IS YOUTUBE FINALLY PREPARED TO SHOW THE TRUTH?

An increase in the activities in Occupied East Jerusalem has apparently sparked enough interest throughout the world for YouTube to agree not to pull the videos off the Web. Could we be seeing an end to their zionist censorship? Let’s hope so…..

The (Sheikh Jarrah) revolution will be YouTubed

By ABE SELIG

Social media sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are playing an increasing role in growing participation of young Israelis in protest rallies.

Social media sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, along with a slew of blogs, are playing an increasing role in the growing participation of young Israelis in protest rallies in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, activists and journalists familiar with the situation there told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

Activists and journalists both described a situation in which protesters were relying on the Internet to try and affect change on the ground and raise awareness of the arrests made during demonstrations in the neighborhood.

“It’s all Facebook, e-mails and Twitter,” said Didi Remez, a human rights activist, who has become noticeably involved in the Sheikh Jarrah protests as of late. Remez was arrested during a protest there last Friday.

Below is one example of a recent video not pulled from YouTube… (my comment)

Remez also said that distant audiences, like American Jews, who might be deprived of Sheikh Jarrah coverage due to the mainstream media’s lack of interest, were instead staying abreast of the situation via social networking sites.

“The American media is for some reason refusing to cover this,” he said. “Even though it’s becoming a major issue in Israel. And still, despite that, there’s a lot of awareness [of this issue] among Jewish Americans, the reason being that they are increasingly connected through Facebook, Twitter, blogs and so on.”

“They’re getting information on this without The New York Times,” Remez continued. “So, something that hasn’t been covered at all by the [American] mainstream media, is still getting coverage through new media, and I think that’s a statement about the decline of the mainstream media and maybe a larger comment on the shift away from it.”

Others echoed Remez’s comments, but added that another advantage of social media was its ability to counter police statements about Sheikh Jarrah they said the mainstream media often parroted.

“This is an issue that the media hasn’t really been covering, and when they have, they’ve mostly relied on police statements that portrayed the protesters as a handful of extreme leftists or anarchists, which is simply not true,” said Lisa Goldman, a Tel-Aviv based freelance journalist who has used Facebook, Twitter and blogs to follow the Sheikh Jarrah protests.

“What the social media outlets have been able to provide is a direct source of information that isn’t filtered through the mainstream media,” she said, adding that in this vein, the use of new media had been “absolutely crucial.”

Additionally, Goldman added, social media outlets had also served as a tool to awaken the mainstream Left to the goings-on in Sheikh Jarrah, including, but not limited to, the emerging issue of police behavior towards protesters there, which the Jerusalem Magistrate Court has even censured – ruling last week that the arrests of 17 protesters during a rally two weeks ago was illegal.

“The silent Israeli Left is finally waking up,” she said. “And it’s a result of the way some young people are using social media. It’s been very effective in raising awareness among the moderate Left, who are seeing that the police are suppressing free speech.”

Goldman also pointed to the participation in last Friday’s rally of Prof. Moshe Halbertal, who helped draft the IDF code of ethics and who has been active in disputing the United Nation’s Goldstone Report, as an example of figures who would certainly not be considered extreme, but who have joined the Sheikh Jarrah fray.

Hagai El-Ad, the director of the Association for Human Rights in Israel and one of the 17 protesters arrested two weeks ago, added that the use of new media to circumvent the mainstream media, which, he said, was often “reluctant to cover hard issues, or blatantly hostile,” was spreading rapidly.

“However, it’s not just new media [at play in Sheikh Jarrah],” he said. “I think there’s a need to [step back] from the tactics being used there, and zoom in on the core issue, which is the moral outrage of Jerusalemite families being thrown out of their homes and living in tents in the street. That’s the essential injustice here, and I think it’s a fuel of its own.”

Yet El-Ad did concede that the use of new media was a driving force behind the success of the Sheikh Jarrah protest organizers.

“They are a courageous group of young people, who are functioning without any real budget or resources,” he said. “But they are cleverly online, and they’ve been able to translate that into real movement on the ground – it’s not just a Facebook group that people add their names too.”

“Yes, the mobilization happens online,” El-Ad added, “but the end result is the most classic form of civil protest.”

Source

2 US Jewish groups condemn settler attack on mosque

Yesterday the Orthodox Union condemned an attack by Jewish colonists on a mosque near Nablus in the West Bank, and said it is "beyond the pale." Yesterday, the ADL also condemned the vandalism.

That Jewish extremists may have used such despicable methods to express political opposition is beyond the pale. We join with Israel’s political, military and religious leadership in condemning this disgraceful assault.

A good start. Don’t expect ADL to change its focus, though.

Source: Mondoweiss

UK issues new guidance on labelling of food from illegal West Bank settlements

Stickers could read 'Israeli settlement produce' , but move is not a boycott, says Foreign Office

Britain has acted to increase pressure on Israel over its West Bank settlements by advising UK supermarkets on how to distinguish between foods from the settlements and Palestinian-manufactured goods.

The government's move falls short of a legal requirement but is bound to increase the prospects of a consumer boycott of products from those territories. Israeli officials and settler leaders were tonight highly critical of the decision.

Until now, food has been simply labelled "Produce of the West Bank", but the new, voluntary guidance issued by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), says labels could give more precise information, like "Israeli settlement produce" or "Palestinian produce".

Nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers live in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which were conquered in the 1967 war. The British government and the EU have repeatedly said Israel's settlement project is an "obstacle to peace" in the Middle East.

EU law already requires a distinction to be made between goods originating in Israel and those from the occupied territories, though pro-Palestinian campaigners say this is not always observed.

Separately, Defra said that traders would be committing an offence if they did declare produce from the occupied territories as "Produce of Israel".

Foods grown in Israeli settlements include herbs sold in supermarkets, such as Waitrose, which chop, package and label them as "West Bank" produce, making no distinction between Israelis and Palestinians. A total of 27 Israeli firms operating in settlements and exporting to the UK have been identified: their produce includes fruit, vegetables, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, plastic and metal items and textiles.

Other retailers selling their products include Tesco, Sainsbury's, Somerfield, John Lewis and B&Q.

Goods from inside Israel's 1967 borders are entitled to a preferential rate of import duty under an agreement with the EU. Palestinian goods from the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem also enjoy duty-free or reduced-tariff treatment. Settlement products fall outside these two categories.

"This is emphatically not about calling for a boycott of Israel," a Foreign Office spokesman said. "We believe that would do nothing to advance the peace process. We oppose any such boycott of Israel. We believe consumers should be able to choose for themselves what produce they buy. We have been very clear both in public and in private that settlements are illegal and an obstacle to peace."

The TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber, welcomed the public clarification that marking produce from illegal settlements on occupied territory as "produce of Israel" was illegal, but said the government should have gone further.

Barbara Stocking, Oxfam's chief executive, said: "We support the right of consumers to know the origin of the products they purchase. Trade with Israeli settlements – which are illegal under international law – contributes to their economic viability and serves to legitimise them. It is also clear from our development work in West Bank communities that settlements have led to the denial of rights and create poverty for many Palestinians."

Dani Dayan, the Argentinian-born leader of the Yesha Council, which represents Israeli settlers, said the decision was the "latest hostile step" from Britain. "Products from our communities in Judea and Samaria should be treated as any other Israeli product," he said, using an Israeli term for the West Bank.

Israeli officials said they feared this was a slide towards a broader boycott of Israeli goods. Yigal Palmor, Israel's foreign ministry spokesman, said his country's produce was being unfairly singled out.

"It looks like it is catering to the demands of those whose ultimate goal is the boycott of Israeli products," he said. "The message here will very likely be used by pro-boycott campaigners. It is a matter of concern."

He said the issue of different European customs tariffs should not extend to different labelling on supermarket shelves. "It is a totally different thing and not required by the EU."

Israel came under intense US pressure early this year to halt construction in settlements, but has only adopted a temporary, partial freeze. Palestinian leaders say they will not restart peace negotiations until there is a full settlement freeze in line with the US road map of 2003.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign said it welcomed the new guidance but urged Defra to go further: "The government must seek prosecutions of companies which smuggle settlement goods in under false labels.

"We have received many calls from people who were distressed when they bought goods labelled 'Produce of the West Bank' because they thought they were aiding the Palestinian economy, then realised they were economically aiding Israel's illegal occupation.

"Particularly following Israel's massacre in Gaza, consumers have been shocked at Israel's war crimes and want to take action. They do not want to feel complicit in Israel's occupation by buying stolen goods."

'Customers will now have honest information'

The most recent government figures suggest only about £800,000 of food products, about three-quarters of it olive oil (below right), was imported from occupied Palestinian territories in the three years between 2006 and 2008.

Sainsbury's, which sells dates and small amounts of basil and tarragon, welcomed "the greater clarity on how to label produce from occupied territories".

"This allows us to fulfil our commitment of providing customers with clear and honest information about the origins of their food," the supermarket chain said."We have full traceability back to settlement and/or grower."

Waitrose also said it would be following the guidance on the small number of West Bank lines it sold. "We source a small selection of herbs from the West Bank area, grown on two Israeli-managed farms, on which a Palestinian and Israeli workforce have worked side by side for many years," said a spokesman.

"We are not motivated by politics. Instead our policy is to ensure high standards of farming and worker welfare on the farms from which we source. Our buyers … have visited the two farms in the West Bank to ensure that worker welfare meets the high standards that we insist on. As part of our normal sourcing policy we will be carrying out an audit on these farms in the next six months."

This year the Co-op began selling Fairtrade olive oil from the West Bank – a move hailed by Gordon Brown, who said it meant British shoppers could help Palestinian farmers make a living.

Toby Quantrill, head of public policy for the Fairtrade Foundation, said farmers in Palestine faced barriers to trade which jeopardised opportunities to trade internationally on equal terms with people making similar products

Source: The Guardian

Peace Now and J Street should join the battle against tax breaks for the West Bank colonists

In a sign that the discourse is changing and taboo subjects are coming inside, The Atlantic considers the case for ending the special relationship of US and Israel, and picks up an important piece in the Guardian by Andrew Kadi and Aaron Levitt about the U.S. tax subsidies extended to the Hebron colonists. Kadi and Levitt focus on the Hebron Fund’s fundraiser at the Mets ballpark last month:

"Until the public, advocacy groups, media and the US government scrutinise and rein in settlement non-profits like the Hebron Fund, policy statements about peace in the Middle East will do nothing to stop the daily violence and dispossession suffered by Palestinians."

My question: Where are Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street and Michael Walzer of Americans for Peace Now? This is actually an issue we can all do business on. Ben-Ami says that he is trying to end the colonization of the West Bank. Well, focusing on the Hebron Fund and its tax break is one real and significant way to apply pressure. Earlier this year my old professor, Walzer, wrote bravely that the United States must put heavy pressure on Israel to defeat the settler movement (and save the 2-state solution)! Walzer is on the board of Americans for Peace Now. So are Dan Fleshler and Richard Dreyfuss.

Shouldn’t they all speak out? Do they agree with Daniel Levy (the muse of J Street) and Jeffrey Goldberg? Goldberg, last month: "Citi Field is hosting N.Y. Mets Go to Bat for Hebron Jews, a fundraiser for Hebron’s Jewish community. I can think of better causes."

Or here’s Daniel Levy of the Century Foundation on C-Span, Nov. 10. At 98:52, Levy says:

"I would say that one takes as a point of departure…. US support for Israel should draw the red line at the Green Line and one would come with as watertight a policy as possible.

"Including when the New York Mets facility is being used to host a fundraiser for the Hebron Fund, that kind of thing, those kinds of organizations, should not be allowed to raise money on a tax-deductable charitable basis, in the United States."

Or as Levy said on this site:

[M]aking donations to settler activities beyond the Green Line non-tax deductible (not charitable gifts) is not a boycott-it is simply that such activities should not benefit from a charitable gift status.

Peace Now gets this issue. Ori Nir of Peace Now made this strong statement last spring:

"I don’t know how many people, including in the U.S. government, realize the extent of private American funding to settlements. . . . Every dollar that goes to settlements makes Middle East peace that much harder to reach."

I asked Nir why Peace Now isn’t specifically going after the tax breaks to the Hebron Fund. He wrote:

"We are on record opposing any kind of material or non-material assistance to West Bank settlements. When the settlers launched a campaign to encourage American Jews to buy homes in the West Bank in 2007, we were the only Jewish group that made noise about it. …When it comes to the situation in Hebron, we have been more outspoken than any group in denouncing the unacceptable conditions there. I wrote a blog posting from Hebron when I was there in the spring. In the past, we have written about Hebron extensively.

"So, while it is true that we did not react to the Hebron Fund event in NY – just because we were swamped with other issues – I don’t think that anyone has any doubt about our position. We strongly oppose any support of Israeli settlement in the West Bank. We think it’s wrong. We think it damages efforts to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace, and we think that supporting the settlement enterprise is a disservice to peace."

Isaac Luria of J Street says, "We spoke out on this stuff during the Nadia Matar uproar and with an action to Malcolm Hoenlein at the end of last year." He points out that a recent statement on Jerusalem also blasted "fundraisers."

But J Street’s statements have all been to deplore American support without going any further. It seems to me that campaigns have to be targeted to be real and effective. J Street and Peace Now both avoided the issue that the Guardian focused on: The Mets hosting Hebron Fund and the U.S. gov’t giving them a tax break. And no one besides Daniel Levy and Jeff Goldberg actually spoke out at the time and joined their voices publicly to the 11 israeli, US, and Palestinian groups who called on the Mets to cancel it.

I’m not trying to shame Peace Now and J Street; I’m sure a lot of their members agree. I sense that the organizations themselves are leery of any hint of BDS. When actually this is an area where the radicals and the liberals can join forces to good effect.

Here is another specific organization that needs to be targeted: Task Force to Save the Nation and the Land, which Coteret says has given Israeli soldiers money for killing Palestinian "terrorists" in the occupied territories. Tax breaks for this criminality? We have consensus. Let’s go after them.

Source: Mondoweiss

The US cash behind extremist settlers

The Hebron Fund is raising vast sums for Israeli settlements that violate the Geneva convention, with little scrutiny

Last month, a Brooklyn-based non-profit organisation called the Hebron Fund, which supports Jewish settlers in the Israeli-occupied city of Hebron, held a fundraiser at the New York Mets' stadium, Citi Field.

The fundraiser went forward despite calls for its cancellation from grassroots human rights organisations from the US, Palestine and Israel. The fact that the Hebron Fund likely raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for extremist Israeli settlers at a major US venue with little public scrutiny is a troubling sign for those who hope that the US can play a constructive role in achieving a just peace in the Middle East.

Perhaps more worryingly, according to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius: "A search of IRS records identified 28 US charitable groups that made a total of $33.4m in tax-exempt contributions to settlements and related organisations between 2004 and 2007." Some of the larger organisations, including Friends of the Ateret Cohanim and Friends of Ir David, both leading the Jewish settler takeover of Palestinian East Jerusalem, are based in New York City.

Israeli settlements violate the Geneva convention's prohibition against an occupying power transferring its population into occupied territory, and Israeli settlement expansion directly contradicts the US call for a settlement freeze.

Hebron's Jewish settlers, who are supported by the Hebron Fund, are openly fundraising in New York City. Under the protection of the Israeli military, they are expanding settlements in Hebron's Old City and driving out the Palestinian residents.

The Hebron Fund's extremist positions are clear. Hebron Fund executive director Yossi Baumol told The American Prospect that "[d]emocracy is poison to Arabs", "Israel must not give Arabs a say in how the country is run" and "[y]ou'll never get the truth out of an Arab". Hebron's chief rabbi, Dov Lior, a featured participant in some Hebron Fund events, recently praised a new book that says it is permitted for a Jew to kill civilians who provide moral support to an enemy of the Jews, and to even kill young children, if it is foreseeable that they will grow up to become enemies.

Settlers and the Israeli army routinely attack and terrorise Palestinians in Hebron, according to human rights groups such as B'Tselem in Israel. In 1994, Hebron settler Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 unarmed Palestinians who were praying in a Hebron mosque. One of the honorees at the 2009 Hebron Fund dinner, Noam Arnon, called Goldstein "an extraordinary person'' in 1995. In 1990 Arnon called three Jewish terrorists who were convicted of killing three Palestinians and maiming two Palestinian mayors "heroes".

Though the Hebron Fund tells the IRS that its purpose is to "promote social and educational wellbeing", in 2008 Baumol assured New York radio listeners: "There are real facts on the ground that are created by people helping the Hebron Fund and coming to our dinners."

A 2007 appeal explained: "Dozens of new families can now come live in Hebron ... waiting for you to be their partners in the redemption of Hebron."

Baumol dedicated the 2009 fundraiser to protesting at "racist limitations, led by President Barack Obama on Jewish growth".

Settlers frequently claim that preventing Jews from living anywhere they want in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is "racist", regardless of the settlers' severe infringement on the rights of longstanding Palestinian residents. Settlers justify their takeover of Hebron by invoking the massacre of 67 Jewish residents of Hebron by Palestinians in 1929. But rather than equality, Hebron's settlers aim for superior rights enforced from the barrel of a gun.

Non-profit organisations like the Hebron Fund play a substantial role in fuelling the Middle East conflict, but largely fly under the radar in the US. They brazenly hold public fundraisers, and the media generally ignore them. Major US advocacy organisations that claim to oppose Israeli settlements typically fail to criticise them. In one rare mainstream media report, David Ignatius highlighted the US government's self-defeating policy, writing that "critics of Israeli settlements question why American taxpayers are supporting indirectly, through the exempt contributions, a process that the government condemns".

Until the public, advocacy groups, media and the US government scrutinise and rein in settlement non-profits like the Hebron Fund, policy statements about peace in the Middle East will do nothing to stop the daily violence and dispossession suffered by Palestinians.

Source: The Guardian

Call for an international campaign against the Jewish National Fund

The Jewish National Fund (JNF) has charitable status in over 50 countries, a status based on the JNF's claim that it preserves and advances Jewish culture, community, civic and political participation, rights and safety. In reality, the JNF was created in 1901 for the purpose of colonizing Palestine through the acquisition and management of land for exclusively Jewish settlement. Today, it continues to play a central role in the violent colonization and occupation of Palestine, and is a key institution in maintaining Israeli apartheid.

Where once the JNF's role was birthing the State of Israel, it is now granted special privileges and an ongoing role in State function, such as their administrative role in the Israeli Land Administration. In turn, the JNF, as a private institution, can hold in trust land and property for the State of Israel, its Jewish population and Jews living outside of Israel and openly discriminates against Palestinian citizens of Israel-preventing Palestinian leasing of JNF land. Far from the charitable organization the JNF claims to be, it is a para-statal organization-enacting functions of the State of Israel as a private organization, but without the attendant legal accountabilities or regulation.

13% of land in '48 (Israel) is controlled directly by the JNF, most of it seized from Palestinians and transferred to the JNF after May 1948.

• The JNF and Israeli Lands Administration control, through a joint committee, 93% of the land in Israel.
• By its own description, JNF money is also used for the ‘Judaisation' (equating to ‘de-Arabisation') of the Galilee and the Negev.
• In addition JNF money is used to finance reservoirs in the West Bank that steal Palestinian water for settler-only use.

Most recently, the JNF has been involved in expanding Israel's colonial project into the Negev-displacing the indigenous Bedouin people from their "unrecognized" villages into "concentration zones" and destroying their economic, cultural and social way of life. More broadly, central to the mission of the JNF is the acquisition of Palestinian land and property in historic Palestine "for the purpose of settling Jews on such lands and properties." This includes JNF involvement in settler enterprises across the West Bank. When the Israeli army razed to the ground the Palestinian villages of the Imwas, Yalu and Beit Nuba villages in 1967 and expelled their inhabitants, the JNF took over the construction of the Canada National Park on the ruins. The JNF today claims to be a global environmental leader and trumpets their slogan of ‘Plant Trees and Bring Water to Israel'-a cover up to the ethnic cleansing and acquisition of Palestinian land and water involved in this process. Donors from around the world are then implicated in these crimes, as are the Canadian government and tax payers in the case of Canada Park.

Beyond this, the JNF is active in countries throughout the world and supports a broader network of Zionist institutions and organizations that support the Israeli military and militant Jewish settlements with direct funds. The JNF and its network of organizations also provide the political support necessary for legitimizing and promoting public policies and aid packages for Israel. Every year they bring thousands of public officials and community leaders to Israel to lobby their support. In individual countries, these organizations censor criticism of Israel and target individuals and organizations with blacklists, violence, imprisonment, deportation, unemployment and other economic hardship.

The JNF does not do what it claims to do. It claims to exist for the well-being of the Jewish people. In reality, its activities and the organizations that it funds exist almost exclusively for the purpose of securing and expanding Israel's colonization of Palestine and the apartheid Israeli State. The JNF claims that Jewish safety depends on a secure Israeli State. But Israel does not make Jews safe. Its violence and racism guarantees instability and fear for those within Israel, the rest of historic Palestine, and endangers the safety of all people, including Jews, far beyond its borders.

We are calling for an international campaign to challenge the legitimacy and actions of the Jewish National Fund. We are calling for sanctions against the JNF as a key institution of Israeli apartheid defined by the UN as a crime against humanity. We are calling for the JNF to pay reparations to the Palestinian people for the catastrophic damages done over the course of the JNF's 107 years of existence as a vehicle for the colonial settlement of Palestine.

Demands: Our abiding demand is to revoke the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund.

From states and the United Nations we call for:

• Sanctions against the JNF for its participation in Israeli apartheid
• Boycotting of JNF funded, directly and indirectly, delegations to Israel

From civic society, we call for:

• Civil suits by those whose property was confiscated by the JNF
• Jewish divestment from JNF and its subsidiaries
• An end to grassroots and NGO collaboration with the JNF, particularly by environmental organizations
• An active boycott of Zionist and Israeli events organized by JNF and its subsidiaries

We will:

• Take Legal action: challenge the charity status of the JNF and coordinate other judicial review process, support cases against the JNF by Palestinians whose land and property were stolen by the JNF and/or who were dispossessed by the JNF - from 1948 until today,
• Research and document JNF's activities, use of funds, and impact, support investigation into JNF funding of and participation in para-statal activities, collect testimonies, produce research reports and publications, write articles, publicize findings, collect land deeds, digital stories/videos of testimony and a book of specific cases that highlight JNF role in land confiscation and discrimination as part of a broader system of occupation and colonization
• Educate: produce printed materials, submit presentations for conferences, organize workshops and public speaking events, coordinate art exhibits, performances and speaking tours, create digital stories based on testimonies
• Boycott and Disrupt JNF Events: JNF organized fundraisers, delegation, and cultural, educational, sporting and political events
• Take Direct action: Petitions, letters, poster and sticker campaign, disruption of events, pickets, civil disobedience, demonstrations
• Produce and leverage mass and grassroots media: submit editorials and article to print and online journals, organize press conferences, buy advertisement, produce grassroots media, produce and/or screen documentaries, produce and participate in public radio and television series, produce poster campaign
• Support processes of accountability under international law: participate in review processes being organized by civil organizations to hold Israel accountable under human rights and other international law (i.e. review of Israel for its treaty implementation under the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights)

Join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign National Committee (BNC)[1], Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Habitat International Coalition of Cairo and the International Jewish anti-Zionist Network in coordinating this campaign.

For more information, contact us at: jnf.campaign@gmail.com

Source: International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

ZIONISM: THE MONSTERS THAT WALK AMONG US

CHUTZPAH is not a strong enough word to describe the situation reported below. Imagine your home taken away from you illegally, the lands around your home as well. Imagine being forced into a filthy refugee camp where you have been staying for over sixty one years.

Now imagine settlements built on YOUR property to house those that stole YOUR land. Now imagine one of those illegal settlers, who just happens to be Israel’s Foreign Minister, saying the following……

Lieberman: Settlements an excuse for Arabs to complain

Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are just a pretext for the Arab world to complain, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman insisted on Friday.The official is himself a West Bank settler.

“In terms of facts, our settlements are just a pretext for the Arab world to complain,” Lieberman told the Russian-language REKA radio. “As we all remember, settlements have not prevented us from signing a peace agreement with Egypt.”

He added, “I’d also like to call to mind that we have evacuated tens of settlements in the Gaza Strip. And what do we have now? Hamas in Gaza and Kassams in Sderot.”

Lieberman also said European opposition to the settlements was “a sort of political slogan… there were no Jewish settlements before 1967, but terror, conflicts, and tension never ceased to exist between 1948 and 1967. Furthermore, the Arab world was in control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for 19 years, but then, nobody tried to create the Palestinian state.”

The foreign minister lives in the illegal West Bank settlement of Nokdim, near Bethlehem.

Source

Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff


Source: Desert peace

Britain: Israeli settlements are 'illegal' and 'obstacle' to peace

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Tuesday criticized Israel's construction of settlements in the West Bank as "illegal" and said they represented an "obstacle" in the path of peace.

"Settlements are illegal in our view and an obstacle" that impedes efforts which seek to work out a final settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians, Miliband told a press conference at the end of a one-day visit to Jordan and talks with King Abdullah II.

The British Foreign Secretary also conferred in Amman with the U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell to review the outcome of a regional tour Mitchell and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clint arrying out to try to spur the stalled peace process.

Miliband supported the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and expressed concern over Israeli violations in East Jerusalem, which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War.

"The current situation is obviously particularly tense in respect to Jerusalem. We view events there with considerable concern, along with our EU and international partners," he said.

Miliband also warned that any alternative to a two-state vision as
a solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would be "dark and unwelcome".

Abdullah II, for his part, urged the international community to pressure Israel to stop its "unilateral actions" in East Jerusalem, according to a royal court statement following their meeting.

"The monarch underlined the importance of the European Union's role, particularly that of Britain, in efforts aimed at ensuring the setting up of an independent Palestinian state, which is a prerequisite for Middle East peace," said the statement.

King Abdullah warned against "the dangers inherent in the Israeli unilateral actions, especially the construction of settlements and other measures that threaten the identity of Jerusalem and holy places there, and called on the international community to put pressure on Israel to halt such steps," added the statement.

Egypt: Israel taking 'racist steps' to rid Jerusalem of Arabs

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, urged the international community to protect Jerusalem from the "racist steps" being taken by Israel to change the demographics of the city.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman appealed to the United Nations Security Council with the complaint that Israel has been trying to change the demographic reality in all Palestinian territory, particularly in Jerusalem.

The Egyptian complaint came just before Clinton arrived in Cairo, culminating days of meetings across North Africa and in Israel. Clinton was met in Cairo late Tuesday by the U.S. Mideast peace envoy, Mitchell.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit also said on Tuesday that Cairo wants assurances that any Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations would ensure a Palestinian state and not be used to "waste time".

Clinton, facing Arab accusations that she had been too soft on Israel, later said in Morocco that Israel's offer to show restraint on settlements fell short of U.S. expectations.

"We want to have guarantees for the Palestinians ... that ensure them that these negotiations will not be used to waste time or to accomplish Israeli objectives against them," Aboul Gheit told a news conference in Cairo.

He said Egypt also wanted "guarantees that give them the right for a Palestinian state".

Clinton is on a whirlwind trip through the Middle East seeking to garner Arab support for the resumption of stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

She is due to arrive in Cairo later on Tuesday and will meet with Aboul Gheit and Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman before holding talks on Wednesday with President Hosni Mubarak. The talks are likely to focus on the peace process.

Aboul Gheit, asked about Clinton's stance on resuming talks, said he was hoping for clarification on Washington's view.

"I have to wait and see the reaction of the American Secretary of State as she arrives in Cairo tonight, because she gave certain explanations last night. We have to get them ourselves and then consider the issue," he said.

While in Morocco, Clinton offered aid to boost ties with the Muslim world and urged Israel, the Palestinians and Arab countries to move beyond recrimination in the search for peace.

After a weekend of heated words about the perceived U.S. tilt toward Israel on the issue of settlements in the West Bank, Clinton said it was important for all sides to "be careful about what we say" and avoid angry rhetoric.

"We are determined and persistent in the pursuit of that goal," she said in a speech at a development forum in Morocco attended by Arab ministers.

"We need to work together in a constructive spirit toward this shared goal of a comprehensive peace. I believe very strongly that it is attainable ... (and) that with your support we can find a way through."

Clinton's speech unveiled a modest new set of aid proposals aimed at building on President Barack Obama's promise in a June address in Cairo to make a "new beginning" on Washington's strained ties with the Islamic world.

But it came after Clinton sparked a new outburst of Arab anger by praising Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's offer of "restraint" on settlements without repeating earlier U.S. calls for a freeze on them, which is the Palestinian position.

Clinton repeated that the United States is committed to reaching a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, saying this was a key to achieving a peaceful and prosperous future for the region.

Hoping to cast the United States as a helpful partner in development for Muslim communities, Clinton outlined a series of small steps to increase funding for civil society groups, youth empowerment and job promotion.

"We are committed to building ladders of opportunity to help develop the enormous talent that resides in the people of this region," she said.

The programs Clinton announced on Tuesday include a $76 million project to boost economic opportunities in Yemen, a $30 million project for vulnerable young people in Jordan and an entrepreneurship summit in Washington next year to bring Muslim innovators together with U.S. business leaders.

Taken together the new package pales in comparison to the billions of dollars in aid that Washington extends to governments in the region, including both Israel and Egypt.

Obama's Cairo speech had sparked some hope in the Arab world that Washington was ready to take a tougher line with Israel, with the U.S. president saying flatly that Israel should stop building settlements on the West Bank.

Those hopes turned to anger as Washington backed off.

On Monday, Clinton sought to control the damage, saying that her praise on Saturday for Israel's offer of restraint on settlements was aimed at encouraging moves toward dialogue.

Clinton said the Obama administration still believed that Israel's offer fell short of U.S. expectations, and urged both sides to take more positive steps to set the stage for resuming peace talks stalled since December.

"I think President Obama was absolutely clear. He wanted a halt to all settlement activity," Clinton told Al Jazeera television on Tuesday. "And perhaps those of us who work with him and for him could have been clearer in communicating that that is his policy, that is what we're committed to doing".

Clinton was due to travel to Egypt for a meeting with President Hosni Mubarak which was also expected to focus on the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

After Clinton's visit to Jerusalem, Palestinians accused the United States of "back-pedaling" on settlements and said a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian talks was not in sight.

Netanyahu has proposed limiting building for now to some 3,000 settler homes already approved by Israel in the West Bank. He does not regard building in East Jerusalem, annexed in defiance of international opposition, as a settlement.

Source: Haaretz News

THE TEN PLAGUES OF EAST JERUSALEM

Ten plagues inflicted on East Jerusalem
By Meir Margalit

The disturbances in East Jerusalem are unlikely to surprise anyone following the situation in the city, and anyone who is attentive to the voices emanating from it. Claims that a small group of inciters seeking political profit is behind the disturbances prove that people supporting such claims know next to nothing about the true situation on the ground. If they were acquainted with events unfolding in the city’s backyard, they would know that the eruption was predictable – and only its time was unknown.

Much has changed in East Jerusalem over the past decade – to the point of becoming intolerable. When Teddy Kollek was Jerusalem’s mayor, its Arab citizens were disadvantaged, but their honour was scrupulously defended. They felt that at least they received civilized treatment. Recently though, several moves have made their lives unbearable and- the most difficult to bear- they feel their honour is being trodden underfoot. Ten plagues are being inflicted on East Jerusalem’s Arab citizens, and they cannot be ranked by gravity.

The first plague: the option of lawfully building a home has become almost impossible. Here, the difficulties have been accumulating for years: proving ownership, the absence of infrastructures, low building percentages, the reduction of areas permitted for construction – all of these have worsened due to the migration of scores of families across the separation fence into the `right side`, risking the loss of their blue (Israeli) identity cards.

The second plague: the separation fence – has not only created a wave of internal migration, but has cut the migrants off from their families, relatives, and loved ones. Matters have become highly complicated and a family visit which in the past entailed a short journey of minutes has become a `journey into the unknown`, in which no one can guess how long it will take to reach the destination, or to return from it. Everything depends on the mood of the soldier standing at the checkpoint.

The third plague: in tandem, the Interior Ministry has intensified the campaign of confiscating identity cards from people whom it maintains are living beyond the municipal borders. Many find that one day their citizenship status has been revoked without their knowledge, and they must retain a lawyer’s services to get it back.

The fourth plague – the Interior Ministry continues to prevent East Jerusalem residents from uniting with their families or spouses and are forced to live in the town without permits, almost in an underground, out of fear of being arrested by the police.

The fifth plague: the settlers are completely unrestrained in their attempts to take over every spot of land in the city`s eastern half. Their irritation has intensified with the rumours and headlines about a political process that is taking shape. Very recently, without any qualms, they have removed entire families from their homes, imposing fear everywhere they go.

The sixth plague: the destruction of homes which threatens thousands of families. This is not because the municipality is capable of demolishing such a huge number of homes, but because none of the thousands of families who received demolition orders knows who the blow will land on, and when their turn to lose their home will arrive. In this situation, every family lives on borrowed time and the stress is a form of torture.

The seventh plague: the economic crisis has caused calamity in the eastern city, with close to 70% of all families there living below the “poverty line”. In the absence of any prospects for improving the situation, they have very little to lose.

The eighth plague: the humiliating attitude of the Border Police, which has become unrestrained and ever more violent, gross and hot-headed. Its soldiers disdain everything that appears Arab, and injure the deepest sensibilities of Arab citizens.

The ninth plague: the archaeological excavations that the state is carrying out close to the Temple Mount, both in the Givati car-park and in El Wad Street, are generating immense concern among those who believe they are intended to cause the collapse of mosques. It is a belief nurtured by their `intimate` knowledge of the settlers who are conducting the excavations and the nationalist-Messianic agenda that motivates them. It may not be true, but in East Jerusalem even a feeling or a rumour can ignite a conflagration.

The tenth plague: the low level of municipal services, ranging from garbage collection, to the education system which determines their inferior status. Every time Arab citizens cross to the western part of the city and see how great the divide is between their own standard of living and that of their Jewish neighbours, it is seared into their awareness.

Apparently most Israelis prefer not to know what is happening in East Jerusalem, but the city’s leaders would do well if they rethink their policies before the huge explosion – of which we’ve seen just a short “trailer” in the past few days.

Dr. Meir Margalit, Member of the Jerusalem City Council for the Meretz faction.

Source: Dessert Peace

Tutu to Haaretz: Arabs paying the price of the Holocaust

"The lesson that Israel must learn from the Holocaust is that it can never get security through fences, walls and guns," Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of South Africa told Haaretz Thursday.

Commenting on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement in Germany Thursday that the lesson of the Holocaust is that Israel should always defend itself, Tutu noted that "in South Africa, they tried to get security from the barrel of a gun. They never got it. They got security when the human rights of all were recognized and respected."

The Nobel Prize laureate spoke to Haaretz in Jerusalem as the organization The Elders concluded its tour of Israel and the West Bank. He said the West was consumed with guilt and regret toward Israel because of the Holocaust, "as it should be."

"But who pays the penance? The penance is being paid by the Arabs, by the Palestinians. I once met a German ambassador who said Germany is guilty of two wrongs. One was what they did to the Jews. And now the suffering of the Palestinians."

He also slammed Jewish organizations in the United States, saying they intimidate anyone who criticizes the occupation and rush to accuse these critics of anti-Semitism. Tutu recalled how such organizations pressured U.S. universities to cancel his appearances on their campuses.

"That is unfortunate, because my own positions are actually derived from the Torah. You know God created you in God's image. And we have a God who is always biased in favor of the oppressed."

Tutu also commented on the call by Ben-Gurion University professor Neve Gordon to apply selective sanctions on Israel.

"I always say to people that sanctions were important in the South African case for several reasons. We had a sports boycott, and since we are a sports-mad country, it hit ordinary people. It was one of the most psychologically powerful instruments.

"Secondly, it actually did hit the pocket of the South African government. I mean, when we had the arms embargo and the economic boycott."

He said that when F.W. de Klerk became president he telephoned congratulations. "The very first thing he said to me was 'well now will you call off sanctions?' Although they kept saying, oh well, these things don't affect us at all. That was not true.

"And another important reason was that it gave hope to our people that the world cared. You know. That this was a form of identification."

Earlier in the day, Tutu and the rest of the delegation visited the village of Bil'in, where protests against the separation fence, built in part on the village's land, take place every week.

"We used to take our children in Swaziland and had to go through border checkpoints in South Africa and face almost the same conduct, where you're at the mercy of a police officer. They can decide when they're going to process you and they can turn you back for something inconsequential. But on the other hand, we didn't have collective punishment. We didn't have the demolition of homes because of the suspicion that one of the members of the household might or might not be a terrorist."

He said the activists in Bil'in reminded him of Ghandi, who managed to overthrow British rule in India by nonviolent means, and Martin Luther King, Jr., who took up the struggle of a black woman who was too tired to go to the back of a segregated bus.

He stressed his belief that no situation was hopeless, praising the success of the Northern Irish peace process. The process was mediated by Senator George Mitchell, who now serves as the special U.S. envoy to the Middle East.

Asked about the controversy in Petah Tikva, where several elementary schools have refused to receive Ethiopian school children, Tutu said that "I hope that your society will evolve."

Source: Haaretz News Jerusalem

JIMMY CARTER’S VIEWS ON THE MIDDLE EAST ~~ IN HIS OWN WORDS

The Elders' View Of the Middle East

By Jimmy Carter
Sunday, September 6, 2009

During the past 16 months I have visited the Middle East four times and met with leaders in Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza. I was in Damascus when President Obama made his historic speech in Cairo, which raised high hopes among the more-optimistic Israelis and Palestinians, who recognize that his insistence on a total freeze of settlement expansion is the key to any acceptable peace agreement or any positive responses toward Israel from Arab nations.

Late last month I traveled to the region with a group of "Elders," including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil and Mary Robinson of Ireland, former prime minister Gro Brundtland of Norway and women's activist Ela Bhatt of India. Three of us had previously visited Gaza, which is now a walled-in ghetto inhabited by 1.6 million Palestinians, 1.1 million of whom are refugees from Israel and the West Bank and receive basic humanitarian assistance from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Israel prevents any cement, lumber, seeds, fertilizer and hundreds of other needed materials from entering through Gaza's gates. Some additional goods from Egypt reach Gaza through underground tunnels. Gazans cannot produce their own food nor repair schools, hospitals, business establishments or the 50,000 homes that were destroyed or heavily damaged by Israel's assault last January.

We found a growing sense of concern and despair among those who observe, as we did, that settlement expansion is continuing apace, rapidly encroaching into Palestinian villages, hilltops, grazing lands, farming areas and olive groves. There are more than 200 of these settlements in the West Bank.

An even more disturbing expansion is taking place in Palestinian East Jerusalem. Three months ago I visited a family who had lived for four generations in their small, recently condemned home. They were laboring to destroy it themselves to avoid much higher costs if Israeli contractors carried out the demolition order. On Aug. 27, we Elders took a gift of food to 18 members of the Hanoun family, recently evicted from their home of 65 years. The Hanouns, including six children, are living on the street, while Israeli settlers have moved into their confiscated dwelling.

Daily, headlines in Jerusalem newspapers say that certain areas and types of construction would be excluded from the settlement freeze and that it would, at best, have a limited duration. Increasingly desperate Palestinians see little prospect of their plight being alleviated; political, business and academic leaders are making contingency plans should President Obama's efforts fail.

We saw considerable interest in a call by Javier Solana, secretary general of the Council of the European Union, for the United Nations to endorse the two-state solution, which already has the firm commitment of the U.S. government and the other members of the "Quartet" (Russia and the United Nations). Solana proposes that the United Nations recognize the pre-1967 border between Israel and Palestine, and deal with the fate of Palestinian refugees and how Jerusalem would be shared. Palestine would become a full U.N. member and enjoy diplomatic relations with other nations, many of which would be eager to respond. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad described to us his unilateral plan for Palestine to become an independent state.

A more likely alternative to the present debacle is one state, which is obviously the goal of Israeli leaders who insist on colonizing the West Bank and East Jerusalem. A majority of the Palestinian leaders with whom we met are seriously considering acceptance of one state, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. By renouncing the dream of an independent Palestine, they would become fellow citizens with their Jewish neighbors and then demand equal rights within a democracy. In this nonviolent civil rights struggle, their examples would be Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

They are aware of demographic trends. Non-Jews are already a slight majority of total citizens in this area, and within a few years Arabs will constitute a clear majority.

A two-state solution is clearly preferable and has been embraced at the grass roots.

Just south of Jerusalem, the Palestinian residents of Wadi Fukin and the nearby Israeli villagers of Tzur Hadassah are working together closely to protect their small shared valley from the ravages of rock spill, sewage and further loss of land from a huge settlement on the cliff above, where 26,000 Israelis are rapidly expanding their confiscated area. It was heartwarming to see the international harmony with which the villagers face common challenges and opportunities.

There are 25 similar cross-border partnerships between Israelis and their Palestinian neighbors. The best alternative for the future is a negotiated peace agreement, so that the example of Wadi Fukin and Tzur Hadassah can prevail along a peaceful border between two sovereign nations.

The writer was the 39th president. He founded The Carter Center, a nongovernmental organization focused on global peace and health issues.

Source: The Washington Post

Obama, Netanyahu and the Settlements

By URI AVNERY

First, an honest disclosure: I loved the Shepherd hotel very much.

In the first years after the Six-Day War, I was a frequent guest there. My work in the Knesset demanded that I stay in Jerusalem at least two nights every week, and after the war I switched from the hotels of West Jerusalem to those in the Eastern part of the city. My favorite was the Shepherd. I felt at home there.

The charm of the place lay in its special atmosphere. It is located in the middle of that ancient Arab town which itself aroused my intense curiosity. Its rooms have high ceilings and old furniture, and it was run by remarkable people - two elderly Arab ladies who were educated in Beirut and steeped in Palestinian-Lebanese culture.

The area surrounding the hotel is the neighborhood of the al-Husseini clan. The holdings of this vast extended family, with more than 5000 members, comprise the greater part of the Sheikh Jarrah quarter, which also includes the legendary Orient House.

The al-Husseini family is one of the handful of aristocratic Jerusalemite families, and perhaps the most respected one (its members certainly think so). For centuries the family has filled at least one of the three most important positions in the town: those of Grand Mufti, mayor and the notable in charge of the Islamic shrines. Shepherd was built by Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti who led the Arab Rebellion in the 1930s and became the Arab the Hebrew community most loved to hate.

I spent hours in conversation with the two ladies, learnt a lot from them and grew very attached to the place. It was a sad day for me when it was closed.

I don’t know how this property fell into the hands of the American millionaire, the Bingo king whose declared intention is to set up Jewish settlements all over the Arab town. Now he wants to build a housing project in the grounds of the Shepherd.

But that’s enough of him. My business is with Binyamin Netanyahu.

* * *

NETANYAHU’S AIM is to Judaize Jerusalem. This week he boasted that in his last term in office, ten years ago, he had set up the fortified Jewish neighborhood of Har Homa.

To Har Homa – whose real name is Jebel Abu Ghneim, Mountain of the Father of Sheep – I also have a sentimental attachment. I spent many days and nights in the struggle to prevent the creation of the monstrous housing project that looms there now.

The leader in this struggle was another Husseini – the unforgettable Feisal. I held him in high esteem. I don’t hesitate to say that I loved him. He was a nobleman in the real sense of the word: a scion of nobility but modest in his manners, generous and approachable, a man of peace but fearless in his confrontations with the occupation troops, a real Palestinian patriot, moderate in his opinions, wise and courageous. He was the son of Abd-al-Kader al-Husseini, the leader of the Arab fighters in the Jerusalem district in the 1948 war, who was killed in the battle for the “Castel” near the city. I had no part in that battle, but I passed by a few hours later in a relief convoy for the besieged Jewish part of Jerusalem. Like most of my comrades, I respected him as an honorable enemy.

The site of Har Homa, for those who have already forgotten, used to be a unique place of beauty between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, a rounded hill covered with a dense wood. The destroyers of Jerusalem – that brutal coalition of real estate sharks, fanatical Zionists, American millionaires and religious mystics – had decided to eliminate that last spot of beauty in order to build a dense, fortified and particularly ugly Jewish settlement. Under the leadership of Feisal and Ta’amri, the former husband of a Jordanian princess, a tent camp was set up. When the bulldozers started to cut down the trees and level the top of the hill, we held dozens of demonstrations and vigils. In one of them I suffered a hemorrhage and would have ended my life there and then, if a Palestinian ambulance had not succeeded in reaching me in that road-less stone desert and got me to the hospital in time. So I have a sentimental attachment to the place.

* * *

THE SHEPHERD provocation is a part of the tireless effort to “Judaize” Jerusalem. In simple words: to carry out ethnic cleansing. This campaign has been going on for 42 years already, from the first day of the occupation of East Jerusalem, but the timing of this particular operation results from tactical considerations.

Netanyahu is facing heavy American pressure to freeze the settlements in the West Bank. He is quite unable to do so, as long as he remains at the head of the coalition he himself chose, which consists of Rightists, religious zealots, settlers and outright fascists. He has offered several “compromises”, all based on various fraudulent ploys, but the Americans have learnt the lessons of the past and did not fall into any of his traps.

His Siamese twin, Ehud Barak, is busy leaking to the media “news” about a grandiose operation: at any moment, with one stroke, like Alexander and the Gordian knot, the dozens of settlement “outposts” that have been set up since 2001 with secret government support will be uprooted. But except for the media people themselves, hardly anyone believes that this will really happen. Certainly not the settlers, judging by their knowing smiles.

So what to do in order to avoid having to dismantle the outposts? Netanyahu, the King of Spin, has a solution: a new provocation to draw attention away from the last one. The Shepherd hotel is now diverting the world’s attention away from the hills of “Judea and Samaria”. When you have a toothache, you forget about your bellyache.

What, he says, the Goyim want to stop us building in Jerusalem, our Holy City?! Our eternal capital, which has been reunited for all eternity?! What Chutzpah! Will they prohibit Jews from building in New York?! Will they forbid Englishmen to build in London?!

Netanyahu really hit his stride when he declared that any Arab can live in West Jerusalem, so why should a Jew not build a home in East Jerusalem?

Clear and to the point – and absolutely false. When Netanyahu says things like that, it is hard to know whether he is spreading lies consciously (though they can easily be exposed), or if he believes his falsehoods himself. Thus, for example, he claimed to remember the British soldiers in front of his home when he was a child – when the last British soldier left the country a year before he was born.

The truth is that with extremely rare exceptions, no Arab can acquire an apartment in West Jerusalem, not to mention building a house there – though large sections of the Western part of the city consist of former Arab neighborhoods, whose inhabitants fled or were driven out during the 1948 war. The former owners of the houses in these quarters (including Talbiya, Katamon, Dir Yassin), who found refuge in East Jerusalem, were not allowed to return to their homes when Jerusalem was “united” in 1967, neither were they paid compensation (as I proposed in the Knesset).

But Netanyahu does not care so much whether people believe him or not. This week, like every other week since he returned to power, he was fully occupied with survival. In order to survive, the coalition must remain intact. To achieve this, he must show that he does not “fold” under American pressure. No better place to prove this than Jerusalem.

About Jerusalem, as official spokesmen never tire of telling us, about Jerusalem there is a national consensus. From wall to wall. From left to extreme right.

However, this myth is long dead. No such consensus exists. Right now, most Israelis are ready to return the Arab quarters of East Jerusalem to Palestinian rule in return for real peace. I know of no Jewish mother who is ready to sacrifice her son in a war for the Shepherd hotel.

* * *

I BEG to contradict yet another myth that is being propagated relentlessly by our media: that a national consensus against President Obama is forming.

As we say in classical Hebrew: No bears and no forest. Or more colloquially: No birds and no shoes.

Many Israelis, very many, hope that Barack Obama will do for them what seems impossible without him: bring them peace. They have despaired of our political system, of both the coalition and the opposition, of both Right and Left. They are convinced that only an outside force can realize this hope.

If indeed Obama does clash with Netanyahu over his refusal to freeze the settlements in the West Bank and his insistence on continuing to build in East Jerusalem, it is for Obama’s victory that many Israelis will be praying. They know that in this battle, it is not Netanyahu but Obama who represents the true interests of Israel.

The question is whether Obama has the power to follow through, as no preceding president since Dwight Eisenhower has done.

Netanyahu does not believe so. His American partners – the defeated Republicans, the Neocons who are now in hiding, the almost-silent Evangelical preachers – this defeated camp is hoping to recover its fortunes by encouraging the Jewish lobby and the Israeli government to provoke Obama. Netanyahu, who has mobilized Congress against the White House in the past, believes that he can do it once again.

Our newspapers are gleefully reporting, with charts and graphs to bear them out, that Obama’s standing in America is sinking. It is not hard to divine that most of this information emanates from Avigdor Lieberman’s Foreign Office, the same source that is feeding the American media with reports of the growing opposition of the Israeli public against Obama. Soon the American media will show Israeli protesters waving posters with Obama in SS uniform, as happened with Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin before him.

* * *

The battle is not about 20 outposts, nor about 20 apartments in the grounds of the Shepherd hotel. Every house in every West Bank settlement serves one supreme purpose: to destroy any possibility for peace. Every Israeli house in East Jerusalem serves the same sublime aim. The opponents of peace know that no Arab leader will ever sign a peace agreement that does not designate East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital, and no Arab leader will ever sign a peace agreement that does not assign all of the West Bank to the State of Palestine.

A historic responsibility rests on the shoulders of Barack Obama: not to fold, not to give in, not to “compromise”. To insist on the total freeze of the settlements, as a first and necessary step towards peace. For his sake, and for ours too.

As an Israeli, I feel like calling out to him: Yes, You Can!

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch's book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.

Source: Counterpunch

Israeli settlers 'are wrecking peace process'

Britain has accused Israel of allowing extremist Jewish settlers to disrupt attempts at relaunching the peace process after police evicted more than 50 Palestinians from their homes in Jerusalem.

As Jewish settlers moved into the Palestinian homes, the British consulate said it was appalled by the evictions, which took place a few hundred yards from the diplomatic mission, after an Israeli court decided in favour of the settlers.

“Israel’s claim that the imposition of extremist Jewish settlers into this ancient Arab neighbourhood is a matter for the courts or the municipality is entirely unacceptable,” the consulate said in a statement. “Their actions are incompatible with Israel’s desire for peace. We urge Israel not to allow extremists to set the agenda.”

The evictions came at a sensitive time, with the US Administration pushing a reluctant right-wing Israeli government towards a freeze on new settlements in Palestinian areas, in the hope of reviving peace talks.

Saeb Erakat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said that the decision to push out Palestinian families, who have lived in the houses for more than half a century, in favour of religious Jewish settlers who claim the whole of the Palestinian territories as their own God-given land, showed that Israel was not serious about renewing peace talks.

“While Israeli authorities have promised the American administration that home demolitions, home evictions and other provocations against Palestinian Jerusalemites would be stopped, what we’ve seen on the ground is completely the opposite,” he said.

Tensions have flared between Israel and Britain recently, with Israel demanding clarification of alleged statements by a diplomat who was quoted in the Arabic media as saying that Britain was financing Palestinian property projects in east Jerusalem to block Jewish settlement expansion.

“We are financing projects aimed at stopping settlement activity,” Martin Day, an Abu Dhabi-based British diplomat, told the Al Arabiya television network last month, according to a transcript supplied by the Israeli authorities.

“One of these projects aims at building a new Palestinian neighbourhood in east Jerusalem and at protecting Palestinian homes from being demolished,” he reportedly said, adding that Britain provided “funds to organisations who monitor settlement activity.”.

However, a British official told The Times the quotes were not translated accurately, and that the projects were urban renewal projects already approved by Jerusalem city council.

The official said that the latest spat reflected Israeli anger at Britain’s funding of anti-occupation groups such as Breaking the Silence, which is run by former Israeli soldiers who gather testimony of alleged Israeli military abuses in the Palestinian territories.

Source: The Times Online

NEW SEASON OF ‘RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT’ (ISRAELI VERSION)

UNBELIEVABLE but true. Israel’s own version of Ripley’s ‘Believe it or not’….. families forcibly removed from their homes that they lived in for generations, so illegal settlers can move in.

OH!!!!! I left out some important facts….. the evicted families are Palestinians and the settlers are Jewish. And all of the above by decision of the Supreme Court of Israel. BUT….. if you speak out against these injustices you get hauled off to jail….. while the illegal, criminal settlers get the full protection of the law.

Unbelievable? But True!

The following was prepared by Joseph Dana of Ibn Ezra….

Sheikh Jarrah – In Memoriam

Last night in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah there was a vigil, a memorial to the families’ homes from which they were evicted. First they were refugees and now they are homeless. After weeks of legal battles, sit-ins and press conferences, several hundreds gathered to acknowledge a critical defeat in the battle over the future of this land and the two peoples who want to live here in peace.

Yes, the Supreme Court ruled, yes, the Palestinians were evicted in accordance with the law and yes, the Jews who moved in there did so legally. But this is a matter of the future viability of a Palestinian state, and the true test, or more correctly, disclosure of Israel’s true intentions and integrity. Assuming the Jews who moved into these houses (and now pray on the rooftops looking down on the newly homeless families in the street), did in fact live there at some point, this only strengthens the argument that all Palestinian refugees are entitled to reclaim their lost homes all over Israel. Israel’s legal system has set this precedent. It has given legal credibility to the 7 million Palestinians who once lived somewhere in Israel and cannot return.

Israel could not be making it any clearer that its policy is to allow, encourage and facilitate Jewish settlement anywhere and everywhere it wishes, right in the middle of Palestinian communities, with the ultimate aim of clearing them out.

How can Israel, in its claim to represent the Jewish people, who have experienced the worst forms of discrimination, violence, ghettoization and homelessness, now inflict it on another people? And what exactly is it trying to achieve? Have we heard any Israeli politician actually articulate what the objective is here, other than showing off the country’s ability to kick people out and take over whatever place they want? What does Israel think it will gain from these reprehensible actions?

Source: Dessert Peace