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POPSPalestine: The State History Forgot Is it a joke of history that before there was the states of Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Syria, etc there was Palestine? Now they all exist and Palestine doesn't yet. You will read that there never was a Palestine from a certain quarter and how can you miss what you never had. How you know they are lying! They'll say that as they are all Arabs that there's enough room for them all. It's like saying that the Scots Welsh and Irish are all Celts and one state would do them all! Yes, there was a time when such thinking was regarded as valid. If we had the Age of Imperialism back then the Brits might validly have a claim on the USA and most of the rest of the world. In the present imperialism, if the existent holder of the gunboat diplomacy role, the USA, decided to sort out Palestine's present difficulties it could in a breath. Hopefully in a more honourable fashion that the last gunboat holder did.
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POPSObama's missteps Obama's unnecessary promise deviates from nearly six decades of U.S. foreign policy that held Jerusalem to be occupied territory under international law. This long tradition was first broken in 2004 when President Bush acknowledged Israel's demands to keep its illegal West Bank settlements in a final peace agreement, including those around Jerusalem. Thus Obama, a Harvard-trained lawyer, would both scorn the international legal system's foundational principle -- the inadmissibility of territorial acquisition by war -- and echo President Bush, whose failed Middle East policies he has rightly deplored. If Sen. Obama's Philadelphia speech on race was a model of courage and nuance, his AIPAC talk was brimming with the pro-Israel orthodoxy that typifies this year's presidential campaign. Like presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, Obama also backed Israel's so-called right to exist as a Jewish state.
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POPSUri Avnery: Apologizing for past wrongs as a part of modern political culture I BELIEVE that peace between us and the Palestinian people - a real peace, based on real conciliation - starts with an apology. In my mind's eye I see the President of the State or the Prime Minister addressing a special extraordinary session of the Knesset and making a historic speech on the following lines: MADAM SPEAKER, Honorable Knesset, On behalf of the State of Israel and all its citizens, I address today the sons and daughters of the Palestinian people, wherever they are. We recognize the fact that we have committed against you a historic injustice, and we humbly ask your forgiveness. Uri Avnery Deutsch: Frieden in Israel und Palestina - Texte von Uri Avnery
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POPSUri Avnery: 1948 At the time, the Jews constituted only a third of the population. The hundreds of Arab villages throughout the country dominated the main arteries that were crucial to our survival. We suffered heavy casualties in our efforts to open them, especially the road to Jerusalem. We honestly felt that we were "the few against the many". Our side was preparing for the massive attack of the Arab armies and we could not possibly leave a large hostile population at our rear. This military necessity was, of course, intertwined with the more or less conscious desire to create a homogeneous Jewish territory. ccording to the UN resolution, the "Jewish state" was to include more than half of Palestine (as it existed in 1947 under the British Mandate). In this territory, more than 40% of the population was Arab. In the second half of the war, after the advance of the Arab armies was halted, a deliberate policy of expelling the Arabs became a war aim on its own.
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POPSIsrael and the Nakba - Coming to Terms with the Past or Simply Easing Consciences? Israel will celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of its foundation this May. The celebration coincides with another sixtieth anniversary, namely that of the dispossession of Palestinians (al-Nakba) in 1948. Nevertheless, it would seem as if interest in al-Nakba is growing among young Jewish Israelis. Joseph Croitoru investigated the depth of this interest. ↗ 60 Jahre Israel und die palästinensische "Nakba" - Vergangenheitsbewältigung oder intellektuelle Mode?
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POPSPalestine/Israel: Water and international law - Things could get worse The United Nations' General Assembly reaffirmed in several resolutions that the Geneva Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (1949) is applicable to the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem, and again and again condemned Israel's policies and practices against the population in the occupied territories. Very startling, the chutzpah with which Israel withstands the imminence of being classified as a rogue state.
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POPSClemens Messerschmid (2003): Palästinas Wasserressourcen und Israels Trennmauer Much to my regret, I did not find an English translation of the hydrogeologist Clemens Messerschmid's essay on the disastrous impacts the Israeli "security fence" makes on the Palestinian infrastructure, especially the water supply. It might be that Messerschmid's paper "TILL THE LAST DROP - The Palestinian Water Crisis in the West Bank, Hydrogeology and Hydropolitics of a Regional Conflict" is of correlative content. It is available at http://www.palestineacademy.org/wconf/ (see the abstracts on http://www.palestineacademy.org/wconf/Abstracts.pdf). Messerschmid is working in several international water projects in the West Bank, currently in the position of Research & Coordination Advisor to the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) for the Project "The Sustainable Management of the West Bank and Gaza Aquifers" (SUSMAQ) of University of Newcastle and PWA. See also this clip .
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POPSWater Policy in Israel and Palestine - There's Enough Water for Both The increasing difficulties with water availability, concludes the hydrogeologist, result from Israel using the majority of water resources for agricultural purposes, although this sector today represents a very small portion of the Israeli economy. Despite this, the Israeli state remains unswervingly committed to the Zionist foundation myth, which regards the promotion of agriculture as a central tenet in the Jewish settlement of Palestine. Messerschmid, in turn, sees the priorities of Israeli water policies as fundamentally flawed, leading to a wasteful use of the precious resource. Large areas of land, for instance, are still intensively watered even during conditions of very high temperatures, although most of the water immediately evaporates. The Palestinians, by contrast, do not even have the amount of water at their disposal that was promised in the Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty. Deutsche Fassung
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POPSBradley Burston, Haaretz.com: I want the Palestinians to win "I and the majority of the Palestinian people are ready for a historic agreement based on international decisions that will allow a Palestinian and Israeli state to coexist, side by side, in peace and stability." Jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti Source: Ha'aretz, 08 April 2008 Bradley Burston is Senior Editor of Haaretz.com, the Israeli newspaper's online English language edition. __________________________________ See also Kore7 's clip Bradley Burston: Ten Ways to Make Sure That Peace Stays Dead .
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POPSUri Avnery: Manifest Destiny? Note: Manifest Destiny was the belief that the United States was destined to expand from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean; it has also been used to advocate for or justify other territorial acquisitions. Advocates of Manifest Destiny believed that expansion was not only good, but that it was obvious ("manifest") and certain ("destiny"). Manifest Destiny Deutsche Übersetzung See also: The legal status of Israeli settlements under International Humanitarian Law (Harvard Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, PDF file)
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POPSBundeskanzlerin Angela Merkels Rede vor der Knesset (im Wortlaut) Merkel stressed that the German government supports the Annapolis peace process . "Germany stands firmly behind the vision of two states within secure borders and living in peace, for both the Jewish people in Israel and the Palestinian people in Palestine." Germany, Merkel said, would "never abandon Israel, but instead will remain a loyal partner and friend." As in the past, Merkel's speech contained only homeopathic doses of criticism of Israel's occupation policy and its hesitation to commit itself to the peace process. "One must also have the strength to make painful concessions," the chancellor hinted, only to quickly dilute what had sounded like the beginnings of a rebuke. "In order to be a realist you must believe in miracles," she said, quoting David Ben Gurion, the founder and first prime minister of the State of Israel. spiegel.de
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POPSUri Avnery: Targeted killing hazarding cease-fire It was obvious to all that the killing of Islamic Jihad militants in Bethlehem would cause the renewal of the Qassam launchings on Sderot. And so it happened. According to Barak himself, he was ready to risk Jewish lives today in order to take revenge on persons who may perhaps have shed blood years ago and have since given up their armed activity. ↗Deutsche Fassung
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POPS"Shahida – Brides of Allah". An Israeli View of Female Palestinian Terrorists
Die israelische Regisseurin Natalie Assouline hat über zwei Jahre Palästinenserinnen begleitet, die nach gescheiterten Selbstmordanschlägen in Israel inhaftiert wurden. Entstanden ist ein aufwühlender Film voller Widersprüche. Als sie mit Sehnsucht über ihre Kinder sprechen, die sie nur durch die Gitter sehen können, empfindet man Mitleid mit ihnen. Als in einer Szene die 30-jährige Kahira endlich ihre vier Kinder umarmen darf, kommen dem Zuschauer Tränen in die Augen. Und das, obwohl er weiß, dass diese Mutter eine Mörderin ist. Die israelische Regisseurin Natalie Assouline porträtiert in ihrem Debütfilm palästinensische Terroristinnen. Dabei lässt sie die Zuschauer immer wieder in der Spannung zwischen Mitgefühl und Verurteilung. Der bedrückende Dokumentarfilm heißt "Shahida", auf Arabisch "die Heilige", und als Heilige sehen sich diese Gefangenen. Das ist Teil ihrer Selbsttäuschung. ( Deutscher Originalartikel )
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POPSUri Avnery on William Polk's book "Violent Politics"
An army officer is a technician, trained to fulfill a particular job. That job is irrelevant to the struggle against a liberation movement A general does not understand the essence of a national insurgency, and therefore does not come to grips with its rules. For example, a general measures his success by the number of enemies killed. But the fighting underground organization becomes stronger the more dead fighters it can present to the public, which identifies with the martyrs. A general learns to prepare for battle and win it, but his opponents, the guerrilla fighters, avoid battle altogether. When the occupiers impose collective punishment on the population, they just reinforce their hatred and their mutual assistance. When they succeed in capturing or killing the leaders of the liberation struggle, other leaders take their place SO WHAT can we do ? reach a political settlement that both sides can live with and profit from. And get out.
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POPSDefending Israel to the 'End Times' Rosenberg appears to believe that if a peace deal is concluded, it will not contradict Biblical prophesy: "While . . . Matthew 24 and Luke 21 indicate that there will be wars, rumors of wars and revolutions in the Middle East in the last days, Ezekiel 38 also indicates that for a season at least the Jews will be living 'securely' in the land prior to the apocalyptic War of Gog & Magog (the Russian-Iranian alliance to destroy Israel)." Netanyahu said that 'In a war of attrition the enemy strikes and you react, the enemy strikes harder and you retaliate harder. This gradual increase in violence is the antithesis of deterrence. . . . Deterrence always means using disproportionate force. We need to move from a concept of attrition to one of tough deterrence that will eventually lead to the removal of the Hamas regime, because as long as it exists it will continue arming itself and continue its attacks.'
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POPSGaza exodus symptom of grave situation Israel’s ability to ignore blatant human rights violations against the Palestinians derives from the great support it receives from world Jewry and Western societies. Western Jews, emancipated and empowered by the Enlightenment, are inspired by a long history of anti-Semitism that became pronounced in 19th century Europe, and culminated in the Holocaust in the mid-20th century. Many members of the Jewish American community, who were actively involved in the civil rights movement, are ill-at-ease watching events unfolding in the Middle East. Despite their disapproval of harsh and inhumane Israeli policies toward Palestinians, they are reluctant to criticize Israel for the fear that such criticism would undermine Western support. Is silence the best approach to support the Jews in the Holy Land? And is force the best approach to dealing with Palestinians demands for equal rights?
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POPSThe true miracle of Israel Israel's existence is portrayed as a resurrection of sorts: from near-annihilation to a "miraculous" rebirth. In the United States, Christian Zionists see their allegiance to Israel as a religious duty. When an American politician, for example, is accused of not standing "fully behind Israel," the accusation stands on its own, like a biblical command that has survived the test of time and reason: Thou shalt stand fully behind Israel. As the 60th anniversary of the so-called birth of Israel draws near, a most impressive -- albeit grotesque -- misrepresentation of that history will be offered in abundance , omitting how Israel was delivered on top of the ruins of hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages. The killing and ethnic cleansing that became known as the Palestinian Catastrophe -- or Nakba -- was not the work of invisible and miraculous seraphs, but rather well trained and well-armed Zionist gangs and their supporters.
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POPSIsrael/Palestine: Man’s inhumanity to man has no moral compass when it comes to making Palestinian lives as miserable as possible. As an entity it knows no shame. All its crimes are hidden under cover of the magic word “security.” Gideon Levy, a journalist with the Israeli daily Haaretz appears to understand this. In a recent opinion piece he writes: “Here, we have the yardstick for security success: the number of Palestinians killed. "
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POPSFelicia Langer - a Jewish advocate against the oppression of the Palestinian people Her tireless and unrelenting commitment made her the target of attacks from fellow Israelis who could not understand that her actions against oppression and discrimination were basically in the interest of the Israeli people. Early on she had predicted violent reactions against the ongoing occupation. Therefore the outbreak of the first intifada did not surprise her. As her work and endeavours became more and more fruitless, she closed down her office in 1990 in protest to make public that the legal system in Israel had become a farce. She emigrated to Germany. Her main concern has always been a just and fair peace agreement between Israel and Palestine, and for this goal she is still as active as before, writing books and articles, giving interviews and lectures etc. In March 2005, Felicia Langer was awarded with the "Erich-Mühsam-Prize" for her continuous struggle for the human rights of the Palestinian people.
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POPSUri Avnery: How They Stole The Bomb From Us Präsident Bush ist in Schwierigkeiten; sein Fiasko in Afghanistan und im Irak geht weiter. Jede amerikanische Bemühung, im Irak mit seiner schiitischen Mehrheit eine stabile Regierung zu installieren, hängt vom Rückhalt des schiitischen Iran ab. Bushs Traum von einem Blitzkrieg gegen den Iran – und somit dem Traum der Geschichte seinen Stempel aufzudrücken - hat sich in Wohlgefallen aufgelöst. Was kann er noch tun, um irgendein positives Vermächtnis zu hinterlassen? Die einzige Alternative ist der israelisch-palästinensische Frieden. Vielleicht gibt er jetzt der armen Condoleezza mehr Rückhalt. Vielleicht wird er sich selbst mehr einbringen. Tatsache ist: er wird Israel zum ersten Mal in seiner Amtszeit besuchen. Frieden in Israel und Palästina - Texte von Uri Avnery
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POPSPalestine: how a battle for land became religious Article is brief and needs reading in its entirety to consider its overview of how a minority of religionists have turned a secular struggle into a religious one, a trend which is not completed but, the author feels, becoming increasingly dangerous.
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