Sixty One Poster
Here’s an interesting new tactic in the liberal Zionist camp: Faulting Netanyahu for releasing Palestinian prisoners so as to build political capital for taking a stand against the settlements. The need to demonize Palestinians as violent shows just how rightwing the political discourse is in Israel, how much the security narrative involves all Israelis and all Israel supporters.
Item one. The American liberal Zionist group J Street was troubled by the prisoners’ release:
[Netanyahu’s decision to push settlements] was even more troubling when considered in the light of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s willingness to release over 100 Palestinians convicted of violence and terrorism as part of the agreement that paved the way for a resumption of peace talks.
(And yes, J Street’s head approved the release in the end, but only as a means to restart talks.)
Item two is the poster above, from Sixty One, a liberal Israeli thinktank, which seeks to demonize both Palestinian prisoners and the settlements. Writes Ofer Neiman:
Sixty One was started by people who had been dominant in the Sheikh Jarrah [anti-settlement] solidarity movement, and had steered it in a direction which many activists did not like (trying to appeal to mainstream public opinion in Israel, at the expense of building an international-Palestinian-Israeli solidarity movement. they left the movement later.
It is most unfortunate that sixty One, a think tank which aspires to lead the peace and human rights camp in Israel, has chosen the path of populism and de-humanization towards Palestinians. According to Sixty One, the release of Palestinian prisoners by Netanyahu shows that :
“[politically he] is being held hostage by people who care more about building a new neighborhood in the territories than about the security of Israeli citizens.
Sixty One drive home their point with great drama, adding: “In other words, you may come home in a coffin, but they [the settlers] will have Samaria”.
[Context: Freezing settlement construction was an alternative goodwill gesture proposed by Kerry; Netanyahu chose the release of prisoners]
Well, most of the Palestinian prisoners do not resume violent activities. If anything, the most significant phenomenon related with their release is recurring Israeli arrests and abuse, under the pretext of “release terms violations”. Moreover, the writers fail to realize that Israeli policies in their entirety produce Palestinian counter-violence, not specificPalestinian prisoners.
The settlements are a war crimes, and they should be dismantled. In addition to that, Palestine’s political prisoners should be released now, without reservations. And demagoguery should be stopped too. Because spins will neither bring an end to apartheid nor reestablish the Israeli peace camp
The only Palestinian prisoner who should be released in Marwan Barghouti – the ONE strategic prisoner – the one Palestinian prisoner who will end the regime of Abbas and the Phony Authority
If J-Street weren’t really just the good cop to the AIPAC bad cop, they would be pressing for Barghouti’s release as well. I have not heard one peep out of the Palestinians (of course Hamas has a gag in it’s mouth) regarding Barghouti, let alone the Israelis. Barghouti apparently got pretty close to being released in the Shalit deal
all political prisoners should be released immediately. additionally there are lots of palestinian prisoners picked up on administrative detention, held and tortured into either confessions, implicating themselves, or nothing at all. israel’s occupation military court system is a sham and a crime against humanity.
Update on Kerry’s peace process. The Israeli delegation and the Palestinian delegation are both peppering Kerry with tattle tale letters. The former says the Palestinians are teaching their kids hate in school while Jews are the biggest victims in world history, so, Mr Kerry, those Palestinians are not acting in good faith. The latter is saying, Mr Kerry, those Israeli Jews are expanding their illegal settlements, as they always do, thus showing their bad faith. http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2013/08/11/netanyahu-to-kerry-abbas-is-inciting-against-israel/?utm_medium=twitter
RE: ” Freezing settlement construction was an alternative goodwill gesture proposed by Kerry; Netanyahu chose the release of prisoners.”
Source?
If true, of course Bibi chose release of prisoners; Israel has a history of recapturing released prisoners on pretext of violating release conditions. Meanwhile, the land grabbing continues, the facts on the ground multiply. Is Kerry so boxed in he was forced to give Bibi that choice? Is it possible Kerry actually didn’t know what Bibi’s choice would be, and why? Bibi gets a choice of releasing some prisoners for a small time or expanding settlements. What choice did Kerry give the Palestinian peace processors? Some cash to build local business versus taking away all cash?
A comment from my point of view, which is that a 2ss will come one day but cannot be stable or final. I’m about to make more predictions than is sensible, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I have words to eat quite soon.
My sense is that beside Kerry’s negotiating circus there is another set of discussions going on in the academic-mainstream journalism groove. This has to be based on the idea, essential to mainstreamers’ comfort, that the negotiations are a good thing with a prospect of success. The participants therefore get drawn into saying what a practical settlement would be like, so a sort of consensus – ‘what everyone thinks reasonable’ – emerges and will take further shape, like a baby, over the next nine months. This association of ideas is surely why Kerry went for that time period.
‘What everyone thinks reasonable’ will of course be miserably unfair to the Palestinians in every way we can think of.
I presume that what Abbas hopes to do is to propose, even propose in writing, very late in that period that ‘what everyone thinks reasonable’ by that stage should be done. He will immediately be denounced by a hundred voices from his own side, but that may not be an insuperable problem for him.
At that point the Israelis will have to decide whether to walk away or to play for time or to accept. They will know that this time many will say not that ‘Here is a generous Israeli offer; what a shame it was rejected’ but ‘Here is a reasonable Palestinian offer; why should it be spurned?’ The damage that this reaction would cause would be serious, insidious and long-running. Playing for time by demanding more discussions on endless matters of detail would only lessen the damage a little. Kerry would probably say (what else could he say without discrediting himself?) that there has been plenty of time for details.
Acceptance would give Israel a sort of feudal dependency, for a while no threat at all. But the really vital point, that at least in some sense Palestinians have a right to live in Palestine, would have been conceded, with all the implications of that point waiting to evolve. To my mind the real question would be what happened next. Return to violent confrontation within months? Steady consolidation of the Palestinian position, permitting steps towards equality?