Rete ECO :: Ebrei Contro l'Occupazione

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Is Israel's Legitimacy Under Challenge?

Thursday, 19 August 2010 19:51 Henry Siegman*

The Huffington Post, August 16, 2010

* President, U.S./Middle East Project

Originally published in Hebrew in Ha'aretz.

When a state's denial of the individual and national rights of a large part of its population becomes permanent - a permanence that has been the goal of Israel's settlement project from its very outset (and that many believe has been achieved) - that state ceases to be a democracy. When the reason for that double disenfranchisement is that population's ethnic and religious identity, the state is practicing a form of apartheid or racism.

Israeli blackmail: You must do what we can’t, because if you don’t, we will

Thursday, 19 August 2010 06:45 Paul Woodward

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August 11, 2010

There are those who would have us believe that:

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[O]ne day next spring, the Israeli national-security adviser, Uzi Arad, and the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, will simultaneously telephone their counterparts at the White House and the Pentagon, to inform them that their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has just ordered roughly one hundred F-15Es, F-16Is, F-16Cs, and other aircraft of the Israeli air force to fly east toward Iran — possibly by crossing Saudi Arabia, possibly by threading the border between Syria and Turkey, and possibly by traveling directly through Iraq’s airspace, though it is crowded with American aircraft.

Worried about an Israeli attack on Iran? That’s the idea.

You must do what we can’t, because if you don’t, we will.

This is how some Israelis are trying to twist Washington’s arm to get the US to attack Iran.

A more honest way of making the argument would be to say this: If the US won’t attack Iran, then Israel will — even though it won’t accomplish its military objectives and it will open Pandora’s box. Desperate nations sometimes do desperate things. You have been warned.

Another name for this: blackmail.

Border Control /Three times no

Monday, 16 August 2010 05:30 Akiva Eldar

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Haaretz, 10.08.10

As decision time on direct peace talks approaches, the PA's Mahmoud Abbas stands between a rock and a hard place

web-image-26d548b2d1db8e919ba7a1dad1b36c14 Photo by: Amos Biderman

At the start of his last meeting with George Mitchell at the Muqata'a in Ramallah about three weeks ago, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen ) introduced the American envoy to an unfamiliar person: "I'd like you to meet Yasser al-Masri, a head of the Takamul (Wholeness ) group, which is calling for the establishment of a single state on the land of historical Palestine."

Abbas asked al-Masri, a former inmate in an Israeli prison, to tell Mitchell about the new movement, which is comprised of academics and people from the intermediate level in Fatah - moderates who have despaired of the two-state solution. This was Abu Mazen's unconventional way to send the White House a hint about the gravity of his political situation and the bleak mood he has been in recently.

For quite a long time al-Masri lectured to the surprised guests about the increasing disappointment with the peace process among the Palestinian populace. On their way to Jerusalem, the members of the American delegation saw Takamul billboards supporting the establishment of a single state between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. In an interview to the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat (July 24 ), al-Masri said that even though 99 percent of the elements of the two-state solution are known and have been detailed, initiatives like the Geneva Initiative are turning yellow in drawers.

According to him, in the Palestinian political arena there is no more pragmatic leader and more enthusiastic supporter of the two-state principle than Abbas. "If Israel isn't capable of reaching an agreement with him," demanded al-Masri, "then with whom does it want to make peace?"

Israel's religious apartheid

Sunday, 15 August 2010 06:14 Esther Hertzog

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ynet, 11.08.10

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Haredi men taking over? Photo: Dudu Azoulay

Op-ed: Rabbi who removed girls from go-karts latest symptom of Jewish women's exclusion

While the Knesset focuses on legislation pertaining to Muslim veils, it ignores processes the continuously reinforce the exclusion and humiliation of Jewish women.

We already saw women being pushed to the backs of buses (an ongoing affair despite the High Court's ruling on the case,) women confined to one side of the streets in Jerusalem's haredi neighborhoods, and the humiliation of Mizrahi girls in Emmanuel. Earlier this week, we were told about the violent removal of girls from a go-karting facility at the same community.

Religious Row

Angry rabbi launches 'go-kart war' / Aviel Magnezi

Rabbi upset at notion of go-karting girls storms course, damages cars; his vehicle later vandalized

Full Story

At the end of this process we can expect to have a state managed by haredi men who discriminate against and humiliate women.

We've become accustomed to taking for granted political parties who disqualify women from taking office. These parties are nonetheless allowed to run in the elections, join governments, and lead the country despite their discriminatory conduct. Indeed, the State of Israel permits open, explicit, and legal disqualification of and discrimination against women; many women in this country are deprived of the basic civilian, democratic right to be elected.

One of the reasons for the obliteration of Israel's ideological leftist camp, with the exception of the disregard for deepening socioeconomic gaps, is the acceptance and silence in the face of intolerable discrimination against women by haredi parties. Leftist parties in particular (and secular parties in general) never objected to sitting alongside the haredim in government.

The flattery and efforts to curry favor with the haredim started in the State's early years, when Ben-Gurion and the Mapai party were willing to forego women's right to be elected. Ben-Gurion was the one who enabled religious courts to control the fate of all women in Israel, in line with religious dictates. Women who get married and divorced here, or who cannot elicit a divorce, are paying the price to this day.