The great Amira Hass has a piece in Haaretz saying that the Israeli gov’t is suppressing the Palestinian protests of colonization because it fears that the struggle for self-determination will resonate around the world. Popular struggle, she describes it. So we are now in the period that Olmert predicted, a struggle against apartheid, with the world watching. Hass:
Over the past few months, the efforts to suppress the struggle have increased. The target: Palestinians and Jewish Israelis unwilling to give up their right to resist reign of demographic separation and Jewish supremacy. The means: Dispersing demonstrations with live ammunition, late-night army raids and mass arrests. Since the beginning of the year, 29 Palestinians have been wounded by IDF snipers while demonstrating against the separation fence. The snipers fired expanding bullets, despite an explicit 2001 order from the Military Adjutant General not to use such ammunition to break up demonstrations. After soldiers killed A’kel Srour in June, the shooting stopped, but then resumed in November.
Since June, dozens of demonstrators have been arrested in a series of nighttime military raids. Most are from Na’alin and Bil’in, whose land has been stolen by the fence, and some are from the Nablus area, which is stricken by settlers’ abuse. Military judges have handed down short prison terms for incitement, throwing stones and endangering security. One union activist from Nablus was sent to administrative detention – imprisonment without a trial – while another activist is still being interrogated.
For a few weeks now, the police have refused to approve demonstrations against the settlement in Sheikh Jarrah, an abomination approved by the courts. On each of the last two Fridays, police arrested more than 20 protesters for 24 hours. Ten were held for half an hour in a cell filled with vomit and diarrhea in the Russian Compound in Jerusalem.Israel also recently arrested two main activists from the Palestinian organization Stop the Wall, which is involved in research and international activity which calls for the boycott of Israel and companies profiting from the occupation. Mohammad Othman was arrested three months ago. After two months of interrogation did not yield any information, he was sent to administrative detention. The organization’s coordinator, Jamal Juma’a, a 47-year-old resident of Jerusalem, was arrested on December 15. His detention was extended two days ago for another four days, and not the 14 requested by the prosecutor.
The purpose of the coordinated oppression: To wear down the activists and deter others from joining the popular struggle, which has proven its efficacy in other countries at other times. What is dangerous about a popular struggle is that it is impossible to label it as terror and then use that as an excuse to strengthen the regime of privileges, as Israel has done for the past 20 years.
The popular struggle, even if it is limited, shows that the Palestinian public is learning from its past mistakes and from the use of arms, and is offering alternatives that even senior officials in the Palestinian Authority have been forced to support – at least on the level of public statements.
Yuval Diskin and Amos Yadlin, the respective heads of the Shin Bet security service and Military Intelligence, already have exposed their fears. During an intelligence briefing to the cabinet they said: "The Palestinians want to continue and build a state from the bottom up … and force an agreement on Israel from above … The quiet security [situation] in the West Bank and the fact that the [Palestinian] Authority is acting against terror in an efficient manner has caused the international community to turn to Israel and demand progress."
Zionists fear that. Witty especially fears that — why do you think he invests so much effort trying to smear BDS and describe every last Palestinian protester as a “rock throwing hooligan?” He’s pissing into the wind, of course — everything the Palestinians have done over the some total of decades upon decades of this conflict, everything, pales in comparison to what Israel did in a mere three weeks to the Gazans.
Strange I don’t see Jimmy Carter’s apology to Israel on Mondoweiss. I guess Phil must have just missed it. I wouldn’t want to accuse him of giving biased information.
link to haaretz.com
“We must recognize Israel’s achievements under difficult circumstances, even as we strive in a positive way to help Israel continue to improve its relations with its Arab populations, BUT WE MUST NOT PERMIT (caps mine) criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel,” Carter wrote in a letter to the JTA.
“As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine THAT MAY HAVE DONE SO (caps mine),” Carter wrote, referring to the prayer said on Yom Kippur in which Jews ask God for forgiveness for any sins.”
Carter has stated he is sorry for any sins he MAY HAVE COMMITTED in his efforts to help Israel improve its relations with Arab populations.
Time for Israel and its aider and abettor mouthpieces everywhere to make public
their own sins by word or deed which have stigmatized the Palestinians, as well as those that amount to abuse of basic human rights?
Now, relating this back to Phil’s article, why hasn’t any US newspaper dared to
print this public statement Carter made about the same time as he wrote his letter
to the Jewish organization containing his Al Het?
link to guardian.co.uk
Carter’s article in The Guardian shows the political key world the way to go to attain peace in the middle east via humanitarian values. Making Al Het to God per se
is not enough; the creed is in the prospective deed or its lack. The practice of Al Het should not be like going
to Catholic confession once a year and repeating the same sins the next year.
RE: Strange I don’t see Jimmy Carter’s apology to Israel on Mondoweiss…- Julian
EXCERPT FROM THE “HAARETZ” ARTICLE: “Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter has apologized to the American Jewish community….”
MY COMMENT: So for Julian the ‘American Jewish community’ equates with ‘Israel’. Ergo, never trust anything Julian posts!
“I JUST THINK THINGS SHOULD WORK PROPERLY”, GODDAMMIT! One more try….
RE: Strange I don’t see Jimmy Carter’s apology to Israel on Mondoweiss…- Julian
EXCERPT FROM THE “HAARETZ” ARTICLE: “Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter has apologized to the American Jewish community….”
MY COMMENT: So for Julian the ‘American Jewish community’ equates with ‘Israel’. Ergo, never trust anything Julian posts!
Reading the Guardian article, it appears Citizen is spot-on. Sorry, Julian, but despite the big huzzah the Israeli press is giving for Carter’s Al Het for causing Israel to feel some anti-apartheid heat, it appears it’s about as heartfelt as Netanyahu’s declaration of support for the two-state solution.
UKUSrael isn’t enough. Jewish supremacy coming next to Bosnia:
Court slams Bosnia for barring Jews, Roma from office
link to rawstory.com
AF – I’m not sure of your point, but you don’t seem to be praising the European court for condemning discrimination against minorities, as I’m sure we all should.
It depends. If these are patriotic Bosnians who happen to be of Jewish faith, that’s one thing. If they’re Jewish supremacists loyal to Israel who happen to reside in Bosnia, then I fear Bosnia is going down a road we’re all too familiar with.
…and what about the Roma?
Are they dual loyalists too? I was worried about a BOSIPAC. Would there be a GYPSIPAC as well?
As bad as AIPAC is, banning anyone from office on purely religious or racial grounds is unconscionable and unjustifiable. If you’re going to go after dual loyalists, you go after them on a case by case basis, and to be observed by nationality. Not all Jews are dual citizen Israelis, or even Zionists.
We clearly need a loyalty test. That’s my question, what is the real nationality of Jews in Bosnia? My understanding is that many Jews consider Judaism (or Jewishness) their nationality. Then they can’t be Jewish and Bosnian, or Jewish and American for that matter? Can they be prescreened? What if they lie, like the cryptos?
…Loyalty test? Are you for real?
Come back when you drop the McCarthyist bullshit, thank you. Meanwhile, I’m taking my discussion somewhere saner on the blog.
Gee, if there’a loyalty problem there must be a solution to that problem. Or is this just about registering indignation and then letting them get away with business as usual?
Yeah, I think the Soviets had a program for that, didn’t they?
You mean like the loyalty tests that Avigdor Lieberman wants to impose on those nasty Arab Israelis, who are doubtless plotting to overturn the Jewish state.
AF, you expose yourself as a bigot.
Thanks to internet – I can…
Soon after the partition of British occupied Indian subcontinent in August 1947 – India’s first prime minister Pandit Nehru joined USSR camp and Pakistan’s government after the death of the Father of Nation, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, under the advice of its foreign minister, Sir Zafrulla Khan (a Qadiani), accepted Washington’s hand of friendship to counter Indian threat, whose Hindutva leadership still has not accepted the partition of “Bharat Mata (Mother India0″. As the result, after Nehru’s visit to Moscow, Pakistan’s first prime minister, Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan made his first official visit to Washington in May-June 1950. During his visit, the American leaders of trade and Industry met him. At the meeting they promised all possible military and economic assistance in case Pakistan recognize Israel. The American industrialists also underlined the importance of such a package for the new state of Pakistan. Liqquat Ali Khan in his known gentle tone replied: “Gentlemen! Our soul is not for sale”. For making such ‘political wrong statement’, he was assassinated on October 16, 1951, allegedly by CIA and Mossad…….
Who is afraid of a stable Pakistan?
link to rehmat1.wordpress.com
The Euro Court stated that it had some sympathy for the way that Bosnia had been constituted – out of war between various groups – so as to give specific assurances to those groups’ members but that the time had come to return to normality. No one argued that Jewish citizens of Bosnia are not genuinely loyal.
Carter’s behaviour, maintaining his critique of Israel in specific terms in the UK press while offering in highly general terms an apology in case he has ‘stigmatised’ Israel, is quite odd. Perhaps understandable as a political manoeuvre.
I am finding it more and more difficult to see how one can demand ‘improvement’ from Israel or from anyone without in any sense attaching a stigma to them – if they don’t need serious improvement what are we talking about? If they do need serious improvement they are in the wrong, deeply in the wrong, and therefore bear a stigma. Carter’s religion seems to be driving him to have it both ways.
Carter unfortunately has Holy Land syndrome.
My take on the situation is Carter is the sort of man who wants to be liked by everyone. I dare say it’s his main tragic weakness — he’s always going to pull his punches, and then apologize when he’s striking out in defense of others.
Do those afflicted with Holy Land syndrome find that they cannot in the end, try as they might, resist the idea that God has made some kind of special dispensation for one part of the world that does not apply anywhere else? Or that they have a desperate desire to be liked by religious fanatics to whom being hated is a matter of indifference?
The former. The Jews are the Holy Land people.
I don’t know about Jews on the average, but I can tell you right now from what I see there isn’t anything even remotely holy about Israelis.
See, this proves you are syndrome-free!