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I know, I know: we Israelis are funny about rain. We get very excited when it makes an appearance, talking about it incessantly and even going out on trips to see it. But that’s what happens in a country with sporadic rainfall at best for only five months of the year and a national average which would barely fill a bucket. We even have words for the first rain of the year (yoreh יורה ) and the last (malkosh מלקוש ) – a concept which seems quite bizarre to most English speakers.
So you won’t be too surprised to hear that I was out and about today in the rain doing what we call in my family ‘stream hunting’. The reservoirs are still far from full – the past few winters have been drought years – but there is still a lot to enjoy.
The Upper Jordan River
Israeli day-trippers watching a waterfall
The Aiyt waterfall
The Sea of Galilee from Korazim
Meeting the locals
So far, we’re not doing badly at all this year, with some areas in the north-west of the country having already reached their annual average rainfall and in the south the figure currently standing at 40-65%. Let’s hope for much more in the coming months before the malkosh arrives and the long hot dry season begins.
On Saturday February 16th 2002, at around 7:45 p.m., an 18 year-old terrorist – wearing an explosive vest containing 25 pounds of nails for added damage – walked into a pizza parlour in the crowded shopping mall in Karnei Shomron and detonated his device.
Two teenagers were killed instantly, some thirty people (many of them children) were injured – six of them seriously – and one died of her wounds 11 days later. Rachel Thaler was 16 years old, Keren Shatsky and Nehemia Amar were both 15 when they were murdered.
One member at that time of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – the organisation which later claimed responsibility for that terror attack – is named Shahwan Jabarin.
Strangely, (at least according to Western standards) for someone involved with an organisation with such obvious disregard for the lives of either terror victims or the brainwashed teenagers sent to perpetrate terror attacks, he is today active in the field of ‘human rights’ NGOs as director of ‘Al Haq’ and a board member of ‘Human Rights Watch’. He also sits on the board of an organisation named Defence for Children International – Palestine (DCI-Pal).
In June 2007 the Israeli Supreme Court noted that:
“[Jabarin] is apparently active as a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in part of his hours of activity he is the director of a human rights organisation, and in another part he is an activist in a terrorist organisation which does not shy away from acts of murder and attempted murder, which have nothing to do with rights, and, on the contrary, deny the most basic right of all, the most fundamental of fundamental rights, without which there are no other rights – the right to life.”
In 1985 Jabarin was sentenced to 24 months’ imprisonment after having been found guilty of recruiting members for the PFLP (designated as a terror organization by the US, EU and Canada) and arranging PFLP training abroad. In 1994 he was arrested and placed in administrative detention for six months due to the fact that he “had not discontinued his terrorist involvement and maintains his position in the leadership of the PFLP”. In 2003 his PFLP links caused him to be denied entry into Jordan.
The director and founder of DCI-Pal is Rifat Odeh Kassis – another seasoned anti-Israel campaigner who is active in a number of organisations (some of which he founded), including OPGAI, The World Council of Churches, EAPPI, the Alternative Tourism Group, and the Alternative Information Centre (also known for links to the PFLP). Kassis is the co-author of the notorious Kairos Document, which promotes BDS and suggests that Jewish sovereignty is an affront to God’s plan for humanity.
Last year Kassis took public objection to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s expression of anxiety regarding the future of Christians in the Middle East and used the anti-Semitic canard of dual loyalty to attack the Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal.
Far from confining itself to the objectives of its mission statement (“Promoting and protecting the rights of Palestinian children in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), as well as other international, regional and local standards”), DCI-Pal is active in various Boycotts, Divestment and Sanction campaigns and in lobbying foreign governments and organisations. It promotes the ‘right of return‘ of Palestinian refugees and lobbied for the UNHRC to endorse the Goldstone Report.
DCI-Pal also supports the Muslim Brotherhood-organised ‘Freedom flotillas’ and promotes the myth of “a large-scale humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, and continues to promote the libel of the ‘Jenin massacre’ on its website.
Snapshot of DCI-Pal website, taken Jan. 24, 2012 (Click to Enlarge)
After Operation Cast Lead, DCI-Pal posted a list of the names of children it claimed had been killed during the war. Other organisations such as B’Tselem and PCHR later identified some of those named as combatants.
Clearly, DCI-Pal is yet another on the long list of organisations which employ the fig-leaf of human rights to advance radical anti-Israel agendas.
It is also the organization that raised the unproven allegations which Harriet Sherwood has chosen – yet again – to repeat unquestioningly in no less than two articles and one video report in the space of 24 hours on the subject of Palestinian youths detained by Israel .
Sherwood’s complete failure to make any attempt to verify the claims she parrots in order to make them more than just hearsay will hardly come as much of a surprise to those familiar with her track record. Her symbiotic relationship with an NGO which has a (former?) member of a proscribed terrorist group on its board and an often debatable relationship with the truth should, however, raise eyebrows.
Sherwood gets easy and plentiful material for her ‘special report’ and DCI-Pal gets free publicity for its political campaign – but at what price to the reputation of her profession and its ethics?
It is precisely the failure to confirm or even question the accusations made by DCI-Pal – even in light of the response she received in advance of publication from the Israel Security Agency (ISA) – which indicates that Harriet Sherwood was not interested in providing her readers with facts, but in supplying a steady stream of emotive pieces consistent with their (and her) stereotypes. Of course by the by, she is also campaigning on behalf of a cause she apparently either considers worthy of political activism or is too ignorant of the elements at work in the region to identify.
It is long past time for Harriet Sherwood – and her editors – to return urgently to her own words from 2006:
“The first thing we need to be absolutely sure of is the purpose of our news reporting from the region. Our correspondents are there to give our readers accurate information about Israel-Palestine. We are not there to bat for one side or the other, but to report on the situation on the ground as we find it.”
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- The ‘Humanitarian Racism’ of Harriet Sherwood and the Guardian Left (cifwatch.com)
- Israel’s latest cruel, oppressive & shocking violation of international law per Harriet Sherwood: Quarry Mining! (cifwatch.com)
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The Sea of Galilee – Kinneret – from the Golan Heights
The Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) has risen considerably since the beginning of January and is now 58cms higher than at this time last year at -213.37m, -37cm below the lower red line. (courtesy of @kinbot)
SOAS: International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network event in 2010
Almost a decade ago, on April 6th 2002 – a mere ten days after the Park Hotel terror attack which killed 30 Israelis and injured 140 others, prompting Operation Defensive Shield – a group of 125 British academics had a letter published in the Guardian calling publicly, for the first time, for an academic boycott of Israel.
Throughout the subsequent ten years – and in particular since Operation Cast Lead – the growth of anti-Israel incitement and antisemitism at British universities has become a serious cause of concern for anti-racist organisations, politicians and prominent figureswithin British society, as well as some academics.
The news, therefore, that the Israel Society at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) has been recently revived at the initiative of two Israeli students might seem like a glimmer of hope in the dark world of anti-Israeli activism in British academic institutions, especially as SOAS has been particularly egregious on these counts.
In 2009 SOAS invited the prominent Muslim Brotherhood representative in the UK Kamal Helbawy and Ibrahim el Moussaoui – the former head of the foreign department of Hizballah’s ‘Al Manar’ TV – to teach a course on political Islam. In 2010, Hamas activist Azzam Tamimi was invited to speak to students at SOAS alongside his fellow Guardian contributor Ben White. Tamimi told students:
“Today Hamas is considered a terrorist organisation because that’s what the Americans and Israelis and cowardly politicians of Europe want, but what is so terrorist about it?
“You shouldn’t be afraid of being labelled extreme, radical or terrorist. If fighting for your home land is terrorism, I take pride in being a terrorist. The Koran tells me if I die for my homeland, I’m a martyr and I long to be a martyr.”
“Why are the Jews superhuman and better than anyone else that God would give them a homeland? Is God a racist? A god who would prefer people because of their race is not a god I want to associate with. Claiming they are being given the land of God is a racist idea.
“If the world felt so guilty about the Holocaust, the Jews should have been compensated, not brought to my country at the expense of my people.
“Israel does not belong to my homeland and must come to an end. This can happen peacefully if they acknowledge what they did — or we will continue to struggle until Israel is no more.”
“I want to encourage you not to be intimidated by the pro-Israel lobby. The Zionists tell a pack of lies.”
(Tamimi, as is well known, was born in 1955 and his family moved from Hebron to Kuwait when he was 7 years old – a full 5 years before Jordan lost the Six Day War.)
Unfortunately, any hopes of the rejuvenated SOAS Israel Society swimming against the tide of anti-Israel hatred and propaganda already appear to be overly-optimistic. The society’s opening event on January 30th is to be a panel discussion purporting to “re-examine BDS through a more nuanced lens”.
Nuance, however, is hardly the territory inhabited by anti-Zionist panel member Ilan Pappe; controversial for his jaundiced use of history to advance a political agenda, his blithe dismissals of anti-Semitism and his recent spirited defence of Raed Salah. Neither are we to expect much in the way of nuance from Dr John Chalcraft – an old hand in the business of promoting an academic boycott against Israel.
Further along the spectrum, we find Dr Lee Jones – an expert on Southeast Asia (where Israel obviously is not) and Hannah Weisfeld of the debatably ‘pro-Israel, pro-peace’ British J-Street look-alike, Yachad. Also taking part as a discussant will be SOAS Doctoral candidate Sharri Plonsky (Plonski) whose brief experience of Israel must be seen in light of her three year role as Development Coordinator for ‘HaMoked‘: an organization of which the Israeli State Prosecutor said “the organization’s self-presentation as ‘a human rights organization’ has no basis in reality and is designed to mislead.”
Panel member and co-chair of the SOAS Israel Society is occasional Guardian writer and +972 magazine co-founder and editor Dimi (Dmitry) Reider who is currently working on a Master’s degree at SOAS and who was perhaps (we are not told) one of the ‘two Israeli students’ instrumental in the society’s rebirth. Reider is known for his support of the so-called ‘one-state solution’ under which Israel as a Jewish and democratic state would cease to exist and his opinions on BDS appear here.
Interestingly, in a recent article in the Tablet, +972 magazine’s editor in chief Noam Sheizaf admitted that only 20% of its readership is Israeli, indicating “the growing unpopularity of its progressive politics” although that fact does not appear to perturb him as he believes “[i]t’s good to internationalize the conversation”.
“Rejected by the Arabs, ignored by the Jews: This is the reality with which the magazine’s 15 or so writers have to contend, writing, as they do, in English for a largely American audience. The magazine’s name is no coincidence: It is a tribute to Israel’s international calling code and an acknowledgement that, increasingly, any serious conversation about Israel’s policies is to be had outside of Israel’s borders.”
It therefore does not seem unreasonable to ponder the possibility that the SOAS Israel Society has in fact been rejuvenated as a British front for the +972 magazine agenda to which Reider subscribes: an agenda which has so little respect for Israeli democracy that it promotes the use of “dramatic pressure from abroad”, of which – of course – BDS is an integral arm.
Certainly no ‘Israel Society’ which invites Ilan Pappe to spread his anti-Zionist views or has an advocate of the dissolution of the Jewish state such as Dimi Reider as its chair is going to help stem the rising tide of anti-Israel incitement and anti-Semitism on UK campuses. But there is an additional irony to this story.
It turns out that Dimi Reider’s studies at SOAS are supported by a Chevening Scholarship donated by the British Embassy in Tel Aviv and the British Council. So whilst some British MPs and academics work tirelessly to combat anti-Israel incitement on campus, their own Foreign and Commonwealth Office has in this case – be it by accident, design or neglect – made their job somewhat harder.
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The Guardian’s continuing campaign to persuade the world of the benign nature of the Iranian regime and its nuclear programme (also, here and here) was augmented on January 11th with another article by ex-pat Iranian Saeed Kamali Dehghan which, in finger-wagging fashion, informs us that “[t]his covert war on Iran is illegal and dangerous“.
With all the integrity and accuracy of a tabloid gossip columnist, Dehghan lays the responsibility for a whole string of events – which he takes care to detail meticulously – firmly at the door of Israel, the United States or the United Kingdom.
Or, perhaps all three: he doesn’t seem quite able to decide and of course he has no real proof for any of his speculations beyond the usual knee-jerk official Iranian reactions.
But for the Guardian and Dehghan, it is enough that Israel “has refused to deny involvement” to make it the natural prime suspect of choice.
Apparently having fully embraced the traditional Guardian anti-Western stance, Dehghan appears not to have considered the possibility that the Gulf nations in proximity to Iran have just as much – if not more – of an interest in preventing its acquisition of nuclear weapons. Conveniently, he also neglects to mention that the various incidents were apparently carried out by Iranian nationals – a fact which opens up even more possibilities.
Dehghan choses to lump attacks on various nuclear scientists together with the two explosions at military bases last year, despite the fact that there is no proof of connection and the explosions took place at sites later shown to have nothing to do with Iran’s nuclear program. In fact, what little information there is may even suggest that at least some of the past year’s incidents may have more to do with internal factors than cunning covert warfare.
But the cherry on the cream comes in the form of Dehghan’s appeal to international law in defence of a totalitarian regime which (as he well knows) violates human rights laws in its domestic arena on a daily basis, and arms its Syrian dictator ally (currently engaged in the murder of innocent civilians), as well as terrorist groups in Gaza and Lebanon.
“But no matter who is responsible for the extrajudicial killings and apparent sabotage, one thing should be considered above all: these are illegal actions under international law.
Whether it’s an individual simply murdering people or a foreign state inflicting injuries upon the nationals of another state and violating the territorial sovereignty of the Islamic republic, international laws and human rights conventions prohibit such activities.
Supporters of covert war against Iran see it as an alternative to aerial bombing raids or full-scale war. They believe it’s a better approach (even though it is illegal) since there are fewer civilian casualties and public confrontation with supporters of Iran, such as Russia and China, can be avoided.”
Until reaching the final paragraph, it is difficult to ascertain from this article what Dehghan would prefer: the upholding of his (unsourced) version of international law or the mass-killing of civilians on both sides. But then we read this:
“But illegal action will only ruin any chance of dialogue with Tehran. It will encourage Iran to be less prudent and become more radical about its nuclear activities and – most importantly – will encourage Iran to react in a similar fashion with its own covert operations. The covert war against Iran, if not stopped, could escalate out of control.”
So in fact, Dehghan is conveying a not so veiled threat – but the question is, on behalf of whom?
Has he merely spent too much time in the company of Seumas Milne – a supporter of the Stop the War Coalition, which frequently collaborates with the Khomenist Islamic Human Rights Commission and has embraced the approach of the ‘Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran‘ (CASMII)?
Of note, CASMII was founded by Abbas Edalat, a professor connected to the inner circle of the Iranian regime whose primary mission appears to be the defense of the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions. As such, it was interesting to see Dehghan’s ‘Comment is Free’ piece featured prominently on CASMII’s website.
Or is Dehghan – an Iranian national who openly champions LGBT rights, and has family still at the mercy of a regime which executes gays - subject to other pressures?
One sincerely hopes that the former is the case, but nevertheless, his analysis indicates that there is no room for the proverbial cigarette paper between the approach of the Guardian and that of the repressive theocratic dictatorship in Tehran.
That fact should be of profound concern to any Left-wing liberal still reading Comment is Free.
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Usually presented as an historian, Sami Abu Shehadeh has been repeatedly quoted by Guardian writers as a source of information on the subject of Jaffa (Yaffo).
Sami Abu Shehadeh
Last summer saw an article by David Hearst which quoted Abu Shehadeh extensively and was addressed by Anne at Anne’s Opinions and Cif Watch. Prior to that, Harriet Sherwood also relied heavily upon information from Abu Shehadeh in her Observer piece about ‘settlers’ in Jaffa which we addressed here.
As we pointed out at the time:
“Abu Shehadeh is hardly some tweedy local history buff, but a seasoned political activist with a specific agenda for whom history is but an integral part of an ideological arsenal deployed in the service of dismantling the Jewish State. As secretary of the political party Balad in Jaffa, Abu Shehadeh is one of the chief organizers of demonstrations against the establishment of “settlements”, as he terms them, in this neighborhood in Israel’s largest city.
Balad opposes Israel as a Jewish state and advocates its replacement with a bi-national state which would include over four million official Palestinian “refugees” taking advantage of the ‘right of return’.
Abu Shehadeh is also a founder of the Jaffa Popular Committee for the Defence of Land and Housing Rights, aka the Popular Committee against House Demolition in Jaffa, a signatory of Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and a board member of Zochrot; an organization devoted to promoting the Nakba narrative and working to achieve the Palestinian ‘right of return.’ Zochrot is also an endorser of the Free Gaza movement – an organization (which includes the International Solidarity Movement), behind the recent violent flotilla incident, in co-operation with IHH, a radical organization with proven ties to terrorist organizations such as Hamas.”
Further information regarding the activities of Mr. Abu Shehadeh has recently come to light via ‘Mynet‘.
It appears that in December 2011, Jaffa council member Abu Shedadeh presented awards on behalf of the Jaffa Youth Organisation – which he also heads – to two convicted terrorists released under the terms of the Gilad Shalit deal.
“The evening’s compere went on stage and announced that the Jaffa Youth Organisation is happy and proud to present certificates of appreciation to the guests of honour Ziada (57) and Burgal (48), residents of Lod, whom he described as “heroic activists receiving recognition for their struggle”. The audience went wild and welcomed them with thunderous applause.”
Mansour Ziada and Muchlas Burgal were found guilty of throwing a grenade at an Egged public bus travelling from Ramle to Tel Aviv on the morning of Friday, June 5th 1987. Fortunately, the grenade failed to explode, but one person was injured by glass splinters. The two were arrested and tried three months later. Ziada was supposed to remain in prison for the rest of his life and Burgal was scheduled for release in 2027.
Hundreds of children and adolescents were among the 400 invitees present at the ceremony organized by Abu Shehadeh’s group.
“During the ceremony the audience watched a play which had as its central character a Jewish settler. On stage the settler was seen spraying tomb-stones with the words ‘price tag’, wandering around the neighbourhoods of Jaffa and persuading local residents to become collaborators with the Israeli authorities.”
Sami Abu Shehadeh’s activities as a member of several extremist organisations were obviously not deemed by Guardian reporters to be reason enough to disqualify him from being quoted at length as an authority in the past.
So, it will be interesting to see whether his part in honouring the activities of convicted terrorists will be enough to persuade the likes of Sherwood and Hearst that interviewees such as Abu Shehadeh do nothing to contribute to ‘fair and balanced’ reporting.
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Phoebe Greenwood http://phoebegreenwood.webs.com/
About 90 minutes before the Guardian put up Phoebe Greenwood’s latest screed on its ‘World News – Gaza’ section on December 28th another barrage of Kassam rockets rudely awoke the sleeping Israeli civilians living in the region surrounding the Gaza Strip. Eight hours later, a second barrage targeted the same area, endangering children setting out to school at that time and bringing the total number of rockets fired from Gaza this month alone to 46 and this year to 682.
Predictably however, dedicated follower of fashion Phoebe Greenwood deftly airbrushed out the decade-long ongoing war crimes against Israeli civilians by the plethora of terror organisations based in Gaza, ignoring the rockets completely and suggesting that suicide bombings are a thing of the past. Her story concentrates purely on hearsay accounts of Palestinian suffering as recounted to her by a representative of a politically motivated NGO and fails even to afford the accused the right of reply.
There is, of course, nothing surprising about that. Greenwood’s polemic would be considerably less effective both as a tear-jerker for Western audiences and a public relations exercise for PHR were she to provide her readers with the context of the challenges of providing humanitarian assistance to the population of a region in which terrorists trying to infiltrate Israel’s borders mingle indistinguishably with civilians and have a history of exploiting medical permits to facilitate attacks.
Equally, her objective would not have been served by detailing the process by which patients from Gaza are permitted to enter Israel in order to receive medical treatment – a process in which the Palestinian Authority also takes part.
The website of CoGAT includes information which clearly outlines the criteria for entry to Israel from Gaza for various reasons. On the subject of patients seeking medical care in Israel the guidelines are as follows:
“Medical Treatment- Entry to Israel for the purpose of medical treatment is permitted, as well as for the purpose of passage to Judea & Samaria or abroad [for medical reasons], in accordance with requests from the Palestinian Health Co-ordinator who works within the framework of the Palestinian Civilian Committee and is responsible for the prioritisation of requests, categorisation of their urgency and their referral to the [Israeli] Office of Co-ordination and Communication in order to facilitate the reception of life-saving medical treatment or medical treatment essential for the preservation of quality of life, all on condition that the required treatment is not available in the Gaza Strip.
It is to be stressed that payment for the medical care is transferred from the Palestinian Authority directly to the hospitals in Israel and therefore the Palestinian Authority demands that its permission for the patient’s entry into Israel for treatment is issued in advance. (In many cases the Palestinian Authority prefers to take care of a patient in the Gaza Strip or PA-controlled areas of Judea & Samaria due to the high costs of treatment in Israel). “
With regard to entry to Israel from the Gaza Strip for business purposes, the CoGAT guidelines are as follows:
Entry of merchants and business people – The entry of 70 merchants per day (to Israel, Judea & Samaria and abroad) is permitted. The entry is subject to a request from the Palestinian Civilian Committee and to the applicant being a high-level trader whose entry to Israel would contribute to economic improvement in the Gaza Strip and who deals in the trade of goods permitted for entry into Gaza at the time of the request.
In other words, it is entirely possible that the reasons for the two cases of refused entry into Israel which Greenwood cites in her article may be a lot more complicated than her default ‘Israel behaving badly’ pastiche would have us believe. It could well be that Ahmad Hamada did not receive the prior consent of the Palestinian Authority to pay for his treatment or that the Palestinian Civilian Committee did not consider his case untreatable in Gaza. It could be that the Palestinian Civilian Committee did not consider Ramez Kaloub to meet the required entry criteria or that either or both men have some sort of security issues on their record.
We will likely never know the full background to these stories because Greenwood did not apparently bother to contact either the Palestinian Civilian Committee or CoGAT as any investigative reporter worth the title would have done. Instead, she merely reproduced second-hand hearsay fed to her by a very interested party: one of many who seem to think that passage from the terrorist-run enclave of the Gaza Strip should be as unrestricted as the crossing of the border between Belgium and France, despite the clear danger that would present to Israeli civilians.
Beyond the shoddy workmanship there is, however, a more sinister side to Greenwood’s self-interested rant. As she casually mentions in passing (apparently seeing no reason to distract her readers by elaborating), “[i]t is Hamas policy to execute collaborators”. Those executions of course take place in vigilante fashion, without anything resembling a fair trial or due judicial process.
Greenwood’s thoughtless parroting of PHR’s unproven claim to the effect that Gaza Strip residents who agree to become collaborators are more likely to get permission to travel to Israel is therefore potentially lethal and highly irresponsible.
Every year thousands of Palestinians from Gaza and PA-controlled areas find themselves in need of Israeli medical care as anyone who has ever spent time in an Israeli hospital knows. According to the latest figures from CoGAT, 35,000 Palestinians travelled from the Gaza Strip into Israel during 2011. 20,000 of those made the crossing for medical reasons. The other 15,000 entered Israel for reasons of business, sport, art or religion. That’s almost a hundred people a day and does not include Palestinians entering Israel from the PA controlled areas of Judea & Samaria. Almost half of the operations performed every year by the Israeli charity ‘Save a Child’s Heart‘ are on Palestinian children. Palestinian doctors travel to Israel for conferences , conventions and seminars vital to their professional development.
The attempt by a politically motivated NGO in collaboration with an equally politically motivated journalist to suggest that these thousands of patients and other travelers are potentially traitors to their own people is despicable and calls into question both the ‘humanitarian’ credentials of PHR and the ethics of a journalist willing to endanger the lives of others for the sake of a story which fits her personal agenda and that of the paper for which she writes.
It may seem as though it would be difficult for either PHR or Phoebe Greenwood to sink much lower, but with her obvious willingness to gamble with the fate both of Palestinians in need of medical treatment in Israel and Israelis at risk from terrorists seeking to enter Israel under the premise of medical or business visits, Greenwood is clearly capable of plumbing every and any depth, just as long as her story portrays Israel in a bad light.
That, of course, makes her a propagandist rather than a journalist: a fact perhaps recognized by whichever Guardian editor decided that this article would be better without comments and corrections from the public at large.
Update: the figures at the head of this article are no longer accurate due to the fact that whilst it was being written another rocket from Gaza exploded near a rural community in Southern Israel at the time when local children were arriving home from school.
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A recently published article at ‘Harry’s Place’ highlighted the refusal of Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish to take part in a discussion at a literary festival which included an Israeli author on the panel. Whilst the subject of the cocktail of politics in the arts and art in politics is an interesting one in itself, for those of us with one eye on the Guardian, the story has a broader relevance.
Najwan Darwish was one of the organisers of and participants in the Palestine Festival of Literature – or PalFest as it is better known – in 2011 and has taken part in previous years too. Anyone who has been reading the Guardian for the last four years or so will be familiar with the annual PalFest event which was established in 2008 because, in addition to this meeting of Western and Palestinian authors having been widely featured in the Guardian, a significant proportion of the participating writers are either Guardian employees or have frequently graced its pages. In fact, one could even go so far as to say that the Guardian played something of a role in the establishment of this yearly Israel-bashing session in literary fancy-dress known as Palfest.
Eleven years ago, in December 2000, the Guardian sent Egyptian-born author Ahdaf Soueif to produce a ‘special report’ on the then two-month old Second Intifada. As a novelist, Soueif was perhaps unfettered by journalistic constraints such as the need to appear ‘fair and balanced’, but even so, her subsequent series of articles did not commence well.
“I have never, to my knowledge, seen an Israeli except on television. I have never spoken to one. I cannot say I have wanted to. My life, like the life of every Egyptian of my generation, has been overcast by the shadow of Israel. I have longed to go to Palestine, but have not wished to go to Israel. And now I am going there.”
The Guardian described Soueif’s reports as a “remarkable account” and indeed they were. Remarkable for their one sidedness, for the stereotypical portraits of the few Israelis she described, for the deliberate repeated omission of context and even for downright lies which may – if we’re being charitable – be a product of Soueif’s Egyptian upbringing, but which the Guardian chose to print nevertheless.
This Guardian sponsored and initiated trip, together with a subsequent one in 2003, appears to have been the catalyst which prompted the acceleration of Ahdaf Soueif’s political activism on behalf of the Palestinian ’cause’. She is a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, a member of CAABU and a supporter of ‘Britain2Gaza‘ which has links to Hamas activists in the UK. In 2008 she and others set up the UK registered charity ‘Engaged Events’ (number 1123273) which is, according to its own report, “the registered name of the Palestine Festival of Literature”.
PalFest’s creative producer, film-maker Omar Robert Hamilton, who is Ahdaf Soueif’s son and – like his mother – also a Guardian contributor, described its birth as follows.
“Ahdaf Soueif and Brigid Keenan were talking — as they almost always do — about what they could do to help Palestine. They came up with the idea of encouraging authors and artists working in English to visit Palestine and take part in literary activities alongside their Palestinian colleagues.”
Hamilton also runs the PalFest blog where he cites under the heading ‘useful books’ some of the more infamous works by Ali Abunimah, Ben White, Eyal Weizman, Ghada Karmi, Ilan Pappe, Shlomo Sand and Mearsheimer & Walt, among others.
Given the political tone which inevitably pervades the writings of PalFest trustee Ahdaf Soueif and other participants describing their experiences, one may reasonably conclude that this festival is more about getting Western household names to join in the assault on Israel’s legitimacy than about bringing English Literature to the Palestinian people. Unfortunately, the Charity Commission of England & Wales is notorious for ignoring its own guidelines on the subject of political activity by charities.
“However, a charity cannot exist for a political purpose, which is any purpose directed at furthering the interests of any political party, or securing or opposing a change in the law, policy or decisions either in this country or abroad.”
“However, trustees must not allow the charity to be used as a vehicle for the expression of the political views of any individual trustee or staff member”
Co-founder of PalFest and also currently a trustee is author and diplomatic wife Brigid Keenan Waddams who is married to former UK and EU ambassador Alan Waddams. Like her husband (here describing Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin as a ‘spiritual leader’), Keenan Waddams appears to hold opinions which have underwhelmed some readers of her books.
Here are two such online reader reviews:
“I was a bit shocked by all the political “anti-Israel” sentiment which seemed very out-of-place in a book described as “laugh out-loud” funny. And I certainly found nothing funny about her comments regarding Richard Burton and “Jewish moneylenders”.”
“My main problem with Ms Keenan was that she constantly harps on about her views on Palestine. As it happens, I’m pretty much of the same opinion as the author and her husband but I do think she mentioned the subject too many times, mostly without any apparent need. Furthermore, her comments about Jewish moneylenders had, I felt, no place in this book.”
Rather predictably, Keenan Waddams is also a serial letter-writer and petition-signer on Israel-related subjects.
PalFest’s financial support comes from a variety of organisations including the George Soros Open Society Foundation, the British Council, the A.M. Qattan Foundation (which has also funded, among others, Al Shabaka and Miftah), the American Colony Hotel, Christian Peacemaker Teams, and several universities. According to self-declared information on Engaged Events’ partner page at the Anna Lindh Foundation, it has also received funding from the Ford Foundation and UNESCO.
In PalFest’s first year – 2008 – out of a total of 17 participants the Guardian associated writers who took part were Pankaj Mishra, Ian Jack , Victoria Brittain (also a former trustee of ‘Engaged Events’), William Dalrymple, Andrew O’Hagan , Raja Shehadeh and Ahdaf Soueif.
In 2009 twenty-one writers took part in the festival including Guardian-associated Ahdaf Soueif, Victoria Brittain, Raja Shehadeh, Rachel Holmes, Robin Yassin-Kassab, Henning Mankell and Deborah Moggah .
2010 saw the Guardian-associated writers making up five of the twelve participants: Ahdaf Soueif, Raja Shehadeh, Geoff Dyer, Adam Foulds and William Sutcliffe.
At the 2011 festival, out of a total of 20 participants, Ahdaf Soueif and Raja Shehadeh were joined by Guardian-associated writers Gary Younge, Ursula Owen and the director of the Guardian’s own Hay Festival, Peter Florence.
PalFest’s organisers claim to be inspired by the late Edward Said’s call to “reaffirm the power of culture over the culture of power”. Najwan Darwish’s latest outburst together with the connections of Ahdaf Soueif to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign – increasingly embroiled in racism-related scandal – and the Hamas-linked Britain2Gaza might perhaps prompt the disproportionate number of Guardian-associated writers and staff regularly invited to take part in this annual Israel-bashing fest to ask themselves exactly what kind of ‘culture’ they are helping to promote.
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- Breathtaking Hypocrisy Watch: Per Guardian/AP, Palestinians accuse Gingrich of ‘Incitement’ (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian discovers the injustice of denying people the right to national self-determination (cifwatch.com)
- Palestinian Guardian propaganda photo of the day (Soldier vs. child) (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian gratuitous anti-Israel photo of the day (& a story about the photojournalist behind the lens) (cifwatch.com)
- Newt Gingrich, the Guardian, and the invention of a moral outrage. (cifwatch.com)
- Jews to build new bridge. Guardian characterizes it as a provocation. (cifwatch.com)
It’s been quite a while since we heard from Mya Guarnieri on the pages of CiF.
Not that I’ve been losing any sleep over that, but the other day I unintentionally stumbled across the apparent reason.
As she stated on her 972 Magazine platform in October Mya has “got a new gig in Jerusalem” and that gig seems to be with the Alternative Information Centre.
The AIC is an Israeli-Palestinian NGO established in 1984. Its Israeli founders were members of the Revolutionary Communist League – previously Matzpen. Its Director, Michael Warschawski, was tried and imprisoned in 1987 due to links with George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
PFLP poster celebrating the group's 44th anniversary
Warschawski accuses Israel of being a ‘colonial settler state’, of practicing ‘ethnic cleansing’ and of inventing and manipulating ‘neo-antisemitism’. Predictably, he supports BDS. At the Haifa Conference for the Right of Return in 2008, Warschawski stated that:
“..one has to unequivocally reject the very idea (and existence) of a Jewish state, whatever will be its borders.”
The AIC Director has also collaborated extensively with the UK-based Khomenist Islamic Human Rights Commission, appearing at their conferences and taking part in their delegation to the 2009 ‘Durban II’ conference. His conclusions regarding that conference can be read here and include the following.
“The UN Durban I Conference, held in South Africa in 2001, was a powerful statement by almost all the nations of the world against racism, and in spite of some marginal anti-Semitic incidents, an extraordinary outcry of international civil society. In fact, Durban was the last international demonstration of the decolonization era that started with the defeat of Nazi Germany and the awakening of the colonized nations.“
To those familiar with her work it is perhaps not very surprising that Mya Guarnieri seems to have gravitated towards the more extreme end of the anti-Zionist scale, but the Guardian’s editors should probably be asking themselves how she ever came to be considered an appropriate columnist for ‘the world’s leading liberal voice’.
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On December 5th the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent Harriet Sherwood produced yet another article on one of her – and her employer’s - favourite subjects – the Bedouin. This time she appears to have made the short journey eastwards on Highway 1 from Jerusalem to the area between Ma’ale Adomim and Mitzpe Yericho which, as anyone who has traveled that route knows, is the site of numerous Bedouin encampments.
The town in the background is Ma'ale Adomim
Once again, Sherwood apparently parrots the information fed to her by various interested parties without bothering to fact check.
“Around 20 bedouin communities between Jerusalem and Jericho are to be forcibly relocated from the land on which they have lived for 60 years under an Israeli plan to expand a huge Jewish settlement.”
Had Sherwood bothered to go back into the archives, she would have discovered that the members of the Jahlin tribe have been warned by successive Israeli governments that they would have to move from land they have been squatting upon since the 1980s due to the fact that it has been located within the municipal region of Ma’ale Adomim since 1977.
With a little research, Sherwood would also have discovered that the Jahlin have no legal claims to the ownership of this land, as admitted by one of the tribe’s leaders to the Los Angeles Times as far back as 1994, and that the Israeli government has repeatedly offered a solution to the problem, most recently in 2009.
“Nevertheless, out of sympathy for the plight of the Jahalin tribe, the Israeli government offered them title to a plot of land if they would agree to leave their encampment near Maale Adumim. This new site is about one kilometer from and more than five times larger than the Jahalin’s previous encampment. In addition, under the proposed agreement with the Jahalin, the Israeli government agreed to provide, at no charge, electricity and water hookups, cement building platforms and building materials.
Not surprisingly, the leaders of the Jahalin tribe accepted Israel’s offer and most of the tribe moved to the new site. The electricity and water hookups were provided, and the platforms were built. However, when a lawyer representing some of the Jahalin returned from a trip abroad and heard of the agreement, she convinced several of the Jahalin families who had not yet moved to stay where they were.”
Despite the fact that this has been an ongoing issue for well over 20 years, (and not to mention the logistical difficulties of postal communication, as obvious from the above photographs taken three months ago) Sherwood goes on to claim that:
“The communities have not been formally notified of the plan, which was disclosed by Israel‘s civil administration, the military body governing area C, to a UN agency.”
Next, Sherwood tries her hand at an emotive exercise in ‘compare and contrast’, completely ignoring the fact that no Western country (including the UK) which abides by planning rules provides services such as power, water or roads for illegal squats :
“The tiny communities perched on the bleak rocky hills which roll down towards the Dead Sea endure a harsh existence without electricity, running water, sanitation, paved roads and medical facilities. The bedouin homes are makeshift structures of wood, corrugated iron and tarpaulin.
The nearby Jewish settlements, in contrast, are connected to utilities and services. Ma’ale Adumim, home to almost 40,000 people and which overlooks the Jahalin communities, has 21 schools, 80 kindergartens, a public transport network, libraries, swimming pools and shopping malls.”
After that, a little politically-charged historical revisionism:
“The Jahalin were originally from the Negev desert, from which they fled or were forced out following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Now the extended tribe is scattered across the West Bank.”
Sherwood may care to purchase a copy of Henry Baker Tristram’s ‘The Land of Israel’, written in 1865, in which (chapter 9) he recounts how, in preparation for a journey from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, his party “signed agreements with the Bedouin Sheikhs, who took it upon themselves to guard us and guide us along the way”, including “Abu Dahouk, the Sheikh of the Jahalin tribe which sits south-east of Hevron”.
Sherwood quotes her interviewee, adding her own interpretations of ‘international law’ as is her usual practice:
“They want to empty the bedouin from the whole area, and they will put settlers in our place, and there will be no Palestinian state,” said Hamis. All Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law.”
The fact is, however, that Ma’ale Adomim is one of the areas which will undoubtedly remain under Israeli control in the event of the signing of a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority.
The agenda which Sherwood is promoting in this article is that of the extremist elements which reject any kind of compromise necessary to enable such an agreement and, in fact, the timing of this article suggests that Sherwood has taken upon herself to act as a megaphone for one of the more politically-motivated organisations in the field.
In her article, Sherwood coyly refers to “a UN agency”. What she does not tell her readers is that on the very same day on which her article was published, UNRWA (99% staffed by local Palestinians) put out the following .
UNRWA is currently running a campaign – replete with some very questionable ‘facts’ – entitled “Don’t demolish my future“. Part of the campaign focuses upon the encampment at Khan al Ahmar – the very place from which Harriet Sherwood filed this latest report.
Was Sherwood’s trip to Khan al Ahmar in fact organized and facilitated by UNRWA? We may never know, but it seems like a distinct possibility, in particular as she repeats the UNRWA propaganda practically verbatim.
Guardian readers are probably quite capable of logging onto the UNRWA website themselves if they wish to read about the latest campaigns by this distinctly non-apolitical organization. One would expect a foreign correspondent worth his or her salt to do more than simply copy-paste the blurb put out by a notoriously one-sided organization, including the investment in some serious research and the presentation of the other side of the story.
The Guardian has publicly claimed that its coverage of Israel is “fair and balanced”. This article indicates yet again that it is neither.
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- Guardian headline and report on Lebanese terrorist rocket fire into Israel blurs causation (cifwatch.com)
Image from antisemitic site which states: UK Foreign Office has been under Zionist influence for decades
As is the case in the majority of Israeli homes, Friday is cleaning-up day in the Israelinurse household.
But in order for copious amounts of ‘economica’ (bleach), furniture polish and floor shampoo to do their magic, I have to prepare myself with two cups of coffee in rapid succession – usually consumed whilst trying to determine how many of the offspring will be home for dinner, checking e-mails and having a quick browse of the news online.
The third load of laundry is now hanging out to dry, the kitchen sparkles, the spicy pumpkin and tomato sauce for tonight’s kubbeh is bubbling away on the hob and sunlight filtering through the pomegranate tree outside the south-facing living room window makes dancing dappled shapes on a shiny terrazzo floor.
But throughout the polishing, wiping, scrubbing, chopping and mopping I’ve been troubled by one more thing I feel needs clearing up: a Tweet I noticed during morning coffee.
It refers to the story which broke yesterday regarding the questioning, by British MP Paul Flynn, of the national loyalties of the UK ambassador to Israel, and was sent by another MP who, to the best of my knowledge, has an impeccable record on the subject of anti-racism. That makes it all the more puzzling to me.
Tweet by MP Rob Halfon
Paul Flynn accused the British Ambassador, who happens to be Jewish, of being incapable of doing his job properly because of dual loyalties – a classic antisemitic trope, as is Flynn’s additional assertion – according to the JC – that Mr Gould does not have the required “roots in the UK”.
So Robert Halfon’s Tweet and the article on his blog are somewhat confusing from my point of view. Have we reached a point at which people – not least public figures – can make antisemitic accusations whilst secure in the knowledge that their reputations will remain squeaky clean?
If so, it wouldn’t exactly be a precedent in British politics. I’m sure many readers remember the remarks made by former Labour Minister Ben Bradshaw in 2009 regarding seemingly irresistible pressures supposedly applied to the BBC by Israel.
My personal view is that someone who is a genuine anti-racist would not have been susceptible to the kind of smears brought up by Giblin and Bartolotti against Ambassador Gould and would most probably have bothered to inform himself of the backgrounds and motivations of the accusers. A genuine anti-racist would certainly not have repeated such an obviously anti-Semitic trope in a Parliamentary Select Committee.
But the bigger question here is this: does the employment of anti-Semitic dialogue make one an anti-Semite or not? I think it does, but if not – what are the criteria necessary in 21st century Britain for someone to be defined as anti-Semitic?
I’d be very interested to hear what readers think.
Regular CiF Watch readers will no doubt remember the rather hilarious video of one Pippa Bartolotti – a British participant in last summer’s ‘flytilla’ – bashing the doors at Ben Gurion airport with her suitcase.
Of course Ms. Bartolotti also has a less amusing side as indicated by her meetings with Hamas representatives in Gaza and her eagerness to pose with the flag of the fascist Syrian Socialist National Party whilst on a trip with ‘Viva Palestina’.
Well now Ms. Bartolotti is in the news again, having apparently been the inspiration for Labour MP Paul Flynn’s accusations of ‘divided loyalty’ towards the British Ambassador in Israel.
According to Mr. Flynn:
“doubts had been raised about Mr Gould’s loyalty by two of his constituents, Pippa Bartolotti and Joyce Giblin, who had been held in prison in Israel after taking part in the “flytilla” demonstration against the Gaza blockade in July.
“When they were briefly imprisoned in Israel, they met the ambassador, and they strongly believe… that he was serving the interest of the Israeli government, and not the interests of two British citizens,”
The EUMC working definition of anti-Semitism states that one of the manifestations of such racism is:
“Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.”
Thank you Ms Bartolotti and Ms Giblin for providing this classic example of what has been clear to many of us for a long time: the very blurred line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
Hawkeye
Omar2
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
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Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
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Margie in Tel Aviv
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Hadar Sela
Lies, Damn Lies, and Guardian-approved (Ben) White Lies
February 4, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, Balad, BDS, Ben White, Comment is Free, Flotilla, Guardian, Hamad Amar, Haneen Zoabi, Masud Ghnaim, Obsession, Said Nafa | by Israelinurse | 8 comments
Ben White
It would be reassuring to be able to write that the latest Ben White screed on ‘Comment is Free’ is the result of misunderstanding, ignorance or shoddy research.
Equally, comfort could perhaps be found were it possible to assign the fact that such crude anti-Israel propaganda passed the inspecting eyes of a Guardian editor to ‘hasn’t got a clue about a far-away place’.
Neither of these statements is, however, true.
Ben White is a prolific and energetic campaigner against Israel’s existence, as CiF Watch readers have known for a long time. The Guardian knows that too and hence the publication of this article amounts to nothing more than collaboration with White’s ugly campaign of incitement.
Let’s have a look at some of White’s recycled claims. He begins by stating that:
Actually, of the 120 members of the current (18th) Knesset, no fewer than fourteen are of Arab ethnicity. Eleven of them are not mentioned in White’s article, indicating that the vast majority do not, as he terms it, “face harassment”.
The Likud party includes in its Knesset members Ayoub Kara, a former deputy speaker of the house who also sat in the 15th and 16th Knessets. Kadima has Majalli Wahabi, also a former deputy speaker and acting President who was once a member of the Likud and has served in the two previous parliaments. Ta’al has Dr. Ahmed Tibi – now serving his fourth term. Labour includes Raleb Majadele – the first Arab Muslim Minister who is currently in his third term as a Knesset member. Yisrael Beiteinu includes Hamad Amar and the United Arab list has Ibrahim Sarsur, Masud Ghnaim and Taleb el Sana who is currently in the Knesset for the sixth time. Hadash is represented by Afu Agbaria, Hana Sweid and Mohamed Barakeh – also a former deputy speaker now in his fourth term of office. Balad has Said Nafa, Jamal Zahalka – on his third term – and Haneen Zouabi.
All of these representatives took an oath of office upon entering the Knesset. That oath states:
Indeed, like most citizens of democracies the world over, Israelis expect their lawmakers – regardless of ethnicity – first and foremost to uphold the country’s constitution and its laws. If they do not, then democracy is a sham. In the cases of the three Knesset members named by White, there have been alleged breaches of laws made in the parliament in which they sit.
Mohammed Barakeh of the communist party Hadash faces charges of assault. The fact that the incidents took place at demonstrations would presumably not excuse the alleged slapping of a policeman or choking of a soldier in any democratic country in which assault is a criminal act. Mr. Barakeh, incidentally, is a graduate of Tel Aviv University; hardly a mark of the downtrodden and persecuted.
Said Naffaa of Balad was indicted on suspicion of breaking the law which prohibits visiting an enemy state without the advance permission of the Ministry of the Interior. That law too of course applies to all Israeli citizens, regardless of religion or ethnicity. In addition he is suspected of having met with members of two terrorist organisations.
Haneen Zoabi – also a member of the anti-Zionist party Balad and a graduate of both Haifa University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem – is most infamous for her co-operation with the IHH (banned in Israel due to its connections to the Union of Good and Hamas) during the 2010 incident and her involvement in assaults on Israel’s legitimacy such as the Russell Tribunal on Palestine.
White’s concluding paragraph states that:
There are indeed citizens of all ethnicities and religions in Israel working hard to close the gaps and improve the situation of its minorities. Some of them can be found in the Knesset. They are the majority of diligent Arab MKs – ignored by Ben White – who loyally serve their communities within the framework of the law and, whilst upholding their voluntarily given oath of allegiance to the state, work for equal rights and opportunities for all.
As a distant relative of Haneen Zoabi complained last year:
Rather than indicating persecution of Arab members of the Knesset, the three MKs championed by White serve to highlight the fact that all citizens of Israel are equal in the eyes of the law. In a true democracy, equality includes both rights and obligations – which cannot suddenly be shelved when it comes to prosecution for breaking the law.
But of course Ben White does not actually want people such as Zoabi, Naffaa and Barakeh to be bound by full equality with their counterparts of other ethnicities. He believes that those who actively work towards the dissolution of the State of Israel and sometimes co-operate with some of its most violent enemies should not simply get their day in court like anyone else, but should be permitted to carry on unhindered.
And if Israeli society balks at the transgressions of those using its very democracy to try to bring about its demise, White will play the ethno-religious card and scuttle to the pages of the Guardian or the New Statesman shouting ‘persecution!’ That very same tactic has long been used successfully by Islamists in White’s native country in order to deflect criticism of a whole host of problems within British society.
Fortunately, Israeli society is not yet cowed by so-called ‘progressives’ and ‘liberals’ who are prepared to sacrifice their collective values on the rotting altar of misguided political correctness.
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