17 July 2005

www.MiddleEast.Org

News, Views, & Analysis Governments, Lobbies, & the
Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know

Upcoming Exclusively from MER -- "The tragedy of 'Peace Rabbi' Balfour Brickner"

"I think we all know
that a slow form of 
ethnic cleansing is 
happening now and they
have waited to see 
what the world will do
if they accelerate it.
The world does little 
or nothing and 
therefore I think they
feel safe to do so.  
Certainly based on 
everything I have been
reading since the 
start of the 2nd 
Intifada, my visit to 
Palestine 3 years ago 
and the whole history 
of Zionism it makes a 
terrible sense."

   - Judith Weismann
     Canada

MER
P.O. Box 4918
Washington, DC 20008

A BIG WARNING
TOO LATE
TOO LITTLE
WRONG STRATEGY

MER - MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 17 July:
Israel's real policies are indeed not even close to the stated 'public relations' policies. What the Israelis are really doing is far worse than Apartheid of old and a kind of 'stealth ethnic cleansing', picking up on a term we first used in detailing the 'stealth assassination' of Yasser Arafat. Indeed, the current Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, has a lifelong history of bloodthirsty ruthlessness and gross deception going way back to the 1950s when he led the first Israeli military unit that began killing, assassinating, and expelling Palestinians. He has been severely repremanded many times even by other Israeli leaders, and in fact after the horrible refugee camp massacres of 1982 was officially found partly responsible by an official Israeli investigative commission that recommended he never again serve in any powerful position in the Israeli government. But what is happening is hardly only about Ariel Sharon. He was a close confidant of Yitzhak Rabin, who in fact held a secret private meeting with him during his own years as Prime Minister. And his current deputy and former Foreign Minister is none other than Shimon Peres.
Unfortunately, tragically, those who oppose what the Israelis are doing are not only very weak, they are badly organized and led -- miserably and probably fatally in fact. This 'Warning' Statement 'to raise the alarm' published over the weekend by three Israelis is an example -- correct in the warnings and conclusions, badly written, even more badly presented, and without any serious strategy other than a kind of pathetic assertion to sign another petition that has no chance of any kind of having any impact...only further misleading people as to what is really involved and what the situation really requires.

What May Come After the Evacuation
of Jewish Settlers from the Gaza Strip

A Warning from Israel

By URI DAVIS, ILAN PAPPE, and TAMAR YARON

We feel that it is urgent and necessary to raise the alarm regarding what may come during and after evacuation of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip occupied by Israel in 1967, in the event that the evacuation is implemented.

We held back on getting this statement published and circulated, seeking additional feedback from our peers. The publication in Ha'aretz (22 June 2005) quoting statements by General (Reserves) Eival Giladi, the head of the Coordination and Strategy team of the Prime Minister's Office, motivated us not to delay publication and circulation any further. Confirming our worst fears, General (Res.) Eival Giladi went on record in print and on television to the effect that "Israel will act in a very resolute manner in order to prevent terror attacks and [militant] fire while the disengagement is being implemented" and that "If pinpoint response proves insufficient, we may have to use weaponry that causes major collateral damage, including helicopters and planes, with mounting danger to surrounding people."

We believe that one primary, unstated motive for the determination of the government of the State of Israel to get the Jewish settlers of the Qatif (Katif) settlement block out of the Gaza Strip may be to keep them out of harm's way when the Israeli government and military possibly trigger an intensified mass attack on the approximately one and a half million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, of whom about half are 1948 Palestine refugees.

The scenario could be similar to what has already happened in the past - a tactic that Ariel Sharon has used many times in his military career - i.e., utilizing provocation in order to launch massive attacks.

Following this pattern, we believe that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz are considering to utilize provocation for vicious attacks in the near future on the approximately one and a half million Palestinian inhabitants of the Gaza Strip: a possible combination of intensified state terror and mass killing. The Israeli army is not likely to risk the kind of casualties to its soldiers that would be involved in employing ground troops on a large scale in the Gaza Strip. With General Dan Halutz as Chief of Staff they don't need to. It was General Dan Halutz, in his capacity as Commander of the Israeli Air Force, who authorized the bombing of a civilian Gaza City quarter with a bomb weighing one ton, and then went on record as saying that he sleeps well and that the only thing he feels when dropping a bomb is a slight bump of the aircraft.

The initiators of this alarm have been active for many decades in the defence of human rights inside the State of Israel and beyond. We do not have the academic evidence to support our feeling, but given past behavior, ideological leanings and current media spin initiated by the Israeli government and military, we believe that the designs of the State of Israel are clear, and we submit that our educated intuition with matters pertaining to the defence of human rights has been more often correct than otherwise.

We urge all those who share the concern above to add their names to ours and urgently give this alarm as wide a circulation as possible.

<>Circulating and publishing this text may constitute a significant factor in deterring the Israeli government, thus protecting the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip from this very possible catastrophe and contributing to prevent yet more war crimes from occurring. Please sign, circulate, and publish this alarm without delay!

And from Israeli lobbying groups connected with the Israeli government this summary article trying to criticize and expose for their own followers what is in fact a potentially important and worthwhile -- though so far much too small and slow -- campaign to 'divest' from Israel. It is a campaign that 'could' be meaningful; but it would have to be tremendously expanded and speeded-up immediately, and that is not likely at all.

14 July 2005:

NGOs Behind Anti-Israel Divestment Campaign

The divestment campaign has become the latest political instrument of the drive designed to progressively delegitimize Israel in international frameworks based on the 2001 "Durban strategy". This campaign is being conducted by Protestant Church groups, such as the World Council of Churches, the Presbyterians, the Anglican Church, and the UCC.

As in the Durban conference itself, as well as the university boycott efforts in the UK, the NGO network is playing a central role in this divestment movement. Groups such as Sabeel, a radical Palestinian religio-political organization supported by groups such as the Mennonite Central Committee, have provided the allegations and language repeated in many of the divestment declarations issued by church associations.

Indeed, divestment has been a core theme in the radical anti-Israel activities of NGOs claiming to promote human rights and assistance for the Palestinians, as profiled previously by NGO Monitor. These include Ittajah, BADIL, Al-Mezan, the Arab Association for Human Rights, Nazareth (HRA), ADRID, MIFTAH, along with others. The long list of extremist Palestinian NGOs involved in the divestment campaign was published on Electronic Intifada, which also disclosed that the campaign was timed to coincide with the "one year" anniversary of the ICJ "advisory decision" on Israel's separation barrier. In other words, the UN General Assembly vote, which was also led by the NGO network, was a means to the pseudo-legal ICJ process, which, in turn, is being used to drive the political boycott and divestment campaigns.

The funding for these political NGOs spear-heading the anti-Israel divestment campaign comes from a variety of sources: church groups in Europe and North America (including the Mennonite Central Committee and Christian Aid), government aid agencies (including Canada, Norway, Switzerland and the EU), and foundations (such as the New Israel Fund and the Ford Foundation). These groups continue to exploit claims of support for civil society and human rights in order to further narrow political objectives.

Please send notification of your signature to Tamar Yaron tiyaron@hazorea.org.il

WE WOULD ALSO APPRECIATE RECEIVING NOTIFICATION IF THE ALARM WAS PUBLISHED IN ANY MEDIA AND/OR IF IT WAS SENT TO A GROUP DISTRIBUTION LIST.

Uri Davis, Sakhnin, uridavis@actcom.co.il , Ilan Pappe, Tiv'on, pappe@poli.haifa.ac.il, and Tamar Yaron, Kibbutz Hazorea, tiyaron@hazorea.org.il

Free

The most honest, most comprehensive, and most mobilizing news and
analysis on the Middle East always comes from MER. It is indispensable!"
Robert Silverman - Salamanca, Spain