'Jewish State' Has Become an Anachronism
By Tony Judt, Los Angeles Times 10/10/2003
At the dawn of the 20th century, in the twilight of the continental empires, Europe's subject peoples dreamed of forming "nation-states," territorial homelands where Poles, Czechs, Serbs, Armenians and others might live free, masters of their own fate. When the Hapsburg and Romanov empires collapsed after World War I, a flurry of new states did emerge. The first thing they did was privilege their national "ethnic" majority — defined by language or religion or antiquity or all three — at the expense of inconvenient local minorities, who were consigned to second-class status.
But one nationalist movement — Zionism — was frustrated in its ambitions. It was only in 1948 that a Jewish nation-state was belatedly established in formerly Ottoman Palestine. But the founders of the Jewish state had been influenced by the same concepts and categories as their fin de siecle contemporaries back in Warsaw, Odessa and Bucharest. Not surprisingly, Israel's ethno-religious self-definition and its discrimination against internal "foreigners" have always had more in common with, say, the practices of post-Hapsburg Romania than either party might care to acknowledge.
The problem with Israel, in short, is not, as is sometimes suggested, that it is a European enclave in the Arab world but rather that it arrived too late. It has imported a characteristically late-19th-century separatist project into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers and international law. The very idea of a "Jewish state" — a state in which Jews and the Jewish religion have exclusive privileges from which non-Jewish citizens are forever excluded — is rooted in another time and place. Israel, in short, is an anachronism.
In one vital attribute, however, Israel is different from previous insecure, defensive microstates born of imperial collapse: It is a democracy. But thanks to its occupation of the lands conquered in 1967, Israel today faces three unattractive choices.
Testimony: Life under curfew
By Nadyya Aziz, FromOccupiedPalestine.org 10/9/2003
We met with Nadyya behind the locked steel green doors of an internet café in Jenin. She was breaking curfew in order to communicate with her children in Jordan, and connect with the outside world after five days of 24-hour curfew.
In 1969 Nadyya left Jenin, where she was born, to study English literature in Jordan. She returned to Palestine after 30 years to work as a government translator in Ramallah in the department of International Relations and moved back to Jenin in 2000 to work for the municipality.
She has been working to acquire residency since arriving back in Palestine, but the process is dependent upon the Israeli government – which has broken off communication with the Palestinian Authority. Because she is without residency, she cannot travel throughout Palestine, for at each checkpoint she risks deportation. For this reason, Nadyya has not seen her children – two sons, 29 and 25, and one daughter, 23 – in more than two years. She is 53 years old.
Her testimony was transcribed to the crackle of gunfire, rumble of tanks and the wail of the Palestine Red Crescent ambulance sirens – signalling the end of a four hour lifting of curfew, the first reprieve in five days. Curfew is in place again indefinitely.
The mirror of fire and tears
By Laura Gordon, Electronic Intifada 10/10/2003
9 October 2003 -- Thus Yom Kippur (October 6th), the most holy day on the Jewish calendar, the day of atonement in which we are supposed to cease every form of work in order to pray and request forgiveness from God, the Israeli army began construction on a new permanent checkpoint in the Gaza Strip, another slice.
Tanks cut off the main road between Rafah and Khan Younis (the city just north of Rafah) by driving ten tanks right in front of the European Gaza Hospital, the only decent hospital south of Gaza City, and the road has been closed for days. Nothing can get to Rafah, many things in Rafah are simply not available right now, things like medicine, the ability to cash checks, basic supplies.
People who study or work in Gaza City and Khan Younis haven't been to work or university for days. It makes me think of high school, when snow and ice could shut a city down. Upstairs from our apartment, Rasha can't hide the small relief she feels from this reprieve of study. I wonder how much the relief Rasha feels has to do with getting let off the hook from dealing with checkpoints.
A heavenly match: Bush and the Christian Zionists
By Donald Wagner, Daily Star 10/11/2003
When Israel responded to the Netanya suicide bombing in March 2002 by reinvading the West Bank and besieging Jenin, the ensuing international outcry led US President George W. Bush to order Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to withdraw his forces from Palestinian areas. Bush sent a strong message to Sharon at an April 2 news conference: “Withdraw! Withdraw your troops immediately!”
At that point longtime Christian Zionist spokesman and pro-Israel advocate Jerry Falwell and other Christian Zionist leaders, working closely with pro-Israel groups, used their media and internet outlets to mobilize their constituencies to deliver tens of thousands of telephone calls, e-mails and letters to the president, telling him to refrain from pressuring Sharon and to allow Israel to finish its job. In the aftermath of that campaign, Bush did not utter another word of opposition to Israeli military actions. Falwell told the CBS news program 60 Minutes that after the incident, Israel could count on Bush to “do the right thing for Israel every time.” The lesson was that even when the Bush administration criticized Israel, the Israelis, conscious of the extensive support they enjoy in the US Congress, would not take it seriously. As Falwell said: “The Bible Belt is Israel’s safety net in the US.”
The interregnum: Christian Zionism in the Clinton years
By Donald Wagner, Daily Star 10/10/2003
During his two mandates, former US President Bill Clinton increasingly took on the role of chief negotiator and mediator of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although his background had a hint of Southern Baptist evangelicalism, Clinton was more inclined toward the secular Labor Party in Israel and found a close affinity with the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Meanwhile, the Likud-Christian Zionist alliance, which opposed the Oslo Accords, found itself on the political sidelines.
In May 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu became Israel’s prime minister, defeating Shimon Peres. Once again Likud ideology dominated Israeli policy. Netanyahu had long been a favorite of the Christian Zionists, a relationship that developed during his years as Israel’s representative to the UN, and he was a frequent speaker at important Christian Zionist functions, whether the Feast of Tabernacles hosted by the International Christian Embassy-Jerusalem or the annual National Prayer Breakfast for Israel held in Washington.
Playing Sharon’s Game
Editorial, Arab News 10/11/2003
The crisis that has struck the new Palestinian Cabinet with Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei threatening to resign just two days after he was sworn in is appalling. While Israeli tanks attack in Gaza, while Palestinians are being shot and killed, their leaders are squabbling. The Israelis must be laughing; Palestinian disarray is precisely what they want.
The crisis puts the spotlight firmly on Yasser Arafat. Even if it were not his doing, the buck stops with him as president of the Palestinian Authority. But it is his doing. He has already lost one prime minister in his struggle to keep control over the government; he is now in danger of losing a second. That is wholesale irresponsibility. The last thing the Palestinians need when they are under such intensive attack is a power struggle; what they need is firm, united and decisive leadership.
While this struggle continues, there is no chance of getting the peace plan back on track, no chance of ending the oppression, misery and violence that are the daily lot of the Palestinians. Only once there is a new government in place, one which can deliver, is there any possibility of negotiations restarting, of Palestinian freedom perhaps becoming a reality. Without a strong, united Palestinian government, negotiations will remain where Ariel Sharon wants them — in abeyance. It is painful to admit it, but with its squabbling, the Palestinian leadership is acting just like a puppet, with the Israeli leader pulling the strings. It is doing precisely what he wants — and he does not need to lift a finger. It is humiliating.
Why Sharon is dangerous
Ha'aretz 10/11/2003
Why? Because he doesn't even try to keep his promise of peace, and has made his promise of security worthless. Because he is a bloody adventurer who scoffs at dangers, even if you pay the price. Because this week he revived the incitement against the left over a memorandum of understanding that was drafted together with senior Palestinian figures. Because the moves of an especially skilled tactician are especially dangerous.
Plenty of familiar reasons for Sharon being a political ticking bomb spring immediately to mind. Here are several more that occur upon second, and third, thought.
* They believe him: The incredible and dangerous thing is that despite everything, most Israelis still believe him and believe in him. Sharon has honed the art of political deception to such precision that its victims become passive, and even satisfied, observers. This is the Sharon paradox: The situation under his leadership is so terrible that the majority, which yearns for some illusion of an achievement, prefers not to believe that the situation is as abominable as it is.
* The success of failure: This is why Sharon is still able to plant the empty hope that things will get better - if you'll all just wait a little bit, and then some more. Under normal circumstances, this tactic would collapse after three years of such dissonance between hope and despair. But Sharon is very dangerous because of his tremendous ability to get the public, ordinarily known for its cranky skepticism, to suspend its disbelief in direct proportion to the gravity of the national predicament. Paradox number two promises to keep the Sharon danger alive: As the country's plight worsens, Israelis' dependence on a "strongman" who will rescue them from their troubles grows in equal measure - even if the purported savior is largely responsible for getting them into the mess in the first place. Sharon deserves a Nobel Prize for his discovery of "The Success of Failure."
On The Banks Of The Raritan
By Roger H. Lieberman, Palestine Chronicle 10/10/2003
This evening, I was attending a fascinating lecture on the science of infrared and radio astronomy at Rutgers University’s Busch Campus. It was a most enjoyable experience to learn about these brilliant innovations that have revealed to us humans so many wonders of our universe. And it was all the more pleasant for me to learn these things in the company of a student body that reflected the full spectrum of our species. Men and women. Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus. For me, nothing embodies the hope for mankind’s future as much as a cosmopolitan community sharing the gifts of scientific knowledge, as we did tonight.
Driving home tonight, however, I glimpsed a strange spectacle – one that augured of a far less rosy future for our planet. On the far side of the Raritan River, blue searchlights beamed into the sky. The main roads were jammed with incoming traffic. Buses were bringing in scores of people from all over the state of New Jersey. Policemen were stationed at the major intersections. What was all this about, I wondered. Some kind of sports event?
Then it sank into me. This was the much-trumpeted “Israel Inspires” rally, organized by the local representatives of the Zionist lobby as a deliberate, in-your-face gesture, at a time when resentment of Israel’s brutal apartheid regime is reaching fever pitch worldwide. For hardcore Israel enthusiasts, it was a mental eraser to wipe out reality. For advocates of peace and justice in Israel-Palestine, it was, at the same time, both a callous insult and a challenge.
Archaeological theft: creating artifacts on the ground
By Michael R. Fischbach, Daily Star 10/11/2003
The sacking of the National Museum in Baghdad brought the question of the theft of archaeological artifacts and cultural heritage items, or their destruction, to a renewed level of global awareness.
The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, and the Washington Pact of 1935, deal with the requirement of belligerent powers to protect cultural property. The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (which entered into effect on Aug. 7, 1956) also forbids the removal of cultural artifacts by an occupying power. In fact, such theft and destruction go back decades in the Middle East, and the Arab-Israeli conflict has been particularly fraught with such incidents.
For example, both Israeli and Jordanian authorities failed to prevent the desecration or destruction of religious sites and cemeteries after the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. Israel allowed the desecration of the Muslim Mamilla Cemetery in West Jerusalem, and Jordan allowed the same in the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem.
Controversy again emerged after Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including eastern Jerusalem, in June 1967. Israeli archeologists carried out numerous digs in the territory after 1967 and Palestinians claimed they were pillaging their cultural artifacts. So sensitive had this issue become that the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations early on addressed Israeli digs in the so-called Area C of the West Bank.
Iran and Israel: best of enemies?
By William Samii, Daily Star 10/11/2003
The prospective Israel-Hizbullah prisoner swap that has been discussed in recent weeks is perhaps more than a bilateral deal that also happens to involve Iran and Germany. Given the close relationship between Tehran and Hizbullah, Iranian involvement was not entirely unexpected. This leads one to reflect on the prospects for an improvement in Iranian-Israeli relations Iranian interests cannot rule this out even if such an option is highly improbable at present.
According to press reports, Israel seeks information on the whereabouts of air force navigator Ron Arad, the remains of three Israeli soldiers and the release of Israeli reservist and businessman Elhanan Tennenbaum. In return, Hizbullah wants the release of all Lebanese prisoners, including two officials directly or indirectly affiliated with the party, Abdul Karim Obeid and Mustafa Dirani, as well as that of Palestinian and Arab detainees.
The Iranian angle was hinted at in early August in the Tel Aviv Russian-language daily Novosti Nedeli. Citing anonymous Israeli government sources, the daily said that during Iranian-American negotiations over the possible exchange of Al-Qaeda suspects in Iran for members of the Iranian Mujahideen Khalq opposition group in Iraq, an Iranian representative raised the possibility of releasing Tennenbaum and repatriating the dead soldiers’ remains. Washington reportedly rejected the proposal, but according to Novosti Nedeli the Iranian and Israeli sides pursued their talks. Added to the mix was Tehran’s demand that four Iranian diplomats who disappeared in Lebanon in 1982 be released. Iran believes Israel is holding them.
What If: Bombing Syria, A Strategy for Self Defense
By Jennifer Lowenstein, Palestine Chronicle 10/10/2003
Israel made a wise decision when it decided to bomb Syria on October 5th. As a result, the Palestinian terrorist organization Islamic Jihad has called a halt to all suicide bombings. The parents of the 29-year-old female suicide bomber who blew herself up inside Maxim's restaurant in Haifa on Saturday have sent a letter of apology to the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, and to the Mayor of Haifa. In their letter they state explicitly that they would have expected no more fitting a punishment than the demolition of their family home, the measure taken by the IDF after the bombing, and that they are saddened and bewildered by their daughter's action. "We accept our displacement with dignity and take upon ourselves full responsibility for our daughter's senseless action," they wrote. In response to this unprecedented letter, Israeli military authorities stationed outside Jenin offered relatives of the dead woman a thirty-minute reprieve from all travel restrictions, issuing them temporary passes for free travel throughout the northern West Bank if curfew is lifted within the next 24 hours.
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