12 oct 2019
Tunisian presidential candidate Kaïs Saïed in a televised debate described normalizing relations with the Israeli occupation as "high treason".
Saïed said that he is against normalization with Israel, stressing that those who collaborate with an occupation that displaced an entire people must be condemned for high treason.
When asked about whether visits will be allowed to synagogues in Tunisia, he clarified that Jews with no Israeli passports are welcome.
On Friday, Tunisians began voting abroad in the second round of presidential elections which will be held on Sunday, 13 October, in Tunisia with two contenders: Kaïs Saïed and Nabil Karoui.
Saïed said that he is against normalization with Israel, stressing that those who collaborate with an occupation that displaced an entire people must be condemned for high treason.
When asked about whether visits will be allowed to synagogues in Tunisia, he clarified that Jews with no Israeli passports are welcome.
On Friday, Tunisians began voting abroad in the second round of presidential elections which will be held on Sunday, 13 October, in Tunisia with two contenders: Kaïs Saïed and Nabil Karoui.
11 oct 2019
By Benay Blend
In both the United States and Israel, there is a myth that if we could just get rid of certain leaders—namely Trump and Netanyahu—then things would go back to normal, the good old days (in truth, for some but not for others).
“What have we become?” people ask, thereby glossing over the settler-colonial history of both countries. This historical amnesia stems from many factors. It satisfies the human desire for a definable villain, someone to lay the blame on rather than doing the harder work of understanding that it’s the capitalist, colonial system that must be changed.
In no way does this analysis negate the damage done by both leaders. What it does point to is the way that this focus plays into the founding myths of both countries. Indeed, Zionism not only stems from an ideology born out of nineteenth-century nationalism but also bears resemblance to settler states established in the Americas. In this scenario, both sought to present a virgin land, ready for fertilization and development.
Instead of “civilizing” the indigenous population or utilizing their labor, as was done in other colonial enterprises, the problem for Israelis was to find an “empty” land that could be transformed into a Jewish homeland, though this meant erasure of 689,272 residents through some serious historical revision. Like the so-called “virgin land” in the American West, this trope serves to gloss over the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948 just as the American version disregards the extermination and/or relocation of the American Indigenous population.
In his “Forward” to Ramzy Baroud’s Last Earth: A Palestine Story (2018), Ilan Pappe refers to Al-Nakba al Mustamera, the on-going Nakba, a common term for the period after 1948. Moreover, he explains that discrete chapters in the history of Palestine, such as the disaster of 1948, are not just past events, but instead are a long narrative of massacres, land confiscation, displacement, and assassination. Relying on Patrick Wolfe, who “adapted and applied” the settler-colonial paradigm to Palestine, Pappe explains that the colonial project is on-going, as is Palestine’s resistance to it.
Similarly, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz writes in An Indigenous History of the United States (2014) that the history of United States is also that of settler-colonialism, i.e. the founding of a country established on the premise of white supremacy, the widespread use of African slavery, and a strategy of “genocide and land theft” that disenfranchised the Indigenous population (p.2). She adds that “those who seek history with an upbeat ending” (p. 2), or for the present purposes, those who seek to find a Golden Age in America’s past, might be looking far and wide for neither that conclusion nor that bygone age, exists.
Trump and Netanyahu, then, are merely just the symptoms, while Zionism, settler-colonialism, neoliberalism, capitalism, and racism are all elements of the disease. Impeaching Trump will not bring about a better world to come. Writing for Aljazeera as far back as 2015, Hamid Dabashi claims that “Trump is a symptom not the disease.”
In short, Dabashi adds, “he is a decoy, a diversion so outrageous, so disgusting that it overwhelms and hides the real disease.” The problem, he concludes, is “firmly rooted in the political culture of a country that began its history by the mass murder of Native Americans, continued by the systematic slavery of African Americans, and most recently with a stroke of a pen ordered the US population of Japanese descent incarcerated in concentration (internment) camps during World War II.
Writing four years later, Philip Weiss explores a variation of that same mantra used by liberal Zionists to entice their Jewish brethren back into the pro-Israel Democratic fold. According to Weiss, their argument goes something like this: “The only thing we need to do to end the Democratic Party’s disaffection with Israel is to get rid of Netanyahu—and Trump.” Like those who place all blame for America’s problems on the shoulders of Donald Trump, liberal Zionists locate all of the culpability for Israel’s sins on the actions of one person.
“His sins are innumerable and the damage he’s done immeasurable,” writes Gideon Levy, “and it would be great to have him out of our lives, but blaming everything on him is deceiving and a shirking of responsibility.” Yet Levy blames the “values and outlooks” that he says have been “ingrained here during decades of Zionists,” not the values of white supremacy and ethnic cleansing that have been inherent in Zionism since 1948. Levy wishes for a Mandela who would lead a revolution in the nation’s values, rather than lead a revolution that would instead dismantle the Zionist state.
Racism in both countries is not an individual problem but rather embedded in the institutions of each settler-colonial state. When George Bush slipped Michelle Obama a cough drop at John McCain’s funeral, it was viewed by most as a moment of civility, the kind of hands across the aisle so lacking in government today.
George Bush’s history as a war criminal responsible for thousands of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan after 911 was totally erased by a desire to believe that we only have to be kind to each other in order to topple the racism of Trump’s regime. The same could be said for the practice of “normalization” by Israelis, defined by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) in the following way:
It is helpful to think of normalization as a “colonization of the mind,” whereby the oppressed subject comes to believe that the oppressor’s reality is the only “normal” reality that must be subscribed to, and that the oppression is a fact of life that must be coped with.
Those who engage in normalization either ignore this oppression or accept it as the status quo that can be lived with. In an attempt to whitewash its violations of international law and human rights, Israel tries to re-brand itself, or present itself as normal — even “enlightened” — through an intricate array of relations and activities encompassing hi-tech, cultural, legal, LGBT and other realms.
Frederick Douglass, the 19th century escaped slave turned statesman, said that power does not relinquish power without a struggle. Whether that be the dismantling of the Zionist state as advocated by the One State Foundation, the decolonization of the Americas outlined by the Red Nation, or any number of revolutionary struggles not carried out under the mantle of the colonialist enterprise, significant change will not come about by removing one person from leadership and / or advocating unity when all parties are not sharing equal power.
In an era when the governments of both Israel and the United States are working hard to erase the past, it is important to cut through the founding myths of each country in order to chart a clear path forward to a more egalitarian state.
– Benay Blend received her doctorate in American Studies from the University of New Mexico. Her scholarly works include Douglas Vakoch and Sam Mickey, Eds. (2017), “’Neither Homeland Nor Exile are Words’: ‘Situated Knowledge’ in the Works of Palestinian and Native American Writers”. She contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
In both the United States and Israel, there is a myth that if we could just get rid of certain leaders—namely Trump and Netanyahu—then things would go back to normal, the good old days (in truth, for some but not for others).
“What have we become?” people ask, thereby glossing over the settler-colonial history of both countries. This historical amnesia stems from many factors. It satisfies the human desire for a definable villain, someone to lay the blame on rather than doing the harder work of understanding that it’s the capitalist, colonial system that must be changed.
In no way does this analysis negate the damage done by both leaders. What it does point to is the way that this focus plays into the founding myths of both countries. Indeed, Zionism not only stems from an ideology born out of nineteenth-century nationalism but also bears resemblance to settler states established in the Americas. In this scenario, both sought to present a virgin land, ready for fertilization and development.
Instead of “civilizing” the indigenous population or utilizing their labor, as was done in other colonial enterprises, the problem for Israelis was to find an “empty” land that could be transformed into a Jewish homeland, though this meant erasure of 689,272 residents through some serious historical revision. Like the so-called “virgin land” in the American West, this trope serves to gloss over the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948 just as the American version disregards the extermination and/or relocation of the American Indigenous population.
In his “Forward” to Ramzy Baroud’s Last Earth: A Palestine Story (2018), Ilan Pappe refers to Al-Nakba al Mustamera, the on-going Nakba, a common term for the period after 1948. Moreover, he explains that discrete chapters in the history of Palestine, such as the disaster of 1948, are not just past events, but instead are a long narrative of massacres, land confiscation, displacement, and assassination. Relying on Patrick Wolfe, who “adapted and applied” the settler-colonial paradigm to Palestine, Pappe explains that the colonial project is on-going, as is Palestine’s resistance to it.
Similarly, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz writes in An Indigenous History of the United States (2014) that the history of United States is also that of settler-colonialism, i.e. the founding of a country established on the premise of white supremacy, the widespread use of African slavery, and a strategy of “genocide and land theft” that disenfranchised the Indigenous population (p.2). She adds that “those who seek history with an upbeat ending” (p. 2), or for the present purposes, those who seek to find a Golden Age in America’s past, might be looking far and wide for neither that conclusion nor that bygone age, exists.
Trump and Netanyahu, then, are merely just the symptoms, while Zionism, settler-colonialism, neoliberalism, capitalism, and racism are all elements of the disease. Impeaching Trump will not bring about a better world to come. Writing for Aljazeera as far back as 2015, Hamid Dabashi claims that “Trump is a symptom not the disease.”
In short, Dabashi adds, “he is a decoy, a diversion so outrageous, so disgusting that it overwhelms and hides the real disease.” The problem, he concludes, is “firmly rooted in the political culture of a country that began its history by the mass murder of Native Americans, continued by the systematic slavery of African Americans, and most recently with a stroke of a pen ordered the US population of Japanese descent incarcerated in concentration (internment) camps during World War II.
Writing four years later, Philip Weiss explores a variation of that same mantra used by liberal Zionists to entice their Jewish brethren back into the pro-Israel Democratic fold. According to Weiss, their argument goes something like this: “The only thing we need to do to end the Democratic Party’s disaffection with Israel is to get rid of Netanyahu—and Trump.” Like those who place all blame for America’s problems on the shoulders of Donald Trump, liberal Zionists locate all of the culpability for Israel’s sins on the actions of one person.
“His sins are innumerable and the damage he’s done immeasurable,” writes Gideon Levy, “and it would be great to have him out of our lives, but blaming everything on him is deceiving and a shirking of responsibility.” Yet Levy blames the “values and outlooks” that he says have been “ingrained here during decades of Zionists,” not the values of white supremacy and ethnic cleansing that have been inherent in Zionism since 1948. Levy wishes for a Mandela who would lead a revolution in the nation’s values, rather than lead a revolution that would instead dismantle the Zionist state.
Racism in both countries is not an individual problem but rather embedded in the institutions of each settler-colonial state. When George Bush slipped Michelle Obama a cough drop at John McCain’s funeral, it was viewed by most as a moment of civility, the kind of hands across the aisle so lacking in government today.
George Bush’s history as a war criminal responsible for thousands of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan after 911 was totally erased by a desire to believe that we only have to be kind to each other in order to topple the racism of Trump’s regime. The same could be said for the practice of “normalization” by Israelis, defined by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) in the following way:
It is helpful to think of normalization as a “colonization of the mind,” whereby the oppressed subject comes to believe that the oppressor’s reality is the only “normal” reality that must be subscribed to, and that the oppression is a fact of life that must be coped with.
Those who engage in normalization either ignore this oppression or accept it as the status quo that can be lived with. In an attempt to whitewash its violations of international law and human rights, Israel tries to re-brand itself, or present itself as normal — even “enlightened” — through an intricate array of relations and activities encompassing hi-tech, cultural, legal, LGBT and other realms.
Frederick Douglass, the 19th century escaped slave turned statesman, said that power does not relinquish power without a struggle. Whether that be the dismantling of the Zionist state as advocated by the One State Foundation, the decolonization of the Americas outlined by the Red Nation, or any number of revolutionary struggles not carried out under the mantle of the colonialist enterprise, significant change will not come about by removing one person from leadership and / or advocating unity when all parties are not sharing equal power.
In an era when the governments of both Israel and the United States are working hard to erase the past, it is important to cut through the founding myths of each country in order to chart a clear path forward to a more egalitarian state.
– Benay Blend received her doctorate in American Studies from the University of New Mexico. Her scholarly works include Douglas Vakoch and Sam Mickey, Eds. (2017), “’Neither Homeland Nor Exile are Words’: ‘Situated Knowledge’ in the Works of Palestinian and Native American Writers”. She contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
10 oct 2019
Israeli author David Grossman
Some of the country's leading writers, entertainers, researchers and scientists seek amendment to controversial legislation so that it not only defines Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people but also as homeland of the minorities that live in it
A group of 40 of Israel's most prestigious writers, entertainers, researchers and scientists are planning to petition the Supreme Court against the controversial Nation-State Law, which critics say discriminates against the country's non-Jewish citizens.
Among the long and respected list of petitioners - all recipients of the Israel Prize - are writer David Grossman, actor and comedian Gavri Banai, educator Prof. Alice Shalvi, choreographer Ohad Naharin and artist Michal Na'aman.
The law, passed by the Knesset last year, defines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people and strips the Arabic language from its status as an official language alongside Hebrew, instead defining it as a language with "special status."
The petition aims is to see a special clause added to the legislation to protect the rights of minorities in Israel.
"Without the inclusion of minorities as part of the identity of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, the National-State Law is unconstitutional," says the petition.
The legislation caused a wave of protests within the Arab and Druze community.
Several petitions have already been filed against the law – but this one proposes a direct solution to the lack of mention of minorities.
The petitioners propose an additional clause be placed at the beginning of the law stating that "Israel is the national home land of the Jewish people" and that "it is the home land of all minorities who live within."
The group of laureates stress that a nation state bill cannot exist without the inclusion of the rights to which minorities are entitled.
They reference as an example the Croatian constitution, which states the it is the nation state of the Croatian people, but also the state of Muslims, Jews and all other minorities within it.
"Israel is the state of the Jews from a national standpoint, but from a civilian and judicial standpoint, it is also the state of the Druze, Bedouin and other citizens who live in it. More than two million citizens are not 'visitors' in the nation state of the Jews: they are part of this land and belong to it", says the petition.
David Harel, a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel Prize laureate and Vice-President of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, said Saturday that: "The principle of equality among all citizens is not sacrosanct because of people's belief in it, rather it has been a cornerstone of democracy. When a legislation such is this passes, you automatically ignore 20 percent of the population and that is not democracy."
Sculptor Dani Karavan, another from the group of laureates, added: "I think it is my moral duty to join this petition. I believe in human rights within democracy, equality and I'm against discrimination.
"Anyone who fights for equality and human rights, I'm on his side. I'm filled with appreciation for the many young people who get up and fight not only for their rights, but for the rights of others."
Some of the country's leading writers, entertainers, researchers and scientists seek amendment to controversial legislation so that it not only defines Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people but also as homeland of the minorities that live in it
A group of 40 of Israel's most prestigious writers, entertainers, researchers and scientists are planning to petition the Supreme Court against the controversial Nation-State Law, which critics say discriminates against the country's non-Jewish citizens.
Among the long and respected list of petitioners - all recipients of the Israel Prize - are writer David Grossman, actor and comedian Gavri Banai, educator Prof. Alice Shalvi, choreographer Ohad Naharin and artist Michal Na'aman.
The law, passed by the Knesset last year, defines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people and strips the Arabic language from its status as an official language alongside Hebrew, instead defining it as a language with "special status."
The petition aims is to see a special clause added to the legislation to protect the rights of minorities in Israel.
"Without the inclusion of minorities as part of the identity of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, the National-State Law is unconstitutional," says the petition.
The legislation caused a wave of protests within the Arab and Druze community.
Several petitions have already been filed against the law – but this one proposes a direct solution to the lack of mention of minorities.
The petitioners propose an additional clause be placed at the beginning of the law stating that "Israel is the national home land of the Jewish people" and that "it is the home land of all minorities who live within."
The group of laureates stress that a nation state bill cannot exist without the inclusion of the rights to which minorities are entitled.
They reference as an example the Croatian constitution, which states the it is the nation state of the Croatian people, but also the state of Muslims, Jews and all other minorities within it.
"Israel is the state of the Jews from a national standpoint, but from a civilian and judicial standpoint, it is also the state of the Druze, Bedouin and other citizens who live in it. More than two million citizens are not 'visitors' in the nation state of the Jews: they are part of this land and belong to it", says the petition.
David Harel, a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel Prize laureate and Vice-President of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, said Saturday that: "The principle of equality among all citizens is not sacrosanct because of people's belief in it, rather it has been a cornerstone of democracy. When a legislation such is this passes, you automatically ignore 20 percent of the population and that is not democracy."
Sculptor Dani Karavan, another from the group of laureates, added: "I think it is my moral duty to join this petition. I believe in human rights within democracy, equality and I'm against discrimination.
"Anyone who fights for equality and human rights, I'm on his side. I'm filled with appreciation for the many young people who get up and fight not only for their rights, but for the rights of others."
Israel is taking the first steps towards establishing desert refugee or displacement camps designed to hold tens of thousands of Bedouin citizens whom it plans to "urgently" displace from their homes in unrecognized villages across the Naqab (Negev) desert – without offering them any permanent and just housing solutions, the Haifa-based Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.
Israel's Southern District Planning and Building Committee convened on Sunday, 6 October, to discuss two plans – 652-0767921 and 624-0765792 – "Temporary Residential and Public Building Solutions for the Bedouin Population in the Negev", it said.
The plans are intended "to provide temporary housing solutions for the unregulated Bedouin population, in cases where the population is urgently required to move from their living sites before permanent buildings are established". Once approved, the plans would enable the “temporary” structures to remain for a period of up to six years.
In January 2019, Israel's Bedouin Development and Settlement Authority announced a plan for the forced displacement of 36,000 Bedouin citizens to make way for "economic projects" and the expansion of live-fire training areas for the Israeli military.
However, Israeli officials did not draw up solutions for the Bedouin citizens who would be evicted from their homes to make way for these projects – including the Ramat Beka weapons development and testing zone and the Sde Barir phosphate mine.
The Israeli plans would allow authorities to immediately evict and transfer Bedouin citizens to the new displacement camps for a period of three to six years.
Three days earlier, on Thursday, 3 October, Adalah sent a letter to Israeli authorities calling on them to reject the proposed plans and stop them from moving forward.
The letter – sent in Adalah's name and on behalf of the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages in the Negev (RCUV), Shatil, and the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality (NCF) – was addressed to Southern District Planning and Building Committee Chairman David Leffler.
Attorney Suhad Bishara, director of Adalah's Land and Planning Rights Unit, wrote in the letter that the plans are a severe violation of the fundamental rights of Bedouin citizens:
"These plans continue to impose upon the residents of unrecognized villages the same reality to which they have been subject for decades: the reality of temporality as a result of forced relocation from one place of residence to another … It is unreasonable to again coerce displacement to temporary housing tens of thousands of residents who have been living in their villages for decades and, indeed, for generations – most of which are actually located on their traditional tribal lands.
Remember the people targeted by this plan: it will be socially and economically devastating to thousands of families, children, adults, and elderly."
In a statement to the media, Bishara said "Israeli authorities are working hard to invent planning mechanisms for the sole purpose of evicting Bedouin residents from their villages that are not recognized by state authorities. Israel plans to displace thousands of people from their homes to live in some form of refugee camps, without a just solution via recognition of their villages – some of which have been in existence for decades – and allowing them to develop in accordance with their needs."
Attiya Al-Issam, chairman of the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages in the Negev, also said in a statement: "We wholeheartedly reject this malicious plan, whose sole purpose is to expel the Bedouin people from their lands.
We see this as the embodiment of Israel's Prawer Plan, discussed in the Knesset (Israeli parliament) in 2013, which was meant to expel tens of thousands of Bedouin citizens and destroy their villages."
Israel's Southern District Planning and Building Committee convened on Sunday, 6 October, to discuss two plans – 652-0767921 and 624-0765792 – "Temporary Residential and Public Building Solutions for the Bedouin Population in the Negev", it said.
The plans are intended "to provide temporary housing solutions for the unregulated Bedouin population, in cases where the population is urgently required to move from their living sites before permanent buildings are established". Once approved, the plans would enable the “temporary” structures to remain for a period of up to six years.
In January 2019, Israel's Bedouin Development and Settlement Authority announced a plan for the forced displacement of 36,000 Bedouin citizens to make way for "economic projects" and the expansion of live-fire training areas for the Israeli military.
However, Israeli officials did not draw up solutions for the Bedouin citizens who would be evicted from their homes to make way for these projects – including the Ramat Beka weapons development and testing zone and the Sde Barir phosphate mine.
The Israeli plans would allow authorities to immediately evict and transfer Bedouin citizens to the new displacement camps for a period of three to six years.
Three days earlier, on Thursday, 3 October, Adalah sent a letter to Israeli authorities calling on them to reject the proposed plans and stop them from moving forward.
The letter – sent in Adalah's name and on behalf of the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages in the Negev (RCUV), Shatil, and the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality (NCF) – was addressed to Southern District Planning and Building Committee Chairman David Leffler.
Attorney Suhad Bishara, director of Adalah's Land and Planning Rights Unit, wrote in the letter that the plans are a severe violation of the fundamental rights of Bedouin citizens:
"These plans continue to impose upon the residents of unrecognized villages the same reality to which they have been subject for decades: the reality of temporality as a result of forced relocation from one place of residence to another … It is unreasonable to again coerce displacement to temporary housing tens of thousands of residents who have been living in their villages for decades and, indeed, for generations – most of which are actually located on their traditional tribal lands.
Remember the people targeted by this plan: it will be socially and economically devastating to thousands of families, children, adults, and elderly."
In a statement to the media, Bishara said "Israeli authorities are working hard to invent planning mechanisms for the sole purpose of evicting Bedouin residents from their villages that are not recognized by state authorities. Israel plans to displace thousands of people from their homes to live in some form of refugee camps, without a just solution via recognition of their villages – some of which have been in existence for decades – and allowing them to develop in accordance with their needs."
Attiya Al-Issam, chairman of the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages in the Negev, also said in a statement: "We wholeheartedly reject this malicious plan, whose sole purpose is to expel the Bedouin people from their lands.
We see this as the embodiment of Israel's Prawer Plan, discussed in the Knesset (Israeli parliament) in 2013, which was meant to expel tens of thousands of Bedouin citizens and destroy their villages."
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