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Mohammad Said Kalash, "Offering Reconciliation" exhibit (photo: Ilan Amihai)

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Posts Tagged ‘israeli-occupation’

Rabbi Joseph Lukinsky, May His Memory Be for a Blessing

Monday, February 6th, 2012
joseph lukinsky

Rabbi Joseph Lukinsky z"l

I’ve been rummaging through the attic of my life for a media project I’m involved with.  A cousin just found a picture of my father, smiling, handsome and so full of young promise, at age 23 in 1948.  When my partner in this project asked who she could speak with about me in Israel, I naturally thought of Rabbi Joe Lukinsky.  He’d been my teacher in 1969, when I attended the Camp Ramah program in Nyack, NY.  Later, he’d been my teacher when I studied in Israel on a junior year abroad program at the Hebrew University.

With deep sadness, I discovered that Rabbi Lukinsky died of cancer in 2009 at age 78.  In Jewish tradition, when such a man dies you say: zichron tzadik livracha (“may the memory of this righteous one be for a blessing”).  Joe truly was a tzadik, a saint.  Of course, that is a huge weight to place on anyone.  But you could place it lightly on his shoulders because he was such a modest self-effacing man.  He didn’t win you over by erudition or intellectual presence or spellbinding preacherly oratory.  He won you over with a smile, with his charm, with his love of humanity.

Joe went through the 60s, the era of long-hair, psychedelia and relevance as the straightest of  straight arrows.  He sported a crew cut and always informally dressed in short sleeves, which revealed those muscular arms that could hit home runs over rooftops.  He looked like a Marine Corps drill sergeant, albeit a very gentle one.   I remember a twinkle in his eyes and a ready smile that at times turned into a hearty laugh.

I was a troubled 17-year-old from a dysfunctional family when I met him at Nyack in 1969.  Back then, the world appeared to be coming to an end.  The Vietnam war raged, campuses burned, Martin Luther King had died a few months earlier.  I was a rebellious teenager who dared Judaism to be relevant to my world.  I didn’t see how it could be.

Camp Ramah was known for its rigorous Judaic curriculum including courses on Tanach, Midrash, Jewish philosophy, and liturgy.  Until this summer, frankly, I’d found these classes to be wanting.  So when they laid out the Jewish curriculum for that summer and asked us to choose our classes, nothing inspired me.  As I recall it, Joe was the educational director.  He met with me and asked what I was choosing.  I told him nothing appealed to me.  I’m certain I was probably quite morose in the way only teenagers can be.

But Joe did something both brilliant and devious at the same time.  He threw the question of what I would study back and me and said: “If you could study about any subject, what would it be?”  I must’ve thought it was a trick question.  How could I study any subject I wanted when I was seemingly bound by the courses offered which I’d already told him didn’t appeal to me?

Two years before, the 1967 War had happened.  It had a big impact on many American Jews of the time.  It must’ve disturbed me in some profound way because I told Joe that I’d study about Israel and the impact of the Six Day War on Zionism.  He said: “Great.  Why don’t you make your own course.  I’ll work with you to develop a reading list, we’ll meet to discuss what you’re reading and you’ll write a paper at the end of the summer.”  I probably thought the idea was a bit nuts at the time.  How could I create my own course?  But by God, that’s what we did.  That’s how I first learned about Martin Buber, Judah Magnes and Brit Shalom.  That’s when I first read Arthur Hertzberg‘s The Zionist Idea.  That’s when I first became a thinking Zionist.  By that I mean the critical Zionist I am today.

You have no idea what this did to the self-esteem of a troubled young boy.  It taught me that I had ideas of value.  It taught me how to take on a big topic, research it carefully, and come up with a coherent, articulate critique into which I could put all of my intellectual self.  This was huge.

Joe knew far more about this subject than I, and he suggested that I send my final paper to Prof. Ernst Simon, one of the few surviving member of the original Brit Shalom circle.  I was a 17-year-old pisher.  What did I know?  I thought it was an odd idea for me to be sending my work to an eminent 80-year-old retired professor who’d stood at the brink of the Zionist era.  But that was the power and brilliance of Joe.  He looked at you with that magnetic smile and chuckle of his and said: “Why not?”

I remember that my paper warned of the dangers that the Occupied Territories posed to Israel.  I discussed the likelihood of Israel turning into an apartheid state.  South Africa was in the air in those days and I compared Israel to that country’s systematic discrimination against its black majority.  It was probably also a bit of chutzpah for this teenager to tell someone like Ernst Simon that Israel was like one of the world’s pariah states.  I remember that Simon actually did me the favor of replying.  As I remember it, his reply was gracious, revealing none of the sense of chutzpah that he might’ve felt for the sharpness of my ideas and expression.

In 1972, I finally got to Israel and studied in the Hebrew University’s special program for Jewish educators.  It was my first academic year in Israel.  My first experience studying in Hebrew.  It was intense, it was challenging.  Joe Lukinsky was himself on a sabbatical year from his teaching at the Jewish Theological Seminary and was one of the faculty for the Hebrew University program.  I wrote another challenging paper for him that time as well.  It was the first time I addressed the conflict between Israel and Diaspora under the terms of classical Zionism.  I suggested that the standard approach of Zionist thought, which demeaned the galut and treated it as a phenomenon that would wither away as Israel assumed its rightful and primary place in Jewish life, was absolutely wrong.

Instead of Israel being primary and Diaspora being secondary, I suggest a co-equal relationship between the two: that the Diaspora would never die as long as Jews lived.  I said that the Diaspora enriched Jewish identity as much as Israel did, and that the two should have a complementary relationship.  This was the first time I grappled with the idea of Diasporism.  In my paper, I also rejected the secularist notion that the Diaspora was primary to Jewish life, and that Israel was alien.  I think it was all pretty radical for its day.  But it was the beauty of Joe Lukinsky that he didn’t care where your ideas took you as long as you arrived at them honestly and with real intellectual rigor.

Joe Lukinsky was one of my Jewish mentors.  He encouraged me to bring out of myself things I didn’t even know I had, things I didn’t even know I was capable of.  This is a gift, a gift beyond measure.  I wouldn’t be who or what I am today without him.  Thank you, Joe.

Now a few words about his life.  As a teenager, he was a powerful baseball player who could hit the ball a mile.  He was offered a tryout with the Chicago Cubs and could’ve played minor-league ball.  But he didn’t.  When he married Betty in the 1950s they were struck by tragedy.  Those were the days before genetic testing, when Tay Sachs was a dreaded word in Jewish families.  They had at least one child who died of this fatal condition.  I can remember someone telling me of the tragedy of having a healthy, beautiful newborn baby, who withered away before their very eyes after a few years.  Two of their other children died at an early age.  As an obituary I read, said about him: he led a Job-like life full of immense tragedy.

But you never felt that from Joe.  He was all heart, all warmth, all soul.  So my partner won’t get to meet one of the truly great American rabbis.  Won’t get to interview him and hear stories of what I was like as a sullen teenager.  What a loss.  To her, to me, to us all.  May his memory be for a blessing.

Turkey’s Erdogan, Paul Auster Debate Relative Press Freedom in Israel, Turkey

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

Over the past day or so, a fierce fight has erupted between Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan and New York Jewish author, Paul Auster.  The controversy began when Auster, whose new book was recently published in Turkey, announced to an opposition newspaperthat he refused to visit that country to promote it.  In the process, he blasted Turkey’s Islamist government for jailing authors and journalists:

paul auster shimon peres

Paul Auster paying respects to Israeli president Shimon Peres

“I refuse to come to Turkey because of imprisoned journalists and writers. How many are jailed now? Over 100?” Auster said, adding that Turkey was the country he was most worried about.

“Us democrats got rid of the Bushes. We got rid of  Cheney who should have been put on trial for war crimes,” the author said. “What is going on in Turkey?”

Erdogan, who suffers neither fools nor political opponents gladly, lashed out at Auster during a party conference, telling the author that Turkey didn’t need him to lecture it on how to be a democracy:

“Author Paul Auster…said he will not come to Turkey as he finds it anti-democratic because of arrested journalists.  Oh!  We were much in need of you!  [So] What if you come or not?” Erdoğan said during a party meeting yesterday.

Criticizing Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), and the newspapers for giving credit to Auster’s statements, Erdoğan asked, “Will Turkey lose altitude if you don’t come?”

Recalling that Auster joined a book fair in 2010 in Israel where he described Israel as a “secular, democratic country,” Erdoğan slammed the American writer for being unaware of the fact Israel was a non-secular state and had killed thousands of innocent people in the Gaza Strip. “I am sure Kılıçdaroğlu and Auster will join together for this year’s book fair in Israel,” he added.

Auster replied to Erdogan’s attack with this statement:

Whatever the Prime Minister might think about the state of Israel, the fact is that free speech exists there and no writers or journalists are in jail…All countries are flawed and beset by myriad problems, Mr. Prime Minister, including my United States, including your Turkey, and it is my firm conviction that in order to improve conditions in our countries, in every country, the freedom to speak and publish without censorship or the threat of imprisonment is a sacred right for all men and women.

While I don’t know Auster’s views about Israel, I presume he’s the typical liberal Zionist.  The brief substantive exchange he included about it in his reply indicated a fairly standard lib Zionist approach to the issue of Israel’s so-called democratic values, including press freedom and free speech.  It’s a shame he didn’t do his homework, as if he had he could’ve both bolstered his criticism of Turkey and done justice to the issue of the grave threats facing Israeli democracy.

There is no question that while Turkey as a nation has made great economic and political strides under Erdogan’s Islamist party, that country remains deficient in many areas which are well-known to many.  Kurds are denied basic rights, acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide is a crime, and freedoms that many in the west take for granted are routinely threatened in Turkey.  All of this is undeniably true.  As a friend of mine married to a Turk and living there says: while there is more freedom of speech than there has been in many decades, it is still a crime to “insult Turkishness” or say something “un-Turkish.”  The media is largely bought and paid for by moguls with large business empires who are willing to use their platforms to advance their business interests.  They do this by ingratiating themselves with the powers that be.  In the few instances when a corporate titan has allowed his journalists too much free rein to attack the government, he has paid a very high price in the economic warfare officials wage against him.

On the positive side, the country has made enormous strides in reducing poverty and addressing economic disparities and building wealth.  It has also undertaken a foreign policy offensive which has made it a critical regional player attempting to bring stability to such conflicts as Syria-Israel and Iran.  It will undoubtedly play a key role in ensuring the future stability of Syria if/when the Assad government falls.

But to get into a competition between the so-called freedoms of Israel and the so-called injustices of Turkey is a losing game.  Israel needs to be examined in its own right and not in comparison to any other country.

israeli military censorship

The list of rules for military censorship; caption: 'Censorship: the freedom to express oneself responsibly' (Ynet)

So let’s return to Paul Auster’s claims about Israel.  He hasn’t even scratched the surface.  Israeli journalists and media are under the gravest of threats from the right-wing government and its thuggish non-governmental allies.  Uri Blau, one of Israel’s leading investigative reporters, who broke the story of IDF targeted assassinations in violation of Supreme Court rulings, faces six years in prison if the government decides to prosecute him.  His crime?  He published top secret documents leaked to him by whistleblower, Anat Kamm.  Jared Malsin, English language editor of the Palestinian independent news agency, Maan, was imprionsed by Israeli authorities for nearly a week, and then deported because they no longer wished to allow him to practice journalism in the West Bank.

Military censorship applies to wide swaths of Israeli journalism and can be invoked regarding stories great and small. Though Israelis have learned to read between the lines to discover when a story has been censored, they still don’t know what information they’ve been denied nor why.

The Israeli prime minister told the editor of the Jerusalem Post that the two greatest enemies Israel faces are the New York Times and Haaretz. That is, Israel’s leading liberal daily is a threat to the existence of the State of Israel. Does it remind you of Nixon’s enemies list? It should. Does that begin to scare you, Mr. Auster? It should.

Israeli journalists from around the country called an emergency meeting two months ago to rally against threats to press freedom. The organizer of this event, Uri Misgav, reporting for Yediot Achronot, recently lost his job. Another reporter who wrote for Maariv, Ruth Sinai, lost her job as well. Her editor, a former associate of Bibi Netanyahu’s told her:

“Post-Zionist journalists will not write for his paper”.

This is Israel’s second-largest circulation paper. Does that scare you? It should.

The director of the Prime Minister’s office, who is himself under investigation for sex harassment, blackmailed TV Channel 10 by demanding that it fire investigative journalist Raviv Drucker in return for the government not taking the station off the air.  Drucker had just aired a damaging story about Bibi Netanyahu’s flaunting of ethics rules while he was an MK.

The Israeli Knesset is considering a new law which would drastically reduce the level of proof needed to convict someone of libel.  It would massively increase awards against those found guilty of defamation.  Complainants wouldn’t even need to establish proof of any economic damage in order to be compensated.  Publishers could also be held liable for defamation for comments published in the Talkback section.

Journalists who report from Israel for Arab language outlets like Al Jazeera face routine embarrassment and harassment at the hands of Israeli security officials.  This has included the stripping of female journalists by security agents before meetings with the prime minister.

Israel’s press is dominated by a single newspaper, Yisrael HaYom, funded by a billionaire for the express purpose of bringing Bibi to power and keeping him there.  Does this sound like a country that enjoys a free press?

I urge Mr. Auster and anyone concered about freedom of the press in Israel to visit the site of Keshev, Israel’s leading NGO in this field. Israel’s leading website providing media criticism and advocacy is Seventh Eye. Though it is only in Hebrew, it is highly recommended.

Regarding free speech, the threats are enormous.  Peace activists are routinely dragged before the Shin Bet for interrogation for the crime of speaking their mind.  The women of New Profile were threatened with prison for advocating draft resistance in opposition to the Occupation.  Ilana Hammerman has similarly been questioned three times and threatened with prosecution for the crime of bringing Palestinian mothers and children into Israel to breathe fresh air at the beach and go to the zoo.  Solidarity activists at Sheikh Jarrah are routinely arrested and assaulted by Israeli police for opposing eviction of Palestinians from their homes.  Peace Now staff have faced bomb and death threats from settler extremists and the Israeli police don’t even prosecute when they know the identities of the perpetrators.

The Israeli justice system allows extensive use of gag orders to protect the interests of the state, the military, and the wealthy.  Gag orders are routinely granted without having to prove any specific jeopardy to the protected party.  Rape victims often may not discuss the crimes committed against them if they’re accusing a powerful man of harming them and he has a good attorney who can secure a gag order (cf. Yoav Even).

Though I know of few threats to writers of the sort that Auster complains about in Turkey, Israeli performers who don’t toe the political line pay the price as major roles dry up on stage and screen.  Haaretz, this week, featured a profile of Mohammed Bakri, perhaps Israel’s most famous Palestinian actor.  After directing the documentary, Jenin Jenin, he was blackballed from many work opportunities in Israel.  The Israeli Film Board banned the film until the Supreme Court lifted it.  He has not acted on an Israeli stage since 2003, a year after the film came out:

The last time Bakri…was seen on an Israeli stage was in 2003, in Shlomi Moskovitz’s “Seven Days,” directed by Dedi Baron at the Habima Theater…More recently Bakri was supposed to have replaced an Arab actor in one play and another theater director did not employ him, fearing reactions like those of Im Tirtzu. That is, Bakri’s prospects for employment in Israel have already been affected without Im Tirtzu’s campaign against him.

A decade ago or so, Chava Alberstein recorded a powerful anti-Occupation work which adapted the traditional Pesach song, Chad Gadya.  Many radio stations boycotted the song, the singer received death threats and she didn’t perform in Israel for many years.  The only places she could perform were abroad, where the controversy was less well-known.

So is Israel is haven for free speech and free press?  Hardly.  In fact, Paul Auster owes it to himself and his readers to study this issue in much greater depth.  He could speak out about these matters the next time he’s in Israel.  In fact, after what he’s said in the midst of this controversy, he has a responsibility to do so.  I’ve suggested to progressive bloggers in New York that they seek a dialogue with Auster and perhaps a public event sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace or PEN to address the freedom deficit facing Israel.  I think it would be bracing and informative.  What better person to invite to speak on a panel with Auster than Jared Malsin, who spent a week in an Israeli jail cell for the crime of being a good reporter?

Israel Once Again Murders Unarmed Palestinian Protester

Saturday, December 10th, 2011
mustafa tamimi killing

Mustafa Tamimi a moment before being fatally struck by tear gas canister, left-hand red circle (Haim Scwarczenberg)

Mustafa Tamimi, a 28 year old resident of Nabi Saleh, was fatally shot in the head at close range by a tear gas canister fired by an IDF soldier from the rear of a patrol vehicle. You can see the moment just before Mustafa was hit in this photo.  The original caption for the photo offered by the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee says it was fired from 30 feet.  Using the high velocity weapon they use, it is quite easy to kill someone from that distance.  Not to mention that the purpose of the firing of this weapon in this circumstance had nothing to do with crowd control as tear gas is normally used.  Rather in aiming the shot at the protesters head, it was a deliberate act of murder:

In complete disregard to the army’s own open fire regulations, soldiers often shoot tear-gas projectiles directly at groups of protesters or individuals. Rubber-coated bullets are indiscriminately shot at protesters from short distances on a regular basis. The Israeli army also resumed the use of high velocity tear-gas projectiles in Nabi Saleh, despite the fact that they have been declared banned for use, after causing the death of Bassem Abu Rahmah in the neighboring village of Bil’in, in April 2009, and the critical injury of American protester Tristan Anderson in Ni’ilin in March of the same year.

Here is a bit of history behind the demonstrations in this particular village:

Late in 2009, settlers began gradually taking over Ein al-Qaws (the Bow Spring), which rests on lands belonging to Bashir Tamimi, the head of the Nabi Saleh village council. The settlers, abetted by the army, erected a shed over the spring, renamed it Maayan Meir, after a late settler, and began driving away Palestinians who came to use the spring by force – at times throwing stones or even pointing guns at them, threatening to shoot.

While residents of Nabi Saleh have already endured decades of continuous land grab and expulsion to allow for the ever continuing expansion of the Halamish settlement, the takeover of the spring served as the last straw that lead to the beginning of the village’s grassroots protest campaign of weekly demonstrations in demand for the return of their lands.

Mustafa Tamimi  seconds after he was shot by the IDF

Mustafa Tamimi seconds after he was shot by IDF

An IDF PR flack is tweeting that Tamimi’s murder was justified because he allegedly had a slingshot in his pocket.  This is Goliath firing a high-velocity lethal projectile at David, who, if the IDF is to be believed (always a risky proposition) didn’t even have his slingshot in his hand, but rather in his pocket.  This is the most egregious hilul I can imagine: blaming the victim for his own death.  This horse’s ass of an IDF captain (no less–they must promote them for being cold-hearted assholes) also notes that Tamimi was arrested in 2010.  Imagine that, he was one of the tens of thousands the IDF arrest every year for the terrible crime of protesting against the theft of their lands by settlers aided and abetted by the IDF.  The IDF also prevented the dead man’s sister and father from visiting him in the hospital before he died.

Tamimi is the 20th Palestinian to be killed in the past eight years in such non-violent protests according to B’Tselem.

I hate to say it but this murder and Captain Barak Raz’s heartless response indicate that Israel, at least if its actions in this tragedy are representative, is losing the battle not just for its soul, but for its existence.  A nation that murders in cold blood gradually loses its reason for being.  Perhaps not in the eyes of its Jewish citizens, but almost certainly in the eyes of the world.  And Israel simply cannot afford to find itself on the opposite side of every nation in the world.  It will thanks to murders like this.

New Price Tag Mosque Burning Exposes Identity of Shin Bet’s Jewish Anti-Terror Chief

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011
price tag graffiti exposes shin bet's avigdor arieli

Caption: 'Avi Arieli--the Man!' Price tag graffiti mocks Shin Bet's Avigdor Arieli

Jewish terrorists rolled flaming tires into a West Bank mosque (Hebrew) in an attempt to burn it down.  It was the second such price tag attack on a Palestinian mosque.  They attacked the village of Burkina (or “Brukin”) near Ariel and also scrawled graffiti on its walls mocking the director of the Shin Bet’s Jewish anti-terror unit, Avigdor (Avi) Arieli (see accompanying image).  In Israeli media, the name has been blurred as intelligence officials may not be publicly identified.  Several Palestinian vehicles were incinerated in the latest arson assault.

It appears either intentionally or coincidentally, the settler arsonists were doing the work of the IDF itself as Josh Breiner reports in Walla that the army has told villagers it intends to destroy the mosque because it was allegedly built, as is all new Palestinian construction inside Israel and in the West Bank, without a permit (Israel routinely refuses to issue them).

In separate incidents, several IDF soldiers were arrested under suspicion that they were involved in price tag attacks against military vehicles and a West Bank base.  The Occupation army in the region is in many cases deeply entwined with the local settler population.

As vengeance for an earlier mosque arson in a different village, local Palestinian residents stoned Israeli cars traveling on a nearby road, accidentally killing an Israeli driver and his baby.  Clearly, these price tag attacks are intended to foment religious hatred and lead to a final confrontation between Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians.  Settlers seem to hope for a final holy war in which Jews will emerge triumphant and in sole possession of the land.

Though there have been some detentions for the latest series of price tag settler attacks, no one so far has been arrested and implicated in any specific crime except the Peace Now death threats.  The identity of that suspect, Dor Oved, is under gag order because his father is a Shin Bet officer.  Shahar Oved’s job reportedly involves working in the West Bank Arab terror unit.

Tales of Sexual Humilitation at Anatot: Israeli Eyewitness

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

Stavit Sinai, an Israeli graduate student in European history and peace activist, participated in the Anatot protest several days ago.  She was savagely beaten and stripped naked by the settler-police counter-demonstrators.  She’s just published her eyewitness testimony, which I’ve translated below:

How I was beaten up, stripped naked, tortured, and threatened with being burnt alive by Anatot settlers

A balding stocky man with light-colored hair and wearing glasses, bangs my head against a white transit van.  Michal Sapir is next to me and we’re surrounded by settler-police who’ve been shoving me back and forth in opposite directions.  I fought back against them.  I knocked off the glasses of the man who thrust my head backwards and crushed them in my right hand.  He bit my hand hard, trying to release the glasses from it.

At this time, a brown-skinned man on my left began to twist my left arm in ways I had seen Border Police do in previous protests I’d attended.  He didn’t stop even when I screamed in pain.  Only a heavy blow that smashed one of my front teeth…apparently when I was kneeed in the face as my head was pushed down, freed my left hand from the pain.

Then I was knocked to the ground as a vehicle behind me moved, threatening to run me over.  Michal tried to help by raising me up.  The white van left and I got back on my feet and stood facing a tall brown-skinned man who never stopped yelling his insults at me: “Go fuck Arabs…”

At this point, the group of settlers began to shake and shove me in different directions as they tore the clothing from my upper body.  They ripped off my bra, vest and shirt.  The upper half of my body was stark naked.  Other activists tried to cover and calm me.  I remember especially that in all the efforts to get me out of there, the tall, balding brown-skinned man came close and said: “A Jewish prick isn’t good enough for you?  You want an Arab prick, hah?”

I remember another man wearing a black civilian shirt and a cap on which was the word “Police” tried to move me.  I asked him for his police ID and instead he pushed me out of the way.  An activist, Maya Rotem, brought me to her car and promised to drive me home when the protest was over.  I got into the car and locked the doors.  From that moment I tried to tweet everything that happened as long as my cell battery held out.  I wrote what happened on the ground, the blows, the disrobing and the dire situation the protesters faced that night.  I took a picture from the car and uploaded it to Twitter.  I tried to hide, not to arouse interest.  I saw how the protesters were driven backward by the settlers.

Only a few minutes passed from when I entered the vehicle when a settler recognized me.  He drew the attention of his other settler friends and they began rocking the car.  I tightened my seat belt and waited quietly for help.  In my hand, I grasped a narrow synthetic strap from my purse.  It was the only thing I could find nearby to use to defend myself and I was ready to use it to strangle the first person who approached me.  Before that, I’d tweeted that I needed other means of protection should they break in.  I covered my breasts with the little fabric that remained from my torn clothes.

The crowd around me grew, but I tried to maintain my composure.  At that moment, a soldier came by and I begged him to help me.  He gave me a look of utter boredom.  But after more begging he asked the group to move back a bit so I could leave the car.  He suggested that I get into the army jeep, but I wouldn’t agree despite the pressure that the soldiers exerted on me.  I was frightened that the settlers standing around me would resume their violence.  Because no one offered protection I began to scream at the soldiers to block me [from the settlers].  They did this indifferently.  They did check that I hadn’t left anything behind as I’d asked.  Despite this, I lost my purse which contained all my IDs including the one categorizing me as “Jewish,” despite the fact that I am not.

The door of the military vehicle in which I was sitting was opened by an older soldier, clearly a member of an ethnic minority [I'm guessing she means Druze or Bedouin].  He screamed at me and threatened to arrest me.  Apparently because I gave the settlers the finger while sitting in his vehicle.  I told him to arrest me already, because I was shamed by being in the midst of soldiers of apartheid.  He turned away, slamming the door of the vehicle.  Eventually, the soldiers returned me to my fellow activists.

I still have the tattered remnants of my clothes from that night.

An Israeli journalist who I respect, but whose politics are clearly different than mine, warned me not to put too much credibility into accusations of sexual abuse at rallies like this.  He said it was par for the course for such claims to be made.  To which I replied–one woman screaming rape or abuse may lack credibility, but five or ten?  No, this testimony is credible as are the others I’ve translated which Idan Landau collected from other Israeli eyewitness sources.

I have not heard a peep from the Anatot settlers claiming otherwise.  If they wish to do so let them.

As I’ve written, these are not the hardcore Jewish terrorists of Yitzhar.  These are the “reasonable,” “moderate” settlers who settled in Anatot because they were looking for a good place to raise their kids in a reasonably priced home, drawn by economic incentives in buying over the Green Line.  Yet, even these can be monsters.  It’s not just the individual who determines whether someone becomes a cruel villain, it’s the situation.  And the situation is Occupation, which turns us all into monsters sooner or later.

The victims of this pogrom are demanding an independent investigation.  It’ll be a cold day in hell before that happens.  Though you’re welcome to call your local Israeli embassy or consulate to tell them about the black eye that such violence gives the nation.  There is also talk of civil suits against Anatot and its pogromists, which I hope to see.

Anatot Pogrom Victims Suffered Sexual Abuse

Tuesday, October 4th, 2011
anatot pogrom victim

Image from publication, 'The True Right' with caption: 'Nazileftist smashed with blows.'

If all I did in this post was tell you about the suffering of Israeli peace activists who were beaten and brutalized at a pogrom at Anatot a few days ago, I would be telling you little that was newsworthy or that you didn’t know already.  I’ve already reported here that senior Israeli police officers not only stood by and did nothing while bones were broken and one settler attempted to knife a protester, but that the police actually directly beat up the activists who’d come to support a Palestinian farmer whose land had been stolen by the settlement.

No, all this would be old news.  But what Idan Landau has done is to focus very specifically on the level of sexual violence meted out to the female protesters by the settlers.  But not just by the male settlers, by the female settlers specifically.  I’ve read about the violence of which settlers are capable for years.  That’s nothing new.  But what Idan has collected in his blog post is new.  Here is my translation (pardon the strong language which is in the original Hebrew) along with links to the original Hebrew eyewitness sources.  Israeli journalist Haggai Matar quotes this victim:

“Outside [the vehicle], settlers are banging on the windows making a sign with their fingers drawn across their throats to show that they would slash my throat.  They shriek: ‘Bring her outside [the vehicle].  We’ll deal with her.  Give her what she has coming to her, the whore!’”

Tali Harkavy writes in Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity:

“‘Hellenist [derogatory term for Jew who betrays her religion].  Arabs fuck her in the ass.’  I want to get away.  To run.  I retreat quickly with my back to the path and my front to the attackers.  Afraid to turn my back on them.  One approaches too closely and rubs his crotch: ‘I’ll fuck you.’  He was serious.”

Sarah Benninga writes in Sheikh Jarrah:

“When the wives of the male attackers saw their husbands hitting male and female protestors alike, they [the settler women] applauded and spat at me: ‘Traitor,’ ‘You deserve it.’  And when they heard their husbands threaten us: ‘We’ll fuck you in the ass,’ they suddenly turned into men themselves, applauding their husbands’ sexual conquests as if they were one of the boys.”

Tal Konig reports in HaOketz:

“Three went to the hospital.  Among them, Yassine [the Palestinian farmer originally attacked] with an open head wound, his wife over whose head they broke a broom handle, after which they abused her sexually.”

Stavit Sinai tweeted:

“The settlers actually stripped me naked.  I tried to calm myself.  History will bury them and their evil apartheid in blood.”

Landau interprets the language of the settlers as their means of revenge and redemption of their self-respect.  Through rape, sodomy and other physical and verbal acts the honor of the tribe is upheld.  It’s primitive, brutal, bestial, but alas all too human.  We think we are Jews, that we don’t do such things, that we are civilized, that we have our sacred books and traditions that raise us above such brutalism.  Alas, violence like this reminds us that we are only those things in our best moments.  In our worst, we are no different.  And when we are no different, we have betrayed those traditions which we like to think set us apart or above the worst humanity has to offer.

Finally, a word about the image Idan features in his post.  Note that the face of the victim has been literally defaced.  She is no longer a human being.  She is in Hebrew a “SmolaNazi” (“Nazi leftist” or the equivalent of “Islamonazi”).  This is the face of the Occupation.  This is the dehumanization that settlements and oppression of another people do to Israel.  And keep in mind that, as I’ve written before, Anatot is not Yitzhar; it isn’t the worst of the settlers, the ones harboring the real Jewish terrorists willing to put a bullet in an Arab’s back just for looking at ‘em.  Anatot is known for being an average settlement where Israelis moved for improved quality of life and for inexpensive housing giving them more house for their money.  These are the economic settlers, not the ideological settlers.  If Occupation can turn these people into beasts it can do this to anyone, even the best of us.

So far, not a peep from the Israeli government about an investigation of this incident or prosecution of the criminal acts that took place.  Really, they can’t.  70% of the residents of Anatot are police officers.  Can they try ten or fifteen police officers for serious crimes without the entire national police force rising up as one in protest?  These criminals are, in effect, the state.  Can the state arrest and try itself?

If Israelis themselves won’t pressure to investigate, perhaps you can contact the Israeli embassy or consulate nearest where you live and protest this brutality and demand that they take action.  Tell them that actions such as these are a disgrace to Israel’s reputation and bring ignominy upon it.  That may get them to take notice.

And once again, I warn that the U.S. government is allowing American Jews to send tens of millions of dollars to brutal, violent settlers and settlements just like this one, tax-free.  We Americans and the Obama administration are colluding in this brutalization through our tax-deductible contributions.

Israeli Police Join Settler Pogrom at Anatot, 23 Israeli, Palestinian Activists Injured

Friday, September 30th, 2011



Israeli settlers have celebrated the second day of the New Year of 5772 in the only way they know how, by a pogrom which drew the blood of Palestinians and Israeli peace activists who’d come to a Palestinian village to help a local landowner plant olive trees.  Instead, settlers swarmed the group, smashed the skull of the Palestinian farmer (sending him to Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital) and assaulted the individuals while the police stood by and did nothing.  In fact it is worse than that, Israeli activists who were present saw that settlers were wearing police issue T-shirts and their service weapons, which are distinctive for the police. They brought their police attack dogs as well. The hooligans broke bones, smashed car windows, slashed tires and destroyed cameras, all in good fun. And no one, of course, was held accountable nor will anyone.

This is not just settler terrorism, it is in effect state-sanctioned terror since a number of the protestors were officers of the state (even though nominally off duty).  Unfortunately, this is precisely what we’ve come to expect of this rabid government which turns a blind eye to the holliganism of its friends in the lunatic fringe of the settler community.  Perhaps I’m even being too charitable in distinguishing between the settlers and the government.  They all seem joined at the hip.  Just as Hamas has its political and military wing, so the settler pogromits seem to be the Likud’s terror wing (Likud doesn’t need a military wing since it has the IDF).

EU Threatens Suspending Palestinian Aid for ‘Unilateral Acts,’ U.S. Threatens Suspending $3 Billion in Aid for New Settlement

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011
abbas at un

Abbas holds aloft Palestinian application for UN membership, and statehood: a 'unilateral' act

Just testing to see if you were awake.  No, Hillary Clinton didn’t threaten suspension of $3 billion in annual U.S. aid in response to the Israeli announcement that it would build 1,100 news housing units in the East Jerusalem settlement of Gilo.  She should have.  But didn’t.  But you can bet your Gilo apartment on the fact that the U.S. and EU will suspend millions in aid to the PA if the UN approves Palestinian statehood.

Note the irony in the juxtaposition of these two news stories:

European Union representatives have told the Palestinians that any unilateral move on their part will put European aid to the Palestinian Authority at risk, according to senior UN officials in New York.

Haaretz

Israel announced plans Tuesday for 1,100 new housing units in an area of East Jerusalem outside Israel’s pre-1967 boundaries. The move reflects Israel’s continued rejection of Palestinian demands for a halt in settlement construction as a condition for peace talks.

San Francisco Chronicle

gilo housing settlement

New housing in Gilo: NOT a 'unilateral' act.

So, a Palestinian campaign for statehood is unilateral and will result in the Palestinians losing their largest foreign benefactors and driving hundreds of thousands into even greater privation than they now face. But 1,100 new Israeli housing units on occupied Palestinian land is not, and will not result in the suspension of $3 billion in U.S. aid. Makes perfect sense to me.

And did you all see that nice lady, Hillary Clinton telling that bad, bad Bibi that he shouldn’t do those mean things to her friend, Mahmoud? It was touching.

In the meantime, Israel’s inner cabinet can’t even agree to accept the terms of the Quartet for returning to talks in one month and agreeing to a final settlement in one year.  Despite the fact that Bibi has already publicly embraced the proposal.  Gotta tell ya, Tony Blair and his friends in the Quartet have always impressed me with their political muscle.

Likud young blood, Danny Danon, is teaming up with Tea Party darling, Rep. Joe Walsh, to propose both in the Knesset and Congress that Israel annex a major portion of the West Bank (it has already annexed the Golan and East Jerusalem) in retribution for the Palestinians’ chutzpah in attempting to gain statehood from the UN.  Think Progress reports that Walsh is concerned that American Jews “aren’t pro-Israel enough” and that he has to show them the way through his Congressional resolution.

Clearly, Walsh’s goal is to embarrass the White House, which ostensibly opposes settlements and the Israeli Occupation.  But if the House actually voted to endorse annexation it would put the U.S. legislative branch on record supporting a major violation of international law, not to mention set the possibility for Middle East peace back, oh, at least a few decades.  I don’t suppose anyone’s ever told the Tea Party-ers that foreign policy is the sole purview of the executive branch, have they?

Last but never least, Tom “Terrific” Friedman writes from his august perch next door to the Sulzberger family throne room that “all” the Palestinians have to do to get a peace deal is give up the Right of Return.  More clear-thinking from Israel’s man at the Times.

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