Tag Archives: international condemnation

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Israel Makes Small Change to Gaza Blockade Brands Lebanese Women’s Aid Mission ‘Hizbullah’

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Juan Cole, 21 June 2010
Edmund Sanders of the LAT puts the matter correctly when he says that Israel’s national security government (a subset of key cabinet ministers) took a “small step” Sunday in announcing a further easing of the Israeli blockade of civilian Palestinians in the Gaza strip. The new policy is said to envision the abolition of the list of permitted items in favor of a small list of goods not permitted because they have military uses.

But the Israelis can continue the blockade even with a smaller list of prohibited items by limiting truck traffic through the checkpoints. That traffic is tiny now compared to the period before 2006, and Sunday’s announcement may not increase it that much.

I wrote on Friday, “For one thing, how many items are let in is less important than the volume of each. The Irish Times quotes Robert Serry, the head of the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). During the first week in June, imports declined by a quarter, even though Israel expanded the list of allowed imports by 11 food and health items. OCHA says that the amount of staples and aid going into Gaza is only about 17% of the goods routinely allowed in before the blockade began. So an ‘easing’ would not even restore the status quo ante of pre-2007.”

The USG Open Source Center translated a report from Jerusalem Voice of Israel Network B in Hebrew on Sunday June 20 saying,

‘ “The coordinator of government activities in the territories informed the PA tonight that as of tomorrow morning, the number of trucks crossing through Kerem Shalom will be daily increased by 30%. Our correspondent Karmela Menashe reports that this will allow the daily entry of 140 trucks into the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing.’

If the increase is only 30% of the present truck traffic, that would be about 23% of the trucks that routinely traveled into Gaza before the blockade, up from the 17% of the pre-blockade number that has been characteristic in the past year. A “small step” indeed.

This small step was clearly impelled by fear of increased international condemnation by one country after another if the harsher blockade was kept in place. Further, there is a growing danger to Israel of international boycotts over its Apartheid policies. Even in Oakland, Ca., not to mention Stockholm. Since the steps announced Sunday will not in fact allow for a decent life for the Palestinians of Gaza, nor will they address their massive unemployment and poverty, they are unlikely entirely to relieve this pressure from global civil society.

The small change was also impelled by fear of the further 8 aid ships now planned by humanitarian aid workers for Gaza, each of which Israel is pledged to board and divert. That is 8 opportunities for further disasters like that aboard the ill-fated Turkish aid vessel, the Mavi Marmara, where one American and 8 Turks were shot to death by Israeli commandos.

The next confrontation is likely to be with two aid ships from Lebanon, organized by women’s groups, including Christian ones. The Mariam is named for Mother Mary.

On last Thursday, “Dozens of Christian and Muslim women gathered in prayer in a cave near Our Lady of Mantara in the town of Maghdushe, where Mary was said to have waited for Jesus while he was preaching nearby some 2,000 years ago” according to AFP.

Rima Farah told AFP, “The participants are committed to making progress and our only weapons are faith in the Virgin Mary and in humanity.” She also said expressed confidence that their prayers were being answered, in light of Israeli announcements about the easing of the blockade.

Another all-woman aid vessel, the Julia, has received permission from Lebanese Public Works and Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi to set sail from Tripoli for Cyprus. He says it is none of his business where it goes after that. This procedure is a way of getting around Israeli threats of reprisals against Lebanon if its government lets the aid ships leave directly for Gaza from a Lebanese port. This way, Lebanon can insist that all it did was give the ships permission to leave for Cyprus. (Lebanese law also forbids him to authorize departure for Israeli-controlled ports, or for any ports where they do not have permission to land). If the ships depart Cyprus for Gaza, that step is unlikely to result in an Israeli strike on Nicosia, since Cyprus and Israel are not at war and Greece would rather mind.

Al-Hayat [Life], reporting in Arabic, says that Israeli radio carried assertions from sources in the Israeli foreign ministry that these two ships are actually backed by the Lebanese Shiite fundamentalist party-militia, Hizbullah. They said that the party forbade singer Haifa Wahbi to board the ships, on the grounds that her steamy music videos would overshadow the mission and give the wrong impression of it. But this ridiculous charge is just a piece of gossip picked up from the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Siyasah, which is rather distant from the scene. In fact, Haifa herself expressed bewilderment at the report, saying she had never registered to be a passenger on the Mariam, and Hizbullah if anything was even more astonished. I’ll let you decide if this looks to you like someone who pays attention to Hizbullah. That the Israeli foreign ministry is taking ridiculous gossip seriously as a basis for making foreign and possibly military policy is a sign of serious derangement. And if Israel attacks these ships on the assumption that they are Hizbullah, it will not go well for the Netanyahu government.

At some level, at least the few Labor Party members of the cabinet know this, and they, including Industry, Labor, and Trade Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, appear to be the ones who behind the scenes pushed hardest for the ‘easing’ of the blockade on Gaza.

In fact, these female Lebanese aid ships are not affiliated to Hizbullah, which declines even verbally to support them, saying that it disapproves of the risk they are taking, of a confrontation that could harm the innocent civilians involved. There is, on the contrary, a strong Catholic overtone to the missions. About 15% of Palestinians are Christian, and the Catholic Church is among the few Western institutions that protests the horrible way the Palestinians have been treated. About 22% of Lebanese are Maronite Catholics, a uniate church that recognized the Pope in the early modern period but retains a Syriac liturgy.

An Israeli attack on these unarmed women on a mission of mercy would be a further public relations disaster for Tel Aviv.

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Appendix: The USG Open Source Center translates passages from the Israeli press over the Netanyahu government’s easing of the blockade on Palestinians in Gaza.

‘ A pool report posted at 1905 GMT in Tel Aviv Ynetnews in English, centrist news site operated by Yedi’ot Media Group, says: “Knesset Member Yoel Hasson (Kadima) criticized Netanyahu over the government’s decision to ease the blockade on Gaza. ‘Now it is official. Netanyahu is prone to pressure and is a weak prime minister who pays heavy prices for his lack of policy. Netanyahu is sending a dangerous message that terrorism pays off,’ said Hasson.

“MK Nachman Shai (Kadima) said that the Gaza blockade policy ‘went bankrupt.’ ‘. . .

Eli Levi reports at 1829 GMT in Tel Aviv NRG Ma’ariv in Hebrew, news site run by the Ma’ariv Group: “Shimshon Liebman, head of the Struggle Command for Gil’ad Shalit, said tonight regarding the Israeli Government’s decision to ease the Gaza blockade: ‘I miss the leadership we once had, which knew how decisions should be made. Today everything is up to two people — the prime minister and the defense minister.’ Liebman is further quoted as saying that “in the siege matter, Israel seems to have built a paper house.”

Arik Bender reports in NRG at 1735 GMT: “National Union MK Mikha’el Ben-Ari said following the decision to lift the closure that [flotilla passenger Palestinian-Israeli Knesset member Haneen Zoabi] ‘Zu’bi has beaten Netanyahu.’ He added that ‘the man who claimed to be a strong leader versus HAMAS has caved to a group of anarchist terrorists. A few bat-carrying terrorists made a joke of Netanyahu’s leadership.”

Tel Aviv Walla! in Hebrew, website of leading news and entertainment service, carries Nir Yahav’s report at 1934 GMT, adding: “[Palestinian-Israeli member of the Israeli parliament] MK Ahmad al-Tibi of the RAAM-TAAL party said tonight that the Israeli Government’s decision to ease the closure on the Gaza Strip is insufficient because the blockade should be completely lifted. ‘Nevertheless, the government’s decision corroborates the view that Israel only understands force and international pressure,’ he added.”

A report by Pinhas Wolf, posted in Walla! at 1632 GMT, says: “Environmental Protection Minister Gil’ad Erdan, believed to be one of the government’s hawks, tonight voiced unreserved support for the prime minister’s decision to ease the Gaza Strip closure. According to him, ‘Israel has so far paid a steep diplomatic price for a closure that was nonexistent for all intents and purposes. While civilian goods went regularly into the Gaza Strip, the world thought the Strip was completely blockaded.” ‘

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What sort of Christians become Zionists?

Christian Zionists

Stuart Littlewood, 17 June 2010

“We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as a false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation” – The Jerusalem Declaration

Not all Jews are Zionists. Many reject the Zionist project and fight against it.

So why on earth would a non-Jew wish to be one? Indeed, how could a genuine Christian seriously consider becoming a Zionist? It has puzzled me for a long time. The two ideas are incompatible, are they not?

So consider for a moment Anglican Friends of Israel, as an example. Their stated aims include:

  • To support the people of Israel and to secure defensible borders for the State of Israel.
  • To recall the Church to G-d’s Covenant with the Jewish people and to call the Church to affirm the centrality of Israel to the Jewish faith.
  • To call Anglicans to repentance for the wrongs – of both word and deed – inflicted by Christians on the Jewish people and the nation of Israel.
  • To fight all libels against Israel and the Jewish people and their State.
  • To protect the Christian communities threatened by Islamic extremism in the Middle East.

Are they Zionists? It sounds very much like it. For them Israel can do no wrong and Christians need to apologise to the Jewish people… er, what for?

And what makes them think that Muslims are more of a threat than Israeli extremists to Christian communities?

You should also see the sort of stuff the Anglican Friends of Israel post on their website.

    AFI Press Release: The Mavi Marmara
    Written by Anglican Friends of Israel
    Wednesday, 02 June 2010
    Anglican Friends of Israel are dismayed at international condemnation of Israel following attacks upon Israeli Defence Force personnel [by] a supposedly peaceful aid convoy… Israeli offers of peaceful means to deliver the aid into Gaza were refused. Video footage proves that the violence which tragically resulted in the deaths of some passengers and injuries to others including IDF personnel was begun by Aid convoy members… Terrorists in Gaza continue to fire rockets into Israel – over 60 this year so far – and to explode bombs in order to kill and maim Israeli citizens.
    Western spokespersons might bear in mind that the terror threat to western nations springs from the same source as that faced daily by Israelis and be more circumspect in making demands on Israel before all relevant facts have emerged.

Anyone would be forgiven for thinking it was actually penned by the crapaganda unit in Tel Aviv. These Anglicans (if they are Anglicans) swallowed Israel’s poisonous concoction hook, line and sinker and re-broadcast it while the abducted flotilla aid workers – witnesses to the murderous assault and executions – were incarcerated in Israeli jails and unable to tell the outside world what really happened.

I don’t know of any danger to us from Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran, if those are the “terror” sources referred to. I doubt if groups who wish to see the Israeli nuclear threat to their region neutralised are also gunning for us, even though people like Anglican Friends of Israel and foreign secretary William Hague are doing their best to provoke them. But Israel of course wishes to make the British feel threatened and to draw us for strategic reasons into their schemes for permanent occupation and domination. There are always plenty of useful idiots to do their bidding.

A few days earlier the Anglicans issued a press release stating that the flotilla to Gaza was “a publicity stunt, not a genuine aid convoy”. The item was actually a statement by the Israeli embassy repeated word for word and containing meaningless information like… “Since last year’s January cease fire, 133 million liters of fuel entered Gaza from Israel – That’s more than enough fuel to fill the fuel tank of every car and truck in Israel!” and “Since the ceasefire, well over a million tons of humanitarian supplies entered Gaza from Israel – That’s almost a ton of aid for every man woman and child in Gaza.”

Meaningless, because the figures lacked context. You have to go to the UN for that. Whatever Israel lets in, says the UN, it’s only one-fifth of what’s needed.

Some apparently responsible people, it seems, would rather accept without question the disinformation fed them by the Israeli authorities than on-the-spot assessments and reports by the UN and various charities.

Actually Israel is letting in only a quarter of what it let in before Hamas was elected.

Without question there was a publicity angle to the voyage. The organisers had a political point to make – the whole ugly US/UK-created mess out there is a political cesspit. The Israelis couldn’t afford to see their illegal blockade breached. The evidence points to a planned execution raid on the Mavi Marmara in the dead of night with a pre-prepared hit-list.

And in a letter to the BBC these Anglicans insisted that Operation Cast Lead (Israel’s blitzkrieg on Gaza after breaking the ceasefire with Hamas, subsequently killing 1400, maiming heaven knows how many and making hundreds of thousands homeless) was an act of “self-defense”.

If you are as bewildered as I am why so-called Christians are persuaded to sign up to Zionism, a short paper explaining the phenomenon is available from Sadaka, The Ireland Palestine Alliance – see www.sadaka.ie. I found it very helpful.

    “The destiny of the Jewish people is to return to the land of Israel and reclaim their inheritance promised to Abraham and his descendants forever. This inheritance extends from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates. Within their land, Jerusalem is recognised to be their exclusive, undivided and eternal capital, and therefore it cannot be shared or divided.
    At the heart of Jerusalem will be the rebuilt Jewish temple, to which all the nations will come to worship God. Just prior to the return of Jesus, there will be seven years of calamities and war known as the tribulation, which will culminate in a great battle called Armageddon, during which the godless forces opposed to both God and Israel will be defeated.
    Jesus will then return as the Jewish Messiah and king to reign in Jerusalem for a thousand years, and the Jewish people will enjoy a privileged status and role in the world.”

That’s the Zionist dream in a nutshell.

As I understand it, the Jews were expelled by the Roman occupation in 70AD, when the second temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, and again in 135AD.

These days the right of return is regarded as an inalienable right. But it should be exercised as soon as the reason for expulsion (e.g. foreign occupation) ceases. In the Jews’ case an opportunity would have occurred in the 4th century AD as the Roman Empire collapsed. But they didn’t take it. They can hardly expect to change their mind 16 centuries later. Their right expired a very long time ago.

By comparison the Palestinians’ right of return after being ethnically cleansed in 1948 and ever since is much stronger because the enemy occupation has not yet ended and the UN has endorsed their right.

Nevertheless Zionists claim Jerusalem is theirs by heavenly decree. However, this holiest of cities was already 2000 years old when King David captured it. It dates back 5000 years and was named after the Canaanite God of Dusk.

Historians say that Jerusalem, in its ‘City of David’ form, lasted a mere 73 years. In 928BC the kingdom divided into Israel and Judah, and in 597BC the Babylonians conquered the city and destroyed Solomon’s temple. The Jews recaptured it in 164BC but finally lost it to the Roman Empire in 63BC. Before the present-day conflict the Jews, in total, controlled Jerusalem for some 500 years, whereas it was subsequently ruled by Muslims for 1,277 years. Before the Jews it belonged to the Canaanites. And for nearly 90 years it was also a Christian kingdom. A lot of competing claims, then, which is probably why the UN declared it should be independently administered as an international city.

In 1187 Saladin restored the city to Islam while allowing Jews and Christians to remain. Today Jewish religious groups want control of the city for their spiritual centre and for a third temple to be built in accordance with ancient prophecies. The plan to make the Israeli occupation permanent threatens especially the Muslim but also the Christian holy places and serves to keep political tension boiling. It is no surprise, given Israel’s reliance on ‘black’ propaganda, that when the Iranian president quoted the late Ayatollah Khomeini as saying the unfriendly regime occupying Jerusalem “must vanish from the page of time”, he was immediately reported as wanting to wipe Israel off the map.

Sadaka puts the genuine Christian position by quoting The Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism, a statement by the Latin Patriarch and Local Heads of Churches in Jerusalem issued in 2006…

    We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as a false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation.
    We further reject the contemporary alliance of Christian Zionist leaders and organizations with elements in the governments of Israel and the United States that are presently imposing their unilateral pre-emptive borders and domination over Palestine. This inevitably leads to unending cycles of violence that undermine the security of all peoples of the Middle East and the rest of world.
    We reject the teachings of Christian Zionism that facilitate and support these policies as they advance racial exclusivity and perpetual war rather than the gospel of universal love, redemption and reconciliation taught by Jesus Christ. Rather than condemn the world to the doom of Armageddon we call upon everyone to liberate themselves from ideologies of militarism and occupation. Instead, let them pursue the healing of the nations!

The Declaration, explains Sadaka, asserts that “Christian Zionists have aggressively imposed an aberrant expression of the Christian faith and an erroneous interpretation of the Bible, which is subservient to the political agenda of the modern State of Israel… Christian Zionism thrives on a literal and futurist hermeneutic in which Old Testament promises made to the ancient Jewish people are transferred to the contemporary State of Israel in anticipation of a final future fulfillment.”

I haven’t yet seen credible response from the Christian Zionists.

Alarmingly, the US-based Unity Coalition for Israel brings together over 200 organisations and is the largest pro-Israel network in the world. They claim to have 40 million active members and lobby on behalf of Israel through 1,700 religious radio stations, 245 Christian TV stations and 120 Christian newspapers.

The question I’d like answered is this. Are we to believe that an all-powerful supernatural Being has chosen and elevated one group of humans to a position of supremacy above all others, and has approved the use any means including murder and brutal eviction to achieve their goal, and now mobilizes millions of lesser mortals from around the globe, like those who regard themselves as upstanding Christians, to serve as tools and sing the praises of this ‘Grand Design’?

In the meantime I’m with the Churches of Jerusalem on this one.

It took an 89-year old woman, the formidable White House correspondent Helen Thomas, to prick the Zionists’ over-inflated balloon when she said last week that the Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home… to Germany, Poland, America and everywhere else.”

The hatchet squad roaming America’s den of iniquity promptly fell on her. They may have silenced her, and may even have destroyed this frail lady, but the power of her words will live on…

Stuart Littlewood

17 June 2010

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

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Israel’s New Humanitarianism

Gaza Banned Item

Neve Gordon 17 June 2010

Last week, Israel permitted the transport of jam, halva and shaving razors into Gaza. Since September 2007, goods entering Gaza had been limited to a ‘humanitarian minimum’ of approximately 70 items of foodstuffs and medicines (4000 items were allowed in before the blockade). During a visit to Gaza in February 2009, John Kerry discovered that Israel had banned pasta but not rice, because the latter was considered a necessity while the former was a luxury.

After the flotilla fiasco and the widespread international condemnation that followed, it appears that Israel’s policy is changing and that Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is actually willing to broaden its definition of humanitarianism to include jam and halva. It is even possible that pasta will soon be allowed into Gaza. Browsing through a partial list of banned items, provided by the Israeli human rights group Gisha, one can only speculate which items will be the next to be allowed to enter Gaza with the adoption of Israel’s new humanitarianism.

Banned Items


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‘No Citizenship without Loyalty!’

Neve Gordon

Neve Gordon June 4 2010

In Israel, almost all of the protests against the navy’s assault on the relief flotilla took place in Palestinian space. Palestinian citizens in almost every major town and city, from Nazareth to Sachnin and from Arabe to Shfaram, demonstrated against the assault that left nine people dead and many more wounded. The one-day general strike called for by the Palestinian leadership within Israel was, for the most part, adhered to only by Arab citizens.

In Jewish space, by contrast, business continued as usual. Except for a demonstration in front of the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv, which brought together a few hundred activists, the only site where there was some sign of a grassroots protest against the raid was on Israeli university campuses. While numerically these protests were also insignificant – there were fewer than 2000 demonstrators from all the different campuses, out of a student body of more than 200,000 – they were extremely important both because they took place within Jewish space and because the protestors were Jews and Palestinians standing side by side.

Perhaps because of the widespread international condemnation of the attack on the flotilla, the Israeli police were relatively careful when handling these protests. Their caution is particularly striking when compared with the police reaction during the war on Gaza. Twelve students from the Technion and Haifa University were nonetheless arrested, and one at Ben-Gurion University was detained by undercover agents.

There was a visceral response to these campus protests, however, from pro-government students. Counter-demonstrations were immediately organised, bringing together much larger crowds that rallied around the flag. While demonstrations and counter-demonstrations are usually a sign of a healthy politics, in this case the pro-government demos revealed an extremely disturbing trend in Israeli society.

A group of opposition students from Ben-Gurion University prepared a big banner on the street near their off-campus apartment: ‘15 Dead. The Israeli government, as usual, has its reasons, and the Zionist majority, as usual, extends its support.’ Their neighbours spat on them and called them ‘cunts’, ‘whores’ and ‘traitors who love Arabs’ until the students fled.

The following morning these students and their friends rolled the same banner down from the administration building, initiating a third wave of protests on campus. Both those opposing and those supporting the Israeli government use Facebook to tell their friends about these spontaneous demonstrations, and so within minutes a couple of hundred students from both sides of the fray had gathered and were shouting chants in the middle of campus.

A Palestinian student with a Palestinian flag was shoved and had his flag torn from him by some of the pro-government protesters, who were chanting: ‘No citizenship without loyalty!’ In response, the Jewish and Palestinian oppositionists shouted: ‘No, no, it will not come, fascism will not come!’ and ‘Peace is not achieved on the bodies of those killed!’

At one point a Jewish provocateur, who is not a member of any group (and could even be a police agent), raised his hand in the air: ‘Heil Lieberman!’ The response of the pro-government students was immediate: ‘Death to the Arabs!’ Luckily the university security managed to create a wedge between the protesters, and in this way prevented the incident from becoming even more violent.

Pro-government students interviewed in the press said they were ’shocked to see faculty members, together with students from the left and Arab students shouting slogans against Israel’. Their classmates posted pictures of the protests on Facebook, asking likeminded students to ‘identify their classroom “friends”’.

A Facebook group was created to call for my resignation: by the end of the day more than 1000 people had joined. As well as hoping that I die and demanding that my family be stripped of our citizenship and exiled from Israel, members of this Facebook group offer more pragmatic suggestions, such as the need to concentrate efforts on getting rid of teaching assistants who are critical of the government, since it is more difficult to have me – as a tenured professor – fired.

What is troubling about these pro-government students is not that they are pro-government, but the way they attack anyone who thinks differently from them, along with their total lack of self-criticism or restraint. If this is how students at Israel’s best universities respond, what can we expect from the rest of the population?

  • Neve Gordon is an Israeli academic. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and the Watson Institute at Brown University. You can visit his website at http://www.israelsoccupation.info/