Since then – well, I wish I could say a lot has happened. As a matter of fact, quite the opposite. We just couldn’t do it. We all had lives and things going on, and so we missed out on one occasion, and then another, and then another. And IsraLeft remained more or less silent. Vacancies don’t stick around for you – they were filled quickly by some of the best writers I know. Didi Remez, Yossi Gurvitz and our very own Dubi Kanengisser, to name a few, have English blogs giving an insider’s leftist perspective on current affairs. We became irrelevant by simply not doing anything, which is surely the fastest way to become irrelevant.

So, it’s time to acknowledge that this place is no longer really operational. It was a good attempt, and I’m glad we made it, but it’s time to unplug the machine.

The blog will be up until the end of September. Then, it will be taken offline, permanently. Dubi has kindly offered to re-post at his blog any post from here the author would wish to re-publish, and his own posts. Other than that, everything here will be gone. If you wrote any comments you want to keep, I suggest you copy-paste them to safety before the blog goes offline.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank some people: First and foremost, my friends and compatriots here at israLeft who made it, even if for a short time, possible. IsraLeft started with a tweet. One, simple tweet, in which I asked who will be interested to join in as collaborator in an English leftist Israeli blog. I got the response of some of the best people I know, and IsraLeft was born. When I think about it this way, IsraLeft was a miracle, albeit a short termed one.

Secondly, I’d like to thank our readers, commenters and sharers. I’m sorry if we – if I – disappointed you. You made our short lived success happen, and kept us going for as long as we could, perhaps longer.

I’ll be available at the usual places for all questions you may have.

See you around,

Rod Avissar.

But we’ll start with the first route, which is much simpler. BDS argues, quite plainly, that Israel is an apartheid state, and therefore the best way to get it to change is repeat what was so successful with the more iconic apartheid state – South Africa. BDS, then, is simply the outsider’s best means for influencing what they thing is a problem situation. In a democracy, one influences politics by voting and other acts of citizenship. But foreigners don’t get to participate, so they have to resort to the power of the market – it would be highly undemocratic of them to exercise voice where they don’t legitimately have one, but exit – i.e., not buying stuff – is certainly within their rights. But one cannot exercise both at the same time. One cannot legitimately exercise their right to voice internally, while attempting to amplify their voice by generating external pressure via exit. In other words, if you’re going to support boycott of Israel, you have to exit it yourself first. You can’t support it from within. Similarly, I think it is intellectually dishonest for a professor to work in an Israeli university and, at the same time, call for its boycott by others. Certainly, it is most dishonest when those doing the calling hope that this will somehow save them from the boycott¹, but even when they are willing to bear the burden of possible results, as long as they stay within the comfy confines of their tenured position, they cannot honestly call for boycott of that same institution.

This route, again, still leaves it legitimate for foreigners (and Palestinian Israelis) to support BDS. But I argue the movement, as it currently stands, is still intellectually tainted, and should not be supported unless it seriously revises its stated goals and its rhetoric.

The “Call for BDS” asks the international community to boycott Israel until Israel meets its demands of

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

The first hurdle appears in the first demand. “Ending occupation and colonization of all Arab lands”. I asked Ali Abunimah how can I read that other than “Jews go home”. He answered by sending me to two texts, one by Omar Barghouti, the other by himself. I’m not quite sure how the latter answers my question, so I’ll focus on the first. It offers a wonderful notion of “ethical de-colonization”, which I gladly subscribe to. It should be noted, however, that the call doesn’t ask for “ethical de-colonization” but to the end of “colonization”, without qualifications. The very fact the Barghouti needed a qualifier in his term shows that the unqualified term means something else. Abunimah himself said that this refers to the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan heights. Again, I can’t see how this can be clearly read from the document, which speaks of “Arab lands”. I know of no reasonable interpretation that sees just the occupied territories as “Arab lands”. Either the whole of Palestine is, or none of it is. Isn’t this the argument made by two-state proponents that object to compromises? That the compromise is that 80% of the territory is given to the Jews, so there’s no sense it demanding even more is “compromised”?

Of course, Barghouti’s article doesn’t end in that beautiful vision. It dives from there into a diatribe thinly veiled by legalistic language that in essence argues that the Jews gave no right to self-determination, and that the most Israeli Jews can hope for is that they be allowed to live their lives as equal citizens within an essentially Palestinian state, with full individual rights but not collective or national rights — as opposed to the Palestinians, who do have a right to self-determination. Basically, Barghouti is offering to the Jews² – most magnanimously, as he notes himself – the same life that right-wing liberals in Israel are willing to afford Palestinians: individual rights without national rights, and living within a state that defines itself nationally as the state of another people.

This is depressing, because this is exactly what opponents of the binational vision say the binational state would be like (at best, with a goodly chance that this will quickly deteriorate into a non-democratic, possibly theocratic state – so, basically, where we are now, only upside down). This hardly gives me a good feeling about the whole endeavor. I say, if we give up national rights, we give them up for everybody. If we can’t, as I, unfortunately, suspect is the case, then both sides must have national rights in a binational state. No talk about how the Jews are settler-colonizers will change the fact that the Jews have no homeland to return to. They are not emissaries of foreign powers that have decided to stick around cause the like the weather. They are in Israel because they see it as their homeland, they have good reason to see it as their homeland, and they should have a right of self-determination just like any other people. Now, I’m not a huge fan of the so-called right of self-determination. I think this right was basically stillborn, never really amounted to much and never did a single good thing for anybody. The right for democratic rule seems much more relevant to me. But if you argue for the right of self-determination for one people, no amount of intellectual acrobatics will save you from granting the same right to every other people. That, after all, is exactly the downfall of this right.

But one man’s opinion hardly means I should object to the entire project, right? Of course. The opinions of the BDS movement as expressed in their FAQ section, however, do.

Is explaining why BDS should be supported even though some supporters of the Palestinian plight within Israel object to it, they explain:

Although the views of Israeli supporters regarding methods of struggle should be taken into consideration, Palestinians have the ultimate right to decide on the best method for attaining freedom from an illegal occupation and systematically oppressive regime. Supporters of the Palestinian struggle within the international community and within Israel itself have to stop attempting to dictate the terms of the struggle but support the Palestinian right to resist an illegal occupation.

This is what I mean when I talk of nationalist arguments poorly disguised in liberal rhetoric. Israelis “have to stop attempting to dictate the terms of struggle”. We are the victims, say the Palestinians. Therefore, we get to decide what is to be done. Notice, of course, that nobody is dictating anything to the BDS movement. Quite the contrary, in this brilliant example of passive-aggressive writing, it is exactly the Palestinians who are dictating to the rest of the world how they must act in order to support Palestinian freedom. If you don’t support us in exactly the way we say you should, well, then the terroristsZionists have already won. For another example of how this logic unfolds, see this criticism of a group that dares employ a different means to achieving this goal, and gets derided for it, as if because these organizations called for BDS, this is now The Law.

Finally, as has been noted on this blog before, the true liberal puts no right ahead of another. There is no prioritizing of rights, and rights must be given to everyone – even to those who wish to deny them to others – while at the same time the liberal acts to ensure that these wishes are not granted. It’s tough to be a liberal. But that’s why it’s easy to spot those who make false claims to the ideals that liberals uphold. Like the people who wrote this in response to the question “does academic boycott infringe on academic freedom?“

It may; but who’s Academic Freedom is being referred to within this context? That of Israeli academics. Are we to regard only the academic freedom of Israelis as worthy? Plus, the privileging of academic freedom as a super-value above all other freedoms is in principle antithetical to the very foundation of human rights. The fact that Palestinians are denied basic rights as well as academic freedom under Israel’s military occupation is ignored. The fact that, with the exception of a tiny yet crucial minority, Israeli academics are largely supportive of their state’s oppression or are acquiescently silent about it is ignored. The fact that Israeli academic institutions have been and continue to be entirely complicit in the continuing aggressions against Palestinian society is ignored. The fact that Israeli academic institutions are themselves directly engaged in violations of Palestinian human rights and international law is ignored.

“Who cares?!” would be a good summary of the above paragraph. They’re just Israelis! Most of them are Zionists! Their rights can be trampled upon in the name of fighting for our rights. Just like the rights of women can be put on hold in the name of The Fight – after all, they’re Jewish Israeli women, the oppressors. You can justify a whole lot with this type of argument, but it doesn’t bode well for those of us that will end up living in that country that the BDS movement envisions, a country that will most certainly continue to use this wildcard of the rights of the victims over their oppressors long after the oppressors are no longer that.

Barghouti talks of a long process of ethical de-colonization. I fully support the need for such a long process. But I don’t see a willingness on the side of the BDS movement for this sort of process. I don’t see a commitment to true equality. I see vindictiveness – not that we haven’t earned it, of course, but still, not something I would like to promote when I’m at the business end of the vengeance.

A true liberal will tell the BDS movement that they support the cause of ending occupation and oppression of the Palestinians, but not at the expense of the Jews. And while I appreciate Ali Abunimah’s writing in favour of the one-state solution, I cannot condone his constant hate-mongering against Israelis in general. The process of ethical de-colonization cannot start after we have reached a settlement. It must start now, and it starts by taking the hands of those who reach out, not by pointing fingers.

(Originally posted on the pogg blog, August 9, 2010.)

1. There was a proposal at the time that the Canadian Union will impose an academic boycott in Canadian universities which will require some sort of oath of disloyalty to Israel for an Israeli to be hired. I said in an email to my representative at the union that even as I criticize my country left and right, I will never disown it in such a manner, and will fight the union if such discrimination is used against me for my nationality. Luckily, the proposal never really got anywhere.
2. Nay, to “Israeli Jews” – the rest of the Jews can go suck it.

At any rate, for the methodology not to be completely disconnected from practicality, the second half of the book is an application of the research design she described to the case of Western discourse surrounding the war in Bosnia in the 90’s. In the concluding chapter, which also reviews the benefits and limitations of the methodology, there was one sentence that I copied down as of particular interest, not because it is relevant to my research, but because I felt it says something substantial about the current situation in Gaza, the flotilla, and the whole discourse and counterdiscourse surrounding the siege.

The Discourse of ‘humanitarian responsibility’ “constituted a ‘civilian victim’ to whom humanitarian responsibility was extended, but this subject was only ethically privileged insofar as it maintained a separation from the realm of political and military agency. ‘Innocence’ in turn was depoliticized and dehistoricized”.²

I think one may see a parallel between the situation described by Hansen and the situation in Gaza today, at least with regard to the rejection on the side of Israeli discourse to the idea of humanitarian aid to Gaza. For example, many argued against the flotilla that they don’t really want to bring humanitarian aid, but rather that this is a political act. Again, as in Bosnia, humanitarianism is perceived as relevant only if it is disconnected from politics, and the two cannot co-exist. There cannot be a political act of humanitarian aid, since these are polar opposites.

Similarly, when they addressed the question of the justification of providing humanitarian aid to Gaza’s residents, the objectors raised the argument that the Palestinians in Gaza voted for Hamas (and therefore lost their right for minimal living conditions, if this is what Israel decides is the most expedient way to preserve its interests). The very fact that Palestinians have become political agents denies them the right for basic living conditions. One might see here an almost Hobbesian view of the act of voting – by electing the Hamas, the people of Gaza not only gave their vote to this party in a geographically and temporally bounded elections, but the actually invested their very selves in the hands of Hamas so that every action by their government is for all practical purposes their own action. It is interesting to remember, of course, that Israelis, even those who support the government, don’t attribute such mystical characteristics to their own act of voting — one need only think, in this regard, of the responses to the cancellations of concerts by Elvis Costello, the Pixies and others recently, responses that may sometimes be read as a sort of farce on the criticism against the siege.

(An interesting example of this sort of thinking was recently published (Hebrew) in the right-wing Channel 7 radio station. A rabbi heading a pre-military academy, Rabbi Zeev Sharon, was interviewed saying that a soldier who killed a civilian during war time should not be put on trial, because the civilians of the enemy are themselves the enemy. A similar example was revealed by human rights organization Shovrim Shtika – see the discussion and video on one soldier’s account of getting orders to this effect here.)

My argument here, I should emphasize, is not similar to claims against collective punishment, or those that state the siege makes no distinction between Hamas supporters and their opposition (and one might add that it strengthens the former and weakens the latter) – although I do use such arguments myself often. In this current context, it should be clear that such arguments fall right within the boundaries of this “humanitarian aid” discourse Hansen identified: they deserve humanitarian aid, because they are not all political agents, because they are innocent victims, not part of the political, violent factor.

I have a feeling, which isn’t substantiated in any way in the book so I will leave it with this definition, that there is a link between this discourse of depoliticized humanitarian aid, and the notion of “terror”. The Geneva conventions dealt, primarily, with the question of how one should treat one’s enemy’s soldiers in a humanitarian way. The whole concept of humanitarianism arose from the crazy idea that even soldiers on the battle-field have a right to medical treatment, regardless of the proximity of their own side’s medics. The humanitarian discourse, then, did not start out with this distinction between humanitarianism and politics — who else but the soldier represents the state on the battle-field? But even he deserves medical attention and basic rights once the need arises. If we apply this to Gaza, Israel is fully within its rights to lay a siege on Gaza if it perceives all who are in it as enemy soldiers (and I will beg the question if this perception is justified or not), but it must then supply those “enemy soldiers” with all their basic needs.

The new humanitarian discourse that Hansen identified in Bosnia and I claim exists also in the case of Gaza, rejects the possibility of the two co-existing – a person who is a political agent cannot be eligible for humanitarian aid. I can hypothesize two non-exclusive tracks that led to this change. One, again, is terror. The shift to a-symmetrical war in recent decades has taken the sting from the Geneva conventions – and if one side is not committed to them, naturally the other side cannot be held to them either. If Hamas doesn’t see a need to provide the Red Cross with access to captured soldier Gilad Shalit, then Israel shouldn’t have to provide the Red Cross, or any other humanitarian organization – let alone political ones! – access to Gaza. Any agreement by Israel to transfer humanitarian aid into Gaza, then, is beyond the strict requirements of law, and therefore Israel may set whatever restrictions it damn well pleases on this aid without harming the humanitarian discourse in its new form.

The second track has to do with extending the humanitarian ideal far beyond aiding soldiers in the battle-field. Ironically, extending the humanitarian idea to larger and larger parts of the needy population (as opposed to developing other ideas of aid, for example, such as charity), eventually caused the exclusion of combatants from that very ideal. How, after all, can you include starving children in the same group with fighters armed to the teeth, and demand the same treatment for both?

What conclusions can we draw from this? One of the inherent limitations of Hansen’s framework, which she readily acknowledges (and actually argues that it is derived from the very view of post-structularism, which, as I noted, I have no idea what that is), is that one cannot derive practical conclusions from discourse analysis. It allows us to understand situations, but not to analyze causal chains. Therefore, we cannot develop policy based on such an analysis.

I see myself as less committed to Hansen’s view, and therefore think one can derive policy prescriptions from this analysis – about the best means for challenging this discourse, the best ways to oppose the policies derived from it, and the best alternative policy given the current conditions. I believe such conclusions can be drawn. I just don’t know what they are.

(Originally posted on my Hebrew blog on June 17, 2010. X-posted on the pogg blog.)

1. I’m not big on theory, and if you ask me what’s post-structuralism I probably won’t be able to answer. In fact, I wouldn’t have known her approach is post-structuralism had she not said so herself. The book itself avoids jargon most of the time and hardly ever refers to all sorts of French people like Derrida and Foucault and other people who wrote books I can’t read. Even when she does reference them, she explains exactly what she means, so even morons like me can understand.
2. Lene Hansen, Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War (New-York: Routledge, 2006), 212.

Hello and good evening.

My name is Rami Elhanan. On the afternoon of Thursday, September 4th 1997 I lost my daughter, Smadari,  in a suicide attack on Ben Yehuda st. in Jerusalem. My beautiful, sweet and happy 14 year-old child.
I don’t need a memorial day to remember Smadari. I remember her all the time -  365 days a year, 24 hours a day and 60 seconds per minute. Nonstop, without rest, for the last long, damned 13 years. Time does not heal the wound, and the unbearable lightness of being remains an unsolved riddle.

Unfortunately,  Israeli society needs memorial days. Each and every year, like a Swiss clock, over the week following Passover, Israeli society is drawn to its annual ritual: from holocaust to revival, a sea of [memorial] ceremonies, sirens and songs – a nation swept in to an addictive storm of sweet sadness, teary eyes, a sense of togetherness; with [the media playing] sad songs and pictures of life taken away and heartbreaking stories… and it’s hard to avoid the feeling that this refined concentration of grief, injected directly to the vein, is meant to strengthen our sense of [being the] victims, the justness of our struggles and our ways, remind us of our disasters – lest we forget them for a moment: if we want to stay alive our only choice is to be armed and ready (for a fight), to be strong and tough, or else the sword will fall from our hands (in Hebrew: fists) and our lives will be taken.

And I, when all this sadness withers away with the smoke of [independence day celebrations] barbecue grills, when Israelis go back to their normal lives, I’m still filled with deep sadness. I miss the good old Israel, the one that never existed; and I feel a sense of being an alien, of being a stranger here. This feeling has grown over the years, from war to war, from one election to the next, from the publication of one corruption to another…

And I think about my life, about the long journey I’ve made on my way to re-define myself, redefining what it means for me to be Israeli, what it means to be Jewish and what it means to be a human. I think about the light-years distance I’ve passed – from the teenager who fought 37 years ago along with a decimated tank company across the Suez Canal, from the young father who, 28 years ago, wandered around the streets of bombarded Beirut, without even thinking it could have been otherwise.

Since then, almost 40 years have gone by. And with each and every year this shell of being a victim is cracking. The cover of self righteousness and misery is slowly diminishing, the wall separating between me and the other side of the story is breaking.
When I was recruited to the [Israeli-Palestinian] Parents Circle – Families Forum, 12 years ago, for the first time in my life I was exposed to the existence of the other side – to this day I am ashamed to say that for the first time in my life (I was 47 at the time) I met Palestinians as normal people, just like me, suffering the same pain, crying the same tears and sharing the same dreams. For the first time in my life I was exposed to the story, the pain and anger and to the nobility and humanity of what we call: ”The other side”.

The height of this journey was this encounter with my brother, the “terrorist” that was imprisoned in Israel for seven years, peace combatant Bassam Gharamin, that wrote us these touching words:

“Dear Nurit and Rami. I would like to express my brotherly solidarity on this sad day, the anniversary of the death of your beautiful, pure child, Smadar. Undoubtedly, this is one of the saddest days, and from the moment we met I did not have the courage to write to you about it, fearing I might add more pain and suffering to your hearts. I thought time might heal this deep wound, but having experienced myself the same horror you have, after my daughter Abir was murdered on January 16th 2007, I realized that parents do not forget it, not even for a moment. We live our lives in a special way that others don’t know about, and I hope that no other human being- Palestinian nor Israeli – will ever have to know…”

To me, the dividing line between the sides does not cross between Israelis and Arabs, nor Jews and Muslims. Today, this line divides between those wishing for peace and willing the pay the price for peace and the rest. They are the other side! And today, the other side, unfortunately, is the group of corrupt politicians and generals leading us and acting like a bunch of mafia heads, war criminals playing a blood ping-pong between themselves, sowing hate and harvesting death…

But this evening I’d actually like to speak to those in the middle, sitting on the fence and watching us from the side;  I’d like to speak to the Israeli public that sticks its head in the sand and doesn’t want to know, that lives in its big disconnected bubble, watches TV, dines at restaurants, goes on holidays, enjoys the good life and looks after its own interests, all with the aid of the co-opted media that helps it hide from the bitter reality that can be found only a few meters away from the Israeli public’s life center: the occupation, the land and home thefts, the daily oppressions and humiliations, the checkpoints, the hell in Gaza, the sewage in the streets of Anata.

Especially this evening, I would like to call upon the left leaning public, those disappointed and angry, those suffering from indifference, despair and passivity, those shutting themselves in their own bubbles and ranting at the Friday night dinner table. I would to ask them on this evening, eve of Memorial Day to the dead of both sides, to come join us in the fight against this malignant disease.

And I would like to tell them about the true and unknown heroes of our dark time. I’d like to tell them about those willing to pay a high personal price for their integrity and decency, those willing to bravely stand in front of the bulldozers, the refuseniks [‘draft dodgers’], the peace combatants who dropped their weapons in favor of non-violent protest, the determined protestors shattering every week in the face of terror by the police and the IDF in Bilin, Na’alin, Sheikh-Jarrah and Silwan, and the lawyers fighting everyday at Ofer Military court [for Palestinian detainees] and Israel’s Supreme Court, the heroic women of “Machsom Watch” and peace activists like Rachel Corrie who gave her life, and those who expose crimes and plots – from Anat Kamm to Gideon Levy and Akiva Eldar, and peace organization from both people and mostly the bereaved Palestinian and Israeli families that carry the flag of peace in spite of their tragedies.

And as the sky turns black, it’s easier to see those stars shining in the dark. As the oppression becomes more vicious and mean they,  in their noble heroic struggle, save the dignity and humanity of us all.

And today we must desperately expand the circles of non-violent protest against the occupation! Tonight I’m calling upon you from the bottom of my heart – come out of your bubbles! Join this mosquito that ever buzzes in the ears of the occupation, harasses and annoys them, refusing to allow them to remain silent. Don’t let the other side steal everyone’s future!

How can we know what the future holds? That's a timeless human dilemma. How can we know what's happening now? That's probably a modern dilemma, one that comes with life in a society whose perception of reality goes through propaganda agents filters. And how can we know what has already happened? Here we are victims of the bitter struggle between memory and forgetfulness, between perception and selection.

How will we remember "Cast Lead"? Here's a good answer: we'll remember it in the way it (the war? The operation? The incursion? The defensive fighting?) was depicted in the newspapers supplements of the one year's anniversary  of it. A year after the first day of the attack, the struggle over its representation in the collective memory is starting to show signs of fading. In a year or two (and an attack or two) and the formal version – "they threw Qassams on us and we didn't retaliate, eventually we kicked their ass and they stopped the shooting" – this version will become from just another narrative to "the true history", the rest of the versions will be drown out in the vast spaces of the internet as a flickering conspiracy theories.

That is why the anniversary of "Cast Lead", is one last chance for the ones who opposed this attack from its beginning, for its criticizers, for the ones who where appalled by it, to show, perhaps for the last time, the perception of reality as they comprehended it and experienced it, from the months prior to the attack to the findings revealed after the dust of the bombings went down.

The summary that follows, I'll say in advance, is a selective one. It does not contain one word (except for the death toll) on what the Israeli side experienced. The barrages of missiles on the south, the life in bomb shelters, the deployment of the home front authorities etc. Don't worry, of those the average Israeli will get more than enough, in every media channel available. This is their selection. Whoever took the trouble of entering this blog, admitted in doing so, that he is interested in what was left out of the mainstream covering eye.

A lot was left out, and from this one also needs to choose. In my summary I've decided to focus on the aspects that strike me as most crucial to the molding of every Israeli citizen in the future. Knowing what really happened between the 27^th of December 2008 and the 17^th of January 2009 isn't enough. One needs to know how those events where enabled, what are the military and propaganda mechanisms that made them happen. That's because the events themselves were left behind, but the darkness mechanisms are still with us, and already working hard on the next attack. It is not necessary to explain what happens to one who doesn't learn from his own past.

This summery is divided into several chapters. The first chapter examines the series of events and oversights that led to "Cast Lead". It's primary goal – to prove the avodability and unnessesarity of the attack, and to point out the hidden goals behind it, more thoroughly than it has been done before. The second chapter examines the death toll and the distressing gaps between the IDF versions (which are classified) to the human rights organizations versions (which are open to the public). The third chapter discusses the evidences and proofs of war crimes, which clearly contradicts the IDF denials. The fourth chapter describes the "spirit of the commander" which loomed over the operation, in the briefings and in the opening fire policy – as testimonies from within the IDF reveals. The fifth and final chapter looks on the investigation options that are available for one who is really bothered by the documented findings.

The Operation Goal was not Eliminating the Rockets Threat from the Southern Settlements: Step by Step

The rational behind "Cast Lead", as marketed by Israel, was to provide a response to the rockets launched by Hamas on the south of Israel in recent years. Indeed, the thousands of rockets that fell on Sderot and the settlements bordering the Gaza strip in recent years made the life of the people in the south unbearable. At least from that aspect, one cannot doubt the fundamental justification of an action that was meant to bring the sanity back to the life of the people of the south.

But this wasn't the goal of "Cast Lead". Those things were discussed in a few leftist sites, but were drowned in the never ending propaganda noise that surrounds the operation for a year, that is why their importance can't be overstated. Level-headed analysis of the events in the second half of 2008 clearly reveals that removing the rockets threat from the southern settlements could not have been the real goal of the operation. That's because there was an immediate, cheap and non-violent way to do so. But the Israeli leadership favored, from reasons that deserve to be pondered about, the way of fire and death.

We're talking here about a one and a half year old history, history that was already buried beneath mountains of written words. In order to restore it, we should rewind our clocks to the 19^th of June 2008 – the day in which the cease fire agreement (the Thahadia) between Israel and Hamas began. Also we need to look on the details of the shooting at that time through a magnifying glass.

The Cease Fire

Well, this is how what should not have happen, happened.

Till the cease fire took place, things were in turmoil. According to IDF data, in 2006 1,744 rockets and mortars was fired from the Gaza strip to southern Israel, and in 2007 1,934 rockets were fired.

The cease fire began in the 19^th of June 2008 and wad supposed to end in the 19^th of December, 6 months afterward. The agreement, reached through Egyptian mediation, mainly stated a complete cease fire between the two fighting sides, and opening the border-crossings to commodities from Israel.

There were military actions on both sides, but according to the unwritten understandings between Israel and Hamas they were not considered as a casus beli. The politicians blamed each other for internal gains: they blamed us for breaking the agreement and we blamed them. Both sides were right, but both sides also knew that the low level of the fighting is much favorable to what took place before June 2008. In any case, the usual Israeli claim that Hamas broke the cease fire repeatedly doesn't have a leg to lean on. In fact, in the first week of the cease fire, 7 Israeli violations were registered and only one violation by Hamas.

In regard to the opening of the border crossings – Israel did not meet her obligations. In fact during the cease fire fewer supplies entered Gaza than in the beginning of 2006, when rocket firing was at its peak. The Israeli narrative according to which one side (us) met his full obligations while the other side (them) is breaking every one of his – is a propaganda lie. This propaganda played a major role in recruiting the public support for "cast lead", because if the other side is breaking the agreements, there is no other option but using force.

The Numbers Don't Lie

Did Hamas keep the truce? The answer is yes, almost completely (the few violations were committed mainly by other organizations). It is important to show this by numbers, because on the "violations" lie Israel has based a campaign of deception.

Well, how many rockets were fired to southern Israel in the first half of 2008, till the cease fire agreement? This datum took very winding ways to reach. After strenuous search it became apparent that the most accurate segmentation of the rocket firing, to the single day level was to be found in the ISA (Israel Security Agency) databases. This is how 2008 looked like – before and after the cease fire

The total of rocket fired from Gaza during 2008 – app. 3600. From the beginning of the cease fire till the end of the year 664 rockets were fired. That is, till the 19^th of June 2.936 rockets were fired. In average, 17 rockets per day.

One would assume that the 664 rockets fired from Gaza from the beginning of the cease fire till the end of 2008 proves that the cease fire didn't work. But the opposite is true. Apparently until the 4^th of November, a key date that we'll come back to shortly, only 50 rockets were fired. Spread across 4 and half months, we talk about one rocket per 3 days in average.

That is, from 17 rockets every day the cease fired calmed the fire to the level of one rocket every 3 days. An agreement that lowers the fire level times 50, is without a doubt a working agreement. Not only that, the fire level was decreasing constantly as the cease fire continued. 18 rockets in July, 19 rockets in August, 5 rockets in September and 4 rockets in October. October 2008 was the most peaceful month the southern settlements people knew for years. Throughout the cease fire, until the 4^th of November, not a single Israeli citizen was killed or injured by rockets fired.

Not only the numbers, but Sderot residents also tell the same story: the cease fire period was a period of prosperity and recovering that everyone hoped will continue. Indeed, everyone also knew that Hamas is using this period to arm itself, but wait a second, what exactly did the IDF do in the same time? Made shovels out of his sabers? Or else acquired and utilized innovative weapons systems, tried for the first time on Gaza residents? The mutual acquiring of weapons is a fact of life concerning national conflicts, the important question is which side is trying all the nonviolent options he has before choosing to use the obtain weapons.

And then We Grew Tired from Peace

In the 4^th of November everything collapsed. It was Israel's' fault.

IDF soldiers infiltrated the strip and reached a distance of 250 meters from the border in order to blast a tunnel that was dug in order to, according to Israel, kidnap Israeli soldiers. The tunnel was trapped with explosives and blew up. In the battle that followed the soldiers killed 6 Hamas fighters. Immediately, and not a moment before that, the usual pirouette began. In one day 66 rockets were fired to southern Israel – more than in the whole four and a half months of the cease fire prior to that day. The Israeli air force attacked, more deaths and injuries, hermetic closure of the border crossings, the darkening of Gaza and stopping of the humanitarian aid.

In November 2008, 233 rockets were fired compared to only 4 rockets in October. Breaking the cease fire by the IDF increased the Qassams firing overnight by times 60.

This graph, taken from the ISA site tells the story:

At first Israel admitted half heartedly that she has broken the cease fire. But immediately she added: "last week incursion made in order to blow up the tunnel took place in order to maintain the cease fire. It was evident to Israel that a terror attack made through that tunnel would have brought an end to the cease fire. Despite this, Hamas was trying to renew his terror attacks while breaking all terms of the cease fire".

In simple terms: we broke the cease fire in order for them not to break it before us. In the Israeli discourse this obviously doesn't count as a breach of the cease fire, we call it an "incursion". But the naked facts show this was the turning point that started the fire, fire that almost went out during October 2008. Whoever authorized the incursion, whoever chose to do it even with the high price (6 casualties) Hamas paid, took the consequences into account.

Try to imagine this alternative scenario: Israel and Hamas reach the end of the cease fire agreement, the 19 of December 2008, in a state of full ceased fire. Months without rockets and without incursions and air raids. In this situation, the agreement would have been most likely renewed, this time with potential to advance into more delicate matters – the releasing of Gilad Shalit and taking the cease fire also to the west bank. Before we would have noticed, we could find ourselves in the midst of a de facto peace process with Hamas.

The horror.

Could this be what initiated the incursion in the 4^th of November? Or else the incursion was just an opportunity, and things have already decided 6 months prior to that when the operational plans for "Cast Lead" were made? According to Tzvi Bar'el analysis, Israel broke the cease fire in Gaza because there was no way she would have agreed to take it to the west bank. The assassination of the cease fire, on the backs of the residents of southern Israel, was meant to eliminate any chance of Hamas will replace the puppet forces of Abu Mazen as the body who manages the conflict with Israel.

Hamas wanted to continue the cease fire

And what about Hamas? Did he want to continue the cease fire? Surprisingly enough, the answer is yes. Here also, everything is documented, and contradicts the official narrative of Israel who wants to show Hamas as a chronic negotiations refusnik.

Immediately after the end of the cease fire Mahmud A-Zahar declared in an interview to channel 10 news, addressing the Israeli government directly, that Hamas wants to prolong the cease fire for 6 additional months following the original terms, that is to say, Hamas drops his demands to take the cease fire to the west bank. Israel replied that she won't talk with Hamas about a cease fire agreement. He repeated this statement in the Egyptian press as well. A week after Haled Mash'al issued a similar statement. Again – Israel ignored that.

In this stage our appeasement refusniks to dismiss the statements of the Arabs – it is after all, a well known fact, that Arabs only tell the truth when they are pining for war an lie through their teeth when they are talking about peace. Embarrassingly enough, our own "national estimators" thought Hamas intentions were genuine. In the 21st of December, two days after the cease fire ended, yuval diskin the head of the ISA stated that "Make no mistake, Hamas is interested in continuing the truce, but wants to improve its terms. It wants us to lift the siege [on Hamas-ruled Gaza], stop [IDF] attacks, and extend the truce to include Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]“.

Here is a good place to mention that this demands of Hamas was absolutely justified. The right that Israel reserved for herself to stop the fire in Gaza while continuing it in the west bank reflect a totally unilateral separation ideology, according to which there is no connection between Hamas in Gaza and Hamas in Nablus. Hamas could all the same declare that he will stop firing on Sderot but continue to fire on Ashkelon.

Anyway, as we mentioned, even this justified demand (to take the cease fire to the west bank) Hamas dropped two days later. It didn’t help. The Israeli war machine galloped forward.

As usual here, when the war drums are banging, the media remains silent. A lone voice that publicly declared that “this was not necessary” in real time was Nehemia Strasler of Ha’aretz. (On the same day I have issued my own call for refusal) the question – why of all others a journalist that specializes in economy was able to recognize the spin that led to the war – is an interesting one. An economy journalist of all others, because our political and security commentators are linked with too thick chains to the systems they cover to develop a dissident perspective in real time. Strasler of all others, because we are talking about a “state hating” journalist who always casts doubt on the abilities and meanings of the state. Paradoxically when it comes to the social-economic, the undermining of the states privileges puts Strasler on the side of the power and money wielding, when it comes to the political, the same undermining puts him on the side of the political deprived people (Who knows, maybe if we could let the “efficient market forces” run the war instead of the state, Strasler would have supported it).

The Israeli stands were hollow, deprived of content. Nobody said it better than Sderot resident Na’amika Zion in the profound article she published in the midst of the attack:

“The first time I felt that the state really protects me was when the cease fire agreement was reached. I have no responsibility toward Hamas, and that is why I ask our leaders. Have you turn every stone to achieve continued cease fire? To prolong it? To reach a long term agreement? To solve the border crossings problem and the blockade? Have you traveled to the end of the world looking for suitable mediators? And why have you dismissed in a blink of an eye the French initiative to cease the fire after war broke out? And why to this very moment you continue to decline any possible offer for negotiations? Have we not reached the quota of Qassams we are able to suffer? Have we not reached the quota of dead Palestinian children the world can live with?”

“And who says we can take Hamas down? Haven’t we already tried this trick somewhere else? Who will come in his place? Fundamental global organizations? Al-Qaeda? And how from under the destruction, the hunger, the cold and the death, moderate voices of peace will emerge? Where are you taking us? What future do you promise us here in Sderot?”

Zion exaggerated only in this: our leaders didn’t need to “turn every stone” or “travel to the end of the world” in order to maintain the cease fire. All that was needed was to say yes to the clear and justified suggestions that came from Gaza and Damascus.

This conclusion should be cut and save toward the next conflict in Gaza which our captains are already working hard to make unavoidable.

So, what did we fight for?

If not for the peace of Sderot, as Na’amika Zion understood, so for something else. The real goal was bringing down the Hamas regime. And in this goal malice and stupidity were merged. Malice, because our leaders – Olmert, Barak, Livni and Ashkenazi – knew all too well that the human price of the operation, with its brutal opening fire protocols, would be horrible, and that in the end of the day, the rockets threat on southern Israel will not be removed. Stupidity, because the same leaders have not learned anything from our near history – it is impossible to overthrow a hostile regime by massacring the population he controls. Indeed thanks to the operation Hamas hold in Gaza is more stable than ever (same as Hezbollah hold in the Lebanese leadership after the second Lebanon war).

The evidence of overthrowing Hamas was the real goal of the operation are numerous and were covered in other places. The Olmert government publicly declared this strategic goal before and through the operation. The target chosen – government buildings in Gaza, offices, health and education infrastructure – tell us that the military branch of Hamas wasn’t the only things on the sights of Israel. Chief commentators talked about it (Alex Fishman, “yediot ahronot”, 23.1.09: “the two last parts of the operation were meant to overthrow Hamas, to enable Israel to control the smuggling mechanism, and to change the government”), but the main version, the one that was constantly repeated by the propaganda agents, and unfortunately convinced most of the scared residents of southern Israel, was – “to remove the threat of rockets from the south of Israel”. It sounds better, more righteous than some wild brutal delusion of changing the government in Gaza.

A year after the rockets threat became bigger, reached Tel Aviv, and the Hamas government in Gaza is stronger than ever. Israel is isolated like never before, the economic boycott on her is getting closer step by step, and her top officials are avoiding European capitals for fear of being arrested.

Death toll

On the Israeli side the picture is clear: 13 Israelis were killed during the operation. 9 by Palestinians, 3 of them civilians and 6 were soldiers. 4 soldiers were killed by friendly fire.

On casualties on the Palestinian side there is a dispute.

The IDF data (April 2009): 1,166 casualties, from which 709 Hamas and Jihad activists; 295 civilians, from which 138 children under 16 and women, and 162 men over 16 who were not identified.

B’zelem data (September 2009): 1,387 casualties, from which 773 not involved in the fighting, including 309 children and 109 women. 330 of the casualties were active fighters, 248 were cops of Palestinian police.

Let’s start with the cops. All 248 cops were killed on the first day of the operation, during air raids on the Palestinian police headquarters and 18 more police stations. IDF counts them as Hamas casualties, though there is no reliable data on their organizational affiliation. What is clear – none of theme were actively participating in fighting during the surprise attack of the air force (42 of them were freshly nominated cadets). Police is a civilian body, therefore the massacre of cops is probably a crime of war.

How many Palestinian civilians were killed? The max number according to the IDF is 457 (civilians+not identified). The min number according to B’zelem is 773. The minimal gap is therefore 316 civilians. If we stretch the gap to the maximum (adding cops, removing unidentified) we reach 726.

That is – the IDF denies killing between 316 to 726 Palestinian civilians, that according to B’zelem he is definitely responsible for being dead. Not a small gap.

B’zelem is a serious organization. He visited homes of casualties and hospitals, collected death certificates, pictures and evidence about 363 children (under 16) a women that were killed. According to the IDF “only” 138 women and children were killed.

So, B’zelem has evidence of the death of at least 225 women and children during “Cast Lead” that the IDF denies responsibility for. Just imagine – 225 women and children in Israel, killed in a terror attack which no organization took responsibility for. We’ll add here that the data collected by Amnesty International is very close to the B’zelem data. App 1,400 casualties, form which 300 were children and 115 women.

What is the IDF doing with this data? Is anybody there bothered by these large gaps in the numbers of the casualties? Did anybody in the “constantly introspective” army at least contacted B’zelem in order to compare data and evidence?

Of course not. The IDF is above mistakes. Not only no appeal to B’zelem made, but from 20 appeals made by the organization to the army, regarding incidents were civilians were shot and killed during “Cast Lead” only one resulted an inquiry (using of “human shields”).

The casualty lists comprised by B’zelem and Amnesty International are open for the public. The casualty list comprised by the IDF – classified. Any requests to declassify it were refused. What is the reasonable excuse for that refusal? Why does the casualty list need to be a secret? Maybe the IDF is afraid to let some of the casualties that they are in fact dead, in order to not sadden them? And maybe, just like any aspect of this operation – starting from keeping journalist out of Gaza to the refusing cooperation with the Goldstone committee – the IDF spokesman believes in “minimum information, minimum critique”? What else needs to happen in order for our leaders to finally understand – when we are closing are eyes – the atrocities don’t go away, someone else still sees them.

.Is B’zelem mistake proofed? No. Of course not. But one can assume that at least in the aspect of field investigation in Gaza, the database of B’zelem is richer than the IDF’s. An army that was really interested in reaching the truth, and face the hard data of civilian killings in Gaza, would not have kept such an impassive silence facing such evidences that so harshly counter its official position. It would have tried to cooperate with anybody who could offer such important and elementary information.

Nowadays the IDF praises himself with the fact that the ratio of civilian killings in “Cast Lead” was “only” 1 out of 4. Such ratio would have, without a doubt, made the hair on the back of Israel past leaders – Ben Gurion, Dayan, even Begin – stand in horror and shame. But times have changed. I wonder what these leaders would think of a civilian killing ratio of 7 out of 10 as the B’zelem data suggests.

Evidences for Crimes of War

During the attack and in the weeks that followed, many evidences and proofs of massive damage to civilian population which was not involved in the fighting were gathered. The evidences are first of all the hundreds of civilian casualties; physical remnants of weapons that the international law strictly restricts their use; victims’ testimonies; medical reports made by doctors and paramedics; and finally, testimonies of IDF soldiers.

The automatic response made by IDF and other Israeli spokesman was that Hamas turned the civilian population in Gaza into “human shield”. But, no basis was ever found for this claim. In fact, there are not a few testimonies, including ones that made by soldiers, of the use the IDF made of Palestinians as human shields.

“Amnesty International did not find any evidence to Hamas or any other Palestinian organization broke the rules of war to the extent that Israel repeatedly claimed they have done. Especially, the organization didn’t find any evidence to Hamas or other warriors directed civilians’ movement in a manner that will protect military objects. However, Amnesty International did find that in some occasion during “Cast Lead” Israeli forces used Palestinians as “human shields”. In any case the international humanitarian law clarifies that using human shields by one of the fighting sides does not excuses the attacking force from his legal duties regarding civilians.

Amnesty International representatives interviewed many Palestinians which complained about Hamas behavior, especially oppression and attacks on Hamas opossers, including killing, torture and random arrests. However, Amnesty International did not receive any complaints of Gaza’s residents about Hamas fighters using them as human shields”

(From Amnesty International report).

Hamas fighters did operate from populated areas, but in fact they were not the ones that chose the fight scene anyway, because Israel by deciding to demolish the Palestinian administrative and governmental buildings localized the fighting in those populated areas.

The Israeli media dealt much with the unimportant rather than the main issues. It concentrated on the messengers rather on the message. Individuals and organizations that claimed or showed proofs for crimes of war made by the IDF were personally attacked (and on this issue the media almost absolutely joined ranks with the IDF spokesman). Their personal backgrounds were searched, their sources of funds, their so called ignorance of Hamas crimes – anything not to discuss the issues themselves. This policy, as we now know, exploded in Israel face with the publishing of the Goldstone report and the wave of sues issued against Israeli leaders in European courts.

This heavy media screening caused us to forget (and this was its main goal) the evidences and proofs themselves. That’s why we should, especially in those days when Israel fights with half of the world about sayings, metaphors and righteousness shows, go back to the hurtful, horrifying facts of “Cast Lead”.

A white phosphorous attack in the 17^th of January on an UNRWA school in Beit La’hia, where 1,500 people sought refuge. 2 five and seven year old children died, and many were fatally injured. Photo: Muhammad al Baba

From the multitude of incidents documented, I’ve chosen only three. They are described in the detailed reports published by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch during last year. Contrary to those organizations false image in the Israeli public, their activity does not focus only on Israel, their activists are spread around the world. Moreover, both this organizations (like the Israeli B’zelem) systematically denounce Hamas, Hezbollah or any other enemy of Israel crimes of war as well. They employ investigators who take testimonies, legal experts, doctors and weapon experts. One who reads their reports and brushes them of as “Palestinian propaganda” (the IDF spokesman) makes himself look absurd, especially compared to the dry slogans, void of documentations, that the IDF presents as “operational inquiries”.

1. synopsis: a drone fired a missile that killed two youths, 12 and 17 years old, who played on the rooftop of an apartments building. On their bodies and on the surroundings were found physical evidences of drone missiles fire.

On January 4, 2009, the second day of Israel’s ground offensive, at around 10:30 a.m., an IDF drone launched a missile at two boys playing on the rooftop of a two-story home in downtown Gaza City [GPS 31.51243/034.45655]. According to residents, the site was at least five kilometers from any fighting at the time between the IDF and Palestinian armed groups. IDF statements and media reports also report no fighting in that area at that time; Israeli forces did not enter central Gaza City until later in the ground offensive. Because the house is surrounded by taller buildings in the center of Gaza City, it is a highly unlikely site for firing rockets, and it would be a poor location for artillery spotting or reconnaissance.

Those killed were:

• Mahmud Khaled ‘Alayyan al- Masharawi, 12
• Ahmad Khader Diyab Subayh, 17

“Our neighborhood was very calm at that time,” Mahmud’s brother, Ashraf Mashhrawi, 30, a freelance television cameraman who runs an independent news agency, told Human Rights Watch. “The tanks were more than five kilometers away to the northeast.” According to Mashhrawi, many members of his extended family had sought refuge in his home because they believed the area was relatively safe. He said that various family members had gone to the roof that morning to play, but only Mahmud and Ahmad were up there when the missile struck.[34]

Ashraf ‘Issawi, a neighbor who was in the doorway of the house when the missile hit and was the first to reach the victims on the roof, told Human Rights Watch about the attack. “I had heard drones overhead and then there was an explosion and everyone was screaming,” he said. “I ran up to the roof and found the boys’ bodies. Ahmad’s leg was next to Mahmud who was still alive.”[35]

Human Rights Watch researchers examined the rooftop of the building and found small cubic fragments, circuit boards, and blast patterns that were consistent with drone-launched missiles. They also examined fragments of clothing that the family said the children were wearing at the time of the attack. The clothes were perforated with dozens of tiny holes. Photos and a video of the children taken by Ashraf ‘Issawi at the time of the attack show that the bodies were also perforated with dozens of tiny square wounds.[36] The incident was filmed by Ashraf’s cameraman and later used in a documentary produced by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation

Human Rights Watch has uncovered no evidence that the two boys on the roof were fighters or that they were otherwise directly participating in the hostilities. Given the optical capacity of the drones, the young age of the boys should have been apparent to the operator. And the location of the roof, deep in the center of Gaza City, was a poor location for engagement or artillery spotting. The absence of IDF ground forces in Gaza City as of that date, January 4, further undermines any military justifications for the attack.

From the Human Rights Watch report

The use of drones in “Cast Lead” arouses many questions (on the broader questions that their use arouses, see here). The Amnesty International report which also documented the use of drones against civilians ponders this:

Surveillance drones have exceptionally good optics, allowing those watching to see details

such as the type and colour of the items of clothing worn by those being observed, and what

kind of objects they are carrying. For example, on 4 February 2009 an Israeli drone operator

explained: “We identified a terrorist that looked like an Israeli soldier. Our camera enabled us

to see him very clearly. He was wearing a green parka jacket and he was walking around with

a huge radio that looked exactly like an army radio. We saw that he was not wearing an army

helmet, and he was ducking down with a weapon close to the wall, wearing black trousers. It

was very clear he wasn’t a soldier”.29 According to the Israeli army, “pilots can divert missiles

already en route to their targets to avoid striking civilians”.30 The questions arising from the

cases detailed in this report and many others are why so many children and other individuals who were visibly civilians were targeted in the first place and why these missiles were not diverted when it became clear that they were about to strike children and other civilians

The IDF, as usual, avoided providing a serious answer. But fortunately enough in the body of testimonies gathered by “Breaking the Silence” organization after the operation the answer could be found. A soldier tells that in the briefing it was made clear to him that going on the rooftops is strictly prohibited because “the air force have a green light to shoots on anybody on the roofs – in fact, without having to distinguish between a fighter and a civilian”. Here is the testimony.

One who connects between the evidences of firing on civilians on the rooftops with this testimony will reach the unavoidable conclusion: the Israeli drone operators were conducting under clearly unlawful orders. They and their commanders – the entire chain of command to the air force commander – took part in committing crimes of war. But who will make this connection? The IDF? The same IDF that waved the HRW drones report as “based on unknown, unreliable Palestinian sources that their military expertise isn’t verified, and they are driven by clear interests as part of the propaganda system in Gaza?” The same IDF that waved the “Breaking the Silence” testimonies as “hearsay and second hand testimonies”?

The IDF did not connect, will not connect and cannot connect this connection. The testimonies and the findings are laid before us and before the entire world. One who is able to make this connection – must do it.

2. synopsis: white phosphorous shells (forbidden to be used near civilian population) directly hit the house of Abu Halima in Saiapha in the north of the Gaza strip, killed five family members and wounded five more. In the scene unmistakable remnants of phosphorous were found and doctors verified that the survivors’ burns were from a new kind which they didn’t know before.

In separate interviews, three members of the family told Human Rights Watch what happened that afternoon, around 4 pm, when an artillery shell containing white phosphorus directly hit their house, killing five members of the family and wounding five.  The testimony is consistent with accounts given to journalists and the Israel-based human rights group B’Tselem.

Ahmad Abu Halima,  the 22-year-old son of Sa`dallah and Sabah Abu Halima, who was inside the house at the time of the attack, told Human Rights Watch what he saw:

I was talking with my father when the shell landed.  It hit directly on my father and cut his head off.  The explosion was large and the smell unbearable. It caused a big fire.  The pieces [from the shell] were burning and we could not put them out… We ran outside, the four of us who were unharmed.  My brother’s wife and daughter, Ghada and Farah, came down with no clothes [because they were burned off].  My brothers Yusif and Ali too. Yusif was burned on his face and Ali on his back[49]

Ahmed’s brother Omar Abu Halima, 18 years old, was next door at his uncle’s house when the shell struck:

I heard the sound of an explosion.  We ran into the street and saw that it had hit our house.  We ran upstairs and when we arrived I found my father and four others dead.  We took them out and then dealt with the four wounded.

The stairs were very smoky.  We went inside and it smelled very strange.  We had never experienced that before.  It was difficult to go forward.  First I saw my mother with burns coming out of the house.  We found her at the entrance. She told us to go in and get my injured brothers.  But when we got inside we saw nothing because of the smoke and dust, and we couldn’t breathe.  We found my brother’s wife, Ghada, she was burning in flames, and also her daughter Farah, also burning.  There were also my brothers Yusif and Ali. All of them were burning badly; their clothes were melting.  They were all burned but Abd al-Rahim and my father had their heads cut from their bodies too. We took the wounded in two tractors, with my mother in the first one.  We tried to call an ambulance but they said they couldn’t come.[50]

R’ada Abu Halima who got burned in a white phosphorous attack on her house in Beit La’hia in the 3^rd of January, were dying for two and a half months in a hospital in Cairo and died in the 29^th of March. More on the incident – here. Photo: Muhammad Sabach, “B’zelem”.

On January 23, Human Rights Watch investigated the Abu Halima house.  In the ceiling above the hallway where the family said it had been sheltering, researchers saw a hole approximately one meter in diameter, apparently caused by the shell.  The hallway beneath was badly charred and the remaining furniture burnt.  The rooms around the hallway had black burns on the walls and the plastic light switches and electrical outlets had melted.  The wood around the doors and windows of the house was charred. On the wall in one bedroom, someone had written in lipstick, in Arabic with some misspellings: “From the Israel Defense Forces, we are sorry.”[51] Residents do not know if IDF forces entered the houses of the neighborhood because they all fled, but the tank positions about 100 meters to the east of the Abu Halima house indicate that the forces were nearby.

Amid the debris of the family’s possessions, Human Rights Watch found two 155mm artillery shell fragments, painted the light green color that militaries use to identify white phosphorus shells, as well as the base plate from the shell.  Two canisters of the sort used to hold white phosphorus in artillery shells were found outside the house.  Another white phosphorus shell and canister were found about 20 meters to the west of the house, and a third shell was about 50 meters from the house in the same direction.  Human Rights Watch does not know if any of the shells struck at precisely those spots or whether they had been moved.

Human Rights Watch spoke with Dr. ‘Alaa ‘Ali from the al-Shifa Hospital burn unit, where Sabah Abu Halima was getting care. He said that she had been admitted on January 4 at 5:05 p.m., and he showed hospital entry records confirming that date and time.  “Sabah had very deep burns that reached the bone, and in some places even burned the bone,” he said.[53]

From the Human Rights Watch report.

3. Synopsis Flechettes shells (forbidden to use near populated areas) landed near family house in Izbet Beit Hanoun, killed two children, a woman and three men, wounded several others. The wounded carry Flechettes darts in their backs.

Flechettes are 3.5cm-long steel darts, sharply pointed at the front, with four fins at the rear. Between 5,000 and 8,000 of these darts are packed into shells which are generally fired from tanks. The shells explode in the air and scatter the flechettes in a conical pattern over an area about 300m by 100m.65

On 5 January 2009, Israeli forces fired several flechette shells into the main road near the Abd al-Dayem family home in ‘Izbet Beit Hanoun, to the south-west of Beit Hanoun. Six civilians – two children, a woman and three men – were killed and several others were injured. Twelve-year-old Arafat Abd al-Dayem was killed instantly and 16-year-old Islam Jaber Abd al-Dayem was struck in the neck by flechettes. He was taken to hospital but died three days later. Mizar, his brother, was injured in the same attack and still has a flechette lodged in his back.

Nearby, 21-year-old Wafa’ Abu Jarad, who was pregnant, her two-year-old son, her husband, her father and her brother-in-law were all injured by flechettes in the courtyard of their home. Wafa’ died of her injuries two days later. Her husband, Mohammed, told Amnesty International: “We had just had breakfast, then we had tea. We walked a bit in the garden, to the corner of the house, just a few metres from the front door. Then we heard shelling, followed by screaming. We turned back, towards the door. As we got to the door, we were hit. Wafa’ fell on the steps. There was blood everywhere.”

X-rays show that Wafa’s husband still has a flechette lodged in his back, which doctors cannot remove because it is so near his spinal cord they fear performing such an operation on him could result in him being paralysed.

From the Amnesty International report, page 39

As said, those are just samples, other severe deeds, to the extent of actual massacres, were also documented. The massacre of the Samuni family in Zaitun. The massacre in UNRWA school in Gebalia, and the most murderous action, the one that defined the character of the operation from day one – the killing of 248 cops in air raids on their barracks.

The Spirit of the Commander

Those shocking evidences and proofs, supposedly, contradict the image of the IDF and his soldiers as a moral army which takes care not to needlessly hit civilians. But whoever listened to the voices that came from within the IDF itself, from the fighting branches, knows very well the image is false. Not only Palestinians, but IDF soldiers and commanders testified that in “Cast Lead” several red lines were crossed.

Most of the testimonies were given anonymously in a brochure published by the “Breaking the Silence” organization an in fighters discussions in the Rabin preparatory program in Oranim college. Those where immediately accepted with distrust or in the worse case – vile incitement. Everybody hanged on the anonymity of the testifiers as proof for their testimonies fallacy, forgetting in the process that it is a well known and accepted procedure in the investigations of crimes and corruptions. People within the system who wants to expose its crime to the light of day but don’t want to pay a personal price for it – have no choice but to keep their anonymity. Sure, anonymous testimonies don’t prove anything, their goal is to push the relevant bodies to investigate. But the total ignoring of them, and denying them without any investigation – that certainly proves a lot.

And anyway, not all the testimonies were anonymous. Notice this soldier, face revealed, describing the briefing he got from the 312 brigade commander. “You open fire and don’t ask any questions”, “a building stands in your way – shoot it”, “there are no innocents – anybody there is the enemy”.

On the 19^th of March channel 10 published a video of a company commander briefing his soldiers before action in Gaza. The commander states:

“We are going to war, we are not in a routine security action or anything else. I want you to be aggressive. Anything suspicious in a floor of a house – we throw shells on it. We suspect a building now, we take the building down… no second thoughts. If it is them or us, then it is them. A person walks unarmed toward us – shoot in the air. Continues to walk – this person is dead. Nobody thinks twice. Let the mistakes be on their lives, not ours”.

Arik Dubnov, in the reconnaissance company of a reserve brigade told a journalist:

“From the first briefings before going in, it was clear that the army had changed its entire mindset. Instead of getting the usual precautions on not harming civilians, we were told about the need to make a very aggressive entry. We were told: ‘any sign of danger, open up with massive fire’. In previous training, we prepared for fighting against guerrilla forces, but this time they told us that we would be facing Hamas fighting in full military formation – something that, obviously, did not happen. Some of us were very uncomfortable with these orders, others were pleased that finally the IDF was taking off the kid gloves. I suppose that it boils down to people’s political background. When it was over, both right- and left-wingers felt that it had been a pointless exercise. The rightists said we hadn’t gone far enough, the leftists said, why did we do it to begin with? But we didn’t talk much about it.”

Amir Marmor, a gunner in a tank crew of a reserve armored battalion that operated in Jabalya told a journalist:

“The operation was marketed to us and the entire nation as a measured retaliation to the Hamas attacks, but to me it was like a punishment exercise. That was what it seemed like from the enormous extent of the destruction. We were there for a week and despite the fact that no-one fired on us, the firing and demolitions continued incessantly. I am very doubtful how many of the demolitions can be justified. We were told to expect incoming fire from various directions; our first reaction was to blow up or bulldozer houses in a given direction so as to give us better lines of fire. But then no fire came from that direction, or any other. On another occasion we were told that an attack was expected and an artillery barrage was fired, but we didn’t see anyone moving there.

Those testimonies, coming from non anonymous witnesses, correlate wit IDF investigations about the uncontrolled destruction of houses and buildings during the operation. “The investigations revealed that in many cases commanders ordered to demolish buildings who limited the “eyesight” for IDF stations, or because the commanders thought them as potential threats. In other cases houses were demolished because a makeshift bomb or a Kalashnikov gun were found within, even if controlled demolition which will cause less damage to the house was available. Dozens of houses were demolished because of an unverified suspicion of tunnels being dug in the vicinity”.

If the commanders don’t take Palestinian civilians into account, no wonder that the simple soldiers didn’t. Correction they did take them into account, death camps style: “one down, 999,999 to go”. This writing and other racist slur were sprayed on houses walls in Gaza (among others on the walls of the Samuni family house that indeed was massacred horrifyingly)

Graffiti left by Giv’ati soldiers in Zaitun. Photo: AFP

When you add up the findings of the HRW and Amnesty International investigations, with the soldiers’ testimonies and their briefings, all the question marks go away. Why were so many civilians hit? Because the soldiers were order to consider everyone as “enemy”. Why did brutal ammo as white phosphorous flechettes fired on civilian population, in contrast to rules of war? Because the shooter and his commander denied the need to distinguish between fighters and civilians, between guilty and innocent: “there are no innocents”. This, in short, is the definition of terror.

The Investigation of Crimes

A year after “Cast Lead”, the IDF has proven he is not able to investigate itself honestly and effectively. The gap between the quantity of incidents of shooting of civilians and their severity, as documented by human rights organizations, and the lack and superficiality of the incidents investigated by the IDF – this gap is unbearable.

The obvious conclusion is that the investigation should have been taken out of the IDF hands in the first place. Alas, in the Israeli side there was no one to reach this conclusion himself. Thus, after a winded web of denials, half mouthed admitions and, mostly, repeating the mantra “Hamas made a cynical use of the civilian population” – Israel pushed itself into a dead-end.

On one hand, it is clear to all that the severity and the scope of the findings necessitate an investigation, on the other hand, it is clear that after a year, an effective investigation is impossible. The physical evidence – ammo remnants, tanks marks, broken walls – were already removed. Eyesight testimonies and hearsays taken today would be, naturally, less reliable from the ones taken when the memory was fresh.

In other words, the most reliable findings are the ones that were already meticulously gathered by human rights organizations in real time. The only question is whether anybody in Israel will dare to use those findings. For, what do the voices calling for an “external” investigation for “cast Lead” events hope for? One can hope they don’t want just another committee that all she’ll see and hear will be soldiers’ testimonies. And if so, there is no alternative to using the evidences, the photos and the findings that are available outside of Israel.

And why not? Why won’t an Israeli court, or a national investigative committee summon experts who checked the scene, and ask them to sign an oathed statements saying that they stand behind their reports? Why not summon Palestinian witnesses and re-interrogate them thoroughly on their given testimonies?

In short, why not use the usual juridical process, were the court is given the evidences and decide by accepted methods about their reliability? What other way can refute all the claims those “Israel Haters” spread throughout the world and the internet?

This is a dissembling question. Nothing of the mentioned above will be done. When Israel charged the IDF to investigate “Cast Lead”, she knew very well what she’s doing. And when she’s refusing, for more than 7 months, to answer B’zelem’s, Amnesty’s, HRW’s and the UN’s queries in regard to hundreds of well documented incidents of civilians being hit (the IDF refuses to reveal even the list of casualties in Gaza, according to his own data), she, again, knows what she’s doing. Only a gullible person (or a crook) will believe that Israel denies all those external investigations because she intends to investigate those incidents herself, outside of the army. This denial, as the hundreds of horrifying evidences from Gaza, shines as a beacon of shame on the face of the state, and clarifies its guilt.

The next attack on Gaza, as has been already declared, is a matter of time. One who doesn’t want to see his state yet again committing horrible crimes in his name, even worse crimes than in “Cast Lead”, and then avoids responsibility yet again, shakes the gunpowder off her clothes, whitens the blood of the innocents, and happily skips into the horizon of her undeniable righteousness – should decide even today where he or she will stand in the first day of the attack and on the last one.

written by Idan Landau, published in his hebrew blog “Lo Lamut Tipesh”

Exactly one year ago, on New Year’s Eve 2008, I fled Be’er Sheva, where I was living, with my girlfriend at the time (don’t worry, she’s my wife now). After we heard the fourth missile of that day, we decided that enough was enough.  I wrote a quick note on facebook asking if there was anyone driving north – anywhere north – and hopped on the first offer. We celebrated the new year as “refugees”, thankful to be out of our home. Leaving our house was the easiest thing to swallow during that war. Everything else during that month was much more difficult.

That war, much like the Second Lebanon war that preceded it, was a time of a great political crisis for me, and I believe for many other Israeli leftists. Many of them supported the war, actually believing Israel had no choice but to attack Gaza. I opposed it from the very beginning, finding myself in such a minority opinion like I have never experienced before, though I am used to holding minority opinions. I wrote a lot during that time, both in Hebrew, and in English, went to demonstrations, and could not focus on almost anything other than dealing with that pointless war. Most of all I remember the horrible feeling of having almost no one around me who thought like me, or that could share my disappointment and disapproval with what was going on. The war kept going on, with more and more casualties, and with more and more attacks on the few that dared to say something against it, and no end was in sight. One of the hardest things for me was not only the isolation from most Israelis, but from most of the left. I found myself demonstrating and writing against the war and thus being perceived as someone that I am not. I am not an anti-Israeli or an anti-Zionist. I do not support Hamas or want to see Jews die. I am far from all of the above. I opposed the war because I knew then, as I know now, that the war – like nearly any war – was a crime. I knew that civilians were dying for their politicians’ lack of humanity and reason, and that it will achieve nothing, and in fact, will only harm Israel even more. The fact that the Israeli left, most of it, stuttered with it’s opinion of the war was my biggest personal political crisis in years.

Almost all politicians, in the midst of their election campaigns, either supported the war with or without any hesitation, or somewhat supported it. Even worse were those who opposed it quietly and said nothing. To me, it was clear: This war was wrong, and the Israeli left – almost all of it – was not saying it.

Did that mean that “the Israeli left” was not an actual “left”? Did that mean that I was, in-fact, as I was accused, more “left” than “Israeli”? I don’t think so. I do think that the masters of this war did a great job in lying to the public, cynically going to war as part of an election campaign (alas, a failed one), and confusing an already confused public.

What have I learned from that war? I am not sure. I keep wondering what good can come out of a “left” that can only start admitting after a war is over that it might have not been the best move. I have never debated who to vote for as I did after that war, and I have never doubted Israel, let alone the Israeli left, has any future as I did in the aftermath of this war. I left that war confused, scared and disappointed with almost all the people that surrounded me. I often ask myself if it could be that I was wrong about that war, that it was actually a war we had to fight. I am as certain of my answer to that question as I am of the next war that almost undoubtedly our politicians will cause: No. It was avoidable.  More than a thousand people died in horrible ways and for no reason, and I doubt we (we – both us and the Palestinians) can fix the wrongs we did last year.

As I do consider myself, and very much so, both an Israeli and a leftist, I am hopelessly looking to offer some hope for a better future. If only I had some certainty I could actually do that.

And with that, happy new year! May this year somehow end without another war, and perhaps, could I even dare? Some hopes for a little peace in this troubled land.

Ah, the crazy is growing fast and furious on the ground, and your Intrepid Traveler has but to stoop ever so slightly to pick both hands full. This is the Weekend Holyland Update, flight 11-20-09, taking off from the fields of suicidal nationalism and passing through the lands of political shenanigans (exclusive scoop there), a partial victory in a key civil rights battle, shades of krystalnacht in reverse, morbid jehovahism, mob racism, and a good word to a mediocrity poster child. Fasten your seatbelts and keep all parts of your body in the vehicle, the natives are getting restless.

Jehovah-Nazi mutiny is spreading in the IDF. First it was the “Shimshon” company who used the ocassion of their swearing in at the Wailing Wall as full fledged fighters (at the end of basic training) to lift signs saying that “Shimshon doesn’t evacuate Homesh” (Homesh is a settlement in northern Samaria that was evacuated in the Disengagement and since then the settlers have been staging marches trying to get back up there. The army has to play nanny and shepherd them down the hill every time). Then it was Nachshon company hanging a banner at their base. The anti-disengagement slogan “A Jew doesn’t evacuate a Jew” has featured as well. Trainees at the division’s main base were found out and their banner taken before they had the chance. It shows no sign of stopping (especially since no decisive response has been forthcoming), and an internal military estimate has some 30% of all soldiers refusing an order to participate in the possible mass evacuation of even outposts, let alone established settlements. That’s what happens when you nurture a theofascist militia inside your army.

The Green Beast is acting in a manner for which to describe we must reach into the dictionary, leaf to P and stop at “pussillanimous”. None of the brave little grunts have been dishonorably discharged for presuming to tell the duly elected government which lawful orders they will and will not carry out. Now, of course it is the right of anyone to refuse orders they consider illegitimate – but in that case hand over the M-16, bubba. I got myself a discharge from the beast precisely because I didn’t want to carry out the orders government was giving me through it. But these guys have taken Louis XIV’s political philosophy to even greater extremes – the State, the Military, the Word of God himself – is Them.

The overt mutiny is so far contained to a single brigade – the Kfir Brigade, Israel’s newest infantry brigade, formed exclusively for jack-boot duty in the occupied territories, so the other infantry units can at least practice at being real soldiers. A large portion of this division’s manpower comes from among the Settlers and from what is known as “arrangement yeshivas”. How was part of the orthodox Jewish community persuaded to go along with the whole secular state authority thing and send their kids to the army, where they would be exposed to the big bad secular world? There’s an “arrangement”, whereby they spend part of the 18-21 years in their yeshivas instead of in the actual army, and in return do a little more reserve service every year. Byt he time they’re doing reserve they have a wife and a few kids, and the danger of defection is containable.

So anyway, the bulk of the actual refusenik soldiers come from two of these “arrangement” madrassas whose head Imams – sorry, Rabbis – have been openly preaching refusal. And being funded for the state the whole time, and their institutions allowed to participate in the “arrangement”. So now the chickens are coming home to roost and everyone is terribly surprised and discussing gravely how to address the problem. Guess hindsight is 20:20, and those of us that been talkin’ bout this shit for years now? We’re unsavory types. Not to be taken seriously. Oh well.

In a not-unrelated incident, a 16 year-old yeshiva zombie was arrested for stabbing  an Arab in Jerusalem. He is now suspected of being a serial attacker. That’s OK tho, I still get accused of using inflammatory language when I call them Sicarii.

We had a big scoop at Scoop.co.il this weekend: turns out that the attorney representing former OM Olmert on the various corruption charges he’s facing? He’s been meeting regularly with current PM Bibi Netanyahu *since before the elections*. Which I’m sure there are a million perfectly innocuous explanations for, despite client Olmert and candidate Bibi being from opposing parties and Olmert not even running in the election, and at least ostensibly doing all he can for his party’s nominee, Tzippi Livni. Then comes word this week that this very same right honorable attorney, one Yehudah Weinstein, is one of the four final candidates to replace current Attorney General Menny Mazuz. And he’s also representing rogue ex-judge Dan Cohen, who was awaiting extradition from Peru in a jail but has now been released to house arrest and extradition looks less likely. Question is, what does Bibi get here. File under “Things That Make You Go Hmmmm”.

Moving on to another “We”, we the reality based community had a pretty big, albeit not final, victory this week, when full implementation of the hideous biometric database law was put off for two years, during which the database will run on an experimental VOLUNTARY basis. Enough of Knesset critters realized that maybe this isn’t a very good idea after all, and lucky for us the prime mover behind the abomination was Meir Shit-rit from Kadima, which is in the opposition, so it didn’t become a point of principlal for the ruling coalition to ram it through.

This decision means that while Mr. Shit-rit will be able to deliver some money to the dubious company he hired for this project before the recent elections, when he was Minister of the Interior (a company which has been kicked off three bids in the US and has yet to deliver on its contract here for an inter-transportation “smart card”). However, only idiots who want to be tools of the government will surrender their identifying features to an entity that allows its population registry to roam free on the internet, whereas free women and men with half a brain will not be forced to and not be denied basic services (such as being issued an ID card or a passport). We will, however, be denied “smart government” services, which the government is reserving for the benefit of those who submit to tooldom.

My friend Att. Jonathan Kilnger got a small measure of the credit he deserves for the victory (man appeared before the Knesset so many times on this, he shoulda pitched a tent in the building), but my very good friend, visual genius Eran Vered and our mutual friend Ram-On Agmon, were denied acknowledgement by the reporters who chronicled the victory in the couple of days after the decision was announced. Eran and Ram-On were a major power in spreading the word and filling the Hebrew Net with tons of material on the issue, in various registers from calm and dense with facts to your more, um, traditional resgisters of political advertising (but maintaining factual truth. After all, to paraphrase Don Barzini, we are not Republicans). They were denied their just recognition by an ill informed mainstream media, but we’re here to set the record straight.

Y’all heard of Krystalnacht, right? Three days of beer and pogroms throughout Germany against Jewish homes and businesses in 1938, just before the war and the final solution. What not everyone knows is that when the drunks finished partying, there was a hell of a property damages bill. The nazi regime thought it would be cute to charge the Jewish community of Germany collectively for the damages, which came to about a billion reichsmark.

A similar feat of judicial logic was displayed this week in an Israeli court against another sort of undesirables – peace activists. One in particular. Matan Cohen was hit in the eye by a rubber bullet in 2007 at a demonstration against land theft under the guise of the security barrier in the village of Beit Sira. This week the dishonorable Dalia Ganot, district judge in Tel Aviv, rejected Matan’s suit for damages, decided that he was lying, and ordered him to pay the blue pigs 50,000 shekels for having the temerity to sue them.

Now, under ordinary circumstances this would be a legal “he said, she said”, although we do know that justice Ganot’s judgment can be a little questionable sometimes, like the verdict in which she once expressed understanding for the anger of a slaver-pimp over his slave-prostitute not being able to earn during her period. But beyond that, as Ken Kesey once said to solve a problem, “I know the guy”. Matan is a friend of mine. He had a rubber bullet taken out of his eye, contrary to Ganot’s pulled-out-of-her-ass decree that he was hit by a Palestinian-hurled rock. So fuck you, justice Ganot. I sincerely hope you leave the bench for private practice, make an obscene amount of money – and need each and every last penny of it for medications. For an eye problem.
And to a medley of medieval racism and superstition:

Aviram Baruchian, star midfielder for football (soccer) club Beitar Jerusalem, aka “Racist Central”, said in an interview that he for one wouldn’t mind at all if an Arab player were signed to play for Beitar. The club’s organized fandom reacted immediately and within days it was reported that Baruchian had met with the fans and was forced to apologize for his deviation from judonazi orthodoxy. His agent,who understands that a racist incident won’t help export his client to Europe, is saying now that Baruchian’s own opinion of the matter hasn’t changed. Which means he only apologized for voicing it. OK.

Yaacov Litzman, Israel’s Deputy Health Minister (he’s from Torah Jewry, an Ashkenazee ultra-orthodox party that won’t accept a minister’s position so as not to convey full complicity with the Zionist regime), has forced a hospital to continue treating a brain-dead child as though she were alive and keep her on life support and feeding. Not clinically dead – brain dead. There is no recovery from that. But in the 12th century, when orthodox Judaism’s founding medical texts were written, they didn’t know much about that, so it must not be important. Taliban rule, anyone?

The ultra-orthodox of Jerusalem have found another diversion from the long, boring Sabbath afternoons: They are now rioting outside the Jeruaslem Intel facility, (which was lured to our poverty stricken capital at great expense and effort to be the lynchpin of an employment bonanza for the city). Reason for the rioting? The plant (which is on the outskirts of town, not near where any of them live) works at a limited capacity on the Sabbath too!!! Now, under the usual twisted status quo of Israel, this would be something of a violation and reason for foot stomping. But there is a problem: The Intel plant has been in Jerusalem since 1985. It has always employed a small number of workers on the Sabbath. Some processes in a microchip plant can’t be shut down for 24 hours and more. It operated in the exact same manner during the previous municipal administration in Jerusalem, headed by ultra-orthodox Uri Lupolianski. Why now? Politics, and the ever-present need to offer an oppressed youth, afforded no outlets for normal energy, a framework in which to blow off steam without threatening the Rabbicracy.

The shaping “compromise”, mediated by Knesset chairman Ruby Rivlin (our next president, btw, once Shimon croaks, or has enough ^[hah!]), says Intel will only employ non-Jewish workers on the Sabbath (which I’m sure is largely the case already) and limit work to the most sensitive production lines (ditto). And if a Jewish worker needs the cash and wants to work the w/e for the 150% pay? Tough. The jehovah patients will look after your yiddishke soul whether you want them to or not. BTW, it is illegal to force a worker to work on his or her religion’s day of rest in Israel, and while there are industries where that is a major barrier to getting the job in the first place, that simply isn’t the case with a plant like Intel.

Staying in Jerusalem, on the same week Israel chose to exercise its illegitimate control over East Jerusalem by demolishing a number of Arab homes built there, and by simultaneously beginning work on 900 new units in the settlement neighborhood of Giloh. Because nothing shows you really want peace like a nice 1-2 sucker punch.

Quick regional detour: The inflamed spirits that accompanied the two consecutive World Cup-qualifying matches between Egypt and Algeria have really gotten a bit too much. I woulda been happy for our neighbors to have won, but it’s only a game, yo. Y’all need to seriously chill. Good thing these two don’t share a border, or I guarantee some bored grunts on patrol woulda been exchanging potshots by now.

Speaking of regional, when you hear “Israel” and “Morocco”, which do you instinctively figure is the more modern, advanced, liberal? After all, Israel is a democracy, whereas Morocco is a constitutional Monarchy, for crying out loud, right? Well, I don’t know how much each of you count by this metric, but…Number of women heading Moroccan ministries: 7. In Israel: 2.

Oh, and a kind word. My general view of reigning Chief Justice Dorit Beinish is rather poor. I see her as a poster child for mediocrity (Go to her wiki. See anything under writing and publication? Exactly). She’s a former State Prosecutor, and really not much more than a skillfull organizational climber and fighter. Plus, she has a very black stain on her record: in the trial of Haggai Amir, brother of the vermin Yigal who murdered PM Yitzhak Rabin, she (then the prosecutor at the trial) knowingly suborned perjury by putting a General Security Service witness on the stand to stay that contrary to defendant’s claims, the service wasn’t operating any undercovers who were egging the defendant and his brother and their co-conspirators on. It is now public, admitted knowledge that they were. The mole even gave Yigal the gun. Haggai Amir, judonazi scum that he is, had a valid legal point and it was overcome by perjury.

Anyway, while I think Beinish is, in Supreme court and Chief Justice standards, a nobody who was only chosen because former Chief Justice Aharon Barak needed a yes woman to carry on his agenda, my hat is fully, flouridly off to her this week, as she bravely and unequivocably slapped down the repugnant spectre of privately owned and run prisons in Israel. Rather than resorting to that favorite Supremo trick of fobbing off an undersired piece of legislation on technicalities, so as not to run headlong into the whole activist judiciary mess, Beinish slapped her ovaries on the table and explained in clear and simple terms that the right to greviously deprive an individual of basic civil rights is not something that may be divested by the state to private entities. If improvements are needed to incarceration and detention facilities to make them compliant with the law, then the State must do so, and not simply find a hustler tp put up a shack. No. Simply no. Not even if you rewrite it, make it longer, change the style… Just no. Bravo, Madam Chief Justice.

And on that unaccustomed note of contentment, the pilot shall now come in for landing at your point of origin. WHU airlines is not responsible for any illusions, sympathies or misconceptions that may have been misplaced on our tours. Please collect your luggage and check your comments and thumbs. Thank you for flying the crazy skies. ]]> http://israleft.org/?feed=rss2&p=237 5 http://israleft.org/?p=230 http://israleft.org/?p=230#comments Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:02:56 +0000 Dubi Kanengisser http://israleft.org/?p=230 My friend Rod wrote at length against a binational solution to the Jewish-Palestinian conundrum. He does not so much oppose the idea of binationalism, but rather has serious doubts about the availability of a route to binational salvation that does not travel through some horrendous gutters. I disagree with him. A route to binationalism does [...]]]> My friend Rod wrote at length against a binational solution to the Jewish-Palestinian conundrum. He does not so much oppose the idea of binationalism, but rather has serious doubts about the availability of a route to binational salvation that does not travel through some horrendous gutters. I disagree with him. A route to binationalism does exist that is more attractive than taking a detour through Apartheid and ethnic cleansing. This route, of course, is not very forthcoming, nor is it achievable through governments such as the current one – but then, neither is a viable two-state solution. The left must ask itself two questions: which is a more desirable solution, and which is a more likely solution to persuade the Israeli public to bring the left back to power to implement. Neither of these questions will be answered here. My intention here is merely to plot the road that might be taken to binationalism, under the ideal premise of a liberal-minded left-wing government.

It should be said, before I begin, that contrary to what Rod wrote, binationalism is rarely touted as the optimal solution to the problem – although I have noticed an uptick in texts carrying this message of late. The majority of mentions of binationalism use it as a threat, a whip, with which to hasten Israel’s acquiescence in a two-state solution. Binationalism is presented as the only realistic alternative to two-statism, and, building on the prevalent sentiment supporting a Jewish nation-state, the two-state solution is then made to look good in comparison. I personally deplore this line of argument. It exemplifies exactly what’s wrong with the two state solution: it is a solution built on virulent, hateful nationalism, rather than on mutual acceptance, and it ignores the fact that even after we “go our separate ways in peace”, as one popular bumper sticker once advocated, we still have one fifth of the population of Israel proper living in the “wrong” territory.

Binationalism is not merely unavoidable, but, I believe, desirable. Is it attainable?

The road to a viable binational solution must begin with a greater incorporation of the Arab citizens of Israel into the polity. The first step a prime minister with a wish to implement binationalism must do is call upon the more moderate Arab parties in the Knesset to join her government proper – not merely support it from the outside as in the second Rabin government.

The thing most lacking in current internal Jewish-Arab relations is trust. An Arab minister (from a “non-Zionist” party) would be able to begin building this trust, in both directions. Of course, having a token Arab minister would not suffice – it is merely pointing out the way for other government agencies. A higher rate of government employment of Arab-Israelis must follow. It is also assumed that an Arab minister will be able, by bringing the voice of this population directly into the cabinet meetings, to increase government investment in this population even beyond his own ministry’s jurisdiction (of course, we are assuming a government that is already more likely to do that anyway).

The Arab citizens of Israel are a bridgehead to the Palestinians in the territories. Establishing real bidirectional trust with that population will enable Israel to come into rapport with the Palestinians that was not possible so far. Throughout this process, and using it, Israel must support the democratic development of the Palestinian Authority and promote moderate deliberation within it (rather than prevent it, as in the case of the harassment of Mustafa Barghouti before the presidential elections).

If these processes are successful, and Israeli shows a continued willingness to follow this path (e.g., by reelecting the government), it seems to me that the road to a binational solution will be open. Of course, that solution must still be fashioned in a careful manner. The PhD thesis I am working on currently deals precisely with the question of the application of binational solutions, why they failed where they did and how they can succeed. I am still in early stages of this study, but my hunch so far is that the biggest mistake is to create an identity between the national interests of each group, and territorial interests of the administrative units of a federal state, e.g. the Belgian solution. A good binational state will make sure to break each national community into two (or more) territorial units. This will foster more opportunities for cross-cutting cleavages and cross-national interests. An “East” and “West Palestine” are simple enough to envision. Similarly, a “North” and “South Israel” can also be conceived. Each of the units will get equal representation in an upper-house (much like the US Senate), to create parity between the national communities regardless of demographics. (Jerusalem can be a fifth district, with no upper house representation, a-la Washington D.C., or Brussels).

In time, one could consider a “third layer” of federalism to this state (”The Abrahamic Federation”? Nah, too religious…), at the individual level – a “cultural federalism”. This layer could, for example, handle issues such as education and the arts, which will be shared across the administrative units, and also important for those of one nationality living in the units of the other (e.g., current Arab Israelis). This will also facilitate freer movement between the units.

But there is no need to go into the intricacies of the particular model of binationalism to be used. The point is that a well-meaning government can achieve this through positive means, rather than through diving into the realms of Hades to reemerge with the ghost of a binational state. The fact is, the first steps of this plan are positive even if we don’t wish to achieve a binational state, and — maybe I’m being overly optimistic here — could be potentially supported by a majority of the population in Israel even today.

The road is there. It isn’t the King’s Highway, nor a yellow-brick road. It is, if anything, a long and winding one, and an arduous one no doubt. But it is there, and I believe we should take it.

Three seemingly unrelated trends are distinguishable in Israel’s current policy. One is the treatment of non-citizens in Israel. This mainly refers to Refugees from the Darfur genocide, work-immigrants and illegal, as well as legal foreign workers. However, this also includes other types of non-Jews: Non-Jews who were married to Israeli citizens who passed away or divorced them before their naturalization was complete, for example. All these are often tied together, as if a refugee from the Darfur hell is anything like a foreign worker whose permit expired two months ago and as if these two are anything like a work-immigrant who never had a permit to begin with. The problem is that while Israel has a very strict, clear policy as to who can be a citizen, it has virtually no immigration policy. Whatever immigration policy it does have, Israel fails to enforce.

Well, Israel over-enforces now. 1200 families of foreign workers whose license expired, with children who were born and raised here,  kids who speak Hebrew and relate to Israel as the only place they’ve ever known, are facing deportation. The Prime Minister keeps postponing decision about their fate, and so they are facing the unknown. Israel now operates its own immigration police – a unit called Oz, which stands both for “Courage” in Hebrew, and the Hebrew initials of the term “Ovdim Zarim” – foreign workers. The courageous Oz troopers hunt down illegal aliens and, in an act of pure bravery, deport them. The problem is that Oz troopers don’t ask questions. What dangers await this work-immigrant with an expired visa when he gets to his home country? How long has he lived here?

Some of the readers will have raised an eyebrow by now. If they are illegal, they think, they ought to be deported. That’s true. But it’s not as if Israel had decided to put an end to foreign work. Others will come to replace them. The current Israeli minister of interior affairs, Eli Yishai of the racist, ultra orthodox conservative party Shas, who leads the war against foreigners, is also the minister who issued the largest quantity of work permits in former terms, and is just about to break his own record this term. Since an illegal worker is only illegal because his or her visa has expired, one might ask why not extend the permit of the people who are already here, rather than deport them and bring others to replace them. One possible answer would be that if this indeed is done, the manpower agencies would be less profitable, so one might conclude that minister Yishai may be operating to increase the profit of such agencies, out of, perhaps, his own narrow interest. People with money who need politicians in order to make more money can often be very persuasive.

But let us put aside, momentarily, the more debatable subject of work immigrants. Let’s talk about refugees. Several hundred Sudanese have managed to infiltrate Israel in their attempt to escape the bloody ethnocide there. Recently it has been proposed to put them in labour camps: They will go out to work every day, and their salary will be taken away from them to finance the camp they will stay in. Apart from the horrible historic connotation this has – I mean, this is far worse than your old Jewish person in a German made car, isn’t it? – there’s also something fundamentally wrong in the very attempt to deter refugees from hitting your shore. These people are fleeing for their lives, for heaven’s sake.

And that’s not even it. Oz’s brave troopers have recently started to operate against other types of non-Jews. There are two major types of non-Jews non-citizens who aren’t work immigrants: One is non-Jews who are married to Israeli citizens, and did not yet finish the long process of naturalization in order to become permanent residents. Should the spouse now die, or divorce them, they will face deportation.

The other type is people who immigrated here by virtue of the law of return, but are suspected to have given false information. A brief explanation: Israel grants automatic citizenship to any Jew, or anyone who has at least one Jewish parent or grandparent. This is called “The law of return” (Hok HaShvut, in Hebrew). But the ministry of pure bloodinterior continues to investigate them years after they got their citizenship, and if they find a piece of evidence that maybe the grandfather of the family wasn’t Jewish, they take away their citizenship and, well, deport them. This can be done after the family has lived in Israel as citizens for years, after the children have served in the Israeli army, and so on.

So, the ministry of interior is operating to keep Israel free of non-Jewish blood. However, Israel already has non-Jewish citizens. I’m talking about the roughly 1.5 million Israeli Palestinians – that is, Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. Trust the Israeli government that the second trend in its decision making process will address this inherent danger to Jewish purity of blood.
The second trend is the continuous discrimination policy against Israeli Arabs. An Israeli court recently ruled that the law enforcement authorities treat Arabs and Jews differently. This surprised no one: The discrimination in all aspects of life is obvious to anyone who doesn’t wish to remain oblivious to it. For example: Israel tears down houses built illegally by Israeli Arab citizens all the time. However, Israel doesn’t issue any building permits to its Arab citizens. If an Arab Israeli citizen wishes to build a house, there are two ways he can go about doing that: He can apply for a permit, be turned down, appeal, be turned down again and so on and so forth, until maybe one day his application will be accepted (slim chances at best). Or he could build illegally. Again, this is only illegal because Israeli authorities arbitrarily deem it such, by simply not issuing enough permits. And then the bulldozers come and tear the house down, because it was built illegally – of course, there was no other way to build it. Arabs don’t really need a roof over their heads, do they?

In Jerusalem, the authorities are taking “Legality” to its extreme limit: After tearing down numerous houses in eastern Jerusalem for being illegal – and in eastern Jerusalem, maybe more than anywhere in Israel, it is impossible to get construction permits – and after occupying Arab neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem with Jewish residents (Sure enough, they – the Jewish residents – did get permits for construction), the authorities are moving to the next logical stage: They issued evacuation notices to the people of Wallage, an Arab village that is, apparently, within the municipal annexed territory of Jerusalem. Their houses are to be destroyed to make room for a new Jewish neighbourhood there.

Yes, you heard correctly: Out go the Arabs, in come the Jews. And this is all done legally, of course. The law always sides the landlord. I was talking to one of the gardening workers where I live, a nice man from the Israeli-Arab village Abu Gosh. He told me that about 30 “Israelis” are now leasing apartments in the village, and was very excited about how they picked his village to live in. I commented that all Abu Gosh residents are Israelis, and that he probably meant to say “Jews”. “You know”, he said to me, “They (The authorities, R.A.) have so many ways to tell me, every day, that I’m not Israeli, that I’m not equal – I sometimes begin to believe them”.

The third trend in Israeli policy is its attempts to bring an end to the peace process, but not by bringing the process to a successful end. Israel is stalling, taking its time, while the settlements keep on growing and the separation wall keeps biting off more and more Palestinian lands. Just recently, the Israeli government authorized a bill that states Israel will not reach a peace agreement with any Arab state before this state offers compensation for the property of Jews who fled from that country to Israel. That means Israeli law will prohibit peace with the Palestinians before all the Arab nations cough up some money. It’s, indeed, one of those meaningless bills meant to stir up some headlines and gain some votes because it sounds good; but one which will be easy to pass in case there’s a real peace agreement. But still, it serves to show just how willing Israel (and Israeli public opinion) is to achieve such an agreement.

The trail is pretty obvious: Settlements and the Separation Wall will impose the borders of semi-independent Palestinian autonomies, separated geographically and dependent on the government in Jerusalem for basic economic needs, unable to provide for themselves due to their structure. Or in other words, bentustans. Then, Israeli non-Jews will be deported – Arabs to the bentustans, which will be known as the Palestinian Authority, other non-Jews to their origin countries, leaving Israel the ethnocracy that South Africa never managed to become. This horrific kind of apartheid will surely provoke resistance, and the area will be stained with the blood of all parties involved. After a few decades, Israelis will cave in to the international pressure and their own sense of justice, and the apartheid regime will collapse. A bi-national state will emerge from it. We know how the process works- we’ve seen it before.

It’s truly tragic: The Israeli government seems to think it is safe-guarding the Jewish state, when in fact it promotes a bi-national state solution to be arrived at after years of discrimination and segregation of the worst kind. The people who promote this solution are ignoring, or perhaps ignorant of, the way such a solution is to be achieved: Through bloodshed and misery. And in between, the window of opportunity in which it is possible to reach an agreement for a two state solution is closing down, perhaps it’s already closed. Israel is hopping down the bunny trail all the way to South Africa.