BACK TO PALESTINE, JULY 8 TO 16

By: Laura Durkay

I'm doing this.It's a week of international solidarity actions in Palestine, which will bring together hundreds of internationals to work with 15 Palestinian civil resistance organizations across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

It also includes this--a mass fly-in to Ben Gurion Airport on July 8. Hundreds of internationals will arrive on the same day, and, if all goes according to plan, hundreds of people will refuse to lie to Israeli security about the fact that we are here to visit Palestinians and participate in nonviolent solidarity actions.

"You're crazy," you might say. "They're just going to deport you all, and you will have spent all that time and money for nothing."

(For the record, I don't have $1,500 or more to drop on maybe getting deported. I have an epic number of frequent flyer miles on a certain airline, which allowed me to get a free ticket to London, where I will meet up with the UK delegation that is joining this action. A ticket the rest of the way on a European budget airline was fairly cheap. That's how I can afford to do this.)

It is true that they may deport us. The Israeli authorities will do what they will do and we cannot control their behavior. But if that happens, I don't believe it will be for nothing.

I heard about the fly-in action months ago. Like many people, I thought it was a great idea, but I was afraid of getting deported, and downright terrified of losing my ability to enter Palestine in the future, especially at such a critical time.

But then came Nakba Day, Naksa Day, and the announcement that seven of my friends will be on the US Boat to Gaza, which is due to sail very shortly before the July week of action. The action started to seem more and more like an important challenge to Israeli apartheid, and I began to feel more and more like I was the exact right kind of person to do it.

I've been to Palestine twice on "witnessing" delegations. I've seen what things are like on the ground. I'm done with traveling there simply to witness. On the last trip I was questioned extensively by Israeli security, and I have been writing and speaking openly and publicly about Palestine since then, using my full name and with a very visible online and real-world presence. This leads me to believe that I would probably be questioned no matter what I did and how carefully I tried to hide the next time I tried to enter Palestine, and that trying to pass myself off as a "tourist" in the future might in fact only piss off Israeli security and give them an excuse to deport me anyway, for lying to them.

For what it's worth, I have absolutely no problem with activists going on the DL, not telling the whole truth, or otherwise obfuscating in order to get into Palestine and do work that undermines the rotten apartheid system. That is the standard M.O., and I think people should continue to go for it. But I'm excited by the possibility of trying a different route this time.

Something interesting happened once I signed up for this venture. I completely lost my fear of Ben Gurion Airport, which has to be one of my least favorite places on Earth. Israeli-controlled borders are miserable places. They're factories of humiliation, intimidation, dehumanization, and forced submission to vile degrees of racial profiling, political policing, and generally unchecked dominance behavior by cocky soldiers and cold-eyed secret police. Usually, internationals and Palestinians accept submitting to this system as a necessary evil, the unwritten price of an entry visa into Palestine.

But there is something so wonderful about the prospect of being able to defy that system, of being given permission to defy it as part of a nonviolent civil disobedience action. It releases every natural rebellious instinct, the very impulses that draw people to Palestine in the first place, and channels them into mass action. The prospect of getting deported alone is lame, pointless and depressing. The prospect of getting deported along with hundreds and hundreds of people who are challenging Israel's racist, repressive entry policies sounds like it just might be worth it.

The brilliance of this action is that it takes an experience that is often isolated and isolating--interacting with the fearsome Israeli security apparatus--and turns it into a collective, mass solidarity action. The whole system of interrogation, detention, prison and deportation is designed to isolate you as much as possible, to create the impression that you are completely alone against this overwhelmingly powerful repressive machinery. Mass civil disobedience completely undercuts and inverts this power dynamic, which is one of the reasons Israel finds acts of unarmed civil resistance so threatening.

It's not that any of us want to get deported. We don't. We want permission to enter Palestine and travel freely to visit our Palestinian friends, as is our universal human right. But we have no illusions about the system that stands in our way.

I love Palestine. I love the people I've met there, Palestinians and Israelis, who are fighting for Palestinian national liberation and a country where everyone can live in peace with justice and equal rights. To be invited--welcomed--into such a heroic struggle is an honor beyond words. It physically hurts to think about the prospect that I might not be able to go back there for years.

But really, what justification do I have to hold so tightly to my ability to enter Palestine when that right is denied to so many actual Palestinians? When Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have to brave Israeli snipers just to catch a glimpse of their homeland? When it was recently revealed that 140,000 Palestinians from the West Bank lost their ability to return home, simply because they had the temerity to live, work, or study abroad?

Israel is being challenged on every border. If Palestinian refugees can brave minefields and live ammunition, and the folks aboard Freedom Flotilla 2 can face Israeli gunboats and navy commandos, we can stand up to the Ben Gurion security apparatus. Yalla, let's go to Palestine.

About the author: Laura Durkay is a Palestine solidarity activist and member of the International Socialist Organization in New York City

CHALLENGING ISRAEL ON EVERY FRONT

By:Gulamhusein A. Abba

The pressure on Israel is building. Non violent protests by the Palestinians are increasing in numbers and size. As predicted by me in an earlier article, they will soon escalate and go one notch further, adopting Gandhi’s concept of not mere passive protest but active non-violent civil disobedience. It will not be long before thousands of Palestinians and their Israeli supporters will march to checkpoints and attempt to break through without waiting for “clearance” from young, arrogant Israeli soldiers manning them. Tunisian and type mass protests that are taking place all over the Middle East are bound to take place in Palestine also. No one need be surprised to see many Israelis joining them.

It is encouraging to see that while the international community represented in the UN seems paralyzed, the common, peace and justice loving people from around the world are ready to lend their support to the brave people of Palestine. They are beginning to say “enough is enough”. They are demanding that Israel comply with International law and human rights.

On July 8 hundreds of activists – about 500 estimated so far -- from all over the world will converge on Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, and this time they will not lie about their reason for being there. They will openly and truthfully declare to the Israeli security that they are there to go to the West Bank to help the people there and participate in nonviolent solidarity actions.

These solidarity actions are scheduled to take place from July 8-16 in coordination with 15 Palestinian civil resistance organizations in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The purpose of these actions is to show that not only are the actions of Israel in Gaza reprehensible but that Israeli repression in the West Bank and Jerusalem is no less condemnable and is part of an attempt by Israel at ethnic cleansing and colonization.

I long to join them. Unfortunately, I do not have the money to go there. Also, my holding an Indian passport and living in the US makes getting the necessary paperwork done difficult – not to mention my 83 years and poor health.

Why are hundre4ds of internationals giving up the comforts of their homes to go to Ben Gurion Airport and subject themselves to the certain humiliations and invasive interrogations by the Israel security -- and deportation that seems certain to follow?

Why are other internationals sailing in boasts to go to Gaza and risk being bombed by the Israelis?

Why do I long to go there?

Basically because having come to know of the injustice, hardships, trials and tribulations, deaths and tragedy on a vast scale being suffered by the Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli government, being quiet, saying nothing, doing nothing, is no longer an option. Silence, in such situations, is complicity.

For long we have agonized over our helplessness to help. For long we have wondered what we could do.

Michael Riordon in his book “Our Way to Fight” writes: “Yet in the face of overwhelming harm, the question arises: “What can I do?” The victims ask, our conscience asks. So does a shared interest in a livable world. What can I do?

“During Athens street protests in 2008, a Greek blogger answered, beautifully: “We have a duty to move here, there, anywhere except back to our couches as mere viewers of history, back home to the warmth that freezes our conscience.”

The convergence at the Ben Gurion Airport on July 8, the solidarity actions in Palestine from July 8 to 16, sailing on Flotilla II provide some opportunities to do something.

Israeli apartheid days are numbered, and now is the moment to challenge it on every front.
Action is the best antidote to despair. Besides, it bears repeating, silence is complicity.

Individuals interested in participating in the July 8-16 week of solidarity should email info@palestinejn.org or visit http://www.palestinejn.org/ for more details.

Desmond Tutu on Freedom for Palestine

ARCHBISHOOP TUTU ENDORSES
“FREEDOM FOR PALESTINE”
MUSIC SINGLE by ONE WORLD

What a wonderful, compassionate and wise man.
In just a few words, Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s
simple message brings hope and clarity to the spin
that has wrought such terrible injustices and calamity
on the Palestinian people and shamelessly influenced
our leaders to abandon the common human values
of decency, compassion and honour to condemn them
to a life of unforgiving occupation and apartheid.
The honest truth cuts through all the silver-tongued words
that speak of peace and understanding even as the
bulldozers rip apart Palestinian homes, land and society
for the pleasure of strangers from far away lands.

As long as Israel occupies, rejects and discriminates against
the Palestinian people, all the negotiations, dialogue and
joint initiatives being brandished about now that suck even
well-meaning Palestinians into their vortex, are meaningless.

WATCH ARCHBISHOP TUTU’S MESSAGE ON OUR WEBSITE
http://australiansforpalestine.com/46628
AND SHARE IT VIA FACEBOOK AND TWITTER

PLEASE SPREAD HIS MESSAGE FAR AND WIDE AND
BUY THE MUSIC SINGLE “FREEDOM FOR PALESTINE” NOW
BY CLICKING ON THE LINK BELOW
http://www.hmvdigital.com/artist/oneworld/freedom-for-palestine

Sonja Karkar

ISRAEL THE PROVOCATEUR, NOT FREEDOM FLOTILLA

INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY MUST LEGALLY PUT SANCTION S ON PERPETRATORS OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATORS

Those who seek to uphold and defend freedom,
human rights, and justice must do more than
denounce belligerent occupation, man-made
humanitarian crises, ethnic cleansing, wanton
violence against civilians, and the fierce oppression
of social movements
. ……………
International diplomacy must do what it has refused
to do for years, to undertake initiatives that it has turned
away from for decades. Instead of condoning threats
of repeated violence against unarmed civilians
sailing in international waters, the global community
must legally sanction the perpetrators of such crimes.

As we get ready to sail in two weeks, Israel has stepped up the threats, threatening to sue the Canadians who are going, threatening to sue the satellite phone company if they provide us with service, threatening to kill and maim us if we don't stop, then saying, "I told you so...we said we would kill you."

This behavior has got to stop. Israel is behaving like the schoolyard bully who parents and teachers fear, because his parents are rich and have contributed to the school. It's time for us to put our foot down.

Start calling your member of parliament/congress now. Start writing letters to the editor. Start a civil movement on social networks of outrage against Israel's attacks on civilians. Distribute this statement below and post on your websites.

We CAN stop Israeli attacks against us if we work together. Greta

ANNOUNCEMENT

Dear Israel: It is you who is the provocateur, not us.
Written by Free Gaza Team
June 12, 2011

Regarding statements of government officials in Israel (echoed by officials in other countries) about diplomatic initiatives to impede the “Freedom Flotilla II- Stay Human” mission to Gaza, Palestine, we say:

Proper diplomacy does not exclude humanitarian action; Instead of seeking to prevent an international community of concerned citizens from taking nonviolent action in defense of liberty and human rights, diplomacy must pursue such actions and encourage them.

It is, therefore, a provocation to label the humanitarian action taken by movements supporting human rights to sail to Gaza a “provocation.”

It is a provocation that powerful states and international organizations, such as the US, Israel, the EU and the UN, are asking people to be silent and not react to violations of law and the disdain for universal values.

It is a provocation that international diplomacy is demanding that solidarity action from "people to people" be stopped.

It is a provocation that this international peaceful action is threatened with violence, and the powerful of the earth “wash their hands” of the consequences if Israel attacks us.

It is a provocation that these powerful entities justify, a priori, the murders, wounding, arrests and torture of unarmed human rights activists that took place one year ago on board all six ships of Freedom Flotilla 1.

We are determined to sail to Gaza, and we will. Our cause is just and our means are transparent. International diplomacy must do what it has refused to do for years, to undertake initiatives that it has turned away from for decades. Instead of condoning threats of repeated violence against unarmed civilians sailing in international waters, the global community must legally sanction the perpetrators of such crimes.

Those who seek to uphold and defend freedom, human rights, and justice must do more than denounce belligerent occupation, man-made humanitarian crises, ethnic cleansing, wanton violence against civilians, and the fierce oppression of social movements.

Civil society must be present, direct, and pro-active; it must transcend the political process of handling and resolving crises, which governments and international organizations carry out slowly, indecisively and, above all, with their self-interest at the forefront.

The grossly unjust and unlawful blockade of the Gaza Strip and the ongoing belligerent occupation of the rest of Palestine is a stark case of states sacrificing principle and human rights for power and self-interest.

The Freedom Flotilla II – Stay Human mission is a healthy reaction to the apathy of the international political community. We are sailing to confront massive injustice with global nonviolent action. This mission puts on notice all those who, for many years, have passively watched the tragedy of Palestine, as well as those who directly contribute to it.

Therefore, direct action taken by civil society to uphold freedom, human rights, and justice (such as Freedom Flotilla II - Stay Human), not only helps to build a different level of conscience, but is, and has to be, a means for the public to become a part of change and a direct challenge to governmental bodies that will not be stopped.

http://www.freegaza.org/

TO GAZA WITH LOVE

A letter from one about to go to Gaza on ‘The Audacity of Hope’

By: Gale Khourey Toensing

Dear Friends

I'm honored and delighted to report that I'll be a passenger on the U.S. Boat to Gaza -- The Audacity of Hope -- which will be part of the international Freedom Flotilla whose goal is to break Israel's illegal blockade of the tiny Mediterrean coastal enclave where 1.5 million people live in an oppressive open air prison imposed by their neighboring state.

Among the passengers will be Alice Walker, African American Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Color Purple; former U.S. Ambassador Col. Ann Wright, who resigned from the State Department in 2003 to protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq; and the amazing Hedy Epstein, an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor. I can't wait to meet them and all of the other passengers. Alice Walker compared the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza to the Freedom Rides of the 1960's civil rights movement when people in the northeast boarded buses and headed to the American south to challenge segregation. The Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, Alice Walker said, "is the Freedom Ride of this era."

Part of the reason why I'm a passenger on The Audacity of Hope is because the Israeli blockade of Gaza is unconditionally and immorally supported by the U.S. government -- and our tax dollars. It's important for Americans to speak out against "injustice anywhere," because, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, it's "a threat to justice everywhere." If our government won't defend Palestinians' human rights because of some misperceived benefit of its alliance with Israel or -- more likely -- because politicans are afraid of being targeted for non-election by the powerful Israeli lobby, then civilians of conscience must speak out.

But I'm also going to Gaza to remind the world that Palestinians are the indigenous people of Palestine and as such they have inherent rights of sovereignty and self determination under international law and the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which Israel voted to adopt at the U.N. General Assembly on September 13, 2007. Israel's control over the West Bank and Gaza currently prevents Palestine from asserting and exercising sovereignty over its land, resources and borders, including its border on the Mediterrean coast. By sailing to Gaza's seaport there, passengers on The Audacity of Hope are telling the world that we recognize Palestinian sovereignty and its right to receive visitors from abroad, and we are willing to risk Israel's promise of aggression toward us in order to assert it.

In less than three weeks, I'll fly to Athens to meet up with around 60 other U.S. citizens who are dedicated to promoting human rights, national rights and civil rights for the Palestinian people, who have been living under Israeli military occupation since 1967 -- an occupation that is deemed illegal by international law, the United Nations, and dozens of human rights organizations around the world. We'll meet up with more than a dozen boats from more than a dozen countries carrying more than 1,000 passengers bringing messages of support and solidarity to the people of Gaza. Israel has mounted an hysterical public relations campaign to stop the flotilla, claiming that its pasengers are "Islamic terrorists" or they will be "smuggling arms" or that the flotilla poses a threat to its "national security." None of it is true. We are unarmed, we're fully committed to non-violence and international law, and our cargo will be open to international inspection.

But the only cargo The Audacity of Hope will carry to the children, women and men of Gaza will be hope -- very audacious hope indeed in the form of thousands of letters, postcards, emails, drawings and other expressions of love, humanity and solidarity. That's where I hope (there's that word again!) you come in. Please join our letter writing campaign. It's called To Gaza with Love and you can find a video about it featuring Alice Walker, actress Kathleen Chalfant, and others, and instructions about where to send your messages at http://ustogaza.org/. You can also sign up to receive email action alerts during The Audacity of Hope be part of our journey to meet and greet the people of Gaza.

With all good wishes and hope for peace in our only world,

-- Gale

About the author: Gale Courey Toensing, a Canaan, Conn., resident, is the editor of widely read The Corner Report.
She received a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Vermont College, Norwich University in 1999, winning the national New Writers Introductory Award for her poem “Personal Belongings,” which was published in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Arizona State University’s literary magazine.

She has been writing for Indian Country Today newspaper for years., She worked for12 years as a general-assignment correspondent for the daily Waterbury [Conn.] Republican American and as a free-lance writer, designer and editor. At the daily, she won the Housatonic Valley Association’s Environmental Reporting Award in 1998, and the Connecticut Greenways Award for environmental reporting in 2001.
She is particularly interested in the global struggles of indigenous peoples for their lands and self determination.

OBAMA, ISRAEL and PALESTINE

By: Gulamhusein A. Abba

The Palestinian State was neutered by Obama before its birth!

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The reality is that it is not Israel but the Palestinians who have been betrayed by Obama.

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The number of Palestinian children killed by Israel durIng this “conflict” is far greater than Israeli children killed by Palestinians, on a proportion of approximately hundred to one.
The Zionists in Israel teach their children far greater hatred

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“The humiliation of occupation” is not all that the Palestinians have suffered. Their suffering goes far beyond that
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The international community has an obligation to, and can end an illegal occupation by one country of lands that do not belong to it

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The US may believe in the emergence of two states but more and more are veering to the belief that the only feasible solution is a single state.

***********
In any two-state negotiations, the starting point should be, not the 1967 borders but the borders delineated in the UN partition plan that created Israel and to which Israel owes its legitimacy
***********

From the frenzy that was let loose on President Barrack Obama referring to the 1967 borders in his Middle East speech, one would think that he had announced a major shift in US policy on the Israel/Palestine issue, had abandoned Israel and was now pandering to the Palestinians!

Former Massachusetts Gov. and GOP’s leading presidential candidate Mitt Romney screeched that Obama had “thrown Israel under the bus”. Talk show hosts outdid one another in claiming that Obama was letting down Israel. Glen Beck denounced Obama for “betraying” Israel. Matt Drudge claimed that Obama had sided with the Palestinians. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called it "the most dangerous speech ever made by an American president for the survival of Israel."

Netanyahu went over the top and immediately issued a statement, just one day prior to his meeting with Obama, rejecting the President’s proposal! His performance, when he did meet the President, was described in the media as “lecturing” to the President. The photographs of the meeting that appeared seemed to support that description. Obama was seen listening to Netanyahu, tight lipped, appearing very much like an errant schoolboy being scolded by the headmaster.

Netanyahu demanded a “reconfirmation of commitments to Israel from 2004”.

The “commitment from 2004” that Netanyahu was referring to is contained in a letter written by President George W Bush in April 2004 to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. It said: "In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities."

What Obama said is, "The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states." The 1949 and 1967 borders are the same. Obama proposed nothing more nor less than what Bush wrote in 2004, the only change being that he substituted Bush’s “mutually agreed changes” with “mutually agreed swaps.”

Clearly there was no abandoning or betrayal of Israel by Obama.

The reality is that it is not Israel but the Palestinians who have been betrayed by Obama. After his Cairo speech and his support of the recent democracy movement in the Mid East, in places like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen, the Palestinians had high hopes of Obama supporting their just demands. Instead, he has let them down badly and is seeking to thwart their efforts to get a viable, contiguous, independent, sovereign state of their own in an area that is very much less than what is spelt out in the UN partition plan.

At one stage he mentioned “tearing down walls” but alas he was not referring to the gigantic wall of separation that Israel has built, mostly on Palestinian land. Instead, he was referring to the walls of “corruption of elites who steal from their people; the red tape that stops an idea from becoming a business; the patronage that distributes wealth based on tribe or sect”.

His very first sentence in introducing the subject of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict showed his bias and his insensitivity towards the Palestinians. He said, “For Israelis, it has meant living with the fear that their children could be blown up on a bus or by rockets fired at their homes, as well as the pain of knowing that other children in the region are taught to hate them”. Yes, that is fear enough, pain enough. But the number of Palestinian children killed by Israel during this “conflict” is far greater than Israeli children killed by Palestinians, on a proportion of approximately hundred to one.


And yet, there is no mention of the fear that Palestinians live under. As for the pain, the Zionists in Israel, and they number in millions, teach their children far greater hatred. The Israeli settlers in the West Bank not only preach this hatred but act it out daily by destroying Palestinian olive orchards, spewing their sewage onto West Bank territory and in a hundred other ways.

Obama did not ignore the Palestinians completely. He did say, “For Palestinians, it has meant suffering the humiliation of occupation, and never living in a nation of their own.” As though that is all that they suffered. No mention of the demolition of their homes, destruction of their crops, wave after wave of bombings that devastate their infrastructures and kill hundreds, the curfews, the closures, the checkpoints that keep families apart and prevent the sick from going to medical facilities and children from attending schools.

Though he correctly identified the cause of his administration’s failure to end this conflict, namely continuation of Israeli settlement activity in spite of his having called for its cessation, he sought to put the blame equally on the Palestinians by saying that they “walked away from (peace) talks.” They never did. All that they did was to refuse to allow the Israelis to go on using the “talks” to swallow up more and more of their land in the West Bank and go on building more and more illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. They were more than willing to participate in the talks provided the Israelis stopped their settlement activities. The Israelis refused.

Obama mentioned the world looking “at a conflict that has grinded on and on and on, and sees nothing but stalemate”. Surely the Quartet that was put in charge of the “Road Map” has some responsibility for this. It could have been more assertive. Most certainly it would have helped if the US had used its unique position to put pressure on Israel to cease its construction activities and enter into a serious discussion with the Palestinians about the creation of a Palestinian State.

His remarks that Palestinians’ “ …efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure. Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won't create an independent state” were a clear signal that the US would oppose the Palestinian effort to ask the UN in September to recognize a Palestinian State.

After having admitted that bi-lateral talks have “grinded on and on and on” and have yielded nothing but a “stalemate”, one would have thought that he would support the Palestinian initiative to put an end to an effort to arrive at a solution of the dispute through endless talks and instead put the issue in the hands of the international community. It was, to begin with, wrong to seek a solution through asymmetrical talks between an all-powerful occupying force and the powerless occupied. It was like asking the victim of a theft to negotiate with the thief! Had the international community carried out its duties, acted firmly and resolutely to end Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and parts of Sinai, as it did in the case of Iraqi’s occupation of Kuwait, this “stalemate” would not have occurred.

His remarks that “Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection. And Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist” were uncalled for. There is nothing to substantiate that Hamas, at present, believes in or promotes “terror” or “rejection”. Nor is there anything to suggest that the Palestinians are opposed to the existence of Israel. What they deny is Israel’s right to exist. It has no such right, except the one given to it by a UN resolution adopted against strong opposition from the indigenous people to dividing up their land and imposing a foreign government on them. The morality, if the not the legality of this very resolution, is, to say the least, questionable.

Obama went on to assert that US friendship with Israel “is rooted deeply in a shared history and shared values. Our commitment to Israel's security is unshakeable. And we will stand against attempts to single it out for criticism in international forums”. The whole world knows this. It well knows the veto power exercised by the US on numberless occasions to save Israel from UN resolutions critical of its actions. This, in spite of the fact that there is not much evidence of “shared values” between the US and Israel. It will be a sad day indeed for US citizens, and for the world, if the US starts “sharing” the values that Israel at present has.

One can imagine the Palestinians holding their breath when he said that “precisely because of our friendship (with Israel), it's important that we tell the truth: The status quo is unsustainable, and Israel too must act boldly to advance a lasting peace”.

At last, there would be some frank and straight talk. But that did not happen.

He was off the mark when he said that no peace can be imposed on the Israelis and Palestinians. The international community has an obligation to, and can end an illegal occupation by one country of lands that do not belong to it, and it is its duty to prevent an occupying power from transferring its population, in defiance of international law, on to occupied territory, just as it is the duty of the international community to prevent an occupying power from tyrannizing and terrorizing the people living in the occupied territories and grabbing more and more of their land. To try and put the blame on the Palestinians for these abuses that have been going on for years, in open sight of the international community, is palpably unjustified.

His claim of what “everyone knows” and what “America and the international community can do” is just not true. He said that “a lasting peace will involve two states for two peoples: Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people”. There are those who believe that a true and lasting peace will come about only if there is a single, secular, democratic state which recognizes the right of all people who now live there to continue living there, and the right of the Palestinian refugees to return to their ancestral lands as also the right of all Jews to immigrate to this single state to be known as Palestine, and guarantees all its citizens the right to vote and equal treatment.

It must be reiterated that the United Stated may believe in the emergence of two states but more and more are veering to the belief that with the havoc wrought by Israel in the West Bank by dotting it with Israeli settlements all over and “for Jews only” connecting roads, the only feasible solution is a single state.

True that the international community decided that Israel would be a homeland for the Jews. There was and is no sanction, and certainly no mandate for it to be a Jewish state. A single state that acknowledges the right of any Jew anywhere in the world to immigrate to it will effectively make it a homeland for the Jews and offer Jews a far greater area to reside in than Israel. A Jewish state, or any state based on religion is an anomaly in today’s world.

He went on to say, “So while the core issues of the conflict must be negotiated, the basis of those negotiations is clear: a viable Palestine, a secure Israel. The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine”. On the face of it, this sounds good. “Viable Palestine” must have sounded like music to Palestinian ears. And who can object to a “secure Israel.” But the devil is in the details, as we shall soon see.

Then came what much of the media went wild over. “We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their full potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state”.

Though hell was let loose and this was portrayed as a betrayal of Israel, in truth it hit hardest at Palestinians! If there is to be any justice, any respect for international law, Israel must be required to go back to the borders defined in the UN partition resolution that created Israel, not the armistice lines drawn after the 1949 war between Israel and the neighboring Arab states. Palestinians are not bound by it. They were not a party to it. It was agreed to between Israel and the surrounding Arab countries.

Worse. In Obama’s vision, not only is Israel, even before any negotiations on borders have started, awarded all the land it grabbed through military force after its creation up to 1967, but it gets a nod to ask for land swaps!

It needs to be understood that even under 1967 borders, the Palestinian State will comprise of only 22% of the total land the Palestinians occupied before the creation of Israel, a far cry from nearly 50% reserved for it under the UN partition plan.

The swaps, it is argued, are necessary because of “facts on the ground” that have come into existence over the years. These “facts on the ground” are the Israeli settlements that Israel has dotted West Bank with. The international community, including the US, considers these settlements to be illegal. It is strange that the US, that believes so strongly in justice and the rule of law, should lend its support to a solution which enables the party that has been guilty of violating international law in deliberately and knowingly creating these illegal “facts on the ground”, to keep for itself these ill gotten gains.

Besides, there is no adjacent Israeli land of equal strategic and commercial value that Israel can swap. Surely Obama knows that what matters is not just the number of square miles that are involved.

A fundamental principle is at stake here. Does a thief get a right to keep some of what he has robbed provided he gives to the victim some other object of equal size (as distinct from value)?

Any hope that may have been kindled in the breasts of Palestinians by Obama mentioning “sovereign” and “contiguous” with reference to the Palestinian State that he envisaged was short lived.

Almost seconds after uttering those words, Obama spoke about security. Here is what he said; “As for security, every state has the right to self-defense, and Israel must be able to defend itself -– by itself -– against any threat. Provisions must also be robust enough to prevent a resurgence of terrorism, to stop the infiltration of weapons, and to provide effective border security. The full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state. And the duration of this transition period must be agreed, and the effectiveness of security arrangements must be demonstrated”.

In other words, in the name of Israel’s right to self defense, the Palestinian State would not have a military, would no be able to import any weapons (even as Israel continues to receive plane loads and ships full of military hardware from the US and others), would be surrounded by security zones, Israeli military forces already in West Bank would not be withdrawn forthwith but in a phased stage. Though not stated in so many words, all this would mean that Israel would have fly over rights over Palestine and would, for all practical purposes, have full control of the skies over Palestine. And, the “effectiveness of security would have to be demonstrated” – what ever that means. In effect, the Palestinian State would be far from sovereign. The Palestinian State was neutered by Obama before its birth!

One wonders why so much concern is being expressed about Israel’s security vis a vis Palestine. Israel has one of the largest army in the world. It has war ships, bombers, drones, gunships, sophisticated and remote controlled “smart bombs”, and an arsenal of nuclear weapons. Plus it has the support and backing of the most powerful nation in the world. Nor must it be forgotten that Israel defeated the combined military might of several neighboring Arab nations in the region, including Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq.

Palestine has none of the above! It is Palestine that has been subjected to devastating military actions by Israel time and again, not the other way around.

One would have thought that there would be concern about the security and self defense rights of the nascent Palestinian State rather than that of Israel!

There was more. Obama brought up the “recent announcement of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas” to from a unity government. “How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist?” he asked.

Till yesterday it was being argued that no meaningful negotiations could be carried on with Fatah because it no longer represented all the Palestinians. Gaza was under the control of Hamas, and there could not be two agreements with two different entities for one single Palestinian State. Now that the two entities have arrived at an agreement to form a unity government, it is being argued that one cannot negotiate with it because of the presence of the other party in the government!

There is a factual misrepresentation in the rhetorical question posed by Obama. The agreement between Fatah and Hamas specifically provides that it is PLO/Fatah that will be in charge of negotiations with Israel. Furthermore, while Hamas disputes Israel’s right to exist, it has shown itself quite willing to let Israel continue to exist. This is a problem that does not exist, except in the minds and tongues of those who want to prevent the coming into existence of a viable, contiguous, independent and sovereign State of Palestine.

If there was anything at all in Obama’s speech to give comfort to the Palestinians, it was his admission that the future of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees remain to be resolved “in a way that is just and fair.”

There is one thing that the President got right. He said that he was convinced that “the majority of Israelis and Palestinians would rather look to the future than be trapped in the past……That is the choice that must be made -- not simply in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but across the entire region -- a choice between hate and hope; between the shackles of the past and the promise of the future. It's a choice that must be made by leaders and by the people, and it's a choice that will define the future of a region that served as the cradle of civilization and a crucible of strife.”

Obama has got it right on that one. More and more Israelis and Zionists are beginning to realize how wrong and unjust are the actions of the Israeli government. More and more Jews all over the world are beginning to realize that neither their love, respect and reverence for Judaism nor their support for Israel prevents them from being critical of the unjust actions and behavior of the Israeli government but makes it obligatory on them to protest. Even Israeli soldiers and pilots are refusing to be a party to any action in the occupied territories.

And there is a mass awakening among the Palestinian people too. The number of non-violent protests, and their size, is increasing dramatically. Soon it will escalate from passive non-violent protests into what Gandhi called active non-violent non-cooperation.

Add to this fact that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is also gathering momentum.

All evidence suggests that Obama’s prediction that Palestinians’ “efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure” will be proven wrong. Israel is a pariah state and must be treated as such, and reality indicates that more and more are veering round to this belief. Unless Zionist Israelis now in charge of the government mend their ways or are replaced by the people, Israel will become increasingly isolated.

It is time for the international community to wake up and take serious note of what is going on in that part of the world. There is need for them to take corrective action to right the wrongs that have been committed, and continue to be committed, before they are caught napping again and are surprised by another Tunisian, Egyptian, Libyan, Syrian, Yemen, Bahrain type revolution by the people. This time by the Palestinians, and, in time, by the Israelis themselves.

If the international community wants peace and stability in this volatile region, it must grasp Martin Luther King Jr.’s dictum: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to Justice everywhere.”

UNFORGETTABLE WORDS FROM AN ISRAELI GENERAL'S SON

In the name of truth and justice
(and as a very special favor to me)
PLEASE read the following and see the video
Gulamhusein Abba

UNFORGETTABLE WORDS FROM AN ISRAELI GENERAL’S SON
They will shake you to the core.

“So those people who want to associate themselves with Israel, Zionism and drape themselves in the Zionist flag – the flag that has come to symbolize intolerance, hatred, racism and brutality – they can feel free to do so.

But, they need to know this: that when the trials begin and the tribunals take their place, and when the truth and reconciliation commission begins its work and they are finally shamed into admitting they were wrong, they need to remember to go down on their knees and beg forgiveness from the people they so greatly wronged.

They need to realize that we will never forget them and that their conscience will never allow them to forget that they supported the killings, that they draped themselves in the flag and that they mocked the bereaved.

The rest of us will move on in line with the rest of the Middle East which will follow the example of the people of Egypt to create something that will surely be a tremendous accomplishment – a democratic, secular state in our own shared homeland – a state where Muslims, Christians and Jews live as equals and educate their children to love their homeland with its multitude of cultures, its rich history and its promising future.”

SO ENDS MIKO PELED’S NARRATION
YOU MUST WATCH THE WHOLE OF THIS POWERFUL VIDEO

Please send on to family, friends, lists
Spread as widely as possible
The book “The General’s Son” will be available later this year.

Sonja Karkar
Editor: Australians for Palestine