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‘The Pursuit of a Two-State Solution Is a Fantasy’

AFP

Prominent Palestinian philosopher Sari Nusseibeh believes it is too late for a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict. In a SPIEGEL interview, he outlines his vision for an Israeli-Palestinian confederation and why he mistrusts the new moderate stance taken by the Islamic militant group Hamas.

Interview conducted by Martin Doerry and Juliane von Mittelstaedt.

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By Jeff Halper

Jeff Halper calls for the abolition of the Palestinian National Authority, which he argues is nothing but a smokescreen to enable Israel to ethnically cleanse itself while the world and Palestinian quislings are preoccupied with the pursuit of the mirage of a two-state solution, something in fact rendered utterly unachievable by Israel’s colonization of the Palestinian territories.

Even as I write this, the bulldozers have been busy throughout that one indivisible country known by the bifurcated term Israel/Palestine. Palestinian homes, community centres, livestock pens and other “structures” (as the Israel authorities dispassionately call them) have been demolished in the Old City, Silwan and various parts of “Area C” in the West Bank, as well among the Bedouin – Israeli citizens – in the Negev/Naqab. This is merely mopping up, herding the last of the Arabs into their prison cells where, forever, they will cease to be heard or heard from, a non-issue in Israel and, eventually, in the wider world distracted by bigger, more pressing matters.

Forced expulsions and Judaization

An as-yet confidential report submitted by the European consuls in Jerusalem and Ramallah raises urgent concerns over the “forced expulsion” of Palestinians – a particularly strong term for European diplomats to use –from Area C of the West Bank (the 60 per cent of the West Bank under full Israeli control but which today contains less than 5 per cent of the Palestinian population). Focusing particularly on the rise in house demolitions by the Israeli authorities and the growing economic distress of the Palestinians living in Area C, the report mentions the fertile and strategic Jordan Valley (where the Palestinian population has declined from 250,000 to 50,000 since the start of the occupation), plans to relocate 3,000 Jahalin Bedouins to a barren hilltop above the Jerusalem garbage dump and the ongoing but accelerated demolition of Palestinian homes (500 in 2011).

At the same time the “Judaization” of Jerusalem continues apace, a “greater” Israeli Jerusalem steadily isolating the Palestinian parts of the city from the rest of Palestinian society while ghettoizing their inhabitants, more than 100,000 of which now live beyond the [Apartheid] Wall. Some 120 homes were demolished in East Jerusalem in 2011; over the same period the Israeli government announced the construction of close to 7,000 housing units for Jews in East and “Greater” Jerusalem. “If current trends are not stopped and reversed,” said aprevious European Union report, “the establishment of a viable Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders seems more remote than ever. The window for a two-state solution is rapidly closing…”

In fact, it closed long ago. In terms of settlers and Palestinians, the Israeli government treats the whole country as one. Last year it demolished three times more homes of Israeli citizens (Arabs, of course) than it did in the occupied Palestinian territory. The demolition of Bedouin homes in the Negev/Naqab is part of a plan approved by the government to remove 30,000 citizens from their homes and confine them to townships.

None of this concerns “typical” Israelis even if they have heard of it (little appears in the news). For them, the Israeli-Arab conflict was won and forgotten years ago, somewhere around 2004 when George W. Bush informed Ariel Sharon that the US does not expect Israel to withdraw to the 1967 borders, thus effectively ending the “two-state solution”, and Arafat “mysteriously” died.

Israeli Jewish indifference, US collusion

Since then, despite occasional protests from Europe, the “situation” has been normalized. Israelis enjoy peace and quiet, personal security and a booming economy (with the usual neoliberal problems of fair allocation). The unshakable, bipartisan support of the American government and Congress effectively shields it from any kind of international sanctions. Above all, Israeli Jews have faith that those pesky Arabs living somewhere “over there” beyond the walls and barbed-wire barriers have been pacified and brought under control by the Israeli armed forces. A recent poll found that “security”, the term Israelis use instead of “occupation” or “peace”, was ranked eleventh among the concerns of the Israeli public, trailing well behind employment, crime, corruption, religious-secular differences, housing and other more pressing issues .

A for the international community, the “Quartet” representing the US, the EU, Russia and the UN in the non-existent “peace process” has gone completely silent. (Israel refused to table its position on borders and other key negotiating issues by the 26 January “deadline” laid down by the Quartet, and no new meetings are scheduled). The US has abandoned any pretence of an “honest broker”. Months ago, when the US entered its interminable election “season”, Israel received a green light from both the Democrats and Republicans to do whatever it sees fit in the occupied territory. Last May the Republicans invited Binyamin Netanyahu to address Congress and send a clear message to Obama: hands off Israel. That same week, Obama, not to be out-done, addressed an American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) convention and reaffirmed Bush’s promise that Israel will not have to return to the 1967 borders or relinquish its major settlement blocs in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. He also took the occasion to promise an American veto should the Palestinians request membership in the UN – though that would merely amount to an official acceptance of the two-state treaty that the US claims it has been fostering all these years. No, as far as Israel and Israeli Jews are concerned, the conflict and even the need for pretence is over. The only thing remaining is to divert attention to more “urgent” global matters so that the Palestinian issue completely disappears. Voila Iran.

Palestinian Authority as agency for ethnic cleansing

Oh, but what about the “demographic threat”, that “war of the womb” that will eventually force a solution? Well, as long as Israel has the Palestinian Authority to self-segregate its people, it has nothing to worry about. While the Palestinian Authority plays the “two-state solution” game, Israel can simply herd the Palestinians into the 70 tiny islands of Areas A and B, lock the gates and let the international community feed them – and go about placidly building a Greater Land of Israel with American and European complicity.

Indeed, nothing demonstrates self-segregation more than Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s neoliberal scheme of building a Palestinian – something – “from the ground up.” By building for the well-to-do in new private-sector cities like Rawabi, located safely in Area A, by building new highways (with Japanese and USAID assistance) that respect Israeli “Greater” Jerusalem and channel Palestinian traffic from Ramallah to Bethlehem through faraway Jericho, by expressing a willingness to accept Israeli territorial expansion in exchange for the ability to “do business”, Fayyad has invented yet a new form of neoliberal oppression-by-consent: viable apartheid (viable, at least, for the Palestinian business class). And as in the bantustans of apartheid South Africa, the Palestinian Authority maintains a repressive internal order through its own American-trained/Israeli-approved militia, a second layer of occupation. (During the 2008 assault on Gaza, one of the few places in the world in which there were no demonstrations was the West Bank, where they were forbidden by the Palestinian Authority. The then Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, crowed that this was evidence of how effectively the Palestinians had been pacified.)

Indeed, by clinging to the two-state solution and continuing to participate in “negotiations” years after they have proven themselves a trap, the Palestinian leadership plays a central role in its own people’s warehousing. The reality – even the fact – of occupation gets buried under the diversions set up by the fraudulent yet unending “peace process”. This only enables Israel to imprison the Palestinians in tiny cells; witness today’s mini-ethnc cleansing, just one of thousands of micro-events that have the cumulative effect of displacement, expulsion, segregation and incarceration. It also enables Israel to then blame the victims for causing their own oppression! When a Palestinian leadership assumes the prerogative to negotiate a political resolution yet lacks any genuine authority or leverage to do so, and when, in addition, it fails to abandon negotiations even after they have been exposed as a trap, it comes dangerously close to being collaborationist. For its part, Israel is off the hook. Instead of going through the motions of establishing an apartheid regime, it simply exploits the willingness of the Palestinian Authority to perpetuate the illusion of negotiations as a smokescreen covering its virtual imprisonment of the Palestinian “inmates”. Once the current mopping up operations are completed, the process of incarceration will be complete.

Today the only alternative agency to the Palestinian Authority is segments of the international civil society. The Arab and Muslim peoples, for whom Palestinian liberation is an integral part of the Arab Spring, stand alongside thousands of political and human rights groups, critical activists, churches, trade unions and intellectuals throughout the world. Crucial as it is for keeping the issue alive and building grassroots support for the Palestinian cause that will steadily “trickle up” and affect governments’ policies, however, civil society advocacy is a stop-gap form of agency, ultimately unable to achieve a just peace by itself. We, too, are trapped in the dead-end personified by the two-state solution, reference to a “peace process” and their attendant “negotiations.” There is no way forward in the current paradigm. We must break out into a world of new possibilities foreclosed by the present options: a “two-state” apartheid regime or warehousing.

Searching for a new paradigm

In my view, while advocacy and grassroots mobilization remain relevant, several tasks stand before us. First, we must endeavour to hasten the collapse of the present situation and subsequently, when new paradigms of genuine justice emerge from the chaos, be primed to push forward an entirely different solution that is currently impossible or inconceivable, be that a single democratic state over the entire country, a binational state, a regional confederation or some other alternative yet to be formulated. The Palestinians themselves must create a genuine, inclusive agency of their own that, following the collapse, can effectively seize the moment. Formulating a clear programme and strategy, they will then be equipped to lead their people to liberation and a just peace, with the support of activists and others the world over.

A necessary and urgent first step towards collapsing the otherwise permanent regime of oppression in Israel/Palestine is that we stop talking about a two-state solution. It’s dead and gone as a political option – if, indeed, it ever really existed. It should be banned from the discourse because reference to an irrelevant “solution” only serves to confuse the discussion. Granted, this will be hard for liberals to do; everyone else, however, has given up on it. Most Palestinians, having once supported it, now realize that Israel will simply not withdraw to a point where a truly viable and sovereign state can emerge. The Israeli government, backed by the Bush-Obama policies on the settlement blocs, doesn’t even make pretence of pursuing it anymore, and the Israeli public is fine with the status quo. Nor does the permanent warehousing of the Palestinians seem to faze the American or European governments, or the Arab League. Even AIPAC has moved on to the “Iranian threat”.

Behind the insistence of the liberal Zionists of J Street, Peace Now, the Peace NGOs Forum, the Peres Center for Peace and others to hang on to a two-state solution at any cost is a not-so-hidden agenda. They seek to preserve Israel as a Jewish state even at the cost of enforcing institutional discrimination against Israel’s own Palestinian citizens. The real meaning of a “Jewish democracy” is living with apartheid and warehousing while protesting against them. The liberals will be the hardest to wean away from the two-state snare. Yet if they don’t abandon it, they run the risk of promotingde facto their own worst nightmare of warehousing while providing the fig-leaf of legitimacy to cover the policies of Israel’s extreme right – all in the name of “peace”. This is what happens when one’s ideology places restrictions on one’s ability to perceive evil or to draw necessary if difficult conclusions. When wishful thinking becomes policy, it not only destroys your effectiveness as a political actor but leads you into positions, policies and alliances that, in the end, are inimical to your own goals and values. Jettisoning all talk of a “two-state solution” removes the major obstacle to clear analysis and the ability to move forward.

Civil society action

With the obfuscation created by the “two-state solution” now out of the way, what emerges as clear as day is naked occupation, an apartheid regime extending across all of historic Palestine/Israel and the spectre of warehousing. Since none of these forms of oppression can ever be legitimized or transformed into something just, the task before us becomes clear: to cause their collapse by any means necessary. There are many ways to do this, just as the African National Congress did. Already, Palestinian, Israeli and international activists are engaging in internal resistance, together with international challenges to occupation represented by the Gaza flotillas and attempts to “crash” Israeli borders. Many civil society actors the world over have mobilized, some around campaigns such as Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS), others around direct actions, still others engaged in lobbying the UN and governments through such instruments as the Human Rights Council, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and international courts. There have been campaigns to reconvene the tribunal that, under the Fourth Geneva Convention, has the authority and duty to impose sanctions on Israel for its gross violations. Dozens of groups and individuals alike are engaging in public speaking, staging “Israel Apartheid Week” on university campuses and working through the media. And much more.

And here is where Palestinian civil society plays a crucial role, a role that cannot be played by non-Palestinians. If it is agreed that the Palestinian Authority must go if we are to get beyond the two-state trap – indeed, the dismantling of the PA being a major part of the collapse of the present system – then this call must originate from within the Palestinian community. Non-Palestinians must join in, of course, but the issue of who represents the Palestinians is their call exclusively.

Non-Palestinians can also suggest various endgames. I’ve written, for example, about a Middle East economic confederation, believing that a regional approach is necessary to address the core issues. The Palestinian International Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA) published a collection of 12 possible outcomes. It is obvious, though, that it is the sole prerogative of the Palestinian people to decide what solution, or range of solutions, is acceptable. For this, and to organize effectively so as to bring about a desired outcome, the Palestinians need a new truly representative agency, one that replaces the PA and gives leadership and direction to a broadly-based civil society agency, one that has the authority to negotiate a settlement and actually move on to the implementation of a just peace.

As of now, it appears there is only one agency that possesses that legitimacy and mandate: the Palestinian National Council (PNC) of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) (although Hamas and the other Islamic parties are not yet part of the PLO). Reconstituting the PNC through new elections would seem the most urgent item on the Palestinian agenda today – without which, in the absence of effective agency, we are all stuck in rear-guard protest actions and Israel prevails. Our current situation, caught in the limbo between seeking the collapse of the oppressive system we have, and having a Palestinian agency that can effectively lead us towards a just resolution, is one of the most perilous we’ve faced. One person’s limbo is another person’s window of opportunity. Say what you will about Israel, it knows how to hustle and exploit even the smallest of opportunities to nail down its control permanently.

“Collapse with agency”, I suggest, could be a title of our refocused efforts to weather the limbo in the political process. Until a reinvigorated PNC or other representative agency can be constituted, a daunting but truly urgent task, Palestinian civil society might coalesce enough to create a kind of interim leadership bureau. This itself might be a daunting task. Most Palestinian leaders have either been killed by Israel or are languishing in Israeli prisons, while Palestinian civil society has been shattered into tiny disconnected and often antagonistic pieces. At home major divisions have been sown between “1948” and “1967” Palestinians; Gaza, Jerusalem and the West Bank have been effectively severed; and within the West Bank restrictions on movement among a bewildering array of “areas” – A, B, C, C-Restricted, H-1, H-2, nature reserves, closed military areas – have resulted in virtual, largely disconnected Palestinian mini-societies. Political divisions, especially among secular/traditional and Islamic factions, have been nurtured, not least by Israel. Overall, the Palestinian population, exhausted by years of sacrifice and resistance, impoverished and preoccupied with mere survival, has been left largely rudderless as many of its most educated and skilled potential leaders have left or are forbidden by Israel to return.

For its part, the Palestinian leadership has done little to bridge the wider divisions among those falling under PA rule, Palestinian citizens of Israel, residents of the refugee camps and the world-wide diaspora, divisions that have grown even wider since the PLO and the PNC fell moribund. Indeed, major portions of the Palestinian diaspora (and one may single out especially but not exclusively the large and prosperous communities of Latin America), have disconnected from the national struggle completely. The Palestinians possess some extremely articulate spokespeople and activists, but they tend to be either a collection of individual voices only tenuously tied to grassroots organizations, or grassroots resistance groups such as the Popular Committees that enjoy little political backing or strategic direction.

Ever aware that the struggle for liberation must be led by Palestinians, our collective task at the moment, in my view, is to bring about the collapse of the present situation in Palestine in order to exploit its fundamental unsustainability. The elimination of the Palestinian Authority is one way to precipitate that collapse. It would likely require Israel to physically reoccupy the Palestinian cities and probably Gaza as well (as if they have ever been de-occupied), bringing the reality of raw occupation back to the centre of attention. Such a development would likely inflame Arab and Muslim public opinion, not to mention that of much of the rest of the world, and would create an untenable situation, forcing the hand of the international community. Israel would be put in an indefensible position, thus paving the way for new post-collapse possibilities – this time with an effective and representative Palestinian agency in place and a global movement primed to follow its lead.

But given the underlying unsustainability of the occupation and the repressive system existing throughout historic Palestine – the massive violations of human rights and international law, the disruptive role the conflict plays in the international system and its overt brutality – collapse could come from a variety of places, some of them unsuspected and unrelated to Israel/Palestine. An attack on Iran could reshuffle the cards in the Middle East, and the Arab Spring is still a work in progress. Major disruptions in the flow of oil to the West due an attack on Iran, internal changes in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, instability in Russia and even the fact that China has no oil of its own could cause major financial crises worldwide. Sino-American tensions, environmental disasters or Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the Taliban with unpredictable Indian reactions may all play an indirect yet forceful role. Who knows? Ron Paul, president Gingrich’s newly appointed secretary of state, might end all military, economic and political support for Israel, in which case the occupation (and more) would fall within a month.

Whatever the cause of the collapse – and we must play an active role in bring it about – it is incumbent upon us to be ready, mobilized and organized if we are to seize that historic moment, which might be coming sooner than we expect. Effective and broadly representative Palestinian agency will be critical. Collapse with agency is the only way to get “there” from “here.”

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By Paul J. Balles

Paul J. Balles retells the story of Palestine, reminding us in brief and simple terms of the the basic, undeniable facts of the world’s worst, most obdurate and premeditated injustice.

I have a story to tell. This story has been told before. It can be found in several places on and off the internet, but not enough people have read it. If they have, it hasn’t sunk in.

It’s a narrative currently left out of the news of recent events – financial crises in Europe, Arab Spring with uprisings and occupy movements and elections in America.

The chaos has kept the spotlights away from Palestine, but the problem remains, and the story needs to be retold until enough people pay attention and share the simple truth.

Zion’s myth makers

Anyone who has read some of the history of Palestine knows that indigenous Jews and Palestinians had no trouble getting along. They lived, worked and played on the same land in Palestine. However, that’s not the way it’s told in the gullible West by the myth-makers of Zion.

The problems started when Jews in Europe invented Zionism for those Jews who wanted a Jewish state in order to escape from anti-Semitism in Europe.

At times, you can hear one of these Zionist attempts to distract people from the truth by calling anyone critical of Zionism anti-Semitic.

A huge gap exists between those accusations and reality. European Jews are not Semitic except in their use of Hebrew as one of the Semitic languages. Palestinians are Semitic for the same linguistic reason – they use a Semitic language.

To call anti-Zionists anti-Semitic is nothing more than a propaganda ploy designed to shut critics of Zionism up.

The Zionists lied about much to get their way in Palestine. According to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, “They said that Palestine was empty when the Jewish settlers came there.”

The Zionists also spread the lie that “Israel was a land without a people for a people without a land,” says Phyllis Bennis of the Institute of Policy Studies. Palestine was not empty. There were farms and villages and towns with roads and commerce, a culture and an advanced society. Ninety-six per cent of the population was Muslim or Christian in the 19th century.

British duplicity in colonization

Following World War I, 65,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine when Britain implemented the Balfour Declaration, which the British had no right to make, carving a state out of Palestinian land.

The British had promised self-rule for the Palestinians. By the 1920s they supported the Zionist movement, denying the right of self-determination to the people in Palestine.

Clashes began when Jewish settlers tried to strip away land belonging to Palestinians. In the early 1930s the Jewish population remained under 17 per cent.

After Hitler rose to power, 174,000 Jews fled to Palestine, doubling the Jewish population. More arrived, adding 119,000 in five years.

This has been the pattern ever since. Bring settlers to Palestine under Israeli colonization and refuse to stop building settlements on Palestinian land.

A conference in March 2011 organized by the Palestine Society of London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), “Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine”, attempted to address the issue of colonization. It aimed:

…to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society.

…for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources – and to displace the original inhabitants.

When Zionists claim differently or label doubters anti-Semitic, they add a rationale for hatred of Zionists. They plant the seeds of self-destruction.

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The Global March to Jerusalem/GMJ commences on 30 March and coincides with the 36^th anniversary of LAND DAY.

by Eileen Fleming

As “reality leaves much to the imagination” [John Lennon] I imagine the third intifada could finally erupt if those two events were joined into from every city, town and village throughout Israel by contingents of nonviolent residents who would pitch tents in nonviolent solidarity as global citizens of conscience amass on the borders of Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria and all uphold The document of Principles “The Freedom Call” which ascertains the significance of Jerusalem politically, culturally and religiously to all Palestinian people and the global community.

The Global March to Jerusalem’s Declaration of Principles underscores that the GMJ does not represent any one faction or political party but calls for participation from all social forces, political factions and ideologies to respond to the call for justice united in a peaceful movement that steadfastly refutes the use of violence to achieve goals.

The eyes of the world will view Israel’s response but when the eyes of the leaders of the world see the right of the Palestinian People to liberate their land and live in freedom and dignity; the holy city of Jerusalem could be a City of Peace and the Holy Land could be whole indeed.

But, for that imagination to even approach reality we must know, honor and learn from history.

The GMJ aims to rattle the conscience of the world and seeks “to end the Zionist policies of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and Judaisation, which all harm the people, land and sanctity of Jerusalem…

“The march will unite the efforts of Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, Jews, and all citizens of conscience in the world to put an end to Israel’s disregard for international law through the continuing occupation of Jerusalem and the rest of Palestinian land…

“Our plan is to organize massive marches towards Jerusalem, or to the nearest point possible according to the circumstances of each country, in Palestine (the 1948 seizures, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) and the four neighbouring countries: Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon…In addition, mass protests will be organized in front of Israeli embassies in the capitals of different countries, or in the main public squares in the big cities of the world.

“The recent successes of the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions are a reminder that this inspirational movement for nonviolent civil resistance was actually born in Palestine with the first Intifada. By renewing the struggle to liberate Palestine through a peaceful national mass movement that is supported by the global community, we aim to change the nature of the confrontation by compelling the occupiers to face millions of demonstrators demanding Freedom for Palestine and its capital Jerusalem.” [1]

IMAGINE That!

LAND DAY commemorates the killing of six Palestinians, wounding of 96 and arrests of 300 on 30 March 1976, when Israeli forces reacted with violence to a spontaneous peaceful demonstration by Palestinians over the confiscation of 5,500 acres of their land which Israel had classified as “closed military zones” for “security and settlement purposes.”

My Land Day Experience:

On Land Day in 2006, just after the break of dawn, a group of Israeli Jews and I traveled three hours north of west Jerusalem to the lower Galilee municipality of Sakhnin, an Arab village whose land continues to be grabbed and colonized by settlers.

Ronnie, was a Canadian who moved to Israel with a desire to help build a civil society and she co-founded Women in Black and was active with Machsom Watch, who are women at the checkpoints who watch for and report on human rights abuses. She laughed when she told me, “A friend said that I am so Left that if I ever gets to heaven I will probably argue with God that those in hell just didn’t get a fair deal.”

Ronnie turned serious and continued, “Religion is used as a cover, but it’s all about the land! It’s convenient to claim one is doing something for God but the laws are made to take the land. We don’t have settlers in Israel -the common name for illegal colonists in the West Bank-we just take it! First it is claimed to be for military reasons then it’ll become a park or agricultural land that the state has confiscated.

“The Palestinians who did not leave in ’48 but remained here still have lost their land. They can’t get permits to build…

“I am opposed to the occupation and as an Israeli Jew I want to see justice for all and I refuse to be enemies with anyone.”
Over 100 Israeli’s, Arab Christians, Muslims, atheists, communists and internationals attended a tour of Sakhnin and conference coordinated by Batshalom and The Women’s Coalition for Peace and Justice.

I learned that not only had Israel confiscated acres of the most fertile of Palestinian land they had also placed land mines all over the land. Many farmers and other innocent ones lost their lives or legs, so people quit caring for their groves and the Israeli government declared the village of Sakhnin a military zone.

A few years prior, the President of Israel had declared that the people of Sakhnin, deserved to have their land back. But the Israeli county of Misgav, abetted by the Israeli Land Authority continued to collect taxes from the indigenous people but not return any land or issue permits for Palestinians to build upon their legally owned property.

An Israeli peace activist commented, “In 2000 during Land Day, hundred’s of nonviolent protesters were arrested and we were hit with tear gas and rubber bullets. Name it and we have had it!”

Another told me, “I am an Israeli Jew and I am responsible to change something about this situation. We all need to do this together.”

The speakers spoke in Arabic or Hebrew, and my interpreter was Aliyah [Hebrew for "Go Up"], who was born in St. Louis, grew up in Cleveland and moved to Israel in 1948.

She told me, “My Father was born in Jerusalem and I was a Zionist, but now I am not so sure. I still want the Jewish people to have a state but it must be honest and moral, I don’t want a piranha state! Before 1967 I was euphoric! My husband and I began to learn that there were Israelis who you could call prophets, who said we must return the land and make peace. Then a fundamentalist Jewish group, The Gush Emunim began erecting the settlements in the newly possessed land.

“When Israel went into Lebanon I was infuriated! I demonstrated against the massacres at Shatila and Shabra. Eighteen years of Israel in Lebanon is what built up the Hezbollah! The Israelis supported the group at first because they hoped the Hezbollah would be against the Palestinian refugees in South Lebanon.”

I inquired, “Isn’t that what Israel did with Hamas? Didn’t they originally support Hamas to be a wedge against the PLO?”

Aliyah replied, “Yes, stupidity repeats itself!”

In the Northern part of Israel 53% of the population are Jews who control 80% of the land. Palestinians are 47% of the population with only 20% of the land.

Sakhnin’s 25,000 people are allowed to access less than 10,000 dunums of their land but they only control half of that. In 1948 they owned and controlled 170,000 dunums. A Defense Industry and Army base complex a few miles from where we stood was also home to a mysterious warehouse.

Aliyah remarked, “No one knows what is going on inside, but it may be a nuclear reactor. The municipality asked the army to develop in another direction for there is a school over there too. The Israelis are allowed to expand anywhere, but the people of Sakhnin are not allowed permits to builds on their own land.

“I really became aware of what was going on in the ’80′s. I had been invited to a meeting of The Bridge for Peace and Coexistence, which is a group of Arab and Jewish activists. A man asked me where I was living and when I answered Bneitz-ion. He calmly and politely told me ‘That is my Uncle’s land.’”
Since 1967 Israel has confiscated more than 750,000 acres of land from the 1.5 million acres that comprise the West Bank and Gaza. Most of the land has been confiscated to make space for settlement expansion and bypass roads that are for the exclusive use of Israeli only colonists.

Since 1948, Israel has confiscated nearly 85 percent of the territory within the Green Line from Palestinians. Most of this land was taken from the 750,000 Palestinian’s who were made refugees when they were evicted or fled in fear during the 1948 war.

The Israeli Knesset has passed dozens of laws in defiance of U.N. Resolutions and International Law, such as The Absentee Property law and the Development Authority (Transfer of Property) Law.

That law in Arabic is called ‘Qanoon Elhader/Gayeb’, and was adopted in March 1950. It classifies anyone who was a citizen or resident of one of the Arab states or a Palestinian citizen on November 29, 1947, but had left his place of residence-even to take refuge within Palestine- as an ‘absentee’. Absentee property was vested in the Custodian of Absentee Property who then ‘sold’ it to the Development Authority.

This effectively authorized the theft of the property of a million Arabs, seized by Israel in 1948.

Adopted in July 1950, this law was devised as a legal ploy to shield the Israeli government from the accusation that it had confiscated abandoned property.

The Development Authority is an independent body empowered to sell, buy, lease, exchange, repair, build, develop and cultivate Palestinian property and none of these transactions can take place without a Jew or a Jewish entity!
United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 clearly asserts that the “occupying power cannot move segments of its own population to parts of the land it occupies,” or make any demographic or territorial changes that are not in the interest of the occupied.

Furthermore, provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention have unquestionably condemned Israel’s settlement activities and demanded the ceasing of “all” settlement expansion by Israel.
In 1990, UN Security Council Resolution 681 confirmed that the Forth Geneva Convention is applicable to the Occupied Territories and thus Israel’s compliance is mandatory.

In 2005, the Israeli separation wall was deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice and described in a UN report as a “creeping annexation” with confiscation of the most fertile of Palestinian land and water sources. Israel has effectively “wiped Palestine off the map” by ethnically cleansing the indigenous population from over 500 villages.

Israel calls ‘independence’ what Palestinians call Nakba, which translates to catastrophe, and it created over 700,000 refugees in 1948 who are still denied the right to return to their homeland.

The Nakba continues due to USA policy that favors and shields Israel like no other state in the world.
Read more…

The leaders of the international community led by US policies and pressure have turned a blind eye to more than 6 million people whose basic human rights have been denied for over six decades.

Israel’s illegal settlement expansion and land confiscation continues unabated because of US vetoes in the UN and an ‘occupied’ Congress.

In 2011, Congress remained mute when Israel outlawed commemorations of Nakba and began punishing their citizens who support Boycott, Divestment from and Sanctions on Israel until Israel ends the occupation of the indigenous people.

The Jewish people have a long history of oppression and the tenants of Judaism are rooted in social justice issues.

America was founded by agitators, rebels and dissidents who essentially told the King of England to back off this land.

When the Governments of America and Israel bridge the gulfs that separates their actions from democratic ideals; and when politicians uphold equal human rights for all people; a just peace- which is the only way to security could reign in the region-but that requires enormous political and good will.

Decades of creative nonviolent resistance to the evil of injustices inflicted by government policies and ideologies of superiority have led to this 30^th of March.

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. –Jimi Hendrix

And the power of the peace-full is a force that NO government forces can put down.

Common Sense calls for an End to the Occupation and Equal Human Rights for All.

I am Eileen Fleming for US HOUSE of Representatives and I approve of this message!

NOVANEWS

NOVANEWS

By Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood singles out Palestinian “President” Mahmoud Abbas’s recent visit to Britain as another example of his administration’s public relations incompetence and argues: “If Palestinians are to retain worldwide sympathy and support, build additional strength and galvanize the whole movement into action against the corrupt political class, they will have to find leaders of a much higher calibre – and fast.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was in London recently.

Did anyone know? Did Western media care?

No. Not until reports appeared that Jewish community leaders cancelled a meeting with him after intervention by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Office and Israel’s embassy in London, and Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi condemned the move as “seeking to suppress and manipulate Jewish public opinion”.

It was also typical of Netanyahu’s “persistent efforts” to prevent dialogue, she said, according to the Palestinian Ma’an news agency.

Even then, Western media were not much interested.

I put it to the Palestinian ambassador in London, Professor Manuel Hassassian, that such a blunder by Israel was a gift to any alert Public Relations/Public Affairs team. Why didn’t the Palestinian Authority seize it?

Hassassian denied the Palestinians asked to meet with the Jewish community.

It seems odd that Ashrawi, a shrewd, well respected politician and close colleague of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, could have got it wrong. Or indeed the normally reliable Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which reported that Hassassian himself, together with British diplomats, had pushed for Jewish leaders to meet with Abbas.

Confused? Me too. Whatever the truth, the Palestinian administration is in the habit of missing open goals. It has dumbed right down. The London embassy’s smart new website carries a selection of items from news agencies but nothing journalists can get their teeth into. It doesn’t introduce us to Palestinian chiefs and their “team”. It offers no strategic briefing material on current events. And, crucially, there is no attempt to set the news agenda.

Information the embassy sends direct to people like me is mostly notification of social events and similar “froth”.

After all these years, and with momentous opportunities and threats looming, Ramallah still fails to give a good account of itself. Is that by accident or design?

If it was never Abbas’s intention to meet Jewish community leaders, what exactly did he come to the UK for?

What passes for “success”

The embassy says his “successful visit” included meetings with Prime Minister David Cameron, Foreign Secretary William Hague and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. President Abbas also met opposition leader Ed Miliband and other parliamentarians. In addition, he met the archbishop of Canterbury and other church leaders to brief them on the ongoing violations of places of worship and the Judaization taking place in East Jerusalem.

Cameron told him:

Obviously, as a friend of Israel and a friend of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people, we want to see a strong, democratic, peaceful Israel alongside a strong, democratic and peaceful Palestine. We believe that is achievable, but we can’t achieve it without the two parties coming together and talking and discussing. In the end, this two-state solution can only come about from the two parties talking to each other. We cannot want it more than you want it.

So, we wish you well … and we say that as a friend of Israel but also a very strong friend of the Palestinian people…

To which I understand Abbas replied:

Of course, nothing can be achieved without negotiations … we hope that there will be something tangible as a result of these negotiations.

“Of course, time is of the essence; there must be speed, we must be fast in achieving those things because the settlements and the whole thing will go on – seeing the settlements going on, is going to help everything; it’s what stands in the face of everything at the same time. So, settlements have to stop. Settlements have to stop in order for us to be able to continue our negotiations; to come to some sort of solution and a solution which will encompass the vision of the Palestinian state to come in the future.

I personally know very well that you have a very balanced relationship, be that towards Israel or the Palestinian Authority. This at the same time is of great importance because you could play a political role, so to speak, so that we can find the balance that we all want to seek. We always need your help, sir.

Good grief, is that the best Ramallah’s speech-writers can do? And what was that about Britain’s Israel-firster government having “a very balanced relationship”…?

Where was Abbas’s concern for Gaza, or isn’t Gaza part of Palestine any more? Doesn’t the blockade of Gaza have to end before Palestinians even think about getting once again embroiled in futile negotiations?

The idea, voiced by Zionist Cameron and repeated by Abbas, that nothing can be achieved without negotiation is of course utterly false. There’s no mention – on either side – of international law enforcement and the essential role it must play before any negotiations can be considered fair or honourable.

Hague said after his meeting with Abbas: “I stressed the importance Britain attaches to a secure and universally recognized Israel living alongside a sovereign and viable Palestinian state, based on the borders of 1967, with Jerusalem the future capital of both states, and a fair settlement for refugees.”

Only weeks earlier Hague, a fanatical Israel flag-waver, was preparing to betray the Palestinians by abstaining if their quest for statehood was pushed to a vote at the UN.

More pretty words devoid of meaning were paraded in the archbishop of Canterbury’s press release:

We continue to share the hopes of the Palestinian leadership for a lasting and just peace in the Holy Land, and we pray for the courage on all sides to break the current deadlock. Young people in Israel and in the Palestinian territories long for justice and stability and they must not be let down. We were deeply grateful to President Abbas for taking time to share with us his concerns and aspirations.

The only genuine boost he received was a remark by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, referring to Israel’s illegal settlements:

Once you place physical facts on the ground which make it impossible to deliver what everyone has for years agreed is the ultimate destination, then you do immense damage.

It’s an act of deliberate vandalism to the basic premise upon which negotiations have taken place for years and that is why we have expressed our concerns as a government in increasingly forceful terms.

He prefaced his comments by saying there was “no stronger supporter of Israel than myself as a beacon of democracy in the region”. It’s a sad reflection on the Westminster scene when Clegg, a Liberal Democrat and supposedly possessed of certain principles, feels obliged to say such a silly thing when it’s tantamount to defending the indefensible.

Didn’t Abbas remind him about Israel’s abduction and imprisonment without trial of the 26 elected members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, including its head, Dr Aziz Dweik? Dweik is reported to have been arrested by Israel three times since 2002 and twice held without formal charges. This wholesale kidnapping of democratically elected officials underlines yet again Israel’s disregard for international law and the absurdity of its claim to be the only beacon of democracy in the Middle East.

So, does Abbas seriously believe his visit was “successful”? This dreary “grey suit” of a man might have done better to just meet ordinary people – people like the 40,000 or so displaced Palestinians living in the UK and longing to return, and the numerous activist organizations that devote much time and energy putting across the Palestinian case, slapping down Israel’s propaganda lies and generally doing the job that Abbas and his lacklustre Fatah outfit have failed to do.

That’s if he wanted their ongoing support. Maybe he’s not bothered.

Under orders not to rock the Israeli boat?

Some time ago Hamas complained that the Palestinian Authority was not getting its message across thanks to “poorly qualified or unqualified spokespersons with inadequate political and linguistic abilities”. Diplomacy had failed and Palestinians needed “professional spokespersons with excellent knowledge of the world and mastery of foreign languages, especially English, to tell the world in a straightforward manner that Israel is a murderer, liar and land thief…”

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, who ran rings round the Palestinians while ambassador in London, recently addressed the Security Council on the situation in the Middle East. He said:

And how many times have members of this Council – and many others – repeated: “settlements are the primary obstacle to peace”?… The primary obstacle to peace is not settlements. The primary obstacle to peace is the so-called “claim of return”. Let me repeat that: the major hurdle to peace is the Palestinians’ insistence on the so-called “claim of return” [he means the “right of return”].

Any press team worth its salt could make mincemeat of Prosor. A competent Palestinian administration would have had a news release in every activist’s inbox and on every mainstream editor’s desk within hours and made spokespersons (speaking perfect English) available to follow through with additional briefings and further comment. It would have gone worldwide via all embassies and missions. But Prosor broadcasts his toxic nonsense non-stop, knowing there will be no effective rebuke from the Palestinians.

It is six years since the Palestinian Authority/Palestine Liberation Organization was urged to have all their key people professionally trained in media skills. They haven’t done so. Consequently, for the last six critical years the Palestinian people have continued to lose ground.

The Palestinian high command behaves as if under strict orders not to rock the boat and not to make waves or even the slightest ripple. They continue to squander their chances and make little impact, even though truth and justice are on their side. So Israel has been the undeserving winner in the propaganda war.

Will the Palestinians ever seize the opportunity and gear up properly for the communications struggle to win justice? If it’s left to the likes of Abbas the answer is no and the outcome will be disastrous.

As campaigner Robert Stiver commented a few days ago, we need “ideas and commitments on how we can finally get serious, via a mass uprising, to ‘out’ Zionism beyond the choir and bring an end to the Palestinians’ unbearable torment”.

But hopes of mobilizing the necessary numbers are thwarted by the continuing presence of Mahmoud Abbas. His presidential term ran out long ago and he’s clinging to power unlawfully. He needs to step down or be removed. Someone with unquestionable legitimacy and true leadership qualities must fill the void and deploy skilled resources.

On Abbas’s watch disunity has triumphed. He rides roughshod over the Basic Law and has a crime sheet as long as your arm. He’ll be remembered mostly for doing the Israeli occupation forces’ dirty work.

Another problem is chief negotiator Saeb Erekat who has occupied that vitally important position for nearly 20 years and achieved – well, what? He must be the most unsuccessful negotiator on the planet. Why is he still there?

If Palestinians are to retain worldwide sympathy and support, build additional strength and galvanize the whole movement into action against the corrupt political class, they will have to find leaders of a much higher calibre – and fast.