Yearly Archives: 2003

The Reality of the “Geneva Accord”

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Al-Awda, 5 December 2003

The Geneva Accord was signed Monday, December 1, 2003, amid great media and political fanfare. The 50-page document lays out a plan for a presumed “peace agreement” between Israel and the Palestinian people. We, the undersigned, consider this initiative as inconsistent with the prerequisites of a just and durable peace for the following reasons:

1. It attempts to nullify the Palestinian right of return, both as a collective national right and as an individual right. By doing so, it strengthens existing attempts to relocate and scatter Palestinian refugees throughout the world and gives credence to plans to abrogate international law pertaining to the inalienable nature of the Right of Return. The net result would be to extract the very anchor of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination: the indivisible oneness of the Palestinian people and their right to their homes, properties and homeland.

2. It provides a Palestinian-Arab cover for the exclusive nature of the Israeli polity as a “Jewish State”, thus abrogating the national character of the Palestinian people within 1948 borders. It therefore fails to recognize the right of the 1.2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel to live in a democratic state for all its citizens: Jews and Palestinians, and it sets stage for mass transfer and ethnic cleansing in the future to maintain demographic Jewish dominance.

3. It accepts the reconfiguration of Jerusalem based on Israeli annexation plans, and grants Palestinian-Arab legitimacy to the colonial process that altered the Arab character of Jerusalem, making it impossible for the Palestinians to exercise control over “East Jerusalem,” not to say anything about “West Jerusalem,” which was conquered and ethnically cleansed in 1948.

4. It permanently accepts the presence of the vast majority of Israeli settlement colonies, particularly those that surround Jerusalem from the east, south, north and northwest, where most post-1967 settlers live, and alters the geography of Palestine to accommodate such colonial seizures.

5. It codifies a process that would limit the upper ceiling of a potential Palestinian polity to a truncated and demilitarized entity void of sovereignty, and sets in motion a process of expanding Israeli political oversight and control over any potential Palestinian entity.

6. It paves for an economic/political relationship that subordinates the Palestinian people to an exclusive and dominant Israeli polity, thus strategically de-linking the Palestinians from the Arab people and subjugating the national interests of all Arabs to the singular power of an Israeli-US alliance.

7. It allows for Israeli military and economic penetration and permanent outposts into the presumed Palestinian entity.

8. It leaves open all Israeli claims to the region’s water resources, natural wealth, and airspace. The text makes several references to annexes, but these issues have, in effect, been deferred, and may become the “final status” issues of the Geneva understanding.

9. It dilutes the international consensus on the conflict and attempts to transform the basis of the Palestinian struggle from one of national self- determination and return to that of modified civil rights within a prescribed political framework.

10. Most importantly, it weakens the national unity and resolve of the Palestinian people leading to the potential defeat of the current Intifada in the same manner Madrid and Oslo destroyed the first a decade ago.

11. It diminishes European commitment to Palestinian sovereignty, and most importantly, it expands the margin of Palestinian concessions, which have been bottoming out during the past two decades, making it very difficult for future Palestinian negotiators to back away from these concessions, including the renunciation of the Right of Return.

12. It assumes the Palestinian victims of Israel are the criminals, and the new judges allegedly more liberal than previous ones in the sentencing.

The Geneva Accord is a natural extension and an inevitable result of the “Road Map” and all associated models. The outcome of all, if allowed to succeed, would be to terminate the Palestinian march to freedom, to nullify indefinitely and de-legitimize the Palestinian right to return, and to subordinate the Arab nation to a heavily militarized outpost with normalized relationships with its surrounding.

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In alphabetical order:
Yousef Abudayyeh Co-Chair Middle East Cultural and Information Center*
Free Palestine Alliance, USA San Diego, California
As`ad AbuKhalil, Ph.D. Department of Politics, California State University* Stanislaus, California
Nader Abuljebein Writer Palestine Right of Return Congress Free Palestine Alliance, USA
Janet Abu-Lughod, Ph.D. Professor Emerita of Sociology The New School, New York* East Quogue, New York
Ali Abunimah Writer/journalist Electronic Intifada* Chicago
Ambassador Hasan Abunimah Former Ambassador Permanent Representative of Jordan at the UN*
Husam Abusneineh President, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee* Greater Sacramento Area Chapter California
Hussein Agrama Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropology Washington D.C.
Munir Akash Editor/publisher Massachusetts Musa Al-Hindi Palestine Right of Return Congress Al-Awda Coalition Nebraska
Fadhil Al-Kazily, Ph.D. Part-time Professor, Civil Engineering California State University*
Abbas Ali, Ph.D. Professor and Director School of International Management Indiana University of Pennsylvania*
Abbas Alnasrawi, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus University of Vermont* Shelburne, VT, USA Mohammed Al-Sheikh Arab American Community Center* Chicago, Illinois
Kamal Khalaf Altawil, M.D. Past president of the Arab American University Graduates (AAUG) Past president of the National Arab American Medical Association (NAAMA) Pennsylvania
Ban Al-Wardi, Esq. President, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee* Los Angeles/Orange County Chapter
Lamis Andoni Journalist/writer California
Said Arikat Journalist/writer Washington, D.C
Naseer H. Aruri, Ph.D. Chancellor Professor (Emeritus) University of Massachusetts Dartmouth* Massachusetts
Fawzi Asmar, Ph.D. Writer/journalist Washington, D.C
Omar Barghouti Philosophy Ph.D. Student Activist & Dance choreographer
Kenneth R. Barney Boston Committee for Palestinian Rights Cambridge, Massachusetts
Hanna Batarseh Board Member, Sacramento Peace Action* Free Palestine Alliance, USA California
Brian Becker International A.N.S.W.E.R. Steering Committee New York
Richard Becker Western Region Coordinator International Action Center San Francisco, California
George Bisharat, Ph.D. Professor, Hastings College of Law* San Francisco, California
Mary J. Bisharat, MSW Founder, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee* Greater Sacramento Area Chapter California
Mona Coobti, Esq. International Action Center Free Palestine Alliance California
Jamil Dakwar, Attorney Adalah
Zahi Damuni, Ph.D. Palestine Right of Return Congress Co-Founder, Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition San Diego, California
Ziad Deeb, M.D. Washington, D.C. P
Peter Dodd, Ph.D. Retired professor and United Nations official* Victoria, BC, Canada
Erica Dodd, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor University of Victoria* Victoria, BC, Canada
Nada Elia, Ph.D. Redmond, Washington
Samih Farsoun, Ph.D. Professor of Sociology American University* Washington, DC
Jamil Fayez, M.D. Washington, D.C.
Elizabeth Fenton Member of BCPR* Cambridge, Massachusetts
Jess Ghannam, Ph.D. Professor University of California, San Francisco * Right of Return Congress Al-Awda Coalition
Ziad Hafez, Ph.D. Economist Washington, D.C.
Elaine Hagopian, Ph.D. Professor Emerita of Sociology Simmons College* Organizer of the April 2000 Right of Return Conference
Shouki Kassis, Ph.D. Board member, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee* Greater Philadelphia Chapter Pennsylvania
Isma’il Kamal Washington, D.C.
Lara Kiswani Students for Justice in Palestine Third World Forum University of California, Davis
Jennifer Loewenstein, Ph.D. Senior Lecturer, Professional Communications University of Wisconsin – Madison* Madison, Wisconsin
Riyad Mansour, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor Central Florida University* Orlando, Florida
Joseph Massad, Ph.D. Professor, MEALAC Columbia University* New York, N.Y
Nur Masalha, Ph.D. St. Mary’s University College* and Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Law* SOAS, University of London
Rania Masri, Ph.D. Program Director Institute for Southern Studies* Raleigh, North Carolina Ed Mast Palestine Solidarity Committee Seattle, Washington USA
Carl Messineo, Esq. Partnership for Civil Justice* National Steering Committee, International A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition Washington, D.C.
Nabil Migalli New Hampshire
Eid B. Mustafa, M.D., F.A.C.S. Texas
Karma Nabulsi, Ph.D. Professor Nuffield College* Oxford University United Kingdom
Hasan & Shereen Newash Grosse Pointe, Michigan
Mazin Qumsiyeh, Ph.D. Professor, Yale University* Co-Founder of Palestine Right to Return Coalition Connecticut
Nasser Rabbat. Ph.D. MIT Cambridge, Massachusetts
Fadia Rafeedie, Esq. Los Angeles, California
Elias Rashmawi Free Palestine Alliance, USA National Steering Committee of International A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition California
Gary Rothberger Cambridge, MA
Cheryl A. Rubenberg, Ph.D. Retired Professor Florida International University* North Miami, Florida
Nizar Sakhnini Canada
Michel Shehadeh Free Palestine Alliance, USA Committee for Justice California
Sylvia Shihadeh Austin, Texas
Muhammad A. Shuraydi, Ph.D. University of Windsor* Ontario, Canada
Abdelhameed Siyam New York
Mounzer Sleiman, Ph.D. Journalist/Writer Washington, D.C.
Hon. Samy Sharaf Former Minister of Presidential Affairs* Cairo, Egypt
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Esq. Partnership for Civil Justice* National Steering Committee, International A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition Washington, D.C.
Arthur H. Whitman Auburn, Maine
Anthony Zahlan, Ph.D. Scientist/Author United Kingdom
Zeina Zaatari, Ph.D. University of California, Davis*
* For identification only

The killing fields of Rafah

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Gideon Levy, Haaretz, Nov 30, 2003
  
Quietly, far from the public eye, Israeli soldiers continue killing Palestinians. Hardly a day goes by without casualties, some innocent civilians, and the stories of their violent deaths never reach the Israeli consciousness or awareness. If there is one consistent piece of data in the current intifada, it is the number of Palestinian casualties: dozens a month, unceasingly.

There were 30 in November, 57 in October, 33 in September. In May and June, the number of casualties reached 60 a month (all data supplied by B’Tselem). While Palestinian terror shocks us with its brutality, the daily killing of innocent Palestinians in far greater numbers is ignored – unless it is a case of an army operation as in Nusseirat refugee camp in October.

Here’s a list of victims from the last month, taken from the margins of the daily newspaper chronicles: A 32-year-old motorcyclist shot to death in the chest after soldiers said he tried to escape a checkpoint near Iskar refugee camp; a 10-year-old boy from Sejaya in Gaza who was bird hunting with a slingshot near the separation fence around Gaza, killed by a tank shell fired at him; an eighth-grader from Barukin, near Jenin, who threw stones at soldiers, shot dead; a youth shot to death during “disturbances” after the funeral of his friend in Jenin; a taxi driver and father of six shot to death in Tul Karm by soldiers who thought he was trying to get away; a 15-year-old killed in Yata during some arrests; a nine-year-old killed by IDF fire in Rafah; and three Palestinians who were on their way to the holiday dinner last Wednesday in Gaza, killed by soldiers who claimed they thought the three were an armed cell.

The IDF admitted the next day that they were “accidentally” killed. But a day later, Brigadier General Gad Shamni, commander of the Gaza forces in the Strip hurried to say the soldiers actually behaved correctly. Even though three innocent people were killed, he didn’t even think it was a mistake.

Life in the killing fields of Rafah, for example, is as cheap as the hundreds of houses that have been demolished there for various, strange reasons. Just a few days ago, the IDF demolished the home of someone in their custody whom the army claimed was responsible for the smuggling tunnels. There’s no need for blood on the hands to justify demolishing a person’s house in the current intifada. Only someone who has lately visited Rafah can understand how cheap life has become in this remote place, where there’s practically no building that has not been damaged.

Last weekend, the BBC broadcast a program titled “When the killing is easy” about the killing of British TV cameraman James Miller, the death of International Solidarity Movement volunteer Rachel Corrie under a bulldozer, and the shooting of ISM peace activist Tom Hurndall, who has been rendered a vegetable by his injuries. All three incidents happened within a few weeks in Rafah.

The TV cameras caught Miller walking in the night to his death: wearing a flak vest marked with fluorescent ink identifying him as a journalist, white flag in hand, walking slowly and cautiously, calling out to the soldiers in the armored personnel car facing him so they calm down. Then, the sound of a shot in the dark, and then another and Miller falls, dying in the dirt. The single bullet that struck his neck was well-aimed.

The soldiers in the APC had the best night vision equipment and it is difficult to assume that they were unable to identify their victim as a journalist. Maybe they did not want to kill a journalist, maybe they thought it was a Palestinian pretending to be a journalist, but there is no doubt he was not endangering any of their lives inside the APC. They could have warned him to halt, they could have only wounded him. Hurndall was also an innocent victim of the easy fire. A bullet struck him in the head and he’s now a vegetable.

In effect, there is no difference between how Miller was killed, how Hurndall was wounded and how the three Palestinians were shot dead last Wednesday, except for the fact that a movie was made about Hurndall and Miller, because they are not Palestinians. When soldiers know they will not be prosecuted – and usually no investigation will even take place – for killing an innocent foreign photographer or innocent Palestinians on their way to a festive dinner, they are getting a license to kill from their commanders.

In the eyes of a soldier’s commander, at most he made a mistake. When Brigadier General Shamni announced his soldiers operated “correctly” by killing three unarmed residents, he paved the way for the next unnecessary killing.

If there’s no investigation and no punishment, it means nothing wrong happened. If the pilots are allowed to kill 10 civilians for a single wanted man, obviously the killing of a single innocent resident is inconsequential. Thus the line blurs between killing and murder. What was the sniper’s bullet that struck Miller in the neck? In the complacent response, the IDF’s senior command sends a worrisome message to its soldiers. No instruction booklet about what is allowed and not allowed and no day of discussion about “respecting human dignity” that certain units in the territories have lately taken will erase the damage of the sweeping license to kill that the IDF grants 19-year-olds in the territories.

Wisconsin Bookstore’s Fight for Free Speech Victorious

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David Grogan, American Booksellers Association, Nov 12, 2003

On Thursday, November 6, Madison, Wisconsin’s Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative and a local newsweekly were able to convince Madison Area Technical College (MATC) to reverse its decision to impose restrictions on a speaking event about the Middle East, featuring noted writer and University of Chicago researcher Ali Abunimah. MATC had attempted to limit the scope of the talk and to deny Rainbow’s request to sell books in conjunction with the event after some residents protested the talk due to Abunimah’s pro-Palestinian point-of-view. However, faced with an unexpected backlash from the public, MATC decided at the last moment to proceed with the event as scheduled the evening of November 6.

The speaking engagement featuring Abunimah was scheduled as part of MATC’s “Reporting From the Middle East,” which is sponsored in part by Rainbow Bookstore, and also is part of MATC’s Global Horizon lecture series. However, some in the community who vehemently opposed Abunimah’s point-of-view on the Middle East exerted pressure on MATC to cancel, or at the very least, limit what Abunimah could talk about at the event. Subsequently, the college “sent an e-mail to Abunimah telling him what he could and could not speak about,” Allen Ruff, Rainbow’s events coordinator, told BTW.

When Abunimah was informed of the restriction, he told The Isthmus, a Madison alternative weekly newspaper, that it was “an outrageous violation of my First Amendment rights and the rights of the community to engage in dialogue and debate about matters of public interest.”

While Ruff said he did not know who in Madison had exerted pressure on the school, The Isthmus quoted Steve Morrison, executive director of the Madison Jewish Community Council, as saying he perceived a lack of balance in the Global Horizon series. Morrison said he told MATC’s events coordinator, Geoff Bradshaw, and MATC acting president Roseann Findlen, that his concerns regarding Abunimah would be mitigated if his talk were limited to media issues, the newsweekly reported.

In addition to the attempt to restrict Abunimah’s speech, MATC administrators also put a ban on literature tables in the building where Abunimah’s talk was being held. “We asked [Bradshaw] if this edict applied to us, and he checked and came back to us with a compromise — that we could only sell books by Abunimah,” Ruff reported. But while Abunimah had published many articles, he had not authored any books. As a result, MATC decided Rainbow could not have a table of books at the event. “We usually have a broad range of books relating to a topic [at similar events],” he said. “We had planned to test [the school decision] by having a table anyway.”

Faced with MATC’s pronouncement, Ruff notified the local lawyers guild and the ACLU. Isthmus picked up the story and published an article the morning of Abunimah’s talk. In a quick turn of events, a few hours later MATC’s Student Life Administrator “called me saying it was all a miscommunication, and to proceed as previously planned,” he said. “Word got out about this potential for suppression, and it swelled the crowd at the event. There was no opposition [to Abunimah] in the crowd.”

The fact that the event went off without restrictions and was a huge success was “certainly a victory in this post-Patriot Act period,” Ruff said. “We have to defend ourselves against any attempt to curtail any speech, especially political speech. People will now think twice about such blatant attacks on First Amendment rights.”

Israeli chainsaw massacre

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Palestinian farmers seek protection against settlers

The Globe and Mail, 12 November 2003

Einabus, West Bank – Men with chainsaws turned Fawzi Hussein’s olive into a wasteland overnight – 255 trees cut down at the trunks, fruit-laden branches wilting on a West Bank slope, at the height of the harvest season.

The suspected culprits: militant settlers who have been harassing Palestinian farmers for years, especially in the past three years of fighting. Human rights groups say it is part of an attempt to drive Palestinians off their land.

The destruction of about 1,000 trees in three villages, including Mr. Hussein’s, was on an unusually large scale. It prompted an outcry in Israel, with settler rabbis calling it a sin and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promising to
track down the vigilantes.

It also heightens fears that this kind of extremism – albeit of a tiny minority among the 220,000 Jews in the West Bank – is a harbinger of the resistance the Israeli government could face if it tries to uproot settlements in a land-for-peace deal.

There have been hundreds of settler attacks, including rampages through Palestinian villages, since fighting broke out in 2000. A Palestinian human-rights group says 25 Palestinians have been killed by settlers in the past three years. Palestinian gunmen, in turn, have targeted settlements, killing dozens of residents.

Palestinian officials and Israeli opposition leaders say Israeli security forces are mostly choosing to ignore attacks by settlers and are doing little to protect Palestinian civilians – one of the duties of an occupying power.

“Settlers succeed in murdering, uprooting trees and attacking Palestinians without the army and the police controlling them,” said legislator Ran Cohen of the dovish Meretz party and a colonel in the Israeli army reserves.
Police say they have established a special unit and filed 85 indictments in 2003. Spokesman Doron Ben-Amo says attacks have dropped from 350 last year to 192 this year, suggesting that “maybe the settlers are beginning to understand that there are laws.”

Mr. Hussein, the olive farmer, is from the village of Einabus near Nablus. His grove is on a slope near the Jewish settlement of Yitzhar, whose people are known for their militancy.

On Oct. 27, Mr. Hussein, several Israeli peace campaigners and a journalist were visiting the grove when seven settlers approached wielding clubs.

“They started threatening us and pushing us and throwing rocks,” said Arik Ascherman, leader of the Rabbis for Human Rights. “I was kicked a couple of times and hit by a rock and pushed down a couple of times.”

The attackers fled when police showed up.

Mr. Ben-Amo said several settlers were questioned but none was arrested. Mr. Ascherman said he offered to identify the attackers in a lineup but police never got back to him.

Police say they are trying hard, but lack the staff to protect all farmers at all times. Military officials say that farmers are offered escorts on request but that few Palestinians respond. After 36 years of occupation, many Palestinians distrust the Israeli authorities.

The military itself has uprooted tens of thousands of trees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the past three years, usually in areas from which attacks on Israelis were launched.

West Bank farmers say they mainly fear settlers.

Mr. Hussein, 55, a father of 14, said he rarely went to his grove until the harvest began last month. “I can’t come up here, because I am afraid for my life,” he said.

Yehoshua Mor-Josef, a spokesman for the Settlers’ Council, said extremists are blackening his entire community “with this horrible thing of cutting down olive trees.”

Zvi Berenstock, the secretary of Yitzhar, said he did not know if members of his community were involved, but he said settlers have to defend their communities, and he contended that Palestinians disguised as farmers attacked Jews from olive groves.

An Israeli military official, insisting on anonymity, said he knew of three incidents in 18 months in which Palestinian extremists have cover in olive groves, but none in which they posed as farmers.

Questioned in Parliament, Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz promised a thorough investigation, saying the army is doing its utmost to protect Palestinian farmers.

Critics, however, say nothing has changed since 1994 when an official inquiry into the Hebron mosque massacre – a settler attack that killed 29 Palestinians – found that the security forces are lax about enforcing the law against
settlers. Continue reading →

Israeli Roulette

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Uri Avnery, CounterPunch, November 7, 2003

In the Six-Day War, hundreds of Israeli soldiers were murdered while storming the Sinai desert, the West Bank and the Golan heights.

In the Yom-Kippur War, more than 2000 Israeli soldiers were murdered in the defense of the conquered territories.

In the 18 year long Lebanon War, more than a thousand Israeli soldiers were murdered while conquering and occupying South Lebanon.

They would have been surprised to learn that they were “murdered”. Perhaps they would have been insulted. After all, they were not helpless Jews in the ghetto who were killed during a pogrom by drunken Cossacks. They fell as soldiers in war.

Now we are back in the ghetto. Again we are poor, fearful Jews. Even when we are in uniform. Even when we are armed to the teeth. Even when we have tanks, airplanes, missiles and the nuclear option. Alas, we are murdered.

The application of the verb “murder” to combat soldiers who fall in action is a semantic novelty of the present intifada in the Sharon era. It was very conspicuous last week, in the wake of two military incidents.

In the Palestinian village of Ein Yabroud, three soldiers were ambushed and killed. Their job was to safeguard the road to the nearby settlement Ofra, north of Ramallah. They were patrolling the main street of the village on foot, following their regular route. On the way back, three Palestinian fighters lay in wait for them, killing three and wounding one. The attackers got away.

A classic guerilla engagement. Not terrorism. Not an attack on civilians. The action of guerilla fighters against armed soldiers in an occupied area. If it had involved German soldiers in France or French soldiers in Algeria, nobody would have dreamed of saying that they were “murdered”. But on our television, military correspondents talked of the three being “murdered” by “terrorists”.

A few days later, an even more shocking event took place. One single Palestinian fighter cut through the fence of Netzarim settlement in the Gaza Strip, entered a military camp and killed three soldiers–one male, two female. He was pursued and killed.

In connection with this event, too, the military correspondents said on TV, without blinking, that the three were “murdered” by “terrorists” in a “terrorist” action.

Murder? Terrorism? Against soldiers in uniform? Inside a fortified settlement?

It is worth analysing this incident in order to understand the current military campaign as a whole.

Netzarim is a small, isolated settlement on the sea shore, in the heart of the Gaza Strip, far from any other settlement. It was implanted in the middle of a Palestinian population of a million and a quarter, half of them refugees, in the most densely inhabited place on earth. A whole battalion of the IDF defends it, and that is not enough. To reach it from Israel, one has to cross the entire width of the Gaza strip. All traffic is by armored vehicles. Up to now, more than twenty soldiers have been killed in the defense of the settlement and the road leading to it.

Crazy? The settlers themselves maintain that it was the army that had demanded to set up the settlement as a base for observation and control. The fanatical nationalist-religious founders have since disappeared, their place taken by adventurers who risk their own lives and the lives of their children–not to mention the soldiers, male and female, who have no choice. The government sacrifices them on the altar of the settlement.

The Palestinians, of course, suffer more than anyone else. Any who come near the settlement are shot. Anything that was standing or growing nearby, or along the road, has been destroyed or uprooted long ago. This week, the army demolished two Palestinian high-rise apartment blocks, each 12 floors high, some hundreds of meters from the settlement, because from there the goings on in the settlement could be “observed”. This is typical: like a cancer in the body that gradually extends its malign influence, every settlement slowly destroys its surroundings in an ever-widening circle.

The process can be outlined as follows:

(1) On a hilltop, an “outpost” consisting of one or two mobile homes is set up without government permission.

(2) The government declares that it will not tolerate such illegal actions and talks about removing it.

(3) The army sends soldiers to defend the outpost, saying that it cannot leave Jews in a hostile region without protection as long as they are there, even illegally.

(4) For the same reason, the outpost is connected to the water, electricity and telephone networks.

(5) The discussion in the cabinet is postponed, and in the meantime the settlement expands.

(6) The cabinet decides to accept the accomplished fact and the outpost becomes a legal settlement.

Continue reading →

EU poll labels Israel world’s biggest threat to world peace

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AFP, 04 Nov 2003

BRUSSELS (AFP) – The European Union scrambled to contain the fallout from a public opinion poll that — to Israel’s fury — labelled the Jewish state the biggest threat to world peace.

The United States was just behind Israel in the global danger league, in joint second place with North Korea and Iran, according to the “Eurobarometer” poll requested by the European Commission.

The results were part of a survey last month on Europeans’ attitudes in the aftermath of the Iraq war, which also found that more than two-thirds of EU citizens think that the US-led war was wrong.

The Israeli embassy in Brussels voiced outrage at the findings, which said that 59 percent of Europeans see Israel as a threat to world peace.

“Europeans seem blind to Israeli victims and suffering. Instead, they have put the Jewish state below the level of the worst pariah state and terror organizations,” it said in a statement.

“We are not only sad but outraged. Not at European citizens, but at those who are responsible for forming public opinion,” the embassy added.

“Israel’s desperate struggle for peace and security for its people has been distorted beyond recognition in often one-sided and emotionally charged media coverage.”

The poll had already prompted angry reactions after details were leaked by the Spanish daily El Pais last week.

The Israeli ambassador to Italy — which currently holds the EU presidency — told the daily Il Messagero Monday that the poll could have significant diplomatic consequences.

“It seems to me that the only aim of this poll was to denigrate Israel at a very delicate time, and I think it will it much more difficult for Europe to fulfill its ambition to play a part in the peace process,” said Ehud Gol.

The EU’s Italian presidency tried to play down the results, insisting they did not reflect the official EU position.

“The result of the survey, based on an ambiguous question, does not reflect the position of the European Union which has been voiced on numerous occasions,” Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said in a statement.

“The EU is all the more annoyed since it is fully aware that the Israeli population is hit hard by terrorism,” it said, criticising the “false signal” that the survey sent out.

According to the Eurobarometer poll, based on interviews with 500 people in each of the 15 EU states, some 59 percent of Europeans replied “yes” when asked whether or not Israel presents a threat to peace in the world.

A total of 53 percent said Iran, North Korea and the United States pose a threat, followed by 52 percent for Iraq, 50 percent for Afghanistan (news – web sites) and 48 percent for Pakistan.

Countries lower down the list included Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, China, India, Russia and Somalia. The EU itself was described as a threat by eight percent of respondents.

The EU survey was presented in the form of a list of 15 countries, from which some 7,515 respondents were asked to say which ones they thought pose a threat to world peace.

Commission spokesman Gerassimos Thomas was repeatedly asked why the Palestinian territories were not included, while for example the survey asked Europeans about the threat from Somalia. “It is not a country,” he replied when pressed over the Palestinians.

The European Commission said Israel’s anger was “legitimate” but refused to get drawn into whether the poll findings were valid.

“I think the (Israeli) reaction was a very legitimate reaction,” the spokesman for the EU’s executive arm told reporters.

But he added: “It is not our task to interpret each and every survey. We don’t place excessive emphasis on one poll result.”

World Food Programme on the Occupied Palestinian Territories

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World Food Programme Report, 28 October 2003

. . .

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said that she had been in the occupied Palestinian territories last week. The situation in that region continued to deteriorate. A WFP study showed that more than 50 per cent of the inhabitants of the occupied territories lived below the poverty line.

WFP was preparing a study on the “mechanisms of survival” and its results would be out at the end of November. Preliminary results showed that the people in the occupied Palestinian territories had run out of survival mechanisms. They had sold their jewelry, their land, their possessions like machinery, and now everything was gone. Children went to school, and then helped their families by working – right now they gathered green beans and olives.

There were some 800,000 people who were not refugees who needed food aid in the occupied territories. The construction of the security wall was contributing to the food insecurity situation.

. . .

Marie Heuzé, the Director of the United Nations Information Service at Geneva, chaired the briefing which was attended by Antonella Notari (International Committee of the Red Cross); José Luis Díaz (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights); Fadela Chaib (World Health Organization); Erica Meltzer (United Nations Conference for Trade and Development); Niurka Pineiro (International Organization for Migration); Christiane Berthiaume (World Food Programme) and Kris Janowski (High Commissioner for Refugees). Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs was present but had no announcements.

Settlers Attack Rabbis

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Rabbis for Human Rights delegation physically attacked by settlers while documenting cut trees

Rabbis for Human Rights, 27 Oct 2003

This morning a RHR delegation was attacked by settlers while documenting cut trees. Well known journalist John Ross, age 66, is on his way to Beilinson Hospital. RHR executive director Rabbi Arik Ascherman was also bitten, along with activist David Nir. Dalya Bones was threatened.

The delegation arrived at Ein Abus after receiving words that hundreds of trees have been cut down there and in the village of Isawiya. Five young settlers, some of them with there face covered, descended with clubs. Rabbi Ascherman and David Nir were kicked with clubs and stones. They took Rabbi Ascherman’s Kipa (head cover) and said that this was their land.

After leaving Ascherman and Nir, they saw a Palestinian family. The family ran away but they saw John Ross and started biting him. They turned back to Ascherman when he came to save Ross. Ascherman held them at a stand off until they retreated because the police was arriving.

Ross is on his way to Beilinson while Ascherman and Nir are on their way to make a complaint at the Ariel Police office.

For further details:
Rabbi Ascherman: 050-607034
David Nir: 052-991379
Dalya Bones: 053-325189
Ibrahim (asawiya): 067-751555 (Hebrew)
Ein Abus representative: 052-584410
Muhamad: 052-886195

Rabbis For Human Rights
Tel. 972 2 563-7731
Fax. 972 2 566-2815
Mobile 972 50607034
info@rhr.israel.net
Website: rhr.israel.net

Letter from Emad Sha’at in Rafah

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October 25, 2003

Thank you for your continuous support and committment towards Rafah City and Rafah People.
 
From the start of the Intifadah, Rafah has suffered more than any other Palestinian city,
Since the start of the Intifadah to date, Rafh has suffered ofthe follwing:

    271 Martyrs were killed by the Israelis, 75 of those are children.
    2500 injured people, of which 110 are permenantly Handicapped
    1150 Houses were destroyed completely
    3249 Houses were destroyed partially and unfit to live in.

 
This is just part of the story, mind you the destroyed green houses, land, tress uprooting ——etc.
 
This is the information that your delegation should know about before coming to Rafah.
 
I will let you know when we receive the money into the Municipality account.
 
The contact of THE City of Pesaro in ITALY IS AS FOLLOW: gemellaggi@comune.pesaro.ps.it, Attn. Dr. Ilaro Barnbanti – Deputy Mayor of Pesaro and Mr. Gabriel Delmonte – Assistant to the Mayor of Pesaro, g.delmonte@comune.pesaro.ps.it
 
I also hope that a delegation from Rafah Municipality can come to visit Madison and Olympia and other cities you think of importance to visit. What do you think?
 
Thank you again and I look forward to your response
 
 
Best Regards,
 
Dr. Emad Sha’at
Deputy Mayor
Rafah City
 

THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF AMERICAN JEWS

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“My People are American. My Time is Today.”

Lenni Brenner, CounterPunch, October 24, 2003

A friend once got a bit of a reputation by pointing out that “you don’t need the weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.” But you do need a demographer to know which way the Jews are going.

Some readers will recall the journalistic hockey brawl in the NY Times over the National Jewish Population Survey 2000/2001, partially released in October 2002. Now the full survey is out, but the sticks are still flying, and the penalty box is full.

J. J. Goldberg, editor of Forward, the leading ‘Jewish community’ weekly, contributed an op-ed to the 9/17 Times, denouncing “flawed figures.” James Tisch, chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, replied in the 9/22 issue, defending their numbers against “critics” who “try in vain to ascribe to us ulterior motives.”

If gentile readers were confused about the furor, they will be comforted in knowing that most Jews likewise don’t grasp the underlying issues. But valid stats are crucial to a scientific understanding of the evolution of American Jewry. And with the US military all over the Middle East, and Palestine-Israel certain to be a priority concern in the forthcoming presidential election, universal misunderstanding of the status of Jewry in modern America can have fatal consequences for Palestinians, Israelis and Americans.

The best way for us to start is with the reader estimating the percentage of Americans who are Jews. Got your number? Now the scholars’ calculations. Their figures sit between 2.2% and 2.5%. Now compare your estimate and these figures with the guesses put forth by Americans in a 3/90 Gallup poll.

Twenty-four percent had no opinion. Beyond them, the average American thought that America was 18% Jewish.

That broke down to eight percent of Americans thinking that Jews are less than 5% of the people, 10% saying that Jews are between 5% and 9%, 25% believing that Jews are between 10% and 19%, 18% estimating that Jews are between 20% and 29%, 12% coming up with between 30% and 49%, and 3% reckoning that Jews are 50% — or more! — of all Americans.

Pretty wild? But why should gentile Americans know better? Their guesses are based on what they see. Turn on the TV, go to the movies, pick up a newspaper, follow an election, and in every case Jewish involvement is far above 2.5%.

It is much more shocking that most Jewish estimates are also surreal. Here are the numbers given by American Jews in a 3/98 poll, done nationally by the LA Times.

Twelve percent of our Jews think they are 2% of Americans, 13% think Jews are 3%, and 11% say they don’t know, which is also a ‘proper’ answer. But 7% of America’s Jews think they are 1% of Americans. Five percent of the Jews thought Jews are 4%. Ten percent of the Jews said they are 5%. Eighteen percent believed Jews are 6-10%. Six percent estimated our Jews to be 11-15%, and 18% of America’s Jews projected themselves as over 15% of the population, a whopping margin of error of over 600%.

So, where did those delicious Jewish overestimations come from? Jews know the country is overwhelmingly Protestant, and that the Jewish percentage is much smaller than the Catholics. But they watch the same TV, go to the same movies, etc. Thus, while their numbers aren’t as stratospheric as most gentiles, they likewise tend to be on the high side.

There are two reasons for the Jewish miscalculations. They fall into two broad categories, religious and non-religious. Pious Jews may or may not read the Bible, but the overwhelming majority definitely don’t read much about the mundane history of Judaism since biblical times. And while atheists and agnostics know enough about their ex- religion’s follies to justify abandoning it, once they bail out they usually lose interest in its evolution.

To be sure, many Jews, nationally, read the NY Times, which ran stories on the 1990 NJPS and the 2000-1 follow-up. Atheists might read an article about a bombing in Israel, but they often ignore articles about Judaism as a religion as they see it as not worth reading about. And most religious Jews don’t read the Times or the community weeklies which sit, for the most part unbought, on newsstands in their neighborhoods.

The scholars, real and alleged, argue over the absolute number of Jews because the US census doesn’t count people by religion and it doesn’t accept ‘Jewish’ as an ethnic category. While the contested figures range from 5.2 million in the 2000-1 Survey, to a high of 6.7 million give by a few dissenters, the blood really flows over the intermarriage rate.

The 1990 Survey reported a 52% intermarriage rate. The latest survey reports that “the intermarriage rate for Jews who have married since 1996 is 47%. Differences between intermarriage rates … are due to differences between the “born Jewish” definition used for the 1990 analysis and the “currently Jewish” definition used in this report.”

They say that 1990 NJPS researchers “calculated and presented an intermarriage rate for ‘born Jews,’ a category that included those they considered Jewish at the time of the survey and some they considered non-Jewish, including non-Jews who had been born to at least one Jewish parent and were raised in a non-Jewish religion.”

They admit further on that “In the current survey, applying the broad “born Jews” definition to people whose marriages began in 1991-95 and since 1996 yields intermarriage rates of 53% and 54%, respectively.”

To understand their distinctions between “born Jews” and “currently Jewish”, you must appreciate the sociological law which, as I’m its discoverer, I call, with my customary modesty, Brenner’s law: All religions lie about how many followers they have, and all left wing groups lie about how many people came to their last demonstration. Indeed, more paper has been wasted on debates over who is a Jew than on any other topic, including who really is a Trotskyist.

Today, with the enormous intermarriage rate, the Jewish establishment can’t face reality. They know that “slightly more than a fifth of Jewish adults who were raised by two Jewish parents are intermarried. In contrast, nearly three-quarters of Jewish adults with just one Jewish parent are intermarried. In other words, Jewish adults who are the children of
intermarriages are more than three times as likely to be married to non-Jews themselves. At the same time, among those who had intermarried parents, a Jewish upbringing reduces the rate of intermarriage. Almost 60% of Jewish adults who were raised Jewish by intermarried parents are themselves intermarried, compared to 86% of their counterparts who had intermarried parents but were not raised Jewish by them.”

So they stopped counting adults who convert to another monotheistic religion as Jews, and don’t put kids of intermarried Jews, who aren’t raised Jewish, in their ‘current Jews’ category, and, lo presto, they come up with the 47% figure.

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