commentary from Israel & the West Bank
Archive for October, 2009
Open Letter to Rivka Carmi, President, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
Oct 25th
From The New York Review of Books.
By Jonathan Cole and nine others
Dear President Carmi:
We write to express our concern over your response to the recent Los Angeles Times Op-Ed (“Boycott Israel,” August 20, 2009) by Dr. Neve Gordon, senior lecturer and chair of the Government and Politics Department at Ben-Gurion University. In his article, Gordon described Israel as an apartheid state and called for an international boycott of his country.
In your public statements responding to Gordon—notably your own Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times, “Neve Gordon’s Divisive Op-Ed,” September 1, 2009)—you declare that although Israeli law prohibits you from dismissing him, he “has forfeited his ability to work effectively within the academic setting, with his colleagues in Israel and around the world.”
In your article you claim to distinguish academic freedom, which “exists to ensure that there is an unfettered and free discussion of ideas relating to research and teaching and to provide a forum for the debate of complicated ideas that may challenge accepted norms,” from Neve Gordon’s use of “his pulpit as a university faculty member to advocate a personal opinion” that you dismiss as “demagoguery cloaked in academic theory.” But the whole point of academic freedom—and indeed tenure—is to protect scholars’ rights to express their opinions, by definition “personal,” however controversial these may be.
No doubt you too are expressing a personal opinion when you denounce Dr. Gordon and warn that he “has forfeited his ability to work effectively within the academic setting.” Even without a direct threat of dismissal, such an extreme condemnation emanating from the head of a university carries special weight. Israel’s academic institutions are a legitimate source of great pride to the country and carry considerable international prestige.
Moreover, Israeli universities are among the few academic institutions in the Middle East committed to academic freedom, and that is in large part why they are so successful and carry such weight. They can and should serve as a model for the region and the world. As the president of such an institution, you bear a special responsibility: to protect and defend the autonomy and freedom of expression of your colleagues, even—especially—when you find them offensive.
Instead, you have conveyed to the faculty of Ben-Gurion University that their careers may be imperiled if they express a view with which you happen to disagree. Such statements by a university president will inevitably have a chilling effect on the climate of open inquiry and unrestricted debate—at a time when Israel needs such debate and discussion more than ever.
Some of us disagree with Dr. Gordon’s views, and none of us advocates a boycott of Israel. But we believe that he was entirely within his rights to offer his opinions. We urge you to make publicly explicit that you will oppose any move to punish or censor him for his controversial political opinions.
Jonathan Cole, Columbia University; Harvey Cox, Harvard University; Tony Judt, New York University; Stanley Katz, Princeton University; John Mearsheimer, University of Chicago; Everett Mendelsohn, Harvard University; Richard Samuels, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Avi Shlaim, University of Oxford; Fritz Stern, Columbia University; Stephen Walt, Harvard University
Ezra Nawi is sentenced to 30-days in Prison
Oct 21st
Ezra Nawi has been sentenced to 30 days in prison and a fine of 750 NIS after a long court battle stemming from the accusation that he assaulted two border officers. Ezra is a close friend and his story has been documented on this website extensively. In response to his verdict, Ezra argued that “the court has been permitting the occupation. The punishment doesn’t scare me, and neither does the judge.” The most important and difficult aspect of the sentence is that the judge also sentenced him to 6 months in prison if he violates law in the occupied territories in the next 3 years. This is worst than the 30-days he got, as most of Ezra’s work in the occupied territories is about protest and nonviolently opposing the occupation, which in many cases translates to violation of law according to the Israeli legal system. None of the media outlets are reporting this important detail.
Settlers
Oct 19th
These silly settlers. Some settlers are quiet and others are violent. Some speak with us while others try to attack us. The small illegal outpost of Asa’el has some of the most violent and crazy people that I have ever encountered. One settler from Asa’el has always struck me as strangely insane. Her name is Marva and I believe that she hails from South Africa. Below are two videos exploring her thoughts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
East Jerusalem
Asa’el
High Court Rulings are treated as ‘Recommendations’
Oct 13th
Akiva Eldar has written an article in today’s Haaretz exploring an issue that Ta’ayush knows well: Israeli High Court rulings dealing with Palestinians. Below is the article along with two videos from the past summer in the West Bank with Ta’ayush in which you can see what he is describing in action.
Israel sees court rulings on Palestinian land as mere ‘recommendations’
By Akiva Eldar, Haaretz Correspondent
So what if the Supreme Court rules? In Israel those decisions are just recommendations, especially if they deal with Palestinian land. In most enlightened democratic countries, saying that decisions of the courts obligate the state authorities is like stating that the sun rises in the east. But that may not be so for Israel.
Last week, Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch had to state that “rulings of this court are not mere recommendations, and the state is obliged to abide by them and to execute them with the necessary speed and efficiency, according to the circumstances of the matter.”
The head of the judicial system added: “In the case before us, the state took the law into its own hands.”
The case dates back to June 2006. The High Court of Justice at that time responded to a petition from Hamoked – the Center for the Defense of the Individual, and instructed the Defense Ministry to move the route of the separation fence near the villages of Azzun and Nabi Ilyas in the northern West Bank.
Aharon Barak, who was then president of the Supreme Court, stated in the ruling that “the petition points to an event that cannot be tolerated according to which the information that was supplied to the court did not reflect all of the considerations that were taken into account by the decision makers.”
Some examples of the disregard of Israeli High Court rulings in the Southern West Bank
What is Ta’ayush and Why Should You Care?
Oct 13th
From the earliest beginning, below is a document about the ideological motivations of Ta’ayush.
Taayush – Seen from the Inside
Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount accompanied by 1000 policemen in September 2000, and the murder of Palestinian demonstrators in Jerusalem, signaled the outbreak of the second Intifada. Palestinian citizens of Israel demonstrated in the Galilee, in the ‘Triangle’ district and in the Negev, and the Israeli police force shot and killed 13 demonstrating Israeli citizens.
Everything churned in those October-November days. Most of the Jewish Leftists became confused and ‘rhinocerized’, and retreated to the old stiff and patronizing Zionist positions. Palestinian citizens of Israel, for their part, used to varying degrees of harassment by the authorities ever since the state was founded, felt more alienated than ever. This time alienation was paired by real, tangible fear. It was an historical moment in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but there was one flicker of light: at the October 2000 watershed, the Israeli Left was delineated once again, and the goals of its struggles clearer than ever. Taayush was founded following these events, as a partnership of Arabs and Jews.
Taayush was started by people who, though not lacking in political experience, were no longer willing to act within their former frameworks. People new to this type of activity joined them. In November 2000, a busload of activists from Tel Aviv and Kufr Qassem went on a solidarity visit to Umm el-Fahm – the town that had become a symbol in those days – to hear about the goings-on directly from parents of the detainees, to break the isolation and total boycott that the Jewish public placed on its Arab neighbors; to hear about shortages in fuel, baby food and commodities in general. The suggestion was made to enter the Occupied Territories in food convoys. “One hundred” private cars, someone said, and provoked bitter snickers. “Where would we get a hundred cars?” The food convoy was meant to be a kind of motorized demonstration to the public – no fanfares. Food, aid – these would be the signs of solidarity.
More >
Peacemaker Denied Entry to Israel
Oct 12th
Sean O’Neill of the Christian Peacemakers Team in the southern West Bank Village of Tuwani was recently denied entry into the state of Israel. Sean is one of the tireless members of the CPT crew and has been regularly featured in Ibn Ezra videos. Below is the official statement from Christian Peacemakers Team:
CPTnet
28 September 2009
AT-TUWANI: Christian Peacemaker Team members denied entry to Israel
[Note: According to the Geneva Conventions, the International Court of Justice in the Hague, and numerous United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Settlement outposts are considered illegal also under Israeli law.]
On Friday 25 September 2009, the Israeli authorities at Ben Gurion airport, Tel Aviv, denied entry to CPTer Seán O’Neill. They told O’Neill, a U.S. citizen, that Israel’s Ministry of Interior had ordered the denial of entry. In response to enquiries from O’Neill’s lawyer, the Israeli authorities stated that the ban was due to a court appearance by O’Neill and Joe Wyse (to whom the Israeli authorities denied entry earlier this month) in March 2009, despite the fact that an Israeli judge had ordered them released without charges.
On 8 March 2009, O’Neill and Wyse were videotaping Israeli settlers who were constructing a road on privately owned Palestinian land near Karmel settlement in the South Hebron Hills. When the Palestinian landowners and CPTers approached the work area, an Israeli settlement security guard began to shout and demand that they leave. The Palestinian landowners remained and requested that the CPTers videotape the work construction on their land. After the police officers arrived, the settlement security guard told them to detain the CPTers. The police did so and held them overnight at Kiryat Arba police station in Hebron. The following day, in a Jerusalem court, the police requested an extension of the CPTers’ detention to allow more time for investigating the claim that the CPTers had obstructed a police officer, but an Israeli judge found no justification for their detention and ordered they be released without charges immediately.
Israeli police frequently, at the request of Israeli settlers, arrest Palestinian shepherds or internationals accompanying them. Palestinians arrested in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are tried in Israeli military courts. A 2007 report, ‘Backyard Proceedings’, published by the Israeli group Yesh Din, found that there were “severe shortcomings and failures in the implementation of due process rights in the military judicial system operating in [the OPT].” As of July 2009, Israel was holding almost 400
Palestinians in administrative detention-detention without charge or trial. At the same time, Israeli settlers frequently commit crimes of violence against Palestinians and internationals with impunity.
Ta’ayush Report-Shabbat 3 October 2009
Oct 9th
The following is a report on a Ta’ayush action from 3 October 2009:
שבת 03.10.09
בבוקר יום שבת יצאנו לפעילות יחד עם תושבי טוואה שבדרום הר-חברון. מתנחלי מעון פלשו לתוך שטח הואדי המפריד בין טוואנה למעון ושתלו שם גפנים, למרות שזוהי אדמת העיר טוואנה. המנהל האזרחי קבע (לאחר שתילת הגפנים), שהשטח של מעון הוא עד סוף הגפנים, ושאר השטח הוא של טוואנה (זאת למרות שלפני כן ובעצם מאז ומתמיד כל השטח הוא של טוואנה), אבל למרות טענה זו המנהל קיבע גדר כמה מאות מטרים אחרי הגפנים, באופן שגזל עוד שטח מתושבי טוואנה.
לפיכך, יצאנו עם תושבי טוואנה לשתול סברסים ליד הגדר שקבע המנהל ופנימה לתוך השטח שלהם, על מנת לקבוע עובדות בשטח ולסמן את הגבול. תושבי טוואנה חוששים שהגדר פשוט תלך ותתרחק כל פעם עוד קצת אל תוך שטחם, דבר שייגמר בהפקעה גמורה של כל השטח. לאחר כשעה של חפירת בורות לשתילים והתחלת השתילה הגיעו הצבא והמשטרה. למרות נוכחותם, הם לא מנעו מאיתנו לעבוד, והעבודה הסתיימה כעבור שעתיים. כל השתילים שהיו במריצות נשתלו וסומנו במעגל אבנים סביבם, ואף הושקו.
מטוואנה המשכנו לסוסיא הפלשתינית, שם אורגן יום בניית והעפת עפיפונים לילדי האזור ולילדי פעילים. גם לשם לווינו על ידי הצבא, אך הוא לא מנע מבעדנו את הפעילות. הפעילות התנהלה על מי מנוחות ועפיפונים חגו בשמי סוסיא. מפתיע וגם משמח היה (למרות שלא אמור להיות שום דבר מפתיע בהעפת עפיפונים שאינה נחשבת מעשה פלילי, אבל במציאות שלנו כנראה לכל פעולה יש פוטנציאל כזה ) לראות את הילדים נהנים, למרות שנוכחות הצבא הרתיעה אחדים.
Saturday 03.10.09
On Saturday morning we went to work with the residents of Twane in south Mount Hebron. The settlers from neighboring Ma’on invaded the valley which lies between them and Twane and planted grape vines in the land owned by the Palestinians. After the settlers took over the land de facto, the military Civil Administration declared all the land which they planted as belonging to them and the remaining land as belonging to Twane (even though all of the land in the area is owned by Twane). However, when the Civil Administration erected a fence between the two areas it was put up, not immediately after the vines but several hundred meters inside the Palestinian land, in such a way as to take over a larger part of their land.
We went with the residents of Twane to plant sabra cactuses near the new fence on the Palestinian side in order to mark the border and show the Palestinian ownership of the area. The Palestinians are worried that the fence will be inched forward as time goes on, slowly taking over the whole of their land in the area. After working the land for about an hour, and just as we were beginning to place the plants in the ground the police and army arrived. However there was no attempt to stop us from working and after two hours the work was done. All the seedlings in the wheelbarrows were planted, marked with a circle of stones and watered.
From Twane we continued to Chirbet Susya, where there was a kite building and flying day for the children of the area and the children of the activists. We were followed by the army but they did not interfere with the activity which took place without any problems. It was nice and surprising to see the children having fun despite military presence which frightened some of them (there of course should be nothing surprising in the success of the activity, as kite flying is in no way illegal and yet it seems that in our reality even this is not to be taken for granted).
A Testament to one of Israel’s Greatest Journalists
Oct 27th
Posted by Joseph Dana in Unarmed Resistance
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