Jewish Peace News: July 2009

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Carol Cook: Adina Hoffman's Literary Biography of Taha Muhammad Ali /Ha'aretz

Carol Cook reviews Adina Hoffman's literary biography of Palelstinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali.
Ali grew in Saffuriyya, one of hundreds of Palestinian villages destroyed during the Nakba (the 1947-49 war).
The story of the story of the village destruction is related in a sidebar in the print version, and is included here
below the main article. Not surprisingly, the Israeli official version turns out to be wrong. Surprisingly, perhaps,
it seems that even some of the actual participants in the occupation of the village didn't know that Saffuriyya
had been bombed the night before the ground troops entered the village.
I'm finding this last part a little hard to believe, since bombing tends to leave clear visible marks on the landscape.
Maybe the explanation is that people tend not to see what they fervently wish not to see.

Racheli Gai.
05/07/2009
Literary Biography / The bard of Bir el-Amir
By Carol Cook
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1097629.html

My Happiness Bears no Relation to Happiness: A Poet's Life in the Palestinian Century, by Adina Hoffman; Yale University Press, 464 pages, $27.50

Any novelist would have been pleased to invent a personality as engaging as the hero of this book: a handsome and charismatic self-made man and autodidact whose life is one of poverty and struggle, displacement and lost love, tragedy and triumph. But this is no fictional character; he is here among us, living in Nazareth, where he owns a souvenir shop near the Church of the Annunciation.

This ambitious book tells the story of Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali, one of Israel's "internal refugees," and his family, natives of Saffuriyya, one of some 400 villages destroyed by Israel in the 1948 war. As what is said to be the first published biography of a Palestinian writer, it opens up a new world to Western readers unfamiliar with Arabic literature. It also tells, through the life of one extraordinary man, the story of the Nakba, as Palestinians refer to their defeat and dispossession after the creation of Israel. This too, might be unfamiliar to many in the West. "My Happiness" is a rich and impressive work of research and a very personal encounter with the social and cultural history of our region.

Adina Hoffman is an American-born writer and publisher living in Jerusalem who has known Muhammad Ali for many years; her husband, Peter Cole, is a translator of his poetry. She has a keen eye and a sympathetic ear, and her portrait of the man and his time is vivid and intimate, engrossing and full of memorable characters. Every scene she sketches comes alive, whether it is in the poet's garden in the Nazareth neighborhood of Bir el-Amir, his wife's kitchen or the Israel Defense Forces archive at Tel Hashomer. The book often takes on the texture of a family saga, drawing us into the inner lives of the poet and his parents, siblings and friends. The liberal use of photos, most of them apparently from family archives, adds to the intimacy. At the center, of course, stands the larger-than-life figure of Taha Muhammad Ali.

He was born in July 1931 in the village of Saffuriyya, north of Nazareth, a prosperous farming town in those days of the British Mandate. Beginning around the seventh century B.C.E., Saffuriyya has been ruled successively by Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Jews, Romans, Islamic caliphs, Crusaders and Ottomans. Known as Sepphoris in antiquity, the city was called Tzippori under the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled Palestine in the second and first centuries B.C.E. During the Roman Empire, it was a Jewish religious center and the headquarters of the Sanhedrin. With Saladin's defeat of the Crusaders, it was renamed Saffuriyya. Today it is once again Tzippori, the name of a moshav and a national park containing an archaeological site renowned for its Roman mosaics.

Hoffman mined the memories of Muhammad Ali and his family, along with British and Israeli records, in order to compose a picture of Saffuriyya at the time the future poet was growing up. We learn, for example, that the British authorities required a permit for threshing wheat and that villagers appealed for a loan to build a road (denied). She tells of the Arab Revolt of 1936-39, conflict between clans, and relations between villagers and nearby Jewish settlements.

In the absence of written records, with only fragments of information about the village itself to go on, Hoffman employs an unusual device. She makes a list of hundreds of items - who was there ("shoemakers, shepherds, teachers, teething babies," for example), and what ("thirty-five mosques, five graveyards ... ten oil presses ... two religious schools ... 747 houses," and so on. The list is somehow very poignant, because, as the reader already knows, it was all doomed to disappear.

Muhammad Ali was sent to a maktab, one of the village's two religious elementary schools, where he learned reading, arithmetic, basic Arabic grammar and a bit of the Koran. After two years, his father bought him a pair of shoes so he could attend a municipal school established by the British in the village. There he began to learn literary Arabic, history, geography and math. From the start, the child was eager for more knowledge, and loved to borrow books from a villager who had a small lending library. But his formal education did not last long. His father had been crippled by polio and was unable to work, and by the time the boy was in third grade, he had already begun to help support his family. He bought eggs from the village women and sold them at a profit in Haifa; later, he opened a kiosk. After only four years of schooling, he left school to work full time. But he continued to read and study on his own, and learned from the conversations he heard in his father's madefeh, a
room set aside for receiving guests, drinking coffee, smoking and talking.

It all came to an end on the night of July 15, 1948, during Ramadan, two months after Israel declared its independence. Muhammad Ali, now 17, was taking his recently purchased flock of goats to pasture when "he saw a brilliant flash, felt a crash and tremor, and another - then everything was smashing glass and rising smoke, shouts in the distance, wailing nearby, people running, children crying ..." Saffuriyya was under attack from the air. (See box)

The goats scattered in panic, and he ran home to find everyone already gone. Imm Taha, his mother, had been preparing a meal to break the Ramadan fast. The cooking pots were abandoned and the family was waiting at the edge of the village, where they had agreed to meet "in case of trouble." They walked for two days and nights until they reached Bint Jbail, just over the Lebanese border.

Muhammad Ali described their feelings in a poem written four decades later:

We did not weep

when we were leaving -

for we had neither

time nor tears,

and there was no farewell.

We did not know

at the moment of parting

that it was a parting, so where would our weeping

have come from?

After struggling to get by in Lebanon for almost a year, they returned, sneaking back across the border into Israel. Much of the extended family was left behind in Lebanon, including the poet's fiancee, Amira, a cousin to whom he had been betrothed at the age of 4. Now the Saffuriyya refugees were "infiltrators" in a country that didn't want them. Saffuriyya was erased, its homes destroyed and its lands divided among three kibbutzim and the new Moshav Tzippori.

The family eventually was able to obtain Israeli ID cards and move to a new neighborhood established for Saffuriyya refugees in Nazareth. Muhammad Ali ran a kiosk and then a falafel stand by day, and continued his highly disciplined self-education project by night. He taught himself Arabic grammar from textbooks, studied English on his own, pored over back issues of a Cairo literary weekly he had received from a neighbor, and perused a 10-volume Arabic dictionary he had purchased for 30 liras - the price of a dunam of land in the 1950s.

Poetry of resistance

By the mid-1950s, Muhammad Ali had opened a grocery store, in which he ran a kind of salon, like the madafeh in his father's house. Among the regulars were the poets Michel Haddad, Jamal Qa'war, Rashid Hussein, and later Samih al-Qasim and Mahmoud Darwish. (Hoffman gives us what she calls a group portrait of these and other Palestinian authors and outlines the situation of Palestinian culture in the early days of the Jewish state.)

The poets in Muhammad Ali's circle were among the few Arab intellectuals left in Israel after the 1948 war. Most of the upper class had fled the violence in Palestine even before 1948, and much of the population that remained was illiterate. For many years, Israeli censorship and the Arab boycott of Israel combined to keep Arabic books and periodicals out of the country. The few books available were copied out by hand and passed from one reader to another. Literary Arabic was kept alive through poetry festivals that drew large crowds - and harassment by Israel's military government - throughout the Galilee during the 1950s and '60s. Al-Qasim described the festivals as a form of "popular passive resistance," and Hoffman writes that they made poetry "the most important means of political expression" for Israel's Arabs.

In 1960, the year Muhammad Ali opened his souvenir shop, he and Michel Haddad started a literary column in the government-sponsored newspaper al-Yawm. Muhammad Ali had begun to write poems, but it would be many years yet before he would publish them. His first poem, "Crack in the Skull," came out in 1971, when he was 40, in the Jerusalem literary magazine al-Sharq. It was written in shi'r manthur, free verse, a new form for Arabic poetry, and it marked his emergence as a major talent. Al-Qasim, his editor on the literary journal al-Jadid, would soon compare him to Brecht and Eliot.

Now that Muhammad Ali was beginning to publish his poetry (of which we get a only small taste in this book), the many years of lonely reading and studying began to bear fruit, or as Hoffman describes his poems, "full grown, flowering trees." It was poetry of resistance, commemorating his lost village and speaking for the powerless and the suppressed, like his hero Abd el-Hadi, whose "case is hopeless, / his situation / desperate. / His God-given rights are a grain of salt / tossed into the sea."

The first Lebanon war and the Phalangist massacre of Palestinians at the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps inspired some of Muhammad Ali's most moving poetry. (Part of his extended family, including Amira, were evacuated from the Ein al-Hilweh refugee camp, which was destroyed by Israeli bombing during the war. One poem, "Exodus," begins:

The street is empty

as a monk's memory,

and faces explode in the flames

like acorns -

He was able to visit his family in Lebanon and wrote of Amira herself in "The Fourth Qasida," published after the war. The title poem is a long meditation on loss, separation and death, as well as an ode to his lost love. (The separated cousins eventually married others.)

The minute I see her, I'll know her,

and recognize, too, catastrophes' rings

hanging from her tender neck.

I'll know her clear, springlike glance

her dewy gaze

like the dreams of lakes.

I'll know her shy, velvety steps,

her measured paces,

like breaths taken by seedlings of lettuce.

Strategy for survival

The book's enigmatic title comes from Muhammad Ali's poem "Fooling the Killers," published in 1989, which suggests a clever strategy for survival:

Lovers of hunting,

and beginners seeking your prey:

Don't aim your rifles at my happiness,

which isn't worth

the price of the bullet

(you'd waste on it).

What seems to you

so nimble and fine,

like a fawn,

and flees

every which way,

like a partridge,

isn't happiness.

Trust me:

my happiness bears

no relation to happiness.

And so the poet managed to avoid the evil eye; he fooled the killers and survived, lived a full life and prospered, read and studied and wrote and published. He found a small but enthusiastic audience for his poetry at home and eventually, through translations, an even wider one abroad. And because of what Hoffman calls his "relish at simply being," Muhammad Ali faced his tragedies, both national and personal, without falling into hatred or despair. And thus his life and work, she writes, became an affirmation of "the desire of any person or people simply to be."

History is written by the victors, so it's no wonder that Israel has been so successful in presenting its narrative of the conflict with the Palestinians. Hoffman offers an additional explanation. The Palestinians, she writes, "were not just unlucky to be the victims of the victims in this grand historical drama; they were also cursed to have found themselves, a basically oral people, wrestling rhetorically with perhaps the most print-obsessed people on the planet."

Taha Muhammad Ali is fortunate to have had one of the print-obsessed tell his story with such eloquence. In her introduction to the book, Hoffman says she hesitated before embarking on the project, concerned that a Jew expressing identification with an Arab might provoke suspicion in some readers. It probably will. And certainly, for a Jew, Israeli or not, it makes difficult reading. But at a time when a solution to the conflict seems far away - after yet another war that has only sharpened the hatred, when police in Jerusalem ban Palestinian cultural events and thought police in the Knesset attempt to criminalize commemoration of the Palestinian tragedy - this book is here to remind us of the human cost of our situation. As Hoffman quotes Muhammad Ali: "In my poetry, there is no Palestine, no Israel. But [there are] suffering, sadness, longing, fear, and [these] together, make ... Palestine and Israel."

Below is what appeared as a sidebar in the print edition. It relates the (changing) story of the occupation of Safuriyya.

The Nakba
By Carol Cook
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1097904.html

For decades after 1948, the "official" Israeli-Jewish narrative of the War of Independence held that Arab residents of the newly declared Jewish state fled the country at the behest of their leaders. The Palestinian narrative of the same event, which they call the Nakba, Arabic for "catastrophe," says they were driven out. More recently, the Palestinian side of the story has been told by scholars like Edward Said, Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim and Rashid Khalidi. Still, Hoffman writes that "the West remains, in large part, oblivious to the particulars of the Palestinian saga."

In researching the conquest of Saffuriyya, she found that even Israelis involved in that operation were unaware of what had happened. The Israeli plan, Operation Dekel, called for capturing Saffuriyya before advancing on Nazareth. Written Palestinian accounts, supported by Muhammad Ali and all the villagers she interviewed, said the village was bombed from the air, killing people and animals. Most of the terrified villagers, including Taha's family, fled northward. But Israeli accounts of the operation mention no air attacks; they say that ground forces stormed the village, expecting a fight, but found it empty. Dov Yirmiya, an Israel Defense Forces company commander in Operation Dekel, at first called the Palestinian version "bubbe meises" (old wives' tales, in Yiddish) in an interview with Hoffman.

Finally, she went to the IDF archives at the Tel Hashomer base. Here she found the answer, complete with a communique stating that Saffuriyya was "bombed by our planes a number of times in the course of the night" and giving details about the planes, the pilots and the types of bombs. The IDF files further attest that many villages in that area were bombed in July. Yirmiya hadn't known; the ground forces evidently were not told of the air attacks, and thus the story of the villagers' apparently unprovoked flight became part of the Israeli narrative.

................................................................
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Jewish Peace News editors:
Joel Beinin
Racheli Gai
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
Judith Norman
Lincoln Z. Shlensky
Rebecca Vilkomerson
Alistair Welchman
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Jewish Peace News archive and blog: http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com
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Tuesday, July 28, 2009

"Rachel" in San Francisco: Who Needs a Guardian Council?

On Saturday, July 25, the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival screened Simone Bitton's new film, "Rachel," about the killing of pacifist ISM volunteer Rachel Corrie while she protested the demolition of a Palestinian family's home in Gaza. See below for links describing what happened during the screening. First, some background and commentary.

When the SF Jewish Film Festival decided to include Bitton's film in its program this year, it chose Bay Area-based Jewish Voice for Peace and the local chapter of the American Friends Service Committee to serve as the screening's sponsors. JVP has sponsored a number of films at the Festival in years past. (I organized one of these sponsorships for JVP in 2000, when noted journalists Amira Hass and Hamdi Farraj were invited as guests.) The Festival also invited Rachel's mother, Cindy Corrie, to speak in conversation with Festival director Peter Stein after the film's screening. These decisions unexpectedly provoked a furious reaction from some of the Festival's biggest funders, including the Koret Foundation, the Taube Foundation, and the Consulate General of Israel in San Francisco, as well as from organizations like the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), which claims to represent the city's "organized" Jewish community (certain local groups, however, like Jewish Voice for Peace, are not welcome under the JCRC's tent).

These organizations' reactions against the film were so severe -- the Festival board's president, Shana Penn, who is also the executive director of the Taube Foundation, resigned, citing her disagreement over the Festival's handling of the film -- that the Festival agreed to invite local "pro-Israel" activist Dr. Michael Harris to give a "balancing" perspective in an introductory statement before the film's screening. Harris represents San Francisco Voice for Israel/Stand With US, an organization whose stated mission is to "take to the streets to respond to enemies of Israel in the San Francisco Bay Area." In other words, this is a purely reactionary organization without any positive agenda.

From the outset, it was clear that those objecting to Bitton's film regarded it as a nothing more than an attack on Israel, though these critics hadn't actually seen the film <http://bit.ly/UBQG2>. Moreover, the Koret and Taube foundations reverted to an ugly adversarial script in which, without a shred of credible evidence, they tarred Jewish Voice for Peace and AFSC as "virulently anti-Israel, anti-Semitic groups." Koret and Taube jointly issued a flamboyantly hysterical statement likening the Festival's screening of the film and inviting Cindy Corrie to sending Israel to its destruction <http://bit.ly/1W8dXs>.

What is most surprising about this episode is the degree to which Jewish community and charitable institutions in San Francisco -- historically one of the most progressive Jewish communities in the US -- see themselves as being on the defensive in the Obama era. These institutions have done a tremendous amount of needed charitable work in San Francisco, both within and outside the Jewish community. Yet they also historically have acted to set highly restrictive limits on the breadth of the Jewish community's political debate, and they display all the rigidity and corrosive defensiveness that the felt need for such discursive restrictions would imply.

But why were these organizations so provoked over the screening of a single critical film? Has President Obama's insistence that Israel halt all settlement construction so rattled Jewish leaders and institutions that a cultural event as apparently innocuous as this could set off all the alarm bells? This is hard to fathom, given that the President has repeatedly affirmed his intention to make Israel more secure, not less. The White House's stated objections, in recent days, not only to illegal settlement outposts but also to new Jewish construction in East Jerusalem that would harm prospects for a shared Jerusalem and an equitable resolution of the conflict seem expressly designed to curtail only the most egregious settlement activity -- activity which, in turn, is often paid for by American Jewish extremists like Irving Moskowitz and Ira Rennert <http://bit.ly/xjWUl>. What seems to be happening here is what progressive organizations like J-Street PAC have diagnosed as the disconnect between an established, often older, Jewish leadership and a younger generation of often unaffiliated Jews who hope for an equitable and principled resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict <http://bit.ly/nv4wN>.

It is worth remembering that the film which has generated so much acrimony and sniping was directed by Simone Bitton, a Jewish filmmaker born in Morocco and raised in Israel. (You can read an interview in which she discusses her motives for making the film, and her view of the question of guilt for Rachel Corrie's death, here: <http://bit.ly/cPzZV>.) The SF Jewish Film Festival is presenting 37 films made in or about Israel, as Joel Frangquist points out, including two about Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah and Hamas. Do Israel's self-declared supporters believe their cause is so fragile that a single film in this line-up, or a single critical speaker, could unfairly and irreversibly tilt the proverbial scales? More importantly, do they really believe that festival-goers need to be protected from ideas with which some do not agree? This is a profoundly un-Jewish attitude toward contention and dissent.

Here's a link to two personal accounts of what happended at Saturday's screening in San Francisco:
http://www.muzzlewatch.com/2009/07/27/san-francisco-jewish-film-festival-what-happened-on-saturday/

And here is a YouTube video of Michael Harris's much-heckled speech assailing the film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k66uGD5nuk

--Lincoln Shlensky

Joel Beinin adds:

Neither [account of Saturday's screening, on the Muzzelwatch.com site] fully captures the super-charged atmosphere and the emotional impact of the film.

Among the highlights, Jonathan Pollack saying, "I couldn't live in this place if I didn't resist, not just words (mas sfatayim), but actual resistance."

Rela Mazali adds:

In autumn 2006 I was one of three speakers touring New England -- a Palestinian woman from Khan Yunis, a Palestinian woman from Bet Jallah and myself, an Israeli-born Jewish woman from Herzlia. Of the several dozen venues and organizers that hosted us over three weeks, only a tiny minority were Jewish. And yet, at least two of these were contacted by the Israeli consulate before our arrival and "strongly advised" to cancel our talks because we were allegedly anti-Israel and dubitable. At one of these venues, whose organizers nevertheless went ahead and held the planned events, someone in the audience commented, "Just imagine the scandal if it had been the consulate of some Arab country that was contacting Muslim or Arab organizations and 'recommending' what and whom they should or shouldn't host... yet the Israelis do it all the time and it's treated as standard fare."

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Jewish world to queer Jews: (only some) gay is great / MuzzleWatch

Cecilie Surasky describes the use of gays to promote the Jewish State agenda.

Racheli Gai.

muzzlewatch.com

Jewish world to queer Jews: gay is great! Caring about Palestinians is forbidden!

Earlier this summer, Israel launched what can best be described as a queer-washing campaign to promote its more tolerant approach to gay rights over the anti-gay, mean, evil, Iranians and Palestinians. Israel's right-wing supporters may hate Palestinians but this summer, they just LOVE THE GAYS! It's one of the more cynical uses of liberal and progressive issues as both distraction and wedge.

Whether the organizers were aware of being used or not, it's likely that the push for a strong Jewish LGBT presence at this year's San Francisco Gay Pride parade was part of this initiative. Hence the multitude of Israeli flags in the contingent - the Israeli Consulate was all over it.

A group of queer Jews, most of whom work or worship inside the Jewish community, decided to join the contingent but with their own signs which read "Pride in Israel when Palestine is Free " and "Feygele for Free Palestine." They had a rude awakening after the parade, learning that while gay may be great in the mainstream Jewish world, Jews-who-acknowledge-Palestinians-as-humans are expected to stay in the closet.

They write in JVoices:

"We, Queer members of the Bay Area Jewish Community and our allies, are deeply saddened by events surrounding the "Jews March for Pride" contingent in this year's San Francisco Pride Parade.

We wanted to march with "Jews March for Pride" because we are proud to be Queer Jews and allies. We felt excited and privileged to have a place in the San Francisco Pride Parade to celebrate our whole selves as Jews and Queers.

However, our sense of pride in the contingent was shattered when we learned that not only would the Israeli Consulate be marching with Israeli flags, but also that "inclusion monitors" would censor anything that deviated from the narrow message of "Jews support LGBT equality." We see this as a contradiction. Support for the Israeli government is a political position that is not synonymous with support for LGBT equality, and is not synonymous with Judaism. Because these strong Israeli symbols would be dominating the contingent, we felt we could not in good conscious march without publically repudiating those messages. And although the planners reached out to include us, we felt excluded when any disagreement we voiced was declared "off message" and inappropriate."

Not surprising. However, they were allowed to march in the parade (Yay!) Here's the boo part:

"But the real consequences of our action have occurred in the days and weeks following the parade. Many of us have faced social sanctions in our personal and professional lives. Those of us who work in Jewish organizations have been harshly shamed in our workplaces and our political views have become a topic of discussion amongst our peers and supervisors. We feel vulnerable in the very community that had supposedly organized to support us as Queer Jews."

I know at least one of these stories and it's a real whopper. If and as soon as they decide to make it public, we'll let you know. Suffice it to say, the battle within the Jewish institutional world over the ability to simply think for oneself in terms of Israel and Palestinians is at times medieval. Join their Facebook group here http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=115825379792 .

- Cecilie Surasky

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Tom J: You Must Not See This Movie - Muzzling Jewish Dissent / the Daily Kos

Another storm around Simone Bitton's movie "Rachel", whose subject is Rachel Corrie, the young non-violent activist who was murdered* by an Israeli bulldozer, as she was attempting to stop a demolition of a Palestinian home in Rafah. More particularly, this controversy centers on the invitation by the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival organize of Cindy Corrie, Rachel's mother, to participate in the event.

* The answer to the question of how Rachel died - whether it was an intentional killing or not- is contested. It's my own firm opinion that she was run over intentionally, and therefore I use the term "murder."

The piece from the Daily Kos, by Tom J., lays out rather nicely the issues around the invitation of Cindy Corrie.

Racheli Gai.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/21/755733/-You-Must-*Not*-See-This-Movie-Muzzling-Jewish-Dissent.

Daily Kos
You Must *Not* See This Movie -- Muzzling Jewish Dissent.
by Tom J

Jul 21, 2009

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, the largest Jewish Film festival in the world, will screen many films this year, many with discussion with filmmakers and others featured in the film. Some of these films will be controversial, there will be all sorts of issues explored.

None has generated more controversy than the film "Rachel", a film by Jewish-Israeli filmmaker Simone Bitton about the death of Rachel Corrie, the young woman killed by an Israeli-military bulldozer as she was protecting homes in the Rafah, Gaza. At the request of the filmmaker, they have invited Cindy Corrie, Rachel's mother to speak. Big time controversy and condemnation by a weekly Jewish magazine and even from the local Israel Consul General.

Cindy Corrie has publicly advocated for ensuring "justice, freedom, security and economic viability for both Israelis and Palestinians."

So what's the problem?

* Tom J's diary
*

Peter Stein, the film festival's executive director:
"I know there are many members of the community who would prefer if the festival stayed away from programming films on difficult topics or topics of passionate division of opinion. That being said, if we, as an arts organization, are going to remain relevant in our time, it really is part of our role to catalyze conversation, however uncomfortable it may be."

Israel Consul General protests the presence of Cindy Corrie:

"The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival made a serious error in judgment in inviting Mrs. Corrie to the festival," Israel Consul General Akiva Tor said via e-mail. "She is a propagandist who is immune from responsibility for the causes she supports because it was her daughter, Rachel, who was accidentally killed.

"So her staged presence becomes a kind of emotional grandstanding, rather than pursuit of a deeper insight."

Propagandist? The Consul General has been busy supporting policies of expanding settlements in the West Bank, supporting the war on Gaza, supporting a brutal blockade, and now will be supporting a policy of muzzling Palestinians, and Jewish Israelis, who dare to commemorate the Nakba of 1948. The Foreign Minister, his boss, is seen by many (even Israeli diplomats) as extreme as fascist Haider of Austria... and this man is calling Cindy Corrie a "propagandist"? Cindy Corrie who wants justice, freedom, security and economic viability for both Israelis and Palestinians?

I think its a way of saying there is a point of view that the Consul General finds might disturb the status quo. Change might happen. Scary. Also a way to challenge the official narrative. "accidental" he says? That's the official line. Not so fast. Maybe not an accident. as perhaps the deaths of hundreds of civilians in the war on Gaza of December/January is perhaps not an accident, or the continuing blockade that brings hunger to the people of Gaza is not an accident. Perhaps the latter atrocity is nothing more than a joke among its designers.

Jewish Voice for Peace, a national group based in the Bay Area, is one of the groups co-sponsoring this film, and they are to be commended for their courage, as well as the festival organizers. Compare this to the sometimes successful effort to not allow the staging of the play: "My Name is Rachel Corrie" at several theaters around the country (which helped tremendously, no doubt, with publicity and its success where it was produced).

Here is how Cecilie Surasky of Jewish Voice for Peace responds to J Weekly's editorial opposing the presence of Cindy Corrie.

There's something so deeply, deeply depressing about the attack against Cindy Corrie by J Weekly, the Bay Area's Jewish newspaper. True, it's just one of countless examples of the moral malaise that plagues the institutional Jewish world when it comes to Palestinians, but on this day, this day when I am fresh back from Gaza, from Hebron, from Silwan, it has gotten to me.

I'm not sure which is worse- the possibility that the J's editorial writer actually believes the morally groundless drivel he or she is writing? Or the possibility that they know full well that the moral outrage that is the Israeli treatment of Gazans is an affront to all Jews and feeling people, but that they care more about keeping advertisers happy.

Change is happening, both in the Jewish Community and the wider community, and the keepers of the status quo cannot shut it down. that's not to say they are not trying. This should be seen in the wider context. In Israel, beyond the attempt to erase "Nakba" from the history books, (see assaf's diary)there is also the arrest and detention of Jewish groups who desire a different future for Israel, not based on militarism and oppression. The government must resort to repression not just of Palestinians, which is widely-accepted Israeli tradition, but now even Jewish dissidents. It is the criminalization of dissent, by any means necessary.

It won't work. Arrests will not work. Personal attacks will not work. Like the ones that will accumulate below, more likely than not, some based purely on the idea that most of my diaries deal with oppression of Palestinian rights... what if i were focusing on the Health Care debate... would there be this wild accusations without basis if i was consistently unfriendly to insurance company policies? Is there some mathematical formula to determine one's "acceptable" criticism of Israel? It really is nothing less than a lame attempt to avoid dealing with substance, and diverting people's attention.

This movement to demand justice in the Middle East is already too large, too diverse for that to work. They will call Rachel and her mother "terrorist sympathizers" who have no business going to Gaza. Like they say that Ezra Nawi has no business protect homes in the West Bank. Like others said that Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner had no business going to Mississippi to support the movement for justice there. Or like others said that Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, Dorothy Kazel and Jean Donovan had no business in El Salvador.

It is our business to share in the struggle for human rights and peace.

Rachel will be shown on Saturday, July 25th, 1:30 pm at the beautiful Castro Theater in San Francisco. Cindy Corrie Will be there.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

PACBI: Guidelines for Applying the International Cultural Boycott of Israel

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott (pacbi) came out with guidelines which should help us all determine what it is that we are asked to boycott, and what isn't. Hopefully this will help clear some of the confusion on this issue.
As the guidelines say outright, there are grey areas, and no guidelines, as well nuanced as they might be, can completely eliminate those. Still, I find the additional information
provided by the articulation of the principles behind the academic and cultural boycott very helpful. I also like the level of effort that went into coming up with a scheme
that makes important distinctions, instead of providing a "one size fits all" strategy.

Racheli Gai.

http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1045

PACBI | 20 July 2009

Guidelines for Applying the International Cultural Boycott of Israel

Since April 2004, PACBI has called upon intellectuals and academics worldwide to "comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions as a contribution to the struggle to end Israel's occupation, colonization and system of apartheid." [1]

In 2006, a decisive majority of Palestinian cultural workers, including most filmmakers and artists, supported by hundreds of international cultural workers, appealed to all international artists and filmmakers of good conscience to join the institutional cultural boycott against Israel. [2] In response, the renowned British artist and writer, John Berger, issued a statement that was backed by dozens of prominent international artists, writers and filmmakers calling on their colleagues everywhere to endorse the Palestinian cultural boycott call. [3]

In the spirit of this cultural boycott and consistent with its logic, on 8 May 2008, in a half-page advertisement in the International Herald Tribune under the banner "No Reason to Celebrate," tens of leading international cultural figures -- including Mahmoud Darwish, Augusto Boal, Ken Loach, Andre Brink, Ella Shohat, Judith Butler, Vincenzo Consolo, Ilan Pappe, David Toscana and Aharon Shabtai -- signed a statement responding to worldwide celebrations of Israel's "60th anniversary" saying [4]:

"There is no reason to celebrate! Israel at 60 is a state that is still denying Palestinian refugees their UN-sanctioned rights, simply because they are 'non-Jews.' It is still illegally occupying Palestinian and other Arab lands, in violation of numerous UN resolutions. It is still persistently and grossly breaching international law and infringing fundamental human rights with impunity afforded to it through munificent US and European economic, diplomatic and political support. It is still treating its own Palestinian citizens with institutionalized discrimination."

The cultural boycott campaign against apartheid South Africa has been a major source of inspiration in formulating the Palestinian boycott calls and their criteria. In that context, the key argument put forth by the South African regime and its apologists around the world against the anti-apartheid cultural and sports boycott -- that boycotts violate the freedom of expression and cultural exchange -- was resolutely refuted by the director of the United Nations Centre Against Apartheid, Enuga S. Reddy, who in 1984 wrote [5]: "It is rather strange, to say the least, that the South African regime which denies all freedoms ... to the African majority ... should become a defender of the freedom of artists and sportsmen of the world. We have a list of people who have performed in South Africa because of ignorance of the situation or the lure of money or unconcern over racism. They need to be persuaded to stop entertaining apartheid, to stop profiting from apartheid money and to stop
serving the propaganda purposes of the apartheid regime." Similarly, the Palestinian boycott call targets cultural institutions, projects and events that continue to serve the purposes of the Israeli colonial and apartheid regime.

During five years of intense work with partners in several countries to promote the cultural boycott against Israel, PACBI has thoroughly scrutinized tens of cultural projects and events, assessing the applicability of the boycott criteria to them and, accordingly, has issued open letters, statements or advisory opinions on them. The two most important conclusions reached in this respect were: (a) many of these events and projects fall into an uncertain, grey area that is challenging to appraise, and (b) the boycott must target not only the complicit institutions but also the inherent and organic links between them which reproduce the machinery of colonial subjugation and apartheid. Based on this experience and in response to the burgeoning demand for PACBI's specific guidelines on applying the cultural boycott to diverse projects, from film festivals to art exhibits to musical and dance performances to conferences, the Campaign lays out below unambiguous, consistent and coherent
criteria and guidelines that specifically address the nuances and particularities of the field of culture.

These criteria are mainly intended to help guide cultural workers and organizers around the world in adhering to the Palestinian call for boycott, as a contribution towards establishing a just peace in our region.

Cultural Boycott Criteria

In all the following, "product" refers to cultural products such as films and other art forms; "event" refers to film festivals, conferences, art exhibits, dance and musical performances, tours by artists and writers, among other activities.

Before discussing the various categories of cultural products and events and as a general overriding rule, virtually all Israeli cultural institutions, unless proven otherwise, are complicit in maintaining the Israeli occupation and denial of basic Palestinian rights, whether through their silence or actual involvement in justifying, whitewashing or otherwise deliberately diverting attention from Israel's violations of international law and human rights. Accordingly, these institutions, all their products, and all the events they sponsor or support must be boycotted. Events and projects involving individuals explicitly representing these complicit institutions should be boycotted, by the same token.

The following criteria may not be completely exhaustive and certainly do not preempt, replace or void other, common-sense rationales for boycott, particularly when a cultural product or event is shown to be explicitly justifying, advocating or promoting war crimes, racial discrimination, apartheid, suppression of fundamental human rights and serious violations of international law.

Based on the above, the Palestinian cultural boycott against Israel applies in the following situations:

(1) Cultural product is commissioned by an official Israeli body

All cultural products commissioned by an official Israeli body (e.g., government ministry, municipality, embassy, consulate, state or other public film fund, etc.) deserve to be boycotted on institutional grounds, as they are commissioned and thus funded by the Israeli state -- or any of its complicit institutions -- specifically to help the state's propaganda or "rebranding" efforts aimed at diluting, justifying, whitewashing or otherwise diverting attention from the Israeli occupation and other violations of Palestinian rights and international law. However, this level of explicit complicity is difficult to ascertain quite often, as information on such direct commissioning may not be readily available or may even be intentionally concealed.

(2) Product is funded by an official Israeli body, but not commissioned (no political strings)

The term "political strings" here specifically refers to those conditions that obligate a fund recipient to directly or indirectly serve the Israeli government's "rebranding" or propaganda efforts. Products funded by official Israeli bodies -- as defined in category (1) above -- but not commissioned, therefore not attached to any political strings, are not per se subject to boycott. Individual cultural products that receive state funding as part of the individual cultural worker's entitlement as a tax-paying citizen, without her/him being bound to serve the state's political and PR interests, are not boycottable, according to the PACBI criteria. Accepting such political strings, on the other hand, would clearly turn the cultural product or event into a form of complicity, by contributing to Israel's efforts to whitewash or obscure its colonial and apartheid reality, and would render it boycottable, as a result.

While an individual's freedom of expression, particularly artistic expression, should be fully and consistently respected in this context, an individual artist, filmmaker, writer, etc., Israeli or not, cannot be exempt from being subject to boycotts that conscientious citizens around the world (beyond the scope of the PACBI boycott criteria) may call for in response to what is widely perceived as a particularly offensive act or statement by the cultural worker in question (such as direct or indirect incitement to violence; justification -- an indirect form of advocacy -- of war crimes and other grave violations of international law; racial slurs; actual participation in human rights violations; etc.). At this level, Israeli cultural workers should not be automatically exempted from due criticism or any lawful form of protest, including boycott; they should be treated like all other offenders in the same category, not better or worse.

(3) Event is partially or fully sponsored or funded by an official Israeli body

The general principle is that an event or project carried out under the sponsorship/aegis of or in affiliation with an official Israeli body constitutes complicity and therefore is deserving of boycott. It is also well documented now that Israeli artists, writers and other cultural workers applying for state funding to cover the cost of their -- or their cultural products' -- participation in international events must accept to contribute to Israel's official propaganda efforts. To that end, the cultural worker must sign a contract with the Israeli Foreign Ministry binding her/him to "undertake to act faithfully, responsibly and tirelessly to provide the Ministry with the highest professional services. The service provider is aware that the purpose of ordering services from him is to promote the policy interests of the State of Israel via culture and art, including contributing to creating a positive image for Israel." [6]

(4) Product is not funded or sponsored by an official Israeli body

Unless violating any of the above criteria, in the absence of official Israeli sponsorship, the individual product of an Israeli cultural worker per se is not boycottable, regardless of its content or merit.

(5) Event or project promotes false symmetry or "balance"

Cultural events and projects involving Palestinians and/or Arabs and Israelis that promote "balance" between the "two sides" in presenting their respective narratives, as if on par, or are otherwise based on the false premise that the colonizers and the colonized, the oppressors and the oppressed, are equally responsible for the "conflict," are intentionally deceptive, intellectually dishonest and morally reprehensible. Such events and projects, often seeking to encourage dialogue or "reconciliation between the two sides" without addressing the requirements of justice, promote the normalization of oppression and injustice. All such events and projects that bring Palestinians and/or Arabs and Israelis together, unless framed within the explicit context of opposition to occupation and other forms of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, are strong candidates for boycott. Other factors that PACBI takes into consideration in evaluating such events and projects are the sources of
funding, the design of the program, the objectives of the sponsoring organization(s), the participants, and similar relevant factors.

References:

[1] http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=869

[2] http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=315

[3] http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=415

[4] http://www.pngo.net/data/files/english_statements/08/PNGO-THT-HP5208(2).pdf

[5] http://www.anc.org.za/un/reddy/cultural_boycott.html

[6] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1005287.html

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Rela Mazali: The criminal investigation of New Profile and freedom of expression

A talk by Rela Mazali of New Profile, given on May 14 in a Tel Aviv University public forum titled:"Freedom of Speech - Between Theory and Practice: On the limits of free speech in light of the recent detainment and interrogation of nine New Profile activists."
The panel included four speakers; the three others were: Former Supreme Court Judge Dalia Dorner; Attorney Talia Sasson, formerly Head of the Attorney General's Department for Special Affairs; Prof. Martin Sherman.

The event, organized by students, was well attended, and the public discussion following the four presentation was of a heated nature.

I'm also enclosing New Profile latest update.

Racheli Gai.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The criminal investigation of New Profile and freedom of expression
Rela Mazali

Talk at Tel Aviv University
May 14 2009
[Hebrew original posted:
http://www.hagada.org.il/hagada/html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6723]

Oshrat Shtangel, Annelien Kisch, Rotem Kinberg, Danna Frank, Raanan Forschner, Nimrod Evron, Sergeiy Sandler, Mirjam Hadar, Bilha Golan, Amir Givol, Ronnie Barkan.

Here they are. They're sitting right here among you; the people whom the police "raided" – as they official press release had it – in their homes and their rented apartments at seven a.m. on the eve of Memorial Day, in an extravagant, highly irregular theatrical production. This would-be-daring-operation instantaneously positioned these people as well as myself and many others in the role of secret agents, as it were, part of a dangerous clandestine network.

Here they are then – the people who were interrogated under threat of indictments, the people who today – on the restraining orders of the police – are banned from meeting or speaking to each other, although they're allowed to assemble here within the same public lecture hall.

They, I, we, the New Profile movement, are suspected – according to the police and the Attorney General – of the offense of "incitement". This criminal offense has yet to be enforced in the state of Israel. It has never yet led, to date, to indictments or trial in an Israeli court, for the law that prohibits it is viewed as problematic and overly vague. The authorities, however, have not stopped at pulling this questionable offense out of the law books; for good measure we are also suspected of counseling young men and women to lie to the military towards procuring exemptions from service.

The powers that be are spreading a broad and intentionally ill-defined dragnet; it's not hard to imagine it snagging something – some word or sentence torn out of its careful context, as already experienced by some of those interrogated.

New Profile is an open, feminist movement of resistance, very rich in words, formulations, challenging viewpoints, unconventional civil-critical thinking and strong public declarations. Of course we're being criminalized for verbal offenses – what else? For alleged incitement. For alleged lies. Verbal offenses nevertheless punishable by serious sentences.

But the preposterous suspicions we are being framed for are not the real motive for the Attorney General's instructions or the army's concerted pressure or the police's hyperbolic production. All of these were motivated not by lies but rather by the truth we speak; the truth that we've been speaking over every available channel for more than a decade, the truth that we are a state trapped in militarized patterns of action, a society addicted to militarized mindsets and the use of force.

We speak the truth about an interest group of people who profit – hugely – from a continuing state of low-intensity-war occasionally peaking in a high-intensity campaign. We point out that some of them are the very same people who define what security is, what it means, for all the rest of us; that they are the same people who identify security with military prowess, with power and money for the military organization and with power, including extensive political power, for military men.

In addition, we report on a growing movement of eighteen-year-old women and men who do not enlist, the vast majority of them without ever having heard of New Profile. We relate this truth, describe this broad social movement, to whoever is willing to listen and discuss it with respect. We denounce attempts on the part of the establishment to erase this reality through slander, representing those who create it as negligible people: a lunatic fringe, extremists, emotionally disturbed, unstable or – mainly – "shirkers".

Parts of this social movement resist the draft openly and refuse to serve a violent policy of repression, dispossession and occupation. New Profile upholds and backs their right to do so with practical assistance. For instance, for Yinnon Hiller, whose High Court struggle for an exemption from military service (finally granted in 2003), was heard by, among others, the Honorable Judge Dalia Dorner seated beside me at this panel. Or, for instance, very recently, over the last few months, for a series of young conscientious objectors who served sentences in military prisons – yet another group of High School Seniors ("Shministim") determined and steadfast despite years of army intimidation and imprisonment of their predecessors.

I wish to reiterate: Israel has no overt legal provision for recognizing freedom of conscience. There are no express legal arrangements for the right to conscientious objection. This is a huge exception among states that set themselves up as democracies. Like many other severe injustices committed by Israel, injustices addressed in some of New Profile's oppositional action, this one too is enabled and allowed under the embedded clauses or Israeli mantras: "We have no other choice", "existential threat" and "security reasons".

Another section of the social movement of draft resistance, a huge mass of young future citizens, simply doesn't enlist; refrains from service. I won't claim, superficially, that all of these young men and women are expressing left-wing views in their act of refraining. Their deliberations, difficulties and personal motives are many, complex and varied. Nevertheless, it can be stated clearly that a large number of them disbelieves the existence of a threat so huge, so immediate and so pressing to the existence of their society that every young body must stand up to block its way. Clearly, some of them also deeply mistrust the people deploying the army and fail to believe that their lives and health will be put on the line only and truly when there is no other choice.

New Profile has been acquainted with this movement for years and maintains ongoing personal contacts with a small portion of those who constitute it, due among other things to the fact that we create a space for thinking, for the open, free and safe discussion of questions which are often difficult for young people to raise at home or in their neighborhoods. Young women and men find space for a personal decision process through New Profile. Those who seek it are furthermore provided with fully legal information about their rights and about the intricate processes they face. At the same time, we collect and build knowledge about this broad social phenomenon.

New Profile and now – as it would seem – the heads of the Israeli army-state, view this emergent youth-led movement as a force potentially destabilizing the existing order. This is what has them worried. This is what has led them to such distinctly politicized use of the police. This truth rather than the alleged lies of which we are being accused.

The open, visible activity of New Profile provides them with a scapegoat, a convenient venue for staging their spectacle, designed to intimidate and face down tens of thousands of young eighteen year olds. What a perfect complement to the recent campaign that aggressively marketed the draft like a fashionable brand of teenage footwear.

Draft resistance is common throughout every social class today. It has gradually gained a degree of legitimacy in public opinion. Before our eyes, it is in the process of dismantling the false façade of "a people's army". It has apparently also begun to undermine the army's exclusive, autonomous control over screening, selecting and deciding who will serve, who won't and where.

Perhaps more important, though, wide-spread draft resistance is threatening to rob those who deploy the army – the politicians – of their fear instilling moves, their most dependable tactic for derailing any civil activity that contests their failures, their corruption or their horrific injustices.

They are charging us with lies in a bid to regain their own unobstructed lying.

In 1985, the authorities in South Africa commenced persecution of the End Conscription Campaign, it too a feminist, women-led movement. Its activities were outlawed and it was forced underground. Five years later, apartheid collapsed.

==============================================
New Profile update - July 2009

July 15, 2009

Dear Supporters,

As with our earlier (two) updates, we would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued and faithful support of New Profile during these critical times. During the recent months your visible show of support has been truly significant and heartening.

The ongoing attempt to delegitimize New Profile is being played out, for now, on the forms and desks of bureaucrats. There are two official scenarios already in process: 1) A petition to the High Court of Justice to revoke New Profile's registration as a non-profit organization, which would amount to shutting off our legal channel for receiving funds; 2) The criminal investigation of New Profile for alleged incitement and assistance with obtaining fraudulent exemptions from the army. (For full background information see two previous updates: http://www.newprofile.org/english/?p=166; http://www.newprofile.org/english/?p=102.)

The court case is now stalled, pending the results of the police investigation. The police, for their part, after the high drama of an orchestrated "raid", have completed their initial interrogations and transferred the case back to the Attorney General. The computers they confiscated were returned to their owners 30 days after being impounded. Written and printed materials have not yet been returned. Further investigative work may be initiated by the police, at any given time, including additional interrogations. We can only assume that the material gathered is now being combed for alleged criminal offenses towards possible indictments.

New Profile members are working very hard both as a movement and as individuals, to resist the intentionally exhausting and dispiriting effects of waiting out the course of this laborious bureaucratic legal process. Just one of our means for doing this has been the unorthodox move of taking a series of close, candid, intimate looks back at the investigators and their practices. (For our series "Investigating the Investigation", authored by various New Profile activists, see: http://www.newprofile.org/english/?p=119#more-119.)

We would like to reiterate that police harassment of New Profile and the interrogation of eleven of our members are not isolated events. They are part of a virulent drive of state McCarthyism, a stepped-up systematic persecution of left-wing activists and voices. This drive arguably obviates the remnants of Israel's claim to democracy and parodies its ludicrous boast to representing a single democratic beacon in the Middle East.

Among human rights organizations in Israel, Adalah (www.adalah.org/eng/index.php) for instance is still preparing a report on the recent, sharp escalation in combined state and university repression of student activists and, in particular, Palestinian citizens of Israel; the Association of Citizen's Rights in Israel (www.acri.org/eng/) will soon be publicizing their comprehensive report on state violence against activists, left-wing groups and individuals, as well as their international supporters.

Our last update, listed, among others:

- Samih Jabarin, who still remains under house arrest months after being arrested for participating in a political demonstration in Umm al Fahm, though he has finally been allowed to return to his place of residence in Yaffa. The conditions of his house-arrest have significantly improved and while still bound to them, he will now be able to resume part of his work at the Arab-Hebrew Theater until the next court session, set for September 2009. (See: Link to the petition: http://www.atzuma.co.il/petition/friendsofsamieh/1/1000/.)

- Anarchists Against the Wall, some of whom have recently been sentenced to prison terms. (Read more on their website, www.awalls.org.)

- Ezra Nawi, who's sentencing has been postponed, dragging out the legal process. (See: www.supportezra.net.)

This list is constantly expanding. Some of the newer instances include:

1) The recent interrogation of members of Yesh Gvul, for alleged "incitement to evade military service", while promising "financial incentives". This longtime refusers' group, primarily supporting refusal to serve in the Occupied Territories, was also questioned regarding their web link to New Profile's website. (For more information, see: http://www.yeshgvul.org/news.asp?id=81a03ef84f6d0ab2ad2b7d21cec9ea71.)

2) The kidnapping by Israel's navy, on June 30th, of the passengers and crew of "The Spirit of Humanity," on board which the Free Gaza Movement was bringing food, medical supplies and human rights monitors towards Gaza port. Amongst the 21 passengers detained and later deported were Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire and former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. (For detailed information, see: www.freegaza.org.)

3) The continuing refusal of Israeli state authorities to allow members of the UN investigative mission on the events of December-January 2008-9 to enter Israel. The mission, headed by world renowned jurist Richard Goldstone, has been hearing testimonies in the Gaza Strip. (For a report on the mission, see for instance: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3739538,00.html.)

And yet, we would also like to point out that within the overall context of political and racist persecution, each separate instance of repression represents individual state policies and specific bids for control by the state. New Profile's criminalization and our attempted shut-down are directed, in particular, at intimidating the huge numbers of young people who fail to comply with conscription law today. The drive against us targets this popular display of mistrust and indifference, this major threat to politicians' fear-based hold on voting constituencies and to military commanders' uncontested control of "national security" issues.

New Profile's criminalization follows a fault line that has long been quaking beneath the surface of Israeli society and is now visibly cracking open.

We will send out further updates as the events unfold and we'll also turn to each of you to take concrete action when needed. We'd like to remind you, though, of our ongoing need to inform and engage more and more people and of our list "What you can do" at: www.newprofile.org/english/?p=102#what-you-can-do . Please take one of these actions into consideration.

Again, we hugely appreciate your continuing interest, caring and support.

Sincerely,

Ruth Hiller & Rela Mazali

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Naomi Klein and the Boycott Movement: Addendum

Naomi Klein and the Boycott: Addendum

In my previous piece for JPN on Naomi Klein and BDS (http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com/2009/07/naomi-klein-and-boycott-movement.html), I apprently did not sufficiently explain the nature of Naomi Klein's endorsement of BDS. She is not endorsing a full boycott of Israel or Israelis, as should be apparent by the fact that she did events in several locations throughout the country. However, she carefully designed her trip, with her publishers, Andalus Publishing, and with the BDS committee, so that no state institutions or universities would sponsor events. In fact, her event sponsors were generally Palestinian Israeli institutions which represent the 20% of Israelis who are not Jewish but are generally excluded from the Israeli narrative, but also included Jewish Israeli groups that work in solidarity with Palestinians.

Klein's position is against normalization. She did not think it was appropriate to come to Israel and act as though everything is normal. In fact, Klein's first event was held in Bi'lin, where she held a press conference and participated in the weekly demonstration against the Wall. But she was in fact eager to spark debate and discussion in Israel, and wanted her ideas to get out to the Israeli public, which is why she authorized translation of the book to Hebrew, while donating the royalties to an activist publisher.

In fact, it was hoped that her appearance in Israel would spark more public debate in the media, but unfortunately, the coverage was minimal. It seems that while people in Israel were interested in the debate, the media still considers the topic largely taboo.

As is clear in this case, BDS is complicated in practice, especially when practiced "from within." We can only hope that more public figures will follow Klein's lead in having the discussion in Israel with integrity and solidarity.

-Rebecca Vilkomerson

transcript of Naomi Klein's talk in Ramallah: http://www.bdsmovement.net/?q=node/465

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Naomi Klein and the Boycott Movement

www.boycottisrael.info : supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from Within (Israel)
www.whoprofits.org : exposing the Israeli Occupation Industry, a project of Coalition of Women for Peace (Israel)
http://www.bdsmovement.net/ : Palestinian Global Call for BDS
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC8TX0TXcds : Naomi Klein press conference in Bil'in

Naomi Klein's recently completed visit to Israel had a galvanizing effect on the "boycott from within" movement here (www.boycottisrael.info), which has endorsed the Palestinian call for BDS (www.bdsmovement.net). Her public meetings, in Ramallah, East Jerusalem, Haifa, and Jaffa drew hundreds of people to hear her clear-eyed analysis of why it is time for a full boycott of Israel until the occupation ends, Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel have full and equal rights, and the right of return for Palestinian refugees is fully realized under international law.

I attended her events in Ramallah and Jaffa, where hundreds of people gathered, largely supportive, to participate in a conversation that felt historic. Klein spoke clearly as a Jewish activist, though she acknowledged that that was a new role for her. In Ramallah, apparently near tears, she told us, "I come to you with humility that I didn't heed the call sooner. It was purely because of cowardice."

This admission was complex and powerful, because it juxtaposed the clarity and simplicity of her reasons for supporting BDS with an acknowledgement that supporting boycott, perhaps especially for Jews and Israelis, requires a psychological leap out of our comfort zones.

Her presentation of why BDS is right, now, was remarkable in that she consciously presented it as a positive, movement-building tool to build a joint future with Palestinians, rather than simply a method to punish Israelis. She was insistent that the boycott was not about boycotting Israelis as individuals, but was actually an opportunity for increased communication and public education. She used the example of her own unconventional book tour in Israel and Palestine as an example of how to follow the BDS call with integrity while still interacting with and educating Israelis. She avoided ideological buzz words (such as "Zionism" or "anti-Zionism") that could have been polarizing and yet emphasized the need to call things what they are (ie "apartheid" not just "human rights abuses.")

She spoke clearly about BDS as a tool of non-violent solidarity, comparing not complying with the BDS call with crossing an invisible picket line. She noted that one reason to heed the call is because it has been called by so wide a swath of Palestinian civil society and that only boycott can make the occupation visible inside the Israeli "bubble." Compared to the boycott of the Palestinian economy which includes the siege of Gaza and the choking system of checkpoints and other forms of control in the West Bank, boycott of Israel is a light punishment indeed. She quoted a Gazan who told her, "what Israelis call a crisis we'd love to have."

She firmly rejected the idea that to boycott is anti-semitic, further noting that the BDS movement needs to be particularly vigilant in standing against anti-semitism, while being prepared to call out the use of anti-semitism as a way of silencing dissent. In this role, Jews worldwide, and Israeli Jews in particular, have a key role to play.

Finally, in Jaffa particularly, there was some discussion of the mechanics of boycott, especially from within. Yael Lerer, Klein's Israeli publisher, suggested that lessons could be learned from Palestinian Israelis who have learned through experience about how to navigate living their lives without endorsing Israeli institutions. We are all learning as we go about what boycott means in practice, and that its implementation is a tactic, not an end in itself.

As Naomi Klein noted simply in response to a questioner, "It's hard. But I still agree with it."

--Rebecca Vilkomerson

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Sara Roy: The Peril of Forgotten Gaza and a Fast for Gaza action call

The Jewish Fast for Gaza is an ad hoc group of rabbis, Jews, and people of conscience who have committed to
undertake a monthly daytime fast in support of the following goals:

1. To call for a lifting of the blockade that prevents the entry of civilian goods and services into Gaza;

2. To provide humanitarian and developmental aid to the people of Gaza;

3. To call upon Israel, the US, and the international community to engage in negotiations without pre-conditions with all relevant Palestinian parties - including Hamas - in order to end the blockade;

4. To encourage the American government to vigorously engage both Israelis and Palestinians toward a just and peaceful settlement of the conflict.

The group is looking for people to join the fast or support it in other ways. It's not limited to Jews only.
To find out more, visit http://www.fastforgaza.net/

On the day of the first fast, Thursday, July 16th, the group is sponsoring a conference call with Sara
Roy, a well known political economist who has long studied conditions in Gaza and the West Bank.
Below is an article she published last month in The Harvard Crimson, explaining concisely and
chillingly the depth of deprivation and despair in Gaza, and the possible ramifications of this for
both Palestinians and Israelis.

Racheli Gai.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=528434

Sara Roy: The Peril of Forgetting Gaza
Tuesday, June 02, 2009 5:23 PM

The recent meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu generated speculation over the future relationship between America and Israel, and a potentially changed U.S. policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Analysts on the right and left are commenting on a new, tougher American policy characterized by strengthened U.S. demands on Israel. However, beneath the diplomatic choreography lies an agonizing reality that received only brief comment from Obama and silence from Netanyahu: The ongoing devastation of the people of Gaza.

Gaza is an example of a society that has been deliberately reduced to a state of abject destitution, its once productive population transformed into one of aid-dependent paupers. This context is undeniably one of mass suffering, created largely by Israel but with the active complicity of the international community, especially the U.S. and European Union, and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Gaza's subjection began long before Israel's recent war against it.. The Israeli occupation—now largely forgotten or denied by the international community—has devastated Gaza's economy and people, especially since 2006. Although economic restrictions actually increased before Hamas' electoral victory in January 2006, the deepened sanction regime and siege subsequently imposed by Israel and the international community, and later intensified in June 2007 when Hamas seized control of Gaza, has all but destroyed the local economy. If there has been a pronounced theme among the many Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals who I have interviewed in the last three years, it was the fear of damage to Gaza's society and economy so profound that billions of dollars and generations of people would be required to address it—a fear that has now been realized.

After Israel's December assault, Gaza's already compromised conditions have become virtually unlivable. Livelihoods, homes, and public infrastructure have been damaged or destroyed on a scale that even the Israel Defense Forces admitted was indefensible. In Gaza today, there is no private sector to speak of and no industry. 80 percent of Gaza's agricultural crops were destroyed and Israel continues to snipe at farmers attempting to plant and tend fields near the well-fenced and patrolled border. Most productive activity has been extinguished.

One powerful expression of Gaza's economic demise—and the Gazans' indomitable will to provide for themselves and their families—is its burgeoning tunnel economy that emerged long ago in response to the siege. Thousands of Palestinians are now employed digging tunnels into Egypt—around 1,000 tunnels are reported to exist although not all are operational. According to local economists, 90 percent of economic activity in Gaza—once considered a lower middle-income economy (along with the West Bank)—is presently devoted to smuggling.

Today, 96 percent of Gaza's population of 1.4 million is dependent on humanitarian aid for basic needs. According to the World Food Programme, the Gaza Strip requires a minimum of 400 trucks of food every day just to meet the basic nutritional needs of the population. Yet, despite a 22 March decision by the Israeli cabinet to lift all restrictions on foodstuffs entering Gaza, only 653 trucks of food and other supplies were allowed entry during the week of May 10, at best meeting 23 percent of required need.

Israel now allows only 30 to 40 commercial items to enter Gaza compared to 4,000 approved products prior to June 2006. According to the Israeli journalist, Amira Hass, Gazans still are denied many commodities (a policy in effect long before the December assault): Building materials (including wood for windows and doors), electrical appliances (such as refrigerators and washing machines), spare parts for cars and machines, fabrics, threads, needles, candles, matches, mattresses, sheets, blankets, cutlery, crockery, cups, glasses, musical instruments, books, tea, coffee, sausages, semolina, chocolate, sesame seeds, nuts, milk products in large packages, most baking products, light bulbs, crayons, clothing, and shoes.

Given these constraints, among many others—including the internal disarray of the Palestinian leadership—one wonders how the reconstruction to which Obama referred will be possible. There is no question that people must be helped immediately. Programs aimed at alleviating suffering and reinstating some semblance of normalcy are ongoing, but at a scale shaped entirely by the extreme limitations on the availability of goods. In this context of repressive occupation and heightened restriction, what does it mean to reconstruct Gaza? How is it possible under such conditions to empower people and build sustainable and resilient institutions able to withstand expected external shocks? Without an immediate end to Israel's blockade and the resumption of trade and the movement of people outside the prison that Gaza has long been, the current crisis will grow massively more acute. Unless the U.S. administration is willing to exert real pressure on Israel for implementation—and the indications
thus far suggest they are not—little will change. Not surprisingly, despite international pledges of $5.2 billion for Gaza's reconstruction, Palestinians there are now rebuilding their homes using mud.

Recently, I spoke with some friends in Gaza and the conversations were profoundly disturbing. My friends spoke of the deeply felt absence of any source of protection—personal, communal or institutional. There is little in society that possesses legitimacy and there is a fading consensus on rules and an eroding understanding of what they are for. Trauma and grief overwhelm the landscape despite expressions of resilience. The feeling of abandonment among people appears complete, understood perhaps in their growing inability to identify with any sense of possibility. The most striking was this comment: "It is no longer the occupation or even the war that consumes us but the realization of our own irrelevance."

What possible benefit can be derived from an increasingly impoverished, unhealthy, densely crowded, and furious Gaza alongside Israel? Gaza's terrible injustice not only threatens Israeli and regional security, but it undermines America's credibility, alienating our claim to democratic practice and the rule of law.

If Palestinians are continually denied what we want and demand for ourselves—an ordinary life, dignity, livelihood, safety, and a place where they can raise their children—and are forced, yet again, to face the destruction of their families, then the inevitable outcome will be greater and more extreme violence across all factions, both old and increasingly new. What looms is no less than the loss of entire generation of Palestinians. And if this happens—perhaps it already has—we shall all bear the cost.

Sara Roy is a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. She is the author of Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Games People Play

In his column in the New Jersey Jewish News today <http://bit.ly/oupJ1>, Douglas Bloomfield, a former chief lobbyist of AIPAC, discusses the almost unbelievable leaked game plan of rightist Israel advocacy organization The Israel Project (TIP). According to TIP's advocacy manual for pro-Israel activists, Americans -- even "supporters of Israel" -- are generally hostile to Israel's settlements and to settlement growth. How to respond? Attack those who call for an end to settlement construction and argue instead that no government "should be expected to engage in ethnic cleansing against its own citizens" (i.e., the settlers). Wow. Can there be anything more ironic than the claim that ongoing attempts to remove Palestinians from the occupied territories by "passive" or active means is somehow legitimate, while calling for an end to the expansion of occupation by settlement is "ethnic cleansing"? That Bloomfield, an AIPAC strategist, criticizes TIP's tactics suggests that the Jewish lobby may be fracturing from within now that Obama has changed the rules of the game.

Evidence of another unpublicized effort to support the Israeli settlements from abroad is spotlighted by Joseph Dana, a prolific Israeli activist, blogger and microblogger (you can follow him on Twitter: @ibnezra). Dana brings renewed attention to the US and UK non-profit organization, Nefesh B'Nefesh, which is promoting North American and British Jewish immigration to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. A video now on YouTube <http://bit.ly/hPYUD> shows the organization celebrating its success in bringing thousands of new Jewish immigrants to Israel this summer, including many to the Israeli settlement of Efrat. So, is this what the Netanyahu government and Israeli settlers mean, Dana rightly asks, when they demand that the US permit settlement expansion due to "natural growth"? Dana works with Ta'ayush <http://bit.ly/uRlDN>, a grassroots organization of Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel working to end Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

* * *

Finally, a comment on a different topic -- that of the fallout from Iran's fraudulent recent elections. JPN has regularly disseminated reports of brutal interrogation tactics used by the Israeli military against Palestinian prisoners. We must never forget that such inhumane practices are nearly ubiquitous in national conflicts -- as amply demonstrated by one needless regional war after another, one secret prison or "extraordinary rendition" after another, an administration's toady attorney or a "defense" secretary, a private military contractor or a paid legionnaire, and almost universally by a "right" man or woman's burden or assumed privilege.

It is equally a truism that even popular resistance-based movements can morph into the authoritarian enforcers they oppose: the once-revolutionary Iranian regime has reconfirmed this by using the very tactics of repression and cruelty that Iranians ruled by the US-supported Shah had rejected so forcefully in the late-1970s. Human Rights Watch has recently documented how viciously the Iranian regime treats those who challenge its claim to divinely inspired legitimacy: <http://bit.ly/sdvHm>. Human rights belong to all; they are the natural province, however, of nowhere. It is for ordinary people animated by a universal spirit of justice to demand that such rights be everywhere and always respected.

--Lincoln Z. Shlensky

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Ali Abunimah: Hamas' choice: Recognition or resistance in the age of Obama

Ali Abunimah offers analysis of a recent speech given by Khaled Meshal- the head of Hamas's political bureau.
In the speech, says Abunimah, Meshel "attempts to do what may be impossible: present the Islamist Palestinian resistance organization as a willing partner in a US-led peace process, while holding on to hi movement's political principles and base."
While Palestinian commentators vary in their interpretation of the speech, it's clear that it's a nuanced affair, painting a picture of Hamas which is far from the stereotypical portrayal of it as rigid and closed to change.

Racheli Gai.

Hamas' choice: Recognition or resistance in the age of
Obama

By Ali Abunimah

The Electronic Intifada
6 July 2009

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10647.shtml
Hamas' choice: Recognition or resistance in the age of Obama
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 6 July 2009

Hamas faces a difficult choice between recognition and legitimacy. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages)

In a major policy speech on 25 June 2009, Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas' political bureau, tried to do what may be impossible: present the Islamist Palestinian resistance organization as a willing partner in a US-led peace process, while holding on to his movement's political principles and base. [1]

This is the dilemma that every Palestinian leadership, and perhaps almost every liberation movement, has eventually had to confront. It is a choice, as political scientist Tamim Barghouti has pointed out, between recognition and legitimacy. [2] According to Barghouti, the old-guard Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leadership, when confronted with the same dilemma, chose recognition and forfeited its legitimacy, opening the way for Hamas to emerge. Now it is the turn of Hamas: the price demanded by the US and its allies for Hamas to be taken as an interlocutor is the abandonment of the very principles on which the movement built its mass support.

Meshal's nearly hour-long "address to the Palestinian people and the world" was billed as a response to the speeches of US President Barack Obama in Cairo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in June.

In his Cairo speech, Obama called for Americans and Muslims to engage in a "sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground." If he is serious about that, he -- and others -- should pay close attention to what Hamas is saying to domestic, regional and international audiences. Meshal's goals -- very much in tension -- were to show that his movement is ready to do business with the US, set out political red lines, reassure the movement's supporters and Palestinians generally and deal with internal Palestinian divisions.

To begin with, the speech sought to present Hamas as a nationalist movement whose Islamism fits within a mainstream Palestinian consensus. Meshal used an explicitly ecumenical message to counter Netanyahu's exclusivist Jewish claims to the land of Palestine. According to Meshal, Palestinians' roots stretched back thousands of years "in this blessed land of prophets and messages, of [Muhammad's] night ascension, of Muslim and Christian holy sites -- al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock, the Nativity Church and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre."

More generally, he sought to portray Muslims as representing the very values Westerners claim to cherish most and dissociate Hamas from lurid and false comparisons to such groups as the Taliban. "We [Muslims] are the ones who introduced the world and humanity to science, civilization, culture and lofty humanitarian values," Meshal declared, "values such as justice, freedom, equality, compassion and tolerance, and the values of interaction between civilizations and not a confrontation between them."

Meshal welcomed a "change of tone" from President Obama but emphasized repeatedly that only a change of policy would matter. He nevertheless claimed the new tone as the fruit of the "stubborn steadfastness of the people of the region, while resisting in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan." Such resistance, according to Meshal, frustrated the former US President George W. Bush administration's plans for regional domination, prompting American voters to seek a different path to extricate their country from mounting crises and quagmires.

He chided regional leaders who had "marketed and promoted" Bush's policies. "Had the people of the region listened to them," Meshal said, "the policy of Bush and the neoconservatives might have succeeded and the region's situation would be worse than imaginable." Meshal voiced the widespread skepticism and perhaps hopes that Obama's promises amounted to more than the similar words about Palestine heard from the Bush Administration.

Responding to Obama's recital of history, Meshal did not seek to deny the Nazi Holocaust but to appropriate it. He took Obama to task for dwelling in detail on the "suffering of the Jews and their holocaust in Europe, while ignoring our present suffering and Israel's holocaust against our Palestinian people that has been continuing for decades."

Meshal emphasized that even though Palestinians have heard only words, they were prepared to judge the US by its actions, which would have to "begin with reconstruction of Gaza and the lifting of the blockade, lifting the oppression and security pressure in the West Bank, and allowing Palestinian reconciliation to take its course without external pressures or interference."

The "only thing" that can convince Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, Meshal stated, "is genuine American and international will and efforts to end the occupation and lift the oppression from our people, to allow them to exercise their right to self-determination and the fulfillment of their national rights." When the Obama administration makes such an initiative, Meshal said, "then we and all our people's forces will be ready to cooperate with it and with any international effort in that direction."

Obama's "new language toward Hamas," Meshal underlined, "is the first step in the right direction towards direct dialogue without conditions." And that is the crux of the matter. Dealing with Hamas, Meshal said, must be based on the recognition of its democratic mandate and not via the imposition of arbitrary conditions such as those of the Quartet which call on the movement to recognize Israel, abandon violence and commit by previously signed agreements.

Meshal reasserted Hamas' political red lines while maintaining a sense of flexibility. In particular, Meshal:

* Rejected the Palestinian state envisaged by the Israeli leader as a "deformed entity, a large prison for detention and suffering, and not the national home a great people deserves."

* Rejected Israel's demand to be recognized as a "Jewish state" -- and warned against any Arab or Palestinian acquiescence -- "because it means canceling the right to return to their homes of six million refugees, and the forced expulsion of our people in the 1948 areas [Palestinian citizens of Israel] from their cities and villages." Israel's demand, according to Meshal, is no different than racist demands made by fascist Italy and the Nazis.

* Reaffirmed Hamas' previous acceptance of "the program that represents the minimum demands of our people," for "the establishment of a Palestinian state whose capital is Jerusalem with complete sovereignty on the borders of 4 June 1967, after the withdrawal of the occupation forces, and the dismantling of all the settlements, and the realization of the Right of Return."

* Reaffirmed that "the refugees' Right of Return to the homes from which they were expelled in 1948 is a national right and an individual right held personally" by the refugees "and no leader or negotiator can waive it or compromise on it."

Meshal also offered a nuanced response to Obama's call on Palestinians to abandon "dead end" violence in favor of nonviolent resistance. "We reaffirm our adherence to resistance as a strategic choice to liberate the homeland and restore our rights," Meshal said, citing armed European resistance to Nazi Germany, American resistance to British rule and the Vietnamese and South African anti-colonial struggles as precedents for Palestinians.

"Nonviolent resistance is appropriate in a struggle for civil rights," Meshal argued, "But when it comes to a military occupation using conventional and nonconventional weapons, such an occupation can only be confronted with armed resistance." Palestinians were forced to take up arms, Meshal said. He could also have been implying that if Palestinians changed the definition of their struggle as being one for civil rights then the appropriate means of resistance would also change.

"Resistance is a means and not an end," Meshal said, "and it is not blind. Indeed it perceives the changes underway." Yet, while staunchly defending the right to armed resistance -- and even threatening new operations to take Israeli soldiers prisoner if it was the only way to free Palestinians prisoners -- Meshal also recognized other forms of struggle. He called for increased Palestinian, Arab and international solidarity efforts, including ongoing efforts to break the siege on Gaza, to resist the apartheid wall and settlements and to prevent home demolitions and "Judaization" in Jerusalem.

For Hamas leaders, the dangers of submitting to western preconditions can be seen merely by looking at the trajectory of the Palestine Liberation Organization leadership which recognized Israel in 1993, renounced armed struggle and signed the Oslo accords. Since that time, Meshal argued, the occupation and its oppression deepened as the number of Israeli settlements and Palestinian prisoners grew.

As Meshal put it, "These conditions do not end; as soon as the Palestinian negotiator commits to one, more conditions are imposed. For example, first the condition was to recognize Israel, now it is to recognize the Jewishness of Israel. Then, that Jerusalem is its eternal capital, giving up the Right of Return, accepting that settlement blocks will remain. Then [Palestinians] must not only abandon resistance, but themselves work to oppress, pursue and disarm the resistance."

The latter point was a reference to the arrest campaign in the West Bank and what Meshal called other "oppressive measures undertaken by the [Palestinian] Authority and the government of Salam Fayyad and its security forces under the supervision of the American General [Keith] Dayton." Meshal presented this ongoing cooperation between the Ramallah security forces, Israel and the US as the biggest obstacle to Palestinian reconciliation talks in Cairo aimed at restoring a unified national leadership.

After Hamas won the 2006 legislative election, the Bush administration began a program overseen by Dayton to arm and train anti-Hamas militias nominally loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The campaign has been accompanied by what Hamas and some human rights groups have described as a systematic crackdown on politicians, professors, charities and journalists suspected of sympathy or links with Hamas. Hamas has often retaliated by arresting Fatah-linked individuals in the Gaza Strip. In recent weeks, the Dayton-supervised militias have killed several members of Hamas in the West Bank ostensibly while trying to arrest them. Meshal cleverly drew attention to the external role in fueling Palestinian divisions -- and how little has actually changed from the Bush Administration -- by "calling on Obama to withdraw Dayton from the West Bank and return him to the United States, in keeping with the new spirit of change."

Throughout the speech, Meshal sought to reassure Palestinians that Hamas would not abandon its core principles in pursuit of recognition and power. "The land is more important than authority, and liberation before a state," he said at one point, and "no Palestinian leadership has the right to waive Palestinian national rights and interests as the price for recognition."

Some Palestinians worry that despite such assurances, Hamas has already set off down the very path Meshal warned about and risks squandering the sacrifices Palestinians made, especially in Gaza. Haidar Eid, an independent analyst in Gaza, wrote before Meshal's speech that some of the early enthusiastic Hamas responses to Obama's Cairo speech, as well as acceptance of the two-state solution, indicated "the beginning of a process of deterioration -- even Osloization -- not only in rhetoric, but also in action." This writer has heard similar fears voiced by Palestinians from the West Bank and recently in Amman. Given that many Palestinians consider that a previous generation of resistance leaders turned their backs on their people's most fundamental interests and rights -- all the while claiming to uphold them -- such fears are far from irrational or uncommon.

Another analysis of Hamas' shift currently circulating argues that Hamas has accepted the Palestinian "consensus" position of a two-state solution on every inch of the 1967 occupied territories with removal of all settlements and with the Right of Return. But it knows that no potential peace deal coming from the Obama initiative will ever reach even these minimal conditions, and that if Abbas and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert could not reach even the outlines of an agreement after two years of negotiations, the chances of any deal with a Netanyahu-Lieberman government are even tinier. In this scenario, Hamas need not stand in the way of a two-state solution because it will fail anyway. But by saying it would accept that minimalist outcome, it would avoid blame for the failure and its adherence to resistance would be vindicated.

What we do know is that Hamas' leaders, and the Palestinians generally, have been placed under intense pressure, occupation, blockades, starvation sieges and recurrent Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the vast majority so far has not submitted to Israeli conditions. But while emphasizing the role of resistance and struggle to achieve liberation, Hamas has not offered a clear vision of what liberation looks like other than the unconvincing and increasingly unrealistic two-state vision (leaving aside its long, outdated, though much-cited charter that offers no guide to the movement's current thinking).

Meshal's speech confirms Hamas' long-term shift away from Islamist rhetoric toward mainstream Palestinian nationalist discourse. It indicates that Hamas is highly sensitive to international and Palestinian public opinion and is aware that Palestinians need to build real international solidarity as part of a strategy to level the glaring power imbalance with Israel. But it is not prepared to seek recognition at any price. All this has implications for the movement's message and methods.

This leaves the field open for an urgent debate among Palestinians about what that future vision should be and what role resistance in all its legitimate forms should play. No group of leaders, whether from Hamas or any other organization, could or should carry the burden of restoring Palestinian rights by itself. Hamas, like other Palestinian organizations, can only be a guardian of fundamental rights to the extent that it is embedded in a broader movement mobilized in Palestine and globally to defend those rights.

And if Hamas' potential interlocutors are sincerely seeking ways to recognize the democratic mandate of the movement without trying to force it to forfeit its legitimacy, there are precedents. South Africa's African National Congress and the Irish Republican Army were both able to take part in successful political negotiations that got their respective countries out of disastrous political and military stalemates without being required to submit to unacceptable preconditions. That took a measure of leadership, foresight and political courage by others that has been notably absent in international dealings with Hamas.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article was published with the last two lines in the second paragraph inadvertently deleted.

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Abunimah also co-founded The Electronic Intifada. This analysis was originally published by the Palestine Center.

Endnotes
[1] The speech is in Arabic. All excerpts quoted in this article are the author's translation. A transcript and recording of the speech were made available by the Palestinian Information Center, a Hamas-affiliated website. See: http://bit.ly/mK7kS.
[2] In a paper given at the Annual Symposium of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University on the theme: "Palestine and the Palestinians Today," 2-3 April 2009, Washington, DC.

Jewish Peace News

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Carol Cook: Adina Hoffman's Literary Biography of Taha Muhammad Ali /Ha'aretz

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

"Rachel" in San Francisco: Who Needs a Guardian Council?

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Jewish world to queer Jews: (only some) gay is great / MuzzleWatch

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Tom J: You Must Not See This Movie - Muzzling Jewish Dissent / the Daily Kos

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

PACBI: Guidelines for Applying the International Cultural Boycott of Israel

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Rela Mazali: The criminal investigation of New Profile and freedom of expression

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Naomi Klein and the Boycott Movement: Addendum

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Naomi Klein and the Boycott Movement

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Sara Roy: The Peril of Forgotten Gaza and a Fast for Gaza action call

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Games People Play

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Ali Abunimah: Hamas' choice: Recognition or resistance in the age of Obama

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