The Palestinian finance minister recently warned that the two-state solution would be in crisis unless the Palestinian Authority (PA) immediately received more funds. "The two state solution is in jeopardy if the PA is not able to continue to function," Nabeel Kassis said. But Kassis was talking about an imaginary state, one largely funded by international donors. The World Bank announced last week that "sustainable economic growth" was impossible while Israel continued to control vast swathes of the West Bank. Large protests against the PA by Palestinians indicates growing unrest over rising prices and the failure to realise any tangible political moves towards independence. This is why growing numbers of Palestinians under occupation are talking about adopting the one-state solution and pressuring their leaders to follow. "The idea of one state is about … breaking apart the system of privilege that exists and being able to live as an equal," says Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team and contributor to a book I have just co-edited, After Zionism. During a recent visit, I heard many Palestinians say that the two-state solution was barely discussed seriously in Palestinian circles, but that the PA, currently too reliant on western support not to continue the fiction of state-building, as yet persists in believing in its inevitability. The status quo is beginning to crumble, though, with senior PA officials now talking about abandoning the two-state idea and pushing for a one-state equation. Hamas concurs. This will only grow. The real issue in the Israel/Palestine conflict is barely mentioned in this American election cycle; the obsession with Iran has seen to that. Yet, it is increasingly addressed in public debates, opinion pieces and among both the Jewish and Arab communities that it is time to end the two-state industry. Nearly 20 years after the Oslo process, there are now up to 700,000 Jewish colonists living illegally in the West Bank. A just partition of the land, with a Palestinian right of return, is impossible. It is for this reason, among others, that a one-state solution is gaining traction, even within conservative circles. Liberal Jews in the United States, firm believers in justice and human rights, are especially conflicted. The controversy surrounding writer Peter Beinart's recent book, The Crisis of Zionism, encapsulated their growing unease with blindly supporting the Jewish state, the occupation and a two-state solution – all once an article of faith. As Yousef Munayyer, a Palestinian American, recently wrote, to blogger Jerome Slater: "If the two-state outcome is exposed for fantasy, and Palestinians en masse demand civil rights, it is hard to see a sustained, western objection." And among the "non-objection" camp would be many American Jews. Demographically, the two US groups most committed to maintaining the occupation are Christian evangelicals and Orthodox Jews. If a significant number of American Jews start peeling away from the US pro-Israel lobby, breaking with the tradition of pressuring the US Congress to back every Israeli policy, the Jewish state would potentially face economic crisis. The challenges are profound – not least unwinding two decades of Oslo propaganda that dictates the two-state solution as the sole answer – but there are growing calls to imagine what a democratic, secular state in the Middle East might look like. The effect of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movements in the US, Europe and around the world, combined with a rise in Jewish fundamentalism in Israel, which is animated against both Palestinians and Africans, the logic of a democratic, one-state solution seems more desirable and less utopian by the day. A plan for its implementation – a state promising justice for all of its citizens: Jews, Muslims, Christians or atheists – is already being mapped out. The US political establishment largely backs the perpetuation of the two-state charade – witness former State Department official Aaron David Miller writing a few months ago that this outcome is the "only game in town" – but the unpredictability of today's Arab world means that alternative ideas have a chance to gain traction. Israel's ability to control events on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza is shifting, not least due to Egypt's new-found assertiveness. There has never been serious international pressure to implement a two-state solution; instead, Israeli settlement has been indulged. But moving the one-state idea from the fringes to the mainstream obliges defenders of the current situation to explain their reasoning behind endorsing a so-called solution that entrenches discrimination against Arabs. Now is the time to break open the debate.
Read More...
By: Amira Hass
Date: 27/05/2013
×
Slain Bedouin girls' mother, a victim of Israeli-Palestinian bureaucracy
Abir Dandis, the mother of the two girls who were murdered in the Negev town of Al-Fura’a last week, couldn't find a police officer to listen to her warnings, neither in Arad nor in Ma’ale Adumim. Both police stations operate in areas where Israel wants to gather the Bedouin into permanent communities, against their will, in order to clear more land for Jewish communities. The dismissive treatment Dandis received shows how the Bedouin are considered simply to be lawbreakers by their very nature. But as a resident of the West Bank asking for help for her daughters, whose father was Israeli, Dandis faced the legal-bureaucratic maze created by the Oslo Accords. The Palestinian police is not allowed to arrest Israeli civilians. It must hand suspects over to the Israel Police. The Palestinian police complain that in cases of Israelis suspected of committing crimes against Palestinian residents, the Israel Police tend not to investigate or prosecute them. In addition, the town of Al-Azaria, where Dandis lives, is in Area B, under Palestinian civilian authority and Israeli security authority. According to the testimony of Palestinian residents, neither the IDF nor the Israel Police has any interest in internal Palestinian crime even though they have both the authority and the obligation to act in Area B. The Palestinian police are limited in what it can do in Area B. Bringing in reinforcements or carrying weapons in emergency situations requires coordination with, and obtaining permission from, the IDF. If Dandis fears that the man who murdered her daughters is going to attack her as well, she has plenty of reason to fear that she will not receive appropriate, immediate police protection from either the Israelis or the Palestinians. Dandis told Jack Khoury of Haaretz that the Ma’ale Adumim police referred her to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Coordination and Liaison Committee. Theoretically, this committee (which is subordinate to the Civil Affairs Ministry) is the logical place to go for such matters. Its parallel agency in Israel is the Civilian Liaison Committee (which is part of the Coordination and Liaison Administration - a part of the Civil Administration under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories). In their meetings, they are supposed to discuss matters such as settlers’ complaints about the high volume of the loudspeakers at mosques or Palestinians’ complaints about attacks by settlers. But the Palestinians see the Liaison Committee as a place to submit requests for permission to travel to Israel, and get the impression that its clerks do not have much power when faced with their Israeli counterparts. In any case, the coordination process is cumbersome and long. The Palestinian police has a family welfare unit, and activists in Palestinian women’s organizations say that in recent years, its performance has improved. But, as stated, it has no authority over Israeli civilians and residents. Several non-governmental women’s groups also operate in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, and women in similar situations approach them for help. The manager of one such organization told Haaretz that Dandis also fell victim to this confusing duplication of procedures and laws. Had Dandis approached her, she said, she would have referred her to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has expertise in navigating Israel’s laws and authorities.
By: Phoebe Greenwood
Date: 27/05/2013
×
John Kerry unveils plan to boost Palestinian economy
John Kerry revealed his long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East on Sunday, hinging on a $4bn (£2.6bn) investment in the Palestinian private sector. The US secretary of state, speaking at the World Economic Forum on the Jordanian shores of the Dead Sea, told an audience including Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that an independent Palestinian economy is essential to achieving a sustainable peace. Speaking under the conference banner "Breaking the Impasse", Kerry announced a plan that he promised would be "bigger, bolder and more ambitious" than anything since the Oslo accords, more than 20 years ago. Tony Blair is to lead a group of private sector leaders in devising a plan to release the Palestinian economy from its dependence on international donors. The initial findings of Blair's taskforce, Kerry boasted, were "stunning", predicting a 50% increase in Palestinian GDP over three years, a cut of two-thirds in unemployment rates and almost double the Palestinian median wage. Currently, 40% of the Palestinian economy is supplied by donor aid. Kerry assured Abbas that the economic plan was not a substitute for a political solution, which remains the US's "top priority". Peres, who had taken the stage just minutes before, also issued a personal plea to his Palestinian counterpart to return to the negotiations. "Let me say to my dear friend President Abbas," Peres said, "Should we really dance around the table? Lets sit together. You'll be surprised how much can be achieved in open, direct and organised meetings."
By: Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
Date: 27/05/2013
×
Isolation Devastates East Jerusalem Economy
Thick locks hug the front gates of shuttered shops, now covered in graffiti and dust from lack of use. Only a handful of customers pass along the dimly lit road, sometimes stopping to check the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, or ordering meat in near-empty butcher shops. “All the shops are closed. I’m the only one open. This used to be the best place,” said 64-year-old Mustafa Sunocret, selling vegetables out of a small storefront in the marketplace near his family’s home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. Amidst the brightly coloured scarves, clothes and carpets, ceramic pottery and religious souvenirs filling the shops of Jerusalem’s historic Old City, Palestinian merchants are struggling to keep their businesses alive. Faced with worsening health problems, Sunocret told IPS that he cannot work outside of the Old City, even as the cost of maintaining his shop, with high electricity, water and municipal tax bills to pay, weighs on him. “I only have this shop,” he said. “There is no other work. I’m tired.” Abed Ajloni, the owner of an antiques shop in the Old City, owes the Jerusalem municipality 250,000 Israeli shekels (68,300 U.S. dollars) in taxes. He told IPS that almost every day, the city’s tax collectors come into the Old City, accompanied by Israeli police and soldiers, to pressure people there to pay. “It feels like they’re coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police,” Ajloni, who has owned the same shop for 35 years, told IPS. “But where can I go? What can I do? All my life I was in this place.” He added, “Does Jerusalem belong to us, or to someone else? Who’s responsible for Jerusalem? Who?” Illegal annexation Israel occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in 1967. In July 1980, it passed a law stating that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. But Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and subsequent application of Israeli laws over the entire city remain unrecognised by the international community. Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory – along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syrian Golan Heights – and Palestinian residents of the city are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention. Jerusalem has historically been the economic, political and cultural centre of life for the entire Palestinian population. But after decades languishing under destructive Israeli policies meant to isolate the city from the rest of the Occupied Territories and a lack of municipal services and investment, East Jerusalem has slipped into a state of poverty and neglect. “After some 45 years of occupation, Arab Jerusalemites suffer from political and cultural schizophrenia, simultaneously connected with and isolated from their two hinterlands: Ramallah and the West Bank to their east, West Jerusalem and Israel to the west,” the International Crisis Group recently wrote. Israeli restrictions on planning and building, home demolitions, lack of investment in education and jobs, construction of an eight-foot-high separation barrier between and around Palestinian neighbourhoods and the creation of a permit system to enter Jerusalem have all contributed to the city’s isolation. Formal Palestinian political groups have also been banned from the city, and between 2001-2009, Israel closed an estimated 26 organisations, including the former Palestinian Liberation Organisation headquarters in Jerusalem, the Orient House and the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce. Extreme poverty Israel’s policies have also led to higher prices for basic goods and services and forced many Palestinian business owners to close shop and move to Ramallah or other Palestinian neighbourhoods on the other side of the wall. Many Palestinian Jerusalemites also prefer to do their shopping in the West Bank, or in West Jerusalem, where prices are lower. While Palestinians constitute 39 percent of the city’s population today, almost 80 percent of East Jerusalem residents, including 85 percent of children, live below the poverty line. “How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t control your resources? How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t have any control of your borders?” said Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, of “this kind of fragmentation, checkpoints, closure”. “Without freedom of movement of goods and human beings, how could you develop an economy?” he asked. “You can’t talk about independent economy in Jerusalem or the West Bank or in all of Palestine without a political solution. We don’t have a Palestinian economy; we have economic activities. That’s all we have,” Odeh told IPS. Israel’s separation barrier alone, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), has caused a direct loss of over one billion dollars to Palestinians in Jerusalem, and continues to incur 200 million dollars per year in lost opportunities. Israel’s severing and control over the Jerusalem-Jericho road – the historical trade route that connected Jerusalem to the rest of the West Bank and Middle East – has also contributed to the city’s economic downturn. Separation of Jerusalem from West Bank Before the First Intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) began in the late 1980s, East Jerusalem contributed approximately 14 to 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). By 2000, that number had dropped to less than eight percent; in 2010, the East Jerusalem economy, compared to the rest of the OPT, was estimated at only seven percent. “Economic separation resulted in the contraction in the relative size of the East Jerusalem economy, its detachment from the remaining OPT and the gradual redirection of East Jerusalem employment towards the Israeli labour market,” the U.N. report found. Decades ago, Israel adopted a policy to maintain a so-called “demographic balance” in Jerusalem and attempt to limit Palestinian residents of the city to 26.5 percent or less of the total population. To maintain this composition, Israel built numerous Jewish-Israeli settlements inside and in a ring around Jerusalem and changed the municipal boundaries to encompass Jewish neighbourhoods while excluding Palestinian ones. It is now estimated that 90,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem residency rights live on the other side of the separation barrier and must cross through Israeli checkpoints in order to reach Jerusalem for school, medical treatment, work, and other services. “Israel is using all kinds of tools to push the Palestinians to leave; sometimes they are visible, and sometimes invisible tools,” explained Ziad al-Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER). Al-Hammouri told IPS that at least 25 percent of the 1,000 Palestinian shops in the Old City were closed in recent years as a result of high municipal taxes and a lack of customers. “Taxation is an invisible tool…as dangerous as revoking ID cards and demolishing houses,” he said. “Israel will use this as pressure and as a tool in the future to confiscate these shops and properties.”
By the Same Author
Date: 28/09/2005
×
When the Truth Comes to Town
What You Can't Say About Israel in Australia "Melbourne University Publishing should drop this whole disgusting project. If they proceed, I urge the Australian Jewish community, and particularly The Australian Jewish News, to treat it with dignified silence. That is our best response. If, God forbid, it is published, don't give them a dollar. Don't buy the book." Federal Labor MP Michael Danby, Australian Jewish News, August 25 2005 I'm currently writing a book on the Israel/Palestine conflict with Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) and it's due to be released in May 2006. After sending my articles on the subject to various publications around the world, I was already used to Jews and non-Jews writing and calling with abuse and outright hatred. After my recent column on the Gaza withdrawal, a Sydney doctor emailed me and asked: "How well do you think you would be doing with a name like yours if Adolf would have won?" and "As far as your book goes, I might just take a page out of Hitler's book on that one." "The degree of abuse and outright threats now being directed at anyone - academic, analyst, reporter - who dares to criticize Israel (or dares to tell the truth about the Palestinian uprising) is fast reaching McCarthyite proportions", wrote Robert Fisk in December 2000. "The attempt to force the media to obey Israel's rules is now international". The situation has only worsened since 9/11. In late August, Jewish Federal Labor MP Michael Danby wrote a letter to the Australian Jewish News (AJN) and demanded MUP "should drop this whole disgusting project." He claimed that MUP head, Louise Adler, had made comments about Israel and himself that were plainly false. He wanted to "absolutely disassociate himself" from the book because it would be little more than a "propaganda tract" and "an attack on the mainstream Australian Jewish community." The exact reason and timing behind his attack remains unclear though after Danby's refusal to answer some innocuous questions of mine in late 2004 his right, to be sure he seemed to be flagging his disapproval of even debating issues related to the Middle East question. This was true to form. He had slammed me in the past and has a long history of attempting to stop open debate on Israel-related matters. Leaving aside the irony of a Jewish parliamentarian calling for the censorship of a book that didn't yet exist, it's worth remembering Danby is the member for Melbourne Ports, the electorate with the greatest numbers of Jews in Australia [Malcolm Turnbull's Wentworth is not far behind.] He sees his role as defender of the Israeli cause and he articulates what he believes his constituents want to hear. Online magazine Crikey picked up the story and asked whether it was appropriate for an MP to call for a boycott of an unpublished book. A few days later, Danby responded to Crikey, denied he had called for censorship and labeled my views on Israel "disgusting." He cautioned MUP - at a time when Israel was "making a painful withdrawal from Gaza and when the prospects for peace are improving" against publishing books that he thought inappropriate for the times. It begged the question: did Danby truly believe that publishing companies should only produce work that accepted the status quo on issues, rather than challenging or maybe demolishing them? The intentions of my book are ambitious. I believe that the Israel/Palestine conflict is the defining foreign affairs issue of our time and yet remains woefully misunderstood. Danby and numerous pro-Israel supporters are clearly confronted by me posing questions about Australia's pro-Israel media, the Howard government's relationship with Israel and America, the role of the pro-Israel lobby, America's relationship with the Jewish state, my experiences in the Middle East, including through the Palestinian occupied territories and Jewish and Arab voices of dissent. I am a Jew who doesn't believe in the concept of a Jewish state, but then, I also don't believe in the idea of an Islamic or Christian entity either. There is surely room for a non-Zionist Jew to write about the true cost of Zionism both on Israel and the Diaspora. A week after Danby's boycott call, the AJN was filled with letters, including one from Louise Adler. "I am dismayed that a fellow publisher such as the AJN gives space for proposals to boycott ideas", she wrote. "Danby's proposal is inimical to the central Jewish values of tolerance and open debate." Larry Stillman wrote that he fully understood the Danby agenda: "I suspect the book will be central of the predominance of conservative views in the Jewish community about the current state of Israel, Danby included." The Melbourne Age entered the debate soon after, chastised Danby for denying he had called for my book to be banned and discovered yet more evidence of the MP's history of "venting sight unseen." "In the Jewish publication, The Review, he says of David Hare's Stuff Happens, 'I haven't seen the play, nor will I', then cans it based on a review he read." The leading broadsheet also compared the controversy to Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz's failed attempt to ban Norman Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah. By the following week, the AJN was filled with coverage. A large news story featured another Danby justification for his attack. "If I didn't tell people about it [Loewenstein's book] beforehand, knowing what his views are, would I be representing the people I represent?" he said. The paper's editorial entered the fray. Although critical of Danby's censorship call, the AJN "unequivocally rejects Loewenstein's view of a Jewish state as 'fundamentally undemocratic and colonialist idea from a bygone era'", the public should wait for the book's release "before we decide to consign it to the garbage heap of literature." The letters pages were filled with both supportive and critical contributions, including from Danby himself. My ideas "stink" and he was simply "doing what I was elected to do: speak up for the people I represent." He again disingenuously denied having called for censorship. A few days later, I received an unexpected call from well-known Jewish comedian Austen Tayshus. He demanded to know why I was writing my book, suggested Israel was a poor, defenseless Middle Eastern state threatened with annihilation, compared me to a German Jew who collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War and asked why I had the right to air the community's "dirty laundry." I explained that he was clearly so insecure in his position that he felt the need to call and abuse me. I soon ended the call. A few minutes after posting an entry on my blog about the initial call, I received another one from him. He said he would keep on calling me because I was an "ignoramus" and an "asshole." He suggested we have a public debate, which I declined. He suggested Palestinian Hanan Ashrawi as a moderator (after telling me earlier that she was a "terrorist.") The point of debating a man like this was negligible, for the simple fact that he didn't want to debate me - "a sad and lonely man", in his words - nor actually discuss the issues. He wanted to shout and rant. It may have made him feel good about himself. He clearly needed it. I told the Green Left Weekly the real fear behind Danby's attack: "These sort of people don't want discussion, because discussion is threatening. Discussion means that more people are aware, or might become aware, of what actually does go on over there: What does occupation mean, what does it mean that Palestinians often have to wait hours at checkpoints in searing sun, what does it mean that women often have to give birth at checkpoints and often die? They don't want people to know that, for obvious reasons, because it's shameful. And they know if more people find out that kind of stuff, their view about Israel and the relationship between Australia and Israel could change." During this controversy, I received many supportive emails and even financial donations to my website. Mannie De Saxe challenged Danby to put his words into action: "If Danby feels so passionate about Israel, and it is obvious that he does, why doesn't he take his supporters, all those vocal Zionists who, together with that publication which should be called the Israeli Zionist Times but is otherwise known as the Australian Jewish News, and move to Israel where Ariel Sharon has said that he needs all the Jews in the Diaspora to come and live to reduce anti-Semitism around the world." I was extremely lucky that my publisher backed me 100% during this period. Many a publisher, I suspect, would have been scared to receive such vitriol months before the book's release. I received some ugly comments on my blog "you're the nazi Anthony you fucking mental midget. Whose side are you on anyway? THINK about it toolhead" but I remember what John Pilger told me recently; the more they attack you, the more you're having an effect and doing something right. The difficulty in even raising questions related to Israel proves that serious debate is ever-more essential. The world is slowing waking up to the true reality in Israel and Palestine and Australians are joining the chorus of disapproval. Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based freelance journalist and author. He can be reached at antloew@gmail.com. Date: 06/11/2003
×
Hanan Ashrawi and the Price of Dissent
It's not easy advocating Palestinian rights. Edward Said frequently commented upon the constant abuse he had received throughout his life. Upon his death, the Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC) in Australia (related to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in America) renounced Said as 'anti-American and anti-Semitic'. Supporting Palestinian self-determination, critiquing Israeli Government policy and questioning Zionist history was seemingly enough to incur the wrath of Jewish groups around the world. Hanan Ashrawi is currently finding herself in similar straits in Australia. The Sydney Peace Foundation, associated with the University of Sydney, recently decided to award Dr Ashrawi its annual peace prize. Previous winners have included the East Timorese leader Xanana Gusmao in 2000 and Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 1999. What originally appeared to be an uncontroversial choice has developed into a full-blown battle between the Peace Foundation, elements of the Jewish lobby, the New South Wales premier, Bob Carr and the Jewish press. The issue in my opinion, however, is not simply the prize, but a more fundamental debate around Palestinian identity in Australia. I believe it is nothing less than an attempt by the Jewish community to delegitimize the Palestinian cause. This kind of behaviour is becoming a regrettably common Zionist ploy in the Western world for increasingly transparent reasons. Since the announcement of the prize to Ashrawi, Jewish groups have begun a campaign to firstly discredit the high-profile winner, and then to convince Premier Carr that attending the ceremony on November 6 would be, in the words of Gerald Steinberg, an associate professor of political studies at Bar Ilan University, "honouring war, murder and hatred, while debasing the concept of peace and reconciliation". Incidentally, Professor Steinberg launched a petition to stop Ashrawi receiving the prestigious award and received nearly 4000 signatures. The Australian Jewish News (AJN), the sole Jewish community newspaper in Australia, wrote in its editorial on October 17, that "an Australian premier [Bob Carr] is about to present a peace prize to an apologist for terrorism. The problem is not that Premier Carr is meeting Dr Ashrawi; on the contrary, the more engagement there is, the greater the chance of achieving a solution. The problem is that by presenting her with the prize, he is endorsing her track record." Her track record, according to the AJN, is thwarting the Oslo peace deals in the 1990s, not condemning Hamas as a terrorist organization and suggesting Jews living in the West Bank are legitimate targets for Palestinian aggression. All these comments are a misappropriation of the truth. Dr Ashrawi was clearly aware of virulent anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab feeling in the Australian Jewish community, as her comments to the Sydney Morning Herald on October 23 suggested: "I knew there would be mobilised voices trying to malign Palestinians, particularly ones like me who have been outspoken for peace." So who are the groups so determined to smear Dr Ashrawi? The Australian Jewish News has been the conduit through which numerous Jewish groups and individuals have been able to libel her. The paper, not known for its coverage outside the official Israeli/Palestinian paradigm, has chosen to repeat the lies against Ashrawi and in doing so, has become even more of an impediment to dialogues of understanding between the two sides. Writing in The Sydney Morning Herald on October 23, Peter Wertheim, former president of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, suggested: "Ashrawi certainly presents well in the media. She is articulate and intelligent. But she is also dogmatic and ideologically driven. Her carefully cultivated media image as a moderate cannot disguise her consistent history as a rejectionist and a maximalist. Awarding a peace prize to someone with Ashrawi's track record is a de facto endorsement of her hardline views. It has everything to do with politics, and nothing to do with peace. That is why the Jewish community - not some lobby group - is opposed to any attempt to gloss over her uncompromising pronouncements and legitimise her views. Hysterical references to "the power of the Jewish lobby" are merely crude attempts to deflect attention away from the cold hard facts of Ashrawi's public record." Wertheim was gracious enough to argue that "there are, of course, legitimate criticisms that can be made about the peace process and the "road map", from both the Israeli and Palestinian perspectives," but then goes on to list the catalogue of deceptions supposedly perpetuated by one of the leading lights in the Palestinian movement. Jeremy Jones, President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, argued that the awarders of the prize were "blinded by celebrity" and the decision reflected badly on the judges (primarily University of Sydney members, while its advisory body consists of Kerry O'Brien, Pat O'Shane AM and Hugh Mackay, amongst others). This is despite the fact that two previous winners, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mary Robinson, have endorsed the decision. Indeed in August this year, after learning of Jones' complaints regarding the Peace Prize to Ashrawi, NSW Labor member Leo McLeay said the following in the New South Wales parliament: "Mr Jones's comments on this issue are in line with his regular attacks on members of Parliament and others who give any support for the people of PalestineIt amazes me how intolerant Mr Jones and the pro-Israeli lobby can be. If you are not an enthusiastic supporter of the Sharon version of the Berlin Wall (in the West Bank occupied territory) you are considered anti-Jewish. When will the Jeremy Joneses of this world understand that criticism of the Israeli Government and its actions is not anti-Semitism?" Other Jewish groups have also joined in placing pressure on Bob Carr to withdraw his support for Ashrawi. On October 22, the Sydney Lord Mayor, Lucy Turnbull, declared that the City of Sydney would not be supporting the prize to Ashrawi. Turnbull claimed to suddenly find her an unsuitable choice because she was allegedly opposed to a two-state solution. The director of the Peace Prize, Stuart Rees, has said that Ashrawi was awarded the distinction due to her "lifelong advocacy of women's rights [being] just one item of impressive evidence of her work for peace with justice." The debate brings up a number of uncomfortable realities regarding the influence and mentality of the Jewish lobby in Australia, though their modus operandi is far from limited to this country. I would argue that the central, yet unspoken, complaint of the Jewish community is awarding a prize to a woman who so well articulates the Palestinian cause. In the current battle for international legitimacy, there is no question that Israel is losing friends at an ever-increasing rate. For this reason alone, the legitimacy given to Ashrawi lessen the arguments of Zionist and Israeli supporters. She is being given credence after a lifetime of speaking out against Israeli aggression. Speaking on ABC newsradio in 2002 she best summed up the reasons why so many in the Jewish lobby can never understand the Palestinian cause: "Israel seems to think that it can initiate collective punitive measures, it can assassinate people, it can continue to imprison a whole nation and kill civilians at will and with impunity, and doesn't expect that there are people on the other side who will adopt the same tactics. This is self-defeating either way." What infuriates the Zionist lobby is that Ashrawi has seen a succession of Israeli leaders unwilling to make peace and she's be unafraid of saying so. While the likes of Barak, Shamir and Netanyahu has come and gone, and each of them with a proud history of talking peace while expanding settlements and clamping down on the Occupied Territories, Ashrawi has outlived them all. One of the leading lights of the Israeli peace movement, Uri Avnery, founder of Gush Shalom, (gushshalom) has spent a lifetime fighting against the militaristic Israeli mindset and supporting a two-state solution. He recently reminded readers of Ehud Barak's infamous words a few years ago regarding the Palestinians and the proposed peace deals: "There is no one to talk with!" This mentality lives on in the campaign against Hanan Ashrawi. The Jewish lobby doesn't want people like her in the public sphere talking about Palestinian aspirations, hopes, fears, angers or dreams. It's much easier to portray the Palestinians as violent, anarchic and hateful towards Jews, as the Zionist lobby frequently claims. Indeed, members of the Sharon Government or Jewish groups throughout the world echo the words of Barak almost daily. Rawan Abdul-Nabi, writing on the Australian based Palestinian Human Rights Campaign website, said in a powerful editorial recently that the treatment dished out to Ashrawi in Australia fitted a pattern throughout the world. "The Sydney campaign against Dr Ashrawi is part of an ongoing history of attacks against prominent Palestinian spokespeople. Most notably, last year Dr Ashrawi was targeted as a keynote speaker in the US at the Colorado College Symposium titled, 'September 11 - One Year Later: Responding to Global Challenges'. For weeks prior, a national debate was waged in the media and amongst community groups in an attempt to destroy Ashrawi's credibility and diminish her ongoing commitment to justice and peace. The Governor of Colorado, Bill Owens and the State's two Senators succumbed to the pressure and were publicly opposed to Ashrawi's visit. During her address in Colorado, Ashrawi spoke most eloquently and compellingly, passionately and honestly from a Palestinian and humanist viewpoint, despite the intrusive vocal opposition. Amidst heckles and jeers Ashrawi testified to some of the brutal daily realities of living under an illegal military occupation. She spoke of her willingness to devote her life to peace and justice with Israelis and Jews: "I've lived under military occupation most of my adult life. I have been repeatedly beaten up, shot at, interrogated, [and] even imprisoned. I have seen some of my best friends killed. My next-door neighbour's kid shot in the back. I've seen my daughter's childhood totally destroyed, living in fear, being tear-gassed, and living under curfew. I've seen houses demolished, crops destroyed, our infrastructure destroyed. And recently I've lived for weeks under curfew, a prisoner in my own home, without water, without electricity and often without a phone. I've lived under constant shelling -- I've seen the windows and doors of my home (my ancestral home) being blown away. But I'm not saying this to tell you that I'm a victim -- no --I'm saying this to tell you that despite all these things, despite my living under captivity and seeing the worst horrors of violence, being on the receiving end of the last remaining colonial situation in the world, an occupation, I have never succumbed to hate. I have never allowed hate to take over, and I have never accepted any kind of revenge as a motivation." Ashrawi herself is no stranger to these sorts of defamatory campaigns. She has endured campaigns of hate based on slander and lies for most of her life, from those who are intent on silencing the Palestinian narrative. Besides, she has lived a significant part of her life under the jackboot of Israeli occupation; do Australian Jewish leaders think that their attempts to intimidate and silence will succeed in the face of truth and integrity? As Dr Hanan Ashrawi herself said at Colorado College, in the midst of being booed, jeered and faced with "I disagree" placards every time she made a point, (ironically, even when she denounced violence against Israeli civilians): "Not only won't I be distracted -- I wasn't distracted by bullets, I will not be distracted by signs. I just appeal to you to listen. It's important, you might have something to learn. While I'm talking to you here, I have invitations from students, from Israeli universities asking me to address them, and I've addressed many Israeli universities, and they want to listen, because by creating a common discourse, a common language, you overcome not just those stereotypes but precisely those forces that want to perpetuate the conflict. You're sitting here wanting to keep us in conflict." In November 2000, renowned Middle East reporter for the UK's Independent newspaper, Robert Fisk, interviewed Ashrawi at her home in Ramallah. In a far ranging piece, Ashwari rallied against journalistic bias towards Palestinian casualties, the fraud of the so-called peace process and the continued suffering of her people under constant occupation: "The new "intifada" will continue - "in different shapes, different forms" - she believes. "We are not fond of mass suicide, but we want the right to resist occupation and injustice. Then the moment we say 'resist', the Israelis pull out the word 'terrorist' - so a child with a stone becomes the 'legitimate' target for Israeli sniper fire and a high-velocity bullet." The Jewish lobby would claim Ashrawi is justifying suicide bombing, when she is doing nothing of the sort. She is talking about the right of resistance to an illegal and brutal occupation. The same right eventually extended to other peoples throughout the world, not least of which the ANC and its brothers and sisters in South Africa during the apartheid years. The heart of Ashrawi's arguments are best summed up in this comment to Fisk: "Now we are all being fed well-worn phrases: 'peace process', 'back on track', 'ceasefire', 'time-out', 'put an end to violence', 'Arafat to restrain/control his people', 'do we have the right peace partner?' This is a racist way of looking at the Palestinians and it obscures the fact that we've suffered an Israeli occupation all along. When newspapers ask if Palestinians deliberately sacrifice their children, it's an incredibly racist thing to do. They are dehumanising the Palestinians. The press and the Israelis have rid us of the most elemental human feelings in a very cynical, racist discourse that blames the victims." The Jewish lobby in Australia are fully aware they are contributing to the dehumanisation through their campaign against Ashrawi. If Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak or Ariel Sharon (laughably referred to by George W.Bush as "a man of peace") were awarded the peace prize, the Jewish lobby would celebrate the fairness of the distinction. The very fact that a Palestinian is winning, galls Jewish leaders and leaves their bigotry, racism and intolerance clear for all to see. When will we realise that many of these people don't want peace with the Palestinians and prefer spending their time labelling critics of Israeli policy as anti-Semitic? It's a reality many are finally waking up to. At a time when the Howard Government and the Crean Opposition makes shameless overtures to the Jewish lobby, the aggressive campaign against Ashrawi should come as no surprise. As Sydney Morning Herald columnist Alan Ramsey wrote on 6 September, when commenting on a speech given by Labor leader Simon Crean to the Jewish community: Crean: "Beyond the human tragedy, further damage has been done. The Jerusalem bombing could destroy the peace process. For the sake of the people of Israel, and indeed the Palestinian people, I hope it doesn't " Ah yes, '"the Palestinian people". At last, a mention. This extract is approximately a single page of an 11-page speech. Labor's attitude to the Palestinians is similarly modest in the other 10 pages. As a depiction of Labor policy, it represents one of the more sniveling grovels in recent memory. As this cartoon featured on Norman Finkelstein's website displays (author of The Holocaust Industry and Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict), the last quarter century has seen the Zionist lobby surreally shift from victim to oppressor, yet still cannily maintain the victim tag, in face of overwhelming Israeli military and political strength. There is no reason to believe that the current battle over Dr Ashrawi is not yet another attempt at legitimising Jewish supremacy in the Israeli/Palestinian debate. Source: Znet Contact us
Rimawi Bldg, 3rd floor
14 Emil Touma Street, Al Massayef, Ramallah Postalcode P6058131
Mailing address:
P.O.Box 69647 Jerusalem
Palestine
972-2-298 9490/1 972-2-298 9492 info@miftah.org
All Rights Reserved © Copyright,MIFTAH 2023
Subscribe to MIFTAH's mailing list
|