Ultraracism == Ultrazionism

Palestine / Israel Links

Louis Theroux’s “Ultra-Zionists”: A chance to see what we’re up against

Bottom line – it’s a great watch, maybe even important. Particularly for viewers abroad. Because these nutters, who are a handful of extremists, are calling the shots in the West Bank today. And they can do whatever they want because government after government in Israel allows them to. And guess who allows those Israeli governments to do that? American president after American president.

This whole thing is worth watching, if only to get to the last minute of it. It’s when Louis interviews for the final time Daniel Luria, of the right wing movement Ateret Cohanim, which settles Jews in East Jerusalem. “There’s Jewish life in united Jerusalem”, he says to Louis as he looks him in the eye, “and there’s nothing – nothing – that you or the world can do about it. Nothing”.

That’s it in a nutshell. But if I may slightly correct Luria’s observation: the world has never tried to do anything about it to begin with. They’re enablers.

Hopefully, some viewers abroad will finally take responsibility and try to change that.

Israel Bombs Medical Supply Building — Ken O’Keefe in Gaza, Feb. 8, 2011
‘Rawabi developer says he will uproot JNF donated trees’
Rejoinder to Open Letter to JNF Leadership
Jewish Voice for Peace chief threatened over pro-Palestinian campaign
Rawabi: A national project that defeats its purpose
11 Palestinians wounded by Israeli attacks on Gaza Strip

Gaza, Feb. 9 (BNA) Eleven Palestinians were wounded in Israeli fighter jets attacks, the F 16 attacked several targets in Gaza Strip earlier today.
According to the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA) nine citizens including two women and four children were taken to Kamal Adwan Hospital after the missile attack on a workshop in north-east of Gaza. The bombing caused severe damage on a carpentry store leading it to burst into fire, as well as a pharmaceutical storehouse that belonged to the Health Ministry. The fighter jets targeted several other locations of Gaza, including a farming land east of Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, fishermen and west of Khan Younis. MYZ/E M.

Friends of Israel should thank Ronald Reagan
U.K. urges Israel to tone down ‘belligerent’ rhetoric amid Mideast uprisings – Hague refers to the fake peace process? what a joke.
BDS promises a just peace, unlike current US strategy
West Bank Streets Quiet as Palestinian Authority Suppresses Protests
Palestinian negotiator backtracks on CIA charge
Red Cross tents demolished in village
Partner of gay shooting victim to be deported

Egypt Links

Why Egypt will never be an Islamic state
Lazarus the Computer Riseth (with photos)!
Omar Suleiman, “Egypt’s Torturer-in-Chief,” Tied to False Iraq WMD Tortured “Intel”
Hasty’ reforms will lead to chaos: Egypt
Mubarak’s Fate in Military Hands
Egyptians remain stalwart in defiance
Allies Press U.S. to Go Slow on Egypt
Egypt VP: Protests must end soon
Obama’s man in Cairo
Why Egypt will never be an Islamic state
U.S. lawmakers now back Egypt aid

Influential U.S. lawmakers have eased their threats to cut aid to Egypt, reflecting a growing consensus in Washington for preserving U.S. leverage with Egypt’s powerful military amid the country’s civil upheaval.

The shift comes as Obama administration officials, the Pentagon and powerful pro-Israel groups in Washington urge continued aid to Egypt, about $1.5 billion a year, mostly in military assistance.

Although protesters in Cairo are demanding that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resign immediately, the Obama administration is urging a more gradual reform process, headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman, that would allow Mubarak to remain in office for now.

U.S. officials believe the military should play a crucial role in that process and deserves continued support. Pro-Israel groups fear that a loss of aid could jeopardize Israel’s security.

Just last week, a chorus of lawmakers backed protesters’ demands for Mubarak’s resignation, and some called for an aid freeze to force changes.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had earlier said “all options are on the table,” including aid cuts. But in an interview Tuesday, he said that now “is just not the right time to threaten that.”

McCain said he was concerned that a reduction in aid might affect Egypt’s willingness to cooperate with Israel.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees foreign aid, declared last week that he would not vote for aid to Egypt, adding that he knew no lawmaker who would.

This week, however, Leahy appeared to soften his position, saying through a spokesman that he would oppose any new aid “until the situation is resolved.”

White House officials said earlier in the crisis that they would review the aid if the Mubarak government didn’t move promptly toward political reform. But within a few days, officials clarified that they weren’t considering cuts to aid.

Administration officials are trying to preserve their relationship with the military, which they see as vital for carrying out political reforms.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates praised the Egyptian military Tuesday for its restraint and emphasized the need for the Egyptian government to move at a “steady pace” to enact promised reforms.

The Arab Nationalist Reawakening in Egypt and Beyond
Live blog Feb 9 – Egypt protests

Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s vice president, tells ABC news that Egypt currently lacks the necessary “culture of democracy” for the changes demanded by protesters.

The White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has called his comments “particularly unhelpful”.

Suleiman also blamed the protests for paralysing the Egyptian economy. “The big presence in Tahrir Square and some of the satellite stations which insult Egypt … make citizens hesitant to go to work,” he said.

Suleiman added: “We cannot bear this situation for a long time and we must end this crisis as soon as possible”.

The western companies propping up Mubarak’s Egypt regime
The Egyptian revolution establishes a new social contract and values by Nawal El Saadawi –

“This is such a gala for all of us, for all of us, the festival of freedom, dignity, justice, creativity and rebellion.” “A young man named Ahmed Galal said, “We are a popular revolt that establishes a new social contract, not just demands, and our slogan of this revolution is ‘equality of freedom of social justice.’ The people who made this revolution are the ones who should put the rules for the new governance, choose the transitional government, select a National Committee to change the constitution, the committee of wise men of the revolution, so as not to allow opportunists (the owners of wealth and power) to impose on us committees of wise men who did not participate with us in this revolt.”

Robert Fisk: Week 3, day 16, and with every passing hour, the regime digs in deeper
Activist’s tears may be game changer in Egypt
Egypt: Kareem Amer latest to go missing
Wael Ghonim – a new face of Egypt’s revolution
The Muslim Brotherhood uncovered
Anzalone: The Muslim Brotherhood Myth
Egypt: New accreditation rules; military obstructs media
The Egyptian Army: also known as the surrenderers
WikiLeaks: Israel’s secret hotline to the man tipped to replace Mubarak

Mr Suleiman, who is widely tipped to take over from Hosni Mubarak as president, was named as Israel’s preferred candidate for the job after discussions with American officials in 2008.

As a key figure working for Middle East peace, he once suggested that Israeli troops would be “welcome” to invade Egypt to stop weapons being smuggled to Hamas terrorists in neighbouring Gaza.

What will become of Israel if Mubarak falls? – Israeli hasbara
Israel and the Palestine Papers: An Exercise in Etymology

The Palestine papers are groundbreaking documents in more than one way. They show that Palestinian negotiators approached the negotiations with a set of serious propositions. But they not only demonstrate that Israel in fact has a partner for peace talks—they also present Israel with a choice. Indeed, Israel can either reclaim its democratic values and drop the transfer plan, or it can drop the pretenses and assert its position as the regional peace refuser.

A Friendship of Values, Not Convenience – hasbara drivel

Wikileaks Links

US air force backtracks over WikiLeaks ban

Other Links

“What Does the Future Hold for Syria?” By George Saghir
AP IMPACT: At CIA, grave mistakes, then promotions – As the empire exculpates its crooks at the top, so does it protect (and promote!) its flunkeys.
Tunisian regime seeks emergency powers against mass protests
Gillard delivers indigenous report card
US House defeats anti-terrorism powers extension
Phone hacking victim tells her story – how Murdoch ruined the life of an ordinary Australian
Statement on Aboriginal rights by leading Australians
Australian PM tells Aboriginals to help themselves
Commemorating the indigenous resistance to invasion – Tunnerminnerwait and Mauboyheenner

The Empire Dithers

Whilst the US will strive to ensure that a government friendly to imperialism and neocolonial interests will continue in Egypt, P. J. Crowley defined the stance of the US early after the beginning of the mass demonstrations in Tahrir Square and elsewhere in Egypt.

Crowley… on the 26/1:

‘We are monitoring the situation in Egypt closely. The United States supports the fundamental right of expression and assembly for all people. All parties should exercise restraint, and we call on the Egyptian authorities to handle these protests peacefully.

As Secretary Clinton said in Doha, people across the Middle East – like people everywhere – are seeking a chance to contribute and to have a role in the decisions that will shape their lives. We want to see reform occur, in Egypt and elsewhere, to create greater political, social, and economic opportunity consistent with people’s aspirations. The United States is a partner of Egypt and the Egyptian people in this process, which we believe should unfold in a peaceful atmosphere.

We have raised with governments in the region the need for reforms and greater openness and participation in order to respond to their people’s aspirations – and we will continue to do so.’

Initially the Israel FM said “We are closely monitoring the events, but we do not interfere in the internal affairs of a neighboring state.”

While in Haaretz:

‘Israel expects the Egyptian government to weather the protests roiling the country and to remain in power, an Israeli Cabinet minister said Thursday, providing Israel’s first official assessment of the crisis affecting its powerful southern neighbor.’

‘Eli Shaked, a former Israeli ambassador to Cairo, said it is in Israel’s interest for Mubarak’s regime to survive since the alternatives, ranging from an Islamic government to the secular opposition, would be far less friendly to the Jewish state.

“I am very much afraid that that they wouldn’t be as committed to peace with Israel, and that would be bad for Egypt, bad for Israel and bad for the U.S. and the West in general,” he said.’

Once Nutanyahoo determined a racist angle would be most powerful, off he went. (I really loathe quoting Judith Miller at Foxnews, but still)

‘Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Mubarak by phone early in the crisis, the Israeli press reported, assuring him of Israel’s continuing support. Netanyahu, breaking almost a week of silence about the mass protests and riots sweeping Egypt, on Monday warned Islamic extremists could well fill a political vacuum and threaten the peace between the two nations.

And we now have a divergence appearing in the US ranks, with ex-CIA special US envoy Wisner spouting a more Israel friendly line, to the annoyance of Crowley:

‘Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak must stay in power for the time being to steer changes needed for political transition, U.S. President Barack Obama’s special envoy for Egypt said on Saturday.

“We need to get a national consensus around the pre-conditions for the next step forward. The president must stay in office to steer those changes,” Frank Wisner told the Munich Security Conference.

State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said Wisner “didn’t coordinate” his comments with the administration, and he was not in officially representing the U.S. following his trip to Cairo ‘

Obama yesterday:

‘He said the United States can’t force anything on Mr. Mubarak, but said that “what we can do is we can say, the time is now for you to start making change in that country.”’

Is the US is having a bet each way? Certainly, they are certainly dithering.

If the US cut off military aid, would the army immediately side with the people whom they should be defending and not the regime?

It’s extremely dangerous imho for dissenters if either Mubarak or Suleiman or another of the NDP camp continue to lead until elections are held, as these strongmen thenwould have ample opportunity to crack down further. There would also be more potential for the forthcoming elections to remain sham or be delayed and for opposition parties to be repressed and banned once more. All for in the name of ‘stability and security’, of course.

Emboldened by concessions from the regime and admant upon Mubarak’s departure, the protestors remain in Tahrir Square for the week of resistance. Obama is realistic about the Muslim Brotherhood though does not demand Mubarak leave immediately. Hillary Clinton channels Crowley’s earlier statements about Wisner:

The US President yesterday described the Muslim Brotherhood as well organised with strains of anti-US ideology, but dismissed the group as just one faction. “They don’t have majority support in Egypt,” Mr Obama said.

Optimistic about Egypt’s future after days of turmoil, the President said he was confident the US could work with the country’s next government after elections. “What I want is a representative government in Egypt,” he told Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly. “I have confidence that if Egypt moves in an orderly transition process, we will have a government in Egypt that we can work with together as a partner.”

He stopped short of saying Mr Mubarak should quit immediately, as protesters demand, but insisted transition start now.

“Egypt is not going to go back to what it was,” he said. “The Egyptian people want freedom. They want free and fair elections. They want a representative government. They want a responsive government.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rushed to distance the administration from comments by former US envoy to Egypt Frank Wisner, who delivered a message on Mr Obama’s behalf urging Mr Mubarak to step aside only a week ago.

Mr Wisner created confusion when he said Mr Mubarak’s leadership remained “utterly critical” during the transition and that he should remain in office until September. Mrs Clinton said Mr Wisner “does not speak for the American government. He does not reflect our policies, and we have been very clear from the beginning we wanted an orderly transition.”

From Israel, continued snorts of approbation bellow from the politeratti with Dore Gold comparing the US thrust to their reactions during the overthrow of the Shah.

“Massive demonstrations were being held in the streets of Tehran, calling for the ouster of the shah, who had been America’s key ally in the Persian Gulf.

“The White House did not know quite what to do: back the shah or seek his replacement,” he wrote, warning the Obama administration not to “repeat the errors” it made by failing to back an ally facing protests, in the name of democracy.

Related links

Obama envoy Wisner works for Egypt military, business lobbyists
Egypt: Tahrir Square’s Mini Utopia
Egypt’s new cabinet meets as protests continue
Report: German intelligence agents arrested in Cairo
The World Turned Upside Down
The Egyptian mirror
US special envoy to Egypt recalled due to ties with Mubarak regime

Palestine / Israel Links

WHO’S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD BOYCOTT?
Jerusalem set to approve contentious Jewish housing in Arab neighborhood
Ten Arrested in Dawn West Bank Invasions
Unlike Egyptians, Israelis support restricting expression
Faithless dedicated to BDS
Interview with Omar Barghouti and Hind Awwad from the Palestinians Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign
It will not happen to us
Palestinians want Bethlehem on UN heritage list
‘Turkey and Iran to triple bilateral trade despite nuclear sanctions’

Situations in the Sinai

On January 15, the US mobilised the Connecticut National Guard Detachment 2, Company I, 185th Aviation Regiment of Groton to be deployed to the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, “to support the Multinational Force and Observers”.

The unit left Connecticut Jan. 15 for Fort Benning, Ga., for further training and validation. The unit operates C-23C Sherpa aircraft and has deployed three times in the last seven years in support of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The unit will provide an on-demand aviation asset to the Multinational Force and Observers commander to support its mission of supervising the security provisions of the Egypt/ Israel Peace Treaty.

Chief Warrant Officer Four James Smith of Ivoryton commands the aviation unit.

Here’s a list of US deployments in the Sinai and a breakdown of the constituency of the multinational force.

The US contributes three units collectively known as Task Force Sinai:[8]

* Force HQ – 40 personnel
* Infantry Battalion (USBATT – drawn from National Guard units)- 425 personnel currently members of the Illinois Army National Guard to be replaced in early 2011 by the Maryland National Guard[9]
* Support Battalion – 235 personnel consisting of:
o Headquarters
o Medical Company consisting of Dental, Medical, Physical Therapy, Veterinarian, and Preventative Medicine.
o Explosive Ordnance Disposal Detachment (EOD)
o Aviation Company

As far as I can discover, the deployment has yet to reach its eventual destination and was routine.

Considering the lengthy buildup to the present people’s revolution in Egypt however, and telltale Wikileaks cables, it is difficult to imagine that the US has not been prepared for such an eventuality and pre-planned with Israel and Egypt tactical contingency moves in the Sinai including the present jointly coordinated remilitarisation off the Sinai by Egypt, despite the multinational force’s role ostensibly being the enforcement of the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

As Yossi Gurvitz notes:

The entrance of Egyptian military forces into Sinai is prohibited by the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, to which the US is a guarantor. Lisa Goldman and myself tried to get a reply from the IDF Spokesman, to no avail. The spokesman of the Foreign Ministry, Yigal Palmor, gave Goldman the following response: “We will have to analyze the situation. We are under clear instructions not to make any comment on the Egyptian situation, no matter what. So it’s not as though we’ll have an answer later on. You’ll just have to wait and see, okay?”

According to Laura Rozen:

Several foreign policy scholars and former officials have been urging the U.S. administration for months to prepare for the end of the Hosni Mubarak era and the instability that would accompany it.

However, according to General James Mattis yesterday:

The United States has no plans to redeploy troops or ships in response to the unrest roiling Egypt and the instability in Tunisia and Jordan, the head of the U.S. Central Command said Tuesday.

On a visit to London, Gen. James Mattis said military leaders and lawmakers were closely watching developments, but stressed that he had no orders to rearrange his forces in response.

“These issues do not call for a military solution right now,” Mattis said. “There’s no reason right now for any shift in military forces, or anything like that. I’ve not received any orders.”

Mattis spells out the primary US strategic interest:

… he said it was unlikely events in Egypt would lead to difficulties for ships passing through the Suez Canal – another major concern for lawmakers and businesses.

The canal is the key route to the Mediterranean and used to avoid the longer and perilous path around Africa to the Atlantic Ocean.

“When you look at the fiscal impact of that on whoever is in a position of authority in Egypt, I just can’t imagine a motive to shut that down,” said Mattis, who succeeded Gen. David Petraeus as head of the military’s Central Command in August.

Related Links

With the anger, Bedouin youth now present a face of triumph. “It is a revolution,” one says simply.
US embassy cables: Egypt’s strategic importance to the US

President Mubarak and military leaders view our military assistance program as the cornerstone of our mil-mil relationship and consider the USD 1.3 billion in annual FMF as “untouchable compensation” for making and maintaining peace with Israel. The tangible benefits to our mil-mil relationship are clear: Egypt remains at peace with Israel, and the U.S. military enjoys priority access to the Suez Canal and Egyptian airspace. We believe, however, that our relationship can accomplish much more. Over the last year, we have engaged MOD leaders on developing shared strategic objectives to address current and emerging threats, including border security, counter terrorism, civil defense, and peacekeeping. Our efforts thus far have met with limited success.

Israel + Egypt (+ the US too) coordinating Sinai moves
Rights NGO claims that Israeli planes carrying crowd dispersal weapons have arrived in Egypt
Report: Egypt request crowd dispersion equipment from Israel
Israel denies sending riot gear to Egypt
Why is the Egyptian Army in Sinai?
Made in the USA: Tear Gas, Tanks, Helicopters, Rifles, and Fighter Planes in Egypt Funded and Built Largely by US Defense Department and American Corporations
Israel agrees to some Egyptian troops in Sinai
Three Decades of Weapons, Training for Egypt Keep U.S. in Loop
MAHALLA RIOTS: ISOLATED INCIDENT OR TIP OF AN ICEBERG?

The key question is, will the localized incident in
Mahalla spark a wider movement? The government is clearly
focused on containing unrest. Even while the riots were
still winding down, PM Nazif traveled to Mahalla, paid
bonuses to factory workers and praised those who did not join
in the riots (ref D). The government has also accelerated
arrests of activists in Cairo (ref E). The organizers of the
April 6 strike — distinct from Mahalla — have already
called, via Facebook, for a follow-on national strike on May
4, Mubarak’s eightieth birthday. Even regime insiders have
acknowledged the political savvy behind this tactic —
channeling current outrage towards the next big event. The
GOE responded with a press release announcing that President
Mubarak will give a May 5 speech to “underline Egypt’s keen
to desire to protect the rights of laborers and accentuate
the role they can play in the development process …. and to
reiterate the government’s commitment to safeguard the
interests of workers against any backlashes they might face
as a result of the economic reform program.” More broadly,
the government continues to address the shortage of
subsidized bread by using military bakeries and distribution

Egypt Links

In Pictures: Egypt protests
Voice-To-Tweet
Why Are Americans Blocked From Watching Al Jazeera English?
U.S. Scrambles to Size Up ElBaradei
Live blog Feb 1 – Egypt protests
Protesting At Tahrir Square
Al Jazeera report from Tahrir Square 8:30am, February 1
A Virtual “March of Millions” in Solidarity with Egyptian Protestors
On the eve of the ‘march of a million people’
The human wall protecting Cairo museum.
The widening double standard
An Egyptian Woman Speaks Out
Australians in Egypt frustrated by embassy
Live blog Feb 1 – Egypt protests
Erdogan Tells Egypt’s Mubarak He Should Listen to His People

Palestine / Israel Links

Hope ends here: The children’s court at Ofer Military Prison
Could US abandon Israel too?
Settlers start to cultivate Palestinian land east of Al-Khalil
Unprovoked attack on local shop, pregnant woman gassed
Google unveils Web-free ‘tweeting’ in Egypt move
Israeli critics open up on US ‘abandonment’ of Mubarak – ziofascists:

Another strain of this criticism, articulated most forcefully by Yediot Aharonot columnist Eitan Haber, who was a top aide to Yitzhak Rabin, is that this sends a dreadful message to Israel.

Obama threw Mubarak “to the dogs,” Haber wrote in a column that appeared on Monday.

“America, which waves the banner of ‘citizens rights,’ ‘democracy,’ and ‘freedom of information,’ turned its back in a day on one of its most important allies in the Middle East.

Obama sold Mubarak for the pot of lentils of popularity among the Egyptian masses,” Haber wrote, adding that the US president did this without a true understanding of the Middle East.

“Our conclusion in Israel needs to be that the man sitting in the White House is liable to ‘sell’ us over night.

The thought that the US might not stand by our side in the day of need causes chills. God help us.”

This theme was also picked up by former Mossad head Danny Yatom, who said in an Israel Radio interview that the US treatment of Mubarak was a dangerous message to Washington’s allies in the region – including Israel – that they could not rely on America.

Yatom said Washington’s first error was not in more aggressively supporting the opposition in Iran when it took to the streets against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the summer of 2009.

By contrast, Yatom said, “there is an important relationship” between the US and Egypt, with Egypt an important layer in Washington’s regional policy.

“The way Obama and Hillary Clinton abandoned Mubarak at once is very problematic, and I think hints to other allies – for instance Israel – that these things can happen under certain grave circumstances to us as well, and to others.”

Yatom said the US erred in talking – as Clinton did on Sunday – of an orderly transition to lasting democracy, and should have instead sufficed with demanding reform.

They should have supported him [Mubarak], but demand more reform,” he said. “I think he would have responded.”

Israel shocked by Obama’s “betrayal” of Mubarak
Can Israel only make peace with dictators?
Netanyahu must prepare for a new regional order
Bernard-Henri Lévy Indicted! – Tariq Ali
U.S. Interests in Egypt: A Proposed Statement of U.S. Policy – the AIPAC/WINEP mix
It’s never been about Palestine – neocon John Podhoretz
Amnesty International Condemns Makhoul Sentence

Wikileaks Links

Whistleblower ‘isolated’ in US jail
Julian Assange calls for support from Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard
Assange’s lawyer says FOI inspired WikiLeaks

Other Links

Afghan elite ‘plundered $900m’ from leading bank
United Nations must intervene to protect Sri Lanka’s media
Government accused as Sri Lankan news office is torched

Israeli Apartheid is Worse Than Apartheid Practised by White South Africa

“93% of the land of Israel is for exclusively jewish use. In South Africa, we used to talk about the fact that 13% of the population had control of 97% of the land. In Israel it is worse.”

Na’eem Jeena reflects on the challenges and victories of the BDS movement, drawing parallels to the 30 year BDS movement that helped bring down the Apartheid regime in South Africa.

Nada Elia at 2010 Israeli Apartheid Week

Tanya Reinhart on Israeli apartheid: ‘It’s trying to get as many Palestinians out of the land as possible … it’s about driving them out of the land.”

While Ran Greenstein in this article defines Israeli apartheid as that practised throughout ‘Greater Israel’, he sees solutions to broach it through a staggered approach, due to the occupation – that making Israel a state for all its citizens is more immediately achievable than achieving this in ‘Greater Israel’.

Reverend Allan Boesak:

It is worse, not in the sense that apartheid was not an absolutely terrifying system in South Africa, but in the ways in which the Israelis have taken the apartheid system and perfected it, so to speak; sharpened it. For instance, we had the Bantustans and we had the Group Areas Act and we had the separate schools and all of that but I don’t think it ever even entered the mind of any apartheid planner to design a town in such a way that there is a physical wall that separates people and that that wall denotes your freedom of movement, your freedom of economic gain, of employment, and at the same time is a tool of intimidation and dehumanisation. We carried passes as the Palestinians have their ID documents but that did not mean that we could not go from one place in the city to another place in the city. The judicial system was absolutely skewed of course, all the judges in their judgements sought to protect white privilege and power and so forth, and we had a series of what they called “hanging judges” in those days, but they did not go far as to openly, blatantly have two separate justice systems as they do for Palestinians [who are tried in Israeli military courts] and Israelis [who are tried in civil, not military courts]. So in many ways the Israeli system is worse.

Another thing that makes it even worse is that when we fought our battles, even if it took us a long time, we could in the end muster and mobilise international solidarity on a scale that enabled us to be more successful in our struggle. The Palestinians cannot do that. The whole international community almost conspires against them. The UN, which played a fairly positive role in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, takes the disastrous position of not wanting to offend its strong members like the United States who protect Israel. So even in the UN, where international law ought to be the framework wherein all these things are judged, where international solidarity is not an assumption but is supposed to be the very foundation upon which the UN builds its views on things and its judgements as to which way it goes, the Palestinians don’t even have that.

Palestinians are mocked in a way that South Africans were not. In a sense, the UN tried in our case to follow up on its resolutions to isolate the apartheid regime. Here, now, they make resolutions against Israel one after the other and I don’t detect even a sense of shame that they know there is not going to be any follow up. Under Reagan the United States was pretty blatant in its so called constructive engagement programme and in its support for the white regime in South Africa, but what the United States is doing now in the week that UNESCO took the decision to support the Palestinian bid for a seat in the United Nations, to withdraw all US financial support; to resort immediately to economic blackmail, that is so scandalous. So in all those ways I think we are trying to say that what is happening in Israel today is a system of apartheid that in its perfection of that system is more terrifying in many ways than apartheid in South Africa ever was.

Recently retired South African ambassador to Israel, Ismail Coovadia, says he rejected a symbolic gift from the Israeli government due to the country’s discriminatory treatment of Palestinians:

Ismail Coovadia made the statement in a letter to pro-Palestinian activists.

In it, Coovadia explained his decision to reject a symbolic gift from the Israeli government — planting trees in his honor in a national park named after South Africa.

He said Israeli policies that discriminate against Palestinians appeared to be reminiscent of his experiences under South Africa’s apartheid system. South Africa’s post-apartheid government frequently identifies with the Palestinians.

Coovadia, who completed his four-year term in January, confirmed the letter’s contents on Tuesday.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Coovadia did not made such complaints during his term. Israel routinely rejects the apartheid comparison.

Attitudes in Israel

Israeli politicians and academics:

Michael Ben-Yair, Israel’s attorney general from 1993 to 1996, has written that following the Six Day War in June 1967, “We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities.

“Passionately desiring to keep the occupied territories, we developed two judicial systems: one ? progressive, liberal ? in Israel; and the other ? cruel, injurious ? in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture.”

That oppressive regime exists to this day. Avraham Burg, Israel’s Knesset Speaker from 1999 to 2003 and former chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, has long determined that “Israel must shed its illusions and choose between racist oppression and democracy,” insisting the only way to maintain total Jewish control over all of historic Palestine would be to “abandon democracy” and “institute an efficient system of racial separation here, with prison camps and detention villages.” He has also called Israel “the last colonial occupier in the Western world.”

Yossi Sarid, who served as a member of the Knesset between 1974 and 2006, has written of Israel’s “segregation policy” that “what acts like apartheid, is run like apartheid and harasses like apartheid, is not a duck – it is apartheid.”

Yossi Paritzky, former Knesset and Cabinet minister, writing about the systematic institutionalization and legalization of racial and religious discrimination in Israel, stated that Israel does not act like a democracy in which “all citizens regardless of race, religious, gender or origin are entitled to equality.” Rather, by implementing more and more discriminatory laws that treat Palestinians as second-class citizens, “Israel decided to be like apartheid?era South Africa, and some will say even worse countries that no longer exist.”

Shulamit Aloni, another former Knesset and Cabinet member, has written that “the state of Israel practices its own, quite violent, form of Apartheid with the native Palestinian population.”

In 2008, the Association of Civil Rights in Israel released its annual human rights report which found that the dynamic between settlers, soldiers and native Palestinians in the occupied West Bank was “reminiscent, in many and increasing ways, of the apartheid regime in South Africa.”

Ehud Olmert, when he was Prime Minister, told a Knesset committee meeting, “For sixty years there has been discrimination against Arabs in Israel. This discrimination is deep?seated and intolerable” and repeatedly warned that if “we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished.”

Ehud Barak has admitted that “[a]s long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic. If this bloc of millions of ­Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state.”

Shlomo Gazit, former member of Palmach, an elite unit of the Haganah, wrote in Ha’aretz that “in the present situation, unfortunately, there is no equal treatment for Jews and Arabs when it comes to law enforcement. The legal system that enforces the law in a discriminatory way on the basis of national identity, is actually maintaining an apartheid regime.”

Last summer, Knesset minister Ahmed Tibi told the Jerusalem Post that “keeping the status quo will deepen apartheid in Israel as it did in South Africa,” while Gabriela Shalev, former Israeli ambassador to the UN, told The Los Angeles Times last year that, in terms of public opinion of Israel, “I have the feeling that we are seen more like South Africa once was.”

Council on Foreign Relations member Stephen Roberts, after returning from a trip to Israel and the West Bank, wrote in The Nation that “Israel has created a system of apartheid on steroids, a horrifying prison with concrete walls as high as twenty-six feet, topped with body-ravaging coils of razor wire.”

In April 2012, Benjamin Netanyahu’s own nephew, Jonathan Ben Artzi, wrote that Israel’s “policies of segregation and discrimination that ravaged (and still ravage) my country and the occupied Palestinian territories” undoubtedly fit the definition of Apartheid.

Linguist, cultural anthropologist, and Hebrew University professor David Shulman wrote in May 2012 in The New York Review of Books that there already exists “a single state between the Jordan River and the sea” controlled by Israel and which fits the definition of an “ethnocracy.” He continues:

“Those who recoil at the term ‘apartheid’ are invited to offer a better one; but note that one of the main architects of this system, Ariel Sharon, himself reportedly adopted South African terminology, referring to the noncontiguous Palestinian enclaves he envisaged for the West Bank as ‘Bantustans.’”

B’tSelem: Land Grab

From Haaretz: Segregation of Jews and Arabs in 2010 Israel is almost absolute:

“For those of us who live here, it is something we take for granted. But visitors from abroad cannot believe their eyes: segregated education, segregated businesses, separate entertainment venues, different languages, separate political parties … and of course, segregated housing. In many senses, this is the way members of both groups want things to be, but such separation only contributes to the growing mutual alienation of Jews and Arabs.”

From a Former Attorney General of Israel:

“Despite its best intentions, Israel has created a system of separation in the West Bank which fits the textbook definition of apartheid. According to Michael Ben-Yair, Attorney General of Israel throughout the nineties, “In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the Occupied Territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day.” He is not alone in asserting this perspective. Many notable Israelis like Meron Benvenisti, Akiva Elder, and Shulamit Aloni, to mention a few, agree that Israeli style apartheid is a reality.”

Mitchell Plitnick’s contortions in an effort to hang onto zionist hegemony through a perverse form of federalism are embarrassing – still he recognises the egg can’t be unscrambled.

More Information

Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa (HSRC) study : Israel is practicing both colonialism and apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).
Full report of the South African Human Sciences Research Council [.pdf]
Israel/Palestine and the Apartheid Analogy: Critics, Apologists and Strategic lessons (Part 1) by Ran Greenstein
Israel/Palestine and the Apartheid Analogy: Critics, Apologists and Strategic Lessons (Part 2) by Ran Greenstein
Israel/Palestine: Apartheid of a special type? by Ran Greenstein
Israel singles itself out – as Professor Ran Greenstein of the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa says, Israel has ‘imposed severe sanctions and used violent means of censure against numerous targets in the last two decades: PLO, Hamas, Burma, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Belarus, Serbia and, most recently, Libya and Syria, have been subject to sanctions and military campaigns far more aggressive and violent than Israel is likely ever to face. Israel has been singled out indeed, for receiving vast sums of military and financial aid that allow it to entrench the occupation, and diplomatic immunity by the USA for its acts of violence against civilians.’
Ran Greenstein: Israeli Jews, Palestinian Arabs and the Apartheid question – at the Russell Tribunal
Israel 2007: worse than apartheid by Ronnie Kasrils, SA Minister of Intelligence
Israel/Palestine, South Africa and the ‘One-State Solution’: The Case for an Apartheid Analysis (whole .pdf of the article is here [Bakan, Abigail B. and Abu-Laban, Yasmeen(2010) ‘Israel/Palestine, South Africa and the ‘One-State Solution’: The Case for an Apartheid Analysis’, Politikon, 37: 2, 331 — 351])

Our South Africa Moment Has Arrived : Omar Barghouti [03/18/2009]
Israel knows apartheid has no future by Mustafa Barghouti
“Boycotts work”: An interview with Omar Barghouti
Why Is BDS a Moral Duty Today? A Response to Bernard-Henri Levy
Reap what you have sown by Nawal El-Saadawi
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967
Why Israel is an Apartheid State

Women’s emancipation in the Arab region is closely linked to the regimes under which we live, regimes which are supported by the US in most cases, and the struggle between Israel and Palestine has an important impact on the political situation. Besides, how can we speak of liberation for Palestinian women without speaking of their right to have a land on which to live? How can we speak about Arab women’s rights in Palestine and Israel without opposing the racial discrimination exercised against them by the Israeli regime?

Israel should be given the South African treatment : Antony Loewenstein and Moammar Mashni
Adalah, ‘The Inequality Report: The Palestinian Arab Minority in Israel’ (pdf) – important document
South African scholar Na’eem Jeenah trapped at Istanbul airport after Israeli interrogation, confiscation of passport
Yishai wants to affirm ‘Jewish nationality’ highlighting the lack of any ‘Israeli nationality’. This segregationalism is consistent with Grand Apartheid.

In a significant legal victory for palestinian solidarity as well as freedom of political speech,

the ASA released a ruling on 5 July 2011, dismissing each and every complaint made by the SAJBD against the advert and instead ruled in favor of the submissions made by SA Artists Against Apartheid. The ASA also refused to provide any sanctions in favor of the SAJBD.

Reggae DJ, “The Admiral”, and member of the SA Artists Against Apartheid collective, welcomed today’s decision:

“The ASA decision is significant due to our own history of Apartheid. The decision sends a clear message to the Zionist lobby that the time has come for an end to the baseless accusations of “discrimination” and “hate speech” whenever criticism of Israel is voiced. Calling Israel an Apartheid state is legitimate because Israel practices Apartheid. The boycott of such an oppressive regime should be supported as it was in our own Anti-Apartheid freedom struggle.”

On how Apartheid South Africa was unfairly demonized — like Israel
The crime of apartheid : Israel on trial at the 3rd International Session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine in November, 2011 in Cape Town
Israel and Apartheid: Is It a Fair Comparison? – quotes several Israeli indignitaries describing existing or future apartheid
Brothers in arms – Israel’s secret pact with Pretoria
Boycotting Israeli Apartheid: Evoking South Africa’s Legacy
Israel and South Africa: A Natural Alliance
‘Israel will look like South Africa during the apartheid’ — Israeli ambassador Shalev
UN OCHA MoveMent and access in the West Bank September 2011: This is Israeli apartheid, and it’s growing:

“-522 roadblocks and checkpoints obstruct Palestinian movement in the West Bank, compared to 503 in July 2010.
– So far in 2011, an additional 495 ad-hoc ‘flying’ checkpoints obstructed movement around the West Bank each month (on average), compared to 351 in the past two years.
– 200,000 people from 70 villages are forced to use detours between two to five times longer than the direct route to their closest city due to movement restrictions.”

Targeting Israel with Boycotts, Divestment, Sanctions, and Prosecutions

In July 2008, 21 South African activists, including ANC members, visited Israel and Occupied Palestine. Their conclusion was unanimous. Israel is far worse than apartheid as former Deputy Minister of Health and current MP Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge explained:

“What I see here is worse than what we experienced – the absolute control of people’s lives, the lack of freedom of movement, the army presence everywhere, the total separation and the extensive destruction we saw….racist ideology is also reinforced by religion, which was not the case in South Africa.”

Sunday Times editor, Mondli Makhanya, went further: “When you observe from afar you know that things are bad, but you do not know how bad. Nothing can prepare you for the evil we have seen here. It is worse, worse, worse than everything we endured. The level of apartheid, the racism and the brutality are worse than the worst period of apartheid.”

Desmond Tutu: Divesting From Injustice

I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid. I have witnessed the humiliation of Palestinian men, women, and children made to wait hours at Israeli military checkpoints routinely when trying to make the most basic of trips to visit relatives or attend school or college, and this humiliation is familiar to me and the many black South Africans who were corralled and regularly insulted by the security forces of the Apartheid government.

Parallels Between Apartheid South Africa & Israeli Policies : Quotes
“We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of Palestinians.” — President Nelson Mandela, Pretoria, December 4, 1997
“Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.” — Former South African President Hendrick Verwoerd, Rand Daily Mail, November 23, 1961
“When I come here and see the situation [in the Palestinian territories], I find that what is happening here is 10 times worse than what I had experienced in South Africa. This is Apartheid.”
Arun Ghandi

“As someone who lived in apartheid South Africa and who has visited Palestine I say with confidence that Israel is an apartheid state. In fact, I believe that some of the atrocities committed against the South Africans by the erstwhile apartheid regime in South Africa pale in comparison to those committed against the Palestinians.” – Willie Madisha, in a letter supporting CUPE Ontario’s resolution.

“They support Zionism, a version of global racist domination and apartheid based on the doctrine that Jews are superior to Arabs and therefore have a right to oppress them and occupy their country.” – Current COSATU President, Sidumo Dlamini.

A South African Christian response to the Kairos Palestine Document

But we can also say that the practical manifestations of Israeli apartheid are in many ways worse than South African apartheid ever was.There was never a “security wall” built around Bophuthatswana or any of the other Bantustans. There was never a time when only certain people could drive on certain roads. There was never a serious debate about the right of exiles and refugees to return to South Africa. Therefore, over and above your situation containing the essence of apartheid, it is in many ways worse than apartheid, and we call on the world community to condemn the Israeli occupation as such.

Yours is also, in our view, a typical colonial situation whereby the colonizers claim the lives and land of the colonized. Furthermore, your situation is exacerbated by the West satisfying their guilt for the Holocaust at your expense. We reject this utterly and call on the West and their allies across the world to take responsibility for the situation that they have created.

John Dugard :

‘Israel discriminates against Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in favour of half a million Israeli settlers. Its restrictions on freedom of movement, manifested in countless humiliating checkpoints, resemble the “pass laws” of apartheid. Its destruction of Palestinian homes resemble the destruction of homes belonging to blacks under apartheid’s Group Areas Act. The confiscation of Palestinian farms under the pretext of building a security wall brings back similar memories. And so on. Indeed, Israel has gone beyond apartheid South Africa in constructing separate (and unequal) roads for Palestinians and settlers.

Apartheid’s security police practiced torture on a large scale. So do the Israeli security forces. There were many political prisoners on Robben Island but there are more Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.

Apartheid South Africa seized the land of blacks for whites. Israel has seized the land of Palestinians for half a million settlers and for the purposes of constructing a security wall within Palestinian territory – both of which are contrary to international law.’

The Russell Tribunal verdict (Johannesburg Nov 7/2011): ” The Tribunal finds that Israel subjects the Palestinian people to an institutionalised regime of domination amounting to apartheid as defined under international law. This discriminatory regime manifests in varying intensity and forms against different categories of Palestinians depending on their location. The Palestinians living under colonial military rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are subject to a particularly aggravated form of apartheid. Palestinian citizens of Israel, while entitled to vote, are not part of the Jewish nation as defined by Israeli law and are therefore excluded from the benefits of Jewish nationality and subject to systematic discrimination across the broad spectrum of recognised human rights. Irrespective of such differences, the Tribunal concludes that Israel’s rule over the Palestinian people, wherever they reside, collectively amounts to a single integrated regime of apartheid.”

The United Nations Human Rights Council

has passed a resolution ordering a first probe into how Israeli settlements may be infringing on the rights of the Palestinians.

The resolution was adopted on Thursday, with 36 votes in favour and 10 abstentions. Only the United States voted against it.’

CERD.C.ISR.CO.14-16

UN report on Israel is the ‘most cutting recognition and condemnation of a legal system of segregation since apartheid South Africa’
UN Committee 2012 Session Concludes Israeli System Tantamount to Apartheid

Settlers Attack Local, International Law Professors In Hebron: Palestinian researcher, professors of Refugees Studies at Oxford University, Abbas Shiblaq, stated that “this attack is a proof of the fascist nature of the Israeli occupation and its settlers” who aim at uprooting the Palestinians from their homeland, and a proof that Israel’s policy if based on “voiding the other”.

Shiblaq described the situation in Hebron and the illegal Israeli violations as a system that is deeper and larger than the former apartheid system in Southern Africa. He added that what the media reports about the violations carried out by extremist settlers and Israeli soldiers, in Hebron, barely reflects %5 of what is happening on the ground.

Built-in racism: Israeli real estate article lauds “desirable” Arab-free neighborhood

BDS and apartheid

BDS Movement
PACBI
More on the University of Johannesburg boycott decision
The Israeli government has been quite explicit that it uses culture as a propaganda tool in its war against the Palestinian people.

Nissim Ben-Sheetrit of Israel’s Foreign Ministry:

“We see culture as a propaganda tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between propaganda and culture.” (Ha’aretz; 21/09/05)

An example:

Linkin Park played Israel 15 November 2010, and posed with Nir Barkat, Mayor of Jerusalem when the day before his engineer announced 3,000 more jews only homes including in East Jerusalem.

Study: Israel leads in ignoring Security Council resolutions

A zionist propaganda site is established to capitalise on and collect the quotations of artists who have played Israel.

Recently, the US-based Creative Community for Peace (CCFP) — a group of US entertainment industry leaders — was formed with the explicit intent to crush the BDS movement as it pertains to the cultural boycott against Israel. In an October article, the Jerusalem Post reported that:

Creative Community For Peace (CCFP) pledges to use a wide range of measures to bolster the resolve of artists who sign contracts to perform in or travel to Israel and then face calls from various “boycott groups” to cancel their trips, according one of its founders, Steve Schnur.

Schnur is a worldwide executive of music and marketing for Electronic Arts and president of Artwerk Music Group, and is responsible for licensing music for some of the most popular computer video games.

“We felt that if we could create a place where artists can get information from other artists and from people they know who understand what Israel is really about – the freedom, the democracy and equal rights – and not rely on the disinformation they’re given about ‘apartheid’ Israel, then maybe we could change things,” Schnur said in a phone call this week from Los Angeles.

“Our aim isn’t to applaud the fact that artists have come to Israel, but to enable others to continue to go there.”

The boycott issue has always been present with regard to international artists and Israel, but in the past few years, pro-Palestinian organizations abroad have stepped up efforts to bombard scheduled acts with e-mails, letters and Facebook campaigns urging them to cancel.

Earlier this month, as The Electronic Intifada reported, a coalition of artists — Artists Against Apartheid — called for a comprehensive boycott against CCFP, which they categorized as a “complicit propaganda institution seeking to normalize Israeli apartheid and strongarm entertainers into its service.”

CCFP is also closely linked to StandWithUs (SWU), a US-based pro-Israel and anti-boycott organization devoted to expanding Israeli propaganda on US college campuses and crushing Palestine solidarity activism in local communities. As The Electronic Intifada reported, SWU has tight ties with the Israeli government to combat BDS.

Origins of Zionist Racism

Etan Bloom, Arthur Ruppin and the Production of the Modern Hebrew Culture, PhD. dissertation, Tel Aviv University, 2008 [.pdf]

Lessons from the South African Anti-Apartheid Campaign

The anti-apartheid movements in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand [.pdf]

UPDATE 24/11/11

David Newman, dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Ben-Gurion University.

The list is a long one: Preventing the funding of propeace and pro-human rights organizations, intervening within the judicial system and politicizing the appointment of Supreme Court justices, challenging the status of Arabic – the mother tongue of over 20 percent of the country’s population – as an official language, threatening to intervene in the curriculum of the country’s universities, turning a blind eye to attacks on left-wing peace activists, forcing an oath of loyalty on those citizens whose ethnic and national background is neither Jewish nor Zionist, and the rounding up, imprisonment and physical expulsion of helpless refugees without the right to a fair hearing or trial.

It has become almost second nature for Israelis to view the Arab and Palestinian residents of the country as citizens with lesser rights than those of the Jewish majority. But the ease with which those rights have been denied, is now spreading to the Jewish majority.

So who is driving who into the sea? “In the case of South Africa the aim of apartheid was to set up a situation where blacks were confined to Bantustans, but there was no intention to drive the black people out of the area all together. They wanted to exploit the labor of the black people. This is the big difference with the overriding purpose of the apartheid system across of Mandate Palestine. The overriding purpose here is population transfer. The idea is to drive the Palestinians out completely and to bring the Jewish settler population in, so it becomes an exclusively Jewish state.”

Israel’s gone way beyond apartheid – Frank Barat interviews Jeff Halper, who says: ‘Prisoners can rise up in the prison yards but prison guards have all the rights in the world to put them down. That’s what Israel has come to. They are terrorists and we have the right to put them down. In a sense Israel has succeeded with the international community, and the US especially, in taking out of this situation the political. It’s now solely an issue of security, just like in prisons. It’s another concept that does not have any legal reference today but we’d like to put that in because warehousing is not only in Israel. Warehousing exists all over the capitalist world. ‘

Samer Abdelnour in Al Shabaka: “Much analysis of Israeli apartheid focuses on comparisons with South Africa. Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Samer Abdelnour argues that the specific characteristics of Israel’s unique brand of apartheid need to be better understood in order to successfully dismantle it. He identifies three inter-locking dimensions of Israeli apartheid: physical, architecture, and ideological. Examining apartheid through these dimensions, he reveals Israeli apartheid to be far more sophisticated than that of South Africa and suggests directions for thinking and action to overcome Israel apartheid.”