Zionism

May 6, 2011December 11, 2020

Listen Up Paul Howes – the Palestinian Trade Union Coalition calls for BDS

Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS) formed at historic conference

In commemoration of the International Workers’ Day, the Palestinian trade union movement holds its first BDS conference and announces the formation of the:

Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS)

Statement of Principles & Call for International Trade Union Support for BDS

Occupied Palestine, 4 May 2011 – In commemoration of the first of May – a day of workers struggle and international solidarity – the first Palestinian trade union conference for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel (BDS) was held in Ramallah on 30 April 2011, organized by almost the entirety of the Palestinian trade union movement, including federations, professional unions, and trade union blocks representing the entire spectrum of Palestinian political parties. The conference marked a historic event: the formation of the Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS) as the largest coalition of the Palestinian trade union movement. PTUC-BDS will provide the most representative Palestinian reference for international trade unions, promoting their support for and endorsement of the BDS Call, launched by Palestinian civil society in 2005, guided by the guidelines and principles adopted by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), of which PTUC-BDS has become a key component.

The global trade union movement has always played a key and inspiring role in its courageous commitment to human rights and adoption of concrete, ground-breaking, labor-led sanctions against oppressive regimes in a show of solidarity with oppressed peoples around the world. The trade union boycott of apartheid South Africa stands out as a bright example of this tradition of effective solidarity. Trade unions today are taking the lead in defending the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, justice, freedom, equality and the right of return of our refugees as stipulated in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194. Many of them have heeded the call from Palestinian civil society, and its labor movement in particular, to adopt BDS as the most effective form of solidarity with the Palestinians in our struggle to end Israeli occupation and apartheid.

Ending Israel’s multi-tiered system of oppression against the Palestinian people — comprising occupation, colonialism and apartheid — has become a test for humanity. For decades, Israel has enjoyed impunity while continuing its gradual ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, particularly in occupied East Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and the Naqab (Negev) desert; its 44-year-old occupation; its theft of land and natural resources; its colonization and construction of illegal colonial settlements and walls, its siege of Gaza; its relentless denial of refugee rights; its endless wars of aggressions and incarceration of political prisoners; and its wanton killings of civilians and demolition of infrastructure. Israel’s systematic destruction of the Palestinian economy, expropriation of the most fertile agricultural land, as well as humiliation of and racist discrimination against Palestinian workers have all become part of its apartheid reality that should never be tolerated by the world today.

Given the complete failure and unwillingness of hegemonic powers to hold Israel accountable to international law, it is up to people of conscience and international civil society, especially the trade union movement, to take concrete action to end international collusion with decades of violations of international law and human rights by Israel, its institutions and international corporations.

The support of the entirety of the Palestinian trade union movement for a full boycott of Israel,[1] as the most effective form of solidarity with the Palestinian people, was the overarching message of this historic gathering.

The Conference was honored to welcome Joâo Felicio, International Relations Secretary of CUT, the Brazilian trade union representing more than 20 million workers, who expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people and their legitimate rights, and reiterated CUT’s endorsement of BDS. The conference received numerous messages of solidarity from a large number of trade union federations, including the International Federation of Arab Trade Unions, COSATU (South Africa), ICTU (Ireland), and a large number of individual trade unions in Canada, Scotland, Italy, France, Spain, Turkey, Australia, USA and other countries. All major Palestinian political parties also enthusiastically supported the conference and the formation of PTUC-BDS.

The Conference decisively condemned the Histadrut and called on international trade unions to sever all links with it due to its historic and current complicity in Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian rights. The Histadrut has always played a key role in perpetuating Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of racial discrimination by:

Publicly supporting Israel’s violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and other tenets of international law
Maintaining active commercial interests in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise[2]
Allowing Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank to join the organization[3]
Supporting Israel’s war of aggression on besieged Gaza in 2008/9;[4] it has later justified Israel’s massacre of humanitarian relief workers and activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla on 31 May 2010[5]
Illegally withholding over NIS 8.3 billion (approximately $2.43bn) over decades of occupation from wages earned by Palestinian workers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory,[6] deducted for ‘social and other trade union benefits’ that Palestinian laborers from the OPT have never received.

Recalling the trade union maxim “an injury to one is an injury to all”, and given the global trade union movement’s historic role in effective international solidarity with oppressed peoples around the world, PTUC-BDS:

Cordially salutes all global trade unions for their solidarity with the Palestinian people, especially those that have endorsed BDS against Israel,
Calls on trade unions around the world to actively show solidarity with the Palestinian people by implementing creative and context-sensitive BDS campaigns as the most effective way to end Israeli impunity. For example by:
boycotting Israeli and international companies (such as Elbit, Agrexco, Veolia, Alstom, Caterpillar, Northrop Grumman, etc.) and institutions that are complicit with Israel’s occupation and violations of international law,
reviewing pension fund investments with the purpose of divesting from Israel Bonds and all Israeli and international companies and institutions complicit in Israel’s occupation, colonization and apartheid,
pressuring governments to suspend Free Trade Agreements, end arms trade and military relations with Israel with the intention of eventually cutting all diplomatic ties with it,
Calls on port workers around the world to boycott loading/offloading Israeli ships, similar to the heroic step taken by port workers around the world in suspending maritime trade with South Africa in protest against the apartheid regime, and
Calls on trade unions around the world to review and sever all ties with the Histadrut.

Such non-violent measures of accountability must continue until Israel fulfils its obligations under international law in acknowledging the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination, and fully complies with international law by:

Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied since 1967 (including East Jerusalem), as well as dismantling of the illegal wall and colonies,
Recognizing the fundamental right of the Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equity, as well as ending the system of racial discrimination against them, and
Respecting, protecting and supporting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UNGA Resolution 194.

The Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS) is the broadest and most representative body of the Palestinian trade union movement and includes the following organisations: General Union of Palestinian Workers, Federation of Independent Trade Unions (IFU), General Union of Palestinian Women, Union of Palestinian Professional Associations (comprising the professional syndicates of Engineers, Physicians, Pharmacists, Agricultural Engineers, Lawyers, Dentists and Veterinarians), General Union of Palestinian Teachers, General Union of Palestinian Peasants and Co-ops, General Union of Palestinian Writers, Union of Palestinian Farmers, Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE), Union of Public Employees in Palestine-Civil Sector; and all of the trade union blocks that make up the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU): Central Office for the Workers Movement, Progressive Labor Union Front, Workers Unity block, Progressive Workers Block, Workers solidarity organization, Workers Struggle Block, workers resistance block, Workers Liberation Front, Union of Palestinian Workers Struggle Committees, National Initiative (al-Mubadara) Block.

– Palestinian Trade Union Coalition for BDS (PTUC-BDS)

[1] Despite rumors to the contrary, PGFTU’s recently issued statement explicitly calls for a full boycott of Israel and of all its institutions that are complicit in the occupation: http://www.bdsmovement.net/2011/pgftu-clarrification-6559
[2] http://www.whoprofits.org/Company%20Info.php?id=889
[3] http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10379.shtml
[4] http://www.labourstart.org/israel/Histadrut_on_Gaza.pdf
[5] http://www.histadrut.org.il/index.php?page_id=1801
[6] http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/news/2422-israel-owes-over-nis-83-billion-to-palestinian-workers-from-the-occupied-palestinian-territories

Downloads

PTUC-BDS-Statement-of-Principles-and-call-for-support-of-BDS-5-5-2011 (270.5 KiB)

May 4, 2011December 11, 2020

Leila Khaled on May Day 2011.

“Where there is occupation there will always be resistance.”

“We shouldn’t believe the imperialists that they can make a better world. It’s only the working class that can make the world much more possible to live in without injustice and having our freedom. When the working class gets its freedom in any country, it means that it is building a better future for the generations to come.”

EVENT : DEBATE : Should the Left support the BDS campaign against Israel?

For all Victorians, there will be a meeting on the 11 May · 19:00 – 20:30 at Trades Hall, 54 Victoria St, Carlton.

Almost everyone on the Left under 55 can only remember Israel as the Goliath battling the Palestinians David — from the first Lebanon war to the two Intifadas a modern army has faced far weaker opponents. And yet Israel is still supported very strongly by Western governments like our own.

The Left is united in wishing to tackle the issue, and the biggest item on the agenda is BDS a campaign for boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel. But is BDS the best way forward – what should be the Left’s attitude to the global BDS campaign?

Two activists line up to debate the merits of BDS:

KIM BULLIMORE who has worked on the ground in Palestine with the Women’s International Peace Service since 2004 will be putting the case for the Global BDS.

Israeli-born SOL SALBE, a campaigner for Palestinian human rights in this country for 42 years will be putting case for a more selective pinpointed approach.

Former trade union activist BILL DELLER, who used to chair the Victorian Peace Network has agreed to chair the debate.

**********

This event is part of the New International Bookshop’s Underground Talk series. Entry is $5/ $2 concession.

Palestine / Israel Links

AIPAC does not speak for me – Hedy Epstein:

The vicious discrimination brought to bear against Palestinians in the occupied territories deserves no applause from members of Congress attending the AIPAC conference. Instead, they should raise basic questions with Israeli officials about decades of inferior rights endured by Palestinians both inside Israel and the occupied territories.

Mohammed al-Dura’s father wins slander case against Israeli in French court
Out of a population of 1.6 million, 25 Gazans protested OBL’s killing.

The crowd included al-Qaida sympathizers as well as students who said they opposed bin Laden’s ideology, but were angry at the United States for killing him and consider him a martyr.

Bin Laden (and his sponsors): any political significance?
US is desperate for a victory and this one will be a chance, although the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are going terribly for the US. Obama yesterday basically signed the death sentence of the Pakistani president for thanking him for his role. How dumb is that? Even if he thought to falsely claim that the US did not violate Pakistani sovereignty near the capital of Pakistan. Public opinion surveys will soon give a tremendous boost to Obama,
Report recommends a ‘measured response’ towards Palestinian unity in order to keep the US on side, in contrast to Nutanyahoo’s hysterical reaction.
The 1936-1939 Revolt
Palestine in the Middle East: Opposing Neoliberalism and US Power

A central component of this vision is the normalization and integration of Israel into the Middle East. The US envisions a Middle East resting upon Israeli capital in the West and Gulf capital in the East, underpinning a low-wage, neoliberal zone that spans the region. What this means is that Israel’s historic destruction of Palestinian national rights must be accepted and blessed by all states in the region. In the place of real Palestinian self-determination (first and foremost the right of return of refugees), a nominal artificial state will be established in the dependent islands of territory across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This goal is an essential pre-requisite of US strategy in the region. Our political activities must be informed by this understanding if we are to successfully build effective solidarity movements to confront and turn back this project.

Raja Khalidi and Sobhi Samour present ‘a review of the neoliberal worldview that underpins new Palestinian political and economic thinking and which, in our view, endangers the Palestinian national liberation agenda by errors both of commission and omission.’

US Imperialist Links

Making the World Safe for Terrorism

– the U.S. has blended its battle against terrorism with preservation of American global interests. Each blended component contradicts the other and creates confusing missions in U.S. foreign and military policies.
…
The Middle East can be conveniently divided between the nations that the U.S. confronts and have been antagonistic to Radical Islam and the nations that the U.S. befriends and whose policies have contributed to terrorist actions against the United States.

The former nations, The Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, occupy the northern area of the Middle East. The latter nations, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Yemen occupy the Middle East’s southern frontier.

Fomenting nationalism with murder : While nationalism sweeps the US with the death of Bin Laden, Muslim Americans worry bigotry against them will persist.

Afghanistan / Pakistan Links

‘Khost Province has long been a breadbasket for Afghanistan because of its multiple agricultural growing seasons. It’s also a historical power base for insurgent networks run by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani. “Hekmatyar and Haqqani and their forces just flow back and forth through both sides,” said Lt. Col. Jesse Pearson, the battalion commander of Task Force Spader, of the border with Pakistan.’

US funding of the very nasty and still existent Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, “a particularly fanatical fundamentalist and woman-hater.”21 According to journalist Tim Weiner, “[Hekmatyar’s] followers first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil. CIA and State Department officials I have spoken with call him ‘scary,’ ‘vicious,’ ‘a fascist,’ ‘definite dictatorship material.’”

Hahhaa … this is rich : ‘Guantánamo Bay files: Pakistan’s ISI spy service listed as terrorist group’

Around 18 months after the fall of the Taliban, another memo claims, Iranian intelligence gave a former Taliban commander and Hekmatyar US$2m to fund “anti-coalition militia” activities. Citing further intelligence reports, the file says: “In December 2005, representatives of Ismail Khan, former governor of Herat and minister of water and power in Afghanistan, met with two Pakistanis and three Iranians to discuss the planning of terrorist acts and to create better lines of communication between the [Hekmatyar group] and Taliban.”

This latter claim appears highly speculative as Khan is a long-term enemy of Hekmatyar and the Taliban – in 2009 he narrowly survived a suicide attack for which insurgents claimed responsibility.

in consideration of the fact that

‘By 1987, the annual supply of arms had reached 65,000 tons, and a “ceaseless stream” of CIA and Pentagon officials were visiting Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) headquarters in Rawalpindi and helping to plan mujahideen operations:

At any one time during the Afghan fighting season, as many as 11 ISI teams trained and supplied by the CIA accompanied mujahideen across the border to supervise attacks, according to Yousaf and Western sources. The teams attacked airports, railroads, fuel depots, electricity pylons, bridges and roads….

CIA operations officers helped Pakistani trainers establish schools for the mujahideen in secure communications, guerrilla warfare, urban sabotage and heavy weapons.31

Although the CIA claimed that the purpose was to attack military targets, mujahideen trained in these techniques, and using chemical and electronic-delay bomb timers supplied by the U.S., carried out numerous car bombings and assassination attacks in Kabul itself.32’

May 3, 2011December 11, 2020

Holding to Human Rights in Marrickville

Fiona Byrne keeps the faith on the universal relevance of human rights and the oppression of Palestinian people.

I am proud to have been one of five Greens and four ALP councillors on Marrickville who took the global message to local government.

We believe that we represent citizens who would not want their money being used to support the on-going dispossession of the Palestinian people.

We led Marrickville into support of the global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, a grassroots movement, aimed at pushing the Israeli government to comply with international humanitarian law.

Rupert Murdoch, Barry O’Farrell, and, sadly, some of the leaders of the Labor Party felt differently.

They clearly believe that Australia is best served by the cone of silence on Middle Eastern policy that pervades our politics and our media, whether it is Israel, Syria or any other country where the struggle for human rights continues.

We do not agree.

I’m proud to have recently heard the story from my parents’ homeland of 12 department store workers in Dublin who in the mid-’80s went on strike for two-and-a-half years for the right to not handle goods from apartheid South Africa.

Initially they were vilified, but as the sanctions movement grew their courageous stand gave hope and strength to those fighting for their human rights half a world away.

Relevant Links

BARGHOUTI: Setting the record straight on BDS –

The Marrickville Council was on the right side of history when it first chose to endorse the global BDS campaign. It remains so by insisting on Palestinian rights, despite the tactical setback. Brave Australians had done the same when responding to the calls from the oppressed South African majority under apartheid. We expect no less from conscientious Australians today in response to our urgent appeal for effective solidarity. I have no doubt that one day commentators and activists will mark Marrickville’s decision as the true beginning of mainstreaming BDS in Australia and of finally standing up to Israel’s lobby and for the rights of Palestinians.

Palestine debate widens despite council BDS backdown

The campaign against Marrickville Council’s support for BDS shows just how worried apologists for Israel are about the growing global support for an ethical local policy towards Israel based on its treatment of Palestinians.

Palestine / Israel Links

Facebook campaigns launched for Palestinian boycott of Israeli products
Israeli Foreign Minister urges boycott of PA – Hamas government

The developments on Wednesday represent an unambiguous failure of Israel’s long-standing policy of ‘divide and rule’. It was in pursuit of such a strategy that Israel began to fund Hamas in the late seventies and eighties, in order to undermine the secular Palestinian leadership of the PLO. This strategy appears to have backfired dramatically, in a similar fashion to Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which resulted in the creation of the other asymmetric threat on Israel’s borders, the Shi’ia Hizbollah movement.

In retrospect, such a development was always likely in view of the utter intransigence of Israeli negotiators revealed by the Palestinian Papers. The leaked documents reveal a supine, if not desperate, Palestinian negotiating team making sweeping concessions on refugees right to return, the legal status of the Temple Mount and illegal settlements in East Jerusalem, to no avail. Such obduracy, arguably far in excess of what hardline Zionist Vladamir Jabotinsky was recommending in his doctrine of the Iron Wall, recalls Golda Meir’s stance towards Anwar Sadat in 1971, a stance that led inexorably to the Yom Kippur War.

Gaza is a symbol of occupation, thanks to Israel : Israel’s Pavlovian response to Palestinian reconciliation, which included the usual threats of boycott, is the result of the ingrained anxiety of people who no longer control the process

Bassem Tamimi: “Our destiny is to resist”

The occupation is continuous in Israeli society and this is why they lose — because they try to force us to accept them as an occupier, and that will never happen. We don’t have any problem with Jewish people. Our problem is with Zionism. We don’t hate them on the other side; we simply demand that they end the occupation of their minds. The separation between us is between different ways of thinking, not between land. If we change our ways of thought and remove the mentality of occupation from our minds — not just from the land — we can live together and build a paradise.
…
The army is determined to push us toward violent resistance. They realize that the popular resistance we are waging with Israelis and internationals from the outside, they can’t use their tanks and bombs. And this way of struggling gives us a good reputation. Suicide bombing was a big mistake because it allowed Israel to say we are terrorists and then to use that label to force us from our land. We know they want a land without people — they only want the land and the water — so our destiny is to resist. They give us no other choice.

April 29, 2011December 11, 2020

Palestinians Talk About Unity

Responding to popular pressure from Palestinian civil society, including a growing youth movement, the two main rival Palestinian factions, Fateh and Hamas, have agreed to an Egyptian-brokered reconciliation deal after years of failed attempts at ending their divisions. Although details of the agreement have yet to be made public, it reportedly calls for an interim unity government and elections within a year. Join us as we examine the significance of this development, and the ramifications it might have on the overall political situation just a month before Israeli PM Netanyahu’s speech before the U.S. Congress.

GUESTS:

Ali Abunimah is an analyst & media commentator, as well as the author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.

Lina Al-Sharif lives in Gaza where she is a senior English Literature student at the Islamic University in Gaza as well as an active blogger and writer.

Fadi Quran lives in the West Bank and is a coordinator within various youth movements as well as the founder of an alternative energy startup. A graduate of Standford University, Quran is currently pursuing a Masters degree in Human Rights and Constitutional Law.

Yousef Munayyer (Guest Moderator) is the Executive Director of the Jerusalem Fund and the Palestine Center in Washington D.C.

Unity is an illusion unless it is representative of the call of Palestinian civil society themselves, as Ali says, for the end of occupation and apartheid, for equal rights for Palestinians in Israel and recognition of right of Palestinians to return to their lands. The unity the unelected ‘leaders’ can offer is worthless if it isn’t steadfast to the people’s vision.

The agreement signed last night between Fatah and Hamas does not represent unity. The reconciliation agreement represents a move to appease growing popular movements on the streets of Gaza and the West Bank which are demanding real unity, one that might not even involve the PA and Hamas, in order to combat Israeli occupation.

Declaring an Independent Bantustan

The drive for recognition is led by Salam Fayyad, the appointed Prime Minister of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA). It is based on the decision made during the 1970s by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to adopt the more flexible program of a “two-state solution.” This program maintains that the Palestinian question, the essence of the Arab-Israeli conflict, can be resolved with the establishment of an “independent state” in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital. In this program Palestinian refugees would return to the state of “Palestine” but not to their homes in Israel, which defines itself as “the state of Jews.” Yet “independence” does not deal with this issue, neither does it heed calls made by the 1.2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel to transform the struggle into an anti-apartheid movement since they are treated as third-class citizens.

Israeli leaders reject Palestinian unity deal

Khaleda Jarrar, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, told Al Jazeera that the latest development represented an opportunity for Palestinians.

“I think it is a good opportunity for reconciliation, especially with the Arab revolutions around and the Palestinian youth movement which has started to pressure both Fatah and Hamas to really put an end to the divisions.

“This time we hope that it will be a real reconciliation, it will work because of the changes [in the region] and the internal pressure from the Palestinian people,” she said.
…
But Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, stressed he would retain control over foreign policy.

He added that he remained ready to talk peace with Netanyahu if Israel halted its settlement construction on occupied lands and said the caretaker government would not include Hamas activists.

“The people will be independents, technocrats, not affiliated with any factions,” Abbas told a group of Israeli businessmen and retired security chiefs.

He said the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which he heads and to which Hamas does not belong, would still be responsible for “handling politics, negotiations”.

“Dislike, agree or disagree (with Hamas) — they’re our people. You, Mr Netanyahu (are) our partner,” Abbas, speaking in English, told his Israeli audience.

Palestinian Unity: Dividends and Discontents

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted swiftly and furiously to reports of Palestinian reconciliation by reiterating what he had said a month ago: that Abbas could not have peace with both Israel and Hamas.

If Bibi meant this as a threat, it seems an odd one, since he has steadfastly refused all moves toward peace. His tactic has been to ensure that settlement construction continues, thus making it politically impossible for Abbas, in the wake of Obama’s determination to obtain a freeze on settlements, to return to talks and then shedding crocodile tears for the Palestinians “refusal” to come and talk to him.

This tactic has killed a peace process that, after twenty years of settlement expansion and massive tightening of the occupation, was already on life support. So, Bibi essentially gave Abbas a choice between peace with Hamas and no peace at all. Abbas, then, made the only call he could.

Erekat on unity: respect our democracy

“I have met Netanyahu in Washington and in Jerusalem, and it led to nothing,” Abbas said. “All he wants to talk about is security. I understand the Israeli concern, but I won’t have Israeli forces in the Palestinian state. Netanyahu wanted an Israeli army in the West Bank for another forty years. That means the occupation continues.”
…
Among other Palestinian officials present were former head of security Jibril Rajoub, who was rarely seen together with Abu Mazen in recent years, and former chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, who added his own comment to questions from the Israeli media regarding the reconciliation agreement. “This is about peace, but also about democracy,” he said. “We respect the democratic choices of the Israeli people. We ask Israel to respect ours.”

Among those present on the Israeli side were former head of Mossad, Danny Yatom, former Labor Minister Moshe Shahal, buisness tycon Idan Ofer and Adina Bar Shalom daughter of Shas leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

“I’m glad I came to Ramallah today,” said Bar Shalom. “I feel that we have a partner.”

Alistair Crooke looks behind Israel’s ‘security’ hasbara and tilt against a Palestinian state:

If a Palestinian state threatens to undermine Zionism in these ways, it is not surprising that it is not on offer. It is simply implausible to expect it come about through Palestinians negotiating with no bargaining power — because to create a sovereign and legitimate state would require that the Palestinians force Israel to give something which many see not to be in their interest to concede: The abandonment of Zionism. Any concession in this area (of Zionism) inevitably opens a can of worms and the risk of igniting civil war between the various strands of Zionism. It suits Israel better to have a Palestinian “state” without borders, so they can keep negotiating about borders and count on the induced uncertainty to maintain Palestinian and international quiescence.

Fatah and Hamas: Tectonic plates start to shift : A future environment composed of free Egyptians, Jordanians and even possibly Syrians could well fashion Israel’s borders
It’s my fault that Hamas is now working with Fatah?
Netanyahu presses for U.S. action over Fatah-Hamas deal Nutanyahoo using desperate rhetoric:

“Israel would not recognize any government in the world that included members from Al-Qaida,” Netanyahu said.

Israel can redeem itself by recognizing a Palestinian state

Palestine / Israel Links

Egyptian youth call for million-man marches to support Palestinians
Egypt FM: Gaza border crossing to be permanently opened
Palestinian………….. I was born
14.2% of the Palestinian work force was employed in settlements in 2010.
Sign the petition to end tax deductible ‘charity’ contributions to illegal Israeli settlements
World Federation of Trade Unions statement on May Day, 2011
New Israeli plan to build 386 settlement units in Sheikh Jarrah revealed
Israel’s mythological backbone unmasked: ‘The Invention of the Jewish People’ by Shlomo Sand
Israeli rabbi calls for Israel’s Palestinian citizens to be “encouraged” to move to Saudi Arabia and Libya
Hasbaroid Kantor: “No other nation faces calls for its destruction or dismantlement, justifies the killing of its citizens or faces a boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign. These people clearly single out the only Jewish State in the world and this is intolerable.”
#BDS Victory: Swedish Pension Funds call on Motorola to stop profiting from Israel’s occupation
#BDS: Appel BDS Maroc
Campus BDS Heating Up This Spring!
Israeli forces fired on an area east of Al-Bureij camp in central Gaza Thursday evening, injuring four, including a woman and two children
Oh how lovely zionism is – Israel demolishes home of Palestinian-Israeli, then bills him $150,000 for the cost of demolition.

Syria Links

Syria: “The Revolution is Continuing in Daraa; Are You With Us?”
Hundreds quit ruling party in protest over crackdown
The Man behind “Syria Revolution 2011? Facebook-Page Speaks Out

Libya Links

GOODIES AND BADDIES

The idea of “humanitarian intervention” which is behind the decision to attack in Libya is one of the central beliefs of our age.

It divides people. Some see it as a noble, disinterested use of Western power. Others see it as a smokescreen for a latter-day liberal imperialism.

Shahin and Juan Cole, The Women’s Movement in the Middle East

Other Links

You People Engaging article on Pakistan and identity by Robin Yassin-Kassab
Long live the Queen?

Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics

I recommend the views of a philosopher friend, Peter Slezak, in Australia. A few years ago he surprised his left-liberal friends by voicing support for keeping the Queen. Royalty serves a useful purpose, he said: the pomp and ceremony helps undermine respect for state authority.

Superman now ashamed to speak up for America
“The former head of an agency accused of torture and human rights abuses is expected to be a guest at Friday’s royal wedding, the Guardian has learned.
Sheikh Khalifa Bin Ali al-Khalifa is a former head of Bahrain’s National Security Agency (NSA) and will attend the wedding in his role as the current Bahraini ambassador to London.”
“Royal Wedding” Showcard Cartoon
Fascism in the US : Bradley Manning Protest video stirs up White House
UK fascism with a feudal flavour RT @alexlobov: Thoughtcrime! RT @brownisthecolor Police arrest activists across UK ahead of #RoyalWedding for THINKING abt protesting
We cannot have a divide between Aboriginal people being created by the media in the interests of Government. Two Aboriginal people are not the embodiment of Aboriginal people, they are two Aboriginal people. People, who due to their profiles, are having what should be a personal issue dragged out in the public eye.

April 27, 2011August 24, 2022

The Palestinian State at the End of the Rainbow

Some of the Middle East elephant’s mandarins are signalling a major land grab if Palestinians request recognition of a Palestinian state in the UN in September.

Danon favors responding to a Palestinian declaration of statehood by annexing all of Area C, which includes all the West Bank’s Jewish settlements and empty land. He said Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu should follow the example of his predecessors Levi Eshkol, who annexed eastern Jerusalem, and Menachem Begin, who annexed the Golan Heights.

Contra criminal and neoziocon Elliott Abrams has a devious plan:

‘Israel should head off the U.N. vote at the pass, he says, by having Bibi proclaim to Congress that Israel accepts Palestinian statehood. But that would leave half a million Israelis in Palestinian hands without Palestine being able to protect them. This would require Israel to maintain all the present security measures until Israel and Palestine have fully agreed on peace. Sure, this is a ploy, but not a bad one for Israel because it might avoid an international blessing for a Palestinian state.’

There is little chance that Nutanyahoo will offer a viable sovereign Palestinian state. His proposals to date have prescribed formalisation of the existing bantustans with Israel retaining control of borders and the Jordan Valley.

Netanyahu has already begun staking out Israel’s redlines. Speaking to reporters on March 9, Netanyahu said,

“Our security border is here on the Jordan and our defense line begins here. If that line is breached they will be able to infiltrate terrorists, rockets and missiles all the way to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, and Be’er Sheva and throughout the country. There is no alternative to the IDF’s line of defense. Therefore, in any future situation, and I say in any future arrangement as well, the IDF must stay here, i.e. along the Jordan River. This is the State of Israel’s insurance policy. If this was true before the major unrest now shaking the Middle East and the entire region, it is doubly true today. The IDF must remain along the Jordan River.

Yet Nutanyahoo doesn’t have the political capital in the Knesset to take on the fanatical illegal settlers. Israel covets the land and resources of the West Bank, particularly the water, and did I mention the land? While the US supports Israeli intransigence there is no chance that a Palestinian state would be formed in anything other than name. Nutanyahoo’s, and indeed any other Israeli leader’s strategy will be for the status quo – unctuous bleatings of negotiated outcomes and fake peace processes, while daily, illegal Israeli settlers supported by the IOF nibble away at the West Bank, continuing Israel’s criminal colonisation and slow, disgusting genocide.

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon outlined the status quo position in a March 3 interview in the magazine Besheva:

“Our intention is to leave the situation as it is: autonomous management of civil affairs, and if they want to call it a state, let them call it that. If they want to call it an empire, by all means. We intend to keep what exists now and let them call it whatever they want. . . . Our approach is steadfastness, development, construction, strengthening and so on. This is our approach and this is what we do as a government.”

While the US State Department argues for ongoing direct negotiations between the two (unequal) parties (and further, signals illegitimacy of the mooted Fatah/Hamas caretaker government on the grounds of Hamas’ ‘terrorism’) and thus by default bolsters the Israeli preferred indefinite extension of the status quo, US strategic regional interests are affected. General James Mattis, Commander, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), in testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, March 1, 2011 said:

This is a defining moment for the people of the region and, by extension, a critical moment for Central Command to remain engaged with our partners and to clear away obstacles to peace and prosperity. On that note, while Israel and the Palestinian territories are not in my assigned theater, lack of progress toward a comprehensive Middle East peace affects U.S. and CENTCOM security interests in the region.

I believe the only reliable path to lasting peace in this region is a viable two-state solution between Israel and Palestine. This issue is one of many that is exploited by our adversaries in the region, and it is used as a recruiting tool for extremist groups. The lack of progress also creates friction with regional partners and creates political challenges for advancing our interests by marginalizing moderate voices in the region. By contrast, substantive progress on the peace process would improve CENTCOM’s opportunity to work with our regional partners and to support multilateral security efforts.

As Obama prepares for the next election, it’s unlikely he will apply adequate pressure to Nutanyahoo for a viable Palestinian state and risk his domestic political capital before a hostile Israel lobby, despite the forebodings of his defence advisors. The rainbow’s end is an illusion.

More broadly, the goal for Palestinians should not be “unity” among factions, but unity of goals for the Palestinian people. What is the purpose and platform of the planned “transitional government” other than merely to exist? A real Palestinian strategy that unites all segments of the Palestinian people has been articulated by the BDS movement:

(a) an end to occupation and colonization of the 1967 territories; (b) full equality and an end to all forms of discrimination against Palestinians in the 1948 areas (“Israel”); and (c) full respect and implementation of the rights of Palestinian refugees.

Notably neither Fatah Abbas nor Hamas have endorsed this campaign, and neither has articulated a realistic strategy aimed at restoring the rights of all Palestinians.

White House seeks info on Palestinian agreement

“The United States supports Palestinian reconciliation on terms which promote the cause of peace. Hamas, however, is a terrorist organization which targets civilians,” White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement.

“To play a constructive role in achieving peace, any Palestinian government must accept the Quartet principles and renounce violence, abide by past agreements, and recognize Israel’s right to exist,” he said.

Palestinian reconciliation could work to Israel’s advantage

: Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel believe Netanyahu will be able to use the newly signed unity deal as proof that Abbas doesn’t really want peace.
…
Renewed relations between Hamas and Fatah, however limited, could shed a different light on Abbas’ intentions, and Netanyahu, who is due to speak before both houses of Congress next month, will be able to present the agreement as proof that Abbas doesn’t really want peace.

Hamas Fatah Reconciliation – what does it mean?
A separate peace
Lieberman: Palestinian unity will lead to Hamas West Bank takeover
The Palestinian Facebook Movement: Can it take up the baton of revolution?

More at The Real News

Israel / Palestine Links

Israel needs a real left wing, not a repackaged right
Egypt gas pipeline to Israel and Jordan explodes
U.S.: Peace with Israel essential to future of Egyptian people

Over half of the Egpytian public want to scrap the existing peace deal with Israel, according to a new survey undertaken by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The poll measured attitudes in Egypt three months after the start of the uprising in Cairo. The U.S. State Department said in response to the survey that “the Egyptian army has pledged to uphold international agreements forged by Egypt, including the 1979 peace agreement with Israel.”
…
The survey said that 54 percent of Egyptians supported the annulment of the peace agreement with Jerusalem, and that just 36 percent wanted to maintain the peace agreement with Israel.

The annulment figure rose to six out of ten Egyptians when people in lower income brackets were asked. Further, 59 percent of respondents in lower educational brackets also supported negating the agreement. Among wealthy and well-educated Egyptians, the figures for those in favor of annulling peace relations with Israel are 45 percent and 40 percent.
…
Regarding the United States, only 22 percent of Egyptians think that the US played a positive role in the uprising, in contrast to 39 percent who think that the Americans exerted a negative influence; 35 percent think that the US had no influence.

President Barack Obama, it turns out, has an image problem in the Middle East and not just in Israel: Almost two-thirds of Egyptians (64 percent ) report that they do not trust Obama’s global policy. Further, 52 percent of respondents did not like President Obama’s responses to changes in the Middle East. Less than half (45 percent ) of Egyptians are happy with the U.S. President’s performance in the region.

Four out of ten Egyptians want to maintain close relations with the U.S., yet a similar number want their country to move away from the Americans. Only 15 percent of Egyptians want to strengthen relations between their country and the U.S. in years ahead.

Leichhardt sits on fence in Israeli boycott
‘A deep-rooted hatred of the British’: How Israelis ‘armed junta’ in Falklands conflict
With Bookings on The Rise, Israel’s Concert Industry Breathes a Sigh of Relief

You could blame Facebook. What typically happens when an artist — of any genre or stature — announces a show in Israel, the act’s Facebook page or website is bombarded with posts calling on said artist to cancel the show out of protest and/or boycott the country entirely.

When Montgomery comes to Nabi Saleh

The detention of Tamimi is not a formality: under Israeli military decree 101 he is being charged with attempting “verbally or otherwise, to influence public opinion in the Area in a way that may disturb the public peace or public order.” As in Syria, this is an “emergency decree” disguised as protecting public security. It carries a sentence of 10 years.

Young Mizrahi Israelis’ open letter to Arab peers
Facebook Campaign Launched Asking Moby to Cancel Gig With Pic.Nic in Apartheid Israel
Norman Finkelstein refutes Palestinian war crimes
Mike Marqusee on Mahmoud Darwish, the poet of the Palestinian people
Fascist Israeli police throw a tear gas canister inside poetry tent at Palfest, Silwan.
Medical missions at the rate of one per week are facilitated by the PCRF headquarters. Last year, the PCRF organised 60 medical missions to Palestine and helped save the lives of hundreds of children.
Modes of Control: Easter at Qalandiya

Other Links

Is This What Makes America Exceptional?
One Surprising Reason People May Believe Bizarre Conspiracy Theories