Archive for March, 2010

Didi’s generation

by Editors on March 26, 2010 in Society & Culture with Comments Off

Bernard Avishai - I had lunch with my friend Didi Remez a week ago Wednesday in Tel Aviv. We had been working on a document, remotely and fitfully–and given that it is a kind of democratic manifesto, a little hubristically–and figured we were due for a little face time.

When we parted, Didi told me, among other things, he would be going to the West Bank towns of Bili’in and Nabi Saleh on Friday, where protests had been mounted for months: Bili’in over the route of the security fence, and Nabi Saleh over the appropriation by Jewish settlers of a local spring needed for farming. The army was trying to curtail the demonstrations by declaring the towns a closed military zone. “I’m going to go and dare them to arrest me,” Didi said.

I hadn’t heard from him since the weekend, and he owed me a draft, so I decided to call him this morning. “I’m sorry I’ve been late with the document,” Didi said, a little sheepishly, “but I’ve been convalescing. Actually, I was shot last Friday. Plastic bullets in the groin and the back of my leg.” He had had his arms raised, he explained, but was shot anyway. “There seems to be a new policy.”

I was ashamed that the shooting had escaped my attention almost as much as it shocked me. But none of the newspapers covered it. And Didi had decided not to make much of it on his widely read (and indispensable) blog, Coteret, though it was on his Facebook page, and mentioned on Philip Weiss’s blog. “I felt I shouldn’t make a big deal,” Didi said, “because I was the 25th. person shot, and the soldiers aimed at my legs. They aimed higher at the 24 Arabs and others, and they are in much worse shape.”

THE HUMILITY COMES with a pedigree, and the empathy with experience. Didi, or David, Remez is the great-grandson and namesake of the David Remez, one of David Ben-Gurion’s closest friends, and the state’s first minister of transportation, then education. His grandfather, Aharon Remez, was the (second) commander of the air force, and his father, Gideon, a veteran foreign affairs journalist. He is a scion of the country’s labor aristocracy and knows its obsolescence but is also, in a way, the best of what’s left of it.

Didi was himself a combat officer, and is still haunted by some of the actions he commanded in occupied territory a generation ago. He lived some years in the US (was actually a student at the Shady Hill School in Cambridge when his father was at Harvard) and flirted with emigrating, but came back, moth to flame, to “make a difference.” Since then, he has been a managing partner of BenOr, Israel’s hippest strategy consulting firm for NGOs operating in the region, whose clients include the World Bank. He is also a close advisor to Jeremy Ben-Ami at J Street, and to the young leaders of the Sheikh Jarrah demonstration committee. He doubts he is really making a difference, but I rarely see him without a smile.

JUST BEFORE I called Didi, I had gone on a mission of my own, to a local synagogue where a sweet young man stood in front of a boiling vat of water, and carefully dunked our pots to make them fit for Passover. I have written here last year about the child’s play (as Yehuda Amichai called it) that typifies Passover preparations, the growing disconnect in this country between the rigors of Passover ritual and its meaning. Let’s just say that talking to Didi made me feel fit for Passover.
In every generation, the Haggadah says, it is incumbent upon us to stand at Sinai ourselves. Didi knows something about standing, and generations, but also about the power of telling the story, especially in our generation. “The army withdrew from Bili’in when they saw the cameras and the crowds,” he said. Didi won’t make it tomorrow, but hundreds of us will be at Sheikh Jarrah, with the cameras and crowds and cautious cops, privileged to be led by young people.

This article appeared on the TPM

What if I said Jerusalem belongs to Christians?

by Editors on March 26, 2010 in Israel, Politics with 1 Comment

Eileen White Reed - Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stirred up a hornet’s nest of interreligious conflict this week with comments about Jerusalem – the city of holy sites belonging to three religious groups who trace their common ancestry to Abraham. “Jerusalem is ‘our’ capital,” he told the annual AIPAC advocacy conference. “The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 years ago, and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today,” he said.

 

Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has drawn worldwide criticism for his assertion of one religion’s hegemony over the holy city of Jerusalem, which the three Abrahamic religions would like to share.

Bibi, your assertions about Jerusalem are so contrary to the commonly accepted view of Jerusalem in the international community that you have lit up the blogosphere. Wonder if your staff will print out this piece for you from the University of Michigan’s Juan Cole entitled,  “Top Ten Reasons East Jerusalem does not belong to Jewish-Israelis.”

You have surprised and embarrassed liberal Jewish Americans; see this editorial in the Jewish Daily Forward calling your claims to Jerusalem “inflexible” and calculated to “play to a certain crowd in Israel and America.”  See this piece by the novelist Richard Greener on Huffington Post, positing the question:

If we were Palestinians could we start our own nation in 2010 while 500,000 citizens of another country occupy our land, and could we agree to watch helplessly as they grow in number to almost two million before the year 2050?

Bibi, way to act like the leader of a theocracy [like those other MidEast nations you criticize] and way to dis the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims and 2 billion Christians. Having picked this high-profile fight over Jerusalem with our Nobel Prize-and-health-care-battle-winning president – for whom 78% of Jewish Americans voted – you are not looking like the “two states for two peoples” statesman who spoke so diplomatically at Bar Ilan University last June. You are not serving the large majorities of both Jewish Americans and Jewish Israelis who consistently state their support for a two-state solution in polls.

Was it by design or by accident – like the timing of announcements of new settlements in East Jerusalem – that your comments have incited the Arab League right before their meeting in Libya this weekend? They’ve just announced the need to spend $500 million “protecting” Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem and plan to take their complaints to the International Court of Justice.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is going  to the summit to head off any hasty action during this “crisis of confidence,” noting that, “It is crucial for Arab countries to help create a favourable atmosphere in which the [peace] talks can succeed.”  Good luck.

 

Storm clouds over Jerusalem: Will it soon be time to send in U.N. peacekeepers?

Bibi, are my my peacenik, ecumenical ears a bit too sensitive – ’cause to me it sounds like some of your most radical supporters are trying to ignite a holy war. How would it sound to you  if the tables were turned? Consider:

What if I stood before 7,000 people [as you did at AIPAC] and asserted a claim that – since the Hebraic people didn’t rule in Jerusalem between the year 70 C.E. and 1967 – Jerusalem really belongs to the world’s Christians, and therefore we should build government-subsidized, Christian-only settlements and lots of churches throughout the city?

 

Jerusalem’s street signs have long been in three languages. After religious radicals painted out the Arabic street names, Jewish peace activists hurried to put the Arabic names back.

If my supporters changed the Hebrew street signs to English and called for a socially-engineered Jerusalem that would always be 66% Christian?

 

Ultra-Orthodox settlers rioting in occupied East Jerusalem to force a parking lot to close on Saturdays for Shabbat.

If my allies encouraged monks, priests, and nuns to riot to force parking lots to stay open on Saturday [the Jewish Shabbat] but close on Sundays to honor the Christian Sabbath?

If my mayor planned to raze 80 homes to build a religious theme park called the King’s Garden [as right-wing Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat has done?] Only in this Christian-dominated Jerusalem, we would be razing Jewish as well as Arab homes, and the “king” celebrated in the King’s Garden would not be David, but Jesus Christ.

People would call me a religious bigot, and worse – and rightly so. Yet these provocations reflect reality in Jerusalem today.

I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating: This “ours, not yours”  attitude about Jerusalem encourages anti-semitism around the world. The Forward put it better: “The world will often pick on Israel given the chance. Smart leadership tries not to give it the chance.”

This article appeared on the True/Slant

Searching for scapegoats, Netanyahu now tries to label Kadima a fifth-column

by Didi Remez on March 25, 2010 in Israel, Politics with Comments Off

In May 2007, the current head of Israel’s internal security agency, the General Security Service (GSS aka Shabak and Shin Bet), Yuval Diskin, unilaterally revolutionized his agency’s mandate.  Disken was responding to a request by Adalah to clarify the scope of the GSS’s authority to investigate Israeli citizens, Haaretz reported:

The Shin Bet security service believes it is within its charter to carry out surveillance operations, such as phone taps, on individuals deemed as “conducting subversive activity against the Jewish identity of the state,” even if their actions are not in violation of the law.

The announcement was made a month before the 40th anniversary of 1967 war, the moment when Israel became a border-less country embroiled in a never ending internal security war. Under these conditions, it may have been just a matter of time before unaccountable security services inserted themselves into the political sphere of a nation lacking a constitution and a bill of rights. Indeed, Diskin was probably only formally publicizing a long standing practice.

Still, the fact that this development barely registered in the Israeli public debate was remarkable. Part of the explanation for the silence is that those with the power to influence this debate – Jewish Israelis – did not feel threatened. The GSS was investigating the politics of Palestinian citizens. Jews were immune. No comparison and all that, but those who remained silent then are now learning that Martin Niemoller’s lesson, as expressed in “First they came,” is applicable anywhere a society allows the freedoms of minorities to be compromised.

Even when the GSS became a tool in the latest incarnation of the government-sponsored, NGO Monitor-led, campaign to suppress the Israeli human rights community – Im Tirzu’s assault on the NIF – the “mainstream” opposition was nowhere to be found. Nor was the silence broken yesterday (March 24 2010), when politicians called on the security agency to investigate Peace Now for treason, because of the suspicion that it had leaked the embarrassing story of new East Jerusalem construction just ahead of the Obama-Netanyahu summit.

Ramon

Therefore, it is hard to resist a little Schadenfreude that a senior Kadima leader – Haim Ramon – is the latest victim of creeping fifth-columnization, now apparently a convenient weapon even in run-of-the-mill coalition-opposition fracas.

This morning’s media (March 25 2010) was a PR disaster for Netanyahu: Everywhere  the Prime Minister’s trip to US was billed as a fiasco. Everywhere, that is, except Sheldon Adelson’s Israel Hayom, whose front-page provided a scapegoat (full translated text at bottom):

The senior officials say that according to information recently obtained by intelligence agencies that was placed on the desk of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak, Ramon is working with senior PA officials to prevent negotiations from being launched between Jerusalem and Ramallah.  According to this information, PA sources confirmed this.  It was also said that other figures in Kadima might be partners Ramon’s activity.  Political sources say that Ramon has been urging Palestinian and European figures to wait for Kadima to come to power, saying that this would make it possible to launch negotiations under better conditions for them.

In 2007, by the way, the government was lead by Kadima and Ramon was one of the most influential figures in the party.

Officials: Ramon working with PA to obstruct the start of peace negotiations

Matti Tuchfeld, Israel Hayom, March 25 2010 [front-page]

Kadima Council Chairman Haim Ramon is working to sabotage the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians – say high-ranking political officials.

The senior officials say that according to information recently obtained by intelligence agencies that was placed on the desk of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak, Ramon is working with senior PA officials to prevent negotiations from being launched between Jerusalem and Ramallah.  According to this information, PA sources confirmed this.  It was also said that other figures in Kadima might be partners Ramon’s activity.  Political sources say that Ramon has been urging Palestinian and European figures to wait for Kadima to come to power, saying that this would make it possible to launch negotiations under better conditions for them.

Likud sources recently said that Ramon is surrounded by a number of people with whom he maintains close friendships.  Some of them want the Netanyahu government to fall, and the actions of the [former] MK serve these friends in one way or another.  Among the figures who could benefit from the fall of the government: Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Arnon Mozes, former minister Aryeh Deri and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.  MK Ramon denied this, but a senior Kadima member confirmed the details last night.  “Ramon has been engaged in intrigues in the Palestinian Authority and is preventing the start of the peace negotiations to the best of his ability,” a senior Kadima source said yesterday, “he believes that this will topple Netanyahu.”

Ramon said in response, “woe to a country whose leaders, through the ‘Bibi-paper’ known as Israel Hayom, disseminate unsubstantiated nonsense in a desperate attempt to excuse the fact that the prime minister and the defense minister have caused Israel to sink to the deepest diplomatic low in many years.”  Sources in Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat’s bureau said that “this is delusional and untrue.”  Sources in Peace Now, who were apparently the ones who conveyed the report to the media about the construction in Sheikh Jarrah, said that they did not work in coordination with Ramon on the matter.  MK Ophir Akunis of the Likud said yesterday that “there are clear indications that Kadima and its advisers played a major role in publicizing the construction in Jerusalem.” [...]

This article appeared originally on Coteret

Linkage:Iran,settlements, health care & Israel?

by Steve Clemons on March 16, 2010 in Politics with 1 Comment

Late yesterday afternoon, I participated in an hour long Alhurra discussion program with three other Middle East specialists: Edmund Ghareeb of American University, Ori Nir of Americans for Peace Now, and David Schenker who directs the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The topic was the state of play in US-Israel relations after Vice President Biden’s visit and Israel’s alleged “insult” during his trip with the announced approval of 1600 new settlements in East Jerusalem.

During one of my times at bat during the interesting show, I suggested that Israel’s continued settlement expansion was directly helping Iran and enhancing its pretensions and goals in the region. The Washington Institute’s David Schenker responded that he really didn’t see a linkage between the settlements and Iran’s position. He stated that Iran really wasn’t all that welcome throughout the broader Middle East today and that its nuclear activities were making other Arab states nervous.

In part, he is correct about Sunni Arab antipathy towards Iran but neglected to note that officially, all of the other major Arab states are as furious about Israel’s settlements creep as the Obama national security team. But that’s not the issue that most caught my attention in this exchange.

Schenker, who offered some interesting insights on the show, went on to assert that while he saw no linkage between Israel’s settlement expansion and a boost to Iran’s regional posture, he suggested there was a linkage between US-Israel relations and getting Obama’s health care reform passed.

What?? Play that again.

So, David Schenker sees no linkage between what a huge number of observers see as Israel wrecking chances for a credible two state track — and the use of this grievance by Iran in its support of transnational Arab networks in the region, but nonetheless sees linkage between President Obama’s fragile health care reform position and the state of US-Israel relations?! Schenker’s view was that Obama couldn’t afford to have a testy, strained relationship with Israel because it would cost him support in Congress for his health care legislation.

If he is right, then the relationship with Israel has gone too far indeed.

The truth is that I believe that Schenker is wrong on both counts.

There is a linkage between Iran’s ability to compete for the position as true defender of the Islamic faith and the controversial settlements, and on the other front, there must not be a connection between the fragile coalition Obama is building to try and achieve health care reform and the state of the US-Israel relationship.

Any US Congressperson or Senator who actually explicitly withdrew or withheld support for health care reform because of loyalty first to Israel and its needs would invite serious questions about his or her patriotism and oath to the US Constitution and American people.

I support Israel’s right to exist, see it as an important ally, and believe that we should support its security — but not at the continued expense of Arab interests in the region and certainly not at the expense of core American interests at home. The interests of Arab states and Israel must be balanced and mutually pursued. Not to do so is a false choice for the U.S., but even worse would be the practice of punishing American taxpayers and their pursuit of key social reforms in favor of Israel’s interests.

I enjoyed the exchange with David Schenker and others — but whereas David has every right to assert that he does not see a linkage between settlements and Iran’s interests (though I disagree), I think that his second assertion that Obama might lose the health care battle by not keeping the Israel-tilting Members of Congress was hopefully wrong-footed.

If he’s accurate, then it’s time for political change in Congress again — but this time with a different filter.

– Steve Clemons

Update: When I wrote this piece, I tried to confirm that what I heard was heard by others on the program and had general confirmation from one of the other guests on the show. However, to be fair and up front, I also wanted to run this post by David Schenker — who was perfectly fair and civil on the program and from whom I learned some new things.

David remembers things a bit different — and we have not yet come up with a video segment or transcript, and I think that his own views on this should also be aired here.

I appreciate his fairness and balance in how he approached my post.

Here are his comments to me today:

Dear Steve:

I was surprised that you implied that I said the crisis with Israel would cause Congressmen or Senators to explicitly withdraw support for health care reform.

I didn’t say that. What I did was point out the obvious domestic political implications that Democrats could face-in addition to their current problems-in light of the very public row with Israel, especially one concerning the disposition of Jerusalem. Considerations like the mid-term elections and controversial health care legislation, I said, would likely lead the Administration to try and end the very public spat with Israel sooner rather than later.

The linkage between foreign and domestic policy considerations is well established. (Walt has written, for example, that the escalation in Afghanistan might cost Obama democratic seats in the midterms that would make it more difficult to pass domestic legislation).

Until I read your blog, I thought my comments were uncontroversial.

Best regards,

David Schenker

 

I appreciate David sending this correction and wanted it posted publicly. Onward and upward.

– Steve Clemons

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The perils of a new intifada

by Editors on March 9, 2010 in The Territories with Comments Off

Osama Alsharif – If last Friday’s incident at the Al Haram Al Sharif compound means anything it is this: Israel’s right-wing government is out of control and is bent on executing a malicious scheme to undermine Palestinian rights.

A series of deliberate provocations has been launched in the past few weeks, aimed at weakening Palestinian presence in Occupied Jerusalem, humiliating a powerless Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and challenging Arab and Muslim sentiments. The Friday clashes with Palestinian worshippers came a day after Arab foreign ministers urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to return to peace negotiations on US and Israeli conditions.

The so-called proximity talks, indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians through US mediation, cancel out years of laborious haggling and free the Israelis from previous commitments under the roadmap and others. It will prove to be a charade, a cover-up for an ambitious Jewish plan to confiscate land, build and expand colonies in the West Bank, force Palestinians out of Occupied Jerusalem and implement a unilateral scheme that undercuts the two-state solution forever.

Even worse, the negotiations will help Israel deflect attention from its Gaza war crimes, the Mossad scandal associated with the killing of Mahmoud Al Mabhouh, a leading Hamas figure, in Dubai in January, and its daily atrocities against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.

The semblance of peace talks will also help Israel launch a massive PR campaign to clean up its tarnished image while instigating world powers against Iran and its alleged nuclear threat to regional and world security.

It has always been a gloomy picture for the Palestinians. But unlike in the past few years, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is proving to be more radical than previously thought. It is under no illusion about the prospects of a peaceful settlement; it disdains Palestinians, has no regard for Arab, and by extension, Muslim sentiments and understands fully the weaknesses of the Obama administration.

It is also playing a dangerous game. By inciting Palestinians and humiliating their leadership it is sowing the seeds for a new uprising. But this is a double-edged sword for both parties. A new intifada could very well be the best answer to Israel’s aggressive policies, but without official backing, both Palestinian and Arab, the new uprising could give Israel the pretext to carry out, with impunity, a sinister ploy to uproot hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Occupied Jerusalem, expropriate more land, force its hands over Al Aqsa and the Old City and institutionalise a policy of ethnic cleansing in and around the holy city.

The simple fact is that without direct Arab backing, a new uprising cannot usher in a final solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. And with a weak and indecisive US administration, Israel could again get away with murder and more.

Ending any doubts

Abbas has few cards in his pocket which he can play to help the intifada achieve its goals and, more importantly, make it difficult for Israel to carry out its objectives. First of all, he can lend his support to a new peaceful intifada, ending any doubts about an internal dispute over the viability of a popular uprising against occupation. Also he could take an important step by suspending security cooperation with the Israelis.

If Israel does not bow down, Abbas could make the ultimate move and dissolve the PNA, forcing a return to the UN and its resolutions and enforcing the status of the West Bank and Gaza as Occupied Territories.

Without direct political backing, a new intifada will only afford Israel with excuses to kill Palestinians and confiscate and colonise Palestinian lands. Regardless of the political cost, it is up to Abbas to make the calls, including a return to peaceful resistance and a swift reconciliation with Hamas in Gaza.

In the meantime, Israel will continue to challenge the Palestinians, humiliate and penalise them. More importantly, it will try to change the status quo in its favour by extending its authority over religious sites. The battle for Occupied Jerusalem is taking a new shape and unless Abbas and his aides realise this, Israel will soon adopt new measures to fortify its control of Occupied Jerusalem and its surroundings.

A new Palestinian intifada, with proper Arab and Palestinian backing, could probably be the only shot left in Abbas’ armoury, that and the courage to bring an end to the PNA’s unfortunate experiment.

Two sides are hoping to make use of a new uprising to their benefit; one of them is Israel. It would be catastrophic if the Israelis manipulate a new intifada to force the Palestinians into submission. The Palestinian leadership, which has consistently favoured negotiations to resistance of any kind, must now make a choice. It is not an easy one. But the truth is that resumption of negotiations will lead to nowhere.

One only needs to listen to Israeli officials and examine the latest actions of their government to come to that conclusion. Abbas stands to lose whatever his choice will be, but it is better to fail while resisting occupation than to succumb to a humiliating deal that cannot satisfy Palestinian aspirations.

Osama Al Sharif is a veteran journalist and political commentator based in Amman.

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