Australian Jewish community politics when it comes to Israel and dissenting views is explosive, and a current controversy is no exception. (See, for example, what I wrote for New Matilda in 2009, but there have been episodes since then).
Limmud Oz 2011 has recently banned two speakers, known as supporters of BDS from the conference, even though they were not going to talk about BDS. Why it has happened at such a late stage is interesting–is it another case of the people with the money making not so subtle hints…
Two activists line up to debate the merits of BDS:
KIM BULLIMORE who has worked on the ground in Palestine with the Women’s International Peace Service since 2004 will be putting the case for the Global BDS.
Israeli-born SOL SALBE, a campaigner for Palestinian human rights in this country for 42 years and a well-known member of AJDS will be putting case for a more selective, pinpointed approach.
Ben Saul who teaches International Law in Sydney has a very good article in which I think he points out some of the flaws of a blanket BDS approach because it actually works against allies on the Israeli side (No matter what ideologues say, and left Israelis are more than the well-known names that are trotted out to demonstrate ‘cooperation’). This does not mean that there is going to be an attempt to white out or blanket the problems of Palestinians with an ‘equal’ narrative. Far from it. But for whatever reason (pride? denial of Israel/Israeli Jewish presence? or a rightful fear of colonization-in-struggle, there appears to be reluctance to do so). If there is a lesson to be learned from the anti-apartheid movement is that it reached out to all communities, including those who were technically members of the oppressor class.
And Saul has this great line to those who refuse to accept the fact that Israel is a nasty occupier ” At the same time, those who naively oppose any action against Israel need to open their eyes to what is being done in the name of an Israel which has fallen so far: the paradoxically brutal, yet cavalier, plundering of another people’s inheritance.”
In his April 1, Washington Post opinion piece, Richard Goldstone said that if more information had been forthcoming from Israel when he chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the section concerning intentional killing of civilians by Israel, would have been different. That it was Israel’s refusal to co-operate with the UN fact- finding mission which adversely affected the outcome, is an important qualification that has been somehow lost in the justificatory headlines and commentary that have appeared in the Australian Jewish News.
But what of the rest of the first Goldstone report, or the additional report released on 18 March by the UNHRC, a report which continues to be critical of Israel and Hamas? Has that report been “qualified” or “disowned” by Goldstone? Not at all. It also needs to be observed that the UN again spoke with Gilad Shalit’s father. The UNHRC mission and the original Goldstone report called for his release.
In fact, here are Goldstone’s most recently reported remarks about the report as a whole: “I have no reason to believe any part of the report needs to be reconsidered at this time.”
Of 400 Israeli investigations–there have been 52 criminal investigations. So far, only three cases have been submitted to prosecution; two have resulted in convictions, while the trial of one case is still ongoing. This lack of movement is regrettable. In another case, theft of a credit card by a soldier in Gaza resulted in a far more serious penalty than using a nine-year-old as a human shield, and this has not been the only case of a light touch.
Moreover, we note that Hamas has not conducted any investigations into the launching of rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and deserve the strongly critical remarks in the most recent UNHRC report.
[This letter was published to the Australian Jewish News in an edited form on 22 April 2011]
Something very strange is going on, where commentary upon commentary replaces what is said.
Goldstone, after the first report in the Washington Post said if more information had been forthcoming, one part his report, concerning a deliberate policy of killing civilians by Israel, would have been different. Good–but Israel at the time, refused to cooperate.
But what of the rest of the report? Is that too ‘disowned’? No.
“I have no reason to believe any part of the report needs to be reconsidered at this time.”
Yet the spin doctors have gone crazy. Now what does Btselem have to say, in response, in the Washington Post, where Goldstone wrote about his qualifications to the report’s findings:
“Now Goldstone himself acknowledges that the report was flawed. In a Post op-ed that has created a media storm, he conceded that Israel did not willfully target civilians as a matter of policy. Yet the column, while acknowledging that Israel has opened criminal investigations into the allegations raised, by no means absolves Israel of all the grave allegations regarding its conduct, as official spokespeople rush to conclude.”
It is all too easy to forget this, and start screaming total innocence and total guilt for Hamas.
It is clear that Goldstone has been under incredible personal pressure, which might account for the way he has handled this issue (I suspect that he doesn’t have a team of spin doctors). A full-scale guilt trip had been laid on him, particularly in South Africa. The Forward has a very good discussion of the pressures on him, including the ins and outs of the issue–and the writers still by and large take the Goldstone report very seriously.
This article by an American rabbi probably expresses the sentiments of many people who are accused of being ‘disloyal’ ‘self-denying’ or any number of other pleasant appellations by those who oppose Jews on the left of the Israel/Palestine issue.
“Having just returned from a ten-day human rights trip to Israel and the West Bank, I am faced with the painful and inevitable question: What’s the point? Do the goodwill efforts of North Americans really matter there? Does our solidarity with the beleaguered (and dwindling) Israeli Left have any impact at all?”
Full article
This article by an American rabbi probably expresses the sentiments of many people who are accused of being ‘disloyal’ ‘self-denying’ or any number of other pleasant appellations by those who oppose Jews on the left of the Israel/Palestine issue.
“Having just returned from a ten-day human rights trip to Israel and the West Bank, I am faced with the painful and inevitable question: What’s the point? Do the goodwill efforts of North Americans really matter there? Does our solidarity with the beleaguered (and dwindling) Israeli Left have any impact at all?”
Full article
Ir Amim contains a lot of useful information about the legal status of East Jerusalem, including such things as the use of the law to strip Palestinian rights.
Here is one bit, but view the entire website.
Seventeen days after the end of the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel redrew the boundaries of Jerusalem, annexing 70 km² to the city’s area. The considerations that informed the new boundaries reflected the composition of the planning committee, which included military men and politicians:
Ir Amim contains a lot of useful information about the legal status of East Jerusalem, including such things as the use of the law to strip Palestinian rights.
Here is one bit, but view the entire website.
Seventeen days after the end of the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel redrew the boundaries of Jerusalem, annexing 70 km² to the city’s area. The considerations that informed the new boundaries reflected the composition of the planning committee, which included military men and politicians:
“According to Yesh Din’s data, about 90 percent of complaints filed by Palestinians against Israeli citizens who harm them and their property end without any indictments….The case is one of the most severe cases ever handled by human rights group Yesh Din – the kidnap and assault of a Palestinian 15 year old boy of the West Bank village of Kusra. The boy was kidnapped by two assaulters near the Esh Kodesh outpost. The two offenders battered him, and left him naked, wounded, and bound in an open field.”
From Yesh Din
A settler has now been sentenced to 18 months for kidnapping and torture of that Palestinian youth–there is debate over what appears to be a very light sentence as compared to what a Palestinian would get for the same act.