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23 feb 2015
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Judge Richard Goldstone recently tried to refute comparisons between Israel and Apartheid South Africa. But a man who has established a reputation for having views so malleable that they change from one day to another is perhaps not the most reliable authority on the matter.
That, however, is not something one can say about the great Bishop Desmond Tutu, a man who has a far more consistent recording of challenging oppression and injustice. Let us hear then what the great man has to say about Apartheid in Israel.
Panellists at the tribunal also include Alice Walker, Ronnie Kasrils, Mairead MacGuire, Pierre Galand and the former French resistance fighter and Holocaust survivor Stéphane Hessel. Respect is due to our fried Frank Barat for another important initiative successfully realized. Cape Town PDF full-findings
That, however, is not something one can say about the great Bishop Desmond Tutu, a man who has a far more consistent recording of challenging oppression and injustice. Let us hear then what the great man has to say about Apartheid in Israel.
Panellists at the tribunal also include Alice Walker, Ronnie Kasrils, Mairead MacGuire, Pierre Galand and the former French resistance fighter and Holocaust survivor Stéphane Hessel. Respect is due to our fried Frank Barat for another important initiative successfully realized. Cape Town PDF full-findings
Tutu: Palestine must not be made of Bantustans
Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Saturday called for a Palestinian state that is contiguous and not made of Bantustans, at an international gathering in Cape Town.
South Africa's peace icon delivered the opening address at the 'Russell Tribunal on Palestine' - a gathering of activists seeking a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on international law.
Addressing delegates, Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for speaking out against white minority rule in South Africa, called for the creation of a Palestinian state.
But, he said, it should not resemble the territories designated for black Africans during South Africa's apartheid years.
"I, and I am certain all of us here have always said, they grant to Israel, they want to see Israel recognized and existing as an independent sovereign state with boundaries that are recognized and guaranteed by the international community.
"But equally, equally, we say, that is what we wish for Palestine, that it will be an independent viable state, contiguous, not something that is even less viable than the Bantustans that we had," he told the audience.
The Russell Tribunal, which has already held sessions in London and Barcelona, describes itself as a public awareness group that aims to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinian people.
Organizers say delegates at the third session in Cape Town will discuss whether Israel's policies towards the Palestinian people are in breach of the prohibition on apartheid under international law.
Speaking on behalf of a Palestinian NGO, Ingrid Jaradat Gassner said the Palestinian people all wanted self-determination, regardless of whether they lived in the West Bank and Gaza or whether they lived in Israel.
"Palestinians define themselves as one people, no matter where they currently live, including the refugees, those in the 67 occupied Palestinian territory and the citizens of Israel.
"They are one people who have the right to return and self-determination and who are represented. They have one legitimate representative, the PLO and they have been recognized as such by the United Nations," she told the gathering.
Major powers and the United Nations insist the only durable solution to the Middle East conflict is a negotiated settlement leading to creation of a Palestinian state. Both Israel and the PLO say they are committed to that elusive goal.
The Russell Tribunal is made up of activists, legal experts and Nobel Peace Laureates, but has no legal status.
It was initially set up by Lord Bertrand Russell in the 1960s to investigate war crimes committed during the Vietnam War.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Saturday called for a Palestinian state that is contiguous and not made of Bantustans, at an international gathering in Cape Town.
South Africa's peace icon delivered the opening address at the 'Russell Tribunal on Palestine' - a gathering of activists seeking a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on international law.
Addressing delegates, Tutu, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for speaking out against white minority rule in South Africa, called for the creation of a Palestinian state.
But, he said, it should not resemble the territories designated for black Africans during South Africa's apartheid years.
"I, and I am certain all of us here have always said, they grant to Israel, they want to see Israel recognized and existing as an independent sovereign state with boundaries that are recognized and guaranteed by the international community.
"But equally, equally, we say, that is what we wish for Palestine, that it will be an independent viable state, contiguous, not something that is even less viable than the Bantustans that we had," he told the audience.
The Russell Tribunal, which has already held sessions in London and Barcelona, describes itself as a public awareness group that aims to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinian people.
Organizers say delegates at the third session in Cape Town will discuss whether Israel's policies towards the Palestinian people are in breach of the prohibition on apartheid under international law.
Speaking on behalf of a Palestinian NGO, Ingrid Jaradat Gassner said the Palestinian people all wanted self-determination, regardless of whether they lived in the West Bank and Gaza or whether they lived in Israel.
"Palestinians define themselves as one people, no matter where they currently live, including the refugees, those in the 67 occupied Palestinian territory and the citizens of Israel.
"They are one people who have the right to return and self-determination and who are represented. They have one legitimate representative, the PLO and they have been recognized as such by the United Nations," she told the gathering.
Major powers and the United Nations insist the only durable solution to the Middle East conflict is a negotiated settlement leading to creation of a Palestinian state. Both Israel and the PLO say they are committed to that elusive goal.
The Russell Tribunal is made up of activists, legal experts and Nobel Peace Laureates, but has no legal status.
It was initially set up by Lord Bertrand Russell in the 1960s to investigate war crimes committed during the Vietnam War.
3 nov 2011
Goldstone's 'apartheid' denial sparks strife
The author of the Gaza War report erroneously argues that Israel does not practice apartheid.
After his famous article earlier this year on Gaza, Judge Richard Goldstone has written a new op-ed, this time seeking to defend Israel against charges of apartheid.
There are numerous problems with Goldstone's piece, but I want to highlight two important errors. First, Goldstone - like others who attack the applicability of the term "apartheid" - wants to focus on differences between the old regime in South Africa and what is happening in Israel/Palestine. Note that he does this even while observing that apartheid "can have broader meaning", and acknowledging its inclusion in the 1998 Rome Statute.
As South African legal scholar John Dugard wrote in his foreword to my book Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide, no one is saying the two situations "are exactly the same". Rather, there are "certain similarities" as well as "differences": "It is Israel's own version of a system that has been universally condemned".
Goldstone would appear not to have read studies by the likes of South Africa's Human Sciences Research Council and others, who conclude that Israel is practicing a form of apartheid. The term has been used by the likes of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, President Jimmy Carter, and Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem.
Goldstone's second major error is to omit core Israeli policies, particularly relating to the mass expulsions of 1948 and the subsequent land regime built on expropriation and ethno-religious discrimination. By law, Palestinian refugees are forbidden from returning, their property confiscated - the act of dispossession that enabled a Jewish majority to be created in the first place.
As an advisor on Arab affairs to PM Menachem Begin put it: "If we needed this land, we confiscated it from the Arabs. We had to create a Jewish state in this country, and we did". Within the "Green Line", the average Arab community had lost between 65 and 75 per cent of its land by the mid-1970s. Across Israel, hundreds of Jewish communities permit or deny entry according to "social suitability". Goldstone's claim that there is merely "de facto separation" rings hollow.
Successive Israeli governments have pursued policies of "Judaisation" in areas of the country where it is deemed there are "too many" non-Jews, i.e. Palestinian citizens. The current Housing Minister has called it a "national duty" to "prevent the spread" of Palestinians. In the Negev, there is a plan to forcibly relocate some 30,000 Bedouin citizens, a population group President Shimon Peres described as a "demographic threat". A racialised discourse about birth rates is commonplace: In 1998, the mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert, told reporters that "it's a matter of concern when the non-Jewish population rises a lot faster than the Jewish population".
The other side of the story
Startlingly, Goldstone does not mention even once Israel's illegal settlements in the West Bank, a network of colonies at the heart of apartheid policies vis-à-vis land usage, freedom of movement, transport links, military courts, water usage, and the Wall (not an exhaustive list). This military occupation has been going on for 44 years, 70 per cent of Israel's total history.
A reality routinely condemned by the UN and major human rights organisations as against international law and discriminatory by design is, for Goldstone, all about "self-defence". Human Rights Watch has described Israel's "two-tier system" where Palestinians face "systematic discrimination merely because of their race, ethnicity and national origin" - discrimination that Amnesty International says "is the dominant feature of Israel's settlement policy".
As Israeli professor Oren Yiftachel has put it, "a credible analysis of the Israeli regime … cannot conclude that Israel is a democracy". Goldstone's op-ed was not about "credible analysis", but hackneyed hasbara talking points.
Instructively, Goldstone began his piece by expressing his concern that "hope for any two-state solution [is] under increasing pressure". Indeed, a one-state solution is increasingly discussed - and this worries the defenders of Jewish privilege in Palestine/Israel, for whom the implementation of international norms and human rights constitutes a "threat".
Coincidentally, the idea that "equality means national suicide" has an historical echo: Those were the words of South Africa's prime minister in 1953, speaking some 40 years before internal and external resistance silenced the apologists for apartheid. This same process of struggle and hope is the best chance for "peace and harmony" in Palestine/Israel, not denial and delusion.
Ben White is a freelance journalist and writer, specialising in Palestine and Israel. His first book, Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide, was published by Pluto Press in 2009, receiving praise from the likes of Desmond Tutu, Nur Masalha and Ghada Karmi.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Finkelstein on Goldstone
After Richard Goldstone published his staggering op-ed in the Washington Post last April, taking back assertions he made in the U.N. Human Rights Council report on the Gaza conflict, Norman Finkelstein came out with a pamphlet titled “Goldstone Recants,” anatomizing the judge’s decision.
So earlier this week when Goldstone published an op-ed in the New York Times saying it is a “slander” to characterize Israeli rule in the West Bank as “apartheid,” I asked Norman Finkelstein what he thought of Goldstone’s piece.
Finkelstein first sent me an email he had sent to Goldstone at 1 in the morning after reading the op-ed. Then I phoned him and Finkelstein elaborated on his view. First the email, then the phone conversation. The email:
You might recall Irving Kaufman as the judge who pronounced the death penalty on the Rosenbergs. Throughout his subsequent professional career Kaufman did everything he could to rehabilitate his reputation, and to be remembered as a decent liberal. But still he predicted that when he died, the first sentence of his obituary would read, “Irving Kaufman, who sentenced Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death, died yesterday of….” And sure enough, that’s exactly how every obit began, and ended.
You can never rehabilitate your name. You will forever be remembered as the judge who retracted the report bearing your name. Like Kaufman’s sentence on the Rosenbergs, your recantation was not exactly a glorious moment. The dignified thing now would be for you to quietly retire. Your persistence in trying to reestablish your name will only turn you into an object of contempt and ridicule. A friend of mine who attended your lecture in Cleveland expressed her revulsion at how you sought to curry favor with the American establishment.
Now you are writing embarrassingly silly things about Israel. Do you really believe that Israel needed to steal 10 percent of Palestinian land in order to prevent terror attacks on it? Hasn’t the good judge ever heard of constructing a wall on your own border?
You should really stop. You are inviting disgust, even from those, like myself, who struggle to see something redeeming or extenuating in your person.
I followed up with Finkelstein by phone. Our conversation:
“I was enraged at the first op-ed,” Finkelstein said. “This one was just embarrassingly silly. What other kind of authority does a judge have than moral authority? If you profess to be a judge, and you bow to any opportunistic occasion, then you’ve lost your authority as a judge.
“To use the political expression, he flipflopped [with Washington Post piece]. Now he has to do everything he can to demonstrate that he is not a flipflopper, and that his current position is really his consistent position.
“Many people in the McCarthy era did the same thing. ‘I didn’t really recant because of the pressure. I really believe the Soviet Union is terrible.’”
Finkelstein said that Goldstone has now completely alienated the human rights community, and “the Washington Israel axis of power” is what he has left.
What are Goldstone’s objectives?
“His personal objectives are to reestablish his moral authority. Because he’s now treated with contempt. “[So the purpose of this oped is to say,] What he did was heartfelt, it wasn’t just caving in to pressure. It was not just an ephemeral act, but part of a real deep commitment. There was conviction behind it. He has to show a pattern.”
How much contempt is there for Goldstone?
There is, Finkelstein said, “a vast network of human rights organizations and NGOs. He was at the peak of it. And now he is completely persona non grata. Because by repudiating the Goldstone Report he repudiated what all those organizations have reported. Desmond Travers said there were 300 human rights reports on Gaza. So he broke with a vast community, and they are not going to forgive him.”
As for the other side, Goldstone’s reconsideration of the Goldstone Report was an important victory, Finkelstein said. And to that victory add the repudiation of the UN Human Rights Council report on the Gaza flotilla by the subsequent Palmer commission report to the UN Secretary General. The Secretary General’s report on the flotilla “nullified” the HRC report that said the siege was illegal, he said. And now newspaper accounts typically state that the UN declared the Gaza blockade to be legal.
Goldstone's 'apartheid' denial sparks strife
The author of the Gaza War report erroneously argues that Israel does not practice apartheid.
After his famous article earlier this year on Gaza, Judge Richard Goldstone has written a new op-ed, this time seeking to defend Israel against charges of apartheid.
There are numerous problems with Goldstone's piece, but I want to highlight two important errors. First, Goldstone - like others who attack the applicability of the term "apartheid" - wants to focus on differences between the old regime in South Africa and what is happening in Israel/Palestine. Note that he does this even while observing that apartheid "can have broader meaning", and acknowledging its inclusion in the 1998 Rome Statute.
As South African legal scholar John Dugard wrote in his foreword to my book Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide, no one is saying the two situations "are exactly the same". Rather, there are "certain similarities" as well as "differences": "It is Israel's own version of a system that has been universally condemned".
Goldstone would appear not to have read studies by the likes of South Africa's Human Sciences Research Council and others, who conclude that Israel is practicing a form of apartheid. The term has been used by the likes of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, President Jimmy Carter, and Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem.
Goldstone's second major error is to omit core Israeli policies, particularly relating to the mass expulsions of 1948 and the subsequent land regime built on expropriation and ethno-religious discrimination. By law, Palestinian refugees are forbidden from returning, their property confiscated - the act of dispossession that enabled a Jewish majority to be created in the first place.
As an advisor on Arab affairs to PM Menachem Begin put it: "If we needed this land, we confiscated it from the Arabs. We had to create a Jewish state in this country, and we did". Within the "Green Line", the average Arab community had lost between 65 and 75 per cent of its land by the mid-1970s. Across Israel, hundreds of Jewish communities permit or deny entry according to "social suitability". Goldstone's claim that there is merely "de facto separation" rings hollow.
Successive Israeli governments have pursued policies of "Judaisation" in areas of the country where it is deemed there are "too many" non-Jews, i.e. Palestinian citizens. The current Housing Minister has called it a "national duty" to "prevent the spread" of Palestinians. In the Negev, there is a plan to forcibly relocate some 30,000 Bedouin citizens, a population group President Shimon Peres described as a "demographic threat". A racialised discourse about birth rates is commonplace: In 1998, the mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert, told reporters that "it's a matter of concern when the non-Jewish population rises a lot faster than the Jewish population".
The other side of the story
Startlingly, Goldstone does not mention even once Israel's illegal settlements in the West Bank, a network of colonies at the heart of apartheid policies vis-à-vis land usage, freedom of movement, transport links, military courts, water usage, and the Wall (not an exhaustive list). This military occupation has been going on for 44 years, 70 per cent of Israel's total history.
A reality routinely condemned by the UN and major human rights organisations as against international law and discriminatory by design is, for Goldstone, all about "self-defence". Human Rights Watch has described Israel's "two-tier system" where Palestinians face "systematic discrimination merely because of their race, ethnicity and national origin" - discrimination that Amnesty International says "is the dominant feature of Israel's settlement policy".
As Israeli professor Oren Yiftachel has put it, "a credible analysis of the Israeli regime … cannot conclude that Israel is a democracy". Goldstone's op-ed was not about "credible analysis", but hackneyed hasbara talking points.
Instructively, Goldstone began his piece by expressing his concern that "hope for any two-state solution [is] under increasing pressure". Indeed, a one-state solution is increasingly discussed - and this worries the defenders of Jewish privilege in Palestine/Israel, for whom the implementation of international norms and human rights constitutes a "threat".
Coincidentally, the idea that "equality means national suicide" has an historical echo: Those were the words of South Africa's prime minister in 1953, speaking some 40 years before internal and external resistance silenced the apologists for apartheid. This same process of struggle and hope is the best chance for "peace and harmony" in Palestine/Israel, not denial and delusion.
Ben White is a freelance journalist and writer, specialising in Palestine and Israel. His first book, Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide, was published by Pluto Press in 2009, receiving praise from the likes of Desmond Tutu, Nur Masalha and Ghada Karmi.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
Finkelstein on Goldstone
After Richard Goldstone published his staggering op-ed in the Washington Post last April, taking back assertions he made in the U.N. Human Rights Council report on the Gaza conflict, Norman Finkelstein came out with a pamphlet titled “Goldstone Recants,” anatomizing the judge’s decision.
So earlier this week when Goldstone published an op-ed in the New York Times saying it is a “slander” to characterize Israeli rule in the West Bank as “apartheid,” I asked Norman Finkelstein what he thought of Goldstone’s piece.
Finkelstein first sent me an email he had sent to Goldstone at 1 in the morning after reading the op-ed. Then I phoned him and Finkelstein elaborated on his view. First the email, then the phone conversation. The email:
You might recall Irving Kaufman as the judge who pronounced the death penalty on the Rosenbergs. Throughout his subsequent professional career Kaufman did everything he could to rehabilitate his reputation, and to be remembered as a decent liberal. But still he predicted that when he died, the first sentence of his obituary would read, “Irving Kaufman, who sentenced Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death, died yesterday of….” And sure enough, that’s exactly how every obit began, and ended.
You can never rehabilitate your name. You will forever be remembered as the judge who retracted the report bearing your name. Like Kaufman’s sentence on the Rosenbergs, your recantation was not exactly a glorious moment. The dignified thing now would be for you to quietly retire. Your persistence in trying to reestablish your name will only turn you into an object of contempt and ridicule. A friend of mine who attended your lecture in Cleveland expressed her revulsion at how you sought to curry favor with the American establishment.
Now you are writing embarrassingly silly things about Israel. Do you really believe that Israel needed to steal 10 percent of Palestinian land in order to prevent terror attacks on it? Hasn’t the good judge ever heard of constructing a wall on your own border?
You should really stop. You are inviting disgust, even from those, like myself, who struggle to see something redeeming or extenuating in your person.
I followed up with Finkelstein by phone. Our conversation:
“I was enraged at the first op-ed,” Finkelstein said. “This one was just embarrassingly silly. What other kind of authority does a judge have than moral authority? If you profess to be a judge, and you bow to any opportunistic occasion, then you’ve lost your authority as a judge.
“To use the political expression, he flipflopped [with Washington Post piece]. Now he has to do everything he can to demonstrate that he is not a flipflopper, and that his current position is really his consistent position.
“Many people in the McCarthy era did the same thing. ‘I didn’t really recant because of the pressure. I really believe the Soviet Union is terrible.’”
Finkelstein said that Goldstone has now completely alienated the human rights community, and “the Washington Israel axis of power” is what he has left.
What are Goldstone’s objectives?
“His personal objectives are to reestablish his moral authority. Because he’s now treated with contempt. “[So the purpose of this oped is to say,] What he did was heartfelt, it wasn’t just caving in to pressure. It was not just an ephemeral act, but part of a real deep commitment. There was conviction behind it. He has to show a pattern.”
How much contempt is there for Goldstone?
There is, Finkelstein said, “a vast network of human rights organizations and NGOs. He was at the peak of it. And now he is completely persona non grata. Because by repudiating the Goldstone Report he repudiated what all those organizations have reported. Desmond Travers said there were 300 human rights reports on Gaza. So he broke with a vast community, and they are not going to forgive him.”
As for the other side, Goldstone’s reconsideration of the Goldstone Report was an important victory, Finkelstein said. And to that victory add the repudiation of the UN Human Rights Council report on the Gaza flotilla by the subsequent Palmer commission report to the UN Secretary General. The Secretary General’s report on the flotilla “nullified” the HRC report that said the siege was illegal, he said. And now newspaper accounts typically state that the UN declared the Gaza blockade to be legal.
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“They are fighting back hard now. And with an element of unprecedented ruthlessness. There is no precedent for a recantation of a report by the head of a UN appointed committee.
“The overall trajectory is that they [the pro-Israel side] are losing. But these sorts of things demonstrate a real ruthlessness, and a certain amount of success. It is troubling that they have managed now to negate within the space of a short period of time, to negate two major reports.” What about your email to the judge? “I’m approaching 60. He’s 73. The difference between us is not so great. I was saying, you should really stop. You’re making a fool of yourself. You’re not fooling anyone. |
“Elia Kazan after he sang for McCarthy won many award and made many famous movies, but till the end of his life he was haunted by what he did in the McCarthy era, to the point that many years later when he was given a lifetime achievement award by the Academy, a huge controversy erupted, and many walked out.
“Goldstone is just like Judge [Irving] Kaufman and Elia Kazan. He will never escape what he did. He can run but he can’t hide.”
Finkelstein said that after he testified, Elia Kazan made "On the Waterfront" --as Victor Navasky demonstrated, in an attempt to justify his own actions visavis the corrupt Communist party. The hero of the movie was the one who attacked the corrupt union.
“Goldstone’s op ed is his 'On the Waterfront'… his way of saying, I sincerely believe this. But everybody knows you caved in."
You're not angry at him?
“Human beings are frail vessels, fragile vessels. I strain to see something redeeming and extenuating in you, I wrote to him."
And Finkelstein said that this op ed did no harm to the cause. Because he is useless to both sides at this point. The pro-Israel side can’t use him either, because he has no authority left. Can Dershowitz cite Goldstone as an authority? No.
What about the idea that Goldstone always respected the powers that be?
“From apartheid south Africa to post apartheid south Africa, he preserved his respectability and moral authority. He thought he could do it again and land on his feet. No. Richard, you won’t land on your feet this time.”
So he never had a spine?
“I say with a certain amount of reluctance, that what Dershowitz had to say was correct, Goldstone knew which way the winds were blowing, he wanted to come off as a savior of Israel, and win the Nobel prize. He saw that the conflict is in the endgame.”
When Finkelstein read the Goldstone Report, he went on, “I was hoping for a real conversion. He spoke with great warmth of the people of Gaza. I wanted to believe it. But you know what-- it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks.”
http://fwd4.me/0g9A
“Goldstone is just like Judge [Irving] Kaufman and Elia Kazan. He will never escape what he did. He can run but he can’t hide.”
Finkelstein said that after he testified, Elia Kazan made "On the Waterfront" --as Victor Navasky demonstrated, in an attempt to justify his own actions visavis the corrupt Communist party. The hero of the movie was the one who attacked the corrupt union.
“Goldstone’s op ed is his 'On the Waterfront'… his way of saying, I sincerely believe this. But everybody knows you caved in."
You're not angry at him?
“Human beings are frail vessels, fragile vessels. I strain to see something redeeming and extenuating in you, I wrote to him."
And Finkelstein said that this op ed did no harm to the cause. Because he is useless to both sides at this point. The pro-Israel side can’t use him either, because he has no authority left. Can Dershowitz cite Goldstone as an authority? No.
What about the idea that Goldstone always respected the powers that be?
“From apartheid south Africa to post apartheid south Africa, he preserved his respectability and moral authority. He thought he could do it again and land on his feet. No. Richard, you won’t land on your feet this time.”
So he never had a spine?
“I say with a certain amount of reluctance, that what Dershowitz had to say was correct, Goldstone knew which way the winds were blowing, he wanted to come off as a savior of Israel, and win the Nobel prize. He saw that the conflict is in the endgame.”
When Finkelstein read the Goldstone Report, he went on, “I was hoping for a real conversion. He spoke with great warmth of the people of Gaza. I wanted to believe it. But you know what-- it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks.”
http://fwd4.me/0g9A
1 nov 2011
Answering Judge Goldstone’s defense and denial of Israeli apartheid
What does it mean that Judge Richard Goldstone – he of the Goldstone report – has penned a desperate and propagandistic defense of Israel against what he calls the “apartheid slander” in The New York Times?
It’s a classic case of the judge doth protest too much:
One particularly pernicious and enduring canard that is surfacing again is that Israel pursues “apartheid” policies. In Cape Town starting on Saturday, a London-based nongovernmental organization called the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will hold a “hearing” on whether Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid. It is not a “tribunal.” The “evidence” is going to be one-sided and the members of the “jury” are critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known.
It is remarkable that Goldstone felt a need to launch a frontal attack on the Russell Tribunal in The New York Times. A more confident Israel (and its ardent supporters) would simply ignore it. It is a sign of weakness and panic – and therefore a good sign – that Israel is becoming hypersensitive to any and all criticism, just like apartheid South Africa in the decade before it was replaced by a democracy of all its citizens (Read Frank Barat’s op-ed on The Russell Tribunal here on The Electronic Intifada).
Goldstone attempts to argue – disingenuously – that there is no comparison to be made between Israel and apartheid South Africa:
In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute: “Inhumane acts … committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.”
That is precisely what exists. Israel itself declares that it is a “Jewish state” and demands that Palestinians and the world recognize it as such. Stemming from this self-definition, which is based on a genetic, not voluntary, definition of who is a Jew, Israel claims the right to carry out all sorts of inhumane acts especially excluding indigenous Palestinians exiled from their land from returning solely because they are not Jews. Israel explicitly wants to maintain a Jewish majority in order to dominate and exclude Palestinians from having any effective political voice.
The monstrosity of Israel’s siege and war on Gaza exists precisely and only for this purpose. Did Goldstone ask himself how things would be different if the 1.6 million people – 80 percent of them refugees – corralled into Gaza were Jews? Of course Israel would welcome them back to their lands and villages with open arms, restore their property, give them full political rights and a whole range of financial incentives.
Instead, just because they are not Jews, Israel has deprived them of their land, property, political rights, the right to travel and subjects them to a siege in which the amount of calories they are allowed is governed by “mathematical formulas.”[PDF] And of course Israel bombs them if they resist in any manner.
If Palestinians in Gaza were excluded and besieged just for being black instead of just for being Palestinian (and not Jewish) would Goldstone dare to pretend that this was not the most pernicious form of ethno-racial discrimination and inhumane action? What’s even worse is that Goldstone blames the victims:
To be sure, there is more de facto separation between Jewish and Arab populations than Israelis should accept. Much of it is chosen by the communities themselves.
Is he unaware that Palestinians did not choose to be forced from their land during the Nakba and since any more than blacks chose to be forcibly displaced into apartheid South Africa’s bantustans? Is he aware that when Israel has refused to build a single new town for Palestinian citizens of Israel while building a thousand new towns for Jews since 1948, it is solely the Israeli apartheid state that has made that choice?
What about Israel’s current plans to expel another 60,000 Palestinian bedouins from their land. Whose “choice” is that?
When Israel forces its curriculum on Palestinian schoolchildren in eastern occupied Jerusalem, does he see no parallel with the South African apartheid regime’s effort – which led to the Soweto uprising of 1976 – to force black schoolchildren to learn Afrikaans?
It almost seems like Goldstone is mocking Palestinians when he writes the following:
I know all too well the cruelty of South Africa’s abhorrent apartheid system, under which human beings characterized as black had no rights to vote, hold political office, use “white” toilets or beaches, marry whites, live in whites-only areas or even be there without a “pass.” Blacks critically injured in car accidents were left to bleed to death if there was no “black” ambulance to rush them to a “black” hospital. “White” hospitals were prohibited from saving their lives.
Has Goldstone not noticed that for most of Israel’s existence it has ruled through force and tyranny over millions of Palestinians who’ve had no right to vote? Formal apartheid lasted 46 years in South Africa, from 1948 to 1994. Israel’s “temporary” occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip has now lasted 44 years (and its occupation of the rest of Palestine 63 years).
Is he unaware that Israeli Jewish women and Palestinian women risk jail just for going to the beach together or for how many years Gazans could not use their own beaches because they were reserved for settlers? Does he truly have no idea how many Palestinian women have died in childbirth because Palestinian ambulances and never Jewish ambulances are held up at checkpoints?
If Goldstone wants to learn more about Israel’s apartheid he can read the detailed study by South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council published in 2009, which found that Israel indeed practices apartheid and colonialism.
When Goldstone was under constant assault by Israel and its attack dogs for his role in writing the UN report documenting Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, those close to him always publicly insisted that the judge was an ardent Zionist. Goldstone has proven that beyond any doubt with his earlier attempt to back away from his report, and now this sad piece in The New York Times.
But if anything, Goldstone’s shameless pandering to Israel only adds credibility to his earlier work: if someone so anxious to defend Israel in spite of the facts could not even cover up its atrocious crimes in Gaza, then indeed there is a case for Israel’s war criminal leaders to answer and pursuing them must not stop until they are brought to justice.
Goldstone challenges Israel 'apartheid' comparison
Judge Richard Goldstone, author of a United Nations report alleging war crimes in Israel's 2008 war on Gaza, has once again published an opinion piece rejecting charges that Israel is breaking international law.
In April, the jurist seemed to recant parts of the UN report in an opinion piece in the Washington Post.
On Monday, his focus in a New York Times op-ed was on a conference being held in South Africa and charges that Israel is practicing "apartheid" against Palestinians, a crime in international law. The legal expert called the claim a "canard", citing his own experience of South Africa's now-abolished system of racial discrimination. He said the Russel Tribunal on Palestine, which meets on Saturday this week, lacks credibility.
In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute: “Inhumane acts ... committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.” Israeli Arabs — 20 percent of Israel’s population — vote, have political parties and representatives in the Knesset and occupy positions of acclaim, including on its Supreme Court. Arab patients lie alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical treatment.
To be sure, there is more de facto separation between Jewish and Arab populations than Israelis should accept. Much of it is chosen by the communities themselves. Some results from discrimination. But it is not apartheid, which consciously enshrines separation as an ideal. In Israel, equal rights are the law, the aspiration and the ideal; inequities are often successfully challenged in court.
The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.” This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there. South Africa’s enforced racial separation was intended to permanently benefit the white minority, to the detriment of other races. By contrast, Israel has agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, and is calling for the Palestinians to negotiate the parameters.
But until there is a two-state peace, or at least as long as Israel’s citizens remain under threat of attacks from the West Bank and Gaza, Israel will see roadblocks and similar measures as necessary for self-defense, even as Palestinians feel oppressed. As things stand, attacks from one side are met by counterattacks from the other. And the deep disputes, claims and counterclaims are only hardened when the offensive analogy of “apartheid” is invoked.
Israel and the Apartheid Slander
By RICHARD J. GOLDSTONE
THE Palestinian Authority’s request for full United Nations membership has put hope for any two-state solution under increasing pressure. The need for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians has never been greater. So it is important to separate legitimate criticism of Israel from assaults that aim to isolate, demonize and delegitimize it.
One particularly pernicious and enduring canard that is surfacing again is that Israel pursues “apartheid” policies. In Cape Town starting on Saturday, a London-based nongovernmental organization called the Russell Tribunal on Palestine on Palestine will hold a “hearing” on whether Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid. It is not a “tribunal.” The “evidence” is going to be one-sided and the members of the “jury” are critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known.
While “apartheid” can have broader meaning, its use is meant to evoke the situation in pre-1994 South Africa. It is an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel, calculated to retard rather than advance peace negotiations.
I know all too well the cruelty of South Africa’s abhorrent apartheid system, under which human beings characterized as black had no rights to vote, hold political office, use “white” toilets or beaches, marry whites, live in whites-only areas or even be there without a “pass.” Blacks critically injured in car accidents were left to bleed to death if there was no “black” ambulance to rush them to a “black” hospital. “White” hospitals were prohibited from saving their lives.
In assessing the accusation that Israel pursues apartheid policies, which are by definition primarily about race or ethnicity, it is important first to distinguish between the situations in Israel, where Arabs are citizens, and in West Bank areas that remain under Israeli control in the absence of a peace agreement.
In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute: “Inhumane acts ... committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.” Israeli Arabs — 20 percent of Israel’s population — vote, have political parties and representatives in the Knesset and occupy positions of acclaim, including on its Supreme Court. Arab patients lie alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical treatment.
To be sure, there is more de facto separation between Jewish and Arab populations than Israelis should accept. Much of it is chosen by the communities themselves. Some results from discrimination. But it is not apartheid, which consciously enshrines separation as an ideal. In Israel, equal rights are the law, the aspiration and the ideal; inequities are often successfully challenged in court.
The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.” This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there. South Africa’s enforced racial separation was intended to permanently benefit the white minority, to the detriment of other races. By contrast, Israel has agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, and is calling for the Palestinians to negotiate the parameters.
But until there is a two-state peace, or at least as long as Israel’s citizens remain under threat of attacks from the West Bank and Gaza, Israel will see roadblocks and similar measures as necessary for self-defense, even as Palestinians feel oppressed. As things stand, attacks from one side are met by counterattacks from the other. And the deep disputes, claims and counterclaims are only hardened when the offensive analogy of “apartheid” is invoked.
Those seeking to promote the myth of Israeli apartheid often point to clashes between heavily armed Israeli soldiers and stone-throwing Palestinians in the West Bank, or the building of what they call an “apartheid wall” and disparate treatment on West Bank roads. While such images may appear to invite a superficial comparison, it is disingenuous to use them to distort the reality. The security barrier was built to stop unrelenting terrorist attacks; while it has inflicted great hardship in places, the Israeli Supreme Court has ordered the state in many cases to reroute it to minimize unreasonable hardship. Road restrictions get more intrusive after violent attacks and are ameliorated when the threat is reduced.
Of course, the Palestinian people have national aspirations and human rights that all must respect. But those who conflate the situations in Israel and the West Bank and liken both to the old South Africa do a disservice to all who hope for justice and peace.
Jewish-Arab relations in Israel and the West Bank cannot be simplified to a narrative of Jewish discrimination. There is hostility and suspicion on both sides. Israel, unique among democracies, has been in a state of war with many of its neighbors who refuse to accept its existence. Even some Israeli Arabs, because they are citizens of Israel, have at times come under suspicion from other Arabs as a result of that longstanding enmity.
The mutual recognition and protection of the human dignity of all people is indispensable to bringing an end to hatred and anger. The charge that Israel is an apartheid state is a false and malicious one that precludes, rather than promotes, peace and harmony.
Reporters Without Borders Condemns Israel's Decision to Sentence Israeli Journalist for 4.5 Years
Reporters Without Borders condemned Monday the four-and-a-half-year jail sentence that a Tel Aviv court passed yesterday on online journalist Anat Kam for copying classified military documents, according to a Communiqué by Reporters Without Borders.
Kam was sentenced for copying classified military documents, while she was doing obligatory service with the Israel Defence Forces and for passing them to a journalist with the Tel Aviv-based daily Haaretz.
The court also imposed a suspended sentence of an additional 18 months in prison. Kam has 45 days to appeal.
“This severe sentence violates the right to the confidentiality of sources and sets a dangerous precedent that could encourage reporters to censor themselves,” Reporters Without Borders said.
It added, “Without taking position on the content of these documents and their classification, we point out that the media must be able to report law-breaking and must be free to tackle sensitive subjects, such as the IDF, without risk of being prosecuted.”
While doing military service from 2005 to 2007, Kam was a clerk in the office of the central military region chief Gen. Yair Naveh. She used her position to copy 2,085 documents and pass them to Haaretz reporter Uri Blau, who in turn used them for a series of articles critical of the IDF.
One of her stories reported that the IDF defied a Supreme Court ruling by ordering soldiers to kill members of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad who could have been arrested. The story was approved at the time by the military censors. For the time being, Blau has immunity from prosecution.
After completing her military service, Kam worked for the Walla news website. She has been under house arrest in Tel Aviv since 2009. The two years under house arrest will not be deducted from her jail sentence.
Answering Judge Goldstone’s defense and denial of Israeli apartheid
What does it mean that Judge Richard Goldstone – he of the Goldstone report – has penned a desperate and propagandistic defense of Israel against what he calls the “apartheid slander” in The New York Times?
It’s a classic case of the judge doth protest too much:
One particularly pernicious and enduring canard that is surfacing again is that Israel pursues “apartheid” policies. In Cape Town starting on Saturday, a London-based nongovernmental organization called the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will hold a “hearing” on whether Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid. It is not a “tribunal.” The “evidence” is going to be one-sided and the members of the “jury” are critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known.
It is remarkable that Goldstone felt a need to launch a frontal attack on the Russell Tribunal in The New York Times. A more confident Israel (and its ardent supporters) would simply ignore it. It is a sign of weakness and panic – and therefore a good sign – that Israel is becoming hypersensitive to any and all criticism, just like apartheid South Africa in the decade before it was replaced by a democracy of all its citizens (Read Frank Barat’s op-ed on The Russell Tribunal here on The Electronic Intifada).
Goldstone attempts to argue – disingenuously – that there is no comparison to be made between Israel and apartheid South Africa:
In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute: “Inhumane acts … committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.”
That is precisely what exists. Israel itself declares that it is a “Jewish state” and demands that Palestinians and the world recognize it as such. Stemming from this self-definition, which is based on a genetic, not voluntary, definition of who is a Jew, Israel claims the right to carry out all sorts of inhumane acts especially excluding indigenous Palestinians exiled from their land from returning solely because they are not Jews. Israel explicitly wants to maintain a Jewish majority in order to dominate and exclude Palestinians from having any effective political voice.
The monstrosity of Israel’s siege and war on Gaza exists precisely and only for this purpose. Did Goldstone ask himself how things would be different if the 1.6 million people – 80 percent of them refugees – corralled into Gaza were Jews? Of course Israel would welcome them back to their lands and villages with open arms, restore their property, give them full political rights and a whole range of financial incentives.
Instead, just because they are not Jews, Israel has deprived them of their land, property, political rights, the right to travel and subjects them to a siege in which the amount of calories they are allowed is governed by “mathematical formulas.”[PDF] And of course Israel bombs them if they resist in any manner.
If Palestinians in Gaza were excluded and besieged just for being black instead of just for being Palestinian (and not Jewish) would Goldstone dare to pretend that this was not the most pernicious form of ethno-racial discrimination and inhumane action? What’s even worse is that Goldstone blames the victims:
To be sure, there is more de facto separation between Jewish and Arab populations than Israelis should accept. Much of it is chosen by the communities themselves.
Is he unaware that Palestinians did not choose to be forced from their land during the Nakba and since any more than blacks chose to be forcibly displaced into apartheid South Africa’s bantustans? Is he aware that when Israel has refused to build a single new town for Palestinian citizens of Israel while building a thousand new towns for Jews since 1948, it is solely the Israeli apartheid state that has made that choice?
What about Israel’s current plans to expel another 60,000 Palestinian bedouins from their land. Whose “choice” is that?
When Israel forces its curriculum on Palestinian schoolchildren in eastern occupied Jerusalem, does he see no parallel with the South African apartheid regime’s effort – which led to the Soweto uprising of 1976 – to force black schoolchildren to learn Afrikaans?
It almost seems like Goldstone is mocking Palestinians when he writes the following:
I know all too well the cruelty of South Africa’s abhorrent apartheid system, under which human beings characterized as black had no rights to vote, hold political office, use “white” toilets or beaches, marry whites, live in whites-only areas or even be there without a “pass.” Blacks critically injured in car accidents were left to bleed to death if there was no “black” ambulance to rush them to a “black” hospital. “White” hospitals were prohibited from saving their lives.
Has Goldstone not noticed that for most of Israel’s existence it has ruled through force and tyranny over millions of Palestinians who’ve had no right to vote? Formal apartheid lasted 46 years in South Africa, from 1948 to 1994. Israel’s “temporary” occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip has now lasted 44 years (and its occupation of the rest of Palestine 63 years).
Is he unaware that Israeli Jewish women and Palestinian women risk jail just for going to the beach together or for how many years Gazans could not use their own beaches because they were reserved for settlers? Does he truly have no idea how many Palestinian women have died in childbirth because Palestinian ambulances and never Jewish ambulances are held up at checkpoints?
If Goldstone wants to learn more about Israel’s apartheid he can read the detailed study by South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council published in 2009, which found that Israel indeed practices apartheid and colonialism.
When Goldstone was under constant assault by Israel and its attack dogs for his role in writing the UN report documenting Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, those close to him always publicly insisted that the judge was an ardent Zionist. Goldstone has proven that beyond any doubt with his earlier attempt to back away from his report, and now this sad piece in The New York Times.
But if anything, Goldstone’s shameless pandering to Israel only adds credibility to his earlier work: if someone so anxious to defend Israel in spite of the facts could not even cover up its atrocious crimes in Gaza, then indeed there is a case for Israel’s war criminal leaders to answer and pursuing them must not stop until they are brought to justice.
Goldstone challenges Israel 'apartheid' comparison
Judge Richard Goldstone, author of a United Nations report alleging war crimes in Israel's 2008 war on Gaza, has once again published an opinion piece rejecting charges that Israel is breaking international law.
In April, the jurist seemed to recant parts of the UN report in an opinion piece in the Washington Post.
On Monday, his focus in a New York Times op-ed was on a conference being held in South Africa and charges that Israel is practicing "apartheid" against Palestinians, a crime in international law. The legal expert called the claim a "canard", citing his own experience of South Africa's now-abolished system of racial discrimination. He said the Russel Tribunal on Palestine, which meets on Saturday this week, lacks credibility.
In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute: “Inhumane acts ... committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.” Israeli Arabs — 20 percent of Israel’s population — vote, have political parties and representatives in the Knesset and occupy positions of acclaim, including on its Supreme Court. Arab patients lie alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical treatment.
To be sure, there is more de facto separation between Jewish and Arab populations than Israelis should accept. Much of it is chosen by the communities themselves. Some results from discrimination. But it is not apartheid, which consciously enshrines separation as an ideal. In Israel, equal rights are the law, the aspiration and the ideal; inequities are often successfully challenged in court.
The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.” This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there. South Africa’s enforced racial separation was intended to permanently benefit the white minority, to the detriment of other races. By contrast, Israel has agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, and is calling for the Palestinians to negotiate the parameters.
But until there is a two-state peace, or at least as long as Israel’s citizens remain under threat of attacks from the West Bank and Gaza, Israel will see roadblocks and similar measures as necessary for self-defense, even as Palestinians feel oppressed. As things stand, attacks from one side are met by counterattacks from the other. And the deep disputes, claims and counterclaims are only hardened when the offensive analogy of “apartheid” is invoked.
Israel and the Apartheid Slander
By RICHARD J. GOLDSTONE
THE Palestinian Authority’s request for full United Nations membership has put hope for any two-state solution under increasing pressure. The need for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians has never been greater. So it is important to separate legitimate criticism of Israel from assaults that aim to isolate, demonize and delegitimize it.
One particularly pernicious and enduring canard that is surfacing again is that Israel pursues “apartheid” policies. In Cape Town starting on Saturday, a London-based nongovernmental organization called the Russell Tribunal on Palestine on Palestine will hold a “hearing” on whether Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid. It is not a “tribunal.” The “evidence” is going to be one-sided and the members of the “jury” are critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known.
While “apartheid” can have broader meaning, its use is meant to evoke the situation in pre-1994 South Africa. It is an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel, calculated to retard rather than advance peace negotiations.
I know all too well the cruelty of South Africa’s abhorrent apartheid system, under which human beings characterized as black had no rights to vote, hold political office, use “white” toilets or beaches, marry whites, live in whites-only areas or even be there without a “pass.” Blacks critically injured in car accidents were left to bleed to death if there was no “black” ambulance to rush them to a “black” hospital. “White” hospitals were prohibited from saving their lives.
In assessing the accusation that Israel pursues apartheid policies, which are by definition primarily about race or ethnicity, it is important first to distinguish between the situations in Israel, where Arabs are citizens, and in West Bank areas that remain under Israeli control in the absence of a peace agreement.
In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute: “Inhumane acts ... committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.” Israeli Arabs — 20 percent of Israel’s population — vote, have political parties and representatives in the Knesset and occupy positions of acclaim, including on its Supreme Court. Arab patients lie alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical treatment.
To be sure, there is more de facto separation between Jewish and Arab populations than Israelis should accept. Much of it is chosen by the communities themselves. Some results from discrimination. But it is not apartheid, which consciously enshrines separation as an ideal. In Israel, equal rights are the law, the aspiration and the ideal; inequities are often successfully challenged in court.
The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.” This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there. South Africa’s enforced racial separation was intended to permanently benefit the white minority, to the detriment of other races. By contrast, Israel has agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, and is calling for the Palestinians to negotiate the parameters.
But until there is a two-state peace, or at least as long as Israel’s citizens remain under threat of attacks from the West Bank and Gaza, Israel will see roadblocks and similar measures as necessary for self-defense, even as Palestinians feel oppressed. As things stand, attacks from one side are met by counterattacks from the other. And the deep disputes, claims and counterclaims are only hardened when the offensive analogy of “apartheid” is invoked.
Those seeking to promote the myth of Israeli apartheid often point to clashes between heavily armed Israeli soldiers and stone-throwing Palestinians in the West Bank, or the building of what they call an “apartheid wall” and disparate treatment on West Bank roads. While such images may appear to invite a superficial comparison, it is disingenuous to use them to distort the reality. The security barrier was built to stop unrelenting terrorist attacks; while it has inflicted great hardship in places, the Israeli Supreme Court has ordered the state in many cases to reroute it to minimize unreasonable hardship. Road restrictions get more intrusive after violent attacks and are ameliorated when the threat is reduced.
Of course, the Palestinian people have national aspirations and human rights that all must respect. But those who conflate the situations in Israel and the West Bank and liken both to the old South Africa do a disservice to all who hope for justice and peace.
Jewish-Arab relations in Israel and the West Bank cannot be simplified to a narrative of Jewish discrimination. There is hostility and suspicion on both sides. Israel, unique among democracies, has been in a state of war with many of its neighbors who refuse to accept its existence. Even some Israeli Arabs, because they are citizens of Israel, have at times come under suspicion from other Arabs as a result of that longstanding enmity.
The mutual recognition and protection of the human dignity of all people is indispensable to bringing an end to hatred and anger. The charge that Israel is an apartheid state is a false and malicious one that precludes, rather than promotes, peace and harmony.
Reporters Without Borders Condemns Israel's Decision to Sentence Israeli Journalist for 4.5 Years
Reporters Without Borders condemned Monday the four-and-a-half-year jail sentence that a Tel Aviv court passed yesterday on online journalist Anat Kam for copying classified military documents, according to a Communiqué by Reporters Without Borders.
Kam was sentenced for copying classified military documents, while she was doing obligatory service with the Israel Defence Forces and for passing them to a journalist with the Tel Aviv-based daily Haaretz.
The court also imposed a suspended sentence of an additional 18 months in prison. Kam has 45 days to appeal.
“This severe sentence violates the right to the confidentiality of sources and sets a dangerous precedent that could encourage reporters to censor themselves,” Reporters Without Borders said.
It added, “Without taking position on the content of these documents and their classification, we point out that the media must be able to report law-breaking and must be free to tackle sensitive subjects, such as the IDF, without risk of being prosecuted.”
While doing military service from 2005 to 2007, Kam was a clerk in the office of the central military region chief Gen. Yair Naveh. She used her position to copy 2,085 documents and pass them to Haaretz reporter Uri Blau, who in turn used them for a series of articles critical of the IDF.
One of her stories reported that the IDF defied a Supreme Court ruling by ordering soldiers to kill members of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad who could have been arrested. The story was approved at the time by the military censors. For the time being, Blau has immunity from prosecution.
After completing her military service, Kam worked for the Walla news website. She has been under house arrest in Tel Aviv since 2009. The two years under house arrest will not be deducted from her jail sentence.
