The 'Mail' finds a link - or does it?

AS Jeremy Corbyn's campaign for the Labour Party leadership has rolled on in the past few weeks, with the bearded Left-wing veteran addressing huge public meetings around the country, from Birkenhead to Camden, Llandudno to Aberdeen,  I have been impressed by his energy and stamina, and the way he keeps his cool, explaining his ideas and the kind of policies he wants Labour to adopt, and leaving it to his opponents to just keep saying he can't win, or their friends to make the personal attacks with whatever they can find. 

It is not easy for them. At a time when Parliament and MPs have long declined in the public's estimation, Jeremy Corbyn, whether or not you agree with him, stands out as clean, well-liked by his constituents and the wider public that is getting to know him, honest and frugal to a fault, while generous with his time.

One accusation that has come from sources scraping the barrel is that Corbyn is not only "anti-Israel", that is favourable to the Palestinians, which he and his supporters would freely admit, but "antisemitic" or at least associated with antisemites.  This has come as news to Jewish friends in his constituency who say they have known Jeremy for years, and it will also surprise those who attended the European Jews for Just Peace (EJJP) conference held at Archway some years ago, who were delighted that the MP dropped in at short notice and gave a friendly question an answer session. If there was anything antisemitic about what he had to say it went undetected.

Less surprising perhaps, and even less impressive, are the publications from which these accusations are coming. The Jewish Chronicle,whose editor Stephen Pollard is notoriously not just opposed to Left-wing views on the Middle East but on the NHS and anything else: and the Daily Mail, which scores full marks for chutzpah, having not only admired Hitler and Oswald Mosley in its inglorious past, but in more recent years gone for Labour leader Ed Miliband by attacking his father, a refugee from Nazism, as "anti-British", on the basis of an essay he wrote while 17 years old criticising British society. It wasn't too hard to spot the dog-whistle antisemitism addressed to Mail readers, or to note that young Ralph Miliband went on to serve in the Royal Navy in the War, while the Mail editor's dad was performing sterling service reporting the West End night club scene.

But the story in the Mail on August 7 seemed a real shocker - so long as you didn't know better.  

EXCLUSIVE: Jeremy Corbyn's 'long-standing links' with notorious Holocaust denier and his 'anti-Semitic' organisation revealed 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3187428/Jeremy-Corbyn-s-links-notorious-Holocaust-denier-revealed.html#ixzz3iyGqL4DR

Note the use of quotation marks. This is the 'Mail' headline writer's concession to honesty, that neither  the "long-standing links" nor the "antisemitic" label are straight-forward facts.

The story by Jake Wallis Simons concerned Jeremy Corbyn's supposed "long-standing association" with a man called Paul Eisen, and an organisation called Deir Yassin Remembered, which Simons explained, " focuses on controversial allegations that Jewish soldiers killed about 100 Arab villagers in the run-up to the war of 1948, and seeks to promote its remembrance at annual events."

It will be news to those of us who have heard of Deir Yassin that there is anything "controversial" about this. The facts were well known at the time. Members of the Irgun Zvei Leumi and Lehi were sent in to capture Deir Yassin, on April 9, 1948, and massacred those they captured as prisoners. This was recorded by Israeli and UN witnesses, and the only controversies were about the overall responsibility (whether the main Zionist military force Haganah authorised the operation at Deir Yassin) and the number of people killed ("about 100" is a rather conservative estimate.Some accounts say there were more than twice that number).

Deir Yassin had been in the area set aside as an international zone under the UN Partition Plan. Its inhabitants had hoped to stay neutral in the looming conflict. The massacre took place six weeks before the State of Israel was proclaimed. Menachem Begin, who was the Irgun's commander in chief, wrote in his memoirs that Arabs began fleeing the country crying "Deir Yassin!". In other words, he boasted of his men's part in creating the Naqba. Maybe the crime has only become "controversial allegations" since the Irgun's successors have been entrenched in government.

I dare say that to some people the idea of remembering Deir Yassin is itself "antisemitic". But when Deir Yassin Remembered  literature from the United States first reached us in the UK there was nothing in it that was anti-Jewish or concerned with Holocaust denial. Rather it was perfectly legitimate historical publicity about the massacre at Deir Yassin, and a proposal to invite artists and raise funds for a permanent memorial. Anyone who has been there and seen the absence of so much as a memorial stone could not disagree with this idea. It is very much in line with Jewish ethics lehizkor - to Remember.


Hearing that Paul Eisen - whom I'd never met or heard of -was the UK representative for this project, I contacted him and arranged a meeting with the Jewish Socialists' Group one Sunday evening. He told us he was due to meet a couple of rabbis that week. Before long Eisen had a number of Jewish helpers and was able to stage a major fund-raiser with their help, featuring well-known artists. He did not achieve this by going round proclaiming himself a Holocaust denier or making antisemitic speeches.

Indeed for a while he participated in the Just Peace UK online discussion list, mostly Jewish and Israeli, and though he antagonised some of the people who had helped him and irritated others like myself, it took time for his increasing obsession with "Jewish guilt" to become clear enough for us to remove him from the list. It seemed to have little to do with Israel and Palestine, and had echoes of the dark side of European Christian tradition rather than any Islamicist excesses.

Regretting that "Deir Yassin Remembered" was becoming Deir Yassin Forgotten under Eisen's tutelage, I wondered whether he could not be replaced. But it seemed he had been put in place by some Catholic cleric in California who founded DYR, and the organisation had neither the members or democratic structure to remove him.  As his association with people like Israel Shamir, Gilad Atzmon,and the neo-Nazi Zundel began to emerge, we learned that DYR's prominent Israeli supporters had the same problem with Shamir, leaving them no option but to resign reluctantly from a cause they had wanted to support.(Shamir, who had initially presented himself to the world as an Israeli dissident, had a Russian background, and far Right connections. Moving from anti-Zionism through conspiracy theory to blood libel, he was uncovered by anti-fascists to have a double identity, as a Swedish Nazi),

If Eisen and DYR had been able to fool Jewish and Israeli people, or rather only emerged in their true colours quite late in the day, it is hardly surprising that they were accepted as genuine among Palestine supporters for a time, or managed to raise donations for what looked like a perfectly commendable purpose. The Daily Mail article quotes Paul Eisen as describing how he went to see Jeremy Corbyn fifteen years ago for a donation to Deir Yassin Remembered, and the MP got out his checkbook. But what does that prove except that Corbyn was prepared to make a donation to what seemed like a perfectly good cause?  The article notes that the Palestine Solidarity Campaign passed a resolution against having anything to do with Eisen - but this was in 2007. And if Jeremy Corbyn attended annual events commemorating the Deir Yassin massacre, where is the evidence that he or anybody else at these events thought they were there to support Holocaust denial? 

In fact, the claim that Jeremy Corbyn had a "long-standing association" with a "notorious Holocaust denier" comes from that denier, Paul Eisen. A highly reliable source!

The article by Jake Wallis Simons went on to tell us:
Jonathan Arkush, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said: 'Paul Eisen is a notorious Holocaust denier and if Jeremy Corbyn does have links with him this would be very alarming. We would ask Mr Corbyn to clarify the situation.'Notice the little word "if" that is key to that comment. We'd guess that Jonathan Arkush was rung for a comment and was careful to keep it conditional, rather than lend substance to the story.
It is a fair bet that however "notorious" Paul Eisen ought to be, few 'Mail' readers or anyone else have heard of him, or had until this month.

But the Jewish community has its own antennae monitoring real or imagined antisemitic threats and Holocaust deniers, and unfortunately also watching critics of Israel, like Jeremy Corbyn or me, and waiting for the slightest slip to pounce upon. And it's my guess that if they'd detected a "long-standing association" between Jeremy Corbyn and a Holocaust denier they would not have waited until now to start raising it.  Whereas the 'Mail' and other media....

One small step - but an important one

 MPs at Westminster have voted overwhelmingly for recognition of a state of Palestine. The vote does not mean any immediate change in British government policy, but the government cannot ignore it. The vote reflects a seismic shift in public opinion set off by the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, and increased awareness of the effects of Israeli blockade and occupation.

Though a minority of MPs have a good and principled record on Palestine, others must have considered the effect, if any, on their election prospects next year, before deciding to turn this into a majority. Yet only a dozen MPs opposed - six Tories, six Democratic Unionists from Ulster, and one Liberal Democrat. 

For the Palestinians, the price has been high, in blood and suffering, and the reward is limited.  It of course calls only for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and says nothing about the Right of Return. The state it recognises has yet to be achieved in practice. Israeli occupation forces control people's movements in the West Bank, the Palestinian parliament is unable to meet, and Palestinian police cannot stop the IDF's raids on homes or halt the rampages of settlers.

For the Israeli government and its lobbyists, the Commons vote is a serious rebuff, and a rebuke for its consistent policies of taking away the territorial basis of Palestinian statehood, and relying on its allies internationally to block recognition.   We might note however that an impressive array of prominent Israelis wrote to British MPs at the weekend supporting the call for recognition, though their Labour Party didn't.

Though this vote was one small step for humanity, it was an important one, not least for British Labour.  In 1983 the Labour Party withstood the tide of feeling over Lebanon and massacres at Sabra and Shatila, lining up alongside Shimon Peres and Israeli Labour to oppose the invitation to Issam Sartawi of the PLO to address the Socialist International. When they failed it was left to Abu Nidal's gunman to silence Sartawi.

This motion from Labour's Grahame Morris was supported by Labour leader Ed Miliband - whose mother incidentally is a supporter of Jews for Justice for Palestinians. Grahame Morris said it was right to take the “small but symbolically important” step of recognising the Palestinian right to statehood.

Although there were the usual whinges from some quarters and attempts to play down the vote's importance from others, it is clear that the result  upset the Israeli government and gratified Palestinians.
Warning his government that it should not underestimate the significance of the British vote, Michael Oren, a former ambassador to the US said it was more important than the Swedish government's decision to recognise Palestine.  “Britain is a member of the UN security council. The Palestinians are going to the UN in November and they want at least nine votes in the security council (to force Israel to commit to a timeline for withdrawing from the West Bank). There is a chance America will abstain, but a lot of it is up to us. “Britain is one of our closest friends and allies, and still 274 parliament members supported the (non-binding) movement, with only 12 objecting". 

Dr Hanan Ashrawi, an elected Palestinian MP and executive member of the PLO, said: “On behalf of the Palestinian people and its leadership, I would like to thank everyone who worked to bring about this vote. The recognition of Palestine and its people is both a principled decision and a significant step towards justice and peace.”

She continued: “Our right to self-determination has never been up to negotiations. The recognition of Palestine is not contingent upon on the outcome of negotiations with Israel and certainly not something we will trade for; this claim is not only unfair, but immoral.”

“This vote sends the right message to the British government and the rest of Europe – it will enhance the European voices calling for the recognition of the state of Palestine and will create the right environment for the international community to grant the Palestinian people legal parity and rights.

“We would like to thank the British people, the thousands who lobbied their members in parliament, and the religious leaders, trade unions, artists, and civil society at large who stood up in the name of justice. We would also like to thank those Israelis who courageously called upon the British parliament to recognise the state of Palestine.”
In London, Bernard Regan of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, who is also a leading member of the National Union of Teachers,  commented on Facebook (extracts):

" The vote in Parliament for the recognition of a Palestinian state was overwhelming 274 For - 12 Against.Of course it does not bind the Government to any form of action but it reflects the sea change in attitudes amongst the public about the plight of the Palestinians and the actions of the Israeli Government.

"No one should be starry eyed about this - but it is an important statement about recognising the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination. No one should have illusions that this will make the Israeli Government buckle and rush to the negotiating table but it will be a breach in the wall if Britain - hitherto an uncritical supporter of Israel and backer of the United States - breaks ranks and translates this expression of opinion into political practice - ending the arms sales for a start.

"This vote belongs to the Palestinian people - it belongs to all those who have been campaigning over the decades inside historic Palestine and internationally. In Britain the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has been an important contributor to this process - as Richard Burden said - the views of trade unions and bodies like PSC were important in shifting public opinion.

"It's a cliché but of course we now have to step up the campaign including giving support to those inside Israel who courageously opposed the war on Gaza and protested against the Government of their country.

"Let's celebrate this moment - without deluding ourselves and then let's get on and build the mass campaign. Solidarity with the Palestinian people."

I'll drink to that.

Marching Together. End the War on Gaza!

 SOME say as many as 100,000 people marched in London on Saturday, July 19, against the war in Gaza, and in support of Palestinian freedom.
It was certainly big. There were also demonstrations in Tel Aviv and Haifa, and several Jewish groups took part in the demonstration in London.




That's the corner of the red Jewish Socialists' Group banner, with its distinctive Magen David shaped logo, that you can see among the marching crowd in Whitehall in my photo, above.  The photo below was among a few posted on Facebook by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. I'm not sure, but I think the young people with the improvised banner may be linked with a fairly new group called Young Jewish Left.

In both pictures you can see a placard with the Hebrew slogan "Dai LeKibbush" -Enough of the Occupation! -which is used by the Israeli peace camp.



I wasn't able to go to the Israeli embassy with the march, so reaching home later I switched on the TV news to see how it was reported. Perhaps I blinked, because I missed any mention on BBC or ITV , though it did make al Jazeira. Perhaps if there'd been some violence and lots of arrests the media would have taken more interest; but friends say it all passed off peacefully, which considering the understandable feelings about Gaza, the numbers on the march, and the youth and inexperience of some of them, is a tribute both to the sense of the crowd and the care taken by the organisers.



According to a blogger for the Tory Spectator, mind, the streets of London on Saturday were full of "antisemites"!  I must have missed them. Though I stood in Whitehall and watched the march go past I did not even spot any obviously offensive or "iffy" placards. Nor did the Spectator correspondent, it seems, as for evidence to damn the thousands, including presumably the Jews, who marched in London, he cites some regrettable incidents after a march in Paris, and some Muslim cleric who, so far as I know, had nothing to do with the march in London, or events in Palestine.
 
And to think that the Spectator used to get accused of antisemitism itself, and not only because of its onetime Foreign Office "Arabist" associations. Mind you, it also used to be thought of as an intellectual magazine.

Our true blue blogger does take the marchers to task for protesting against Israeli actions, and supposedly not condemning the ISIS terror in Iraq. Well in fact, a leaflet widely distributed on Saturday's march did condemn the ISIS actions along with those of the IDF. But as far as I know the so-called Islamic Caliphate has not set up an embassy or mission in London, so it is hard to see where a demonstration against their actions could go to.  Perhaps with the reports that ISIS was financed and armed by the Saudis, and as yet unconfirmed claims that the "rebels" received US military training, a demonstration against the Saudi embassy would be in order, though I doubt whether anyone from the Spectator would organise it.

Getting back to those Jewish demonstrators, at a meeting I had to attend on Saturday a trade union brother was remarking that he had met some Jews on a Gaza demonstration, as though this was something new, and I gathered he was referring to the highly visible religious Neturei Karta types. (Has anyone seen a female of the species?  Guess you have to grow a beard. At least some of the Muslim brothers do let their partners and daughters out to demonstrate, there were plenty of them on Saturday.)   Other speakers prefaced their remarks by saying they were not religious, as though the war in Gaza was about religion.  

Asad Rehman, an anti-racist activist in east London, has been involved in moe than one campaign, and has a more sophisticated awareness. Talking about the photographs posted by PSC on Facebook, Asad commented: 

"I wouldn't normally share this as I don't think there is anything new about Jewish groups supporting the people of Palestine. In fact during the 1st intifada the Jewish socialist group David Rosenberg, anti-Zionists such as Mike Marqusee Michael Rosen Arthur Neslen were at the forefront of solidarity with the people of Palestine at the very moment that the religious leaders of the Muslim community remained silent.

          Free Palestine!!"

One man freed, though not a people

FIRST, a piece of good news.  Omar Sa'ad, about whom I blogged,  on May 15,(the day, as it happens, on which, in 1948, David Ben Gurion proclaimed the State of Israel) has been freed from having to do military service.

Which for Omar means he will no longer be spending time in jail.

The 18-year-old violist, a member of the Druze minority from the village of Maghar, in Galilee, was sentenced to his first term of imprisonment on December 5, 2013 in the Tiberias induction base. Since then, he was sentenced six more times for a total of 150 days.

Sa’ad first stated his intention to refuse in late 2012, when he sent an open letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu which declared his support for Palestinians under occupation, as well as his opposition to recruitment into the IDF “and any other army for conscience and nationalistic reasons.”

 Unlike Muslim and Christian Arabs with Israeli citizenship, who are exempt from military service,  Druze men are required to serve for three years. (Druze women, are exempt, as are religious Jewish women). Encouraged to see themselves as a separate minority, Druze have been valued as soldiers and provide an important part of the Border Guard, who are a professional unit.

But even ex-officers have still faced discrimination in what the government insists ia a Jewish state.
The 1982 Lebanon war, when the army faced Druze allied to the Palestinians, caused some unease, and so has the continued occupation of the Golan, unilaterally to Israel, though only 10% of its Druze population have opted for Israeli citizenship.

As for those Druze growing up within the Israeli state, whatever its material advantages, they may consider linking their identity to that of the Palestinians or of the 'other Israel' of its embattled peace camp and social justice campaigners.

"Although the Druze are considered to be an ethnic group that has assimilated well in the Israeli community, the voices of refusal have become stronger in recent years, and especially in the wake of Sa’ad’s refusal, " writes Edo Konrad in the online +972 journal.

As he notes,
"Sa’ad’s time in prison was not easy. In early May, he was hospitalized with a liver infection after complaining to his prison guards for three straight days. The guards at Prison 4 allegedly ignored his complaints, thinking he was just pretending or exaggerating. Sa’ad was then transferred to Prison 6, where it was decided to move him to a military medical clinic before a doctor finally decided that he must be transferred the emergency room. Sa’ad eventually recovered.


Upon his release from prison, Sa’ad released a statement thanking his supporters and reiterating his stance against military service:

  " I was sentenced 7 times for a period of 150 days, and 46 days ago between home and hospital, and every time before sending me out to prison, they ask me the same question: “Why you refuse to serve in the IDF?

    My answer was always the same: “I refuse because I am an integral part of the Palestinian Arab people. Refuse because your army is an army of occupation. Refuse because I am the owner of principle and conscience. I make peace with my musical instrument and I refuse to replace it with a weapon that generates death, and does not differentiate between a child , a woman, a man and an old man. So how can you ask me to kill, occupy and arrest my people? my weapon is my musical instrument and will not be replaced by any another weapon.

http://972mag.com/druze-conscientious-objector-omar-saad-released-from-idf-service/92283/ And now some bad news, which you;ve already heard, an interesting sidelight, and some not so bad news which you might not get to hear.

Following the disappearance of three teenage Israeli boys in the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces have carried out massive raids on Palestinian homes, making wide arrests of adults and children, and generally behaving as though not only Hamas, but the entire Palestinian population, must have kidnapped the boys.

The youth's unknown fate has raised not unnatural concern, and a hubbub reaching from Israeli prime minister 'Bibi' Netanyahu through to internet chat groups and the most backward beigel shop customer, even comment from British Prime Minister David Cameron, who has not, as far as I know expressed any similar concern over Palestinian youngsters incarcerated by the Israelis.

We don't know what these young Israelis were doing in the West Bank, where settler youth have sometimes gone on the rampage attacking Palestinians and property, but since nothing has been alleged, and no organisation has asserted responsibility, we must assume they are innocent, and hope for their safety.

The interesting sidelight comes from an Israeli officer, who told a religious paper that much of their current operation was planned before the boy's disappearence, and had nothing to do with it. He said this included deploying snipers around Jenin, and hoping local people would be provoked into coming on to the streets, with youths throwing stones, so they could be gunned down by the military.
http://972mag.com/west-bank-operation-was-planned-ahead-of-time/92295/ 

And now the one piece of additional good news I promised. It comes in the shape of an e-mail .
this morning from friends in Gush Shalom, the Peace Bloc, in Tel Aviv.  This is the English version of the message that has gone out in Hebrew and Arabic, and is also on Facebook, I see.

Say no to collective punishment!
Free all political prisoners!
Acts of oppression in no way help bring back the abducted boys!
Demonstrate Saturday, 21.6, 20:30, in front of the Kiria (Ministry of Defence), Kaplan Street, Tel Aviv.

The army, under government instructions, is embarking on hundreds of arrests and detentions, nightly raids on homes, closure of entire regions, arrests of journalists and Palestinian Parliamentarians, the collective punishment of the residents of Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem, Jenin and many other locations, the detention of children and minors, threats of cutting off electricity and phone networks, and further acts of oppression. The true aim of all that is NOT to locate the abducted boys.

We hope with all our hearts that the boys will be found and safely returned to their homes. In practice, though, Netanyahu and his government are cynically using them as a pretext for an all-out offensive. The government  states openly and bluntly that they shall continue with the same tactics, regardless of the current search.

For the Government of
Israel, this is merely an excuse to crack down on Hamas, and break up the Palestinian Unity agreement.

The military budgets were about to be cut - now it's quite obvious that they are going to be increased yet again.

We shall gather, to call for an end to the daily violence and killing. Enough with the abuse and collective punishment of a civil population, living under military occupation!

Saturday, 21.6, 20:30, in front of the Kiria (Ministry of Defense), in Tel Aviv (Kaplan Street).

The demonstration is initiated by grassroots activists, involved in various organizations. We call upon all groups and movements to join in and endorse this initiative. Every day that goes by, is one day of silence too many!

Contact:
Vardit Goldner
+972-(
0)54-7374350
goldner.vardit@gmail.com

Juliano Died a Martyr, but his Work goes Marching on

 'My dream is that The Freedom Theatre will be a major force co-oporating with others in generating a cultural resistance carrying on its shoulders universal values of freedom and justice'           
JULIANO MER KHAMIS

THREE years ago today, on the afternoon of April 4, 2011, Juliano Mer Khamis stepped out of the Freedom Theatre in Jenin refugee camp, occupied Palestine, where he worked. He got into his old red Citroen car, with his baby son Jay, to go home.

As he set off, a man in a balaclava came out of an alleyway and told him to stop. The man then shot Juliano five times, before escaping back down the alley, throwing away his mask. Juliano, the theatre director, was killed, though Jay survived. The killer has never been caught. Nor is it known for sure who was behind this murder and what the precise motives were, though Juliano's friends and colleagues have their suspicions, and they are not the only ones.

Juliano Mer Khamis was 52 when he died, the same age as union leader Bob Crow, and like Bob at the height of his career when taken from us. Though the two men came from different countries and backgrounds, both were loved and are sadly missed; and both were hated by reaction, because though they worked in different ways, both were men of the Left.

Juliano Mer Khamis was an Israeli citizen, and his mother was Arna Mer Khamis, who came from a Zionist family and served in the left-Zionist fighting force the Palmach (as did Ariel Sharon). In the 1948 war she drove a jeep. It was only after the war, when the forces of the new State were used to clear Bedouin in the south, that the young woman began to ask herself what she supported, and look for other ideas.  This led her to the Communist Party, and it was at a party conferene that she met Saliba Khamis, who came from a Greek Orthodox family. He was active in the party in Nazareth, where it came to lead the city council, and he wrote article for the party paper al-Ittihad. 

Arna had been a teacher, but was sacked for marrying an Arab. Welcomed by her new family, she was less well regarded by her Jewish relations, and badly treated in hospital when Juliano was born in 1958. After her death from cancer in 1995 it was almost impossible to find a cemetery where she could be buried.

Although Saliba Khamis was a communist in politics he was not so progressive or liberal as a Dad. Juliano later said he first learned about politics ‘at the end of my father’s belt’. As a youth he tried to identify as an Israeli, serving in the army with his peers and joining the paratroops. For a time he tried dropping the Khamis from his surname.  But he could not close his eyes to the crimes and casual brutality of  the Israeli military, and his breaking point came when he was ordered to beat an elderly Palestinian man at an army checkpoint. Juliano refused, and punched his officer in the face instead. He was thrown in the slammer for refusing orders, and then dismissed from the forces.

Juliano's subsequent career had its ups and downs, from acting on stage and in films to bumming around at home and abroad, drinking, experimenting with drugs, and sleeping on a beach. He was brought to a more stable life when he met Mishmish Or, an Israeli costume designer, from misrahi (Eastern Jewish) background, moved in and became stepfather to her 2-year old daughter Keshet. Then he was persuaded to follow in his mother's footsteps, working in Jenin.

Arna was working with Palestinian mothers, trying to maintain education after the Israelis had closed schools. She took toys and banned literature to people's homes. She taught art, and invited Juliano to teach drama. In 1993, they started the children's theatre, on the top floor of Samira Zubeidi’s house. Juliano was there constantly, directing rehearsals, and filming his mother and the children for what became Arna’s Children. Samira Zubeidi was shot by an Israeli sniper. The theatre on their house was demolished. But by then Juliano Mer Khamis had become a fiend of Zakharia Zubeidi, her son, who went on to become commander of the Al Aqsa brigade of Palestinian fighters.

In 2004, Juliano brought out the film Arna's Children, which showed how the children of the camps, growing up under occupation, became fighters and martyrs. People in Jenin celebrated, and among them Zakharia Zubeidi. But afterwards, he and Juliano Mer Khamis discussed the fate of the second Intifada, and how Palestinian society and culture could resist and rebuild, rather than depend on its armed heroes.  They decided to restart the theatre.

Not everyone liked what they did. Some distrusted co-operation with any Israeli, even one like Juliano who declared himself "100 per cent Jewish and 100 per cent Palestinian" and had been on the run with their own. They resented any distraction from "armed struggle", though Juliano never condemned the fighters, and Zubeidi could hardly be accused of cowardice. Then there were those in the Palestinian Authority who didn't like anything critical of their own collaboration or corruption,and may well have taken umbrage at what young Palestinians were making of Orwell's Animal Farm.  Last but not least, there are conservative religious elements, those who object to any modern culture in their society, and are scandalised by talk of teenage boys and girls acting together on stage, and tales of immodest dress, drink and drugs - not pausing to ask where these tales originate, and whether the occupiers might be stirring the pot.

All the same there is a gap between dislike and deciding to kill somebody, and it is not often that Palestinians attack someone who comes in solidarity. Juliano was careful not to cause unecesessary offence to religious people. But as with Vittorio Arrigoni, the Italian solidarity activist murdered in Gaza, suspectedly by a salafi group, there are religious fanatics, possibly not even Palestinian, for whom the concept of solidarity against the Israeli occupation is meaningless, compared to their desire to impose their own reign of terror under the banner of religious "purity".

Whatever the circumstances of Juliano Mer Khamis' martyrdom and the motives of the murderer, or whoever sent him, it has not stopped Juliano's work. Besides its many fans and supporters in Palestine, the Freedom Theatre has won friends and admirers overseas, and a UK Friends group is preparing fundraisers and a tour in Britain.



http://www.thefreedomtheatre.org/

http://www.thefreedomtheatreukfriends.com/

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n22/adam-shatz/the-life-and-death-of-juliano-mer-khamis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittorio_Arrigoni

ARNA IN LONDON   at a vigil on the steps of St.Martin le Fields, near Trafalgar Square, remembering Palestinian children killed during the first Intifada. The woman in white with the red flower is Arna Mer Khamis.

No Olive Branch for Palestine?

ABOUT 300 people from different parts of Britain came to Westminster on Wednesday to lobby their MPs about Palestine and the Palestinians. They came to raise awareness about issues like Israel's Prawer plan for displacing Negev Bedouin, about ethnic cleansing and house demolitions, and about settlement goods still coming into the European Union.

For those MPs who are already sympathetic to the Palestinians and their rights such lobbying by constituents can be encouraging, and let them know they are appreciated. For others - well it varies. A few years ago I was gratified by the way an MP whose affiliations are far from my own appeared ready to listen, even nodding his head in apparent agreement with some of the points I made. As he suggested I followed up my visit with a memo in writing, and some literature. Over the following months I saw little sign that he had altered his views or adopted any of the points I made in the slightest.

In contrast, some friends I joined the following year to lobby their MP found him pleasantly surprised to see so many of them concerned as they were, and they in turn were pleased a few months later to see this previously "pro-Israel"  Labour MP speaking out against the Occupation. Perhaps he had just needed their bit of encouragement.

I don't suppose many of Wednesday's lobbyists were expecting lightning conversions. But all the same, after finding MPs doubtless amiable enough, and feeling you've got them listening to reason, it is upsetting to see the latest example of Britain's contribution to peace efforts.

You and I might think that assisting Palestinians to develop their agriculture and economy, and obtain international recognition, is a good way to raise their confidence in a peaceful solution, and show that your motives in proposing a "Two state" policy are genuine. That's to say the least questionable when we're talking about the Israeli government, but what about the governments claiming to speak for us in Britain - or in Germany?
Here's Amira Hass reporting in Ha'Aretz:

Germany and Britain block Palestinian bid to join international olive trade group

    European diplomatic sources claim that letting Palestinians join the council could sabotage Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
    by Amira Hass; Nov. 29, 2013

    The Palestinians have had to freeze their application to become a member state of the International Olive Council due to opposition by Germany and Britain.

    According to European diplomatic sources, German and British representatives claimed that letting the Palestinians join the council could sabotage the Israeli-Palestinian talks now taking place under American auspices. The talks’ resumption was conditioned on Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners in exchange for a Palestinian promise not to try to join various UN organizations, and not address the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

    The Palestinian application, which was prepared this summer by the Palestinian Authority Foreign Ministry in Ramallah in the name of the State of Palestine, was supposed to be voted on at an olive council meeting in Madrid this week.

    Representatives of the European External Action Service argued that the council is purely a technical organization, and therefore does not fall in the category of the organizations that the Palestinians promised not to join. Moreover, they argued, membership would give the Palestinians access to technical assistance in an industry vital to their economy. But this view didn’t sway Britain and Germany, both of which opposed the application.

    The European Union’s member states are represented on the olive council by a single joint delegation, so if these states are unable to reach a consensus on a given issue, the rule is that the EU delegation must abstain from voting.

    Therefore, despite the External Action Service’s support for their bid, the Palestinians realized that the European Union’s vote wouldn’t be cast in their favor, and preferred not to suffer a diplomatic failure. Instead, they decided to postpone their application to a more opportune moment, Palestinian officials told Haaretz.

    A German Foreign Ministry official said in a statement: “The vote in this decision has not yet taken place and will be taken by the EU, not Germany. The German position related to questions on Palestinian statehood is well known.” No British response was forthcoming.

    The Office of the European Union Representative in East Jerusalem said: “The membership to the IOC is in line with Palestinian institution-building efforts which the EU continues to support and has worked on for years. In that context, the EU looks favorably at improving Palestinian technical capacity in the olive oil sector.”

    Last October, the PA Foreign Ministry urged the International Olive Council to take urgent action to protect olive trees in the West Bank from settler attacks. It also urged the international community, and particularly members of the Quartet (the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia), to condemn these attacks.

    According to data collected by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, almost 10,000 Palestinian olive trees and saplings in the West Bank have been uprooted or damaged in direct attacks by Israelis since the start of 2013, up from about 8,500 in 2012.

    Asked about this issue, the Office of the European Union Representative in East Jerusalem told Haaretz: “The EU has condemned continuous settler violence towards Palestinian farmers and deliberate provocations against Palestinian civilians. It constantly calls on the Israeli authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice and to comply with its obligations under international law.”

I've supplied that emphasis. Anyone who has been to Palestine knows the importance of the olive trees to villages, and anyone who follows the news can imagine the heartache for Palestinian farmers of seeing centuries of care and toil uprooted by army bulldozers or set ablaze by vandal settlers.

And now we see the EU, and particularly the British and German governments, taking sides with the those wreaking destruction, and  so that peace talks getting nowhere can proceed. They would make a desert, and call it "peace".

If they are that worried about anything that might derail peace talks, they might consider another item of news:

Israel approves 829 new settlement units near Jerusalem

Allison Deger on November 25, 2013 15

Two weeks ago Prime Minister Netanyahu announced then quickly cancelled an order to build 20,000 new settlement units. He had angered American officials, pressed their limits, and then tabled Israeli expansion into the West Bank when it seemed the negotiations process was on the line. But today Peace Now announced Netanyahu is moving forward with the settlement project, approving over 800 new units north of Jerusalem in the neighborhoods of Givat Zeev, Nofei Prat, Shilo, Givat Salit, Nokdim and Amihai.

From the AFP:

    ‘The construction of 829 homes has been approved by a committee of the Israeli military in charge of the West Bank,’ said Lior Amihai, a Peace Now official.

    ‘This is yet another move that threatens to derail the peace process,’ Amihai told AFP.

    Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has warned that ongoing settlement building by Israel in the Palestinian territories threatens the future of Middle East peace talks, which stand at an impasse little more than three months after they began.

    The new homes would be built north of Jerusalem in the settlements of Givat Zeev, Nofei Prat, Shilo, Givat Salit and Nokdim, Amihai said.

The new homes are not just being plonked down anywhere in the West Bank, nor on sites chosen for their view. Nor is it a matter of meeting demand for housing, for people will have to be found to fill them, and given incentives to move. The plan approved by the military is to reinforce a barrier being built between the present Palestinian Authority centre at Ramallah, and the rightful capital in East Jerusalem. It also helps divide the Palestinian West Bank into two.

      Ari Shavit said it was a ploy to a end to a two-state solution. “The trend is clear: Within a short time the number of settlers will increase dramatically, as will their ability to block any attempt to divide the land. If it continues this way, the Netanyahu-Lapid-Bennett government will put an end to the two-state solution, the Jewish democratic entity, and the Zionist dream,” the author of My Promised Land wrote in Haaretz.

http://mondoweiss.net/2013/11/approves-settlement-jerusalem.html

That depends what "dream" you mean. As a warning Shavit's lament is already obsolete. So far as the right-wing settlers' leaders are concerned, the idea of sharing the country with anyone as equals, in whatever form or arrangement of states, is out, and democracy can be dispensed with too. They have little respect for Israeli citizens who will not join them , let alone Palestinians. They are building up their base of influence in the state, and talking to Washington hawks. It's not hard to see where they get their confidence.

There'll need to be some vigorous lobbying and campaigning to change the direction of Western help.  

Brent council urged to "Bin Veolia!"

OUTSIDE Brent's new Civic Centre, campaigners gather to make their point. But will councillors listen?

WHO takes decisions in the local council? If it is the elected councillors, why would they be shy about talking with the public on some issues, and leave it to full-time officers?

Brent's Labour-led council, in North-West London, has taken some unpopular decisions in the past couple of years, such as closing six local libraries, as it tried like others to conform to the government's austerity drive. The case of the Counihan-Sanchez family, made homeless by the callous interpretation of council rules above human duty, is only the tip of the iceberg of housing failure.

To be fair, unlike his predecessor, council leader Mohammed Butt has been prepared to talk to local trades unionists, and listen to what they had to say, and he was persuaded to add his voice to concern over NHS cuts in the area. But whether this has meant any real change in council policy is another matter. Long gone are the days when Brent and its Labour Party were associated with outspokenly left-wing policies.

Indeed, on some issues the councillors don't seem to be very outspoken at all, preferring to leave it to full-time officers employed by the council to lay down the law.

Yesterday evening a group of protestors gathered outside the new Brent Civic Centre, overlooked by Wembley stadium, to back a delegation presenting a petition signed by hundreds of local residents, calling on the council to exclude the French-based company Veolia from the Public Realm contract procurement process. The contract worth up to £250m over 16 years will be awarded by the Brent Executive at their October 14th meeting. Already strongly criticised over its performance in previous council contracts, Veolia wants to expand its reach from waste disposal to parks and open spaces, and other amenities. It has been short listed along with Enterprise and Serco.

Veolia has been the subject of an international campaign because of its operations in occupied Palestine, including the use of controversial landfill sites as well as the Jerusalem Light Railway (JLR) and 'bus services linking illegal Jewish settlements. Palestinians say the continued expansion of these settlements is an obstacle to peace. The bloc around Arab East Jerusalem separating it from its hinterland reinforces Israel's unilateral annexation, which British and other governments have not recognised, and accompanies the ethnic cleansing of the capital.

Addressing Brent council's planning executive last night, Liz Lindsay from the 'Bin Veolia' campaign and Brent and Harrow Palestine Solidarity, said "Just as pension funds are concerned about ethical investment we believe the council should be concerned about ethical procurement".

Outlining the company's involvement in the West Bank, Liz cited the Jerusalem Light railway, bus routes using the "Apartheid road" 443 lining settlements, and the Tovlan landfill site. "Veolia therefore profits by actively supporting Israel’s continued violation of international humanitarian law", she said.

"Under Public Contracts Regulations, a public body may exclude a bidder or reject a bid where it is found the organisation has ‘committed grave misconduct in the course of their business’
In 2009, the UN General Assembly called on Israel to cease the dumping of waste  in occupied Palestinian land.

"In 2010, UK was one of countries that voted in support of the UNHR Council resolution that stated JLR operated by Veolia is in clear violation of International Law and relevant UN resolutions.
In 2012, Richard Falk UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the OPT concludes that
– Veolia’s grave breaches of the UN Global Compact make it an inappropriate partner for any public institution, especially as a provider of public services. Also, Veolia was forced to withdraw JLR recruitment advertisements because they discriminated against Palestinians.

"Locally,  West London Waste Authority, Ealing, Harrow, Richmond did not select Veolia as the preferred bidder and all had been involved in discussions with anti-Veolia campaigners. Veolia withdrew after 2 years from the final stages of the £4.5bn North London Waste Authority  procurement when they were one of only two bidders left.

"As Veolia has become the target of worldwide campaigns, Veolia  has tried to waive responsibility, claiming in 2011 for example that it had sold Tovlan. However,  on the 17th Jan 2013, the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection –in response to FOI by a Women's Peace Group in Tel Aviv confirmed that Veolia is the sole owner and operator of Tovlan. We informed Brent Council of this on the 14th March but Veolia repeated its claim on 21st May 2013. The Council does not appear to have challenged this misrepresentation.

"In June 2013, an Israeli Court fined Veolia 1.5 million shekels for burying mixed waste to avoid higher fees and for keeping inconsistent records. Brent Council should seriously question any information that Veolia provides in its defence in its bid to win the contract".

Rejecting claims that Veolia UK and Veolia in Israel were separate companies, Liz Lindsay reminded Brent Council of its pride in representing a very diverse population, and stated commitment to equality and opposing racism. The council had shown this by its stand against the Home Office's racist poster van touring the borough, and UK Border Agency raids at some local stations.

"Human rights issues are at the core of the Council's values.

"Our campaign has been supported by members from many religions and non-religious residents, by members of the Labour, Lib Dem and Green parties, by Brent TUC, trade unions,  GCs of Brent Central,  and Hampstead and Kilburn Labour Parties and local members of Jews for Justice for Palestinians.

"We call on the Executive to take a principled stand on the issue of Veolia's collusion in the abuse of the human rights of Palestinians in the occupied territories and to take action by excluding Veolia from the £260m Public Realm contract."

After this appeal, which was warmly applauded from the public gallery, the chair announced that the executive would be referring the petition to Fiona Ledden, head of procurement, for consideration, and she would then reply to the campaigners. With this assurance, the Bin Veolia delegation left.

According to the official handbook,
Fiona Ledden is the Director of Legal and Procurement and also the Borough Solicitor.
She joined Brent in March 2010.Fiona has the overall responsibility for the procurement strategy and policy across the council. The procurement team ensures that the council achieves the best possible service at the best possible cost from the suppliers that it works with across all services within the council.


Nothing there about the political and moral questions that might be involved, nor even conditions of staff. But then Ms.Ledden, however well qualified and efficient, is not an elected councillor, but a professional there to give expert advice, rather than take decisions.  Is that not so, councillors? 
      

VEOLIA campaign has wide support in a very diverse borough.

Veolia Withdraws

(From North London bid, not yet from West Bank)

IT was like a surprise Xmas present - a piece of Yuletide cheer delivered in an official announcement from the North London Waste Authority, and dated December 21, 2012:      

"The North London Waste Authority has received notification from Veolia Environmental Services that they will not be submitting final tenders for either NLWA’s waste services or fuel use contracts. Veolia had been shortlisted for both contracts and, in withdrawing, Veolia has confirmed that the decision has no bearing on the quality and integrity of the projects".

The statement went on to say more about the £4.5 billion contracts, but that first par was enough to bring joy to campaigners who wanted Veolia kept out, because of the French-based company's involvment in running a transport service linking Israeli settlements encircling East Jerusalem, and more recent reports on its use of toxic landfill sites in the occupied Jordan valley.

The issue of landfill sites and toxic waste was raised by B'Tselem, the civil rights group in Israel,in a report in 2009, and by Camden-Abu Dis Friendship Association (CADFA) in north London.  .  

In September 2011 the Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace weote directly to London local councillors urging that Veolia be excluded from the bidding. The peace women warned that Veolia's profitable activties in the Occupied West Bank were contributing to a violation of human rights by strengthening illegal settlements, and thereby helping to obstruct any real peace process.

More recently Professor Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories produced a report in which Veolia was singled out for critiism.

Members of organisations like the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the No To Veolia Action Group (No2VAG) have been campaigning against Veolia’s bid, speaking to trades union and other bodies and doing their best to make sure councillors could not claim ignorance when making their decision.

Yael Kahn, chair of No2VAG said, “Our strategy to force councillors to seriously consider and publicly debate the issues at stake and the further actions planned No2VAG played a critical role in achieving our aim of eliminating Veolia from the NLWA procurement process.”

Not content with making the moral case against Veolia, No2VAG went into the technical critique, as Yael explains:

Part of our strategy to block Veolia's bids was to expose the financial & technical failings of its proposals, such as that it wasn't cost effective and worse for the environment: our engineer and No2VAG secretary, Rob Langlands, showed Veolia's solution wasn't actually CHP [Combine Heat and Power], in spite of misleading claims by Veolia and the NLWA. Similarly, we also informed the media, councillors and Council Leaders of the shortfalls of the NLWA project itself. We raised issues such as that the cost per tonne was to triple for a solution not a lot different than the existing one and that the total wast arisings [tonnage of waste] was over inflated. Indeed the secrecy shrouding the project has recently started to be questioned and more importantly the actual premise of the project.
http://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/waste-management/veolia-withdraws-from-nlwa-procurement

The response from councils varied.

In Hackney, a Labour councillor had wanted to introduce a deputation on Veolia, and the council's lawyers said this was acceptable. Caroline Day of the No2 Veolia campaign had been due to address the councillors. But on November 21, Hackney council voted not to receive the deputation. The blocking motion was poposed by Linda Kelly, a former Labour councillor who defected to the Tories.  It received support from Mayor Jules Pipe who said "Hackney Council does not have a foreign policy."

But reports in the Hackney Gazette and the Jewish Chronicle say Hackney councillor Luke Akehurst, director of campaigns at "We Believe in Israel", an offshoot of the professional lobby group BICOM, was "instrumental" in getting the deputation blocked, and that David Lewis, secretary and treasurer of UK Lawyers for Israel, helped Cllr.Kelly draft her blocking motion.

“We didn’t want the deputation to be heard by the council if we could find a way of preventing it,” David Lewis said. “We are there to defend Israel against demonisation and consider the No2Veolia campaign as part of the demonisation exercise.”

Cllr.Kelly's motion was supported by Tories, Lib Dems and most Labour councillors. The party whips were on, and only two Labour councillors abstained.

It was a different story in Waltham Forest on December 13, where Irfan Akhtar of Waltham Forest Council of Mosques and the No to Veolia campaign was allowed to address the council meeting and make the case against hiring Veolia. Although Irfan only had three minutes to speak, he was also able to present a petition signed by 4,000 residents.

The North London Waste Authority covers the boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Waltham Forest.

Veolia's withdrawal was announced a year to the day after it failed to make the shortlist for the West London Waste Authority 25 years residual waste management contract covering the boroughs of Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Ealing, Richmond and Brent. It cannot be said with certainty that Veolia's operations in the West Bank influenced that decision, as the company was under criticism in some of these boroughs on other grounds.

Nevertheless we learned that more than 600 residents had written to the West London Waste Authority expressing concern at Veolia and human rights, and I'm pleased to say Brent trades union council lent its support to the campaign.

This year I joined a picket on Camden town hall on December 10, Human Rights Day, at the invitation of No2VAG and the Camden-Abu Dis Friendship Association, to oppose expanding settlements and occupation. We distributed leaflets against Veolia's waste bid and collected signatures from passers by, and I also sold a few Jewish Socialist magazines while I was there. An aggressive young Zionist gentleman who came along to accuse us of being "antisemites" and supporters of Hamas eventually got frustrated and started shouting that we were "terrorists" before being escorted away by police while we completed our work.

Just thought I'd mention my part in thwarting the French multinational, for those of you who think I only sit at my keyboard sounding off these days, and for a Mr.Scott Rickard, whom I'm told has me listed as an "Israeli hasbaranik" (propagandist) for some reason.  I've no idea who Mr.Rickard is or where he gets his disinformation, though I see Press TV cites him as a "former US intelligence linguist". His list appears to have been removed from Facebook or rendered inaccessible, but before I heard I was on it I was told that several friends with impeccably pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist credentials were listed before me, so I would not dream of asking for my name to be removed.

Besides, I am already on the meshuggana Zionists Massada list of terrorist enemies of Israel, and I believe the US-hosted Redwatch site run by British Nazis also has me listed quite accurately as a Jewish Red and union militant, so why should I worry about making it onto another list?  It's the nearest we plebs get to being in Who's Who, and while the nutters are busy compiling their lists they are not doing anything else.     

http://no2vag.wordpress.com/2012/12/21/press-release-of-no2vag-on-victory-against-veolia/

http://hackneycitizen.co.uk/2012/11/29/hackney-mayor-backs-conservative-bid-to-block-anti-veolia-deputation/ 

http://hackneycitizen.co.uk/2012/12/21/veolia-dumps-bid-north-london-waste-contract/

http://brentpsc.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/veolia-out-of-west-london-waste.html

Three Days on a 45 year Occupation

HIS name is Muhammad Slayma, and until this week he was just another lad growing up in the West Bank city of Hebron.  A good sports player and popular with his schoolpals perhaps, but not otherwise outstanding.  Then yesterday, after celebrating his 17th birthday at school (above) Muhammad was on his way to pick up another cake for home from the bakers when he became a victim of the 45-year long occupation of his homeland.  Another martyr for the resistance.

The Israeli occupation forces say he ignored a shouted order to stop. Friends say he was hard of hearing. The soldiers said he was shot after brandishing a gun. It turned out to be a toy. He was reportedly shot six times.

Today an Israeli group called " We are all for death to terrorists". proudly posted a picture of the woman said to have shot the boy dead. The text said n Hebrew "this is Nofar Mizrahi class instructor Unit 25 Border Police Judea and Samaria, that shot a terrorist in Hebron".

On the streets of Hebron, the killing of this "terrorist" with a toy gun brought crowds of youth out on the streets  to clash with Israeli troops who fired tear gas.  At one point some soldiers who were cornered took refuge in a bitchers shop, whether from fear or to avoid shooting more teenagers. Not everyone wants to be celebrated by the death cult.
        

It was just another day in the world's longest running occupation, that has gone on for 45 years and six months. But it comes as the Netanyahu government wants to punish the Palestinians and hold up two fingers of scorn to the UN for giving what's left of Palestine some recognition.  It has already held up funds which belong to the Palestine authority.

On Tuesday, to show who is boss in areas under the nominal control of the Palestinian Authority, Israeli occupation forces ransacked the offices of Palestinian human rights organizations in Ramallah.
In a statement Palestinian prisoners’ rights group Addameer said:

    At 3 am this morning, 11 December 2012, the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights office was raided by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). Four laptops, one hard disk and a video camera were taken among other materials. The IOF destroyed the office; desks, ransacked filing cabinets and files and scattered files around the office. At this moment, we are not clear as to what has been confiscated, but in the coming days we will know more about the level of destruction and damage. This is the first raid by the IOF since 2002, when the Addameer office was raided during the invasion of Ramallah.

    The offices of the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committee and the Palestinian NGO Network were also raided and ransacked last night. Addameer condemns this attack on human rights and civil society organizations, and sees it as an attempt to cripple solidarity with the prisoners movement.

NIL'IN

At 2pm on Tuesday, a group of farmers were walking towards their fields next to the apartheid wall in Ni’lin. They were spotted by two military jeeps that started hunting them as the soldiers considered the farmers to be in a “closed military area”, when really they were walking on their own land. As the farmers fled back to the village the Israeli army sent three military jeeps into the village in an attempt to surround and arrest the men. The farmers however evaded the soldiers who started chasing them through the village while shooting after them.

Many young people gathered in the streets at this point and tried to prevent the jeeps from chasing after the farmers by barricading the roads with boulders. The Israeli soldiers responded by firing live ammunition towards the youths.

This led to clashes lasting for four hours. More military jeeps charged into the village until there were 13 of them on Ni’lin land. Tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets were fired straight at homes leading to a large number of women, children and elderly people suffering from tear gas inhalation as even those staying indoors was effected. Most of the shooting taking place was however live ammunition fired straight towards the people of Ni’lin. The Red Crescent was also targeted with live bullets to prevent them from treating injured villagers during the clashes.

Three people were injured during the clashes, one from a live round entering his leg and two shot with rubber coated steel bullets in neck and head, respectively. They were taken to Ramallah hospital after the clashes and the man shot in the head was in severe condition during Wednesday.

http://www.nilin-village.org

HEBRON

Five people have been injured in clashes between Palestinian youths and Israeli soldiers in the West Bank city of Hebron, after a Palestinian teenager was shot by Israeli soldiers on Wednesday.
Dozens of Palestinian youths were reported to have thrown stones and bottles at the soldiers early on Thursday morning, while Associated Press news agency reported that the Israeli soldiers had responded by firing tear gas on the youths.

Five Palestinians were hospitalised after the clashes, reported Ma'an News Agency.
Thursday's clashes came ahead of the funeral for 17-year-old Palestinian, Muhammad Ziad Awad Salaymah, who was shot dead by an Israeli policewoman at a checkpoint in the city on Wednesday, for allegedly carrying a gun which later turned out to be "fake".

Some news agencies reported that Salaymah had been shot up to six times.
Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for Israeli police, said on Wednesday that an initial investigation indicated "[Salaymah] pulled a fake pistol. They [troops at the scene] thought it was real."

Palestinians, however, said Salaymah was unarmed, and had failed to heed orders to halt at a military checkpoint because he was hard of hearing. Protests against the shooting broke out in the Old City on Wednesday night, with Israeli forces using tear gas and live ammunition to quell the demonstrations.
"They have orders to shoot with live bullets now," a resident of Hebron told Al Jazeera on Wednesday.
(al Jazeera)


If the Israeli forces are alternately trigger happy and nervous, fearing the start of another Intifada,  the Palestinian youth are showing both confidence and anger. And as a report today in Ha'aretz notes, it is not only the Israeli military that are feeling it:

It appeared, however, that Palestinian Authority forces were unable to deal with the increasing intensity of the protests in the West Bank. The youths did not hesitate, and threw stones at the Palestinian police as well, while continuing to clash with the soldiers. A short time later, the Palestinian police left the scene, and the clashes continued.

In the past, the arrival of Palestinian police on the scene, especially in urban areas, would cause the demonstrations to disperse. Today, however, it appears that the perception of the Palestinian Authority as relatively week, has been applied to police as well. 

There was massive public support on the West Bank for the Palestinian UN recognition bid. But when the Israeli military shows  as it has in Ramallah its contempt for both the Palestine Authority and the UN, the youth show that while they support the diplomatic effort for statehood, they are not going to subordinate their struggle for justice and freedom to it.

AND A PS:
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/12/family-of-teenager-killed-in-hebron-calls-fake-gun-story-a-fabrication.html

Netanyahu needed his war

 BINYAMIN NETANYAHU and the Israeli military command have got their war. Having failed in their gamble on the US presidential election - but with little sign that Obama is going to withdraw his backing for Israel in any way - Netanyahu and his newly united right-wing party are wagering that an another onslaught on Gaza will deliver them a renewed mandate for "strong" government in Israel's forthcoming elections.

Not only Palestininian but Israeli civilian lives too are expendable in this game. While people are running to air raid shelters they won't be able to even think about tent protests on social issues, the war psychology goes.

The asymmetry between Palestinian efforts, however improved their rockets, and Israeli military might is obvious. But Israeli government spokesmen and supposedly "balanced" Western media are also keen to talk about an ongoing "threat" from Gaza, attacks going back over the years, the arrival of Iranian drones (previously denied) and not about how this current round was unnecessarily escalated.

On November 8, after a two week lull in violence, there was an Israeli military incursion into Gaza and during an exchange of fire a 12-year boy playing football in his backyard was killed by an Israeli bullet. Two days later Palestinian fighters fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli military vehicle wounding four soldiers. Israeli artillery replied, and a shell killed two children. Later a tank fired a shell which hit a tent where mourners were gathered for a funeral.

Shahd Abusalama: Had a difficult evening at Shifa hospital in Gaza which I arrived at soon after Israel attacked a funeral in Shij'iyya, western Gaza leaving 4 dead and 30 injured. I saw the injured people, many of whom were kids and women. I saw a traumatized 10-year-old boy whose leg got injured by a shrapnel. His leg was bleeding and got broken. His eyes were open wide, traumatized crying out, "Dad, I don't want to die." I met another young man who had an injury in his leg. He witnessed the Israeli tanks when they shelled the funeral. He said that he was playing football nearby with his childhood friends when they targeted the place. He survived but he lost his two childhood friends. They died right in front of him. He was uttering these words to me with indescribable strength. I think he was so traumatized to believe that what he went through was actually real. Because the first word he said to me was "It's like a nightmare". Everyone looked very shocked. It was crazy at the hospital. Injured people were arriving at the hospital one after another. There wasn't enough space for them. The operation rooms were all occupied. 5 people died as a result to the latest attacks on Gaza so far and at least 35 people were injured. Gaza will not sleep tonight as Israel warplanes are still flying heavily over Gaza. Keep an eye on Gaza!

On Sunday, November 11, civilians were injured on both sides. Israeli Transport Minister Yisrael Katz called for cutting off all supplies to Gaza and for "taking out" the Hamas leadership.

On Monday, November 12 Palestinian factions agreed to a ceasefire if Israel stopped attacks.

On Wednesday, November 13, Israel broke the informal ceasefire by assassinating Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari in an air strike.

What we now know is that Jabari was about to sign an agreement making the ceasefire official and permanent. If anyone among the Hamas leaders had both the authority and forces to order a stop to rocket firing it was Ahmad Jabari. And according to Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin, who helped mediate talks between Israel and Hamas in the deal to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit,  Jabari was assassinated just hours after he received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel, which included mechanisms for maintaining the ceasefire.

Baskin says Jabari was no man of peace, but aware of Palestinian losses, would have seen the truce as a chance to rebuild their strength in Gaza. However the truce would also have offered the chance to end the blockade and begin talks that might lead towards peace. And evidently the Israeli government and armed forces acted to prevent that happening.

They deliberately pushed Hamas into a corner where it was bound to retaliate.

There was another development, within Israel, that may have motivated the decision and the timing. Israel's cities have seen continued protests over housing, food prices, and other social issues in the last couple of years. This movement was shaking up the usual "security"-dominated politics, and in some places uniting Jewish and Arab citizens.
 
But most significantly, the military-led consensus has been challenged in the very area presented as under threat  from Gaza, the town of Sderot and nearby settlemts. This is what a group of Israeli residents of Sderot wrote to their Prime Minister just a week ago:

"We, members of 'The Other Voice' from the communities near the Gaza Strip, urge the Government of Israel to stop playing with our lives, and immediately open diplomatic contacts with the Hamas government! We are tired of being sitting ducks in a shooting range serving political interests. Missiles from there and bombing from here do not protect us. This country has tried long enough, over years, the games of war and of brute force. Both sides have paid, and are still paying, a high price of suffering and loss. It's time to talk and strive for long-term understandings which will enable citizens on both sides of the border to live a normal life".

'The Other Voice' is a group of residents of Sderot and Gaza Vicinity communities, who maintain an ongoing contact with residents of the Gaza Strip, and promote neighbourly relations and dialogue, in the south and throughout the country."

 How better to put a stop to this kind of peace talk than start a war going, and drive people literally underground to their bunkers?. 

Nevertheless there have been demonstrations against this war, or as some frankly called it, massacre of Gaza civilians, starting with people protesting outside Defence Minister Ehud Barak's house, and followed by bigger demonstrations in both Tel Aviv and Haifa.

Demonstration in Tel Aviv

Hopefully this opposition will grow as more people realise the truth, that this war was unnecessary, except for Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Lieberman's political purposes.

Here is Gershon Baskin interviewd on the US Democracy Now programme:

"Well, Jabari, as the leader of the military wing of Hamas, Izz al-Din al-Qassam, was the person who was called on by the Egyptians and by his own leaders to enforce previous ceasefire understandings that were reached between Israel and Hamas after each round of rocket fire emerged over the past years. With the increasing intensity of the rocket fire and the shortening of the periods of ceasefires between myself and my counterpart in Hamas—we worked together on the Shalit prisoner exchange deal—Razi Hamed, the deputy foreign minister, proposed to the parties that they enter into a long-term ceasefire understanding with mechanisms that define what are breaches and what are not breaches and how to deal with emerging situations that are defined by Israel as impending terrorist attacks. I had written a draft about eight months ago. The draft was circulated around to Israeli officials, Hamas officials, the Egyptian intelligence and the United Nations. It was rejected, or it was decided by Hamas and Israel at that time not to decide, not to make a decision on it.

"About about a month ago, when the intensity of the fighting continued again, Razi Hamed and I decided to give it another chance, and we talked together and tried to make the proposal that I had initially written a little bit less complex, easier to understand or perhaps easier to implement, and it was also designed as a trial period of between six—three to six months. I met Razi Hamed last week in Cairo. We talked about it. He went to begin showing it to the Hamas officials. He showed it to some Hamas officials sitting in Cairo. They told him to go back to Gaza and to show it to the military and political officials back in Gaza, and he did that on Wednesday morning. He was showing it around to Ahmed Jabari and other people. I was supposed to receive from him that evening a copy of the draft that he had written in Arabic for me to deliver to the Israeli side and to the Egyptian intelligence, which I was not able to do in the end.
AMY GOODMAN: Because he was assassinated.
GERSHON BASKIN: That’s right.

Gershon Baskin and Mohammed Omar on Democracy Now 

We have to depend on independent media and social networks for news when sources like the BBC are so craven:
http://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-assaults-gaza-bbc-reporting-assaults-truth/11894#comment-11211

Compassion is Contraband!

ISRAELI planes have reportedly used white phosphorus again in an attack on Gaza, while in Israel itself three peace campaigners were remanded after appearing in court with taser burns and other injuries sustained when commandos boarded the ship, the Estelle in international waters, and taken it into Ashdod.

The Estelle, sailing to Gaza from Sweden, had some 30 people on board including five European MPs and the three Israelis, Elik Elhanan, Reut Mor and Yonathan Shapira. The vessel was carrying an aid cargo including cement, children's books and footballs, as a gesture of friendship to Gaza's children and defiance of Israel's blockade.

Also on board was Dror Feiler, an Israeli-born Swedish citizen and leading member of European Jews for Just Peace. Swedish authorities have asked the Israeli government why Dror was taken away from the other Swedes on board, and expressed concern for his welfare. A musician and former paratrooper, born on kibbutz Yad Hanna, Dror was beaten and robbed by his Israeli captors when taking part in a previous voyage.

The three Israeli citizens joined the Estelle a few days before, coming by spedboat from Greece and evading the Greek Coast Guard. With them came the MPs from Greece, Sweden, Spain and Norway.

In an e-mail message to Adam Keller of the Israeli group Gush Shalom, before the Israeli naval commandos stormed the Estelle, Yonathan Shapiro, a former Israeli air force helicopter pilot, said that in deciding to join this humanitarian aid mission he was continuing what he started in 2003, when he and other pilots signed a letter refusing to take part in offensive operations against the Palestinians.

Shapiro was detianed previously when sailing with a Jewish Peace ship to Gaza in 2010.
  

The Estelle's passengers were warned in a message from the Government of Israel, passed by the Finnish Foreign Ministry, that they would be taken into custody in Israel and that they might be prosecuted for "illegal entry into Israel." They asked the Finns to relay back their answer – that they had no intention of or interest in trying to enter Israel, and that their sole purpose is to reach the Gaza Strip which is not part of Israel and from whose inhabitants they got an explicit invitation.

The three Israelis appeared in court this morning, charged with violating Disengagement Law, incitement, incitement to rebellion and aiding the enemy; and  'infiltration' (though as a friend in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign remarks, why Israeli passengers would leave Israel  to travel to Gaza to then 'infiltrate' Israel via Gaza is rather puzzling!  Perhaps the nabt will have to be charged with aiding "infiltrators", since it brought them into Ashdod.

The State's request that the hearing be held behind closed doors for reasons of national security was denied by Judge Orit Hadad. Shapira rejected the IDF's version which said that the vessel was seized without the use of force. "Fifteen warships surrounded our ship to stop some peace activists," Shapira said upon entering the courtroom. "Masked soldiers boarded the ship and took control using taser guns."

Rami Elhanan, Elik's father, said: "Of course they were tasered. Our children are not liars. We saw the burn marks on Elik's hands. Elhanan, a member of the Israeli-Palestinian Forum for Bereaved Families, who lost his daughter Smadar in a suicide bombing that took place on Ben-Yehuda street in Jerusalem 15 years ago, took part in the Gaza flotilla two years ago.

 Elhanan also rejected the IDF's report that claimed there was no humanitarian cargo on board the vessel."This claim is untrue ..... There were toys on the ship, medicine; they are just not telling the truth."
An IDF official said: "The IDF operated according to the law and does not intend to confront the claims of those which we view as outlaws."

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/press_releases/1350738950/

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israeli-activists-arrested-on-gaza-bound-ship-idf-soldiers-used-force-against-passengers.premium-1.471386#

Rachel and the Miners

"Only thing missing is Cat(erpillar) logo on the dozer". Otherwise, Carlos Latuff's cartoon sums up how judgment is widely seen.

ISRAEL and South Africa are supposed to be opponents.Leaders who claim credit for triumphing over Apartheid have rightly taken stands against what some - including some Israelis -dub "Apartheid Israel". But this week, for all their differences, South Africa and Israel appeared less like principled opponents, more like competitors in injustice.

Nine years after the death of American human rights activist Rachel Corrie, who stood in the path of an Israeli bulldozer in the southern Gaza Strip, an Israeli judge has delivered his considered verdict that the young American was responsible for her own death.

In South Africa, even before an inquiry set up by President Jacob Zuma had met to commence its work, the 270 miners arrested during the strike at the Marikana platinum mine have been charged with the murder of 34 colleagues who were shot dead by police.

The murder charge – and associated charges for the attempted murder of 78 miners injured at the Marikana mine near Johannesburg – was brought by the national prosecuting authority under an obscure Roman-Dutch common law previously used by the Apartheid regimr. .

The move came as the men appeared in court charged with public violence over the clashes at the Lonmin platinum mine on 16 August.

According to a police spokesperson the officers who opened fire were defending themselves after coming under fire themselves from a charging mob, who were armed and had already killed two officers and some strikebreakers earlier that week. But on TV we clearly saw police standing and firing automatic weapons, not attempting to take cover, while the crowd supposely advancing on them could not be seen.

In fact, post-mortem examinations revealed that most of the 34 victims of the police action on August 16 were shot in the back while a smaller number were shot while facing forward, Johannesburg's Star newspaper reported citing sources close to the investigation.

Over 150 complaints have been filed with the Independent Police Investigative Directorate over the alleged torture and assault in police custody of miners who were arrested following the violence.

Rachel Corrie was killed on March 16, 2003, in an area where Israeli forces were clearing a widening corridor between Palestinian homes and the Egyptian border, so their patrols could operate without interference. Earlier in the week she and other ISM volunteers had tried to shield Palestinian workers who were trying to repair a well. On the day she was killed the Israeli bulldozers were advancing on homes and vegetable gardens, destroying glasshouses.

The Israeki military said the bulldozer which killed Rachel Corrie was only clearing "vegetation and rubble", and that the driver, with limited visibility through a narrow armoured window could not see her over the pile of earth in front of his blade.

Eye-witness Joe Carr, another of the volunteers, described it differently:

"Still wearing her fluorescent jacket, she knelt down at least 15 meters in front of the bulldozer, and began waving her arms and shouting, just as activists had successfully done dozens of times that day.... When it got so close that it was moving the earth beneath her, she climbed onto the pile of rubble being pushed by the bulldozer.... Her head and upper torso were above the bulldozer's blade, and the bulldozer operator and co-operator could clearly see her. Despite this, the operator continued forward, which caused her to fall back, out of view of the driver. [sic] He continued forward, and she tried to scoot back, but was quickly pulled underneath the bulldozer. We ran towards him, and waved our arms and shouted; one activist with the megaphone. But the bulldozer operator continued forward, until Rachel was all the way underneath the central section of the bulldozer".

The driver said that if he had to do it again he would.

Nine Palestinians were killed that week. Because Rachel was an American, US officials said there should be a full inquiry, and Rachel's parents sought legal action.

Nine years later, Judge Oded Gershon of the Haifa District Court has produced a 162 page report from which my friend and fellow-blogger Adam Keller quotes a sample:

"The Philadelphi Route was the arena of constant war, of ongoing sniper fire, rocket fire and explosive charges. None other than combat soldiers ventured there... The bulldozer crew was conducting a clearing operation under fire. The late Rachel Corrie chose to take a risk, which ultimately led to her death... The deceased had gotten herself into a dangerous situation... She did not stay away, as any sensible person would have done. The deceased's death was caused by an accident which the deceased brought on herself, despite the attempts of the IDF troops to remove her and her friends from there... Under the circumstances, the IDF unit's conduct was impeccable."

Adam himself served in the IDF (and spent some time in the stockade after tanks he was guarding were mysteriously daubed overnight with the words "Down With the Occupation!"). He acknowledges that the corridor where Rachel Corrie was killed was indeed a battle zone, where Palestinians had vented their rage at Israeli forces maintaining the siege of Gaza, and men were killed on both sides.

'

'Still, Judge Gershon was certainly not accurate when he wrote that combat soldiers were the only people there, in the hell of the battlefield called The Philadelphi Route. Very many, civilians were there, too - men and women, elderly and children – in their thousands and tens of thousands. The civilians were there because it was their home, the only home they had - even if it was quite miserable. They had lived there before it became the scene of battle and before it came to be called Philadelphi. Many of them had come to live there because their original homes had become a battle zone in a previous war, the one which convulsed this country in 1948. And they stayed there, even when it had become the Philadelphi battle zone and the Philadelphi corridor became an arena of battle, even when some them got killed by the bullets of snipers and the explosion of explosive devices, because they literally had nowhere else to go.

'And then somebody conceived a brilliant idea. The man's name was Yom Tov Samia, and he was an outstanding officer in the Israel Defense Forces who climbed fast through the ranks until he became Commanding General South. And General Samia had an idea how to win the lost war along the Route. To take up "clearing" - a word invented by the Israel Defense Forces, the kind of word which armies make up to hide horrors behind neutral words - on a truly grand scale. To create a "sterile" space, completely sterile and without life, a kilometer or two wide. A completely flattened area with no houses and no people and no animals and no plants, nothing but soldiers and weapons of war moving in safety, as they could notice from far any possible threat and take action to neutralize that threat. In purely military terms, it must be said, there was some logic to this idea. Only, it implied the destruction of thousands of houses in which tens of thousands of people lived, half or three quarters of a city called Rafah.

'Probably General Yom Tov Samia would have liked to do it all at once, in one blow, to erase "shave off" all these thousands of houses in a single day and by the next complete the sterilization of the area. But this might have caused a bit too much of an international stir, become an instant item of "Breaking News" on CNN and other networks, and the political echelon did not give its approval. So the Caterpillar D-9 bulldozers were set to working by the good old method of creating "facts on the ground" bit by bit, acre by acre. Each time they erased and "shaved off" another row of houses, sometimes twenty, sometimes thirty. Usually the residents of these houses managed to jump out and run at the last minute, but some were not quick enough and were buried under the ruins of what had been their homes. In the city of Rafah, photos of those victims were printed and pasted on the walls, but media outlets in the wider world were not really interested.

'That was the time when volunteers started arriving on the scene, the people of the International Solidarity Movement, ISM. Yes, that organization to which Judge Gershon paid much attention in his verdict, stating that it was "abusing the discourse of Human Rights and morality" and that its acts are "violent in essence". Activists from Europe and America and all over the world came to the Gaza Strip and asked where Palestinians were most suffering from the occupation's harshness and were in greatest need of assistance and international solidarity. And they were told that Rafah was such a place. And they came to Rafah and were hosted by families on the very front line, where their hosts already knew that they were next in line for the D-9's.

'And there were activists who after months in besieged Rafah went to rest and freshen up in their own quiet and safe homes at Copenhagen or Barcelona or Sydney - or Olympia in the State of Washington in the United States - and when they returned to Rafah they found that the house where they had stayed the last time no longer existed, not a trace of it left, and the plot on which it had stood had become part of the sterile space. Another house, which had been further back, was now the new front line.

And then they decided to do what a person who cares, who cares very very much, could to do in such a situation. To go unarmed into the battlefield and arena of war called the Philadelphi Route. To stand with empty hands against tanks and bulldozers, and to scream and cry out towards those who did not really want to hear. To face empty-handed and unarmed the might of the Israel Defense Forces. To interpose with their bodies and interfere with implementation of the brilliant strategic plan of General Yom Tov Samia.

Maybe there is something in what Judge Oded Gershon wrote. A sensible person – the kind of sensible person which Judge Gershon himself is, and his friends and acquaintances - would not have done it. Judge Oded Gershon would certainly not have seriously considered facing with his bare hands a giant bulldozer, nearly as big as a house. "The deceased had knowingly gotten herself into a dangerous situation." There is no doubt that she did. A very dangerous situation. Jewish and world history marks a young boy named David, who knowingly placed himself in a very dangerous situation, facing a fearsome giant called Goliath. It might be that he was not a very sensible person, either.

'"The bulldozer driver and his commander had a very limited field of view. They could not notice the deceased" wrote Judge Gershon. One might add that also the commander of the commander had a very limited field of view, and even the commander of the commander of the commander. A very limited field of view, in which only the immediate military considerations and objectives could be seen. A very limited field of view in which human beings could not be seen, a living city could not been as it was being destroyed and razed and erazed and made into a sterile zone. A very limited field of view where it was not possible to see a young woman who followed the dicates of her conscience and came all the way from the West Coast of the United States to Rafah in the Gaza Strip, to risk her life in a desperate act of protest.

'At the exit from the Haifa District Court, Cindy Corrie, Rachel's mother, spoke to the journalists. Hurt and shaken by the verdict she said "In that home which Rachel was trying to protect there were children. All of us should have been there, to stand with her."'

http://adam-keller2.blogspot.co.il/2012/08/empty-handed-in-battlefield.html

But from Rachel Corrie, apparently responsible for her own death because, being a member of the ISM, whose actions though unarmed were "violent in essence", she chose to place herself in the wromg place and in the path of a bulldozer, we now move on to the higher case; of the striking miners who were guilty of charging away from the police, and placing their backs in the path of gunfire.

"The law is an ass", said Mr.Bumble. But in some cases, of the two, the ass is a much more worthy beast.