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Fighting yesterday’s battle

Strengthening the “front of the moderates” against the “axis of evil” is the strategy orchestrated by Washington in the Middle East. Its application in the Israeli-Palestinian front is code-named “strengthening Abu Mazen,” and implies the isolation of Hamas, because, by definition, Hamas, as an Islamic movement is part of the axis of evil, as defined by the US/Israeli neoconservatives. No matter what Hamas real politics are, no matter the changes in Hamas’ strategy, Hamas is evil and must be destroyed, whatever the cost.

This stupid strategy failed totally in Gaza? Never mind, Gaza will be put under siege and efforts will be concentrated in the West Bank. Isn’t Hamas hegemonic in the West Bank too? Abu Mazen will receive plenty of arms to try to destroy it in the West Bank, even at the cost of a civil war. Will he fail in West Bank too? Never mind, the Israeli military will transform the West Bank into large-scale chaos. Will it not bring about retaliation and the renewal of a bloody wave of terrorist actions in the heart of Israel? Then, Israel will have to speak with Hamas, at least to achieve a cease-fire!

That is, if Hamas will still be a potential partner by this point.

For, another scenario is possible: confronted with the Israeli rejectionist policy, the moderation of Hamas and its genuine willingness to end the conflict may bring the same result as that which has been experienced by the PLO—a loss of legitimacy and its marginalization.

Let’s remember what we have been saying to the Israeli rulers during the many demonstrations in the nineties of the last century: “if you refuse to speak with the PLO, you will have to speak with Hamas!” Today, we can say: “if you don’t speak now with Hamas now, you will have to deal with some kind of al-Qaeda. And with al-Qaeda, there will be no room for talks, but an endless bloody war.” One with no winners.

In Short:

Vampires

On 6 August, Holocaust survivors in Israel, along with many (young) supporters, organized a demonstration in Jerusalem, demanding an increase in the allocation the government is providing them. After having refused, Ehud Olmert finally agreed to raise their allocations: the total monthly payment will now be… 280 shekels, i.e. US$70, in addition to what every senior citizen receives from the National Insurance, which is around 2,000 shekels. Not enough to buy a daily cup of tea…

The fight over Mahmoud Darwish

Mahmoud Darwish is THE Palestinian national poet, if not the main poet of the whole Arab world. Born in Haifa, he is now living between Ramallah and Amman, and coming very rarely in Israel. The fact that Darwish has accepted to come to Haifa to read some of his well-known poems is a national event that left very few Palestinians from Israel indifferent.

His venue was organized by the Communist Party led Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash) and the magazine Masharaf. One-Zero in favor of Hadash, in its political competition with National Democratic Alliance Party (Balad). Balad felt obliged to fight back and in its weekly magazine, Fassal al-Maqal, which criticized the poet for having accepted to receive a special permit from the Israeli authorities to enter Israel and for having accepted the invitation of MK Muhammad Barakeh, who, a few months ago, called to put former MK Azmi Bishara from Balad—himself a close friend of Mahmoud Darwish—on trial for his contacts with Hezbollah last summer.

During the last ten days, the polemics between Hadash and Balad surrounding the visit of Darwish have been at the center of public attention among the Palestinian population of Israel, though the editor of Fassal al-Maqal recognized that his party was divided on that issue.

 War Criminals

Great Britain may ask the State of Israel to extradite several officers and soldiers responsible for the death of British journalist James Miller, in May 2003. Initially, the Israeli government argued that Miller was killed by Palestinians, but a video of the event proved beyond any doubt, that the gunfire came from the direction of an Israeli military armored vehicle. In 2006, based on this evidence, a British jury returned a verdict stating that the TV cameraman was murdered by Israeli soldiers.

Despite many requests by the family of the victim and the British court, the Israeli minister of justice has refused to put the alleged murderers on trial. In order to try to calm down the British juridical system, the Israeli military decided to bring the officer to a disciplinary military commission, which found him not guilty. However, the gun that was submitted to the commission was not the one used by the officer!

The decision of the British jury obliges Israel to put the officers and soldiers on full trial, or to extradite them to the UK: the ultimatum given to Israel ended on 9 August, and, according to Attorney Avigdor Feldman who represents the Miller family, there are no signs that the Israeli authorities intend to do anything. British Minister of Justice, Lord Peter Goldsmith, may give Israel few more days, but definitely will not let the crime go unpunished.  

Israeli Musicians against the Occupation

For the first time in the last forty years, around fifty musicians, composers, players and music teachers, signed a petition calling to end the occupation and to open negotiations for peace. Among the petitioners are some of Israel’s most prestigious musicians, such as composer Michael Wolpe, soprano Mira Zakai and conductor Avner Itai. The musicians’ statement, which was presented during a concert in Tel Aviv and published in the music journal Tav+, says: “We protest the ongoing occupation that corrupts the image of our state. The continuing control over the territories and their Palestinian population is morally unjustified. The aspiration for responsible negotiations with Hezbollah, the PLO, Hamas, Lebanon and Syria is the only positive option.” 

To Study the Naqba… In Arab Israeli Schools

The Minister of Education, Yuli Tamir, took the decision that, from now on, the “Naqba” will be part of the curriculum in Israeli secondary schools. Reading the headlines in the Israeli media, it looks like a very positive step: it is about time that there is an end to the silence within the education system, about the dispossession of the Palestinian people from their homeland between 1947-1949.

Under the headlines, however, there is the text of the article, which, unfortunately, reduced  my joy dramatically: only Arab pupils will have the privilege to learn about the Naqba, not their Jewish colleagues.

In a letter to Haaretz (3 August 2007), Palestinian activist and Israeli citizen, Khulud Badawi, responded to Tamir’s initiative:

Indeed, it is about time that the Ministry of Education recognizes the existence of another narrative in Israeli society, as a step toward a situation in which the two peoples will know each other and learn how to live together. The Ministry of Education, however, should not impose it unilaterally.

In this case, it seems that there is an attempt to bring the Zionist narrative to the Arab pupils. It seems that (for the ministry, the translator) the fact that the Zionist narrative is dominant in our history and geography books is not enough, and there is a need to emphasize in the ears of the Arab pupils that despite the Naqba and the 1948 war, and the “conditions” which forced several Palestinians to leave the country and become refugees, the Palestinian people bears the responsibility for “missing historical opportunities” to resolve the conflict, such as the partition plan.

The decision to allow Arab schools to deal with the Naqba is patronizing, as long it is based on the assumption that it is wise to give the Arabs the possibility to express their feelings, among themselves, and not on the will of the Jewish people to learn something too. The Jewish majority refuses, from an ideological point of view, to deal with the existence of the other.

Once again, the Arab citizen is the one who is requested to bear the responsibility to learn how to coexist and how to recognize the other. This time he is allowed to speak louder in his own school. At the same time, the Jewish schools will continue to deny the narrative of the other, and remain in the balloon of their own narrative.

The Jewish pupils have the right to be exposed to facts and narratives different from their own, and even contradictory. Any initiative by the Ministry of Education which will not be based on reciprocity will only widen the gap between the two sides of the conflict.