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The Occupation (again)

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    The Occupation (again)

    Yes, i know I'm a bit of a monomaniac on this issue, but I'm not going to apologise for that because, well, because I think this stuff really really fucking matters, and we can't just will it away by trying not to look at it.

    So, anyway, last week Hagai El-Ad, director of righteous Israeli NGO B'Tselem made a superb speech (here: http://972mag.com/the-occupation-is-sustainable-because-the-world-refuses-to-take-action/122635/ )at the UN in opposition to settlements*, and he has obviously been set upon by Netanyahu and his Hasbara attack dogs. Here is his (El-Ad's) comment piece from today's Haaretz
    http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.747699?v=ED8D6B235FDDD0F7F1E4174A2CDD0D41

    Both the original speech and the piece today are brilliant pieces of succinct reasoning why we MUST oppose the occupation and why pretending there is a peace process is actually enabling the vileness of what goes on. I strongly recommend reading both.

    #2
    The Occupation (again)

    Thanks for that ad hoc. I'm very glad you continue to raise the Occupation and the broader issue of Israel/Palestine. It's a very moving piece.

    When I point out that A Labour Member of the Knesset has called for btselem to be tried for treason it's easier to understand why that same Israeli Labour Party's sister organisation has been so keen to drive the "Labour is antisemitic" narrative in the Uk.

    Ed Miliband took a lot of shit from the Pro Likud areas of British Judaism because he spoke up for Recognition of Palestine.

    Given both his parents were Holocaust survivors it was hard to accuse him of antisemitism , though Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard (who incidentally thinks brexit is great for Britain and its Jews) thought his bacon sandwich ministering by the Sun was funny& not antisemitic.

    Jeremy Corbyn is not so lucky & despite the fact that many of his constituents & closest supporters are Jewish he and labour are suffering a ferocious attack which is seeking to normalise the accusation of anti Semitism against all who criticise Israel.

    Comment


      #3
      The Occupation (again)

      here is an evisceration of a book by Dave Rich from the " Community Safety Trust which attempts to make the "Anti Zionism = anti Semitism" case.

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        #4
        The Occupation (again)

        That's a great review, thanks. Serves to make me even more angry at Nick Cohen, which i didn't think was possible, but there you go

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          #5
          The Occupation (again)

          http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.747655?&ts=_1476728244552&v=5D1C54671170E4461020 1EAD419543ED

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            #6
            The Occupation (again)

            If I haven't said it before, I always appreciate your and G-Man's attention to this (here and on fb).

            I try and use what I've learned via you two to inform others. (It doesn't happen much, but it did happen recently.)

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              #7
              The Occupation (again)

              Am I the only one who can't read those Haaretz pieces?

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                #8
                The Occupation (again)

                Same here. Is there a way for non-subscribers to see them?

                Comment


                  #9
                  The Occupation (again)

                  Hmm, I'm not a subscriber and I can see them.

                  Anyway, the Gideon levy column I posted at 19.42 on 17.10 is c&p below

                  ¬¬¬
                  One of the main claims of Israeli propaganda is also one of the worst — that there is no partner for peace. In fact there was, is and will be a partner. But we can leave that aside. No partner is necessary.

                  They so dearly want two states and are so against the occupation, say many self-righteous Israelis — and then comes the heartrending sigh, carrying all the sorrow of the Jewish fate — but there’s no partner. If only there were. If only. He is desperate for peace, but there’s no one to make it with. And so he must, he is forced against his will, miserable victim that he is, to continue the occupation. In recent years this shtick has become a central trick of the propaganda of Zion. With the exception of the extreme right, which says openly that it wants apartheid forever because the Jewish nation is superior, everybody uses it.

                  The truth is that there is no partner for continuing the occupation. There is no partner for Israel’s interminable delaying and rejection tactics. There is no partner for Israel’s ridiculous talk about demanding recognition as a Jewish state, just as there is no partner for Israel’s other empty demands. There is no partner for the unbelievable chutzpah of Israel’s demand for negotiations “without preconditions,” while the mother of all preconditions, the settlement enterprise, thrives unabated.

                  There is no partner for Jerusalem united eternally, and there never will be. There is no partner for Israel’s endless security demands, as if it were the weaker, battered party whose security and existence were in danger, rather than the Palestinian people, Israel’s actions against which can only be described as criminal.
                  It is doubtful that a serious partner will be found for unilateral demilitarization, no less of a chutzpah; there certainly will be no partner to leave most of the settlers in place.

                  There was no partner when Israel refused for years to talk to the PLO and there will be no partner as long as Israel continues to hold the people of the Gaza Strip in a cage. There was no partner when Israel did all it could to crush then-Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and there is no partner after Israel did everything to turn his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, into a sad joke in the eyes of his people. Nor will there be a partner, as long as the occupation persists — and there is nothing more violent — for Israel’s demand for an end to the violent resistance.

                  In short, there is no partner. Like the man who murders his parents and then pleads for mercy on the grounds of being an orphan —the classic definition of chutzpah — Israel has done everything for there not to be a partner, and then moans that there is no partner.

                  In fact, it’s not necessary. To establish justice, no partner is needed. Israel is not in a position to demand a partner in order to end the occupation. It must end the occupation. It has no right to make demands before doing so. In the fog of Israeli propaganda, these fundamental truths have been obscured and forgotten. The simple fact that the real victim is the Palestinian people has been forgotten. They are in existential danger and they live in inhuman conditions, which must be changed before anything else. Conditions cannot be set for returning part of a people’s land, its liberty and its dignity. It must be the other way around. First restore (partial) justice to the Palestinians and then talk about everything. Israel never had a statesman who turned everything upside down and pledged to end the occupation before anything else. It always began with an accounting of the preconditions that Israel made. It always ended with there being no partner.

                  The partner will appear afterward. Since most, not the entirety, of the Palestinian people wants to live in peace with Israel — 30 years of covering the occupation have persuaded me of this, beyond a shadow of a doubt — it is very likely that a partner will be found for ending the occupation. And if not, too bad for Israel. But even that can’t absolve it of its duty to end the injustice and the evil.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    The Occupation (again)

                    And the piece by Hagai El-Ad following up his UN speech is below

                    ¬¬¬

                    I spoke at the United Nations against the occupation because I am striving to be a human being. And human beings, when they take responsibility for an injustice against other human beings, have a moral obligation to take action.

                    I spoke at the United Nations against the occupation because I am an Israeli. I have no other country. I have no other citizenship and no other future. I grew up here and will be buried here. I care about the fate of this place, the fate of its people and its political fate, which is my fate, too. And in light of all these ties, the occupation is a disaster.

                    I spoke at the United Nations against the occupation because my colleagues at B’Tselem and I, after so many years of work, have reached several conclusions. Here’s one: The reality will not change if the world does not intervene. I suspect that our arrogant government also knows this, so it’s busy fearmongering against such an intervention.

                    Intervention by the world against the occupation is just as legitimate as any human-rights issue. It’s all the more so when it involves an issue like our ruling over another people. This is no internal Israeli matter. It is blatantly an international matter.

                    Here’s another conclusion: There is no chance Israeli society, of its own volition and without any help, will end the nightmare. Too many mechanisms insulate the violence we conduct in order to take control of them. Too many excuses have accumulated. There have been too many fears and too much anger – on both sides – over the past 50 years. In the end, I’m sure, Israelis and Palestinians will end the occupation, but we won’t do it without the world’s help.

                    The United Nations is many things. Many of them are problematic, some of them are really foolish. I don’t agree with them. But the United Nations is also the organization that gave us a state in 1947, and that decision is the basis of the international legitimacy of our country, the one where I’m a citizen. And with every day of occupation, we not only chew away at Palestine with delight, we also destroy our country’s legitimacy.

                    I don’t understand what the government wants the Palestinians to do. We have ruled their lives for nearly 50 years, we have shredded their land to bits. We wield military and bureaucratic power with enormous success and get along just fine with ourselves and the world.

                    What are the Palestinians supposed to do? If they dare demonstrate, it’s popular terror. If they call for sanctions, it’s economic terror. If they pursue legal means, it’s judicial terror. If they turn to the United Nations, it’s diplomatic terror.

                    It turns out that anything a Palestinian does besides getting up in the morning and saying “Thank you, Rais” – "Thank you, master" – is terror. What does the government want, a letter of surrender or for the Palestinians to disappear? They won’t disappear.

                    We won’t disappear either, nor will we be silent. We must repeat it everywhere: The occupation is not the result of a democratic vote. Our decision to control their lives, as much as it suits us, is an expression of violence, not democracy. Israel has no legitimate option to continue this way. And the world has no option to continue treating us as it has so far – all talk and no action.

                    I spoke at the UN Security Council against the occupation because I am optimistic, because I am an Israeli, because I was born in Haifa and live in Jerusalem, and because I am no longer a young man and every day of my life has accompanied our control of them. And because it is impossible to carry on like this.

                    We must not carry on like this. I spoke at the UN Security Council against the occupation because I am striving to be a human being.

                    Hagai El-Ad is the executive director of the human rights group B’Tselem.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      The Occupation (again)

                      Thanks for that.

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