It appears that once again the pro-Israel apologists have decided to single Israel out by making boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel a leading issue for the Marrickville electorate in the lead-up to the NSW state elections

Not surprisingly, the Palestinians are rendered invisible again as right-wing groups, politicians, the pro-Israel lobby and the Murdoch Press attack the Marrickville Council for their resolution to support BDS. That Palestinians living under Israel’s 43-year-old occupation are being ethnically cleansed on a daily basis from their land, their neighbourhoods and farms seems to be of no concern to our Liberal and Labor candidates who are vying for seats likely to favour the Greens.

There would be no BDS campaign if Israel was not denying the Palestinians their basic human rights: the right of return, the right to citizenship, the right to equality, the right to self determination, the right to live free from occupation, the right to education, the right to freedom of movement, the right to security, the right to fair trials, and much else besides.

The call for BDS was initiated in 2005 by Palestinian Civil Society as a form of non-violent resistance that is rooted in international law and the universal declarations of human rights. It aims to empower individuals to take action to end the conflict. Since 2005, BDS has had a steady rise in popularity amongst Palestinian and Jewish peace groups only to accelerate in 2009 when Israel attacked the Gaza Strip. The deliberate sidelining of the Goldstone report in the UN after the evident savagery of the assault, galvanized organizations and individuals around the world to join the BDS campaign and call for an end to Israel’s criminal impunity and disregard for international law.

In the run up to the NSW elections, none of the politicians gave a thought to Israel’s new round of attacks on Gaza. Nor did the media, despite Israel’s opposition leader Tzipi Livni calling for another “Operation Cast Lead” with the same chilling indifference she showed when she defended the earlier offensive as “necessary”.

Instead, a smear campaign was waged against the increasingly popular Greens for their principled support of BDS, a call coming now from numerous mainstream organisations around the world, including a good number of unions here in Australia. Besmirching the good character of Greens’ candidates like Marrrickville Mayor Fiona Byrne, who is standing for the seat of Marrickville, as well as distributing false and sensationalist propaganda for political advantage, ought to sound warning bells for the local electorates and Australians generally.

If Ms Byrne is indeed an “extremist” then she is in illustrious company. Nobel Peace Laureates Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, as well as former US President Jimmy Carter, were also labelled “extremists” by blind supporters of Israel, for daring to criticize Israel’s systematic discrimination and violations of International Humanitarian Law.

Nevertheless, as Israel expands its Jewish-only colonies, pushes its indigenous Palestinian population behind razor wires and tall cement walls, and strips them of any shred of freedom or dignity, our politicians continue to reward Israel. A resolution moved by Liberal Senator Fifield condemning Marrickville’s decision to implement a boycott was just passed in the Federal Senate. The Greens were the only ones who opposed it.

The resolution acknowledges the friendship between Australia and Israel and this is no surprise at all since successive governments here in recent times have bent over backwards to embrace Israel.

Notwithstanding our politicians’ blind support, Australia’s relations with Israel have caused many Australians to question what business we could possibly have with a state that is entrenching its occupation of another people. There is a growing recognition amongst Australians that Israel simply does not live up to its tired and discredited mantra of “the only democracy in the Middle East”.

The idea that Israel is a democracy like Australia is simply not valid. You cannot deny the rights of half of the people living under your control and still be called a democracy. As if that is not enough, Israel has now made it illegal to hold events or ceremonies commemorating Israel’s Independence Day as a day of catastrophe or “Nakba” for the Palestinians dispossessed of their homes and land in 1948. And the Israeli Knesset has just passed a segregation bill, which prohibits Palestinian Israelis from living in Jewish localities built on land confiscated from them.

In light of such blatant discrimination, the call for BDS is neither extreme nor unrealistic. More and more people around the world see it as a morally sound strategy for holding Israel to account. If anything, the spectacle of fear-mongering and name calling in Marrickville has shown how incapable some politicians are of having a rational conversation on Israel/Palestine, despite its importance to world peace and security.

(First published on Australians for Palestine, March 25, 2011)

Probably the most bewildering aspect of the Gaza flotilla affair has been the righteous indignation expressed by the Israeli government and people.

The nature of this response is not being fully reported in the UK press, but it includes official parades celebrating the heroism of the commandos who stormed the ship and demonstrations by schoolchildren giving their unequivocal support for the government against the new wave of anti-Semitism.

As someone who was born in Israel and went enthusiastically through the socialisation and indoctrination process until my mid-20s, this reaction is all too familiar. Understanding the root of this furious defensiveness is key to comprehending the principal obstacle for peace in Israel and Palestine. One can best define this barrier as the official and popular Jewish Israeli perception of the political and cultural reality around them.

A number of factors explain this phenomenon, but three are outstanding and they are interconnected. They form the mental infrastructure on which life in Israel as a Jewish Zionist individual is based, and one from which it is almost impossible to depart – as I know too well from personal experience.

The first and most important assumption is that what used to be historical Palestine is by sacred and irrefutable right the political, cultural and religious possession of the Jewish people represented by the Zionist movement and later the state of Israel.

Most of the Israelis, politicians and citizens alike, understand that this right can’t be fully realised. But although successive governments were pragmatic enough to accept the need to enter peace negotiations and strive for some sort of territorial compromise, the dream has not been forsaken. Far more important is the conception and representation of any pragmatic policy as an act of ultimate and unprecedented international generosity.

Any Palestinian, or for that matter international, dissatisfaction with every deal offered by Israel since 1948, has therefore been seen as insulting ingratitude in the face of an accommodating and enlightened policy of the “only democracy in the Middle East”. Now, imagine that the dissatisfaction is translated into an actual, and sometimes violent, struggle and you begin to understand the righteous fury. As schoolchildren, during military service and later as adult Israeli citizens, the only explanation we received for Arab or Palestinian responses was that our civilised behaviour was being met by barbarism and antagonism of the worst kind.

According to the hegemonic narrative in Israel there are two malicious forces at work. The first is the old familiar anti-Semitic impulse of the world at large, an infectious bug that supposedly affects everyone who comes into contact with Jews. According to this narrative, the modern and civilised Jews were rejected by the Palestinians simply because they were Jews; not for instance because they stole land and water up to 1948, expelled half of Palestine’s population in 1948 and imposed a brutal occupation on the West Bank, and lately an inhuman siege on the Gaza Strip. This also explains why military action seems the only resort: since the Palestinians are seen as bent on destroying Israel through some atavistic impulse, the only conceivable way of confronting them is through military might.

The second force is also an old-new phenomenon: an Islamic civilisation bent on destroying the Jews as a faith and a nation. Mainstream Israeli orientalists, supported by new conservative academics in the United States, helped to articulate this phobia as a scholarly truth. These fears, of course, cannot be sustained unless they are constantly nourished and manipulated.

From this stems the second feature relevant to a better understanding of the Israeli Jewish society. Israel is in a state of denial. Even in 2010, with all the alternative and international means of communication and information, most of the Israeli Jews are still fed daily by media that hides from them the realities of occupation, stagnation or discrimination. This is true about the ethnic cleansing that Israel committed in 1948, which made half of Palestine’s population refugees, destroyed half the Palestinian villages and towns, and left 80% of their homeland in Israeli hands. And it’s painfully clear that even before the apartheid walls and fences were built around the occupied territories, the average Israeli did not know, and could not care, about the 40 years of systematic abuses of civil and human rights of millions of people under the direct and indirect rule of their state.

Nor have they had access to honest reports about the suffering in the Gaza Strip over the past four years. In the same way, the information they received on the flotilla fits the image of a state attacked by the combined forces of the old anti-Semitism and the new Islamic Judacidal fanatics coming to destroy the state of Israel. (After all, why would they have sent the best commando elite in the world to face defenceless human rights activists?)

As a young historian in Israel during the 1980s, it was this denial that first attracted my attention. As an aspiring professional scholar I decided to study the 1948 events and what I found in the archives sent me on a journey away from Zionism. Unconvinced by the government’s official explanation for its assault on Lebanon in 1982 and its conduct in the first Intifada in 1987, I began to realise the magnitude of the fabrication and manipulation. I could no longer subscribe to an ideology which dehumanised the native Palestinians and which propelled policies of dispossession and destruction.

The price for my intellectual dissidence was foretold: condemnation and excommunication. In 2007 I left Israel and my job at Haifa University for a teaching position in the United Kingdom, where views that in Israel would be considered at best insane, and at worst as sheer treason, are shared by almost every decent person in the country, whether or not they have any direct connection to Israel and Palestine.

That chapter in my life – too complicated to describe here – forms the basis of my forthcoming book, Out Of The Frame, to be published this autumn. But in brief, it involved the transformation of someone who had been a regular and unremarkable Israeli Zionist, and it came about because of exposure to alternative information, close relationships with several Palestinians and post-graduate studies abroad in Britain.

My quest for an authentic history of events in the Middle East required a personal de- militarisation of the mind. Even now, in 2010, Israel is in many ways a settler Prussian state: a combination of colonialist policies with a high level of militarisation in all aspects of life. This is the third feature of the Jewish state that has to be understood if one wants to comprehend the Israeli response. It is manifested in the dominance of the army over political, cultural and economic life within Israel. Defence minister Ehud Barak was the commanding officer of Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, in a military unit similar to the one that assaulted the flotilla. That background was profoundly significant in terms of the state’s Zionist response to what they and all the commando officers perceived as the most formidable and dangerous enemy.

You probably have to be born in Israel, as I was, and go through the whole process of socialisation and education – including serving in the army – to grasp the power of this militarist mentality and its dire consequences. And you need such a background to understand why the whole premise on which the international community’s approach to the Middle East is based, is utterly and disastrously wrong.

The international response is based on the assumption that more forthcoming Palestinian concessions and a continued dialogue with the Israeli political elite will produce a new reality on the ground. The official discourse in the West is that a very reasonable and attainable solution – the two states solution – is just around the corner if all sides would make one final effort. Such optimism is hopelessly misguided.

The only version of this solution that is acceptable to Israel is the one that both the tamed Palestine Authority in Ramallah and the more assertive Hamas in Gaza could never accept. It is an offer to imprison the Palestinians in stateless enclaves in return for ending their struggle. And thus even before one discusses either an alternative solution – one democratic state for all, which I myself support – or explores a more plausible two-states settlement, one has to transform fundamentally the Israeli official and public mindset. It is this mentality which is the principal barrier to a peaceful reconciliation within the fractured terrain of Israel and Palestine.

How can one change it? That is the biggest challenge for activists within Palestine and Israel, for Palestinians and their supporters abroad and for anyone in the world who cares about peace in the Middle East. What is needed is, firstly, recognition that the analysis put forward here is valid and acceptable. Only then can one discuss the prognosis.

It is difficult to expect people to revisit a history of more than 60 years in order to comprehend better why the present international agenda on Israel and Palestine is misguided and harmful. But one can surely expect politicians, political strategists and journalists to reappraise what has been euphemistically called the “peace process” ever since 1948. They need also to be reminded that what actually happened.

Since 1948, Palestinians have been struggling against the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. During that year, they lost 80% of their homeland and half of them were expelled. In 1967, they lost the remaining 20%. They were fragmented geographically and traumatised like no other people during the second half of the 20th century. And had it not been for the steadfastness of their national movement, the fragmentation would have enabled Israel to take over historical Palestine as a whole and push the Palestinians into oblivion.

Transforming a mindset is a long process of education and enlightenment. Against all the odds, some alternative groups within Israel have begun this long and winding road to salvation. But in the meantime Israeli policies, such as the blockade on Gaza, have to be stopped. They will not cease in response to feeble condemnations of the kind we heard last week, nor is the movement inside Israel strong enough to produce a change in the foreseeable future. The danger is not only the continued destruction of the Palestinians but a constant Israeli brinkmanship that could lead to a regional war, with dire consequences for the stability of the world as a whole.

In the past, the free world faced dangerous situations like that by taking firm actions such as the sanctions against South Africa and Serbia. Only sustained and serious pressure by Western governments on Israel will drive the message home that the strategy of force and the policy of oppression are not accepted morally or politically by the world to which Israel wants to belong.

The continued diplomacy of negotiations and “peace talks” enables the Israelis to pursue uninterruptedly the same strategies, and the longer this continues, the more difficult it will be to undo them. Now is the time to unite with the Arab and Muslim worlds in offering Israel a ticket to normality and acceptance in return for an unconditional departure from past ideologies and practices.

Removing the army from the lives of the oppressed Palestinians in the West Bank, lifting the blockade in Gaza and stopping the racist and discriminatory legislation against the Palestinians inside Israel, could be welcome steps towards peace.

It is also vital to discuss seriously and without ethnic prejudices the return of the Palestinian refugees in a way that would respect their basic right of repatriation and the chances for reconciliation in Israel and Palestine. Any political outfit that could promise these achievements should be endorsed, welcomed and implemented by the international community and the people who live between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea.

And then the only flotillas making their way to Gaza would be those of tourists and pilgrims.

Nuclear whistle-blower, Mordechai Vanunu, was arrested again on New Year’s Eve by Israeli Police.  His crime this time was meeting with his Norwegian girlfriend!

The deafening silence over Morde’s re-arrest will illustrates the West’s double-standard when it comes to nuclear weapons and human rights. While sanctions and violence are threatened against Iran for their nuclear program, Israel’s nuclear stockpile is never discussed, and Morde’s inhumane treatment is officially ignored.

Daniel Ellsberg – an American who ‘blew the whistle’ on his own government’s actions during the Vietnam war – speaks out in Morde’s defense.

Mordechai Vanunu – my friend, my hero, my brother – has again been arrested in Israel on”suspicion” of the ”crime” of ”meeting with foreigners.” I myself have been complicit in this offense, traveling twice to Israel for the express purpose of meeting with him, openly, and expressing support for the actions for which he was imprisoned for over eighteen years. His offense has been to defy openly and repeatedly, conditions put on his freedom of movement and associations and speech after he had served his full sentence, restrictions on his human rights which were a direct carry-over from the British Mandate, colonial regulations in clear violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Such restrictions have no place in a nation evincing respect for a rule of law and fundamental human rights. His arrest and confinement are outrages and should be ended immediately.

My perspective on Mordechai and his behavior was expressed as well as I could do it today in the following op-ed published in 2004 on the day of his release from prison. I can only say that I would be proud to be known as the American Vanunu: though my own possible sentence of 115 years for revealing state secrets was averted by disclosure of government misconduct against me which pales next to the Israeli misconduct in assaulting, drugging and kidnapping Vanunu in the process of bringing him to trial, let alone the eleven years of solitary confinement he was forced to endure.

Mordechai Vanunu is the preeminent hero of the nuclear era. He consciously risked all he had in life to warn his own country and the world of the true extent of the nuclear danger facing us. And he paid the full price, a burden in many ways worse than death, for his heroic act – for doing exactly what he should have done and what others should be doing.

Vanunu’s “crime” was committed in 1986, when he gave the London Sunday Times a series of photos he had taken within the Israeli nuclear weapons facility at Dimona, where he had worked as a technician.

For that act – revealing that his country’s program and stockpile were much larger than the CIA or others had estimated – Vanunu was kidnapped from the Rome airport by agents of the Israeli Mossad and secretly transported back for a closed trial in which he was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

He spent the first 11-1/2 years in solitary confinement in a 6-by-9-foot cell, an unprecedented term of solitary under conditions that Amnesty International called ”cruel, inhuman and degrading.”

Now, after serving his full term, he is due to be released today. But his “unfreedom” is to be continued by restrictions on his movements and his contacts: He cannot leave Israel, he will be confined to a single town, he cannot communicate with foreigners face to face or by phone, fax or e-mail (purely punitive conditions because any classified information that he may have possessed is by now nearly two decades old).

The irony of all this is that no country in the world has a stronger stake than Israel in preventing nuclear proliferation, above all in the Middle East. Yet Israel’s secret nuclear policies – to this day it does not acknowledge that it possesses such weapons – are shortsighted and self-destructive. They promote rather than block proliferation by encouraging the country’s neighbors to develop their own, comparable weapons.

This will not change without public mobilization and democratic pressure, which in turn demand public awareness and discussion. It was precisely this that Vanunu sought to stimulate.

Not in Israel or in any other case – not that of the U.S., Russia, England, France, China, India or Pakistan – has the decision to become a nuclear weapons state ever been made democratically or even with the knowledge of the full Cabinet. It is likely that in an open discussion not one of these states could convince its own people or the rest of the world that it had a legitimate reason for possessing as many warheads as the several hundred that Israel allegedly has (far beyond any plausible requirement for deterrence).

More Vanunus are urgently needed. That is true not only in Israel but in every nuclear weapons state, declared and undeclared. Can anyone fail to recognize the value to world security of a heroic Pakistani, Indian, Iraqi, Iranian or North Korean Vanunu making comparable revelations?

And the world’s need for such secret-telling is not limited to citizens of what nuclear weapons states presumptuously call rogue nations. Every nuclear weapons state has secret policies, aims, programs and plans that contradict its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the 1995 Declaration of Principles agreed to at the NPT Renewal Conference. Every official with knowledge of these violations could and should consider doing what Vanunu did.

That is what I should have done in the early ’60s based on what I knew about the secret nuclear planning and practices of the United States when I consulted at the Defense Department, on loan from the Rand Corp., on problems of nuclear command and control. I drafted the Secretary of Defense Guidance to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the general nuclear war plans, and the extreme dangers of our practices and plan were apparent to me.

I now feel derelict for wrongfully keeping secret the documents in my safe revealing this catastrophically reckless posture. But I did not then have Vanunu’s example to guide me.

When I finally did have an example in front of me — that of young Americans who were choosing to go to prison rather than participate in what I too knew was a hopeless, immoral war — I was inspired in 1971 to turn over a top-secret history of presidential lies about the war in Vietnam to 19 newspapers. I regret only that I didn’t do it earlier, before the bombs started falling.

Vanunu should long since have been released from solitary and from prison, not because he has “suffered enough” but because what he did was the correct and courageous thing to do in the face of the foreseeable efforts to silence and punish him.

The outrageous and illegal restrictions proposed to be inflicted on him when he finally steps out of prison after 18 years should be widely protested and rejected, not only because they violate his fundamental human rights but because the world needs to hear this man’s voice.

The cult and culture of secrecy in every nuclear weapons state have endangered humanity and continues to threaten its survival. Vanunu’s challenge to that wrongful and dangerous secrecy must be joined worldwide.

As published in the Los Angeles Times on January 4th, 2010

Best known as an innovative musician and for his production work on seven albums for U2, Brian Eno also has a strong history has a human rights activitst.   Here he succinctly summarises the real situation in Israel/Palestine.

It’s a tragedy that the Israelis – a people who must understand better than almost anybody the horrors of oppression – are now acting as oppressors. As the great Jewish writer Primo Levi once remarked ”Everybody has their Jews, and for the Israelis it’s the Palestinians”. By creating a middle Eastern version of the Warsaw ghetto they are recapitulating their own history as though they’ve forgotten it. And by trying to paint an equivalence between the Palestinians – with their homemade rockets and stone-throwing teenagers – and themselves – with one of the most sophisticated military machines in the world – they sacrifice all credibility.

The Israelis are a gifted and resourceful people who fully deserve the right to live in peace, but who seem intent on squandering every chance to allow that to happen. It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that this conflict serves the political and economic purposes of Israel so well that they have every interest in maintaining it. While there is fighting they can continue to build illegal settlements. While there is fighting they continue to receive huge quantities of military aid from the United States. And while there is fighting they can avoid looking candidly at themselves and the ruthlessness into which they are descending.

Gaza is now an experiment in provocation. Stuff one and a half million people into a tiny space, stifle their access to water, electricity, food and medical treatment, destroy their livelihoods, and humiliate them regularly…and, surprise, surprise – they turn hostile. Now why would you want to make that experiment?

Because the hostility you provoke is the whole point. Now ’under attack’ you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn’t possibly reach an accommodation.

And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing their homeland.

Brian EnoMusician, Record Producer & Social Activitst

 

A group of more than 100 International Non-Government Organisations are appealing to the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council to review and implment the recommendations of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza submitted by Justice Richard Goldstone to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on 29 September 2009.

“We, the NGOs who sign this Appeal, fully endorse and support the implementation of the Report, and believe that the time for accountability has come. It is now the duty of every state and the international community to stop condoning impunity, and prepare the ground for prosecution of all those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

“The prolonged situation of impunity has created a justice crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory that warrants action”

In its twelfth special session held on 15 and 16 October, 2009, the Human Rights Council has endorsed the report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict led by Justice Richard Goldstone.

In This Report, the Mission concluded that there is evidence of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law committed during the Gaza conflict including actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity.

The Mission found that, in the lead up to the Israeli military assault on Gaza, Israel imposed a blockade amounting to collective punishment and carried out a systematic policy of isolation and deprivation of the Gaza Strip. It has documented grave and systematic violations during the Gaza war by examining the evidence surrounding the attacks on civilians and non-military targets.

The Report concludes that the Israeli military operation was directed at the people of Gaza as a whole, in furtherance of an overall and continuing policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population, and in a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed at the civilian population. The destruction of food supply installations, water sanitation systems, concrete factories and residential houses was the result of a deliberate and systematic policy which has made the daily living, and dignified basic survival, more difficult for the civilian population.

Despite the impartiality of the Report in identifying also violations committed by Palestinian rockets attacks, the Report has nevertheless not been accepted by those who have always insisted on addressing violations by all sides of the conflict.

We, the NGOs who sign this Appeal, fully endorse and support the implementation of the Report, and believe that the time for accountability has come. It is now the duty of every state and the international community to stop condoning impunity, and prepare the ground for prosecution of all those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

We call upon all UN member states to endorse the recommendations of the Report, and to take the necessary measures to ensure that all those who committed crimes against the Palestinian people be prosecuted. In this regard we call on all UN members to be on guard against any attempts to prevent the Human Rights Council, the General Assembly and the Security Council from fulfilling their mandate and promptly taking action on the Report.

We believe that ending the state of impunity will better serve peace and security in the region and the world. The new USA administration and EU should take this opportunity to prove their commitment to human rights by fully endorsing the report and to act to bring all those who committed war crimes and crime against humanity to justice.

We call upon all NGOs to mobilize efforts in this direction by organizing meetings and conferences to discuss and devise the most effective means to implement the Goldstone Report.

And as the Goldstone Report states: ”… ending occupation is a prerequisite for the return of a dignified life for Palestinians, as well as development of a peaceful solution to the conflict”. In this regard we reiterate that our solidarity with the Palestinian people who are resisting an illegal and atrocious occupation will remain firm and steadfast until they have achieved their own independent state.

1. International Youth and Student Movement forthe United Nations (ISMUN),
2. CETIM- Centre Europe -Tiers Monde
3. Union of Arab Jurists (UAJ)
4. The International Organization for the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (EAFORD)
5.  International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL)
6. Union of Arab Community Based Associations (Ittijah )
7. Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
8. North-South XX1
9. Arab Lawyers Union (ALU)
10. General Arab Women Federation (GAWF)
11. The General Federation of Iraqi women (GFIW)
12. International Educational Development Inc (IED)
13. Arab Organization for Human Rights (AOHR)
14. The Indian Movement “Tupaj Amaru”
15. The United Towns Agency for the North-South Cooperation
16. International Action for Peace and Development in the Great Lakes Region (IAPD-GL),
17. Indian Council of South America (CISA),
18. International Committee For the Respect and Application of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights,
19. Association of Humanitarian Lawyers
20. Arab Association of Human Rights (AAHR)
21. International Human Rights Association of American Minorities (IHRAAM),
22. Arab Commission for Human Rights (ACHR)
23. The Arab Lawyers Net Work in the UK
24. DROIT POUR TOUS -Geneva
25. The Spanish Society for Human Rights
26. The International Action Center- New York
27. International Coalition against War Criminals (ICAWC)
28. Women Solidarity for an Independent and Unified Iraq
29. American Association of Juristes
30. The Italian Association of Democratic Lawyers
31. The European-Palestinian Council, Vienna
32. Women Will Association (WWA)
33. The Palestinian Rights Foundation – Ireland
34. Al-Basa’er Media Association
35. National Committee for The Defence of the Rights of internally Displaced Palestinians
36. The Palestinian Forum – Denmark
37. Palestine Now Association – Denmark
38. Canadian Arab Federation (CAF)
39. The Charitable Council in Support of Palestine – France
40. The Iraqi Independent Press Association (IIPA)
41. The Identity Institution- Norway
42. The Association of Social and Cultural Foundations – Moscow
43. Het Palestijns Platform voor Mensenrechten en Solidariteit(PPMS)- Holland
44. De Palestijnse Raad- Amsterdam
45. Monitoring Net of Human Rights in Iraq (MHRI)
46. Steun Palestina-Amsterdam
47. Palestinensische Gemeinde Berlin-Germany
48. The African Association of Human Rights (AAHR)
49. Pal. Bund Deutschland for Rockkehrrecht -Germany
50. Palestinensische Gemeinschaft in Deutschland-Germany
51. Arab Forum Germany
52. Rottvisecenter fur palestinska folket-Sweden
53. Palestinagrupperna Sverige-Sweden
54. The Islamic Council – Copenhagen
55. ABSPP ONLUS-Italy
56. ComitatoGaza Vivru – Milano
57. InfoPal- Italy
58. Damascus Center for Theoretical Studies and Civil Rights
59. Association of Iraqi Diplomats
60. The Association for Aid to the Palestinian People – Italy
61. Greece-Palestinian Friendship Association- Greece
62. Palestinian Cultural Organization – Poland
63. The Indian Movement for Peace and Justice (IMPJ)
64. National Organization for Human Rights in Syria
65. The United Prisoners in Iraq
66. Protection of Human Rights Defenders in the Arab World
67. Association of Victims of American Occupation Prisons,
68. Association of Iraqi intellectual and Academics,
69. Conservation Centre of Environmental & Reserves in Iraq (CCERF),
70. Le Franco Palestinien – France
71. The European Campaign to end the siege on Gaza
72. Organisation of the Solidarity of the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America
73. AssociationCultureSyria-Spain
74. Japan Lawyers International Solidarity Association (JLISA)
75. Malaysia Jurists for Justice (MJfJ)
76. Palestinensischer Bund Deutschland fur das-Berlin
77. Indigenes World Association (IWA)
78. The Palestinian Forum for Rights and Solidarity – Holland
79. Organization for Widows and Orphans (OWO)
80. The Cuban Jurists Centre
81. Koordination Forum Zur Unnterstutzung Palestina-Austria
82. The Palestinian Women’s Forum – Denmark
83. Association of Human Rights Defenders in Iraq (AHRDI)
84. Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People, Beit Sahour, Palestine
85. The Palestinian Community in Norway
86. Millennium Solidarity
87. The Association of Jordanian Civil Society Coalition for the trial of War Criminals
88. Spanish Charity For Palestine – Spain
89. Organization for Justice and Democracy in Iraq (OJDI)
90. The African Center for Human Rights (ACHR)
91. Migrant Defenders association (MDA)
92. Arabian Women Media Centre (AWMC)
93. Arab Council for Education and Culture (ACEC)
94. Adala Association -Palestine
95. Women Association for Al-Quds -Amman
96. Women Hope Association (WHA)
97. El Taller International, Tunisia,
98. Asian Women’s Human Rights Council, Philippines – India ,
99. Centre for Development Studies- India ,
100. Courts of Women Network
101. The Iraqi Commission on Human Rights
102. The Palestinian Return Centre, UK
103. Ikraam Center for Human Rights
104. The Network of Oxford Women for Justice and Peace ( NOW).
105. International Council For Human Rights (ICHR),
106. The Young Women’s Christian Association of Jordan,
107. Justice for Palestine- Scotland
108. Palestinian Academy Society for the Study of International affairs
109. Friends of Gaza Community Mental Health Programme-Oxford
110. The International Institute for Women Solidarity
111. Make WarHistory Group
112. AWAMI BHARAT
113. Barak Human Rights Protection Committee
114. The BRussells Tribunal
115. International Action for Liberation
116. Medical Aid for the Third World

You can download a pdf version of the appeal as well as the full text of the Goldstone report from the Fighting Fathers eBook and Software Library (which can be found here).

Reprinted below is the article by Israeli professor, Neve Gordon, published in the LA Times on August 20, in which he expresses support for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. The article caused enormous furor - some calling for Gordon to be expelled from the University for his “irresponsible and morally reprehensible” remarks, while ‘Jewish Voice for Peace‘ and numerous others have rallied to uphold Professor Gordon’s right to freedom of speech.

Israeli newspapers this summer are filled with angry articles about the push for an international boycott of Israel. Films have been withdrawn from Israeli film festivals, Leonard Cohen is under fire around the world for his decision to perform in Tel Aviv, and Oxfam has severed ties with a celebrity spokesperson, a British actress who also endorses cosmetics produced in the occupied territories. Clearly, the campaign to use the kind of tactics that helped put an end to the practice of apartheid in South Africa is gaining many followers around the world.

Not surprisingly, many Israelis — even peaceniks — aren’t signing on. A global boycott can’t help but contain echoes of anti-Semitism. It also brings up questions of a double standard (why not boycott China for its egregious violations of human rights?) and the seemingly contradictory position of approving a boycott of one’s own nation.

It is indeed not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organizations, unions and citizens to suspend cooperation with Israel. But today, as I watch my two boys playing in the yard, I am convinced that it is the only way that Israel can be saved from itself.

I say this because Israel has reached a historic crossroads, and times of crisis call for dramatic measures. I say this as a Jew who has chosen to raise his children in Israel, who has been a member of the Israeli peace camp for almost 30 years and who is deeply anxious about the country’s future.

The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state. For more than 42 years, Israel has controlled the land between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean Sea. Within this region about 6 million Jews and close to 5 million Palestinians reside. Out of this population, 3.5 million Palestinians and almost half a million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights. By sharp contrast, all Jews - whether they live in the occupied territories or in Israel — are citizens of the state of Israel.

The question that keeps me up at night, both as a parent and as a citizen, is how to ensure that my two children as well as the children of my Palestinian neighbors do not grow up in an apartheid regime.

There are only two moral ways of achieving this goal.

The first is the one-state solution: offering citizenship to all Palestinians and thus establishing a bi-national democracy within the entire area controlled by Israel. Given the demographics, this would amount to the demise of Israel as a Jewish state; for most Israeli Jews, it is anathema.

The second means of ending our apartheid is through the two-state solution, which entails Israel’s withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders (with possible one-for-one land swaps), the division of Jerusalem, and a recognition of the Palestinian right of return with the stipulation that only a limited number of the 4.5 million Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to Israel, while the rest can return to the new Palestinian state.

Geographically, the one-state solution appears much more feasible because Jews and Palestinians are already totally enmeshed; indeed, ”on the ground,” the one-state solution (in an apartheid manifestation) is a reality.

Ideologically, the two-state solution is more realistic because fewer than 1% of Jews and only a minority of Palestinians support binationalism.

For now, despite the concrete difficulties, it makes more sense to alter the geographic realities than the ideological ones. If at some future date the two peoples decide to share a state, they can do so, but currently this is not something they want.

So if the two-state solution is the way to stop the apartheid state, then how does one achieve this goal?

I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers. The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren’t citizens and lack basic services. The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics are moving more and more to the extreme right.

It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.

I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since garnered widespread support around the globe. The objective is to ensure that Israel respects its obligations under international law and that Palestinians are granted the right to self-determination.

In Bilbao, Spain, in 2008, a coalition of organizations from all over the world formulated the 10-point Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign  meant to pressure Israel in a ”gradual, sustainable manner that is sensitive to context and capacity.” For example, the effort begins with sanctions on and divestment from Israeli firms operating in the occupied territories, followed by actions against those that help sustain and reinforce the occupation in a visible manner. Along similar lines, artists who come to Israel in order to draw attention to the occupation are welcome, while those who just want to perform are not.

Nothing else has worked. Putting massive international pressure on Israel is the only way to guarantee that the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians — my two boys included — does not grow up in an apartheid regime.

Director of UNRWA operations John Ging, thank you for inviting me to Gaza.  Distinguished guests, children of Gaza, I am grateful for your warm reception.

I first visited Gaza 36 years ago and returned during the 1980s and later for the very successful Palestinian elections.  Although under occupation, this community was relatively peaceful and prosperous.  Now, the aftermath of bombs, missiles, tanks, bulldozers and the continuing economic siege have brought death, destruction, pain, and suffering to the people here.  Tragically, the international community largely ignores the cries for help, while the citizens of Gaza are being treated more like animals than human beings.

Last week, a group of Israelis and Americans tried to cross into Gaza through Erez, bringing toys and children’s playground equipment; slides, swings, kites, and magic castles for your children.  They were stopped at the gate and prevented from coming.  I understand even paper and crayons are treated as “security hazards” and not permitted to enter Gaza.  I sought an explanation for this policy in Israel, but did not receive a satisfactory answer, because there is none.

The responsibility for this terrible human rights crime lies in Jerusalem, Cairo, Washington, and throughout the international community.  This abuse must cease;  the crimes must be investigated;  the walls must be brought down, and the basic right of freedom must come to you.

Almost one-half of Gaza’s 1.5 million people are children, whose lives are being shaped by poverty, hunger, violence, and despair.  More than 50,000 families had their homes destroyed or damaged in January, and parents are in mourning for the 313 innocent children who were killed.

The situation in Gaza is grim, but all hope is not lost.  Amidst adversity, you continue to possess both dignity and determination to work towards a brighter tomorrow.  That is why educating children is so important.

I have come to Gaza to help the world know what important work you are doing.  UNRWA is here to ensure that the 200,000 children in its schools can develop their talent, express their dynamism, and help create the path to a better future.

The human rights curriculum is teaching children about their rights and also about their responsibilities.  UNRWA is teaching about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the struggle for these rights all over the world, Gaza’s children are learning that as you seek justice for yourselves, you must be sure that your behavior provides justice for others.

They are learning that it is wrong to fire rockets that may kill Israeli children.  They are learning that arbitrary detention and the summary execution of political opponents is not acceptable.  They are learning that the rule of law must be honored here in Gaza.

I would like to congratulate both UNRWA and the children who have completed the human rights curriculum with distinction.  They are tomorrow’s leaders.

In addition to the tragedy of occupation, the lack of unity among Palestinians is causing a deteriorating atmosphere here in Gaza, in Ramallah, and throughout the West Bank.

Palestinians want more than just to survive.  They hope to lead the Arab world, to be a bridge between modern political life and traditions that date back to the Biblical era.  The nation you will create must be pluralistic and democratic – the new Palestine that your intellectuals have dreamt about.  Palestine must combine the best of the East and the West.  The Palestinian state, like the land, must be blessed for all people.  Jerusalem must be shared with everyone who loves it – Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

With our new leaders in Washington, my country will move into the forefront of this birth of a new Palestine  We were all reminded of this renewed hope and commitment by President Obama’s recent speech in Cairo.

President Obama’s resolve to resume the Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic process based on the principle of two states for two peoples must be welcomed.  This vision of two sovereign nations living as neighbors is not a mere convenient phrase.  It is the basis for a lasting peace for this entire region, including Syria and Lebanon.

We all know that a necessary step is the ending of the siege of Gaza  the starving of 1 million people of the necessities of life.  Never before in history has a large community been savaged by bombs and missiles and then deprived of the means to repair itself.  The issue of who controls Gaza is not an obstacle.  As the World Bank has pointed out, funds can be channeled through a number of independent mechanisms and effective implementing agencies.

Although funds are available, not a sack of cement nor a piece of lumber has been permitted to enter the closed gates from Israel and Egypt.  I have seen with my own eyes that progress is negligible.

My country and our friends in Europe must do all that is necessary to persuade Israel and Egypt to allow basic materials into Gaza.  At the same time, there must be no more rockets and mortar shells falling on Israeli citizens.

I met this week with the parents of Corporal Gilad Shalit, and have with me a letter that I hope can be delivered to their son.  I have also met with many Palestinians who plead for the freedom of their 11,700 loved ones imprisoned by the Israelis, including 400 women and children.  Many of them have been imprisoned for many years, held without trial, with no access to their families or to legal counsel.  Rational negotiations and a comprehensive peace can end this suffering on both sides.

I know it is difficult now, surrounded by terrible destruction, to see a future of independence and dignity in a Palestinian state, but this goal can and must be achieved.  I know too that it is hard for you to accept Israel and live in peace with those who have caused your suffering.  However, Palestinian statehood cannot come at the expense of Israel’s security, just as Israel’s security can not come at the expense of Palestinian statehood.

In his speech in Cairo,  President Obama said that Hamas has support among Palestinians, but they also have responsibilities. To play a full role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, accept existing peace agreements, and recognize Israel’s right to exist.

I have urged Hamas leaders to accept these conditions, and they have made statements and taken actions that suggest they are ready to join the peace process and move toward the creation of an independent and just Palestinian state.

Khaled Mashaal has assured me that Hamas will accept a final status agreement negotiated by the Palestinian Authority and Israel if the Palestinian people approve it in a referendum.  Hamas has offered a reciprocal ceasefire with Israel throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Unfortunately, neither the Israeli leaders nor Hamas accept the terms of the Oslo Agreement of 1993, but the Arab Peace Initiative is being considered now by all sides.

I have personally witnessed free and fair elections in Palestine when Yasir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas were elected president and when legislative members were chosen for your parliament.  I hope to return next January for a similar event that will unite all Palestinians as you seek a proud and peaceful future.

Ladies and gentlemen, children of Gaza, thank you for inviting me and for sharing this happy occasion with me.  Congratulations for your achievements.

June 16, 2009

To monitor anti-semitism, it has to be defined. What is the definition? Basically, as defined by the Israel Lobby and Abe Foxman, it boils down to any criticism of Israel or Jews.

Rahm Israel Emanuel hasn’t been mopping floors at the White House.

As soon as he gets the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 passed, it will become a crime for any American to tell the truth about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and theft of their lands.

It will be a crime for Christians to acknowledge the New Testament’s account of Jews demanding the crucifixion of Jesus.

It will be a crime to report the extraordinary influence of the Israel Lobby on the White House and Congress, such as the AIPAC-written resolutions praising Israel for its war crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza that were endorsed by 100 per cent of the US Senate and 99 per cent of the House of Representatives, while the rest of the world condemned Israel for its barbarity.

It will be a crime to doubt the Holocaust.

It will become a crime to note the disproportionate representation of Jews in the media, finance, and foreign policy.

In other words, it means the end of free speech, free inquiry, and the First Amendment to the Constitution. Any facts or truths that cast aspersion upon Israel will simply be banned.

Given the hubris of the US government, which leads Washington to apply US law to every country and organization, what will happen to the International Red Cross, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and the various human rights organizations that have demanded investigations of Israel’s military assault on Gaza’s civilian population? Will they all be arrested for the hate crime of ‘excessive’ criticism of Israel?

This is a serious question.

A recent UN report, which is yet to be released in its entirety, blames Israel for the deaths and injuries that occurred within the United Nations premises in Gaza. The Israeli government has responded by charging that the UN report is “tendentious, patently biased,” which puts the UN report into the State Department’s category of excessive criticism and strong anti-Israel sentiment.

Israel is getting away with its blatant use of the American government to silence its critics despite the fact that the Israeli press and Israeli soldiers have exposed the Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the premeditated murder of women and children urged upon the Israeli invaders by rabbis. These acts are clearly war crimes.

It was the Israeli press that published the pictures of the Israeli soldiers’ T-shirts that indicate that the willful murder of women and children is now the culture of the Israeli army. The T-shirts are horrific expressions of barbarity. For example, one shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a crosshairs over her stomach and the slogan, “One shot, two kills.” These T-shirts are an indication that Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians is one of extermination.

It has been true for years that the most potent criticism of Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians comes from the Israeli press and Israeli peace groups. For example, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz and Jeff Halper of ICAHD have shown a moral conscience that apparently does not exist in the Western democracies where Israel’s crimes are covered up and even praised.

Will the American hate crime bill be applied to Haaretz and Jeff Halper? Will American commentators who say nothing themselves but simply report what Haaretz and Halper have said be arrested for “spreading hatred of Israel, an anti-semitic act”?

Many Americans have been brainwashed by the propaganda that Palestinians are terrorists who threaten innocent Israel. These Americans will see the censorship as merely part of the necessary war on terror. They will accept the demonization of fellow citizens who report unpalatable facts about Israel and agree that such people should be punished for aiding and abetting terrorists.

A massive push is underway to criminalize criticism of Israel. American university professors have fallen victim to the well organized attempt to eliminate all criticism of Israel. Norman Finkelstein was denied tenure at a Catholic university because of the power of the Israel Lobby. Now the Israel Lobby is after University of California (at Santa Barbara,) professor Wiliam Robinson. Robinson’s crime: his course on global affairs included some reading assignments critical of Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

The Israel Lobby apparently succeeded in convincing the Obama Justice (sic) Department that it is anti-semitic to accuse two Jewish AIPAC officials, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, of spying. The Israel Lobby succeeded in getting their trial delayed for four years, and now Attorney General Eric Holder has dropped charges. Yet, Larry Franklin, the DOD official accused of giving secret material to Rosen and Weissman, is serving 12 years and 7 months in prison.

The absurdity is extraordinary. The two Israeli agents are not guilty of receiving secrets, but the American official is guilty of giving secrets to them! If there is no spy in the story, how was Franklin convicted of giving secrets to a spy?

Criminalizing criticism of Israel destroys any hope of America having an independent foreign policy in the Middle East that serves American rather than Israeli interests. It eliminates any prospect of Americans escaping from their enculturation with Israeli propaganda.

To keep American minds captive, the Lobby is working to ban as anti-semitic any truth or disagreeable fact that pertains to Israel. It is permissible to criticize every other country in the world, but it is anti-semitic to criticize Israel, and anti-semitism will soon be a universal hate-crime in the Western world.

Most of Europe has already criminalized doubting the Holocaust. It is a crime even to confirm that it happened but to conclude that less than 6 million Jews were murdered.

Why is the Holocaust a subject that is off limits to examination? How could a case buttressed by hard facts possibly be endangered by kooks and anti-semitics? Surely the case doesn’t need to be protected by thought control.

Imprisoning people for doubts is the antithesis of modernity.

Roy MacDonald has been the target of numerous articles that have appeared in this online collection – articles written almost entirely by persons with a grievance against him. As CEO of ‘Strategic Mangement Works’ he came under much criticism for his seminars and conferences that supposedly teach participants how to turn one dollar into one million dollars. MacDonald’s company has now been renamed as ’Onelife’. While the name changes though it seems that the grievances remain the same.

I attended one of Roy Mac Donald’s free introductory seminars where he offered his book how to turn $1 into $1 Million.

At this introductory seminar he discussed his $9600 seminar but also offered a $200 strategic planning consultation as he said he had a financial  licence.  I thought it would be good to get some advice from someone that appeared so successful. This $200 consultation is just a scam to get people on a one on one and pressure them into signing up for his $9600.  I fell for this and feel the need to warn others.

I attended the Onelife office in Crows Nest, Sept 15th 2008, for my meeting with Roy MacDonald. During this time I was told that my investment strategy was costing me money and I had taken all the wrong advice, and  during this meeting I broke down in tears. In my emotional state he talked me into signing over a deposit of $4600 while stating it had a 100% money back guarantee. After signing I said to Roy ‘I feel overwhelmed’.  He said, ‘this is normal. It’s your fear and saboteurs coming up’ and then convinced me I had done the right thing.

After leaving the office I felt very uneasy re my decision and rang the one life office to cancel the seminar 2 ‘ hours later. The person that took the message said someone would call me by the end of business that day. No one did. I also sent an email that night and the following morning and eventually got hold of one his people  the next day who said I cant get my money back unless I do the course.

She said there was no cooling off period and I would have to do his course to get my money back I told her I don’t wont to do your course.(this was Sept 16th 2008)

I told them I do not wont to do their course and want all my money back since I tried to cancel 2 ‘ hours latter and I signed due to his pressured sales techniques.

They made me this offer:

• I can do the course for the price I paid in the deposit ($4600)
• I attend the course with the option of getting my money back afterwards, minus a $1250 fee.

My response was ‘As stated before and in my many emails I do not wont to do your course and want my full refund of $4600′,  They refused.

They said that I had to pay $1250 for admin cost, the booking fee, and for the extra time Roy gave me in his consultation .

I refused, as I could not see that why I should pay $1250 for Roy swiping my credit card through a machine, and what other admin work was there, since I tried to cancel this 2′ hours latter. They  refused to give any of my money back and still have my $4600

I contacted the Department of Fair Trading, and they recommended that I take the matter to a Tribunal, which was scheduled for Feb 26th 2009. Prior to the matter going to court though, Roy sent one of his workers, Tryone, to have a formal conciliation meeting with me. We could not though come to any concillation, as Onelife still would not give me my money back. I decided to let the judge decide on Feb 26th 2009

Outside the tribunal rooms, near the lift, Tyrone stated “You will regret this. Roy has never lost a case yet, you should of taken our offer”.  This made me wonder how many times has this guy fought with people in court.

I have to wonder why Roy MacDonald writes a book on how to turn a $1 into a million and states how wealthy he is and successful yet goes all this way to fight me over my money, for which he has provided no services as I hadn’t done his course!

So I want to warn others not to sign up for any of Roys courses at the time they are pitched to you.  Take the form away and seek advice re his contract

Other seminar companies offer a few days cooling off period. I rang the other companies and they all said that they would have given me all my money back if I had wanted to cancel only a couple hours later.  My question is why doesn’t Roy do this????

Heather (y2001newlife AT hotmail.com)