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Argos Media

Op-Ed Contributor - The One-State Solution - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...22qaddafi.html

Israel Isratine Muammar Gaddafi Palestine

shared by Argos Media on 11 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Although it’s hard to realize after the horrors we’ve just witnessed, the state of war between the Jews and Palestinians has not always existed. In fact, many of the divisions between Jews and Palestinians are recent ones. The very name “Palestine” was commonly used to describe the whole area, even by the Jews who lived there, until 1948, when the name “Israel” came into use.
  • The basis for the modern State of Israel is the persecution of the Jewish people, which is undeniable. The Jews have been held captive, massacred, disadvantaged in every possible fashion by the Egyptians, the Romans, the English, the Russians, the Babylonians, the Canaanites and, most recently, the Germans under Hitler. The Jewish people want and deserve their homeland.
  • But the Palestinians too have a history of persecution, and they view the coastal towns of Haifa, Acre, Jaffa and others as the land of their forefathers, passed from generation to generation, until only a short time ago.
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  • Now, as Gaza still smolders, calls for a two-state solution or partition persist. But neither will work.A two-state solution will create an unacceptable security threat to Israel. An armed Arab state, presumably in the West Bank, would give Israel less than 10 miles of strategic depth at its narrowest point. Further, a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would do little to resolve the problem of refugees. Any situation that keeps the majority of Palestinians in refugee camps and does not offer a solution within the historical borders of Israel/Palestine is not a solution at all.
  • For the same reasons, the older idea of partition of the West Bank into Jewish and Arab areas, with buffer zones between them, won’t work. The Palestinian-held areas could not accommodate all of the refugees, and buffer zones symbolize exclusion and breed tension. Israelis and Palestinians have also become increasingly intertwined, economically and politically.
  • In absolute terms, the two movements must remain in perpetual war or a compromise must be reached. The compromise is one state for all, an “Isratine”
  • A key prerequisite for peace is the right of return for Palestinian refugees to the homes their families left behind in 1948. It is an injustice that Jews who were not originally inhabitants of Palestine, nor were their ancestors, can move in from abroad while Palestinians who were displaced only a relatively short time ago should not be so permitted.
  • It is a fact that Palestinians inhabited the land and owned farms and homes there until recently, fleeing in fear of violence at the hands of Jews after 1948 — violence that did not occur, but rumors of which led to a mass exodus. It is important to note that the Jews did not forcibly expel Palestinians. They were never “un-welcomed.”
  • Assimilation is already a fact of life in Israel. There are more than one million Muslim Arabs in Israel; they possess Israeli nationality and take part in political life with the Jews, forming political parties. On the other side, there are Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Israeli factories depend on Palestinian labor, and goods and services are exchanged. This successful assimilation can be a model for Isratine.
  • living under one roof is the only option for a lasting peace.
Pedro Gonçalves

Shlomo Sand: the man that Zionists love to hate | Books interview | Books | The Observer - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...omo-sand-judaism-israel-jewish

Israel Jews Shlomo Sand Identity National Identity Nation Branding

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 17 Jan 10 - Cached
  • The Invention of the Jewish People.
  • Sand's hands are depicting how most Jews are descended from converts who never set foot in the Holy Land.
  • according to Sand there was no exile, and as he seeks to prove by dense forensic archaeological and historical analysis, it is meaningless to talk today about a "people of Israel". At least not if by that you mean the Jews.
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  • another mass conversion took place in the Black Sea kingdom of Khazaria towards the end of the eighth ­century. The Khazar elite acquired Judaism as a form of diplomatic neutrality in the surrounding clashes between Christianity and Islam. That conversion gradually scooped up people of mixed ethnic ­backgrounds who are, Sand believes, the main ancestors of Eastern European Jewry
  • The Khazar conversion is no revelation. It was the basis for a 1976 book by Arthur Koestler, The Thirteenth Tribe, which was reviled, then ignored, by mainstream Zionism. But the Jewish Khazars were recognised by early Zionist historians, albeit as a numerically insignificant curiosity. They were only dropped from the story in the 1960s. After the 1967 Six Day War, to be precise.
  • Sand notes that the disappearance of converts from Israeli history books coincides with increased occupation of Arab land. This is not a conspiracy theory. Zionism was a typical modern nation-building exercise. It followed the pattern by which most European national identities were forged in the 19th and 20th centuries. Intellectual elites propagated myths that met "the deep ideological needs of their culture and their society". In Israel's case that was the myth of ethnic origins in a biblical kingdom based around Jerusalem.
  • He is not anti-Zionist, he says, but post-Zionist: accepting modern Israel as a fait accompli.
  • "A lot of pro-Zionists in London and New York don't really understand what their great-grandparents felt about Zion," says Sand. "It was the most important place in the world in their imagination, as a religious, sacred land, not a place to emigrate." That "Israel" was a metaphysical destination to be reached at the End of Days. The modern Israeli state is a political enterprise, conceived in the late 19th century, made necessary by the Holocaust, founded in 1948.
  • It is a young country. Many Jews see that as a weakness. The more insecure they feel, the tighter they cling to the myth of an ancient mandate. But Israel's best hope is to acknowledge that its nationhood is invented, and modernise even more. It must, Sand argues, reform itself so the state belongs to all its citizens, whether Jew or Arab.
Pedro Gonçalves

Judenrein! Israel adopts Nazi term to back settlers | International | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...idUSTRE5685LP20090709

Israel Israeli Settlements Benjamin Netanyahu Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 10 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Hosting the German foreign minister this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used an especially tainted term to condemn the Palestinian demand that Israel's settlements in the occupied West Bank be removed. "Judea and Samaria cannot be Judenrein," a Netanyahu confidant quoted him as telling Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Asked how Germany's top diplomat responded to hearing the Nazi Holocaust term for areas "cleansed of Jews," the confidant said, "What could he do? He basically just nodded."
  • Asked how Germany's top diplomat responded to hearing the Nazi Holocaust term for areas "cleansed of Jews," the confidant said, "What could he do? He basically just nodded."
  • Hence the jaw-dropper defiance of "Judenrein," which the confidant said Netanyahu had encouraged cabinet colleagues to deploy in their defense of the settlements and of Israel's insistence that Palestinians recognize it as a Jewish state.
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  • Briefing foreign reporters last week, Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor, a stalwart of Netanyahu's Likud party, urged them to ask whether "Palestinians would accept that Jews will live among them, or whether it is going to be totally not allowed." "'Judenrein' is the term that was once used in other countries," Meridor said darkly, in remarks echoed the next day by another Likud minister who briefed journalists and diplomats.
  • "We believe that this is simply a new strategy by Israel to delay any real outcome," said Xavier Abu Eid, a Palestinian diplomat. "In past negotiations, I can assure you, Israel never tried to have Jews remain in the state of Palestine."
  • Challenged over the West Bank settlers' prospective status, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad was quoted this week telling the Ideas Festival in Aspen that "Jews, to the extent they choose to stay and live in the state of Palestine, will enjoy those rights and certainly will not enjoy any less rights than Israeli Arabs enjoy now in the state of Israel."
  • Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington and veteran Likud member, voiced misgivings about the use of "Judenrein" in the Palestine context: "I don't like to transfer the trappings of Nazis to others, even if they are our enemies." What was being branded as the Palestinians' bigotry, he said, could also be prudence about steps that might pre-judge disputes such as those over Palestinian refugees from Israel.
Pedro Gonçalves

Israelis must integrate to survive | Aluf Benn | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...ntegration-orthodox-jews-arabs

Israel Society

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 06 Apr 10 - Cached
  • If you're interested in Israel's future, all you need to know is one statistic: among Israeli kids in their first year at primary school, about half are Arabs or ultra-Orthodox Jews. And their portion is expanding. Looking forward, a very different Israeli society is emerging, with its Jewish secular core shrinking
  • Israeli Arabs and ultra-Orthodox Jews are exempt from military service, and are under-represented in the workforce. As their relative weight in society keeps growing, Israel risks security and economic implosion, since fewer and fewer soldiers and employees will protect and provide for an expanding population of welfare recipients. The Jewish state's long-term survival depends on reversing the trend of non-participation among its Arab and ultra-Orthodox citizens.
  • special treatment comes with a price. At the personal level, freedom from military service extends your youth, but also bars opportunity. In Israel, the military serves as the basis of networking. Our Oxford and Cambridge are the elite army and air force units. (Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his key political ally, defence minister Ehud Barak, served together in the special forces.) An Arab or ultra-Orthodox seeking a job, even with an academic degree, stays out of the club and often faces prejudice and discrimination in the workplace.
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  • Anti-Orthodox activists seek to curb their adversaries' birthrate through cutting child support incentives. It works: a recent Bank of Israel study found that expanding child-support incentives in the 1990s influenced a higher birthrate among Arab and ultra-Orthodox families. Subsequent cuts when Netanyahu was finance minister have reduced it
  • Coercing the Arabs and ultra-Orthodox into military service and employment is not going to work. It will only increase social tension.
  • Israel can't wait until these humble beginnings develop into a wider social revolution. Saving the country from implosion demands a sea change in perceptions and elimination of inter-"tribal" hatred and prejudice
Pedro Gonçalves

Seeking Balance on the Mideast - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ng-balance-on-the-mideast.html

Israel Palestine US J Street

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 05 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • A prominent Israeli politician, Isaac Herzog, has shrewdly suggested that Israel actually offer, with conditions, to vote in favor of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.
  • Yet the American House of Representatives voted 407 to 6 to call on the Obama administration to use its diplomatic capital to try to block the initiative, while also threatening to cut the Palestinians’ funding if they proceeded to seek statehood.
  • Similarly, when Israel stormed into Gaza in 2008 to halt rocket attacks, more than 1,300 Gazans were killed, along with 13 Israelis, according to B’Tselem, a respected Israeli human rights group. As Gazan blood flowed, the House, by a vote of 390 to 5, hailed the invasion as “Israel’s right to defend itself.”
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  • Such Congressional tomfoolery bewilders our friends and fritters away our international capital. It also encourages the intransigence of the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and reduces the chance of a peace settlement.
  • American Jews have long trended liberal, and President Obama won 78 percent of the Jewish vote in 2008. Yet major Jewish organizations, like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, embrace hawkish positions.
  • That’s because those Jews who vote and donate based on Israel are disproportionately conservative (the same is true of Christians who are most passionate about Israel issues). Ben-Ami argues that “the loudest eight percent” have hijacked Jewish groups to press for policies that represent neither the Jewish mainstream nor the best interests of Israel.
  • Some see this influence of Jewish organizations on foreign policy as unique and sinister, but Congress often surrenders to loudmouths who have particular foreign policy grievances and claim to have large groups behind them. Look at the way extremists in the Cuban-American community have insisted upon sanctions on Cuba that have helped sustain Fidel Castro’s rule.
  • “What happens as Israel continues to become more religious and conservative, more isolated internationally and less democratic domestically?” Ben-Ami writes. “What happens to the relationship between American Jews and Israel as the face of Israel shifts from that of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres to that of the national religious settlers and the ultra-Orthodox rabbis?”
  • When Glenn Beck becomes the best friend of Israel’s government and is invited to speak to the Knesset, what do liberals do? Some withdraw. Others join leftist groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, which supports divestment campaigns against companies profiting from the occupation of Palestinian territories.
  • (Whenever I write about Israel, I get accused of double standards because I don’t spill as much ink denouncing worse abuses by, say, Syria. I plead guilty. I demand more of Israel partly because my tax dollars supply arms and aid to Israel. I hold democratic allies like Israel to a higher standard — just as I do the U.S.)
Pedro Gonçalves

Analysis: Israel's Iran strategy: Bombs? Bluff? Both? | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...r-israel-idUKTRE7B61MV20111207

Israel Iran

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 12 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • Ever a big-picture thinker, the U.S.-educated premier gave a speech this week commending Israel's founding premier David Ben-Gurion for making fateful decisions at a "heavy price," despite protests heard at home and abroad.Commentators, on the alert these days for any clue about a possible strike on Iran, spotted a subtext - that Netanyahu, too, was ready to take lonely action in Israel's interest.He could hope for a repeat of the 1981 attack on Iraq's atomic reactor and a similar sortie against Syria in 2007, when the anger of Washington's initial reactions quickly faded.
  • "So there's a huge public relations issue here: Can you make a credible case over the head of the administration, and get the American public to buy into the pain that is going to follow -- Americans being killed in terrorism, oil shock, whatever it is."For now, Kurtzer estimated, Obama administration warnings against unilateral Israeli strikes on Iran would account for "5 percent" of Israeli deliberations, with the Netanyahu government's military calculations taking the lion's share.
  • Its priorities include fending off Iran's promised missile reprisals and containing potential knock-on border wars with the Lebanese and Palestinian guerrillas who are allied to Tehran.
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  • Public reluctance has been galvanized by the unusually vocal questioning by Dagan and some other retired security chiefs of Netanyahu and Barak's secret strategizing.
  • Former Mossad spymaster Meir Dagan has predicted that Syria, Iran's key Arab ally and now beset by a bloody domestic uprising, might also choose to join in the foreign conflict.
  • These critics have urged U.S.-led sanctions on Tehran be given more time. Israel and its Western partners are also widely believed to have been sabotaging Iran's uranium enrichment and ballistic arms projects, though Barak said any such covert campaign cannot be relied upon to finish the job.
  • By a ratio of two to one, respondents said they would agree to stripping Israel of its own atomic arsenal as part of a regional disarmament deal. Ninety percent predicted Iran, which says its nuclear project is peaceful, would obtain in time become a nuclear military power.
    • Pedro Gonçalves
      Pedro Gonçalves on 12 Dec 11
       
      The Israeli public shows a willingness to get rid of Israel's nuclear arsenal in "Middle East free of nuclear weapons" framework - a nukes for peace?
  • A December 1 poll by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the U.S. think-tank Brookings found that 43 percent of Israeli Jews backed attacking Iran, while 41 percent would be opposed.
    • Pedro Gonçalves
      Pedro Gonçalves on 12 Dec 11
       
      Israeli public evenly divided on an attack on Iran
  • Slowing its progress toward that point, however, may be enough of an objective for Israel, which Barak assessed last month stood to lose "maybe not even 500 dead" to Iranian retaliation.
  • Israel, he said, should "open lines of dialogue with those who have superior operational abilities than we do" -- effectively, shelving unilateralism in favor of cooperation with the United States and its NATO allies
  • Should it end up worse, "there are international mechanisms that would curtail the war between Iran and Israel," former Israeli military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin said last month.But Yadlin, who was among the eight F-16 pilots who carried out the 1981 raid on Iraq's Osirak reactor, sounded circumspect about Israeli military capabilities against Iranian targets that are numerous, distant, fortified and on the alert for attacks - in contrast to Saddam Hussein's sole installation near Baghdad.
  • Dan Schueftan, head of the National Security Studies Centre at Haifa University, said Israel's recent hawkish talk could be meant for foreign ears: "Because they (Netanyahu and Barak) fear that if it is believed that there is no possibility of Israel attacking Iran, the United States won't consider taking action."Even Dagan publicly dangled the possibility that he has been playing into a propaganda ruse, telling Israeli television: "If Dagan is arguing against a conflict, then the Iranian conclusion is ... 'Listen, these Jews are crazy. They could attack Iran!'"
  • But posture can also be self-realizing. Before launching his surprise attack on Israel at Yom Kippur in 1973, Egypt's Anwar Sadat repeatedly issued mobilization orders to his forces while also saying he was willing to consider peace negotiations, lulling Israelis into believing Cairo was not a serious threat.
Pedro Gonçalves

Academic claims Israeli school textbooks contain bias | World news | The Observer - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...israeli-school-racism-claim

Israel Palestine Education

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 07 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • The Arab with a camel, in an Ali Baba dress. They describe them as vile and deviant and criminal, people who don't pay taxes, people who live off the state, people who don't want to develop," she says. "The only representation is as refugees, primitive farmers and terrorists. You never see a Palestinian child or doctor or teacher or engineer or modern farmer."
  • Peled-Elhanan, a professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has studied the content of Israeli school books for the past five years, and her account, Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education, is to be published in the UK this month. She describes what she found as racism– but, more than that, a racism that prepares young Israelis for their compulsory military service.
  • "One question that bothers many people is how do you explain the cruel behaviour of Israeli soldiers towards Palestinians, an indifference to human suffering, the inflicting of suffering. People ask how can these nice Jewish boys and girls become monsters once they put on a uniform. I think the major reason for that is education. So I wanted to see how school books represent Palestinians."
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  • The killing of Palestinians is depicted as something that was necessary for the survival of the nascent Jewish state, she claims. "It's not that the massacres are denied, they are represented in Israeli school books as something that in the long run was good for the Jewish state. For example, Deir Yassin [a pre-1948 Palestinian village close to Jerusalem] was a terrible slaughter by Israeli soldiers. In school books they tell you that this massacre initiated the massive flight of Arabs from Israel and enabled the establishment of a Jewish state with a Jewish majority. So it was for the best. Maybe it was unfortunate, but in the long run the consequences for us were good."
  • Children, she says, grow up to serve in the army and internalise the message that Palestinians are "people whose life is dispensable with impunity. And not only that, but people whose number has to be diminished."
  • The family produced a poster, calling for a peaceful settlement to the conflict, featuring Peled-Elhanan's only daughter, Smadar. It's message was that all children deserve a better future.Then, in 1997, Smadar was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber while shopping in Jerusalem. She was 13. Peled-Elhanan declines to talk about her daughter's death apart from once or twice referring to "the tragedy".At the time, she said that it would strengthen her belief that, without a settlement to the conflict and peaceful coexistence with Palestinians, more children would die. "Terrorist attacks like this are the direct consequence of the oppression, slavery, humiliation and state of siege imposed on the Palestinians," she told TV reporters in the aftermath of Smadar's death.
  • "University professors stopped inviting me to conferences. And when I do speak, the most common reaction is, 'you are anti-Zionist'." Anybody who challenges the dominant narrative in today's Israel, she says, is similarly accused.
  • Asked if Palestinian school books also reflect a certain dogma, Peled-Elhanan claims that they distinguish between Zionists and Jews. "They make this distinction all the time. They are against Zionists, not against Jews."But she concedes that teaching about the Holocaust in Palestinian schools is "a problem, an issue". "Some [Palestinian] teachers refuse to teach the Holocaust as long as Israelis don't teach the Nakba [the Palestinian "catastrophe" of 1948]."
Pedro Gonçalves

'Iran nuke could wipe Israel off map in seconds' - Haaretz - Israel News - 0 views

www.haaretz.com/...1097673.html

Iran Israel Nuclear Weapons Michael Oren

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 04 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the United States, on Friday warned that an Iranian atomic bomb could "wipe Israel off the map in a matter of seconds," and that the Iranians could "accomplish in a matter of seconds what they denied Hitler did, and kill 6 million Jews, literally."
  • The newly appointed ambassador warned, "There are clocks ticking all around," with regard to the Iranian nuclear issue. "One of those clocks is the uranium enrichment clock, which will show that by a certain date the Iranians will have sufficient, highly enriched uranium materials to create a bomb that could literally wipe Israel off the map in a matter of seconds."
  • "It's very important that we watch carefully what happens in Iran - the events in Iran have unmasked to the world the true nature of this regime," said Oren. "This is a regime that's willing to kill its own citizens; it will certainly have no compunctions killing other people in the region, Jews and Sunni Arabs alike."
Pedro Gonçalves

New National Security Council official: Iran can be stopped - Israel News, Ynetnews - 0 views

www.ynetnews.com/...0,7340,L-3740796,00.html

Israel Zionism American Jewish Committee Eran Lerman

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 03 Jul 09 - Cached
  • The first-degree threat presented to Israel is Iran's progress towards positioning itself as an alternative power to America in this region, estimates Dr. Eran Lerman, who took office Thursday as deputy chief of the National Security Council.  "It isn't just the nuclear issue, but the whole gamut that compels Iran to present itself as the heir of the USSR and a counterforce against the West," Lerman explained to Ynet.
  • "Iran is like a huge, outspread octopus. But what has been going on within the country recently, the serious hit Hizbullah took in the Lebanese elections, as well as the change embodied by US President Barack Obama – who is allowing Muslim figures ostentatiously to have photo ops with him, all this is an indication that Iran's power quest, which nuclear capability is meant to bolster, is not unavoidable or a sure success. It can be fought and slowed," Lerman claimed.
  • For the last nine years, Dr. Lerman has served as the director of the American Jewish Committee's Middle East office. The AJC is one of the oldest Jewish organizations in the United States, established 103 years ago.
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  • "Israel is not on a collision path with the United States," said Lerman in the interview. "The US is still the US; the American people are still pro-Israel, and the foundations of the connection with Israel are strong. It is true that the US has undergone political changes that affect their perceptions and priorities, but, in its deepest essence, nothing has changed in the relationship with Israel."
  • "Now there is a little friction, and this isn't necessarily a bad thing - as long as these frictions don't penetrate the discussion on defense aid and other subjects at the heart of the relationship. It is still early to know where this disagreement will lead, but I believe it is about to be solved."
  • Alongside relations with the US administration, Israel has another relationship that is no less important, though often times perceived as trivial and taken for granted – the relationship with American Jewry. The American Jewish community is a very advanced one, very urban, very affluent, and intensely connected to Israel.  Though Israel invests in its relations with the Diaspora, Lerman did not withhold criticism from the upper echelons. "Israel has a problem reflected in its lack of awareness on all sorts topics," explained Lerman. "For instance, the issue of conversion and the relationship with the non-Orthodox denominations of Judaism. In these fields, the Israeli government's continuing perspective is reveals a lack of sensitivity to the deep structure of the Jewish community in North America."
  • "The despicable treatment of non-Orthodox denominations is a very sore point. If the State of Israel grows darker in its religious interpretations and the Jewish character sharpens into one that American Jewry is uncomfortable with, there is potential for immense alienation," continued Lerman, noting that this is a particularly poignant source of contention given that most American Jews identify with these same non-Orthodox denominations.
  • Lerman is mainly concerned that North American Jews will stop sending their children to Jewish schools out of financial considerations. "These schools are not entitled to federal aid and are reliant on the purchasing power and donations from the Jewish community, as well as good will because there is nothing stopping a family from sending its children to public school for free," explained Lerman.  "This is a critical struggle because it is about Jewish continuity. The chance that this will stop is more worrisome than mixed marriages, which at least have the potential to expand the Jewish community."
Pedro Gonçalves

Why we lean to the political right in Israel | Yoaz Hendel | Comment is free | guardian... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...is-lean-political-right-voters

Israel

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 21 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • The forthcoming elections are significantly different from all the previous ones. The projected victory of the right, according to the polls, is not the result of the satisfaction of the voters with Binyamin Netanyahu as prime minister, but primarily a result of the perceived reality of Israel and the Middle East. The cumulative effect of both internal and regional changes has led most Israelis to be sceptical about the possibility of achieving peace in the region.
  • The more the Israeli left persisted in embracing the slogans of Peace Now in the face of these acts of terror, the more the public distanced itself from the left. As a result, the right once again came to power, led by Ariel Sharon. During this period, the reign of terror was successfully suppressed by the military.
  • Then came a major strategic turning point in the Israeli political map. In 2005 Sharon, one of the original proponents and builders of the settlements, carried out Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, fulfilling one of the left's long-held dreams.The disengagement from Gaza, which involved moving Jews from their homes, caused national trauma. But it was nonetheless carried out successfully, complying with a legitimate decision taken by a democratic state.The vast majority of the Israeli public accepted Sharon's justification for disengaging from Gaza. The public also accepted his argument that following the disengagement it would be possible to cut relations with the Strip, and thereby benefit from relative calm. Israelis were attracted to the idea that "they are there and we are here".The reality was different. Hamas came to power and Gaza became a permanent terrorist threat. Most Israelis were forced to conclude that there is a serious flaw with the idea of "land for peace".
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  • Although throughout the world there has been criticism of Netanyahu's policies, most of the Israeli public accepted the unresolved situation.
  • Israelis are keenly aware of the harsh reality of the Arab spring, the spread of radical Islam, and the infiltration of Iranian forces into Gaza.Given all this, it hardly surprising that the Israeli public leans to the right. The two-state solution remains a vision; and peace an Israeli aspiration. Meanwhile, reality chooses to differ.
Pedro Gonçalves

Binyamin Netanyahu suffers setback as centrists gain ground in Israel election | World ... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...l-elections-binyamin-netanyahu

Israel

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 23 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Yesh Atid, a new centrist party led by the former television personality Yair Lapid, won 19 seats. It concentrated its election campaign on socio-economic issues and removing the exemption for military service for ultra-orthodox Jews.
  • Yehuda Ben Meir of the Institute of National Security Studies, said: "The story of this election is a slight move to the centre, and above all the possibility of Netanyahu forming a coalition only with his 'natural partners' does not exist. He is definitely going to work for a wider coalition."
  • Kadima, which was the biggest party in the last parliament with 28 seats, saw its support plummet and only just crossed the threshold of votes needed to win two seats, according to the partial results.
Pedro Gonçalves

Let Russia Join the WTO -- By Anders Åslund and C. Fred Bergsten | Foreign Po... - 0 views

www.foreignpolicy.com/...let_russia_join_the_wto

Russia US WTO

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 19 Jun 10 - Cached
  • It's true that Russia needs the WTO less than many other countries, since it largely exports commodities that enjoy free-market access in any case. Yet Russia's potential gains from WTO accession have been assessed at 3.3 percent of GDP a year, a major jump for the economy. The main benefits would arise from freer trade of services and foreign direct investment.
  • (Russia's main gains from WTO accession will not be from enhanced market access, although Russian steel and chemicals exports will benefit. Instead, the greatest economic benefits are anticipated on the domestic market for services and greater attraction of foreign direct investment -- leading to improved competition at home.)
  • The United States still maintains the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, adopted in 1974 denying favorable trade status to Russia, citing its restrictions on the free emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union. The law, a relic of the Cold War, has no practical effect but is a serious irritant in relations between the two countries. And as a practical matter, if Jackson-Vanik remains in force, Russia would simply not apply WTO rules to the United States, perpetuating trade discrimination against American companies. Hence the amendment should be scrapped immediately after Russia joins.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - EU: Goods made at Jewish settlements are not Israeli - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8538251.stm

Israel EU

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 Feb 10 - Cached
  • The European Court of Justice has ruled that Israeli goods made in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank cannot be considered Israeli.This means goods made by Israelis or Jews in the West Bank cannot benefit from a trade deal giving Israel preferential access to EU markets. EU import duties on Israeli goods from the settlements may now be imposed, making them less competitive.
  • The EU has agreements with both Israel and the Palestinians that end customs duties.
Argos Media

World Watches for U.S. Shift on Mideast - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...17prexy.html

US Israel Obama Rashid Khalidi Robert Malley Hamas Zbigniew Brzezinski Charles Freeman James Jones George Mitchell

shared by Argos Media on 17 May 09 - Cached
  • As a state senator in Chicago, Mr. Obama cultivated friendships with Arab-Americans, including Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian-American scholar and a critic of Israel. Mr. Obama and Mr. Khalidi had many dinners together, friends said, in which they discussed Palestinian issues.
  • Mr. Obama’s predecessors, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, came of age politically with the American-Israeli viewpoint of the Middle East conflict as their primary tutor, said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator. While each often expressed concern and empathy for the Palestinians — with Mr. Clinton, in particular, pushing hard for Middle East peace during the last months of his presidency — their early perspectives were shaped more by Israelis and American Jews than by Muslims, Mr. Levy said. “I think that Barack Obama, on this issue as well as many other issues, brings a fresh approach and a fresh background,” Mr. Levy said. “He’s certainly familiar with Israel’s concerns and with the closeness of the Israel-America relationship and with that narrative. But what I think might be different is a familiarity that I think President Obama almost certainly has with where the Palestinian grievance narrative is coming from.”
  • None of this necessarily means that Mr. Obama will chart a course that is different from his predecessors’. During the campaign he struck a position on Israel that was indistinguishable from those of his rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain, going so far as to say in 2008 that he supported Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. (He later attributed that statement to “poor phrasing in the speech,” telling Fareed Zakaria of CNN that he meant to say he did not want barbed wire running through Jerusalem.)
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  • Last year, for instance, Mr. Obama was quick to distance himself from Robert Malley, an informal adviser to his campaign, when reports arose that Mr. Malley, a special adviser to Mr. Clinton, had had direct contacts with Hamas, the militant Islamist organization that won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and that controls Gaza. Similarly, he distanced himself from Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser who was often critical of Israel, after complaints from some pro-Israel groups.
  • And Mr. Obama offered no public support for the appointment of Mr. Freeman to a top intelligence post in March after several congressional representatives and lobbyists complained that Mr. Freeman had an irrational hatred of Israel. Mr. Freeman angrily withdrew from consideration for the post.
  • But Mr. Freeman, in a telephone interview last week, said he still believed that Mr. Obama would go where his predecessors did not on Israel. Mr. Obama’s appointment of Gen. James L. Jones as his national security adviser — a man who has worked with Palestinians and Israelis to try to open up movement for Palestinians on the ground and who has sometimes irritated Israeli military officials — could foreshadow friction between the Obama administration and the Israeli government, several Middle East experts said.
  • The same is true for the appointment of George J. Mitchell as Mr. Obama’s special envoy to the region; Mr. Mitchell, who helped negotiate peace in Northern Ireland, has already hinted privately that the administration may have to look for ways to include Hamas, in some fashion, in a unity Palestinian government.
Argos Media

Polish Reactions to SPIEGEL Cover Story: A Wave of Outrage - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - In... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,626171,00.html

Germany Poland Nazism

shared by Argos Media on 22 May 09 - Cached
  • Polish media and politicians have sharply criticized this week's SPIEGEL cover story about Hitler's European helpers outside of Germany. They believe the article is part of an attempt by Germans to foist guilt for its own Nazi crimes off on others.
  • "DER SPIEGEL is accusing Poland and other nations of having assisted in the Holocaust," claims the daily Polska. In the future, the polemic continues, SPIEGEL could come to the conclusion that the Jews, too, assisted -- after all, there were Jewish police in the ghettos who were forced by the Nazis to round up men, women and children for the transports to the concentration camps.
  • t is particularly hurtful to Poles that SPIEGEL also reported about the so-called "Szmalcownicy," Poles who revealed their Jewish neighbors to the Nazis or extorted money from Jewish families in hiding in exchange for silence. Sometimes they even did both.
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  • This week, though, Kaczynski has found his old form again -- with the unexpected help of SPIEGEL. "The Germans are attempting to shake off the guilt for a giant crime," he said, commenting on the latest SPIEGEL cover story, " The Dark Continent: Hitler's European Holocaust Helpers."
Pedro Gonçalves

UN's Richard Falk: IDF seizure of Gaza-bound ship is 'criminal' - Haaretz - Israel News - 0 views

www.haaretz.com/...1097608.html

Israel UN Gaza ICRC

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 03 Jul 09 - Cached
  • A United Nations human rights investigator on Thursday called Israel's seizure of a ship carrying relief aid for the Gaza Strip "unlawful" and said its blockade of the territory constituted a "continuing crime against humanity".
  • Israeli authorities on Tuesday intercepted the vessel, which was also carrying 21 pro-Palestinian activists, and said it would not be permitted to enter Gaza coastal waters because of security risks in the area and its existing naval blockade.
  • Richard Falk, an American Jew and the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said the move was part of Israel's "cruel blockade of the entire Palestinian population of Gaza" in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting any form of collective punishment against "an occupied people". Advertisement Falk, who is an expert on international law, said Israel's two-year blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza restricted vital supplies such as food, medicine and fuel to "bare subsistence levels".
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  • The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a report this week that Israel was also halting entry to Gaza of building materials and spare parts needed to repair damage from its 22-day invasion late last December. "Such a pattern of continuing blockade under these conditions amounts to such a serious violation of the Geneva Conventions as to constitute a continuing crime against humanity," Falk said in a statement released in Geneva.
  • Prior to leaving Cyprus, the ship was inspected by Cypriot authorities in response to Israeli demands to determine whether it carried any weapons, according to the UN investigator. "None were found and Israeli authorities were so informed." "Nonetheless, the 21 peace activists on the boat were arrested, held in captivity and have been charged with 'illegal entry' to Israel even though they had no intention of going to Israel," Falk added.
Pedro Gonçalves

Middle East News | Israeli-US settlement freeze talks hit a dead end - 0 views

www.alarabiya.net/...77531.html

Israel Israeli Settlements Peace Now

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 02 Jul 09 - Cached
  • "The biggest obstacle today is the settlements," Hagit Ofran of the Israeli anti-settlement watchdog group PeaceNOW told Al Arabiya. "There is no land left for Palestinians." "We believe it is easier for the government of Israel to stop settlement activities than trying to find excuses for their continuation," Ophran stated. Ophran added Israel's claims of "natural growth" are bogus given that 40 percent of the settler increase is due to immigration to settlements either from within Israel or abroad. "Natural growth in the settlements is not simply a matter of births from within but includes continuous flow of immigrants," Ophran explained. Settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have continued to expand at a rate higher than the population growth inside Israel. Some 180,000 additional Jews have been permitted to settle inside Israel’s Arab sector in East Jerusalem.
Pedro Gonçalves

Israel expected to propose a temporary and partial freeze on the construction of new ho... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...settlements-israel-palestine

Israel Israeli Settlements US Palestine Ehud Barak Dan Meridor

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 30 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Barak is expected to propose a temporary and partial freeze on the construction of homes for Jews in the West Bank. That falls far short of Barack Obama's demand made to the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, at a difficult meeting in Washington last month for a complete halt to building as evidence of a commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state
  • Tel Aviv newspapers reported Israeli officials as saying that Barak would meet Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in New York tomorrow to propose a three-month freeze on construction in settlements outside Jerusalem.
  • Israel is using its rapid construction programme to surround Jerusalem with Jewish housing and separate Arab districts from the rest of the occupied territories.If construction work continues it is not only likely to surround Jerusalem with Israeli housing but result in a Jewish majority in the east of the city which Israel would use to buttress its claim over all of Jerusalem at peace talks.
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  • Relations have also soured over Israel's insistence that it had an "understanding" with George Bush's administration that allowed what it calls "natural growth" of the settlements to build housing for the children of settlers. Israel's intelligence minister, Dan Meridor, said today that the oral commitment qualified a written agreement with the Americans that required a complete halt to construction. "These understandings were a part of the agreement. Its written part and its oral part complement each other," he said.
  • Israel says it is free to build as it wants in Jerusalem because it has sovereignty over the entire city.
  • Barak is also expected to tell the Americans that the limited construction freeze must be tied to Palestinian peace efforts and moves by the rest of the Arab world to recognise Israel.Even while proposing a partial construction freeze, Barak is also authorising new building.Last week he acknowledged retroactively legalising 60 flats built without government approval near the Jewish settlement of Talmon.He has also given the go-ahead for the construction of scores of new homes in another settlement.
  • Barak told the New York Times that the settlement issue should not be treated in isolation and made the most important issue, but must be considered in the context of wider peace negotiations.Sources close to the US administration say that some Obama officials are also concerned at getting bogged down in a dispute over the settlements but for different reasons.They fear that the Israelis will use a protracted disagreement to slow down movement on a broader peace initiative. For that reason, some Obama advisers are pressing for several tracks to be pursued at once, including direct negotiationsnot dependent on each other at this stage.
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