not exactly altruistic in nature but is also motivated by a certain degree of expediency. 

MR: The division of the Palestinian people along many lines, while an internal problem, does prevent more firm opposition to the military occupation of Palestine. Do you think there is a way to overcome the divisions, or are they destined to increase with the introduction of measures such as Dayton’s “Security” forces in the West Bank, for example?

KA: Well, in the final analysis, Palestinian divisions are a symptom of the Israeli occupation. They are not a home-grown malady but rather a foreign-induced phenomenon sustained through political and economic manipulation of certain objective Palestinian needs. After all, we are very much a prisoner population who have been relentlessly used by the Israelis as a field of experiment for over 40 years.

I believe that the ultimate raison d’être of the “Dayton forces” is to crush public opposition to any prospective “peace” deal that would be imposed on the Palestinian people.  Needless to say, such a deal would be tantamount to a real liquidation of the Palestinian cause. However, I really doubt whether these forces would succeed in their mission in the long run.

The Palestinian cause is simply so deeply rooted in the collective conscience and psyche of our people, so much that it is inconceivable that these kids would succeed in morphing our people into submission. That would be anti-historical antithetical to the nature of things in Palestine.

MR: Recently, the first group of Palestinian refugees from the Al-Tanaf, Al-Waleed and Al-Hol refugee camps in Iraq have been “settled” in the USA. What do you think of this kind of programme?

KA: Naturally, we are very suspicious about any resettlement of Palestinian refugees anywhere in the world. But I am certain about one thing, namely that the refugee plight and the right of return will continue to define the Palestinian question.

I am saying so because the refugee problem is the Palestinian problem.

MR: What kind of personal experiences does the average Palestinian living in the West Bank have with the Israelis?

KA: Well, it is safe to say that the mental landscape of every Palestinian man, woman and child is overwhelmed with the Israeli nightmare. Ours is a landscape shaped by home demolitions, land seizure, evil roadblocks and checkpoints manned by trigger-happy soldiers, humiliating inhuman treatment, cruelty, terror and unrelenting criminality. Ours is a real holocaust minus the gas chambers.  We are after all the longest suffering people on earth, and we continue to suffer on a daily basis.

Today in every junior high school in America, students read Anne Frank, while in every high school Elie Wiesel’s ‘Night’ is requisite reading. This is the man who says rather brazenly that he readily identifies with Israeli crimes and that he couldn’t bring himself to say bad things about Israel. 

The victims of the first Kristalnacht enjoy the world’s approbation and sympathy, while at the same time having succeeded in demonizing an entire people for whom Kristalnacht still remains a night without end.  

MR:  It seems that access to information about the reality of Palestine, especially of the hardships brought on by the war, the checkpoints and the blockade of Gaza, should enlighten the public that there is a humanitarian emergency. What, in your view, is preventing the international community and the Arab nations from expressing moral outrage and demanding their leaders to hold Israel accountable for these situations? 

KA: I think the Arab masses would want to help the Palestinians, and they are actually helping. However, for most Arabs helping the Palestinians, especially Hamas, involves a certain risk as most regimes view identification with Hamas as connoting opposition to the regimes itself. This is true in American-allied states such as Egypt and Jordan.

As to people around the world, I think the overall outlook is positive. I think a growing number of people are now willing to take to the streets to voice their solidarity with our people. But what we need to do is to keep up the good work and try as hard as possible to isolate the evil entity.

MR: Do you believe that there is a great deal of fear in the Palestinian people which prevents them from voicing denouncements of the corruptions of the PA and the PLO before it? Or could some of this be because the allocation of funds is filtered through these organs and people need to make a living?

KA: Of course there is. The Palestinian Authority is effectively a police state without a state, and the corrupt people and their supporters, friends and cronies occupy powerful positions in the PA hierarchy. Take for example the millions of dollars arrogated by Yasser Arafat’s widow, Suha. It is widely believed that the former “First Lady”! received millions of dollars from the PLO as part of a financial settlement which very few Palestinians know about. As to the justice system, it is very much subservient to the political level and the security apparatus. This is how the donor countries, e.g. the US, are shaping Palestinian “democracy.” 

MR: What can the exiled or Diaspora Palestinian community do for their brothers and sisters in Palestine?

KA: Palestinians in the Diaspora have a grave responsibility to carry out. They should constantly communicate our plight to the world, they should always be eloquent spokespersons for their people and their cause. But in order to be successful and effective they have to organize themselves and try to enlist local support for Palestinian grievances in their respective places of residence. My ultimate advice to Palestinian expatriates is: make as many friends as possible for our just cause. And don’t allow yourselves to be diverted from the central goal, and that is to create and effect pressure on the Zionist regime.

And don’t get yourselves involved in any activities that might be misconstrued as “anti-Semitic.”  Judaism is not our enemy.  

MR: What can “internationals” do to help?

KA: “Internationals” and other solidarity activists have a hugely important job to do. They are witnesses to what Satanic Zionism has been doing to the Palestinians. Israel would want to gang up on us while the eyes of the world are shut. It is very much like the way a murderer or a thief behaves. They don’t want to be seen committing their crimes.

In fact, I can safely claim that had it not been for these courageous men and women, the level of Israeli terror against the Palestinians could have been much worse.

Therefore, I would like to salute each and every one of these heroes who have been sacrificing their time, energy and careers in protecting an unprotected people. You are the good Samaritans of our time.  So come here, bring your friends, and don’t forget your cameras. May God bless you all.

MR: You are often considered to be especially sensitive to and close to the positions of the Islamist parties, and very often, there are more than a few false representations of them, including for example that Hamas had help from Israel in its foundation, with some even saying Mossad was involved, that they won the elections only because they represented a “protest” vote, and more crucially, that their operations are not resistance, but are rather terrorist acts. Evidence points away from all of these positions, yet they are part of an interpretation trend as much in “the left” as for “moderates” and “neo-cons”. Why do you think that despite evidence, for instance, Hamas always maintained their unilateral truces, while Israel engaged in targeted assassinations of high-ranking leaders of Hamas, people across the board are so quick to accept these false representations as legitimate?

KA: I am not affiliated with any political group. This is because I had long realized that affiliation with an ideological or political party would interfere with and be detrimental to my work as a journalist. Besides, the little philosopher inside me always tells me to be constantly free-minded.

I remember that poet who described fanatical adherence to a political party. He said: I always voted at my party’s call, and never thought for myself at all.

Having said that, I also realize that it is imperative that people must support just causes and speak up the truth even in the presence of power. This is why it is paramount for my mental and psychological health that I must stand against such vices as oppression, arrogance, immorality, mendacity, selfishness, hypocrisy, rapacity and racism. I know it is not easy to swim against the current. However, it is also true that silence or indifference or inaction in the face of evil is morally disastrous in the long run. We mortals live a few decades in this life. It is essential therefore that we lead a dignified life shaped by our concerns for freedom and justice and sublime human spirit.

As to Hamas being helped by Israel, I think this is a form of disinformation by the anti-Islamist camp aimed first and foremost at besmirching Hamas.

The way Hamas has been behaving and acting since its foundation more than 20 years ago should be a clarion refutation of all these lies and insinuations.

This is not to say though that Israel has not tried and is not trying to pit Palestinians against each other. But this is not the same as saying that Hamas was created by Israel or that its growth was facilitated by the Israelis.

After all, Islamic fundamentalist groups are a global phenomenon and by no means confined to occupied Palestine.

MR: What do you think the final status might be in terms of statehood and what do you foresee as a timetable for this?

KA: It is very difficult to figure out how and when this conflict will end. What is clear though is that it won’t come to an end in the foreseeable future. I am convinced that the increasingly-religious conflict will continue for several more decades. However, in order for the conflict to reach an exhaustive conclusion, Zionism would have to disappear.

A final point, I strongly believe that time is not working in Israel’s favour as Israel is going to find it increasingly difficult to live normally in a hostile environment. Fifty years from now, Israel will be surrounded by more than 700 million Arabs and Muslims. And Jews themselves would be a small and dwindling minority in mandatory Palestine.

And like Albert Camus said “in world where everything can be denied, there are forces undeniable, and on earth where nothing is sure, we have our certainty.” And I think the dismantlement of Zionism is a historical certainty.

J Street or no J Street, the American Jewish leadership is winning and it is winning big with its support for the continued Israeli occupation, the expansion of Jewish settlements, funding criminal settlers, funding land and property thieves, keeping Congress hostage and under Zionist siege, continued funding of the Jewish Occupations, undermining the US peace efforts, undermining President Barack Obama's efforts towards peace between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arabs.

It is true there are a number of American Jewish organizations that have been working towards ending the Jewish Occupations and ending the ever expanding Jewish settlements among these group are; Not in My Name, Jewish Voices for Peace, Gush Shalom, American Council for Judaism, Americans for Peace Now, Muzzle Watch, Jews Against Zionism, O Zv’Shalom-Netivot Shalom, Bat Shalom and of course B’Tselem in Israel.

Not withstanding these organizations' commitments and dedication these organizations remain far short of the mark, they made little progress among the American Jewish community which continues in large part to support of the continued Jewish Occupations, expansions of the Jewish settlements, accelerating land and property theft, political and financial support for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Jerusalem, support for destructions of farms and uprooting of trees especially olive trees, targeted killings, and support for war crimes committed by past and present Israel leadership.

The American Jewish leadership continues to and remains in the driver's seat not withstanding the change in administrations from Republicans to Democrats and of course it was and remains in charge and in control of both houses, the US Senate and the House of Representatives, deciding on and even drafting legislations that have to do with US policy in the Middle East, and continues to dictate the level of funding Israel and its Occupation receive from US taxpayers.

For over 50 years American Zionists remain in charge and in the driver's seat when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict with notables such as Henry Kissinger, Arthur Goldberg, Justice Brandies, (played a key role in US decision to close its shores to escaping European Jews during WW2) Walter Rostow playing a key role in formulating US policies that made peace impossible, providing Israel with political coverage at the UN through the ever present US veto powers. And opening US arsenals wide open to Israel to grab whatever it wants even at the expense of and engenderment of US military power as Kissinger did in the 1973 War.

Adding to this long list are key decision and policy makers that made irreparable harm to the chance for peace to include the likes of Dennis Ross, Martin Indyke, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Edward Luttwak, Dov Zakkeim, Kenneth Adelman, I. Lewis Libby, Richard Haass, Robert Satlof, Elliot Abrams, David Frum, Joshua Bolton, Michael Chertoff among many others who are always in and out of government, yet remain influential decision makers.

To add to this list of key policy and decision makers we must not forget well-funded organizations such as AIPAC, American Enterprise Institute, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Heritage Foundation, Middle East Forum, Institute for Policy Studies, CAMERA, Campus Watch among the hundreds of well-funded and well-connected organizations, not to mention key executives in US media, in films and in business who are the main source of funding to these very influential American Jewish organizations.

Too bad for Israel, for the Palestinians, for the Arabs, certainly too bad for the United States that these leaders and organizations believe that when the blood flows, the money flows, certainly when Jewish and Israeli blood flows, that is the time to cash in and the time when American Jews open their checkbooks and write fat checks to these organizations that are able to orchestrate support for Israel in the media, in Congress and on campus. Of course they are also energized when Palestinian blood is flowing, when the Israeli army and armed settlers murder women and children, when bulldozers are working overtime to destroy Palestinian homes and building the Apartheid Wall.

In a sense, I do feel very sorry for the American Jewish community to have such bloodthirsty leadership that gives unconditional support for Israel right or wrong. It seems that when it comes to commitment to a criminal Zionism all Jewish values and traditions are out the doors, windows and certainly out of mind and heart.

Peace can happen only when the US Jewish community makes its decision whether it supports a secure Israeli at peace with its neighbors and the world within 67 borders and with Jerusalem as shared and open city or supports Israel at war with its neighbors and with continued Occupation. My guess is that the US Jews will continue to support the Israeli Occupation, because Israel at peace with its neighbors puts their leadership out of business and will dry up the source of money to fund the different lobbies and organizations. Peace for Israel will undermine the Jewish leadership stranglehold on US policy in the Middle East and of course it undermines its chokehold control over Congress.

source: http://www.jeffersoncorner.com/j-street-or-no-j-street-the-american-jewish-leadership-is-the-main-obstacle-to-peace-in-the-middle-east/ ]]> http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/09/23/sami-jamil-jadallah-j-street-or-no-j-street-the-american-jewish-leadership-is-the-main-obstacle-to-peace-in-the-middle-east/feed/ 1 http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/09/21/ken-livingstone-interviews-khaled-meshaal-a-must-read/ http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/09/21/ken-livingstone-interviews-khaled-meshaal-a-must-read/#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:30:29 +0000 Guest Post http://palestinethinktank.com/?p=4530 In a world exclusive, Ken Livingstone discusses religion, violence and the chances for peace with the Hamas leader Khaled Meshal.

The key to peace in the Middle East is restoration of international law and the recognition of the right of both Palestinians and Israeli Jews to live in peace and security side by side. As President Obama says, there is no peace process today. Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, continues to extend illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and maintain a near-complete blockade of Gaza. Palestinians fire ineffectual rockets into Israel. Israel regularly attacks Palestinian territories with modern weapons.

No major conflict can be resolved without each side talking to the other. That was the case in South Africa, Ireland and countless other situations where people said they would never talk to their opponents. I was vilified in the Eighties for saying that, to resolve the Irish conflict, you had to talk to Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.

In the Middle East, peace can only be achieved through discussion between the elected representatives of both the Israelis and the Palestinians – and that means Hamas, which won a big majority in the last Palestinian parliamentary election, as well as Fatah. This does not mean that I agree with the views of Hamas, Fatah or the government of Israel. Far from it: I do not. For example, I think a number of passages in the original Hamas charter are unacceptable and should be repudiated. Many observers believe that this is also the view of some in Hamas.

Yet, for too many people, Hamas as an organisation remains opaque. What they know about it is derived from a hostile media; it has no face. Most would probably think its leader is some disturbed Osama Bin Laden figure. In fact, al-Qaeda's supporters in Gaza are so hostile to Hamas that they have declared war on it.

For these reasons, I thought it important to interview the de facto leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, who lives in exile in Syria. Not every issue is clear. But at the beginning of any peace process, what matters most is engagement. Dialogue is necessary to get to clarity and mutual understanding. Sinn Fein did not answer every question at the beginning and neither does Binyamin Netanyahu today. The answers from Meshal come at a time of heightened tensions and renewed death threats against him, adding to the permanent danger of assassination bids not only by the Israelis, but also al-Qaeda supporters in the region.

I hope this interview will help to make the case for the dialogue that is needed, which I believe is inevitable. It is simply a question of how much suffering there will be, on both sides, before we get there.

Ken Livingstone: Could you explain a little about your childhood and the experiences that shaped your development into the person you are today?

Khaled Meshal: I was born in the West Bank village of Silwad near Ramallah in 1956. In my early age, I learned from my father how he was part of the Palestinian revolution against the British mandate in Palestine in the Thirties and how he fought, alongside other Palestinians using primitive weapons, against the well-equipped and trained Zionist gangs attacking Palestinian villages in 1948.

I lived in Silwad for 11 years until the 1967 war, when I was forced with my family, like hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, to leave home and settle in Jordan. That was a shocking experience I will never forget.

KL: What happened to you after the war?

KM: Soon afterwards, I left Jordan for Kuwait, where my father had already been working and living since before 1967. After completing my primary education in 1970, I joined the prestigious Abdullah al-Salim Secondary School. In the early Seventies, it was a hub of intense political and ideological activity.

During my second year at al-Salim school, I joined the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun). Upon finishing my fourth year successfully I secured admission to Kuwait University, where I studied for a BSc degree in physics.

Kuwait University had an active branch of the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS), which had been under the absolute control of the Fatah movement. I and my fellow Islamists decided, in 1977, to join GUPS, which we had previously shunned, and contest its leadership election. However, working from within GUPS proved impossible; we felt constantly impeded and realised we Islamists would never be given a chance. By 1980, two years after I graduated, my juniors decided to leave GUPS and form their own Palestinian association on campus.

Many of the students had become disillusioned with the Palestinian leadership, who seemed intent on settling for much less than what they had grown up dreaming of, namely the complete liberation of Palestine and the return of all the refugees to their homes.

KL: What is the situation in Gaza today?

KM: Gaza today is under siege. Crossings are closed most of the time and for months victims of the Israeli war on Gaza have been denied ­access to construction materials to rebuild their destroyed homes. Schools, hospitals and homes in many parts of the Gaza Strip are in need of rebuilding. Tens of thousands of people remain homeless. As winter approaches, the conditions of these victims will only get worse in the cold and rain. One and a half million people are held hostage in one of the biggest prisons in the history of humanity. They are unable to travel freely out of the Strip, whether for medical treatment, for education or for other needs. What we have in Gaza is a disaster and a crime against humanity perpetrated by the Israelis. The world community, through its silence and indifference, colludes in this crime.

KL: Why do you think Israel is still imposing the siege on Gaza?

KM: The Israelis claim that the siege is for security reasons. The real intention is to pressure Hamas by punishing the entire population. The sanctions were put in place soon after Hamas won the Palestinian elections in January 2006. While security is one of their concerns, it is not the main motivation. The primary objective is to provoke a coup against the results of the democratic elections that brought Hamas to power. The Israelis and their allies seek to impose failure on Hamas by persecuting the people. This is a hideous and immoral endeavour. Today, the siege continues despite the fact that we have, for the past six months, observed a ceasefire. Last year, a truce was observed from June to December 2008. Yet the siege was never lifted, and the sanctions remained in place. Undermining Hamas is the main objective of the siege. The Israelis hope to turn the people of Gaza against Hamas by increasing the suffering of the entire population of the Strip.

KL: How many supporters of Hamas and elected representatives of Hamas are there in prison in Israel? Have they all been charged and convicted of crimes?

KM: Out of a total of 12,000 Palestinian captives in Israeli detention, around 4,000 are Hamas members. These include scores of ministers and parliamentarians (Palestinian Legislative Council members). Around ten have recently been released, but about 40 PLC members remain in detention. Some have been given sentences, but many are held in what the Israelis call administrative detention. The only crime these people are accused of is their association with Hamas's parliamentary group. Exercising one's democratic right is considered a crime by Israel. All these Palestinians are brought before an Israeli system of justice that has nothing to do with justice. The Israeli judiciary is an instrument of the occupation. In Israel, there are two systems of justice: one applies to Israelis and another applies to the Palestinians. This is an apartheid regime.

KL: What part, if any, do other states and insti­tutions, such as the US, the EU, Britain, Egypt, or the Palestinian Authority, play in the blockade of Gaza?

KM: The blockade of Gaza would never have succeeded had it not been for the collusion of regional and international powers.

KL: How do you think the blockade can be lifted?

KM: In order for the blockade to be lifted, the rule of international law must be respected. The basic human rights of the Palestinians and their right to live in dignity and free from persecution would have to be acknowledged. There has to be an international will to serve justice and uphold the basic principles of international human rights law. The international community would have to free itself from the shackles of Israeli pressure, speak the truth and act accordingly.

KL: Israel says that the bombing and invasion of Gaza last year was in response to repeated breaking of the ceasefire by Hamas and the firing of rockets into southern Israel. Is this the case?

KM: The Israelis are not telling the truth. We ­entered into a truce deal with Israel from 19 June to 19 December 2008. Yet the blockade was not lifted. The deal entailed a bilateral ceasefire, lifting the blockade and opening the crossings. We fully abided by the ceasefire while Israel only partially observed it, and towards the end of the term it resumed hostilities. Throughout that ­period, Israel maintained the siege and only intermittently opened some of the crossings, ­allowing no more than 10 per cent of the basic needs of the Gazan population to get through. Israel killed the potential for renewing the truce because it deliberately and repeatedly violated it.

I have always informed my western visitors, including the former US president Jimmy Carter, that the moment Hamas is offered a truce that includes lifting the blockade and opening the crossings, Hamas will adopt a positive stance. So far, no one has made us any such offer. As far as we are concerned, the blockade amounts to a declaration of war that warrants self-defence.

KL: What are the ideology and goals of Hamas?

KM: Our people have been the victims of a colonial project called Israel. For years, we have suffered various forms of repression. Half of our people have been dispossessed and are denied the right to return to their homes, and half live under an occupation regime that violates their basic human rights. Hamas struggles for an end to occupation and for the restoration of our people's rights, including their right to return home.

KL: What is your view of the cause of the conflict between the state of Israel and the Palestinians?

KM: The conflict is the outcome of aggression and occupation. Our struggle against the Israelis is not because they are Jewish, but because they invaded our homeland and dispossessed us. We do not accept that because the Jews were once persecuted in Europe they have the right to take our land and throw us out. The injustices suffered by the Jews in Europe were horrible and criminal, but were not perpetrated by the Palestinians or the Arabs or the Muslims. So, why should we be punished for the sins of others or be made to pay for their crimes?

KL: Do you believe that Israel intends to continue to expand its borders?

KM: Israel does not, officially, have stated borders. When Israel was created in our homeland 62 years ago, its founders dreamed of a "Greater Israel" that extended from the Nile to the Euphrates. Expansionism manifested itself on different occasions: in 1956, in 1967 and later on in the occupation of parts of Lebanon in the Eighties. Arab weakness, Israeli military superiority, the support given to Israel by the western powers, and the massacres it was prepared to commit against unarmed civilians in Palestine, Egypt and Lebanon, enabled it to expand from time to time. Although expansionism still lurks in the minds of many Israelis, it would seem that this is no longer a practical option. Lebanese and Palestinian resistance has forced Israel to withdraw unilaterally from lands it had previously occupied through war and aggression. While in the past Israel was able to defeat several Arab armies, today it faces formidable resistance that will not only check its expansionism but also, in time, force it to relinquish more of the land that it illegally occupies.

KL: What are your principal goals? Is Hamas primarily a political or a religious organisation?

KM: Hamas is a national liberation movement. We do not see a contradiction between our Islamic identity and our political mission. While we engage the occupiers through resistance and struggle to achieve our people's rights, we are proud of our religious identity that derives from Islam. Unlike the experience of the Europeans with Christianity, Islam does not provide for, demand or recognise an ecclesiastical authority. It simply provides a set of broad guidelines whose detailed interpretations are subject to and the product of human endeavour (ijtihad).

KL: Are you committed to the destruction of Israel?

KM: What is really happening is the destruction of the Palestinian people by Israel; it is the one that occupies our land and exiles us, kills us, incarcerates us and persecutes our people. We are the victims, Israel is the oppressor, and not vice versa.

KL: Why does Hamas support military force in this conflict?

KM: Military force is an option that our people resort to because nothing else works. Israel's conduct and the collusion of the international community, whether through silence or indifference or actual embroilment, vindicate armed resistance. We would love to see this conflict resolved peacefully. If occupation were to come to an end and our people enabled to exercise self-determination in their homeland, there would then be no need for any use of force. The reality is that nearly 20 years of peaceful negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis have not restored any of our rights. On the contrary, we have incurred more suffering and more losses as a result of the one-sided compromises made by the Palestinian negotiating party.

Since the PLO entered into the Oslo peace deal with Israel in 1993, more Palestinian land in the West Bank has been expropriated by the Israelis to build more illegal Jewish settlements, expand existing ones or construct highways for the exclusive use of Israelis living in these settlements. The apartheid wall that the Israelis erected along the West Bank has consumed large areas of the land that was supposed to be returned to the Palestinians according to the peace deal.

The apartheid wall and hundreds of checkpoints turned the West Bank into isolated enclaves like cells in a large prison, which makes life intolerable.

Jerusalem is constantly tampered with in order to alter its landscape and identity, and hundreds of Palestinian homes have been destroyed inside the city and around it, making thousands of Palestinians homeless in their own homeland. Instead of releasing Palestinian prisoners, the Israelis have arrested an additional 5,000 Palestinians since the Annapolis peace conference in 2007 – actions that testify to the fact they simply aren't interested in peace at all.

KL: Does Hamas engage in military activity outside Palestine?

KM: No; since its establishment 22 years ago, Hamas has confined its field of military operation to occupied Palestine.

KL: Do you wish to establish an Islamic state in Palestine in which all other religions are subordinate?

KM: Our priority as a national liberation movement is to end the Israeli occupation of our homeland. Once our people are free in their land and enjoy the right to self-determination, they alone have the final say on what system of governance they wish to live under. It is our firm belief that Islam cannot be imposed on the people. We shall campaign, in a fully democratic process, for an Islamic agenda. If that is what the people opt for, then that is their choice. We believe that Islam is the best source of guidance and the best guarantor for the rights of Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

KL: Does Hamas impose Islamic dress in Gaza? For example, is it compulsory in Gaza for women to wear the hijab, niqab or burqa?

KM: No. Intellectually, Hamas derives its vision from the people's culture and religion. Islam is our religion and is the basic constituent of our culture. We do not deny other Palestinians the right to have different visions. We do not impose on the people any aspects of religion or social conduct. Features of religion in Gaza society are genuine and spontaneous; they have not been imposed by any authority other than the faith and conviction of the observant.

KL: It is suggested that the division in the Palestinian people between the West Bank and Gaza and between Fatah and Hamas, which obviously weakens their position, came about because Hamas seized power by force in Gaza. Is this true and how do you explain this division?

KM: Undoubtedly, division does weaken the Palestinians and harms their cause. However, the division is caused not by Hamas, but by the insistence of certain international and regional parties on reversing the results of Palestinian democracy. It dismayed them that Hamas was elected by the Palestinian people.

The division is compounded by the existence of a Palestinian party that seeks empowerment from those same regional and international parties, including the US and Israel, that wish to see Hamas out of the arena. Soon after its victory in the election of January 2006, every effort was exerted to undermine the ability of Hamas to govern.

When these efforts failed, General Keith Dayton, of the United States army, who currently serves as US security co-ordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, was despatched to Gaza to plot a coup against the Hamas-led national unity government that came out of the Mecca agreement of 2007. The plot prompted Hamas in Gaza to act in self-defence in the events of June 2007. The claim that Hamas carried out a coup is baseless because Hamas was leading the democratically elected government. All it did was act against those who were plotting a coup against it under the command and guidance of General Dayton.

KL: Do those of other political or religious views such as Fatah enjoy democratic freedoms in Gaza? What is the situation of Hamas members in the West Bank territories controlled by Fatah?

KM: Some Palestinian factions have been inspired by Arab nationalism, others by Marxism or Leninism, and others by liberalism. While we strongly believe that these ideas are alien to our people and have failed to meet their aspirations, we insist that the people are the final arbiter on whom they wish to lead them and by which system they desire to be governed. Thus, democracy is our best option for settling our internal Palestinian differences. Whatever the people choose will have to be respected.

We endeavour to the best of our ability to protect the human rights and civil liberties of the affiliates of Fatah and all the other factions within the Gaza Strip. In contrast, the Palestinians in the West Bank under Israeli occupation and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah continue to be denied their basic rights. General Dayton is in the West Bank supervising the ­severe and brutal crackdown on Hamas and other Palestinian groups. More than 1,000 political prisoners, including students, university professors and professionals in all fields are hunted down, detained and tortured, sometimes to death, by the US-, British- and EU-trained and -sponsored Palestinian Authority's security force.

KL: Do you believe it is possible to reunite the Palestinian people? If so, how do you think this could be done and within what kind of timescale?

KM: It is possible to reunite the Palestinians. In order for this to happen two things are needed. First, foreign interventions and demands must stop. The Palestinian people should be left to deal with their own differences without external pressure. Second, all Palestinian parties must respect the rules of the democratic game and submit to the results of its process.

KL: Hamas's refusal to recognise Israel is frequently cited as an insuperable obstacle to negotiations and a peace settlement.

KM: This issue is only used as a pretext. Israel does not recognise the rights of the Palestinian people, yet this is not raised as an obstacle to Israel being internationally recognised nor to it being allowed to take part in talks. The reality is that Israel is the one that occupies the land and possesses superior power. Rather than ask the Palestinians, who are the victims, it is Israel, who is the oppressor, who should be asked to recognise the rights of the Palestinians.

In the past, Yasser Arafat recognised Israel but failed to achieve much. Today, Mahmoud Abbas recognises Israel, but we have yet to see any of the promised dividends of the peace process.

Israel concedes only under pressure. In the absence of any tangible pressure on Israel by the Arabs or by the international community, no settlement will succeed.

KL: Do you have a "road map" of interim steps which could realistically lead to a peaceful settlement of the conflict? Do you think Jews, Muslims and Christians can one day live together in peace in the Holy Land?

KM: We do, in Hamas, believe that a realistic peaceful settlement to the conflict will have to begin with a ceasefire agreement between the two sides based on a full withdrawal of Israel from all the territories occupied in 1967. Israeli intransigence and the lack of will to act on the part of the international community are what ­impede this settlement. We believe that only once our people are free and back in their land will they be able to determine the future of the conflict.

It should be reiterated here that we do not resist the Israelis because they are Jews. As a matter of principle, we do not have problems with the Jews or the Christians, but do have a problem with those who attack us and oppress us. For many centuries, Christians, Jews and Muslims coexisted peacefully in this part of the world. Our society never witnessed the sort of racism and genocide that Europe saw until recently against "the other". These issues started in Eur­ope. Colonialism was imposed on this region by Europe, and Israel was the product of the oppression of the Jews in Europe and not of any such problem that existed in the Muslim land.

KL: What role do you think that other countries and organisations, in particular the US, EU and Britain, are currently playing in the Israel/ Palestine conflict and the divisions between the Palestinians?

KM: The role played by all these has thus far been negative. The attitude towards Israeli crimes against our people has been either silence or collusion. The policies and positions adopted by these parties have contributed to the Palestinian division or augmented it. On the one hand, conditions are stipulated that have the effect of torpedoing unity talks and reconciliation efforts. On the other hand, some of these international parties are directly embroiled in suppressing our people in the West Bank. The US and the EU provide funding, training and guidance to build a Palestinian security apparatus specialised in the persecution of critics of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.

We have particularly been concerned about reports that the British government, directly as well as indirectly by means of security firms and the services of retired army, police and in­telligence officers, is fully involved in the programme led by General Dayton against Hamas in the West Bank.

KL: What should countries such as the US and Britain do to assist a peaceful settlement?

KM: They should simply uphold international law – the occupation is illegal, the annexation of East Jerusalem is illegal, the settlements are illegal, the apartheid wall is illegal, and the siege of Gaza is illegal. Yet nothing is done.

KL: What relations does Hamas wish to have with the rest of the world, and, for example, with Britain?

KM: Hamas defends a just cause. For this purpose, it desires to open up to the world. The movement seeks to establish good relations and to conduct constructive dialogue with all those concerned with Palestine.

Source: http://www.newstatesman.com/middle-east/2009/09/israel-palestinian-hamas

Budapest – According to German news Agency “dpa”, the deputy leader of the largest Jewish organization in Hungary has announced his resignation after being arrested because of the theft of wallet at a gas station. The incident was confirmed on Thursday.

Budapest (dpa) – The deputy leader of the largest Jewish organization in Hungary, Istvan Krausz, resigned from his post after he was caught red-handed stealing a wallet, the was confirmed on Thursday.

The court of the town of Pecs issued a sentence against Istvan Krausz, suspended for one year, after he was found guilty of stealing a wallet containing about US$ 2500 at a gas station.

The security cameras was filmed Krausz while stealing the wallet left by another customer on the table while he was bringing other things from the store in the same station.

The Police identified Krausz on the basis of his licence plate number, and he eventually turned himself in. He was sentenced to one year's probation.

The head of the Jewish Communities Federation of Hungary, Peter Feldmajer, told the German Press Agency (dpa) that Krausz  actions "can not be understood" and were "absolutely incomprehensible, a moment of madness."

My Comment

The issue called my attention because this is usual behavior of the Israeli Jews, as experienced by all Palestinians. It is worth mentioning that many incidents of theft were registered against the Jews working in the Israeli army at the so-called military checkpoints which are spread in and around the Palestinian cities and towns in the occupied territories in the West Bank. The IDF soldiers all the time steal the money from the Palestinians' wallets during the “inspections” which they conduct.

Many incidents of theft of money, gold and other property of the Palestinians have been recorded in the occupied territories and in the Gaza Strip, most them happened during so-called IDF “operations”, during which the soldiers break into Palestinian houses under the pretext of security inspections, detentions and looking for wanted people. In general, all the houses which are searched by the IDF soldiers and where nothing was stolen, are left vandalized and in ruins, with the furniture so broken that it can only be thrown by the Palestinians into the garbage.

Many Palestinians from the Gaza Strip reported that their homes had been looted and stolen of everything valuable during the so-called “Operation Cast Lead”. The IDF soldiers were stealing private credit cards which belong to the Palestinians families and they have used for example to buy chocolate and sweets during the war crimes and horror against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. One case has become known, in which the thief was forced to return the stolen money to its owner.

On May, 13 2009, Hanan Greenberg wrote in YnetNews: "The IDF Southern Command's military court remanded the arrest of a Givati Brigade soldier Wednesday for looting during Israel's recent military operation in Gaza.

The soldier is suspected of stealing a credit card from a Palestinian home together with another soldier. He later proceeded to use it in order to purchase merchandise worth NIS 1,600 ($388). Their arrest was first reported by Ynet.

The accused soldier pled guilty to the charges against him during questioning, and the military prosecution intends to indict him in the coming days. His arrest is currently remanded until Monday.

Hotels and chicken Thieves

The incidents of theft by Israeli soldiers in hotels have also increased abroad: IDF soldiers are known worldwide to be fond of stealing bathrobes, pictures, and anything else that is not bolted down from the hotels where they live.

One of the stories which I witnessed was in 2004 in Patagonia. A group of IDF soldiers ("backpackers") arrived in the village where I was during an afternoon, among them some officers. At the entrance of the village they spread out to all the streets of this small place of about 500 inhabitants. The officers placed their tent outside the hostel where I was, the soldiers tented out of the village. During the night, the Israelis had party and grilled chicken for the whole group.

On the next day, the owner of the hostel complained that 18 chicken had disappeared, "stolen by a two-legged fox" as he put it. The owner of the chickens was very sad, the Israelis not really.

“The Israel Project”, a US media advocacy group, has produced a revised training manual to help the worldwide Zionist movement win the propaganda war, keep their ill-gotten territorial gains and persuade international audiences to accept that their crimes are necessary and conform to “shared values” between Israel and the civilized West.

It’s a clever document.

The manual teaches how to justify the slaughter, the ethnic cleansing, the land-grabbing, the cruelty and the blatant disregard for international law and UN resolutions, and make it all smell sweeter with a liberal squirt of the aerosol of persuasive language. It is designed to hoodwink us ignorant and gullible Americans and Europeans into believing that we actually share values with the racist regime in Israel and that its abominable behaviour is therefore deserving of our support.

Israel is hoping for a public relations massacre. The other side – the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization – don’t take communications seriously and have neglected to correct Israeli distortion. They are happy, it seems, for Israel’s one-sided definitions to prevail, which of course makes the task for Israel so much easier. This latest propaganda offensive is potentially the “coup de grace” to finish off the tormented Palestinians. See it here.

And the manual will no doubt serve as a communications primer for the army of cyber-scribblers that Israel’s Ministry of Dirty Tricks is recruiting to spread Zionism’s poison across the internet.

This quote at the beginning sets the tone: "Remember, it’s not what you say that counts. It’s what people hear."

Top priority: demonise Hamas

The manual’s numerous messages are aimed at the mass of “persuadables”, primarily in America but also in the UK. The strategy from the start is to isolate the democratically-elected Hamas and to rob the resistance movement and the Palestinian population of their human rights.

• “Clearly differentiate between the Palestinian people and Hamas. There is an immediate and clear distinction between the empathy Americans feel for the Palestinians and the scorn they direct at Palestinian leadership. Hamas is a terrorist organization – Americans get that already. But if it sounds like you are attacking the Palestinian people (even though they elected Hamas) rather than their leadership, you will lose public support. Right now, many Americans sympathize with the plight of the Palestinians, and that sympathy will increase if you fail to differentiate the people from their leaders.”

The plight of the Palestinians under Israel’s heel was an international concern long before Hamas appeared on the scene.

But this is familiar ground. We scorned George Bush and Tony Blair and had to differentiate between them and their respective peoples. We now have to do the same with Barack Obama and Gordon Brown. We are tired of having to make that same differentiation between the Israeli people and the dreadful leaders they produce.

• "ISRAEL’S RIGHT TO DEFENSIBLE BORDERS: With more than three years of violent history since Israel’s agreement to withdraw from Gaza and portions of the West Bank [sic], Americans have had time to take stock of the situation and form opinions. The big picture: they believe that Hamas’s leadership of Gaza has made Israel and the region less safe, while some are more receptive to what they perceive as a moderate approach in the West Bank by Mahmoud Abbas. Based on these experiences, they are willing to grant Israel more leeway in resisting calls to give more land for more peace."

Here we clearly see the motive for demonizing Hamas – Israel wants more leeway to continue its land-grabs and other criminal activities.

• “If… If… If… Then”: Put the burden on Hamas to make the first move for peace by using If’s (and don’t forget to finish with a hard then to show Israel is a willing peace partner). “If Hamas reforms… If Hamas recognize our right to exist… If Hamas renounces terrorism… If Hamas supports international peace agreements… then we are willing to make peace today.”

How one-sided and daft can you get? Substitute Israel for Hamas.

Words that work

The manual sets out numerous examples of “words that work” – supposedly.

• “We know that the Palestinians deserve leaders who will care about the well being of their people, and who do not simply take hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance from America and Europe, put them in Swiss bank accounts, and use them to support terror instead of peace.”

No mention here of the billions of tax dollars Israel takes from the US and spends on munitions to obliterate and vaporize its neighbours.

• “Peace can only be made with adversaries who want to make peace with you. Terrorist organizations like Iran-backed Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad are, by definition, opposed to peaceful co-existence, and determined to prevent reconciliation. I ask you, how do you negotiate with those who want you dead?”

Hamas and Hezbollah are only regarded as terrorists by the White House and Tel Aviv and by US-Israeli stooges and flag-wavers in Westminster and elsewhere.

In Executive Order 13224 – "BLOCKING PROPERTY AND PROHIBITING TRANSACTIONS WITH PERSONS WHO COMMIT, THREATEN TO COMMIT, OR SUPPORT TERRORISM" – Bush used this definition: “The term “terrorism” means an activity that –

(i) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; and
(ii) appears to be intended —
(A) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(B) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(C) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking.”

It describes the antics of the US and Israel perfectly.

• "There is NEVER, EVER, any justification for the deliberate slaughter of innocent women and children. NEVER… there is one fundamental principle that all peoples from all parts of the globe will agree on: civilized people do not target innocent women and children for death.”

Quite so. Where does that leave Israel, which recently killed 320 children in Gaza and 773 civilians, including 109 women? From 2000 (the start of the second Intifada – the Palestinian urising against the Israeli occupation) up to the end of last year Israel had slaughtered 4,936 Palestinians in their homeland, including 952 children, according to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. In the same period Palestinians killed 490 Israelis in Israel including only 84 children. So, Israel’s kill-rate is at least 10 to 1, and rising since the blitzkrieg on Gaza.

Iran-backed or US-backed – take your pick

• “Use humility. ‘I know that in trying to defend its children and citizens from terrorists that Israel has accidentally hurt innocent people. I know it, and I’m sorry for it. But what can Israel do to defend itself? If America had given up land for peace – and that land had been used for launching rockets at America, what would America do? Israel was attacked with thousands of rockets from Iran-backed Palestinian terrorists in Gaza. What should Israel have done to protect her children?’”

Palestinians too have a right to defend themselves. Hamas was the popular choice of Palestinians at the last election and is entitled under international law to take up arms against an illegal occupier and invader. If it is supported by Iran, so what? Israel is extravagantly funded and supplied by the US. Here’s part of their begging-bowl “Military Aid Speech”:

• “Israel makes the request for military assistance out of self-defense. As a democracy, they have the right and the responsibility to protect our borders. As a democracy, they have the right and the responsibility to protect their citizens.
  

• “Israel does not ask for US troops to protect itself. It does not ask for a single American soldier to protect its borders. It only asks for the funds for them to protect themselves. They need the equipment so that their own troops can ensure the safety of their civilian population through this gathering conflict with the enemies of democracy.
  

• “They didn’t ask to have our nation built in range of Iranian missiles. They didn’t ask that their nation be a focal point for religious extremists who have declared war on the West and on democracy.
  

• “But they are, and they need your help."

And here’s the rationale behind it:

• “Americans fundamentally believe that a democracy has a right to protect its people and its borders. And while Americans don’t want to increase foreign aid in a time of significant budgetary deficits and painful spending cuts, there is one and only one argument that will work for Israel (in four easy steps):
  

(1) As a democracy, Israel has the right and the responsibility to defend its borders and protect its people.

(2) Terrorist groups, including Iran-backed Hezbollah and Hamas, continue to pose a direct threat to Israeli security and have repeatedly taken innocent Israeli lives.

(3) Israel is America’s one and only true ally in the region. In these particularly unstable and dangerous times, Israel should not be forced to go it alone.

(4) With America’s financial assistance, Israel can defend its borders, protect its people, and provide invaluable assistance to the American effort against the war against terrorism.”

It’s evident that Americans don’t believe in democracy enough to allow Palestinian democracy to flourish.

• “When the terror ends, Israel will no longer need to have challenging checkpoints to inspect goods and people. When the terror ends we will no longer need a security fence.”

There are no rockets coming out of the West Bank, so why is the security fence still there – and still being built? Why are the occupation troops still there? Why are hundreds of checkpoints still there? Why is Israel still stealing land, demolishing Palestinian homes and building settlements there?

• "Remind people – again and again – that Israel wants peace.

Reason One: If Americans see no hope for peace – if they only see a continuation of a 2,000-year-long episode of “Family Feud” – Americans will not want their government to spend tax dollars or their president’s clout on helping Israel.

Reason Two: The speaker that is perceived as being most for PEACE will win the debate. Every time someone makes the plea for peace, the reaction is positive. If you want to regain the public relations advantage, peace should be at the core of whatever message you wish to convey."

Israel has never met its peace agreement obligations. It doesn't want peace – every action is directed at keeping the conflict going until the Israelis have stolen enough land and established enough 'facts on the ground' – Jews-only settlements, highways, disconnected Palestinian bantustans – to enable them to redraw the map to suit their expansionist agenda and make the occupation PERMANENT.

Gaza in a vice

• “Israel made painful sacrifices and took a risk to give peace a chance. They voluntarily removed over 9,000 settlers from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, abandoning homes, schools, businesses and places of worship in the hopes of renewing the peace process. Despite making an overture for peace by withdrawing from Gaza, Israel continues to face terrorist attacks, including rocket attacks and drive-by shootings of innocent Israelis. Israel knows that for a lasting peace, they must be free from terrorism and live with defensible borders.”

Israel never left. It still occupies Gazan airspace, coastal waters and airwaves, and controls all borders except Rafah where it nevertheless exerts a veto. Israel has Gaza in a vice, which is crushing the tiny enclave’s economy, starving its 1.5 million citizens and creating a huge humanitarian crisis in an attempt to bring the elected government to its knees.

• "Draw direct parallels between Israel and America – including the need to defend against terrorism… The more you focus on the similarities between Israel and America, the more likely you are to win the support of those who are neutral. Indeed, Israel is an important American ally in the war against terrorism, and faces many of the same challenges as America in protecting their citizens."

Note how Israel’s strategy is almost totally dependent on the false idea that they are victims of terror and Western nations need to huddle together with Israel for mutual protection. Fortunately, level-headed people are beginning to realize who the terrorists really are.

It must be blindingly obvious by now that allowing parallels to be drawn between Israel and America only serves to increase the world’s hatred of America. US citizens need to wake up to this, and British citizens should avoid falling into the same trap.

Inject with “core values” and repeat over and over again…

• "The language of Israel is the language of America: 'democracy', 'freedom', 'security', and 'peace'. These four words are at the core of the American political, economic, social and cultural systems, and they should be repeated as often as possible because they resonate with virtually every American."

If so fluent in this language, why doesn’t Israel acknowledge its neighbours’ rights to democracy, freedom, security and peace and end their military oppression?

• "A simple rule of thumb is that once you get to the point of repeating the same message over and over again so many times that you think you might get sick – that is just about the time the public will wake up and say 'Hey – this person just might be saying something interesting to me!' But don’t confuse messages with facts…"

Never let facts get in the way of a good message!

• “How can the current Palestinian leadership honestly say it will pursue peace when previous leaders rejected an offer to create a Palestinian state just a few short years ago and now refuse to live up to their responsibilities as outlined in the Road Map?”

This must be a reference to Ehud Barak's so-called "generous offer”, another of the myths Israelis love to peddle. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip, seized by Israel in 1967 and occupied ever since, comprise just 22 per cent of pre-partition Palestine. When the Palestinians signed the Oslo Agreement in 1993 they agreed to accept the 22 per cent and to recognize Israel within “Green Line” borders (i.e. the 1949 armistice line established after the Arab-Israeli war). Conceding 78 per cent of the land that was originally theirs was an astonishing compromise on the part of the Palestinians.

But it wasn't enough for greedy Barak. His “generous offer” required the inclusion of 69 Israeli settlements within the 22 per cent remnant. It was plain to see on the map that these settlement blocs created impossible borders and already severely disrupted Palestinian life in the West Bank. Barak also demanded the Palestinian territories be placed under "temporary Israeli control", meaning Israeli military and administrative control indefinitely. The “generous offer” also gave Israel control over all the border crossings of the new Palestinian state. What nation in the world would accept that? The unacceptable reality of Barak’s offer, contained in the map, was hidden by propaganda spin.

Later, at Taba, Barak produced a revised map but withdrew it after his election defeat. Don’t take my word for it – the facts are well documented and explained by organizations such as Israel’s Gush Shalom.

• “Why is the world so silent about the written, vocal, stated aims of Hamas?”

And why is the world so silent about the written, stated aims of the racist regime and its political parties? Read their manifestoes.

• “Successful communications is not about being able to recite every fact from the long history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is about pointing out a few core principles of shared values – such as democracy and freedom – and repeating them over and over again… You need to start with empathy for both sides, remind your audience that Israel wants peace and then repeat the messages of democracy, freedom, and peace over and over again… we need to repeat the message, on average, 10 times to be effective.”

Is democracy a shared value? Israel is an ethnocracy not a democracy. Is freedom a shared value? The world is still waiting for Israel to allow the Palestinians their freedom.

• “The situation in the Middle East may be complicated, but all parties should adopt a simple approach: peace first, political boundaries second.”

Renounce resistance while still under Israel’s jackboot? The correct approach is for the international community to insist first that Israel complies with international law and the many UN resolutions it has contemptuously ignored. The boundaries are already defined. Whatever issues remain to be decided, Palestinians should not have to negotiate under occupation or duress.

Rockets, bombs and atrocities: the language of peace

• "Bottom line: What will happen if we fail to get the world to care about the fact that Israeli parents in southern Israel need to literally dodge rockets when they drive their children to kindergarten in the morning? What will happen if the world allows Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, to get nuclear weapons? What will Israel do if bad press causes American citizens to ask [their] government to turn its back on Israel? Why do I care so much about the success of your communications efforts? I care because I never want our children to live through what my family and yours lived through in the Holocaust."

Only one in 500 makeshift Qassam rockets causes a fatality, small beer compared to the devastation and carnage resulting from Israel’s state-of-the-art rocketry targeted on Gaza. How does it look when Palestinians are forced to pay the price for the Holocaust? And how much does Israel care about the Palestinian holocaust it has caused?

The manual then gives a long glossary of terms. Here’s a sample:

• “Deliberately firing rockets into civilian communities”: Combine terrorist motive with civilian visuals and you have the perfect illustration of what Israel faced in Gaza and Lebanon. Especially with regard to rocket attacks but useful for any kind of terrorist attack, deliberate is the right word to use to call out the intent behind the attacks. This is far more powerful than describing the attacks as “random”.

Israelis know all about bombarding civilian targets. And they are careful not to mention that Sderot, until recently the only Israeli township within range of Gazan rockets, is built on the ruins of an ethnically cleansed Palestinian village whose inhabitants were forced from their homes by Jewish terrorists.

• “Economic Diplomacy”: This is a much more embracing and popular term than the current lexicon of “sanctions”. It has appeal across the political spectrum: the tough economic approach appeals to Republicans, and the diplomacy component satisfies Democrats.

We can all play this game. Israel is now beginning to suffer “economic diplomacy” in the form of worldwide boycotts.

• “Economic Prosperity”: Whenever Israel talks about the “economic prosperity” of the Palestinians, it puts Israel in the most positive light possible. After all, who can disagree?

What sort of prosperity is it when nothing can be imported or exported without Israel's approval and fisherman can't even put to sea in their own waters without having their boats shot up by the Israeli navy?

• “Human to Human”: “We know that the average Palestinian and the average Israeli want to come together and make peace. They want to live in peace. Israeli leaders have come together with Arab leaders to make peace in the past. But how do you make peace with Hamas and Hezbollah?”

Simple. You get off their land and stay off. There can be no peace under occupation. You have to be very stupid not to understand that.

• “Humanize Rockets”: Paint a vivid picture of what life is like in Israeli communities that are vulnerable to attack. Yes, cite the number of rocket attacks that have occurred. But immediately follow that up with what it is like to make the nightly trek to the bomb shelter.

Would Israel care to tell the world how many bombs, rockets and shells (including the illegal and prohibited variety) its US-supplied F-16s, tanks, armed drones and navy gunboats have poured into the densely-packed humanity that is Gaza?

Still more advice…

• “Living together, side by side”. This is the best way to describe the ultimate vision of a two-state solution without using the phrase.

Sounds cute but is worn out. Who would want to live alongside bigots and extremists who have made your life a misery for 61 years?

• "When talking about a Palestinian partner, it is essential to distinguish between Hamas and everyone else. Only the most anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian American expects Israel to negotiate with Hamas, so you have to be clear that you are seeking a 'moderate Palestinian partner'."

Where are the moderate Israeli partners?

• "The fight is over IDEOLOGY – not land; terror, not territory. Thus, you must avoid using Israel’s religious claims to land as a reason why Israel should not give up land. Such claims only make Israel look extremist to people who are not religious Christians or Jews.”

If the fight isn’t about land, why did Israel steal it at gunpoint? And why won’t they give it back when told to by the UN?

• "Think PRO-PALESTINIAN. While I have spoken about Israeli casualties, I want to recognize those Palestinians that have been killed or wounded, because they are suffering as well. I particularly want to reach out to Palestinian mothers who have lost their children. No parent should have to bury their child.”

Israel won’t even allow cement into Gaza to build the graves.

• "And so I say to my Palestinian colleagues … you can stop the bloodshed. You can stop the suicide bombings and rocket attacks. If you really want to, you can put an end to this cycle of violence. If you won’t do it for our children, do it for your children.”

Effective Israeli sound bite. Speechless.

• "I want to see a future where the Palestinians govern themselves. Israel does not want to govern a single Palestinian. Not one. We want them to govern themselves. We want them to have complete self-determination."

Is that why Israel tried to snuff out Palestine's democracy – and the people’s right to self-determination – immediately after the 2006 elections?

• "The big picture approach is this: You must isolate Hamas as:

– A critical cause of the delay in achieving a two-state solution

– The biggest source of harm to the Palestinian people, and

– The reason why Israel must defend its people from living in terror.

Read from the Hamas Charter. Now, here’s how to attack Hamas: indict them with their own indoctrination materials. Yes, people know Hamas is a terrorist organization – but they don’t know just how terrifying Hamas can be. The absolute best way to heighten their awareness is to read from the Hamas Charter itself. Don’t just “quote” from it. Read it. Out loud. Again and again. Hand it out to everyone."

At last Israel makes a good point. After three years of “government” Hamas must be mad to persist with its ill-advised charter. They have been severely tested. They have matured. They have earned credibility in many eyes. Israel’s behaviour makes Hamas look good. But all that will count for nothing if they don't rewrite their charter as a matter of urgency.

Regev’s pearls of wisdom. But how safe is the region under the threat of Israel’s nukes?

• "It’s not just Israel who refuses to speak to Hamas. It’s the whole international community… Most of the democratic world refuses to have a relationship with Hamas because Hamas has refused to meet the most minimal benchmarks of international behaviour." – Mark Regev

Isn’t that a little cheeky, Mr Regev, coming from a regime widely condemned for war crimes, piracy and mega-lawlessness?

• "It was the former UN secretary-general, Kofi Anan, that put four benchmarks on the table. And he said, speaking for the international community…
  

That if Hamas reforms itself … – Mark Regev

If Hamas recognizes my country’s right to live in freedom…

If Hamas renounces terrorism against innocent civilians…

If Hamas supports international agreements that are being signed and agreed to concerning the peace process… then the door is open. But unfortunately – tragically – Hamas has failed to meet even one of those four benchmarks. And that’s why today Hamas is isolated internationally. Even the United Nations refuses to speak to Hamas.

Which of those benchmarks has Israel met, Mr Regev?

• "Israel is very concerned about the Iranian nuclear programme. And for good reason. Iran’s president openly talks about wiping Israel off the map. We see them racing ahead on nuclear enrichment so they can have enough fissile material to build a bomb. We see them working on their ballistic missiles. We only saw, last week, shooting a rocket to launch a so-called satellite into outer space and so forth. The Iranian nuclear programme is a threat, not just to my country, but to the entire region. And it’s incumbent upon us all to do what needs to be done to keep from proliferating.” – Mark Regev

Why is Israel the only state in the region not to have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Mr Regev? Are we all supposed to believe that Israel's 200 (or is it 400?) nuclear warheads pose no threat? Would you also like to comment on why Israel hasn’t signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, and why it has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, similarly the Chemical Weapons Convention? What proof do you have of Iran's nuclear weapons plans?

And why do you persist in misquoting Mr Ahmadinejad?

The Holy City is not up for grabs

• "The toughest issue to communicate will be the final resolution of Jerusalem. Americans overwhelmingly want Israel to be in charge of the religious holy sites and are frankly afraid of the consequences should Israel turn over control to the Palestinians. Consider:
  

– 71 per cent of Americans trust Israel most to protect the holy sites in Jerusalem, compared to 6.1 per cent who trust the Palestinian authority most. 8.5 per cent per cent trust neither.

– 54 per cent of Americans believe that ‘Jerusalem must remain united under Israeli sovereignty’ while just 23.9 per cent believe that ‘Jerusalem should be divided into Israeli controlled and Palestinian controlled areas’.

Given the choice between the two, Americans of all political and demographic stripes trust Israel to protect and have sovereignty over Jerusalem."

Israel is in control right now and prevents Muslims and Christians from outside the city visiting the holy places. No way can Israel be trusted. The UN's partition plan decreed that Jerusalem should become a ”corpus separatum” under international management. It is unlikely that the UN would wish to see its resolutions torn up or international law rewritten for Israel’s sole benefit, regardless of America’s misinformed opinion.

Get the name-calling right

I’ll close with the following extract:

• “Many on the left see an ‘Israel vs. Palestinian’ crisis where Israel is Goliath and the Palestinians are David. It is critical that they understand that this is an Arab-Israeli crisis and that the force undermining peace is Iran and their proxies Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. You must not call Hamas just Hamas. Call them what they are: Iran-backed Hamas. Indeed, when they know that Iran is behind Hamas and Hezbollah, they are much more supportive of Israel.”

By the same token we must call the racist regime what it is – US-backed Israel.

Iran’s support for Hamas is difficult to quantify and probably less than we think. More funding has probably come from Sunni Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In any case, it is peanuts compared to America’s support for Israel.

Hamas is an offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhhod and was founded in 1987 during the first Intifada. Hezbollah came into being in 1982 in response to US-backed Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. So, the territorial ambitions of US-backed Israel provoked the rise of both. Israel’s problem is entirely self-inflicted and shouldn’t concern the rest of us.

Hamas’s election manifesto in 2006 called for maintaining the armed struggle against US-backed Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, which seems a perfectly valid aim.

Our obligation to respect and promote human rights

The Israel Project’s training manual is an unpleasant piece of work. It runs to 116 pages and I have only scratched the surface. It recycles many of the discredited techniques used by the advertising industry before standards of honesty, decency and truthfulness were brought in to protect the public.

And it serves to undermine with clever words the inalienable rights pledged by the UN and the world’s civilized nations to all peoples, including the Palestinians.

When you have to stoop this low you simply don’t have a case.

The Palestinian side urgently needs to strip away the deception and re-frame the Holy Land situation in truthful language. And it needs to debunk this Zionist handbook. If the PA and the PLO won’t do it, who will?

Everyone should bear in mind the following, written nearly 61 years ago:

“Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.”

It would seem that Israel has not read or understood the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which all nations signed up to. Attempts to wipe out the rights of people who happen to be in the way of the Zionist vision of a “Greater Israel” deserve no support whatever.

Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.
Source

As the month of Ramadan draws to a close, many Palestinians are devoting the last ten days of the holy month to gaining more  spiritual enrichment through I’tikaf or uninterrupted spiritual engagement. 

Many people are going for I’tikaf this year, motivated by a desire to gain Allah’s blessing and also encouraged by a relative relaxation of the normally harsh Israeli restrictions on the entry of Palestinians to al-Quds. 

The Israeli occupation authorities this year allowed men over 50 and women over 45 to enter Jerusalem on Fridays. However, worshippers are still subjected to meticulous and often humiliating searches.  

Palestinian worshippers on their way to Jerusalem at a checkpoint near Bethlehem 

This, however, seems to have little bearing on the number of Muslims wanting to access the Haram al Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, of Jerusalem. 

Wakf officials estimate that an average of 200,000-250-000 Muslims prayed at the al-Aqsa esplanade every Friday. The number is expected to rise significantly on the last Friday of Ramadan, known in local folklore as “al Juma’a al Yatima” (the lone Friday)

According to Muslim traditions, reward for a single raka’a (a ritual posturing) at the Aqsa Mosque is multiplied 500 times. In Ramadan, the heavenly reward is multiplied 70 times. 

Worshippers, withdrawing from worldly preoccupations, spend many hours reading the Quran, the literal words of God,  making ritual prayers, and beseeching the Almighty for spiritual grace and blessing.  

Islamic charities catering for the Mosque and the worshipers provide thousands of meals for the sunset meals marking the end of the day’s fast. 

The charities also bring in worshippers who can’t afford the expenses of the trip. 

Prior to sunset, the faithful sit down awaiting the Athan or call for prayer, marking the end of another fast’s day.  

Allah is the most great,  

I bear witness that there is no god but Allah.  

I bear witness that Muhammed is the Messenger of God.  

Come to prayer  

Come to Prosperity  

Allah is the Most Great.  

There is only one God   

  Preparing for the evening meal at the Aqsa Mosque 

As the timeless words, which include Islam’s articles of faith, are chanted through loudspeakers, the fasters take a few dates and a glass of water before performing the Maghrib (sunset) prayer in congregation. The prayers lasts for only 5-7 minutes, and each part begins with the recitation of Suratul Fatiha, or Opening chapter of the Quran:

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.  

Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the universe;  

 Most Gracious, Most Merciful;  

 Master of the Day of Judgment;  

Thee do we worship, and Thy aid we seek;  

 Show us the straight way;  

 The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace;  

Not those targeted by thy wrath, nor those who go astray.  

Following the usually delicious meal, many people rest for an hour or so, awaiting the Tarawih prayers, which last for an hour during which a portion of the Quran’s 30 portions  is recited. The entire Quran is recited in Tarawih prayer during the holy month.  

Laylatul Qadr  

The Ramadan spiritual season reaches its climax with Laylatul Qadr, translated as “the Night of Power,” or “Night of Destiny.” 

This is the night during which the Almighty sent down the Quran  to the lower heaven, before revealing it to the Prophet Muhammed verse-by-verse through the archangel Gabriel. 

In the Quran,  Laylatul Qadr is accentuated as an occasion of unmatched spiritual importance.  

We have indeed revealed this (the Quran) in the Night of Power:  

And what will explain to thee what the night of power is?  

The Night of Power is better than a thousand months.  

Therein come down the angels and the Spirit, by Allah’s permission, on every errand:  

Peace!…This until the rise of dawn!  

It is generally assumed it occurs on the 27th night of the holy month and Muslims are strongly recommended to spend the night in prayer, contemplation and supplication. 

This is exactly what tens of thousands of Palestinians do. And as always, it is expected that many more thousands of people will be heading for al-Masjidul Aqsa to spend the night there in prayer and reflection. 

Catering for the hundreds of thousands of worshippers are several organizations, including al-Aqsa Association for Waqf and Islamic Heritage, headed by Sheikh Ra’ed Salah, the prominent Palestinian Islamic leader and founder of the Islamic movement in Israel. 

According to the organization’s spokesperson, Mahmoud Abu Atta, more than 100,000 meals have been donated through the charitable group by donors, mostly from the 1.5 million-strong Arab community across the Green Line ( Israel ). 

Other donors, including the government of the United Arab Emirates, have also donated money covering hundreds of thousands of meals at al Masjidul Aqsa. 

In addition, thousands of people are bussed to Jerusalem from all over occupied Palestine nearly free of charge in order to keep the place occupied. 

Sheikh Ikrema Sabri, one of the chief khatibs (preachers) at the Aqsa Mosque lauded the “impressive influx” of Muslims to Islam’s third holiest place. 

“Al hamdulillah (praise be to Allah), this is an important message to the Zionist occupiers of our country, that Muslims will never ever abandon this place of paramount sanctity,  and that they will never allow those coveting  this place and conspiring  to destroy it to attain their sick goals.” 

Sabri’s words are not only received well by the huge multitude but are also internalized as is evidenced by the obviously unmitigated attachment of Palestinians to the place. 

One young man from a village near al-Khalil (Hebron) remarked that without al-Masjidul Aqsa and al-Quds, the entire Palestinian issue loses relevance. 

“Al-Quds is the heart of Palestine, and the Aqsa Mosque is the heart of Jerusalem. Which means that the Mosque is the heart of the heart of Palestine.  Hence, I can’t even imagine that Muslims would even contemplate letting it down. 

“I am not speaking about stones and ancient buildings, I am speaking about the essence of the Islamic Umma’s religious and spiritual existence. Hence, I can’t even imagine how the Muslim Umma can live without al-Quds and al-Masjidul Aqsa.  

“Can a person live without his heart?”

source: www.xpis.ps; Palestinian Information Center