Showing posts with label Mosque. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mosque. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Bloodshed In Palestine



THE ABSURD TIMES




 Illustration: The Mosque under Israeli Attack


            Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University and author of several books, appears below and he is not as well-known as he should be.  He used to take breaks while teaching at Chicago and meet with Barak Obama.  He helped him find a house next to his near the lake and considered him a friend.  At the time, Obama was a purported supporter of the Palestinian cause and ate many meals at Arab homes.  They helped him get to the White House and Dr. Khalidi was not even invited to the inauguration.  

            The significance of the Edward Said [Sigh Eed] Chair is also not well-known.  Edward Said was a well-known scholar and Professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University and is most well-known for his book Orientalism. He was also known as a nearly concert-level pianist, especially with Beethoven's late sonatas.  He collaborated with a close friend, Daniel Barenboim in establishing a program to bring together Israeli and Palestinian youngsters through music.  The program may still survive, but could never even be contemplated today, so deep Israel has sunk into the sewer of the intellect.

            Barenboim was an Israeli citizen, but recently took Palestinian citizenship:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/israeli-pianist-daniel-barenboim-takes-palestinian-citizenship-1.237152  Citizenship

            Everyone has been bombarded lately by the attack in the Synagogue in which four Rabbis and one Druze Policeman were killed, Derschowitz wept on TV with Wolf Blitzer or someone of his ilk, but the full story has not been told.  Here is an attempt to correct that problem: 

Credence Sheik Fritz
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2014

Jerusalem Unrest Threatens Wider Flare-Up After Deadliest Attack on Israeli Civilians in 3 Years

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The unrest that has gripped Jerusalem has escalated after a deadly attack on five Israeli civilians. The victims were killed when armed Palestinians stormed a synagogue during morning prayers. It was the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians in more than three years and the worst in Jerusalem since 2008. The dead included three U.S.-born rabbis, a British-born rabbi and a Druze police officer. Seven worshipers were injured. The assailants were shot dead by police. The attack came after weeks of unrest fueled in part by a dispute over Jerusalem’s holiest site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and known to Jews as the Temple Mount, as well as the continued expansion of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem. After the synagogue killings, Israeli settlers launched reprisal attacks in the occupied West Bank, targeting a school near Nablus and Palestinian motorists on a road near Hebron. At least five Palestinians were wounded after Israeli forces fired rubber-coated bullets. We are joined from Jerusalem by Ha’aretz correspondent Amira Hass, the only Israeli journalist to have spent several years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to Jerusalem, where five Israelis died Tuesday when a pair of Palestinians armed with meat cleavers and a gun stormed a synagogue during morning prayers. It was the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians in more than three years and the worst in Jerusalem since 2008. The dead included three U.S.-born rabbis, a British-born rabbi and a Druze police officer. One of the slain rabbis, Mosheh Twersky, was from two of the most prominent families in Orthodox Judaism. Seven worshipers were injured. The assailants were shot dead by police. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack, which came after months of mounting tension in Jerusalam.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of inciting violence in the city and said the killings were part of a "battle over Jerusalem."
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] As a nation, we will settle the score with every terrorist and their dispatchers, and we have proved we will do so. But no one must take the law into their own hands, even if spirits are riled and blood is boiling. We are in a long campaign in a war against terrorism that hasn’t started today. It accompanies us throughout the Zionism. We always overcame it, and we will this time, as well. There are some who want to uproot us from our state and capital. They will not succeed. We are in a battle over Jerusalem, our eternal capital.
AMY GOODMAN: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack, which came after weeks of unrest, fueled in part by a dispute over Jerusalem’s holiest site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, containing the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and known to Jews as the Temple Mount, because the two Biblical temples once stood there.
PRESIDENT MAHMOUD ABBAS: [translated] We strongly condemn this incident and do not accept under any circumstances attacks on civilians. At the same time we condemn these actions, we also condemn the attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, holy places.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The director of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security service, Yoram Cohen, dismissed Netanyahu’s claim that Abbas incited the attack. Cohen said a number of events led to the synagogue massacre, including the murder of Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir, who was found burned to death in Jerusalem in July, and the discussions in the Knesset to permit Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Jerusalem, where we’re joined by Amira Hass. She’s the Ha’aretz correspondent for the occupied Palestinian territories, the only Israeli Jewish journalist to have spent years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank.
Amira, why don’t you lay out the scene for us in Jerusalem right now?
AMIRA HASS: Hi, Amy. I just came from the neighborhood, Har Nof, where the murder took place. And before that, I haven’t been able yet to go to the neighborhood where the two perpetrators lived, but I went to—I was in some other Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem. Both Palestinian and Israeli neighborhoods seemed to be very, very reserved. There is fear in both parts. The fear was very clear in the Palestinian part. I saw many, many police—policemen, border police—scattered. I even saw them when they were launching up a big balloon, spying balloon, with a camera, I guess, over the neighborhood. The streets were almost empty.
While in the neighborhood in the Jewish neighborhood, things were normal, but very reserved, very restrained. I didn’t enter—I could not enter inside the synagogue, because I’m not allowed as a woman to be there. I did talk to some people. It turns—it seems that the two men who did the killing used to work in the neighborhood in some shops. That’s what I was told, though I didn’t check it yet, didn’t verify it yet.
I did speak to some Palestinians in Jerusalem. And what was remarkable is that they do not approve of it. They do not approve of it, of this murder. But they share with those who perpetrated—they share the sense of despair and anger that Palestinians live with all the time, all the time. I felt that people do not dare to condemn, even though some people feel uncomfortable about such a killing, such an operation. By the way, I don’t think that the Popular Front adopted it officially. People say that the two youngsters are members or fans of the Popular Front, not necessarily members or not necessarily that they got an order from the Popular Front, but this is still to be seen.
Yeah, it is very, very tense. And I was making the comparison between the neighborhood where they lived, the two men, two Abu Jamal—very crowded, very—no investment in the livelihood, in the welfare of the people—while this neighborhood is—the Har Nof neighborhood is a relatively new neighborhood on the land of the village, of the destroyed Palestinian village, Deir Yassin—very spacious, many newcomers, many new immigrants from mostly Anglo-Saxon countries. If they worked there indeed, if the two guys worked there indeed, I think that they faced every morning—they were facing—every day they were facing the Israeli apartheid, very clearly.
And they don’t have—there is no leadership in Jerusalem to—or, at all, any leadership to offer them a struggle with hope, a struggle that yields fruits which give hope for a change. Everything, somebody told me also from the Popular Front today—somebody told me, "We’ve tried everything. We’ve tried negotiations. We’ve tried demonstrations. We’ve tried nice relations with Jews. We’ve tried so many things. And nothing—nothing—brings a change and stops this reality of apartheid."
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Amira Hass, how would you characterize the tensions in the recent weeks in Jerusalem compared to previous years and the ongoing conflicts between Jews and Palestinians in Jerusalem?
AMIRA HASS: Look, there are daily confrontations with the police. There is more police, or there are more confrontations. There are many, many racist manifestations on the part of Israeli Jews in the streets of Jerusalem against Palestinians. So there is fear among Palestinians to go and spend time in the west side of the city, where most of them also have—many of them have work, as well. There is, as I said, more—more police everywhere, especially in the Old City and entrance to Al-Aqsa—has become—as somebody told me, "It is like we are going to a theater, and we have to take a ticket from the police in order to enter Al-Aqsa or to enter even the Old City." A guy who lives in the Old City told me, "I cannot go in to my own house. The police is there. There are checkpoints. They don’t let me get in from this place. They don’t get in people who do not live in the Old City." So, you feel that the Israeli measures, to remind Palestinians in Jerusalem that they are not natural residents of the place, natural natives of the place, but they are actually there on probation. They live in Jerusalem on probation, provided they behave nicely or behave according to Israeli regulations. This is the sense that you get. You get a sense—Palestinians get a sense, more than ever, that they are here in this—in their city, natives of this city, as a gesture, not because it’s their native right.
AMY GOODMAN: In October, Israel shut down the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem for the first time in 14 years, following the shooting of an Israeli far-right activist named Yehudah Glick. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the temporary closure as a declaration of war on the Palestinian people. The site, again, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, houses both the mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Jamal Tawfiq, a resident of Jerusalem, said he was turned away after arriving for his morning prayers.
JAMAL TAWFIQ: [translated] This is a collective punishment for something we had nothing to do with. This is injustice. There is no fair government here. Justice should be the basis for governance. But there is no justice here. A problem happens with a person over there, they close the mosque here. Why is it OK to allow Jews to go pray at the Wailing Wall without any harassment, while a Palestinian is killed every day? Every day, a Palestinian is killed. Every day, holy olive trees are burned and pulled out because they belong to Arab Palestinians. Why are we the ones being punished?
AMY GOODMAN: So that was Jamal Tawfiq, a resident of Jerusalem. So, Amira Hass, now five Israeli Jews have been killed, three of them American citizens born in the United States. Where do you see this going from here?
AMIRA HASS: That’s always the most difficult question. I mean, the two sides are giving signs that they are ready for escalation. And there are more Israeli measures. The house of one of the perpetrators of a running-over attack, his house was demolished this night. Probably the houses of the two Abu Jamal nephews or cousins, they will be demolished also soon. So, Israelis claimed officially that they are going to use more collective measures against the entire Palestinian population in Jerusalem. Also what they declared is that they had—they planned some gestures in the West Bank, like opening roads that were closed down to Palestinian traffic, and now they decided not to have this gesture. So, there is—on this part, there is clearly an intention to escalate. And it’s never—as usual, in the past so many years, Israel does not listen to the message of Palestinian protest. It only improves and perfects its tools to repress those demonstrations and expressions of protest.
On the Palestinian side, there is a lot of confusion, because the Palestinians in Jerusalem can revolt, but there is no leadership, Palestinian leadership, that works now to—or able to lead an uprising, in all levels. And also in the West Bank, people, the great majority of people, I believe—and we’ve seen people—the great majority of Palestinians are not really keen on entering now a new phase of repression, of terrible Israeli repression. Gaza is far away. They can sacrifice again, again and again their lives, their houses. But it’s not in a position to lead an uprising against the Israeli occupation, especially now that again Hamas and Fatah are not in the best terms and the reconciliation is not really working. So, it is—there is a lot of confusion. And Jerusalemers are left now, left—in a way, they are left quite alone in a desperate attempt to explain to the Israelis that they have had enough. This is quite heroic, but also not strategized.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you very much, Amira Hass, for joining us from Jerusalem. Amira is the Ha’aretz correspondent for the occupied Palestinian territories, the only Israeli Jewish journalist to have spent many years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank. A few years ago, she was awarded the International Women’s Media Foundation Award for Lifetime Achievement. It was awarded by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. And a slight correction: Five Israelis have died, four Jews and one Druze. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’ll be joined by a Palestinian professor and a former Israeli soldier. Stay with us.


Creative Commons LicenseThe original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2014

"Palestinians Always Live in Fear": Jerusalem Killings Follow Months of Tensions, Settlement Growth

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In the aftermath of Tuesday’s attack that killed five Israeli civilians in a Jerusalem synagogue, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of inciting violence in the city and said the killings were part of a "battle over Jerusalem." Abbas has condemned the attack, which came after weeks of unrest fueled by a dispute over Jerusalem’s holiest site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and known to Jews as the Temple Mount, as well as the continued expansion of Israeli settlements. We discuss the worsening tensions in Israel and the Occupied Territories with two guests: Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University and author of several books, and Eran Efrati, a former Israeli combat soldier turned anti-occupation activist and investigative researcher.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We’re continuing our coverage of the crisis in Jerusalem, where five Israelis died Tuesday when a pair of Palestinians armed with meat cleavers and a gun stormed a synagogue during morning prayers. It was the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians in more than three years and the worst in Jerusalem since 2008.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by two guests here in New York. Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University. He’s the author of a number of books, including his latest, Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East.
Eran Efrati is also with us, a former Israeli combat soldier turned occupation—anti-occupation activist and investigative researcher. His family has lived in Jerusalem for seven generations.
Let’s start with Professor Khalidi. Your response to what has taken place, not only yesterday, the killing of the four Israeli Jews and one Druze at the synagogue, but in the lead-up to that, as well?
RASHID KHALIDI: Well, tensions have been growing since the summer, and Jerusalem is the flashpoint. When, on top of the pressure that Palestinians are all under because of this occupation that’s now in its fifth decade, you have the issue of the Haram al-Sharif, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and you have calls by senior ministers in the Israeli government, like Naftali Bennett, to completely change the status quo, to in effect take over a Muslim holy place that’s been the center of devotion for 1,400 years and, essentially, do to it what was done to the mosque in Hebron—turn it into a Jewish holy place where Muslims are occasionally allowed—you are throwing fuel on the fire. And so, ever since the last couple of months, there’s just been an escalation in tension all over the city.
You have increased settlement activity that just is penetrating neighborhood after neighborhood. Arab neighborhoods that have never seen armed settlers, with a heavy military and police presence to guard them, are now slowly, but surely, being colonized one by one. And so, you’re basically turning up the heat on a very, very hot situation, and that’s been going on now for many months.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And given the inability of the leaders to be able to negotiate a settlement to the ongoing occupation, do you think that there’s a possibility that we’re under the brink of a Third Intifada, with the young people just saying, "Hey, our leaders can’t deliver anything"?
RASHID KHALIDI: Well, I think that what Amira Hass earlier said is correct. In Jerusalem, in particular, there’s an absence of leadership, but there’s an absence of leadership for the Palestinians as a whole. And that has been, I think, signaled over the Gaza crisis. It’s been signaled over the inability of the Palestinians to actually put together a reconciliation, a unity government, and to define a strategy.
I mean, Israel has a clear strategy. It is that they will negotiate forever, but they will not give up control of the Occupied Territories. The most important statement made by an Israeli politician was made by Netanyahu this summer. He said, "We will keep permanent, perpetual security control of these territories." So he’s basically said, "No state, no sovereignty, no independence. You can talk as long as you want. I will meet with you. But you will never get an end to occupation."
Well, that’s—something has to give here. I don’t think—I agree with Amira: I think that people in the West Bank are afraid. They’re both afraid of Israeli retaliation and they’re afraid of the security cooperation between the Palestinian Authority, which helps the Israelis to hold them down, and Israel. So, I’m not sure that that’s where we’re going. We may be going to more—sadly, to more horrible random acts of violence and more eruptions of kids, without leadership, in various parts of the West Bank, perhaps, and Jerusalem.
AMY GOODMAN: Is there something shifting here, from an Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a Israeli, perhaps, Jewish-Muslim conflict, which certainly involves many more people than just in that area?
RASHID KHALIDI: Well, I mean, this is certainly grist for the mill of people who want to turn it into a religious conflict. There are certainly people on the Israeli side and people on the Palestinian side, but in the broader Arab and Muslim world. I mean, this group in Sinai, which announced its adherence to the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, is called Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, a support—
AMY GOODMAN: The Egyptians.
RASHID KHALIDI: The Egyptian Sinai group that announced its adherence to the Islamic State off in Mosul and Baghdad, al-Baghdadi’s group, is called Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, supporters of Jerusalem. This is a card that these people will play. So, yes, this is not just tinder in the Palestinian-Israeli arena, religious tinder; this is religious tinder all over the region. I don’t know what—I’m not suggesting that’s necessarily going to—something is necessarily going to happen, but the Israeli government is playing with fire. They have a senior minister—Naftali Bennett is one of the three most important people in the Israeli Cabinet. He is making incendiary statements. His party and Lieberman’s party are saying and doing things that Palestinians watch. They know who these people are. They know how important they are in Israeli politics. They know the kind of support they have. And people are quite afraid, I think.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And Eran Efrati, as a former soldier now turned anti-occupation activist, your reaction as you’re seeing this latest flare-up over this terrible attack yesterday?
ERAN EFRATI: All right. So I think when we’re really trying to understand what happened in Jerusalem the last few months, we’ll need to understand it in a broader context—the broader context of maybe 70 years of ethnic cleansing all over Palestine, but definitely in the last 40 years in East Jerusalem and around specifically the holy sites, trying to bring more and more Jews into this area instead of Palestinians and determine a new history, if you want, a new history when you cannot divide Jerusalem, because Jews were always there in the Old City and around these holy sites. So, from this situation, the angle is to make Palestinians leave Jerusalem. And we’re trying to oppress them so much. And this our goal—when I was in the army—in the police in Jerusalem, the goal is to make people’s life miserable. When we were in the army, they’re trying to tell us that to do that, we’re doing it for the fact that they will not act in terror attacks. So, we need to make their life miserable, so they will be afraid all the time, and they will not have time to plan terror attacks. It’s, of course, ridiculous. The end goal in the end to make them want to leave also made them want to do crazy things, like attacks on Jews and on Israelis.
The second context I will talk about—I think it’s important to talk about—is the last 10 years. Since the last—since the Second Intifada, the end of the Second Intifada, that was very bloody for both sides, the Palestinian society decided to act in nonviolent acts, trying to go to the U.N., like Amira Hass has mentioned, going to the U.N. promoting BDS—boycott, divestment and sanction movement—on Israel. All of that was countered in a very, very harsh oppression by Israel. People in Israel, officials in Israel are calling them terrorists. If you’re going to the U.N., you’re a political terrorist. If you’re promoting BDS, you’re an economic terrorist. People are arrested for that. You know, institute like [inaudible] Institute, a right-wing institute in Jerusalem, is calling the Parliament, telling them that it will help them expose BDSactivists to stop them and arrest them and destroy their homes. You know, when we’re—
AMY GOODMAN: BDS being boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
ERAN EFRATI: Right, Amy. When we’re reacting to nonviolence in such a violent way and oppression, and we explain to the Palestinians, "There is no legit way to resist the occupation, there’s no legal way to resist us," it will always end up with violence. Oppression with violence will counter resistance with violence. And in the last four months, Jerusalem is burning. I’m there. I’m from there. I’m a seventh generation in Jerusalem, and I was there in the last few months. Jerusalem is burning since the beginning of the summer, and of course since the killing of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, that, by the way, one of his killers that burned him to death in July was from Har Nof neighborhood.
So, the tension is always there. But the media was not always there, and the attention was not always there. For 40 years, East Jerusalem is in this situation, but nobody seemed to be noticing, because in the last 10 years, for Israelis, since the end of the Second Intifada, it was quiet years. For us, it was peaceful years, because we weren’t living in fear. But Palestinians never had those quiet years. They always lived in fear. They didn’t stop being attacked by the police, by the army—and now, since the summer, by civilians, by mobs on the streets going there and looking to lynch people. And they do, like Mohammed Abu Khdeir, like two days ago when they found in East Jerusalem a bus driver, a Palestinian bus driver, a father to two girls, hanged in the middle of his bus after a violent attack on him, lynching him and hanging him up in the middle of the bus. But it doesn’t seem like nobody is talking about it.
AMY GOODMAN: Wait, explain that, because it was said that he committed suicide.
ERAN EFRATI: Yes, the police came out—exactly like in the Mohammed Abu Khdeir story, by the way, when they came out and said that his family found out that he’s—their son is gay, and this is why they killed him, some homophobic and racism combined together. And, of course, in the end, they have to admit that he was actually lynched to death. The same here. The police came out immediately and said that he committed suicide. His picture, by the way, is going around online, and you can see the violent signs on his body and the rope around his neck. It’s completely crazy, but nobody is talking about it. I’m hearing Barack Obama coming out and condemning this story. I think it’s important to understand that he’s—it’s important to condemn violence against civilians, but where was he when violence against Palestinian civilians are happening every day?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you about the role of Americans, here, financing and helping to support settlement expansion in Israel. The impact that that has?
ERAN EFRATI: Definitely, so much money is being transferred mostly from the evangelicals, but not only. Weapon companies that fuel this government, lobbyists of weapon companies that fuel this government and a lot of right-wing Zionist movements in this country is actually being fueled to the settlement movement in East Jerusalem, all over the West Bank, and to the right-wing parties in Israel. In a lot of ways, the U.S. control completely the political situation in Israel. Like Professor Khalidi just mentioned, the political atmosphere is extremely violent and fascist. And the United States not only enabled that, it’s backing it up with money and with support.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to comments President Obama made following the attacks on the synagogue yesterday.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Tragically, this is not the first loss of life that we have seen in recent months. Too many Israelis have died. Too many Palestinians have died. And at this difficult time, I think it’s important for both Palestinians and Israelis to try to work together to lower tensions and to reject violence. The murderers for today’s outrageous acts represent the kind of extremism that threatens to bring all of the Middle East into the kind of spiral from which it’s very difficult to emerge, and we know how this violence can get worse over time. But we have to remind ourselves that the majority of Palestinians and Israelis overwhelmingly want peace and to be able to raise their families knowing they’re safe and secure. The United States wants to work with all parties involved to make that a reality and to isolate the kinds of extremists that are bringing about this terrible carnage.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s President Obama speaking yesterday in response to the attacks on the Jerusalem synagogue. Professor Khalidi, your response and how you feel the U.S. should respond?
RASHID KHALIDI: Well, the United States is precisely the enabler of all of this. The United States, by its diplomatic support, prevents any real pressure on Israel to stop it from occupation, settlement and repression.
AMY GOODMAN: And the tension reportedly between Netanyahu and Obama?
RASHID KHALIDI: I mean, that and five cents won’t get you a cup of coffee. The president can vent and have his acolytes and his flacks and his hacks say nasty things about the Israeli prime minister. As long as American money is going to support the repression of Palestinians, as long as 501(c)(3) supposedly "charitable" organizations in this country are not stopped by the Justice Department, are not stopped by the Treasury, from funneling tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to settlement activities and to the repression of Palestinians, what the president says is meaningless. This is an American-Israeli enterprise, in fact. The money is largely from the United States. The weapons are from the United States. We are implicated.
And we are running interference for Israel. Whenever anybody tries to do anything—British Parliament, the Spanish Parliament, the Irish Parliament, the Swedish government—the United States objects. Whenever anybody tries to do anything diplomatically or in a nonviolent manner, such as boycott, divestment and sanctions, we’re told that these are anti-Semitic actions. So, presumably, the Palestinians are supposed to lie down and let the bulldozers and the settlement enterprise and the repression run over them and go back to negotiations, which Netanyahu has already told us can never lead to an end to occupation. That’s the doing of the United States, to a very large extent, I’m afraid.
AMY GOODMAN: Your family background, Professor Khalidi? I mentioned that Eran’s family goes back, what, seven generations in Jerusalem. Yours?
RASHID KHALIDI: Our family—my family is a Jerusalem family. My uncle was the last elected Arab mayor of Jerusalem. He was elected in 1934. He was deported to the Seychelles by the British in 1937, but he served as mayor for three years before British colonialism dealt with him. So, we’re an old Jerusalem family. I have cousins living there, and I’ve talked to them. It’s scary. What Amira reported is true. There is an enormous amount of fear. People who have families, people who have kids, are really worried about what will happen to their kids. They’re worried about what will—you know, my cousin has a garden. Israeli undercover agents leap over the wall and chase people through their garden. It’s terrifying. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Palestinians have no share in the governance of the city. It is ruled by others, for others, for a project that is designed to dispossess them and make them into third-class citizens and, ultimately, if possible, get as many of them out. They’re 38 percent of the population of Jerusalem, Palestinian Arabs, and yet they are treated as if they have absolutely no rights.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And given the worldwide condemnation of the occupation and the continuing refusal of the Israeli government to negotiate some kind of just settlement, what do you see in terms of potential hope for any kind of progress in the conflict?
RASHID KHALIDI: Well, one thing that is happening is that in this country there is an awakening among younger people, the kind of people who watch this show or listen to this show, people who do not consume the mainstream media, people on campuses. There is an enormous change in public opinion below the level of the mainstream media. The second thing is, in Europe, there is an enormous shift. Four major European countries have had parliaments or governments actually take a stand. Now, that has yet to be translated into effective pressure to stop these acts of oppression, but we’re getting there.
AMY GOODMAN: Sweden just recognized Palestine.
RASHID KHALIDI: Sweden has recognized Palestine. The Spanish Parliament voted yesterday. The Irish Parliament has voted, and the British Parliament has voted. So we have four of the most important countries in the world, have come around or are beginning to come around in an official fashion on this. This is only going to increase. Everybody in Europe knows what’s going on. What the American media doesn’t tell the Americans, the European media does tell Europeans. And so, I think that you’re going to see increasing pressure on Israel, at least from Europe and the rest of the world. The problem is here. The problem is in this country.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Netanyahu saying that the occupation will remain forever because the borders are indefensible, your response?
RASHID KHALIDI: Well, he claimed that what has happened with the erection of this supposed Islamic caliphate shows why Israel has to maintain permanent security control over the Jordan River Valley and the entirety of the Occupied Territories. I mean, he has been finding excuses for the longest time why Israel has to continue settling, has to continue occupying, has to continue oppressing. It’s a pretty transparent maneuver. Obviously, you do not control a region by oppressing the people and turning them into your enemies, which is what Israel has been doing for 47 years.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there. We thank you both very much for being with us. Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, author of a number of books, including, most recently,Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East. And Eran Efrati is former Israeli combat soldier turned anti-occupation activist and investigative researcher.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, a very close vote in the Senate to defeat the Keystone XL pipeline. Stay with us.


Creative Commons LicenseThe original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Solution to Palestine


THE ABSURD TIMES

            So, this time around, we look at the solution to the problem.  Simply put, the solution is to follow both national and international laws.  Of course, that is easier said than done in the U.S.  Following the law is for people you don't like, after all.
            We had trouble finding an appropriate illustration for this version.

Finally, we decided on the above, the "Killer Tongue" illustration by Latuff.

Someone in the White House called him "Chicken Shit" because he wouldn't try to negotiate peace.  He got angry.

He has also shut down the Mosque in Jerusalem.  This is the sort of thing that started the 2nd Intifada, you may recall.

Well, anyway, before it is too late, here it is:
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2014

Noam Chomsky at United Nations: It Would Be Nice if the United States Lived up to International Law

    
After world-renowned scholar Noam Chomsky gave a major address on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the hall of the United Nations General Assembly last week, Amy Goodman interviewed the world-renowned linguist and dissident before an audience of 800 people. Chomsky spoke at an event sponsored by the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. “One important action that the United States could take is to live up to its own laws. Of course it would be nice if it lived up to international law, but maybe that’s too much to ask,” Chomsky said.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we return to MIT professor Noam Chomsky, world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author. Last week, he spoke before over 800 people in the hall of the United Nations General Assembly, before ambassadors and the public alike, on the issue of Israel and Palestine. After his speech, I conducted a public interview with Professor Chomsky.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think is the most—the single most important action the United States can take? And what about its role over the years? What is its interest here?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, one important action that the United States could take is to live up to its own laws. Of course, it would be nice if it lived up to international law, but maybe that’s too much to ask, but live up to its own laws. And there are several. And here, incidentally, I have in mind advice to activists also, who I think ought to be organizing and educating in this direction. There are two crucial cases.
One of them is what’s called the Leahy Law. Patrick Leahy, Senator Leahy, introduced legislation called the Leahy Law, which bars sending weapons to any military units which are involved in consistent human rights violations. There isn’t the slightest doubt that the Israeli army is involved in massive human rights violations, which means that all dispatch of U.S. arms to Israel is in violation of U.S. law. I think that’s significant. The U.S. should be called upon by its own citizens to—and by others, to adhere to U.S. law, which also happens to conform to international law in this case, as Amnesty International, for example, for years has been calling for an arms embargo against Israel for this reason. These are all steps that can be taken.
The second is the tax-exempt status that is given to organizations in the United States which are directly involved in the occupation and in significant attacks on human and civil rights within Israel itself, like the Jewish National Fund. Take a look at its charter with the state of Israel, which commits it to acting for the benefit of people of Jewish race, religion and origin within Israel. One of the consequences of that is that by a complex array of laws and administrative practices, the fund pretty much administers about 90 percent of the land of the country, with real consequences for who can live places. They get tax-exempt status also for their activities in the West Bank, which are strictly criminal. I think that’s also straight in violation of U.S. law. Now, those are important things.
And I think the U.S. should be pressured, internationally and domestically, to abandon its virtually unique role—unilateral role in blocking a political settlement for the past 40 years, ever since the first veto in January 1976. That should be a major issue in the media, in convocations like this, in the United Nations, in domestic politics, in government politics and so on.
AMY GOODMAN: The role of the media, can you talk about that, and particularly in the United States? And do you think that the opinion in the United States, public opinion, is shifting on this issue?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, the role of the—the media are somewhat shifting from uniform support for virtually everything that Israel does to—and, of course, silence about the U.S. role—that’s not just in the case of Israel, that’s innumerable other cases, as well—but is slowly shifting. But nevertheless, about, say, Operation Protective Edge, one can read in news reporting, news reporting in The New York Times, major journal, a criticism of Hamas’s assault on Israel during Protective Edge. Hamas’s assault on Israel—not exactly what happened, but that’s what people are reading, and that’s the way it’s depicted. Israel is—over and over it’s pointed out, "Look, poor Israel is under attack. It has the right of self-defense." Everyone agrees to that. Actually, I agree, too. Everyone has a right of self-defense. But that’s not the question. The question is: Do you have a right of self-defense by force, by violence? The answer is no for anyone, whether it’s an individual or state, unless you have exhausted peaceful means. If you won’t even permit peaceful means, which is the case here, then you have no right of self-defense by violence. But try to find a word about that in the media. All you find is "self-defense." When President Obama rarely says anything about what’s happening, it’s usually, "If my daughters were being attacked by rockets, I would do anything to stop it." He’s referring not to the hundreds of Palestinian children who are being killed and slaughtered, but to the children in the Israeli town of Sderot, which is under attack by Qassam missiles. And remember that Israel knows exactly how to stop those missiles: namely, live up to a ceasefire for the first time, and then they would stop, as in the past, even when Israel didn’t live up to a ceasefire.
That framework—and, of course, the rest of the framework is the United States as an honest broker trying hard to bring the two recalcitrant sides together, doing its best in this noble endeavor—has nothing to do with the case. The U.S. is, as some of the U.S. negotiators have occasionally acknowledged, Israel’s lawyer. If there were serious negotiations going on, they would be led by some neutral party, maybe Brazil, which has some international respect, and they would bring together the two sides—on the one side, Israel and the United States; on the other side, the Palestinians. Now, those would be possible realistic negotiations. But the chances of anyone in the media either—I won’t even say pointing it out, even thinking about it, is minuscule. The indoctrination is so deep that really elementary facts like these—and they are elementary—are almost incomprehensible.
But to get back to your—the last point you mentioned, it’s very important. Opinion in the United States is shifting, not as fast as in most of the world, not as fast as in Europe. It’s not reaching the point where you could get a vote in Congress anything like the British Parliament a couple days ago, but it is changing, mostly among younger people, and changing substantially. I’ll just illustrate with personal experience; Amy has the same experience. Until pretty recently, when I gave talks on these topics, as I’ve been doing for 40 years, I literally had to have police protection, even at my own university, MIT. Police would insist on walking me back to my car because of threats they had picked up. Meetings were broken up, and so on. That’s all gone. Just a couple of days ago I had a talk on these topics at MIT. Meeting wasn’t broken up. No police protection. Maybe 500 or 600 students were there, all enthusiastic, engaged, committed, concerned, wanting to do something about it. That’s happening all over the country. All over the country, Palestinian solidarity is one of the biggest issues on campus—enormous change in the last few years.
That’s the way things tend to change. It often starts with younger people. Gradually it gets to the rest of the population. Efforts of the kind I mentioned, say, trying to get the United States government to live up to its own laws, those could be undertaken on a substantial scale, domestically and with support from international institutions. And that could lead to further changes. I think that the—for example, the two things that I mentioned would have a considerable appeal to much of the American public. Why should they be funding military units that are carrying out massive human rights violations? Why should they be permitting tax exemption? Meaning we pay for it—that’s what a tax exemption means. Why should we be paying, compelled to pay, for violations of fundamental human rights in another country, and even in occupied territories, where it’s criminal? I think that can appeal to the American population and can lead to the kinds of changes we’ve seen in other cases.
AMY GOODMAN: Final question, before we open it up to each of you: Your thoughts on the BDS movement, the boycott, divest, sanctions movement?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, BDS is a set of tactics, right? These are tactics that you employ when you think they’re going to be effective and in ways that you think will be effective. Tactics are not principles. They’re not actions that you undertake no matter what because you think they’re right. Tactics are undertaken, if you’re serious, because you think they’re going to help the victims. That’s how you adjust your tactics, not because I think they’re right in principle, but because I think they will be beneficial. That ought to be second nature to activists.
Also second nature should be a crucial distinction between proposing and advocating. I can propose now that we should all live in peace and love each other. I just proposed it. That’s not a serious proposal. It becomes a serious proposal when it becomes advocacy. It is given—I sketch out a path for getting from here to there. Then it becomes serious. Otherwise, it’s empty words. That’s crucial and related to this.
Well, when you take a look at the BDS movement, which is separate, incidentally, from BDS tactics—let me make that clear. So, when the European Union issued its directive or when the—that I mentioned, or when, say, the Gates Foundation withdraws investment in security operations that are being carried out, not only in the Occupied Territories, but elsewhere, that’s very important. But that’s not the BDSmovement. That’s BDS tactics, actually, BD tactics, boycott, divestment tactics. That’s important. The BDS movement itself has been an impetus to these developments, and in many ways a positive one, but I think it has failed and should reflect on its, so far, unwillingness to face what are crucial questions for activists: What’s going to help the victims, and what’s going to harm them? What is a proposal, and what is real advocacy? You have to think that through, and it hasn’t been sufficiently done.
So, if you take a look at the principles of the BDS movement, there are three. They vary slightly in wording, but basically three. One is, actions should be directed against the occupation. That has been extremely successful, in many ways, and it makes sense. It also helps educate the Western populations who are being appealed to to participate, enables—it’s an opening to discuss, investigate and organize about the participation in the occupation. That’s very successful.
A second principle is that BDS actions should be continued until Israel allows the refugees to return. That has had no success, and to the extent that it’s been tried, it’s been negative. It just leads to a backlash. No basis has been laid for it among the population. It is simply interpreted as saying, "Oh, you want to destroy the state of Israel. We’re not going to destroy a state." You cannot undertake actions which you think are principled when in the real world they are going to have a harmful effect on the victims.
There’s a third category having to do with civil rights within Israel, and there are things that could be done here. One of the ones I mentioned, in fact—the tax-free status for U.S. organizations that are engaged in civil rights and human rights violations. And remember, a tax exemption means I pay for it. That’s what a tax exemption is. Well, that’s an action that could be undertaken. Others that have been undertaken have had backlashes which are harmful. And I won’t run through the record, but these are the kinds of questions that always have to be asked when you’re involved in serious activisms, if you care about the victims, not just feeling good, but caring about the victims. That’s critically important.
AMY GOODMAN: MIT professor, world-renowned linguist, dissident, Noam Chomsky, speaking last Tuesday in the hall of the United Nations General Assembly before 800 people in an event hosted by the U.N. Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. If you’d like a copy of today’s show, you can go to our website at democracynow.org.
We wish a very happy birthday to our video producer, Robby Karran. For all our New York viewers, Democracy Now! co-host Juan González will be one of the journalists questioning the New York gubernatorial candidates in tonight’s debate. The debate will be broadcast live at 8:00 p.m. on PBS stations across New York. I’ll be speaking inVienna, Austria, Friday at an event hosted by ORF, Austria’s public broadcaster, then on Saturday speaking at the Elevate Festival in Graz, Austria. Again, you can go to democracynow.org for more details.


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