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News :: International Relations |
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Sharon's 92 Percent Solution |
Current rating: 0 |
by Kathleen Christison, CounterPunch
(No verified email address) |
23 Apr 2005
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How the Misperceptions Roll On |
Imagine my chagrin. While vacationing in beautiful Vancouver, I had my sun-and-mountain reverie interrupted on Tuesday by a New York Times article seeming to give the final word on Ariel Sharon’s plans -- blessed, of course, by George Bush -- for the disposition of Israel’s border with the West Bank and the Israeli settlements inside that territory. The article, by veteran diplomatic correspondent Steven Erlanger, discussed the “small furor” supposedly set off inside the Bush administration by Israel’s announced determination to build 3,500 new housing units in Maale Adumim, the largest of several Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and the fact that this new move will unilaterally expand Israel’s borders into the Palestinian territory. But Erlanger gives us the impression that this is not really the disastrous development it might seem. He quotes David Makovsky, of the pro-Israeli think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as saying that after all things are not so bad because Sharon, the Israeli most associated with wanting 100 percent of the West Bank, has now scaled down his sights to only 8 percent. This 8 percent is the proportion of the West Bank to be incorporated on the Israeli side of the separation wall when its new route, approved by the Israeli cabinet in February, is completed.
This was bad enough for my vacation mood, but then come to find out a columnist for Canada’s national newspaper the Globe and Mail, Marcus Gee, picked up the story the next day and, for all of Canada to see, played it as indicating a great breakthrough:
“After decades of blood and tears, a solution to the conflict over the Holy Land is emerging . . . . It is not an entirely just solution. But it is a solution, and it could give both sides what they need most: an independent homeland for the Palestinians and secure borders for Israel. The solution is the work of one man: Ariel Sharon.”
Thus are widespread misperceptions and gross distortions of reality born among a broad segment of the media-savvy public.
Steven Erlanger might be excused for swallowing the unlikely story that the Bush administration is really in anything like “small furor” over Israel’s settlement expansion plans, but it is dismaying to see a correspondent of Erlanger’s caliber allowing himself to be misled by an apologist for the Israeli settlement enterprise like David Makovsky.
Over the last several years, Makovsky has made a career of defending Israel’s settlements and its wall in a way that tries to minimize the impact on the Palestinians of these massive Israeli intrusions into Palestinian territory. He now seems unfortunately to have persuaded Erlanger that the barrier (which is indeed a 26-foot-high concrete wall throughout Jerusalem and environs, as well as in many sections elsewhere along its route) is of relatively minor significance to the Palestinians.
Makovsky used to defend the old route of the wall as taking “only” 15 percent of West Bank territory; now he can triumphantly say that the new route is “even better” because it puts only half that amount on the Israeli side. But his math is screwy, his logic badly distorted, and Erlanger has fallen for it. Makovsky doesn’t care; Erlanger should know better.
The wall, Erlanger claims, relying on Makovsky’s “research,” puts a mere 8 percent of West Bank land and fewer than 10,000 Palestinians on the Israeli side, leaving 99.5 percent of Palestinians living in 92 percent of the West Bank. Yet this is what Erlanger and Makovsky leave out of the equation:
1) the approximately 195,000 Palestinians living in Jerusalem (nearly 10 percent of the West Bank’s total population) will remain on the Israeli side of the wall, separated from the West Bank by a concrete wall, multiple checkpoints, and a permit system going into effect in July that will prevent nearly all Jerusalemites from entering the West Bank and West Bankers from entering Jerusalem (Erlanger does note as an afterthought that his numbers do not include the Palestinians in Jerusalem -- an odd omission unless one assumes that actually counting this huge number of people whose lives are being totally disrupted by the wall is simply too inconvenient for his idyllic picture);
2) the wall to be built around Maale Adumim and the fact that the entire area of Jerusalem and its environs will end up on Israel’s side of the wall mean that the West Bank will be divided into two totally non-contiguous areas, attached only by a promised highway that will permit Palestinians to skirt Jerusalem to the east; this is Ariel Sharon’s idea of contiguity, which he calls “transportation contiguity”;
3) several Palestinian suburbs of East Jerusalem to the north and the south have been or will soon be surrounded by the wall on all sides, rendering them small concentration camps to which entry and egress will be allowed only to permit-holders and only through a gate manned by Israelis; the thousands of Palestinians in these areas whose livelihoods lie in Jerusalem will be left high and dry;
4) the entire Jordan Valley, encompassing nearly one-quarter of the West Bank, will most assuredly never be relinquished by Ariel Sharon or any Israeli government on the right (even most Labor governments have envisioned retaining this strategic, settlement-filled territory in perpetuity, and Ehud Barak’s best offer at Camp David in 2000 involved Israel holding it under a long-term lease), meaning that Makovsky’s “92-percent solution” is actually only at best a “68-percent solution” that would leave the so-called Palestinian “state” in three pieces counting Gaza, each completely surrounded by and under the domination of Israel, and with no capital; each of the two West Bank land segments, moreover, would be made into Swiss cheese by the intrusion of fingers of the wall built to accommodate Israeli settlements;
5) tens of thousands of Palestinians live in towns and villages along the route of the wall that have been bisected by it, leaving rich farmland, olive and fruit orchards, and fresh water wells on Israel’s side, unreachable by their Palestinian owners except via a limited number of gates in the wall that are manned irregularly by Israeli security personnel;
6) 53 Palestinian communities, according to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, will be surrounded on three sides by the wall -- twice the number so enclosed under the old route;
7) the hundreds of miles of wall and fence have necessitated the demolition of hundreds of Palestinian homes, the bulldozing of hundreds of thousands of acres of private agricultural land, and the razing of thousands of olive and fruit trees; Israel has called this wall temporary, but the demolished homes and the destroyed olive groves can never be restored.
The pity about Erlanger’s heavy reliance on Makovsky to interpret the situation on the ground for him is that he is right there himself, able to observe first hand what the wall is doing to the Palestinians or, if he somehow cannot get out on the street, able at least to look at any map, including ones issued by the Israeli government itself, to see with his own eyes that what Israel is creating is not some benign situation in which the Palestinians get almost all (well, 92 percent) of the West Bank, but a truly horrific, Kafkaesque nightmare in which no Palestinian will be free.
And it must not be forgotten that, far from leaving the Palestinians alone to make a life for themselves in a few Bantustans comprising 50 or 60 or maybe even 90 percent of the West Bank, Sharon’s actual long-term intent is to make life so miserable for the Palestinians that those left in the small remnants of their territory will simply gradually filter out. This process may take a while, but Sharon is pragmatic and therefore patient -- he and his countrymen have already been waiting 2,000 years to take this land -- and it is already beginning to happen in any case. The wall has already turned some of the West Bank cities that it most affects into virtual ghost towns as residents move into the interior where some kind of livelihood might be possible. Sharon and his right wing can wait before he needs to squeeze them further.
- Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst and has worked on Middle East issues for 30 years. She is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession. |
This work is in the public domain |
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Before the Law |
by Neve Gordon, Z Net
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
23 Apr 2005
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An Israeli Jew and a Palestinian meet in transit right after having been sentenced in court. The Palestinian asks the Jew how much time he got. "Three years," says the Jew. "The judge was relatively lenient, though, and took into account that the guard who tried to stop me from robbing the bank didn't die from his wounds. How much time did you get?"
"Seven years for driving without my headlights on," says the Palestinian.
"Wow! That is a hefty punishment," the Jew exclaims.
"On the contrary, my judge was also lenient. He noted that if I had been caught driving without headlights during the night he would have sentenced me to fifteen years."
Black humor like this circulated in Israel during the first intifada, functioning as a coping mechanism for liberal sabras bewildered by the egregious violations their country was perpetrating against Palestinians. This particular joke alludes to the discriminatory and often absurd logic of the military court system in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, a system that is explored in depth for the first time in Lisa Hajjar's Courting Conflict.
Hajjar, a professor in the Law and Society Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, argues that the military court system has been the centerpiece of Israel's controlling apparatus in the occupied territories. It has served as an extremely important component within the broader range of governing institutions and practices in which Palestinians are tracked in grids of surveillance, subjected to restrictive codes of conduct and physically immobilized through the use of closures, curfews, checkpoints, walls and prisons. During the first intifada (December 1987-93), between 20,000 and 25,000 Palestinians were arrested every year, the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world at the time. Even though arrest rates later declined, the estimated number of prosecutions since the beginning of occupation in 1967--half a million out of a population of 3.5 million--underscores the carceral nature of Israeli military rule. Thus it is not surprising that virtually all Palestinians have had some experience with the military court system, whether personally or through the arrest and prosecution of relatives, friends and neighbors.
While the bulk of Hajjar's book discusses the workings of the military courts, she begins her investigation with an analysis of the complex legal system that Israel put in place in the occupied territories, showing how this system serves as the backdrop for the courts themselves. Immediately following the 1967 war, Israel formulated a policy that rejected the applicability of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, the most important humanitarian law pertaining to the occupation of conquered territories and their civilian populations, to the West Bank and Gaza. Next, it set up a legal system composed of Ottoman, British Mandatory, Jordanian and Egyptian law, and Israeli military orders. The military orders are decrees issued by military commanders that immediately become law for all Palestinians living in the area.
Over the years, military commanders have issued at least 2,500 such orders--orders that regulate every aspect of the occupied population's life, from publishing newspapers and traveling abroad to grazing sheep and using donkeys for transferring goods. The commanders were vested with powers not only to enact laws but to cancel and suspend them, which enabled them to continuously reshape the legal system in accordance with Israel's political objectives.
Hajjar, the daughter of a Finnish mother and a father of Syrian descent, conducted her research in Israel and the occupied territories primarily in the 1990s. Both Palestinian and Israeli officials often mistook her for a Jew. She spent much of her time observing trials, where she established relationships with the various parties on both sides, and came to understand what made the military courts tick. One chapter is dedicated to the judges and prosecutors, while another concentrates on defense lawyers, some of whom are motivated by a powerful conviction that the law is a crucial tool for producing justice. There is, of course, a chapter on the defendants themselves, and one on the Druse soldiers who spend their three years of military service as translators in the courts, responsible--ostensibly-- for facilitating communication between Jewish-Israeli judges and prosecutors and the Palestinian defendants and their lawyers. In these chapters, Hajjar takes the reader on a journey to the courts themselves, providing her audience with a sense of the random bargaining and humiliation and the seemingly endless tension informing the judicial interactions.
There is, for example, the story of a Gazan lawyer who lost a case after a soldier testified that he had seen the attorney's client throwing stones at 9:15 am in the Jabalya refugee camp. Several days later the same soldier appeared in court and testified against another client, reporting that he had seen the man throwing stones at 9:30 am on the same day as the earlier case, only this time in the Rafah refugee camp. Asked by the Palestinian lawyer how long it takes to get from Jabalya to Rafah, the soldier said no less than forty- five minutes. When the lawyer then asked the judge to dismiss the case because the soldier could not possibly have been in both places, the judge threw the lawyer out of court on the grounds that his line of questioning insulted the soldier. Courting Conflict is full of such stories, but it also underscores that not all judges rule in favor of the prosecution, and that the efforts of defense attorneys are not entirely in vain.
Hajjar's intervention is unique in the literature on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. Even though an enormous amount has been written on the occupation, only a few books actually analyze--rather than describe-- Israel's controlling apparatus in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Among the exceptions are Naseer Aruri's Occupation: Israel Over Palestine, James Ron's Frontiers and Ghettos and A Civilian Occupation by Rafi Segal and Eyal Weizman. Courting Conflict is in this select company.
From time to time, however, Hajjar's evidence belies her conclusions. She characterizes the courts not only as a site of control, oppression and subordination but also as a site of Palestinian resistance; yet her descriptions do not lend themselves to this claim. It was the Israeli prisons, rather than the courts, that engendered organized resistance. They were considered universities of sorts, where thousands of Palestinians deepened their ideological convictions, received operational training, improved their Hebrew skills and created alliances with the members of other political factions-- all of which prepared the inmates for continuing their struggle once they were released.
This struggle is generally understood as a classic national conflict. Hajjar, however, seeks to recast it as a struggle over human rights-- from the right to health, education and a livelihood to freedom of speech, association and movement. It is a well-intentioned effort, given how foul nationalist politics can be, but her own descriptions challenge this theoretical assertion, since the national divide figures on every other page. Although numerous rights have been invoked by Palestinians to codify their demands, at least since the 1970s, the national aspiration for statehood ultimately overshadows and informs all other rights claims.
But these flaws in no way diminish the value of the book. Especially striking is Hajjar's chapter on the Druse translators, since it reveals both the complexity and the insidious nature of Israeli rule. In order to grasp their position in court, Hajjar persuasively maintains that one must first understand the particular niche that the Druse--Arabs who practice an offshoot of Shiism established in Cairo in the eleventh century by followers of Caliph al-Hakim--occupy within the sociopolitical order of Israel/Palestine. Immediately after independence Israel began distinguishing Druse from all other non-Jewish sectors of Israeli society. By 1962 a distinct national category was officially created, and Israeli ID cards accorded the Druse their own unique identity separating them from the "Arab."
This engineered "non-Arabness" of the Druse was crucial for incorporating them into the military. "Arab Arabs" are not conscripted, since they are closely associated with the state's enemies. Thus, Druse became preferred candidates for the role of translators, since they have both bilingual skills and a "non-Arab Arab" status. Not unlike the natives who lent their services to the colonizers of old, Druse soldiers accept the state's authority and the legitimacy of its policies. Having been given a stake in the system, they tend to become complicit with Israel's oppression of Palestinians. "Palestinians are guilty," one Druse translator blithely told Hajjar. "They hate us. They throw stones. If they don't throw stones today, they will throw stones tomorrow." Like many of his fellow translators, this Druse has become a mimic man, adopting the worldview of the prosecution.
But just as the reader begins to comprehend the precarious position of the Druse translator, Hajjar adds another twist, showing that translation within the courts is less about communication between people who speak different languages and more about establishing the legitimacy of the judicial process. The Druse soldiers are not professional legal translators, and they only translate the general meaning of the proceedings so that each party will get a sense of the argument made by the other side. The defendant often does not know what is being said, since the translators frequently fail to translate the interactions between the judge and the two lawyers, leaving him (and in some cases her) completely in the dark. Imagine, for a moment, being on the stand as a defendant without knowing exactly what the prosecutor or judge is saying. Imagine being a defense lawyer and understanding only the general thrust of the prosecutor's claims.
The irony is that the lack of adequate translation is unimportant, since the legal argumentation has few if any implications for the defendant. The outcome is predictable, if only because some 90 to 95 percent of Palestinians who are charged with crimes are convicted and more than 97 percent of all cases in which charges are brought are determined outside the court in a plea bargain. Hajjar likens the judicial process taking place outside the courtroom to a souk, or marketplace, where defense lawyers bargain for a better deal like merchants. One lawyer suggests that his role is simply to beg for mercy in a merciless environment.
Despite the staggering percentage of defendants whose convictions have been determined by plea bargains outside the military courts, Hajjar shows how the courts and the complex legal system that Israel established in the territories set out to sanction the legality and morality of the occupation. This is crucial. Israel has always been wary of rejecting the law outright, attempting to project an image of an occupation informed by the rule of law and principles of justice. Courting Conflict thus undermines simplistic conceptions regarding the significance of the rule of law by laying bare how the judiciary institutions in the West Bank and Gaza were used to legitimize egregious human rights violations and the use of violence.
While Hajjar's book provides the necessary background for understanding the role of law and military courts in the occupied territories, the situation in the West Bank and Gaza has changed in a fundamental way in the last few years. If up until September 2000 Israel controlled the occupied inhabitants primarily through the application of the law--including, to be sure, the enforcement of draconian laws that both legalized the incarceration of thousands of political prisoners and permitted deportations, house demolitions, extended curfews and other forms of collective punishment--perhaps the most striking characteristic of the second intifada is the extensive suspension of the law. In the first intifada any suspension of the law was still considered an exception to the rule; in the second one it became the norm.
The paradigmatic example of this suspension is Israel's pervasive employment of extrajudicial executions: 469 Palestinians have been killed in the past four and a half years in this way, and even Israel concedes that 288 of them were "innocent bystanders." The fact that not one Israeli soldier has been tried for these killings and that they are in fact part of an overt policy suggests that the occupied inhabitants have been reduced to what the Italian political philosopher Giorgio Agamben has called homo sacer, people who can be killed without it being considered a crime. At least for these Palestinians, the military courts have become superfluous, since Israel is no longer interested in trying them.
In order to understand this dramatic change in Israel's relation to the law, it is important to examine its application to Israeli soldiers rather than to Palestinians. Since the eruption of the second intifada, 3,161 Palestinians have been killed, 636 of them minors. Moreover, of the 751 Palestinians who were killed in 2004, two-thirds had not participated in any kind of fighting. And yet the military prosecutor has opened only 104 investigations concerning unlawful shootings during the past four and a half years, and of these, twenty-eight were actually prosecuted and eighteen found guilty. One soldier who killed a 95-year-old Palestinian woman was sentenced to sixty-five days in prison.
The first intifada was very different in this respect, since most military offenses were subjected to legal scrutiny. From 1987 to 1990, Israel killed 743 Palestinians, 154 of whom were minors--fewer than it killed in 2004. The military, however, carried out an investigation of every killing and initiated a total of 1,256 investigations against soldiers who were suspected of breaching the regulations. Although the military ended up prosecuting only forty soldiers for unlawful killings, the soldiers' actions were, nonetheless, constantly investigated by the judicial authorities. Thus, if a defining feature of the first intifada was ongoing legal scrutiny, the second intifada can be characterized by the extensive withdrawal of the law. Of course, it also further unmasked the true face of power that stands behind the application of law, and laid bare the relationship between occupier and occupied.
The result of these sweeping and disturbing changes is a pervasive despair prevalent in Israel/Palestine, which is well captured in Hajjar's book despite its failure to address some of the essential features of the second intifada. This, one should keep in mind, is not how most people felt during the first intifada. Even amid the horror there was always a ray of light. This sense of hope was conveyed in the joke about Dita, the switchboard operator at the Defense Ministry.
Dita was puzzled by a man who called every morning, asking to speak with Defense Minister Ariel Sharon. Each morning she would tell him that Sharon was not the minister of defense, and he would reply, "Oh, thank you!" before hanging up. Finally, after three weeks, Dita asked the man, "Sir, every morning you call up and ask to speak to Mr. Sharon, and I keep telling you that he is not minister of defense. Why do you keep calling?" The response was immediate: "It's so encouraging to hear; it gives me some naches for the rest of the day."
The fact that Sharon is not defense minister but prime minister surely does not help those who want to take a step back, if only for a moment, and laugh at the quagmire the two peoples have sunk in. More important, though, the ruthless violence that both societies have been subjected to in the past few years has left little room for joy. It is therefore no surprise that this intifada has not produced any new jokes.
-- Neve Gordon, who teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University in Israel, is a visiting scholar in the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the editor of From the Margins of Globalization: Critical Perspectives on Human Rights and can be reached at nevegordon (at) gmail.com |
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Behind the smoke screen of the Gaza pullout |
by Tanya Reinhart, The Electronic Intifada
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
23 Apr 2005
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Click on image for a larger version
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In the meantime, three and a half months before the projected date of evacuation, it is still not clear where the evacuees will be housed until the discussions regarding their final relocation destination are concluded. Contrary to the prevailing impression, no infrastructure has been set up even for their temporary dwellings.
On 8 April 2005, Ofer Petersburg reported in Yediot Ahronot that "The Settlement Department of the Jewish Agency, responsible for providing the 'caravillas' [the caravans that were supposed to host the evacuated settlers temporarily] has so far received no order from the government."
If Sharon intends to evacuate the Gaza settlements, he is doing so with outrageous inefficiency. He is far more efficient in the West Bank. There, plans are carried out precisely as scheduled. Right from the start, during the first agreements between Sharon and Netanyahu one year ago about the disengagement plan, it was agreed that the disengagement would not be put into effect before the separation fence was completed on the western side of the West Bank.[1]
Indeed, the construction of the wall is moving towards completion. In July, which is the announced date for the beginning of the Gaza evacuation, the wall surrounding East Jerusalem and cutting it off from the West Bank, will be in place. The Palestinians who live there will be able to leave only with permits. The centre of life in the West Bank will become an enclosed prison. As well, the northern wall, which has already imprisoned the residents of Tulkarem, Qalqilya and Mas'ha, and which has robbed them of their land, continues to advance southwards. Now the bulldozers are headed for the land of Bil'in and Safa, bordering the settlements of Modi'in Elit. The farmers who are losing their land are trying to stand their ground, together with Israeli opponents of the wall. But who will hear about their sufferings and their struggle amidst the tumult over the disengagement?
The disengagement plan was born in February 2004, at the height of a wave of international criticism over the wall and on the eve of the opening of deliberations at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. In the ruling that was handed down in July, the Court determined that the route of the wall was a blatant and serious violation of international law. Moreover, the court indicated that there was a danger of "a further change in the demographic composition as a result of the departure of the Palestinian population from certain areas" (at para 122). In other words, the court warned of a process of transfer.
According to United Nations data, 237,000 Palestinians will be trapped between the wall and the Green Line and 160,000 others will remain on the Palestinian side, cut off from their land. The route that was approved at the government's meeting in February 2005 reduces their number only slightly.[2]
What is to be expected for those people, for the farmers who lose their land, for the imprisoned who are cut off from their families and their livelihoods? In the ghost towns of Tulkarem and Qalqilya and the villages around Mas'ha, many have already left in order to seek subsistence on the edges of towns in the centre of the West Bank. How much longer will the others be able to hold on under conditions of despair and atrophy, inside villages which have become prisons?
"Transfer" is associated in the collective memory with trucks arriving at night to take Palestinians across the border, as occurred in some places in 1948. But behind the smoke screen of disengagement, a process of slow and hidden transfer is being carried out in the West Bank today. It is not easy to judge which method of "transferring" people from their land is more cruel. Nearly 400,000 people, about half the number of Palestinians who were forced to leave their land in 1948, are now candidates for "voluntary emigration" to refugee camps in the West Bank. And all this is currently being passed over in silence because maybe Sharon will disengage.
Prof. Tanya Reinhart is a lecturer in linguistics, media and cultural studies at the Tel Aviv University. She is the author of several books, including Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948, from which this article was excerpted from an updated chapter. This article first appered in Yediot Aharonot on 13 April 2005 and was translated from Hebrew by Mark Marshall.
Footnotes
1. For example, some reports from April last year:
"The prime minister took a commitment that the separation fence will be completed before evacuation starts... Security echelons estimate that the fence can be completed at the earliest towards the end of 2005. In other words: it is possible that Israel will not be able to complete the evacuation at the date that was promised to the US" (Yosi Yehushua, Yediot Aharonot, 19 April 2004).
"Netanyahu announced that he intends to support the disengagement after the three conditions he posed were met ...[including] completion of the fence before the evacuation" (Itamar Eichner and Nehama Duek, Yediot Aharonot, 19 April 2004).
2. These figures are from the ICJ advisory opinion of July 9. Similar figures were provided in the Israeli media — for example, Meron Rappaport, Yediot Aharonot, 23 May 2003; Akiva Eldar, Ha'aretz, 16 February 2004. The new line of the barrier as approved by the Israeli cabinet on 20 February 2005 reduces the size of Palestinian land to be annexed by the barrier by 2.5%, mainly in the Southern Hebron area, where work is only starting (so the barrier route can still change many times as the work progresses). There were smaller adjustments in other areas, dictated by decisions of the Israeli Supreme Court, which means that some of the encircled villages should get some of their land back. But this does not effect the total number of Palestinians encircled by the wall. In Khirbet Jbara in the Tulkarm Governorate, the cabinet approved moving a 6km section of the barrier closer to the Green Line. As a result, the Palestinian population in this area will no longer be located in a completely closed area, but rather on the West Bank side of the barrier. This will reduce the overall Palestinian population completely isolated from the West Bank by about 340 persons, according to UN OCHA report of March 2005 on the preliminary analysis of the effects of the new wall route approved in February 2005 (www.ochaopt.org). |
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UK: Association of University Teachers to boycott Israeli institutions |
by Electronic Intifada
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
23 Apr 2005
|
The Association of University Teachers (AUT) in the UK voted in its Council meeting today to boycott Haifa and Bar-Ilan Universities[1] and to disseminate to all its chapters our Call for Boycott of Israeli academic institutions. This historic decision, which sets a landmark precedent, stands as a major achievement in the struggle to attain a just peace in our region. Finally, boycotting Israeli institutions, as a morally and politically sound response to Israel’s crimes, is on the mainstream agenda in the west; and no one can ignore it now.
For years, Israeli academics have by and large served in the occupation army, thereby participating in, or at least witnessing, crimes committed on a daily basis against the civilian population of Palestine. They have hardly ever publicly denounced Israel's occupation, its system of racial discrimination against its own Palestinian citizens, or its adamant denial of the internationally-sanctioned rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties. This constitutes collusion.
After this ground-breaking AUT decision, all these aspects of Palestinian suffering and the complicity of Israel’s academics in perpetuating them have now become part of the ongoing debate on Israel’s record of oppression and abuse of human rights. The AUT today gave voice to the hitherto voiceless civil resistance against Israel’s racist and colonial policies. For this, the AUT should be commended.
Aside from passing the boycott motions, the debate itself about Israel’s oppression and the collusion of Israeli academic institutions in it and the extensive media coverage that ensued have played a significant role in educating many around the world about the Palestinian struggle for freedom, self-determination and equality.
The taboo has been shattered, at last. From now on, it will be acceptable to compare Israel’s apartheid system to its South African predecessor. As a consequence, proposing practical measures to punish Israeli institutions for their role in the racist and colonial policies of their state will no longer be considered beyond the pale. Israeli academic institutions will no longer be able to share in the crime while enjoying international cooperation and support. Most importantly, Israel will start losing its so far assured impunity, its exceptional status as a state above the law, a country that considers itself unaccountable before the international community of nations.
We applaud the AUT for its vision and its moral commitment to a just peace in Palestine.
- Founding Committee
Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)
P.O.Box 1701, Ramallah, Palestine.
E-mail: info (at) boycottIsrael.ps
Web: www.boycottisrael.ps
Footnotes
1. AUT's statement: "AUT Council today decided to boycott Haifa University and the Bar-Ilan University. The executive committee will issue guidance to AUT members on these decisions. Council delegates also referred a call to boycott the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the executive committee will investigate the background to this and will report in due course. Council delegates also agreed to circulate to all local associations a statement from Palestinian organisations calling for an academic boycott of Israeli institutions." (Israel universities - statement by AUT general secretary Sally Hunt, 22 April 2005) |
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An Interview with Israeli Activist Jonathan Pollak |
by Pat O' Connor, EI
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
23 Apr 2005
|
Click on image for a larger version
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Pat O'Connor: Why are people protesting in Bil'in and other villages?
Jonathan Pollak: Palestinians are protesting, and others with them, against the theft of their land, against the steps the Israeli government and Israeli army are taking to make their lives impossible — basically to commit a quiet ethnic cleansing. They are making life so impossible that people have to leave and the border areas near the Green Line are being emptied of Palestinians. The Israeli government is constructing the Wall in a way that is making enclaves of the West Bank and rendering a Palestinian state impossible.
Pat O'Connor: What is happening generally in the village of Bil'in, and why you did you go there?
Jonathan Pollak: In the last two or three months there has been resistance in Bil'in to the construction of the Wall that's taking a lot of their land. I don't know exact numbers, but the Wall there is planned according to the construction plan of a new settlement and it's being built very close to the last houses of the village. So for the last two months or so there have been demonstrations there on almost a daily basis, at least three times a week. We've been trying to support this with an Israeli presence and an international presence, and that's why I've been going there a lot.
Pat O'Connor: What happened on April 3, 2005, the day you were shot in Bil'in?
Jonathan Pollak: It was a very quiet demonstration. People were torching tires at the entrance of the village to demonstrate. We then went down, a small group, something like ten of us, and were just staring at the bulldozers and didn't reach them.
After a while we started going back to the village, and at some point I heard a shot. I looked back and I saw that it was the soldiers who shot it from about 30 meters, and I saw the canister flying directly at me. I had time to turn my head so it didn't hit my face. It hit centimeters above my right temple. I saw the canister bounce back and then fainted. I fell down for 30 seconds or a minute, and then found myself in a Red Crescent ambulance.
At some point the soldiers came to the ambulance and demanded that I get out of it in order for them to evacuate me from there. There wasn't an Israeli ambulance, but they still demanded that. I refused the army, and the ambulance drove towards a nearby checkpoint and I was moved into an Israeli ambulance which took me to the hospital. I was diagnosed as suffering from internal bleeding in the brain in two places and had twenty three stitches.
Pat O'Connor: Was there a reason why the Israeli soldiers fired the teargas as far as you could tell?
Jonathan Pollak: Nothing that I could tell. As I said it was very quiet that day. We were just going back to the village. Nothing happening.
I don't think the shooting was aimed specifically at me. Generally, as a tactic the soldiers are shooting teargas canisters directly at the group as one of their methods for dispersing a crowd. Of course it's completely against even their own regulations, telling them they have to shoot the canister in the air and not directly at the group, but in reality it happens all the time that they shoot the canister at the group. Numerous Palestinians have been injured by it, and also Israelis have been hit in the past.
Pat O'Connor: How are you feeling now?
Jonathan Pollak: My head hurts a lot and I'm very dizzy. I still have problems walking. I need a walker to move around. The doctor said I have to stay at home for a month and rest.
Pat O'Connor: The press reports that I first saw said that teargas was shot by soldiers, that it hit the ground and then showered rocks that hit you, that you were hit by rocks.
Jonathan Pollak: That's just a lie from the Israeli military spokesperson. As I said, I saw the teargas canister fired at me directly from where the soldiers were standing, and I saw it hit. There were definitely no stones that hit me. Secondly, if it was a stone it would not have caused so much damage. And thirdly it doesn't really matter even if it did hit a stone. Because even according to their own regulations they are not supposed to shoot the canister straight in the direction of the demonstrators.
In order for the canister to hit a rock, and create such an impact that the rock would hit my head, and cause internal bleeding and an injury that would require 23 stitches, well, it just doesn't make sense. It can't happen.
Pat O'Connor: The Israeli military spokesperson lied about what happened. Does this type of thing happen often?
Jonathan Pollak: They always do. It happens all the time. Reading an IDF spokesperson responded is the best way to know what didn't happen, basically. Their statements have no relation to reality or to the truth whatsoever.
Pat O'Connor: Why do you think then that their statements get reported so often then by the press?
Jonathan Pollak: I think that people like the press choose to believe it over the demonstrators, especially the official Israeli press, because the spokesperson is easier for them to relate to. Another reason, I think, is that the mainstream media here is very persistent in following the Israeli narrative, which the army spokesperson represents much better than we do.
Pat O'Connor: So the other day you were shot in the head. Is it common that protesters, whether Israeli or Palestinian or international are hurt or harassed in this way?
Jonathan Pollak: It's very common for Palestinians to be hurt in that way or even worse. It's less common for Israelis. There have been only three injuries to Israelis of this or greater severity in a year and a half of daily demonstrations. There have been hundreds of severe injuries to Palestinians and six deaths.
There was one demonstration in February 2004 in the village of Biddu, where they've had a lot of demonstrations. On that day we saw three Palestinians die from live ammunition. At least one of them was shot in the head by snipers standing on a rooftop nearby. That happened in front of my eyes so I can testify to it.
There's been one person shot in the head as well in the village of Beitunia. Another guy was shot in Biddu in the upper part of his stomach. He died. There was one person who died apparently from inhaling teargas inside his home in Biddu the same day the three were shot dead.
Pat O'Connor: Is this violence preventing people from going out to protest? Would it deter you?
Jonathan Pollak: I'm sure that the amount of violence that the Israeli army is illegally using is deterring some people from protesting. I don't think it will deter me in the future, but we have to remember that I am under much less risk as I am an Israeli and this is an apartheid state. When I get shot in the head, and I get wounded relatively lightly - I have no permanent damage - this gets coverage in the papers and the electronic media. When a Palestinian just a few days ago, a youth from the village of Saffa, near Bil'in where I was shot, was shot was shot with a rubber bullet in his eye causing him to lose his eye, there was no coverage at all.
So yes, I think the violence is deterring people, but it will not deter people forever. I think people are becoming angrier and more aware of the situation, and I think that Israel better understand that if it will break the popular and essentially nonviolent resistance, it will only encourage a more violent and brutal resistance, because you cannot expect people to just quietly accept their lives being taken away from them.
Pat O'Connor: Beyond physically injuring people, what about other kinds of military pressure? In villages like Bil'in and Budrus the military is coming in and going into Palestinian homes regularly.
Jonathan Pollak: I think this is part of the same strategy. The Israeli army is using collective punishment, which is forbidden according to international law, to deter people from protesting, and I think this is a very short-sighted view of the conflict. Again, they are arresting people and going into villages on a regular basis. In Budrus and Bil'in the army has been going into the village at night, taking males between the ages of 10-50 out of their homes, photographing them from three sides and arresting people who they suspect of participating in demonstrations or of throwing stones. Generally it's just harassment. They hope to break the people that way.
Pat O'Connor: What typically happens on the day of an actual protest?
Jonathan Pollak: Well, usually we gather in the center of the village and we go down to the land, some hundreds of people. Most of them are Palestinians, some are Israelis and international activists. And we go down to the land with the aim of blocking the bulldozers that are destroying the people's land and separating them from their other land, their main source of income after four years of closure.
At that point, usually much before we reach the bulldozers, the army reacts with a lot of violence, using teargas, concussion grenades and rubber-coated metal bullets. At that point sometimes clashes begin with stone throwing. Sometimes we do manage to get to the bulldozers.
Pat O'Connor: Who actually organizes and calls for the protests ?
Jonathan Pollak: The villagers, the people who are affected directly by the wall. The people who won't be able to eat if the Wall is constructed.
Pat O'Connor: How frequently are protests occurring now and what are the reasons for the protests?
Jonathan Pollak: Now it is almost one a day for the last month. And for the first time in a long time, it's not only protests around the Wall. There've been protests against checkpoints, against military roads and against military bases lately.
Through the smokescreen of the disengagement plan, Israel is increasing the pressure and increasing the occupation in the West Bank, increasing its grip on the West Bank, and it's effecting people's lives, and people are more and more able to see that the talk about peace is merely talk, and that the Sharon government has no plan to implement it and to provide more freedom to the Palestinian people.
Pat O'Connor: Why do you as an Israeli choose to do this, and how do Palestinians respond to you?
Jonathan Pollak: I choose to do it because I see it as my moral obligation. The occupation in general, and this Wall specifically is being constructed in my name without me wanting it. It is being constructed in my name even though I think it's a horrible crime, and I see it as my obligation to try and stop it, to do everything I can do in order to stop it, and to say that the struggle for freedom, wherever it is, is my struggle as well, and until there will be freedom for Palestinians as well, there will be no freedom for anyone.
My reception has always been very warm and very welcoming by the Palestinian side. It has never been a problem for them that I am an Israeli. If anything, the opposite.
Pat O'Connor: How do you evaluate the effectiveness of the popular, nonviolent resistance that has been going on?
Jonathan Pollak: I think that, partly because of the tactics and strategy of the PA, people have been discouraged from the popular movement or popular resistance lately. I think the only thing that can make it more effective again is if it will, once more, become more massive, if more people participate in it. In the last few months we are seeing people returning to popular resistance to the occupation, but still I feel it is not including enough people yet. I hope that people are able to see through the smokescreen of Sharon's plan and of the government's plan and that they try to resist it.
Pat O'Connor: The US press is reporting on the Gaza disengagement plan and the Israeli government plan to expand the settlement of Maaleh Adumim, as well as talking a lot about prospects for peace. What do you see happening on the ground?
Jonathan Pollak: They are building a new settlement in the area between Maaleh Adumim and Jerusalem, as they are doing in many other places. I think it should be considered a new settlement. It's an Israeli whitewash calling it an extension of the settlement.
I see the disengagement not as a plan for pulling out and not as a plan with prospects for peace. I see it as a plan for furthering the control of the Israeli government in the Occupied Territories. It will offer no real freedom to the Palestinians, even in Gaza. The Palestinian economy is completely controlled by Israel, and disengagement includes in it basically no real sovereignty to Gaza. Borders will be completely shut, and Israel will control all the passages from Gaza to the outside world.
Other than that, it is clear to anyone who has eyes in his head that the Israeli government is only implementing the disengagement in order to whitewash all of its activities in the West Bank. While talking of peace and how the Palestinians are not following their commitments, Israel is continuing to construct the Wall in a path that would take 7% of the West Bank, which would leave 7% of the West Bank on the Israeli side. And the 7% is a deceptive figure. The 7% does not include the route of the planned Wall that would cut into Ariel and Qedumim, which would annex 1% - 2% more of the West Bank as well. Further, it is a dry figure that doesn't convey the creation of harsh movement restrictions, as the planned route cuts deep into the West Bank. Other than that, in places where the Wall has been moved, Israel is now planning on building new walls to "protect" settler roads. That is the case in Hebron and with road 443 from Jerusalem to Modi'in. Basically, Wall sections that have been cancelled or disqualified by the Supreme Court are now being built as separate walls or separate "means of protection" for the roads. So it enhances the role of these roads as restrictions on Palestinian movement.
Settlements are being expanded. The military presence in the West Bank continues and checkpoints are still standing. No real freedom is provided to the Palestinians. It's merely a tool for Israel to maintain its presence and control in the West Bank while reducing the international pressure.
The biggest joke is that this was even admitted by Sharon's consultant Dov Weisglass in an interview in Haaretz.
Pat O'Connor: Some people are saying that with all of the settlement construction, and the construction of the Wall and the new plan for Ma'aleh Adummim, that it is really the end of any hopes for a two state solution, and that what is happening is creating an apartheid situation for Palestinians. What do you think of this analysis? Where do you see things heading?
Jonathan Pollak: I was never a great supporter of the two state solution. I never thought it had a great chance to begin with because of the power relations between Israel and its economy, and the Palestinian entity. After almost 40 years of occupation, the Palestinian economy is completely dependent on the Israeli economy. And we've seen with Oslo that the two state solution is being used by Israel to use the Palestinian Authority as a neighborhood bully to do the dirty work instead of Israel - to maintain a quiet, hidden occupation, while relieving the pressure from the international community and still being in control of everything that happens, offering no real option of sovereignty or freedom to the Palestinian people. And we've seen in Oslo and we see it now, that the PA is fully cooperating with it. Their strategy is not one of liberation, it is one based in a state that doesn't exist.
It seems that now we are heading towards a continuation of the current situation - which is apartheid, which is Palestinians living under apartheid. I think that people need to understand that nothing generally has changed much. It's just a continuation of the same situation of the last forty years. It's building up of it. It's maintaining it. It's enforcing it.
Pat O'Connor is an Irish American volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement. He managed humanitarian aid programs for 11 years in Africa and the Middle East, including three years in the Gaza Strip.
Some Israeli media coverage of the shooting of Jonathan Pollack
The Jerusalem Post, Fence protester wounded by tear gas grenade, Margot Dudkevitch, 3 April 2005: "An Israeli protester was lightly wounded on Sunday afternoon, when a tear gas grenade thrown by soldiers to disperse Israeli and Palestinian security fence protesters near Ba'alin close to Maccabim hit a rock showering demonstrators with splinters."
Ha'aretz Daily, Fence Protester hit in the head by teargas canister, Tamara Traubman, 5 April 2005: "Pollack said that he, too, was leaving - going toward the village, away from the fence construction site - when he suddenly heard a shot. 'I turned around, toward the firing, and saw a gas canister flying toward me,' he said. The canister hit him in the head, causing a deep cut that split his head to the bone and required stitches. He lost consciousness for a few seconds and suffered heavy bleeding and dizziness... In response, the IDF said: 'We exercise judgment with regard to every demonstration. Usually, we let them demonstrate, but this time, there were disturbances of the peace. The force fired a gas grenade that hit a rock and Jonathan Pollack's head was sprayed.'" |
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Flooding the Newswire? Please Don't |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
23 Apr 2005
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If the Newswire is being flooded with posts that seem to originate from one poster, I have two options as an editor. I can group them or I can hide them. Please do not try to monopolize this important community resource, no matter how important you may feel you issue is, or I may explore options other than grouping such posts, as was done here. |
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