Australia

November 19, 2010December 11, 2020

Australian Zionist Organisation Funding Appropriation of West Bank Sites

The initial piece in the Jerusalem Post alerted the world to some scurrilous shenanigans perpetrated by the United Israel Appeal’s New South Wales branch:

‘A major Zionist organization has withdrawn an advertisement because it featured images mocking the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The United Israel Appeal (New South Wales) – Keren Hayesod last week withdrew the ad for a young adult UIA event, which was issued as a press release as well as on a Facebook page.’

Looking for a story behind the news, we investigated where the funds of the United Israel Appeal are disbursed.

In October, the Israel-based parent body of the United Israel Appeal, Keren Hayesod, sealed a deal with the Israeli government.

‘Leading the projects that Keren Hayesod will support is Prime Minister’s Office project regarding national heritage sites. Keren Hayesod has taken it upon itself to raise funds in order to supplement the Government budget and expand the scope of the project.’.

As is customary with its illegal apartheid wall, the majority of which is sited on the Palestinian land across the 1967 Green Line, Israel stretches the boundaries of what it regards as ‘national’.

On February 21, 2010, Netanyahu presented a Cabinet Communique outlining earmark funding of the national heritage project.

I would like to add three short comments.

– The list of sites submitted here is neither closed nor final. It can and will certainly include other sites. I also intend to include Rachel’s Tomb, to the rehabilitation of which the Jewish Agency has allocated NIS 20 million, and the Tomb of the Patriarchs. Since I was asked, I would like to make my intentions clear, and this is what will be.

– The donations that we are talking about here are earmarks. The list submitted here is the Government’s earmarked budget, even though we hope to receive the assistance of many other elements.

– We will meet again this week in order to approve the national transportation plan that will join the Galilee and the other parts of the State of Israel in an accessible national transportation grid, and which will – inter alia – bring people to this wonderful place. I think that it will greatly contribute to bringing the periphery closer to the center and vice-versa, itself a great economic contribution.”

What is Keren Hayesod’s relationship with the Jewish Agency?

Keren Hayesod is headed by a board of trustees, appointed by the Zionist Executive and the Jewish Agency. In addition to financing the activities of the Jewish Agency, Keren Hayesod undertook to support the yishuv economically and to provide financial assistance for development and settlement. Most revenues come from fundraising and are distributed by the institutions of the Zionist movement. Keren Hayesod collects donations in almost all countries with a Jewish community, either directly or through volunteers.

UNESCO has recently insisted that Israel remove the Cave of the Patriachs and Rachel’s Tomb, both located in the Palestinian West Bank, from its list of national heritage sites as they are sites of mosques. Abbas and Haniyeh have also insisted the sites be removed from Netanyahu’s proposed national heritage trail. Netanyahu has refused to do so.

Through its funding arrangements with its Israeli parent body, the United Israel Appeal New South Wales branch is complicit with Israeli commandeering of ‘national’ heritage sites in the West Bank.

‘In NSW, 50% of Women’s Division funds are allocated to The Nurit Absorption Centre , located in Be’er Sheva. The remaining 50% of funds raised are incorporated into the universal revenue of Keren Hayesod in Israel.’

Under its never-fully implemented Declaration of Establishment of 1948, Israel undertook to safeguard the holy sites of all religions. Israel has failed to fulfill its promise. As the 2008 US State Department Human Rights Report: Israel and the occupied territories states:

The 1967 Protection of Holy Sites Law protects all holy sites, but the government implemented regulations only for 137 Jewish sites, leaving many Muslim and Christian sites neglected, inaccessible, or threatened by property development. The Holy Sepulchre and other well-known sites have de facto protection as a result of their international importance; however, community mosques, churches, and shrines often faced threats from developers and municipalities that Jewish sites did not face. Christian pilgrimage sites around the Sea of Galilee faced regular threats of encroachment from district planners who wanted to use parts of the properties for recreation.

The just-released 2009 US State Department International Report on Religious Freedom reiterates the problems noted in the previous year’s report:

The 1967 Protection of Holy Sites Law applies to holy sites of all religious groups within the country and in all of Jerusalem, but the Government implements regulations only for Jewish sites. Non-Jewish holy sites do not enjoy legal protection under it because the Government does not recognize them as official holy sites. At the end of 2008, there were 137 designated holy sites, all of which were Jewish. Furthermore, the Government has drafted regulations to identify, protect, and fund only Jewish holy sites. While well-known sites have de facto protection as a result of their international importance, many Muslim and Christian sites are neglected, inaccessible, or threatened by property developers and municipalities. The Christian pilgrimage sites around the Sea of Galilee face periodic threats of encroachment from district planners who want to use parts of their properties for recreation. In the past, only diplomatic interventions have forestalled such efforts. Such sites do, however, enjoy certain protections under the general Penal Law (criminal code), which makes it a criminal offense to damage any holy site. Following a 2007 order by the High Court to explain its unequal implementation of the 1967 Protection of Holy Sites Law, the Government responded in March 2008 that specific regulations were not necessary for the protection of any holy sites. The Government did not explain why it therefore promulgated regulations for Jewish sites but not for non-Jewish sites.

Donations to the United Israel Appeal are tax deductible so untaxed Australian income can be diverted overseas to fund Israeli ‘national heritage’ projects in the illegally occupied West Bank. Frank Lowy is a Life Governor of the UIA while son Steven Lowy is Chairman, Major Donor Division.

Frank Lowy’s money ended up in Israeli charities from his untaxed Liechenstein bank accounts.

And this is from the Murdoch press back home:

Just prior to being appointed to the RBA board in 1995, Frank Lowy paid $25million to settle a long-running tax dispute with the Australian Taxation Office.

That dispute related to a $48.3 million payment received by a Lowy family company, Cordera Holdings. Three days after a court hearing began, a settlement was reached. In mid-February this year, German tax authorities conducted raids on dozens of prominent businessman for allegedly using Liechtenstein bank accounts, and two weeks later the ATO announced there were 20 audit cases under way relating to funds in Liechtenstein ranging from $200,000 to millions of dollars.

Why hasn’t the ATO done anything about this yet? Any reporters asking questions over here? Or is Lowy too powerful on his home pitch?

The Murdoch media repeatedly stresses that:

There is no suggestion the Lowys are the subject of the Australian or US investigations.

No, they are just being called to give evidence at a Senate inquiry about dodgy tax schemes, where they have previous form. I am sure they are just popping in for a little chat, that’s all. Lowy was also linked to a corruption scandal involving Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, but I’m sure that Mr Olmert is just a very nice man too.
…
But according to Lowy, those Israeli charities got ALL the money:

“The report fails to mention the fact that all of the funds held in the structure in the Liechtenstein bank were distributed for charitable purposes in Israel some years ago,” he said.

Lowy is a long-term donator to Keren Hayesod.

Brog, who described Lowy’s politics in Israel as “centre-left”, said he believed he had also been a strong supporter of, and donor to, the Labour Party. He had also been a “very, very generous donor to Keren Hayesod” since the 1980s, Brog said.

“And I would expect that that financial support has only increased in the years since.”

According to a handful of Australian and Israeli businessmen who are active in Israel and keep an eye on Lowy’s movements in that country, the money that he puts into the Institute for National Security Studies and Keren Hayesod are the two main concerns he devotes time to outside his business interests.

UPDATES

Translation: Visiting Hebron is a must, but do make sure you see everything

When visiting the Cave of the Patriarchs one must not only explore the well-tended and re-paved Jewish part of the cave. One must also enter the Muslim side, though access is not as convenient. You can also visit the deserted Shuhada Street with the ubiquitous IDF positions everywhere. Tamar Golan and Michal Tsadik from Machsom Watch

Israeli education: Molding fascists, one student at a time
The Tax-Exempt Status of Charities that Support Israeli Settlements

UPDATE 6/2/12

The theft by heritage stealth continues:

Asked about the politicization of national heritage sites, he answers very seriously: “The fact that we are located within the Prime Minister’s Office gives us a status and presence that we wouldn’t have if we were part of a ministry. It is impossible to ignore us. Everyone sees us as the right people to approach.”

He says the prime minister and cabinet secretary are involved and interested in the national heritage project, but do not dictate what is to be done. Furthermore, recent cuts at government ministries did not affect his project.

“The decision to place heritage sites on the agenda is a legitimate political decision, but that is where the politics stops. Beyond that, everything stems from professional considerations. There is a lot of pressure on us, but it comes from local council heads. Many of them think I have piles of money to distribute.”

The list of 220 proposed sites includes 30 in the West Bank. Five have either been approved or have a good chance of getting the green light for financial support and development from Pinsker and his colleagues. But the issue of whether a potential site is located inside or outside the Green Line does not seem relevant to Pinsky. “The question from my perspective is: How many visitors could we bring to the site after we decide to invest in it? It doesn’t matter to me if it’s in Judea and Samaria or Tel Aviv.”

Pinsky says he is, however, aware of the criticism the project may encounter. “If someone suggests building an elevator in the Cave of the Patriarchs, because it is an important site, I would consider this based on its merits,” he explains. “But because the site is a sensitive place, I would first submit a recommendation to the prime minister. I would not promote it on my own.”

Pinsky gently criticizes the council heads in West Bank areas who, he says, “thought that the fact that a kippah-wearer was appointed to the job guarantees that their issues would be taken care of. Very quickly they realized things don’t work that way and that we arrive at our decisions in a very focused way.”

At last year’s UIA gala fundraiser in Sydney, president Bruce Fink said it had raised $16 million, making it the “highest per capita campaign in the Keren Hayesod world.”

Shopping mall magnate Frank Lowy, a life governor of the UIA who fought in the 1948 War of Independence, reminded the 1,000-plus donors in the audience of the countless lives lost defending Israel. “We must recognize our responsibilities and pay our dues,” Lowy said.

Burla believes discontent is mounting among the younger generation of Australian Jews, despite the country being “arguably the most Zionist Jewish community in the Diaspora.”

“In particular, the lack of trust reflects a growing sense among the younger generation of the Australian Diaspora that Israel sees Australian Jewry as a resource that can be used for its own needs, without any accountability or mutual responsibility,” Burla wrote at the time of the scandal surrounding the death of Australian-born Ben Zygier, an alleged Mossad agent who committed suicide inside an Israeli maximum-security prison in 2010.

November 19, 2010December 11, 2020

National Security Legislation Amendment Bill 2010

Anti-terrorism laws have now been altered in Australia with some expansions of police powers and conditions that limit free speech. There has been little attention paid to these changes within the Australian media – the equal rights for gay marriage parliamentary debate has taken precedence.

“The National Security Legislation Amendment Bill 2010 seeks to achieve an appropriate balance between the Government’s responsibility to protect Australia, its people and its interests and instilling confidence that our national security and counter-terrorism laws will be exercised in a just and accountable way,” Mr McClelland said.

The legislation has been the subject of extensive public consultation and contains significant amendments, including:

* new powers for police to enter a premises without a warrant in emergency circumstances relating to a terrorism offence where there is material that may pose a risk to the health or safety of the public;
* extending the time available for police to re-enter a premises under a search warrant from one hour to 12 hours in emergency circumstances;
* establishing a maximum seven day limit on the detention period that may be disregarded when a person has been arrested for a terrorism offence;
* including a specific right of appeal for both the prosecution and the defendant against a bail decision relating to terrorism and serious national security offences;
* expanding the ‘urging violence’ offence so that it applies to individuals as well as groups who incite violence on the basis of race, religion, nationality, national or ethnic origin or political opinion;
* extending the expiration period of regulations proscribing a terrorist organisation from two to three years;
* amending the National Security Information (Criminal and Civil Proceedings) Act 2004 so that national security and counter-terrorism court proceedings may be expedited;
* establishing a Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement to extend parliamentary oversight to both the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission; and
* extending the role of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) to inquire into an intelligence or security matter relating to any Commonwealth Department or agency.

There is still no independent National Security Monitor established.

The Australian Council for Civil Liberties president, Terry O’Gorman, says Australia should have followed Britain’s lead five years ago in appointing someone to oversee the application of counter-terrorism laws.

October 18, 2010December 11, 2020

Towards Hope completes its successful mission to Gaza

A medical team from Australian NGO Towards Hope has completed a 10 day trip to Gaza. Co-sponsored by PCRF, the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, the team assisted ‘dozens of Palestinians from the besieged Gaza Strip with expert care’, as well as ‘training for local doctors’, a source close to the mission revealed today.

The team consisted of Australian Orthopaedic (Bones and Joints) Surgeon, Dr Tim Keenan, Physiotherapist, Jaquie Hocking from Perth, a Theatre Nurse and an Anaesthetist from Italy. They operated at the Gaza European Hospital from October 10th, finishing on October 16th,

undertaking reconstructive surgery and providing rehabilitation services. It is also planned to provide some ongoing training and assistance where necessary, to enable local staff to continue such work, after the team leaves.

This is Dr Keenan’s first trip to Gaza, although he has led medical teams to Nablus in West Bank in the past.

Max Ajl makes a superb comparison of the Towards Hope / PCRF medical mission with an Israeli effort, tuned to Channel H for Hasbara.

July 19, 2010December 11, 2020

Suheir Hammad – magnificent poetry

Sometimes I use this blog to remind myself later of people who add to the weft and weave to transform for a moment my wretched, mundane existence into a dance of possibilities and wishes. Suheir is possessed by the muse – when she performs it is the whole woman, the laughing medusa of Helene Cixous, the frightening yet irresistible gypsy who leads us to prophecy with a toss of the head – it is up to us if we wish to grasp the destiny she offers.

Hammad’s poem ‘The Refugees’ has poignancy at present in Australia, where the inglorious prime monstress Julie Gillard is esconsced to wage a battle royale in the August election. Gillard is dog-whistling – calling the noxious Australian xenophobes who need so little encouragement. Both parties are craven in this regard, yet there’s something particularly obscene about a party which is supposed to have at least some respect for human rights pandering to racist human refuse.

May 19, 2010December 12, 2020

Day 1 in the Thinking Chair – Mortification & Fascism

Whilst I’m suspended from our usual playground pending a complete exoneration, I’ve returned to my own patch to add thoughts and links which interest me. If folks stumble in, in search of their long lost mate, perhaps it’ll give them something to feast upon.

Here’s some shockers for today:

From the Defence of Children International [DCI] – Palestine submits 14 cases of sexual assault and threats to the UN for investigation

On 18 May 2010, DCI-Palestine submitted 14 cases to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture for investigation. The submission relates to the sexual assault, or threat of sexual assault, of Palestinian children at the hands of Israeli soldiers, interogators and police between January 2009 and April 2010. The ages of the children range from 13 to 16 years.

DCI-Palestine is becoming increasingly alarmed at reports contained in sworn affidavits received from children that they are being subjected to sexual assault, or threat of sexual assault, in order to obtain confessions.

DCI-Palestine has reviewed 100 sworn affidavits collected from children in 2009, and in four percent of cases, children report being sexually assaulted, whilst in 12 percent of cases, the children report being threatened with sexual assault. The sexual assault and threats of sexual assault documented by DCI-Palestine include grabbing boys by the testicles until they confess and threatening boys as young as 13 years with rape unless they confess to throwing stones at Israeli settler vehicles in the occupied West Bank. DCI-Palestine suspects that these figures may understate the extent of the problem.

Finally the MSM is leeching from my fond analysis of the predominant sinister political ideology underpinning the ziocolony – views which do not subscribe to the absolute necessity of a specific form of economic relations nor a non-negotiable charismatic leader to name its putrid essence definitively.

Bradly Burston from Haaretz opines mournfully that

No one knows fascism better than Israelis. They are schooled, drilled in the history, the mechanics, the horrendous potential of fascist regimes. Israelis know fascism when they see it. In others.

Ironic that it’s the octogenarian iconoclast Chomsky whose banning from the West Bank precipated the latest Israeli flurry of angst.

Wrote Boaz Okun, the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronot’s legal affairs commentator and a retired Israeli judge, of Israel’s ban on Noam Chomsky: “The decision to shut up Professor Chomsky is a decision to shut down freedom in the state of Israel.

“I’m not speaking of the stupidity of supplying ammunition to those who claim that Israel is fascist,” Okun wrote, “rather, of our fear that we may actually be turning that way.”

Burston goes on to grasp at that which he perceives to be associated with the present pungent aroma which in line with the gas used on non-violent Palestinian protestors and in their homes, is markedly redolent of skunk.

Why should we be concerned by any of this? Perhaps because we have made our peace with a number of factors that can turn a society toward fascism as a solution.

1. Losing a War.

We’ve lost two in the space of less than three years. Our targets, Hezbollah and Hamas, are better armed and entrenched than ever. Our strategic and diplomatic standing is in decline. Iran and Syria are ascendant. And there is abundant reason to suspect that the Gaza War, a major factor in the loss of our international standing, may have been altogether avoidable, the huge civilian death toll indefensible and unconscionable. This has, in turn, led to

2. International quarantine, a sense of being scapegoated, and a search for an internal fifth column.

3. A radical redefinition of positive values.

Look no further than the name of Jerusalem’s obscene Museum of Tolerance project.

4. Olfactory fatigue

We have grown desensitized to the consequences of actively denying basic staples and construction supplies to 1.5 million people in Gaza, many of them still waiting to rebuild homes we destroyed.

We have grown inured to the appropriation of Palestinian-owned West Bank land, to abusive treatment of law-abiding Palestinians at checkpoints, to the ill-treatment and summary expulsion of foreign workers, to racist, anti-democratic and, yes, fascistic rulings by extreme rightist rabbis, especially some of those holding official positions in the West Bank.

5. Fascism by rubber stamp.

“There are a million reasons why someone would be denied entry into Israel,” Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Hadad said Monday, when asked about the ministry’s border policies in the wake of the Chomsky ban.

“There may be a million reasons, but try to find a single criterion for entry refusal and you’ll hit a blank wall,” said Association for Civil Rights in Israel attorney Oded Feller. “The Interior Ministry simply doesn’t publish them, despite a court ruling that ordered them to do so.”

6. The sense that despite everything, all is well.

There will be those who argue that the fact that I, or my Haaretz colleagues, are allowed to publish what we do, is proof that there is no fascism here, nor evidence of a police state.

The fact is that were we not Israeli Jews, and part of an establishment institution, any of us could find ourselves tossed out on the same pavement, and with the same lack of due process and due explanation, as Noam Chomsky.

7. The sense that there is a war on now, when there isn’t.

8. Selective enforcement of court rulings. Routine defiance of same, in particular by radical settlers

9. The 180-degree untruth that officials allow Israeli and Jerusalem Arabs to do what they want, while cracking down on their Jewish neighbors.

10. Equating criticism of the government with favoring the destruction of Israel.

This has become increasingly felt beyond Israel’s borders. In San Francisco, the canary in the coal mine of free discourse within the Jewish community, the Jewish Federation [JCF] recently revised and tightened the terms under which it agrees to grant funds to organizations.

“The JCF does not fund organizations that through their mission, activities or partnerships … advocate for, or endorse, undermining the legitimacy of Israel as a secure independent, democratic Jewish state, including through participation in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, in whole or in part.”

The guidelines go on to state that “Presentations by organizations or individuals that are critical of particular Israeli government policies but are supportive of Israel’s right to exist as a secure independent Jewish democratic state” are “generally in accord with the policy statement,” but “early JCRC [Jewish Community Relations Council] consultation is strongly encouraged and the programming should be presented within an overall program strategy that is consistent with JCF’s core values.”

Can all this have spread this far, this fast? Because of Israel, have Bay Area Jews who do not believe in a specifically Jewish state, now forfeited their right to be part of the Jewish community? Have Jews who love Israel but are seen as too critical, or who support a boycott to make their criticisms manifest, been effectively excommunicated?

It’s a free country, I guess.

There’s other symptoms to which Burston fails to flesh out sufficiently or relate to the political ideology of zionism – the State Histradut trade union abomination which steals Palestinian money; super-nationalism where individuality is suppressed and heroism engendered in youth military service into a reflexive, militaristic collective with exceptionalist double standards; collective and ideology are infallible, disagreement is treasonous – like individuals, unhealthy collectives cannot withstand criticism; the syncretistic ideology of zionism, a toxic alloy of religious myth and political mores, eugenics and racism, blut und boden, wrought and fed from irrationality, anti-semitism and flight, western colonial privilege, hubris and entitlement; the justifications of crimes against humanity – collective punishment, apartheid, ghettoes, bantustans, detentions without charge nor trial even of children – the hideous oppression of and contempt for the ‘Other’; the straitjacket bonds between the zionist financial elite, the military and security apparatus; the Other is eternal scapegoat for the hierachy above; the arbitrary borders, expansionism, theft of Palestinian water, land and mineral resources; in the absence of recognised and legislated equal rights and citizenship, instead blooms a convoluted, poisonous system of arbitrary unequal rights; the subversion of the sexual, the disempowerment of women in their most vulnerable, critical relationships and catharsis within permanent militarism, permanent war and permanent enemies on all sides regardless of treaties and entreaties, broken promises and forgotten road maps, raison d’etres for permanent victimhood and humiliation, permanent military largesse from the US, a permanent peace process, the permanent occupation which is never relinquished because the other side ‘doesn’t want peace’ or ‘we have no partner for peace’, the permanent fertilisers which sustain the praxis between ‘rebalancing’.

Fascism is a form of societal auto-immune disease – it stunts and eventually withers, unsustainable because rigid hierachies and ideal individuals fashioned to defend enclosed collectives are ultimately unattainable. These truths are suppressed – with reason numbed or short-circuited in panic, inflexible political ideology as surrogate is refreshed and the system is restabilised back to a reduced temporary homeostasis with awe – fear-inspiring spectacle – another war, another persecution, another killing, another repression, another ghetto, another land theft, another olive tree uprooted, another martyr, another genocide. In the end, debilitated by its own excesses, political zionism like other varieties of fascism before will fall.