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Tag: Zionism

  • The Consequences of Conflating Religion, Race, Nationality and Citizenship

    The Consequences of Conflating Religion, Race, Nationality and Citizenship

    Jewish National FundWritten by Joseph Schechla

    Much has been written, forgotten and written again over the past century on the subject of Zionism and Israel’s unique civil status categories and corresponding practices. For a person with a long life and memory, it may be surprising to find that the crucial distinction between nationality and citizenship in Israel is news to so many people concerned with the conflict and problem of Zionism. Understandably for observers not regularly engaged in the conflict, such as human rights treaty body members, the concept has been a revelation.1

    Why is this fundamental distinction, with its corresponding terminology, a new frontier for others, including many Palestinians long disadvantaged by the institutionalization and material consequences of that very distinction in practice?

    A partial answer may lie in the nature and history of anti-Zionism outside Palestine, which has experienced waves and currents since Jewish nationalism first sprang from its eugenic “primordial soup” in race-obsessed fin-de-siècle Europe.2 The Zionist notion that people of Jewish faith constituted a “race” offended emancipationist Jews first and foremost then. That quintessential premise of Zionist ideology and its colonial movement reverted to a presumed, albeit long-discredited, theory that was popular with Jew haters. They and other racists have always sought, conceptually at first, to assert a convincing distinction of the denigrated group so as to socialize the notion that they (the inferior lot) are not like us (self-acclaimed superior beings). The most ambitious racists have tried to invoke scientific – even genetic – criteria for their arguments.

    Monumental thinkers and activists, including the Jewish emancipationist Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86), had already struggled intensely to rid Europeans of Jewish faith – and their neighbors – of the convenient falsehood that practitioners of Judaism formed a single, alien bloodline. Such intellectual contributions to debunking that racist notion include a long pedigree of biblical scholars, from Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918), who influenced Hebrew Union College President Rabbi Nelson Glueck (1900–71), who, in turn, mentored Rabbi Elmer Berger (1908–96), who later became the American Council for Judaism’s unwaveringly anti-Zionist executive director.

    Advocates of the emancipation of Jews as equal citizens living in democracy – a condition distinct and apart from assimilation3 – also include such notable figures as Berr Isaac Berr (1744–1828), Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), Johann Jacoby (1805–77), Gabriel Riesser (1806–63), and Lionel Nathan Rothschild (1808–79), who drew much of their philosophical inspiration from, and indeed were part of European Enlightenment. As Berger explains, the emancipationist tradition descending from Mendelssohn’s intellectual line sought not only to be free from anti-Semitism, whose proponents sought to characterize people of Jewish faith as a separate “race,” but also from the oppressive Jewish community leadership, exemplified by the stifling authoritarianism and ritualistic religiosity of the shtetl.4

    The emancipationist and, at once, anti-Zionist wave in North America drew on this liberal tradition to oppose the Zionist institutions, which embodied much of what the emancipationists in the “Old World” struggled against for centuries, especially the conflation of the Jewish faith with “race.” That Jewish emancipationist wave crested in the late 1960s, as Zionist myths and the power of Zionist institutions dwarfed the American Council for Judaism, the Reform Movement’s most important organized emancipationist anti-Zionist force. The Council was reduced to a mere shadow of its former self, and the affiliated senior advocates of anti-Zionism in that period, including Rabbi Henry Cohen (1863–1952), Judah Magnes (1877–1948), Rabbi Louis Wolsey (1877–1953), Rabbi Abraham Cronbach (1882–1965), Rabbi Morris Lazaron (1888–1979), Lessing J. Rosenwald (1891–1979), Moshe Menuhin (1893–1983) and Rabbi Elmer Berger, alas, have all passed away.

    At least a generation now has intervened since most of these anti-Zionist advocates deceased, and two generations have lapsed since the decline of the American Council for Judaism. While some of that history and its continuity are accessible on the current Council’s website,5 the enduring and most commonly identifiable Jewish anti-Zionist positions arise from either the Marxist or Orthodox traditions. The recent book by Shlomo Sand that exposes the constructed myth of a “Jewish people/nation”6 makes no reference to predecessor Elmer Berger, despite his prolific writing on the subject for half of the 20th Century.7

    Benefiting from the arguments of the emancipationist tradition, we can better understand the problem they found with the concept of a “Jewish race,” a “Jewish people” and/or, especially, “Jewish nationality.” The institutionalization of this concept, with its grave material consequences for the indigenous people under Israeli rule, reveals how the “Jewish race/people/nationality” concept violates a bundle of human rights of the Palestinian people. In the prophetic writing of Elmer Berger, for example, empowering and funding institutions set up to implement this constructed distinction can only be harmful to Jews and impede – even reverse – their emancipation in democratic countries. However, applied in a country of mixed population and in the context of colonization, where those Zionist institutions operate to privilege people “of Jewish race or descendancy,” it would also predictably harm the “non-Jewish” population.

    And so it has come to pass.

    It Harms Jews

    As the Jewish emancipationists teach us, “Jewish nationality” is a concept arising from Zionist ideology that has become enshrined in the charters of the principal Zionist institutions engaged in colonizing Palestine since the end of the 19th Century (World Zionist Organization/Jewish Agency8 and Jewish National Fund9). Thus, even before the Zionist colonization project found resources and other means to colonize Palestine, the very codification of such a racialist concept, particularly by institutions populated and affiliated with Jews, could not have been more objectionable.

    It Promotes a Racist Classification of Jews

    For Jewish emancipationists, for centuries advocating common citizenship and nondiscrimination guaranteed by the democratic state, the notion of a “Jewish race,” as such, undermines the pursuit of equal status for all people of Jewish faith, or of any creed or color. Zionism creates an unwanted barrier between them and their neighbors. The creation of a race identity for Jews encourages stereotyping and seeks to provide a scientific basis for discrimination. While this concerned the emancipationist Jew directly, the promotion of a “Jewish race” also runs counter to more general efforts to combat the ideological falsehood of racism.

    In fact, humans are far more genetically similar than other species. They are all homo sapien sapiens, without subspecies. Any superficial differences manifest as a result of three possible processes: random mutations, natural adaptations to climate and environment, and personal selection. The last of these involves the physical mixing of new genetic material through procreation by otherwise distant partners brought together by choice, travel, migration, conquest or trade.

    The use of “race” as a means of justifying the exploitation of a human group or groups by others is inherently immoral. Such racism has been condemned by scientists, law makers and diplomats at the international level. A UNESCO statement following World War II, The Race Question, reflects the collaboration of leading natural and social scientists commonly rejecting race theories and a morally condemning racism.10 That consensus statement suggested, in particular, to “drop the term ‘race’ altogether and speak of ‘ethnic groups.’”11 In the post-Nazi era, “Jewish race” is an anachronism.

    It Claims to Act on Behalf of All Jews

    The concept of “Jewish race” incorporated in the charters of the Zionist institutions, thus, became coupled with the Zionist political program. The objective of colonizing Palestine to create a “Jewish national home” implied that such an enterprise was being carried out in the name of, and on the behalf of all people of Jewish faith. The Jewish objection to such a generalization was grounded in the value and fact of free will among individual Jews, regardless of the individual’s position on the colonization of Palestine. Open inquiry and debate has been a time-honored Jewish methodological tradition. The Zionist cry for all Jews to rally to the colonial project on the basis of an involuntary and immutable affiliation to a “Jewish race” was seen as alien and antidemocratic on its face. The conformism required by Zionist leaders, theories and institutions led to eventual bullying tactics against non-compliant Jews.12 For those with a deeper historical memory, that invoked life in the shtetl, from which so many sought to one day be free.

    Israel’s Basic Law: Law of Return (1950), while defining a nationality right of “return” (aliyah)13 reserved for Jews only, provides a definition of belonging to this category of persons – including citizens of Israel, or of other countries – as members of the Jewish “race” promoted in the Jewish National Fund (JNF) charter. The Law of Return specifies, for the purpose of that Law, that “‘Jew’ means a person who was born of a Jewish mother or has become converted to Judaism and who is not a member of another religion.”14

    Both Zionist leaders and institutions, as well as Israeli politicians, have interpreted support for practical Zionism (replacing the indigenous people of Palestine) variously as a “Jewish” obligation, and/or as an act of survival, self-preservation and even “national liberation” for Jews.15 Any specter of Jewish persecution potentially helps to make this Zionist argument convincing.

    Along with the concept of belonging to the Zionist project to colonize Palestine by virtue of some biological imperative also came the insistence that a “good Jew,” a “good Zionist,” should live in Israel, or at least support the Zionist project from other countries, if necessary. In the minimum, this could be accomplished by Jewish children everywhere dropping coins into JNF blue boxes to contribute to the colonization effort.

    In the legal dimension, Israel’s World Zionist Organization–Jewish Agency (Status) Law (1952), whose importance is discussed below, specifies that Israel is the state of the “Jewish people” and provides:

    The mission of gathering in the exiles, which is the central task of the State of Israel and the Zionist Movement in our days, requires constant efforts by the Jewish people in the Diaspora; the State of Israel, therefore, expects the cooperation of all Jews, as individuals and groups, in building up the State and assisting the immigration to it of the masses of the people, and regards the unity of all sections of Jewry as necessary for this purpose

    It Imposes a Foreign “Nationality” on Jews

    A practical feature of “Jewish nationality” is that Israel and its “national” (para-state) institutions, including the World Zionist Organization/Jewish Agency (WZO/JA) and Jewish National Fund (JNF), apply this charter-based status to Jews living in many countries around the word. These institutions extend the Jewish “obligation” to support Zionism practically and financially, whereas the State of Israel is precluded, as is any foreign state, from interfering in the status of any citizen in a country outside its internationally defined state jurisdiction. The Zionist institutions, as Israeli state agents, nonetheless operate overseas programs to engage and recruit Jews in their own countries of citizenship to carry out “practical Zionism.”16

    In the 1960s, Reform Jews in the United States objected to the Zionists’ imposition of an unwanted second “nationality” and foreign state affiliation imposed by the WZO/JA. At their request, the U.S. Department of State issued a legal opinion in response to this unique case of foreign state intervention in the status of U.S. citizens. The legal position affirmed that the United States “does not regard [Israel’s extraterritorial] ‘Jewish people’ concept as a concept of international law.”17 The related legal battle led to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia forcing the U.S. Justice Department to register WZO/JA as foreign agents, instead of the tax-exempt charity status that they claimed to themselves.

    Since 1791, with the recognition of Jews as French citizens equal to other citizens in all rights and obligations, emancipation became the norm across Europe and the wider world. Israeli para-state institutions imposing “Jewish nationality” and promoting corresponding obligations on citizens of some fifty other countries where those institutions operate may be seen as threatening to undo over three hundred years of progress in the struggle for equal status of the Jew as citizen in a democracy. The concept of “Jewish nationality,” or belonging to a “Jewish nation” (le’om yahudi) also gives credence to the old anti-Semitic charge that Jews are disloyal to the countries in which they live. In this light, the “Jewish race/nationality” concept makes Jews outside Israel vulnerable to reprisal and charged of alien status. Moreover, these breaches of international legal norms on nationality vitiate the rights of other sovereign states by inciting their Jewish citizens to emigrate and pledge allegiance to a foreign country (Israel) and extending an additional alien civil status to them by claiming them as subjects under the legal jurisdiction of Israel.

    Also for Jews in Israel, the “national” institutions and corresponding legislation apply “Jewish nationality” to create irreconcilable distinctions in civil status with others living in the “Jewish state.” With unique privileges applying to “Jewish nationality” (le’om yahudi) that are denied to holders of mere Israeli “citizenship” (ezrahut), no one in Israel has the prospect of living in a state possessing the fundamental features of a democracy. A famous Israeli High Court case in 1971 affirmed that “there is no Israeli nation separate from the Jewish nation…composed not only of those residing in Israel but also of Diaspora Jewry.”18 The President of the Court Justice Shimon Agranat explained that acknowledging a uniform Israeli nationality “would negate the very foundation upon which the State of Israel was formed.” Thus, for a Jew to reside in Israel is to negate the essential values of the emancipationist tradition, regardless of one’s position on the colonization project.

    It Harms Palestinians

    To interpret an Israeli law, or any Zionist document, it is necessary to know Zionist terms and their ideological meaning. While the “Jewish people” concept is essential to Zionist public law relations with Jews outside of the State of Israel, the Israel Government Year-Book (1953–54) recognized the “great constitutional importance” of the Status Law (1952): Not only did Israel’s first prime minister submit it for legislation as “one of the foremost basic laws,” but also clarified that “this Law completes the Law of Return in determining the Zionist character of the State of Israel.”19 The cornerstone of the discriminatory legal structure is the Status Law (1952), supported by two Basic Laws: the Law of Citizenship and the Law of Return.

    Israel’s Basic Law: Law of Return (1950) effectively establishes a “nationality” right for Jews only. Under the Law of Return,20 only Jews are allowed to come to areas controlled by the (civilian or military) Government of Israel to claim the “super-citizenship” status of “Jewish nationality” [le’om yahudi], while acquiring their new civil status in Israel through “return.” This notion of a “Jewish national” who “returns” for the first time from some other domicile country to Palestine is majestically ideological and wholly unique, even among other colonial-settler states.

    The criteria for acquiring citizenship under Israel’s “Citizenship Law,” amending Section 3A in 1980,21 disqualify the majority of Palestinian families who fled from their homes in the 1948 ethnic cleansing, effectively blocking their rightful status as citizens – and nationals – in their own country, where Israel is the de facto successor state. Thus, the title of the “Law of Return” is bitterly ironic, as it allows for the “return” of individuals who never lived in Israel before, and – supported by other legislation – prevents the actual return of people who had been residents in the land.

    Already in January 1949, the new Government of Israel signed over one million dunams of Palestinian land acquired during the war to the parastatal JNF to be held in perpetuity for “the Jewish people.” In October 1950, the state similarly transferred another 1.2 million dunams to the JNF.22 In 1951, a JNF spokesman explained how, necessarily, JNF “will redeem the lands and will turn them over to the Jewish people—to the people and not the state, which in the current composition of population cannot be an adequate guarantor of Jewish ownership.”23

    In September 1953, the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Properties executed a contract with the Israeli Development Authority, transferring the “ownership” of all the Palestinian refugee lands under his control to the latter. The price (not value) of these properties was to be retained by the Development Authority as a loan. At the same time, the Custodian conveyed the ownership of the houses and commercial buildings in the cities to Amidar, a quasi-public Israeli company founded to place Jewish settler/immigrants.24 Thus began a practice that forms and unbroken pattern of continuing dispossession to this day.

    Three months before that 1953 transaction, the Jewish National Fund also executed a contract with the Development Authority, whereby the Authority sold 2,373,677 dunams of “state land” and lands held by the Authority to the Jewish National Fund. The JNF completed the deal just after the Authority concluded its transaction with the Custodian. As a result, this Palestinian property came under the possession of the JNF, which claimed to own over 90% of the total territories that fell under the control of the state of Israel. These properties are referred to as “national land,” a subtle but important distinction, meaning that it be limited to exclusive use by (Jewish) “nationals,” whoever and wherever they may be, and foreclosed to the indigenous people, whoever and wherever they may be, including the actual private and collective owners.25

    To understand how “Jewish nationality” operates in practice to discriminate against non-Jewish “citizens” of Israel, especially the indigenous Palestinian ones, one must appreciate that the Zionist para-state institutions that authored the concept and enshrined it in their charters, are also the same guardians of “Jewish nationality” privilege. This is particularly institutionalized in economic fields, most clearly activities involving land, housing, public services and development.

    Israeli laws related to these fields of human activity, and even many aspects of commerce, give special policy and implementation status to the WZO/JNF and/or JA; that is, by applying those institutions’ chartered principle of benefiting exclusively persons of “Jewish race or descendency.” For Jews in Israel, the emancipationist dream of living free in a democratic society is shattered and, so far, unregenerate.

    Many of the current stories of deprivation of the Palestinian people derive from the institutionalized application of this concept of “Jewish race/people/nationality.” The plight of the Palestinian refugees, the analogous case of the internally displaced persons since 1948, the continuum of land confiscation inside 1948-incorporated territories, the nonrecognition and poverty of the Naqab Bedouin villages and other contemporary human rights violations involve application of a superior “Jewish nationality” status at the expense of Israeli “citizens.” Worse affected are those other indigenous people who, as refugees, are unable to enter their country. The damages, costs and losses to the indigenous Palestinian people are material consequences of the Zionist ideological and institutional system by default as well as by design.

    Conclusion

    The emerging literature related to the question of “nationality” and “citizenship” in Israel generally acknowledges the distinction between the two types of civil status. However, that analysis does not always apply the normative framework of international public law and social justice, codified in human rights standards. Instead, the explanations are more likely prefaced with the assumptions of Zionist ideology, derived from longing to be separate, if not to be free.26

    In the light of the ground-breaking work of post-Zionist historians, and the recent work of Ilan Pappé and Shlomo Sand, now may be the time to rediscover also the earlier generation of emancipationist, anti-Zionist commentators who addressed the hazards of “Jewish race/people/nationality” and the operations of their mother institutions generations before us. These Zionist concepts and their implementation afflict both people of Jewish faith and Palestinians victims everywhere. Implementing “Jewish nationality” extraterritorially also affects the rights of states and citizens in other countries where the Zionist para-state institutions operate. In that sense, at least, besides our sharing one species, we are all related.

    Endnotes
    ————-

    . Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), Concluding Observations: Israel, E/C.12/1/Add.27, 4 December 1998, paras. 11 and 35; CESCR Concluding Observations: Israel, E/C.12/1/Add.90, 23 May 2003, p. 18; “Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination: Israel, CERD/C/ISR/CO/13, 14 June 2007, paras. 15–23.

    . Melanie A. Murphy, Max Nordau’s Fin-de-Siècle Romance of Race (New York: Peter Lang, 2007).

    . As explained in Elmer Berger, The Jewish Dilemma (New York: Devin-Adair, 1945).

    . Elmer Berger, A Partisan History of Judaism (New York: Devin-Adair, 1951), pp. 79–97.

    . Access the American Council for Judaism website at: http://www.acjna.org/acjna/default.aspx. See also Thomas A. Kolsky, Jews against Zionism: The American Council for Judaism, 1942–1948 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990).

    6. Shlomo Sand; translated by Yael Lotan, The Invention of the Jewish People (London and New York: Verso, 2009).
    7. For example, Part I: “The Myth of `a Jewish People`,” Part II: “Zionist Nationalism,” and Part III: “For Free Jews in a Free World,” in Elmer Berger, The Jewish Dilemma (New York: Devin-Adair, 1945); “Where did Jews and Judaism Come From?” and “The Dilemma of Nationality Versus Religion,” in Elmer Berger, A Partisan History of Judaism (New York: Devin-Adair, 1951).
    8. Constitution of the World Zionist Organization (2007), Articles 2 and 3.
    9. Memorandum of Association, Article 3(a).
    10. The Race Question (Paris: UNESCO, 1950), at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000128291_eng. The original statement was drafted by Ernest Beaglehole, Juan Comas, L. A. Costa Pinto, Franklin Frazier, sociologist specialised in race relations studies, Morris Ginsberg, founding chairperson of the British Sociological Association, Humayun Kabir, writer, philosopher and Education Minister of India twice, Claude Lévi-Strauss, one of the founders of ethnology and leading theorist of cultural relativism, and Ashley Montagu, anthropologist and author of The Elephant Man: A Study in Human Dignity, who was the rapporteur.
    11. Ibid., para. 6.
    12. As recounted in such diverse sources as Neturai Karta, “Zionism and Judaism – Let Us Define Our Terms,” at: https://nkusa.org/AboutUs/Zionism/index.cfm; Paul Findley, They Dared to Speak Out : People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby (Chicago: Lawrence Hill, 3rd edition 2003); and Alfred M. Lilienthal, Zionist Connection II: What Price Peace? (New Brunswick NJ: North American Publishers, 1982).
    13. Aliyah, in Hebrew, means immigration of Jews, and oleh (plural: olim) means a Jew immigrating, into Israel.
    14. Definition 4B. Section 4A addresses the rights of members of family of a Jew under the Law of Return, which also include immigration as a nationality right. However, it does not necessarily confer membership in “Jewish nationality.” This amounts of an exclusion from “Jewish nationality,” in effect, particularly for non-Jewish spouses of Jewish nationals and descendents of male Jews only but enjoying the right of immigration as “return” extended to them. The Law of Return Article 4(a) provides “The rights of a Jew under this Law and the rights of an oleh under the Nationality [sic] Law, 5712-1952, as well as the rights of an oleh under any other enactment, are also vested in a child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew, except for a person who has been a Jew and has voluntarily changed his religion.” It is important to note by example here that the official English-language version of the Law of Return quoted here includes the falsely translated title of the Law of Citizenship and Entry into Israel, as if it were the legal basis for a nationality right. It is not.
    15. “French Jews ‘must move to Israel’,” BBC News (18 July 2004), at:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3904943.stm
    16. “Practical Zionism,” Zionism and Israel – Encyclopedic Dictionary, at:
    17. Letter of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Phillips Talbot to American Council for Judaism’s Executive Vice President Rabbi Elmer Berger, reprinted in W. Thomas Mallison, Jr., “The Zionist-Israel Juridical Claims to Constitute the ‘Jewish People’ Entity and to Confer Membership in It: Appraisal in Public International Law,” 32 The George Washington Law Review 5 (1964), p. 1075.
    18. Tamarin v. State of Israel (1970) 26 P.D. I 197.
    19. Jewish Agency Digest of Press and Events (18 November 1949), at 1069–70, cite in “Question of the Violation of Human Rights in the Occupied Arab Territories, including Palestine,” written statement submitted by North-south XXI, E/CN.4/2001/NGO/18, 16 January 2001.
    20. Law of Return, cited in Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Legal Violations of Arab Minority Rights in Israel (1998).
    21. “A person born before the establishment of the State is entitled to Israeli citizenship if the following five conditions are met:
    He did not become an Israeli citizen under any other provision of the law.
    He was a Palestinian citizen before the establishment of the state.
    On 14 July 1952 he was a resident of Israel and registered in the Population Register.
    On the day the amendment came into effect he was a resident of Israel and registered in the Population Register.
    He is not a citizen of a country listed in the Prevention of Infiltration Law.”
    22. The first JNF acquisition totalled 1,101,942 dunams: 1,085,607 rural and 16,335 urban; the second amounted to 1,271,734 dunams: 1,269,480 rural and 2,254 urban. Abraham Granott, Agrarian Reform and the Record of Israel (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode,1956), pp. 107–110.
    23. Jewish National Fund, Report to the 23rd Congress, 32–33, emphasis in original, cited in Lehn and Davis, op. Cit., 108.
    24. Jiryis, 1973
    25. Jiryis, 1973
    26. Don Handelman, “Contradictions between Citizenship and Nationality: Their Consequences for Ethnicity and Inequality in Israel,” International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, Vol. 7, No. 3 (1994); Baruch Kimmerling, “Between the primordial and the civil definitions of the collective identity: Eretz Israel or the State of Israel,” in Erik Cohen, Moshe Lissak, and Uri Almagor, eds., Comparative Social Dynamics: Essays in Honor of S.N. Eisenstadt (Boulder: Westview, 1985), pp. 262–83; Baruch Kimmerling, and Joel S. Migdal, Palestinians: The Making of a People (New York: The Free Press, 1993); Erik Cohen, “Citizenship, nationality and religion in Israel and Thailand,” in Baruch Kimmerling, ed., The Israeli State and Society: Boundaries and Frontiers (Albany: SUNY Press, 1989), pp. 66–92; S. N. Eisenstadt, The Transformation of Israeli Society (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1985).
    ,
  • ‘Mossad Chief to leave post’

    ‘Mossad Chief to leave post’

    By JPOST.COM STAFF
    06/26/2010 00:21

    Report claims Meir Dagan’s request to keep his job was rejected.

    sadmos
    Photo by: AP

    Mossad Chief Meir Dagan is to leave his post in three months, Channel 2 news reported on Friday.

    According to the report, Dagan, who has been head of the Mossad for the last eight years, requested to work another year in the role, but was refused.

    Dagan was appointed to the position in 2002 by former prime minister Ariel Sharon.

    Since then his appointment has been extended twice and is due to expire at the end of 2010.

    The decision not to renew Dagan’s appointment is likely related to the fallout from the recent attempt to assassinate Hamas commander Mahmoud al Mabhouh in Dubai.

    A number of states who are normally friendly towards Israel were offended by the use of their passports in the killing. Britain has stopped issuing passports in Tel-Aviv and diplomats were expelled from Britain, Ireland and Australia.

    Source:  https://www.jpost.com/Israel/Mossad-Chief-to-leave-post

  • Latest Neocon insanity: kick Turkey out of NATO

    Latest Neocon insanity: kick Turkey out of NATO

    Latest Neocon insanity: kick Turkey out of NATO – Harper

    harpIN RETALIATION FOR THE ISRAELI ATTACK ON THE GAZA AID FLOTILLA 

    The silly season just got positively bizarre.  In the aftermath of the Israeli armed assault on a Turkish-flagged aid ship, bound for the Gaza Strip, some of the more rabid American neocons have demanded, in no uncertain terms, that Turkey must be punished by being kicked out of NATO.  Yes, you heard me correctly.  Israel carried out an act of international piracy, and cold-blooded murder in international waters, and Turkey must be punished.  Has someone dumped a shot of LSD-25 into the water cooler at the American Enterprise Institute?

                It is pretty obvious that a talking points memo went out from the Israeli embassy or some other locale, because in a matter of days, many of the usual suspects—Daniel Pipes, Stephen Schwartz, Michael Rubin, and Victor Davis Hanson, not to mention the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)—all came out with the identical, preposterous notion that Turkey is the perp and Israel the victim. 

                On June 8th JINSA issued Report #995*, claiming, “Turkish government support for the IHH ship in the Gaza flotilla is now well understood and the anti-Semitic ravings of both official Turks and the Turkish media have made Turkey’s intention to split from Israel clear… The Hamas-Turkey relationship has grown as the Turkey-Palestinian Authority relationship, the relationship supported by the United States and the EU, has declined.  Rapproachment with Russia, Syria and Iran, and the Iran-Brazil-Turkey enriched uranium deal are more of the same.”

                The JINSA screed ends with a threat and a demand:  “Turkey, as a member of NATO, is privy to intelligence information having to do with terrorism and with Iran.  If Turkey finds its best friends to be Iran, Hamas, Syria and Brazil (look for Venezuela in the future) the security of that information (and Western technology in weapons in Turkey’s arsenal) is suspect.  The United States should seriously consider suspending military cooperation with Turkey as a prelude to removing it from the organization.” 

                JINSA, of course, includes such neocon icons as John Bolton, Dr. Stephen D. Bryen, Michael Ledeen, Joshua Muravchik, Richard Perle, Stephen Solarz, Kenneth Timmerman and R. James Woolsey.

                The same day that JINSA issued their pronouncement, Daniel Pipes delivered his rant, proclaiming that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a more dangerous radical Islamist than Osama bin-Laden.   “If once only a small band of analysts recognized Erdogan’s Islamist outlook, this fact has now become obvious for the whole world to see.  Erdogan has gratuitously discarded his carefully crafted image of a pro-Western `Muslim democrat,’ making it far easier to treat him as the Tehran-Damascus ally that he is.”

                And what might be Pipes’ remedy?  “Turkey has returned to the center of the Middle East and the umma.  But it no longer deserves full NATO membership, and its opposition parties deserve support.” 

                Victor Davis Hanson took an extra few days to come out both barrels blazing against Turkey’s NATO membership.  He penned a June 10th National Review Online assault, “The New Wannabe Ottomans,” blaming Turkey for allowing the flotilla of aid ships, bound for Gaza, to leave from a Turkish port, thus forcing Israel to attack.  But the diatribe was nothing new.  He observed:  “Lately, Turkey has reached out to Iran and Syria.  Both habitually sponsor Mideast terrorist groups and have aided anti-American insurgents in Iraq.  Turkey and Brazil recently offered to monitor Iran’s nuclear program, sidestepping American and European efforts to step up sanctions to stop Teheran’s plans for a bomb.  Erdogan’s anti-Israel attacks often match those of his newfound friends, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah’s Hasan Nasrallah…  What is behind Turkey’s metamorphosis from a staunch U.S. ally, NATO member, and quasi-European state into a sponsor of Hamas, ally of theocratic Iran, and fellow traveler with terrorist-sponsoring Syria?” 

                Hanson’s answer:  “Turkey senses a growing distance between Tel Aviv and Washington, and thus an opportunity to step into the gulf to unite Muslims against Israel and win influence in the Arab world.”

                And guess what Hanson poses as the solution:  “Turkey’s new ambitions and ethnic and religious chauvinism are antithetical to its NATO membership.  The U.S. should not be treaty-bound to defend a de facto ally of Iran or Syria, which are both eager to obtain nuclear weapons… In response, the U.S. should make contingency plans to relocate from its huge Air Force base at Incirlik… If Erdogan is intent on a suicidal reinvention of Turkey into a pale imitation of Ottoman hegemony, we can at least take steps to ensure that it will be his mess—and none of our own.”

                If I didn’t know something about the neoconservatives, and their worship of the late Leo Strauss, I would be a bit more stunned by the sheer chutzpah of their deceptions and sophistic defenses of Israel’s baffling and indefensible actions.  But I am not shocked, having lived through the neocon’s golden age during Bush and Cheney.  We are still paying the price for their “Clean Break” with reality.  Let us just hope that between Bob Gates, Jim Jones, and Hillary Clinton, they have enough of a sense of humor, and enough of an appreciation of the Israeli disinformation machinery, that they won’t be lured into buying these tall tales and doing something foolish.

    https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2010/06/latest-neocon-insanity-kick-turkey-out-of-nato-harper.html

    * It Is About the United States
    • JINSA Reports

    JINSA Report #: 

    995

    June 8, 2010

    Turkey and Honduras, in different ways, highlight the lack of effective leadership the United States currently is able to exercise in the world.

    Turkey: Turkish government support for the IHH ship in the Gaza flotilla is now well understood and the anti-Semitic ravings of both official Turks and the Turkish media have made Turkey’s intention to split from Israel clear.

    But it is a mistake to think this is only about Israel. Support for the flotilla was only the latest in a series of Turkish decisions designed to distance itself from the United States and move toward closer political relations with countries adversarial to us. Immediately after the bloody 2007 Hamas coup against Fatah in Gaza, the United States and the European Union reiterated that Hamas was a terrorist organization to be shunned. Instead, Turkey’s prime minister invited Hamas leadership to Ankara. The Hamas-Turkey relationship has grown as the Turkey-Palestinian Authority relationship, the relationship supported by the United States and the EU, has declined. Rapprochement with Russia, Syria and Iran, and the Iran-Brazil-Turkey enriched uranium deal are more of the same.

    After his meeting with Secretary of State Clinton, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters, “Citizens of member states were attacked by a country that is not a member of NATO. I think you can make some conclusions out of this statement.” The implication was that Turkey would ask NATO for some satisfaction-or some slap at Israel.

    Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Minister.

    Turkey, as a member of NATO, is privy to intelligence information having to do with terrorism and with Iran. If Turkey finds its best friends to be Iran, Hamas, Syria and Brazil (look for Venezuela in the future) the security of that information (and Western technology in weapons in Turkey’s arsenal) is suspect. The United States should seriously consider suspending military cooperation with Turkey as a prelude to removing it from the organization.

    Honduras: The United States tried to have it both ways. The Obama Administration quickly jumped in with Venezuela, Brazil, Cuba and Nicaragua to denounce what it called a “coup” in Honduras. The United States voted with its new best friends to oust Honduras from the Organization of American States (OAS), and cut off various forms of diplomatic and economic aid to the small Central American country. After the Congressional Research Service (CRS) concluded that the Honduran Congress, Supreme Court and military had acted in accordance with the Honduran Constitution, the Obama Administration brokered a deal that permitted the previously scheduled election with previously nominated candidates to go forward. When the new president was sworn in, the United States recognized the new government and withdrew its sanctions.

    All’s well that ends well, right? Not exactly.

    At the OAS meeting in Peru this week, the United States tried to have Honduras reinstated. Guess who said no; Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil and Nicaragua refused to even to put the issue on the table. Hugo, Lula, Fidel and Danny were perfectly happy to let the Obama Administration join them in ganging up on a (former) American ally. But they still think they’re leading.

    Maybe they are.
  • Finklestein: Israel is a Lunatic State

    Finklestein: Israel is a Lunatic State

    ‘Israel is a Lunatic State’ – Finkelstein on Gaza Flotilla Attack

    finkelsteinAmerican political scientist Norman Finkelstein has given his reaction to the Israeli attack on the Free Gaza flotilla by warning the Israeli regime has become a serious threat to its neighbors.

    The author of ‘The Holocaust Industry’ and ‘Beyond Chutzpah‘ made the comments today during an interview with the Russian English-language news channel RT (Russia Today).

    Responding to a question regarding the American reaction to yesterday’s Israeli commando raid on the Free Gaza flotilla, Finkelstein replied “so far there has been a pretty mild statement by President Obama”, referring to the carefully worded statement made by the White House expressing “deep regret […] at the loss of life and injuries sustained […]”.

    He went on to dismiss the notion that the Israeli reaction was an attempt to “protect Israeli citizens against those who would seek to discredit the state of Israel” by pointing to the illegality of the Israeli blockade on Gaza.

    Finkelstein referred to recent condemnation by reputed human rights group Amnesty International, which called the Israeli blockade on Gaza “a flagrant violation of international law” and the United Nations’ Global Elders, a group comprising notable public figures including Nelson Mandela, Desmund Tutu, Kofi Annan and Jimmy Carter, which issued a statement calling the Israeli blockade on Gaza “one of the wost human rights violation in the world today” as important examples of this fact.

    Finkelstein went on to point out that Israel had used armed commandos to assault a humanitarian aid mission in international waters which he said could not be justified:

    I think everyone can agree that there’s no possibility, that there’s no way to justify using armed force against what were clearly unarmed humanitarians trying to relieve an illegal siege of Gaza.

    Referring to comments he attributes to Israeli officials made in the aftermath of last year’s invasion of Gaza, Finkelstein says the Israeli military had wanted to reestablish its dominance over the Arab world by demonstrating that they were “capable of acting like a lunatic state and like mad dogs and […] [in order to] restore the Arab world’s fear of Israel”.

    After yesterday’s events, you really have to ask the question: is Israel acting like a lunatic state or has it become a lunatic state?

    Finkelstein responds by asserting that Israel has indeed become a “lunatic state”, one armed with nuclear weapons and one making regular threats against its neighbors:

    Things are getting out of control, […] can a lunatic state like Israel be trusted with 200 to 300 nuclear devices when it is now threatening its neighbors Iran and Lebanon with an attack?

    Finkelstein’s condemnation is part of a global chorus that has emerged in response to the Israeli attack which left dozens dead or injured among peace activists attempting to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aide to the besieged Palestinian territory. The events have sparked outrage with ally Turkey, who helped sponsor the mission, and has called an emergency United Nations Security council session to discuss the attack.

    Israeli officials have defended the attack, saying its commandos were attacked by passengers upon arrival, charges which the Free Gaza movement has denied, saying the commandos rappelled unto the boat with weapons in hand shooting indiscriminately.

    , 01 June 2010

  • ISRAELI BUTCHERY AT SEA BY GILAD ATZMON

    ISRAELI BUTCHERY AT SEA BY GILAD ATZMON

    GAAs I write this piece the scale of the Israeli lethal slaughter at sea is yet to be clear. However we already know that at around 4am Gaza time, hundreds of IDF commandos stormed the Free Gaza international humanitarian fleet. We learn from the Arab press that at least 16 peace activists have been murdered and more than 50 were injured.  Once again it is devastatingly obvious that Israel is not trying to hide its true nature: an inhuman murderous collective  fuelled by a psychosis and driven by paranoia.

    For days the Israeli government  prepared the Israeli society for the massacre at sea. It said that the Flotilla carried weapons, it had ‘terrorists’ on board. Only yesterday evening it occurred to me that this Israeli malicious media spin was there to prepare the Israeli public for a full scale Israeli deadly military operation in international waters.  Make no mistake. If I knew exactly where Israel was heading and the possible consequences, the Israeli cabinet and military elite were fully aware of it all the way along.  What happened yesterday wasn’t just a pirate terrorist  attack. It was actually murder in broad day light even though it happened in the dark.

    Yesterday at 10 pm I contacted Free Gaza and shared with them everything I knew. I obviously grasped that hundreds of peace activists most of them elders, had very little chance against the Israeli killing machine. I was praying all night for our brothers and sisters.  At 5am GMT the news broke to the world. In international waters Israel raided an innocent international convoy of boats carrying cement, paper and medical aid to the besieged Gazans. The Israelis were using live ammunition murdering and injuring everything around them.

    Today we will see demonstrations around the world, we will see many events mourning our dead.  We may even see some of Israel’s friends ‘posturing’ against the slaughter. Clearly this is not enough.

    The massacre that took place yesterday was a premeditated Israeli operation. Israel wanted blood because it believes that its ‘power of deterrence’  expands with the more dead it leaves behind. The Israeli decision to use hundreds of commando soldiers against civilians was taken by the Israeli cabinet together with the Israeli top military commanders. What we saw yesterday wasn’t just a failure on the ground. It was actually an institutional failure of a morbid society that a long time ago lost touch with humanity.

    It is no secret that Palestinians are living in a siege for years. But it is now down to the nations to move on and mount the ultimate pressure on Israel and its citizens. Since the massacre yesterday was committed by a popular army that followed instructions given by a ‘democratically elected’ government, from now on, every Israeli  should be considered as a  suspicious war criminal unless proved different.

    Considering the fact that Israel stormed naval vessels sailing under Irish, Turkish and Greek flags. Both NATO  members and EU countries must immediately cease their  relationships with  Israel  and close their airspace to Israeli airplanes.

    Considering yesterday’s news about Israeli nuclear submarines being stationed in the Gulf, the world must react quickly and severely. Israel is now officially mad and deadly. The Jewish State is not just careless about human life,  as we have been following  the Israeli press campaign leading to the slaughter,  Israel actually  seeks pleasure in inflicting pain and devastation on others.

    , MAY 31, 2010

  • Israeli commandos attack civilians on Turkish ship carrying humanitarian aid: 19 DEAD

    Israeli commandos attack civilians on Turkish ship carrying humanitarian aid: 19 DEAD

    Israeli troops attack ship carrying aid to Gaza killing 16

    turk bayragi.2JpegIsraeli commandoes have stormed a flotilla of ships carrying activists and aid supplies to the blockaded Palestinian enclave of Gaza, killing as many as 16 of those on board.

    By Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent and Matthew Kalman in Jerusalem

    Link to Al Jazeera’s report on board the Mavi Marmara before communications were cut:

    Fighting broke out between the activists and the masked Israeli troops, who rappelled on to deck from helicopters before dawn.

    A spokeswoman for the flotilla, Greta Berlin, said she had been told ten people had been killed and dozens wounded, accusing Israeli troops of indiscriminately shooting at “unarmed civilians”. But an Israeli radio station said that between 14 and 16 were dead in a continuing operation.

    “How could the Israeli military attack civilians like this?” Ms Berlin said. “Do they think that because they can attack Palestinians indiscriminately they can attack anyone?

    “We have two other boats. This is not going to stop us.”

    The Israeli government’s handling of the confrontation was under intense international pressure even as it continued. The Israeli ambassador to Turkey, the base of one of the human rights organisation which organised the flotilla, was summoned by the foreign ministry in Ankara, as the Israeli consulate in Istanbul came under attack.

    One Israeli minister issued immediate words of regret. “The images are certainly not pleasant. I can only voice regret at all the fatalities,” Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, the trade and industry minister, told army radio.

    But he added that the commandoes had been attacked with batons and activists had sought to take their weapons off them.

    Israeli military sources said four of its men had been injured, one stabbed, and that they had been shot at.

    “The flotilla’s participants were not innocent and used violence against the soldiers. They were waiting for the forces’ arrival,” they were quoted by a news website as saying.

    The flotilla had set sail on Sunday from northern, or Turkish, Cyprus. Six boats were led by the Mavi Marmara, which carried 600 activists from around the world, including Mairead Corrigan Maguire, the Northern Ireland peace protester who won a Nobel Prize in 1976.

    It came under almost immediate monitoring from Israeli drones and the navy, with two vessels flanking it in international waters. The flotilla, which had been warned that it would not be allowed to reach Gaza, attempted to slow and change course, hoping to prevent a confrontation until daylight, when the Israeli military action could be better filmed.

    But in the early hours of this morning local time commandoes boarded from helicopters.

    The activists were not carrying guns, but television footage shown by al-Jazeera and Turkish television channels show hand-to-hand fighting, with activists wearing life-jackets striking commandoes with sticks.

    The Israeli army said its troops were assaulted with axes and knives.

    The television footage did not show firing but shots could be heard in the background. One man was shown lying unconscious on the deck, while another man was helped away.

    A woman wearing hijab, the Muslim headscarf, was seen carrying a stretcher covered in blood.

    The al-Jazeera broadcast stopped with a voice shouting in Hebrew: “Everyone shut up”.

    Israel imposed its blockade on Gaza after the strip was taken over by the militant group Hamas in 2007. It has allowed some food and medical supplies through, but has prevented large-scale rebuilding following the bombardment and invasion of 2008-9.

    The flotilla is the latest in a series of attempts by activists to break through the blockade. The boats were carrying food and building supplies.

    Activists said at least two of the other boats, one Greek and one Turkish, had been boarded from Israeli naval vessels. Activists said two of the other boats in the flotilla were American-flagged.

    The confrontation took place in international waters 80 miles off the Gaza coast.

    It was attacked by the head of the Hamas government in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh.

    “We call on the Secretary-General of the U.N., Ban Ki-moon, to shoulder his responsibilities to protect the safety of the solidarity groups who were on board these ships and to secure their way to Gaza,” he said.

    Turkish television meanwhile showed hundreds of protesters trying to storm the Israeli consulate in Istanbul. The incident will be particularly damaging for Israel’s relations with what had been seen as its closest ally in the Muslim world.

    “By targeting civilians, Israel has once again shown its disregard for human life and peaceful initiatives,” a Turkish foreign ministry statement said. “We strongly condemn these inhumane practices of Israel.

    “This deplorable incident, which took place in open seas and constitutes a fragrant breach of international law, may lead to irreparable consequences in our bilateral relations.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/7789175/Israeli-troops-attack-ship-carrying-aid-to-Gaza-killing-16.html

    [2]

    31 May 2010, [Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs] Press Release Regarding the Use of Force by the Israeli Defense Forces Against the Humanitarian Aid Fleet to Gaza

    We protest in the strongest terms the use of force by the Israeli Defense Forces against the civilians from many countries who want to transport humanitarian assistance to the people in Gaza, and among whom there are women and children, which, according to the initial information available, resulted in the death of 2 persons and injury of more than 30 people.

    Israel has once again clearly demonstrated that it does not value human lives and peaceful initiatives through targeting innocent civilians. We strongly condemn these inhuman acts of Israel. This grave incident which took place in high seas in gross violation of international law might cause irreversible consequences in our relations.

    Besides the initiatives being conducted by our Embassy in Tel Aviv, this unacceptable incident is being strongly protested and explanation is demanded from Israeli Ambassador in Ankara, who has been invited to our Ministry.

    Whatsoever the motives might be, such actions against civilians who are involved only in peaceful activities cannot be accepted. Israel will have to bear the consequences of these actions which constitute a violation of international law.

    May God bestow His mercy upon those who lost their lives. We wish to express our condolences to the bereaved families of the deceased, and swift recovery to the wounded.

    [3]

    Israel is a terrorist state by definition: Chomsky

    Avram Noam Chomsky, 80, is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor emeritus and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chomsky is well known in the academic and scientific community as the father of modern linguistics. Since the 1960s, he has become known more widely as a political dissident, and a libertarian socialist intellectual.

    Following is an excerpt of Professor Chomsky’s interview with Christiana Voniati, who is head of International News Department POLITIS Newspaper, Nicosia, Cyprus.

    Voniati: The international public opinion and especially the Muslim world seem to have great expectations from the historic election of Obama. Can we, in your opinion, expect any real change regarding the U.S. approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

    Chomsky: Not much. Quite the contrary: it may be harsher than before. In the case of Gaza, Obama maintained silence, he didn’t say a word. He said well there’s only one president so I can’t talk about it. Of course he was talking about a lot of other things but he chose not to talk about this. His campaign did repeat a statement that he had made while visiting Israel six months earlier — he had visited Sderot where the rockets hit- and he said “if this where happening to my daughters, I wouldn’t think of any reaction as legitimate”, but he couldn’t say anything about Palestinian children. Now, the attack on Gaza was at time so that it ended right before the inauguration, which is what I expected. I presume that the point was so that they could make sure that Obama didn’t have to say something, so he didn’t. And then he gave his first foreign policy declaration, it was a couple of days later when he appointed George Mitchell as his emissary, and he said nothing about Gaza except that “our paramount interest is preserving the security of Israel”. Palestine apparently doesn’t have any requirement of security. And then in his declaration he said of course we are not going to deal with Hamas — the elected government the U.S. immediately, as soon as the government was elected in a free election the U.S. and Israel with the help of European Union immediately started severely punishing the Palestinian population for voting in the “wrong way” in a free election and that’s what we mean by democracy. The only substantive comment he made in the declaration was to say that the Arab peace plan had constructive elements, because it called for a normalization of relations with Israel and he urged the Arab states to proceed with the normalization of relations. Now, he is an intelligent person, he knows that that was not what the Arab peace plan said. The Arab peace plan called for a two state settlement on the international border that is in accord with the long standing international consensus that the U.S. has blocked for over 30 years and in that context of the two state settlement we should even proceed further and move towards a normalization of relations with Israel. Well, Obama carefully excluded the main content about the two state settlement and just talked about the corollary, for which a two state settlement is a precondition. Now that’s not an oversight, it can’t be. That’s a careful wording, sending the message that we are not going to change their (Israel’s) rejectionist policy. We’ll continue to be opposed to the international consensus on this issue, and everything else he said accords with it. We will continue in other words to support Israel’s settlement policies — those policies are undermining any possible opportunity or hope for a viable Palestinian entity of some kind. And it’s a continued reliance on force in both parts of occupied Palestine. That’s the only conclusion you could draw.

    Voniati: Let U.S. talk about the timing of the assault on the Gaza Strip. Was it accidental or did it purposefully happen in a vacuum of power? To explain myself, the global financial crisis has challenged the almost absolute U.S. global hegemony. Furthermore, the attack on Gaza was launched during the presidential change of guard. So, did this vacuum of power benefit the Israeli assault on Gaza?

    Chomsky: Well, the timing was certainly convenient since attention was focused elsewhere. There was no strong pressure on the president or other high officials of the U.S. to say anything about it. I mean Bush was on his way out, and Obama could hide behind the pretext that he’s not yet in. And pretty much the same was in Europe, so that they could just say, well we can’t talk about it now, it’s too difficult a time. The assault was well chosen in that respect. It was well chosen in other respects too: the bombing began shortly after Hamas had offered a return to the 2005 agreement, which in fact was supported by the U.S. They said, ok, let’s go back to the 2005 agreement that was before Hamas was elected. That means no violence and open the borders. Closing the borders is a siege, it’s an act of war……… not very harmful but it’s an act of war. Israel of all countries insists on that. I mean Israel went to war twice in 1956 and 1967 on the grounds, it claimed, that its access to the outside world was being hampered. It wasn’t a siege, its access through the Gulf of Aqaba was being hampered. Well if that is an act of war then certainly a siege is, and so it’s understood.

    So Khaled Mashaal asked for an end of the state of the war, which would include opening the borders. Well, a couple of days later, when Israel didn’t react to that, Israel attacked. The attack was timed for Saturday morning — the Sabbath day in Israel — at about 11:30, which happens to be the moment when children are leaving school and crowds are milling in the streets of this very heavily crowded city… The explicit target was police cadets… Now, there are civilians, in fact we now know that for several months the legal department of the Israeli army had been arguing against this plan because it said it was a direct attack against civilians. And of course, plenty civilians will be killed if you bomb a crowded city, especially at a time like that. But finally the legal department was sort of bludgeoned into silence by the military so they said alright. So that’s when they opened –on a Sabbath morning. Now two weeks later, Israel — on Saturday as well — blocked the humanitarian aid because they didn’t want to disgrace Sabbath. Well, that’s interesting too. But the main point about the timing was that there was an effort to undercut the efforts for a peaceful settlement and it was terminated just in time to prevent pressure on Obama to say something about it. It’s hard to believe that this isn’t conscious. We know that it was very meticulously planned for many months beforehand.

    Voniati: In a recent interview with LBC, you said that the policies of Hamas are more conducive to peace than the United States’ or Israel’s.

    Chomsky: Oh yes, that’s clear.

    Voniati: Also, that the policies of Hamas are closer to international consensus on a political peaceful settlement than those of Israel and the U.S. Can you explain your stance?

    Chomsky: Well for several years Hamas has been very clear and explicit, repeatedly, that they favor a two state settlement on the international border. They said they would not recognize Israel but they would accept a two state settlement and a prolonged truce, maybe decades, maybe 50 years. Now, that’s not exactly the international consensus but it’s pretty close to it. On the other hand, the United States and Israel flatly reject it. They reject it in deeds, that’s why they are building all the construction development activities in the West Bank, not only in violation of international laws, U.S. and Israel know that the illegal constructions are designed explicitly to convert the West Bank into what the architect of the policy, Arial Sharon, called bantustan. Israel takes over what it wants, break up Palestine into unviable fragments. That’s undermining a political settlement. So in deeds, yes of course they are undermining it, but also in words: that goes back to 1976 when the U.S. vetoed the Security Council resolution put forward by the Arab states which called for a two state settlement and it goes around until today. In December, last December, at the meetings of the UN’s General Assembly there were many resolutions passed. One of them was a resolution calling for recognition of the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people. It didn’t call for a state, just the right of self-determination. It passed with 173 to 5. The 5 were the U.S, Israel and a few small pacific islands. Of course that can’t be reported in the U.S. So they are rejecting it even in words, as well as — more significantly- in acts. On the other hand, Hamas comes pretty close to accepting it. Now, the demand which Obama repeated on Hamas is that they must meet three conditions: they must recognize Israel’s right to exist, they must renounce violence and they must accept past agreements, and in particular the Road Map. Well, what about the U.S. and Israel? I mean, obviously they don’t renounce violence, they reject the Road Map — technically they accepted it but Israel immediately entered 14 reservations (which weren’t reported here) which completely eliminated its content, and the U.S. went along. So the U.S. and Israel completely violate those two conditions, and of course they violate the first, they don’t recognize Palestine. So sure, there’s a lot to criticize about Hamas, but on these matters they seem to be much closer to — not only international opinion — but even to a just settlement than the U.S. and Israel are.

    Voniati: On the other hand, Hamas has been accused of using human shields to hide and protect itself. Israel insists that the war was a matter of defense. Is Hamas a terrorist organization, as it is accused to be? Is Israel a terrorist state?

    Chomsky: Well, Hamas is accused of using human shields, rightly or wrongly. But we know that Israel does it all the time. Is Israel a terrorist state? Well yes according to official definitions. I mean, one of the main things holding up ceasefire right now is that Israel insists that it will not allow a ceasefire until Hamas returns a captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit — he’s very famous in the West everybody knows he was captured. Well, one day before Gilad Shalit was captured, Israeli forces went into Gaza City and kidnapped two Palestinian civilians (the Muamar Brothers) and brought them across the border to Israel in violation of international law and hid them somewhere in the huge Israeli prisons. Nobody knows what happened to them since. I mean, kidnapping civilians is a much worse crime than capturing a soldier of an attacking army. And furthermore this has been regular Israeli practice for decades. They’ve been kidnapping civilians in Lebanon or on the high seas…They take them to Israel, put them into prisons, sometimes keeping them as hostages for long periods. So you know, if the capturing of Gilad Shalit is a terrorist act, well, then Israel’s regular practice supported by the U.S. is incomparably worse. And that’s quite apart from repeated aggression and other crimes.

    Voniati: Though of Jewish decent, you have been repeatedly accused of anti-Semitism. How do you respond?

    Chomsky: The most important comment about that was made by the distinguished statesman Abba Eban, maybe 35 years ago, in an address to the American people. He said that there are two kinds of criticism of Zionism (by Zionism I mean the policies of the state of Israel). One is criticism by anti-Semites and the other is criticism by neurotic self-hating Jews. That eliminates 100% of possible criticism. The neurotic self-hating Jews, he actually mentioned two, I was one and I.F. Stone, a well-known writer was another). I mean that’s the kind of thing that would come out of a communist party in its worst days. But you see, I can’t really be called anti-Semite because I’m Jewish so I must be a neurotic self-hating Jew, by definition. The assumption is that the policies of the state of Israel are perfect, so therefore any kind of criticism must be illegitimate. And that’s from Abba Eban, one of the most distinguished figures in Israel, the most westernized … praised, considered a dove.

    Source: Countercurrents.org