Congresswomen at Qalandiya, photo by J Street: (l to r) Yvette Clark, Donna Edwards, Jackie Speier, Gwen Moore, Barbara Lee, Eddie Bernice Johnson
People are talking about Linda Gradstein's report at JTA on a delegation of six congresswomen brought to the occupied territories by J Street. Piece is notable for Jackie Speier (D-San Francisco) likening the prospective political situation in the territories to apartheid (it's there already, if only reporters would say what they see...). And by a settler telling the politicians to forget about the two state solution. And by Rep Eddie Bernice Johnson saying the situation is a powder keg.
“This is a ticking bomb waiting to go off,” says Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Tex.) “There must be some other way to do this. After so many years there should be some resolution for this issue.”
The congresswomen clearly are moved by their experience at the checkpoint, and that’s the point....
A group of Jewish women from several area settlements met with the congresswomen and told them they have no intention of leaving their homes.
“I’m holding the Bible; Shiloh was our first capital before Jerusalem and it has layers and layers of history,” Tzofiah Dorot, the director of Ancient Shiloh, told the women. “This is the heart of Israel and I don’t see a future for the state if you take the heart out.”
All of the women said they were sure that their settlements would remain part of Israel.
“This is our homeland, the homeland of the Jewish nation -- period,” Tamar Aslaf told the delegation. “A Palestinian who lives here is welcome to stay. It’s his home but it’s our homeland.”
Several of the settlers described a scenario in which Palestinians could stay in their homes but not receive national or voting rights. That drew a sharp reply from the congresswomen, five of whom are African Americans.
“Some people would call that apartheid,” said Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), the only white congresswomen on the trip.
“It’s easy to sit in your comfortable house and decide what is good for the Jews,” Dorot responded. “I’m begging you to see that we’re not pieces of Lego you can move around. This is life and death. We all need to think out of the box. I’m asking you to forget about the two-state solution.”
“It’s easy to sit in your comfortable house and decide what is good for the Jews,” Dorot responded. “I’m begging you to see that we’re not pieces of Lego you can move around. This is life and death. We all need to think out of the box. I’m asking you to forget about the two-state solution.”
Translation:
It’s easy to sit in your comfortable house and decide that apartheid is not good for the Palestinians. I’m begging you to see that we’re the masters, and Palestinians are pieces of Lego we can move around. This is life and death. (Mostly life for us Jews and death for Palestinians). We all need to think about expanding the the Jewish state out of the “box” that some people call borders.
Linda Gradstein writes about congressional women visiting the West Bank in JTA, which is fine, but won’t report it on NPR. What’s that about? Was it her decision, or her editors’ decision to keep the story out of NPR? I thought when Ellen Weiss, former vp for news, was fired, there would be some balance in NPR coverage of Israeli-Palestinian issues. I guess not.
Anti-Jewishness subtracted from anti-Semitism still leaves us with racist anti-Semitism directed against native Middle Eastern Arabs and Iranians, presumably an effort of our media to reinforce the notion that Israel is a nation of whites under attack by non-whites. NPR is as bad as the rest of our media in promoting such racism.
If NPR won’t run the piece, it must be because the management of the I/P is regarded (by NPR or by Linda Gradstein) as an intra-Jewish THANG and that means, non-Jews have no right to hear or to say, no right to assert any opinion.
(Inter alia, Palestinians have no rights at all in the management of the occupation, no right to complain to the international community, no right to relief from illegal settlements, wall, siege.)
I would love it if these Congresswomen, or as many of them as agree on it, would publish a DEAR COLLEAGUES LETTER in Congress expressing their findings, the dangers, and the international law aspects of what has been going on for 44 years.
RE: “This is the heart of Israel and I don’t see a future for the state if you take the heart out.” ~ deranged settler
FROM “GONE WITH THE WIND” (1939):
TAKEN OUT OF CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER & CONTEXT
Gerald O’Hara: Do you mean to tell me, Katie Scarlett O’Hara, that Tara, that land doesn’t mean anything to you? Why, land is the only thing in the world worth workin’ for, worth fightin’ for, worth dyin’ for, because it’s the only thing that lasts.
Gerald O’Hara: It will come to you, this love of the land. There’s no gettin’ away from it if you’re Irish.
Rhett Butler: Why, all we have is cotton and slaves and arrogance.
Scarlett: I can’t let Tara go. I won’t let it go while there’s a breath left in my body.
Rhett Butler: Don’t give yourself airs, Scarlett.
Mammy: It ain’t fittin’… it ain’t fittin’. It jes’ ain’t fittin’… It ain’t fittin’.
SOURCE – link to imdb.com
P.S. INTRODUCING MY NEW AVATAR, NUTTYYAHOO by DonkeyHotey (JPEG) – link to google.com
For once, someone making an Apartheid analogy has it right. A one state solution where the Palestinians couldn’t vote would be Apartheid. That’s one of the reasons I’m opposed to a one state solution. The other reasons get censored on here.
But a 1SS where all residents could vote would not be Apartheid. Sorry Fredblogs, but I don’t understand your opposition to such a solution.
“A one state solution where the Palestinians couldn’t vote… ”
Is that not what has existed de facto since 1967??
No. The West Bank and Gaza are not part of Israel. If Mexico attacked the U.S. and the U.S. occupied them we wouldn’t let them vote in our elections. For that matter, we don’t let the Afghans vote in our elections and we do occupy them. The Palestinians don’t get to vote because they aren’t part of Israel. Even in East Jerusalem, they were offered the chance to become citizens (and therefore get the vote), but they chose to be resident aliens instead of citizens.
Fredblogs said:
Israel is colonizing the West Bank. Israel controls Gaza.
Mexico is not being colonized by the United States and has not been under US occupation for almost 50 years.
We don’t let Afghan’s vote in our elections because Afghans are sovereign or have the potential to be sovereign in their own country AND territory.
We are not colonizing Iraq or Afghanistan or Mexico.
Israel is colonizing Palestinian land and stealing Palestinian resources.
Israel should get off of Palestinian land and stop violating international law, norms, the Geneva Conventions, etc.
Instead, you defend a law-breaking, colonial-settler State with lame, context-less, folksy, comparisons to the United States and Mexico. LOL
Fredblogs, the intellectually dishonest troll, says “Palestinians don’t get to vote because they aren’t part of Israel”
Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories don’t get to vote because they are not Jewish settlers.
“No. The West Bank and Gaza are not part of Israel.”
De facto, they are all one polity.
“If Mexico attacked the U.S. and the U.S. occupied them we wouldn’t let them vote in our elections.”
Bad analogy on many fronts. First of all, the Israelis were the agressors in the 1967 war. Second, if we evidenced a desire never to return the land to its rightful owners (as is the case with the Zionist occupation of Palestine (both the pre-1967 and post-1967 portions) then we would have to either let them vote in our elections or we would be practicing apartheid. Same with the Israelis.
“For that matter, we don’t let the Afghans vote in our elections and we do occupy them.”
Stupid analogy. The operations in Afghanistan, among other things, is at the behest of the the UN Security Counsel, while the Israel occupation is in violation of it.
“The Palestinians don’t get to vote because they aren’t part of Israel.”
And they aren’t part of Israel based on a legal status based ethnicity, while still being governed by another ethnicity. In other words, apartheid.
“Even in East Jerusalem, they were offered the chance to become citizens (and therefore get the vote), but they chose to be resident aliens instead of citizens.”
They didn’t “choose” anything. The Israeli seizure of Arab East Jerusalem is an illegal act, recognized by no one but themselves. So why would the Palestinians in Arab East Jerusalem recognize this vile Israeli crime?
But beside that fact, if Israel wasn’t practicing Apartheid, it would have simply declared all the people in Arab East Jerusalem citizens and given them the vote and, maybe given them the opportunity to renounce it, as would be the case in civilized countries. But this is not degrading enough, so as has been the case throught the ages, the colonists make the natives jump through hoops for no reason other than sadism.
They are according to Israel. Look at any Isreli map of Israel and they are indeed included.
But Isral atatecked the Palestinians, stolen their land and occupied them and still won’t let them vote.
Just the land they happne to be living on.
False, but go on…
““For that matter, we don’t let the Afghans vote in our elections and we do occupy them.”
Stupid analogy. The operations in Afghanistan, among other things, is at the behest of the the UN Security Counsel, while the Israel occupation is in violation of it.”
Adding to that, suppose there were pleasant parts of Afghanistan that some Americans wanted to live in. So they stole some of the land and built permanent , constantly expanding settlements protected by the American military. Does any sane person have any difficulty seeing what would be wrong with this, even if you believed the war in Afghanistan was justified?
I mean, come on. Even if one believed (wrongly) that Israel was always the innocent victim attacked by Arab nations in all of its wars, and even if one thought that the occupation of the West Bank was something forced on Israel by circumstances and that it wasn’t their fault that the occupation continued–even if you believed all of this the settlements are still wrong and this makes the situation a form of apartheid.
If I believed all of the Zionist claims about who started all the wars and all the claims about having no partner for peace, there would still be no way of defending the existence of the settlements. If there were no peace agreement and no end to the occupation in the next 100 years, the settlements should still be uprooted.
Fredblogs said:
Palestinians in the OT already cannot vote and Palestinians in Israel face institutional discrimination and racist laws. Both groups will never be treated equally precisely because of racists like you who perpetuate the status quo.
A 1SS is a pipe dream at this point. You cannot jump into a 1SS. It (as Chomsky says) would be achieved in stages.
But fanatics like the settlers in this interview (who you did not criticize), want to keep things the way they are.
Israel’s game is to run out the clock as it were.
It doesn’t need to slaughter people in the numbers we see elsewhere around the world, because it can achieve it’s strategic goal of colonizing the territories, SLOWLY and without consequences.
People like you and the settlers want it this way.
It’s funny that you continue to offer your opinion. You are a caricature.
Anti-BDS, anti-ALL-non-violent-resistance(via no true scotsman), anti-2SS (by paying lip service to it and expressing no semblance of intellectualism elsewhere in this issue to lend credence to your supposed support), etc.
And you’re likely censored for being a hateful bigot.
I’m not in favor of expanding the settlements. Of course I don’t think the expansion of the settlements is a good reason for the Palestinians not to join peace talks. I am anti-BDS, pro-all-nonviolent resistance, pro 2 state solution. I’m not sure what “no true scotsman” reference you are talking about it. I’m familiar with the concept, but I don’t know how you are applying it.
Obviously I can’t tell you why I’m being censored, because if I tried, I’d be censored.
I’m not in favor of expanding the settlements.
Who cares? You elected a government that is.
Actualy it’s a very good reason because the peace talks are based on teh Road Map of 2002 what Israel signed and ratified. Under that agreement, Israel is supposed to STOP all settlement building before peade talks are to commence.
In other words, more of the same. You are all for Israel gettin away with murder.
Nakba denial is censored. Stop lying and you won’t be censored.
I don’t think Obama is in favor of the settlements expanding. He’s who I voted for.
Re: road-map requiring stop building: link?
I don’t lie. My predictions of what would happen under some circumstances are censored, not because anything I say is false.
Is there a list of censored topics and opinions somewhere on here?
Phase I (as early as May 2003): End to Palestinian violence; Palestinian political reform; Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian cities and freeze on settlement expansion; Palestinian elections.
Phase II (as early as June-Dec 2003): International Conference to support Palestinian economic recovery and launch a process, leading to establishment of an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders; revival of multilateral engagement on issues including regional water resources, environment, economic development, refugees, and arms control issues; Arab states restore pre-intifada links to Israel (trade offices, etc.).
Phase III (as early as 2004-2005): second international conference; permanent status agreement and end of conflict; agreement on final borders, clarification of the highly controversial question of the fate of Jerusalem, refugees and settlements; Arab state to agree to peace deals with Israel.
link to en.wikipedia.org
You’re a Zionist so lying is unavoidable for you.
I’d hunt for the blog policy on comments. I think you will find it on the very first line in the center of your screen. It is labeled Comments Policy
Hope that helps.
Thank you for the link. It’s good to know Obama wasn’t the first to propose stopping the settlements.
Since the Palestinians haven’t ended their violence, we aren’t even at phase 1. When the Israelis did stop the settlement expansion anyway for 10 months, the Palestinians didn’t stop the violence and they waited 9.5 months before sitting down for peace talks, then walked away when the deadline for settlement freeze wasn’t extended.
I do think the Israelis ought to stop expanding the settlements outward, but until the Palestinians stop the violence, they aren’t even going against the roadmap by expanding, much less going against anything they actually agreed to.
Nothing about being a Zionist requires me to lie. It just requires a different perspective from yours. I haven’t knowingly said anything false.
Look Fred, a day ago you didn’t even know what the Road Map was, now you’re trying to tell me what the Quartet has determined? You Zionists have no shame.
Israel SIGNED and RATIFIED the Road Map for Peace, and that agreement (remember, a signed and ratified document) committed Israel to freeze all settlement construction right away, not 8 years later.
Israel signed it, Israel ratified it, and then Israel immediately reneged on it.
The Road Map is divided into three Phases, and nobody has a right to down-tools WITHIN A PHASE for any reason. Or, put another way: even if the other side *is* dragging its feet all you can do is put your head down and power on to the end of Phase I, at which point you refuse to go to the next Phase until the other dude has caught up to you.
This is how it was written: “In each phase, the parties are expected to perform their obligations in parallel, unless otherwise indicated.”
Got that?
OK, having got that then we can make sense of what **is** in Phase I.
And what we see is this:
“Palestinian leadership issues unequivocal statement reiterating Israel’s right to exist in peace and security and calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to end armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere. All official Palestinian institutions end incitement against Israel.”
That “Palestinian leadership” is The PLO/PA i.e. it is Abbas And His Bunch. It most definitely is not Hamas, nor it is Islamic Jihad.
Or, in short: so long as Abbas And His Bunch are committed to non-violence then that provision has been fulfilled.
Q: Why?
A: Because the only group recognized as the “Palestinian leadership” is Abbas And His Bunch.
But what about Israel?
“Israel also freezes all settlement activity, consistent with the Mitchell report.”
“GOI takes no actions undermining trust, including deportations, attacks on civilians; confiscation and/or demolition of Palestinian homes and property, as a punitive measure or to facilitate Israeli construction”
“GOI immediately dismantles settlement outposts erected since March 2001″
“Consistent with the Mitchell Report, GOI freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).”
Not much room to maneouvre there, Fred……
Abbas has carried out all of his obligations under Phase I of the Road Map. Every last one of them. To. The. Letter.
The Quartet makes that call, and the Quartet is exceptionally happy with the progress that Abbas and Faayad have made in the West Bank, and the Quartet has not the slihtest complaint about how Abbas And His Gang have fullfilled all of their obligations under the Road Map.
He is now waiting for Netanyahu to pull his finger out i.e. to do what he has to do in order to join Abbas up on the podium, at which point *both* Abbas and Bibi procede to Phase II, which is when negotiations take place.
Netanyahu is having none of it. He has downed his tools without carrying out A Single One Of His Tasks in Phase I and, furthermore, he is insisting that he doesn’t have to carry them out i.e. he is demanding that everyone proceed immediately to the final status negotiations.
So dispute the fact that Bibi is in complete and utter violation of *ALL* of his Road Map committments, he still has the chutzpah to demand his prize. And what is that prize? It is to be able to lock Abbas into a tent while the IDF bulldozers continue to tear down everything that is around it.
The Israeli position is simply beyond chutzpah. It is obscene, Fred, and made worse by the utter refusal of people like you to pull your head out of the sand and stare that obscenity in the face.
Rubbish. You are insisting that Abbas must come to the negotiating table *even* *though* Israel has not even done *one* of the things that it committed itself to doing when it signed that Road Map For Peace. Abbas would be crazy to do that, for reasons that should be obvious even to you i.e. if Israel has a “right” to unilaterally “rewrite” agreements then no agreement that bears Israel’s signature is worth the paper that it is written on.
Think about it: if Abbas agrees to that then he is acknowledging that Israel has a “right” to renege on any agreement that it signs and ratifies.
How seriously would you take an offer by a thief to stop stealing from you temporarily, knowing that once the time was up, he fully inetnded to continue stealing? Netenyahu made a commitement to toa moratorium (which he never observed anyway) with the promise that he would go back to buildign settlement no matter what the outcome of the talks.
I love it how giving Palestinians an equal right alongside Jews is COMPLETELY unfathomable to you.
“Some people would call that apartheid,” said Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), the only white congresswomen on the trip.”
Unfortunately, she won’t be around long.
An ActBlue contribution page for Rep. Jackie Speier in case anyone wants to support her courage for noting that “Some people would call that apartheid”
Brilliant political theater. Get the settlers out front arguing for the one-state solution. And Jackie Speier of all people arguing against apartheid.