The stabbing by three masked men Friday night of Mahmoud Abu Rahma, international affairs director of al-Mezan Human Rights Center, is seen as one of the more serious incidents of internal violence since the Islamic militant group’s armed takeover of Gaza in 2007. Hamas leaders have condemned the attack, which wounded Abu Rahma in the hand, back and leg, and insist it is not related to his criticism, human rights activists counter that the assault is the latest in a series of episodes undermining free expression for which the government bears ultimate responsibility.

”From what we have heard from Mahmoud and al-Mezan and according to the investigations they have made, this is a continuation of the attack on freedom of expression,” said Jaber Wishah, deputy director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR). ”As long as the authority is the responsible body, the full responsibility falls on its shoulders to stop such attacks.”

Abu Rahma had received numerous death threats since January 1. That was when he published an article on the Maan news agency website accusing resistance groups of causing death and injury by deploying and training next to schools and homes, a charge frequently leveled by Israel but until now not publicly voiced by Palestinians.

On January 3, Abu Rahma was roughed up by unarmed men, and on Friday he escaped being stabbed in the chest only because he was able to use his laptop as a shield, his brother Imad said, adding that the assailants shouted at him that he was a ”collaborator” with Israel.

In his article, Mr. Abu Rahma wrote:”Many citizens fall victim to the continuous negligence of the resistance groups, who show little or no care for people’s life and well being, or worse, fail to take responsibility for shocking acts by their members.Numerous people were injured by live fire coming from resistance group training sites including children, and at least one man lost an eye.”

He added that there is a training site in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya ”that threatens people every day including a girl who was injured inside her school when an explosion occurred in this site.”’

Abu Rahma also criticized the ”misfiring” of rockets aimed at Israel that ”fall on houses and kill [Gaza] civilians”
”Many children have been killed or maimed by explosive devices left in the streets or on farms,” he added. ”And there is the young man who was shot in the legs for daring to criticize a local resistance leader.”.

”Who will protect the people from the wrongful acts of the resistance and government?” Abu Rahma asked.
The assault on Abu Rahma follows a string of attacks against media outlets last year, including an attempt to set fire to the Maan offices in July and an incident in March, during which armed men entered the offices of Reuters and threatened employees with guns. According to Reuters account, the men struck one journalist on the arm with a metal bar and threatened to throw another out the window of the high rise. They took away a video camera apparently after they spotted a reporter filming a demonstration from a building. The group smashed a television set and other equipment before leaving and also seized videotapes from nearby offices of CNN and the Japanese station NHK. Reuters reported that the men said they came from Hamas internal security, but senior Hamas officials condemned the action and denied the group was involved in it.
”We are seeing a silencing of the press,” says Wishah, from PCHR.”These acts cause internal censorship which is even more harmful than external censorship.”

Salah Bardawil, a Hamas legislator, termed the attack against Abu Rahma ”a deplorable act.”

”Any attack on a Palestinian citizen is a crime and an attack on a human rights activist is a bigger crime,” he said. Bardawil stressed, however, that he thought the attack was the work of criminal elements and not political or related to Abu Rahma’s article.

He said Hamas works to uphold freedom of expression ”but on the ground there are some transgressions and we in the legislative council are working to correct this.” Bardawil took issue with Abu Rahma’s assertion that fighters endanger the lives of civilians by positioning themselves close to homes. ”These are the houses of our children and we don’t ever allow any resistance training that endangers civilians,” he said.

There is also a discrimination between the two genders in the international solidarity with the Palestinian cause… I had read a lot about the American, Rachel Corrie, who was killed because of her non-violent struggle in solidarity with Palestinians… But, it’s the first time to know that there is another British activist named Tom Hurndall who was also killed in Palestine in similar circumstances… I don’t know why people remember the feminine sacrifices more than male sacrifices?

I was also happy to read about the non-violent struggle of some Palestinian activists… I liked what I read in the organization, ISM (International Solidarity Movement)… For all of my life I was against the Palestinian movements because of their violent means, that’s why I am impressed by the non-violent Palestinian experience… I want to visit this organization when I visit Palestine and Israel.

I don’t deny that I started to feel big sympathy with Palestinians of the West Bank who are compelled everyday to see the occupying army of Israel in the streets and squares… I felt their feeling when I was compelled to see the occupying army of Tantawi in the streets and squares of Egypt after the coup d’etat of last February.

In the earphone of the MP3 I hear her refreshing voice… Ofra Haza, the fabulous Israeli singer… Singing in Arabic “Ya Helu ya Hali”… Prisons won’t prevent you of what you like, prisons are inside brains of Arabs preventing them from enjoying the art and the literature of Israel although they are theoretically free… I only in need to listen to the crazy Israeli band, Orphaned Land, even though I don’t know how will I see the the female dancer who dances oriental dancing on their songs on the MP3

I heard of the campaign by some Israeli females in solidarity with Aliaa El-Mahdi… You do it from behind my back, you bastards! All that while I’m imprisoned, waaa.

The Egyptian people are very strange… When Sadat presented the peace treaty for referendum, most of the people agreed on the treaty, then they come to think of me as a traitor because I want to apply the treaty in reality! Honestly, I want the referendum on the treaty to be made once again in order to silence the loud-voiced persons who speak on behalf of the people against the treaty, for no reason, but the referendum has to explicit, giving the people the choice between war or peace, because it’s necessary that the people understand that abolishing the treaty means entering a state of war.

Solidarity letters reach me from ordinary Israeli citizens, but it didn’t reach me any kind of solidarity of the Israeli government… The Israeli people remind me of the Egyptian people, a great people ruled by a gang with an extremist minority harms their image.

Speaking of the official solidarity… The German embassy in Egypt was the only one to send me an official for them to visit me in prison, when it was supposed to be that Israelis be the ones to do that, as I was saying on myself “pro-Israel” not “pro-Germany”… But, it’s OK, that’s what is expected of the government of Bibi “Netanyahu”.

Days before I was imprisoned, I wrote that I wanted to visit Israel, but their embassy refused to give me a visa… In reality, this is part of the truth, the first part of the truth is that before January revolution, there was an agreement with one of the Israeli activists who would have given me an official invitation from a minister of Likud, but after I read that the this minister participated in activists hostile to our revolution, I sent a message to this activist telling him not to send the invitation because I won’t accept that I go to Israel with an invitation from someone who stood against our revolution… Sometimes I ask myself: Was this stance of mine the reason of the was of the unpleasant treatment from the Israeli official since then?

I also sometimes ask myself: Did the Israeli not want me to enter Israel so that to preserve their relation with the Egyptian regime as I was saying? Or, they don’t want me to see Israel on its reality and change my idea about it? I won’t know the answer except after I see with my eyes.

Several years ago, a Palestinian activist from Gaza sent me an e-mail, telling me about his activism… He was joined with a group of teachers in Gaza, who were making researches on the effect of the Israeli gases on the psychology of children in Gaza, and they were taking foreign funds for long years, then the foreign fund, the business and the gifts were cut, then he sent me asking if I was able to help him in a source of foreign fund… I sent him a message, telling him that Palestinian children don’t need researches to be written on paper. Palestinian children need the Israeli gases to stop, and that won’t happen except with your recognition for Israel and entering a peace treaty with it… But, you are like that, you are like the doctor who wants his patient to always keep being ill, in order for the patient to always keep paying the bill of the medical check… Of course, after that, this fellow struggler didn’t answer me again.

I learned that “Yaakov Amitai” was hired as an ambassador to Egypt instead of “Yitzhak Levanon”… I’m happy with the departure of Levanon, the man who contributed in many political crises between the two nations… I don’t know anything about Yaakov Amitai and I’m pessimistic with the choices of Avigdor Lieberman, but I hope that he would be able to fix the relation between the two nations… My advices to him: You are an ambassador of Israel in Egypt, not an ambassador of Likud government for the military council; your role is to bring the peoples closer together, not that you preserve some ink on paper called the peace treaty. The peoples are more important than paper, Mr ambassador.

I really wonder of Hamas claims that it would throw Israel in the sea… I don’t know how a movement which doesn’t even own air force, how would it be able to enter a equivalent war? Not that it would win the war… Minds at rest already!

I think that the two peoples, the Palestinians and the Israelis, need to appreciate the value of “non-violence” and I think that this became easier after the Arab Spring… Likud needs to forget the saying “that the Arabs only understand force”, Hamas and its allies need to understand that they can achieve gains through non-violence, more than the gains that they achieve by their fake missiles (that if there are any gains).

I’m sad that Palestinians lost their round of recognition in the Security Council… The source of my sadness is that this loss will cause more frustration to the Palestinians, this would drive them to more violence… Also, if this step succeeded, this would encourage the Palestinians to follow the non-violent means, and this is in the interest of peace… In my opinion, Israel came out losing by the position of the Security Council.

My tutor Amin El-Mahdi, after reading my article “Why am I pro-Israel”, told me that it’s necessary to speak about disadvantages and advantages, in order to be fair and objective in my evaluation… This is what I tried to do in my article “Why Don’t we Also be Peaceful with Israel”, “Yes to Peace for Egypt before it is for Israel” and in this article “Establishing a Palestinian State is in the Interest of Israel”… The respect of the writer for himself (even if he was imprisoned) is more important than anything else in the world.

Maikel Nabil Sanad
El-Marg prison – prison hospital
2011/12/8

Related articles:
* Why am I pro-Israel
* Why Don’t we Also be Peaceful with Israel
* Yes to Peace for Egypt
* Establishing a Palestinian State is in the Interest of Israel

What is your answer for the Middle East?

I would use Arab and Western capital and know how to build a Green Industrial Zone in Rafah, Gaza; where Gaza, Egypt and Israel converge, and where 300,000 Jews, Christians and Muslims would show up to work on a daily basis.

Why Rafah in particular? Isn’t that a tough neighborhood, to say the least?

Rafah is the “wild west” of the Middle East. But because it’s such a tough place, is why you want to build it there. Like Frank Sinatra sang about New York City, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere…”

Why a Green Industrial Zone? Why not a plain old, run-of-the-mill industrial zone?

Because we’re not just building an industrial zone. We’re building a new model for the Middle East, a model for positive change in that troubled region. We want to inspire a sense of hope, and deliver on that promise with jobs: jobs which grow our economies, jobs which protect the environment, and jobs which help weaken the hold of extremist thinking. By focusing the project on the environment, and by working to improve the human condition, on issues such as clean water, food production, healthcare and green energy, we are more likely to garner worldwide attention and additional investment dollars. As such, we could replicate the project throughout the Middle East, in a bid to revitalize the entire region with jobs. What begins as a single solitary project could well blossom into a movement for change.

How about Hamas? Wouldn’t they just blow up the place?

Even Hamas needs to create jobs. It’s one thing to get elected. It’s quite another to govern. As Hamas, or the Muslim Brotherhood, undertake to govern, and as they take note of what is happening on the Arab street even as we speak, they may come to the realization that job creation is in their interest as they attempt to consolidate political power. Therefore, while they may not agree to peace, they may agree to protect our Green Industrial Zone, as a way of inspiring the man on the street, and delivering on that promise with jobs.

What makes you think that wealthy Arabs and Westerners would likely invest in such a venture?

For the first time, in a long time, Arab, Israeli and Western leaders are facing some very common existential threats, namely, the prospect of a nuclear Iran, and the fury of the man on the street. These common existential threats, what we call a mosaic of mutual self-interest, could be leveraged into a strategic/economic alliance between the Arab states, Israel, the U.S., and Europe, with two purposes in mind: to provide security in the region, and to use Arab and Western capital and knowhow to revitalize the region with jobs. Millions of Western jobs could also be created in the process as we open up a new market for our goods and services.

Where would you get the green technology to run a Green Industrial Zone?

As it happens, counties like Israel offer quite a bit in this regard. My friend in the Technion, for example, just invested a way of engineering fruits and vegetables that are draught resistant and that use 70% less water. Imagine the possibilities for feeding people in places like the Middle East and Africa. And Israel would likely cooperate because she would much prefer to see positive change occurring in the Middle East, so that an already tough neighborhood does not become even more so.

Where would you find the workers with the necessary skills to handle green jobs?

We would build a vocational school, as part of our Green Industrial Zone, to train young workers, and to equip them with the necessary skills. We would also invest in female entrepreneurs and promote women’s rights.

Why women in particular?

Empower Muslim women in ways that they deem appropriate, and you will have changed the face of the Middle East. Who are women? They are the givers of life and the caretakers of life, and as such are uniquely qualified to reconstitute their societies consistent with a Vision of Hope.

Do you really believe that a new model of this sort is even possible?

Maybe, maybe not. However, some of the key players in the Middle East are quickly running out of good options. They may choose to join in, not because they necessarily love one another, or because they want peace, or because they want a better world for their children. No, none of that crap. They may join in because they’re running out of options, as the old model that has been put in place is falling apart. The writing is on the wall for all the business and political leaders in the Middle East. We see the energy in the hearts and minds of young people. We either find a way to marshal that energy and point it in a positive direction, or it will all explode in our collective faces.

How long will it all take?

A new Middle East may take generations to pull off. However, the plans for the industrial zone in Rafah already exist. A wealthy industrialist in Israel, Stef Wertheimer, already drew them up, and was ready to break ground, when the second Intifada broke out in the year 2000, and the plans were scrapped. We could use those plans, put some serious capital behind them, and launch the project immediately by with Caterpillar tractors showing up to clear the land. Even this first step would inspire a sense of hope, and would buy us time to effectuate positive chance gradually, as opposed to dealing with revolutionary change on our doorsteps.

A Green Industrial Zone in a wild and crazy place like Rafah will resonate with hope, and will deliver on that promise with jobs. It will be the model which answers the three greatest questions of our time: How do we grow our economies? How do we protect the environment? And how do we weaken the hold of extremist thinking? As such, it will capture the world’s imagination and be replicated in a bid to revitalize the entire region with jobs and personal freedoms. It will restore the rich legacy of Arab pride and dignity. It will bring stability where chaos now reigns. And it will point to a place where, for a change, everybody wins.

Even though I enjoy my own company, your comments would be greatly welcomed. You are also welcome to visit us at www.sellingavisionofhope.org for more information.

The villagers were speaking with soldiers demanding paperwork and telling them that court cases are pending and to stop blowing up their lands. Instead the soldiers arrogantly pushed and shoved and as they tried to arrest one young man, a group of Israeli soldiers and native Palestinians fell off the side of the bulldozed area of the route of the apartheid wall. Outside of camera views, Mustafa was beaten repeatedly in the car (I was hit twice) by a mean young Israeli soldiers who said he hated Arabs. The video we have of our abduction:

And still pictures can be seen here and here.

After the US government (under the Yolk of the Israel lobby) cut funding for UNESCO, people of the world and other governments should step up to the plate and donate to this institution. You can do so here.

Some of us scheduled to go on the boats to Gaza* but were not permitted to get on the boat are now visiting Egypt post-revolution. On of us was held at the Cairo airport for nearly 8 hours making us think that change still has along way to go here. Please let us know if you have Egyptian contacts we can connect with especially those who can brief us on the changes in the society post-Mubarak. The Israeli occupation authorities did this last July with the Europeans trying to visit us in the West Bank (through arriving at airport in the Welcome to Palestine Campaign) and before that in blocking freedom flotillas and murdering peace activists like Rachel Corrie and like Turkish visitors. The incident is uncomfortable for Israel because it exposes an apartheid system built on racism and violence. The best evidence of this is to compare the peaceful nature of those of us who tried or did get on the boats with the vicious verbal attack (preluding the actual navy attacks) on the flotilla ships. Here are things to contrast:

Call from Palestinians in Gaza to the international community.

Amy Goodman interviews activists aboard the boats [Link.]

Contrast those with comments posted on a misleading Jerusalem Post article (misleading because the siege is illegal and the Zionist Palmar had no authority or mandate to rule on its legality). The UN Human Rights Council and International Legal experts all ruled the siege is illegal. But I think the comments on the story from Israelis is telling in terms of the sentiment of the privileged class in the apartheid regime.

But again our job is to shed a lot of light and noise about these issues and to help a captive population begging us to help. Please act by contacting media and politicians. Also if you know anyone who can help us get into Gaza via Rafah, please write to me.

According to a British report Israel is upgrading its nuclear weapons. According to Israeli papers is seriously considering an attack on Iran. Put it together and it is not another Zionist driven regional or world conflict but a catastrophe beyond imagination. The ghetto mentality visible from reading the comments in the Jerusalem Post or other Israeli papers show a deeply schizophrenic and paranoid psychology that is extremely dangerous: Zionists think that they can get away with the large scale ethnic cleansing of Palestine (war crimes and crimes against humanity) by creating perpetual conflict and scaring Jews to always be afraid of gentiles (what they refer to as ‘goyim’). The rest of the world and especially Western countries need to understand this and treat Israel as the rogue apartheid state it is.

US citizens should not let more of this kind of charade goer on:

Action: As of October 28, 2011, the total number of Palestinian organizations participating in the GMJ is close to fifty, including 15 in Palestine, 14 in Jordan, approximately 20 in Lebanon and some from other countries. The main list is here and a separate list for the autonomous North American GMJ group is here.
and also join us in the Welcome to Palestine Campaign And April 15-21.

Stay human.

See my earlier blog from Turkey point of boat departure here.

You’re Also Right

Sagi Melamed

There is a well-known story about a rabbi who was called upon to settle a dispute between two of his followers.  The first man poured out his complaints to the rabbi, and when he finished, the rabbi said, “You’re right.”  Then it was the second one’s turn.  When he finished, the rabbi said, “You’re also right.”  The rabbi’s wife, who had been listening to the conversation, said incredulously to her husband, “What do you mean, ‘You’re also right’? They can’t both be right!”  The rabbi thought for a few moments, and then replied, “You know, my dear, you’re also right.”

If an alien were to land in our general vicinity, his response to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would probably be like that of the rabbi in the story: You’re both right.

The Palestinian people are right when they expect and demand independence.  The Palestinian father is right to long for a life in which he can sleep safe at home without fearing a midnight pounding on his door.  The Palestinian woman is right to want to go from place to place without having to go through security checkpoints or risk arrest.

The Jewish people were also right when they returned to their homeland after a 2,000 year exile, establishing their own national home.  Jews are right to fear hatred and persecution, right to believe that only by relying on their own resources, can they prevent the nightmare of another Holocaust.  Jews are right to state that they entitled to all they have achieved through their own efforts.  The Jewish people are correct when they point out that the world has totally unreasonable expectations of them, expectations that are never imposed on any other people.  And they are also right to fear that if they give away some of their land today, then tomorrow the Palestinians might demand it all.

Friends and neighbors may say, “Why do you, the grandson of a refugee from Germany, offspring of kibbutz founders, army officer, and member of a religious community in the Galilee, feel the need to justify the position of our enemies?”  I reply, “I don’t have to justify anything, but I do have to understand.”  It is not hard to find untruths, gross exaggerations and significant holes in the Palestinian version of the conflict.  But even the most extreme among us cannot deny that Palestinians lack freedom, live in very difficult conditions, declare themselves to be a people and are hungry for independence.

In the 90s I believed, along with many others, that we could find a way to live side-by-side.  We had the feeling that it was beginning to happen, that it would come to pass soon.  I remember that I was even somewhat concerned, during my MA studies in Boston, that peace would break out before I could return to Israel.  What would we only give to be able to have such concerns nowadays! 

The speeches of Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas at the UN General Assembly might have been the last nails in the coffin of the dream of living side-by-side – if not actually in peace, then at least living without war.  But this does not seem possible any time in the foreseeable future.  Both speeches focused on why I am right/fearful/angry/threatened and why the other side is threatening/thieving/untrustworthy.  From their own perspectives, they were both right.  And with “right” like that, who needs “wrong”?

Sagi Melamed lives with his family in the community of Hoshaya in the Galilee.  He serves as Vice President of External Affairs at the Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, and as Chief Instructor (4^th Dan) of the Hoshaya Karate Club.  Sagi received his Masters degree from Harvard University in Middle Eastern Studies with a specialty in Conflict Resolution. He can be contacted at: melamed.sagi@gmail.com. 

September 2011

UNESCO voted to admit Palestine to full membership despite the threats and bribes of the Israeli-occupied US policy. It is clear now that the US/Israeli government (is one or two?) stand isolated in one corner and the people of the world are rising up. Some EU Member countries voted in favor (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovenia, Spain) whilst most of the others abstained. US, Canada, Holland, Germany voted against. Please write to your governments and to the media and give them feedback. The UN released yet another report detailing the humanitarian effect of the illegal siege of Gaza, available in several languages.

It is ironic that this happened around October 29, a day with meaning for us. It was on this day in 1948 that the massacre at Al-Duwayima Village happened (one of over 40 massacres used to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Palestine). The testimony of an Israeli soldier who participated was quoted in Davar, 9 June 1979 (a Hebrew-language daily newspaper published in the Mandate Palestine and Israel between 1925 and 1996): “Killed between 80 to 100 Arabs, women and children. To kill the children they fractured their heads with sticks. There was not one house without corpses. The men and women of the villages were pushed into houses without food or water. Then the saboteurs came to dynamite the houses. One commander ordered a soldier to bring two women into a house he was about to blow up. Another soldier
prided himself upon having raped an Arab woman before shooting her to death. Another Arab woman with her newborn baby was made to clean the place for a couple of days, and then they shot her and the baby. Educated and well-mannered commanders who were considered ‘good guys’became base murderers, and this not in the storm of battle, but as a method of expulsion and extermination. The fewer the Arabs who remain, the better.”

The date also happens to be the date of tripartite aggression on Egypt in 1956. President Eisenhower showed US leadership then by standing up to Israel. No other president has been willing to do that since then (although some would say that President Kennedy did for a while but was then assassinated ending those efforts to curtail Israel’s nuclear weapons development).

Join us in Palestine in December, and the Global March to Jerusalem on March 30, 2012 (GMJ).

* The beautiful dream
- I dreamed of one homeland and one state bringing together the two peoples, the Palestinian and the Israeli peoples. One state for the two peoples, living together in peace. A civic state that doesn’t discriminated between its citizens on a religious basis, ethnic origin or sexual origin. A state where the religious Jews won’t feel that there is a foreign state on the historical land of Israel, and where the Palestinians don’t feel that there is an occupying state on the Palestinian soil. A state where there is a human balance between Palestinians and Jews would prevent a tyranny of one side over the other. A state living in peace with its neighbors, not in need for a huge armament budget straining its national economy, and doesn’t need to daily lose its youth in childish absurd wars which have no meaning. A state where the citizens look to the new cities as a type of development not settlement. A state taking advantage of the cultural plurality of its population to become stronger and more effective in the region.
- However, for years, both sides killed the dream. The Palestinian terror broke many roads for the peaceful resolution of the conflict, it created a psychological barrier between the two peoples. The Palestinian politicians’ insistence on the two-state solution greedily in the hope of getting corruption money and in the political positions which they won’t reach in a one-state solution, considering that the Israeli politicians are university graduates while the Palestinian politicians are tent and para-military graduates. All that led to the unification of the international efforts toward the two-state solution, not the one-state solution.
- On the other hand, the Israeli insistence on taking unilateral decisions without making considerations for the other international parties, and its insistence for the strong military solutions, and the continuation of the military presence in the West Bank, and the continuation for the provocative policies on top of them the settlements and the obstruction of negotiations insisting on solving complicated issues like the Judaism of Israel and the rights of Jewish refugees who were expelled of the Arab countries; and finally, with the existence of a type of Israeli politicians in authority who are pro-war and anti-peace, they are politicians who know very well that they reached their positions on war propaganda, and will lose them once peace is achieved. All that led to the loss of Palestinians for the hope of serious negotiations, and that pushed them to more violence, and this also led to the creation of a psychological barrier for Palestinians preventing the idea of a one state.
- The realistic result for all that is: the one-state solution isn’t raised anymore in the near term. Both sides have no minimum readiness to exert efforts to achieve it, there is insistence from both sides on the two-state solution, this is a reality which we should accept whether we like it or not.

* Establishing a Palestinian state is in the interest of Israel
- I wonder because of the Israeli reaction toward the Palestinian request from the United Nations to obtain a full membership, because establishing a Palestinian state goes along with the interest of Israel, because it does not in anyway contradict with the Palestinian people obtaining their full rights or with the Israeli people obtaining their full rights.
- It is in the interest of Israel that the ongoing conflict for more than 6 decades ends. Israel has the right to live in peace for the first time in its modern history. It is in the interest of the Israeli people to live in peace and contentment for the first time since the establishment of their state. It is in the interest of Israel to feel contentment from its neighbors without a continuous distrust of an attack that Israel doesn’t know where will it come from.
- It is in the interest of Israel to end the state of war, therefore getting-rid of its need for the hugely inflated defense budget and taking advantage of this budget in favor for the Israeli citizens who need education, health care and housing more than their need for bullets, tear gas and cannon shells. It is in the interest of the Israeli youth not to lose years of their life in a compulsory military service, who can take advantage of these years in building their future, and they would be safe from injuries which they could be subjected to in the military operations.
- It is in the interest of Israel to improve its image to the world and to the Arab countries. It’s not of the interest of Israel that its isolation increases within the international community, and that its image would not be in the minds of the international public opinion as “a racist state”, “the only government of occupation on planet earth” and “the only state to make settlements after the second world war” even if this image is incorrect. It is also not in the interest of Israel that the Arab citizens (Egyptians, Jordanians, Palestinians and others) look to the Israeli people as enemies. As long as the Arabs look to the Israelis as enemies, Israelis won’t be able to invest or make tourism or make any joint relations with their neighbors, Israel is going to be continually besieged between people who don’t sympathize with the legitimate rights of the people of Israel.
- All countries pass through stages of strength and stages of weakness. All countries, no matter how strong they were, pass through moments of weakness (could be fatal sometimes), Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are the strongest examples for countries to have reached their full strength then passed through weakness leading to their collapse. Yes, Israel is a strong country, but it is subjected to pass through stages of weakness, and it is in the interest of Israel at then when it might pass through moments of weakness that it would be in a state of peace and friendship with its neighbors, not to be in a state that its neighbors are waylaying waiting for the moment of weakness, to devour it. Peace guarantees for Israel the continuation for its existence on its lands, not the military force.

* A call for peace
- I invite Israel now to cut the way for the calls for hatred, racism and the escalating of war, and become the first country to recognize Palestine and invite countries to recognize it and to contribute in building the Palestinian state. The Palestinian state is going to be established whether you like it or not, so it’s in your interest that the new state be a friendly state, not an enemy state.
- Yes, I am not very optimistic with the coalition of rightists and militarists which drives Israel now, with very modest capabilities, to destruction and not progress, but why not invite them to take a pivotal historic stance for the interest of Israel? If the current Israeli political leadership was refusing to do this stance, why not the progressive forces of Israel adopt it, either they be political parties of peace forces, social forces or even the youth of the tent revolution who have represented all Israeli cities and neighborhoods.
Would Tzipi Livni, the leader of the Israeli opposition, adopt this invitation, to save Israel from complicating the conflict, to lead it to the ultimate and full peace, and to make Israel enter a new era of peaceful coexistence with its neighbors?
- I know that it is currently almost impossible for Israelis to accept the complications which the Palestinians put in the the text of their request, as the Palestinians’ insistence on 1967-borders and on eastern Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. But, why not Israel recognizes the Palestinian state without stating borders or a capital for it, then these issues be resolved with other controversial issues like the issues of refugees, water and the security situation in a peace treaty signed within a year.
We are in front of a historic critical and decisive moment, Israel has to find an intelligent leadership able to innovate an unconventional solution to save Israel from what Ehud Barak described as a tsunami, and to lead Israel toward a new era of positive coexistence in the region. Currently, Israel has to choose between start moving in the way for prosperity or decayedness.
- I had advised Israel since the beginning of the Egyptian revolution to take the correct decision and to bias toward the Egyptian revolutionaries, but Israel didn’t respond to my advice at then, later it realized this after months that it took the wrong decision, Israel paid, is paying and will pay more price for not taking the right decision at the right time. Here I am repeating the advice once again, unfortunately Israel will pay the price if it didn’t respond to the advice of its friends, but in the end the people of Israel are mature and able to hold the responsibility of their decisions, and to hold their responsibility alone.

Peace is the solution.

Maikel Nabil Sanad
El-Marg general prison
28 September 2011
After 37 days on a hunger strike

BDS Success 1: 218 signed the call for a Swedish academic boycott of Israel

Action Group at KTH for Boycott of Israel

Coordinating Committee of BDS Sweden

BDS Success 2: Ahava finally closes its doors in London.

Cosmetics company Ahava is finally to close its controversial Covent Garden store this week, and manager Odelia Haroush said that the company had no plans to move elsewhere in the city, at least for the foreseeable future. Demonstrations by pro-Palestinian activists have dogged the store for years. Protesters claim the products sold in the store are manufactured in a factory in Mitzpe Shalom, an Israeli settlement. [Link]

From “If Americans Knew”: Ethnic cleansing has been an integral part of the Palestinian tragedy from the earliest days of the Partition of Palestine and the creation of Israel. October marks the anniversaries of 10 massacres of Palestinian villagers in 1948, as well as a massacre carried out by a unit led by Ariel Sharon in 1953 and another in 1956 in which Israeli border police killed 48, including 6 women (one of them pregnant) and 23 children aged 8–17. To commemorate these dates, we ask you to help fight the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by sharing the booklet “Palestinian Right to Return and Repatriation,” by Mazin Qumsiyeh, which details the plight of Palestinian refugees and lists the many massacres Palestinians suffered during the creation of Israel. Please order copies to give out to your neighbors, friends, coworkers or strangers, on your campuses, in your congregations, on the street, at a public event or at a private gathering. [Link]

“Let’s be honest: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. [false] Israel’s citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses. [correct but this should be balanced by explaining that 10 times more Palestinians were butchered] Israel’s children come of age knowing that throughout the region, other children are taught to hate them. [Israelis teach hate 100 more times than the other way around and hate of the colonizer to the colonized is not the same as the reverse]. Israel, a small country of less than eight million people, looks out at a world where leaders of much larger nations threaten to wipe it off of the map. [That is nonsense; Israel wiped Palestine including 530 villages and towns and now is the fourth strongest country plus having you Obama and Congress as its lackeys]. The Jewish people carry the burden of centuries of exile, persecution, and the fresh memory of knowing that six million people were killed simply because of who they were. [Irrelevant and highly emotional: just study the history of Nazi-Zionist collaboration to see how absurd to link Apartheid Israel with "The Jewish People", itself a mistaken term no more valid than concepts of "The Christian People" or "The Muslim People"]. These facts cannot be denied [they are regurgitation of Zionist myths, irrelevant facts, and half truths]. The Jewish people have forged a successful state in their historic homeland [a racist apartheid state based on land theft and ethnic cleansing; is that your definition of success?]. Israel deserves recognition [no it does not, Israel deserves to be faced with the truth and pressured to transform just like Apartheid South Africa]…

All who meet with him to go back and read his first speech in the UN should level with Mr. Obama. Perhaps they should give him a gift: a copy of Prof. Naseer Aruri’s excellent book titled “Dishonest Broker” about the destructive role of the US.

Perhaps what might awaken some sense of shame in Obama is for him to be given his own words uttered less than 2 years ago: “The choice is ours. We can be remembered as a generation that chose to drag the arguments of the 20th century into the 21st; that put off hard choices, refused to look ahead, and failed to keep pace because we defined ourselves by what we were against instead of what we were for. Or, we can be a generation that chooses to see the shoreline beyond the rough waters ahead; that comes together to serve the common interests of human beings, and finally gives meaning to the promise embedded in the name given to this institution: the United Nations.”

Hypocrisy and double standards are standing naked and exposed more than ever thanks to the Arab spring and the corruption of political leaders from Netanyahu to Obama to the Arab leaders that do not follow their conscience. In Palestine and the rest of the Arab world, the forces of status quo fight the forces of change tooth and nail. Human rights and democracy cannot be used as tools in some countries and violated in others. The US administration for example says the leadership in Syria lost its legitimacy and must step aside. In Yemen and Bahrain the same politicians merely mumble useless words like “different parties should resolve their differences”. The reason is obvious: the Israel lobby. The Arab people hate what the Zionists had done and continue to do to fellow Arabs (7 million of us Palestinians are now refugees or displaced people). Arabs are prevented by their own dictatorial governments from providing direct help to liberate Palestine. The US thus acts not in its own interests or in defense of any liberal or democratic ideals but largely in defense of apartheid and racism that is distilled in this state called Israel.

Hypocrisy will be more evident at the United Nations these coming few days. It is already evident in the use of bullying by the US administration to other countries to force them to not vote for a Palestinian state. This bullying will remind us of how they bullied in 1947 to get the unjust resolution recommending partition of Palestine against the wishes of its people (contrary to UN Charter and the right of self-determination). Hypocrisy will also be evident in Netanyahu’s speech in the UN that will say to the world: Israel wants peace and “why are we at the UN when Israel and the Palestinians can negotiate directly.” After decades of direct negotiations between slaves and heavily armed masters, excuse the world for not believing you. Mr. Abbas (whose term as president of the “Palestinian authority” long expired) will give a speech where he will again reiterate that Palestinians renounced violence and want their own state on the borders of 1967 under the US government parameters (which recognize demographic changes including that 500,000 colonial settlers sit on the best parts of the West Bank). Here in Palestine, the people want him to 1) consult with them and rebuild the PLO with direct elections to the PNC, 2) that if and when he then goes to the UN as a real representative to the Palestinian people that he tells them about our concerns and the historic and current injustice that we are subjected to. I am afraid neither will happen. In fact he explicitly stated that he does not want to “delegitimize Israel”; this means he accepts the racist Zionist project as legitimate. Netanyahu will present a false/concocted history that mixes a religion with nationality and claims rights while delegitimizing Arabs and Palestinians at every turn. Abbas’s speech will likely validate that narrative. Netanyahu will talk about security (for the colonial occupiers) while Abbas may not even touch on security for the native people but will again emphasize we are “peaceful in protesting/gatherings.” Indeed today there were hundreds of gatherings throughout the West Bank cities that organizers said would show support for Abbas.

Who will address the fact that the Palestinian people were subjected to the largest armed robbery in the last 100 years accompanied by massacres and ethnic cleansing? Who will mention that the value of hard assets alone stolen by the Zionist project exceed $30 trillion? Who will speak of the over 60,000 Palestinian civilians massacred or the hundreds of thousands who were injured or jailed? Who will explain to those gathered in New York that International law recognizes the right of such native people to resist including by armed means? Who will explain to world leaders that 99.99% of the people resisted by methods of popular unarmed resistance (see my book “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of hope and empowerment”, Pluto Press)?

Before 1991, Israel was largely ostracized around the world for committing these injustices against the native Palestinians. But unfortunately, acceptance of Israel mushroomed when Mr. Yasser Arafat listened to people like Mahmoud Abbas and went down the path of the disastrous Oslo accords. Dozens of countries then established diplomatic, business, scientific and even military cooperation with the apartheid state. Israel just also joined CERN, the European nuclear organization. Is it possible to abandon the trap of Oslo that legitimizes colonialism? Is it possible to stop begging for a statelet in parts of the West Bank and Gaza by going to the UN to marginally improve bargaining positions between a jailer and a jailed people? Is it possible to build-up boycotts, divestments, and sanctions and real popular resistancd (not mere gatherings in Al-Manara square) to apply pressure that insists on the right of return for all refugees first and foremost? Politicians worry that admitting mistakes and changing course would bring them down or they lose privileged positions. But let me ask you how a position of a key Palestinian leader like Abbes would be if he gave a speech with total honesty telling his people something along these lines:

“We went into Oslo with good intentions, it was supposed to last for five years and give us a state in all of the West Bank and Gaza. For the past nearly 20 years it did not work, our refugees are still refugees and Israel doubled its settlement activities and killed the two-state solution. Now I recognize that we lapsed in our judgments not only about our colonizers but also about the US and some other Western Countries who have strong Zionist lobbies. Because of this, I am stepping down soon. My fate will be up to the Palestinian people and I will work hard to obey their just demands for change. In the coming few weeks we in Fatah will work together with all political factions to create a transition body to prepare and run elections for the Palestinian National Council to represent all Palestinians around the world (in diaspora and on both sides of the Green line). This PNC council will be bound by the original charter of the PLO that calls for a democratic pluralistic state in all of Palestine among other things unless the new representative PNC decides to change elements of such a charter. By going back top the people, we join the era of the Arab spring…”

Or imagine if Obama got the courage to go to the American people and say that he has demanded a settlement freeze and rollback based on International law to achieve real and just peace but that a strong lobby in Washington ensures that US foreign policy is held hostage to Israel. What will happen to the statute of such politicians? What happened when President Nasser admitted mistakes and took responsibility for the Naksa of 1967? What happened to president Johnoson when he asked Israel to get out of Gaza and the Sinai in 1956 (and Israel complied)? While we are not the same it is also good to reflect on our own history. What happened between 1929 and 1939 to the 30+ Palestinian factions then in operation (some of them had tried and failed in their accommodationist/moderate stances with the British)? Decency can be done by political parties and by politicians but it seems to be absent at the UN this week. But history shows that peace is achieved in spite and not because of politicians. We will have to again rely on ourselves (the people) to change history. Starting a new chapter on this International day of peace may not be such a bad idea.