The Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem received notification from the military prosecution yesterday, informing it that charges will not be filed against an officer who shot an Israeli activist during a 2008 demonstration in Bil’in. B’Tselem intends to appeal the decision.

The incident took place during the weekly demonstration against the separation fence in Bil’in on March15, 2008. At the time, demonstrations used to reach the old route of the fence – which has since been found illegal by the Israeli High Court of Justice but not yet dismantled – and the army would cross the gate in the fence and chase demonstrators back into the village. A video recording of the shooting shows the soldiers marching back towards the fence, and one of them pushing away a photographer standing nearby. At this point, Israeli activist Eran Cohen, standing less than five meters away from the road, is heard shouting, “What are you doing, soldier?! Don’t touch the journalists.” At this point, one of the soldiers, apparently an officer, slightly raises his gun and shoots Cohen in the leg with a rubber-coated bullet, even though it is clear that Cohen was in no way a threat to the soldiers, and that no fighting is taking place elsewhere in the area. The bullet penetrated Cohen’s knee, which was later removed in surgery after Cohen was rushed to the hospital.

Click here to view the embedded video.

At the request of B’Tselem, a military police investigation was launched by the end of that month, and the video was submitted for military inspection. Now, almost four years later, the army says the case is closed and no charges are to be filed. The military prosecution did not elaborate on the reasons for its decision.

A silent approval for unjustified violence

This is in no way a unique case in the history of the popular and joint struggle. According to B’Tselem spokesperson Sarit Michaeli, it is safe to say that on the whole, soldiers and border policemen are not charged with the wounding or even the killing of demonstrators. “While we have countless reports of injuries and more than twenty deaths in demonstrations, and while many incidents are documented with footage, you almost never see investigations ending with indictments,” says Michaeli.

In the past, army regulations required that every death caused by soldiers prompt an investigation by the military police. With the start of the Second Intifada in October 2000, the army openly canceled these regulations, which were put back to force last April. This is why most deaths of demonstrators, peaceful and stone-throwing alike, have not led to investigations, except for two very rare ones: the killing of Bassem Abu-Rahme in Bil’in (caused by a tear gas canister shot directly to his chest), and that of 10-year-old Ahmad Musa in Nil’in  shot in the head with a rubber bullet by a border policeman after a demonstration). Even here, the former has yet to turn into an indictment (investigation was only launched following a long legal struggle on  the family’s part), and in the latter case, the charge is negligent manslaughter. The only demonstration-related conviction activists remember in the many years of the popular struggle was that of the two soldiers who shot the cuffed and blindfolded Ashraf Abu-Rahme in the foot.

While Palestinian and Israeli activists keep documenting attacks on demonstrations, and while NGOs keep filing complaints against the use of force, the army on the whole seems untouched. In December, B’Tselem wrote the army with great concern, reporting what seems to be a constant policy of soldiers and officers on the ground to ignore the army’s own regulations, which forbid shooting tear gas canisters at a direct angle. B’Tselem have backed up this claim with extensive footage of soldiers shooting tear gas canisters in the same illegal fashion that caused the deaths of Bassem Abu-Rahme and Mustafa Tamimi. However, just last Thursday the military authorities replied, saying that “security forces use tear gas canisters only to disperse violent rioters, and only in an arched angle.”

“They are not even willing to admit that soldiers are disobeying their own regulations”, says Michaeli, “what kind of a message do you think that gives the soldiers?”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office is in utter chaos (and this is not an exaggeration)

For years we all knew he was a difficult man to work for, but the situation in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has reached new heights over the past few weeks.

Natan Eshel, Netanyahu’s bureau chief, agreed on Sunday to resign after being accused of sexually harassing an employee. As if to make things worse, reports surfaced this week that Eshel took inappropriate pictures with his phone of this employee during Netanyahu’s last speech at Congress [Heb]. You remember, the one where he got 29 standing ovations?

Furthermore, yesterday the head of the National Information Directorate at Netanyahu’s office, Yoaz Hendel, resigned from his post. Hendel, who just started the job 6 months ago, quit after claiming the PM had lost trust in him for telling the attorney general about Eshel’s behavior. Netanyahu, who is allegedly mad at his officials for turning to the AG before telling him, should actually be thankful his people didn’t let him in on this. They saved him the nasty spotlights from the media. But as usual, Bibi had to screw things up.

The icing on the cake had to be the video released last night showing Netanyahu reprimanding , in front of the cameras, his cabinet secretary Zvi Hauser, who also squealed with Hendel to the AG. He gave Hauser a lashing for… not closing the door during the cabinet meeting this Sunday. Reports say that Hauser is now also considering resigning.

Wow, someone’s losing it. Great timing, too. With Iran and all…

Hauser: Etti, if you may, close the door, and when the Prime Minister is talking-

Netanyahu: No, ‘close the door’; not, ‘if you may’. Close the door!

Simply, “lock the door. Lock it.”

Netanyahu: Didn’t you hear me?Hauser: No, no, OK.

Netanyahu: No, because they are opening the door.

So say (something), put a person there who will stop people from entering.

Hauser: Don’t let people come in. Etti will stand outside and will not let people come in.

Netanyahu: That’s it. Now make sure that there’s a lock. Make sure that you have a lock.

Just make sure…Lock it!

I asked this last time. Carry it out and that’s it! Everything is… recommendations.

As Khader Adnan’s case took over the news cycle this week, I noticed comments by thoughtful readers, generally on my Facebook feed, pointing out Adnan’s association with terror. They have circulated a video in which Adnan asks who the next suicide bomber will be, pointed to his affiliation with Islamic Jihad, and  asked: How can you root for a terrorist? How can supposed progressives like us rally around him?

(I would have posted the video but YouTube has blocked it in recent hours, claiming it violates its content standards. Note: Adnan does not make an explicit call for suicide bombing in the video but he does seem to call for violence and certainly it does not show him in a “Gandhist” light)

I do not know Adnan and did not know of his existence until recently. I cannot vouch for his character and do not know what he has or has not done. He may seek to cause me harm without even knowing me. He may be a really bad guy who just wants to kill Jews.

But his behavior and possible crimes are not at issue – and have not been demonstrated. How the state treats him is. The man has been held in prison by the government to which I pay taxes without charge, due to an unethical and longstanding practice used by Israel to punish and deter all kinds of acts of resistance. And no one can argue that it is okay just because administrative detention falls under Israeli law. The documentary The Law in These Parts effectively displays the ways in which an entire system of Israeli law and justice has been built to fit a specific political agenda.

The fact is that the man went on a hunger strike that lasted over two months and severely endangered his health. He had to risk his life in order to get the state to reach the logical conclusion that the military court must release him if it cannot provide evidence against him within an allotted period of time. But this is how the practice should always be. Even in exceptional cases, in which is it acceptable under international law to detain someone without trial due to security concerns, there is a period of time by which the person must either be tried or released. Yes, even if that person is a terrorist. And if that suspect is indeed a future murderer, then the law has failed humanity – this has happened many times in the world and unfortunately will continue to happen. It is a price that is paid in societies where people are innocent till proven guilty, and not the other way around.

I wasn’t rooting for Khader Adnan the individual, and those that believe that us “radical lefties,” “so-called peace-loving progressives” are celebrating a terrorist are simply missing the issue at hand.  As Mitchell Plitnick poignantly just expressed it:

I am delighted that Khader Adnan will not starve to death. I only wish that the eyes of the world had enough scope to focus not only on his effort, but also on this abhorrent practice that is a stain on the admittedly tattered honor of not only Israel, but also the United States.

My opposition to this Israeli policy (a policy rampant in plenty other countries, east and west, more democratic and less) does not translate into cheering for Palestinians. I was not rooting for Adnan so much as I was lamenting the fact that in the country I live in, a person must starve himself in order to receive basic fair treatment. While the deal is a step in the right direction, unless it leads to fundamental revamping of policy, I fear it will have merely been a way for Israel to continue administrative detention under the guise of a morality check.

By Noa Yachot and Mairav Zonszein

The Prime Minister’s Office reported on Tuesday that Khader Adnan, now on the 66th day of his hunger strike, will call off his protest in a deal that will see him released on April 17. The report was confirmed on Tuesday evening by Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, which has been overseeing the case.

Announcing the deal, Ofir Gendelman from the PMO tweeted, “#khaderadnan announced that he is ending his hunger strike. If there’s no new evidence against him, he will be released from custody on 17.4.”

Israel’s High Court of Justice had been set on Tuesday afternoon to hear a petition against Adnan’s administrative detention, but the hearing was canceled and the petition withdrawn in the wake of the deal. The court clarified that the deal is incumbent upon the military court’s agreement not to extend Adnan’s detention past April 17, as long as new substantial evidence against him does not come to light. The court’s announcement can be read here, in Hebrew.

An Addameer press release explained that the terms of the agreement met the conditions outlined by Adnan to call off his strike: that his detention would not be extended, and would be counted from the date of his arrest and not from January 8, the date the detention order was issued. The press release also calls into question the danger to security that Israeli authorities claim Adnan poses:

Addameer maintains that the fact that Israeli officials negotiated the duration of his detention, in addition to agreeing to an early release, reveals that there were no grounds for his administrative detention in the first place. His administrative detention order, as is the case with all other administrative detainees, is based on the alleged threat he poses to the “security of the State of Israel.” However, if Israeli officials agree that he will not be a threat on 17 April, as clear from today’s deal, he surely does not pose any threat today and his case provides further proof of Israel’s policy of arbitrary detention. Addameer reiterates its call for his immediate and unconditional release and the release of the 308 other administrative detainees.

Adnan, who is affiliated with Islamic Jihad, was arrested on December 17, after which he immediately launched his hunger strike in protest of his administrative detention. He is presently hospitalized at Ziv Medical Center in Safed, and has not been charged or notified of the suspicions against him.

Ahead of the hearing, which was originally set for Thursday but moved up last minute, hundreds demonstrated in front of the Ofer Prison in the West Bank. According to Omar Rahman, Israeli forces sprayed demonstrators with teargas and “skunk” water. Injuries and arrests were reported.

Rumors that Adnan would be released abounded on Twitter ahead of the planned hearing. Addameer, the Palestinian prisoner support organization, tweeted that they could not confirm these rumors, and activists called for caution.

On the rumors, the organization tweeted, “We know that Israelis are trying to negotiate a deal & we cannot confirm until we know the details of the deal and #KhaderAdnan‘s position,” later adding that, in order to protect his family, additional information would not be released without confirmation.

For more +972 coverage on Khader Adnan and his hunger strike, click here.

At any given moment, hundreds of Palestinians are held by Israel without charges or trial. Of the Palestinians currently under administrative arrest, 88 have been held for more than a year. One has been held for more than five years.

Some advocacy groups and Israeli officials have recently claimed that Khader Adnan, the 33-year-old Palestinian on a hunger strike for more than two months now, “is no saint,” and that real security concerns led to his arrest. But we can never know for sure, since Adnan is held under administrative arrest, a measure that contradicts the logic at the heart of the rule of law: it aims to put people in prisons not for what they did or conspired to do, but for what they might do. In other words, he is guilty until proven innocent. And there is no way to try and prove he is innocent, since Adnan won’t face trial.

This is the heart of the matter: at any given moment, hundreds of Palestinians are held by Israel without trial, with no charges filed against them, and without the ability to defend themselves against non-existent charges. In short, they are simply thrown into prison for a period of up to six months, which can be renewed indefinitely. Each of Khader Adnan’s many previous arrests lasted months – a fact that goes a long way to explain why he is willing to take such an extreme measure as a life-threatening hunger strike. What other hope does he have?

Israel claims that Adnan is a member of Islamic Jihad? It should take him to court and charge him with membership in a terrorist organization, with planning or taking part in illegal activities, or another item on the very long list that is often used against Palestinians. But why bother, when you can simply pick him up at his home, place him in prison and forget about the whole thing? If it wasn’t for his hunger strike, would any news organization bother to deal with those “arrests”?

The important point is that Adnan’s case is not unique. There are 309 Palestinians held under administrative arress right now, the highest number since October 2009. You can see the full statistics for the last decade here. These numbers were obtained by B’Tselem, in accordance with the new Freedom of Information Law. Without it,and without B’Tselem, there was no way to know even how many Palestinians are held by Israel without trial. (It’s therefore easy to understand why so many Israelis wish B’Tselem didn’t exist – sometimes it’s nicer not to know.)

Administrative detention exist in other countries, but is considered a unique and exceptional measure, and its implementation usually leads to a vigorous public debate. In the West Bank, it’s routine. Over the years, Israel has held thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention for periods ranging from a few months to several years. Eighty of the Palestinians held under administrative arrest – some 26 percent of the detainees – have been held for six months to one year; another 88 people (about 28.5 percent) from one to two years. Sixteen Palestinians have been in administrative detention continuously for two to four and a half years, and one man has been held for over five years. It should be noted that a few settlers have also been held in the past under administrative arrest, an act which was reported and rightly criticized in the Israeli media.

Check out +972′s full coverage of Khader Adnan’s hunger strike here

By: Marc Gopin and Aziz Abu Sarah

Yesterday, Pastor Chuck Kopp of the Baptist Church in West Jerusalem woke up to find his church vandalized. The Jerusalem Post reported that police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld suspects that Jewish extremists are responsible for the act. According to the Post, Rosenfeld said, “Officers are investigating a strong possibility of a (Jewish) nationalist motive, but no one has been apprehended yet.”

Cars that were parked outside the church were also vandalized, and their tires slashed.  Graffiti left on the church walls included the famous term “price tag,” which has been used by settler extremists in attacks on mosques in the last few years. Other graffiti in Hebrew reads, “Death to Christianity,” “Jesus son of Mary, the whore.”

February 20: Anti-Christian graffiti found on walls of the Baptist Narkis Street Congregation in West Jerusalem, reading, "Jesus is the son of a whore" (photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler)

The church actually shares a parking lot with a synagogue, and ironically, one of the cars that had its tires slashed and was spray painted with graffiti belongs to a congregant of the synagogue.

The Baptist Church includes a number of Messianic believers, and the leadership has historically had connections to top Israeli political officials.

Jerusalem, Feburary 20: Anti-Christian graffiti found on cars, and their tires slashed at the Baptist Narkis Street congregation in West Jerusalem. (photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler)

The “price tag” radicals are well known to police as products of the most extremist settlements. The irony in this case is that right-wing Christian support for settlers is a major source of income for even the most radical settlements, constituting a thorn in the side of both the American government and the Israeli military for years now:

A New York Times examination of public records in the United States and Israel identified at least 40 American groups that have collected more than $200 million in tax-deductible gifts for Jewish settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem over the last decade. The money goes mostly to schools, synagogues, recreation centers and the like – legitimate expenditures under the tax law. But it has also paid for more legally questionable commodities: housing as well as guard dogs, bulletproof vests, rifle scopes and vehicles to secure outposts deep in occupied areas. “I am not happy about it,” a senior military commander in the West Bank responded when asked about contributions to a radical religious academy whose director has urged soldiers to defy orders to evict settlers. Kimberly Troup, director of the Christian Friends of Israeli Communities’ American office, said that while her charity’s work is humanitarian, “the more that we build, the more that we support and encourage their right to live in the land, the harder it’s going to be for disengagement, for withdrawal.”

So now we have Christian funds from the United States that have effectively supported the misguided second and third generation settler youth who are actively attacking churches and referring to Jesus as a son of a whore. If this is what Pastor John Hagee and other radical Christians intended, then it suggests a rather bizarre theology of interfaith love and care. It seems in reality that these funds are intended to foment conflict, to promote a confrontational, apocalyptic and messianic end to the State of Israel.

Is this a pro-Israel Christian position? Are these the allies that Jews and Israelis really want? Would it not be better to stand in solidarity with a church that was attacked, which exists side by side with a synagogue in Jerusalem in respect and mutual toleration? Even better, would it not be wise to embrace and support interfaith peace and tolerance?

This is the choice that is facing Christians who love Israel, and Jews who welcome Christian support for Israel. It is the commonsense approach to the interests and values of both religious communities, Jewish and Christian, that they support only those forces on the ground that are fostering coexistence and nonviolent forms of engagement and even disagreement.

The strange culture of “price tag” Judaism is a sad stepchild of the occupation. It will ultimately hurt Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike, and it will compromise the viability of any state that Jews want to live in and feel safe in. This strange new reality of Christian funds going to support attacks on Christian churches is something that should cause some real soul searching, both among Jews and Christians.

Pastor Chuck Kopp mentioned that following the attack on his church, the synagogue next door gave flowers to the congregation.  That is worth remembering. Also, the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land issued the following condemnation:

The Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land condemns the acts of desecration of the Baptist Church in West Jerusalem this morning. The Council calls upon people from all faiths – Christians, Jews and Muslims – to respect all Holy Places and sites for all three religions, and strongly discourages extremists’ behaviour that exploits or involves religion in a political/territorial dispute. In the name of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, The Ministry of Waqf and Religious Affairs at the PA, and The Heads of the Local Churches of the Holy Land.

It is also worth recalling the parallel verses in the New Testament from Peter, and from the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Psalms.

“For whoever would love life and see good days must keep their tongue from evil, and their lips from deceitful speech. They must turn from evil and do good; they must seek peace and pursue it.” “Who is the person who desires life, who loves the days of life to see only good? Guard your mouth from evil, and your lips from deceit. Veer away from evil and do only good, seek and pursue only peace.”

The New Testament and the Hebrew Bible got it right here. When will today’s Christians and Jews get it right?

For more pictures of the church vandalization click here

Rabbi Dr. Marc Gopin is director of George Mason University’s Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution, and co-owns MEJDI Tours with Aziz Abu Sarah

(Berlin, GERMANY) – I saved the Holocaust memorial in Berlin for my last day there.

There are two sections to the area: the rectangular stones on top, and a museum underneath. As I approached the memorial, I noticed some bright red balloons.

I ventured into the memorial, searching for them.

A few minutes later, the young man accompanying the model and the photographer approached me and gave me his card. He asked me if I could send them the pictures I took. I said I would and asked him what the shoot was for. He said it was for Valentine’s Day.

This was on February 19th.

The card has a website link. It takes me to a site for a model named Marina Wenk.

Berlin’s a big town. I think Frau Wenk could have found a better place to promote herself.

The underground museum is, in my opinion, the most powerful Holocaust museum I have been to. It is small, not as overwhelming with information like Yad Vashem, and very painful to walk through. I found my heart pounding near the end.

In the last room of the museum, I saw the blonde German girl with the earphones in the picture above sitting on a bench and sobbing.

That’s when I started to choke up myself, rushed to the exit, opened the door, and took a deep breath of the freezing Berlin air.

——————

Read also:
Alone in Berlin: Unsuccessfully trying to forget
Naomi Chazan: “An undemocratic Israel will not last a minute”  

A tragic accident causing the death of ten Palestinian children brought out the hateful side of Israeli Internet readers. This should be a wake-up call; the answer is not to conceal such speech from the public domain, rather to delegitimize it.

By Ido Liven

Rarely does my Facebook news feed keep me occupied for more than it takes to skim through it. But last week, a screenshot of a thread of comments under a headline from the popular news site Walla about the Palestinian school bus accident showed a list of loathsome comments. And it didn’t take long until that screenshot went viral.

I was bewildered. Expressing blatantly racist views (including blessings that the children were dead), using their real names runs counter to common wisdom about online hate speech. The belief that hate-comments are posted under false names is so common that legislators in a number of countries – including in Israel – have proposed bills demanding online comment-writers disclose their identities, precisely in order to prevent the abuse of anonymity in proliferating hate speech, defamation and the like.

What surprised me further were the comments on the coverage of the incident presented on Ynet, Israel’s most popular news site. When I read the item, there were over 60 comments – all anonymous – and the vast majority were sympathetic with the victims. Several even called to avoid racism.

The difference [in tone] might stem from the talkbacks on Ynet’s article being subject to moderation. Even without a law in place, Ynet maintains a policy of regulating talkbacks. And in fact, the controversial comments on the thread on Walla’s Faebook page were later removed. At the same time, another hate-filled string of comments happened to evolve the same day following the same event, this time on none other than the official Facebook page of the Prime Minister’s Office – in other words, using their names. In response to discontent expressed by some users regarding those comments, and despite Facebook’s own policy, the Office’s new media director Dr Eitan Eliram responded that the Office disapproves of extremist comments, but they also do not censor Facebook discussions.

But regulation aside, the attention this case received does not mean it is an exception. Explicit xenophobic expressions are increasingly common, and these online discussions offer a glimpse at contemporary public discourse in Israel. Anonymity is apparently a non-issue.

Many might say that talkbacks are not representative of the general – and obviously more complex – public opinion in the country. But hate-speech, racism, defamation and other supposedly socially unacceptable expressions are in practice tolerated in Israel, and talkbacks are already infamous as fertile grounds for this kind of speech.

Like some of the commenters on the counter-debate that evolved under the screenshot of the link to Walla’s article, I’m still perplexed realizing that some people see no problem with openly expressing opinions they know are not only out of the consensus, but some of them may also be illegal under laws, like amendment Nno. 20 to the Penal Code and a number of court rulings). Yet they do this using their full real name and even on the official Facebook page of the Prime Minister Office.

The pattern is not confined to this case. Xenophobic speech is strikingly evident in debates on countless current topics – from the role of the ultra-orthodox community in the greater society to the ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Many arguments can be used to dismiss what might seem like an insignificant incident. One might say, that this is merely a harmless Facebook thread. Others would assert that it’s nothing but an extremist minority on the margins of society. Yet, extremist minorities are detrimental to the society as a whole, and failing to acknowledge the significance and implications of these seemingly small, random outbursts of hate means they are effectively legitimized. Moreover, these threads demonstrate that racism is no longer a phenomenon endemic only to the margins of the Israeli society, but rather on the verge of, if not already at, the mainstream public discourse.

This case surely calls for revisiting proposed legislation on online anonymity. Websites’ self-regulation, voluntary or legal, are not enough to tackle this trend. Had it been merely a PR issue for Israel abroad, as some had often suggested in the past, removing the controversial comments would not be a problem. Moreover, censoring some comments is not really a sanction – if anything, such a move (possibly motivated more by websites’ liability concerns) is more likely to provoke these commenters rather than discourage them.

If we are to accept John Stuart Mill’s approach to discovering the truth (as pronounced in his On Liberty), a diverse discourse, where different perspectives are expressed, is necessarily a better one. In this context, the internet has often been hailed for being an inclusive media platform with a democratizing effect.

It’s true that an inclusive public discourse that seeks to include also those who are intolerant toward any views different to their own is an oxymoron. But, although frustrating, I cannot see an alternative.

Facing these increasingly prevalent assertions, Israeli society should find a way not to conceal them from the public domain – we really couldn’t ask for a louder wake-up call – but rather to delegitimize them. More importantly, Israeli society must tackle the roots and the mindset leading to racism and xenophobia.

Ido Liven is an independent journalist covering mainly environmental issues and foreign affairs for Israeli and international publications. He is currently based in Amsterdam.

In a conference in Berlin on Israeli-German relations, Israeli speakers ask Germany to become the ‘true’ friend that Israel needs.

Naomi Chazan (photo: Ami Kaufman)

(Berlin, GERMANY) – “No self respecting democracy in the world can accept the current wave of anti-democratic legislation in Israel,” said  New Israel Fund President Naomi Chazan in Berlin this weekend. Chazan, a former Meretz MK, spoke at a conference held by the Heinrich Böll Foundation titled “Estranged Friends? Israeli and German perceptions of state, nation, force – a comparison.”
(Disclaimer: The writer was a guest of Heinrich Böll Foundation. +972 Magazine received a grant from Heinrich Böll Foundation, and is due to receive a grant through the New Israel Fund)

Chazan was one of the last speakers in a conference that meant well, but was for the most part lacking in up to date discourse. At times it seemed like it was a time travelling experience back to the 90’s, with simple and superficial statements such as “the settlements are a problem,” uttered by Colette Avital – a figure who may be well known in Europe but hasn’t been on the Israeli radar for years. The “highlight” of Avital’s speech was when she called on Europe to recognize a Palestinian state.

Colette Avital (photo: Ami Kaufman)

Another disappointing Israeli speaker was former ambassador to Germany Shimon Stein, who during the second day of the conference decided to give a 101 pre-requisite course on relations between the IDF and Israeli government. I felt like I was back at my first year in poli-sci at Tel Aviv university.

Shimon Stein (photo: Ami Kaufman)

One of the interesting issues was watching first hand how delicately German speakers deal with criticizing Israel. In factm there was one speaker who went so far as to say that because of “the past” (the word “Holocaust” was hardly uttered by the German speakers), that Germans have no right to criticize Israel.

The president of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Ralf Fücks, seemed to be the only German speaker who tried to come up with solutions, to push Israel a bit. Yet, at one point he said that if only Israel would be more prone to conducting peace talks, its standing in the world would improve so much it would even be accepted into NATO.

Ralf Fücks (photo: Ami Kaufman)

This didn’t go down very well with two of the more eloquent Israeli speakers in the conference, Prof. Yossi Yonah (Ben Gurion University) and Muhammad Jabali (The Jaffa Project). Prof. Yonah went so far as to say that the monkey on the back of the Israeli nation is Europe. “There is a desperate yearning in Israel to reconnect with Europe. It’s our wish to live inside the ‘mental borders’ of Europe – and that is why there is so much practice of exclusion in Israel today. So, I would actually give up on joining NATO. Israel must return to the Middle East!”

Prof. Yossi Yonah (photo: Ami Kaufman)

Jabali, who was also unfortunately the only Arab speaker in the conference and probably the only one below the age of 50, had an answer for Fücks as well. “Instead of joining NATO, Israel should join the Arab league. Up to now, Israel is in fact the least constructive member of the league – since it doesn’t sit at the assemblies.” Cynicism aside, Jabali makes a good point: it’s time Israel realize it lives in the Middle East and end it’s constant yearning to be part of another continent.

Muhammad Jabali (photo: Ami Kaufman)

Jabali, who I also spoke with outside of the conference hall, tends to put great emphasis on words and misconceptions that have love been ingrained in the discourse. I particularly enjoyed when he looked at his audience and said “Being European does not make you progressive. And being a Muslim does not make you conservative.”

The last speakers of the day, Chazan and MK Nitzan Horowitz, were good enough reason to wait for. Most of you who are familiar with my writing know that I particularly share Horowitz’s enthusiasm for J14. I apologize ahead of time for the quality of footage – I wasn’t planning on documenting these speeches on video. Here is Nitzan’s speech in full:

Click here to view the embedded video.

But it was Chazan who stole the show, and her fiery speech will be remembered as the pinnacle of this meet. I didn’t manage to get all of it due to some technical problems with my camera. This first segment opens with the attack of Im Tirzu and others on Chazan and the New Israel Fund. As you can see, this is an issue that Chazan is not only worried about, it has had a deep effect on her personally. She’s had some tough times because of it. Yet, I have to say, it was a pleasure to see one of my favorite former MKs take the podium and deliver the goods.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This second segment deals more with Israel-German relations. The bottom line? A true friend tells the truth. A true friend criticizes when needed.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For me, this was the true lesson to be learned from this conference: Germany needs to become the true friend to Israel. The holocaust should not be an obstacle to that. Exactly the opposite is true.

—————————–

Read also:

Alone in Berlin: Unsuccessfully trying to forget

Alone in Berlin (part II) – A powerful memorial, mistreated

Rightwing NGO that went after progressive and human right groups is financed from abroad, including through large grants from undisclosed donors

Last week, Haaretz’s Uri Blau had a short expose – available only in the Hebrew edition – regarding the rightwing non-profit NGO Monitor. As some readers might remember, NGO Monitor recently attacked the German Heinrich Böll Foundation for a grant of 6,000 Euros it gave +972 Magazine in 2011.

According to its website, “NGO Monitor’s objective is to end the practice used by certain self-declared ‘humanitarian NGOs’ of exploiting the label ‘universal human rights values’ to promote politically and ideologically motivated agendas.” It does so through attacking public position taken by NGO’s, questioning their motives and partners, and going after their sources of funding.

Human rights organizations in Israel are very transparent, partly because of the increasing attention their activities get (this is one, and probably the only, positive influence of the work of some conservative groups and journalists). Rightwing groups, on the other hand, seem to work under different standards. Im Tirzu, for example, submitted its list of donors only after receiving threats from the state’s NGO department. Elad, the organization leading the colonization efforts of Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, has received special status from the government that allows it not to disclose any of its major donors.

NGO Monitor, it turns out, is not much better: In 2010, three of its donations came from undisclosed (though legal) sources: The first one, for the sum of NIS 570,000 ($154,000), was passed through the Jewish Federation of North America and the Jewish Agency; the second one, for NIS 100,000, was transferred through the Israeli non-profit Matan – started in 1998 by local tycoon Shari Arison, owner of Israel’s largest Bank – and the third donation came through a British fund registered in the Isle of Man, known for its favorable tax rates.

When the origin of these funds were questioned by Haaretz, the organization that promotes transparency and accountability suddenly becomes very vague. Asked about the half million NIS donation from the Jewish Agency, Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, said:

It’s the kind of thing I don’t remember by heart exactly. Sometimes I don’t deal with money… Someone who sees in our activities something worthy of donations gives us money. Unlike the organizations we write about, we don’t get money from any government”…

The Jewish Agency, which transferred the donation to NGO Monitor, is a quasi-governmental organization, operating in Israel under special status. An effort to understand the source of the donation from the chairman of NGO Monitor non-profit, attorney Yoel Golovansky, had similar results:

I am not that knowledgeable [of the source of the money]. We go through the financial report when it’s submitted, but I don’t remember… if I knew I don’t remember. Usually it’s someone that donated through the [Jewish] Agency.

Who is it?

I don’t know. I don’t know if I knew, but I surely don’t know today.

One could only imagine the press release NGO Monitor would have written if it got those kind of answers from a human rights group.

(I have contacted the Jewish Federation for its comment on the 2010 donation, which will be posted here when I get it.)

We have also learned from Haaretz that NGO Monitor had a budget of over NIS 2 million in 2010, and that it employed 27 people. Gerald Steinberg had a yearly salary of NIS 211,000, more than twice the average Israeli income. Haaretz’s piece reveled that NGO Monitor, which is so sensitive regarding foreign influence on Israeli politics, is basically an American organization, registered in Israel. Most of its donations come from the States; reporter Uri Blau was even answered in English when he called the organization’s Jerusalem office…

This is a major point: the campaign against human right groups in Israel is done under rhetoric which is all about “preventing foreign influence” and therefore “defending local democracy“, yet much of the rightwing’s work in Israel is financed from abroad – especially, but not exclusively, by American Jews and Christian Zionists – not to mention the most important element in shaping the political conversation, Sheldon Adelson’s free tabloid Israel Hayom, the most widely read paper in Israel. Israel Hayom was and still is a losing operation, intended only to manipulate public opinion in favor of the right.

To sum it up, if the people behind NGO Monitor were even remotely interested in democracy or transparency, they would have had something to say about the unknown donors and shady practices of rightwing NGOs like Elad and Im Tirzu; but NGO Monitor itself is a rightwing group, working to limit the public debate in Israel, to stop advocacy and civil rights work for the advancement of the Arab minority (see for example its latest attack on Adalah, the local version of the NAACP), and to prevent criticism of Israeli policy in the occupied territories and beyond.

The fact that NGO Monitor receives its support through the Jewish Agency and the Jewish Federation goes to show how invested in those disturbing causes Israeli and Jewish mainstream institutions have become.

As Khader Adnan enters his 65th day of hunger strike, he is receiving increasing and substantial support among the Palestinian communities in Palestine and abroad. The Palestinian factions have called for a general strike in solidarity with Adnan on Tuesday. Despite initial frustrations of the delayed attention where rallies on Adnan’s behalf a few weeks ago had low attendance, it seems Adnan has become a symbol and leader of the Palestinian resistance movement.

Even politicians couldn’t ignore his existence anymore. President Abbas was reportedly making calls on behalf of Adnan to Russia, China, Britain and the European Union. Hamas Prime Minster Ismail Haniyeh led a massive protest in Gaza and made calls to the Egyptian government asking it to intervene on behalf of Adnan.

Adnan has the potential to inspire the masses and breathe life into the indifferent majority. After all, it was one man called Bouazizi who inspired thousands in Tunisia and caused a regime change. The struggle of Adnan according to what he told his lawyer is not about himself but as he told his lawyer, he wants his hunger strike to generate an awakening for the Palestinian people and specifically Palestinian prisoners. He doesn’t consider his hunger strike a tool to save himself but rather an example to inspire a nation that has been under military occupation for decades.

However, half way through writing my post, I realized I was missing the point of Adnan’s hunger strike. I asked myself, will writing another article make my conscience clear? Have I done everything to help Adnan and the Palestinian prisoners? Forty percent of Palestinian men have been in prison at one point in their lives. Adnan’s story is the story of all Palestinians and the struggle of Adnan is the struggle of all Palestinians. So, what should I do?

I remembered that two weeks ago, after I published an article about Khader Adnan, someone from Tel Aviv emailed me and asked  about suggestions of what she should do to help Adnan.

Quickly I responded. I told her that emails, faxes and statements would make no difference. I suggested that Israelis who want to help should join Adnan’s hunger strike. Israelis might not care about a Palestinian doing hunger strike, but if Israelis join him, that will bring much more attention to his cause. After all, I believe that the best way for Israelis to help make a difference is by fully joining Palestinians not by words but by actions.

Today, I realized that I couldn’t write about Khader Adnan with a full stomach. So, I am not eating in solidarity with Adnan. I talked to a few friends  and I was pleasantly surprised that many of them decided to join me.

I am convinced that those who want to help Khader Adnan and his cause, must first try to empathize with him, walk in his shoes, feel the pain of being hungry, at least for one day or one week. Last Friday all Palestinian prisoners joined Khader Adnan in his hunger strike. In different places in Palestine and the diaspora, groups of Palestinians are fasting in solidarity with Adnan.

I haven’t heard of any Israelis who joined Adnan in hunger strike but I hope there are some that weren’t reported or I haven’t heard of. So, if any of our readers, Jewish, Arab, Palestinian or Israeli are joining Adnan in his hunger strike, email me about your experience. Tell the world why you are standing with Adnan. The stories of those who refuse to stand aside watching injustices without lifting a finger might inspire many others to join in an action for justice and humanity.

Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan, held for over 2 months by Israel without being accused of any crime, entered his 65th day of hunger strike Monday. 

Cy Twombly: "Min-Oe", 1951

O to go with a bang,

And not be made to stab you to death with toothpicks,

Year after year, a 168 hour work week.

In our minds the television sets are always on

In our skulls, always our childhood kitchens, parents conversing

About grownup stuff (do grownups exist?)

And in the paper: the cross-section of a rubber bullet, not made entirely of rubber.

So yes,

The radio in his town played different tunes,

Allah is merciful, we are not, and august is not. The gravel, he knows the gravel.

I know the gravel.

Allah is merciful. Is Khader Adnan?

February isn’t, February is a ribcage.

When I betray by caring, I betray,

And he, the suicide, betrays well.

To make them murder is to make the murder seen.

Here is what they never told:

Anything.

Then, the gravel was outside, but the kitchen was clean, now the enemy plate

Is full of the most fluid mud,

And in the paper: the picture of the burning tire, made entirely of rubber,

And of the explosive belt, made of murder,

And of the gun, made of murder

And of Syria and Itamar and every wall and the gravel and mud and the blur, the blur

Of hunger

And of the judges and the doctors, made of murder

And of the silence

In place of justice (do grownups exist?)

And of his chained hands, changing hue, growing slender, made of murder

And of my typing hands, made of murder.

I yield, I extend them. Mother, if you want me to withdraw them, tell me what

This man has done. Then tell me what you have done

Tell me what I have done, for once, rubber bullet mother, tell me,

Because I’m fading too, so much more slowly, and choking

On on the paper, pictures and all.

And biting my cheeks

hard

With blood

On what you cook for us.

UPDATE: The Israel High Court announced today (Monday) that it is moving the hearing up to tomorrow (Tuesday) at 3:00pm local time, instead of initial date this Thursday. The Court did not provide reasons for its decision, but there have been assessments in recent days that there is a concrete threat to the prisoner’s life.

This post, criticizing the court for the initial delay, was originally posted yesterday (Sunday)

Khader Adnan has now entered his 65th day of a hunger strike. On Sunday the High Court of Justice (HCJ) decided to postpone dealing with the urgent appeal in his case until Thursday. Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, which supports the appeal, noted that would be Adnan’s 68th day of his hunger strike, and there is no guarantee that the justices will bother to make their decision then. It’s a Thursday, you know, and the weekend is so close, and this is just a Palestinian in administrative detention, and he must be held for a reason. Irrecoverable dying begins on the 70th day of a hunger strike. That would be Friday.

Now, the HCJ knows, when it wants to, how to hold swift hearings. Before the evacuation of the settler outpost Amona, it held a marathon debate till morning before making its final decision. But that was an illegal outpost, built on private Palestinian land; the debate was on something important, such as the theft rights of settlers. Not something petty like the most essential rights of a non-Jew.

People tell me: Adnan can stop his hunger strike whenever he wants. This is very true. He can also solve most of his other problems and simply sign whatever his interrogators want him to sign. He just has to lie to himself. Whoever makes that claim has no clue as to what human dignity is, the basic right to not have a jackboot at your throat; or, perhaps, he thinks Palestinians denuded of human dignity.

Adnan’s detention serves no practical purpose. He is not interrogated as he lies chained in a hospital. Even were the security apparatus to discharge him now, he would not be a danger to anyone anytime soon. He has already suffered severe damage. There is no reason to keep him detained, but one: his release will embarrass the apparatus. It will testify that there was no cogent reason to hold him in the first place. It will put the entire system of administrative detention in question.

So what we basically see is a pissing contest between a dark apparatus, the strongest in Israel and quite likely in the entire Middle East, and a sick, dying man, under guard, chained to his bed, with nothing but his faith to drive him on. The HCJ was supposed to be a bulwark of this man, to stand between him and the apparatus, and defend him. That, after all, is the legend they keep telling us about the HCJ: that it is comprised of wise, all-knowing judges, standing undaunted in defense of human rights against the government. The thin line of black robes.

A pro-Adnan protester in Tel Aviv: 'What is legal about administrative detention?' (Photo: Yossi Gurvitz)

The court made excellent use of this legend, and used it in the political struggles of the 1990s and 2000s. Some Israelis actually received aid from him. But it never defended the Palestinian. Every Palestinian had the right to appeal to the HCJ against the demolition of his house; the court has never prevented any. Not a single one. The court approved one administrative detention after another, even though this basically took us to pre-Magna Carta law. Even when the apparatus decided to exile 400 people suspected of being Hamas members to Lebanon, the HCJ approved the decision – admittedly, it held a swift hearing on the urgent appeal of the deportees.

The justices know precisely where they sit. If they hear the petition, they will also have to make a ruling. If they reject the petition, Adnan’s blood will be on their hands, which can be quite uncomfortable the next time they visit Europe. If they accept it, on the other hand, they will face the wrath of the Israeli mob, which does not understand all the noise about some Ay-rab. So they postpone the hearing. As the old joke went, perhaps the dog will die; perhaps the baron (the apparatus) will. Perhaps someone else will deal with this hot potato for them.

And that is evil couched in cowardice. And that, too, should be borne in mind when we have our own judges’ trials.

The wife of hunger striker Khader Adnan tells me about how she is handling the situation.

The wife and daughters of Khader Adnan at a protest outside Ziv Medical Center in Safed (photo: Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to sit down for an interview with the family of Khader Adnan in their home in the village of Arrabeh, outside of Jenin. The purpose of the interview was to get a sense of how the family, particularly his wife and two small daughters, are coping with what is obviously a tremendously stressful and difficult period.

I found in Randa Khader an extremely strong and articulate woman who is doing the best she could to support her husband in his time of need. Time, however, is no longer her own, nor is it on her side. She has visited her husband twice in the 63 days of his hunger strike, and today I believe she went to see him again. When she is not with Khader, she is trying to raise awareness about his struggle, dealing with a constant stream of visitors, and taking care of their two girls, Maali, 4, and Bissan, 18 months.

At the beginning of our interview she spoke with determination and the instinct for publicity that comes from being thrown in the limelight and choosing to swim instead of sink. Later, in a more private setting with my female colleague Abir Kopty, she opened up as a woman and a human being.

Randa told us of her husband the family man, the anxious and excited father to be (Randa is five months pregnant), who would wake up every morning and make her breakfast and freshly squeezed juice.

“If you knew him,” she says, “his life would have become precious to you. He is that kind of person.”

Below is an exerpt from the article published on Al-Jazeera English’s website.

Randa Adnan panics every time the phone rings, and these days it never seems to stop. For now, it is mostly journalists, family, friends and supporters asking about her husband, Khader, who lies shackled by his hands and feet to a hospital bed in Israel, while his body wastes away.

Through sixty-four days of a hunger strike, the longest in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Randa Adnan has only been allowed to visit her husband twice, for a total of an hour, and each time surrounded by armed guards.

She speaks in a rush, a slight desperation in her otherwise resolute voice, as if time is running out and she must finish what she has to say before it is too late. Her two young daughters hang off her, demanding much of a woman who is dealing with a problem they do not fully comprehend.

“How can I tell my girls that they cannot bring sandwiches and juice to their father in the hospital,” she says, holding four-year-old Maali in her arms, who has the blue eyes of her father. The first time Maali visited the hospital with her mother she did not speak, hardly recognising the emaciated man that lay on the bed calling her name. Now she wakes up at night often, her mother says, crying out for her dad.

The full article can be read here…

By Sigal Rozen

It has been almost two years since chilling evidence of horrors inflicted by human traffickers on refugees on their way to Israel through the Sinai desert started being published and broadcast in Israel and throughout the world. NGOs have provided detailed information, systematically collected, regarding smuggling networks operating in the Sinai and beyond (in Israel, Ethiopia, and Sudan) to influential bodies in the international arena including diplomats, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), and the Israeli authorities. Despite these numerous appeals, and the concrete nature of the information that was transferred, the detention camps, the extortion, and the torture continue.

Throughout the past year, Israeli, American, and European human rights organizations have had continuous contact with Eritrean and Sudanese refugees held in the torture camps in Sinai. Refugee hostages use cellular telephones provided by their captors to extort large sums of ransom money from their relatives and friends. Despite recent reports in the media regarding the release of hundreds of refugees held captive in the Sinai, and their arrival in Israel, it is apparent that hundreds are still being held captive in the Sinai, some of whom are experiencing physical abuse, torture, systematic  rape, and even death, all with the objective to obtain tens of thousands of dollars in ransom money in exchange for their release. Heinous methods of torture and extortion, as previously reported, including in a recent report by Amnesty International, include prolonged group bondage, electroshocks, suspension by the limbs, burns from white-hot irons, starvation, severe sexual abuse and more.

Until recently, the vast majority of the captives were Christian Eritreans and some Ethiopians of Eritrean origin. But in recent months, Hotline for Migrant Workers and Physicians for Human Rights, two Israeli NGOs assisting the torture survivors, have been meeting more and more Muslim torture survivors – mainly, refugees who fled the genocide in Darfur.

M. is one of the torture survivors who managed to arrive in Israel this month and give us his testimony. From his story, one can understand that many more refugees are still in the hands of the traffickers, being tortured in the hopes that their relatives send ransom for their release. One also understands that providing the ransom does not guarantee release: M. survived despite not paying the ransom, while others were burned before his eyes, even though their ransom may have already reached the traffickers.

Following the testimony are images of the burn marks on M.’s body. View with caution.

Testimony of M., a Sudanese refugee and member of the Zaghawa tribe

I’m a 22-year-old African, member of the Zaghawa tribe which is persecuted by the Arab regime is Sudan. I fled Khartoum to Egypt about two and a half years ago and I was hoping to reach the US. Life is Egypt was very hard for Africans and I did not see a possibility to leave from Egypt to the US, and therefore I decided to continue to Israel.

In Cairo, I found someone who was willing to take me to Sinai, and from there I continued on my own. In the area of al-Arish, I was kidnapped by a group of smugglers who took me with them and kept me captive in a small shed covered with plants. They handcuffed me with about 20 Eritrean and Sudanese. I don’t know where exactly I was, but near the shed where I was held, there were about 60 additional sheds where Sudanese and Eritreans were held captive. Women were not held with us, but probably, there were sheds where women were kept because we heard their cries when the smugglers would torture them.

The smugglers, Ismail and Musa, brought in people whose job was to beat us with sticks and burn us by throwing flaming plastic bags at us. The smugglers did this so that we call our relatives and ask them to send them money. I didn’t have anyone to call, my family has no money, and there was no one to pay the ransom for our release. Among the captives there were people who called their relatives who promised to send money for the release of their relative from captivity.

After two months of such torture, most of the captives in our shed were burnt to death, even the ones whose relatives had promised to send in money for their release. Among all the captives in the shed, only F. and I survived. In late January 2012, the smugglers left us, thinking that we will die in the next few days anyway.

Despite the severe burns, we managed to climb on the mountain in the direction of Israel. After two hours of walking and crawling in the night, we reached the Israeli border, where we waited for the Israeli soldiers to pick us up. The soldiers took us to Saharonim Prison.

The testimony was collected by Sigal Rozen and Tamar Arev from the “Hotline for Migrant Workers” with the help of a translator.

Sigal Rozen is the Public Policy Coordinator of the Hotline for Migrant Workers, which she helped found. She has been active on behalf of asylum seekers for the last 13 years.

(BERLIN, Germany) – I always knew that Germans did stuff by the book, but I didn’t think I was going to get a taste of it so soon, right after taking my first steps on German soil coming off my El Al flight today.

We were all herded onto a bus at the bottom of the stairs and waited about 10 minutes or more until it filled up.

We then proceeded to drive across the street, a distance of about 10 meters (and I’m being generous), and the doors of the bus opened. Nobody understood what was going on for a few seconds, and it took a while to grasp that we had actually arrived at the terminal. We got off the bus and looked back at the plane behind us – it was so close I could have thrown an apple and hit it straight on the nose.

Go figure…

Anyway, I’m in Berlin as a guest of the Heinrich Boll Foundation (disclaimer: the Heinrich Boll Foundation supported +972 Magazine in 2011 and 2012), which is holding a conference on German-Israeli relations and the future of democracy in both nations.

When I was offered to come, I had to think twice.

I mean, let’s face it, it’s Germany.

There are still a lot of people in Israel who get the creeps from this place. Although there probably aren’t many left who still refuse to buy anything German (maybe a few), there are still those who just can’t bring themselves to come here. But on the other hand, there are those who love this place. Berlin especially is enjoying a huge influx of young Israelis who love the openness, the art, the culture, the gay scene – and the low cost of living (compared to Tel Aviv, of course). You really can’t beat 3.00 euros for a beer, compared to 7-8 euros in Tel Aviv.

I guess I’m somewhere in the middle. My mother’s side of the family was wiped out almost entirely in the Holocaust. So, it’s a bit strange to come back where it all “began.” When my mother first heard I was going she was surprised. But then we went into our old routine: “Be careful of the Narzis!” she said to me. In the “2,000 Year Old Man,” with Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, they have a routine where the 2,000 year old man is mad at Winston Churchill. According to the 2,000 year old man, in one of his speeches, “Churchill said ‘We must conquer the Narzis.’ All this time we were looking for Nazis! We dropped everything and started looking for Narzis! It prolonged the war!”

Over a year ago, I wrote about lighting my family’s Hanukia. It was actually in a post about the big Carmel fire. I recently got to tell the story of this Hanukia to a group of college students from the United States on one of Aziz Abu Sarah’s MEJDI tours. I don’t believe in God, but every year I get emotional while lighting the wicks of this Hanukia. It belonged to the family of my Grandfather, Poppy, who lived on a farm outside of Bratislava. Poppy always had good instincts. He left for the States before the war. As the Nazis were getting closer, the family buried the Hanukia, a beautiful piece of Judaica, in their back yard. After the war, and after everyone was killed, Poppy came back and dug it out. When he passed away, we took it to our place and light it every Hannukah, with olive oil.

I love lighting that Hanukia. And I love the fact that my children light it together with me. I’m not a religious man, and don’t believe in God. But when I light that Hanukia, I feel like there’s a reason for my being in Israel.

The problem is, that with each year that passes, Hannukkah catches me in a different state of mind. And this past year it was the most complex for me. It was the year that, at least in my opinion, the two-state solution died. Yet since then I’ve been in some sort of limbo state, where I still don’t come out and support the one-state solution, the only option left. It seems like some sort of mourning period, which I’m coming to grips with. And it’s not easy, because it’s scary. And I presume it’s scary for many Israeli Jews. It means, in a way, giving up on Zionism and maybe even on Jewish self-determination. And that’s extremely difficult, given all we’ve been through.

And it’s this state of mind where I suddenly land in Berlin. It’s this state of mind that I began reading “Alone in Berlin,” just before the invitation to come here.

The Holocaust comes up every once in a while during the conference. But it comes up quietly. It kind of reminds me how some people whisper the word “cancer.”

And nobody seems to really want to open it up. Why should they? Hasn’t it all been said before anyway?

But even for me, Holocaust remembrance is changing. And despite what my family went through in Europe, I understand more clearly how Israel uses this for its own purposes. How it justifies things it does. Crimes it perpetrates.

And it’s not easy to release oneself from this grasp of remembrance. Growing up in the Israeli school system, I went through quite the brain-washing. Only distancing myself from those schooling years has enabled me to see more clearly. Merav Michaeli wrote recently in Haartez on this topic an amazing op-ed that should be read in whole. She wrote it after a poll was published that said 98% of Israelis consider it “either fairly important or very important to remember the Holocaust, attributing to it even more weight than to living in Israel, the Sabbath, the Passover seder and the feeling of belonging to the Jewish people.” Here is an excerpt:

The Holocaust is the primary way Israel defines itself. And that definition is narrow and ailing in the extreme, because the Holocaust is remembered only in a very specific way, as are its lessons. It has long been used to justify the existence and the necessity of the state, and has been mentioned in the same breath as proof that the state is under a never-ending existential threat.

The Holocaust is the sole prism through which our leadership, followed by society at large, examines every situation. This prism distorts reality and leads inexorably to a forgone conclusion – to the point that former Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau announced at a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony three years ago that Moses was the first Holocaust survivor. In other words, all our lives are simply one long Shoah.

Remembrance is an issue that follows me around Berlin. It is a city full of monuments, like I’ve never seen in any other.

They even remember the leader I used to believe in, the man who had my vote.

And suddenly I try to remember if there is a sign in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv. Did they just change the name from Kikar Makchei Yisrael? No sign? Maybe we should learn some basics from the Germans.

As I walk around Berlin, I try – with no success – to forget about the Holocaust. Just for a few minutes. To see it clean, tabula rasa.

But I can’t.

And I won’t.

(My next post will be about the Heinrich Boell Conference)

Adnan is held for at least the 7th time in administrative arrest, a practice used at any given moment to detain hundreds of Palestinians. 

Adnan's wife, daughters and father leave the Safed hospital after visiting him, February 15, 2012 (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills)

This is a translation (with slight changes) of an article published in Hebrew in my weekly column at TimeOut Tel Aviv

The IDF’s court of appeals rejected this week the motion of Khader Adnan, 33, a resident of the village Araba, against the four months of administrative arrest to which he was sentenced. It was the 59th day of Adnan’s hunger strike. In an unusual manner, the court’s hearing was held in Ziv Medical Center in Safed, where Adnan is held. During most of the hunger strike, Adnan was chained to his bed; according to reports, the chains were recently removed.

This is the longest a Palestinian prisoner has sustained a hunger strike. At this stage, irreparable damage has already been done to the body, and the patient’s life is under immediate threat. This text was written in Hebrew on Monday, and published on Wednesday, the 61st day of the hunger strike. As I translate this post, Adnan ends his 63rd day without food. IRA hero Bobby Sands died after 66 days of hunger strike. The IRA’s hunger strike was a turning point in the struggle over Northern Ireland. In Belfast, I saw Sands’ portrait on the outside wall of the Sinn Fein headquarters. Khader Adnan is still alive.

Administrative arrest, the legal process to which Adnan is subject, is an extreme and very rare measure in most democracies, and very common in Israel. It allows a person to be held without trial, without charges and without evidence for up to six months, which can be extended again and again. At any given moment, there are hundreds of Palestinians in administrative detention. Even now.

Israel’s military courts are very hard on Palestinians to begin with. The burden on the prosecution is extremely low in comparison to a civilian criminal court, and much of the evidence can be classified, not even shared with the defendant. The military courts have an astonishing conviction rate of 99.7 percent, a figure that hasn’t changed in years. But administrative arrests are even worse than normal military proceedings, as they are used against defendants in cases of complete lack of evidence, or when the military authorities suspect, fear or just estimate that a person might do something at some point. This was at least the seventh time Adnan was put under administrative arrest.

Khader Adnan is identified, politically, with the Islamic Jihad. An unpleasant organization, to say the least. If the state of Israel believes him to be a terrorist, Adnan should be put on trial. Instead, Adnan and hundreds others are thrown into prison, without even being read the charges against them and without a way to defend themselves.

All this should have been enough to demand the release of Khader Adnan (or alternatively, for him to be put on proper trial). But administrative arrests are in sync with the Zeitgeist in Israel, in which every Palestinian is a terrorist until proven otherwise, and therefore not worthy of the rights given to other human beings. The military judge that rejected Adnan’s appeal didn’t even bother rationalizing the extreme measure against the Palestinian prisoner, and simply stated that he “didn’t find anything of substance in the defendant’s claims.”

Regarding the hunger strike, the judge noted that Adnan could end it anytime he pleases. He concluded with this famous quote by Rabbi Akiva, now sounding so morbid and cruel: “Everything is foreseen and permission is granted.”

UPDATE: On Saturday, the EU expressed ‘concern’ over the health of Adnan, and over the use of administrative arrests by Israel

Read Also:
Hunger strike highlights forgotten tragedy of Palestinian prisoners
Palestinian on 48th day of hunger strike chained to hospital bed
Call for action: Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike
Protests spread in solidarity with Khader Adnan’s hunger strike

Photos by Fayez Imad Hashlamon

The forecast promised snow on the highlands today, and many were excited. Jerusalem is gorgeous in the snow, which falls there about once every two years. Coastal Israelis flock there when this happens, causing traffic jams that often render the white city inaccesible.

No such jams were created today. The snow in Jerusalem did not accumulate on the ground, nor did it even fall prettily: All the holy city recieved was a shower of sleet. Having woken up to such anticlimatic news, I cancelled my own plans for traveling in that direction.

It was only a few hours later that my Hebronite friend Fayez Imad Hashlamon reminded me which is truly the loftiest town around.  While Jerusalem soars on avarage 630 meters (2066 feet) above sea level,  Hebron’s downtown is 930 meters (3061 feet) high. Its residents were greeted by 5-10 centimeters of snow on the ground at day break.

Hebron's University campus in the snow.

A Hebronite snow-woman, wearing a snow-hijab

Hebron intermingles beautifully with the farmland surrounding it.

The Hussein stadium on Ein Sara St.

A green and white Canaanite winter.

Fayez’s photos give us a oppurtunity to show Hebron for once not through the bitter perspective of the occupation, but as a winter wonderland. While the city’s traditional main drag, Shuhada Street, is kept deadened by Israel, its Palestinian-controlled H1 sector is a wonderful place to experience Palestinian urban bustle, to shop inexpensively, eat heartily, and meet lovely individuals like Fayez himself. A visit there is highly recommended also on warmer, less romantic days.

A Tel Aviv city councilman is appealing to the state to allocate separate buses for African refugees and migrant workers, according to an article published on Mynet on Thursday

Last week, Tel Aviv City Councilman Binyamin Babayoff (Shas) sent a letter to Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, Minister of Transportation Israel Katz, and Dr. Moshe Tiomkin, a Tel Aviv councilman and the head of the city’s Transportation, Traffic and Parking Authority. In an excerpt published by Mynet (local online Hebrew news affiliated with Ynet), Babayoff wrote that “illegal foreign workers fill the buses…” leaving no room for Jewish Israeli residents of South Tel Aviv. He added that “foreign workers… give off a bad smell and they might, God forbid, cause all kinds of diseases.”

Reminding of Jim Crow laws, Babayoff proposes that the state introduce separate buses for migrant workers and refugees or limit their access to buses during peak hours of heavy traffic, thus giving preference to Jewish Israeli residents.

Speaking to Mynet, Babayoff claimed that his proposal was not racist. He said that Jewish Israelis in South Tel Aviv “live a life of hell” because of the foreigners in the neighborhood. He added that his letter was a response to the appeals of “scared” residents.

In a comment to Mynet, the Tel Aviv Municipality condemned Babayoff’s proposal and called it “racist,” adding that it is committed to “caring for immigrant workers and their basic health needs, education, and welfare…”

(Though they’re not migrant workers, homeless African refugees might beg to differ with the city’s statement).

After Babayoff embarked on a campaign against migrant workers and refugees in the summer of 2010—calling on South Tel Aviv landlords not to rent to these “infiltrators” and claiming that doing so violates Jewish religious law—25 area rabbis signed an “Edict Forbidding the Rental of Apartments to Infiltrators.” Shortly thereafter, 10 South Tel Aviv real estate agents signed a petition stating they would not rent to illegal residents.

Later that year, hundreds of Israeli rabbis across the country signed a religious edict forbidding the rental or sale of property to Palestinian citizens of the state.

In 2010, Babayoff also participated in a campaign against opening a new kindergarten in the South Tel Aviv neighborhood of Kiryat Shalom. While the school was planned to accommodate migrant workers’ and refugees’ children, it would also provide education to Jewish Israeli students.

In addition to his issues with non-Jews, Babayoff has also publicly voiced homophobic sentiments, referring to Tel Aviv’s Gay Pride Parade as a “shame parade.”

The demand that the New York Times new Jerusalem bureau chief – who has yet to take up her post here –  be “unbiased” towards the Netanyahu government is the height of ‘chutzpah’

Jeffrey Goldberg, the former IDF prison guard and self-appointed gatekeeper of all things Jewish and Zionist, is not happy with the incoming New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief, Jodi Rudoren. He has two problems with her.

The first, and most important, is that Rudoren had the temerity to read Peter Beinart’s new critical book about Israel and, lo and behold, support it. Goldberg whines that she is showing “bias” against Likud.

Which, I think, is perfectly fine. After all, the Likud prime minister recently said that his main enemies are the NYTimes and Haaretz. He has refused to write an oped for the NYTimes, snarkily saying he didn’t want to “Bibiwash” it. Once a public official takes a public stand as a self-declared enemy of a newspaper, I don’t think the paper should continue to treat him differently than  any other public official. Journalists are not, and should not be, angels. To blame the NYTimes bureau chief of “bias” against Likud after this is utter chutzpah (nerve) and evidence that the writer is a propagandist.

Goldberg also calumnies Ali Abunimah, claiming that he is an “advocate of Israel’s destruction” and comparing him to a “settler rabbi,” and deplores Rudoren’s “chummy” relations with him. You don’t have to like Abunimah – I’m not a fan, myself – to bristle at this. Unlike settlers, rabbis or not, Abunimah is not committing war crimes by his very existence and he does not rely on the subjugation of another people for it. Furthermore, Abunimah does not “advocate Israel’s destruction:” he merely demands Israel stop being Zionist. Given that in this world, practical Zionism is racist and cannot be otherwise, this is a worthy demand which has nothing to do with the “destruction of Israel,” merely its transformation. (Yes, I can imagine an ideal world in which Zionism is not necessarily racist; if you do visit that world, please give my regards to the pink unicorn.)

And finally, Goldberg graciously grants Rudoren his permission to not be a Zionist. One would think that, as the NYTimes Jerusalem bureau also covers Palestine and Palestinians, that this should be an actual requirement (otherwise, the bureau chief should prima facie be considerd biased), but I guess that since the previous New York Times bureau chief’s son served in the IDF, we should be grateful for small mercies.