11 nov 2015
The number of Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli gunfire since October 1, has reached 82, Jerusalem Center for Israeli-Palestinian studies revealed. 78% of the reported victims were executed in cold-blood.
The majority of the reported victims were from al-Khalil where 28 youths were executed by Israeli gunfire in the city.
16 children and seven women were also among the victims, the center added.
The Jerusalem Center called on international human rights groups to seriously work on putting an end to the Israeli crimes and violations of international laws.
The majority of the reported victims were from al-Khalil where 28 youths were executed by Israeli gunfire in the city.
16 children and seven women were also among the victims, the center added.
The Jerusalem Center called on international human rights groups to seriously work on putting an end to the Israeli crimes and violations of international laws.
Memorial poster of Edward Said on the Separation Wall
Richard Falk is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University. In 2008, the UN Human Rights Council appointed Falk to a six-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.
In these remarks, I will present the following analysis:
(1) the most ardent Zionist forces have longed tried to conflate criticism of Israel and Zionism with hatred of Jews, the traditional understanding of anti-Semitism, but this effort has intensified recently, and even has been endorsed by the US Government and is currently under consideration by the University of California and elsewhere;
(2) examine the definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the U.S. State Department, and discuss briefly why it has pernicious implications for academic freedom, and indeed even for an understanding of the genuine nature of anti-Semitism;
(3) show why Edward Said despite his intense opposition to anti-Semitism would nevertheless be vulnerable to allegations of being an anti-Semite if the State Department definition were to be applied to his writings and activities;
(4) and finally to point out that according to the imperatives most influentially expressed by Noam Chomsky and Said, the ‘responsibility of the intellectual’ would perversely require them to be ‘anti-Semitic’ according to this pernicious wider conception.
My personal experience with this theme of anti-Semitism and Israel can be summarized by recalling two different occasions: The first was in Greek Cyprus more than a decade ago at a meeting of the Inter-Action Council (composed of ex-heads of states) devoted to conflict resolution in the Middle East. I had been invited as a resource person. At a session devoted to Israel/Palestine the Israeli ambassador to Greece spoke at some length, insisting that it was anti-Semitic to express strong criticisms of Israel and Zionism. As the only other Jew at the table I felt it to be almost a duty to clarify what I believed to be a mischievous manipulation of ideas. In my intervention I explained that Zionism was a project or ideology, Israel was a state, and that Jews were a people or persons.
I attempted to explain that to disagree with Zionism or to criticize Israeli policies and practices as a state was not at all anti-Semitic, but to exhibit hostility, hatred, and discrimination against Jews as a people or as individuals was indeed anti-Semitism. Recall that Hitler did not persecute Jews for being Zionists, but for being Jews, for partaking of a race or ethnicity. After the meeting recessed, several participants thanked me for my comments, indicating that only a Jew could offer this kind of clarification, which they found persuasive. In contrast, the Israeli ambassador and his NGO sidekick came to me to complain vigorously, insisting that Zionism had become synonymous with Jewish identity through the establishment of Israel as a state of the Jewish people, making the three ideas interchangeable. In effect, their separation was now deemed deeply hostile to the Jewish experience, and was properly viewed as ‘anti-Semitism’; I walked away unconvinced, yet disturbed by the encounter.
This trivial incident still seems relevant as it illustrates what I believe has been an effective effort by unconditional Israel supporters to stifle criticism of Israel by inappropriately playing such an anti-Semitic card. It is inappropriate as it merges what might be called genuine hate speech with an attempt to intimidate freedom of expression in a domain where it seems needed, that is, in justifiable questioning of Israel’s state behavior and the colonial nature of the Zionist project as it is playing out in the 21st century. It is a doubly unfortunate and dangerous tactic as it tends to weaken and confuse opposition to real anti-Semitism by this misleading linkage of a contentious political argument with a condemnation of racism.
My second experience was to receive an email a couple of years ago informing me that the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, a non-governmental organization devoted to unconditional support of Israel, had issued its annual list of the ten most dangerous anti-Semites in the world, and that I was listed as third. I found it quite astounding, especially after discovering that #1 was the Supreme Guide of Iran and #2 was the then Prime Minister of Turkey. Others on the list included such notable authors as Alice Walker and Max Blumenthal. It was obvious that I was placed on the list as a consequence of my role as UN Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine in the period between 2008 and 2014.
In the fulfillment of this role, I had indeed written very critically from the perspective of human rights and international law about the manner in which Israel was administering the occupation, which involved elements of annexation, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid. But nothing in my reports directly or indirectly exhibited hatred or hostility toward the Jewish people or toward Jews as Jews. My prominence on the Wiesenthal list at first troubled me deeply, fearing that it would damage my credibility as well as be a painful and unjustified attack on my identity that would be humiliating and probably ineffective to oppose. I never overcame these feelings, but they became somewhat balanced by my realisation that highlighting my name in this way could only be explained by the degree to which my UN reports were exerting some influence on the way in which the Israel-Palestine conflict was being more generally perceived, especially within UN circles. I continue to feel a certain pride in bearing witness as best I could to the realities under law of Israel’s occupation policies, and the extent to which prolonged Palestinian suffering has been the result.
These personal experiences relate to the current debate nationally, internationally, and here in California. The essential argument is that Jews in Europe feel threatened by what they describe as a new wave of anti-Semitism, which is deliberately linked to the rise of anti-Israeli activism, and was dramatised by several recent terrorist incidents, especially the 2014 attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. The European migration crisis is undoubtedly giving rise in Europe to a strengthening of the political right extreme, including its neo-Nazi fringe that does express real anti-Semitic hatred, but it is far less virulent in its racism toward Jews than toward Muslims. One problem with this focus on anti-Semitism is to treat Jews as accorded extra protection while at the same time immunizing hostility to Islam by reference to freedom of expression. There is no doubt that Charlie Hebdo, while victimised for its opinions, was disseminating toward Muslims the kind of hate images and messages that if directed at Jews would be regarded by almost everyone as anti-Semitism, including myself.
It is somewhat understandable that Europe would be sensitive to any return of anti-Semitism, given that it was both the scene of the Holocaust, the historic center of anti-Semitism, and in many ways provided the historic vindication of the Zionist movement. We should not forget that the international validation of the Zionist quest for a Jewish homeland received its first formal encouragement in the notoriously colonialist letter written by the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Alfred Balfour, in 1917. As well, during the 1930s, prior to Hitler’s adoption of the Final Solution, the preferred solution of the so-called Jewish Problem in Europe was mounting widespread pressure on Jews to emigrate to Palestine or even to face forced expulsion, and this was not solely a consequence of Nazi policies.
Timothy Snyder in his important recent book, Black Death, documents the extent to which Polish anti-Semitic political leaders collaborated with Zionist leaders, including even providing military training and weapons that developed the Zionist militias that later challenged the British mandatory presence in Palestine and then successfully waged a war of independence. In effect, many European anti-Semites, who were prominent throughout the continent, shared with the Zionist leadership the belief that the way to solve ‘the Jewish problem’ was to support the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and in keeping with the prevailing colonial mentality gave little thought to the impact of such a development on the indigenous Arab population of Palestine.
The contemporary American argument and debate has less historical baggage compared to Europe and is more subtle, mainly focused on campus activity and is a reflection to some extent of the U.S. government’s ‘special relationship’ with Israel. It is evident that Israeli officials definitely project the view that hostility to Israel or Zionism is indistinguishable from what the State Department calls ‘traditional anti-Semitism,’ that is, hatred or persecution of Jews because of their ethnicity. What is most troublesome in the State Department approach is its incorporation of what it calls ‘new anti-Semitism,’ which “manifests itself in the guise of opposition to Zionism and the existence and/or policies of the state of Israel.” [Contemporary Anti-Semitism: A Report Provided to the U.S. Congress, U.S. Department of State, n.d.; See also fact sheet of U.S. Dept of State, June 8, 2010, on defining anti-Semitism] This “..new anti-Semitism, characterized by anti-Zionist and anti-Israel criticism that is anti-Semitic in effect—whether or not in intent- [and] is more subtle and thus frequently escapes condemnation.” As many of you know the Board of Regents of the University of California is currently considering whether to adopt such a conception of anti-Semitism as official university policy. The principal arguments advanced in its favor are that pro-Palestinian student activism, especially around calls for boycotts and divestments, are making Jewish students feel uncomfortable, even under threat, with the further implication that such insecurity should not be present in any academic community. This rationale skirts the issue that the BDS campaign has been gaining significant traction in recent years, and this effort to brand the activist dimension of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle as anti-Semitic is motivated by a major multi-pronged Israeli effort to weaken BDS by having those who support such an unacceptable campaign as guilty of ‘anti-Semitism.’
Such developments go back to my experience in Cyprus, and reflect this determined effort to meet the rise of Palestinian solidarity efforts with its suppression being justified as opposition to the new anti-Semitism. [See also to the same effect, Michael Oren’s Ally that depict Israel’s former ambassador to the U.S. making an effort to render unacceptable any public utterance of criticism of Israel] Note the features of this negative branding: only the sensitivities of Jews are singled out despite the far greater discomfort confronting Muslim minority students and others on campuses and throughout America; the initiative is overtly designed to weaken popular support for a just and sustainable peace in Palestine given the collapse of diplomatic efforts to produce the two-state solution; the BDS campaign is being challenged in ways that never occurred during earlier comparable campaigns, especially in the American civil rights movement and the BDS movement contra South African apartheid, both of which relied on boycott and divestment tactics. Part of the context that is rarely mentioned in debating the scope of anti-Semitism is the degree to which this surge of pro-Palestinian nonviolent militancy is in reaction to two developments: Israel’s reliance on excessive force, collective punishment, and persistence with such unlawful activities as settlement expansion and the completion of the separation wall.
It is in this atmosphere of endowing anti-Semitic smearing with respectability that outrages to academic freedom such as the revocation of a tenure contract issued to Steven Salaita by the University of Illinois was revoked because of some allegedly anti-Semitic tweets written during Israel’s 2014 attack on Gaza that would make his students uncomfortable. In fact, Salaita possesses an outstanding performance record in the classroom, his teaching is greatly appreciated by his students, including those who were Jewish and pro-Israeli. Undoubtedly more serious than high profile cases are the invisible effects of this inflammatory and aggressive use of anti-Semitism, exhibited by the reluctance to hire or promote individuals who have engaged in Palestinian solidarity activity or even to invite speakers that would be attacked as bringing an anti-Semite onto campus. Again my experience is relevant.
During the six years that I held the UN position, everywhere I went to speak, including at my former university, Princeton, or in foreign settings as remote as Beirut or Sydney, Australia, concerted campaigns were conducted by Zionist groups to persuade university administration to cancel my lectures. The claim being made was that I should not be allowed to speak because I was a notorious anti-Semite. These efforts were backed up by threats to withhold contributions to the university if the event went ahead as scheduled. These efforts failed, and my talks went given without incident, but what the campaign did accomplish was to shift media and audience attention from the substance of my presentation to the utterly false issue of whether or not I was an anti-Semite, which of course, required me to deal with accusations that were hurtful as well as false.
II.
It is against this background that I wanted to mention Edward Said’s humanism, which in the context of this State Department approach, would clearly qualify as an unacceptable, if disguised, form of the ‘new anti-Semitism.’ As many of you know Edward Said was the most passionate and influential voice of the Palestinian people, and indeed of people worldwide seeking liberation. His books, Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism, continue to be read all over the world more than a decade after his death. I was privileged to have Edward Said as a close and cherished friend who over the years nurtured my interest in and engagement with the Israel/Palestine conflict, and whose remarkable life remains an inspiration to many of us. His views are peculiarly relevant to the theme chosen for my remarks as he was both a fierce opponent of the old anti-Semitism and an exemplary exponent of the new anti-Semitism, which as I am mainly arguing should not be considered anti-Semitism at all, and these attempts to discredit criticisms of Israel and Zionism should themselves be discredited, especially in view of recent behavior.
As his colleague and close friend at Columbia University, Akeel Bilgrami, an Indian professor of comparative literature observed, Said “..despised anti-Semitism as much anyone I know.” [Kilgrami, Secularism, Identity, and Enchantment (Ranikhet, India: Permanent Black, 2014) Humanism was the only –ism with which Said was comfortable. His circle of identification embraced the human species, although rooted in the particularity of his Palestinian background. His academic training, publications, and career were situated firmly in literature until awakened by the 1967 Six Day War to take up the Palestinian struggle in a dedicated manner for the rest of his life.
Said’s writing on Palestine was always informed by fact and shaped by his deep grasp of history and culture, initially in his important The Question of Palestine. What is striking about Said’s approach, despite his anger about the refusal of the world to appreciate and correct the terrible injustices done to the Palestinian people in the course of establishing the Israeli state, is his steadfast appreciation that Zionism did what it did beneath the shadow of Nazi persecution, especially culminating in the Holocaust. In other words, his sense of the conflict with Israel is conceived in inclusive terms as pertaining to Jews as well as Palestinians. In his words, “I have spent a great deal of my life during the past thirty-five years advocating the rights of the Palestinian people to national self-determination, but I have always tried to do that with full attention to the reality of the Jewish people, and what they suffered by way persecution and genocide.” (Orientalism, XXVIII) He never endorsed a solution to the struggle that was not sensitive to both Palestinians and Jews, and in a sense his approach embodied a principled rejection of the Israeli claim that the Palestinians were intent on pushing the Jews into the sea.
While insisting that Jews must never experience in Israel the sort of dispossession inflicted upon the Palestinian people by the Zionist project, Said was unrelenting in linking a sustainable peace to acknowledging the justices of the past. As he expressed it Ari Shavit in one of his last interviews, “[U]ntil the time comes when Israel assumes moral responsibility for what it has done to the Palestinian people, there can be no end to the conflict.” He goes on to add, “[W]hat is needed is a ‘bill of particulars’ of all our claims against Israel for the original dispossession and for the occupation that began in 1967[Power Politic, 446] In effect, the injustices of the past can be superseded but only if they are acknowledged in an appropriate format with due solemnity. On at least one occasion Said seems to suggest a truth and reconciliation process modeled on what was done in South Africa after the fall of apartheid.
Said central contribution of developing a critique of West-centric views of the Arab world are most influentially set forth in Orientalism, one of the most widely studied and seminal books of the past century. Among many other facets of the analysis in the book it led Said to offer this surprising convergence: “Not accidentally, I indicate that Orientalism and modern anti-Semitism have common roots.” (Orientalism, XXVIII) This convergence is explained by the dual effort to achieve “a better understanding of the way cultural domination have operated.” (Orientalism 27).
At the same time, Said felt that Zionist exclusivism sought to keep the issue as one of what Jews had endured in the Holocaust as a sufficient vindication of Zionism and the creation of Israel, with the adverse effects on the Palestinians as self-inflicted or irrelevant to this hegemonic Israeli narrative. Said writes that “..all liberals and even most ‘radicals’ have been unable to overcome the Zionist habit of equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.” [Question, 59] Long before the present debate he believed that such an informal tactic prevented truthful conversation as non-Jews were inhibited by “..the fear of treading upon the highly sensitive terrain of what Jews did to their victims, in an age of genocidal extermination of Jews—all this contributes to the dulling, regulated enforcement of almost unanimous support for Israel.” [59] Writing in the late 1970s Said felt that criticism of Israel was often insensitive to the background of its establishment as a last bastion of defense for the Jewish people after the ordeal of the Holocaust.
Almost 40 years later the context has altered, but not the effect of treating anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism. Because of the failure to establish some kind of solution, and given Israeli defiance of international law through the settlements, separation wall, reliance on excessive force and collective punishment, the issue has captured the imagination of many people around the world, especially students, to become the leading unresolved moral struggle of our time, a successor to the South African struggle against apartheid a generation earlier, as acknowledged by Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Now the government itself intrudes its influence on American society to make sure that the extended definition of anti-Semitism as incorporating strong criticism of Israel and Zionism is treated as hate speech. This is not only threatening freedom of expression and academic freedom, it is undermining the capacity of American citizens to fight nonviolently for what they believe is right in the world. When the government adopts punitive measures to discourage the BDS campaign or even academic conferences addressing the conflict, it is behaving in a profoundly anti-democratic manner. Such behavior follows directly from the understanding given to the ‘special relationship’ binding Israel to the United States in a manner that often contradicts proclaimed national values and even national interests. Our Secretary of State, John Kerry, boasts of the hundreds of occasions where the U.S. has blocked votes critical of Israel within the UN without even bothering to consider whether any of such initiatives were justified or not.
III.
Let me finally raise the questions as to why this debate about what is and what is not anti-Semitism relates to the responsibility of the intellectual as understood, especially by Edward Said and Noam Chomsky. In his 2003 Preface to Orientalism Said writes these telling words: “Above all, critical thought does not submit to state power or to commands to join in the ranks marching against one or anther approved enemy.” [XXII] Frequently, Said reinforces the role of the intellectual to remain on the margins, an outsider, whose only weapon is bearing witness and truth-telling, a role authenticated by the absence of any claim to have expert knowledge, more a standing in solidarity with those being victimized by oppression and injustice, a normative posture that rests on moral and legal foundations of respect for the value of all persons and peoples. Said’s succinct expression is memorable. He characterizes the public intellectual “as exile and marginal, as amateur, and as the author of a language that tries to speak truth to power.” [Representations, XVI]
The irony of this orientation of the intellectual is that it collides directly with the State Department conception of the new anti-Semitism. In other words, to avoid the blanket charge of anti-Semitism as now officially defined Said would have to renounce his chosen identity as a public intellectual. This would weaken the quality of academic freedom as well as undermine public discourse. No resource of higher education is more precious, in my judgment, than the presence of those all to few public intellectuals who challenge the prevailing wisdom of the society on the basis of conscience and truthfulness. It is the foundation of vigilant citizenship, already recognized by Thomas Jefferson as indispensable for sustaining democracy, and it is also the basis for challenging vested interests and mistaken policies. This role of public intellectuals is threatened by this assault on freedom of expression wrapped up in a false effort to discourage anti-Semitism, and it relates to such broader concerns as the stifling of political discourse due to the corporatization of the media and higher education.
On no issue is this unfettered dialogue more needed in the United States than in relation to Israel/Palestine. As Michael Oren showed in his memoir Ally the special relationship bonding Israel and the United States implies the absence of any public acknowledgement of policy disagreements and a policy of unconditional support. Israel did its bit to uphold its end of this unseemly bargain recently by being the only country of 194 in the UN that supported the United States determination to maintain sanctions on Cuba despite the Obama renewal of diplomatic relations. After all American taxpayers have long sent annually billions of dollars to Israel, as well as a range of weapons and munitions. They are entitled to know if this money is being spent in a manner that accords with international law and American national interests. The overriding of Israel’s objections to the Iran Nuclear Agreement illustrated the extent to which Israel can challenge vital policy initiatives undertaken by the elected leaders of the American government.
Never have we more needed to protect and celebrate our public intellectuals, and never more so than in the context of Israel/Palestine. For this reason we should be celebrating the legacy of Edward Said, a world famous public intellectual, and the person, who more than anyone on the planet fulfilled the role of responsible public intellectual. Instead of defending him against these incendiary charges of anti-Semitism we should be honoring his memory by studying his ideas and enacting the values of resistance and struggle that he commends in the face of injustice.
IV.
In concluding, there is an obvious tension that exists more vividly than when Edward Said was alive, and commenting on the Palestinian struggle. Israel has created on the ground a set of circumstances that seem irreversible and are institutionalising a single apartheid Israeli state encompassing the whole of historic Palestine (minus Jordan). The Israeli leadership has made clear the inappropriateness of establishing a Palestinian state, and given the insistence on making even the Palestinians acknowledge Israel as ‘a Jewish state,’ the dye seems cast. At the same time, the international Palestinian solidarity movement has never been stronger, with the BDS campaign leading the way, moving from success to success. And so as ‘the battlefield’ has shifted to a legitimacy war that the Palestinians are winning, the Israeli tactics have retaliated with an all out effort to demonise as anti-Semitism these new forms of non-violent resistance. This is the essential objective of the new anti-Semitism, and it is scandalous the U.S. State Department has endorsed such demonisation with its newly adopted formal definition of anti-Semitism. To defeat this effort is essential not only for the Palestinian struggle, but to keep America safe for democratic discourse and universities hospitable to the kind of critical thinking that Edward Said’s scholarship and activism exemplified.
[Prefatory Note: This post consists of my written text for a public presentation on the theme of “Edward Said’s Humanism and the Rejection of the State Department’s Definition of Anti-Semitism” at a conference at Fresno State University, Nov. 6, 2015 bearing the title “Universities at the Crossroads: The Assault on Academic Freedom,” which was the last event of the “Edward Said Lecture Series” organized by Professor Vida Samiian of the Department of Linguistics at FSU. My talk as given departed considerably from this text.]
Richard Falk is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University. In 2008, the UN Human Rights Council appointed Falk to a six-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.
In these remarks, I will present the following analysis:
(1) the most ardent Zionist forces have longed tried to conflate criticism of Israel and Zionism with hatred of Jews, the traditional understanding of anti-Semitism, but this effort has intensified recently, and even has been endorsed by the US Government and is currently under consideration by the University of California and elsewhere;
(2) examine the definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the U.S. State Department, and discuss briefly why it has pernicious implications for academic freedom, and indeed even for an understanding of the genuine nature of anti-Semitism;
(3) show why Edward Said despite his intense opposition to anti-Semitism would nevertheless be vulnerable to allegations of being an anti-Semite if the State Department definition were to be applied to his writings and activities;
(4) and finally to point out that according to the imperatives most influentially expressed by Noam Chomsky and Said, the ‘responsibility of the intellectual’ would perversely require them to be ‘anti-Semitic’ according to this pernicious wider conception.
My personal experience with this theme of anti-Semitism and Israel can be summarized by recalling two different occasions: The first was in Greek Cyprus more than a decade ago at a meeting of the Inter-Action Council (composed of ex-heads of states) devoted to conflict resolution in the Middle East. I had been invited as a resource person. At a session devoted to Israel/Palestine the Israeli ambassador to Greece spoke at some length, insisting that it was anti-Semitic to express strong criticisms of Israel and Zionism. As the only other Jew at the table I felt it to be almost a duty to clarify what I believed to be a mischievous manipulation of ideas. In my intervention I explained that Zionism was a project or ideology, Israel was a state, and that Jews were a people or persons.
I attempted to explain that to disagree with Zionism or to criticize Israeli policies and practices as a state was not at all anti-Semitic, but to exhibit hostility, hatred, and discrimination against Jews as a people or as individuals was indeed anti-Semitism. Recall that Hitler did not persecute Jews for being Zionists, but for being Jews, for partaking of a race or ethnicity. After the meeting recessed, several participants thanked me for my comments, indicating that only a Jew could offer this kind of clarification, which they found persuasive. In contrast, the Israeli ambassador and his NGO sidekick came to me to complain vigorously, insisting that Zionism had become synonymous with Jewish identity through the establishment of Israel as a state of the Jewish people, making the three ideas interchangeable. In effect, their separation was now deemed deeply hostile to the Jewish experience, and was properly viewed as ‘anti-Semitism’; I walked away unconvinced, yet disturbed by the encounter.
This trivial incident still seems relevant as it illustrates what I believe has been an effective effort by unconditional Israel supporters to stifle criticism of Israel by inappropriately playing such an anti-Semitic card. It is inappropriate as it merges what might be called genuine hate speech with an attempt to intimidate freedom of expression in a domain where it seems needed, that is, in justifiable questioning of Israel’s state behavior and the colonial nature of the Zionist project as it is playing out in the 21st century. It is a doubly unfortunate and dangerous tactic as it tends to weaken and confuse opposition to real anti-Semitism by this misleading linkage of a contentious political argument with a condemnation of racism.
My second experience was to receive an email a couple of years ago informing me that the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, a non-governmental organization devoted to unconditional support of Israel, had issued its annual list of the ten most dangerous anti-Semites in the world, and that I was listed as third. I found it quite astounding, especially after discovering that #1 was the Supreme Guide of Iran and #2 was the then Prime Minister of Turkey. Others on the list included such notable authors as Alice Walker and Max Blumenthal. It was obvious that I was placed on the list as a consequence of my role as UN Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine in the period between 2008 and 2014.
In the fulfillment of this role, I had indeed written very critically from the perspective of human rights and international law about the manner in which Israel was administering the occupation, which involved elements of annexation, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid. But nothing in my reports directly or indirectly exhibited hatred or hostility toward the Jewish people or toward Jews as Jews. My prominence on the Wiesenthal list at first troubled me deeply, fearing that it would damage my credibility as well as be a painful and unjustified attack on my identity that would be humiliating and probably ineffective to oppose. I never overcame these feelings, but they became somewhat balanced by my realisation that highlighting my name in this way could only be explained by the degree to which my UN reports were exerting some influence on the way in which the Israel-Palestine conflict was being more generally perceived, especially within UN circles. I continue to feel a certain pride in bearing witness as best I could to the realities under law of Israel’s occupation policies, and the extent to which prolonged Palestinian suffering has been the result.
These personal experiences relate to the current debate nationally, internationally, and here in California. The essential argument is that Jews in Europe feel threatened by what they describe as a new wave of anti-Semitism, which is deliberately linked to the rise of anti-Israeli activism, and was dramatised by several recent terrorist incidents, especially the 2014 attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. The European migration crisis is undoubtedly giving rise in Europe to a strengthening of the political right extreme, including its neo-Nazi fringe that does express real anti-Semitic hatred, but it is far less virulent in its racism toward Jews than toward Muslims. One problem with this focus on anti-Semitism is to treat Jews as accorded extra protection while at the same time immunizing hostility to Islam by reference to freedom of expression. There is no doubt that Charlie Hebdo, while victimised for its opinions, was disseminating toward Muslims the kind of hate images and messages that if directed at Jews would be regarded by almost everyone as anti-Semitism, including myself.
It is somewhat understandable that Europe would be sensitive to any return of anti-Semitism, given that it was both the scene of the Holocaust, the historic center of anti-Semitism, and in many ways provided the historic vindication of the Zionist movement. We should not forget that the international validation of the Zionist quest for a Jewish homeland received its first formal encouragement in the notoriously colonialist letter written by the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Alfred Balfour, in 1917. As well, during the 1930s, prior to Hitler’s adoption of the Final Solution, the preferred solution of the so-called Jewish Problem in Europe was mounting widespread pressure on Jews to emigrate to Palestine or even to face forced expulsion, and this was not solely a consequence of Nazi policies.
Timothy Snyder in his important recent book, Black Death, documents the extent to which Polish anti-Semitic political leaders collaborated with Zionist leaders, including even providing military training and weapons that developed the Zionist militias that later challenged the British mandatory presence in Palestine and then successfully waged a war of independence. In effect, many European anti-Semites, who were prominent throughout the continent, shared with the Zionist leadership the belief that the way to solve ‘the Jewish problem’ was to support the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and in keeping with the prevailing colonial mentality gave little thought to the impact of such a development on the indigenous Arab population of Palestine.
The contemporary American argument and debate has less historical baggage compared to Europe and is more subtle, mainly focused on campus activity and is a reflection to some extent of the U.S. government’s ‘special relationship’ with Israel. It is evident that Israeli officials definitely project the view that hostility to Israel or Zionism is indistinguishable from what the State Department calls ‘traditional anti-Semitism,’ that is, hatred or persecution of Jews because of their ethnicity. What is most troublesome in the State Department approach is its incorporation of what it calls ‘new anti-Semitism,’ which “manifests itself in the guise of opposition to Zionism and the existence and/or policies of the state of Israel.” [Contemporary Anti-Semitism: A Report Provided to the U.S. Congress, U.S. Department of State, n.d.; See also fact sheet of U.S. Dept of State, June 8, 2010, on defining anti-Semitism] This “..new anti-Semitism, characterized by anti-Zionist and anti-Israel criticism that is anti-Semitic in effect—whether or not in intent- [and] is more subtle and thus frequently escapes condemnation.” As many of you know the Board of Regents of the University of California is currently considering whether to adopt such a conception of anti-Semitism as official university policy. The principal arguments advanced in its favor are that pro-Palestinian student activism, especially around calls for boycotts and divestments, are making Jewish students feel uncomfortable, even under threat, with the further implication that such insecurity should not be present in any academic community. This rationale skirts the issue that the BDS campaign has been gaining significant traction in recent years, and this effort to brand the activist dimension of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle as anti-Semitic is motivated by a major multi-pronged Israeli effort to weaken BDS by having those who support such an unacceptable campaign as guilty of ‘anti-Semitism.’
Such developments go back to my experience in Cyprus, and reflect this determined effort to meet the rise of Palestinian solidarity efforts with its suppression being justified as opposition to the new anti-Semitism. [See also to the same effect, Michael Oren’s Ally that depict Israel’s former ambassador to the U.S. making an effort to render unacceptable any public utterance of criticism of Israel] Note the features of this negative branding: only the sensitivities of Jews are singled out despite the far greater discomfort confronting Muslim minority students and others on campuses and throughout America; the initiative is overtly designed to weaken popular support for a just and sustainable peace in Palestine given the collapse of diplomatic efforts to produce the two-state solution; the BDS campaign is being challenged in ways that never occurred during earlier comparable campaigns, especially in the American civil rights movement and the BDS movement contra South African apartheid, both of which relied on boycott and divestment tactics. Part of the context that is rarely mentioned in debating the scope of anti-Semitism is the degree to which this surge of pro-Palestinian nonviolent militancy is in reaction to two developments: Israel’s reliance on excessive force, collective punishment, and persistence with such unlawful activities as settlement expansion and the completion of the separation wall.
It is in this atmosphere of endowing anti-Semitic smearing with respectability that outrages to academic freedom such as the revocation of a tenure contract issued to Steven Salaita by the University of Illinois was revoked because of some allegedly anti-Semitic tweets written during Israel’s 2014 attack on Gaza that would make his students uncomfortable. In fact, Salaita possesses an outstanding performance record in the classroom, his teaching is greatly appreciated by his students, including those who were Jewish and pro-Israeli. Undoubtedly more serious than high profile cases are the invisible effects of this inflammatory and aggressive use of anti-Semitism, exhibited by the reluctance to hire or promote individuals who have engaged in Palestinian solidarity activity or even to invite speakers that would be attacked as bringing an anti-Semite onto campus. Again my experience is relevant.
During the six years that I held the UN position, everywhere I went to speak, including at my former university, Princeton, or in foreign settings as remote as Beirut or Sydney, Australia, concerted campaigns were conducted by Zionist groups to persuade university administration to cancel my lectures. The claim being made was that I should not be allowed to speak because I was a notorious anti-Semite. These efforts were backed up by threats to withhold contributions to the university if the event went ahead as scheduled. These efforts failed, and my talks went given without incident, but what the campaign did accomplish was to shift media and audience attention from the substance of my presentation to the utterly false issue of whether or not I was an anti-Semite, which of course, required me to deal with accusations that were hurtful as well as false.
II.
It is against this background that I wanted to mention Edward Said’s humanism, which in the context of this State Department approach, would clearly qualify as an unacceptable, if disguised, form of the ‘new anti-Semitism.’ As many of you know Edward Said was the most passionate and influential voice of the Palestinian people, and indeed of people worldwide seeking liberation. His books, Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism, continue to be read all over the world more than a decade after his death. I was privileged to have Edward Said as a close and cherished friend who over the years nurtured my interest in and engagement with the Israel/Palestine conflict, and whose remarkable life remains an inspiration to many of us. His views are peculiarly relevant to the theme chosen for my remarks as he was both a fierce opponent of the old anti-Semitism and an exemplary exponent of the new anti-Semitism, which as I am mainly arguing should not be considered anti-Semitism at all, and these attempts to discredit criticisms of Israel and Zionism should themselves be discredited, especially in view of recent behavior.
As his colleague and close friend at Columbia University, Akeel Bilgrami, an Indian professor of comparative literature observed, Said “..despised anti-Semitism as much anyone I know.” [Kilgrami, Secularism, Identity, and Enchantment (Ranikhet, India: Permanent Black, 2014) Humanism was the only –ism with which Said was comfortable. His circle of identification embraced the human species, although rooted in the particularity of his Palestinian background. His academic training, publications, and career were situated firmly in literature until awakened by the 1967 Six Day War to take up the Palestinian struggle in a dedicated manner for the rest of his life.
Said’s writing on Palestine was always informed by fact and shaped by his deep grasp of history and culture, initially in his important The Question of Palestine. What is striking about Said’s approach, despite his anger about the refusal of the world to appreciate and correct the terrible injustices done to the Palestinian people in the course of establishing the Israeli state, is his steadfast appreciation that Zionism did what it did beneath the shadow of Nazi persecution, especially culminating in the Holocaust. In other words, his sense of the conflict with Israel is conceived in inclusive terms as pertaining to Jews as well as Palestinians. In his words, “I have spent a great deal of my life during the past thirty-five years advocating the rights of the Palestinian people to national self-determination, but I have always tried to do that with full attention to the reality of the Jewish people, and what they suffered by way persecution and genocide.” (Orientalism, XXVIII) He never endorsed a solution to the struggle that was not sensitive to both Palestinians and Jews, and in a sense his approach embodied a principled rejection of the Israeli claim that the Palestinians were intent on pushing the Jews into the sea.
While insisting that Jews must never experience in Israel the sort of dispossession inflicted upon the Palestinian people by the Zionist project, Said was unrelenting in linking a sustainable peace to acknowledging the justices of the past. As he expressed it Ari Shavit in one of his last interviews, “[U]ntil the time comes when Israel assumes moral responsibility for what it has done to the Palestinian people, there can be no end to the conflict.” He goes on to add, “[W]hat is needed is a ‘bill of particulars’ of all our claims against Israel for the original dispossession and for the occupation that began in 1967[Power Politic, 446] In effect, the injustices of the past can be superseded but only if they are acknowledged in an appropriate format with due solemnity. On at least one occasion Said seems to suggest a truth and reconciliation process modeled on what was done in South Africa after the fall of apartheid.
Said central contribution of developing a critique of West-centric views of the Arab world are most influentially set forth in Orientalism, one of the most widely studied and seminal books of the past century. Among many other facets of the analysis in the book it led Said to offer this surprising convergence: “Not accidentally, I indicate that Orientalism and modern anti-Semitism have common roots.” (Orientalism, XXVIII) This convergence is explained by the dual effort to achieve “a better understanding of the way cultural domination have operated.” (Orientalism 27).
At the same time, Said felt that Zionist exclusivism sought to keep the issue as one of what Jews had endured in the Holocaust as a sufficient vindication of Zionism and the creation of Israel, with the adverse effects on the Palestinians as self-inflicted or irrelevant to this hegemonic Israeli narrative. Said writes that “..all liberals and even most ‘radicals’ have been unable to overcome the Zionist habit of equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.” [Question, 59] Long before the present debate he believed that such an informal tactic prevented truthful conversation as non-Jews were inhibited by “..the fear of treading upon the highly sensitive terrain of what Jews did to their victims, in an age of genocidal extermination of Jews—all this contributes to the dulling, regulated enforcement of almost unanimous support for Israel.” [59] Writing in the late 1970s Said felt that criticism of Israel was often insensitive to the background of its establishment as a last bastion of defense for the Jewish people after the ordeal of the Holocaust.
Almost 40 years later the context has altered, but not the effect of treating anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism. Because of the failure to establish some kind of solution, and given Israeli defiance of international law through the settlements, separation wall, reliance on excessive force and collective punishment, the issue has captured the imagination of many people around the world, especially students, to become the leading unresolved moral struggle of our time, a successor to the South African struggle against apartheid a generation earlier, as acknowledged by Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Now the government itself intrudes its influence on American society to make sure that the extended definition of anti-Semitism as incorporating strong criticism of Israel and Zionism is treated as hate speech. This is not only threatening freedom of expression and academic freedom, it is undermining the capacity of American citizens to fight nonviolently for what they believe is right in the world. When the government adopts punitive measures to discourage the BDS campaign or even academic conferences addressing the conflict, it is behaving in a profoundly anti-democratic manner. Such behavior follows directly from the understanding given to the ‘special relationship’ binding Israel to the United States in a manner that often contradicts proclaimed national values and even national interests. Our Secretary of State, John Kerry, boasts of the hundreds of occasions where the U.S. has blocked votes critical of Israel within the UN without even bothering to consider whether any of such initiatives were justified or not.
III.
Let me finally raise the questions as to why this debate about what is and what is not anti-Semitism relates to the responsibility of the intellectual as understood, especially by Edward Said and Noam Chomsky. In his 2003 Preface to Orientalism Said writes these telling words: “Above all, critical thought does not submit to state power or to commands to join in the ranks marching against one or anther approved enemy.” [XXII] Frequently, Said reinforces the role of the intellectual to remain on the margins, an outsider, whose only weapon is bearing witness and truth-telling, a role authenticated by the absence of any claim to have expert knowledge, more a standing in solidarity with those being victimized by oppression and injustice, a normative posture that rests on moral and legal foundations of respect for the value of all persons and peoples. Said’s succinct expression is memorable. He characterizes the public intellectual “as exile and marginal, as amateur, and as the author of a language that tries to speak truth to power.” [Representations, XVI]
The irony of this orientation of the intellectual is that it collides directly with the State Department conception of the new anti-Semitism. In other words, to avoid the blanket charge of anti-Semitism as now officially defined Said would have to renounce his chosen identity as a public intellectual. This would weaken the quality of academic freedom as well as undermine public discourse. No resource of higher education is more precious, in my judgment, than the presence of those all to few public intellectuals who challenge the prevailing wisdom of the society on the basis of conscience and truthfulness. It is the foundation of vigilant citizenship, already recognized by Thomas Jefferson as indispensable for sustaining democracy, and it is also the basis for challenging vested interests and mistaken policies. This role of public intellectuals is threatened by this assault on freedom of expression wrapped up in a false effort to discourage anti-Semitism, and it relates to such broader concerns as the stifling of political discourse due to the corporatization of the media and higher education.
On no issue is this unfettered dialogue more needed in the United States than in relation to Israel/Palestine. As Michael Oren showed in his memoir Ally the special relationship bonding Israel and the United States implies the absence of any public acknowledgement of policy disagreements and a policy of unconditional support. Israel did its bit to uphold its end of this unseemly bargain recently by being the only country of 194 in the UN that supported the United States determination to maintain sanctions on Cuba despite the Obama renewal of diplomatic relations. After all American taxpayers have long sent annually billions of dollars to Israel, as well as a range of weapons and munitions. They are entitled to know if this money is being spent in a manner that accords with international law and American national interests. The overriding of Israel’s objections to the Iran Nuclear Agreement illustrated the extent to which Israel can challenge vital policy initiatives undertaken by the elected leaders of the American government.
Never have we more needed to protect and celebrate our public intellectuals, and never more so than in the context of Israel/Palestine. For this reason we should be celebrating the legacy of Edward Said, a world famous public intellectual, and the person, who more than anyone on the planet fulfilled the role of responsible public intellectual. Instead of defending him against these incendiary charges of anti-Semitism we should be honoring his memory by studying his ideas and enacting the values of resistance and struggle that he commends in the face of injustice.
IV.
In concluding, there is an obvious tension that exists more vividly than when Edward Said was alive, and commenting on the Palestinian struggle. Israel has created on the ground a set of circumstances that seem irreversible and are institutionalising a single apartheid Israeli state encompassing the whole of historic Palestine (minus Jordan). The Israeli leadership has made clear the inappropriateness of establishing a Palestinian state, and given the insistence on making even the Palestinians acknowledge Israel as ‘a Jewish state,’ the dye seems cast. At the same time, the international Palestinian solidarity movement has never been stronger, with the BDS campaign leading the way, moving from success to success. And so as ‘the battlefield’ has shifted to a legitimacy war that the Palestinians are winning, the Israeli tactics have retaliated with an all out effort to demonise as anti-Semitism these new forms of non-violent resistance. This is the essential objective of the new anti-Semitism, and it is scandalous the U.S. State Department has endorsed such demonisation with its newly adopted formal definition of anti-Semitism. To defeat this effort is essential not only for the Palestinian struggle, but to keep America safe for democratic discourse and universities hospitable to the kind of critical thinking that Edward Said’s scholarship and activism exemplified.
[Prefatory Note: This post consists of my written text for a public presentation on the theme of “Edward Said’s Humanism and the Rejection of the State Department’s Definition of Anti-Semitism” at a conference at Fresno State University, Nov. 6, 2015 bearing the title “Universities at the Crossroads: The Assault on Academic Freedom,” which was the last event of the “Edward Said Lecture Series” organized by Professor Vida Samiian of the Department of Linguistics at FSU. My talk as given departed considerably from this text.]
10 nov 2015
Sadeq Ziyad Gharbiyya 16 killed by Israeli troops at a checkpoint near Bethlehem on Tuesday
Two Palestinians were killed on Tuesday by Israeli army gunfire in two separate attacks in the West Banks.
At Al Mosrara in occupied Jerusalem, Israeli soldiers shot and killed 37-year-old Mohamed Abed al Nimier, on Tuesday midday, allegedly after trying to stab troops. The circumstances of his death remains unknown.
After killing Mohamed, Israeli forces invaded the town of Eswayia and ransacked his family home there casing damage.
Later on Tuesday, a Palestinian youth died on wounds he sustained after he was shot by Israeli troops at the Container checkpoint north of Bethlehem in southern West Bank.
Ziyad Gharbiyah, from Sanour village in Jenin, was shot by Israeli troops while crossing the checkpoints. According to the Israeli army, he tried to stab soldiers manning the checkpoint. The circumstances behind shooting Ziyad is still unclear.
The Container checkpoint divide the north from southern West Bank. shortly after the killing of Ziyad Israeli soldiers closed the checkpoint and did not allow thousands of Palestinians from crossing it.
With the two killed today, the number of Palestinians who have been killed by the Israeli army since October 1, have reached 82, including 18 children and 4 women, the Palestinian ministry of health reported on Tuesday.
Moreover the ministry report showed that 8500 Palestinians have been injured since October 1 in Gaza and the West Bank. Of those 1250 were injured by Israeli troops live gunfire, while 1015, were hit by rubber-coated steel bullets. In addition 1000 injured by rubber-coated steel bullets were treated by field medics, the ministry said.
Two Palestinians were killed on Tuesday by Israeli army gunfire in two separate attacks in the West Banks.
At Al Mosrara in occupied Jerusalem, Israeli soldiers shot and killed 37-year-old Mohamed Abed al Nimier, on Tuesday midday, allegedly after trying to stab troops. The circumstances of his death remains unknown.
After killing Mohamed, Israeli forces invaded the town of Eswayia and ransacked his family home there casing damage.
Later on Tuesday, a Palestinian youth died on wounds he sustained after he was shot by Israeli troops at the Container checkpoint north of Bethlehem in southern West Bank.
Ziyad Gharbiyah, from Sanour village in Jenin, was shot by Israeli troops while crossing the checkpoints. According to the Israeli army, he tried to stab soldiers manning the checkpoint. The circumstances behind shooting Ziyad is still unclear.
The Container checkpoint divide the north from southern West Bank. shortly after the killing of Ziyad Israeli soldiers closed the checkpoint and did not allow thousands of Palestinians from crossing it.
With the two killed today, the number of Palestinians who have been killed by the Israeli army since October 1, have reached 82, including 18 children and 4 women, the Palestinian ministry of health reported on Tuesday.
Moreover the ministry report showed that 8500 Palestinians have been injured since October 1 in Gaza and the West Bank. Of those 1250 were injured by Israeli troops live gunfire, while 1015, were hit by rubber-coated steel bullets. In addition 1000 injured by rubber-coated steel bullets were treated by field medics, the ministry said.
Although tensions have recently subsided at East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, many Palestinians fear that "partition" of the site between Muslims and Jews remains a long-term Israeli objective.
The current round of violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank -- in which scores of Palestinians have been killed so far -- was initially triggered by a series of clashes in the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, regarded as sacred to both Jews and Muslims.
World Bulletin/Al Ray reports that those clashes were largely precipitated by large groups of Jewish settlers who -- usually accompanied by Israeli security forces -- frequently forced their way into the mosque compound.
While Jewish settlers have been allowed into the Al-Aqsa compound in greater and greater numbers -- where they often perform "Talmudic rituals" despite a longstanding ban on non-Muslim worship -- the entry of Palestinian Muslim worshipers to the site has been increasingly restricted by the Israeli authorities.
According to Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, head of the Supreme Islamic Council and former Mufti of Jerusalem, the twin moves -- allowing large numbers of Jews into Al-Aqsa while barring Muslims -- is part of an Israeli plan to "partition" the site "temporally and spatially" between worshippers of the two faiths. From the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem in 1967 until 2000, Jerusalem’s Department of Islamic Endowments -- run by next-door Jordan -- has been solely responsible for the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and for regulating visits to the site by non-Muslims.
In September of 2000, a visit to Al-Aqsa by controversial Israeli leader Ariel Sharon -- accompanied by a large delegation and hundreds of Israeli riot police -- sparked what later became known as the "Second Intifada", a years-long popular Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation.
In the wake of Sharon’s contentious visit, the Department of Islamic Endowments banned visits to the site by non-Muslims.
In 2003, however, the Israeli government unilaterally decided -- despite the objections of the Islamic Endowments Department -- to allow non-Muslim visitors into the mosque complex.
Since then, under increasingly right-wing Israeli governments, extremist Jewish settlers have been allowed into the site in ever greater numbers -- usually protected by Israeli security forces -- while Palestinian access to the site has become increasingly restricted.
For Muslims, Al-Aqsa represents the world's third holiest site. Jews, for their part, refer to the area as the "Temple Mount", claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.
Precedent
Those who warn of an Israeli plan to partition Al-Aqsa between Muslims and Jews point to the case of the Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron (Al-Khalil), where such a plan has been successfully implemented.
In the early 1990s, Jewish settlers began visiting the mosque -- which they revere as the "Tomb of the Patriarchs" -- in increasing numbers, leading to occasional clashes with Palestinian Muslim worshippers. Then, on Feb. 25, 1994, extremist Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein walked into the mosque and opened fire on Muslim worshipers performing dawn prayers. Twenty-nine Palestinians were killed in the carnage, sparking large demonstrations across the Palestinian territories.
The Israeli government condemned the act, but nevertheless seized the opportunity to partition the mosque complex between Muslims and Jews -- an arrangement that remains in place until now.
‘Status quo’
Late last month, amid spiraling Israeli-Palestinian violence, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to maintain the "status quo" at Al-Aqsa by retaining the longstanding practice of prohibiting non-Muslim prayer at the flashpoint site.
"Israel reaffirms its commitment to upholding unchanged the status quo of the Temple Mount, in word and in practice," he said in a statement.
He added: "Israel will continue to enforce its longstanding policy: Muslims pray on the Temple Mount; non-Muslims visit the Temple Mount."
And last week, Netanyahu expressly declared that there was no plan to divide the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex.
Yet despite these reassurances, many Palestinians believe the Israeli authorities hope to eventually partition the mosque complex, similar to what they did at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque.
"The Palestinian side has called on Israel to maintain the status quo at the mosque," Ahmed Qurei, who is responsible for the Jerusalem file at the Palestine Liberation Organization, told Anadolu Agency.
"This not only means refraining from dividing Al-Aqsa temporally and spatially between Muslims and Jews, but also forbidding Jewish settlers from staging incursions into the site," he added.
According to Qurei, Netanyahu’s recent pledges to maintain the status quo "have not stopped scores of Jewish settlers from forcing their way every day [into the mosque compound] under the protection of the Israeli police and army".
He added: "We believe Israel aims to divide the Al-Aqsa Mosque… by allowing Jewish settlers to make tours [of the mosque compound], and some of these settlers attempt to perform Talmudic rituals."
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, he said, "will not allow Israel to divide Al-Aqsa, which is a part of our Muslim heritage and will remain so".
‘Third Temple’ fears
According to Najeh Bkierat, head of the Al-Aqsa Mosque’s manuscripts department, Israel has three goals regarding Al-Aqsa.
The first, he said, is to lay siege to the site by setting up security checkpoints and confiscating surrounding property, while the second is to divide the mosque compound itself "temporally and spatially" between Muslims and Jews.
The final objective, Bkierat said, echoing a common Palestinian fear, was to build a Jewish "Third Temple" on the site where the Al-Aqsa Mosque currently stands.
Bkierat, however, went on to assert that Israel would ultimately fail to do at Al-Aqsa what it did at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque, stressing Al-Aqsa’s enormous importance for Muslims worldwide -- and the massive resistance such a move would engender. Editor's note: Christians outside of the Levant remain divided on the issue, as biblical end times prophecy states: "I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple." ~Revelation 21:22
The current round of violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank -- in which scores of Palestinians have been killed so far -- was initially triggered by a series of clashes in the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex, regarded as sacred to both Jews and Muslims.
World Bulletin/Al Ray reports that those clashes were largely precipitated by large groups of Jewish settlers who -- usually accompanied by Israeli security forces -- frequently forced their way into the mosque compound.
While Jewish settlers have been allowed into the Al-Aqsa compound in greater and greater numbers -- where they often perform "Talmudic rituals" despite a longstanding ban on non-Muslim worship -- the entry of Palestinian Muslim worshipers to the site has been increasingly restricted by the Israeli authorities.
According to Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, head of the Supreme Islamic Council and former Mufti of Jerusalem, the twin moves -- allowing large numbers of Jews into Al-Aqsa while barring Muslims -- is part of an Israeli plan to "partition" the site "temporally and spatially" between worshippers of the two faiths. From the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem in 1967 until 2000, Jerusalem’s Department of Islamic Endowments -- run by next-door Jordan -- has been solely responsible for the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and for regulating visits to the site by non-Muslims.
In September of 2000, a visit to Al-Aqsa by controversial Israeli leader Ariel Sharon -- accompanied by a large delegation and hundreds of Israeli riot police -- sparked what later became known as the "Second Intifada", a years-long popular Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation.
In the wake of Sharon’s contentious visit, the Department of Islamic Endowments banned visits to the site by non-Muslims.
In 2003, however, the Israeli government unilaterally decided -- despite the objections of the Islamic Endowments Department -- to allow non-Muslim visitors into the mosque complex.
Since then, under increasingly right-wing Israeli governments, extremist Jewish settlers have been allowed into the site in ever greater numbers -- usually protected by Israeli security forces -- while Palestinian access to the site has become increasingly restricted.
For Muslims, Al-Aqsa represents the world's third holiest site. Jews, for their part, refer to the area as the "Temple Mount", claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.
Precedent
Those who warn of an Israeli plan to partition Al-Aqsa between Muslims and Jews point to the case of the Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron (Al-Khalil), where such a plan has been successfully implemented.
In the early 1990s, Jewish settlers began visiting the mosque -- which they revere as the "Tomb of the Patriarchs" -- in increasing numbers, leading to occasional clashes with Palestinian Muslim worshippers. Then, on Feb. 25, 1994, extremist Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein walked into the mosque and opened fire on Muslim worshipers performing dawn prayers. Twenty-nine Palestinians were killed in the carnage, sparking large demonstrations across the Palestinian territories.
The Israeli government condemned the act, but nevertheless seized the opportunity to partition the mosque complex between Muslims and Jews -- an arrangement that remains in place until now.
‘Status quo’
Late last month, amid spiraling Israeli-Palestinian violence, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to maintain the "status quo" at Al-Aqsa by retaining the longstanding practice of prohibiting non-Muslim prayer at the flashpoint site.
"Israel reaffirms its commitment to upholding unchanged the status quo of the Temple Mount, in word and in practice," he said in a statement.
He added: "Israel will continue to enforce its longstanding policy: Muslims pray on the Temple Mount; non-Muslims visit the Temple Mount."
And last week, Netanyahu expressly declared that there was no plan to divide the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex.
Yet despite these reassurances, many Palestinians believe the Israeli authorities hope to eventually partition the mosque complex, similar to what they did at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque.
"The Palestinian side has called on Israel to maintain the status quo at the mosque," Ahmed Qurei, who is responsible for the Jerusalem file at the Palestine Liberation Organization, told Anadolu Agency.
"This not only means refraining from dividing Al-Aqsa temporally and spatially between Muslims and Jews, but also forbidding Jewish settlers from staging incursions into the site," he added.
According to Qurei, Netanyahu’s recent pledges to maintain the status quo "have not stopped scores of Jewish settlers from forcing their way every day [into the mosque compound] under the protection of the Israeli police and army".
He added: "We believe Israel aims to divide the Al-Aqsa Mosque… by allowing Jewish settlers to make tours [of the mosque compound], and some of these settlers attempt to perform Talmudic rituals."
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, he said, "will not allow Israel to divide Al-Aqsa, which is a part of our Muslim heritage and will remain so".
‘Third Temple’ fears
According to Najeh Bkierat, head of the Al-Aqsa Mosque’s manuscripts department, Israel has three goals regarding Al-Aqsa.
The first, he said, is to lay siege to the site by setting up security checkpoints and confiscating surrounding property, while the second is to divide the mosque compound itself "temporally and spatially" between Muslims and Jews.
The final objective, Bkierat said, echoing a common Palestinian fear, was to build a Jewish "Third Temple" on the site where the Al-Aqsa Mosque currently stands.
Bkierat, however, went on to assert that Israel would ultimately fail to do at Al-Aqsa what it did at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque, stressing Al-Aqsa’s enormous importance for Muslims worldwide -- and the massive resistance such a move would engender. Editor's note: Christians outside of the Levant remain divided on the issue, as biblical end times prophecy states: "I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple." ~Revelation 21:22
The Hamas Movement has said that the Israeli mass arrest campaign last night against its cadres and supporters as well as citizens in the West Bank will not succeed in aborting al-Quds intifada (uprising).
"Such campaigns will only increase the Palestinian people's determination to continue their uprising and make the occupation pay for its crimes," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri stated in press remarks Tuesday.
At least 23 Palestinians, mostly Hamas officials and members, were kidnapped by the Israeli occupation forces in a large-scale campaign overnight in the West Bank.
"Such campaigns will only increase the Palestinian people's determination to continue their uprising and make the occupation pay for its crimes," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri stated in press remarks Tuesday.
At least 23 Palestinians, mostly Hamas officials and members, were kidnapped by the Israeli occupation forces in a large-scale campaign overnight in the West Bank.
9 nov 2015
Salman Shahin
The Palestinian Health Ministry reported Sunday that the number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli army and armed Israeli paramilitary settlers in the period between October 1 and the evening of Sunday evening November 8, has reached 80, including 17 children and 4 women, while more than 3000 Palestinians have been injured.
The Ministry said 60 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, and 18, including a mother and her child, have been killed in the Gaza Strip, and one in the Negev.
On Sunday, the soldiers shot and killed a young Palestinian man identified as Salman Aqel Mohammad Shahin, 22 allegedly after ramming four Israeli settlers with his car, near the Za’tara roadblock, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
The Health Ministry stated that 1248 Palestinians have been shot with live army rounds in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and 1808 have been shot with rubber-coated steel bullets; 1008 of them required hospitalization and 800 received treatment by field medics.
In the West Bank, 826 Palestinians were shot with live rounds, 895 with rubber-coated steel bullets, while in the Gaza Strip, 422 were shot with live rounds, and 113 with rubber-coated steel bullets.
The Ministry also said that 247 Palestinians suffered fractures and bruises after being assaulted by Israeli soldiers and paramilitary settlers, and 24 suffered burns due to Israeli gas bombs and concussion grenades.
Among the wounded Palestinians in the West Bank are 370 children; 180 shot with live Israeli army fire, 120 with rubber-coated steel bullets, 30 were directly shot with gas bombs and concussion grenades, and 40 were beaten by soldiers and settlers. 170 children have been injured in the Gaza Strip, most of them with live army fire.
The Palestinian Health Ministry reported Sunday that the number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli army and armed Israeli paramilitary settlers in the period between October 1 and the evening of Sunday evening November 8, has reached 80, including 17 children and 4 women, while more than 3000 Palestinians have been injured.
The Ministry said 60 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, and 18, including a mother and her child, have been killed in the Gaza Strip, and one in the Negev.
On Sunday, the soldiers shot and killed a young Palestinian man identified as Salman Aqel Mohammad Shahin, 22 allegedly after ramming four Israeli settlers with his car, near the Za’tara roadblock, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
The Health Ministry stated that 1248 Palestinians have been shot with live army rounds in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and 1808 have been shot with rubber-coated steel bullets; 1008 of them required hospitalization and 800 received treatment by field medics.
In the West Bank, 826 Palestinians were shot with live rounds, 895 with rubber-coated steel bullets, while in the Gaza Strip, 422 were shot with live rounds, and 113 with rubber-coated steel bullets.
The Ministry also said that 247 Palestinians suffered fractures and bruises after being assaulted by Israeli soldiers and paramilitary settlers, and 24 suffered burns due to Israeli gas bombs and concussion grenades.
Among the wounded Palestinians in the West Bank are 370 children; 180 shot with live Israeli army fire, 120 with rubber-coated steel bullets, 30 were directly shot with gas bombs and concussion grenades, and 40 were beaten by soldiers and settlers. 170 children have been injured in the Gaza Strip, most of them with live army fire.
The land and real estate defense committee of Silwan has accused the Israeli occupation authority of attempting to break the morale of the Jerusalemite people and suppress al-Quds intifada (uprising) through issuing more demolition orders against their homes.
Senior member of the committee Fakhri Abu Diyab stated Sunday that the Israeli government's escalation of its demolition policy is aimed at punishing the Jerusalemites over their resistance of the occupation and dissuading them from continuing their uprising.
Abu Diyab added, in press remarks to Quds Press, that Israeli municipal employees escorted by special police forces recently delivered several demolition notices to Palestinian homeowners in Silwan district, south of the Aqsa Mosque, at the pretext of unlicensed construction.
Nine administrative demolition orders were issued by the Israeli municipal authority in Occupied Jerusalem and handed to homeowners on Saturday in the neighborhoods of al-Bustan and Ein Loza in Silwan district.
Three other citizens were also ordered to go to the headquarters of the municipal authority in Jerusalem in order to interrogate them about their unlicensed homes.
Senior member of the committee Fakhri Abu Diyab stated Sunday that the Israeli government's escalation of its demolition policy is aimed at punishing the Jerusalemites over their resistance of the occupation and dissuading them from continuing their uprising.
Abu Diyab added, in press remarks to Quds Press, that Israeli municipal employees escorted by special police forces recently delivered several demolition notices to Palestinian homeowners in Silwan district, south of the Aqsa Mosque, at the pretext of unlicensed construction.
Nine administrative demolition orders were issued by the Israeli municipal authority in Occupied Jerusalem and handed to homeowners on Saturday in the neighborhoods of al-Bustan and Ein Loza in Silwan district.
Three other citizens were also ordered to go to the headquarters of the municipal authority in Jerusalem in order to interrogate them about their unlicensed homes.
8 nov 2015
On Friday morning, activists from BDS Norway staged an intifada against leading arms producer Nammo Raufoss AS, in eastern Norway.
In a symbolic demonstration, the activists protested against the Norwegian direct and indirect arms trade with Israel. According to the Alternative Information Center, the direct action was broadcast live from Tv2 Nyhetskanalen, a national news-channel.
The protest was followed up by a petition to the government, demanding an end to all arms trade with Israel.
In the Israeli arsenal, there are weapons, ammunition and weapons components produced by Nammo AS or Nammo Talley, a subsidiary of Nammo AS in the United States. Israeli forces have killed thousands of Palestinian civilians in the last decade, many of them by using weapons with Norwegian components. Norwegian weapons thus become part of Israel's violation of international law, the oppression of the Palestinians and the Israeli occupation of Palestine (West Bank and Gaza).
Although there are Norwegian laws prohibiting direct arms sales to Israel, Norwegian weapons are sold from the Nammo Group through its subsidiary in the United States, Nammo Talley. We believe that under no circumstances should Norway contribute to the illegal occupation of Palestine. We demand that no Norwegian-produced weapons or weapons components end up in Israel. The Nammo Group is a state-owned company. Therefore, this is a Norwegian political responsibility.
BDS Norway also took action against Nammo AS in August 2014. BDS has resolved to continue demonstrating until Norwegian authorities change both practice and legislation, so that the arms trade and collaboration with Israel ceases. www.bdsnorway.net
In a symbolic demonstration, the activists protested against the Norwegian direct and indirect arms trade with Israel. According to the Alternative Information Center, the direct action was broadcast live from Tv2 Nyhetskanalen, a national news-channel.
The protest was followed up by a petition to the government, demanding an end to all arms trade with Israel.
In the Israeli arsenal, there are weapons, ammunition and weapons components produced by Nammo AS or Nammo Talley, a subsidiary of Nammo AS in the United States. Israeli forces have killed thousands of Palestinian civilians in the last decade, many of them by using weapons with Norwegian components. Norwegian weapons thus become part of Israel's violation of international law, the oppression of the Palestinians and the Israeli occupation of Palestine (West Bank and Gaza).
Although there are Norwegian laws prohibiting direct arms sales to Israel, Norwegian weapons are sold from the Nammo Group through its subsidiary in the United States, Nammo Talley. We believe that under no circumstances should Norway contribute to the illegal occupation of Palestine. We demand that no Norwegian-produced weapons or weapons components end up in Israel. The Nammo Group is a state-owned company. Therefore, this is a Norwegian political responsibility.
BDS Norway also took action against Nammo AS in August 2014. BDS has resolved to continue demonstrating until Norwegian authorities change both practice and legislation, so that the arms trade and collaboration with Israel ceases. www.bdsnorway.net
Secretary General of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah Friday evening called for real support for the Jerusalem Intifada away from sensitivities, disputes, and emerging struggles.
Nasrallah said, in his speech at the international scholar forum for the support of Palestine, that the intifada is qualified to defend the Aqsa and the holy places and capable of halting Israeli threats to Jerusalem.
Nasarallah pointed out that resistance members in the field need all forms of support in their anti-occupation operations. He underlined that the Jerusalem Intifada has frightened the Israeli occupation and badly affected its economy.
Nasrallah said, in his speech at the international scholar forum for the support of Palestine, that the intifada is qualified to defend the Aqsa and the holy places and capable of halting Israeli threats to Jerusalem.
Nasarallah pointed out that resistance members in the field need all forms of support in their anti-occupation operations. He underlined that the Jerusalem Intifada has frightened the Israeli occupation and badly affected its economy.