Imagine the U.S. were to follow the EU lead

As reported by the Guardian:

"Future agreements between the European Union and Israel must include the explicit exclusion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank or East Jerusalem, according to a new EU directive described by an Israeli official as an "earthquake".

"The EU guidelines, adopted on 30 June, will prohibit the issuing of grants, funding, prizes or scholarships unless a settlement exclusion clause is included. Israeli institutions and bodies situated across the pre-1967 Green Line will be automatically ineligible.

"The Israeli government will be required to state in any future agreements with the EU that settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are outside the state of Israel.

"The directive, part of the 2014-20 financial framework, covers all areas of co-operation between the EU and Israel, including economics, science, culture, sports and academia. It does not cover trade, such as produce and goods originating in settlements."

"Democratic" Israel mobilizes to exclude pro-Palestinian demonstrators: Imagine that Israel might spend as much energy confronting violent settlers who victimize Palestinian civilians

BDS Lite

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement began in 2005, and as the name suggests the movement calls for boycotting Israeli products, as well as Israeli cultural, sports and and academic institutions; divesting from firms that participate in or benefit from the occupation of Palestine and the repression of Palestinians; and sanctioning Israel for its continuing occupation of Palestinian territories. The BDS movement advocates keeping the measures in place until Israel stops the occupation, treats Arab citizens of Israel fairly; and allows Palestinians to exercise the right to return to their homes and properties.

Peter Beinart, in a March 18, 2012 OPED, is at pains to oppose the BDS agenda with respect to Israel within the green line (i.e., with pre-1967 boundaries).  However, what he does urge is a boycott of products made in the occupied territories and of companies based there.  He urges that the IRS be urged and pressured to disallow tax deductions to "settler charities".  He also argues that references to democratic Israel should clearly differentiate between Israel within the green line, as opposed to "nondemocratic Israel," namely the Israeli occupied and colonized West Bank.  It is easy to see problems with Beinart's proposal in terms of the likelihood that enterprises may hide "inside the green line" and yet maintain shell companies in major settlement clusters, such as Ariel.  The distinction between BDS Lite and full BDS may be easy to maintain in theory than in fact.  Even so, Beinart's essay is an important benchmark of the recognition that unless the moral, political and economic costs of Israel's illegal settlements are raised significantly, the creeping annexation of significant swathed of the occupied territories will continue unabated.

It is somewhat surprising to find Beinart's piece in the Times, and one has to assume its appearance there is the culmination of extensive discussions at the upper reaches of the paper.  In those locales Bibi Netanyahu has been not viewed favorably, as any of a number of recent editorials attest. Anyone who has ever written OPED columns for the New York Times understands how intensely conscious the editors are of the importance of the OPED page.  Editors often play a significant role in giving shape to a piece.  Note also that headlines are not written by the authors but by the editorial staff.  The headline is "To save Israel, Boycott the settlements."

While you are pondering the Beinart piece, take time to read this article by the intrepid Amira Hass about nondemocratic Israel.

Israel's colonization of occupied territory: You say illegal, I say illegitimate, let's call the whole thing off

http://pfcmc.com/News/Press/docs/2011/sc10178.doc.htm
Headline USA Today: "Clinton says Israeli settlements are illegitimate, not illegal*"
Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, February 18, 2011:

"I think it is absolutely clear to say, number one, that it's been American policy for many years that settlements were illegitimate** and it is the continuing goal and highest priority of the Obama administration to keep working toward a two-state solution with both Israelis and Palestinians."

Amb. Susan Rice, February 20, 2011: 

"Yes, for over four decades it has been U.S.  policy to oppose settlement activity.  We view it as illegitimate and corrosive to the peace process.  I made that point clearly in our statement after the vote."

 According to Merriam-Webster:

*Illegal: "not according to or authorized by law"
**Illegitimate: "not sanctioned by law"


[How should the U.S. respond to its impudent clients, namely Israel and the PA?  In the case, of the PA, despite the personal request of the U.S. President, Mahmoud 'Abbas insisted on going forward with the doomed resolution.  As for Israel, it merrily continued it illegal colonization of occupied territory.  Michael Lame suggests punishing both parties by chopping financial aid.]

The Public Commission to Examine the Maritime Incident of 31 May 2010 The Turkel Commission

The full report runs almost three hundred pages, while "regretting" loss of life the report validates Israel's blockade of Gaza, which it argues does not constitute collective punishment of Gaza.  Of course, the blockade is an ingredient in a broader policy that aims to isolate Gaza, incapacitate the Gazan economy, and discredit and disable the Hamas leadership.  The report does not address that broader policy, of which the blockade is only a part.
The full report may be downloaded at the Commission website.

Israeli settler-hooligans burn olive groves in ‘price tag’ retaliation attack

Israeli settlers burn olive groves in ‘price tag’ retaliation attack - Times Online

One settler was arrested.

Added information from Israel Policy Forum.

Netanyahu blows off U.S. demand that construction be stopped on a site in occupied East Jerusalem

One of the hotwire issues in U.S.-Israel relations has been the status of Jerusalem. As originally conceived in the 1947 Partition resolution, the holy city was to have the "character of an international city." Until 1967, East Jerusalem was controlled by Jordan. In the 1967 war Israel captured the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and quickly declared that the city was now re-unified and that it was the eternal capital of Israel. Almost off of the world's governments reject Israel's unilateral declaration on the city, which is why there are no foreign embassies there. U.S. diplomacy has proceeded on the principle that a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would require that the city be shared, and that idea is explicitly part of the Clinton parameters, announced in December 2000.

Although the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 states that the U.S. should recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, all U.S. presidents have understood the folly of doing so.

It is going to be hard for the Obama admission to respond to the categorical Netanyahu response without addressing the status of the eastern section of city, which, of course, includes the Old City, where sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims are found. Israel's approach has often been, as it was in Netanyahu's statement of today, to declare that Jerusalem is not negotiable and Israel build what it pleases. If the Obama administration is silent on Jerusalem, it will be making a major mistake in terms of resuscitating U.S. credibility as an honest broker.

Added: American Jewish leaders share Obama's perspective on the Israel's settlements. As a result, outside of fringe groups such as the ZOA, Netanyahu has limited options for mobilizing counter-pressure on the Obama administration.

“There’s a message here for Israel,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of the dovish group J Street and one of the White House meeting participants. “The message is that there is no court of appeals, that the American Jewish community and the president share the same interest.”

Former Defense Minister Moshe Arens: Don't give in on settlements

Arens argues that the Israeli right to live in Judea and Samaria is a principle. He argues that giving up this right will put Israel on a slippery slope dealing with the U.S. He urges Netanyahu to forswear compromise and, in the end, he is confident that Israel's "staunch supporters" in the U.S. will stand by the Zionist state. He sees this as a test for the American Jewish leadership, and for the people of Israel as well.

So here we have it: Israel should continue to colonize the West Bank and East Jerusalem even if doing so leads to a reduction of U.S. support, or even a severe crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations. In the end, Israel's friends in the U.S. will smooth it all over.

As Arens himself notes, unease is growing in Israel about relations with the U.S. One suspects that many Israelis will receive the Arens' perspective with skepticism and alarm. Moreover, one senses that both Barak and Netanyahu will work to salve difference not to highlight them, as Arens proposes. Nonetheless, Arens' points are important because he reveals precisely the sort of categorical claims that no doubt inhabit cabinet debates in Israel.

On the repression of Palestinian culture in East Jerusalem:

"Imagine, if you will, living your entire life in the security line at the airport, on a bad day."

Still a con--Barak may offer 3 month "freeze"

3 month freeze would exempt 2,000 buildings: "Yediot Acharonot correspondent Shimon Schiffer reports, in the name of government sources, that the proposed freeze would not include the approximately 2,000 construction projects currently underway." Similar gestures also need to be seen for what they are, namely cons to string along gullible U.S. politicians.

Such gestures fit in with the favored tunes of the last 16 years, such as the idea that the occupied territories are "disputed territories", whereas what Obama's demand for a settlement freeze is implicitly premised on the judgement that Israel's colonization of the occupied territories is "illegitimate" (the word he evoked in Cairo). It is easy to condone the actions of a friend when the status of land is disputed, but it is hard to condone it when it is a question of right and wrong, licit vs. illicit.

Meantime, the contradictions between the position of the Netanyahu government and the Obama administration are proving hard to paper over. A previously planned meeting between Bibi and George Mitchell has been postponed. No doubt, the last thing Netanyahu wants right now is to remind Israeli voters how out of step he is with Israel's superpower benefactor and protector.

A smart U.S. policy will continue to avoid extended discussion of the yawning gap between the two governments. Instead, quiet as a whisper cues loudly signal U.S. displeasure to finely tuned ears.

Added: And 50 more homes approved for former residents of "illegal" illegal settlements.

Meantime, Wapo's Jackson Diehl believes Obama has painted himself into a corner and that he should "end the spat" with Israel. After all, he concludes, its only over a "handful of apartments". This is the sort willful distortion of reality that has helped to rationalize tacit U.S. support for Israel's colonization of the West Bank. .

Anthony Shadid: Popular culture legacies of the US occupatation of Iraq

Amira Hass on what's banned, what's not in Gaza

The few items merchants are allowed to trade in are divided into three categories: food, medicine and detergent. Everything else is forbidden - including building materials (which are necessary to rehabilitate Gaza's ruins and rebuild its infrastructure), electric appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines, spare machine and car parts, fabrics, threads, needles, light bulbs, candles, matches, books, musical instruments, crayons, clothing, shoes, mattresses, sheets, blankets, cutlery, crockery, cups, glasses and animals. Many of the banned products are imported through the tunnels and can be found in Gaza's markets.

Pasta, which had been forbidden in the past, is now allowed, after U.S. Senator John Kerry expressed his astonishment at the ban during a visit to Gaza in February. But tea, coffee, sausages, semolina, milk products in large packages and most baking products are forbidden. So are industrial commodities for manufacturing food products, chocolate, sesame seeds and nuts. Israel does allow importing fruit, milk products in small packages and frozen food products as well as limited amounts of industrial fuel.

A related article by Uri Avnery.

The U.S.-Israel chasm

Netanyahu expects Palestinians to recognize Israel as a "Jewish state", which would grant legitimacy to Israel. Yet, he is unwilling to accept a Palestinian state. As for Lieberman, the new Foreign Minister, he spurns Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

The chasm that divides the U.S., which seeks a two-state solution, from Israel, which rejects the formation of a Palestinian state, is deep. As I have noted here, it is unlikely that the divide will be bridged, and it will play into the Israeli hardliners' hands should the U.S. fall for the fantasy that Bibi Netanyahu is ready to make peace. What he is ready to do is equivocate, play to right-wing audiences in the U.S., and continue to colonize the West Bank.

In the days to come, George Mitchell return to Washington and offer his evaluation to President Obama. The U.S. reaction to Israeli obduracy will be telling. Mahmoud 'Abbas is expected to visit Washington, perhaps prior to the visit of the Israeli Prime Minister, and following the visit of Jordan's King 'Abdullah on April 21, 2009.

What is Obama made of? Israel grabs more occupied Palestinian land for settlements

West Bank Land Seized As Israel Looks to Build - washingtonpost.com
On Efrat.

Illegal Israeli settlements: Important secret report leaked to Haaretz

Introduction:

"Just four years ago, the defense establishment decided to carry out a seemingly elementary task: establish a comprehensive database on the settlements. Brigadier General (res.) Baruch Spiegel, aide to then defense minister Shaul Mofaz, was put in charge of the project. For over two years, Spiegel and his staff, who all signed a special confidentiality agreement, went about systematically collecting data, primarily from the Civil Administration.

"One of the main reasons for this effort was the need to have credible and accessible information at the ready to contend with legal actions brought by Palestinian residents, human rights organizations and leftist movements challenging the legality of construction in the settlements and the use of private lands to establish or expand them. The painstakingly amassed data was labeled political dynamite.

"The defense establishment, led by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, steadfastly refused to publicize the figures, arguing, for one thing, that publication could endanger state security or harm Israel's foreign relations. Someone who is liable to be particularly interested in the data collected by Spiegel is George Mitchell, President Barack Obama's special envoy to the Middle East, who came to Israel this week for his first visit since his appointment. It was Mitchell who authored the 2001 report that led to the formulation of the road map, which established a parallel between halting terror and halting construction in the settlements.

"The official database, the most comprehensive one of its kind ever compiled in Israel about the territories, was recently obtained by Haaretz. Here, for the first time, information the state has been hiding for years is revealed. An analysis of the data reveals that, in the vast majority of the settlements - about 75 percent - construction, sometimes on a large scale, has been carried out without the appropriate permits or contrary to the permits that were issued. The database also shows that, in more than 30 settlements, extensive construction of buildings and infrastructure (roads, schools, synagogues, yeshivas and even police
stations) has been carried out on private lands belonging to Palestinian West Bank residents."

60 Minutes

This is a sober, thoughtful and informed segment on the fading prospects for a two-state between Israel and Palestine.  The report puts the lens precisely where it should be, namely on the illegal Israeli settlements and how they thwart the achievement of a sensible solution.  

If President Obama is serious about reaching a solution, then there is no escaping the need for a tough U.S. stance on the settlements.  It has been nearly 18 years since a U.S. president (George H.W. Bush) was willing to take that sort of tough stance.

The timing of the 60 Minutes report could not have been more helpful for George J. Mitchell as he leaves for the region.  60 Minutes is consistently one of the most-watched shows in America.

If you care about this issue, then I suggest you contact the show to tell them your opinion about the broadcast.  You can be sure they will be hearing plenty from the right-wing Israel lobby.  There are comment forms on the page, but an old-fashioned snail letter or even a postcard can have much more impact because it takes a bit more effort on the viewer's part.

Mr. Leslie Moonves, President and CEO

CBS Television
51 West 52nd Street
New York, NY 10019

Amira Hass on the bifurcation of Palestine

Palestinians: divided we fall, by Amira Hass
And this companion piece, also by Hass on the two Palestinian parliaments.

The Rafah breach: opportunity? Updated II

Notwithstanding the momentary opportunity for the Gazan population to experience a few days respite from their isolation and externally-imposed impoverishment, the reality is that the strip remains dominated by Israeli power. Despite the announced withdrawal of Israeli forces from the strip in 2005, the IDF regularly intervenes there to interdict and thwart rocket attacks, to assassinate officials and militants pretty much at will, and to insure that Gaza remains sealed off from the world.

In effect, Israel is still the occupier. Even if one challenges the view that Israeli occupation continues after the breach, the fact is that the strip is still utterly dependent upon Israeli services, e.g., electricity and water, that reflects a four decade-long pattern of Israeli control. This clearly implies that Israel may not absolve itself from its humanitarian responsibilities as the occupation authority. If images of hundreds of thousands of Gaza Palestinians rushing into Egypt to buy the mere essentials of life establishes anything at all, it is the extent of collective punishment that Israel has imposed on Gaza.

Now the question is whether the breach should be seized as an opportunity to create new diplomatic momentum, or an excuse for Israel to throw away the key? As for the latter, the fact is that throwing away the key is not an option for an occupying power. Alternatively, some Israeli officials (see below), argue that the breach is nothing less than an incitement for a new Israeli invasion of Gaza, but one hopes saner minds will prevail. Meantime, as Israeli lawyers argued in response to a suit before the Israeli Supreme Court, Israel will continue to conduct what it calls "economic war" against Hamas leaders while insisting that it will not allow a humanitarian crisis to emerge in Gaza.

Hamas, for its part, has seemingly been intent to alienate external opinion. Not only has the group failed to stop rocket attacks that have killed, wounded and traumatized Israelis, especially in Sderot, but it has generally succeeded in validating the worst nightmares of many Israelis who find the prospect of dealing with Hamas risible.

The view that I have expressed here, and in several articles, is that like it or not Hamas is a fact of life in Palestinian society, and it may not be simply expunged or excluded from the political scene. In the last few days, press reports indicate that Hamas is informally cooperating with Egyptian counterparts to regulate the border at Rafah. No doubt, Hamas would love to supplant the PA as the border authority in Gaza. That is clearly an unacceptable answer from the standpoint of Israel, the PA and the United States, as well as Egypt. However, a solution that includes coordination between Hamas and the PA, with the re-institution of European security monitoring (which Hamas presently rejects), would arguably be sensible, provided that Hamas commits itself to stopping the incessant firing of crude rockets into Israel. The group previously maintained a year-long ceasefire with Israel and Israelis who have met with Hamas officials report a willingness to accept a ceasefire of decades.

In press interviews televised on al-Jazeera Abu Mazen insists that Hamas apologize for taking control of Gaza in June 2007, and recognize the authority of the PA as a precondition, and he rejects talks with Hamas otherwise. It would be prudent for influential outside powers, not least the U.S., which props up the weak Abu Mazen, to quietly tolerate rather than thwart a Fatah-Hamas dialogue in Cairo in the coming days. [Some reports indicate the talks in Cairo have produced a local level deal between the Egyptians and Hamas on the border at Rafah.[

In Gaza, Borderline Insanity | Newsweek Periscope | Newsweek.com: "A large-scale ground attack is now 'much more likely,' says Yuval Steinitz, a member of the Likud party who sits on a key defense committee. An open border, he argues, will make it easier to carry in long-range rockets too big to smuggle through tunnels. 'We have no other alternative,' Steinitz says."

Henry Siegman on Gaza's Future.