Posts from the ‘Articles’ Category

Sep 24

The making of Salam Fayyad

Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad is the man of the moment, according to a lot of recent Middle East coverage in the western media. From The Economist and the LA Times, to The Huffington Post and Harper’s, the man reportedly referred to by Shimon Peres as a “Palestinian Ben-Gurion” is certainly getting a lot of column inches. Thomas Friedman has lauded what he calls “Fayyadism”, while Newsweek published an extensive report on the PM’s performance described by Tony Blair as “absolutely first class”. Read more

Sep 15

Peace propaganda and the Israeli consensus

George Mitchell is in Israel/Palestine as the White House’s special envoy, in a visit described as “a final push to revive Middle East peace talks”. The focus remains on Israel’s so –called settlement ‘freeze’, with Mitchell reported as saying that there was still work to be done on the “Israeli-American dispute over construction in the West Bank”. Ahead of his meeting with Mitchell today, Netanyahu has confirmed that there will not be a “complete halt to building” in the settlements, telling a Knesset committee that “a reduction on building in Judea and Samaria will only be for a limited period”. Read more

Aug 17

Fatah strangled at rebirth

Last week, Fatah finished up its general conference in Bethlehem, the first time the movement had held such a gathering for 20 years. The conference, which began on 3 August and ran for several more days than scheduled, was billed as the opportunity for Fatah to breathe some life into an ossified leadership structure and kickstart a political comeback.

As the gathering drew to a close, with Abbas re-elected as party leader, new central committee members announced and votes being counted for the revolutionary council, western media headlines gave the impression that it had largely been a success, like the New York Times’s report: Fatah party election brings in a new generation. Read more

Aug 10

Hamas turns its attention to ‘virtue’

A number of recent reports from Gaza have given cause for concern about the direction the Hamas government is taking with regard to social freedoms and a religiously driven “virtue” promotion campaign. Specific incidents, coupled with public declarations by high-ranking officials, suggest a trend of increasing, forced “Islamisation”.

One high-profile case was the ruling by Gaza’s chief justice, Abdul-Raouf Halabi, at the end of last month, stipulating that female lawyers would be obliged to wear headscarves in court. Although this will not affect many, it was the principle of the order that disturbed both lawyers and human rights groups in the territory. Seven organisations issued a joint statement expressing their “concern” and the context of “a series of infringements upon public and personal freedoms in the Strip”. Read more

Jul 28

Five Years After ICJ Ruling, Israel Expands Its Illegal Wall Onto More Palestinian Land

FIVE YEARS ago this July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague handed down its advisory opinion on Israel’s separation wall in the occupied Palestinian territories (see p. 32). Both the Israeli government and the Palestinians had been preparing for the decision since December 2003, when the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution requesting an ICJ advisory opinion.

On July 9, 2004, the ICJ ruled 14-1 that the wall was illegal in its entirety, that it should be pulled down immediately, and that compensation should be paid to those already affected. The judges also decided 13-2 that signatories to the Geneva Convention were obliged to enforce “compliance by Israel with international humanitarian law.” Less than two weeks later, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution 150-6 supporting the ICJ’s call to dismantle the wall. Read more

Jul 28

Lies and Israel’s war crimes

This month marked six months since the “official” conclusion to Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip, “Operation Cast Lead.” From 27 December to 18 January, the might of the one of the world’s strongest militaries laid waste to a densely-packed territory of 1.4 million Palestinians without an escape route.

The parallel propaganda battle fought by Israel’s official and unofficial apologists continued after the ceasefire, in a desperate struggle to combat the repeated reports by human rights groups of breaches of international law. This article will look at some of the strategies of this campaign of disinformation, confusion, and lies — and the reality of Israel’s war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Very early on in Operation Cast Lead, the scale of Israel’s attack became apparent. In just the first six days the Israeli Air Force carried out more than 500 sorties against targets in the Gaza Strip. That amounted to an attack from the air roughly every 18 minutes — not counting hundreds of helicopter attacks, tank and navy shelling, and infantry raids. All of this on a territory similar in size to the US city of Seattle. Read more

Jul 17

‘Visit Palestine’ says West Bank’s growing alternative tourism industry

Palestine should not have problems attracting tourists, with its rich blend of history, religious significance, local culture, as well as the varied and breathtaking scenery. But of course, the political context of the Israeli occupation means that the vast majority of tourists in the “Holy Land” only see Palestinians through the window of a tour bus, as they dash in and out of Bethlehem for a couple of hours.

The occupation, however, has also attracted a different kind of visitor, the “alternative tourist,” who comes to the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), occupied by Israel along with the Gaza Strip since 1967, in order to better understand the conflict, and deliberately go “beyond” the standard pilgrimage or mainstream tourist trip to Israel. These kinds of tourists are much fewer in number, and are typically already sensitized to some degree to the Palestinian situation. Virtually no tourists, if any, go to the Gaza Strip, which has been under Israeli-imposed closure for several years. Read more

Jul 17

Smearing opponents as anti-semitic

A favourite tactic of die-hard defenders of Israel is to smear critics of the country’s policies through guilt by association, lies, and decontextualised quotations.

I have come to know this latter strategy quite well. Based on short extracts, or even a single sentence, from two out of the 100 plus articles I’ve published, I have been accused of ‘understanding anti-semitism’ and ‘defending’ Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial. Read more

Jul 9

Israel’s wall still deepening the divide

Five years ago today, the international court of justice in The Hague published its advisory opinion on Israel’s separation wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The keenly awaited verdict, requested by the UN’s general assembly, was clear: Israel’s wall is illegal, it must be removed and adequate compensation paid.

The wall’s illegality, and Israel’s obligation to dismantle the structure and pay damages for the consequences of the wall thus far, were all agreed by the judges by a margin of 14-1. (The ICJ also accepted the use of the term “wall”, since “other expressions” are “no more accurate”.) There was also confirmation that Israel’s settlements were “a flagrant violation” of the convention, established “in breach of international law” (contrast this with the mealy-mouthed nitpicking over outposts and “freezes” by Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu). Overall, the court found that the route of the wall threatened to create “de facto annexation”, with the wall itself described as severely impeding “the exercise by the Palestinian people of its right to Read more

Jul 2

Israel and using “apartheid”

Talking about Israeli policies in terms of ‘apartheid’ is nothing new – you can find the claim going back at least 30 years. This kind of description for Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians became increasingly common through the 1980s and ’90s, until now, nine years since the Second Intifada began, ‘Israeli Apartheid Week’ is held in dozens of cities worldwide and numerous trade unions, faith groups and politicians use the term routinely.

Nevertheless, to consciously use the ‘apartheid’ framework in critiquing Israeli policies past and present, with the presumed analogy with South African history, is still considered by some to be inappropriate or even completely unacceptable. Read more