~OTHER VOICES ...

“Political Zionism has always been premised on the elimination of non-Jews who
account for over half of the population living within the borders controlled by Israel.”
—Daniel McGowan, Executive Director, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

As Israel stands accused by Amnesty International of committing war crimes in Lebanon
following its almost five-week bombardment of that country, which left over a thousand
civilians dead and almost a million displaced, a prominent Israeli historian at Haifa University revisits the formative period of the State of Israel to investigate the treatment of the indigenous Palestinians.

In his controversial new book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Ilan Pappe, a senior lecturer of Political Science at Haifa University, uses recently declassified archival sources to investigate the fate suffered by the indigenous population of 1940s Palestine at the hands of the Zionist political and military leadership, whose actions led to the mass deportation of over a million Palestinians from their cities and villages, over 400 villages wiped from the map, and hundreds of civilians dead.

Pappe pieces together and re-examines the attitudes and motivations that influenced the
conduct of the Jewish community towards the indigenous population. He offers a detailed
account of the events of 1947-8 that eventually led to one of the biggest refugee migrations in modern history. This is no moral rant against the past, but a passionate plea to acknowledge the nakba, as Palestinians call the catastrophe that befell them in 1948, as the root cause of the ongoing Palestine-Israel conflict.

Many political commentators and historians trace the roots of the recent stages of the conflict back only so far as Israel’s occupation of the West Bank following the 1967 war,
rightly regarding the occupation, the settlements, and the Security Barrier as a violation of international law. The first and second intifadas/uprisings may be seen as protests against the continuing occupation and a reflection of the deep despair of the Palestinians, who feel they have been severely let down by their own leaders, by Israel, by Arab states, by the United Nations, and by Western powers.

“Zionism…has driven a whole nation not only out of its homeland but out of historic memory as well.”

Pappe argues persuasively, however, that the continued denial of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 and the consequent dispossession of a million native Palestinians from their homeland represents a gross injustice that requires redress. The refusal to acknowledge this event and allow those dispossessed the right of return to their ancestral lands and homes, are not only an abuse of their human rights, but a rejection from the peace process of the essential foundation for a lasting peace in the Middle East and beyond.

Anton Shammas, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern Literature at the University of
Michigan added, “Ilan Pappe is out to fight against Zionism, whose power of deletion has
driven a whole nation not only out of its homeland but out of historic memory as well.”

 

Palestinian Displacement: A Case Apart?
“Creeping annexation continues unchecked.”

The September 2006 issue of the in-house magazine of the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre includes a major feature on Palestinian displacement. Twenty-eight articles by UN, Palestinian and international human rights organizations, Palestinian scholars in the diaspora and Jewish and Israeli activist groups examine the root causes of the displacement of Palestinians, the consequences of the failure to apply international humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Palestinian entitlement to protection and compensation.

The articles, available online, discuss how failure to address the Palestinian refugee crisis
represents perhaps the gravest shortcoming of the UN since its foundation. The international community has not exerted sufficient political will to advance durable solutions consistent with international law and Security Council resolutions requiring Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territory it occupied in 1967. Durable solutions for displaced Palestinians have been discussed without reference to the legal norms applied in other refugee cases.

Refugee rights, entitlements to compensation or restitution, and the rights to protection
of those Palestinians living under continued military occupation were not central to the now-moribund Oslo peace process, nor are they part of the subsequent US-sponsored
‘Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution’. Creeping annexation
continues unchecked. Upon completion of Israel’s Wall, Palestinians in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip will be restricted to a series of non-contiguous enclaves which constitute an eighth of the area of historic Palestine.

Despite pro-democracy rhetoric, Western response to the internationally-validated
Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006 has sparked a politically-induced crisis and crippled the Palestinian economy. Ordinary Palestinians are suffering as donors freeze
funding required to maintain humanitarian assistance and development programmes.

The 28 articles in this collection are accessible at: www.fmreview.org/palestine.htm

New Human Rights Report Just Released.
The Killing Score:
Israelis 3733 – Palestinians 697

According to figures just published last week by B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, during six years of the present Intifada, from September 29, 2000, to September 27, 2006:

—Israeli security forces have killed 3733 Palestinians (including 767 minors) in the
Occupied Territories. Of these, at least 1812 were not taking part in the hostilities when they were killed, and 208 were the object of a targeted killing. In addition, Israeli security forces killed 60 Palestinians inside Israel. Israeli civilians killed 41 Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.

—Palestinians in turn have killed 697 Israeli civilians (including 119 minors) in the Occupied Territories and inside Israel. In addition, Palestinians killed 314 members of the
Israeli security forces.

A list of the fatalities—Israeli, Palestinian and foreign—and the circumstances in which
they were killed, is available on the B’Tselem website: www.btselem.org

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“…of American manufacture…
some of the bombs are round like a metallic orange,
and others are like a can of fruit juice.”

By Patrick Cockburn, in Nabatiyeh, south Lebanon
US May Ban Sale of Cluster Bombs to Israel

The discovery of hundreds of US-made cluster bombs among the tens of thousands of
unexploded munitions carpeting the south of Lebanon, has led to calls on Washington to
impose a moratorium on sales of the weapons to Israel. Bomb disposal experts are working
around the clock to clear the lethal leftovers after Israel fired 1.2 million bomblets in the last three days of the war. The pods containing the 650 bomblets, which burst apart at a pre-determined height, have a failure rate of up to 30 per cent, leaving clear evidence of their American origin.

The US State Department is investigating Israel’s use of American-made cluster bombs during the war in Lebanon. In particular, whether or not Israel broke a secret agreement with the United States not to use cluster bombs against civilians. The Israelis make no attempt to hide where they obtained this weapon. In the garden of a house in Nabatiyeh used as a headquarters by the British-based Mines Advisory Group (MAG) lies a cluster-bomb container that sprayed bomblets over an area the size of a football pitch. Such weapons are still causing casualties.

When we visited the town a man had just been taken to hospital with severe injuries after a bomblet exploded in his hand. The bomb was the size of a small torpedo. There are letters scrawled in Hebrew on the metal but most of the writing is in English; it says CBU [Cluster Bomb Unit]—58B and “US Air Force.” The manufacturer is identified as Lanson Industries. The bomb was made before the Vietnam War had ended, because there is a marking showing that its warranty ended in February 1974.

Nick Guest, a former British Army bomb disposal officer working for MAG, says the
most common bomblets—the M42 and the M77—are of American manufacture. Some of the bombs are round like a metallic orange and others are like a can of fruit juice. They are small enough to be difficult to detect and may go on killing children and farmers for years.

The unexploded bomblets become anti-personnel mines. Mr. Guest says MAG has teams working in the banana groves on the coastal plain around Tyre and says that even for experts the mines are difficult to find because they may have “fallen into heart of the banana tree where their presence is concealed.”

In hill villages people are about to start harvesting their olive trees though they know
branches and leaves may contain bomblets invisible to anybody from the ground. Another
problem is that the Israelis may have fired cluster bombs into a village and then used
conventional artillery to blow up houses. Families searching the ruins may accidentally
detonate a bomblet.

The early date of the US bomb container in Nabatiyeh reveals another problem. The expiry of the warranty more than 30 years ago suggests that the manufacturer expected some deterioration in the product. Mr. Guest points out that more recent cluster bombs have a self-destruct mechanism that operates after a period of time. But those dating from 1974 do not, and therefore become sensitive anti-personnel mines.
—The Independent

By George Soros
“The time has come to realize that today’s policies are counterproductive.”
Errors of the War on Terror

Israel’s failure to subdue Hezbollah demonstrates the many weaknesses of the war-on-terror concept. One weakness is that even if the targets are terrorists, the victims are often innocent civilians, and their suffering reinforces the terrorist cause.

In response to Hezbollah’s attacks, Israel was justified in wanting to destroy the movement and to protect itself against the threat of missiles on its border. However, Israel should have taken greater care to minimize collateral damage. The civilian casualties and material damage inflicted on Lebanon inflamed Muslims and world opinion against Israel, and converted Hezbollah from aggressors to heroes of resistance. Weakening Lebanon has also made it more difficult to rein in Hezbollah.

Another weakness of the war-on-terror concept is that it relies on military action and
rules out political approaches. Israel withdrew from Lebanon and then from Gaza unilaterally, rather than negotiating political settlements with the Lebanese government and the Palestinian Authority. The strengthening of Hezbollah and Hamas was a direct consequence of that approach. The war-on-terror concept stands in the way of recognizing this fact because it separates us from them, and denies the fact that our actions may shape their behavior.

“Israel should have gone out of its way to strengthen [Mahmoud Abbas]
and his reformist team.”

A third weakness is that the war-on-terror concept lumps together different political movements that use terrorist tactics. It fails to distinguish between Hamas, Hezbollah, Al- Qaida, or the Sunni insurrection and the Mahdi militia in Iraq. Yet all these terrorist manifestations are different and require different responses. Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah can be treated merely as targets in the war on terror because they have deep roots in their societies, yet profound differences exist between them.

Looking back it is easy to see where Israeli policy went wrong. When Mahmoud Abbas was elected chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Israel should have gone out of its way to strengthen him and his reformist team.

When Israel withdrew from Gaza, the former head of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, negotiated a six-point plan for the Middle East on behalf of the Quartet (Russia, the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations). It included opening crossings between Gaza and the West Bank, an airport and seaport in Gaza, opening the border with Egypt, and transferring the greenhouses abandoned by Israeli settlers into Arab hands. None of the six points was implemented.

This contributed to Hamas’ electoral victory. The Bush administration, having pushed Israel to hold elections, then backed Israel’s refusal to deal with a Hamas government. The effect has been to impose further hardship on the Palestinians.

“There will be no end to the vicious circle of escalating violence without a
political settlement of the Palestine question.”

Nevertheless, Abbas was able to forge an agreement with the political arm of Hamas for the formation of a unity government. It was to foil this agreement that the military branch of Hamas, run from Damascus, engaged in the provocation that brought a heavy-handed response from Israel—which in turn incited Hezbollah to further provocation, opening a second front. That is how extremists play off against each other to destroy any chance of political progress.

Israel has been a participant in this game and President Bush bought into this flawed policy, uncritically supporting Israel. Events have shown that this policy leads to an escalation of violence. The process has advanced to the point where Israel’s unquestioned military superiority is no longer sufficient to overcome the negative consequences of its policy. Israel is now more endangered existentially than it was at the time of the Oslo Accord. Similarly, the United States has become less safe since President Bush declared war on terror.

The time has come to realize that today’s policies are counterproductive. There will be no end to the vicious circle of escalating violence without a political settlement of the Palestine question. In fact, the prospects for engaging in negotiations are better now than they were a few months ago. Israelis must realize that a military deterrent is not sufficient on its own. And Arabs, having redeemed themselves on the battlefield, may be more willing to entertain a compromise.

“It is not too late for Israel to encourage and to deal with an Abbas-led Palestinian unity government.”

Strong voices argue that Israel must never negotiate from a position of weakness. They are wrong. Israel’s position is liable to become weaker the longer it persists on its present
course. Similarly, Hezbollah, having tasted the sense but not the reality of victory (and gged on by Syria and Iran), may prove recalcitrant.

But that is where the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas comes into play. The
people of Palestine yearn for peace and relief from suffering. The political—as distinct from the military—wing of Hamas must be responsive to their desires. It is not too late for Israel to encourage and to deal with an Abbas-led Palestinian unity government as the first step toward a better balanced approach. What is missing is a US government that is not blinded by the war-on-terror concept.

— The writer is a financier and philanthropist, and author of “The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror” Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2006. www.project-syndicate.org

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“The problem of poverty is no lesser a threat to Israeli society
than is the security threat.”
By Ruth Sinai
Poor in Israel Total 1.63 Million

The poverty rate in Israel continued to climb in 2005, with another 47,000 Israelis, half of them children, being classed as poor, according to an annual National Insurance Institute [NII] report released last month. By the end of 2005, there were 1.63 million people living below the poverty line in Israel, including 410,000 families and 768,000 children. The figure represents roughly a quarter of the population. The poverty line is set at a monthly income of 1,866 shekels / $424 for an individual, and 4,778 shekels / $1085 for a family of four.

The poverty rate has risen despite the decrease in unemployment. Poverty has risen in spite of the increase in the number of wage earners and the decrease in unemployment, because real wages rose mostly among the upper classes and degree-holders. The salaries of those with no higher education have gone down.

Since 1998 the number of impoverished children has seen a 55 percent growth, and at the end of 2005, 35 percent of all children in Israel lived in poor families, due to the continuing drop in children’s stipends.

While tax reforms have decreased the expectations of a significant increase in poverty levels by raising the income of the upper classes, the “inequality index” measuring differences in income distribution between the rich and the poor indicated a rise in inequality in 2005. Even though the inequality level in Israel is lower than that in the US, it is higher than the level measured in all other developed countries.

“The tax reform has improved the situation of the upper classes and further intensified the gaps in society,” said a former social security CEO in an interview to Israel Radio, and called for the immediate appointment of a full time minister of welfare.

Critics warned that if the 2007 budget will not include a national plan to combat poverty, the organizations in charge of food and equipment distribution would have stop their activities. Even today, they claim, the organizations are unable to answer most of the needs of the poor.

“The problem of poverty is no lesser a threat to Israeli society
than is the security threat.”

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