by Allen Z Hertz
United States President Barack Obama’s June 4th Cairo speech to the Muslim World sought the appearance of even-handedness in discussing the long-standing dispute between Israel and its Arab neighbours. But, read with an eye to the moral context, the Cairo speech was arguably profoundly anti-Israel. This bias was camouflaged by a dramatic reference to the Holocaust and by other acknowledgements of Jewish suffering over the centuries. Obama was likely advised that such sentiments would resonate with USA Jews. However, Israelis were too canny to be fooled by the Cairo speech, after which public opinion polls there saw his approval rate drop like a stone.
White House speech writer Ben Rhodes has said that the Cairo speech showed “frankly, just how he [Obama] personally views the conflict.” Rhodes also said that Obama mulled over every line, every word of the speech. This is significant, because with respect to Israel, the Cairo speech was marked by dissimulation and implication that tended to morally condemn the Jewish State, while largely validating the narrative of Arabs and Muslims.
The meaning of “dissimulation” includes speech calculated to cause belief in something which the speaker has not literally said. Is dissimulation dishonest? An answer depends on the context, but honest or not, dissimulation has always been one of the main elements of statecraft. Obama established his credentials as dissimulator no later than the race for the Democratic nomination. Then, his campaign staff publically acknowledged the dissimulation in his earlier promise that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.”
In Cairo, key dissimulation lay in the phrase: “America’s strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable.” These exact words were cynically chosen to elicit belief that Obama was expressing approval for current ties with Israel and promising future support. But, linguistically those two sentences neither said that he approved of those “strong bonds” nor offered a promise for the future. They were merely a bare statement of fact, presumably resting on Israel’s popularity with the USA public and in Congress. By contrast, there was both approval and a promise in the pledge that: “America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.”
Dissimulation with respect to USA support for Israel was corroborated by a later Cairo passage, where Obama threatened change by saying: “America will align our policies with those who pursue peace.” And, who will be deemed to “pursue peace” must naturally be understood within the moral parameters of “just how he personally views the conflict.” The highly conditional nature of Obama’s support for Israel was again revealed in his September 23rd UN General Assembly speech, where he implied that the USA’s “unwavering commitment” to Israel would have to be paid for by concessions to fulfill “legitimate claims and rights of the Palestinians.”
In Cairo, dissimulation was also salient with regard to Jerusalem, in relation to which Obama implied that Israel has failed to accommodate the needs of Muslims and Christians. The Cairo speech specifically spoke about working for the day when Jerusalem would be “a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra.” Here, Obama cynically calculated that non-Muslims would perceive this passage as an anodyne ecumenical reference, while Muslims would understand the Isra story as relating to the Prophet Muhammad’s alleged trip to Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque. There, the hadith says that Muhammad was validated as God’s final messenger by his prophetic predecessors, including Moses and Jesus. Thus, for Muslims, the Isra story points to their claim to Jerusalem and their belief that Islam is superior to Judaism and Christianity.
For two centuries, the political and legal doctrine of the self-determination of Peoples has been an engine of world history. The Cairo speech significantly referred to the Palestinian People at least five times without offering a hint that Arabs living around the Jordan River did not generally self-identify as a distinct Palestinian People until the mid 20th century. By contrast, the Cairo speech referred only once to the very ancient Jewish People not as proud bearer of rights but in its Diaspora persona as victim. Otherwise, Obama used “Israelis” or words that implied an “Israeli People.” Obama’s terminology thus favoured the Palestinian People and implicitly challenged Israel’s legitimacy by ignoring its key political and legal claim to embody the self-determination of the Jewish People, whose subjective-objective national identity reaches back more than three millennia. This glaring omission was implicitly acknowledged in the General Assembly speech, where Obama included one reference to Israel as “a Jewish state.”
In Cairo, Obama had nothing to say about close to 1400 years of Arab and Muslim discrimination against Jews including periodic maltreatment of Jews around the Jordan River. By contrast, he repeatedly implied that Israel is responsible for Palestinian suffering from 1948 to the present. Thus, he referred to Palestinian refugees, failures in economic and social development, “daily humiliations... that come with occupation” and a so-called “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza. Evidently, how Obama “personally views the conflict” is deeply flawed. For example, would the Middle East have had any Jewish (850,000) or Arab (726,000) refugees had Arabs locally and generally followed the Jews in embracing the 1947 UN General Assembly resolution calling for peaceful creation of two new States, the one Jewish and the other Arab?
Similarly, the Cairo speech falsely implied that Israel has been the obstacle to a two-States solution. Thus, Obama said nothing about Prime Minister Sharon’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. And, he was silent about Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas’s failure to accept far-reaching two-States offers by Prime Ministers Barak and Olmert, in 2000 and 2008 respectively. This goes to the crux of the long-standing dispute. Since the 1937 Peel Report, first Zionists and then Israel governments have repeatedly worked for partition. By contrast, Arabs locally and generally have largely rejected the principle of a Jewish State, i.e. the idea of having there an independent country to embody the self-determination of the Jewish People.
In Cairo, Obama deliberately chose to ground rights in mere suffering. This was curious, because as a lawyer Obama had to know volenti non fit injuria the Common Law principle that the plaintiff cannot recover damages to the extent that he himself has caused the harm. Moreover, plaintiffs are required to take timely steps to mitigate their losses, no matter how caused. But, the Cairo speech never asked to what extent Palestinian suffering might be the result of their own bad choices, including their share of responsibility for starting the 1948 war, which was a self-proclaimed Arab attempt to exterminate Jews living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
The Cairo speech repeatedly drew from familiar arguments of Israel’s enemies. First, though there is now no independent State called “Palestine,” the question was begged by present-tense references to Palestine that also appeared in his General Assembly speech. Second, the Cairo speech slandered Israel by seeming to compare the suffering of Palestinians with that of Black people in the USA. Third, this invidious comparison was reinforced by a gratuitous reference to “segregation” which seemed to slyly point to the canard that Israel is an apartheid State. Fourth was an inappropriate nod to White South Africa and other instances where indigenous Peoples offered “resistance” to colonial rule. Fifth was the implication that Palestinian suffering can be equated with the Holocaust, which is a grotesque and wildly inaccurate comparison that is close kin to the calumny that Israel behaves like Nazi Germany. Finally, the Cairo speech misrepresented the murder of six million Jews as the ideological basis for Israel’s creation.
As a lawyer, Obama had to know that Israel validates itself, not by the Holocaust, but by virtue of the political and legal doctrines of aboriginal rights and the self-determination of Peoples. Aboriginal rights are normally minority rights. Thus, the Jewish People claimed its right to its homeland in the same way as do the Inuit and First Nations in Canada. And, the Jewish People invoked its self-determination right exactly as does the Arab People, whose self-determination is already expressed in the 21 countries that explicitly self-identify as Arab.
The Cairo speech pandered to Arab and Muslim prejudice by ignoring the presence since pre-Biblical times of large numbers of Jews in the Middle East, including some who in each and every century lived on their ancestral lands around the Jordan River. There, of all extant Peoples, the Jewish People has the strongest claim to be aboriginal. For this reason, two decades before the Holocaust, the aboriginal rights of the Jewish People were explicitly embedded in international law by declarations, treaties and enactments from 1917 to 1922, when the League of Nations created a “national home for the Jewish People” between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Within a larger global and Middle Eastern framework, justice was done because simultaneously there was the creation or recognition of several new Arab States that were freed from Turkish rule and placed on the road to eventual independence, as was the “national home for the Jewish People.”
By ignoring the Jewish People’s aboriginal and self-determination rights, the Cairo speech could only point to an end to reciprocal suffering as a rationale for terminating Palestinian violence which was dignified as "resistance." By relying on this slender reed, Obama probably diminished prospects for peace. Thus, the Cairo speech alienated most Israelis and failed to provide Arabs and Muslims with an ideological foundation for a peaceful process to respectfully reconcile the prior rights of the Jewish People with the subsequent rights of the newly-emerged Palestinian People. The latter evidently now has rights to claim self-determination and territory, but these claims do not automatically cancel the Jewish People’s prior rights, which notably include the right of Jews not to be killed by their Arab neighbours.
Though repeated lip service was paid to Israel’s right to exist, the Cairo speech painted a moral picture that seemed to argue the contrary. Saying “threatening Israel with destruction is deeply wrong” was probably calculated to resonate with USA Jews who are grateful for Israel’s survival. By contrast, most Israelis have the commonsense to understand that their country deserves much more than mere survival. They know that Israel urgently needs the rights normally enjoyed by other countries, and that Israel must be judged according to the standards regularly applied to other States in the same or similar circumstances.
Obama’s existential focus was too starkly minimalist to accommodate Israel within the world of States, where each country is driven to advance its own economic and political interests. Given the USA’s touted “strong bonds” with Israel, Obama ought to have said less about a “right to exist” and more about USA help in advancing any number of Israeli aims. The real news here is that Obama perhaps intends to sell Israel short. This recalls national security adviser James Jones’s earlier quip that the new USA administration was not about to “throw Israel under a bus.”
The structure of the Cairo speech implausibly suggested that Iran’s race to develop nuclear weapons is today less “a major source of tension” than “the situation between Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab World.” In discussing this Iranian nuclear threat, Obama seemed to signal that he might be willing to break with a decades-old understanding that the USA would refrain from publically addressing whether or not Israel has nuclear weapons. The implication here was that Obama would perhaps be ready to make Israel’s denuclearization part of a broader deal, embracing Iran and other States in the region.
At Cairo and in the General Assembly, was Obama challenging Israel’s ideological foundations and security interests? An answer can perhaps be found in his special focus on Palestinian suffering. This disturbingly recalls the exaggerated concern for Czechoslovakia’s three million Sudeten Germans that was the moral trigger for the 1938 Munich crisis. Then, myopia on the part of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain rapidly led to the destruction of interwar Czechoslovakia, which was the only democracy in Eastern Europe.
With Europeans appearing as themselves and Palestinians as Sudeten Germans, does President Obama cast himself as Chamberlain? At Munich, the British Prime Minister earned obloquy by being eager to appease at the expense of “people of whom we know nothing.” While irresponsibly failing to face the question of Hitler’s ultimate aims, Chamberlain recklessly sought safety by catering to German demands. The General Assembly speech announced that Obama is searching for a general Middle East settlement. Is this a context in which he will betray Israel’s vital interests to the advantage of 21st century Hitlers played by Iran's leaders with the help of proxies like Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas?
A careful reading of Obama’s remarks in Cairo and at the General Assembly suggests that Obama may believe that a weaker Israel now suits the interests of the USA. If so, he should tell the American people why, instead of offering a fabric of dissimulation and implication. And, friends of the Jewish State should see Obama’s moral condemnation of Israel as a flashing red light that warns of the possibility of betrayal just as Czechoslovakia was pressured to accept an unsafe peace that was prelude to disaster.
Allen Z. Hertz was formerly senior advisor in the Privy Council Office serving Canada's Prime Minister and the federal cabinet. Earlier he worked in Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and taught history and law at universities in New York, Montreal, Toronto, and Hong Kong.
Showing posts with label Jewish refugees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jewish refugees. Show all posts
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Friday, December 4, 2009
Palestinians Uncompromising on Right of Return
As originally published in the Winnipeg Jewish Report
By Rhonda Spivak
BETHLEHEM- Although many Palestinians in the West Bank say they are interested in "peace," the vast majority of those encountered on a recent visit to the area, insisted that Palestinian refugees and their descendants have a right to return to homes and villages they left during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence.
Osama Alhrithi, a fourth-year law student at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, said that even if Israel withdrew to the Green Line[ Israel's pre-1967 borders] and all Jewish settlements over the Green Line were dismantled, any Palestinian refugee who wants to return to his home that he left in 1948 should be able to come back."There are a lot of Palestinian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon, and if they want to come back, that is their holy right," he said.
Rami Sleimyyeh, a Muslim who works as a liaison officer for the Palestinian Authority in Hebron, nodded in agreement with Althrithi. Alhrithi's view that Israel, rather than a future Palestinian state, ought to be obliged to take in waves of Palestinian refugees was typical even among those who said they supported Fatah, not Hamas. It was also the predominant view among those people whom The Winnipeg Jewish Report encountered at a conference devoted to promoting dialogue and peace, held in Beit Jalla, near Bethlehem, put on by the Israel-Palestine Centre for Research and Information this past summer.
Ra'id Abdalla Otair, director of the Palestinian Authority's ministry of health in Tulkarem, said: "All refugees in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and elsewhere should be asked to come back to their land in Israel, in Haifa, and Jaffa and Akko."
Otair, who is also the representative for the NGO, Future Vision, dismissed the possibility that Palestinian refugees would receive some form of financial compensation and return only to a future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. "People in Tulkarem like [to have] all Palestine," he said.
Badia Dweik, from Hebron who also attended the conference, said he became disenchanted with Fatah after former PA president Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo accords, because, among other things, it didn't deal with the refugee issue.
"The two-state solution is a big lie. Most of my friends are pushing for a one-state solution [where Jews would be a minority in a Palestinian majority between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River]. When there is 'one state', the Palestinian refugees can live wherever they want. Maybe the refugee can come back to the same house he left if it is still there. Maybe a refugee from Lebanon can come back to Haifa, and even if his house has been demolished, he can still live in that area."
Sumayah Soboh, a Muslim sociologist from Bethlehem, who also advocates a one-state solution, said: "Any Palestinian refugees who want can return to their land. Maybe the one state could be called 'Jew Palestina.' I am angry with Fatah for saying there could be two states. There shouldn't be a Jewish state, but just one state, one leader, one God, one people."
Soboh's sister, Mary, an occupational therapist, and her mother, Jamileh, a speech therapist, both agreed with her.
Firas Arafat, a pharmacist from Hebron, said that only if Israel returned to the pre-67 borders and dismantled all of settlements would he agree to forgo the right of return."I know [former U.S. president] Jimmy Carter just came to the Gush Etzion Jewish settlement [in June 2009] and told the Jews there that they would remain part of Israel in the future. I respect Jimmy Carter, but I don't agree. Israel must get out of every Jewish settlement in the West Bank," he said.
Mari Sadi, a Christian Palestinian artist from Bethlehem, said "We hope that all of the refugees will be able to come back. I have many relatives in Jordan and the U.S. and a lot of different lands. They are from Nazareth and Haifa and Jaffa, and they should be able to come back. They will want to come back."
Inam Mitwassi and Laila Nazzal, Christian Palestinian artisans in Bethlehem, agreed with Sadi that Israel should go back to the '67 line and Palestinian refugees should be able to return to the pre-67 Israel. Lorette Zoughbi, who runs a small patisserie in Bethlehem, said she accepted the two-state solution. "If we ask for everything, all we'll get is nothing." But then she added, "My grandfather had a house in Katamon and in Jaffa. I still have the keys. We' ll never give up our land."
Only a small number of Palestinians encountered, appeared willing to make concessions regarding the issue of Palestinian refugees. Fatima, a Muslim Palestinian said she believed "there should be a "Palestine and Israel," and she added, "We must finish this conflict. To end it, refugees should return only to the Palestinian state."
When contacted to discuss these findings, Guy Lupo, the chairperson of the dovish organization, One Voice, in Be-ersheba said that polls done by his organization have shown that "most Palestinians want recognition of their right of return, but most will not actually use the right of return."
He added that the maximum figure for the number of refugees and their descendents spead out everywhere in the world is 11 million. If one percent returned, "then we'd be talking about 100,000 people. Israelis fear that it could be 10% [ of Palestinian refugees]that return, which would be 1 million people. This issue is not something that can be solved tommorrow. But we think that there is a way to market the issue to the Palestinian people in the context of an overall agreeement. Some Palestinians will be willing to give up recognition of the right of return. Others will be satisfied with recognition only, others will agree to compensation in lieu of returning, and about 100,000 people could be allowed to return on the basis of the principle of family unification."
Rhonda Spivak is an attorney and writer. She is a member of the Canadian & Israel Bar Associations, and now edits the Winnipeg Jewish Report
By Rhonda Spivak
BETHLEHEM- Although many Palestinians in the West Bank say they are interested in "peace," the vast majority of those encountered on a recent visit to the area, insisted that Palestinian refugees and their descendants have a right to return to homes and villages they left during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence.
Osama Alhrithi, a fourth-year law student at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, said that even if Israel withdrew to the Green Line[ Israel's pre-1967 borders] and all Jewish settlements over the Green Line were dismantled, any Palestinian refugee who wants to return to his home that he left in 1948 should be able to come back."There are a lot of Palestinian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon, and if they want to come back, that is their holy right," he said.
Rami Sleimyyeh, a Muslim who works as a liaison officer for the Palestinian Authority in Hebron, nodded in agreement with Althrithi. Alhrithi's view that Israel, rather than a future Palestinian state, ought to be obliged to take in waves of Palestinian refugees was typical even among those who said they supported Fatah, not Hamas. It was also the predominant view among those people whom The Winnipeg Jewish Report encountered at a conference devoted to promoting dialogue and peace, held in Beit Jalla, near Bethlehem, put on by the Israel-Palestine Centre for Research and Information this past summer.
Ra'id Abdalla Otair, director of the Palestinian Authority's ministry of health in Tulkarem, said: "All refugees in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and elsewhere should be asked to come back to their land in Israel, in Haifa, and Jaffa and Akko."
Otair, who is also the representative for the NGO, Future Vision, dismissed the possibility that Palestinian refugees would receive some form of financial compensation and return only to a future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. "People in Tulkarem like [to have] all Palestine," he said.
Badia Dweik, from Hebron who also attended the conference, said he became disenchanted with Fatah after former PA president Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo accords, because, among other things, it didn't deal with the refugee issue.
"The two-state solution is a big lie. Most of my friends are pushing for a one-state solution [where Jews would be a minority in a Palestinian majority between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River]. When there is 'one state', the Palestinian refugees can live wherever they want. Maybe the refugee can come back to the same house he left if it is still there. Maybe a refugee from Lebanon can come back to Haifa, and even if his house has been demolished, he can still live in that area."
Sumayah Soboh, a Muslim sociologist from Bethlehem, who also advocates a one-state solution, said: "Any Palestinian refugees who want can return to their land. Maybe the one state could be called 'Jew Palestina.' I am angry with Fatah for saying there could be two states. There shouldn't be a Jewish state, but just one state, one leader, one God, one people."
Soboh's sister, Mary, an occupational therapist, and her mother, Jamileh, a speech therapist, both agreed with her.
Firas Arafat, a pharmacist from Hebron, said that only if Israel returned to the pre-67 borders and dismantled all of settlements would he agree to forgo the right of return."I know [former U.S. president] Jimmy Carter just came to the Gush Etzion Jewish settlement [in June 2009] and told the Jews there that they would remain part of Israel in the future. I respect Jimmy Carter, but I don't agree. Israel must get out of every Jewish settlement in the West Bank," he said.
Mari Sadi, a Christian Palestinian artist from Bethlehem, said "We hope that all of the refugees will be able to come back. I have many relatives in Jordan and the U.S. and a lot of different lands. They are from Nazareth and Haifa and Jaffa, and they should be able to come back. They will want to come back."
Inam Mitwassi and Laila Nazzal, Christian Palestinian artisans in Bethlehem, agreed with Sadi that Israel should go back to the '67 line and Palestinian refugees should be able to return to the pre-67 Israel. Lorette Zoughbi, who runs a small patisserie in Bethlehem, said she accepted the two-state solution. "If we ask for everything, all we'll get is nothing." But then she added, "My grandfather had a house in Katamon and in Jaffa. I still have the keys. We' ll never give up our land."
Only a small number of Palestinians encountered, appeared willing to make concessions regarding the issue of Palestinian refugees. Fatima, a Muslim Palestinian said she believed "there should be a "Palestine and Israel," and she added, "We must finish this conflict. To end it, refugees should return only to the Palestinian state."
When contacted to discuss these findings, Guy Lupo, the chairperson of the dovish organization, One Voice, in Be-ersheba said that polls done by his organization have shown that "most Palestinians want recognition of their right of return, but most will not actually use the right of return."
He added that the maximum figure for the number of refugees and their descendents spead out everywhere in the world is 11 million. If one percent returned, "then we'd be talking about 100,000 people. Israelis fear that it could be 10% [ of Palestinian refugees]that return, which would be 1 million people. This issue is not something that can be solved tommorrow. But we think that there is a way to market the issue to the Palestinian people in the context of an overall agreeement. Some Palestinians will be willing to give up recognition of the right of return. Others will be satisfied with recognition only, others will agree to compensation in lieu of returning, and about 100,000 people could be allowed to return on the basis of the principle of family unification."
Rhonda Spivak is an attorney and writer. She is a member of the Canadian & Israel Bar Associations, and now edits the Winnipeg Jewish Report
Sunday, November 15, 2009
The Philadelphia Bulletin: Israeli Bill Includes Rights Of Jewish Refugees From Arab Lands
by David Bedein
Jerusalem - Israel's Knesset Parliament passed a seminal bill last Wednesday that will affect any future Middle East peace negotiations.
According to the bill, it will not be possible for Israel to sign any diplomatic agreement with any state or foreign entity without arranging for the interests and rights of the Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
The refugees are defined, according to the UN's Refugee Convention as, "the Jewish citizens of Israel who immigrated from Arab countries in the wake of the establishment of the State of Israel and forced to leave the property that had been in their ownership in their countries of origin."
The terms received by the Jewish refugees, moreover, must be on par with the terms received by Arab refugees in the final status negotiations.
In addition, the bill says, "In any discussion on the subject of Palestinian refugees as part of peace negotiations in the Middle East, the Israeli government will raise the subject of awarding compensation for loss of property and the granting of equal status to the Arab refugees, who left their property from the day that the state was established, and Jewish refugees from Arab countries."
The background explanatory statement about the bill notes that a million and a half Jewish refugees either were expelled or fled from Arab countries and were forced to leave their homes and property since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.
The U.S. Congress passed a resolution in February 2008 stipulating that these Jews were defined as refugees in keeping with the explicit definition of the UN Refugee Convention. The bill states that the Israeli government already made the decision about registering claims of Jews from Arab countries. Now, this bill will obligate the government not only to "register" these claims, but also to include them in any future peace treaty and also in the negotiations which precede it.
View the original article in the Philadelphia Bulletin
Jerusalem - Israel's Knesset Parliament passed a seminal bill last Wednesday that will affect any future Middle East peace negotiations.
According to the bill, it will not be possible for Israel to sign any diplomatic agreement with any state or foreign entity without arranging for the interests and rights of the Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
The refugees are defined, according to the UN's Refugee Convention as, "the Jewish citizens of Israel who immigrated from Arab countries in the wake of the establishment of the State of Israel and forced to leave the property that had been in their ownership in their countries of origin."
The terms received by the Jewish refugees, moreover, must be on par with the terms received by Arab refugees in the final status negotiations.
In addition, the bill says, "In any discussion on the subject of Palestinian refugees as part of peace negotiations in the Middle East, the Israeli government will raise the subject of awarding compensation for loss of property and the granting of equal status to the Arab refugees, who left their property from the day that the state was established, and Jewish refugees from Arab countries."
The background explanatory statement about the bill notes that a million and a half Jewish refugees either were expelled or fled from Arab countries and were forced to leave their homes and property since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.
The U.S. Congress passed a resolution in February 2008 stipulating that these Jews were defined as refugees in keeping with the explicit definition of the UN Refugee Convention. The bill states that the Israeli government already made the decision about registering claims of Jews from Arab countries. Now, this bill will obligate the government not only to "register" these claims, but also to include them in any future peace treaty and also in the negotiations which precede it.
View the original article in the Philadelphia Bulletin
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
The Philadelphia Bulletin: Shocking Conclusions From Inquiry Over Gaza Expulsions
by David Bedein
An Israeli soldier keeps watch at a machine gun post atop a guard tower overlooking the Jewish settlement of Netzarim and surrounding Palestinian lands inside a small army base contiguous with the settlement, several kilometers inside the Gaza Strip on Oct. 26, 2003. An Israeli government commission has released a report criticizing the government for its handling of the last pullout of settlements from Gaza. (Brennan Linsley/Associated Press)
JERUSALEM - Four years and two months have passed since Israel expelled Jews from their homes in the Katif district of Gaza and from Jewish communities in Northern Samaria, after which the government bulldozed their homes and property, an official Israel state commission of investigation nto the Israeli government's handing of these deported Jews has issued its interim report.
The Israeli government investigation commission has concluded that the Israeli prime minister must take all practical steps for immediate and decisive action. “The state’s handling of the evacuees was tainted with failures. The obligation and stated purposes of the Israeli government was not implemented, and not enough was done for the majority of the evacuees,” states the interim report, that was filed so to allow the government to meet its obligations. According to the commission, headed by retired Israeli justice Eliyahu Matza, the treatment of the evacuees ought to have been made a national undertaking. “The treatment of the evacuees ought to be again placed at the top our national priorities, in action and not merely in declarations. This is the duty of the state, that in an effort to advance political and defensive aims has harmed a wide public. The state must hasten, it is a matter of human rights, of common human decency, of Jewish ethics.”
According to the summary report, only 250 families have begun building their permanent home, of the 926 plots that were allocated to the expelled families. The report states that some of the evacuees cannot begin building “because they lack the ability to fund the construction, since their money has been spend on their daily outlays, due to having failed to find employment. This problem concerns between 100 and 250 families that are undergoing severe economic difficulties, and it is worsening as long as they continue to reside in transient housing facilities.”
The commission also noted the worsening employment levels: whereas before the evacuation unemployment was nearly nonexistent, unemployment today stands at 16.2 percent - twice the national level. “The evacuation has directly brought about the high unemployment levels. The state must intensify its efforts to solve the employment problem, and if need be also resort to unconventional solutions,” the commission stated. Former judge Matza added that the interim report does not note those responsible for the failure and that this would be undertaken in the final report: “the report concerns an ongoing event, not merely something of the past, and it is therefore very compact and pragmatic.”
Israeli Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said at the event of the report’s release that “beyond all disputes, those who have been paying the price so far are those who have been removed from their homes, and most of them have not yet found permanent housing.”
The context of this report is that the government of Israel did everything in its power in the initial stage of the expulsion process to reassure public opinion that the Jews who were expelled from their homes were being taken care of - despite the petition to the Israel High Court of Justice by a bipartisan group of sociologists who brought overwhelming date to the court that the government of Israel had no real plan for resettlement of people from 26 communities that were being decimated.
The Israeli government at the time, under the leadership of then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, hired a top flight PR agency that blared a commercial, every hour on the hour, that "there is a solution for everyone being relocated."
On August 20, 2005, in the midst of the expulsions. Sharon's top advisor, Dov Weisglass and then Housing Minister Yitzhak Hertzog made presentations to the Conference of Major American Jewish organizations, in which these Israeli officials assured that the people being expelled would all have homes waiting for them, with ample funds to support them. Following these reassurances, a number of American Jewish groups spread the word that every family expelled from Katif was going to receive a grant of $400,000. In addition, Israeli government minister Shimon Peres assured Israeli public opinion that the American government was granting $2 billion to cover the expulsion and resettlement costs.
The investigation has put to rest any notions spread by Weisglass and Hertzog that people expelled by Israel were taken care of, while Peres's assurance of $2 billion coming from the U.S. government never came to fruition.
View the original article in the Philadelphia Bulletin
An Israeli soldier keeps watch at a machine gun post atop a guard tower overlooking the Jewish settlement of Netzarim and surrounding Palestinian lands inside a small army base contiguous with the settlement, several kilometers inside the Gaza Strip on Oct. 26, 2003. An Israeli government commission has released a report criticizing the government for its handling of the last pullout of settlements from Gaza. (Brennan Linsley/Associated Press)
JERUSALEM - Four years and two months have passed since Israel expelled Jews from their homes in the Katif district of Gaza and from Jewish communities in Northern Samaria, after which the government bulldozed their homes and property, an official Israel state commission of investigation nto the Israeli government's handing of these deported Jews has issued its interim report.
The Israeli government investigation commission has concluded that the Israeli prime minister must take all practical steps for immediate and decisive action. “The state’s handling of the evacuees was tainted with failures. The obligation and stated purposes of the Israeli government was not implemented, and not enough was done for the majority of the evacuees,” states the interim report, that was filed so to allow the government to meet its obligations. According to the commission, headed by retired Israeli justice Eliyahu Matza, the treatment of the evacuees ought to have been made a national undertaking. “The treatment of the evacuees ought to be again placed at the top our national priorities, in action and not merely in declarations. This is the duty of the state, that in an effort to advance political and defensive aims has harmed a wide public. The state must hasten, it is a matter of human rights, of common human decency, of Jewish ethics.”
According to the summary report, only 250 families have begun building their permanent home, of the 926 plots that were allocated to the expelled families. The report states that some of the evacuees cannot begin building “because they lack the ability to fund the construction, since their money has been spend on their daily outlays, due to having failed to find employment. This problem concerns between 100 and 250 families that are undergoing severe economic difficulties, and it is worsening as long as they continue to reside in transient housing facilities.”
The commission also noted the worsening employment levels: whereas before the evacuation unemployment was nearly nonexistent, unemployment today stands at 16.2 percent - twice the national level. “The evacuation has directly brought about the high unemployment levels. The state must intensify its efforts to solve the employment problem, and if need be also resort to unconventional solutions,” the commission stated. Former judge Matza added that the interim report does not note those responsible for the failure and that this would be undertaken in the final report: “the report concerns an ongoing event, not merely something of the past, and it is therefore very compact and pragmatic.”
Israeli Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said at the event of the report’s release that “beyond all disputes, those who have been paying the price so far are those who have been removed from their homes, and most of them have not yet found permanent housing.”
The context of this report is that the government of Israel did everything in its power in the initial stage of the expulsion process to reassure public opinion that the Jews who were expelled from their homes were being taken care of - despite the petition to the Israel High Court of Justice by a bipartisan group of sociologists who brought overwhelming date to the court that the government of Israel had no real plan for resettlement of people from 26 communities that were being decimated.
The Israeli government at the time, under the leadership of then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, hired a top flight PR agency that blared a commercial, every hour on the hour, that "there is a solution for everyone being relocated."
On August 20, 2005, in the midst of the expulsions. Sharon's top advisor, Dov Weisglass and then Housing Minister Yitzhak Hertzog made presentations to the Conference of Major American Jewish organizations, in which these Israeli officials assured that the people being expelled would all have homes waiting for them, with ample funds to support them. Following these reassurances, a number of American Jewish groups spread the word that every family expelled from Katif was going to receive a grant of $400,000. In addition, Israeli government minister Shimon Peres assured Israeli public opinion that the American government was granting $2 billion to cover the expulsion and resettlement costs.
The investigation has put to rest any notions spread by Weisglass and Hertzog that people expelled by Israel were taken care of, while Peres's assurance of $2 billion coming from the U.S. government never came to fruition.
View the original article in the Philadelphia Bulletin
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The Philadelphia Bulletin: Egypt's Hosni Loses UNESCO Secretary General Post
by David Bedein
Egyptian Culture Minister Hosni Farouk reacts as he returns for a hearing following a break at the UNESCO headquarters on Sept. 17 in Paris. Mr. Hosni, who is campaigning to be the next head of the U.N. office that promotes cultural diversity, outraged many Jews with his comments in April 2008 vowing to burn any Israeli books found in Egypt's famed Library of Alexandria. (Jacques Brinon/Associated Press)
Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, who was a candidate for secretary general of UNESCO, lost the sought-after post to former Bulgarian Foreign Minister Irina Bokova. Heavy lobbying against Mr. Hosni continued until the last moment.
Mr. Hosni earned the enmity of Jews around the world when he recently promised to burn Hebrew books and boasted that he would be the last Egyptian to visit Israel.
Mr. Hosni forbid Egyptian artists to display their works in Tel Aviv and supported the denunciation of journalists who visited Israel and returned to Cairo with the conclusion that “the monster is not so terrible.”
In addition, Hosni opposed translation of Hebrew literature in Egypt, and refused to open to the Jews the records of the Jewish communities in Egypt, for fear that they would lead to property lawsuits. More than 100,000 Jews were expelled from Egypt during the 1948, 1956 and 1967 wars, without being able to sell their property and without being able to take most possessions with them, while Egyptian Jewish assets in Egyptian banks have been frozen.
View the original article in the Philadelphia Bulletin
Egyptian Culture Minister Hosni Farouk reacts as he returns for a hearing following a break at the UNESCO headquarters on Sept. 17 in Paris. Mr. Hosni, who is campaigning to be the next head of the U.N. office that promotes cultural diversity, outraged many Jews with his comments in April 2008 vowing to burn any Israeli books found in Egypt's famed Library of Alexandria. (Jacques Brinon/Associated Press)
Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, who was a candidate for secretary general of UNESCO, lost the sought-after post to former Bulgarian Foreign Minister Irina Bokova. Heavy lobbying against Mr. Hosni continued until the last moment.
Mr. Hosni earned the enmity of Jews around the world when he recently promised to burn Hebrew books and boasted that he would be the last Egyptian to visit Israel.
Mr. Hosni forbid Egyptian artists to display their works in Tel Aviv and supported the denunciation of journalists who visited Israel and returned to Cairo with the conclusion that “the monster is not so terrible.”
In addition, Hosni opposed translation of Hebrew literature in Egypt, and refused to open to the Jews the records of the Jewish communities in Egypt, for fear that they would lead to property lawsuits. More than 100,000 Jews were expelled from Egypt during the 1948, 1956 and 1967 wars, without being able to sell their property and without being able to take most possessions with them, while Egyptian Jewish assets in Egyptian banks have been frozen.
View the original article in the Philadelphia Bulletin
Monday, August 3, 2009
The Philadelphia Bulletin: Israel Renews Construction Supply Sale to Gaza
by David Bedein
Fourth Anniversary Of Explusions Marked: What Do The Katif Communities Look Like Now
An area where Israel continues to cope with is the world wide campaign against Israel’s restrictions of potentially lethal exports into Gaza.
Since the Hamas terror takeover of Gaza in June 2007, Israel did halt the sale of iron, cement and other building materials into Gaza to prevent the construction of fortifications such as underground bunkers and the use iron to manufacture weapons and rockets
On July 16, a group of Philadelphia Rabbis, led by Rabbi Arthur Waskow of Germantown’s Shalom Center, organized Rabbis from all over the United States to conduct an international day of fasting to protest the Israeli “blockade” of humanitarian and medical supplies into gaza.
Due to such pressure, Israel on Thursday allowed renewed export of 300 tons of cement, steel pipes and construction materials into Gaza, for the first time since its military offensive last January.
Rabbi Waskow would not return phone calls to explain why he spread the false rumor that Israel had blocked humanitarian and medical supplies into Gaza.
Mr. Raed Fattouh, an official in the Palestinian Ministry of National Economy, confirmed in an interview with the Palestinian Ma'an news agency that cement would be shipped through UNRWA, the United Nation's relief agency for Palestinian refugees. The Israeli government also approved the transfer of 25 million dollars in cash into Gaza each month, earmarked to pay the salaries of the Palestinian Authority workers and UNRWA workers-
An Israeli security establishment spokesman stressed that "We will carry out all the necessary examinations to ensure that the cement does not fall into the wrong hands-to Hamas,"
However, since Hamas terrorists won an overwhelming victory in the March 2009 UNRWA workers election, with Hamas winning more than 80% of the vote, UNRWA facilities are solidly in the hands of the Hamas terror personnel. This was the third straigt election which affirms the dominant Hamas role in UNRWA.
Israel Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, would not respond to a Bulletin query as to how Israel could avoid cement and cash payments from falling into the hands of Hamas, since Hamas personnel dominate UNRWA facilities in Gaza.
Fourth Anniversary Of Explusions Marked
This week, more than 2,000 people took part yesterday in a rally to mark the fourth anniversary of Israel’s expulsion of 21 Jewish communities from the Katif district of Gaza.
The rally, held near the Kissufim border crossing to the east of Gaza was attended by expelled residents from various Katif communities, including hundreds of teenagers and young children.
"I am a refugee in my own land and am trying to rehabilitate myself,"
said Mr. Avi Farhan, who was evicted from Yamit in the Sinai in April 1982 after the Camp David Accord and then from Elei Sinai in northern Gaza in August 2005. "You need to understand that it is going to take seven years of living out of boxes, moving from one rented apartment to another, until we move into our own house."
At this point in time, 8 out of the 23 permanent communities earmarked for the Katif evictees are still under construction.
In 11 of the communities, preliminary infrastructure work has yet to be begun. Unemployment among the evictees is 21%, as opposed to the 5% unemployment rate that existed when the Katif communities were thriving.
What Do The Katif Communities Look Like Now?
Four years after the destruction of the 21 Katif Jewish communities, several Israeli journalists hired Palestinian cameramen to take pictures of the destroyed Jewish communities, to see what Palestinians had done there since taking over the area.
What Israelis want to know is whether overcrowded UNRWA refugee camps had moved into the abandoned Jewish communities of Katif.
Polls show that Israeli and international public opinion supported the eviction of the Jewish communities from Katif in order to enable a better life for thousands of Palestinian families who have been confined to teeming tenements of UNRWA refugee camps since 1948.
However, pictures taken by a Palestinian photographer show that contrary to what Israelis believed would happen, Palestinians have not built a single new house in the
any Katif community, four years after the destruction of these Jewish communities, where public buildings were allowed to remain..
The photographs indicate that the Palestinians completely destroyed anything that was left standing following the evacuation process, including synagogues and buildings that remained standing.
More than 100 photographs were taken in the framework of the project.
"What is sad is that it's very hard to identify the buildings that are documented in the photographs," said one Israeli journalist who had covered Katif for the international media.
Why have Palestinians from overcrowded UNRWA camps not moved into the abandoned Katif communities?
An UNRWA camp committee spokesman explained that, “These were not our homes - we want to move back to the homes that we left after we were expelled in 1948 - from places like Beer Sheva and Ashkelon”
Obama To Achieve Normalization Gestures From Arab World?
After several days of consultations with Israeli government officials, US Presidential Middle East envoy George Mitchell left his Israeli interlocutors with an assurance that President Obama would be able to extract some normalization gestures towards Israel from the Arab world within a month, following White House confirmation that Preisdent Obama had indeed sent letters leaders of Morrocco, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, asking them for confidence-building measures toward Israel.
However, Saudi Arabia, the kingpin of the Arab League of Nations which has been in a formal, full scale war with Israel since 1948, immediately responded with a full rejection of any gesture of normalization with Israel, so long as Israel does not relinquishsovereignty over Jerusalem, allow recognition of the right of return of Palestinian refugees from 1948, and stop the development of any Jewish community that lies in areas acquired by Israel in 1967.
View this story in the Philadelphia Bulletin
View this story at Israel Behind the News
Fourth Anniversary Of Explusions Marked: What Do The Katif Communities Look Like Now
An area where Israel continues to cope with is the world wide campaign against Israel’s restrictions of potentially lethal exports into Gaza.
Since the Hamas terror takeover of Gaza in June 2007, Israel did halt the sale of iron, cement and other building materials into Gaza to prevent the construction of fortifications such as underground bunkers and the use iron to manufacture weapons and rockets
On July 16, a group of Philadelphia Rabbis, led by Rabbi Arthur Waskow of Germantown’s Shalom Center, organized Rabbis from all over the United States to conduct an international day of fasting to protest the Israeli “blockade” of humanitarian and medical supplies into gaza.
Due to such pressure, Israel on Thursday allowed renewed export of 300 tons of cement, steel pipes and construction materials into Gaza, for the first time since its military offensive last January.
Rabbi Waskow would not return phone calls to explain why he spread the false rumor that Israel had blocked humanitarian and medical supplies into Gaza.
Mr. Raed Fattouh, an official in the Palestinian Ministry of National Economy, confirmed in an interview with the Palestinian Ma'an news agency that cement would be shipped through UNRWA, the United Nation's relief agency for Palestinian refugees. The Israeli government also approved the transfer of 25 million dollars in cash into Gaza each month, earmarked to pay the salaries of the Palestinian Authority workers and UNRWA workers-
An Israeli security establishment spokesman stressed that "We will carry out all the necessary examinations to ensure that the cement does not fall into the wrong hands-to Hamas,"
However, since Hamas terrorists won an overwhelming victory in the March 2009 UNRWA workers election, with Hamas winning more than 80% of the vote, UNRWA facilities are solidly in the hands of the Hamas terror personnel. This was the third straigt election which affirms the dominant Hamas role in UNRWA.
Israel Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, would not respond to a Bulletin query as to how Israel could avoid cement and cash payments from falling into the hands of Hamas, since Hamas personnel dominate UNRWA facilities in Gaza.
Fourth Anniversary Of Explusions Marked
This week, more than 2,000 people took part yesterday in a rally to mark the fourth anniversary of Israel’s expulsion of 21 Jewish communities from the Katif district of Gaza.
The rally, held near the Kissufim border crossing to the east of Gaza was attended by expelled residents from various Katif communities, including hundreds of teenagers and young children.
"I am a refugee in my own land and am trying to rehabilitate myself,"
said Mr. Avi Farhan, who was evicted from Yamit in the Sinai in April 1982 after the Camp David Accord and then from Elei Sinai in northern Gaza in August 2005. "You need to understand that it is going to take seven years of living out of boxes, moving from one rented apartment to another, until we move into our own house."
At this point in time, 8 out of the 23 permanent communities earmarked for the Katif evictees are still under construction.
In 11 of the communities, preliminary infrastructure work has yet to be begun. Unemployment among the evictees is 21%, as opposed to the 5% unemployment rate that existed when the Katif communities were thriving.
What Do The Katif Communities Look Like Now?
Four years after the destruction of the 21 Katif Jewish communities, several Israeli journalists hired Palestinian cameramen to take pictures of the destroyed Jewish communities, to see what Palestinians had done there since taking over the area.
What Israelis want to know is whether overcrowded UNRWA refugee camps had moved into the abandoned Jewish communities of Katif.
Polls show that Israeli and international public opinion supported the eviction of the Jewish communities from Katif in order to enable a better life for thousands of Palestinian families who have been confined to teeming tenements of UNRWA refugee camps since 1948.
However, pictures taken by a Palestinian photographer show that contrary to what Israelis believed would happen, Palestinians have not built a single new house in the
any Katif community, four years after the destruction of these Jewish communities, where public buildings were allowed to remain..
The photographs indicate that the Palestinians completely destroyed anything that was left standing following the evacuation process, including synagogues and buildings that remained standing.
More than 100 photographs were taken in the framework of the project.
"What is sad is that it's very hard to identify the buildings that are documented in the photographs," said one Israeli journalist who had covered Katif for the international media.
Why have Palestinians from overcrowded UNRWA camps not moved into the abandoned Katif communities?
An UNRWA camp committee spokesman explained that, “These were not our homes - we want to move back to the homes that we left after we were expelled in 1948 - from places like Beer Sheva and Ashkelon”
Obama To Achieve Normalization Gestures From Arab World?
After several days of consultations with Israeli government officials, US Presidential Middle East envoy George Mitchell left his Israeli interlocutors with an assurance that President Obama would be able to extract some normalization gestures towards Israel from the Arab world within a month, following White House confirmation that Preisdent Obama had indeed sent letters leaders of Morrocco, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, asking them for confidence-building measures toward Israel.
However, Saudi Arabia, the kingpin of the Arab League of Nations which has been in a formal, full scale war with Israel since 1948, immediately responded with a full rejection of any gesture of normalization with Israel, so long as Israel does not relinquishsovereignty over Jerusalem, allow recognition of the right of return of Palestinian refugees from 1948, and stop the development of any Jewish community that lies in areas acquired by Israel in 1967.
View this story in the Philadelphia Bulletin
View this story at Israel Behind the News
Thursday, May 28, 2009
The Philadelphia Bulletin: Arafat Protege Abbas to Meet with Obama Today
by David Bedein
Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, the protégé of the late Yasser Arafat, will arrive in Washington, D.C., today to meet with the president of the United States.
There are 10 issues at hand that would challenge the credibility of Mr. Abbas as a peace negotiator:
Mr. Abbas’ continued incitement in the Arabic language, as expressed in his school books, media outlets and public statements that emanate from the Palestinian Authority (PA), which operates under his firm control.
Mr. Abbas’ refusal to renounce his own Holocaust Denial Ph.D., which also contends that the Nazis and Zionists worked together during WWII.
Mr. Abbas’ election platform from 2005 that calls for the total right of return to villages from before 1948.
Mr. Abbas’ celebrations of murder attacks against Jews.
Mr. Abbas’ refusal to implore the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) or the PA to ratify the Oslo Accords or cancel the PLO covenant.
Current weapons/security sharing arrangements between the PA and Hamas.
Disappearance of Arafat’s billions, some of which have wound up in the coffers of Mr. Abbas.
Mr. Abbas’ endorsement of the Hezbollah war, summer 2006.
The Nakba campaign endorsed by Mr. Abbas, which calls on Palestinians to reclaim areas lost in 1948 - by force if necessary.
Mr. Abbas’ continued confinement of Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendants to the indignity of United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) refugee camps, under the specious premise of the “right of return” to villages that no longer exist.
View this story in the Philadelphia Bulletin
View this story at Israel Behind the News
Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, the protégé of the late Yasser Arafat, will arrive in Washington, D.C., today to meet with the president of the United States.
There are 10 issues at hand that would challenge the credibility of Mr. Abbas as a peace negotiator:
Mr. Abbas’ continued incitement in the Arabic language, as expressed in his school books, media outlets and public statements that emanate from the Palestinian Authority (PA), which operates under his firm control.
Mr. Abbas’ refusal to renounce his own Holocaust Denial Ph.D., which also contends that the Nazis and Zionists worked together during WWII.
Mr. Abbas’ election platform from 2005 that calls for the total right of return to villages from before 1948.
Mr. Abbas’ celebrations of murder attacks against Jews.
Mr. Abbas’ refusal to implore the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) or the PA to ratify the Oslo Accords or cancel the PLO covenant.
Current weapons/security sharing arrangements between the PA and Hamas.
Disappearance of Arafat’s billions, some of which have wound up in the coffers of Mr. Abbas.
Mr. Abbas’ endorsement of the Hezbollah war, summer 2006.
The Nakba campaign endorsed by Mr. Abbas, which calls on Palestinians to reclaim areas lost in 1948 - by force if necessary.
Mr. Abbas’ continued confinement of Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendants to the indignity of United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) refugee camps, under the specious premise of the “right of return” to villages that no longer exist.
View this story in the Philadelphia Bulletin
View this story at Israel Behind the News
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