10 june 2019
A group of Palestinian and Arab experts and academics have called for resisting the US deal of the century and boycotting the Bahrain economic conference slated for late June.
This came in a recent symposium held by the Arab Thinking Forum in London.
The participants condemned the deal of the century as a plan portending a new Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) and a conspiracy targeting the Palestinian cause.
They discussed the options that the Palestinians and Arabs should adopt to confront the deal and stressed the importance of finding solutions to the inter-Arab division and the internal crises in some Arab countries in order to address the challenges.
Head of the Forum Mohamed Ameen stressed the importance of holding such symposiums in light of some Arab regimes’ hasty rapprochement with Israel.
Ameen accused some Arab regimes of trying to make their communication with the Israeli occupation state a natural development and treating it as a regional partner while considering the Palestinians an enemy.
He urged the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to seize the moment and call for a national dialog aimed at reorganizing and reuniting the Palestinian house.
This came in a recent symposium held by the Arab Thinking Forum in London.
The participants condemned the deal of the century as a plan portending a new Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) and a conspiracy targeting the Palestinian cause.
They discussed the options that the Palestinians and Arabs should adopt to confront the deal and stressed the importance of finding solutions to the inter-Arab division and the internal crises in some Arab countries in order to address the challenges.
Head of the Forum Mohamed Ameen stressed the importance of holding such symposiums in light of some Arab regimes’ hasty rapprochement with Israel.
Ameen accused some Arab regimes of trying to make their communication with the Israeli occupation state a natural development and treating it as a regional partner while considering the Palestinians an enemy.
He urged the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to seize the moment and call for a national dialog aimed at reorganizing and reuniting the Palestinian house.
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23 may 2019
Speculation over the White House’s "Middle East peace plan" continues to dominate media coverage of Israel and the Palestinians, the latest example coming with the announcement of a Bahrain-hosted "workshop" in June to encourage investment in the Palestinian economy.
With the exception of the Gaza Strip, however – and then only partially and selectively – minimal attention is being paid to developments on the ground in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the paradigm of military occupation alone is insufficient to understanding what is taking place – namely, ethnic cleansing.
What's ethnic cleansing?
The recently-observed Nakba Day prompted – in some quarters at least – reflection on the mass expulsions and atrocities that accompanied the establishment of the State of Israel. But ethnic cleansing is not a historical exception in Palestine; it is happening today.
In a 1994 essay on identifying ethnic cleansing, legal scholar Drazen Petrovic stressed "the existence of an elaborate policy underlying individual events”, events, or practices, that can include various "administrative measures", as well as violence on the ground by state and non-state actors.
The aim, Petrovic wrote, could be defined “as an irreversible change of the demographic structure” of a particular area, and “achieving a more favorable position for a particular ethnic group in ensuing political negotiations based on the logic of division along ethnic lines”.
This is an apt description of what is taking place today across the the occupied Palestinian territories, at the hands of Israeli state forces and Israeli settlers.
In multiple locations, state and settlers are working together to forcibly transform – through "administrative measures" and violence – local demographics.
Take the Jordan Valley, running down the West Bank’s eastern flank, where Palestinian families are being routinely and repeatedly forced to evacuate their homes, sometimes for days at a time, for military training exercises by Israeli occupation forces.
According to a report in Haaretz, residents of Humsa – to take one example – have been forcibly evacuated from their homes dozens of times in the last few years. “Although they return each time”, the piece noted, “some of them are exhausted and abandon their homes for good”.
No isolated incidents
In April 2014, an Israeli colonel told a Knesset committee meeting that in areas of the Jordan Valley “where we significantly reduced the amount of training, weeds have grown” – referring to Palestinian communities. “This is something that should be taken into consideration,” he said.
A resident of Khirbet Humsa al-Fawqa – a small community in the northern Jordan Valley – told Middle East Eye recently: “I don't know whether they are actually carrying out a military drill. Sometimes they evict us and do nothing. They aim to coerce us into leaving the area for good”.
Meanwhile, Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem reported earlier this month on an “upsurge in the frequency and severity of attacks by settlers” against Palestinians in the Jordan Valley.
The settlers “threaten shepherds, chase them, physically assault them, drive headlong into the flocks to scatter the sheep, and even run over or steal sheep,” B’Tselem stated, adding that “soldiers are usually present during these attacks and sometimes even take part”.
Such attacks, B’Tselem said, “are no isolated incidents, but rather part of the policy Israel has been implementing in the Jordan Valley.”
The goal “is to take over as much land as possible, while getting Palestinians to leave, which it achieves via various measures, including making the reality of living there so untenable and disheartening that Palestinians have no choice but to leave their homes, ostensibly 'by choice'”.
That reality, the NGO summarized, is “made up of coordinated attacks by soldiers and settlers”, as well as “a sweeping ban on the development of the Palestinian communities, construction, and the establishment of vital infrastructures, including water, electricity, and roads”.
Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley are just some of those threatened by Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing. Other examples can be found in Palestinian neighborhoods of occupied East Jerusalem like Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan.
Facts on the ground
On 3 May, Jamie McGoldrick, the UN's humanitarian coordinator in Palestine, warned that demolitions in East Jerusalem by the Israeli authorities had “increased at a staggering pace”, with 111 Palestinian-owned structures destroyed in East Jerusalem during the first four months of 2019.
In these Palestinian communities, the Israeli state, judiciary and settler organisations are all part of the efforts to expel – and replace – Palestinian families.
Last November, Israel’s Supreme Court “paved the way for the settler group Ateret Cohanim to continue legal proceedings to evict at least 700 Palestinians living in the Batn al-Hawa area” of Silwan. The NGO Ir Amim says evictions are central to “a rapid uptake in new facts on the ground”.
By any reasonable definition of the term, Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing here: the use of administrative measures and violence by state forces and settlers to remove Palestinians from their lands and ultimately to carry out an irreversible demographic transformation of various locations.
Thus, the Israeli government – long accustomed to an absence of international accountability for such practices – will be only too happy not merely with the content of the US "peace plan", but with the useful distraction it provides from the horrific reality behind yet more "facts on the ground".
- Ben White is the author of ‘Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide’ and ‘Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy’. He is a writer for Middle East Monitor, and his articles have been published by Al Jazeera, al-Araby, Huffington Post, The Electronic Intifada, The Guardian, and more. This article was published in the Middle East Eye.
With the exception of the Gaza Strip, however – and then only partially and selectively – minimal attention is being paid to developments on the ground in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the paradigm of military occupation alone is insufficient to understanding what is taking place – namely, ethnic cleansing.
What's ethnic cleansing?
The recently-observed Nakba Day prompted – in some quarters at least – reflection on the mass expulsions and atrocities that accompanied the establishment of the State of Israel. But ethnic cleansing is not a historical exception in Palestine; it is happening today.
In a 1994 essay on identifying ethnic cleansing, legal scholar Drazen Petrovic stressed "the existence of an elaborate policy underlying individual events”, events, or practices, that can include various "administrative measures", as well as violence on the ground by state and non-state actors.
The aim, Petrovic wrote, could be defined “as an irreversible change of the demographic structure” of a particular area, and “achieving a more favorable position for a particular ethnic group in ensuing political negotiations based on the logic of division along ethnic lines”.
This is an apt description of what is taking place today across the the occupied Palestinian territories, at the hands of Israeli state forces and Israeli settlers.
In multiple locations, state and settlers are working together to forcibly transform – through "administrative measures" and violence – local demographics.
Take the Jordan Valley, running down the West Bank’s eastern flank, where Palestinian families are being routinely and repeatedly forced to evacuate their homes, sometimes for days at a time, for military training exercises by Israeli occupation forces.
According to a report in Haaretz, residents of Humsa – to take one example – have been forcibly evacuated from their homes dozens of times in the last few years. “Although they return each time”, the piece noted, “some of them are exhausted and abandon their homes for good”.
No isolated incidents
In April 2014, an Israeli colonel told a Knesset committee meeting that in areas of the Jordan Valley “where we significantly reduced the amount of training, weeds have grown” – referring to Palestinian communities. “This is something that should be taken into consideration,” he said.
A resident of Khirbet Humsa al-Fawqa – a small community in the northern Jordan Valley – told Middle East Eye recently: “I don't know whether they are actually carrying out a military drill. Sometimes they evict us and do nothing. They aim to coerce us into leaving the area for good”.
Meanwhile, Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem reported earlier this month on an “upsurge in the frequency and severity of attacks by settlers” against Palestinians in the Jordan Valley.
The settlers “threaten shepherds, chase them, physically assault them, drive headlong into the flocks to scatter the sheep, and even run over or steal sheep,” B’Tselem stated, adding that “soldiers are usually present during these attacks and sometimes even take part”.
Such attacks, B’Tselem said, “are no isolated incidents, but rather part of the policy Israel has been implementing in the Jordan Valley.”
The goal “is to take over as much land as possible, while getting Palestinians to leave, which it achieves via various measures, including making the reality of living there so untenable and disheartening that Palestinians have no choice but to leave their homes, ostensibly 'by choice'”.
That reality, the NGO summarized, is “made up of coordinated attacks by soldiers and settlers”, as well as “a sweeping ban on the development of the Palestinian communities, construction, and the establishment of vital infrastructures, including water, electricity, and roads”.
Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley are just some of those threatened by Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing. Other examples can be found in Palestinian neighborhoods of occupied East Jerusalem like Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan.
Facts on the ground
On 3 May, Jamie McGoldrick, the UN's humanitarian coordinator in Palestine, warned that demolitions in East Jerusalem by the Israeli authorities had “increased at a staggering pace”, with 111 Palestinian-owned structures destroyed in East Jerusalem during the first four months of 2019.
In these Palestinian communities, the Israeli state, judiciary and settler organisations are all part of the efforts to expel – and replace – Palestinian families.
Last November, Israel’s Supreme Court “paved the way for the settler group Ateret Cohanim to continue legal proceedings to evict at least 700 Palestinians living in the Batn al-Hawa area” of Silwan. The NGO Ir Amim says evictions are central to “a rapid uptake in new facts on the ground”.
By any reasonable definition of the term, Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing here: the use of administrative measures and violence by state forces and settlers to remove Palestinians from their lands and ultimately to carry out an irreversible demographic transformation of various locations.
Thus, the Israeli government – long accustomed to an absence of international accountability for such practices – will be only too happy not merely with the content of the US "peace plan", but with the useful distraction it provides from the horrific reality behind yet more "facts on the ground".
- Ben White is the author of ‘Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide’ and ‘Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy’. He is a writer for Middle East Monitor, and his articles have been published by Al Jazeera, al-Araby, Huffington Post, The Electronic Intifada, The Guardian, and more. This article was published in the Middle East Eye.
16 may 2019
The Eurovision song contest is to be held at the Expo Centre in Tel Aviv from 14 to 18 May.
Forty one countries are represented, and an estimated 200 million people will watch the four-day event, a huge boost for the standing of the host country.
The choice of Israel as the venue for this glittering occasion is wrong in every way. Israel qualifies for the competition because the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) is a member of the European Broadcasting Union, which is responsible for the event. The country's first participation in the contest came in 1973.
Nevertheless, Israel is not part of Europe. It likes to see itself as European, but that is not the same thing.
Secondly, it is likely that Expo Tel Aviv, like many other parts of the city, was built on land originally expropriated from the Palestinian village of al-Sheikh Muwannis and villages close by.
Like many others, the village was evacuated by the use of Israeli terror and brute force after 1948, and then demolished. This ugly history has not gone; it will hang over all the singing and the dancing at the Expo Center.
Twenty minutes away from the Eurovision festivities lies the Gaza Strip, a tormented land of siege, poverty and hunger, of Israel's own making. Eighty per cent of the population is aid-dependent, unemployment runs at between 50 and 70 percent, shortages of basic materials are frequent and severe, and hospitals can barely cope with the sick and wounded.
Nearly two million Palestinians are incarcerated in the open-air prison that is Gaza today for no crime other than that they are not Jews. It is a wonder the cries of the frightened children, the amputees and the wounded of Gaza do not reach the revelers in Tel Aviv.
The second Nakba
One year ago on 14 May 2018, the exact opening date of Eurovision this year, Israeli snipers stationed on the self-styled border with Gaza, shot and killed over 60 unarmed Palestinian demonstrators.
Then, too, another celebration was taking place in Jerusalem at the same time: the US illegal recognition of the city as Israel's capital and the announcement of the US embassy move there. In the year since that time, Israeli forces have killed a further 267, according to Gaza's ministry of health, and over 30,000 wounded with more than 7,000 people shot with live ammunition.
Was the cultural boycott not accepted as part of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa?
But the most significant coincidence of timing this week is the 71st anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba. On 15 May 1948, the second day of the Eurovision contest, the state of Israel was established, and with it the catastrophe that has blighted Palestinian lives ever since was set in motion.
Each year, at about this time, Israel celebrates its so-called Independence Day, oblivious to the tragedy its establishment caused for Palestine's indigenous people.
Once a settled, cohesive society, Palestinians today are fragmented over different countries, 5.3 million of them still living in refugee camps. For years Israel has striven to escape or cover over its responsibility for this tragedy, and in that sense, the Eurovision contest has been a godsend.
Israel's reality
Israelis have spared no effort to exploit every opportunity to show themselves off as a part of the Western world. Tel Aviv is bristling with signs in English, an army of local volunteers has been raised to assist visitors, and a free bus service provided, even on the Sabbath - to objections from Orthodox Jews.
A teaser video on Israel TV displays one of the Eurovision hosts, a token Arab in the shape of Lucy Ayoub, the daughter of an Arab-Christian father and a Jewish mother, singing a welcome to the guests. It tells them that, despite what they've heard, Israel is a "land of honey and milk, always sunny, and as smooth as silk."
Many people are aware that the reality of Israel is very different. In 2017, the UN released an authoritative report on Israeli's apartheid system that permeates its laws and conduct towards its non-Jewish citizens.
This was compounded in the summer of 2018, when Israel passed its Nation-State law, affirming its status as the nation-state of the Jewish people. In practice and in law, Israel is a state that discriminates against non-Jews in favor of Jews: apartheid in anyone's understanding of the term.
Meanwhile, crimes against the Palestinian people and their culture continue apace. In August 2018, Israeli bombing destroyed the Said al-Mishal cultural center in Gaza.
Palestinian artists are routinely denied exit visas to participate in cultural events abroad, and the Palestinian poet, Dareen Tatour, is in prison for "inciting terrorism" through her verse.
Rewarding apartheid
On what basis should a state of this kind be rewarded by the glitz and glamour of the Eurovision song contest? What message does this pretense that Israel is a normal state give when its policies and conduct obviously clash with so many civilized norms that the international community aims to live by?
What delusion drives people like the British celebrities, who include Stephen Fry and Sharon Osborne, to write a letter of protest defending Israel against a boycott of Eurovision as advocated by Palestinians and their supporters, on the grounds that Eurovision's "spirit of togetherness" was under attack?
What togetherness is found under apartheid? Was the cultural boycott not accepted as part of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa?
A propaganda tool
Other artists have not been fooled. In January, a number of writers and artists such as fashion designer Vivienne Westwood and film director Mike Leigh, called on the BBC to cancel its planned coverage of the contest.
The musician Roger Waters has urged Madonna not to participate in Eurovision, and in September 2018, he wrote to all 41 contestants asking them to stand with the Palestinians.
Artists like Brian Eno, Lana del Rey and Annie Lennox have declined Eurovision's invitation.
If anyone doubts Israel's need to use the Eurovision contest for propaganda, its deputy minister of public diplomacy, Michael Oren, gave the game away.
As Israel agreed ceasefire terms with Hamas to end the military flare-up on 5 May, he said, "Hamas must go, but right after our holidays and Eurovision."
- Ghada Karmi is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter. She was born in Jerusalem and was forced to leave her home with her family as a result of Israel’s creation in 1948. The family moved to England in 1949, where she grew up and was educated. Karmi practiced as a doctor for many years working as a specialist in the health of migrants and refugees. From 1999 to 2001 Karmi was an Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, where she led a major project on Israel-Palestinian reconciliation. In 2009, she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Her article appeared in the Middle East Eye.
Forty one countries are represented, and an estimated 200 million people will watch the four-day event, a huge boost for the standing of the host country.
The choice of Israel as the venue for this glittering occasion is wrong in every way. Israel qualifies for the competition because the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) is a member of the European Broadcasting Union, which is responsible for the event. The country's first participation in the contest came in 1973.
Nevertheless, Israel is not part of Europe. It likes to see itself as European, but that is not the same thing.
Secondly, it is likely that Expo Tel Aviv, like many other parts of the city, was built on land originally expropriated from the Palestinian village of al-Sheikh Muwannis and villages close by.
Like many others, the village was evacuated by the use of Israeli terror and brute force after 1948, and then demolished. This ugly history has not gone; it will hang over all the singing and the dancing at the Expo Center.
Twenty minutes away from the Eurovision festivities lies the Gaza Strip, a tormented land of siege, poverty and hunger, of Israel's own making. Eighty per cent of the population is aid-dependent, unemployment runs at between 50 and 70 percent, shortages of basic materials are frequent and severe, and hospitals can barely cope with the sick and wounded.
Nearly two million Palestinians are incarcerated in the open-air prison that is Gaza today for no crime other than that they are not Jews. It is a wonder the cries of the frightened children, the amputees and the wounded of Gaza do not reach the revelers in Tel Aviv.
The second Nakba
One year ago on 14 May 2018, the exact opening date of Eurovision this year, Israeli snipers stationed on the self-styled border with Gaza, shot and killed over 60 unarmed Palestinian demonstrators.
Then, too, another celebration was taking place in Jerusalem at the same time: the US illegal recognition of the city as Israel's capital and the announcement of the US embassy move there. In the year since that time, Israeli forces have killed a further 267, according to Gaza's ministry of health, and over 30,000 wounded with more than 7,000 people shot with live ammunition.
Was the cultural boycott not accepted as part of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa?
But the most significant coincidence of timing this week is the 71st anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba. On 15 May 1948, the second day of the Eurovision contest, the state of Israel was established, and with it the catastrophe that has blighted Palestinian lives ever since was set in motion.
Each year, at about this time, Israel celebrates its so-called Independence Day, oblivious to the tragedy its establishment caused for Palestine's indigenous people.
Once a settled, cohesive society, Palestinians today are fragmented over different countries, 5.3 million of them still living in refugee camps. For years Israel has striven to escape or cover over its responsibility for this tragedy, and in that sense, the Eurovision contest has been a godsend.
Israel's reality
Israelis have spared no effort to exploit every opportunity to show themselves off as a part of the Western world. Tel Aviv is bristling with signs in English, an army of local volunteers has been raised to assist visitors, and a free bus service provided, even on the Sabbath - to objections from Orthodox Jews.
A teaser video on Israel TV displays one of the Eurovision hosts, a token Arab in the shape of Lucy Ayoub, the daughter of an Arab-Christian father and a Jewish mother, singing a welcome to the guests. It tells them that, despite what they've heard, Israel is a "land of honey and milk, always sunny, and as smooth as silk."
Many people are aware that the reality of Israel is very different. In 2017, the UN released an authoritative report on Israeli's apartheid system that permeates its laws and conduct towards its non-Jewish citizens.
This was compounded in the summer of 2018, when Israel passed its Nation-State law, affirming its status as the nation-state of the Jewish people. In practice and in law, Israel is a state that discriminates against non-Jews in favor of Jews: apartheid in anyone's understanding of the term.
Meanwhile, crimes against the Palestinian people and their culture continue apace. In August 2018, Israeli bombing destroyed the Said al-Mishal cultural center in Gaza.
Palestinian artists are routinely denied exit visas to participate in cultural events abroad, and the Palestinian poet, Dareen Tatour, is in prison for "inciting terrorism" through her verse.
Rewarding apartheid
On what basis should a state of this kind be rewarded by the glitz and glamour of the Eurovision song contest? What message does this pretense that Israel is a normal state give when its policies and conduct obviously clash with so many civilized norms that the international community aims to live by?
What delusion drives people like the British celebrities, who include Stephen Fry and Sharon Osborne, to write a letter of protest defending Israel against a boycott of Eurovision as advocated by Palestinians and their supporters, on the grounds that Eurovision's "spirit of togetherness" was under attack?
What togetherness is found under apartheid? Was the cultural boycott not accepted as part of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa?
A propaganda tool
Other artists have not been fooled. In January, a number of writers and artists such as fashion designer Vivienne Westwood and film director Mike Leigh, called on the BBC to cancel its planned coverage of the contest.
The musician Roger Waters has urged Madonna not to participate in Eurovision, and in September 2018, he wrote to all 41 contestants asking them to stand with the Palestinians.
Artists like Brian Eno, Lana del Rey and Annie Lennox have declined Eurovision's invitation.
If anyone doubts Israel's need to use the Eurovision contest for propaganda, its deputy minister of public diplomacy, Michael Oren, gave the game away.
As Israel agreed ceasefire terms with Hamas to end the military flare-up on 5 May, he said, "Hamas must go, but right after our holidays and Eurovision."
- Ghada Karmi is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter. She was born in Jerusalem and was forced to leave her home with her family as a result of Israel’s creation in 1948. The family moved to England in 1949, where she grew up and was educated. Karmi practiced as a doctor for many years working as a specialist in the health of migrants and refugees. From 1999 to 2001 Karmi was an Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, where she led a major project on Israel-Palestinian reconciliation. In 2009, she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Her article appeared in the Middle East Eye.
