"One of the major problems with Israeli democracy is that it has
no constitutional guarantees of human rights. To my knowledge, it's the
only functioning democracy without such provisions."
Asa Kasher
(Israeli philosopher),
Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, 2-11-2000, p. 10
"At
the heart of the Zionist critique of liberal assimilation lay the conviction
that Jews constitute a unique race. It was the belief in insurmountable
racial differences that made the inevitability of anti-Semitism credible,
just as it rationalized the view that every effort to assimilate must
go aground on the barrier reef of biological determinism [NIEWYK, p. 129]
... The maintenance of that [racial] purity was essential to German Zionism;
for it acknowledged the essential prerequisite for nationhood to be [in
the 1922 words of Zionist Fritz Kahn] 'consanguinity of the flesh and
solidarity of the soul' together with the 'will to establish a closer
[Jewish] brotherhood over [and] against all other communities on earth."
[ p.130]
Donald Niewyk,
The Jews in Wiemar Germany. Manchester University Press [Great Britain]
"The idea of liberation for Third World groups threatens the very
existence of Zionism. Concepts of human rights are too dangerous for the
Israeli political system ... The injustice done to the Palestinians is
so clear and so striking that it cannot be openly discussed, and any discussion
of what Israel has been doing in the Third World is certain to lead to
an examination of the rights of the Palestinians ... Israeli activities
in the Third World are signifiant reflections of the basic nature of Zionism
and the state of Israel, and the resulting Israeli society and worldview.
From Manila in the Philippines to Teguicgala in Honduras, to Windhoek
in Nmibia, Israel's emissaries have been involved in continuous war which
truly a world war. And what enemy is Israel fighting? It is the population
of the Third World, which cannot be allowed to win its revolution. The
only thing that guarantees the continuing rule of Third World oligarchies
is the suppression of any spark of any independence or power among their
peoples. Israeli advisers have much to offer in the technology of death
and oppression and that is why they are so much in demand."
Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi,
[Israeli scholar]
The Israeli Connection: Who Israel Arms and Why, Pantheon, 1987,
p. 236, 243
"[I]t happened to be my turn to lead the secret organization
here in America which is aiming to turn the Zionist movement in a political
direction, from within. Our order is called Parushim ... Our present
purpose is one of quiet propaganda and education in 'the political idea'
... It is our desire and plan to organize brotherhoods all over the world
... [A]n organization which has the aims as we have must work silently,
and through education and infection rather than through force and noise."
Horace Kallen,
early twenieth century comments by the "father of multiculturalism,"
Horace Kallen. Prophet of American Zionism [Schmidt, Sarah, 1995,
Carlson Publishing Co., Brooklyn, NY, p. 79, 83]
"I've
been in this country [Israel] fifty years and in all that fifty years
I have never been so saddened and so concerned about the state of the
country and its future. Its like [George Orwell's] 1984 from the other
side. In the novel, it was communist totalitarianism. Here, it's heading
for a right-wing nationalist totalitarianism, mystical and fascist."
-- Anonymous Israeli newspaper editor, to Jewish journalist Lesley
Hazelton. Jerusalem, Jerusalem. A Memoir of War and Peace, Passion
and Politics. Penguin Books, 1987,
p. 110
"In
America, the Jews sap the life-blood of the so-called Negroes to maintain
the state of Israel, its armies, and its continued aggression against
our brothers in the East. This every Black Man resents."
Malcolm
X.
in Kaufman, Jonathan. Broken Alliance, Charles Scribners' Sons,
NY, 1988, p. 135]
"The
idea of liberation for Third World groups threatens the very existence
of Zionism. Concepts of human rights are too dangerous for the Israeli
political system ... The injustice done to the Palestinians is so
clear and so striking that it cannot be openly discussed, and any
discussion of what Israel has been doing in the Third World is certain
to lead to an examination of the rights of the Palestinians."
Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi
(Israeli scholar, The Israel Connection, Pantheon, 1987,
p. 236
"No other ethnic group in American history has so extensive an
involvement with a foreign nation [Israel]. No other nation relies
upon a body of private individuals who are neither residents nor citizens
of their land to underwrite a major portion of their budget. American
Jews buy Israeli bonds, give generously to the United Jewish Appeal,
lobby [American] government representatives to pursue pro-Israel policy,
travel to Israel (where they are greeted with 'Welcome Home' signs),
respond to every crisis in that part of the world, and yet maintain
passionately that they are Americans first and Jews afterward."
Melvin Urofsky,
American Zionism from Herzl to the Holocaust, 1975
p. 1
"I speak to many Jewish communities
around the world and what
strikes me is that each community is of a different nature than the
other. The common denominator that I find in all is Israel. They are
obsessed with Israel and you can say that Israel, in effect, has become
their religion, as well as a social and political idea which they
are involved."
YItzhak Herzog,
[Discussion],
Congress Monthly, Mar/Apr 1999, p. 20
"Unfortunately, in recent years, the xenophobia [in Israel] has
increased in intensity and extended to new areas. For some it is not
merely an attitude but also the basis for deriving general principles
of conduct -- including proposals for laws against non-Jews and against
their residence among Jews."
Yehoshafat Harkabi,
Israel's Fateful Hour, Harper and Row, 1989, p. 160
"Israel's
claim to the Holy Land rests on the existence of God. If it was not God's will that
they possessed Canaan [today's land of Israel, more or less], the
nations can reproach them as mere conquering brigands."
Herman Wouk,
Jewish novelist, This Is My God, Doubleday, p. 186
"In the German Nazis, an in the English 'Black-and-Tan,' I see
the detestable
dark side of the countenance of western civilization. I myself
am an involuntary
participant
[as a former supporter of Zionism], and in the Jewish Zionists I
see disciples of the
Nazis. The Jews are, of course, not the only persecuted
people that have reacted to persecution by doing as it has been
done by; and, of course, too, the Jews who have reacted in this
tragically
perverse way are only one section of Jewry. Yet the spectacle
of
the Jews, however few, following in the Nazi footsteps is
enough
to drive a sensitive gentile or Jewish spectator
almost
to despair. That any Jews should inflict a third party some
of the very
wrongs that Jews have suffered at Western hands is a portent
that
makes
one wonder whether there may not be something
irredeemably evil, not in Jewish human nature
in particular, nor again just in Western
human nature, but in the human nature common
to all men."
historian
Arnold Toynbee,
In Gould, Allan. What Did They Think of the Jews? Jason Aronson,
1991,
p. 455
"Diaspora Jewry and friends of Israel abroad must
realize that present Israeli policy is doomed to reproduce over and
over agan the cycle of violence that shocks our sensibilities every
time we read or hear of wanton murder and bloodshed, whether the hand
that perpetrates it detonates a bomb or fires a pistol. The collective
revenge of an army for the murder of one of its citizens is no more
righteous or admirable than the individual revenge of a desperate
youth for the murder of one his people. It is only propaganda and
distorted vision tht labels one 'terrorism' and the other 'national
defense.'"
Simha Flapan,
Israeli scholar, The Birth of Israel. Myths and Realities,
Pantheon Books, NY, 1987, p. 243
"Our
enemies called us terrorists ... People who were neither our friends
nor
our enemies ... also used this Latin name ... [The British] called
us
'terrorists'
to the end ... And yet, we were not terrorists ... The historical
and linguistic
origins
of the political term 'terror' prove that it cannot be applied
to a revolutionary
war of liberation ... Fighters for freedom must arm; otherwise
they would
be crushed overnight ... What has a struggle for
the dignity of man, against oppression and subjugation, to do with
'terrorism?'"
-- former Israeli prime minister
Menachem Begin, explaining his own violent activism in his
youth against the British occupation of Palestine, The Revolt.
The Story of the Irgun, Hadar Publishing, Tel Aviv, 1964, p. 59-60
"[American
Jews feel] an obligation toward Israel ... Israel, for them, is not
... a political space devoted to the continuation of a normal national
life, but a historical revenge ... [EVRON, p. 110-112] ... Perhaps a
main factor in Israel's psychological hold on the Jewish Diaspora is
that part of the Diaspora that has lost its religious framework but
has remained locked within the Jewish caste and uses Israel as a means
of venting its complexes by proxy. These Jews imagine themselves to
be part of the Israeli people, while maintaining their own comfortable
existence in the Diaspora ... thus Israel deliberately helps Diaspora
Jews maintain an illusory existent identity. It is in the obvious interests
of the Israeli leadership to prevent such an honest self-appraisal which
might lead to a different, genuine Jewish identity."
Boaz Evron,
Israeli scholar, Jewish State or Israeli nation?, Indiana University
Press, 1995, p. 112
"There is no single Jewish community in this country.
There are different groups with varying ideologies. The only thing that
unites them is support for Israel."
Bruce Arbit
(the Jewish head of a computer company that identifies Jews for mailing
lists)
in Chafets, Ze'ev. Members of the Tribe. On the Road in Jewish America,
Bantam Books, 1988, p. 53
"American Jewry cannot claim the dubious
distinction of being normal.It is, to be sure, shaped by the American
society with which it casts its lot; but it also has, as part of it, Jewish
connections, a long separate history of its own that shapes its vision.
It lives delicately suspended between two cultural pulls, the Jewish and
the American. It's that connection to k'lal Yisrael, the mysterious tie that
binds Jews everywhere together, and that also determines its unique political
character ... It is also that connection that compels American Jewry to
exert a special effort to influence the United States government ... United
States foreign policy contains the most discernible signs of a specific
Jewish influence."
Henry Feingold,
Lest Memory Cease -- Finding Memory in the American Jewsh Past,
Syracuse University Press, 1996, p. 115
"Among
Americans who have had extensive dealings with Israelis,
whether
in government, business, or Jewish circles, the first adjectives
that comes to their
lips are arrogant, willful, and sometimes infuriating."
Joyce
Starr,
Kissing Through Glass. The Invisible Shield Between Americans and
Israelis, Contemporary Books, Chicago, 1990, p. 311
Throughout
the world, many Jewish citizens of other nations in all walks of life
function as extensions of Israel's CIA. They are called, in Hebrew,
sayanim. ("Our greatest
advantage," noted Mossad official Shmuel Toledano, in reviewing
his career in the Israeli spy agency, "was always that we had
people who could pass for any nationality. Arabs, Germans, whatever."
[BLACK/MORRIS, Israel's Secret Wars. A History of Israel's Intelligence
Services, Grove Weidenfeld, NY, p. 191] ) These sayanim,
says Ostrovsky
"are a unique and important part of the Mossad's operation. Sayanim
-- assistants
-- must be 100 per cent Jewish. They live abroad, and though
they
are not Israeli citizens, many are reached through their relatives in
Israel ... There are thousands of sayanim around the world. In London
alone
there are about 2,000 who are active, and another 5,000 on the [Mossad]
list. They fulfill many different roles. A car sayan,
for example,
running a rental agency, could help the Mossad get a car
without
having to complete the usual documentation. An apartment sayan
would find accommodation without raising suspicions, a bank
sayan
could get you money if you needed it in the middle of the night, a doctor
sayan would treat a bullet wound without reporting it to police,
and
so on. The idea is to have a pool of people available when needed
who
can provide services but will keep quiet about them out of loyalty
to
the cause ... One thing you know for sure is that even if a Jewish person
knows it is the Mossad, he might not agree to work with you --
but
he won't turn you in. You have at your disposal a nonrisk recruitment
system that actually gives you a pool of millions of Jewish people
to tap from outside your own borders ... The one problem with
the
system is that the Mossad does not seem to care how devastating it
could
be to the status of the Jewish people in the diaspora if it was
known."
Victor Ostrovsky,
By Way of Deception. The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Official,
St. Martin's Press, NY, 1990, p. 86-87
"While Political Zionism has little practical meaning to American
Jews, Israel is present in their lives and helps to give meaning to
American Jewish identity. Even if they are not Zionists according to
the classic definition, most American Jews are pro-Israel."
David Mittelberg,
The Israel Connection and American Jews, Praeger, 1999
p. 7
A survey of 443 Jews in a "leadership
training" program (1978-80) at the United Jewish Appeal revealed
a range of disturbing attitudes among leadership in the American Jewish
polity. Every single one of them agreed with the statement "When
the state of Israel is threatened, all Jews are threatened."
From there, 70% of the respondents stated that they were more emotionally
moved by listening to Israel's nation anthem (the Hatikvah) than the
Star-Spangled Banner. (Another 7% of the total "weren't sure"
about it.) 97% of these people even believed that the conflict between
Israel and its Arab neighbors was the most important problem
facing American Jews. Yet by almost a two to one margin these
future Jewish leaders rejected the notion that Jews are "overly
concerned with Israel." 95% even declared that "I'm happy to be an American."
Not surprisingly, over 60% agreed with the assertion (even in this
non-religious context) that "The Jewish people is the Chosen
People." Another 15% claimed they "weren't sure" if
they were the Chosen People or not, leaving only 15% to outright reject
this ages-old source of Jewish racism and chauvinism, and inevitable
Gentile hostility. "Perhaps ... the most important [myth of civil
Judaism]," says Jonathan Woocher, "[is] the barely distinguished
reaffirmation of the myth of Jews as a chosen people ... In short,
the myths of civil Judaism are the myths of a modern messianic religion."
[Woocher, p. 131-132]
Particularly
noteworthy in the UJA survey was the Jewish leadership response to
the statement "The primary loyalty of American Jews must be to
the United States and their fellow Americans." Over 50% (58,
52, and 56 per cent in three distinct groups) disagreed.
Coupled with the "not sure" response, 77, 67, and 71% of
these future Jewish polity leaders did not agree with this
statement of loyalty to their fellow Americans.
Jonathan Woocher,
Sacred Survival. The Civil Religion of American Jews, Indiana
University Press, 1986
|
"Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly
no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of
Israel on trial."
-- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
quoted by the BBC,
March 25, 2001
|
Welcome
to Racketstan.
Haaretz [Israeli newspaper] May 27, 2001
"The Israeli temperament does not accept rules of behavior and
rejects natural obedience to the law. The average Israeli is afraid
to feel like a sucker, so scorns rules and regulations and regards the
law as a area of ever-expendable space in which to maneuver, outwit,
bypass, and bribe, if necessary, in order to achieve more ... Israel
is a kind of Racketstan, where the system encourages racketeering."
Disaster
Bares a National Flaw. (Jewish) Forward.
June 1, 2001
"[There is] universal awareness that something is definitely rotten
in the state of Israel. This is, after all, a country where bending
the rules is said to be a national pasttime, cutting corners a way of
life and cheating the authorities the proof of merit ... Sticklers for
the law are ridiculed and abused, where anyone who works by the book
is branded a sap, a 'freier,' the worst insult in modern Israeli lexicon
... Many people believe Israel's laxity, which borders on anarchy, is
a national personality trait that cannot be eradicated by laws alone.
Some trace the trait all the way back to the historic Jewish Diaspora,
where Jews often found solace in bending the rules imposed by the often
anti-Semitic authorities."
Intellectual
Property Theft, Fraud. Haaretz [Israeli
newspaper], June 22, 2001
"In 1998, an American delegation visited Israel to investigate
the issue and found Israel to be 'an international center for pirate
distribution' - estimating that the extent of the forgery industry reached
tens, maybe hundreds, of millions of dollars. The U.S. delegation threatened
to impose sanctions against Israel by increasing duty tax for Israeli
exports to the United States. The delegation also noted that the Israeli
forgery industry has grown in recent years because of the infiltration
of organized crime."
How Unholy
Business Thrives in the Holy Land,
The Independent [Great Britain, June 23, 2000
"Money laundering in Israel has reached colossal proportions in
the last few years, fuelled by the rise of Russian organised-crime since
the collapse of the Soviet Union, liberal banking laws and bank secrecy
policies. Billions of illegally acquired dollars from Russia and the
former Soviet republics, South America, Africa and Europe have passed
through Israel in the last few years, securing its status as one of
the world's leading money laundries. Israel's police believe Russian
gangsters are taking advantage of the money-transfer laws aimed at attracting
Jewish people to the country, to deposit profits and launder funds.
Their operations include narcotics and prostitution rackets, bribes
and cream-offs from government funds and loans. But they also involve
the winnings from a massive asset-stripping exercise that began under
the former president Mikhail Gorbachev and has been underway since,
turning Russia into a kleptocracy in which corruption runs from the
top to the bottom of the society. They are helped by the 1 million former
Soviet citizens living in Israel who have arrived since 1991 ... Established
as a safe-haven for the Jews, the country has not asked many questions
about their riches."
Trafficking
in Women Could Threaten U. S. Aid.
Haaretz [Israeli newspaper], July 13, 2001
"If the Israeli government does not take significant steps to halt
trafficking in women, it will face U.S. sanctions. 'Israel does not
yet meet the minimum standards for combating trafficking in persons,
and has not yet made significant efforts to combat the problem,' the
State Department said in a scalding report on human trafficking in 2001
issued last night. The report cites Israel as 'a destination country
for women from Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa,
and some countries in Asia' ... Israeli law enforcement officials estimate
that 85 percent of the prostitutes in the country are illegal aliens
smuggled into Israel via Sinai. They say present laws do little to protect
the women and enable the pimps and slave traders to operate with relative
impunity."
Israel Planning "Ethnic Bomb" as Saddam Caves In.
Sunday Times [London], November 15, 1998
"In developing their 'ethno-bomb,' Israeli scientists are trying
to exploit medical advances by identifying distinctive genes carried
by some Arabs, then create a genetically modified bacterium or virus.
The intention is to use the ability of viruses and certain bacteria
to alter the DNA inside their host's living cells. The scientists are
trying to engineer deadly micro-organisms that attack only those bearing
the distinctive genes. The programme is based at the biological institute
in Nes Tziyona, the main research facility for Israel's clandestine
arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. A scientist there said the
task was hugely complicated because both Arabs and Jews are of semitic
origin. But he added: 'They have, however, succeeded in pinpointing
a particular characteristic in the genetic profile of certain Arab communities,
particularly the Iraqi people.' The disease could be spread by spraying
the organisms into the air or putting them in water supplies. The research
mirrors biological studies conducted by South African scientists during
the apartheid era and revealed in testimony before the truth and reconciliation
commission. The idea of a Jewish state conducting such research has
already provoked outrage in some quarters because of parallels with
the genetic experiments of Dr Josef Mengele, the Nazi scientist at Auschwitz."
This Little
Kidney Went to Market. New York Times Magazine
(posted at freerepublic.com), May 26, 2001
"Moshe lives in Israel, which happens to be one of the more active
nations in the international organ-trafficking market. The market, which
is completely illegal, is so complex and well organized that a single
transaction often crosses three continents ... Yet in Israel and a handful
of other nations, including India, Turkey, China, Russia and Iraq, organ
sales are conducted with only a scant nod toward secrecy. In Israel,
there is even tacit government acceptance of the practice -- the national
health-insurance program covers part, and sometimes all, of the cost
of brokered transplants. Insurance companies are happy to pay, since
the cost of kidney surgery, even in the relatively short run, is less
than the cost of dialysis. According to the coordinator of kidney transplantation
at Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem, 60 of the 244 patients
currently receiving post-transplant care purchased their new kidney
from a stranger -- just short of 25 percent of the patients at one of
Israel's largest medical centers participating in the organ business.
Relatively few transplant operations, illegal or legal, take place in
Israel. Every proposed kidney transplant in the country between two
unrelated people is carefully screened for evidence of impropriety by
a national committee. Therefore, almost all of these illegal surgeries
are performed elsewhere, in nations where the laws are easier to duck,
including the United States. Israel also does not contribute much to
the supply side of the equation. Organ donation is extremely low; an
estimated 3 percent of Israelis have signed donor cards .... Paying
for an organ has become so routine in Israel that there have been instances
in which a patient has elected not to accept the offer of a kidney donation
from a well-matched relative. 'Why risk harm to a family member?' one
patient told me. Instead, these patients have decided that purchasing
a kidney from someone they've never met -- in almost all cases someone
who is impoverished and living in a foreign land -- is a far more palatable
option."
1998 ICIJ Award Finalists/Onel
of Kanal D Arena.
ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists),
1998
"'The International Transplant Mafia,' broadcast in two installments
in 1997, exposed a human organ black-market network linking Turkey,
the Czech Republic, and Israel. An Istanbul man, struggling to raise
two young children, had agreed to sell one of his kidneys for $8,000
U.S. dollars but later contacted Arena, Turkey's lead investigative
TV program, fearing that more than a kidney might be lost. An Arena
reporter with a hidden camera accompanied him over the next several
days to meetings with organ brokers and a Turkish surgeon. The operation
was aborted at the last minute, when the Arena crew entered the
hospital, cameras rolling. The surgeon was denounced by the country's
medical board and was later tried, but Arena discovered another syndicate
operating several months later in another city. This time posing as
the donor, an Arena reporter met with an organ broker and agreed
to sell his kidney for $5,000. A trip to the Czech Republic for the
operation fell apart after Arena alerted police. The man confessed
he was paid to arrange kidney transplants by his boss in Israel, where
Arena reporters later unsuccessfully searched for the syndicate
boss. Instead, they found the president of an association of patients
waiting for kidney transplants, who said 50 Israelis had been saved
in the last year by Turkish kidneys."
Life After Death. Parkridge Center for the
Study of Health, Faith, and Ethics, September 28, 2000
"After undergoing two kidney transplants, Hagai Boaz questions
why the number of organ donations in Israel is among the lowest in the
world - despite Israeli society's self-image as one founded on the ethic
of 'he who saves a single life saves an entire world,' and mutual responsibility
... According to data accumulated by the National Center for Transplants,
Israel has one of the lowest number of donors in the world. This statistic
reveals a few gloomy facts about Israeli society and has led to the
emergence of other avenues for those desperate to obtain organs: the
payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars for a transplant overseas
or the illicit trade in human organs. The low percentage of Israelis
prepared to donate organs is perhaps surprising considering the self-image
of a Jewish society founded on the ethic that 'all Jews are responsible
for one another' and 'he who saves a single life saves an entire world.'"
Israel
Likely Site. New York Daily News. August
8, 2001
"Israel is probably the unidentified Mediterranean country in which
the first human cloning experiments will take place, according to reports
in the Israeli media. Citing statements and actions by the project's
participants, the reports said Dr. Severino Antinori is thought to have
drawn up plans with Dr. Avi Ben-Abraham to work at a research
institute in Caesarea, on the Mediterranean coast. Human cloning is
outlawed in Europe and Turkey, and North African countries do not have
the facilities necessary for such an undertaking."
Please
Be Polite Children of Israel Told.
Electronic Telegraph. [United Kingdom] June 15, 2001
"Israelis who take pride in being blunt and outspoken are to teach
children good manners in an attempt to cut the nation's tendency towards
violence. From the next school year, 12-year-olds will be taught how
to behave politely, which knife and fork to use at table, and how to
resolve arguments without shouting or coming to blows. Ronit Tirosh,
director-general of the Education Ministry said: 'We are a brutal and
impatient society, and the delicacy learned through these lessons may
reduce our society's violent tendencies.' Israelis are proud not to
say please or thank you and relish the informality of life .... There
is a darker side. Israeli life is a bruising contest in one-upmanship.
The deepest fear is to be thought a 'sucker' who obeys the rules. Brusqueness
has been cultivated by native-born Israelis as a reaction against the
manners of Europe's Diaspora Jews, who were seen as cringing and subservient.
The idea was to create a culture of Jewish self-assertion which would
never permit the Holocaust to be repeated. But educationalists have
become worried about the level of playground violence. Mrs Tirosh told
the newspaper Haaretz: 'Children will learn how to present an
opinion and argue it without using physical or verbal violence, as well
as how to negotiate and reach compromises through non-violent means.'"
Report Finds
Israeli Jews Better Off Than Arabs, by Michael Carney.
Yahoo! Headlines, [from Reuters], July 4, 2001
"Israeli Arabs live in 'third-world-like' conditions, while Israeli
Jews enjoy superior access to sewage systems, paved roads and government
jobs, a group of Arab and Jewish activists have reported. Sikkuy, a
non-profit group, said its annual review of civic equality in Israel
showed institutional discrimination led to poor living conditions in
Arab communities throughout Israel. 'The country as a whole has a pretty
fair infrastructure with regard to electricity, sewage and roads, yet
the Arab communities are like isolated islands within this infrastructure,'
Shalom Dichter, the Jewish co-director of the group, told Reuters.
Most Jewish households are connected to modern sewage systems, but the
group said half of Israeli Arab households remain unconnected. Israeli
Arabs comprise 18.6 percent of the Jewish state's population, but the
review showed they accounted for only 5.7 percent of the public sector
workforce, where they have been mostly excluded from high-level policymaking
positions. 'So far, the State of Israel has yet to prove that with its
Jewish definition it can also be a democratic state,' Dichter said ...
. The Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH)
issued a report on Tuesday calling on Israel to take nine steps to end
discrimination including instituting a constitutional ban on it."
Israeli
Extraditon Law in Question. Deutsche Presse.
June 27, 2001
"Israel media reported Wednesday that Justice Minister Meir
Sheetrit plans to appeal a decision by the Ministerial Committee
for Legislation which approved a law making it illegal to extradite
an Israeli citizen over the age of 70. The law, the Ha'aretz
daily wrote Wednesday, is 'tailor-made' for Haim Berger, an ultra-Orthodox
Jew currently living in Israel after fleeing there once he had paid
5 million U.S. dollars in bail in America. Seven ministers on the committee
voted in favour of the new law, and only three opposed it. It was the
second time the committee discussed the bill, which was proposed by
ultra-Orthodox politicians, backed by a scattering of right-wing and
nationalist legislators. Justice Minister Sheetrit called the bill 'scandalous'
and said he would appeal to the full cabinet to over-rule the committee.
'It's a shame and a disgrace. It's inconceivable that legislators would
promulgate a law aimed entirely to stop the extradition of a criminal
the U.S. wants to prosecute, and that ministers would lend a hand to
such a thing,' Ha'aretz quoted him as saying. 'This legislation
could seriously harm our relations with the U.S. in everything concerned
with our extradition treaties,' he added. Attorney General Eliakim Rubinstein
said 'passage of this law means turning Israel into a pariah state that
does not abide by its international commitments.'''
The
1948 Massacre at Deir Yassin Revisited. The
Historian, Winter 2001
"Between 9 and 11 April 1948, over 100 Arab townspeople were massacred
by Jewish paramilitaries in Deir Yassin near Jerusalem in the British
Mandate of Palestine. The incident was pivotal in modern Middle East
history, becoming in one Israeli historian's words, 'a landmark in the
chronicles of the Israel-Arab conflict and a symbol of the horrors of
war.' It greatly stimulated Palestinian Arab refugee flight and appears
to have been critical in the final decision of the Arab states to intervene
directly in Palestine in 1948 to thwart the creation of the state of
Israel. The Deir Yassin incident, therefore, is intimately connected
to the two main issues that have defined the Arab-Israeli conflict:
the armed hostility to Israel by the Arab states and the enduring Palestinian
refugee issue ... Many attackers' violence and rage had expanded beyond
simple execution of captives. Villagers have affirmed that while in
Deir Yassin, prisoners were terrorized, robbed, and brutalized. Women
were stripped of their traditional modest attire and their jewelry torn
from their bodies. One woman's son was reported stabbed to death in
her arms. The captives were told that 'they were going to slaughter
us, and make `kifta' [meat kebab] out of us.' Old women apparently were
assaulted as well. A British policeman recorded seeing a surviving elderly
woman's head evidence battering by rifle butts. Some captives were taken
to the Sheikh Bader neighborhood Lehi base where, Haganah intelligence
recorded, a baby was killed and then its mother as she fainted. Lehi
member Baruch Nadel has corroborated that in Deir Yassin 'there were
people killed in the most brutal way.' Some village women and girls
appear to have been raped, a few apparently killed afterwards. 'There
is no doubt,' a British police investigation concluded, "that many sexual
atrocities were committed.'"
Israel
'Torture' Hearings Open. BBC News.
May 26, 1999
"Human rights groups ... estimate around 85% of all Palestinians
detained in Israel in a given year are tortured by the government Shin
Bet security agency [Israel's secret police]."
Prosecution
of New Ambassador?
The Copenhagen Post [Denmark], July 11,
2001
"Warning that his country may have to re-introduce ‘moderate physical
torture’ in the near future when interrogating suspected Palestinian
terrorists, Israeli Ambassador [to Denmark] Carmi Gillon has
caused massive political controversy before even setting foot in the
country. ‘We banned this form of interrogation in Israel in 1999 because
of the peace process. Unfortunately, it looks like we may have to start
using it again,’ said Gillon, whose words carry more weight than usual
in the diplomatic world given his former position as head of the Israel
Security Service, Shin Beth. He was immediately attacked by the Danish
Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims (RCT) in Copenhagen, who challenged
the government to withhold its official recognition of the new Ambassador.
‘Israel is sending the wrong signal with its choice of Gillon,’ says
RTC spokesman Tue Magnusson. ‘His statements are not only quite shocking,
but also in direct contravention of UN convention. If Denmark really
wants to promote peace in the Middle East, then the government’s acceptance
of this man as Ambassador isn’t sending the correct signal.’ ... Leaders
of humanitarian organisations in this country ... have called for legal
proceedings to be undertaken against Gillon for his activities with
Shin Beth, when he assumes his position in Copenhagen at the beginning
of August. ‘He has committed the worst crimes one can commit...I believe
that it can be documented, that as chief for the secret police, he is
responsible for torture as it is described in the UN’s convention against
torture,’ said Professor Bent Sørensen, who was assistant director of
the UN’s Committee Against Torture until 2000. Sørensen believes that,
according to the UN convention, this country not only should take action
against Gillon, but will do so. Director of the Danish Centre for Human
Rights, attorney Morten Kjærum, agrees. ‘There is an obligation in the
torture convention to prosecute those who have participated in torture.
So it’s clear that, if he has acknowledged torture, he’s guilty,’ said
Kjærum."
What
Lies Beneath. The Guardian [Great Britain],
October 24, 2000
"Over the past month you will probably have been looking at the
murder and mayhem in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza and asking yourselves
what kind of people can behave like this? The killing of children, deliberately
targeted - what kind of a person could commit such an act? What sort
of people could, for years on end, deny the basic human rights of an
oppressed nation? And the answer might come to you, for want of any
other: heartless, monsters, that's who."
Return of the Terrorist.
The Crimes of Ariel Sharon [the new prime minister of Israel]
Counterpunch. February 7, 2001
"Sharon's history offers a monochromatic record of moral corruption,
with a documented record of war crimes going back to the early 1950s."
Israel's Army
Under Fire for 'Cold-Blooded' Palestinian Cop Killing.
AFP/Yahoo! News. May 15, 2001
Killing of Five
Palestinian Policemen a "Mistake" Says Israeli Minister.
AFP/Yahoo!News. May 17, 2001
The
Bingo Connection. How an Improbable Southern California Town
Became a Cash Machine for Controversial Jewish Settlements in the Middle
East.
[MOTHER JONES magazine, Sept/Oct 2000]
"How an impoverished Southern California town became a cash machine
for controversial Jewish settlements in the Middle East." The
story of Irving Moskowitz, the right-wing Jewish American who milks
a largely Hispanic metropolitan Los Angeles city to send millions of
dollars to Israel.
Shot Leaves Palestinian Peace Activist Paralyzed.
Haaretz [Israeli newspaper] May 17, 2001
"Israeli soldiers shot a 32-year old resident of an Arab village
near Ramallah on Tuesday morning, leaving him partially paralyzed. Villagers
said the shots were fired in 'cold blood.'"
Occupation
by Israelis, Violence Solidly Linked.
Rocky Mountain News. March 29, 2001
"Every day the casualties mount and the rage builds up on both
sides. Six months into the intifada, there are no winners. The death
toll is lopsided: 69 Israeli Jews, 13 Israeli Arabs and 354 Palestinians,
a third of them children. More than 12,000 Palestinians have been injured,
many crippled, says the Palestinian Red Crescent Society .... Thousands
of Palestinians now live in tents. Their economy is in tatters ....
One U.N. report warns of 'a collapse of some Palestinian institutions.'
Another says 80 percent of the population in the Gaza Strip now requires
food aid ... What the Israelis tend to forget, or ignore, is that schoolchildren
and grandmothers are as actively involved in this uprising as the gunmen
and suicide bombers. Why? Because every Palestinian, young and old,
hates living under Israeli occupation. And no Israeli peace terms, however
generous, ever offered to give back all their land. Writing in Israel's
Ha'aretz newspaper, editorial writer Baruch Kimmerling acknowledges
that 'since 1967, millions of Palestinians have been under a military
occupation without any civil rights and most lacking even the most basic
human rights. The continuing circumstances of occupation and repression
give them, by any measure, the right to resist that occupation with
any means at their disposal and to rise up in violence against the occupation.
This right to resist is strengthened by the Fourth Geneva Convention's
ban on creating irreversible facts on the ground in occupied territories,
and especially the ban on transferring populations from the occupying
state to the conquered. ... The legality and morality of Jewish settlements
and holdings in the territories are highly doubtful' ... Kimmerling
also accuses Israeli authorities of 'indiscriminate killing" and 'personal
terrorism against those it defines as field commanders of the Palestinian
uprising.' 'Even today, most of the public simply does not know that
every violent step taken against the Palestinians, let alone the aggregate
of those steps, borders on war crimes,' he wrote."
Red
Cross Takes Issue with Israel. Associated
Press/Yahoo!News. May 17, 2001
"Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza are 'a war crime,'
the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the area
said Thursday, triggering a harsh Israeli response."
International YMCA Team -- Visit to Palestine -- 12-16 November 2000.
Report and Findings. YMCA International.
May 2001
"The International YMCA community has to take firm and coordinated
action along with churches and other concerned people as a matter of
urgency. The one-sided nature of the [Israel-Palestinian] conflict demands
that the YMCA take the side of the oppressed Palestinian people ...
Palestinians suffer gross injustices and aberration of human rights."
Amnesty
Condemns Israel Over Arabs.
The Independent, [Great Britain], November 12, 2000
"Damning new evidence of Israel's abuse of Arab children has emerged,
adding another tier to the stack of human-rights violations committed
over the past six weeks of violence. It comes amid deepening controversy
surrounding the visit to the region of Mary Robinson, the UN Commissioner
for Human Rights, whom Israel's Foreign Minister has refused to meet
to discuss accusations of excessive force. A report by Amnesty International
released last week, but barely publicised, describes how Arab teenagers
have been arrested in the middle of the night, subjected to high-pressure
interrogations - including beatings - and held behind bars for more
than a month."
Israel/Occupied
Territories: Amnesty International Condemns State Assassinations.
Amnesty International. February 21, 2001
"The targeting of Palestinians suspected of attacking Israelis
amounts to a policy of state assassination, Amnesty International said
today ... Other killings investigated by [Amnesty International] delegates
involved a woman shot in a car passing a checkpoint and a child harvesting
vegetables killed from about 800 meters away."
Israel Comes Under Fire From British Church Men.
Jewish Chronicle. April 6, 2001
"Leading British Christians have returned from a two-week Middle
East fact-finding mission denouncing Israeli actions in the occupied
territories and declaring that the Palestinians are facing 'indescribable
suffering' ... The clergy also reported that an unnamed Israeli official
had told them during their visit that 'if ther are more Palestinians
dead, it is because we shoot better' ... The churchmen also called on
the British and American governments to reassess their Middle East policies."
EU Slams Israelis. Jewish Chronicle.
April 27, 2001
"The European Union has sharply criticized Israel for its retaliation
against Palestinian mortar attacks on the Negev town of Sderot."
Message
on the Occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian
People. By South African President Thabo Mbeki.
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Jan/Feb 2001
"To all our Palestinian brothers and sisters, I wish to reiterate
that their struggle is for a legitimate cause ... It is an affront to
all humanity that, while weare dealing with the challenges of and aspirations
for the new millenium, our Palestinian brothers and sisters are still
hankering for their basic human rights and, as a nation, for a realization
of their rights to self-determination."
Israel's
50th Anniversary Gala in May Brings No Joy to Palestinian Hearts.
National Catholic Reporter. March 27, 1998
"For Palestinians these last 50 years have been a disaster in which
they have been impoverished, robbed of their lands, marginalized in
or expelled from the country of their ancestors. In 1948 the army of
the newly founded State of Israel drove out almost a million Palestinians
from their homes and lands, leveling more than 400 villages. Many Jewish
immigrants from Europe were moved into the remaining houses of Palestinians
in the towns and cities of what became the state of Israel. Jewish land
ownership, which had been only 10 percent before the 1948 war, rose
to 90 percent as the Jewish state confiscated the lands of Palestinians
they Claimed had become "absentees," even though many were still present
as refugees. United Nations resolutions affirming the rights of Palestinians
to return to their lands or be compensated were ignored. Swedish Count
Folke Bernadotte, the U.N. representative who was preparing the case
for this resolution, was assassinated by Israeli army leaders."
Annan:
Israel Must End Assassinations. Yahoo! News
[Associated Press], July 6, 2001
"[United Nations] Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed to Israel
on Thursday to immediately halt the 'targeted assassinations'' of Palestinian
militants. In a strongly worded statement issued by his spokesman, Annan
said the policy violates international law and 'contradicts the spirit,
if not the letter, of the cease-fire agreement'' brokered by CIA director
George Tenet on June 13. Brushing aside U.S. criticism, Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon and his closest advisers said Tuesday that
Israel would stick to its policy of tracking down and killing suspected
Palestinian militants in a bid to prevent Palestinian attacks that have
persisted despite the truce. A senior Palestinian official, Ahmed Abdel
Rahman, called the Israeli policy 'the biggest violation'' yet of the
faltering Mideast cease-fire. 'The secretary-general is deeply disturbed
by the reported decision of the government of Israel to continue the
practice of what have become known as targeted assassinations,'
Annan's statement said. 'This policy is contrary not only to international
law, in particular human rights law, but also to general principles
of law.'''
A Jew Gets Death Threats
for Questioning Israel.
[International Herald Tribune; from the
Los Angeles Times]
May 23, 2001, by Michael Lerner
"'You subhuman leftist animals should all be exterminated,' ran
one threat that was titled 'Die. Die.' Another began, 'Someone will
come and kill you -- you should rot in hell.' Well, this is par for
the course when you are criticizing Israeli policy."
Sharon
Should Surrender to History. Financial Times
[UK], May 24, 2001
"In [Israel's] refusing to acknowledge the facts of history, it
reveals the poverty of its policies for Israel's future."
Fares Udah: Return of the Knight.
by Israel Shamir
[posted at the Ukrainian Archives. May
19, 2001]
"Thousands of the lost sons and daughters of this land, the potential
elite of the Palestinians have been exterminated. Once again, the Israeli
army is being used to implement the same master plan to 'cool the restive
natives' by routinely shooting potential rebels."
Israel Is Rapidly
Running Out of Friends. By Eric Margolis.
Toronto Sun. May 27, 2001
"In North America, Palestinians are blamed by the usually pro-Israel
media and politicians for the current wave of violence and terrorism.
But here in Europe, and around the world, there is a rising wave of
anger and condemnation against Israel's repression in the Occupied Territories.
Only the United States stands behind Israel, and less so every day ...
Senior EU [European Union] officials charge Israel with violating the
Geneva convention and international human rights laws ... [Israeli Prime
Minister] Ariel Sharon appears increasingly brutal and irrational,
almost as much a menace to Israelis as he is to Palestinians."
[Green Party and
Ralph Nader have "anti-Israel positions"].
NJDC in Action (National Jewish Democratic
Council).11-2-00
"The anti-Israel positions of presidential candidate Ralph Nader
(Green Party) and the Association of Green Parties (ASGP) have become
clear ... Nader recently blamed Israel for 'overwhelmingly excessive
use of force,' charactrerizes Vice President Al Gore's pro-Israel stance
'cowardly,' and emphasized that the Palestinians 'have a lot of reason
for their rage.'"
B'Tselem: Abuse
and Beatings on the Rise.
Haaretz [Israeli newspaper], May 29, 2001
"Beatings and abuse of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers and border
police has risen sharply in the last eight months, according to a report
published by B'Tselem -- the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights
in the Occupied Territories."
Hebrew
U. professor: Jews Fabricated Holy Sites.
Jerusalem Post. May 29, 2001
"Jews fabricated the existence of holy sites in the West Bank after
the Six Day War, said Hebrew University prof. Moshe Maoz to New
York Jewish leaders on Friday during a visit that was sponsored by the
Israeli government."
[Israel's]
Nuclear Weapons. Federation of American Scientists
(FAS). 2001
"[Israel's] nuclear weapons complex was variously explained as
a textile plant, an
agricultural station, and a metallurgical research facility, until [prime
minister] David
Ben Gurion stated in December 1960 that Dimona was a nuclear research
center
built for 'peaceful purposes.'"
Group Urges
A-G to Halt Torture of Minors.
Haaretz [Israel newspaper] May 30, 2001
"The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel urged Attorney
General Elyakim Rubinstein to intervene in the cases of over
300 Palestinian minors who have been arrested over the last eight months
-- many of them allegedly routinely subjected to torture."
Middle East and
North Africa [Israel]. Human Rights Watch.
2000
"Human Rights Watch's investigations in Israel, the West Bank,
and Gaza Strip in early October [2000] revealed a pattern of excessive,
and often indiscriminate, use of lethal force by Israel security forces
in which demonstrators were unarmed and posed no threat of death or
serious injury to the security forces or to others."
Border Patrol Fired at Reporters, Video Shows.
Haaretz [Israeli newspaper] May 17, 2001
"A videotape broadcast worldwide last night of a shooting incident
at the Ayosh junction during [Arab] Nakba day demonstrations clearly
shows an Israeli Border policeman shooting directly at a group of reporters,
wounding a French TV reporter who, if not for his flak jacket, might
have been mortally wounded."
Foreign Press:
Israel Ignoring IDF [Israel Defense Forces] Shooting of Reporters.
Haaretz
[Israeli newspaper] May 25, 2001
"The Israeli government is refusing to deal with [the shooting
of reporters by the Israeli army, says Howard Goller, chairman of the
Foreign Press Association] ... Twenty foreign correspondents in the
West Bank and Gaza have been shot at and hit with live ammunition or
rubber-coated bullets since the start of the [Palestianian uprising]."
Protest Letter.
Israel and the Occupied Territories. Journalist Injured in Ramallah.
Reporters Without Boundaries. May 15, 2001
"This is the fourth journalist to be shot and injured in 2001 during
confrontations between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli soldiers.
Close to forty media professionals have been shot by Tsahal [Israeli
Defense Forces] in the last three years."
Journalists
Behaving Badly. Jewish Journal of Greater
Los Angeles. May 2001
"The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recently found in a survey that
56 percent of major [American] newspaper editorials took a strong pro-Israel
stance."
Not
in Our Name, by Meredith Tax.
The Nation [reposted by Social Action],
June 4, 2001
"Despite the pusillanimity of the US press, the Internet has made
it impossible to keep some of the Israeli human rights violations quiet
(e.g., www.nimn.org). Appalled by the situation, 180 activists from
five countries, most representing grassroots Jewish groups against the
occupation, met at a "Junity" conference in Chicago May 4-6 to create
a national network of Jewish Unity for a Just Peace. Most participants
see re-igniting discussion of the occupation among American Jews as
a strategic question because of the central role played by mainstream
Jewish organizations in funding Israel, lobbying the US government,
suppressing criticism of Israeli policies and manipulating Jewish guilt
and fear with constant invocations of the Holocaust and portrayals of
Israel, a regional superpower, as a pitiful victim."
Alameda Mayor
Finds First Taste of Israel Inspiring.
Jewish Bulletin of Northern California. May 4, 2001
"[Mayor] Appezzato [from Northern California] was one of 46 mayors
from 25 countries to attend the [Conference of Mayors in Jerusalem],
sponsored by the American Jewish Congress ... 'Because of the intifada,
tourism is down,' he said. 'It's absolutely wonderful to go to all the
sites and not have to fight the crowds.'"
'Moment
of Truth' for New York Jews. Pluralistic Coalition of Rabbis Setting
Politics Aside in Unified Stand for Israel. The
Jewish Week. May 30, 2001
"More than 100 rabbis and congregations have signed on, along with
UJA [United JewishAppeal]- Federation of New York and regional federations
through the tristate area ... The May 20 Salute to Israel Parade produced
120 groups and 65,000 marchers, with at least that many spectators."
Israel
Furious at BBC for Sharon Claims. Guardian
[United Kingdom], June 15, 2001
"Israeli
officials attacked the BBC yesterday for a Panorama programme which
concludes that the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, could be tried for
war crimes in connection with the massacre of Palestinians in Lebanon
in 1982."
US
Professor Under Police Protection after Accusing [Israeli Prime Minister
Arik] Sharon of War Crimes. The Independent
[Great Britain], June 24, 2001
"Richard Falk took part in the BBC programme Panorama, which
caused a storm in Israel last week for publicly accusing Mr Sharon of
playing a leading role in the 1982 slaughter of 800 Palestinian refugees
at the Sabra and Chatila camps in Lebanon."
Sharon
Halts Belgian Visit Fearing War Crime Arrest.
Sydney Morning Herald [Australia], July 3, 2001
"The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, has cancelled
a planned visit to Belgium this week after the Brussels State Prosecutor's
office ruled he could be indicted on war crime charges. The official
explanation is that Mr Sharon, who is due to leave on Thursday, cannot
visit because of a crowded schedule elsewhere in Europe, namely France
and Germany. But some Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity,
said the Brussels prosecutor's decision meant "high-level dialogue between
the two countries will have to take place outside of Belgian territory".
The decision of the Belgian State Prosecutor's office relates to the
1982 massacre of Palestinians in Lebanon by the Israeli-backed Christian
Phalangist militiamen. An Israeli inquiry the following year recommended
that Mr Sharon, then defence minister, should resign over the incident,
which he did ... Israeli Government officials appear to be taking the
matter seriously. Last week, Ms Irit Kahan, head of the international
affairs department at the Israeli State Prosecutor's Office, was sent
to Belgium to compile a dossier of evidence that could be used in a
possible indictment against Mr Sharon. Israeli Foreign Ministry officials
are monitoring developments. While the officials do not believe Belgium
is going to issue an order for Mr Sharon's arrest and extradition, they
concede that the issue is one of great public sensitivity following
the handover of the former Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, to
a United Nations war crimes tribunal. 'This is a very embarrassing,
ugly topic and its not going to disappear soon,' one Israeli official
said."
Idealizing
Israel. Village Voice, March 7-13,
2001
"American Jewish leadership maintains not only a strong connection
to Israel, but a personal identification. What's more, such identification
is still deemed essential to a Jewish sense of self; mainstream attitudes
toward Israel may say more about American Jewry's own identity issues
than about Israeli policy. Preoccupied with Jewish continuity, community
organizations spend much time and vast resources trying to develop young
people's love for Israel. The Birthright Israel project—which is bankrolled
by some dozen major donors, among them Marc Rich, and which sends
thousands of college kids on free trips to Israel every year as a way
of forging their Jewishness—is regarded as the best answer going to
the crisis of a Jewish future. If Jewishness is to be exalted through
Israel, then, supporters seem to think, Israel must be portrayed in
an unquestioningly positive light."
With Solidarity Rallies
Spreading, UJC Wants Support for Israel -- NOW
JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency), June 19,
2001
"The umbrella of [Jewish] North American federations is set to
unveil a multi-pronged, $4 million solidarity campaign titled 'Israel
NOW — and Forever' ... The first step will be this weekend's "Solidarity
Shabbat" of UJC leadership in Jerusalem, where they will meet with Israeli
leaders and hammer out final details of the campaign. Among the other
campaign highlights: • Heavy promotion of solidarity missions to Israel.
• Advocacy- and media-training for campus and community activists, in
conjunction with local Hillels and Jewish community relations councils,
'to train their leadership to become strong advocates on behalf of Israel'
.... • A fund-raising initiative to assist all Israeli families directly
affected during the violence by death, injury, property destruction,
psychological damage ... • A 'media tour' that will take Israeli spokesmen
and U.S. Middle East experts — scholars, journalists and other opinion-shapers
— into key communities across North America to meet with local media.
• A major mission to Israel, called 'Journey to Solidarity I,' to be
held Sept. 9-14."
ADL,
Arabs: Israel Winning Media War. Jewish Week,
June 29, 2001
"A new survey by the Anti-Defamation League found that in the three
weeks prior to June 13, 'editorial opinion in the 50 top-circulation
U.S. newspapers reflected a heavily pro-Israel, anti-Arafat tone and
content' ... [An ADL survey showed] that most U.S. editorials favored
Israel even in the first weeks of the war, and a Gallup poll which found
Americans supporting Israel in greater numbers than at any time since
1991 ... That a pro-Israel media tide is rising was seconded by a study
conducted by James Zogby, president of the Arab-American Institute and
a senior adviser to last year’s Gore-Lieberman campaign. Writing
for Arabs in the Jordan Times (June 19), Zogby credits the 'pro-Israel
lobby' in the United States, which has 'focused extensively on media
coverage,' swaying public opinion."
The Biased
Reporting that Makes Killing Acceptable.
The Independent, November 14, 2000
"When CNN's Cairo bureau chief, Ben Wedeman, was shot in
a gun battle in Gaza last month, I waited to hear how his employers
would handle the story. Having visited the spot where Wedeman was hit
in the back, I realised that the bullet must have been fired by Israeli
soldiers at a location on the other side of the nearest crossroads.
So, what happened? CNN reported that 'most of the bullets' fired
came from the Israelis, but - according to a pathetic response from
a company spokesman in London - CNN was not going to suggest
who was to blame 'at this time.' Indeed not. The American Associated
Press news agency later reported - a real killer, this one - that
Wedeman had been 'caught up in crossfire.' So much, I thought, for the
150 or so Palestinians shot dead by Israeli troops over the past six
weeks. If CNN didn't have the courage to tell the truth about
the shooting of its own reporter, what chance did the Palestinians have?"
Aid
Bill [for Israel] Moves Ahead. Jewish Week,
July 6, 2001
"In a rare glimmer of good news for Israel, Congress is moving
forward with a foreign aid bill that includes $2.7 billion in economic
and military aid for Jerusalem -- and a symbolic slap at Palestinian
leader Yasir Arafat ... The measure also includes $60 million for the
resettlement of refugees in Israel, a pet program of Rep. Nita Lowey
(D-Westchester). And it includes all the usual perks for Israel such
as early disbursal of aid funds and 'offshore procurement' provisions
that allow Israel to spend more U.S. military aid at home, an important
boost for the Israeli economy."
Citing
Limited Air Space, Israel Says Wants to Base Jets in U.S.
Haaretz [Israeli newspaper], August 2,
2001
"Israel has asked the United States to permanently base some Israeli
fighter jets at a U.S. Air Force base in America for combat training
of Israeli pilots, officials of the two countries said Wednesday. They
told Reuters that Washington was considering the request to station
a contingent of Israeli jets at a U.S. base but that no decision had
been made."
Army Moles Hunt Israeli Troops Linked to Terror.
Sunday Times [London], July 22, 2001
"MOLES have been placed within the Israeli defence forces in an
attempt to unearth army officers and soldiers collaborating with Jewish
terrorists. An extremist anti-Arab movement is suspected of being behind
last week's shooting of three members of a West Bank family, including
a three-month-old girl. In the recriminations that followed, Avraham
Dichter, head of Shin Bet - Israel's equivalent of MI5 - admitted
to Israel's parliament that such extremist cells exist."
Remembering
Israel Shahak. Antiwar.com
"'Here is a practical proposal to you,' he said to me at the end
of our first meeting. 'Discuss the basic facts of the oppression of
the Palestinians by Israel as much as you can, going right down to the
basics of everyday racism. Point out the obvious contradiction between
what the majority of American Jews demand for themselves in the USA
and what they defend in Israel. Do not be intimidated in the struggle
against racism and for human dignity, equality and freedom by any demagoguery
about peace and democracy, if they are used in the cause of discrimination,
and perhaps the words of the prophet (Amos, 5.15) will come true. ‘Hate
the evil and love the good and establish judgment in the gate, it may
be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.'"
Protesters
Demand Israel Stop Torture -- of Geese for Foie Gras. Jerusalem
Post, July 31, 2001
"A small group of demonstrators gathered outside the Israeli Embassy
here yesterday to protest against Israeli torture - of geese ... Now
animal rights groups are rallying against a wholly different kind of
Israeli physical pressure - the force-feeding of roughly 700,000 geese
and 100,000 ducks in breeding farms every year ... To produce the liver
delicacy, workers shove metal pipes down the throats of geese and ducks
thrice daily and pump seven pounds of corn mush into their stomachs
- the equivalent of 16 pounds of pasta being force fed into a person.
Many birds die when their stomachs burst or when their necks are gouged
by the pipes. The survivors are killed and their livers are turned into
the pate".
Orient
House Is In Our Hands,by Uri Avnery. Israel
Insider, August 11, 2001
"In a daring action, in the middle of the night, the elite units
of the border police and the picked commandos of the paratroops stormed
the 'Orient House' in East Jerusalem and the Palestinian governor's
office in Abu-Dis. In a heroic battle, the two empty buildings were
conquered. Our glorious forces suffered no casualties ... The 'conquest'
of this building is a cynical, treacherous, stupid, evil and disastrous
act ... Where to go now? One doesn't have to search long: just around
the corner, the golden Dome of the Rock is shining. No doubt, that is
the real aim of this madness: the Temple Mount, the Holy Sanctuary,
the Dome of the Rock, al-Aksa. That is where the dance of the daemons
started, where Ehud Barak and Shlomo Ben-Ami let Sharon loose. And that
is where it will end, in a regional blood bath. I do not know when this
will happen. But as from this week I am convinced that it will come,
if the world does not pound on Sharon's table with an iron fist."
Palestinian Leaders Accuse U.S. of 'Bias' as Bush Support for Israel
Remains Solid, Haaretz, August 26,
2001
"Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi harshly criticized [US President
George] Bush's remarks, saying 'we have now a full and absolute American
bias. An American president,' she said, 'is parroting the Israeli point
of view.' Ashrawi told The Associated Press that the Americans
'are providing support to the point where they have become complicit
to the crime.' PA Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo also lashed out at the
Americans on Sunday, telling Palestine Radio that Bush's adoption of
[Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon's no-talks-under-fire
policy was intended to block a possible meeting between Arafat and Foreign
Minister Shimon Peres. Abed Rabbo said the Americans had no interest
in playing an active role in getting the two sides back to the negotiating
table, and also did not want any other party filling this role. The
U.S., he added, wanted to maintain the present situation and so was
encouraging 'Israeli terror' against the Palestinian people."
Digging
In. Israel's Troops Fortify in Palestinian Town.
abcnews.com [from Associated Press] August
29, 2001
"But in Beit Jalla, Israeli forces were hunkering down in armored
vehicles and atop Palestinian apartments, while Palestinian security
forces were lurking only a block or two away on Virgin Mary Street.
The Israelis also took over a Lutheran Church compound that includes
an orphanage with 45 children, ages 6 to 16. The children, who like
most of Beit Jalla were placed under curfew, took cover from gunfire
in a basement. Troops set up a machine gun position on the roof of an
adjacent five-story church hostel under construction, witnesses said.
'We demand that the army immediately withdraw from our church premises,'
said Munib Younan, the Lutheran bishop of Jerusalem."
Facing Daily Gun and
Bomb Attacks, Soldiers Now Face Charges of Abuse,
JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency), August
27, 2001
"Last week ... an Israeli military court indicted four soldiers
from the elite Shimshon Brigade on charges of abusing Palestinians residents
from the Hebron area. According to the indictments, on July 23 the soldiers
forced nine Palestinian passengers out of two taxis, slapped them around,
used a helmet to hit one of them in the face and beat others with their
fists. The soldiers also allegedly smashed the cars' windows and slashed
their tires. That case is just the tip of the iceberg, according to
Lior Yavneh, an official with the Israeli human rights group
B'Tselem. 'The number of cases which are being investigated is
very small, and the investigations themselves are very superficial,'
Yavneh told JTA. Eleven months after the outbreak of the Palestinian
intifada, the Israel Defense Force has investigated 12 cases where soldiers
allegedly abused Palestinian civilians. B'Tselem argues that
the actual amount of abuse is much higher. 'The case of the Shimshon
soldiers was the only one that received serious treatment by army investigators,'
said Yavneh, 'and that was only because it was exposed in the press.'"
Fighting
as Israeli Tanks Enter West Bank Town,
Independent [London], August 14, 2001
"Earlier, at the Arab 'day of rage' protest at the Israeli occupation
of Orient House, the Israelis were the ones demonstrating their rage.
A Palestinian youth who dared to hold up a Palestinian flag made of
paper was seized by six border guards and plain-clothes police, kicked,
beaten, punched in the face and the back, and then kneed in the groin
in front of us all. Many of the police had come from Haifa, where a
Palestinian suicide bomber had blown himself up a few hours earlier
in a vain effort to murder Israelis in a café, and there was a tangible
desire to inflict pain on some of the crowd. A tall, thin, young man
who tried to escape a policeman's grasp at the iron security barriers
was dragged back into the police lines and set upon by eight men. There
must have been 20 television cameras and a score of photographers running
level with the Shin Bet intelligence boys as they dragged the man screaming
up the road towards Orient House, kicking him in the chest and forcing
back his head until he choked. The moment he was in the back seat of
a police van, an Israeli plain-clothes man in a red shirt set upon him.
As he was held down, the Israeli kicked him again and again between
the legs until he was crying in a high, animal voice. It was, as one
of the foreign protesters muttered, enough to turn a Palestinian into
a suicide-bomber. It was also very, very weird. Here we were, perhaps
a hundred journalists watching a hundred 'peace' demonstrators, European,
American, Christian and Jew, and Palestinian, and every few minutes,
on a signal from a fat policeman in a blue shirt, his colleagues would
run amok. After all the talk of Israel being a peace-loving state, founded
upon the rule of law, the police would suddenly prove that those constant
Palestinian complaints of beatings and brutality were true, right in
front of us."
A Non-Racist
Zionism? Al-Ahram [Cairo, Egypt], August
23-29, 2001
"All of this confirms that Zionism is not, as its adherents would
have the world believe, merely the national expression of Jewish self-determination,
but an intrinsically racist ideology that justifies the most brutal
acts of repression against the Palestinians as necessary for the security
of one specific racial group. How can the United Nations, which has
issued countless resolutions condemning doctrines of racial differentiation
and superiority as morally reprehensible and socially unjust, refuse
to even consider a resolution equating Zionism with racism? ... And
when it comes to equating Zionism with racism, the criterion cannot
be what Israel, or the US for that matter, has to say on the issue,
but what the parties suffering from the racist practices of Israel have
to say, notably the Palestinians, particularly with the present escalation
of violence in the occupied territories, where Israel's systematic war
of extermination and expropriation against a native civilian population
displays all the characteristics of a policy of ethnic cleansing --
which the United Nations has defined as a war crime."
Israel
Upset By Finland Minister,
Washington Post [from Associated Press],
August 30, 2001
"In a magazine article last week, [Finland] Foreign Minister Erkki
Tuomioja was quoted as saying Israel's intent in its clashes with Palestinians
is 'to suppress, humiliate, subdue and impoverish the Palestinians.'
Suomen Kuvalehti magazine on Aug. 24 further quoted Tuomioja
as saying: 'It is quite shocking that they (the Jews) should continue
toward the Palestinians policies similar to which they were victims
of in the 1930s.' From Israel, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres
said Tuomioja's statement is 'based on a total lack of knowledge....
The statement is shocking and outrageous, not only to every Israeli
and every Jew, but also to every enlightened person in the world.' Avner
Shalev, director of the government's Holocaust memorial and research
center also protested sharply."
Israel
to Pay Pollard $1 Million. Haaretz,
August 31, 2001
"Jonathan Pollard [a Jewish American], jailed for life in
the U.S. as an Israeli spy, will be getting $1 million from the Israeli
government to help pay for his and his wife's expenses, according to
the recommendations of two committees and at the initiative of Minister
without Portfolio Danny Naveh. The two committees, one headed
by Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplansky, the prime minister's military liaision,
and the other by Defense Ministry Deputy Director General Moshe Kohonovksy,
decided on the grant after Naveh lobbied for aid to Pollard. Naveh was
a key proponent of Israel's official recognition of Pollard as an Israeli
spy. The $1 million is based on a calculation of $5,000 a month for
every month Pollard has already spent in jail - 16 years. Pollard spent
years demanding the Israeli government recognize him as a spy - and
pay him accordingly. Naveh decided to press for the grant to help Pollard's
wife, Esther. Even after the decision was made to grant the money to
Pollard, government sources here are nervous that publicity about the
payment in the U.S. could be bad for Israel, which gets close to $3
billion a year in aid from the country that Pollard, then a[n American]
navy lieutenant, spied against. The sources said the payment will also
greatly reduce any chances of amnesty or a pardon for Pollard, who anyway
faces stiff resistance to an early jail release because of opposition
from the U.S. State Department, Defense Department, Justice Department,
and the intelligence community. There are no expectations that President
George W. Bush will move on behalf of Pollard during his first term
in office."
Israel
Branded Apartheid State, New York Daily News,
September 2, 2001
"Israel was branded a 'racist apartheid' state early today by thousands
of non-governmental organizations attending a forum in South Africa
that was part of the UN Conference against Racism. The harsh anti-Israeli
language in the forum's final declaration injected new Middle East tension
into the wider conference in Durban. Stunned Israeli delegates walked
out after the declaration was adopted by 3,000 groups in 44 regional
and interest-based caucuses. 'The decision of the conference of the
NGOs adopted this morning is outright incitement, whose only purpose
is to delegitimize the Jewish state and its people,' delegation spokesman
Noam Katz said."
Lutherans Charge Israelis
Using Schoolchildren as Human Shields, by Elaine Ruth Fletcher.
San Diego Union-Tribune, August 31, 2001
"Lutheran church officials around the world have decried the invasion
by Israeli army troops into a Lutheran church boarding school in the
Palestinian-controlled village of Beit Jallah earlier this week. The
Rev. Jadallah Shehade, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of
the Reformation and principal of the church's boarding school, charged
the children were being used as 'human shields' by the Israelis, who
had postioned themselves on the rooftop of the church compound. Ironically,
the soldiers had stationed themselves on a new church building known
as Abraham's Residence, which was being built as a seminar center for
Christian-Muslim-Jewish peace dialogues. 'We denounce in the strongest
possible terms the Israeli occupation of our buildings and demand that
the army immediately withdraw from our church premises as well as from
Beit Jallah,' said Bishop Munib Younan, head of the Lutheran church
in the Holy Land. Younan said he was appealing to human rights organizations
and Lutheran church bodies overseas to protest the Israeli action. In
Geneva, the Lutheran World Federation sharply condemned the occupation
of the town near Bethlehem, particuarlly 'the forces' misuse of the
Lutheran church as a base for weapons fire and military activities.
In a brief note to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the Rev.
Ishmael Noko, Lutheran World Federation general secretary, called the
incursion 'an outrage' and said the troops had invaded 'one of the holy
places of the Christian community.'"
Acid Test Failed,
by Israel Shamir, Media Monitors,
January 6, 2001
"Our Jewish army murders civilians, demolishes houses, starves
millions and imposes the siege on the Palestinian villages. Our crimes
exceeded the Russian crimes committed in Chechnya and Afghanistan, the
American crimes in Vietnam and Serb crimes in Bosnia. Surely, the Israeli
intellectuals demonstrate en masse on our equivalent of Pennsylvania
Avenue or Trafalgar Square, American Jews raise their voice against
the America-armed killers of Palestinians, Russian Jews speak up for
the human rights of the enslaved Gentiles of the Holy Land? No fear,
our literati exalt the courage of our Jewish soldiers, venerate the
steady hand of our Jewish snipers and glorify the immense humanity of
the Jewish folk, who could pulverize all the Gentiles of Palestine,
but kindly limit ourselves to a few hundred wounded and maimed a day.
My grandfather in the Pale of Settlement complained against the restrictions
of the free movement of Jews in the Russian Empire, while in our generation
Anatoli Sharansky became a symbol of struggle for human rights.
In our own country, the Gentiles are fenced into reservations and concentration
camps that the Pale pales in comparison with. A Palestinian cannot go
to the next village without the Jewish ausweis, he is forever checked
by our Checkists. He can only dream of the sea, washing the shores of
his ancestral home? We do not let Palestinians to pollute the Jewish
purity of our beaches."
Israeli Extremists
Take Revenge on Palestinians, USA Today,
September 4, 2001
"After a quick prayer, Avi Shapiro and 12 other Jewish settlers
put on their religious skullcaps, grabbed their semi-automatic rifles
and headed toward Highway 60. There, they pushed boulders, stretched
barbed wire and set tires afire to form a barricade that, they said,
would stop even the biggest of Palestinian taxis. Then they waited for
a vehicle to arrive. As they crouched in a ditch beside the road, Shapiro,
the leader of the group, gave the settlers orders: Surround any taxi,
'open fire' and kill as many of the 'blood-sucking Arab' passengers
as possible. 'We are doing what (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon
promised but has failed to do: drive these sons of Arab whores from
the land of Israel,' said Shapiro, 42, who moved here with his wife
and four children three years ago from Brooklyn. 'If he won't get rid
of the Muslim filth, then we will' ... Since the start of the latest
surge of violence in Israel a year ago this month, at least 119 Palestinians
have been killed by Israeli civilians in the West Bank and Gaza, according
to B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group that has been sympathetic
to the Palestinians' plight. Hundreds of others have been hospitalized,
it says. During the same time, at least 30 settlers have been killed
by Palestinian gunmen. In July, Jewish vigilantes killed three Palestinians,
including a 3-month-old boy, in Nablus. The State Department condemned
the attack as a "barbaric act" of "unconscionable vigilantism." No one
has been charged in the attack ... Last week, 85 European Community
monitors who had patrolled Hebron since 1994 withdrew after complaining
of weeks of verbal and physical abuse by the settlers. 'Every day, we
were kicked, dragged and beaten by the settlers,' says Karl-Henrik Sjursen
of Norway, chief of the observer mission. 'They made life impossible
for us.'"
Palestinian Mother,
24, Is Among Loners Mounting Attacks on Israel, Yahoo!
News [from AFP], September 6, 2001
"'Mummy is in a Jewish prison,' says four-year-old Samah of her
24-year-old mother, Iman Ghazawi, in jail for a month now for allegedly
trying to attack a bus station in Tel Aviv. The case highlights a new
phenomenon of great concern to Israelis -- that of the emergence of
Palestinians with no political attachment or background, yet prepared
to carry out attacks against their Jewish occupiers. The Israeli police
say Ghazawi, who comes from the West Bank town of Nablus, was carrying
five kilograms (11 pounds) of explosives that she was preparing to place
in the bus station when she was arrested ... Like Iman, other Palestinians
thought not capable of such acts have carried out anti-Israeli attacks
... According to a senior Palestinian official talking on condition
of anonymity, 'these individual attempts from people who have no link
with (organised political) movements demonstrate the consequences of
Israeli policy.' Palestinian psychologist Tayssir Diab says 'the individual
and spontaneous actions are carried out by people suffering from the
shock of the violence, be it killings or raids.' 'The anger resulting
from that can prompt unconsidered actions, unlike those of the militants,
whose acts are generally carefully studied and planned,' he added. Lea
Tsemel, an Israeli lawyer who has for several years represented Palestinian
detainees, says that 'in the past parents thought they could protect
their children by stopping them from getting involved in anti-Israeli
activities.' 'Today, they are convinced that they can't guarantee a
future for the children without the existence of a Palestinian state
which will protect them, and they have begun to act in a way as to speed
up the liberation of their children from the yoke of occupation,' she
explained."
Israeli
Students Defy Military Call-Up,
The Times [of London], September 7, 2001
"Sixty-two Israeli high school students refused yesterday to do
military service in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, accusing their Government
of aggressive and racist policies towards Palestinians. In an open letter
to Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister, the teenagers, who face
two weeks in jail if they refuse when conscripted at 18, said that their
consciences prevented them from taking part in oppression. 'Land expropriation,
arrests, executions without trial, house demolition, closure, torture
and the prevention of healthcare are only some of the crimes the state
of Israel carries out,' they said. 'We do not intend to take part in
the execution of this policy'.”
Text of 18 U.S.
Church Leaders' June 7, 2001, Letter to U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell, News from the National Council of
Churches, June 7, 2001
"Few things have done more to destroy the hope and pursuit of peace
through negotiations than Israel's unrelenting settlement activity.
Over these recent years, we have heard from our Palestinian Christian
partners, and seen for ourselves, the destructive impact of Israel's
settlement policy -- separating village from village, confiscating more
and more Palestinian land, creating friction with its military checkpoints.
For over twenty years our churches have appealed to the U.S. government
to require Israel to cease this transfer of its civilian population
into occupied territory, a clear violation of international law and
United Nations resolutions. Each administration has spoken in opposition
to the settlement activity, only to watch the settlements increase and
expand as Israel ignores the advice. It is time for the United States
to do what it must to bring Israel's settlement activity to an end.
We urge you to make clear to Israel and the Palestinians that the United
States is committed to a negotiated end of Israel's military occupation
of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem as called for in
U.N.S.C. Res. 242 and that an immediate freezing by Israel of its settlement
activity including 'natural growth' is imperative. It will likely require
considerable diplomatic pressure, and possibly economic pressure as
well, to convince the government of Israel to recognize that this is
a major policy concern of the United States."
U.S.
Assistance to Israel, FY 1949-FY2000,
Jewish Virtual Library [The American-Israeli
Cooperative Enterprise]
A detailed, year by year look at the over 81 BILLION
dollars the United States has given Israel, from 1949 through 2000.
Israel's
Assassination Policy, Tikkun, August
30, 2001
"PFLP leader Abu Ali Mustafa Zabri was the latest victim of Israel's
policy of assassinations. In the course of this Intifada, Israel extra-judicially
assassinated at least 32 Palestinians. In the course of these assassinations
an additional thirteen Palestinian bystanders were killed, including
two children. These killings are part of an explicit policy to assassinate
Palestinians suspected of acts of violence against Israelis. Israel
did not devise the assassination policy in the wake of the current Intifada,
but has employed this policy in the Occupied Territories and abroad
for over 30 years ... The assassination policy violates the right to
life, the most fundamental of all human rights, enshrined in international
and Israeli law. Unnamed security personnel make a decision to kill
a person, and the decision is carried out with no legal process whatsoever.
The method Israel uses to carry out the assassinations raises several
concerns which, in and of themselves, are sufficient to render the policy
illegal. Most of the assassinations are conducted in densely populated
civilian areas, and there is a high risk that bystanders will be killed
- as has happened on several occasions. Errors may also occur both when
selecting the target and while carrying out the assassination. The decision
to assassinate a person is made in back rooms with no judicial process
to examine the intelligence information on which it is based. The target
of the assassination is not given a chance to present evidence in his
defense or to refute the allegations against him."
An Israeli Soldier Says. A Note From A Military Prison, by David
Haham Herson, Tikkun, August 5, 2001
"I am a God-fearing Jew, and as such forbidden to take part in
denying freedom and serving in occupied territory. I am imprisoned,
but yet feel freer than most of the Israelis I've met, for one simple
reason: I don't bear the burden of vindictiveness and the perverse gratification
attending it. I don't bear the burden of denial and callousness. I am
concerned for humans as such. For those denied the right to live like
me, with food and clothes and fun and good health and dreams of success
and a car. I am concerned for people who are humiliated every day, who
are denied the right to work, who are imprisoned within their towns
and villages. I am concerned for those whose homes have been demolished
and their fruit groves devastated. I am concerned because I know that
the terrible hatred towards me is justified. This hatred has led to
horrifying and perverted manifestations, like the young suicide bombers,
but we create the conditions that lead to this monstrosity. I am concerned
because I know that the cries of exultation over the killings drown
out the sobs of the numerous victims, Jews and Arabs, of the widows
and orphans, of the cripples who will suffer for the rest of their lives
because of that pride and callousness. This is a concern unlike that
of most of the Israeli people."
YMCA Web Site Linked to Pro-Palestinian Sites,
Canadian Jewish News, September 28, 2001
"The World Alliance of YMCAs has responded to criticism that its
Web site is pro-Palestinian by adding 38 links to new Web sites - only
one of which might be considered a strong supporter of Israeli policy
... Most sites listed as Israeli are highly critical of the Jewish state,
with B'Tselem, a human rights group, and Peace Now, the
best known. The others include The Other Israel, Not in My
Name, Bat Shalom and The Arab Association for Human Rights,
which pull no punches in attacking Israel. ... 'It's unbelievable,'
said Harold Brief, vice-chair of international relations for
Canadian Jewish Congress. 'It's an absolute obscenity.'"
Ze'evi Killing Reopens
Debate about Israel's Policy of 'Targeted' Killings,
JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 22, 2001
"Israel finds itself in a bind after the assassination of Tourism
Minister Rehavam Ze'evi. Not only do Israeli officials have to
come up with a credible response to the slaying, they have to contend
with claims that the murder of Ze'evi by Arab militants was little different
than Israel's policy of killing Arab terror ringleaders before they
can carry out attacks against Israeli targets ... the policy has elicited
repeated criticism from the United States — which calls it 'unproductive'
— and a host of other Western powers. Last week, Israeli officials were
aghast after Denmark's foreign minister, Mogens Lykketoft, equated the
assassination of Ze'evi and Israel's targeted killings of suspected
Palestinian terrorists ... . A Dahaf opinion poll [in Israel] released
over the weekend — after Ze'evi's assassination — indicated that 62
percent of Israeli respondents want to continue the policy."
Poll: Israelis See Anti-Semitism Rising, and They Feel More Jewish as
a Result, JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency),
October 29, 2001
"A new poll released by the World Jewish Congress shows that Israelis
feel increasingly worried about worldwide anti-Semitism and see themselves
as responsible for rescuing Jews in danger anywhere. Supporting the
notion that bad times make better Jews, both secular and religious Israelis
say they have a stronger Jewish identity after more than a year of Palestinian
violence and the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States ... Most
— 75 percent — agreed that international anti-Israel sentiment is motivated
by anti-Semitism. In addition, 67 percent said anti-Israel politics
at the United Nations is driven by anti-Semitism. Respondents had little
interest in seeing the United Nations play a role in the Mideast peace
process, WJC officials said. Among the other findings: Forty-eight percent
of respondents identify primarily as part of the Jewish people, 36 percent
as citizens of the state of Israel and 13 percent as members of humanity
... The most admired characteristic of U.S. Jews is 'their cultural
and political influence' — 34 percent — followed by 'Jewish pride' —
22 percent — and their 'sense of unity and community' — 21 percent ...
An overwhelming majority — 76 percent — agreed that Diaspora Jews are
Israel's most important ally; and fifty percent of respondents said
the United States was a safer country for Jews than England, France,
Germany and the former Soviet Union — but 26 percent said none of those
countries is truly safe for Jews."
Religious Extremism Not Limited to Followers of Islam, Says Rabbi,
Cleveland Jewish News, October 12, 2001
"The Sept. 11 terrorists attacks in New York and Washington served
as a wake-up call about religious zealotry which should have special
resonance for American Jews and for Zionists throughout the world, says
Rabbi Uri Regev, a leader of Reform Jews in Israel ... During his impassioned
Friday night sermon, Regev outlined a chilling parallel between Islamic
and Israeli religious extremists ... There is no room in the world for
a religion that preaches hate and intolerance, says Regev. 'But in Israel,
we have our own religious extremists who feel they have the right to
rule other people's lives, spreading the venom of religious fundamentalism.'
The group Regev is referring to is the Haredi, fervently religious Orthodox
Jews who comprise about 6% of the Israeli population and reject any
form of secularism ... 'They have distorted Torah (teachings) and interpreted
them as giving license to get rid of infidels,' said Regev. The fervently
Orthodox also have maintained a stranglehold on the government."
Church Seeks to Reclaim Property,
Yahoo!News (from Associated Press, October 25, 2001
"The patriarch of the Greek Orthodox church said in an interview
published Sunday that the church intends to repossess land holdings
in Israel, including the land under Israel's parliament. Newly elected
Patriarch Eireneos I said a team of experts is to examine all transfers
of church property, particularly during the past seven years, with the
aim of repossessing as much land as possible, the Jerusalem Post
reported. However, Eireneos - who was elected more than two months ago
- has not won approval as patriarch from the Israeli government. A law
dating back to the sixth-century Byzantine Emperor Justinian requires
the patriarch-elect, and even candidates for the post, to obtain government
approval. In contrast, Eirenoes won quick approval from Jordan and the
Palestinian Authority), which also fall within his ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
Earlier, the Israeli government had refused to approve Eireneos' candidacy
but backed down when the church appealed to Israel's Supreme Court,
accusing Israel of interfering in church affairs, a position supported
by the judges. A Justice Ministry spokesman said a challenge to the
election was pending before the Supreme Court, and that the government
cannot grant approval until a ruling." [CONTEXT: Jewish organizations
continue to successfully pursue reparations for all sorts of lost European
World War II property -- even the home (today a religious museum) where
the Pope was raised in Wadowice, Poland]
Jewish Cell Believed Behind Shooting of Six Palestinians, Haaretz,
October 31, 2001
"Police and the Shin Bet security services believe that a Jewish
terror cell is responsible for a shooting attack yesterday morning near
Hebron in which six Palestinians were injured. In the attack, a taxi
van carrying workers to work came under fire from a car with Israeli
license plates near the village of Bnei Naim, east of Hebron ... This
is believed to be the sixth or seventh attack carried out by right-wing
Jews in the territories over the last year in which at least six Palestinians
have died and dozens more have been injured. No one has taken responsibility
for the attacks. The Shin Bet believes that two separate Jewish terror
cells are at work in the territories; one in the Hebron area responsible
for the death of three members of a Palestinian family, and the second
in the Nablus-Ramallah area. Not one member of the cells has been apprehended
by police, nor has any progress been reported in the investigations."
Bishops Join Pro-Palestinian Rally, Boston
Globe, October 31, 2001
"In a dramatic illustration of increasing concerns among Christian
leaders about Israeli conduct, the three bishops of the Episcopal Diocese
of Massachusetts yesterday joined a pro-Palestinian demonstration in
front of the Israeli consulate in Boston. The bishops, clad in the flowing
purple cassocks and pectoral crosses that signify their high church
office, held candles and signs with such slogans as ''Christian-Muslim
solidarity in the face of Israeli invasion'' and ''Destruction in Bethlehem.''
Although many Catholic and Protestant clergy have previously expressed
concern about the plight of Palestinians, Episcopal Bishops M. Thomas
Shaw, Barbara C. Harris, and Roy F. Cederholm Jr. are apparently the
first local denominational leaders to take their concern from the pulpit
to the picket line. The bishops, who lead the largest Episcopal diocese
in the country, decided over the weekend that escalating violence in
the Mideast in recent days required them to be more public about their
concerns."
LIBI. The Fund for Strengthening
Israel's Defense [Here American Jews can get U.S. tax deductions
for donations to the Israeli army]
Anatomy
of Racism, by Hannan Ashrawi, Z magazine,
October 18, 2000
"[Israel's] version of events [about two Israelis murdered by a
Palestinian mob] presented the Israeli agents as reservists who had
mistakenly 'strayed' into Ramallah and then were 'lynched' by the mob.
References to 'slaughter' and 'blood thirst' and 'savagery' became the
prevalent verbal currency. While no one would condone the killing of
the soldiers, it is important however, to deal with the real facts and
the context: Ramallah, as a city under total Israeli military siege,
was closed off to all movement in or out of the city. Only one entrance
was open, entirely under the control of multiple Israeli military checkpoints.
Thus to 'stray' into Ramallah would require deliberate and repeated
attempts requiring tenacity, persistence, and even guile. The two Israeli
agents were clearly infiltrated and planted into the midst of a protest
march in the heart of the city. The occasion was the funeral of a Palestinian
man, Issam Joudeh Hamad, from the village of Umm Safa, who had been
abducted by Israeli settlers and tortured to death in a most grisly
manner. Gruesome footage and photographs of the body, plus the testimony
of the doctors who had examined it, were not repeatedly displayed before
the eyes of the world for the sake of scoring points or dehumanizing
the Israelis. Some Arab stations informed me that the images were so
horrific that they refrained from using them. Most of the people participating
in the march (in the besieged Palestinian city of Ramallah) knew the
victim, and some had seen the body. The two undercover Israeli agents
that had infiltrated the march were recognized by the Palestinians as
members of the 'Death Squads' that had been responsible for assassinations
and provocations. Despite the fact that the Palestinian police tried
to protect them, the two were killed before the cameras. This immediately
became an instant justification for branding all Palestinians as murderers,
and for the most systematic, venomous, hate campaign in recent history.
It was also used as a justification for the Israeli aerial attacks on
Ramallah and other Palestinian cities."
Pope Joins Criticism of Killing in Bethlehem,
Times [of London], October 22, 2001
"Israel yesterday resisted pressure from the US and France to withdraw
its tanks from six nominally Palestinian-controlled West Bank towns
as four more Palestinians were killed. The Israeli Government also rejected
strongly worded appeals from the heads of the Christian churches in
Jerusalem to withdraw its troops from Bethlehem. The streets there have
been turned into a shooting gallery since Israeli forces took control
of large areas close to Palestinian security headquarters in retaliation
for the assassination of Rehavam Zeevi, the Tourism Minister,
last week. An Israeli soldier was wounded by a Palestinian bullet near
Rachel’s Tomb on the outskirts yesterday. Last night the Palestinian
Authority outlawed the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine, the group that claimed responsibility for killing Mr Zeevi.
Israel shrugged off rare criticism by the Pope, who yesterday expressed
public sorrow over the death on Saturday of a 19-year-old Arab, Johnny
Thaljieh, killed a few yards from the Church of the Nativity in Manger
Square by a stray machinegun bullet. Hanna Nasser, the Mayor of Bethlehem,
sent letters to the Vatican, the UN, the US and Bethlehem’s twin cities
abroad, pleading for diplomatic backing and condemning Israel’s 'aggressive,
sadist policy.' At noon prayers in the Vatican, the Pope said: 'War
and death arrived even on the square of the basilica of the Nativity
of Our Lord. Violence is for everybody only a path of death and destruction
which dishonours the holiness of God and the dignity of man.'”
The
Compatability of a Nation's Values, by Bill
Maxwell, St. Petersberg Times [Florida],
Octobe 24, 2001
"How about a little straight talk about the relationship among
Israel, the Palestinians and the United States? ... I maintain that
American values should not be confused with those of Israel, that the
Jewish state's policies toward the Palestinians should not be ours ...
For decades, the Jewish state has brutalized an entire people, bulldozed
homes, dynamited others, raided neighborhoods with powerful gunships.
Do these state-sponsored actions manifest American values? ... one of
the best ways to determine the values of a nation is to follow the money.
America is Israel's most loyal and vocal international ally. We hand
the Jewish state $270-million in economic aid and about $2-billion in
military aid. How much of this money funds the continued dehumanization
and disenfranchisement of the Palestinian people?"
Israeli Scientists Report Growing Heart Cells from Embryonic Stem Cells,
Anchorage Daily News, August 12, 2001
"A day after the U.S. House of Representatives voted to ban human
cloning in any form, scientists in Israel announced Wednesday that they
have succeeded for the first time in growing heart cells from human
embryonic stem cells. Research using human embryo stem cells has come
under fire on moral grounds, even though scientists say it could be
used to find cures for diseases like Alzheimer's, which are considered
incurable today."
Israel
Destroys Tunnel on Egypt's Border, Highmark
Funds [from UPI], November 3, 2001
"The Israeli army destroyed an underground tunnel Saturday on the
border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, apparently burying three Palestinians.
The Palestinian residents of Rafah, on the southern tip of the Gaza
Strip, confirmed for United Press International that there were three
people, apparently smugglers, buried alive when the Israeli army tanks
and bulldozers filled the tunnel ... Witnesses did say tunnels were
used to smuggle drugs and weapons into the Gaza Strip. Khader, who preferred
to give just his first name, said residents of the town have been digging
in the area in hopes of finding the three people dead or alive. He too
confirmed the three were smugglers from Rafah and were inside the tunnel
when the Israelis destroyed it."
Israel and the
States, Jewish Virtual Library
(A Division of the American-Israeli Cooperation Enterprise), 2001
A detailed listing of economic -- and other -- relationships between
Israel and various American states.
Newsletter,
Holy Land Trust, October 31, 2001
"To Palestinians, this nightmare has become part of their lives.
No one knows when it will end. Those who were 'liberated' from the Israeli
incursion have returned to the reality of the city-prisons where they
have lived for over a year, not able to travel or transport their products
between Palestinian cities, let alone the rest of the world. Israeli
bullets and missiles killed fifty-five Palestinians during the past
ten days and Israeli tanks and missiles caused millions of dollars worth
of damage to homes, buildings, churches, mosques and streets. We cannot
forget the image of the Israeli bullets hitting the crosses on the Church
of Nativity. In Bethlehem alone, the damage represents an extremely
high percentage of the city’s annual budget, not calculating the current
economic strangulation imposed on the city by the Israeli army closure
and restrictions on travel and trade. As we walked around the streets
of Bethlehem and the refugee camps, all we saw was the sorrow and pain
on the faces of the those who have lost their loved ones or their homes.
We expect this to be the seen for a long time to come."
Alienating
Israel's Arabs, Haaretz, November 6,
2001
"The Knesset [Israeli Parliament] House Committee's decision to
strip [Arab] MK [Member of the Knesset] Azmi Bishara of his parliamentary
immunity is being interpreted by Israeli Arabs not only as a delegitimization
of an Arab leader and his political movement, but as a step toward delegitimization
of the mainstream political view in the Israeli Arab public, and even
as a deliberate act of marginalization of the entire Israeli Arab community.
The message, in the eyes of many Israeli Arabs, is that Israel is a
limited democracy, where a Jewish consensus is unable to tolerate other
views, which make up the consensus of the Arab community. MK Ahmed Tibi,
Bishara's sworn political enemy, when asked once what he thought about
Israel as a Jewish-democratic state, said that 'Israel is a democratic
state for the Jews - and a Jewish state for the Arabs.'"
Melchoir
Planning International Body to Fight Anti-Semitism,
Jerusalem Post, November 6, 2001
"A new international forum to combat anti-Semitism is being launched,
[Israeli] Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior said yesterday.
'Anti-Semitism is today not just a Jewish problem, but a problem for
all of humanity, which encompasses an existential danger to democratic
values,' Melchior told The Jerusalem Post, after a Sunday meeting
of Israel's Forum for Countering Anti-Semitism, which he heads. Declaring
that he sees a direct link between the UN anti-racism conference in
Durban which ended with a castigation of Israel and the September 11
terror attack on the US, Melchior said that the Israel sensed a necessity
to 'upgrade' its struggle against anti-Semitism beyond the local level.
'The idea is to garner the support and input of groups around the world
and form a coalition against anti-Semitism,' said ADL Israel director
Wayne Firestone, who, along with representatives of various Jewish
groups, took part in the meeting ... As a worldwide body, the forum
will be made up of mainly non-Jews."
America
and Israel: As Different as Night and Day, Arizona
Daily Star, November 5, 2001
"The US respects human rights while Israel practices state-sponsored
terrorism. The US is an open society that has always welcomed immigrants
from the world over, irrespective of their race or creed, and given
them a chance to lead better lives. Israel, on the other hand, offers
its citizenship automatically to any Jew, regardless of his birth place,
if he chooses to move to Israel under its 'right of return' laws, while
it denies it to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who were
themselves or whose parents were born in Israel and whose property was
illegally confiscated by immigrants to the newly-founded state ... What
of the thousands of innocent Arabs who fell victims to Israeli state-sponsored
terrorism before and after the founding of the State of Israel and who
still die with its bullets every single day? What of the civilians killed
by Israeli gangs in Deir Yassin and by Israeli warplanes in Bahr al-Bakar
and in Qana, to name but a few examples? What of killing UN mediator
Count Bernadot and blowing up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem by an
Israeli gang led by Ishac Shamir, who was later elected as Israel’s
prime minister?"
Dormant
Holocaust-Era Assets Valued at NIS 25b,
Jerusalem Post, November 9, 2001
"Unclaimed Holocaust-era assets held by banks, the state, and various
public institutions in Israel are worth as much as NIS 25 billion [around
$8 billion], [Israeli Member of Parliament] MK Colette Avital (Labor)
said yesterday ... At issue is land that was purchased, or bank accounts
that were opened, in what was then Palestine by European Jews in the
1920s and 1930s, and which assets are still unclaimed at the land registry
or in bank coffers ... According to a statement issued by the Justice
Ministry yesterday, an investigation conducted over the last 18 months
has revealed that of some two-thirds of 13,400 files pertaining to dormant
assets, it is probable that at least 2,100 concern Jews who perished
in the Holocaust."
Human
Rights Group Accuses Israel of Routine Torture Against Palestinians,
Nando Times (from Associated Press), November
11, 2001
"Israeli authorities torture Palestinian detainees regularly -
inflicting punishments such as sleep deprivation, shackling in painful
positions for prolonged periods and beatings - despite a 1999 Supreme
Court ban on the practice, three local and international human rights
groups said in a report Sunday. The document cited affidavits from detainees,
including a 16-year-old who said he was soaked in freezing water, made
to carry a heavy wooden beam while manacled and then beaten ... The
joint document by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel,
or PCATI, the Palestinian rights group LAW and the Swiss-based
World Organization Against Torture contends that the September
1999 Supreme Court ruling has been regularly flouted, particularly since
the outbreak of fighting between Israeli and the Palestinians in September
2000. 'Torture and other forms of ill-treatment are still widely used
against Palestinian detainees, both in GSS (General Security Service)
interrogation facilities and by members of the Israeli army and police,'
it says. The GSS is also known by its Hebrew acronym, Shin Bet. The
report cites nine affidavits by Arab detainees saying they were interrogated
with methods expressly forbidden under the 1999 ruling or by existing
Israeli or international law."
An Appeal, Matzpun
(Hebrew for Conscience)
"The authors of this appeal are Israeli citizens and Jews of other
nationalities whose families have been victims of racism and genocide
in past generations, and who feel they cannot remain silent ... After
six months of relentless military oppression of Palestinians in the
Israeli-occupied territories, the government of Israel has made daily
life even more intolerable for the Palestinians by imposing a physical
siege on their villages and towns. This siege has brought upon the Palestinians
a complete cessation of 'normal' life. For the majority of them there
is no going to work, no shopping for food and other necessities, no
medical services, and in many cases no water or electricity. In 1948
the state of Israel dispossessed the Palestinians, evicted hundreds
of thousands of them from their homes into refugee camps and did not
allow them to return when the war ended. The same state is now preventing
the victims of 1948 from having even the most basic services in their
refugee camps and remaining villages and towns. The inhumane oppressor
hopes that starving will help force the Palestinians to surrender, without
having any 'negative public opinion problems' that live ammunition may
have had in Western media. Indeed, public opinion in the West has largely
relaxed any protest against the Israeli government's policies of killing
civilians --men, women and children-- since much of the killing is now
being done away from the TV cameras. Human rights violations by the
Palestinian Authority have also helped Israel to falsely portray itself
again as the righteous victim."
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