I am a political activist who has worked and lived in the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This blog chronicles my time in Palestine and also provides news and analysis about Palestine and the situation on the ground in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
2014 Palestinian Land Day march @ Arraba/Shakhnin. Photo by Uri Weltmann.
Dear friends, Sunday, March 30 marks the 36th anniversary of Palestinian Land Day (Youm al-Ard’). In
1976, the Israeli government's announcement of a plan to expropriate more than 60,000 of dunams of Palestinian-Arab-owned land in the Galilee for "security" and settlement purposes. Palestinian citizens of Israel called a general strike
and marches were organised. This was the first significant act of civil disobedience by Palestinians inside 1948. Between 1948 and 1966, Palestinian citizens of Israel had been forced to live under military rule and curfew (something which had not applied to Jewish citizens of the Zionist state). During this period, Palestinians freedom of movement, political activity, free speech, freedom of association and civil rights were severely restricted. Palestinians were prevented from engaging in any type of political activity and were restricted in what jobs they could hold and what education they could pursue. Villages were regularly placed under curfew and Palestinians had to obtain permits to travel from one village to another. While Martial Law formally ended in 1966, Israel has continued its apartheid practices, both in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and inside the Zionist state (for more on this see my article: Israel's Apartheid) The 1976 protests against the announced land grab was the first mass act of resistance after years of military rule. Systematic expropriation, inside the Zionist state since 1948, had reduced Palestinian land ownership from approximately 94% prior to the Nakba to less than 3% in 1976. Determined to crack down on the protests,
the Israeli state imposed curfews on Palestinian villages in the Galilee
and the north of Israel where the
largest demonstrations were to take place. The peaceful demonstration of
thousands of Palestinians and supporters was attacked by 4000 Israeli
police and military, resulting in the death of six unarmed Palestinian
demonstrators and hundreds wounded and hundreds more arrested. Today
across the Occupied Palestinian Territories and inside 48 (Israel),
Palestinians will commemorate Land Day with marches and demonstrations.
The Palestinian martyrs of Land Day, March 30, 1976 were: Raja Hussein Abu Rayya (30) from Sakhnin; Muhsin Hasan Said Taha (15) from Kufr Kanna; Khader Eid Mahmoud Khalaila (24) from Sakhnin; Khayr Mohammad Salim Yasin (23) from Arraba; Khadija Qasem Shawahneh (23) from Sakhnin and; Rafat Ali Az-Zheiri (21) from Nur Shams refugee camp.
Israel, today, still continues its land grab and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians both in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and inside the Zionist state. Since 1967, when Israel seized control of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, the Zionist state has continued its expansion of illegal colonies. Today, more than
half a million Israeli settlers reside illegally in the Occupied West Bank and
Occupied East Jerusalem, doubling the figure of 241,500 that existed
prior to the Oslo agreement in early 1990s.
Israel's expansion and construction of illegal settlements has resulted in both more and more Palestinian land being confiscated, as well as Palestinian resources, including water resources.In January 2014, Friends of the Earth International noted that:
"Many communities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
(West Bank and Gaza Strip) suffer from a lack of access to adequate,
safe, and clean water, due to Israeli water policies and practices which
discriminate against the Palestinian population of the OPT, and the
encroachment by Israeli settlers on Palestinian water resources. (For the full text of their statement, click here)
Inside the Zionist state, Israel is currently seeking to ethnically cleanse between 40,000 and 70,000 Palestinian Bedouin from their homes and land
in the Naqab (Negev) desert. Under the Prawer Plan approximately 40 villages will be uprooted and more than 850,000
dunums of land will be confiscated by the Israeli state.
Palestinians
both inside the Zionist state and in the Occupied Territories have been
protesting against the Prawer Plan and what will be Israel's biggest mass expulsion and
ethnic cleansing of Palestinian since 1948 and 1967. Several national
and international days of actions have taken place to protests Israel's latest land grab. (for more information on the Prawer Plan and the protest against it, see my earlier posts here, here, here, here, here , here and here)
** I have included below a translation of an account by an Israeli policeman on the unprovoked attack by Israeli forces on the peaceful demonstration. The article has been translated from Hebrew by my friend, Ofer Neiman, who is an Israeli activist with the "Boycott from Within" campaign - the campaign by Israeli citizens in support of the Palestinian BDS campaign (click here for more information on the Boycott from Within campaign).
I have also embedded the French documentary, The Land Speaks Arabic which looks at the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948and includes interviews with Palestinian refugees ethnically cleansed from their lands and homes.
On March 30, 1976, Israeli police repressed protests
by Palestinian citizens of Israel against the confiscation of Arab land
in the Galilee for use by Jewish citizens. Six protesters were killed,
some 100 wounded and hundreds were arrested. Ever since, Palestinians in
Israel, the Occupied Territories and the Diaspora mark Land Day on
March 30. ‘Ha’olam Hazeh,’ a magazine published by Uri Avnery, was the
only Israeli media outlet to challenge the state’s narrative of the
events at the time. The following, a testimony from an Israeli police
officer who was present that day, is short item ‘Ha’olam Hazeh’
published following the Land Day events.
(Translated from Hebrew by Ofer Neiman)
I was unfortunate (the swelling on my forehead will attest to that)
to be a part of the police forces which were supposed to pacify the
riots which had broken out amongst the Arabs of the Galilee on the day
they called “Land Day.”
Reading the reports by journalists who were present on the ground, I
cannot but throw down the yoke of silence imposed on me as a police
officer, and set the record straight regarding a number of issues.
I am not a man of the left, but aspects of my view of what happened
in the Galilee on March 30 [1976] will surely have me annexed to the
left-wing bloc, for this bloc, in my opinion, is, to my dismay, the bloc
holding the objective view.
On March 30 at 12:30 in the morning, my unit was called to a
briefing, which was engulfed in hatred towards Arabs, and in which
expressions mandating violence for the sake of violence against those
who have violated our sleep, the Arabs, were voiced. When we reached the
place, no stones awaited us, and therefore our ‘forces’ invaded the
village in armored vehicles – associations with my parents’ stories
about the British Mandate [come to mind].
In the face of the villagers’ practical discontent, the officers
began to fight back with their submachine guns. These officers were very
pleased with themselves, since after all, it is not every day that one
can be a hero with such ease. And more than all others, a first sergeant
and a logistics officer found relief from their abhorrence of the
bureaucratic apparatus by shooting at the panicked villagers (the latter
even hit two, one of them, it turned out, died due to this).
After the villagers fled, the forces entered some of the homes and
began to take their rage out on their entire contents. I witnessed one
such incident, in which glassware, the television set, the record
player, pictures and other objects were smashed to pieces. Such images
cannot but remind me of the poems by Bialik and Tchernichovsky about the
pogroms waged against the Jews [in Russia] at the end of the last
century and the beginning of this century.
The thing which terrified me most of all was the immense hatred of
Arabs running through the veins of most of my fellow policemen, a hatred
which was relieved only in the slightest on March 30.
We must shake off our hatred of the sons of Ishmael, for the sake of justifying our legitimate right to reside on this land.
Originally published by Ha’Olam Hazeh, 1976. Translated from Hebrew by Ofer Neiman.
Dear friends, as you will be aware, on February 10 this year, Australia's oldest and highly acclaimed investigative journalism program, 4 Corners ran a report by journalist John Lyons on Israel's abuse of Palestinian child prisoners. The report, Stone Cold Justice, has been viewed widely both in Australia and internationally.
since John Lyons excellent report about Israel's arrest and abuse of Palestinian child prisoners went to air, there has been a concerted attempt by Zionist and pro-Israel apologists to try and undermine and discredit the report. As I noted in previous blogs on Lyons' report, there has been a concerted attempted by Zionists and pro-Israel apologists to try and undermine and discredit Lyons' report. This began even before the report went to air, with Zionist groups in Australia sending briefing sheets to supporters asking them to complain to the ABC (Australian Broad Cast Corporation) about the report.
John Lyons has since published an article in defense of his report, pointing out that Zionist critics deliberately choose to ignore Israeli realities. You can read Lyons article here, along with my comments on the campaign to discredit his report.
Breaking the Silence, who were interviewed by Lyons as part of the Stone Cold Justice report have now also responded to the Zionist critics. Breaking the Silence is made up of former Israeli combat soldiers who have served in the Israeli occupation forces since the beginning of the Second Intifada. Founded in 2004, the organisation seeks to expose to the Israeli public the reality of everyday life for Palestinians, living under military occupation. In the statement issued by Breaking the Silence in response to Zionist critics, Yehuda Shaul (who founded the group), notes that critics of the both Breaking the Silence and the report are engaged in "mudslinging ... while turning a blind eye to reality".
In their statement (which was published by the right-wing Australian Zionist newsite, J-Wire), Breaking the Silence addresses the deliberate distortions and lies, not only about their organisation and the Lyons report but also about Israel's occupation policies, as well as the attempts by pro-Zionist/pro-Israel groups to white wash Israel's human rights abuses. I have included their full statement below.
While I do not necessarily agree with all of Shaul's politics, Breaking the Silence has and does make useful and important contribution in exposing Israel's occupation and its human rights abuses. As such I think its is important that both Shaul's voice and Breaking the Silence be heard.
For my earlier posts on Lyons' Stone Cold Justice report:
Reporter John Lyons responds to Zionist critics of his Four Corners report on Israel's abuse of Palestinian children: click here.
Four Corners: Stone Cold Justice - Israel's abuse of Palestinian child prisoners: click here.
The ABC Four Corners on the treatment of Palestinian
children by the IDF was addressed by The Australia/Israel and Jewish
Affairs Council. The leader of Israeli advocacy group Breaking the
Silence responds.
From Yehuda Shaul:
Yehuda Shaul in Hebron Pic: Quique Kierzenbaum
I have been a member of Breaking the Silence since its founding in
2004. The organization has grown steadily since into what it is today:
nearly 1000 combat soldiers breaking the silence about their service in
the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The stories we tell are not easy
to hear, we understand that. But the choice our audience has to make is
whether to sincerely listen to us, as veterans, or to begin mudslinging
while turning a blind eye to the reality. It saddens me that Jamie Hyams
and Ahron Shapiro of the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council
(AIJAC) have chosen the latter by slandering our role in ABC’s “Four
Corners” program about children’s rights in the Occupied Territories.
As an organization, Breaking the Silence has a policy of avoiding
responses to each and every unfounded smear against us by groups that
simply copy and paste the misinformation promulgated by the extremist
right-wing organization, NGO Monitor. It is unfortunate that AIJAC has
stooped to NGO Monitor’s reckless tactics, which never cease to remind
us of the dark days of 1950’s McCarthyism. Yet for the sake of the
Australian public, we believe AIJAC’s attack allows us the opportunity
to set the record straight.
Hyams and Shapiro begin vilifying our work by claiming that we
publish “anonymous testimony… that generally can’t be verified.” We
invite AIJAC to view the 700 publicly accessible videos
of our members who have agreed to reveal their identity. There are many
more who have gone public in other ways – to newspapers and in
conferences, for example. We also remind AIJAC that each of our
testimonies undergoes a rigorous verification process where we
crosscheck testimonies with one another and with sources on the ground.
As responsible veterans, we also pass every testimony we publish through
an official IDF censor to ensure we don’t reveal state secrets. For the
record, to this day not a single one of our testimonies has been shown
to be false.
In Israel today, the norm is for soldiers to avoid speaking about
what we did during our service in the territories. Our fear stems not
from the threat of a potential lawsuit, but from the social stigma our
society places upon those who tell the ugly truth. Does AIJAC not
recognize that they are reinforcing this paradigm? Whether or not they
appreciate what we have to say, we demand AIJAC respect our choice and
right to speak out as veterans.
In AIJAC’s article, Hyams and Shapiro go on to claim that Breaking
the Silence “publish[es] the bulk of [our] material in English, rather
than Hebrew.” Neither, however, had the lucidity to simply count the
testimonies available on our website – for which there are over 1,800 in
Hebrew and just 500 in English. Although our work is primarily
conducted in Hebrew, we believe it is our imperative to publish in
English as well because the wider public has a right to receive
information from people that were on the ground rather than from
secondhand sources passing on distorted versions of events.
Hyams and Shapiro continue spreading misinformation by referring to
our hundreds of soldier testimonies as “hardly amount[ing] to human
rights abuses.” If they had only taken the time to look through them,
they would have been privy to soldiers detailing assassinations, house
demolitions, and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields, to
name but a few examples. I am not sure whether Hyams and Shapiro are
unaware of these testimonies or whether they are genuinely asking their
readers to believe that such acts are merely instances “that may have
made soldiers uncomfortable” rather than severe human rights violations.
Instead of dealing with the facts, AIJAC prefers to perpetuate NGO
Monitor’s smears about us receiving donations from foreign sources. It
is unclear why they have chosen this stale slander when Haaretz has reported
that more than half of the contributions to Israeli politicians of all
stars and stripes in the last campaign have come from overseas. Does
AIJAC take issue with Benjamin Netanyahu’s patriotism? Because 97% of
his most recent campaign budget came from outside of Israel. By the way,
it is important to note that AIJAC does not make its own funding
sources publicly available, in stark contrast with Breaking the
Silence’s policy of transparency. We are tremendously proud of our donors. Is AIJAC proud of theirs?
In addition, Hyams and Shapiro take issue with me saying during the
ABC program that “when [soldiers] see settlers attacking a Palestinian,
our orders are not to intervene.” As a former Israeli combat commander, I
believe I know a little more about both the orders I received from my
superiors and the orders I personally gave to my soldiers. We have
countless soldier testimonies, from varied units stationed all over the
West Bank, which have shared the exact same sentiment. I direct AIJAC to
the media section of our website where they can find plenty of recent
evidence for the lack of IDF intervention (1)(2)(3) and law enforcement (1)(2)(3) with regard to settler attacks on Palestinians.
Hyams and Shapiro go on to suggest that settler violence is not a
routine occurrence, but rather that the ABC program “cherry-picked from
incidents going back several years.” This is a preposterous assertion
that could only come from individuals completely unfamiliar with
everyday life in the Occupied Territories. It only takes a peek through a
recent UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) report
to see that a group of armed Israeli settlers from Yitzhar beat
Palestinian farmers with pipes, a middle-aged Palestinian and his
6-year-old son were stoned, and over 150 young olive trees were uprooted
just the other week. This is tamer than usual – with an average of 6
incidents of settler violence each week resulting in civilian casualties
or property damage so far in 2014 and 8 each week the year prior.
Reports suggest that such attacks have largely gone unpunished. The truth is that settler violence is the norm in the territories, day in and day out.
But the most glaring example of AIJAC’s complete disconnect from the reality on the ground is their allegation that The Australian’s
reporter John Lyons contradicts me in discussing the army’s escorting
of children in the South Hebron Hills. If they were only aware of the
context leading up to the state ordering the military escort, they would
know that this is a case of the exception that proves the rule.
The story of the military escort begins with the Palestinian children
of the South Hebron Hills, some as young as 8-years-old, walking from
their village of Tuba to a school in neighboring at-Tuwani. Settlers
from the nearby outpost, called “Ma’on Farm,” launched attacks on these children
– often perpetrated by masked men using clubs and chains. In 2005,
children were ceaselessly harassed and assaulted; in one instance, four
children were evacuated to a nearby hospital for medical treatment.
These attacks on children must be placed in the context of the 70
violent acts by settlers recorded that year, including stoning
Palestinians shepherds, poisoning their water cisterns and grazing
fields, wounding and killing their livestock, and burning their crops.
The army ignored these events, even when Israeli and international
activists began likewise becoming the victims of this brutality in their
attempt to protect the children with their own bodies. Influential
Israeli public figures began drawing attention
to the phenomenon after hearing about a spree of nearly a dozen attacks
on children during the span of just one month in April-May of 2006. It
is only because of this intense public pressure that the case saw a
massive intervention by Israeli Members of Knesset, which forced the army to escort the children. The pressure to maintain the escort continues even today.
It is important to note that the army escort has not stopped settler
attacks on Palestinian children, since the assailants have now began targeting the soldiers as well. AIJAC is invited to read one of our testimonies
from a soldier who served in the battalion required to escort the
children in 2006. He describes how a settler gang stoned the soldiers,
one of them losing his consciousness after being hit, and yet not a
single soul was even brought in for investigation. By the way, although
the law was not enforced on the settler, IDF soldiers were reprimanded
for firing a warning shot in attempt to stop the settlers from stoning
the children.
As an Israeli patriot and a former IDF soldier, I understand that the
truth is a bitter pill to swallow. I understand that looking in the
mirror and seeing the society you dearly love act so brutishly is
painful. I understand that you do not want to believe what happens on a
day-to-day basis in the Occupied Territories. Neither did we. But now we
have broken our silence. It is time for you – AIJAC – to hear us out,
rather than taking NGO Monitor’s hand and doing your best to silence us.
Yehuda Shaul served as an infantry soldier and commander
in the IDF between March 2001 and March 2004. He is the founder of
Breaking the Silence.”
Dear friends, you may have seen the reporting in Israel Haaretz newspaper about settlers in Occupied Hebron attempting to scale the roof of Palestinian house to remove a Palestinian flag. After the settler got caught in barbed wire, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) intervened and demanded the Palestinian home owner remove the flag. When he refused, they threatened to arrest him. Several days later, the IOF returned and removed the flag. According to the home owner Shadi Sider, who filmed the settler scaling his roof, the IOF kidnapped a neighbourhood child claiming he had thrown stones. They conditioned the child's release on the removal of the flag - to which he finally agreed. When the incident was originally reported by Haaretz, the IOF claimed that they have "no standard policy to remove flags and does not
plan to implement such a policy". However, there is a lie.
Amongst the thousands of military orders used by the IOF to control every aspect of Palestinian life under occupation, there is also an Israeli military
order which prohibits the flying/waving/displaying of Palestinian
flags both in public (eg at demonstrations) and in private.
Israel
Military Order 101 - Order Regarding Prohibition of Incitement and
Hostile Propaganda Actions - has an amendment (no1079) pertaining to the
"waving of flags" which states: "It is forbidden to hold wave, display
or affix flags or political symbols except in accordance with a permit
of the military commander".
Military Order 101 also prohibits any assembly, village, procession, or publication relating to "a political matter or one liable to be interpreted as political". The order is sweeping and does not include any precise definition of what example can be interpreted as "political". As a result, it is used to restrict Palestinian political freedom on a wide ranging basis. In addition, the order does not simply pertain to gatherings or public activities, it also allows for the restriction of gatherings and political activities in private places (ie. such as flying a Palestinian flag on your own roof).
The order also applies to all types of publications, whatever their circulation - so can be applied against the publication of newspapers, poems, photography, drawings, painting, other forms of art work. The military order is so sweeping that even the publication of an opinion piece criticising Israel's occupation can be considered a violation of the order. (To read full text of Military Order 101, please click here)
"the order imposes far-reaching restrictions on freedom of expression
and the freedom to demonstrate, exceeding the cautious restrictions
permitted by international and Israeli law" and "establishes a maximum penalty of ten years' imprisonment or a heavy fine, despite the
fact that these offenses do not injure life, body, or even property".
B'Tselem goes onto note in relation to "national symbols" such as the Palestinian flag:
The order emphasizes the prohibition on political protest and
prohibits the bearing of national symbols in the framework of a peaceful
procession, or even on the level of the private individual.
In
the initial years after Oslo, in
general the military order was usually only used in relation to the
"Incitement" provisions in it but the order remains and can be used if
the military commander so deems it. While the IOF may not currently have
a "standard policy to remove flags" as the IOF spokesperson first
claimed that does not mean there isn't a military order that allows
them to prevent Palestinians displaying flag or that they don't
implement this military order at different and random times - thus
demonstrating how arbitrary the IOF are in applying military orders.
On the application of the incitement provision in the military order,
the order is broad enough to allow for a military commander to deem the
waving or display of flags as "incitement". The provision states: Any
person who (a) attempts orally or in another manner to influence public
opinion in the region in a manner that is liable to harm public safety
or public order or (b) does any act or has in his possession ay object
with the intent to do or facilitate the commission of an attempt as
aforesaid will be charged with violating this order".
So while the Israeli military has attempted to portray the incident in Occupied Hebron as a one off mistake, it is in fact a systematic part of the occupation regime which restricts and prohibits Palestinian political freedom.
I have included below, the video shot by Shadi Sider and other B'Tselem volunteers, as well as the two articles from Haaretz on the issue and B'Tselem's statement.
Israeli
soldiers in Hebron told a Palestinian to remove the Palestinian flag
flying from his roof and threatened him with arrest if he refused.
The soldiers issued the order after a settler had tried to remove the flag himself but got entangled in barbed wire.
The
incident occurred on Saturday, when a settler came to the house of
Shadi Sider, who lives near the city’s Jewish enclave, Beit Hadassah,
and climbed onto his roof in an effort to take down the Palestinian
flag. Instead, he got tangled in barbed wire and remained stuck there,
attracting stares from a small crowd of curious onlookers, until an
Israel Defense Forces soldier arrived to extricate him.
A
few minutes later, several other soldiers and an officer arrived and
asked Sider to take down the flag. They said they were acting on orders
from brigade headquarters.
Tempers
quickly flared, and the soldiers threatened to arrest Sider. But then
the officer called brigade headquarters to warn that cameras were
present, asking, “Do you want me to remove it by force?” About 10
minutes later, the soldiers left, but said they would return with an
official order.
B’Tselem,
the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied
Territories, said that soldiers are obligated first and foremost to
protect local Palestinians, as they are a protected population in the
West Bank. Therefore, the soldiers had no right to leave Sider to defend
himself against a settler trying to invade his home, much less to
demand, under threat of arrest, that he remove a flag flying on his home
– especially when many Israeli flags are flying nearby without any
interference. And they are certainly forbidden to satisfy the whim of a
settler who invaded a Palestinian house because he couldn’t bear the
sight of a Palestinian flag, it added.
The
IDF stated that it has no standard policy to remove flags and does not
plan to implement such a policy. “This individual initiative will be
investigated,” a spokesperson said. **
Israeli soldiers turned up for the second time on Saturday
at a home in Hebron to order the removal of a Palestinian flag, even
though the Israel Defense Forces said last week there is no policy
against displaying flags. Shadi
Sider, a member of a Palestinian family living near the Jewish
settlement enclave of Beit Hadassah, said the soldiers had arrested a
neighbor for allegedly throwing stones and conditioned his release on
the removal of the flag. Sider said he capitulated to their demand and
took it down. “[The
soldiers] arrested a youth who lives in the building, claiming he threw
stones,” Sider said. “They said they would release the boy if we took
down the flag. There was an important officer with them so we agreed and
took it down.” An
IDF official denied Sider’s claim about the Palestinian youth who was
arrested, saying he was freed because he is too young to be criminally
responsible. Convincing is all it took to get the flag removed, the
source said. The IDF declined to give an official comment. Just over a week ago, following the first attempt by soldiers
to have the flag removed, the IDF said there was no official policy
that says Palestinians cannot display flags. “There is no intention to
implement such a policy,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said. “It was a
local decision. The matter will be looked into.” However,
the IDF commander in Hebron, Avi Bluth, later decided to have the flag
taken down, explaining its display has disturbed the status quo between
Jewish settlers and Palestinian residents in Hebron. What
prompted the initial visit by Israeli soldiers to Sider’s house was a
request by a settler who only turned to the soldiers for help after
failing to remove the flag himself. The settler had climbed onto a
ladder to try and reach the flag, but became entangled in barbed wire.
He attracted a crowd of onlookers who recorded the scene. After a short
while soldiers arrived to extricate him. When
the soldiers, who were accompanied by an officer, knocked on Sider’s
door to ask him to remove the flag they were met with refusal. They said
they were acting on orders from brigade headquarters. Tempers quickly
flared, and the soldiers threatened to arrest Sider. But then the
officer called brigade headquarters to warn that cameras were present,
asking, “Do you want me to remove it by force?” About 10 minutes later,
the soldiers left but said they would return with an official order.
Hebron
settlers released a statement saying the footage of the affair, taken
by a tourist, only shows half the story, and that Sider “provoked” the
settler by waving the flag and “taunting” him. “The
flag may not be defined as illegal but it represents the [Palestine
Liberation Organization], a terrorist organization that has never
recognized Israel and has never renounced its murderous intentions,” the
Beit Hadassah statement read.
**
On Saturday B’Tselem camera volunteer
Shadi Sidr filmed a settler trying to climb onto Sidr’s own roof to
take down a Palestinian flag flying there. The settler got caught in the
barbed wire that encircles the roof. The two men go to speaking to one
another, and the settler informed Shadi that Shadi’s roof actually
belongs to the settler, not Shadi, because the roof is part of Land of
Israel. An Israeli soldier then came to the house. He too demanded that
Shadi take down the flag, trying to justify his order by saying there
are no other flags in the area. The footage belies this statement,
showing many Israeli flags nearby. Shortly thereafter, five other soldiers arrived at the house. They
ordered Shadi and his brothers ‘Abed and Adham to take down the flag,
threatening to arrest Shadi should he refuse. The incident was filmed by
B’Tselem field researcher Manal al-Jaabari and B’Tselem camera
volunteer Mahmoud Abu Hayah. B’Tselem would like to underscore the fact that soldiers must ensure
the safety of Palestinian individuals. They must not abandon a
Palestinian to fend for himself in the face of a throng trying to gain
access to his private residence. Not only did this particular
Palestinian not receive military protection, soldiers came on the scene
shortly after and ordered him, on pain of arrest, to take down a flag of
Palestine from his own roof. The demand was made while many Israeli
flags were flying undisturbed in the immediate vicinity.
The soldiers,
responsible for maintaining security in the area, are first and foremost
obliged to protect Palestinians who constitute the protected population
of the West Bank. It goes without saying that soldiers must not aid and
abet settlers trespassing on Palestinians’ homes or satisfy the whim of
a settler displeased by the sight of Palestinian flag flying in Hebron.
Dear friends, I have been meaning to post up this excellent article by Rania Khalek for sometime. The article was originally published by Electronic Intifada and addresses many of the main hasbara talking points use by Zionists and Israel apologists to claim that Israel is not engaged in apartheid practices.
in solidarity, Kim *
How today’s liberal Zionists echo apartheid South Africa’s defenders
Liberal Zionists have adopted the same arguments in defense of
Israeli occupation that conservative opponents of sanctions on South
Africa’s apartheid regime used in the 1980s.
“While the majority of black South African leaders are against
disinvestment and boycotts, there are tiny factions that support
disinvestment — namely terrorist groups such as the African National
Congress,” libertarian economics professor Walter Williams wrote in a 1983 New York Times op-ed.
Williams’ claim was as absurd then as it appears in hindsight, but
his sentiment was far from rare on the American and British right in the
1980s.
Yet today’s so-called progressive and liberal Zionists employ
precisely the same kinds of claims to counter the growing movement,
initiated by Palestinians themselves, for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) on Israel.
Indeed, looking back, it is clear that Israel’s liberal apologists
are recycling nearly every argument once used by conservatives against
the BDS movement that helped dismantle South Africa’s apartheid regime.
“Singling out”
In a 1989 op-ed for the Christian Science Monitor,
University of South Africa lecturer Anne-Marie Kriek scolded the
divestment movement for singling out her country’s racist government
because, she wrote, “the violation of human rights is the norm rather
than the exception in most of Africa’s 42 black-ruled states” (“South Africa Shouldn’t be Singled Out,” 12 October 1989).
Kriek continued, “South Africa is the only country in Sub-Saharan
Africa that can feed itself. Blacks possess one of the highest living
standards in all of Africa,” adding that nowhere on the continent did
black Africans have it so good. So, “Why is South Africa so harshly
condemned while completely different standards apply to black Africa?”
she asked.
Where have we heard these kinds of arguments before?
Arguing against BDS, The Nation’sEric Alterman
writes, “The near-complete lack of democratic practices within Israel’s
neighbors in the Arab and Islamic world, coupled with their lack of
respect for the rights of women, of gays, indeed, of dissidents of any
kind — make their protestations of Israel’s own democratic shortcomings
difficult to credit” (“A Forum on Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS),” 3 May 2012).
Alterman’s only update to Kriek’s logic is his mention of women’s and gay rights, a nod to The Nation readers’ liberal sensitivities.
Alterman’s sometime Nation colleague, reporter Ben Adler,
has also reprised Kriek’s and Dohi’s 1980s-style arguments: “If you want
to boycott Israel itself then you need to explain why you’re not
calling for a boycott of other countries in the Middle East that oppress
their own citizens worse than Israel does anyone living within the
Green Line” (“The Problems With BDS,” 31 March 2012).
A scary brown majority
The late neoconservative war hawk, and long-time New York Times columnist William Safire — who in 2002 insisted, “Iraqis, cheering their liberators, will lead the Arab world toward democracy” — also sympathized with white supremacist anxieties about the implications of a single democratic South Africa.
One person, one vote “means majority rule, and nonwhites are the
overwhelming majority in South Africa,” Safire wrote in a 1986 column.
“That means an end to white government as the Afrikaners have known it
for three centuries; that means the same kind of black rule that exists
elsewhere in Africa, and most white South Africans would rather remain
the oppressors than become the oppressed” (“The Suzman Plan,” 7 August 1986).
Almost thirty years later, liberal Zionists exhibit the same empathy with racists in their own hostility toward the Palestinian right of return, which BDS unapologetically champions. Such a scenario would spell the end of Israel’s Jewish majority, a
horrifying prospect for ethno-religious supremacists who, like whites in
South Africa did, fear the native population they rule.
Cary Nelson, a professor of English at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, well-known in academic circles for his left-liberal
activism, conveyed the same fears in a recent anti-BDS tirade. He argued
that “nothing in decades of Middle East history suggests Jews would be
equal citizens in a state dominated by Arabs or Palestinians” (“Why the ASA boycott is both disingenuous and futile,” Al Jazeera America, 23 December 2013).
Nelson’s racism-induced panic is further distilled in a Wall Street Journal
op-ed, where he argues that the BDS movement seeks “the elimination of
Israel,” after which, “those Jews not exiled or killed in the transition
to an Arab-dominated nation would live as second-class citizens without
fundamental rights” (“Another Anti-Israel Vote Comes to Academia,” 8 January 2014).
Of course he wouldn’t put it this way, but Nelson fears, in effect,
that Palestinians might do to Jews what the Israeli settler-colonial
regime has done to Palestinians since its inception.
In The New Republic, Leon Wieseltier chides pro-BDS
academics for speaking on behalf of Palestinians. “Who is Abu Mazen
[Abbas] to speak for the Palestinians, compared with an associate
professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, San Diego?”
he quipped (“The Academic Boycott of Israel Is a Travesty,” 17 December 2013).
These and other liberal Zionists insist that the Israeli- and
US-approved Abbas is the only authentic representative of Palestinian
sentiment. They ignore the overwhelming support for boycotting Israel
among the Palestinian people.
But for many Palestinians, an apt comparison for Abbas is with Chief
Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the black leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party.
Buthelezi was often denounced by black South Africans as a
collaborator with the white apartheid regime and lauded by British and
American conservative opponents of sanctions as the true voice of black
South Africa.
In a 1985 address to representatives from US companies operating in South Africa, Buthelezi insisted
that the majority of South African blacks firmly opposed sanctions
because they would “condemn a great many millions and a whole new
generation to continue living in appalling slum conditions.”
In 1990, Buthelezi came out against
an ANC-led campaign of mass civil disobedience — marches, boycotts and
strikes — throwing his weight instead behind “cooperation” and
“negotiation” with the white regime.
This offers a striking parallel to the present-day Palestinian
Authority which continues to give legitimacy to the endless “peace
process” while suppressing direct action against the occupation.
Buthelezi was only the most prominent of a handful of black
apologists and collaborators with the apartheid regime. Others included
Lucas Mangope, puppet leader of the Bophuthatswana bantustan who also fiercely opposed sanctions that would isolate his white supremacist paymasters.
Mangope cringed at the idea of a one-person, one-vote system in South Africa and spent the last days of apartheid desperately clinging to power over his “independent” island of repression.
Yet it wasn’t uncommon for US media outlets — including The New York Times — to label Mangope, and others like him, “moderate” black leaders.
Israel, it seems, has taken its cues directly from the apartheid
playbook, cultivating a small circle of Palestinian elites willing to
maintain the occupation in exchange for power and comfort.
And liberal Zionists are more than happy to bolster the ruse by using
these comprised figures’ words against Palestinians who still insist on
their rights.
Think of the workers
When Mobil Corporation was forced to shut down its operations in
South Africa in 1989 due to what it called “very foolish” US sanctions
laws, its chief executive, Allen Murray, feigned concern for the impact
on black workers.
“We continue to believe that our presence and our actions have
contributed greatly to economic and social progress for nonwhites in
South Africa,” the oil executive declared (“Mobil Is Quitting South Africa, Blaming ‘Foolish’ Laws in US,” The New York Times, 29 April 1989).
Before finally giving in to boycott pressures, Citibank also justified its refusal to divest by citing its obligation to the South Africans it employed.
Last month, SodaStream
chief executive Daniel Birnbaum echoed this transparent posturing when
he defended the location of his company’s main production facility in
the illegal Israeli settlement of Maaleh Adumim.
“Constructive engagement” again?
Scarlett Johansson, the Hollywood actress who resigned from her humanitarian ambassador role with the anti-poverty organization Oxfam in
order to pursue her role as global brand ambassador for SodaStream,
applauded the company for “supporting neighbors working alongside each
other, receiving equal pay, equal benefits and equal rights.”
Such appeals for cooperation with an oppressive status quo in the face of growing support for BDS mirror President Ronald Reagan’s insistence on “constructive engagement” with apartheid South Africa.
While asserting in 1986 that “time is running out for the moderates
of all races in South Africa,” Reagan opposed sanctions that could
foster change. Today, supporters of the endless Israeli-Palestinian
“peace process” also regularly insist that “time is running out,” while fiercely opposing BDS.
Reagan praised his British counterpart Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher for having “denounced punitive sanctions as immoral and utterly
repugnant.” Why? Because “the primary victims of an economic boycott of
South Africa would be the very people we seek to help,” the president
argued (“Transcript of Talk by Reagan on South Africa and Apartheid,” The New York Times, 23 July 1986).
The Reagan administration even funded a survey of black South African
workers to prove they loved working for benevolent American
corporations and adamantly opposed divestment, never mind the fact that
advocating for sanctions under apartheid was a severely punishable offense.
Fast forward to 2014 and Jane Eisner, editor of the liberal Jewish Daily Forward publicly hails SodaStream as the solution to the conflict, using her newspaper to portray Palestinian workers as grateful
to be employed by the settlement profiteer, sentiments they expressed
while being interviewed under the watchful eyes of their supervisors.
Taking racism a step further
Today, twenty-first century liberals and progressives who are
ideologically invested in Zionism have embraced the rationales of racist
right-wingers from a bygone era. What’s more, liberal Zionists have taken the racism a step further than Reagan and Thatcher ever dared to go with South Africa.
Although they opposed sanctions, Reagan and Thatcher regularly
denounced apartheid as an unjust system that needed to be dismantled.
Israel’s apologists, by contrast, firmly support the maintenance of
Israel’s discrimination against Palestinians with their insistence that
the country remain a “Jewish state” and their continued denial of the
Palestinian right of return.
Rania Khalek is an independent journalist reporting on the underclass and marginalized
Dear friends, as already noted on this blog, on Monday 10 February, the ABC (Australian Broadcast Corporation) ran a hard hitting investigative report by John Lyons on
Israel's treatment of Palestinian children (click here for my earlier post). The report, "Stone Cold Justice", which discussed in detail Israel's occupation and its abuse of Palestinian children - in particular Palestinian child prisoners - was broadcast by Australia's
longest running investigative journalism program, Four Corners.
Since going to air the report has been viewed widely not only in Australia but also internationally (via youtube and the web), receiving widespread praise. It has also received concerted criticism from Zionists and Israel apologists, both in Australia and internationally.
As I noted in my previous blog on the report even before the report was aired, Zionist organisations in Australia sought to discredit the report (click here to read). The Zionist Federation of Australia, along with the Zionist Council of Victoria and other Zionist organisations distributed a briefing paper with the usual hasbara (propaganda) talking points and called on supporters to bombard the ABC with letters and emails complaining about the program.
As with the Zionist critics of the program in Australia, the international critics offered up the same hasbara talking points and predictably labelled the program as "anti-semitic". The fact that pro-Zionist hasbara groups out side of Australia have felt the need to try and discredit the program reveals the widespread impact Lyons' report has had internationally.
In response to the criticism of his report, John Lyons on Saturday (March 8) responded to Zionist critics and Israel apologists in an article published by The Australian newspaper. In his scathing response to critics, Lyons points out the hypocrisy of his critics and notes that the way in which Israel treats Palestinian children in the Occupied West Bank would be illegal in Australia. Lyons goes onto note that Israel enforces an apartheid system and points out that Zionist advocacy groups spend more time trying to block criticism of Israel's settlement project than they do advocating for the two state solution, which on paper they supposedly support as they take their lead from the Israeli state which also supposedly supports a two state solution.
In his most cutting criticism, Lyons points out that "Melbourne-based people such as Sheridan [pro-Zionist commentator regularly run by The Australian] and Rubenstein
[head of Zionist advocacy group AJIAC] portray themselves as experts yet ignore reality" and goes on to cite numerous real experts who have real experience with Israel's occupation practices.
Lyons' rebuttal of his critics easily demolishes their mealy mouthed attempts to discredit his Stone Cold Justice report. The only short coming in his rebuttal is that while he does address a number of individual pro-Israel apologists published by his newspaper, The Australian, Lyons makes no comment on the paper's systematic whitewashing and apologism for Israel's human rights abuses and apartheid regime.
As I have noted previously on this blog (here and here) and in an article I wrote for the online edition of Overland Magazine, The Australian is a pro-Zionist newspaper. In the last three years it has waged an obsessive campaign against the Palestinian initiated Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. In 2013, in an one month period between May 1 and May 31, the Australian published 26 news articles, editorials or opinions on the BDS campaign,
the vast majority of which were overwhelmingly negative,
condemning the campaign and Palestine supporters as
anti-Semitic, accusing them of running an intolerant hate campaign. Since the airing of the Four Corners' Stone Cold Justice report, which was billed as a joint report by The Australian (as Lyons is their Middle East Correspondent) and Four Corners, The Australian has run at least two editorials and five comment pieces either whitewashing Israel's human rights abuses against Palestinians or justifying Israel's apartheid regime.
On February 11, the day after
Lyons report aired on the ABC, The Australian ran an editorial
addressing the report. The primary focus of the editorial entitled
"Israel moves on child justice" was to whitewash and justify Israel's
actions. The editorial, while noting practices "alleged" in Lyons
report are "inhumane", the editorial quickly went on to argue that such
actions also need to be understood "in context" and that "it needs to be acknowledged that
the Israeli army faces
constant and often dangerous provocation in the area, with children
in the vanguard of stone-throwing
and violence. Brutal as it was, such treatment of as many as 700
children a year
was an excessive response to an ongoing, simmering conflict and not
the product of state-sanctioned
racism".
This is of course not true and ignores the fact that Zionism, Israel's
state sanction ideology is a racist and exclusivist ideology as been
shown by a range of historians, researchers and commentators, including
Israeli based ones (see here , here and here). Israeli and international newspapers have repeatedly run stories on surveys and polls which outline the deeply racism which is deeply ingrained in Israeli society (see here , here , here and here )
The editorial then
went on to laud Israel for being a democracy and claimed that Palestinian
citizens of Israel and their children "have the same legal, educational, health and
other rights as Jewish
children". This is of course not true, as Israel human rights group, Adalah has documented - there are at least 50 laws in Israel which actively discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel in all of these areas, as well as many more (see Adalah's database of discriminatory laws here).
Of the five op-eds seeking to whitewash Israel's human rights abuses and apartheid regime run by The Australian, three of the comment pieces were by the Australia/Israel
& Jewish Affairs Council, two were published on 14 February and February 22 respectively and sought to denouncing the report or trying to discredit it and the ABC/Four Corners as being anti-semitic, while the third op-ed from AIJAC published on February 18 was in response to an earlier op-ed by former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr and sought to defending Israel's military and settlement activity in the Occupied West
Bank .
The newspaper ran a fourth comment piece on 21 February in the name of Israel's ambassador to Australia entitled "Palestinians guilty of turning kids into killers", promoting the long recycled racist Zionist propaganda about Palestinians supposedly teaching their children to hate, ignoring completely the fact that stone throwing happens as a direct result of Israel's brutal 47 year old military occupation of Palestinian villages and lands.
A fifth comment piece by well know Israel apologist and hard right pundit, Greg Sheridan, accusing Lyons report of being"Evil and deeply untrue" (this was the title of his article) was published on March 1. It is Sheridan's op-ed, which appears to have prompted Lyons response on March 8.
During the same period, it ran one comment piece on 22 February by Yehuda Shaul from the Israeli soldier group Breaking the Silence which speaks out against Israel's occupation practices. Shaul, who appeared in Lyons report, while condemning Israel's occupation practices focuses on the need to end such practices in order to save Israel from itself.
In addition, an article by John Lyons was published on 20 February, which reports on the Israel's military announcement that it would launch a "comprehensive review of its policy of dealing with
Palestinian children, including an immediate pilot program to end
night-time arrests".
However, the Israeli military's statements need to be viewed with caution as both it and the Israeli state have made similar pledges before in the wake of intensive criticism, but has repeatedly failed to implement any real changes to its occupation policies and/or treatment of Palestinian prisoners, including child prisoners.
The Australian, ever the Israel cheer leader, seized on this announcement and ran a second editorial on 21 February whichlauded Israel as being "the only functioning democracy in the Middle East" and for acting "wisely" to supposedly end "night-time arrests of Palestinian children suspected of stone
throwing and other crimes
on the West Bank". The editorial, however, then goes on to justify the use of Israel military night raids on Palestinian homes and villages, saying "Night arrests were preferred because
of the likelihood of violent
demonstrations during the day", completely justifying Israel's violation of international law. It then repeated the propaganda promoted by in the op-ed in The Australian the week before by Colin Rubenstein, the executive
director of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, that "many of the
700 Palestinian minors arrested annually in Israel are involved in
shootings, bomb plotsand
murder, as well as stone-throwing".
This of course is an out right fabrication, with various human rights groups all producing reports documenting that nearly all arrests of Palestinian minors have been related to accusations of stone throwing. As these human rights organisations have noted, the Israeli military targets Palestinian children for arrest and specifically seeks to arrest Palestinian children in order to try and intimidate Palestinian communities and/or to create collaborators (see here, here and here. Also see my previous post on this issue: here and here ).
Lyons' response, while understandably not able to take up The Australian's biased coverage of Palestine and its attempts to whitewash Israel's occupation and apartheid policies, is nevertheless outstanding and should be widely shared.
I have included his response below and have embedded his Four Corners report once again.
SO a priest at a church Greg Sheridan attended in Melbourne said something possibly anti-Semitic, and somehow ABC1’s Four Corners and I are responsible?
It’s not even certain the priest watched the Four Corners program on
Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children. But it sounds as if he
didn’t need anyone to stoke his anti-Semitism - Sheridan said he spoke
as someone “with 2000 years of Christian anti-Semitism behind him”.
Sadly, this is the level to which discussion about Israel has sunk.
Last Saturday, Sheridan said a program I reported for Four Corners was
“a crude piece of anti-Israel propaganda that revived some of the oldest
anti-Semitic tropes”.
Why can journalists put the Australian
Army or federal police or US Army through the ringer, but if we
investigate the most powerful army in the Middle East it’s
anti-Semitism?
As a correspondent in Jerusalem my job is to
report through Australian eyes. What the Israeli army does to
Palestinian children systematically - such as taking a 12-year-old from
his home at 2am and denying access to a lawyer or parent - would be
illegal in Australia .
Four Corners showed how Israel enforces two legal systems in the West Bank, one for Jews and one for Palestinians.
For “exhaustive rebuttals”, Sheridan recommended the Australia/Israel
& Jewish Affairs Council run by Colin Rubenstein, also based in
Melbourne.
AIJAC is not an elected body representing the Jewish
community but a privately funded lobby group with extremely hardline
positions on Israel. I find it breathtaking that a journalist would
recommend a private lobby group for a rebuttal of journalism.
Bob Carr recently revealed that when he was foreign minister, AIJAC
“directed a furious effort at trying to block even routine criticism of
settlements, as if this were more vital than advocating a two-state
solution or opposing boycotts of Israel”.
After reading Carr’s
comments, prominent Israeli Alon Liel wrote: “Who are you ‘Israeli
lovers’ of the Australia-Israel Council? Who authorised you to put
pressure on the Australian government ‘on my behalf’? Especially
regarding a matter that affects my family’s future? Why are you trying
to ruin my country, pretending you are ‘pro-Israeli?’ “
Liel, a
former Israeli Foreign Ministry chief, wrote: “What would you do, dear
Jew, if the risk of such isolation was hovering over the head of
Australia, France or Canada, countries whose passports you hold?”
He echoed Breaking the Silence, 950 current and former Israeli soldiers
who reported on Palestinian children, including one soldier saying a
colleague put children against a wall and made them sing Israel’s
national anthem - if they didn’t sing in time, he’d hit them.
Another said his commander beat a child “to a pulp” and put a gun in his mouth, saying: “Don’t annoy me.”
When Melbourne Jewish leader Danny Lamm alleged “crude propaganda”, 15
former officers condemned “Lamm’s armchair Zionism, pontificating from
afar while true Israelis put their lives on the line”.
Sheridan
repeated AIJAC’s claim about settlements not growing - year after year
AIJAC says this while construction booms, even outside existing
settlements.
US President Barack Obama this week referred to “aggressive settlement construction”.
Israeli statistics show settler housing more than doubled last year,
and in the first half of 2011 grew 660 per cent. Outposts are also
surging - these are illegal under Israeli law, yet Israel tolerates
them.
Having visited the West Bank hundreds of times, I am
astonished that Melbourne-based people such as Sheridan and Rubenstein
portray themselves as experts yet ignore reality.
Last week
Amnesty International said Israeli forces had displayed a “callous
disregard” by killing dozens of Palestinian civilians, including
children, over three years with “near total impunity”.
Last
year, Unicef said ill-treatment of Palestinian children appeared to be
“widespread, systematic and institutionalised”, and “children have been
threatened with death, physical violence, solitary confinement and
sexual assault”.
In 2012, a delegation of British lawyers led
by former attorney-general Patricia Scotland, found Israel had breached
six articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the
Geneva Conventions.
There are also now big issues for Australia
relating to the Geneva Conventions, under which Israel’s settlements
are widely considered illegal. Yet Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has
cast doubt on whether Australia accepts the Geneva Conventions in that
regard. Her new policy may have serious implications for Australian
soldiers overseas - the conventions govern not only how civilians under
occupation should be treated but captured soldiers.
It was
after two world wars with their collective death toll of about 80
million that postwar leaders signed up to the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The danger of Bishop cherry-picking the Geneva Conventions could expose Australian soldiers who currently have protection.
Sheridan ignores the fact Israeli spokesman Yigal Palmor told Four
Corners soldiers were not appropriately trained to detain children.
AIJAC criticises me for interviewing “extremist” settler Daniella Weiss -
if she is an extremist then so are key members of Israel’s cabinet who
share her views. Weiss planned settlements with Ariel Sharon to
forestall a Palestinian state.
Leaders of Australia’s Jewish
community visiting Israel often approach me for a coffee. One opposed
the occupation, saying it was against Jewish teachings to rule over
others. Another, from Sydney, wanted the occupation to end. When I asked
why he never said that publicly, he replied: “Are you serious? And have
the Melbourne guys declare a fatwa against me?” This denial - or fear -
does not help Israel.
The film The Gatekeepers, which
interviewed six former chiefs of intelligence service Shin Bet, warned
about Israel’s future. One, Avraham Shalom, said of the Israeli army:
“We have become cruel.”
But one Melbourne Jewish leader told me the Shin Bet chiefs were “all left wing”.
An insight into the attacks on journalists covering Israel comes from
Clyde Haberman, an Orthodox-raised American Jew who has just retired
after 37 years with The New York Times. For decades, he says, the paper
has had correspondents who, no matter how different or good, were
branded anti-Semitic or self-hating Jews.
He says correspondents in Israel could expect “to have your integrity hurled back in your face every single day”.
But he thought of a solution: “If I didn’t want to be accused of hating
Israel, I should start every story with: ‘Fifty years after six million
Jews died in the Holocaust, Israel yesterday’ did one thing or the
other.”
Obama told Israelis their occupation was unfair.
It is possible that Obama, Unicef, Amnesty International, 950 soldiers,
Shin Bet chiefs and others are wrong and that Sheridan and Rubenstein
are right.
But I don’t think so.
John Lyons is The Australian’s Middle East correspondent
