ISRAELI OCCUPATION FORCES STORM HEBRON COLLEGE AND ARREST EIGHT STUDENTS

Photo 1 & 2: the new college expansion facing the threat of demolition - Photos courtesy of LRC

Academic Freedom - Israeli Style
You won't find defenders of 'academic freedom' such as Engage taking up issues such as the attack in Hebron on a Palestinian college. Academic freedom is only for the settler society, not the colonised. Such is the hypocrisy of those such as Goldsmith lecturer, David Hirsh, whose hypocrisy is such that his fellow academic colleagues refused to elect him to the UCU National Council.

Tony Greenstein

On the 30th October 2008, at 10:15 a.m. the Israeli army stormed the faculty of the Palestine Technical College in Aroub Refugee Camp, Hebron and arrested students from some of the classrooms. The students were blindfolded, shackled and then repeatedly beaten, slapped and punched all over the body. They were then taken to Gush Etzion military detention centre. At 9:00 pm two of the boys were released, however, eight of them are still in detention. None of the boys are older than 16. Hatem is a teacher in the Palestine Technical College. He states that on the 30th October 2008 at approximately 10:15 a.m. the Israeli Occupation Forces arrived at the college in four military jeeps. Hatem was the only teacher present in the playground area at that time. One of the soldiers shouted at him, 'there are the boys that threw stones' .

Hatem told the soldier that the typical school day is from 8:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. so all of the children were inside their classes. The soldier then pushed Hatem to the ground and ordered the other soldiers to search the college. Around ten soldiers entered the college. They kicked the doors and entered the classrooms where the children were taking their practical classes. They closed the door and one of the soldiers started beating a physically disabled student that was sitting in the first row. The soldiers started yelling at the boys and then pushed one of the students, MD. One of the soldiers grabbed MD and shouted, 'You are the boy that threw the stones'. MD was arrested along with six other boys. The soldiers subsequently entered the other classrooms and began randomly arresting students. They specifically targeted those who were wearing black jackets. The soldiers then took all of the boys to the playground area and prevented the teachers from talking with the students. The soldiers subsequently started to beat one of the students, RB by slapping his face and kicking him on his head. Hatem tried to help him, however, the soldiers threatened to open fire. They then fired stun grenades and live bullets into the playground area. The soldiers continued to beat some of the other detained students. Hatem states that he could hear the students screaming from the beatings, however, he was prevented from doing anything to help them. The director of the college called an ambulance; however, it was delayed due to the soldiers blocking the entrance of the Camp. The soldiers then blindfolded and shackled 19 students and forced them to sit at the base of the military tower at the entrance of the Refugee Camp. After fifteen minutes the soldiers released nine students.

Testimony from 16 year old student taken by Addameer Attorney Firas Sabbah on November 3rd 2008 at Gush Etzion Military Detention Centre.

My name is RB. I was born on the 26th of October 1992. Iג€™m a 10th grade student at the Palestine Technical College where I study agriculture. On the 30th October 2008, as usual I went to school. I was supposed to have an exam that day. At around 10:30 I was terrified when I saw soldiers entering the classroom. They started randomly arresting my classmates. Then the soldier told me to get out of the class. I was taken to the playground area of the school. When the soldier saw me looking at him he grabbed my head and slapped me on the face. He told me to keep my face to the ground. After that he made all of us stand in one row and we were forced to walk one after the other towards the military tower. I lost my place in the row and the soldier hit me on my legs and kicked me. Another soldier beat me until we reached the gate of the Refugee Camp. After that, the soldier laughed in my face and when I looked back he slapped me and beat me so hard on the chest that I felt it was difficult to breathe. I fell to the ground where I continued to be beaten. After about three hours I was blindfolded and shackled and pushed into the military jeep. My blindfold slipped in the process of getting into the jeep so I was beaten again.

The Court Hearing

On November 6, 2008, the eight children were brought to Ofer military court. They had been detained for eight days until they were brought before the court . All boys were charged with throwing stones despite the fact that the evidence is built upon the testimonies of only three soldiers. In this initial hearing, the boysג€™ detention was extended until November 11th 2008. In their defence Addameer Attorney Mahmoud Hassan argued that these children are being detained with adults in an adult facility which is in total violation of international law. On the 28th October, 2008, Adv Hassan used this similar argument to secure the release of two 14 year old boys who were arrested from their homes in Beit Ummar on the 9th October 2008. Each boy was released with a bail of 8,000 NIS (Approx $2,111). Indeed according to Addameer's experience, this is the first time that a military judge has agreed to release children under the pretense that it is illegal for them to be detained with adults. On this occasion, however, the military judge rejected Adv. Hassan's argument and ordered that the boys be detained until the end of trial. Adv. Hassan appealed this decision and called for the boys to be released on bail. The result of this latest appeal will be heard in Ofer Military Court on November 20th, 2008. On December 14th, 2008 the Court will commence with a hearing from the witnesses.

Addameer Statement

Addameer strongly condemns the collective punishment of these school boys and their continued detention without sufficient evidence. The Convention on the Rights of the Child sets up universally recognised principles and norms as minimal standards for children's rights. One fundamental principle of sentencing is that the deprivation of liberty, if used at all, should only be used as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time (Art. 37 (b), CRC). Clearly this is not the case for these eight boys. It should be emphasized that, in accordance with the Convention, every Child without exception whatsoever, has the right to benefit from these standards. According to Israeli military order 132, Palestinian children age 16 and older are treated as adults and are tried and sentenced by Israeli military courts as adults. Israeli military orders are applied to Palestinian children, even as juvenile legislation defines Israeli children as age 18 or younger. Addameer urges the international community to demand that Israel abide by international law and and treat those under the age of 18 as children. In addition Addameer calls on the international community to insist that the Israeli occupation forces stop at once further arrests of Palestinian juveniles in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

See also an article on how the Israeli military is trying to demolish new buildings that have been constructed on the campus of the Palestine Technical College in Hebron.

The Lessons of Kristallnacht

70 years ago, the Nazis launched their infamous pogrom against the Jews of Germany, killing dozens of people and burning hundreds of synagogues and smashing the glass of Jewish shops. Contrary to myth, this was not at all popular among ordinary Germans or even the more middle-class elements of the Nazi Party.

Even Herman Goering was angry at this SA organised pogrom since it was German insurance companies who picked up the bill! Goering imposed a 'fine' of 1 Billion Reichmarks on the Jewish community. The pretext for Krystalnacht was the assasination in Paris of Ernst vom Rath, an official at the German Embassy (ironically he was anti-Nazi) by Herschel Grynszpan, a Jewish youth who had fled to France from Germany (& was later captured in the invasion of France but may well have lived out the war). He killed vom Rath in revenge for the treatment of his parents and many other Ost Juden who had been deported or rather dumped over the Polish border.

One of the persistent arguments of anti-Semites who purport to support the Palestinians, is that any mention of the Nazi holocaust is playing into the hands of the Zionists. As Gilad Atzmon wrote to me on 23.6.2005:

‘I do not have any doubt that our notion of the H will change radically in the near future. Too many discrepancies. and as I said, the only active scholarship is in the hands of the revisionists. The funny bit is that only left Jews are defending the Zio-Anglo-American's H narrative.’

Note the ‘Zio-Anglo-American’s H narrative’ i.e the extermination of millions of Jews and millions of others too. But this is a ‘narrative’ which, according to Atzmon can only benefit the Zionists and it is ‘only left Jews’ who tell it apparently! And of course if the only active scholarship is by revisionists and there are ‘too many discrepancies’ [Atzmon being an expert in these matters!] then the conclusion is obvious. Maybe there was no Holocaust.

I mention this because Canon Paul Ostreicher, whose record on anti-racism - in support of refugees, against Apartheid and with Amnesty International - is second to none. He wrote an excellent article for the Guardian on November 4th which drew all the right parallels between Zionist attitudes to Palestinians and Nazi attitudes to the Jews. Following on from the predictable Zionist attacks, I wrote a letter which was published in the Guardian today.
Tony Greenstein

Seventy years ago this week the Nazis led a brutal attack on German Jews, their businesses and their synagogues, a prelude to the Holocaust. Paul Oestreicher remembers the night terror struck

guardian.co.uk,

Tuesday November 4
A vandalised shop in Berlin on November 17 1938. Businesses and properties owned by Jews were target of vicious Nazi mobs during the night of vandalism that is known as 'Kristallnacht'.

Berliners went wild that day, 19 years ago. The impossible had happened. The Wall had come down. It was November 9 1989. I wasn't there. But I was there on that same date in 1938, 70 years ago. Germans went wild on that day, too. They let loose an orgy of destruction. The synagogues were set ablaze. Jewish shops were smashed up and pillaged. Jewish men were rounded up, beaten up, some to death, many sent to concentration camps. What eventually followed was unthinkable. The streets that night were strewn with broken glass. The Germans called it Kristallnacht, the night not of broken glass but broken crystal, to symbolise the "ill-gotten Jewish riches" Germans would now take from them. Never mind the many Jewish poor. Never mind that Jews such as my grandparents were Germans as deeply patriotic as any of their neighbours.

My Christian father, born to Jewish parents, was in 1938 forbidden, as all Jews were, to continue working as a doctor. From a small provincial town we fled to Berlin with one aim, common to thousands of Jews at that time, to find asylum anywhere beyond the reach of Hitler. An only child, six years old, I was given refuge by kindly non-Jewish friends. Life in their basement flat bore no horrors for me. I simply wondered why I was not allowed to go to school.

My parents had gone underground. My non-Jewish mother had resisted the pressure to divorce her husband and quit a marriage defined by the Nazis as rassenschande, racial disgrace. My father, hoping not to be picked up on the street, as many were, trudged from consulate to consulate, wearing the miniatures of his two iron crosses won in the first world war. Ruefully he said: "In 1918, as a German officer, I fled from the French. Twenty years later, I am fleeing from the Germans."

Now a visa was priceless. The state had confiscated our bank account. We could not bribe our way to safety. With that visa, Nazi Germany could say good riddance. If Kristallnacht had a definable purpose, beyond its pure explosion of hate, it was to make the Jews go away. But, except for the few who had somehow rescued great wealth, the world did not want them.

The day of the great pogrom started much like any other. But a rare treat was in store. My mother came to take me for a walk. As a non-Jew she was not directly threatened. Berlin was bathed in autumn sunshine. We walked to the Tauentzienstrasse, Berlin's Regent Street. For me, the big city was full of wonder - until terror struck. Trucks pulled up at exact intervals. Jack-booted men wielding wooden clubs ran up and down the street and began to smash the windows of the Jewish-owned department stores. My mother grabbed hold of me. We fled. I was soon back in a safe place. My parents left Berlin before the day was out and were hidden in Leipzig by a sympathetic member of the Nazi party. In times of crisis, people are not always what they seem to be.

The search for asylum became more desperate. It took us another three months. Many were not so lucky. Nations met at Evian on Lake Geneva to discuss the plight of Germany's Jews but shrank from their responsibility. No effective policy emerged. At least the Australian delegate was frank: "We have no race problem and we don't want to import one." He and many others around the world bought into Hitler's fanciful racial doctrine. Antisemitism was not just a German aberration. "Why should we import a problem the Germans are so keen to get rid of?" By early 1939, Britain felt "we have done our bit". President Roosevelt firmly refused to increase the American quota.

Our choice narrowed down to Venezuela and New Zealand. The New Zealand government's attitude was like that of its neighbour. Jewish applicants were told explicitly: "We do not think you will integrate into our society. If you insist on applying, expect a refusal." My father did insist. The barriers were high. Either you had a job to come to, at a time of high unemployment, or you had to produce two wealthy guarantors and in addition bring with you, at today's values, £2,000 per head. We were only able to take that hurdle thanks to the generosity of a remarkable Frenchman, a friend of a distant relative. This was the sort of money most refugees could not possibly raise. At a total of 1,000 German, Austrian and Czech Jews, the New Zealand government drew the line. We were lucky. My grandmother, who hoped to follow us, was not. It was too late. She did not survive the Holocaust. Like many others, she chose suicide rather than the cattle-truck journey to Auschwitz. Britain, thanks to a group of persistent lobbyists, at the last moment agreed to take a substantial number of Jewish children. Most were never to see their parents again. Their contribution to British life was significant, now that the stories of the kindertransport are being told.

I tell my story on this anniversary not just for its historic and personal interest, but because it brings into sharp focus the far from humane attitude of Britain, the European Union and many other rich countries to the asylum seekers of today. True, there are now international conventions that did not exist in 1938, but they are seldom obeyed in spirit or in letter. The German sentiment "send them away" has given way in Britain and in many other parts of Europe to "send them back", sometimes to more persecution and even death. Lessons from history are seldom learned.

Dr Peter Selby, president of the National Council of Independent Monitoring Boards, has written with justifiable anger of his experience of Britain's immigration removal centres at ports and airports, which are prisons in all but name. We lock up children, separated from their parents, hold detainees for indefinite periods, and many are made ill by the experience. Those who advocate tougher immigration policies, such as Frank Field's Migration Watch, are accountable, writes Selby, for the coercive instruments - the destitution and detention - that are already being used and will be used even more to enforce it. This is not quite our 1938, but the parallels are deeply disquieting.

An even sadder consequence of this story of anti-Jewish inhumanity is that many of the survivors who fled to Palestine did so at the expense of the local people, the Palestinians, half of whom were driven into exile and their villages destroyed. Their children and children's children live in the refugee camps that now constitute one aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian impasse that embitters Islam and threatens world peace: all that a consequence of Nazi terror and indirectly of the Christian world's persecution of the Jewish people over many centuries.

With fear bred into every Jewish bone, it is tragic that today many Israelis say of the Palestinians, as once the Germans said of them: "The only solution is to send them away."

However understandable this reaction may be, to do so, or even to contemplate it, is a denial of all that is good in Judaism. To create another victim people is to sow the seeds of another holocaust. When, in the 1930s, the Right Rev George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, pleaded in vain for active British support for the German opposition to Hitler, many accused him of being anti-German. The opposite was true. He did not tar all Germans with the Nazi brush. Today, those of us who offer our solidarity to the minority of Israelis working - in great isolation - for justice for the Palestinian people, are often accused of being antisemitic. The opposite is true. It is a tragic parallel.

November 9 is deeply etched into German history. On that day in 1918 the Kaiser abdicated. Germany had lost the first world war. Five years later to the day, Hitler's followers were shot down in the streets of Munich. The Nazis, year by year, celebrated their martyrs. Then came 1938: Kristallnacht. Berlin's Holocaust Memorial and other memorials in many German towns and villages, where once the synagogue stood, are mute reminders of what began that day. But the significance and the shame of that day stretches far beyond those who set the synagogues alight. Who, we need to ask, are the victims now, both near and far, and what is our response?
• Canon Dr Paul Oestreicher is a former chair of Amnesty International UK

Letters November 5th
Canon Paul Oestreicher's moving account of his childhood experiences in Nazi Germany (The legacy of Kristallnacht, G2, November 4) is spoilt by his suggestion of a "tragic parallel" between that event and Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. While the recent spate of attacks by Jewish settlers on their West Bank Arab neighbours is contemptible, it does not remotely constitute a modern-day Kristallnacht. Even during the bloodiest periods of both intafadas there were no state-sponsored mass riots; no Arabs were randomly beaten in the streets; mosque windows were not smashed, nor was Arab property burnt to the ground.

If Oestreicher wants to detect echoes of nazism within the Middle East, perhaps he should start with the Hamas charter, which seeks the destruction of Israel. Indeed the virulence of its antisemitism suggests that at least some of the Hamas leadership nurture genocidal ambitions towards Jews. While over a million Arabs live in Israel proper, the Arab and Muslim worlds have become increasingly Judenfrei.
Sidney Jacobs, Exeter

Letters 10th November
The lessons of Kristallnacht for the modern Middle East
Sidney Jacob's denial (Letters, November 5) of the comparison that Paul Oestreicher draws (The legacy of Kristallnacht, (November 4) is a knee-jerk reaction that seeks to portray Nazi Germany's attitude to the Jews as a unique, one-off occurrence. Unfortunately there are only too many parallels that can be drawn in the period 1933-39.

When Jewish mobs shouted "death to the Arabs" in Acre a few weeks ago, that was certainly reminiscent of pogroms in Europe. When slogans such as "Arabs to the gas chambers" are daubed on the separation wall, the parallels are also clear. When Israeli military and police stand by while Arabs peasants tending their olive groves are assaulted by settlers, and when even international observers are injured, then that brings to mind a similar refusal by authorities in Germany to uphold the law and protect their Jewish inhabitants.

The lesson of Kristallnacht is surely that any group of people, given the right set of circumstances, can become transformed from oppressed to oppressor. Settler colonialism in Israel-Palestine has reduced the Palestinians to a sub-human status. A majority of Israeli Jews in opinion polls have repeatedly made clear that they don't wish to live next door to an Arab and would prefer Israel's own Palestinian citizens to emigrate.

The only part of Paul Oestreicher's article I disagree with is his suggestion that the vast majority of Germans took part in Kristallnacht. It was a state organised, SA pogrom, orchestrated by the gauleiter of Berlin, Josef Goebbels. It was deeply unpopular with ordinary Germans, as Ian Kershaw's Hitler Myth makes clear, but by 1938 the ordinary population had been cowed by the Gestapo and the concentration camp apparatus of Nazi Germany.

Tony Greenstein
Brighton

OBAMA - The Black Face of US Imperialism

Many of my friends and political comrades have seen in Barak Obama a force for change. It is natural that people are joyful and delighted in the fact that, in view of American's history, an Afro-American has been elected President. I share that joy but it is also a good example of how superficial ethnic policies are.

Obama has always been a Democratic centrist. He is no radical. What has made him seem radical was the ageing reactionary McCain and his absurd running mate Palin. Although noone commented on it, in his final debate with McCain he boasted of his role in tort reform in the USA. Most people won't know what this is but simply put, it is a means of protecting powerful corporations from being sued by the people they injure. Interestingly tort reform measures were the first thing Bush did as Governor of Texas.

What Obama will do is to make US imperialism seem more acceptable. No longer the made oil man in the White House, but a descendant of slaves. This is a powerful legitimising force. In this sense the Obama phenomenon is not that different from Zionism. The latter uses the Holocaust to justify the oppression of the Palestinians. Obama uses the legacy of slavery to defend the use of US forces in defence of its economic interests.

The appointment of Rahm Israel Emanuel is a significant sign of the direction Obama will take. We should contrast this with the first prominent Afro-American in US politics, Jimmy Carter's Andrew Young (yes I know most people will say 'Andrew who'). He it was who first met with the PLO thus first challenging the idea that the Palestinians were not entitled to their own political representation without political preconditions. By contrast Obama is what used to be know of as an Uncle Tom.

Tony Greenstein

November 9, 2008 at 11:19:14
Headlined on 11/9/08:
Conned Again
by Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, has held numerous academic appointments. He has been reporting shocking cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new edition of his book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with Lawrence Stratton, a documented account of how Americans lost the protection of law, was published by Random House in March, 2008.
If the change President-elect Obama has promised includes a halt to America's wars of aggression and an end to the rip-off of taxpayers by powerful financial interests, what explains Obama's choice of foreign and economic policy advisors? Indeed, Obama's selection of Rahm Israel Emanuel as White House chief of staff is a signal that change ended with Obama's election. The only thing different about the new administration will be the faces.

Rahm Israel Emanuel is a supporter of Bush's invasion of Iraq. Emanuel rose to prominence in the Democratic Party as a result of his fundraising connections to AIPAC. A strong supporter of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, he comes from a terrorist family. His father was a member of Irgun, a Jewish terrorist organization that used violence to drive the British and Palestinians out of Palestine in order to create the Jewish state. During the 1991 Gulf War, Rahm Israel Emanuel volunteered to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. He was a member of the Freddie Mac board of directors and received $231,655 in directors fees in 2001. According to Wikipedia, "during the time Emanuel spent on the board, Freddie Mac was plagued with scandals involving campaign contributions and accounting irregularities."

In "Hail to the Chief of Staff," Alexander Cockburn describes Emanuel as "a super-Likudnik hawk," who as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006 "made great efforts to knock out antiwar Democratic candidates."

My despondent friends in the Israeli peace movement ask, "What is this man doing in Obama's administration?"

Obama's election was necessary as the only means Americans had to hold the Republicans accountable for their crimes against the Constitution and human rights, for their violations of US and international laws, for their lies and deceptions, and for their financial chicanery. As an editorial in Pravda put it, "Only Satan would have been worse than the Bush regime. Therefore it could be argued that the new administration in the USA could never be worse than the one which divorced the hearts and minds of Americans from their brothers in the international community, which appalled the rest of the world with shock and awe tactics that included concentration camps, torture, mass murder and utter disrespect for international law."

But Obama's advisers are drawn from the same gang of Washington thugs and Wall Street banksters as Bush's. Richard Holbrooke, son of Russian and German Jews, was an assistant secretary of state and ambassador in the Clinton administration. He implemented the policy to enlarge NATO and to place the military alliance on Russia's border in contravention of Reagan's promise to Gorbachev. Holbrooke is also associated with the Clinton administration's illegal bombing of Serbia, a war crime that killed civilians and Chinese diplomats. If not a neocon himself, Holbrooke is closely allied with them.

According to Wikipedia, Madeline Albright was born Marie Jana Korbelova in Prague to Jewish parents who had converted to Catholicism in order to escape persecution. She is the Clinton era secretary of state who told Leslie Stahl (60 Minutes) that the US policy of Iraq sanctions, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, had goals important enough to justify the children's deaths. Albright's infamous words: "we think the price is worth it."

Wikipedia reports that this immoralist served on the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange at the time of Dick Grasso's $187.5 million compensation scandal.

Dennis Ross has long associations with the Israeli-Palestinian "peace negotiations." A member of his Clinton era team, Aaron David Miller, wrote that during 1999-2000 the US negotiating team led by Ross acted as Israel's lawyer: "we had to run everything by Israel first." This "stripped our policy of the independence and flexibility required for serious peacemaking. If we couldn't put proposals on the table without checking with the Israelis first, and refused to push back when they said no, how effective could our mediation be?" According to Wikipedia, Ross is "chairman of a new Jerusalem-based think tank, the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, funded and founded by the Jewish Agency."

Clearly, this is not a group of advisors that is going to halt America's wars against Israel's enemies or force the Israeli government to accept the necessary conditions for a real peace in the Middle East.

Ralph Nader predicted as much. In his "Open Letter to Barack Obama (November 3, 2008), Nader pointed out to Obama that his "transformation from an articulate defender of Palestinian rights . . . to a dittoman for the hard-line AIPAC lobby" puts Obama at odds with "a majority of Jewish-Americans" and "64% of Israelis." Nader quotes the Israeli writer and peace advocate Uri Avnery's description of Obama's appearance before AIPAC as an appearance that "broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning." Nader damns Obama for his "utter lack of political courage [for] surrendering to demands of the hard-liners to prohibit former president Jimmy Carter from speaking at the Democratic National Convention." Carter, who achieved the only meaningful peace agreement between Israel and the Arabs, has been demonized by the powerful AIPAC lobby for criticizing Israel's policy of apartheid toward the Palestinians whose territory Israel forcibly occupies.

Obama's economic team is just as bad. Its star is Robert Rubin, the bankster who was secretary of the treasury in the Clinton administration. Rubin has responsibility for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and, thereby, responsibility for the current financial crisis. In his letter to Obama, Nader points out that Obama received unprecedented campaign contributions from corporate and Wall Street interests. "Never before has a Democratic nominee for President achieved this supremacy over his Republican counterpart."

Obama's victory speech was magnificent. The TV cameras scanning faces in the audience showed the hope and belief that propelled Obama into the presidency. But Obama cannot bring change to Washington. There is no one in the Washington crowd that he can appoint who is capable of bringing change. If Obama were to reach outside the usual crowd, anyone suspected of being a bringer of change could not get confirmed by the Senate. Powerful interest groups--AIPAC, the military-security complex, Wall Street--use their political influence to block unacceptable appointments.

As Alexander Cockburn put it in his column, "Obama, the first-rate Republican," "never has the dead hand of the past had a 'reform' candidate so firmly by the windpipe." Obama confirmed Cockburn's verdict in his first press conference as president-elect. Disregarding the unanimous US National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Iran stopped working on nuclear weapons five years ago, and ignoring the continued certification by the International Atomic Energy Agency that none of the nuclear material for Iran's civilian nuclear reactor has been diverted to weapons use, Obama sallied forth with the Israel Lobby's propaganda and accused Iran of "development of a nuclear weapon" and vowing "to prevent that from happening."

The change that is coming to America has nothing to do with Obama. Change is coming from the financial crisis brought on by Wall Street greed and irresponsibility, from the eroding role of the US dollar as reserve currency, from countless mortgage foreclosures, from the offshoring of millions of America's best jobs, from a deepening recession, from pillars of American manufacturing--Ford and GM--begging the government for taxpayers' money to stay alive, and from budget and trade deficits that are too large to be closed by normal means.

Traditionally, the government relies on monetary and fiscal policy to lift the economy out of recession. But easy money is not working. Interest rates are already low and monetary growth is already high, yet unemployment is rising. The budget deficit is already huge--a world record--and the red ink is not stimulating the economy. Can even lower interest rates and even higher budget deficits help an economy that has moved offshore, leaving behind jobless consumers overburdened with debt?

How much more can the government borrow? America's foreign creditors are asking this question. An official organ of the Chinese ruling party recently called for Asian and European countries to "banish the US dollar from their direct trade relations, relying only on their own currencies."

"Why," asks another Chinese publication, "should China help the US to issue debt without end in the belief that the national credit of the US can expand without limit?"

The world has tired of American hegemony and had its fill of American arrogance. America's reputation is in tatters: the financial debacle, endless red ink, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, rendition, torture, illegal wars based on lies and deception, disrespect for the sovereignty of other countries, war crimes, disregard for international law and the Geneva Conventions, the assault on habeas corpus and the separation of powers, a domestic police state, constant interference in the internal affairs of other countries, boundless hypocrisy.

The change that is coming is the end of American empire. The hegemon has run out of money and influence. Obama as "America's First Black President" will lift hopes and, thus, allow the act to be carried on a little longer. But the New American Century is already over.

A Healthy Palestinian Prisoner Operated on Without His Consent - Another Israeli Breach of human rights

You would have to delve back into the depths of Nazi Germany to find a practice whereby doctors operate on a healthy patient, without their consent, for the purpose of experimentation. This of course raises into question the role of Israeli doctors, especially given that the longstanding President of the Israeli Medical Association, Yoram Blachar, becomes President of the World Med Association soon. Blachar is on the record as defending torture in Israel.

Tony Greenstein

Palestinian prisoner Mohannad Odeh from the town of Aroorah north of Ramallah in the West bank, filed a complaint to the lawyer of the Mandela Organization. His complaint might seem strange in the civilized world. He never knew why the Israeli prison administration transferred him to a hospital and why he was subjected to a surgery he knew nothing about since he is healthy.
He made it quite clear that he never suffered any health problems. But still he found himself being transferred to Soroka Hospital in Beir Elsabba (Beer Sheba). He was requested to sign papers that should he died they can transfer and use his organs. He refused to sign and requested to see his family or get in contact with them before he was taken to the operating theatre. But the prison Administration denied him this request.He was sedated, taken to the operating room, operated on without his consent.

When he woke up, he found himself surrounded by Israeli doctors and medical instruments and pipes. What organs were taken? Or what kind of experimenting was done on such helpless prisoners?

Israel is breaching the International law inside and outside prisons. Palestinians are treated as if they have no human rights or dignity, and the international community is still debating should they interfere or not? Is it OK to allow hearing aids reach the Palestinian children who lost their hearing because of the Israeli bombings or not? Is it ok to make a man strip naked and dance for the soldiers' sick pleasure? Is it ok to beat and torture a humanbeing? Is it ok to perform surgery on healthy, NON consenting adults or children? These and other questions must be answered by not only the Israeli government, the USA who funds Israel, but the whole world as well.
What is happening is outrageous. I hereby do request that the human rights groups and establishments conduct formal investigations and hold whoever is guilty- accountable for crimes against humanity.Under no law it is accepted to breach human rights, occupied or not occupied, imprisoned or free. Should such outrageous breaches happen to a USA or UK citizen, the story would be on all the international front page news.However because it is Palestinians who are being tortured and their organs are being taken away and their bodies are experimented on illegally, no one cares to report that. The world turns a blind eye.

By Iqbal Tamimi

The destruction of Bassem abu Gwedar's home and the demolition of the 'unrecognised' Bedouin villages of the Negev

There is no 'terrorism' on the part of the Bedouin of the Negev. They haven't resorted to force of arms, the usual excuse on the part of the Zionists for their rape and pillage of the Palestinians. Yet as the following message shows, this hasn't prevented the demolition of homes in Bedouin . The following message is a description of a typical example of the racist demolition of Palestinian homes for the sole reason that their inhabitants are not Jewish. The 'Demographic Problem' i.e. too many non-Jews is the primary reason in the Jewish State for these acts of terror against an unarmed civilian population.

Tony Greenstein

To: "Yeela Livnat"

Dear all,

Thursday in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Khashm Zanna the home of Bassam abu Gwedar, a father of three young girls, and his wife, all citizens of the State of Israel, was demolished. The reason given by the Israeli authorities was that the structure was a new structure and had been built without a permit, which for all residents of the unrecognized villages is unattainable. The home had been built a year ago replacing the tin hut they lived, and the demolition order was posted almost immediately. The family took the case to the local courts, which refused to offer any respite from their predicament.

The situation is that of a catch 22: there is no method of attaining a building permit, but without a building permit the home is illegal and must therefore be destroyed, so Bassam and his family were left homeless. The bulldozers arrived at nine o'clock in the morning accompanied by 150 soldiers and 20 members of the paramilitary Green Patrol.

Bassam's neighbors gathered in front of the home in non-violent protest of the order, but under threat of violence they retreated and the bulldozers crushed his home to rubble. It was completed at 10:40 AM, taking under two hours to leave a family of five without a home. Bassam and his family's sole crime were being members of an ethnic group in a state that is severely biased against him and those like him. Bassam's family watched the demolition with utter desperation and helplessness, confronted with afaceless force of destruction. The season chosen for the demolition was not lost on the family. The recent rains and cold make the homelessness that much harder. "We have nowhere left." He told members of the RCUV Thursday. Khashm Zanna is an unrecognized village of more than 2000 people livingroughly 15 kilometers south of Beer Sheva in the Negev desert, and has been in the same location for more than 200 years. They have no access to electricity, water, sewage, paved roads, or medical services from theIsraeli government. They are constantly under the threat of home demolition, as all houses in the village have been deemed illegal. This demolition is not an isolated incident, but the latest in a series of co-ordinated operations designed to make life in the villages as unbearable as possible, so as to force the residents to abandon their lands.

Also Thursday, the village of Tweil abu Jarwal was completely destroyed for close to the 20th time. The night prior to this demolition, six young men of the village were arrested and kept overnight in the police holding cells in Beer Sheva. They were arrested in the village on charges of trespassing on their own land, held overnight and then released on the sole condition that they refrain from returning to their homes for two weeks. This village is deeply in need of assistance in the form of new tents, and if you or someone you know can contribute for new tents in the village, please donate through PayPal to yallylivnat@gmail.com, or send a check payable to the RCUV at 47 Ha-Atzmaut St PO Box 10002,Beer Sheva, 81405, Israel

Thank you all,

Joshua Berer,

International Communications Advocate, Regional Council of Unrecognized Bedouin Villages, olomachad@gmail.com

Gilad Atzmon on the Financial Crisis - The Jews Are to Blame

It would not be surprising if, with the current economic and financial meltdown, someone didn’t blame the Jews (or Zionists). It is therefore no surprise that our old friend Gilad Atzmon has once again leapt into the breach with his latest article, Credit Crunch or rather Zio Punch?

At a time when even the fascist British National Party no longer plays the Jewish card
it is left to Gilad Atzmon to concoct a weird conspiracy of Zionist imperialist warmongers and financiers who have somehow engineered the vast mountain of credit debt that has all but brought down British, European and American banks:
‘the people who keep the Palestinians starved behind walls, are unfortunately very much the same people who are responsible for a class genocide of millions of disenfranchised Americans who are now on the brink of total dispossession.’

Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis ‘scooter’ Libby are, it would appear, single-handedly responsible for the sub-prime mortgage crisis. It has to be said that although Atzmon is at his normal incoherent, contradictory and long-winded best, the message is crystal clear. We are told in one paragraph that
the current economic disaster endangers the security of millions of Western Jews who have really nothing to do with global economy, banking and global Zionism. It would be devastating to see innocent Jews being implicated collectively by the crimes committed by a very few tribal nationalist enthusiasts.

A few paragraphs previously Atzmon informs us that:
Jews are not necessarily Zionists. They can also be humanists, universalists, ordinary human beings… However, the Zionists amongst the Jews are very easy to trace. They always operate politically as Jews. They run Jewish lobbies, think tanks and pressure groups. For that matter, Jewish American Committee (JAC), AIPAC, Jews For Peace and Anti Zionist Jews are all different forms of Jewish tribal national politics…. they are all rabid Zionists who are set to serve what they regard as Jewish tribal interests.

If one can penetrate this gobbledydook, Jews are ‘racially oriented’, part of a separate tribe, despite the fact that tribes went out of fashion over a thousand years ago in most of the West.’

So whatever their politics, be they anti-Zionist or Zionist, in favour of peace or war, Jews cannot help but serve ‘Jewish tribal interests.’ If anyone is in any doubt as to the genesis of these fantasies, they could do worse than consult the Foreword to Norman Cohn’s ‘Warrant for Genocide – the myth of the Jewish world conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’ Describing the interrogations of leaders of the SS after the war he wrote that What I kept coming across was, rather, a conviction that Jews – all Jews everywhere in the world – form a conspiratorial body set on ruining and then dominating the rest of mankind.’ As part of this fantasy the Bolsheviks were funded by American Jewish bankers and Lenin was someone ‘who Hitler and Eckart both assumed to be a Jew. (203 Cohn).

Indeed The Protocols outlined much the same conspiracy theory as Atzmon.
‘THIS HATRED WILL BE STILL FURTHER MAGNIFIED BY THE EFFECTS of an ECONOMIC CRISES, which will stop dealing on the exchanges and bring industry to a standstill. We shall create by all the secret subterranean methods open to us and with the aid of gold, which is all in our hands, A UNIVERSAL ECONOMIC CRISES WHEREBY WE SHALL THROW UPON THE STREETS WHOLE MOBS OF WORKERS SIMULTANEOUSLY IN ALL THE COUNTRIES OF EUROPE.’

The irony, which is lost on Atzmon is that the Protocols began life as ‘a brilliant but long-forgotten defence of liberalism’ in the form of an attack on the tyranny of Napoleon III.'(p.81)

Atzmon too is under no doubt. ‘Throughout the centuries, Jewish bankers bought for themselves some real reputations of backers and financers of wars and even one communist revolution.’ Quite why reactionary American Jewish bankers should have financed a revolution directed against their interests is never explained, unless of course it is the racial nexus. But the footnote assures us that

‘Jacob Schiff (the head of Kuhn, Loeb & Company) is credited with giving twenty million dollars to the Bolshevik revolution. A year after his death the Bolsheviks deposited over six hundred million rubles to Schiff’s banking firm Kuhn & Loeb. (New York Journal American 1949. February 3.)’

For Atzmon too ‘Lenin and Trotzky [sic] were Jews.’ Paul Wolfowitz, whose powers were not enough to prevent him being sacked as President of the World Bank, has it would seem almost single-handedly engineered this crisis. Quite why his superior, the non-Jewish Dick Cheney, should have allowed this is unclear, but one suspects that like Lenin there is some Jewish blood there somewhere. After all ‘In 2003, by the time youngster of Zion Wolfowitz was on the verge of becoming a proper elder, America was taken into an illegal war in Iraq.’ Wolfowitz may be an Elder of Zion, as per the Protocols, but it was not long ago that he was in training for the role!

And returning to a familiar theme Atzmon asks ‘How is it that America that had all the ‘necessary warnings’ had found itself just ten years later acting as an Israeli mission force fighting the last pockets of resistance to Jewish national imperialism?’ which is an echo of the same argument in his ‘on anti-Semitism’ essay:

Surprisingly Atzmon’s answer is mundane. ‘Money is probably the answer, it indeed makes the world go round, or at least the ‘American housing market’. So if money, i.e. capitalism is to blame why then the tortuous detours via the Wolfowitz doctrine, Lenin and ‘racially oriented tribal pressure groups.’ We are never told.

But Atzmon asks a series of questions under the title ‘Kosher Snatch or Zion Punch?’ One which seems to particularly disturb him is why ‘the British Empire found itself promising the Zionists a Jewish National home in 1917? Have you ever asked yourself what Balfour received in return?’ In fact the footnote to his own question half gets it right, viz. the hostility of American Jews to an alliance with the pogromists of Czarist Russia against Germany. Leonard Stein’s Balfour Declaration also gives this as a reason. (p.533) But it was never the main reason, which clearly was the strategic situation of Palestine, adjacent to the Suez Canal, and the desirability of a friendly pro-British colonial settlement there. But it’s far better to look for racial conspiracies than obvious facts.

Perhaps the nastiest piece of racism is when Atzmon calls for ‘A Zionist who declares affiliation with foreign national interests should never be appointed by any administration or any other political institution.’ Given his definition of what constitutes a Zionist, it is clear that this is a euphemism for Jews per se. He is quick to assure us, that ‘The issue here is not at all about religious belief, ethnic origin or racial orientation.’ and immediately contradicts himself when he describes a wide variety of Jews – Zionist and anti-Zionist as ‘racially orientated tribal pressure groups.’

And in what is the most dishonest of all his polemics, Atzmon takes aim, once again, at the anti-Zionist Bund, the General Jewish Workers Union of Russia, Lithuania and Poland and a co-founder of the Russian Social Democratic Party. If anyone is in any doubt that when Atzmon says ‘Zionist’ he means ‘Jew’ then his attacks on the Bund prove that. The Bund was resolutely in favour of fighting for socialism and against anti-Semitism where Jews lived, not in emigrating to Palestine. It led the heroic resistance of the Warsaw Ghetto and the sole surviving commander of that fight, Marek Edelman, was a dedicated opponent of Zionism. But to Atzmon:
‘The Bund, on the other hand, was a rabid Zionist setting in spite of the fact that it ‘formally’ opposed Zionism. It was Zionist just because it operated as a tribal political setting. It was Zionist just because it was racially orientated rather than universally motivated’.

Leaving aside his clear and obvious anti-Semitism, the essay is a muddle of innuendo, half-truth and assertion. It is little wonder that when Atzmon asks the obvious question we can be forgiven for having assumed it. ‘You may wonder at this stage whether I regard the credit crunch as a Zionist plot. In fact it is the opposite. It is actually a Zionist accident.’ Which may, to him, be a clever formulation, but is as empty as the rest. If the financial crisis is a ‘Zionist accident’ (as opposed to being deliberate) then clearly the Zionists are responsible.

Perhaps the comments are the most revealing. One argues that ‘In fact, while I agree that Trotsky was not a Zionists, I do think that he operated primarily as a Jew.’ which Atzmon readily accedes to. Another suggests that ‘some solid facts about jewish influence would help?’. These anti-Semites are never strong on facts unfortunately! One informs us that ‘Zionists control the US government and the media. If you have a significant position in the government or are a significant voice in public, the Zionists will destroy.’

The one person to oppose this garbage is informed that ‘you’ve missed the point; jews ARE the ruling class in the US - not less than 30% of the stinking rich, and about 50% of the billionaires. This isn’t a conspiracy theory; … The question is: do they act together in a common jewish, rather than simply capitalist, interest? The answer is: how else could these percentages have come about?’ And there we have it. As Gilad comments ‘As we can see Zionism qualifies one as a Jew… read the JC’. Apparently the Chairman of Lloyds TSB Victor Blank is a Jew!

What is shocking is the response of Ian Donovan of Respect. Although Donovan takes Atzmon to task for some of his stuff, not least Lenin’s Jewish origins, he concedes from the start that ‘This article makes some interesting points, but it really does cross the rubicon to promote some myths that really are anti-semitic. At the very least, it is contradictory about the myth of Jewish capitalists financing the Bolsheviks.’ And when Atzmon responds with his dubious source, a Berkeley Prof. Slezkine, concerning Lenin’s Jewishness, Donovan responds that it is ‘Always a good sign when someone responds to criticism by recommending a book to read.’ Yes Ian. But there are books and books. Quite what someone who was once a socialist is doing debating the merits of the world Jewish conspiracy beggars belief.

But for one person ‘Most shockingly Slezkine describes that Lenin’s return to Russia was funded by American-Jewish soup millionaire Josef Fels & orchistrated by Jewish multi-millionaire Alexander Parvus,…’ In the world of the conspiracy theory there is so much to shock one’s tender conscience and so little time to get the message abroad.

If anyone is in any doubt about Atzmon’s anti-semitic credentials, it is the apology at the end. John Reynolds, writing in The Observer, suggested that one answer to the financial crisis was for there to be more Christians active in the City. A typically naïve liberal belief that the cause of the financial crisis is a lack of moral backbone rather than the operations of the free market and capitalist economics. To Atzmon

Reynolds, the chairman of the Ethical Investment Advisory Group protests against the non-ethical spirit that has been abundant in the City for more than a while…. he may try to suggest to us that our financial world must be spiritually de-Judified.

There is nothing like the threat of a libel action to clarify the mind.

But the real message is that the Palestine Think Tank is as anti-Semitic as Mary Rizzo’s old Peace Palestine blog and Atzmon takes another step into the sewer of political reaction. My only question is why the Socialist Workers Party continues to defend him.

Tony Greenstein

International Jewish anti-Zionist Network is Born

When I became an anti-Zionist as a teenager, there were no role models or indeed any examples that I knew of. Being a Jewish anti-Zionist was a lonely and solitary experience. True when I joined the International Socialists (SWP) there were a number of Jewish members, but anti-Zionism was not a hot topic.

Today the situation has changed out of all recognition. Meetings of hundreds of Jews questioning Israel are now the norm, as the non-Zionist Independent Jewish Voices demonstrate.
And now the explicitly International Jewish anti-Zionist Network has been formed. Jews have not only begun to recognise that the Jewish experience of anti-Semitism is not compatible with supporting the same form of racism when perpetrated by Israel, but that Zionism can only endanger their own position in society.

It was therefore doubly welcome that a packed meeting of IJAN launched the network in Israel tonight in a church hall in north London. Chaired by Selma James there was a large platform of speakers, including Professor Moshe Machover, founder of the Israeli anti-Zionist organisation Matzpen and Ghada Kharmi, a distinguished Palestinian doctor and academic, author of ‘Married to Another Man – Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine’. Messages of support to the meeting and the presence of people like Omar Deghayes, the Libyan refugee who was imprisoned for 5 years in Guantanamo where he was blinded in one eye, emphasised the importance of the occasion. Other speakers included Michael Kalmanovitz.

The meeting took the decision to prioritise the campaign against the openly racist Jewish National Fund, which together with the Israeli Lands Administration, controls 93% of Israeli land, which can only be leased, rented or sold to Jews. Tony Greenstein introduced the discussion on the JNF giving a short history of the JNF’s inglorious history.

A meeting has been arranged for 6th November when further decisions on the JNF campaign will be planned. There are a number of things which will have to be discussed including putting the group on a democratic footing, debating the Charter of IJAN since many of us don’t agree with some of the analysis e.g. on Misrahi/Oriental Jews in Israel.

Addendum

A couple of Zionist interlopers at the meeting, including Mad Mikey Ezra, were given short shrift especially when Mikey tried to trip me up. Mikey, who only last week at the debate betwen the AWL and CPGB started pushing me and Roland Rance, was apparently left with a sore foot as a result of his attempts to commit another assault. At a previous meeting he deliberately trod on the foot of an anti-Zionist. He and his friend were left in no doubt that their presence, with blackberries texting reports of the meeting to others, were not welcome. Mikey is a strange character who goes around anti-Zionist meetings saying nothing but reporting or recording them. He works with the fascist Kach group in Israel, and their academic supporter one Prof. Steve Plaut of Haifa Universit with whom he bombards the Alef (Academic Left) e-list with fake messages.

This hasn't stopped Mikey claiming that he was the victim of an unprovoked assault claiming he was only sprawling, with his feet adrift in the aisles! Naturally his plight has been taken up by the racist pro-war blog, Harry's Place where David 'necklace' Herman posted his usual advice:

''At the risk of sounding thuggish you should have headbutted the motherfucker.'
What this incident does point to though is the need for more security at anti-Zionist meetings due to the fact that there is a history of attacks by Zionist thugs on people who attend them.

The False Arguments of the anti-Boycotters

The Boycott and Palestinian Groups

By OMAR BARGHOUTI
Since the launch of the Palestinian boycott movement a few years ago, we have experienced an awkward phenomenon that demands urgent comment. Several organizations known for years -- in some cases, decades -- for their tireless Palestine solidarity work stood firmly against the Palestinian civil society Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, BDS, issued on July 9, 2005, for various reasons. Some said such tactics were "harmful" to the Palestinian struggle. Others opined that BDS would undermine the so-called Israeli "peace" movement. Others, still, stated that boycotting Israel would invite accusations of anti-Semitism and betrayal of the Holocaust victims, thereby setting back Palestine solidarity work in a substantial way.

Many other arguments were written in thousands of articles over the years, but they were less significant or consequential; so I shall focus only on the above three.

Boycott is counter-productive?

Is it? Who is to judge? A Call signed by more than 170 Palestinian political parties, unions, NGOs and networks, representing the entire spectrum of Palestinian civil society -- under occupation, in Israel, and in the diaspora – cannot be "counter-productive" unless Palestinians are not rational or intelligent enough to know or articulate what is in their best interest. This argument smacks of patronization and betrays a colonial attitude that we thought -- hoped! -- was extinct in liberal Europe.

Pragmatically speaking, the BDS process has proved over the past few years that it is among the most effective forms of civil, non-violent Palestinian resistance to Israeli colonial and apartheid regime. The sheer breadth and depth of support this Call has garnered among major trade unions, academic associations, church groups, and other grassroots organizations in South Africa, the UK, Ireland, Canada, Norway, Sweden, and even the US, among others, attest to the efficacy and enormous potential of this campaign in resisting Israeli injustice. For the first time in decades, many movements in Europe, for instance, that have supported peace with justice in Palestine through demonstrations, public appeals and -- mostly marginal -- media work, discovered a process that they can actively and effectively contribute to and that promises to bring about concrete results on the ground, as proved to be the case in the struggle against apartheid struggle in South Africa. Judging by results so far, and as our South African comrades have told us repeatedly, our BDS campaign is moving at a faster pace than theirs ever did.

BDS Undermines the Israeli "Peace" Movement?

What Israeli peace movement? There is no such creature. The so-called peace groups in Israel largely work to improve Israeli oppression against the Palestinians, rather than eliminate it, with their chief objective being the guarantee of Israel's future as a "Jewish" -- i.e. exclusivist -- State. The most radical Israeli "Zionist-left" groups are still Zionist, adhering to the racist principles of Zionism that view the indigenous Palestinians as lesser humans that are an obstacle or a "demographic threat" to be dealt with. Specifically, they are opposed to the UN-sanctioned rights of the Palestinian refugees, ethnically cleansed during the Nakba and ever since, to return to their homes and lands, simply because they are the "wrong" type. These groups also oppose ending the unique form of apartheid that dominates the entire State of Israel, where a decades-old system of racial discrimination, enshrined in the law, treats "non-Jewish" citizens of the State as second-class citizens who are not entitled to all the rights that Jewish citizens enjoy. If this the Israeli "peace" movement, then no conscientious person should feel sorry about undermining it!
Those who claim that "most" Israelis simply do not know about the crimes of the occupation and need to be talked to, not boycotted, are not only assuming wrong premises, but also reaching a false conclusion. Most Israelis obediently serve in the occupation army without qualms or moral pangs, as part of the obligatory reserve duty. They, therefore, know first-hand about the occupation's crimes since they either participate in committing them, directly, or watch them being perpetrated in silence, thereby indirectly colluding in them. Plus, the Palestinian BDS was never a blanket boycott against individual Israelis. It is consistently institutional in nature, targeting all Israeli academic, cultural, economic and political institutions, specifically because they are complicit in maintaining the occupation and other forms of racist and colonial oppression against the indigenous Palestinians. Finally, "talking" to Israelis, as in the flourishing "peace" industry's dialogue groups, has not only been misleading and terribly harmful to the struggle for a just peace, giving the false impression that coexistence can be achieved despite the Zionist oppression, but has also failed to bring about any positive change in Israeli public opinion towards supporting justice as a condition for peace. The Israeli-Jewish public is steadily and dangerously shifting to the fanatic right, with a growing majority supporting fascist solutions, such as ethnic cleansing -- called "transfer" in the sanitized Israeli mainstream jargon -- of the remaining indigenous Palestinians.

Dialogue and joint Palestinian Israeli struggle can only be justifiable, constructive and conducive to just peace if directed against the occupation and other forms of oppression and based on international law and basic human and political rights, particularly our inalienable right to self determination.

Based on the above, the only true fighters for peace in Israel are those who support our three fundamental rights: the right of return for Palestinian refugees; full equality for the Palestinian citizens of Israel; and ending the occupation and colonial rule. Those are our true partners. They ALL support various forms of BDS, not only out of principle, but also because they realize that genuine, sustainable peace and security for all can never be achieved without justice, international law, universal human rights and, most crucially, equality. BDS will only strengthen that true peace – with justice – movement in Israel and everywhere else.

European solidarity groups that consciously allow Zionist left figures and movements to dictate their agendas, steering them away from coordinating with Palestinian civil society and understanding its real needs, rather than committing themselves first and foremost to human rights and international law, hardly deserve the name "solidarity" groups.

On the other hand, groups that, for tactical reasons, support only a subset of BDS, or a targeted boycott of specific products or organizations in Israel or supporting Israel, are also our partners, of course. Boycott is not a one-size-fits-all type of process. It must be customized to suit a particular context to be most effective. What is important to agree on, though, is why we are boycotting and towards what ends. BDS is a rights-based approach with clear objectives that ought to form a common denominator for all groups in solidarity with Palestine. Ending the three main forms of Israeli injustice and advocating the corresponding Palestinian rights are the basic requirements for this international campaign to be effective and in harmony with the express needs and aspirations of Palestinian civil society.

BDS Promotes Anti-Semitism?

Rather than reinventing the wheel, I shall just copy here some of what I wrote earlier, in a longer article refuting the main anti-boycott arguments:

"As the French philosopher Etienne Balibar says, 'Israel should not be allowed to instrumentalize the genocide of European Jews to put [itself] above the law of nations.'

Beyond that, by turning a blind eye to Israel's oppression, as the U.S. and most of official Europe often do, the West has in fact perpetuated the misery, the human suffering and the injustice that have ensued since the Holocaust.As to the anti-Semitism charge, it is patently misplaced and clearly used as a tool of intellectual intimidation. It is hardly worth reiterating that Palestinian calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions do not target Jews or even Israelis qua Jews. They are strictly directed against Israel as a colonial power that violates Palestinian rights and international law. The growing support among progressive European and American Jews for effective pressure on Israel is one counter-argument that is not well publicized."

Moreover, considering actions and positions that target Israeli apartheid and colonial rule anti-Semitic is itself anti-Semitic, as was argued by many before me, for they assume that all Jews, per se, are somehow responsible for Israeli crimes, a patently racist assumption that belongs to the "collective responsibility" school of thought – criminalized at Nuremberg -- and directly feeds anti-Semitism.

BDS is a civil form of struggle against Israel, regardless what religion most Israelis follow. It hardly matters what faith your oppressors belong to, really -- whether they are Jewish, Christian, Muslim or Hindu is almost irrelevant! The ONLY thing that matters is that they are illegally, immorally oppressing you.

Projects supporting Palestinian steadfastness under occupation, whether in the health, education, social or even political domains, are crucial and always needed. Many Palestinians, particularly the most vulnerable, cannot survive the cruelty of occupation without them. We appreciate the support for these projects tremendously – at least those of them that are not corrupt or corrupting, as many are. But this does not mean that we are for a moment convinced that such projects alone, plus token support for some abstract notion of "peace," can advance our struggle for freedom and justice. Only by ending the occupation and apartheid can we get there. And, experience tells us, the most reliable, morally justifiable way to do that is by treating Israel as apartheid South Africa was, by applying various, context-sensitive and evolving measures of BDS against it. There is no better way to achieve just peace in Palestine and the entire region.

Omar Barghouti is a freelance choreographer, cultural analyst and founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (www.PACBI.org).

Ex-UJS Officer, David Herman Openly Advocates Murder of Jewish anti-Zionists - on Harry's Place

Even some socialists have been taken in by the ‘free speech’ pretensions of the overtly racist (in particular anti-Muslim racist) and pro-war site Harry’s Place. When one of their victims, Jenna Delich, foolishly and mistakenly posted a link to David Duke’s web site she was libelled by city solicitor David Toube as someone who ‘reads and takes her information on world events from neo Nazis.’

In return she threatened a libel action which resulted in HP being taken off the web by its ISP. Socialist Unity and others mistakenly saw a defence of free speech as being equivalent to supporting HP’s right to indulge in its usual bout of racist hate mongering.

An article by Mikey Ezra, the Barry George of the Zionist movement, purports to be a report of the debate between the AWL and CPGB on Iran/Palestine last week. Underneath there a remarkable post by one David Herman. Herman, was an officer with the Union of Jewish Students nearly 20 years ago. Since then he has become a minor film producer, one of whose productions appeared on Channel 4 some time ago, and is also listed as an Advisory Editor of Engage. . He is generally remembered as an unpleasant, humourless, thuggish but otherwise stupid.

Engage is a site which is devoted to smearing supporters of a Boycott of Israel as ‘anti-semitic.’ Although it portrays itself as a ‘leftist’ site, a cursory reading of its comments quickly shows that it shares much the same right-wing audience as Harry’s Place. It’s a strange form of leftism which includes as its guest posters people like the Zionist friend of Gilad Atzmon, Mad Mikey Ezra. See original.

But what was different from the normal abuse was an open call to violence by Herman, in a comment posted on 16th October 2008 at 2.13 p.m.

‘To cut through the nonsense - both Greenstien and Rance are long term anti-zionists who want to see Israel destroyed/disappear/be no more (take your pick) for some reason they believe the fact that they’re Jewish adds some moral weight to their position.
I believe they’re psychologically flawed fools who collaborate with the enemies of the Jewish people.
They should remember that in the Nazi ghettos of Europe and the townships of South Africa the first people that the resistance targeted were collaborators.
In less forgiving times they would be recei ving a necklace for hanukah!’

The implication is obvious.

Now Herman was never a student of history as he would be aware that Zionism specialised in collaboration with the Nazis and were likewise favoured by them. Most of the Chairmen of the Judenrat, Nazi appointed Jewish Councils were Zionists (Rumkowski, Gens, Czerniakow, Kareski to name but a few).

As even the late Zionist historian, Lucy Dawidowicz admitted:

"The only underground political organisation of significance soon after the German occupation [of Poland] was the Bund, with its centre in Warsaw" (War Against the Jews, pp. 322/3)

Likewise she wrote of Reinhardt Heydrich, described by Gerald Reitlinger in ‘The Final Solution’ as the ‘engineer’ of the Final Solution and his orders to the SS:
‘The activity of the Zionist orientated youth organisations are not to be treated with the strictness that it is necessary to apply to the members of the so-called German Jewish organisations (assimilationists).’

War Against the Jews, p. 118. And on 5 May 1935 Schwarze Korps, official organ of the SS, argued that the Jews had to be separated into 2 categories Zionists and assimilationists:

"The Zionists adhere to a strict racial position and by emigrating to Palestine are helping to build their own Jewish) state." whereas "The assimilation minded Jews deny their race and insist on their loyalty to Germany... in order to subvert National Socialist principles.’

All of this is well known, so when Jewish anti-Zionists are accused of ‘self-hatred’ it is the usual racist nonsense that was levelled by the Nazis at anti-fascist Germans. Literally hating the racial state means hating yourself because in the fascist world, the individual’s purpose is to serve the State.

But what is striking about Herman’s contribution is that it is an open call for murderous violence against anti-Zionist Jews, Roland Rance and Tony Greenstein in particular, but anyone who breaks from Zionism in the Jewish community. Anyone with a memory of the South African liberation struggle will remember that one of the least attractive aspects of the struggle in the townships was the advocacy by Winnie Mandela of placing burning tyres around the necks of victims.

That the nondescript Herman openly open advocates the murder of political opponents, anti-Zionist Jews, is not surprising. His associate Mikey, although friendly to the AWL also works with the openly fascist Prof. Steve Plaut of Haifa University a member of Kach, a Jewish Nazi party in Israel, posting fake e-mails to the Alef (Academic Left) site hosted by Professor Avraham Oz of Haifa.

But what is interesting is the comment of Mark Gardener, underneath that of Herman. Gardener is the Head of Communications of the shadowy Community Security Trust. The CST is behind the idea that anti-Semitism is increasing in Britain as a means of persuading British Jews to emigrate to Israel. He featured prominently in the Richard Littlejohn programme in June 2007 about ‘anti-Semitism’.

The CST is identified with the Herut/Betar Greater Israel wing of Zionism (though to be fair these distinctions are largely irrelevant today as Herman would probably also claim to still retain links with Labour Zionism). It is an extremely well funded organisation (over £5m income both in 2005 and 2006. Its accounts reveal nothing about its sources of funding and are usually delivered at the last minute, the 2007 ones have not been filed after nearly 10 months. It spends £500,000 of its money on fundraising and of its employees two earn between £60-70,000, one receives between £80-90,000 and one receives between £100-110,000. Clearly fighting ‘anti-Semitism’ is profitable for some people. The Jewish Chronicle last year described the CST as the most opaque of all Jewish charities.

Its Trustees are not, quite uniquely, listed on the Charity Commission site, having been given a dispensation. Likewise there is nothing about its activities and quite bizzarely it lists its only area of operation as Liverpool and surrounding areas. One of the few people who are listed in its accounts is one Gerald Ronson, jailed in the Guiness Affair many years ago. Ronson is well known as a Herut/Greater Israel supporter and owner of Britain’s largest private company, Heron. It would seem that the CST, which is well known for attacking Jewish leftists (including on one occasion even a supporter of the Zionist Mapam group) has also moved into the Kach orbit.

This is what Gardener says at 5.49 pm on 16.10.08: Leaving aside a long quote from Jews against Zionism which he has taken from a pro-Hizbollah site (whatever that is) rather than directly from the JAZ site:

‘Now, you can have a Talmudic disputation as to how the "dismantlement of the Zionist structure of the state of Israel" does not equal "smash Zionism" or "destroy Israel" but I’m in David Herman’s (considerable) shadow on this one. We know where Rance and Greenstein stand, we know their previous, and its exactly why pro-Hizbollah websites carry their propaganda. Duh.’

Duh indeed. When Herman advocates ‘necklacing’ of his political opponents, Gardener’s only response is that ‘I’m in David Herman’s (considerable) shadow on this one’. Quite! Of course Herut used to have a long record of physically attacking all pro-Palestinian meetings but, theoretically at least, there was a distinction between them and open fascists in the Kach group. Clearly that is no longer the case and Gardner too is now supportive of fascist violence (as long as it’s not against Zionist Jews). A strange position of course for someone who makes a good living (£110,000?) from ‘fighting anti-Semitism’ and with whom the Police openly work. But what it does do is destroy the notion that the CST is an impartial and unbiased recorder of anti-semitic incidents, as some believe.

Tony Greenstein

The Arab-Jewish Clashes in Acre and the Connection to Israel's Extremist Settlers

A man walks past a car with a damaged windshield following the Acre clashes.
By Ali Abunimah Palestine Center Fellow

Acre, a mixed city of approximately 52,000 people in northern Israel, recently witnessed four days of violent clashes between Palestinian citizens of Israel and Israeli Jewish residents. While the facts and meaning of these events have been heavily contested, one of the underreported factors is the extent to which militant Israeli settlers from the West Bank, funded by donors in the United States, have instigated tension in Acre and other cities in an attempt to reduce their Arab populations. This brief will summarize the facts available from public sources and provide background and analysis.

Israeli leaders have presented the events in Acre as unfortunate intercommunal violence in an otherwise peaceful city. Palestinians have perceived them-correctly it would appear-as being related to efforts organized by Jewish extremists to force Arabs out of the city (Palestinians in Israel are citizens of the state and are often also referred to as "Arabs").

What Happened?

The disturbances began after a Palestinian resident of Acre drove into the eastern predominantly Jewish neighborhood around midnight on Wednesday, 9 October 2008 during the observance of the Yom Kippur Jewish holiday. This prompted a violent reaction from Jewish residents and soon, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported, "Police warded off hundreds of Jewish rioters, chanting 'death to the Arabs,' and trying to storm the city's main road."1 As word spread of the attack on the Arab driver, hundreds of Arab youths came to the scene.

Violent clashes between Jewish and Arab residents continued for several nights as police intervened with riot control methods including water cannons. According to Israeli police, many Arab families had to be evacuated and about a dozen Arab homes were set on fire. 2

Brutal scenes were alleged and witnessed over four days. For example, an Israeli journalist witnessed Jewish youths armed with stones moving around the city looking for Palestinian citizens to attack and shouting, "Death to the Arabs." In one case, they mistakenly attacked a Jew (most of Acre's Jewish residents are Mizrahi Jews who originally came to Israel from Arab countries). 3

When Arab residents, who were forced out of their homes by Jewish attacks, attempted to return under police guard to retrieve belongings, they were stoned by Jews who shouted racial epithets at them. 4 Israel army radio and Arab residents of the city claimed that dozens of extremists affiliated with the West Bank settler movement had come in to Acre to take part in the violence (see below).5 La'a Ramal, an Arab resident whose home was attacked, said that her house had been torched three times in recent years, and several families had already left the area as a result of persistent intimidation. 6

Jewish residents told reporters that Arabs armed with axes came into their neighborhood, destroyed cars and shops and shouted, "Death to the Jews." David Azoulay, an Israeli Jewish Knesset member from the religious Shas party who lives in Acre, said, "I myself heard them [the Arabs] calling, 'Allahu Akbar! Kill the Jews!'" This was denied by Palestinian Israeli Knesset member Abbas Zakour, who also lives in the city. 7 Other reports stated that rumors had spread through the Arab old city that an Arab man had been killed, prompting Arab residents into the streets. 8

In the end, 54 people-Jews and Arabs-were arrested and about 100 cars and several dozen shops were damaged. Several minor injuries were reported. While Jews and Arabs took part in the violence, on 12 October 2008, on the third day of the disturbances, Major-General Shimon Koren, commander of Israel's Northern District police, said the riots had been instigated by Jews and "the majority of rioters causing disturbances in [Acre] are Jews."9

How Did It Begin?

According to Acre resident Tawfiq Jamal's own account, he drove into a predominantly Jewish area with his son and a friend at around 11 p.m. in order to pick up his daughter from the home of relatives where she had been helping prepare baked sweets for a wedding. When they arrived, according to Jamal:

I asked my son to take the baking dishes out of the car and proceeded to walk (toward the house) when (the Jews) suddenly began hurling stones at us. The stones hit my son and the car. My son was lying down because [he] was hit in the face, back and chest; I managed to grab him and pull him into the building.

The three men went into the building and called the police and emergency services, who arrived after a few minutes. However, Jamal stated, "Throughout the entire time, despite police presence, the [Jewish] youngsters continued to throw rocks and chant 'death to the Arabs,' while my son's face was bleeding and his friend almost passed out."10

Jamal recounted that he and the two youths were then evacuated by police and told to take shelter in a squad car. When the car did not start, the police fled and told Jamal and the two youths to do the same. Jamal stated that they were saved only by a Jewish night watchman who hid them in his guard booth, locked the door and turned off the lights. Jamal compared his situation to that of two Israeli soldiers wearing civilian clothes who were captured and brutally killed by a Palestinian mob in Ramallah in December 2000 and feared that his group's fate would be the same.

Jamal strenuously denied allegations he had been drinking and deliberately started the incident by playing loud music. Israeli police also alleged that an unnamed Arab youth had broken into a mosque and used the loudspeaker system to alert Arab residents of the attack and to call for help after receiving a phone call from Jamal's brother. They stated the suspect had not been arrested because he had fled. 11 Acre Police Commander Avraham Edri partially confirmed Jamal's account, telling the Knesset's Internal Affairs Committee that:
When my officers arrived at the scene, they had to handle 300-400 people who had already lifted the driver's car in the air. Our first mission was to prevent casualties. We released the driver from the mob and helped him into an apartment nearby...My staff served as a barrier between him and the excited mob; the policemen were hurt but not one civilian was injured.12

Speaking before the Knesset committee on October 12, Jamal apologized for driving into the Jewish area and said he had "made a mistake." Despite this, Israeli police arrested Jamal for "harming religious sensitivities, speeding and reckless endangerment" and remanded him in custody. There were no reports of arrests specifically for the attempted lynching of Jamal and his companions. 13

The Settler Connection

Palestinian citizens of Israel and Israeli Jews live in close proximity in Acre, a U.N. World Heritage site, as they have done for generations. But in recent years, extremist Jewish groups affiliated with West Bank settlers have moved in with the stated aim of making the city more Jewish.

Palestinians are concentrated in the central old city and near the harbor while Jews are established in the eastern part and outer rings. The vast majority of the Jewish residents of the city are Mizrahim-working class Jews whose first generation came as immigrants to Israel from Arab countries. Mizrahim, although Jews, also faced severe discrimination by an Israeli state dominated by European Ashkenazi Jewish elites. Both communities are disadvantaged in different ways. Many Palestinians in the city are the survivors and descendants of those who were forced to leave their homes when Israel was established in 1948. All but 3,000 of the city's 13,000 Palestinian citizens in 1948 were forced out. Today, Palestinians comprise about 27 percent of the city's population. Like all Palestinian citizens of Israel, they have experienced systematic legal, social and economic discrimination and political exclusion. Mizrahim were often pushed to the edges of Israeli Jewish society and in many cases were housed in the former homes of expelled Palestinians. 14 Culturally marginalized and much poorer than Ashkenazi Jews, the Mizrahim have become the base constituency for the right-wing Likud party, Shas and other overtly racist anti-Arab parties.

Given the numbers of people involved in the troubles, long-time Jewish residents were certainly among them. But some Arab residents blamed the worsening tension not on long-time residents but on an influx of militant youth affiliated with the national religious West Bank settler movement. Indeed, Baruch Marzel, a settler leader from near Hebron in the West Bank, visited Acre during the riots and vowed to help Jews in the city to set up a "defense organization."15 Barzel was a leader of the banned Kach party founded by the late Meir Kahane, which supports the expulsion of all Palestinians, and he remains a prominent leader of racist settler groups.

Yeshivat Hesder-Akko founded in 2001 is a pro-settler national religious school in the midst of a now majority Arab neighborhood called Wolfson. Over the years, many of the area's Jewish residents had become more affluent and moved out, and poorer Arabs moved in. The Yeshiva is run by Yossi Stern, a rabbi from the militant West Bank settlement of Elon Moreh. Stern, who is also on the Acre city council, told The Washington Post last year that he and his associates were working on projects designed to "attract Jews to Acre," including a 350 unit housing complex designated for Jewish military families and another yeshiva. Palestinian residents and leaders consider these efforts to be part of a systematic assault on their presence in the city using tactics long deployed against Palestinians in the West Bank.16 Some accuse Acre's Likud mayor of supporting the efforts.

Yeshivat Hesder-Akko's own website states that "[f]rom a luxuriant Jewish neighborhood it [Wolfson] has turned into a decrepit Arab neighborhood." The school, whose students are Israeli military-religious trainees, is to "to try to return and strengthen the Jewish character of the city." Although the city was "almost lost" to Jews, the site states that "the long awaited salvation has begun." According to the website, the yeshiva was built with funds from a donor in New York.17 Volunteers have also raised funds from synagogues in the United States for the "special aim of the yeshiva [which] is to attract more young Jewish families by strengthening and maintaining the Zionist Jewish character of this ancient Jewish city."18

Two years ago, similar but much less serious disturbances occurred in Acre during another Jewish holiday. Arab Knesset member Zakour had previously written to Israel's public security minister appealing for police protection for the Arab communities against harassment by Jewish extremists, including the stoning of Arab cars during Jewish holidays.

An almost identical hesder-yeshiva (this term means a school for Israeli men who combine religious study with service in Israeli army units) was recently founded in the Arab Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, south of Tel-Aviv, also with the goal of increasing the Jewish population of that city.19

The events in Acre coincide with an upsurge in violence by the radical settler movement against Palestinians across the Israeli-occupied West Bank including a pipe bomb attack against an Israeli left-wing professor. 20 While those actions have received more attention, the activities of affiliated groups against Palestinian citizens of Israel have been largely ignored.

Reactions in Israel

Arab leaders in Acre met with police officials and publicly called for calm and reconciliation, and they also condemned Jamal's incursion into the Jewish area regardless of how innocent. On October 12, Arab Knesset member Abbas Zakour accompanied Jamal to Israel's parliament to make his public apology in an attempt to appease the Jewish community and restore calm. Yossi Beilin, leader of the Left-Zionist Meretz party, blamed Israel's neglect of the Arab community, particularly since the October 2000 shooting of 12 Palestinian citizens of Israel by the police.21 One Palestinian member of the Knesset called the clashes "a pogrom perpetrated by Jews against Arab residents" and accused the police of discrimination.

Israeli national leaders, including caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Prime Minister designate Tzipi Livni and President Shimon Peres, called for calm and called on "both sides" to refrain from violence. They portrayed the events as being religious and communal in origin and did not note the political context of efforts to judaize the city. Peres visited Acre and convened a meeting of Arab and Jewish civic and religious leaders aimed at restoring peace. 22

Sheikh Ra'ed Salah, the head of Israel's Islamic movement, accused Israeli political and religious leaders of facilitating the actions of extremists over a long period of time with the goal of heightening tensions so that Palestinians inside Israel could eventually be expelled. He said Acre's Palestinian population was being targeted for "cleansing" and that Arabs in other coastal cities including Haifa and Jaffa could be next. 23 The fears that events in Acre were evidence of a concerted effort to expel them were widely echoed by Palestinians in Israel.

Some of the Israeli politicians who have been most outspoken in calling for the expulsion of Palestinians and supporting radical settlers did their best to confirm such fears, engaging in the kind of incitement that has been escalating in recent years. 24 Knesset member, former cabinet minister and settler Effie Eitam called the events "an anti-Semitic pogrom at the heart of Israel on the holiest days of the Jewish people." Another member called on the authorities to "respond harshly to the Arab pogrom on Yom Kippur." Esterina Tartman, a Knesset member of former Deputy Prime Minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu Party, called for the removal of Palestinians citizens from Israel on the grounds that "the pogrom in [Acre] is yet another confirmation that Arab Israelis are the real danger threatening the state." 25

Some Jewish residents of the city circulated calls for Jews to boycott Arab businesses to punish the Palestinian population. 26

Reactions among Other Palestinians

Palestinians in the 1967 Occupied Territories generally viewed the events in Acre as a continuation of Israeli state violence of the kind routinely directed against them. They also reasserted their identification and solidarity with Palestinians inside Israel.

Hamas' Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA) elected in January 2006 and now confined to Gaza, said that his "government was following with concern what was happening in Acre and what the Arab Palestinian population was facing by way of vicious attacks by Zionist settlers." Haniyeh added that these attacks were part of a strategy to force Palestinians out of their land and homes." A Hamas-affiliated website also condemned what it called the silence of the Arab regimes and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. 27

Hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza City took part in a "popular conference in solidarity with the people of Acre" at which leaders of many political factions expressed unity with Palestinians in Israel.28 Thousands marched in a solidarity rally in Gaza's Jabalya refugee camp.

A handful of Palestinian resistance factions said they could take "revenge" if actions targeting Palestinians in Acre continued. 29

A search for official reactions from the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority headed by President Mahmoud Abbas did not yield any results.

Analysis

Although Israel has officially recognized the systematic discrimination faced by the country's Palestinian citizens and the fact that little has ever been done to address it, Israeli leaders tended to view the events in Acre as being about "Arab-Jewish" community relations inside the country. They typically respond to Arab-Jewish tensions with promises of better funding for Arab communities, although such pledges are almost never fulfilled.

The violent actions of settler groups against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have gone unchecked by the Israeli army. There is now clear evidence of similar organized, planned violence being directed at Palestinians inside Israel. There is no sign that the Israeli state is prepared to confront it any more than it does in the West Bank. Unless this changes, there is a strong likelihood that violence may resume and spread notwithstanding the precariously restored calm. This may destroy the remaining threads of coexistence inside Israel. Jewish extremists would see that as a success if their goal is to create the conditions for the removal of Palestinians from Israel.

Palestinians across the political spectrum, inside and outside Israel, saw the events as a manifestation of the wider Palestinian-Israeli conflict rather than a local community-relations matter. For Palestinian citizens of Israel, the events highlighted their own precarious situation in the face of mounting racist incitement against them by Israeli politicians and media. The arrest and detention of Tawfiq Jamal, even after he publicly apologized at the Knesset and barely escaped from a lynch mob according to official sources, is likely to be seen as a further provocation and injustice by beleaguered Palestinians in Israel.

Historically, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority have refused to represent the interests of Palestinians inside Israel. Despite this, Palestinians at the grassroots level throughout historic Palestine and the diaspora have maintained their ties. They are expressing new forms of cross-border solidarity and political action.

The international community has always treated Israel's violations of the rights of the 1.5 million Palestinians inside Israel as an internal matter. The events in Acre, and especially the role of the national religious settler movement, provide early warning that this already inadequate approach will be even more ill-equipped to cope with spreading strife that will not respect lines on a map.

Ali Abunimah is a fellow at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC. He is an expert on Palestine, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and is the author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Abunimah also co-founded The Electronic Intifada, an online publication about Palestine and the Palestine-Israeli conflict, Electronic Iraq and Electronic Lebanon.
The views expressed in this information brief are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Jerusalem Fund.

1 Jack Khoury, Nadav Shragai and Yoav Stern, "Acre sees worst violence in years as Jews and Arabs resume clashes," Haaretz (website), 9 October 2008, Update of 21.29.

2 Ammar Awwad, "Israel's Acre suffers third night of violence," Reuters, 11 October 2008, (), Accessed 13 October 2008.

3 Yaakov Lappin, "Eyewitness: 'This is our city'," The Jerusalem Post, 12 October 2008, , Accessed 13 October 2008.

4 (In Arabic) Ra'id Dlasha, "Akka: atfal wa nisaa' 'arabiyat yata'aradoun li'itidaa' saafir; al-shurta tu'azziz quwwat biwahdat khasa wa quwat musta'ariba," Arabs 48, 13 October 2008, 13 October 2008.

5 (In Arabic) "Masadir israiliyya tu'akkid tadaffuq 'adad min nushataa' al-haraka al-istitaniyya ila akka," Arabs 48, 13 October 2008 Accessed 13 October 2008.

6 Ahiya Raved, "Akko: Displaced Arab families made eligible for public housing," Ynet, 13 October 2008, Accessed 13 October 2008.

7 "Acre driver apologizes for incident," The Jerusalem Post, 12 October 2008.

8 See Isabel Kershner, "Israeli City Divided by Sectarian Violence," The New York Times, 12 October 2008, .

9 Sharon Roffe-Ofir, "Northern District police commander: Majority of Akko riots are Jews," Ynet, 12 October 2008, Accessed 13 October 2008; See also, Sharon Roffe-Ofir, "Police official says intigators of Akko riots Jewish," Ynet, 12 October 2008, Accessed 13 October 2008.

10 Sharon Roffe-Ophir, "Arab motorist: I narrowly escaped lynch in Akko," Ynet, 9 October 2008. Accessed 13 October 2008.

11 Hagai Einav, "Akko: 54 arrested in 4 days of riots," Ynet, , Accessed 13 October 2008.

12 "Acre driver apologizes for incident," The Jerusalem Post, 12 October 2008, Accessed 13 October 2008.

13 Jack Khoury, "Police arrest driver who sparked Acre riots for 'harming religious sensitivities'," Haaretz, 13 October, 2008.

14 See Joseph Massad, "Zionism's internal others: Israel and the Mizrahim," in The Persistence of the Palestinian Question, (Routledge, 2006).

15 See Sharon Roffe-Ofir, "Peres visits Akko, urges side to exercise tolerance," Ynet, 13 October 2008 , Accessed 13 October 2008.

16 See Scott Wilson, "Israel's Arab Citizens, Isolation and Exclusion," The Washington Post, 20 December 2007.

17 See "About Us" page on Yeshivat Hesder-Akko's website, Accessed 13 October 2008.

18 Abigail Klein Leichman, "Back from Akko to help hesder yeshiva," The New Jersey Jewish Standard, 21 June 2006.

19 Eli Senyor, "Jaffa: Yeshiva to be built in heart of Arab neighborhood," Ynet, 24 September 2008.

20 See Jonathan Cook, "State's weak responses make Jewish extremism stronger," The National, 27 September 2008.

21 Yoav Stern and Yuval Azoulay, "Livni tells Acre residents: Don't take law into your own hands," Haaretz, 10 October 2008.

22 Jack Khoury, "Peres in Acre: We have many religions, but one set of laws," Haaretz, 13 October 2008, Accessed 13 October 2008.

23 (In Arabic) "Ahdath akka ... samt murib li sultat ramallah wa ghiyab lilnitham al-rasmi al-'arabi," Palestinian Information Center, 13 October 2008, Accessed 13 October 2008.

24 See Ali Abunimah, "Anti-Arab Racism and Incitement in Israel" Palestine Center Information Brief No. 161, 25 March 2008.

25 Amnon Meranda, "MK Eitam slams 'anti-Semitic pogrom in heart of Israel," Ynet, 9 October 2008. Accessed 13 October 2008.

26 Ahiya Raved, "Akko: Jewish residents call for boycott on Arab businesses," Ynet, 11 October 2008.

27 (In Arabic) "Ahdath akka ... samt murib li sultat ramallah wa ghiyab lilnitham al-rasmi al-'arabi," Palestinian Information Center, 13 October 2008, Accessed 13 October 2008.

28 (in Arabic) "Ghazza: al-mi'at sharaku fil mu'tamar al-sha'bi allathi nathamhu markaz filastin lildirasat walbuhuth ma' ahali madinat 'akka," Arabs 48, 12 October 2008.

29 "Gaza militants vow revenge for Acre violence," Xinhua, 12 October 2008.