New Statesman Essay -
'Anti-Semitism isn't a local side effect of a dirty war over a patch of land smaller than Wales. It's everywhere from Malaysia to Morocco, and it has arrived here'
NS Essay
Nick Cohen
Monday 10th October 2005
If you challenge liberal orthodoxy, your argument cannot be debated on its merits. You have to be in the pay of global media moguls. You have to be a Jew. By Nick Cohen
On the Saturday of the great anti-war demonstration of 2003, I watched one million people march through London, then sat down to write for the Observer. I pointed out that the march organisers represented a merger of far left and far right: Islamic fundamentalists shoulder to shoulder with George Galloway, the Socialist Workers Party and every other creepy admirer of totalitarianism this side of North Korea. Be careful, I said. Saddam Hussein's Iraq has spewed out predatory armies and corpses for decades. If you're going to advocate a policy that would keep a fascist dictator in power, you should at least talk to his victims, whose number included socialists, communists and liberals - good people, rather like you.
Next day I looked at my e-mails. There were rather a lot of them. The first was a fan letter from Ann Leslie, the Daily Mail's chief foreign correspondent, who had seen the barbarism of Ba'athism close up. Her cheery note ended with a warning: "You're not going to believe the anti-Semitism that is about to hit you." "Don't be silly, Ann," I replied. "There's no racism on the left." I worked my way through the rest of the e-mails. I couldn't believe the anti-Semitism that hit me.
I learned it was one thing being called "Cohen" if you went along with liberal orthodoxy, quite another when you pointed out liberal betrayals. Your argument could not be debated on its merits. There had to be a malign motive. You had to support Ariel Sharon. You had to be in the pay of "international" media moguls or neoconservatives. You had to have bad blood. You had to be a Jew.
My first reaction was so ignoble I blush when I think of it. I typed out a reply that read, "but there hasn't been a Jewish member of my family for 100 years". I sounded like a German begging a Gestapo officer to see the mistake in the paperwork. Mercifully, I hit the "delete" button before sending.
Rather than pander to racism, I directed my correspondents to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a member of the Socialist International which had decided after being on the receiving end of one too many extermination drives that foreign invasion was the only way. No good. I tried sending them to the Iraqi Communist Party, which opposed the invasion but understood the possibilities for liberation beyond the fine minds of the western intelligentsia. No good, either.
As the months passed, and Iraqis were caught between a criminally incompetent occupation and an "insurgency" so far to the right it was off the graph, I had it all. A leading figure on the left asked me to put him in touch with members of the new government. "I knew it! I knew it!" he cried when we next met. "They want to recognise Israel."
I experienced what many blacks and Asians had told me: you can never tell. Where people stand on the political spectrum says nothing about their visceral beliefs. I found the far left wasn't confined to the chilling Socialist Workers Party but contained many scrupulous people it was a pleasure to meet and an education to debate. Meanwhile, the centre was nowhere near as moderate as it liked to think. One minute I would be talking to a BBC reporter or liberal academic and think him a civilised man; the next, he would be screaming about the Jews.
Politicians I'd admired astonished me: Tam Dalyell explained British foreign policy as a Jewish conspiracy; Ken Livingstone embraced a Muslim cleric who favoured the blowing up of Israeli women and children, along with wife-beating and the murder of homosexuals and apostates.
I could go on. The moment when bewilderment settled into a steady scorn, however, was when the Guardian ran a web debate entitled: "David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen are enough to make a good man anti-Semitic". Gorgeously, one vigilant reader complained that the title was prejudiced - the debate should be headlined: "David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen are enough to make a good man, or woman, anti-Semitic."
Mustn't forget our manners now, must we?
I resolved then to complete two tasks: to apologise to Ms Leslie, which was a matter of minutes; and to work out if there was now a left-wing anti-Semitism, which took a little longer.
As I'd had little contact with Jewish religion or culture, I'd rarely given anti-Semitism a thought. I suppose I'd assumed it had burned out in the furnaces of Auschwitz. When the subject came up, I dutifully repeated the liberal mantra that "not all anti-Zionists are anti-Semites" and forgot the corollary "but all anti-Semites are anti-Zionists".
You have to clear away a heap of rubbish before you can distinguish between the two. At first glance, there's a good case for saying that the liberal left is Jew-obsessed. Israel receives more criticism than far worse societies, most notably Sudan, Syria and pre-war Iraq. You can call the double standard anti-Semitism if you want, but I'm not sure it gets you anywhere. It is simply the ineluctable workings of what is known in the human rights trade as "selection bias". Israel is a democracy with an independent judiciary and free press. Inevitably, it is easier in an open country to report abuses of power than cover, say, the deaths of millions and enslavement of whole black tribes in Islamist Sudan. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, came up with "Moynihan's Law" to encapsulate the process. It holds that the number of complaints about a nation's violation of human rights is in inverse proportion to its actual violation of human rights.
He wasn't absolutely right, and the law certainly doesn't work in Israel's case, but you get the point. As long as people know biases exist, no harm is done. In any case, it's not a competition, and it's no defence of Israel to say it's better to be Palestinian than Sudanese. Human rights are universal.
The issue is whether the liberal left is as keen on universal principles as it pretends. An impeccably left-wing group of Jewish academics, who are against the war in Iraq and occupation of the West Bank, gathered recently at [http://www.engageonline.org.uk as they could see parts of the left retreating into special pleading. Their union, the Association of University Teachers, had proposed that academics abandon the freedom to exchange ideas, on which intellectual life depends, by boycotting Israeli universities. Asked why the boycott applied only to Israel and not nations with far greater crimes to their names, the AUT had no reply.]
Racism is often subtle in England. David Hirsh, an Engage supporter, caught it well when he wrote that "the act of singling out Israel as the only illegitimate state - in the absence of any coherent reason for doing so - is in itself anti-Semitic, irrespective of the motivation or opinions of those who make that claim".
I'd agree, if it weren't for a brutal counter-argument that few have the guts to make. Get real, it runs. Universal values are for the birds. The left had a respectable record of exposing the dark corners of the right in South Africa, the Deep South, Pinochet's Chile, Franco's Spain and the Colonels' Greece. Only the bravest had much to say about the Soviet Union, China or Cuba. On the whole, those monstrosities were opposed by the right. Looking back, you can see that good came out of the activism of both sets of critics. Equally, good will come from our obsession with Israel. The Palestinians need help and you shouldn't ask too many questions about the helpers.
All of which sounds reasonable, until you ask a question that I've delayed asking for too long: what is anti-Semitism?
In its 19th- and 20th-century form, it was a conspiratorial explanation of power from the radical right. In this it differed from standard racism, which is generally resentment of powerless outsiders who look odd, lower wages and take jobs. The template was set by the reaction against the American and French revolutions. How could Americans proclaim such insane ideas as the rights of man, the counter-revolutionaries asked. How could the French overthrow the king who loved them and Holy Mother Church which succoured them? They couldn't admit that the Americans and the French wanted to do what they had done. Their consent had to have been manufactured by the new rulers of the world. Originally these were the Freemasons, who were damned for peddling enlightened ideas. Only after Jewish emancipation opened the ghettos were the Jews press-ganged into the plot. They represented everything that was hateful about modernity: equal rights, religious toleration and the destruction of tradition.
I don't like the term "Islamo-fascism" - fascist movements are national movements, not religions. Still, no one can fail to have noticed that in one indisputable respect the west is the "root cause" of Islamist terror: militant Muslims have bought the ideology of the European counter-revolution wholesale.
The appeal is understandable. There is a chosen people: the Germans, the Italians or the Spanish in classic fascism; Sunni Muslims in totalitarian variants of Islam. Domination is theirs by right, but they are denied their inheritance by a conspiracy of infidels, be they westernisers, Jews, sell-out leaders or the corrupters of women and youth.
You can read for yourselves the histories of the links between Nazism and the Arab world in the 1940s, but to bring you up to date, here is what Article 22 of Hamas's covenant says of the Jews: "They were behind the French revolution, the communist revolution and most of the revolutions we heard and hear about, here and there. With their money they formed secret societies, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, the Lions and others in different parts of the world for the purpose of sabotaging societies and achieving Zionist interests."
That's right, Rotary Clubs.
Please don't tell me that it helps the Palestinians to give the far right the time of day, or pretend that Palestinian liberals, socialists, women, gays, freethinkers and Christians (let alone Israeli Jews) would prosper in a Palestine ruled by Hamas. It's not radical, it's barely political, to turn a blind eye and say you are for the Palestinian cause. Political seriousness lies in stating which Palestine you are for and which Palestinians you support. The Palestinian fight is at once an anti-colonial struggle and a clash between modernity and reaction. The confusion of our times comes from the failure to grasp that it is possible to have an anti-colonialism of the far right.
While we're at it, don't excuse Hamas and Islamic Jihad and all the rest by saying the foundation of Israel and the defeat of all the Arab attempts to destroy it made them that way. Anti-Semitism isn't a local side effect of a dirty war over a patch of land smaller than Wales. It's everywhere from Malaysia to Morocco, and it has arrived here. When the BBC showed a Panorama documentary about the ideological roots of the Muslim Council of Britain in the Pakistani religious right, the first reaction of the Council was to accuse it of following an "Israeli agenda". The other day the Telegraph reported that Ahmad Thomson, a Muslim lawyer who advises the Prime Minister on community relations of all things, had declared that a "sinister" group of Jews and Freemasons was behind the invasion of Iraq.
To explain away a global phenomenon as a rational reaction to Israeli oppression, you have once again to turn the Jew into a supernatural figure whose existence is the cause of discontents throughout the earth. You have to revive anti-Semitism.
The alternative is to do what the left used to do. If you look at the list of late-20th-century leftist causes I have mentioned, you will see that the left, for all its faults and crimes, was against fascism. It used to know that the powerful used racism to distract the powerless, as they do to this day in Egypt, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia, where the deployment of Jew hatred is positively tsarist. Although I know it's hard to credit, the left also used to know that the opponents of fascism, including the opponents of Saddam, had to be supported.
But the liberal left has been corrupted by defeat and doesn't know much about anything these days. Marxist-Leninism is so deep in the dustbin of history, it is composting, while social democracy is everywhere on the defensive. Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Christian fundamentalism are beating it in the struggle for working-class and peasant minds. An invigorated capitalism is threatening its European strongholds. There's an awful realisation that Tony Blair and Bill Clinton may be as good as it gets. The temptation in times of defeat is to believe in everything rather than nothing; to go along with whichever cause sounds radical, even if the radicalism on offer is the radicalism of the far right.
In 1878, George Eliot wrote that it was "difficult to find a form of bad reasoning about [Jews] which had not been heard in conversation or been admitted to the dignity of print". So it is again today. Outside the movies of Mel Gibson, Jews aren't Christ killers any longer, but they can't relax, because now they are Nazis, blood-soaked imperialists, the secret movers of neoconservatism, the root cause of every atrocity from 9/11 to 7/7.
It's not that the left as a whole is anti-Semitic, although there are racists who need confronting. Rather, it has been maddened by the direction history has taken. Deracinated and demoralised, its partisans aren't thinking hard enough about where they came from or - and more pertinently - where they are going.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Zionism – A Major Obstacle
By Moshé Machover
19 September 2005
In this article I would like to explain why Zionism, as a political ideology, is a major obstacle to resolution of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict.
Let me stress that I am concerned here with Zionist ideology rather than with the practice of the Zionist project. That the latter is an absolute obstacle to resolution of the conflict is self-evident: it is a colonizatory project, an implantation of settlers, which has – necessarily – been implemented at the expense of the mass of indigenous people and by denial of their national rights. Indeed, the Zionist project is the root cause of the conflict.
Zionist ideology is clearly unacceptable from the perspective of the Palestinian Arab people. But here I propose to consider the case against Zionism from a somewhat less obvious perspective – that of the settler nation.
How may the conflict be resolved?
Let us first ask ourselves what we mean by ‘resolution of the conflict’. I have argued elsewhere (1) that the Zionist colonization of Palestine – unlike the colonization of southern Africa, for example – was not based on exploiting the labour power of the indigenous people, but has aimed, quite consciously and deliberately, at their elimination.(2)
In several other settler states belonging to the same species of colonization, the settlers have succeeded in eliminating the entire indigenous population or in reducing it to small and relatively insignificant remnants. The conflict between
colonizers and colonized ended with the overwhelming and virtually total victory of the former, and was in this sense ‘resolved’.
Such an outcome is very unlikely in the case of the Israeli settler state. To be sure, the historical record suggests that Israel’s Zionist leaders will exploit any opportunity (she‘at kosher in Zionist parlance) for further territorial expansion
and ethnic cleansing. Moreover, the more daring among them will attempt actively to create such opportunities. But however far this process may realistically be pushed, Israel will always find itself surrounded by Arabs, by the Arab nation, of which the Palestinian Arab people is a constituent part.(3)
In the end, the conflict in this case can only be resolved by accommodating the two national groups directly involved: the Palestinian Arabs and the Hebrews.(4) And no accommodation can be a true resolution unless it is based on equality of group
(collective) rights between these two national groups (as well as equality of individual rights to all). This is a minimal necessary condition because its absence means, by definition, that one of these groups will be underprivileged and oppressed. National oppression inexorably leads to national struggle – the very opposite of resolution.
Note that I am not specifying any state-institutional framework for an equality-based resolution. In principle, many alternative frameworks are possible. I do not wish to enter here into the controversy between those who support the socalled ‘two-state solution’ and those who advocate a single ‘secular’ state.(5) In my opinion, this controversy, in the way it is actually conducted, is a diversion. Given the present
balance of power, no true resolution is possible in the short or medium term. In these circumstances a ‘two-state’ settlement is bound to be a travesty: a nominally independent Palestinian ‘state’ that is in reality a disconnected set of Indian Reservations policed by corrupt elites acting as proxies for a dominant Israel – a regional hegemonic nuclear super-power, in its turn a local hatchet man for the global hyper-power. A one-state setup will be no better: an extension of direct military occupation and subjugation.
The regional context
But no balance of power lasts forever. A proper resolution will become possible in the longer term, given a radical socio-political transformation of the Arab world and some form of unification of the Arab nation (of which the Palestinian Arab people is a component). In such circumstances a resolution of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict will necessarily be embedded in a regional constellation, a confederation including the entire Arab East. For this reason it is, in my opinion, an error to think of a resolution of the conflict within a framework confined to the borders of Palestine /Israel (whether as a single state or as divided into two states) in isolation from its regional context.
The impossible as enemy of the difficult
Let me return to the main theme: an accommodation of the two national entities, based on equality of collective national rights.
We must not underestimate the enormous difficulty of such accommodation.
The Hebrew nation will have to give up its long-standing dominance and the privileges that go with it. That this is just doesn’t make it easy. Indeed, it can only become
realistic given a balance of power very different from the present one.
But precisely in such circumstances it will be very difficult for the Palestinian Arabs to accept that the Hebrew nation, created in the Palestinian homeland as a consequence of Zionist colonization, ought to be accommodated and granted equal national rights.
The great difficulty that this represents for mainstream Palestinian nationalism is made clear by arguments put forward by Fateh (the dominant component of the PLO led by the late Yasir ‘Arafat) as far back as 1970, advocating its call for a ‘Secular Democratic Palestine’.(6) By that time, mainstream Palestinian nationalism was coming to terms with the painful realization that the Israelis were there to stay, and had to be accommodated in a future free Palestine. But it denied the highly inconvenient fact that Zionist colonization had given birth to a new Hebrew nation – a fact that is indeed an enormously complicating factor in the conflict. The adjective ‘secular’ in the formula ‘Secular Democratic Palestine’ encoded this denial. In a programmatic article – unsigned, but to my certain knowledge written by Nabil Sha‘ath (then one of
the main Fateh ideologues and now a senior minister in the Palestinian Authority) – Fateh explicitly rejected the idea of a bi-national Palestine as a ‘misconception’: ‘[t]he call for a non-sectarian Palestine should not be confused with … a binational
state’. It argued that in the reality of Palestine ‘the term bi-national and the Arab-Jewish dichotomy [are] meaningless, or at best quite dubious’. Moreover, the article stresses that ‘[t]he liberated Palestine will be part of the Arab Homeland, and will not be another alien state within it’;and looks forward to ‘[t]he eventual unity of Palestine with other Arab States’.(7)
In the programmatic formula ‘Secular Democratic Palestine’ proposed at that time by Fateh, the adjective ‘secular’ was inserted not in opposition to ‘theocratic’ (a theocratic democratic state is in any case a nonsensical concept) but in opposition to ‘bi-national’. The intention was to present the Palestinian–Israeli conflict in religious terms and to propose a future Palestine in which Jews would have individual
equality and freedom of religious worship in a country whose nationality would be Arab.
Yet without accepting the fact that a Hebrew nation exists, and without according it national rights equal to those of the Palestinian Arab people, the conflict cannot be resolved. Let me repeat: inequality is oppression, the opposite of resolution. It will be the delicate task of the most progressive political forces among the Palestinians (and in the region as a whole) to persuade the Palestinian masses of
this.(8)
It is at this point that Zionist ideology constitutes a major obstacle. For Zionism – like a father denying the existence of his unwanted child – denies the existence of a Hebrew nation, newly created in Palestine/Israel. (9)It shares this denial with
mainstream Palestinian nationalism (as illustrated by the programmatic article quoted above), but for a very different reason. According to Zionist ideology, all the Jews around the world constitute a single nation. The true homeland of every Jew is not the country in which s/he may have been born and in which his or her family may have resided for generations. The homeland of this alleged nation is the Biblical Land of
Israel, over which it has an ancient inalienable – indeed Godgiven – national right. Non-Jews living in the Jewish homeland are mere foreign interlopers. Zionist colonization is justified as ‘return to the homeland’ – a right possessed by Jews but denied to those foreign interlopers, the Palestinian refugees, who have been legitimately evicted from the Jewish homeland. There is no Hebrew nation but merely members of the worldwide Jewish nation who have already returned to their homeland, an advance guard of their brethren in the Diaspora, who have a right – indeed a sacred duty – to follow the vanguard and be ‘ingathered’ in the Land of Israel.
Now, my argument is quite simple. In an eventual accommodation, in the framework of a resolution of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict, the Hebrew nation can legitimately claim acceptance as an actually existing nation.
The only justification of this difficult claim is the pragmatic one, that otherwise the conflict cannot be resolved.
But it cannot possibly make and justify this claim while it is in thrall to an ideology that denies its own national existence and instead claims a right over the whole Land of Israel on behalf of an alleged worldwide nation. No accommodation, no resolution, will be possible so long as Israelis subscribe to a claim that demands from the Palestinians (and from the Arab nation as a whole) not only retroactive legitimation of past Zionist colonization, but, in effect, an acceptance of an alleged continuing right to future further ‘ingathering’ – which implies further colonization and expansion. Such an impossible claim precludes a true resolution of the conflict.
1 See my article Is it Apartheid?, November 2004; posted in various websites, e.g..
2 In Zionist parlance, this ethnic cleansing is referred to as ‘transfer’. On its planning and early stages, see Nur Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of ‘Transfer’ in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948, Washington, 1992
3 This is quite different from the case of, say, the US, which was able to fulfil its ‘manifest destiny’ by occupying and ethnically cleansing the whole space from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
4 The latter are commonly called ‘Israeli Jews’. I have long preferred the term ‘Hebrews’, because ‘Jew’ is an ambiguous term, which can denote religious rather (or as well as) ethnic affiliation. On the other hand, the Hebrew nation is most clearly
characterized by its use of the Hebrew language as a common means of everyday and cultural discourse.
5 For a discussion of the ideology coded by the term ‘secular’ in the slogan ‘Secular Democratic Palestine’, see below.
6 This referred of course to the whole of Palestine. At that time the
PLO had not yet agreed to accept a mere rump of the country.
7 ‘Towards the Democratic Palestine’, Fateh (English-language newspaper published by the Information Office of the Palestine Liberation Movement) Vol II, No. 2; 19 January 1970. My emphasis.
8 The Democratic Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PDFLP), the most left-wing faction of the PLO, has indeed gone a long way towards accepting this idea.
9 The formation of a new nation is a common characteristic of settler states where colonization was not based on exploiting the labour power of the indigenous people, but on eliminating them. New settler nations were created in North America and Australia, but not in Algeria or India.
By Moshé Machover
19 September 2005
In this article I would like to explain why Zionism, as a political ideology, is a major obstacle to resolution of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict.
Let me stress that I am concerned here with Zionist ideology rather than with the practice of the Zionist project. That the latter is an absolute obstacle to resolution of the conflict is self-evident: it is a colonizatory project, an implantation of settlers, which has – necessarily – been implemented at the expense of the mass of indigenous people and by denial of their national rights. Indeed, the Zionist project is the root cause of the conflict.
Zionist ideology is clearly unacceptable from the perspective of the Palestinian Arab people. But here I propose to consider the case against Zionism from a somewhat less obvious perspective – that of the settler nation.
How may the conflict be resolved?
Let us first ask ourselves what we mean by ‘resolution of the conflict’. I have argued elsewhere (1) that the Zionist colonization of Palestine – unlike the colonization of southern Africa, for example – was not based on exploiting the labour power of the indigenous people, but has aimed, quite consciously and deliberately, at their elimination.(2)
In several other settler states belonging to the same species of colonization, the settlers have succeeded in eliminating the entire indigenous population or in reducing it to small and relatively insignificant remnants. The conflict between
colonizers and colonized ended with the overwhelming and virtually total victory of the former, and was in this sense ‘resolved’.
Such an outcome is very unlikely in the case of the Israeli settler state. To be sure, the historical record suggests that Israel’s Zionist leaders will exploit any opportunity (she‘at kosher in Zionist parlance) for further territorial expansion
and ethnic cleansing. Moreover, the more daring among them will attempt actively to create such opportunities. But however far this process may realistically be pushed, Israel will always find itself surrounded by Arabs, by the Arab nation, of which the Palestinian Arab people is a constituent part.(3)
In the end, the conflict in this case can only be resolved by accommodating the two national groups directly involved: the Palestinian Arabs and the Hebrews.(4) And no accommodation can be a true resolution unless it is based on equality of group
(collective) rights between these two national groups (as well as equality of individual rights to all). This is a minimal necessary condition because its absence means, by definition, that one of these groups will be underprivileged and oppressed. National oppression inexorably leads to national struggle – the very opposite of resolution.
Note that I am not specifying any state-institutional framework for an equality-based resolution. In principle, many alternative frameworks are possible. I do not wish to enter here into the controversy between those who support the socalled ‘two-state solution’ and those who advocate a single ‘secular’ state.(5) In my opinion, this controversy, in the way it is actually conducted, is a diversion. Given the present
balance of power, no true resolution is possible in the short or medium term. In these circumstances a ‘two-state’ settlement is bound to be a travesty: a nominally independent Palestinian ‘state’ that is in reality a disconnected set of Indian Reservations policed by corrupt elites acting as proxies for a dominant Israel – a regional hegemonic nuclear super-power, in its turn a local hatchet man for the global hyper-power. A one-state setup will be no better: an extension of direct military occupation and subjugation.
The regional context
But no balance of power lasts forever. A proper resolution will become possible in the longer term, given a radical socio-political transformation of the Arab world and some form of unification of the Arab nation (of which the Palestinian Arab people is a component). In such circumstances a resolution of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict will necessarily be embedded in a regional constellation, a confederation including the entire Arab East. For this reason it is, in my opinion, an error to think of a resolution of the conflict within a framework confined to the borders of Palestine /Israel (whether as a single state or as divided into two states) in isolation from its regional context.
The impossible as enemy of the difficult
Let me return to the main theme: an accommodation of the two national entities, based on equality of collective national rights.
We must not underestimate the enormous difficulty of such accommodation.
The Hebrew nation will have to give up its long-standing dominance and the privileges that go with it. That this is just doesn’t make it easy. Indeed, it can only become
realistic given a balance of power very different from the present one.
But precisely in such circumstances it will be very difficult for the Palestinian Arabs to accept that the Hebrew nation, created in the Palestinian homeland as a consequence of Zionist colonization, ought to be accommodated and granted equal national rights.
The great difficulty that this represents for mainstream Palestinian nationalism is made clear by arguments put forward by Fateh (the dominant component of the PLO led by the late Yasir ‘Arafat) as far back as 1970, advocating its call for a ‘Secular Democratic Palestine’.(6) By that time, mainstream Palestinian nationalism was coming to terms with the painful realization that the Israelis were there to stay, and had to be accommodated in a future free Palestine. But it denied the highly inconvenient fact that Zionist colonization had given birth to a new Hebrew nation – a fact that is indeed an enormously complicating factor in the conflict. The adjective ‘secular’ in the formula ‘Secular Democratic Palestine’ encoded this denial. In a programmatic article – unsigned, but to my certain knowledge written by Nabil Sha‘ath (then one of
the main Fateh ideologues and now a senior minister in the Palestinian Authority) – Fateh explicitly rejected the idea of a bi-national Palestine as a ‘misconception’: ‘[t]he call for a non-sectarian Palestine should not be confused with … a binational
state’. It argued that in the reality of Palestine ‘the term bi-national and the Arab-Jewish dichotomy [are] meaningless, or at best quite dubious’. Moreover, the article stresses that ‘[t]he liberated Palestine will be part of the Arab Homeland, and will not be another alien state within it’;and looks forward to ‘[t]he eventual unity of Palestine with other Arab States’.(7)
In the programmatic formula ‘Secular Democratic Palestine’ proposed at that time by Fateh, the adjective ‘secular’ was inserted not in opposition to ‘theocratic’ (a theocratic democratic state is in any case a nonsensical concept) but in opposition to ‘bi-national’. The intention was to present the Palestinian–Israeli conflict in religious terms and to propose a future Palestine in which Jews would have individual
equality and freedom of religious worship in a country whose nationality would be Arab.
Yet without accepting the fact that a Hebrew nation exists, and without according it national rights equal to those of the Palestinian Arab people, the conflict cannot be resolved. Let me repeat: inequality is oppression, the opposite of resolution. It will be the delicate task of the most progressive political forces among the Palestinians (and in the region as a whole) to persuade the Palestinian masses of
this.(8)
It is at this point that Zionist ideology constitutes a major obstacle. For Zionism – like a father denying the existence of his unwanted child – denies the existence of a Hebrew nation, newly created in Palestine/Israel. (9)It shares this denial with
mainstream Palestinian nationalism (as illustrated by the programmatic article quoted above), but for a very different reason. According to Zionist ideology, all the Jews around the world constitute a single nation. The true homeland of every Jew is not the country in which s/he may have been born and in which his or her family may have resided for generations. The homeland of this alleged nation is the Biblical Land of
Israel, over which it has an ancient inalienable – indeed Godgiven – national right. Non-Jews living in the Jewish homeland are mere foreign interlopers. Zionist colonization is justified as ‘return to the homeland’ – a right possessed by Jews but denied to those foreign interlopers, the Palestinian refugees, who have been legitimately evicted from the Jewish homeland. There is no Hebrew nation but merely members of the worldwide Jewish nation who have already returned to their homeland, an advance guard of their brethren in the Diaspora, who have a right – indeed a sacred duty – to follow the vanguard and be ‘ingathered’ in the Land of Israel.
Now, my argument is quite simple. In an eventual accommodation, in the framework of a resolution of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict, the Hebrew nation can legitimately claim acceptance as an actually existing nation.
The only justification of this difficult claim is the pragmatic one, that otherwise the conflict cannot be resolved.
But it cannot possibly make and justify this claim while it is in thrall to an ideology that denies its own national existence and instead claims a right over the whole Land of Israel on behalf of an alleged worldwide nation. No accommodation, no resolution, will be possible so long as Israelis subscribe to a claim that demands from the Palestinians (and from the Arab nation as a whole) not only retroactive legitimation of past Zionist colonization, but, in effect, an acceptance of an alleged continuing right to future further ‘ingathering’ – which implies further colonization and expansion. Such an impossible claim precludes a true resolution of the conflict.
1 See my article Is it Apartheid?, November 2004; posted in various websites, e.g.
2 In Zionist parlance, this ethnic cleansing is referred to as ‘transfer’. On its planning and early stages, see Nur Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of ‘Transfer’ in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948, Washington, 1992
3 This is quite different from the case of, say, the US, which was able to fulfil its ‘manifest destiny’ by occupying and ethnically cleansing the whole space from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
4 The latter are commonly called ‘Israeli Jews’. I have long preferred the term ‘Hebrews’, because ‘Jew’ is an ambiguous term, which can denote religious rather (or as well as) ethnic affiliation. On the other hand, the Hebrew nation is most clearly
characterized by its use of the Hebrew language as a common means of everyday and cultural discourse.
5 For a discussion of the ideology coded by the term ‘secular’ in the slogan ‘Secular Democratic Palestine’, see below.
6 This referred of course to the whole of Palestine. At that time the
PLO had not yet agreed to accept a mere rump of the country.
7 ‘Towards the Democratic Palestine’, Fateh (English-language newspaper published by the Information Office of the Palestine Liberation Movement) Vol II, No. 2; 19 January 1970. My emphasis.
8 The Democratic Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PDFLP), the most left-wing faction of the PLO, has indeed gone a long way towards accepting this idea.
9 The formation of a new nation is a common characteristic of settler states where colonization was not based on exploiting the labour power of the indigenous people, but on eliminating them. New settler nations were created in North America and Australia, but not in Algeria or India.
Monday, September 26, 2005
As the Arabs See the Jews (1947)
By: King Abdullah of Jordan
I am especially delighted to address an American audience, for the tragic problem of Palestine will never be solved without American understanding, American sympathy, American support.
So many billions of words have been written about Palestine—perhaps more than on any other subject in history—that I hesitate to add to them. Yet I am compelled to do so, for I am reluctantly convinced that the world in general, and America in particular, knows almost nothing of the true case for the Arabs.
We Arabs follow, perhaps far more than you think, the press of America. We are frankly disturbed to find that for every word printed on the Arab side, a thousand are printed on the Zionist side.
There are many reasons for this. You have many millions of Jewish citizens interested in this question. They are highly vocal and wise in the ways of publicity. There are few Arab citizens in America, and we are as yet unskilled in the technique of modern propaganda.
The results have been alarming for us. In your press we see a horrible caricature and are told it is our true portrait. In all justice, we cannot let this pass by default.
Our case is quite simple: For nearly 2,000 years Palestine has been almost 100 per cent Arab. It is still preponderantly Arab today, in spite of enormous Jewish immigration. But if this immigration continues we shall soon be outnumbered—a minority in our home.
Palestine is a small and very poor country, about the size of your state of Vermont. Its Arab population is only about 1,200,000. Already we have had forced on us, against our will, some 600,000 Zionist Jews. We are threatened with many hundreds of thousands more.
Our position is so simple and natural that we are amazed it should even be questioned. It is exactly the same position you in America take in regard to the unhappy European Jews. You are sorry for them, but you do not want them in your country.
We do not want them in ours, either. Not because they are Jews, but because they are foreigners. We would not want hundreds of thousands of foreigners in our country, be they Englishmen or Norwegians or Brazilians or whatever.
Think for a moment: In the last 25 years we have had one third of our entire population forced upon us. In America that would be the equivalent of 45,000,000 complete strangers admitted to your country, over your violent protest, since 1921. How would you have reacted to that?
Because of our perfectly natural dislike of being overwhelmed in our own homeland, we are called blind nationalists and heartless anti-Semites. This charge would be ludicrous were it not so dangerous.
No people on earth have been less "anti-Semitic" than the Arabs. The persecution of the Jews has been confined almost entirely to the Christian nations of the West. Jews, themselves, will admit that never since the Great Dispersion did Jews develop so freely and reach such importance as in Spain when it was an Arab possession. With very minor exceptions, Jews have lived for many centuries in the Middle East, in complete peace and friendliness with their Arab neighbours.
Damascus, Baghdad, Beirut and other Arab centres have always contained large and prosperous Jewish colonies. Until the Zionist invasion of Palestine began, these Jews received the most generous treatment—far, far better than in Christian Europe. Now, unhappily, for the first time in history, these Jews are beginning to feel the effects of Arab resistance to the Zionist assault. Most of them are as anxious as Arabs to stop it. Most of these Jews who have found happy homes among us resent, as we do, the coming of these strangers.
I was puzzled for a long time about the odd belief which apparently persists in America that Palestine has somehow "always been a Jewish land." Recently an American I talked to cleared up this mystery. He pointed out that the only things most Americans know about Palestine are what they read in the Bible. It was a Jewish land in those days, they reason, and they assume it has always remained so.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is absurd to reach so far back into the mists of history to argue about who should have Palestine today, and I apologise for it. Yet the Jews do this, and I must reply to their "historic claim." I wonder if the world has ever seen a stranger sight than a group of people seriously pretending to claim a land because their ancestors lived there some 2,000 years ago!
If you suggest that I am biased, I invite you to read any sound history of the period and verify the facts.
Such fragmentary records as we have indicate that the Jews were wandering nomads from Iraq who moved to southern Turkey, came south to Palestine, stayed there a short time, and then passed to Egypt, where they remained about 400 years. About 1300 BC (according to your calendar) they left Egypt and gradually conquered most—but not all—of the inhabitants of Palestine.
It is significant that the Philistines—not the Jews—gave their name to the country: "Palestine" is merely the Greek form of "Philistia."
Only once, during the empire of David and Solomon, did the Jews ever control nearly—but not all—the land which is today Palestine. This empire lasted only 70 years, ending in 926 BC. Only 250 years later the Kingdom of Judah had shrunk to a small province around Jerusalem, barely a quarter of modern Palestine.
In 63 BC the Jews were conquered by Roman Pompey, and never again had even the vestige of independence. The Roman Emperor Hadrian finally wiped them out about 135 AD. He utterly destroyed Jerusalem, rebuilt under another name, and for hundreds of years no Jew was permitted to enter it. A handful of Jews remained in Palestine but the vast majority were killed or scattered to other countries, in the Diaspora, or the Great Dispersion. From that time Palestine ceased to be a Jewish country, in any conceivable sense.
This was 1,815 years ago, and yet the Jews solemnly pretend they still own Palestine! If such fantasy were allowed, how the map of the world would dance about!
Italians might claim England, which the Romans held so long. England might claim France, "homeland" of the conquering Normans. And the French Normans might claim Norway, where their ancestors originated. And incidentally, we Arabs might claim Spain, which we held for 700 years.
Many Mexicans might claim Spain, "homeland" of their forefathers. They might even claim Texas, which was Mexican until 100 years ago. And suppose the American Indians claimed the "homeland" of which they were the sole, native, and ancient occupants until only some 450 years ago!
I am not being facetious. All these claims are just as valid—or just as fantastic—as the Jewish "historic connection" with Palestine. Most are more valid.
In any event, the great Moslem expansion about 650 AD finally settled things. It dominated Palestine completely. From that day on, Palestine was solidly Arabic in population, language, and religion. When British armies entered the country during the last war, they found 500,000 Arabs and only 65,000 Jews.
If solid, uninterrupted Arab occupation for nearly 1,300 years does not make a country "Arab", what does?
The Jews say, and rightly, that Palestine is the home of their religion. It is likewise the birthplace of Christianity, but would any Christian nation claim it on that account? In passing, let me say that the Christian Arabs—and there are many hundreds of thousands of them in the Arab World—are in absolute agreement with all other Arabs in opposing the Zionist invasion of Palestine.
May I also point out that Jerusalem is, after Mecca and Medina, the holiest place in Islam. In fact, in the early days of our religion, Moslems prayed toward Jerusalem instead of Mecca.
The Jewish "religious claim" to Palestine is as absurd as the "historic claim." The Holy Places, sacred to three great religions, must be open to all, the monopoly of none. Let us not confuse religion and politics.
We are told that we are inhumane and heartless because do not accept with open arms the perhaps 200,000 Jews in Europe who suffered so frightfully under Nazi cruelty, and who even now—almost three years after war’s end—still languish in cold, depressing camps.
Let me underline several facts. The unimaginable persecution of the Jews was not done by the Arabs: it was done by a Christian nation in the West. The war which ruined Europe and made it almost impossible for these Jews to rehabilitate themselves was fought by the Christian nations of the West. The rich and empty portions of the earth belong, not to the Arabs, but to the Christian nations of the West.
And yet, to ease their consciences, these Christian nations of the West are asking Palestine—a poor and tiny Moslem country of the East—to accept the entire burden. "We have hurt these people terribly," cries the West to the East. "Won’t you please take care of them for us?"
We find neither logic nor justice in this. Are we therefore "cruel and heartless nationalists"?
We are a generous people: we are proud that "Arab hospitality" is a phrase famous throughout the world. We are a humane people: no one was shocked more than we by the Hitlerite terror. No one pities the present plight of the desperate European Jews more than we.
But we say that Palestine has already sheltered 600,000 refugees. We believe that is enough to expect of us—even too much. We believe it is now the turn of the rest of the world to accept some of them.
I will be entirely frank with you. There is one thing the Arab world simply cannot understand. Of all the nations of the earth, America is most insistent that something be done for these suffering Jews of Europe. This feeling does credit to the humanity for which America is famous, and to that glorious inscription on your Statue of Liberty.
And yet this same America—the richest, greatest, most powerful nation the world has ever known—refuses to accept more than a token handful of these same Jews herself!
I hope you will not think I am being bitter about this. I have tried hard to understand that mysterious paradox, and I confess I cannot. Nor can any other Arab.
Perhaps you have been informed that "the Jews in Europe want to go to no other place except Palestine."
This myth is one of the greatest propaganda triumphs of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the organisation which promotes with fanatic zeal the emigration to Palestine. It is a subtle half-truth, thus doubly dangerous.
The astounding truth is that nobody on earth really knows where these unfortunate Jews really want to go!
You would think that in so grave a problem, the American, British, and other authorities responsible for the European Jews would have made a very careful survey, probably by vote, to find out where each Jew actually wants to go. Amazingly enough this has never been done! The Jewish Agency has prevented it.
Some time ago the American Military Governor in Germany was asked at a press conference how he was so certain that all Jews there wanted to go to Palestine. His answer was simple: "My Jewish advisors tell me so." He admitted no poll had ever been made. Preparations were indeed begun for one, but the Jewish Agency stepped in to stop it.
The truth is that the Jews in German camps are now subjected to a Zionist pressure campaign which learned much from the Nazi terror. It is dangerous for a Jew to say that he would rather go to some other country, not Palestine. Such dissenters have been severely beaten, and worse.
Not long ago, in Palestine, nearly 1,000 Austrian Jews informed the international refugee organisation that they would like to go back to Austria, and plans were made to repatriate them.
The Jewish Agency heard of this, and exerted enough political pressure to stop it. It would be bad propaganda for Zionism if Jews began leaving Palestine. The nearly 1,000 Austrian are still there, against their will.
The fact is that most of the European Jews are Western in culture and outlook, entirely urban in experience and habits. They cannot really have their hearts set on becoming pioneers in the barren, arid, cramped land which is Palestine.
One thing, however, is undoubtedly true. As matters stand now, most refugee Jews in Europe would, indeed, vote for Palestine, simply because they know no other country will have them.
If you or I were given a choice between a near-prison camp for the rest of our lives—or Palestine—we would both choose Palestine, too.
But open up any other alternative to them—give them any other choice, and see what happens!
No poll, however, will be worth anything unless the nations of the earth are willing to open their doors—just a little—to the Jews. In other words, if in such a poll a Jew says he wants to go to Sweden, Sweden must be willing to accept him. If he votes for America, you must let him come in.
Any other kind of poll would be a farce. For the desperate Jew, this is no idle testing of opinion: this is a grave matter of life or death. Unless he is absolutely sure that his vote means something, he will always vote for Palestine, so as not to risk his bird in the hand for one in the bush.
In any event, Palestine can accept no more. The 65,000 Jews in Palestine in 1918 have jumped to 600,000 today. We Arabs have increased, too, but not by immigration. The Jews were then a mere 11 per cent of our population. Today they are one third of it.
The rate of increase has been terrifying. In a few more years—unless stopped now—it will overwhelm us, and we shall be an important minority in our own home.
Surely the rest of the wide world is rich enough and generous enough to find a place for 200,000 Jews—about one third the number that tiny, poor Palestine has already sheltered. For the rest of the world, it is hardly a drop in the bucket. For us it means national suicide.
We are sometimes told that since the Jews came to Palestine, the Arab standard of living has improved. This is a most complicated question. But let us even assume, for the argument, that it is true. We would rather be a bit poorer, and masters of our own home. Is this unnatural?
The sorry story of the so-called "Balfour Declaration," which started Zionist immigration into Palestine, is too complicated to repeat here in detail. It is grounded in broken promises to the Arabs—promises made in cold print which admit no denying.
We utterly deny its validity. We utterly deny the right of Great Britain to give away Arab land for a "national home" for an entirely foreign people.
Even the League of Nations sanction does not alter this. At the time, not a single Arab state was a member of the League. We were not allowed to say a word in our own defense.
I must point out, again in friendly frankness, that America was nearly as responsible as Britain for this Balfour Declaration. President Wilson approved it before it was issued, and the American Congress adopted it word for word in a joint resolution on 30th June, 1922.
In the 1920s, Arabs were annoyed and insulted by Zionist immigration, but not alarmed by it. It was steady, but fairly small, as even the Zionist founders thought it would remain. Indeed for some years, more Jews left Palestine than entered it—in 1927 almost twice as many.
But two new factors, entirely unforeseen by Britain or the League or America or the most fervent Zionist, arose in the early thirties to raise the immigration to undreamed heights. One was the World Depression; the second the rise of Hitler.
In 1932, the year before Hitler came to power, only 9,500 Jews came to Palestine. We did not welcome them, but we were not afraid that, at that rate, our solid Arab majority would ever be in danger.
But the next year—the year of Hitler—it jumped to 30,000! In 1934 it was 42,000! In 1935 it reached 61,000!
It was no longer the orderly arrival of idealist Zionists. Rather, all Europe was pouring its frightened Jews upon us. Then, at last, we, too, became frightened. We knew that unless this enormous influx stopped, we were, as Arabs, doomed in our Palestine homeland. And we have not changed our minds.
I have the impression that many Americans believe the trouble in Palestine is very remote from them, that America had little to do with it, and that your only interest now is that of a humane bystander.
I believe that you do not realise how directly you are, as a nation, responsible in general for the whole Zionist move and specifically for the present terrorism. I call this to your attention because I am certain that if you realise your responsibility you will act fairly to admit it and assume it.
Quite aside from official American support for the "National Home" of the Balfour Declaration, the Zionist settlements in Palestine would have been almost impossible, on anything like the current scale, without American money. This was contributed by American Jewry in an idealistic effort to help their fellows.
The motive was worthy: the result were disastrous. The contributions were by private individuals, but they were almost entirely Americans, and, as a nation, only America can answer for it.
The present catastrophe may be laid almost entirely at your door. Your government, almost alone in the world, is insisting on the immediate admission of 100,000 more Jews into Palestine—to be followed by countless additional ones. This will have the most frightful consequences in bloody chaos beyond anything ever hinted at in Palestine before.
It is your press and political leadership, almost alone in the world, who press this demand. It is almost entirely American money which hires or buys the "refugee ships" that steam illegally toward Palestine: American money which pays their crews. The illegal immigration from Europe is arranged by the Jewish Agency, supported almost entirely by American funds. It is American dollars which support the terrorists, which buy the bullets and pistols that kill British soldiers—your allies—and Arab citizens—your friends.
We in the Arab world were stunned to hear that you permit open advertisements in newspapers asking for money to finance these terrorists, to arm them openly and deliberately for murder. We could not believe this could really happen in the modern world. Now we must believe it: we have seen the advertisements with our own eyes.
I point out these things because nothing less than complete frankness will be of use. The crisis is too stark for mere polite vagueness which means nothing.
I have the most complete confidence in the fair-mindedness and generosity of the American public. We Arabs ask no favours. We ask only that you know the full truth, not half of it. We ask only that when you judge the Palestine question, you put yourselves in our place.
What would your answer be if some outside agency told you that you must accept in America many millions of utter strangers in your midst—enough to dominate your country—merely because they insisted on going to America, and because their forefathers had once lived there some 2,000 years ago?
Our answer is the same.
And what would be your action if, in spite of your refusal, this outside agency began forcing them on you?
Ours will be the same.
From The American Magazine, November 1947, Forwarded by the JPLO List, September 8, 2005
By: King Abdullah of Jordan
I am especially delighted to address an American audience, for the tragic problem of Palestine will never be solved without American understanding, American sympathy, American support.
So many billions of words have been written about Palestine—perhaps more than on any other subject in history—that I hesitate to add to them. Yet I am compelled to do so, for I am reluctantly convinced that the world in general, and America in particular, knows almost nothing of the true case for the Arabs.
We Arabs follow, perhaps far more than you think, the press of America. We are frankly disturbed to find that for every word printed on the Arab side, a thousand are printed on the Zionist side.
There are many reasons for this. You have many millions of Jewish citizens interested in this question. They are highly vocal and wise in the ways of publicity. There are few Arab citizens in America, and we are as yet unskilled in the technique of modern propaganda.
The results have been alarming for us. In your press we see a horrible caricature and are told it is our true portrait. In all justice, we cannot let this pass by default.
Our case is quite simple: For nearly 2,000 years Palestine has been almost 100 per cent Arab. It is still preponderantly Arab today, in spite of enormous Jewish immigration. But if this immigration continues we shall soon be outnumbered—a minority in our home.
Palestine is a small and very poor country, about the size of your state of Vermont. Its Arab population is only about 1,200,000. Already we have had forced on us, against our will, some 600,000 Zionist Jews. We are threatened with many hundreds of thousands more.
Our position is so simple and natural that we are amazed it should even be questioned. It is exactly the same position you in America take in regard to the unhappy European Jews. You are sorry for them, but you do not want them in your country.
We do not want them in ours, either. Not because they are Jews, but because they are foreigners. We would not want hundreds of thousands of foreigners in our country, be they Englishmen or Norwegians or Brazilians or whatever.
Think for a moment: In the last 25 years we have had one third of our entire population forced upon us. In America that would be the equivalent of 45,000,000 complete strangers admitted to your country, over your violent protest, since 1921. How would you have reacted to that?
Because of our perfectly natural dislike of being overwhelmed in our own homeland, we are called blind nationalists and heartless anti-Semites. This charge would be ludicrous were it not so dangerous.
No people on earth have been less "anti-Semitic" than the Arabs. The persecution of the Jews has been confined almost entirely to the Christian nations of the West. Jews, themselves, will admit that never since the Great Dispersion did Jews develop so freely and reach such importance as in Spain when it was an Arab possession. With very minor exceptions, Jews have lived for many centuries in the Middle East, in complete peace and friendliness with their Arab neighbours.
Damascus, Baghdad, Beirut and other Arab centres have always contained large and prosperous Jewish colonies. Until the Zionist invasion of Palestine began, these Jews received the most generous treatment—far, far better than in Christian Europe. Now, unhappily, for the first time in history, these Jews are beginning to feel the effects of Arab resistance to the Zionist assault. Most of them are as anxious as Arabs to stop it. Most of these Jews who have found happy homes among us resent, as we do, the coming of these strangers.
I was puzzled for a long time about the odd belief which apparently persists in America that Palestine has somehow "always been a Jewish land." Recently an American I talked to cleared up this mystery. He pointed out that the only things most Americans know about Palestine are what they read in the Bible. It was a Jewish land in those days, they reason, and they assume it has always remained so.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is absurd to reach so far back into the mists of history to argue about who should have Palestine today, and I apologise for it. Yet the Jews do this, and I must reply to their "historic claim." I wonder if the world has ever seen a stranger sight than a group of people seriously pretending to claim a land because their ancestors lived there some 2,000 years ago!
If you suggest that I am biased, I invite you to read any sound history of the period and verify the facts.
Such fragmentary records as we have indicate that the Jews were wandering nomads from Iraq who moved to southern Turkey, came south to Palestine, stayed there a short time, and then passed to Egypt, where they remained about 400 years. About 1300 BC (according to your calendar) they left Egypt and gradually conquered most—but not all—of the inhabitants of Palestine.
It is significant that the Philistines—not the Jews—gave their name to the country: "Palestine" is merely the Greek form of "Philistia."
Only once, during the empire of David and Solomon, did the Jews ever control nearly—but not all—the land which is today Palestine. This empire lasted only 70 years, ending in 926 BC. Only 250 years later the Kingdom of Judah had shrunk to a small province around Jerusalem, barely a quarter of modern Palestine.
In 63 BC the Jews were conquered by Roman Pompey, and never again had even the vestige of independence. The Roman Emperor Hadrian finally wiped them out about 135 AD. He utterly destroyed Jerusalem, rebuilt under another name, and for hundreds of years no Jew was permitted to enter it. A handful of Jews remained in Palestine but the vast majority were killed or scattered to other countries, in the Diaspora, or the Great Dispersion. From that time Palestine ceased to be a Jewish country, in any conceivable sense.
This was 1,815 years ago, and yet the Jews solemnly pretend they still own Palestine! If such fantasy were allowed, how the map of the world would dance about!
Italians might claim England, which the Romans held so long. England might claim France, "homeland" of the conquering Normans. And the French Normans might claim Norway, where their ancestors originated. And incidentally, we Arabs might claim Spain, which we held for 700 years.
Many Mexicans might claim Spain, "homeland" of their forefathers. They might even claim Texas, which was Mexican until 100 years ago. And suppose the American Indians claimed the "homeland" of which they were the sole, native, and ancient occupants until only some 450 years ago!
I am not being facetious. All these claims are just as valid—or just as fantastic—as the Jewish "historic connection" with Palestine. Most are more valid.
In any event, the great Moslem expansion about 650 AD finally settled things. It dominated Palestine completely. From that day on, Palestine was solidly Arabic in population, language, and religion. When British armies entered the country during the last war, they found 500,000 Arabs and only 65,000 Jews.
If solid, uninterrupted Arab occupation for nearly 1,300 years does not make a country "Arab", what does?
The Jews say, and rightly, that Palestine is the home of their religion. It is likewise the birthplace of Christianity, but would any Christian nation claim it on that account? In passing, let me say that the Christian Arabs—and there are many hundreds of thousands of them in the Arab World—are in absolute agreement with all other Arabs in opposing the Zionist invasion of Palestine.
May I also point out that Jerusalem is, after Mecca and Medina, the holiest place in Islam. In fact, in the early days of our religion, Moslems prayed toward Jerusalem instead of Mecca.
The Jewish "religious claim" to Palestine is as absurd as the "historic claim." The Holy Places, sacred to three great religions, must be open to all, the monopoly of none. Let us not confuse religion and politics.
We are told that we are inhumane and heartless because do not accept with open arms the perhaps 200,000 Jews in Europe who suffered so frightfully under Nazi cruelty, and who even now—almost three years after war’s end—still languish in cold, depressing camps.
Let me underline several facts. The unimaginable persecution of the Jews was not done by the Arabs: it was done by a Christian nation in the West. The war which ruined Europe and made it almost impossible for these Jews to rehabilitate themselves was fought by the Christian nations of the West. The rich and empty portions of the earth belong, not to the Arabs, but to the Christian nations of the West.
And yet, to ease their consciences, these Christian nations of the West are asking Palestine—a poor and tiny Moslem country of the East—to accept the entire burden. "We have hurt these people terribly," cries the West to the East. "Won’t you please take care of them for us?"
We find neither logic nor justice in this. Are we therefore "cruel and heartless nationalists"?
We are a generous people: we are proud that "Arab hospitality" is a phrase famous throughout the world. We are a humane people: no one was shocked more than we by the Hitlerite terror. No one pities the present plight of the desperate European Jews more than we.
But we say that Palestine has already sheltered 600,000 refugees. We believe that is enough to expect of us—even too much. We believe it is now the turn of the rest of the world to accept some of them.
I will be entirely frank with you. There is one thing the Arab world simply cannot understand. Of all the nations of the earth, America is most insistent that something be done for these suffering Jews of Europe. This feeling does credit to the humanity for which America is famous, and to that glorious inscription on your Statue of Liberty.
And yet this same America—the richest, greatest, most powerful nation the world has ever known—refuses to accept more than a token handful of these same Jews herself!
I hope you will not think I am being bitter about this. I have tried hard to understand that mysterious paradox, and I confess I cannot. Nor can any other Arab.
Perhaps you have been informed that "the Jews in Europe want to go to no other place except Palestine."
This myth is one of the greatest propaganda triumphs of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the organisation which promotes with fanatic zeal the emigration to Palestine. It is a subtle half-truth, thus doubly dangerous.
The astounding truth is that nobody on earth really knows where these unfortunate Jews really want to go!
You would think that in so grave a problem, the American, British, and other authorities responsible for the European Jews would have made a very careful survey, probably by vote, to find out where each Jew actually wants to go. Amazingly enough this has never been done! The Jewish Agency has prevented it.
Some time ago the American Military Governor in Germany was asked at a press conference how he was so certain that all Jews there wanted to go to Palestine. His answer was simple: "My Jewish advisors tell me so." He admitted no poll had ever been made. Preparations were indeed begun for one, but the Jewish Agency stepped in to stop it.
The truth is that the Jews in German camps are now subjected to a Zionist pressure campaign which learned much from the Nazi terror. It is dangerous for a Jew to say that he would rather go to some other country, not Palestine. Such dissenters have been severely beaten, and worse.
Not long ago, in Palestine, nearly 1,000 Austrian Jews informed the international refugee organisation that they would like to go back to Austria, and plans were made to repatriate them.
The Jewish Agency heard of this, and exerted enough political pressure to stop it. It would be bad propaganda for Zionism if Jews began leaving Palestine. The nearly 1,000 Austrian are still there, against their will.
The fact is that most of the European Jews are Western in culture and outlook, entirely urban in experience and habits. They cannot really have their hearts set on becoming pioneers in the barren, arid, cramped land which is Palestine.
One thing, however, is undoubtedly true. As matters stand now, most refugee Jews in Europe would, indeed, vote for Palestine, simply because they know no other country will have them.
If you or I were given a choice between a near-prison camp for the rest of our lives—or Palestine—we would both choose Palestine, too.
But open up any other alternative to them—give them any other choice, and see what happens!
No poll, however, will be worth anything unless the nations of the earth are willing to open their doors—just a little—to the Jews. In other words, if in such a poll a Jew says he wants to go to Sweden, Sweden must be willing to accept him. If he votes for America, you must let him come in.
Any other kind of poll would be a farce. For the desperate Jew, this is no idle testing of opinion: this is a grave matter of life or death. Unless he is absolutely sure that his vote means something, he will always vote for Palestine, so as not to risk his bird in the hand for one in the bush.
In any event, Palestine can accept no more. The 65,000 Jews in Palestine in 1918 have jumped to 600,000 today. We Arabs have increased, too, but not by immigration. The Jews were then a mere 11 per cent of our population. Today they are one third of it.
The rate of increase has been terrifying. In a few more years—unless stopped now—it will overwhelm us, and we shall be an important minority in our own home.
Surely the rest of the wide world is rich enough and generous enough to find a place for 200,000 Jews—about one third the number that tiny, poor Palestine has already sheltered. For the rest of the world, it is hardly a drop in the bucket. For us it means national suicide.
We are sometimes told that since the Jews came to Palestine, the Arab standard of living has improved. This is a most complicated question. But let us even assume, for the argument, that it is true. We would rather be a bit poorer, and masters of our own home. Is this unnatural?
The sorry story of the so-called "Balfour Declaration," which started Zionist immigration into Palestine, is too complicated to repeat here in detail. It is grounded in broken promises to the Arabs—promises made in cold print which admit no denying.
We utterly deny its validity. We utterly deny the right of Great Britain to give away Arab land for a "national home" for an entirely foreign people.
Even the League of Nations sanction does not alter this. At the time, not a single Arab state was a member of the League. We were not allowed to say a word in our own defense.
I must point out, again in friendly frankness, that America was nearly as responsible as Britain for this Balfour Declaration. President Wilson approved it before it was issued, and the American Congress adopted it word for word in a joint resolution on 30th June, 1922.
In the 1920s, Arabs were annoyed and insulted by Zionist immigration, but not alarmed by it. It was steady, but fairly small, as even the Zionist founders thought it would remain. Indeed for some years, more Jews left Palestine than entered it—in 1927 almost twice as many.
But two new factors, entirely unforeseen by Britain or the League or America or the most fervent Zionist, arose in the early thirties to raise the immigration to undreamed heights. One was the World Depression; the second the rise of Hitler.
In 1932, the year before Hitler came to power, only 9,500 Jews came to Palestine. We did not welcome them, but we were not afraid that, at that rate, our solid Arab majority would ever be in danger.
But the next year—the year of Hitler—it jumped to 30,000! In 1934 it was 42,000! In 1935 it reached 61,000!
It was no longer the orderly arrival of idealist Zionists. Rather, all Europe was pouring its frightened Jews upon us. Then, at last, we, too, became frightened. We knew that unless this enormous influx stopped, we were, as Arabs, doomed in our Palestine homeland. And we have not changed our minds.
I have the impression that many Americans believe the trouble in Palestine is very remote from them, that America had little to do with it, and that your only interest now is that of a humane bystander.
I believe that you do not realise how directly you are, as a nation, responsible in general for the whole Zionist move and specifically for the present terrorism. I call this to your attention because I am certain that if you realise your responsibility you will act fairly to admit it and assume it.
Quite aside from official American support for the "National Home" of the Balfour Declaration, the Zionist settlements in Palestine would have been almost impossible, on anything like the current scale, without American money. This was contributed by American Jewry in an idealistic effort to help their fellows.
The motive was worthy: the result were disastrous. The contributions were by private individuals, but they were almost entirely Americans, and, as a nation, only America can answer for it.
The present catastrophe may be laid almost entirely at your door. Your government, almost alone in the world, is insisting on the immediate admission of 100,000 more Jews into Palestine—to be followed by countless additional ones. This will have the most frightful consequences in bloody chaos beyond anything ever hinted at in Palestine before.
It is your press and political leadership, almost alone in the world, who press this demand. It is almost entirely American money which hires or buys the "refugee ships" that steam illegally toward Palestine: American money which pays their crews. The illegal immigration from Europe is arranged by the Jewish Agency, supported almost entirely by American funds. It is American dollars which support the terrorists, which buy the bullets and pistols that kill British soldiers—your allies—and Arab citizens—your friends.
We in the Arab world were stunned to hear that you permit open advertisements in newspapers asking for money to finance these terrorists, to arm them openly and deliberately for murder. We could not believe this could really happen in the modern world. Now we must believe it: we have seen the advertisements with our own eyes.
I point out these things because nothing less than complete frankness will be of use. The crisis is too stark for mere polite vagueness which means nothing.
I have the most complete confidence in the fair-mindedness and generosity of the American public. We Arabs ask no favours. We ask only that you know the full truth, not half of it. We ask only that when you judge the Palestine question, you put yourselves in our place.
What would your answer be if some outside agency told you that you must accept in America many millions of utter strangers in your midst—enough to dominate your country—merely because they insisted on going to America, and because their forefathers had once lived there some 2,000 years ago?
Our answer is the same.
And what would be your action if, in spite of your refusal, this outside agency began forcing them on you?
Ours will be the same.
From The American Magazine, November 1947, Forwarded by the JPLO List, September 8, 2005
Saturday, July 16, 2005
Raising the Alarm - What May Come After Evacuation of Jewish Settlers From the Gaza Strip
We, the undersigned, feel that it is urgent and necessary to raise the alarm regarding what may come during and after evacuation of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip occupied by Israel in 1967, in the event that the evacuation is implemented.
We held back on getting this statement published and circulated, seeking additional feedback from our peers. The publication in HaAretz (22 June 2005) quoting statements by General (Reserves) Eival Giladi, the head of the Coordination and Strategy team of the Prime Minister's Office, motivated us not to delay publication and circulation any further. Confirming our worst fears, General (Res.) Eival Giladi went on record in print and on television to the effect that "Israel will act in a very resolute manner in order to prevent terror attacks and [militant] fire while the disengagement is being implemented" and that "If pinpoint response proves insufficient, we may have to use weaponry that causes major collateral damage, including helicopters and planes, with mounting danger to surrounding people."
We believe that one primary, unstated motive for the determination of the government of the State of Israel to get the Jewish settlers of the Qatif (Katif) settlement block out of the Gaza Strip may be to keep them out of harm's way when the Israeli government and military possibly trigger an intensified mass attack on the approximately one and a half million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, of whom about half are 1948 Palestine refugees.
The scenario could be similar to what has already happened in the past - a tactic that Ariel Sharon has used many times in his military career - i.e., utilizing provocation in order to launch massive attacks.
Following this pattern, we believe that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz are considering to utilize provocation for vicious attacks in the near future on the approximately one and a half million Palestinian inhabitants of the Gaza Strip: a possible combination of intensified state terror and mass killing.
The Israeli army is not likely to risk the kind of casualties to its soldiers that would be involved in employing ground troops on a large scale in the Gaza Strip. With General Dan Halutz as Chief of Staff they don’t need to. It was General Dan Halutz, in his capacity as Commander of the Israeli Air Force, who authorized the bombing of a civilian Gaza City quarter with a bomb weighing one ton, and then went on record as saying that he sleeps well and that the only thing he feels when dropping a bomb is a slight bump of the aircraft.
The initiators of this alarm have been active for many decades in the defence of human rights inside the State of Israel and beyond. We do not have the academic evidence to support our feeling, but given past behavior, ideological leanings and current media spin initiated by the Israeli government and military, we believe that the designs of the State of Israel are clear, and we submit that our educated intuition with matters pertaining to the defence of human rights has been more often correct than otherwise.
We urge all those who share the concern above to add their names to ours and urgently give this alarm as wide a circulation as possible.
Circulating and publishing this text may constitute a significant factor in deterring the Israeli government, thus protecting the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip from this very possible catastrophe and contributing to prevent yet more war crimes from occurring.
Please sign, circulate, and publish this alarm without delay!
Please send notification of your signature to
Tamar Yaron
tiyaron@hazorea.org.il
[ tiyaron AT hazorea.org.il ]
WE WOULD ALSO APPRECIATE RECEIVING NOTIFICATION IF THE ALARM WAS PUBLISHED IN ANY MEDIA AND/OR IF IT WAS SENT TO A GROUP DISTRIBUTION LIST.
Uri Davis, Sakhnin,
Ilan Pappe, Tiv'on,
Tamar Yaron, Kibbutz Hazorea,
We, the undersigned, feel that it is urgent and necessary to raise the alarm regarding what may come during and after evacuation of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip occupied by Israel in 1967, in the event that the evacuation is implemented.
We held back on getting this statement published and circulated, seeking additional feedback from our peers. The publication in HaAretz (22 June 2005) quoting statements by General (Reserves) Eival Giladi, the head of the Coordination and Strategy team of the Prime Minister's Office, motivated us not to delay publication and circulation any further. Confirming our worst fears, General (Res.) Eival Giladi went on record in print and on television to the effect that "Israel will act in a very resolute manner in order to prevent terror attacks and [militant] fire while the disengagement is being implemented" and that "If pinpoint response proves insufficient, we may have to use weaponry that causes major collateral damage, including helicopters and planes, with mounting danger to surrounding people."
We believe that one primary, unstated motive for the determination of the government of the State of Israel to get the Jewish settlers of the Qatif (Katif) settlement block out of the Gaza Strip may be to keep them out of harm's way when the Israeli government and military possibly trigger an intensified mass attack on the approximately one and a half million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, of whom about half are 1948 Palestine refugees.
The scenario could be similar to what has already happened in the past - a tactic that Ariel Sharon has used many times in his military career - i.e., utilizing provocation in order to launch massive attacks.
Following this pattern, we believe that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz are considering to utilize provocation for vicious attacks in the near future on the approximately one and a half million Palestinian inhabitants of the Gaza Strip: a possible combination of intensified state terror and mass killing.
The Israeli army is not likely to risk the kind of casualties to its soldiers that would be involved in employing ground troops on a large scale in the Gaza Strip. With General Dan Halutz as Chief of Staff they don’t need to. It was General Dan Halutz, in his capacity as Commander of the Israeli Air Force, who authorized the bombing of a civilian Gaza City quarter with a bomb weighing one ton, and then went on record as saying that he sleeps well and that the only thing he feels when dropping a bomb is a slight bump of the aircraft.
The initiators of this alarm have been active for many decades in the defence of human rights inside the State of Israel and beyond. We do not have the academic evidence to support our feeling, but given past behavior, ideological leanings and current media spin initiated by the Israeli government and military, we believe that the designs of the State of Israel are clear, and we submit that our educated intuition with matters pertaining to the defence of human rights has been more often correct than otherwise.
We urge all those who share the concern above to add their names to ours and urgently give this alarm as wide a circulation as possible.
Circulating and publishing this text may constitute a significant factor in deterring the Israeli government, thus protecting the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip from this very possible catastrophe and contributing to prevent yet more war crimes from occurring.
Please sign, circulate, and publish this alarm without delay!
Please send notification of your signature to
Tamar Yaron
tiyaron@hazorea.org.il
[ tiyaron AT hazorea.org.il ]
WE WOULD ALSO APPRECIATE RECEIVING NOTIFICATION IF THE ALARM WAS PUBLISHED IN ANY MEDIA AND/OR IF IT WAS SENT TO A GROUP DISTRIBUTION LIST.
Uri Davis, Sakhnin,
Ilan Pappe, Tiv'on,
Tamar Yaron, Kibbutz Hazorea,
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Moshe Machover to the SWP
I think you are still missing the point. I am not concerned with GA: I have
given up on trying to talk some sense into his arrogant head. Whether he is
given "space to retreat" is irrelevant to the issue at hand. I am concerned
with the possible effect on the anti-Zionist campaign of the left.
The real point is the political blunder the SWP is making by promoting him.
This threatens to compromise the entire left-wing opposition to Zionism.
When established or bourgeois bookshops promote GA, it is regrettable, but
of no great concern to me, precisely because it doesn't compromise the left.
The left doesn't need to dissociate itself from those bookshops.
When Bookmarks promotes him, it is a different matter. It is indeed
regrettable that JAZ find themselves having to picket Bookmarks in company
with AWL. But Bookmarks has brought this about by their obstinate deafness.
JAZ has been virtually forced into this position because it must dissociate
itself from GA and from those misguided bodies on the left who promote him.
This is why I support the picket this evening (which unfortunately I shall
be unable to attend). As I understand it, this is not mainly a protest
against GA (he is hardly worth it) but a way of dissociating oneself from
the SWP/Bookmarks support for him.
If GA is allowed to hold forth in Bookmarks without any left protest, then
all of us may be tarred by the same brush -- thanks to SWP's blunder.
And, by the way, leaving aside GA's unsavoury views about Jews and
Jewishness, I cannot for the life of me understand why the SWP should
promote a person who is not a socialist and is philosophically very hostile
to Marxism.
ATB, Moshe'
I think you are still missing the point. I am not concerned with GA: I have
given up on trying to talk some sense into his arrogant head. Whether he is
given "space to retreat" is irrelevant to the issue at hand. I am concerned
with the possible effect on the anti-Zionist campaign of the left.
The real point is the political blunder the SWP is making by promoting him.
This threatens to compromise the entire left-wing opposition to Zionism.
When established or bourgeois bookshops promote GA, it is regrettable, but
of no great concern to me, precisely because it doesn't compromise the left.
The left doesn't need to dissociate itself from those bookshops.
When Bookmarks promotes him, it is a different matter. It is indeed
regrettable that JAZ find themselves having to picket Bookmarks in company
with AWL. But Bookmarks has brought this about by their obstinate deafness.
JAZ has been virtually forced into this position because it must dissociate
itself from GA and from those misguided bodies on the left who promote him.
This is why I support the picket this evening (which unfortunately I shall
be unable to attend). As I understand it, this is not mainly a protest
against GA (he is hardly worth it) but a way of dissociating oneself from
the SWP/Bookmarks support for him.
If GA is allowed to hold forth in Bookmarks without any left protest, then
all of us may be tarred by the same brush -- thanks to SWP's blunder.
And, by the way, leaving aside GA's unsavoury views about Jews and
Jewishness, I cannot for the life of me understand why the SWP should
promote a person who is not a socialist and is philosophically very hostile
to Marxism.
ATB, Moshe'
Monday, May 30, 2005
Letter from America
"So the boycott campaign is over, or is it? The campaign will be revisited in future AUT conferences, many academics are instituting their own personal boycotts, and the notion that Israel is an apartheid state is now in front of many people as never before. As, an unintended consequence of, an Israel Insider headline has it "the stain remains."
Admit it. You guys lost this one bigtime. All you proved was that your policy of attempting brainwashing of British students couldn't stand the test of debate in a country that is more sympathetic to Palestinians than Israelis in a community that perhaps the most pro-Palestinian part of society.
The Guardian and the Independent have been publishing articles calling Israel an apartheid state for years. The AUT "boycott" didn't gain you any more supporters.
"So the boycott campaign is over, or is it? The campaign will be revisited in future AUT conferences, many academics are instituting their own personal boycotts, and the notion that Israel is an apartheid state is now in front of many people as never before. As, an unintended consequence of, an Israel Insider headline has it "the stain remains."
Admit it. You guys lost this one bigtime. All you proved was that your policy of attempting brainwashing of British students couldn't stand the test of debate in a country that is more sympathetic to Palestinians than Israelis in a community that perhaps the most pro-Palestinian part of society.
The Guardian and the Independent have been publishing articles calling Israel an apartheid state for years. The AUT "boycott" didn't gain you any more supporters.
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Buying off the settlers
by Uri Avnery,
Perhaps there are countries where drivers stuck in traffic jams don't get annoyed. They know they can do nothing about it, so they wait patiently. Think their own thoughts, listen to the radio or read until the jam disperses.
We Israelis are not like that. We are a nervous lot. We have no patience. When we are stuck in a jam, we curse the world and the government, demanding a solution, perhaps a dirt road by which we might escape.
This is why I find it so hard to understand the tactics of the settlers, who use the traffic jam as their main weapon. If they believe that by blocking major traffic arteries, burning tires and creating huge jams throughout the country they are going to win the sympathy of the public, they are even more divorced from reality than it seemed already.
Actually, the blocking of roads is a declaration of war against the Israeli public. It marks a clear front-line: the settlers and their adherents on one side and the majority of the population on the other.
That is, indeed, the real front-line. Their stupid tactics just confirm this. They sense that the great majority is against them and say, in effect: if you don't love us, at least fear us. If you don't submit to us, we shall turn your life into hell.
Even foreigners, who follow events on their television screens, can distinguish the creators of this mayhem from ordinary Israelis. Almost all the rioters are knitted-kippa-wearing religious youth, the products of the religious-messianic-nationalist-fanatical educational hothouses.
This is a minority, something between 15% and 25% of the population. But a well organized minority. Their hard core is concentrated in the settlements and the Yeshivot (religious seminaries) and is easy to mobilize. They have leaders with absolute authority, who stand effectively above the law. Their totalitarian discipline finds expression at election times, when 99% of the votes in religious neighborhoods go to the candidate chosen by their rabbis.
Such features lend this minority a power far beyond their numbers. Especially when faced with a weak-kneed, diffuse, apathetic, unorganized majority, without any coherent ideology. That is a classic situation, which has led in many countries to the establishment of fascist dictatorships on the ruins of a democracy that nobody was ready to stand up for.
In the superb German film "Der Untergang" (Downfall), which has reached Israel, too, one sees that even in the last hours of his life, Adolf Hitler expressed nothing but contempt for the "degenerate democracies". But the historic truth is that the "degenerate democracies" stood up to him. True, Britain and the United States would not have overcome him, 60 years ago, without the totalitarian Soviet Union on their side, but they proved that the democratic regime can be counted on at the moment of truth, can mobilize itself and fight even harder than the totalitarian states. The Third World War (the so-called "Cold War") has proved this again.
Is the Israeli democracy up to it?
An old Israeli joke tells of an Israeli captured by cannibals. They put him in a pot and start to light a fire under it, "Wait! Wait!" he shouts, "First of all hit me! Beat me!" When they do so, he jumps out of the pot, picks up his gun and shoots all of them.
"If you had a weapon, why didn't you use it before?" he is asked.
"I can only shoot when I am angry," he replies.
Perhaps that is true for all ordinary Israelis. In order to stand up to the settlers, they need to be angry. And the settlers, with the blindness typical of fanatics, are doing everything possible to make them angry. Their experience over the last 37 years has led them to believe that there is no limit to the cowardice, the indifference and the patience of the majority.
They have a lot of evidence for this belief, since all the media have turned themselves into willing propaganda organs for this dictatorial minority, which has declared war on the government, the Knesset and the entire democratic system.
We have already expounded on this amazing phenomenon: on every news program, in all TV networks, the settlers fill at least 50% of the time with an unending stream of tricks and gimmicks. In the absolute majority of cases, no contrary voice is heard at all, not even for the sake of "balance". The impression created is that this is a private war between the settlers and the Prime Minister (the "Successor of Hitler", as some graffiti have it), and does not concern the general public.
The height of absurdity is reached on State Television, which every citizen is compelled by law to support financially: the entire public pays for what is in practice an anti-State propaganda organ.
During the last years of the German Weimar republic, one of its remarkable traits was the tolerant attitude of the courts towards the Nazi hoodlums, who rioted, beat up passers-by who "looked Jewish", waged street battles with Communists, wounded and killed. They invariably got off with light sentences. The judges treated them as misguided good guys, real patriots who overdid it a bit. Anti-Nazis, on the other hand, when accused of the same behavior, were severely punished. Is something similar happening here?
Like judges, like policemen. That, too, reminds one of the situation here. When the police are faced with right-wing rioters they never use tear gas, rubber-coated bullets, salt bullets or water cannon - which are routinely used against Jewish peace demonstrators, not to mention Arab ones, who may be confronted with live rounds too.
All this is not too much for the ordinary Israeli, at least not up to now. But it is quite possible that money matters will be.
The settlers are playing a very sophisticated double game. Their leaders threaten civil war. On the walls there appear graffiti announcing "We have killed Rabin, we shall kill Sharon!" (Rabin's murderer did indeed come from this camp, but for years we were admonished not to mention this, because it might "split the nation".) Every day, spokespersons use the media to sketch blood-curdling scenarios: masses of sympathizers will march on Gush Katif, traffic throughout the country will come to a standstill, matters will "get out of hand", blood will be spilled.
At the same time, the representatives of the settlers negotiate the compensation they will be paid for their "uprooting". It starts at 400 thousand dollars and may reach several million for a family. They will also get a luxurious mobile home, worth half a million Shekels, for temporary accommodation, and it is theirs to keep even after the government builds them a permanent home. There are also plans to give the settlers a whole stretch of territory north of Ashkelon, where they will enjoy what amounts to de facto local autonomy. It is proposed to give them two dunums for one, the land to be taken from Kibbutzim and Moshavim. One settler lady boasted on television about her 35 hothouses, each worth 200 thousand dollars, for which she expects full compensation.
The fanatics declare that they will not take the money, that they will fight to the last drop of blood. But in practice, every threat just raises the price. The more extreme the language of the settlers, the more money the government is frightened into offering. Hundreds of thousands will march on Gush Katif? Fifty thousand dollars more per family. Thousands of soldiers will refuse orders? Another 100 thousand dollars. Blood will flow? Two hundred thousand more. The sky is the limit.
But we have seen this opera before. We remember the evacuation of the Yamit region in North Sinai in 1982. Settlers threatened suicide in a bunker, Tzahi Hanegbi (now a minister) and his comrades climbed a tall tower, zealots promised violent resistance. It ended with the farce of the white foam battles on the roofs. And what about the money? In the end, not one single settler - not one! - refused to accept the fat compensation on offer. Some of them settled in Gush Katif and will now receive compensation for the second time. If they are shrewd enough to move to a West Bank settlement, they could finish up as very rich people indeed.
All this is happening while thousands of teachers are being dismissed for lack of funds, vital welfare institutions are being closed, cancer patients and others are being condemned to death because their medicines fall outside the "health basket" that qualifies for government subsidy.
And that may, in the end, arouse even the apathetic majority. The moment will come when it will get up and say: Enough! If one looks carefully, one may already discern signs of a rising tide of anger, the "I am not a sucker!" syndrome.
That may be the most positive outcome of what is happening now around the "disengagement plan": The abyss between the settlers and the general public is growing ever wider. The settlers themselves, in their unlimited avarice and hooliganism, are helping to bring this about. Nothing symbolizes this better than the blocking of the roads.
This Tuesday Israel's most popular TV network (Channel 2) launches a five-chapter series with Israel's most popular anchorman, Haim Yavin, a veritable "Mr. Consensus", depicting the settlers as "a fanatical, crazy, racist, disgusting, violent and dangerous sect", in the words of a prominent critic.
Could the consensus be changing?
by Uri Avnery,
Perhaps there are countries where drivers stuck in traffic jams don't get annoyed. They know they can do nothing about it, so they wait patiently. Think their own thoughts, listen to the radio or read until the jam disperses.
We Israelis are not like that. We are a nervous lot. We have no patience. When we are stuck in a jam, we curse the world and the government, demanding a solution, perhaps a dirt road by which we might escape.
This is why I find it so hard to understand the tactics of the settlers, who use the traffic jam as their main weapon. If they believe that by blocking major traffic arteries, burning tires and creating huge jams throughout the country they are going to win the sympathy of the public, they are even more divorced from reality than it seemed already.
Actually, the blocking of roads is a declaration of war against the Israeli public. It marks a clear front-line: the settlers and their adherents on one side and the majority of the population on the other.
That is, indeed, the real front-line. Their stupid tactics just confirm this. They sense that the great majority is against them and say, in effect: if you don't love us, at least fear us. If you don't submit to us, we shall turn your life into hell.
Even foreigners, who follow events on their television screens, can distinguish the creators of this mayhem from ordinary Israelis. Almost all the rioters are knitted-kippa-wearing religious youth, the products of the religious-messianic-nationalist-fanatical educational hothouses.
This is a minority, something between 15% and 25% of the population. But a well organized minority. Their hard core is concentrated in the settlements and the Yeshivot (religious seminaries) and is easy to mobilize. They have leaders with absolute authority, who stand effectively above the law. Their totalitarian discipline finds expression at election times, when 99% of the votes in religious neighborhoods go to the candidate chosen by their rabbis.
Such features lend this minority a power far beyond their numbers. Especially when faced with a weak-kneed, diffuse, apathetic, unorganized majority, without any coherent ideology. That is a classic situation, which has led in many countries to the establishment of fascist dictatorships on the ruins of a democracy that nobody was ready to stand up for.
In the superb German film "Der Untergang" (Downfall), which has reached Israel, too, one sees that even in the last hours of his life, Adolf Hitler expressed nothing but contempt for the "degenerate democracies". But the historic truth is that the "degenerate democracies" stood up to him. True, Britain and the United States would not have overcome him, 60 years ago, without the totalitarian Soviet Union on their side, but they proved that the democratic regime can be counted on at the moment of truth, can mobilize itself and fight even harder than the totalitarian states. The Third World War (the so-called "Cold War") has proved this again.
Is the Israeli democracy up to it?
An old Israeli joke tells of an Israeli captured by cannibals. They put him in a pot and start to light a fire under it, "Wait! Wait!" he shouts, "First of all hit me! Beat me!" When they do so, he jumps out of the pot, picks up his gun and shoots all of them.
"If you had a weapon, why didn't you use it before?" he is asked.
"I can only shoot when I am angry," he replies.
Perhaps that is true for all ordinary Israelis. In order to stand up to the settlers, they need to be angry. And the settlers, with the blindness typical of fanatics, are doing everything possible to make them angry. Their experience over the last 37 years has led them to believe that there is no limit to the cowardice, the indifference and the patience of the majority.
They have a lot of evidence for this belief, since all the media have turned themselves into willing propaganda organs for this dictatorial minority, which has declared war on the government, the Knesset and the entire democratic system.
We have already expounded on this amazing phenomenon: on every news program, in all TV networks, the settlers fill at least 50% of the time with an unending stream of tricks and gimmicks. In the absolute majority of cases, no contrary voice is heard at all, not even for the sake of "balance". The impression created is that this is a private war between the settlers and the Prime Minister (the "Successor of Hitler", as some graffiti have it), and does not concern the general public.
The height of absurdity is reached on State Television, which every citizen is compelled by law to support financially: the entire public pays for what is in practice an anti-State propaganda organ.
During the last years of the German Weimar republic, one of its remarkable traits was the tolerant attitude of the courts towards the Nazi hoodlums, who rioted, beat up passers-by who "looked Jewish", waged street battles with Communists, wounded and killed. They invariably got off with light sentences. The judges treated them as misguided good guys, real patriots who overdid it a bit. Anti-Nazis, on the other hand, when accused of the same behavior, were severely punished. Is something similar happening here?
Like judges, like policemen. That, too, reminds one of the situation here. When the police are faced with right-wing rioters they never use tear gas, rubber-coated bullets, salt bullets or water cannon - which are routinely used against Jewish peace demonstrators, not to mention Arab ones, who may be confronted with live rounds too.
All this is not too much for the ordinary Israeli, at least not up to now. But it is quite possible that money matters will be.
The settlers are playing a very sophisticated double game. Their leaders threaten civil war. On the walls there appear graffiti announcing "We have killed Rabin, we shall kill Sharon!" (Rabin's murderer did indeed come from this camp, but for years we were admonished not to mention this, because it might "split the nation".) Every day, spokespersons use the media to sketch blood-curdling scenarios: masses of sympathizers will march on Gush Katif, traffic throughout the country will come to a standstill, matters will "get out of hand", blood will be spilled.
At the same time, the representatives of the settlers negotiate the compensation they will be paid for their "uprooting". It starts at 400 thousand dollars and may reach several million for a family. They will also get a luxurious mobile home, worth half a million Shekels, for temporary accommodation, and it is theirs to keep even after the government builds them a permanent home. There are also plans to give the settlers a whole stretch of territory north of Ashkelon, where they will enjoy what amounts to de facto local autonomy. It is proposed to give them two dunums for one, the land to be taken from Kibbutzim and Moshavim. One settler lady boasted on television about her 35 hothouses, each worth 200 thousand dollars, for which she expects full compensation.
The fanatics declare that they will not take the money, that they will fight to the last drop of blood. But in practice, every threat just raises the price. The more extreme the language of the settlers, the more money the government is frightened into offering. Hundreds of thousands will march on Gush Katif? Fifty thousand dollars more per family. Thousands of soldiers will refuse orders? Another 100 thousand dollars. Blood will flow? Two hundred thousand more. The sky is the limit.
But we have seen this opera before. We remember the evacuation of the Yamit region in North Sinai in 1982. Settlers threatened suicide in a bunker, Tzahi Hanegbi (now a minister) and his comrades climbed a tall tower, zealots promised violent resistance. It ended with the farce of the white foam battles on the roofs. And what about the money? In the end, not one single settler - not one! - refused to accept the fat compensation on offer. Some of them settled in Gush Katif and will now receive compensation for the second time. If they are shrewd enough to move to a West Bank settlement, they could finish up as very rich people indeed.
All this is happening while thousands of teachers are being dismissed for lack of funds, vital welfare institutions are being closed, cancer patients and others are being condemned to death because their medicines fall outside the "health basket" that qualifies for government subsidy.
And that may, in the end, arouse even the apathetic majority. The moment will come when it will get up and say: Enough! If one looks carefully, one may already discern signs of a rising tide of anger, the "I am not a sucker!" syndrome.
That may be the most positive outcome of what is happening now around the "disengagement plan": The abyss between the settlers and the general public is growing ever wider. The settlers themselves, in their unlimited avarice and hooliganism, are helping to bring this about. Nothing symbolizes this better than the blocking of the roads.
This Tuesday Israel's most popular TV network (Channel 2) launches a five-chapter series with Israel's most popular anchorman, Haim Yavin, a veritable "Mr. Consensus", depicting the settlers as "a fanatical, crazy, racist, disgusting, violent and dangerous sect", in the words of a prominent critic.
Could the consensus be changing?
Monday, May 23, 2005
Haifa University and the “Demographic Problem”
Report by Avraham Oz
Published: 22/05/05
comment from Moshe Machover:
Dear Friend,
The following message from Prof Oz of Haifa University is long, but well worth reading. In my opinion it provides ample evidence justifying the AUT institutional boycott against Haifa U.
On this point, I disagree with Oz’s judgement. He is right in pointing out that Israel’s reaction to the boycott is a reinforcement of the persecution complex: “The whole world is against us...”. This is only to be expected. Israeli-Zionist ideology has always used the self-righteous victimhood complex as a pretext for oppressing its own victims. In this it is by no means unique (cf. the ideology of Serb chauvinism).
But this doesn’t mean that the boycott cannot achieve useful results: wait until it really bites. And, in any case, why should the world pander to Zionist ideological psychopathology?
ATB, M Machover
comment from Greg Dropkin:
In exposing the racist conference at his university, Avraham Oz points out “Needless to say, no Arab speaker: after all, are the patients taking part in medical conferences?”. By the same logic, is it sufficient to examine how Israeli academics and the State of Israel are reacting to the boycott, as Prof. Oz does, or should the voices of Palestinian academics be heard as well? They continue - quite strongly - to call for a boycott. Trade unionists in Britain can respond to their call and prioritise their viewpoint in solidarity, even whilst knowing that some honourable Israelis, like Prof. Oz, disagree with the tactic. It's Palestinians who are on the receiving end of the Occupation and institutional racism.
Dear friends,
First, a warning, derived from TV news reports I watched with the years: those with weak stomachs, please refrain from reading this update.
What would you say if in a university, say, in New York, would hold an academic conference called “The Demographic Problem in New York”, and, perusing the list of presentations you will realize that the “problem” dealt with refers exclusively to the scary proliferation of Jews in New York?
Unimaginable, right?
Well, please note the date of this update. In my (currently boycotted by the AUT) university, a conference was held today, entitled “The Demographic Problem and the Demographic Policy of Israel,” organized by the Herzl Institute for the Study of Zionism, The Reuven Hecht Estate, and the Chair for Geo-Strategy. In my update from April 12th, I have provided some links as to the identity of the carefully selective list of speakers in that conference:
Professor Yoav Gelber, Head of the Herzl Institute, University of Haifa
(Please look up the following:
http://www.freeman.org/m_online/mar05/gelber.php
http://list.haifa.ac.il/pipermail/alef/2004-January/000172.html)
Professor Arnon Sofer
(Please look up the following:
http://www.bintjbeil.com/articles/en/020628_galili.html
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/10/18/181802.shtml
http://www.palestinetimes.net/issue122/articles.html)
Mr Harry Zesler, representative of the Hecht Estate
(Please look up the following:
http://www.iruim.net/bnaibrith/page.htm)
Professor Yossi Ben-Artzi, Rector, University of Haifa
(Please look up the following:
http://stop-us-military-aid-to-israel.net/b2/index.php?p=74&more=1)
General (res.) Uzi Dayan, Head of the Zionist Council, initiator of the “Apartheid Wall”
(Please look up the following:
http://www.gush-shalom.org/thewall/
http://www.countercurrents.org/pa-rappaport100703.htm>)
General (res.) Herzl Gedge, Head of the Population Administration, Ministry of the Interior:
(Please look up the following:
http://www.kavlaoved.org.il/katava_main.asp?news_id=1023&sivug_id=4)
Dr Yitzhak Ravid
(Please look up the following:
http://www.dontknowitfromadam.com/Blog_Archives/000109.html)
Professor Sergio della Pergola, Head of Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
(Please look up the following:
http://www.jafi.org.il/papers/2004/june/june24hz.htm
www.aish.com/jewishissues/jewishsociety/The_Real_Threat_to_Europes_Jews.asp)
Dr Yuval Steinitz, Head of Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee (Likud), one of Likud MKs who opposed Sharon’s “disengagement” plan.
(Please look up the following:
http://www.isracast.com/Transcripts/240504c_trans.htm
http://www.freeman.org/m_online/sep01/steinitz.htm
http://info.jpost.com/C002/Supplements/Intifada/str_04.html)
Needless to say, no speaker who might express a contrary view.
Needless to say, no Arab speaker: after all, are the patients taking part in medical conferences? Read again the title of the conference: they are “the problem!” When a reporter of an Israeli TV news channel reported the event (which developed into a major scandal, as you will read below), interviewed on the spot my colleague Professor Arnon Sofer, the chief organizer of the conference, what would he do to a Bedouine who has ten children, he answered on record, facing the camera: “If it were up to me, I would have arrested him, for he is a criminal.” He did not refer to an ultra-religious Jew, who in many cases is bound to have a similar number of children, or sometimes more. After they are all Jewish, and thus, do not constitute “a problem.”
Since I try to set some limits to the degree of stomach convulsion my job description at the University of Haifa obliges me to contract, I did not volunteer to show up on campus on a day where my attendance is not required for performing my teaching duties. But several of my friends, colleagues and students, went there, to protest. The event is described below, in an Ha’aretz report, and a more detailed account provided by my colleague Dr Ilan Pappe of the despicable event, which represents the way my university interprets academic freedom. Yes, I said my university, not a few right wing extremists who happen to be employed or invited by the university. The guest of honour at the conference was the Rector of the University, Professor Yossi Ben-Artzi, who thought it wise to confer a prestigious prize under the auspices of that conference. This, then, is not a marginal conference tolerated by the university in the name of academic freedom: the well advertised attendance of the highest academic figure of the university (no matter who occupies that capacity at this time) voids any future claim by the university (when their PR consultants will advise them to do so) that it had no part in organizing it.
But before you move to the reports, a few words about the boycott. Some of you would say all this justifies it even further. Two major pretexts advanced by the initiators and supporters of the move were that it may prove effective: perhaps change some minds in Israel, and definitely make noise to bring the Palestinian issue to the forefront. Now, almost a month since it was launched, as an experimental balloon (and before it may well be retracted next week), let’s account for its effectiveness according to those parameters: Indeed the boycott decision made a lot of noise in my university, as well as in Israel and the world. During this month, some atrocities were made by the Israeli security forces, a Palestinian teenager shot by the security forces died in a Palestinian ambulance rushing him to hospital when the ambulance was detained for 15 critical minutes by an IDF watch barrier; Injuring demonstrators against the construction of the evil wall; Allegations of anti-semitism were flaunted to each direction.; Pappe was attacked by the Mini-stress of Education at her speech at the ceremony awarding the Israel prize to scientists, academics and artists; The Israeli cabinet voted 13-7 to confer university status on Judea and Samaria College in the West Bank settlement Ariel (a political move, since the Ariel College is rated one of the lowest ranking in quality among the Israeli colleges, and no academic criterion justifies such a promotion).
My university’s administration had a lively activity during these weeks: do you think that following the boycott they have reconsidered the refusal to put signs in Arabic, in addition to Hebrew and English, on campus? to employ some Arab students in the library or elsewhere at the university? Reconsider the closure of the University theatre closed for mounting plays in Arabic? Reconsider forbidding a Christmas tree installed in Christmas a the university’s main building, the same place were a Jewish Menora was put during Hannuka? Did they raise a voice of protest against the incessant undermining by the Israeli security forces of Palestinian higher education in the Occupied Territories? No, none of these. Instead, they were busy defaming Ilan Pappe; spread officially (via the university’s official spokesperson, a misleading account of the disqualifying, by an alleged anonymous committee, of Teddy Katz’s formerly cum-laude-approved MA theasis; hired a British lawyer to send a letter to the AUT threatening them that if the boycott was not revoked, the university will file a libel suit at a British court; and passing in the Senate a regulation empowering the University use the Appointments and Promotions committee (headed by the Rector) to appoint adjunct lecturers, suggested by members of faculty and endorsed by the Deans, as a declarative statement of support (a colleague of mine suggested parodically Sue Blackwell, the initiator of the boycott, as such an adjunct, and Sue, with a good sense of humour, wrote she would accept the offer once the boycott was revoked, but expressed her doubts whether the Israeli authorities will let her into Israel, or deny her entry, as it did to a group of women having come last week from the UK to support the Palestinians on the West Bank).
In short, the boycott indeed made noise, but not about the Palestinian issue, but... about the boycott. I would advise our International colleagues to learn this lesson and reconsider their decision: if you wish to put pressure on Israel, do it where it hurts, not where it serves just to enhance the feeling of persecution by most Israelis - including those who oppose the occupation. Protest against the persons directly asking for reproach. Or, better still, do something positive about helping and supporting the Palestinians in every way possible.
For better days,
A. Oz
Professor Avraham Oz
Department of Hebrew and Comparative Literature, University of Haifa
2105 Eshkol Tower, Mount Carmel, 31905 Haifa, Israel
Office Tel +972-4-8240672 Office Fax +972-4-8249713
Home Tel +972-3-5609627 Home Fax +972-1533-5609627
Mobile +972-50-7220783 Email: avitaloz@research.haifa.ac.il
1. Ha’aretz, 17 May 2005:
Haifa University students protest against ‘racist’ conference on demography
By David Ratner, Haaretz Correspondent
Last Update: 17/05/2005 16:31
Several dozen Jewish and Arab students protested Tuesday morning at Haifa University against an academic conference titled “The Demographic Problem and Israel’s Demographic Policies” that they described as racist.
The students, prevented by campus security personnel from entering the auditorium where the conference was being held, sat down outside and refused to be evacuated.
Conference participants are slated to discuss the forecasts that Arabs will constitute the majority of Israel’s population with several decades.
The student protestors maintain the conference is racist and anti-Arab. They attempted to distributed to conference participants certificates reading “licensed racist” and “the bearer of this certificate completed with honors an advanced course in racism at Haifa University.”
Conference participants include demographic experts Professor Sergio della Pergola of Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Professor Arnon Sofer of Haifa University.
2. From Ilan Pappe, this evening:
This morning a group of Palestinian and Jewish students demonstrated outside the hall of the conference in the university of Haifa titled ‘The demographic problem and the Demographic policy of Israel’ - the euphemism used for talking about the Arab Demographic threat and the need to encounter it; by transfer even, if need be. The posters against the conference were brutally torn and taken away by the security guards of the university, bruising and beating some of the students on the way. The students were unable to go into the hall as a wall - what else - of tables and chairs blocked their way into the seats. Cameras were working overtime, taking photos of the Arab students, so that they could be charged with violating public order and brought in front of a disciplinary committee.
My student, L. H., a fragile young Palestine woman, succeeded in getting in: “they thought I was Jewish”, she told me later. She managed to stay calm when one demographer elaborated on the dangers of losing a Jewish majority, and even when Professor Arnon Sofer, claimed that it was me who sent the students to demonstrate as part of my alliance with ‘contemptible’ Europe and ‘despicable’ Britain. She even sat through when he explained that he will not allow Tel-Aviv to become Cairo. The kind of rhetoric one hears in the meetings of the national fronts meetings across Europe and in the neo-Nazi rallies in Berlin. Here it was in an academic conference sponsored and honoured by the Rector.
But she had enough when Yoav Gleber claimed that any numbers of Palestinians living before 1948 were fabricated for political reasons, and in any case if he had to choose between a Jewish State and a Democracy, he prefers the former. She stood up and condemned him and was silenced by the crowd as being stupid and later ushered out of the meeting by the security people.
L. H. is afraid to go into classes today if this is the university she studies in. But she will overcome her fear and continue to demand what is hers by right and virtue. The important question what does it tell us of the University of Haifa. The speakers in the conference came from among its top professors, but also the demonstrators came from that university. The former threw out the latter: oppressed and silenced them. Another question is how best can we help the Palestinian and Jewish students who demonstrated bravely and will be probably charged? I have answered these questions in the past and suggested that only outside pressure can help, but far more important is the question of what will happen if nothing is done? Can you, like me, conjecture the titles of next year’s conferences: ‘The Meaning and Objective of Transfer’; ‘Encouraging Abortion Among Palestinian Women’ etc. Sometimes you feel that the authorities of this university deserve every bit of the trouble that came its way recently.
Conclusion:
So far Ilan Pappe. And now, a comic relief: In accordance with the somewhat hysterical behaviour of my university’s administration, an official - this time Dean of Students Professor Ron Robin - was sent to express the official view of the administration. After bashing Ilan Pappe as a liar, a common practice of my university’s official publications since the AUT boycott was announced, Ron wrote on the university email circuit:
There was no confrontation of any kind, and the sheer nonsense reported by Ilan does not deserve a response. But for the benefit of those interested in the facts: no violence of any kind, no ripping of posters, and as for the bruising of participants, please... I expect a bit more imagination!! But please don’t believe me: Turn on your TV news this evening (all channels were represented at this demonstration). Or better still: why don’t you ask some of the members of Forum Smul who were present (David Blanc, Kobi Pertrozil, Micha Leshem and others). [Forum Smol is the tiny gathering of Left-wing faculty at the University of Haifa, founded by Ilan, myself, and a handful of others about six years ago - A. O. ].
This came about 15 minutes BEFORE the 8pm news came on our screens. Come the news, and lo and behold, as another member of faculty reported to the circuit:
“Ron, Just now on channel 10 they showed ripping of posters by security guards and plenty of shoving. Perhaps your message was premature.”
And a bit later, two of the left-wing “witnesses” referred to by the Dean of Students to corroborate his defamation of Ilan’s account, responded indeed:
Dear Ron,
Sorry to disagree, you should have checked with the security people first.
In the first few minutes of the demonstration, before you arrived (as you recall you were not there from the start), there was indeed some heavy pushing and shoving by the security people (one in particular stands in mind). Some posters were indeed torn, and at least one student was slightly bruised, as far as I could see. He was very shaken by the whole thing and had to be calmed down. It is true that very soon after that, someone was wise enough to instruct Security to calm down and there was no violence, as far as I could see, by the time you arrived and from then on. I am sure that the security will confirm that.
Kobi
I came after teaching at 11h. A line of security guards were stopping the students from getting in. I asked Micha Rav (our Head of Security) why they were not allowing the students in. He told me they had made trouble, and if he let them in they would make trouble inside. I asked how he knew which had made trouble and which had not - he told me they had all of them on tape. So I suggested, and he concurred, that any students who had not made trouble would be allowed in - and I told that to the students. In the meantime the guards had made a barrier of tables, as Ilan reported. Then I went and had a pee. Then I went into the hall, and listened to Prof. Yoav Gelber. Yoav was telling us that the numbers of refugees were overestimates by UNRWA and Arabs, but there were some fair Israeli estimates. For example only 80 were killed in Tantura, and only 40% of the Ezel figure were killed in Dir Yassin. From the number of those that “ran away” (that was the term he repeatedly used. He did not use the term “expelled” even once), we need to deduct 15, 000 that were killed, 80, 000 who weren’t even Palestinians, many who weren’t refugees, eg in Tulkarm they were receiving UNRWA aid although they had run away, but their land, and therefore income, had been taken away. Yoav was quite a Hevreman - he used his military experience to make the point that as Company Commander he too inflated figures to obtain more food rations for his company, and deflated the figures to reduce their guard rota. The audience thought this was an amusing analogy, and laughed.
Toward the end of his presentation, when I could take no more, we had gotten down from 700, 000 plus who “ran away” to ~520, 000 who “ran away”. I found this quite difficult to hear, and left before having to listen to Prof. Sofer. I am sorry I left before Ilan’s student LH spoke out, I would at least have been able to give her some support that might also have restored some of my self respect. The audience were rapt, and clapped at the end of the talks. I can report to you that it was not a pleasant experience. The videos will be on the Herzl Center website in a few weeks time.
Micah
PS in no way am I writing this to corroborate what Ilan wrote. It is none of my business what he wrote, and I do not understand why if Ilan writes something, someone else needs to corroborate it. I find that quite offensive.
Report by Avraham Oz
Published: 22/05/05
comment from Moshe Machover:
Dear Friend,
The following message from Prof Oz of Haifa University is long, but well worth reading. In my opinion it provides ample evidence justifying the AUT institutional boycott against Haifa U.
On this point, I disagree with Oz’s judgement. He is right in pointing out that Israel’s reaction to the boycott is a reinforcement of the persecution complex: “The whole world is against us...”. This is only to be expected. Israeli-Zionist ideology has always used the self-righteous victimhood complex as a pretext for oppressing its own victims. In this it is by no means unique (cf. the ideology of Serb chauvinism).
But this doesn’t mean that the boycott cannot achieve useful results: wait until it really bites. And, in any case, why should the world pander to Zionist ideological psychopathology?
ATB, M Machover
comment from Greg Dropkin:
In exposing the racist conference at his university, Avraham Oz points out “Needless to say, no Arab speaker: after all, are the patients taking part in medical conferences?”. By the same logic, is it sufficient to examine how Israeli academics and the State of Israel are reacting to the boycott, as Prof. Oz does, or should the voices of Palestinian academics be heard as well? They continue - quite strongly - to call for a boycott. Trade unionists in Britain can respond to their call and prioritise their viewpoint in solidarity, even whilst knowing that some honourable Israelis, like Prof. Oz, disagree with the tactic. It's Palestinians who are on the receiving end of the Occupation and institutional racism.
Dear friends,
First, a warning, derived from TV news reports I watched with the years: those with weak stomachs, please refrain from reading this update.
What would you say if in a university, say, in New York, would hold an academic conference called “The Demographic Problem in New York”, and, perusing the list of presentations you will realize that the “problem” dealt with refers exclusively to the scary proliferation of Jews in New York?
Unimaginable, right?
Well, please note the date of this update. In my (currently boycotted by the AUT) university, a conference was held today, entitled “The Demographic Problem and the Demographic Policy of Israel,” organized by the Herzl Institute for the Study of Zionism, The Reuven Hecht Estate, and the Chair for Geo-Strategy. In my update from April 12th, I have provided some links as to the identity of the carefully selective list of speakers in that conference:
Professor Yoav Gelber, Head of the Herzl Institute, University of Haifa
(Please look up the following:
http://www.freeman.org/m_online/mar05/gelber.php
http://list.haifa.ac.il/pipermail/alef/2004-January/000172.html)
Professor Arnon Sofer
(Please look up the following:
http://www.bintjbeil.com/articles/en/020628_galili.html
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/10/18/181802.shtml
http://www.palestinetimes.net/issue122/articles.html)
Mr Harry Zesler, representative of the Hecht Estate
(Please look up the following:
http://www.iruim.net/bnaibrith/page.htm)
Professor Yossi Ben-Artzi, Rector, University of Haifa
(Please look up the following:
http://stop-us-military-aid-to-israel.net/b2/index.php?p=74&more=1)
General (res.) Uzi Dayan, Head of the Zionist Council, initiator of the “Apartheid Wall”
(Please look up the following:
http://www.gush-shalom.org/thewall/
http://www.countercurrents.org/pa-rappaport100703.htm>)
General (res.) Herzl Gedge, Head of the Population Administration, Ministry of the Interior:
(Please look up the following:
http://www.kavlaoved.org.il/katava_main.asp?news_id=1023&sivug_id=4)
Dr Yitzhak Ravid
(Please look up the following:
http://www.dontknowitfromadam.com/Blog_Archives/000109.html)
Professor Sergio della Pergola, Head of Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
(Please look up the following:
http://www.jafi.org.il/papers/2004/june/june24hz.htm
www.aish.com/jewishissues/jewishsociety/The_Real_Threat_to_Europes_Jews.asp)
Dr Yuval Steinitz, Head of Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee (Likud), one of Likud MKs who opposed Sharon’s “disengagement” plan.
(Please look up the following:
http://www.isracast.com/Transcripts/240504c_trans.htm
http://www.freeman.org/m_online/sep01/steinitz.htm
http://info.jpost.com/C002/Supplements/Intifada/str_04.html)
Needless to say, no speaker who might express a contrary view.
Needless to say, no Arab speaker: after all, are the patients taking part in medical conferences? Read again the title of the conference: they are “the problem!” When a reporter of an Israeli TV news channel reported the event (which developed into a major scandal, as you will read below), interviewed on the spot my colleague Professor Arnon Sofer, the chief organizer of the conference, what would he do to a Bedouine who has ten children, he answered on record, facing the camera: “If it were up to me, I would have arrested him, for he is a criminal.” He did not refer to an ultra-religious Jew, who in many cases is bound to have a similar number of children, or sometimes more. After they are all Jewish, and thus, do not constitute “a problem.”
Since I try to set some limits to the degree of stomach convulsion my job description at the University of Haifa obliges me to contract, I did not volunteer to show up on campus on a day where my attendance is not required for performing my teaching duties. But several of my friends, colleagues and students, went there, to protest. The event is described below, in an Ha’aretz report, and a more detailed account provided by my colleague Dr Ilan Pappe of the despicable event, which represents the way my university interprets academic freedom. Yes, I said my university, not a few right wing extremists who happen to be employed or invited by the university. The guest of honour at the conference was the Rector of the University, Professor Yossi Ben-Artzi, who thought it wise to confer a prestigious prize under the auspices of that conference. This, then, is not a marginal conference tolerated by the university in the name of academic freedom: the well advertised attendance of the highest academic figure of the university (no matter who occupies that capacity at this time) voids any future claim by the university (when their PR consultants will advise them to do so) that it had no part in organizing it.
But before you move to the reports, a few words about the boycott. Some of you would say all this justifies it even further. Two major pretexts advanced by the initiators and supporters of the move were that it may prove effective: perhaps change some minds in Israel, and definitely make noise to bring the Palestinian issue to the forefront. Now, almost a month since it was launched, as an experimental balloon (and before it may well be retracted next week), let’s account for its effectiveness according to those parameters: Indeed the boycott decision made a lot of noise in my university, as well as in Israel and the world. During this month, some atrocities were made by the Israeli security forces, a Palestinian teenager shot by the security forces died in a Palestinian ambulance rushing him to hospital when the ambulance was detained for 15 critical minutes by an IDF watch barrier; Injuring demonstrators against the construction of the evil wall; Allegations of anti-semitism were flaunted to each direction.; Pappe was attacked by the Mini-stress of Education at her speech at the ceremony awarding the Israel prize to scientists, academics and artists; The Israeli cabinet voted 13-7 to confer university status on Judea and Samaria College in the West Bank settlement Ariel (a political move, since the Ariel College is rated one of the lowest ranking in quality among the Israeli colleges, and no academic criterion justifies such a promotion).
My university’s administration had a lively activity during these weeks: do you think that following the boycott they have reconsidered the refusal to put signs in Arabic, in addition to Hebrew and English, on campus? to employ some Arab students in the library or elsewhere at the university? Reconsider the closure of the University theatre closed for mounting plays in Arabic? Reconsider forbidding a Christmas tree installed in Christmas a the university’s main building, the same place were a Jewish Menora was put during Hannuka? Did they raise a voice of protest against the incessant undermining by the Israeli security forces of Palestinian higher education in the Occupied Territories? No, none of these. Instead, they were busy defaming Ilan Pappe; spread officially (via the university’s official spokesperson, a misleading account of the disqualifying, by an alleged anonymous committee, of Teddy Katz’s formerly cum-laude-approved MA theasis; hired a British lawyer to send a letter to the AUT threatening them that if the boycott was not revoked, the university will file a libel suit at a British court; and passing in the Senate a regulation empowering the University use the Appointments and Promotions committee (headed by the Rector) to appoint adjunct lecturers, suggested by members of faculty and endorsed by the Deans, as a declarative statement of support (a colleague of mine suggested parodically Sue Blackwell, the initiator of the boycott, as such an adjunct, and Sue, with a good sense of humour, wrote she would accept the offer once the boycott was revoked, but expressed her doubts whether the Israeli authorities will let her into Israel, or deny her entry, as it did to a group of women having come last week from the UK to support the Palestinians on the West Bank).
In short, the boycott indeed made noise, but not about the Palestinian issue, but... about the boycott. I would advise our International colleagues to learn this lesson and reconsider their decision: if you wish to put pressure on Israel, do it where it hurts, not where it serves just to enhance the feeling of persecution by most Israelis - including those who oppose the occupation. Protest against the persons directly asking for reproach. Or, better still, do something positive about helping and supporting the Palestinians in every way possible.
For better days,
A. Oz
Professor Avraham Oz
Department of Hebrew and Comparative Literature, University of Haifa
2105 Eshkol Tower, Mount Carmel, 31905 Haifa, Israel
Office Tel +972-4-8240672 Office Fax +972-4-8249713
Home Tel +972-3-5609627 Home Fax +972-1533-5609627
Mobile +972-50-7220783 Email: avitaloz@research.haifa.ac.il
1. Ha’aretz, 17 May 2005:
Haifa University students protest against ‘racist’ conference on demography
By David Ratner, Haaretz Correspondent
Last Update: 17/05/2005 16:31
Several dozen Jewish and Arab students protested Tuesday morning at Haifa University against an academic conference titled “The Demographic Problem and Israel’s Demographic Policies” that they described as racist.
The students, prevented by campus security personnel from entering the auditorium where the conference was being held, sat down outside and refused to be evacuated.
Conference participants are slated to discuss the forecasts that Arabs will constitute the majority of Israel’s population with several decades.
The student protestors maintain the conference is racist and anti-Arab. They attempted to distributed to conference participants certificates reading “licensed racist” and “the bearer of this certificate completed with honors an advanced course in racism at Haifa University.”
Conference participants include demographic experts Professor Sergio della Pergola of Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Professor Arnon Sofer of Haifa University.
2. From Ilan Pappe, this evening:
This morning a group of Palestinian and Jewish students demonstrated outside the hall of the conference in the university of Haifa titled ‘The demographic problem and the Demographic policy of Israel’ - the euphemism used for talking about the Arab Demographic threat and the need to encounter it; by transfer even, if need be. The posters against the conference were brutally torn and taken away by the security guards of the university, bruising and beating some of the students on the way. The students were unable to go into the hall as a wall - what else - of tables and chairs blocked their way into the seats. Cameras were working overtime, taking photos of the Arab students, so that they could be charged with violating public order and brought in front of a disciplinary committee.
My student, L. H., a fragile young Palestine woman, succeeded in getting in: “they thought I was Jewish”, she told me later. She managed to stay calm when one demographer elaborated on the dangers of losing a Jewish majority, and even when Professor Arnon Sofer, claimed that it was me who sent the students to demonstrate as part of my alliance with ‘contemptible’ Europe and ‘despicable’ Britain. She even sat through when he explained that he will not allow Tel-Aviv to become Cairo. The kind of rhetoric one hears in the meetings of the national fronts meetings across Europe and in the neo-Nazi rallies in Berlin. Here it was in an academic conference sponsored and honoured by the Rector.
But she had enough when Yoav Gleber claimed that any numbers of Palestinians living before 1948 were fabricated for political reasons, and in any case if he had to choose between a Jewish State and a Democracy, he prefers the former. She stood up and condemned him and was silenced by the crowd as being stupid and later ushered out of the meeting by the security people.
L. H. is afraid to go into classes today if this is the university she studies in. But she will overcome her fear and continue to demand what is hers by right and virtue. The important question what does it tell us of the University of Haifa. The speakers in the conference came from among its top professors, but also the demonstrators came from that university. The former threw out the latter: oppressed and silenced them. Another question is how best can we help the Palestinian and Jewish students who demonstrated bravely and will be probably charged? I have answered these questions in the past and suggested that only outside pressure can help, but far more important is the question of what will happen if nothing is done? Can you, like me, conjecture the titles of next year’s conferences: ‘The Meaning and Objective of Transfer’; ‘Encouraging Abortion Among Palestinian Women’ etc. Sometimes you feel that the authorities of this university deserve every bit of the trouble that came its way recently.
Conclusion:
So far Ilan Pappe. And now, a comic relief: In accordance with the somewhat hysterical behaviour of my university’s administration, an official - this time Dean of Students Professor Ron Robin - was sent to express the official view of the administration. After bashing Ilan Pappe as a liar, a common practice of my university’s official publications since the AUT boycott was announced, Ron wrote on the university email circuit:
There was no confrontation of any kind, and the sheer nonsense reported by Ilan does not deserve a response. But for the benefit of those interested in the facts: no violence of any kind, no ripping of posters, and as for the bruising of participants, please... I expect a bit more imagination!! But please don’t believe me: Turn on your TV news this evening (all channels were represented at this demonstration). Or better still: why don’t you ask some of the members of Forum Smul who were present (David Blanc, Kobi Pertrozil, Micha Leshem and others). [Forum Smol is the tiny gathering of Left-wing faculty at the University of Haifa, founded by Ilan, myself, and a handful of others about six years ago - A. O. ].
This came about 15 minutes BEFORE the 8pm news came on our screens. Come the news, and lo and behold, as another member of faculty reported to the circuit:
“Ron, Just now on channel 10 they showed ripping of posters by security guards and plenty of shoving. Perhaps your message was premature.”
And a bit later, two of the left-wing “witnesses” referred to by the Dean of Students to corroborate his defamation of Ilan’s account, responded indeed:
Dear Ron,
Sorry to disagree, you should have checked with the security people first.
In the first few minutes of the demonstration, before you arrived (as you recall you were not there from the start), there was indeed some heavy pushing and shoving by the security people (one in particular stands in mind). Some posters were indeed torn, and at least one student was slightly bruised, as far as I could see. He was very shaken by the whole thing and had to be calmed down. It is true that very soon after that, someone was wise enough to instruct Security to calm down and there was no violence, as far as I could see, by the time you arrived and from then on. I am sure that the security will confirm that.
Kobi
I came after teaching at 11h. A line of security guards were stopping the students from getting in. I asked Micha Rav (our Head of Security) why they were not allowing the students in. He told me they had made trouble, and if he let them in they would make trouble inside. I asked how he knew which had made trouble and which had not - he told me they had all of them on tape. So I suggested, and he concurred, that any students who had not made trouble would be allowed in - and I told that to the students. In the meantime the guards had made a barrier of tables, as Ilan reported. Then I went and had a pee. Then I went into the hall, and listened to Prof. Yoav Gelber. Yoav was telling us that the numbers of refugees were overestimates by UNRWA and Arabs, but there were some fair Israeli estimates. For example only 80 were killed in Tantura, and only 40% of the Ezel figure were killed in Dir Yassin. From the number of those that “ran away” (that was the term he repeatedly used. He did not use the term “expelled” even once), we need to deduct 15, 000 that were killed, 80, 000 who weren’t even Palestinians, many who weren’t refugees, eg in Tulkarm they were receiving UNRWA aid although they had run away, but their land, and therefore income, had been taken away. Yoav was quite a Hevreman - he used his military experience to make the point that as Company Commander he too inflated figures to obtain more food rations for his company, and deflated the figures to reduce their guard rota. The audience thought this was an amusing analogy, and laughed.
Toward the end of his presentation, when I could take no more, we had gotten down from 700, 000 plus who “ran away” to ~520, 000 who “ran away”. I found this quite difficult to hear, and left before having to listen to Prof. Sofer. I am sorry I left before Ilan’s student LH spoke out, I would at least have been able to give her some support that might also have restored some of my self respect. The audience were rapt, and clapped at the end of the talks. I can report to you that it was not a pleasant experience. The videos will be on the Herzl Center website in a few weeks time.
Micah
PS in no way am I writing this to corroborate what Ilan wrote. It is none of my business what he wrote, and I do not understand why if Ilan writes something, someone else needs to corroborate it. I find that quite offensive.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
I have never lied, says defiant Blair Apr 28 2005
By Jon Smith Daily Post Correspondent
TONY BLAIR last night defiantly insisted: "I have never told a lie" as the Tories continued to target his character in an election campaign onslaught.
Mr Blair accused the Conservatives of shying away from the issues and preferring to attack him personally.
His comments came as Tory leader Michael Howard continued to insist the Prime Minister's integrity was a key issue in the fight for votes on May 5.
"The message I think people should send to Mr Blair is 'we have had enough of your broken promises, we have had enough of your talk, we have had enough of you'," said Mr Howard.
"Mr Blair doesn't like being held accountable, but I think it's very important he should be held accountable.
"I think that's what general elections should be about."
And, speaking in Edinburgh, he told the public: "May 5 is your chance to tell Mr Blair where to get off."
Asked whether he had ever lied to the public, Mr Howard replied: "I'm not aware of any occasion when I have deliberately or knowingly misled people and that's the charge I make against Mr Blair."
Mr Blair hit back in an interview for Adam Boulton of Sky News: "I have never told a lie. No. I don't intend to go telling lies to people. I did not lie over Iraq."
And he added: "In the end you can play the ball or play the man and if they play the man that's probably because they don't dare play the ball."
In separate comments to ITV news' Ballot Box Jury programme Mr Blair said voters would have a valid reason to reject him if they thought he had misled them over the Iraq war.
"You've got to make up your minds about this. If you believe that I stood up there and told a whole lot of lies then that is a reason for not voting for me," he said..
"But I actually took the decision on the evidence I had and I took it honestly believing it was the right thing for the country to do."
The increasingly bitter personal tussle took place as Mr Blair sought to bring the campaign focus back on to education, as did the Liberal Democrats.
Mr Howard was last night spelling out his party's plans on law and order.
But it was the feud between the Tory and Labour leaders which dominated the day.
In his speech in Bolton, Mr Blair said the Tories had an "inept" economic plan and had campaigned on immigration "in a profoundly unpleasant way".
He went on: "Finally, when that fails, they turn to personal attacks on me. My response? I will carry on talking about the issues that matter to the hard-working families of this country: the economy, the NHS, our schools, law and order.
"I don't care in the least about the Tory attacks on my character. I do care about the future of this country.
"I will continue to expose the choice this nation faces on May 5.
"I will talk about policy. I will talk about values."
Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said the Tories had "concluded they are losing this election", causing them to mount "the most negative form of personalised campaign".
Last night, the Conservatives unveiled their latest poster campaign, accusing Mr Blair of being "prepared to lie" to win the election,, just as he had over the Iraq war.
And Mr Howard repeated the charge again, saying he supported the war against Iraq but adding: "You could have gone to war and told the truth. That's what Mr Blair didn't do." Mr Kennedy predicted that the Conservative tactics would fail: "They are the losing team in this election."
Both Mr Howard and Mr Blair fell foul of bad weather as they flew in their campaign planes back to London, as there were lightning flashes near both aircraft.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith last night said he stood by his opinion that it was legal for Britain to go to war in Iraq.
Lord Goldsmith's comments came after the broadcast by Channel 4 News of details from his confidential advice to Tony Blair on the legality of the war. The extracts showed that the Attorney General warned Mr Blair that it was "unclear" whether the United Nations Security Council resolution 1441 gave authorisation for military action without a further resolution.
But Lord Goldsmith insisted that the release of the document "stood up" the Government's case that he had not changed his opinion between giving Mr Blair his private advice on March 7, 2003, and giving a statement to Parliament summarising his views ten days later.
Lord Goldsmith said that the document showed how he had gone through the complex arguments over the legality of military action before concluding that, in his judgment, it would be lawful.
The statement read: "The document so far from standing up the case of the Government's critics, stands up the case the Government has been making all along.
"Contrary to the allegations that have persistently been made, it does not say the war was unlawful but confirms the conclusion I reached was that a sufficient basis for the use of force was established without a second resolution."
By Jon Smith Daily Post Correspondent
TONY BLAIR last night defiantly insisted: "I have never told a lie" as the Tories continued to target his character in an election campaign onslaught.
Mr Blair accused the Conservatives of shying away from the issues and preferring to attack him personally.
His comments came as Tory leader Michael Howard continued to insist the Prime Minister's integrity was a key issue in the fight for votes on May 5.
"The message I think people should send to Mr Blair is 'we have had enough of your broken promises, we have had enough of your talk, we have had enough of you'," said Mr Howard.
"Mr Blair doesn't like being held accountable, but I think it's very important he should be held accountable.
"I think that's what general elections should be about."
And, speaking in Edinburgh, he told the public: "May 5 is your chance to tell Mr Blair where to get off."
Asked whether he had ever lied to the public, Mr Howard replied: "I'm not aware of any occasion when I have deliberately or knowingly misled people and that's the charge I make against Mr Blair."
Mr Blair hit back in an interview for Adam Boulton of Sky News: "I have never told a lie. No. I don't intend to go telling lies to people. I did not lie over Iraq."
And he added: "In the end you can play the ball or play the man and if they play the man that's probably because they don't dare play the ball."
In separate comments to ITV news' Ballot Box Jury programme Mr Blair said voters would have a valid reason to reject him if they thought he had misled them over the Iraq war.
"You've got to make up your minds about this. If you believe that I stood up there and told a whole lot of lies then that is a reason for not voting for me," he said..
"But I actually took the decision on the evidence I had and I took it honestly believing it was the right thing for the country to do."
The increasingly bitter personal tussle took place as Mr Blair sought to bring the campaign focus back on to education, as did the Liberal Democrats.
Mr Howard was last night spelling out his party's plans on law and order.
But it was the feud between the Tory and Labour leaders which dominated the day.
In his speech in Bolton, Mr Blair said the Tories had an "inept" economic plan and had campaigned on immigration "in a profoundly unpleasant way".
He went on: "Finally, when that fails, they turn to personal attacks on me. My response? I will carry on talking about the issues that matter to the hard-working families of this country: the economy, the NHS, our schools, law and order.
"I don't care in the least about the Tory attacks on my character. I do care about the future of this country.
"I will continue to expose the choice this nation faces on May 5.
"I will talk about policy. I will talk about values."
Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said the Tories had "concluded they are losing this election", causing them to mount "the most negative form of personalised campaign".
Last night, the Conservatives unveiled their latest poster campaign, accusing Mr Blair of being "prepared to lie" to win the election,, just as he had over the Iraq war.
And Mr Howard repeated the charge again, saying he supported the war against Iraq but adding: "You could have gone to war and told the truth. That's what Mr Blair didn't do." Mr Kennedy predicted that the Conservative tactics would fail: "They are the losing team in this election."
Both Mr Howard and Mr Blair fell foul of bad weather as they flew in their campaign planes back to London, as there were lightning flashes near both aircraft.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith last night said he stood by his opinion that it was legal for Britain to go to war in Iraq.
Lord Goldsmith's comments came after the broadcast by Channel 4 News of details from his confidential advice to Tony Blair on the legality of the war. The extracts showed that the Attorney General warned Mr Blair that it was "unclear" whether the United Nations Security Council resolution 1441 gave authorisation for military action without a further resolution.
But Lord Goldsmith insisted that the release of the document "stood up" the Government's case that he had not changed his opinion between giving Mr Blair his private advice on March 7, 2003, and giving a statement to Parliament summarising his views ten days later.
Lord Goldsmith said that the document showed how he had gone through the complex arguments over the legality of military action before concluding that, in his judgment, it would be lawful.
The statement read: "The document so far from standing up the case of the Government's critics, stands up the case the Government has been making all along.
"Contrary to the allegations that have persistently been made, it does not say the war was unlawful but confirms the conclusion I reached was that a sufficient basis for the use of force was established without a second resolution."
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Israel Honors 9 Egyptian Spies
By: Reuters News Service
Comment by David Shasha of Sephardic Heritage Update
For those of you not familiar with the so-called Lavon Affair - one of the most egregious scandals in the history of Israel - the recent honors accorded to its participants should force us to look back at the matter. The Lavon Affair was concocted by a person named Benyamin Givli in the Israeli Defense Department which was led by Pinchas Lavon. The basic idea was to compromise Egypt by bombing public locations such as movie theaters in order to create the suspicion that Nasser was seeking to harm Westerners. The affair was botched and the spies found out and brought to trial. The Lavon Affair, along with the Mas'ouda Shemtov Synagogue bombings in Iraq, have long been used as proof that the Israelis were intent on using subterfuge in the Arab world to compromise the Arabs and to force out the Jews who lived in those countries. It is unfortunate that these covert operations are not known to Western Jews. In our own Sephardic communities such matters are completely ignored. The two standard sources on the events are Ian Black and Benny Morris' Israel's Secret Wars and Shabtai Teveth's Ben Gurion's Spy. A more controversial and contested approach has been taken in Naeim Giladi's Ben Gurion's Scandals.
After half a century of reticence and recrimination, Israel on Wednesday honored nine Egyptian Jews recruited as agents-provocateur in what became one of the worst intelligence bungles in the country's history.
Israel was at war with Egypt when it hatched a plan in 1954 to ruin its rapprochement with the United States and Britain by firebombing sites frequented by foreigners in Cairo and Alexandria.
But Israeli hopes that the attacks, which caused no casualties, would be blamed on local insurgents collapsed when the young Zionist bombers were caught and confessed at public trials. Two were hanged. The rest served jail terms and emigrated to Israel.
Embarrassed before the West, Israel long denied involvement. It kept mum even after its 1979 peace deal with Egypt, fearing memories of the debacle could sour ties.
"Although it is still a sensitive situation, we decided now to express our respect for these heroes," President Moshe Katsav said after presenting the three surviving members of the bomber ring with certificates of appreciation at a Jerusalem ceremony.
What went wrong in the "Lavon Affair" - after Pinhas Lavon, Israel's defence minister when the plot came to light - remains a matter of debate in a country more used to tales of espionage coups.
The Egyptian agents were ignored. The Egyptian Jews were recruited by a fringe unit of Military Intelligence rather than the premier Israeli spy agency Mossad .
The situation recurred in 1985, when U.S. Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States for passing military secrets to Israel's scientific liaison office.
"As with Pollard, this (Lavon Affair) was a rogue operation," David Kimche, a former Mossad deputy chief, said. "We knew never to go down that road again."
There is a twist to the Egyptian case - the now widespread belief that the bombers were betrayed to the authorities by their Israeli handler, who turned double-agent.
"The general feeling is that he was the one who caused it all," Kimche said.
Under a veil of secrecy, the handler was tried for contacts with Egyptian intelligence and jailed for 10 years. Meanwhile, the agents locked up in Egypt were ignored, excluded from several prisoner exchanges with Israel after the wars of 1956 and 1967.
Now that they have been officially recognised in Israel, the former agents are campaigning for a full account of their operation to be included in the high-school syllabus.
"This is a great day for all of us, those who were hanged and those who died," Marcelle Ninio, the only female member of the cell, said. "We are happy we've got our honor back."
From Yediot Aharonot, March 30, 2005
By: Reuters News Service
Comment by David Shasha of Sephardic Heritage Update
For those of you not familiar with the so-called Lavon Affair - one of the most egregious scandals in the history of Israel - the recent honors accorded to its participants should force us to look back at the matter. The Lavon Affair was concocted by a person named Benyamin Givli in the Israeli Defense Department which was led by Pinchas Lavon. The basic idea was to compromise Egypt by bombing public locations such as movie theaters in order to create the suspicion that Nasser was seeking to harm Westerners. The affair was botched and the spies found out and brought to trial. The Lavon Affair, along with the Mas'ouda Shemtov Synagogue bombings in Iraq, have long been used as proof that the Israelis were intent on using subterfuge in the Arab world to compromise the Arabs and to force out the Jews who lived in those countries. It is unfortunate that these covert operations are not known to Western Jews. In our own Sephardic communities such matters are completely ignored. The two standard sources on the events are Ian Black and Benny Morris' Israel's Secret Wars and Shabtai Teveth's Ben Gurion's Spy. A more controversial and contested approach has been taken in Naeim Giladi's Ben Gurion's Scandals.
After half a century of reticence and recrimination, Israel on Wednesday honored nine Egyptian Jews recruited as agents-provocateur in what became one of the worst intelligence bungles in the country's history.
Israel was at war with Egypt when it hatched a plan in 1954 to ruin its rapprochement with the United States and Britain by firebombing sites frequented by foreigners in Cairo and Alexandria.
But Israeli hopes that the attacks, which caused no casualties, would be blamed on local insurgents collapsed when the young Zionist bombers were caught and confessed at public trials. Two were hanged. The rest served jail terms and emigrated to Israel.
Embarrassed before the West, Israel long denied involvement. It kept mum even after its 1979 peace deal with Egypt, fearing memories of the debacle could sour ties.
"Although it is still a sensitive situation, we decided now to express our respect for these heroes," President Moshe Katsav said after presenting the three surviving members of the bomber ring with certificates of appreciation at a Jerusalem ceremony.
What went wrong in the "Lavon Affair" - after Pinhas Lavon, Israel's defence minister when the plot came to light - remains a matter of debate in a country more used to tales of espionage coups.
The Egyptian agents were ignored. The Egyptian Jews were recruited by a fringe unit of Military Intelligence rather than the premier Israeli spy agency Mossad .
The situation recurred in 1985, when U.S. Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States for passing military secrets to Israel's scientific liaison office.
"As with Pollard, this (Lavon Affair) was a rogue operation," David Kimche, a former Mossad deputy chief, said. "We knew never to go down that road again."
There is a twist to the Egyptian case - the now widespread belief that the bombers were betrayed to the authorities by their Israeli handler, who turned double-agent.
"The general feeling is that he was the one who caused it all," Kimche said.
Under a veil of secrecy, the handler was tried for contacts with Egyptian intelligence and jailed for 10 years. Meanwhile, the agents locked up in Egypt were ignored, excluded from several prisoner exchanges with Israel after the wars of 1956 and 1967.
Now that they have been officially recognised in Israel, the former agents are campaigning for a full account of their operation to be included in the high-school syllabus.
"This is a great day for all of us, those who were hanged and those who died," Marcelle Ninio, the only female member of the cell, said. "We are happy we've got our honor back."
From Yediot Aharonot, March 30, 2005
Zionism versus Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People
Winston Churchill
From Illustrated Sunday Herald, February 8, 1920.
Some people like Jews and some do not; but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world.
And it may well be that this same astounding race may at the present time be in the actual process of producing another system of morals and philosophy, as malevolent as Christianity was benevolent, which, if not arrested would shatter irretrievably all that Christianity has rendered possible. It would almost seem as if the gospel of Christ and the gospel of Antichrist were destined to originate among the same people; and that this mystic and mysterious race had been chosen for the supreme manifestations, both of the divine and the diabolical.
The National Russian Jews, in spite of the disabilities under which they have suffered, have managed to play an honourable and successful part in the national life even of Russia. As bankers and industrialists they have strenuously promoted the development of Russia's economic resources, and they were foremost in the creation of those remarkable organisations, the Russian Co-operative Societies. In politics their support has been given, for the most part, to liberal and progressive movements, and they have been among the staunchest upholders of friendship with France and Great Britain.
International Jews
In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all, of them have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognisable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.
Terrorist Jews
There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews. It is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders. Thus Tchitcherin, a pure Russian, is eclipsed by his nominal subordinate Litvinoff, and the influence of Russians like Bukharin or Lunacharski cannot be compared with the power of Trotsky, or of Zinovieff, the Dictator of the Red Citadel (Petrograd), or of Krassin or Radek -- all Jews. In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more astonishing. And the prominent, if not indeed the principal, part in the system of terrorism applied by the Extraordinary Commissions for Combating Counter-Revolution has been taken by Jews, and in some notable cases by Jewesses.
The same evil prominence was obtained by Jews in the brief period of terror during which Bela Kun ruled in Hungary. The same phenomenon has been presented in Germany (especially in Bavaria), so far as this madness has been allowed to prey upon the temporary prostration of the German people. Although in all these countries there are many non-Jews every whit as bad as the worst of the Jewish revolutionaries, the part played by the latter in proportion to their numbers in the population is astonishing.
"Protector of the Jews"
Needless to say, the most intense passions of revenge have been excited in the breasts of the Russian people. Wherever General Denikin's authority could reach, protection was always accorded to the Jewish population, and strenuous efforts were made by his officers to prevent reprisals and to punish those guilty of them. So much was this the case that the Petlurist propaganda against General Denikin denounced him as the Protector of the Jews. The Misses Healy, nieces of Mr. Tim Healy, relating their personal experiences in Kieff, have declared that to their knowledge on more than one occasion officers who committed offences against Jews were reduced to the ranks and sent out of the city to the front. But the hordes of brigands by whom the whole vast expanse of the Russian Empire is becoming infested do not hesitate to gratify their lust for blood and for revenge at the expense of the innocent Jewish population whenever an opportunity occurs. The brigand Makhno, the hordes of Petlura and of Gregorieff, who signalised their every success by the most brutal massacres, everywhere found among the half-stupefied, half-infuriated population an eager response to anti-Semitism in its worst and foulest forms. The fact that in many cases Jewish interests and Jewish places of worship are excepted by the Bolsheviks from their universal hostility has tended more and more to associate the Jewish race in Russia with the villainies which are now being perpetrated.
A Home for the Jews
Zionism offers the third sphere to the political conceptions of the Jewish race. In violent contrast to international communism.
Zionism has already become a factor in the political convulsions of Russia, as a powerful competing influence in Bolshevik circles with the international communistic system. Nothing could be more significant than the fury with which Trotsky has attacked the Zionists generally, and Dr. Weissmann in particular. The cruel penetration of his mind leaves him in no doubt that his schemes of a world-wide communistic State under Jewish domination are directly thwarted and hindered by this new ideal, which directs the energies and the hopes of Jews in every land towards a simpler, a truer, and a far more attainable goal. The struggle which is now beginning between the Zionist and Bolshevik Jews is little less than a struggle for the soul of the Jewish people.
Winston Churchill
From Illustrated Sunday Herald, February 8, 1920.
Some people like Jews and some do not; but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world.
And it may well be that this same astounding race may at the present time be in the actual process of producing another system of morals and philosophy, as malevolent as Christianity was benevolent, which, if not arrested would shatter irretrievably all that Christianity has rendered possible. It would almost seem as if the gospel of Christ and the gospel of Antichrist were destined to originate among the same people; and that this mystic and mysterious race had been chosen for the supreme manifestations, both of the divine and the diabolical.
The National Russian Jews, in spite of the disabilities under which they have suffered, have managed to play an honourable and successful part in the national life even of Russia. As bankers and industrialists they have strenuously promoted the development of Russia's economic resources, and they were foremost in the creation of those remarkable organisations, the Russian Co-operative Societies. In politics their support has been given, for the most part, to liberal and progressive movements, and they have been among the staunchest upholders of friendship with France and Great Britain.
International Jews
In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all, of them have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxembourg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognisable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.
Terrorist Jews
There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews. It is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders. Thus Tchitcherin, a pure Russian, is eclipsed by his nominal subordinate Litvinoff, and the influence of Russians like Bukharin or Lunacharski cannot be compared with the power of Trotsky, or of Zinovieff, the Dictator of the Red Citadel (Petrograd), or of Krassin or Radek -- all Jews. In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more astonishing. And the prominent, if not indeed the principal, part in the system of terrorism applied by the Extraordinary Commissions for Combating Counter-Revolution has been taken by Jews, and in some notable cases by Jewesses.
The same evil prominence was obtained by Jews in the brief period of terror during which Bela Kun ruled in Hungary. The same phenomenon has been presented in Germany (especially in Bavaria), so far as this madness has been allowed to prey upon the temporary prostration of the German people. Although in all these countries there are many non-Jews every whit as bad as the worst of the Jewish revolutionaries, the part played by the latter in proportion to their numbers in the population is astonishing.
"Protector of the Jews"
Needless to say, the most intense passions of revenge have been excited in the breasts of the Russian people. Wherever General Denikin's authority could reach, protection was always accorded to the Jewish population, and strenuous efforts were made by his officers to prevent reprisals and to punish those guilty of them. So much was this the case that the Petlurist propaganda against General Denikin denounced him as the Protector of the Jews. The Misses Healy, nieces of Mr. Tim Healy, relating their personal experiences in Kieff, have declared that to their knowledge on more than one occasion officers who committed offences against Jews were reduced to the ranks and sent out of the city to the front. But the hordes of brigands by whom the whole vast expanse of the Russian Empire is becoming infested do not hesitate to gratify their lust for blood and for revenge at the expense of the innocent Jewish population whenever an opportunity occurs. The brigand Makhno, the hordes of Petlura and of Gregorieff, who signalised their every success by the most brutal massacres, everywhere found among the half-stupefied, half-infuriated population an eager response to anti-Semitism in its worst and foulest forms. The fact that in many cases Jewish interests and Jewish places of worship are excepted by the Bolsheviks from their universal hostility has tended more and more to associate the Jewish race in Russia with the villainies which are now being perpetrated.
A Home for the Jews
Zionism offers the third sphere to the political conceptions of the Jewish race. In violent contrast to international communism.
Zionism has already become a factor in the political convulsions of Russia, as a powerful competing influence in Bolshevik circles with the international communistic system. Nothing could be more significant than the fury with which Trotsky has attacked the Zionists generally, and Dr. Weissmann in particular. The cruel penetration of his mind leaves him in no doubt that his schemes of a world-wide communistic State under Jewish domination are directly thwarted and hindered by this new ideal, which directs the energies and the hopes of Jews in every land towards a simpler, a truer, and a far more attainable goal. The struggle which is now beginning between the Zionist and Bolshevik Jews is little less than a struggle for the soul of the Jewish people.
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