3 may 2014
By Khalid Amayreh in Occupied Jerusalem
The shocking absence on the part of Jewish leaders and intellectuals in Israel and abroad to the growing Jewish terrorist campaign against the Palestinian community in the occupied territories and Israel proper is raising many eyebrows among observers and intellectuals.
Once again, we observe not only total inaction but a deafening silence among Jews toward the virtually daily hateful attacks on peaceful Arab communities on both sides of the so-called Green Line, the erstwhile armistice line between the West Bank and Israel.
These attacks include scrawling racist slogans, such as Mavet le-Arabim or death to the Arabs on walls and buildings. Several mosques and churches have also been torched either partially or completely. And the tires of numerous Arab-owned cars have been punctured. The perpetrators of these dastardly acts are believed to be Jewish settlers or like-minded terrorists indoctrinated in a Nazi-like ideology advocating a "final solution" for non-Jews in Israel-Palestine.
Unfortunately these manifestly criminal settlers don't represent a small or marginal group in the Israeli Jewish society. Far from this, these people are affiliated with powerful political parties in Israel such as ha'Bayt ha'Yahudi (the Jewish Home) a chief coalition partner in the current Israeli government, headed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
This is probably the main reason why these despicable acts of terror have continued for so long without the perpetrators being apprehended or, indeed, prosecuted for their crimes. It is highly unlikely that Israel lacks the ability to capture these criminals. The truth is that Israel lacks the will and resolve to put an end to this grave phenomenon.
Needless to say, the terrorists and their supporters who are numbered in the hundreds of thousands if not in the millions have the mental willingness to commit the unthinkable against non-Jews in general and Palestinians in particular.
I was really shocked a few years ago when a rabbi I was speaking with referred to Jesus as "Hitler of Bethlehem." The Rabbi made his obscene remarks without batting an eyelash.
Numerous other rabbis have issued implicit or explicit edicts considering non-Jewish lives devoid of sanctity. These nefarious "religious" edicts are purportedly based on Halacha or Jewish law.
In fact there are certain Jewish sects, such as Chabad, that shamelessly advocate murdering non-Jews in order to extricate their organs in case Jews needed the organs. I am not claiming that Jews everywhere believes in this blasphemy. But Jews everywhere ought to raise their voices against such evils which I believe has nothing to do with true Judaic teachings.
I am not a great expert on things Talmudic. However, I believe that a religious book that advocates the murder of people because of their religious orientation is not only despicable; it should also be discarded and burned rather unapologetically.
I am in no way interested in maligning Jews or besmirching their good name. However, I believe that Jews everywhere, especially in Israel are not doing what they must to stem the tide of Jewish hatred against the helpless Palestinian community.
These acts which we have witnessed in the past few days are not innocuous and their gravity must never be underestimated or downplayed. Jews as well as non-Jews ought to remember that the holocaust didn't begin with Auschwitz, Mauthauzen, Bergen Belsen and other death camps. It actually began the moment anti-Jewish graffiti were crawled on walls throughout Germany. It was only then that we had the infamous Nuremburg laws, then Kristallnacht and then the death camps.
It has been often argued that had Germans and the world community at large spoken out against the early expressions of fascism in Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s, perhaps things wouldn't have deteriorated to what they ultimately reached and millions of lives would have been saved.
Now, must the world and Jews in particular repeat the same fateful miscalculation?
Dear Jews: Don't let your innate defensive reflexes blind you from seeing the truth. There are amongst you, as there are amongst other peoples, people who are willing to commit the unthinkable.
This is the inevitable fruit of decades of racist indoctrination we have been hearing and watching in the synagogues and the media. Fascism in Israel is real, real, real.
Just don't say "we didn't know." Because then this "we didn't know" of yours would be no more acceptable than the German "we didn't know." The truth of the matter is that you do know rather well what your people are saying and doing. In fact, some of you are quite malicious since your hearts and minds are decidedly on the side of the criminals.
Don't say Jews can't be Nazi and can't do Nazi acts. In the final analysis, when Jews think, behave and act like the Nazis thought, behaved and acted, they become Nazis par excellence, even if the New York Times, Washington Post and Fox News said otherwise.
Khalid Amayreh is a Palestinian journalist living in occupied Palestine.
The shocking absence on the part of Jewish leaders and intellectuals in Israel and abroad to the growing Jewish terrorist campaign against the Palestinian community in the occupied territories and Israel proper is raising many eyebrows among observers and intellectuals.
Once again, we observe not only total inaction but a deafening silence among Jews toward the virtually daily hateful attacks on peaceful Arab communities on both sides of the so-called Green Line, the erstwhile armistice line between the West Bank and Israel.
These attacks include scrawling racist slogans, such as Mavet le-Arabim or death to the Arabs on walls and buildings. Several mosques and churches have also been torched either partially or completely. And the tires of numerous Arab-owned cars have been punctured. The perpetrators of these dastardly acts are believed to be Jewish settlers or like-minded terrorists indoctrinated in a Nazi-like ideology advocating a "final solution" for non-Jews in Israel-Palestine.
Unfortunately these manifestly criminal settlers don't represent a small or marginal group in the Israeli Jewish society. Far from this, these people are affiliated with powerful political parties in Israel such as ha'Bayt ha'Yahudi (the Jewish Home) a chief coalition partner in the current Israeli government, headed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
This is probably the main reason why these despicable acts of terror have continued for so long without the perpetrators being apprehended or, indeed, prosecuted for their crimes. It is highly unlikely that Israel lacks the ability to capture these criminals. The truth is that Israel lacks the will and resolve to put an end to this grave phenomenon.
Needless to say, the terrorists and their supporters who are numbered in the hundreds of thousands if not in the millions have the mental willingness to commit the unthinkable against non-Jews in general and Palestinians in particular.
I was really shocked a few years ago when a rabbi I was speaking with referred to Jesus as "Hitler of Bethlehem." The Rabbi made his obscene remarks without batting an eyelash.
Numerous other rabbis have issued implicit or explicit edicts considering non-Jewish lives devoid of sanctity. These nefarious "religious" edicts are purportedly based on Halacha or Jewish law.
In fact there are certain Jewish sects, such as Chabad, that shamelessly advocate murdering non-Jews in order to extricate their organs in case Jews needed the organs. I am not claiming that Jews everywhere believes in this blasphemy. But Jews everywhere ought to raise their voices against such evils which I believe has nothing to do with true Judaic teachings.
I am not a great expert on things Talmudic. However, I believe that a religious book that advocates the murder of people because of their religious orientation is not only despicable; it should also be discarded and burned rather unapologetically.
I am in no way interested in maligning Jews or besmirching their good name. However, I believe that Jews everywhere, especially in Israel are not doing what they must to stem the tide of Jewish hatred against the helpless Palestinian community.
These acts which we have witnessed in the past few days are not innocuous and their gravity must never be underestimated or downplayed. Jews as well as non-Jews ought to remember that the holocaust didn't begin with Auschwitz, Mauthauzen, Bergen Belsen and other death camps. It actually began the moment anti-Jewish graffiti were crawled on walls throughout Germany. It was only then that we had the infamous Nuremburg laws, then Kristallnacht and then the death camps.
It has been often argued that had Germans and the world community at large spoken out against the early expressions of fascism in Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s, perhaps things wouldn't have deteriorated to what they ultimately reached and millions of lives would have been saved.
Now, must the world and Jews in particular repeat the same fateful miscalculation?
Dear Jews: Don't let your innate defensive reflexes blind you from seeing the truth. There are amongst you, as there are amongst other peoples, people who are willing to commit the unthinkable.
This is the inevitable fruit of decades of racist indoctrination we have been hearing and watching in the synagogues and the media. Fascism in Israel is real, real, real.
Just don't say "we didn't know." Because then this "we didn't know" of yours would be no more acceptable than the German "we didn't know." The truth of the matter is that you do know rather well what your people are saying and doing. In fact, some of you are quite malicious since your hearts and minds are decidedly on the side of the criminals.
Don't say Jews can't be Nazi and can't do Nazi acts. In the final analysis, when Jews think, behave and act like the Nazis thought, behaved and acted, they become Nazis par excellence, even if the New York Times, Washington Post and Fox News said otherwise.
Khalid Amayreh is a Palestinian journalist living in occupied Palestine.
Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, charged that Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu's attempt to enact a basic law stating that Israel is 'a Jewish nation-state' proves the Israeli apartheid system. In a statement on Friday, Barghouthi said that the law threatens the Palestinian historical rights and paves the way for the Israeli confiscation policy.
“This law denies Israel's claim of being a democratic state and reinforces discrimination and racism in the twenty-first century”, he added.
Barghouthi called on the international community to support the Palestinian human rights, and to put an end to Israeli violations of international laws.
He championed intensifying boycott campaigns of Israel and imposing sanctions and more pressures on the Israeli occupation.
“This law denies Israel's claim of being a democratic state and reinforces discrimination and racism in the twenty-first century”, he added.
Barghouthi called on the international community to support the Palestinian human rights, and to put an end to Israeli violations of international laws.
He championed intensifying boycott campaigns of Israel and imposing sanctions and more pressures on the Israeli occupation.
2 may 2014
Israel's population has grown to around 8.2 million, the Central Bureau of Statistics said, in data released as it prepared to mark the 66th anniversary of its foundation.
"The population of Israel, on the eve of Independence Day 2014, is approximately 8,180,000 people," the bureau said in a statement posted Thursday on its website and reported in Friday's newspapers.
Over the past year the population grew by 157,000 people, or two percent, with the proportion of Jewish citizens to Palestinian citizens largely the same, the statement said.
Jews represent 75 percent of the population at 6,135,000 people, while the Palestinian minority accounts for 20.7 percent, or 1,694,000 people.
The report did not give a breakdown of the Palestinian population along Muslim and Christian lines.
But it said that there are 351,000 Israeli residents of "other religions", generally non-Jewish immigrants and their children, who make up 4.3 percent of the population.
The Central Bureau of Statistics counts among Israel's residents the roughly 270,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed in a move not recognized by the international community.
Tuesday marks the official celebration of the anniversary of the declaration of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948.
Israelis mark the day according to the Jewish calendar, which this year places the holiday on May 6. Palestinians mark the occasion on May 15, when they commemorate the Nakba, or "catastrophe" of the creation of Israel, which sparked the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
"The population of Israel, on the eve of Independence Day 2014, is approximately 8,180,000 people," the bureau said in a statement posted Thursday on its website and reported in Friday's newspapers.
Over the past year the population grew by 157,000 people, or two percent, with the proportion of Jewish citizens to Palestinian citizens largely the same, the statement said.
Jews represent 75 percent of the population at 6,135,000 people, while the Palestinian minority accounts for 20.7 percent, or 1,694,000 people.
The report did not give a breakdown of the Palestinian population along Muslim and Christian lines.
But it said that there are 351,000 Israeli residents of "other religions", generally non-Jewish immigrants and their children, who make up 4.3 percent of the population.
The Central Bureau of Statistics counts among Israel's residents the roughly 270,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed in a move not recognized by the international community.
Tuesday marks the official celebration of the anniversary of the declaration of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948.
Israelis mark the day according to the Jewish calendar, which this year places the holiday on May 6. Palestinians mark the occasion on May 15, when they commemorate the Nakba, or "catastrophe" of the creation of Israel, which sparked the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
Jordanian police stand guard as protesters take part in a demonstration in front of the Israeli embassy in Amman on March 14, 2014, against the killing of a Jordanian judge by Israeli soldiers.
Israel summoned Jordan's ambassador Thursday to protest an "anti-Israeli" article by a former Jordanian foreign minister, in which he based his argument on a Hitler quote, the foreign ministry said.
Spokesman Yigal Palmor said Israel's embassy in Amman also sent the foreign ministry there an official protest over an article published on Monday by Kamel Abu Jaber in The Jordan Times.
In the second paragraph of the article titled "The big Zionist lie and the task ahead", Abu Jaber, foreign minister from 1991 to 1993, uses a quote from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf to make a point about lying -- in "the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility".
"The Zionist big lie about Palestine -- 'a land without a people' -- that the entire Western world adopted, and the biblical, Talmudic myth of the 'chosen people' have been the most important factors behind all the tragedies and atrocities that Palestine and the Palestinians have been subjected to since (...) l897," Abu Jaber wrote.
"We Arabs, Jordanians and Palestinians especially, are victims of a torrent of lies by a few international media magnates that every day enter every room of every household, propagating not only sex and violence but also, above all, the Zionist ideas of the extreme right," he wrote.
Palmor said foreign ministry deputy director general Aviva Raz called in ambassador Walid Obeidat to protest about the piece, "which was in essence anti-Israeli, but basing it on Mein Kampf is definitely a red line, which brought an anti-Semitic spirit to some of the remarks."
In the letter to the Jordanian foreign ministry, Israel says of Abu Jaber that "constructing his arguments on Hitler’s racist and anti-Semitic philosophy is outrageous and offensive not only for Jews, but also for any human being who believes in the basic values of humanity."
Publishing Abu Jaber's piece on Monday, the day Israel remembered the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, was "not by coincidence", the protest letter read, calling for "firm actions against the writer and the newspaper".
Tensions between Israel and Jordan, which signed a peace treaty in 1994, have risen following a series of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security at Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound.
Under the treaty, Jordan is the custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.
Israeli soldiers in March killed a Jordanian judge at a border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, with the army saying it was investigating the circumstances.
Israel summoned Jordan's ambassador Thursday to protest an "anti-Israeli" article by a former Jordanian foreign minister, in which he based his argument on a Hitler quote, the foreign ministry said.
Spokesman Yigal Palmor said Israel's embassy in Amman also sent the foreign ministry there an official protest over an article published on Monday by Kamel Abu Jaber in The Jordan Times.
In the second paragraph of the article titled "The big Zionist lie and the task ahead", Abu Jaber, foreign minister from 1991 to 1993, uses a quote from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf to make a point about lying -- in "the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility".
"The Zionist big lie about Palestine -- 'a land without a people' -- that the entire Western world adopted, and the biblical, Talmudic myth of the 'chosen people' have been the most important factors behind all the tragedies and atrocities that Palestine and the Palestinians have been subjected to since (...) l897," Abu Jaber wrote.
"We Arabs, Jordanians and Palestinians especially, are victims of a torrent of lies by a few international media magnates that every day enter every room of every household, propagating not only sex and violence but also, above all, the Zionist ideas of the extreme right," he wrote.
Palmor said foreign ministry deputy director general Aviva Raz called in ambassador Walid Obeidat to protest about the piece, "which was in essence anti-Israeli, but basing it on Mein Kampf is definitely a red line, which brought an anti-Semitic spirit to some of the remarks."
In the letter to the Jordanian foreign ministry, Israel says of Abu Jaber that "constructing his arguments on Hitler’s racist and anti-Semitic philosophy is outrageous and offensive not only for Jews, but also for any human being who believes in the basic values of humanity."
Publishing Abu Jaber's piece on Monday, the day Israel remembered the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, was "not by coincidence", the protest letter read, calling for "firm actions against the writer and the newspaper".
Tensions between Israel and Jordan, which signed a peace treaty in 1994, have risen following a series of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security at Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound.
Under the treaty, Jordan is the custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.
Israeli soldiers in March killed a Jordanian judge at a border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, with the army saying it was investigating the circumstances.
1 may 2014
As countries across the world celebrate International Workers' Day, an Israeli human rights group says that Palestinian laborers face harsh and humiliating conditions and are still being denied their basic rights.
"For Palestinian workers, there is not much cause for celebration: the day is a painful reminder that another year has gone by and nothing has changed," B'Tselem said Wednesday.
In light of Israel's continuing military occupation of the West Bank, which exploits Palestinian natural resources and stifles the growth of an independent Palestinian economy, tens of thousands of Palestinian workers are forced to seek a living by working in Israel, the group said.
According to the group, the current quota for work permits as of March 2014 is 47,350, most of which have been utilized.
Workers enter Israel by one of 11 military checkpoints in the West Bank, which are overcrowded and subject workers to humiliating inspections.
In May 2013, Ma'an staff traveled to the Tarqumiya checkpoint in the southern West Bank to talk to Palestinian workers about the conditions they face.
Hussein Amir Abu Zuneid told Ma'an that he leaves his home in Dura, south of Hebron, at 2 a.m. to arrive at Tarqumiya crossing to "prepare for the torturous and humiliating journey inside the terminal, which opens its gates at 4 a.m."
Security procedures often take hours, with workers sometimes it to Israel at 8 a.m., he added.
"For Palestinian workers, there is not much cause for celebration: the day is a painful reminder that another year has gone by and nothing has changed," B'Tselem said Wednesday.
In light of Israel's continuing military occupation of the West Bank, which exploits Palestinian natural resources and stifles the growth of an independent Palestinian economy, tens of thousands of Palestinian workers are forced to seek a living by working in Israel, the group said.
According to the group, the current quota for work permits as of March 2014 is 47,350, most of which have been utilized.
Workers enter Israel by one of 11 military checkpoints in the West Bank, which are overcrowded and subject workers to humiliating inspections.
In May 2013, Ma'an staff traveled to the Tarqumiya checkpoint in the southern West Bank to talk to Palestinian workers about the conditions they face.
Hussein Amir Abu Zuneid told Ma'an that he leaves his home in Dura, south of Hebron, at 2 a.m. to arrive at Tarqumiya crossing to "prepare for the torturous and humiliating journey inside the terminal, which opens its gates at 4 a.m."
Security procedures often take hours, with workers sometimes it to Israel at 8 a.m., he added.
"This is an Israeli policy aimed at creating chaos and confusion amongst the workers, who sometimes end up going to hospital to treat bruises and fractures or asphyxia resulting from the incredibly heavy jam and pell-mell at the crossing every morning," one worker told Ma'an at the time.
B'Tselem said its field staff had presented their findings of overcrowded checkpoints to the head of the Land Crossings Authority at the Ministry of Defense, who replied that that are no long lines and no overcrowding at checkpoints.
According to the rights group, Israel denies permits to tens of thousands of Palestinians, with around 15,000-30,000 Palestinians working in Israel without permits.
"For Palestinian workers who regularly enter Israel illegally to earn a living, life is a constant struggle for survival and returning home safe and sound from work cannot be taken for granted. They live in constant anxiety, fearing arrest or injury. In such a reality, labor rights such as a minimum wage, reasonable work hours, and a pension scheme seem like a distant dream."
Palestinian workers without permits are often exploited by contractors who know that they have no other choice but to accept lower pay.
In March, a Palestinian worker died after he fell while being chased by Israeli police officers because he did not have a permit to work in Israel.
"Israel must enable the development of a Palestinian economy in the West Bank to provide decent work opportunities for the local population. Until that development is realized, Israel must issue permits to Palestinians wishing to work in Israel – based on appropriate security checks - and must ensure workers’ rights are upheld," B'Tselem said.
B'Tselem said its field staff had presented their findings of overcrowded checkpoints to the head of the Land Crossings Authority at the Ministry of Defense, who replied that that are no long lines and no overcrowding at checkpoints.
According to the rights group, Israel denies permits to tens of thousands of Palestinians, with around 15,000-30,000 Palestinians working in Israel without permits.
"For Palestinian workers who regularly enter Israel illegally to earn a living, life is a constant struggle for survival and returning home safe and sound from work cannot be taken for granted. They live in constant anxiety, fearing arrest or injury. In such a reality, labor rights such as a minimum wage, reasonable work hours, and a pension scheme seem like a distant dream."
Palestinian workers without permits are often exploited by contractors who know that they have no other choice but to accept lower pay.
In March, a Palestinian worker died after he fell while being chased by Israeli police officers because he did not have a permit to work in Israel.
"Israel must enable the development of a Palestinian economy in the West Bank to provide decent work opportunities for the local population. Until that development is realized, Israel must issue permits to Palestinians wishing to work in Israel – based on appropriate security checks - and must ensure workers’ rights are upheld," B'Tselem said.
Israel will seek to anchor its status as the national homeland of the Jewish people in law, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.
"One of my main missions as prime minister of Israel is to bolster the status of the State of Israel as the national state of our people," Netanyahu said in a speech in Tel Aviv, a transcript of which was provided by his office.
"To this end, it is my intention to submit a basic law to the Knesset (parliament) that would provide a constitutional anchor for Israel's status as the national state of the Jewish people."
Netanyahu has made recognition of Israel as a Jewish state a key demand in the crisis-hit peace talks with the PLO, which formally drew to a close on Tuesday.
The PLO recognized Israel's right to exist in 1988 and say accepting Israel as a Jewish state would be tantamount to accepting the Nakba, or "catastrophe", of 1946, in which around 760,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced by Jewish militias.
The chairman of Netanyahu's coalition Yariv Levin congratulated Netanyahu for his "historic decision, that will bring Israel back to a Zionist course after years of ongoing legal eroding of the fundamental principles, upon which the state was founded."
Previous attempts failed
"The prime minister has instructed me to push forward with the legislation without delay, as a continuation of the original bill I initiated," said Levin, a hardline member of Netanyahu's Likud party.
In 2011 Avi Dichter, a member of the Kadima party, attempted to pass such a law, but it was shot down by then-Kadima head Tzipi Livni. In 2013, Levin brought forth a mellowed version of a similar bill, which also was not advanced.
Netanyahu's Thursday declaration was met with fierce opposition from the very coalition minister in charge of legislation, Justice Minister Livni, who vowed she would not enable such a law.
"Livni will continue to defend democracy, she has objected past initiatives that come at the account of democratic values in favor of 'Jewish' ones, and will do so even if the one proposing (the law) is prime minister," her spokeswoman Mia Bengel wrote on Twitter.
Menachem Hofnung, a professor of political science at the Hebrew university, said such a proposal would probably not have a majority in the current cabinet.
He also said such a law was "not necessary".
"There are already basic laws which state that Israel is Jewish and democratic," he said. "So I'm not sure what is the effect of another law, besides putting another obstacle to the peace process."
Palestinian officials have repeatedly said that recognizing the concept of Israel as a "Jewish state" is unnecessary and threatens the rights of nearly 1.3 million Palestinian citizens of Israel who remained in their homes during the displacement of the majority of the Palestinian population.
Earlier this year, PLO Executive Committee Member Hanan Ashrawi said that Israel wants to "create a narrative that denies the Palestinian presence, rights, and continuity on the historic Palestinian lands."
A "Jewish state" recognition would exempt Israel from its responsibility toward the Palestinian refugees who were forcibly displaced from their homes in 1948, she added.
The right of Palestinian refugees to return to their land is enshrined in article 11 of UN resolution 194.
Israel has never officially recognized the right of a Palestinian state to exist.
"One of my main missions as prime minister of Israel is to bolster the status of the State of Israel as the national state of our people," Netanyahu said in a speech in Tel Aviv, a transcript of which was provided by his office.
"To this end, it is my intention to submit a basic law to the Knesset (parliament) that would provide a constitutional anchor for Israel's status as the national state of the Jewish people."
Netanyahu has made recognition of Israel as a Jewish state a key demand in the crisis-hit peace talks with the PLO, which formally drew to a close on Tuesday.
The PLO recognized Israel's right to exist in 1988 and say accepting Israel as a Jewish state would be tantamount to accepting the Nakba, or "catastrophe", of 1946, in which around 760,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced by Jewish militias.
The chairman of Netanyahu's coalition Yariv Levin congratulated Netanyahu for his "historic decision, that will bring Israel back to a Zionist course after years of ongoing legal eroding of the fundamental principles, upon which the state was founded."
Previous attempts failed
"The prime minister has instructed me to push forward with the legislation without delay, as a continuation of the original bill I initiated," said Levin, a hardline member of Netanyahu's Likud party.
In 2011 Avi Dichter, a member of the Kadima party, attempted to pass such a law, but it was shot down by then-Kadima head Tzipi Livni. In 2013, Levin brought forth a mellowed version of a similar bill, which also was not advanced.
Netanyahu's Thursday declaration was met with fierce opposition from the very coalition minister in charge of legislation, Justice Minister Livni, who vowed she would not enable such a law.
"Livni will continue to defend democracy, she has objected past initiatives that come at the account of democratic values in favor of 'Jewish' ones, and will do so even if the one proposing (the law) is prime minister," her spokeswoman Mia Bengel wrote on Twitter.
Menachem Hofnung, a professor of political science at the Hebrew university, said such a proposal would probably not have a majority in the current cabinet.
He also said such a law was "not necessary".
"There are already basic laws which state that Israel is Jewish and democratic," he said. "So I'm not sure what is the effect of another law, besides putting another obstacle to the peace process."
Palestinian officials have repeatedly said that recognizing the concept of Israel as a "Jewish state" is unnecessary and threatens the rights of nearly 1.3 million Palestinian citizens of Israel who remained in their homes during the displacement of the majority of the Palestinian population.
Earlier this year, PLO Executive Committee Member Hanan Ashrawi said that Israel wants to "create a narrative that denies the Palestinian presence, rights, and continuity on the historic Palestinian lands."
A "Jewish state" recognition would exempt Israel from its responsibility toward the Palestinian refugees who were forcibly displaced from their homes in 1948, she added.
The right of Palestinian refugees to return to their land is enshrined in article 11 of UN resolution 194.
Israel has never officially recognized the right of a Palestinian state to exist.
29 apr 2014
By John V. Whitbeck
John V. Whitbeck is an international lawyer who has advised the Palestinian negotiating team in negotiations with Israel.
When, in response to the threat of potential Palestinian reconciliation and unity, the Israeli government suspended "negotiations" with the Palestine Liberation Organization on April 24 (five days before they were due to terminate in any event), Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office issued a statement asserting: "Instead of choosing peace, Abu Mazen formed an alliance with a murderous terrorist organization that calls for the destruction of Israel."
In a series of related media appearances, Netanyahu hammered repeatedly on the "destruction of Israel" theme as a way of blaming Palestine for the predictable failure of the latest round of the seemingly perpetual "peace process."
The extreme subjectivity of the epithet "terrorist" has been highlighted by two recent absurdities -- the Egyptian military regime's labeling of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has won all Egyptian elections since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, as a "terrorist" organization and the labeling by the de facto Ukrainian authorities, who came to power through illegally occupying government buildings in Kiev, of those opposing them by illegally occupying government buildings in eastern Ukraine as "terrorists."
In both cases, those who have overthrown democratically elected governments are labeling those who object to their coups as "terrorists."
It is increasingly understood that the word "terrorist," which has no agreed-upon definition, is so subjective as to be devoid of any inherent meaning and that it is commonly abused by governments and others who apply it to whomever or whatever they hate in the hope of demonizing their adversaries, thereby discouraging and avoiding rational thought and discussion and, frequently, excusing their own illegal and immoral behavior.
Netanyahu's assertion that Hamas "calls for the destruction of Israel" requires rational analysis as well.
He is not the only guilty party in this regard. The mainstream media in the West habitually attaches the phrase "pledged to the destruction of Israel" to each first mention of Hamas, almost as though it were part of Hamas' name.
In the real world, what does the "destruction of Israel" actually mean? The land? The people? The ethno-religious-supremacist regime?
There can be no doubt that virtually all Palestinians -- and probably still a significant number of Native Americans -- wish that foreign colonists had never arrived in their homelands to ethnically cleanse them and take away their land and that some may even lay awake at night dreaming that they might, somehow, be able to turn back the clock or reverse history.
However, in the real world, Hamas is not remotely close to being in a position to cause Israel's territory to sink beneath the Mediterranean or to wipe out its population or even to compel the Israeli regime to transform itself into a fully democratic state pledged to equal rights and dignity for all who live there. It is presumably the latter threat -- the dreaded "bi-national state" -- that Netanyahu has in mind when he speaks of the "destruction of Israel."
For propaganda purposes, "destruction" sounds much less reasonable and desirable than "democracy" even when one is speaking about the same thing.
In the real world, Hamas has long made clear that notwithstanding its view that continuing negotiations within the framework of the American-monopolized "peace process" is pointless and a waste of time, it does not object to the PLO trying to reach a two-state agreement with Israel, provided only that, to be accepted and respected by Hamas, any agreement reached would need to be submitted to and approved by the Palestinian people in a referendum.
In the real world, the Hamas vision (like the Fatah vision) of peaceful coexistence in Israel-Palestine is much closer to the "international consensus" on what a permanent peace should look like, as well as to international law and relevant UN resolutions, than the Israeli vision -- to the extent that one can even discern the Israeli vision, since no Israeli government has ever seen fit to publicly reveal what its vision, if any exists beyond beyond maintaining and managing the status quo indefinitely, actually looks like.
As the Fatah and Hamas visions have converged in recent years, the principal divergence has become Hamas' insistence (entirely consistent with international law and relevant UN resolutions) that Israel must withdraw from the entire territory of the State of Palestine as defined by the UN General Assembly resolution of Nov. 29, 2012, which recognizes Palestine's state status as "the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967," including, significantly, the definite article "the" missing from "withdraw from territories" in the arguably ambiguous UN Security Council Resolution 242, in contrast to Fatah's more flexible willingness to consider agreed land swaps equal in size and value.
After winning the last Palestinian elections and after seven years of responsibility for governing Gaza under exceptionally difficult circumstances, Hamas has become a relatively "moderate" establishment party, struggling to rein in more radical groups and prevent them from firing artisanal rockets into southern Israel, a counterproductive symbolic gesture which Israeli governments publicly condemn but secretly welcome, and often seek to incite in response to their own more lethal violence, as evidence of Palestinian belligerence justifying their own intransigence.
Netanyahu's "destruction of Israel" mantra should not be taken seriously, either by Western governments or by any thinking person.
It is long overdue for the Western mainstream media to cease recycling mindless -- and genuinely destructive -- propaganda and to adapt their reporting to reality, and it is long overdue for Western governments to cease demonizing Hamas as an excuse for doing nothing constructive to end a brutal occupation which has now endured for almost 47 years.
John V. Whitbeck is an international lawyer who has advised the Palestinian negotiating team in negotiations with Israel.
When, in response to the threat of potential Palestinian reconciliation and unity, the Israeli government suspended "negotiations" with the Palestine Liberation Organization on April 24 (five days before they were due to terminate in any event), Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office issued a statement asserting: "Instead of choosing peace, Abu Mazen formed an alliance with a murderous terrorist organization that calls for the destruction of Israel."
In a series of related media appearances, Netanyahu hammered repeatedly on the "destruction of Israel" theme as a way of blaming Palestine for the predictable failure of the latest round of the seemingly perpetual "peace process."
The extreme subjectivity of the epithet "terrorist" has been highlighted by two recent absurdities -- the Egyptian military regime's labeling of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has won all Egyptian elections since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, as a "terrorist" organization and the labeling by the de facto Ukrainian authorities, who came to power through illegally occupying government buildings in Kiev, of those opposing them by illegally occupying government buildings in eastern Ukraine as "terrorists."
In both cases, those who have overthrown democratically elected governments are labeling those who object to their coups as "terrorists."
It is increasingly understood that the word "terrorist," which has no agreed-upon definition, is so subjective as to be devoid of any inherent meaning and that it is commonly abused by governments and others who apply it to whomever or whatever they hate in the hope of demonizing their adversaries, thereby discouraging and avoiding rational thought and discussion and, frequently, excusing their own illegal and immoral behavior.
Netanyahu's assertion that Hamas "calls for the destruction of Israel" requires rational analysis as well.
He is not the only guilty party in this regard. The mainstream media in the West habitually attaches the phrase "pledged to the destruction of Israel" to each first mention of Hamas, almost as though it were part of Hamas' name.
In the real world, what does the "destruction of Israel" actually mean? The land? The people? The ethno-religious-supremacist regime?
There can be no doubt that virtually all Palestinians -- and probably still a significant number of Native Americans -- wish that foreign colonists had never arrived in their homelands to ethnically cleanse them and take away their land and that some may even lay awake at night dreaming that they might, somehow, be able to turn back the clock or reverse history.
However, in the real world, Hamas is not remotely close to being in a position to cause Israel's territory to sink beneath the Mediterranean or to wipe out its population or even to compel the Israeli regime to transform itself into a fully democratic state pledged to equal rights and dignity for all who live there. It is presumably the latter threat -- the dreaded "bi-national state" -- that Netanyahu has in mind when he speaks of the "destruction of Israel."
For propaganda purposes, "destruction" sounds much less reasonable and desirable than "democracy" even when one is speaking about the same thing.
In the real world, Hamas has long made clear that notwithstanding its view that continuing negotiations within the framework of the American-monopolized "peace process" is pointless and a waste of time, it does not object to the PLO trying to reach a two-state agreement with Israel, provided only that, to be accepted and respected by Hamas, any agreement reached would need to be submitted to and approved by the Palestinian people in a referendum.
In the real world, the Hamas vision (like the Fatah vision) of peaceful coexistence in Israel-Palestine is much closer to the "international consensus" on what a permanent peace should look like, as well as to international law and relevant UN resolutions, than the Israeli vision -- to the extent that one can even discern the Israeli vision, since no Israeli government has ever seen fit to publicly reveal what its vision, if any exists beyond beyond maintaining and managing the status quo indefinitely, actually looks like.
As the Fatah and Hamas visions have converged in recent years, the principal divergence has become Hamas' insistence (entirely consistent with international law and relevant UN resolutions) that Israel must withdraw from the entire territory of the State of Palestine as defined by the UN General Assembly resolution of Nov. 29, 2012, which recognizes Palestine's state status as "the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967," including, significantly, the definite article "the" missing from "withdraw from territories" in the arguably ambiguous UN Security Council Resolution 242, in contrast to Fatah's more flexible willingness to consider agreed land swaps equal in size and value.
After winning the last Palestinian elections and after seven years of responsibility for governing Gaza under exceptionally difficult circumstances, Hamas has become a relatively "moderate" establishment party, struggling to rein in more radical groups and prevent them from firing artisanal rockets into southern Israel, a counterproductive symbolic gesture which Israeli governments publicly condemn but secretly welcome, and often seek to incite in response to their own more lethal violence, as evidence of Palestinian belligerence justifying their own intransigence.
Netanyahu's "destruction of Israel" mantra should not be taken seriously, either by Western governments or by any thinking person.
It is long overdue for the Western mainstream media to cease recycling mindless -- and genuinely destructive -- propaganda and to adapt their reporting to reality, and it is long overdue for Western governments to cease demonizing Hamas as an excuse for doing nothing constructive to end a brutal occupation which has now endured for almost 47 years.
It is a mark of how upside-down Official Washington has become over facts and evidence that Secretary of State John Kerry, who has developed a reputation for making false and misleading statements about Syria and Russia, rushes to apologize when he speaks the truth about the danger from Israeli "apartheid."After public disclosure that he had said in a closed-door meeting of the Trilateral Commission last week that Israel risked becoming an "apartheid state," Kerry hastily apologized for his transgression, expressing his undying support for Israel and engaging in self-flagellation over his word choice.
"For more than 30 years in the United States Senate, I didn't just speak words in support of Israel," Mr. Kerry said in his statement. "I walked the walk when it came time to vote and when it came time to fight."
He then sought to clarify his position on the A-word: "First, Israel is a vibrant democracy and I do not believe, nor have I ever stated, publicly or privately, that Israel is an apartheid state or that it intends to become one. Anyone who knows anything about me knows that without a shred of doubt."
Kerry added: "If I could rewind the tape, I would have chosen a different word to describe my firm belief that the only way in the long term to have a Jewish state and two nations and two peoples living side by side in peace and security is through a two state solution."
Kerry scurried to make this apology after his remark was reported by The Daily Beast and condemned by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which said: "Any suggestion that Israel is, or is at risk of becoming, an apartheid state is offensive and inappropriate."
The only problem with AIPAC's umbrage -- and with Kerry's groveling -- is that Israel has moved decisively in the direction of becoming an apartheid state in which Palestinians are isolated into circumscribed areas, often behind walls, and are tightly restricted in their movements, even as Israel continues to expand settlements into Palestinian territories.
Key members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud government have even advocated annexing the West Bank and confining Palestinians there to small enclaves, similar to what's already been done to the 1.6 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip where Israel tightly controls entrance of people and access to commodities, including building supplies.
In May 2011, Likud's deputy speaker Danny Danon outlined the annexation plan in a New York Times op-ed. He warned that if the Palestinians sought United Nations recognition for their own state on the West Bank, Israel should annex the territory. "We could then extend full Israeli jurisdiction to the Jewish communities [i.e., the settlements] and uninhabited lands of the West Bank," Danon wrote.
As for Palestinian towns, they would become mini-Gazas, cut off from the world and isolated as enclaves with no legal status. "Moreover, we would be well within our rights to assert, as we did in Gaza after our disengagement in 2005, that we are no longer responsible for the Palestinian residents of the West Bank, who would continue to live in their own -- unannexed -- towns," Danon wrote.
By excluding these Palestinian ghettos, Jews would still maintain a majority in this Greater Israel. "These Palestinians would not have the option to become Israeli citizens, therefore averting the threat to the Jewish and democratic status of Israel by a growing Palestinian population," Danon wrote.
In other words, the Israeli Right appears headed toward a full-scale apartheid, if not a form of ethnic cleansing by willfully making life so crushing for the Palestinians that they have no choice but to leave.
Just days after Danon's op-ed, Netanyahu demonstrated his personal political dominance over the U.S. Congress by addressing a joint session at which Democrats and Republicans competed to see who could jump up fastest and applaud the loudest for everything coming out of the Israeli prime minister's mouth.
Netanyahu got cheers when he alluded to the religious nationalism that cites Biblical authority for Israel's right to possess the West Bank where millions of Palestinians now live. Calling the area by its Biblical names, Netanyahu declared, "in Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers."
Though Netanyahu insisted that he was prepared to make painful concessions for peace, including surrendering some of this "ancestral Jewish homeland," his belligerent tone suggested that he was moving more down the route of annexation that Danon had charted. Now, with the predictable collapse of Kerry's peace talks, that road to an expanded apartheid system appears even more likely.
But apartheid already is a feature of Israeli society. As former CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar wrote in 2012...
"The Israeli version of apartheid is very similar in important respects to the South African version, and that moral equivalence ought to follow from empirical equivalence. Both versions have included grand apartheid, meaning the denial of basic political rights, and petty apartheid, which is the maintaining of separate and very unequal facilities and opportunities in countless aspects of daily life."Some respects in which Israelis may contend their situation is different, such as facing a terrorist threat, do not really involve a difference. The African National Congress, which has been the ruling party in South Africa since the end of apartheid there, had significant involvement in terrorism when it was confronting the white National Party government. That government also saw the ANC as posing a communist threat.
"A fitting accompaniment to the similarities between the two apartheid systems is the historical fact that when the South African system still existed, Israel was one of South Africa's very few international friends or partners. Israel was the only state besides South Africa itself that ever dealt with the South African bantustans as accepted entities. Israel cooperated with South Africa on military matters, possibly even to the extent of jointly conducting a secret test of a nuclear weapon in a remote part of the Indian Ocean in 1979."
Yet, Official Washington can't handle this truth, as the capital of the world's leading superpower has become a grim version of Alice's Wonderland in which speaking truth about the well-connected requires immediate apologies while telling half-truths and lies against "designated villains" makes you a proud member of the insider's club.
When Kerry makes belligerent claims about Syria and Russia -- even when his statements are later shown to be baseless or false -- there is not an ounce of pressure on him to issue a correction or apology. [See "John Kerry's Sad Circle to Deceit."] Yet, when he says something that is palpably true about Israel -- indeed a pale version of the ugly truth -- he cannot run fast enough to issue a clarification and beg forgiveness.
While Kerry and other longtime inhabitants of Official Washington have become accustomed to this madness -- this politicized disdain for reality -- their overly militarized fantasyland has become a nightmare for the rest of the planet.
"For more than 30 years in the United States Senate, I didn't just speak words in support of Israel," Mr. Kerry said in his statement. "I walked the walk when it came time to vote and when it came time to fight."
He then sought to clarify his position on the A-word: "First, Israel is a vibrant democracy and I do not believe, nor have I ever stated, publicly or privately, that Israel is an apartheid state or that it intends to become one. Anyone who knows anything about me knows that without a shred of doubt."
Kerry added: "If I could rewind the tape, I would have chosen a different word to describe my firm belief that the only way in the long term to have a Jewish state and two nations and two peoples living side by side in peace and security is through a two state solution."
Kerry scurried to make this apology after his remark was reported by The Daily Beast and condemned by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which said: "Any suggestion that Israel is, or is at risk of becoming, an apartheid state is offensive and inappropriate."
The only problem with AIPAC's umbrage -- and with Kerry's groveling -- is that Israel has moved decisively in the direction of becoming an apartheid state in which Palestinians are isolated into circumscribed areas, often behind walls, and are tightly restricted in their movements, even as Israel continues to expand settlements into Palestinian territories.
Key members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud government have even advocated annexing the West Bank and confining Palestinians there to small enclaves, similar to what's already been done to the 1.6 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip where Israel tightly controls entrance of people and access to commodities, including building supplies.
In May 2011, Likud's deputy speaker Danny Danon outlined the annexation plan in a New York Times op-ed. He warned that if the Palestinians sought United Nations recognition for their own state on the West Bank, Israel should annex the territory. "We could then extend full Israeli jurisdiction to the Jewish communities [i.e., the settlements] and uninhabited lands of the West Bank," Danon wrote.
As for Palestinian towns, they would become mini-Gazas, cut off from the world and isolated as enclaves with no legal status. "Moreover, we would be well within our rights to assert, as we did in Gaza after our disengagement in 2005, that we are no longer responsible for the Palestinian residents of the West Bank, who would continue to live in their own -- unannexed -- towns," Danon wrote.
By excluding these Palestinian ghettos, Jews would still maintain a majority in this Greater Israel. "These Palestinians would not have the option to become Israeli citizens, therefore averting the threat to the Jewish and democratic status of Israel by a growing Palestinian population," Danon wrote.
In other words, the Israeli Right appears headed toward a full-scale apartheid, if not a form of ethnic cleansing by willfully making life so crushing for the Palestinians that they have no choice but to leave.
Just days after Danon's op-ed, Netanyahu demonstrated his personal political dominance over the U.S. Congress by addressing a joint session at which Democrats and Republicans competed to see who could jump up fastest and applaud the loudest for everything coming out of the Israeli prime minister's mouth.
Netanyahu got cheers when he alluded to the religious nationalism that cites Biblical authority for Israel's right to possess the West Bank where millions of Palestinians now live. Calling the area by its Biblical names, Netanyahu declared, "in Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers."
Though Netanyahu insisted that he was prepared to make painful concessions for peace, including surrendering some of this "ancestral Jewish homeland," his belligerent tone suggested that he was moving more down the route of annexation that Danon had charted. Now, with the predictable collapse of Kerry's peace talks, that road to an expanded apartheid system appears even more likely.
But apartheid already is a feature of Israeli society. As former CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar wrote in 2012...
"The Israeli version of apartheid is very similar in important respects to the South African version, and that moral equivalence ought to follow from empirical equivalence. Both versions have included grand apartheid, meaning the denial of basic political rights, and petty apartheid, which is the maintaining of separate and very unequal facilities and opportunities in countless aspects of daily life."Some respects in which Israelis may contend their situation is different, such as facing a terrorist threat, do not really involve a difference. The African National Congress, which has been the ruling party in South Africa since the end of apartheid there, had significant involvement in terrorism when it was confronting the white National Party government. That government also saw the ANC as posing a communist threat.
"A fitting accompaniment to the similarities between the two apartheid systems is the historical fact that when the South African system still existed, Israel was one of South Africa's very few international friends or partners. Israel was the only state besides South Africa itself that ever dealt with the South African bantustans as accepted entities. Israel cooperated with South Africa on military matters, possibly even to the extent of jointly conducting a secret test of a nuclear weapon in a remote part of the Indian Ocean in 1979."
Yet, Official Washington can't handle this truth, as the capital of the world's leading superpower has become a grim version of Alice's Wonderland in which speaking truth about the well-connected requires immediate apologies while telling half-truths and lies against "designated villains" makes you a proud member of the insider's club.
When Kerry makes belligerent claims about Syria and Russia -- even when his statements are later shown to be baseless or false -- there is not an ounce of pressure on him to issue a correction or apology. [See "John Kerry's Sad Circle to Deceit."] Yet, when he says something that is palpably true about Israel -- indeed a pale version of the ugly truth -- he cannot run fast enough to issue a clarification and beg forgiveness.
While Kerry and other longtime inhabitants of Official Washington have become accustomed to this madness -- this politicized disdain for reality -- their overly militarized fantasyland has become a nightmare for the rest of the planet.