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August 2010

Only we’re allowed

After Tuesday’s border clash, Israel will continue to ignore UNIFIL and the Lebanese army.
By Gideon Levy

Those bastards, the Lebanese, changed the rules. Scandalous. Word is, they have a brigade commander who’s determined to protect his country’s sovereignty. Scandalous.

The explanation here was that he’s “indoctrinating his troops” – only we’re allowed to do that, of course – and that this was “the spirit of the commander” and that he’s “close to Hezbollah.” The nerve.

And now that we’ve recited ad nauseum the explanations of Israel Defense Forces propaganda for what happened Tuesday at the northern border, the facts should also be looked at.

On Tuesday morning, Israel requested “coordination” with UNIFIL to carry out another “exposing” operation on the border fence. UNIFIL asked the IDF to postpone the operation, because its commander is abroad. The IDF didn’t care. UNIFIL won’t stop us.

At noon the tree-cutters set out. The Lebanese and UNIFIL soldiers shouted at them to stop. In Lebanon they say their soldiers also fired warning shots in the air. If they did, it didn’t stop the IDF.
The tree branches were cut and blood was shed on both sides of the border. Shed in vain.

True, Israel maintains that the area across the fence is its territory, and UNIFIL officially confirmed that yesterday. But a fence is a fence: In Gaza it’s enough to get near the fence for us to shoot to kill. In the West Bank the fence’s route bears no resemblance to the Green Line, and still Palestinians are forbidden from crossing it.

In Lebanon we made different rules: the fence is just a fence, we’re allowed to cross it and do whatever we like on the other side, sometimes in sovereign Lebanese territory. We can routinely fly in Lebanese airspace and sometimes invade as well.

This area was under Israeli occupation for 18 years, without us ever acknowledging it. It was an occupation no less brutal than the one in the territories, but whitewashed well. “The security zone,” we called it. So now, as well, we can do what we like.

But suddenly there was a change. How did our analysts put it? Recently there’s been “abnormal firing” at Israeli aircraft. After all, order must be maintained: We’re allowed to fly in Lebanese airspace, they are not permitted to shoot.

But Tuesday’s incident, which was blown out of proportion here as if it were cause for a war that only the famed Israeli “restraint” prevented, should be seen in its wider context. For months now the drums of war have been beating here again. Rat-a-tat, danger, Scuds from Syria, war in the north.

No one asks why and wherefore, it’s just that summer’s here, and with it our usual threats of war. But a UN report published this week held Israel fully responsible for creating this dangerous tension.

In this overheated atmosphere the IDF should have been careful when lighting its matches. UNIFIL requests a delay of an operation? The area is explosive? The work should have been postponed. Maybe the Lebanese Army is more determined now to protect its country’s sovereignty – that is not only its right, but its duty – and a Lebanese commander who sees the IDF operating across the fence might give an order to shoot, even unjustifiably.

Who better than the IDF knows the pattern of shooting at any real or imagined violation? Just ask the soldiers at the separation fence or guarding Gaza. But Israel arrogantly dismissed UNIFIL’s request for a delay.

It’s the same arrogance behind the demand that the U.S. and France stop arming the Lebanese military. Only our military is allowed to build up arms. After years in which Israel demanded that the Lebanese Army take responsibility for what is happening in southern Lebanon, it is now doing so and we’ve changed our tune. Why? Because it stopped behaving like Israel’s subcontractor and is starting to act like the army of a sovereign state.

And that’s forbidden, of course. After the guns fall silent, the cry goes up again here to strike another “heavy blow” against Lebanon to “deter” it – maybe some more of the destruction that was inflicted on Beirut’s Dahiya neighborhood.

Three Lebanese killed, including a journalist, are not enough of a response to the killing of our battalion commander. We want more. Lebanon must learn a lesson, and we will teach it.

And what about us? We don’t have any lessons to learn. We’ll continue to ignore UNIFIL, ignore the Lebanese Army and its new brigade commander, who has the nerve to think that his job is to protect his country’s sovereignty.

source

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CALL FOR BDS

1. THE CALL FOR BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT & SANCTIONS AGAINST ISRAELI OCCUAPATION AND APARTHEID

1.1 What is the Call for Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions against Israeli Occupation and Apartheid?

1.2 What are the objectives of the Call for Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions?

1.3 How are the calls for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israeli Occupation and Apartheid linked?

1.4 Are we strong enough to make the Call for Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions effective?

1.5 Don’t boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaigns also hurt Palestinians?

1.6 Why do you not call for boycott and divestment only from companies directly involved in the construction of the Apartheid Wall?

1.7 With boycott, divestment, and sanctions, aren’t you targeting the citizens of Israel instead of the politicians who make Israeli Apartheid politics?

2. THE CALL FOR BOYCOTT AGAINST ISRAELI OCCUPATION AND APARTHEID

2.1 What is a boycott?

2.2 Are boycotts effective?

2.3 How can I recognize Israeli products? Are there lists of goods to be boycotted?

2.4 What is the academic boycott?

2.5 Doesn’t the academic boycott limit the growth of opposition within Israel and target scholars who oppose the politics of Israeli Apartheid?

2.6 Are academic boycotts effective?

2.7 What would an academic boycott look like?

2.8 What is the cultural boycott?

2.9 What is the sports boycott?

3. THE CALL FOR DIVESTMENT FROM ISRAELI OCCUPATION AND APARTHEID

3.1 What is divestment and disinvestment?

3.2 How did divestment campaigns work for the movement against apartheid in South Africa?

3.3 How can I know which companies are Israeli or support Israeli Apartheid?

4. THE CALL FOR SANCTIONS AGAINST ISRAELI OCCUPATION AND APARTHEID

4.1 What are sanctions?

4.2 Haven’t sanctions often proved to be counterproductive, simply strengthening the existing politics in the countries subject to sanctions? And aren’t they often also inhumane, since they punish the poor?

4.3 Who can implement sanctions?

4.4 Since sanctions are a measure to be taken by governments and international bodies, how can the people create effective pressure for sanctions against Israeli Apartheid?

see all the answers here

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The Palestinian Call for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions

Palestinian Civil Society Calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights

9 July 2005

One year after the historic Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which found Israel’s Wall built on occupied Palestinian territory to be illegal, Israel continues its construction of the colonial Wall with total disregard to the Court’s decision. Thirty eight years into Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian West Bank (including East Jerusalem), Gaza Strip and the Syrian Golan Heights, Israel continues to expand Jewish colonies. It has unilaterally annexed occupied East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights and is now de facto annexing large parts of the West Bank by means of the Wall. Israel is also preparing – in the shadow of its planned redeployment from the Gaza Strip – to build and expand colonies in the West Bank.

Fifty seven years after the state of Israel was built mainly on land ethnically cleansed of its Palestinian owners, a majority of Palestinians are refugees, most of whom are stateless. Moreover, Israel’s entrenched system of racial discrimination against its own Arab-Palestinian citizens remains intact.

In light of Israel’s persistent violations of international law, and Given that, since 1948, hundreds of UN resolutions have condemned Israel’s colonial and discriminatory policies as illegal and called for immediate, adequate and effective remedies, and

Given that all forms of international intervention and peace-making have until now failed to convince or force Israel to comply with humanitarian law, to respect fundamental human rights and to end its occupation and oppression of the people of Palestine, and

In view of the fact that people of conscience in the international community have historically shouldered the moral responsibility to fight injustice, as exemplified in the struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa through diverse forms of boycott, divestment and sanctions;

Inspired by the struggle of South Africans against apartheid and in the spirit of international solidarity, moral consistency and resistance to injustice and oppression,

We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era. We appeal to you to pressure your respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel. We also invite conscientious Israelis to support this Call, for the sake of justice and genuine peace.

These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

Endorsed by:

The Palestinian political parties, unions, associations, coalitions and organizations below represent the three integral parts of the people of Palestine: Palestinian refugees, Palestinians under occupation and Palestinian citizens of Israel.
UNIONS, ASSOCIATIONS, CAMPAIGNS

1. Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine (coordinating body for the major political parties in the Occupied Palestinian Territory)
2. Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizen’s Rights (PICCR)
3. Union of Arab Community Based Associations (ITTIJAH), Haifa
4. Forum of Palestinian NGOs in Lebanon
5. Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU)
6. General Union of Palestinian Women (GUPW)
7. General Union of Palestinian Teachers (GUPT)
8. Federation of Unions of Palestinian Universities’ Professors and Employees
9. Consortium of Professional Associations
10. Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees (UPMRC)
11. Health Work Committees – West Bank
12. Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC)
13. Union of Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)
14. Union of Health Work Committees – Gaza (UHWC)
15. Union of Palestinian Farmers
16. Occupied Palestine and Syrian Golan Heights Advocacy Initiative (OPGAI)
17. General Union of Disabled Palestinians
18. Palestinian Federation of Women’s Action Committees (PFWAC)
19. Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)
20. Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign
21. Union of Teachers of Private Schools
22. Union of Women’s Work Committees, Tulkarem (UWWC)
23. Dentists’ Association – Jerusalem Center
24. Palestinian Engineers Association
25. Lawyers’ Association
26. Network for the Eradication of Illiteracy and Adult Education, Ramallah
27. Coordinating Committee of Rehabilitation Centers – West Bank
28. Coalition of Lebanese Civil Society Organizations (150 organizations)
29. Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), Network of Student-based Canadian University Associations

REFUGEE RIGHTS ASSOCIATIONS/ORGANIZATIONS

30. Al-Ard Committees for the Defense of the Right of Return, Syria
31. Al-Awda Charitable Society, Beit Jala
32. Al Awda – Palestine Right-to-Return Coalition, U.S.A
33. Al-Awda Toronto
34. Aidun Group – Lebanon
35. Aidun Group – Syria
36. Alrowwad Cultural and Theatre Training Center, Aida refugee camp
37. Association for the Defense of the Rights of the Internally Displaced (ADRID), Nazareth
38. BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, Bethlehem
39. Committee for Definite Return, Syria
40. Committee for the Defense of Palestinian Refugee Rights, Nablus
41. Consortium of the Displaced Inhabitants of Destroyed Palestinian Villages and Towns
42. Filastinuna – Commission for the Defense of the Right of Return, Syria 43. Handala Center, ‘Azza (Beit Jibreen) refugee camp, Bethlehem
44. High Committee for the Defense of the Right of Return, Jordan (including personal endorsement of 71 members of parliament, political parties and unions in Jordan)
45. High National Committee for the Defense of the Right of Return, Ramallah
46. International Right of Return Congress (RORC)
47. Jermana Youth Forum for the Defense of the Right of Return, Syria
48. Laji Center, Aida camp, Bethlehem
49. Local Committee for Rehabilitation, Qalandia refugee camp, Jerusalem
50. Local Committee for Rehabilitation of the Disabled, Deheishe refugee camp, Bethlehem 51. Palestinian National Committee for the Defense of the Right of Return, Syria
52. Palestinian Return Association, Syria
53. Palestinian Return Forum, Syria
54. Palestine Right-of-Return Coalition (Palestine, Arab host countries, Europe, North America)
55. Palestine Right-of-Return Confederation-Europe (Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden) 56. Palestinian Youth Forum for the Right of Return, Syria
57. PLO Popular Committees – West Bank refugee camps
58. PLO Popular Committees – Gaza Strip refugee camps
59. Popular Committee – al-‘Azza (Beit Jibreen) refugee camp, Bethlehem
60. Popular Committee – Deheishe refugee camp, Bethlehem
61. Shaml – Palestinian Diaspora and Refugee Center, Ramallah
62. Union of Women’s Activity Centers – West Bank Refugee Camps
63. Union of Youth Activity Centers – Palestine Refugee Camps
64. Women’s Activity Center – Deheishe refugee camp, Bethlehem
65. Yafa Cultural Center, Balata refugee camp, Nablus

ORGANIZATIONS

66. Abna’ al-Balad Society, Nablus
67. Addameer Center for Human Rights, Gaza
68. Addameer Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Association, Ramallah
69. Alanqa’ Cultural Association, Hebron
70. Al-Awda Palestinian Folklore Society, Hebron
71. Al-Doha Children’s Cultural Center, Bethlehem
72. Al-Huda Islamic Center, Bethlehem
73. Al-Jeel al-Jadid Society, Haifa
74. Al-Karameh Cultural Society, Um al-Fahm
75. Al-Maghazi Cultural Center, Gaza
76. Al-Marsad Al-Arabi, occupied Syrian Golan Heights
77. Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, Gaza
78. Al-Nahda Cultural Forum, Hebron
79. Al-Taghrid Society for Culture and Arts, Gaza
80. Alternative Tourism Group, Beit Sahour (ATG)
81. Al-Wafa’ Charitable Society, Gaza
82. Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (ARIJ)
83. Arab Association for Human Rights, Nazareth (HRA)
84. Arab Center for Agricultural Development (ACAD)
85. Arab Center for Agricultural Development-Gaza
86. Arab Education Institute (AEI) – Pax Christie Bethlehem
87. Arab Orthodox Charitable Society – Beit Sahour
88. Arab Orthodox Charity – Beit Jala
89. Arab Orthodox Club – Beit Jala
90. Arab Orthodox Club – Beit Sahour
91. Arab Students’ Collective, University of Toronto
92. Arab Thought Forum, Jerusalem (AFT)
93. Association for Cultural Exchange Hebron – France
94. Association Najdeh, Lebanon
95. Authority for Environmental Quality, Jenin
96. Bader Society for Development and Reconstruction, Gaza
97. Canadian Palestine Foundation of Quebec, Montreal
98. Center for the Defense of Freedoms, Ramallah
99. Center for Science and Culture, Gaza
100. Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Ramallah- Al-Bireh District
101. Child Development and Entertainment Center, Tulkarem
102. Committee for Popular Participation, Tulkarem
103. Defense for Children International-Palestine Section, Ramallah (DCI/PS)
104. El-Funoun Palestinian Popular Dance Troupe
105. Ensan Center for Democracy and Human Rights, Bethlehem
106. Environmental Education Center, Bethlehem
107. FARAH – Palestinian Center for Children, Syria
108. Ghassan Kanafani Society for Development, Gaza
109. Ghassan Kanafani Forum, Syria
110. Gaza Community Mental Health Program, Gaza (GCMHP)
111. Golan for Development, occupied Syrian Golan Heights
112. Halhoul Cultural Forum, Hebron
113. Himayeh Society for Human Rights, Um al-Fahm
114. Holy Land Trust – Bethlehem
115. Home of Saint Nicholas for the Aged – Beit Jala
116. Human Rights Protection Center, Lebanon

source

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End of Iraq Combat Operations or Beginning of Downsized, Rebranded Occupation Relying Heavily on Private Military Contractors?


President Obama said Monday in a speech before the Disabled American Veterans national convention in Atlanta that the US military is on target to withdraw all its combat troops from Iraq by the end of August. We speak with independent journalist Jeremy Scahill, who says this instead marks the beginning of a downsized and rebranded occupation that will rely heavily on private military forces.

source see Amy Goodman on Democracy Now here

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ISRAEL’S PR WAR

After Israel’s major attack on Gaza in December 2008, it has faced criticism around the world. This criticism escalated after the publication of the Goldstone Report in 2009 that found evidence of war crimes in the attack. This year, Israel’s security establishment declared a full out PR war on criticism that it identifies as “delegitimization” of Israel. Israel’s most influential think tank, the Reut Institute, developed the strategy for how to fight this PR war. It published a massive report in preparation for this year’s Herzeliya conference entitled “Building a political firewall: against Israel’s delegitimization” which advocated that the Israeli intelligence agencies establish special units to collect information on critics of Israel. The report also advocates the establishment of pro-Israel networks in “hubs of delegitimization” which it named as London, Paris, Madrid, Toronto, and the Bay Area. The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky spoke to Morton A. Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America who talks about how American lobby groups help Israel fight its PR war.

Bio

Morton A. Klein is the President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), the oldest pro-Israel group In the U.S. He is a member of the Executive Committee of AIPAC. Klein has delivered hundreds of lectures and is a frequent guest on television and radio networks.

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Boycott the Israel Ballet

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Hosni Mubarak et al.

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Four-year-old child begging Israeli forces to release his father

By Zuheir Al-Shaer

August 3, 2010

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Video footage of a four-year-old child begging Israeli forces to release his father from detention on Monday has circulated the globe.

“You dog, give me my dad. I want daddy. I want daddy. Give me my dad,” cried Khalid Fadel Al-Ja’bari, as Israeli border guards detained his father Fadel, 36 in the Al-Baq’a village east of Hebron, where Israel’s Civil Administration began destroying what it described as an illegal water irrigation network. At the time, a spokesman denied forces overturned land.

Badran Jaber, the child’s grandfather, told Ma’an his son-in-law was detained after objecting to Israeli bulldozers overturning fields planted with vegetables near the illegal Kiryat Arba settlement.

“The heart of the soldiers is harder than the rock. The screams of the child did not stop them from attacking his father, but they kicked the child and pulled his hands which were holding his father’s shirt,” said the grandfather. Khaled, he said, has not slept since his father was detained.

The grandfather said border guards have repeatedly prevented him and other residents from accessing the 30 dunums of land, of which 18 belong to him, by deploying riot dispersal means.

Jaber, a leader of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said Israel’s Civil Administration, accompanied by border guards, began destroying the irrigation network on his farmland at 9a.m. He said residents and relatives tried to stop forces, but were assaulted.

“When my 15-year-old son Wadi and my son-in-law … Fadel, tried to defend myself and my wife, Israeli soldiers beat them before detaining them,” Jaber told Ma’an at the time.

A spokesman for Israel’s Civil Administration said Monday inspectors destroyed pipes that were illegally set up and stealing water from other sources. He said no farmland was destroyed in the process.

At the time, Locals in Hebron confirmed seeing Israeli bulldozers overturn vast areas of farmland.

http://www.uruknet.info?p=68546

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The choices facing Palestinian leadership

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD

Palestinian sources revealed a letter sent by Obama that outlines carrots and sticks approach to get Mahmoud Abbas to go to direct and endless negotiations so as to keep the disastrous Oslo cover for the occupation going a few more years.

This revealed once and for all that Washington is indeed Israeli-occupied territory.
Despite our political differences, we can only feel pity for Abu Mazen whose two open choices are both bad: a) negotiate while Israel continues to colonize and ethnically cleanse what remains of the occupied areas and thus lose what little credibility remains among the Palestinian public, OR b) insist on reference to International Law (and thus a settlement freeze) and lose hundreds of millions in funding and lucrative positions of power over the now de facto self-rule areas.

In either case there will be no end to the occupation and no real or sovereign Palestinian state in the foreseeable future. Will he choose a third route that preserves dignity and self-respect and give up the charade of Oslo and its trappings that he started (and convinced Arafat to follow for years until Israel killed him when he hesitated)? (there are ways to do this since an agreement signed under duress and especially one that violates basic international law is null and void anyway and does not remove the rights of native people even when someone representing them signs it).

Will PLO reclaim its name sake as Palestine Liberation Organization or degenerate into the Palestinian Leftover Officials? Will the Palestinian people realize that they hold the keys to their own future and that salvation will not come from anyone else?

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
A Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home
http://www.qumsiyeh.org
Professor, Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities
Chairman of the Board, Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People:http://www.pcr.ps

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