Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Elor Azaria | Beware 2 States | Science & Israel-Palestine | Paris Funeral | Umm al-Hiran | More ..

The Palestine Chronicle -

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Dear Readers,

Our coverage in the last week focused largely on the Paris Peace Conference, the defunct two-state solution and the future of the 'conflict'; while our news coverage kept up with the situation in Palestine, including today's attack on Umm al-Hiran Bedouin village that resulted in the death of one person and wounding of many others.

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EDITORIAL

The Balancing Act is Over: What Elor Azaria Taught Us about Israel

By Ramzy Baroud

For some, the 'manslaughter' conviction - following the murder by Israeli army medic, Elor Azaria, of already incapacitated Palestinian man, Fattah al-Sharif - is finally settling a protracted debate regarding where Israelis stand on Palestinian human rights.

Nearly 70 percent of the Israeli public supports calls to pardon the convicted soldier, who is largely perceived among Israelis as the "child of us all."

Israeli leaders are also lining up to lend their support to Azaria and his family. These sympathetic politicians include Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and ministers Naftali Bennett and Miri Regev, among others. Leading opposition leaders are also on board.

Pro-Israeli pundits, who never miss an opportunity to highlight Israel's supposed moral ascendancy took to social media, describing how the indictment further demonstrates that Israel is still a country of law and order.

They seem to conveniently overlook palpable facts. Reporting on the verdict, 'The Times of Israel', for example, wrote that "last time an IDF soldier was convicted of manslaughter was in 2005, for the killing of British civilian Tom Hurndall two years earlier."

Between these dates, and years prior, thousands of Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip alone, mostly in the Israeli wars of 2008-9, 2012 and 2014. Although thousands of children and civilians were killed and wounded in Gaza and the rest of the Occupied Territories and, despite international outcries against Israel's violations of international law, there is yet to be a single conviction in Israeli courts.

But why is it that some commentators suggest that the Azaria trial and the show of unity around his cause by Israeli society is an indication of some massive change underway in Israel?

Yoav Litvin, for example, argues in 'TeleSur' that the "precedent set by this case will further solidify the complete dehumanization of Palestinians and pave the way for further ethnic cleansing and genocide in the Occupied Palestinian Territories."

In an article, entitled: "Like Brexit and Trump, Azaria verdict exposes a moment of transition in Israel", Jonathan Cook also eluded to a similar idea. "The soldier's trial, far from proof of the rule of law, was the last gasp of a dying order," he wrote.

Neither Litvin nor Cook are suggesting that the supposed change in Israel is substantive but an important change, nonetheless.

But if the past and the present are one and the same, where is the 'transition', then?

The creation of Israel atop the ruins of Palestine, the ethnic cleansing that made Israel's 'independence' possible, the subsequent wars, occupation and sieges are all devoid of any morality.

Indeed, Israel was established with the idea in mind that a "Jewish state" is not possible without the ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian Arabs.

In a letter to his son in 1937, David Ben Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister after the country's establishment in 1948, wrote: "We must expel the Arabs and take their places and if we have to use force, to guarantee our own right to settle in those places then we have force at our disposal."

In the year that Israel was established, the United Nations defined genocide in Article 2 of the 'Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide', as follows:

"Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.."

In other words, there is nothing new here since the 'mainstreaming of genocide' in Israel took place before and during the founding of the country, and ever since.

Fortunately, some Israeli leaders were quite candid about the crimes of that era.

"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist," former Israeli leaders, Moshe Dayan said while addressing the Technion as reported in 'Haaretz' on April 4, 1969. "There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."

But throughout these years, Israel has managed to sustain a balancing act, generating two alternate realities: a material one, in which violence is meted out against Palestinians on a regular basis, and a perceptual one, that of a media image through which Israel is presented to the world as a 'villa in the jungle', governed by democratic laws, which makes it superior to its neighbors in every possible way.

Former Israeli President, Moshe Katsav, demonstrate the latter point best. "There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies," he was quoted in the 'Jerusalem Post' on May 10. 2001. "They are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy."

In fact, Israeli commentators on the Left often reminisce about the 'good old days', before extremists ruled Israel and rightwing parties reigned supreme.

A particular memory that is often invoked was the mass protest in Tel Aviv to the Israeli-engineered Sabra and Shatila massacres of Palestinian refugees in South Lebanon in 1982.

Protesters demanded the resignations of then-Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, and his Defense Minister, Ariel Sharon. Both men were accused of allowing the massacres of Palestinians by Christian Phalange to take place. An Israeli commission of investigation found Israel guilty of 'indirect responsibility', further contributing to the myth that Israel's guilt lies in the fact that it allowed Christians to kill Muslims, as Sharon complained in his biography, years later.

At the time, it did not occur to Israeli protesters as odd the fact that Begin, himself, was the wanted leader of a terrorist gang before Israel's founding and that Sharon was accused of orchestrated many other massacres.

Many in Israeli and western media spoke highly of the moral uprightness of Israeli society. Palestinians were baffled by Israel's ability to carry out war crimes and to emerge in a positive light, regardless.

"Goyim kill Goyim and the Jews are blamed," Begin had then complained with a subtle reference to what he perceived as a form of anti-Semitism. Aside from Sabra and Shatila, tens of thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians were killed in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

Historical fact shows that Israel is not experiencing a real transition, but what is truly faltering is Israel's balancing act: its ability to perpetrate individual and collective acts of violence and still paint an image of itself as law-abiding and democratic.

Zionist leaders of the past had played the game too well and for far too long, but things are finally being exposed for what they really are, thanks to the fact that Jewish settlers now rule the country, control the army, have growing influence over the media and, therefore, define the Israeli course and PR image.

"This new army (of settlers) is no longer even minimally restrained by concerns about the army's 'moral' image or threats of international war crimes investigations," wrote Cook.

And with that new-found 'freedom', the world is able to see Israel as it is. The balancing act is finally over.

- Dr. Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His books include "Searching Jenin", "The Second Palestinian Intifada" and his latest "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story". His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.

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COMMENTARY

Beware the 'Two-state Solution'

By Daud Abdullah

"Tomorrow will look different - and tomorrow is very close." So said Israel's Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahuin response to the just-concluded Paris conference on Middle East peace, which he denounced as "rigged".

The Israeli leader sees a conspiracy under every bed, even those of his closest allies. Last month, he accused the Obama administration and British government of orchestrating UN Security Council resolution 2334, which condemned Israel's settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories. Such colonization of occupied territory has been illegal for decades, but Netanyahu regards international law with contempt.

Now, though, he has turned on the French. By hosting the international conference they have, at their peril, crossed a red line. Netanyahu claims that the conference was "rigged by the Palestinians under French auspices to adopt additional anti-Israel stances." He is clearly now pinning his hopes on Donald Trump,who becomes the 45th President of the United States of America the end of this week. His hopes are well-placed; not only did Trump call on the Obama administration to veto the Security Council vote last month, but he also vowed in one of his famous tweets on 23 December that, "As to the UN, things will be different after Jan. 20th."

Whereas government officials and civil society groups from more than 70 countries came together in Paris and affirmed their opposition to unilateral action by either party, Palestinian or Israeli, President-elect Trump has made it clear that he will consider Israel's demands for the US embassy to be moved to Jerusalem, in defiance of international law. This bodes ill for any and all in the region.

Furthermore, as expected, Trump's election has released a torrent of extremist rhetoric from the highest levels of the Israeli government. Minister of Education and leader of the right-wing Jewish Home party Naftali Bennett, along with other political leaders, wrote to Israel's prime minister urging the annexation of the West Bank (which they call "Judea and Samaria") and the amalgamation with Jordan of what remains of Palestine.

Their ambition is clearly to convince Trump to accept the proposition that "Jordan is Palestine"; this preposterous notion is nothing new. It is a Machiavellian scheme that has long been in circulation and may well return to the fore under the new US president. After all, there is a pro-Israel constituency in Washington which also advocates this idea. Elliott Abrams, for example, served as deputy national security adviser to George W Bush; he argues the point in the conclusion of his book Tested By Zion: "If Palestinians on both sides of the Jordan River became convinced that this formula would best provide security as well as decent, legitimate, efficient government, the taboo would slowly disappear."

Accordingly, when - if -Israelis speak of "two states" today they must be called upon to explain in detail exactly what they mean. Nothing should be taken for granted. Once the massive West Bank colony-settlements of Maale Adumim, Gush Etzion and Ariel are annexed to Israel, as is now proposed, that would account for 9 per cent of the occupied territory. The other, smaller settlements around Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley, which Israel also wants to maintain control of, would account for another thirty eight per cent. Thus,in the best case scenario, the most that the Palestinians can even begin to hope to get is fifty-four per cent of the West Bank. In the event that this is what happens, the independent "State of Palestine" would thus come into being on a mere 11.8 per cent of historic Palestine. To put this in perspective, the 1947 UN Partition Plan - oft-cited as the international source of Israel's legitimacy - allocated forty-six per cent of Palestine for an "Arab state" (even though the Palestinian Arabs owned ninety-six per cent of the land). Think of this when Netanyahu insists on more "concessions" from the Palestinians.

A state built on less than twelve per cent of Palestine may well be a solution of sorts, but it is clearly far from being a just one. As such, it does not carry with it any promise of peace and an end to the conflict. It is no wonder, therefore, that the direction of travel is now heading towards a federated Jordan-Palestinian state. The Palestinians and Jordanians have both rejected this out of hand, though; understandably, they insist that Jordan is Jordan and Palestine is Palestine.

Furthermore, one of the easily foreseeable outcomes of such machinations is that the annexation of the West Bank would lead to the expulsion of yet more Palestinians from their land; Israel's ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population would continue apace. The Israelis, it seems, want to realise their dream of "Greater Israel" at the expense of not only the Palestinians but also the neighbouring countries.

However appealing this may seem to some in the West who back Israel right or wrong, one question needs to be addressed. Just as Israeli politicians are demanding the international community to recognise their conquest of the West Bank, so too are they demanding similar recognition for their annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights. Where will the Israeli land-grab end?

Given his penchant for showmanship and his ideological affinity with the Zionist project, President Trump may well bow to pressure and move the US embassy to Jerusalem, and endorse the annexation of 46 per cent of the West Bank for good measure, forcing the Jordanians and Palestinians to accept such a fait accompli. He should be under no doubt, however, that it will backfire on Israel and its allies in such a way that will undo all agreements with the Palestinians, not least the Oslo Accords.

The Palestinians and Jordanians have strong cards that they can use to upset the apple cart as Trump weighs up his options. There are calls within Fatah and the PLO to withdraw their recognition of Israel, for example. Similar calls can be heard in Jordan for the abrogation of the Wadi Araba Peace Treaty with Israel. They are not likely to materialise in the near future but neither is impossible if Israel continues with its brinkmanship.

Those who still insist on calling for a two-state solution must do a fact check and discern exactly what they are calling for. Netanyahu's notion of "tomorrow" spells trouble, but not just for the Palestinians.

Beware the "two-state solution".

- Dr. Daud Abdullah is the Director of Middle East Monitor (MEMO).

COMMENTARY

Fear, Trauma and Healing: A Scientific Analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian Relationship

By Dr. Yoav Litvin

An approach designated as "evolutionary" can be employed in reference to two outlooks on global ethnic conflicts in general, and the Israeli/Palestinian one in particular. A Conservative and Neo-Liberal interpretation of Darwinism employs an approach whereby only the strongest peoples survive in a multi ethnic land. This so-called "survival of the fittest", exclusionist outlook necessarily invokes in populations a chronic state of vigilance, defense, fear of the "other" and consequent suspicion and aggression. We see such ideology fostered by governments that instill competitive and exclusivist ideology in their populations through nurture of fear. This in turn facilitates the governments' own self-interest political and economic agendas of empowerment and control. Fear is a cheap and efficient way to manipulate people, especially victims of trauma, as investment is unnecessary - our brains are hardwired to feel fear.

A progressive interpretation of evolution, on the other hand, emphasizes the adaptive utility of focus on mutual interests, inclusion, and co-operation. It endorses education for dialogue and reconciliation, and stresses the importance of equality for peace. Education necessarily requires investment and is thus initially costly. However, in the long run it pays off in the form of productivity, stability and welfare. A methodical understanding of brain mechanisms associated with fear, aggression and trauma may benefit our efforts to comprehend the persistence of conflict and ultimately formulate strategies for its resolution. Healing of trauma is the first step toward an inclusive and co-operative society based on equality.

Fear is an emotion crucial to survival. Thus, brain mechanisms that regulate fear are evolutionarily conserved in all mammals including humans. As such, research on mechanisms of fear in mammalian species such as mice and rats, affords the opportunity to learn about equivalent neural systems in humans.

In a laboratory setting, an animal can be taught to fear a particular cue using a method termed "fear conditioning". Conditioning entails the presentation of an aversive stimulus, such as a loud noise or an electric shock along with a neutral cue, such as a light or musical tone. As a result of conditioning, the animal forms an association between the aversive stimulus and the neutral cue. Consequently, a cue that was once neutral evokes fear in the trained animal. The amygdala is the key brain structure wherein a synaptic connection is created between neurons of the neutral cue and those of the aversive stimulus. These principles of fear conditioning apply to humans as well.

The complex and dynamic human brain is able to perform unique functions that lead to fantastic accomplishments such as the composition of elaborate symphonies, reaching the moon and cracking the atom. However, the ability to inhibit and ultimately transcend fear is not a distinctly human capacity. In fact, the ability to transcend fear is easily observed in many mammals, including rats and mice in a laboratory. In order to extinguish the association between cues and emotions, one needs to decouple the stimuli; i.e. repeatedly re-expose the trained animal to the neutral cue without the presence of the aversive stimulus, a process termed "extinction of fear". Research has shown that in extinction, neural projections from the prefrontal cortex inhibit fear-related activity in the amygdala. Human research shows that the functional capacity of the prefrontal cortex is strengthened by education.

Importantly, even when treatment is successful, the neural pathway that associates a cue with fear will always exist in that particular animal or human though it may be inhibited. Thus, even after inhibiting a fearful association by use of re-exposure therapy, if the animal or human is re-exposed to the aversive stimulus, it will again exhibit fear toward the neutral stimulus. This process is termed "reinstatement".

One can apply this simple behaviorist approach to our understanding of conflicts in general, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular. As societies, Israelis and Palestinians are in an abusive relationship. Interestingly, studies in both animals and humans suggest that one who is at present an abuser was more than likely abused in the past, probably during early life. The state of Israel is a home for scores of traumatized individuals, whether as a result of some anti-Semitic persecution, or a regional conflict. As such, the populace can be seen as inherently post-traumatic, prone to defensive, aggressive and impulsive behaviors typical of victims of trauma. The political, religious, military and economic elites in Israel easily manipulate these fear-based emotions in the populace to gain support for their aggressive, expansionist policies and to suppress dissent. It is easy; neural mechanisms of fear are present in all humans and can be reinstated at will in traumatized individuals. In fact, traumatized war veterans exhibit changes in the brain where the amygdala becomes primed and the prefrontal cortex is compromised, rendering them prone to find fear in everything.

The Israeli government and media outlets persistently portray the Palestinian side as a threat to the very existence of Israelis, the so-called "demographic threat". When tensions between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians subside, or Israeli social issues take center stage, the easiest way for the government to regain control is to reinstate fear. This can be accomplished by one of several methods: focusing on an act of Palestinian violence or resistance; reminding the public of some atrocity in the past (the Israeli calendar is full of memorial days) and; shifting attention to perceived threats, e.g. a nuclear Iran. Similar tactics are used by Hamas on the Palestinian side, albeit without the plentiful of resources available to Israelis. Lastly, the physical segregation of Israelis and Palestinians by the separation wall renders re-exposure that may lead to reconciliation virtually impossible.

Any plan for a peaceful future must incorporate a process of dialogue toward reconciliation, an education system that uncompromisingly promotes historical truth, as well as the creation of relationships through shared acts of solidarity and civilian resistance to occupation. Nonetheless and for several generations, both sides will always need to maintain constant mindfulness and caution of the possibility of reinstatement. Ultimately, after several generations of peace the fear of the other will have been permanently extinguished and Israelis and Palestinians can coexist in a society that emphasizes empathy and cooperation.

- Yoav Litvin is a Doctor of Psychology/ Behavioral Neuroscience. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. (This article was first published in CounterPunch.org)

COMMENTARY

The Paris Peace Conference: A Funeral without a Corpse

By Motasem A. Dalloul - Gaza

The conference held in Paris on Sunday looking at the Palestine-Israel conflict concluded with the usual final statement calling for Palestinian and Israeli commitment to the two-state solution; among other things it encouraged "meaningful" direct negotiations and called on both sides to "refrain from unilateral steps". The conference was like a funeral with lots of mourners, but no corpse.

Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis went to Paris, despite "their" conflict being the focus of attention; they didn't have any official representation at all. Furthermore, the French government went ahead with the conference even though the Israelis rejected it in advance; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described it as "futile" and dismissed it as being "among the last twitches of the world of yesterday."

Of course, the Palestinian Authority leadership applauded Paris although it knows that it will not have any impact on the ground. President Mahmoud Abbas said that the conference would help to stop "settlement activities and destroying the two-state solution through diktats and the use of force."

What sort of mindset does the PA leadership have? Abbas has just seen the Israelis dismiss out of hand a resolution by the UN Security Council condemning illegal settlements and yet he thinks that this pale shadow of a conference will stop settlement expansion and deter Israeli violations?

The French themselves said that the peace conference was not intended to put any pressure on the Israelis or Palestinians. Faced with this fact, what can we expect from such a dead event which had a final statement that is not really worth the paper it is written on?

Keeping the moribund two-state solution alive does not reflect the position of the Israelis and the situation on the ground. Israel's Ynet News, for example, said that Netanyahu has ruled out a return to the 1967 borders (themselves based upon the 1949 Armistice - the "Green" - Line); many members of his coalition oppose Palestinian independence and support expanded settlements both on ideological and security grounds. This means that the "two state solution" is anything but a solution as far as Israel is concerned. Hence, any effort towards that end is wasted.

Although Israel insisted that it would never commit to any of the conference recommendations, it nevertheless insisted on influencing the final statement, according to Ynet News and others.

Who did the dirty work if Israel was not there in Paris? The United States, of course. Israel basically told Secretary of State John Kerry to play the game on its behalf and he carried out his mission successfully. Netanyahu's office confirmed as much.

Furthermore, just to make sure, Britain - in Paris as an observer, not a participant - cast doubt on the qualifications of the 70 nations which did take part to sponsor anything relating to the Palestine-Israel conflict. As an observer, of course, Britain couldn't back any final statement which contained clauses against Israel's wishes, even if Theresa May's government wanted to. Given her criticism of Kerry's post-resolution 2334 statement, it is doubtful if that would have been the case.

All in all, it is hard to see how anyone could think that the Paris Conference was a worthwhile exercise. Platitudes and rhetoric do not change the situation on the ground, nor do they give us Palestinians much cause to be optimistic. As its response to resolution 2334 demonstrated, Israel is going to do what it wants in terms of the colonization of Palestine and to hell with the international community. In both the outgoing and incoming US administrations it has firm friends; nothing said in Paris or elsewhere is going to change that. If there is a corpse at this particular funereal gathering, it is that of an independent Palestinian state.

- Motasem A. Dalloul is a correspondent for Middle East Monitor in the Gaza Strip. (This article was originally published by MEMO)

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