Latest Palestine Papers: Plans to ‘transfer’ Palestinian citizens of Israel, Right of return for refugees, and the Obama administration

by on January 24, 2011 20
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Below are the Al Jazeera English and Guardian twitter feeds giving updates on the latest Palestine Papers. Al Jazeera has just released the latest papers. Some highlights from Al Jazeera English:

Israel's plans to force Palestinian citizens out of the country.
Selling out the refugees.
Obama's failure.
 

About Adam Horowitz

Adam Horowitz is Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Israel/Palestine

{ 20 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. seafoid says:
    January 24, 2011 at 3:06 pm

    Ethnic cleansing is the worst crime. The light unto the nations as well. Tsk.

  2. Jim Haygood says:
    January 24, 2011 at 3:34 pm

    Juan Cole:

    As for the Americans, Condi Rice is said to have told the Palestinians (with regard to their mass expulsion in 1948 and their loss of statehood) that lots of peoples have had bad things happen to them. But ‘lots of peoples’ don’t have nearly 5 million stateless people currently. Stateless people have no real rights. They are not citizens. The Nazis prepared for their move against the Jews by first stripping them of German citizenship. That gave denaturalizing people a bad name. There are only a few million stateless people in the world now, and the biggest group of them is the Palestinians.

    Commenter Adam Albrett:

    Juan Cole not only pointed out above the real, tangible, and enormous harm done to the Palestinians and that has spanned more than half a century and is ongoing and will affect additional generations until remedied, but also brought up an interesting historical parallel, the Nazi practice of denaturalizing Jews and their efforts to transfer Jews to other countries that preceded their genocidal acts. Many highly respected international law scholars including law professor, Francis Boyle, have argued that Israel is guilty of genocide against the Palestinians. The ethnic cleansing and the deliberate and unremitting denaturalization are to some degree the predicates of genocide.

    link to juancole.com

  3. eljay says:
    January 24, 2011 at 3:39 pm

    >> A 29 October 2008 internal Palestinian memorandum titled “Progress Report on Territory Negotiations” states that Palestinian negotiators rejected the notion that Palestinians could be included in land swaps. But, according to the document, “the Israelis continued to raise the prospect of including Palestinian citizens of Israel” in such swaps, during negotiations between Palestinian officials and the government of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

    The Zio-supremacists have been very clear on this point:
    - Ethnic cleansing was “necessary”.
    - Ethnic cleansing is “currently not necessary”.

    Should ethnic cleansing once again become “necessary”, the Zio-supremacists will simply “hold their noses” – and perhaps also “Remember the Holocaust!” – and support it, because that’s what they do.

  4. pabelmont says:
    January 24, 2011 at 3:59 pm

    Israel actually PROPOSES accepting a final territory LACKING PARTS OF PRE-1967 ISRAEL. If it can accept this (in principle) then it can accept (in principle) the UN’s 1947 suggestion which would help the refugee-repatriation in considerable measure and make the two states about the same size and about the same population.

    Something to think about!

    • Woody Tanaka says:
      January 24, 2011 at 5:59 pm

      Except that it isn’t accepting this out of principle. It is accepting this as a strategic matter. It doesn’t want equity or equality. It is a bunch of racists who are looking to expel those who are different, in order to create an ethnically ‘pure’ enclave. No different than similar experiences throughout history (often enacted against Jews, which should make this one ESPECIALLY nausiating.)

  5. Tuyzentfloot says:
    January 24, 2011 at 5:50 pm

    I’m trying make sure I don’t mix up the ethnic cleansing bit , moving people out, and the nationality change, moving the border but keeping the people in the same place. There is Barta ash Sharqiya/Baqa al-Sharqiyeh which is near the wall, so in principle they could move the wall. I don’t know yet.

    • Woody Tanaka says:
      January 24, 2011 at 6:02 pm

      I, personally, don’t see much difference. Unless people whose land is being transferred are given the option of retaining their pre-transfer citizenship, and are given full compensation and relocation within the tranferring state, it is functionally the same.

      • Tuyzentfloot says:
        January 24, 2011 at 6:31 pm

        I can see that. It’s not a question about moral difference.

        • annie says:
          January 24, 2011 at 6:35 pm

          woody said it was functionally the same, nothing about morals. if you think it’s not a question moral difference i’d beg to differ.

        • Tuyzentfloot says:
          January 24, 2011 at 7:32 pm

          Sorry, I misunderstood the word ‘functionally’.

          Well, in the case of moving borders it’s still possible you can keep living in your own house, in the other not. It would put people on the wrong foot if you call both ethnic cleansing after which some smooth hasbarista (a barista is an expert in presenting things nicely geddit?) explains it away as nothing more than a simple change of passport.

        • annie says:
          January 24, 2011 at 7:55 pm

          i urge you to go to the front page of this site and read ‘Palestine Papers: Obama rejects Bush commitment to Palestinian state on 1967 lines; opens door to expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel‘

          you’re in denial

        • Tuyzentfloot says:
          January 25, 2011 at 3:19 am

          Annie, I’m talking about the content of Livni’s proposal about the four or so villages. I’d also point out that the number of people involved is not large. So go on thinking I’m in denial. Then consider that the PA would have accepted it. That would lead to this:

          “Fine, now that we’re agreed on the principle, let’s talk about Umm Al Fahm”.

        • Hostage says:
          January 25, 2011 at 6:23 am

          Actually what we are discussing here is not ethnic cleansing – it is Grand Apartheid:
          *A “Bantustan policy” consisting of the creation of a State or reserved area for certain groups.
          *The establishment of frontiers with regulations concerning the movement of those groups.
          *Population policies, which aim to reduce the Arab population yet favor Jewish immigration.
          *A scheme to prevent Israel-Arabs from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country.

          Those are all elements constituting the crime of apartheid. See for example the Human Rights Commission, Study Concerning the Question of Apartheid from the Point of View of International Penal Law, E/CN.4/1075, 15 February 1972, pp. 51 – 52

          For decades the Israeli-Arabs have watched their State authorities and unions steal billions of dollars from their beleaguered brethren – the Palestinian workers. They themselves have lived under martial law for the first two decades of Israel’s existence and have subsequently watched Israeli authorities “close” the West Bank and Gaza at will. Israel can prevent Palestinians from leaving those ghettos for work, education, health care, and access to farmland, food, and water. Israel also denies Palestinians and Israeli-Arabs the right to family reunification in Israel.

          Now you are suggesting that they should join the fun and loose their access to jobs, welfare, hospitals, universities, utilities, the pension fund system, their families, their friends, and places of worship on the other side of the frontier. Not only that, but even the remaining Arabs have been told that their aspirations will no longer be satisfied in Israel and that they too should go. No wonder they are underwhelmed by the generous offer.

        • Tuyzentfloot says:
          January 25, 2011 at 6:52 am

          Grand apartheid not ethnic cleansing. I think that’s already a better description.
          I also think
          - the proposal about shifting borders would somehow be followed by a proposal to shift the complete Little Triangle.
          - the idea of transferring the nationality of Israeli Arabs deep inside Israel is different, and it would pop up at some point, eg in the form of ‘your children will not have Israeli citizen status but permanent resident status’, to be downgraded further as time passes, with the intent to achieve a large scale gradual fadeout of the Israeli arab population. Or a fast transition “now that there’s a palestinian state all Israeli Arabs shall be Palestinians. But because we’re nice people you get residence permits – for now.”

          Now you are suggesting that they should join the fun Who, me?

        • Hostage says:
          January 25, 2011 at 7:59 am

          Now you are suggesting that they should join the fun Who, me?

          No, I was talking past you to Ms. Livni. Israel has employed annexations, ethnic cleansing, deportations, and immigration & “present but absent” legislation as part of its overall population displacement policy. Jewish immigration and Arab emigration have always been encouraged. Arab right of return and family reunification in Israel were discouraged. There is already a policy in place to revoke the permanent residency status of “former” Arab residents of Jerusalem whenever they temporarily leave the country to pursue employment or educational opportunities. Israel has built hundreds of Jewish communal settlements on state land, but has never built a single Arab settlement on state land. The list of other measures that reduce and isolate the area available for Arabs and to diminish their numbers goes on and on….

  6. Les says:
    January 24, 2011 at 6:20 pm

    Here is Ethan Bronner’s report from la-la land.

    link to nytimes.com

    “While neither Jerusalem nor the refugee issue was agreed on, the two sides seemed to be coming to terms on the approach.”

    “A spokesman for Mr. Olmert, Yaacov Galanti, said the gaps between the two sides were not great.”

    “Mr. Netanyahu has said that he wanted to start the negotiations over, not pick them up where they had left off because they offered too many concessions to the Palestinians.”

    Bernard Avishai said, “The Palestinians were going to get a great deal for their concessions.”

  7. Djinn says:
    January 24, 2011 at 10:03 pm

    Keep reading about these apparent Israeli concessions in the woeful Australian media coverage of the Palestine Papers. Fairfax reporting almost makes it seem like a dispute between equals and speaks of both sides having made concessions.
    Have I missed something in the last 15 years? What has ever been conceeded by Israel?

    • MHughes976 says:
      January 25, 2011 at 9:41 am

      The Independent here in the UK, which is lukewarm on ME matters, puts its emphasis on the hope that Israels who needed convincing of Palestinian good faith will be persuaded. It calls this the silver lining to the grey cloud.
      Probably in hot competition with Australian rivals for the woefulness prize?

  8. seafoid says:
    January 25, 2011 at 9:30 am

    The border between Israel and the bantustans is the border between GNP per capita of $22.000+ and GNP per capita of $3600. So it does matter.
    I just don’t see how Israeli Jews can maintain those income differentials long term.

    On a different off thread topic here is a fascinating piece of Israel hasbara that was shown in full on Swiss TV last night. it is in French but if you don’t speak the language watch the images of Israeli sophistication and Iranian evil.
    link to tsr.ch

    Israel is engaged in a very long war with Iran.
    A pity the Israelis didn’t apply the same level of cunning to the demographic situation.

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