Haaretz 07:18 15/12/2006
By Zohar Blumenkrantz, Haaretz Correspondent
The crisis that broke out between the ultra-Orthodox and El Al two weeks ago is beginning to affect the company. An El Al source said Thursday that the company estimates it is losing NIS 1 million per day, which may worsen if the ultra-Orthodox community declares an official boycott of the carrier. Meanwhile, the company is trying to minimize its losses with a more energetic marketing campaign among the secular public, with emphasis on weekend packages for couples. Haaretz has learned that the airline allotted 3,500 tickets for the special offers aimed at secular couples interested in a weekend vacation abroad. A Wednesday meeting between El Al CEO Haim Romano and the rabbinic committee on safeguarding Shabbat did not bring a solution any closer.
The crisis erupted two weeks ago, following an El Al decision to allow a number of its flights to take off after the beginning of Shabbat. The flight schedule had been disrupted when airport workers participated in a nationwide strike two days earlier. The rabbinic committee on Shabbat represents all ultra-Orthodox groups, and would like El Al to appoint a rabbi to decide whether the carrier may schedule flights in exceptional circumstances on Shabbat. Both sides reported that the meeting Wednesday was held in a "very positive atmosphere" following instructions by leading rabbinic leaders to "do everything possible" to reach an agreement. At the meeting, Romano said El Al considers its Haredi customers important clients, and vowed to "do everything so that they would continue to fly" with the carrier.
The ultra-Orthodox community has imposed a de facto boycott on El Al, even though one has not been officially declared by community leaders. Nonetheless, when the Haredi public seeks the advice of rabbis on the matter, their view is unequivocal: stay off El Al. The Haredi press is also stating that leading rabbis, both in Israel and abroad, have chosen to use other airlines. Other carriers appear to have taken advantage of the opportunity to tap into the Haredi market. Air Canada advertised Wednesday in a Haredi newspaper, promising benefits to passengers and Glatt Kosher meals. In its efforts to counter its losses, El Al is offering packages of $399 per couple for flights to Athens and Istanbul, while similar packages to Western Europe are on offer for $599. According to company sources, the package is tailored to suit the Israeli public, which likes taking short winter vacations.
vendredi 15 décembre 2006
lundi 11 septembre 2006
Bar-On wants passports of Arab MKs who visited Syria revoked
Haaretz Last update - 08:35 11/09/2006
By Yuval Yoaz and Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondents and Haaretz Service
Interior Minister Roni Bar-On on Sunday called on Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to recall the passports of three Arabs lawmakers who visited Syria without seeking permission from the government.At Bar-On's request, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ordered a criminal investigation be opened against Balad MKs Azmi Bashara, Jamal Zahalka and Wassel Taha over their recent visit to Syria.Bar-On called the trip a criminal offense and said all steps should be taken to try the MKs and stop "this shamelful phenomenon." He also asked Mazuz to allow him to restrict the international travels of the three MKs.
This was the first time in five years Balad MKs have organized a trip to Syria. After Bashara's last trip in 2001, the Knesset passed a law forbidding MKs from visiting any enemy state.The MKs said their trip had been an expression of the importance of maintaining positive ties between Arabs in Israel with Syria, especially during periods of war.Zahalka said the visit had been "for the sake of the rights of Arabs in Israel to maintain relations with Arab nations," and had been intended to show solidarity with the Lebanese people. "We are friends of Syria and we will continue to maintain ties with her on a national level, as is our known stance," Bashara told the Syrian news agency Sana.
By Yuval Yoaz and Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondents and Haaretz Service
Interior Minister Roni Bar-On on Sunday called on Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to recall the passports of three Arabs lawmakers who visited Syria without seeking permission from the government.At Bar-On's request, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ordered a criminal investigation be opened against Balad MKs Azmi Bashara, Jamal Zahalka and Wassel Taha over their recent visit to Syria.Bar-On called the trip a criminal offense and said all steps should be taken to try the MKs and stop "this shamelful phenomenon." He also asked Mazuz to allow him to restrict the international travels of the three MKs.
This was the first time in five years Balad MKs have organized a trip to Syria. After Bashara's last trip in 2001, the Knesset passed a law forbidding MKs from visiting any enemy state.The MKs said their trip had been an expression of the importance of maintaining positive ties between Arabs in Israel with Syria, especially during periods of war.Zahalka said the visit had been "for the sake of the rights of Arabs in Israel to maintain relations with Arab nations," and had been intended to show solidarity with the Lebanese people. "We are friends of Syria and we will continue to maintain ties with her on a national level, as is our known stance," Bashara told the Syrian news agency Sana.
Leftist MKs blast Eitam's statements on Arabs, urge AG to investigate
Haaretz 15:53 11/09/2006
By Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service
Left-wing lawmakers reacted furiously Monday to statements made by rightist Knesset Member Effi Eitam against Israeli Arab politicians and Palestinians in the West Bank, and called for attorney general Menachem Mazuz to open an investigation into Eitam's comments on grounds of incitement to racism. Eitam, a member of the right-wing National Union-National Religious Party sparked a political firestorm Monday when he said that the great majority of Palestinians in the West Bank should be expelled, and that Arabs should be ousted from Israeli politics as a fifth column and "a league of traitors." The remarks, broadcast Monday on Army Radio, were made during a Sunday speech at a memorial service for a soldier killed in Lebanon during the recent war.
It was the first time that Eitam, who heads the Religious Zionism faction within the National Union, has publicly supported deportation of Palestinians, a concept espoused by assassinated National Union founder Rehavam Ze'evi as "transfer." "We will have to expel the great majority of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria," Eitam urged, referring to the whole of the West Bank. According to Eitam, experience showed that Israel cannot give up the area of the West Bank. "It is impossible with all of these Arabs, and it is impossible to give up the territory. We've already seen what they're doing there." Turning to the subject of Israeli Arabs, Eitam said, "We will have to take another decision, and that is to sweep the Israeli Arabs from the political system. Here, too, the issues are clear and simple. "We've raised a fifth column, a league of traitors of the first rank. Therefore, we cannot continue to enable so large and so hostile a presense within the political system of Israel." Beilin: Bring Eitam to trial Yossi Beilin, the leader of the left-wing Meretz party, urged Attorney General Menachem Mazuz Monday to bring Eitam to trial on charges of incitement to racism. Beilin's call was based on an amendment to the law which grants lawmakers immunity from prosecution. The amendment lifts the immunity from legislators who incite to racism or ethnic prejudice. Earlier in the day, Meretz MK Avshalom Vilan called on Mazuz to open an investigation against Eitam, on suspicion of incitement and sedition. Arab MK Ahmed Tibi (Ra'am-Ta'al) said Monday that "Eitam's remarks would have been more authentic, had they been delivered in German." "These are irresponsible statements," Tibi told the radio, "directed at the lowest level of the racism surging within Israeli society." "A long time ago the racists and fascists moved from the Israeli street to the Israeli government and the halls of power" added Tibi. Peace Now leader Yariv Oppenheimer said that the words of Eitam "show that the dogma of [slain extreme right-wing Rabbi Meir] Kahane is alive and well. In a moment of candor, the mask was removed from Eitam's face, exposing him as a leader of fantasy and racism." Arab MK Mohammed Barakeh said that the attack on the representatives of Arab citizens of Israel was an attempt to "delegitimize the Arab population entirely and to negate their right to voice their opinions and participate in the political process." According to Barakeh, the measures proposed by Eitam are already being implemented, as the Palestinians, "are witness to many steps to push them aside and expel them from their homeland, among them the security fence in Jerusalem and the West Bank. The policies of siege, starvation, and negation of the basic right of human dignity are a means of extremely dangerous ethnic expulsion. "You don't need trucks to transfer Palestinians.
By Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service
Left-wing lawmakers reacted furiously Monday to statements made by rightist Knesset Member Effi Eitam against Israeli Arab politicians and Palestinians in the West Bank, and called for attorney general Menachem Mazuz to open an investigation into Eitam's comments on grounds of incitement to racism. Eitam, a member of the right-wing National Union-National Religious Party sparked a political firestorm Monday when he said that the great majority of Palestinians in the West Bank should be expelled, and that Arabs should be ousted from Israeli politics as a fifth column and "a league of traitors." The remarks, broadcast Monday on Army Radio, were made during a Sunday speech at a memorial service for a soldier killed in Lebanon during the recent war.
It was the first time that Eitam, who heads the Religious Zionism faction within the National Union, has publicly supported deportation of Palestinians, a concept espoused by assassinated National Union founder Rehavam Ze'evi as "transfer." "We will have to expel the great majority of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria," Eitam urged, referring to the whole of the West Bank. According to Eitam, experience showed that Israel cannot give up the area of the West Bank. "It is impossible with all of these Arabs, and it is impossible to give up the territory. We've already seen what they're doing there." Turning to the subject of Israeli Arabs, Eitam said, "We will have to take another decision, and that is to sweep the Israeli Arabs from the political system. Here, too, the issues are clear and simple. "We've raised a fifth column, a league of traitors of the first rank. Therefore, we cannot continue to enable so large and so hostile a presense within the political system of Israel." Beilin: Bring Eitam to trial Yossi Beilin, the leader of the left-wing Meretz party, urged Attorney General Menachem Mazuz Monday to bring Eitam to trial on charges of incitement to racism. Beilin's call was based on an amendment to the law which grants lawmakers immunity from prosecution. The amendment lifts the immunity from legislators who incite to racism or ethnic prejudice. Earlier in the day, Meretz MK Avshalom Vilan called on Mazuz to open an investigation against Eitam, on suspicion of incitement and sedition. Arab MK Ahmed Tibi (Ra'am-Ta'al) said Monday that "Eitam's remarks would have been more authentic, had they been delivered in German." "These are irresponsible statements," Tibi told the radio, "directed at the lowest level of the racism surging within Israeli society." "A long time ago the racists and fascists moved from the Israeli street to the Israeli government and the halls of power" added Tibi. Peace Now leader Yariv Oppenheimer said that the words of Eitam "show that the dogma of [slain extreme right-wing Rabbi Meir] Kahane is alive and well. In a moment of candor, the mask was removed from Eitam's face, exposing him as a leader of fantasy and racism." Arab MK Mohammed Barakeh said that the attack on the representatives of Arab citizens of Israel was an attempt to "delegitimize the Arab population entirely and to negate their right to voice their opinions and participate in the political process." According to Barakeh, the measures proposed by Eitam are already being implemented, as the Palestinians, "are witness to many steps to push them aside and expel them from their homeland, among them the security fence in Jerusalem and the West Bank. The policies of siege, starvation, and negation of the basic right of human dignity are a means of extremely dangerous ethnic expulsion. "You don't need trucks to transfer Palestinians.
lundi 28 août 2006
Vision: Arab volunteers in national service
Education minister launches new project in which she aspires to integrate Arab sector into national service, which usually serves as an alternative volunteer framework for religious sector instead of military service
Moran Zelikovich
Ynetnews.com 08.28.06, 11:28
Education Minister Yuli Tamir said Sunday that in her vision she sees "an Arab girl next to a religious girl, volunteering together in a Nahariyan hospital. If I succeed in this then I have accomplished all of my aspirations in public life."
Speaking during the City for Education conference in Holon, Minister Tamir referred in her statements to a new project she had begun to implement, with the main goal of encouraging students from the Arab sector to volunteer in the national service.
"We can offer the Arab sector a partnership," she explained. "Let's see if we can recruit them and divide properly what we have. I have decided to open a path and give them the opportunity to participate in the national service".
Today, the national service serves as an alternative volunteer framework for the military service and many of the volunteers are from the national-religious sector. The State has allocated 10,000 positions for national service volunteers, and the Education Ministry holds almost a third of them.
More than 3,000 volunteers are recruited each year to help in various institutions like schools for special education, community centers, daycare centers, dormitories and youth movements, in a variety of duties such as professional assistants and tutors. The duration of the service is between one and two years.
Worried by ultra-Orthodox sector
According to the minister, a trial has recently been conducted in the Arab sector in which positions have been allocated for national service volunteers. The positions have been filled instantly and therefore Minister Tamir has decided to conduct and implement the project on a wider scale.
For the first time, the Education Ministry of will offer 74 volunteer positions for the national service from the Arab sector in the coming year. The youngsters will be trained through the usual centers which also qualify the other volunteers without any special courses being set up for them.
It is important to point out that in order to encourage volunteers in the Arab sector to volunteer for national service and in order to vacate positions for them, the minister needs to cooperate both with the Israel Defense Forces and the local authorities.
At the convention, the minister also referred to the public and official education.
"The ultra-Orthodox sector worries me. In 20 years, 25 percent of all the pupils will be ultra-Orthodox and an additional 30 percent will be from the Arab sector. Both do not identify with the country. The solution found for the ultra-orthodox sector is according to the best Israeli tradition of 'known yet not official.' This is becoming a great part of the system and we do not know what is going on there. I will find a legal way to shut down private schools".
Moran Zelikovich
Ynetnews.com 08.28.06, 11:28
Education Minister Yuli Tamir said Sunday that in her vision she sees "an Arab girl next to a religious girl, volunteering together in a Nahariyan hospital. If I succeed in this then I have accomplished all of my aspirations in public life."
Speaking during the City for Education conference in Holon, Minister Tamir referred in her statements to a new project she had begun to implement, with the main goal of encouraging students from the Arab sector to volunteer in the national service.
"We can offer the Arab sector a partnership," she explained. "Let's see if we can recruit them and divide properly what we have. I have decided to open a path and give them the opportunity to participate in the national service".
Today, the national service serves as an alternative volunteer framework for the military service and many of the volunteers are from the national-religious sector. The State has allocated 10,000 positions for national service volunteers, and the Education Ministry holds almost a third of them.
More than 3,000 volunteers are recruited each year to help in various institutions like schools for special education, community centers, daycare centers, dormitories and youth movements, in a variety of duties such as professional assistants and tutors. The duration of the service is between one and two years.
Worried by ultra-Orthodox sector
According to the minister, a trial has recently been conducted in the Arab sector in which positions have been allocated for national service volunteers. The positions have been filled instantly and therefore Minister Tamir has decided to conduct and implement the project on a wider scale.
For the first time, the Education Ministry of will offer 74 volunteer positions for the national service from the Arab sector in the coming year. The youngsters will be trained through the usual centers which also qualify the other volunteers without any special courses being set up for them.
It is important to point out that in order to encourage volunteers in the Arab sector to volunteer for national service and in order to vacate positions for them, the minister needs to cooperate both with the Israel Defense Forces and the local authorities.
At the convention, the minister also referred to the public and official education.
"The ultra-Orthodox sector worries me. In 20 years, 25 percent of all the pupils will be ultra-Orthodox and an additional 30 percent will be from the Arab sector. Both do not identify with the country. The solution found for the ultra-orthodox sector is according to the best Israeli tradition of 'known yet not official.' This is becoming a great part of the system and we do not know what is going on there. I will find a legal way to shut down private schools".
mercredi 26 juillet 2006
Annan accuses Israel over attack on UN post
AP Wednesday, 26 July 2006
The UN secretary general Kofi Annan says an Israeli attack on a UN observation post was "apparently deliberate". Four unarmed military observers were killed in the air strike in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, spoke by phone to Mr Annan. Mr Olmert expressed his "deep regret" and said the peacekeepers were killed mistakenly. He expressed dismay over Mr Annan's accusation and promised a thorough investigation , saying the results would be presented to Mr Annan.
Mr Annan later called for participants at a Mideast conference to push for an immediate ceasefire to end fighting between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.
Hizbollah must stop its "deliberate targeting of Israeli population centers". And Israel must put an end to all bombing, ground operations and blockades of Lebanese ports.
In a statement in Rome, Mr Annan said: "A key stipulation for such a halt in fighting would be that the parties must not, I repeat, must not take advantage of such a pause to conduct offense operations, redeploy or resupply." And he added that an international force will be vital to keeping peace.
Since fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants began two weeks ago, there had been several dozen incidents of firing close to UN peacekeepers and observers, including direct hits on nine positions, some of them repeatedly, a UN official said.
As a result of these attacks, 12 UN personnel have been killed or injured, the official said.
Last night's bomb made a direct hit on the building and shelter of the observer post in the town of Khiam, near the eastern end of the border with Israel, said Milos Struger, spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as Unifil.
Four unarmed military observers were in a bunker and the bunker collapsed as a result of the bombing, the UN official said.
Rescue workers were trying to clear the rubble, but Israeli firing " continued even during the rescue operation", Struger said.
Annan said two UN military observers were killed with two more feared dead. Later, the UN official confirmed that a third body was recovered from the rubble.
The victims included observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, UN and Lebanese military officials said.
Chinese foreign minister Li Zhaoxing said he was saddened by the news and that it showed "we should try harder to call on the parties to be restrained and to be calm and restore the peace process of the Middle East immediately".
China's official Xinhua News Agency identified the Chinese victim as Du Zhaoyu.
It was not immediately known which of the others were confirmed dead.
Annan said the "co-ordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long-established and clearly marked UN post at Khiam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by prime minister Ehud Olmert that UN positions would be spared Israeli fire."
Furthermore, he said, General Alain Pelligrini, the UN force commander in south Lebanon, had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers throughout yesterday "stressing the need to protect that particular UN position from attack".
But Gillerman said he was "shocked and deeply distressed by the hasty statement of the secretary general, insinuating that Israel has deliberately targeted the UN post", calling the assertions "premature and erroneous".
He said Olmert's assurances to the secretary-general were "a clear indication" of Israel's commitment to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel.
As reports of the attack emerged, Annan rushed out of a hotel in Rome following a dinner with US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and Lebanese prime minister Fuad Saniora.
"I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces of a UN observer post in southern Lebanon," Annan said in a statement later.
"I call on the government of Israel to conduct a full investigation into this very disturbing incident and demand that any further attack on UN positions and personnel must stop."
Gillerman said "Israel is carrying out a thorough inquiry into this tragic incident and will inform the UN of its results as soon as possible".
The UN Security Council is expected to receive a briefing on the bombing today.
Since Israel launched a massive military offensive against Lebanon and Hezbollah guerillas on July 12, a Nigerian civilian employee working with Unifil and his wife had been killed in the crossfire in the southern port city of Tyre.
Five Unifil soldiers and one military observer had also been wounded, Struger said. They included four Ghanaians injured by artillery fire on Monday and a peacekeeper shot through the back on July 23.
The UN secretary general Kofi Annan says an Israeli attack on a UN observation post was "apparently deliberate". Four unarmed military observers were killed in the air strike in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, spoke by phone to Mr Annan. Mr Olmert expressed his "deep regret" and said the peacekeepers were killed mistakenly. He expressed dismay over Mr Annan's accusation and promised a thorough investigation , saying the results would be presented to Mr Annan.
Mr Annan later called for participants at a Mideast conference to push for an immediate ceasefire to end fighting between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.
Hizbollah must stop its "deliberate targeting of Israeli population centers". And Israel must put an end to all bombing, ground operations and blockades of Lebanese ports.
In a statement in Rome, Mr Annan said: "A key stipulation for such a halt in fighting would be that the parties must not, I repeat, must not take advantage of such a pause to conduct offense operations, redeploy or resupply." And he added that an international force will be vital to keeping peace.
Since fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants began two weeks ago, there had been several dozen incidents of firing close to UN peacekeepers and observers, including direct hits on nine positions, some of them repeatedly, a UN official said.
As a result of these attacks, 12 UN personnel have been killed or injured, the official said.
Last night's bomb made a direct hit on the building and shelter of the observer post in the town of Khiam, near the eastern end of the border with Israel, said Milos Struger, spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as Unifil.
Four unarmed military observers were in a bunker and the bunker collapsed as a result of the bombing, the UN official said.
Rescue workers were trying to clear the rubble, but Israeli firing " continued even during the rescue operation", Struger said.
Annan said two UN military observers were killed with two more feared dead. Later, the UN official confirmed that a third body was recovered from the rubble.
The victims included observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, UN and Lebanese military officials said.
Chinese foreign minister Li Zhaoxing said he was saddened by the news and that it showed "we should try harder to call on the parties to be restrained and to be calm and restore the peace process of the Middle East immediately".
China's official Xinhua News Agency identified the Chinese victim as Du Zhaoyu.
It was not immediately known which of the others were confirmed dead.
Annan said the "co-ordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long-established and clearly marked UN post at Khiam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by prime minister Ehud Olmert that UN positions would be spared Israeli fire."
Furthermore, he said, General Alain Pelligrini, the UN force commander in south Lebanon, had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers throughout yesterday "stressing the need to protect that particular UN position from attack".
But Gillerman said he was "shocked and deeply distressed by the hasty statement of the secretary general, insinuating that Israel has deliberately targeted the UN post", calling the assertions "premature and erroneous".
He said Olmert's assurances to the secretary-general were "a clear indication" of Israel's commitment to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel.
As reports of the attack emerged, Annan rushed out of a hotel in Rome following a dinner with US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and Lebanese prime minister Fuad Saniora.
"I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces of a UN observer post in southern Lebanon," Annan said in a statement later.
"I call on the government of Israel to conduct a full investigation into this very disturbing incident and demand that any further attack on UN positions and personnel must stop."
Gillerman said "Israel is carrying out a thorough inquiry into this tragic incident and will inform the UN of its results as soon as possible".
The UN Security Council is expected to receive a briefing on the bombing today.
Since Israel launched a massive military offensive against Lebanon and Hezbollah guerillas on July 12, a Nigerian civilian employee working with Unifil and his wife had been killed in the crossfire in the southern port city of Tyre.
Five Unifil soldiers and one military observer had also been wounded, Struger said. They included four Ghanaians injured by artillery fire on Monday and a peacekeeper shot through the back on July 23.
Four UN observers die in Israeli air strike as heavy fighting continues in Lebanon
By Donald Macintyre in Avivim, northern Israel
The Independent Wednesday, 26 July 2006
Four United Nations observers were killed last night in an Israeli raid on their post at the border town of Khiam in south Lebanon. The UN secretary general suggested last night that it had been deliberately targeted.
The observers, said by Lebanese officials to have been an Austrian, a Canadian, a Chinese and a Finn, were killed when the post's building and shelter were bombed.
Milos Struger, the spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), the 28-year old-year old peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, said rescue workers had to dig through the rubble but that Israeli fire " continued even during the rescue operation".
In Rome, where he had been discussing the 14-day-old conflict with Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, and Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese Prime Minister Mr Annan protested at what he called the "apparently deliberate targeting" by the Israel Defence Forces of the post and demanded a full investigation. There was no immediate comment from the IDF.
Israel has long criticised Unifil for being "innefective" and not standing up to Hizbollah. Beside triggering a probable wave of international protest, the deaths of the four observers may complicate further the search for a ceaefire agreement under which a multinational force would take over control of the southern border areas of Lebanon.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, also warned that the conflict between Lebanon and Israel could trigger "a hurricane" of broader fighting in the Middle East. Iran is a major backer of Hizbollah and a sworn enemy of Israel. In his comments, he referred to a proverb that says: " He who raises the wind will get a hurricane." He added: "That proverb fully relates to the Middle East, which is a very volatile region. And it will be a strong hurricane which will strike really hard."
Egypt and Saudi Arabia, facing popular anger over Israel's offensive, toughened their stance yesterday warning the US that Israeli militarism could lead to a wider conflict in the region.
Meanwhile, Da'aa Abbas, 15, became the fourth Arab Israeli to die in the conflict killed in the Galilee village of Maghar as Hizbollah launched 90 to 100 rockets at northern Israel.
Amir Peretz, the Israeli Defence Minister, said Israel will enforce a " security zone" in southern Lebanon until such time as a multinational force moves in to control the Lebanese border area. The remarks by Mr Peretz appeared to set the seal on Israel's conversion to the idea of a Western-led international military deployment to keep Hizbollah guerrillas from threatening Israel, if and when the still slow-moving diplomatic efforts to broker a ceasefire succeed.
Beirut was heavily bombarded from the air yesterday after Israeli military aircraft killed six people in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, and Israeli troops sealed off the town of Bint Jbeil, 15 miles farther south, which it regards as a Hizbollah stronghold.
Ms Rice said yesterday, after meeting Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, in Israel that any Lebanon ceasefire would have to be " enduring" as well as urgent, and that the US was seeking a "new Middle East".
Ms Rice, who arrived in Rome last night to meet European and Arab leaders, supposedly to thrash out terms of a putative ceasefire, said there was " no desire" on the part of US officials to come back weeks or months after a ceasefire because, she implied, Hizbollah had again found a way to undermine it.
Her remarks came as Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign affairs envoy, said he would be calling for a "ceasefire process" at the summit, and added that European countries would have to take part. " Without European, without some Europeans, the force will not exist," he said.
There have been suggestions in Israel that such a force, which it would prefer to be under the aegis of Nato, would require 20,000 troops twice as many as the deployment being talked about in Western capitals. While Mr Solana did not say so, France has been seen as a potential contributor.
Mr Solana refrained from saying he would call for an "immediate ceasefire" apparently out of deference to Britain, which has joined the US in refraining from such a demand.
Israeli officials have suggested that the US has informally given licence to Israel to maintain its assault in Lebanon until at least the beginning of next week.
The death of the Arab Israel girl came amid continuing indications from Israeli officers, and troops at the border, of the stiff resistance put up by Hizbollah to the tank and infantry incursions into southern Lebanon over the past few days. Heavy fighting around the village of Maroun ar-Ras cost the lives of seven Israeli soldiers at the end of last week.
Brigadier General Shuki Shachar, the deputy head of the Israeli Defence Forces northern command, said the army had taken the "high positions" around Beit Jbeil to pursue its operations against Hizbollah rather than occupying the town itself after persuading most of its 20,000 civilians to leave. He said the civilians would not be allowed back as long as Hizbollah threatened Israel. Major Eran Carraso, who served in Lebanon before the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, said the effectiveness of Hizbollah forces had notably improved.
A 21-year-old tank commander who had just spent 80 hours in Lebanon and gave only his first name, Erez, said the operation had been very different from his service in the West Bank. But he insisted that Hizbollah fighters were "cowards" because they fired missiles and then went into hiding.
One of the more remarkable sights on the border yesterday was the return of a foot patrol with llamas, which the Israeli army recently decided were especially suitable beasts of burden for operations inside the hilly terrain of southern Lebanon.
The mounting toll
* Number of Lebanese people killed in the two-week conflict: 422, of whom 375 were civilians.
* A further 27 Hizbollah guerrillas have been killed and 20 Lebanese soldiers.
* Number of Israeli dead since the conflict began: 42, of whom 18 were civilians and 24 soldiers.
* Number of Palestinians killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip since the capture of Cpl Gilad Shalit: 121.
* Number of Israeli air strikes on Lebanon yesterday: 100.
* Hizbollah rockets fired yesterday: 80.
* The Israel Defence Force claimed yesterday to have hit 10 Hizbollah buildings.
* That adds up to an estimated $1bn ($600m) in damage to infrastructure.
* Number of Lebanese bridges destroyed: 105
* The number of Israeli bridges destroyed: 0.
* Number of Lebanese ports bombed: 3.
* Estimate of the number of Lebanese people displaced in the fighting: 750,000.
* Lebanon has 2,000 UN troops who have been in the south since 1978.
* The value of arms exported to Israel from the UK in the past 18 months: £25m.
* The number of Britons evacuated from Lebanon by yesterday evening: 2,526.
* Israel's military spending: $9.45bn (in 1995); Lebanon: $540
The Independent Wednesday, 26 July 2006
Four United Nations observers were killed last night in an Israeli raid on their post at the border town of Khiam in south Lebanon. The UN secretary general suggested last night that it had been deliberately targeted.
The observers, said by Lebanese officials to have been an Austrian, a Canadian, a Chinese and a Finn, were killed when the post's building and shelter were bombed.
Milos Struger, the spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), the 28-year old-year old peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, said rescue workers had to dig through the rubble but that Israeli fire " continued even during the rescue operation".
In Rome, where he had been discussing the 14-day-old conflict with Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, and Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese Prime Minister Mr Annan protested at what he called the "apparently deliberate targeting" by the Israel Defence Forces of the post and demanded a full investigation. There was no immediate comment from the IDF.
Israel has long criticised Unifil for being "innefective" and not standing up to Hizbollah. Beside triggering a probable wave of international protest, the deaths of the four observers may complicate further the search for a ceaefire agreement under which a multinational force would take over control of the southern border areas of Lebanon.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, also warned that the conflict between Lebanon and Israel could trigger "a hurricane" of broader fighting in the Middle East. Iran is a major backer of Hizbollah and a sworn enemy of Israel. In his comments, he referred to a proverb that says: " He who raises the wind will get a hurricane." He added: "That proverb fully relates to the Middle East, which is a very volatile region. And it will be a strong hurricane which will strike really hard."
Egypt and Saudi Arabia, facing popular anger over Israel's offensive, toughened their stance yesterday warning the US that Israeli militarism could lead to a wider conflict in the region.
Meanwhile, Da'aa Abbas, 15, became the fourth Arab Israeli to die in the conflict killed in the Galilee village of Maghar as Hizbollah launched 90 to 100 rockets at northern Israel.
Amir Peretz, the Israeli Defence Minister, said Israel will enforce a " security zone" in southern Lebanon until such time as a multinational force moves in to control the Lebanese border area. The remarks by Mr Peretz appeared to set the seal on Israel's conversion to the idea of a Western-led international military deployment to keep Hizbollah guerrillas from threatening Israel, if and when the still slow-moving diplomatic efforts to broker a ceasefire succeed.
Beirut was heavily bombarded from the air yesterday after Israeli military aircraft killed six people in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh, and Israeli troops sealed off the town of Bint Jbeil, 15 miles farther south, which it regards as a Hizbollah stronghold.
Ms Rice said yesterday, after meeting Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, in Israel that any Lebanon ceasefire would have to be " enduring" as well as urgent, and that the US was seeking a "new Middle East".
Ms Rice, who arrived in Rome last night to meet European and Arab leaders, supposedly to thrash out terms of a putative ceasefire, said there was " no desire" on the part of US officials to come back weeks or months after a ceasefire because, she implied, Hizbollah had again found a way to undermine it.
Her remarks came as Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign affairs envoy, said he would be calling for a "ceasefire process" at the summit, and added that European countries would have to take part. " Without European, without some Europeans, the force will not exist," he said.
There have been suggestions in Israel that such a force, which it would prefer to be under the aegis of Nato, would require 20,000 troops twice as many as the deployment being talked about in Western capitals. While Mr Solana did not say so, France has been seen as a potential contributor.
Mr Solana refrained from saying he would call for an "immediate ceasefire" apparently out of deference to Britain, which has joined the US in refraining from such a demand.
Israeli officials have suggested that the US has informally given licence to Israel to maintain its assault in Lebanon until at least the beginning of next week.
The death of the Arab Israel girl came amid continuing indications from Israeli officers, and troops at the border, of the stiff resistance put up by Hizbollah to the tank and infantry incursions into southern Lebanon over the past few days. Heavy fighting around the village of Maroun ar-Ras cost the lives of seven Israeli soldiers at the end of last week.
Brigadier General Shuki Shachar, the deputy head of the Israeli Defence Forces northern command, said the army had taken the "high positions" around Beit Jbeil to pursue its operations against Hizbollah rather than occupying the town itself after persuading most of its 20,000 civilians to leave. He said the civilians would not be allowed back as long as Hizbollah threatened Israel. Major Eran Carraso, who served in Lebanon before the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, said the effectiveness of Hizbollah forces had notably improved.
A 21-year-old tank commander who had just spent 80 hours in Lebanon and gave only his first name, Erez, said the operation had been very different from his service in the West Bank. But he insisted that Hizbollah fighters were "cowards" because they fired missiles and then went into hiding.
One of the more remarkable sights on the border yesterday was the return of a foot patrol with llamas, which the Israeli army recently decided were especially suitable beasts of burden for operations inside the hilly terrain of southern Lebanon.
The mounting toll
* Number of Lebanese people killed in the two-week conflict: 422, of whom 375 were civilians.
* A further 27 Hizbollah guerrillas have been killed and 20 Lebanese soldiers.
* Number of Israeli dead since the conflict began: 42, of whom 18 were civilians and 24 soldiers.
* Number of Palestinians killed by Israel in the Gaza Strip since the capture of Cpl Gilad Shalit: 121.
* Number of Israeli air strikes on Lebanon yesterday: 100.
* Hizbollah rockets fired yesterday: 80.
* The Israel Defence Force claimed yesterday to have hit 10 Hizbollah buildings.
* That adds up to an estimated $1bn ($600m) in damage to infrastructure.
* Number of Lebanese bridges destroyed: 105
* The number of Israeli bridges destroyed: 0.
* Number of Lebanese ports bombed: 3.
* Estimate of the number of Lebanese people displaced in the fighting: 750,000.
* Lebanon has 2,000 UN troops who have been in the south since 1978.
* The value of arms exported to Israel from the UK in the past 18 months: £25m.
* The number of Britons evacuated from Lebanon by yesterday evening: 2,526.
* Israel's military spending: $9.45bn (in 1995); Lebanon: $540
Robert Fisk: Israeli missiles had clearly pierced the very centre of the red cross on the roof of each ambulance
From Qlaya, Southern Lebanon
The Independent Wednesday, 26 July 2006
The battle for Southern Lebanon is on an epic scale but from the heights above Khiam, the Israelis appear to be in deep trouble. Their F-16s turn in the high bright sun - small silver fish whose whispers gain in volume as they dive - and their bombs burst over the old prison where the Hizbollah are still holding out; but beyond the frontier, I can see livid fires burning across the Israeli hillside and the Jewish settlement of Metullah billowing smoke.
It was not meant to be like this, 13 days into Israel's assault on Lebanon. The Katyushas still streak in pairs out of Khiam, white contrails that thump into Israel's hillsides and border towns. So is it frustration or revenge that also keeps Israel's bombs falling on the innocent? In the early hours of yesterday morning, a tremendous explosion woke me up, rattling the windows and shaking the trees outside and a single flash suffused the western sky over Nabatea. The lives of an entire family of seven had just been extinguished.
And how come - since this now obsesses the humanitarian organisations working in Lebanon - that the Israelis bombed two ambulances in Qana, killing two of the wounded inside and wounding the third civilian for the second time in a day. All the crews were injured - one with a piece of shrapnel in his neck - but what worried the Lebanese Red Cross was that the Israeli missiles had clearly pierced the very centre of the red cross painted on the roof of each vehicle. Did the pilots use the cross as their aiming point?
The bombardment of Khiam has set off its own brushfires on the hillside below Qlaya, whose Maronite Christian inhabitants now stand on the high road above like spectators at a 19th century battle. Khiam is - or was - a pretty village of cut stone doorways and tracery windows but Israel's target is the notorious prison in which - before its retreat from Lebanon in 2000 - hundreds of Hizbollah members and in some cases their families were held and tortured with electricity by Israel's proxy South Lebanon Army militia.
This was the same prison complex - turned into a 'Museum of Torture' by the Hizbollah after the Israeli retreat that was visited by the late Edward Said shortly before his death. More important, however, is that many of the Hizbollah men originally held prisoner here were captives in cells built deep underground below the old French mandate fort. These same men are now fighting the Israelis, almost certainly sheltering from their firepower in the same underground cells in which they once languished, perhaps even storing some of their missiles there.
In Marjayoun next to Qlaya - once the SLA's headquarters - Lebanese troops are desperately trying to present Hizbollah guerrillas using the streets of the Greek Catholic town to fire yet more missiles at Israel. Seven-man army patrols are moving through the darkened alleyways of both towns at night in case Hizbollah brings yet more Israel bombs down on our heads.
In war, all one's senses are quickened. Dawn, birds, music, flowers acquire a new meaning. A family is still living in the little villa opposite my house and I watched a woman at dusk, picking vegetables in her garden for supper, ignoring the howl of Israeli aircraft in the sky above her and the sinister changes in air pressure from their bombs.
In Beirut, one observes the folly of western nations with amusement as well as horror but sitting in these hill villages and listening to how US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to reshape Lebanon is clearly a lesson in human self-delusion.
According to American correspondents accompanying Ms Rice on her visit to the Middle East, she is proposing the intervention of a NATO-led force along the Lebanese-Israeli border for between 60 and 90 days to assure that a ceasefire exists, the deployment after this of an enlarged NATO-led force throughout Lebanon to ensure the disarmament of Hezbollah, and then the retraining of the Lebanese Army before it too deploys to the border. This plan - which like all American proposals on Lebanon is exactly the same as Israel's demands - carries the same depth of delusional conceit as that of the Israeli consul-general in New York who said last week that 'most Lebanese appreciate what we are doing.'
Does Ms Rice think the Hizbollah want to be disarmed, albeit it under the terms of UN Security Council resolution 1559? By NATO? Wasn't there a NATO force in Beirut which fled Lebanon after a group close to the Hizbollah bombed the US marine base at Beirut airport in 1983, killing 241 US servicemen, and dozens more French troops a few seconds later? Does anyone believe that Shiite Muslim forces will not do the same again to any NATO 'intervention' force. The Hizbollah have been waiting and training and dreaming of this war for years, however ruthless we may regard their actions. They are not going to surrender the territory they liberated from the Israeli Army in an 18-year guerrilla war, least of all to NATO at Israel's bidding.
The problem, surely, is that the United States sees this bloodbath as an 'opportunity' rather than a tragedy, a chance to humble Hizbollah's supporters in Tehran and help to shape the 'new Middle East' of which Ms Rice spoke so blandly yesterday. In fact it will more likely to prove to be Syria's attempt to humble Israel and the United States in Lebanon.
Of course, the Hizbollah have brought catastrophe to their coreligionists. All the way down the Beka'a Valley to Southern Lebanon, the long, dangerous, bomb-cratered roads I had to travel to reach Qlaya were deserted save for cars driven by panicking men, crammed with families, trailing white sheets out of the windows in the forlorn hope - after all the Israeli air attacks on civilians - that this would provide them with protection.
The only civilian walking these frightening roads was a goatherd, shepherding his animals around the huge craters. Talking to him, it emerged that he was almost stone deaf and could not hear the bombs. In this, it seemed, he had a lot in common with Condoleezza Rice.
The Independent Wednesday, 26 July 2006
The battle for Southern Lebanon is on an epic scale but from the heights above Khiam, the Israelis appear to be in deep trouble. Their F-16s turn in the high bright sun - small silver fish whose whispers gain in volume as they dive - and their bombs burst over the old prison where the Hizbollah are still holding out; but beyond the frontier, I can see livid fires burning across the Israeli hillside and the Jewish settlement of Metullah billowing smoke.
It was not meant to be like this, 13 days into Israel's assault on Lebanon. The Katyushas still streak in pairs out of Khiam, white contrails that thump into Israel's hillsides and border towns. So is it frustration or revenge that also keeps Israel's bombs falling on the innocent? In the early hours of yesterday morning, a tremendous explosion woke me up, rattling the windows and shaking the trees outside and a single flash suffused the western sky over Nabatea. The lives of an entire family of seven had just been extinguished.
And how come - since this now obsesses the humanitarian organisations working in Lebanon - that the Israelis bombed two ambulances in Qana, killing two of the wounded inside and wounding the third civilian for the second time in a day. All the crews were injured - one with a piece of shrapnel in his neck - but what worried the Lebanese Red Cross was that the Israeli missiles had clearly pierced the very centre of the red cross painted on the roof of each vehicle. Did the pilots use the cross as their aiming point?
The bombardment of Khiam has set off its own brushfires on the hillside below Qlaya, whose Maronite Christian inhabitants now stand on the high road above like spectators at a 19th century battle. Khiam is - or was - a pretty village of cut stone doorways and tracery windows but Israel's target is the notorious prison in which - before its retreat from Lebanon in 2000 - hundreds of Hizbollah members and in some cases their families were held and tortured with electricity by Israel's proxy South Lebanon Army militia.
This was the same prison complex - turned into a 'Museum of Torture' by the Hizbollah after the Israeli retreat that was visited by the late Edward Said shortly before his death. More important, however, is that many of the Hizbollah men originally held prisoner here were captives in cells built deep underground below the old French mandate fort. These same men are now fighting the Israelis, almost certainly sheltering from their firepower in the same underground cells in which they once languished, perhaps even storing some of their missiles there.
In Marjayoun next to Qlaya - once the SLA's headquarters - Lebanese troops are desperately trying to present Hizbollah guerrillas using the streets of the Greek Catholic town to fire yet more missiles at Israel. Seven-man army patrols are moving through the darkened alleyways of both towns at night in case Hizbollah brings yet more Israel bombs down on our heads.
In war, all one's senses are quickened. Dawn, birds, music, flowers acquire a new meaning. A family is still living in the little villa opposite my house and I watched a woman at dusk, picking vegetables in her garden for supper, ignoring the howl of Israeli aircraft in the sky above her and the sinister changes in air pressure from their bombs.
In Beirut, one observes the folly of western nations with amusement as well as horror but sitting in these hill villages and listening to how US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to reshape Lebanon is clearly a lesson in human self-delusion.
According to American correspondents accompanying Ms Rice on her visit to the Middle East, she is proposing the intervention of a NATO-led force along the Lebanese-Israeli border for between 60 and 90 days to assure that a ceasefire exists, the deployment after this of an enlarged NATO-led force throughout Lebanon to ensure the disarmament of Hezbollah, and then the retraining of the Lebanese Army before it too deploys to the border. This plan - which like all American proposals on Lebanon is exactly the same as Israel's demands - carries the same depth of delusional conceit as that of the Israeli consul-general in New York who said last week that 'most Lebanese appreciate what we are doing.'
Does Ms Rice think the Hizbollah want to be disarmed, albeit it under the terms of UN Security Council resolution 1559? By NATO? Wasn't there a NATO force in Beirut which fled Lebanon after a group close to the Hizbollah bombed the US marine base at Beirut airport in 1983, killing 241 US servicemen, and dozens more French troops a few seconds later? Does anyone believe that Shiite Muslim forces will not do the same again to any NATO 'intervention' force. The Hizbollah have been waiting and training and dreaming of this war for years, however ruthless we may regard their actions. They are not going to surrender the territory they liberated from the Israeli Army in an 18-year guerrilla war, least of all to NATO at Israel's bidding.
The problem, surely, is that the United States sees this bloodbath as an 'opportunity' rather than a tragedy, a chance to humble Hizbollah's supporters in Tehran and help to shape the 'new Middle East' of which Ms Rice spoke so blandly yesterday. In fact it will more likely to prove to be Syria's attempt to humble Israel and the United States in Lebanon.
Of course, the Hizbollah have brought catastrophe to their coreligionists. All the way down the Beka'a Valley to Southern Lebanon, the long, dangerous, bomb-cratered roads I had to travel to reach Qlaya were deserted save for cars driven by panicking men, crammed with families, trailing white sheets out of the windows in the forlorn hope - after all the Israeli air attacks on civilians - that this would provide them with protection.
The only civilian walking these frightening roads was a goatherd, shepherding his animals around the huge craters. Talking to him, it emerged that he was almost stone deaf and could not hear the bombs. In this, it seemed, he had a lot in common with Condoleezza Rice.
Oren Ben-Dor: Who are the real terrorists in the Middle East?
What exactly is being defended? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state?
The Independent Wednesday, 26 July 2006
As its citizens are being killed, Israel is, yet again, inflicting death and destruction on Lebanon. It tries to portray this horror as necessary for its self-defence. Indeed, the casual observer might regard the rocket attacks on Israeli cities such as Haifa and my own home town, Nahariya, as justifying this claim.
While states should defend their citizens, states which fail this duty should be questioned and, if necessary, reconfigured. Israel is a state which, instead of defending its citizens, puts all of them, Jews as well as non-Jews, in danger.
What exactly is being defended by the violence in Gaza and Lebanon? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state? I suggest the latter. Israel's statehood is based on an unjust ideology which causes indignity and suffering for those who are classified as non-Jewish by either a religious or ethnic test. To hide this primordial immorality, Israel fosters an image of victimhood. Provoking violence, consciously or unconsciously, against which one must defend oneself is a key feature of the victim-mentality. By perpetuating such a tragic cycle, Israel is a terrorist state like no other.
Many who wish to hide the immorality of the Israeli state do so by restricting attention to the horrors of the post-1967 occupation and talking about a two-state solution, since endorsing a Palestinian state implicitly endorses the ideology behind a Jewish one.
The very creation of Israel required an act of terror. In 1948, most of the non-Jewish indigenous people were ethnically cleansed from the part of Palestine which became Israel. This action was carefully planned. Without it, no state with a Jewish majority and character would have been possible. Since 1948, the "Israeli Arabs", those Palestinians who avoided expulsion, have suffered continuous discrimination. Indeed, many have been internally displaced, ostensibly for "security reasons", but really to acquire their lands for Jews.
Surely Holocaust memory and Jewish longing for Eretz Israel would not be sufficient to justify ethnic cleansing and ethnocracy? To avoid the destabilisation that would result from ethical inquiry, the Israeli state must hide the core problem, by nourishing a victim mentality among Israeli Jews.
To sustain that mentality and to preserve an impression of victimhood among outsiders, Israel must breed conditions for violence. Whenever prospects of violence against it subside, Israel must do its utmost to regenerate them: the myth that it is a peace-seeking victim which has "no partner for peace" is a key panel in the screen with which Israel hides its primordial and continuing immorality.
Israel's successful campaign to silence criticism of its initial and continuing dispossession of the indigenous Palestinians leaves the latter no option but to resort to violent resistance. In the wake of electing Hamas - the only party which, in the eyes of Palestinians, has not yet given up their cause - the Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank were subjected to an Israeli campaign of starvation, humiliation and violence.
The insincere "withdrawal" from Gaza, and the subsequent blockade, ensured a chronicle of violence which, so far, includes Palestinian firing of Kasem rockets, the capture of an Israeli soldier and the Israeli near re-occupation of Gaza. What we witness is more hatred, more violence from Palestinians, more humiliation and collective punishments from Israelis - all useful reinforcement for the Israeli victim mentality and for the sacred cow status of Israeli statehood.
The truth is that there never could have been a partition of Palestine by ethically acceptable means. Israel was created through terror and it needs terror to cover-up its core immorality. Whenever there is a glimmer of stability, the state orders a targeted assassination, such as that in Sidon which preceded the current Lebanon crisis, knowing well that this brings not security but more violence. Israel's unilateralism and the cycle of violence nourish one another.
Amidst the violence and despite the conventional discourse which hides the root of this violence, actuality calls upon us to think. The more we silence its voice, the more violently actuality is sure to speak.
In Hebrew, the word elem (a stunned silence resulting from oppression or shock) is etymologically linked to the word almut (violence). Silence about the immoral core of Israeli statehood makes us all complicit in breeding the terrorism that threatens a catastrophe which could tear the world apart.
okbendor@yahoo.com
The writer teaches the philosophy of law and political philosophy at University of Southampton
The Independent Wednesday, 26 July 2006
As its citizens are being killed, Israel is, yet again, inflicting death and destruction on Lebanon. It tries to portray this horror as necessary for its self-defence. Indeed, the casual observer might regard the rocket attacks on Israeli cities such as Haifa and my own home town, Nahariya, as justifying this claim.
While states should defend their citizens, states which fail this duty should be questioned and, if necessary, reconfigured. Israel is a state which, instead of defending its citizens, puts all of them, Jews as well as non-Jews, in danger.
What exactly is being defended by the violence in Gaza and Lebanon? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state? I suggest the latter. Israel's statehood is based on an unjust ideology which causes indignity and suffering for those who are classified as non-Jewish by either a religious or ethnic test. To hide this primordial immorality, Israel fosters an image of victimhood. Provoking violence, consciously or unconsciously, against which one must defend oneself is a key feature of the victim-mentality. By perpetuating such a tragic cycle, Israel is a terrorist state like no other.
Many who wish to hide the immorality of the Israeli state do so by restricting attention to the horrors of the post-1967 occupation and talking about a two-state solution, since endorsing a Palestinian state implicitly endorses the ideology behind a Jewish one.
The very creation of Israel required an act of terror. In 1948, most of the non-Jewish indigenous people were ethnically cleansed from the part of Palestine which became Israel. This action was carefully planned. Without it, no state with a Jewish majority and character would have been possible. Since 1948, the "Israeli Arabs", those Palestinians who avoided expulsion, have suffered continuous discrimination. Indeed, many have been internally displaced, ostensibly for "security reasons", but really to acquire their lands for Jews.
Surely Holocaust memory and Jewish longing for Eretz Israel would not be sufficient to justify ethnic cleansing and ethnocracy? To avoid the destabilisation that would result from ethical inquiry, the Israeli state must hide the core problem, by nourishing a victim mentality among Israeli Jews.
To sustain that mentality and to preserve an impression of victimhood among outsiders, Israel must breed conditions for violence. Whenever prospects of violence against it subside, Israel must do its utmost to regenerate them: the myth that it is a peace-seeking victim which has "no partner for peace" is a key panel in the screen with which Israel hides its primordial and continuing immorality.
Israel's successful campaign to silence criticism of its initial and continuing dispossession of the indigenous Palestinians leaves the latter no option but to resort to violent resistance. In the wake of electing Hamas - the only party which, in the eyes of Palestinians, has not yet given up their cause - the Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank were subjected to an Israeli campaign of starvation, humiliation and violence.
The insincere "withdrawal" from Gaza, and the subsequent blockade, ensured a chronicle of violence which, so far, includes Palestinian firing of Kasem rockets, the capture of an Israeli soldier and the Israeli near re-occupation of Gaza. What we witness is more hatred, more violence from Palestinians, more humiliation and collective punishments from Israelis - all useful reinforcement for the Israeli victim mentality and for the sacred cow status of Israeli statehood.
The truth is that there never could have been a partition of Palestine by ethically acceptable means. Israel was created through terror and it needs terror to cover-up its core immorality. Whenever there is a glimmer of stability, the state orders a targeted assassination, such as that in Sidon which preceded the current Lebanon crisis, knowing well that this brings not security but more violence. Israel's unilateralism and the cycle of violence nourish one another.
Amidst the violence and despite the conventional discourse which hides the root of this violence, actuality calls upon us to think. The more we silence its voice, the more violently actuality is sure to speak.
In Hebrew, the word elem (a stunned silence resulting from oppression or shock) is etymologically linked to the word almut (violence). Silence about the immoral core of Israeli statehood makes us all complicit in breeding the terrorism that threatens a catastrophe which could tear the world apart.
okbendor@yahoo.com
The writer teaches the philosophy of law and political philosophy at University of Southampton
lundi 26 juin 2006
Israel may provide counsel to officials in war crimes trials overseas
Haaretz 08:57 26/06/2006
By Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondent
The state will provide the legal defense for state and defense establishment employees prosecuted in foreign countries or international courts for action they took as representatives of the State of Israel, according to a regulation approved Sunday by the ministerial committee for legislation. The decision comes in the wake of arrest warrants issued in Britain against senior Israel Defense Forces officials. About nine months ago, Major General Doron Almog (res.) returned from London without disembarking an El Al flight when he found out there was an arrest warrant for him in England related to the IDF's demolition of 60 homes in Rafah. Haaretz later reported that complaints were also filed in Britain against IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz and his predecessor, Moshe Ya'alon, for their involvement in the deaths of 14 Palestinian civilians when Israel assassinated Salah Shehada in July 2002. T
he chairman of the legislation committee, Justice Minister Haim Ramon, said it was essential to defend Israelis facing prosecution for carrying out their duties. "This is crucial regulation to defend to the highest office-holders who were carrying out the state's instructions - first and foremost heads of the security establishment - from hostile elements that want to harm the State of Israel by putting these office-holders on the defendant's bench." The regulation calls for the establishment of a committee to determine the extent of the state's involvement in the legal defense. In addition, the state has reserved the right to reject certain legal arguments that could be used in the individual's defense but might hamper the state's desire "to safeguard the national interest of the state in any way it deems correct."
By Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondent
The state will provide the legal defense for state and defense establishment employees prosecuted in foreign countries or international courts for action they took as representatives of the State of Israel, according to a regulation approved Sunday by the ministerial committee for legislation. The decision comes in the wake of arrest warrants issued in Britain against senior Israel Defense Forces officials. About nine months ago, Major General Doron Almog (res.) returned from London without disembarking an El Al flight when he found out there was an arrest warrant for him in England related to the IDF's demolition of 60 homes in Rafah. Haaretz later reported that complaints were also filed in Britain against IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz and his predecessor, Moshe Ya'alon, for their involvement in the deaths of 14 Palestinian civilians when Israel assassinated Salah Shehada in July 2002. T
he chairman of the legislation committee, Justice Minister Haim Ramon, said it was essential to defend Israelis facing prosecution for carrying out their duties. "This is crucial regulation to defend to the highest office-holders who were carrying out the state's instructions - first and foremost heads of the security establishment - from hostile elements that want to harm the State of Israel by putting these office-holders on the defendant's bench." The regulation calls for the establishment of a committee to determine the extent of the state's involvement in the legal defense. In addition, the state has reserved the right to reject certain legal arguments that could be used in the individual's defense but might hamper the state's desire "to safeguard the national interest of the state in any way it deems correct."
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