Tag: palæstina
Israel skader verdens jøder
I hvert fald de amerikanske, skriver Philip Weiss – med sin uretfærdige og brutale besættelse, sit krigsmageri og ikke mindst den tåkrummende racisme blandt ekstreme zionister. Israel har efterhånden forvandlet sig til alt, hvad amerikanske jøder ikke ønsker at være, skriver han:
A feeling has taken root deep in the American Jewish community that Israel is hurting us, hurting our standing in the world and our future. The restrictions on democracy, the curbs on women, the intransigence vis-a-vis the Palestinians when Obama has demanded movement, the indifference to the Arab Spring– Israel is a society we no longer recognize as Jewish like we’re Jewish, and worst of all, its militarism is exposing American Jews to the accusation that we are dually loyal. And we don’t like that: We’re Americans.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was clearly the oafish ad campaign that targeted Christmas and intermarriage– the ad campaign that Netanyahu cancelled. Even rightwing Israel lobbyists were stunned by how clueless the ad campaign was. But it was an expression of genuine Israeli attitudes. And that is what’s so scary: American Jews are waking up to the fact that Israeli society is nothing like ours.
We are integrators. We live in America because we want to be Jews in a diverse society. That is the spirit of American Jewish life by and large. And now these Zionists–separatists whom we never completely trusted when we were arguing with them in Eastern Europe–are quietly understood to have hijacked Jewishness and taken it to a dark ugly place. And their cake is cooked; Israel has produced “apartheid on steroids,” as a Jewish leader in the Nation wrote this fall; he wanted no part of it.
Israeli values are incompatible with American Jewish values. Even Jeffrey Goldberg says the occupation is a “moral disaster.” Well guess what, it’s been going on for 44 years! In its segregated buses and roads, in its ad campaigns that targets intermarriage and Christmas, in the refusal to end the occupation– Israel is a different society than ours.
Læs endelig det hele på MondoWeiss.
Palæstinensiske aktivister tager “whites-only”-busser til Jerusalem, bliver anholdt
Hvad gør myndighederne i “Mellemøstens eneste demokrati”, når medlemmer af den forkerte etniske gruppe vil tage bosætternes busser fra Vestbredden til Jerusalem?
De slår ned, præcis som myndighederne i de amerikanske Sydstater gjorde i 60erne:
Six Palestinians seeking to emulate the “freedom rides” in the segregated southern United States of the 1960s by travelling in a West Bank-to-Jerusalem bus alongside Jewish settlers were arrested by Israeli police yesterday.
The Palestinian activists managed to board a number 148 bus outside the West Bank settlement of Psagot, near Ramallah, but the bus was halted and the activists taken off near the Hizma entry terminal to Jerusalem.
Three walked off the bus under police escort but another three, including one woman, Huwaida Arraf, resisted and were dragged off it by force amid shouts of “Stop the apartheid”, and “I have the right to go to Jerusalem”.
Police had earlier boarded the bus at the checkpoint to persuade the activists to leave of their own accord as supporters waved banners, including one – in an echo of the famous speech by civil rights activist Martin Luther King – proclaiming: “We have a dream.”
Two of the activists were told by a police officer: “You are detained. Please get off the bus. If not we will have to use force.” One of the Palestinians, Nadim Sharabati, a 33-year-old blacksmith from Hebron, told the officer: “This is racial discrimination between me and the settlers. Why don’t you take permits from the settlers when they come to us?”
When the police officer told the men: “I am asking in a civilised way, with respect,” the other man, Badiya Dweik, replied: “If you respected us you would treat us like [you treat] the settlers.” When the officer asked if he had a permit, Mr Dweik replied: “Why do you not ask the settlers for a permit?”
Another of the Palestinian activists, Fadi Quran from El Bireh adjacent to Ramallah, asked the officers, in an apparent reference to the settlers: “Why are you protecting the Klu Klux Klan?”
Israel – Mellemøstens p.t. ældste diktatur
Al Jazeeras Marwan Bishara minder om, at Israel ikke blot er “Mellemøstens eneste demokrati”, som det så smukt (og ikke længere sandt, udviklingen i Tunesien og Egypten taget i betragtning) hedder. Israels herredømme over de besatte palæstinensiske områder er Mellemøstens p.t. ældste diktatur – og faktisk et af de allerværste af slagsen:
Unlike other colonial powers and dictatorships in recent memory, Israel took all, but gave nothing in return. The settlements, the bypass roads and the industrial zones it built, are exclusively for Jews.
Israel and its various Zionist organisations have built over 600 towns, villages and other form of settlements for the Jews, but none for the Palestinians – not even those it considers part of its own citizens, who make up almost one-fifth of its population.
And much like other dictatorships, it’s in denial over the damage it has caused to the people under its rule, and delusional over occupation it deems necessary, benevolent, or even divinely promised.
No other dictatorship in the region has been as indifferent and destructive for so long over those it ruled, as the Zionist regime has been in Palestine.
It didn’t hesitate to use lethal, excessive force time and again against those under its occupation. The most recent war crimes have been documented and detailed in various UN reports, including that of Judge Goldstone regarding the 2008/9 war on Gaza, which added or changed little in regards to the reality on the ground.
Like other dictatorships it boasts of sacrificing for peace, demonises its detractors and oppositions, and justifies any wrong-doing on the basis of national security, order and stability.
Although it preached democracy, Israeli leaders long preferred to deal with autocrats, not only in the Arab world but also in the greater Middle East, as well as in Asia and Africa. (…)
Any attempt to understand the nature and the political, economic and social – even religious – evolution of the Israeli state in separation from its colonial dictatorship over another people would be futile at best. In reality, misleading and destructive.
The same goes for the Palestinians. Their national and political evolution over the last century, and to a greater extent of the last six decades, is intertwined with that of Zionism and Israeli dictatorship.
Mellemøstens “eneste demokrati” ville altså aldrig have udviklet sig, som det har, hvis ikke det reelt havde været et diktatur. Værd at tænke over.
Roger Waters: Tear down this apartheid wall
Selveste Roger Waters, som er kendt fra Pink Floyd og ikke mindst albummet The Wall, forklarer i dagens Guardian, hvorfor han ikke vil spille i Israel, så længe de opretholder deres apartheidlignende undertrykkelse af palæstinenserne i de besatte områder, ikke mindst meget konkret i form af den mur, de har bygget mod Vestbredden.
Waters skriver bl.a.:
Under the protection of the United Nations I visited Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw that day. The wall is an appalling edifice to behold. It is policed by young Israeli soldiers who treated me, a casual observer from another world, with disdainful aggression.
If it could be like that for me, a foreigner, a visitor, imagine what it must be like for the Palestinians, for the underclass, for the passbook carriers. I knew then that my conscience would not allow me to walk away from that wall, from the fate of the Palestinians I met: people whose lives are crushed daily by Israel’s occupation. In solidarity, and somewhat impotently, I wrote on their wall that day: “We don’t need no thought control.”
Sadly, in the intervening years the Israeli government has made no attempt to implement legislation that would grant rights to Israeli Arabs equal to those enjoyed by Israeli Jews, and the wall has grown, inexorably, illegally annexing more and more of the West Bank.For the people of Gaza, locked in a virtual prison behind the wall of Israel’s illegal blockade, it means another set of injustices. It means that children go to sleep hungry, many chronically malnourished. It means that fathers and mothers, unable to work in a decimated economy, have no means to support their families. It means that university students with scholarships to study abroad must watch the opportunity of a lifetime slip away because they are not allowed to travel.
In my view, the abhorrent and draconian control that Israel wields over the besieged Palestinians in Gaza and the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem), coupled with its denial of the rights of refugees to return to their homes in Israel, demands that fair-minded people around the world support the Palestinians in their civil, nonviolent resistance.
Arabisk revolution – next stop Palestine?
Faktisk kunne en regulær palæstinensisk opstand som dem, vi har set i Libyen, Tunesien og Egypten måske være det, der skal til for at bryde den israelske besættelse og få såvel israelerne som Abbas’ Quislingestyre til at trække sig helt tilbage, spekulerer Larry Derfner i Jerusalem Post:
Something’s going to blow, I figured, and my guess was that Israel would start one war too many, maybe against Iran, or Lebanon, or Gaza, and masses of Israelis as well as foreigners would die, and when the smoke cleared it would be recalled that we started it, and the world would finally run out of patience with us and we would get out of the West Bank in a lather to avoid being ostracized, to save ourselves from becoming a Jewish North Korea.
Again, not my preferred way of ending the occupation. But no “good” way was presenting itself.
And then came Tunisia. And Egypt. And Iran, and Yemen, and Bahrain, and Libya, and no one knows where this is going to stop.
And it became pretty clear to me that this is how Israeli rule in the West Bank is going to end – through Palestinian people power. Masses of Palestinians, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, marching to IDF checkpoints and outposts, marching to Israeli-only roads, to settlements, to the security fence – to the nearest Israeli presence and screaming, “Out! Out!”
And refusing to leave.
WHAT THE hell is the IDF going to do then? Shoot them? Arrest them? With the whole world not only watching but, for the first time, already won over by other unarmed Arab masses facing down their oppressors? What will the IDF do under the eyes of a world that, for the first time, is seeing Arabs as people like themselves who want freedom, who deserve it and who are earning it, to say the least, with their courage?
How will the IDF and the Palestinian Authority police – those who don’t defect – get all these people to go back home and stay there?
I don’t see it. I think we’re going to have grand-scale anarchy on our hands – and we won’t be able to solve it by force, and the world will be on the side of the anarchists.
Impossible? If you say this is impossible, you’ve been on Mars for the last month. If you’ve been on Earth, the idea of the Arab revolt not reaching the West Bank is what seems impossible. To me, it’s inevitable. I’m only surprised it hasn’t started already.
After all, the Palestinians’ “war of the stones,” the first intifada in the late 1980s, was close to being a model for what’s happening in the Middle East now. The Egyptians and other Arab rebels have even adopted the term intifada, which means “shaking off.”
True, the first intifada (not to mention the second one) wasn’t nonviolent – the Palestinians threw stones and Molotov cocktails. But they certainly played David to the IDF’s Goliath. And in recent years, the “popular resistance” – the marches on the security fence in Bil’in and other West Bank villages – has been all but nonviolent, with only a few teenagers throwing stones at IDF troops, usually from far distances.
The Palestinians are the Arab world’s masters at political judo – at turning the enemy’s superior power against him. This is how civil disobedience works, and it’s working wonders in the Middle East, so why on earth shouldn’t it come to the West Bank, too?
It’s a matter of time. Maybe it’ll start Friday with the Palestinians’ “Day of Rage” against the US veto of the UN resolution against settlements. If not Friday, it’ll start soon. Something will set it off.
And yes, I’m hoping it happens. If the only other options are occupation forever or peace following catastrophe – and I think those are the only other options – I prefer people power.
Link: People get ready – there’s a train a-comin’ (via Angry Arab).
Palestine Papers: Israel skyder sig selv i foden
Efter den lækkede afsløring af de palæstinensiske forhandleres utroligt vidtgående tilbud til israelerne og den arrogance, hvormed de alle blev modtaget uden antydning af vilje til at gøre blot den mindste indrømmelse til gengæld, mener den israelske journalist Gideon Levy, at Israel har forpasset sin chance og nu tværtimod står til at miste det meste af de områder, de møjsommeligt har erobret og besat:
One upon a time there was a farmer who wanted to save on feed. Every day he would reduce the amount of food for his horse, see that it worked, and continue cutting and cutting until the horse had nothing to eat. The horse died.
This hackneyed tale has now been revived, emerging from the Palestine Papers leaked to the Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera.
The Israeli farmer closed his hand, and the Palestinian horse was fit to die. One of them saved, the other expired. The Palestinians had already conceded most of their world, and greedy Tzipi Livni insisted: what about Har Homa and Maaleh Adumim?
Terror has stopped, they’re coordinating targeted killings to serve Israel. Selling their souls to the devil, they’re for the closure on Gaza. Mahmoud Abbas explains, like an Israeli propagandist, that the return of the refugees will destroy the state of Israel. Maybe 10,000 a year, they’re still trying – in vain. Livni doesn’t agree.
They conceded most of the settlements in Jerusalem, the Old City is also no longer exclusively in their hands, and nothing. Betar Ilit and Modi’in Ilit are ours, and that’s not enough for Israel, as if it has forgotten that the 1967 borders are the Palestinian compromise.
What more do we want? What more will Israel ask of the dying horse, a moment before it gives up the ghost? A Palestinian state in greater Abu Dis? Hatikvah as its anthem? And what will happen then, when the horse dies? A wild pony will emerge that will never agree to live under the conditions of the old horse.
Link: Israel will bever get a better deal than the one it rejected
Aljazeera Transparency Unit: Al-Jazeera lancerer sit eget Wikileaks
Dette er formentlig det største, uafhængige Wikileaks-agtige projekt, vi endnu har set – TV-stationen og nyhedsorganisationen Aljazeera tilbyder en hjemmeside med sikker upload af dokumenter og fokus på Mellemøsten:
Launched in January 2011, the Al Jazeera Transparency Unit (AJTU) aims to mobilize its audience – both in the Arab world and further afield – to submit all forms of content (documents, photos, audio & video clips, as well as “story tips”) for editorial review and, if merited, online broadcast and transmission on our English and Arabic-language broadcasts.
We believe that this initiative will allow Al Jazeera’s supporters to shine light on notable and newsworthy government and corporate activities which might otherwise go unreported.
From human rights to poverty to official corruption, AJTU will fairly evaluate and pursue all leads and content submitted, without geographical, political, cultural, or religious bias.
All submitted content is subjected to a rigorous vetting and authentication process that encompasses respect for individual privacy, contextualization, and fierce adherence to our tradecraft commitment of “journalism of depth.”
Al Jazeera has also gone to great lengths to protect the identities of our sources. Files will be uploaded and stored on our secure servers, and accessed only by journalists working for the Al Jazeera Transparency Unit.
For more information about how to upload files, and the security measures in place to protect your identity, click here.
Det første initiativ er The Palestine Papers, en række dokumenter fra forhandlingerne mellem det palæsitnensiske selvstyre og israelerne, der viser, at den palæstinensiske regering i Ramallah i lang tid har opført sig, som det, de er – israelernes betalte lakajer.
Tariq Ali skriver herom i London Review of Books:
The ‘Palestine Papers’ being published this week by al-Jazeera confirm in every detail what many Palestinians have suspected for a long time: their leaders have been collaborating in the most shameful fashion with Israel and the United States. Their grovelling is described in grim detail. The process, though few accepted it at the time, began with the much-trumpeted Oslo Accords, described by Edward Said in the LRB at the time as a ‘Palestinian Versailles’. Even he would have been taken aback by the sheer scale of what the PLO leadership agreed to surrender: virtually everything except their own salaries. Their weaknesses, inadequacies and cravenness are now in the public domain.
Now we know that the capitulation was total, but still the Israeli overlords of the PLO refused to sign a deal and their friends in the press blamed the Palestinians for being too difficult. They wanted Palestine to be crushed before they would agree to underwrite a few moth-eaten protectorates that they would supervise indefinitely. They wanted Hamas destroyed. The PLO agreed. The recent assault on Gaza was carried out with the approval of Abbas and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, not to mention Washington and its EU. The PLO sold out in a literal sense. They were bought with money and treated like servants. There is TV footage of Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton at Camp David playfully tugging at Arafat’s headgear to stop him leaving. All three are laughing. Many PLO supporters in Palestine must be weeping as they watch al-Jazeera and take in the scale of the betrayal and the utter cynicism of their leaders. Now we know why the Israel/US/EU nexus was so keen to disregard the outcome of the Palestinian elections and try to destroy Hamas militarily.
Det bliver spændende at se, hvad fremtiden kan bringe af afsløringer fra denne og andre whistle-blower-faciliteter. Ægypten, Tunesien, Libyen, Algeriet, shady dealings med USA og Iran, anyone? Lige netop på Aljazeeras nye side kommer der nok ikke så meget om Qatars regering, men det kunne jo komme på en konkurrent.
Gazas unges manifest for forandring
Dette manifest af unge i Gaza blev først udgivet på Facebook og er nu oversat til 21 sprog. For yderligere baggrund se denne artikel fra Aljazeera.
Fuck Israel. Fuck Hamas. Fuck Fatah. Fuck FN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA! Vi, de unge i Gaza, er trætte af Israel, Hamas, besættelsen, krænkelser af menneskerettigheder og ligegyldigheden fra det internationale samfund!
Vi ønsker at skrige og bryde denne mur af tavshed, uretfærdighed og ligegyldighed og larme lige så meget som de israelske F16 fly, når de bryder lydmuren, skrige med al magten i vores sjæl for at frigive denne enorme frustration, der er ved at ødelægge os på grund af denne fucking situation, vi lever i. Vi er som lus mellem to negle, der lever et mareridt i et mareridt. Der er ikke plads til håb, ingen plads til frihed. Vi er syge af at være fanget i denne politiske kamp. Vi er trætte af kulmørke nætter med flyvemaskiner brølende over vores hjem. Trætte af at uskyldige landmænd bliver skudt i bufferzonen, fordi de tager sig af deres jord. Trætte af skæggede fyre, der går rundt med deres våben, misbruger deres magt, og slår eller fængsler unge, der demonstrerer for det, de tror på. Trætte af skammens mur, der adskiller os fra resten af vores land og holder os fængslet på et stykke jord på størrelse med et frimærke. Trætte af at være portrætteret som terrorister, fanatikere med sprængstoffer i vores lommer og ondskab i vores øjne. Trætte af den ligegyldighed vi møder fra det internationale samfund, de såkaldte eksperter i at udtrykke bekymringer og udarbejde resolutioner, men kujoner når de skal håndhæve noget som helst, de har besluttet. Vi er trætte af at leve et lorte liv, hvor vi holdes fængslet af Israel, bliver tævet af Hamas og bliver fuldstændig ignoreret af resten af verden.
En revolution vokser inden i os, en enorm utilfredshed og frustration, som vil ødelægge os, medmindre vi finder en måde at kanalisere denne energi til noget, der kan udfordre status quo og giver os en form for håb. Den endelige dråbe, der fik vores hjerter til at skælve af frustration og håbløshed var, da Hamas kom til Sharek Youth Forum, den førende ungdomsorganisation (www.sharek.ps) den 30. november 2010 med deres geværer, løgne og aggressivitet, kastede alle udenfor, fængslede nogle og forbød Sharek i at arbejde. Et par dage senere blev demonstranter foran Sharek slået og nogle fængslet. Vi lever virkelig et mareridt i et mareridt. Det er svært at finde ord for det pres, vi er under. Vi overlevede knap Operation Cast Lead, hvor Israel meget effektivt bombede os sønder og sammen, de ødelagde tusinder af hjem og endnu flere liv og drømme. Det lykkedes dem ikke at slippe af med Hamas, som de ønskede, men det lykkedes at gøre os godt og grundigt bange og distribuere post-traumatisk stress syndrom til alle, for der var ingen steder at løbe hen.
Vi er unge med tunge hjerter. Vi bærer i os selv en vægt, som er så enorm, at det gør det vanskeligt for os at nyde solnedgangen. Hvordan nyder vi den, når mørke skyer maler horisonten og dystre minder kører forbi vores øjne, hver gang vi lukker dem? Vi smiler for at skjule smerten. Vi griner for at glemme krigen. Vi håber for ikke at begå selvmord her og nu. Under krigen fik vi den umiskendelige følelse af, at Israel ønskede at slette os fra jordens overflade. I de seneste år har Hamas gjort alt, hvad de kunne for at kontrollere vores tanker, adfærd og drømme. Vi er en generation af unge mennesker, der er vant til at stå ansigt til ansigt med missiler. Vi bærer med os, hvad der synes at være en umulig mission om at leve et normalt og sundt liv, og bliver knap tolereret af en massiv organisation, der har spredt sig i vores samfund som en ondsindet kræftsygdom, der forårsager kaos og effektivt dræber alle levende celler, tanker og drømme samt lammer folk med deres rædselsregime. For ikke at nævne det fængsel vi lever i, et fængsel skabt og opretholdt af et såkaldt demokratisk land.
Historien gentager sig i sin mest grusomme måde, og ingen synes at bekymre sig. Vi er bange. Her i Gaza er vi bange for at blive fængslet, afhørt, slået, tortureret, bombet, dræbt. Vi er bange for at leve, fordi hvert eneste skridt vi tager, skal være overvejet og velgennemtænkt til det urimelige. Der er begrænsninger alle vegne, vi kan ikke bevæge os, som vi ønsker, sige hvad vi vil, gøre hvad vi vil. Nogle gang føles det endda som om vi ikke engang kan tænke, hvad vi ønsker, fordi besættelsen har besat vores hjerner og hjerter på en så grusom måde, at det gør ondt og får os til at fælde uendelige tårer af frustration og raseri!
Vi ønsker ikke at hade, vi ønsker ikke at føle alle disse følelser, vi ønsker ikke at være ofre længere. DET ER NOK! Nok smerte, nok tårer, nok lidelse, nok kontrol, begrænsninger, uretfærdige begrundelser, terror, tortur, undskyldninger, bombninger, søvnløse nætter, døde civile, mørke erindringer, trøstesløs fremtid, hjerteskærende nutid, forstyrret politik, fanatiske politikere, religiøst bullshit, nok indespærring! Vi siger stop! Dette er ikke den fremtid, vi vil have!
Vi ønsker tre ting. Vi ønsker at være frie. Vi ønsker at være i stand til at leve et normalt liv. Vi ønsker fred. Er det for meget at forlange? Vi er en fredsbevægelse bestående af unge i Gaza og støtter udenfor, som ikke vil hvile, før sandheden om Gaza er kendt af alle i hele denne verden og i en sådan grad, at stiltiende samtykke eller larmende ligegyldighed ikke længere vil blive accepteret.
Dette er Gazas unges manifest for forandring!
Vi vil starte med at ødelægge den besættelse, der har fængslet vores sind og hjerter. Vil vi bryde fri fra denne mentale indespærring og genvinde vores værdighed og selvrespekt. Vi vil holde vores hoveder løftede, selv om vi vil møde modstand. Vi vil arbejde dag og nat for at ændre disse elendige forhold, vi lever under. Vi vil bygge drømme, hvor vi møder vægge.
Vi håber blot, at du – ja, du som læser denne erklæring lige nu! – vil støtte os. Skriv et besked på vores Facebook væg eller send en mail til freegazayouth@hotmail.com
Vi ønsker at være frie, vi ønsker at leve, vi ønsker fred.
FREE GAZA YOUTH
“The Israeli army is second to none, elite, humanitarian, heroic. Just don’t tell the Somali pirates”
Robert Fisk om de vestlige mediers utrolige følgagtighed over for Israel (ja, jeg kigger blandt andet på jer, JP og Politiken!):
I wasn’t personally at all surprised at the killings on the Turkish ship. In Lebanon, I’ve seen this indisciplined rabble of an army – as “elite” as the average rabble of Arab armies – shooting at civilians. I saw them watching the Sabra and Shatila massacre of Palestinians on the morning of 18 September (the last day of the slaughter) by their vicious Lebanese militia allies. I was present at the Qana massacre by Israeli gunners in 1996 – “Arabushim” (the equivalent of the abusive term “Ayrab” in English), one of the gunners called the 106 dead civilians, more than half of them children, in the Israeli press. Then the Israeli government of Nobel laureate Shimon Peres said there were terrorists among the dead civilians – totally untrue, but who cares? – and then came the second Qana massacre in 2006 and then the 2008-09 Gaza slaughter of 1,300 Palestinians, most of them children, and then…
The amazing thing in all this is that so many Western journalists – and I’m including the BBC’s pusillanimous coverage of the Gaza aid ships – are writing like Israeli journalists, while many Israeli journalists are writing about the killings with the courage that Western journalists should demonstrate. And about the Israeli army itself. Take Amos Harel’s devastating report in Haaretz which analyses the make-up of the Israeli army’s officer corps. In the past, many of them came from the leftist kibbutzim tradition, from greater Tel Aviv or from the coastal plain of Sharon. In 1990, only 2 per cent of army cadets were religious Orthodox Jews. Today the figure is 30 per cent. Six of the seven lieutenant-colonels in the Golani Brigade are religious. More than 50 per cent of local commanders are “national” religious in some infantry brigades.