Here we go again...

So sad.

This morning gunmen opened fire on a bus, a private car and a couple of other vehicles in the south of Israel. Apparently, there had been some intelligence (from Jordan?) that something was going to happen in the south, and we know that the last month or so has seen a number of rockets landing in that region. Luckily, due to the sparse population there, these rockets caused little damage. But they were nonetheless a sign that things were stirring.

And so 7 Israelis are dead and many more injured. Some soldiers going on weekend leave, others civilians.

So now the ball is in Israel's court - what should she do? What will she do? Do we even need to ask this question?

Of course Israel has the right to defend herself, but attacking Gaza (as has already happened as I write this post) hasn't worked to defend Israel up until now. As Albert Einstein said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Yossi Gurvitz gives an excellent explanation of why Israel shouldn't attack Gaza on +972 Magazine.

Just as Palestinian (PRC? jihadist??) attacks on Israel do little to advance the Palestinian cause, Israeli revenge attacks do little to secure Israel. In both cases the only ones to benefit are those who want to stick obstinately to their guns (no pun intended) instead of moving forward towards a resolution. In Gaza, Hamas can say they are fighting the Zionist enemy and working to liberate the land, unlike Fatah. Of course Hamas knows Israel's likely response and so they can point to Israel and say "Look, we told you so! The evil Zionists want to kill all Palestinians!" Of course, Israel does herself no favours by playing directly into the hands of Hamas by doing exactly what Hamas wants: getting provoked and responding on a scale that dwarfs whatever attack she has recently suffered. Currently there is an additional bonus for the Israeli government enacting a large-scale response in that it would be a distraction from the j14 demonstrations.


I don't have an answer, but I do know that the ordinary people of Israel or Palestine gain nothing from this cycle of violence.

 

Independent thinking

As Yom HaZikaron draws to a close and Yom Hatzmaut begins, I got to thinking ... and surfing. I have had a few contrasting experiences and read a range of opinions on both of these issues over the last few days.

Peace and independence - is it really so hard to have both...?

Firstly was the discussion-turned-confrontation with our old friends the Brighton branch of the 'Boycott Israel' campaign. After a perfectly lovely morning at the Brighton Festival Children's Parade and lunch at Wagamama's, we passed their table-and-flag setup outside Churchill Square. Now I don't always talk to these people: sometimes I get very defensive (moi??) and angry and I don't like to lose my cool. But on Saturday I thought 'bugger it' and started talking to an old guy who was handing out 'Boycott Israel' flyers. I started by asking him whether the group were encouraging people to boycott all represive regimes in the Middle East or just Israel (I like rhetorical questions). Credit where it's due, the old man admitted that many other regimes in the region are pretty dastardly (ya don't say...?) but no, only Israel was the target of this boycott. Interestingly he said that this was because Israel sold more goods to the west than other Middle Eastern states and I argued that this wasn't the case (petrol, dates, petrol oh, and petrol???). I also told him I thought they were only boycotting the Israeli goods that were easy to boycott i.e. the fruit and Dead Sea products on their flyers - I asked him if the group used the Internet (they do) and asked why they weren'y boycotting the Israeli processor technology (no answer) - I'm sure they weren't boycotting Israeli medical treatments either...

Anyhow, we remained in good humour and polite, which was nice, even though his lack of general knowledge and myth-accepted-as-fact was bewildering. He thought that Israel and Jews denied the suffering of the Roma during the Holocaust (I asked him if he'd ever been to Yad Vashem, of course he hadn't) and he seemed to think that "his idea" of a peace and reconciliation-type of commission would benefit the conflict (I informed him such groups - such as Combatants for Peace - already exist). In the end we realised we weren't about to convert the other and agreed to differ, although I hope he learned something from me... ;)

Then it got dirty...

I picked up a longer leaflet entitled 'The Basic Facts' and was surprised to read that in 1948-9 Israel forcibly exiled and massacred hundreds of thousands of Palestinians (I am paraphrasing because I don't have a copy of the leaflet with me) Now, I am not denying that many Palestinians were forced from their homes and forbidden to return in the 1948-9 war. But NOWHERE in the leaflet was a war mentioned. In fact to anyone who knew little about the conflict, on reading the 'basic facts' it would seem that there was no war in 1948-9 but instead a series of unprovoked acts of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Israeli terrorist forces. So I asked one woman who was distributing the leaflets why they thought it was acceptable to omit the quite important fact that the day after Israel declared independence, 5 Arab states invaded and a war was fought, which Israel subsequently won.

I don't think she understood my question, because she was talking about Jewish terrorists who were active before 1948 (OK, but doesn't answer the question) how the Zionists forced the Balfour Declaration (again, not an answer and also astoundingly inaccurate from a historical perspective). I asked her again and she said something about there 'being no Arab states at this time because they weren't really independent' - again I'm paraphrasing but I can't think where this woman gets her information from... She asked if I had heard of the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe (of course, I told her, I have an MA in Israeli Studies from UCL) and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. I repeated that I was not contesting what is in the leaflet, just what has been left out, and that I thought the leaflet was overtly one-sided to the point of warping history to suit a message. At this point, with the woman shouting (not sure why... she was making little sense regardless of her volume, and she really wasn't listening to me) and Mark beginning to shout, and me doing a 'calm down, calm down!' Harry Enfield Scouser-type of thing, we decided to walk away... although I would have liked to continue our  debate to see if she would ever answer my question.........

Indeed, 1948 definitely gets the temperatures rising - you only have to look at the comments on Ha'Aretz's Facebook page to see how quickly all reason flees from people when commenting on this subject. And how quickly vitriol and hatred appears.

Other interesting, even seemingly paradoxical responses to today's and yesterday's commemorations/celebrations include: Gilad Shalit's brother shouting out at the Memorial Ceremony on Har Herzl and being forcibly removed as a result and Motti Fogel's (brother of Udi, murdered with most of his family at Itamar) speech at the Combatants for Peace parallel ceremony.

However, the following blog has made me laugh out loud more than once - Benji Lovitt strikes gold with his 63 things I love about Israel 

Enjoy! and Hag Sameach!

xxx

 

Democracy in action (cont. from previous post)

I was reading Ha'aretz today and saw that there's been a fair controversy about the death of Jawaher Abu Rahma. Israel has accused the PA of propagandising the story for the sake of another martyr yet the IDF's 'official explanation' of Abu Rahma's death has endured a number of forms. It seems that it is most likely that she died from some sort of allergic reaction to the tear gas, but I am not sure whether this is really the most important point any more. For me, Israel's official, ongoing response to the unravelling events (death of a young Palestinian woman, ongoing demonstrations in the West Bank and then in Tel Aviv) is the saddest thing as it becomes ever more defensive and aggressive.

My sadness is that we begin another year when the cycle of violence continues to revolve and hateful rhetoric continues to increase. Another young generation of Palestinians grow up with hatred towards Israelis and and another young generation of Israelis grow up in an increasingly intolerant and even racist society. And that's before they get the chance to face each other down at demonstrations and checkpoints.

A more recent story grabbing the headlines today was the parliamentary panel, established at the suggestion of Yisrael Beiteinu and supported by a majority of MKs, to examine the funding sources of certain left-wing and/or human rights groups in Israel. These groups have been accused of 'delegitimising the IDF' and the stated aim of the panel is to decide whether these groups are being supported by 'other groups with known links to terrorism'. I'm not sure who gets to decide what constitutes 'delegitimising the IDF' or whether the government plans to examine the negative effects of right-wing activities on the perceived 'legitimacy' of either the IDF or Israel but I can bet that Avigdor Lieberman won't be opening up his own party's books any time soon....

Spot the one who will always be remembered for pushing democracy forward....

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on programs of military defence than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death" 

Martin Luther King (Sunday sermon, the Sunday before his assassination 1968)

Happy New Year? Same sad old story...?

Bi'ilin is an Arab village in the West Bank, near the Israeli settlement of Modi'in Illit (not to be confused with Modi'in, the main city which is inside the Green Line). Since the security fence in that area closed off close to 60% of Bi'ilin's land, weekly demonstrations have been held every Friday. The Bi'ilin residents are supported by some international activists and now, since the unfortunate death of Jawaher Abu Rahma, a 36 year old resident of Bi'ilin, I am pleased to say that Israelis are also protesting against this government's and the army's tactics against protests in the Occupied Territories.






The video above was taken at the Tel Aviv demonstration on the 1st January 2011, opposite the military base at HaKirya, protesting the death of Jawaher Abu Rahma, caused by teargas inhaled at Bil'in the previous day. The slightly heavy handed approach of those policing the demonstration is nothing compared to the regular use of force and tear gas when demonstrations take place at villages or checkpoints in the West Bank.

I would just like to say that it makes me very proud to see hundreds of Israelis protesting the actions of the government and army that is there to protect them. The thing that makes me saddest is the fact that hundreds simply isn't enough. Where are all the thousands upon thousands of Israelis who mourned Rabin? Where are all the Israelis who want peace??

Come on Israel! Can 2011 be a year when Israelis mobilise for peace?

to be continued...

also worth a read - Lisa Goldman's article on +972