The ICAHD activists in front of the completed Abu Omar family home in July 2011 (Photo: Livia Bergmeijer)

Last summer, I took part in a rebuilding camp with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions(ICAHD). On the 24th July 2011, a group of Palestinians, Israelis and International peace activists finished rebuilding a demolished Palestinian home. Today, exactly six months later, Israeli occupation forces have, once again, demolished it.

The home belonged to the Abu Omars, a large family of fifteen who, after having had their house demolished in 2005, and after living for six years in their neighbour’s house, were finally able to move back into their new house last summer. Today, they are once again homeless, displaced, distraught, and helpless.

While on the camp, we were hosted by the Shawamrehs, at their house “Beit Arabiya” (“Arabiya’s house”). Their house too was demolished late last night. The fifth time that Salim and Arabiya’s house has been reduced to rubble. They had dedicated the house as a peace centre in the memories of Rachel Corrie and Nuha Sweidan (two women killed while resisting home demolitions in Gaza) and is used to host the participants of the camp every summer. ICAHD reports that, “Arabiya was there and when she witnessed the demolition she fell to the ground. All their trees and vines were uprooted. There is nothing left.”

The Abu Omar and Shawamreh families’ land is situated in the Occupied West Bank town of Anata, in what is known as “Area C”, meaning it is under complete Israeli military control. Palestinians are almost never granted building permits by the Israeli authorities, and therefore are forced to build or expand their homes “illegally”. This is the most common reason given by the Israeli authorities for house demolitions. However, as an occupying force, Israel doesn’t have the legal right to grant nor deny permits as it is not entitled under International Law to conduct civil planning.

Nevertheless, the rate and the method of house demolitions show that this is more a policy of gradual ethnic cleansing than anything else, with clear political and strategic purposes. According to ICAHD, “House demolitions and forced evictions are among Israel’s most heinous practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).” Since the occupation of the West Bank in 1967, approximately 26,000 homes have been demolished, and in 2011 alone, 622 Palestinian structures were razed to the ground by Israeli bulldozers.

No alternative housing or compensation is ever given to Palestinian families whose houses are demolished. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Occupying Powers are prohibited from destroying Palestinian property or employing collective punishment. Article 53 reads: “Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons…is prohibited.” Under this provision the practice of demolishing Palestinian houses is banned, as is the wholesale destruction of Palestinian infrastructure.

These particular demolitions have touched me personally because I knew the family, and I know what wonderful, courageous and steadfast people they are. But we must not forget that house demolitions happen all over Palestine (not just the West Bank and East Jerusalem) every single day, and have been happening since 1947. It is a very clear policy designed to slowly but surely forcibly evict Palestinians, the indigenous population of the land, out of their homes and out of their homeland.

We must do everything in our power to stand up against this brutal process of ethnic cleansing. The rebuilding of Palestinian homes is not a humanitarian act; it is a non-violent political strategy aimed at resisting the occupation whilst showing solidarity with Palestinians.

ICAHD has vowed to continue rebuilding homes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and in doing so will not submit to the Israeli occupying forces’ attempts to deter its resistance of the illegal occupation.

For Teodora Todorova’s report on house demolitions in Israel click here.

Born in Jerusalem, Larissa Sansour studied Fine Art in Copenhagen, London and New York. Her work is interdisciplinary, immersed in the current political dialogue and utilises video art, photography, experimental documentary, the book form and the internet. Sansour’s 2009 collaboration with Oreet Ashery, ‘The Novel of Nonel and Vovel’, was a graphic novel described as raising questions “on artistic agency, collaborative processes, the nature of authority and art and politics.”

Last month, Sansour made headlines when the French clothing firm Lacoste expelled her from the Lacoste Elysee Prize, awarded by the Swiss Musee de l’Elysee. Sansour had been one of the eight finalists shortlisted for the prize when she issued a press release stating that her work had been censored for being “too pro-Palestinian.”  Her work, a multimedia project titled ‘Nation Estate’, depicted a world in which the entire Palestinian was housed within a single skyscraper, with lost cities recreated on the different floors.

Larissa Sansour answered questions posed by Musab Younis, Ceasefire’s Deputy Editor, on the Lacoste Prize and the complexities of being a Palestinian artist.

Musab Younis: Could you describe the images you submitted to the Lacoste Prize which were labelled too “pro-Palestinian”?

Larissa Sansour: The NATION ESTATE project is a sci-fi photo series conceived in the wake of the Palestinian bid for nationhood at the UN. I developed three preliminary sketches especially for the Lacoste Elysée Prize. Encouraged to approach the theme of the competition, ‘la joie de vivre’, indirectly or even with irony, I decided on a slightly dystopic approach.

Set within a grim piece of hi-tech architecture, this narrative photo series entitled Nation Estate envisions ‘la joie de vivre’ of a Palestinian state rising from the ashes of the peace process.

In this vision, Palestinians have their state in the form of a single skyscraper – the Nation Estate. Surrounded by a concrete wall, this colossal high-rise houses the entire Palestinian population – finally living the high life. Each city has its own floor: Jerusalem, third floor; Ramallah, fourth floor. Intercity trips previously marred by checkpoints are now made by elevator.

Aiming for a sense of belonging, the lobby of each floor reenacts iconic squares and landmarks – elevator doors on the Jerusalem floor opening onto a full-scale Dome of the Rock. Built just outside the actual city of Jerusalem, the building has views of the original golden dome from the top floors.

MY: What kind of reaction have you received since the prize was cancelled?

LS: The response has been absolutely overwhelming. Since I released a statement telling the story of my nomination being revoked by Lacoste, I have received hundreds of emails stating support, and my story has featured in mainstream newspapers, magazines, blogs and on television channels worldwide. I am deeply grateful for all the support.

I also applaud the museum’s decision to break off their relationship with Lacoste, cancel the prize and side with the artist instead of the corporate sponsor – even if it took them a while to gain the courage. Many of the people who supported me have written directly to the museum and praised them for this move.

MY: You said in an earlier interview that “As a Palestinian artist, this is not the first time works of mine or shows I have been in have been exposed to politically-motivated pressure.” Could you talk about some of the other instances in which this has happened?

LS: This kind of pressure is not uncommon, and it has expressed itself in various forms over the years. I have experienced several calls to close down exhibitions I have featured in. These calls normally come from special interest groups opposing any kind of rights, let alone statehood to Palestinians. But there have also been attempts at muffling my work from people initially favourable to it. I have been asked by gallerists showing my work to change the title of my exhibition or a specific piece in order to avoid aggravating Jewish communities, for example.

MY: What do you think the recent addition of Palestine to UNESCO means for Palestinian artists?

LS: I think we have yet to understand the full value of this membership. Symbolically, though, it is a very important step in the right direction.

MY: What is your perspective on the wider issue of corporate sponsorship of the arts, particularly art prizes?

LS: I am not opposed to the idea of corporate sponsorship per se. Administered well, financial support from institutions that can afford it is a valuable asset to artistic production. But the rules of the game have to be respected. Art prizes are not advertising campaigns for the sponsoring corporation. As soon as a sponsor blocks, censors or attempts to limit the artistic freedom, the system has failed. In the case of the Lacoste Elysée Prize, I am happy that the museum eventually decided to acknowledge this and cancel the prize.

MY: Are there specific contradictions, difficulties or paradoxes you feel you have to navigate as a Palestinian artist?

LS: Funding a Palestinian art project can be quite difficult. On several occasions, sponsors have demanded that a certain project of mine also presents an Israeli perspective. I have never understood the logic behind this. Asking the occupied to introduce the position of the occupier seems at best misguided.

MY: Do you feel that there is an expectation of the kind of work you will produce because you are Palestinian? How do you navigate such expectations?

LS: Palestinian work tends to be very political, and most institutions showing Palestinian artists are interested in this approach. This does not mean, however, that artists produce political work in order to meet expectations. For all Palestinians, politics is not just an option, but a fundamental circumstance.

MY: Thank you for talking to Ceasefire.

Larissa Sansour’s The Nation Estate project consists of 8-10 large-format photos. It is scheduled for production in early 2012. In addition to the photo series, a sci-fi video version of Nation Estate is currently in production.

(Cartoon © Chappatte)

The U.S. government decision last month to withhold funds from UNESCO, after a majority of U.N. countries approved full membership for the Palestinian Authority into the U.N. agency, is another troublesome sign of U.S. imperial behaviour attempting to thwart measured diplomatic judgement and the democratic will of the community of nations.

The decision signals the U.S. government is becoming more unilateral in policy actions and contradictory in principles as it foils the objectives of cooperation it officially espouses. This action reflects an all too common statecraft of punitive measures when multilateral protocols among nations lead to majority decisions that cannot be controlled and are put into force by globally accepted procedures that cannot be vetoed.

Withholding UNESCO funds is notably counterproductive to U.S. highly-touted emphasis on a new cultural diplomacy. The imprudent decision to subvert consensus-building, automatically triggered by U.S. law, also highlights self-interested and self-imposed limitations to be a fair dealing partner in pursuit of global justice -in this case justice for Palestinians, one of the most aggrieved peoples and denied nations. Such a vindictive policy should also cast doubts for U.S. arts, culture, and cultural policy communities over prospects of current U.S. inter-agency discussion about signing on to UNESCO cultural diversity and intangible cultural heritage conventions.

For the U.S. public, especially those directly involved in the arts, culture, education, and science, withholding U.S. allocations to UNESCO thrusts them in the middle of diplomatic and cultural politics about which they are poorly informed by the government. U.S. arts, cultural and scientific professionals and organisations are also blameworthy for being generally disengaged or compliant followers of U.S. government Realpolitik and corporate commercial interests.

The “I will not play if you don’t follow my lead” approach is ultimately a negative and losing strategy. An anthropologist colleague, Angela Gilliam, in Washington State wrote to me “this is déjà vu all over again. Remember Reagan walking out of UNESCO in December 1984”. U.S. imperial play was then in response to 1980s UNESCO conflict over the “New World Information and Communication Order”, a political initiative by developing countries to provide more balance in the flow and content of news between developed and developing countries.

When the U.S. returned to UNESCO in 2003 under the Administration of President George W. Bush, the UN agency was ironically in the middle of debate about the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (the Cultural Diversity Convention). Some cultural policy analysts argue the roots of the UNESCO Cultural Diversity Convention debate flowered in large measure from the seeds of earlier conflict over the New Information Order.

Eight years after returning to UNESCO, the U.S. government has abdicated its leadership by abandoning the policy fray over human and cultural rights for the oppressed Palestinian people and their right to join the hall of Nations. Benjamin R. Barber, Distinguished Senior Fellow at DEMOS and President of CivWorld, commented that it is “absolutely absurd for the US to withdraw funding from UNESCO on this pretext. It is part of the government’s antipathy to interdependence”.

By withholding funds to UNESCO, the U.S. government once again thrusts U.S. educational, science, arts and cultural practitioners, including museums and service organisations into the cauldron of real/cultural-politik. They should be greatly concerned that UNESCO is now a crucible of the globally-challenged proclaimed right and might of U.S. and Israeli governments to decide how, when, and where Palestinian self-determination will be advanced.

Will U.S. allies in UNESCO remain silent and complicit in their inaction on political matters which they have not been consulted? Or will they exercise their rights and obligations as citizens to petition their government in their role as communities of knowledge and spiritual wellbeing guided by standards of justice for all?

As collegial citizen communities of interests, such candid questions must be raised and answered about how withholding funds advances or undermines the UNESCO mandate “to contribute to peace and security by promoting international collaboration through education, science, and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights along with fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the U.N. Charter”.

The negative impact on U.S. citizens-related UNESCO undertakings could become even more destructive if the Palestinian Authority is admitted to other UN agencies like WIPO, WHO, and IAEO, and the White House and both political parties resort again to existing laws to cut funding.

Nevertheless, UNESCO and the wider world has moved on, with reduced U.S. government leadership contributions and funding, and the U.S. public slips further behind, increasingly isolated from global cultural heritage policies and mediations of justice, equality, peace, and development.

This course of events can be improved upon, and hopefully reversed, by U.S. cultural heritage and arts advocacy and preservation organisations stepping up to craft a U.S. State cultural policy more reflective of the ethical and disciplinary interests of citizen-artists-educators-scientists-scholars to bring about joy, knowledge, justice, peace, and security.

A new progressive democratic U.S.-U.N.-UNESCO relationship could be hastened and enhanced if our global counterparts, particularly from Palestine and Israel, call upon us to be more informed, collegial, and to act justly!

Palestinian ‘Freedom Riders’ reenacting US civil rights movement’s boarding of segregated buses in the American south by riding Israeli settler buses to Jerusalem.  Credit: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

I was interested this week to read on The Electronic Intifada two articles about the recent Palestinian “Freedom Ride”. This was the recent attempt by six activists to ride segregated Israeli buses all the way to Jerusalem.

Due to the system of Israeli apartheid in effect in the West Bank, they were dragged off the buses by the Israeli occupation forces at a checkpoint. But the appeal to drawing a parallel with the US civil rights struggle of the 1960s seemed to generate a large amount of media coverage (a fact that sent the Zionist fanatics at “Honest Reporting” into a rage, much to my amusement).

The first opinion piece was by Nour Joudah, a Palestinian-American who grew up in Tennessee, praising the action and explaining its resonance for her – “my histories and my homes merged in a new way.” The second was by Palestinian blogger and recent graduate Linah Alsaafin (who is also a fellow-blogger of mine at Electronic Intifada). While commending the Freedom Riders for their courage, Alsaafin asked some tough strategic and tactical questions. At the core of her critique is the idea that: “our struggle is not a civil rights one. It is a struggle against a foreign occupation… [and] for the liberation of an indigenous population under a devastating settler-colonial rule.”

This key point actually goes to the heart of the current cul-de-sac that the divided Palestinian political leadership finds itself in. Fatah, ruling the West Bank, has put armed resistance aside in favour of fruitless “negotiations” with Israel that have now dragged on intermittently for 20 years. In the Gaza Strip, Hamas too now enforces a ceasefire with Israel – to the point of arresting rival groups of fighters who have challenged Hamas’s interpretation of the ceasefire by launching home-made rockets into Israel.

On Thursday, Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas met Hamas leader Khalid Meshaal in Cairo for talks on a unified leadership of the Palestinian Authority. Meshaal told AFP that Hamas would now start to focus on peaceful popular resistance, while reserving the right to armed resistance. “We believe in armed resistance but popular resistance is a programme which is common to all the factions,” he said.

Time will tell whether or not this is as much empty rhetoric as Abbas and unelected Prime Minister Salim Fayyad when they make similar noises about popular resistance. Nevertheless, the fact that Mehshaal even seems to think such statements will increase his popularity is important. It is indicative of a rising tide of popular Palestinian resistance.

Aside from the false Fatah-Hamas dichotomy, the wider Palestinian liberation movement is facing existential questions about its nature.

While it’s true that, as an anti-colonial struggle, the situation is not the same as the US civil rights struggle, I humbly submit that there is a civil rights aspect to it. Alsaafin notes correctly that “the indigenous population of Palestine is occupied by a colonial settler population”. She says this is a crucial difference – Native American activists might justifiably disagree this factor is so different from the USA.

Nevertheless, real structural differences remain, and cannot be brushed aside. Furthermore, Alsaafin’s critique of appeals to the sensibilities of western liberals is an insightful one. Some Palestinians in the first intifada raised the slogan of American revolutionary colonists who split from Britain: “no taxation without representation”. But this appeal was mostly unsuccessful in generating new allies in the US.

This is not to argue against Palestinians making grassroots connections in the West (after all, many Palestinians in exile actually live in the West). But it does mean that only hypocrites or racists would insist that the Palestinians rely on begging for outside help to save them. The task for those in the West who would express solidarity with the Palestinian struggle is to follow the Palestinian lead.

While it’s true this is made more difficult by a lack of unified leadership, it is no less of an important principle. Furthermore, the lack of a single political leadership actually has an advantage: resistance to political co-optation.

The question that Alsaafin raises is both a new and an old one. In his insightful memoir “My Life in the PLO” the late Shafiq al-Hout wrote that the first intifada was the culmination of a long process that had changed the Palestinian national movement “from a national liberation movement to a national independence movement” (p. 234).

With the long-dead Oslo process still being periodically disinterred from its ever deeper grave, Palestinians are now more and more questioning the relevance of “national independence” in ever-shrinking parcels of land in the West Bank – to say nothing of the Gaza Strip ghetto.

The logic of new trends such as the energetic boycott, divestment and sanctions movement – while being agnostic on the exact contours of a political solution – tilts the balance back towards national liberation once again. The emphasis is on three key principles: the end of occupation, the return of the refugees and full equal rights. Whatever the political solution, and whatever a joint Palestinian programme would look like, these three points are immutable.

This week the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will consider the question of whether Israel’s practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) constitute the crime of apartheid within the meaning of the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. This Convention which has been incorporated into the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is not confined to apartheid in South Africa. Instead it criminalises, under international law, practices that resemble apartheid.

The Russell Tribunal was initiated in the 1960s by the philosopher Bertrand Russell to examine war crimes committed during the Vietnam war. It has been revived to consider Israel’s violations of international law. It is not a judicial tribunal, but a tribunal comprising reputable jurors from different countries, that seeks to examine whether Israel has violated international criminal law and should be held accountable.

In essence, the Russell Tribunal is a court of international public opinion. It will hear evidence in Cape Town on the scope of the 1973 Apartheid Convention, on apartheid as practised in South Africa, on Israeli practices in the OPT, particularly the West Bank, and on the question whether these practices so closely resemble those of apartheid as to bring them within the prohibitions of the 1973 Apartheid Convention. The Israeli Government has been invited to testify before the Tribunal but at this stage has not replied to the invitation. Most of the evidence will inevitably therefore be critical of Israel.

Israel cannot be held accountable for its actions by any international tribunal as it refuses to accept the jurisdiction of either the international Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court. The Russell Tribunal seeks to remedy this weakness in the international system of justice by providing for accountability by a court of international opinion.

As such, the Tribunal does not seek to obstruct the peace process. On the contrary, it wishes to promote it. But there can be no peace without justice. This is a basic principle that Richard Goldstone, who has written an op-ed criticising the Russell Tribunal (Israel and the Apartheid Slander, New York Times, 31 October 2011), has devoted much of his life to as Prosecutor before the Yugoslavia Tribunal.

Is it true to say, as Richard Goldstone has argued, that there is no basis for likening Israel’s occupation of the OPT to that of apartheid? Is it true, as he argues, that such suggestions are “pernicious” and “inaccurate”? Or is there substance in these suggestions?

Of course the regimes of apartheid and occupation are different. Apartheid South Africa was a state that practised discrimination against its own people. It sought to fragment the country into white South Africa and black Bantustans. Its security laws were used to brutally suppress opposition to apartheid. Israel, on the other hand, is an occupying power that controls a foreign territory and its people under a regime recognised by international law – belligerent occupation.

However, in practice, there is little difference. Both regimes were/are characterised by discrimination, repression and territorial fragmentation (that is, land seizures).

Israel discriminates against Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in favour of half a million Israeli settlers. Its restrictions on freedom of movement, manifested in countless humiliating checkpoints, resemble the “pass laws” of apartheid. Its destruction of Palestinian homes resembles the destruction of homes belonging to blacks under apartheid’s Group Areas Act. The confiscation of Palestinian farms under the pretext of building a security Wall brings back similar memories. And so on. Indeed, Israel has gone beyond apartheid South Africa in constructing separate (and unequal) roads for Palestinians and settlers.

Apartheid’s security police practised torture on a large scale. So do the Israeli security forces. There were many political prisoners on Robben Island but there are more Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.

Apartheid South Africa seized the land of blacks for whites. Israel has seized the land of Palestinians for half a million settlers and for the purposes of constructing a security Wall within Palestinian territory – both of which are contrary to international law.

Most South Africans who visit the West Bank are struck by the similarities between apartheid and Israel’s practices there. There is sufficient evidence for the Russell Tribunal to conduct a legitimate enquiry into the question whether Israel violates the prohibition of apartheid found in the 1973 Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute.

The South Africa session of The Russell Tribunal on Palestine, featuring Archbishop Desmondu Tutu, John Dugard, Alice Walker, Mairead Maguire, Michael Mansfield, Ronnie Kasrils, Stephane Hessel, Yasmin Sooka, Aminata Traore, Antonio Martin Pallin, Gisele Halimi and others, will take place in Cape Town, South Africa from 5 to 7 November. Proceedings will be broadcast live from Saturday morning on the website. For updates, you can like the Tribunal’s Facebook page.

The Palestinian leadership had launched this bid amongst particularly tense backroom talks with the United States and certain European states, openly hostile to the PLO’s efforts, who have exerted immense pressure on the Palestinian authority to withdraw its candidacy both at the United Nations General Assembly and any other body for that matter.

Underlying the UNESCO membership bid is a powerful moral message sent to nay-sayers that Palestine’s statehood claims exist and continue to draw support throughout the international community.

Israel’s message throughout the bid consisted of a carefully-crafted media strategy, often poisoning the well to set the debate on its own terms. While the state of Israel and its spokespersons attempted to discredit the PA in its very essence, Israel’s allies such as the United States denounced the ‘unilateral’ move made by the Palestinians to be recognised without prior negotiations. Every possible move in the diplomatic ‘playbook’ was used by American diplomats as they rushed to prevent the PLO from achieving its objectives.

Seeing the cracks in the titanic dam of silence they had built around the conflict, the United States administration went so far as to withdraw its financial contribution to UNESCO, citing legislation from the early 1990s as its official justification. The contribution represents over 60 million dollars in the 650 million dollar annual budget (a whopping 22%!) of an organisation aimed at bolstering education and cultural cooperation.

The UNESCO vote was a free and fair democratic vote where one state’s voice equated to any other’s. Unlike its sister UN body, the Security Council, UNESCO is not the geopolitical heirloom of WWII victors, where five permanent member states are able to veto and indeed discard any inconvenient resolution sent their way. When it found itself unable to have the proposition withdrawn within UNESCO and incapable of rallying other states to its agenda, the American administration had no other choice but to cater to its staunch pro-Israeli lobby in Congress and take punitive measures against…education and culture.

American and Israeli claims that the Palestinians’ bid to UN membership is a unilateral move which threaten peace negotiations are laughable for anyone who pays any attention to the daily news coming out of the region.

It would have been fair to hear similar outrage coming from the State Department, Congress or even the White House when Israeli settlers continued to illegally build hundreds of new colonies in occupied Palestinian territory.

One could argue that nothing is more unilateral (to use state department vocabulary) than Benjamin Netanyahu’s post-vote decision to push ahead with the construction of 2000 “housing units” in occupied East Jerusalem. The building of a modern-day Berlin wall around the occupied Palestinian territories, condemned by the international court of justice in the Hague as illegal, is also a unilateral move which destabilises negotiations. Again, silence from most Western capitals.

Like it or not, the United states and most European states lose immense credibility when they pass under silence such outright disregard for international law by the Israelis but are happy to point fingers at the smallest mistake the hapless Palestinians make.

The events of the past week certainly put things into perspective for those readers who’d ever doubted or continue to ignore the strong ties between Washington to Tel-Aviv. Although in my opinion the United States never really did meet the type of impartiality (in the region at least) needed to lead the way in talks between parties, the financial sanctions now placed on UNESCO have surely torpedoed any vestiges of “credibility” it might have retained for some as an honest broker in this conflict.

Though this vote represents little more than a symbolic and moral victory for the Palestinians, it goes a long way in revealing some of the injustices they face in trying to achieve dignity and freedom in their homeland.

Israeli left wing activists hold signs as they demonstrate against the suggested boycott law, in front of the Justice ministry in Jerusalem, Sunday, July 10, 2011. The Israeli parliament is bracing for a fiery debate over a bill that allow damage suits against Israelis who call for boycotting West Bank settlements. The signs read in Hebrew: ” Peace Now”, ” Fighting the Government of Darkness”, The Right Silent Me” . Photo: Sebastian Scheiner / AP

In 2001 Lindsey Hilsum pronounced the Israeli left dead. In 2009 the media reported 90% support among Israelis for Operation Cast Lead, which led to the deaths of 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza, the vast majority of whom were civilians.

As the latest attack on Gaza proceeds unabated, this report asks “What is the state of the Israeli Left?” in 2011.

But first, why is it even relevant, or necessary, to examine the role of the Israeli Left? It is very simple: Israel is in full control of the borders, airspace, water and movement of the people who inhabit the Gaza Strip and the West Bank (Hamas and Fateh being merely administrative bodies in these two areas). The Palestinians in the Occupied Territories have no citizenship, and their human rights are regularly violated by the occupying power.

Given that the Israeli Left is constituted of citizens of the Jewish “democracy” in charge of the Occupation it is only logical to conclude that they have more leverage than the Palestinian people vis-a-vis the Israeli government.

Historically, the Israeli Left has never been outside of the Zionist consensus. In fact, many like to reminisce about the early days of Jewish settlements in Palestine-Israel, supposedly characterized by the socialist utopias of the Kibbutz and Moshav. This vision of good, little Israel, marred by the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza since 1967, likes to leave out the fact that Israel was established on the land of over 750,000 Palestinians, expelled during the 1948 war, and that the remaining 200,000 Palestinians, though bestowed with Israeli citizenship, were kept under martial law until 1966, in conditions not too dissimilar to the contemporary West Bank.

The Israeli Peace Now movement which emerged in the 1980s, called for an end to the Occupation and a withdrawal to the 1967 borders, as well as the dismantling of the illegal settlements. With the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993-5 many proclaimed the victory of the peace camp, and then pronounced its subsequent demise with the outbreak of the second Intifada in 2000.

However, few like to look back on the period between 1995 and 2001. A period during which Israel’s illegal colonial settlements in the West Bank and Gaza doubled in size from the time of Oslo; or the fact that the agreement had left the Palestinians in charge of less than 15% of the Occupied Territories, making the prospect of a viable Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza highly unlikely.

Since 2001, a succession of prominent former Peace Now activists have declared their opposition to the Palestinian right of return, effectively signalling their unwillingness to acknowledge one of the most important issues for the Palestinian people. Since then a procession of ultra-right-wing, pro-settlement governments have been elected to the Knesset (Israeli Parliament).

In July of this year a ‘Solidarity March’ in support of the Palestinian Authority amassed 4000 people. The Israeli turnout in support of a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders doesn’t bode well for peace when both Israel and the US have declared that they will veto a UN acceptance of a Palestinian state in 2011.

Nor does the passing in July 2011 of the anti-Boycott law give any reason for hope. Israel sees the West Bank, in particular, as ‘disputed’ rather than ‘occupied’ territory and the a Israeli law that makes it illegal to call for the boycott of Israel, or the settlements, effectively declares these settlements, which are illegally built in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, part of the Israeli state itself.

The UN vote on Palestinian statehood will either surprise the hopeless or will sound the final death knell for a two-state solution. In the later scenario, we will have to start talking about the onset of official Israeli Apartheid.

Most of the remaining Israeli Leftists support a boycott and have vowed to fight the anti-boycott law in the High Court. However, the Israeli Left is increasingly embattled and more marginalized than ever. Perhaps more telling is the fact that the largest popular movement since Peace Now—the 2011 Israeli Real estate protests–refused to take a stance on the conflict.

In fact many fear that the protests would be hijacked by the settler movement promising to alleviate the perceived housing crisis in Israel by building more settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. This suspicion has proven to be well-founded following the televised appearance, in mid September 2011, of the leaders of the real estate movement, J14, at Ariel, the largest settlement in the West Bank.

The above can be juxtaposed to the horrific, and largely unreported, attack on Israeli solidarity activists by settlers from Ananot, a settlement built on the land of Anata, East Jerusalem. The unprovoked attack, which has been described by those present as a “lynching” and “pogrom”, took place less than two weeks ago, on Friday 30th September 2011.

The peaceful Israeli activists were set upon by a mob of Ananot settlers during their solidarity visit with Palestinian farmers who have been subjected to longterm harassment by the same settlers.

A youtube video shot on the night of the attack shows the settler crowd chanting “Death to the Arabs” and “Death to Leftists” as they kick, punch, and terrorize the activists, while Israeli security fail to intervene.

Eyal Raz writes about the events:

“Anatot residents aren’t “hilltop youth” or “wild weeds.” They are ordinary Israelis, former Jerusalemites who upgraded themselves to a “quality of life” settlement – including employees of the police, who were given preferential purchasing terms there. There are even suspicions, based on testimony and evidence gathered over the last few days, that a few of the rioters were off-duty policemen themselves. And perhaps it is the deep-rooted hatred of “Arabs” and “leftists.”

Perhaps this hatred also made it easier for those on duty at the Shai District police stations, who received our calls for help, not to rush to send forces there. And even when two patrol cars did finally arrive, the policemen devoted most of their energy to informing the battered activists that an order had been issued declaring the site a closed military zone, which they were now violating.”

For most Palestinians, “pogroms” akin the one carried out on Friday, 30th Sept, are a regular occurrence; with growing reports about a rise in settler violence in the West Bank coinciding with the PA bid for statehood. Last week’s attack against Israeli activists highlights the fact that the settler movement no longer feels the need to hide beneath a transparent cloak of democratic jargon. It is increasingly clear that they feel secure enough to act with impunity against non-citizens, whether those be occupied Palestinians, or, it now seems, leftwing Israelis as well.

Such news is likely to lead to despair, but only if one expects change from within Israel. If developments such as the anti-boycott law are an indication of what is working and hence which strategies need to be pursued more vigorously, the solution is pretty clear. Whether a Palestinian State is voted in at the UN in the next few months or the two-state option is buried for good, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions remains the most effective tool for those outside of Israel-Palestine to challenge settler-colonial impunity and restore some sense of justice for the Palestinian people and their supporters.

When the UN Secretary General announced on 2 August 2010 that a Panel of Inquiry had been established to investigate the Israeli attacks of 31 May on the Mavi Marmara and five other ships carrying humanitarian aid to the beleaguered people of Gaza there was widespread hope that international law would be vindicated and the Israelis would finally be held accountable.

With the release of the Palmer Report these hopes have been largely dashed as the report failed to address the central international law issues in a credible and satisfactory manner.

Turkey, not surprisingly, responded strongly that it was not prepared to live with the central finding of the 105-page UN report reaching the astonishing conclusions that the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip is lawful and could be enforced by Israel against a humanitarian mission even in international waters.

Perhaps this outcome should not be so surprising after all. The Panel as appointed was woefully ill-equipped to render an authoritative result. Geoffrey Palmer, the Chair of the Panel, although a respected public figure, being the former Prime Minister of New Zealand and an environmental law professor, was not known to be an expert on either the international law of the sea or the law of war, and was generally believed to have been pro-Israeli throughout his political career.

Incredibly, the only other independent member of the Panel was Alvaro Uribe, the former President of Colombia, with no professional credentials relevant to the issues under consideration, and notorious both for his horrible human rights record while holding office and forging intimate ties with Israel by way of arms purchases and diplomatic cooperation that was acknowledged by ‘The Light Unto The Nations’ award given by the American Jewish Committee that should have been sufficient by itself to cast doubt on his suitability for this appointment. His presence on the panel compromised the integrity of the process, and made one wonder how could such an appointment can be explained, let alone justified.

The other two members of the panel were designated by the governments of Israel and Turkey, and predictably appended partisan dissents to those portions of the report that criticized the position taken by their respective governments.

Another unacceptable limitation of the report was that the Panel was constrained by its terms of reference that prohibited reliance on any materials other than what was presented in the two national reports submitted by the contending governments. This restriction meant that the panel was not free to recast its inquiry in such a way as to uncover additional evidence and to explore other legal approaches and assessments.

With these considerations in mind, we can only wonder why the Secretary General would have established a formal process so ill-equipped to reach findings that were supposedly designed to put the legal controversy to rest and resolve diplomatic tensions, which it has certainly failed to do. Such deficient foresight is itself one of the notable outcomes of this unfortunate UN abortive effort to promote the peaceful resolution of a potentially explosive international dispute.

It is also surprising that Turkey ever agreed to participate in such a panel. In retrospect, its participation was a serious diplomatic blunder. Turkey should have insisted on a larger panel with more qualified, and less aligned, members, and on a more open framework for ascertaining the fact and law.

Even such an ill-conceived panel did not altogether endorse Israeli behaviour on 31 May 2010. The panel found that Israel used excessive force and seemed legally and morally responsible for the deaths of the nine passengers on the Mavi Marmara. Israel was instructed to pay compensation and issue a statement of regret, which was a partial acknowledgement of wrongdoing, but falling far short of the Turkish demand for an apology.

In other words, the Palmer Report seems to fault seriously the manner by which the Israelis enforced the blockade, but unfortunately upheld the underlying legality of both the blockade along with its right of enforcement, and that is the rub. Such a conclusion contradicted the earlier finding of a more expert panel established by the Human Rights Council, as well as rejected the overwhelming consensus that had been expressed by qualified international law specialists on these core issues.

A gross inadequacy of the report was to treat the blockade as if exclusively concerned with upholding Israeli security, and thereby ignore the predominant purpose of the blockade of imposing an intolerable regime of collective punishment on the population of Gaza that has lasted for more than four years, although varying in severity from time to time.

While the Panel delayed the report several times to give diplomacy a chance to resolve the contested issues, Israel and Turkey could never quite reach closure. There were intriguing reports along the way that unpublicized discussions between representatives of the two governments had agreed upon a compromise arrangement consisting of Israel’s readiness to offer Turkey a formal apology and to compensate the families of those killed as well as those wounded during the attack, but when the time for announcing such a resolution of this conflict, Israel refused to go along.

In particular, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, seemed unwilling to take the last step, claiming that it would demoralise the citizenry of Israel and signal weakness to Israel’s enemies in the region.

More cynical observers believed that the Israeli refusal to resolve the conflict was a reflection of domestic politics, especially Netanyahu’s rivalry with the even more extremist political figure, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who was forever accusing Netanyahu of being a wimpy leader and made no secret of his own ambition to be the next Israeli head of state. Whatever the true mix of reasons, the diplomatic track failed, despite cheerleading from Washington that openly took the position that resolving this conflict had become a high priority for American foreign policy.

And so the Palmer Report assumed a greater role than might have been anticipated for what was supposed to be no more than a technical inquiry about issues of law and fact. After the feverish diplomatic efforts failed, the Palmer panel seemed to offer the last chance for the parties to reach a mutually satisfactory resolution based on the application of international law and resulting recommendations that would delimit what must be done to overcome any violations that had taken place during the attack on the flotilla.

But to be satisfactory, the report had to interpret the legal issues in a reasonable and responsible manner. This meant, above all else, that the underlying blockade imposed more than four years ago on the 1.6 million Palestinians living in Gaza was unlawful, and should be immediately lifted.

On this basis, the enforcement by way of the 31 May attacks was unlawful, an offence aggravated by being a gross interference with freedom of navigation on the high seas, and aggravated even further by producing nine deaths among the humanitarian workers and peace activists on the Mavi Marmara, and by Israeli harassing and abusive behaviour toward the rest of the passengers.

Such conclusions should have been reached without difficulty by the panel, so obvious were these determinations from the perspective of international law as to leave little room for reasonable doubt. But this was not to be, and the report as written is a step backward from the fundamental effort of international law to limit permissible uses of international force to situations of established defensive necessity, and even then, to ensure that the scale of force employed, was proportional, respectful of civilian innocence, and weighed security claims against harmful humanitarian effects.

It is a further step back to the extent that it purports to allow a state to enforce on the high seas a blockade, condemned around the world for its cruelty and damaging impact on civilian mental and physical health, that has deliberately deprived the people of Gaza of the necessities of life as well as locked them into a crowded and impoverished space that has been mercilessly attacked with modern weaponry from time to time.

Given these stark realities it is little wonder that the Turkish Government reacted with anger and disclosed their resolve to proceed in a manner that expresses not only its sense of law and justice, but also reflects Turkish efforts in recent years to base regional relations on principles of fairness and mutual respect.

The Turkish Foreign Minister, realizing that the results reached by the Palmer Panel were unacceptable, formulated his own Plan B. This consisted of responses not only to the report, but to the failure of Israel to act responsibly and constructively on its own by offering a formal apology and setting up adequate compensation arrangements.

Israel had more than a year to meet these minimal Turkish demands, and repeatedly showed its unwillingness to do so. As Mr. Davutoglu made clear, this Turkish response was not intended to produce an encounter with Israel, but to put the relations between the countries back on ‘the right track.’ I believe that this is the correct approach under the circumstances as it takes international law seriously, and rests policy on issues of principle and prudence rather than opts for geopolitical opportunism. As Davutoglu said plainly, “The time has come for Israel to pay a price for its illegal action. The price, first of all, is being deprived of Turkey’s friendship.”

And this withdrawal of friendship is not just symbolic. Turkey has downgraded diplomatic representation, expelling the Israeli ambassador from Ankara and maintaining inter-governmental relations at the measly level of second secretary. Beyond this, all forms of military cooperation are suspended, and Turkey indicated that it intends to strengthen its naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey has also suggested that it might initiate action within the General Assembly to seek an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice as to the legality of the blockade.

What is sadly evident is that Israeli internal politics have become so belligerent and militarist that the political leaders in the country are hamstrung, unable to take a foreign policy initiative that is so manifestly in their national interest. For Israel to lose Turkey’s friendship is second only to losing America’s support, and coupled with the more democratic-driven policies of the Arab Spring, this alienation of Ankara is a major setback for Israel’s future security in the region, underscored by the angry anti-Israeli protests in Cairo that exhibited the mood of the Egyptian people.

What is more, the Turkish refusal to swallow the findings of the Palmer Report adopts a political posture that is bound to have a popular resonance throughout the Middle East and beyond. At a time when some of Turkey’s earlier diplomatic initiatives have run into difficulties, most evidently in Syria, this stand on behalf of the victimised population of Gaza represents a rare display by a government of placing values above interests.

The people of Gaza are weak, abused, and vulnerable. In contrast, Israel is a military powerhouse, economically prospering, a valuable trading partner for Turkey, and having in the background an ace in the hole– the United States, ever ready to pay a pretty penny if it could induce a rapprochement, thereby avoiding the awkwardness of dealing with this breakdown between its two most significant strategic partners in the Middle East.

We should also keep in mind that the passengers on these flotilla ships were mainly idealists and political activists, seeking, non-violently, to overcome a humanitarian ordeal that the UN and the interplay of national governments had been unable and unwilling to address for several years.

This initiative by civil society activists deserved the support and solidarity of the world, not discouragement from the UN and a slap on the wrist by being chastened in the Palmer report, which expressed the opinion that challenging Israel by sending this kind of flotilla was irresponsible and provocative.

A more constructive view of the plight of the people of Gaza would have led the authors of the Palmer Report to view the flotilla as an empathetic and courageous undertaking that was justified by the inability of the UN or neighboring governments to end the collective punishment of the civilian population of Gaza.

Israel has managed, up to now, to avoid paying the price for defying international law. For decades it has been building unlawful settlements in occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. It has used excessive violence and relied on state terror on numerous occasions in dealing with Palestinian resistance, and has subjected the people of Gaza to sustained and extreme forms of collective punishment.

It attacked villages and Dahiya neighborhood of Beirut mercilessly in 2006, launched its massive campaign {‘Operation Cast Lead’) from land, sea, and air for three weeks at the end of 2008 against a defenseless Gaza, and then shocked world opinion with its violence against the Mavi Marmara in its nighttime attack in 2010. It should have been made to pay the price long ago for this pattern of defying international law, above all by the United Nations.

If Turkey sustains its position, it will finally send a message to Tel Aviv that the well-being and security of Israel in the future will depend on a change of course in its relation to the Palestinians, its regional neighbours, and the international community.

For Israel, the days of flaunting international law and fundamental human rights are no longer policy options that have no downside. Turkey is dramatically demonstrating that there can be a decided downside to Israeli flagrant lawlessness.

Despite this, Israel shows no disposition to mend its lawless ways, reinforcing the impression that its leaders are incapable of serving the genuine interests of Israel as a state or Israelis as a people.

“We are all Al-Araqib”. Standing in solidarity with the residents of Al-Araqib, a village which has been demolished 35 times in one year. Israel is destroying the village in order to prepare the ground for planting non-fruit bearing trees as an extension of two Jewish National Fund forests, the “Ambassadors’ Forest” and “God TV Forest” named after a Christian evangelical group. (Photo: Livia Bergmeijer)

By Teodora Todorova

In the wake of the #J14 protests against rent prices in Tel Aviv, it may come as a surprise to some that there is an even grimmer housing crisis in Israel that is getting virtually no attention.

Indeed, few are aware that, on average, twice as many house demolitions take place within Israel’s 1948 borders as in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. 95% of these demolitions are carried out against Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Demolitions that target Arab homes are certainly not a new issue inside Israel: as many as 800 were destroyed last year, according to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). Because many lack the difficult-to-obtain housing permits, tens of thousands more are at risk of demolition.

“Israel is a segregated state”

In Tel Aviv’s neighbouring city of Lod, with a Palestinian population of 27,000, a Jewish-only high-rise neighbourhood, where the prerequisite to rent and buy property is to have served in the Israeli Army, overlooks the demolition site of seven homes belonging to the Abu Eid family.

The Abu Eid compound and the Jewish neighbourhood were once both zoned as “agricultural land” by The Land Authority which controls 93% of land in Israel. While the Lod Municipality re-zoned the land on which the Jewish neighbourhood was built in order to allow construction to take place, similar petitions by the Abu Eid family, who technically own the land on which their homes stood, were rejected by the municipality.

The seven family homes were demolished in December 2010, leaving 70 people, 27 of whom are children, destitute. Itay Epshtain, the co-director of ICAHD, said: “I’ve been to countless home demolitions, but few as violent as that one. A police officer cocked his M-16 rifle at me and said, ‘If you don’t stand back, I’m going to shoot you’.

“They used the army, attacked women, broke arms,” said Wasfieh Abu Eid, the 73-year-old family matriarch, as she waded through the detritus of her home of nearly five decades. She said she spent four days in hospital after “the police threw me to the ground” on that fateful winter’s day.

When I visited in July, six months after the demolition, her oldest son had been placed under house arrest in the tent pitched on the ruins of his former house for attempting to rebuild.

Like many of the 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of Israel, Wasfieh Abu Eid, whose family is originally from Northern Israel, is no stranger to displacement. Similar stories of dispossession were echoed in the unrecognised Arab village of Dahamesh where all of the village’s 70 homes, housing around 600 residents, built on privately owned Palestinian land, have been issued with demolition orders.

Due to its unrecognised status Dahamesh falls within the remit of neither the neighbouring municipalities of Lod nor Ramleh. Instead, Dahamesh is the only Arab locality that falls under the jurisdiction of the Lod Valley Regional Council, a district of kibbutzim and other Jewish-only settlements.

Most of Dahamesh’s inhabitants are internally displaced Palestinians who were forced to leave their original homes during the Nakba (The Catastrophe). In the aftermath of Israel’s establishment in 1948, the State seized the majority of their land, including their homes, leaving them with only 15% of their original land.

As in the West Bank, this land is often zoned as “agricultural,” with the zoning then used as a pretext by the authorities’ to deny building permits to Arab Israelis. Internally displaced Palestinians were not re-housed or given compensation by the State following the loss of their land and property, forcing them to build without permits; a situation which continues to this day.

Arafat Ismail, The Chair of the Popular Committee of Dahamesh, explained: ‘As far as the Regional Council is concerned, the 600 people in Dahamesh do not exist. We do not receive any council services: no electricity, water, sewage system or garbage collection. The village has been appealing to the law for a guarantee of proper service provision’. In the meantime, the village’s residents paid for the building of their own sewage system.

He continued: ‘We are waging a legal struggle against house demolitions. Five homes were demolished in 2006, with 13 pending immanent demolition. The Popular Committee produced Statutory Plans for the recognition of the village, but The Regional Council refuses to look at them. The regional council wants to send us to Lod but we oppose this move because it reminds us of our families’ displacement in 1948 when they lost their homes and most of their lands.’

Despite the difficult situation faced by the residents of Dahamesh they remain positive and steadfast as they continue to wage a legal and moral battle for the existence and recognition of their village. The only request they made of us was to help them find an international locality which would be willing to twin with Dahamesh. The Twinning Network in the UK promotes solidarity and exchange between British and Palestinian localities. Currently, Birmingham is twinned with Ramallah, Cardiff is twinned with Balata Refugee Camp, and Manchester University is twinned with Bir Zeit University.

Official refusal to recognise Arab-populated towns and villages within Israel is not exceptional in any case. There are an estimated 45 unrecognised Bedouin villages in the Negev/Naqab. The residencies of 100,000 people do not exist on any official maps. I visited Hasham Zaneh, considered to be one of the better-off Bedouin villages because of its proximity to the Be’er Sheba highway.

As in Dahamesh, Hasham Zaneh was not connected to any amenities. The Israeli government has offered to supply the community with water and electricity in exchange for the surrender of their land ownership rights, an offer that is considered unacceptable by the Bedouin communities.

One of the main issues of contention between the Israeli state and the Bedouin continues to be the question of land ownership. In 1948, 110,000 Bedouins residing in the Bersheba-Demona-Arad Triangle in the Negev/Naqab were transferred to Jordan by the Israeli authorities. Only 11,000 remained in the newly-founded State of Israel.

Currently, around 185,000 Bedouin, originally from the Negev/Naqab, live in overcrowded townships built by the State during the 1970s, where they face high unemployment rates and very poor education provision.

Most of those who chose to be relocated to the townships were those without land. The remaining Negev Bedouins have been resisting displacement since 2001. Amended land laws label the Bedouin trespassers on their own lands, effectively criminalising their presence in the Negev/Naqab and making whole communities subject to evictions and demolitions.

A Hashem Zaneh community representative said: ‘The State keeps the Bedouin in a permanent state of underdevelopment. We spend most of our time concerned about the security of our homes and villages, and worried about access to basic amenities such as clean drinking water, rather than putting our energies into education and attainment’.

The Bedouin, alongside other Arab Israelis, are waging a legal struggle for the recognition of their communities. By Israel’s own standards, every 50 households are considered a “community”, yet the smallest Bedouin village has over 150 households.

They also want the state to recognise and respect their herder lifestyle: “The authorities argue that raising livestock is not a profitable venture, but a neighbouring Jewish settlement in which 50 families were given thousands of dunams by the state to graze cattle are prospering from the opportunity they were given. All we ask for is the same respect and recognition to be shown to us’.

As the siege of Gaza continues alongside an entrenched Occupation in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and with glaring inequality and discrimination against Arab Israelis, the situation in Israel-Palestine appears tragically hopeless.

Moreover, as the largest Israeli mass movement since Peace Now refuses to take a stance on the Occupation and remains silent on the topic of Arab discrimination, and with fears of #J14’s takeover by the Settler Movement abounding, addressing the prospect of equal rights and freedoms for Jews and Palestinians in Israel and The Occupied Territories has never been a more urgent task.

My next report will examine what remains of the Israeli Left and whether the upcoming vote on the UN recognition of a Palestinian State will signal the end of the conflict–or simply a new stage in its development.

Teodora Todorova is a writer, political activist and aspiring critical theorist.