Tag: colonialism

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Ilan Pappé on the Apartheid Israeli Regime

Here’s the podcast of Ilan Pappé, interviewed by Geraldine Doogue on Radio National. Ilan is speaking at several engagements in Australia and appeared at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney. He also appeared on Q and A. Accurately, Ilan stated: “Israel wants to remain a racist state and a democratic state – this is an oxymoron.”

Ilan Pappé on the National Press Club 19/9/12

Celebrated Israeli historian, Ilan Pappé whose landmark publication, “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” documented the planned removal of 700,000 Palestinians from their lands in 1948, has written a new book “The Forgotten Palestinians”.

In the book, and at this September 16 community meeting at Sydney University, Pappé reveals the situation for the Palestinians who still live within Israel’s borders.

This was the first event of Professor Pappé’s 2012 Australian lecture tour. It was hosted by the Sydney Peace Foundation at the University of Sydney with the Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine and Leichhardt Friends of Hebron. Professor Pappé is in Australia as the guest of AFOPA to deliver the annual Edward Said Memorial Lecture at the University of Adelaide.

Ilan Pappé’s Melbourne address.

The two state solution is an hegemonic Israeli plan … to incorporate the West Bank. Its time has passed … Israel will ghettoise the West Bank. You have to decolonise the land, the people, to liberate them, it’s too early to talk about peace, you have to end oppression first. Only then can people can sit down and talk about what comes after the oppressive reality. The horse sees things differently from the rider, the rider does not see things in the same way.

The first but not the only way of convincing political elites that their way is the wrong way is pressure from the outside. BDS is part of what we should do, to send a political message that what Israel is doing is unacceptable. Constructive dialogue with Israeli Jews, educating them to see what life would be like after the oppression ends is important.

You need all ingredients to be in place, you won’t do it solely through BDS.

…

Oslo was oppression by other means.

UPDATE 28/9/12

Desegregating The Conflict: The History Of Collaborative Struggle In Palestine, Collaborative Struggle Conference, 24.09.2012 at the University of Woollongong

2012 ESML Presented By Ilan Pappe

Israel’s bravest historian

UPDATE 23/9/12

Notes from Middle East Reality Check on Ilan Pappé’s Festival of Dangerous Ideas address on the subject Israel Is an Apartheid State:

Is this a dangerous idea? Many Israelis wouldn’t think so. Nor South Africans. Nor many journalists and progressive folk in the West. Liberal Zionists though find it dangerous, and for many years have been trying to square the circle in an attempt to justify Israel’s apartheid policies. Jewish communities, of course, are allergic to the very idea. No, it’s not the recognition that Israel is an apartheid state that’s dangerous, it’s Israel itself that is dangerous; dangerous to Palestinians, dangerous to Jews in Israel and abroad, and dangerous to the world beyond.

Apartheid is a generic term for a legal, economic, social and political regime based on dispossession, discrimination and segregation on the basis of race, religion or nationality. The early Zionists, who were prolific diarists, described the Palestinians as dangerous aliens and usurpers. Their resistance to Zionist colonisation led the colonisers to develop apartheid policies of self-segregation and gated communities, which they forced on the native population once they’d become a ruling majority in 1948.

They institutionalised segregation, forcing on the Palestinian minority in Israel an invisible apartheid based on restricted living spaces, double standards in the courts and reduced access to state benefits. The Palestinian Israelis are confined to enclaves, with no new Arab towns being built since 1948. In contrast, hundreds of Jewish settlements have been constructed. In the West Bank, apartheid is starkly visible. Gaza of course is a world on its own, a large ghetto. How ironic that the people who most suffered from policies based on demography and population control in Europe should be dishing it out to others in Palestine.

Update 19/9/12:

Ilan Pappé on QandA

Ilan Pappe likens Israel’s invasion of Palestine to Aboriginal dispossession

The premise of Terra Nullius, in which European settlers viewed Australia as an unoccupied space, is similar to the idea that the Palestinians willingly gave up their land.

Understanding and accepting this premise is one of the keys to reconciliation and forging a peaceful future, Professor Pappe says.

“Building reconciliation on the basis of these acknowledgments, understanding what kind of privilege you’re going to lose if you accept you are the dispossessor, and so many other issues that are really comparable. If you are an average Australian who accepts the basic narrative of what happened in Australia, the comparison is very clear.

“It is a problem of not accepting indigeneity, and claiming that it was either settled or disappeared or can be handled, instead of accepting it. Settlers and native people always have a complex relationship but the first step is acknowledging that this is the basic paradigm, the basic reality.”

Another historical comparison is that of apartheid South Africa, Professor Pappe says. Invoking the word “apartheid” is highly provocative; the term has legal implications as well as emotive ones, but he is resolute that the name is justified.

The ideology of apartheid – of separation, of segregation – is not dissimilar in the two countries, he says, arguing that Archbishop Desmond Tutu has also drawn the comparison between the two situations. “I don’t think it’s too strong a term. As a scholar I would like to go deeply into the comparison and see the similarities as well as the dissimilarities. But from the general perspective of what kind of attitude Jews have towards non-Jews in the state of Israel, I don’t know of a better term in a legal realm in that respect.”

South Africa did manage eventually to overcome the bitter policy of apartheid, and so too can Israel, Professor Pappe believes, but it must involve what he describes as “the three As”: acknowledgement, acceptance and accountability. Israeli, Jewish and Western acknowledgement that ethnic cleansing has occurred and that refugees want to return to their homeland; Israeli accountability for what has happened in the past; and an acceptance in the Arab world and among Palestinians that the Jewish nation is part of the Middle East.

It is not a completely hopeless prospect, he says, but accepts that it is very difficult for those with established standpoints to move beyond those and make a fundamental shift about how they view the problem before a solution can be found. And a solution is fundamental for the two nations, the region and the rest of the world.

“The future of Palestine is not just the future of Jews and Palestinians who live there, it’s the future of the relationship of the Arab and Muslim worlds with the west,” he said in an earlier lecture.

ABC Radio Conversation Hour with Jon Faine, Claire Bowditch & Greg Jericho Tuesday 18 Sep 2012

Related Links

Ilan Pappe in Australia at Coalition for Justice & Peace in Palestine (CJPP)
Radio National Breakfast makes Palestinians peripheral to their own dispossession, and invites zionist Morris to respond to Pappé
Danby’s petulant criticism of the ABC having Pappé on QandA

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Noosa Moves Toward De-Amalgamation

Lake Cootharaba
Protecting our Noosa environmental assets from development is essential – both for their intrinsic ecological values and to ensure a prosperous future for Noosa’s major industry – green tourism.
As I contemplate the ongoing zionist invasion of Palestine against the popular will of Indigenous Palestinian people, this happy local event reminds me that privileged white people are winning in a predominantly white democracy where Indigenous people are marginalised.

On another level however, this first step toward Noosa’s de-amalgamation from the Sunshine Coast Regional Council represents what a community can do from the grassroots to redress undemocratic wrongs – the forced amalgamation by the Blight government and theft of our successful shire’s money to prop up two unfinancial southern shires ravaged by Councils complicit with developers’ unsustainable greed.

NOOSA’S bid to separate from the Sunshine Coast Regional Council is one step closer to success.

Local Government Minister David Crisafulli announced this morning he would progress Noosa’s application for de-amalgamation to the Boundaries Commissioner for further consideration.

Noosa is only one of five successful applicants.

Nineteen former shires applied for de-amalgamation.

Boundaries Commissioner Col Meng and the Queensland Treasury Corporation will work together over the next two and half months to consider the cases for de-amalgamation.

“This was always going to be a difficult process but if a proposal stacks up, the community will make the final decision at a referendum,” he said.

Free Noosa chairman Noel Playford says he’s delighted that Noosa has made the cut, although not surprised.

“Let’s be honest, if our submission had not made it to the next stage, then nothing would.”

Mr Playford took Noosa’s 70-page submission and a petition of residents to the Minister’s office late last month.

He says the Boundaries Commissioner and his staff will soon be heading for Noosa to speak with local people and gauge for himself just how deep is the passion for de-amalgamation.

The former Noosa mayor said it was a once-only shot at breaking away from the “giant Sunshine Coast Regional Council”.

“For those who want to protect our balance of low-key development, lifestyle and natural beauty, we will probably never get another chance.”

Mr Playford has urged local people to make a brief statement to the Boundaries Commissioner on the issue.

“We need people to tell him what they think, why they want their council back. He’s read about the passion for independence in Noosa, but now he needs to see if for himself.”

The Noosa area – a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve – represents an environment on which we humans and the animal and plant species with whom we share a habitat rely. Having respect for the land on which we all depend means having respect for Indigenous values. Noosa will be protected through de-amalgamation – and our environmental and democratic values will prevail.

Participate in the online poll – vote for de-amalgamation of Noosa.

Take action against Israel’s theft of Palestinian land and homes at Silwan.

Related Links

Mr Playford said “the money story” was that Noosa’s 15% of the population was paying 21% of the Coast’s bills.

“A Noosa businessman suggested to me the other day the SCRC is like a giant slug sucking the life out of Noosa. That may be a little over the top but you get the picture.”

Free Noosa
A Sustainable Australia
To vote or not to vote
In our Noosa garden
It’s a busted trike, not a Ferrari, Mr. Beattie

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Alice Walker and Desmond Tutu on the Forthcoming New York Russell Tribunal Hearings

The next session of the Russell Tribunal will be on Oct. 6-7, 2012.

Following the sessions in Barcelona (which focused on EU complicity), London (on Corporate Complicity) and Cape Town (on the crime of Apartheid), the New York Tribunal will go back to the root of the conflict and focus on UN and US responsibility in the denial of the Palestinian right to self-determination.

Alice Walker, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others tell you why you should support this historical initiative to bring Israel to account for its brutal crimes against the Palestinian people under the aegis of international law.

Read the findings of the previous Capetown Sessions of the Russell Tribunal, where Israel’s crimes against humanity are clearly defined:

‘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.’

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Israel’s Cultural Hasbara Exports

Music industry figure in Israel, Jeremy Hulsh of Oleh! Records, is encouraging the Israeli government to invest in up-and-coming musicians as soft sell ambassadors for state propaganda. From Oleh! Records’ business plan, the company has a broad interest in utilising culture as hasbara:

contributing to the overall Government’s desired long term outcome for the areas of Culture, Economic Development, Regional Cooperation, Public Diplomacy (branding), and Diaspora Relations – ‘A right to culture’ the right to create a culture and the right to consume culture’ as laid out particularly by the Ministry of Culture and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
…
Defining Israeli industry “characterized by groundbreaking entrepreneurship, Israel yields pioneering technologies, profitable business opportunities and high investment returns” – as claimed by the Ministry of Trade & Labor. Likewise- the explicit national agenda to “make it possible for every Israeli to participate in improving Israel’s image in the world, and thereby contribute to its political and economic strength as well as its international standing.” – as promoted by the Ministry of Public Diplomacy.
…
While Israeli music industry and culture professionals have long been aware that independent musicians and Israeli music sector-at large make significant contributions not only to local culture and the economy, Israeli music culture significantly improves relations with the Diaspora community and foreign populations as a measure of soft power.

Oleh! presently obtains funding from “philanthropic support outside the State of Israel including Australia and United States based foundations” and envisages that “Israeli Music will benefit from a synchronized brand identity which must be coordinated and marketed by a non governmental Israeli body with an apolitical association“.

In 2005, Nissim Ben-Sheetrit of Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated: “We see culture as a propaganda tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between propaganda and culture.”

Concrete examples of Israel’s cultural hard sell hasbara include the sites Size Doesn’t Matter and the Creative Community for Peace, where quotations are collected opportunistically of artists who have flaunted the cultural boycott called by Palestinians.

This new story in The Jewish Week highlights potential for Israel’s cultural music-washing exports:

Overcoming Israel’s unflattering image in the international media — especially in Europe — is another challenge. Malcolm Haynes, a music programmer for the U.K’s Glastonbury Festival, said he came to Israel to learn about the music scene and a little bit about the politics.

While Israel remains an obscure music scene, booking Israeli acts runs the risk of triggering boycotts, he said. Despite that, Haynes said he had been impressed by the musicians at the conference, and expected some might get invitations to play at Glastonberry. “I’m about building bridges.”

Despite the potential for boycott, Oleh Record’s Hulsh says that Israel’s government should invest more in helping fledgling artists reach concerts abroad as a way to boosting Israel’s image in an organic way rather than with heavy-handed propaganda.

“Each of them is an authentic cultural ambassador,” he said. “When they get on stage and tell their story, they change a narrative.”

All Israelis performing abroad who obtain Israeli government funding to do so are required to sign a contract which converts them into a marketing emissary for apartheid:

“The service provider undertakes to act faithfully, responsibly and tirelessly to provide the Ministry with the highest professional services. The service provider is aware that the purpose of ordering services from him is to promote the policy interests of the State of Israel via culture and art, including contributing to creating a positive image for Israel.”

No promotion of the state, no funding. Who can trust the stage ‘narrative’ of artists beholden to an apartheid government for favours?

Music cannot cross apartheid walls and it is an obscenity to pretend otherwise when oppressed Palestinians have requested global solidarity for boycott, divestment and sanctions in order to obtain their just rights.

Say no to musicwashing Israel’s continuing oppression of Indigenous Palestinian people and refuse to entertain musical hasbara agents who are complicit with apartheid. Palestinians do not have a massive, well-funded state apparatus to broadcast their plight, and they deserve support from conscientious people around the world. Boycott!

Related Links

Appropriating a Culture to Whitewash Apartheid :

The latest target of the Tourism Ministry is the foodie world, specifically food bloggers, who are brought on paid trips to Israel where their senses are dulled by stolen hummus and they go home and gush appropriately about what they have seen. Indeed, “David Lebovitz, an American writer and pastry chef living in Paris whose food-centric personal website receives nearly 2 million unique visitors per month, wrote seven posts about the trip, all of which presented Israel (and its cuisine ) in a positive light.” How’jya like them apples BDSers?

Brand Israel – Palestine activists picket Israeli film fest:

In 2009, then spokesperson of Israel’s Foreign Ministry Arye Mekel said the initiative to “re-brand” Israel involved sending “well-known novelists and writers overseas, theatre companies, exhibits … [to] show Israel’s prettier face, so we are not thought of purely in the context of war.”

Likewise, current deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has said: “Branding Israel is a way to bring who we are, without the prisms of political agendas, to the masses.”

Syncretism of food culture and freebie hasbara trips for food bloggers to pad out Brand Apartheid Israel

BDS: Growing out of the fringe
Why a boycott of Israeli academics is fully justified
New Al Haq report says governments within their rights to sanction Israel over settlement enterprise

Protesting the Batsheva Brand Israel dance export in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Rebranding Israel: History out, creativity and innovation in

“We understood that it wasn’t enough to say we have creative energy – we actually had to be that way,” says Friedman. “This is the essence of Israelihood – everyone does what they want to do. It’s not refined, but dynamic and varied.”

Natanzon says that the Foreign Ministry considered adopting the values from the “Start-Up Nation” book, by Dan Senor and Saul Singer, when branding Israel.

“But we didn’t want to do that,” he says. “It would only reference one sector of the population, and exclude the others. We wanted to take it to the next level, to showcase the variety and creativity there is throughout the whole country.”

Out: Jewish heritage

It’s impossible not to notice that the new branding excludes central characteristics associated with Israel, such as Jewish culture and heritage and the country’s holy sites – all of which appear in countless official adverts.

“The branding looks at something broader,” Natanzon explains. “The aim was to create a new range of conversations for the country’s brand. The historical components are already part and parcel of its image.”