Month: November 2009

Goldstone – continued

Haaretz journalist Tomer Zarchin has conducted an email interview with South Africa’s Justice Richard Goldstone about recent Israeli criticism of his recent report on last winter’s Gaza war — and about him. According to the Haaretz account,
“Judge Richard Goldstone told Haaretz Thursday that President Shimon Peres’ remarks criticizing him were ‘specious and ill-befitting the head of State of Israel’. Peres was quoted Wednesday as calling Goldstone ‘a small man, devoid of any sense of justice, a technocrat with no real understanding of jurisprudence’, who was ‘on a one-sided mission to hurt Israel’. In Thursday’s interview by e-mail with Haaretz, Goldstone said [apparently referring to the United States]: “I do not believe that any nation should protect another nation blindly. I would prefer to see the United States furnish reasons for criticizing the report. The United States has supported our call for credible investigations by Israel and by the Gaza authorities, whether the PA or Hamas … It does not suffice for the military to investigate itself. That will satisfy very few people and certainly not the victims” … When asked how far up the chain of command he felt such a criminal investigation should go, and whether decision-makers in government be its subject, he replied: “A criminal investigation should go as high up the chain of command, both military and civilian, as the evidence justifies … The report is based on the assumption that Israel was entitled to act in self-defense. The investigation was concerned with whether the exercise of the right to self-defense was lawful or unlawful … I would suggest that time has come for Israel to look at the allegations not only of the killing and injuring of so many civilians but also the collective punishment meted out to the people of Gaza by the substantial destruction of the infrastructure, and particularly the food infrastructure of Gaza. The debate should continue, not attempt to be silenced.”

Asked what he thought about a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and pressed by the interviewer on whether or not he believed such a commission would establish “accountability in a more constructive fashion than criminal proceedings”, Goldstone reportedly replied that it would, “on condition that it is set up to look at allegations on all sides and is established by a democratic process.”

Goldstone also said to Haaretz that “I would suggest that time has come for Israel to look at the allegations not only of the killing and injuring of so many civilians but also the collective punishment meted out to the people of Gaza by the substantial destruction of the infrastructure, and particularly the food infrastructure of Gaza. The debate should continue, not attempt to be silenced.” This Haaretz story can be read in full here.

UPDATE: Haaretz’s Gideon Levy commented on Sunday on the Shimon Peres remarks concerning Justice Goldstone: “President Shimon Peres considers Richard Goldstone a ‘small man, devoid of any sense of justice, a technocrat with no real understanding of jurisprudence’. Same to you, we used to say when we were kids. Indeed, it’s amazing to see how aptly these harsh remarks describe Peres himself, a small man, devoid of any sense of justice. A president who tongue-lashes an internationally acclaimed jurist, a senior representative of the United Nations, mainly attests to his own character. The attacks on Goldstone have devolved; they have become personal and unbridled. When they are uttered by the president, in a meeting with his esteemed Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva no less, it shows we have completely lost our way. Peres fulminated in the name of us all. This is not only a matter of personal etiquette, at which Peres normally excels. This is about the image of a country whose number-one citizen speaks so rudely against a global emissary. That is Peres’ ‘PR mission’ that everyone here is cheering. Goldstone has already chalked up one impressive achievement: We will now think twice or even three times before sending Israeli soldiers out on another brutal attack like Operation Cast Lead. His report will echo in the ears of politicians and generals before they give the order to move out. Perhaps the brutality is not over; certainly this is not a farewell to arms, but there will be new considerations and restraint. Without our admitting it, Goldstone has become the developer of the Israel Defense Forces’ new ethics code”.
[But I am not so sure … the IDF Chief of Staff said last week that if necessary, there will be another attack on Gaza…]
In any case, this Gideon Levy article can be read in full here.

Ramallah marks fifth anniversary of Arafat's death

There is, despite everything, a palpable feeling of loss and grief in Ramallah — mixed with massive amounts of cynicism and fresh despair — on the fifth anniversary of the death, in a Paris hospital, of iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Palestinian television is doing live coverage of the main commemoration ceremony which is being held in the Palestinian presidential headquarters in Ramallah, the Muqata’a.

There are almost as many people — if not more — than five years ago, crowding in the public space that surrounds the building built by the British as they consolidated their military administration of the region at the end of the First World War. But this time, there are some chairs, more flags and partisan (Fatah, mainly) baseball caps, and more women and children — who were almost completely absent in the mob scene at the funeral. There are also, of course, pictures of the current Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), sometimes side-by-side with Arafat, and sometimes alone…

The scene is clearly more organized, and less spontaneous, than the raw chaos of the funeral that took place here five years ago, when Arafat’s body was returned for burial after a final journey from Paris to Egypt, then to Jordan, then in a helicopter that barely managed to land, because of the masses of people on the ground.

Five years ago, the Muqta’a was a bombarded ruin, with Arafat and his loyalist aides and security living in crowded and unhealthy conditions, under seige and disgraceful threats issued on a regular basis from Israeli leaders vowing to go in and finish him off. Whole wings of the building were crumbling. Security guards were sitting on plastic chairs in rooms whose outer walls had fallen down. Cars crushed by Îsraeli tanks remained on the outskirts of the compound. The area that had been used, before Israel’s reincursion into the West Bank in 2002, as a helicopter landing pad, was dotted with rusting oil barrels filled with cement and iron rods sticking up into the sky — to prevent an Israeli helicopter assault, Palestinian officials explained.

In these circumstances, alone and largely ignored except for visits of friends at Friday prayers, Arafat’s health deteriorated in the last weeks of his life, from still-unexplained causes, and in a final gesture of what appeared to be mercy, he was evacuated by helicopter to Jordan, then to a Paris hospital, where he soon died.

[In the wake of an emotional live report from the scene of a weakened Arafat’s medical evacuation to Paris, the Israeli government insisted on — and obtained — the transfer of a BBC Correspondent out of the area. A National Public Radio (NPR) journalist was also reassigned at about the same time…]

At 11:30, an honor guard rushed into formation at the actual mausuleum, on the Muqata’a grounds, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) – alone, with a full kuffieyeh draped around his neck, prayed the Fatiha, at the start of the commemoration. The chief personal presidential body guard, in a grey suit and sunglasses, with a bushy black mustache, stood behind Abu Mazen, in a corner of the room, and prayed the Fatiha, as well. Just visible, in the doorway, was the President’s eldest surviving son, Yasser Abbas, wearing a grey dark suit and dress coat with kuffiyeh-print scarf hovering over the event with vigilance and concern.

Abu Mazen then walked briskly, with guards all around him, to his seat in the front row of seats, where Prime Minister Salam Fayyad (wearing, like all the other dignitaries in the front row, a keffiyeh-print narrow scarf around his neck) was seated to the president’s right. Hussein Hussein brought forward and placed before the president a small table, with a bottle of water, and what looked like the pages of a speech. Bodyguards in suits stood in front of the president, facing the crowd. The nephew of the late Yasser Arafat, Nasser al-Qudwa (former leader of The General Union of Palestinian Students in Germany, then a diplomat at the PLO Mission to the UN in New York, then Ambassador, and then Foreign Minister — and married to a French citizen working for the UN — at the time of his uncle’s death, who is now President of the Yasser Arafat Foundation) was seated at Abu Mazen’s left, and beside him was Hussein ash-Sheikh, head of the Palestinian Civil Affairs Ministry. Next to ash-Sheikh is Jibril Rajoub, former head of Palestinian Preventive Security in the West Bank who was fired by Arafat for a questionable performance during the 2002 Israeli re-invasion of West Bank Cities, and currently the very succcessful head of the Palestinian Football federation, and the Palestinian Olympic Committee. Yasser Abed Rabbo, formerly the main spokesman of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) now the Executive Secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

The entire crowd then prayed the Fatiha.

Nasser Al-Qudwa made the first speech… He said that the people of Gaza were present (at least spiritually, with their minds and hearts) at this fifth anniversary commemoration (despite the apparent prohibition of the Hamas leaders in Gaza of any link to the Ramallah ceremony). Ma’an news agency later reported that he “demanded recognition of a Palestinian state”.

In the speculative rumors about possible replacements for the present Palestinian president — who has no obvious successor — Nasser Al-Qudwa’s name is often mentioned. He is said to be a favorite in Fatah circles, and was elected to the Fatah Central Committee in elections in Bethlehem in August — the first in nearly two decades. However, he is a cautious man, and is playing a respectful role, calculated for the long run.

[Haaretz later reports, here, that Al-Qudwa said, about the circumstances of Arafat’s death, that “Each expert we consulted explained that even a simple poison produced by an average scientist would be difficult to identify by the most experienced scientists. I can’t tell for sure that he was murdered by the Israelis. I can’t refute that hypothesis because doctors couldn’t refute it”. Nasser Al-Qudwa, at that time the Palestinian Foreign Minister, and a French citizen by marriage, was given (a copy of) the apparently voluminous official French medical report right after his uncle’s death, and brought it back to Ramallah in his suitcase without any searching or interference. It is supposedly in the process of being examined since then…]

Abu Mazen puts on a baseball cap with a kuffiyeh print visor, and the colors of the Palestinian flag on the top, and sits with his arms and legs crossed. [No, in a later camera cut-away, I see that the visor is red with a pointed end, just like in the Palestinian flag, and that the other color of the flag (white, green, and black) are also represented. Yasser Abbas is seated in the row behind his father, one seat to the left, next to the main personal body guard, now wearing the same baseball cap… it might be his younger brother, Tareq, who is seated one more seat to the left …]

In the sun, Nasser Al-Qudwa puts on a baseball cap.

Mohammad Dahlan — without any kuffiyeh-scarf, and also capless, his coiffed dark hair glistening in the sunlight — was seated about twenty seats away to Abu Mazen’s right, but still in the front row. Mohammed Mustafa, the President’s economic adviser, and chairman of the Palestine Investment Fund (PIF), was about the same number of seats away, on the other side.

Two speakers who fill in between main events chant political slogans in a loud and urgent tone.

A main speaker (Abu Layla) now speaks in the same loud and urgent tone, speaking about Jerusalem.

There is a beacon on the tower in Arafat’s mausuleum with an emerald green laser light that shines, at night, in the direction of Jerusalem, where Arafat was to be buried — and where he will be buried, it is vowed, when East Jerusalem is freed from The Israeli occupation that began in June 1967, and becomes the capital of the hoped-for future Palestinian state.

Mohammed Barakeh, Israeli-Arab-Palestinian political party leader and an elected member of the Israeli Knesset, now speaks in a loud and urgent tone, reminding the crowd of the Palestinian cities in Israel …

Now, Sarah, a young and prematurely political Palestinian girl in a long dress with Palestinian embroidery (red), and a full kuffiyeh around her shoulders, speaks also in standard loud and urgent tone … crying, shouting, shaking her finger … her voice cracking when she mentions Abu Ammar (Yasser Arafat), and Jerusalem …

Cut-aways by Palestinian TV (the speeches are getting long and boring) are showing some kind of a balloon that looks like a soccer ball with images of Yasser Arafat printed on it, hovering over the crowd. In the memorial building housing Arafat’s grave, ordinary citizens are now praying the Fatiha.

Finally, Mahmoud Abbas is announced, with some shouted words of praise. The Palestinian TV song praising him is played as he walks toward the stage. The young girl in the dress with Palestinian embroidery preceeds him. An orthodox Jew is allowed to rush forward to shake Abu Mazen’s hand just before he gets to the stairs leading up to the stage — no doubt, a member of Neurei Karta (the orthodox Jewish group that is against Israel — though they live in Israel — and against Zionism because they believe Israel should not have been founded before the arrival of the messiah)…

There are security men in suits and ties on the stage and on both sides, as Abu Mazen speech.

His speech is interrupted by the Arafat-era chant, “With our soul, with our blood, we support you…”

Today, November 11th, is also the date that Europe (Britain, in particular) commemorates the armistice in the First World War — which set the stage for the current cruel situation in what became, as a result of the First World War, the former British Mandate of Palestine. The League of Nations in Geneva — the “international community” at the time — awarded Palestine to the British without any question or debate, along with a prescription (taken from an unofficial letter from British Foreign Secretary to a member of the British Parliament) that Jewish immigration to Palestine must be assisted and facilitated. Every year, Britain had to report to the League of Nations about how it was helping Jewish immigration. Then, when Britain later wanted to wash its hands of the situation, it asked the United Nations (founded in the wake of the Second World War), how to dispose of the territory, and the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into two states “one Jewish and one Arab”, and to give Jerusalem a special character under UN administration… Until now, the “Arab” state has not come into being in Palestine, although in a few days’ time (15 November), Ramallah will be celebrating “Independence Day”, the date that Yasser Arafat proclaimed, at a meeting of the PLO’s Palestine National Council convened in Algiers, the Independent State of Palestine within the 1967 borders, with (East) Jerusalem as its capital.

Mahmoud Abbas just said that within two weeks of that declaration, the State of Palestine was recognized by 105 states.

Yet, it still is not a reality…

A few minutes earlier, Abu Mazen asked: what is new in saying we want a state in the borders of the territory occupied in the June 1967 war? What is new in saying that East Jerusalem is the capital of our future state? What is new….?

And, on Twitter, the IDF announced that “#IDF forces arrested 12 #Palestinian men wanted for suspected terrorist activities in Judea and Samaria” — i.e., in the West Bank. This happens almost every night. No one even asks what happens to these arrested persons, they are just added to the over 11,000 Palestinians currently being held in Israeli detention for opposing the Israeli occupation.

In his speech, Abu Mazen now asks: “Can we return to negotiations with Israel after all that”? “Can we?” (“Mumkin?”) “Can we?” There is not much response from the crowd. Then, he says, he is not ready to do that — and there is some applause and whistling. Then some organized chanting …

His mentions of Gaza draw some greater response … Now he is speaking of the elections that he called for next January 24, 2010. He asks the crowd not to interrupt him. He appears to take on Aziz Dweik, the Hamas-affiliated (former) speaker of the Palestine Legislative Council (according to the Palestinian unfinished Constitution, Dweik would have replaced Abbas as President in the event of any inability to serve…) He now criticizes Shaul Mofaz’s suggestion that he would like to speak with Hamas officials … He calls on Hamas once again to join the Paletinian body politic (and return the situation in Gaza to the status quo ante…)

Haaretz later reports that Abbas said: “On this occasion, I don’t want to talk again about my wish not to run in the upcoming elections … As I said in my speech, there will be other decisions … that I will take in light of coming developments” . This Haaretz story can be viewed in full here.

Ma’an News Agency later reports Abbas said he would continue to refuse to return to peace talks with Israel (that the Palestinians cut off during the IDF military operation against Gaza last winter) unless there is a halt to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. “I will make decisions as the situation develops”, Abbas said (which is pretty much how he has normally operated so far), and he stated that although “a state with temporary boundaries exists as a choice within the Roadmap plan, but we are declining to take that choice.” This Ma’an report can be viewed in full here.

“Long Live Palestine”, Abbas concludes, as Palestinian TV plays their special theme song praising him. On his way back to his seat, a woman in a black robe and beige headscarf importunes him, until she is finally pushed away by security. Sitting down, he drinks a glass of water, and puts back on his baseball cap. His son, Yasser Abbas, still sits almost directly behind his father, still wearing a matching Palestinian emblem baseball cap.

In the last 12 hours, the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (soon to visit the region), former British Prime Minister and now Quartet envoy Tony Blair, and the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry have all urged Abbas to go back on his decision, announced last Thursday, not to run again for the Presidency of the Palestinian Authority. According to a statement released by the UN SCO office in Jerusalem, Serry said after his meeting with Abu Mazen last night that: “I conveyed to President Abbas the Secretary-General’s strong support for his leadership. But it is clear that this precious asset is now in jeopardy. I believe President Abbas’ announcement last week is a loud and clear wake-up call. I repeat the Secretary-General’s call for a freeze on all settlement activity. Either we go forward decisively to a two State solution in accordance with Security Council resolutions, or we risk sliding backwards.”

A singer entertains the crowd. Abu Mazen is seated. What are they waiting for? Two small boys come forward to greet the president, then are invited to go back to their father or whoever is with them…

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Earlier in the day, according to a report by Ma’an News Agency, there was a debate among Palestinian factional leaders on a Ramallah radio station about “prospects for a new declaration”. Ma’an reported that Fatah’s Abdullah Abdullah said: “The Palestinian people’s right of self determination has been recognized by UN resolutions, yet there are certain things that are required to guarantee the protection and sovereignty of a Palestinian state if it is announced. We don’t need to bounce into the air and become dependent on the occupation’s mercy … In order to materialize a unilateral Palestinian state, we need a two-track approach; to build the state’s institutions and administrative bodies and to ask the UN for permission to exercise our right in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions 1397, and 2515 related to the Road Map plan.”

Kayid Al-Ghoul, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) politburo member, said that a Palestinian state was mistakenly thought to be the natural outcome of the Oslo Accords: “If a Palestinian state is unilaterally announced, Israel must be treated as an occupier, and the international community should stand in the face of Israel … The announcement should be based on a united Palestinian decision, and thus there must be serious dialogue before that announcement in order to end rivalry between the Palestinians. Furthermore, there should be contacts with Arab and foreign countries to urge them to help provide the needed atmosphere and requirements. This announcement is more like a political battle against occupation.”

Saleh Zeidan of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), said, according to Ma’an, that “a declaration should be made in appropriate atmosphere to avoid the possibility of a state with interim borders. The current situation, he said, is different from the situation in 1999. The atmosphere then was much more suitable for announcement of a Palestinian state. We need a comprehensive political review, and the current situation is not appropriate for that”.

Palestinian People’s Party (PPP) Secretary-General Bassam As-Salihi said that as negotiations with Israel have failed, there should now be agreement on a strategy based on unilaterally declaring an independent sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, as his party had long recommended. Ma’an said that “He called for the establishment of a constituent assembly for the Palestinian state from members of the PLO’s Central Council, and the Palestinian Legislative Council”.

And Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, head of Al-Mubadara, the Palestinian National Initiative, says that his party “is supportive of the idea of a unilateral declaration, as long as it is differentiated from Israeli proposals for a Palestinian state with ‘temporary borders’ on about 40% of the West Bank … He also said Palestinians should be wary of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal for economic peace as alternative to real peace.

These views were reported by Ma’an News Agency here .

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Back in the Muqata’a, Abu Mazen gets up to leave,and his security men in suits move forward, displacing officials who are gathering around him. The singer comes to greet Abu Mazen as he moves out. The crowd remains in place…

The Wall must fall

Well it took a long time, but today Palestinian activists got together and pulled down a section of The Wall near the dreadful Qalandia checkpoint (or “border terminal” as Israel calls it) between Ramallah and Jerusalem.

A late breaking news flash on Ma’an News Agency said that two persons have been arrested at the site — we know that they had to have been arrested by Israeli forces, because Palestinian police are normally not allowed anywhere near Qalandia.

While the media here is dizzy with speculation about what is happening with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and whether or not he will resign, or change his mind and run for office again, or instead — like Samson in the Bible — pull the entire Palestinian Authority apparatus down with him, this is a bit of good political theater, and more.

The International Solidarity Movement has put out a press release about the event, saying “We are calling for the formation of a unified national leadership to lead a mass popular uprising of which all the Palestinian people, groups and political factions are a part of. This popular uprising will be pro-active and innovative with a strategy to mobilize international support for the justice of our cause, as a way out of the current political impasse. We will use this support to create international pressure to end the occupation, and establish an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, and to restore unity amongst our people, from the West Bank to Gaza”.

The Stop the Wall campaign put out its own press release, saying “This afternoon, exactly 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, popular committees struggling against the Apartheid Wall and the settlements destroyed part of the Wall near Qalandiya. Hundreds of people, with some 30 international supporters, used a truck to pull down part of the Wall in the area east of the Qalandiya refugee camp and beyond the UN Vocational College. They also destroyed iron gates and other pieces of concrete in the same area. After breaching the Wall, protestors approached the road on the other side where they burned car tires to slow the approach of Occupation forces, who quickly arrived in the area and began firing gas and rubber bullets. Protestors were wearing shirts upon which was written ‘Jerusalem we are coming’, the name of the planned action. Today is 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and marks the first day of a week of resistance to the Apartheid Wall in Palestine and around the globe”.

And, the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee said that “In a symbolic reenactment of the event that changed the world 20 years ago, demonstrators from all over the West Bank managed to topple a section of Israel’s wall, 8 meters of reinforced concrete in hight, near the infamous Qalandiya Checkpoint. On the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, hundreds of demonstrators from across the West Bank convened in Qalandiya to demand the immediate dismantling of Israel’s wall. In a dramatic turn of events, protesters managed to tip-over a a section of the wall, opening a passage in this strategic and symbolic location at the entrance to East-Jerusalem. Exactly twenty years ago today the Berlin Wall came crumbling down in two days that changed the world forever. Today, a wall twice as high and five times as long is being built by Israel in the West Bank, in blatant contempt of international law, to separate Palestinians from their lands.
Despite the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion of 2004, that pronounced Israel’s wall illegal, and called for its removal, no significant changes on the ground were made. After the demonstration ended, Mushir Ghazzal, an organizer with the popular struggle coordination committee, said that ‘Today’s events prove that we must not wait for Israel to end its occupation on its own – we Palestinians should do it with our own two hands. Like the Berlin Wall at the time, Israel’s wall seems to us an undefiable reality, but twice this week it has caved in to the pressure of ordinary people fighting for their rights’. The anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall has been declared an international day of action against Israel’s barrier. Last Friday, mass demonstrations were staged simultaneously in three villages along the path of the wall, including in Ni’ilin where protesters managed, for the first time ever in the West Bank, to topple the 8 meter tall concrete wall there”.

Meanwhile, Ma’an News Agency has reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu said Israel is “willing to make great concessions for peace but there is something I will never compromise on, and that is Israel’s security. We have to ensure that weapons do not flow into the West Bank – we cannot permit another Gaza in the heart of our country”. The Ma’an report added that Netanyahu’s speech “was reportedly briefly interrupted by a woman protester demanding an end to Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip”. Netanyahu was speaking in Washington to the annual general meeting of the Jewish Federations of North America. The full story can be read on Ma’an here.

Two Great Guys

This is what could be called a triumph of substance over style:

Pete Seegar and Jeff Halper - photo from Haaretz

In this photo, American folk singer Pete Seegar and Jeff Halper, American-Israeli head of the Israeli Coalition Against House Demolitions (ICHAD) wear identical ICAHD t-shirts (photo by Elyse Crystal)

Haaretz today published the photo, along with an article by its correspondent Nir Hasson, reporting that Seeger, 90 years old, has been donating some of the royalties of his song Turn, Turn, Turn to support ICAHD’s work for the past ten years. “The banjo-playing Seeger, 90, is considered one of the pioneers of American folk music. He is known for his political activism no less than for his musical achievements. In the 1930s he was involved in the establishment of worker unions, in the 1940s he opposed the war against Germany and in the 1950s he was interrogated by Senator Joe McCarthy over suspicions of belonging to the Communist Party. In recent years Seeger has been involved in efforts to clean up the Hudson River in New York and performed at U.S. President Barack Obama’s inauguration celebration. The lyrics of the song “Turn, Turn, Turn” are the words of King Solomon from the book of Ecclesiastes. ‘All around the world, songs are being written that use old public domain material, and I think it’s only fair that some of the money from the songs go to the country or place of origin, even though the composer may be long dead or unknown’, Seeger said in an interview with Acoustic Guitar magazine in 2002. ‘With ‘Turn, Turn, Turn‘ I wanted to send 45 percent, because [in addition to the music] I did write six words and one more word repeated three times, so I figured I’d keep five percent of the royalties for the words. I was going to send it to London, where I am sure the committee that oversees the use of the King James version exists, and they probably could use a little cash. But then I realized, why not send it to where the words were originally written?’ ” This Haaretz article is posted
here.

Halper is the author of several important pieces of analysis concerning the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, including “The Matrix of Control” and more recently “Warehousing the Palestinians”. He was the first Israeli to sail on a Free Gaza ship with the aim of “breaking the siege” that Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip, and tightened severely since an Israeli government decision in September 2007 to label Gaza an “enemy entity” or “hostile territory”, following the Hamas rout of Fatah/Palestinian Preventive Security Forces there in mid-June 2007. Halper was arrested upon his reentry from Gaza to Israel via the Israeli-controlled Erez Crossing. He was jailed overnight, posted bail, but has apparently not been charged in court…

UNSG BAN says he will send the Goldstone report to Security Council ASAP

The AP’s indefatigable Edith Lederer has reported that “Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday he will send a report calling for Israel and the Palestinians to investigate alleged war crimes during last winter’s conflict in Gaza to the UN Security Council ‘as soon as possible’.”

She added that “The 15 council members have already received copies of the 575-page report by an expert panel chaired by South African Judge Richard Goldstone. But the General Assembly in a resolution adopted Thursday asks the secretary-general to transmit it, which will make the report an official Security Council document … The Security Council, however, is highly unlikely to take any action. The United States has repeatedly said the report belongs in the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, which appointed the Goldstone panel. Diplomats said Russia and China also don’t want the Security Council dealing with human rights issues. All three countries have veto power in the Security Council. [n.b. France, which also has the veto power, has also indicated that it would oppose any UNSC action on the Goldstone report…] The International Criminal Court can only investigate crimes on the territory of nations that recognize its jurisdiction, unless a case is referred to it by the Security Council. The Palestinian Authority recognized the court in January and urged prosecutors to launch an investigation into crimes committed during the Gaza conflict, but prosecutors are investigating whether this is possible since there is no state of Palestine”. This AP report was picked up and published by The Independent, here.

Amnesty International issued a statement after the vote in the UN General Assembly saying that the body’s adoption of “key recommendations of the Goldstone report on the conflict in Gaza and southern Israel earlier this year is vitally important for ensuring that those, on both sides, who committed war crimes and other violations of international law will now be held to account … Almost one year on, those who suffered war crimes and other gross violations of their rights, are still waiting for justice … [And] “It is our fervent hope that today’s UN General Assembly resolution will act as a catalyst to make justice and reparation a reality for the victims on both sides”.

In the statement, Yvonne Terlingen, Head of Amnesty International’s Office at the UN, said: “We deeply regret that the USA and the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia voted against the resolution and failed to support the need for accountability, justice and human rights that are so vital for victims of abuses in this conflict … We urge the UN Secretary-General to now appoint independent experts in human rights and international humanitarian law to assess whether any investigations that are conducted by Israel and Hamas meet the required international standard”.

[UPDATE: The Jerusalem Post, in an article published after this posting, wrote that “44 abstained, including most of the EU countries that had sought unsuccessfully to soften the resolution’s language prior to the vote. Switzerland was the only European country to endorse the report. Russia, which does not often side with Israel in these matters, abstained … Following the Goldstone vote, which US Ambassador Susan Rice did not attend, the US mission circulated an ‘explanation of vote’ by Deputy Permanent Representative Alejandro Wolff, who voted in Rice’s place. ‘As the United States made clear in Geneva, we believe that the Goldstone Report is deeply flawed’, Wolff said, citing an unbalanced focus on Israel, sweeping legal conclusions and overreaching recommendations, and a failure to adequately assign responsibility to Hamas for basing its operations in civilian-populated areas. He stressed that the matter should be handled at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva alone, saying discussion in the Security Council would be ‘unconstructive’. Stating that the US ‘strongly supports accountability’ for human rights and humanitarian law violations, Wolff said the best way to end human suffering is to bring comprehensive peace to the region, including a two-state solution. ‘As we urge the parties to restart permanent-status negotiations leading to the creation of a Palestinian state, we should all be seeking to advance the cause of peace – and doing nothing to hinder it’, he said“.  This JPOST article is published here.]

The Amnesty International statement noted that UNSG BAN has been asked to submit what it called a “progress report”  to the UN General Assembly in three months’ time.

The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva still has on its books the first resolution it adopted on the Goldstone report, in early October, calling for review of the situation in March 2010.

Earlier this week, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a measure by an overwhelming vote (344-to-36) calling the Goldstone report “irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy”, and calling on the Obama Administration to “strongly and unequivocally oppose” any discussion of it at the UN.

A post by Matthew Rothschild on The Progressive website said that “Dennis Kucinich had it right when he denounced the House majority for going along with this. His statement is so powerful that I’m excerpting it at length here: ‘Today we journey from Operation Cast Lead to Operation Cast Doubt … Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist. Because behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the totalitarian. The resolution before us today, which would reject all attempts of the Goldstone Report to fix responsibility of all parties to war crimes, including both Hamas and Israel, may as well be called the ‘Down is Up, Night is Day, Wrong is Right: resolution.’ . . . How can we ever expect there to be peace in the Middle East if we tacitly approve of violations of international law and international human rights, if we look the other way, or if we close our eyes to the heartbreak of people on both sides by white-washing a legitimate investigation? How can we protect the people of Israel from existential threats if we hold no concern for the protection of the Palestinians, for their physical security, their right to land, their right to their own homes, their right to water, their right to sustenance, their right to freedom of movement, their right to human security of jobs, education and health care? … all people on this planet have a right to survive and thrive, and it is our responsibility, our duty to see that no individual, no group, no people are barred from this humble human claim”.  This posting can be read in full here.

Dennis Kucinich is a Democratic Congressman from Ohio who was re-elected a year ago to a seventh term in the U.S, House of Representatives.  The full text of his statement on this House resolution, Entiltled “Truth, Human Dignity, and the Goldstone Report”, can be seen on his website, here

On the third day of the IDF’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, Kucinich was sending a letter to UNSG BAN Ki-Moon “urging the United Nations to establish an independent inquiry of Israel’s war against Gaza. The attacks on civilians represent collective punishment, which is a violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm). The perpetrators of attacks against Israel must also be brought to justice, but Israel cannot create a war against an entire people in order to attempt to bring to justice the few who are responsible. The Israeli leaders know better. The world community, which has been very supportive of Israel’s right to security and its right to survive, also has a right to expect Israel to conduct itself in adherence to the very laws which support the survival of Israel and every other nation … Israel is leveling Gaza to strike at Hamas, just as they pulverized south Lebanon to strike at Hezbollah. Yet in both cases civilian populations were attacked, countless innocents killed or injured, infrastructure targeted and destroyed, and civil law enforcement negated. All this was, and is, disproportionate, indiscriminate mass violence in violation of international law. Israel is not exempt from international law and must be held accountable. It is time for the UN to not just call for a cease-fire, but for an inquiry as to Israel’s actions.”  This letter can be viewed in full here.

And on the very same day that Kucinich wrote his letter, former UN Under-Secretary-General, and novelist, Shashi Tharoor was penning an article saying that Indians envied Israel’s ability to operate as it pleased [see our posts, here and here – Tharoor’s article was posted on the Huffington Post with the title (he wrote it) “India longs to follow Israeli path of reprisal“] .

Shashi Tharoor wrote his article on 29 December — and did not bother to correct it even before it was published in the Huffington Post on 19 January, one day after two unilateral cease-fires (Israel’s and Hamas’) went into effect in Gaza.

Then, after reaction to that piece, Tharoor wrote again something he called “Apologia”, which was published in the Huffington Post on 27 January — a somewhat dizzy retraction in which he wrote: “Many of you have read my article as endorsing Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and deplored the article’s apparent indifference to the humanitarian tragedy that followed.  I regret the misunderstanding of the intent and thrust of the piece, which was not written as a commentary on the conflict in Gaza.  [!]  When I wrote the article I was thinking only about india/pakistan – the assault on Gaza had just begun when I put my fingers to the keyboard … Obviously I had no sense at the time of writing of the scale of the israeli action that was to follow and the toll that would be taken in civilian lives.  But in any case the article says India cannot, should not and would not do what Israel has done … Using the Israel parallel – at a time when my email inbox was brimming with messages of the ‘why can’t we do the same as Israel?’ variety – was just a way of bringing greater attention onto India’s dilemma and its anguish, while arguing that there is no ‘Gaza option’ for India.  Of course I should have realized that using an unfolding event as a peg would make my argument hostage to the way that situation evolved. Inevitably, some readers would judge the article in the light of what has happened in the two weeks after I wrote it. Had Israel taken out a few rocket sites and withdrawn in 3 or 4 days, as I had expected, perhaps the analogy would have seemed less offensive” …

Despite his inability to recognize or correctly assess, by 29 December, what was happening in Gaza, Shashi Tharoor — having won election this past spring to India’s parliament as a representative of the Congress Party in Kerala State — has since become India’s Foreign Minister, in yet another triumph of style over substance…

UPDATE:  Yaakov Katz has written on Sunday in the Jerusalem Post that “Amid Israeli efforts to bolster military ties and export military hardware, the Indian Chief of Staff Gen. Deepak Kapoor arrived in Israel on Saturday for talks with IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi … Israel and India enjoy close defense ties and Israel last year overtook Russia as the number-one supplier of military platforms to India after breaking the $1 billion mark in new contracts signed annually.  According to press reports, India is interested in working with Israel on submarine-launched cruise missiles, ballistic missile defense systems, laser-guided systems, satellites as well as unmanned aerial vehicles.  The visit to Israel comes just before the first anniversary of the attacks last November in Mumbai against a hotel as well as a Chabad House, during which over 170 people were killed, including the Chabad emissary to Mumbai and his pregnant wife.  Since the attack, Israel has assisted India in beefing up its security, particularly along its coast, where the terrorists allegedly infiltrated from nearby Pakistan.  Last Tuesday, Kapoor was quoted [by news sites] as saying that … ‘We have to take all steps to prevent any Mumbai-type attacks. We cannot rule out apprehensions of such possibilities … India cannot afford to witness a repeat of 26/11″ …  Yaakov Katz’s report in the JPost can be viewed in full here.

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Here is the result of the voting in the UN General Assembly
 In favour of the resolution on the Goldstone report: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Comoros, Congo, Cuba, Cyprus, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Qatar, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Republic of Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Against: Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Marshall Islands, Micronesia (Federated States of), Nauru, Netherlands, Palau, Panama, Poland, Slovakia, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Ukraine, United States.

Abstain: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Iceland, Japan, Kenya, Latvia, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Monaco, Montenegro, New Zealand, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Samoa, San Marino, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Tonga, Uganda, United Kingdom, Uruguay.

Absent: Bhutan, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Honduras, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Togo, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Vanuatu.

UNGA gives Israel + Palestinians three months to launch independent and credible investigations into last winter's Gaza war

There was applause in the UN General Assembly hall as the results showed up on the voting board: 114 states voted in favor, 18 voted against, and 44 abstained [while another 16 were absent during the vote] on a resolution endorsing the Goldstone report mandated by the UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva that studied last winter’s Gaza war.  The report was prepared by a four-person team lead by South Africa’s Justice Richard Goldstone, who formerly also headed the Independent Criminal Tribunals in the Former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda.

The resolution also requested UN Secretary-General BAN Ki-Moon to transmit the Goldstone report to the UN Security Council, and it requested the Swiss Government to undertake steps, as soon as possible, to reconvene a conference of the high contracting parties of the Fourth Geneva Convention, to ensure respect.  And it requested the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly in three months’ time, on the implementation of the resolution.

Palestinian representative Riyad Mansour looked happy as the results were announced.

Israel was furious.
UPDATE: The Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a statement declaring that “The results of the vote and the large number of member states who voted against or abstained, demonstrate clearly that the resolution does not have the support of the ‘moral majority’ of UN members. Israel rejects the resolution of the UN General Assembly, which is completely detached from realities on the ground During Operation ‘Cast Lead’ in Gaza, the Israel Defense Force demonstrated higher military and moral standards than each and every one of this resolution’s instigators. Israel, like any other democratic nation, maintains the right to self-defense, and, as was witnessed in recent days, will continue to act to protect the lives of its citizens from the threat of international terrorism”.

The U.S. and Russia abstained.

Haaretz reported today that “While the IDF is opposed, in principle, to setting up a committee of inquiry into the allegations against Israel made in the Goldstone Report on the fighting in the Gaza Strip, the military advocate general, Brig. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit, has ordered investigations into a number of allegations, currently being carried out by the Military Police …  Two involved civilian deaths, based on Palestinian claims. In the 10 other incidents, Palestinians claimed their property had been destroyed. Coordination of the investigations is being handled by the chief of Military Police in the Southern Command, Lt. Col. Gil Mamon … The findings are to serve as the backbone for a counter-Goldstone report that is expected to be ready in a month.  One of Mendelblit’s arguments against creating a committee of inquiry following the Goldstone Report is that such a committee has never been set up as a result of external pressure, and says that surrendering to international pressure will constitute a dangerous precedent.  In his view there is no reason for an internal investigation into the policy decided by the government and then implemented into legal orders”. This Haaretz report can be read in full here.

Abbas: "We are at a crossroads"

“We have made precious sacrifices until our right to establish our state is recognized … We placed ourselves under the sponsorship of the international community, and year after year we have been disappointed”, said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a speech that was billed to journalists as a press conference called on one-and-a-half hours’ notice, Thursday night.

There were rumors all day — and in fact, all week, and even for months — that Abbas (Abu Mazen) would not run again as President, if and when the next Palestinian elections are held.

In his speech Thursday night, in the Muqata’a, the Palestinian presidential headquarters in Ramallah, Abbas told certain political figures and journalists present in the hall, and a worldwide television audience, that he does not intend to be a candidate in those elections.

He said that he has now so informed the (PLO) Executive Committee, and the (Fatah) Central Council — and, that while he appreciates their position (they want him to run), he hopes they will appreciate his position as well.

“This is not a tactic or a maneuver”, Abbas said. “There are other steps I will take in time”, he added, without further explanation.

UPDATE: Angry Arab (As’ad AbuKhalil) picked up on his blog today this interesting comment from an article by Tony Karon in Time magazine: ” ‘This is political theater’, says Amman-based Palestinian analyst Mouin Rabani. ‘The Palestinian Central Election Committee is expected to conclude that the election Abbas called for in January can’t be held, because Hamas won’t allow them to go ahead in Gaza, and Israel won’t allow them to go ahead in East Jerusalem … So what he did today was announce that he won’t be a candidate in an election he knows is not going to happen” … This article can be read in full here.

On 24 October, in what was regarded as (and later admitted to be) a kind of manoeuver (or pressure, on Hamas, for concessions in reconciliation talks), Abbas — who heads the premier and largest Palestinian movement, Fatah — launched launched the necessary three-month election preparation process, and declared that Palestinian presidential and legislative council elections would take place on 24 January 2010.

In his speech tonight, Abbas said he has been “surprised by the biased position that the U.S. showed to Israel” …

He then added that the present situation “pushes me to address the Israeli government and people, and to say … that peace is more important than any governmental coalition”.

Abbas listed a series of points that he said were basic to any solution, including that: UN resolutions should be implemented; the Palestinian state should be established inside the borders that existed prior to 4 June 1967; East Jerusalem would be its capital; there should be a just solution to the Palestinian refugee question; there is no legitimacy for keeping Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory; security arrangements should be reached concerning the borders between the two states; Palestinians should have access to water resources according to international law, and the right to control national resources that are either on, above, and under its soil; all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails should be released.

Palestinian-American businessman Sam Bahour, who lives in the West Bank town of Ramallah-Al Bireh, has just written here that “If Palestinians are beginning to sound like a broken record in calling for their inalienable rights to be respected, then so be it. I prefer that the Palestinians remain transfixed on resolving their plight using international law rather than falling for Israel’s trap of either living in the law of the jungle or as inferiors in a flawed and illegal political settlement which will only prolong the conflict”.

“I greet the families of our martyrs, and our prisoners”, Abbas said in his speech on Thursday. “The time has come for these peoples to be free, and to end the occupation… it is time to declare our independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders”.

Then, as he finished reading his prepared text (with punctual glances at the assembled audience), Abbas stood up and said: “Yella” (“Let’s go”). and walked out of the room.

He was wearing a nice quality silk (presidential) tie, in a subdued red pattern with blue.

And, several Presidential advisers — Nabil Abu Rudaineh, Nabil Shaath, Mohammed Shtayyah — all suggested to journalists, after Abbas’ speech, that there might just be a remote possibility that he could still change his mind, if something happened …

“Today he revealed the depth of his discouragement, frustration and anger, after five years of doing his best — and after the retreat of the President of the U.S. from his previous positions”, Nabil Shaath told journalists. “Today he is telling us he will not nominate himself — he already told the PLO Executive Committee and the Fatah Central Committee, who unanimously objected”, Shaath said. He added: “The man has not resigned. He is only saying he will not run again”.

Mohammed Shtayyah indicated, in an interview with Al-Jazeera television, after the Abbas speech in the Muqata’a, that one of the main factors in the decision had been that “America, the biggest supporter of the peace process, pulled back its position”. Another factor was the massive wave of criticism following the Palestinian leadership’s initial agreement, at the beginning of October, to postpone consideration in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva of the Goldstone report on the Gaza war until next March. Nevertheless, Shtayyah said, “he is the only candidate for us”. Abbas has “sent the ball back to the international community”, Shtayyah added, “and they must do something if they want Abu Mazen. For, if he’s not running for election, peace will lose”.

After an initially promising start, the Obama administration seems unable to understand how it should stand on principle in the Middle East. It also does not seem to get that it pushed the Palestinian leadership too far, while at the same time it more or less swallowed the Israeli position whole, in one gulp, and then tried to sell to the Palestinians yet another Israeli proposal that would limit, but not stop, settlement construction.

The Washington Post reported here that “Abbas got into political trouble at home when he succumbed to U.S. pressure to delay UN consideration of a report [the Goldstone report] accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza; he later reversed himself. When Clinton met him Saturday and pressed him to accept the limited Israeli settlement plan as a basis for talks, he refused. Hours later, Clinton met with Netanyahu in Jerusalem and pronounced the Israeli offer ‘unprecedented’ — sparking Arab outrage, which she spent the next several days trying to dampen”.

Time magazine commented that “Netanyahu was offering a partial freeze, not including new settlements in East Jerusalem, the desired capital of a future Palestinian state. This was a nonstarter for the Palestinians, but it had the holographic glow of a step forward. It was an ‘unprecedented’ offer, Netanyahu trumpeted … It was a tough moment for Clinton, playing second fiddle at the Bibi-does-Gandhi show. President Barack Obama had softened his language on the settlements a few weeks earlier: instead of a total freeze, he had talked about Israeli ‘restraint’ in settlement-building. And now Clinton seemed to cement the Administration’s retreat, agreeing that Netanyahu’s proposal was, indeed, ‘unprecedented’, even though the U.S. still favored a total freeze. The most important thing, she added, was for the parties to get to the table as quickly as possible. The onus was back on the Palestinians — and the Palestinians quickly expressed outrage … clearly, Clinton had been too bullish on Netanyahu’s proposal (which had been negotiated over months with Middle East envoy George Mitchell and was seen, privately, by the Americans as real progress) … [and] her performance in Jerusalem indicates that she needs a few lessons in Middle East Haggling 101 … At home, she has often seemed tentative and deferential. In a conversation with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates aired by CNN in early October, Clinton’s cautious formality took a backseat to Gates’ brisk, humorous confidence on policy issues. Abroad, she seems far more confident, at times to the point of recklessness, as in Jerusalem”. This commentary can be read in full here.

The Associated Press reported that “After Abbas’ speech Thursday, [U.S. Secretary of State Hilary] Clinton praised his leadership in working toward the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel. She ignored a question about whether she would try to persuade Abbas to stay on and said: ‘I look forward to working with President Abbas in any new capacity to help achieve this goal’.” here.

Reuters later reported, here, that Abbas “offered” to quit over stalled peace process, and added that “his phrasing did appear to leave some room for a change of heart”. The Reuters report also said that Abbas appeared “visibly tense” — and in the room it was obvious that there was a lot of adrenalin flowing in his veins — but on camera, this did not really come across. And, though he spoke briskly, Abbas did not use fighting words.

Right after the speech, there were very small numbers of Fatah demonstrators assembled in Ramallah’s central Manara Square (circle) after the Abbas speech, and urging him to withdraw his decision not to run…

Clinton: "you can build what you want in your state and the other can build what they want in their state"

This is how U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton is talking, now, about Israeli settlements that dot the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

It was actually her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, who worked up this formulation during the Annapolis process of negotiations in 2008 — determine the borders, first, and then we’ll know what’s legal, and what’s not, Rice said.

Here is what Clinton said to her travelling press corps on board her plane in Cairo, according to the transcript supplied by the U.S. Department of State:

SECRETARY CLINTON: We are working – and I don’t want to get into negotiating details, but we are working to really fulfill what were, in essence, the terms of reference for any negotiations set forth in President Obama’s speech to the United Nations. I don’t think enough attention may have been paid to exactly what the President said and the importance of what he reaffirmed as the American position. And it obviously is about the territory occupied since 1967, it is about Jerusalem, it is about refugees, it’s about all of those final status issues.  So we want to be facilitating the return to negotiations. We don’t think that there’s any question in anybody’s mind about what’s going to be talked about … We have to figure out a way to get into the re-launch of negotiations.  And things have happened along the way, the Goldstone report being the most recent and the most difficult for everybody. And that was not – and you saw what happened is the Palestinians tried to postpone so that it wouldn’t be an issue and then they got criticized for that. …

QUESTION: But how – where does Abbas get the cover to take that heat? Where does Abbas get the cover to drop the precondition?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Go ahead, (inaudible).

U.S. OFFICIAL: But he does not have to sign up for this deal. This is something that the Israelis are putting on – are talking about putting on the table. He doesn’t have to sign up for it at all. No one’s asking him to bless it.

QUESTION: No, you’re asking him to sign up for talks though, right?

SECRETARY CLINTON: No, but that’s slightly different. The Israelis are offering this. It can be rejected by everyone. There’s no imposition of it, no requirement for it. The Israelis will decide whether or not they want to go forward with it. That’s up to the Israelis, obviously. But at the end of the day, this discussion about settlements will be mooted by getting into negotiations about borders. Because then, you can build what you want in your state and the other can build what they want in their state”.

On Monday, during a photo session in Morocco, Clinton read from a written statement that, the Associated Press reported, “appeared designed to counter the skepticism about the Obama administration’s views on settlements.  ‘Successive American administrations of both parties have opposed Israel’s settlement policy …  That is absolutely a fact, and the Obama administration’s position on settlements is clear, unequivocal and it has not changed.  As the president has said on many occasions, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements’.”

… CONTINUED Israeli settlements? She said, CONTINUED settlements? From what date, or what point in time? That is not clear, or unequivocal …

According to the AP report, Clinton said that “While Israel was moving in the right direction in its offer to restrict but not stop the settlements …  its offer ‘falls far short’ of U.S. expectations.  Clinton said her earlier praise of Israel’s offer [actually, she said Netanyahu’s position was “unprecedented”, just as her husband had enthused about earlier proposals from Israel’s former Prime Minister Ehud Barak that were tabled at the failed Camp David negotiations in July 2000], during a stop in Jerusalem, had been intended as ‘positive reinforcement’ … Clinton had traveled to the region only reluctantly, concerned her visit might be seen as a failure, according to several U.S. officials. She agreed to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders after pressure from the White House, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration thinking”.   That AP report can be read in full here.

Rivers of water flow as yet one more East Jerusalem family evicted by Israeli settlers

For the fourth consecutive day on Tuesday, torrents of winter rain fell from the skies, and rivers of water flowed through the streets of Jerusalem and nearby areas. The ground is waterlogged, and can’t easily absorb any more – this has been the best rainfall in a parched region in nearly five years.

In these wet + miserable conditions, two Palestinian families evicted on 2 August (the Hanoun and Ghrawi families) were still camped out on the streets across from their former homes in the Sheikh Jarrah region of East Jerusalem, bitterly watching Israeli settlers move around in the relative warmth and dryness inside.

Last Wednesday, Israeli Border Police forcibly dismantled a small square white plastic tent — the kind that can be rented for use at “events” — that had been sheltering the members of the extended Ghrawi family. That evening, after a class, I passed by. It was dark, and a seasonal chill had already set in. Adults in very bad moods, depressive and shocked, were sitting around in plastic chairs beside five or six children sound asleep on bedding placed directly on the sidewalk. Some black mesh fabric was draped around a tree they were under, and one woman pulled aside a flap to show me the sleeping children.

Hatem Abdel Qader (Eid), a Fatah official from East Jerusalem, was on his mobile phone a few feet away. Abdel Qader was for a year the adviser on Jerusalem affairs to Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad before being sworn is as Minister earlier this year, and then abruptly and almost inexplicably resigning a few weeks later. The reported reason was his disagreement over the lack of Palestinian support for Palestinians facing problems in East Jerusalem.

Abdel Qader told me that he had, just two days earlier, been sentenced to 20 days banishment from the Old City of East Jerusalem, after being detained during recent confrontations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. He also said that the Hanoun and Ghrawi families had gone to Ramallah to seek help from the Palestinian Authority, but were treated badly.

An earlier home eviction in the same Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood took place a year ago, on 9 November 2008. Um Kamel al-Kurd and her disabled husband were roused from their sleep and put out on the street — she, handcuffed — in their nightclothes. Ten days later, Mr. Al-Kurd died of a heart attack in a nearby hospital, as Um Kamel sat in a tent that supporters had erected for her in the valley just tens of meters down the hill from her former home — and opposite the shrine of the tomb of Shimon HatZakik, believed by Jews to have been a priest in the second Jewish temple (while some Palestinians believe it is, instead, the resting place of a Muslim wise man …)

This minor religious site has become the justification for what some national-religious Jews are planning across this small valley — the eviction of Palestinian families living in 28 neighboring homes, in order to construct some 200 apartments in a large new complex housing Jewish families, in a very sensitive East Jerusalem spot.

The three homes evicted up until today were built by the United Nations in the early-to-mid-1950’s for these families who had been displaced from their original homes during the fighting that surrounded the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. The Jordanian government authorized the donation of the land on which the homes were built.

Some of this land, according to claims by the settler organizations, belonged to Jews before 1948, but had to be evacuated during pre-State fighting. Israel did not control East Jerusalem until its conquest in the June 1967 war, when Jordanian forces were routed from both East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The Turkish government earlier this year assisted lawyers for the Sheikh Jarrah families to do a search of the Ottoman archives in Ankara (and Istanbul) for proof concerning the land ownership claims, and provided certification that no Jewish ownership claims could be found. Perhaps the former Jewish tenants had been renters? In any case, the Israeli Supreme Court dismissed the Turkish documentation, and the evictions of the Hanoun and Ghrawi families proceeded, despite international protests. Jewish settlers moved in within hours, under Israeli Border Police protection.

What happened today, in the fourth home (of the 28 targeted in Sheikh Jarrah) was described this way in Haaretz:

“Rioting settlers forced a Palestinian family from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah out of their home on Tuesday, after the district court denied the residents’ appeal to remain on the premises. Shortly after the verdict was passed dozens of settlers stormed into the house with hired security guards, and demanded that the family vacate immediately. A violent riot erupted between the settlers and the neighborhood’s Palestinian residents, and police were called to disband the protesters”.

According to this Haaretz report, this home was not built by UNRWA for the refugee families in 1953-1956 — instead, one of those refugees, Rifqa al-Kurd, “had the house built 10 years ago for her married daughter”.

Haaretz added: “The particular house, built 10 years ago by the al-Kurd family, was unoccupied and locked for eight years by court order pending settlement of a land-ownership dispute. Police kept members of the family back as a dozen Israeli men removed furniture. ‘They can go to Syria, Iraq, Jordan. We are six million and they are billions’, said Yehya Gureish, an Arabic-speaking Yemen-born Jew who said his family owned the land and had Ottoman Empire documentation to prove it. ‘This land is Israel. We are in Israel. God gave this land to the Jews. The Torah tells us so. You want war? Declare war on God, not on us’, he said …

During the 1970s, a committee of Sephardic Jews claimed ownership of the land, according to papers which proved that they had purchased it from the Turks before the war … The court decided after long deliberation, that the Sephardic committee’s claim to ownership is legal, but the Palestinian residents had also received a protected residency status which forced the Jews to keep them on as tenants. Since then the committee filed several claims stating that the Palestinians had breached the lease with their new landlords, and demanded that they be evacuated from the premises. Due to these recurring claims, several Palestinian families were evacuated from their homes and replaced by settler families”. This Haaretz report can be read in full here.

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM), who were present with the family pending evacuation, has written, in an email message, that it’s not the whole house, but only a section of it, that was in question — and suggests that the issue was not only ownership, but also the matter of a building permit for the newer addition:

“40 settlers, accompanied by private armed security and Israeli police forces, entered a section of the home, threw out the family’s belongings and locked themselves in. The take-over came after an appeal submitted by the family’s lawyer was rejected by the District Court. In their appeal, the Palestinian family was challenging an earlier court decision that deemed a section of the house illegal and ordered that the keys be given to settlers. The settlers proceeded to enter the house, while the court did not grant them the right to enter the property. The al-Kurd home was built in 1956. An addition to the house was built 10 years ago, but the family was not allowed to inhabit the section because the municipality refused to grant them a building permit. Visibly unequal laws are used to make it possible for settlers to move into a home where it was declared illegal for Palestinian residents to inhabit. The Israeli authorities exercise their abilities to demolish and evict Palestinian residents, while ignoring building violations from the Israeli population in East Jerusalem. The al-Kurds have become the fourth Sheikh Jarrah family whose house has been occupied by settlers in the last year. So far, 60 people have been left homeless”.

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UPDATE: According to a press release received on Friday 6 November from Human Rights Watch:

“In the week beginning October 27, 2009, Jerusalem municipal authorities used bulldozers to demolish five residences, while thousands more Palestinians are threatened with demolition of their homes. In the demolitions of the five buildings from October 27 to November 2, Israeli authorities displaced 57 Palestinian residents, including many children. Three other buildings were partly demolished. Israeli authorities justified destroying the homes primarily on the grounds that the owners lacked building permits, which are extremely difficult for Palestinians to obtain.
…
Jerusalem municipal authorities demolished three Palestinian-owned buildings on November 2, displacing 31 people. Residents of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Tor told Human Rights Watch that at 8 a.m., two bulldozers demolished the homes of the al-Shwaike and al-Qawasmi families, displacing 14 people.  The buildings, joined by a common wall, were built in 1982.

“We didn’t even know the building was going to be destroyed before it happened,” said Haroun al-Qawasmi, who lived in one of the buildings with his wife and four adult children. “There were scores of soldiers there, and they told us that we had built the house without a permit.”

Tareq al-Shwaike said that he was not informed of any demolition order before his family’s adjoining building was destroyed, displacing him, his wife and three children, his mother, his sister and her husband. “The municipality told me I have to clean up the ruins of what they destroyed or else I’ll have to pay when they do it,” al-Shwaike said.

The third home, in the Beit Hanina neighborhood of East Jerusalem, was destroyed at around 2 p.m. Human Rights Watch was unable to contact residents of the building, but according to initial reports by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and by Al Maqdese, a Palestinian nongovernmental organization based in East Jerusalem, the demolition displaced approximately 17 members of the Rajaby family.

On October 27, Israeli authorities demolished two homes in East Jerusalem, and partly destroyed three others. Residents of a two-story building in the Sur Baher neighborhood of East Jerusalem told Human Rights Watch that scores of Israeli soldiers and police officers surrounded the building at 5:15 a.m. and ordered the residents to leave immediately. The authorities did not allow the residents time to remove their furniture or other belongings before three bulldozers demolished the building, which housed 17 members of an extended family, including five children.

“Soldiers entered our house without asking and detained my daughters and sons,” said one resident who did not want his name used. “We only had time to get our clothes.”

He said the building’s first floor was built 11 years ago, and a second floor was added later to accommodate the owner’s married children.  A second resident said that his family had owned the land on which the house was built for at least three generations. The residents said the family had spent 150,000 shekels (US$37,500) over the years in failed attempts to obtain a permit for their home.

At 9 a.m. on the same day, Israeli authorities demolished the East Jerusalem home of a 73-year-old Palestinian woman and her 32-year-old son, who did not want to be named. The son said he had constructed the building from pieces of wood and metal sheeting after Israeli authorities demolished their initial home on the site in 2006.

“We have been living on this site for 40 years,” he said. “They destroyed our first house because we didn’t have a permit. So I put up the zinco (sheet metal) building. It wasn’t a permanent building, just a hut.”

He received a first demolition order in May and a second one in September. “I can’t afford a lawyer so I went to the court myself, but they told me, ‘You don’t have a file here.’” He was afraid the authorities would punish him further by fining him for the demolition.
…
Human Rights Watch interviewed other East Jerusalem residents whose homes were partly or completely demolished in three separate incidents on October 27. Israeli authorities may impose heavy fines for illegal construction on Palestinians whose homes they bulldoze, so some East Jerusalem residents have “self-demolished” their homes to avoid financial penalties. One resident had begun but not completed “self-demolishing” his building when it was bulldozed, and was afraid of being fined by Israeli authorities. Another family whose home was demolished was still paying a fine of 60,000 shekels (US$15,000) for illegal construction.
…
Israeli authorities state that house demolitions are carried out against homes that have been built illegally without official building permits. However, a UN report published in April found that it is extremely difficult for Palestinian residents to obtain such permits under Israeli law, which Israel applies to annexed parts of the West Bank in violation of international law.

The UN estimated that roughly 60,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem currently live in buildings that the Israeli government has designated illegal. A December 2008 report by the European Union (EU) found that Israel was “actively pursuing the illegal annexation of East Jerusalem” by means including the construction of Jewish-only settlements and demolitions of Palestinian houses.

The European Union report concluded that Israel’s housing policies in East Jerusalem unlawfully discriminate against Palestinian residents. Like Israeli citizens, Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem may obtain building permits only for buildings in areas zoned for construction. The Palestinian population makes up over 60 percent of East Jerusalem’s population, but the Israeli government has zoned only 12 percent for Palestinian construction, according to the EU report. Even in this small zoned area, many Palestinians could not afford to complete the application process for building permits, which is complicated and expensive.

In contrast, Israel unlawfully expropriated 35 percent of East Jerusalem for the construction of Jewish settlements, for which building permits are much easier to obtain. Since November 2007, Israel approved building permits for 3,000 housing units for Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem, as opposed to fewer than 400 building permits for Palestinian residents, according to the EU report” …

Wataniya makes surprise decision to launch today

After huffing and puffing to blow the house down (well, to sue the Palestinian Authority, for Israel’s refusal to release sufficient telecommunications wavelengths), the Qatari and Kuwaiti-owned Wataniya mobile phone company made the surprise announcement that it had launched its service in Palestine today, just two weeks after the planned date — and despite Israel’s continuing refusal to release all the wavelengths that it had promised.

We reported earlier that Wataniya’s (second) launch date on 15 October (it was postponed once from April) was missed, due to exactly the same problem that was said to be insurmountable at the time two weeks ago, but somehow (inexplicably) became manageble today — see our previous post here.

The Ma’an News Agency reported tonight that “Mohammad Mustafa, head of the Wataniya Palestine’s board, said the firm had begun functioning with a frequency range of 3.8 MHz, less than the 4.8 MHz Israel had agreed to open under an agreement with the Palestinian Authority (PA) signed last year. ‘They will give us the additional 1 MHz as soon as possible’, Mustafa told Reuters, adding that Quartet envoy Tony Blair had promised the firm it would acquire the remaining frequency … Wataniya was further implicated in Israeli-Palestinian politics in late September when the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israeli military officials were refusing to release the frequency in order to pressure the PA to drop a war crimes case against Israel in the International Criminal Court”. This Ma’an story can be read in full here.

It is not immediately clear what, exactly, had changed to make this possible…

The Palestine Investment Fund (PIF) owns 47% — a minority — of shares in Wataniya Palestine mobile phone company, which will introduce competition into the Palestinian mobile phone market. Until now, only the Palestinian company Jawwal was operating in the occupied Palestinian territory (Gaza and the West Bank). Wataniya apparently will operate only in the West Bank, at least for now.

Wataniya will be the competitor of PALTEL – described on its website as “the national telecommunications provider in Palestine”. The website also says that “The company has an exclusive License Agreement with the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to develop the telecom sector”. This description is posted here.

In addition to its 47% ownership status in Wataniya, PIF has also invested in its competitor PALTEL, and in another company (the Palestine Development and Investment Ltd., or PADICO) which has also invested in PALTEL (PADICO owns 37% of Paltel, and is currently the largest investor in PALTEL) … Earlier this year, in May, a preliminary agreement was signed for the merger of Paltel with Zain, a Kuwaiti Telecommunication Company. At the time, PADICO Chairman Munib Masri stated that said “this transaction allows Palestine mobile Telecommunication Jawwal to expand within the Palestinian territories, as it was not possible to get through previously, due to Israeli restrictions, particularly in the Jericho area; now it will help guarantee connections with the Jordan Valley”. This news was posted here.

PADICO (which the PIF has invested in, and which in turn is the largest investor in PALTEL) announced in mid-September that “it submitted an application to the Palestinian Ministry of National Economy to be registered as a foreign company in Palestine”. However, PADICO apparently has always been a foreign company in Palestine — according to its website, it is registered in Liberia. The PADICO website says that “The Palestinian Council of Ministers, on 7 September 2009 approved an amendment to income tax law no. 17 2004, which includes a clause that obliges foreign companies registered in Palestine to pay income tax on profits generated from the company’s activities outside Palestine. These amendments have been referred to President Mahmoud Abbas for ratification. This opened the door for foreign companies, including PADICO, to begin registration procedures”. The PADICO website also says that its “registration in Palestine is in line with its pioneering role as a fundamental pillar to the Palestinian economy”. And, the website reports that PADICO’s CEO, Samir Hulileh, said in mid-September that “PADICO’s decision to register in Palestine reflects its strategic commitment to investing in Palestine and building relationships based on cooperation and trust with the Government and the Ministry of National Economy”. This news can be viewed here.