Palestine

Netanyahu rejects Palestinian state within 1967 lines

Anna Sheinman — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 11:14:41 +0000

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the idea of a Palestinian state with pre-1967 borders, saying it would lead to “Hamas 400 metres from my home”.

Mr Netanyahu told Israel’s Channel 2: “When they say, 'Go back to the 67 lines,' I stand against. When they say, 'Don't build in Jerusalem,' I stand against."

Referring to calls from US President Barack Obama for a peace agreement based on 1967 lines, Mr Netanyahu said it would be easy to make a move that would be applauded by the international community. “I could go back to the impossible-to-defend ’67 lines, and divide Jerusalem, and we’d get Hamas 400 metres from my home,” he said.

“They’d applaud just like they applauded the parties that pulled out of Gaza. Those parties got applause, and we got a rain of rockets.”

Feiglin: pay Palestinian West Bank families to emigrate

Anna Sheinman — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 11:56:36 +0000

Right-wing Likud Knesset candidate Moshe Feiglin outlined a plan on Tuesday to pay families in the West Bank $500,000 each to emigrate.

Speaking at a one-state solution conference in Jerusalem, he said: "The state of Israel is paying 10 per cent of its GDP every year for the two-state solution and the Oslo Accords. It's paying for separation fences, Iron Domes and a guard at every café. Soon we'll have to place Iron Domes in every school in Tel Aviv.

"With this budget we can give every Arab family in Judea and Samaria $500,000 to encourage it to immigrate to a place with a better future.”

He said that Western nations with low birth rates would be happy to have immigrants who “know how to build”.

The controversial comments, which are contrary to the Likud party’s policy, come after Mr Feiglin was detained by police for attempting to pray on Temple Mount on Tuesday morning.

Mr Feiglin was arrested for prostrating himself and attempting to pray out loud, actions which are forbidden for Jews at the holy site.

Police are currently considering whether to recommend the Likud candidate be indicted for disorderly conduct and hindering a police officer from fulfilling his duties. It is the third time in the past year Mr Feiglin has been detained on the site for similar offences.

Speaking at the same conference on Tuesday, Public Diplomacy Minister Yuli Edelstein called for annexation of the West Bank.

“Lack of Israeli sovereignty over Area C means the continuation of the status quo,” said Mr Edelstein, referring to the area of the West Bank currently under Israeli military control. “It strengthens the international community’s demand for a withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines”, he said.

Abbas criticises Hamas leader for not recognising Israel

Anna Sheinman — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:17:27 +0000

Palestinian Authority President Mahmous Abbas has criticised Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal for saying that the terrorist organisation would never recognise the state of Israel, a Turkish newspaper has reported.

Mr Abbas, who has just spent two days in Turkey, is understood to have told The Hurriyet: “I don’t agree with Khaled Mashaal’s statement on the non-recognition of Israel because we, in fact, recognised it in 1993.”

He clarified: “A four-article agreement between [Fatah and Hamas] stipulates a two-state vision. And Mashaal approved of this agreement.”

Israeli politician Tzipi Livni spoke to Mr Abbas shortly after these remarks were reported in Turkey and said: "It is important that the public will hear messages like this, and not lose hope in an agreement."

Mr Mashaal, the main leader of Hamas has been living in exile and visited Gaza for the first time ever on Friday. Speaking at a rally in Gaza City on Saturday marking the 25th anniversary of the founding of Hamas, he said: “Palestine from the river to the sea, from the north to the south, is our land and we will never give up one inch or any part of it.”

E-1: The facts on the ground

Anshel Pfeffer — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 17:00:00 +0000

For two decades, the parcel of land known as E-1 has become a symbol for all sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For the Israeli right, E-1 is a vital neighbourhood in Greater Jerusalem that must be built to stop illegal Arab building around the eternal capital of the Jewish people.

For the Palestinians, and much of the international community, building in E-1 is the nail in the coffin of the two-state solution since it will cut Jerusalem off from the West Bank, rendering a contiguous Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, impossible. There is little substance behind the arguments on either side.

Since the mid-1970s, Israeli governments from the left and right have approved various planning procedures in the 12 sq kilometres between the settlement Maale Adumim, and Mount Scopus in north-east Jerusalem.

This includes Yitzhak Rabin’s government, which signed the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians while at the same time authorising construction plans for E-1 (though not the actual construction).

Each time it seemed that building might go ahead, pressure from the US brought work to a standstill. To this day, there is a functioning police station in E-1, roads, sewage and electricity but no actual homes have ever been built or put on sale.

The arguments on both sides are disingenuous. The area north of Jerusalem towards Ramallah and east to Maale Adumim is interspersed with Israeli and Palestinian neighbourhoods, settlements and villages.

If Israel is really afraid of the Palestinians “encircling” its capital, it is too late to act anyway.

Whether E-1 is built or not, it won’t change the situation drastically either way. But the ongoing dispute over its existence does brilliantly encapsulate the political, legal and physical difficulties of creating a two-state solution.

Britain may support Palestinian UN bid

Anna Sheinman — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:26:55 +0000

British officials may now support the Palestinian United Nations bid in return for promises from President Mahmoud Abbas not to pursue Israel for war crimes and to resume the peace process.

Whitehall officials have said that Britain will vote “yes” on an upgrade for the Palestinian Authority to non-member observer status on three conditions, when the vote is held on Thursday.

The first condition is that the PA must not use its new status to join the International Criminal Court, a position some in Israel fear it would use to bring actions against Israel for alleged war crimes.

British officials also want an assurance that the PA will not then apply for full membership from the UN Security Council, and a commitment to returning to peace talks. President Abbas has previously said that he would like to use the UN upgrade to resurrect talks.

This news comes the day after reports that Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg was to lobby Prime Minister David Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague to back the bid.

A source told the Guardian newspaper: "Nick [Clegg] feels because they are going to be definitely doing it [applying], and clearly going to win the vote, it's important for us to vote for them to have observer status and not abstain."

Mr Clegg is understood to believe that British support for the more moderate PA led by President Mahmoud Abbas was even more important following the recent Gaza conflict.

This week’s bid is the next stage in a process that began with an unsuccessful application for full membership in September 2011. That bid did not go to a vote, as a veto from the US as a Security Council member was expected. It is expected that the motion will pass with a two-thirds majority, with or without Britain’s support due to backing from states in Africa, Latin and South America and the Middle East.

Pro-Palestinian and Pro-Israel protests in London

Anna Sheinman — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 11:53:38 +0000

Hundreds of protesters crowded the streets of South Kensington, close to the Israeli Embassy, on Thursday night in two demonstrations – one shouting “Free Palestine”, the other singing “Od Avinu Chai”.

Gary Sakol from the Zionist Federation, who organised the pro-Israel rally said: “It went really well. There were 250 of us, the other side of three police vans from the main rally.” Demonstrators wore Israeli flags and sang traditional songs. Speakers included Jonathan Hoffman and Ari Sofer.

Further down Kensington High Street, separated from the road of the Israeli Embassy by a wall of police and iron gates, was the pro-Palestinian protest. An estimated 300 to 400 demonstrators wore Palestinian flags, carried loudspeakers and chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”

Large contingents from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Socialist Party and the Socialist Worker newspaper were present, chanting: “Shame on you, Israel!”

Taking part in the pro-Palestinian protest was LSE student Yaar Peretz from Tel Aviv, who is a long time supporter of the Israeli boycott campaign. A master’s student of human rights, he said: “It’s not about who fired the first shot, it’s about rights. Jews suffered in the Holocaust because their human rights were not respected, and now they are not respecting the human rights of Palestinians.”

Why anti-Zionists are racists

Geoffrey Alderman — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 14:50:04 +0000

Last week marked the 95th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. This took the form of a letter, written on 2 November 1917 by Arthur Balfour to Walter (Lord) Rothschild. Balfour was then Foreign Secretary in Lloyd George’s wartime coalition government. Rothschild was an eccentric but well-respected zoologist who also happened to be the country’s richest Jew.

Authorised by Lloyd George’s cabinet, the letter asked Rothschild to inform the Zionist Federation of Great Britain that the British government viewed “with favour” the establishment in Palestine of “a national home for the Jewish people” and would do its best to facilitate this endeavour provided this did not involve anything prejudicial to “the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

It has been alleged that the Declaration was intended to garner American support for the British war effort against Germany. But the USA had declared war on Germany several months previously, partly as a result of German submarine activity against American shipping. It has also been said that the Balfour Declaration was part of a desperate attempt to keep Russia in the war against Germany. But the Bolshevik Revolution the previous month virtually guaranteed that Russia would make a separate, albeit humiliating, peace with Germany.

The idea has also been floated that the Declaration was a way of thanking the Manchester-based chemist Chaim Weizmann for his wartime work assisting in the manufacture of explosives. This is fanciful nonsense.

The Balfour Declaration was born out of religious sentiment. Arthur Balfour was a Christian mystic who believed that the Almighty had chosen him to be an instrument of the Divine Will, the purpose of which was to restore the Jews to their ancient homeland — perhaps as a precursor to the Second Coming of the Messiah.

The Declaration was thus intended to assist in the fulfilment of biblical prophecy. This appealed to Lloyd George, whose private immorality did not prevent him from believing in the prophecies of a Bible he knew inside out.

At the time, the Declaration was the subject of fierce controversy within Britain’s Jewish communities. The wealthy elites who controlled communal purse-strings were — with a few notable exceptions — dead set against it. They genuinely feared it would be used to undo the civic and legal equalities that had been granted to them little more than half-a-century earlier. If Jews were indeed a separate “nationality”, with a right to a “national home” in Palestine, then how could they possibly be “British”? Consequently anti-Zionism became, in certain Anglo-Jewish quarters, very respectable indeed.

How, then, can it be argued — as I maintain — that anti-Zionism is racism? The answer (as I pointed out at a recent conference hosted by the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism) is because the context of 1917 was very different from that of today.

At the 1919 peace conference, the principle of national self-determination was endorsed by the victorious allies. Among the ethnic groups that benefited were the Jews. The Declaration was approved by the League of Nations and again by its successor, the United Nations.

We can of course argue about the boundaries of the Jewish state that is now a member of the UN. We can certainly argue about the policies of the elected government of the Jewish state. But we cannot argue that the Jews — alone amongst the nationalities — are not entitled to a state, without inviting the description, “racist”, to apply to us.

A racist is someone who privileges some ethnic groups above others purely on the grounds of race, or racial or ethnic origins. “White supremacists” are therefore racists (as are “black supremacists”.) The hotelier who advertises “no blacks” — or “no Jews” — is a racist. Apologists for anti-Zionist racism, anxious to avoid the opprobrium that the word “racist” attracts, argue that they support the right of Jewish self-determination, but not in “Palestine”. But that’s precisely where the international community has decreed that the state of the Jews shall be located, and where it is located. Those (whose numbers, I regret to say, include British politicians, intellectuals and academics) who campaign for the overturning of these realities are undoubtedly, therefore, racists.

Paris region to sign co-operation deal with East Jerusalem

Shirli Sitbon — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 08:30:00 +0100

later this month, the Paris region will sign a co-operation agreement with the Palestinian district of East Jerusalem.

It will be only the second such deal between France’s most populous region and a Middle Eastern city; the first such deal was struck with Beirut.

The Paris region’s vice president for international affairs, Roberto Romero, claimed, however, that the initiative had not been driven by pro-Palestinian politics.

“The region already has many co-operation partnerships with Israel, in research and technology, for example. We’ve had none with the Palestinian Authority. This is merely a way to help the population. Our goal isn’t to bring political support to the Palestinian Authority,” said Mr Romero, who is a member of the Socialist party.

Other French parties, however, hope the deal will give the Palestinians a political boost. The Greens talk of East Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state, and are in favour of a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah. They have also pressed the Paris region to review co-operation deals with Israel.

The Paris region does not plan to work with Jerusalem’s Israeli municipal authorities, but with local Palestinian NGOs instead. Despite this, Mr Romero said, Israel has not spoken out against the deal.

The co-operation deal will cover education projects, libraries, exchange programmes and social, cultural and health missions. The cost, around 300,000 euros per year, was the main reason given by the opposition for opposing the agreement. Former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party was the only one to vote against the plan.

Bethlehem tolerance walk cancelled due to protests

Jennifer Lipman — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 17:31:33 +0100

Palestinian activists have pressured the organisers of a walk in Bethlehem intended to promote tolerance to cancel it at the last minute.

A silent walk had been planned for Friday in the West Bank city, and was due to bring together Israelis and Palestinians amid participants of all religions.

According to the organisers, its purpose was to "sow the seeds of understanding and acceptance" and bring communities closer together. Describing it as "an event of solidarity for peace", organiser Iris Dotan Katz wrote on the publicity material: "This event is for everybody… We all want to live in peace and harmony. We recognise that we all have the same basic needs for equal rights and deserve the same respect and dignity."

But according to the Jerusalem Post, Palestinian protesters in the city complained that the inclusion of Israelis in the group meant it was encouraging "normali s ation" with the Jewish state and should not go ahead. The newspaper said the walk would no longer go ahead.

Earlier this year a concert by Daniel Barenboim's West-East Divan orchestra, which seeks to bring together Arab and Israeli performers, was cancelled after supporters of a cultural boycott of Israel raised objections.

Ehud Barak: We must pull out of West Bank

Anshel Pfeffer — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:15:00 +0100

In an interview with Israeli daily Yisrael Hayom on Monday, Defence Minister Ehud Barak called on the Israeli government to consider a pullback from “isolated” settlements in the West Bank as a step towards separating the Israeli and Palestinian populations.

According to the Barak plan, between 80 and 90 per cent of the settlers who live close to the pre-1967 borders would remain under Israeli control. The evicted settlers would be compensated by the government.

“It would be better to reach an agreement with the Palestinians but if that is not possible, we must take practical steps toward separation.” It is a long time since Mr Barak has spoken in this way. The plan directly contradicts the policies of the cabinet in which he serves.

Mr Barak is trying to re-establish his left-wing credentials ahead of the Israeli general elections, which will take place some time next year.

This interview comes a few weeks after Mr Barak began to distance himself an Israeli attack on Iran.

While he has long been seen to share Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s sense of urgency regarding the Iranian nuclear programme, said three weeks ago at a party meeting that “Israel retains its right to make sovereign decisions and the US respects that. However, one should not ignore the impressive preparations by the Americans to counter Iran on all fronts.”

This was taken by many observers to mean that the defence minister had realised that Israel could continue to defy the wishes of the Obama administration and push for a unilateral attack.

Likud parliamentarians have made it clear to Mr Netanyahu that they will not agree to the prime minister’s ally being given a spot on the party’s list.

The former chairman of the Labour party recently held talks with veteran figures in the peace camp, in an attempt to rebuild his bridges with the left.