person:naftali bennett

  • Élections israéliennes : une compétition entre criminels de guerre
    par Ramona Wadi - 14 mars 2019 – Middle East Monitor – Traduction : Chronique de Palestine– MJB
    http://www.chroniquepalestine.com/elections-israeliennes-competition-criminels-de-guerre

    Au cours des passes d’armes entre les candidats aux élections, l’ancien chef de l’IDF Benny Gantz a déclaré qu’il appliquerait la politique israélienne d’assassinats ciblés contre les dirigeants du Hamas s’il était élu, et si nécessaire.

    Ses commentaires visaient à contrer les remarques de Naftali Bennett, ministre de l’Éducation, au sujet de « l’opération Bordure Protectrice » en 2014, dans lesquels ce dernier a utilisé des propos désobligeants pour critiquer les décisions de Gantz qui, selon Bennett, mettaient en danger la vie des soldats israéliens. Bennett a avancé que Gantz serait l’option préférée du Hamas à la tête du gouvernement israélien. Cette affirmation est également soutenue par le Premier ministre israélien Benjamin Netanyahu, qui a déclaré que le parti de Gantz ferait « des concessions importantes aux Palestiniens ».

    Gantz et Netanyahu se concentrent de plus en plus sur Gaza dans leur campagne électorale, « l’opération Bordure Protectrice » et la Grande Marche du Retour servant de base à leurs arguments. Gantz, qui était aux commandes lors de l’agression contre l’enclave, a comparé l’après-2014 aux protestations en cours et à la réponse de Netanyahu, consistant à ordonner aux tireurs d’élite positionnés à la frontière de tuer et blesser les Palestiniens participant aux manifestations.

    Gantz a décrit la stratégie de Netanyahu comme une « politique usée ». La solution de rechange dans un tel scénario, selon l’ancien chef de l’armée, est de « revenir à une politique d’assassinats ciblés ». (...)

  • Israeli TV journalist reacts to outcry after saying occupation turns soldiers into ’animals’

    Oshrat Kotler, who received death threats for her comment, says she can’t ignore ’heavy price that we are paying through our children for ruling over another people’
    Itay Stern
    Feb 24, 2019

    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israeli-anchor-reacts-to-outcry-after-saying-occupation-turns-soldiers-to-a

    TV journalist Oshrat Kotler on Saturday responded to the uproar she caused last week, when she said Israeli soldiers become “human animals” during their army service in the West Bank.

    “They send children to the army, to the territories, and get them back human animals. That’s the result of the occupation,” Kotler said last week following a piece on the five Israeli soldiers who were indicted for beating two detained Palestinians, which aired on her Channel 13 show, “Magazine.”

    On Saturday night she spoke again toward the end of the program to clarify her comments, choking with tears as she spoke.

    “Last week we broadcast here a very complex and painful report about the soldiers of the ‘Netzah Yehuda’ [battalion] who were involved in a series of harsh acts of violence,” she said. “For two weeks we investigated, filmed and edited, reporter Arik Weiss and myself, this report with the greatest caution because both of us understood that the matter was very charged and very hard to absorb.”

    Thousands of complaints were filed against Kotler, as well as death threats, after which Channel 13 decided to provide her with a security guard. Many politicians rushed to condemn her comments, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Education Minister Naftali Bennett, both demanding she apologize.

    Kotler criticized politicians in the midst of an election campaign for making “cynical” use of her comments and portraying them out of the story’s context. “What I said here was directed only at the soldiers who violated the law and not toward IDF soldiers in general. They were spoken with great pain,” said Kotler. Channel 13 News came to her defense, saying she was allowed to express her opinion, even if it does not reflect the opinion of the entire editorial staff.

    “The purpose of the story, as was the purpose of my comments that followed it too, was to make us as a society to take personal responsibility for the actions of the soldiers of Netzah Yehuda, because it is impossible to accuse them of crossing moral and legal boundaries when we are the ones who put them in an impossible situation day after day,” she added. “The public criticism should not be directed at the soldiers, and it would be proper for the court to consider that and be lenient in their sentencing."

    • VIDEO. « Ils reviennent transformés en animaux. C’est le résultat de l’occupation » : une journaliste israélienne critique les soldats de Tsahal en plein direct
      Mis à jour le 22/02/2019
      https://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/proche-orient/israel-palestine/video-ils-reviennent-transformes-en-animaux-c-est-le-resultat-de-l-occu

      Elle a prononcé ce commentaire après avoir évoqué le cas de soldats de l’armée israélienne soupçonnés d’avoir violemment frappé deux suspects palestiniens aux mains attachées et aux yeux bandés.

      Je vais continuer à parler dans cette émission. Vous ne me ferez pas taire." Le coup de colère, en direct, de la journaliste israélienne Oshrat Kotler a suscité une vive controverse, samedi 16 février, rapporte Haaretz. Elle a ainsi affirmé sur la chaîne HaHadashot 13 que le contrôle israélien de la Cisjordanie transformait les soldats en « animaux ».

  • Israeli right up in arms over news anchor who said occupation turns soldiers into ’animals’ - Haaretz.com

    Oshrat Kotler was responding to a report on the five Israeli soldiers who were recently indicted for beating Palestinian detainees in revenge for the death of their comrades
    Itay Stern
    Feb 17, 2019

    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israeli-right-blasts-anchor-who-said-occupation-turns-soldiers-int

    Israeli right-wing politicians harshly criticized Channel 13 TV anchorwoman Oshrat Kotler for saying soldiers become “human animals” during their army service in the West Bank during a broadcast on Saturday night.

    Kotler was responding to a report on five Israeli soldiers who were recently indicted for beating Palestinian detainees in revenge for the death of two soldiers from their battalion.

    “They send children to the army, to the territories, and get them back human animals. That’s the result of the occupation,” she said.

    >> Israeli army officer indicted for allowing soldiers to beat detained Palestinians ■ Palestinian father and son abused by Israeli soldiers: ’They beat us up, then started dancing’

    The statement sparked the ire of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who tweeted: “Proud of IDF soldiers and love them very much. Oshrat Kotler’s words should be roundly condemned.”

    Netanyahu addressed the remarks again at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, saying “Yesterday I thought I did not hear correctly when I turned on the television. I heard an infuriating statement against IDF soldiers by a senior journalist, a news anchor. I would like to say that this statement is inappropriate and must be condemned - in a firm and comprehensive manner.”

    “I am proud of IDF soldiers. They are protecting us and we are carrying out the supreme humanitarian and moral mission of defending our people and protecting our country against those who want to slaughter us. The journalist’s words deserve all condemnation,” he said.
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    Education Minister Naftali Bennett wrote: “Oshrat, you’re confused. IDF soldiers give their lives so you can sleep peacefully. Human animals are the terrorists who murder children in their beds, a young girl on a walk or a whole family driving on the road. IDF soldiers are our strength. Our children. Apologize.”

    Bennett’s new party, Hayamin Hehadash, tweeted it would file an official request to the attorney general that he prosecute Kotler for defamation, “following her affronting comments which slander IDF soldiers.”

    Kotler, who realized during the broadcast that her statement sparked a storm, said later in the show: “I would like to stress: my children, and their friends, they’re all combat soldiers in the territories. My criticism was directed only at those soldiers led by our control over the Palestinians to hurt innocent people. Those who really listened and didn’t run to rail against me on the web understood that I’m in fact in favor of leniency toward the indicted soldiers, because we sent them into this impossible situation.”

    Meretz chairwoman MK Tamar Zandberg came to Kotler’s defense, writing: “How miserable and predictable is the attack on Kotler’s just statements. We don’t want a reality of occupation and violence? It must be changed. Closing our eyes and then scolding the messenger, that’s no solution.”

    Peace Now also voiced its support for Kotler, tweeting: “It’s permissible and desirable to look in the mirror sometimes and honestly admit the mistakes of the occupation. So when the right wing falsifies and incites and when MKs rush to join the crowd, Oshrat Kotler’s courageous words should be given a platform.”

    Channel 13 news issued a response saying “Oshrat Kotler is a journalist with strong opinions and she expresses them from time to time, like other journalists on our staff who hold other opinions. Oshrat expressed her personal opinion only.”

    The parents of the indicted soldiers called the statement “unfortunate and ugly," saying there is “no place in Israeli discourse and certainly not by a new anchorwoman who is meant to represent the facts and not her distorted worldview. Our boys went into the army with a feeling of mission and Zionism. They chose a hard road, they wanted to be combat soldiers in the IDF, they wanted no special conditions; they carry out a complex mission in one of the most difficult sectors. These are the best of the sons of the State of Israel, who although only a month ago they lost two comrades in arms, held their heads high, walked tall and carried out any mission they were assigned, without fault.”

    They further criticized Kotler for not enquiring into the identity of the soldiers, “what they went through when they enlisted, what huge difficulties they experienced.”

  • Yad Vashem teaches the Holocaust like totalitarian countries teach history

    Yad Vashem is now paying the price of the many years in which it nurtured a one-dimensional, simplistic message that there’s only one way to explain the Holocaust

    Daniel Blatman SendSend me email alerts
    Dec 18, 2018
    https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-what-happened-to-yad-vashem-1.6759139

    The Warsaw Ghetto Museum, which the Polish government decided to establish eight months ago, is now at the center of a debate.
    This debate has political elements, but it’s mainly a clash between two views of what should be stressed when researching and remembering the Holocaust, and above all of what educational messages should be sent – what Israelis like to call “the lessons of the Holocaust.”
    Haaretz’s Ofer Aderet, in his article about the Warsaw museum, mainly discussed the political perspective, giving considerable space to the criticisms by Prof. Hava Dreifuss, a Yad Vashem historian. Dreifuss assailed the Warsaw museum and those who decided, despite all the problems, to take on a project whose importance is hard to overstate. This criticism deserves a response.

    First, the political context. There’s no more appropriate response to Dreifuss’ criticism than the old saying that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
    >> Budapest Holocaust museum: Orban’s grand gesture or a whitewashing of Hungarian history?
    Dreifuss works for an institution that in recent years has functioned as a hard-working laundromat, striving to bleach out the sins of every anti-Semitic, fascist, racist or simply murderously thuggish leader or politician like Hungary’s Viktor Orban, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte and Italy’s Matteo Salvini.
    My heart breaks when I see my colleagues, honest and faithful researchers of the Holocaust, giving tours of this historic museum, apparently under compulsion, to the evildoers the Israeli government sends to Yad Vashem to receive absolution in the name of Holocaust victims in exchange for adding a pro-Israel vote at international institutions. For some reason, Dreifuss has no criticism about this.
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    But for the Polish government (every Polish government, both the current one headed by the nationalist Law and Justice party and the previous one headed by a liberal centrist coalition), which is spending tens of millions of zlotys every year to preserve historical Jewish sites, Jewish graveyards and countless memorials, she has scathing criticism.
    Fear and demoralization
    A week and a half ago, Matti Friedman published an opinion piece in The New York Times about what’s happening at Yad Vashem, and it made for difficult reading. When you read his conclusions, your hair stands on end. He doesn’t quote a single Yad Vashem employee by name, because no one wanted to be identified. After all, they have to earn a living.
    Friedman described a mood of frustration, fear and demoralization among the employees because the current extremist, nationalist government has turned Yad Vashem into a political tool reminiscent of history museums in totalitarian countries.
    But the most astonishing thing Friedman reported is that the institution’s chairman, Avner Shalev – who turned the museum into an international remembrance empire, and who for years has viciously fought every attempt to present a different conceptual or research approach than that of Yad Vashem – is reluctant to retire, despite having reached the age of 80.
    >> How a Nazi sympathizer helped found one of Sweden’s most powerful parties
    The reason for his reluctance is that many people at the institute fear that when he leaves, his place will be taken by someone nominated by the relevant minister, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who will turn Yad Vashem into a remembrance institute in the spirit of Bennett’s Habayit Hayehudi party. It would be interesting to know what Dreifuss thinks about that.
    Yad Vashem is now paying the price of the many years in which it nurtured a one-dimensional, simplistic message that there’s only one way to explain the Holocaust. Today, the institution is apparently willing to place its reputation for Holocaust research, which it has built over many years, at the service of a government that has recruited it to accuse anyone who criticizes Israel of anti-Semitism. So it’s no wonder that its researchers have become partisan explainers of the Holocaust.
    It’s one thing when, at dubious conferences with political leaders whose governments include former neo-Nazis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tries to pass resolutions calling criticism of Israel the new anti-Semitism. It’s another when a research and remembrance institute doesn’t stand courageously against all such attempts.
    Thus Yad Vashem would do better not to look for evidence that other governments are attempting to distort history and dictate nationalist content – not to mention engaging in Holocaust denial, as Dreifuss charges.
    The Polish angle
    Does any of the above justify the current Polish government’s position on the Holocaust? Obviously not. The Polish government has a problematic agenda in explaining the past, which we aren’t obligated to accept and in fact should even criticize.
    But Poland’s government hasn’t interfered with the work of the museum’s employees, who have now started working, and certainly not with the development of the museum’s narrative. Had Dreifuss and her colleagues gotten involved in this effort, as they were invited to do, they would have been welcomed. Had Yad Vashem offered its help and support instead of giving the project the cold shoulder, nobody would have been happier than we at the museum.
    >> Opening Italy’s ‘closet of shame’
    And now we come to the historical issue. To take part in the effort to establish the Warsaw Ghetto Museum, one has to agree that the Holocaust can be presented and explained from perspectives other than an ethnocentric Jewish, Zionist and nationalist one.
    One has to accept that the Holocaust can be studied in a way that sees Jewish history during this period as an integral part of Poland’s history under the Nazi occupation. One has to agree that the horrific Jewish tragedy that occurred during World War II can and should be understood in part by simultaneously examining – while noting both the differences and the common elements – what befell Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and others who were murdered alongside Jews in the vast genocidal expanse that occupied Poland became.
    To set up a museum with a humanist, universal and inclusive message about the Holocaust, one has to accept an approach that sees the Warsaw Ghetto – a horrific terror zone that caused the deaths and physical and spiritual collapse of hundreds of thousands of Jews – as one element of a much bigger terror zone in which hundreds of thousands of other people suffered and fought for their existence: the Poles who lived on the other side of the wall.
    The obvious differences between the fates of these two peoples don’t absolve the research historian, or a museum depicting the history of this period, from presenting this complex message and demanding that visitors to the museum grapple with its lessons.
    Therefore, the new Warsaw Ghetto Museum won’t be Yad Vashem. It will be a Holocaust museum in the heart of the Polish capital that remembers the fate of the 450,000 Jews, Warsaw residents and refugees brought to the ghetto.
    After all, the vast majority of them were Jewish citizens of Poland. That’s how they lived, that’s how they suffered, and that’s how they should be remembered after being murdered by the Nazis.
    Prof. Daniel Blatman is a historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the chief historian for the Warsaw Ghetto Museum.

  • Israel. Q&A With Naftali Bennett – The Forward

    https://forward.com/opinion/415199/can-the-leader-of-a-nationalist-party-talk-to-the-diaspora-qa-with-naftali

    It’s no secret that American Jews and their Israeli counterparts have less in common with every passing day. But where you locate the source of that chasm depends on which side of the Atlantic you’re standing on.

    For American Jews, Israel’s dispossession of Palestinian civil rights, the monopoly of the ultra-Orthodox over religious matters, and the increasing commitment to ethno-nationalism over civil rights have chipped away at erstwhile unconditional support for the Jewish State.

    Not so for Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett. “Israel-Diaspora relations are in an unprecedented crisis,” he said recently. “We’re often told this is because of the Western Wall and because of the Palestinian issue and because of other ideological disagreements. That’s not true. There’s a dire assimilation crisis and growing apathy among Jews in the Diaspora toward their Judaism and toward Israel.”

    The tactic of disparaging Diaspora Jews in order to fend off criticism is by now routine among Israeli politicians. Bennett’s analysis seems wrong to me on two counts. Not only are two-thirds of intermarried couples raising their children Jewish, but young Jews are far from apathetic about Israel; they are passionate in their criticism of its failures to ensure religious liberty and civil rights, a passion that stems directly from what they see as their Jewish values.

    But Bennett, the head of the national religious Jewish Home party, was always a curious choice for Diaspora Affairs Minister. With his us-versus-them attitude to Palestinians, he epitomizes the kind of ethno-nationalist view of Judaism that American Jews have moved away from — and are increasingly eager to criticize.

    Naftali Bennett Is Face of Israel’s New Right Wing
    Nathan JeffayJanuary 14, 2013
    “My formula is the maximum amount of land with the minimum amount of Palestinians,” Bennett told me when we spoke in late November. As for the value of liberal democracy that American Jews hold so dear, “This is not a philosophy class in some Ivy League college in the United States.”

    Our meeting took place on a Tuesday evening in Jerusalem. Wearing his trademark coin-sized knitted yarmulka and a navy suit, Bennett was friendly, even patient as I asked him the same questions over and over, living up to his reputation as a “bro” and setting aside his usual approach of belittling Diaspora Jews in favor of a more conciliatory one.

    00:39/00:52

    It brought home the fact that his two roles — as head of the Jewish Home and Diaspora Affairs Minister — were in tension with each other; those of Bennett’s views which were most anathema to me are the very ones most likely to help him politically at home, something I was keenly aware of throughout our interview.

    The following transcript has been very slightly edited for clarity. You can find a key to some of the terms at the bottom.

  • Israel’s defense chief resigns, slams Netanyahu for ’surrendering to Hamas terror’
    Haaretz.com - Chaim Levinson Nov 14, 2018 12:47 PM
    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-s-political-arena-holds-breath-as-defense-chief-calls-surpr

    Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced his resignation on Wednesday and called for elections to be held as soon as possible, saying he hopes a date will be set by Sunday. Lieberman said of all the members of his party, Yisrael Beiteinu, will quit the coalition.

    However, a senior source in Likud, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party, said that elections are not neccessarily the next step and added that Netanyahu will initially take on Lieberman’s portfolio. Lieberman, who heads Yisrael Beiteinu, will retake his Knesset seat following his resignation, as provided for by law.

    “I didn’t look for reasons to quit,” Lieberman said. “I tried to remain a loyal government member, in the cabinet, keep differences internal even at an electoral cost.” The two turning points, he said, were the millions of dollars in cash delivered from Qatar to Gaza, and the cease-fire Israel reached with Hamas on Tuesday.

    “There is no other definition, no other significance, but a capitulation to terror,” he said, adding: “What we are doing now as a country is buying short-term quiet at the cost of our long-term security.”

    “It is no secret there were differences between the prime minister and I,” he said. “I did not agree to allow entry of Qatari money [into Gaza], and I had to allow it only after the prime minister announced it.” Lieberman said similar differences revolved around the evacuation of the West Bank Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar.

    Yisrael Beiteinu’s departure means Netanyahu still holds a Knesset majority of 61 seats to maintain the coalition. Another key coalition partner in Netanyahu’s government, Habayit Hayehudi (headed by Education Minister Naftali Bennett) said that unless the defense portfolio goes to Bennett, the party will also quit the coalition.

    Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, said Lieberman’s resignation is a recognition of Israel’s defeat in this week’s military confrontation with the Islamic group.

    Following the cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Lieberman and Education Minister Naftali Bennett published statements against the truce reached with Hamas. Sources said that as soon as the latest round of fighting erupted, Lieberman demanded a “harsh, decisive” move against Hamas. Sources near Bennett say that his opposition to the cease-fire was clear as could be.

    Other sources, however, say that ultimately, the ministers unanimously supported the defense establishment’s position that action should be taken to restore the calm.

    According to associates of Lieberman, the Prime Minister’s Office’s claim on Tuesday that he had supported the cease-fire agreement that was reached to end hostilities in Gaza infuriated him.

    Senior Hamas official Husan Badran said Tuesday, the third day of hostilities, that “if Netanyahu is interested in ending this round, he must fire [Defense Minister] Lieberman, who in his foolish conduct caused the escalation.”

    In recent weeks, Lieberman and Bennett have publicly argued between them about Gaza and Israel’s actions there. Last month, Bennett charged Lieberman of a weak, left-wing defense policy, while Lieberman retorted that in cabinet meetings, Bennett says the opposite of what he says in public.

    Lieberman and the cabinet were divided about the sale of gasoline and natural gas to Gaza, and in defense forums, it was decided that the defense minister may not make decisions on the subject without the cabinet’s agreement. The ministers were surprised last month by Lieberman’s decision to cut off the fuel supply to Gaza, a decision he made on his own, in contradiction to the position of the defense establishment. Netanyahu and the cabinet members heard of the decision for the first time through the media.

  • Israeli Druze commander quits army over nation-state law in open letter to Netanyahu

    In a Facebook post, Capt. Amir Jmall calls on leaders of his community to work toward putting an end to the compulsory conscription of Israeli Druze

    Yaniv Kubovich
    Jul 30, 2018 5:36 PM

    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israeli-druze-quits-idf-over-nation-state-law-in-letter-to-netanya

    In the letter, Jmall also called on leaders of his community to work toward putting an end to the compulsory conscription of Israel’s Druze. The Facebook post has since been removed.
    “This morning, when I woke up to drive to the [army] base, I asked myself, why? Why do I have to serve the State of Israel, a state that my two brothers, my father and I have served with dedication, a sense of mission and a love of the homeland, and, in the end, what do we get? To be second-class citizens,” Jmall wrote.
    >> ’When we’re in uniform they treat us well’: Israel’s Druze no longer feel like blood brothers
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    "Continue serving the country? I do not want to continue and I am sure that hundreds more people will stop serving and will be discharged from the army following your decision, Netanyahu, that of you and your government,” he continued.
    "After many thoughts ran through my head, I decided to let go and to discontinue serving the country, a country that has a government that takes and does not give back.”
    In conclusion, Jmall wrote: “I ask everyone who is against the nation-state law to share and share my proposal to community leaders to stop the conscription law for members of the Druze community.”
    The Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, also known as the nation-state law, approved by the Knesset on July 19, affirmed that only Jews have the right to self-determination in Israel. It also downgraded Arabic to a language with “special status,” among several other controversial measures that affect the Israeli Druze.
    The nation-state law is designed to alter the application of the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty in court rulings, and permits judges to give priority to Israel’s Jewish character in their rulings.

    Last week, Druze lawmakers were the first to file a High Court of Justice petition against the legislation. A hundred Druze Israel Defense Forces reserve officers added their voices to that effort on Wednesday, prompting Education Minister Naftali Bennett to speak out in support of “our blood brothers” on Twitter.
    Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon echoed similar sentiments on Thursday, telling Israeli Army Radio, “The enactment of the nation-state law was done hastily,” and adding: “We were wrong and we need to fix it.”
    On Saturday, Israeli Arab lawmaker Zouheir Bahloul (Zionist Union) announced his intention to resign from the Knesset in protest of the law. "The law oppresses me and oppresses the population that sent me to the Knesset,’’ he said.

    • Haaretz, 1er août
      Nation-state Law Backlash: Druze Leaders Say Netanyahu’s Offer May Set ’Historical Precedent’

      https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-nation-state-law-backlash-netanyahu-offers-druze-new-legislation-1

      Representatives of the Druze community said Thursday night that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to pass a law to strengthen the status of the Druze and Circassian communities is “a window of opportunity to set a historical precedent for the advancement of the Druze community and its status in the State of Israel.”
      Representatives, headed by Sheikh Muwafak Tarif, will continue talks with Netanyahu’s team, which has been appointed to make an agreement on both sides.
      Netanyahu’s proposed law follows the protest sparked by the nation-state law. The plan outlines a Basic Law and a regular law that will recognize the contribution of minorities who defend the country by “enshrining eligibility for the benefits of minority members of all religions and communities who serve in the security forces, for the purpose of closing gaps and promoting social equality.”
      Benjamin Netanyahu and the Druze representatives, August 1, 2018.
      Benjamin Netanyahu and the Druze representatives, August 1, 2018.
      >> Israeli Druze in Golan welcome end of Syrian war but fear future in Jewish nation-state
      Another demonstration against the nation-state law is slated for Saturday evening in Tel Aviv.
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      According to the plan submitted by the prime minister’s representatives, “the law will recognize the contribution of the Druze community to the security of the state, and will include support for community institutions (religion, education and culture), will strengthen Druze residential settlements, and establish new towns if needed. It will also preserve and cultivate Druze heritage.”
      Tourism Minister Yariv Levin (Likud) congratulated “the agreement we have reached with the Druze leadership. Recognizing the rights of those who serve in the security forces is an achievement.” Tamar Zandberg (Meretz) said in response: “The Prime Minister ranks Israel’s citizens, and he divides and rules the minorities from whom he has stolen equality in his Basic Law. He got scared after the fact. Netanyahu’s government has torn apart the Declaration of Independence and the values of equality on which the state was founded. Now they’re making laws in honor of the Druze community, as if equality is a prize and not a right that all of us have.”
      The proposal drew mixed reactions from the Druze community, MK Hamad Amar (Yisrael Beiteinu), one of the two Druze MKs who petitioned the Supreme Court against the nation-state law, congratulated the plan. MK Saleh Saad (Zionist Union) said he will continue with the petition and said: “I am sad that my friends have succumbed to pressures and withdrew from the petition.”
      The negotiating team of the Druze community, which includes their spiritual leader, Sheikh Muwafak Tarif, former security officials and civil servants, has had strong disagreements over the proposal. One of the team members told Haaretz that the representatives who have security backgrounds tend to accept the spirit of the plan, while others – including local council heads – oppose it.
      The source added that some of the representatives accused the prime minister of trying to implement a policy of “divide and conquer.” They said that they would settle only for annulling the nation-state law or adding to it the value of equality. The source added that the Prime Minister’s Office is concerned about the protest rally scheduled for Saturday night, and therefore is exerting heavy pressure on the representatives of the community to accept the plan and cancel the rally.

      >> ’When we’re in uniform they treat us well’: Israel’s Druze no longer feel like blood brothers
      The plan was drafted by a team formed by the prime minister on the issue of the Druze, headed by the acting Chief of Staff of the Prime Minister’s Bureau, Yoav Horowitz, and including Sheikh Tarif, ministers Ayoub Kara and Yariv Levin, MK Hamad Amar (Yisrael Beiteinu), former MK Shakib Shenan, heads of the Druze local authorities and the forum of reservist senior officers.
      The prime minister’s office called the plan “historic” in a press release, saying it “represents a revolution in the legal status of minority group members who serve in the security forces, and members of the Druze community in particular.” Sheikh Tarif welcomed the work of the team and thanked the prime minister for his quick and serious activity. The plan will be presented to the Druze community’s dignitaries.
      The plan offers to enshrine a Basic Law - Israeli constitutional equivalent - for the status of the Druze and Circassian communities, “paying respect to the contribution of the Druze community to the State of Israel in building the land, strengthening security and shaping the face of Israeli society as an egalitarian and diverse society.”
      The plan also suggests enshrining in law that members of minority groups, from all religions and ethnic groups will be eligible for benefits if they serve in the security forces. The law will also recognize their contribution if they serve.
      >> Analysis: Druze nation-state crisis: Israeli army chief forced to put out fire Netanyahu started
      Several Druze officers have left the Israeli military in recent days over the nation-state law.
      The Basic Law on Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, also known as the nation-state law, approved by the Knesset on July 19, affirmed that only Jews have the right to self-determination in Israel. It also downgraded Arabic to a language with “special status,” among several other controversial measures that affect the Israeli Druze.
      The nation-state law is designed to alter the application of the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty in court rulings, and permits judges to give priority to Israel’s Jewish character in their rulings.
      Earlier this month, Druze lawmakers were the first to file a High Court of Justice petition against the legislation. A hundred Druze Israel Defense Forces reserve officers added their voices to that effort on Wednesday, prompting Education Minister Naftali Bennett to speak out in support of “our blood brothers” on Twitter.
      Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon echoed similar sentiments, telling Israeli Army Radio, “The enactment of the nation-state law was done hastily,” and adding: “We were wrong and we need to fix it.”
      The acting Chief of Staff of the Prime Minister’s Bureau announced the formation of a ministerial committee to deal with the issue of the Druze community, to be headed by the prime minister, which will work to promote the plan and to supervise its implementation - among other things.
      Details of the plan will be formulated and worded within 45 days, in the context of a joint team of the cabinet and representatives of the community, all subject to the instructions of the law and the approval of the attorney general. Legislative activities will begin immediately with the convening of the coming winter session of the Knesset and will be concluded within 45 days from the start of the session.
      Jonathan Lis

    • Rare manifestation de la communauté druze contre une loi controversée définissant Israël
      https://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2018/08/05/rare-manifestation-de-la-communaute-druze-contre-une-loi-controversee-defini

      Une foule immense de Druzes israéliens et leurs sympathisants a manifesté samedi à Tel-Aviv contre une nouvelle loi controversée qui, disent-ils, fait d’eux des citoyens de seconde classe. Selon les médias israéliens, quelque 50 000 personnes ont pris part à la manifestation.
      […]
      Arborant des drapeaux druzes et israéliens, les protestataires ont défilé dans le centre de Tel-Aviv an scandant « égalité ». « Malgré notre loyauté illimitée à l’Etat, celui-ci ne nous considère pas comme des citoyens égaux », a affirmé le chef spirituel de la communauté druze, cheikh Mouafak Tarif dans un discours.

  • Yad Vashem : la déclaration commune sur la Shoah est "très problématique"
    The Times of Israël | Par Raphael Ahren | 5 juillet 2018
    https://fr.timesofisrael.com/yad-vashem-la-declaration-commune-sur-la-shoah-est-tres-problemati

    Le mémorial de la Shoah Yad Vashem a vivement critiqué jeudi l’accord entre les gouvernements d’Israël et de la Pologne concernant le bilan de ce dernier pendant la Shoah, affirmant qu’il entraverait la recherche libre sur le sujet.

    La déclaration commune de Varsovie et de Jérusalem « contient des formulations très problématiques qui contredisent les données historiques existantes et acceptées dans ce domaine », et contient des « supercheries » a déclaré l’institution dans un communiqué de presse.

    “““““““““““““““““““““““““““““
    Declaration Commune des Premiers Ministres de l’Etat d’Israel et de la Republique de Pologne
    https://www.fundacjapkobp.pl/formularze-1/dfr.pdf

    • La controverse reprend en Israël sur la loi mémorielle polonaise concernant la Shoah

      En échange de la réécriture du texte, Benyamin Nétanyahou a accepté de valider l’argumentaire orienté et contesté de la droite ultraconservatrice polonaise

      LE MONDE | 06.07.2018 à 00h44 • Mis à jour le 06.07.2018 à 09h14 | Par Piotr Smolar (Jérusalem, correspondant) et Jakub Iwaniuk (Varsovie, correspondance)
      https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2018/07/06/la-controverse-reprend-en-israel-sur-la-loi-memorielle-polonaise-concernant-

      La prise de conscience a réclamé quelques jours, mais elle a fini par faire du bruit. Le compromis annoncé le 27 juin entre les gouvernements israélien et polonais au sujet de la loi sur la Shoah, qui avait été adoptée par le Parlement à Varsovie le 26 janvier, ressemblait à un succès diplomatique de l’Etat hébreu.

      Après de longs échanges avec le gouvernement de Mateusz Morawiecki, ce dernier avait accepté de soutenir une révision du texte. La loi mémorielle controversée prévoyait jusqu’à trois ans de prison pour « l’attribution à la nation ou à l’Etat polonais, en dépit des faits, de crimes contre l’humanité » dans le contexte de la seconde guerre mondiale. C’est ce volet pénal qui a été abandonné.

      Priorité au présent

      Les autorités polonaises, au lieu de reconnaître leur recul, ont décidé de largement médiatiser la déclaration commune avec Israël, qui, à l’origine, n’existait qu’en anglais. A l’initiative exclusive de Varsovie, des pages entières ont été achetées dans de grands quotidiens européens, en quatre langues, et enfin en hébreu. « Les Polonais sont victimes d’un hubris énorme », peste un diplomate israélien.

      Mais le cœur de la polémique est ailleurs. En échange de la réécriture de la loi, Benyamin Nétanyahou a accepté de valider l’argumentaire orienté et contesté de la droite ultraconservatrice polonaise.

      Le premier ministre israélien a accordé la priorité au présent, aux intérêts immédiats d’Israël plutôt que de tendre la relation bilatérale. Et ces intérêts passent, selon lui, par le groupe de Visegrad (Pologne, Hongrie, République tchèque et Slovaquie).

      M. Nétanyahou – qui doit accueillir le premier ministre hongrois, Viktor Orban, le 19 juillet à Jérusalem – considère ces pays, à divers titres, comme des chevaux de Troie au sein de l’Union européenne (UE). Celle-ci campe sur la dénonciation de la colonisation en Cisjordanie et le soutien à une « solution à deux Etats » avec les Palestiniens. Or, M. Nétanyahou joue sur ses bonnes relations avec les pays du groupe de Visegrad pour geler toute initiative de l’UE qui serait hostile à Israël. Il espère aussi que ces Etats membres suivront l’exemple américain, un jour, et transféreront leur ambassade à Jérusalem.

      Contre la déclaration commune, un rare consensus

      Mais la publication de la déclaration commune en Israël a ranimé un débat vif. Jeudi 5 juillet, Benyamin Nétanyahou s’est trouvé pris entre deux feux hostiles : celui de l’Institut international pour la mémoire de la Shoah, Yad Vashem, et celui de la droite messianique. Dans un rare consensus, ils ont dénoncé le « blanchiment de l’Histoire » orchestré par la droite polonaise, avec la complicité du chef du gouvernement israélien, sans toutefois le nommer.

      Sur Twitter, le ministre de l’éducation, Naftali Bennett, chef de file du Foyer juif, parti ultranationaliste et sioniste religieux, a qualifié la déclaration commune de « honte saturée de mensonges, qui trahit la mémoire des victimes de l’Holocauste ».

      Le mot « trahison » a également été employé par l’un des historiens les plus reconnus de la période, Yehuda Bauer. « Je ne sais pas ce qui s’est produit ici, écrit-il dans le quotidien Haaretz. De l’ignorance, de la stupidité ou la victoire clairement amorale d’intérêts passagers qui resteront pour nous une honte éternelle. » Dans un long et sévère communiqué, Yad Vashem a démonté les petits arrangements avec l’Histoire au cœur de cet accord, qui contient « des erreurs graves et des tromperies ».

      L’argumentaire est révélateur du conflit mémoriel entre une écrasante majorité de la communauté des historiens et la narration, aux accents nationalistes, promue par une large frange de la droite polonaise. Elle concerne le rôle des populations civiles pendant l’occupation allemande du pays, leur participation à des pogroms, ou les positions du gouvernement polonais en exil.

      Le jour de la signature de la déclaration commune, le premier ministre polonais, M. Morawiecki, avait ainsi dénoncé la « pédagogie de la honte » promue par ses prédécesseurs libéraux et par certains historiens polonais. « Nous voulons que le point de vue polonais soit perçu par un prisme positif. Et je crois profondément que ce sera le cas grâce à cette déclaration, par laquelle nous défendons l’honneur de nos ancêtres, (…) ainsi que l’héroïsme des Polonais dans le sauvetage de leurs concitoyens juifs », avait-il déclaré.
      « Manœuvre cynique »

      Cette réécriture fausse des responsabilités est inacceptable pour les spécialistes de Yad Vashem. « La tentative d’amplification de l’aide qui avait été accordée aux juifs, sa description comme un phénomène répandu et le fait de minimiser le rôle des Polonais dans les persécutions des juifs constituent une insulte à la vérité historique, mais aussi à la mémoire de l’héroïsme des Justes parmi les nations », est-il écrit.

      En tout, 6620 Polonais sont considérés comme des Justes par Yad Vashem, qui rappelle cependant que l’aide offerte par des Polonais aux juifs était « relativement rare ». Yad Vashem met en cause la dissolution de l’identité des coupables nationaux, qui ont aidé les nazis dans leur entreprise de destruction. « Ils étaient polonais et catholiques, et ils ont collaboré avec l’occupant allemand, qu’ils détestaient, pour persécuter les citoyens juifs de Pologne. »

      Yad Vashem rappelle une nouvelle fois le non-sens que représente l’expression « camp de la mort polonais », dont l’usage a motivé la démarche législative initiée par le parti Droit et justice (PiS) de Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Mais il estime que qualifier son emploi d’« antipolonisme » est « fondamentalement anachronique » et ne devrait jamais être placé sur le même plan que l’antisémitisme.

      Pour l’historien Jan Grabowski, un des plus éminents spécialistes polonais de l’histoire de la Shoah, cité par le quotidien Gazeta Wyborcza, « la déclaration de Yad Vashem met en lumière la manœuvre cynique des politiques polonais et israéliens, dont l’objectif était de donner au pouvoir nationaliste polonais un “certificat de respectabilité” et l’ouverture des salons diplomatiques, dont ils ont été exclus après l’adoption de la scandaleuse loi mémorielle. »

  • Israël hanté par la Nakba
    Thomas Vescovi, Monde diplomatique, mai 2018
    https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2018/05/VESCOVI/58636

    « La marche du grand retour » : c’est ainsi que les organisations politiques palestiniennes nomment les actions menées chaque année depuis 2009 entre le 30 mars et le 15 mai. Pour l’État d’Israël, le 14 mai marque le souvenir de ce jour de 1948 où David Ben Gourion déclara l’indépendance. La société palestinienne, elle, commémore le lendemain la Nakba (« catastrophe », en arabe) : l’expulsion des 805 000 Palestiniens dont les descendants attendent encore l’application de la résolution 194, votée le 11 décembre 1948 par l’Assemblée générale de l’Organisation des Nations unies (ONU). Ce texte fonde leur « droit au retour » : c’est-à-dire de pouvoir rentrer dans leurs foyers ou de recevoir une compensation. Enfin, c’est à cette date que l’administration de M. Donald Trump entend inaugurer la nouvelle ambassade des États-Unis à Jérusalem.

    Au terme de la première guerre israélo-arabe, des centaines de milliers de Palestiniens se retrouvent éparpillés aux quatre coins de la région. Des historiens enregistrent les événements, conscients que la version du vainqueur risque de s’imposer. Les écrits de Walid Khalidi ou Sami Hadawi sont sans ambiguïté : qu’il ait préféré fuir de lui-même pour se protéger ou qu’il y ait été forcé, le peuple palestinien a été chassé de sa terre (1). Mais, pour que cette version des événements de 1948 se diffuse au-delà du monde arabe, il a fallu attendre 1987 et la publication des premiers ouvrages des « nouveaux historiens » israéliens, parmi lesquels Benny Morris, Tom Segev, Ilan Pappé et Avi Shlaïm (2). En s’appuyant sur les archives de leur État, ces chercheurs ébranlèrent un à un les piliers de l’historiographie officielle.

    La temporalité de ces publications n’est pas anodine. Le premier ouvrage paraît lorsque se déclenche la première Intifada, près d’une décennie après l’arrivée au pouvoir de la droite et le début du mouvement refuznik, qui voit des objecteurs de conscience refuser de servir dans les territoires occupés tandis que des militaires israéliens s’interrogent à propos des pratiques de leur armée. Les pacifistes entrent dans une phase d’ouverture et d’interrogation sur leur société, leur État et leur rapport à l’autre. L’accession d’Itzhak Rabin au poste de premier ministre en 1992 et le début des négociations avec l’Organisation de libération de la Palestine (OLP), qui conduisent à la signature des accords d’Oslo en septembre 1993, s’inscrivent dans ce cadre. C’est l’époque où la guerre froide se termine et où le soutien de nombreux pays arabes à la coalition anti-irakienne durant la guerre du Golfe de 1991 sonne le glas d’un panarabisme longtemps opposé à toute négociation avec Israël.

    Au cours de la première moitié des années 1990, les travaux des « nouveaux historiens » suscitent un réel intérêt au sein d’une partie de la société israélienne. Conférences, séminaires, débats dans les médias : sans être acceptées par tous, les thèses avancées dans ces ouvrages sont du moins discutées. Des projets d’écriture d’une histoire israélo-palestinienne surgissent, de même que des commissions visant à revoir les programmes d’histoire dans les écoles. Cependant, les discussions restent cantonnées aux milieux intellectuels. L’assassinat de Rabin par un extrémiste juif en 1995, puis l’arrivée au pouvoir de M. Benyamin Netanyahou en 1996 et le début des attentats-suicides sur le sol israélien mettent à mal ce processus d’ouverture, mais ne l’interrompent pas.

    Le déclenchement de la seconde Intifada, fin septembre 2000, referme néanmoins les derniers espaces d’échange et de dialogue entre Israéliens et Palestiniens au sujet de leurs récits historiques. Principaux promoteurs de ces relations, les mouvements pacifistes s’effondrent à la suite de l’échec, en juillet 2000, du sommet de Camp David ; un échec dont le premier ministre travailliste Ehoud Barak, par un tour de passe-passe masquant sa propre intransigeance (il reconnaîtra plus tard n’avoir rien proposé au dirigeant palestinien), impute la responsabilité au seul Yasser Arafat. Sans représenter l’avant-garde du mouvement, les militants de la gauche sioniste parvenaient à rassembler de larges secteurs de la société israélienne. Avec les déclarations de M. Barak et le déclenchement d’un second soulèvement palestinien bien plus meurtrier et militarisé que le premier, la majeure partie d’entre eux cessent toute activité pacifiste ; leurs organisations s’essoufflent.

    Pour la société juive, il n’y aurait alors « plus de partenaire » avec qui faire la paix. Les Israéliens perçoivent la seconde Intifada comme une attaque sans sommation des Palestiniens, qui plus est marquée par la mobilisation du Hamas, nouvelle force politique à tendance islamiste, ce qui fait écho à une actualité mondiale anxiogène. En 2001, Ariel Sharon, chef de file de la droite, remporte les élections en proposant une autre issue : puisque la cohabitation est impossible, la séparation amènera la paix. Conformément à cette logique unilatérale, un mur est construit en Cisjordanie entre Palestiniens et colons israéliens et l’armée se retire de la bande de Gaza.

    La mémoire de la Nakba est à nouveau profondément enfouie au profit de la vieille propagande : les Palestiniens auraient quitté leur terre pour ne pas vivre avec des Juifs ; Israël a droit à cette terre que Dieu aurait donnée à Abraham. Dès sa prise de fonctions, Sharon fait retirer des écoles le manuel d’histoire d’Eyal Naveh, qui introduisait une vision hétérodoxe de 1948. À l’université, les travaux des « nouveaux historiens » sont combattus avec virulence. Aujourd’hui, cette bataille est au cœur des actions d’Im Tirtzu, une organisation estudiantine proche du dirigeant d’extrême droite et actuel ministre de l’éducation Naftali Bennett, dont les militants ont mené ces dernières années une campagne baptisée « La Nakba est un mensonge » (3). Les Israéliens refusent de se considérer comme partie prenante de l’histoire palestinienne, et les institutions leur martèlent qu’ils sont les héritiers d’idées émancipatrices et progressistes.

    La création d’Israël a lieu au lendemain de la guerre la plus meurtrière de l’histoire, à l’issue de laquelle les idéaux de liberté ont triomphé du fascisme. Les Juifs incarnent les principales victimes de la terreur nazie, et la fondation d’un État-refuge au Proche-Orient doit venir réparer cette tragédie pourtant européenne. Dès lors, la défense d’Israël devient un enjeu à la fois politique et civilisationnel. La mémoire de la Nakba risque de ternir la totale innocence qu’affiche l’appareil d’État israélien. Accepter qu’à la création du pays ses combattants n’aient pas été des victimes, mais des bourreaux, ruinerait la « pureté des armes » dont se targue l’armée dite « de défense » d’Israël.

    La logique de séparation a entraîné dans la société juive israélienne un profond désintérêt pour la question palestinienne. Lors des élections législatives de mars 2015, seuls 9 % considéraient l’obtention d’un accord de paix avec les Palestiniens comme une priorité pour le prochain gouvernement (4). Ce sujet devenant invisible à leurs yeux, une forte proportion d’Israéliens se rallient aux idées les plus nationalistes. En 2001, lorsque la violence de la seconde Intifada était à son paroxysme, 35 % d’entre eux se disaient favorables à un « transfert » de la population arabe hors d’Israël vers la Cisjordanie ou la Jordanie (5). En 2015, 58 % soutiennent cette proposition, et 59 % la mise en place d’un régime d’apartheid privilégiant les Juifs en cas d’annexion de la Cisjordanie.

    Sur les ruines du grand mouvement pour la paix ont toutefois émergé de petites organisations agissant sur des questions plus ciblées. Ainsi Zochrot, fondée en 2001, se donne pour objectif d’enseigner la Nakba à la société israélienne. Elle a pris l’initiative de la première conférence sur le droit au retour des réfugiés palestiniens en Israël et organise depuis 2013 un festival annuel de films intitulé « De la Nakba au retour ». Elle propose également des visites de sites palestiniens « abandonnés » en 1948. La résidence d’un cheikh devenue cafétéria de l’université de Tel-Aviv, des maisons palestiniennes transformées en centre psychiatrique à Kfar Shaul : autant d’éléments du paysage israélien qui rappellent l’arabité de la terre. Pour les fondateurs du centre de recherche alternatif De-Colonizer (décoloniser), Éléonore Merza et Eitan Bronstein, la Nakba reste un tabou en Israël. En pratique, « la discussion se limite généralement à la question de savoir s’il est souhaitable ou même permis d’en discuter ». Cependant, ils notent que la situation a évolué, puisque le mot bénéficie d’un écho suffisant pour inquiéter les responsables politiques.

    Le 23 mars 2011, la Knesset, le Parlement israélien, adopte un amendement au budget prévoyant qu’aucune organisation commémorant le jour de la fête nationale comme un deuil ne reçoive plus de subventions. Naturellement, ces associations n’en bénéficiaient pas auparavant, mais il s’agit de les stigmatiser et de diffuser le sentiment que prendre part à ce type de manifestations vous place en dehors de la société. Par ailleurs, l’amendement dénie à la population arabe d’Israël, soit un habitant sur cinq, le droit d’honorer son histoire. D’ailleurs, depuis 2009, les écoles arabes n’ont officiellement plus le droit d’utiliser le terme « Nakba » dans leurs programmes.

    Pour la sociologue Ronit Lentin, il existe en Israël trois manières de considérer la Nakba (6). Une minorité ressasse la vision fantasmée de la Palestine comme « terre sans peuple pour un peuple sans terre ». D’autres reconnaissent partiellement la tragédie vécue par les Palestiniens, mais refusent d’admettre une quelconque responsabilité juive, voire répètent les arguments éculés sur les liens entre les Arabes et les nazis (7). Enfin, certains reconnaissent explicitement l’expulsion, mais refusent l’idée de présenter des excuses, ou regrettent même que le transfert n’ait pas été total — comme le « nouvel historien » repenti Benny Morris, qui a fini par affirmer : « Un État juif n’aurait pas pu être créé sans déraciner les Palestiniens (8). »

    Le Likoud, quant à lui, s’en tient à la version officielle niant toute expulsion, et par conséquent tout droit des Palestiniens sur la terre. La gauche sioniste reconnaît des massacres et des expulsions, mais en attribue la responsabilité aux milices nationalistes du Parti révisionniste, l’Irgoun et le Lehi.

    Pour certains militants anti-occupation, la découverte de la réalité de 1948 a marqué le début d’une remise en question plus générale de l’État d’Israël. D’où la réticence de beaucoup de leurs concitoyens à s’interroger sur cette période. Accepter de voir s’effondrer le récit inculqué depuis l’école les condamnerait à une marginalisation, voire à une stigmatisation ; on les accuserait d’accepter le discours de l’adversaire. Ainsi, certains parviennent à enfouir ces vérités au plus profond d’eux-mêmes afin de poursuivre normalement leur vie.

    Conformément à la théorie freudienne (9), Israël agit avec la Nakba comme un esprit traumatisé qui tente de refouler ce qui le hante. Une sorte d’« inquiétante étrangeté », à la source d’un sentiment de honte ressenti à l’égard d’actes passés, provoque un malaise qui pousse à vouloir les faire disparaître. Ce passé dérangeant revient, selon Freud, lorsque s’effacent les limites entre l’imagination et la réalité. La mémoire de la Nakba remonte à la surface par l’intermédiaire de divers acteurs qui détruisent les créations imaginaires pour montrer la réalité, et de Palestiniens qui saisissent toutes les occasions de resurgir dans l’espace public.

    La marche du 30 mars et celles qui ont suivi, avec leur lourd bilan humain, sont un cauchemar pour l’État d’Israël ; un rappel du fait que cinq millions de Palestiniens, les réfugiés et leurs descendants qui vivent à Gaza, en Cisjordanie ou dans d’autres pays de la région continuent de s’accrocher à leur droit au retour, ou à une indemnité à titre de compensation pour avoir été chassés de leur terre et de leurs demeures. Ils incarnent une injustice dont les Israéliens restent comptables.

    Thomas Vescovi Chercheur indépendant en histoire contemporaine, auteur de La Mémoire de la Nakba en Israël, L’Harmattan, coll. « Comprendre le Moyen-Orient », Paris, 2015.

    (1) Walid Khalidi, Nakba, 1947-1948, Sindbad - Actes sud - Institut des études palestiniennes, Arles, 2012.
    (2) Lire Dominique Vidal, « L’expulsion des Palestiniens revisitée par des historiens israéliens », Le Monde diplomatique, décembre 1997.
    (3) Lire Charles Enderlin, « Israël à l’heure de l’Inquisition », Le Monde diplomatique, mars 2016.
    (4) The Times of Israel, Jérusalem, 25 janvier 2015.
    (5) Gideon Levy, « Survey : Most Israeli Jews wouldn’t give Palestinians vote if West Bank was annexed », Haaretz, Tel-Aviv, 23 octobre 2012.
    (6) Ronit Lentin, Co-memory and Melancholia. Israelis memorialising the Palestinian Nakba, Manchester University Press, 2010.
    (7) Lire Gilbert Achcar, « Inusable grand mufti de Jérusalem », Le Monde diplomatique, mai 2010.
    (8) Haaretz, 9 janvier 2004.
    (9) Sigmund Freud, L’Inquiétante Étrangeté et autres essais, Gallimard, coll. « Folio essais », Paris, 1985 (1re éd. : 1919).

    #Palestine #Nakba #Histoire

  • Israeli universities urged to bar professors from calling to boycott

    We will not be used as a ’political thought police for the government,’ heads of universities say in unusually harsh response

    Yarden Zur Mar 25, 2018

    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/universities-urged-to-bar-professors-from-calling-to-boycott-israel-1.59384

    A panel for higher education headed by Education Minister Naftali Bennett adopted a code of ethics Sunday that moves to bar academics from calling for a boycott of Israel. 
    The subcommittee of the Council for Higher Education, in adopting this measure and a list of other principles prohibiting discrimination and advocacy based on political beliefs, rejected a controversial ethical code written by Prof. Asa Kasher at Bennett’s request.
    The heads of the universities in Israel harshly rejected the move, saying they would not agree to be “used as a political thought police for the government.” The move “continues the unfortunate line by which the ethical code is political sensorship that crushes underfoot the most basic principles of academic freedom,” it added. 
    The principles do not mention a specific call to ban academic boycotts in the settlements, but calls for a “ban on discrimination, positive or negative, of students based on their political opinions,” and a “ban on discrimination, positive or negative, of a faculty member or candidate for such or for promotion, based on their political opinions.”
    The measures would extend to both teaching faculty and administrators. The fourth principle bans “party propaganda in the framework of teaching,” and the fifth would prohibit “presenting or publishing materials “with political or personal opinions as if they are the opinions of the institution.”

    Education Minister Naftali Bennett speaking at a Knesset committee in February, 2018.אילן אסייג
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    The committee also proposed that lecturers be prohibited from “wrongly taking advantage of the teaching platform to systematically and improperly exhort a political position that clearly exceeds what is required by the teaching of the course in its broader context within its field.”

    The adopted principles were formulated last week and sent to the heads of Israel’s academic institutions for response. The issue will then be brought before the entire council.
    The subcommittee recommends that these principles become part of institutions’ disciplinary codes by early 2019; however, there is some uncertainty among panel members as to whether this can be enforced by the council.
    Adoption of the recommendations, a source told Haaretz, are ultimately up to the institutions themselves because the council is left with no avenue to enforce the measures. The only existing means against an institution that does not respond to the recommendations is to revoke its recognition as an institution of higher education, and that, of course, is unrealistic.
    “A code of ethics,” said the source, “is designed to define and spell out accepted norms of conduct in a specific community, and divergence from it can’t be considered a disciplinary infraction.”
    The original, rejected ethical code formulated by Kasher included wide-ranging directives in almost all areas of academic life, including campus activity, the classroom, publications and promotions, and was met with wide protest in the academic world. 
    Kasher’s ethical code treated the issue more stringently, stating that a lecturer “will not allow himself to deviate from the syllabus and the field of the academic unit, neither for political activity nor for similar exhortation, beyond a momentary and insignificant deviation. A significant deviation, for political purposes or similar exhortation, is improper and might also constitute wrongly taking advantage of authority.”
    Earlier, the Committee of University Heads called the code “a collection of government-dictated rules over an ensemble of academic activities of the academic faculty in Israel.
    The American Association of University Professors, harshly criticized Kasher’s code, stating that it was damaging to Israeli democracy.

  • Israeli Settler Shot and Killed in Drive-By Shooting
    IMEMC News | January 10, 2018 9:37 AM
    http://imemc.org/article/israeli-settler-rabbi-shot-and-killed-in-drive-by-shooting

    An Israeli settler, identified as 35-year old Rabbi Raziel Shevach, was shot and killed Tuesday while driving on an Israeli settler-only road near a colonial outpost in the northern part of the West Bank, near Nablus.

    update 9:40 am January 10th 2018:

    Israeli Education Minister, Naftali Bennett, the head of the ‘Jewish Home’ right-wing party, called for legalizing Havat Gilad outpost, and for conducting massive construction and expansion of Israeli colonies, in the occupied West Bank.

    “It is not enough to apprehend the shooters, we need to take direct action by building and expanding the settlements,” he said, “Mahmoud Abbas needs to understand the heavy price the Palestinians will pay because of these attacks.”

    Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked also called for harsh measures, and said that Israel needs to expel the families of Palestinian attackers, and demolish their homes.(...)

    • Territoires palestiniens : Israël recherche l’assassin d’un colon illégal
      Par RFI | Publié le 10-01-2018 | Avec notre correspondante à Ramallah, Marine Vlahovic
      http://www.rfi.fr/moyen-orient/20180110-territoires-palestiniens-israel-recherche-assassin-colon-illegal

      Dans les Territoires Palestiniens, une véritable chasse à l’homme a commencé mardi 9 janvier, après le meurtre d’un colon israélien, près de l’avant-poste israélien de Havat Gilad à côté de Naplouse en Cisjordanie.
      L’armée israélienne a partiellement bouclé le nord de la Cisjordanie, au matin du 10 janvier. A l’entrée de Naplouse, l’une des plus grandes villes des Territoires Palestiniens et dans les villages aux alentours, les forces de sécurité israéliennes empêchent les habitants de circuler librement.
      Israël cherche ainsi à retrouver les auteurs de l’attaque qui a coûté la vie à un colon israélien de l’avant-poste illégal de Havat Gilad à côté de Naplouse, la veille au soir.
      Attaque pas revendiquée
      Raziel Shebach était au volant de sa voiture lorsqu’il a été atteint de tirs d’arme automatique. Si les Brigades al-Qassam, la branche armée du Hamas, se sont félicitées de cette attaque, celle-ci n’a toujours pas été revendiquée.

  • Palestine : A girl’s chutzpah -

    Ahed Tamimi, 16, is a heroine, a Palestinian heroine. Maybe the intifada of slappings will succeed where all other methods of resistance have failed

    Gideon Levy Dec 20, 2017
    read more: https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.830229

    Last Tuesday, Israel Defense Forces soldiers shot Hamed al-Masri, 15, in the head, wounding the unarmed boy from Salfit severely. On Friday, soldiers shot the unarmed Mohammed Tamimi, also 15, in the head, wounding the Nabi Saleh boy severely. Also on Friday, soldiers killed Ibrahim Abu Thuraya, a double amputee, shooting him in the head, too. On the same day Ahed Tamimi, 16, stood in the courtyard of her home with her girlfriend and slapped an IDF officer who had invaded her home.
    Israel woke from its slumber angry: How dare she. The three victims of the barbaric shooting didn’t interest Israelis, and the media didn’t even bother to report on them. But the slap (and kick) by Tamimi provoked rage. How dare she slap an IDF soldier? A soldier whose friends slap, beat, abduct and of course shoot Palestinians almost every day.
    She really has chutzpah, Tamimi. She broke the rules. Slapping is permitted only by soldiers. She is the real provocation, not the soldier who invaded her house. She, who had three close relatives killed by the occupation, whose parents have been detained countless times and whose father was sentenced to four months in prison for participating in a demonstration at the entrance to a grocery store – she dared to resist a soldier. Palestinian chutzpah. Tamimi was supposed to fall in love with the soldier who invaded her house, to toss rice at him, but, ingrate that she is, she rewarded him with a slap. It’s all because of the “incitement.” Otherwise she certainly wouldn’t hate her conqueror.
    But there are other sources of the unbridled lust for revenge against Tamimi. (Education Minister Naftali Bennett: “She should finish her life in prison.”) The girl from Nabi Saleh shattered several myths for Israelis. Worst of all, she dared to damage the Israeli myth of masculinity. Suddenly it turns out that the heroic soldier, who watches over us day and night with daring and courage, is being pitted against a girl with empty hands. What’s going to happen to our machismo, which Tamimi shattered so easily, and our testosterone?
    Suddenly Israelis saw the cruel, dangerous enemy they are confronting: a curly-haired 16-year-old girl. All the demonization and dehumanization in the sycophantic media were shattered at once when confronted by a girl in a blue sweater.
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    Israelis lost their heads. This is not what they were told. They’re used to hearing about terrorists and terror and murderous behavior. It’s hard to accuse Ahed Tamimi of all that; she didn’t even have scissors in her hands. Where’s the Palestinian cruelty? Where’s the danger? Where’s the evil? You could lose your mind. Suddenly all the cards were reshuffled: For one rare moment the enemy looked so human. Of course you can rely on Israel’s machinery of propaganda and brainwashing, which are so efficient, to assassinate Tamimi’s character soon enough. She too will be labeled a cruel terrorist who was born to kill; it will be said she has no justifiable motives and that there’s no context for her behavior.

    Ahed Tamimi is a heroine, a Palestinian heroine. She succeeded in driving Israelis crazy. What will the military correspondents and right-wing inciters and security experts say? Why good are 8200, Oketz, Duvdevan, Kfir and all these other special units if at the end of the day the IDF is confronting a helpless civilian population that is tired of the occupation, embodied by a girl with a kaffiyeh on her shoulder?
    If only there were many more like her. Maybe girls like her will be able to shake Israelis up. Maybe the intifada of slappings will succeed where all other methods of resistance, violent and non-violent, have failed.
    Meanwhile Israel has reacted the only way it knows how: a nighttime abduction from her home and detention with her mother. But in his heart of hearts, every decent Israeli likely knows not only who is right and who isn’t, but also who is strong and who is weak. The soldier armed from head to toe who invades a house that doesn’t belong to him, or the unarmed girl defending her home and her lost honor with her bare hands, with a slap?

    • Mardi dernier, les soldats des Forces de défense israéliennes ont tiré sur Hamed al-Masri, 15 ans, dans la tête, blessant gravement le garçon désarmé de Salfit. Vendredi, des soldats ont tiré sur Mohammed Tamimi, un homme non armé, également âgé de 15 ans, dans la tête, blessant gravement le garçon Nabi Saleh. Vendredi également, des soldats ont tué Ibrahim Abu Thuraya, un double amputé, lui tirant aussi dans la tête. Le même jour, Ahed Tamimi, 16 ans, se tenait dans la cour de sa maison avec sa petite amie et a giflé un officier des FDI qui avait envahi sa maison. Israël s’est réveillé de son sommeil en colère : Comment ose-t-elle. Les trois victimes de la fusillade barbare n’ont pas intéressé les Israéliens, et les médias n’ont même pas pris la peine d’en parler. B La gifle (et le coup) de Tamimi provoqua la rage. Comment ose-t-elle gifler un soldat de Tsahal ? Un soldat dont les amis giflent, battent, enlèvent et, bien sûr, fusillent les Palestiniens presque tous les jours. Elle a vraiment chutzpah, Tamimi. Elle a enfreint les règles. Les gifles ne sont autorisées que par les soldats. Elle est la vraie provocation, pas le soldat qui a envahi sa maison. Elle, qui a eu trois proches parents tués par l’occupation, dont les parents ont été détenus plusieurs fois et dont le père a été condamné à quatre mois de prison pour avoir participé à une manifestation à l’entrée d’une épicerie - elle a osé résister à un soldat. Chutzpah palestinien. Tamimi était censée tomber amoureuse du soldat qui envahissait sa maison, lui lancer du riz, mais, bien qu’elle le sache, elle le récompensa d’une gifle. C’est tout à cause de « l’incitation ». Sinon, elle ne détesterait certainement pas son conquérant. Mais il existe d’autres sources de la convoitise débridée pour se venger de Tamimi. (Ministre de l’Education Naftali Bennett : « Elle devrait finir sa vie en prison. ») La fille de Nabi Saleh a brisé plusieurs mythes pour les Israéliens. Le pire de tout, elle a osé endommager le mythe israélien de la masculinité. Soudain, il s’avère que le soldat héroïque, qui veille sur nous jour et nuit avec audace et courage, est confronté à une fille aux mains vides. Que va-t-il arriver à notre machisme, que Tamimi a brisé si facilement, et à notre testostérone ? Soudain, les Israéliens ont vu l’ennemi cruel et dangereux auquel ils sont confrontés : une fille de 16 ans aux cheveux bouclés. Toute la diabolisation et la déshumanisation dans les médias sycophantiques ont été brisées à la fois quand confronté par une fille dans un chandail bleu. Restez à jour : Inscrivez-vous à notre newsletter Email * S’inscrire

      Les Israéliens ont perdu la tête. Ce n’est pas ce qu’on leur a dit. Ils ont l’habitude d’entendre parler de terroristes et de la terreur et du comportement meurtrier. Il est difficile d’accuser Ahed Tamimi de tout ça ; elle n’avait même pas de ciseaux dans ses mains. Où est la cruauté palestinienne ? Où est le danger ? Où est le mal ? Vous pourriez perdre votre esprit. Soudain, toutes les cartes furent remaniées : pendant un moment rare, l’ennemi semblait si humain. Bien sûr, vous pouvez compter sur la machinerie israélienne de propagande et de lavage de cerveau, qui sont si efficaces, pour assassiner le personnage de Tamimi assez tôt. Elle aussi sera étiquetée comme un terroriste cruel qui est né pour tuer ; on dira qu’elle n’a aucun motif justifiable et qu’il n’y a pas de contexte pour son comportement.

      Ahed Tamimi est une héroïne, une héroïne palestinienne. Elle a réussi à rendre les Israéliens fous. Que diront les correspondants militaires et les incitateurs de droite et les experts en sécurité ? Pourquoi bien sont 8200, Oketz, Duvdevan, Kfir et toutes ces autres unités spéciales si en fin de compte les FDI affrontent une population civile sans défense qui est fatiguée de l’occupation, incarnée par une fille avec un kaffiyeh sur son épaule ? Si seulement il y en avait beaucoup plus comme elle. Peut-être que des filles comme elle seront capables de secouer les Israéliens. Peut-être que l’intifada des slappings réussira là où toutes les autres méthodes de résistance, violentes et non-violentes, ont échoué. Pendant ce temps, Israël a réagi de la seule façon dont il sait comment : un enlèvement nocturne de sa maison et sa détention avec sa mère. Mais dans son cœur, chaque Israélien décent sait probablement non seulement qui a raison et qui ne l’est pas, mais aussi qui est fort et qui est faible. Le soldat armé de la tête aux pieds qui envahit une maison qui ne lui appartient pas, ou la fille désarmée qui défend sa maison et son honneur perdu à mains nues, avec une gifle ?

  • On eve of Netanyahu visit, EU to mark Human Rights Day with anti-occupation group B’Tselem
    Noa Landau Dec 04, 2017 3:53 PM
    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.826676

    In slap to Netanyahu, incoming EU ambassador chooses to hold official event with human rights group ■ Foreign Ministry says move is like ’spitting in the face of Israelis,’ while minister blasts EU as increasingly irrelevant

    Representatives of the European Union in Israel will mark International Human Rights Day on Thursday together with the human rights organization B’Tselem. The event, led by incoming EU Ambassador Emanuele Giaufret, will feature an exhibition of photographs marking 50 years of Israeli occupation and has sparked a fierce condemnation from Israel.

    The exhibition, entitled “50 Years,” is currently on display at the Jaffa Port in Tel Aviv. It features portraits of 50 Palestinians born in 1967, the year that Israel took over the West Bank and Gaza after the Six-Day War. The event is expected to be attended by other foreign diplomats in Israel as well.

    Early next week, Netanyahu will fly to Brussels for a rare meeting with the 28 foreign ministers of the EU member nations.

    In a departure from protocol, Netanyahu was invited not through the usual official channels, but through Lithuania’s representatives to the EU, a relatively friendly nation from Netanyahu’s perspective. The bypass of protocol has peeved the foreign minister of the EU, Federica Mogherini.

    The spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Emmanuel Nahshon, stated, “For reasons unknown, the EU people believe that the way to Israelis’ hearts is by spitting in their faces. We are again seeing the same patronizing approach of preaching hypocritical, condescending morality, that just pushes away rather than bringing closer. It is sad and superfluous.”

    Israeli officials and politicians fumed at the news. “The European Union loses no opportunity to needle the State of Israel and persists in its unilateral ways,” stated Naftali Bennett, the leader of Habayit Heyehudi party. “This attitude makes the EU a less relevant player by the day.”

    Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely commented that Israel has “been threatend by Palestinian terror for over 100 years” and that “unfortunately, the EU has not investigated the Palestinian Authority’s education system, which raises children to be ready to kill innocent civilians.” She further added that “whoever wants to look into human rights should begin with the Palestinian education system.”

    B’Tselem responded, saying they have invited Bennet, Hotovely, and Nahshon to the exhibition, “so that they can have a firsthand look at the children of 1967— who have been deprived of their human rights by Israel.”

    In late April, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a scheduled meeting with German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel for refusing Netanyahu’s demand that he not meet with two human rights nongovernmental organizations, Breaking the Silence and B’Tselem.

    Netanyahu’s bureau stated at the time that the prime minister’s policy is to not meet with diplomats who visit Israel and meet organizations “that slander [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers and seek to prosecute them as war criminals.”

    In February, Netanyahu ordered the Foreign Ministry to reprimand Belgium’s ambassador to Israel after Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel met with representatives from B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence. Netanyahu’s bureau stated at the time that “Israel sees gravely the meeting of the Belgian prime minister today with the heads of Breaking the Silence and B’Tselem during his visit to Israel.”

    The same month Netanyahu visited London and asked Prime Minister Theresa May to stop funding left-wing Israeli organizations, including Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem, Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and others.

    In the past Netanyahu has also ordered to abolish the posts at B’Tselem reserved for young Israelis who do voluntary national service as an alternative to enlisting in the army.

    This is not the first time the EU has lent public support to the organization, despite the disapproval of the Israeli government. In October 2016, the EU delegation to Israel openly supported an appearance by B’Tselem executive director Hagai El-Ad before a special session of the UN Security Council on the settlements, tweeting “We support B’Tselem to maintain human rights of vulnerable Palestinian communities in Area C.”

  • Israel cancels ban on racist answers in civics exam

    Matriculation exam will ask students to give their opinion on a controversial public issue and defend it — a question that will be mandatory this year, for the first time
    Or Kashti Oct 11, 2017 11:00 AM

    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.816742

    The Education Ministry has canceled a prohibition against giving racist answers on the civics matriculation exam.

    The original rule, published shortly before the school year began, stated that “racist or inflammatory statements” would result in the response receiving no credit. But a few days ago, the head of the ministry’s pedagogical secretariat, Moshe Weinstock, rescinded this rule, on the grounds, according to the ministry, that “we need to inculcate the change gradually.”

    Weinstock was appointed by Education Minister Naftali Bennett. Members of the ministry’s civics advisory committee who are affiliated with Bennett’s Habayit Hayehudi party supported his reversal.

    Riki Tesler of the Coalition for Democracy in Education accused the ministry of “failing to set limits and educate for values; in practice, it’s educating for the opposite: It’s allowing racism and undermining the principle of equality.” This, she charged, is “another stage in a broader process which shows the ministry isn’t interested in educating for democracy.”

    Six months ago, the coalition, which represents dozens of civic organizations, sought to meet with the ministry’s new director general, Shmuel Abuav, to discuss bolsteringeducation for coexistence and democracy. But despite repeated requests, Tesler said, Abuav never responded. A source familiar with the issue said Abuav’s response was coordinated with Bennett.

    The racism rule was announced in a circular sent to all civics teachers in late August by the ministry’s civics supervisor, Yael Guron. The circular discussed a question on the civics exam that asks students to give their opinion on a controversial public issue and defend it — a question that will be mandatory this year, for the first time. Sample topics included fluoridating water, allowing different population groups to live in separate neighborhoods, the size of the government’s child allowances and reserving slots for women on Knesset tickets. (...)

    #racisme_d'état

  • The Israeli Right Will Bring About Justice for the Palestinians

    When the right gathers the courage to declare a one-state solution, the world will gain the courage to declare a war on its regime

    Gideon Levy Sep 24, 2017 1:35 AM
    http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.813768

    Perhaps the right will be the one to bring about true, egalitarian justice in Israel. Maybe it will bring about the only possible solution left. After the right proved that only it dares to evacuate settlements, maybe the next stage will come and the right will once more prove it can do so, even if unintentionally. That would be a huge irony of fate. Those who insist on not returning to the Palestinians 22 percent of their land will give them (and us) all of it, egalitarian and just, on the silver platter of both peoples.

    The road is long, of course, and even its beginning is not yet in sight. But the defeated and desperate speech by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday proves there’s a chance this is the direction.

    Abbas spoke of one state as a possible solution and of equal rights for all inhabitants of historic Palestine. As far can be remembered, he never publicly made such a statement before. Bound by his historic way and the establishment he heads, he has not yet given up the two-state solution for good. But he also knows, like any politician who recognizes reality, that the two-state solution has expired and only the declaration of its death remains. Some Europeans and perhaps even also the Americans know this, but don’t dare admit it. President Donald Trump mumbled something about it, possibly inadvertently.

    Abandoning the two-state solution is a fateful reboot. It is not simple to do. But when Abbas and the others finally resolve to cross the Rubicon, the wildfire they ignite could spread with amazing speed.

    When the Palestinians abandon the “two states for two peoples” solution and move on to “one person, one vote,” the world will not remain indifferent. It will begin with the Palestinians, 57 percent of whom already don’t believe in the two-state solution, according to a recent Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research poll, and will then move on to Israeli Arabs, most of whom still hold fast to that solution.

    The easy-to-grasp message will then go out to the world. Just and familiar from another historic struggle: “One man, one vote.” Who can oppose it? And what can Israel say in its own defense? Jewish-democratic? Where? A just apartheid?

    This revolution might also blow away the smokescreen and confusion around the arbitrary and baseless division Israel has made between an “Israeli Arab” and “Palestinian” – sometimes members of the same family; between East Jerusalem and residents of the West Bank; between residents of the West Bank and Gaza; it will reunify the people that Israel maliciously cut apart. It will also eliminate the confusion around the artificial distinction between the Jewish democracy with the Arab High Court of Justice and the third largest party in the Knesset, and zero human rights for most of the other members of that people, who live under the government of that same state, in the same country. It will cancel out all discrimination and all privilege, from the Law of Return to the right of return. Can any true democrat oppose this?

    The left will not do so. It is bound by slogans of the past – two states – most of the left was never serious about anyhow. The right wing, which talks more and more about annexation and non-occupation, is taking giant steps toward this state. Of course, it doesn’t mean democracy or equal rights – what does the right have to do with that?

    But when the right gathers the courage to declare a one-state solution, the world will gain the courage to declare a war on its regime, against the new apartheid state in the 21st century. What other choice will the world have in the face of a declared apartheid? It will be a much more determined struggle than the hollow one against the establishment of the outpost in the “illegal” expansion of Mitzpeh Rehavam Gimel.

    The racist MK Bezalel Smotrich is doing more for justice and the Palestinian people than Labor Party leader Avi Gabbay. The nationalists, Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, are doing immeasurably more than Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid or even the peace-seeking Meretz Chairwoman Zehava Galon.

    The right is moving ahead on the only solution. We should keep our fingers crossed.

  • La chute de Netanyahou changera-t-elle quelque chose pour les Palestiniens ?

    http://lesakerfrancophone.fr/la-chute-de-netanyahou-changera-t-elle-quelque-chose-pour-les-pal


    Le couple Netanyahou

    Benjamin Netanyahou risque de se retrouver derrière des barreaux mais cela ne changera rien à la politique coloniale d’Israël.

    Par Neve Gordon – Le 13 août 2017 –
    Source Chronique de Palestine
    http://chroniquepalestine.com/chute-netanyahu-changera-quelque-chose-pour-palestiniens

    ||

    La façon dont le Premier ministre israélien Benjamin Netanyahou a réagi à la décision de témoigner contre lui de son ancien chef d’état-major, Ari Harow, est révélatrice. Le lendemain, le chargé de presse du premier ministre a déclaré – pour la centième fois – qu’il « n’y avait rien car il n’y avait jamais rien eu ». Malgré ses efforts désespérés pour faire croire que tout était normal, cette fois-ci, il semble bien que Netanyahou soit sur le point de tomber.

    Au moins deux enquêtes sur de graves allégations de corruption, de (...)

    [...]

    Au plan politique, ceux qui sont en mesure de remplacer Netanyahou à la tête du gouvernement israélien, que ce soit dans les rangs du Likoud ou d’autres partis, sont même plus extrêmes que le premier ministre (par exemple, le prince du Likoud Gideon Sa’ar ou le chef du parti juif Naftali Bennett), ou ont des vues presque identiques (le chef du parti travailliste Avi Gabbay) ou, comme on dit en hébreu, sont en téflon, ce qui signifie qu’ils n’ont pas de colonne vertébrale du tout (le leader de Yesh Atid, Yair Lapid). Aucun de ces dirigeants politiques ne remettra en cause le projet colonial israélien, sans parler « d’acquiescer » à la revendication palestinienne d’autodétermination et à la création d’un État palestinien viable.

    Au plan idéologique, c’est encore pire. Comme le montre la réaction publique et politique au procès pour meurtre d’Elor Azaria, les Palestiniens sont considérés par beaucoup d’Israéliens comme des sous-hommes qu’on peut tuer sans problème. Cette façon de voir – que reflètent la sentence du tribunal de seulement 18 mois de prison pour ce meurtre et la demande générale de grâce pour Azaria – font partie de l’idéologie et de la mentalité israéliennes que Netanyahou a activement galvanisées au fil des années avec ses discours de haine contre les Palestiniens. Même le système judiciaire, qui pourtant emprisonne des politiciens, se met au service du colonialisme et des colons quand il s’agit des Palestiniens.

    [...]

    via https://diasp.eu/posts/5948887

  • After Trump request, Netanyahu formulating goodwill gestures toward Palestinians -

    At the meeting the security cabinet decided to curb settlement construction, Netanyahu told the ministers: We must not mislead the Americans, they are tracking every house in the settlements, including in East Jerusalem.

    Barak Ravid Apr 02, 2017
    read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.780952

    The Trump administration is asking Israel to carry out a series of goodwill gestures toward the Palestinians, both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the security cabinet last Thursday, when he announced plans to curb construction in the settlements. 
    These measures should have an immediate effect on the Palestinians’ economic situation, ministers and senior officials who attended the meeting told Haaretz.
    >> Get all updates on Israel, Trump and the Palestinians: Download our free App, and Subscribe >>
    During Thursday’s meeting, Netanyahu said several times that U.S. President Donald Trump is determined to advance the Israeli-Palestinian issue and for the two parties to reach an agreement, the sources said.
    >> Analysis: Israel’s most right-wing cabinet ever curbs settlement construction - but the settlers keep mum >>
    Netanyahu said he did not know exactly how Trump wants to make progress, but the prime minister stressed the importance of Israel demonstrating goodwill and not being seen as the one causing the U.S. initiative to fail.
    Three ministers and two senior government officials who participated in Thursday’s meeting, or who were updated on the details of it, briefed Haaretz on what happened behind the scenes during the nighttime discussions about contacts between the United States and Israel on the Palestinian issue.
    All five asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the matter, and also because it was a closed meeting.
    Netanyahu said he intends to agree to the American demands for additional goodwill steps in the West Bank and Gaza, with the potential for an immediate uptick for the Palestinian economy. He did not provide details about what moves would be taken, but a number of the ministers present understood that one possible step would include granting the Palestinians permission to build in Area C (some 60 percent of the West Bank, under full Israeli civil and security control).
    Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who has blocked previous efforts by Netanyahu to take similar actions, once more presented his reservations. Bennett said he expects that any actions Israel takes on the ground, and the goodwill gestures to the Palestinians, will not expand into moves with major foreign policy implications.

    The Beit Aryeh settlement, north of Ramallah, April 1, 2017. Netanyahu has pledged to curb settlement construction.THOMAS COEX/AFP
    The leader of the far-right Habayit Hayehudi party added that if Netanyahu does consider such moves, he expects the matter to be brought back to the security cabinet for a further discussion and approval.
    Netanyahu scheduled a meeting with the Israel Defense Forces’ Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, and other officials, for Sunday, when they will attempt to put together the package of goodwill gestures and other steps.
    Even though the Prime Minister’s Office stated in recent days no limitations will exist on construction in the Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem situated over the Green Line, Netanyahu sounded less emphatic in the security cabinet meeting and hinted that there would not be full normalization on this issue.
    “There are no limitations on construction in Jerusalem, but we will need to act wisely,” he told ministers, hinting it’s possible that certain limitations may be imposed on building in the capital.
    In addition, Netanyahu informed the security cabinet a decision had been made to limit the activities of the highest-level planning committee of the IDF’s Civil Administration, which approves building plans for the settlements. Instead of meeting once a week, as was customary, the committee will now meet only once every three months.
    Netanyahu told the ministers that each of the committee’s meetings – during which decisions are made and then revealed about building plans for the settlements, even if they are only minor technical decisions – leads to media reports, which then causes friction and tension with the international community. Accumulating such plans and having them brought up for discussion only four times a year will limit the amount of global protest, added Netanyahu.
    At the same time, limiting the activities of the IDF’s planning committee could also have an influence on the number of plans approved, as well as the pace at which they advance.
    A senior member on the Yesha Council of settlements in the West Bank said fewer committee meetings would mean a slowdown in the planning process. It would be enough for Netanyahu or Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman to cancel just a single committee meeting for supposedly technical reasons in order to create a situation in which no plans are approved for a full six months.
    In a meeting of the heads of the coalition, Bennet turned to Netanyahu and said that the new policy on settlement construction will be tested by how it would be implemented. “I ask that after Passover a date would be set for the Supreme Planning Committee to convene in order to approve construction plans,” said the education minister. Netanyahu did not respond, but his chief of staff, Horowitz, said that he will check and will soon schedule a committee meeting.
    Netanyahu also told the ministers Thursday that stricter limitations and supervision will be imposed on construction in unauthorized outposts. It is assumed no further construction will be allowed in existing unauthorized outposts, and new ones will be removed shortly after they go up.

    Palestinian women in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, March 30, 2017. New goodwill gestures would aim to improve the Strip’s dire economic situation.SAID KHATIB/AFP
    Even though the new construction policy is not part of an agreement with the United States, or even part of the unofficial understandings with the White House, the Trump administration is following their implementation very closely, said Netanyahu.
    Israel must keep to its new policy of restraint and implement it strictly, without trying to deceive the Trump administration, because the Americans know about every house being built in the settlements, he added.
    At Sunday’s Likud ministerial meeting Monday morning, Horowitz, who manages communications with the White House on the issue of the settlements, said that originally the Americans had requested a complete freeze in construction. "It started from zero," Horowitz told the ministers. “The result we reached was much better.” Prime Minister Netanyahu said in response: “I won’t go into it here, but you don’t know how right he is.”

    #Israël #Palestine #Etats-Unis #colonisation

  • With Lebanon no longer hiding Hezbollah’s role, next war must hit civilians where it hurts, Israeli minister says
    http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.776419

    présenté comme d’habitude, et pour la énième fois, par le propagandiste Amos Harel,

    Lebanese President Michel Aoun paid an official visit to Cairo a month ago, ahead of which he gave a number of interviews to the Egyptian media. Aoun was only elected president after a long power struggle in which Iran and Hezbollah finally held sway, and he spoke about the fact that the Shi’ite organization continues to be the only Lebanese militia that refuses outright to disarm.

    Hezbollah is a significant part of the Lebanese people, Aoun explained. “As long as Israel occupies land and covets the natural resources of Lebanon, and as long as the Lebanese military lacks the power to stand up to Israel, [Hezbollah’s] arms are essential, in that they complement the actions of the army and do not contradict them,” he said, adding, “They are a major part of Lebanon’s defense.”

    Brig. Gen. Assaf Orion from the Institute for National Security Studies wrote recently that Aoun’s comments were a “lifting of the official veil and tearing off of the mask of the well-known Lebanese reality – which widely accepted Western diplomacy tends to blur. The Lebanese president abolishes the forced distinction between the ostensibly sovereign state and Hezbollah. Thus, the Lebanese president takes official responsibility for any actions by Hezbollah, including against Israel.”

    Aoun’s declaration also tallies with the facts on the ground. At a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee this past week, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that the Lebanese army is now “a subsidiary unit of Hezbollah.”

    What does that mean with regard to an Israeli response against Hezbollah in case another war breaks out on the northern front? This column recently discussed the basic difficulty that faces the Israel Defense Forces in Lebanon: limited ability to deal with the threat of high-trajectory rockets directed against both the Israeli civilian population and the strategic infrastructure on the rear front. On the southern front, even though the air force lacks a proper offensive response to rockets, the missile intercept systems – chiefly the Iron Dome batteries – are enough to thwart most of the launches.

    In the north, with Hezbollah able to launch more than 1,000 rockets into Israel on a single day of fighting, the offensive solution seems partial and the defensive solution limited.

    The state comptroller’s report on the 2014 war in Gaza disappeared from the headlines within a few days, but the difficulties facing Israel in future conflicts in Gaza – and even more so in Lebanon – remain.

    At this point, it’s interesting to listen to security cabinet member Naftali Bennett (Habayit Hayehudi), whose opinions the state comptroller accepted with regard to disagreements with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Hamas attack tunnels in the Gaza Strip.

    While in the political realm Bennett seems determined to create unilateral facts on the ground (i.e., settlements in the territories) even at the risk of a potential face-off with the Europeans and embarrassing the Trump administration, it seems his positions on military issues are more complex. More than once he has shown healthy skepticism over positions taken by top defense officials, and he refuses to accept their insights as indisputable conclusions.

    Hunting rocket launchers during a war is almost impossible, Bennett told Haaretz this week, adding that he says this “as someone who specialized in hunting rocket launchers.”

    During the Second Lebanon War in 2006, when he served as a reserve officer, Bennett commanded an elite unit sent deep into southern Lebanon to find Hezbollah’s rocket-launching squads.

    “When we worked in a particular area, we did reduce the teams of rocket launchers there – but they simply moved a little farther north,” Bennett related. Since then, he said, 11 years have passed and Hezbollah has learned to deploy in a more sophisticated manner. “They moved their launchers from the nature reserves, outposts in open areas, to dense urban areas [ reconnaissance éhontée d’un mensonge passé et nouveau mensonge tout aussi éhonté ]. You can’t fight rockets with tweezers. If you can’t reach the house where the launcher is, you’re not effective, and the number of houses you have to get through is enormous,” he explained.

    “After I was released from reserve duty, I read all of the books you wrote about the war,” Bennett told me. “I understood in retrospect that the fundamental event of the war took place on its first day, in a phone call between [former Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert and Condoleezza Rice.” President George W. Bush’s secretary of state had asked the prime minister not to hit Lebanon’s infrastructure, and was given a positive response. As a result, “there was no way that Israel could win the war,” Bennett said.

    “Lebanon presented itself as a country that wants quiet, that has no influence over Hezbollah,” he continued. “Today, Hezbollah is embedded in sovereign Lebanon. It is part of the government and, according to the president, also part of its security forces. The organization has lost its ability to disguise itself as a rogue group.”

    Bennett believes this should be Israel’s official stance. “The Lebanese institutions, its infrastructure, airport, power stations, traffic junctions, Lebanese Army bases – they should all be legitimate targets if a war breaks out. That’s what we should already be saying to them and the world now. If Hezbollah fires missiles at the Israeli home front, this will mean sending Lebanon back to the Middle Ages,” he said. “Life in Lebanon today is not bad – certainly compared to what’s going on in Syria. Lebanon’s civilians, including the Shi’ite population, will understand that this is what lies in store for them if Hezbollah is entangling them for its own reasons, or even at the behest of Iran.”

    At the same time, he notes that this is not necessarily the plan for a future war, but instead an attempt to avoid one: “If we declare and market this message aggressively enough now, we might be able to prevent the next war. After all, we have no intention of attacking Lebanon.”

    According to Bennett, if war breaks out anyway, a massive attack on the civilian infrastructure – along with additional air and ground action by the IDF – will speed up international intervention and shorten the campaign. “That will lead them to stop it quickly – and we have an interest in the war being as short as possible,” he said. “I haven’t said these things publicly up until now. But it’s important that we convey the message and prepare to deal with the legal and diplomatic aspects. That is the best way to avoid a war.”

    Bennett’s approach is not entirely new. In 2008, the head of the IDF Northern Command (and today IDF chief of staff), Gadi Eisenkot, presented the “Dahiya doctrine.” He spoke of massive damage to buildings in areas identified with Hezbollah – as was done on a smaller scale in Beirut’s Shi’ite Dahiya quarter during the 2006 war – as a means of deterring the organization and shortening the war.

    That same year, Maj. Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland proposed striking at Lebanon’s state infrastructure. To this day, though, the approach has not been adopted as Israeli policy, open or covert. Bennett’s declaration reflects an attempt by a key member of the security cabinet (albeit Netanyahu’s declared political rival) to turn it into such policy.

    The fact that Israel only tied with Hamas in Gaza in 2014 only convinced Bennett that he is right. There, too, Hamas finally agreed to a cease-fire after 50 days of fighting only after the Israel Air Force systematically destroyed the high-rise apartment buildings where senior Hamas officials lived.

    #Liban #Israel #Israel #crimes #criminels #victimes_civiles #impunité #Eiland

  • Israel’s masters of war set their sights on Gaza - again -
    Gideon Levy Feb 12, 2017 12:30 PM
    http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.771142

    Gaza cries out, but the warmongers don’t listen. For them, the Strip is just an opportunity to advance their careers.

    “Come you masters of war, … I can see through your masks… You lie and deceive, a world war can be won, you want me to believe, but I see through your eyes, and I see through your brain. … You’ve thrown the worst fear that can ever be hurled, fear to bring children in to the world.” (From Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War”)

    And look, they’re back, our masters of war. Here they come, those warmongers. They don’t pass up a single chance to grab a microphone and threaten to push toward another war. Yet no one asks them: Why? What for? The north is quiet, as is the south, relatively speaking.

    But it’s been two and a half years since the last war in Gaza and the Israeli DNA demands another round of bloodshed. And their current jobs – construction minister or education minister – are also boring for those with a mind for it. Encouraging high school students to take advanced math or building new public housing is deadly dull. They need another war, after which they may get the positions they covet.

    The Gaza Strip is dying. Its inhabitants have just three years to live, according to a United Nations report that predicted that in 2020, Gaza will cease to be a place fit for human life. It has long ago become a cage unfit for life. But when they’re not shooting at Israel from Gaza, no one takes an interest in its fate. Hamas is holding its fire, but it’s enough for two rebel rockets to be fired to prompt 19 (!) Israeli aerial attacks and to extract all of our warmongers from their holes.

    Construction and Housing Minister Yoav Galant’s eyes lit up and the color seemed to return to his face when he talked about Gaza. “I believe we should be prepared by spring,” determines this master of war, who dreams of returning to Gaza and killing more, as he did so well in Operation Cast Lead eight year ago. Why in the spring? Don’t ask. There’s a reason you don’t know. Maybe it’s because Charles Aznavour sang about returning in the spring.

    Last week, Galant didn’t pass up a single media opportunity anywhere but on the Kol Hamusica classical music station to fan the flames and push for a war. And who would bother interviewing this failing, boring construction minister whose party colleague Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon also detests him if it were not about Gaza? Since he has not chalked up accomplishments in building, Galant, a former military man is trying to get back to destroying. The Likud party is waiting for him.

    The Defense Ministry is also coveted by Education Minister Naftali Bennett. Getting there, however, requires fanning the flames. No official report about the failure to deal with Hamas tunnels in Gaza will suffice, so Bennett is also dreaming about another war. “The next round of war is approaching,” he said, making a prediction that always comes true in Israel. He hasn’t concealed the extent to which he is in a hurry to return to the killing fields of Shujaiyeh and the confidential briefings with army officers.

    And then, of course, there is the current defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who even in his new temporary role as a moderate, also won’t pass up a chance. “Until the other side cries gevalt, we’re not stopping,” said the minister of arrogance. Again came the hollow promises of decisive victory that will never come about and yet again everyone is willing to buy the argument. Again everyone is waiting for the next war, as if it were fate handed down by the almighty when it isn’t even handed down from Gaza.

    Gaza actually is crying gevalt, but none of the warmongers are listening. Gaza for them is an opportunity to advance their careers, to get the forces moving and to conceptualize a war against an enemy that is nothing but an army of hooligans, nothing but an assault on the powerless. Gaza would bring the warmongers back into the headlines, back into their glory, the return of the good old days of combat jackets. Otherwise, there would be no reason to embark on another attack on Gaza.

    The deterioration could be quick. Just another few declarations of war, another few disproportionate responses by the Israel Defense Forces for every cap gun or kite fired from Gaza and we’re there. Israel also pushed for the wars in Gaza in 2008 and 2014 more than Gaza did. Before you can say “cigars and champagne,” the IDF is in Gaza.

    And there is no one to yell “stop,” no one to say that those who don’t want war in Gaza should open it rather than destroy it a third, fourth and fifth time. But saying so requires courage, which is the quality most lacking among our masters of war, whom, as Dylan’s lyrics state, will never be forgiven.

    #GAZA

  • Paris peace summit to urge Netanyahu, Abbas: Disavow officials who oppose two-state solution - Israel News - Haaretz.com
    http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.763974

    A draft summary statement of Sunday’s gathering, obtained by Haaretz, says the participating countries will not recognize unilateral changes to 1967 borders, including Jerusalem.

    Barak Ravid Jan 09, 2017 7:40 PM

    The dozens of countries attending the Middle East peace conference in Paris on Sunday are expected to call on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to publicly renew their commitment to the two-state solution, and to renounce officials in their respective governments who oppose it. The clause is contained in an updated draft of the conference’s summary statement, a copy of which was obtained by Haaretz.

    Western diplomats involved in preparations for the conference noted that the clause refers both to declarations that have been made by Israeli ministers like Naftali Bennett, who called to remove the two-state solution from the agenda, and to senior PA and Fatah officials who have incited to violence against Israel.

    According to the draft, participating countries will stress that they won’t recognize any changes to the June 4, 1967 borders, including in Jerusalem, except for any changes the two sides might agree during negotiations. The countries will also emphasize that they are committed to distinguishing, in all their actions, between the territories of the State of Israel and the settlements in the territories that Israel occupied in 1967.

    The participants will “call on each side to independently demonstrate, through policies and actions, a genuine commitment to the two-state solution and refrain from unilateral steps that prejudge the outcome of final-status negotiations, in order to rebuild trust and create a path back to meaningful direct negotiations,” according to the text.

    Last Friday, there was a meeting of senior diplomats from the dozens of Western and Arab countries that will attend the conference. The French delegate, Pierre Vimont, presented them with the first draft of the conference’s summary communiqué and asked for comments.

    According to Western diplomats, Vimont said France wants to reach a consensus among the participating states on a balanced statement that would stress the centrality of the two-state solution to the international community, but would take this month’s transfer of presidential power in the United States into account.

    After receiving comments, the French drew up a new draft (the document being quoted here).

    Western diplomats noted that there will be two more rounds of consultations on the statement’s wording before the conference, as well as discussions among the foreign ministers at the conference itself, but they did not anticipate any dramatic changes in the text.

  • Conforming to Israel’s malignant occupation - Opinion - Israel News | A.B. Yehoshua toes the line by subdividing the Palestinians into various categories and thus overlooks their general predicament.

    Amira Hass Jan 01, 2017
    read more: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.762478

    Author A.B. Yehoshua (“Reducing the malignancy of the occupation,” Haaretz, December 31) was right when he attached the word “malignancy” to the occupation. But under cover of innovation, daring and humanitarian considerations, his proposal for a temporary and partial easing of the malignancy conforms to traditional Israeli policy: to split the Palestinian people into various bureaucratic categories, in separate and divorced enclaves, and of course without asking their opinion.
    In order to seem daring, but to propose something that is just what the government of Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (both of Habayit Hayehudi) wants, some of the facts Yehoshua cites became distorted. Following are several of the distortions:
    * “A binational space.” There is no need to go as far as the poverty-stricken neighborhoods engineered by Israel in East Jerusalem in order to toy with the idea of a “laboratory” for a binational life. It’s true that the Palestinian people have been scattered since being expelled from their homeland in 1948. But they didn’t stop being a nation for that reason, including the 1.5 million Palestinians who are presently Israeli citizens. Israel in its recognized boundaries is a binational space, regardless of its definitions and its discrimination against its Palestinian citizens.

  • Israël : feu vert pour la légalisation de 4000 logements de colons - Moyen-Orient
    RFI - Publié le 06-12-2016
    http://www.rfi.fr/moyen-orient/20161206-israel-accord-colonies-amona-4000-paix-maintenant

    Un accord a finalement été trouvé entre les partis au pouvoir sur la question des colonies sauvages en Cisjordanie. Celle d’Amona, dont la Cour suprême du pays a ordonné le demantèlement, devrait bien disparaître mais des milliers d’autres logements pourraient eux être légalisés aux yeux du droit israélien. Un texte en ce sens a été adopté, lundi 5 décembre, en lecture préliminaire par les députés israéliens.

    Avec notre correspondant à Jérusalem, Guilhem Delteil

    L’opposition a crié, déchiré des exemplaires du projet de loi et dénoncé « un suicide national ». Mais pour le gouvernement, c’est une victoire, « un premier pas vers une souveraineté israélienne » en Cisjordanie, s’est félicité le ministre de l’Education, Naftali Bennett.

  • Unpacking four years of frustration, Kerry leaves door open for Obama UN bid on Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    Nearly all of Obama’s advisers support U.S. action at the Security Council. Whether Obama decides to accept or reject their advice will have a significant impact on his legacy.

    Barak Ravid (Washington) Dec 05, 2016
    read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.756992

    WASHINGTON – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sat on the stage at the Saban Forum in Washington on Sunday and painted an exceedingly gloomy picture of the state of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Kerry, talking without notes, spoke from the heart like someone who truly fears for Israel’s future, as he expressed frustrations over four years of repeatedly trying to revive the two-state solution, the prospects for which seem to be expiring.
    Kerry’s criticism of the Israeli government’s settlement policy and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was unprecedented in its intensity. Fifty days before he leaves his post, Kerry finally publicly acknowledged the reality, admitting that the Israeli government was not really interested in a two-state solution. He made it clear that anyone who wants to know the Israeli policy should take heed of the words and actions of Habayit Hayehudi chairman Naftali Bennett rather than Netanyahu.
    The U.S. secretary of state described a situation where a small group within the Israeli government is exploiting the disinterest of the majority of the Israeli public to what goes on in the West Bank to work quietly behind the scenes and create facts on the ground that will make it impossible to establish a Palestinian state. The bill to legalize unauthorized outposts in the West Bank, the strengthening of illegal outposts, the massive demolitions of Palestinian homes in Area C and more and more Jews moving into settlements outside the established blocs and east of the separation barrier are just some of the issues Kerry mentioned.

  • The first to identify terror by arson
    Education Minister Naftali Bennett uses thefts and arson to promote a racist ideology with national and territorial implications, by raising the question of whom this country belongs to.

    Ravit Hecht Nov 25, 2016 1:31 AM
    read more: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.755191
    http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.755191

    “Only someone who doesn’t own this land could set it on fire,” tweeted Education Minister Naftali Bennett the other day, as the wave of fires took on the proportions of a national disaster, long before the source of the fires was clear. The post has received 616 “likes” and 80 “shares” so far, a number likely to increase. This is six-fold higher than the responses to his usual tweets.
    Some people compared this to Benjamin Netanyahu’s tweet following the arrest of two Palestinians on suspicion of raping a mentally defective girl. (“This is a heinous crime that demands wall-to-wall condemnation, but for some reason this has not been heard, not in the media and not across the political spectrum. One could only imagine what would have happened if it were the other way around.”) When the suspects were released Netanyahu offered a partial apology.
    Despite the similarities between these statements – referring to a crime while blatantly hinting at the nationality of the perpetrators who are still only suspects – this latest tweet is actually more like an earlier statement that Bennett made during the last elections campaign, in front of high school graduates about to vote for the first time.
    Bennett said that “anyone who has tried to tour the Negev in recent years knows that one can’t leave a car anywhere since it’s bound to be broken into and stolen. Tractors are stolen in Petah Tikva and the Galilee and one can’t go to the Mount of Olives or Mount Scopus anymore. One can’t enter Arab towns or villages, and this hurts the Arabs most of all, since Israel has decided that the rule of law may apply to Tel Aviv, Haifa and Ra’anana, but not to these places.”
    One should note Bennett’s semantics – he never uses the word “Arab” in proximity to the word “steal” or “thief” (the chairman of Habayit Hayehudi actually filed a libel suit against journalist David Feuer who tweeted that Bennett called all Arabs car thieves. He later retracted the suit.) The word “Arab” doesn’t appear in the new tweet at all. Nevertheless, everyone understands what his tweet means.

    • My god ! Je crains que ça ne retombe sur le Palestiniens car l’IDF profite de la moindre occasion pour genocider ce peuple natif lui dans ces terres, ou ils vivent depuis des milliers d’années.

  • Israël : projet de loi controversé sur les colonies en Cisjordanie occupée
    AFP | Publié le dimanche 13 novembre 2016 à 22h12
    https://www.rtbf.be/info/monde/detail_israel-projet-de-loi-controverse-sur-les-colonies-en-cisjordanie-occupee

    Un projet de loi israélien controversé, prévoyant une légalisation de colonies sauvages construites sur des terres privées palestiniennes en Cisjordanie occupée, a franchi une première étape dimanche et risque de braquer la communauté internationale.

    Ce projet a été adopté à l’unanimité par la commission ministérielle des lois sous la pression des durs de la coalition au pouvoir. Il stipule que le gouvernement peut ordonner la confiscation de terrains appartenant à des propriétaires privés palestiniens en échange du versement d’indemnisations.

    Pour être appliqué, le texte doit être voté en trois lectures par le Parlement mais aussi ne pas être abrogé ensuite par la Cour suprême en cas d’appels probables. A court terme, ce projet de loi a été adopté pour maintenir en place la colonie sauvage d’Amona.

    La Cour suprême a ordonné l’évacuation avant le 25 décembre de la quarantaine de familles israéliennes installées dans cette colonie établie près de Ramallah avant le 25 décembre. Mais les durs de la coalition au pouvoir menés par Naftali Bennett, chef du Foyer juif - un parti nationaliste religieux partisan de la colonisation qui refuse toute évacuation - sont parvenus à forcer la main au Premier ministre Benjamin Netanyahu.

    #colonisation_de_peuplement