Israeli troops attack 3 non-violent protests in West Bank, injuring four

Sunday July 31, 2011 01:09 by IMEMC

On Friday four people were injured and four arrested, as Israeli troops attacked anti-wall protests organized in a number of West Bank communities. Protests took place in the central West Bank villages of an-Nabi Saleh, Bil’in, and Nil’in in addition to al-Ma’ssara in the southern West Bank.

Three women, two local and one international, were injured and a journalist and three activists were arrested as Israeli troops attacked the anti-wall and anti-settlement protest in the village of an-Nabi Saleh. Villagers and their Israeli and international supporters marched to local farm lands Israel had taken to build a new settlement.

Troops attacked protesters with tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. Then soldiers forced people back into the village and fired rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas at journalists and medics. The three injured women sustained moderate wounds as soldiers beat them up. The arrested journalist was identified as Moheeb al-Barghouthi who works for al-Ayam newspaper.

In the nearby village Bil’in, soldiers fired tear gas at the weekly protest there as internationals and Israeli supporters joined the villagers after midday prayers. Many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation. Joining the protest today were a group of supporters from the United Kingdom, Ireland and Scotland, who had reached Palestine by bicycles covering a distance of 7 thousand kilometers from London, to advocate and support the Palestinian popular resistance movements.

Also on Friday in the central West Bank, Israeli troops attacked the weekly anti-wall protest in the village of Nil’in, villagers were joined by Israeli and international supporters after the midday prayers and marched up to the wall. Troops fired tear gas at protesters causing many to suffer from tear gas inhalation.

In southern West Bank, one local organizer was injured, and many treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation as troops attacked the anti-wall protest organized in al-Ma’sara village near Bethlehem. Soldiers attacked protesters as they tried to reach land owned by local farmers Israel confiscated to build the wall. Mohamed Brijiyah, 35, a local organizer, sustained moderate wounds when soldiers beat him up.

Palestinian 'ghosts' keep the Israeli economy moving

Mona Issa

Jul 29, 2011 

 

Palestinian workers enter Israel via a check point in Bethlehem
Men must be over 35, marries with children and have a clean
security to get an Israeli work permit.

Palestinian illegal workers sleep on a building site in Israel

"We built Israel," says Abbas, a young migrant worker from Salem. A decade ago, he began travelling illegally from the northern West Bank to Tel Aviv to work in construction. "We have no jobs, so the only option is to work in Israel."

Bethlehem's taps run dry as illegal settlers continue
to fill their swimming pools.

With Israel maintaining a tight grip on supplies, a thriving black market in water has grown up as West Bank Palestinians run so short they are unable to bathe or wash their clothes.

More from the Middle East

Years ago, between 1948 and 1967, Palestinians sneaked across borders to work in their former fields in Israel. Those borders were erased after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, when Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and Sinai. After 1967, Palestinians both from Gaza and the West Bank began working on Israeli construction sites. Now, with the building of the separation wall in the West Bank, those borders exist again.

Although men over 35 years of age can obtain security clearance to enter Israel for work, the younger generation have no choice but to travel via the paths their fathers and grandfathers used to walk legally. They are, in effect, the ghost workers of the Israeli economy.

Israel began erecting the wall in 2002. It has since slithered deep into Palestinian land, and its checkpoints and restrictions have crippled the Palestinian economy. All the while, ghost workers - those who cross the border illegally - continue to be the bedrock of Israel's economy. Indeed, its central bureau of statistics says about half of the approximately 220,000 foreign workers in Israel are illegal, while the Palestinian Workers' Union estimates there are between 35,000 and 40,000 illegal workers in Israel.


***

Deir Al-Hatab is a village near the settlement of Elon Moreh in the northern West Bank. It was once the scene of violent clashes between Palestinians and Israeli settlers. The villagers who fought the occupation now grow olives, but everywhere there is a sense of aftermath. Many of the villagers were sent to jail, many were militants, and today, many are blacklisted or forbidden from working in Israel.

At a small house in the village, a mother looks with pride more than grief at the posters of her son that cover a corner of the family's small living room. In the picture, Jalal, her son, stands in front of a mosque, the word shaheed(martyr) printed beneath his name. Tall, skinny, with high cheekbones, Jalal died in 2006, at age 26. He was shot by the Israeli army when the driver of the taxi he was travelling in tried to race away from soldiers at Hawara checkpoint.


"The driver took the settlement road to save time," Umm Jalal remembers. "When he saw that the soldiers had stopped two vans [full of] illegal workers he tried to escape; the boys asked him to stop, but he didn't." Jalal was killed outright and two other workers were wounded. There were mild protests from human rights organisations, but nothing has changed. "People will not stop going to work in Israel," says Ramzy Ouda, Jalal's brother.

They will not stop because Palestinians employed by Israeli contractors to build settlements earn three times more than those working for equivalent Palestinian employers, yet for Israelis this is still considered cheap labour.

***

In Wadi Fukin, eight kilometres from Bethlehem, the night is calm. The village is sandwiched between the Green Line and the separation wall. The village was destroyed in 1948 during fighting between the Israelis and Jordanians, which ended with a UN-backed ceasefire that became the Green Line on contemporary maps.

Wadi Fukin was the only Arab village permitted to be rebuilt after the 1967 war. The lights from settlements glitter across the valley, surrounding it on three sides.

Crawling with border police and monitored by Apache helicopters, thorny mountains stretch from the other side, providing a 35km secret route for illegal workers. Each morning, hundreds of workers cram into a narrow, fenced walkway, waiting under the wall's floodlights for Israeli border police to slowly let them in. The impatient ones squeeze through holes in the outer fence.

Before the wall went up, no permits were required and Palestinians travelled in relative freedom to work in Israel.

On the other side, Jerusalem is just starting to wake. It is 4am; the men - there are 21,600 Palestinians with legal permits according to official sources - need to be at work by 7am. At the end of their shift, they are required to leave at 3pm. Sleeping over in Israel is illegal, although some do.

***

Geha junction in Tel Aviv is busy in the mornings and afternoons, when Palestinians travel to and from work. Several minibuses queue and wait. The route is a gold mine for their young drivers. They are at the top of the underground hierarchy.

"You know how much I make in one month? Over US$4,000 [Dh14,692]!" Khalil, a Druze Arab Israeli, says smugly. Beside him several other young men wait. They shuffle workers around like vegetables, giving them bargain rides from the city to the checkpoints.

"Do you have a permit? Yes? Hop in!" says another driver, Khaled, 21.
The drivers charge illegal workers around $55 for the ride from the West Bank to Israel. Legal workers pay less.


"We do not argue with the drivers as they can report us to the police," says Abbas.

The hierarchy is based on where you were after 1948 and 1967.
Palestinians whose families stayed in Israel after the 1948 war (the drivers are among them) were given Israeli papers and are called Arab Israelis by Israelis. Palestinians who came under Israeli administration when Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967 have only Palestinian papers.

Abbas says he and other workers from Salem travel first to Nablus, then to Ramallah and on to Bethlehem, where they cross the wall. Then they start their walk of up to four hours and arrive in Israel, where they are picked up by Arab Israeli drivers and taken to Geha junction.

Abbas makes about $800 a month, working five days a week, while squatting at the building site. He goes home at weekends via the same secret route.

A fake Arab Israeli ID costs between $400 and $800, according to Ibrahim, or Joseph as it says on his fake ID. One still uses secret routes to enter Israel, but you can get a job in the service industry, which pays double the rate for construction workers, says Morad, who works in a restaurant.

Those illegal documents allow people to exist within the skilfully woven Israeli security system - as long as the police do not run the ID through their database and find a mismatch between the photo on the screen and the person in front of them. For those who are apprehended, a prison term is as likely as deportation.

Both Ibrahim and Abbas, who are from the same village in the northern West Bank, now live undercover, enjoying the opportunities provided by their fake IDs.

But Israel is teeming with patrols and CCTV cameras are everywhere, so both young men know they cannot continue this double life indefinitely.
"You cannot live like this forever," says Morad. He will eventually return to settle down in his homeland, to open his own business after 15 years working in Israel.

Mona Issa is a documentary journalist and filmmaker who specialises in the Middle East. She currently lives in Egypt.

Gilad Atzmon: De-Zionification Now

Friday, July 29, 2011 at 4:12PM Gilad Atzmon

"It (immigration) was a politically motivated attempt by ministers to transform the fundamental make-up and identity of this country (Britain). It was done to destroy the right of the British people to live in a society defined by a common history, religion, law, language and traditions."

(Melanie Phillips, as quoted by mass murderer, Anders Breivik, in his manifesto)

Melanie Philips, a rabid Zionist and the author of “Londonistan: How Britain is Creating a Terror State Within” is not happy to be singled out by Andres Breivik in his 1500 pages manuscript.   Are they suggesting that “my writing provoked the mass murder of some 93 Norwegians?” she wonders righteously on her blog. I guess that Phillips knows the answer, as much as she knows how to play with words. But I will use this opportunity to reiterate it for her, and for the rest of us -- there certainly is a clear and strong resemblance between Breivik’s views and Philips’ writing. The most obvious and immediate comparison is that both oppose Islamic immigration and multiculturalism of course, but it goes much further in that both identify the enemy within the ‘left political circuit’.

Breivik cites Philips’ take  on Labour's immigration policy: "It was done to destroy for ever what it means to be culturally British and to put another 'multicultural' identity in its place."

I should clearly state here that I do not think that Philips provoked Breivik’s murderous inclination. I also believe that Phillips is fully entitled to express her thoughts and ideas. Yet, it is surely reasonable to suspect that Phillips , amongst others, might have contributed to inspiring Breivik,  ideologically and spiritually.



Though Phillips writes on her blog  that the “the forces of spite, malice and venom (within liberal media) have been unleashed in a terrifying display of irrationality,” it is obvious that it is completely rational to elaborate on the significant resemblance between Phillips’ and Breivik’s ideas.

Jewish media outlets in Israel and around the world are already aware of the deeply worrying fact that Breivik was inspired by right wing ideologies associated with Israel and Zionism. The JTA (The Global News Service Of The Jewish People) was quick to admit that numerous online postings, including Breivik’s, attack a “mishmash of anti-modern principles” that call for "the deportation of all Muslims from Europe as well as from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip." Whether we like it or not, this ‘mishmash’ of ‘global Islamophobia’ and Israeli expansionism is the true face of contemporary Zionism and Israeli ideology.

And yet, there is a further central question that no one in the media has addressed yet: how is it that Melanie Philips is getting away with openly promoting vile Islamophobia in our midst ? How is it that she and other Zionists prevail ,exactly where the EDL and the BNP fail? Why is Melanie Phillips a celebrity, whilst the BNP’s Nick Griffin is regarded as a vile racist, and a social outcast?  Similarly, I find myself wondering what on earth the board of ‘progressive’ Guardian editors had in mind when they nominated the Zionist, pro-war and openly  Islamohopbic Harry’s  Place as one of their favourite political blogs  in 2005 --  bear in mind that The Guardian's nomination was made  at more or less the same time that the very same Harry’s Place blog won the  'Annual Islamophobia Awards 2006,’ within the UK section of the Islamic Human Rights Commission's 'Annual Islamophobia Awards.'

I believe that the answer is devastating: within our so called, liberal democratic, allegedly ‘tolerant’ discourse -- it is only right wing Jews who are entitled and allowed to spread  xenophobia and hatred.



This is hardly surprising, because unlike contemporary Westerners, who seem to be more than confused by their colonial heritage  and notions such as nationalism, racism, expansionism, biological determinism, religion, and self-loving, Israel and Zionism actually celebrate all of these  symptoms, in the open.  It is far from surprising then, to see Israeli flags and Jewish symbols popping up in many far right gatherings in the UK and in other European countries, because Israel, it seems, makes racism look kosher.

The shocking ideological resemblance of the thoughts and ideals of the fearsome mass murderer Breivik and mainstream Zionist advocates  such Melanie Phillips, Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz, and Harry’s Place  should surely be a bright red alert for any sensible humanist. If we want to save our society from being dragged into a violence with no end, we must de-Zionise every possible aspect of our culture, media and political institutions.

Report: U.S. invests millions in effort to boost Obama's image in Israel

JERUSALEM — The United States has been pumping millions of dollars into Israel to help overcome the Jewish state's distrust of President Barack Obama.

A State Department report said the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv has been facing rising Israeli distrust in the Obama administration. The department's Office of the Inspector-General reported that the embassy was given nearly $7 million a year to influence public opinion in the Jewish state.

"A fragile Israeli coalition government leans toward the views of its members from the nationalist and religious right, creating a challenge for diplomats seeking to build support for U.S. policies," the inspector-general said.

The report, issued in March 2010, said U.S. ambassador to Israel, James Cunningham, played a major role in revising the policy of the Jewish state. But the embassy has failed to change Israeli public opinion against Obama.

"One of the embassy's challenges is how to build support for U.S. policies in Israel at a time when peace talks are under way and little can be said about them publicly despite intense public interest," the report said. "It will be useful to the United States for the ambassador, the DCM [deputy chief of mission], and the embassy's public diplomacy section to continue developing outreach programs that explain and advocate fundamental U.S. positions to Israeli audiences who may be becoming more distant from the United States than in the past."

The inspector-general team recommended that the embassy expand contacts with unidentified Israeli "mid-level politicians." Another recommendation was that the embassy increase reporting on "domestic factors that affect the policies and stability of Israel's coalition government."

The report said the embassy was managing a $6.8 million public affairs program to garner support for Washington's policy in the Middle East. The program included public appearances by the ambassador as well as exchange programs, grants and cultural events.

But the U.S. campaign has been hampered by a suspicious Israeli public and media. The report suggested that the Israeli media were exacerbating tension between Jerusalem and Washington.

"Much of the Israeli public is suspicious of U.S. efforts to promote negotiations aimed at establishing an independent Palestinian state," the report said. "The lively and fractious press often misinterprets American policies."

As a result, the inspector-general recommended that the embassy expand non-political programs, particularly in the area of culture. The embassy was also urged to brief Israeli think tanks on U.S. policy, particularly the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank by 2013.

"The embassy understands that, in some difficult political environments, cultural programs can be an effective way to communicate American values to wide audiences," the report said. "The OIG team recommended informally that the embassy use the new structure in PAS, as recommended earlier, to increase its communications about U.S. policies and values and to rebuild contacts with opinion leaders and influential think tanks."

Israeli Home Demolition Terrorism

Israeli Home Demolition Terrorism - by Stephen Lendman

Co-founded (with Meir Marglit) and directed by Jeff Halper, the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions (ICAHD) "is a non-violent, direct-action organization established in 1998 to resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian houses in the Occupied Territories."

ICAHD also helps rebuild homes. In addition, it resists "land expropriation, settlement expansions, by-pass road construction, policies of 'closure' and 'separation,' " as well as destruction of agricultural land and crops. It also works for peace, equity, and ending Israel's illegal occupation.

Access its web site through the following link:

http://www.icahd.org/

It estimates over 24,800 West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza houses demolished since 1967 (4,247 during Cast Lead, according to the UN).

It classifies demolition types as:

-- punishment for actions associated with the structures (about 8.5%);

-- administrative for lacking building permits (about 26%);

-- land-clearing/military demolitions for any reason, including achieving IDF goals or accompanying extrajudicial assassinations (about 65.5%); and

-- other undefined reasons.

In fact, Israel's demolition and displacement policies are serious international law breaches for any reason. Nonetheless, they continue as official state policy to steal Palestinian land for Israelis, an issue Western media ignore, as well as other Israeli crimes of war and against humanity.

On June 27, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) said the Knesset Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee passed a first draft of a law requiring Palestinians to pay house demolition costs with no judicial review.

ACRI and Bimkom: Planners for Planning Rights petitioned the committee, calling the measure extreme, adding that without judicial review "there is no option for the owners to demolish the structure themselves," a much cheaper procedure.

Moreover, this legislation gives administrative authorities "unbalanced" demolition freedom, including to bulldoze homes in "structurally disadvantaged communities such as Bedouins in unrecognized communities" and Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

A "softened version of the bill" lets courts decide whether costs should be imposed and how much. It's expected to become law.

On July 21, a new UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) report documented alarming numbers of West Bank Area C demolitions and forced displacements, saying more occurred (342) so far in 2011 than in 2009 and 2010 combined.

Based on field visits to 13 Area C communities, the report said "restrictive policies and practices of the Israeli authorities, including movement and access restrictions, settlement activity and restrictions on Palestinian construction" force most Palestinians to leave.

It added that thousands more are at risk because 3,000 demolition orders have been issued, including against 18 schools.

On July 18, ICAHD reported "a new wave of demolition orders, stop-building orders, property confiscations, settler harassment and multiple warnings of imminent eviction(s) by the Israeli Civil Administration...."

Most affected are Jerusalem periphery Bedouin communities, "exhausted of alternative coping strategies." As a result, they're appealing for international protection against demolitions, forced displacements and relocations, what many of them have experienced before.

Khan al Ahmar and Wadi Abu Hindi communities (near Maale Adumim settlement) are especially targeted. Since May, all Wadi Abu Hindi structures got stop-building orders. The community was also told that their land was expropriated for the Separation Barrier.

Khan al Ahmar got four new stop-building orders and notification that final stop-work/demolition orders for 10 - 12 houses will be executed. Moreover, Jahilin community residents fear they may be next.

More Land Theft Planned

On July 22, Haaretz writer Akiva Eldar headlined, "IDF Civil Administration pushing for land takeover in West Bank," saying:

According to an internal IDF document, new construction is planned "not only around settlement blocs like Ariel, Ma'aleh Adumim and Gush Etzion, but also in strategic areas like the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea."

Prepared by Lt. Col. Zvi Cohen, it says the custodian of government property may take possession of undefined ownership lands, including in the Jordan Valley and northern Dead Sea. Doing so, however, will further cantonize Palestine, making it harder than ever to establish an independent continuous territory state.

In response, Rabbis for Human Rights said:

"(A) politically motivated land policy must not come at the expense of the rights of a population subjected to occupation, which is excluded from the decision-making processes of those shaping its destiny. The procedures empower the ability to use the mechanism Israel set up for declaring 'state lands' for the purpose of dispossessing Palestinian communities and individuals of their rights and lands."

According to Dror Etkes, an activist monitoring settlement construction, the IDF document reveals how political and military officials work against Palestinians' interests. Nearly always, procedures for declaring state lands benefit settlers alone.

"That's the main way Israel enforces its discriminatory land policy which aims to evict the Palestinians from most of the West Bank and take possession of these territories."

Moreover, Israel's Interior Ministry recently authorized "the enlargement of 2,000 illegal homes" in East Jerusalem's Ramat Shlomo neighborhood.

And now this, according to Haaretz writer Jack Khoury. On July 27, he headlined "Israel sues 34 Bedouin(s) for costs of repeated demolitions of their homes," saying:

The unprecedented suit seeks 1.8 million NIS (New Israeli Shekels) in damages. About 3.4 NIS = one dollar.

Despite Bedouins and other Palestinians building on their own land, the Israel Land Administration (ILA) claims those charged built homes in Al-Arakib, northeast of Be'er Sheva, "on what had been state land since the time of Ottoman rule."

It ended in 1918. Israel became a state in 1948. ILA's claim is bogus, offensive and illegal, but it's not deterred from its longstanding policy to steal as much Palestinian land as possible, destroying their property and dispossessing them lawlessly.

According to ILA:

"The squatters against whom the suit was brought, of the Abu Madigham and the Abu Jaber families, already have houses built on land the state gave them in the area of Rahat." It said they keep returning to disputed land, despite court orders prohibiting them from doing so.

Israeli audacity gives chutzpah new meaning, calling Palestinian land "disputed," prohibiting them from living on it, demolishing their property when they do, and now suing them for demolition costs.

ILA also claimed Bedouins use PR deception, accusing Israel of repression when they're in breach of the law. It said the disputed land was leased until 1998 for seasonal agricultural activities. However, "defendants ousted the leasees and began squatting on the land."

In 1999, state authorities acted to evict them. In March 2000, a permanent injunction barred them from the land, except to visit a cemetery and mosque, the only structures there at the time. ILA said suing is "an efficient way to deal with squatters and illegal construction."

Al-Arakib village leader Sheikh Siyah Abu Madigham said neither he or his family were told about the suit. In fact, he first heard of it through the media, saying:

"We also submit a lot of complaints but no one listens to us, about all the buildings of ours that they destroyed - that the state does not care. The first demolition cost us NIS 4 million. The trees that were uprooted in the village cost us NIS 500,000. They destroyed the village 27 times. That cost us NIS 150,000 each time."

Awad Abu-Frih, Al-Arakib activist against the demolition, said residents expect Israel to compensate them for damages, not the other way around, explaining:

"The state is afraid of a precedent over Al-Arakib, and so they talk to us in a language reserved for enemies who must be defeated, so the hold over the land won't be an inspiration to other Bedouin(s) in the Negev."

He added that every time Israel destroys their village, hundreds of Bedouins, Jews and foreign volunteers rebuild it.

According to Thabet Abu Ras of the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights:

"The state recognizes ownership rights over the lands of Al-Arakib and is constantly offering (Bedouins) meager compensation for the land. What's more, a law requiring the builder of a house to pay for its demolition was not passed by the Knesset."

Previously, Israel demanded Galilee and central Israel Arab communities pay demolition costs, cases still being litigated. However, they're against homes built on private, not state, land. The new suit is the first time such a large number of Palestinians are affected. Indeed, it gives chutzpah new meaning.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

In Gaza, children at UN-backed games break world record for hand painting

21 July 2011 – After breaking the world record for the number of people dribbling soccer balls last week, children at the United Nations-organized summer games in Gaza today set another record by creating the largest ever hand painting, a 5,620-square metre mosaic of handprints on canvas.

The previous record of hand-painted impressions stood at 4,355-square metres.

More than 5,000 children, including some with disabilities, took part in the hand painting competition as part of the annual six-week summer games organized by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The printed canvas was unveiled at the Khan Younis stadium in southern Gaza.

“I had no doubt that the children of Gaza would succeed, as they always do when given the chance”, said Christer Nordahl, UNRWA’s acting Director of Operations in Gaza. “I am delighted to tell you that included in the world record today were many kids with special educational needs. They too deserve to be number one at the top of the world.”

Last week, the children of Gaza broke the world record for the largest number of people dribbling footballs. Prior to that, they set the record for the highest number flying parachutes from the ground. On 28 July, more than 12,000 children will attempt to smash the world record for kite flying.

“We had fun today. We played so much today! We need to live. I drew my hand in the fabric and when I put my hand there, I felt like I reached the world,” said six-year-old Heba Abu Amra from Rafah.



UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness highlighted the problems that both adults and children in Gaza endure as a result of the Israeli blockade.

“The mistreatment of children is an offence to the humanity of all, breaking many taboos. The blockade subjects three quarters of a million children to an illegal collective punishment, rendering their lives unbearable,” said Mr. Gunness.

“It must end, and there must be full transparency and accountability for what the ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] has called a ‘clear breach of international law’.”

For five years the UNRWA has staged the Summer Games – which include sports, arts and other activities – to provide a recreational outlet for an estimated 250,000 children in the Gaza Strip. This year’s games coincide with the fifth year of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

Israel’s war on nonviolent protest

Israel’s crushing of nonviolent protest will leave

violence as the only remaining option.

Jonathan Cook

It was a Palestinian legislator who made the most telling comment to the Israeli parliament last week as it passed the boycott law, which outlaws calls to boycott Israel or its settlements in the occupied territories.
Ahmed Tibi asked:
“What is a peace activist or Palestinian allowed to do to oppose the occupation? Is there anything you agree to?”

The boycott law is the latest in a series of ever-more draconian laws being introduced by the far right. The legislation’s goal is to intimidate those Israeli citizens, Jews and Palestinians, who have yet to bow down before the majority-rule mob.

Look out in the coming days and weeks for a bill to block the work of Israeli human rights organizations trying to protect Palestinians in the occupied West Bank from abuses by the Israeli army and settlers; and a draft law investing a parliamentary committee, headed by the far right, with the power to veto appointments to the high court. The court is the only, and already enfeebled, bulwark against the right’s absolute ascendancy.

Watershed law

The boycott law, backed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, marks a watershed in this legislative assault in two respects.

First, it knocks out the keystone of any democratic system: the right to free speech. The new law makes it illegal for Israelis and Palestinians to advocate a nonviolent political program — boycott — to counter the ever-growing power of the half a million Jewish settlers living on stolen Palestinian land.

As the Israeli commentator Gideon Levy observed, the floodgates are now open: “Tomorrow it will be forbidden to call for an end to the occupation [or for] brotherhood between Jews and Arabs.”

Equally of concern is that the law creates a new type of civil, rather than criminal, offense. The state will not be initiating prosecutions. Instead, the job of enforcing the boycott law is being outsourced to the settlers and their lawyers. Anyone backing a boycott can be sued for compensation by the settlers themselves, who — again uniquely — need not prove they suffered actual harm.

Under this law, opponents of the occupation will not even be dignified with jail sentences and the chance to become prisoners of conscience. Rather, they will be quietly bankrupted in private actions, their assets seized either to cover legal costs or as punitive damages.

Human rights lawyers point out that there is no law like this anywhere in the democratic world. Even Eyal Yinon, the naturally conservative legal adviser to the parliament, assessed the law’s aim as stopping a “discussion that has been at the heart of political debate in Israel for more than forty years.” But more than half of Israelis back it, with only 31 percent opposed.

A delusional, self-pitying worldview

The delusional, self-pitying worldview that spawned the boycott law was neatly illustrated this month in a short video “ad” that is supported, and possibly financed, by Israel’s hasbara, or propaganda, ministry. Fittingly, it is set in a psychotherapist’s office.

A young, traumatized woman deciphers the images concealed in the famous Rorschach test. As she is shown the ink blots, her panic and anger grow. Gradually, we come to realize, she represents vulnerable modern Israel, abandoned by friends and still in profound shock at the attack on her navy’s commandos by the “terrorist” passengers aboard last year’s aid flotilla to Gaza.

Immune to reality — that the ships were trying to break Israel’s punitive siege of Gaza, that the commandos illegally boarded the ships in international waters, and that they shot dead nine activists execution-style — Miss Israel tearfully recounts that the world is “forever trying to torment and harm [us] for no reason.” Finally she storms out, saying: “What do you want — for [Israel] to disappear off the map?”

The video — released under the banner “Stop the provocation against Israel” — was part of a campaign to discredit the recent follow-up flotilla from Greece. The solidarity mission was abandoned after Greek authorities, under Israeli pressure, refused to let the convoy sail for Gaza.

Israel’s siege mentality asserted itself again days later as international activists staged another show of solidarity — the “Welcome to Palestine” campaign. Hundreds tried to fly to Israel on the same day, declaring their intention to travel to the occupied West Bank. The goal was to highlight that Israel both controls and severely restricts access to the occupied territories and to Palestinians.

Proving precisely the protesters’ point, Israel threatened airlines with retaliation if they carried the activists and it massed hundreds of soldiers at Ben Gurion airport to greet arrivals. Some 150 peaceful protesters who reached Israel were arrested moments after landing.

Echoing the deranged sentiments of the woman in the video, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, denounced the various solidarity direct actions as “denying Israel’s right to exist” and a threat to its security.

Rebellion against ghettoization of Palestine

In reality, however, the surge in flotilla activity reflects not an attack on Israel but a growing appreciation by international groups that Israel is successfully sealing off from the world the small areas of the occupied territories left to Palestinians. The flotillas are a rebellion against the Palestinians’ rapid ghettoization.

Although Netanyahu’s comments sound delusional, there may be a method to the madness of measures like the boycott law and the hysterical overreaction to the flotillas.

These initiatives, as Tibi points out, leave no room for nonviolent opposition to the occupation. Arundhati Roy, the award-winning Indian writer, has noted that nonviolence is essentially “a piece of theatre. [It] needs an audience. What can you do when you have no audience?”

Netanyahu and the Israeli right understand this point. They are carefully dismantling every platform on which dissident Israelis, Palestinians and international activists hope to stage their protests. They are making it impossible to organize joint peaceful and nonviolent resistance, whether in the form of boycotts or solidarity visits. The only way being left open is violence.

Is this what the Israeli right wants, believing both that it will confirm to Israelis’ their paranoid fantasies as well as offering a justification to the world for entrenching the occupation?

Netanyahu appears to believe that, by generating the very terror he claims to be trying to defeat, he can safeguard the legitimacy of the Jewish state — and destroy any hope of a Palestinian state being created.

Jonathan Cook won this year’s Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations:
Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net. 

A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.