Anti-apartheid activists see no reason to celebrate

This statement prepared by leading anti-apartheid activists and organisations is doing the rounds now. I got it in an email but I could only find it yesterday on the statement on Hizbullah's al Manar tv website and that's because the original on the South African End the Occupation site is uploaded as a picture so google couldn't find it by reference to a piece of the content. That's a veiled criticism by the way. So here's the statement together with lots of signatories:

We, South Africans who faced the might of unjust and brutal apartheid machinery in South Africa and fought against it with all our strength, with the objective to live in a just, democratic society, refuse today to celebrate the existence of an Apartheid state in the Middle East. While Israel and its apologists around the world will, with pomp and ceremony, loudly proclaim the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel this month, we who have lived with and struggled against oppression and colonialism will, instead, remember 6 decades of catastrophe for the Palestinian people. 60 years ago, 750,000 Palestinians were brutally expelled from their homeland, suffering persecution, massacres, and torture. They and their descendants remain refugees. This is no reason to celebrate.

When we think of the Sharpeville massacre of 1960,
we also remember the Deir Yassin massacre of 1948.

When we think of South Africa's Bantustan policy,
we remember the bantustanisation of Palestine by the Israelis.

When we think of our heroes who languished on Robben Island and elsewhere,
we remember the 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.

When we think of the massive land theft perpetrated against the people of South Africa,
we remember that the theft of Palestinian land continues with the building of illegal Israeli settlements and the Apartheid Wall.

When we think of the Group Areas Act and other such apartheid legislation,
we remember that 93% of the land in Israel is reserved for Jewish use only.

When we think of Black people being systematically dispossessed in South Africa,
we remember that Israel uses ethnic and racial dispossession to strike at the heart of Palestinian life.

When we think of how the SADF troops persecuted our people in the townships,
we remember that attacks from tanks, fighter jets and helicopter gunships are the daily experience of Palestinians in the Occupied Territory.

When we think of the SADF attacks against our neighbouring states,
we remember that Israel deliberately destabilises the Middle East region and threatens international peace and security, including with its 100s of nuclear warheads.

We who have fought against Apartheid and vowed not to allow it to happen again can not allow Israel to continue perpetrating apartheid, colonialism and occupation against the indigenous people of Palestine.

We dare not allow Israel to continue violating international law with impunity.

We will not stand by while Israel continues to starve and bomb the people of Gaza.

We who fought all our lives for South Africa to be a state for all its people demand that millions of Palestinian refugees must be accorded the right to return to the homes from where they were expelled.

Apartheid was a gross violation of human rights. It was so in South Africa and it is so with regard to Israel's persecution of the Palestinians!

* Ronnie Kasrils, Minister of Intelligence / End Occupation Campaign
* Blade Nzimande, General Secretary, South African Communist Party
* Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary, Congress of South African Trade Unions
* Ahmed Kathrada, Nelson Mandela Foundation
* Eddie Makue, General Secretary, South African Council of Churches
* Makoma Lekalakala, Social Movements Indaba
* Dale McKinley, Anti-Privatisation Forum
* Lybon Mabasa, President, Socialist Party of Azania
* Costa Gazi, Pan Africanist Congress of Azania
* Jeremy Cronin, South African Communist Party
* Sydney Mufamadi, Minister of Provincial and Local Government
* Mosioua Terror Lekota, Minister of Safety and Security
* Mosibudi Mangena, President, Azanian Peoples Organisation / Minister of Science and Technology
* Alec Erwin, Minister of Public Enterprises
* Essop Pahad, Minister in the Presidency
* Enver Surty, Deputy Minister of Education
* Roy Padayache, Deputy Minister of Communications
* Derek Hanekom, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology
* Rob Davies, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry
* Lorretta Jacobus, Deputy Minister of Correctional Services
* Sam Ramsamy, International Olympic Committee
* Yasmin Sooka, Executive Director, Foundation for Human Rights
* Pregs Govender, Feminist Activist and Author: Love and Courage, A Story of Insubordination
* Adam Habib, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Johannesburg
* Frene Ginwala, African National Congress
* Salim Vally, Palestine Solidarity Committee
* Na'eem Jeenah, Palestine Solidarity Committee
* Brian Ashley, Amandla Publications
* Mercia Andrews, Palestine Solidarity Group
* Andile Mngxitama, land rights activist
* Farid Esack, Professor of Contemporary Islam, Harvard University
* Elinor Sisulu, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
* Andre Zaaiman
* Virginia Setshedi, Coalition Against Water Privatisation
* Max Ozinsky, Not in my Name
* Revd Basil Manning, Minister, United Congregational Church of Southern Africa
* Firoz Osman, Media Review Network
* Zapiro, cartoonist
* Mphutlane wa Bofelo, General Secretary, Muslim Youth Movement
* Steven Friedman, academic
* Ighsaan Hendricks, President, Muslim Judicial Council
* Iqbal Jassat, Media Review Network
* Stiaan van der Merwe, Palestine Solidarity Committee
* Naaziem Adam, Palestine Solidarity Alliance
* Asha Moodley, Board member of Agenda feminist journal
* Suraya Bibi Khan, Palestine Solidarity Alliance
* Nazir Osman, Palestine Solidarity Alliance
* Allan Horwitz, Jewish Voices
* Jackie Dugard, legal and human rights activist
* Professor Alan and Beata Lipman
* Caroline O'Reilly, researcher
* Jane Lipman
* Shereen Mills, Human rights lawyer, Centre for Applied Legal Studies
* Noor Nieftagodien, University of the Witwatersrand
* Bobby Peek, Groundworks
* Arnold Tsunga, Chair, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
* Mcebisi Skwatsha, Provincial Secretary, ANC Western Cape
* Owen Manda, Centre for Sociological Research, University of Johannesburg
* Claire Cerruti, Keep Left

NB: Organisational affiliations above are for identification purposes only and do not necessarily reflect organisational endorsement

Organisational endorsements:

* African National Congress
* Al Quds Foundation
* Anti-Privatisation Forum and its 28 affiliates
* Azanian Peoples Organisation
* Congress of South African Trade Unions
* Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
* End Occupation Campaign
* Groundworks
* Media Review Network
* Muslim Judicial Council
* Muslim Youth Movement of South Africa
* Not In My Name
* Palestine Solidarity Alliance
* Palestine Solidarity Committee
* Palestine Solidarity Group
* Social Movements Indaba
* Socialist Party of Azania
* South African Communist Party
* South African Council of Churches

I know from the emails I'm getting that this is generating a lot of interest. I like the way the statement undercuts the zionist nitpicking over whether it's ok to liken Israel to an apartheid state. They have analysed the analogy blow by blow. A little harder for the racist war criminals of the State of Israel and their supporters to deny.

John Voight

I'm so bewildered by what I've read about John Voight I'm stuffed for a headline. Here's Ynet:

American actor Jon Voight arrived in Israel on Tuesday for a tour with Chabad’s Children of Chernobyl’s (CCOC). Voight is known best for the Oscar he received for "Coming Home," and for being the father of superstar Angelina Jolie.

His visit to Sderot began at the municipality with an entourage of Chabad representatives from the US and Sderot where they met and spoke with Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal.

Ok, Voight goes to Israel. Probably a rite of passage for Hollywood types but he's old and can't have much career left and why get involved with Chabad? Ignorance maybe. But check out more of the article:

Voight expressed his deep concern regarding the abnormal environment in which Israeli children are being raised. He also stated his views pertaining to the hatred instilled in the hearts of Palestinian children, who he believes are being instilled with values of war.

Ok, this is still fairly standard stuff that any careerist actor might come out with and the rest of the article is in similar vein.

We could take him at face value, assume that this is what he really believes and meditate on how he feels about connecting with the Palestinians so as to maybe persuade them out of "being instilled with values of war" but then we might stumble on the Jewish News coverage of the same visit:

"The Jewish people must not appease the barbarians in any way. They are facing a force which is relentless and its only looking to destroy," Voight said. "To give in to terror, to try to appease terror is not the answer, you have to be strong."

He added that he would not be visiting any Palestinian NGOs or charities "because I believe that the Jewish people have made every attempt to make peace and every attempt has been spat upon."

How clever that it is organisations he is denouncing. But it's all Palestinian organisations. He is saying that all Palestinians have "spat upon" every prospect of peace. (Oh yeah, which ones?) And they have rejected "every attempt to make peace" and by the "Jewish people" too. This is hardly true of any Palestinians but to accuse all Palestinians of this is beyond disgusting. It moves into Palestinians as Amalekites territory. But what's John Voight's beef exactly? Like I said, I am genuinely bewildered by his racism. It borders on sheer lunacy.

Let's recap on this. John Voight visits Israel. He equates the State of Israel with the, er, children of Israel (the Jewish people). He refuses to visit any Palestinian NGO or charity, not a school, hospital, clinic or nursery. And this because the Palestinians are barbarians. Be afraid, be very afraid. A worse shoah is going to hit Gaza and Hollywood is already writing the script.

Jews sans frontieres

Alan Johnson is hard to please

so a senior Hamas official, Bassem Naeem, takes time off worrying about the starvation diet imposed by the West on his people to publishes an op-ed saying that "The Holocaust was not only a crime against humanity but one of the most abhorrent crimes in modern history," and "we are well aware and warmly welcome the outspoken support for Palestinian rights by Israeli and Jewish human rights activists in Palestine and around the world."

Big Deal!

For Johnson at least, "It isn't enough to declare belief in the historical truth of the Holocaust. It's necessary for political leaders like Bassem Naeem to actively oppose the ideology of Jew-hatred."

Yes, of course. Very true. And they should do it immediately. Getting supplies for hospitals could wait. Finding gas to run the power station can be delegated. That call from the Egyptian Mukhabarat chief about Olmert's latest absurd demand? Put them on hold! There is a helicopter firing something near Khan Younis. There might be casualties. Not now!!!! The minister is buuuuuussssy!!!

He's writing his new plan for fighting antisemitism and teaching Yiddish to kids in Dheishe. Thank God! After listening to an imperial ideologue talking through his rear end, the Minister finally got his priorities straight.

Because, let's face it, antisemitism is the most important problem in the world. If the only way of saving young Palestinians children in Dheishe from this disease is to kill them....

But let's try teaching them Yiddish first.

Here's a song in Yiddish that I dedicate to all the fighters in Gaza.

The trouble with Benny Morris

I want to thank my blogging comrade, Gabriel Ash, for supplying a quick and much needed antidote to the sick article by Benny Morris in today's Guardian. The Morris article is about what the racist (against Arabs and Jews) Theodor Herzl would have thought of Israel today:

Herzl would have beamed at Israel's military victories in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982, seeing them as proof positive of his expectation that Zionism, once the Jews were re-established in their ancient homeland and sovereign over their destiny, would mould a new assertive, muscular Jew, unlike his weakling forebears of the diaspora.

I thought they lost 1982 but took 18 years to realise it. Also they lost in Lebanon in 2006. But have another slice:

A child of the European imperial age, Herzl would have been astonished at the spectacle of Arab nationalism (indeed, of any third world nationalism), though not by the barbarism of Israel's terrorist foes - after all, he always conceived of the Jewish state as an outpost of western values and modernity in an area characterised by savagery.

Enough of that though given the views he's expressed since his "new" history in the 1980s I'm guessing he toned down the racism for the hypocrites at the Guardian as Gabriel's al Ahram article demonstrates:

Israeli historian Benny Morris crossed a new line of shame when he put his academic credentials and respectability in the service of outlining the "moral" justification for a future genocide against Palestinians.

That'll do for that one but do read the whole thing if you haven't already.

I prefer the next link though. That's to Dissident Voice. Here's a chunk: Morris’s byline describes him as a professor of history at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel and the author of "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited,"

Here’s an alternative byline:

Benny Morris is the Israeli historian who told Haaretz that the extermination of Native Americans by European settlers was a good thing, a step in human progress, and so was the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians in 1948. (see Haaretz, January 8, 2004)

And in common with so many others, including Israeli ministers, Gabriel can't avoid the obvious comparison:

Imagine had someone claimed that the holocaust was a good thing, because, for example, it contributed to the “progress” of Europe towards peace, the creation of the European Union, etc. Would that person be welcome on the op-ed pages of The New York Times?

Again, please read the whole thing.

I just had to go back to retrieve the link to the Morris article and it turns out it's a Comment is free piece. Needless to say the zionists are out in force but comments seem to be closed for the night.

Insurance policy zionism?

There was a letter I missed in the Independent a couple of days ago. Here's a piece:

As a Jew living outside Israel, I think it is important we have somewhere safe to go the next time someone tries to exterminate us. When Hamas is programming its children to hate the Jews and to be martyrs for its cause, it might not be time to trust them yet.

Well, not surprisingly, there's been an objection to such insurance policy zionism (I heard Stephen Marks call it that once). And the Independent was big enough to publish it:

Sir: James Goldman says: "As a Jew living outside Israel, I think it is important we have somewhere safe to go the next time someone tries to exterminate us" (letter, 14 May).

So Mr Goldman, currently living comfortably in law-abiding, democratic Britain, believes that Palestinians, ethnically cleansed from their land, should stay as refugees while Israel keeps their land, and that Israel should keep and settle in all land gained since 1947, despite this being against the Geneva Conventions. Then if he and his co-religionists are persecuted they can go to a place where Jews have persecuted a people to make space for them; he seems indifferent to the immorality of this concept.

Yet he then complains that Hamas programmes its children to hate the Jews. But is it not natural for a people to detest the people who have kept them under occupation for 40 years while it steals their land? Furthermore, this detestation would surely, extend to those in the Diaspora who condone these unjust actions by Israel.

William Garrett

Harrow, Middlesex

Well actually I wouldn't say it's natural but it is understandable.

What a State celebrates

It appears that the Jewish challenge to the rather grotesque celebrations in the Jewish community on Israel's 60th anniversary was a stunning success. I remember when I did a post announcing it, one of Harry's Place and Engage's occasional contributors came to mock the idea that people might want to attend a Jewish Socialist Group event in preference to Judeo-Christian fanatic, Jackie Mason at the Zionist Federation's gig. Well here's the Jewish Chronicle on What a State:

Hard-line socialists and radical chic Hampsteadites are not known for their sense of humour. The world is just too serious a place for mirth, and the situation in the Middle East in particular is no laughing matter.

Yet it has to be admitted that the Jewish Socialists’ Group’s What a State event, a backhanded compliment marking Israel’s 60th anniversary, was a comedy triumph. In fact the laughter was so raucous at the Hampstead Town Hall that one enthusiast reckoned it could be heard at Wembley Arena, where the Zionist Federation was at the same time holding its official mainstream celebration.

Strangely for a programme designed to let “alternative” comedians rant about the inequities of Israel, the country was rarely mentioned. Compere Ivor Dembina opened proceedings by telling the audience that in 1967 he had been elated at Israel’s Six-Day War victory and that the only Arab he knew then was Peter O’Toole. The Israelis, he went on, should give back the occupied territories, “but we should hang on to New York”.

There was a roar of approval when surveying the packed audience — some of whom were of a certain age and adorned in their ’60s bangles and kaftans — he said: “We have sold out tonight — but not politically.”

But from then on, the comedians focused on other targets. The pick of night was the irreverent Muslim comic Shazia Mirza. Suicide bombers, she quipped, believed that when they blew themselves up they would be rewarded with 72 virgins. “When I go to the next life I want to be rewarded with 72 Chippendales,” she said.

Satirist Mark Steel did rant, but mainly about the problems of travelling from his South London home to the North London venue. What London needed, he said, was a “two-state solution”.

It was alternative comic Jeremy Hardy who brought matters down to earth with a thud when he described Israel as a “tragedy for the Jewish people”.

But perhaps the most telling, if not funny, gag of the night came from Palestinian Bassam Aramin, of the Israeli-Palestinian Combatants for Peace movement. Called up to address the audience, he joked: “I’ve been asked to speak for five minutes, which for a Palestinian is a punishment. If I go on much longer and someone shouts death to the Arab I will understand.”

JSG leader David Rosenberg said the evening, the proceeds of which were to fund Israeli and Palestinian human rights organisations, had been designed as a challenge to the Wembley celebrations. “We wanted to show that the Jewish community has differing views on Israel.”

And here's a piece of the report on the ZF do:

Jackie Mason’s non-PC....had a pop at everyone from blacks to women to gays.

“It was outrageous, racist and not very politically correct. I was embarrassed,” said Hannah Kleinfeld. “I couldn’t bare it,” said Donna Sherrington, 31, of Hampstead. “I didn’t want to watch. I can’t believe people still say things like that.”

Nice to know official Jews still care about such things.

What "celebrating" the 60th Anniversary of Israel should look like

My comrades in San Francisco have been misbehaving.

from the press release:

San Francisco—In response to Israel’s 60th anniversary celebrations, 20 Jewish activists were arrested, demonstrating Jewish opposition to Israel’s 60-year-old policy of dispossession, and highlighting the often-silenced struggle of Palestinian refugees. For over two hours, 30 Jewish activists and supporters disrupted San Francisco’s anniversary event, bunkering against the main atrium of the Jewish Community Center (JCC). In conjunction, over thirty Jewish and Palestinian supporters held a rally outside the center to call attention to ongoing Israeli policy of apartheid against the Palestinian population. With banners reading, “Jews in Solidarity with 60+ years of Palestinian Resistance,” activists declared anniversary, “No Time to Celebrate.

Johann Hari having one of his turns

Well he's very young is Johann. He supported the war on Iraq partly on the grounds that his Iraqi friends supported it. I don't what happened to his friends but he eventually came out against the war. I remember too when Hari called George Galloway antisemitic because, whilst he (GG) has said that he supports a two state solution in Palestine, he doesn't say it very often. I swear it was something like that. I'm guessing he has already criticised Israel before but now he is taking a swipe at the hasbara machine with an article titled "The loathsome smearing of Israel's critics"

My own case isn't especially important, but it illustrates how the wider process of intimidation works. I have worked undercover at both the Finsbury Park mosque and among neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers to expose the Jew-hatred there; when I went on the Islam Channel to challenge the anti-Semitism of Islamists, I received a rash of death threats calling me "a Jew-lover", "a Zionist-homo pig" and more.

Ah, but wait. I have also reported from Gaza and the West Bank. Last week, I wrote an article that described how untreated sewage was being pumped from illegal Israeli settlements on to Palestinian land, contaminating their reservoirs. This isn't controversial. It has been documented by Friends of the Earth, and I have seen it with my own eyes.

The response? There was little attempt to dispute the facts I offered. Instead, some of the most high profile "pro-Israel" writers and media monitoring groups – including Honest Reporting and Camera – said I an anti-Jewish bigot akin to Joseph Goebbels and Mahmoud Ahmadinejadh, while Melanie Phillips even linked the stabbing of two Jewish people in North London to articles like mine. Vast numbers of e-mails came flooding in calling for me to be sacked.

Any attempt to describe accurately the situation for Palestinians is met like this. If you recount the pumping of sewage onto Palestinian land, "Honest Reporting" claims you are reviving the anti-Semitic myth of Jews "poisoning the wells." If you interview a woman whose baby died in 2002 because she was detained – in labour – by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint within the West Bank, "Honest Reporting" will say you didn't explain "the real cause": the election of Hamas in, um, 2006. And on, and on.

Not bad but the real reason that I am posting this is that while I was reading Adrian Hamilton's flawed piece on why Israel should be treated like any other country I noticed that Hari's article, published on 8 May 2008 is still in the top ten popular reads on the Indie website. Not only that, he has generated over 300 comments some of which are even worth a look at.

This is what Israel's democracy looks like

It's the old beating up and shooting at unarmed demonstrators libel

Take two reality checks and then some

There are two Comment is free pieces on Palestine today. The first I noticed was Ben White's Reality check and the second is Ian Black's Gaza won't go away.

What's interesting about both of the articles is that they both point to realities ignored or flagrantly lied about by the so-called quartet. Ben White highlights the difference between the rhetoric of the likes of the US, Israel and the UK (not necessarily in that order) and the reality on the ground:

What seem like irreconcilably different positions become easier to understand if one decodes the language of the peace process in recent years. It has now become par for the course to verbally support the idea of Palestinian statehood, from Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, to Condoleezza Rice and Tony Blair. What it all hinges on, of course, is what that would actually mean.

Furthermore, the Bush administration's approach to peace, which has been typical of the Quartet in general, has been to view the conflict through an almost exclusively Israeli perspective, while making a nod towards Palestinian humanitarian or economic suffering. A good example is the notorious checkpoints.

Media coverage of the peace process in recent months has been littered with references to the checkpoints, with the likes of Condoleezza Rice making them one of the main issues she has pressed when meeting Israeli officials. Firstly, it is important to note that the fragmentation of the West Bank through checkpoints, closures and the permit system has actually worsened since Annapolis, while Israel plays games with checkpoint removal for PR purposes. Secondly the language used to talk about checkpoints is often supportive of the Israeli security pretence.

I've always been suspicious of Ian Black but he does make a good point about why and how Israel should talk to Hamas:

Exchanges on Cif about the Hamas charter and attitudes towards antisemitism and the Holocaust provide sobering evidence of some of the more toxic aspects of its ideology. But it is fundamentally a political not a religious movement that owes its support in large measure to the failures, corruption and incompetence of the PLO - and the absence of hope for a just peace settlement.

Ok, he manages to avoid casting any blame on Israel but see this last paragraph:

Neither Bush nor Blair dare visit the Gaza Strip but on any clear-eyed, practical view the continuing blockade can only contribute to more suffering, desperation and hatred. Gaza is a daily reminder that the Palestinians and their problems will not just go away - and a timely one as Israel marks its 60th anniversary. The elephant in the room is also the ghost at the feast.

He also provides links that, like Ben White's piece, expose the gap between the reality of Palestine and what we see in the mainstream media.

One of his links is to a Cif piece by Hamas's Health and Information Minister in Gaza, Bassam Naeem, responding to the recent ballyhoo about something or other on Palestinian tv "about" the holocaust:

In fact, the al-Aqsa Channel is an independent media institution that often does not express the views of the Palestinian government headed by Ismail Haniyeh or of the Hamas movement. The channel regularly gives Palestinians of different convictions the chance to express views that are not shared by the Palestinian government or the Hamas movement. In the case of the opinion expressed on al-Aqsa TV by Amin Dabbur, it is his alone and he is solely responsible for it.

It is rather surprising to us that so little attention, if any, is given by the western media to what is regularly broadcast or written in the Israeli media by politicians and writers demanding the total uprooting or "transfer" of the Palestinian people from their land.

The Israeli media and pro-Israel western press are full of views that deny or seek to excuse well-established facts of history including the Nakba of 1948 and the massacres perpetrated then by the Haganah, the Irgun and LEHI with the objective of
forcing a mass dispossession of the Palestinians.

But it should be made clear that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian government in Gaza denies the Nazi Holocaust. The Holocaust was not only a crime against humanity but one of the most abhorrent crimes in modern history. We condemn it as we condemn every abuse of humanity and all forms of discrimination on the basis of religion, race, gender or nationality.

Ah, so not quite the "unambiguously antisemitic" organisation they've been accused of being then.

Jews for justice? whoever heard of Jews for justice?

Here's last Saturday's demo on al-Jazeera uploaded to youtube. Listen to the way the presenter, Mark Seddon, says "Jews for justice"



He also considers Neturei Karta to be non-traditional. A lot to learn. Et tu, al Jazeera.

UPDATE: 23:00 14.8.08 - I was just about to email Brian Robinson to tell him there was a little bit of a natter being had thanks to the youtube clip he sent me (at al). Then I realised I hadn't hat-tipped him. Thanks Brian.

Speaking of Dodging the Draft

Following Mark's post on draft dodgers, I visited New Profile's highly recommended website. There caught my eye an old Guardian piece on Idan Halili. Halili is a young Israeli woman, (19 in 2005), who, with awe inspiring clarity, wrote the following letter explaining to the Herrenvolk Army why she can't join them:

A strongly patriarchal institution, like the army, underlines female marginality, on the one hand, and the superiority of male-identified values on the other. … It might be said that a mood of sexual harassment is endemic to a patriarchal and hierarchical organization like the army. And so the demand that a woman enlist is tantamount to demanding that she cope with sexual harassment within an environment that encourages such harassment. Moreover, since the army is such a central institution in society, a culture of sexual harassment also is exported to and further entrenched in civic society. … I as a feminist, feel I must avoid military service and act to limit and reduce the influence of the army on civic society. … When men spend a formative period of their lives in the military they are likely to receive positive reinforcements for the use of brute power and violence, and to develop an indifferent attitude to the use of "mild" forms of violence … In an organization whose main values include superiority and control, these behaviors are likely to be encouraged in the specific professional (military) activities, but also in interpersonal relations …I cannot join an organization which, either directly or indirectly, encourages violence – of any form and kind – against women. There is, hence, a contradiction between my being a feminist and my ability to enlist. … Army service would impose a way of life on me that is deeply contrary to my values and moral beliefs. … I cannot live in such flagrant denial of my conscience … (excerpted by the American Friends Service Committee)

The icing on the cake is that the army commission deemed Halili not enough of a pacifist to warrant "conscientious objector" status. Yet she was exempted on the ground that holding such feminist views is incompatible with service in the Herrenvolk army.

So its official. While Hasbara hacks, Islamophobia peddlers and Maxim "readers" may beg to differ, the existence of IDF pin-up girls does not make Israel a feminist heaven. And according to the army's own admission, principled feminism is incompatible with membership in Israel's dominant institution.

Dodging service in Israel's peace loving army

Many thanks to Montag for sending me this Ynet article on legitimate draft dodging in Israel. Hark at me, legitimate draft dodging. Refusing to commit war crimes is a soldiers duty. Any draft dodging from an ethnic cleansing army is legitimate. The article means, of course, legitimate by Israel's standards, that is, legal in Israel:

A new media campaign that supports draft-dodging was launched by the New Profile movement this week. The campaign, which includes the distribution of pamphlets and internet advertisements, encourages young people not to serve in the army.

"Some 56% of youths each year (including Israeli Arabs) do not enlist in the army or do not complete army service," the movement's charter states. "Therefore no one who's been exempted from service by the army should feel bad about himself."

The movement, which aims to promote a civilian agenda in Israel, further noted that "it is possible to live in a country that is not a soldiers' country. The State of Israel can pursue a vigorous peace-seeking policy today."

Now I might not have posted this but I followed the link where it says "The State of Israel". Such links are increasingly popular on web pages with, I think, Wikipedia setting the trend. The links are to definitional back up, usually from a reputable reliable source. Go on follow the link. It takes you to a "fact file" also on the Ynet site which defines Israel so:

Established in 1948 as the Jewish State, struggling for its safe existence and in constants pursuit of peaceful coexistence with its neighbors; from history and geography, to politics and economy, here are the facts about the State of Israel

It's a colonial settler state based on ethnic cleansing, racist laws and relentless aggression towards the natives and neighbours of Palestine. That last bit wasn't Ynet. It was me.

Nadine Gordimer's Heidegger moment

Nadine Gordimer is a great writer and had been a model engaged intellectual. One would like to believe that the qualities of the mind that make for a great writer are stable and uniform. Unfortunately that isn't true. Gordimer has a soft spot for Zionism. This week she went to Jerusalem to celebrate Israel. Jerusalem is a holy city that most people from nearby towns and villages are not allowed to visit, because they are Palestinians. From where she sat she probably had a line of sight to the place where once stood a Palestinian neighborhood that was bulldozed in 1967, its people expelled and made refugees because their houses interfered with the easy access of Jews to the Western Wall. And from that unique vantage point she made stupid, platitudinous remarks.

How, asked one woman, does she feel when she hears Israel described as an apartheid state? The writer responded judiciously: What she hears about "the methods" that Israel uses in the territories indeed "reminds me of South Africa," but "there is no historical comparison" between the situations. "Whites have no claim to even a single square inch of the whole African continent. In your country, you have two peoples with claims to the land." Gordimer also said quite clearly that it was "unacceptable prejudice" for Hamas and other Islamist groups to deny Israel its very right to existence. (Haaretz, May 13th, 2008)

So, according to "Gordimer in Jerusalem", historical situations must be judged and compared according to the grand ideologies that dominate them and that are used to justify the unjustifiable. What actually happens to people, the reality of life, what Gordimer use to call 'being,' is now secondary and not truly "historical." As if what was deficient about South African Apartheid was not what it did to people, but the poor quality of its "claims to the land." Thank God this isn't how Gordimer wrote her fiction, else she would have been quite anonymous today. Can one more completely betray the ethics of one's writing than she did with this endorsement of bullshit over empathy? Here is how Gordimer--the intelligent, fully within her senses Gordimer--used to define that ethics:

The writer is of service to humankind only insofar as the writer uses the word even against his or her own loyalties, trusts the state of being, as it is revealed, to hold somewhere in its complexity filaments of the cord of truth, able to be bound together, here and there, in art: trusts the state of being to yield somewhere fragmentary phrases of truth, which is the final word of words, never changed by our stumbling efforts to spell it out and write it down, never changed by lies, by semantic sophistry, by the dirtying of the word for the purposes of racism, sexism, prejudice, domination, the glorification of destruction, the curses and the praise-songs. (Gordimer, Writing and Being)

Oh how far this is from Jerusalem:

"Whites have no claim to even a single square inch of the whole African continent. In your country, you have two peoples with claims to the land."

Namely, a man whose grand parents moved to Brooklyn from the Ukraine, where his family lived for as far as family memory goes, has a "claim" on Jerusalem based on fictional kinship with people who lived there 2,000 years ago. And not just any claim, but a claim strong enough to justify dispossessing the current owners. But a White Afrikaner women who's ancestors took part in the colonization of South Africa in the seventeenth century and who never set foot outside Africa and has no family outside Africa has, according to Gordimer, no claim to live in Africa. For "Gordimer in Jerusalem," stultified by inhaling Zionism, particular human existence is nothing. Only the abstractions of race and nationality are real.

This ties directly into Gordimer's uninformed, and by all account, willfully uninformed, comment on "Israel's right to exist". This right is not only denied by Hamas. It is denied by anyone on the left side of the Enlightenment divide, that is on the side that sees states as instruments that ought to be made to serve human needs. On the other side of that divide, the side of political theology, are the inheritors of the "divine rights of kings". That is the side of De Maistre, Carl Schmitt and, in a long moment of stupidity, Martin Heidegger. It is also the side Nadine Gordimer chose to sit on in Jerusalem.

"Israel" is a state based on Apartheid, on "racism, sexism, prejudice, domination, the glorification of destruction, the curses and the praise-songs." It has no more right to exist than a hammer has a right to smash skulls. That has no bearing on the rights of Israel's Jewish residents, who ought to have the same rights that everyone has, just as White South Africans have a right to continue to live in the country where they were born. Neither ought to have the right to oppress and to exclude.

Nadine Gordimer betrayed her allegiance to justice by ignoring the call for solidarity with Palestinians and going to Jerusalem to participate in a propaganda event funded by the Foreign Ministry of Apartheid Israel. She also betrayed herself and her art. This is what inhaling Zionism does to people.

---

Addendum:

In explaining her decision to visit Jerusalem, Gordimer assures us of her good faith:

"My solidarity with our struggle against apartheid surely can leave no doubt in the minds of my comrades and others concerned that I do not support the present (Israeli) government of their country and deplore many of its actions." (IOL)

Gordimer therefore portrays her decision to come to Jerusalem as a tactical disagreement relating to the weapon of boycott. If that were true, her decision would merely be another example of White arrogance and privilege. It is not Nadine Gordimer's job, no matter how important she thinks she is, to decide where the picket line should be. Her job is not to cross it. And she did.

But unfortunately this is not a case of mere arrogance. Gordimer is simply not an ally of the anti-Apartheid struggle in Israel. To say one opposes "the current government" is a clear choice of words. It means that Gordimer supports the regime in Israel. Her past struggle against Apartheid is therefore irrelevant if not doubly damning. She is FOR APARTHEID. Because that is the regime in Israel. And her refusal to grant historical significance to the similarities between Apartheid South Africa and Apartheid Israel is not a mere quibble. In addition to negating the very core of her literary sensibility, it reflects an acceptance of a particular reading of the map based on taking the side of and accepting the framework of Zionism.

And here is some more corroboration: Ellis Sharp brought up the story of Gordimer's falling out with her biographer. Among other issues

Roberts said he and Gordimer “deadlocked” over her insistence he rework passages criticizing her Middle East politics, including her reluctance to equate the Israeli- Palestinian conflict with apartheid South Africa. (The Times, December 31, 2006)

A short quiz for aspiring U.S. politicians

Class, today we have a short quiz.

quiz

1. Who made recently the following remarks:

I look forward to my second visit to Israel. The first time was a wonderful visit.

We will keep Israel's security a priority.

The bond between Israel and the United States is unbreakable... it goes deeper than just self-interest. ...there are shared valued, shared traditions.

It is not the United states' job to dictate the terms of how Israel defends itself.

The task right now is to mobilize the international community to make sure that [Iran is] not in a position to threaten Israel.

1. George Bush
2. Hillary Clinton
3. Barack Obama
4. Any of the Above

2. the Bond between Israel and the United states is...

1. a zero-coupon bond that never matures
2. a CDO backed by God's mortgage on the Holy Land
   
3. stock options in Lockheed-Martin
4. a leveraged bet on nuclear holocaust in the Middle east
   

3. The values Israel and the U.S. share are...

1. kicking ass
2. exterminating indigenous people
3. being chosen by God to suffer the burden of civilizing ingrates
   
4. any value that can be denominated in dollars

4. The only unpleasant thing about my last VIP tour of Israel was...

1. The wall hid the beauty of the settlements
2. the filipino maid didn't empty the trash basket
3. I had to listen to an endless roster of self-righteous jackasses drone about the Holocaust
   
4. CIA warned me all the call girls are Mossad

5. other countries the U.S. refuses to dictate how they should defend themselves are...

1. Venezuela
2. Russia
3. Iran
4. Tuvalu
   

---

For answers, see here

Yesterday's Palestine demo

For pics of yesterday's demo for Palestine go here

I think that's my fave.

March and rally for Palestine - today

National Demonstration for Palestine

Saturday 10th May 2008

FREE PALESTINE

END THE SIEGE ON GAZA – FOR THE RIGHT OF RETURN – END ISRAELI OCCUPATION

Assemble 1pm Temple Underground station/ Victoria Embankment, rally in Trafalgar Square.

Organised by: British Muslim Initiative, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Palestinian Forum in Britain.

Supported by: UNISON, Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), Unite the Union (Amicus and T&GWU), Communication Workers Union, GMB, TSSA, National Union of Miners, FBU, RMT, Association of Palestinian Community UK, Amos Trust, Friends of Al Aqsa UK, War on Want, Jewish Socialist Group, Pax Christi, Stop the War Coalition, Britain Palestine Twinning Network , ICAHDUK, Midlands Palestinian Community Association.

March and rally for Palestine - tomorrow

If you're in the UK and you're heartily sick of the constant stream of zionist propaganda from our newspapers, television and radio, well you can always try the internet or you can take to the streets to demonstrate against 41 or 60 years of zionist occupation of Palestine, depending how credulous you are.

National Demonstration for Palestine

Saturday 10th May 2008

FREE PALESTINE

END THE SIEGE ON GAZA – FOR THE RIGHT OF RETURN – END ISRAELI OCCUPATION

Assemble 1pm Temple Underground station/ Victoria Embankment, rally in Trafalgar Square.

Organised by: British Muslim Initiative, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Palestinian Forum in Britain.

Supported by: UNISON, Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), Unite the Union (Amicus and T&GWU), Communication Workers Union, GMB, TSSA, National Union of Miners, FBU, RMT, Association of Palestinian Community UK, Amos Trust, Friends of Al Aqsa UK, War on Want, Jewish Socialist Group, Pax Christi, Stop the War Coalition, Britain Palestine Twinning Network , ICAHDUK, Midlands Palestinian Community Association.

Please make sure to put this date in your diary right now and start booking transport to London.

Contact your local PSC branch for coaches and to find out how you can help.

Contact us for leaflets and posters to publicise the event: info@palestinecampaign.org // 02077006192

Coaches Info

- Birmingham: West Midlands PSC coach to the rally.

Departs from Albert Street, off Dale End, Birmingham City Centre 9:30am; returns from Central London c. 1730. Price : £12; £8 concessions

To book : buy a ticket from our stall on Saturday afternoons (c. 2.15 to 4.15 p.m.) outside the M&S branch near Carr’s Lane; or e-mail pscwm@yahoo.co.uk ;or phone 07941 452034.

- Cambridge: coach is leaving 10.30 am from Parkside and will return about

5pm. The tickets are £10/5/3. They must be booked and paid for in advance.

Contact is Anna Gordon 07817196042

- Leicester: Transport leaves Secular Hall, Leicester (opposite Sainsburys) Humberstone GateAt 8.30am. £15 waged £5 unwaged

Tel Chris 2219459 or 07963 690326

- West Yorkshire: Bradford/Halifax/Leeds/Dewsbury:

coach leaves from Bradford University, Great Horton Road at 7.30am. Tickets £20 or £10 unwaged - 'phone 01422 320139 or 07971545327

- Bristol Bristol Palestine Solidarity Campaign will be running a coach up to this demo. Tickets £15 waged / £8 concessions.

Itinerary:- 8.00am Anchor Road, Bristol - 8.45am Avon Street Coach Park, Bath

Arrive back Bath/Bristol 8.30/9.00pm approx.

Tickets on sale at Booty, 82 Colston Street, Bristol or email Bristol.Nakba60@yahoo.co.uk

- Coventry: 9:30 from Coventry Leisure Centre, Fairfax Street. £12 waged £6 unwaged Contact: hanna@khamiskujore.plus.com

- Exeter: £24 waged /£10 concesssions tickets- Sarah on 07902207922/e-mail 43sarahb@googlemail.com or Amal on 07977 95 7553

Leaves 7.30am from Exeter Belgrave Road, and to stop en route at Tiverton Parkway. returning from London at approx 17:30.

- Brighton: 49 seater coach booked to leave Brighton - St Peter's Church, Lewes Road at 9 am. Return from London at 4 pm. Cost £5. For tickets contact Brenda 01273 502406/mob 07792 009758 or visit Saturday stall in town centre.

Happy Mother's Day, from Leviev & the New York Times

It may not be fit to print settlement mogul Lev Leviev's human rights violations in the NYT, or mention the international campaign against him, but they sure do like taking the "diamantaire extraordinaire's" ad money. This one to the left is, somehow fittingly, on their op-ed page. Also not fit to print in the newspaper of record is the following, from Defence for Children International, Palestine section. It's called "Letter of Concern to UNICEF":

Ms. Ann Veneman,
Executive Director
UNICEF

Ramallah, 9 April 2008

Dear Ms. Veneman,
We are writing today to voice our concern about a matter that has been brought to our attention regarding the Israeli businessman Lev Leviev and his support to UNICEF.

Leviev owns companies that are responsible for building housing units in several settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), in contravention of international humanitarian law.

[...]

In the interest of protecting and ensuring the rights of Palestinian children, we - Defence for Children International-Palestine Section and the Palestinian Network for Children’s Rights - request that UNICEF rejects all support – both direct and indirect – from Lev Leviev; and, as a matter of urgency, publicly renounces any connections with him due to his involvement in settlement construction.

UNICEF cannot promote children's rights and international law, renounce settlements and simultaneously accept funds from a settlement builder. UNICEF knows as well as DCI-Palestine and all other child rights actors in the oPt that settlement construction is not only illegal but also has a profound negative impact on the lives of many Palestinian children.

In order to build these illegal colonies, the State of Israel has confiscated acres and acres of cultivated and non-cultivated privately-owned land, depriving scores of families of their assets and livelihood, thus severely compromising their ability and options to provide for their children. In some cases this leads to a reversal of roles, whereby the children have to drop out of school in order to help provide for their families, by working to supplement income or by saving their parents the need to pay for school fees.

For example, in the West Bank village of Jayyous, the construction of Leviev's settlement nearby and the construction of the wall to annex more land for the settlement has denied scores of families access to their farmland, leading to the drop out of a staggering 103 out of a total of 195 students in grades 7-12, according to the school’s headmaster.

[...]

Military violence linked to the construction of the wall and settlements is another violation that children suffer. During popular protests against the illegal construction of the wall and the settlement of Mattityahu East on lands belonging to residents of the West Bank village of Bil’in, 13 children have been imprisoned and approximately 300 injured by the Israeli military over the space of three years, according to information provided by a community leader.

One of the companies building Mattiyahu East is a company owned by Leviev called Danya Cebus.[...]

Jeez, Anthony Julius probably couldn't defend this guy, but the NYT keeps printing his ads at about 40,000 bux a pop.

Mother's day is apparently the third largest shopping period of the season for gems. The NYT seems to opine, what better way to celebrate than buying your mother a pricey bauble from a man whose colonies deny the right to education to Palestinian kids? Well, Adalah-NY's not having that, apparently. They've enlisted mothers of the world to call to boycott Leviev on Mother's day. To whit:

(Mothers can click here to sign on)

M’azuza Abu Rahmeh, a mother from Bil’in, explains, “I hope that on this important day for mothers that no women in the world will have to live through this type of experience and that instead they will live with their families and homes, in security and peace.” Halima Husain, a mother from Jayyous, adds, “I hope that free people around the world will boycott Israel’s occupation and will not support businesses of wealthy Israelis like Leviev who is building the settlement of Zufim, and that they will stand with us to lift this shadow and darkness that hangs over the Palestinian people....”

Lev isn't running to his momma to solve his recent woes in Dubai, he's going directly to the US government. In today's New York Jewish Week, in an article on the emirate's nixing Leviev's Dubai expansion plans, titled "Protesting Leviev, From Here To Dubai," Walter Ruby tells us:

Yet Blake’s remarks indicate that Leviev may be planning to fight Dubai’s decision not to allow him to brand the stores with his own name, and will likely press the U.S. government to apply pressure on Dubai to reverse its decision. Leviev has previously asserted that attacks on his business activities by Adalah-NY and other groups are “politically motivated” or impelled by anti-Semitism.

Ethan Heitner, a spokesman for Adalah-NY, which is composed almost equally of Arabs and anti-Zionist Jews, claimed primary credit for Dubai’s reversal of its earlier apparent willingness to allow Leviev to open his stores there. “Working in conjunction with activists in Dubai and Palestine, Adalah-NY sent out a press release calling for Dubai to boycott Leviev on the basis of his violations of international humanitarian law. ... We’ve heard reports of UAE papers and officials receiving our press release from multiple sources and angry phone calls.”

Heitner said that even if Leviev ultimately succeeds in opening his new stores in Dubai under the “Levant” name, Adalah-NY will still have achieved a moral victory. “Before our boycott call ... Leviev was proudly planning to open an eponymous flagship boutique in the tallest building in the world — a grand symbolic achievement for a titan of global capitalism. Now, that’s not going to happen.”

Lev Leviev appears to believe otherwise.

Will the USG intervene on Leviev's behalf? More importantly, will Engage?

Jews and fascists march on Rome together

Well this is bad news if you don't like fascism. Here's the Financial Times on how Jews are learning to love the Italian fascists:

Rome's election last week of its first rightwing mayor since the time of Benito Mussolini has been celebrated by fascists as a historic victory over the left.

Packs of young, thuggish supporters of Gianni Alemanno greeted the new mayor's appearance at the Campidoglio city hall with straight-armed "Roman" salutes, shouting abuse at communists and foreign immigrants.

But apparently they weren't alone:

Debate over the significance of the National Alliance's first election victory in a major city has been intense - especially among the capital's small but important Jewish commun-ity, which is widely thought to have swung in Mr Alemanno's favour. Rome's Jewish voters, numbering about 9,000, explain their shift to the right in various ways, most often because they see the National Alliance as firmly pro-Israel.

Ah, fascists are pro-Israel, that's alright then.