Israel to Deport 100,000 Migrant Labourers

An important article concerning the use of migrant labour in Israel and the deliberate decision taken in the 1980's to wean Israel off using cheap Arab labour (other than in the Territories). Why? Because the similarity with Apartheid South Africa became too obvious and the fear was that if Israel became dependent on Arab labour, especially from the West Bank and Gaza, then it would only be a matter of time before they had to accord the Palestinians political and civil rights.

What should be borne in mind is that not once has Histadrut, the Israel's scab and racist union, ever lifted a finger to defend either migrant labour from Asia or Palestinian labour from the Territories (or indeed Arab labour in Israel).

Tony Greenstein

The Strategy Behind Israel's Migrant Labor Policies
By YONATAN PREMINGER

As an increasing number of people feel the grip of the global financial crisis, Israel’s familiar bugbear has been wheeled out yet again: deport the foreign workers! True to form, the newly appointed Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz has decided that the deportation of 100,000 migrant laborers will improve the economic situation.

We’ve been here before. In 2003, Israel launched its first major campaign to reduce the number of “foreign workers,” as they are known in Hebrew (ovdim zarim). Now the workers are preparing themselves for another round of brutal operations by the infamous immigration police.
In Israel’s labor market, deportations of “foreign workers” are followed by imports of others to take their place. Yet, Israel has an abundant supply of local workers – why does it still prefer the migrant laborers? Because they are not Arabs.

There are about 250,000 migrant laborers in Israel, mostly from the Philippines and Thailand, working mainly in agriculture, nursing and construction. For a country of just under 7.4 million citizens, this is an enormous number. More than half are considered illegal – some have outstayed their allotted time, some are victims of fraud, and some have violated the terms of their employment, often through no fault of their own. With unemployment rising again, it seems logical to employ Israel’s citizens before turning to outside labor, but, as usual, the picture is more complicated.

The truth is, Israel is confused. Since the 1980s, when the country began a process of deregulation with the aim of hitching its markets to the global economy, Israel has been torn between the myth of Jewish solidarity and the Zionist enterprise on the one hand, and the demands of the growing economic elite on the other. Bluntly put, it wants to keep the country open to Jews only but have access to workers willing to do the dirty work for peanuts.

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In the past, Israel employed Arabs as cheap labor – both Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians from the Occupied Territories (who have no Israeli citizenship). Then, in the 1990s, as Israelis opened their eyes to the Oslo Accords, watched their economy grow, and enjoyed the “quiet” that the promise of peace granted them, Palestinians from the Occupied Territories found themselves stuck, cut off from their source of livelihood in Israel by renewed policies of military closures around the Territories. Meanwhile, Palestinian Israelis watched their jobs disappear as factories were moved abroad and as they competed with a million newly arrived Russian olim (Jewish immigrants) for the remaining labor-intensive work.

Changing government priorities, the Intifada and globalization opened the way for migrant laborers. Companies owned by the Histadrut (the General Federation of Labor), publicly owned enterprises, were sold off. State support for agriculture diminished as the long-declining ideology of working the land finally collapsed. The new owners of Histadrut companies, building contractors and farmers, sought sources of labor that would enable them to compete in the now unprotected market. Migrant labor fitted the bill.

Farmers and contractors explain their preference for foreign labor by claiming there is no local workforce. “Israelis aren’t willing to do those kind of jobs,” so the mantra goes. And it does, indeed, seem that few Israeli Jews are willing to do hard manual labor anymore. But there are Israelis willing to do those kinds of jobs – Israel’s Palestinian citizens.

Anyone But Palestinians

The “Arab sector,” as it is known here, struggles against insufficient investment and inadequate infrastructure. Before 1948, the Palestinian Arab economy was mostly agrarian. Today, only about 4 per cent of the Palestinian Israeli population lives off agriculture, yet other options for earning a living are scarce. Few Arab towns have any significant industrial parks, and the primary industry that once employed Arabs – textiles – has been moved overseas.

According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2008 only 40 per cent of Arab men of working age participated in the workforce, compared with 56 per cent for Israel as a whole, and only 19 per cent of Arab women, compared with 56 per cent of Jewish women. Half of Israel’s Arab citizens live below the poverty line. Many would jump at the opportunity to work, though a job in Israel today is not always a way of escaping the poverty cycle.

And, if these workers prove insufficient, there are thousands more on the other side of the “security fence.” Israel has administered the West Bank and Gaza since 1967, flooding the Territories with its products, thereby – deliberately or otherwise – preventing the development of local industry and discouraging entrepreneurship. Residents of the Territories have also provided Israel with builders, cleaners and agricultural laborers for thirty years. The result is an underdeveloped Palestinian economy, entirely dependent on Israel, and a huge workforce eager to work in Israel.

The proof of their willingness to work can be found at Israel’s major intersections, where Palestinians from the West Bank wait each morning in the hope that some contractor will offer them work. Most of them have gone through hell to get around the checkpoints and across the separation wall, a dangerous – occasionally fatal – journey of many hours. Many sleep in makeshift camps such as abandoned building sites just minutes from Tel Aviv’s chic boulevards, and return to the West Bank and their families only on the weekends.

It is difficult to estimate the number of West Bank residents working in Israel. According to the Workers Advice Centre, an NGO active mainly among agricultural and construction workers, in 2005 there were around 20,000 working legally (with a permit), in addition to at least that number working illegally. The difficulties involved in entering Israel enable employers to claim that Palestinians from the West Bank are an unreliable labor force.

Police raids, a common nightmare for illegal Palestinian workers, aim to intimidate the workers and put on a show for Israelis, so fearful of “infiltrators.” The workers are deported and may lose whatever job they were lucky enough to find, but everyone knows that they will be back as soon as they have negotiated their way through the porous “security” system: work in Israel is in great demand.
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Clearly, Israel has easy access to willing labor, so why does Israel maintain such a large migrant labor force? The principal reason has little to do with the lack of a local workforce. The migrant workers are simply cheaper and easier to exploit.

Thais and Filipinos

Most migrant laborers in Israel today are Thais, working primarily in agriculture, and Filipinos, working primarily as caregivers. Many arrive with huge debts after paying middlemen between $6,000 and $9,000 in mediation fees (through arrangements that are mostly illegal). However, their wages in Israel amount to less than the legal minimum because some of the long hours they work are not remunerated.

Their employers save money also by not paying any peripheral benefits such as pension fund payments, sick pay, annual leave or maternity leave. Migrant workers rarely receive dismissal compensation, seniority-based wage increases, or overtime pay. In addition, wages are often paid in arrears, obliging the worker to remain with the same employer for fear of losing earnings.
Migrant workers are legally subject to the collective agreements negotiated by the Histadrut, but law enforcement is minimal, and the state’s representatives almost invariably take the employers’ side in any dispute.

The Israeli and Thai governments have been in contact with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in the hope of controlling the black market in mediation fees and permits, but so far without results. In 2006, Israel’s Foreign Ministry refused to sign an agreement with the IOM, but in 2007 the IOM signed an agreement with Thailand that will facilitate supervision of recruitment of Thai workers destined for Israel. Also, since June 2008, only workers from countries that have bilateral agreements with Israel have been permitted to enter.

It remains to be seen whether these agreements will reduce the exploitation of migrant labor. Unfortunately for the workers, there are interests vested in the current system: many agencies in Israel as well as in the workers’ countries of origin stand to lose an extremely lucrative business if mechanisms for control are put into place.

However, the issue of Israel’s labor preferences goes beyond economic calculations and concerns the identity of the workers themselves. In any discussion about the use of Palestinian labor, security concerns are invariably voiced: “When my father used to go to work in the fields with Arabs,” says E. from a kibbutz in the north, “he would take his pistol and be looking over his shoulder all the time. With the Thai workers he feels safe.”

Though not everyone feels the threat in quite this way, the government of PM Ariel Sharon decided in 2005 that, by 2008, Palestinians from the Occupied Territories would no longer be working within Israel. Keeping the Palestinian workers out, then, is part of a deliberate policy that borders on demagoguery, playing on the fears of Israeli Jews and strengthening the misleading consensus of “us here, them over there” – misleading, because Israel is “over there” too, with its ever-expanding settlements, and “they” are here in the form of Israel’s largely unseen Palestinian citizens.

But security, as always, tells only part of the story. After all, if workers can get into the country from the West Bank, so can others with more insidious objectives. The preference for migrant labor over Palestinian labor stems from something for which “security” serves as a fig leaf: Israel’s striving to reduce the Arab presence on this piece of land.

The ideology of separate economies for Jews and Arabs goes back to the days of Jewish settlement in Palestine, when it was feared that cheap Arab labor would discourage European Jews from immigrating. After 1948, freedom of movement for Arab citizens was restricted until 1966, when the military administration was finally lifted. After 1967, Palestinians from the Occupied Territories had the advantage of “disappearing” at the end of the workday, but they, too, were a constant reminder of the local population, which Israel was not ready to acknowledge.

Migrant workers, on the other hand, pose no “demographic threat,” particularly if the immigration police keep working. Though many have been here for years, and their children speak Hebrew just like Israeli children, they are deemed a temporary presence. The situation has plumbed new depths of absurdity: farmers consider the migrant Thais to be permanent workers and the local population – Arabs – as seasonal laborers who fill in during temporary labor shortages.

Israel has also succeeded in depoliticising the issue. The hiring of migrant labor is perceived simply as an economic necessity, while questions of identity, the closure of the Occupied Territories, the “security fence” and the “demographic threat” (not to mention workers’ rights) are held to be unrelated.

Thus, despite the economic crisis and associated rising unemployment, it is unlikely that Israel will wean its employers off cheap “foreign workers” in favor of opening more employment opportunities to the Arab sector or Palestinians from the Occupied Territories. The current situation is too convenient: migrant labor has enabled Israel to open its borders to the globalized economy without endangering its Jewish identity, while bolstering the myth that Israel can be a country for Jews alone.
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In fact, Israel has finally succeeded in doing what it failed to do during the years it was still reliant on cheap Arab labor: it has taken the Arabs out of the market.

Yonatan Preminger lives in Tel Aviv and is active in the field of workers’ rights. He can be reached at yonatanpreminger@yahoo.co.uk.

Gandhi could never have survived in Israel

There are many myths about how Mahatma Gandhi achieved Indian independence almost by his own exertions. Rarely mentioned is his acceptance of communal electorates in 1931, which led as night followed day to the bloody partition of India. Or his alliance with the cotton manufacturers against the workers of Bombay. But one thing is for certain.

The non-violent tactics of Ghandi could not have worked in Israel.

As Ezra Nawi’s example testifies, Gandhi would have been gaoled without trial for years, if that is he wasn't shot dead for not being Jewish and daring to resist. Because in Zionist terms, all resistance is a form of terrorism. All attempts at non-violent resistance to Israeli actions have been met with demonisation and massive violence. The International Solidarity Movement, which is pledged to non-violence, is a good example of this. They too have been branded as ‘terrorists’ on the basis of guilt-by-association. The boats which have sought to break the blockade of Gaza have been violently attacked. When Israel condemns ‘terrorism’ we should bear in mind that non-violent resistance to Zionism is always met by extreme violence, hence why the Palestinians have been forced to emulate their example.
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Tony Greenstein

Ezra Nawi's Sentencing Hearing

Ezra Nawi's sentencing hearing took place yesterday (Sunday), and Jewish Voice for Peace was there with over 20,000 of your signatures. The judge will render her sentence on September 21st, 2009.

At the hearing, Emily Schaeffer testified on behalf of JVP, and on behalf of all the people who had signed letters in support of Ezra. She explained that over 20,000 people from around the world knew Ezra, supported him, and demanded that he not be jailed for his courageous nonviolent defense of Palestinian Bedouins in the South Hebron region-under constant attack by settlers, the Israeli army and police.

When crossed-examined, she was asked if "tikkun olam" described the events about which the hearing was taking place.

She answered: "Absolutely."

The prosecutor objected to the filing of the signatures. Thanks to Emily's testimony on behalf of JVP, and thanks to the insistence of Ezra's attorney, Leah Tzemel, the long list of names attesting to Ezra's support were accepted by the judge.

In fact, the Jerusalem Post reported on this case in an article with the following title:

20,000 sign petition asking Jerusalem court not to put peace activist Ezra Nawi in jail

To date, the video detailing the events leading to his arrest has been watched over 37,000 times. Ezra Nawi's sole crime was trying to stop a military bulldozer from destroying the homes of Palestinian Bedouins in the South Hebron region. Ironically, Judge Ziskind verdict punishes Nawi for "disturbing the peace:" The peace of the bulldozer and the home demolitions.

After the soldiers demolished the home, a handcuffed Ezra is seen telling the laughing soldiers:

"Yes, I was also a soldier, but I didn't demolish houses. There's a big difference. The only thing that will be left here is hatred. Only hatred will be left here. Very funny, soldier? That the kids will be sleeping outside, is that funny?"

No wonder The Nation called him "Israel's Man of Conscience." Haaretz compared his nonviolent resistance to that of the Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ezra's case is part of a larger pattern of harassment targeting nonviolent resistance against the Israeli occupation. Palestinian nonviolent activists fare considerably worse than him. We recall the recent arrests of Palestinian nonviolent activists in the town of Bil'in. Eighteen Palestinian activists remain in military prison today, together with the two leaders of the the Bil'in Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements: Mohammed al-Khatib and Adib Abu Rahma. They sit in military jails without bail-or are offered bail only under condition that they cease their nonviolent demonstrations. Others, such as Bassem Ahmed Ibrahim Abu Rahma, have paid for their nonviolent protests with their lives. Last April, he was killed in Bilin by a high velocity tear gas fired directly at him at close distance.

Dov Yermiya – Veteran Zionist and Senior Israeli Officer Abandons Zionism

I first came across Dov Yermiya when he wrote an extremely moving book ‘My War Diary – Israel in Lebanon’ in 1983. He was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Israeli army but was moved enough by what he saw to speak out against the atrocities that he witnessed..

Danny Rubinstein in Davar (paper of the Israeli Labour Party and Histadrut) wrote that:

When you read a diary like this, you want to s cream, knock your head against the wall, or just cry, and I’m not exaggerating; it’s really terrible. It is not the war which is so horrible in Dov Yermiya'’ diary, but rather the face of the new Israeli that is unveiled before our eyes. This is the same Israeli who is creating a system of apartheid in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, who is brutally and proudly trampling on moral values and the dignity of man, it is the animalization and “rhinocerization” of man. Just a few of Dov Yermiya’s descriptions suffice to make this one of the most frightening documents that has ever been published in the brief history of the IDF and the State of Israel.

Gideon Levy wrote in Ha'aretz that:

Many heralded generals have written and published war diaries throughout the annals of history… Dov Yermiya’s war diary is a different type of document. This book is a severe indictment, but it is not directed against the soldiers who fought in the war, nor is it directed against the military strategy. It is an eye-witness report written by someone who saw us during the hours and days after the fighting, who followed our attitude towards the wounded civilian population, towards the prisoners and towards the thirsty and shocked women and children. This is first hand evidence, very personal in style, concerning the IDF as a conqueror.

When Yermiya was asked whether he his book would give ammunition to Israel’s enemies, which is the standard Zionist line when attempting to cover an atrocity up, he replied that "I am not worried by the image that is reflected in the mirror, but rather the person standing in front of the mirror.”

Yermiya was a member of Mapam, the left-Zionist party which felt embarrassed by him since Mapam has always been a willing participant in Zionism’s wars. Indeed Mapam's main role in Zionist affairs has been to provide the 'left' justification for Israel's barbarities. They were fond of proclaiming their belief in ‘socialism’ (at least in front of western audiences!). Yermiah though supported the refuseniks, the soldiers who refused to fight in the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon. Mapam, which fully participated in the expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948 and participated in all of Israel’s wars (they actually organised a demonstration in 1956 against Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai, which Eisenhower had forced Ben-Gurion (Israel’s Prime Minister) to agree to).

Yermiya has now drawn the logical conclusions of the brutality he speaks of.

The response of the veteran Israeli peace activist, Uri Avenri, shows the limits of his own political position. Avneri has a commendable record of opposing Israel’s militarism but he is held back by his support for the idea of a ‘reformed’ Zionism within 1967 borders. He makes a difference between the Nakba of 1947-8 and the further occupation of Palestinian land in 1967 which he sees as the root of the ugly racism and war mongering in Israeli society.

Aveneri harkens back to the memories of the pioneer Zionists. Avneri himself was a member of the Revisionist Irgun terror group and his memories are coloured by his ultimate disappointment at what he sees as a wrong turning by Zionism rather than Zionism itself being the problem.

Tony Greenstein

Key Zionist pioneer renounces Zionism
By Helena Cobban, 'Just World News' Tue, 04 Aug 2009

I've never met Dov Yermiya, a Jewish Israeli peace activist who is now 94 years old. But I read of course the book he published in 1983 in which he wrote with anguish about the torture and other gross mistreatment of civilians he witnessed directly during Israel's invasion of Lebanon the year before.

I have it in my hand now.

I just learned, in this open letter published today by Uri Avnery, that Yermiya, recently renounced the ideology and practice of Zionism with these stirring words:

I, a 95 year old Sabra (native born Israeli Jew), who has plowed its fields, planted trees, built a house and fathered sons, grandsons and great-grandsons, and also shed his blood in the battle for the founding of the State of Israel, Declare herewith that I renounce my belief in the Zionism which has failed, that I shall not be loyal to the Jewish fascist state and its mad visions, that I shall not sing anymore its nationalist anthem, that I shall stand at attention only on the days of mourning for those fallen on both sides in the wars, and that I look with a broken heart at an Israel that is committing suicide and at the three generations of offspring that I have bred and raised in it. ... for 42 years, Israel turned what should have been Palestine into a giant detention camp, and is holding a whole people captive under an oppressive and cruel regime, with the sole aim of taking away their country, come what may!!! The IDF eagerly suppresses their efforts at rebellion, with the active assistance of the settlement thugs, by the brutal means of a sophisticated Apartheid and a choking blockade, inhuman harassment of the sick and of women in labor, the destruction of their economy and the theft of their best land and water. Over all this there is waving the black flag of the frightening contempt for the life and blood of the Palestinians. Israel will never be forgiven for the terrible toll of blood spilt, and especially the blood of children, in hair-raising quantities...

Avnery's response is fascinating. He too is a veteran peace activist, and of about the same generation as Yermiya. But in the letter he is, I think, pleading with Yermiya not to renounce Zionism completely, but rather to reconnect with the "idealistic" Zionism that they both experienced during their youth.

He writes,

When I think of our youth, yours and mine, one scene is never far from my mind: the 1947 Dalia festival.

Tens of thousands of young men and women were sitting on the slope of a hill in the natural amphitheater near Kibbutz Dalia on Mount Carmel. Ostensibly it was a festival of folk dancing, but in reality it was much more - a great celebration of the new Hebrew culture which we were then creating in the country, in which folk dancing played an important role. The dancing groups came mainly from the kibbutzim and the youth movements, and the dances were original Hebrew creations, interwoven with Russian, Polish, Yemenite and Hassidic ones. A group of Arabs danced the Debka in ecstasy, dancing and dancing and dancing on.

In the middle of the event, the loudspeakers announced that members of the UN Commission of Inquiry, which had been sent by the international organization to decide upon the future of the country, were joining us. When we saw them entering the amphitheater, the tens of thousands spontaneously rose to their feet and started to sing the "Hatikva", the national anthem, with a holy fervor that reverberated from the surrounding mountains.

We did not know then that within half a year the great Hebrew-Arab war would break out - our War of Independence and their Naqba. I believe that most of the 6000 young people who fell in the war on our side, as well as the thousands that were wounded - like you and me - were present at that moment in Dalia, seeing each other and singing together.

What state did we think of then? What state did we set out to create?

What has happened to the Hebrew society, the Hebrew culture, the Hebrew morality that we were so proud of then?

Then, he pleads this:

You, Dov, have invested in this state much too much to turn your back on it in a gesture of anger and despair. The most hackneyed and worn-out slogan in Israel is also true: "We don't have another state!" Other states in the world have sunk to the depths of depravity and committed unspeakable crimes, far beyond our worst sins, and still brought themselves back to the family of nations and redeemed their souls. We and all the members of our generation, who were among those who created this state, bear a heavy responsibility for it. A responsibility to our offspring, to those oppressed by this state, to the entire world. From this responsibility we cannot escape. Even at your respectable age, and precisely because of it and because of what you represent, you must be a compass for the young and tell them: This state belongs to you, you can change it, don't allow the nationalist wreckers to steal it from you! True, 61 years ago we had another state in mind. Now, after our state has tumbled to where it is today, we must remember that other state, and remind everybody, every day, what the state should have been like, what it can be like, and not allow our vision to disappear like a dream. Let's lend our shoulders to every effort to repair and heal!

These are very weighty issues that these two longtime Zionists are debating.

I remember the evening I had back in early March with longtime Jewish-Israeli nonviolence activist Amos Gvirtz. Gvirtz is "only" in his late 60s or early 70s. But like Avnery and Yermiya he grew up in Israel.

He told me in March,

I became an anti-Zionist after Oslo, when the government expelled the Arabs of Jahhaleenn to make room for the big new settlement area if Maale Adummim... Like the Zionists, I believe we Jews need a state of our own. But unlike the Zionists I don't think this should be built on the ruins of someone else's home. So our state need not necessarily be right here.

Gvirtz, too, like Avnery, identified a strong link between the events of 1947-48 and the situation today-- though the nature of the link Gvirtz identified was very different from Avnery's: "The Nakba wasn't really a single event that happened in 1948, so much as a long-drawn-out process, that continues to this day." In other words, he was quite unwilling to neatly divide Israeli history, as Avnery still does, between the idealized, pre-lapsarian days of the 1947 Dalia festival and the post-lapsarian era that was inaugurated-- in Avnery's view-- only by Israel's conquest of the West Bank.

Obviously, this is a very weighty issue for Zionists and their supporters to grapple with. Did 1967 mark a notable break between a laudable past and a troublesome present? Or were there indeed, as Gvirtz and many other current non- and anti-Zionists have argued, many elements of continuity from the 1947 period right through to the present?

Anyway, I'd love to see the whole text of the latest Yermiya letter from which Avnery is quoting, if anyone can provide a link to it, preferably in English. The only recent English text that I could find by him online was this letter, published in the Communist weekly Zo Haderekh in June 2008.

In it, Yermiya was returning to Defense Minister Barak the invitation he had been sent to attend a ceremony to honor all veterans of Israel's 1948 "War of Independence".

He wrote,

As a veteran of the 1948 war, who was already wounded in face to face combat two weeks before the Declaration of the State, I feel obliged herewith to return the invitation to you, as Minister of Defence. I do so regretfully but see this as my duty.

I consider you, Ehud Barak, as one of the top military commanders and prominent political leaders who were responsible for converting the army from "the Israeli Defence Force" to an army of occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people and defender of the criminal settlements in their country.

40 years of occupation have utterly corrupted the Israeli army and all strata of Israeli society.They are both characterized by the nationalist 'east wind' [the east wind brings the chamsin and locusts - C.A.] which blows and kindles conflagrations of endless wars, which threaten our people and land with the third and final destruction. Your share in the responsibility for all this is enormous, and therefore I return your invitation to you, without thanks...

Random Zionist brutality in Qalandia

This was forwarded to me today. Just another example of Israel’s random brutality against Palestinians. Further comment is unnecessary.

Tony Greenstein

This boy, Mahmoud Eghbariyeh, did NOTHING but forget his ID card, although he had another identification document on him, his driving license.

This took place at Qalandia checkpoint.

This was was filmed by chance. One of million illegal assaults and inhumane behaviors against Palestinians. The world needs to see this Zionist racism.

What is the meaning of a Jewish State? Rejecting an Arab girl from an Israeli school for Jewish children

If you want to know what the reality of a ‘Jewish’ state is, then the following story says it all. An Arab toddler, all of one-year old, is rejected from an Israeli nursery because she is an Arab. The full and sad, sorry story is below. Is there anyone who finds it difficult to make comparisons with regimes in other countries in other times and places? Well let’s try the education policy of Nazi Germany towards Jews.

On 25th April the Law against the overcrowding of German Schools and Institutions of Higher Learning established quotas. Henceforth only a fixed number, which were set at 1.5% of the school numbers could be Jewish.

It took Law No. 242 in 1938 before Jewish children were forbidden from attending ‘Aryan’ schools. Of course most Jew children had long ceased attending such schools but legally it was still permitted. In most Israeli schools the quota is set at zero.

However those responsible for this apartheid also have created certain schemes whereby Jewish and Arab children will get together to learn about each other’s religion etc. before going back to their separate towns and villages. One such liberal endeavour is the Abraham Fund – but who is it who is supporting this financially? The Jewish Agency, which more than any other single institution has done its best to build apartheid in Israel.


Little recourse for Arab girl rejected from Israeli day-care
Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 10 August 2009

An Arab couple whose one-year-old daughter was expelled from an Israeli day-care center on her first day are suing a Jewish mother for damages, accusing her of racist incitement against their child.

Maysa and Shuaa Zuabi, from the village of Sulam in northern Israel, launched the court action last week saying they had been "shocked and humiliated" when the center's owner told them that six Jewish parents had demanded their daughter's removal because she is an Arab.

In the first legal action of its kind in Israel, the Zuabis are claiming $80,000 from Neta Kadshai, whom they accuse of being the ringleader.

The girl, Dana, is reported to be the first Arab child ever to attend the day-care center in the rural Jewish community of Merhavia, less than one kilometer from Sulam.

However, human rights lawyers say that, given the narrow range of anti-racism legislation in Israel, the chance of success for the Zuabis is low.

Since its founding in 1948, Israel has operated an education system almost entirely segregated between Jews and Arabs.

However, chronic underfunding of Arab schools means that in recent years a small but growing number of Arab parents have sought to move their children into the Jewish system.

Dana was admitted to the day-care center last December, according to the case, after its owner, Ivon Grinwald, told the couple she had a vacant place. However, on Dana's first day six parents threatened to withdraw their own children if she was not removed.

Kadshai, in particular, is said to have waged a campaign of "slurs and efforts aimed at having [Dana] removed from the day-care center, making it clear that [her] children would not be in the same center as an Arab girl." Zuabi was summoned to a meeting the same evening at which Grinwald said she could not afford to lose the six children. She returned the contract Zuabi had signed and repaid her advance fees.

Zuabi said that while she was in the office Grinwald received a call from Kadshai again slandering Dana and demanding her removal.

Grinwald refused to speak to the media last week. However, last December, when the Zuabis first complained, she told Army Radio: "The [Jewish] parents called her a girl from 'the [Arab] sector,' they said this is a day-care center for Jewish children and that it should stay that way ... I can't change the world, I have to look out for my livelihood."

Although Israel lacks a constitution, the Zuabis' lawyer, Dori Kaspi, is suing Kadshai under the terms of the 1992 Basic Law on Human Freedom and Dignity, the nearest legislation Israel has to a bill of rights.

In previous cases when Arab children have been excluded from schools, the parents have launched a legal action for discrimination against the education authorities or the school itself.

Lawyers are doubtful that the couple can win given the law's lack of reference to the principles of equality or equal opportunities.

One lawyer, who wished not to be named, said: "Instances like this are not covered by laws against discrimination. Anti-discrimination legislation in Israel is very specific, covering mainly examples of discrimination in employment and access to public places like pubs and clubs."

Even then, the lawyer added, enforcement was extremely lax.

Instances of Arab children being denied places at Jewish kindergartens and junior schools have become more common in recent years, especially in the country's handful of mixed cities.

Yousef Jabareen, head of Dirasat, a Nazareth-based organization monitoring education issues, said when parents tried to switch their children to Jewish schools it was because of the poor conditions in Arab education institutions.

"Although it's an understandable reaction, it's a cause for concern," he said. "In Jewish schools Arab children are not taught their language, culture or history. Their Arab identity has to be sacrificed for them to receive a decent education."

A report published in March revealed that the government invested $1,100 in each Jewish pupil's education compared to $190 for each Arab pupil. The gap is even wider when compared to the popular state-run religious schools, where Jewish pupils receive nine times more funding than Arab pupils.

There is also an official shortfall of more than 1,000 classrooms for Arab children, said Jabareen, though Arab organizations believe the problem is in reality much worse. In addition, a significant proportion of existing Arab school buildings have been judged unsafe or dangerous to children's health.

In some parts of the country where private religious schools are available, particularly in Nazareth and Haifa, Arab parents are turning their back on the state-run system, said Jabareen.

Two-thirds of the 7,500 Arab pupils in the northern mixed city of Haifa, for example, are reported to be attending private schools, despite high levels of poverty among the population.

Last September, the Adalah legal center for Israel's Arab minority forced the municipality of the mixed city of Ramle, near Tel Aviv, to register an Arab boy in a Jewish kindergarten close to his home.

The mayor, Yoel Lavi, had earlier told the boy's parents that he could not be admitted because he was an Arab and that the kindergarten served only Jewish children.

Jabareen said he favored binational and bilingual schools in which Jewish and Arab children could meet and study as equals. However, the state did not offer such schools to parents.

Four bilingual elementary schools admitting both Arab and Jewish children have been established privately. Israel has no mixed secondary schools.

Mike Prashker, director of Merchavim, an organization advocating shared citizenship in Israel, recently told the Haaretz newspaper: "The Israeli reality of segregated education systems creates ignorance and fear of the 'other.'"

A poll published by Haifa University in January found that three-quarters of Jewish pupils regarded Arabs as "uneducated, uncivilized and dirty."

A recent survey by Merchavim found that the segregation among pupils was mirrored by segregation among teachers. Despite some 8,000 Arab teachers being recorded as unemployed by the education ministry, only a few dozen work in Jewish schools, mainly teaching Arabic, even though the Jewish system is suffering from staff shortages.

The previous dovish education minister Yuli Tamir established a public committee last year to develop for the first time a "shared life" policy for Jewish and Arab schools.

The committee issued its report earlier this year recommending more meetings between Jewish and Arab children, that Arabic should be taught to Jewish pupils, and that schools should employ both Arab and Jewish teachers.

The new right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu announced it was freezing the report in April.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

Israel Medical Association Defends Torture Doctors and Cuts Ties with Israel's Physicians for Human Rights

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Israel Medical Association Breaks Links with Israeli Doctors Opposed to Torture

British Doctor Derek Summerfield Threatened with Libel Action by the IMA

Today's Haaretz (10.8.09.) carries a report that the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) has cut all links with the Israeli branch of Physicians for Human Rights. The head of the IMA, Dr Yoram Blachar is also President of the World Medical Association. There have been repeated calls for his removal from this office because of his and the IMA's consistent refusal to address the issue of the participation of Israeli doctors in the torture of Palestinians.

One would have thought that Israeli doctors, conscious of the involvement of Nazi SS doctors like the infamous Dr Josef Mengele in the torture and diabolic experiments on Jewish children and twins, would have been the last body to condone the involvement of medical personnel and doctors in torture. Not so. Instead the primary concern of the IMA has been to defend the doctors involved and rebut allegations of involvement in torture.

For some 14 years IMA, and myself at its head, have served as a defensive barrier between international anti-Israeli bodies and the doctors of the State of Israel, against baseless attacks, according to which, inter alia, the doctors of the State of Israel are allegedly actively involved in the torture of Palestinian prisoners, and/or are accused of allegedly ignoring such phenomena.

As Blachar himself states:

The infuriating reality is that the activities of PHR-Israel constitute fertile ground for anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist anti-Semitism.

This is the only concern of Blachar (& Israel's Supreme Court itself legally permitted the use of 'moderate physical pressure' as a result of the recommendations of the Landau Commission, chaired by former Supreme Court judge Moshe Landau). It is universally acknowledged that torture of Palestinians in Israel is routine (see e.g. the report of Israel's main human rights organisation, Btselem). See all the article (below) from Haaretz 24.6.09. on the systematic use of torture in Israel.

Tony Greenstein

IMA cuts ties with PHR over call for ouster of Israeli head of World Medical Association

By Dan Even
In an unprecedented move, the Israel Medical Association announced this month that it was severing its contacts with the Israeli branch of Physicians for Human Rights.

The decision was made after the president and founder of PHR-Israel, Ruchama Marton, signed an international petition calling for Dr. Yoram Blachar's ouster as president of the World Medical Association. Blachar is also president of the IMA.

But PHR insisted that Marton signed the petition in her individual capacity and not on behalf of the organization. "The organization does not support the dismissal of Dr. Blachar from the presidency of the World Medical Association and calls for professional conduct to be maintained," said PHR's director, Hadas Ziv.

Marton added: "The petition was naturally signed by private individuals and not organizations. I am happy that I signed, but I signed as a private individual."

In his letter to PHR, Blachar wrote: "The damage caused by [your] organization is great. We have pleaded with the organization's administration to refrain from using the international arena to besmirch and sling mud at Israel's doctors, but to no avail. We have decided to cut off all contact with the organization, and I hope you deal with the matter as your conscience dictates."

His announcement sparked harsh criticism from PHR, a nonprofit organization whose members include some 500 Israeli physicians, among them senior doctors. Most PHR volunteers are also members of the IMA, which represents about 95 percent of Israeli doctors.

PHR warned that the decision to sever contact would cause serious damage to the medical system, including by disrupting patient referrals between the clinics for foreign workers and refugees that the IMA and PHR both run in south Tel Aviv.

It also expressed concern about how the rupture would affect exchanges of data regarding patients, including prisoners, who need treatment, and professional cooperation to promote issues such as the elimination of patient copayments for medication.

"The severing of contact is serious," said PHR's Ziv. "We are not interested in taking steps that make the situation worse; we believe in dialogue instead."

Criticism echoed

Several local physicians who volunteer for PHR echoed the organization's criticisms.

The IMA said its exceptional decision was made in light of the cooperation between PHR and Derek Summerfield, a British physician who claims that Blachar has justified torture of prisoners for over 10 years. Summerfield was one of the initiators of the petition to depose Blachar as president of the World Medical Association. To date, the petition has attracted 725 signatories from 43 countries. But the IMA recently circulated a counterpetition in support of Blachar's presidency that has attracted 5,500 signatures.

Blachar's term as IMA head will end in September after three terms in office. His successor as president of the World Medical Association is expected to be elected in October.

PHR recently released a list of 12 physicians who, according to testimony in a report published by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, participated in the torture of Palestinians. But IMA ethics committee chairman Prof. Avinoam Reches, who looked into the matter, concluded that there is no evidence linking these physicians to torture.

"I was provided with the names of physicians who denied in every way possible that they engaged in torture in the course of interrogations," Reches said. "The ethics committee has no legal power to investigate the allegations beyond talking [to the doctors]. From the doctors' tone, my impression was that they are telling the truth."

PHR's Ziv said in response that "the Israel Medical Association conducts complex ethics investigations, but in this instance, it avoided a comprehensive examination."

Moreover, PHR members said, the chief physician of the Israel Prison Service is a member of the IMA ethics committee, and that could influence the standard of the IMA's investigation.

Blachar, however, said the IMA "has explicitly stated our opposition to the torture of prisoners and detainees jailed in Israel ever since the High Court of Justice ruling [on the subject] in 1999."

"Dr. Marton is president of Physicians for Human Rights, and her signature is identified with the organization," Blachar added. "If the organization says it will stop its activity in the international arena to defame, slander and sling mud at Israel's doctors, we could reconsider contacts with it."

The IMA's legal department decided last week to file a defamation action against Summerfield, the British physician who was one of the initiators of the petition drive against Blachar.

Letter from Dr Derek Summerfield & 725 Doctors calling on the World Medical Association to Remove Dr Blachar as its President

Dear Dr Hill and WMA Council

Further to our original open letter and subsequent material (we await acknowledgement of receipt), we think you and the Council should see this letter from Dr Blachar as IMA President about Physicians for Human Rights Israel.

We find this so remarkable and outrageous that we have sent it today to Fiona Godlee, Editor of the Brit Med Journal, who have already carried a news item on our call to you. As we say, this must be a first! Where does it place the WMA as a body to have a President resorting to such crude cynicism in seeking to dismiss the evidence base and those who have contributed to it on a matter as grave as torture and doctors' collusion with it.

This is Dr Blachar working hard to defend the utterly indefensible. This is the collusion we are talking about!
As before we would be grateful if you would distribute this to Council members.

We appeal to the WMA Council to take a principled step with the greatest international resonance.

We are anxious to hear from you and are concerned that Dr Blachar may be pressurising you into not responding so that we get ever closer to the end of his tenure in October/November.

Yours sincerely

Dr Derek Summerfield, on behalf of Prof Meyers and 725 sigs.

To doctors who are members of PHR-Israel
21 July 2009:

IMA Chair, Dr. Yoram Blachar, publishes a letter in which he explains to doctors who are members of PHR-Israel, why IMA has decided to sever all contacts with the association.

To doctors who are members of the PHR-Israel association

I appeal to you first of all as Israeli doctors who are members of IMA and additionally as members of PHR-Israel. I want to share with you my hard feelings following recent developments.

For some 14 years IMA, and myself at its head, have served as a defensive barrier between international anti-Israeli bodies and the doctors of the State of Israel, against baseless attacks, according to which, inter alia, the doctors of the State of Israel are allegedly actively involved in the torture of Palestinian prisoners, and/or are accused of allegedly ignoring such phenomena.

These are baseless accusations that are expressed, for instance, in medical journals such as the Lancet, the BMJ and the Journal of the Royal College of Medicine.

Unfortunately, various organizations, and particularly PHR-Israel are contributing to the international offensive against us. For years we have appealed to PHR-Israel to give us the personal details of those who were allegedly involved in torture so that we could relate to each case individually – but we received no such details from PHR-Israel.

On one single occasion, about 13 names were transferred to us, of doctors who were allegedly involved in torture or degradation of Palestinian detainees, by the organization PCATI (Public Committee Against Torture in Israel) and not by PHR-Israel. An investigation into the subject, held by Prof. Reches, the head of IMA's Ethics Board, showed that among the doctors accused, some had never worked in those facilities, and three who had worked there, categorically denied any connection to the accusations. Of course the accusations are "based" on one-sided testimonies with no supporting evidence. By the way, since participation in torture is a criminal offence, the accusers are free to submit a complaint to the police or to the Attorney General.

I would like to state that we are open to criticism and in several meetings that the leadership of IMA held with the Board of PHR-Israel we clarified our position. Nonetheless, we objected strongly to criticism when it was expressed in international fora. Time and again, we begged PHR's Board to avoid using the international arena, blackening names and slinging mud at the doctors of Israel and at IMA, but in vain. The infuriating reality is that the activities of PHR-Israel constitute fertile ground for anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist anti-Semitism.

It would seem that this issue reached a new climax when about one month ago a petition signed by 725 doctors was published, calling for my expulsion from my position as the president of the World Medical Association (WMA). Dr. Ruchama Marton, President of PHR-Israel, also signed this petition!!!

It is important for me to emphasize that in any case I am about to end my role at WMA in October, so that the personal issue is marginal. The issue is much more problematic, and it involves the harnessing of the world medical community to a struggle against us, the doctors in Israel , and against the Israeli medical system, supposedly as part of the regional political system, and by blackening our names and slinging mud at us doctors.

Matters have gone so far, that in one of the discussions held this week in the annual conference of the British Medical Association (BMA) (to which I was invited as president of the WMA), a stormy discussion was held in which very hard and baseless accusations were directed at IMA and the State of Israel. The discussion was polarized and reached a point where the situation in the State of Israel was compared in the same breath to the situation in Darfur and Sri Lanka, states in which, as is known, genocide and blood baths are taking place!

The speakers at the conference stated several times that they had drawn the information that they were basing their claims on from PHR-Israel and that if an organization of Israeli doctors makes such a claim, who are we, the Moslem and anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli doctors, to doubt the credibility of information from PHR-Israel?!!.

What was absurd was that it was our friends at the BMA who prevented the members of the conference from adopting hard resolutions at the end of the discussion, and they were the ones who assisted us in withstanding the rising wave of Israel-haters.

The damage caused by this activity of PHR-Israel against IMA is great and it hurts each of us – it is an expression of a clear position against the medical community in the State of Israel and against the organization that you are members of!

I do not thing that there are differences in our worldview with regard to torture and involvement of doctors [in torture]. In order that there should be no doubt about it, although I feel that in the light of the position we have voiced repeatedly, it is superfluous to emphasize that IMA and myself as its leader are strictly opposed to torture and to degrading treatment of Palestinian or other prisoners and detainees. We demand that a doctor who was witness to torture or to its consequences report it – all according to the international conventions of the WMA of which we are signatories.

The leadership of PHR-Israel directs accusations against us in the international arena in a manner that is very difficult to erase, in the face of growing tendencies of waves of anti-Semitism. I wish to stress that IMA is not a political body and any attempt of PHR-Israel to tie the policies of the government to the policies of IMA is irrelevant.

I deliberated for a long time about whether I should appeal to you, since IMA has always been open to criticism, but from the feelings I get on the ground, I think not all of you are aware of this activity of PHR-Israel and of the damage it is causing to the doctors of the State of Israel and to IMA.

In the light of the above, IMA has decided to sever all ties with PHR-Israel and I hope that you will act in this regard in accordance with your conscience.

Regards,

Dr. Yoram Blachar
Chair, IMA　

Last update - 17:07 24/06/2009
Rights group: IDF, Shin Bet restraint practices tantamount to torture
By Haaretz Service 　

Israeli security forces inflicting 'pain and humiliation' on Palestinian detainees, says group report.

Israel's security services came under fire on Wednesday for its methods of restraining Palestinian prisoners during questioning, which a new report claims are tantamount to torture.

The report by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) describes "pain and humiliation" suffered by Palestinian detainees at the hands of members of the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet security service.

The report, which is based on interviews and investigations into 574 arrests and interrogations over the last year, argues that Israeli organizations, in particular the IDF and the Shin Bet, habitually bind detainees in a painful and humiliating manner, often constituting torture.

In defiance of Israeli law, High Court rulings and international laws and guidelines, detainees in Israel are usually bound in a way that is designed to cause them pain, and not only to prevent them from escaping, the report says.

This binding, the report says, is implemented with the express purpose of punishing detainees, frightening them and illegally extracting information and even confessions. The report claims that a large proportion of those exposed to this practice are Palestinian security prisoners, but this approach has also begun to manifest itself in the treatment of other prisoners.

"It stands to reason that this type of binding is used to dehumanize the Palestinian detainee, who is subject to the mercy of the occupying regime," the report says. "This type of behavior by members of the authorities, as this report demonstrates, can be classified as humiliating at the very least, and in certain cases as abuse and torture, which are prohibited both morally and by law."

The report begins with the committee's mission statement, explaining that the group was established in 1990 "in response to long standing government policy that allowed the systematic use of torture and abuse during Shin Bet interrogations."

"The committee operates to protect the rights of detainees and prisoners and to promote an absolute ban on torture, as is dictated by democracy and moral values, as well as international law," the group declares.

The IDF told Channel 10 TV in response to the report that the military adheres to international law and Israeli law and abides by all the guidelines when it comes to the detention of "terror activists who endanger the security of the state of Israel and the safety of its citizens."

The IDF makes a point to ensure the safety of all detainees from the moment of their capture, the army said, adding that it views with severity any unnecessary harm caused to detainees, and thoroughly investigates all claims of abuse, taking punitive action where necessary.

I have added this comment to the article, as for technical reasons it can't be posted.
TG

Excellent summary Tony. A number of us have been trying to get the BMA (Brit Med Asscn) to make a public response and in particular to answer two questions, amongst others:

1. Will the BMA now press the IMA to investigate properly the PCATI report findings on torture?

2. Should not the BMA investigate thoroughly the allegation that the IMA’s stance as it currently appears contravenes the Tokyo Declaration?

The BMA has proved extremely reluctant (to say the very least). Dr Blachar attended (my understanding is that it was by invitation) the recent annual general meeting (Ann. Repr. Meeting) of the BMA in Liverpool. I hear that he was an honoured guest.

I am pretty much of a newcomer, relatively, to this issue—others have been trying, literally for years, to get the BMA to act.

Recent replies to myself from a BMA representative have included the following:

1st email (which was sent as a standard "universal" reply to many of us)

23 June 09

The BMA has been looking into the issues raised by the recent protests regarding Dr Blachar. It goes without saying that this is an issue that generates very strong feelings, and is riven by claims and counterclaims that are very difficult to substantiate. In our understanding, the main substance of the concerns relate to the role played by Dr Blachar as both President of the Israeli Medical Association and President of the World Medical Association. The argument is that Dr Blachar's term as President of the WMA is compromised by the fact that, under his Presidency, the IMA has been complicit with medical involvement in torture. Although each side in the dispute refuses to accept the credibility of critical external witnesses, Amnesty nonetheless describes routine medical involvement in torture by Israeli interrogators, and the BMA views Amnesty's reports as credible. There is not, however, credible evidence that the IMA has directly supported this. We have in fact been forwarded many items, signed by him over a number of years, sent from the IMA to the Israeli Defence Force pointing out that medical involvement in torture is a violation of international medical ethics. In July 2007, for example, as President of the IMA, Dr Blachar wrote to the head of the Israel Security Agency (ISA), Yuval Diskin, pointing out that doctors employed by the ISA are prohibited from taking part in acts that might be perceived as torture. As President of the WMA Dr Blachar has also supported calls for both sides in the dispute to respect medical neutrality.

Having said this, as is widely known, in a letter to The Lancet in 1997, Dr Blachar refers without criticism to Israeli guidelines permitting the use of 'moderate physical pressure' during interrogation. It has subsequently been accepted that this can amount to torture and/or inhuman or degrading treatment. In 1999 the Israeli High Court ruled such practices illegal. Dr Blachar does not, in his letter, go so far as to condone medical involvement in such interrogation. Nevertheless, Dr Blachar's letter has been heavily cited by his critics as condoning such medical involvement, and it has been clearly seen in some quarters as undermining his authority. As President of the World Medical Association, which explicitly forbids medical involvement in torture, we recognise that this puts him in a difficult position.

Overall, however, and on the basis of imperfect and contested information, although Dr Blachar's position as joint President of the WMA and IMA is a difficult one, in our view he has made authoritative statements as President of both organisations calling on the Israeli Defence Force, and any doctors operating under its remit, to respect international ethical standards.

-----

2nd email - 13 June 09

I think all reasonable people, irrespective of their personal views, recognise the complex nature of this conflict, and the difficulty that it presents to those who wish to approach it constructively and even-handedly. It is, as I said in my earlier email, riven by claims and counterclaims. It is also an area in which critics of each regime use extremely broad brushes. Many of the critics of Dr Blachar, for example, seem to imply that the IMA and the IDF are somehow synonymous - that the IMA must be at least implicitly supporting the IDF. The BMA is clearly British, but we have a complex relationship with the various Governments that compromise the UK, a relationship that is, at times, openly critical and hostile.

If the BMA were to make a public call for Dr Blachar's resignation we would need to do so on the basis of strong evidence, evidence that would, if required, stand up in a court of law. A lot of the evidence is, however, inferential, and, as stated in my earlier email, the BMA does not regard it as appropriate to act in the absence of reasonable proof. The evidence of breaches of human rights and medical neutrality on both sides of this conflict is clear. What is less clear is the extent to which the IMA and therefore, by extension, Dr Blachar, is directly involved. And against that there is the evidence we have seen of the IMA and Dr Blachar protesting on behalf of those at risk from IDF actions.

We will continue to monitor the situation.

[I responded to several of these points - BR]

-------

3rd email - 4 August 09

It is gratifying that there is general agreement on the complexity of this conflict, and the difficulty in identifying objective and politically neutral sources of authority.

Where I think there may be some confusion however is in relation to the nature and scope of the BMA's role. As you know, the BMA is a trade union and professional association for doctors. Its role is to protect and promote the interests of doctors and of the medical profession. It has neither the authority nor the resources to mount investigations into medical involvement in human rights abuses.

Our approach has always been to work with appropriate domestic and international bodies, in order to promote the underlying goals of the Association. Our human rights work, for example, is heavily reliant on the information that we receive from Amnesty. Where we receive unambiguous confirmation from Amnesty in relation to the violation of human rights in health, or in relation to medical professionals, we will make a public call to the countries concerned. This we have done in the past in relation to the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Otherwise the work we undertake depends on discussion and debate and the arts of moral persuasion.

The challenge of some of these issues for a democratic and member-led organisation was clearly in evidence at this year's Annual Representatives' Meeting. There were voices raises that were critical of Israel and by extension Dr Blachar, others were raised in support. In the end, no substantive policy was passed. Despite this, we remain committed to promoting the highest ethical standards in medicine and I can assure you that we will continue to keep a close eye on developments in Israel/Palestine, and to use a variety of channels to make our concerns known.

Dr Brian Robinson

5 Scottish PSC Activists Charged with 'Racially Aggravated Trespass Conduct'

One of the consequences of the Establishment trying to redefine support for the Palestinians and opposition to anti-Zionism as 'anti-Semitism' is that it now lays open political activists to prosecution for 'racism'. We have the irony of those who defend racism and apartheid charging the opponents of both with 'racism'. It is an example of Doublethink. Good is bad, anti-racism is racism. The trial is extremely important because it is an attempt to criminalise anti-Zionism and Palestine solidarity. Below is the press release put out by Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Tony Greenstein

Appeal for support by activists on trial for 'racism'!

An arrest warrant was issued at Friday's court hearing against Sofiah MacLeod, Scottish PSC Secretary currently in Palestine witnessing Israel's racist dispossesion of Palestinians. Sofiah will bring her recent experiences of Israeli state-driven racism when she goes on trial accused of 'racism'. Three of the other four accused will similarly produce evidence from first-hand experience of Israel's programme of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

On trial for ‘racially aggravated conduct’ are five Scots who responded to the Palestinian appeal for boycott of Israel. We protested a visit by the Israeli state-sponsored Jerusalem Quartet to the 2008 Edinburgh International Festival. Next appearance in Edinburgh Sherriff Court is on Thursday October 1st, when our lawyers will argue to dismiss the case against us .

The Scottish legal authorities will attempt to prove that shouting 'End the siege of Gaza', and 'Boycott Israel' equals 'racism'. We five will argue that boycott of Israel is a duty while that State violates every canon of international law.

This is a political show-trial, encouraged by the stated positions of the British Government, and is aimed at intimidating Palestine supporters. We shall certainly not be intimdated: last year we saw off some Zionist rascals from SCoJeC (Scottish Council of Jewish Communities) who were unwise enough to claim in print that Scottish PSC is anti-Semitic. They then had to pulp 6,000 copies of a book, Scotland's Jews, in open admission that the claim was without foundation and libellous.

We will show in our defence/attack that

* we are bound to oppose grave Israeli crimes and British Government complicity in those crimes, including political, diplomatic, economic and military support for Israeli Governments
* the nearest domestic political equivalent in Britain to the factions in the Israeli Government is the neo-Nazi British National Party (BNP)
* Israel is an apartheid state as defined in international law
* the Palestinian-inspired BDS campaign is a duty for consistent supporters of human rights, i.e. those who repudiate a racist attitude that Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans and others have a lesser entitlement that others
* the Jerusalem Quartet are indeed, as we claim, institutionally linked to the Israeli Army and its State, and thus to be boycotted by human rights supporters

Expert witnesses - Palestinians, Israelis and others - will show that the growing support for the Palestinian BDS appeal is justified by

* the history of ethnic cleansing carried out by the Zionist movement and its State from 1948 to the present
* the conscious determination of the Israeli State to continue with further criminal acts of ethnic cleansing
* the failure of the British Government to honour its international legal obligations to opppose Israeli apartheid, specifically the illegal Wall and settlement building

Witnesses who have agreed to give expert evidence or personal testimonies for the defence include:

* Leila Khaled, Palestinian refugee and resistance fighter, Member of Palestinian National Council
* Dr. Ghada Karmi, Palestinian writer and academic
* Omar Barghouti PACBI (Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott)
* Dr. Hisham Genayem, Palestinian refugee and surgeon
* Dr. Moshe Machover, Israeli academic and anti-Zionist political activist
* Dr. Michael Kearney, University of York (t.b.c)
* Dr. Keith Hammond, University of Glasgow
* Yael Kahn, Israeli human rights activist
* Marion Woolfson, Hon. President of Scottish PSC
* Liz Elkind, ex-President of the STUC, moved successful report and recommendation for BDS at STUC 2009 Perth Conference
* Tony Greenstein, (JBIG) Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods
* Rt. Hon. Peter Hain MP, veteran anti-apartheid campaigner in the 70's, Chair of Stop All Racist Tours (awaiting reply)
* Members of the public who witnessed the protest during the performance
* BBC sound technicians who recorded the entire event (awaiting reply)

We are asking supporters to

* send letters of support to campaign@scottishpsc.org.uk
* invite one of the accused to speak and explain the background and aims of the campaign to your trade union, political party branch, mosque, church or campaign group
* turn up outside, and inside, the Court on October 1st and later sessions
* make a donation to the campaign (Judge Horseburgh criticised the Legal Aid board severely for refusal to provide legal aid to one of the accused.)
* boycott everything Israeli, except those Israelis supporting Palestinian human and national rights
* join the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign to help us build this campaign

Scottish Palestine campaigners fight charges of “racial motivation"
Tuesday, 14 April 2009 17:27

Five Palestine supporters arrested last year for disrupting a concert by an Israeli group are due to appear at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Friday.

The campaigners, all members of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC), stood up during the Aug 29th Edinburgh Festival performance of the Jerusalem Quartet and made statements including “End the Siege of Gaza—Boycott Israel!”

The campaigners were originally charged with Breach of the Peace, and had been due to be tried on March 9th. However, at an Intermediate Diet one week before the trial, the Procurator Fiscal made a motion to desert that case and bring forward new charges that their Israeli boycott protest was “racially motivated”.

Sofia MacLeod, SPSC Secretary, and one of the five accused said,

“Given the absurd nature of a charge clearly designed to criminalise the growing campaign to boycott Apartheid Israel until it respects Palestinian human rights, rather than oppose the new charges, we welcomed the opportunity to highlight that to boycott Israel is the opposite of racist.”

Late last year, the UN General Assembly President, Miguel d’escoto Brockmann, was condemned by pro-Israel groups when he described Israel as “apartheid” and recommended that the UN follow “the lead of a new generation of civil society, who are calling for a similar non-violent campaign [to that used against Apartheid South Africa] of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end its violations.”

Campaign chair and fellow accused, Mick Napier, said, “The International Court of Justice advised in 2004 that signatories to the Geneva Conventions (including the UK) have an obligation to act to ensure that Israel dismantles its illegal settlements and the Apartheid separation wall that steals yet more Palestinian land.

“With the complete failure by the UK and other governments to fulfill those obligations, Israel feels able to break international law with impunity. The devastating result is what we saw in Gaza earlier this year with a death toll in excess of 1300, including 300 children. If our government won’t act to uphold international law, the responsibility falls on ordinary citizens through our power of protest and boycott.”

Local Jewish writer and journalist, and honorary president of the SPSC, Marion Woolfson, described the latest charges against her fellow campaigners as “ridiculous”.

“It would have been absurd to label Peter Hain and Desmond Tutu etc as racist for pushing the successful boycott of Apartheid South Africa; clearly they were anti-racist. Those who use boycott to pressure Israel are similarly anti-racist.”

Before the concert, Woolfson had called on Edinburgh Festival organisers to rescind the invitation to the Israeli musicians. In a letter to the Queen’s Hall venue, she wrote, “I simply cannot understand why you should have invited the representatives of a country that practices ethnic cleansing and a form of apartheid which even those who have lived in South Africa have said is worse than anything thought up by the former rulers of their country.”

However, Israeli Ambassador to the UK, Ron Prosor condemned the action of the Scottish pro-Palestine group, telling the Jewish Chronicle “We must not give in to the attempts to sabotage the marketing of Israeli art and culture in Britain.”