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Zionism is the Issue: Building a Strong Pro-Palestinian Movement in the US
While I agree with many points made in this article, I do believe a solution can be imposed by the US by pressuring our US government to stop all support of Israel and in fact the US should impose sanctions on apartheid Israel now. I WONDER why the authors overlook this obvious bold and necessary strategy? Hmmm.... It is the one that will work. Could this article be yet another case of self-deceiving hidden Zionism?
Zionism is the Issue: Building a Strong Pro-Palestinian Movement In the US
By Lana Habash and Noah Cohen
January 11, 2005
“...[We are losing the media war,”] said Colonel Daniel Reisner, head of the international law branch of the IDF Legal Division, in an interview in the Fall 2002 Harvard Israel Review. “...It takes a long time to explain Israeli settlements to the uninitiated...”
In fact, Israel would have definitively lost the propaganda war a long time ago if the matter had been left entirely to its right-wing supporters within the US and Israeli political establishments. Faced with images of refugee camps buried in rubble from Israeli missiles, children attempting to hold off tanks with stones, and Palestinian cities surrounded by prison walls, our political leaders can think of nothing to say but the empty formula, “Israel has a right to defend itself.” Such phrases do not even emanate from the brain; they are a reflex reaction to any criticism of Israel. Since thought is no longer involved in framing this mainstream discourse, such leaders are incapable of adapting to the more and more widespread recognition of Israel’ s racism and its genocidal policies against the Palestinian people.
This is why Zionist critics of Israel have become so crucial in the effort to maintain support for the colonial regime. In a speech before the Jewish Federation in New Orleans in March of 2004, Alan Dershowitz acknowledged the seriousness of the current climate of opposition: “On 50 percent of American campuses there is not a single, not one, professor who is prepared publicly to speak on behalf of Israel and its right to exist as a Jewish, Zionist state. It is not cool to be a Zionist on campuses today in America.” He thus recommended to university students attempting to build support for Israel on US campuses that they must gain control of both sides of the discourse, and thus “assert the label pro-Palestinian.” At this point, the primary work of ensuring that no serious opposition emerges within the US against an untenable apartheid regime is performed by these self-appointed “pro-Palestinians,” who criticize Israel’ s most extreme actions while simultaneously asserting its “right to exist,” and— more importantly— denying any action to Palestinians that effectively exacts a significant cost upon Israel.
This crucial work of support shows itself most dramatically in the anti-war movement, where it is primarily carried out by “Middle East” or “Palestine/Israel” peace groups and task forces. These groups have succeeded largely in keeping the discussion away from clear positions of support for the Palestinian struggle as an anti-colonial liberation struggle against racism and apartheid, in favor of one with positions like the following:
— Opposition to the “cycle of violence,” according to which Palestinian acts of armed self-defense, or Palestinian attempts to reclaim land by exacting a cost on its colonial occupiers, are equated with Israel’ s programmatic genocide and structural violence against native Palestinians as if they were the same;
— Support for the “right to self-determination” of “both peoples” (meaning that settlers have a right to self-determination on land they have taken and now occupy by military force, and this right is somehow compatible with the right of native people to self-determination on their own land);
— “Dialogue” between Israelis and Palestinians as a “bridge to peace,” regardless of the material circumstances of injustice and racist oppression under which such “dialogue” takes place.
In general, the most important function of the Zionist pro-Palestinians is to enforce two boundaries in the discourse:
1) the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state; 2) the illegitimacy of violence against Israelis.
These two positions form a litmus test for inclusion in the forums of the “peace movement.” One is regularly asked to demonstrate a commitment to these two points before one is allowed to give a speech at a rally or a talk in an educational community event.
To talk about the inherent racism evident in Israel’ s foundation and formation (which necessarily brings into question its international legitimacy) or the necessity and legitimacy of an armed anti-colonialist Palestinian resistance goes outside the bounds of this discourse. When these boundaries are broken, the limits are reinforced through a series of accusations ranging from “anti-Semitism,” on the one hand, to “ideological purism,” “sectarianism,” and “divisiveness,” or, at best, being “impractical” or “not strategic” on the other. The first of these accusations tends to be made by ideologically committed Zionists; the last, by well-intentioned people who consider themselves representatives of the “tactical left,” persuaded that they must maintain an alliance with left-Zionists for the sake of credibility or other strategic gains. In this case, the left-Zionist position maintains its dominance precisely through such an alliance: without the tacit support of non-Zionists or anti-Zionists (in some cases cowed by the threat of the accusation of anti-Semitism, in some cases kept in line by an argument about the limits of “realism”) this dominance would be broken by those who reject Zionism as a form of racism.
As a result of the ascendancy of this alliance between left-Zionists and the “tactical left,” Palestinians and other anti-Zionists and non-Zionists are faced with poor options for participation in movements for Palestine solidarity. For a Palestinian, there is always political space for participation as a victim, as long as one offers only stories of human rights abuses, but steers clear of any analysis. When Palestinians question Israel’ s legitimacy or advocate for resistance that exacts a serious cost on Israel, they are accused of not supporting the peace agenda. “Peace” in this case is understood as maintaining the safety and security of Israeli citizens while Palestinians are subjected to racist domination and control. This leads many Palestinians and anti-Zionists to withdraw their support and consequently their voices from a broader movement that they find deeply racist and lacking in a strategy for liberation.
The tactical left’ s understanding of strategy bears some scrutiny. Palestinians bring a knowledge of nearly seventy-five years of direct experience with the failure of “strategic concessions.” From the Palestinian strikes of the 1930’ s to the first and second Intifadas, the practical concessions that Palestinians were told would help liberate what was left of Palestine have consistently and systematically been transformed into mechanisms for crushing resistance and facilitating colonization. The case of Oslo is a good example. As the popular civilian uprising of the first Intifada gained momentum and international solidarity, the practical effect of Oslo was to accomplish what Rabin’ s “Iron Fist” policy could not— crushing a popular civilian resistance. At the same time, the only long-term effect on the ground was the effective imprisonment of the entire Palestinian population through the creation of Israel’ s infrastructure of military bypass roads and checkpoints, paving the way for further colonial expansion in the form of settlements. The situation has grown steadily worse for Palestinians through this “peace process” no matter who has been in office, be it Labor or Likud in Israel or Republican or Democrat here, or whether the movement’ s call was to “support the Roadmap,” “end the occupation,” or “support a two state solution.”
A Palestinian friend in the West Bank said at the time of the Aqaba summit in 2003, “When Israeli political leaders start talking about peace, we start storing food and water.” While Israel escalates its military offensive in the West Bank and Gaza, and reaches new levels of horror in the technological refinement of its system of collective punishment through closure, the “peace” discourse grows ascendant throughout the entire ideological spectrum of Zionism. And yet this peace discourse is not merely a way of concealing the reality of policy, it must be seen as a strategic retreat in the propaganda war— a retreat to a line of defense in the face of historical circumstances that challenge the nature of the Israeli state. The simultaneous increase in militarism and ethnic cleansing, and the ascendancy of the rhetoric of peace, are both expressions of a fundamental crisis. It might therefore be useful to examine the significance of the two basic tenets of the discourse— the legitimacy of the state of Israel and the illegitimacy of violence against Israelis— within current history.
On the legitimacy of the state of Israel
Half a century of victorious anti-colonial struggles offering immediate parallels to the liberation struggle in Palestine have changed the nature of the international debate about colonialism, settlement and racism. It is no longer possible for Zionists to speak openly in the language of “manifest destiny,” as Jabotinsky could do in the 1920s— both acknowledging the resistance of native people to settlement, and justifying the need to crush that resistance by violent means in the name of expanding a white civilization. In the aftermath of Algeria and South Africa, white settlement is no longer acceptable as destiny— neither morally nor in terms of force. Even some in Europe and the United States came to see the Algerian resistance against a settler community— one of much longer standing than the one in Israel— as justifiable “by any means necessary.” The campaign of international solidarity that worked to isolate South Africa as a pariah state— and ultimately to make Apartheid a crime against humanity— stands as an obvious threat to Israel, the last colonial state that practices racism by law.
On the level of propaganda, defending a colonial-settler state that defines itself in ethnic/religious terms is ultimately a losing battle. The majority of the world’ s people reject colonialism; their global consensus has been to oppose Zionism as a form of racism— the position that reemerged as recently as 2001 at the UN Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa. Those within the imperial nations who have allied themselves with anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggles will adopt this same consensus when the question is framed in terms of colonial history.
For Israel’ s defenders, it is thus crucial to shift the debate away from this terrain. The question must instead be about a timetable for the implementation of UN resolution 242; or about the application of the Geneva Conventions to the West Bank and Gaza; or about the limits of civil liberties for Palestinians with Israeli citizenship; or about the feasibility of a limited recognition of the right of return, possibly through a form of compensation etc. etc. Criticism of Israeli policy is not only admissible, but necessary: a line of battle must be drawn around issues like these, and must be hotly contested by passionate adherents pro and contra, in order to ensure that it does not move onto the terrain on which Israel is destined to lose the battle— its illegitimacy as a state built on racism and land-theft.
On the illegitimacy of violence against Israelis
The second Intifada marks a point of departure for the tactics of the Palestinian resistance. Although the great bulk of popular action still follows many of the forms that characterized the first Intifada and the long history of resistance before that— from non-compliance with unjust authority to armed resistance against military targets— military operations inside the Green Line have assumed a significant role. For the first time, Israelis living in such places as Tel Aviv or West Jerusalem have become objects of retaliation for the violence of settlement and occupation. The logic is clear: Israel has used a spurious claim of the need to maintain a “security” zone in order to justify its ongoing hold on the West Bank and Gaza; meanwhile, it has moved forward with a program of land confiscation, settlement and territorial expansion. Armed settlers have been given free rein to commit atrocities against Palestinian civilians; the army moves in to clear territory in the name of “security” whenever the process of violent settlement meets opposition. The resistance has turned this framework of justification back upon Israel: so long as the occupation continues, formerly “secure” territories will now be at risk; the expansion of the Zionist state will bring violence and insecurity into its own center.
The current praise of the first Intifada as “non-violent” is a striking departure from its description at the time: every form of resistance that is effective is called illegitimate and “violent.” When Palestinians were able to exact a cost upon Israel through mass demonstrations and work strikes, Israel responded with devastating violence— a shoot-to-kill policy against the leaders of non-violent demonstrations, mass arrests, the “iron fist” policy of crushing the bones of young men and boys suspected of throwing stones at tanks. It then moved to eliminate Palestinians from the labor force, replacing them with settlers from Eastern Europe. Today the chorus of praise for the tactics of the first Intifada grows deafening, but only as a foil for the tactics of the second Intifada— tactics developed in the face of current necessity.
The second Intifada must be demonized precisely because it has been effective. In a recent interview on al-Jazeera— marking the fourth anniversary of the second Intifada— Secretary of State Colin Powell delivered the following comments: “What is the Intifada in its five years of existence? What has it accomplished to [sic] the Palestinian people? Has it produced progress toward a Palestinian state? Has it defeated Israel on the battlefield?...the Intifada has spawned terrorism and it has not achieved anything in these years, except the economy of the Palestinian communities has deteriorated, life in general has deteriorated, the Israelis have built fences to deal with this question, it has stopped us from being able to move forward with the many peace plans that we have put forward.”
Powell’ s need to minimize the significance of the second Intifada on the international stage is a clear sign of its achievements; his very use of the word Intifada, almost never uttered by members of the US political establishment, reveals the success of the resistance in setting its own agenda. In light of the U.S. and Israeli concept of “peace” demonstrated by Oslo— a peace which meant expansion of the area under Israeli control with a minimum of Israeli casualties and a minimum of international attention— Powell’ s statement is a very high, if inadvertent, tribute: The second Intifada has succeeded in stopping the US from “moving forward” with such a “peace plan.”
Powell’ s comments also reflect a growing desperation among US and Israeli officials facing resistance movements now in both Palestine and Iraq that will not yield to any amount of force, and that are deaf to the seduction of negotiations and “peace processes” aimed at co-opting their leadership and undermining popular momentum. None of the age-old colonial tricks have worked in stopping either the second Intifada or the Iraqi resistance— neither the carrot nor the stick. Israel goes on demolishing villages or walling in cities; the US proposes its “Road Map to Peace,” or sham elections for an occupation government; the Israeli Labor opposition proposes its Geneva Accord plan for Palestinian Bantustans; the resistance moves forward with a single purpose: strike the occupying force until the cost is more than it can bear.
The fact that the second Intifada has not crystallized its gains in the form of “diplomatic” or “political” achievements, as referred to by Powell, is a mark of its strength. Colonial regimes do not negotiate themselves out of existence in the interest of peace; they yield land when the cost of holding it— measured in lives and in privileges— is too high for their foot soldiers and their ordinary citizens to bear.
At the start of the second Intifada, Sharon promised to crush the uprising within “one hundred days.” Four years later, the most salient features of the current political reality are as follows:
— Immigration to Israel is now frozen; — more than 700,000 Israeli citizens live abroad and show no sign of returning; — tourism to Israel is at an all time low; — the Israeli economy is shattered, with unemployment at its highest (recent strikes by government employees in the aviation industry— on strike for lack of pay— show the close relationship between this item and the fall in tourism); — whereas Israel had once promised its citizens a whole host of benefits, it increasingly promises only one thing— security— and it is incapable of delivering even this; — the ratio of wealth between the poorest and the richest class within Israel has reached an unprecedented figure of about 1 to 21 (compared with about 1 to 4 in the 1950’ s).
Under these pressures, Israel now routinely engages in spasms of genocidal aggression— destroying whole villages, burying refugee camps in rubble— but for the first time, it has suffered significant losses. This has spawned a “peace movement” within Israel, concerned, like the peace movement in the US, primarily with minimizing the colonizer’ s own casualties.
A man in a village in the south of the West Bank near Khalil (Hebron), one of the areas hit hardest by settlement and by closure, put the matter succinctly in a recent conversation. Asked how people in his village were coping with the economic devastation wrought by the more than four years of closure imposed since the beginning of the Second Intifada, he said:
“It gets worse and worse; it’ s very hard. But this isn’t the first time we’ve had to deal with occupation. We have been living with colonialism and resisting it for a long time now. We had checkpoints under the British. We know how to live from the land; we know how to share what we have; we know how to survive. But for the first time, they too are suffering. I don’ t think they know how to cope with this.”
In the face of this reality, solidarity activists must carefully assess their role. The primary tactic of repression is collective punishment aimed at isolating the resistance from popular support. If the international peace community offers its solidarity only on the condition of the Palestinian renunciation of armed struggle by condemning both sides equally, then its “solidarity” easily becomes a part of the counterrevolution. When non-violent peace activists stand with Palestinians at checkpoints or during the olive harvest— both to be a shield against violence and to bear international witness— the value of their solidarity is compromised if it is tied to a call for Palestinians to lay down their arms. Ultimately, land will only be reclaimed by raising the cost of holding it; there is no long-term protection from settlement and the violence of settlement as long as Zionists maintain their hold on land in Palestine.
Building Palestine solidarity
One can draw divergent lessons from the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa. On the one hand, the international anti-Apartheid movement demonstrated the possibility of building a successful international movement on broad anti-racist principles aimed at materially and politically isolating a racist regime. When the movement in the US against the South African Apartheid system started to gain momentum, American activists did not denounce isolated acts of repression but legitimize the white South African system as “democratic. “They did not support partition of South African indigenous land as a practical solution even if South African indigenous people rejected Bantustans.
On the other hand, the solidarity movement— with its overwhelming emphasis on pacifism and its attempt to frame the struggle against colonialism within the boundaries of a non-violent struggle for civil liberties— contributed to an international climate in which the ANC was pressured to negotiate peacefully with colonial landholders. Such negotiations have led to a situation in which Apartheid laws were defeated, but economic and resource Apartheid not only remained intact, but appear to be growing. Such recent developments as the privatization of water resources— with disastrous consequences for the native majority— illustrate the crucial failure of an anti-colonial struggle that fails to liberate land from settlement.
Palestine solidarity activists who wish to support a struggle for liberation can learn from both the successes and failures of past movements.
The task that lies before us in the United States is to build a movement that is genuinely pro-Palestinian. This means at least two things: opposing Zionism and supporting Palestinian resistance.
1) Building broadly on anti-racist principles
The discourse on colonialism and racism developed through the anti-Apartheid movement, and shared by anti-globalization activists who oppose neo-colonial economic conquest, offers an existing framework in which to build on anti-colonial and anti-racist principles. Such a framework can provide the means of supporting the full spectrum of Palestinian rights within the existing Palestinian communities: the rights of refugees evicted from their land in 1948 and in 1967; the rights of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who live in unrecognized villages, who pay taxes and receive no resources, whose homes are razed for the expansion of neighboring Jewish settlements, who are not allowed to organize themselves politically to oppose the definition of the state as one that fundamentally excludes them, and who are subject to military occupation whenever they rebel physically against racism; and the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, who live under constant military occupation. The attempt to build a movement that focuses exclusively on the last— the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza— plays directly into the hands of those who wish to split various Palestinian communities from one another and who have no strategy for winning significant rights for any of these communities. It lends itself to co-option by left-Zionists whose fundamental interest is in bolstering the state that they also criticize. Building a broad movement means building with those who share a common opposition to racism, and thus breaking the alliance with left-Zionists, since this alliance ultimately serves a racist agenda.
Israel’ s Law of Return and the Absentee Property Law of the 1950’ s codified the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion in the state of Israel. Palestine solidarity activists should educate people about this legal framework as a form of Apartheid. The solidarity movement should assert the idea that racist states do not have a “right to security” or a “right to defend themselves.” The role of the Palestine solidarity activist should include working to create insecurity in states committed to racism and genocide.
Inevitably, any attack on the legitimacy of the state of Israel results in spurious accusations of anti-Semitism. Our movement must have a strategy for dealing with such attacks that exposes rather than propagates racism. Unfortunately most Palestine solidarity groups deal with spurious charges of anti-Semitism by doing exactly what Israel expects and needs them to do— they engage left-Zionists to support Palestinian rights by promising support for the legitimacy and security of Israel. Instead, Palestine solidarity should be exposing the history of Zionism as a political movement that is deeply rooted not only in racism towards indigenous Palestinians, but in anti-Semitism and fascism in Western Europe. Instead of promoting an alliance with left-Zionists, Palestine solidarity should be building alliances with anti-racist groups and with others who are fighting against colonialism and for indigenous rights. For this reason, it’ s important to point out the history of Israel in propping up other racist colonial projects— for example, supporting the white regime in South Africa and channeling arms to pro-US dictatorships in Central America. Similarly, the role of Zionist organizations in the United States in opposing progressive movements should be exposed— for example, ADL’ s infiltration of leftist groups and collaboration with police and federal agents in the 1980’ s in San Francisco.
2) Supporting the resistance struggle of the indigenous people, as defined by the indigenous people
Palestine solidarity must build solidarity with Palestinian resistance. Not a dunum of Palestinian land will be freed without a cost to those who now occupy it; no rights worth mentioning will be won without liberating land. In the famous phrase of Malcolm X “by any means necessary,” the operative word is “necessary.” A solidarity movement that demands of the Palestinian people that they choose tactics of resistance that result in devastating costs for the Palestinian community, without significant cost to Israeli occupiers, can’ t be considered solidarity.
The US anti-war movement has repeatedly fallen into this trap: it has either explicitly denounced both the Palestinian and Iraqi resistance or has made its support for the self-determination of Arab people contingent on how they resist colonial oppression. By making itself the arbiter of appropriate tactics, it has denied the right of people facing genocide to determine the best methods at their disposal to inflict upon their oppressor a cost the oppressor is incapable of paying. The anti-war movement has not yet proven its ability to stay the hand of oppression, yet it has arrogated to itself a right to intervene in the tactical debate about opposing this oppression.
As part of the movement builds broadly on anti-racist principles, so should a sector of the movement play a strategic role in building support for the Palestinian resistance. These two areas of work must function in parallel. Participation in a broader movement should not be contingent on one’ s willingness to denounce the resistance in Palestine. To ask Palestinians and other Palestine solidarity activists to silence their support of resistance only furthers the agenda of people who have an interest in keeping the resistance isolated.
Freedom for Palestine will not come as a result of a solution imposed by the U.S., Europe, or any other power: it will come from a struggle for liberation waged on the ground— both in Palestine, and in the region surrounding it— or it will not come at all. A solidarity movement that is genuine must find effective ways to support that struggle.
By Lana Habash and Noah Cohen
January 11, 2005
“...[We are losing the media war,”] said Colonel Daniel Reisner, head of the international law branch of the IDF Legal Division, in an interview in the Fall 2002 Harvard Israel Review. “...It takes a long time to explain Israeli settlements to the uninitiated...”
In fact, Israel would have definitively lost the propaganda war a long time ago if the matter had been left entirely to its right-wing supporters within the US and Israeli political establishments. Faced with images of refugee camps buried in rubble from Israeli missiles, children attempting to hold off tanks with stones, and Palestinian cities surrounded by prison walls, our political leaders can think of nothing to say but the empty formula, “Israel has a right to defend itself.” Such phrases do not even emanate from the brain; they are a reflex reaction to any criticism of Israel. Since thought is no longer involved in framing this mainstream discourse, such leaders are incapable of adapting to the more and more widespread recognition of Israel’ s racism and its genocidal policies against the Palestinian people.
This is why Zionist critics of Israel have become so crucial in the effort to maintain support for the colonial regime. In a speech before the Jewish Federation in New Orleans in March of 2004, Alan Dershowitz acknowledged the seriousness of the current climate of opposition: “On 50 percent of American campuses there is not a single, not one, professor who is prepared publicly to speak on behalf of Israel and its right to exist as a Jewish, Zionist state. It is not cool to be a Zionist on campuses today in America.” He thus recommended to university students attempting to build support for Israel on US campuses that they must gain control of both sides of the discourse, and thus “assert the label pro-Palestinian.” At this point, the primary work of ensuring that no serious opposition emerges within the US against an untenable apartheid regime is performed by these self-appointed “pro-Palestinians,” who criticize Israel’ s most extreme actions while simultaneously asserting its “right to exist,” and— more importantly— denying any action to Palestinians that effectively exacts a significant cost upon Israel.
This crucial work of support shows itself most dramatically in the anti-war movement, where it is primarily carried out by “Middle East” or “Palestine/Israel” peace groups and task forces. These groups have succeeded largely in keeping the discussion away from clear positions of support for the Palestinian struggle as an anti-colonial liberation struggle against racism and apartheid, in favor of one with positions like the following:
— Opposition to the “cycle of violence,” according to which Palestinian acts of armed self-defense, or Palestinian attempts to reclaim land by exacting a cost on its colonial occupiers, are equated with Israel’ s programmatic genocide and structural violence against native Palestinians as if they were the same;
— Support for the “right to self-determination” of “both peoples” (meaning that settlers have a right to self-determination on land they have taken and now occupy by military force, and this right is somehow compatible with the right of native people to self-determination on their own land);
— “Dialogue” between Israelis and Palestinians as a “bridge to peace,” regardless of the material circumstances of injustice and racist oppression under which such “dialogue” takes place.
In general, the most important function of the Zionist pro-Palestinians is to enforce two boundaries in the discourse:
1) the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state; 2) the illegitimacy of violence against Israelis.
These two positions form a litmus test for inclusion in the forums of the “peace movement.” One is regularly asked to demonstrate a commitment to these two points before one is allowed to give a speech at a rally or a talk in an educational community event.
To talk about the inherent racism evident in Israel’ s foundation and formation (which necessarily brings into question its international legitimacy) or the necessity and legitimacy of an armed anti-colonialist Palestinian resistance goes outside the bounds of this discourse. When these boundaries are broken, the limits are reinforced through a series of accusations ranging from “anti-Semitism,” on the one hand, to “ideological purism,” “sectarianism,” and “divisiveness,” or, at best, being “impractical” or “not strategic” on the other. The first of these accusations tends to be made by ideologically committed Zionists; the last, by well-intentioned people who consider themselves representatives of the “tactical left,” persuaded that they must maintain an alliance with left-Zionists for the sake of credibility or other strategic gains. In this case, the left-Zionist position maintains its dominance precisely through such an alliance: without the tacit support of non-Zionists or anti-Zionists (in some cases cowed by the threat of the accusation of anti-Semitism, in some cases kept in line by an argument about the limits of “realism”) this dominance would be broken by those who reject Zionism as a form of racism.
As a result of the ascendancy of this alliance between left-Zionists and the “tactical left,” Palestinians and other anti-Zionists and non-Zionists are faced with poor options for participation in movements for Palestine solidarity. For a Palestinian, there is always political space for participation as a victim, as long as one offers only stories of human rights abuses, but steers clear of any analysis. When Palestinians question Israel’ s legitimacy or advocate for resistance that exacts a serious cost on Israel, they are accused of not supporting the peace agenda. “Peace” in this case is understood as maintaining the safety and security of Israeli citizens while Palestinians are subjected to racist domination and control. This leads many Palestinians and anti-Zionists to withdraw their support and consequently their voices from a broader movement that they find deeply racist and lacking in a strategy for liberation.
The tactical left’ s understanding of strategy bears some scrutiny. Palestinians bring a knowledge of nearly seventy-five years of direct experience with the failure of “strategic concessions.” From the Palestinian strikes of the 1930’ s to the first and second Intifadas, the practical concessions that Palestinians were told would help liberate what was left of Palestine have consistently and systematically been transformed into mechanisms for crushing resistance and facilitating colonization. The case of Oslo is a good example. As the popular civilian uprising of the first Intifada gained momentum and international solidarity, the practical effect of Oslo was to accomplish what Rabin’ s “Iron Fist” policy could not— crushing a popular civilian resistance. At the same time, the only long-term effect on the ground was the effective imprisonment of the entire Palestinian population through the creation of Israel’ s infrastructure of military bypass roads and checkpoints, paving the way for further colonial expansion in the form of settlements. The situation has grown steadily worse for Palestinians through this “peace process” no matter who has been in office, be it Labor or Likud in Israel or Republican or Democrat here, or whether the movement’ s call was to “support the Roadmap,” “end the occupation,” or “support a two state solution.”
A Palestinian friend in the West Bank said at the time of the Aqaba summit in 2003, “When Israeli political leaders start talking about peace, we start storing food and water.” While Israel escalates its military offensive in the West Bank and Gaza, and reaches new levels of horror in the technological refinement of its system of collective punishment through closure, the “peace” discourse grows ascendant throughout the entire ideological spectrum of Zionism. And yet this peace discourse is not merely a way of concealing the reality of policy, it must be seen as a strategic retreat in the propaganda war— a retreat to a line of defense in the face of historical circumstances that challenge the nature of the Israeli state. The simultaneous increase in militarism and ethnic cleansing, and the ascendancy of the rhetoric of peace, are both expressions of a fundamental crisis. It might therefore be useful to examine the significance of the two basic tenets of the discourse— the legitimacy of the state of Israel and the illegitimacy of violence against Israelis— within current history.
On the legitimacy of the state of Israel
Half a century of victorious anti-colonial struggles offering immediate parallels to the liberation struggle in Palestine have changed the nature of the international debate about colonialism, settlement and racism. It is no longer possible for Zionists to speak openly in the language of “manifest destiny,” as Jabotinsky could do in the 1920s— both acknowledging the resistance of native people to settlement, and justifying the need to crush that resistance by violent means in the name of expanding a white civilization. In the aftermath of Algeria and South Africa, white settlement is no longer acceptable as destiny— neither morally nor in terms of force. Even some in Europe and the United States came to see the Algerian resistance against a settler community— one of much longer standing than the one in Israel— as justifiable “by any means necessary.” The campaign of international solidarity that worked to isolate South Africa as a pariah state— and ultimately to make Apartheid a crime against humanity— stands as an obvious threat to Israel, the last colonial state that practices racism by law.
On the level of propaganda, defending a colonial-settler state that defines itself in ethnic/religious terms is ultimately a losing battle. The majority of the world’ s people reject colonialism; their global consensus has been to oppose Zionism as a form of racism— the position that reemerged as recently as 2001 at the UN Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa. Those within the imperial nations who have allied themselves with anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggles will adopt this same consensus when the question is framed in terms of colonial history.
For Israel’ s defenders, it is thus crucial to shift the debate away from this terrain. The question must instead be about a timetable for the implementation of UN resolution 242; or about the application of the Geneva Conventions to the West Bank and Gaza; or about the limits of civil liberties for Palestinians with Israeli citizenship; or about the feasibility of a limited recognition of the right of return, possibly through a form of compensation etc. etc. Criticism of Israeli policy is not only admissible, but necessary: a line of battle must be drawn around issues like these, and must be hotly contested by passionate adherents pro and contra, in order to ensure that it does not move onto the terrain on which Israel is destined to lose the battle— its illegitimacy as a state built on racism and land-theft.
On the illegitimacy of violence against Israelis
The second Intifada marks a point of departure for the tactics of the Palestinian resistance. Although the great bulk of popular action still follows many of the forms that characterized the first Intifada and the long history of resistance before that— from non-compliance with unjust authority to armed resistance against military targets— military operations inside the Green Line have assumed a significant role. For the first time, Israelis living in such places as Tel Aviv or West Jerusalem have become objects of retaliation for the violence of settlement and occupation. The logic is clear: Israel has used a spurious claim of the need to maintain a “security” zone in order to justify its ongoing hold on the West Bank and Gaza; meanwhile, it has moved forward with a program of land confiscation, settlement and territorial expansion. Armed settlers have been given free rein to commit atrocities against Palestinian civilians; the army moves in to clear territory in the name of “security” whenever the process of violent settlement meets opposition. The resistance has turned this framework of justification back upon Israel: so long as the occupation continues, formerly “secure” territories will now be at risk; the expansion of the Zionist state will bring violence and insecurity into its own center.
The current praise of the first Intifada as “non-violent” is a striking departure from its description at the time: every form of resistance that is effective is called illegitimate and “violent.” When Palestinians were able to exact a cost upon Israel through mass demonstrations and work strikes, Israel responded with devastating violence— a shoot-to-kill policy against the leaders of non-violent demonstrations, mass arrests, the “iron fist” policy of crushing the bones of young men and boys suspected of throwing stones at tanks. It then moved to eliminate Palestinians from the labor force, replacing them with settlers from Eastern Europe. Today the chorus of praise for the tactics of the first Intifada grows deafening, but only as a foil for the tactics of the second Intifada— tactics developed in the face of current necessity.
The second Intifada must be demonized precisely because it has been effective. In a recent interview on al-Jazeera— marking the fourth anniversary of the second Intifada— Secretary of State Colin Powell delivered the following comments: “What is the Intifada in its five years of existence? What has it accomplished to [sic] the Palestinian people? Has it produced progress toward a Palestinian state? Has it defeated Israel on the battlefield?...the Intifada has spawned terrorism and it has not achieved anything in these years, except the economy of the Palestinian communities has deteriorated, life in general has deteriorated, the Israelis have built fences to deal with this question, it has stopped us from being able to move forward with the many peace plans that we have put forward.”
Powell’ s need to minimize the significance of the second Intifada on the international stage is a clear sign of its achievements; his very use of the word Intifada, almost never uttered by members of the US political establishment, reveals the success of the resistance in setting its own agenda. In light of the U.S. and Israeli concept of “peace” demonstrated by Oslo— a peace which meant expansion of the area under Israeli control with a minimum of Israeli casualties and a minimum of international attention— Powell’ s statement is a very high, if inadvertent, tribute: The second Intifada has succeeded in stopping the US from “moving forward” with such a “peace plan.”
Powell’ s comments also reflect a growing desperation among US and Israeli officials facing resistance movements now in both Palestine and Iraq that will not yield to any amount of force, and that are deaf to the seduction of negotiations and “peace processes” aimed at co-opting their leadership and undermining popular momentum. None of the age-old colonial tricks have worked in stopping either the second Intifada or the Iraqi resistance— neither the carrot nor the stick. Israel goes on demolishing villages or walling in cities; the US proposes its “Road Map to Peace,” or sham elections for an occupation government; the Israeli Labor opposition proposes its Geneva Accord plan for Palestinian Bantustans; the resistance moves forward with a single purpose: strike the occupying force until the cost is more than it can bear.
The fact that the second Intifada has not crystallized its gains in the form of “diplomatic” or “political” achievements, as referred to by Powell, is a mark of its strength. Colonial regimes do not negotiate themselves out of existence in the interest of peace; they yield land when the cost of holding it— measured in lives and in privileges— is too high for their foot soldiers and their ordinary citizens to bear.
At the start of the second Intifada, Sharon promised to crush the uprising within “one hundred days.” Four years later, the most salient features of the current political reality are as follows:
— Immigration to Israel is now frozen; — more than 700,000 Israeli citizens live abroad and show no sign of returning; — tourism to Israel is at an all time low; — the Israeli economy is shattered, with unemployment at its highest (recent strikes by government employees in the aviation industry— on strike for lack of pay— show the close relationship between this item and the fall in tourism); — whereas Israel had once promised its citizens a whole host of benefits, it increasingly promises only one thing— security— and it is incapable of delivering even this; — the ratio of wealth between the poorest and the richest class within Israel has reached an unprecedented figure of about 1 to 21 (compared with about 1 to 4 in the 1950’ s).
Under these pressures, Israel now routinely engages in spasms of genocidal aggression— destroying whole villages, burying refugee camps in rubble— but for the first time, it has suffered significant losses. This has spawned a “peace movement” within Israel, concerned, like the peace movement in the US, primarily with minimizing the colonizer’ s own casualties.
A man in a village in the south of the West Bank near Khalil (Hebron), one of the areas hit hardest by settlement and by closure, put the matter succinctly in a recent conversation. Asked how people in his village were coping with the economic devastation wrought by the more than four years of closure imposed since the beginning of the Second Intifada, he said:
“It gets worse and worse; it’ s very hard. But this isn’t the first time we’ve had to deal with occupation. We have been living with colonialism and resisting it for a long time now. We had checkpoints under the British. We know how to live from the land; we know how to share what we have; we know how to survive. But for the first time, they too are suffering. I don’ t think they know how to cope with this.”
In the face of this reality, solidarity activists must carefully assess their role. The primary tactic of repression is collective punishment aimed at isolating the resistance from popular support. If the international peace community offers its solidarity only on the condition of the Palestinian renunciation of armed struggle by condemning both sides equally, then its “solidarity” easily becomes a part of the counterrevolution. When non-violent peace activists stand with Palestinians at checkpoints or during the olive harvest— both to be a shield against violence and to bear international witness— the value of their solidarity is compromised if it is tied to a call for Palestinians to lay down their arms. Ultimately, land will only be reclaimed by raising the cost of holding it; there is no long-term protection from settlement and the violence of settlement as long as Zionists maintain their hold on land in Palestine.
Building Palestine solidarity
One can draw divergent lessons from the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa. On the one hand, the international anti-Apartheid movement demonstrated the possibility of building a successful international movement on broad anti-racist principles aimed at materially and politically isolating a racist regime. When the movement in the US against the South African Apartheid system started to gain momentum, American activists did not denounce isolated acts of repression but legitimize the white South African system as “democratic. “They did not support partition of South African indigenous land as a practical solution even if South African indigenous people rejected Bantustans.
On the other hand, the solidarity movement— with its overwhelming emphasis on pacifism and its attempt to frame the struggle against colonialism within the boundaries of a non-violent struggle for civil liberties— contributed to an international climate in which the ANC was pressured to negotiate peacefully with colonial landholders. Such negotiations have led to a situation in which Apartheid laws were defeated, but economic and resource Apartheid not only remained intact, but appear to be growing. Such recent developments as the privatization of water resources— with disastrous consequences for the native majority— illustrate the crucial failure of an anti-colonial struggle that fails to liberate land from settlement.
Palestine solidarity activists who wish to support a struggle for liberation can learn from both the successes and failures of past movements.
The task that lies before us in the United States is to build a movement that is genuinely pro-Palestinian. This means at least two things: opposing Zionism and supporting Palestinian resistance.
1) Building broadly on anti-racist principles
The discourse on colonialism and racism developed through the anti-Apartheid movement, and shared by anti-globalization activists who oppose neo-colonial economic conquest, offers an existing framework in which to build on anti-colonial and anti-racist principles. Such a framework can provide the means of supporting the full spectrum of Palestinian rights within the existing Palestinian communities: the rights of refugees evicted from their land in 1948 and in 1967; the rights of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who live in unrecognized villages, who pay taxes and receive no resources, whose homes are razed for the expansion of neighboring Jewish settlements, who are not allowed to organize themselves politically to oppose the definition of the state as one that fundamentally excludes them, and who are subject to military occupation whenever they rebel physically against racism; and the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, who live under constant military occupation. The attempt to build a movement that focuses exclusively on the last— the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza— plays directly into the hands of those who wish to split various Palestinian communities from one another and who have no strategy for winning significant rights for any of these communities. It lends itself to co-option by left-Zionists whose fundamental interest is in bolstering the state that they also criticize. Building a broad movement means building with those who share a common opposition to racism, and thus breaking the alliance with left-Zionists, since this alliance ultimately serves a racist agenda.
Israel’ s Law of Return and the Absentee Property Law of the 1950’ s codified the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion in the state of Israel. Palestine solidarity activists should educate people about this legal framework as a form of Apartheid. The solidarity movement should assert the idea that racist states do not have a “right to security” or a “right to defend themselves.” The role of the Palestine solidarity activist should include working to create insecurity in states committed to racism and genocide.
Inevitably, any attack on the legitimacy of the state of Israel results in spurious accusations of anti-Semitism. Our movement must have a strategy for dealing with such attacks that exposes rather than propagates racism. Unfortunately most Palestine solidarity groups deal with spurious charges of anti-Semitism by doing exactly what Israel expects and needs them to do— they engage left-Zionists to support Palestinian rights by promising support for the legitimacy and security of Israel. Instead, Palestine solidarity should be exposing the history of Zionism as a political movement that is deeply rooted not only in racism towards indigenous Palestinians, but in anti-Semitism and fascism in Western Europe. Instead of promoting an alliance with left-Zionists, Palestine solidarity should be building alliances with anti-racist groups and with others who are fighting against colonialism and for indigenous rights. For this reason, it’ s important to point out the history of Israel in propping up other racist colonial projects— for example, supporting the white regime in South Africa and channeling arms to pro-US dictatorships in Central America. Similarly, the role of Zionist organizations in the United States in opposing progressive movements should be exposed— for example, ADL’ s infiltration of leftist groups and collaboration with police and federal agents in the 1980’ s in San Francisco.
2) Supporting the resistance struggle of the indigenous people, as defined by the indigenous people
Palestine solidarity must build solidarity with Palestinian resistance. Not a dunum of Palestinian land will be freed without a cost to those who now occupy it; no rights worth mentioning will be won without liberating land. In the famous phrase of Malcolm X “by any means necessary,” the operative word is “necessary.” A solidarity movement that demands of the Palestinian people that they choose tactics of resistance that result in devastating costs for the Palestinian community, without significant cost to Israeli occupiers, can’ t be considered solidarity.
The US anti-war movement has repeatedly fallen into this trap: it has either explicitly denounced both the Palestinian and Iraqi resistance or has made its support for the self-determination of Arab people contingent on how they resist colonial oppression. By making itself the arbiter of appropriate tactics, it has denied the right of people facing genocide to determine the best methods at their disposal to inflict upon their oppressor a cost the oppressor is incapable of paying. The anti-war movement has not yet proven its ability to stay the hand of oppression, yet it has arrogated to itself a right to intervene in the tactical debate about opposing this oppression.
As part of the movement builds broadly on anti-racist principles, so should a sector of the movement play a strategic role in building support for the Palestinian resistance. These two areas of work must function in parallel. Participation in a broader movement should not be contingent on one’ s willingness to denounce the resistance in Palestine. To ask Palestinians and other Palestine solidarity activists to silence their support of resistance only furthers the agenda of people who have an interest in keeping the resistance isolated.
Freedom for Palestine will not come as a result of a solution imposed by the U.S., Europe, or any other power: it will come from a struggle for liberation waged on the ground— both in Palestine, and in the region surrounding it— or it will not come at all. A solidarity movement that is genuine must find effective ways to support that struggle.
For more information:
http://www.onepalestine.org
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I dont think that anyone is that bothered by a call to end Israel being a Jewish state (depending on what the call means). The question of the relationship between Judaism and Isreal is a pretty hot topic in Israel itself with several recent court rullings comming down on the side of Israel being less biased towards Jews ( see http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/01/1717564.php )
In terms of calling for violence against Israelis that just sounds bad. I mean would it be ok to talk about it being justficed to attack Chinese due to the occupation of Tibet or Russians due to Chechnya? I think you would get more people to not see such a call for violence as outside the bounds of normal discourse if you rephrased it as being violence against the IDF or those who play a major role in the occupation etc.. Saying its sjustfied to attack anyone who is Chinese because of Tibet sounds racist. Saying its ok fotr the Tibetans to engage in a violence national liberation struggle (that might involve attacks that could injur Chinese civlians) is very different.
So the authors of this article are WRONG to say: "Freedom for Palestine will not come as a result of a solution imposed by the U.S., Europe, or any other power: it will come from a struggle for liberation waged on the ground— both in Palestine, and in the region surrounding it— or it will not come at all. A solidarity movement that is genuine must find effective ways to support that struggle. "
The fact is the US does play a role in supporting Israel and that role must come to an end. NO more US support for apartheid Israel! Sanctions are in order! The way to achieve this is to continue to educate our fellow Americans about Zionism and Zionist Israel and therefore we anti-Zionists will achieve critical mass in order to pressure our government to withdraw all support of ethnocentric Israel as a Jewish state, and impose the necessary sanctions against Israel to force it to transform to a true, secular democracy with completely equal rights for ALL regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or sex. Additionally, the Palestinian right to return must be completely supported!
Singling out Israel is morally wrong and hypocritical .. the Israelis have been at the forefront in humanitarian assistance (see what the Turkish, Irish and Sri Lankan government have to say about Israeli rescue missions after catastrophes on ther soil), scientific productivity (Israel has more patents granted per capita than any other nation, Pentium chip, cell phone was developed there etc) - despite being attacked in 6 wars by numerically superior and exterminatory enemy, Israeli military tactics are the envy of the civilized world (you want to see barbarism - see China in Tibet or Russia in Chechnya or Indonesia in East Timor or the Arabs in Sudan against the animist blacks) despite threats internal and external, it has a vigorous independent free press, a judiciary that is second to none, more freedom for its Arab citizen than ANY Arab country (try critisizing Mubarak in Cairo in public, or Gaddhafi in Tripolis, or Abdallah in Jordan and see how fast you end up in jail or dead); it offers a haven for persecuted Jews everywhere and is the homeland for millenia of the Jews (it is the *right* for Jews to have a homeland - and it has been recognzied TWICE by the League of Nations and by the UN - like any other people and especially since history has shown time and time again that no one will defend the Jews until it is too late - the Jews have to defend themselves)
I, a non-Jew, will always support the Jewish State, which is in many ways a alight among the nations. Sure it has black spots (which one does not?) but the only one always singled out for alleged and true misdeeds is Israel (somebody march for Darfur? Algeria? Ruanda? Marsh Arabs in Iraq? Kurds? Bahai in Iran? Shia in Saudi Arabia? Berbers in Morocco? Ask yourselves why).
I think it is grossly unfair, hyporcritical, immoral and completely completely counterproductive to demonize Israel like that.
(assuming you're even black)
Geeesh..., those Zionist Jewish *fundamentalists* are sooo literal!!
I guess that's what happens when you believe that -- 5,000 YEARS AGO(!!) -- "*GOD(!!)*" promised you Zionist Jews some other people's land!!
Now why not go answer the questions that you're ducking in the other thread?:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/01/1717465_comment.php#1717755
HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!
Whether it was because God promised the Jews that land or not, that land was the Jews'.
Why?
Because it is all based on lies.
It is not a democracy. It is being built on stolen land, which is still being stolen. It is an apartheid, racist, ethnocentric country. It is being propped up artificially using U.S. tax dollars, being stolen from unsuspecting American citizens who are constantly being lied to about Israel being a "democracy", and how Israelis are poor little "victims". Most Americans don't even KNOW what Zionism is and that is just how Zionists like Americans to be: ignorant.
However, the game is up. Because you can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. And you can intimidate some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.
More and more Americans are learning the truth about apartheid Israel and more and more Americans are not intimidated to speak out and pressure our government to stop support of the apartheid, illegitimate state of Israel, the last bastion of racist colonialism on earth.
A common misperception is that all the Jews were forced into the Diaspora by the Romans after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 C.E. and then, 1,800 years later, suddenly returned to Palestine demanding their country back. In reality, the Jewish people have maintained ties to their historic homeland for more than 3,700 years.
The rather venomous JA is partly correct in that the Jewish people base their claim to the Land of Israel on at least four premises: 1) the Jewish people settled and developed the land; 2) the international community granted political sovereignty in Palestine to the Jewish people; 3) the territory was captured in defensive wars and 4) God promised the land to the patriarch Abraham.
Even after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the beginning of the exile, Jewish life in the Land of Israel continued and often flourished. Large communities were reestablished in Jerusalem and Tiberias by the ninth century. In the 11th century, Jewish communities grew in Rafah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jaffa and Caesarea.
The Crusaders massacred many Jews during the 12th century, but the community rebounded in the next two centuries as large numbers of rabbis and Jewish pilgrims immigrated to Jerusalem and the Galilee. Prominent rabbis established communities in Safed, Jerusalem and elsewhere during the next 300 years. By the early 19th century — years before the birth of the modern Zionist movement — more than 10,000 Jews lived throughout what is today Israel. The 78 years of nation-building, beginning in 1870, culminated in the reestablishment of the Jewish State.
Israel's international "birth certificate" was validated by the promise of the Bible; uninterrupted Jewish settlement from the time of Joshua onward; the Balfour Declaration of 1917; the League of Nations Mandate, which incorporated the Balfour Declaration; the United Nations partition resolution of 1947; Israel's admission to the UN in 1949; the recognition of Israel by most other states; and, most of all, the society created by Israel's people in decades of thriving, dynamic national existence.
And about it being "stolen Arab land" - again you have to know history and facts before you speak about Israel. The term "Palestine" is believed to be derived from the Philistines, an Aegean people who, in the 12th Century B.C.E., settled along the Mediterranean coastal plain of what are now Israel and the Gaza Strip. In the second century C.E., after crushing the last Jewish revolt, the Romans first applied the name Palaestina to Judea (the southern portion of what is now called the West Bank) in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel. The Arabic word "Filastin" is derived from this Latin name.
Palestine was never an exclusively Arab country, although Arabic gradually became the language of most the population after the Muslim invasions of the seventh century. No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in Palestine. Palestinian Arab nationalism is largely a post-World War I phenomenon that did not become a significant political movement until after the 1967 Six-Day War and Israel's capture of the West Bank.
I would like to stress that Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, which holds that Jews, like any other nation, are entitled to a homeland.
History has demonstrated the need to ensure Jewish security through a national homeland. Zionism recognizes that Jewishness is defined by shared origin, religion, culture and history. The realization of the Zionist dream is exemplified by more than five million Jews, from more than 100 countries, who are Israeli citizens.
Israel's Law of Return grants automatic citizenship to Jews, but non-Jews are also eligible to become citizens under naturalization procedures similar to those in other countries. Approximately 1,000,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs, Druze, Baha'is, Circassians and other ethnic groups also are represented in Israel's population. The presence in Israel of thousands of dark-skinned Jews from Ethiopia, Yemen and India is the best refutation of the calumny against Zionism. In a series of historic airlifts, labeled Moses (1984), Joshua (1985) and Solomon (1991), Israel rescued almost 42,000 members of the ancient Ethiopian Jewish community.
Israel is in many ways a light among the nations, amid terrible conditions. Of course there us always room for improvement, but I think a very strong argument can be made for Israel as a Jewish state and as one of the beacons - if not the only one - in the Middle East.
But that's one thing Wendy ("Israel is Illegitimate") will never do.
@%<
Those people, gehrig, cannot be convinced - they indulge in their delusions because they want to indulge. They hate Jews, blacks etc because they want the rush that they get from hating. Their mindset and their positions are not amenable to rational discussion. They do not even want to be 'cured' as one could put it, from this form of psycho-pathology. It is an addiction to be able to indulge affirmatively in a group setting in this very old hate against Jews. You should pity these people, they are sick in a very real sense.
Now I understand that if you are Jewish, these people are very disturbing both for their propensities for violence and their sustaining their fellow haters. It is a serious problem; luckily the FBI together with various private watch groups have infiltrated and observe hundreds of these groups. In America I would not be too worried, in other countries I might be.
EVEN SHARON IS SAYING, "RRRRRIGHT..."
(reposted due to mysterious deletion.)
Absolutely right. According to psychiatrists, hatred for Jews is the symptom of a very serious psycho-pathology.
Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S)
Incitement to terrorism:
In a speech given to Palestinian youngsters two days after a murderous terrorist attack on bus no. 19 in Jerusalem, Yasser Arafat issued repeated calls instilling the message of continuing terrorism against Israel (January 31, 2004)
On January 29, 2004, Hamas carried out a suicide bombing attack on bus no. 19 in Jerusalem. 11 citizens were killed and 42 were wounded in that murderous terrorist attack. In a speech given to Palestinian children and teenagers in Ramallah two days after the attack, Yasser Arafat issued repeated calls instilling the message of the “liberation” of Jerusalem and Palestine through acts of violence to be carried out by millions of martyrs ( shahids ). This well-known message, made all the more sharp by its timing, must have been perceived by Yasser Arafat's listeners as giving encouragement and approval to the continuation of terrorism, including suicide bombing attacks. By instilling this message, Yasser Arafat creates a fertile ground for the young Palestinians who were present at the event or saw it broadcast on television to form new generations of terrorists. What follows are fragments from Yasser Arafat's speech, as reported live by the Palestinian television on January 31, 2004:
http://www.embajada-israel.es/
Special Information
Bulletin
Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S) January 2005
The Palestinian terrorist organizations continue initiating lethal attacks
at the crossings used by the civilian Palestinian population as a challenge to
Abu Mazen after his election at Chairman of the Palestinian Authority
The main message of the joint announcement of three Palestinian terrorist organizations in response to the attack: “The way of jihad [holy war] continues… (from the Popular Resistance Committees Internet site).
General description of the attack at the Karni crossing ( January 14, 2005)
During the night of January 13-14, 2005, an attack was perpetrated at the commercial terminal Karni crossing. Three terrorists drove a truck containing an explosive charge close to a wall separating the passage from the Palestinian side fix upto the Palestinian side of a wall separating the crossing. The charge detonated, blowing a hole in the wall. The terrorists went through it into the terminal and opened fire. Two security guards returned fire. As a result of the attack six of the terminal’s workers were killed and five wounded, two seriously. The three terrorists were killed.
1. Three Palestinian terrorist organizations, Fatah / Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Hamas / Izzedine al-Qassam Battalions and The Popular Resistance Committees / The Salah al-Din Brigades, claimed joint responsibility for the attack. An announcement posted on Hamas’ Izzedine al-Qassam Battalions Internet site (January 14, 2005), called the attack istishhad (suicide for the sake of Allah) and said that the explosive charges used weighed 40 kilos (88 lbs.). The various organizations noted that they intended to continue carrying out attacks and would retain the “jihad option” until Israel had left every inch of occupied land [sic].
The meaning of the attack: a challenge for Abu Mazen
2. The attack at the Karni crossing and the terrorist organizations’ announcement that they intended to continue perpetrating such attacks1 is a significant challenge for newly elected Abu Mazen shortly before his inauguration, and for his political agenda. The attack was meant to undermine his legitimacy, cause him to fail and show that the terrorist organizations and not Abu Mazen would dictate what happened in the PA-administered territories and what the Palestinian agenda was.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. For example: “ We will fight until we meet Arafat in paradise” (from an interview with Abu Mus’ab, the Fatah/Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades commander in the northern Gaza Strip, to ‘Ali Waqd, Ynet correspondent.
3. It should be noted that the Palestinian Authority avoided an immediate, unequivocal condemnation of the attack. PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina merely called for a mutual cease-fire between Israelis and Palestinians to put an end to violence in the region and to progress toward peace (Agence France Press, January 14, 10 a.m.). In his speech in Ramallah when he was sworn in as Chairman, Abu Mazen made a feeble, vague reference to the attack, presenting it as a response to Israeli action, saying: “During the past few days there have been incidents which we condemn, both the actions committed by the forces of the Israeli occupation and the responses of some Palestinians factions…” (Palestinian TV, January 15, 2005).
Attacking the crossings harms the Palestinian population’s interests
4. The Karni crossing, located close to Gaza City, is the Gaza Palestinians’ lifeline to the world. Agricultural and manufactured goods produced in the Gaza Strip are exported through the crossing to Israel, the West Bank and abroad. Imported are vital raw materials, food products and humanitarian supplies. Recently the crossing has stayed open longer, one of the steps taken to ease the life of the civilian population, so an attack on the crossing is clearly an attack on the interests of the Palestinian population and a threat to any initiation of normalized relations between Israel and the Palestinians.
5. It should be remembered that since the beginning of the ongoing violent Palestinian-Israeli confrontation, the terrorist organizations have chosen the crossings, particularly Karni and Erez, as preferred targets for their activities, and they repeatedly try to cut off those arteries, even at the price of harming the local population. There has recently been a clear trend toward renewed attacks at the crossings, such as the one attempted on the Erez crossing last week (January 8, 2005), another at the workers’ crossing near the village of Ganei Tal (January 6, 2005) and the attack at the Rafah crossing (January 4, 2005).
6. It should be remembered that since the beginning of the ongoing violent Palestinian-Israeli confrontation, the terrorist organizations have chosen the crossings, particularly Karni and Erez, as preferred targets for their activities , and they repeatedly try to cut off those arteries, even at the price of harming the local population. During the past year Hamas and Fatah perpetrated six lethal attacks at the Karni and Erez crossings. There has recently been a clear trend toward renewed attacks at the crossings, such as the one attempted on the Erez crossing last week (January 8, 2005), another at the workers’ crossing near the village of Ganei Tal (January 6, 2005) and the attack at the Rafah crossing (January 4, 2005).
Information about other attempted attacks at the crossings
7. Attached are two bulletins issued during 2004 about Palestinian terrorist organization attacks on the crossings:
a. The June 2004 bulletin entitled “The Karni compound: a focus of terrorist activity.”
b. The January 2004 bulletin entitled “Suicide bombing attack at the Erez crossing in the Gaza Strip: another example of the Palestinian terrorist organizations' attempts to perpetrate suicide bombing attacks at civilian sites vital to the welfare of the entire Palestinian population.”
8. Both bulletins and additional relevant information can be found at the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Website, http://www.intelligence.org.il/eng/default.htm
You're envious of my ability to argue with reason, logic and evidence, so you resort to your juvenile denigrating epithets in an increased dosage when your vapid arguments are rebuffed.
I don't defend any murder. I never defended the officer who pumped two bullets and then emptied a whole magazine into that 13 yr. old's body.
I've also marshalled irrefutable evidence proving some Palestinian parents do educate their toddlers to become suicide bombers.
Bottom line is you're a pathetic babyish and braindead intellectual bummer who's apparently in need of peer pre-adolescent hatmonger company, hence your address to JA..
Let me rephrase there are zero... zero... zero... Palestinian children (anywhere near as young as the girl in the photo) that are engaged in armed struggle against Israel.
So the photo is a deceptive racist fraud that you guys defend in order to justify the Israeli murder of Palestinian children.
And despite the small number of Palestinian teenagers who've taken armed (rocks don't count) actions against Israel(some which I'm sure were in self-defense fighting Israeli tanks and racist settlers) -- 95-99% of Palestianian children murdered by Israel were unarmed.
I know you zionist, child-murder apologists think rocks, knives and molotoves versus tanks, planes and machine guns is some sort of fair fight-- But the rest of the world is waking of too your murderous, lying fraud.
(Saturday, Jan. 29, 2005 at 6:39 PM, last sentence.)
Ya, Critical Thinker [vhat an over-inflated ego], you feel much better now having releazed ze truth from your inner secret conscious. Ya...? Das ist gut! Vee all knew zhis anyvay.
I defend Israel because it is being attacked by those terrorists you like so much.
You are a liar, not CT or me.
It's like, whenever you run out of points to make (or don't have any to begin with), just start screaming "zionist!" at everyone.
I'm actually laughing at him right now.
Sorry, showing a kid with a gun isn't "racist."
The remainder of your claims is just too ridiculous to even bother with.
Now, do you recognize I've refuted your lies about the Palestinian suicide bombing, the would-be suicide bombing minors and other minors who engaged in other forms of terror or combat? Yes or no?
Another question: do you believe it's legitimate for Israeli soldiers and border police to react to life threatening situations by killing the minors threatening them with Molotov cocktails, pistols, hand grenades, pipe bombs, M-16s and the like?
Don't keep us waiting too long for answers.
Te crees muy listo, ¿verdad, titi? La verdad: eres insoportable. Creo que tienes un problema de personalidad muy grave. Eres un racista, tan racista que no te gustas a ti ´mismo. Y así, claro, ¿cómo te van a gustar los demás?
Ya quisiera yo verte usando un idioma que no es el tuyo, so tontaina.
Además, ¿a ´ti qué te importa si yo copio o no copio? ¿Es esto un examen y tú eres el profe, por casualidad? ¿A que no me respondes a esto?
Estás de atar. ¿No has ido aún a que te vea un psicoanalista? Deberías ir cuanto antes. Estás pero que muy, muy mal.
For the record, my good man: I am from Ghana (you know, I am more of a humane African you will ever be). I have a PhD in Computer Engineering and I did a postdoc in Israel at the Technion where I came to see what a light Israel is to nations, how they assist others in time of need according to their Jewish heritage. When nobody was doing anything during famine and war, they airlifted thousands of black Africans to Israel in a logistical feat that to date is unparalleled. They helped us in Africa with irrigation technology (drip irrigation was among many other things invented in Israel to make the desert bloom). Israel has had a long history of friendly relations with black African countries, she trained thousands of Africans in all aspects of life including agriculture, health care and economics. Thousands of Africans went to Israel for training, while similar numbers of Israelis were sent to Africa to teach. In fact, the first Israeli embassy was in my former hometown, Accra.
To the Jews that read this, I would like to say this. Do not despair. The Jews survived Babylon, exile, pogroms, the Crusades, the cossacks, Hitler, 6 Arab armies, premeditated intentional carnage against your people again and again -and all the combined might of these powers in 2000 years has not suceeded to destroy a small dispersed people. You are blessed. Do not despair.
I and some other Jews on the IMCs never let these people intimidate us. We always promptly mount a counteroffensive when attacked. And we would never try to hide by making statements like "not all Jews are Zionist". I'm among a group who believes in a non-apologizing approach. I subscribe, I guess, to a sort of Bar-Kochva attitude toward these people on the web.
I have two friends who are from Accra too and are living in my country (Spain). Nice people.
You are right. There are people who don't care about the good things the Jews have done and are doing. Those people only tried to spread propaganda in favor of totalitarians and against a democratic country as Israel.
Israel is also a theocratic, ethnocentric, terrorist, illegitimate, rogue Zionist entity.
I prefer to refer to Israel as "Isn'treal" or "IsraHell".
Join us in prayer "We pray for the speedy and peaceful dismantling of the Zionist entity ("Israel")." For more info, go to http://www.nkusa.org.
Zionism is the exact opposite of Judaism, and is at the root cause of all terrorism in the Middle East, the US and elsewhere in the world.
For more info: http://www.zionismexplained.org
Israel is a democracy.
that will have you hanging on the edge of your seat! So be shure to see Drew Berrymore in FLAT AS A PANCAKE
the life and times of Rachel Corrie
Last Update: 09/02/2005 15:35
PA officials say Hezbollah is trying to disrupt cease-fire
By Reuters and Haaretz Service
The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah is trying to recruit Palestinian militants for attacks on Israelis in order to sabotage Middle East peace efforts, senior Palestinian officials said Wednesday.
The accusations from political and security officials, a day after Israel and the Palestinians announced a cease-fire, echoed charges from Israel. The officials declined to be identified.
One top Palestinian official said security services are investigating Hezbollah funding for militants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Another said clear links had been identified through intercepted communications.
"We know that Hezbollah has been trying to recruit suicide bombers in the name of Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades to carry out attacks which would sabotage the truce," said one official, referring to a militant offshoot of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction.
Another official said intercepted e-mail communications and bank transactions suggested Hezbollah has raised its cash offers to militants, but it is unclear if this reflected a heightened desire to see violence flare up or a dearth of recruits.
"Now they are willing to pay $100,000 for a whole operation whereas in the past they paid $20,000, then raised it to $50,000," the second official told Reuters.
Palestinian officials blamed a recent attack launched in the West Bank city of Nablus on Hezbollah.
The officials accused the guerrilla group of sending money to the West Bank and Gaza via relatives among the 400,000-strong Palestinian refugee community in Lebanon.
Many Palestinian refugees fear that Abbas will abandon demands for a "right of return" to the Jewish state, though he has said he will not.
Representatives of the Al-Aqsa Brigades denied getting help from the Shi'ite guerrillas.
"We respect Hezbollah but Palestinian resistance is capable of leading its struggle alone and is able to support itself by itself," said Abu Qusai, Gaza spokesman for the faction.
Israel has long accused Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and Syria, of bankrolling the Palestinian uprising. The intifada broke out several months after Israel withdrew its forces from southern Lebanon in May of 2000.
A Lebanese-born Danish citizen currently awaits trial in Tel Aviv, accused of spying and trying to recruit Israeli Arabs for Hezbollah missions. He denies the charges.
Hezbollah declined to comment, although the organization has acknowledged aiding Palestinian militant groups in the past.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/538269.html
Right-wing activists collected the signatures over the last few months at intersections, bus stations, town centers, army bases and over the internet.
"Our purpose is to show the defense establishment they don't have an army to carry out the disengagement," Noam Livnat, initiator of the petition and brother of Education Minister Limor Livnat. "As soon as we have enough people who say they will not participate, the disengagement will be impossible."
Livnat expressed hope that within months, a further 20,000 people will join the initiative.
"Entire units, when ordered to carry out the disengagement, will sit down and play backgammon," Livnat said.
Livnat initially tried to meet with Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz to present him with the signatures but Mofaz refused to meet. In addition, attempts were made to meet with IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon.
Instead, the signatures were handed over to a trustee – law Prof. Chaim Misgav - and were made available Wednesday for public viewing.
A month ago, police launched an investigation against Livnat on suspicion of his involvement in rebelling against the state. Livnat said Wednesday that despite the investigation, he intends to continue collecting signatures of soldiers who will refuse evacuation orders.
Peace Now issued a statement calling on Limor Livnat to "educate her brother."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1107919264729
Abbas's absent talk of compromise
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, THE JERUSALEM POST Feb. 9, 2005
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We listened to the speeches at the Sharm e-Sheikh summit much as one would to the boy who cried wolf. Even those prone to euphoria, who were swept away by the historic handshake on the White House lawn in September 1993, could hardly, after all we have been through, feel as excited by the handshakes and declarations made Tuesday at Sharm.
Neither Mahmoud Abbas nor Ariel Sharon said anything particularly surprising or new. Both tried to couch things as positively as possible, and both refrained from accusations or anything that might mar the conciliatory atmosphere. But hidden in these similarities was a profound difference that must be appreciated to understand the nature of this historic juncture.
In 1993, when Israel secretly negotiated the Oslo agreement with the PLO, it was illegal for Israeli officials to meet with the PLO, and not even the Labor Party had declared itself in favor of a Palestinian state. Almost overnight, Israelis had to adjust to the idea that a terrorist group had pledged to become a peace partner, and the state that had always been called a mortal threat would be created by agreement.
This was a leap for Labor and anathema for the Likud. It would, therefore, have been unimaginable for Ariel Sharon to say then what he said to Abbas directly on Tuesday: "I hope that you will be able to lead your people on the path of democracy and maintenance of law and order, until the establishment of an independent and democratic Palestinian state."
Nor are these mere words. In the next few months, Sharon has committed to carrying out the most concrete down payment toward such a state that Israel has ever made, include signing and implementing Oslo itself.
Disengagement is neither conditional nor an experiment. It is a concrete manifestation of Israel's deep and irreversible consensus, as Sharon said to the Palestinian people, that we have "no desire to continue to govern over you and control your fate."
Sharon's speech may now seem unremarkable because we take for granted the revolution in Israeli thinking since 1993. What is remarkable about Abbas's statement, by contrast, is that it reflects so little Palestinian change over the past 12 years.
No matter how frequently it is said that Oslo is dead, its fundamental goal – a two-state solution – is not only very much alive, but much more entrenched than it was then. It is now the express goal of the US and Israel, with the full support of the international community. The missing part of the picture is, ironically, the Palestinians themselves.
In his speech, Sharon touched on this irony: "We in Israel have had to awaken from our dreams You, too, must prove that you have the strength and the courage to compromise, abandon unrealistic dreams, subdue the forces that oppose peace and mutual respect side by side with us."
Israel has given up the dream of many of its citizens to permanently reclaim the Biblical heartland that it captured in 1967. At least as profoundly, the perception of a Palestinian state has flipped from being regarded as a mortal threat to being seen as a historic necessity.
The Palestinians, by contrast, have not begun the parallel evolution that must take place for a two-state solution to have a chance. They have not begun to give up their claim to a Palestinian right to live on both sides of the Green Line.
Abbas has not begun to speak, even in general, of the need for painful Palestinian concessions, let alone specifically of the need to give up, forever, the dream of "return" to Haifa, Jaffa or Safed, where Abbas himself was born. On the contrary, yesterday he repeated the well-worn code words for such unacceptable demands.
Abbas, then, missed an opportunity to speak to Israelis as Sharon spoke to Palestinians. "The time has come for the Palestinian people to achieve their independence and their freedom," Abbas said. That goal is certainly within the Palestinians' grasp. Indeed, nothing is stopping the Palestinians from doing what they need to do to achieve it: abandon terror, democratize, and give up the dream of two states, both of them Palestinian.
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http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer&cid=1107864140172&p=1006953079865
Hmmm seems like a thing a wee child would say when they dont want to share their new toy
I figure every Government should quit using the Yap Holes and mind their own damn business.
What's more, you won't find a rightest Israeli PM or other officials who'd entertain issuing a historically false statement directed at the Palestinians to the effect that the Israelis stole their land, i.e. Israel proper.
Last Update: 10/02/2005 17:36
IDF nabs Palestinian planning suicide attack on Jerusalem bus
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service
Bomber was planning to strike in French Hill; troops kill Palestinian car thief who sped through checkpoint; Erez crossing is reopened.
Israel Defense Forces soldiers operating in Nablus on Thursday afternoon arrested a Palestinian man suspected of planning a suicide bus bombing attack in Jerusalem's French Hill section in the near future.
Maharan Omar Shucat Abu Hamis, 21, is from a Nablus-area refugee camp and has been affiliated with a number of militant Palestinian organizations including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Tanzim and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
On Thursday morning in the same West Bank city, IDF soldiers arrested two Fatah militants. The militants led the troops to an armed explosive device they had planted nearby.
Also on Thursday, IDF troops killed a Palestinian car thief who attempted to run a roadblock north of Ramallah. An IDF spokesman said troops spotted two cars driving at high speeds, and an additional force was ordered to the area in order to set up a makeshift roadblock.
When the cars tried to run the roadblock, the troops opened fire. One of the cars spun out of control and overturned into a roadside ditch, killing the driver.
The IDF is investigating the incident. IDF regulations authorize troops to open fire on cars that run roadblocks only if there is a tangible danger to the soldiers.
There was also a shooting incident at the settlement of Kadim, east of Jenin. No one was hurt.
For the first time since the Sharm el-Sheikh summit two days earlier, Palestinian militants on Thursday launched a massive rocket and mortar attack at Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip. There were no casualties. Later in the day, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas ordered his security forces to stop the militants' attacks on Israelis.
Erez crossing reopens
The Erez border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel opened Thursday for the first time in weeks. Some 1,000 Palestinian workers and several hundred business people were to enter Israel; Israel Radio reported that 220 laborers had passed through the crossing.
The Karni crossing, which opened early in the week, is working part-time because of warnings that militant groups intend to carry out an attack there.
Critical Thinker: " I play into your trolling about that picture."
(Saturday, Jan. 29, 2005 at 6:39 PM, last sentence.)
Ya, Critical Thinker [vhat an over-inflated ego], you feel much better now having releazed ze truth from your inner secret conscious. Ya...? Das ist gut! Vee all knew zhis anyvay.
Attacks celebrated in West Bank
The Times, UK
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Thousands of Palestinians celebrated today's terror attacks in the United States, chanting "God is Great" and distributing sweets to passers-by, even as their leader, Yassir Arafat, said he was horrified.
The US Government has become increasingly unpopular in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the past year, with many Palestinians accusing Washington of siding with Israel.
In the West Bank town of Nablus, about 3,000 people poured into the street shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the government targets in Washington.
Demonstrators distributed sweets in a traditional gesture of celebration. Several Palestinian gunmen shot in the air, while other marchers carried Palestinian flags. Nawal Abdel Fatah, 48, wearing a long black dress, threw sweets in the air, saying she was happy because "America is the head of the snake, America always stands by Israel in its war against us".
Palestinians in Lebanon Celebrate Anti-US Attacks
Sept. 11, 2001
Ain-al-Helweh, Lebanon (AFP) - Dozens of Palestinian refugees today fired into the air with joy at news of apparent anti-US terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, AFP correspondents witnessed.
Guerillas in military fatigues from various factions fired assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades into the air in the Ain al-Helweh refugee camp at the outskirts of the southern port city of Sidon, one correspondent said.
Camp residents, some still in pyjamas, interrupted afternoon rest to rush down to the streets and fire assault rifles into the air, they said.
At the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, Palestinian fighters also went out to the streets as soon as they heard the news from their television sets to fire into the air with joy, an AFP correspondent said.
Palestinians Celebrate Attacks with Gunfire
By Joseph Logan
Sept. 12, 2001
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Palestinians in Lebanon met news of devastating attacks on American targets Tuesday with jubilant gunfire, dancing and cheering, saying Israel's chief backer deserved such a punishment.
"This is the result of American policy. America and Israel are one," one Palestinian gunman said.
"This is the reaction required to confront the American and Israeli arrogance," said Mohamad Hallak, a 40-year-old Palestinian refugee from the southern Rashidiyeh camp in Tyre.
Firing rattled across Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and the West Bank as soon as television stations broke the news, carrying live footage of buildings on fire and collapsing and terrified Americans fleeing the stricken areas.
Jubilant Palestinians took to the streets of refugee camps of Lebanon and the West Bank, waving Palestinian flags and distributing sweets to celebrate the attacks on major U.S. landmarks and government offices.
Some Lebanese shared the joy.
"We're ecstatic. Let America have a taste of what we've tasted," said Ali Mareh, a Lebanese resident of Beirut.
"People are happy. America has always supported terrorism. They see how the innocent Palestinian children are killed and they back the Zionist army that does it. America has never been on the side of justice," said Samir, a Lebanese.
"This is the language that the United States understands and this is the way to stop America from helping the Zionist terrorists who are killing our children, men and women everyday," said Mohamed Rasheed, a Palestinian.
Lebanon is home to some to 360,000 Palestinian refugees. After four generations of exile, many Palestinians feel embittered against the United States for its support of Israel -- a feeling which has grown during the present uprising in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza.
"Today is a feast for the Palestinians. We do not differentiate between America and Israel. America is our prime enemy," added another Palestinian.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat condemned the attacks which leveled the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and struck the Pentagon in Washington.
Palestinians who have often burned U.S. flags in protests during their 11-month-old uprising against Israeli occupation also celebrated in the streets of Arab East Jerusalem.
"I feel I am in a dream. I never believed that one day the United States would come to pay a price for its support to Israel," said Mustafa, a 24-year-old Palestinian gunman.
Several dozen Palestinian youths gathered in Arab East Jerusalem to celebrate as well, honking out wedding tunes on their car horns. "We are so happy that America was hit. America is against us in supporting Israel," Suleiman, one of the demonstrators, said.
In Nablus, motorists honked their horns and gunmen fired into the air from assault rifles to cheer on the attacks which unfolded in the space of a few hours and stunned people around the globe.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority try to suppress this news with death threats to journalists who captured the celebrations on film!!!
AP protests threats to freelance camerman who filmed Palestinian rally
Sept. 12, 2001
JERUSALEM (AP) The Associated Press on Wednesday protested to the Palestinian Authority about threats against a freelance camerman who filmed Palestinians celebrating terror attacks in the United States.
The videographer, on assignment for Associated Press Television News, was summoned to a Palestinian Authority security office and told that the material must not be aired. Calls in the name of the Tanzim militia, an armed group associated with Yasser Arafat's Fatah group, warned him he would be held responsible and made what he interpreted as threats on his life.
Several Palestinian Authority officials spoke to AP in Jerusalem urging that the material not be broadcast. Ahmed Abdel Rahman, Arafat's Cabinet secretary, said the Palestinian Authority "cannot guarantee the life" of the cameraman if the footage was broadcast.
The cameraman then requested that the material not be aired. In light of the danger, APTN has not released the footage of the rally in Nablus.
AP news stories reported worldwide on the demonstration in Nablus and AP distributed still pictures and video of similar rallies in east Jerusalem, Lebanon and elsewhere. An AP still photographer did not take pictures of the Nablus rally after being warned at the scene not to do so.
The protest by AP Chief of Bureau Dan Perry said, "I ask the assurances of the Palestinian Authority that you will protect our journalists from threats and attempts at intimidation and that no harm would come to our freelance cameraman from distribution of the film."
Foreign journalists 'deeply concerned' by PA harassment
September 13, 2001
Foreign journalists based in Israel have condemned the Palestinian Authority's harassment of journalists and its suppression of videotape made of Palestinian celebrations in the wake of the terror attacks in the United States this week.
The Foreign Press Association in Israel released the following statement relating to this incident:
"The FPA expresses deep concern over the harassment of journalists by the Palestinian Authority as police forces and armed gunmen tried to prevent photo and video coverage of Tuesday's rally in Nablus where hundreds of Palestinians celebrated the terror attacks in NY and Washington.
"We strongly condemn the direct threats made against local videographers by local militia members and the attitude of Palestinian officials who made no effort to counter the threats, control the situation, or to guarantee the safety of the journalists and the freedom of the press.
"We call on the PA to ensure freedom of the press and the free flow of information and to prevent elements operating within PA jurisdiction from making or carrying out threats that aim to impede this and effectively impose censorship. We hold the PA fully responsible for the safety of each and every journalist operating within their areas, especially those who were filming and covering Tuesday's events in Nablus."
MIDDLE EAST NEWSLINE
Special to World Tribune.com
Thursday, September 13, 2001
RAMALLAH — The Palestinian Authority has muzzled coverage of Palestinian celebrations of the Islamic suicide attacks against the United States.
Palestinian sources said PA officials stopped several television crews from broadcasting Palestinian celebrations of the suicide jet crashes in New York and Washington. They said PA Information Minister Yasser Abbed Rabbo and his aides telephoned foreign broadcast crews and said the PA would not be able to guarantee their safety if the footage is broadcast.
The sources said Fatah agents loyal to PA Chairman Yasser Arafat warned cameramen to either hand over their videotape or refuse to relay footage of Palestinian celebrations for international broadcast.
The result, the sources said, is that virtually all television crews failed to broadcast the tape of the celebrations. They said this includes PA officers and Fatah gunmen in the West Bank firing in the air to celebrate the kamikaze attacks. The wildest celebrations were reported in Nablus.
In Ramallah, Fatah gunmen captured a Palestinian television cameraman who worked for a major news agency. The gunmen warned he would be killed if the footage filmed of Palestinian celebrations is aired.
For his part, Arafat has expressed outrage over the attacks. On Wednesday, Arafat donated blood for the victims of the U.S. suicide missions.
At the same time, Abbed Rabbo appealed to Palestinians not to publicly display happiness over the attacks in the United States. The information minister told PA radio that such expressions would harm Palestinian interests.
Television journalists refused to publicly acknowledge the pressure. They said most of the Palestinian celebrations were broadcast.
"We are doing our work as well as we should," Connie Mus, a former chairman of the Foreign Press Association, said.
Israel to AP: Release film of Palestinian celebrations
September 13, 2001
Israel is demanding The Associated Press release a videotape of Palestinian celebrations held in the wake of Tuesday's terror attacks in the United States.
The video reportedly captured Palestinian Authority security personnel participating in celebrations around the territories.
Israel claims the Palestinian photographer who shot the film and passed it on to The Associated Press received death threats.
Ra'anan Gissin, a senior aide to Sharon, called the incident "journalism under terror."
The Associated Press yesterday refused to comment on reports that it had refrained from broadcasting the film following pressure from the Palestinian Authority.
Bin-Laden Poster Seen at Gaza Rally
The Associated Press
Friday, Sept. 14, 2001; 6:09 p.m. EDT
JERUSALEM –– About 1,500 Palestinians, many supporters of the Islamic militant group Hamas, marched in a Gaza Strip refugee camp on Friday, burning Israeli flags and carrying a large poster of Osama bin Laden, who has been named as a key suspect in this week's terror attacks in the United States.
After the rally, plainclothes Palestinian policemen questioned several journalists, including staffers of foreign news agencies, and confiscated videotape and film as well as camera equipment. An Associated Press Television News video was among the materials taken, and an AP photographer was warned by officials not to publish pictures of the bin-Laden poster.
AP protested and demanded return of the video and other material.
The journalists were told police would review the material before deciding whether to release it.
Officials of Yasser Arafat's self-rule government refused to comment on the record and did not respond immediately to AP's protest.
The Palestinian police said in a statement that the rally in the Nusseirat refugee camp took place without a permit. "The Palestinian police confiscated media material which documented illegal acts," the statement said.
The Palestinian Authority has sought to prevent coverage of demonstrations in support of those who carried out the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.
Earlier this week, Palestinian police stopped camera teams and photographers from covering a rally in the West Bank town of Nablus in which several thousand Palestinians celebrated the attacks in the United States. Palestinian officials said the demonstration did not represent widespread Palestinian opinion.
Friday's march in the Nusseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip was led by supporters of Hamas, a militant group that has claimed responsibility for suicide attacks against Israel. Demonstrators burned several Israeli flags and effigies of Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
A large Osama bin Laden painting was carried by two men in the crowd. Bin Laden, an exiled Saudi millionaire, has been named by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell as a key suspect in Tuesday's terror attacks.
'Reputation is everything'
Honor killing among the Palestinians
by James Emery
If a woman brings shame to the family--through allegations of premarital or extramarital sex, by refusing an arranged marriage, or attempting to obtain a divorce--her male relatives are bound by duty and culture to murder her.
Honor is everything," says Ahmed, a 52-year-old Palestinian Muslim. "If a person loses his honor, he becomes like an animal." The significance of honor among Muslims is complex, especially when compared to Western standards, but in the high-context, collectivist cultures of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, the inappropriate behavior of relatives brings shame to everyone in the extended family.
Palestinian communities are typically insular. Family members often remain in the same village or neighborhood for their entire lives. "Everyone knows each other," says Muhib Nimrat, consul with the Embassy of Jordan in Washington, D.C. "When you mention someone's family name, most people can tell you their history." Wealthy or poor, the reputation and honor of a family are its most important attributes.
Steeped in a collective sense of identity, families take pride in the accomplishments of individual members and feel shame if one of them does something dishonorable. "The family plays a role in every aspect of life in the Arab world," says Nimrat. "Whatever you do, you have to consider the immediate family and extended family, even the neighbors. How will they react? What will they think?"
Unlike Western countries, which champion individualism, Arabs focus on the group. The family is more important than the individual.
In the feudal, patriarchal societies of the Middle East, honor is based on what men feel is important, and reputation is everything. Unfortunately, thousands of women have been killed in the name of honor because imagination and rumors are as important as actions and events. Most, but not all, of these killings involve Muslims. Some Jewish communities, from the ancient fortress of Masada to conservative Hasidic sects of today, have similar views of tradition and ritual law but refrain from killing women in the name of honor.
Murder by family
The murder of females in the Middle East is an ancient tradition. Prior to the arrival of Islam in AD 622, Arabs occasionally buried infant daughters to avoid the possibility that they would later bring shame to the family. This practice continued through the centuries. It may still occur today among Bedouins, who consider girls most likely to sully the family honor.
Several thousand women a year are victims of honor killings. Numerous murders are ruled an accident, suicide, or family dispute, if they're reported at all. Police and government officials are often bribed to ignore crimes and hinder investigations. A woman beaten, burned, strangled, shot, or stabbed to death is often ruled a suicide, even when there are multiple wounds.
Many women are killed and buried in unmarked graves; their very existence is removed from community and clan records. The fact that so many murders go unreported is indicative of the status of women and the role of culture in fundamentalist Islamic countries. "It shows that women are still sometimes seen as commodities that are owned by men," says Carolyn Hannan, director of the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women.
A Palestinian family at a refugee camp in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
In the Palestinian communities of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Israel, and Jordan, women are executed in their homes, in open fields, and occasionally in public, sometimes before crowds of cheering onlookers. Honor killings account for virtually all of the murders of Palestinian women in these areas.
Honor killings occur for a variety of offenses, including allegations of premarital or extramarital sex, refusing an arranged marriage, attempting to obtain a divorce, or simply talking with a man. If a woman brings shame to the family, her male relatives are bound by duty and culture to kill her. "A woman shamed is like rotting flesh," a Palestinian merchant tells me. "If it is not cut away, it will consume the body. What I mean is the whole family will be tainted if she is not killed."
Among Arabs, marriage is traditionally a family affair, not a personal choice. Girls are often pressured into arranged marriages, while boys are not. "I was forced to marry my cousin," laments a young Palestinian woman. "I hated him. He beat me and humiliated me in front of his family and friends. But what could I do? If I had fled, I would have been killed."
Men hold all the power in the marriage. They are allowed up to four wives and may divorce a wife simply by saying "I divorce thee" three times before witnesses prior to registering the decree in court. The process for divorce is much more difficult for a woman and in some communities virtually impossible without her husband's consent.
A woman's activities are closely monitored by her
HONOR KILLINGS AND ISLAM
The Qur'an has been inaccurately used to sanction honor killings and a host of other practices.
family. Her virginity is considered their responsibility, and she is dominated by men her entire life--first her father, then her husband, and finally her sons. When a woman's chastity is in question, her family feels the shame, even if she is raped or the rumors prove unsubstantiated. As a result of "her" shame, the extended family is compromised. It will be difficult to arrange marriages for her unwed sisters, and her male relatives will be scorned and ridiculed until they kill her.
Women are killed by their fathers, husbands, brothers, uncles, cousins, or sons. In communities where the crime is prosecuted, teenage brothers are encouraged to kill their sisters because the consequences will be less severe due to their age. Relatives of the victims, including mothers and sisters, often defend the killings and occasionally help set them up.
Islam is inaccurately cited as justification for these crimes. In one case, a Palestinian boy admitted to reciting the Qur'an while strangling his sister for dishonoring her family. The girl was killed because her desire for independence became public knowledge.
Most honor killings occur in poor, rural tribal areas or among uneducated urban dwellers. "The tribal influence is an important factor," notes Nimrat. "Education is also important. Someone who is not well educated will immediately kill his sister or wife. If he has a higher level of education, there might be some understanding."
Sanctioned to kill
Critics claim honor killings are sanctioned by the educated elite, who pass laws that enable murderers to get off with little or no punishment. "Many groups want harsher punishment for those who commit such acts," continues Nimrat, "but the cultural dimension plays an important role. To eradicate this will take time."
Even when apprehended, murderers serve little or no jail time because honor killings are accorded special status in the courts. Men convicted of premeditated murder may be imprisoned for as little as three to six months. Upon their release, friends and relatives treat them like celebrities. Ahmed, a Palestinian boy who killed his teenage sister because she refused an arranged marriage, was commended upon his release from jail. Neighbors showered him with compliments, and his father called him a hero for restoring the family honor.
The West Bank and Gaza Strip are governed by the Palestinian Authority under a combination of Jordanian, Egyptian, and tribal laws. Israel has no jurisdiction in these territories. There are at least twenty-five "official" honor killings a year among the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and thirty-five a year in Jordan. The actual number of deaths is much higher.
Honor Killings in Jordan
In Jordan the family will generally impose self-administered justice and escape legal punishment.
Hundreds of women have died from strange and unusual accidents or questionable suicides. Many more are buried in the desert, unreported and unaccounted for. The secret of their fate is entombed with them in the sand. The lack of reliable statistics has hindered women's groups and human rights organizations in their campaign to eliminate honor killings.
"Uncontrollable rage" at having lost their honor is another reason given to excuse perpetrators of these killings. It's the American equivalent of innocent by reason of insanity.
The brutality of the attacks is shocking. An eighteen-year-old Palestinian man stabbed his teenage sister forty times because of a rumor that she was involved in an extramarital affair. The family thanked God for her death. In an adjacent neighborhood, a sixteen-year-old boy killed his divorced mother, stabbing her repeatedly as he chased her into the street. The boy told authorities he was upset because neighbors were gossiping about her allegedly immoral behavior.
Among Palestinians, all sexual encounters, including rape and incest, are blamed on the woman. Men are presumed innocent; the woman must have tempted him into raping her or enticed him into having an affair. A woman is expected to protect her honor, even at the cost of her own life. If she survives a violent rape, she is condemned for her "mistake" and may be killed by her family.
"The issue of consent is irrelevant when it comes to honor killings," says Marsha Freeman, director of the International Women's Rights Action Watch (IWRAW). "It has to do with the woman being defiled. It completely objectifies the woman as being about her sexuality and purity. It makes her not human."
For Palestinian women accused of sexual infidelity or disobeying their family, there is little recourse. Few are given the opportunity to refute the charges or prove their innocence.
A Palestinian girl near the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. It's difficult for women to flee the situation. Arab societies are close knit, and most women lack the resources to live alone. Palestinian newspapers include advertisements placed by families who are looking for female relatives accused of immoral behavior. "When they find her, they'll kill her," says Jameel, a Palestinian businessman, "because the whole family wants the girl dead." The community is warned not to interfere, not to hide the woman.
The Palestinian community has limited resources and shelters. Women accused of inappropriate behavior are frequently jailed to protect them from their families. At least fifty women a year are imprisoned in Jordan on honor-related cases. The number held in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is unknown. The length of detention ranges from a few months to several years. Some of the female detainees expressed concern that they would never be able to leave jail because their families would kill them.
Once imprisoned, women can be released only to a male relative, who must first agree not to execute them. Regardless of assurances, women are often murdered within hours of their discharge. Fayez Mohammed secured the release of his seventeen-year-old daughter, Lamis, from a Jordanian detention center where she was staying for her protection. He guaranteed her safety and then slit her throat. Fayez was sentenced to nine months in prison for the crime.
Victims of dishonor
In Palestinian communities, a woman's purity reflects directly on a family's reputation. If a woman is raped, missing, or even rumored to have engaged in premarital sexual relations, she is taken to a medical clinic for a hymen exam. This process can have fatal consequences. Over 75 percent of the Palestinian women in Jordan subjected to hymen exams were subsequently killed by family members, even when tests proved they were still virgins.
Some women, including virgins, have operations to reattach their hymen prior to marriage, in part, to ensure that they bleed on their wedding night. This procedure, illegal in most Arab countries, can save a woman's honor, and perhaps her life. Among Arabs, it is essential that the new bride be a virgin. If the bride's hymen is not intact, or if she fails to bleed during initial penetration, the husband can declare the marriage void and return her to her family. Viewing her as damaged goods, her family may feel they have no alternative but to kill her, even if they believe she is innocent of any wrongdoing.
From the tribal standpoint, the only way a family can regain its honor is to eliminate the women in question. "The law of the clan is sacred," notes Jibril, a Palestinian merchant. "A man is entitled to kill for his honor." Several Palestinians justified honor killings by equating a woman's reputation to glass, porcelain, or other fragile objects, stating, "Once broken, it is ruined. It cannot be fixed or repaired."
Coerced to Kill
Some Palestinian women, facing a loss of honor and certain death, have been offered a chance "to die with dignity" by strapping on explosives and killing Israelis.
In some areas, a Palestinian woman is required to have a male relative accompany her whenever she leaves the home. Unfortunately, her male "guardian"--father, brother, uncle, or cousin--may be a sexual predator who rapes her. Should she become pregnant, he will publicly condemn her for dishonoring the family after killing both her and their unborn child. Last year, seventeen-year-old Afaf Younes was killed by her father, who had allegedly been sexually molesting her. Afaf had tried to escape his sexual abuse by running away, but she was caught and returned to her father. He then shot her in the name of honor.
A sixteen-year-old Palestinian girl became pregnant after being raped by her younger brother. Once her condition became known, her family encouraged her older brother to kill her to remove the blemish from their honor. Her brothers, the rapist and the murderer, were exonerated. The girl was blamed. "She made a mistake," said one of her male cousins. "She had to pay for it."
A young Palestinian girl peers through a window in her home in the Gaza Strip.
Even more horrifically, a four-year-old Palestinian girl, raped by a man in his mid-twenties, was left by her family to bleed to death. They did this because they felt her misfortune would sully their honor.
Women often accept their fate and expect to be executed, even in the case of incest and rape. "They have to kill us," exclaims Ritza, a middle-aged Palestinian woman, "to keep others from doing wrong. It is the law of our society." It is hard to grasp the logic.
Girls, feeling they are ruined by scandal, go submissively to the slaughter. Such is the power of culture that has conditioned both victim and killer to accept their roles. "He had no choice but to kill her," says Rateb, whose son killed his sixteen-year-old sister after she was raped. "He was tormented. The community was persecuting him because of what his sister did. Her death has helped to wash away his shame."
James Emery is an anthropologist and journalist. Information for this article was obtained through interviews and research conducted in North America, West Asia, and the Middle East. The names of some of the Palestinians interviewed were changed to protect their identities.
Antisemitism Eventually Hits Everyone
By Irwin N. Graulich
http://www.MichNews.com
Oct 5, 2004
It only begins with the Jews. Jew-Hatred should be a wake up call for all decent human beings of every religion and no religion. Hitler's initial target was indeed, the Jews. But that was only the beginning of his plan. He invaded Czechoslovakia, France, England and would have eventually progressed to the rest of humanity.
Attention planet earth! Antisemitism is not exclusively a Jewish problem, because it never ends with only Jews. The latest example of this phenomenon is the Arab and Muslim world, which has despised Israel since 1948. Anti-Israel and antisemitism are virtually synonymous terms. However, this time, the antisemitic cancer has metastasized further than previous masses, growing into anti-American and anti-Western tumors.
The hatred of a tiny Jewish state should have been an early detection warning for the world that this diseased lump would eventually spread. Had the West biopsied the problem immediately, perhaps 1 million black Sudanese Christians would still be alive, and 3000 Americans who perished on 9/11 would continue to hug their children, parents and spouses to this day.
What is even more amazing is that Jew-Hatred does not stop with murdering all other groups. As displayed clearly in Iraq and Afghanistan today, these Jew-Haters are more than happy to murder their own innocent Muslims using car bombs, suicide bombers and other tactics.
As America's great moral beacon, Dennis Prager, has continually explained, "The Jews are the miner's canaries for the world." Miners have been known to take canaries down into mines when working. It seems that canaries are much more susceptible to noxious fumes than humans. When the miners see the canaries dying, they know it is time to fight the fumes, and get out of the mines, or they too will die.
Let the world know, that Jews play the role of miner's canaries for good people everywhere. When there are "noxious moral fumes," the Jews die first. But it does not end there. All innocent people are next in line. For 25 years, Israel was at the top of the Islamic world's list. Now, these evildoers are beheading Americans, British, Italians, South Koreans; murdering schoolchildren in Russia; and yes, even blowing up their own children in Baghdad.
Unless the world recognizes from where these horrible, evil fumes emanate, and do something definitive to eliminate these poisons, we can all kiss our families good-bye right now.
Unfotunately, political correctness has crept into this equation, not permitting world leaders to tell the truth--that the real problem is fundamentalist Islam. To call Islam "a religion of peace," at this time in history is a "fundamental" error of gross proportions. Of course there are some beautiful, kind Muslims, especially in America. However, there were some lovely members of the Nazi party during WWII, and even wonderful Communists during the heyday of the Soviet Union.
The bulk of the world's issues with evil today unfortunately fall within one group, and it happens to be a religion. That is the plain and simple truth. Unless leaders like George W. Bush point that out clearly, without fear of offending, Islam will never solve its disastrous problems. Imagine a therapist being "uncomfortable" confronting a patient with their flaws. Pointing out faults and gross behavior is a positive thing for everyone.
Thank God that humanity has never thought of polio, malaria, AIDS or any other disease as a problem for only one group or country. If civilized people everywhere do not fight the battle to wipe out this new "Islamic Terrorist" disease, eventually we will all catch it. America has the cure. Use it!
------
Irwin N. Graulich is a well known motivational speaker on morality, ethics, Judaism and politics. He is also President and CEO of a leading marketing, branding and communications company in New York City. He can be reached at irwin.graulich [at] verizon.net
http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_5336.shtml
If a woman brings shame to the family--through allegations of premarital or extramarital sex, by refusing an arranged marriage, or attempting to obtain a divorce--her male relatives are bound by duty and culture to murder her.
Honor is everything," says Ahmed, a 52-year-old Palestinian Muslim. "If a person loses his honor, he becomes like an animal." The significance of honor among Muslims is complex, especially when compared to Western standards, but in the high-context, collectivist cultures of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, the inappropriate behavior of relatives brings shame to everyone in the extended family.
Palestinian communities are typically insular. Family members often remain in the same village or neighborhood for their entire lives. "Everyone knows each other," says Muhib Nimrat, consul with the Embassy of Jordan in Washington, D.C. "When you mention someone's family name, most people can tell you their history." Wealthy or poor, the reputation and honor of a family are its most important attributes.
Steeped in a collective sense of identity, families take pride in the accomplishments of individual members and feel shame if one of them does something dishonorable. "The family plays a role in every aspect of life in the Arab world," says Nimrat. "Whatever you do, you have to consider the immediate family and extended family, even the neighbors. How will they react? What will they think?"
Unlike Western countries, which champion individualism, Arabs focus on the group. The family is more important than the individual.
In the feudal, patriarchal societies of the Middle East, honor is based on what men feel is important, and reputation is everything. Unfortunately, thousands of women have been killed in the name of honor because imagination and rumors are as important as actions and events. Most, but not all, of these killings involve Muslims. Some Jewish communities, from the ancient fortress of Masada to conservative Hasidic sects of today, have similar views of tradition and ritual law but refrain from killing women in the name of honor.
Murder by family
The murder of females in the Middle East is an ancient tradition. Prior to the arrival of Islam in AD 622, Arabs occasionally buried infant daughters to avoid the possibility that they would later bring shame to the family. This practice continued through the centuries. It may still occur today among Bedouins, who consider girls most likely to sully the family honor.
Several thousand women a year are victims of honor killings. Numerous murders are ruled an accident, suicide, or family dispute, if they're reported at all. Police and government officials are often bribed to ignore crimes and hinder investigations. A woman beaten, burned, strangled, shot, or stabbed to death is often ruled a suicide, even when there are multiple wounds.
Many women are killed and buried in unmarked graves; their very existence is removed from community and clan records. The fact that so many murders go unreported is indicative of the status of women and the role of culture in fundamentalist Islamic countries. "It shows that women are still sometimes seen as commodities that are owned by men," says Carolyn Hannan, director of the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women.
A Palestinian family at a refugee camp in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
In the Palestinian communities of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Israel, and Jordan, women are executed in their homes, in open fields, and occasionally in public, sometimes before crowds of cheering onlookers. Honor killings account for virtually all of the murders of Palestinian women in these areas.
Honor killings occur for a variety of offenses, including allegations of premarital or extramarital sex, refusing an arranged marriage, attempting to obtain a divorce, or simply talking with a man. If a woman brings shame to the family, her male relatives are bound by duty and culture to kill her. "A woman shamed is like rotting flesh," a Palestinian merchant tells me. "If it is not cut away, it will consume the body. What I mean is the whole family will be tainted if she is not killed."
Among Arabs, marriage is traditionally a family affair, not a personal choice. Girls are often pressured into arranged marriages, while boys are not. "I was forced to marry my cousin," laments a young Palestinian woman. "I hated him. He beat me and humiliated me in front of his family and friends. But what could I do? If I had fled, I would have been killed."
Men hold all the power in the marriage. They are allowed up to four wives and may divorce a wife simply by saying "I divorce thee" three times before witnesses prior to registering the decree in court. The process for divorce is much more difficult for a woman and in some communities virtually impossible without her husband's consent.
A woman's activities are closely monitored by her
HONOR KILLINGS AND ISLAM
The Qur'an has been inaccurately used to sanction honor killings and a host of other practices.
family. Her virginity is considered their responsibility, and she is dominated by men her entire life--first her father, then her husband, and finally her sons. When a woman's chastity is in question, her family feels the shame, even if she is raped or the rumors prove unsubstantiated. As a result of "her" shame, the extended family is compromised. It will be difficult to arrange marriages for her unwed sisters, and her male relatives will be scorned and ridiculed until they kill her.
Women are killed by their fathers, husbands, brothers, uncles, cousins, or sons. In communities where the crime is prosecuted, teenage brothers are encouraged to kill their sisters because the consequences will be less severe due to their age. Relatives of the victims, including mothers and sisters, often defend the killings and occasionally help set them up.
Islam is inaccurately cited as justification for these crimes. In one case, a Palestinian boy admitted to reciting the Qur'an while strangling his sister for dishonoring her family. The girl was killed because her desire for independence became public knowledge.
Most honor killings occur in poor, rural tribal areas or among uneducated urban dwellers. "The tribal influence is an important factor," notes Nimrat. "Education is also important. Someone who is not well educated will immediately kill his sister or wife. If he has a higher level of education, there might be some understanding."
Sanctioned to kill
Critics claim honor killings are sanctioned by the educated elite, who pass laws that enable murderers to get off with little or no punishment. "Many groups want harsher punishment for those who commit such acts," continues Nimrat, "but the cultural dimension plays an important role. To eradicate this will take time."
Even when apprehended, murderers serve little or no jail time because honor killings are accorded special status in the courts. Men convicted of premeditated murder may be imprisoned for as little as three to six months. Upon their release, friends and relatives treat them like celebrities. Ahmed, a Palestinian boy who killed his teenage sister because she refused an arranged marriage, was commended upon his release from jail. Neighbors showered him with compliments, and his father called him a hero for restoring the family honor.
The West Bank and Gaza Strip are governed by the Palestinian Authority under a combination of Jordanian, Egyptian, and tribal laws. Israel has no jurisdiction in these territories. There are at least twenty-five "official" honor killings a year among the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and thirty-five a year in Jordan. The actual number of deaths is much higher.
Honor Killings in Jordan
In Jordan the family will generally impose self-administered justice and escape legal punishment.
Hundreds of women have died from strange and unusual accidents or questionable suicides. Many more are buried in the desert, unreported and unaccounted for. The secret of their fate is entombed with them in the sand. The lack of reliable statistics has hindered women's groups and human rights organizations in their campaign to eliminate honor killings.
"Uncontrollable rage" at having lost their honor is another reason given to excuse perpetrators of these killings. It's the American equivalent of innocent by reason of insanity.
The brutality of the attacks is shocking. An eighteen-year-old Palestinian man stabbed his teenage sister forty times because of a rumor that she was involved in an extramarital affair. The family thanked God for her death. In an adjacent neighborhood, a sixteen-year-old boy killed his divorced mother, stabbing her repeatedly as he chased her into the street. The boy told authorities he was upset because neighbors were gossiping about her allegedly immoral behavior.
Among Palestinians, all sexual encounters, including rape and incest, are blamed on the woman. Men are presumed innocent; the woman must have tempted him into raping her or enticed him into having an affair. A woman is expected to protect her honor, even at the cost of her own life. If she survives a violent rape, she is condemned for her "mistake" and may be killed by her family.
"The issue of consent is irrelevant when it comes to honor killings," says Marsha Freeman, director of the International Women's Rights Action Watch (IWRAW). "It has to do with the woman being defiled. It completely objectifies the woman as being about her sexuality and purity. It makes her not human."
For Palestinian women accused of sexual infidelity or disobeying their family, there is little recourse. Few are given the opportunity to refute the charges or prove their innocence.
A Palestinian girl near the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. It's difficult for women to flee the situation. Arab societies are close knit, and most women lack the resources to live alone. Palestinian newspapers include advertisements placed by families who are looking for female relatives accused of immoral behavior. "When they find her, they'll kill her," says Jameel, a Palestinian businessman, "because the whole family wants the girl dead." The community is warned not to interfere, not to hide the woman.
The Palestinian community has limited resources and shelters. Women accused of inappropriate behavior are frequently jailed to protect them from their families. At least fifty women a year are imprisoned in Jordan on honor-related cases. The number held in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is unknown. The length of detention ranges from a few months to several years. Some of the female detainees expressed concern that they would never be able to leave jail because their families would kill them.
Once imprisoned, women can be released only to a male relative, who must first agree not to execute them. Regardless of assurances, women are often murdered within hours of their discharge. Fayez Mohammed secured the release of his seventeen-year-old daughter, Lamis, from a Jordanian detention center where she was staying for her protection. He guaranteed her safety and then slit her throat. Fayez was sentenced to nine months in prison for the crime.
Victims of dishonor
In Palestinian communities, a woman's purity reflects directly on a family's reputation. If a woman is raped, missing, or even rumored to have engaged in premarital sexual relations, she is taken to a medical clinic for a hymen exam. This process can have fatal consequences. Over 75 percent of the Palestinian women in Jordan subjected to hymen exams were subsequently killed by family members, even when tests proved they were still virgins.
Some women, including virgins, have operations to reattach their hymen prior to marriage, in part, to ensure that they bleed on their wedding night. This procedure, illegal in most Arab countries, can save a woman's honor, and perhaps her life. Among Arabs, it is essential that the new bride be a virgin. If the bride's hymen is not intact, or if she fails to bleed during initial penetration, the husband can declare the marriage void and return her to her family. Viewing her as damaged goods, her family may feel they have no alternative but to kill her, even if they believe she is innocent of any wrongdoing.
From the tribal standpoint, the only way a family can regain its honor is to eliminate the women in question. "The law of the clan is sacred," notes Jibril, a Palestinian merchant. "A man is entitled to kill for his honor." Several Palestinians justified honor killings by equating a woman's reputation to glass, porcelain, or other fragile objects, stating, "Once broken, it is ruined. It cannot be fixed or repaired."
Coerced to Kill
Some Palestinian women, facing a loss of honor and certain death, have been offered a chance "to die with dignity" by strapping on explosives and killing Israelis.
In some areas, a Palestinian woman is required to have a male relative accompany her whenever she leaves the home. Unfortunately, her male "guardian"--father, brother, uncle, or cousin--may be a sexual predator who rapes her. Should she become pregnant, he will publicly condemn her for dishonoring the family after killing both her and their unborn child. Last year, seventeen-year-old Afaf Younes was killed by her father, who had allegedly been sexually molesting her. Afaf had tried to escape his sexual abuse by running away, but she was caught and returned to her father. He then shot her in the name of honor.
A sixteen-year-old Palestinian girl became pregnant after being raped by her younger brother. Once her condition became known, her family encouraged her older brother to kill her to remove the blemish from their honor. Her brothers, the rapist and the murderer, were exonerated. The girl was blamed. "She made a mistake," said one of her male cousins. "She had to pay for it."
A young Palestinian girl peers through a window in her home in the Gaza Strip.
Even more horrifically, a four-year-old Palestinian girl, raped by a man in his mid-twenties, was left by her family to bleed to death. They did this because they felt her misfortune would sully their honor.
Women often accept their fate and expect to be executed, even in the case of incest and rape. "They have to kill us," exclaims Ritza, a middle-aged Palestinian woman, "to keep others from doing wrong. It is the law of our society." It is hard to grasp the logic.
Girls, feeling they are ruined by scandal, go submissively to the slaughter. Such is the power of culture that has conditioned both victim and killer to accept their roles. "He had no choice but to kill her," says Rateb, whose son killed his sixteen-year-old sister after she was raped. "He was tormented. The community was persecuting him because of what his sister did. Her death has helped to wash away his shame."
James Emery is an anthropologist and journalist. Information for this article was obtained through interviews and research conducted in North America, West Asia, and the Middle East. The names of some of the Palestinians interviewed were changed to protect their identities.