Opinion-Israel News | Haaretz.com

Twenty years after the second intifada, the Israeli victory is nearly complete
Amira Hass | Sep. 30, 2020 | 12:59 AM | Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-twenty-years-after-the-second-intifada-the-israeli-victory-is-near

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The second intifada erupted because Israel exploited the negotiations with the Palestinians to advance its land grab project. The hypocrisy cried out to the heavens – talk of peace on one hand while continuing to take over Palestinian expanse for the benefit of the Jews. The hypocrisy cried out, but the Israelis didn’t listen.

The anger and disgust at Israeli underhandedness built up over years of disappointment and sobriety following the Oslo Accords, erupting on September 29, 2000 (the day after the provocation by Ariel Sharon, with the approval of then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak). But the second intifada was not an intifada in the standard sense of the word: Aside from its first days, it was not a popular civil event and a majority of the public did not participate in it, unlike the uprising that erupted in 1987. The popular-collective characteristic that was preserved in it was the sumud (steadfastness) displayed by all the Palestinians in the face of the Israeli oppressive and punitive measures and policy of economic attrition.

The Israel Defense Forces, Border Police and police, which used lethal means to suppress the protests from the very first day, managed to deter potential protesters. Yasser Arafat and his entourage worried about the criticism that could be heard in those demonstrations, directed at the Palestinian Authority and Fatah. They gave a green light to Fatah and the security forces to use weapons at friction points with the Israeli army and thus, by putting on the hat of resistance once more, seized control of the demonstrations. They also calculated that this militarization would strengthen the Palestinian negotiating stance. They still believed they could halt the Israeli settler-colonial drive in the 1967 territories.

The well-oiled mechanism of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit and the government spokespeople succeeded on the propaganda front in constructing the lie that the battles in the field were being fought between equal armies and that the Palestinians “started it.” Then, as now, the Israeli majority paid little heed to the Palestinian casualties, and did not view the seizure of their lands as institutional aggression. At the same time, the number of unarmed Palestinians killed by Israel kept growing. With every funeral, the Palestinian call for revenge grew stronger. With and without a green light from above, armed Palestinians shot at Israeli civilians (also armed, as many of the settlers are) in the West Bank and Gaza.

Hamas joined somewhat belatedly and showed that if success is measured in the number of Israeli dead bodies, it was more effective than Fatah. Israel erased the Green Line – so why shouldn’t it resume attacking Israelis inside Israel? The armed wings of Hamas and Fatah competed with one another and lost in the competition with the IDF on the number of those killed. The suicide bombings created a balance of terror with the Israelis but they didn’t halt the Civil Administration’s bulldozers.

There are four failures in all. The first intifada, with its hopeful demand for a sovereign state within the June 4, 1967 lines, failed. The Madrid and Oslo talks, which began in the wake of it, did not diminish Israel’s ravenous appetite for Palestinian land. Mahmoud Abbas’ tactic of diplomacy and acceptance in the UN also failed: The condemnations by Western countries do not amount to a policy — they are only meant to cover their butts. With the exception of a few isolated successes, the popular and legal battles against land seizures also failed. And the use of weapons, which many Palestinians still view as the pinnacle of the struggle and the resistance, even though only a few actually choose to do so, did not stop the process either. The use of arms is an expression of anger and the desire for revenge. It has no strategic value.

Twenty years later, the Israeli victory is nearly complete: The well-planned armed robbery of Palestinian land goes on daily unhindered. The model that Israel created in Gaza is being copied in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and translated into something akin to “Pales of Settlement” which, as long as they don’t show signs of fury and rebellion, are of no interest to the Jews in Israel, the supreme ruler.

A Palestinian student wants a visa to Europe? Let him do research in Gaza
Amira Hass | Sep. 22, 2020 | 12:50 AM | Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-he-wants-a-visa-to-europe-let-him-do-research-in-gaza-1.9174600

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The Be’er Sheva District Court, sitting as an administrative court, dared to rule that S.O., a Palestinian doctoral student in engineering, must be allowed to leave the Gaza Strip for Tel Aviv in order to receive a visa for the European state in which he is meant to begin his research on October 1. But Israel is determined to block the 28-year-old Gazan man from realizing his dream. To this end, it enlisted its endless supply of time, resources, clerks, officers and jurists. So important was it for Israel to shoot down S.O.’s scholarship and his research that it hastened to appeal the Be’er Sheva court’s ruling to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court justices did not disappoint. They didn’t miss the opportunity to prove their conservatism. On Wednesday, Justices Neal Hendel, Anat Baron and Yosef Elron ruled that a one-time scholarship for doctoral studies does not meet the criteria for “exceptional humanitarian cases.” This is the rigid framework that the office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories follows to implement Israel’s policy to deny Palestinians their freedom of movement and to cut off Gazans from the rest of the world.

As is customary in the bureaucratic warfare at which Israel excels, killing time was the weapon immediately drawn against S.O. His consulate interview was scheduled for August 24. By the end of July he applied to the Gaza District Coordination and Liaison Office for a one-day exit permit to Tel Aviv. For two weeks the DCO, which answers to the Defense Ministry and the IDF, was silent.

Gisha, an Israeli human rights organization that seeks to protect Palestinians’ freedom of movement, petitioned the Be’er Sheva court, asking it to instruct the DCO to reply. The state answered that the case was not urgent. Judge Gad Gidion disagreed. He scheduled a hearing for August 13, the day after the petition was filed, and ordered the state to respond to the exit permit request. On August 18, the DCO sent its standard refusal: S.O. did not apply through proper channels (that is, the Palestinian Authority). He does not fit any category of exceptional cases that are permitted to leave. And besides, there’s a pandemic.

Gisha’s lawyers immediately petitioned to have S.O.’s case heard. A hearing was set for August 24. The consulate meeting was postponed to September 2. Judge Ariel Vago, like Gidion, was not intimidated by the state’s formalistic arguments (coronavirus, categories and proper channels). He proposed broadening the “humanitarian” definition beyond medical issues, and asked the state to weigh S.O.’s specific request. Only on the afternoon of September 2, after the time for the consular interview had passed, did the DCO reply: We considered the request. S.O. isn’t getting an exit permit.

On September 5, Gisha filed another petition. S.O. had managed to get a third date for his consular interview: September 16. On September 9, the Be’er Sheva court held its third hearing. The case had returned to Gidion, who like Vago believed the opportunity posed by this special, one-time scholarship was indeed a humanitarian case. He ruled that S.O. must be allowed to go to Tel Aviv, subject to a Shin Bet security service check, as quickly as possible so that he did not miss his interview again.

But when the state wants to, it can move quickly: Not two days passed before it appealed to the Supreme Court. This time the state won. The justices ruled that the court’s role in the first instance is not to set criteria instead of the authorities, but to review and monitor how the criteria are applied. They also hinted that giving S.O. a permit would set a precedent for other Gazans who win scholarships for foreign study, God forbid.

Thus the Supreme Court justices joined the coordinator of government activities and practically announced: We love our Gazans when they are wretched, sick and dying (and even then, not always). Those are the only ones to whom we’ll throw crumbs of freedom of movement. We don’t like them when they are talented students, ambitious researchers and able Ph.Ds.

#GAZA

In this Bedouin town, murder wasn’t the only crime
Gideon Levy | Sep. 10, 2020 - Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-in-this-bedouin-town-murder-wasn-t-the-only-crime-1.9142593

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The murder of Yakub Abu al-Kiyan was not the only crime committed by the State of Israel against his village, Umm al-Hiran, and it may not even be the worst. Of course, killing is killing. Abu al-Kiyan, a beloved math teacher and the first Bedouin Ph.D. in chemistry, was executed by incited policemen who were too quick on the trigger, who also let him bleed to death without giving him medical assistance that could have potentially saved him.

But anyone who thinks that wraps up Israel’s crimes against Umm al-Hiran is deluding himself. The hollow apology by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t even begin the series of apologies that Israel owes the people of that village.

The difficult images after the killing and destruction don’t fade: Raba al-Kiyan, a thin woman in black, wandering among the ruins of her house as she remains silent, her gaze fixed on the ground. Her nephew, a medical student in Moldova, explains that this is how she repeatedly recreates her last moments with her husband.

At the same time, in the nearby town of Hura, the second widow was mourning – Dr. Amal al-Kiyan. She had married Yakub after her husband died, as Bedouin tradition obligated her to marry his brother. By the age of 24, she was already lecturing at Kaye Academic College of Education in Be’er Sheva. When we paid a condolence call she had earned a doctorate in education from Ben-Gurion University.

The two widows and the entire village were in shock. A gas station attendant in Hura told us how much he had admired his math teacher at Yitzhak Rabin High School. Then-Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan – don’t ever forget this – and Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich and many others were competing for who could besmirch the teacher more.

His brother-in-law said that Yakub had put his personal computer and other items into his jeep – the one ostensibly used in the “terror” ramming attack – to save them from the demolition of his home. That’s not how a terrorist leaves his home before an attack. A few days earlier, when he saw laborers starting to work on the construction of the Jewish town of Hiran, the one that was to rise up on the ruins of his village, he told his family, “Let them do their work.” That was the despicable terrorist, as the police commissioner and the minister referred to him.

When Alex Levac and I were in Umm al-Hiran, after the killing and the destruction, we didn’t need an investigating committee, and certainly not three years of lies and insults and Amit Segal’s tendentious reporting to know that the teacher, Yakub, was innocent of any wrongdoing and that his killing was a heinous crime. We knew back then that his vehicle had moved slowly down the dirt road from his home when they shot him. In no Jewish community would police have shot at a slow-moving car, and certainly not let its driver bleed to death in that inhumane manner reserved for bleeding Arabs.

But none of this began at dawn on January 18, 2017. Israel had decided to destroy a community that it itself created, after rehousing residents there it had expelled from their lands in 1956, to keep them away from a kibbutz. Now they are expelling them again to build a community for religious-Zionist Jews. Justice Elyakim Rubinstein and justices before him rejected all the challenges. “The residents of Umm al-Hiran have no right to the place,” declared Rubinstein, a justice on the Supreme Court, the beacon of justice in Israel. He, too, is an accomplice.

No one has asked where exactly do Bedouin have any rights in this land, which is also theirs. The garbage dump at Abu Dis? The polluted industrial zone at Ramat Hovav? This didn’t happen in 1948 or even 1958. The year was 2017. Without any shame, embarrassment, security excuse or Zionist prattle; pure apartheid in sovereign Israel. To “Judaize,” an abominable term; to get rid of the Bedouin and build for Jews.

Eight months after the killing and the destruction, we returned to Umm al-Hiran. Raba, with a shy smile, came to greet us from the tent that had become home to her and her 10 children. The ruins soaked with her husband’s blood were still laying there as a monument to the crime.

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▻https://seenthis.net/messages/561578#message562017

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Hamada Tamimi a été traîné d’une prison israélienne à une autre et a été libéré quatre jours après, sans avoir été interrogé
Amira Hass - Haaretz - Traduit de l’anglais par Yves Jardin, membre du GT de l’AFPS sur les prisonniers
▻https://www.france-palestine.org/Hamada-Tamimi-a-ete-traine-d-une-prison-israelienne-a-une-autre-et

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Les soldats israéliens ont fait une descente chez Hamada Tamimi, ont confisqué des téléphones et une caméra, ont battu les membres de sa famille et l’ont emmené. L’armée a déclaré que son arrestation était due à des considérations opérationnelles.

Des soldats des forces de défense d’Israël ont arrêté Hamada (Mohammed) Tamimi au petit matin du dimanche 23 août, chez lui dans le village de Nabi Saleh en Cisjordanie. Il a été libéré dans la soirée du mercredi 26 août : personne ne l’a interrogé, personne ne lui a dit pourquoi il avait été arrêté, personne ne s’est excusé pour la fausse arrestation.

« Tout d’un coup le gardien est venu dans la cellule et m’a dit de m’habiller parce qu’on me libérait », rappelle Tamimi, âgé de 21 ans. « Je venais de laver la seule chemise que j’avais, et elle était encore humide quand je l’ai mise. Je ne pouvais pas le croire ». Il souriait alors qu’il nous racontait ceci ; ses yeux souriaient aussi. Mais ce furent quatre jours de torture émotionnelle et physique pour lui et pour sa famille – le genre de routine dont tant de Palestiniens font l’expérience, qui n’est pas racontée ni rapportée.

« S’ils font un film sur chaque famille de notre village, on va fermer Bollywood », déclare Manal, sa mère, en décrivant la routine.

Un ami de la famille m’a appelée au soir du lundi 24 août, en m’expliquant que près de deux jours s’étaient écoulés depuis l’arrestation de Tamimi, sans que sa famille sache où il était. Peut-être qu’une question adressée aux autorités concernées accélèrerait les choses ? Le mardi matin les services de sécurité du Shin Bet ont déclaré à Haaretz : il n’est pas avec nous, il est détenu par la police.

Manal et son mari, Bilal, ont acquis une grande expérience des arrestations : des leurs et de celles de leurs enfants et de leurs parents. Après tout, c’est une partie du prix à payer pour la lutte populaire (qui a été gelée pour l’instant) contre la prise de contrôle des terres et de la source naturelle des villages de Nabi Saleh et Deir Nizam par les colons de la colonie voisine de Halamish.

Mais les Tamimi ne se souviennent pas d’un tel retard pour être informé du lieu de détention. Ils étaient particulièrement inquiets parce que, le 31 janvier, Hamada avait été blessé par un tir des FDI. La balle est restée incrustée près de son bras gauche, près de l’aorte. Il est dangereux de l’extraire, ont dit les médecins.

« S’ils le frappent, la balle est susceptible de bouger », a dit Manal. « Et récemment il a aussi éprouvé de la douleur ». Un morceau d’une autre balle, tirée par un soldat des FDI, s’est incrustée en janvier 2015 dans la cuisse gauche de son fils et y est restée. (...)

▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-a-treat-for-israeli-soldiers-raiding-a-palestinian-home-at-3-a-m-1

Dozens are killed in air strikes attributed to Israel in Syria. But who’s counting?
Gideon Levy | Sep. 3, 2020 | Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium.highlight-dozens-are-killed-in-air-strikes-attributed-to-israel-in

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They are the most boring and low-priority reports of all. Most Israeli media outlets don’t even bother to post them. They are like a bus plunging into a river in Nepal, like victims in Chad’s civil war or trapped mine workers in Siberia.

The same applies to the victims of yet another Israeli air strike in Syria. Who’s heard about it? Who knows about it, who cares? Who has the energy to look into it? Military correspondents parrot, as is their wont, unfounded statements dictated by military spokesmen, with diplomatic correspondents celebrating in the Emirates, while on Monday night 11 more people are killed in a raid in southern Syria, attributed to Israel. On Wed night, Syria reported another strike.

According to the Damascus Center for Human Rights, three of the victims were Syrian soldiers and seven were “Iranian militia operatives,” which automatically justifies any bombing. A female villager was also killed and her husband wounded, but these things happen, after all. A dead woman in Syria really is a non-story.

Are these air strikes essential? What is their goal? What are the risks they entail? What is being bombed and why? It’s Iran, you know. Everything is done under a thick smokescreen, with Israeli media openly and gleefully collaborating, with no one stopping to ask questions or bringing it up for discussion. The sun rises in the east, and Israel bombs in Syria. What is not clear here? What is not self-evident? Only those who understand nothing or know nothing dare ask questions.

The army spokesman, in response to the strike: “The IDF is working day and night to ensure that its strategic goals in the northern arena are met in an appropriate fashion.” We seem to be satisfied with this blah-blah. It’s hard to think of a greater insult to one’s intelligence. After all, the IDF is also working day and night in the West Bank, where we’re familiar with the results and with the modus operandi, but the media and public opinion will swallow anything. As long as not one hair of a Jewish soldier’s head is touched, nothing is of interest. Go ahead, bomb Syria, bomb Lebanon, bomb Iran, bomb Gaza, to your heart’s content.

Every few weeks there is an air strike in Syria, usually with lethal results. On July 20, five deaths were reported in a strike in Damascus. On June 23, five Iranians and two Syrians were killed in an attack attributed to Israel. On June 4, there were nine victims in a bombing by warplanes firing from Lebanese airspace, attributed to Israel, not to Luxembourg. On February 7, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that an IDF attack in Damascus had endangered a passenger plane with 172 people on board. Three months earlier, there were reports of 23 fatalities and dozens of wounded in an air strike attributed to Israel.

Only imagine 11 Israeli fatalities, three soldiers and seven settler militia members, in a Syrian air strike, in a mirror image of what transpired this week in Syria. War would ensue. But 11 Syrian dead in an Israeli bombing, who’s counting? Imagine a constant bloodletting with dozens of Israeli fatalities over several months. Israel would never put up with it, and rightly so. But in Syria it’s all right. It will go on as long as Israel can continue. It will go on until Israel pays a price for its strikes.

Israel is determined to prevent Iran from getting a foothold in Syria. Are the strikes contributing to this process? To what extent? The possibility that Israel will one day pay a terrible price for all this warmongering is not even raised for discussion. That’s Israeli hubris, which usually pays off. Usually, but not always.

Such fateful decisions cannot be kept in absolute darkness. They cannot be left up to a handful of politicians, intelligence officials, pilots and generals. After all, we’ve learned in many areas that we can’t trust them blindly. So why is it that when it comes to war and peace, we shut our eyes, submitting ourselves to them in total blindness? Continue bombing in Syria. We trust you. Everything will be fine.

#IsraelSyrie

A striking difference between Palestinian and Israeli protests
Gideon Levy | Aug. 27, 2020 - Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-the-difference-between-palestinian-and-israeli-protests-1.9104487

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People are demonstrating against injustice and for justice both in the West Bank village of Kafr Qaddum and outside the prime minister’s residence on Jerusalem’s Balfour Street. In both places, the protesters are imbued with a sense of mission.

It’s more pleasant on Balfour, more dangerous in Qaddum. There’s more sacrifice in Qaddum, more art on Balfour. Balfour gets exhaustive media coverage; Qaddum is completely excluded from the Israeli media.

In Qaddum, the protesters are fighting for freedom; on Balfour, there’s a feeling of freedom. On Balfour, the demonstrators are citizens; in Qaddum, they’re subjects with no rights. On Balfour, the most privileged are demonstrating; in Qaddum, the most oppressed are.

But both are subject to the same government. Both are legitimate protests, and the government that’s trying to suppress them isn’t a democracy, but a tyranny.

There’s no symmetry between Qaddum and Balfour except in their shared legitimacy. Balfour isn’t interested in Qaddum, and Qaddum isn’t interested in Balfour.

On Balfour, they’re fighting against the prime minister; in Qaddum, they’re fighting against the regime. The Balfour protests are legitimate in the eyes of most Israelis; those in Qaddum aren’t. Balfour is close to our hearts; Qaddum lies behind mountains of darkness, denial and repression. On Balfour, people are “demonstrating”; in Qaddum, they’re “disturbing the peace,” or maybe they’re even “terrorists.”

Balfour is politics, Qaddum is terror. The people who throw stones and burn tires to protest the army and the settlements have no legitimacy to be there. On Balfour, police using their fists and detentions lasting for hours are considered severe, unacceptable violence; in Qaddum, the authorities are permitted every abuse.

They shoot demonstrators with live bullets and sponge-tipped steel bullets, throw tear gas canisters in frightening quantities, hurl stun grenades and shoot protesters in the head, including children. Twice in the last two months I’ve visited children who became vegetables in Qaddum after soldiers shot them in the head from far away, for no reason.

On Wednesday, Hagar Shezaf and Yaniv Kubovich had a mind-boggling report in Haaretz revealing that Israeli soldiers have also begun planting bombs in Qaddum. You have to understand that these bombs were meant to be used against demonstrators. The Nahal Brigade’s reconnaissance unit has suddenly become a terrorist organization by any measure, and its soldiers have become terrorists who plant bombs meant to blow up innocent civilians.

This doesn’t interest the protesters on Balfour; they’re busy with their own issues. But the Balfour protesters ought to be interested in Qaddum, because the police violence on Balfour was born amid the olive groves of Qaddum. First they took Qaddum; next they’ll take Balfour.

The fact that most Israelis see the violence against the Qaddum protesters as legitimate, having been convinced that the soldiers shooting in Qaddum are protecting them, is what legitimizes the milder violence used against the Balfour protesters, even though the latter hasn’t yet gained complete legitimacy.

So this must be said clearly: Anyone who wasn’t interested in Qaddum and bought the propaganda offered by the army and the military reporters who do its bidding, is now getting brass knuckles in uniform at Balfour. And if the protests on Balfour persist, their suppression will become more violent, like in Qaddum.

There ought to be solidarity between the Balfour and Qaddum demonstrators, but there isn’t. The Balfour protesters are Zionist and proud of it; the Qaddum protesters are anti-Zionist and can’t be otherwise. The key is to understand the connection between these two foci of protest and the necessity of acknowledging the legitimacy of both.

Qaddum has been suffocating for 17 years, ever since Israel blocked the main road connecting it to Nablus, the district capital, to expand the settlement of Kedumim. The road to Nablus has been made 14 kilometers longer so that Daniella Weiss and her friends can recklessly build more and more homes. If protests against that aren’t legitimate, no protest in the world is.

But Israel doesn’t recognize this. Most Israelis think Qaddum has no right to protest at all.

At Balfour, people demonstrate against a prime minister charged with crimes. At Qaddum, they demonstrate against one of the most tyrannical regimes on earth, one that commits war crimes like planting bombs and building settlements.

Murad Shatawi, head of Qaddum’s popular committee, sent me a report last Friday, just as he does every Friday: “Two people wounded by metal bullets, and I broke my leg.” If the Balfour protesters are serious, they must start getting interested in Qaddum.

#Israelmanifs // #Kafr_Qaddum

Israelis’ shock at police violence at anti-Netanyahu protests is quite shocking
Amira Hass | Aug. 25, 2020 | 11:29 PM - Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-israelis-shock-at-police-violence-at-anti-netanyahu-protests-is-qu

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For a moment I thought I would begin by writing that I welcome every blow delivered by a Jewish police officer to a Jewish demonstrator on Jerusalem’s Balfour Street. But I changed my mind. Violent police – who are arousing such shock among the mainstream media these days – are situated on the same continuum as individual and gang rapists, sexual harassers, nursery school teachers who abuse toddlers and social media bullies. I changed my mind because in my search for a lead for this article, this literary stratagem (“I welcome every blow,” etc.) does not apply to all parts of that continuum.

All those individuals are people with power and physical strength, who resort to violence in order to harm and cause pain to others – just because they can. To feel strong and superior, to scare and silence. And in order to enjoy themselves. Let’s not forget that dimension. Enjoyment and satisfaction are an important component in demonstrating superiority, in the act of causing pain to another person.

All the recent expressions of shock are encouraging: from the spontaneous demonstrations against rape culture and the forgiving attitude toward acts of rape and harassment, to the condemnations in the media that are putting the police on the defensive. Such shock is evidence of the health of a society.

That’s on the one hand. On the other hand, however, the shock at police violence on Balfour Street is surprising. Or to be more precise – it’s shocking. It demonstrates that Israeli society does not understand how deeply mired it is in a culture of superiority, of birthright entitlement and of the divine right to exercise our muscles to attain satisfaction, real estate and a cheap and submissive work force.

Or again, to be precise: Israeli society is living in a state of conscious denial. It refuses to internalize the scope of violence that it is nurturing. And I refer not only to police violence against Palestinian in East Jerusalem or against Palestinians who are Israeli citizens.

Fifty-three years of military, police and Shin Bet security service domination over about 5 million people are exactly that: violence. Supremacy. Satisfaction with the violence and the supremacy. Every floor tile in every house in every Jewish settlement is just that: arrogant, prolonged violence, which is defended day and night by brigades and generations of our delicate and armed children.

As part of their calling to garner real estate in the West Bank, they go out to make arrests every night, including of minors. They throw them to the floor of their jeeps, handcuff and blindfold them. In about 50 percent of the cases they hit minors. A slap here, a kick or shove there. Because they can.

Open the website of the B’Tselem human rights organization to the “Updates” section. You’ll find several examples there of kicking, laughter abuse by Israel Defense Forces soldiers in uniform. Yes, I know. The right-wing propaganda has succeeded. For you the testimony of an Arab about an attack – not documented in full in a video clip, from every angle, and preferably on the smartphone of the soldiers themselves – is worthless. By the way: That’s also violence, to first believe the version of events espoused by the ruler, the one in power. The strong one, which is us.

And still, maybe the physical blow delivered by a police officer did upset something in the collective denial mechanism, and you’ll realize the connection between it and the routine violence by soldiers, only an iota of which reaches the B’Tselem website. Not killing. Not serious injury. Just incidental violence, along the way. Because they can.

Jump from there to another website of bleeding hearts, that of Yesh Din rights organization. Read the statistics: The chances that a Palestinian complaint about a soldier’s violence against him will lead to prosecution are 0.7 percent. And is there any need to mention the extent to which Jewish Israeli citizens who harm Palestinians and their orchards, in most instances, receive immunity from a police investigation and prosecution?

From January through August 10, 2020, the United Nations counted 163 incidents of assault by Jewish Israelis, from the settlements, against Palestinians. Of them 49 were physical attacks that caused wounds and bruises. There were 114 attacks against orchards, crops, fields and other property. What is the systematic turning of a blind eye to these attacks, if not a blow delivered by Israeli society – again and again?

#Israelmanifs

Why is the U.S. playing along with Israel’s veto over American weapons sales?
Gideon Levy | Aug. 19, 2020 | 10:17 PM | Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-why-is-the-u-s-playing-along-with-israel-s-veto-over-american-weap

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Reality is crazy; it surpasses any fiction. A tiny country that relies on the kindness of a global superpower is giving orders to said superpower, the most powerful on the planet, and to other powerful Western countries, about to whom it should sell weapons, or mainly, to whom it shouldn’t.

The facts are unbelievable. The U.S. Congress passed special legislation that requires the United States to hold a “consultation” with its ostensible ward, Israel, before signing arms deals in the Middle East. In other words, Israel has something close to veto power over America, rather than the opposite.

In 1994, for instance, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was kind enough, out of the goodness of his heart, to allow U.S. President Bill Clinton to sell American F-16 fighter planes to the United Arab Emirates. And America profited.

In 2020, the question is whether Israel will be kind enough to allow its patron, America, to sell F-35 fighters to the UAE, which is making peace with Israel. One’s jaw simply drops. Why are they even asking Israel?

Is this Israel? And is this America? Which is the superpower, and which the ward? Where did this madness come from that allows Israel to thwart arms deals between other countries?

German submarines to Egypt? That depends on Israel’s approval. Even though peace has long since been forged between Israel and Egypt, the latter still depends on Israel’s goodwill. It needs Israel, in its great generosity, to authorize Germany to sell Cairo submarines.

That is how powerful the Israeli and Jewish lobby in Washington is. That is how much power and influence Israel has over Germany, too.

Consider the AWACS deal with Saudi Arabia in 1986. A sale of five American early-warning and control planes to an important U.S. ally, which was located far from Israel, became the target of a huge lobbying and pressure campaign in which said lobby tried to thwart the deal.

But in the end, U.S. President Ronald Reagan decided what should have been self-evident. He said no. “It is not the business of other nations to make American foreign policy,” he said, and sold the planes to Saudi Arabia. How shocking.

It began with a ridiculous phrase coined by Shimon Peres: “Israel won’t be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.” Since he said that, Israel – according to foreign reports, of course – has not only become the first, but also the last. Only Israel is allowed to arm itself with doomsday weapons.

There’s obviously no moral question here; nuclear weapons are immoral for any country. Nor should one complain about Israel for wielding such great influence. What puzzles me is all those who cooperate with this delusional game, and whether it will continue forever.

According to Israel, only it has the right to arm itself with every possible or impossible weapon in the world. In contrast, it has demanded in advance that the imaginary Palestinian state, which will never arise, be completely disarmed.

Why should Palestine be disarmed but not Israel? Who spills more blood and who endangers the other more, Israel or the Palestinians? And who has started more wars?

Israel certainly can’t argue that its intentions are pacifistic. And if so, on what basis does it have the right to forbid other countries what it is permitted to do with no restrictions?

The name of the game is preserving Israel’s “qualitative military edge,” even over countries that have virtually no chance of ever being at war with it, and even over countries whose enemies are also Israel’s enemies, like the UAE. Is Dubai going to launch its stealth planes against Israel?

Aha, they say, but maybe there will be regime change there someday. Well, what if there’s regime change in Israel? Who can guarantee that some leader won’t arise here someday who will want to conquer the whole Middle East? These are questions that it’s virtually forbidden to discuss.

It’s Israel’s right to do everything it can to keep weapons away from others. But it’s impossible to ignore the question of whether this aggressive, extortionate behavior will keep paying off forever.

Somebody in the courtyards of Dubai or the streets of Cairo ought to ask sometime, “How come Israel is allowed to have the F-35 and we aren’t?” But for now, this question sounds bizarre.

If the ‘terrorist’ were Jewish
Gideon Levy | Aug. 13, 2020 - Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-if-the-terrorist-were-jewish-1.9068303

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Let’s say Nizmi Abu Bakr was a Jewish citizen of Israel. It’s nighttime in his village, he’s sleeping in his apartment, and late into the night he suddenly hears loud yelling from the bottom floor of the building, where his brothers and their families live. He is alarmed. His wife and eight children wake up, also frightened. He’s anxious over what might happen to them. Everyone is scared, the children start crying. He realizes that strangers have invaded his house and are now on the bottom floor. He rushes to the rooftop, from where he sees two columns of soldiers from the occupying army in the building’s compound. He grabs a stone block and throws it from the roof at the soldiers who’ve invaded his home. One of them is killed.

Let’s assume Abu Bakr was Jewish. He would have become a hero, someone who put his life on the line with his pitiful resources, defending the people in his home. He would be lauded as someone trying to expel the invader with a rock, a 2020 version of David against Goliath. His story would perhaps have become a legend, making it into the school curriculum. Maybe a street would have been named after him.

But Abu Bakr isn’t Jewish, which is why he isn’t a hero, but a murderer. He is a 49-year-old Palestinian and the rock he hurled killed the soldier Amit Ben-Yigal, who with his comrades invaded Abu Bakr’s house in yet another pointless, shameful raid, usually employed to carry out political detentions, to train army units and keep them on the ball, or to project power and domination. Within hours, Abu Bakr was arrested.

After a whole year in which no soldier had been killed, but no fewer than 150 Palestinians had been, Israel immediately adopted its usual position of wallowing, posing as a victim, seeking vengeance while demonizing its targets. Abu Bakr was depicted as a terrorist and a despicable murderer, his action a terror attack, his village labeled a hostile one, with any penalty imposed on him other than capital punishment deemed wimpish.

The grotesque ritual called a military trial has not ended yet, with no one convicted so far, but the nation and its prime minister already wish to see his house razed, with all its inhabitants thrown into the street. If the dead soldier’s family is suffering, let them suffer too. This is what happens to anyone who dares oppose the occupation.

This time there was a rare twist to the saga. The High Court of Justice ruled 2-1 against the demolition. Israel became even more roiled. The prime minister, in the role of chief prosecutor, “demanded” another hearing. The bereaved father, Baruch, lowered the flag above his son’s grave to half mast, saying that his father the Holocaust survivor and his son were the victims of the same Nazi Germany. The NGO that supported the Abu Bakr family in its petition against the demolition is funded by German money.

The two judges ruling against the demolition, Menachem Mazuz and George Kara, a leftist and an Arab, respectively, dared to protect the family with their courageous and clearly just ruling. The family was not involved in the action of Abu Bakr and bear no responsibility for it, but the two judges are now being called traitors. Only Justice Yael Vilner defended our national pride in her minority opinion: “The waves of terror sweeping over Israel in the last few years,” she wrote, “necessitate an effective deterrence against similar attacks in the future.”

What “waves of terror” is the judge talking about? And what is the connection between terror and the killing of a soldier on occupied land? Mostly, who will this demolition deter? After all, Israel has not ceased deterring. After 50 years of deterrence, Abu Bakr still threw a block at a soldier.

If Abu Bakr were Jewish, we’d tell the story as it really is. Abu Bakr is the defender, the IDF the aggressor. Every occupation engenders resistance. The terror and violence are dished out mainly by Israel. The more violent the occupation, the more violent the resistance. Palestinian resistance is actually among the tamest in history, in relation to the length of the seemingly endless occupation. Razing a house is collective punishment, a violation of natural justice and international law.

Even decades of brutal occupation have not taught Israel the only lesson there is: In the ruins of every house it demolishes grows the next “terrorist.”

Who cares about explosions in Iran?
Gideon Levy | Jul. 23, 2020 | 6:53 PM
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-who-cares-about-explosions-in-iran-1.9014068

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In the last few months, a mysterious country whose identity is unclear has been provoking Iran more than it has ever been provoked before. This anonymous country is blowing up production plants, torching seaports, and sowing chaos along with humiliation. It is exploiting Iran’s weakness, as the country has been hard-hit by the coronavirus on top of the severe international economic sanctions. The rest of the world is also preoccupied with the pandemic, and the president in Washington is fighting for survival. The hidden country is exploiting this international weakness to carry out bold, provocative and dangerous attacks.

This reckless behavior includes countless incidents that may have occurred because of “infrastructure problems,” as the official explanation goes, but may also have been deliberately caused with sophisticated tactics from afar. Incident after incident – and Iran is silent. Attack after attack, and Iran is humiliated. How long will it persist in this behavior? Hard to know.

Just how dangerous is this continuous provocation? There are two possible answers: Either Iran is indeed the existential threat hovering over Israel, a strong and dangerous regional power about to arm itself with nuclear weapons – in which case provoking it is extremely perilous. Or Iran is not as powerful as described in the scare campaign in Israel, it’s another paper tiger, in which case provoking it is not so risky. But it’s impossible to argue both that Iran is dangerous and that provoking it is not dangerous.

Perhaps Iran’s weakness actually offers an opening for other possibilities that don’t include bombing and arson. The effectiveness of the strikes isn’t clear either. Does setting fire to seven ships at the Bushehr port move Iran further away from nuclear capability? Maybe it moves it closer? But it does lend an aura of heroism to the supposed remote-control arsonists.

Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, said he is certain that Iran will respond against the attacking country, and mentioned Israel’s name for some reason. In Israel, his comments were met with a yawn. They’ll attack or they won’t, what difference does it make? There has yet to be an Israeli military operation that wasn’t greeted here with cheers or, unfortunately, with complacency, as long as it did not exact a price from Israelis themselves.

Still, one can’t help but wonder: There is a country behind these attacks, first in Syria and then in Iran, and it appears to be intoxicated with its successes and encouraged by the lack of an Iranian response, to the point where it might be getting carried away, jabbing sword after sword into the body of the bleeding bull, all without any public debate about the potentially fateful dangers. Nor does anyone seem to care that Israel may be trying to drag Iran into war, as it did in the past with Arab states.

Pyromania or a calculated policy? Teetering on the edge of disaster or playing a well-planned war game? Appalling recklessness or an incredible success story? In Israel, no one even asks.

The usual suspicion, particularly salient these days, that all of this is meant for domestic purposes, isn’t raising questions either. Could it be an attempt to divert attention from other, less comfortable matters? Perhaps taking an opportunity to fulfill the Israeli dream of bombing Iran, without actually bombing it, when no one can say with certainty what benefit this will bring and for how long?

Who knows? Everyone is mum, abandoning the arena to the few who decide. But these few may be the prime minister and his ministers in whom most Israelis have lost faith. Perhaps the few are the spy agencies that bought, or stole, unneeded ventilators and made sure to brag about it. But when it comes to Iran, everyone stands silent. Suddenly we trust them blindly. Suddenly they do know what’s good for Israel and we submit to them and salute them.

There’s a chance it could work again. There’s also a chance it will end in blood and tears. Does anyone care?

#IsraelIran

Peter Beinart doesn’t go far enough
Jeff Halper | Jul. 13, 2020 | 2:49 PM - Haaretz.com
Liberal Zionists are belatedly waking up to the only just alternative: a single state, shared by Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. But if Israeli Jews won’t endorse a one state solution, will they have to be dragged unwillingly into it?
▻https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-peter-beinart-doesn-t-go-far-enough-1.8990426

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Whether or not annexation actually happens, it has already had far-reaching effects.

It has forced liberal Zionists like Peter Beinart and Gershon Baskin, pro-Israel figures like Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel, and even some Israelis – albeit mainly readers of Haaretz – to confront the political and moral flaw at the heart of Zionism: its inability to reconcile Jewish national rights and Zionism’s exclusive claim to the Land of Israel, with the national rights and existence of the Palestinian people.

This inherent conflict was evident and recognized from the very first days of Zionism. The essayist Ahad Ha-am wrote about it. As a member of Brit Shalom, Arthur Ruppin, the head of the Palestine Office of the World Zionist Organization, supported a bi-national state. Jabotinsky confronted it in his famous “Iron Wall” doctrine.

And in 1942, when the intention to establish a Jewish state (and not merely a “national home”) was finally admitted, Ben-Gurion himself said plainly: “[This is a] decision based on force, a Jewish military decision…We want the Land of Israel in its entirety. That was the original intention.”

Indeed, the idea of “transfer” was in the air decades before the right-wing racist Meir Kahane and his followers arrived on the scene in the 1970s. Yosef Weitz, the Director of the Jewish National Fund’s Land Settlement Department and an architect of “Judaizing” Palestine, wrote in 1948: “It must be clear that there is no room in the country for both peoples…The only solution is a Land of Israel without Arabs…There is no way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, to transfer all of them, perhaps with the exception of Bethlehem, Nazareth and the old Jerusalem. Not one village must be left, not one tribe.”

Since 1967 the two-state solution played a key role in covering over this inherent, unavoidable and finally fatal flaw. As a tool of conflict management, it held out the illusion that Jewish claims to the Land of Israel and Palestinian claims to Palestine could somehow be reconciled.

We accept the “notion” of two states, we keep the illusion of “two sides” alive by creating a collaborationist Palestinian Authority, we negotiate (or not) forever, and in this way we avoid having to deal with the underlying reality that Zionism has set up a zero-sum game: either “we” win or “they” do. And in the midst of the stalemate we continue the 125-year Judaization of the country.

Annexation did not expose the illusion – any informed person knew it existed – but rather made it impossible to sustain. The two-state solution rested on the notion of “occupation.” This implies that a country has taken control of a territory that does not belong to it and must be prepared to negotiate its final status, which may or may not result in annexation.

International law does not permit unilateral annexation. For this reason Israel has always rejected the idea that it even has an occupation – it prefers to speak of “disputed territories,” a concept with no legal legitimacy – and therefore has never applied the Fourth Geneva Convention which prevents settlement, harming the local population and, of course, annexation.

Ever the master in legal manipulation, Israel’s current government therefore rejects the term “annexation,” speaking instead of “extending Israel’s sovereignty.” Whatever it’s called, Israel’s intention of incorporating 30 percent of the West Bank makes it impossible to sustain the two-state illusion anymore.

And so the anguish of liberal Zionists. Where do we go from here? Peter Beinart has raised the possibility of a bi-national state in a New York Times op-ed and a longer Jewish Currents essay. “Now Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to annex parts of the land that Israel has brutally and undemocratically controlled for decades. And watching all this unfold, I have begun to wonder, for the first time in my life, whether the price of a state that favors Jews over Palestinians is too high,” he writes.

“The painful truth is that the project to which liberal Zionists like myself have devoted ourselves for decades — a state for Palestinians separated from a state for Jews — has failed. The traditional two-state solution no longer offers a compelling alternative to Israel’s current path. It is time for liberal Zionists to abandon the goal of Jewish –Palestinian separation and embrace the goal of Jewish–Palestinian equality.”

Gershon Baskin, another leading voice of liberal Zionism and a columnist for The Jerusalem Post, recently published a piece entitled “Israel and Palestinians Must Join Forces in Creating a New Shared Vision.” That shared vision means a single state shared by Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs.

A single state is the only alternative to what exists today, and what annexation plainly offers for the future: apartheid. Some have suggested confederation, but that fails for the same reason the two-state solution does, Israel is simply unwilling to provide the Palestinians with any meaningful political or economic space.

Fortunately, there are Israelis and Palestinians who are giving Beinart, Baskin and, indeed, Israel itself, somewhere to go. The One Democratic State Campaign has formulated a political program that calls for a single democracy of equal rights, the homecoming of the refugees and the emergence of a shared civil society. It goes even further, recognizing that Zionism and Palestinian nationalism can co-exist within a pluralistic democracy – and both may eventually transform into something new, shared and vibrant.

Will Israeli Jews buy into it? No, of course not. Why would they? To such a degree do they enjoy the benefits of an apartheid regime, that the occupation and Palestinian rights have been reduced to a non-issue.

The refusal of most whites in South Africa to willingly dismantle apartheid resembles that of Israeli Jews. So Palestinians and the few Israeli partners that share the vision of a shared society must take a leaf from the ANC playbook.

Like the ANC, we must create a direct link between the international public, for whom Palestinian rights is a major issue (including among a growing proportion of young Jews), and our one-state movement. In that way we render Israeli apartheid unsustainable, as the ANC did in South Africa, finally bringing the Israelis into the transition process when they have no choice but to cooperate.

The struggle for a single state, for justice, should be seen as a challenge to all of us, not as a threat. South Africans, the Northern Irish, Black and white Americans in Mississippi and many other peoples once locked in seemingly endless conflict discovered that when issues of inequality and justice are addressed, their “irresolvable” differences become manageable.

Beinart, a die-heart Zionist to this day, reaches the only conclusion possible. “It’s time,” he says, “to envision a Jewish home that is a Palestinian home, too.” Zionism’s very purpose was to restore our self-determination. Well, here’s the challenge.

Are we going to become actors in creating a state for all of us living in this country, in which we enjoy both democratic rights and, within that framework, a national life in our country shared with others, or will we have to be dragged unwillingly into it? In my view, and maybe Beinart’s, the former is the “Zionist” answer.

Jeff Halper is an Israeli anthropologist, head of the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions, a founder of the One Democratic State Campaign and author of “War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification” (London, Pluto Books, 2015).

traduction en français : ►https://seenthis.net/messages/867255

Distress, humiliation, uncertainty: Israelis, do you now see what drives Palestinian resistance?
Gideon Levy | Jul. 9, 2020 | 11:16 AM
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-israelis-that-s-how-it-is-when-you-re-hurting-1.8981286

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Slowly but surely the option of violent opposition is surfacing. The combination of economic distress, fear, humiliation, uncertainty and a lack of leadership are bringing voices to the fore in broadcast studios and on social media that have probably never been heard in Israel before with such intensity.

For the first time in years, there is rage. For the first time in Israel, the threat of violent opposition exists. Soundman Eyal Altraz has already threatened a world war and to “burn the country down” if “the money doesn’t go into the bank account.” And Zvika Buzaglo, who runs a children’s theater, threatened: “I am capable of killing or doing anything. I will do anything I have to so that my son doesn’t say ‘I’m hungry.’”

These are the voices of a few, but they are getting louder and spreading quickly, and they’re explosive. Nearly everyone understands these enraged people. Economic distress in the face of leadership that is estranged from the public, that is losing direction and that is wasteful and arrogant is bound to spark rage.

Soon enough, there will also be those who understand those threatening violent opposition and who will justify it.

If there’s hunger, there will be violence. If the despair spreads, such unpleasant opposition will follow. Israelis who are obedient, complacent and apathetic to others’ suffering might undergo a transformation.

Granted that a popular uprising is still a distant prospect, but the first signs are already visible. And if it erupts, it will be violent. There is no other kind of rebellion.

Despair, hunger, joblessness, humiliation, the deprivation of rights and tyrannical and arrogant governance spawn resistance, which becomes violent. Israelis are liable to learn this up close and from personal experience. It’s a shame that they never had the fairness and honesty and sense of justice to understand it even when it relates to others.

Everything that is currently sparking public rage in Israel with violent potential – temporary unemployment, financial insecurity, violation of rights, disgust with leaders and a lack of hope – is considered superfluous among that other nation living under the rule of the Israeli government and the Israeli army.

Israelis’ distress, as deep and painful as it is, is akin to the problems of the wealthy compared to the reality of life for Palestinians. The distress in Israel is also much more short-lived, but it has still managed to sow the seeds of violent opposition.

Perhaps something good can come out of the current coronavirus pandemic. Maybe it is actually COVID-19 that can also actually bring about an understanding of what is driving the rage of the Palestinian people and its desperate, justified need to resort to violent opposition. That’s how it is when it hurts. When Jews hurt and when Palestinians hurt. There’s no difference.

Anyone who understands what a children’s theater director is feeling who threatens to kill if his son goes hungry has to also understand a Palestinian who has no means to support his children because the occupation is depriving him of making a living, and who threatens the regime that is responsible for it with terrorism.

Anyone who cannot remain unmoved by a desperate soundman’s emotional monologue threatening to burn down the country if the money doesn’t go into his bank account, can’t help but understand what a desperate young Palestinian who has no money coming into his bank account is feeling. This is a third or fourth generation in despair that is turning to terrorism as a last resort. It neither has nor will have another way out and never has.

The soundman and theater director, who of course are much more fortunate, are not prepared to remain silent and surrender. They are rebelling. They are fighting. They are threatening to use what desperate people have at their disposal. They are not giving up and surrendering to those who are abusing them in their arrogance. It’s hard not to have high regard for them.

The comparison, of course, does an injustice to the truth, but even with all of the differences between the two situations of distress – the temporary Israeli situation and the nearly eternal Palestinian one – that doesn’t detract from the need to understand what is motivating the opposition.

Have Altraz and Buzaglo touched your heart? Then why not the residents of a refugee camp trapped on the other side of the border fence not far from where you live?

If you can understand the Israelis who feel driven to violence these days, you have to understand the Palestinians too.

Israel isn’t George Floyd, it’s the bad cop - Opinion - Israel News | Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-israel-isn-t-george-floyd-it-s-the-bad-cop-1.8901360

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“Let me remind you that you’re from Israel.” This was the kind of comment to Gal Gadot on Instagram after her post expressing solidarity with the protests following George Floyd’s death in the United States.

Bar Refaeli also got bashed. These comments are extremely important because they show that when an event divides the world into two – an aggressor and a victim – Israelis are categorically seen as on the aggressor’s side.

#agresseur #victime

Israel finally releases a coronavirus ad in Arabic. Too bad it depicts Palestinians as Saudis - Opinion - Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-israel-s-health-ministry-can-t-tell-palestinians-from-saudis-1.882

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Le ministère de la Santé israélien se décide à promouvoir l’informatioon contre le Corona auprès des Palestiniens, et met en lumière un effarante mépris et une ignorance confondante de la société arabe...

What made it clear that concern for our wellbeing during the pandemic was not sincere was the small number of tests conducted in Arab communities, a lack of information in Arabic and the non-allocation of resources to Arab local governments to fight the virus – even though they are in financial distress that has worsened with the crisis. Only under pressure was the Health Ministry so kind as to “change its policy,” and a decision was made to earmark resources for testing, and mostly for an advertising campaign before the holy month of Ramadan.

But the hope for change was dashed when the first ad campaign was launched. Its purpose was to set down rules for Ramadan – preserving social distancing, breaking the daily fast only with members of the nuclear family, maintaining hygienic conditions, etc. But the illustrations chosen to demonstrate the guidelines, exemplifying a family, looked as if they were directed at the citizens of Saudi Arabia: The style of dress is traditional Saudi, the women and girls are covered from head to toe, and a woman is pictured at the table serving the family while they break their fast.

The use of humiliating stereotypical representations sparked an emotional uproar among the Arab community, and the ads were removed immediately.
An ad campagin by Magen David Adom (Israel’s national emergency service), designed to help curb the spread of the coronavirus among Arabs in Israel during the Ramadan.
An ad campagin by Magen David Adom (Israel’s national emergency service), designed to help curb the spread of the coronavirus among Arabs in Israel during the Ramadan.

We thought this was an accident and stemmed from ignorance, but the next day another humiliating and stereotypical informational video clip was released – and this time it was purely chauvinistic and denigrated women. The goal was to address women, encouraging them to stay home and to ensure that the rest of the family remained there, too.

In the clip we see two women, grandmothers, wearing traditional garb, preparing stuffed “grape leaves.” They are calling on all other women, using all sorts of demeaning terms, to prepare grape leaves only at home. Is this the way the role of the Arab woman is seen? To remain at home and work diligently on preparing food? Are Arab women so stupid that they understand only simple language?

This clip, too, was taken down as a result of criticism.

Is the Health Ministry really that ignorant? If so, then it is a dangerous ignorance. But how could all this happen to begin with? After all, a substantial number of Arabs is employed by the ministry: Indeed, 30 percent of all medical staff in Israel are Arabs.

▻https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKTHc_HFDiAiOr0vE_Imj5g

#israël #orientalisme #colonialisme

La réponse de l’Europe à l’annexion de la Cisjordanie par Israël
Gideon Levy, 16 mai 2020
▻https://charleroi-pourlapalestine.be/index.php/2020/05/17/la-reponse-decevante-de-leurope-a-lannexion-de-la-cisjorda

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Les choses sont bien claires désormais pour les gens qui étaient embarrassés : Israël peut annexer la Cisjordanie autant qu’il le désire – l’Europe ne se mettra pas en travers de son chemin.

Tous ceux qui pensaient qu’ils pourraient insuffler de la crainte dans nos cœurs à propos de la réaction de l’Europe à l’annexion avaient oublié ce qu’est l’Europe, à quel point elle est paralysée, coincée, craintive, divisée et désarmée face à Israël.

À l’ancienne présidente de Meretz, Zehava Galon, qui avait tweeté après la réunion des ministres des Affaires étrangères de l’Union européenne vendredi : « Quiconque pense que l’annexion se passera tranquillement pour nous… », on peut rétorquer : Elle se passera en effet très tranquillement. Ne comptez pas sur l’Europe. Il n’y a personne ni rien sur qui ou quoi compter. L’Europe, comme toujours, sortira des déclarations, tiendra des consultations, convoquera des ambassadeurs – et restera sur la touche.

L’Europe classique est une Europe neutre, qui n’intervient contre aucune injustice commise par Israël. Nous n’attendons rien des États-Unis, et certainement pas sous la présidence de Donald Trump, comme nous n’avions rien à attendre de ses prédécesseurs non plus, à ce propos.

L’Europe de l’Est « non classique » soutient avec admiration toute violence commise par Israël. Le seul espoir réside dans le coin situé au nord-ouest de la carte, l’endroit que le Premier ministre Benyamin Netanyahou tend à montrer du doigt en disant : « C’est le seul endroit où nous avons un problème. » C’est le seul endroit où il y avait de l’espoir, pensions-nous naguère. C’est désormais une déception aussi.

Le résultat des délibérations de vendredi entre les ministres des Affaires étrangères est caractéristique de l’Europe classique sous son pire profil. « Configurer des projets associés », « tourner une nouvelle page » vis-à-vis du nouveau gouvernement israélien : les sanctions constituent « un problème complexe » et cela « ne veut pas dire que nous le ferons demain ». Aucune surprise, là !

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Europe’s disappointing response to Israeli annexation of the West Bank
Gideon Levy May 16, 2020 | Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-europe-s-disappointing-response-to-israeli-annexation-of-the-west-

The all-clear has sounded for those who were worried: Israel can annex the West Bank as much as it wants – Europe will not stand in its way. Anyone who thought they could strike fear into our hearts over Europe’s reaction to annexation forgot what Europe is, how paralyzed it is, how coerced, fearful, divided and helpless it is in the face of Israel.

Former Meretz chairwoman Zehava Galon, who tweeted after the meeting of European Union foreign ministers on Friday: “Whoever thinks that annexation will pass quietly for us…” can be told: It will indeed pass very quietly. Don’t count on Europe. There’s no one and nothing to count on. Europe, as always, will formulate statements, hold consultations, summon ambassadors – and stand on the sidelines.

Classical Europe is neutral Europe, which doesn’t intervene against any injustice Israel commits. We have no expectations from the United States, certainly not under the presidency of Donald Trump, nor under his predecessors for that matter. “Non-Classical” Eastern Europe admiringly supports every violent thing Israel does. The only hope is the northwestern tip of the map, the one Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tends to point to and say: “That’s the only place we have a problem.” That’s the only place where there was hope, we once thought. That’s a disappointment now as well.

The outcome of Friday’s deliberations of foreign ministers is Classical Europe at its worst. “Mapping of joint projects;” “turning a new page” vis a vis the new Israeli government; sanctions are “a complex issue;” and it “doesn’t mean we’ll do it tomorrow.” No surprise there. Fifty-three years of occupation that persists under your silence, your funding, your arms, and the spokesman for EU external affairs tells reporters who ask about sanctions not to put the cart before the horse. There’s time. Fifty-three years of occupation whose legitimacy is recognized by no international institution in the world, and the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell says that there’s no comparison to Russia’s occupation of Crimea. There, the territory belongs to a sovereign state. Israel’s outgoing propaganda minister, Gilad Erdan, could not have put it better. Europe is with the Israeli right. When it came the occupation of Crimea, Europe in fact knew how to respond with action and immediately. But Russia scares Europe much less than Israel does.

When it comes to Israel there are other rules, and a different international law, and different conduct. Fear of the United States on the one hand and guilt over the Holocaust on the other, together with the unbelievable efficiency and extortion efforts of the Zionist propaganda machine, stronger than any obligation to international law, than the obligation that Europe has to the fate of the Palestinians, and stronger than European public opinion, which is much more critical of Israel than any government.

The European Union’s Erasmus+ education funding and its Horizon 2020 research programs are in danger. That’s Europe’s response to annexation. Stopping joint research projects will prevent occupation. Don’t make Israel and its settlers laugh. Instead of imposing real sanctions – from a sweeping ban on settlers entering Europe and through economic sanctions – they threaten Erasmus+. Europe’s insistence on a two-state solution – when some of its leaders already know and sometimes admit in closed conversations is already a lost cause – plays into the hands of Israeli apartheid, which also knows how to mumble the term two states, if only there were a partner, and then builds tens of thousands more houses in the West Bank.

One can of course argue that it isn’t Europe’s role to bring about world justice or clean up after Israel. But after all, the European Union has higher pretenses than just a common market. Europe, which was silent and closed its eyes in the past, is doing it again. Perhaps it will soon summon presumptive foreign minister Gabi Ashkenazi and he will promise them that Israel will work to enact the two-state solution. Four and a half million people will continue to suffocate without rights and without a future, and Brussels will go on patting itself on the back and feeling good about itself – after all, it threatened to cancel Erasmus+.

#IsraelUE

How ’Fauda’ has romanticized the most repugnant aspects of Israel’s occupation - Opinion - Israel News | Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-fauda-has-romanticized-repugnant-aspects-of-israel-s-occupation-1.

https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.5890679.1520793935!/image/3696695873.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/3696695873.jpg

C’est vieux mais c’est toujours d’actualité, à propos de la propagande israélienne via le feuilleton Fauda.

Opinion How ’Fauda’ Has Romanticized the Most Repugnant Aspects of Israel’s Occupation

When Israeli security forces, disguised as Palestinian journalists, stormed Birzeit university and arrested a student leader, the Israeli media, rather than outrage, offered its highest plaudit: “Just like ’Fauda’”

Bon article en arabe dont je traduis les 4 sous-titres ▻https://www.vice.com/ar/article/59qj7x/%D8%A3%D8%B1%D8%A8%D8%B9%D8%A9-%D8%A3%D8%B3%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%A8-%D9%83%D9%8A-%D9 :

1) Fauda légitime les crimes de guerre israéliens 2) le acteurs palestiniens du feuilletons confirment la version israélienne du conflilt 3) Fauda, via Netflix, est une opération de propagande 4) ce n’est pas de l’histoire/de l l’Histoire, ça se passe aujourd’hui...

#netflix #fauda #israël #palestine

Israeli health minister’s cure for COVID-19? The Messiah
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-israeli-health-minister-s-cure-for-covid-19-the-messiah-1.8703719

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“We are praying and hoping that the Messiah will arrive before Passover, the time of our redemption. I am sure that the Messiah will come and bring us out as [God] brought us out of Egypt. Soon we will go out in freedom and the Messiah will come and redeem us from all the troubles of the world.”

This remark was made by Health Minister Yaakov Litzman last week, after Yaniv Kalif of the Hebrew-language news website Hamal asked him whether Israelis will be forced to remain under lockdown until the holiday, which begins April 8. Litzman’s ignorant answer was not met with uproar.

Palestinians would die for the Israeli kind of lockdown
Gideon Levy Mar 19, 2020 2:49 AM | Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-palestinians-would-die-for-the-israeli-kind-of-lockdown-1.8688182

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The heavens have darkened and everything is closing in around us. Only fate, God or the shaper of history are laughing at us from up high, a bitter, ironic laughter. The irony of fate: For the first time, Israel is tasting some of the hell it has been dishing out for decades to its subjects. With alarming speed, Israelis have entered a reality known to every Palestinian child.

Even the terms have been borrowed from the occupation: Israel is on its way to a lockdown, the army is taking over hotels, the Shin Bet security service is taking over our cellphones, and the Border Police and its checkpoints are right around the corner. It’s no coincidence that Haaretz’s military analyst has been recruited to serve as the coronavirus analyst. In a day or two Tel Aviv will resemble Jenin and Israel will be like the Gaza Strip. What is routine there has become a frightening dystopia here.

Of course, the differences are many. What for us constitutes the end of the world would for them be an easing of the closure, with the pandemic looming over everyone. Still, we can’t but marvel at the similarities. First, the state of siege. The gates are practically locked. No one leaves or enters.

Think of Gaza for 14 consecutive years. Young people who have never seen a passenger plane, even adults who have never been inside an airport, not even dreaming of a vacation abroad. Israelis have difficulties with life without Ben-Gurion Airport even for a moment. Gazans don’t know about a life that includes trips abroad. Where’s that? What does it look like?

Passover is coming soon, and kids and their parents here will go stir crazy without their getaways, malls, cruises, Disney or duty-free shopping. Gazans have no clue what all that means. They know about curfews, which sometimes last for months, like during an intifada. They know about curfews with many more children and fewer rooms, with tanks outside and hatred inside. Imagine the Border Police patrolling the streets checking documents and putting up checkpoints.

In Israel the security forces will behave like caring nurses compared to their thuggish behavior in the territories, and it will still be unbearable for us. How much easier it is when the police officer is one of yours and the state is your own state. How galling and hard it is when they’re a foreigner, an invader, an occupier. Still, we’ll get to have some taste of what that’s like.

We’ll also get to taste the taste of lost time, Palestinian time, where you leave the house and don’t know when or if you’ll reach your destination. You go to university but don’t know when and for how long it will shut down. You have a job but try unsuccessfully to get to work.

The economic situation will also become more similar. We already have 100,000 new unemployed – people who lost their work, their business, their entire world. At least for a now it seems to them that they have no future or present, that everything has gone down the drain. And how will they pay the bills and feed their children? This is so routine under the occupation, the reality of decades. Sitting at home climbing the walls for months is elementary in the territories.

The Shin Bet says it will use “digital measures.” Don’t make Palestinians laugh. That’s the most humane way they’re treated by the security service. Let the Shin Bet eavesdrop and track, just stop torturing, extorting and abusing. In the territories the Shin Bet always knows everything, everywhere, with no legal restrictions. Criticism of privacy violations in Israel can only amuse the Palestinians – just like the picture of Home Front Command officers running a hotel. How many hotels have been taken over by the army and turned into headquarters in the territories?

There are differences as well. Even at the height of the pandemic, Israelis will not be humiliated or beaten in front of their children or parents. Their houses will not be invaded in the middle of the night, every night, to carry out a brutal and purposeless search. No one will abduct them from their beds.

Even in the worst of dystopias there is no expectation of snipers shooting at demonstrators’ knees for fun. Our houses won’t be bombed or our fields sprayed. It’s just a temporary siege, with Shin Bet eavesdropping and Border Police patrols, the dream of every Palestinian dreaming of a better life.

A message from a Jewish friend - Haaretz Editorial -

▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/.premium-a-message-from-a-jewish-friend-1.8596122

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The leading Democratic presidential candidate sent an important message to Israel Wednesday. Israel would be wise to listen. During the 10th television debate among the party’s presidential candidates, Sen. Bernie Sanders called the Israeli prime minister a “reactionary racist.” His opponents did not respond to this characterization of Benjamin Netanyahu. Sanders also said he would consider returning the U.S. Embassy to Tel Aviv and promised to protect Israel’s security but also not to ignore the Palestinians’ suffering.

Sanders’ statements accurately reflect the new winds blowing through his party, which has been the American Jewish community’s political home for decades, and ought to gladden every lover of peace and justice in Israel. After years in which the United States paid only lip service to opposing the settlements while providing practical support to the occupation and almost every Israeli military operation, Sanders’ words are sweet music to the ears of anyone who believes that without vigorous steps by Washington, including conditioning American aid on a change in Israeli policy, no such change will ever happen.

Nevertheless, it’s hard to ignore the fact that a politician who may well reach the White House called Israel’s prime minister a “reactionary racist,” and nobody in the Democratic Party came to his defense. This is the rotten fruit not just of Israel’s policy of occupation, which Netanyahu did not begin, but also of his one-party policy in the United States. Netanyahu’s Israel has put all its hope and trust in the Republican Party in general and in President Donald Trump’s administration in particular, while riding roughshod over the tradition of maintaining good relations with both parties. And now, the check has come due. Netanyahu, who boasts of his close relationship with the U.S. administration, has opened a worrying gulf between Israel and the Democratic Party, Israel’s traditional friend in Washington.

Sanders is a friend of Israel. He is proud of his Jewishness and says that he will see to the welfare of the state. His voice is the new voice of his party, and he may well reach the White House. In order to repair Israel’s relationship with the man who might become the most important leader in the world, which has sunk to a nadir, Benjamin Netanyahu must be replaced Monday, Election Day.

Haaretz Editorial

The Holocaust as a pretext for annexation

Zeev Sternhell

▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-the-holocaust-as-a-pretext-for-annexation-1.8472451

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The joint operation by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu to grant American legitimacy to the annexation of Palestinian territories was leaked just as the memorial ceremony of the World Holocaust Forum was taking place at Yad Vashem. It’s hard to conceive of a more cynical combination: In Jerusalem, anti-Semitism was used to silence the expected worldwide opposition to the annexation plan.

And thus the anti-Semitism that brought catastrophe upon the Jewish people was turned into a cynical and shameless political tool by Israel. Jerusalem turned anti-Semitism into the ultimate weapon against any call for the removal of even a few Jews from the West Bank and against the idea of dividing the land fairly. To the nationalists, any policy that doesn’t completely mesh with the Israeli interest as they see it is tantamount to anti-Semitism.
Trump’s Unreal Deal: No Peace, No Plan, No Palestinians, No Point. Listen to Haaretz’s podcast

The talent of Netanyahu and his minions for using the Holocaust and anti-Semitism as a currency requires no further proof, and Europe’s cowardice and inability to stand up to the Israeli right’s blackmail is also notorious. Likud’s Israel has branded denial of the occupation and the apartheid in the territories as anti-Zionist and then equated this anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Europe is, justifiably, racked with guilt feelings toward the Jews; this account will never be closed, but it still doesn’t justify Europe’s forgiving attitude toward Jewish-Israeli nationalism and racism.

Paradoxically, this forgiving stance also ends up amounting to active support for the destruction of Israel as a liberal, democratic and Jewish society. Every reasonable person understands that annexation without equal rights for Palestinians means the establishment of a new apartheid state – creating such a reality isn’t exactly one of the EU’s reasons for being. Who in Western Europe is willing to lend patronage to this act and let the Jewish nationalists exploit the unforgivable past to entirely drain Jewish nationalism of any drop of liberal values?
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Beyond all the discussion on what constitutes the religious and national Jewish identity, Zionism was an answer to European anti-Semitism and one solution to the oppression of the Jews and the mortal danger they were in. Escape to the New World was the favored solution for 90 percent of those who fled Europe before the gates of the United States were closed in the early 1920s.

The Zionist solution proved itself because all other doors were locked, and after the Holocaust it gained worldwide legitimacy. But now the nationalist right is trying to expand this legitimacy for freedom and independence to include occupation and annexation. This is the epitome of the cynical and shameful exploitation of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism for the Israeli government’s political needs.

Now comes the question: How to make the liberal world understand that there is no connection between anti-Semitism and savage criticism of the occupation and annexation, or of other aspects of Israeli policy in the territories?
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The German president expressed remorse in a way that inspires respect. Under the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel, his country absorbed a million non-Christian and non-European refugees in an attempt to show that it is free of racism. But Germany and France, which has its own anti-Semitism issues, act like they’re afraid of their own shadows when touching on the sensitive nerve of criticism of Israel.

The right’s propaganda has managed to convince many of the best West European liberals that such criticism amounts to opposition to Zionism, which amounts to denying Israel’s right to exist – and therefore amounts to anti-Semitism. This is a total lie, and Israelis should be the first to shout this truth from the rooftops.
zeev sternhell

Zeev Sternhell

Haaretz Contributor