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Posts Tagged ‘israel’

Everyone who saw the brutal treatment of the passengers of the freedom flotilla attempting to break the blockade of Gaza, and heard the Israeli propaganda machine claiming this was done in ‘self defence’ should understand that this self justification has a long history.

As an Israeli child, I grew up on myths of ‘self defence’ and of ‘the few against the many’, which were the building blocks of Israeli state and society from its very inception. Israeli literary scholar Nurit Gertz identifies three ‘ideological narratives’ aimed at conserving the hegemonic power relations. The first myth is the ‘few against the many’ narrative, according to which a Jewish ‘David’ was attacked by an Arab ‘Goliath’, the second is the struggle between the enlightened (Jewish) Europeans and the backwards (Arab) Orientals and the ensuing myth about Palestine being a ‘desert’ which the Zionists made ‘bloom’, and the third is the struggle between the isolated Jewish nation and an uncaring world, a narrative strengthened by the indifference of the world in face of the Nazi genocide. A fourth myth is that of Israel as European, and a fifth – perhaps the strongest myth – was the belief that all Israel’s wars and brutalities are fought in self defence.

Since the early days of the state, all Israel’s wars, including its participation in the imperialist 1956 Suez war, the invasions of Lebanon in 1982 and 2006, and the recent war against blockaded Gaza, were rationalised by the argument that after all, ‘peace loving’ Israel is only acting in ‘self defence’ and that if only the Palestinians agree to its conditions, they could have their tiny state albeit criss-crossed by walls and roadblocks, but that meanwhile, Israel has ‘no partner for peace’.

The fate of the Palestinians, 750,000 of whom were forced to flee or escape their homes during the 1948 war, was never part of the equation. Nor was the fate of those Palestinians exiled a second time, to the West Bank and Gaza in what was the expansionist 1967 war part of the equation. Throughout the occupation and the settlement of hundreds of thousands Jews in occupied West Bank and Golan Heights, Israel kept perpetuating the ‘self defence’ myth.

This is despite scholarship by Israeli and Palestinian historians and sociologists, exposing the extent of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, particularly, but not exclusively, during and after the 1948 war. Scholars describe Israel as a settler colonial society and a racial state, who colonised Palestine – the biblical birthplace of the Jewish people, but also of a variety of local tribes, including the Palestinians – and then ethnically cleansed as many of its indigenous people as was possible, confining the rest to life in besieged reservations.

Yet, when the occupied subjects try to resist, they are labeled ‘terrorists’, and Israel, the coloniser, claims that its brutal violence is merely ‘self defence’. After all, Israelis say to themselves, ‘the whole world is against us’ (as it has always been), and ‘we are the only Jewish state in a sea of Arab states’ and, of course, ‘the only democracy in the Middle east’.

The mantra of ‘self defence’ is so deeply ingrained that Israeli soldiers believe that stone throwing teenagers and international demonstrators (including Irish Nobel Prize winner Mairead Maguire who was hit by Israeli rubber bullets while demonstrating in Bil’in on 20 April) are fair game. After all, Israelis tell their teenage soldiers, we are only acting in ‘self defence’. Thus the propaganda stories about MV Marmara attacking the poor Israeli commandos while they were abseiling from helicopters – so ‘vulnerable’, according to Defence Minister Ehud Barak – make perfect sense to the Israeli psyche.

The heroic Gaza flotilla passengers and their supporters deserve our admiration and support. However, I am afraid that despite the universal condemnations, Israel will only lift the Gaza blockade if told to do so by the USA, or if deprived of US billions, self defence or no self defence.

Prof. Rivka Carmi
President of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Office of the President
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
P.O. Box 653
Beer-Sheva  84105  ISRAEL
Tel:  +972-8-647-930
Cell:  +972-526-839-367
Fax:    +972-8-647-2991
Email:  board@bgu.ac.il
berkan@exchange.bgu.ac.il
justman@bgu.ac.il
ngordon@bgu.ac.il

23 January 2010

Cc.
Prof. Moshe Justman, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Dr. Neve Gordon, Chairman of the Department of Politics and Government
Staff
Ms Anne Berkeley, Liaison Officer to the Board of Governors

Dear Prof Carmi,

We, Israeli, Palestinian and British academics, are writing to express our deep concern at the treatment of Dr Ahmad Sa’di, a Senior Lecturer at Ben-Gurion University’s Department of Politics and Government, who was subjected to racist treatment on 3 January 2010 when he arrived at Ben-Gurion University train station, as he does every teaching week.  He was humiliatingly searched, yelled at and embarrassed by the security staff at Mexico Gate, which we find offensive and unacceptable.We believe that Dr Sa’di’s reaction on the date was exemplary; he did not block the entrance nor did he insult the security staff.

Following the incident Dr Sa’di complained to the university authorities on 3 January 2010 and again on 10 January 2010. Dr Sa’di strongly believes that his treatment at Mexico Gate on 3 January was only the last in a whole series of racist encounters and harassment he has faced in the past ten years of his employment at Ben-Gurion University. Other incidents included his car being stopped, his bags searched and security staff making calls to ascertain whether he should be allowed to enter the university.

We are extremely concerned that Dr Sa’di’s formal complaint about his treatment on 3 January has neither been looked into seriously by Ben-Gurion University nor been met with anything like a response that it requires from your institution’s senior management. Although Ben-Gurion University acknowledges that Dr Sa’di was insulted and humiliated on 3 January, no further disciplinary action were pursued.

Ben-Gurion University claims to be like other European universities. Yet the response by Ben-Gurion University is another indication of an entirely different sort of system where racism is accepted as routine.  Had a complaint of this nature been made in the UK, there would have been automatic suspension with pay of the individuals involved.  This would then be followed by an investigation by the university department of Human Resources. Yet the fact that Dr Sa’di complaint of racism was dismissed, almost instantly, by the Director of the Department of Security says volumes about your attitude to racism.  You simply are not taking this complaint of racism seriously and we emphatically object.
We also believe that Dr Sa’di’s treatment by Ben-Gurion University is very typical of a wide range of experiences of racist encounters made by Palestinian citizens of Israel, in their face to face, day in and day out confrontations with your security.  This makes life near impossible for many Palestinian academics teaching for Israeli institutions.  It also makes travel to international conferences difficult.  Academics moving in and out of other Israeli institutions have similar experiences to those of Dr Sa’di’s.  It is this that we find so appalling.  It dehumanises those who do some of the very best work.

We call on Ben-Gurion University to take measures preventing further harassment of Dr Sa’di and we hope you realise that such racist treatment and the lack of any serious redress by senior management at Ben-Gurion seriously damages the reputation of your institution and offends the international family of academics to the core.

Sincerely,

Signed by

Professor Avi Shlaim, Oxford University, UK
Professor Nur Masalha, St Mary’s University College, UK
Dr Ronit Lentin, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland
Dr Paul Kelemen, University of Manchester, UK
Keith Hammond, Glasgow University, Scotland
Professor Nira Yuval-Davis, University of East London, UK
Professor Lila Abu-Lughod, Columbia University, New York, US
Professor Gabriel Piterberg, UCLA, US
Dr Nadje Al-Ali, SOAS, University of London, UK
Professor Ilan Pappe, Exeter University, UK
Professor Elia Zureik, Queen’s University, Canada
Dr Laleh Khalili, SOAS, University of London, UK
Dr Stephanie Cronin, Oxford University, UK
Professor Mary Grey, St Mary’s University College, UK

Eli Aminov                        November 09

Shortly after the UN Commission on Human Rights adopted the Goldstone Report the Israeli Ambassadress to the United Nations started a whining, emotional blackmailing attack against the commission: “Israel is the only state in the world which is being discriminated against by the commission and criticized more than any other state in the world!” she complained.

Her Excellency the Ambassadress should be reminded of what really makes Israel so unique globally.

    Israel is the only state in the world that apparently was established based on a United Nations resolution but whereas the said resolution was about the establishment of two states, a Jewish one and a Palestinian one, the resolution was immediately breached by Israel which took over most of the territory designated for the Arab state.
    Israel is the only state in the world which was established during the 20th century on the ruins of another people, which expelled two thirds of an indigenous population out of the territory it had concurred turning them into refugees and refusing to allow their return in direct contradiction to a UN resolution on this matter.
    Israel is the only state in the world that defined the remains of the indigenous population over whose territory she had settled as “foreigners” and subjected them to its peculiar immigration laws as if they had just landed in the state from far and beyond.
    Israel is the only state in the world that had managed to annul a fully justified UN resolution that defined Zionism as racism.
    Israel is the only state in the world that invented a nation which can only be joined through a religious conversion.
    Israel is today the only state in the world sustaining an Apartheid regime which discriminates against its own non-Jewish citizens through a complete set of laws and legislations, including property rules, nationality laws and security regulations.
    Israel is in fact the only apparition in the developed world of an army which owns a state, an army whose commanders blatantly interfere to interrupt every move to end the conflict that might jeopardize the smooth run of their gravy train.
    Israel is the only state in the world that instead of adhering to human code of conduct during its self initiated wars tries to convince the world that it deserves a special, different and more convenient set of war rules, rules that will not define the killing non-Jews as crime.
And so while the Israeli ambassadress to the United Nations tries to present herself and her masters as the Little Dutch Boy from the fairy tales who tries to stop the flood by sticking his little finger to the hole in the dam, indeed the only fill Israel can offer the world as a solution to unsolved issues is a dynamite stick.

Eli Aminov is a peace activist living and Jerusalem and a member of the committee for secular and democratic state.

http://www.onesdstate.blogspot.com/

Israeli policemen beat and arrest women at a demonstration held by the feminist movement New Profile in support of six activists from the group who were arrested from their homes by the police, 30 April 2009. (Shachaf Polakow/ActiveStills)

Who is next?

On the eve of Israel’s 61th Independence Day last week, the Israeli police arrested six Israeli Jewish feminist political activists, members of New Profile, the Movement for the Civil-isation of Israeli society, including a 70-year-old woman, for assisting young Israelis to evade conscription.

The police entered the activists’ home, confiscated their computers and the computers of their partners, detained them for questioning because of their support for young people who declare themselves conscientious objectors, a status not recognized by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Indeed, many draft dodgers have served jail sentences.

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Just a day after the revelations about what Israeli soldiers really did in Gaza came the story about the Jaffa T shirt factory, where 500 T shirts per month with dead babies, mothers weeping on their children’s graves, a gun aimed at a child and a bombed-out mosque accompanies with slogans such as ‘better use Durex’ (next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby with his weeping mpther and a teddy bear beside him), ‘1 shot, 2 kills’, (beside a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull’s eye superimposed on her belly), and ‘no matter how it begins, we’ll put an end to it’ (Uri Blau, Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009 - Haaretz - Israel News). Haaretz reports plenty of shirts with blatant sexual messages, such as a drawing of a soldier next to a young woman with bruises, and the slogan, ‘Bet you got raped!’

A few of the images describe actions whose existence the army officially denies - such as ‘confirming the kill’ (shooting a bullet into an enemy victim’s head from close range, to ensure he is dead), or harming religious sites, or female or child non-combatants.

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