Craig and Cindy Corrie, parents of martyred 23-year-old Evergreen State College student and International Solidarity Movement activist Rachel Corrie, killed in Rafah, Gaza, by an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) bulldozer on March 16, 2003, spoke in Des Moines on December 5.  The Corries are Iowa natives.

Cindy Corrie began her presentation to about 40 people gathered in the Simmerman Lounge at Westminster Presbyterian Church by talking about the family’s Iowa roots and thanking their Iowa friends and supporters.

“Rachel could relate to her Iowa relatives, farmers who worked on the land here, and how her family here might feel if things like she saw happening to Palestinian farmers, orchards destroyed and that sort of thing, were happening to them.  That Iowa connection was really important to Rachel and how she understood Palestine,” said Corrie

“I can’t say enough about the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and the support we have received here in Des Moines and across the country.  In many ways, people at AFSC were our mentors early on and they continue to be extremely supportive, and we are very, very appreciative of that.” said Corrie.

“The Des Moines Catholic Worker recently named one of their houses for Rachel, and Craig and I visited the house yesterday.  I was so pleased to learn that their intention is to have it be a respite place for people who do international solidarity work and who need a place to come back to, to reflect and to rejuvenate themselves.  Two of the young people who have been involved in making this happen have spent time in Palestine and in Columbia, so I am really looking forward to staying connected with them,” said Corrie.

Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine is an important issue and one that Americans are increasingly aware of, said Corrie, “and it impacts every one of us, whether we are conscious of that or not.”

Corrie described how she and her husband had learned of their daughter’s death in a call from their son-in-law who, while he and his wife were enjoying their morning coffee, received a call from a friend who had seen and heard the news of Rachel’s death on television.  Rachel’s sister Sarah turned on the TV and, as they spoke, the news broadcast was updated.

“On the screen, running across the bottom, were the words, ‘Rachel Corrie of Olympia, Washington, killed in the Gaza Strip.’  That was how our family learned that our lives had changed in an irrevocable way,” said Corrie.

“Rachel was many things.  She was a writer, a poet, and artist, a sister, a daughter.  And she had dreams.  In 1990, in her 5th grade year book, she wrote that the wanted to be a lawyer, a dancer, an actor, a mother, a wife, a children’s author, a distance runner, a poet, a pianist, a pet store owner, an astronaut, an environmental and humanitarian activist, a psychiatrist, a ballet teacher, and the first woman president,” said Corrie.

“Rachel grew up in Olympia, Washington, where Craig and I now live.  It’s a beautiful place with mountains and water, forests and rain, salmon and coffee, and Rachel loved all those things. … The world tugged at Rachel. Her response to 9/11 was to become very involved in the peace movement in our community where she focused on some of the negative aspects of the U.S. war on terrorism, the war in Afghanistan, and the U.S. Patriot Act.  In April 2002, she led an effort to create a flock of doves for Olympia’s Earth Day tribute, which is called the Procession of the Species, which honors all life.  After she celebrated, she wrote, ‘I danced down the street with 40 people, from the age of seven to 70, dressed as doves.  In a lot of ways, the procession is a values statement.  I am happy to see a peace message included in that. I think it’s important for people who oppose war and oppression to speak about who we are as a community.  We are not outside.  I think it’s important that human rights and resistance to oppression be included in the way we define ourselves as a community,’” said Corrie.

“Work, study, and people in Olympia led Rachel to Palestine and Israel.  She wrote, ‘Why do I want to go?  I’ve been organizing in Olympia for a little over a year on antiwar and global justice issues, and at some point it started to feel like this work is missing a solid connection to the people who are most immediately impacted by U.S. foreign policy.  I have this underlying need to go a place and meet people who are on the other end of the portion of my tax money that goes to fund the U.S. and other militaries,’” said Corrie.

“After studying and saving, Rachel left Olympia in January 2003 and made her way to Beit Sahour … to train with the International Solidarity Movement.  This is a Palestinian led movement that engages Israelis and Internationals in nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.  There are only two stipulations for being involved in the ISM.  One must believe in freedom for the Palestinian people, and one must agree to use only nonviolent forms of resistance.  Rachel chose to go to Rafah, which is at the southernmost tip of the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt.  She knew that it was a very isolated place with possibly the greatest need in all of the Occupied Territories,” said Corrie.

“When she got there, she wrote to us, ‘I couldn’t even have believed that a place like this existed, but even more, can you believe there are children here? Forget the fear – they tell me that at night – Forget the fear.  I am ashamed that I am afraid for my own body and dying anonymously inside a house in one of the most populous places on earth, where children die as martyrs of the Occupation, which we pay for, quietly, without ever knowing their names.  We need more people.  I love all of you, Rachel,’” said Corrie, quoting from one of her daughter’s messages.

Corrie said there were two IDF Caterpillar bulldozers on the scene as well as an armored personnel carrier the day Rachel was killed.  In each bulldozer were two soldiers, the driver and a commander who is supposed to act as second set of eyes.  Seven International eye witnesses were present, said Corrie.

“It is documented in U.S. Senate testimony that President Bush personally telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Sharon to request a thorough, credible, and transparent investigation in Rachel’s case, and that he was given personal assurances by the prime minister that there would be one.  In May 2003, the Israeli military’s Advocate General’s office closed the case, however, concluding that the two soldiers in the bulldozer didn’t see her.  Seven International witnesses say she was visible.  No charges were brought.  The Israeli government declined to release its report of the investigation to the U.S. government,” said Corrie.

Corrie noted that several U.S. State Department officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff, Larry Wilkerson, have said that the Israeli investigation was not thorough, credible, or transparent.  Despite U.S. laws and regulations governing arms exports and financing that could be used to force Israel to conduct a credible investigation, the Israeli government, the largest recipient of U.S. military aid, has stonewalled all requests by the U.S. Department of State for a thorough, credible, and transparent investigation of Rachel Corrie’s death.

On the advice of U.S. officials, the Corrie family filed a civil suit in Israel in 2005.  During the trial, which is scheduled to conclude in April 2012, the Israeli government has withheld evidence, including video of the incident which has been aired on Israeli television.

“There have been 14 hearings, 22 testimonies, and over 2,000 pages of recorded court transcripts.  And we have had all of those translated into English from Hebrew in order to know what has been said,” said Corrie.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak authorized a security certificate that prevented the Corries from seeing some of the IDF personnel who testified from behind a screen.

“We weren’t able to see the driver or the commander of the bulldozer.  It was very disappointing,” said Corrie, who noted that the driver of the bulldozer testified that he could not remember the time of day, morning, noon, or evening, that he drove his bulldozer over her daughter.

“We did not hear any remorse; indifference was the way it came across to us,” said Corrie.

The family made four trips to Haifa, Israel, for the trial, spending nearly seven months in Israel during the testimony period of the proceedings.

We were struck by the lead investigator’s failure to look for evidence, failure to secure evidence, failure to resolve conflicting evidence, and failure to turn evidence over to the court, said Corrie.

It appeared, said Corrie, that the investigating team set out with the intention of exonerating the IDF.

“It was really clear that that was their goal, rather than to impartially determine what actually happened on March 16, 2003,” said Corrie.

During the Q&A, Craig Corrie responded to The Independent Monitor’s questions about the co-operation the family has received from the Department of State and the U.S. Embassy in Israel during the Bush and the Obama administrations.

Corrie noted that the family was able to establish contact with Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff Larry Wilkerson early on and has maintained contact with various DoS and embassy officials over the years.

Corrie described a memorable moment during one meeting with high-level officials.

“One of those people who was a special envoy to Jerusalem said, ‘I want to tell you that I’ve gained great respect for the ISM and the members of the ISM who I’ve met while I was in Jerusalem,’ and nobody [in the room seemed shocked by the observation.] They’re all nodding their heads!  So, a lot of times, when we’re talking, these people agree with us – but it doesn’t change policy,” said Corrie.

“There has been a lot of support in one way, in trying to do this lawsuit, OK?  But on the other hand, the head of a state gave a promise to our state, promising a credible and transparent investigation.  As a father, I can’t enforce that.  And as heads of state, they’re not enforcing it,” said Craig Corrie.

“And we’re sending them $30 billion anyway, so there is a lot of frustration,” said Cindy Corrie, noting that members of the Corrie family have visited the Washington office of every member of the U.S. Congress to provide information about Rachel and the need for a thorough, credible, and transparent investigation of her death.

“Of course, there are new people there now and we may have to start over,” said Cindy Corrie.

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BY GHASSAN RUBEIZ, Ph.D.
Columnist, Palm Beach Gardens, FL

What would most effectively unite Palestinians is not holding elections, reconciliation of leaders or the appointment of a new prime minister.  Unity is best achieved when the people collectively build a common vision on how to tackle the occupation.

It is breaking news that the two major Palestinian leaders, Mahmoud Abbas and Khaled Mash’al, will soon meet in Cairo to achieve “reconciliation”. As President of Palestinian Authority ( PA) and chief of Fatah Party,  Abbas rules over a designated area in the (occupied) West Bank.  Mash’ al, is the chief of the political bureau of Hamas – the Islamic resistance  movement.

After five years of indulgence in divisive politics, the leaderships of Hamas and Fatah are going to a troubled Egypt to reconcile personal differences, negotiate steps for unity and plan elections. The two rival groups will meet on November 24, set a date for legislative and presidential elections this spring and negotiate on the membership of  a transitional cabinet representing all groups.

Is the meeting going to be  primarily about form or substance?  True, elections are overdue and a unity government is necessary.  But there is no sign yet that the leaders attending this meeting will be tackling the root cause that has kept the two sides from cooperating over the past two decades:  Fatah seeks to achieve peace through negotiations and Hamas continues to mobilize to liberate Palestine through force. This formula of discord in mindset continues to delay liberation and embolden the occupation.

While Fatah has been too dependent on promises from the West, Hamas has been too close to troubled regimes.

The incentives that brought the two leaders to negotiate differences seem to be purely pragmatic. Hamas fears losing the support of Syria and Iran as these two regimes face growing domestic, regional and international pressure. Similarly, The Palestinian Authority feels abandoned by the Obama Administration and humiliated by the Netanyahu government. Tel Aviv has already stopped reimbursing the PA for collected taxes contributed by Palestinians. And Washington is about to cut funding to Ramallah – the West Bank government.

The Cairo meeting has been portrayed as an effort in “reconciliation”; in reality the encounter is about insecure leaders taking shelter in a common action which has the appearance of a Palestinian Arab Spring
What is happening this week is not going to be earth shaking. In May, a reconciliation agreement was signed by Abbas and Mash’al . But soon after, something went wrong which thwarted the finalization of the agreement. The two sides could not agree on the identity of the future prime minister. Now this obstacle has been overcome.  It has been finally agreed that the prime minister of the new government will no longer be Salam Fayyad; Hamas considers the former PM unsuitable.

While Fayyad may quit his policies may not disappear. The departure of a leader who has over the past five years reinforced the culture of peaceful resistance and modern state building will leave a positive legacy.
In challenging the occupation, Palestinians are gradually moving in the direction of non-violence.  A September 2011 poll indicates that 83 % of Palestinians believe that Palestine, as a state, should apply for membership in the UN.  Moreover, 67% believe that civil disobedience or negotiation, rather armed struggle,  is bound to force Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories ( Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Palestinian Policy and Survey Research Center in Ramallah)

At times, brilliant ideas come from the least likely places. Five years ago, from an Israeli prison, the idea of non-violent resistance was dramatically flagged by a charismatic Palestinian leader. If there is one single leader who could unite Palestinians today, it would be Marwan Barghouti.  From his Israeli cell, Barghouti issued a letter in July 2006 appealing for peace. His peace plan is based on a two state solution, 1967 borders and acceptance of a state with a Jewish character. The letter, which was intended to be circulated for approval by all Palestinians through a referendum, was signed by inmates representing Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The referendum idea, which President Abbas favored at the time, was soon overshadowed by negative events. A promising initiative was nipped in the bud.

Still, narrowing the difference between Hamas and Fatah on the logistics of the elections and governance does not resolve the question of how to liberate the land from the occupier and conserve Palestinian energy in state building.

Perhaps Abbas and Mash’al may reconsider the idea of reviving Barghouti’s referendum as part of the election process, in order to unite Palestine at the grassroots.

The Arab Spring has not come to Palestine yet. When it does, reform will emerge from the street.

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“The purpose is to control and undermine the role of Palestinian civil society and [its] efforts in Jerusalem,” Rashad Shtayyeh, the activities coordinator at the Civic Coalition to Defend Palestinians’ Rights in Jerusalem (CCDPRJ), told The Electronic Intifada by email.

“Also, [this Israeli policy] tries to restrict anything that might help in protecting the Palestinian identity in Jerusalem, as a part of the Israeli Judiazation project in occupied Jerusalem,” Shtayyeh explained.

On 25 October, Israeli police presented closure notices to four Jerusalem-based organizations — Shua’a Women’s Association, al-Quds Development Foundation, Saeed Education Center and Work Without Borders — for a one-month period.

Given thirty minutes to leave

Dr. Nufuz Maslamani is the director of the Shua’a Women’s Association, a group that was founded in 2008 with the goal of empowering women in Jerusalem to achieve their social, political and economic rights. She told The Electronic Intifada that Israeli police gave volunteers at the association thirty minutes to leave their office before they locked the door.

“I said, ‘Why do you want to close it?’ I said that we are a women’s association and that we are working with women, with gender issues. [The police officer] said, ‘No, you are doing activities for the Popular Front [for the Liberation of Palestine],” Maslamani explained.

“As always, they have a lot of reasons to close any association, to stop anyone who is working in Jerusalem. They continue their policy to make Jerusalem empty of the Palestinian people. This is their policy. That’s why they closed the association,” she said.

Maslamani said that the closure has already had a negative impact on the Palestinian women and children who take courses through the association.

“This is really a problem because we now have women who are taking computer courses, and other courses. These women feel that they have a purpose and that they can do anything,” she said, adding that she feared the one-month closure order would be arbitrarily extended.

“The most dangerous thing is that the Palestinian people can’t live or do what is right for them. This is our right, to continue our lives in Jerusalem, as all women and people in the world.”

History of closures in Jerusalem

According to the Civic Coalition for Defending Palestinians’ Rights in Jerusalem (CCDPRJ), since August 2001, the Israeli authorities have closed approximately 28 organizations serving the Palestinian community in Jerusalem, including the Orient House, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) former headquarters in the city, the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce and the Arab Studies Society.

In 2009, the Israeli authorities also banned numerous Palestinian cultural and educational events scheduled to celebrate the declaration of Jerusalem as the “Capital of Arab Culture” for that year.

“The closure of these and other Palestinian institutions are part of a broader policy through which the Israeli authorities seek to stifle Palestinian development in Jerusalem and increase the strength of Israel’s occupation over East Jerusalem,” explained Shtayyeh. “These closures relate to the overarching policy that includes violations of housing rights, revocation of residency, and ultimately results in the forced displacement of Palestinians from Jerusalem.”

Most Palestinians living in East Jerusalem have residency rights, not full Israeli citizenship, since they refused to take Israeli passports on principle shortly after Israel began occupying the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967.

As such, Palestinian Jerusalemites have the right to live and work in Israel yet are denied other provisions that come with full Israeli citizenship. For instance, unlike citizenship, permanent residency is only passed on to a person’s children if certain conditions are met, including most notably proving that one’s “center of life” is in Jerusalem.

Since 1967, it is estimated that more than 14,000 identification cards have been revoked from Palestinian Jerusalemites, who have thereby lost their residency rights and the ability to live in the city.

Widespread attack on human rights groups

The Jerusalem-area closures come as the Israeli parliament, the Kenesset, is expected to pass two new bills that would make it harder for human rights groups in the country to receive funding from foreign governments.

On 13 November, the Israeli Ministerial Committee on Legislation voted in favor of two new bills. The first, officially known as the Associations Law (Amendment — Banning Foreign Diplomatic Entities’ Support of Political Associations in Israel), would bar human rights groups from receiving donations of more than 20,000 NIS (roughly $5,400) from foreign state entities.

The second bill, an amendment to the Israeli Income Tax Order, would make funding from foreign state entities to Israeli nongovernmental organizations subject to a 45 percent taxation rate. This is more than three times more than the taxation rate incurred by private organizations.

On 10 November, 18 human rights groups in Israel, including Adalah — the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Arab Association for Human rights, released a statement condemning the bills.

“This is not the first time Knesset members target foreign funding as a way to silence civil society and human rights organizations. The bills are a part of a calculated policy to silence voices of dissent and criticism and go hand in hand with attempts to restrict Israel’s judicial system, media outlets and activists,” the statement reads.

“A vibrant civil society is an essential part of a healthy democracy,” the statement adds. “These organizations promote transparency, public debate and accountability regarding government policy, and ensure essential protection of more vulnerable communities.”

According to the Mossawa Center, a group representing Palestinians in Israel, the bills would have the biggest impact on organizations working for the rights of Israel’s Palestinian citizens.

“Many Israeli NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] do not receive funding from the Israeli government because of their work with the Palestinian Arab minority. They are forced to rely on foreign state entities, like the EU and European government-sponsored organizations, for a majority of their funding,” Mossawa explained in a statement.

“While the NGO bills directly hinder the ability of Arab and human rights NGOs to operate independently within Israel, right-wing organizations that violate international law by supporting settlements in the West Bank are not limited in the proposed legislation,” Mossawa adds. “Most right-wing organizations are funded by the state and/or foreign private donations, which the bills’ sponsors do not consider foreign interference. It is clear that the proposed legislation would conceal the state’s human rights violations and advance the government’s right-wing agenda without impediment.”

Protected under international law

In Jerusalem, CCDPRJ’s Rashad Shtayyeh explained that “East Jerusalem is incontrovertibly recognized under international law as an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territory over which the Palestinian people are entitled to exercise their right to self-determination.”

Indeed, the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “Protected persons are entitled, in all circumstances, to respect for their persons, their honor, their family rights, their religious convictions and practices, and their manners and customs.”

Article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights also stipulates that “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”

In his email to The Electronic Intifada, Shtayyeh explained that these protected rights — as well as freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly — are regularly denied to Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

“We call upon the international Community, the United Nations and the European Union to take responsibility to uphold their obligations towards the protected persons under occupation in Jerusalem,” he said. “We demand that the international community obliges the Israeli government to refrain from closing the Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem.”

Article and photo courtesy Electronic Intifada

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“I’m a Freedom Rider! I’m just trying to go to Jerusalem!” shouted Palestinian activist Huiwada Arraf Tuesday evening as a live Internet video feed showed Israeli police officers dragging her off a bus linking Israeli settlements in the West Bank to Jerusalem.

Arraf and five other Palestinian activists boarded segregated Israeli public bus number 148 — which connects the illegal Israeli settlement of Ariel to Jerusalem — on Tuesday in an act of civil disobedience aimed to draw attention to Israeli colonial and apartheid policies and the lack of basic human rights Palestinians are afforded under this system.

After sitting peacefully on the bus at Israel’s Hizma checkpoint, just outside the northern entrance to Jerusalem, and nonviolently resisting attempts by the Israeli authorities to get them off the bus, all six “Freedom Riders” were eventually removed by force and arrested for illegally entering Israel without permits.

Another Palestinian Freedom Rider was also arrested while attempting to ride the segregated buses, and according to a Freedom Riders press release, was taken with the six other activists to Atarot police station (“Palestinian Freedom Riders On Their Way to Jerusalem Violently Arrested on Israeli Settler Bus”).

Their protest action was inspired by the Freedom Riders of the civil rights movement in the United States, who nonviolently challenged segregation in the American South in the 1950s and 1960s.

“It’s going to be a challenge for Palestinians and for every human being for their morality. It’s going to be a challenge for the whole world to really take action against the Israeli crimes,” Palestinian Freedom Riders spokesperson Hurriyah Ziada told The Electronic Intifada on Monday.

While Palestinians are not explicitly barred from boarding Israeli public transportation in the West Bank, since most buses pass through Israeli settlements that are off-limits to Palestinians, the system is de facto segregated.

“Our challenge is going to be on the ground dealing with the settlers, but on the other hand, we’re waiting for the peoples’ reactions and the world’s reactions. Enough talk; we need real action on the ground and for people to take a side, taking a rightful side against Israeli discrimination,” Ziada said.

Tense hours at the checkpoint

The Freedom Riders left RamallahTuesday afternoon and headed to a bus stop in the occupied West Bank, which serves Israeli settlers near the Israeli settlement of Psagot. After a few buses drove past the Palestinian activists without stopping, six Freedom Riders, and a large group of journalists, managed to board a bus.

The bus was reportedly followed along its route by Israeli soldiers and police, and was stopped shortly after arriving at the Hizma checkpoint. Once there, Israeli settlers who had been on the bus got off, and Israeli soldiers and police officers boarded to check passengers’ IDs, according to images broadcast on the Freedom Waves live Internet video feed.

“The Israelis can’t take the wait and so they are getting off the bus. Let them see what we have to go through and let them ask why this is happening, and why it has to happen this way in order to try to change things,” said Freedom Rider Huwaida Arraf, as the settlers stood up and began leaving the bus, as documented in the Freedom Waves video feed.

“Whether they’re corralled in pens at checkpoints or held up and detained, not told why, arrested, held for days, weeks, sometimes months without any kind of legal justification at all … this happens to Palestinians every day,” she said.

“I want people to see the apartheid system here”

The Electronic Intifada spoke directly with Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, one of the Freedom Riders, at approximately 4:20pm local time on Tuesday, as he sat on the bus at the checkpoint.

“We’re on the bus. They just moved us a few yards beyond the [Hizma] checkpoint. We are in a parking lot and the soldiers are asking us to come down from the bus. The people refuse to come down from the bus. They are telling [us] that [we] are detained and [we] have to come from the bus. We don’t know yet what they are going to do. They took one person from the bus. There’s [Israeli] special forces, border police, regular police and soldiers surrounding the bus,” Qumsiyeh said.

“I don’t know [what will happen] but I think we will be punished severely,” Qumsiyeh, who was later arrested with the five other Freedom Riders, added. “I want [people] to see that we have an apartheid system here. There are illegal, colonial settlements in our land. These settlements have their own buses and they get to Jerusalem without anybody checking them, yet we, the native Palestinians, are not allowed to get to Jerusalem.”

Freedom of movement severely restricted

Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are illegal according to international law, including the Geneva conventions. It is estimated that approximately 500,000 Jewish Israelis currently live in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem estimates that from 1967 — when Israel imposed its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip — to mid-2010, the Israeli government established 121 settlements in the West Bank that were officially recognized by the Israeli Ministry of Interior.

In that same period, approximately 100 settler outposts, considered illegal under both international and Israeli laws, were erected, while twelve so-called “neighborhoods” of Jerusalem were built on land illegally annexed by Israel and are thereby also illegal under international law.

According to B’Tselem, Israel has created a system of “separation and discrimination, with two separate systems of law” in the occupied West Bank.

“One system, for the settlers, de facto annexes the settlements to Israel and grants settlers the rights of citizens of a democratic state. The other is a system of military law that systematically deprives Palestinian of their rights and denies them the ability to have any real effect on shaping the policy regarding the land space in which they live and with respect to their rights,” B’Tselem states on its website.

Restrictions on Palestinian freedoms do not end at the settlements themselves, however. Instead, Palestinians’ rights are also violated by the infrastructure built to accommodate Israeli settlers, especially private, Israeli-only roads. “In October 2010, there were 232 kilometers of roads in the West Bank that Israel classified for the sole, or almost sole, use of Israelis, primarily of settlers,” says B’Tselem.

“Israel also prohibits Palestinians from even crossing some of these roads with vehicles, thereby restricting their access to nearby roads that they are ostensibly not prohibited from using. In these cases, Palestinians travelers have to get out of the vehicle, cross the road on foot, and find an alternative mode of transportation on the other side,” according to the human rights group.

Veolia a boycott target for serving settlements

Egged, Israel’s largest public transportation company, operates the bus that the Freedom Riders boarded in the West Bank Tuesday. French company Veolia also operates bus lines serving illegal Israeli settlements throughout the occupied West Bank.

According to the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), which organizes around the 2005 Palestinian call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel as a way to end Israeli violations of international law and promote Palestinian rights, Egged and Veolia “are complicit in Israel’s violations of international law due to their involvement in and profiting from Israel’s illegal settlement infrastructure.”

Palestinian Freedom Rides Spokesperson Hurriyah Ziada told The Electronic Intifada that promoting the BDS call — and the specific boycott of and divestment from Egged and Veolia — is a major aim of the Freedom Rides movement.

“We’re trying to support the BDS campaign,” Ziadah said. “Negotiations have been going for too long and we haven’t been achieving anything on the ground. Everybody knows that these settlements are illegal on our land, but nobody is doing anything. Israel is not paying any cost for any of its actions. They have to pay a price by people boycotting them and by highlighting how racist they are. We ask for human rights and freedom, justice and dignity.”

“In the civil rights movement, they were fighting against racism,” Ziadah added, “but we’re going to be fighting against racism, discrimination [and] occupation. We’re going to be fighting to exist.”

Jillian Kestler-D’Amours is a reporter and documentary filmmaker based in Jerusalem.

Article courtesy of Electronic Intifada; Image courtesy Anne Paq / Active Stills

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Muslim and Christian cemeteries desecrated in Jaffa on eve of Yom Kippur

In the heart of Ajami, the sole remnant of Jaffa’s Palestinian identity and culture, sits a hesder yeshiva, so called for its special blend of torah study and military preparation.

The institution was established three years ago by the Garin Torani, a countrywide religious Zionist organization. The Jaffa branch includes about 50 families.

Ostensibly the group exists to provide support for disadvantaged Jewish families. This is one of the faces the Garin Torani shows to the world. Another, their proliferation in mixed cities, is less innocuous.

Judaization, which demands segregation between Jews and Palestinians, is an important part of the Garin Torani ideology. From this perspective, Jaffa, home to 20,000 Palestinians (alongside 40,000 Jews), is an internal frontier waiting to be settled.

Sami Abu Shehada, Palestinian community activist and municipal member in Jaffa, muses on the agenda behind positioning the yeshiva in Ajami.

“The national religious have a political project,” he asserts. After the disengagement from Gaza in 2005, the national religious decided to settle inside the Green Line, where their presence would have a greater effect.

“No one would notice them in the occupied territories,” Shehada adds with a sense of irony.

Commentators like Nadav Shragai, a right wing journalist with Haaretz, explain this logic of internal settling as based on “strengthen[ing] the ranks of Jewish inhabitants in mixed towns that are being abandoned by their Jewish residents.”

For Shragai the demographic contest is pivotal. Acre, Lod, Ramle and other mixed towns and cities must be populated with Jews.

If disrupting Palestinian communities in Israel is the Garin Torani’s goal, they have been somewhat successful.

“Since the settlers came you can feel the tension,” Shehada says. The students, many of whom come from settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, are known to be provocative and menacing at times.

Locals have complained about aggressive behavior, such as youths ranging raucously through Ajami’s streets shouting nationalistic slogans and jeering at people.

Beyond such intimidation, the real crux of Garin Torani’s agenda is consistent with the defining principle of Zionism – settling the land.

They are buying property in Ajami and won a significant coup last year when B’Emunah, a housing company specializing in development projects for the national religious, won a public tender for a plot of land in Ajami where a market once stood.

This was hotly contested by locals, who brought the case to Israel’s Supreme Court protesting of the misuse of public land – objecting that the land was being used to build housing for one particular group. But B’Emunah’s contract won.

Another approach taken by Garin Torani is enticing new recruits to settle in Ajami. “Thousands of people come on tours, called ‘Jaffa in the steps of Rabbi Kook,’ led by the rabbi,” Shehada says. “He tries to convince Jews of the importance of settling here.”

Rabbi Kook, the first chief rabbi in Mandatory Palestine, lived in Jaffa and founded Israel’s most important religious Zionist yeshiva in Jerusalem in 1924. “Kook gave permission to Jews to settle throughout Palestine, expanding from the four holy cities of Hebron, Jerusalem, Tsfat and Tiberias where they were initially concentrated,” Shehada explains.

In promotional films on their website, the Garin Torani inform people of Palestinian violence in Jaffa, making it seem urgent that Jews settle in the neighborhood.

The Jaffa branch of Garin Torani’s 25-year-old leader, Itai Granek, insists the organzation’s presence in Ajami is innocent. He told Haaretz last January that Palestinians are “glad that a young community has come, even a religious one, to Jaffa.”

“Most people understand that if a young, quality community comes here, it improves everything – both the Arab community and the Jewish community,” Granek added.

Shehada, conversely, believes this kind of rhetoric masks sinister intentions. Evidence suggests that the Garin Torani’s activities and recruitment of youths that hail from extreme ideological settlements in the West Bank into Ajami, a Palestinian neighborhood, are more baneful than innocent.

Last month two cemeteries in Ajami, one Muslim and the other Christian, were desecrated.

Tombstones were broken and painted with the phrases “death to Arabs” and “price tag,” mirroring recent trend among Jewish settlers that inflicts arbitrary collective punishment on Palestinians for alleged anti-settlement government policies.

The vandalism came in the wake of an arson attack on a mosque in Tuba Zangariya, a Bedouin town in the Galilee.

Then last week saw more menace against Ajami’s community when people broke into a Palestinian restaurant in the early hours of the morning, setting fire to the place and scrawling “Kahane was right” on the wall.

Rabbi Meir Kahane headed the militantly extremist Kach party. Though the party was outlawed in Israel for its openly racist agenda, it continues to operate under a different name.

Some Ajami locals believe the yeshiva students are responsible for the cemetery vandalism. But Shehada is not convinced. “Their main role is in inciting against Arabs in Jaffa,” he maintains, “which could have motivated outsiders to do it.”

The idea that yeshiva students were responsible for despoiling cemeteries has aroused the ire of some voices in Israel, such as MK Ya’akov Katz. Katz denounced what he described as the “organized blood libel against the Jews of Jaffa.”

Katz is the chairman of the National Union, a political collective that advocates the transferral of Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line to Arab countries.

He was “absolutely positive that the vandalism was committed by radical leftists, or Arabs working on their behalf, in an attempt to make the Jews look bad.”

It is this attitude that has allowed a sense of impunity to grow among settlers. The whitewashing of extremists by Jewish officials allows them to feel safe from legal consequences. Silence has a similar effect.

Up to 12 mosques have been vandalised in the West Bank over the past two years; and 2011 saw a 40 percent spike in settler violence, yet no real consequences for the perpetrators. Settler crime elicits no response from the state, which is obligated under international law to protect the people it occupies.

Violence against Palestinians in Israel is also present. “The state has killed about 40 Palestinian citizens in Israel since 2001,” Shehada balks.

Shehada believes that racism is deeply rooted in Israeli society. “The cemetery attacks happened because of a racist atmosphere that was allowed to develop,” he says.

Moreover, Shehada adds that “the waves of racism since 2000 have been led by politicians.”

Israel’s political elite have persistently resented the presence of the Palestinian minority, maligning them as a fifth column that would never be loyal to a Jewish state.

For Shehada “attacks like the ones in Tuba and Jaffa are not surprising.”

“Palestinian leaders warned that what they were doing was dangerous, that the gap between racist speech and action was closer than they imagined,” he says.

“If our prime minister is talking about 20 percent of the population as a demographic bomb and a strategic threat, it will have an effect.”

The mood in Jaffa after the recent attacks is one of frustration, Shehada says.

“People do not believe the police will punish those responsible.”

Article courtesy of The Palestine Monitor; photo courtesy Mondoweiss

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By DR. MAZIN QUMSIYEH
Beit Sahour, Occupied Palestine

It is good news that over 1000 Palestinian political prisoners will be released in a prison swap deal.  But there are still thousands of Palestinian political prisoners.  This Saturday we will be discussing in our cultural group the new book by Marwan Barghouthi about his life behind bars.  He will apparently not be part of this prisoner exchange deal neither will Ahmed Saadat of PFLP nor other key leaders.  For English readers on this list, I translated my review of Barghouthi’s book (originally in Arabic) and included it here.  Below that I include some text on prisoners from my book “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope and Empowerment.” Hopefully those two sections will give you some idea about the struggles of political prisoners now in the news. Hopefully, Hamas (which did not get all it wanted but did score a political victory here) and Fatah (which scored a political victory by abandoning the futile US-led bilateral negotiations) could now implement their signed agreements especially on representation in the PNC.
I read Nelson Mandel’s inspiring autobiography many years ago. His book was titled “Long Walk to Freedom” because it was done after the end of apartheid.   Marwan Barghouthi’s book is not an autobiography in that sense because our people’s walk to freedom is still ongoing. It is thus titled “One thousand days in prison isolation cell” and refers to a part of the struggle. We indeed look for the day that our political prisoners can write books at the end of the road to freedom.
Barghouthi’s book is dedicated to his wife, his children, to the Palestinian people, to the Arab and Islamic world, to all those who struggle and resist occupation and colonization, and to fellow prisoners. Mandela’s book similarly recalls family, people, and fellow political prisoners.
Barghouthi recalls his village life in Kuber with much passion and love in his newest book but you will find the national cause dominate the book. While Kuber is mentioned two or three times, Palestine is mentioned on just about every paragraph. Mandela had a rural beginning in a small village called Mvezo and still retains that love of land.  He was a shepherd and ploughed lands.  He dreamed of becoming a lawyer and was like Barghouthi interested in learning. He enrolled at Birzeit University in 1983 but due to exile and other factors only finished his bachelor in 1994 (in history and political science).  In 1998, he got masters in international relations. Both Mandela and Barghouthi led youth movements in their teens and became strong leaders even as they were pursued and jailed.
Mandela like Barghouthi reports on mistreatment, lengthy incarcerations, resisting, and all that you expect from someone who went through such experiences.  Mandela like Barghouthi says that it is not what he actually did that he was being punished for but for what he stood for. Both were charged by the respective apartheid regimes of leading armed guerrilla groups.
Through these writings, you see a common characteristic: great humility.  They do not elevate themselves above the thousands who struggle for freedom.  Even though some of us consider them key leaders, they themselves see their role as foot soldiers. Barghouthi describes being beaten on his private parts and losing consciousness waking later to find a gash on his head from falling and hitting the cement wall.  The gash left a permanent mark.  But immediately after describing this, Barghouthi merely says (p. 21) that is it is merely a small example of what tens of thousands of activists were subjected to.
In the mid 1950s Mandela devised a plan and convinced fellow ANC leaders to adopt it that created a decentralized structure. Cells are formed at the grassroots level and select among them leadership at intermediate levels which insured secrecy and yet some level of democracy and operational meaning.  Barghouthi recalls how he was not happy about Arafat’s autocratic structure and especially those around Arafat many of them were corrupt and not dedicated to the Palestinian struggle.
Barghouthi and Mandela speak of psychological warfare including the games of good investigator and bad investigator played to break prisoners’ will.  A lot of what he says about mistreatment in prison will not be new to Palestinians alive today.  Most Palestinians above age 30 have tasted at least some of these pains.  Of course Barghouthi suffered more than most Palestinian males his age.
Barghouthi talks about how critical the visit by his lawyer was to break his isolation and makes him feel connected to life outside the prison.  Mandela also refers to the psychological boost received by knowing that people outside continue the struggle and care about the freedom of political prisoners.
Barghouthi states on page 130 how in prison you have lots of time to think.  He recalls these thoughts in detail and they range from his feelings of solidarity with all persecuted and oppressed people around the world to poor programming on Palestinian television (when the channel was allowed in prisons).  Barghouthi speaks about his passions like reading books. He speaks of his love for his family. He speaks of women liberation. He speaks of learning languages in jail. The thoughts of Mandela in jail also dealt with similar issues. Barghouthi describes solitary confinement as “slow death” (p. 81). Mandela calls them the “dark years”.
Barghouthi speaks about how the US and western positions put significant pressures on Arafat and that finally, Mr. Mahmoud Abbas was appointed prime minister.  Abbas, according to Barghouthi, was known for his positions against resistance (p. 156).  In one section he talks about how leadership did not rise to the challenge or match the enormous struggle, aspirations and needs of the people.
Barghouthi says on page 148 that Israel can defeat a particular leader or faction or group of people but cannot defeat the will of the Palestinian people. On the next page he articulates beautifully why resistance in all its types is so critical to success in achieving our collective goals.  The cost of occupation and colonization must be made unbearable or at least more than the benefit from it for Israel to back off.
Barghouthi speaks about how his political actions did not stop in jail.  He gives several examples including the Palestinian factions observing a cease fire that started 19 December 2001 on the eve of the visit by American envoy General Anthony Zinni. That cease fire lasted for nearly a month but was broken by Israel’s assassination of Ra’ed Karmi.
Barghouthi recalls that one of the more painful episodes was the abduction of his son Qassam. His letter to his son takes 30 pages of the book! It is an amazing letter that recalls the history of Palestine, the history of struggle, the history of the prisoner movement and much more.  But the letter also reflects on feelings and attitude of Barghouthi himself in key periods of his life.  How he felt when his son was born while he is in jail.  How he built a relationship with his wife despite being a man spending most of his life either on the run or in jail.  It is very detailed mentioning dates and events and surroundings that put the reader (his son and us) in those circumstances.  He recalls the death of his father 5 August 1985.  He talked about his biggest pains (which were not the interrogations, torture or solitary confinement) but when he was exiled to Jordan in the late 1980s.  Yet he also says that after his family joined him in exile from the homeland, the family life alleviated the pain of exile from his homeland. The letter ends with recommendations he gives to his son like any father gives to his son.  But here the recommendations are about exercising, reading books, learning languages, and keeping friendly relations with fellow prisoners.
The book finishes with a section about his wife and a final section about collaborators in Israeli jails.  It is significant that he decided to conclude with detailed exposure of the despicable methods of collaborations. Similarly, Mandela’s autobiography includes a section on treason.
Oliver Tambo described Mandela as passionate, fearless, impatient and sensitive.  I never met either Mandela or Barghouthi personally but after reading these books, I can say that I agree not only with these adjectives applied to Mandela and Barghouthi but I can think of many others: humble, honest, intelligent, articulate, and I can go on but I will leave that to historians to give people their due.  But knowing such people at least through their writings and writings of others about them adds to our conviction that freedom is inevitable to nations that have such individuals.
—————————
Prison struggles in the book “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope and empowerment”

In this book I discuss the efforts for release of political prisoners that started in the 1920s when the women movement in Palestine succeeded in gaining release of three prisoners (Chapter 6). In chapter 7, we find that “On 17 May 1936, prisoners in Nur Shams prison declared a strike and confronted the prison guards who ordered soldiers to open fire. One inmate was killed and several wounded as prisoners shouted in defiance: ‘Martyrdom is better than jail’.(ref) On 23 May 1936, Awni Abdel Hadi, secretary general of the Arab Higher Committee, was arrested.(ref)…. On 9 September 1939, fighters took over Beersheba government facilities and released political prisoners from the central jail.”

When the British government felt more confident in 1942-43 about the prospects of winning the war, it released some Palestinian political prisoners and allowed others to return from exile. Attempts to revive political activity during this period were nugatory. Awni Abdel Hadi returned from exile in 1943 and revived Hizb Al-Istiqlal, with help from Rashid Alhaj Ibrahim and Ahmed Hilmi Abdel Baqi, and even started a national fund.”

In other section sof the book, I discussed the struggle of Palestinains inside the Green Line, many of them ended in jail as political prisoners.  Like Palestinains in the West Bank and Gaza, they supported their political prisonesr and struggled for their release. The struggle in the occupied territories continued. When Israel introduced extensions of so-called ‘administrative detention’ (detention without trial) for up to six months, a strike among Palestinian political prisoners started 11 July 1975.

Political prisoners in Israeli jails also organised themselves into effective committees [during the uprising of 1987] which carried out collective strikes which were especially effective in the 1980s and early 1990s.36 King interviewed Qaddourah Faris (from Fatah) who was a key leader of the prisoner movement. He talked about a successful hunger strike for humane treatment that involved 15,000 prisoners throughout Israeli jails.(ref) In 1990, Israel held over 14,000 Palestinian prisoners in more than 100 jails and detention centres at one time according to Middle Rights Watch.(ref) Even Israeli supporters like Anthony Lewis became outraged enough to write:

“The Israeli Government has taken thousands of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Gaza into what it calls ‘administrative detention.’ That means they are held as prisoners, for up to six months at a stretch, without trial. At least 2,500 of the detainees are imprisoned in Ketziot, a tent camp in the burning heat of the Negev desert. On Aug. 16 Israeli soldiers shot and killed two of-the detainees there … The story had further grim details that I shall omit because they cannot be confirmed … The prisoners at Ketziot, it must be emphasised, have not been convicted of doing anything. They have had not a semblance of due process. They are there because someone in the Israeli Army suspects them – or wants to punish them. Mr. Posner went to Ketziot to see two Palestinian lawyers being held there and four field investigators for a West Bank human rights group, Al Haq. He concluded that they had been detained because of ‘their work on human rights and as lawyers.”(ref)

On 6 December 1998, during President Clinton’s visit, over 2,000 political prisoners went on hunger strike demanding to be released. Their message to both the Israeli and Palestinian leadership was not to negotiate issues that do not place their release on the agenda.

In September 1988, the Israeli army stated that the number of detainees it held was 23,600 and Peter Kandela reported cases of the use of torture on detainees.94 After the Oslo Accords many thousands of Palestinians were released. But many thousands more were imprisoned in the uprising that started in 2000. In total, over 700,000 Palestinians spent time in Israeli jails. On occasion, nearly 20 per cent of the political prisoners were minors.95

Political prisoners in Israeli jails also participated in non-violent resistance. Israel radio reported on a hunger strike by prisoners in the camps of Jenin, Ramallah and Nablus, who demanded improvement in their deplorable conditions in 1987.96 Al-Ansar prison in southern Lebanon, where thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese political prisoners were held by Israeli occupation forces, showed incredible acts of resistance and resilience, ranging from hunger strikes to refusal to obey orders to writing.97

Thousands of Palestinian prisoners went on a hunger strike from 15 August to 2 September 2004. During this time, the Israeli authorities tried various methods from persuasion to threats to beatings to break the strike; 13 UN agencies operating in the occupied areas expressed their concern.98

Outside the prisons, Palestinians and internationals protested and worked diligently to spread the word about the prisoners’ demands and their plight. It started with the prisoners’ families, many of whom joined the hunger strike. Crowds assembled on 16 August 2004 outside local offices of the Red Cross and marched to the Gaza headquarters of the United Nations where they delivered a letter addressed to Secretary General Kofi Annan, calling for him to apply pressure on Israel and improve the prisoners’ conditions. They demonstrated again in the thousands two days later.99 The PA, Palestinians inside the Green Line and the ISM called for hunger strikes outside the prisons to support the prisoners’ demands.100 The strike slowly gained momentum despite repressive measures.101 Israel’s Public Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi stated: ‘Israel will not give in to their demands. They can starve for a day, a month, even starve to death, as far as I am concerned’102 Eventually, the prison authorities conceded that the prisoners were entitled to some basic humanitarian rights.

Palestinian female political prisoners in Telmud Prison were mistreated and on 28 November 2004 their spokeswomen who complained about this was beaten and punished. When others complained, they too were punished, so they too went on hunger strike.103

Prisoners continued to use hunger strikes to protest against ill treatment and draw attention to their plight. For example, on 16 February 2006, Jamal Al-Sarahin died in prison. He was a 37-year-old ‘administrative detainee’ (held without charge or trial) who had been detained for eight months and badly mistreated. Prisoners called a one-day hunger strike.104

On 11 March 2006, a sit-down strike in front of the ICRC in Hebron was held to demand better treatment of prisoners. On 27 June 2006, 1,200 Palestinian political prisoners in the Negev Desert started a hunger strike to protest against the arbitrary and oppressive practices of the prison administration. In total, over 700,000 Palestinians have spent time in Israeli jails and the latest statistics show that 11,000 are still being held according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society.105

By 2009, Palestinians in Israeli prisons had achieved a number of successes by non-violent struggle and civil disobedience, including wearing civilian clothes (no orange uniforms), access to news, reasonable visiting rights and better access to healthcare. But the Prison Administration continues to chip away at those rights.106 Unfortunately, the PA is forced to subsidise the cost to Israel of maintaining Palestinian prisoners.

Because so many people are jailed for their resistance activities, Palestinian society has a profound respect and appreciation for the sacrifices of the prisoners. Time spent in prison is considered a badge of honour. Prisons also shape character. One former prisoner stated:

Like any human community, there are contradictions, but there is a common thread in the experience in prison that gives us strength, a common goal, a common purpose. We are joined together in struggle, so our shared experiences only make us stronger.107

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A Palestine-Israel conference at Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart (OLIH) Catholic Church in Ankeny, IA attracted a large and diverse audience on the weekend of October 14-15.

“US Policy in Palestine-Israel: Engaging Faith Communities in Pursuit of a Just Peace,” organized by Joe Aossey of Cedar Rapids and Kathleen McQuillen of American Friends Service Committee’s Iowa Middle East Peace Education Project, featured 16 speakers and workshop leaders from across the nation and around the world.

About 150 conference attendees gathered in the OLIH sanctuary on October 14 to hear Phyllis Bennis, of the Institute for Policy Studies and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, deliver one of two keynote addresses.

“The Arab Spring has challenged the existing order in ways that nothing else in recent history has,” said Bennis, “and in our own country in the last five or six years we’ve gone from the automatic assumptions that the US should be supporting Israel’s role in the Middle East, that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, that Israel is ‘our friend,’ sort of came with the territory … but all of that is beginning to change.  We have seen enormous change in how people think about these issues, in how people talk about these issues, and that is the starting point for change in policy and in how our children get educated on these issues,” said Bennis.

Two books, Jimmy Carter’s Palestine Peace Not Apartheid and Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer’s The Israel Lobby, broke the longstanding taboo against serious criticism of Israeli policy, said Bennis.

“They were able to do that because the discourse was already beginning to change, and they were able to push that change much further,” said Bennis.

During the 2008-2009 Israeli attack on Gaza, for the first time polls showed that American opinion was evenly split on the question of whether Israel or the Palestinians were responsible for the violence, said Bennis.

“If you take a step back and look at the disparities in the violence, that’s an outrage.  Fourteen hundred Palestinian [dead], overwhelmingly civilians, many of them children, many of them women, versus 13 Israelis, of whom all but three were soldiers,” said Bennis.

But compared to earlier polls, the shift in public opinion was “huge, 15 or 20 percent,” said Bennis.

Bennis also pointed to polls reflecting similar shifts in American public opinion regarding illegal Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.

“The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign … has seen enormous victories.  Agrexco, the big Israeli agricultural export agency, is bankrupt, and they can’t even find a buyer in the private sector … because it can’t sell stuff anymore,” said Bennis.

A 2010 decision of the European Court of Justice ruled that products from Israeli settlements are not eligible for preferential trade tariffs under the EU Israel Agreement.

Israel has refused to differentiate between produce grown in Occupied Territories and produce grown in Israel, so EU countries are no longer allowing the import of produce from Israel, said Bennis.

“The lost their market,” said Bennis.

Bennis also noted that the city of Stockholm had cancelled a contract for the construction of a light rail system after BDS activists called attention to the French contractor, Veolia, which built an Israeli light rail system in the Occupied Territories.

Veolia has come under pressure across the EU and in the USA for its involvement in Israeli projects in the Occupied Territories.

Bennis compared the nascent OWS movement to the Palestinian Intifada, intifada meaning to shake up or shake off.

“Whatever happens with the Occupy Everywhere movement, it may get legs, it may become something more powerful than what it is now.  I hope so.  But whether it does or not, I think it will continue to shake up ordinary day-to-day life in this country, ordinary politics,” said Bennis.

“It’s shaking up our assumptions about what ordinary people can do,” said Bennis.

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement is largely composed of “new people,” said Bennis, “people who for the first time are taking the power into their own hands to send a message that Wall Street has too much power, that the banks and their money is corrupting our government,” said Bennis,

“It’s an amazing moment!  We don’t know what’s going to happen in the future.  Is the military in Egypt going to turn over power to an elected government?  Will that election be both free and fair?  What will happen to human rights under an Egyptian government?  What’s going to happen in Bahrain?  What’s going to happen in Libya, where a new government is fast coming to power backed by the US and NATO? What’s going to happen in Yemen, in Syria?  We don’t know the answers, but we know that the region has been shaken up by an intifada of a whole new kind, and that is what is so exciting about all of this,” said Bennis.

“Israel is more isolated than ever, not because people don’t think Israel has a right to exist. …  Countries don’t have rights; people have rights.  Peoples have rights to exist; Israelis like everyone else have a right to exist in safety and security. … Rights are for people, and in that context, Israel is losing the war for legitimacy because of its policies, because of its policies of apartheid, forced separation, ethnic cleansing, because of its policy of occupation, because of its policy of denying the right of return to refugees,” said Bennis.

It’s those policies that are losing Israel credibility around the world, that are making it so hard for Israel to find any supporters, except for our government.  That’s our big challenge.  The US and Israel are losing the moral high ground,” said Bennis.

Noting recent and wildly implausible claims by the Obama administration that Iran was involved in a plot to hire Mexican drug cartel assassins to bomb the Saudi ambassador to the US in a Washington restaurant, Bennis asked, “Who benefits from that?  … I don’t think we’re being told the whole story,” said Bennis.

The bottom line is that Israel is losing its moral high ground and has also lost its important strategic allies, Egypt and Turkey, “which it could count on, however grudgingly, to defend Israel against the opposition of their own people.  They’re not doing that anymore, Turkey largely because of the [Gaza humanitarian relief] flotilla incident, Israel’s failure to apologize and offer reparations, Egypt because there has been a revolution and you no longer have a government that is dependent solely on US military and economic aid,” said Bennis.

“How do we turn all of that into a shift of US policy?” asked Bennis.

Obama’s Cairo speech “was one for the ages, but his policies do not reflect it,” said Bennis, and “we have the obligation to make him” live up to it.

“It is no longer political suicide to criticize Israeli policy,” said Bennis, “but the politicians don’t know that.  That’s our job.”

“Our job is to make clear to members of Congress, the President, and the Senate, and the city councilors, and the governors, and the mayors, and the county boards of supervisors, and the university administrations that it is now political suicide to support Israeli policies, and if they continue to do so, that’s when they will lose their positions, their power,” said Bennis to sustained applause.

“It won’t be easy,” said Bennis, who explained that Americans now need to focus on their own government’s role in Israeli policy, rather than Israel’s policies.

The US must stop being “a co-conspirator, an enabler” of Israeli policies.  US aid to Israel is immoral, and America needs to stand on the side of international law and human rights, said Bennis.

“One of the first things people say to me is, ‘How do I do this work and make sure than I don’t get called an anti-Semite?’” said Bennis.

“And I say to them, ‘There’s no guarantee.  Don’t be an anti-Semite.  Call it out when you see it. … And don’t let the threat that somebody might call you an anti-Semite be an excuse to not do your work. … People used to get called anti-Semites all the time.  People like me used to get called self-hating Jews all the time. Now, it happens, but not nearly as much.  The Jewish Defense League shot into my house in LA 20 or 30 years ago because they didn’t like what I was doing.  They don’t do that anymore, not because they’re not violent creeps, but because they no longer think that they have the moral high ground and the majority is on their side, and they’re right,” said Bennis.

“Political discourse has changed and it is no longer on their side.  They are the ones who are out of step with the public, not us.  That is what has changed, and our job is to figure out how to galvanize the new public opinion and make it operative.  It means reclaiming our democracy,” said Bennis.

Laila El-Haddad, a Palestinian freelance journalist, author, political analyst, and parent-of-two from Gaza, presented the second keynote address on October 15.  Plenary and workshop presenters included Yaser Abu Dagga, Jennifer Bing, Dr. Jeremy Brigham, Mohammed Fahmy, Mahmoud Hamad, Remi Kanazi, Liz Knott, Pat Minor, Rachel Orville, Lynn Pollack, Josh Ruebner, Ron Stone, Rev. Don Wagner, and Rev. David Wildman.

Co-sponsors and conferences supporters included Afifi, Adel, and Larry; AFSC Middle East Peace Education Project; Albert Aossey; Joe and Laila Aossey; Board of Church and Society, Board of Global Ministries, Iowa Annual Conference, United Methodist Church; Mary Caponi; Catholic Peace Ministry; Clinton Franciscan Center for Active Nonviolence and Peacemaking; Concerned Iowans for Middle East Peace; Darul Arqum Islamic Center; Des Moines Area Ecumenical Committee for Peace; Des Moines Catholic Worker House; Des Moines International Eucharistic Community; Des Moines Valley Friends Meeting; Eye On Palestine; First Presbyterian Church (in memory of Ruth Keraus and Jeff Koch); Holy Trinity Catholic Church Peace and Justice Committee; Iowa City Friends Meeting; Iowans for a Free Palestine; Islamic Center of Des Moines; Islamic Services of America; Israeli Coalition Against House Demolitions-USA; Jesus Christ, Prince of Peace Parish, Pax Christi; Margaret Kiekhaefer; Lois Olsen Memorial Fund, Iowa City Friends Meeting; Kathleen McQuillen; Methodist Federation for Social Action-Iowa; Evalee Mickey; Midamar Corporation; Jack Mithelman; OLIH Peace and Justice Committee; Palestine Human Rights Action Network; Paulina Friends Meeting; Peace Iowa; People for Justice in Palestine; Plymouth Congregational Church Peace Committee; Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice; Sabeel-North America; SE Iowa Synod Evangelical Lutheran Church; Sisters Council Leadership Team, DM Catholic Diocese; Sisters of Humility of Mary, Des Moines Region; Hugh Stone; Social Ministries Task Force of the Presbytery of Des Moines; Lee Tesdell; Western Iowa Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; Westminister Presbyterian Church; and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Des Moines.

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There is a natural disposition for supporters of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination to suppose that the Palestinian statehood bid must be a positive initiative, because it has generated such a frantic Israeli effort to have it rejected. Despite the high costs to United States diplomacy in the Middle East at this time of regional tumult and uncertainty, the US has committed itself to exercise its veto on Israel’s behalf if that turns out to be necessary. To avoid the humiliation of disregarding the overwhelming majority opinion of most governments in the world, the US has rallied the former European colonial powers to stand by its side, while leaning on Bosnia and Colombia to abstain, thereby hoping to deny Palestine the nine votes it needs for a Security Council decision, without technically casting a veto.

On the side of Palestinian statehood, one finds China, Russia, India, South Africa, Brazil, Lebanon, Nigeria, and Gabon, the leading countries of the South, the main peoples previously victimised by colonial rule. Is not a comparison of these geopolitical alignments sufficient by itself to resolve the issue of taking sides on such a litmus test of political identity? The old West versus the new South.

Add to this the drama, eloquence, and forthrightness of Mahmoud Abbas’s historic speech of September 23 to the General Assembly, which received standing ovations from many of the assembled delegates. Such a favourable reception was reinforced by its contrast with the ranting polemic delivered by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who insulted the UN by calling it “the theatre of the absurd” while offering nothing of substance that might make even mildly credible his strident rhetoric claim to support “peace,” “direct negotiations” and “a Palestinian state”. The deviousness of Netanyahu was made manifest when, a few days later, the Israeli government announced that it had approved 1,100 additional housing units in the major settlement of Gilo, east of Jerusalem. This was a bridge too far even for Hillary Clinton, who called the move “counter-productive” and which Europeans regarded as deeply disappointing and confidence-destroying – so much so that Netanyahu was openly asked to reverse the decision.

Security Council recommendation

There are a variety of other indications that additional settlement expansion and ethnic cleansing initiatives will be forthcoming in the weeks ahead. Are not such expressions of Israeli defiance that embarrasses even their most ardent governmental supporter enough reason by itself to justify a Security Council recommendation of Palestine statehood at this time? Would it not be worthwhile at this crucial moment to demonstrate the wide chasm separating increasing global support for the pursuit of justice on behalf of the Palestinian people from this domestically driven US reliance on its ultimate right of veto to block Palestinian aspirations? Would it not be well to remind Americans across the country, including even its captive Congress, that its own Declaration of Independence wisely counselled “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind”?

If ever the use of the veto seems ill-advised and deeply illegitimate, it is in this instance, which the Obama administration seems to acknowledge. Otherwise why would it use its leverage to induce allies and dependent states to go along with its opposition to Palestinian membership in the UN?

Turning to the speech itself, the language of recognition may be more notable than the substance. Never before in an international forum had the voice of the Palestinian Authority spoke of Israel’s occupation policies so unabashedly – as “colonial”, as involving “ethnic cleansing”, as imposing an unlawful “annexation wall”, as creating a new form of “apartheid”. With admirable directness, Israel was accused of carrying out the occupation in a manner that violated fundamental rules of international humanitarian law, and cumulatively amounted to the commission of crimes against humanity.

In the course of his speech Abbas tried hard to reassure the Palestinian diaspora on two matters of deep concern: that the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) will continue to represent the Palestinian people, who are the ultimate beneficiaries of the most fundamental of Palestinian rights at stake, the right of self-determination. The issue here is lost on almost all observers of the conflict, that the Palestinian Authority (PA), of which Abbas is president, is a subsidiary body that was created by the PLO with a temporary mandate to administer Palestinian territory under occupation, and thus it was important to allay suspicions that the PLO was an intended casualty of the statehood bid – so as to territorialise the conflict and give the Abbas and PA leadership complete representational control over the Palestinian role at the UN.

Straightforward language

The deep concern here relates to the adequacy of representation relating to the Palestinians living in refugee camps in neighbouring Arab countries or in exile around the world. In the Palestinian National Council, 483 of its 669 members are drawn from Palestinians not living under occupation. President Abbas used the clearest possible language to reaffirm the position of the PLO just prior to enumerating the five conditions guiding his leadership role: “I confirm, on behalf of the PLO, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, which will remain so until the end of the conflict in all its aspects and until the resolution of the final status issues…”

In the background of this representation issue is an anxiety that Palestinian refugee rights will be forgotten or marginalised in the course of striking a deal that is build around a “land for peace” formula. Again, Abbas inserted some reassuring language in his speech to the effect that peace will depend on “a just and agreed upon solution to the Palestine refugee issue in accordance with resolution 194,” which unconditionally affirmed a Palestinian right of return. Relevantly, Netanyahu in his speech alluded to the “fantasy of flooding Israel with millions of Palestinians”, which is his way of both dismissing the rights of Palestinian refugees, especially as derived from the massive dispossession of Palestinian in 1948, and insisting on the Palestinian recognition of Israel as “a Jewish state”. This insistence combines demographics with democracy, contending that ever since the promise of Lord Balfour on behalf of the British government to a leader of the Zionist movement in 1917 there were continual acknowledgements that Israel was a Jewish state.

Netanyahu made short shrift of the claims to dignity and equality of the 1.5m Palestinians existing under an array of discriminatory burdens – by saying merely that Israel treats its minorities in a manner that respects their human rights. It should be recalled that the Balfour declaration, a notoriously colonial disposition, did not promise the Jewish people a state, but rather “a national home”, and that it was to be established in a manner that did not interfere with the “civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. Human rights and democracy have become significantly universalised during the past several decades. This development implies that the governing structures of society embodied in the state must renounce any claim of ethnic or religious particularity.

Religious declaration

Political legitimacy in the 21st century should not be accorded to any state that claims to be a Jewish state, an Islamic state, or a Christian state. Such statist neutrality should be set forth as an element of legitimate statehood by formal action at the United Nations. Such a declaration would impose a limit on the right of self-determination by denying to peoples the right to establish ethnic or religious states. In a globalising world, ethnic and religious diversity are present in every major state, and this needs to be respected by unfurling a banner of equality that grants religious freedom to all faiths and allows collective identities to be expressed without prejudice.

For some widely respected Palestinian activists and NGOs, these assurances were not enough. With the formidable intellectual support of Oxford professor, Guy Goodwin-Gill, the very idea of Palestinian statehood compromises the representational rights of diaspora Palestinians within UN arenas of decision – and potentially deforms future negotiations by according predominance to territorial priorities. Goodwin-Gill’s analysis was built around the general view that a state could never adequately represent people outside its borders.

Given existing realities, this would mean disenfranchising the Palestinian refugee and exile population that comprises a majority of “the Palestinian people” who are as a collectivity the holder of the overarching entitlement embodied in the right of self-determination. Such a view may be technically correct, and operationally prudent, but it overstates the clarity of the legal implications of Palestinian statehood and UN membership, while understating the degree to which what is being questioned are the psycho-political priorities of the current PA/PLO leadership.

To further strengthen and promote the unity of the Palestinian global solidarity movement, it is crucial to continue to seek accommodation between territorial and non-territorial dimensions of the Palestinian struggle, and thus to minimise intra-Palestinian divergences, including the ongoing rift with Hamas. Here again Abbas had some reassuring words to say about the future implementation of the reconciliation agreement reached between the PLO and Hamas in June, but the failure of Hamas to endorse the statehood/membership bid at this time raises doubts about whether cooperation between these two political tendencies of Palestinians living under occupation will be forthcoming in the future.

There are, against this background, some further grounds for concern that result from gaps or disappointing formulations in the Abbas speech. One glaring gap was the failure to address the accountability issues associated with the non-implemented recommendations of the Goldstone Report, arising out of war crimes allegations associated with massive attacks (Israeli code named “Operation Cast Lead”) on Gaza between December 27, 2008 and January 18, 2009. In an important statement issued by the Palestinian Centre of Human Rights, jointly with several respected human rights NGOs, the PLO was given responsibility for doing their best to see that these recommendations for referral to the International Criminal Court be carried out.

In the words of the statement: “Should the PLO choose not to pursue the accountability process initiated by the Report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission – at the expense of the Statehood initiative – this will amount to the prioritisation of political processes over victims’ fundamental rights; indicating acceptance of the pervasive impunity that characterises the situation in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.”

International law

Although implicit in the Abbas speech, the systematic refusal of Israel to comply with international law, was not accorded the emphasis in deserves. Given this reality, it was comic irony for Netanyahu to invoke international law in relation to the captivity of a single Israel soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit; of course, international law should be observed in relation to every person, but when Israel subjects the whole of Gaza to a punitive blockade that has lasted for more than four years, imprisons thousands of Palestinians in conditions below international legal standards, and refuses to implement the near unanimous Advisory Opinion of the World Court on the unlawfulness of its annexation wall, it has lost all credibility to rely on international law on those few occasions when it works to its advantage.

Even more disturbing, because so relevant to the present posture of the conflict, was the rather bland expression of willingness on the part of the PLO to resume direct negotiations – provided that Israel imposes “a complete cessation of settlement activities”. As there is no chance that this condition will be met, it may not be so important for Abbas to question the value of direct negotiations, given their repeated failure to move the parties any closer to peace during the past 18 years. In fact, Israel has cloaked settlement expansion, ethnic cleansing, and a variety of encroachments on what might have at one time become a viable Palestinian state, with the charade of periodic peace talks held under the non-neutral auspices of the United States.

What Abbas could have done more effectively, given the unlikelihood of an affirmative Security Council recommendation on UN membership, is to couple the statehood/membership bid with the demand of a new framework for future negotiations which includes both Israeli commitments to abandon settlement expansion in East Jerusalem as well as the West Bank, and more importantly, selects a state or regional organisation to provide non-partisan auspices for the talks. Such a demand would have made clear that the PLO/PA was no longer willing to play along with the Oslo game that has more than doubled the settler population and allowed Israel to invest in an expensive settler-only infrastructure that is unlikely to be ever voluntarily dismantled. It is past time to declare the Oslo framework of direct negotiations as terminally ill, futile, and illegitimate, and incapable of drafting a roadmap that leads anywhere worth going. For the UN to be one of the four Quartet members, especially given the American hegemonic control over the diplomacy on the conflict, also warranted a harsh comment by Abbas.

What the future holds is more uncertain than ever. The mainstream media has tended to criticise both Israel and the PA/PLO asif their respective behaviour was equivalent. For instance, the Palestinian statehood/membership initiative is treated as equally provocative as the Israeli announced intention to expand the unlawful Gilo settlement. Such an attitude does belong in the “theatre of the absurd”, equating a completely legal, arguably overdue plea to be given an upgraded status at the UN with a criminal encroachment on basic Palestinian rights associated with territory under occupation, as recognised by Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The equating of what is grossly unequal is a common form of misrepresentation in relation to the Israel/Palestine conflict, making Israeli violent forms defiance of international law somehow no more objectionable than Palestinian nonviolent pursuit of diplomatic options.

Whether Israel will follow through on its threats to “punish” the PA for undertaking this completely legal initiative remains to be seen. Already there is troublesome indications of widespread settler violence in the West Bank that is either unopposed or backed by Israeli military and security units. As has been observed by the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, Israel will never have a more moderate partner for peace than the Ramallah leadership, and if it undermines its viability it will be demonstrating once again that it has lost its capacity to promote its national interests. It has shown this aspect of decline most dramatically by picking a fight with a resurgent Turkey, and then missing one opportunity after another to repair the damage, which is what Ankara hoped would happen.

As regional developments move toward greater support for the Palestinian struggle, Israel is allowing what might have been a historic opportunity for a sustainable peace to slip away. An acute problem with extremism, whether of the Likud or Tea Party variety, is that it subordinates interests and rationality to the dictates of an obsessive and emotive vision that is incapable of calculating the balance of gains and losses in conflict situations, being preoccupied with all or nothing outcomes, which is the antithesis of diplomacy. This is a path that inevitably produces acute human suffering and often leads to disaster. It is time for Israelis to abandon such a path, for their own sake, and for the sake of others.

Richard Falk is Albert G Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Research Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has authored and edited numerous publications spanning a period of five decades. His most recent book is Achieving Human Rights (2009). He is currently serving his fourth year of a six-year term as a United Nations special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.

Article and photo courtesy Al Jazeera English online

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The statehood bid didn’t change the occupation, but it did force international players to show their cards.

1. Washington is broken and won’t be fixed any time soon

The Palestinians came to the United Nations in the hopes of putting forward a membership application because they had come to understand that domestic dynamics in the United States made it impossible for Washington to be an even-handed broker. If the Obama administration can’t get Netanyahu’s right-wing government to halt settlement expansion – an Israeli obligation under international law and the US-initiated Road Map for Peace – how could they possibly press Netanyahu to dismantle settlements, divide Jerusalem and admit refugees when the time came to get serious?

The United States is an exceptional place and it is a country that believes in its exceptionalism. Washington likes to believe it can do anything, and it can do and has done many things. But there is one thing it simply cannot do and that is even-handedly broker a deal between Israel and Palestinians. This has to do almost entirely with US domestic politics. Whether you blame the Israel lobby or accept the narrative that Americans en masse have a special connection with Israel, there is no doubt that America is solidly in Israel’s corner.

The Israelis have long since recognised this; that is why they insist no other state or alliance of states mediates this conflict. Most Palestinians have long since recognised this and now, after 20 years of failed negotiations, even those among the Palestinians which have been most committed to a US-led peace process have come to the same conclusion.

If there was any doubt about how Washington’s domestic politics handicaps its ability to broker, it was erased by President Obama’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly. Without even a modicum of recognition of Palestinians’ suffering and without one word of condemnation for Israeli colonialism, President Obama rang in the US election season.

Might this change in the future? Sure. There are certainly signs that indicate that Americans in general are becoming more educated about the Palestinian plight and are becoming more hesitant to automatically support Israel’s every move. Yet this nascent change has not transcended into the level of America’s political elite, and lawmakers are probably as solidly pro-Israel today as they have ever been. Continued Israeli intransigence, colonisation and massacres such as the 2008-2009 war on Gaza might expedite this process, but Palestinians cannot afford to wait until American policy actually changes. For Palestinians, there is already too little of Palestine left to wait another day.

Every credible Republican candidate for president in 2012 is hammering Obama for being too hard on Israel when in reality he has defended Israel at every critical juncture and made military aid to Israel the single largest expenditure in the 2010 foreign aid budget. Obama, who came to Cairo backed with the “hope and change” momentum that put him in office, was at the same time secretly providing Israel with one-tonne bombs months after the war on Gaza. Can you imagine the political storm Obama would be embroiled in if he actually exerted any real pressure on Israel?

Because of these domestic politics, the Palestinians have realised what the Israelis have long sought after: the reality that Washington won’t make Israel do what is necessary to create a Palestinian state. Frankly, it’s about time.

2. Palestinian unity is a necessity

Many people might put the beginning of divisions in the Palestinian polity at 2006 when the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) routed Fatah in Legislative Council elections. In reality, divisions have been developing for decades – in large part due to the decaying of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and its unofficial marriage to the Palestinian Authority.

For months, PLO Chairman and Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas travelled the world in the hopes of securing votes and recognition for Palestinian statehood. The PLO leadership executed a series of complex and calculated diplomatic manoeuvres to bring Palestine’s case for statehood to the United Nations. Indeed, this was planned for some time and required a significant investment of time from the leadership. Yet, when the moment of truth arrived and when Palestine’s case was brought before the UN, despite dramatic pressure from the United States and its allies, the Palestinians, who needed more than ever to be united, were split on this critical issue.

Hamas refused to endorse the statehood bid and much of the Palestinian diaspora, as well as advocates on behalf of Palestinian refugees, did not back the endeavour because they either believed it would leave them disenfranchised or that it would fail to change the status quo. In the mere weeks prior to the confrontation in New York, an intense legal debate was taking place over whether or not this statehood bid would jeopardise various Palestinian rights.

Regardless of what one’s position or political affiliation is, it is hard to deny that the UN bid underscores the significant challenge facing Palestinians: the desperate need for reformed and representative institutions to speak for them. As Palestinians brace for what is to come and formulate strategy on how best to achieve their goals, there has never been a better or more urgent moment for Palestinian leaders and advocates of all stripes to unite in the face of Israeli occupation.

Mahmoud Abbas made important strides toward aligning himself with Palestinian public opinion and popular regional sentiments by standing up to the United States under pressure and delivering a strong speech at the UNGA. This is the kind of stance that most Palestinians can unite behind as they have grown tired of the failed strategy of negotiations. He could be doing himself and Palestinians a favour if he takes this opportunity to create a broad and representative coalition of allies, based on confronting the Israeli occupation despite its main sponsor the United States. Of course, his words must be followed by actions.

3. Security collaboration is very valuable to Israel

The extremely pro-Israel Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, did her best impression of the big, bad wolf when she convened a hearing the week before the UN General Assembly and invited some of the most right-wing analysts on this issue to testify on the question of cutting aid to the Palestinian Authority in the wake of the UN bid. But as much as the Chairwoman, her pro-Israel colleagues and the witnesses huffed and puffed, no one was ready to blow the PA house down.

Why? Well, as a number of the witness pointed out, the prospect of cutting aid to the PA meant the likely collapse of the US-funded and trained PA security apparatus which is in close and consistent communication with the IDF on security.

At a time when the Palestinians were moving to further isolate Israel in the international community by requesting statehood at the UN, the Israel-friendly US Congress was hog-tied. They couldn’t use PA funding as leverage because of the risk it posed to Israel, and if there was any doubt, one only had to read a report from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs supporting continued aid to the PA despite the UN bid. Ultimately, Congress may have passed non-binding resolutions on the PA aid issue, but it’s unlikely they will use the power of the purse in ways that might indirectly cost Israel.

What this means is that the Palestinians have gained a better understanding of the precise value of security collaboration with the Israelis. It is clear that Israel would rather risk further isolation than risk losing PA security collaboration. One of the main reasons why the occupation persists is because Israel reaps the benefits of the occupation including land and water resources, but pays minimal costs in exchange.

Completely disbanding Palestinian security so that chaos ensues will not help anyone, especially not the Palestinians, but there is also no sense in the Palestinians providing Israel with cost-free security and getting nothing in return – except continued settlement expansion. Now that it is clear just how valuable this security coordination with the Israelis is, the Palestinians should use it for leverage and halt all coordination.

4. Israel is vulnerable to international isolation, but so is Washington

Remember in February when the US Ambassador to the United Nations essentially vetoed US policy on Israeli settlements when she cast the lone “no” vote in a UN Security Council session? Fourteen states voted for the resolution and only the United States voted against, even though the resolution was actually pieced together from statements made by US officials. It was not an unfamiliar position for the United States. In fact, before that veto, the United States has been the sole veto on 41 previous UN Security Council resolutions condemning Israeli violations of international law since 1972.

But something was different this time. The United States was furiously lobbying to secure “no” votes on the Security Council, precisely because it did not want to be seen as the primary obstacle to Palestinian statehood. Why do the optics suddenly matter after decades of automatic and contempt-free American vetoes for Israel’s sake?

Simply put, the world is a different place today than it was a mere eight months ago. When Susan Rice had last raised her hand alone, Hosni Mubarak was one week out of power and the United States was still trying to figure out what was happening in a region where they have traditionally held sway. Egypt has since demonstrated that public opinion is likely to play a much greater role in policy toward Israel. Turkey, another major regional player and long time NATO ally, has all but terminated relations with Israel after the travesty of justice called the Palmer Report.

This is yet another sign of America’s waning influence in the region. But it is also another important signal to the Palestinians. Yes, America may continue to support Israel blindly because of its domestic politics, but at the same time the costs for doing so continue to increase. Going forward, Palestinian strategies that further expose the incongruence between US policy vis-à-vis Israel and its interests in the region will only force more American elites to ask the all important questions that too few are asking today.

5. Real – not symbolic – changes alone will alter the status quo

The UN General Assembly came and went and, just as most serious observers expected, there is little change on the ground. The Israeli occupation – the status quo – still persists. The reason the status quo has continued is because there are entrenched interests on both sides which make it difficult for either party to make game-changing decisions. The Israeli occupation will only end when the costs of maintaining it exceed the benefits of further entrenching it. Right now, the costs of the Israeli occupation to the Israelis are minimal. It benefits from usurping land and resources and avoids the politically costly move of dismantling settlements.

For its part, the Palestinian Authority is assisting in alleviating the costs of occupation through extensive security collaboration with Israel. International donors are largely footing the bill for the PA’s security apparatus.

The Ramallah-based Authority’s most significant challenge to this, thus far, has been in the form of the statehood bid. While further international isolation will raise the costs of occupation for the Israelis, it won’t have an immediate impact.

Palestinians must recognise that shifting the dynamic that perpetuates the status quo involves real changes on the ground and not simply symbolic gestures. If the statehood bid results in the ability to redress grievances with Israel in the International Criminal Court than that might raise the costs of occupation in the long term, so long as other states are compliant in enforcing legal decisions. But that’s the long term, and in the long term we will all be dead, and given the rate of Israeli settlement expansion, aiming for the long term means there will not be anything of Palestine left for the Palestinians.

The shift away from the cost-free occupation dynamic has to happen immediately and Palestinians can begin to do this in the way their counterparts across the Arab world made revolutionary change happen. Through mass mobilisation, ending no-strings-attached security collaboration and encouraging sanctions on the state and popular level against Israel until it meets it obligations, the Palestinians can begin to do to the Israelis what the so-called broker Washington failed to do: make them realise the occupation has to end.

The UN statehood bid didn’t change the world – it didn’t even change things on the ground in occupied Palestine – but what it did do is to make a number of international players show their cards. The Palestinians would be remiss if they did not use this information to build strategies for the future.

Yousef Munayyer is a writer and political analyst based in Washington, DC. He is currently the Executive Director of the The Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development.

Article courtesy Al Jazeera, Yousef Munayyer, and The Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development

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People for Justice in Palestine hosted a presentation titled “A Long Wait for a State: Palestine on Hold” at the Iowa City Public Library on September 15.  Dr. Patrick Hitchon, an Iowa neurosurgeon; Shams Ghoneim, Coordinator of the Iowa Chapter of the Muslim Public Affairs Council; and John Dabeet, President of Americans and Palestinians for Peace, spoke to an audience of about 60.

Hitchon spoke first providing his listeners with an overview of the history of Palestine from its earliest period to the present.

“The state of Israel was never a negotiated settlement between Arabs and Israelis,” said Hitchon.

“It was approved and divided by the United Nations, thousands of miles away from the land of Palestine,” said Hitchon, noting that Palestinian Arab interests were not adequately or fairly represented in the process.  Hitchon quoted U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk saying, “‘The pressure and arm-twisting applied by American and Jewish interests in capital after capital to get that affirmative vote is hard to describe.’”

“About 700,000 to 800,000 Palestinians were forcefully expelled,” said Hitchon, who noted that his own family was among those forced to leave Palestine.

“These people did not leave of their own accord,” said Hitchon, adding that in many cases Israelis demolished Palestinian homes and villages while expropriating other Palestinian homes for use by Israelis.

Hitchon quoted Israeli historian Ilan Pappe to document his claim.

“‘Israelis made a concerted effort to forcefully expel and terrorize 800,000.  They demolished 530 villages, and 11 urban neighborhoods were displaced.  This is a true example of ethnic cleansing.’  I’m not saying this was ethnic cleansing.  Ilan Pappe, a Jew who was a professor of history at Haifa and who now teaches at the University of Exeter in the UK, says this was ethnic cleansing,” said Hitchon.

“These refugees are now scattered in more than 50 refugee camps across the Middle East.  They’re in Lebanon, they’re in Syria, they’re in Jordan, and they’re in Gaza,” said Hitchon.

Hitchon reminded his audience that United Nations General Assembly Resolution (UNGAR) 194 declares the refugees right to return to their land and homes and if not they have a right to compensation.

Many Israelis scoff at USGAR 194 because General Assembly resolutions are recommendations that lack the force of international law, unlike Security Council resolutions (UNSCR), which are binding upon member states.  UNSGR 273 admitted Israel to the United Nations on May 11, 1949 after Israel consented to implement other UN resolutions including resolutions 194 and 181.

“Israel has refused to accept a single Palestinian refugee back to his homeland or to provide compensation.  The US has done nothing to enforce [the resolutions.]  Similar resolutions 242 and 338 after the 1967 war again stated that it is inadmissible to acquire territory by military means.  Israel should withdraw from acquired territories and acknowledge the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the indigenous population,” declared Hitchon.

“Dealing with Israel on a one-to-one basis has taken us nowhere.  I think it’s high time we go ahead and apply for full membership to the United Nations just like Israel did,” said Hitchon.

Ghoneim, who is originally from Egypt, spoke about her experiences and about interfaith relations.

“The world is actually at the dawn of a potential new age in the history of the Holy Land,” said Ghoneim, “one that, if Israel and Israeli voices everywhere in the world are smart, they will take advantage of.  It’s an opportunity, and it can be lost very soon.

“The region, all around the state of Israel, is flowing with freedom seekers, from Egypt to Tunisia to Libya to Jordan to Bahrain and the list goes on.  Those who are for equity and a two-state solution – it’s not too late – really think that there is no way under heaven the status quo will remain,” said Ghoneim.

Intransigence on the issues of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine and Palestinian self-determination and sovereignty is only increasing Israel’s isolation in the international community, said Ghoneim, who called her listeners’ attention to the fact that in most of the countries where the Arab Spring has broken out, the protests are peaceful, even in the face of violent repression, “guns and bullets.”

“I believe, from looking at what has happened in Egypt and Syria, that the time has come for people to come together and get really serious,” said Ghoneim.

Pointing out the obvious, Ghoneim characterized the Palestinians effort to be recognized as a state by the UN as, “another way – a peaceful way – of resolving their long-running struggle for freedom.”

Noting that interfaith conversations are vitally important in times of great social and political change, Ghoneim gave credit to and encouraged Christians and Jews to continue speak out in behalf of peace and cooperation.

It is difficult for Muslims to speak to Jews about issues related to Israel if the Jewish person has always looked at the matter from one side, and the same is true vice versa, said Ghoneim, not least because the issues are very emotional ones in the aftermath of so much violence, so many wars, and so much death and destruction since the founding of Israel in 1948.

Everyone in the region, Muslim, Christian, and Jew, has been touched by loss and has a story of loss, said Ghoneim.

“It takes patience, but once you build respect and trust, I believe it is possible,” declared Ghoneim.

Dabeet, a Palestinian American who recently returned from Ramallah and consultations with Palestinian leaders, addressed many of the political issues involved in the Palestinian bid for statehood recognition.

“Palestine’s bid for United Nations statehood has the intention of peace and is not a declaration of war,” declared Dabeet.

“We need everyone to know that we are standing for justice.  We are standing for self-determination.  We are standing to live side-by-side, but in dignity – and that’s very important – in dignity and in freedom,” said Dabeet.

Dabeet described different scenarios that Palestinian leaders are evaluating and considering.  Palestinian leaders may apply for full UN membership through the UN Security Council, but the United States has vowed to use its veto in the council to block recognition there.  Were nine of the fifteen members of the Security Council to approve of the Palestinian application for full membership, and were there no veto, Palestine could then be admitted upon a vote of two-thirds of the General Assembly.  Second, Palestinian leaders may decide to apply to the UN General Assembly for non-member state observer recognition, which Palestine would be granted upon the vote of a simple majority of the member states of the General Assembly, which is seen as very likely because about 120 nations have already recognized Palestine as a state.  The UN General Assembly currently has 193 member states.  At present, there is only one non-member state observer, the Vatican, said Dabeet.

“With [non-member state observer recognition], you get a lot of advantages,” said Dabeet, who noted that, currently, the Palestinians can only take an issue before the UN by going through a member state, asking that member state to speak in behalf of Palestine.

“If we become a non-member state observer, we can go straight to the issue.  Not just that, this will give us the advantage of serving on many, many organizations that are part of the United Nations,” said Dabeet.

Dabeet said he is confident that Palestinian leaders will present a request to the United Nations very soon.

During a Q&A that followed their formal remarks, Dabeet declared, “I don’t think that there is any Palestinian refugee living in a camp in poverty and squalor who wants to continue living as a refugee.”

Ghoneim spoke about Palestinian unity saying, “I think it is very important for the Palestinian people to have a unity government.”

PJP is a nonpartisan group of people from the Iowa City community who have joined together to support a just and lasting peace for the peoples of the region on the basis of their understanding that a lasting peace is impossible while the Israeli occupation continues.

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