Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Charlottesville & Zionism | Al-Araqeeb Lives | Netanyahu Behinds Bars? | Nuclear Apocalypse | More ..

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On anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism: Charlottesville Through a Glass Darkly

By Richard Falk

I suggest that Zionists fond of smearing critics of Israel as 'anti-Semites' take a sobering look at the VICE news clip of the white nationalist torch march through the campus of the University of Virginia the night before the lethal riot in Charlottesville. In this central regard, anti-Semitism, and its links to Naziism and Fascism, and now to Trumpism, are genuinely menacing, and should encourage rational minds to reconsider any willingness to being manipulated for polemic purposes by ultra Zionists.

We can also only wonder about the moral, legal, and political compass of ardent Zionists who so irresponsibly label Israel's critics and activist opponents as anti-Semites, and thus confuse and bewilder the public as to the true nature of anti-Semitism as racial hatred directed at Jews.

There must be less incendiary ways of fashioning responses to the mounting tide of criticism of Israel's policies and practices than by deliberately distorting and confusing the nature of anti-Semitism. To charge supporters of BDS, however militant, with anti-Semitism dangerously muddies the waters, trivializing hatred of Jews by deploying 'anti-Semitism' as an Israeli tactic and propaganda tool of choice in a context of non-violent expressions of free speech and political advocacy, and thus challenging the rights so elemental that they have long been taken for granted by citizens in every funcitioning constitutional democracy.

It is worth recalling that despite the criticisms of BDS during the South African anti-apartheid campaign, militant participants were never, ever smeared, despite being regarded as employing a controversial approach often derided as counterproductive in politically conservative circles.

And of course it is not only Zionists who have eaten of this poisonous fruit. As a result of Israel's own willingness to encourage such tactics, as in organizing initiatives seeking to discredit, and even criminalize, the nonviolent BDS campaign, several leaders of important Western countries who should know better have swallowed this particular cool aid. A recent statement by President of France, Emmanuel Macron: "Anti-Zionism...is the reinvented form of anti-Semitism," and implicitly such a statement suggests that to be anti-Zionist is tantamount to criticism of Israel as a Jewish state.

After grasping this tortured reasoning, have a look at the compelling Open Letter to Macron, written in response by the famed Israeli historian, Shlomo Sand, author of an essential book, The Invention of the Jewish People. In his letter Sand explains why he cannot himself be a Zionist given the demographic realities, historical abuse of the majority population of historic Palestine, and the racist and colonialist overtones of proclaiming a Jewish state in a Palestine that a hundred years ago was a national space containing only 60,000 Jews half of whom were actually opposed to the Zionist project.

This meant that the Jewish presence in Palestine represented only about 7% of the total population, the other 700,000 being mostly Muslims and Christian Arabs. The alternative to Zionism for an Israel that abandons apartheid is not collapse but a transformed reality based on the real equality of Jews and Palestinians. Shlomo Sand gives the following substance to this non-Zionist political future for Israel: "..an Israeli republic and not a Jewish communalist state." This is not the only morally, politically, and legally acceptable solution. A variety of humane and just alternatives to the status quo exist that are capable of embodying the overlapping rights of self-determination of these two long embattled peoples.

To avoid the (mis)impression that Charlottesville was most disturbing because of its manifestations of hatred of Jews it is helpful to take a step backward. Charlottesville was assuredly an ugly display of anti-Semitism, but it only secondarily slammed Jews. Its primary hateful resonance was its exhibition of white supremacy, American nativism, and a virtual declaration of war against Black Lives Matter and the African American and immigrant struggle against racial injustice.

Jews are doing better than all right in America by almost every indicator of economic, political, and social success. African Americans, Hispanics, and Muslims are not. Many of their lives are daily jeopardized by various forms of state terror, as well as by this surge of violent populism given sly, yet unmistakable, blessings by an enraged and unrepentant White House in the agonized aftermath of Charlottesville. Jews thankfully have no bereaved victims of excess uses of force by American police as have lethally victimized such African Americans as Treyvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice. Jews in America do not fear or face pre-dawn home searches, cruel family disrupting deportations, and the mental anguish of devastating forms of uncertainty that now is the everyday reality for millions of Hispanic citizens and residents.

What Charlottesville now becomes is up to the American people, and to some lesser extent to the reactions and responses throughout the world. The Charlottesville saga has already auditioned Trump and Spence as high profile apprentices of white nationalism. Whether an array of Republican tweets of disgust and disapproval gain any political traction remains to be seen, or as in the past they dissolve as bubbles in the air and soon seem best regarded as empty tropes of political correctness. What counsels skepticism about this current cascade of self-righteous pronouncements is the awareness that many of these same individuals in the past quickly renewed their conniving habits behind closed doors, working overtime to deprive the racially vulnerable in America of affordable health insurance, neighborhood security, and residence rights. As is so often the case in the political domain these days disreputable actions speak far more loudly than pious words.

If the majority of Americans can watch the torch parade and urban riot of white nationalists shouting racist slogans, dressed for combat, and legally carrying assault weapons, in silence we are done for as a nation of decency and promise. If the mainstream does not scream 'enough' at the top of its lung it is time to admit 'game over.' This undoubtedly means that the political future of this country belongs to the likes of Trump/Spence, and it also means that a national stumble into some kind of fascist reality becomes more and more unavoidable. The prospect of a fascist America can no longer be dismissed as nothing more than a shrill and desperate ploy by the moribund left to gain a bit of attention on the national stage before giving up the ghost of revolutionary progressivism once and for all.

So we must each ask ourselves and each other is this the start of the Second Civil War or just one more bloody walk in the woods?

- Richard Falk is Albert G Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Research Fellow, Orfalea Center of Global Studies. He was also the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. Visit his blog.

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Al-Araqeeb Village: Palestinian Bedouins Refuse to Surrender 116 Times

By Ramzy Baroud

On August 1, the Palestinian Bedouin village of Al-Araqeeb was destroyed for the 116th time. As soon as Israeli bulldozers finished their ugly deed and soldiers began evacuating the premises, the village resident immediately began rebuilding their homes.

22 families, or about 101 residents, are estimated to live here. By now, they are all familiar with the painful routine, considering the first round of destruction took place in July 2010.

It means that the village has been destroyed nearly 17 times per year, since then. And every single time, it was rebuilt, only to be destroyed again.

If the repeated destruction of the village is an indication of Israel's stubborn insistence to uproot Palestine's Bedouins, the rebuilding is indicative of the tenacity of the Bedouin community in Palestine.

But Al-Araqeeb is only symbolic of that historic fight.

It would be no exaggeration to state that there is a war waged by Israel against Palestinian Bedouins. The aim is to destroy their culture and to force them into townships similar to those of Apartheid South Africa.

The geographic space of that war extends from the Negev desert to the Southern Hebron Hills to Jerusalem.

The epicenter of the ongoing fight is the village of Al-Araqeeb. Not only has Israel destroyed Al-Araqeeb numerous times in violation of international law, it actually delivers a bill to the homeless residents expecting them to cover the cost of the very ruins wrought by the Israeli state.

According to latest estimates, the families that live in makeshift huts and rely on rudimentary means to survive, are expected to pay up a bill of 2 million shekels, around $600,000.

Israel dubs Al-Araqeeb, along with 35 villages in the Negev, as 'unrecognized' by the Israeli government's master plan, thus they must be erased, and their population driven into townships made for the Bedouins.

However, these villages are older than Israel itself, and any such 'master plan' could have easily considered this existing reality. However, what Israeli truly labors to achieve is to replace the Bedouins with its own Jewish population, as it has tirelessly done for seven decades.

Palestinian Bedouins are known for their tenacity. They fully fathom the history and plight of their ancestors, where generation after generation were ethnically cleansed and exiled to refugee camps outside Palestine, or forcibly removed to other areas. Today's Bedouin communities refuse to be subjected to that same fate again.

The Israeli plan to ethnically cleanse the Bedouins of the Negev is no different from the plan to colonize the West Bank, Judaize the Galilee and Palestinian East Jerusalem. All such efforts always culminate in the same routine - of removing the Arabs and replacing them with Israeli Jews.

In 1965, Israel passed the Planning and Building Law which recognized some Palestinian Arab villages in the Galilee and southern Negev, but excluded others. Nearly 100,000 Bedouin were forcibly removed to 'Planned Townships' to endure economic neglect and poverty. Many refused to be moved and, since then, have fought a protracted war to survive and maintain a semblance of their culture and way of life.

Currently, according to the Institute of Palestine Studies (IPS), roughly 130,000 individuals live in the so-called unrecognized villages "under the constant threat of wholesale demolition."

The anomaly is that these Bedouin communities prove the fallacy of the Israeli claim that it was Jewish settlers - not Palestinians - that 'made the desert bloom.'

A simple look at statistics demolishes that deceptive claim entirely.

As of 1935 - that is 13 years prior to the existence of Israel - Bedouins "cultivated 2,109,234 dunums of land where they grew most of Palestine's barley and much of the country's wheat," stated IPS.

Moreover, Jewish settlers did not arrive in the Negev till 1940 and, by 1946, the total Jewish population there did not amount to more than 475.

"The amount of land cultivated by the Bedouins in the Negev prior to 1948 came to three times that cultivated by the entire Jewish community in all of Palestine even after sixty years of 'pioneering' Zionist settlement," IPS concluded.

To reverse this indisputable historical reality, Israel has led a decided campaign aimed at vanquishing the Bedouins by severing their relationship to their land. Although this has been done with a great degree of success, the struggle is not yet over.

The same struggle is duplicated elsewhere, especially in so-called 'Area C' encompassing 60 percent of the West Bank. Palestinian Bedouin villages there are also enduring a terrible fight, as many of their villages have been singled out for destruction.

Most of West Bank Bedouins live in the central West Bank region, in an area known as the South Hebron Hills. Last month, it was reported that the Israeli Supreme Court is now "deciding the fate" of the Bedouin village of Dkeika. Other villages in the area have either been demolished, received demolition orders or are waiting for their fate to be determined by the Israel court.

It is hardly a question of a single village or two. The UN reported that 46 villages in central West Bank are "at risk of forcible transfer" by the Israeli government.

To preclude any legal wrangling, the Israeli government has been actively pursuing wholesale, irreversible actions to seal the fate of Bedouins once and for all.

In 2013, Israel announced the "Prawer Plan", the goal of which was the destruction of all unrecognized villages in the Negev. However, massive mobilization involving the Bedouins and Palestinians throughout the Occupied Territories defeated the plan, which was officially rescinded in December of the same year.

But, now, it is being revived under the name 'Prawer II.' A draft of the plan, which was leaked to local media, was introduced by Israel's Agricultural Minister, Uri Ariel. It, too, aims to "deny Bedouin citizens land ownership rights and violate their constitutional protections," reported Patrick Strickland.

The war on the Bedouin is, of course, part of the larger war on all Palestinians, whether in Israel or under military occupation. While the latter are denied the most basic freedoms, the former are governed by at least 50 discriminatory laws, according to the Haifa-based Adalah Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights.

Many of these laws are aimed at depriving Palestinians of the right to own land or to claim even the very land upon which their homes and villages existed for tens and hundreds of years.

It should come as no shock, then, to learn that, while Palestinian citizens of Israel are estimated at 20 percent of the population, they live on merely 3 percent of the land, and many of them face the constant danger of being evicted and relocated elsewhere.

The story of Al-Araqeeb is witness to the never-ending Israeli desire for colonial expansion at the expense of the indigenous population of Palestine, but also of the courage and refusal to give in to fear and despair as demonstrated by the 22 families of this brave village.

In some way, Al-Araqeeb represents the story of all of Palestine and its people.

The struggle of Al-Araqeeb should evoke outrage at Israel's constant violation of human rights and its refusal to recognize the national aspirations of the Palestinian people, but it should also induce hope that 70 years of colonial expansion cannot defeat or even weaken the will of a village, of a nation.

- Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His forthcoming book is 'The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story' (Pluto Press). Baroud has a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California. Visit his website: www.ramzybaroud.net.

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Does It Really Matter If Netanyahu Ends Up Behind Bars?

By Neve Gordon

"Background noise" was the way Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu characterized the decision of his former chief of staff, Ari Harow, to become a state witness. The following day, the prime minister's press officer declared - for the 100th time - that "Nothing will happen, because nothing happened." Despite his relentless effort to paint a business-as-usual atmosphere, this time it looks as if Netanyahu is actually going down.

At least two probes dealing with serious allegations of bribery, breach of trust and fraud seem likely to end with an indictment against Israel's premier. In "Case 1,000", police suspect Netanyahu accepted lavish gifts from wealthy businessmen, while, in certain instances, he even provided services in return.

"Harow is the game changer," as one prominent Israeli columnist explained. Before becoming chief of staff, he was responsible for maintaining Netanyahu's connections with several billionaires, and is likely to possess incriminating information about his former boss's relations with these affluent figures.

But even before Harow flipped, the police divulged that Netanyahu had intervened on behalf of Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan who, for years, had given Netanyahu and his family presents worth hundreds of thousands of shekels. According to the police, the prime minister had approached both former US Ambassador Dan Shapiro and Secretary of State John Kerry to help procure a ten-year visa to the US for Milchan. The police also noted that Milchan holds a 9.8 percent stake in Israel's Channel 10, which is subject to regulation by Israel's Ministry of Communications, headed until recently by Netanyahu.

The second probe, called "Case 2,000", focuses on recordings the police obtained after confiscating Harow's personal computer and phone. Capturing conversations between Netanyahu and Arnon Mozes, the publisher of the Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth and the popular Ynet News website, the recordings reveal that just before the 2015 Israeli elections, Mozes offered to help Netanyahu to stay in power "for as long as [he] want[s]". In a quid pro quo deal, the publisher requested that Netanyahu pass legislation limiting the ability of Yedioth Ahronoth's main competitor, the pro-Netanyahu Israel HaYom newspaper, to distribute papers free of charge.

According to the transcripts, the two went so far as to discuss which pro-Netanyahu columnists Yedioth Ahronoth would hire. Netanyahu then said he would discuss the legislation with the "redhead" - referring to Israel HaYom's publisher, the American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is also a Republican kingmaker and known contributor to Donald Trump's presidential campaign. In fact, during a recent police interrogation, Adelson confirmed that Netanyahu had asked him to consider cancelling the paper's weekend edition.

These probes are perhaps the most incriminating, but, as the noose tightens, Netanyahu will have to deal with a number of other legal inquiries as well. The prime minister's personal attorney is one of the major suspects in "Case 3,000", which is looking at suspicious acquisitions on the part of the Israeli military involving alleged bribes and fraud. According to Ha'aretz, "Netanyahu's personal lawyer was due to earn tens of millions of shekels from an agreement, since suspended, to buy three submarines from Germany." The personal lawyer, however, is not the only link between Netanyahu and the corrupt transaction, since the deal seems to have been supported by the prime minister and approved behind the back of the previous defense minister, who had opposed the procurement of the submarines.

Lastly, the police have recommended pressing charges against Sarah Netanyahu, the prime minister's wife, for misusing state funds, including the movement of furniture from the prime minister's official residence to her private home and paying an electrician to rewire her private abode at the taxpayers' expense. Israeli newspapers suggest that she is likely to be indicted soon.

Netanyahu's 11-year rule thus appears to be fast approaching an inglorious end. The more interesting question now, however, is what the significance of these developments will be. Two points are worth making.

First, Netanyahu is not really an outlier. Many leaders and politicians across the globe, particularly those who, like Netanyahu, have managed to stay in power for many years, have also become corrupt by abusing the privileges and responsibilities bestowed upon them by their office. Yet what is unusual about the Israeli case is that some of the corrupt protagonists actually end up in jail.

(This article was originally published in Al-Jazeera.)

- Neve Gordon is an Israeli activist and the author of Israel's Occupation and co-author (with Nicola Perugini) of the newly released The Human Right to Dominate. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.