Madison Rafah Journal

Karl Vick, Time, September 2, 2010

Jerusalem — Heli and Eli sell condos on Exodus Street, a name that evokes a certain historical hardship in a neighborhood that suggests none at all, the ingathering of the Jews having entered a whole new realm here. The talk in the little office is of interest rates and panoramic sea views from handsomely appointed properties selling on the Ashdod waterfront for half what people are asked to pay in Tel Aviv, 18 miles (29 km) to the north. And sell they do, hand over fist – never mind the rockets that fly out of Gaza, 14 miles (22.5 km) to the south. "Even when the Qassams fell, we continued to sell!" says Heli Itach, slapping a palm on the office desk. The skull on her designer shirt is made of sequins spelling out "Love Kills Slowly." "What the people see on the TV there is not true here," she says. "I sold, this week, 12 apartments. You're not client, I tell you the truth."

The truth? In the week that three Presidents, a King and their own Prime Minister gather at the White House to begin a fresh round of talks on peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the truth is, Israelis are no longer preoccupied with the matter. They're otherwise engaged; they're making money; they're enjoying the rays of late summer. A watching world may still define their country by the blood feud with the Arabs whose families used to live on this land and whether that conflict can be negotiated away, but Israelis say they have moved on. (See pictures of 60 years of Israel.)

Now observing 2½ years without a single suicide bombing on their territory, with the economy robust and with souls a trifle weary of having to handle big elemental thoughts, the Israeli public prefers to explore such satisfactions as might be available from the private sphere, in a land first imagined as a utopia. "Listen to me," says Eli Bengozi, born in Soviet Georgia and for 40 years an Israeli. "Peace? Forget about it. They'll never have peace. Remember Clinton gave 99% to Arafat, and instead of them fighting for 1%, what? Intifadeh." (See TIME's photo-essay "Palestinian 'Day of Rage.' ")

But wait. Deep down (you can almost hear the outside world ask), don't Israelis know that finding peace with the Palestinians is the only way to guarantee their happiness and prosperity? Well, not exactly. Asked in a March poll to name the "most urgent problem" facing Israel, just 8% of Israeli Jews cited the conflict with Palestinians, putting it fifth behind education, crime, national security and poverty. Israeli Arabs placed peace first, but among Jews here, the issue that President Obama calls "critical for the world" just doesn't seem – critical.

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Agence France Presse, 29 Aug 2010

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States on Sunday condemned as "deeply offensive" remarks by an influential Israeli rabbi who said he hoped Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas would "vanish from our world."

"We regret and condemn the inflammatory statements by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said in a statement.

"These remarks are not only deeply offensive, but incitement such as this hurts the cause of peace."

Ovadia, who heads a religious party in Israel's ruling coalition, expressed hope in his weekly sermon Saturday that "all the nasty people who hate Israel, like Abu Mazen (Abbas), vanish from our world."

"May God strike them down with the plague along with all the nasty Palestinians who persecute Israel," he said.

Crowley pointed out that the remarks did not reflect the view of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is due in Washington this week for direct peace talks with Abbas.

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Success in the Irish talks was the result not just of determination and time, but also a very different United States approach to diplomacy.

ALI ABUNIMAH, The New York Times, August 28, 2010

Chicago

GEORGE J. MITCHELL, the United States Middle East envoy, tried to counter low expectations for renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations by harking back to his experience as a mediator in Northern Ireland.

At an Aug. 20 news conference with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, announcing the talks that will begin this week, Mr. Mitchell reminded journalists that during difficult negotiations in Northern Ireland, “We had about 700 days of failure and one day of success” — the day in 1998 that the Belfast Agreement instituting power-sharing between pro-British unionists and Irish nationalists was signed.

Mr. Mitchell’s comparison is misleading at best. Success in the Irish talks was the result not just of determination and time, but also a very different United States approach to diplomacy.

The conflict in Northern Ireland had been intractable for decades. Unionists backed by the British government saw any political compromise with Irish nationalists as a danger, one that would lead to a united Ireland in which a Catholic majority would dominate minority Protestant unionists. The British government also refused to deal with the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, despite its significant electoral mandate, because of its close ties to the Irish Republican Army, which had carried out violent acts in the United Kingdom.

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BOOKS ABOUT THE ISRAEL/PALESTINE STRUGGLE

**Abulhawa, Susan. The Scar of David. (Historical novel). 2007. Order online.

Bell, J. Bowyer. Terror out of Zion: Irgun Zvai Leumi, LEHI, and the Palestine Underground. St. Martin's Press, New York, 1977.

**Bennis, Phyllis. Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer. Olive Branch Press, 2009.

Donna Robinson. Politics and Society in Ottoman Palestine: The Arab Struggle for Survival and Power. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994.

Dodd, Peter and Halim Barakat. River without Bridges: A Study of the Exodus of the 1967 Palestinian Arab Refugees. Beirut: Institute of Palestine Studies, 1969.

Farsoun, Samih and Naseer Aruri. Palestine and the Palestinians: A Social and Political History. Boulder: West View Press, 2006.

Fisk, Robert. The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East. London: Harper Perennial, 2006.

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The issues faced by Palestinians in Israel radically undermine the well-worn cliché that Israel is "the only democracy in the Middle East." Israel's treatment of its Palestinian minority is the test of chances for a comprehensive peace. So far, it doesn't look good.

Ben White, Salon.com, 19 Aug 2010

Reuters/Mohamad Torokman

The refrain from Israeli politicians and the country's allies and apologists is familiar: There can be no peace deal until the Palestinians "recognize" Israel as "a Jewish state." While this can sound reasonable to the casual listener in the West, this demand actually points to critical flaws in the "peace process" and the way in which the international community approaches the Palestine/Israel question.

This is because such a demand, and understanding why it is so unacceptable to Palestinians, means going back to 1948 – when hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages were destroyed, their inhabitants forbidden from returning by the new Jewish state — and throwing the spotlight on two groups of Palestinians that the so-called peace process has ignored or marginalized: the refugees of '48 (and their descendants) and the Palestinian minority that's left inside Israel. The unpleasant reality is that Israel as "a Jewish state" means the permanent exile and dispossession of the former, and the colonial control of the latter.

In the West, even talking about Palestinian citizens inside Israel risks confusion, since for so long they have been referred to as "Israeli Arabs" or "Arab Israelis." This is a formulation intended to obfuscate their Palestinian identity, a discursive erasure symbolic of far more brutal methods (some of which are described below). The lack of attention paid to the issues faced by Palestinians in Israel by Western politicians and pundits is unfortunate, since their historic and contemporary reality radically undermines the well-worn cliché that Israel is "the only democracy in the Middle East."

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Posing and smiling with blindfolded Palestinian prisoners — and then posting the pics to Facebook? What's the big deal, an Israeli reserve officer asks. (wired.com)

Haaretz, 16 Aug 2010

'Best time of my life.' Female soldier smiles for camera in front of bound prisoners, before joking online with friends; army calls photos 'ugly and callous.'

A former Israel Defense Forces soldier has raised a storm on the internet after posting photographs of herself posing next to blindfold Palestinian prisoners on Facebook.

Photographs uploaded by Eden Abergil from Ashdod and labeled "IDF – the best time of my life" show her smiling next to Palestinian prisoners with their hands bound and their eyes covered.

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from the Palestine-Israel Action Group, Ann Arbor Friends Meeting
Links courtesy of Friends of Sabeel — North America (FOSNA)

The front of each of these Palestinian Loss-of-Land cards succinctly illustrates Israel's expansion and West Bank settlement policies since 1948.

Three options are available for the back of the cards:

Option 1: No Taxes for Occupation: Postcard tells President Obama and Congress how our tax dollars are harming Palestinians.

Option 2: No Taxes for Settlements: U.S. taxes help Israel build illegal settlements on Palestinian land.

Option 3: Stop the Land Grab: Illustrates how Israeli settlements splinter the West Bank. Read Sharon's plan!

Study Guide: Juan Cole's The Map: The Story of Palestinian Nationhood Thwarted.

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