Championing global human rights: an intrview with Richard Falk / The Electronic Intifada

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10051.shtml

Richard Falk, The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, was denied entrance to the OPT earlier
this month.
Victor Kattan provides background information below, prior to the actual interview with Falk.

Racheli Gai.

Championing global human rights: interview with Richard Falk
Victor Kattan, The Electronic Intifada, 24 December 2008

In June 2007, Professor Richard Falk called on world governments to prevent Israel's "current genocidal tendencies from culminating in a collective tragedy" in the Gaza Strip. (Hatem Omar/MaanImages)

Earlier this month, Israeli authorities deported Professor Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who had arrived in the country to conduct his duties to investigate rights abuses in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Electronic Intifada contributor Victor Kattan interviewed Falk about the motivation behind his deportation, comparisons he has made between Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and Nazi crimes committed during World War II, his dual role as an academic and a human rights advocate, and how defenders of Israel deflect attention from what is happening on the ground by attacking critics of the state's policies.

Richard Falk is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice, Emeritus, Princeton University and a member of the New York Bar. He is currently Visiting Distinguished Professor of Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has, since March 2008, been the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Falk is the author of over 20 books on international law and served on the MacBride Commission of Inquiry to investigate the atrocities in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut in 1982, as well as a UN Commission of Inquiry to investigate human rights violations at the onset of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2001. His latest book Achieving Human Rights was published by Routledge in October 2008.

Victor Kattan: You were recently deported by the government of Israel when you landed at Ben-Gurion airport in your role as UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights even though the two assistants traveling with you had been given visas to enter the country, and despite the fact that Israel's foreign ministry had advance notification of your travel itinerary, which included a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Why do you think you were detained for 20 hours and then deported?

Richard Falk: Of course I can only speculate on the Israeli motivations. The representative of the Ministry of Interior at the airport insisted that she was merely implementing an instruction from the foreign ministry to deny me entry. Yet, this fails to explain why there was no effort to inform the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in advance of the visit. My best guess is that Israel was eager to teach me a lesson for my prior outspoken criticism, and more importantly, to send the UN a message that Israel was not willing to cooperate with a UN representative who was unacceptable to the government. Of course, the real significance of my experience involves asserting the authority of a member state to claim authority to determine who can represent the UN in evaluating contested behavior. If Israel succeeds it would be an unfortunate precedent, and for this reason I will resist the temptation to resign, and will work hard to be an effective Special Rapporteur despite my
unfortunate inability to visit the Palestinian territories under occupation.

VK: In June 2007, you wrote an article entitled "Slouching Towards a Palestinian Holocaust." In the article, you posed the following question: "Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with [the] criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity?" You answered by saying:

"I think not. The recent developments in Gaza are especially disturbing because they express so vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its allies to subject an entire human community to life-endangering conditions of utmost cruelty. The suggestion that this pattern of conduct is a holocaust-in-the-making represents a rather desperate appeal to the governments of the world and to international public opinion to act urgently to prevent these current genocidal tendencies from culminating in a collective tragedy. If ever the ethos of 'a responsibility to protect,' recently adopted by the UN Security Council as the basis of 'humanitarian intervention' is applicable, it would be to act now to start protecting the people of Gaza from further pain and suffering."

Do you regret writing these words? If not, why not?

RF: This is a complicated question for me. I wrote those quoted words before I was appointed as Special Rapporteur, as an engaged citizen deeply concerned because the desperate plight of the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza was being ignored in international circles. I felt at the time that it was both an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe, and that it could at any moment morph into a tragedy of massive proportions resulting from famine and disease. In retrospect, I think it was unfortunate to link explicitly these concerns, which remain as acute as before, with the historical experience of Jews in the Holocaust. Pragmatically, it played into the hands of apologists for the Israeli occupation tactics by shifting the debate from the Palestinian ordeal to the inflammatory implications of the linkage to the events of the Nazi era. This is consistent with a wider Israeli pattern of shifting debate from the realities of the occupation to the alleged bias of those who are reporting on
these
realities. I insist that the test of bias should be based on the truth or falsity of what is observed, and that is a debate I would welcome. On the level of principle I also regret my connecting the Gaza situation with the Nazi memories as it is hurtful to many people, and facilitates distraction from my objective of calling attention to the situation in Gaza. I have tried to avoid using this kind of rhetoric in my subsequent observations on the Palestinian reality, but I would stress that the underlying condition of massive collective punishment of the entire Palestinian civilian population is an ongoing reality that is both immoral and unlawful.

VK: Some international lawyers consider academic scholarship and human rights advocacy to be mutually incompatible: they say one cannot be a serious scholar and an activist. As an eminent American international lawyer with a long and distinguished track record of academic scholarship and human rights advocacy for almost half a century, which has included, among other things, opposition to the Vietnam war, apartheid in Southern Africa, the nuclear weapons industry, Israel's invasion of Lebanon and its military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, as well as NATO's intervention in Kosovo, and the invasion of Iraq in 2003, do you think that international lawyers should speak out more often? Is it possible to be a serious scholar of international law and a human rights activist?

RF: This is an important question that I have pondered throughout my career. As mentioned earlier, the true test of either scholarship and advocacy is truthfulness and accuracy, and I have always endeavored to be objective in this fundamental sense. I believe we all have multiple identities, and that it is perfectly consistent to be a scholar writing and speaking for academic audiences and an engaged citizen doing the same for the general public. In some respects, it is a matter of translating one form of communication to the other. I believe it is an important contribution to the vitality of democratic society to have the benefit of the views of academic specialists. At the same time I believe that in a classroom it is essential for a professor to be receptive to viewpoints that contradict his or her own, and I have always tried to do this. I have jokingly pointed out that among my Princeton students were Richard Perle and David Petraeus, which proves that I do not indoctrinate my
students, but happily I think, they didn't manage to convert me to their viewpoints either. What counts in the end is a belief in the importance of informed deliberation on the important policy issues of the day whether dealing with students, with scholars, or with the citizenry.

VK: John Dugard, your predecessor as UN Special Rapporteur compared the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories with Apartheid. You served on the legal team in the South-West Africa (Namibia) cases for Ethiopia before the International Court of Justice in the 1960s. Although the court in a controversial decision ruled that Ethiopia and Liberia did not have "any legal right or interest appertaining to them" as regards the illegality of South Africa's occupation of Namibia do you see any similarities between Pretoria's policy of Grand Apartheid in southern Africa and what is happening in the Palestinian territories today? If so, what lessons can the Palestinians learn from the anti-Apartheid movement in highlighting the injustices of Israel's four decade's long occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza? Is there a role for international law?

RF: Yes, my background includes a rather intimate set of encounters with the realities of South African Apartheid. Not long after my role in the World Court case I went to South Africa in 1968 as an official observer on behalf of the International Commission of Jurists of a major political trial held in Pretoria. While in the country for several weeks I had the opportunity to visit (unlawfully) the dismal African townships, coincidentally in the company of John Dugard. It helped me appreciate some aspects of extreme political realities that are relevant to an understanding of the Palestinian struggle. I was struck at the time by the sincere failure of "decent" white South Africans to realize the misery and humiliation of the apartheid system although it was part of their immediate surrounding. The politics of denial meant that an outsider like myself could "see" this reality more clearly than could many insiders. It reminds me of a saying of Israeli peace activists: "The West Bank is
further from Israel than Thailand." In my experience, Gaza is even further away. I have been hesitant to draw the analogy between Apartheid South Africa and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories because I did not want a second controversy about my provocative language. At the same time there are some instructive aspects of the successful South African struggle that might be relevant for the Palestinians.

First, it is a crucial domain of struggle to establish the unlawful, and even criminal, nature of the prevailing set of arrangements, and thereby wage a battle for the hearts and minds of the peoples of the world. The US and Europe are particularly vital arenas in this struggle. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague can be helpful in establishing the legitimacy of claims for change. It is helpful to recall that on four occasions the ICJ was called upon to pronounce upon South African Apartheid, and although these judicial events did not achieve immediate results, they contributed to the discrediting of the Apartheid regime. Secondly, the site of struggle is outside as well as inside, and the possibilities of gaining the upper hand in relation to the legitimacy of demands is likely to be determined outside of the West Bank and Gaza, with the most important battlegrounds being pre-1967 Israel and the US. Thirdly, do not assess prospects of a successful outcome for the
oppressed side by the current apparent relation of forces. An oppressive order is likely to appear all-powerful until it is on the verge of collapse. It is important to continue the struggle despite frustrations and disappointment based on an ultimate faith in the triumph of justice.

VK: Many international lawyers are afraid to openly criticize the government of Israel for its human rights violations because they believe it will affect their future job prospects through fear of being labeled anti-Semitic or a "self-hating Jew." As an American Jew, what has given you the strength to stand by your convictions for so many years despite the attacks upon your character? Do you have any regrets? And if you could go back in time, would you do it all again? What advice would you give to others subjected to similar attacks upon their character?

RF: It is an unfortunate aspect of this debate about Israeli policy toward the Palestinians that smear tactics have been used. I have been increasingly the target of such attacks, which I console myself into believing, is a sign of a certain influence and effectiveness. Alan Dershowitz, the notorious Harvard law professor, has written a defamatory journalistic piece on my recent travails, that begins by comparing me to David Duke of Ku Klux Klan fame and [Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmedinejad, suggesting that I am a comparable hate-monger. Such irresponsible hostility is an unpleasant part of my controversial role and outspoken views, and unfortunately is given undue weight by a media culture that often treats anger and vicious character attacks as more convincing, and certainly more newsworthy than evidence and reasoning. Yet I have no regrets. My integrity and self-esteem are intimately tied to my lifelong identification with the oppressed, and my belief that if humanity is to
flourish in the future it is essential for the strong to respect the global rule of law as much as the weak. At present, we have a global law that does not treat equals equally; the weak are held accountable, while the strong enjoy impunity. This represents law without justice, inviting charges of hypocrisy and double standards. My work as a scholar and engaged citizen has been dedicated to advancing the cause of global justice based on a legal order that learns to treat equals equally whether states or individuals.

As far as being a Jew is concerned, it informs my identity. I believe this commitment to justice is best articulated by the Old Testament prophets, and is the most timeless contribution of the Jewish tradition to human understanding and ethical practice. I had the privilege as an undergraduate of studying Martin Buber, the great Jewish philosopher, and hearing him deliver a series of lectures at Haverford College. His message stayed with me and reverberates to this day. Against this background I can hardly comprehend the accusations of "self-hating Jew" or of somehow being "anti-Semitic." I respond to such attacks on my credibility by pointing out that I never feel anti-American when I criticize the foreign policy of the US government. It is an unfortunate tactic of many Zionists to treat any criticism of the state of Israel or its policies as tantamount to anti-Semitism. In my view, this is a profoundly anti-democratic attitude that tries to turn the "citizen" into a "subject." I
believe that the test of good citizenship is conscience not obedience. For these various reasons, I have no regrets, and although it might not have been prudent from a careerist perspective, I would do it all over again without the slightest hesitation. In essence, I could do no other!

============================================

Victor Kattan is a tutor at the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London where he teaches international law to postgraduate students. His book From Coexistence to Conquest: International Law and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1891-1949 will be published by Pluto Books in June 2009. Victor is the editor of The Palestine Question in International Law which was published by British Institute of International and Comparative Law in May 2008 and which features a collection of articles by leading scholars of international law on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

................................................................
--------
Jewish Peace News editors:
Joel Beinin
Racheli Gai
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
Judith Norman
Lincoln Shlensky
Rebecca Vilkomerson
Alistair Welchman
------------
Jewish Peace News archive and blog: http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com
------------
Jewish Peace News sends its news clippings only to subscribers. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or manage your subscription, go to http://www.jewishpeacenews.net

Michael Warschawski: Sanctions Now - Upgrading Hell No! /alternativenews.org

The state of Israel is conducting a genocide campaign against the people of Gaza, says Warschawski as he apologizes to the late Tanya Reinhart, who saw the nature of the Israeli plans.
(For the record, Ilan Pappe saw the genocidal intent, and was criticized sharply too by many Israeli activists.)
Warschawski calls on caring European citizens to stand up and fight their leadership which has just recently upgraded its relations with Israel.

Racheli Gai

http://www.alternativenews.org/blogs/michael-warschawski/sanctions-now--upgrading-hell-no-20081202.html
December 2008

Sanctions Now – Upgrading Hell No!

Michael Warschawski, Alternative Information Center

"Gaza is burning", writes French activist Liliane Cordova Kaczerginski, using the very words of a famous song of a Jewish village destroyed by the Nazis. Like sixty years ago, Gaza is burning and the world is silent, waiting for the outcome of a non-existent peace process. "A hostile entity" – this was the way the Israeli leadership defined, four years ago, a territory in which one and a half million civilians, women, the elderly and children, are trying to survive. As such, the Israeli state has the right, in fact the duty, to launch a war of annihilation.

Several years ago, the late Tanya Reinhardt used the word "genocide" to describe the harsh repression of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories by Israel; I was among those who criticized her for using too strong of a concept. From where you are now, forgive me Tanya, because you were right and saw the true nature of the Israeli plans, and I was dead wrong: the State of Israel is conducting a rampant genocide against the people of Gaza, using the weapon of almost-starvation, electricity cuts and deprivation of drinking water, provoking epidemics and preventing basic health-care. Gaza is under siege, and the war criminal Ehud Barak has just ordered a halt to even the emergency humanitarian aid conveyed by the United Nations.

When Sarajevo was victim of the criminal siege initiated by the Serbian army and militias, the international community retaliated with severe sanctions, a boycott of the Yugoslav regime and the bombardment of Belgrade. When Iraq occupied Kuwait, the international community launched a military offensive against Iraq and a radical embargo that provoked the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent children. Today, that same international community is completely silent in the face of the martyrdom of Gaza. It is our duty, the duty of civil societies all over the world, to demand from international institutions and governments urgent and drastic actions against Israel, a state that is violating the basic rules of international law, hundreds of United Nations resolutions and each and every convention aimed at protecting human rights.

The war crimes committed by the Israeli state against the population of Gaza exclude it from the community of nations. Like apartheid South Africa, it should be sanctioned and boycotted, and not rewarded with an upgrading of the partnership agreement with the European Union.

As an Israeli citizen, I expect from the European Union to help us pressure our government to stop the crimes against the Palestinian population of Gaza. By rewarding Israel with an upgrading of its relations with the European community, the message of EU is a disgrace that should be condemned and fought by all Europeans who care for human dignity.

................................................................

--------
Jewish Peace News editors:
Joel Beinin
Racheli Gai
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
Judith Norman
Lincoln Shlensky
Alistair Welchman

................................................................
--------
Jewish Peace News editors:
Joel Beinin
Racheli Gai
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
Judith Norman
Lincoln Shlensky
Rebecca Vilkomerson
Alistair Welchman
------------
Jewish Peace News archive and blog: http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com
------------
Jewish Peace News sends its news clippings only to subscribers. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or manage your subscription, go to http://www.jewishpeacenews.net

A gift

Many among us are commemorating the Jewish struggle for freedom of faith. Many others are celebrating a vision of peace on earth and goodwill among men. Whatever you are or, perhaps, are not celebrating, these days of pregnant promise are an opportunity to offer you a gift—the words or indeed the wrenching cry of a friend and sister activist, Nurit Peled-Elhanan, "to arise and go to Gaza and any other city of oppression and slaughter; to defy all blockades," to end the siege of Gaza as well as other murderous sieges imposed today throughout the world by both democracies and non-democracies.

Also, for up to date, detailed information on the reality of the siege of Gaza, see the website of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Occupied Palestinian Territories:
http://www.ochaopt.org/ --

Extensive additional information and analysis can be found on the website of Occupation Magazine: http://www.kibush.co.il/

Rela Mazali

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

Message from Nurit Peled-Elhanan, Sakharov Prize 2001, shared with Izzat Ghazzawi
By: Nurit Peled-Elhanan
18 December 2008

http://sakharovnetwork.rsfblog.org/archive/2008/12/18/from-nurit-peled-elhanan-sakharov-prize-2001.html

Message from Nurit Peled-Elhanan, Sakharov Prize 2001, shared with Izzat Ghazzawi To Mr Hans Gert Pצttering, President of the European Parliament; Luisa Morgantini, Vice President of the European Parliament; and the Sakharov Prize winners on the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought

Dear President,
Dear Vice President,
Dear Sakharov Prize winners,

I apologize for not being able to attend such an important event.

These words are dedicated to the heroes of Gaza, the mothers and fathers and children, the teachers and doctors and nurses who are proving every day and every hour that no fortified wall can imprison the free spirit of humanity and no form of violence can subdue life.

The pogrom being carried out by the thugs of the Occupation army against the residents of the Gaza Strip is known to everyone and yet the world is impotent as always. I call upon all of us, who have won a privilege as well as duty by receiving the Sakharov prize, to arise and go to Gaza and any other city of oppression and slaughter; to defy all blockades and high walls and not to give up until all barriers are broken.

When Jewish poet Bialik wrote after the Pogrom against the Jews in Kishiniev,

`Satan has not yet created Vengeance for the blood of a small child,` It did not occur to him that the child would be a Palestinian child from Gaza and his slaughterers would be Jewish soldiers. And when he wrote:
Let the blood pierce
through the abyss! Let the blood seep
down into the depths of darkness, and
eat away there, in the dark, and breach
all the rotting foundations of the earth.

He did not imagine that those foundations would be the foundations of the state of Israel. That the Jewish and Democratic State of Israel would demagogically use the expression `blood on his hands` to justify its refusal to release freedom fighters, children and peace leaders from the worst of prisons, while immersing all of us in the blood of innocent babes up to our necks, up to our nostrils, so that every breath we take sends red bubbles of blood into the air of the Holy Land.

But the siege of Gaza is only one of many sieges imposed today in the world by democratic powers as well as by non-democratic ones. All those sieges are meant for one purpose: to silence the voice of freedom and justice.

My co-laureate of the Sakharov Prize, Prof. Izzat Gazzawi, who died of humiliation less than two years after receiving this prestigious award, wrote to me just before his heart surrendered, that he believed the Israeli soldiers who came to his house every night to break furniture and frighten the children wanted to silence his voice. I have vowed then as I believe we should all vow every day, to do everything within our power so that his and other such brave voices will not be silenced.

Today, when the most enlightened civilizations commit the most heinous crimes against innocent defenseless people out of greed, megalomania and pure racism we should listen once more to Bialik`s cry from a hundred years ago:

`And I, my heart is dead, no longer is there prayer on my lips; All strength is gone, and hope is no more.
Until when,
How much longer,
Until when?`

And then follow the example of people like Hu Jia, today`s laureate of the Sakharov prize who is held in prison for dedicating every moment of his life to end the miseries of the family of man.

With my best regards,

Nurit Peled-Elhanan
15.12 2008

................................................................
--------
Jewish Peace News editors:
Joel Beinin
Racheli Gai
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
Judith Norman
Lincoln Shlensky
Rebecca Vilkomerson
Alistair Welchman
------------
Jewish Peace News archive and blog: http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com
------------
Jewish Peace News sends its news clippings only to subscribers. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or manage your subscription, go to http://www.jewishpeacenews.net

Amira Hass: Illusions in Gaza / Ha'aretz

Amira Hass reports about her recent stay in Gaza. She arrived on one of the Free Gaza boats, and a few weeks later got kicked out by Hamas. Hamas claimed that the reason for making her leave was that they couldn't insure her safety. One gets the impression that the real reason has to do with Hass's habit to look into issues Hamas would rather keep unexposed.
The article is depressing, depicting a picture of a population oppressed from out as well as from within.

Racheli Gai.

Haaretz Friday, December 12, 2008

Last update - 12:34 11/12/2008
Illusions in Gaza

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1045746.html

By Amira Hass

The first thing that captures your eyes, after two years away, is a visual quiet. Gone are the flags of every color (including green) that once flew everywhere; the billboards commemorating shaheeds with their weapons, new ones popping up nearly every day; the large banners emblazoned with slogans. Yes, here and there you still come across a tattered flag or faded sign, old graffiti on the walls, or a smiling Arafat beaming down from a giant poster that no one took the trouble to remove, the colors dulled by time. But the loud, aggressive, competitive profusion that was frequently replenished is all gone. Pictures of government officials in Gaza don't impose upon you, they don't hang on every corner. Instead, one notices bougainvillea, tree-lined avenues, wrought-iron gates, colorful head coverings. The Hamas government doesn't need external symbols to prove its strength and announce its presence. The conclusion is obvious as it is.

A somewhat hasty conclusion - or a partial one, to be more precise. When there is no political competition, someone said to me, there's no need for its outward expressions. Are there really no rivals (Fatah, in other words), or have they been silenced? Around November 11, the anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death, the Palestinian police in the Gaza Strip worked to conceal any symbols related to the date, the man and the movement - in addition to prohibiting the staging of any memorials.

It wasn't the Fatah movement that called for rallies, but a committee composed of PLO organizations. It didn't even attempt to hold rallies in an open area (such as a soccer field or city plaza) - as Hamas does every few days (with its green flags). When yellow Fatah flags were hung up, police were called to the location and removed them; high school students who went around wearing checkered kaffiyeh-like scarves - or any other symbol that alluded to Arafat and Fatah - were asked to remove them and also summoned for a brief police interrogation. Even candles that were set out in windows in Abu Amar's (Arafat's) memory were confiscated. So Fatah supporters reported, at least. The removal of these symbols wasn't only an expression of the government's self-confidence, but of intimidation and coercion as well.

"You mean to tell me that in the West Bank, too, Hamas people are afraid like this, of the PA?" a Fatah member from the southern Gaza Strip, who had reported to me about some of the oppressive measures taken against her movement in her area, asked me a bit incredulously. Another Fatah member told me that it was a conscious decision not to clash with the Hamas police: "We don't want to expose people to the kinds of things we went through - arrest and torture. We don't want people to get hurt. We want them to be politically active. Also, we hoped that the reconciliation talks would begin in Cairo, and if we hold rallies - there will be oppression, tears and death, and that will ruin the chance for reconciliation."

Weapons have also disappeared from city streets and from the refugee camps in Gaza. At least the showy kind, at least at first and second glance, and when you're not looking for that protrusion of a gun on a right hip, and if you don't take into account a short convoy of cars passing by every so often, one of them (with darkened windows) apparently transporting Interior Minister Sa'id al-Siam or Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. A broad jeep accompanying the convoy carries several stern-faced armed men. The weapons are nowhere to be seen, unless you count a gang of uniformed masked men that roamed one intersection at midnight and drew the attention of a sleepless resident. These are Iz al-Din al-Qassam brigade fighters, a Hamas member explained, and she also found it heartbreaking, for it showed how many young people, including her own children, are ready to sacrifice their lives in the struggle for independence.

One house in Gaza was adorned with a poster of a smiling teenager who was killed about six months ago, before the tahadiyeh [lull]. No one had any idea that he had decided to join a Qassam-launching cell. His father is very bitter. How could they have recruited such a young kid, who hadn't even finished his matriculation exams? But a Hamas official said that the organization does not recruit anyone under 18. If the number of young people enlisting in the organization's military ranks is indeed large, the disappearance of weapons from the main streets, during daylight hours, is even more impressive. It attests to self-control, to an organization that is able to distinguish between the military and the civilian, to a guiding hand from above, to governmental attention to details - like the public's longing for some sense of normalcy - insofar as one can speak about normalcy when 1.5 million people are not permitted to leave a tiny, 365-square-kilometer area, and many are out of work and
getting by on donations. The disappearance of official and unofficial weapons is especially noticeable if you compare it to the situation in Al Bireh-Ramallah, where Palestinian security personnel are deployed almost permanently, with their long rifles slung over their shoulders for all to see.

And then there's the quiet that the ear notices almost immediately. The quiet of zero construction, of closed factories and half-finished buildings, of half-demolished streets awaiting repaving, of water drainage systems whose pipes are filling with sand, because Israel prohibits the entry of all raw materials and construction materials. Pipes that pour sewage into the sea because there are no replacement parts for the broken pumps in the treatment facilities, or no diesel fuel to operate them.

Nothing to do

A group of businessmen in Gaza got fed up with sitting at home and living with this quiet and with the frustration. They consulted and decided to study - Hebrew. Three times a week, at the offices of the Businessmen's Association. The association pays for a teacher and for the noisy generator that provides light - since the rest of the neighborhood is in the dark because Israel is not allowing the transfer of industrial fuel to the Gaza power plant. The students pay for the coffee and tea. With the teacher's consent, one lesson was given over to a conversation with me. Many of the students already speak Hebrew well - they just want to learn to read and write it. Others are just beginning to learn the language. Why? "Because this madness of the closure and blockade of Gaza can't last forever, because the two peoples' futures are tied together," they say with certainty, as they learn a new Hebrew word from me - ashlayot (illusions).

"I'd like you to come with me to the store and speak with all of our employees. We're still paying their wages, even though there's no work, the store is empty," says Tareq Saqa, owner of an electronics importing company. Other Hebrew students painted a similar picture: an importer of medications (who now imports via the tunnels, for lack of an alternative), importers of lighting fixtures, of fire extinguishers, of chocolate and other sweets. Some speaking in Arabic, others in Hebrew. Some of them have trucks that are stuck in Israel without work. Others have shipping containers they cannot bring in from the West Bank. All have workers sitting at home with nothing to do.

Abdel Hakim Ismail is a contractor. "The guys who spoke before are traders, and they still have a little work. Maybe 20 percent of what they had before. But we contractors - No one's been working for four years or more. Half of us closed down completely. There's no material for asphalt for roads, for buildings. If there's gravel for concrete, then the cement is missing. If there's cement and gravel, there's no iron. It's been like this for five or six years now. Iron one day, cement one day, gravel another day. I've lost over a million dollars in five years, and there are jobs that I wasn't able to complete. I was working on a new school in Gaza, I'd dug for the foundations already, and now for two years I've been waiting for cement in order to pour concrete. I also have a United Nations Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA] school in the Nuseirat refugee camp that's waiting - instead, pupils there study in steel shipping containers that are broiling hot in summer and freezing in winter.
Some friends of mine won a tender to build a whole neighborhood, with Saudi financing, in Khan Yunis [the neighborhood where the Neve Dekalim settlement once stood, and which was designated to house refugees whose homes were destroyed by the IDF]. The total budget is $8 million. They managed to build just $2 million worth. They can't finish the buildings, and they're not receiving their money."

Fadel al-Jaru has a factory that makes curbstones and flagstones. And not long after the disengagement, he and a partner opened an asphalt business. Out of 40 workers in the first factory, "I've kept only three. I have a lot of orders [for flagstones]. Over 300,000 meters' worth. Some for UNRWA projects, some for the UN Development Program and some for the government. I work with contractors and everything's been stuck for the last two years. There are no materials. In the past, I used to go through an entire silo, 30-40 tons of cement, in one day. Every year, I'd buy 1,000 tons of cement. Recently, for the first time in a year and a half, I received 120 tons. The asphalt factory cost $1.4 million. It was able to operate for just one month."

"We don't live like human beings." This is Salim, the teacher, summing up and inserting a little grammar lesson: "ben adam in the singular, bnei adam in the plural." So what do we live like, asks one late-arriving student, who doesn't get an answer. Someone else goes back to the word ashlayot that they learned from me and asks if I think "we ought to go learn French." And the guy sitting next to him answers instead: "Not French, it's Egyptian we ought to learn."

On the second day of my return to Gaza, on November 9, I discovered another oppressive sight that has practically disappeared from the neighborhoods bordering the former sites of the settlements: Gone are the buildings pockmarked with bullet holes that were a constant testament to the abundance of arms and varieties of bullets used by the IDF. The remnants of houses that were wrecked by Israeli mortar shells or bulldozer teeth, reminders of the years of fear, have been cleared away. This is evidence of the work of the municipalities and of UNRWA, I thought. Of their understanding that these sights of war need to be removed, of the conscious and organized effort to restore a feeling of normalcy. But several mounds of debris to the east of the Jabaliya refugee camp and several bullet-ridden houses that are still occupied by their tenants and overlook the "tunnel city" in Rafah - reminded me that I shouldn't jump to conclusions. I noted that this is also something to pay attention to in
the coming weeks - the work of the municipalities in general, the clearing of rubble in particular (some of the debris, I learned, was crushed and recycled in several basic infrastructure projects). But then I discovered that unfettered, independent tours of the area, with a taxi driver I know or with friends - were out of the question.

'A gift from the CIA'

Because, starting November 11, four days after I arrived in Gaza via the sea, on the Karameh, a ship belonging to the Free Gaza movement, with a delegation of European parliamentarians, I was treated to a 24-hour-a-day escort: two or three Palestinian security personnel (in three shifts), traveled behind me in a very large jeep ("a gift from the CIA to Abu Mazen," a friend joked).

At night they slept in it, below the apartment of friends where I was staying. I called the jeep dababeh - tank - because it stood out so. I was told that the escort was necessary for my safety. That if anything were to happen to me, God forbid, the whole world would be talking about nothing else and would blame the government in Gaza. "But I plan on staying for three months," I told A. - who is in charge of a unit called Security and Protection of Foreigners. "Inshallah, you'll stay a year," he said. "So why follow me around with a tank?" I asked. "If someone wants to hurt me, he'll know just where I am." Because we don't have any small civilian vehicles, he explained, and again promised that it was all for the sake of my safety and well-being. I told him that when I remarked to people that it was a shame for all that money to be spent like this, they answered: "Don't worry, it's the Iranians' money [a variation on the common phrase, "the Jews' money" - meaning something that can be
wasted indiscriminately]. He didn't laugh.

A., like other Hamas officials and security personnel whom my friends tried in vain to convince of the irrationality of this permanent escort - promised that I was free to speak with whomever I wanted, and to see whomever I wished to see. Just how inaccurate this was I discovered on the second day of the escort: I wanted to visit a family in the Al-Shati refugee camp, whose son has been living in Ramallah for the past 20 years and who hasn't been able to visit them for the past 13 years because of the Israeli closure policy. His wife had sent gifts to them through me, including sage and hyssop ("you can't find the same quality in Gaza"). A fairly mundane visit, with an ordinary family that doesn't include even a single Hamas supporter. But I was asked not to come if I was going to be accompanied by that obtrusive jeep, even if the men inside it weren't from the unit that carries out raids and arrests. "What will the neighbors say? They might be frightened. What will they think of us
?"

It's no wonder that this was also the response of the Fatah activists I planned to visit at one of the refugee camps with whom I'd hoped to spend time, looking for an opportunity to speak with some particularly impoverished families, in their homes.

In one neighborhood where I spent a lot of time, Fatah activists vanished from the streets at first. Then they learned the reason for the jeep's presence, calmed down and were out on the streets again. In another neighborhood, people said - some in fright and others in disgust - that my escorts always tried to find out the name of the owners of the building in which I stayed, and to find out the identities of the shop owners in the area. To find out information about my hosts. "Are they afraid for you, or of you?" someone teased. And a 12-year-old girl asked warily whether "the 24-hour escort wasn't an excuse to throw you out of here soon."

Neighbors asked in a mixture of concern and jest, "So who are the ikhwan [the Muslim brotherhood] in the jeep?" or "What are the Iz al-Din al-Qassams doing down there?" But not all the young escorts are Hamas or Iz al-Din al-Qassam activists, it turns out. A. himself held an important position in Arafat's presidential guard. One of his subordinates, who was one of my escorts, is really "with [Ramallah PM Salam] Fayyad," as a colleague of his described him with a smile, adding "And I'm with [Ismail] Haniyeh, but we're good friends."

A spokesman for the Palestinian Interior Ministry in Gaza told me that about 2,000 of the previous regime's security personnel defied Ramallah's order and now serve in the five security apparatuses that are under the Interior Ministry. There are still some who want to go back to work. They've realized, apparently, that Hamas rule is not as temporary as they thought in the beginning, and they're tired of sitting at home. The police force in Gaza is comprised of about 13,000 people, and only they - he assured me - are permitted to carry out arrests. The days when Iz al-Din al-Qassam members carried out arrests and interrogations (and torture) are over. Seven hundred more people serve in the "civil defense" (firefighters and the various rescue services), 1,000 in national security (the border guard), 1,000 in "security and protection" and 300-400 in internal intelligence. He claims that in the previous period, there were 60,000 security personnel "and no security. Today there are much
fewer and there is security."

Coercive measures

What's right is right, and parents who are no longer afraid to send their children outside the house alone will attest to this. Things are so different now from the time when security anarchy reigned, when the PA security apparatuses were in charge - and, according to many, actually encouraged the anarchy and the spread of gang activity, in the hope that this would help bring about the fall of the Hamas government. A man who is far from being a Hamas supporter entered the police station (to collect recovered property that had been stolen from him). He was impressed by the new spirit of equality and efficiency there. So different from how it was under the PA.

The suspicion that the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah is doing and will do everything in its power to disrupt order in Gaza is the main justification offered for the coercive measures taken against Fatah activists. The trade union leadership in Ramallah, which is identified with the PLO, has enforced a general strike on health and education ministry workers in Gaza since August of this year (employees in other government ministries, including the security apparatuses and the legal system have been required, since Hamas took over security in June 2007, to boycott their workplace if they wish to continue receiving a salary from Ramallah).

The Hamas government quickly filled the void with workers and security people from the ranks of its supporters and established its own legal system. About 80 percent of government health care employees have since returned to work. Whether because of pangs of conscience, or because the health ministry in Gaza forbids them to work privately, or because they were summoned for questioning at Al Mashtal - the interrogation center in northern Gaza.

"Many doctors asked to be summoned to Al Mashtal, or to be transported to work in a police jeep, so they could tell Ramallah that they were under threat," said someone who is close to the health minister in Gaza. A clerk in another ministry, who is not a member of Hamas, told me the same thing.

Hamas easily found replacements for many of the teachers, though even a Hamas-supporting teacher admits that their level is still rather low and that they are inexperienced. The ones hurt the most are the high school students who have to take their matriculation exams this year. Now, any teacher who wishes to return to work is not guaranteed a place automatically. He or she must register along with the rest of the job candidates. Also striking, under orders from Ramallah, are some members of Islamic Jihad, a Hamas man noted resentfully. The strike was recently extended to December 31, despite opposition from PLO organizations in Gaza, including Fatah.

A key Fatah activist (whom I met with after practicing an evasive maneuver from my "escorts" and whose identity I cannot reveal, of course), told me bitterly: "The PA fell [in Gaza] when it had 70,000 soldiers. Is the Hamas government going to fall because of the doctors' strike? There are some in Fatah in Ramallah who likened the strike to the revolution of 1936 [the Arab Revolt]. We asked the leadership: 'Why did you agree to this strike? Why didn't you consult with us, the Fatah members in Gaza?' I personally encouraged teachers and doctors to go back to work. Anyone who is stuck sitting at home after he's been working for 30 years becomes mentally ill. When we hold our sixth convention, the people who listen to us will be elected."

And another Fatah man, a former prisoner who is out of work (and whom I also met while hiding from the jeep), says: "The worst thing for me is that I'm sitting at home. That I'm not working. A lot of people like me are in a state of depression. I feel unneeded. I gave my whole life for Palestine, for the people, and now my life is worthless. Without work, life has no value. It's a punishment, to just sit at home. My whole life has stopped."

The Hamas government figures that if there are such open attempts at disruption that they affect the entire public, then of course there are also covert attempts at disruption. One claim that has reached leftist activists is that Fatah people have been instructed to cooperate with the IDF, if and when it invades Gaza. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Gaza says that someone who receives a salary from Ramallah was arrested and admitted that he was asked to prepare bombs in return for his wages. There's no telling whether or not this is true.

Another claim: Some of those being paid by the PA are asked to spy and relay information to Ramallah. Tales about informants in the service of Ramallah are also told by people who do not belong to Hamas. In Rafah I was advised not to let myself be seen in a certain area where there are tunnels: One of the owners of the land that's rented to the owner of the tunnel receives a salary from the rival government. If I am seen with him, I was told, one of the many informants around will tell Ramallah and his salary will be halted. This is not a baseless worry: The wages of some who "were suspected" of going to work have been halted (regardless of whether the "suspicion" was justified or not). And for their part, Hamas opponents are convinced that the government has informants everywhere - to sniff out and report on whatever needs reporting. For example, that there's a group of friends that drinks alcohol together. The police burst into one such home one day, stood the men against the wall
and beat them in front of their wives. Afterwards, they claimed to have been searching for drugs. But the message got through loud and clear.

The informants keep track of who meets with whom, goes the claim. In one school, a boy was asked to write down the name of the mosque his father prays in. That's what a family friend said. When he refused to answer, the teacher said that it didn't matter, that they had other ways of finding out. I checked with other parents as to whether their children were ever asked this question. They said no.

Officials deny that there are orders aimed at "Islamization" or the imposition of stricter Muslim practices (than those that already exist in the society). But "we hear the messages from low-level activists," says a resident of the Jabaliya refugee camp. "For example: In the summer, UNRWA set up summer camps throughout the Gaza Strip. The mosques emptied out, the kids ran to the summer camps. Because what else do young people have to do besides going to the mosque, or the muqawama [the resistance, the military organizations]? Or Internet? And when there's no electricity most of the time, there's no Internet either. And then we started hearing from the lower levels, not from the main officials, that the summer camps are heresy, that it's not okay." There is also a great fear of telephone wiretapping. "I'll pay a price for what I said to you," someone told me on the phone.

No knowing

Are these fears based on solid knowledge or on inflated rumors, on hatred or on an accurate assessment of Hamas' intentions? It's hard to tell. Somehow, everyone "knows" that one form of torture often used at Al Mashtal is to draw a ladder or bicycle on the wall. Then the interrogator asks the subject to climb on the ladder or the bike. And when the subject of course doesn't comply, he is beaten. The sister of a Fatah activist who "went underground" said to the Hamas police who came looking for him: You tell them to mount a bicycle drawn on the wall. And they answered her, she says: "No, we've stopped doing that, because the gas ran out." I tried to find out how many people had met and talked with someone who had experienced this form of torture. It appears that there is only one such complaint - which is still being looked into.

People also "know" that Hamas only distributes food packages to its supporters. Or that it only distributes canisters of cooking gas to people who belong to the movement - and this at a time when there is a shortage of cooking gas throughout the Gaza Strip. A common occurrence or isolated cases that, for all the repetition, become bloated in the general consciousness? To judge from the words of one fisherman from the Al-Shati refugee camp, who is not a Hamas man - there's no comparing the PA government "which was corrupt and worried only about its people" and today's government. Is this because he's a childhood friend of Haniyeh, is it because Haniyeh "was a fisherman, and his father was a fisherman and we're neighbors and he still lives in the camp, in the same refugee house" - or does the fisherman really reflect the popular attitude of people who are not exposed to arrests and other oppressive measures by Hamas?

Sometimes, there is talk about groups of salafiyin (purists who seek to base their practice on the early generations of Islam) that are the ones who impose - by violent means - stricter religious practices. But, M. told me in protest, the real salafiyin (and he considers himself one of them) are opposed to all violence. Suspicious observers say that there are elements in the government that make use of the violent salafiyin.

It was the salafiyin who were cited in the effort to get me to leave Gaza, against my will, just three weeks after my arrival, when I still had dozens of topics written in my notebook that I planned to examine and write about. On the morning of November 30, A.'s aide or deputy requested that I meet with them "immediately." I managed to do so two hours later, at noon, and then I was informed that "because of the security situation and information that has been received about a threat to your life, we can no longer protect you and you are requested to leave the Gaza Strip immediately. The order is from Sa'id al-Siam."

In April 1995, I had heard a similar line that seemed to have been taken from the same instruction manual that A. had memorized. Only then, it came from a representative of the PA mukhabarat (intelligence), and the order came from Arafat. Then I was told that the danger was from the Islamic Jihad and Hamas, while this time the salafiyin were mentioned. A. was deeply offended by the comparison and by the implication that they were lying, just as Arafat's security people had lied, just as the Israel Shin Bet lies when it prevents Israeli journalists from entering Gaza "for security reasons." In 1995, the "immediately" was replaced by three days. Then, friends and acquaintances in Fatah intervened, and during those three days were able to get the order changed.

This time I sought the help of Hamas people. That Sunday I was supposed to stay with N. - an old friend, a member of Hamas and a university lecturer. I told him right away on the phone about the order, and I heard the shock and sorrow in his voice. Within an hour, he had come to pick me up together with his friend, a member of the legislative council. They both tried to call whomever they could think of, to try to get the decree changed. From minute to minute, phone call to phone call, the dejected looks on their faces told me there was no chance. The decision was final.

At three in the afternoon, we sat down to eat, in his home, with his wife and two sons. At four, my escorts rang the doorbell and informed me that my time was up. That I had to leave immediately. An order is an order. We went downstairs together and sitting in the dababeh, instead of the usual two or three, were six or seven of my escorts, wearing clearly unfriendly expressions. They couldn't care less that I still had to pack, to say goodbye to friends, that the Erez checkpoint was closed. It was my fault for taking so long. N. tried to explain: "We've been fasting [the last 10 days before the Feast of the Sacrifice are voluntary fast days]. We'd planned to break the fast with a meal with Amira [at five]. When I found out she had to leave, I called my wife and we decided to end the fast earlier, in honor of our guest." I was surprised and moved, because I had been unaware of this gesture. The phone calls finally produced one bit of leniency: I was permitted to leave the next day,
December 1.

................................................................
--------
Jewish Peace News editors:
Joel Beinin
Racheli Gai
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
Judith Norman
Lincoln Shlensky
Rebecca Vilkomerson
Alistair Welchman
------------
Jewish Peace News archive and blog: http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com
------------
Jewish Peace News sends its news clippings only to subscribers. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or manage your subscription, go to http://www.jewishpeacenews.net

Suspended European vote on special status for Israel

For years, Europe and the United States have afforded Israel a variety of economic privileges. For the first time now, the option of making these conditional upon Israeli compliance with human rights conventions and international law is being seriously weighed. Luisa Morgantini, Vice President of the European Parliament, has consistently sounded a critical analysis of Israeli human rights violations and, no less, of European responsibility to hold Israel accountable, as an occupying power. The following press release, issued by Morgantini's office, reports a significant step in this direction.

Rela Mazali

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

`Israel IS NOT ABOVE THE LAW` The European Parliament suspends the vote on the upgrade of EU Israel relations

by LUISA MORGANTINI Vice President of the European Parliament Press release
04 Dec 2008

The European Parliament (EP) today postponed the vote on the proposal by the EU Commission and Council for the draft recommendation to conclude a Protocol to the EU-Israel Association Agreement and on the general principles governing the State of Israel`s participation in Community programmes . The vote was originally scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday, December 4, in the EP in Brussels.

This vote would have been an important step in the process of upgrading EU-Israel relations, which was requested by the Israeli Minister for Foreign Affairs, Tzipi Livni, during her hearing in the EP Committee on Foreign Affairs, within the framework of the Protocol for the Association Agreement between EU and Israel. However, the European Parliament voted differently : the majority of parliamentarians called for a postponement of the vote to another date yet to be determined, as requested by the GUE/NGL and Greens groups, with agreement from the Socialist Party, some of the Liberals (ALDE) and some MEPs from the Popular Party.

`It`s time for the Israeli Government to stop considering itself above the law and start respecting it, beginning by freezing all settlement -building activities and ending its siege on the Gaza Strip. Until the Israeli Government signals its willingness to abide by international law and especially human rights and humanitarian law, the European Parliament is not disposed to vote,` declared Luisa Morgantini, Vice President of the European Parliament.

`Today`s vote is an important political message, directed not against Israel, but at pushing the Israeli leadership to respect their obligations in order to achieve tangible results from the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, so that they can reach a peaceful solution and the security of the two peoples. It is also a signal to the EU Council and Commission, that they must put pressure on Israel to stop its colonization of the 1967 Occupied Palestinian Territory.

But this vote is also a sign of hope for the Palestinians, telling them that the European Parliament is not deaf to the suffering of people in Gaza and the West Bank, and that the EP is not only determined to verbally criticize the situation but to take concrete action for the respect of human rights and international law.

It is also an answer to PM Salam Fayyad, who launched an appeal to the EU to not upgrade its relations with Israel since after Annapolis there have not been improvements, neither in lifting the closures on Palestinian areas nor freezing settlements; it is also an answer to Palestinian civil society and to the NGOs that have sent many letters to European Parliamentarians.

Finally this vote is positive for us Europeans, who are showing to ourselves and to the entire world that respect for human rights and the achievement of justice are not an abstract declaration of principles,` concluded Luisa Morgantini.

................................................................
--------
Jewish Peace News editors:
Joel Beinin
Racheli Gai
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
Judith Norman
Lincoln Shlensky
Rebecca Vilkomerson
Alistair Welchman
------------
Jewish Peace News archive and blog: http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com
------------
Jewish Peace News sends its news clippings only to subscribers. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or manage your subscription, go to http://www.jewishpeacenews.net

Reverse Settlement

Reverse Settlement

The article below by Kobi Ben Simon, from this weekend's Haaretz, documents a phenomena that has become quite familiar, that of Jewish settlers moving into an Arab neighborhood of an Arab city, but with a twist. The implications for the future of Israel and Palestine are profound.

In this case, the city is Jaffa, part of the larger metropolis of Tel Aviv. The article identifies a process that is just at its beginning there, as the Rabbi, a former resident of a settlement in the occupied West Bank, established a yeshiva beachhead in the Arab neighborhood just a month ago. But similar processes are happening or have happened both in Israel and occupied Palestine. In Acre, which has been a target of Jewish re-settlement in recent years, there were violent clashes this year during and after Yom Kippur, which resulted in many Arab families being left homeless. In the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem, where the process is a bit farther along, there are ongoing fierce efforts to "Judaize" the neighborhood, through faulty archaeological research, Jewish settlement and Palestinian Arab harassment and expulsion. And of course there is Hebron, where the settlers have already won, displacing the former vibrant center of Palestinian life with a ghost town fully
controlled by the military where only the Jewish settlers can walk freely.

Certainly Jaffa is no Hebron (yet), but there is a familiar method to the madness, and the desired end point in each case is the same: a former Arab neighborhood "cleansed" of its Palestinian Arab residents and replaced by militant, extremist Jews.

Israel inside the Green Line may be the new frontier for extremist Zionist settlement. Apparently, the West Bank settlement project is considered secure enough to move on to more challenging pastures. As the Rabbi himself notes in the article, "we had carried out a great project in the settlements for the past 30 years, but that now the struggle needs to be moved to a different place."

The right, at least, seems to have settled on its own one-state solution and is pursuing it on both sides of the Green Line.

--Rebecca Vilkomerson

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1041621.html

God's Little Acre
By Kobi Ben Simon

It's the day after he was elected for the first time to the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipal council, but Omar Siksek cannot bring himself to smile. Visitors to the office of the chairman of the Association for Jaffa Arabs, located on Yefet Street in Jaffa, want to celebrate his victory, but he is not in the mood. His face is somber.

"Arab-haters have established a settlement in Acre," he says. "They are dangerous and capable of igniting the street at any time. I think the fire is close - if not in another month, then in two months. We can expect a replay of the events in Acre [where Jews and Arabs clashed on and after Yom Kippur], I have no doubt."

About a month ago, a yeshiva belonging to the religious-Zionist movement was established in the heart of Jaffa's Ajami neighborhood. Since then, Siksek has felt that he is on the front line of a new culture war that he did not foment.

"We have no problem with the Jewish religion," he explains. "There are a great many synagogues in Jaffa and there was always mutual respect between the religions here. But I do not want people who harbor extremist views living in my neighborhood, people who want to expel me from my home. While yeshiva students are moving into Jaffa, there are 500 demolition-and-evacuation orders pending against Arab residents, most of them in Ajami. That is a crazy paradox, which can only lead to disaster. For 60 years we have lived in coexistence. Why do we need this mess from Yesha [Judea-Samaria] now?"

An Israeli flag flies on the roof of the yeshiva, which is located at the end of Toulouse Street. Standing next to a rusting iron gate is the yeshiva's dean and founder, Rabbi Eliyahu Mali. He does not look troubled. Two months ago he left his home in the Beit El settlement in the West Bank, and he and his wife, Michal, and their nine children now live on Ha'etrog Street in Ajami. Some 40 young students followed in his wake and fill the yeshiva every afternoon, studying Gemara, Bible and Jewish religious law. Mali, their revered teacher, hopes to get hundreds more to come as well.

Rabbi Mali, 51, a former resident of the religious kibbutz Shluhot in the Beit She'an Valley, taught for 10 years at the prestigious Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem. In 1988 he was appointed dean of a pre-army yeshiva in the Ali settlement in Samaria. He is now a leading figure in the Ateret Cohanim Yeshiva in Jerusalem's Old City - an institution which, according to its Web site, "is the spiritual focus for the return of Jews to their homes in the 'Moslem' Quarter" - and is headed by Rabbi Shlomo Aviner. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the yeshiva seized control of property in that quarter and settled Jews there. Mali's brother, Rabbi Yehuda Mali, is one of the senior figures in the Elad organization, which aims to renew and populate the area of the historical City of David adjacent to the Old City, located within the densely populated Arab neighborhood of Silwan.

"I want quiet and have no interest in enflaming the atmosphere," Eliyahu Mali says, noting that he even declined to be interviewed by Arutz Sheva, the settlers' media outlet. He also declined to be interviewed for this article, though in two brief meetings emphasized repeatedly that he and his students "are following the paths of peace in Jaffa. We have no desire to hurt anyone or to enter into confrontation with the Arabs, even if some among them are trying to provoke us, driving their cars close to the yeshiva and hurling [abusive] words."

However, to judge by some of Mali's remarks in recent months, Siksek has good cause for concern. In an interview in April to Hatzofeh, the newspaper of the religious-Zionist movement, Mali said: "People proposed that I establish the yeshiva in the wake of the expulsion from Gush Katif" - referring to Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. "In that period, my wife and I engaged in spiritual soul-searching. We considered what we could do to help correct and heal things in the future, after what happened there. During the disengagement period we went to the coastal plain region, to Ramat Hasharon, to talk to people there ahead of the process. We found that most of the people of Israel live between Hadera and Gedera, and that is where the decisions are made as well.

"Our conclusion at that time," Mali continued, "without making a concrete decision, was for us to move from Beit El to metropolitan Tel Aviv along with additional families and start to take action. We talked to friends and the idea struck a chord in many families. We explained to them that we had carried out a great project in the settlements for the past 30 years, but that now the struggle needs to be moved to a different place."

An explanation for Mali's new project in Ajami can be found in his lessons, which are taped and posted on the Ateret Cohanim Web site (in Hebrew). For example, in a lesson concerning the wars of Saul and their spiritual roots, he explains that "there is a kingdom of preparation and a kingdom of eternity. Certainly when you are following a gradual path, you start with a war of defense and afterward launch a war of offense. Certainly when you are forging national consciousness, you first construct its existential ground floor. There is a war for existential awareness, in contrast to a war for the final goal."

Mali then asks his students: "You have no problem conquering the Temple Mount, expelling the Waqf [the Muslim trust], eliminating the Mosque of Omar and starting to build the Temple, right? But someone who lives in north Tel Aviv will say, 'Are you off your rocker?' He will tell you that your irresponsible behavior is putting the whole Zionist enterprise at risk. He thinks that the fanaticism which does not take reality into account can easily cause our destruction. So from his point of view, you are extremely dangerous and have to be jailed in order to safeguard the country, to which we came after thousands of years ... Do you understand how they see it?"

The conquest of the land is alive and well, according to Mali's lessons: "Forging the national consciousness is a slow, gradual process, and before you reach the point at which the nation is with you, you have to go down to Tel Aviv. There is no other way. If you continue to closet yourself in Jerusalem and the settlements and talk in a highfalutin way, nothing will change. If you stick to your guns and they stick to theirs, there is no connection, no general transformation in the people's consciousness. We have a problem."

The leaders of the national-religious public have also failed, Mali says. "The dominant approach to dealing with problems is an instant fix. Putting out fires. If the government wants to dismantle settlements, what is the method? Mass demonstrations. But is that enough to heal this generation - by trying to bring thousands and tens of thousands to prevent one specific act, which really stems from an overall spiritual failure that you did not try to heal? You went to Tel Aviv, but when? For a demonstration in Rabin Square? With the whole public sitting home and watching television? Or did you actually go into the neighborhoods and teach Torah to the masses and disseminate the Law?

"The method has to be changed, and doing that is a psychological matter. Only then will we get results. At the moment, we cannot ignore the unfortunate fact that we have lost the campaign. That is the reality. The stories that we won in terms of love make no difference. Dear friends, we have lost. And we have to analyze the reason and draw the conclusions."

'Unpleasant cocktail'

Mali's words to his students reflect prolonged reevaluation by the religious-Zionist movement. The establishment of Torah-study groups in secular locales within the Green Line dates back to the start of settlement in the territories. In 1968, Mercaz Harav students established a "core group" of religious families and a hesder yeshiva (combining religious studies with military service) in Kiryat Shmona. In the 1980s, similar groups (not necessarily married couples) were sent to Yeruham, Eilat, Safed and Beit Shemesh, and in the 1990s to big cities such as Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan. The establishment of such groups in mixed cities (Jewish-Arab) was a later, marginal phenomenon, but in recent years has been growing.

"Today, more than in the past we are seeing serious escalation in the [tense] relations between Jews and Arabs in the mixed cities," says Dr. Elie Rekhess, a senior research fellow of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, and editor of the study "Mixed Cities - Comparative Approach" (Hebrew, 2006). "The situation is highly volatile. A process is under way in which social and economic distress among the Arab public is colliding with a Jewish national-religious awakening. That is a very unpleasant cocktail."

Rekhess opposes establishment of yeshiva-based groups in the mixed cities. "The yeshiva in Ajami is definitely a provocation. It is a new settlement, the 2008 model. The Jewish presence in the territories is already consolidated, and now these same people are entering Arab neighborhoods and hoping to ensure that the state's Jewish character is preserved inside the Green Line. They are in effect consciously sitting atop a powder keg, which the smallest match could ignite and explode. You know, a yeshiva like this in Jaffa does not create a basis for coexistence; on the contrary, when a rabbi from Beit El moves into the heart of an Arab neighborhood, that is a political act. He bears a very clear message."

MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union - National Religious Party) has a rather different take on the situation. "The very objection of Arabs to the entry of Jews in the neighborhood is unexampled Arab effrontery - mad racism," he asserts. "Anyone who claims that Jaffa is an Arab city and that Jews are not allowed to settle there is an anti-Semite and an Islamic racist. Jews who are critical of a yeshiva like this are anti-Zionists. I don't understand why Arabs are allowed to move from Nazareth to Upper Nazareth, from East Jerusalem neighborhoods to French Hill, or to enter Carmiel, but Jews are not allowed into Ajami. The allegations against the yeshiva are typical of part of the Arab public, which wants to erase the country's Jewish character. People like that should be kicked out. The phenomenon has to be aborted. I don't even think they are traitors - they are simply enemies. And enemies have to be fought." The inauguration ceremony of the new hesder yeshiva in Ajami, of which the high
point was the dedication of a Torah scroll, was accompanied by a protest by some 40 Arabs. The chairman of the Ajami neighborhood, Kamal Agbaria, whose home is adjacent to the yeshiva, joined the demonstration: "We came to say that no one will be our landlord, that no one will impose a new order in our living space. That was actually only the beginning. In the past few weeks there have been at least four cases of mutual harassment between Arab youths and yeshiva students. On one occasion there was verbal abuse, on another physical violence and there was also stone-throwing. The situation is heating up. In terms of the local residents, the entry of the yeshiva students is like the arrival of a battalion of soldiers. The residents feel that the hesder yeshiva is a religious arm of the government and has the hidden goal of judaizing Jaffa."

Burning homes

The yeshiva is only one element in the new fabric of relations being woven between the national-religious public and the city of Jaffa. In the past year, the Rosh Yehudi association, whose stated aim is "to deepen the Jewish identity of all sections of the population," established a yeshiva-style group in the Jaffa Dalet neighborhood.

"What began as a distant dream by a number of individual families is gradually taking root," says Michal Atias, a member of the core group. "The Jaffa group, which was established less than a year ago, is constantly developing. In the very short time since its creation, the group has already embraced more than 10 families. And when the members of the group saw that it was good, they began to buy homes in the area and thus to consolidate the group's existence."

The chairman of Rosh Yehudi is the real estate developer Israel Zeira, whose Emuna construction company builds and markets homes for the national-religious public. In addition to projects in locales such as Beit Shemesh, Elad and Jerusalem, the company is now also operating in mixed cities. In Lod, for example, Zeira built about 80 apartments alongside the Arab areas.

"We have a vision to bring national-religious families to Tel Aviv in order to connect with secular young people," Zeira explains. "We came to Jaffa to support the Jews, not because of the Arabs. The Arabs are only a symptom. There is a regrettable phenomenon in which Jews are leaving Jaffa because of social and economic problems. We are there to bolster them, to offer social assistance. We came to inject spiritual strength, as we are doing in many other places. In Jaffa there is a postmodern tendency to mix Jewish and Arab schoolchildren, for example. We think that is not right: The schools should be separate."

Zeira counsels calm in the face of the Arab public's reaction. "I do not apologize for what I am doing - I am proud of it. The national-religious public is a quality community, and brings growth wherever it goes. In Ramat Gan there are 200 families who scared off the criminals from the Ramat Amidar neighborhood; in Lod we have 200 families for whom we built a fine residential project. The same process will come to Jaffa. If we collect more people there, maybe we will build homes for them, too."

The aspiration to build housing in Jaffa for Jewish religious families has already entered the practical stage. The director of the religious core group, Itai Granek, is consolidating a number of families who will buy homes in a project at 140 Jerusalem Boulevard in Jaffa. At the end of September he published the following advertisement on a real-estate Web site: "Purchase group of the national-religious public organizing in Jaffa for project of 270 residential units, including synagogues, mikvehs [ritual baths] and kindergartens. Founded by the social-Torah group. Register quickly."

"Very quietly, without our noticing and under our noses, inflammatory core groups are strengthening their hold, and fanning hostility and suspicion between the Jewish and Arab population," says Meital Lehavi, who heads the Meretz list in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipal council. "I am not sure that the city's residents are aware of the move to Judaize Jaffa by Jewish 'settlers,' who undoubtedly consider themselves the successors of the generation of pioneers and those who drained the swamps.

"Just as no justification exists for the use of these arguments in [the settlements of] Kedumim, Itamar, Shiloh and a host of illegal settler outposts," Lehavi continues, "we are now starting to hear similar justifications for the efforts to Judaize Jaffa's neighborhoods. But anyone who believes that he will succeed in undermining the stability of the ties between Jews and Arabs in Tel Aviv-Jaffa will discover he is wrong. Jaffa will not become a second Acre. The residents of Tel Aviv-Jaffa will continue to reinforce the elements that unite and bind rather than those that divide. Yesha is definitely not here," she concludes, referring to the slogan used in a publicity campaign some years ago by the Yesha Council of settlements.

MK Nadia Hilou (Labor), the chairwoman of the mixed-cities lobby in the Knesset, is determined to put a lid on the simmering ethnic passions in Jaffa. "My experience of growing up in Jaffa was completely different from what we see today. The neighborhood was mixed in the true sense of the word. We celebrated the holidays together - my mother prepared special cookies for Pesach and bags of chocolates for Christmas ... We didn't do these things because we wanted to forgo our identity; [the motivation came from] a place in which you share with others and they share with you."

However, at some point the Jewish residents of Ajami left, she relates: "Jewish families who became socio-economically stronger decided to abandon the neighborhood. By the 1980s almost all the Jews had left, mostly to [the nearby cities of] Holon and Bat Yam. Very serious neglect set in. But the Arabs stayed and created an interesting demographic mix in which people from the lowest to the highest [classes] lived together. These days the residents are lawyers, judges and surgeons, living alongside criminals. The Jews did not start returning to Jaffa until the 1990s, but in the form of a strong, affluent group: Jews who viewed Jaffa as real estate. They built projects like Andromeda [a luxury gated housing project]. Those people never maintained community relations with the Arabs. Not out of malice; they simply send their children to private schools and there is no communication with them."

According to Hilou, the arrival of the national-religious public poses a challenge to the delicate balance of cohabitation. About a month ago, in the wake of the events in Acre, she organized an urgent meeting between Rabbi Mali and Muslim and Christian religious leaders in Jaffa.

"One day a mother came to me and told me about a verbal confrontation she had with a yeshiva student, who told her, 'We will remove you from here,'" Hilou says. "I decided to call Rabbi Mali. I explained to him that I wanted to arrange a meeting of leaders in order to find a channel of cooperation that would prevent the events of Acre from being replicated in Jaffa. All it would take is a minor event that would take a different direction and our home would go up in flames."

Back to October

The group of local leaders met in Mali's home. "The invitation immediately reduced the tension," Hilou says. "We sat with him in a small, modest home. He opened the meeting by saying that he teaches his students love, acceptance of the other and strengthening of the belief in God."

Did that reassure you?

Hilou: "Look, it's possible that my compromise route will bring about two more meetings or maybe four. But do we have the strength to remove them? Will it be to anyone's benefit to launch a struggle? I think not. Resistance will not solve the problem. Jaffa is Arab-Jewish and we do not object to Jews living here. That is not the problem. The problem begins when there are hidden intentions directed against the Arab population. So there are people in Jaffa, such as Omar Siksek, who see things differently and think we should fight back.

"I admit that I did not want to give the matter too much thought. I wanted to believe what Rabbi Mali told me. I think it is convenient to believe, it is the easy way in a certain sense. I am afraid to immerse myself in thoughts and reach different conclusions."

Such as?

"Feeling real fear. Life together was always very good, but during the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, police opened fire in Jaffa and bullets flew over my head. That was the harshest thing I ever experienced. The whole country was burning, and in Jaffa, too, people set tires ablaze and blocked streets, but there were no confrontations between Jaffa's Jewish and Arab residents. There was a conflict, there was tension, but no clashes. Life went on."

But some bad feelings remain.

"There is a bitter residue. I live on the boundary of Jaffa and Bat Yam. On the second day of the tension in the city, I saw soldiers on my street. I didn't think it was serious, but apparently they received a prior warning. At 1 A.M. we woke up to awful screaming of 'Death to the Arabs.' Shirtless Jewish demonstrators from Bat Yam came out, carrying clubs and roaring. They wanted to enter Jaffa through my street. I immediately called the representative of the Arab community in Jaffa, so he would warn the residents. He told me, 'It's all right. We are waiting for them. Just let them come.' I was taken aback. Fortunately, the police blocked both sides and did not let them meet. Today I am driven by a feeling of fear: I don't know where the religious friction can lead. It frightens me: I am frightened that what happened then will happen again."

................................................................
--------
Jewish Peace News editors:
Joel Beinin
Racheli Gai
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
Judith Norman
Lincoln Shlensky
Rebecca Vilkomerson
Alistair Welchman
------------
Jewish Peace News archive and blog: http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com
------------
Jewish Peace News sends its news clippings only to subscribers. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or manage your subscription, go to http://www.jewishpeacenews.net

Who profits off of occupation?

The news item below was published by IPS, Inter Press Service News Agency, "a communication institution with a global news agency at its core … [which] raises the voices of the South and of civil society … brings a fresh perspective on development and globalization." (quoted from the IPS website: http://www.ipsnews.net/index.asp)

In the following item, IPS journalist Ida Karlsson reports on one of the findings of a data base project of the Coalition of Women for Peace (http://coalitionofwomen.org/home/english). "CWP," she writes, "… an Israeli feminist peace organization … has built a database with information about companies in industrial zones within the occupied territories," companies that, in other words, make profits off of occupation. The database, in fact, is still under construction, to be officially launched in the near future.

Activist Merav Amir, of the Coalition of Women for Peace, explained to Karlsson that Israeli companies operating in the Israeli-occupied West Bank are granted "reduced taxes, little or no enforcement of labour laws, a captive labour market, very cheap real estate prices and lax enforcement of environmental regulations." (This is a further example of Israel's land-use practices – the topic of a recent JPN posting; part of what makes "real estate prices" "very cheap" in the occupied territories are government handouts of illegally appropriated Palestinian land.)

Karlsson reports that among the companies listed in the CWP database, Plasto Polish, an Israeli firm situated in the West Bank "Barkan" industrial zone, is a sub-contractor of Vileda, an international manufacturer of household products. However, she notes, Vileda also belongs to the U.N. Global Compact, whose member companies worldwide pledge to advance social responsibility and sustainability. This blatant inconsistency could lead in future to Vileda's "delisting". Other companies, she remarks, including the Dutch Heineken have recently decided to "move their facilities from the occupied territories, primarily to avoid negative publicity".

"Negative publicity" is partly up to individuals and the public worldwide. Transparent, responsible and detailed data about the firms profiteering on occupied lands offers each of us the option for relatively simple, direct intervention; for letting firms know that consumers consider their practices unacceptable. Such a channel for broadening consumer resistance to the occupation is a new, unprecedented opportunity.

The movement I am active with in Israel, New Profile, is a member group of the Coalition of Women for Peace. The CWP, like numerous other non-profits today, is now facing severe financial problems (see the CWP statement, appended below). These endanger the whole breadth of CWP activity, including the research still in progress towards establishing and publishing this groundbreaking database. While privately owned Israeli companies have profited for years from the benefits of occupation, many of those working (often for years) to resist the occupation in Israel are struggling hard to stay afloat.

Rela Mazali

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

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44678

FINANCE:
Corporate Vows Tested in the West Bank

Ida Karlsson
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 12 (IPS) -

A company that is a member of the U.N. Global Compact for corporate social responsibility has ties to production in an Israeli settlement on the West Bank considered illegal by the United Nations.

A spokeperson for the company, Vileda, an international household products firm, said he was unaware of the contract with a manufacturer in the West Bank, Plasto Polish. However, a representative of Plasto confirmed in a telephone interview with IPS that the company was a subcontractor for Vileda.

"Companies have a social as well as a legal responsibility and must therefore take no part in the illegal occupation," Merav Amir of the Coalition of Women for Peace (CWP), told IPS. "In order to comply with international human rights law, companies should make sure that their businesses have nothing to do with the occupation."

CWP is an Israeli feminist peace organisation that carries out grassroots research, and has built a database with information about companies in industrial zones within the occupied territories. An IPS investigation revealed that Vileda appeared in both that database and the list of U.N. Global Compact participants.

Amir says companies located in the territories benefit from reduced taxes, little or no enforcement of labour laws, a captive labour market, very cheap real estate prices and lax enforcement of environmental regulations.

The U.N. Global Compact is intended to encourage businesses worldwide to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies, and to report on their implementation. It stresses 10 principles in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption.

The corporate responsibility initiative sets out standards of behaviour for companies that are closely corresponding to the international legal obligations of states. This includes, as a minimum, a duty for companies to fully respect international humanitarian and human rights law.

According to the Global Compact, companies should "support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights."

Vileda, whose French division is a member of the Global Compact, subcontracts business to Plasto Polish, which manufactures and exports household cleaning products, mainly scouring sponges and cleaning pads. Plasto is located in the Barkan Industrial Zone, which is an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.

On its website, Vileda says, "Our company and its family shareholders together are committed to protecting the environment and being responsible corporate citizens in all countries and communities in which we do business."

Other companies have recently decided to move their facilities from the occupied territories, primarily to avoid negative publicity. The Dutch beer company Heineken has closed down its facility in the area Barkan and the Swedish lock company Assa Abloy also announced that its production unit on the West Bank will be moved after eight years of production.

According to international humanitarian law, all Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory are illegal, whether built on state or private land. The settlements also constitute a major constraint on the peace process. This has been underscored by the international community through U.N. Security Council and General Assembly resolutions.

Matthias Stausberg, the Global Compact spokesperson, told IPS that the initiative is not in a position to monitor the member companies.

"Of course we want the companies to reflect the values and policies of the United Nations, but we need more information on this case to be able to comment it further," he said.

"We do not expect the companies to be perfect when they join the Global Compact," Stausberg explained. "It is more important that they are a part of the initiative so they can improve in the long run."

He said that information about the companies is put in in a public database and then the public at large, civil society and the media can read and report when companies are not adhering the Global Compact principles.

"We could delist a company for human rights violations if it is brought to our attention and if the company is not willing to engage in dialogue. We do have that possibility," he stressed.

The Global Compact currently has more than 6,200 participants, including over 4,700 businesses in 120 countries. In June, the Global Compact announced that 630 companies had been delisted for "failure to communicate progress".

Israeli industrial zones within the occupied territories hold hundreds of businesses and factories, ranging from small businesses serving the local Israeli settlers to large factories which export their products worldwide.

In 1979, the U.N. Security Council determined that "the policy and practice of Israel in establishing settlements in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East."

The Middle East Quartet -- the European Union, the United Nations, Russia and the United States -- has also expressed its collective opposition to the settlements and has, on 18 occasions since its inception, warned of the dangers of continued expansion to the process.

(END/2008)

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

JOIN US FOR A YEAR OF NON-STOP ACTIVISM FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE!
www.coalitionofwomen.org/donate

Dear friends,

As we wrap-up 2008 and look forward to continuing our groundbreaking feminist activism for peace in 2009, we would like to share with you some of the highlights of 2008 and invite you to become an active partner in the international network of the Coalition of Women for Peace.

With the global financial crisis, we can not continue counting only on traditional funding sources such as foundations. We need the support of all women and men who share our commitment to a social and political change in the Middle East region. We need you!

Mobilizing Women's Peace Activism
This year we mobilized hundreds of women and men in a demonstration in Tel Aviv in June marking 41 years of occupation. Throughout the year we campaigned to end the cruel siege on 1.5 million residents in Gaza.

Exposing the Economy of the Occupation
Our newly established information centre on direct corporate profit from the occupation has provided critical information to several successful campaigns around the world. For example, the Swedish corporation Assa Abloy announced that they will move their factory from illegal settlements in the West Bank. See our continuously updated online database (soon to be officially launched).

Engaging Youth and Women - Reaching Out to Diverse Communities in Israel In our long-term outreach program "Reframing Security as Human Security" and our political education and empowerment program in Russian for women immigrants we engaged over 1,200 community leaders, predominately youth and women, in social justice, peace education and activism.

We need your support TODAY to continue our work tomorrow

How To Give

1. Write a check to "Coalition of Women for Peace" and mail it to: P.O Box 29214 Tel Aviv 61292, Israel

2. For a US-tax deduction, please make out a check to "New Israel Fund". Write in the memo line "For the Coalition of Women for Peace", and mail it to NIF, 1101 14th Street NW, 6th Floor, Washington, DC 20005-5639 (minimum they will accept - 100$)

3. For more ways to give and to give online please enter www.coalitionofwomen.org/donate
4. Thank you for your solidarity and support!

Contact Us
Email: cwp@coalitionofwomen.org || Visit us at http://www.coalitionofwomen.org P.O.Box 29214 Tel Aviv-Jaffa 61292, Israel || Tel: (+972)-508575777

................................................................
--------
Jewish Peace News editors:
Joel Beinin
Racheli Gai
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
Judith Norman
Lincoln Shlensky
Rebecca Vilkomerson
Alistair Welchman
------------
Jewish Peace News archive and blog: http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com
------------
Jewish Peace News sends its news clippings only to subscribers. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or manage your subscription, go to http://www.jewishpeacenews.net