Tag Archives: Knesset

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“How Goodly Are Thy Tents”

Uri Avnery

Uri Avnery,

FIRST OF all, a warning.

Tent cities are springing up all over Israel. A social protest movement is gathering momentum. At some point in the near future, it may endanger the right-wing government.

At that point, there will be a temptation – perhaps an irresistible temptation – to “warm up the borders”. To start a nice little war. Call on the youth of Israel, the same young people now manning (and womanning) the tents, to go and defend the fatherland.

Nothing easier than that. A small provocation, a platoon crossing the border “to prevent the launching of a rocket”, a fire fight, a salvo of rockets – and lo and behold, a war. End of protest.

In September, just a few weeks from now, the Palestinians intend to apply to the UN for the recognition of the State of Palestine. Our politicians and generals are chanting in unison that this will cause a crisis – Palestinians in the occupied territories may rise in protest against the occupation, violent demonstrations may ensue, the army will be compelled to shoot – and lo and behold, a war. End of protest.

THREE WEEKS ago I was interviewed one morning by a Dutch journalist. At the end, she asked: “You are describing an awful situation. The extreme right-wing controls the Knesset and is enacting abominable anti-democratic laws. The people are indifferent and apathetic. There is no opposition to speak of. And yet you exude a spirit of optimism. How come?”

I answered that I have faith in the people of Israel. Contrary to appearances, we are a sane people. Some time, somewhere, a new movement will arise and change the situation. It may happen in a week, in a month, in a year. But it will come.

On that very same day, just a few hours later, a young woman called Daphne Liff, with an improbable man’s hat perched on her flowing hair, said to herself: “Enough!”

She had been evicted by her landlady because she couldn’t afford the rent. She set up a tent in Rothschild Boulevard, a long, tree-lined thoroughfare in the center of Tel Aviv. The news spread through facebook, and within an hour, dozens of tents had sprung up. Within a week, there were some 400 tents, spread out in a double line more than a mile long.

Similar tent-cities sprang up in Jerusalem, Haifa and a dozen smaller towns. The next Saturday, tens of thousands joined protest marches in Tel Aviv and elsewhere. Last Saturday, they numbered more than 150,000.

This”] has now become the center of Israeli life. The Rothschild tent city has assumed a life of its own –a cross between Tahrir Square and Woodstock, with a touch of Hyde Park corner thrown in for good measure. The mood is indescribably upbeat, masses of people come to visit and return home full of enthusiasm and hope. Everybody can feel that something momentous is happening.

Seeing the tents, I was reminded of the words of Balaam, who was sent by the king of Moab to curse the children of Israel in the desert (Numbers 24) and instead exclaimed: “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, Oh Israel!”

IT ALL started in a remote little town in Tunisia, when an unlicensed market vendor was arrested by a policewoman. It seems that in the ensuing altercation, the woman struck the man in the face, a terrible humiliation for a Tunisian man. He set himself on fire. What followed is history: the revolution in Tunisia, regime change in Egypt, uprisings all over the Middle East.

The Israeli government saw all this with growing concern – but they didn’t imagine that there might be an effect in Israel itself. Israeli society, with its ingrained contempt for Arabs, could hardly be expected to follow suit.

But follow suit it did. People in the street spoke with growing admiration of the Arab revolt. It showed that people acting together could dare to confront leaders far more fearsome than our bumbling Binyamin Netanyahu.

Some of the most popular posters on the tents were “Rothschild corner Tahrir” and, in a Hebrew rhyme, “Tahrir – Not only in Cahir” – Cahir being the Hebrew version of al-Cahira, the Arabic name for Cairo. And also: “Mubarak, Assad, Netanyahu”.

In Tahrir Square, the central slogan was “The People Want to Overthrow the Regime”. In conscious emulation, the central slogan of the tent cities is “The People Want Social Justice”.

WHO ARE these people? What exactly do they want?

It started with a demand for “Affordable Housing”. Rents in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere are extremely high, after years of Government neglect. But the protest soon engulfed other subjects: the high price of foodstuffs and gasoline, the low wages . The ridiculously low salaries of physicians and teachers, the deterioration of the education and health services. There is a general feeling that 18 tycoons control everything, including the politicians. (Politicians who dared to show up in the tent cities were chased away.) They could have quoted an American saying: “Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”

A selection of the slogans gives an impression: We want a welfare state! Fighting for the home! Justice, not charity! If the government is against the people, the people are against the government! Bibi, this is not the US Congress, you will not buy us with empty words! If you don’t join our war, we shall not fight your wars! Give us our state back! Three partners with three salaries cannot pay for three rooms! The answer to privatization: revolution! We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, we are slaves to Bibi in Israel! I have no other homeland! Bibi, go home, we’ll pay for the gas! Overthrow swinish capitalism! Be practical, demand the impossible!

WHAT IS missing in this array of slogans? Of course: the occupation, the settlements, the huge expenditure on the military.

This is by design. The organizers, anonymous young men and women – mainly women – are very determined not to be branded as “leftists”. They know that bringing up the occupation would provide Netanyahu with an easy weapon, split the tent-dwellers and derail the protests.

We in the peace movement know and respect this. All of us are exercising strenuous self-restraint, so that Netanyahu will not succeed in marginalizing the movement and depicting it as a plot to overthrow the right-wing government.

As I wrote in an article in Haaretz: No need to push the protesters. In due course, they will reach the conclusion that the money for the major reforms they demand can only come from stopping the settlements and cutting the huge military budget by hundreds of billions – and that is possible only in peace. (To help them along, we published a large ad, saying: “It’s quite simple – money for the settlements OR money for housing, health services and education”).

Voltaire said that “the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give it to the other”. This government takes the money of decent citizens to give it to the settlers.

WHO ARE they, these enthusiastic demonstrators, who seemingly have come from nowhere?

They are the young generation of the middle class, who go out to work, take home average salaries and “cannot finish the month”, as the Israeli expression goes. Mothers who cannot go to work because they have nowhere to leave their babies. University students who cannot get a room in the dormitories or afford accomodation in the city. And especially young people who want to marry but cannot afford to buy an apartment, even with the help of their parents. (One tent bore the sign: “Even this tent was bought by our parents”)

All this in a flourishing economy, which has been spared the pains of the world-wide economic crisis and boasts an enviable unemployment rate of just 5%.

If pressed, most of the protesters would declare themselves to be “social-democrats”. They are the very opposite of the Tea Party in the US: they want a welfare state, they blame privatization for many of their ills, they want the government to interfere and to act. Whether they want to admit it or not, the very essence of their demands and attitudes is classically leftist (the term created in the French Revolution because the adherents of these ideals sat on the left side of the speaker in the National Assembly). They are the essence of what Left means – (though in Israel, the terms “Left” and “Right” have until now been largely identified with questions of war and peace).

WHERE WILL it go from here?

No one can say. When asked about the impact of the French Revolution, Zhou Enlai famously said: “It’s too early to say.” Here we are witnessing an event still in progress, perhaps even still beginning.

It has already produced a huge change. For weeks now, the public and the media have stopped talking about the borders, the Iranian bomb and the security situation. Instead, the talk is now almost completely about the social situation, the minimum wage, the injustice of indirect taxes, the housing construction crisis.

Under pressure, the amorphous leadership of the protest has drawn up a list of concrete demands. Among others: government building of houses for rent, raising taxes on the rich and the corporations, free education from the age of three months [sic], a raise in the salary of physicians, police and fire-fighters, school classes of no more than 21 pupils, breaking the monopolies controlled by a few tycoons, and so on.

So where from here? There are many possibilities, both good and bad.

Netanyahu can try to buy off the protest with some minor concessions – some billions here, some billions there. This will confront the protesters with the choice of the Indian boy in the movie about becoming a millionaire: take the money and quit, or risk all on answering yet another question.

Or: the movement may continue to gather momentum and force major changes, such as shifting the burden from indirect to direct taxation.

Some rabid optimists (like myself) may even dream of the emergence of a new authentic political party to fill the gaping void on the left side of the political spectrum.

I STARTED with a warning, and I must end with another one: this movement has raised immense hopes. If it fails, it may leave behind an atmosphere of despondency and despair – a mood that will drive those who can to seek a better life somewhere else.

 

 

Uri Avnery

Uri Avnery

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement. A member of the Irgun as a teenager, Avnery sat in the Knesset from 1965–74 and 1979-81.

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Who is annexing Whom?

Uri Avnery

Uri Avnery, 27 March 2011

IN A rare late-night session, the Knesset has finally adopted two obnoxious racist laws. Both are clearly directed against Israel’s Arab citizens, a fifth of the population.

The first makes it possible to annul the citizenship of persons found guilty of offences against the security of the state. Israel prides itself on having a great variety of such laws. Annulling citizenship on such grounds is contrary to international law and conventions.

The second is more sophisticated. It allows communities of less than 400 families to appoint “admission committees” which can prevent unsuitable persons from living there. Very shrewdly, it specifically forbids the rejection of candidates because of race, religion etc. – but that paragraph is tantamount to a wink. An Arab applicant will simply be rejected because of his many children or lack of military service.

A majority of members did not bother to show up for the vote. After all, it was late and they have families, too. Who knows, some may even have been ashamed to vote.

But far worse is a third law that is certain to pass its final stages within a few weeks: the law to outlaw the boycott of the settlements.

SINCE ITS early stages, the original crude text of this bill has been refined somewhat.

As it stands now, the law will punish any person or association publicly calling for a boycott of Israel – economic, academic or cultural. “Israel”, according to this law, means any Israeli enterprise or person, in Israel or in any territory controlled by Israel. Simply put: it is all about the settlements. And not only about the boycott of the products of the settlements, which was initiated by Gush Shalom some 13 years ago, but also about the recent refusal of actors to perform in the settlement of Ariel and the call by academics not to support the so-called University Center there. It also applies, of course, to any call for the boycott of an Israeli university or an Israeli commercial enterprise.

This is a fundamentally flawed piece of legislation: it is anti-democratic, discriminatory, annexationist, and altogether unconstitutional.

EVERYBODY HAS the right to buy or not to buy whatever he or she desires, from whomsoever he or she chooses. That is so obvious that it needs no confirmation. It is a part of the right to free expression guaranteed by any constitution worth its salt, and an essential element of a free market economy.

I may buy from the store on the corner, because I like the owner, and shun the supermarket opposite, which exploits its employees. Companies expend huge sums of money to convince me to buy their products rather than others.

What about ideologically motivated campaigns? Years ago, while on a visit to New York, I was persuaded not to buy grapes produced in California, because the owners oppressed the Mexican migrant workers. This boycott went on for a long time and was – if I remember right – successful. Nobody dared to suggest that such boycotts should be outlawed.

Here in Israel, rabbis of many communities regularly paste up posters calling upon their flock not to buy at certain shops, which they believe are not kosher, or not kosher enough. Such calls are commonplace.

Such publications are fully compatible with human rights. Citizens for whom pork is an abomination, have the right to be informed about which shops sell pork and which do not. As far as I know, no one in Israel has ever contested this right.

Sooner or later, some anti-religious groups will publish calls to boycott kosher shops, which pay the rabbis – some of them the most intolerant of their kind – heavy levies for their certificates. They support a vast religious establishment that openly advocates turning Israel into a “Halakha state” – the Jewish equivalent of a Muslim “Shari’a state”. Many thousands of Kashrut supervisors and myriads of other religious functionaries are paid for by the largely secular public.

So what about an anti-rabbinical boycott? It can hardly be forbidden, since religious and anti-religious are guaranteed equal rights.

SO IT appears that not all ideologically motivated boycotts are wrong. Nor do the initiators of this particular bill – racists of the Lieberman school, Likud rightists and Kadima “centrists” – claim this. For them, boycotts are only wrong if they are directed against the nationalist, annexationist policies of this government.

This is explicitly stated in the law itself. Boycotts are unlawful if they are directed against the State of Israel – not, for example, by the State of Israel against some other state. No Israeli in his right mind would retroactively condemn the boycott imposed by world Jewry on Germany immediately after the Nazis came to power – a boycott that served as a pretext for Josef Goebbels when he unleashed on April 1, 1933, the first Nazi anti-Semitic boycott (“Deutsche wehrt euch! Kauft nicht bei Juden!”)

Nor does any upright Zionist find fault with the boycott measures passed by Congress, under intense Jewish pressure, against the late Soviet Union, in order to break down the barriers to free Jewish emigration. These measures were hugely successful.

No less successful was the worldwide boycott against the Apartheid regime in South Africa – a boycott warmly welcomed by the South African liberation movement, though it also hurt the African workers employed by the boycotted white businesses (an argument now repeated by Israeli settlers, who exploit Palestinian laborers for starvation wages).

So political boycotts are not wrong, as long as they are directed against others. It’s the old “Hottentot morality“ of colonial lore – “if I steal your cow, that’s right. If you steal my cow, that’s wrong.”

Rightists can call for action against left-wing organizations. Leftists cannot call for action against right-wing organizations. It’s as simple as that.

BUT THE law is not only anti-democratic and discriminatory, it is also blatantly annexationist.

By a simple semantic trick, in less than a sentence, the lawmakers do what successive Israeli government did not dare to do: they annex the Palestinian occupied territories to Israel.

Or maybe it’s the other way round: are the settlers annexing Israel? The word “settlements” does not appear in the text. God forbid. Much as the word “Arabs” does not appear in any of the other laws.

Instead, the text simply states that calls for the boycott of Israel, which are forbidden by the law, include the boycott of Israeli institutions and enterprises in all territories controlled by Israel. This includes, of course, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

This is the core of the matter. Everything else is camouflage.

The initiators want to silence our call for boycotting the settlements, which is gathering momentum throughout the world.

THE IRONY of the matter is that they may achieve the exact opposite.

When we started the boycott, our stated objective was to draw a clear line between Israel in its recognized borders – the Green Line – and the settlements. We do not advocate a boycott of the State of Israel which, we believe, sends the wrong message and pushes the Israeli center into the waiting arms of the extreme right (“The whole world is against us!”) A boycott of the settlements, we think, helps to re-institute the Green Line and make a clear distinction.

This law does the exact opposite. By wiping out the line between the State of Israel and the settlements, it plays into the hands of those who call for a boycott of Israel in the belief (mistaken, I think) that a unified Apartheid state would pave the way for a democratic future.

Recently, the folly of the law was demonstrated by a French judge in Grenoble. This incident concerned the quasi-monopolistic Israeli export company for agricultural products, Agrexco. The judge suspected the company of fraud, because products of the settlements were falsely declared as coming from Israel. This could well be fraud, too, because Israeli exports to Europe are entitled to preferential treatment which the products of the settlements are not.

Such incidents are occurring more and more often in various European countries. This law will cause them to multiply.

IN THE original version, boycotters would have committed a criminal offence and been fined. That would have caused us great joy, because our refusal to pay the fines and subsequent imprisonment would have dramatized the matter.

This clause has now been omitted. But every single company in the settlements and, indeed, every single settler who feels hurt by the boycott can sue – for unlimited damages – any group calling for the boycott and any individual connected with the call. Since the settlers are tightly organized and enjoy unlimited funds from all kinds of casino owners and sleazy sex merchants, they can file thousands of suits and practically paralyze the boycott movement. That, of course, is the aim.

The fight is far from over. Upon the enactment of the law, we shall call upon the Supreme Court to annul it, as contrary to Israel’s fundamental constitutional principles and basic human rights.

As Menachem Begin used to say: “There are still judges in Jerusalem!”

Or are there?

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bill prohibiting political protest against the occupation

knesset-4980d

B’Tselem, 11 March, 2010

In advance of the vote held yesterday (8 March) in the Knesset’s Plenum, 53 Israeli human rights organizations and civil-society organizations sent a letter to the Speaker of the Knesset expressing their firm opposition to the private bill proposed by MK Ze’ev Elkin, referred to as the “Anti-Boycott Law”. The signatory organizations engage in a wide variety of issues, among them human rights, workers’ rights, welfare, feminism, and peace, and include the Adva Center, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, B’Tselem, the Coalition of Women for Peace, Physicians for Human Rights, Rabbis for Human Rights, and Woman to Woman.

In their letter, the organizations state that they hold differing views of the use of boycotts; some believe boycotts are an effective tool, while others strongly object to boycotts. All of them agree, however, that boycotts are a civic, non-violent, and legitimate means to express opinion and promote social and political change.

“The bill clearly seeks to restrict the activity of only certain political groups, solely because they challenge the current political consensus in Israel. Rather than conduct a democratic debate on issues on the public agenda in Israel, the bill silences political rivals and makes public debate impossible. This bill is dangerous. It tramples on fundamental rights, primarily the right to freedom of speech, the right to protest, and the right to organize.”

The proposed bills is one of a chain of bills and anti-democratic initiatives submitted during this session of the Knesset that are liable to change the character of Israel’s regime.

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Anti-BDS Bill passes first reading in the Knesset

bds

Palestine Monitor, 16 February 2011

On Tuesday, 15 February, the Knesset voted to approve a bill in its first reading that would criminalize actions that support boycotts against Israel. The bill was originally introduced in June 2010 by a 25 MK’s from the Likud and Kadima party.

According to a report by the Alternative Information Center, the bill will prohibit citizens from initiating or encouraging participation in a boycott against Israel.

If the bill is passed, citizens of Israel supporting BDS could face fines up to 30,000 NIS, roughly 8,200 USD.

According to AIC, non-citizens taking part in BDS activities in Israel are subject to being denied entry into Israel for at least 10 years.

According to YNET, the bill caused a heated debate in the Knesset. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel reported that before the vote was made, MK Dov Khenin of the left-wing Hadash party suggested the bill be renamed to “Prohibition on Freedom of Expression Bill,” emphasizing its censoring nature.

Since the international BDS movement was first formed in 2005, Israel has increasingly voiced its concern over the potential threat it poses to Israel. In June 2010, the Reut Institute, a privately funded policy group based in Tel Aviv, published a report titled, “The BDS Movement Promotes Delegitimization against Israel.” The report discusses the growing popularity of the movement, and its underlying purpose to oppose “Israel’s right to exists as a Jewish and democratic state.” The Reut Institute’s report charges all boycotts—both partial and full—with delegitimizing Israel.

YNET has reported that the Foreign and Justice ministries admonished against the bill, stating that it could lead to poor relations with other states.

Read AIC’s full report

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Israel’s Knesset Targets Leftist Organizations

Stephen Lendman

Stephen Lendman

Numerous previous articles explained Israel’s hardline anti-democratic agenda, several accessed through the following links:

Now the latest. On January 5, Israel’s Knesset, by a 47 – 16 vote, approved forming a parliamentary committee to investigate leftist Israeli organizations. Among them, B’Tselem issuing a same day press release headlined, “B’Tselem proud of its activities and completely transparent. The Knesset’s decision is what harms Israel’s international status,” adding:

“We are proud of our work to promote human rights in the Occupied Territories, which is conducted legally and with complete transparency. Persecution and attempts at silencing will not stop us. In a democracy, criticism of the government is not only legitimate – it is essential. B’Tselem calls on all members of the Knesset to hold an informed debate on the information provided by human rights organizations, instead of harassing and smearing those who dare to question and criticize.”

The statement continued, saying:

– the inquiry’s purpose isn’t to establish facts; it’s to smear;

– B’Tselem’s donor list is public information, available online;

– its financial reports are available at the NGO Registrar’s office that just awarded B’Tselem a Certification of Proper Administration; and

– if MKs care about Israel’s deteriorating international standing, “they should stop promoting parliamentary initiatives that will only cause it to plummet even further.”

Israel’s media are all over this story. In America, major broadsheets like The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Wall Street Journal ignored it, showing their usual one-sided support for Israel’s worst crimes, belligerence and extremism, including by legislators.

Even Israel’s right-wing Jerusalem Post (JP) expressed concern. One article headlined, “Left-wing NGOs mad Knesset to probe foreign funding,” said:

“Left-wing NGOs railed on Wednesday evening against the” Knesset vote. “Hours after (its debate), Government Services Minister Michael Eitan (Likud) wrote a letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu complaining that Deputy Minister Danny Ayalon had intentionally misled MKs and the public” with information he provided as justification for the probe.

JP’s earlier July 15, 2010 Ruth Eglash article headlined, “Legislation against left-wing NGOs could harm Israelis,” saying:

“A spate of legislation aimed at local NGOs critical of Israel could end up limiting freedom of speech and expression of every Israeli,” according to Ronit Heyd, Executive Director of SHATIL, The New Israel Fund’s Empowerment and Training Center for Social Change Organizations in Israel, saying:

“The most worrying trend over the last year is that most people do not really understand that our democracy is now under serious threat. Currently it only affects a certain group in society; human rights organizations, (but) in the future it could affect other communities and individuals who do not agree with the mainstream view or the views and policies of the country’s decision-makers.”

At the time, besides other extremist Knesset legislation, she referred to a new bill passed its preliminary reading to prohibit Israelis from backing the global BDS movement, or receive money from supportive international organizations.

Heyd added:

“There is a serious need for concern when the government is trying to silence dissenting voices, trying to silence any voice in society that criticizes the way the government is working.”

Doing so is the essence of despotism, the track Israel, like America, is further along on than most people in either country recognize.

On January 5, Haaretz writer Jonathan Lis headlined, “Leftist groups: ‘Witch hunt’ against us will destroy democracy in Israel,” saying:

“Israeli left-wing organizations decried Wednesday(‘s) Knesset plenum decision to support a panel of inquiry to investigate certain groups suspected of ‘delegitimizing’ the Israeli Defense Forces.”

The next step involves a Knesset House Committee debate, then a vote on whether foreign states, international organizations or others linked to alleged terrorist groups provide funding.

According to Peace Now Director-General Yariv Oppenheimer:

Knesset approval is “another step on the path toward wiping out democracy in Israel” by trying to persecute critics.

The New Israel Fund (NIF) said the decision “proves how much the stature of Israeli democracy has deteriorated – even in the house of legislators,” acting more like despots than legitimate lawmakers. “Democracy cannot function properly without freedom of expression, freedom to sound criticism of the system, and active human rights groups. The political persecution of human rights groups cause great damage to Israel across the world, and this is precisely what will lead to the delegitimization (of Israel) and the representation of it as a McCarthyite state in which a witch hunt is taking place” lawlessly.

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) called the move “authoritarian, immoral and illegitimate,” adding that it mourns the “slow but sure death” of Israeli democratic values.

In total, 16 human rights groups signed an open letter in protest, including B’Tselem, the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Yesh Din, Machsom Watch, Adalah, Mossawa Center, Ir Amin and Hotline for Migrant Workers.

“Investigate us all, we have nothing to hide,” they said. “You are invited to read our reports and our publications. We will be happy if for a change you relate in a germane way to our questions instead of trying to besmirch us. It did not work in the past and it will not work this time.”

A second Jonathan Lis article headlined, “Knesset votes to probe Israeli groups accused of ‘delegitimizing’ IDF,” saying:

The approval came “after Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein ruled in August that no investigation should be launched against such groups.” Opposition MKs and human rights groups vocally disapproved. As a result, the Knesset debate was stormy, “charged, (and) filled with heckling and interruptions.” So much so that security guards were present “to prevent physical altercations” between opposing sides.

MK Nitzan Horowitz called the initiative “a shame on the Knesset….The persecution campaign against human rights and citizens rights groups has reached a new low. (It’s) a brutal act of political persecution using a coalition majority and Knesset funding, under the legal guise of an investigation committee. Human rights and citizens rights groups save the honor of Israel in the world and maintain its character as a democratic state.” Extremist MKs want to destroy it. “All to whom Israeli democracy is dear must oppose this committee of persecution.”

Gideon Levy’s Critical Op-Ed

In Haaretz on January 6, he headlined, “When did it become illegal to be a leftist in Israel,” saying:

“The police, the legal system, the Knesset, the Shin Bet, and the IDF have joined forces with the propagandists of the right to act as prosecutors without a trial.” Coming next perhaps will be “declar(ing) the left an illegal entity….From then on, whoever thinks left, acts left, demonstrates left or tolerates left will belong in jail.”

Israel stands humiliated, shamed and exposed for its extremism. As a result, a “land-stealing settler is a Zionist; a warmongering right-winger is a patriot; an inciting rabbi is a spiritual leader; a racist who expels foreigners is a loyal citizen. Only the leftist is a traitor.”

What Knesset members proposed would even make Joe McCarthy and some of today’s American right-wingers blush. Though never finding any, McCarthy targeted alleged communists for political advantage. America’s current Congress pursues terrorists, again for the same purpose and as justification for Washington’s imperial wars.

As a result, personal safety in both countries is jeopardized. The common atmosphere is charged with extremism, racism, militarism, and opposition to anyone challenging state authority, especially its most lawless aspects, targeting innocent people at home while rampaging abroad against groups or nations posing no threat to either country.

In Israel, solidifying occupation control reigns terror against anyone pursuing freedom and justice issues, and without pretext waging all-out war, justifying it as self-defense against terrorism.

For Jews and Israeli Arabs, “(o)ne single law could simplify matters: Let every Israeli know that (it’s) forbidden to believe in a just Israel, forbidden to fight against any of its injustices, forbidden to struggle for its soul.”

It begs the question: is Israel’s democracy so anathema that even blowing its cover is acceptable. Targeting human rights defenders proves it.

A Final Comment

Ramzy Clark, former US Attorney General, now progressive anti-war activist and International Action Center founder led a solidarity delegation to Gaza, beginning on January 5 when he met with Palestine’s elected Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh.

Their schedule also includes meetings with human rights activists, survivors of loved ones killed during Cast Lead, and public meetings to address attendees. On return, they plan “to help bring truth about Gaza to the people of the United States,” denied it by America’s dominant media.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/

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Thoughtcrimes

Knesset Israel 61 years. (PHoto Wiki Commons)

Neve Gordon, 4 Nov 2010

Would Meryl Streep, Spike Lee, Tim Robbins or Susan Sarandon be willing to swear an oath of loyalty to the United States and its policies in order to receive public funding for feature films that they star in, direct or produce? In Israel, the far-right Knesset member Michael Ben Ari has proposed a bill that would require entire film crews to pledge allegiance to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, and to declare loyalty to its laws and symbols, as a condition for receiving public funding. It’s just one of more than ten bills to be discussed during the Knesset’s winter session that several commentators in Ha’aretz have characterised as proto-fascist.

As in most democracies, all new Israeli citizens must declare loyalty to the state and its laws, but the cabinet last month decided to support (22 in favour, 8 against) an amendment to Israel’s citizenship law that would require all newly naturalised citizens to declare loyalty to the Jewish character of the state. In Britain, this would be like requiring Jews, Muslims and atheists who wish to become citizens to declare loyalty not only to the laws of the United Kingdom but also to the Church of England.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has warned that this amendment, which will soon become law, is the tip of an iceberg. Some of the bills now going through the Knesset, which have a good chance of being ratified, would make support for an alternative political ideology, such as the idea that Israel should be a democracy for all its citizens, a crime.

A proposed amendment to the existing anti-incitement bill, for instance, stipulates that people who deny Israel’s Jewish character will be arrested. This extension to the penal code, which has already passed its preliminary reading, incriminates a political view. Another bill lays the groundwork for turning down candidates for membership in communal settlements built on public land if they do not concur with the settlement committee’s political views or are adherents of a different religion. The point of this is to make it legal to deny Palestinian citizens of Israel access to Jewish villages.

Still another bill that has already passed its first reading stipulates that institutions marking the Palestinian Nakba of 1948 will be denied public funds. This is like denying public funding to schools in the United States that wish to commemorate slavery or to memorialise the crimes perpetrated against Native Americans.

Then there is a bill against people who initiate, promote, or publish material that might serve as grounds for imposing a boycott against Israel. According to this proposed law, which has also passed a preliminary reading, anyone proven guilty of supporting a boycott will be ordered to pay affected parties about $8000 without the plaintiff’s need to demonstrate any damages.

Finally, eight Knesset members are proposing a bill to ban residents of East Jerusalem from operating as tour guides in the city, potentially putting hundreds out of work. The rationale behind this is that Palestinian residents of Jerusalem should not be certified guides because they do not represent Israel’s national interest well enough ‘and in an appropriate manner’.

The sudden spate of these bills at this historical juncture is no coincidence. The struggle between the democratic demand that all citizens be treated equally and Zionism’s hyper-nationalist ideal seems to have been determined once and for all: Zionism’s aspiration to promote democratic values is giving way to its nationalist ethos.

First published in London Review of Books. Neve Gordon can be reached through his website www.israelsoccupation.info

Neve Gordon

Neve Gordon

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. During the first intifada, he was the director of Physicians for Human Rights – Israel. Gordon is the co-editor of Torture: Human Rights, Medical Ethics and the Case of Israel, the editor of From the Margins of Globalization: Critical Perspectives on Human Rights, and most recently the author of Israel’s Occupation. His writings have appeared in numerous scholarly journals as well as in publications like The Washington Post, LA Times, The Guardian, The Nation, Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, Chronicle of Higher Education and The National Catholic Reporter. The Author contributed this article to RamallahOnline.com

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California Scholars for Academic Freedom

California Scholars for Academic Freedom (CS4AF) Statement Regarding Israel’s Knesset Bill Calling for Heavy Fines to be Imposed on Citizens of Israel Who Initiate or Incite Boycotts Against Israel

21 July 2010

California Scholars for Academic Freedom (CS4AF) is an organization of scholars devoted to the defense of academic freedom, particularly, but not exclusively, with regard to discussion of Middle East affairs.  Over the past few years, CS4AF has spoken out against the intimidation of scholars and institutions, whether on the basis of their open advocacy of unpopular or politically targeted positions or simply on the basis of the fact that their scholarship has been understood to challenge conventionally accepted political perspectives.  We are committed to defend the right of scholars to present facts and views that run against the grain of predominant institutional thinking, whether academic or governmental.  We have, accordingly, spoken out against various forms of censorship, sanction, or restriction of academic freedom of speech, whether in the form of the denial of tenure, proposals to defund institutes or departments, or restrictions of the freedom of students to engage in non-violent protest.

We therefore note with alarm and concern the Knesset’s recent approval of an initial reading of a bill calling for heavy fines to be imposed on citizens of Israel who initiate or incite boycotts against Israel.  We believe that the passage of such a measure would represent a radical and draconian infringement of the rights of free speech and one that would gravely impact the rights of academics in particular to express dissent, to advocate non-violent political practices, and even to engage in debate.  No democratic state or community can function fully under the conditions of censorship, and especially censorship that targets particular views, however unpopular the views may be.  Accordingly, the passage of this bill would cast further doubt on Israel’s pretensions to be a genuinely democratic state.  No democracy can thrive without dissent and the proposed sanctions on the advocacy of boycott are utterly abhorrent to anyone who values and defends the right to freedom of speech and the value of open and vigorous debate.

The members of CS4AF take no collective position on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS].  We note, however, that the express aim of BDS is not the destruction of Israel, but the rectification of specific policies enacted and carried out by the state, including the occupation of the Palestinian territories, the denial of human and civil rights to Palestinians, and the blockade on Gaza.  It does not target individuals for their views, but rather institutions and their policies.  Proponents of BDS take no one position on the solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, but regard the peace process and the state form or forms that emerge from it as a matter for genuine negotiation, with full respect for rights and under conditions that remove the fear of violent coercion from either side.  Advocacy of BDS as a means to achieve those ends remains, therefore, well within the bounds of civil discourse and should be protected by the respect for freedom of speech that prevails in all truly democratic polities.

We are saddened to note the repressive response of the Israeli state and its government to internal and external challenges to its policies and practices and to take note of the accelerating shrinkage of the space for critical public discourse in Israel.  The bill currently under consideration in the Knesset is an index of that increasingly intolerant climate and of a fatal tendency to resort to coercion and intimidation in the face of criticism and debate.  We urge the members of the Knesset to reject this measure as fundamentally contrary to democracy and inconsistent with freedom of speech and dissent.

For more information on California Scholars for Academic Freedom (CS4AF) please contact sonhale@ucla.edu or jess.ghannam@ucsf.edu

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A Parliamentary Mob

Adv Gaby Lasky consulting with Gush activists about the court’s compromise proposal

Uri Avnery, 17 July 2010

WHEN I was first elected to the Knesset, I was appalled at what I found. I discovered that, with rare exceptions, the intellectual level of the debates was close to zero. They consisted mainly of strings of clichés of the most commonplace variety. During most of the debates, the plenum was almost empty. Most participants spoke vulgar Hebrew. When voting, many members had no idea what they were voting for or against, they just followed the party whip.

That was 1967, when the Knesset included members like Levy Eshkol and Pinchas Sapir, David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan, Menachem Begin and Yohanan Bader, Meir Yaari and Yaakov Chazan, for whom today streets, highroads and neighborhoods are named.

In comparison to the present Knesset, that Knesset now looks like Plato’s Academy.

WHAT FRIGHTENED me more than anything else was the readiness of members to enact irresponsible laws for the sake of fleeting popularity, especially at times of mass hysteria. One of my first Knesset initiatives was to submit a bill which would have created a second chamber, a kind of Senate, composed of outstanding personalities, with the power to hold up the enactment of new laws and compel the Knesset to reconsider them after an interval. This, I hoped, would prevent laws being hastily adopted in an atmosphere of excitement.

The bill was not considered seriously, neither by the Knesset nor by the general public. The Knesset almost unanimously voted it down. (After some years, several of the members told me that they regretted their vote.) The newspapers nicknamed the proposed chamber “the House of Lords” and ridiculed it. Haaretz devoted a whole page of cartoons to the proposal, depicting me in the garb of a British peer.

So there is no brake. The production of irresponsible laws, most of them racist and anti-democratic, is booming. The more the government itself is turning into an assembly of political hacks, the more the likelihood of its preventing such legislation is diminishing. The present government, the largest, basest and most despised in Israel’s history, is cooperating with the Knesset members who submit such bills, and even initiating them itself.

The only remaining obstacle to this recklessness is the Supreme Court. In the absence of a written constitution, it has taken upon itself the power to annul scandalous laws that violate democracy and human rights. But the Supreme Court itself is beleaguered by rightists who want to destroy it, and is moving with great caution. It intervenes only in the most extreme cases.

Thus a paradoxical situation has arisen: parliament, the highest expression of democracy, is itself now posing a dire threat to Israeli democracy.

THE MAN who personifies this phenomenon more than anyone else is MK Michael Ben-Ari of the “National Union” faction, the heir of Meir Kahane, whose organization “Kach” (“Thus”) was outlawed many years ago because of its openly fascist character.

Kahane himself was elected to the Knesset only once. The reaction of the other members was unequivocal: whenever he rose to speak, almost all the other members left the hall. The rabbi had to make his speeches before a handful of ultra-right colleagues.

A few weeks ago I visited the present Knesset for the first time since its election. I went there to listen to a debate about a subject that concerns me too: the decision of the Palestinian Authority to boycott the products of the settlements, a dozen years after Gush Shalom started this boycott. I spent some hours in the building, and from hour to hour my revulsion deepened.

The main cause was a circumstance I had not been aware of: MK Ben-Ari, the disciple and admirer of Kahane, holds sway there. Not only is he not an isolated outsider on the fringe of parliamentary life, as his mentor had been, but on the contrary, he is at the center. I saw the members of almost all other factions crowding around him in the members’ cafeteria and listening to his perorations with rapt attention in the plenum. No doubt can remain that Kahanism – the Israeli version of fascism – has moved from the margin to center stage.

Recently, the country witnessed a scene that looked like something from the parliament of South Korea or Japan.

On the Knesset speaker’s rostrum stood MK Haneen Zoabi of the Arab nationalist Balad faction and tried to explain why she had joined the Gaza aid flotilla that had been attacked by the Israeli navy. MK Anastasia Michaeli, a member of the Lieberman party, jumped from her seat and rushed to the rostrum, letting out blood-curdling shrieks, waving her arms, in order to remove Haneen Zoabi by force. Other members rose from their seats to help Michaeli. Near the speaker, a threatening crowd of Knesset members gathered. Only with great difficulty did the ushers succeed in saving Zoabi from bodily harm. One of the male members shouted at her, in a typical mixture of racism and sexism: “Go to Gaza and see what they will do to a 41 year old unmarried woman!”

One could not imagine a greater contrast than that between the two MKs. While Haneen Zoabi belongs to a family whose roots in the Nazareth area go back centuries, perhaps to the time of Jesus, Anastasia Michaeli was born in (then) Leningrad. She was elected “Miss St. Petersburg” and then became a fashion model, married an Israeli, converted to Judaism, immigrated to Israel at age 24 but sticks to her very Russian first name. She has given birth to eight children. She may be a candidate for the Israeli Sarah Palin, who, after all, was also once a beauty queen..

As far as I could make out, not a single Jewish member raised a finger to defend Zoabi during the tumult. Nothing but some half-hearted protest from the Speaker, Reuven Rivlin, and a Meretz member, Chaim Oron.

In all the 61 years of its existence, the Knesset had not seen such a sight. Within a minute the sovereign assembly turned into a parliamentary lynch mob.

One does not have to support the ideology of Balad to respect the impressive personality of Haneen Zoabi. She speaks fluently and persuasively, has degrees from two Israeli universities, fights for the rights of women within the Israeli-Arab community and is the first female member of an Arab party in the Knesset. Israeli democracy could be proud of her. She belongs to a large Arab extended family. The brother of her grandfather was the mayor of Nazareth, one uncle was a deputy minister and another a Supreme Court judge. (Indeed, on my first day in the Knesset I proposed that another member of the Zoabi family be elected as Speaker.)

This week, the Knesset decided by a large majority to adopt a proposal by Michael Ben-Ari, supported by Likud and Kadima members, to strip Haneen Zoabi of her parliamentary privileges. Even before, Interior Minister Eli Yishai had asked the Legal Advisor to the Government for approval of his plan to strip Zoabi of her Israeli citizenship on the grounds of treason. One of the Knesset members shouted at her: “You have no place in the Israeli Knesset! You have no right to hold an Israeli identity card!”

On the very same day, the Knesset took action against the founder of Zoabi’s party, Azmi Bishara. In a preliminary hearing, it approved a bill – this one, too, supported by both Likud and Kadima members – aimed at denying Bishara his pension, which is due after his resignation from the Knesset. (He is staying abroad, after being threatened with an indictment for espionage.)

The proud parents of these initiatives, which enjoy massive support from Likud, Kadima, Lieberman’s party and all the religious factions, do not hide their intention to expel all the Arabs from parliament and establish at long last a pure Jewish Knesset. The latest decisions of the Knesset are but parts of a prolonged campaign, which gives birth almost every week to new initiatives from publicity-hungry members, who know that the more racist and anti-democratic their bills are, the more popular they will be with their electorate.

Such was this weeks Knesset decision to condition the acquisition of citizenship on the candidate’s swearing allegiance to Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state”, thus demanding that Arabs (especially foreign Arab spouses of Arab citizens) subscribe to the Zionist ideology. The equivalent would be the demand that new American citizens swear allegiance to the USA as a “white Anglo-Saxon protestant state”.

There seems to be no limit to this parliamentary irresponsibility. All red lines have been crossed long ago. This does not concern only the parliamentary representation of more than 20% of Israel’s citizens, but there is a growing tendency towards depriving all Arab citizens of their citizenship altogether.

THIS TENDENCY is connected with the ongoing attack on the status of the Arabs in East Jerusalem.

This week I was present at the hearing in Jerusalem’s magistrates court on the detention of Muhammed Abu Ter, one of the four Hamas members of the Palestinian parliament from Jerusalem. The hearing was held in a tiny room, which can seat only about a dozen spectators. I succeeded only with great difficulty in getting in.

After they were elected in democratic elections, in conformity with Israel’s explicit obligation under the Oslo agreement to allow the Arabs in East Jerusalem to take part, the government announced that their “permanent resident” status had been revoked.

What does that mean? When Israel “annexed” East Jerusalem in 1967, the government did not dream of conferring citizenship on the inhabitants, which would have significantly increased the percentage of Arab voters in Israel. Neither did they invent a new status for them. Lacking other alternatives, the inhabitants became “permanent residents”, a status devised for foreigners who wish to stay in Israel. The Minister of the Interior has the right to revoke this status and deport such people to their countries of origin.

Clearly, this definition of “permanent residents” should not apply to the inhabitants of East Jerusalem. They and their forefathers were born there, they have no other citizenship and no other place of residence. The revoking of their status turns them into politically homeless people without protection of any kind.

The state lawyers argued in court that with the cancellation of his “permanent resident” status, Abu Ter has become an “illegal person” whose refusal to leave the city warrants unlimited detention.

(A few hours earlier, the Supreme Court dealt with our petition concerning the investigation of the Gaza flotilla incident. We won a partial, but significant, victory: for the first time in its history, the Supreme Court agreed to interfere in a matter concerning a commission of inquiry. The court decided that if the commission requires the testimony of military officers and the government tries to prevent this, the court will intervene.)

IF SOME people are trying to delude themselves into believing that the parliamentary mob will harm “only Arabs”, they are vastly mistaken. The only question is: who is next in line?

This week, the Knesset gave the first reading to a bill to impose heavy penalties on any Israeli who advocates a boycott on Israel, in general, and on economic enterprises, universities and other Israeli institutions, including settlements, in particular. Any such institution will be entitled to an indemnity of 5000 dollars from every supporter of the boycott.

A call for boycott is a democratic means of expression. I object very much to a general boycott on Israel, but (following Voltaire) am ready to fight for everybody’s right to call for such a boycott. The real aim of the bill is, of course, to protect the settlements: it is designed to deter those who call for a boycott of the products of the settlements which exist on occupied land outside the borders of the state. This includes me and my friends.

Since the foundation of Israel, it has never stopped boasting of being the “Only Democracy in the Middle East”. This is the jewel in the crown of Israeli propaganda. The Knesset is the symbol of this democracy.

It seems that the parliamentary mob, which has taken over the Knesset, is determined to destroy this image once and for all, so that Israel will find its proper place somewhere between Libya, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

permlink: 　http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1279370237

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MK Haneen Zoubi: I Joined The Flotilla To Show Israel Is Not A Democracy

Knesset Member (MK) Haneen Zoubi, the first female Palestinian to hold a seat in the parliament

Palestine Monitor, 12 July 2010

First she faced bullets on the Mavi Marmara. Then it was death threats and chants of “terrorist” and “traitor” in the Knesset. The campaign to have her immunity and citizenship taken, even public calls for her to be executed.

Knesset Member (MK) Haneen Zoubi, the first female Palestinian to hold a seat in the parliament

Knesset Member (MK) Haneen Zoubi, the first female Palestinian to hold a seat in the parliament

Standing a shade over five feet tall, well dressed and polite, at a glance it’s hard to understand why Knesset Member (MK) Haneen Zoubi, the first female Palestinian to hold a seat in the parliament, has attracted such loathing.

“When I talk about equality, the response in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) is always ’You want to throw us in the sea.’ I don’t. I want to live beside you, that’s why you are racist and I am not,” she tells us.

Zoubi has represented the Palestinian-Arab Balad National Democrat party since 2009. She has become well versed in the double standards and biases of the Israeli government.

“Israel has never been a democracy,” she continues, “because it says No to equality and No to recognition of minorities. It defines itself as a Jewish, zionist state which means it is not ideologically neutral. A Jewish state means it is a Jewish right to confiscate Palestinian land, it means promoting zionist values through every sphere of society, in education and employment laws.”

Zoubi reports that during her time as an MK almost 80 per cent of new laws have been directed against Arabs in Israel, who at 1.4 million people make up 18 per cent of the population.

“There is now a marriage law that says if I marry a Palestinian from, say, Ramallah, I will lose my Israeli citizenship,” she says. “I can marry an American, a Belgian, an Algerian, but not a Palestinian. But any foreign Jewish person from the diaspora can have citizenship in 48 hours.”

“There was a ruling this year that human rights groups cannot send information abroad without permission from the state. There is a new law that doesn’t allow the expression Nakba (the 1948 “catastrophe” when millions of Palestinians were forced into refugee camps) in Arab schools. It has been deleted from the curriculum and any institution that commemorates the Nakba will lose its budget. There are historians and researchers in universities that are forbidden from practising their work.”

And with far-right figures such as Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in government hostility towards Palestinian-Arabs has intensified.

“He has 15 seats in the Knesset and he has nothing to say except that he hates Arabs,” Zoubi says.

Her characterisation of Lieberman is not without substance. The controversial foreign minister, one of the main advocates of Israel’s bloody Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, famously went on record in 2003 saying Palestinian prisoners should be “drowned in the Dead Sea, as that is the lowest point on earth.”

Zoubi has been criticised by Arabs for her membership of the Knesset, which some see as giving the government legitimacy. She feels her participation is symbolic but necessary.

“I was elected to speak for those who voted for me, not to reinforce the zionist consensus. We are against occupation, the siege on Gaza and oppressing Palestinians. I don’t represent the Knesset, I represent my people inside the Knesset, which is more difficult than to boycott it.”

“I want to demand our national dignity and pride and because of this we must be in the Knesset, but I don’t give up my identity.”

Another motivation for Zoubi is the need to “embarrass” the government, which is what led to her joining the freedom flotilla attacked by Israel on May 31.

“The Palestinians on the boat were the most pessimistic,” she recalls, “but we never thought there would be violence on this scale.

Passengers on the Mavi Marmara before the attack.

Passengers on the Mavi Marmara before the attack.

“I can tell you there was no planning for violence on that boat. The army say they were protecting themselves, but the people who died were shot in the head and neck, which is not self-defence. It is a trap to say the activists did not defend themselves. It is like when Palestinians resist occupation and they call it terrorism.”

Zoubi supports an international investigation into the attack and says she will not co-operate with the government’s internal inquiry.

“They announced the results before the inquiry. Netanyahu said the committee will show the world we acted responsibly. It has no ability to investigate the soldiers or passengers. How will they investigate without the people who were there?”

Following her release from Ashdod prison Zoubi was attacked again – this time in the Knesset. Taunted with chants of ’terrorist’ and ’traitor’ she had to be given an armed escort to ensure her safety.

Danny Danon, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, called for her to be “tried for treason.” A 7-1 committee vote recommended stripping her parliamentary privileges. Eliyahu Yishai, Israeli deputy prime minister and interior minister, called for her citizenship to be revoked, claiming she “headed a group of terrorists.” A public campaign for her execution has been gathering momentum.



I ask Zoubi if she still has a future in such a hostile parliament.

“I didn’t enter the Knesset to do an easy job,” she replies. “I wouldn’t be there if Israel was a real democratic state. We are there because it’s a hard political struggle. They cannot pull my citizenship or immunity, but they may disqualify my party from the next election. Personal threats are not important, but I am worried the high court may decide to stop us running in the next election.”

Three previous attempts to disqualify Balad, in 2003, 2006 and 2009, were rejected by the high court.

When it comes to the next free Gaza flotilla, due to sail after Ramadan, Zoubi is more optimistic.

“It will send a real message to Israel that even if you kill us we are not afraid,” she says. “The aim was and remains to end the blockade and I think we succeeded because the siege will not drop to the margins again.”

Zoubi is wary that Hamas is using the flotillas for PR purposes, but she feels this is a secondary concern behind the collective suffering of the Gazan population, and a price that must be paid.

She is disappointed in an international community that has “allowed Israel to behave like a spoiled child, believing she can do whatever she wants. No sanctions, no isolation. Israel could not manage a 43-year occupation and four-year siege without silence from the world. These policies will not change by continuing with a ’business as usual’ approach.”

Zoubi holds the Palestinian Authority (PA) accountable too.

“It’s time for Palestinians to say enough to the PA, enough to their Oslo agreement which deepened the occupation, expanded settlements and isolated Gaza. The PA has the responsibility for the daily services of occupation while Israel continues to expand, taking our land, water and resources.”

“If we are weak now, at least let us show steadfastness. If we cannot proceed we should at least stand our ground, not to give up. If we cannot implement our vision at least let us have a vision. We cannot feel that we are less than someone else. Freedom is the most precious value and we cannot give it up.”

However she remains concerned that Israel has no motivation to deliver a just peace.

“Until the end of second intifada there was a feeling that Israel needed peace for stability. For normal life. Now within the Knesset ministers feel there is no need for peace because there is no resistance. The wall, the siege of Gaza and negotiation – these three tools give Israel what peace was supposed to provide.”

Zoubi also believes that prospects for a two-state solution died long ago thanks to the continual expansion of settlements, which today house 500,000 Israelis on Palestinian land.

“I want a democratic, binational state,” she explains. “I don’t like to live with pure ethnicity, I don’t want Palestinian children to grow up hating Israelis and vice versa.

“Whether we like it or not this is the way we are going, so we must work towards it. I want us to live side by side in equality.”

Learn more about the Free Gaza movement http://www.freegaza.ps/en/

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America is a Jewish Colony: The likudnik dominated bush regime and the American Knesset cheering on their Jewish masters’ war crimes in Palestine.

By Bob Finch,The Mundi Club, Jan 10 2009

The proof that american political leaders have completely lost all sense of morality and justice is their overwhelming vote to support the jews’ war crimes against innocent palestinian civilians in gaza. What this vote also shows is that america is run by a jewish ruling elite which has a death grip over american politicians. The american congress is no longer a democratic institution designed to represent and protect the interests of americans living in american states but has become a jewish colonial outpost more concerned with promoting the interests of the jews’ illegal colonization of palestine. The american knesset’s role is firstly, to syphon american financial and military resources to the jewish state so that it can continue military operations to boost the jewish colonization of palestine. And secondly, to act as cheerleaders for jewish racists committing war crimes against palestinians in order to continue stealing palestinian property. The american knesset is just a branch of the jewish knesset just as america’s two mainstream political parties are merely competing branches of the likud party headquartered in occupied palestine.

(Editor’s Note: An updated version of this article can be found at this location)

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