LIVNI LA VIDA LOCA: Spitfire-side Chat

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, seen here raising a finger during her April visit to Qatar, may have used her visit to stick up for Shimon Peres' hurt feelings. (What kind of a weird flicking-off that is, and more significantly why the AFP posted this as their main closeup of Livni is beyond me.)


There are other possibilities though. Livni may also have been aiming the sentiment at Hamas, which is "controlling Gaza by weapons, training and money," apparently from Iran. (Of course not because they won the last election fair and square-- democracy anyone?) Or she was giving it to all the Gulf people who would rather excuse themselves to go barf than see formal ties, or worse, sit in a room with Israeli government officials.

The following is an internal discussion on the significance of the Qatari and Omani reception of Livni. As Chaim protested, "Why do you D-bags host these conversations on this listserv, take it to the blog!"

MHMD: Hey what do you guys make of this? Well, there really isn't much to make of it, I'm not surprised-but is there anything left to say about the Qataris and Omanis meeting so openly with Livni?

Emily: I had an argument with a friend recently. He's from Bahrain and was thinking of coming to Jordan, and I suggested that we meet there. I also said oh maybe I'll bring my friend along from Shefa Amr! She's never been to Jordan!

At which point he seriously took the conversation off the record and was like "wait... she's... israeli?" He didn't want to hang out with her in Jordan (a Muslim Arab Palestinian citizen of Israel) because of her Israeli passport. He was like, there's a boycott. I have to stick to my principles.

I think I spent a half an hour typing like a madwoman about all of the violations against Palestinians in Israel even though they are "Israeli." And furthermore pulled up the call for boycott and sanctions and sent him the actual text of it- 'institutional boycott' etc etc.

Anyway I'd like to post about this and the context of Livni's visit. I thought Qatar was like the rest of the Gulf states in that people with Israeli passports can't travel there? Or is it the one exception or something?

MHMD: Well, Qatar's always been the most openly friendly Gulf state with Israel-if I recall correctly they were the first to allow an Israeli Trade Office to open there. As far as I know, the ban on Israeli passport holders in the gulf is one bigass myth-Israelis travel freely to the UAE and Qatar, and I'm sure they do to Bahrain and Oman too. The Omani FM said one of the purposes of his meeting with Livni was to discuss the reopening of the Israeli Trade Office in Muscat.

Furthermore, I recently saw a news report on MBC quoting several Israeli and US studies that reveal there are up to 220 Israeli companies active in Iraq now. The Arab boycott is just one big joke.

Chaim: Why do you D-bags host these conversations on this listserv, take it to the blog! And use my title: LIVNI LAVIDA LOCA... I just wanna see it in print cause I'm so proud of it :) Or do a round-table burn... KABOBfest hasn't done one of those in a great long while.

Emily: Maybe it can be on what constitutes a violation of the boycott: Qatar and the gulf countries giving Israeli businessmen free reign when there's a boycott going on, or me working for a Palestinian org that is actually an Israeli org inside of Israel, or just talking to Palestinian citizens of Israel (as many regular gulfi people seem to think- I have more examples)

Is my working in Israel a violation of the boycott of Israel for all people of conscience?

Does the boycott include the exclusion of Palestinian people with Israeli passports otherwise known as Arab ISRAELIS?

I'm pretty sure we all agree that Qatar talking to Livni is hypocrisy... or do we?

MHMD: Livni accuses MP Tibi of trying to sabotage two-state solution That should be useful too.

Nimr: I strongly disagree, actually. I hate it when US pundits blast Obama for saying he would meet with the leaders of Iran, Hammas, Venezuela, N. Korea or whoever (well, I actually think there should be "high level" conversations first. Meeting the pres. should be the carrot for substantive talks). I feel I would be the hypocrite to criticize Qatar for talking with Livni.

I see no harm with welcoming and meeting with Livni. It's not like they are going to let Israel bury nuclear waste there (see: Mauritania). For the record, I think the academic boycott is dumb and counterproductive too. Heck, I think the travel restrictions in general are silly as well. If any Americans are going to boycott Israel, you better be ready to get your ass boycotted 300x over by the rest of the world too.

Also, let's be clear. As Mohammed pointed out, the rules about travel prohibitions are not universally followed. UAE "unofficially" lets all kinds of people who visit Israel and/or are Israeli citizens come there for business (lots of diamond, tech and finance). That might be open for criticism. Alternately, Yemen allows their own Jewish citizens to visit Israel for family and/or religious reasons, they just do it super on the DL. I applaud that. Syria might not have suffered the loss of its Jewish population if they could have come and gone as they pleased.

Lastly, to put the visit in context, Qatar is very much trying to position themselves as players on the international stage. This kinda thing is probably more about them posturing as players than caring so much about Israel, Palestine or the peace process.

The boycotts and restrictions ultimately do much more to hurt "us", financially, culturally, symbolically and politically than them.

My 2 cents

Emily: So are you against boycott, academic institutional etc? What about monetary divestment campaigns? I really don't think any boycott, academic or institutional, would cause much actual harm to the boycotting organization itself unless it depends on funds from Zionist orgs or people.

That's a really good point about Syria and Yemen. It's stupid to not let people travel. It's just dumb.

I think that boycott is in fact a decent tool to get Israeli organizations and institutions to take notice of what is happening. I'm here and I don't see people really having to notice much in their everyday lives. Life goes on as usual while 10 minutes away people are under occupation. I think that for many educated people who want to be part of the global community (Tel Aviv University, for example), if they got responses when they tried to make a conference saying people won't participate because of the occupation, it would make them have to notice. I've heard Pappe stand on a podium, spread his arms, and say "please! boycott me!"

But the way it happens, it is carried out all wrong. people are not allowed to travel. That is stupid. Businessmen instead make a ton of valuable connections over everyone else's heads, and don't feel a thing even though there's a 'boycott'.

Fadi: I think isolation will work. I think boycott, whether academic, cultural, or economic, advances such isolation. Whether doing away with a certain type of boycott (such as academic) will harm the mission of isolating Israel, I don't know. Maybe the academic boycott is not necessary. Maybe it is. I think the reward (saving Palestinian - and Israeli - lives) is worth the risk. I think isolation will work. I understand the arguments against its practicality, or that it harms civilian infrastructure. I'm fairly certain that refusing to publish papers by Israeli academics, or cutting off grants or joint research (much of it on military and arms research) is not going to starve Israelis to death. I think isolation will work, this has been empirically established (for example, South
Africa). Those willing to argue against boycott of Israel, I think, must also argue against the boycott of Apartheid South Africa. If you're not willing to do that, then there's a double standard being applied.

Nimr: I would be interested to see any empirical data on isolation working as a strategy. Most of the data I have seen shows, 1) isolating other countries rarely works and 2) the connection between isolating S. Africa and the end of apartheid is anecdotal, and most probably part of a matrix of many other factors (which may or may not exist in Palestine).

Andrew Mack and Asif Khan have analyzed UN sanctions and their conclusion is that results have been mixed at best. They point out that sanctions work well as a tool of policy, but not as a policy. Look at the disaster of isolating Iraq under sanctions, Cuba, Hammas, Burma, Iran etc. Attempts to isolate them failed, and tended to strengthen the targeted elements, not weaken them. Also, it is almost impossible to isolate any country, this didn't even work with S. Africa (otherwise DeBeers would not be facing anti-trust issues in the USA). Israel and others kept strong relations with apartheid S. Africa.

This is further complicated by the particular governmental structure of Israel where small fanatical parties have disproportionate influence (domestically and in the USA). Attempts to isolate Israel will only strengthen their power and influence, as it will prove their narrative. (which would lead to more death and land appropriation)

I think the more apt analogy for Israel is the United States, not S. Africa. Like I said if we expect people to start boycotting Israel, culturally, politically, economically and/or academically, we must be prepared to suffer the same treatment in spades. As an American, I feel that the actions of my gov't do not represent my values. In spite of that lots of people die directly and indirectly from my gov't's actions. The same could be said of countless Israelis.

It gets complicated really quickly too. The US allowed black S. Africans to come to the US to attend college for instance. Should we not allow Arab-Palestinians? If we do, should we not allow progressive Israelis? If we do....

I think the divestment campaign makes sense, but only so long as this is on an org by org, individual by individual basis and not gov't policy. I am all for not collaborating with Israel on any research that has military focus and/or biased scholarship (i.e. propaganda), but a sweeping boycott is counterproductive. Some of the best most critical scholarship of Israeli policy comes from Israel.

Specific targeted sanctions (high tech, weapons, etc) are vital parts of foreign policy, but isolating countries/groups seems to have a fairly dismal track record.

Will: I saw this research a long time ago... I think they also argued that if it does not work at the stage of threats, it won't work. Also, democracies are much more responsive to the threats of isolation, theoretically. Hard empirical analysis would be hard to do because the sample size is probably pretty damn small.

We can assume sanctions against Israel would work if the whole world stood behind them. So we should ask, how realistic is this, on what basis, and would do the prospects of good relations with the Arab world mean?

I would not say Qatar is hypocritical, since they have not exactly been touting anything but a soft position, anyways. I do not think the Arab boycott has truly existed since Egypt got off board in the late 1970s. So asking if it is legitimate is hypothetical. If it existed, it would be, though.

In principle, I am against normalizing Israel until it has clearly defined borders, a clear demarcation of its polity, and lives up to its obligations under international law -- in the context of a just and viable solution with the Palestinians. Until then, recognizing Israel without its recognition of the Palestinians is one-sided and
legitimizing criminality.

I do not see how accomodationism could bring about peace. Eretz Yisrael is a non-negotiable ideological strain, first, and the settlements are internalized in the Israeli public's worldview. Accommodation means accepting these fundamentals, which strike at the heart of Palestinian rights.

Emily: What about the fact that Palestinian civil society has called for boycott/divestment/sanctions? I for one think that we should be listening to what they are saying, and doing our best to implement where we can, for the mere fact that they are the ones calling for it. This probably does not translate to the govenrnmental level, at least not at this juncture. However there are many areas where resolutions can be passed and where choices not to participate/invite/invest can be made and publicized.

That said, I am working in Israel. Does this violate what I'm saying above?

Fadi: That's right, I think sanctioning dictatorships (eg. Iraq, Cuba) or populations that were never in a position of prosperity to revert to (HAMAS) is clearly different from boycotting governments that are accountable to a people that are benefactors of a system that oppresses others. The Apartheid regime in South Africa, like that in Israel, does have a population that it is accountable to. I'm not sure why you would bring up Iraq or Cuba, I think we can agree that their dictators don't care about their constituents and are not accountable to their constituents - so there's a good chance isolation will not work there. Despite your opposition to boycotting Apartheid South Africa, you can't dismiss the isolation of South Africa that led whites there to realize that "ok, we can no longer benefit from Apartheid, let's choose a new path." If we can agree on isolating Israel as a means to liberate Palestinians, then we can discuss the
details (such as travel restrictions on Palestinian citizens of Israel).

But i do think that Qatar and other Arab states are hypocritical. If there are no official policies on boycott in a certain Arab state, I do think these dictators do frequently evoke the Palestinian cause, and express support for Palestinians, to their people. They do not support the Palestinian people, they exploit the Palestinian people. The regimes care about filling their pockets and insulating themselves (e.g.., by strengthening themselves politically in the global arena);
engaging in economic deals with Israel is not something done out of necessity - or at least a morally pure necessity (maybe they think they need to do it in order to retain their authoritarian rule). I would not see them as hypocrites if they normalized relations with Israel while not pretending to be strong supporters of the Palestinian struggle.

Maybe some disagree, but I wouldn't be surprised if the U.S. policy of sanctioning HAMAS and punishing the civilian population will lead to some shift in the next election, if there ever is one. That is, I wouldn't be surprised if that policy works. It's a disgusting policy, and it's a much different situation, and certainly isolating Israel will not lead to a humanitarian crisis such as that which exists in Gaza (and existed in Gaza before Hamas, before Fatah, before the PLO) or that which existed under Iraq's dictatorship during the sanctions.

CLICK HERE FOR:

Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel

Palestine BDS Campaign

Divestment Support Committee

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Racism, History and Video Tape in South Africa

A video of white students at South Africa's University of Free State forcing black employees to eat food that contains urine raises questions about the current state of racial affairs in South Africa.

BBC featured part of the video on its website and had a picture of it with the caption:
The alleged victims vomited after being made to eat fouled food.

What wording, "alleged"! Why not write, "The alleged victims allegedly vomited after allegedly being made to eat allegedly fouled alleged food"?

As South African professor, Sean Jacobs wrote on the Guardian's blog, the BBC has been mighty gentle on this one:

If the BBC's tone is anything to go by, get ready for some apologetic reporting.

The BBC used scare quotes to describe the incident. As a friend reminded me, why, in reporting an appalling recent incidence of abuse of blacks by whites in South Africa, did the BBC opt to use quotes? The headline reads "Outcry in SA over 'racist' video". So which is it - is it racist? Or is it merely "racist"?

This incident brought about widespread outrage in South Africa. It was widely cast as a racist prank.

Some, especially those unfamiliar with the historical context of systematic racial degradation in South Africa (i.e. BBC?), may not see this as more than a harmless college prank.


I highly doubt it was meant to be harmless (as safiyyah points out in the comments section, the video showed a "prankster" saying "That is what we think of integration") as the BBC allows.

For the sake of argument, let us assume it was. In such a case, there is a bigger problem with the education system and the entire reconciliation process. No matter their intentions, they should know this act is loaded with meaning, as whites in South Africa interacting with blacks. Historical amnesia when it comes to oppression -- as exhibited by too many white South Africans -- is a luxury of the privileged.

If they did not understand the weight of their actions, then they are not learning about what is needed for true reconciliation -- a remembrance of the past. As Jacobs' piece explores, the "post" in post-Apartheid South Africa is a weak qualifier. The country still suffers from segregation and a vast income and quality of life disparity.

Does this mean that every time a white person does something wrong to a black person it is racist? No, but that white person carries a historical burden and needs to understand how his or her actions will be seen in light of that rich historical context.

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Apartheid South Africa and Israel Today

All this talk about Desmond Tutu's speech at St. Thomas University -- which he was disinvited, then re-invited to -- got me thinking about South African voices on the Israel apartheid debate. Here is another anti-apartheid campaigner, professor Farid Esack, drawing the parallels.


Farid Esack, a visiting professor at Harvard Divinity School, is the author of Qur'an, Liberation and Pluralism: An Islamic Perspective of Interreligious Solidarity against Oppression and On Being a Muslim: Finding a Religious Path in the World Today.

A former national commissioner on gender equality appointed by President Nelson Mandela, Esack was active in the struggle against apartheid in the United Democratic Front and the Call of Islam. His current major field of research and activism is the response of Islam to AIDS; he founded Positive Muslims, an organization working with Muslims who are HIV positive in South Africa.

[tarboush tip: Leo Africanus and Monthly Review]

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KABOBfest EXCLUSIVE: Desmond Tutu is a Nazi, Terrorist, Baathist anti-Semite

As mentioned by Will in this post, St. Thomas University administrators cancelled a talk scheduled for this Spring by Nobel Laureate and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The anti-free-flow-of-information administrators banned Tutu because he has made some statements "against Israeli policy." In particular, Doug Hennes, St. Thomas's vice president for university and government relations, lambasted Tutu for "compar[ing] the state of Israel to Hitler." While initially it was thought that Hennes was either outright fabricating this allegation or was spoon-fed this false information (for Tutu has never compared Israel to Hitler), KABOBfest investigative reporter Chaim Sugarman has uncovered a number of incriminating photos that will surely vindicate St. Thomas University's seemingly insane decision:

Here Tutu plans the mass killing of Jews with Hitler in Berlin, 1939. This probably explains why Israel publicly supported white supremacy and South African Apartheid until its demise

This picture was taken in 1999 (as you can see from the length of bin Laden's beard, the camera's date setting of 1996 is obviously incorrect). According to Mort Klein of the Zionist Organization of America, here Tutu and bin Laden are planning 9-11 in one of Saddam's bunkers (turns out Saddam was sheltering him all along). Can you believe this guy was almost allowed to speak at one of our Universities! (photo credit: Will "free speach" Youmans - ya, he was there too)

Tutu with Saddam: for years Tutu was mistaken for Donald Rumsfeld in this photo; turns out that was just a photoshop job by the America/God-hating liberal media

(Tarboush Tip: Nadeem the resident photoshop expert)

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Today In History

1964: South Africa banned from Olympics

And more than four decades later, the IOC stands in far lower moral grounds: It seems uncritical of next years host's, China, human rights record, and continues to allow an apartheid regime, Israel, to partake in the games. Humans lack of perspective and inability to learn from history is mind-boggling.

South Africa has been barred from taking part in the 18th Olympic Games in Tokyo over its refusal to condemn apartheid.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced the decision in Lausanne, Switzerland, after South Africa failed to meet an ultimatum to comply with its demands by 16 August.

The IOC originally withdrew South Africa's invitation to Japan during the winter games in Innsbruck, Austria.

It said the decision could be overturned only if South Africa renounced racial discrimination in sport and opposed the ban in its own country on competition between white and black athletes.

Read more at BBC.com

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Mapping Apartheid

The Washington Post actually published this Btselem map of Israel's Apartheid Wall and the matrix of control formed by other Israeli mechanisms. I commend the paper for including on the map the Israeli-only bypass roads, represented by the grey lines. When you take the Israeli-controlled areas and the settlements into account, you quickly see why I and many others claim Israel is creating a series of Palestinian bantustans, disconnected patches of Palestinian areas Israel controls from every angle.

The Post ran a story on the wall as well. The first paragraph describes the wall's chief planner , a"retired army colonel," as a "leading actor in Israel's modern story of statehood, conquest and the volatile task of erecting a boundary that divides Arab from Jew." Without much surprise, he also happens to be a settler -- a modern-day colonizer who thinks the Jews are entitled to more land that happens to be under the Palestinians.

It is deeply troubling how much this sort of language of separation replicates the logic of segregation and apartheid, which the separated people fought in great civil rights struggles. What is even more disturbing is how such logic can be repeated by American journalists and academics without even a pause nor awareness of the obvious analogue.

The Supreme Court of the United States recognized that the formula of "separate but equal" was a fallacious one. Yet, it is the basis for the mainstream view of what "peace" entails in Israel-Palestine. How foolish it is for American thinkers -- people who should know better -- to fail to apply their own history to a conflict their country has a central role in maintaining. The idea of separating Palestinians and Israelis has only amounted to further oppression of the Palestinians.

Nonsense, many Zionuts and other ignoramuses, will declare. They will charge that there was never such bloodshed and violence between blacks and whites in America or South Africa. If they counted all the slaves that dies in the trade of humans, the lynching, the outcome of an evil criminal justice system that for decades punished excessively any black it could (and still disproportionately punishes them), then they would see that the violence between Palestinians and Israelis is actually tame in comparison.

The biggest obstacle to peace is simply the fact that those in power would rather sacrifice rights and equality for continuing a history of dispossession, control, and systematic violence. By "those in power," I mean the US government and Israel of course. The ones with the power and weapons control the terms of the conflict -- not the dispossessed, the refugees, and the downtrodden. Thinking that such an imposing and grotesque wall keeping a people divided and suffering will bring about progress is a flight of ahistorical fantasy.

[tarboush tip: Yasser]

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A South African in Palestine

The first vice-president of the South African Municipal Workers' Union (SAMWU) received first-class Israeli treatment as he attempted to fly from South Africa to Israel-Palestine. Mr. Xolile Nxu went through a process all too familiar to many Palestinians. He was “detained, interrogated and strip searched by Israeli security” in the South African airport he was flying out of.

The purpose of Mr. Nxu’s trip was to attend the Second Annual Conference on Popular Non-Violent Resistance held in the West Bank village of Bil’in. According to a press statement by SAMWU, the conference attracted 400 people from across the world. Mr Nxu addressed South African resistance to apartheid, and what Palestinians can learn.

His lessons are especially timely as American, Israeli and Palestinian officials are leaving some with the impression that a breakthrough to a peace settlement may be near. It is clear that power brokers aim to resume the same peace efforts that failed in the past on the same two-state formula.

Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert began issuing statements that appear to be warming the public up for possible re-deployments from “many areas” in the Occupied West Bank.

Despite the warm words, politically, a solution seems as farfetched as ever. They are trying to sell the biggest weakness of peace talks now as the reason for the possibility of progress: the division among Palestinian leadership.

Olmert and others are now willing to discuss a settlement with the Western-backed Palestinian head Mahmoud Abbas because he removed Hamas from the cabinet last month. According to Olmert, Abbas' new cabinet is “a representative government with which we can negotiate.”

The problem is that Abbas’ government is not actually representative. It does not include the winning party of the last elections, Hamas. Even former Secretary of State Colin Powell recognized the failure of such an approach. He said, “I don't think you can just cast them into outer darkness and try to find a solution to the problems of the region without taking to account the standing that Hamas has in the Palestinian community.”

The American strategy is to work on the West Bank first, effectively dividing and secluding Gaza. This is a continuation of the Israeli strategy to divide Palestine into South African-style bantustans, which are disconnected patches of territory the natives will be allowed nominal rule over.

The bantustanization of the West Bank accelerated during the Oslo peace process. Military checkpoints, roadblocks, Israeli-only bypass roads, closed military zones, and settlements turned the West Bank into a series of disconnected clusters of Palestinian towns and villages.

In his travels to the West Bank, Nxu concluded that “Israeli apartheid is worse than South African apartheid.” The South African union leader pointed to the Apartheid Wall running through Palestinian towns, the “forced removals of Palestinians from Jerusalem, the imprisonment of children, the humiliation of Palestinians at checkpoints, the theft of their land and house demolitions.” Also, the level of violence Israel exacts on the Palestinians far exceeds anything the South African government did.

As with the fight against apartheid in South Africa, the role of the United States is a destructive one. “America,” according to Mr. Nxu, “is supporting the consolidation of Israeli apartheid.”

By supporting talks between Israel and an unrepresentative government, it is clear the United States is pushing a bantustan policy. This guarantees the Palestinians will be too weak to resist Israeli designs, leaving any Palestinian state dysfunctional and subject to continued external Israeli rule. Sadly, the corrupt leaders of the Palestinian Authority are along for the ride.

Mr. Nxu’s return flight was also degrading. He was detained for eight hours, interrogated again, and threatened physically as he was questioned about the names of the Palestinian conference organizers. Still, he talked about returning. “I want to return to a one state democratic Palestine and not a bantustan homeland, next time I go back. Any two state solution will simply be a bantustan solution.”

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Happy Birthday Sexy!!!

Nelson Mandela turns 89 today.

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More On The Boycott

In addition to the British academic and trade unions that have decided or planning to boycott Israel, South Africa's largest trade union is mulling a similar move:

South Africa's largest trade union federation will launch a campaign against "the Israeli occupation of Arab lands" this week, demanding that Pretoria impose a boycott on all Israeli goods and break diplomatic relations. South African Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils, who is Jewish, told Haaretz that he actively supported the initiative - which contradicts the policy of his own cabinet.

On the other side, Norway has decided to break away from the Israeli-US led embargo of the Palestinian government, and resume direct aid.

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Don't Pay Attention To This New Law

I my self was surprised it took the Israeli's until now to impose this new form of segregation and apartheid. Effective January 19th, Israeli's and tourists are banned from transporting Palestinians in their cars, even within the confines of the West Bank ghettos.

With all the crap the Israeli's have been dishing out, I had just assumed that us riding along with foreign tourists and Israeli's how still tolerate us was illegal already. I must apologize to the Israeli's for passing judgment on them too soon. I must not be bothered by Israeli apartheid between now an the 19th of January.

Furthermore, the way the marshal law was slipped in meant to take advantage of other items, mostly unrelated or irrelevant, occupying the news cycle. So please, don't pay attention.

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Great Oped in Philadelphia Inquirer

Truth at last, while breaking a U.S. taboo of criticizing Israel
By George Bisharat

Americans owe a debt to former President Jimmy Carter for speaking long hidden but vital truths. His book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid breaks the taboo barring criticism in the United States of Israel's discriminatory treatment of Palestinians. Our government's tacit acceptance of Israel 's unfair policies causes global hostility against us.

Israel 's friends have attacked Carter, a Nobel laureate who has worked tirelessly for Middle East peace, even raising the specter of anti-Semitism. Genuine anti-Semitism is abhorrent. But exploiting the term to quash legitimate criticism of another system of racial oppression, and to tarnish a principled man, is indefensible. Criticizing Israeli government policies - a staple in Israeli newspapers - is no more anti-Semitic than criticizing the Bush administration is anti-American.

The word apartheid typically evokes images of former South Africa , but it also refers to any institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another. Carter applies the term only to Israel 's rule of the occupied Palestinian territories, where it has established more than 200 Jewish-only settlements and a network of roads and other services to support them. These settlements violate international law and the rights of Palestinian property owners. Carter maintains that "greed for land," not racism, fuels Israel 's settlement drive. He is only partially right.

Israel is seizing land and water from Palestinians for Jews. Resources are being transferred, under the guns of Israel 's military occupation, from one disempowered group - Palestinian Christians and Muslims - to another, preferred group - Jews. That is racism, pure and simple.

Moreover, there is abundant evidence that Israel discriminates against Palestinians elsewhere. The "Israeli Arabs" - about 1.4 million Palestinian Christian and Muslim citizens who live in Israel - vote in elections. But they are a subordinated and marginalized minority. The Star of David on Israel 's flag symbolically tells Palestinian citizens: "You do not belong." Israel 's Law of Return grants rights of automatic citizenship to Jews anywhere in the world, while those rights are denied to 750,000 Palestinian refugees who were forced or fled in fear from their homes in what became Israel in 1948.

Israel 's Basic Law of Human Dignity and Liberty establishes the state as a "Jewish democracy" although 24 percent of the population is non-Jewish. Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel , counted 20 laws that explicitly privilege Jews over non-Jews.

The government favors Jews over Palestinians in the allocation of resources. Palestinian children in Israel attend "separate and unequal" schools that receive a fraction of the funding awarded to Jewish schools, according to Human Rights Watch. Many Palestinian villages, some predating the establishment of Israel , are unrecognized by the government, do not appear on maps, and thus receive no running water, electricity, or access roads. Since 1948, scores of new communities have been founded for Jews, but none for Palestinians, causing them severe residential overcrowding.

Anti-Arab bigotry is rarely condemned in Israeli public discourse, in which Palestinians are routinely construed as a "demographic threat." Palestinians in Israel 's soccer league have played to chants of "Death to Arabs!" Israeli academic Daniel Bar-Tal studied 124 Israeli school texts, finding that they commonly depicted Arabs as inferior, backward, violent, and immoral. A 2006 survey revealed that two-thirds of Israeli Jews would refuse to live in a building with an Arab, nearly half would not allow a Palestinian in their home, and 40 percent want the government to encourage emigration by Palestinian citizens. Last March, Israeli voters awarded 11 parliamentary seats to the Israel Beitenu Party, which advocates drawing Israel 's borders to exclude 500,000 of its current Palestinian citizens.

Some say that Palestinian citizens in Israel enjoy better circumstances than those in surrounding Arab countries. Ironically, white South Africans made identical claims to defend their version of apartheid, as is made clear in books such as Antjie Krog's Country of My Skull.

Americans are awakening to the costs of our unconditional support of Israel . We urgently need frank debate to chart policies that honor our values, advance our interests, and promote a just and lasting peace in the Middle East . It is telling that it took a former president, immune from electoral pressures, to show the way.

The debate should now be extended. Are Israel 's founding ideals truly consistent with democracy? Can a state established in a multiethnic milieu be simultaneously "Jewish" and "democratic"? Isn't strife the predictable yield of preserving the dominance of Jews in Israel over a native Palestinian population? Does our unconditional aid merely enable Israel to continue abusing Palestinian rights with impunity, deepening regional hostilities and distancing peace? Isn't it time that Israel lived by rules observed in any democracy - including equal rights for all?
--

George Bisharat (bisharat@uchastings.edu) is a professor of law at University of California Hastings College of the Law. He writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East .

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Israelis Adopt What South Africa Dropped

Israelis adopt what South Africa dropped
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By John Dugard

Former President Jimmy Carter's new book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," is igniting controversy for its allegation that Israel practices a form of apartheid.

As a South African and former anti-apartheid advocate who visits the Palestinian territories regularly to assess the human rights situation for the U.N. Human Rights Council, the comparison to South African apartheid is of special interest to me.

On the face of it, the two regimes are very different. Apartheid was a system of institutionalized racial discrimination that the white minority in South Africa employed to maintain power over the black majority. It was characterized by the denial of political rights to blacks, the fragmentation of the country into white areas and black areas (called Bantustans) and by the imposition on blacks of restrictive measures designed to achieve white superiority, racial separation and white security.

The "pass system," which sought to prevent the free movement of blacks and to restrict their entry to the cities, was rigorously enforced. Blacks were forcibly "relocated," and they were denied access to most public amenities and to many forms of employment. The system was enforced by a brutal security apparatus in which torture played a significant role.

The Palestinian territories — East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza — have been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. Although military occupation is tolerated and regulated by international law, it is considered an undesirable regime that should be ended as soon as possible. The United Nations for nearly 40 years has condemned Israel's military occupation, together with colonialism and apartheid, as contrary to the international public order.

different from that of apartheid. It is not designed as a long-term oppressive regime but as an interim measure that maintains law and order in a territory following an armed conflict and pending a peace settlement. But this is not the nature of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Since 1967 Israel has imposed its control over the Palestinian territories in the manner of a colonizing power, under the guise of occupation. It has permanently seized the territories' most desirable parts — the holy sites in East Jerusalem, Hebron and Bethlehem and the fertile agricultural lands along the western border and in the Jordan Valley — and settled its own Jewish "colonists" throughout the land.

Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories has many features of colonization. At the same time it has many of the worst characteristics of apartheid. The West Bank has been fragmented into three areas — north (Jenin and Nablus), center (Ramallah) and south (Hebron) — which increasingly resemble the Bantustans of South Africa.

Restrictions on freedom of movement imposed by a rigid permit system enforced by some 520 checkpoints and roadblocks resemble, but in severity go well beyond, apartheid's "pass system." And the security apparatus is reminiscent of that of apartheid, with more than 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons and frequent allegations of torture and cruel treatment.

Many aspects of Israel's occupation surpass those of the apartheid regime. Israel's large-scale destruction of Palestinian homes, leveling of agricultural lands, military incursions and targeted assassinations of Palestinians far exceed any similar practices in apartheid South Africa. No wall was ever built to separate blacks and whites.

Following the worldwide anti-apartheid movement, one might expect a similarly concerted international effort united in opposition to Israel's abhorrent treatment of the Palestinians. Instead one finds an international community divided between the West and the rest of the world. The Security Council is prevented from taking action because of the U.S. veto and European Union abstinence. And the United States and the European Union, acting in collusion with the United Nations and the Russian Federation, have in effect imposed economic sanctions on the Palestinian people for having, by democratic means, elected a government deemed unacceptable to Israel and the West. Forgotten is the commitment to putting an end to occupation, colonization and apartheid.

In these circumstances, the United States should not be surprised if the rest of the world begins to lose faith in its commitment to human rights. Some Americans — rightly — complain that other countries are unconcerned about Sudan's violence-torn Darfur region and similar situations in the world. But while the United States itself maintains a double standard with respect to Palestine it cannot expect cooperation from others in the struggle for human rights.

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John Dugard is a South African law professor teaching in the Netherlands. He is currently Special Rapporteur (reporter) on Palestine to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

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Learning From South Africa?

Last week, Will profiled Ali Abunimah’s new book One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. If you haven’t yet listened to the KABOBcast of Abunimah’s November 17th talk at The Palestine Center, you can do so here.

In any case, I came across a passage in the books fifth chapter, Learning from South Africa, that I thought both KABOBfans and haters alike would find interesting to discuss and/or debate:

The [African National Congress’] breakthrough was its ability to transcend narrow nationalism. In the ANC’s view, as [Mahmoud] Mamdani [a leading Africanist scholar] explains:

“The problem was not the settler but the settler state, the legal setup that guaranteed settler privilege. Without a state that legally discriminated between settler and native, there would be no settler privilege and, thus, no settler, since all settlers would become as immigrants whose historical origins would cease to have significance in law. The enemy from this point of view was everyone who defended the power of the settler state. Instead of embracing the mirror image of settler ideology – by turning the identity of ‘native’ from a racial stigma into a badge of racial pride – the promise of post-apartheid South Africa was to let go of both ‘settler’ and ‘native’ as twin political identities generated by the settler state. As the ANC put it so subversively in its Freedom Charter, South Africa belongs to all those who live in it.”

Mandela accepted Afrikaners’ claims that they were true Africans, which often put him at odds with black nationalists. He did observe, however, that “the Afrikaner had stoutly defended his independence against British imperialism and struck a blow for nationalism. Now the descendants of those same freedom fighters were persecuting my people who were struggling for precisely the same thing the Afrikaners had once fought and died for.” Mandela was able to accept his enemy’s narrative without compromising on the demand that Afrikaners relinquish their exclusive claim on power. Mandela urged South Africans to embrace any Afrikaner who abandoned apartheid, and thus Afrikaners gained a legitimacy in the eyes of other South Africans that they were unable to wrest through centuries of domination. (p. 148 – 149)

While many believe that both Israelis and Palestinians can apply a lot of the lessons learned from South Africa’s experience with apartheid and reconciliation to the conflict / impasse that they currently face, I wonder to what degree does KABOBfest’s readership believe that the actions outlined in the above passage should influence the PLO’s relationship with and/or strategy towards Israel.

Social theorists like Paulo Freire have long argued that only the oppressed are capable of liberating themselves because oppressors benefiting from the status quo face no incentive to change – but in order for this liberation to take place, they must first liberate their oppressors from the (often subconscious) mentality of dehumanization that runs rampant within oppressive societies. They assert that this liberation of mentality – an awakening of sorts – can only be initiated by the oppressed community and usually manifests in some form of social action (which may include anything from non-violent civil disobedience to terrorism) and education. It’s believed that both tactics must be utilized simultaneously in order to (1) make the subjugation of the oppressed community too costly to continue, and (2) provide both communities with a peaceful, just, and equitable solution to their tangled dilemmas. Simply put (and as unfair is it may sound), the responsibility for creating a positive and progressive change falls upon the backs of those who are oppressed.

Taking into account what we know (or may think we know) about the South African experience – and paying particular attention to the above passage – I’d like to hear what those who follow KABOBfest think about all this…

Is Palestinian nationalism the “mirror image” of Zionist settler ideology? If so, what does that mean for the “peace process”? Can either community achieve peace and work towards reconciliation with these nationalisms intact? Is the onus on the Palestinian leadership to make the initial ideological compromise - accepting Zionist claims that European Jewry has a “true” and equal right to historic Palestine as do Palestinian natives? Is it fair to ask of them go down this road alone (at least initially)? Is this what Arafat attempted to do at Oslo? If so, did he not succeed because Palestinians weren’t able to fully commit to such a large ideological compromise, or because Israel wasn’t (and still isn’t) ready to “relinquish [its] exclusive claim on power”? Or was it both? Is it possible to accept the Zionist “narrative without compromising on the demand that” Zionists recognize and honor the Palestinian people’s right to live freely and equally in all of historical Palestine? Is Hamas’ refusal to recognize Israel’s supposed “right to exist” an ideological and/or strategic step forward, backward, or does it just maintain the conflict’s current state of affairs? Whether one or two states is the solution – it’s obvious that some sort of reconciliation must (eventually) take place between both communities… when will they be – or are they already – ready for this to begin? Etc…

Feel free to raise your own questions - or attempt to answer any of the ones I've posed.

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