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.

PrawfsBlawg on institutional responses to IAW and boycott campaigning

Paging Stanley Fish – a piece by Paul Horwitz on PrawfsBlawg about incendiary (in both senses) Israeli Apartheid Week posters, academic freedom, normal political discourse, and human rights. He opposes banning the posters:

“The posters, inflammatory as they may be, are clearly standard political speech.  They may not be civil, but they’re certainly well within the norms of “civil discourse in a free and democratic society” – or at least the kinds of free and democratic societies that value robust, uninhibited and wide-open debate.”

The kinds we need, even while we make objections to those norms.

He goes on to note a lightness in the student campaigning around free speech:

“The students apparently shy away from the obvious conclusion that the use of human rights codes in situations involving speech are generally suspect; rather, they argue that the “poster depicts a situation that has a factual basis and its intention is clearly to invite people to a lecture series,” so the poster is neither an incitement nor a violation of civil discourse.  (I hope they will be equally forgiving of similar posters that meet the same conditions, but with the names reversed!)”

Most importantly in its promotion of a debate about academic boycott, concluding:

“The university is a “community” in some important senses, but it isn’t a democracy, and even to the limited extent that it is, there is no universal suffrage … Academic freedom is a substantive value, and that value includes opposing academic boycotts; academic freedom does not, on the other hand, require democratic deliberation by all the stakeholders in a university.”

I’m new to Stanley Fish on the politics of the university.

Hostility to Israel and Antisemitism in the New South Africa – Alana Pugh-Jones

Alana Pugh-Jones

The conflict in Gaza has seen a definite shift around the globe in the ways that criticism of Israeli policy is expressed. The lines between anti-Zionism and antisemitism have become significantly more blurred. In South Africa this phenomenon has been strikingly brought home in the unfolding events of 2009.

In what has been described as the first instance of public ‘Jew-baiting’ by a government minister since the 1930s, the South African Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Fatima Hajaig informed a mass rally held in solidarity for Gaza in Johannesburg in early January that the fate of the West is in the grip of ‘Jewish money power’. She said:

‘The control of America, just like the control of most Western countries, is in the hands of Jewish money and if Jewish money controls their country then you cannot expect anything else.’

Hajaig unleashed a media storm in South Africa and a debate on the distinction between criticizing Israel and leveling charges against Jews. Although many lauded her for speaking the ‘truth’ so openly, the vast majority of South Africans, from media news rooms and opposition

Fatima Hajaig

politicians, to the average Facebook groupies, came out strongly against such a statement of intolerance and aimed at a minority in the world’s ‘Rainbow Nation’.

Even a prominent group of Jewish and Muslim human rights activists, many members of the South African Human Rights Delegation that visited the Occupied Territories last year and returned very critical of Israeli policy, wrote publicly to Hajaig asking for her to confirm what she said and to apologize.

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD), the communal umbrella organization representing the majority of Jewish South Africans, immediately laid a complaint of antisemitism again the Minister with the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) and flatly dismissed Hajaig’s first tardy and veiled apology which she made when she returned from an international visit. After spending an inordinate amount of time adopting the moral high ground, laying out both her ANC credentials and the horrors of the situation in Gaza, Hajaig stated:

‘At a singular point in my talk, and entirely unrelated to any South African community, I conflated Zionist pressure with Jewish influence. I regret the inference made by some that I am anti-Jewish.’

Hajaig had inverted the words ‘Zionist’ and ‘Jew’, clumsily slipping between the ‘acceptable’ language of anti-Zionism and the terminology of the longest hatred. After she was hauled before Cabinet and forced to apologize unequivocally to the President, the SAJBD and most of the South African public also accepted the apology. Given the fact that the apology was not directed to the Jewish community however, the case is still being reviewed by the SA Human Rights Commission.

Hot on the heels of the Hajaig fiasco, South Africa’s largest trade union, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which had released several press statements during the Gaza crisis solely condemning Israel and expressing support exclusively for the Palestinian civilian population, announced the creation of an Ad Hoc Palestinian Solidarity Coalition. This Coalition, run in conjunction with the leadership of the Palestinian Solidarity Committee (PSC), indicated that it would be holding a ‘Week of Action Against Apartheid Israel’. As well as the familiar rallies and vigils outside Parliament in Cape Town and the Israeli Embassy in Pretoria, COSATU announced their intention to prevent a scheduled Israeli ship from docking on South African shores.

On 6 February COSATU held an unauthorised march outside the Jewish communal leadership offices; the Jewish community held a solidarity event within the complex walls. Salim Vallie of the PSC explained the march in this way:

‘this is because the Zionist Federation and the SA Jewish Board of Deputies have supported the war crimes in Gaza and we are saying as South Africans we have to take sides and we need to choose the side of justice. We are not going to support the canard that says if you are opposed to the policies of Israel you are anti-Semitic, this does not intimidate us.’

The statement of a COSATU official at the march also slipped up on the problematic distinction between ‘Zionists’ versus ‘Jews’. Bongani Masuku, International Relations Secretary for COSATU, said,

“We want to convey a message to the Jews in SA that our 1.9-million workers who are affiliated to COSATU are fully behind the people of Palestine… Any business owned by Israel supporters will be a target of workers in South Africa.’

In this statement, simply being Jewish makes one an ‘Israel supporter’ – and not just someone who believes in the right of Jewish self-determination, but someone who supports what is held to be as an evil apartheid state. The overwhelming majority of Jews in South Africa do support Israel, in one sense or another. An email which is currently widely circulating is listing Jewish owned companies as targets of boycott. Already, certain Jewish owned shops are noticing a significant drop in business.

Jewish opposition to the COSATU/ PSC march was seen by some as an attempt to limit the arena for free political expression and the right to political association. But the nature of where it was held sadly denotes a warning to the Jewish community that it will be targeted if it continues to support Israel. COSATU has every right to march outside the offices of an organization with whose policies it vehemently disagrees. When it does so outside a building which houses the institutions representing the majority of the Jewish community, and in a predominantly Jewish residential area, then many will feel that it has designated the Jewish community of South Africa itself, not Israel, as the enemy.

The following day the ship, owned by an Israeli company, carrying non-Israeli goods, was offloaded ahead of schedule at Durban harbour. The Port of Durban turned to non-union workers, and also unionised workers who were unconcerned with Middle Eastern politics. Despite attempts by the Histradut to appeal to the International Transport Workers Federation, South African trade unions objected to a cooperation agreement signed between the Palestinian and Israeli transport workers union. COSATU promised in their press release, declaring ‘worker victory’ in the face of Zionist ‘subterfuge’, to:

‘ intensify its efforts in support of the struggles of the Palestinian people … Other COSATU unions are currently in discussion about how they might also give effect to COSATU resolutions on boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, including a refusal to handle Israeli goods, and continuing pressure on our government to sever diplomatic and trade relations with Israel.’

Sadly within the Jewish community, and in broader South African society, such a heightening of tensions between pro- and anti-Israel supporters has had the effect of reducing the space for nuanced discussion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some moderate voices which supported the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and which advocate an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, have been rendered much more cautious by the extremism and antisemitism of Israel’s most vocal critics. Many Jewish South Africans, even those who opposed the Israeli military action in Gaza, now feel that it is harder to voice vigorous dissent, as Jews in general are now coming under fire. They find themselves under pressure to pull together with the mainstream Zionist community in the face of a blurring of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiment.

What Professor Milton Shain has identified as a ‘steady progression of hostility’ within the new generation of South Africans towards Israel has been starkly revealed in the events of 2009 thus far. He identifies the three major factors behind this ratcheting up of the hostility of the rhetoric: South Africa’s third world context; the apartheid resonances regarding Israel and Palestine; and the ‘miracle’ of the new South Africa and its transition from apartheid to a democratic rainbow nation. What leads on from this premise is that South Africa’s negotiations in 1994, their outcome of one unified democratic state, may be transplanted to any troubled zone as the key to peace. This view is understandable, taking into consideration the ideological gulf between the two sides in South Africa at the beginning of the 1994 talks and the remarkable nature of the constitution which emerged from that settlement. However, the Israel-apartheid analogy also leads to the inevitable conclusion of that Israelis should be boycotted and the logic of this is to create, as David Hirsh writes,

‘a mass movement for the exclusion of Jews, even if not all Jews, from the academic, cultural, sporting and economic life of humanity, resonates with an altogether different memory from the boycott of white South Africa.’

In short, the lines between criticism of Israel and its demonization, between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, speaking about ‘Zionists’ rather than ‘Jews’, are being distorted.

Speaking out against Israeli policy is not only legitimate but essential – no nation state is perfect, and vigorous and robust debate about Israel is necessary for the future of that democratic state. However, when this critique is expressed through motifs reminiscent of classic anti-Semitic imagery; or when that disapproval holds Israel to higher standards than other states and employs conspiracy theory, the basic standards of political tolerance and antiracism for which South Africa stands are crossed. This kind of language not only jeopardizes the cause of the Palestinian people, overshadowing their legitimate grievances, but it also feeds intolerance and prejudice against a group of people, diminishing space for political discussion and nuanced debate.

Alana Pugh-Jones

UPDATE For more from Bongani Masuku, International relations Secretary for COSATU, see this astonishing post by Ben Cohen on Z Word.

Amnesty accuses Hamas of eliminating opponents

This piece is from Yahoo News.

GENEVA (AFP) – Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Hamas of waging a campaign to kill or maim scores of Palestinian opponents in the Gaza Strip since the end of December.

The human rights group said in a report that at least two dozen men have been shot dead by gunmen from the Palestinian militia that governs the Gaza Strip since December 27.

“Scores of others have been shot in the legs, knee-capped or inflicted with other injuries intended to cause severe disability, subjected to severe beatings … or otherwise tortured or ill-treated,” it added.

“Hamas forces and militias in the Gaza Strip have engaged in a campaign of abductions, deliberate and unlawful killings, torture and death threats against those they accuse of ‘collaborating’ with Israel, as well as opponents and critics,” the report said.

The victims included members of Palestinian Authority security forces and members of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party, Amnesty said.

The campaign began shortly after the beginning of the three-week Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip on December 27 and continued after the ceasefire on January 18, according to Amnesty.

Palestinian human rights groups and victims first made such accusations at the end of last month, saying the Hamas rulers of Gaza were persecuting members of the rival Fatah movement to quash any opposition.

Taher al Nunu, a spokesman for Hamas, denied the charges at the time, dismissing them as “lies spread by Ramallah,” where Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are based.

Amnesty International said the targets included former detainees who were accused by Hamas of collaboration with Israel after escaping from Gaza’s central prison when it was bombed by Israeli forces on December 28.

Some were shot dead in hospitals where they were being treated for injuries suffered during the bombing raid, sometimes in front of distraught relatives, according to the testimony gathered by the human rights group.

“The perpetrators of these attacks did not conceal their weapons or keep a low profile, but, on the contrary, behaved in a carefree and confident — almost ostentatious — manner,” the report noted.

Amnesty said there was “no doubt” that the victims were abducted, killed, shot and tortured by Hamas security forces and armed militias, adding that the evidence was “incontrovertible.”

It called on the “Hamas de facto administration” to immediately end the campaign, accept an independent and impartial investigation and guarantee that victims and witnesses would not be targeted.

This piece is from Yahoo News.

See the Amnesty International briefing document and the original report of Feb 10th.

Radio show hosts have to think quick

Any Answers is on BBC Radio 4 directly after Any Questions. On Any Answers, the listenership phones in to answer the questions which have already been chewed over by politicians and other eminents on Any Questions. It’s a slice of public opinion, well kind of – for decades I’ve had the impression of being one of its younger listeners. You can Listen Again to Any Answers until this coming Saturday. This week’s programme was partly to do with the trouble the BBC finds itself in for deciding not to host the Disaster Emergency Committee appeal for Gaza.

Fairly early on one bloke pointed out, with due indignation, that the allegations of Israeli pressure were unfounded and made a number of other good points. Other callers were confused in one direction or the other. There had been an inbox collapse which Jonathan Dimbleby mysteriously referred to as being “for some reason beyond my paygrade and understanding” which meant that there were no emails to read out that day.

At 15 minutes 35 seconds, Josie Hines from Bradford bagged herself some airtime. She doesn’t realise that she was antisemitic. I dare say she considers herself somebody covered in rectitude. I will transcribe.

“Right, well first of all I’d like to say that I’m a great supporter of the BBC and ironically I’ve just been reading John Simpson’s News From No-Man’s Land, which goes into exactly this issue of impartiality of the BBC. I do feel that when it’s such a humanitarian disaster, politics and prejudice should go out of the window.”

Quite ironic given what followed.

“The problem here – my husband thought exactly the same thing – when they used the comment “compromises the BBC’s impartiality”, we think that this does compromise the BBC’s impartiality because we feel that it is possible that perhaps a large part of the hierarchy of the BBC is – and notice I use the word ‘Zionist’ – may well be Zionist Jews who have a great influence on the situation.”

Mr Hines must have been slapping his brow and trying to snatch the phone away. She got it wrong didn’t she, the dope. You’re supposed to use Zionist instead of Jew. That’s how you bat off the accusations of antisemite.

It’s not even that she gave herself away – if I had to guess, somewhere along the way this upright citizen of Bradford had soaked up some of the ambient Carter, Mearsheimer & Walt, Finkelstein &tc plot-lines and digested them (almost inevitably, Engage would argue) into nakedly antisemitic discourse. She continued digging for as long as it took Jonathan Dimbleby to interject. You could hear him rustling and sighing for some seconds beforehand.

“You’re not permitted to say anything against Israel. If you say anything against Israel, as an individual, you are automatically antisemitic.”

Bad kinds of Jew apply the vexatious charge of antisemitism to prevent people saying “anything against Israel”. Dimbleby intervened:

“Look, I can take all sorts of observations, and it’s a free broadcasting world, but I think that to talk about the senior people in the BBC – or indeed of any organisation as being driven by being Zionist Jews actually rather undermines the point you’re seeking to make. Doesn’t it?”

A brief exchange between Hines and Dimbleby followed before he cut her off.

JH: “Well, I don’t understand why that is. Why – why should we – “

JD: “Hang on. Hang on. You have no evidence whatsoever – “

JH: “I haven’t, no.”

Her tone was aggrieved, perplexed and defiant at once.

JD: “It’s not useful to use airtime, I suggest to you,  to make allegations of a rather serious kind without any evidence whatsoever, so forgive me, I’m going to move on.

And there ended what Josie Hines will probably always think of as her valiant attempt to speak truth to power. She and Mr Hines must have been in paroxysms of indignation. All their worst fears had been confirmed.

I harbour what is perhaps an unrealistic hope that next time this happens Dimbleby will explain a little more about what he means by “allegations of a rather serious kind” and that this will include a reference to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

How many other ordinary, thoughtful, non-Starbucks-smashing people like Josie Hines need an education that Zionist Jews aren’t puppeteering our society? More than a few.

“No to IDF, No to Hamas”

An AWL activist who took a placard on a Palestine Solidarity demonstration in Sheffield which said “No to IDF, No to Hamas” had it physically taken off her by the Chair of the Sheffield PSC and watched him stamp on it and then destroy it.

Evidently to say “No” to an antisemitic, misogynist, homophobic, anti-democratic, anti-socialist, anti-trade union organization puts you outside of what is legitimate in the Palestine Solidarity movement nowadays – in Sheffield at least.

Who could object to such an even handed slogan?

What's happening to the placard?

Placard not allowed

Supporters of the SWP supported the removal of the placard.

These images and more, as well as the  story, on Indyedia here.

AWL website, here.

A lefty in Israel – Sharon Dolev

“…In my country, I’m a traitor. Fair game. But the minute I leave Israel,
I’m an Israeli. Not a lefty. An Israeli, an occupier, and again – fair
game.”

…

“If you demonstrate, please do it in a way that will make a difference.
Not just anti-Israel, but with signs calling for a cease fire and the
acceptance of UN resolution 1860 by both sides…”

Read the whole piece on Harry’s Place.

Workers Liberty activist not welcome at Israeli embassy demo

This is from the Workers Liberty website.

At the nightly picket of the Israeli embassy, AWL comrade Robin Sivapalan was expelled from the demonstration after waving two small flags, one Palestinian, the other Israeli. The flag-waving attracted the attention of Islamists who attempted to wrest the flags away. Other protesters intervened one both sides, one person trying to rescue Robin into the crowd, until the Islamist men brought in the police to physically remove him from the protest.

Hamas steps up executions of ‘collaborators’ and political opponents

This piece, by Amira Hass, is from Ha’aretz.

Since the aerial attack on Gaza began, Hamas has sought to suppress individuals it believes endanger the group’s fight against Israel and its hold on power in the Strip, as well as public morale. Prime targets include Fatah members, people convicted or suspected of collaborating with Israel, and “common” criminals.
“Hamas rules with an iron fist even now,” said one resident. A political activist who says he supports neither Hamas nor Fatah said that given the difficult conditions created by the ongoing shelling and ground invasion, Hamas is likely to try to prevent collaborators or those suspected to be from working with Israel.

Since the operation began on December 27, Hamas operatives have executed several people it classified as collaborators. Members of the group have confirmed the executions took place, and said the victims had admitted giving information to the Shin Bet security service that resulted in the deaths of Palestinians, or had already been sentenced to death by a Palestinian military court but the sentences were delayed for various reasons.

Independent sources said that among the dead were those not known publicly to have been collaborators, as well as others long suspected of cooperation with Israel, or those arrested and later released.

Estimates of the number of suspects executed range from 40 to 80, but amid the prevailing conditions shelling, fear of walking the streets and media blackouts it is virtually impossible to verify the numbers or identities of the dead.

Executions are carried out secretly. In Rafah, for example, at least some of the victims were killed in a caravan erected in the area formerly occupied by the Rafiah Yam settlement, and the victims’ relatives were invited to take away the bodies.

Even in the current conditions, Hamas is continuing to arrest those it suspects of criminal activity or Fatah membership, many of whom were arrested on the eve of the IDF operation and fled detention when the shelling began. No one knows where the detained are being held.

Independent sources and those linked with Fatah say Hamas’ common methods include confiscating cell-phones, beatings, house arrest and firing at a suspect’s legs.

Fatah members say Hamas is following a policy dictated from its leadership and directed against Fatah as a whole. An official in the Hamas-run Interior Ministry told Haaretz that the steps were taken only against Fatah members who expressed “happiness” at the aerial attack and even “distributed candy” in the streets as it began. An independent source corroborated Hamas’ account.

Fatah officials said last Thursday that notifications were sent to organization members from the public security forces, under the direction of Hamas’s Interior Minister Said Siyam, confining them to house arrest for 48 hours. Other Fatah members were ordered not to leave their homes from 7 P.M. until morning.

Hamas is also targeting common crime, promising the public that prices will not rise due to the closures of crossings into Gaza, nor will looting be allowed from stores that have been shelled.

This piece, by Amira Hass, is from Ha’aretz.

‘…criticism, moral criticism, of Israel from diaspora Jews is very much to the point’ – Norman Geras

On Jews criticising Israel.