RamallahOnline.com

(This interview first appeared on the website of the New Left Project at: http://newleftproject.org/)

In a wide ranging interview journalist Jonathan Cook describes the increasingly repressive nature of Israeli society and the prospects for a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict

What did you make of Ehud Barak’s recent comparison of Israel to South Africa?

We should be extremely wary of ascribing a leftwing agenda to senior Israeli politicians who make use of the word “apartheid” in the Israeli-Palestinian context. Barak was not claiming that Israel is an apartheid state when he addressed the high-powered delegates at the Herzliya conference last month; he was warning the Netanyahu government that its approach to the two-state solution was endangering Israel’s legitimacy in the eyes of the world that would eventually lead to it being called an apartheid state. He was politicking. His goal was to intimidate Netanyahu into signing up to his, and the Israeli centre’s, long-standing agenda of “unilateral separation”: statehood imposed on the Palestinians as a series of bantustans (be sure, the irony is entirely lost on Barak and others). Barak knows that Netanyahu currently has no intention of creating any kind of Palestinian state, even a bogus one, despite his commitments to the US.

Sami Jamil Jadallah | The Jefferson Corner

In the last few days I have been following the visits of both Vice President Joe Biden and Senator George Mitchell to the Middle East and the different and competing messages coming out of Washington, Ramallah, Tel-Aviv and Cairo the seat of the Arab League.

Vice President Joe Biden is a seasoned politician with over 30 years in the US Senate with many years of tenure at Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and one would assume is a smart man who can understand words and actions. He seemed to lose both while on his visit to Israel.

It seems the Obama-Biden’s White House does not get it. V.P Biden statement quoted in Haaretz “ Palestinians, Israelis must decide for themselves if they want peace” sound very good but when it comes from some one like Joe Biden such statement is not only stupid but reckless as well.

All of the US administrations with the exception of Eisenhower and Kennedy including Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and now Obama has always acted not as an unbiased arbitrator but as partners with Israel and always gave Israel the legal, political, economic and military cover needed to continue with its occupation, with its expanding settlements, with its seizures and closers, its never ending daily aggression and pretended always to ignore the fact that Israel whether Labor, Likud, Kadima, Shas or whatever never was interested in peace with the Palestinians based on land for peace. One can only explain US-Israel relationship as one of a “pimp and his bitch” with Israel being the “pimp” of course.

Court hears how army bulldozer killed peace activist
Jonathan Cook in Nazareth

Seven years after Rachel Corrie, a US peace activist, was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza, her family was to put the Israeli government in the dock today.

A judge in the northern Israeli city of Haifa was due to be presented with evidence that 23-year-old Corrie was killed unlawfully as she stood in the path of the bulldozer, trying to prevent it from demolishing Palestinian homes in Rafah.

Corrie’s parents, Craig and Cindy, who arrived in Israel on Saturday, said they hoped their civil action would shed new light on their daughter’s killing and finally lead to Israel’s being held responsible for her death. They are also seeking damages that could amount to millions of dollars if the court finds in their favour.

Juan Cole | http://www.juancole.com/

The far rightwing government of Binyamin Netanyahu in Israel majorly sandbagged Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday, demonstrating once again that it has not the slightest interest in pursuing a just peace with the Palestinian people or in trading a cessation of its colonization of the Palestinian West Bank for a comprehensive peace with the Arab world.

Biden went to the Mideast to kick off negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and reassured the latter of undying US support for them. On Chris Matthews' Hardball, Biden explained that when you marry someone, you tell them you love them, but that does not remove the obligation to keep saying it years later. Apparently, however, Washington is henpecked by Tel Aviv to the point almost of being a battered spouse. In response to Biden's loyal support for Israel over decades, the Likud-led government kicked him in the teeth. Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai abruptly announced that he would build 1600 new households (for 8,000 people?) in a part of the Occupied West Bank that the Israeli government had annexed to Jerusalem District. It was precisely such new and increasing Israeli building on Palestinian territory that had led Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to reject negotiations and to threaten to resign. The announcement put in doubt whether the negotiations would go forward, and made Biden and the United States government look like fools.

Jonathan Cook in Nazareth

An exclusive club of the world’s most developed countries is poised to admit Israel as a member even though, a confidential internal document indicates, doing so will amount to endorsing Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territories.

Israel has been told that its accession to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is all but assured when the 30 member states meet in May.

But a draft OECD report concedes that Israel has breached one of the organisation’s key requirements on providing accurate and transparent data on its economic activity.

Juan Cole | http://www.juancole.com/

Abraham has been an important figure for theologians, philosophers, chroniclers and religious poets and lyricists among Jews, Christians and Muslims. All three monotheistic religions honor him and claim him as a patriarch or in Islam's case as a prophet of the one God. All tell the story of his willingness to sacrifice his son for God. Jews and Arabs see him as an ancestor, Jews claiming descent through his implausibly aged first wife Sarah and Arabs through his second wife (held in some Jewish and Muslim traditions to have been a Pharaonic princess), Hagar. They hold him to be buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs in al-Khalil in the Palestinian West Bank, which the Israelis call "Hebron," where Muslims erected the Mosque of the Abraham, which is split, with part of it used by Jews and the other part by Muslims.

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
A Bedouin in cybersopace, a villager at home

The Israeli army invaded our neighborhood at 1:30 AM Tuesday morning waking up my mother, wife and sister.  Heavily-armed soldiers blocked roads during "the operation". When my family opened the door, they demanded to see me.  They were told I have already left to the US.  After many more questions, they left a paper that states I am to appear at the military liaison office next Monday.  My sister and wife told them I will not be back by then. Clearly the warning from that military officer at Ush Ghrab that I mentioned in my last email, was based on knowledge of this. I guess I am a wanted man now for engaging in nonviolent protest!  Those who were at that event and have video, please contact me.  What disturbs me is not the risk to me; any action against oppression is taken knowing there are personal risks.  What disturbs me is that this has an effect on my family and thousands of friends around the world who care (and some of it unpredictable).  My 76 year old mother asks on the phone that I not go back and that I work in the US for a while, a very painful suggestion for a mother to make about her only remaining son near her!  I try to assure her that I have done nothing wrong and will not leave her…but she brings up many examples of people who also did not do any violence and were arrested, imprisoned, and their families had to go through a lot.  A friend who heard about this stated I have nothing to worry about, that this was to hassle me to get us to stop being active. Another lost sleep trying to figure out what we can do.   I assure her that I will carry on with my speaking tour as planned and that this will
blow over one day. (the song “we shall overcome someday” comes to mind).

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
A Bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home

I just arrived in the US to give a series of talks on Palestine as part of the 6th International Israeli Apartheid Week www.apartheidweek.org (my schedule is below*).  The day I left Palestine was a bizarre/strange day to say theleast.  The second Sunday in Beit Sahour to hold events to protest the increased military presence was to contain a land reclamation activity.  The torrential rains put a damper on that option but lifted our spirits since it proclaimed a great planting and harvest season.  In three days, we received over 85% of the total needed rainfall for the season!! Nothing like thishappened here in over 15 years.  But there was enough of a clearing that over 60 people gathered at Ush Ghrab.  It included Dr. Moustafa Barghouthiand his supporters.  Because we had originally planned no demonstration for this Sunday, we (the members of the popular committee in Beit Sahour) asked that they do not chant and that they fold their banners.  Because there was no military, we decided to honor a request from our visitors and give them a quick tour of the military camp site.  But just after we arrived at the topof the hill and were about to spend five minutes  explaining the tumultuous history of this site, the Israeli soldiers came barreling up the hill intheir military jeeps.  Giving us five minutes to go back down and refusing to negotiate, things unfolded rather quickly. The soldiers threw about a dozen concussion grenades.  Three young people from those who came fromoutside Beit Sahour tried to throw stones.

Jonathan Cook

A recent assignment of mine covering Israel’s presumed links to the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh provoked some more thoughts about the New York Times reporter Ethan Bronner. He is the Jerusalem bureau chief who has been at the centre of a controversy since it was revealed last month that his son is serving in the Israeli army. Despite mounting pressure to replace Bronner, the NYT’s editors have so far refused to consider that he might be facing a conflict of interest or that it would be wiser to post him elsewhere.