ISRAEL DECLARES ITSELF AS A THEOCRACY

From Al Jazeera 21 JULY 2018

Israel has finally come out as an ethno-religious state.

The only thing left for Palestinians to do is fight for one state espousing democracy and secularism.

by Haidar Eid

 

Knesset member Oren Hazan takes a selfie with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a Knesset session that passed the 'nation-state' bill in Jerusalem on July 19 [AP Photo/Olivier Fitoussi]

In Palestine, we are dealing with a complex situation: We have a settler-colonial project that denies its colonialism and argues it is a democracy and we have its victims whose victimisation has been dismissed for decades and whose national liberation struggle has been defamed. 

The colonisers have been successful in manipulating the narrative on what is going on, rewriting history and whitewashing their crimes. Various countries around the world have bought into their lies and kept a "neutral" stance, claiming their positions are "balanced".

What is there to balance, when one side has one of the most advanced armies in the world, financed and supplied by an allied superpower, and the other side has been altogether abandoned by allies and well-wishers and has only the determination and strength of its people to rely on? 

But these claims of "neutrality" and "balance" are no longer tenable. Israel has stopped playing the democracy pretence game and has revealed itself for what it really is: an apartheid state. On July 19, the Israeli Knesset voted to pass the so-called "nation-state law" which declares Israel "the national home of the Jewish people". It is now officially an exclusive ethno-religious state.

Unveiling the ethno-religious state of Israel

For us Palestinians, this law reiterates the obvious: namely, that the Zionist ideology is inherently racist and undemocratic.

The political goal of Zionism was to engineer a demographic shift in Palestine, making the minority Jewish population (which was just 7.6 percent in 1914) a majority through massive Jewish immigration and settlement building and expulsion of the Palestinians.







AL JAZEERA WORLD: Against the Wall - activists using non-violent resistance to oppose the construction of Israel's wall (47:31)

AL JAZEERA WORLD: Against the Wall - activists using non-violent resistance to oppose the construction of Israel's wall (47:31)

Inevitably, the expropriation of land went hand-in-hand with the violation of rights of the Palestinian majority. Zionists have always looked at Palestinians as invisible if not absent, or rather "present absentees". The identity of those who remained within the boundaries of what was to become Israel was erased through the term "Israeli Arab" and their rights curbed by a myriad of laws ("the nation-state law" being just the latest iteration).

This is because, contrary to modern liberal thinking, in Israel, citizenship and nationality are two separate, independent concepts. In other words, Israel is not the state of its citizens, but the state of the Jewish people. Thus Palestinians in Israel have Israeli passports but they do not have rights equal to those of Jewish citizens.

With the new "nation-state law", Palestinians in Israel are now considered "native aliens" or foreigners in their own homeland, because Israel is defined by its law as " the historical homeland of the Jewish people" i.e. not the state of all of its citizens. This is the direct result of Zionism and its ideology of racism.

It is also the direct result of prevailing undemocratic sentiments among Israel's Jews. The contradiction between professed ideals and actual behaviour, which has been the engine of political change in many places around the world, does not exist in Israel because the democratic creed, or civic democracy, is absent in Israeli society.

There is no promise of equality for all citizens in Israeli political culture and praxis. And there is no tradition of civil liberties in Israel because such a tradition is incompatible with Zionism.

Hence, one can understand the antagonism of the establishment to calls for the creation of one state for Palestinians and Jews, one secular democratic state run by parliamentary elections and majority rule in historical Palestine. This idea has been rejected outright by Israeli Jewish society because it would effectively mean the end of Zionism.

And as Israel effectively turns into an exclusive ethno-religious state, we have to ask uncomfortable questions: does this mean that Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, etc can also be the basis of modern states? And if we still insist that religion should be separate from state, then where is the international outrage? Why isn't mainstream media obsessing about the Jewish state, the way it was about the "Islamic state"? How is Israel different from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant that sought to establish a state for Muslims only through violence and dispossession?

The fight against apartheid is on

The passing of the "nation-state law" should eliminate whatever doubt there still is among "neutral" observers that Israel is, in fact, an apartheid state.

Just as apartheid South Africa gave citizenship to white South Africans and relegated blacks to "independent homelands", Zionism gives all Jews the right to citizenship in the state of Israel, while denying citizenship to Palestinians - its indigenous inhabitants.

OPINION

Bulldozing Palestine, one village at a time

by Mariam Barghouti

While South Africa's apartheid used race to determine citizenship, the state of Israel uses religious identification to determine citizenship. Just as apartheid South Africa made laws criminalising free movement of blacks on their ancestral land, Israel controls every aspect of Palestinians' lives through a military occupation infrastructure composed of checkpoints, Jewish-only settlements and roads, and the Wall, combined with a web of legal regulations.

The parallels between Israel and apartheid South Africa are infinite. And probably the only major difference between the two is that Israel gets away with its crimes with unprecedented impunity, as evidenced by its latest war crimes in Gaza.
 
So what is left for the Palestinian people after the approval of this blatantly racist bill? Well, we definitely are not foolish enough to expect anything from the so-called "international community".

Years of "negotiations" created only bantustans in the West Bank and a concentration camp in Gaza.

 Palestinians are still at the receiving end of merciless assaults by racist Israeli troops hidden in their US-made helicopters and F16's.

What all US envoys to the region have been trying to do is reach a "solution" in accordance with Israeli conditions, disregarding Security Council resolutions and international law. Neither the current US right-wing administration nor the spineless EU has a fair plan for how to resolve the crisis in Palestine.

The only thing that we, Palestinians, can count on is the power of people, just as South Africans did when, through a sustained global campaign, they forced governments to boycott their apartheid regime.

We will continue to expand the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and will continue marching to the fence in Gaza until we bring this madness to an end. We will also continue working on an alternative model, both democratic and secular, which guarantees equality and abolishes apartheid, bantustans and separation in Palestine altogether. We will not give up the fight.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

Inside Story

Israel: A law that divides and discriminates

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Isolate Apartheid Israel – Cut Diplomatic Ties

By Roshan Dadoo• 24 May 2018 from the Daily Maverick

 A reply to Malcolm Ferguson’s Op-Ed in Daily Maverick, 21 May 2018.

The targeted shooting of peaceful protesters in Gaza by the Israeli Defence Force that left around 60 people dead and many hundreds wounded on 14 May 2018 has been seen by the world for what it is – a coldblooded massacre.

Malcolm Ferguson praises the South African government for taking the step of recalling our ambassador from Tel Aviv in response to this slaughter. However, the main objective of his opinion piece is to discredit ANC policy and government statements to downgrade the South African Embassy in Tel Aviv and he simply cannot contain his disdain for a foreign policy that takes action in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Ferguson addresses South African Zionists, seeking to bring them closer to government so they might strengthen their influence on government policy. He does so by arguing that it is better not to criticise, but rather to welcome the recall of our ambassador in order to constrain the South African government from taking more substantial action against Israel.

Given that the majority of South Africans support the ambassadorial recall following the Gaza massacre (80% according to a poll Ferguson refers to), he cautions that Jewish institutions and individuals might come under attack from unidentified “extremists” if the government does not take this action at the very least. Raising the spectral figure of “extremists” in South Africa is a disingenuous attempt to punt his position and play on the fears of anti-Semitism. It is tainted with racism, as the only possibility for Ferguson is that extremism comes from the Palestinian side.

He then attempts to ingratiate himself with the current South African administration, flattering Minister Lindiwe Sisulu and President Cyril Ramaphosa as so much more “reasonable” and “informed” than the Zuma-led government. He is trying to discourage them from taking any further sanction against Israel, which would make them “unreasonable” and by implication populist, like Zuma.

However, the ANC resolution, passed at the December 2017 Conference, calls for “an immediate and unconditional downgrade”. Ferguson does not consider that while this resolution was tabled during the Zuma ANC presidency it was unanimously adopted, even by Ramaphosa supporters, and is stated in the closing Conference Declaration following the election of President Ramaphosa. Indeed, Minister Naledi Pandor, in the debate following State President Ramaphosa’s SONA address in February, went further and said that South Africa will “cut diplomatic ties” with Israel. President Ramaphosa has subsequently, on more than one occasion, reminded South Africans of the downgrade resolution as a matter that government has to deal with.

Ferguson also addresses himself to ANC supporters and officials, arguing that maintaining diplomatic relations with Israel will make us a serious player in the “Palestinian-Israeli problem”.

First, the “problem” is that Israel is a colonial state that has refused to fulfil any of the UN resolutions since 1948 or its commitments under the 1993 Oslo Peace Process that was supposed to have led to a two-state solution.

Second, he argues that if we cut ties with Israel they will not allow us to operate our diplomatic mission in the West Bank, which only goes to show exactly how Israel holds total control of the Palestinian territories. It is also questionable given that both Venezuela and Bolivia cut diplomatic relations with Israel but maintain their Ramallah missions. Furthermore, it would be a signal to the international community of South Africa’s weakness if we countenanced this consideration.

Third, we cannot be held to ransom over a seat at the UN Security Council when other countries that do not have diplomatic relations – or do not even recognise the state of Israel – have held such seats. Currently Bolivia and Kuwait have non-permanent seats and do not have diplomatic relations with Israel.

Fourth, why should the fact that some of Israel’s neighbours have diplomatic relations influence our foreign policy? Our foreign policy, as Minister Sisulu has argued, should be based on our values and principles as a country – irrespective of whether “neighbouring states” have the same values or not. Indeed, “neighbours” such as Jordan and Egypt are not democratic states, and our foreign policy should not be influenced by dictatorships.

The crux of the matter is that Ferguson has always considered it “futile” for South African diplomacy to act in solidarity with the Palestinian people. I worked with him in the early 2000s when he was Chief Director: Middle East in the then Department of Foreign Affairs. At that time he was most concerned with ensuring that there was no trade or diplomatic break with Israel, in spite of acts of Israeli violence against the institutions of the Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank, the infrastructure in Gaza and, of course, the Palestinian people.

Although we held a number of engagements that brought together senior Palestinian and Israeli negotiators among others, such as the Spier process, it was increasingly evident that Israel had no interest in moving towards genuine negotiations on the final status issues to create two states as envisaged under the Oslo Peace Process. Israel therefore was not taking us seriously, and indeed used the fact that we were trying to play a role of “neutral” mediator to pressure the South African government into silencing criticism of Israel and to increase trade relations. More recently, Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said that there will never be a Palestinian state or that such a “state” will have no control over its borders, airspace, water or gas resources and security. In short, Israel seems willing only to recognise a Bantustan that will have fewer powers than did Bophuthatswana or Transkei.

The fact is that the Oslo Peace Process has been completely torpedoed by Israel. Over the past 25 years Israel has continued to build settlements, built an illegal wall and established checkpoints around the constantly expanding settlements in the West Bank, creating Bantustans and restricting Palestinian movement within areas that were supposed to have formed part of a Palestinian State. It has laid siege to Gaza – a “toxic slum” as UN Human Rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein called it last week – and raised much of it to the ground in numerous bombardments, most cruelly in Operation Cast Lead (2008-9) and in 2014.
And since 30 March 2018, when Palestinian civil society in Gaza started its peaceful Great March of Return protest, Israel has killed at least 113 Palestinians and wounded more than 12,000 people – many maimed for life.

In light of Israel’s intransigence and aggression, it is little wonder that the vast majority of South Africans, including ANC members, have demanded that South Africa strengthen solidarity with the Palestinians and take actions to isolate apartheid Israel.

It was only by internationally isolating apartheid South Africa in support of popular uprisings, strikes and armed struggle that we were able to put enough pressure on the regime to come to the table and negotiate a South Africa that belongs to all who live in it.

Likewise, we need to intensify pressure on our government to immediately cut diplomatic ties with Israel, signalling to the world – and especially to the Palestinian people – that we have not forgotten their support for us during our Struggle. We must heed the call of the international BDS movement and demand complete trade sanctions: sport, cultural and academic boycotts; disinvestment and an arms embargo in support of Palestine that belongs to all who live in it.

Acting resolutely in solidarity with the Palestinian people is far from what Ferguson calls “mouthing of cheap slogans and boycotting engagement with the Israelis as an expression of outrage”. Rather, it will demonstrate confidence in our “international prestige” by standing for equal rights, justice and a sustainable peace while encouraging people in other countries and multilateral fora to do similarly.

It is these actions that will achieve exactly what Ferguson purports to support: crafting our foreign policy as an expression of our own constitutional aspirations. 

DM

Roshan Dadoo grew up in exile and was an activist in the Anti Apartheid Movement and ANC structures. She worked for the South African High Commission in the UK from 1996-2000 when she joined the Department of Foreign Affairs (now Department of International Relations and Co-operation). She served in the Middle East section, the Deputy Ministry and as Political Counsellor in the South African Embassy in Algeria (2004-2008). From 2009 to 2015 Roshan worked for the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa and is currently studying for a Masters degree in Development Studies. She has been active in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in the UK and in South Africa.

THE DEATH OF THE 2 STATE ILLUSION THOSE WHO SUPPORT TWO STATES SUPPORT A TWO STATE SOLUTION

This article comes from Tony Greenstein's blog. It is one of the best analyses I have yet read, and it is all the better because it makes mincemeat of the mainstream media with their pathetic bleatings about what is going on in Palestine and the ongoing disaster for the Palestinian people in their native land and the stealing thereof of an occupying settler nation which has really got no claim to the land whatever.

When is the world going to sit up and do something about it - if ever? And at the moment the world means the US of A.

As a South African, I have seen the worst aspects of an apartheid state, but Israel has managed to amplify it a thousand times over.

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Tuesday, 22 May 2018

Israel/Palestine is already one state –the only people who talk of 2 States are Zionists

The Death of the 2 State Illusion

Those Who Support 2 States

Support an Apartheid Solution

Another brilliant article from Israel’s premier journalist, Gideon Levy.  It can only be a matter of time, perhaps when Netanyahu has finally silenced the few remaining NGO’s and human rights organisations that attention will be turned to Levy and Amira Hass and the other journalists who aren’t prepared to play ball with Zionism.

There are some gullible fools and political cowards unfortunately in the Palestine solidarity movement, who still call for a 2 State solution  These naive souls, amongst which one must count the Executive of the Palestine Solidarity  Campaign, who sincerely believe that the Israeli government is going to agree to a separate Palestinian state.

It is difficult to know whether these people actually believe this, because it is always hard to get inside someone’s head.  The fact that Netanyahu stated at the last election that there would be no  2 state solution, the fact that there is no member of his ruling coalition who calls for a Palestinian state is irrelevant.  When Tzipi Hotoveli, Israel’s religious nut of a Deputy Foreign Minister and a member of Likud states that “We need to return to the basic truth of our rights to this country,” she said. “This land is ours. All of it is ours. We did not come here to apologise for that.” what part of that I wonder do these people not understand?

The Israeli Labour Party also doesn’t believe in a 2 state solution.  Sure they pay lip service to it but the position as outlined by their leader Avi Gabbay is opposition to the dismantlement of the settlements.  The settlements have been so constructed as to prevent a 2 state solution and without their being dismantled any Palestinian state would have more holes in it than a Swiss cheese.

The Times of Israel of 2^nd November 2017 summed up the situation perfectly: After pro-settlement comments, Gabbay reiterates support for two-state solution

Of course I would be less than honest if I didn’t confess to opposing 2 states on principle.  The root cause of the problem in Palestine is not two peoples fighting over one piece of land as liberal Zionists pretend but a settler colonial movement which displaced an indigenous population and erected a racial supremacists state as in South Africa.  A 2 state solution, even were it feasible, would be a monstrosity.  Israel would be even more racist and aggressive.  The Palestinian state, which would be a Bantustan in practice, would be a horrific police state whose main job was to police its own subjects in order to keep Israel satisfied, because there would be a massive power imbalance between them.  Indeed the Palestinian ‘state’ would be something like the quisling entity that the Palestinian Authority operates at the moment.

That is why I opposed, in 1993, the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO.  At the time I resigned from PSC over the issue when, at an emergency conference, two-thirds of the meeting agreed to support them. My views on them are best represented in a debate with Julia Bard of the Jewish Socialists Group in the pages of National Labour Briefing, A Mess of Potage in October 1993.

In the article I said that:

The Accord divides the Palestinian nation in two. It excludes not only _ those Palestinians living inside pre-1967 Israel, but the two million Palestinians who were exiled in 1948 and 1967. It explicitly rules out the right of return. Israel continues to control the Allenby bridge to Jordan.

Under the Accord Israel will retain control over land, water and resources. The Palestinians will collect their own garbage, control education and health and police themselves. In effect, the prison guards will be removed from inside to outside the prison walls.

The debate is reproduced in Oslo Revisited - Debate Between Julia Bard (JSG) & Tony Greenstein (Return)

Zionism was not founded in order to establish a state in half the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael).  It claims the whole land.  Indeed the biblical Land of Israel extends up to the Litani river in Lebanon and down to the Nile in Egypt and across to the Euphrates in Iraq, so there is quite a way to go.  The idea of stopping half way and handing over 22% of the territory of Mandate Palestine is absurd.

Of course there are some people who talk about 2 states who know full well that it will never be achieved.  Firstly Zionist organisations in this country, in particular Labour Friends of Israel and the Jewish Labour Movement but also the Board of Deputies of British Jews support 2 states.  However these same organisations support all Israel’s repressive actions in the Territories.  They all support the Occupation wholeheartedly.  Yet unless there is sufficient opposition to the military occupation, there is no chance that Israel will unilaterally hand over part of the West Bank for a state. 

We saw that last week when the Board of Deputies and Labour Friends of Israel rushed to support the Israeli army's gunning down of 60 unarmed Palestinian demonstrators whilst blaming the violence, not on those who did the shooting but on the victims (for which Hamas is the all-purpose address).

It should therefore clear that these organisations are hypocritical liars.  They know that there will never be a 2 state solution as does the pro-Zionist Alliance for Workers Liberty, an allegedly Trotskyist organisation.  So why do they support 2 states?  Because that is the best way to undermine calls for the only possible solution to Israeli Apartheid, a democratic, secular state in the whole of Palestine.  Support for 2 States is also a way of opposing the call for equal rights for all those under Israeli rule, i.e. an end to the present Apartheid situation.

There are of course a second group, such as Jeremy Corbyn, who have no analysis worthy of the name and simply oppose Israeli repression and call for a 2 State Solution because they fondly imagine that the ‘international community’ will put pressure on Israel to conform.  However it should be obvious even to these people that the United States, which is in essence the ‘international community’ has no intention whatsoever of pressurising Israel to agree to a 2 state solution.

Emily Thornberry, Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary also calls for 2 States.  I have no doubt whatsoever that she does not believe it is possible.  She is an ardent Zionist and a member of Labour Friends of Israel.  As such her posturing on the issue is entirely cynical.  She is above all a supporter of the Atlantic Alliance and the special relationship with the USA.  Israel is integral to that.

The reality today is that there is already one state.  As Gideon Levy says, there is no border between pre-1967 Israel and today’s Greater Israel.  The only question therefore is whether or not all those living under Israeli rule should be granted equal rights.  Those who oppose this are supporters of the present Apartheid situation.  Of course this will mean that there will no longer be a Jewish State.   That is not such a loss.  What is a Jewish state?  Does a state pray to god or put on tefillin (phylacteries)?  A Jewish state simply means a state where Jews have more rights than non-Jews.  It is a Jewish supremacist state and no one who calls themselves a socialist should have anything to do with such a concept.

Tony Greenstein 

A debate on the Oslo Accords in Labour Briefing in October 1993 with the Jewish Socialist's Julia Bard

Calling Israel a democracy when less than half its subjects live in freedom is a propaganda trick that has worked better than one would have thought

Gideon Levy   Apr 15, 2018 

FILE PHOTO: Arrests at the Gaza border, 2007AP

With the approach this week of celebrations marking Israel’s 70th birthday, 12 million people live in the country. Some of them are citizens, some are residents, some are detainees, and all are subjects. Everyone’s fate has been determined by the country’s governing institutions.

On this Independence Day, we have to acknowledge that the country’s genuine borders are the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the Jordan River to the east, including not only the West Bank but also the Gaza Strip. Israel controls all this territory and everyone who lives there through various and sundry means, even if from a legal standpoint there’s no mention of this.

Forget the law. Israel long ago abandoned it. In practice it rules Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the case of Gaza, it suffices with control from the outside, which is more convenient. On Israel’s 70th birthday, the time has come to recognize that the occupation of the territories in 1967 is not temporary. It was never meant to be and never will be. The 1967 border has been erased. The distinction between 1948 and 1967 doesn’t exist.

It was only in the state’s first 19 years, a blink of an eye from a historical perspective, that the country existed without the territories. For the balance of its history, the occupation has been an inseparable part of it, its character, its government, its essence, its DNA. What existed here for a brief time and is gone will not be coming back.

It’s critical that we rip the cover off the alleged transience of the occupation, which for some Israelis has been a sweet delusion and for others a dangerous threat. There is an abyss dividing a temporary occupation and a permanent one.

In its early years, Israel was small in area and population, but its youth, like everyone’s youth, quickly passed. For most of its existence, Israel hasn’t resembled the girl we remember. Its days as a small country with a Jewish majority have passed and the clock can’t be turned back. It’s no longer the small woman of our dreams. It’s the big woman of our nightmares.

On Israel’s 70th birthday, the time has come to recognize that Israel is a binational state under whose control two peoples live, equal in size. It maintains separate governing systems for them: a democratic one for Jews, discrimination for Israeli Arabs, and dictatorship for Palestinians. It’s not an equal democracy for all its subjects, meaning, of course, that it’s not a democracy.

There’s no such democracy where what’s allowed for one people isn’t for another. Therefore, on its 70th anniversary, Israel being called a democracy when fewer than half its subjects live in freedom is nothing but a propaganda trick that has worked to a greater extent than one would have thought.

It’s not only Israelis who deny and repress this reality. It’s more convenient for the Western world, too, to look at Israel’s more enlightened side, to ignore its dark side and continue to call it a democracy. After all, in the West, what country hasn’t also had such a colonialist back yard? And who could really confront Israel, a country that rose from the ashes?

Israel is therefore the darling of the West, despite the hollow lip service to the Palestinians, and so the West too has embraced the excuse of the occupation’s temporary nature: “Just wait, wait a little longer for the ‘peace process’ and the Israelis will be pulling out of the territories.” So it’s important that the lie of the transience of the occupation be exposed.

If the occupation isn’t temporary, it would be clear that Israel isn’t a democracy but rather an apartheid state par excellence. Two peoples and two systems of rights. That’s was apartheid looks like, even if it hides behind excuses ranging from temporariness to security grounds, from the right to the land to the concept of the chosen people, including the divine promise and messianic redemption.

These excuses don’t change the picture. In South Africa, no doubt an apartheid state, the regime invoked similar excuses to justify its existence. No one bought them. But with Israel there actually are buyers. One difference between South Africa and Israel is that Israel is stronger, more sophisticated and better connected to the world. And it has done a better job obscuring its apartheid.

It’s big, strong and nondemocratic. Israel oppresses the Palestinians through various means with one result: There isn’t a single free Palestinian in the West Bank or Gaza Strip. Their fate is determined by the Israeli government in Jerusalem and the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, and they have no rights at either one. Is this not apartheid? Is it democracy?

And now on to the showy and proud Independence Day ceremonies planned by Culture Minister Miri Regev. Let’s not rain on her parade.                

Posted by Tony Greenstein at 19:00 2 Comments

HSBC: Put your money where your mouth is on human rights

Time to up the heat on HSBC, writes Marienna Pope-Weidemann, as War on Want call on the bank to stop arming Israel.

19 April 2018 Red Pepper online journal
 

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Marienna Pope-Weidemann is War on Want's press officer. @MariennaPW

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Against incredible odds, Palestinians continue to resist Israel’s system of oppression, demanding freedom and justice and calling on people of conscience here in the UK to do all we can to stop UK corporations from supporting – and profiting from – Israeli apartheid. That’s what this campaign is all about.

During recent demonstrations in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military has once again shown the world its willingness to turn deadly force on unarmed civilians.

 Despite calls for restraint from the UN, at least 30 Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli security forces, with one video surfacing which showed an onlooker cheering as an Israeli sniper shot an unarmed Palestinian protester.

To find those responsible, we don’t just need to look as far as the Israeli state or even the UK, which arms it. If you have an HSBC branch on your high street, there’s complicity much closer to home.

Financial institutions are a crucial link in the chain of complicity in Palestinian oppression; this includes some of the UK’s biggest banks. HSBC holds £831 million pounds worth of shares in companies selling weapons and military technology to Israel, such as BAE Systems,  Boeing, and Elbit Systems. Weapons and military technology made by these companies are used in Israeli attacks on Palestinians, not just when global headlines flare up around major offensives, but also as part of the daily brutality and violence of Israel’s apartheid system. 

This includes extrajudicial executions, mass arrests, use of live ammunition to disperse unarmed crowds, and house demolitions using armoured bulldozers.

Israel’s illegal military blockade and large scale bombings of the Gaza Strip have contributed to a historic humanitarian crisis. Two million residents live in Gaza without reliable electricity. 70 percent of the population has no access to clean water, more than half suffer from food insecurity and tens of thousands have been left displaced, injured and traumatised by successive bombardments.

One of the most damning companies in HSBC’s list of shareholdings is Elbit Systems, one of Israel’s largest arms manufacturers, which has made white phosphorous for military use and  cluster munition cannons sold to the Israeli military. Cluster munitions are banned under an international treaty signed by the UK because they disperse smaller bombs over a wide area, posing a deadly threat to civilians in densely populated areas. 
  
In response to War on Want’s queries, HSBC has hidden behind a Defence Equipment Sector Policy, which states that HSBC does not provide financial services to arms companies. It was War on Want’s Deadly Investments investigation which revealed HSBC was still listed as a shareholder in at least 19 arms companies that sell weapons to Israel. Our investigation exposed that the policy has built-in loopholes that allow for it to continue to actively maintain business relationships with some of the world’s largest arms companies.

Over 18,000 people have already taken action by writing to HSBC Group Chief Executive John Flint, and over 20 HSBC branches across the UK have been regularly targeted by campaigners inspired by the Palestinian call on campaigners to take up divestment campaigns focused on banks and other companies involved in arming Israel.

The focus on HSBC comes at a shaky time for the bank, as it is also embroiled in a host of tax-dodging scandals, and was at the centre of reports on companies with the worst gender pay gaps. With these reputational issues already at play, HSBC has been growing increasingly nervous about the Stop Arming Israel campaign. And to us, that means one thing: time to turn up the heat.

This Friday from 10am-2pm, War on Want, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and Boycott Israel Network will be protesting outside the HSBC Annual General Meeting to raise awareness and put pressure on shareholders. 

With the UN Secretary General calling for an independent inquiry into Israel’s use of force against unarmed Palestinian protesters this month and the UN compiling a list of companies complicit in Israeli violations of international law, the Palestinian call for divestment has never had broader support. The time has come for HSBC to put its money where its mouth is: stop arming Israel and end its corporate complicity in oppression wherever it exists.

MICHAEL KROGER - ANOTHER ZIONIST WHO LIVES IN AUSTRALIA

Michael Kroger, the latest zionist to come out of the closet, is now taking the Greens candidate for the Batman by-election to task because of her support for BDS.

The candidate, Alex Bhathal, has now stated that she doesn't support all of the BDS items, particularly two of them.

There are probably more zionists in 2018 in Australia than there are in Israel, but unlike those in Israel where most are probably Jewish, the vast majority of those in Australia are Christian.

The question is, why??

The answer must assuredly be that they are trying to get the Jewish zionists to move to Israel, thus saving them the problem of their ongoing anti-semitism.

After all, there are only somewhere between 100,000 and 120,000 Jews in Australia, and once Isael has kicked out most of the African refugees there and also the Palestinian Israeli citizens who still live in the so-called officially recognised  "borders" of Israel, there will be more than enough extra places for Australian Jewish zionists.

After all, apart from the Christian zionists like Michael Kroger, there are the fanatical Jewish zionists like the federal member for Israel Michael Danby - who still calls Australia home.

Does Michael Kroger know that there are many Jews in Australia who do not toe the zionist/Israel line and who support BDS?

Many of them also don't fear the political consequences of complete boycotts of Israel as some of the Greens seem to do. The Greens still have a great deal of growing up to do, and they should have trips to South Africa and learn what BDS achieved there in the apartheid years.

Of course Israel apartheid is easier to enforce because of the numbers involved, but with the ongoing genocide of the Palestinians, the Israelis hope to one day have the numbers.

The following report was from Mondoweiss on 20 MARCH 2017 after the Israeli authorities had done their best to censor its publication by the United Nations:

ISRAELI PRACTICES TOWARDS THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE AND THE QUESTION OF APARTHEID

THE GUARDIAN, ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN AND "THE ONLY DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST, ISRAEL"

I personally don't think I can add much to what Tony Greenstein has laid out below, but let's go back to the old days when this "august" newspaper was known as the Manchester Guardian. Back then I believe the newspaper was known for its generally left-wing views on the political issues of the day - after WWII from 1950 onwards.

In its later manifestation it had gained so much readership from elsewhere in the UK south of Manchester that it changed its name to "The Guardian.

When one of South Africa's remaining anti-apartheid newspapers was busy collapsing due to the ramifications of the apartheid government - the South African one, not the Israeli one -  the Guardian  more or stepped in and provided an alternative newspaper voice and the paper in South Africa to this day is called the Mail and Guardian.

The Guardian along the way has spread its wings until these days, in the 2000s, it is as right wing as they come. 

What a shame and what a disgrace is their behaviour towards Antony Loewenstein and others who have other political views to the developing right-wing approach being pushed by the Guardian.

What a let-down to everybody in this reactionary political climate around the world to have what was one of the remaining newspapers with a little proper journalism still left, losing the plot altogether and supporting apartheid Israel at a time when Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions are beginning to show their effect on apartheid Israel.

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Saturday, 24 December 2016 - from Tony Greenstein blog

Guardian Cowardice as it abandons Antony Loewenstein to Israel's Ministry of Information

Antony Loewenstein's profile on Guardian website which lists over a 100 articles he has written

The article below by Jonathan Cook, a freelance journalist who used to work for The Guardian is self-explanatory.  A journalist, Antony Loewenstein, who has contributed 90 articles to the Guardian over the past 3 years as a freelance journalist, had the temerity to ask a difficult question of Israel’s uber-racist politician Yair Lapid, the head of Yesh Atid.  Lapid masquerades as a Zionist centrist but he is virtually indistinguishable from Netanyahu. 

Antony Loewenstein - his crime was asking an uncomfortable question of Israeli MK and leader of Yesh Atid, Yair Lapid, a notorious racist opposed to 'mixed-race' i.e. Jewish-Arab liaisons

Loewenstein dared ask whether Israel’s treatment of the millions of Palestinians under military rule merited the accolade of it being an Apartheid state.   Nothing makes the defenders of ‘Israeli democracy’ bristle more than the word ‘Apartheid’ though quite how you describe a situation where 4 million Palestinians are held under military rule for nigh on 50 years at the very same time as Jewish settlers are subject to normal civil law, defies me.  Jimmy Carter, the former US President, was given similar treatment when he made this obvious comparison too.

HonestReporting is one of the many Israeli funded groups which dedicated themselves to combating unsympathetic coverage of Israeli and Zionist repression and racism

Either way a nasty little campaign has arisen, during which it has been falsely claimed that Loewenstein claimed to work for the Guardian as a permanent correspondent.  Loewenstein has been made the target of the so-called HonestReporting group, one of these Israeli funded groups whose main purpose in life is to intimidate journalists who are not singing from Israel’s hymn sheet.  When they contacted the Guardian to ask whether in fact Loewenstein works for them, rather than being told he is a freelance journalist who contributes copy, the Guardian distanced themselves from him. 

A cursory visit to Lowenstein’s profile on the Guardian website shows just how many articles he’s contributed in the past few.  The total is about 105. For the Guardian to now distance himself from the Israeli government and its Zionist chorus who wish to expel inconvenient journalists is despicable.

Tony Greenstein

Guardian newspaper fails to support colleague facing deportation threat from Israeli government

23 December 2016

Mondoweiss – 23 December 2016

Harriet Sherwood, former Guardian Israel correspondent, now their religious affairs correspondent.  Perhaps appropriate since her behaviour towards Loewenstein resembleds that of Judas towards Jesus

Israel is reported to be ready to expel an award-winning Australian journalist and writer, Antony Loewenstein, after he asked a too-probing question of an Israeli politician at a media event last week. Government officials have said they are investigating how they can deny him his work visa when it comes up for renewal in March.

It is unsurprising to learn that Israel has no serious regard for press freedom. But more depressing has been the lack of solidarity shown by journalistic colleagues, most especially the Guardian newspaper, for which he has regularly worked as a freelancer since 2013. Not only has the paper failed to offer him any support, but its management and staff reporters have hurried to distance themselves from him.

Sherwood on Twitter demonstrating that when it comes to solidarity with journalists under attack, the Guardian's journalists retreat by example

A deferential foreign press

Loewenstein has been under fire since he attended the event in Jerusalem, hosted by the Foreign Press Association (FPA), on December 12. According to the Israeli media, he asked former government minister Yair Lapid: “Is there not a deluded idea here that many Israeli politicians, including yourself, continue to believe that one can talk to the world about democracy, freedom and human rights while denying that to millions of Palestinians, and will there not come a time soon, in a year, five years, 10 years, when you and other politicians will be treated like South African politicians during Apartheid?”

Peter Beaumont - Guardian's Jerusalem correspondent in the normal act of solidarity one expects of Guardian journalists denied all knowledge of Loewenstein 

Israeli politicians are not used to hearing such difficult questions from members of the FPA, a professional association for journalists working in Israel. The reason for their deference to Israeli officials was explained to me a few years ago by an FPA insider. He revealed that not only are most of these correspondents Jewish – as Loewenstein himself is – but, unlike Loewenstein, they deeply identify with Israel. They live in Israel, not the occupied territories, they speak Hebrew, send their children to Israeli schools and expect them to serve in the Israeli army. Some of the reporters have served in the army themselves.

Perhaps most famously, former New York Times bureau chief Ethan Bronner was embarrassed in 2010 by the disclosure that he and the NYT had not divulged that his son was serving in the Israeli army while Bronner reported from the region. There was nothing exceptional about Bronner’s professional conflict of interest. My confidant told me: “I can think of a dozen foreign bureau chiefs, responsible for covering both Israel and the Palestinians, who have served in the Israeli army, and another dozen who like Bronner have kids in the Israeli army.”

He added: “The degree to which Bronner’s personal life, like that of most lead journalists here, is integrated into Israeli society, makes him an excellent candidate to cover Israeli political life, cultural shifts and intellectual life. The problem is that Bronner is also expected to be his paper’s lead voice on Palestinian political life, cultural shifts and intellectual life, all in a society he has almost no connection to, deep knowledge of or even the ability to directly communicate with.”

Most publications appear to believe that the benefits of employing openly partisan reporters – and all of them partisan towards the same party in the conflict – outweighs any potential damage to claims that they are neutral and impartial. The outlets hope their partisanship will offer them an advantage: gaining unfettered access to the corridors of power, whether in the Israeli government or army.

With this background in mind, it is possible to understand why Loewenstein described the tenor of the FPA event in the following terms: “With a few notable exceptions, the vast majority of journalists in attendance were deferential to Lapid and asked him bland questions.”

No support from the FPA

Loewenstein’s failure to follow the standard FPA rules of politesse when addressing an Israeli politician triggered a campaign against him by Honest Reporting. The group is one of several US-based media lobby organizations whose job is to intimidate foreign media organizations on behalf of the Israeli government. In this way, they have been successful in limiting critical coverage of Israel even further. Staff reporters tend to self-censor, while freelance journalists are pressured to leave the region.

In a transparent maneuver, Honest Reporting sought to paint Loewenstein as politically extreme for his past support for BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions), and as an activist rather than a journalist. That is no easy task. In addition to the Guardian, he has written for many leading publications in Europe, Australia and the US, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, the Nation, Le Monde diplomatique, the Huffington Post, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, and many more.

He has also written several books covering a diverse range of topics, including his best-seller My Israel Question, in which he considers his own Jewish identity and relates it to issues of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. (Full disclosure: I contributed a chapter to a 2012 volume, After Zionism, he edited with Ahmed Moor.) He is currently working on a documentary based on his book Disaster Capitalism.

In other words, Loewenstein is not only a journalist; he is the gold-standard for serious independent, critical-thinking journalists. Which, of course, is precisely the reason Israel would want him gone.

Ignoring the deep, but entirely acceptable partisanship of the vast majority of reporters in Jerusalem, Honest Reporting has accused Loewenstein of partiality: “Loewenstein is clearly incapable of reporting on Israel in a fair and objective manner. Yet Honest Reporting has learned that he happens to be a paid up associate member of Israel’s Foreign Press Association.”

It is the traditional and self-defined responsibility of journalists to hold power to account, yet, sadly, the FPA has failed to come to Loewenstein’s defense. In response to Honest Reporting, it said it had accepted him as a non-voting associate member “based on his career as a freelance journalist”. But then added only: “While we do not endorse his views, we also do not screen our members for their opinions.”

So no words of support from the FPA for Loewenstein as he faces being stripped of the right to report from the region (and not just from Israel, as Honest Reporting dishonestly claims, but also from the occupied territories, since Israel controls all access to Palestinian areas). Not a word of condemnation of Israel from the FPA for crushing press freedom. Just a shrug of the shoulders.

Loewenstein should not be surprised. The FPA has barely bothered to raise its voice in solidarity with journalistic colleagues in the region whose rights are being trampled on a systematic basis. 

Palestinian journalists have been regularly killed, wounded, beaten up or jailed, earning Israel a ranking of 101 out of 180 countries this year in the Reporters without Borders index. That places it below Liberia, Bhutan, East Timor and Gabon, and a nudge ahead of Uganda, Kuwait, and Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Honest Reporting saw its chance to set a trap for Loewenstein to get him out of the region. More than a decade ago, Israel’s Government Press Office (GPO) introduced new rules that tightly controlled coverage in its favor. In a non-transparent procedure, independent journalists have to persuade the GPO that they deserve to be issued with a work visa.

In February, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ executive director, Robert Mahoney, criticised Israel for this patronage system. “It is virtually impossible to work as a reporter in Israel and the occupied territories without a press card,” he said. “The threat of withdrawing accreditation is a heavy handed approach at stifling unwelcome coverage.”

The Guardian distances itself

Honest Reporting has created a phony controversy about how Loewenstein received his work visa in a bid to discredit him. In fact, Loewenstein should easily meet the formal requirements for a freelance visa, as he has written far more than seven articles for major publications in the last year. But Honest Reporting is seeking to confect a row to justify the GPO refusing to renew his visa in March.

It did so by questioning the Guardian about his connection to the paper, hoping that it could get the paper to dissociate itself from him. Without a shred of evidence, it suggested that Loewenstein might have lied to the GPO, claiming he was a Guardian accredited journalist, to get his visa.

How did the Guardian respond? According to Honest Reporting, its head of international news, Jamie Wilson, told them that “Loewenstein was contracted to write comment pieces for Guardian Australia and remains an occasional comment contributor but he ‘is not a news correspondent for the Guardian in Israel’. It was also relayed to us that Loewenstein has now been told to in future make sure he does not reference The Guardian at press conferences unless he is working on a direct commission."

Further, their Jerusalem correspondent Peter Beaumont emailed the group to deny any knowledge of Loewenstein. And its former Jerusalem correspondent and now religious affairs reporter Harriet Sherwood entered the fray on Facebook: “Why is this guy claiming to be a Guardian writer when all I can find in our archive is occasional opinion pieces and nothing since August?” For the record, Loewenstein has written more than 90 articles for the Guardian since 2013.

One might wonder how it is that neither Beaumont nor Sherwood appear to have heard of Loewenstein when he has written several books on Israel and Palestine, and writes for their own paper and other leading publications on a range of issues, including Israel and Palestine. But then I suspect they may have a rather narrow range of reference points for their coverage – most of them doubtless FPA regulars.

But what is more significant is that none of the relevant actors at the Guardian has shown an ounce of solidarity with Loewenstein, as the Israeli lobby seeks to get him kicked out of the country for doing proper journalism. They have also inadvertently conspired with Honesty Reporting in misrepresenting him.

Despite Honest Reporting’s accusations, Loewenstein says he stated clearly in his GPO application that he was a freelance journalist. And it is simply inconceivable that he could have professed to be a Guardian reporter to the GPO without being found out. The GPO knows precisely who represents all the big media outlets in Jerusalem.

Further, according to a source at the FPA event, Loewenstein was clear about his status when he addressed Lapid. He said he was freelance journalist who had contributed to various publications including the Guardian.

Predictably, Honest Reporting’s managing editor, Simon Plosker, was delighted by the Guardian’s response: “The Guardian’s distancing itself from Loewenstein is a welcome development.”

So far the Guardian appears to have issued no criticism of Honest Reporting for its deceptions in this matter, or retracted its own misguided comments.

The Guardian — far from the fearless watchdog

Loewenstein may have hoped that the Guardian would stand by him. But my own early experiences in Israel with the paper suggest this is part of a pattern of cowardly behavior when it is under attack from Israeli officials or the Israel lobby.

I had an established relationship with the Guardian when I arrived in Israel as a freelancer early in the second intifada, in September 2001. I had previously worked on staff in its foreign department in London for several years. I used those contacts to begin pitching stories, and a few of the less controversial ones were commissioned by the paper.

It is standard journalistic practice when writing articles to give parties that come in for criticism a chance to respond. Therefore, in a piece on the Israeli army, I called the army spokesperson’s office for a comment. As is also standard practice, I introduced myself and cited where the piece would be published.

Less than an hour after the conversation, I was surprised to receive a furious phone call from the Guardian foreign desk in London. The Israeli army spokesperson had called the paper’s then-correspondent, Suzanne Goldenberg, to ask who I was and why I was writing for the paper. Goldenberg called the desk and threw a tantrum about my referring to the Guardian.

Then I had the most bizarre exchange in my journalistic career – and I have had a few. The foreign desk banned me from mentioning the Guardian in calls to any Israeli officials.

“But if I am commissioned by the Guardian to write a piece, like this one, and an official asks me who I am writing for, what am I supposed to say?” I asked incredulous.

I was told: “We don’t care – just don’t mention the Guardian. Things are difficult for us and Suzanne right now, and we don’t need you making more trouble for us.”

It was a revealing moment. Far from the fearless watchdog of popular imagination, the Guardian showed its true colors. It was petrified of actually doing its self-professed job of monitoring the centers of power. And the Guardian is one of the most critical publications on Israel. Imagine how much more feeble the rest are, if Guardian staff are so fearful of incurring the wrath of Israeli officials.

Time for the Guardian to step up

The Guardian now needs to make amends to Loewenstein, rather than allowing itself to be implicated in Israel’s ugly McCarthyism. It could stand in journalistic solidarity with him. It would not take much, just a simple act of journalistic courage and refusal to allow Israel to control who gets to report on the region.

The Guardian could do it by giving Loewenstein official accreditation. That would remove the GPO’s pretext for expelling him. It would not mean he was the paper’s Jerusalem correspondent. It would simply be a declaration by the paper that it believes in a free press and does not wants to see him silenced. Or is that too much to expect from the Guardian? 

Posted by Tony Greenstein at 03:48 5 Comments