Author: heathlander

When Gandhi’s doctrine of non-violent resistance (satyagraha) is invoked in the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict, it is invariably as a propaganda weapon intended to undermine the legitimacy of Palestinian resistance and shift the blame for the continuing occupation on to its principal victims.

Leaving such dishonest rhetorical jabs aside, the question of whether any of Gandhi’s teachings can be usefully applied in Palestine is a serious one that merits careful consideration. In a fascinating essay (and talk) based on an extensive reading of Gandhi’s writings, Norman Finkelstein concludes that the application of satyagraha – that is, a mass campaign of non-violent civil resistance – could yield tangible results in the occupied territories.
His argument is detailed and nuanced, and I won’t attempt to summarise it all here. Its central claim is that the Palestinian struggle against the occupation fulfills the conditions Gandhi suggests are required for non-violent resistance to succeed. Non-violence relies on the accumulation of ‘moral force’ to “quicken the conscience” of the wider population and even of the oppressor him/herself by confronting violence unarmed, often enduring terrible suffering as a result. However, for non-violence to work this “innocence of means” is not enough – there must be “innocence of ends” as well. That is, a movement’s objective, and not just its methods, must be perceived as legitimate for non-violence to work:

“Were the ‘pro-life’ half of the American population to engage in civil disobedience or even a fast unto the death, the ‘pro-choice’ half would hardly be converted by such a spectacle. For, it is not suffering alone that touches but suffering in the pursuit of a legitimate goal. The recognition of the legitimacy of such a goal presumes however a preexisting consensus according to which what the victim seeks he justly deserves. Gandhi accordingly referred to the victim’s ‘innocence.’ It is innocence in a double sense: of means–the victim’s suffering results from unilateral violence inflicted by others–and of ends–the victim seeks a right that cannot in good conscience be denied because it jibes with the ‘normal moral sense of the world’; the more incontrovertible the ends, the more self-suffering as a means will resonate with ‘enlightened public opinion.'”

In the case of Palestine, this ‘legitimacy of ends’ exists, indeed to a remarkable degree. For over 30 years there has been a virtually unanimous international consensus on how to resolve the conflict, as Finkelstein and others have extensively documented. The Palestinians’ central demands command the overwhelming support of the most representative political body in the world, the highest judicial body in the world and the international human rights community (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and so forth), and enjoy extensive popular support throughout the world. Given this broad legitimacy and given the failure of violent resistance to secure any of the Palestinians’ political goals it would be wise, Finkelstein argues, to pursue a strategy of non-violent resistance instead.

Breaking the siege

I find the argument persuasive, but here I want to focus on a specific attempt to apply the doctrine of satyagrahi to Palestine.

A coalition of Palestinian solidarity activists are currently organising a global march on Gaza, scheduled for January 2010, in opposition to the Israeli siege:

“The event will aim to bring thousands of demonstrators from around the world to march alongside Gazans as they breach the blockade imposed upon the population since the election of Hamas in 2006.

‘This march draws inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi,’ said a draft statement of purposes and principles written by the ‘Coalition to End the Illegal Siege of Gaza,’ obtained by The Daily Star. ‘Those of us residing in the United States also draw inspiration from the civil rights movement,’ it added.

The statement also outlines plans for the march, which will take place on January 1, 2010. ‘We will march the Long Mile across Erez checkpoint alongside the people of Gaza in a nonviolent demonstration that breaches the illegal blockade,’ it said, adding that ‘We conceive this march as the first step in a protracted nonviolent campaign … If we bring thousands to Gaza and millions more around the world watch the march on the internet, we can end the siege without a drop of blood being shed.’

Finkelstein, who is one of the organisers, talks about the project here:

In my view this tactic stands a good chance of success, if enough people get involved. The reasons are twofold.

Firstly, the suffering being inflicted upon the civilian population of Gaza is so immense, so palpably unnecessary and cruel, that when presented with the facts reasonable people will find it impossible to support.

In Gaza we have seen 1.5 million people “intentionally reduced to abject destitution”. We have participated in the calculated manufacture of an “unprecedented … humanitarian implosion” [.pdf] that has pushed an entire society to the brink of survival. Today over 70% of Gazans live in poverty, 40% in deep poverty. 96% of the population now depends on international food aid for mere survival. Almost all the factories have shut down, with many key industries totally decimated. The official unemployment rate is approaching 50% (some have put the figure at 70%) and 90% of economic activity is devoted to smuggling. Chronic malnutrition is soaring, with malnutrition-induced stunted growth affecting 10% of all children in Gaza, rising to 30% in some areas. Some 46% of Gazan children suffer from acute anaemia. There is a constant “shortage of basic medicines”, while millions of litres of raw sewage is pumped daily into the Mediterranean, where children swim and play, because Israeli border restrictions mean Gaza’s authorities are unable to treat it. Around 10% of the population was still, as of April, without tap water. In the course of its invasion earlier this year Israel destroyed thousands of houses, hundreds of businesses and the bulk of Gaza’s agricultural industry (as well as 80% of its crops). Thousands of families are still living in tents because Israel has refused to allow any reconstruction to take place. Some people have resorted to building houses from mud, or living in cemetaries.

The Red Cross reports that “[t]hose worst affected” by the siege “are likely to be children, who make up more than half of Gaza’s population”.

As a result of all this – and this is the second point – the ‘legitimacy of ends’ required by Gandhi is there. The Gaza closure [.pdf] has been almost unanimously condemned as a violation of international law. The UN special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied territories has called it a “crime against humanity”; his predecessor likewise concluded [.doc] that it “violates a whole range of obligations under both human rights law and humanitarian law” and constitutes “a gross form of collective punishment”. UN agencies and human rights organisations have unanimously condemned [.pdf] the siege as “collective punishment”, “illegal under international humanitarian law”, “an unmitigated violation of international humanitarian law” [.doc], “illegal, improper,   and immoral”. Various senior officials and respected public figures have decried Israel’s “assault on human dignity” – the Archbishop Desmond Tutu, for example, has branded it an “abomination”, while former President Jimmy Carter has criticised the international community for its complicity in this “terrible human rights crime”, doing nothing or worse while “the citizens of Gaza are being treated more like animals than human beings”. Even the Quartet, G8 and the EU (which has described Israel’s policies as “collective punishment”) have called for the blockade to be lifted.

In short, Israel’s siege has almost no defenders. The goal of the march – to end the siege – is almost universally viewed as a legitimate one. As Finkelstein observes, the marchers will not be breaking the law, they will be enforcing it.

What we can do

The planning for the march is still in its early stages. For anyone who’s interested in playing a role and who lives in the New York area, the first organisational meeting is being held next Monday:

Everyone else can keep track of the project through Norman Finkelstein’s website. You can also urge your representatives to take action to end the siege, and educate yourself and others about Israel’s policies in Gaza, which continue to be decisively supported by the US and European governments.

ReliefWeb, IRIN and the UN OCHA are invaluable sources for updates on the humanitarian situation, while UNISPAL tracks developments at the UN.

Cross-posted at The Heathlander

It is difficult to divine the basis for the mass of excited speculation surrounding this anticipated ‘showdown’ between the US and its most reliable client, which peaked with Obama’s much-hyped speech in Cairo. Western commentators reacted to Obama’s ‘diplomatic and intellectual tour de force’ of ‘historic and moral importance’ with rapture, praising his ‘bold vision’ for peace in the Middle East – if, in some cases, raising questions about his ability to realise it, given the intransigence of local parties.
Reaction in the Middle East was more cautious – evidently Palestinians and Arabs were less impressed than their Western counterparts at the sight of a US president lecturing them about non-violence while what’s left of Gaza continues to rot under US/Israeli siege (they might also recall, even if Western commentators do not, that the December/January massacre was “carried out with weapons, munitions and military equipment supplied by the USA and paid for with US taxpayers’ money”).

Before examining the content of Obama’s ‘bold vision’, it’s worth taking a brief look at the immediate context on the ground. Settlements are being constructed in the West Bank at a rate not seen since 2003, the year the ‘road map’ was formulated. More than 3,200 housing units have been built in West Bank settlements since the beginning of 2008, and construction is planned for a new town in the ‘E1’ area of the West Bank, a development that would render a contiguous Palestinian state impossible and would, observers warn, ‘trigger the collapse of the weakened Palestinian  Authority, or drive it into armed resistance again’. House demolitions continue: on June 4 Israeli soldiers demolished the homes of 18 families in the Jordan Valley, displacing 130 people, including 67 children. In East Jerusalem settlement activity continues apace, with the government planning to demolish a Palestinian kindergarten and wholesale market to make way for a hotel and a commercial building. Only 13% of East Jerusalem is zoned for Palestinian construction, while illegal settlements occupy 35%.

Ahead of Obama’s speech attacks by PA and Israeli forces against Hamas sharply escalated, perhaps in an attempt to provoke a politically useful response.

In Gaza, reconstruction efforts are non-existent in the face of the “extreme closure regime” (World Bank) being imposed by Israel.

In recent months the Israeli government “has been steadily reducing the variety of supplies entering Gaza” [.pdf]:

“Over the three months of February to April 2009, an average of 65% of all commodities entering Gaza were food items, 86% of which were restricted to a narrow range of seven basic foodstuffs; even then, items, such as macaroni and dates, have been denied entry. It was only after the intervention of US officials that the government of Israel allowed macaroni into Gaza after weeks of delay. On a visit to Gaza in February 2009, a US Congressman asked, “When have lentil bombs been going off lately? Is someone going to kill you with a piece of macaroni?” In March 2009, the government of Israel prevented US-funded food parcels from entering Gaza due to the inclusion of canned tuna, biscuits and jam; they were added to a long list of items `under review’,which included wooden toys and maths and science kits.”

Sara Roy, a leading academic specialist on Gaza, reports that since ‘Operation Cast Lead’, “Gaza’s already compromised conditions have become virtually unlivable”:

Livelihoods, homes, and public infrastructure have been damaged or destroyed on a scale that even the Israel Defense Forces admitted was indefensible. In Gaza today, there is no private sector to speak of and no industry. 80 percent of Gaza’s agricultural crops were destroyed and Israel continues to snipe at farmers attempting to plant and tend fields near the well-fenced and patrolled border. Most productive activity has been extinguished.

One powerful expression of Gaza’s economic demise–and the Gazans’ indomitable will to provide for themselves and their families–is its burgeoning tunnel economy that emerged long ago in response to the siege. Thousands of Palestinians are now employed digging tunnels into Egypt–around 1,000 tunnels are reported to exist although not all are operational. According to local economists, 90 percent of economic activity in Gaza–once considered a lower middle-income economy (along with the West Bank)–is presently devoted to smuggling.

Today, 96 percent of Gaza’s population of 1.4 million is dependent on humanitarian aid for basic needs. According to the World Food Programme, the Gaza Strip requires a minimum of 400 trucks of food every day just to meet the basic nutritional needs of the population. Yet, despite a 22 March decision by the Israeli cabinet to lift all restrictions on foodstuffs entering Gaza, only 653 trucks of food and other supplies were allowed entry during the week of May 10, at best meeting 23 percent of required need.” [my emph.]

Turning now to Obama’s speech, there is little to celebrate, at least with regards to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Rhetorically it achieved everything it set out to: distance Obama from the overtly imperial posture and reckless aggression of the Bush administration, portray the US as interested in dialogue over confrontation and win points in the region by appearing to empathise with popular concerns and aspirations. After seeing Obama’s PR team in action during the election campaign, the competence of the speech should come as no surprise. More interesting was the importance attached by media commentators to what was openly billed as an exercise in propaganda. For example, Obama won much praise for describing the plight of the Palestinians as “intolerable” and for outlining the need for a Palestinian state. Yet his predecessor used precisely the same language and this didn’t stop him from facilitating accelerated settlement construction, the continued fragmentation and dismemberment of the West Bank and the virtual destruction of Gaza.

With regards to policy, what little the speech offered was totally inadequate. When he spoke about settlements, Obama chose his words carefully:

“The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.” [my emph.]

In other words, Obama had nothing to say about the vast network of settlements and settlement infrastructure Israel has already constructed in the West Bank, which by itself is more than sufficient to prevent the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. Instead he restricted himself to opposing on-going settlement construction. In so doing he merely repeated the official (though not operative) position of virtually every US administration since 1967:

“[T]he immediate adoption of a settlements freeze by Israel, more than any other action, could create the confidence needed for wider participation in these talks.  Further settlement activity is in no way necessary for the security of Israel and only diminishes the confidence of the Arabs that a final outcome can be fee and fairly negotiated”.

“I don’t think there is any greater obstacle to peace than settlement activity that continues not only unabated but at an advanced pace.”

“Consistent with the Mitchell plan, Israeli settlement activity in occupied territories must stop, and the occupation must end through withdrawal to secure and recognized boundaries, consistent with United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338.”

Those were the Reagan, Bush I and Bush II administrations, respectively. In policy terms, as Yehuda Ben-Meir observes, “not only could Bush have delivered the same speech, he did – almost everything the current U.S. president said in Cairo was said many times over by his predecessor.” Geoffrey Aronson notes that “for more than three decades, on again off again promotion of a settlement freeze by the U.S. has failed to slow settlement expansion”, and indeed “more often than not” has resulted in “U.S. support for settlement expansion”. Unless Obama is willing to go beyond rhetoric and apply real pressure on Israel to end its rejectionism, even this limited demand will get lost amidst endless Israeli protests about “natural growth”, attempts to re-draw settlement boundaries, and so forth. Unfortunately he appears to have ruled out all but the most ‘symbolic’ measures to secure Israeli compliance, with even the mild step of placing conditions on loan guarantees reportedly ‘not under discussion’. Certainly there are no indications that the U.S. will place conditions on military aid to Israel, which Obama has pledged to massively increase.

In another echo of his predecessor, Obama repeated his previously stated policy of refusing to engage Hamas until it renounces violence and recognises Israel’s “right to exist” – conditions accurately described by a former chief of Israeli military intelligence as “ridiculous, or an excuse not to negotiate.” Moreover, there are signs that he will retain the disastrous Bush policy of ‘divide and rule’ in the occupied territories. The US continues to train and finance PA “security forces” that effectively function as proxies for the US and Israel, and Obama recently praised Abbas for refusing to share power with Hamas:

“One thing that I didn’t mention earlier that I want to say I very much appreciate is that President Abbas I think has been under enormous pressure to bring about some sort of unity government and to negotiate with Hamas.  And I am very impressed and appreciative of President Abbas’s willingness to steadfastly insist that any unity government would have to recognize the principles that have been laid by the Quartet.” (h/t MondoWeiss)

Given the almost universal recognition among serious analysts of the conflict that political reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah is a prerequisite for any serious attempt at peace, Obama’s refusal to engage Hamas and apparent opposition to a unity government reveals a lot about the sincerity of his ‘vision’.

Hamas, for its part, has struck an accomodatory tone in recent weeks, with Khaled Meshaal declaring that it ‘will not obstruct’ a two-state settlement. Senior Hamas official Salah Bardawil described Meshaal’s comments as part of “Hamas’s new policy”, explaining:

“We aspire to establish a Palestinian state from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. But practically, considering the situation, Hamas wants to realize its rights, to establish a Palestinian state. The entire world talks about the principle of two states for two peoples, but we see only one state, the State of Israel, which still has no clear borders and does what it wants even in the area under control of the PA. Give us a state and we’ll talk about recognition.”

Asked if the Palestinian state with Hamas would recognize the State of Israel, he said yes, “If our demand is met and a Palestinian state is established, we will recognize Israel, because we will have a state and they will have a state. At the moment, the situation is that one state controls another state.”

He also said: “The matter of recognition is a personal matter, you recognize us and we’ll recognize you. There are no magic solutions. One way is to continue the violence and the war, another is mutual recognition and the establishment of the Palestinian state. The state of Palestine will end the fighting with Israel.”

Hamas will issue an important statement tomorrow outlining its position on a potential Obama “peace process” that will likely continue this theme. The organisation has made many similar statements in recent years – for example in 2007, when Meshaal explained that,

“There will remain a state called Israel … The problem is not that there is an entity called Israel … The problem is that the Palestinian state is non-existent…

“As a Palestinian today I speak of a Palestinian and Arab demand for a state on 1967 borders. It is true that in reality there will be an entity or state called Israel on the rest of Palestinian land … This is a reality but I won’t deal with it in terms of recognizing or admitting it”.

All of Hamas’s overtures in the past were flatly rejected by the US and Israel, under the same ludicrous pretexts the Obama administration is using to isolate Hamas today.

Netanyahu will also issue a response to Obama’s speech tomorrow. He will likely use the words “Palestinian state”, thereby provoking the commentariat to collectively cream itself, while rejecting the complete settlement freeze Obama has demanded. Of course, Netanyahu’s use, or lack thereof, of the words ‘Palestinian state’ is completely insignificant unless the nature of that ‘state’ is defined. Indeed, as Noam Chomsky points out,

‘it was Netanyahu’s 1996 government that was the first to use the phrase [‘Palestinian state’]. It agreed that Palestinians can call whatever fragments of Palestine are left to them “a state” if they like – or they can call them “fried chicken”‘

As Aluf Benn reports, if the US applies serious pressure on Israel to end, or at least moderate, its rejectionism, Israel will ultimately be forced to comply. But as Amitai Etzioni observes, by manufacturing a dispute over such comparatively trivial issues Netanyahu will be able to present his ‘retreat’ to the rejectionist position of previous Israeli governments as a huge concession, thereby reducing the pressure to make genuine ‘concessions’ where it really matters. It is not difficult to see how Obama, eager to demonstrate to the Arab world his determination to confront Israeli expansionism, would benefit from such a contrived crisis either.

It is, in any event, clear from Netanyahu’s record and policy statements that any ‘Palestinian state’ he refers to will be “fried chicken” (i.e. something approximating the status quo) as opposed to the territorially contiguous, viable state demanded by the international consensus. That is Netanyahu’s vision, and the evidence thus far suggests that Obama, ‘bold’ rhetoric aside, will do nothing to seriously challenge it.

Cross-posted at The Heathlander

We’re frequently told how mysterious, complex and controversial the Israel/Palestine conflict is. The reality was demonstrated recently by UN General Assembly, which once again voted overwhelmingly in favour of a two-state settlement based on the pre-June 1967 borders:

“16. Stresses the need for:

(a)   The withdrawal of Israel from the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem;

(b) The realization of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, primarily the right to self-determination and the right to their independent State;

17. Also stresses the need for justly resolving the problem of Palestine refugees in conformity with its resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948;
18. Calls upon the parties to accelerate direct peace negotiations towards the conclusion of a final peaceful settlement on the basis of relevant United Nations resolutions, especially of the Security Council, the terms of reference of the Madrid Conference, the road map and the Arab Peace Initiative”.

The resolution, which also calls for “an immediate and complete cessation of all acts of violence”, condemns “all acts of violence and terror against civilians on both sides” and affirms the “right of all States in the region to live in peace within secure and internationally recognized borders”, passed with a vote of 164-7, with 3 abstentions. The seven rejectionists were Israel, the United States., Australia, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and the Marshall Islands (Cameroon, Canada and Tonga abstained). Virtually the entire world, including Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria and all the other states allegedly standing in the way of peace, voted in favour, while the observer for Palestine also expressed support for the resolution, stressing that what Palestinians want is ‘to live with all their neighbours in peace and security, including Israel.’

A resolution on Jerusalem that:

“1. Reiterates its determination that any actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem are illegal and therefore null and void and have no validity whatsoever, and calls upon Israel to cease all such illegal and unilateral measures;

2. Stresses that a comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the question of the City of Jerusalem should take into account the legitimate concerns of both the Palestinian and Israeli sides and should include internationally guaranteed provisions to ensure the freedom of religion and of conscience of its inhabitants, as well as permanent, free and unhindered access to the holy places by the people of all religions and nationalities;”

passed by a similarly wide margin of 163-6, with six abstentions – this time the U.S. and Israel couldn’t even marshall Australia to the cause, having to make do with a few Pacific atolls – while a third resolution sponsored by Syria calling for Israel to withdraw from the Golan and “expressing the hope that peace talks will soon resume from the point they had reached” passed by 116-6, with 52 abstentions.

164-7. 163-6. 116-6. Such is the “controversy” over how to resolve the conflict.

————-

Also worth highlighting is the following exchange between the Israeli representative and the Observer for Palestine during the debate on the above resolutions.

The Israeli rep., Gabriela Shalev, repeated Israel’s usual schtick about UN bias, asking whether the General Assembly’s tiresome insistence on Israel conforming to the law really ‘contribute[s] to the cause of peace’ (a ballsy question from a state that is as we speak systematically annexing and dismembering the West Bank while reducing Gazans to a state of “abject destitution”). She implored the GA to adopt a “fresh outlook”, complaining that while the “facts on the ground have changed”, the UN resolutions remain the same. Presumably the UN is supposed to, in the light of Israeli settlements, the illegal wall, the de facto annexation of the Jordan Valley, the annexation of East Jerusalem, and so on, forget about international law. And if it doesn’t, its resolutions will continue to have ‘relevance … of negative value’.

Step forward the Observer for Palestine:

“[E]xercising the right of reply, the representative of the Observer for Palestine spoke to Israel’s questioning of the tangible benefits of General Assembly resolutions. She responded that yes, indeed, those resolutions were to bring immediate benefits to Palestinians. However, that would only be possible if Israel complied with them. That was the missing link, and the reason why the Assembly, year after year, continued to address the same depressing issues that had only been exacerbated with the passage of time. She called on Israel to end its more than four decades of military occupation and become a law-abiding member of the community of nations, rather than disparage international efforts to rectify Palestinians’ suffering.

The only “side” being taken by the Assembly was that of international law and justice, in line with the United Nations Charter, she said. To Israel’s comments on the repetitiveness of resolutions, she said they were empty arguments with no resonance with the majority of Member States, which supported the peace process, on the basis of international law. Rather than ask the arrogant question of whether resolutions contributed to the cause of peace, to which the answer was “yes”, Israel should ask what it was contributing to that cause. She said Israel was not contributing by its continued building of colonial settlements and the wall, fragmentation of territory, imprisonment of civilians and blockade of more than 1.5 million Palestinians. All such violations, many tantamount to war crimes, only worsened the destabilizing situation on the ground. That was the problem.

She said no security pretext could justify Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian lands. Nowhere could security be achieved through the collective dismemberment of a people. All were cognizant of that, which was why the peace process was supported. Israel should acknowledge the international consensus that the situation was not tenable, and must commit itself to the peace process both in word and deed. She supported the two-State solution on the basis of 1967 borders, and was committed to that.”

And that, ladies and gents, is how it’s done.

Cross-posted at The Heathlander

An ‘explosive’ Red Cross report leaked today documents the “devastating” effect Israel’s siege is having on the population of Gaza. Heavy economic restrictions and a limited supply of basic goods are causing a “progressive deterioration in food security for up to 70 per cent of Gaza’s population”.
People are being forced to cut household spending to “survival levels”. “[T]he embargo has had a devastating effect for a large proportion of households who have had to make major changes on the composition of their food basket,” causing a “[steady] rise” in “chronic malnutrition”. The poorest two-fifths of the population now survive on only 50p per person per day, and many have been forced to sell jewellery and even household appliances to buy food and other necessities.

The Red Cross concludes that if the blockade is not halted “economic disintegration will continue and wider segments of the Gaza population will become food insecure”, while “the prolongation of the restrictions [on trade] risks permanently damaging households’ capacity to recover and undermines their ability to attain food security in the long term.” Only a removal of the embargo “can reverse the trend of impoverishment”.

The Red Cross’ findings, shocking as they are, are fully consistent with what the UN, the World Bank and leading human rights organisations have been reporting since early 2006, when the current siege began. To call the present situation in the occupied territories a “humanitarian crisis” is slightly misleading in that it suggests a lack of agency behind it. In truth, the civilian population of Gaza has been “intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution” with the tacit complicity or, in our case, the active participation of the entire international community. Unlike with a natural disaster or drought, the devastation in Gaza is entirely artificial, man-made, deliberate.  Moreover, there was nothing inevitable about any of this. Israel, the U.S. and the EU could have responded to the outcome of the January 2006 elections with a recognition that Hamas was now the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and a commitment to pursue all diplomatic possibilities with it on that basis. Instead Hamas’ conciliatory overtures were flatly rejected – only yesterday it emerged that the Bush administration received, and completely ignored, a letter sent by Hamas in June 2006 offering “a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders and … a truce for many years” and calling for “direct negotiations” with the U.S. government – in favour of a regime of severe economic strangulation and massive violence directed against the civilian population of the West Bank and Gaza, openly aimed at removing Hamas from office.

The ceasefire

The “unprecedented … humanitarian implosion” (.pdf) currently underway in Gaza and, to a slightly lesser degree, the West Bank is the predicted, fully intended result of these policies. In June of this year a ceasefire was agreed between Israel and the various militant groups in Gaza. Hamas had been calling for a comprehensive ceasefire with Israel for months, a proposal Israel repeatedly rejected in favour of a sharp escalation in violence, killing more than double the number of people in Gaza in the first three months of 2008 than in the corresponding period of the previous three years combined. When this failed to weaken Hamas’ hold on the Strip, or even to decrease the number of Qassams being fired at Israel (indeed it, of course, achieved precisely the opposite), the Israeli government finally, reluctantly agreed to a ceasefire.

There had been hope that the truce would lead to an end to the blockade and a substantial easing of the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Instead, Gaza has remained in a state of “virtual siege” (.pdf) in which “[s]hortages of electricity, fuel, safe water and sanitation frame daily life”, while the general population has seen “few dividends from the ceasefire“. Israel permitted virtually “no improvement in the movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza” and there was “no relaxation of the total ban on exports” (.pdf), a prerequisite for the revival of the Gazan economy.

All of which meant that the eruption of violence over the past week, precipitated by an Israeli strike in Gaza, was always a mere matter of time. While Hamas has an interest in continuing the truce, the difficulty of keeping the other factions in line while retaining political credibility makes it impossible to maintain indefinitely under conditions of “virtual siege” in which the wider population sees “few dividends from the ceasefire”. Whether Israel wants the truce to continue is less clear. The ruling Kadima party will not want a sustained resumption of hostilities prior to the February elections, and in any case the government is quite content with the status quo of a besieged, isolated and quiet Gaza, which leaves it free to annexe and dismember the West Bank without fear of even minimal resistance. On the other hand, Israel is determined to prevent Hamas from establishing and taking credit for stability in Gaza, fearing that the international community – and a future Obama administration in particular – might be tempted to end the current policy of isolation and begin diplomatic engagement with it.

Food blockade

For the past 10 days Gaza’s border crossings have been almost completely closed, preventing the delivery of food, humanitarian supplies and medicine. This in a place where 80% of the population depends upon international food aid for mere survival. A lack of fuel led Gaza’s only power plant to shut down on Thursday, causing massive blackouts. According to Palestinian officials the plant will be forced to shut down again tonight if fuel delivery is not resumed. On Tuesday UNRWA, which supplies 750,000 people (roughly half Gaza’s population) with food aid, warned that unless the “inhuman” blockade was eased it would run out of food supplies within two days. Israel refused to permit emergency food supplies to be transferred, and on Thursday UNRWA was forced to suspend food distribution. Today UNRWA closed down its food distribution centres in Gaza, on the grounds that its warehouses are empty (an unprecedented situation). 20,000 people who were due to collect supplies of rice, flour, sugar and oil (according to the Red Cross, a large proportion of the population now obtains 80% of their calories from cereals, sugar and oil) today left with their hands and stomachs empty. UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness commented:

“The message today is simple and clear. We have no food, our warehouses are empty, people will start to go hungry. Hungry and desperate people on the borders of Israel are not in the interests of peace…

“The UN at every level condemns the [Qassam] rockets. I again condemn them now. But more than half of the Gaza [S]trip are children. They, the elderly, the sick, the babies, the disabled, the blind [and] the deaf must not be punished because of the actions of the few.”

The UN Secretary General’s performance thoughout all this has been typically dreadful, but even he emphasised yesterday that “measures which increase the hardship and suffering of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip as a whole are unacceptable and should cease immediately”. The EU Commissioner for External Relations called on Israel to “re-open the crossings for humanitarian and commercial flows, in particular food and medicines” and fuel, noting pointedly that “[i]nternational law requires the provision of access to essential services such as electricity and clean water to the civilian population.” Oxfam called on the international community to “step up and exercise all their political might to break the blockade of Gaza … without delay” as “a matter of humanitarian imperative”, while Amnesty International condemned the “latest tightening of the blockade” as “nothing short of collective punishment” that has “made an already dire humanitarian situation markedly worse.”

For over two years Israel’s explicit policy towards Gaza has been to systematically destroy its economy and reduce its population to aid dependency, while permitting just enough humanitarian assistance to trickle through to prevent mass death. With Israel’s Defense Minister responding to the near unanimous calls for an end to the siege and warnings of an impending humanitarian catastrophe by threatening nothing less than a full-scale military offensive, that last qualification appears increasingly to have become irrelevant.

Cross-posted at The Heathlander

Nearly everyone has heard of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who was captured by armed Palestinians in June 2006 and is currently being held hostage pending a prisoner exchange. The fate of Salwa Salah and Sara Siureh, two Palestinian girls kidnapped by Israeli forces in June, by contrast, remains virtually unknown:

“[O]n Thursday June 5th, 2008, between 1:30 and 2:00 a.m., Salwa Salah and Sara Siureh (both 16 years old) were arrested by the ISA [Israeli Security Agency] at their respective homes in Bethlehem. In both cases, Israeli forces used excessive force when they arrested the girls by handcuffing and blindfolding Salwa and by storming Sara’s house and shouting at her. Both girls are relatives (cousins) and one of the girls is still at school. The ISA claimed that the girls were involved in militant activities. However, no charge has ever been issued against them.”

The girls were issued administrative detention orders for four and five months respectively (Sara’s was subsequently reduced to four months on appeal). According to the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem, Israel’s use of administrative detention – that is, “detention without charge or trial, authorized by administrative order rather than by judicial decree” – “blatantly violates” international law, making “a charade out of the entire system of procedural safeguards in both domestic and international law regarding the right to liberty and due process.” Last week, one day after the girls were due to be released, their detention orders were extended for another three months. “The military judge claimed the girls are still ‘dangerous’ despite the fact that the military prosecutor has provided no information since the girls were arrested.” Addameer, a prisoners’ rights NGO, describes their treatment thus far:

“Since their arrest, Salwa and Sara have been subjected to several violations of their human rights. In addition to the excessive use of force during the arrests, the girls also reported that during a transfer from Addamoun to al-Ramle prison on 15 July, they suffered extremely abusive behavior from the female police officer escorting them. In particular, the officer pushed them forcefully with her hands and shouted at them. When they arrived at Ramle prison, according to the existing procedure, Salwa and Sara were searched: they were asked to strip totally naked while a female officer searched their hair, body and mouth with gloves. They felt the search was humiliating. Moreover, from the date of their arrest to 21 July, none of the girls had been allowed any contact with their families. In the meantime they at least had the opportunity to meet and speak with their lawyer provided by Addameer…

“Neither Salwa nor Sara have been informed of any charges against them, nor the reason for their arrest and detention, thereby violating fundamental due process and rendering their detention illegal and arbitrary under international law.

Israeli law permits detention orders to be issued for up to six months, at which point the case is reviewed by a Military Commander who can then extend the order for another six months, subject to the approval of a military court. This process can be repeated indefinitely. Addameer reports that,

“[c]urrently, there are approximately 750 Palestinians now in administrative detention. Of these there are approximately 13 Palestinians under the age of 18 years old.”

Recall that, using Cpl. Shalit’s capture as a pretext, the Israeli government has trapped, bombed and starved the residents of Gaza for over two years, killing hundreds of people, driving an already desperate population to “abject destitution” and creating an “unprecedented humanitarian crisis” (.pdf). Recall also that, purportedly in response to the capture by Hizbullah of two soldiers in July 2006, Israel invaded Lebanon, killing over 1,100 civilians, demolishing tens of thousands of homes, systematically destroying civilian infrastructure and saturating villages and fields with over a million cluster bombs.

If these are acceptable responses to the capture of a soldier or a couple of soldiers, and many mainstream American and British commentators are indeed sympathetic, what, one wonders, are Palestinians permitted to do in order to secure the release of Salwa Salah, Sara Siureh and the hundreds of other Palestinian civilians held hostage by Israel? More to the point, what are we to make of those for whom the capture of Shalit, Goldwasser and Regev were acts of unspeakable  barbarity, but whose reaction to Israel’s kidnapping of Palestinian civilians is, at best, indifferent silence?

Cross-posted at The Heathlander

“What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on …

“We will apply disproportionate force on it [the village] and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases…

“This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved”.

That was IDF Northern Command chief Gabi Eisenkot, openly threatening to kill Lebanese civilians and destroy entire villages yesterday in Israel’s leading daily paper. Eisenkot calls this the “Dahiya doctrine“, after the poor, densely populated Shi’a suburb of Beirut that Israel flattened in 2006, killing or displacing almost the entire population. Human Rights Watch condemned the “massive destruction” that was inflicted on Dahiya as “both indiscriminate and disproportionate”, describing how “Israeli forces attacked not only Hezbollah military targets but also the offices of Hezbollah’s charitable organizations, the offices of its parliamentarians, its research center, and multi-story residential apartment buildings in areas considered supportive of Hezbollah.”

This is what the IDF has in store for the people of Lebanon.

In promising “disproportionate force” against whole villages, Eisenkot is threatening a war crime (.pdf):

“Direct attacks against civilian objects are prohibited, as are indiscriminate attacks. Indiscriminate attacks are those which strike military objectives and civilian objects without distinction. One form of indiscriminate attack is treating clearly separate and distinct military objects located in a city, town, village or concentration of civilians, as a single military objective. If two buildings in a residential area are identified as containing fighters, bombardment of the entire area would be unlawful.

Disproportionate attacks, also prohibited, are those in which the “collateral damage” would be regarded as excessive in relation to the direct military advantage to be gained.”

Incidentally, the Reuters article linked above (oh, alright) reporting the General’s remarks asserts that Israel’s accusation that Hizbullah launched rockets from civilian homes during the war was “echoed by human rights groups who also accused Israel of using excessive force that claimed the lives of innocent civilians.”

This is a quite remarkable distortion. In fact, Human Rights Watch conducted an extensive study of this particular allegation and discovered it to be an almost complete fabrication. While Hizbullah “at times” failed to “take all feasible precautions to avoid firing rockets from populated areas”, HRW “did not find evidence … that the deployment of Hezbollah forces in Lebanon routinely or widely violated the laws of war”. Hizbullah did not “routinely [locate] its rockets inside or near civilian homes” (in fact it “stored most of its rockets … in uninhabited fields and valleys”) and nor, barring a few exceptions, did it “[fire] its rockets from populated areas”. Quite the contrary:

“The available evidence indicates that in the vast majority of cases Hezbollah fighters left populated civilian areas as soon as the fighting started and fired the majority of their rockets from pre-prepared positions in largely unpopulated valleys and fields outside villages.”

Finally, Reuters might recall that human rights organisations did not accuse Israel merely of employing ‘excessive force’. Rather, they accused Israel of “serious violations of international humanitarian law“, “reckless indifference to the fate of Lebanese civilians” and “war crimes” (.pdf).

Cross-posted at The Heathlander

A coalition of 21 prominent aid agencies, including the likes of Oxfam International, Save the Children UK, CAFOD, CARE International UK and Christian Aid, published a report (.pdf) this week condemning the failure of the ‘Quartet’ ( the EU, Russia and the UN, led by the U.S.) to achieve significant humanitarian or political progress in the occupied territories. They conclude that in five of the ten areas targeted for improvement by the Quartet, including the “three areas where progress is now most urgent” (settlements, restrictions on movement and access and ending the blockade of Gaza), “there has been either no progress or an actual deterioration in the situation.”
Statements condemning Israeli settlements have not been accompanied by “concrete measures” to ensure Israel’s compliance. This “marked failure to hold the Israeli authorities to their obligations” has resulted in a significant “acceleration in construction” of settlements and “no serious attempts by the Israeli authorities to dismantle outposts”. According to Peace Now (.pdf), in the first half of 2008 the pace of construction “almost doubled in all of the settlements and outposts on both sides of the Separation Barrier”. This is part of an “intensive” effort “intended to create a territorial connection between the blocks of settlements and isolated settlements in the heart of the West Bank”, thereby “[e]liminating the Green Line” and with it any chance of a two-state settlement. The number of tenders issued for building projects in the settlements in the first half of this year was up 550%, while tenders issued for East Jerusalem increased by a factor of 38.

The settlements and their associated infrastructure – the annexation wall, the outposts, the thousands of miles of restricted roads “connecting illegal Israeli settlements and usurping Palestinian land” and the closure policy, discussed below – combine to make nearly 40% of the West Bank inaccessible to Palestinians, with “devastat[ing]” consequences for Palestinian social and economic life.

Israel’s contempt for international denunciations of its settlement policies was dramatically illustrated when, the day after the Quartet issued its June 24 statement expressing “deep concern” at continuing Israeli construction in the West Bank and calling for a complete settlement freeze, it “announced new settlement building or tendering in Neve Yaacov, Beitar Illit, Har Homa, Pisgat Ze’ev, Ariel, and Maskiot.” Similarly, almost immediately after agreeing to halt settlement activity at the Annapolis conference last November the Israeli government published tenders for the construction of 747 housing units in East Jerusalem. These acts are timed to send a very clear message to Palestinians and others that Israel has no intention of withdrawing to its legal borders, irrespective of any “peace process”.

Rejecting claims of a ‘new reality’ in the West Bank (also dismissed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the World Bank), the report warns that the Palestinian “economy continues to stagnate”. Aside from occasional “isolated successes”, there has been “little demonstrable progress in … invigorating the Palestinian economy”. Despite Israel’s repeated promises to remove restrictions on movement in the West Bank, the number of roadblocks actually increased over the past six months, while the average weekly number of ‘flying’ checkpoints has increased by approximately 10% in recent months. This in the context of a 62% increase in roadblocks and checkpoints since the Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA) was signed in 2005. The relationship between these restrictions and “the expansion and protection of illegal Israeli settlement activity” has, the report notes, been “well documented”, by the UN, human rights organisations and many others. As the World Bank reported last week, the evidence that “the current restrictions correlate to settlement locations and expansions” is “[o]verwhelming”. Indeed, Israeli military experts have repeatedly proposed alternative locations for the checkpoints and other restrictions that would inflict less humanitarian and economic hardship on the Palestinians without conceding anything in terms of Israel’s security. Their proposals have not, needless to say, been implemented.

Construction of the wall, ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice four years ago, has continued apace. When complete the wall will annexe nearly 10% of the most fertile West Bank land, severing over 400,000 Palestinians from their land, their jobs, basic services and each other and isolating East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. The British government has acknowledged that the wall constitutes an attempt by Israel to “create facts on the grounds” to “prejudice future final-status negotiations”, a situation it evidently finds perfectly acceptable, judging by its decision to unconditionally upgrade Israel’s bilateral ties with the EU earlier this year. Israel’s closure policy has resulted in “the annexation of land and water supplies, and the forced displacement of Palestinians”, and has generally had a “profound effect on the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank”. It has, for example, “significantly contributed to the fact that over half the population (57.2 per cent) is living in poverty … with one of the highest unemployment rates in the world.” As the UN OCHA concludes, Israel has constructed in the West Bank,

“an entrenched multi-layered system of obstacles and restrictions, fragmenting the West Bank territory and affecting the freedom of movement of the entire Palestinian population and its economy. This system is transforming the geographical reality of the West Bank and Jerusalem towards a more permanent territorial fragmentation”.

In Gaza meanwhile, the blockade continues despite the ceasefire, which has been highly successful in reducing the violence despite occasional “violations on both sides”. While there have been slight increases in imports of humanitarian and commercial goods, these remain very “limited” and are “failing to meet the basic needs of Gaza’s population.” The blockade has led to the closure of a full 98% of Gaza’s factories, and there has been “no relaxation of the total ban on exports, without which there can be no regeneration of the Gazan economy.” As such the humanitarian situation (.pdf) in Gaza remains “dire”, with no sign of imminent improvement (quite the opposite – current trends point only to “deepening poverty”). The World Bank and the IMF recently concluded, once again, that while Israel’s network of settlements and restrictions remain in West Bank, and while the siege of Gaza continues, no amount of aid or reform will revive the Palestinian economy, which looks set to slide further into de-development and aid dependency.

In short, under the cover of the hand-shakes and photo-ops of the Annapolis “peace process”, the systematic destruction of Palestinian society and annexation of Palestinian land has been sharply accelerated. The aid agencies’ report twice suggests that, given its failure to achieve anything positive of note either politically or economically in the occupied territories, it will soon become “necessary to question what the future is for the Middle East Quartet.” In fact, the U.S. and the EU, at least, are guilty of far more than a failure to act – they have both actively supported and facilitated many of the policies described above. Indeed, while the report emphasises that “[t]he only sustainable solution to the crisis is a comprehensive peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians based on international law”, the Quartet has failed to even mention the authoritative ICJ judgement outlining Israel’s legal obligations, due largely to the rejectionist influence of the United States. Instead it remains formally committed to the “road map” – a framework almost universally recognised to be, in the words of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, “an irrelevance” – and refuses to pursue any concrete measures against Israel’s flagrant violations of international law. At the very least, the UN should contemplate John Dugard’s advice (.pdf) and consider removing itself from the charade, thus depriving it of whatever false legitimacy it currently enjoys. This fraud has continued long enough.

Cross-posted at The Heathlander

The “only democracy in the Middle East” once again resorts to force in order to silence dissent:

“[T]he American academic Norman Finkelstein has been arrested and ordered deported from Israel. Finkelstein arrived in Tel Aviv earlier today on his way to the Occupied Territories. He was immediately detained and told he is banned from Israel for ten years. He’s expected to be deported tomorrow. Finkelstein is known one of the most prominent  academic critics of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.”

Apparently Finkelstein was arrested on “security” grounds, illustrating once again that Israel’s definition of “security” is far removed from the conventional use of the term. He can at least count himself lucky that he is not Palestinian, in which case he would now be facing the very real possibility of torture and years of detention without trial, or else he might simply have been shot.

Activist Sam Bahour writes:

‘Dear friends,

ACT NOW:   Flood the Israeli Ministry of Interior with faxes, emails, calls.  DEMAND THAT DR. FINKELSTEIN BE PERMITTED TO ENTER ISRAEL IN ORDER TO REACH THE OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY!

Minister of Interior Mr. Meir SHEETRIT
Israeli Ministry of the Interior
2 Kaplan St., Qiryat Ben-Gurion
P.O. Box 6158, 91061 Jerusalem  
Tel.  +972-2-670-1411 / +972-2-629-4722
Fax: +972-2-670-1628

or

Mr. Meir SHEETRIT’s numbers at the Knesset
Telephone 1:     +972-2-640-8410
Telephone 2:      +972-2- 640-8409
Fax:      +972-2- 640-8920
Email: mshitrit@knesset.gov.il

It is now Friday night and the Ministry will be closed through Saturday for the Jewish Sabbath. Thus, if you are in the US please call your congressman and senator NOW and advise them a Jewish American U.S. citizen is being denied access to Israel!!

Also, CALL the STATE DEPT’s Hotline for American Travelers: 202-647-5225 and let them know this is happening and is in violation of international law.

If you are an Israeli, please start working the phones…this denial of entry is all being done in your name!!

The only ‘democracy’ in the Middle East strikes again,
Sam’

You heard the man.

Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, just days after threatening Iran with “massive retaliation” should it attack Israel, has now gone one further:

‘Clinton further displayed tough talk in an interview airing on Good Morning America Tuesday, ABC News’ Chris Cuomo asked Clinton what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons.

“I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president we will attack Iran,” Clinton said. “In the next ten years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”‘

For an interesting parallel, have a look at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent threat to “eliminate” Israel if it attacked Iran.

The State Department claimed that this outburst legitimised international sanctions against Iran, describing it as “unbelievable rhetoric…about attacking a fellow member of the United Nations. “Any civilized person finds that disturbing.”

Well, Clinton’s statement above was surely much worse than Ahmadinejad’s warning, because there was nothing conditional about her threat (“we will attack Iran”) and because as President of the global military superpower Clinton would actually have the capacity to deliver on her threat.

The obvious conclusion is that international sanctions should be imposed on Hillary Clinton immediately.

Cross-posted at The Heathlander

“So we got hold of just some [10 year-old] Palestinian kid nearby, we knew that he knew who it had been. Let’s say we beat him a little, to put it mildly, until he told us. You know, the way it goes when your mind’s already screwed up, and you have no more patience for Hebron and Arabs and Jews there.

“The kid was really scared, realising we were on to him. We had a commander with us who was a bit of a fanatic. We gave the boy over to this commander, and he really beat the shit out of him … He showed him all kinds of holes in the ground along the way, asking him: `Is it here you want to die? Or here?’ The kid goes, `No, no!’

“Anyway, the kid was stood up, and couldn’t stay standing on his own two feet. He was already crying … And the commander continues, `Don’t pretend’ and kicks him some more. And then [name withheld], who always had a hard time with such things, went in, caught the squad commander and said, `Don’t touch him any more, that’s it.’ The commander goes, `You’ve become a leftie, what?’ And he answers, `No, I just don’t want to see such things.’

“We were right next to this, but did nothing. We were indifferent, you know. OK. Only after the fact you start thinking. Not right away. We were doing such things every day … It had become a habit…

“And the parents saw it. The commander ordered [the mother], `Don’t get any closer.’ He cocked his weapon, already had a bullet inside. She was frightened. He put his weapon literally inside the kid’s mouth. `Anyone gets close, I kill him. Don’t bug me. I kill. I have no mercy.’ So the father … got hold of the mother and said, `Calm down, let them be, so they’ll leave him alone.'”

“We did all kinds of experiments to see who could do the best split in Abu Snena. We would put [Palestinians] against the wall, make like we were checking them, and ask them to spread their legs. Spread, spread, spread, it was a game to see who could do it best. Or we would check who can hold his breath for longest.

“How do you check that?”

“Choke them. One guy would come, make like he was checking them, and suddenly start yelling like they said something and choke them … Block their airways; you have to press the adams apple. It’s not pleasant. Look at the watch as you’re doing it, until he passes out. The one who takes longest to faint wins.”

[A soldier] stole a box of tobacco from this Arab…The Arab suddenly said, “Thieves! Thieves! I saw you!” … So that soldier said, ‘You calling me a thief?!” No one knew what happened. He said, “You calling me a thief?!” and started beating him up, really badly. The soldiers said, hey, stop, and we caught him. But they beat him to a pulp.

Who beat whom?

The soldiers beat up this Arab. And he took a wire, that soldier. He was really screwed up. He wound up this wire around and around this guy’s hand, that hand was already…

Around his hand?

Yes. I’m telling you, we tried to stop him. “No, I won’t let him go, he raised his hand at me! He will be punished!” And he wound this wire around and around, and finally cut it as close as he could to the skin. We tried to cut it off for about an hour, we couldn’t. It literally cut into him. His hand got blue in a second. And the guy cries “I can’t feel my hand any more!” I said, he’ll probably have to be amputated.”

Cross-posted at The Heathlander