Not a bad judge!

There have been a few reports on the not guilty verdicts for the Brightonians accused of criminal damage to arms equipment bound for the racist war criminals of the State of Israel but I didn't see this Jewish Chronicle report until just now:

The judge in the trial of seven activists acquitted of damaging an arms factory suggested that their leader should be awarded the George Cross for his campaign.

The seven were cleared after they successfully claimed they had acted to prevent Israeli "war crimes" when the broke into the Brighton factory on January 17, 2009.
Hailed a great victory by pro-Palestinian activists, the seven from "Smash EDO" were acquitted of causing £180,000 worth of damage to the EDO MBM factory in Brighton - which denied ever having supplied Israel with arms equipment.

In his summing-up speech, in which he attacked both Israel and the United States, Judge George Bathurst-Norman told the Hove Crown Court jury: "You may well think that hell on earth would not be an understatement of what the Gazans suffered at that time."

He also said of group leader Christopher Osmond that "The jury may feel his efforts investigating the company merit the George Cross."

Mr Osmond, 30, Elijah Smith, 43, Robert Nicholls, 52, Tom Woodhead, 25, Harvey Tadman, 44, Ornella Saibene, 50, Simon Levin, 35, from Bristol, Brighton and London were all acquitted last week. The verdict was welcomed by Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP for Brighton Pavillion.

Hmm, see anyone we know? Nope. Try another paragraph:

Tony Greenstein, a veteran pro-Palestinian Jewish campaigner in the city, said: "The judge gave a summing up so favourable that some supporters were worried that the jury might react to what they perceived as an attempt to bounce them into a not guilty verdict. We need not have worried."

Aha, now we're into familiar territory. Brighton is Tony's turf and he knows how to savour a victory.But there is something disturbing in the report:

Jewish lawyers and jurists said it was unorthodox for judges to air their political allegiances in court.
London solicitor Jonathan Lux, Board Member of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, said: "This case appears to have disturbing implications and thought will need to be given to what the wider consequences are."
Barrister Oliver Mishcon said: "Judges must be careful about showing support for political causes."

I'm not sure why Jewish lawyers need special representation as Jews but why on earth are they giving the impression that they support the prosecution in any case at all let alone a case of people who were trying to prevent war crimes being committed?

Still, at least there was some light relief in the last paragraph:

The defence argued that criminal damage is excusable if the damage occurs while trying to prevent greater damage to other properties - in this case, homes in Gaza. But Stephen Shay, prosecuting, argued that the factory was so small that even if it had been supplying Israel, it would have made no difference to the war in Gaza.

Got that? The prosecution admitted that Israel's war crimes were worse than the offence it was prosecuting but that Israel would have committed war crimes with or without the factory's goods.

Woodcraft Folk boycott Israel

I don't know why the Woodcraft folk would have had dealings with the State of Israel in the first place but I suppose this highlights the fact that the boycott is still in its infancy and it's good to have more people and groups climbing on board. Here's the Jewish Chronicle on this latest declaration of support for BDS:

A children’s educational movement has voted to boycott Israel at their annual gathering in Sussex.

The Morning Star reported that the Woodcraft Folk, which runs weekly sessions for children including singing, dancing, craft and eco-projects, voted for the boycott at their conference in Ashdown Forest, west Sussex.

The emergency motion was proposed by international secretary Paul Bemrose, who said it had been prompted by the deaths of nine Turkish activists on the Gaza flotilla.
A majority of the 150 delegates at the conference backed a complete boycott until the Gaza blockade is lifted.

Ok a victory of sorts but is it really just about the flotilla and the blockade? Israel could end the blockade tomorrow and Palestine wouldn't be free. Ach! Just be happy that BDS is growing. We'll flesh out the details in due course.

BDS and the Jerusalem Film Festival

I know this is in the JSF quick section but it's worth more than a quick look-at. See this report from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

In an apparent reaction to the Gaza flotilla incident, actors Meg Ryan and Dustin Hoffman reportedly have backed out of attending the Jerusalem Film Festival.

Ryan canceled her appearance the day after the Gaza flotilla incident, The Jerusalem Post reported, quoting Cinematheque associate director Yigal Molad Hayo.

Molad Hayo said Hoffman broke off negotiations, which had reached an “advanced" stage, the day after the incident in which Israeli Navy commandos boarded a Gaza-bound vessel attempting to break a maritime blockade, resulting in the death of nine passengers.

While neither actor said explicitly that the flotilla incident was the reason, “it became quite clear that this was the reason,” Hayo told the Post.

In addition to the actors, Prince Albert of Monaco canceled his participation in the event, which begins Thursday and runs for two weeks. The film festival is scheduled to have a tribute to actress Grace Kelly, the prince's mother.

What I find curious about this is that none of them out of Dustin Hoffman, Meg Ryan and Prince Albert have sought publicity for their non-attendance at the film festival. It's the associate director, Yigal Molad Hayo, who has publicised this. Perhaps he supports the boycott.

Whatever it all means, this is a major leap for BDS given that a prominent Jewish actor and (I think) a head of state are now boycotting Israel. Monaco can hardly be described as a radical state.

Retired judge says Israel should emulate the nazis

Like it doesn't already is so many areas. This time the State of Israel is being encouraged to emulate nazi propaganda techniques. Cop this from Ynet:

"We must learn from the Nazi tactics," Retired Israeli Judge Hadassa Ben-Itto said recently during a conference discussing ways to improve the State of Israel's PR efforts in the world.

The meeting, which was held last week in the English capital, was attended by some 150 senior Jewish legal experts.

Ben-Itto said during the conference that Israel should adopt the tactics used by the Nazis after they distributed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Refusing to reach a compromise and continuing their battle in the courts although they had no proof of the protocols.

I read and re-read the article and I can find nothing about anyone at the conference criticising the idea that Israel should emulate the nazis on the propaganda front.

Actually, I thought the nazis preferred to run with the proverbial "kernel of truth". Zios don't usually even have that.

The Ynet article was posted by Ron Cohen to the Just Peace UK list.

Restatement of the Israel lobby thesis

Here's Patrick Cockburn in today's Independent effectively restating the Israel lobby thesis:

Meetings between US presidents and Israeli prime ministers are usually preceded by speculation that the US leader will finally demand that Israel stop expanding settlements in the West Bank, displacing Palestinians in East Jerusalem and embarrassing the US by misjudged military actions.

Before yesterday's White House encounter there were particularly loud criticisms of Israel from the US security establishment. The influential commentator Dr Anthony Cordesman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies said that America's commitment to Israel's security "does not justify or excuse actions by an Israeli government that unnecessarily makes Israel a strategic liability when it should remain an asset".

Dr Cordesman said that Israel should be more careful about the extent to which it tests the limits of US patience and exploits the support of American Jews. He warned Israel against launching an attack on Iran in the face of a US "red light".

The US is particularly sensitive to the negative fallout of Israeli actions in the Middle East because America's strength in the region has been reduced by the failure of its military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq to achieve their objectives. On top of this Israel itself is getting politically and militarily weaker. The high point of Israel's influence in the Middle East was after the peace agreement with Egypt in 1979 which freed it to invade Lebanon in 1982. But intervention in Lebanon turned into a prolonged guerrilla war ending with Israel's final withdrawal in 2000. Military operations in Lebanon and Gaza in the following 10 years have uniformly failed to achieve their objectives. Meanwhile the head of Mossad, Meir Dagan, said that America's need for Israel is less since the end of the Cold War.

It may be in the interests of the US to restrain Israel but this is almost certainty not going to happen. The reason why is shown by the strange story of the attempt by General David Petraeus, now commander in Afghanistan, previously head of Central Command and America's most prestigious general, to put on the record the fact that US support for Israeli actions in the Middle East was endangering the safety of US troops. He reiterated this in written testimony before Congress in March.

But no sooner had General Petraeus done so than he was swiftly rowing back. The explanation for General Petraeus's swift turnaround suggests that he wants to keep open the option of running for the presidency as Republican candidate in 2012 and does not intend to alienate Jewish voters or militant neocons.

The episode illustrates the domestic constraints on any American political or military leader constraining or even criticising Israel. It is possible that President Obama privately took a tough line with Mr Netanyahu yesterday, but he is unlikely to take effective measures to pressure Israel for fear of increasing expected Democratic Party losses in the mid-term elections. No crisis in US-Israeli relations is likely, though this is the one thing that might make Israeli voters reject Mr Netanyahu.

There are three other articles on Palestine in today's Indie, here, here and here.

Lobby seeks ban on children's books

See this article from the American Publishers' Weekly magazine:

For the second time in four years, a Jewish group is calling for the removal of a title published by Canadian house Groundwood Books from recommended-reading lists at schools and libraries.

Anne Laurel Carter's novel The Shepherd's Granddaughter tells the story of Amani, a Palestinian girl who wants to be a shepherd. Her flock and family are threatened by encroaching Jewish settlements. This last plot point does not sit well with Jewish advocacy group B'Nai Brith. The organization issued a statement calling the book "anti-Israeli propaganda" and "a one-sided work of fiction which demonizes the Jewish State."

B'Nai Brith has written to a provincial ministry of education and Toronto's board of education to request the book's removal from recommended-reading lists. "It's not an appropriate tool. And an inappropriate tool should not be in the classroom," said Anita Bromberg, national director of legal affairs for B'Nai Brith.

Carter's novel, since being published in 2008, has been honored in eight award programs, and Groundwood thinks B'Nai Brith is unfairly targeting the title. Patsy Aldana, publisher of the Toronto-based house, said the book is "about a very important subject, and it's about a people whose stories never get told. She added: "The book has won the CLA (Canadian Library Association) award. Surely all of us are not people who are trying to invoke hatred of Israel."

The book is not part of the Toronto school board's curriculum, but it is one of 10 nominated titles in an Ontario Library Association voluntary reading program for children in grades seven and eight.

"For an organization to say to a school, you must remove this book, that's censorship," OLA executive director Shelagh Paterson said. "We would not be removing this book. And we hope that schools would not as well."

In 2006, the Toronto District School Board, the fourth largest school board in North America, restricted access to another award-winning Groundwood title about the conflict in Israel -- Deborah Ellis's Three Wishes -- after pressure from the Canadian Jewish Congress. The move was condemned by newspaper editorials and PEN Canada.

This is a mainstream American publishing industry magazine exposing the lobby. Good stuff!

Shell shock!

Here's a curious cartoon from the Jewish Daily Forward website:



What do you think?

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that Ron Cohen, one of the mods at the Just Peace UK list, posted the link to the Forward. I mention that because Mike Cushman has now posted a link to the "whole archive".

Gideon Levy on Israel in Gaza

Here's a Guardian review by Nicholas Lezard of the book, The Punishment of Gaza, by Ha'aretz's Gideon Levy:

This makes for painful reading, and it is with a heavy heart that you realise, while reading it, that someone who has decided that Israel's rights in this matter outweigh all other considerations will dismiss each of this book's 148 pages as emotive propaganda. And then there follows the even more depressing knowledge that anyone who raises any objections to Israel's behaviour and policies is going to be slandered as an antisemite. This was indeed the fate of Judge Richard Goldstone, whose massive and exhaustive report on the conflict, released under the auspices of the United Nations, was rejected out of hand.

You can find it on the net easily enough, but Levy's book acts as a passionate footnote to it. The details are harrowing. The most obscene development is the increasing number of children being killed. Almost 100 were killed in 2009 – "a pretty quiet year, relatively speaking", says Levy. (However, in the chronology at the end of the book it appears that Operation Cast Lead, a three-week operation from December 2008 to January 2009, resulted in the deaths of 1,330 Palestinians, 430 of whom were children.)

Comments are open not just for the usual 24 hours or less.

The Warsaw Ghetto re-liberated

...Israeli and Polish activists met in the ruins of Warsaw’s old Jewish Ghetto.

The activists sprayed ‘Liberate All Ghettos’ in Hebrew, followed by ‘Free Gaza and Palestine’ in English on a wall of an original block in the ghetto. The block is across the street from the last fragment of the remaining perimeter wall of the Ghetto. They also hung Palestinian flags from the wall.

This was first time such an action took place in the ghetto.

Yonatan Shapira former Israeli Air Force captain and now refusnik and BDS activist said:

‘Most of my family came from Poland and many of my relatives were killed in the death camps during the Holocaust. When I walk in what was left from the Warsaw Ghetto I can’t stop thinking about the people of Gaza who are not only locked in an open air prison but are also being bombarded by fighter jets, attack helicopters and drones, flown by people whom I used to serve with before my refusal in 2003.

I am also thinking about the delegations of young Israelis that are coming to see the history of our people but also are subjected to militaristic and nationalistic brainwashing on a daily basis. Maybe if they see what we wrote here today they will remember that oppression is oppression, occupation is occupation, and crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity, whether they have been committed here in Warsaw or in Gaza’.

Ewa Jasiewicz, activist with Kampania Palestyna and one of the co-ordinators of the Free Gaza Movement who just returned from participating in the Freedom Flotilla said:

`Yonatan could have been the pilot in the Blackhawk that dropped commandos onto the Mavi Marmara that killed nine activists from our flotilla. I could have been one of them. Poland is full of the ruins of ghettos and death camps and shrines to those who sacrificed their lives in the defence of not just their communities but in resistance to fascism.

People here need to wake up and realise that occupations and ghettos did not end with the end of the second world war. These tactics and strategies of domination and control of other people and lands are present in Palestine today and are being perpetrated by the state of Israel. We have a responsibility to free all ghettos and end all occupations’.

Poland continues to deepen its’ military and political alliance with Israel whilst ignoring its obligations under international law to stop the ghettoization of the West Bank by Israel’s apartheid wall and to ensure the protection of civilians.

Kampania Palestyna together with the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, calls for an end to Israeli impunity and degradation of human rights and international law.

Ewa Jasiewicz said, ‘Poland can no longer be a Greenzone for the normalisation of Israeli apartheid. We all have the responsibility to end the occupation and ghettoization of the Palestinian people’.

Yonatan Shapira said: ‘I was always taught growing up that the atrocities that happened to the Jewish people here happened because the world was silent. And therefore I cannot be silent. The Jewish people needed to be liberated from the ghettoes, and now Israelis need to be liberated from the crimes of their own government. Each one of us can take part in this global struggle for justice, and support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement for the sake of not just the Palestinian people but for Israelis too’.

www.kampania-palestyna.pl

www.bdsmovement.net

This is awesome action that underscores the role of memory and myth, and brings home the words of Walter Benjamin:

To articulate the past historically does not mean to recognize it ‘the way it really was’ (Ranke). It means to seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger. Historical materialism wishes to retain that image of the past which unexpectedly appears to man singled out by history at a moment of danger. The danger affects both the content of the tradition and its receivers. The same threat hangs over both: that of becoming a tool of the ruling classes. In every era the attempt must be made anew to wrest tradition away from a conformism that is about to overpower it. The Messiah comes not only as the redeemer, he comes as the subduer of Antichrist. Only that historian will have the gift of fanning the spark of hope in the past who is firmly convinced that even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he is victorious. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious. (Theses of History VI)

Criminal damage: naughty but nice and no crime if goods are bound for Israel

I reported a few weeks ago on what I called a Raytheon re-run. Well news just in has it that 5 activists in Brighton have been acquitted of charges arising out of them causing £180 k worth of damage to a factory manufacturing arms for the racist war criminals of the State of Israel. Apparently the news hasn't yet been deemed fit to print by Brighton's Argus newspaper but The Guardian has run the story:

Five activists who caused £180,000 damage to an arms factory were acquitted after they argued they were seeking to prevent Israeli war crimes.

The five were jubilant after a jury found them not guilty of conspiring to cause criminal damage to the factory on the outskirts of Brighton.

The five admitted they had broken in and sabotaged the factory, but argued they were legally justified in doing so.........

In his summing up, Judge George Bathurst-Norman suggested to the jury that "you may well think that hell on earth would not be an understatement of what the Gazans suffered in that time".

The judge highlighted the testimony by Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, that "all democratic paths had been exhausted" before the activists embarked on their action.

Tony Greenstein has more on this over at his blog.

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid to march in Toronto Pride

Quick item this. I read it first on Dr Dawg's Blawg, under a little list headed The Good, the Bad and the Ugly:

The good: Toronto Pride, no doubt with the assistance of considerable pressure, reverses itself: Queers Against Israeli Apartheid will be permitted to march after all. And Jonathan Kay is having a hissy-fit, which is also good.

The post is dated 24/6/2010 but I only got the Jewish Telegraphic Agency's take on the affair today. Maybe it took them this long (nearly a week) to co-ordinate this spontaneous outpouring of condemnation that the JTA reports under the headline:Gay pride parade used ruse to include anti-Israel group, critics charge. A ruse? What ruse?

Canadian Jewish organizations are saying they will not back down after an unexpected policy reversal that will allow an anti-Israel group to participate in this year's Toronto gay pride parade.

Organizers of the annual parade, one of the largest events on Canada's cultural calendar, backtracked this month from an earlier decision that had banned a group called Queers Against Israeli Apartheid from marching in the parade under that name. Critics said the reversal was part of a ruse designed to secure some $120,000 in city funding.

Parade officials, responding to pressure from Jewish groups and several municipal politicians, including candidates for mayor, said in May that they were "disallowing" the controversial group from using the phrase "Israeli apartheid" in the July 4 parade. Officials said the anti-Israel group could march under another banner, such as "Queers in Favor of a Free Palestine."

Ah the old, we're all for a, ahem, "Free Palestine" ruse. But what do we want Palestine to be free of?

And there's the rub.

Check out the rest of the article. I'm still not quite sure who is being accused of the ruse and what the ruse actually was. Was it Queers Against Israeli Apartheid or the Pride organisers?

Palestinian boycott of settlement goods made in Palestine but not all of Palestine

There's a selective boycott going on in the West Bank. Palestinian shops are rejecting goods made in Jewish West Bank settlements whilst accepting goods from the largest of the colonial settlements in Palestine: Israel. Here's The Guardian:

Israeli factories based in settlements on the West Bank have been forced to cut back production as a growing Palestinian boycott movement begins to take effect.

The boycott, endorsed by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, was given further momentum this week when a campaign to clear supermarket shelves of produce originating in settlements was rolled out in Ramallah.

"The objective is to ensure the Palestinian market is free of Israeli settlement produce by the end of this year," the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, said at the launch of the Store to Store campaign at the Alameen supermarket.

A team of volunteers will inspect 66,000 stores across the West Bank in the coming weeks, awarding certificates and window stickers to those free of settlement produce.

After a period of grace, shopkeepers retaining such produce in their stores could be liable to a fine of more than £9,000 or up to five years in prison under a law already passed but not yet enforced by the Palestinian legislative council.

"This is the daily expression of rejection of the occupation," Fayyad said. "It will help ensure that the Palestinian economy is self-sufficient. There will not be a store in Palestine which cannot carry our stickers."

The pro-boycott campaigners are careful to draw a distinction between produce from West Bank settlements, which are illegal under international law, and produce originating from within Israel. The latter will continue to be sold in Palestinian shops.

The campaign has been attacked by Israeli politicians, businesses and commentators. "The Palestinians are opposing economic peace and are taking steps that in the end hurt themselves," the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said last month.

It's good to know that Netanyahu cares so much about the Palestinians.

Israel's romantic terrorism

Just an everyday tale in The Raw Story of the sheer hypocrisy of coverage of Palestine in the US media:

A little-noticed comment in a New York Times interview with Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni has critics arguing that it shows the media has a "double standard" when it comes to terrorism.

In an interview published Tuesday, Livni, the leader of Israel's centrist Kadima party, boasted that her parents, both members of the Zionist militant group Irgun in the 1940s, were the first couple to be married in the newly-formed state of Israel.

"Both of them were in the Irgun," Livni said. "They were freedom fighters, and they met while boarding a British train. When the British Mandate was here, they robbed a train to get the money in order to buy weapons."

To which New York Times reporter Deborah Solomon responded: "It was a more romantic era."

"I've met interviewer Deborah Solomon -- smart lady," writes Philip Weiss, who brought attention to the comment on his blog. "I wonder whether she was inoculated, as I was, by Zionism, and to what degree. This is typically one-sided."

But it's not just one-sided:

Matt Duss at ThinkProgress goes even further than Weiss in his criticism of the Times' portrayal of Irgun.

"What’s amazing here is not only does Solomon neglect to challenge Livni’s characterization of her parents’ membership in a terrorist group as 'freedom fight[ing],' Solomon herself volunteers further assistance in the whitewash," he opines.

Meanwhile, Ben White has a piece on the al Jazeera website on a looming confrontation between the State of Israel and its Arab "minority". I mention this now because Ben reports, among other things, on how hard it is for Arab MPs (MKs) to be heard in the parliament of the only democracy in the middle east.

Johnny Don't B Rotten!

News just in of a facebook page about John Lydon scabbing on BDS. Apparently John Lydon, aka former Sex Pistol, Johnny Rotten, is taking the shekel and playing Tel Aviv at the end of August. The facebook page is headed:

Johnny Rotten you ain’t no human being if u play the Israeli fascist regime

And the text is:

Johnny Rotten, you ain’t no human being if u play the Israeli fascist regime. It will "make you a moron" and you will have "no future".
John Lydon, "Don’t be told about what you want" and "Don’t be told about what you need" by the Israeli regime.
You "wanna go to new belsen" – Gaza is only 30 miles from Tel Aviv.
You "wanna see some history" - search for the remains of the destroyed Palestinian villages hidden under new Israeli woods. Have you heard of the Nakba?
Do you now want a "holiday in the sun" and ignore the flotilla massacre?
The new "berlin wall" is too high for "looking over the wall" and it is hundreds of miles longer.
Are you "gonna go over the berlin wall" in the West Bank?
Do you "understand this thing they do"?
The Israeli checkpoints might let you "go over and over the berlin wall", but they won’t let Palestinians.
You might "ask for sunshine", but if Israel is not stopped it would give us "world war iii".
It is not just about playing to your fans:
The Israeli state will see you playing as support for the Israeli regime.
Even those Israelis who are not your fans will celebrate your endorsement of their regime.
Cancel your Israeli gig and heed the Palestinian call for boycott.

The Israeli media is pleased with the Lydon visit:

Not all rock artists have proven susceptible to the boycott pressure. Public Image Limited singer John Lydon refused to cancel his July gig in Israel. Israeli newspapers reported that the former Johnny Rotten had confirmed he’d play in Tel Aviv and that he castigated those bands that canceled for making enemies out of their fans.

As it happens, it might be the current rotten Johnny that has made enemies of his former fans.

Lebanon and Israel: compare and contrast

Here's a Cif piece from yesterday by Palestinian-American freelance journo, Ahmed Moor. Israel's friends are often citing the oppression of Palestinians et al by Arab states without considering the fact that Israel's existence is predicated on the oppression of the Palestinians. In his article, Moor sets out a key difference in the mistreatment of Palestinians in, in this case, Lebanon, when compared to others.

The vast majority of the 400,000 Palestinian refugees (10% of the population in Lebanon) who were born and raised in Lebanon do not have anything approaching the privilege I do. Today, Lebanon is the most hostile country to Palestinian refugees after Israel. They are second-class citizens here, but they are not the only ones.

Foreign guest workers also have a notoriously hard time in Lebanese society. Racism is so widespread (see Nesrine Malik's recent Cif article) that African and Asian guest workers are openly barred from attending the beaches where Lebanese people frolic. And that's saying nothing of the often inhumane working conditions they are subjected to on a daily basis.

There is an anti-Syrian current, as well. I remember encountering a barking dog while hiking somewhere in the northern part of the country. The owner rushed up and quieted the animal, remarking to me: "See how quickly he calmed down when I told him you're not Syrian."

The difference, of course, is that the Syrians, Ethiopians, Filipinos and others have consular support and countries to return to (although that is a serious problem for many guest workers, who are functionally indentured servants). The Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have no such recourse.

Of course, the main difference between Lebanon and Israel, Lebanon being a legitimate state, Israel being an illegitimate one, is no excuse for Lebanon's sectarian structure nor its racist behaviour.

Israel played the holocaust card for passport

I used to think that Israel's playing of the holocaust card was all about emotion but there's money to be had as Norman Finkelstein points out in the Holocaust Industry and now it turns out there are passports to be had. While the world's attention has been diverted by the flotilla and the World Cup, the case of the murder of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai has rumbled on with one country after another expelling this or that Israeli diplomat/Mossad agent.

Well in Germany events have taken a twist given the way in which the German authorities believe the Israelis acquired a German passport. Here's Der Spiegel:

The day the Mossad operation on German soil began was a clear, sunny Sunday in late March 2009. Alexander Verin, who holds an Israeli passport, had an appointment with an attorney in Cologne to discuss naturalization. Verin was accompanied by a man named Michael Bodenheimer, who claimed that he was an Israeli of German descent. Bodenheimer wanted to apply for a German passport, but Verin, who had made the appointment, was doing most of the talking.

The two men explained that Bodenheimer's father Hans had emigrated to Israel to escape Nazi persecution. As proof, the Israelis showed the attorney what they claimed was the parents' marriage certificate, as well as a passport. In such cases, which number around 3,000 a year, Article 116 of Germany's constitution provides for a relatively straightforward naturalization procedure.
The two Israelis were staying in a Cologne hotel. Bodenheimer would later rent an apartment on a run-down street in Cologne's Eigelstein neighborhood, in a nondescript, sand-colored apartment building with a pizza takeout restaurant on the ground floor, near the railroad station. It was the perfect, cheap apartment for someone who didn't want to be noticed.

On June 16, 2009, the attorney submitted the naturalization application to a registry office in Cologne. A German passport was issued in the name of Michael Bodenheimer two days later. It looked like a routine procedure.

But it was everything but routine when the passport was used in January in connection with the murder of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai.

I remember thinking at the time of the killing of al-Mabhouh that the Israelis were happy to implicate so many of their allies in the killing and nothing would come of it. In fact, I thought that the elements of the job that looked botched were as deliberate as the killing itself but now Poland has made an arrest that could be deeply embarrassing for Israel:

on June 4, 2010, Polish police arrested a man at Warsaw airport who German investigators believed was Alexander Verin. He now goes by the name Uri Brodsky, at least according to the passport he was carrying. German federal prosecutors had issued an arrest warrant for the man, who they believe is an agent, on the basis of suspected involvement in intelligence activities on German soil and helping to obtain documents illegally. It is possible that his real name is neither Verin nor Brodsky.

What is clear, however, is that the arrest has triggered a crisis in Israel that has sparked questions within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet, cast a shadow on German-Israeli relations and could in fact turn into a serious political test of the relationship between the two countries. It is the first arrest worldwide that is directly related to the Dubai murder. German officials in Berlin are outraged that the Mossad apparently obtained a genuine German passport under false pretenses that involved -- of all things -- a fake story of Nazi persecution.

If the Polish government extradites the Israeli to Germany, he could face up to five years in prison. It would deal a major blow to German-Israeli relations if a German court, under the eyes of the world's media, sent a Jewish agent to prison because he worked for the Mossad.

And now there will all sorts of wrangling with senior Israeli politicians going on record to say how their man must be sprung from Polish or German authorities but:

German law forbids foreign intelligence services from conducting unauthorized operations on German soil, and it does not provide an exception for the Mossad. The Israelis did not request German permission to conduct the operation in question, because the Germans would never have permitted the use of a passport to facilitate a murder. And once a case has been opened in a constitutional democracy like Germany, the wheels of justice start turning.

I don't think the sheer arrogance of Israel's operations in the international arena can be divorced from their zionist ideology but they seem to be getting more accident prone lately and their allies are losing patience with them.

Ha'aretz: Only a boycott will persuade Israel

From Ha'aretz, June 22:

Only a boycott will persuade Israel

by Ayala Shani & Ofer Neiman

“Israel won’t change unless the status quo has a downside” – these words were written by journalist Tony Karon, a Jew from South Africa. This sentence reflects the rationale behind the broad BDS campaign – which includes sanctions, institutional boycott, and divestment – which has begun trickling down into public consciousness in Israel. Instead of a defensive, self-righteous response along the general lines of “the whole world is against us”, it would be best to learn the facts about the campaign and peer into the collective mirror, which reflects grievous and systematic violations of human rights and international law.

The current movement originally started with a call to action issued in 2005, signed by more than 170 organizations from Palestinian society: citizens of Israel, refugees in exile, and Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank and in Gaza. The call to action was published in Hebrew, too, and citizens of Israel are requested to express their support of it. It is for this purpose that the Israeli group “Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from within” was founded.

The BDS movement that has developed in response to the Palestinian call to action does not have any formal, focal leadership. Regular citizens around the world, including many Jews, initiate activities and take part in them. The goal of the movement is to demonstrate to Israel the international community’s disgust and rejection of its actions, so that Israel will act for the immediate termination of the occupation, for the end of discrimination against the Arab citizens of Israel, and for recognition of the refugees’ right of return, as phrased in United Nations Decision 194. Elements of the oppression which the movement wishes to put an end to match the legal definition of the crime of apartheid – systematic and institutionalized racial separation, as practiced in old South Africa.

The movement does not promote any specific political solution (one state or two, the return of any particular number of refugees), but rather, strives to change in a nonviolent way the balance of power that makes it possible for Israel’s governments to violently withhold the basic rights of millions of people, and to renounce their accountability with unfounded statements (“the Arabs are to blame for the refugee problem”, “the settlements are legal”, “there is no siege upon Gaza”.)

It will be stressed here that the boycott is not a personal boycott on Israelis but rather, a boycott of official Israeli institutions and of events taking place under their auspices. Thus, for example, there is no call to deny an Israeli researcher her right to lecture abroad. There is a call to avoid holding international conferences in universities in Israel which proudly proclaim their contacts with the military establishment.

Is Israel being singled out? As was true about white South Africa, the world is justly sensitive to situations where a population that has civil rights determines the fate of a population which has neither civil rights nor the right to vote. Fairness is not always a feature of international relations, but Israel enjoys many international privileges, such as membership in the OECD. The citizens of China, where grievous human rights abuses take place, have never been given the opportunity to express a lack of confidence in the government that forcibly suppressed the student demonstrations in 1989. In contrast, the citizens of Israel cast their votes again and again for parties (including Kadima and the Labor Party) and governments under whose administration settlements are built, people are tortured and arrested for years with no trial, unarmed citizens are shot, and land and water resources are plundered.

Many people around the world ask, therefore, whether there is good reason for a normalization with Israel. Port workers in Sweden and Norway, countries which have historically been very sympathetic to Israel, refuse to unload Israeli container ships. Artists wonder why they must perform here and enhance the sense of “business as usual” when the very fact of their performance will be portrayed as support of Israel’s policy.

A deep-reaching public discussion is needed at this time, not only about the question of whether the boycott is or is not justified but about Israel’s policy. Many Israelis acknowledge the heinous acts being done in our name, under our very noses. It is appropriate for an effective and nonviolent campaign against these actions should have their support.

The authors are active in the Israeli group: “Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from within.”

This article was originally published in Hebrew in Haaretz Online, June 22 2010.

Translated from Hebrew by Dena Bugel-Shunra, of Shunra Media.

UPDATE: Here's evidence of the persuasive power of BDS, in particular cultural boycott. The Jewlicious blog, whose founder is involved in Birthright and is to the right of the spectrum, runs an article on how deeply concert cancellations are penetrating the Israeli consciousness. It even has some pro-BDS quotes, certainly a first for a Jewlicious post: Cultural Boycott? Recent Cancellations by International Musicians Spur Debate in Israeli Public:

Yoana Gonen, from the Coalition of Women for Peace, voiced her support of the international musicians’ decisions to cancel due to Israel’s current political situation. “I hope that the BDS movement will succeed [...] If this international momentum is lost, maybe we all will be doomed to more decades of occupation, siege, poverty, bombings and separation,” wrote Gonen in a Facebook note that evoked massive feedback. “And maybe, [we] should all take a deep breath and stop blaming the artists who refuse to come here and the activists who wrote to them [...] and start crossing [our] fingers in hopes that this movement will succeed.”

Other publications have supported the cancellations as well as raised hope for a change in the political atmosphere within the Israeli public. A piece by Rogel Alpher, published in newspaper Ha’ir Tel Aviv was named, “The Pixies and Elvis Costello are right. We are the problem.” Alpher wrote, “Cultural terrorism? I’m for it […] it finally stimulates political thought that has disappeared from the Israeli public for too long, it takes out the apathy that has taken us over […] Cultural terrorism is a good thing: nobody dies from it. It’s effective. It works […] until now, leftists didn’t go out into the streets to demonstrate, to act […] now leftists will rise to fight for their right to be part of this world…”

International law and the colonisation of Palestine

I've been trying to condense my thoughts about a book I read recently titled, From Coexistence to Conquest: International Law and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1891-1949 and now I don't have to because I've just read a review that I couldn't have put better myself. It's in Electronic Intifada:

Zionism, it was proclaimed in the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, "aims at the creation of a home for the Jewish people in Palestine to be secured by public law." The choice of the words "public law" was a compromise between the delegates representing different streams of political Zionism. As David Vital explained in The Origins of Zionism, one branch of Zionism wanted to explicitly refer to the "law of nations," while the other was willing to make do with "law" only (364-370).

Law, or to be more precise, international law, has always been central to political Zionism. After all, international law reflects the aggregation of the agreements, opinions and interests of those who decide what the law is. There is little doubt that when the Zionist Congress met in 1897, the law was what the imperial powers decided was law. In order to create a new political entity, one needed the recognition of those powers, and the recognition of the law to gain legitimacy. Hence the centrality of law to the Israeli-Arab conflict. Yet at the same time, most of the Palestinian arguments and demands are based on international law. This leaves a lot of ambiguity about what the law is, its interpretation and how it interacts with other historical events and political realities. Victor Kattan's new book From Coexistence to Conquest attempts to clear up this ambiguity.

The full review is here. And here's the Amazon comments section. And here's the front cover:

The lobby in Canada

The Israel lobby in Canada is as nasty as it is anywhere if the case of Canadian MP, Libby Davies, is anything to go by. They are not content with hassling people who have made comments condemning this or that atrocity by the racist war criminals of the State of Israel, they have to get in people's faces now, ask them what they think of something or other and then go nuclear when they get an honest response. See this from Straight.com:

Vancouver East MP Libby Davies got bushwacked by a pro-Israel activist posing as a neutral – if not pro-Palestinian – blogger. After a rally for the Palestinians criticizing Israel’s deadly assault on the aid flotilla, a man approached Libby asking for an interview. As she always does, because she never hides her views, she complied. He immediately set her up with what he called a “background question.” He asked when the occupation began, 1948 or 1967.

Libby hesitated then said 1948. She made the point that the date was not important – that whatever the date the occupation was the longest in the world – and far too long.

The next day the interview appeared on YouTube. But in 24 hours it had gone nowhere – just 28 views. Then the most vociferous supporter of Israel in the NDP caucus, Thomas Mulcair, got wind of it and it escalated out of control. He went on a relentless campaign to punish Libby. The spin he helped create was that if Libby believed the occupation began in 1948 then she, ipso facto, believes that Israel has no right to exist. Libby has always gone to great lengths to make it clear that she supports Israel’s right to exist and the two-state solution endorsed by the NDP. But suddenly Jack Layton was in full-panic mode. He apologized to the Israeli ambassador. He hung Libby out to dry. He forced her to issue a public apology.

Apology? For what?

Some have criticized Libby’s statement as evidence that she does not know the history of the occupation which most mainstream commentators date from 1967 – when Israel militarily occupied the West bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights. But Libby’s problem was not that she didn’t know enough. She knew too much.

Sadly, she did indeed apologise and the lobby seems now to have gone into a feed frenzy. Her apology is here but she has many supporters in the comments that show people are far more focused on the truth that she told than the backtracking and apology.

I'm grateful to Dawg's Blawg for linking to us here at JSF. If I hadn't tracked a couple of hits from there today I wouldn't have picked up this story.

Don't mention the flotilla

The Israeli government has asked that its supporters from various zionist parties in occupied Palestine refrain from copycat flotilla exercises aimed at discrediting the Turkish government. See this in the Jerusalem Post:

A group of Israeli left-wing activists who were angry about the Turkish attacks on IDF soldiers aboard the Mavi Marmara two weeks ago decided Monday to cancel the flotilla that they were planning to Cyprus to protest the Turkish occupation of the island’s northern half.

The Jerusalem Post reported exclusively on June 5 about the planned flotilla, which was to be led by former MK Alex Goldfarb (Tzomet, Yi’ud) and Modi’in Meretz activist Pinhas Har-Zahav.

Of course, the segregationism and ethnic cleansing supported by all zionist parties isn't everyone's idea of left wing but I said this is from the Jerusalem Post. But why would the Israeli government want to call a halt to a hasbara by deed action?

Israeli government officials persuaded the activists to cancel the voyage, because they were worried that the media attention would remind international media of the Gaza flotilla when most of the world’s attention had shifted to other issues like the British Petroleum spill and the World Cup.

“The publicity we already received did its part in reminding the world [that the Turks are occupiers],” one of the organizers of the flotilla said. “Personally it’s depressing for me that we didn’t get to go. But the government officials we spoke to were professionals, and they told us that doing it now was not right for the state, so we listened to them.”

Spoken like a true left wing activist, a left wing zionist activist, ie, in plain English, an extreme right wing activist.