“Being in a solidarity movement with Palestinian people is a privilege. We are working against one of the biggest injustices in recent history and we are working also with wonderful people, people who in spite of all the constant Israeli attacks, have not lost their spirit.”
“I found out my indentity was linked to those of people I had never met.”
“Through BDS we get through to Israelis that their actions are not acceptable.”
The ALP is being led by the nose by its fascist old guard moles. ‘For example, Australians participating in Anonymous operations, or perhaps even supporting WikiLeaks or other whistleblower organisations online, may now be legal targets of ASIO surveillance even though they are in Australia and not doing anything that relates to Australia’s security.’ Continued obstructions to — and even blatant denial of — the basic rights of indigenous peoples to land and forests, resulted in their ongoing marginalization and persistent poverty
The ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist forces began in late 1947, so that by 15 May 1948, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had already been expelled from their villages and cities before a single soldier from any Arab army had intervened. The exodus from, for example, Jaffa began in early 1948 after Zionist terrorists belonging to the Stern Gang set off a massive car bomb destroying the Jaffa municipality building on 4 January (this is all well-documented in books by right-wing Israeli historian Benny Morris, among others). Many villages in the north of Palestine were also depopulated around that time.
‘Looking at what was happening on the ground during December 1947-15 May 1948 was teh first track we followed in examining the Israeli version of the events of this period; the second track was to challenge the Israeli lie of evacuation orders head on. If the orders were broadcast as the government of Israel, its top leadership and the Kimches et al. insisted, and if these orders reached hundreds of villages and a dozen towns causing their evacuation by hundreds of thousands, surely some tract or echo of these orders should be on record. The obvious place to look was the back files of the Near East monitoring stations of the British and American governments (the BBC Cyprus listening post and the CIA-sponsored Foreign Broadcast Information Service), both of which covered not only all the radio stations in the Near East, but also the local newspapers as well. I therefore checked the BBC monitoring archives at the British Museum, London, and published the result in my article “Why Did the Palestinians Leave?” (Middle East Forum July 1959). Not only was there no hint of any Arab evacuation order, but the Arab radio stations had urged the Palestinians to hold on and be steadfast whereas it was the Jewish radio stations of the Haganah and the Irgun and Stern Gang which had been engaged in incessant and strident psychological warfare against the Arab civilian population.’
It must be clear that there is no room in the country for both peoples.… If the Arabs leave it, the country will become wide and spacious for us … There is no room for compromises … There is no way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighbouring countries, to transfer all of them, save perhaps for Bethlehem, Nazareth and old Jerusalem. Not one village must be left, not one [bedouin] tribe … For this goal funds will be found … And only after this transfer will the country be able to absorb millions of our brothers and the Jewish problem will cease to exist. There is no other solution.[89]
‘There is no hope that this new Jewish state will survive,
to say nothing of develop, if the Arabs are as numerous as
they are today.” So spoke Menahem Ussishkin, at 75, one of
the oldest and most respected Zionist leaders. His audience
on the afternoon of 12 June 1938 was the Executive Commit-
tee of the Jewish Agency, which was considering a plan by
the British administration to divide Palestine between
Arabs and Jews. For decades there had been strife between
the two ethnic groups in the mandate territory and now the
British administration was considering partition as the
best way to end the conflict between the Jewish colonists
and the indigenous Arab population. But partition would
leave over 200,000 Arabs in the proposed Zionist state, and
the leadership of the Jewish community in Palestine was
grappling with the problem of how best to get rid of them.
None of the members of the Executive disagreed with
Ussishkin when he stated: ‘The worst is not that the Arabs
would comprise 45 or 50 per cent of the population of the
new state but that 75 per cent of the land is owned by
Arabs.’ This land was desired for the waves of Jewish immi-
grants who would populate the Jewish state. There were many
other reasons why the Zionists wished to get rid of the
Arabs. Ussishkin claimed that with a large Arab population
the Jewish state would face enormous problems of internal
security and that there would be chaos in government. ‘Even
a small Arab minority in parliament could disrupt the
entire order of parliamentary life.’
In late 1937, a Population Transfer Committee was established in the Jewish Agency to prepare material for the hearings of the Woodhead commision. The main document suggested two goals: reducing the Arab population in the territory intended for the Jewish state, and freeing agricultural land for Jewish settlement. I talso contained a detailed plan for the voluntary transfer of about 100,000 Arab farmers to the Gaza district, Transjordan, and Syria. The committee found it very difficult to reach clear recommendations and made do with the general declaration that “the transfer of Arab population on a large scale is a precondition for establishing the state.”
The Common Archive aims “to create an audio-visual online archive of Jewish executor’s testimonies of the 1948 crimes with cross references to testimonies of Palestinian refugees and other historical visual data (maps, photos, etc).”
The “peace negotiations” were a deceptive farce, whereby biased terms were unilaterally imposed by Israel and systematically endorsed by the US and EU capitals. Far from enabling a negotiated fair end of the conflict, the pursuit of the Oslo process has deepened Israeli segregationist policies and justified the tightening of the security control imposed on the Palestinian population as well as its geographical fragmentation. Far for preserving the land on which to build a State, it has tolerated the intensification of the colonisation of the Palestinian territory. Far from maintaining a national cohesion, the process I participated in, albeit briefly, proved to be instrumental in creating and aggravating divisions amongst Palestinians. In its most recent developments, it became a cruel enterprise from which the Palestinians of Gaza have suffered the most. Last but not least, these negotiations excluded for the most part the great majority of the Palestinian people: the 7 million-Palestinian refugees. My experience over those 11 months spent in Ramallah confirms in fact that the PLO, given its structure, was not in a position to represent all Palestinian rights and interests.
A top military intelligence official has said the discredited dossier on Iraq’s weapons programme was drawn up “to make the case for war”, flatly contradicting persistent claims to the contrary by the Blair government, and in particular by Alastair Campbell, the former prime minister’s chief spin doctor.
In hitherto secret evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, Major General Michael Laurie said: “We knew at the time that the purpose of the dossier was precisely to make a case for war, rather than setting out the available intelligence, and that to make the best out of sparse and inconclusive intelligence the wording was developed with care.”
His evidence is devastating, as it is the first time such a senior intelligence officer has directly contradicted the then government’s claims about the dossier – and, perhaps more significantly, what Tony Blair and Campbell said when it was released seven months before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Recognising Indigenous Australians as the first Australians is set to become next great debate on the national agenda. Acknowledged as a “Once in 50 year opportunity” by Prime Minister Julia Gilard it is with reserved optimism and nervous anticipation I, like many Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians await the 2011 government proposal and subsequent 2013 Referendum. With only 8 of the past 44 constitutional amendments being successful, it will take a movement at the ballot boxes reminiscent of the 1967 Referendum in which more than 90% of Australians voted in favor of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders being recognised as Australian citizens.
This demonstration at the Australian Defence Department below has received no Australian mainstream media coverage as far as I am aware.
A demonstration has been held outside of the offices of the Australian Defense Department to protest the Australian government’s arms trade with Israel.
A large part of Australia’s trade with Israel is made up of contracts to buy or sell military equipment, and the two countries also share military technologies, the Press TV correspondent in Sydney reported during the on Friday.
“On the subject of boycotting the arms trade with Israel, Minister for Defense Jason Clare recoiled in horror and said, ‘That will cost jobs.’ But they are prepared to lose a thousand jobs from their own defense department, civilian jobs, to support the arms trade,” Denis Doherty of the Australian Anti-Bases Campaign told the protesters.
In 2010, then Prime Minister Kevin Michael Rudd’s government signed a $300 million purchase with the Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit. These purchases were for BMS, or Battle Management Systems, complex electronics that permit integration of modern warfare technology.
Elbit claims that it provides similar technology to 20 countries worldwide.
Elbit subsidiary companies provide security systems for illegal West Bank settlements and Israel’s illegal apartheid wall. They are also the provider of the Israeli drones that are used by Britain, Canada, Australia, and many other NATO countries.
“Australia should not be trading arms with Israel, in either direction, because the two countries have fundamentally different attitudes towards the protection of civilians in warfare,” said Professor Jake Lynch from the University of Sydney.
“The reports about Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2008 and 2009 found there were multiple instances in which Israel failed to observe the principles of discrimination and proportionality, i.e., you adequately protect civilians’ bystanders. And that is linked with Israel’s refusal to adopt the principle which Australia and 80% of the international community have roughly accepted in the additional protocols to the Geneva Conventions,” he added.
Protesters argue that the Australian government should not buy from or sell military equipment to countries that implement apartheid policies toward populations under their control, occupy or wage war with neighboring nations, maintain illegally acquired and undeclared nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, and carry out summary executions and collective punishment.
The protesters are demanding that the Australian government implement an arms embargo on Israel until it complies with international law and human rights conventions.
“For Australia to continue an arms trade with Israel or to cultivate it, it will be one of many things Australia does, unfortunately. It is based on an overly-narrow conception of Australian interests,” Professor Lynch stated.
Australian Defense Department and Elbit Australia have refused to comment on the issue.
Omar Barghouti has toured the US during April 2011 inspiring activists with his talks on boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel and promoting his new book “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions : The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights”. His tour almost didn’t eventuate due to inexplicable delays in granting his visa by the US Consulate in Jerusalem. Here’s some of Barghouti’s recent pithy statements about BDS and Israel.
“Some people say BDS is not fair and not effective … Israel is a democracy. On almost every level, Israel is only a democracy for one ethnic group. The Palestinian-led BDS movement is calling Israel an apartheid state, and the main refutation of this is that Israel allows Palestinians to vote.
Apartheid is not defined according to whims of this or that scholar. Apartheid is when the discrimination is legalized. Now there are commissions to accept new residents into communities. Imagine an Irish White guy saying: ‘We don’t accept this Latino guy; his food smells funny, he doesn’t fit?’ But in Israel now it’s legal.
Israel is losing the battle for hearts and minds at the grassroots level. It maintains connections with the elite, but competes with Iran and North Korea as the most hated countries in the world”.
‘Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League repeats the mantra that by advocating comprehensive Palestinian rights, including full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel and the UN-sanctioned right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes from which they were forcibly displaced, the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is “de-legitimizing” Israel and threatening its very “existence.” This claim is frequently made by Israel lobby groups in an obvious attempt to muddy the waters and to push beyond the pale of legitimate debate the mere statement of facts about and analysis of Israel’s occupation, denial of refugee rights, and institutionalized system of racial discrimination, which basically fits the UN definition of apartheid.
Specifically, what is often objected to is the demand for full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel. One can only wonder, if equality ends Israel’s “existence,” what does that say about Israel? Did equality destroy South Africa? Did it “delegitimize” whites in the Southern states of the U.S. after segregation was outlawed? The only thing that equality, human rights and justice really destroy is a system of injustice, inequality and racial discrimination.
The “delegitimization” scare tactic, widely promoted by Israel’s well-oiled pressure groups, has not impressed many in the West, in fact, particularly since its most far-reaching claim against BDS is that the movement aims to “supersede the Zionist model with a state that is based on the ‘one person, one vote’ principle” — hardly the most evil or disquieting accusation for anyone even vaguely interested in democracy, a just peace, and equal rights.’
Precisely for that reason, the lobby must be confronted. It is a component of ruling class power, and to deny its influence will not fly. But behind and among it are blood-merchants, and none of them care about Palestinians – nor, one suspects, do Palestinians’ latest allies among the “realist” policy intelligentsia. American capital barely cares enough about Israeli militarism and occupation to dump its money into J Street, let alone to crash the hammer down on Zionist malfeasance in the Middle East. They do not and will not care about Palestinians until their interests are threatened more directly. The way to do that is simple. It’s by linking demands with others threatened by Israeli militarism, by American imperialism, and by capitalism more broadly, and making the costs of maintaining an Israeli client state in the Middle East higher than the costs of giving it up. Misguided fairy tales like Petras peddles simply won’t do in forging the political project that can lead to freedom in the Middle East. Perhaps at this hour it’s time for some realism. Which doesn’t mean defeatism. Just because the enemy is big does not mean we can’t bring it down.
