Suddenly It’s Okay to Be pro-Israel and anti-Semitic

Dear friends,
no doubt you will be aware that Donald Trump is now the President-Elect of America. Over the past week or two we have seen citizens from across the USA take to the streets to protest against Trump's elections promises. Although he may walk back some of the promises, others he will continue to seek to implement in some form or another.  

Trump has further shocked many with his appointment of Steve Bannon as his Chief Strategist/Advisor in the White House. Bannon, who came on board as his chief political advisor in the last few months of his campaign, is a champion of the hard right. Bannon is a hard right warrior and white nationalist who aims to actively "wants to destroy the Left", as the The Altantic noted in their article on him when he was appointed to Trump's campaign staff. Bannon up until recently served as the editor of the hard right news outlet, Breitbart News, which Bannon has bragged is "the platform for the alt-right".

The "alt-right" for those who may not be aware, is a name coined by white supremacist Richard Spencer in order to rebrand the various assortment of white supremacists, fascists, KKK members, anti-semites, Islamophobes and other racists that he pals around with. Bannon's appointment has been widely celebrated by not only Spencer but other  fascists, white supremacists, KKK members (both present day and former) an assorted racists, as a victory for their politics.

Bannon, like Breitbart, is a strong supporter of Israel. He is also been widely accused of being an anti-semite. In the past week or two we have seen the spectacle of Alan Dershowitz cautioning people that "we have to be very careful before we accuse any particular individual of being an anti-Semite ... And I think one has be be very careful about using the term anti-Semtic", along with AIPAC and other key US Zionist organisations actively avoiding condemning Bannon's appointment, Bannon or Trump. Both Dershowitzs and these same Zionist organisations have for years actively and wantonly sought to label pro-Palestine activism, particular BDS activism and activists, as anti-semitic (see: in particular Mondoweiss's rejoinder regarding Dershowitz's hypocrisy)

As a result, there have been numerous articles in both the Zionist and non-Zionist media over the last two weeks discussing whether it was possible to be both pro-Israel and anti-semitic. While this may seem to be a contradiction, it isn't. Since it's inception, Zionism has had a very distorted relationship with anti-semites with Herzl actively courting them in order to achieve his goal of a Jewish state.

I have included below Tel Aviv based writer, Naomi Zevelof's article which appeared in the Jewish online magazine, Foward, which is pro-Zionist/pro-Israel publication.  In addition, I have also included veteran Israeli reporter, Gideon Levy calling out they hypocrisy Zionists and Israel's apologists.

In solidarity, Kim 

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How Steve Bannon and Breitbart News Can Be Pro-Israel — and Anti-Semitic at the Same Time

Naomi Zeveloff November 15, 2016 Tel Aviv
Breitbart News, the site chaired by Donald Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, is widely known as a platform for white nationalism and anti-Semitism. It is also brazenly Zionist, albeit peddling an exclusively right wing perspective on Israel.

Trump’s Jewish supporters have pointed to Breitbart’s Zionist stance to defend the president-elect’s choice of Bannon, who was painted as an anti-Semite by his ex-wife in court documents. Bannon denied making the anti-Semitic comments.

“He was and is and remains staunchly pro-Israel,” said Abe Katsman, the chief counsel for Republicans Overseas Israel, who has written for Breitbart News.

Yet though it would seem impossible to hate Jews but love the Jewish state, these two viewpoints are not as contradictory as they appear.
There is actually “little correlation” between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, according Steven M. Cohen, a sociologist at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. To be sure, anti-Semitism is found among the anti-Zionist left. But it is also found among the Zionist right.

“Many people who dislike Jews like Israel and many people who are critical toward Israel are affectionate toward Jews,” said Cohen.

Breitbart News isn’t the only place where anti-Semitism and Zionism go hand in hand. Anti-Semitic attitudes abound in Poland, for example, even as Poland has a strong diplomatic relationship with Israel.

This duality is a central component of “Trumpism,” said Yael Sternhell, a Tel Aviv University professor of history and American studies. Though Trump has flip-flopped on the Middle East, he has professed an ultra-right view of Israel that would seem to outflank even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He also has a Jewish son-in-law, and a daughter who converted to Judaism. At the same time, many of Trump’s followers spout anti-Semitism.
“As long as Jews are in Israel fighting the ‘good fight’ with the Arab world as a bastion of American ideals and values in the Middle East, then they are very useful and admirable allies,” said Sternhell. “Once they are home demanding a multi-cultural democracy, demanding that the country accommodate their religion, their belief and their custom that is a different story.”

Some on the alt-right, the emerging group of racist activists who support Trump, oppose the close U.S.-Israel relationship as part of a broader critique of U.S. interventionism abroad. Yet they admire Israel as a “model for white nationalism and/or Christianism,” according to the right-wing online encyclopedia Conservapedia. Some also see Jewish immigration to Israel as helping their cause of a Jew-free white America.

The coexistence of anti-Semitism and right-Wing Zionism “in Trump’s world make sense,” said Todd Gitlin, the Columbia University sociologist and cultural commentator in an email to the Forward.

“Anti-Semitism and right-wing Zionism are varieties of ultra nationalism, or, to put it more pejoratively (as it deserves to be put) tribalism. They both presume that the embattled righteous ones need to bristle at, wall off, and punish the damned outsiders. They hate and fear cosmopolitan mixtures. They make a fetish of purity. They have the same soul. They rhyme.”

Breitbart News, which became a mouthpiece for the Trump campaign, was actually started by a Jewish lawyer and businessman, Larry Solov. In addition to reporters in London and the United States, the site has a small Jerusalem bureau, which is helmed by journalist Aaron Klein. Attempts to reach Klein and two journalists who write for Breitbart Jerusalem were unsuccessful.

In a 2015 post announcing the opening of the Jerusalem bureau, Solov wrote that Breitbart News itself was conceived of in Israel, when Solov traveled to the Holy Land with Andrew Breitbart, now deceased.

“One thing we specifically discussed that night was our desire to start a site that would be unapologetically pro-freedom and pro-Israel. We were sick of the anti- Israel bias of the mainstream media and J-Street,” he wrote.

At the same time, the site trafficked in anti-Semitic tropes. One article called Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum a “political revisionist,” noting “hell hath no fury like a Polish, Jewish, American elitist scorned.” Another called The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol a “renegade Jew.”

Bannon’s ex-wife branded him as an anti-Semite in 2007 court documents, in which she describes Bannon complaining about “whiny brat” Jews at their daughters’ school, according to the New York Daily News. Bannon denied that he made the comments, through a spokeswoman.

Contact Naomi Zeveloff at zeveloff@forward.com or on Twitter @naomizeveloff

The Forward's independent journalism depends on donations from readers like you.

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Suddenly It’s Okay to Be pro-Israel and anti-Semitic

When friendship for Israel is judged solely on the basis of support for the occupation, Israel has no friends other than racists and nationalists.

Gideon Levy, Haaretz, Nov 21, 2016

An anti-Trump sign at the Florida Capitol, Tallahassee, November 16, 2016Phil Sears / Reuters
 

All of a sudden it’s not so terrible to be anti-Semitic. Suddenly it’s excusable as long as you hate Muslims and Arabs and “love Israel.” The Jewish and Israeli right has issued a sweeping amnesty to anti-Semitic lovers of Israel – yes, there is such a thing, and they’re en route to taking power in the United States.

So now we know: Not just pornography but also anti-Semitism is a matter of geography and price. Right-wing American anti-Semites are no longer considered anti-Semites.

The definition has been updated: From now on, anti-Semites are only found on the left. Roger Waters, a courageous man of conscience without stain, is an anti-Semite. Steve Bannon, a declared racist and closet anti-Semite who has been appointed chief strategist in the Trump White House, is a friend of Israel.

Jewish and Israeli activists who left no stone unturned in their effort to discover signs of anti-Semitism, who viewed every parking ticket for an American Jew as an act of hate, who moved heaven and earth every time a Jew was robbed or a Jewish gravestone was cracked, are now whitewashing an anti-Semite. Suddenly they’re not convinced we’re talking about that particular disease.

Alan Dershowitz, one of the biggest propagandists in this field, has already come out in defense of the racist Bannon. In a Haaretz piece late last week, Dershowitz wrote that the man whose wife said he didn’t want their children to go to school with Jews isn’t anti-Semitic. “The claim was simply made by his former wife in a judicial proceeding, thus giving it no special weight,” Dershowitz wrote, with specious logic.

After all, Dershowitz’s former research assistant, an Orthodox Jew who later worked with Bannon, assured him that he had seen no signs of anti-Semitism in Bannon. And suddenly that’s enough for Dershowitz. Suddenly it’s possible to separate racism from anti-Semitism.

Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Ron Dermer, naturally hastened to join the party. Over the weekend, he said he expects to work with Bannon. And boy, does he expect to work with that racist. After all, they’ll agree about everything: that there’s no Palestinian people, that there’s no occupation, that the settlement of Yitzhar should remain forever, that leftists are traitors.

For Dermer – ambassador of the illegal outpost of Amona, friend of the Tea Party and boycotter of J Street; a man who if the bilateral relationship had been normal would have been declared persona non grata by the United States – the new appointments are like the dawn of a new day.

He’ll feel so at home with Frank Gaffney, another hater of Muslims who’s likely to receive a senior appointment in the new administration; he’ll be so happy working with Bannon. And Mike Huckabee is exactly his cup of tea. Dermer, after all, was given the Freedom Flame Award by the Center for Security Policy, a hate group that proudly flies the flag of Islamophobia.

These racists and their ilk are Israel’s best friends in the United States. They’re joined by the racists of the European right. If you discount the guilt feelings over the Holocaust, they’re the only friends Israel has left. When friendship for Israel is judged solely on the basis of support for the occupation, Israel has no friends other than racists and nationalists. That ought to have aroused great shame here: Tell us who your friends are and we’ll tell you who you are.

These racists love Israel because it’s carrying out their dreams: to oppress Arabs, to abuse Muslims, to dispossess them, expel them, kill them, demolish their houses, trample their honor. This bunch of trash would so dearly love to behave as we do.

But for now this is only possible in Israel, so it’s the light unto the nations in this field. What happened to the days when Jews in South Africa went to prison with Nelson Mandela? Nowadays Jewish activists in America support the new rulers – the racists and anti-Semites.

The Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa wrote on Facebook over the weekend: Palestinians are calling white nationalist Bannon an anti-Semite, while AIPAC and Dershowitz think he’s not such a bad guy. What more proof do you need that Zionism is a face of white supremacy, and ultimately antithetical to Judaism?

Last summer, Abulhawa was deported via the Allenby Bridge. And she’s right. The United States and Israel now share the same values – and woe to that sense of shame.

Israel No Model for Aboriginal People - A response to Stan Grant.

Dear friends,
I have been snowed under with work and study, so apologies for posting this a little late. Please find below my article published last month by Red Flag. This article deals with the issue of whether Israel should be held up as a model when it comes to the struggle of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia.

The article was prompted by Australia's public broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in September treating us us to the spectacle of Andrew Bolt, a man widely known for his racially discriminatory commentary on Aboriginal issues, discussing whether or not Indigenous Australians should be recognised in Australia's Constitution.The program Recognition: Yes or No?, which screened on 20 September saw Bolt, along with Aboriginal Federal Labour MP Linda Burney, meeting with a range of politicians and community members to debate the issue. 

Among those to appear on the show was Aboriginal journalist, Stan Grant. While attempting to rebutt Bolt's dismissal of Aboriginal identity, Grant decided to illustrate his comment about the resilience of Aboriginal identity in the aftermath of European colonisation by citing Israel as an example of a united, cohesive and equal society, saying: "I have been to Israel and I have seen the sense of Jewish belonging whether you are an Ethiopian Jew or a Russian Jew or an American Jew, with a whole range of ethnicities and everything else around it that coalesce around a sense of belonging and kinship." Grant concluded that in a hundred years, despite other influences, Aboriginal identity would remain strong and viable.

While Grant is right about Aboriginal Identity, he is wrong about Israel. I have also included after my article, another article which appeared in the Fairfax Press in response to Grant's comments by Palestinian writer, Inais Iqtait.

In solidarity, Kim
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Israel no model for Aboriginal people

Kim Bullimore  REDFLAG: 10 October 2016

 

Stan Grant speaking at a Recognise meeting in Cootamandra NSW earlier this year PHOTO: Adam Yip

Aboriginal journalist Stan Grant told the ABC’s Recognition: Yes or No? program on 20 September: “I have been to Israel and I have seen the sense of Jewish belonging, whether you are an Ethiopian Jew or a Russian Jew or an American Jew, with a whole range of ethnicities and everything else around it that coalesce around a sense of belonging and kinship”

Grant was attempting to highlight the resilience of Aboriginal identity in the aftermath of European colonisation. But this praise for Israel shockingly ignored the Palestinian people and the fact that, like Australia, Israel is a settler colonial society in which the indigenous population has endured invasion, colonisation and dispossession.

Israel, far from being a society that embraces all ethnicities, is an apartheid state.

It isn’t as if Grant isn’t aware of this, having reported on the Palestine-Israel conflict at different times during his career. And it isn’t as if he doesn’t understand what settler colonialism entails. In October last year, he eloquently spoke about the impact of settler colonialism on Aboriginal Australia, noting: “The Australian Dream is rooted in racism. It is the very foundation of the dream. It was there at the birth of the nation. It is there in terra nullius. An empty land. A land for the taking”.

The history of Israel is no different, its establishment being rooted in the racist dispossession of the Palestinian Arab population. Like Australia, Palestine was also deemed an “empty land” by the Zionists who founded Israel, proclaiming it to be “a land without people, for a people without land”.

The similarities between Australia and Israel should come as no surprise. Settler colonial societies are a distinct type of imperialist formation, which are premised on the racist elimination of the indigenous population through various means, including ethnic cleansing, genocide and/or assimilation.

All settler colonial states are characterised by massive inequalities that often are codified in law and built structurally into the economic, social and political system, ensuring that the settler population is legally, socially and politically privileged over the indigenous population.
 
In Australia, Indigenous people continue to be the most disadvantaged group in the country, including in health, education and employment. Indigenous people also have the highest rates of incarceration, making up one-quarter of the prison population, despite being less than 3 percent of the total population.

Palestinians similarly face structural racism, oppression and disadvantage. Four million Palestinians currently live under Israel’s brutal military occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Five million live in exile due to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948.

In addition, 1.5 million Palestinians living inside Israel, despite being citizens, face daily discrimination and apartheid. According to Adalah – the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel – more than 50 discriminatory laws have been enacted since 1948 in relation to political participation, access to land, education, state budget resources, criminal procedures, employment, property and family matters, such as marriage and family reunification.

Grant’s whitewashing of Israeli apartheid, while shocking, is unsurprising. While he has often been an eloquent advocate for Aboriginal people, Grant has also promoted himself as a diplomat and pragmatist who seeks “equilibrium and balance” so that Australia can “come together”.

In doing so, he has repeatedly tried to find some sort of mythical common ground between Aboriginal people and their oppressors. Such diplomacy does not eradicate racism. It gives it comfort.

Similarly, by holding Israel up as a beacon of cohesion and inclusivity, Grant is giving comfort to an apartheid regime, deliberately whitewashing its settler colonial history and disappearing the Palestinians.

Rather than Indigenous people lauding Israel, as Grant wants us to do, we need to recognise that the Palestinian people’s history is our history and vice versa. By standing in solidarity with the Palestinians and recognising our commonalities, we will not only strengthen both our struggles. We will also take both our people one step closer to winning justice, human rights and self-determination.

Kim Bullimore is a Murri activist. She has been active in the struggle for Aboriginal rights for over two decades and has been active in the Palestine solidarity movement for more than 15 years, including living and working in the occupied Palestinian territories

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For God's sake, give Palestinians a fair go

• Anas Iqtait  The Sydney Morning Herald: 22 September 2016

During Tuesday night's ABC show Recognition: Yes or No? Stan Grant weighed in on his Aboriginal identity after 200 years of European settlement, citing Israel as an example Australia could follow for its cohesion and equal society. Israel, being itself a European settlement, was absolutely the last example expected for supporting the rights of Aboriginals' recognition in Australia.

He said: "I have been to Israel and I have seen the sense of Jewish belonging whether you are an Ethiopian Jew or a Russian Jew or an American Jew, with a whole range of ethnicities and everything else around it that coalesce around a sense of belonging and kinship."

 Palestinian youths in Bethlehem list the names of the children killed in Israel's Operation Protective Edge military assault on the Gaza Strip in July 2014. Photo: AFP

 
Grant astonishingly fails to mention my people, the Palestinian people, who have resided under Israeli occupation or tutelage since (similar to Australia) mainly Europeans established a state on their lands 68 years ago. The use of Israel as an example for a place where "a whole range of ethnicities and everything else around it that coalesce around a sense of belonging and kinship" is flawed and simply unfactual.

In the words of former Israeli Supreme Court Justice Theodor Or, Palestinians in Israel face a structural and systematic discrimination with the Israeli state not doing "enough to grant equality" for its Arab citizens. We haven't even mentioned the 4 million Palestinians living under military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza for 49 years ongoing, or the other 4 million Palestinian refugees who were displaced in 1948.

Palestinians have lived under constant colonisation, dispossession and suffering from an illegal occupation that erodes their human, economic, and existential rights. Some 225,000 children in Gaza today require psychosocial support due to the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza in 2014; over 48,488 Palestinian structures have been demolished; and over 800,000 trees have been uprooted in the West Bank and Gaza. Is this a model Australia wants to replicate?

In an earlier speech Grant delivered at the IQ2 Racism Debate last year he called for Australians to acknowledge the two centuries of "dispossession, injustice and suffering". I find this statement to be strikingly similar to the Palestinians' plight for recognition, equality, justice, and statehood.

Suffice to say I find the irony in yesterday's comments painfully obvious. My 19-year-old sister, a future architecture engineer, was complaining to me yesterday about a 45-minute wait at an Israeli military checkpoint to her university in Ramallah. The military was chocking morning Palestinian traffic to let Israeli settlers reach Jerusalem without delay, with no regards to the native population of the West Bank and their livelihoods. This system, that increasingly resembles an apartheid, has to be internationally condemned and de-structured, not subtly praised.

Palestinians have been under a constant wave of colonisation, eroding their existence from the land they have proudly resided for thousands of years. Just like Grant is rightly proud of his ancestry that might run tens of thousands of years deep, I, too, am proud of my ancestry in Palestine. We both have suffered colonisation, marginalisation, and discrimination – most Palestinians still do – and we all ought to stand for equality and justice for their cause.

Anas Iqtait is a research Scholar at the Australian National University.

Haaretz: Secret Documents Reveal How Israel Tried to Evade International Scrutiny of Occupation

Dear friends,
the following article published recently by Haaretz discusses how Israel's deliberate violation of the Geneva convention and its attempt to deny that they have violated them and attempted to ensure that they were applied by denying that they are carrying out an illegal military occupation of Palestinian territory in the Occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza - something which Israel continues to do today.  These documents reveal that the Israeli military and government were well aware that they were violating international law and sought to evade being held accountable for their actions and treatment of the Palestinian population in the territories they now controlled. 

As the Haaretz article notes: "These documents are not merely an interesting historical record of how Israel initially related to the Geneva Conventions, nor are they merely an admission of its violation. They are also relevant to the ongoing debate today over the occupation’s legality."

This article should be read in conjunction with the previous blog I posted, which discusses how Israel attempted to conceal its building of illegal colonies in the Occupied West Bank in the wake of their seizure of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Golan Heights in 1967.  You can access it by clicking here.

in solidarity, Kim 

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Secret Documents Reveal How Israel Tried to Evade International Scrutiny of Occupation

In two cables from '67 and '68, Foreign Ministry officials admit violations of Geneva Conventions, instruct diplomats how to evade need for compliance by eschewing use of the word ‘occupation.’

 

Yotam Berger Sep 20, 2016 Haaretz

Israeli troops line up prisoners in the Gaza strip in readiness for questioning and identification on June 6, 1967, during the early stages of the Arab-Israel war.AP


Two classified Foreign Ministry documents, from 1967 and from 1968, disclose how the government tried to avoid application of the Geneva Conventions to the territories immediately after they were captured and how it tried to prevent international criticism of violations of the conventions.

They also show how Israel tried to avoid granting the International Committee of the Red Cross access to the territories as mandated by the conventions.

In the documents, senior civil servants admit to various violations of the conventions, including the use of violence against the Palestinian population. They also reveal how Israel sought to avoid defining itself as an occupier in the territories, while admitting explicitly that this claim was put forth for strategic reasons, to avoid criticism, even though there was no substantive justification for it.

One document is a cable sent in March 1968 to Israel’s then-ambassador in Washington, Yitzhak Rabin, by Michael Comay and Theodor Meron. Comay, a senior diplomat whose previous posts included ambassador to the United Nations, was political advisor to then-Foreign Minister Abba Eban when the cable was written. Meron was the Foreign Ministry’s legal advisor.

The cable, which was classified top-secret, contains instructions from Comay and Meron on what Rabin should do to prevent the United States from forcing Israel to apply the Geneva Conventions to the territories.

“Our consistent policy has been and still is to avoid discussing the situation in the administered territories with foreign parties on the basis of the Geneva Conventions. ... Explicit recognition on our part of the applicability of the Geneva Conventions would highlight serious problems under the convention with house demolitions, expulsions, settlement and more — and furthermore, when we’re obligated to leave all options open with regard to the issue of borders, we must not recognize that our status in the administered territories is solely that of an occupying power,” the cable said.

“In short, our policy toward the administered territories is to try to prevent clear violations of the Geneva Conventions without getting into the question of the conventions’ applicability,” the cable continued.

Comay and Meron acknowledged that the status of Jerusalem was particularly problematic, because the government had already taken steps that would likely be viewed as violations of the conventions.

“The most serious problem is of course East Jerusalem, because here, if the government were to follow the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Regulations, it wouldn’t be able to make far-reaching administrative and legal changes, such as expropriating land,” they wrote. “The Americans recently said that our status in Jerusalem is solely that of an occupation. On this basis, we can’t even talk to them about the issue of Jerusalem, because although here, too, we’re trying to avoid actions that would have international repercussions, there’s no possibility of making all our actions in Jerusalem fit the restrictions that derive from the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Regulations.”

The diplomats therefore instructed Rabin “to tell the Americans that there are unique aspects to the status of the territories and to our status in the territories. Before the Six-Day War, the Gaza Strip wasn’t Egyptian territory, and the West Bank, too, was territory that had been occupied and annexed by Jordan without international recognition. Given this ambiguous, indeterminate territorial situation, the question of the convention’s applicability is complex and unclear prior to a peace agreement that includes setting secure and recognized borders.”

The cable added that there is “no point in debating publicly” with the Americans. “We recommend that you don’t get into any discussion or argument over the aforementioned issues, but merely record their response and leave the clarification to the embassy, without a circular and without the participation of UN members,” it said.

Another document, classified as secret, was sent by Comay to the Foreign Ministry’s deputy director general several months previously, on June 22, 1967, less than two weeks after the Six-Day War ended. In it, he advised that the ministry not use the word “occupation,” so as to avoid committing to allow the Red Cross free access to the West Bank’s civilian population.

“In light of the fact that the international Red Cross is trying to assert rights with regard to the civilian population, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions ... it’s necessary to be careful about the use of certain phrases noted in the convention; I’m referring primarily to the phrases ‘occupied territories’ and ‘occupying power,’” Comay wrote. “Our UN delegation and our legations must know that here, we’re avoiding discussions with representatives of the international Red Cross about the status of the territories.”

Comay recommended replacing the phrase “occupied territories” with “territories under Israeli control” or “territories under military government.”

These documents are not merely an interesting historical record of how Israel initially related to the Geneva Conventions, nor are they merely an admission of its violation. They are also relevant to the ongoing debate today over the occupation’s legality.

“In recent years, political actors have tried to insert a claim that wasn’t serious even back in the 1970s into the discussion — that the territories aren’t actually occupied and that their residents aren’t entitled to the rights guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions,” said Lior Yavne, executive director of Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research, a left-wing research institute that works to uncover and publicize archival material on the conflict. “The uniqueness of the cable is the rare frankness with which the authors explain the reasons for the government’s refusal to admit the convention’s applicability to the territories, which were that some of its policies in the territories simply contradict the convention’s rules, and also as a tactical step in preparation for a future diplomatic agreement,” Yavne said.

How Israel concealed the building of its first illegal colonies in the Occupied West Bank

Dear friends,

the following article discusses how the Israeli state deliberately sought to conceal the establishment of its first colonies in the Occupied West Bank, two years after Israel seized the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Golan Heights in 1967.  The document reveals clearly that Israel was well aware that it was breaking international law by establishing the colonies and sought to hide what they were doing by claiming that the Palestinian land seized for the colonies was for "military needs".

In solidarity, Kim

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Israel Used Military Censor to Conceal First Settlements From Public, Document Reveals

The authorities sought to prevent Haaretz and another newspaper from reporting on first settlements; 'We cause entirely unnecessary damage to ourselves by publicizing things that can basically be done quietly.'

Yotam Berger, Haaretz, Sept 07, 2016

    Photo: Tents at the Alon Moreh settlement, 1969.Moshe Milner / GPO

A previously classified document from 1969 shows that Israel’s leaders used the military censor to cover up the establishment of the first West Bank settlements.

According to the document, which has been released to the state archives, the censor banned the publication of articles by Haaretz and another daily, Hatzofe, on the issue.

The document was sent on June 19, 1969, by Eliashiv Ben Horin, the Foreign Minister’s deputy director general, to the office of the foreign minister, Abba Eban. The paper, called “Gush Etzion – Publicity,” deals with the establishment of settlements in the West Bank’s Gush Etzion bloc. The area had ostensibly been seized for military purposes.

The document refers to a Mr. Hillel – Shlomo Hillel, another deputy director general at the Foreign Ministry.

“As you know, on June 5 a ‘seizure order for military needs’ was issued for specific land in Gush Etzion. That was after Mr. Hillel and the undersigned convinced those involved to waive a confiscation order” as opposed to a military seizure order, the document states.

“We also agreed with those connected to the discussion … that the only publicity we should engage in is what is required – publishing the order on the bulletin board of the Civil Administration in Bethlehem,” the document states.

“We feared that civilian groups, and in particular groups connected to the plan to build the yeshiva on the seized land, would cause unnecessary publicity, since this would contradict the objectives of the seizure as defined in the order.”

The building of settlements on areas ostensibly seized for security needs was very common in the settlement movement's early days. It was designed to bypass international law, which banned the building of civilian structures in occupied territory.

In the document, Ben Horin notes that information on the deception had reached the newspapers, so the military censor prevented publication.

“Now Mr. Hillel is saying that Hatzofe and Haaretz submitted lists to the military censor about civilian plans on the land that was seized ‘for military needs’ …. The seizure for military needs can easily be defended from a legal point of view,” Ben Horin writes. “Civilian enterprises are another thing entirely. The censor did not pass on the two lists above but apparently will be unable to prevent the publication of such reports for long.”

Ben Horin explains how the political leaders mobilized.

“Hillel and I believe that there is a need for urgent and vigorous activity among the decision-makers in order to prevent a situation in which, with our own hands, we cause entirely unnecessary damage to ourselves by publicizing things that can basically be done quietly,” he writes. “We particularly recommend working with the interior minister so that he uses all his influence in the desired direction.”

The Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research, which strives to expose archival materials, says the document proves the importance of releasing government documents.

“To this day, various types of censorship and classification are preventing public access to millions of archival documents that could shed light on the development of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” says the institute’s executive director, Lior Yavne.

“The Israel State Archives must stop the trend of increased interference by the military censor in the public’s right to peruse the documents kept there.” 

**NOTE: The original Hebrew document is available on the Haaretz website article.

Dear friends,
I am a little late in posting this. Please find below Marc Conaghan's article from the Middle East Eye explaining why Celtic fans back the Palestinian struggle.

in solidarity, Kim
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Football and flags: Why Celtic fans back the Palestinian cause

Marc Patrick Conaghan

Middle East Eye: 22 August 2016

Scottish club's followers have always shown solidarity towards the dispossessed and oppressed

By a lonely prison wall, I heard a young girl calling
Michael they are taking you away
For you stole Trevelyan’s corn
So the young might see the morn.
Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay…

By a lonely prison wall, I heard a young man calling
Nothing matters Mary when you're free,
Against the Famine and the Crown
I rebelled, they ran me down
Now you must raise our child with dignity.

This verse is from a song that Celtic football fans sing called The Fields of Athenry. Written during the 1970s, it tells the story of a family dispossessed of their land and left starving due to the Great Irish Famine of the mid 19th-century.

Due to hunger, the husband is caught stealing food from the person who took his land. He is imprisoned and transported to Australia: his wife is left to fend for herself and their child.

Celtic supporters are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause because their ancestral story is, for the most part, similar. To understand why Celtic fans are vocal about the struggle of the Palestinians, you need to understand where many Celtic fans come from.

Celtic fans backed anti-apartheid movement

The dispossession and hunger during the famine - which left more than one million dead - and the devastation on the land and psyche of the survivors forced a diaspora of Irish people all over the globe. Many settled in Glasgow, Scotland. The massive influx into the city of poor Irish people, fleeing due to dispossession of land, poverty or general necessity, was a huge burden on the residents.
But Victorian Glasgow was not tolerant of these interlopers, who they deemed to be racially, culturally and, by their Catholic faith, religiously inferior.

Celtic Football Club was formed in 1887 by Brother Walfrid, a Catholic cleric, in order to generate revenue to feed the Irish immigrants resident in Glasgow and relieve their poverty. Eventually it became a beacon of hope and source of pride to dispossessed people.

The flying of the Palestinian flag by Celtic fans in the European tie against Hapoel Beersheva last week has made headlines in newspapers and across social media. However, it is not a new phenomenon: Celtic fans fly Palestinian flags every week during games. Supporters have been showing solidarity with the people of Palestine for as long as I can remember: first it was badges, then it was kaffiyehs and now it's flags.

'By waving the Palestinian flag, Celtic fans were not choosing a side between Hamas and Fatah, or endorsing any of their political viewpoint'

Celtic fans have also shown solidarity with the oppressed people of South Africa under apartheid, the Basque people seeking independence from Spain and, of course, due to the club's cultural heritage, the oppression and persecution of nationalists in the north of Ireland. The majority of these areas of conflict have been resolved amicably: the plight of the Palestinians has become increasingly worse.
By waving the Palestinian flag, Celtic fans were not choosing a side between Hamas and Fatah, or endorsing any of their political viewpoints. It was done to show solidarity with the people of Palestine.

Similarly, when the Green Brigade - a group of Celtic supporters - recently unveiled a banner stating “Refugees welcome, a club founded by immigrants,” they were not advocating a side in the Syrian conflict, but showing their backing for the plight of refugees.

Fans will not back down and roll over

Solidarity towards the dispossessed and oppressed is easy for the Celtic fan to understand and relate to and makes us sympathetic towards others suffering the same plight.

What Celtic fans don’t seem to understand is how others don’t get it. UEFA, and much of the media, miss the fact that Celtic fans are not anti-Israel and certainly not anti-Semitic. There is no group of supporters I know of who are less sympathetic to fascists and the extreme far-right.
In fact, it’s not uncommon for Celtic supporters to be targeted by far-right thugs on European trips for our anti-fascist/anti-Nazi views. History has shown that Celtic fans and Palestinians have few friends in the media.

Celtic supporters show their support for the Palestinian cause by waving flags (AFP)

When Celtic were paired with Israeli team Hapoel Beersheva in the Champions League tie, everyone knew there would be Palestinian flags on show. Everyone knew that UEFA would sidestep the real reason the flags were there and that the club would be fined.

If Celtic beat Hapoel Beersheva on Tuesday evening and progress into the Champions League group stages, there will still be Palestinian flags on show among the Celtic fans, regardless of who our opposition is. If UEFA decide to be more punitive, as some have advocated, and close down one of Celtic’s stands in a future game, then I guarantee that there will be even more Palestinian flags at the next match.

At this point Celtic Football Club would be forced to challenge UEFA rather than just pay the punitive fine because Celtic know that although their fans love their team and the ethos that permeates through the club, we will stubbornly, like most Scots, not back down and roll over when we are in the right.

Celtic supporters have pledged to match any fine that UEFA may impose on the club for flying the Palestinian flag, with all donations raised going to Medical Aid Palestine (MAP) and to the Lajee Centre, a Palestinian creative cultural children’s centre in Aida Refugee Camp, Bethlehem.

Within 24 hours Celtic fans had passed their initial target of £40,000 ($52,700): at time of writing the sum stood at $125,000.

Waving of the flag? It's not a negative act

The argument that UEFA has made - that there is no place for political expression or politics in football - would be hilarious if it wasn’t so ridiculous. Right now Celtic are in Beersheva, which is 20 miles from Gaza, which the Israeli military has bombed this week. How can you divorce football from the reality of people?

Football and political expression have been interwoven since people started kicking things that roll at each other. Throughout history, often the only place where people could congregate and voice a political opinion without fear of arrest and persecution was at a public stadium.

The flying of the Palestinian flag by Celtic fans is not a negative. It is not there to be waved in the face of the opposition as an attempt to upset and annoy others. It is done to remind the people of Palestine, wherever in the world they may be, that they are not alone and that they are not forgotten.

Marc Patrick Conaghan is a self-employed political consultant who works with political parties and political candidates at various levels in the US and the UK. Most importantly, he is a season ticket holder at Celtic Park @marcconaghan

The Rio Olympics: Don't ask athletes to set aside politics 'in the spirit of the Olympics'

Dear friends,
please find below an excellent article by Ruby Hamad on recent "bus incident" between the Lebanese and Israeli teams at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. 

As Hamad notes, politics has always been part of sports - including the Olympics. Not only have state actors engaged in political activity to push their geopolitical agenda, it has also been a powerful site of struggle where the politics of resistance have play an important role.

In the article, Hamad addresses Israel's ongoing human rights abuses in both Lebanon and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, discussing not only it's brutalisation of not only the broader Palestinian population but also Palestinian athletes.  

Hamad's article is a much needed anecdote to the Israeli chutzpah and their latest attempt at crying wolf at the Olympics. 

in solidarity, Kim

***
Don't ask athletes to set aside politics 'in the spirit of the Olympics'

Daily Life: August 11, 2016

Ruby Hamad

Nacif Elias carries the Lebanese flag during the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics

The Lebanese Olympic team caused a minor uproar over the weekend when they refused to let their Israeli counterparts board the same bus as them to the Rio Olympics opening ceremony.

First, one has to wonder at the (lack of) wisdom in arranging for the national teams of two countries that have no diplomatic relations and are officially at war to travel in such cosy quarters. According to the Lebanese delegation, the Israelis had a separate designated bus but insisted on trying to board the bus reserved for the Lebanese anyway.

Nonetheless, the Lebanese team has been accused of going against the spirit of the Games, while the Israelis claim to be "enraged and shocked." However, given the history of politics and sport, it should be wholly unsurprising that the Lebanese team would choose the Olympics to stage their minor protest.

The argument that politics should be kept out of the Olympics may be nice in theory but it's baseless in practice. At best it is invoked selectively, with sporting sanctions and boycotts long having been used to pursue political ends.

Most famously, South Africa was formally ejected from the International Olympic Committee in 1970, and banned from virtually all international sports until the end of apartheid in the early 1990s.

Powerful moment: Australia's Peter Norman joins American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the podium during the famous "Black Power" demonstration

In 1976, 30 African countries staged a last minute boycott of the Montreal Games after New Zealand, whose Rugby team had broken the sanction against South Africa, was permitted to compete.

Then, in 1980, the USA led 65 countries in a boycott of the Moscow Summer Olympics to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The USSR returned the favour by boycotting the LA Olympics four years later.

I see an awful lot of sports and politics mixing.

Then there is the use of the Olympics themselves as the site of protest. Although their actions are now hailed as heroic, when John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their fists in the black power salute at the '68 Games in Mexico, they were widely reviled. Both men were suspended from the US Olympic team and received death threats.

Would anyone today accuse them of going against the spirit of the Olympics by bringing politics into it, or do we agree that sometimes it is appropriate to mention politics in the sporting arena?

But back to Israel and Lebanon. Far from regarding sport as a sacrosanct politics-free zone, Israel itself, as the far greater power in the region, has long used sports to punish its Arab neighbours for political reasons.

Only last week, Israeli officials prevented the Palestinian Olympic Team chief from leaving the Gaza Strip to join his team in Rio. This was after the team itself was forced to repurchase new sports equipment in Brazil after Israel confiscated their supplies at customs.

For those unaware, Israel controls the borders of both Gaza and the Occupied West Bank, meaning nothing and no one is allowed to enter or leave without Israeli permission (you think all the tunnels underneath Gaza are for terrorists? Think again. Those tunnels are how much of Gaza gets its food, clothes, and machinery).

Given this grossly unfair and unbalanced state of affairs, it's rather unreasonable, if not bordering on the absurd, not to expect a little pushback. But that's not even the worst of it.
If you want to talk about mixing politics and sport, go no further than that time Israeli soldiers decided to amuse themselves by deliberately shooting Palestinian football players in the feet to prevent them being able to play soccer.

Jawhar Nasser Jawhar, 19, and Adam Abd al-Raouf Halabiya, 17 both members of Palestine's national soccer team were shot by soldiers while returning home from training on January 31 this year. Neither will ever play soccer again.

In fact, so many members of the Palestinian soccer team have been jailed, killed, or injured by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), that Israel was threatened with expulsion from FIFA.

Consider this for a moment. Palestinians have no citizenship and cannot enter or leave Palestinian territory without permission from Israel. They live under military occupation and are subject to collective punishment, sudden eviction, confiscation of their land to make way for Jewish settlements, arrest and detention without charge or trial, and the threat of violence both from settlers and the IDF who are able to act with almost total impunity.

For the lucky few, sports represent a lifeline beyond the separation fence in the West Bank and the siege of Gaza. These soccer players were among that lucky few until their future was destroyed by a deliberate act of physical and emotional violence.
Still angry about the bus incident?

Now, before you accuse me of engaging in a spot of what-aboutery, I'm not telling you all this to deflect attention from the Lebanese team's actions. I am pointing out that trying to separate politics from sport – or anything else in this region – is impossible.

The Lebanese team would almost certainly have been subject to severe repercussions back home if they had acted against their country's policy of avoiding all official contact with Israel.

The 2006 Israeli offensive on Lebanon remains a sore point; an assault that again decimated the infrastructure the country had finally rebuilt after its bitter civil war. Israel's role in this war is not forgotten, nor its invasion of Lebanon in 1982, nor the massacres that took place at the Shatila and Sabra refugee camps, nor the fact that Israel occupied the south of the country until 1999.

The expectation that this be cast aside "in the spirit of the Olympics," sails well past the island of naivety and anchors firmly in the realm of privilege.

The privilege of those of us safely ensconced in the west, who have not had to live in a climate of eternal war but, nonetheless, demand those that do to stay silent about it so that we can briefly feel good about how the Olympics "brings us together," despite this not requiring an ounce of risk or sacrifice on our part.

And the privilege of Israel, which, as the superior military power in the region, can effectively act in any manner it likes away from the sporting arena, including inflicting unjust punishment after punishment on Palestinian athletes while the world deliberately averts its eyes, but still assumes the role of the wounded victim when the world decides to cast its selective attention.

Sure, the Olympic Truce claims to promote a peaceful, diplomatic solution to the conflicts that dominate our global relations, but given countries are permitted to compete even when in the midst of catastrophic wars and oppressions, this seems at best symbolic. At worst, it's a hypocritical propaganda tool that chastises athletes staging a mini-protest but allows the participation of a country that has been conducting a 49-year illegal Occupation with no end in sight.

Add this to the violent evictions in Rio's poorest favelas, to make way for the gloss and glamour of the increasingly corporate Olympics, and we have to wonder who and what the Games are really for.

The spirit of the Olympics, indeed.