Protesting the Israeli police’s disruption of PalFest

This illustrates as clearly as anything the dereliction of any restrictive or punitive policy based on who, rather than what.

Daily Kos:

“Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza struggle to live a normal life while penned in by checkpoints, surveillance, and violence.    Palestinians in East Jerusalem are isolated from their brothers and sisters in Ramallah.  Bethlehem is cut off from Nablus.  The elaborate system of checkpoints and Jewish-settler only roads in the West Bank have barricaded one Palestinian community from another.  In addition the deep economic, educational and personal grief this swiss-cheese prison has produced, Palestinian cultural life struggles to survive despite all the odds.”

J-Voices:

“The festival began as a call from Edward Said, to “reaffirm the power of culture over the culture of power.” As participants were gathering, the Israeli policeshut down the theater. The French consul who was in attendance, offered the French Cultural Center as a new venue in the moment, in order for the festival to continue.”

Rory McCarthy, The Observer:

“Shortly before the opening event was due to begin, a squad of around a dozen Israeli border police walked into the Palestinian National Theatre, in East Jerusalem, and ordered it to be closed.

Police brought a letter from the Israeli minister of internal security which said the event could not be held because it was a political activity connected to the Palestinian Authority.

Members of the audience and the eight speakers were ordered to leave, but the event was held several minutes later, on a smaller scale, in the garden of the nearby French Cultural Centre.

Israeli police were deployed on the street outside.

“We’re so taken aback. It’s is completely, completely independent,” Egyptian novelist Soueif, who is chairing the Palestine Festival of Literature, said.

“I think it’s very telling,” she told the crowd at the French centre. “Our motto, which is taken from the late Edward Said, is to pit the power of culture against the culture of power.”

…

“This is the policy being implemented with regard to any events which are either organised or funded by the Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem,” he said.

He added that previous Palestinian events in the city, including the press centre for the pope, had been closed under the same policy.

However, Rafiq Husseini, the chief of staff to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who was in last night’s audience, was dismissive of the Israeli actions.

“It shows how the Israelis are not thinking, he said. “This is a cultural event. There is no terrorism, there is nobody shooting. It’s just a cultural event.”

Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive:

“Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif gave this account at palfest.org.

“I saw 10 old friends in the first minute, all the Jerusalem cultural and academic set were there, a lot of Internationals, a lot of press,” she wrote. “We stood in the early evening light, by the tables laden with books and food and flowers, nibbled at kofta and borek and laughed and chatted and introduced new friends to old. . . . Then we started moving towards the auditorium and I heard someone say quietly, ‘They’ve come.’”"

Alex Stein, on Harry’s Place:

“…those in the diaspora who campaign long and hard against a boycott of Israeli culture should be raging with anger at this latest disgrace.”

PalFest is ongoing - follow Palfest’s organiser and author blogs, videos and pictures.

Michael Ignatieff speaks out against Israel Apartheid Week

Here. Via Z Word.

An Israeli diplomat responds to ‘Israel Apartheid Week’ at UC Berkley

This piece, by Ishmael Khaldi, is from the San Francisco Chronicle.

For those who haven’t heard, the first week in March has been designated as Israel Apartheid Week by activists who are either ill intentioned or misinformed. On American campuses, organizing committees are planning happenings to once again castigate Israel as the lone responsible party for all that maligns the Middle East.

Last year, at UC Berkeley, I had the opportunity to “dialogue” with some of the organizers of these events. My perspective is unique, both as the vice consul for Israel in San Francisco, and as a Bedouin and the highest-ranking Muslim representing the Israel in the United States. I was born into a Bedouin tribe in Northern Israel, one of 11 children, and began life as shepherd living in our family tent. I went on to serve in the Israeli border police, and later earned a master’s degree in political science from Tel Aviv University before joining the Israel Foreign Ministry.

I am a proud Israeli – along with many other non-Jewish Israelis such as Druze, Bahai, Bedouin, Christians and Muslims, who live in one of the most culturally diversified societies and the only true democracy in the Middle East. Like America, Israeli society is far from perfect, but let us deal honestly. By any yardstick you choose – educational opportunity, economic development, women and gay’s rights, freedom of speech and assembly, legislative representation – Israel’s minorities fare far better than any other country in the Middle East

So, I would like to share the following with organizers of Israel Apartheid week, for those of them who are open to dialogue and not blinded by a hateful ideology:

You are part of the problem, not part of the solution: If you are really idealistic and committed to a better world, stop with the false rhetoric. We need moderate people to come together in good faith to help find the path to relieve the human suffering on both sides of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Vilification and false labeling is a blind alley that is unjust and takes us nowhere.

You deny Israel the fundamental right of every society to defend itself: You condemn Israel for building a security barrier to protect its citizens from suicide bombers and for striking at buildings from which missiles are launched at its cities – but you never offer an alternative. Aren’t you practicing yourself a deep form of racism by denying an entire society the right to defend itself?

Your criticism is willfully hypocritical: Do Israel’s Arab citizens suffer from disadvantage? You better believe it. Do African Americans 10 minutes from the Berkeley campus suffer from disadvantage – you better believe it, too. So should we launch a Berkeley Apartheid Week, or should we seek real ways to better our societies and make opportunity more available.

You are betraying the moderate Muslims and Jews who are working to achieve peace: Your radicalism is undermining the forces for peace in Israel and in the Palestinian territories. We are working hard to move toward a peace agreement that recognizes the legitimate rights of both Israel and the Palestinian people, and you are tearing it down by falsely vilifying one side.

To the organizers of Israel Apartheid Week I would like to say:

If Israel were an apartheid state, I would not have been appointed here, nor would I have chosen to take upon myself this duty. There are many Arabs, both within Israel and in the Palestinian territories who have taken great courage to walk the path of peace. You should stand with us, rather than against us.

Ishmael Khaldi is deputy consul general of Israel for the Pacific Northwest.

This piece by Ishmael Khaldi is from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Dresden Revisited

This is a guest post by Doerte Letzmann.

Every year on February 13th and 14th, Germans commemorate the bombing of Dresden by the allied forces in 1945.

Usually there is an official memorial at the ‘Heidefriedhof’, a cemetery in the outskirts of Dresden. This year on February 13th , Dresden’s mayor Helga Orosz and Saxony’s prime minister Stanislaw Tillich spoke to the 200 mourners and laid a wreath in commemoration of the dead. Like in the years before, this event was also attended by several neo-Nazis, for example by members of the NPD, the main far right party, and of the neo-Nazi organisation HDJ.

In the evening of Friday February 13th, around 2500 people gathered around the ‘Frauenkirche’ (‘church of our lady’) – which was burned out during the bombing and collapsed – to remember the people who died during the bombing. Around the same time, around 1100 neo-Nazis marched through the city with torches.

Usually there is a major neo-Nazi demonstration to commemorate the bombing. This year on February 14th , about 6000 neo-Nazis – the highest number so far – from all over Europe came to march in Dresden. They listened to Wagner, symbolically laid down a wreath and carried placards saying: “allied bombing holocaust” and “historical truth brings intellectual freedom”. In their speeches they pointed out how the Allies “demolished an innocent city” and killed “hundreds of thousands of civilians”. In 2004 a commission of historians made clear that about 25000 people died during the bombings – far fewer than the number claimed by Nazi propaganda at the time and today’s neo-Nazis. It seemed necessary to highlight yet again how the city and its people were not that ‘innocent’: many of Dresden’s residents worked in war industries and the city was a communication and transportation hub.

A broad alliance of democratic institutions and individuals – among them the confederation of German trade unions and members of the Social Democratic, Green and Left Party- called ‘Geh Denken’ (‘Go think’) that engages against right-wing extremism in Dresden organised a counter-demonstration, which was attended by 7500 people. ‘Geh Denken’ opposes the ‘exploitation’ of the remembrance event by neo-Nazis, the “distortion of history” and wants to send a “democratic signal” against right-wing extremism.

The anti-fascist left is split over the possible counter-actions. The anti-fascist alliance ‘No Pasarán’, which was also part of ‘Geh Denken’ and doesn’t want to “let the nazis lie about history” staged an anti-fascist counter-demonstration that was attended by almost 4000 people. This demonstration was dispersed by the police and several protesters were arrested.

The ‘Vorbereitungskreis Keine Versöhnung mit Deutschland’ (preparation group no reconciliation with Germany) however, opposed the abandonment of left-wing positions in favour of a mass mobilisation and pointed out that the collective mourning of German ‘victims’ characterises both the neo-Nazi demonstration as well as the official commemoration events and that both were staged in order to find a new German collective identity. ‘Vorbereitungskreis Keine Versöhnung mit Deutschland’ organised a rally and concert on Friday February 13th against the remembrance event the same night and demanded the abolition of such events in general as they are an attempt to revise history and turn people that were involved in the national socialist state into ‘victims’ and ‘innocent civilians’.

They are clearly fighting an uphill battle. For Germans who yearn for a clear conscience, it is hard to be reminded of the simple fact that Hitler’s regime remained popular and the Germans remained loyal to it until its final hours. A ‘neutral’ German civil society did not exist in that sense, because the German reality of total war, ‘Volksgemeinschaft’ and ‘final solution’ required Germans to be either actively involved in what would now be considered war crimes and crimes against humanity, or to give an ideological approval to stay passive in light of this reality. Germany’s behaviour in the war, the crimes it committed, and the role of its civilian population were unique.

Like in the speeches at the memorial at the ‘Frauenkirche’ on Friday evening, it is often claimed that ‘legitimate’ mourning for Dresden is characterised by a demand for reconciliation while neo-Nazi marches stand for revenge. The understanding that Germans in Dresden and elsewhere were ‘innocent victims’, however, seems to be an uncontested value that most Germans, neo-Nazis or not, share. This is not what Allied leaders thought at the time, nor is it what history teaches.

The ‘innocent victims’ of Dresden is an historic construct collectively remembered every year so that Germans today can feel better about themselves.