Prise de parole Josef Zisyadis, député national suisse

Prise de parole Josef Zisyadis, député national suisse ( A Gauche toute ! / POP & Gauche en mouvement)

Manifestation nationale
Berne 10 janvier 2009

Palestine, Palestine ! Pourquoi les Etats du monde t’ont-ils abandonnés ?

Gaza, Gaza ! Pourquoi la communauté internationale t’a-t-elle abandonné ?

Si nous sommes descendus dans la rue aujourd‘hui, c’est pour exprimer notre rage, notre dégoût, notre révolte devant la lâcheté internationale face à un Etat voyou. C’est à nous les peuples du monde, les citoyens du monde de reprendre le flambeau de la solidarité internationale face à ce génocide crapuleux.

Le martyr du peuple palestinien de Gaza a assez duré. Nous disons CA SUFFIT !

• Halte à l’agression militaire !
• Levée immédiate du blocus !
• Application du droit international !
• Arrêt de la collaboration militaire Suisse-Israël !

En tant que dernier député suisse qui a visité Gaza et rompu le blocus avec 12 autres parlementaires au début novembre 2008, je revois en ce moment les visages de ces hommes et femmes, de ces enfants, de ces jeunes, de ces médecins, de ces responsables municipaux, de ces pêcheurs que j’ai rencontrés, déjà épuisés par des mois de blocus israélien et égyptien. Que sont-ils devenus ? Sont-ils encore vivants ? 800 tués, des milliers de blessés innocents pour que des ministres israéliens puissent gagner leurs élections…

Une fois encore ce sont les civils innocents qui paient le prix de cette guerre ignoble, au mépris de la Convention internationale de Genève.

Un million et demi d’hommes, de femmes et d’enfants payent, sont punis pour avoir mal voté aux dernières élections démocratiques. La rééducation par la violence militaire pour qu’ils fassent un choix conforme à l’Etat israélien et à l’occident.

Il faut que cesse le double jeu que paye de son sang le peuple palestinien. La complicité active des États-Unis, le soutien tacite des régimes arabes en place, la passivité de l’Union européenne, le silence assourdissant de la Suisse ont encouragé le cynisme des va-t-en-guerre des dirigeants israéliens.

Notre pays, la Suisse doit cesser toute collaboration militaire avec un Etat voyou, expression qui qualifie exactement un comportement étatique qui bafoue le droit humanitaire, la protection des civils.

Qu’attend le Conseil fédéral pour rappeler son ambassadeur en Israël et expulser l’ambassadeur israélien en Suisse ? Oui ou non sommes-nous détenteurs de la Convention de Genève ?

N’avons-nous pas ce devoir d’humanité à proclamer à la face du monde ? La Suisse doit traîner les dirigeants politiques et militaires israéliens devant le Tribunal pénal international pour crimes de guerre.

Il n’y aura jamais de solution militaire au conflit israélo-palestinien. Il n’y a que la paix et la négociation qui sont la seule issue pour les peuples de cette région. C’est pour cela que nous sommes dans la rue.

C’est pour cela que nous sommes des citoyens du monde engagés au moment où les dirigeants de ce monde ont capitulé. Demain, il faudra reconstruire tout ce qui aura été consciemment détruit.
Nous serons là pour mettre en place tous les jumelages, toutes les coopérations entre le peuple palestinien de Gaza et la population de notre pays.

Frères palestiniens nous sommes à vos côtés ! Frères militants anti-colonialistes israéliens nous sommes à vos côtés !
(seules les paroles prononcées font foi)

Tragedy of Israel and Palestine

By Mark Levine

The father of 18 days-old newborn Palestinian baby girl Amira Abu Asr, who was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers, mourns during her funeral on March 5 [GALLO/GETTY]

Americans have grown so accustomed to the disastrous dynamics operating between Israelis and Palestinians today that the failure to reach a peace deal amid the soaring death tolls assumes an aura of normalcy in their minds.

This reflects a situation we imagine ourselves to be powerless to help change and only adds to the tragedy unfolding in the Occupied Territories and Israel as well.

Today the world's attention has turned to the aftermath of the murder of eight students of an ultra-Zionist Mercaz HaRav yeshiva, established by the founder of religious zionism, Rabbi Avraham Isaac Kook in 1924.

Last week the focus was the ongoing war in Gaza, which will likely be the centre of attention next week as well.

The attacks on religious students in the midst of study and prayer - coupled with the ongoing rocket attacks from Gaza on the Israeli towns of Sderot and Ashkelon - are already being offered as the latest examples of continued Palestinian unwillingness to make peace with Israel more than two years after its unprecedented withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.


World's largest prison

Shanbo Heinemann, a pro-Palestinian activist, is injured in a protest against the wall [GETTY]

But there are many problems with this argument; firstly, most of the acts of Palestinian resistance to the occupation have always been non-violent.

Equally important is the fact that while Israeli civilians no longer live in Gaza, Israel's military presence has never ended.

Tel Aviv withdrew civilian settlers and then threw away the key to what has now become the world's largest prison.

Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister and the architect of the settlement movement, was willing to sacrifice Gaza in order to ensure Israel held onto the major settlement blocs of the West Bank, which today house more than 250,000 settlers (almost double that number if one includes the Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem).

The settler population of the West Bank also doubled during the years of the Oslo "peace" process - which began when Abu Dahim was about 12 and ended when he was 19 - without a whimper of complaint from the United States.

By the time Yitzhak Rabin, the former prime minister, was assassinated in 1995, Palestinian leaders were warning that the continued settlement expansion was "killing" the peace process and would sooner or later lead to a "revolution" from the street.




Matrix of control

The presence of well over 100 settlements has necessitated a matrix of control in which 80 per cent of the West Bank be declared off limits to Palestinians.

It also meant the destruction of thousands of homes and olive and fruit trees (the backbone of an otherwise closed Palestinian economy), the confiscation of 35,000 acres of Palestinian land, and the creation of a network of bypass roads, military bases.

The 400-kilometre, 8-metre-high "separation wall" also pierces deep into Palestinian territory, cutting into at least three isolated cantons.

Together, the settlement system has made the idea of creating a territorially and economically viable Palestinian state impossible to implement.

With the eruption of the al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000 whatever infrastructure of peace had been created during Oslo was quickly dismantled by both sides.

By mid-2002 Israel began deploying a strategy of managed chaos, in which a near total closure of the Territories, coupled with a destruction of much of their economic and political infrastructure, turned the intifada into what Palestinians term an "intifawda," a neologism that brings the violence of the intifada together with the chaos, or "fawda" of a society living in a barely functioning state and economy.



Dividing Palestine

Israel's separation wall cuts a broad path through Palestinian olive groves [GALLO/GETTY]

Israeli planners gambled that by splitting the West Bank from Gaza, deepening the occupation of the former while freeing itself of the settlements in the latter, and routinely deploying disproportionate violence (including tanks, helicopter gunships, F-16s, and heavily armed troops) against all signs of resistance, Palestinian society would begin turning on itself.

Indeed, Israel hoped for this when it clandestinely supported the emergence of Hamas two decades ago, with the goal of building up a rival to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) that would have them fighting each other rather than figuring out more successful strategies of fighting the occupation.

But, even as Palestinians fight each other, resistance to the occupation has continued. Most of it is comprised of various forms of non-violence (marches, sit-ins, and attempts to stop home demolitions or replant uprooted fields or groves).

These are rarely covered by the international media, and are usually met with violence by the Israeli military or settlers.

Fairly or not, however, it has been Palestinian violence, and especially suicide bombings and now rocket attacks on civilians, that have defined their resistance to the ongoing occupation.


Suicidal suicide attacks

And in this regard the actions have been nothing short of suicidal - Palestinian "resistance" to the occupation seems to have been scripted by Israel as it has suited the interests of the Israeli governments in power since 2000. As Haaretz columnist Bradley Burston recently put it:

"The Palestinians have kept their ultimate doomsday weapon under tight wraps for 40 years ... Israeli senior commanders could only pray that the Palestinians would never take it out and put it to actual use ... non-violence. This is one reason why, for decades, Israel did its best to head off, harass, and crack down on expressions of Palestinian non-violence."

If Palestinians ever decided to just "get up and walk" en masse to the Erez Crossing separating Gaza from Israel and the major West Bank check points like Qalandiya and used hammers and picks to tear them down, there would be almost nothing Israel could do, short of a massacre in full view of the world's cameras.

But Palestinians have become so stuck in the ideology of summud, (which naturally become a national imperative after a million Palestinians were uprooted in the 1948 and 1967 wars), or defiantly staying put, that they have rarely taken the strategic or moral offensive.

When they applied the moral approach during the first intifada, Israel's harsh crackdown coupled with PLO dominance of Palestianian politics, ensured the de-politicisation and disempowerment of the first "intifada generation".

Two weeks ago, when a few brave Palestinians tried to organise a peaceful march to the Erez border crossing to build on the momentum gained by breaching the border fence between Gaza and Egypt, they were stopped far from the border by a line of heavily armed Hamas policemen.

Soon after, the day's ration of rockets was fired into the nearby Israeli town of Sderot, wounding two Israeli children.

Israel responded with a new rounds of attacks by Israel, killing and wounding more Palestinians.


How to stop?

A few years ago, in a particularly violent moment of the intifada, I interviewed a senior Hamas leader at his office in Gaza. After the usual boiler plate questions and answers, I finally grew exasperated and said to him, "Look, let's put aside the question of whether you have the right to use violence, particularly against civilians, to pursue your ends. The simple fact is that the strategy has not worked."

His response stunned me with its honesty: "We know the violence doesn't work, but we don't know how to stop."

In a mirror image of Israeli strategic thinking, Hamas has remained unable to break free of the dangerously outdated paradigm that says violence, particularly against civilians, can only be met by even more violence until the other side yields.

Aside from the moral turpitude of such thinking by both sides - not to mention blatant illegality according to international law - the reality, at least in the near term, is that the human and political cost of such a policy for Israel is far lower than for Palestinians, who have very little time left before their dreams of independence are crushed for good.

Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, has himself admitted, the day Palestinians give up on the dream of an independent state will be the day Israel will "face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, and as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished."

Dysfunctional dynamics

But so dysfunctional are the current dynamics that neither side seems willing to take the first step away from the abyss.

In such a situation, only a strong outside party can force the warring sides to make the hard compromises necessary to achieve a just and lasting peace.

This was the job the US signed up for in 1993, when Bill Clinton, then president, witnessed the signing of the first Oslo agreement on the White House lawn. But we have failed miserably in our self-appointed role as "honest broker."

It's not just that US has unapologetically taken Israel's side on almost every major issue since then.

During the Oslo years the US worked hand in glove with the Israeli and Palestinian security services to stifle dissent within Palestinian civil society, or the Legislative Council, to a process that was moving away from rather than towards a just and lasting peace.

And with the militarisation of US foreign policy after September 11 and the sullied occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, Israel has had even greater carte blanche to inflict precisely the kind of damage upon Palestinian society we are witnessing now in Gaza.


Blood of children

By refusing to press Israel - as many Israeli commentators, and an increasing number of US policy-makers as well, urge - to negotiate with Hamas we have not just enabled the current violence, but are directly responsible for it.

Hamas has declared its willingness to negotiate a two-state solution, albeit under conditions to which Israel has little incentive to accept.

The blood of Israeli and Palestinian children that appears on TV is on our hands too.

It would be nice if we could imagine that the next US president will have the courage to "change" this dynamic. But there is little chance of that.

The only hope is that Israeli and Palestinian societies come together to stop the violence their leaders keep inflicting on them before the delusions of victory on both sides cross the line into psychosis.

Mark LeVine is professor of history at UCI Irvine and author or editor of half a dozen books dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and globalisation in the Middle East, including Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel Aviv and the Struggle for Palestine, Reapproaching Borders: New Perspectives on the Study of Israel and Palestine, Why They Don't Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil, and the forthcoming An Impossible Peace: Oslo and the Burdens of History.


Source: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/BB1E373A-50F9-403A-9263-98D09D584A31.htm

Criticizing Israel is Not an Act of Bigotry

Jewish Opposition to Israeli Human Rights Crimes is Growing

Criticizing Israel is Not an Act of Bigotry

By JASON KUNIN

A grassroots revolt is underway in Jewish communities throughout the world, a revolt that has panicked the elite organizations that have long functioned as official mouthpieces for the community. The latest sign of this panic is the recent publication by the American Jewish Committee of an essay by Alvin H. Rosenfeld, entitled Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism, which accuses progressive Jews of abetting a resurgent wave of anti-Semitism by publicly criticizing Israel.

This is the latest attempt to conflate anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism in order to silence or marginalize criticism of Israel. This approach is widely used in Canada. Upon becoming CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Bernie Farber declared that one of his goals was to "educate Canadians about the links between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism."

It is misleading for groups like the Canadian Jewish Congress to pretend that the Jewish community is united in support of Israel. A growing number of Jews around the world are joining the chorus of concern about the deteriorating condition of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories as well as the inferior social and economic status of Israel's own Palestinian population.

In a world where uncritical support for Israel is becoming less and less tenable due to the expanding human rights disaster in the West Bank and Gaza, leaders of Jewish communities outside Israel have circled their wagons, heightened their pro-Israel rhetoric, and demonized Israel's critics. These leaders imply that increased concerns about Israel do not result from that state's actions, but from an increase in anti-Semitism.

Despite this effort to absolve Israel of responsibility for its treatment of Palestinians, Jewish opposition is growing and becoming more organized. On Feb. 5, a group in Britain calling itself Jewish Independent Voices published an open letter in The Guardian newspaper in which they distanced themselves from "Those who claim to speak on behalf of Jews in Britain and other countries (and who) consistently put support for the policies of an occupying power above the human rights of the occupied people." Among the signatories of the letter were Nobel-prize winning playwright Harold Pinter, filmmaker Mike Leigh, writer John Berger, and many others.
This development follows the emergence of similar groups in Sweden (Jews for Israeli-Palestinian Peace), France (Union Juive Francaise pour la paix, Rencontre Progressiste Juive), Italy (Ebrei contro l'occupazione), Germany (Jüdische Stimme für gerechten Frieden in Nahost), Belgium (Union des Progressistes Juifs de Belgique), the United States (Jewish Voice for Peace, Brit Tzedek, Tikkun, the Bronfman-Soros initiative), South Africa, and others, including the umbrella organization European Jews for a Just Peace and the numerous groups within Israel itself. In Canada, the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians (ACJC) has been founded as an umbrella organization bringing together Jewish individuals and groups from across the country who oppose Israel's continued domination of the West Bank and Gaza.

Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic, nor does it "bleed into anti-Semitism," a formulation that says essentially the same thing. Some genuine anti-Semites do use Israel as a cover for maligning the Jewish people as a whole, but it is fallacious to argue that anyone who criticizes Israel is anti-Semitic because anti-Semites attack Israel. There are some anti-Semites who support Israel because they are Christian fundamentalists who see the return of Jews to Jerusalem as a precondition for the return of Christ and the conversion of Jews to Christianity, or because they are xenophobes who want to get rid of Jews in their midst. Anti-Semites take positions in support of and in opposition to Israel.

It is wrong to criticize all Jews for Israel's wrongdoings, yet Israel's leadership and its supporters in the Diaspora consistently encourage this view by insisting that Israel acts on behalf of the entire Jewish people.

This shifts blame for Israel's crimes onto the shoulders of all Jews. But Jewish critics of Israel demonstrate through their words and deeds that the Jewish community is not monolithic in its support of Israel.

Defenders of Israel often argue that Israel is forced to do what it does -- to destroy people's homes, to keep them under the boot of occupation, to seal them into walled ghettos, to brutalize them daily with military incursions and random checkpoints -- to protect its citizens from Palestinian violence. Palestinian violence, however, is rooted in the theft of their land, the diversion of their water, the violence of the occupation, and the indignity of having one's own very existence posed as a "demographic threat."

To justify Israel's continued occupation and theft of Palestinian land, the state and its defenders attempt to deny Palestinian suffering, arguing instead that Palestinian resentment is rooted not in Israeli violence, but rather in Islam, or the "Arab mentality," or a mystical anti-Semitism inherent in Arab or Muslim culture. Consequently, pro-Israel advocacy depends upon on the active dissemination of Islamophobia. Not surprisingly, engendering hatred in this manner inflames anti-Jewish sentiment among Arabs and Muslims. None of this is a recipe for making Jews safe.

Jewish people can help avert the catastrophic effects of Israeli behaviour, but only by taking a stand in opposition to it.

Jason Kunin of Toronto is a member of the administration council of the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians.

This article, which originally appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press, was written with help from other council members, including Cy Gonick and Dr. Mark Etkin, both of Winnipeg, Andy Lehrer of Toronto, Sid Shniad of Vancouver and Abraham Weizfeld of Montreal.

Source: http://www.counterpunch.org/kunin02242007.html

Israeli Textbooks and Children’s Literature Promote Racism and Hatred Toward Palestinians and Arabs

By Maureen Meehan

Israeli school textbooks as well as children’s storybooks, according to recent academic studies and surveys, portray Palestinians and Arabs as “murderers,” “rioters,” “suspicious,” and generally backward and unproductive. Direct delegitimization and negative stereotyping of Palestinians and Arabs are the rule rather than the exception in Israeli schoolbooks.

Professor Daniel Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University studied 124 elementary, middle- and high school textbooks on grammar and Hebrew literature, history, geography and citizenship. Bar-Tal concluded that Israeli textbooks present the view that Jews are involved in a justified, even humanitarian, war against an Arab enemy that refuses to accept and acknowledge the existence and rights of Jews in Israel.

“The early textbooks tended to describe acts of Arabs as hostile, deviant, cruel, immoral, unfair, with the intention to hurt Jews and to annihilate the State of Israel. Within this frame of reference, Arabs were delegitimized by the use of such labels as ‘robbers,’ ‘bloodthirsty,’ and ‘killers,’” said Professor Bar-Tal, adding that there has been little positive revision in the curriculum over the years.

Bar-Tal pointed out that Israeli textbooks continue to present Jews as industrious, brave and determined to cope with the difficulties of “improving the country in ways they believe the Arabs are incapable of.”

Hebrew-language geography books from the 1950s through 1970s focused on the glory of Israel’s ancient past and how the land was “neglected and destroyed” by the Arabs until the Jews returned from their forced exile and revived it “with the help of the Zionist movement.”

“This attitude served to justify the return of the Jews, implying that they care enough about the country to turn the swamps and deserts into blossoming farmland; this effectively delegitimizes the Arab claim to the same land,” Bar-Tal told the Washington Report. “The message was that the Palestinians were primitive and neglected the country and did not cultivate the land.”

This message, continued Bar-Tal, was further emphasized in textbooks by the use of blatant negative stereotyping which featured Arabs as: “unenlightened, inferior, fatalistic, unproductive and apathetic.” Further, according to the textbooks, the Arabs were “tribal, vengeful, exotic, poor, sick, dirty, noisy, colored” and “they burn, murder, destroy, and are easily inflamed.”

Textbooks currently being used in the Israeli school system, says Bar-Tal, contain less direct denigration of Arabs but continue to stereotype them negatively when referring to them. He pointed out that Hebrew- as well as Arabic-language textbooks used in elementary and junior high schools contain very few references either to Arabs or to Arab-Jewish relations. The coordinator of a Palestinian NGO in Israel said that major historical events hardly get a mention either.

“When I was in high school 12 years ago, the date ‘1948’ barely appeared in any textbooks except for a mention that there was a conflict, Palestinians refused to accept a U.N. solution and ran away instead,” said Jamal Atamneh, coordinator of the Arab Education Committee in Support of Local Councils, a Haifa-based NGO. “Today the idea communicated to schoolchildren is basically the same: there are winners and losers in every conflict. When they teach about ‘peace and co-existence,’ it is to teach us how to get along with Jews.”

Atamneh explained that textbooks used by the nearly one million Arab Israelis (one-fifth of Israel’s population) are in Arabic but are written by and issued from the Israeli Ministry of Education, where Palestinians have no influence or input.

“Fewer than 1 percent of the jobs in the Education Ministry, not counting teachers, are held by Palestinians,” Atamneh said. “For the past 15 years, not one new Palestinian academic has been placed in a high position in the ministry. There are no Palestinians involved in preparing the Arabic-language curriculum [and] obviously, there is no such thing as affirmative action in Israel.”

In addition, there are no Arabic-language universities in Israel. Haifa University, Atamneh points out, has had a steady 20 percent Arab student population for the past 20 years. “How can that figure have remained the same after all these years when the population in the north [of Israel] has grown to over 50 percent Arab?”

Answering his own question, Atamneh rattles off statistics that reflect excellent high school scores among Arab students which he contrasts to their subsequent lower-than-average performance in Hebrew-language college entrance exams given by the state.

“No major scholarships have ever been awarded to an Arab; there are no dorms for Arabs and no college-related jobs or financial aid programs. They justify this legal discrimination by the fact that we do not serve in the army. There are numerous blatant and official methods used to keep Palestinian Arabs out of the universities.”

Absence of Palestinian Identity in Schoolbooks

Dr. Eli Podeh, lecturer in the Department of Islamic Studies and Middle East History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, says that while certain changes in Israeli textbooks are slowly being implemented, the discussion of Palestinian national and civil identity is never touched upon.

“Passages from ‘experts’ about the existence of a Palestinian identity were introduced, but in general it appeared that the textbook authors were not eager to adopt it,” said Dr. Podeh, adding that “the connection between Palestinians in Israel and Arabs in Arab countries is not discussed. Especially evident is the lack of a discussion on the orientation of Palestinians to the [occupied] territories.

“While new textbooks attempt to correct some of the earlier distortions, these books as well contain overt and covert fabrications,” said Dr. Podeh. “The establishment has preferred—or felt itself forced—to encourage the cover-up and condemn the perplexity.”

One Israeli public high school student told the Washington Report that the contents of the schoolbooks and the viewpoints expressed by some teachers indeed have a lasting negative effect on youngsters’ attitudes toward Palestinians.

“Our books basically tell us that everything the Jews do is fine and legitimate and Arabs are wrong and violent and are trying to exterminate us,” said Daniel Banvolegyi, a 17-year-old high school student in Jerusalem.

“We are accustomed to hearing the same thing, only one side of the story. They teach us that Israel became a state in 1948 and that the Arabs started a war. They don’t mention what happened to the Arabs—they never mention anything about refugees or Arabs having to leave their towns and homes,” said Banvolegyi.

Banvolegyi, who will be a high school senior this fall, and then will be drafted into the Israeli army next summer, said he argues with his friends about what he regards as racism in the textbooks and on the part of the teachers. He pointed out a worrisome example of how damaging the textbooks and prevailing attitudes can be.

“One kid told me he was angry because of something he read or discussed in school and that he felt like punching the first Arab he saw,” said Banvolegyi. “Instead of teaching tolerance and reconciliation, the books and some teachers’ attitudes are increasing hatred for Arabs.”

Banvolegyi spoke about his schoolmates who, he says, “are dying to go into combat and kill Arabs. I try to talk to them but they say I don’t care about this country. But I do care and that’s why I tell them peace and justice are the only ways to work things out.”

Racist Israeli Upbringing

Considering what the schools have to offer, both Banvolegyi and Atamneh agree that the oral tradition is one of the few ways to get the story straight.

“Unfortunately Israeli children’s books are not an option for promoting equality in this society,” said Atamneh, citing a book written by Israeli writer/researcher Adir Cohen called An Ugly Face in the Mirror.

Cohen’s book is a study of the nature of children’s upbringing in Israel, concentrating on how the historical establishment sees and portrays Arab Palestinians as well as how Jewish Israeli children perceive Palestinians. One section of the book was based on the results of a survey taken of a group of 4th to 6th grade Jewish students at a school in Haifa. The pupils were asked five questions about their attitude toward Arabs, how they recognize them and how they relate to them. The results were as shocking as they were disturbing:

Seventy five percent of the children described the “Arab” as a murderer, one who kidnaps children, a criminal and a terrorist. Eighty percent said they saw the Arab as someone dirty with a terrifying face. Ninety percent of the students stated they believe that Palestinians have no rights whatsoever to the land in Israel or Palestine

Cohen also researched 1,700 Israeli children’s books published after 1967. He found that 520 of the books contained humiliating, negative descriptions of Palestinians. He also took pains to break down the descriptions:

Sixty six percent of the 520 books refer to Arabs as violent; 52 percent as evil; 37 percent as liars; 31 percent as greedy; 28 percent as two-faced; 27 percent as traitors, etc.

Cohen points out that the authors of these children’s books effectively instill hatred toward Arabs by means of stripping them of their human nature and classifying them in another category. In a sampling of 86 books, Cohen counted the following descriptions used to dehumanize Arabs: Murderer was used 21 times; snake, 6 times; dirty, 9 times; vicious animal, 17 times; bloodthirsty, 21 times; warmonger, 17 times; killer, 13 times; believer in myths, 9 times; and a camel’s hump, 2 times.

Cohen’s study concludes that such descriptions of Arabs are part and parcel of convictions and a culture rampant in Hebrew literature and history books. He writes that Israeli authors and writers confess to deliberately portraying the Arab character in this way, particularly to their younger audience, in order to influence their outlook early on so as to prepare them to deal with Arabs.

“So you can see that if you grew up reading or studying from these books, you’d never know anything else,” said Atamneh.

“But in the case of Palestinians, we grow up 500 meters away from what used to be a town or village and is now a Jewish settlement. Our parents and grandparents tell us all about it; endlessly they talk about it. It’s the only way.”

Maureen Meehan is a free-lance journalist who covers the West Bank and Jerusalem.

SIDEBAR

www.stopmoskowitz.org

Now it is possible to keep abreast of all the legal loopholes and money shuffling Irving Moskowitz is doing daily simply by checking out the following Internet address: <http://www.stopmoskowitz.org>. The Web site is sponsored by the Coalition for Justice in Hawaiian Gardens and Jerusalem.

The statement of purpose on the Web site deals with Moskowitz’s financial maneuvers to buy Arab properties in East Jerusalem with profits made from a “non-profit” bingo club in Los Angeles County’s smallest and most impoverished city, Hawaiian Gardens.

There are press releases and letters the coalition has sent to State Attorney General Bill Lockyear which question the legality of Moskowitz’ manipulation of Redevelopment Agency Funds to expand his gambling facilities in Hawaiian Gardens.

Another section deals with news stories from the U.S. and Israeli press which examine the danger the Florida millionaire poses to Israeli citizens with his schemes to buy or confiscate Arab land for “Greater Israel.” One quote from the Meretz Party’s Ornan Yekutieli states: “The investments of Moskowitz in the city [Jerusalem] are blood money. We and our children will pay for it in blood, while he sits in his bingo mansion in Miami and throws lit matches onto the Jerusalem gunpowder keg.”

Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak, a co-founder of the coalition, alleges that the Poland-born Moskowitz and his non-profit foundation are impoverishing Hawaiian Gardens and exploiting the Latino “volunteers” who work 363 nights a year in the bingo club for tips only.

The real nightmare, Rabbi Beliak predicts, would occur if California permits Moskowitz to open the Hawaiian Gardens Card Club, which could bring an additional $100 million a year in profits for him to siphon to extremist right-wing Jewish organizations in Israel.

Source

Blog: A textbook case of Israeli propaganda

by Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, Jul 8, 2002

A new Israeli army 'study' charges that Palestinian school textbooks contain 'systematic education to delegitimise the existence of the state of Israel, fanning the flames of hatred and violent revenge to destroy the country' ('Palestinian schoolbooks fan the flames of hatred,' Haaretz, June 28, 2002).

Such claims, which have been made by Israel and its extremist supporters in the United States for years, are simply an attempt by Israel to find some alternative explanation to the understandable rage felt by Palestinians who have suffered through decades of continuing dispossession, occupation, disenfranchisement, violence, torture and humiliation at the hands of Israel.

An independent study of Palestinian textbooks by Professor Nathan Brown of George Washington University in Washington, DC, notes that "virtually every discussion in English on Palestinian education repeats the charge that Palestinian textbooks incite students against Jews and Israel". Brown states that: "It may therefore come as a surprise to readers that the books authored under the PNA are largely innocent of these charges. What is more remarkable than any statements they make on the subject is their silence -- the PNA-authored books often stubbornly avoid treating anything controversial regarding Palestinian national identity, forcing them into awkward omissions and gaps."

Brown, while not uncritical of the Palestinian textbooks, concluded that "the Palestinian curriculum is not a war curriculum; while highly nationalistic, it does not incite hatred, violence and anti-Semitism. It cannot be described as a peace curriculum either, but the charges against it are often wildly exaggerated or inaccurate." (Democracy, History and the Contest over the Palestinian Curriculum, an independent report prepared for the Adam Institute, 2002) Nationalism, whatever its drawbacks, underpins almost every country's school curriculum, not least in the United States and Israel.

How can we explain the glaring discrepancy between Brown's findings and those of the Israeli army propaganda unit?

According to Haaretz, the Israeli study claims that the Palestinian textbooks "express a lack of recognition of Israel, not even according to the 1967 borders, alongside adamant claims to Palestinian rule of all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea." Another complaint is that the books mention that Israel has "exploited" and "degraded" Palestinians "by changing the names of Arab villages and cities, and by defacing and stealing Arab manuscripts". The Israeli reviewers are outraged that in one book there is a story of a Palestinian girl visiting her family's original home in the city of Jaffa which is now in Israel. Their biggest complaint is perhaps that there are maps which show "Palestine" as it once was, covering land that is now in Israel. Hence, even an historically accurate map showing where major Palestinian population centres actually were prior to their destruction in 1948, constitutes for Israel "an adamant claim to rule" the whole country. Referring to Israel's systematic effort to erase Palestinian history in Israel prior to 1948 (something very well documented by Israeli geographer Meron Benvenisti in his book `Sacred Landscape', 2000) is taken as a "desire for revenge". Anything short of total amnesia about Palestinian history and complete devotion to Zionism's official mythology constitutes "hatred". Only people who are in neurotic denial could indulge in such absurdities.

Yet, let us accept, only for the sake of argument, that the Israeli claims are true and that they constitute some form of "incitement". Why should Israel complain that Palestinians do not respect the 1967 borders on their maps, when it has been Israeli policy since 1967 to erase those borders on the ground, using extreme violence to confiscate Palestinian land and implant Jewish-only colonies everywhere Palestinians live? You need only go to the "Israel Map", on Israeli Ministry of Tourism's official website, to see the Golan Heights and the West Bank depicted as part of Israel (the latter being labelled "Judean Desert" and "Shomron" [Samaria], while the Palestinian city of Nablus is given only the Hebrew name "Shechem").

Why should Palestinians express unconditional recognition of the legitimacy of the state of Israel and its historic claims when Israel has not recognised a Palestinian state, and its officials and many of its academics deny the undeniable -- that nearly three quarters of a million Palestinians were expelled or fled from their homes so that Israel could rise on the ashes of Palestinian society? Of course, the fact that the Palestinian leadership has explicitly recognised Israel -- repeatedly and formally -- and that Palestinian policy is to seek a state within the 1967 borders does nothing to blunt the constant Israeli charges. This is because the purpose of the accusations is not to produce more friendly school curricula but to justify Israel's own refusal to recognise the 1967 borders, to provide cover for the continued colonisation of the occupied territories and to blame the Palestinians for all the violence resulting from this colonisation.

Even without Brown's commendable study it should be obvious that the constant Israeli refrain that textbooks are responsible for the violence is ridiculous on its face. Are we to believe that if Palestinian textbooks were written by the Israeli Ministry of Education, Palestinian children would be happy to live under the brutal foreign military dictatorship that is the Israeli occupation, to see their parents and friends killed and humiliated, their houses demolished and their land seized for Jewish-only settlement? If Palestinian youths were to read from Israeli textbooks, would they greet invading Israeli troops with showers of rose petals instead of stones? If Palestinian students could actually get past the roadblocks, curfews and gunfire to reach their schools in order to read Israeli-approved books, would they feel less hostility towards Israel?

And, perhaps Israel would be in a better position to lecture Palestinians about what they should do in their classrooms if Israel had not constantly shelled school buildings and used Palestinian schools as detention camps for thousands of men and boys rounded up during "Operation Defensive Shield", when they were forced to strip, and lie for hours and days on cold, concrete floors, sometimes with numbers written on their arms.

Indeed, for decades, Palestinian citizens of Israel ("Arab Israelis") have studied from textbooks written by the Israeli Ministry of Education, they stood to attention in front of the Israeli flag and sang the Israeli national anthem. And yet, despite their "good behaviour", their simmering and growing discontent is caused not by an insufficiently Zionist school curriculum but by the constant and increasing discrimination against them in every possible sphere of life by Israeli government and society. This discrimination reached the breaking point in October 2000 when thirteen Palestinian-Israeli youths protesting in solidarity with Palestinians in the occupied territories were shot dead by Israeli police. Such casual brutality is entirely unheard of against Jewish citizens.

Israel is further marginalising its own Palestinian citizens by cutting payment of child benefits to Arab, but not Jewish, citizens. Arab Knesset members are being persecuted: Azmi Bishara is on trial for making a speech, and Ahmed Tibi's parliamentary freedom of movement was recently revoked by a vote of his own Knesset colleagues. This discrimination cannot but produce anger and resentment, and making the textbooks more Zionist is not going to assuage it.

So if this is the situation inside Israel, what can one expect in the occupied territories, where the repression is infinitely greater, and where hundreds of unarmed Palestinian children have been shot dead by the Israeli army since October 2000? The Israeli occupation clearly does not need any help from textbooks to incite against itself. With all this, one can easily find ugly expressions by Palestinians both about Israelis and Jews, but these are exactly mirrored by frequent statements from Israeli cabinet ministers, rabbis and others, calling for the ethnic cleansing or annihilation of all the Palestinians, and other all too frequent expressions of racial hatred. These expressions on both sides are symptoms and not causes of the conflict. When the gross and real injustices that fuel the conflict are removed, then they will begin to disappear and messages of hatred will not resonate as they do today.

Only those who want the conflict to continue will maintain the lie about Palestinian textbooks and find in them non-existent excuses to continue the oppression and dehumanisation of the Palestinian people while what little is left of their country is stolen from under their feet.

Related links:

Special report: Israeli Textbooks and Children's Literature Promote Racism and Hatred Toward Palestinians and Arabs, by Maureen Meehan, Washington, Report on Middle East Affairs, September 1999, pages 19-20.

A campaign against 'incitement', by James J. Zogby, Arab American Institute, 9 July 2001.

The Politics of Palestinian Textbooks, by Fouad Moughrabi, Journal of Palestine Studies, Col. XXXI, No. 1, Autumn 2001, Issue 121.

Einstein et al on Begin

Albert Einstein with many prominent Jews (list below) signed onto this letter published in the NY Times on Dec. 2, 1948

Qumsiyeh comment/update: Herut is the precurser for the Likud Party of Israel (following on the ideology of Vladimir Jabotinsky). Begin (a wanted terrorist) later became Israel Prime Minister (Likud) and under his rule, tens of thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian Civilians were killed in the 1980s. Menachem Begin's successors in Likud (and as Israeli Prime Ministers) include Netanyahu and Sharon who are responsible for countless other civilian deaths. While the authors mention the apology from the Jewish Agency "sent to King Abdullah" who is not even Palestinian, later research shows involvement of the Hagannah and teh Jewish agency in the Deir Yassin massacre as well as JA/JNF involvement in ethnic cleansing.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES:

Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our time is the Emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the "Freedom Party" (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.

The current visit of Menahem Begin, leader of this party to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American Support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin's political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents. Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial contributions, public manifestations in Begin's behalf, and the creation in Palestine of the impression that a large segment of America supports Fascist lements in Israel, the American public must be informed as to the record and Objectives of Mr. Begin and his movement.

The public avowals of Begin's party are no guide whatever to its actual character. Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state. It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.

Attack on Arab Village

A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had Taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (THE NEW YORK TIMES), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants - 240 men, women and children - and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan.

But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin. The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies the character and actions of the Freedom Party. Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultra-nationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority.

Like other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and Have themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their Stead they have proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model. During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for Not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window-smashing, and wide-spread robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute.

The people of the Freedom Party have had no part in the constructive achievements in Palestine. They have reclaimed no land, built no settlements, and only detracted from the Jewish defense activity. Their much-publicized immigration endeavors were minute, and devoted mainly to bringing in Fascist compatriots.

DISCREPANCIES SEEN

The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and His party, and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a "Leader State" is the goal.

In the light of the foregoing considerations, it is imperative that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has Refused to campaign against Begin's efforts, or even to expose to its own constituents the dangers to Israel from support to Begin.

The undersigned therefore take this means of publicly presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of urging all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism.

ISIDORE ABRAMOWITZ, HANNAH ARENDT, ABRAHAM BRICK, RABBI JESSURUN CARDOZO, ALBERT EINSTEIN, HERMAN EISEN, M.D., HAYIM FINEMAN, M. GALLEN, M.D., H.H. HARRIS, ZELIG S. HARRIS, SIDNEY HOOK, FRED KARUSH, BRURIA KAUFMAN, IRMA L. LINDHEIM, NACHMAN MAJSEL, SEYMOUR MELMAN, MYER D. MENDELSON, M.D., HARRY M. ORLINSKY, SAMUEL PITLICK, FRITZ ROHRLICH, LOUIS P. ROCKER, RUTH SAGER, ITZHAK SANKOWSKY, I.J. SHOENBERG, SAMUEL SHUMAN, M. ZNGER, IRMA WOLPE, STEFAN WOLPE.
New York, Dec. 2, 1948

Blog post

I have found a nice post on http://tsunamiofblood.squarespace.com/journal/2006/8/29/news-flash-august-29-2006.html

I have included a comment that I'm copying here now:

Everything that the american administration is doing is worsening its situation vis-a-vis the Muslim world. And favoring Israel in all UN resolutions (among other things) is not helping at all. What are they expecting the Arab world to do? What are they expecting the palestinians to do? What are they expecting Iraqis to do? Just sit there and watch them destroy their lives? That won't happen, that will never happen.
Look at Iraq! Democracy they said...they have civil war now, how nice! Great job Mr. Bush, you destroyed one of the oldest and most prestigious civilizations ever. Or maybe was it intentional after all, to erase the whole civilization?Look at Israel...self-defence my a**. They can destroy whatever they want and nobody makes a move, they can emprison 10,000 people and no one makes a move, but everybody rushes when Hezbollah kidnaps two soldiers...not even civilians, while Israel kills civilians every day in the occupied territories. Yes, EVERY DAY.
Regular violations of lebanese airspace and nobody moves. But 2 soldiers are too much, right? they have to defend themselves and destroy all the bridges in Lebanon and 90% of the industry. How nice indeed.
Lebanon was being bombed and destroyed and nobody moved..and suddenly everybody wanted a UN resolution and a cease-fire. Did anyone every wonder why this sudden rush? I say because Israel was getting his a** kicked on the ground and couldn't handle it anymore. I have heard stories of Israeli soldiers screaming like women in fights with Hezbollah.
Cowards. Big deal pushing a button when they are in their american-made F16s. But down on the ground, their value is zero. With all their planes, helicopters, artillery and tanks, they couldn't advance more than 2 miles inside lebanese territory in some places. And for those who like the "strategic redeployment of troops" understand finally that it means "we are getting our a** kicked and have to retreat."