Palestinian Prisoners' Day - 2012

Tomorrow, April 17th is Palestinian Prisoners' Day, a global day of action in support of Palestinian prisoners.  Since 1967 around 700,000 Palestinians have been detained by the occupying Israeli military. That means 2 out of every 5 males. There have been around 10,000 women arrested or detained, and each year there are around 700 prosecutions of people who are under 18.  Currently there are approximately 4,600 Palestinian political prisoners inside Israeli jails. Palestinians, living under occupation and oppression for nearly 64 years, have been targeted for mass imprisonment and detention by the Israeli occupation. Nearly every Palestinian family has been touched by political imprisonment – a father, mother, son, daughter, sister, brother, cousin, uncle, aunt – from the elderly to children.

Detention is used as a weapon of mass punishment by the Israeli military, who want to suppress every sign of resistance to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories. But this cruel practice only strengthens Palestinian resolve - and brutalises those who perpetrate it.  That the Palestinian prisoners are political prisoners, detained solely for their opposition to Israel’s illegal occupation is evidenced by the range of people who are imprisoned.  They include 27 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council.  Some of the prisoners are Israeli citizens, like Ameer Makhoul, who was general director of Ittijah – The Union of Arab Community-Based Associations and the Chairman of the Public Committee for the Defense of Political Freedom.

Writers, scholars, students and artists are also Palestinian political prisoners, including Palestinian scholar Dr. Ahmed Qatamesh, who has now been held without trial or charge for nearly a year, Dr. Yousef Abdul Haq, a professor at An-Najah University whose administrative detention was just extended for an additional six months, and Ola Haniyeh, a student leader at Bir Zeit University and a leading political prisoner solidarity activist abducted just before student elections and currently held under interrogation.

The whole process of detention and imprisonment is inherently brutal and contrary to international law.  After arrest, in which Israeli soldiers may deliberately destroy the family home, Palestinians are handcuffed and blindfolded. Humiliation and beatings are routine, and systematic abuse includes long periods of solitary confinement, and prisoners constrained in uncomfortable positions. In this way, many are coerced into signing ‘confessions’ - frequently written in Hebrew, which they can’t understand. Trials are in military courts, which ignore international law. Contrary to International law, these courts treat Palestinians as adults from the age of 16. Even those classified as children are not treated very differently and there are no provisions for them to have a lawyer or family member present when they make a ‘confession’. The majority of Palestinian detainees can be held for 6 months without charge, and once court proceedings start, these can be extended indefinitely. Hundreds more Palestinians are held under indefinite administrative detention for never-specified ‘security’ reasons.

This brutal and inhumane treatment continues once prisoners are put into captivity.  Prisons are overcrowded, airless and suffer extremes of temperature and humidity. Cells are Spartan, food is poor and there is a lack of basics like soap and toothpaste. Medical neglect is systemic, and former prisoners are often left with chronic health problems. Newspapers, learning materials and many TV channels are outlawed. Family visits are severely restricted and often impossible. Gazan prisoners have had no family visits at all since 2007.  Israel has frequently gone back on agreements to release prisoners, and last year’s much publicised release of prisoners in exchange for one captured Israeli soldier, was not all it seemed. Many released prisoners remained under severe constraints, and the prisons were soon refilled with new prisoners.

Opposition, both within Israel and Palestine, to this ongoing injustice is growing.  10 Palestinian prisoners are currently on hunger strike and thousands more prisoners plan to join in a massive hunger strike starting April 17th.  Palestinian Prisoners’ Day is an opportunity for us in the rest of the world to show our solidarity with Palestine.  In Dundee, Tayside for Justice in Palestine will be participating in this global day of action.  Join us at the City Square in demanding the immediate release of all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. They have been targeted by an unfair and unequal legal system. Their imprisonment reflects Israel’s inherent system of injustice and racism.

For more information on Palestinian prisoners visit Addameer and Samidoun

25 Palestinians Killed - Where’s the Outrage?

Last weekend we witnessed yet another murderous onslaught by the Israeli military against defenceless Palestinians in Gaza.  25 Palestinians have been killed and around 80 wounded.   Yet very little has been said in condemnation of these killings anywhere. The ostensible justification for the killings is that the attack was to assassinate Zuhir al-Qaisi, a leader of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC).  The other 24 deaths and the 80 wounded were presumably just unfortunate.  Or perhaps they also deserved to be killed by the Israelis.  That is clearly the view of the Israeli government and the IDF.  The dead, or at least 20 of them, four were admitted to be civilians, were all members of the PRC and thus in Israeli eyes, legitimate targets.  The Israeli claim is that the PRC were about to launch an attack against Israel.  However even this claim is somewhat disputed by Israel’s Defence Minister, who only claimed that the PRC “were apparently involved with preparing a large-scale attack.”   (Emphasis added)  He want to say, “I cannot say yet whether this attack has been thwarted.”

So what was the real reason behind this latest Israeli onslaught?  There are various possibilities, but all seem to come down to the likelihood that Israel wanted some kind of dress rehearsal for any retaliation in the event that it, Israel, does attack Iran.  In other words Israel deliberately provoked the rocket attacks from Gaza in order to test their new Iron Dome anti missile defence system and to prepare the population for further rocket attacks.  Sounds incredible, but then is Israel a rational actor anymore?  This is the provocative title of this article by Jerry Haber, on his Magnes Zionist blog.  Jeremiah (Jerry) Haber is the nom de plume of an orthodox Jewish studies and philosophy professor, who divides his time between Israel and the US.  In it he examines the question of whether the attack was deliberately designed to provoke a response.  Haber also has another post on the morality of extra-judicial killings, with specific reference to these most recent Israeli attacks.  You can read it here.

As regards the lack of response to these extra-judicial killings, in Israel they were a cause for celebration, if not gloating.  Below is a still from Israeli TV.   In it Channel 10’s military correspondent Alon Ben David shows the score:  “Death toll:  Israel 0, Gaza 25”.  Photo: nan10.co.il.  The photo comes from this blog post by Ami Kaufman on the Israeli group blog, +972.

Here in the UK, as in the USA, there has been the usual we must support Israel narrative.  When a US soldier killed 16 Afghanis recently, there was justifiable outrage and the soldier has been arrested.  He will probably face some kind of charge and imprisonment.  No such chance that the Israelis who killed the 25 Palestinians will face anything other than adulation.  And we claim the moral high ground!

Criticising Israel - is it allowed?

For years now in the USA it has been almost impossible for a major politician or even a commentator to utter any kind of criticism of Israel and survive.  It seems that the UK is once again about to slavishly follow where the USA leads.  At least that is what one must understand from the reaction to a recent speech by LibDem peer Lady Tonge.  This is part of what she said, "Beware Israel. Israel is not going to be there for ever in its present form. One day, the United States of America will get sick of giving £70bn a year to Israel to support what I call America's aircraft carrier in the Middle East – that is Israel. One day, the American people are going to say to the Israel lobby in the USA: enough is enough."  She added: "Israel will lose support and then they will reap what they have sown."  In response leading politicians from all parties condemned her and her comments and she has been expelled from the LibDem party.

So much for the notion of free speech and the prospects for some kind of rational debate about Israel/Palestine.  It seems that we in the UK are now to suffer from a stultifying praise and defend Israel at all costs mentality in our public discourse.  What is most fascinating about this eruption of support for Israel is that the one country in the world where comments such as those made by Lady Tonge are commonplace and freely made is Israel itself.  There are many Jewish Israelis, born and brought up and living in Israel who share Lady Tonge’s concerns.  You can find their views in many Israeli magazines and newspapers, including in the mainstream media.

In fact only a couple of days ago, the eminent Jewish Israeli journalist, Gideon Levy, wrote a piece for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, in which he came to very similar conclusions to Lady Tonge.  The title of the piece gives a flavour of the argument - It’s just a matter of time before US tires of Israel.  In the article he comments on the excessive and unprecedented power that Israel has over the USA.  He even has the audacity to mention the power of rich Jews.  As Levy himself puts it, “Israel features in the American presidential campaign as no other foreign country does, with the candidates vying for the sobriquet of “biggest Israel-lover” to the point where it often seems to be the main issue. Rich Jews like Sheldon Adelson donate enormous war chests to candidates for the sole purpose of buying their support for Israel.......”   Levy goes on to ask some questions about the future, questions that are remarkably close to Lady Tonge’s.  He wrote,  “One day, perhaps, even in brainwashed America the questions may begin: another war? Is it right to put more American soldiers in harm’s way for an interest that is more Israeli than it is American?”  He concludes with this warning to Israel,  “ But one day the rope could snap and the whole thing could blow up in the face of power-drunk Israel: Israel doesn’t know when to stop, and it could pay dearly as a result.”  Just as well for Gideon Levy that he’s not a member of UK political party or was speaking in London.  You can read the whole piece here.

Uri Avnery is another distinguished Jewish Israeli journalist who is not afraid of exposing the realities of Israel.  In a recent article for AntiWar he wrote about the options facing Israel in the future and none were very attractive.  He too would probably subscribe to the view that Israel cannot survive for ever in its present form.  His article looks at possible scenarios for Israel in the near future.  One is a state that is non-democratic.  He is even willing to use the work apartheid to describes this option.  According to Avnery, “This needs no conscious decision, since it is the default situation that already exists de facto.  This means, to use the popular catchphrase, an apartheid state: a state in which every instrument of power is in the hands of the Jewish-Israeli majority (some 6.5 million people), with limited rights for the 1.5 million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. The Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, some 4 million, are granted no rights whatsoever — national, human, or civil.”  In Avnery’s view this situation were it to continue would eventually lead to what he terms national suicide.  He goes on to outline other scenarios, all of which lead to the same outcome - national suicide.  However as an optimist, he believes things can change for the better and concludes, “I believe that the people of Israel — the Israeli nation — have the will to survive. But in order to survive, they must wake up from their apathetic stupor and change course — turning toward peace based on the two-state solution, separating the state from religion, and building a new social order.  In the Jewish religion, suicide is a sin. It would be ironic if future historians were to conclude that the “Jewish state” committed suicide.”  You can read the whole of Avnery’s piece here.

I have singled out two articles by leading Jewish Israeli journalists to highlight the appalling hypocrisy of those who would try to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel.  If the same kind of comments and criticisms can be made public in Israel, by Jewish Israelis, on what grounds can they be dismissed here in the UK?  Only someone who is frightened of the power of the pro Israel lobby?

Israel and Iran - A Tale of Two Countries

Once again the screws are being tightened against Iran.  The USA, as always supinely supported by the UK, wants to ratchet up the sanctions against Iran.  And of course Israel and its supporters in the USA would really like a war against Iran.  Something which the USA refuses to rule out.  The ostensible reason for this latest bout of sabre raising is the assertion that Iran is on the verge of building a nuclear weapon.  Western politicians, closely followed by their cheerleaders in the media, constantly bombard us with scare stories about an Iran with nuclear weapons.  All this scary stuff about nuclear weapons is of course just bullshit.  The Iranians have always denied any nuclear weapons pretensions and the International Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) has consistently found no evidence of a nuclear weapons programme.  This is also the conclusion, perhaps surprisingly of the Israelis.  A recent report in Haaretz, via Juan Cole, confirmed that the Israeli intelligence agencies have concluded that Iran has not yet decided whether to begin a military programme to construct a nuclear warhead.  US intelligence agencies have come to the same conclusion.


So why all the talk about harsher sanctions against Iran?Here it is important to remember that western hostility to Iran has nothing to de with nuclear weapons.  Iran's nuclear programme began while Iran was still ruled by the Shah, that great friend of the west.  At that time the west showered Iran with praise and economic deals, including nuclear deals.  It was only after the revolution which toppled the Shah and ushered in the Islamic Republic that the west turned against Iran.  What the west and the USA in particular dislikes about the current regime in Iran is that it offers a ongoing challenge to western hegemony in the middle east, source of most of our oil.


To bear this out, one only needs to compare the west's treatment of Israel with its treatment of Iran.  On the nuclear issue, while Iran clearly has no nuclear weapons and has always denied any nuclear weapons ambitions, Israel does have nuclear weapons.  It has had them since the late 1960s and continues to develop them.  Israel is the only nuclear power in the middle east, yet the west has conspicuously failed to impose any sanctions on Israel to give up its nuclear weapons.  Israel has also failed to sign the Non Proliferation Treaty, while Iran has.  This means there are no 
IAEC reports on Israel's nuclear weapons programmes.  And  still no sanctions from the west.  The photo at the top of this post shows the latest Jericho 3 missile which provides Israel with nuclear strike capabilities within the entire middle east and Europe. 


When it comes to living peacefully with your neighbours there is also a great difference between the two states.  Iran has not attacked or invaded any country for at least over a hundred years.  It has of course been attacked in that period - think Iraqi war, when the USA and the UK backed Saddam Hussein of all people, but it has not itself attacked anybody.  Contrast this with Israel, which has been in a constant state of war with most of its neighbours since its inception.  A birth that involved the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their historic villages and towns.  Since then Israel has invaded Lebanon twice or is it three times, Egypt and Jordan at least once and continues to illegally occupy the Golan area, part of Syria.  Not to mention the ongoing occupation of East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank.  So one country, Israel, has a recent history of invading and occupying the territory of its neighbours, yet is immune from any sanctions or indeed of any kind of pressure whatsoever. While another country with no record of invasion or occupation is the subject of western imposed sanctions and threats of military attack by either Israel or the USA or both.


It would nice if just once in a while our mainstream media and especially our supposedly independent BBC was to properly investigate the double standards on display in out treatment of Israel and Iran.

Palestinian Prisoners

The recent news that agreement has been reached to secure the release of an Israeli soldier in return for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners is most welcome.  Especially for all those who will be released.  However it should not obscure the reality of Israel’s ongoing attack on Palestinians.

For example, since the military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, Israel has imprisoned more than 700,000 Palestinians.  This represents around 20% of the population.  Just take a moment or two to reflect on this.  Some 20% of the population of Palestine has been imprisoned by the Israelis over the past 40 years.

Currently there are, according to the Israel Prison Service, approximately 5,200 Palestinians in Israeli prisons.  The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights claims that more than 6,000 Palestinians are in prison.

It is also important to note that though these Palestinian prisoners are civilians they are dealt with by Israeli military courts.  This in itself is against UN conventions.  In addition human rights organizations have found wide spread abuses of the accused people’s rights, including interrogation without the presence of a lawyer.

All this of course in the context of an ongoing occupation.  Any kind of resistance to this brutal occupation is met with arrest and subsequent imprisonment via a military court.  It should also be noted that most of this resistance to the occupation is either peaceful - marches, demonstrations etc - or involves throwing stones.   Not the sort of activities that would normally get you imprisoned in the UK.  Even in Northern Ireland during the height of the troubles, was there such a heavy handed resort to imprisonment.

The treatment of Palestinian prisoners within Israeli prisons leaves much to be desired.   Amnesty International has reported “consistent allegations of torture and other ill-treatment, including of children. Among the most commonly cited methods were beatings, threats to the detainee or their family, sleep deprivation, and being subjected to painful stress positions for long periods.”

It seems that things have got even worse.  As a result since September 27, thousands of Palestinian prisoners have been on a hunger strike to protest the conditions of their incarceration. They have made several key demands, including an end to abusive isolation, restrictions on higher education in prisons, denial of books and newspapers, shackling, excessive fines, and most importantly, an end to all forms of collective punishment, including the refusal of family visits, night searches of prisoners’ cells, and the denial of basic health treatment.

While news of the release of Gilad Shalit has made the front pages of newspapers world wide, little has been reported about this hunger strike, which is now in its third week.  Let us hope that amid the joy at the release of some Palestinian prisoners, the world’s media turn some attention to the conditions of the remaining prisoners.

For more information about Palestinian prisoners, see this fact sheet published by the Institute for Middle East Understanding.

Do Israelis just like to kill Palestinians?

I pose this question in light of the recent outburst of killings in Gaza and southern Israel.  In this case the initial attack was launched by three militants in and around Eilat.  A bus with some soldiers on board was gunned down, and in all it seems seven Israelis were killed in the attacks.  What is particularly interesting about this is that the Israelis immediately blamed a specific Gaza based Palestinian group, the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC).  And then of course immediately started to bomb Gaza.  So far it seems that 15 Palestinians have been killed by the Israelis.

However the Israelis have as yet produced no evidence whatsoever that it was the PRC, or any other Palestinian group that carried out the attacks.  It is worth baring in mind that the initial attacks took place in Eilat.  This is an Israeli resort at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba, close to the Egyptian border in Sinai.  This means that it is hundreds of miles from Gaza.  There is also the little matter that no Palestinian group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.  As Paul Woodward explains in an article for War in Context:  “Generally speaking, Palestinian militant groups are not shy about claiming responsibility for attacks against Israelis — especially those that can be described as military operations where Israeli soldiers are killed or injured. Indeed, the problem is more often that too many groups — not too few — want to claim the honor.”

Woodward goes on to suggest that the reason for this is that it wasn’t a Palestinian operation.  There is some support for this claim.  First, the IDF itself refused to endorse the Government’s assertion blaming the PRC.  Secondly eye-witnesses reported that the gunmen were wearing Egyptian military uniforms.  Thirdly the Sinai has been the scene of various guerilla type actions in the recent past.  The blowing up of pipelines for example.  The Egyptian military has been trying to bring the area under control and round up militant groups.  Fourthly there are reports that the Egyptians have identified the people responsible for the attacks and one is a leader of a terrorist cell in Sinai, while another is a fugitive who owns an ammunition factory.   Thus it is quite probable that the Eilat attacks originated in Egypt and had nothing to do with Gaza or Palestine.

Not that the Israelis have ever bothered to let such facts get in the way of killing Palestinians.  Any excuse seem to do.  Israel kills Palestinians all the time. On average, the IDF kills one Palestinian civilian every two days with impunity in the occupied territories, as B'tselem documented last year.  In this most recent case the Israelis seem to have outdone even themselves.  Richard Silverstein details a particularly gruesome killing.  “Today, an Israeli drone performed heroically for the fatherland by incinerating a car (or in other reports a motorcycle) carrying a Palestinian doctor and his family to hospital seeking treatment for a sick child.  The doctor, his brother, and the doctor’s little boy were killed in the attack.  Ynet announced: Oops, we missed.  The drone was aiming for a terrorist cell traveling nearby.  WAFA says the doctor’s brother was an Al Quds commander, which would mean that the IDF is willing to kill sick 2 year old children in order to get alleged terrorists as well.”

So much for the most moral army in the world.  Alas there is mounting evidence that for many Israelis the only good Palestinian is a dead one.

Israel - Social Justice and the Occupation

Israel is currently in the midst of a major social protest which began on July 14th and is thus known in Israel as the J14 protests.  They started as a protest about housing prices in Tel Aviv, but quickly became a mass street protest with hundreds of thousands of Israelis camping out on the streets.  The protests have now spread to other Israeli towns and cities and the basic demand is for profound changes in the socio-economic structure of just about every aspect of life in Israel. 

Except for one thing, the big O - The Occupation.  The protesters and their supporters in the media made it clear from the beginning that the protests and the demands were confined to life within Israel and would not get involved in anything to do with the Occupation.  It is not clear if this approach can hold.

In the first place Palestinian citizens of Israel have participated in some of the protests and there is a joint Palestinian-Israeli tent in Tel-Aviv.  This is because Palestinian Israelis have suffered the same injustices as their Jewish fellow citizens - only much worse.  While many Jewish protesters will continue to call for greater public spending for Jews and to hell with the Palestinians, this may become more and more difficult to sustain.  It would confirm Israel as an Apartheid state, which would conflict with the claim that Israel is a democratic state and would lead to difficulties with its sole backer - the USA.  It may be that through the protests more and more Jews realize that if they are to succeed in changing the policies of the government then making common cause with their Palestinian fellow citizens is the best way forward.

This seems to be the line taken, so far, by most of the Palestinians.  As Ami Kaufman puts it:  “Even the Arab speakers at the various demonstrations, from what I’ve heard (I may have missed some), have not directly addressed the occupation either – or even utter the word. Rather, they point out how they, too, are victims of capitalism and that they have it even tougher because of Israeli policies, of how the wealth is distributed. But the focus is still on money, on how the system screws everybody – equally.”   Kaufman’s line is that this is fundamentally a protest against capitalism and that, if successful, the protests may lead to ending the occupation, but only as a by-product.  His whole article is well worth reading in full - here.

Though the Occupation is not on the agenda as yet, it may force its way through into the consciousness of the protesters.   This is because as Ami Kaufman observes in his article the protest is mainly about money.  And so much of Israel’s money goes into the Occupation.  It is ironic that the one place where Jews can get affordable housing is in the illegal settlements.  Because they are heavily subsidized by the state.  This is just one example of how the costs of the Occupation continue to hurt and blight the lives of most Jewish Israelis.  At some point in the developing argument over how to divvy up the state’s spending, someone may start to question all this scarce money going to maintain the Occupation while most Israelis suffer from poor housing, the lack of good education and health services etc.

It is still too early to know just how these protests will pan out, but they do serve as a useful reminder that Israel is far from some safe haven and that within the Jewish majority there are huge and potentially destabilizing tensions.  Now that the genie is out of the bottle, who knows what will emerge.  For a Palestinian Israeli view on the protests here is the text of a moving speech by Odeh Bisharat. 

Netanyahu Kills off the Two State Option

Well, the cat is well and trully out of the bag now.  After Netanyahu’s little tantrum there can be no doubt about it.  The two state solution to the Israeli/Palestine conflict is dead as a dodo.  And all because the Israelis refuse to even contemplate any kind of negotiations.  Just why Netanyahu decided to come clean so vociferously and so explicitly is a bit of a mystery.  After all President Obama merely reiterated the long standing US position that a Palestinian state has to be based on the 1967 borders.  This leaves plenty of wriggle room for the Israelis to claim many, if not all, the illegal settlements.  However it is clear that even this is not enough for Israel.  Note that it is not just Netanyahu and his right wing bloc that opposes any kind of deal that leaves any settlement out of Israel.  As the leaked Palestinian Papers show even the so-called moderates like Tzipi Livni refused to accept a deal from Fatah which would have left most of the settlement blocs inside Israel.

The reason for this obduracy can only be that Israel does not feel itself to be under any pressure to reach a negotiated settlement.  Israel wants all the settlements and the right to build new ones.  Israel wants to control the Jordan river.  Israel wants all of Jerusalem.  Clearly Israel does not give a XXXX about the Palestinians.  For even the most reactionary Zionist knows that there will never be a majority of Palestinians who could agree to this kind of offer.  At least Netanyahu has done us the favour of clearing away any remaining doubts.  There is no Israeli partner for a peace deal and once again Israel has shown its unfailing instinct for never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Though in the short run Israel will manage to get away with this defiance of international law, thanks to its blank cheque from the USA, it is still amazing that Israel and all its Zionist supporters have conspicuously failed to come up with a plan that would secure Israel’s future not just for the next decade or so, but forever.  To place all your eggs in the one, US basket is a bit short-sighted, to say the least.  For how long will the USA remain the world’s sole superpower?  Perhaps more pertinently for how long will the USA, even its elites, remain so much in thrall to Israel and Zionism?  Given that the Zionist project is based on memories of a past that goes back thousands of years, you would think that Zionists would want some kind of assurance that their project has a chance of surving for more than a few decades.

If Israel is to survive permanently as a enclave in an Arab and Muslim world, it can only do so by reaching a long term agreement with the people who live on the land Israel wants, and an agreement with its neighbours.  And to date there has been no sign that Israel wants to know anything about this.  It has repeatedly dismissed out of hand any and every proposal from the Palestinians and from the wider Arab world.  Not only that, Israel has already lost any support it had in Latin America, Africa and most of Asia.  Even in Europe, the tide has turned against Israel.  It is only a matter of time before European governments adopt a much more forceful stand against Israeli intransigence.

With luck Netanyahu’s recent outburst will hasten the day when more governments accept the reality that Israel does not and never has wanted a Palestinian state, no matter how restricted this state was.  Israel has always and usually violently, said no to the Palestinians.  It is time for the rest of the world to say no to Israel.

Ending the Occupation

Though the recent popular uprisings continue to spread through most of the Middle East, Israel/Palestine remains, as yet, relatively calm.  Only “relatively”.  Palestinian peaceful protests continue and the Israelis continue with their brutal and violent reprisals.  And, surprise, surprise, pro-settler right wing Israelis have today attempted to block the entrance to Jerusalem in the first actions of a declared nation-wide “day of rage”, organized to protest the Israeli government’s demolition of illegal outposts in the West Bank.

This somewhat hilarious attempt by the illegal settler community to hijack the tactics of the popular uprisings in Arab countries only serves to highlight once again the centrality of the (illegal) Occupation.  For, whichever way you look at it the conflict in Israel/Palestine always comes back to the Occupation.  All the way back to 1948 and Israel’s massive land grab.  When the newly created Israeli state seized 78% of historic Palestine as opposed to the 55% they were awarded by the UN.  In the process of this land grab the Israelis forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee their ancestral homes.  Their descendants now make up the five million plus refugees who live in poverty in refugee camps throughout the Middle East.  Israel has continually refused to even contemplate the return of these refugees.  An action contrary to every tenet of International Law.

Israeli Occupation is never meant to be a temporary situation.  As can be seen to this day as Israel continues to confiscate and appropriate Palestinian land in the post 1967 Occupied West Bank.  The annexation of East Jerusalem and the always expanding and increasing number of colonies in the West Bank - all of them, every single one of them illegal - are all evidence of Israel as an expansionist colonialist state.

That Israel has no intention of ever leaving the West Bank is clear from its policies towards the Palestinians.  The whole of Israel/Palestine is one customs Union - controlled by Israel.  The only legal currency is the Israeli shekel - controlled by Israel.  The international borders of the West Bank are controlled by - Israel.  All this is part and parcel of a policy to keep the Palestinians in a state of permanent underdevelopment and totally dependent on Israel.  The construction of the illegal settlements, the Jewish only roads and the Wall are other key elements in this policy of permanent subjugation.  Along with the Apartheid Wall the Jewish only roads break up the West Bank into little Bantustan type enclaves surrounded by Jewish colonies or roads.  Though the Wall is partly designed to keep Palestinians out of Israel, a major purpose of the Wall is to keep Palestinians divided.  As Shir Hever puts it in his book on the Political Economy of Israel’s Occupation;  “..in reality, Israel is surrounding Palestinians with a wall.  The proper term is not fortification, but incarceration - because the Wall is being built around Palestinian communities in the West Bank.”  Thus it is pretty clear that official Israeli policy is to permanently divide the West Bank and to make life for Palestinians as unbearable as possible and most important of all to make the creation of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank unachievable.

Further evidence for this has recently emerged with the publication of the Palestinian Papers.  These show just far the current Palestinian leadership in the West Bank was prepared to go to meet Israeli demands.  In fact Mahmoud Abbas and Saed Erekat were willing to give Israel almost everything the Israelis wanted in terms of land.  Yet it was not enough.  And remember, this was the supposedly moderate Israeli government that refused to make any concession whatsoever.  Once again the Israelis have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Quite clearly the Israelis in refusing to even negotiate over the Palestinian proposals, demonstrated that they do not want a resolution to the conflict.  After all why should they? The current situation on the ground is just fine for almost all Israelis.  There is no violence in pre 1967 Israel and in the West Bank the peaceful protests are kept under control with a combination of army and settler violence against the peaceful protesters.  The illegal settlements continue to expand and more settlements are planned.   The Israelis control the scarce water resources, diverting them to the settlements and into Israel itself.  Economically the Palestinians form a captive market for Israeli goods.  Why give any of this up?

Unless and until the Israelis feel some kind of real pressure from the outside nothing will change.  The Palestinians could move from trying (unsuccessfully) to negotiate a rump state in the West Bank, and instead demand full Israeli citizenship including voting rights.  After all there already is one state and it is run by Israel.  If the Palestinians were to give up on the two state option and simply demand equal rights within Israeli rule that would be a game changer.  But it does not seem that a majority of Palestinians are as yet ready for such a momentous step.

The other kind of pressure that could force the Israelis to change is economic pressure from the rest of the world.  This is where the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement comes in.  Already in a few years BDS has won a series of important victories.  In Scotland and in the rest of the UK, more and more local councils are beginning to exclude Israeli companies from bidding for contracts.  The cultural and academic boycotts are also beginning to bite.  The big change will come when governments come on board.  But that will only happen when there is enough popular support for BDS.  So this is one are where individual action, if repeated by enough people, can lead to real change at government level.  So whatever you do - just refuse to buy any Israeli products.

Gaza 2 years on - A Jewish Voice

Just over two years ago, on 27th December 2008, the mighty Israeli military launched an unprovoked and unannounced air strike on the defenceless population of Gaza.  This murderous onslaught would continue for a further three weeks.  In which time over 1,400 Palestinians would be killed.  Of these, 397 were defenceless, innocent children.  In addition countless others suffered terrible physical and mental injuries.

To honour all the people killed and injured during this onslaught Tayside for Justice in Palestine organized a commemorative event in Dundee last Saturday, 22nd January 2011.  The centre point of this event was an installation by local artist Pat Donnachie.  This featured 357 mini paper coffins wrapped in a Palestinian flag.  The mini coffins were surrounded by 357 pairs of children’s shoes - all to represent the 357 children who were brutally killed by Israeli forces. 

At the commemorative event we had speeches from a wide section of Dundee’s population, including the Lord Provost.  One of the most moving contributions came from Sarah Glynn, who is one of the founding members of Tayside for Justice in Palestine.  Sarah is a Jew and here is her personal testimony.

“I’m standing here as a member of Scottish Jews for a Just Peace. 

Like all of us here I am appalled at what has been happening in Gaza and want to do what little I can to help.

But why do I want to speak with a specifically Jewish voice?

Scottish Jews for a Just Peace exists to tell a very particular message.

To say that, whatever they may claim, the Israeli government does not speak for or act on behalf of the Jewish people. 

Last summer, when the Israeli army attacked the ships bringing aid to Gaza, I tired to write down what it means to be Jewish at a time when people with whom I share a history and an ethnicity have committed such crimes in its name.

Most people sense a pull of family history and a feeling of belonging to a clan. And who could not feel a sense of awe at being part of a clan that has survived two millennia of persecution. Who would not feel a tug on the heart strings when exploring a personal connection to a Polish Shtetl – even if their first introduction to that lost world was through Fiddler on the Roof?

I have been to Poland and seen the small wooden house my grandfather left as a toddler over 100 years ago. And I have seen how the Nazis erased every trace of its Jewish population from that town. Who could not be moved by such a sight?

I have also been to Israel, where others of my family helped build a Jewish homeland. And I am sure that they sincerely believed that they were creating a better world where there would be less persecution. 

But, as I have observed the aggression of the modern Israeli state and read more about its evolution, I have learnt to question the image of Israel that I and so many others of all backgrounds grew up with. I have discovered that the story of a gallant Israeli David fighting for survival against an Arab world committed to its destruction was a foundation myth: a myth that hid a much more troubling reality of another people’s history of suffering and oppression. 

I saw another people’s nightmare. A new exile. A new nation of refugees.

The world not better, but bitter. Crueller. More dangerous.

I saw persecution recreated - in a distorted mirror image with Jews as oppressors. And three generations of Israelis taught to hate.

The Israeli government has tried to use our Jewish history to justify its actions and claim Jewish loyalty and support. I want to claim my history back. I will not boast of Jewish survival - It was not me who was oppressed for two millennia – but, like everyone else, I can learn lessons from that history. I take no personal responsibility for Israeli aggression - It was not me who took Palestinian land and lives – but like everyone else I can do what I can to try and end that suffering. After the Holocaust the world said ‘never again’. That never didn’t just refer to one people’s persecution, nor do we have to wait until millions are dead before we act. 

I will always be moved by the melancholy sound of a Yiddish song; but also by the cries of Gaza’s children.

So I join with you all to say Freedom to Gaza

Free free Palestine”

Though last Saturday was a commemorative event, it is never enough to just remember past sufferings.  Not when the suffering and degradation continues to this very day.  That is why Tayside for Justice in Palestine has chosen this commemorative event to launch our appeal for the next flotilla. This time Free Gaza plans to send a boat bought and supplied by the people of Scotland. We are asking everyone to contribute what they can so that we can demonstrate Scottish support for Gaza and Scottish resistance to this cruel and illegal blockade.

The following list can only give an indication of what the blockade means:

• 6 out of 10 people have running water only once every 4 to 5 days, and 90% of this is contaminated and not fit to drink

• Only small amounts of construction materials have been allowed in for UN projects, and nothing has been allowed for private building. Of the 6,000 homes that suffered major damage 2 years ago, 4 out of 5 have not been rebuilt.

• Because of lack of materials for new buildings, 40,000 children have been turned away by UN schools. 

• Restrictions on the import of fuel means power plants are only working at 2/3 capacity. There are regular electricity blackouts, which impact on essential services.

• Gaza’s fragile economy has been destroyed by a combination of the lack of power, restrictions on raw materials, and the almost complete ban on exports. 4 out of 10 people in Gaza are unemployed.

• 1/3 of Gaza’s farmland and most of its fishing areas are cut off by Israeli soldiers, who will shoot to kill. 

• Entry and exit to and from the Gaza Strip remains severely restricted and unpredictable. Since 2009, 33 patients have died before being given permission to leave Gaza and get to the hospitals they have been referred to.

Regardless of our views on Gaza’s political leaders, or on the tactics some have chosen with which to resist the occupation of Palestinian land, we must condemn this collective ‘punishment’. The real sin of the Palestinians, in the eyes of the Israeli government, is simply to want to be free to live in the villages and towns in which they were born.

Amidst all the horror there is still hope. Israel depends on the support of other nations, especially the USA, and widespread criticism of the Israeli government’s actions can have an impact. We have a long way to go, but, already, an increasing number of people have realised what is happening, and resistance is growing, including within Israel itself. Here in Dundee, thousands of miles from Gaza we can be part of this resistance. 

To find out more, please email us on

taysideforjusticeinpalestine@gmail.com

Jawaher Abu Rahma - A Death at Bil’in

The killing of innocent Palestinians by Israeli forces, whether the IDF or illegal settlers, has become so common-place that the people killed are often just lumped together as numbers and then forgotten.  In the most recent case, that of Jawaher Abu Rahmah, this may not happen.  Jawaher Abu Rahmah died on 1st January from teargas inhalation after she and others were attacked with a CS teargas barrage while at the weekly demonstration against the Separation Wall at Bil’in on 31st December 2010.

As is unfortunately all too usual in these cases the IDF immediately denied that it had anything to do with Jawaher Abu Rahmah’s death.  First they simply asserted that she did not die from teargas inhalation, but that she suffered from asthma or some other condition and it was this that caused or contributed to her death.  They then claimed that she wasn’t actually at the demonstration, so therefore could not have been killed by teargas.  They also incredibly tried to claim that she has been killed by a member of her own family in some kind of honour killing.  Finally they admitted that teargas was used, but only in response to stone-throwing by demonstrators.  All of these claims have now been proved to be lies, all lies.

In this case over 1000 people, Israelis, Palestinians and internationals participated in the demonstration against the Separation Wall.  Eye witness accounts from some of those present provide us with clear evidence of what did in fact happen.  Here is the testimony of her mother, Soubhiya Abu Rahmah, “I was standing beside Jawaher on the hill that is near the place where the demonstration took place, when we were injured by a cloud of tear gas.  Jawaher began to fell unwell from inhaling the gas and started to move back from the place: soon after that she vomited and collapsed.  We took her to the nearest road, and from there she was evacuated by ambulance to the hospital, where she remained until her death.  She was not sick with cancer, nor did she have any other illness; and she was not asthmatic.”  You can read more of these eye-witness accounts here.

Also present at the demonstration was Israeli blogger Noam Sheizaf, and here is part of his eye- witness account, “The march was completely peaceful - there was even a brass band present.  From what I could see, the tear gas was fired by the IDF well before the march got even close to the fence - and it was fired directly at the unarmed protestors walking on the main road.  I remember feeling surprised, because the soldiers usually let the march go a bit further before they shoot.   You could see it all very clearly on the following video, taken on last Friday’s protest.  You can see how far the soldiers are from the protest when they start shooting tear gas.  The stones are thrown off the road.  An effort by the protesters (including a brave sax player) to march again to the fence is met with more gas - this time, the canisters are shot directly at the protesters in the illegal way that led to the death of Bassam Abu Rahmah last year.”  Noam’s full report can be read here.   A summing up of the various accounts can be found here.

What is most disturbing about all this is that the IDF’s crude attempts to distort the truth were pretty much accepted by a fawning Israeli press, with the honourable exception of Haaretz.  In today’s Israel the IDF is accorded God like status.  Were it not for the eye-witness accounts, including those of many brave Israeli Jews, and the use of the internet very few people would know what really happened.  For more on the IDF’s attempts to smear Jawaher, Richard Silverstein has an informative article here.  While the ever insightful Magnes Zionist has a great piece on how the IDF spin machine works.

The good news is that more of the truth about Israel and the IDF is getting out to the general public.  As a result more and more people, including Jews both in Israel and the USA are finally beginning to despair of Israel.  This is of course no consolation for Jawaher Abu Rahmah and her family.  Not only have they lost a daughter, but their son Bassam Abu Rahmah was also killed by IDG teargas while on a non-violent demonstration in 2009.  The IDF has a lot to answer for.  

As does the USA and its taxpayers who continue to fund these killings.  The teargas used to kill Jawaher is produced in the USA by Combined Systems, Inc.  They are the leading supplier of teargas used by the Israeli military against peaceful Palestinian protestors.  The type of teargas used in this case is CS, which is one of the most lethal types of teargas available.  Why US taxpayers continue to give away their scarce dollars to fund Israeli killings is a bit of a mystery.  Especially as the use of teargas as an attack weapon against civilians is almost certainly in contravention of US laws.  In another sign that the tide is beginning to turn against Israel, at least some Americans have formally protested to Combined Systems about this misuse of teargas.  You can read their letter here.

Our thoughts are with the family of Jawaher AbuRahmah - may her memory live forever.