by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Thursday, September 14th, 2006
Three weeks after accusing Israel of human rights violations in the war in Lebanon, Amnesty International released another report focusing on Hezbollah’s behavior during the war. Amnesty’s conclusion: Hezbollah’s indiscrimate attacks on Israelis constitute war crimes.
Directing attacks at civilians or civilian objects is a violation of international humanitarian law, and doing so with intent constitutes a war crime.
Indiscriminate attacks too contravene the principle of distinction and are also a war crime. Indiscriminate attacks include those that involve a method or means of combat that cannot be directed at specific military objectives and are therefore “of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.”
The report, however, leaves out any examination of Hezbollah’s war crimes against the Lebanese people such as using Lebanese civilians as human shields, firing rockets at Israel from populated areas, hiding weapons in private homes, sometimes without the homeowners’ permission, and impeding Lebanese civilians from leaving areas under Israeli attack.
In an analysis of Amnesty’s earlier report on Israel, NGO Monitor noted the same ommission in Amnesty’s listing of war damage on the Lebanese side.
The authors of this report do not consider or seek to verify claims that these buildings were used to launch attacks against Israel – there is not a single mention of the street fighting in Beit Jabal in when Amnesty describes the building destructions in that area.[1] The report also does not delve into the complex dilemmas created when civilian infrastructure becomes a legitimate military target due to its use in terror attacks. As Michael Erlich has pointed out, Amnesty brazenly assumes that all civilian casualties are the product of war crimes.[2] Furthermore the report confuses the issues by grouping damage to infrastructure and civilian deaths together, as possible “war crimes”. The former is clearly permissible in war while the latter requires independent investigation, depending on the circumstances.
by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Wednesday, August 16th, 2006
What does it mean to win a war?
Around here, there has been too much talk about Israel “losing” to Hezbollah. That could be true if Hezbollah actually won anything. But it got battered, lost most of its fighting corps and weapons, its position along Israel’s border, the element of surprise it used to such advantage, and it must now reckon with the Lebanese people who experienced a trauma while Hezbollah pursued the interests of Syria and Iran. But Hezbollah survived, at least they can claim that.
Some victory. It would be called defeat by anyone but the weak and feable.
The idea that Israel lost reinforces the unrealistic standards we demand from the IDF. If the IDF generals snap their fingers and the Arabs don’t run for cover, the IDF was defeated. After all, Israel’s security depends on Arabs believing that the IDF is invulnerable. If it takes a few casualties while fighting on the enemy’s turf, it shows it can be beaten.
The way people talk about Hezbollah reminds me of how people used to discuss Yasser Arafat. The Palestinian leader completely failed to bring anything good to his people despite numerous opportunities. But newspapers still lauded him for his “shrewd” negotiating style and leadership. Even in his final years, while he sat in a bullet-ridden room in constant fear of assassination, op-eds would appear asserting that Arafat would likely emerge the clear winner of the intifada.
So, what does it mean to win? For Israel, it means maintaining its strategic edge and its psychological advantage over the Arab world. It also means achieving the goals it set out in the first days of the conflict. No matter how we look at it, Israel failed to squeeze the kidnapped soldiers out of Hezbollah’s hands. And it failed to “break” Hezbollah’s backbone. But I’m not sure at all that Israel’s strategic edge has been harmed, despite what some extremists say.
Israel showed that a daily barrage of rockets will not bring its citizens to their knees, demanding an immediate ceace-fire (like in Lebanon). Except for the kidnapping that ignited the whole month of fighting, Israel did not experience a breach of its territory on the ground. It couldn’t stop the rockets from inside Lebanon, but it managed to protect its citizens pretty well – Hezbollah fired 4,000 rockets and killed 41 civilians.
All in all, I don’t see how anyone could say Israel came out of the war looking vulnerable. I think Lebanon’s state of disaster will prevent another Hezbollah attack in the near future. Syria has always been a big talker. But if Israel was being defeated by the mighty Hezbollah, why didn’t Syria jump in and capture the Golan Heights? Because talks is cheap; rebuilding road, bridges, and its electrical system are expensive.
But still, it is impossible to ignore the “shortcoming” Olmert alluded to in his speech before Knesset. Israel had complete air supremacy throughout the fighting but it wasn’t enough to keep the soldiers safe or to push Hezbollah out of its strongholds. I don’t know what the higher eschelon knew about Hezbollah’s capabilities, but soldiers returning from the field consistently expressed surprise about what they were facing. Someone has to answer for these failures. It will be interesting to see who goes and who stays when it all plays out. Then we’ll know the war’s real winners and losers.
(Cross-posted with Turning the Tide)
by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006
The Ford Foundation funds many causes that improve the world and advance its goals of “strengthening democratic values, reducing poverty and injustice, promoting international cooperation and advance human achievement.” Ford gives priority to work in the Palestinian territories, acknowledging that “a just resolution of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is of central importance to the region as a whole, as well as to the peoples directly affected.”
Strange then that it also funds NGOs such as Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, International Committee of Jurists (ICJ), Miftah, Al-Haq, Al-Mezan, SHAML and EMHRN, all of which exploit human rights rhetoric to delegitimize Israel while undermining efforts towards a peaceful end to the conflict. It’s even stranger considering Ford Foundation President Susan Berresford promised to stop funding groups that “promote or condone bigotry or violence, or that challenge the very existence of legitimate, sovereign states like Israel” in the wake of widespread allegations that Ford helped finance much of the anti-Israel activity at the infamous Durban Anti-Racism Conference.
Read more here
by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Monday, January 23rd, 2006
Former Meretz leader Yossi Sarid admitted he was wrong to back Arafat as long as he did and should have abandoned the Palestinian leader when it became clear he would not honor his agreements.
“In the past I was wrong in not criticizing Yasser Arafat on time,†Sarid wrote in Haaretz last week. “Arafat was never a personal friend. For a while, Arafat seemed a reasonable partner when he was the first Palestinian leader to recognize the State of Israel and agree to a partition of the country.
“Eventually, he began to delude and deceive the entire world, and at a certain point it became clear we would not get very far with him. Or even close. That was the time to disassociate from him,†Sarid wrote.
Sarid added that the Left continued to support Arafat even as Palestinian terrorism spiraled out of control. “It was impossible to swallow the “chairman” but we also did not throw him up. He remained in office until he died. Politically, we died before him. Meretz paid dearly for that delay and with it the entire Israeli left.â€
by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Thursday, December 8th, 2005
At least Europe is on the map.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran would support Israel’s existance if it moved to Europe. A month ago, he called for Israel to be wiped off the map entirely.
“Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces and they insist on it to the extent that if anyone proves something contrary to that they condemn that person and throw them in jail,” Ahmadinejad said.
“Although we don’t accept this claim, if we suppose it is true, we ask the Europeans: Is the killing of innocent Jewish people by Hitler the reason for their support to the occupiers of Jerusalem?” he continued.
“If the Europeans are honest they should give some of their provinces in Europe — like in Germany, Austria or other countries — to the Zionists and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe. You offer part of Europe and we will support it.”
Full story.
by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Tuesday, October 25th, 2005
How balanced was the Israeli press in its coverage of disengagement? Not very, according to the Columbia Journalism Review. In a long feature examining coverage in Haaretz, Yediot Aharonot, and Maariv, the CJR claims the press of provided “unequivocal support” for the government’s policy and failed to carry out any meaningful analysis of the plan.
The negative portrayal of settlers was only a small part of how the press helped prop up the disengagement. In the year and a half of preparations and discussion about the pullout, the media failed to ask the kind of questions that are becoming increasingly obvious, now that we are in what Israeli’s had taken to calling “The Day After.†What was really behind Sharon’s proposal? Was he trying to put the peace process back on track or, as Dov Weisglass, Sharon’s chief adviser, said in a controversial interview, to place it in “formaldehyde†by shaking off Western pressure and solidifying Israel’s hold on the West Bank? And why the insistence on unilateral action, withdrawing without negotiating with the Palestinians? Shouldn’t the November 2004 death of Yasir Arafat — always portrayed as the main obstacle to negotiation — have provoked a shift in policy? And where did the Palestinians stand? In the buildup to August 15, Israel’s press made little attempt to understand how they viewed the withdrawal. In Palestinian eyes, was Israel running away, succumbing to the relentless terror campaign, or, as Israel framed it, leaving as an expression of its own strong will? And where would the withdrawal leave the Palestinian Authority? Would it be able to assert control over Gaza in the face of the popular extremist group Hamas? And, importantly, would the unilateral move strengthen Hamas and undermine Abbas, who has always claimed that negotiation was the only way to end the occupation? Would the withdrawal help to a establish a Palestinian state or doom it?
Such questions might have altered the way this piece of history unfolded. Instead, throughout the spring and into the summer, hardly anyone was doing the asking. The press fell short of its journalistic responsibility to scrutinize the policy, to explore its many implications. Five years of incessant violence had had a paralyzing effect. Reporters and editors, like most Israelis, were willing to ignore the complexities of this quick fix, if only for the hope that it might break the unbearable status quo.
Read the whole feature here.
by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Monday, August 29th, 2005
It depends on how you define the word occupation.
In an article entitled Legal Acrobatics: The Palestinian Claim that Gaza is Still “Occupied” Even After Israel Withdraws, former Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold, claims the Palestinians are abusing the term for political ends.
The fact that a wide variety of Palestinian spokesmen will charge that the Gaza Strip is still “occupied” even though the Palestinians exercise self-government and the Israeli civilian and military presence in this territory have been removed is revealing. It means that the charge of “occupation” is less a rigorous legal definition and more a blunt political instrument to serve the PLO’s diplomatic and military agenda against Israel.
He makes some good points. Even if the borders and airspace remain under Israeli control, claiming that ‘nothing has changed’ is ridiculous. What really hasn’t changed is the Palestinian awareness that an end to the occupation means an end to world sympathy and, therefore, the diplomatic free ride they have enjoyed for years.
From the looks of things, the only thing the PA leaders hate more than occupation is having to take responsibilty for their own people.
by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Wednesday, July 20th, 2005
London Mayor Ken Livingstone continued his personal crusade against the state of Israel, accusing Israeli government officials of crimes against humanity and defending Palestinian suicide bombers.
“Given that the Palestinians don’t have jet planes, don’t have tanks, they only have their bodies to use as weapons,” Livingstone told Sky News. His comments come less than two weeks after terrorists blew up several London buses and subway trains, killing 55 people.
Several months earlier, Livingstone angered the Israeli government by calling Sharon a war criminal who should be put in prison. He also compared an unsympathetic Jewish reporter to a Nazi guard.
Last week, he returned to similar themes, comparing the right of center Likud party to the radical Hamas terrorist organization. “I think the Israeli hardliners around Likud and Hamas are two sides of the same coin; they need each other to drum up support, they point to the excesses of the other to recruit and I don’t make any distinction because I believe the taking of human life is wrong,†he said.
He also accused Israeli officials of crimes against the Palestinians. “I will welcome and meet with senior members of the Israeli government if they come here because they serve their country’s government even though I believe they have done terrible things bordering on crimes against humanity.”
Jerusalem Post coverage here
Haaretz coverage here
by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Sunday, July 17th, 2005
Amira Hass reports that Kassam rockets apparently explode by themselves after six months. So what’s Hamas supposed to do with them other than launch them at innocent people?
A Palestinian journalist asked an armed Hamas militant yesterday why his organization had suddenly begun to fire Qassam rockets again after two months of quiet. His answer: “Do you know how many Qassams we have? What are we going to do with them next month, after disengagement?”
Some people say that six months after being manufactured, the Qassams explode by themselves. If so, it might explain the urgency Hamas suddenly feels to get rid of them.
It’s that simple.
by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Wednesday, July 6th, 2005
Gaza settler Avi Farhan wants to remain on his land, even if it means becoming a Palestinian citizen.
Should Jews in Gaza be allowed to stay if they accept Palestinian rule over the land?
Check out this interview from al-Jazeera.
by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Sunday, May 29th, 2005
British academics responsible for last month’s Association of University Teachers (AUT) academic boycott against Israel vowed to continue their anti-Israel struggle despite the union’s decision to reverse the boycott in favor of building bridges between Israeli and Palestinian academics.
Sue Blackwell, who championed the original boycott motion, refused to accept defeat in the AUT vote, claiming “a very well-organized, well-funded pro-Israel lobby†pressured AUT members to reverse their votes.
She also said future action against Israel would be easier because the “genie was out of the bottle”. “This is the start not the end as far as the boycott campaign is concerned,†she said. “We have put this issue firmly on the map and we have shown that people in British academia do care about what is happening in the occupied territories.â€
Steven Rose, who called for a general European academic boycott against Israel in 2002, also promised to continue pushing for sanctions against Israel, comparing the Jewish state to Nazi Germany.
“I regard Israeli academics as shameful and silent, just as ordinary decent Germans were silent their Jewish colleagues were kicked out of universities,†he said. “Of course, many German academics disapproved, but they were silent. And British academics continued to deal normally with them. Do you not see the parallels? We have no right to treat Israel as if it were a normal state.”
Members of the AUT disagreed, voting by a two-thirds majority to cancel the boycott.
by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Friday, April 29th, 2005
Haifa University is not planning to bring disciplinary action against Ilan Pappe despite his role in persuading Britain’s Association of University Teachers (AUT) to boycott the university, according to university president, Aaron Ben-Ze’ev.
Pappe published a letter in the British Guardian newspaper accusing Haifa University of discriminating against him because of his outspoken pro-Palestinian opinions. He called on the AUT to boycott the university as a tactic to ensure pro-Palestinian views continue to be expressed.
“A very precise and focused policy of pressure on the university allowed me, albeit under restriction and systematic harassment, to purse my classes and research,” Pappe wrote, adding that many Arab students at the university do not feel safe to express their own support for the Palestinians.
However, Ben-Ze’ev told the Jerusalem Post that Pappe’s moral stance was “gravely disturbing” and strongly denied Pappe’s claims that the university planned to dismiss him for defending Teddy Katz, a student accused of misrepresenting facts in a controversial thesis three years ago. Katz accused Israel of massacring Arab villagers in Tantura in 1948. His thesis was rejected, however, after an independent committee concluded Katz had distorted quotes from taped interviews and failed to substantiate the accusations.
“I think that a person who calls to boycott his university should join the boycott and resign immediately from the university,” Ben-Ze’ev said. “It is difficult to describe a greater moral injury to academic freedom than the behavior of someone who has been bullying his colleagues and calling to boycott them. It is bizarre that he has chosen to attack the very same university that has exercised such a policy of tolerance towards him.”
by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Thursday, April 7th, 2005
When the New York Times published its initial front-page story on Columbia University’s report clearing its professors of intimidating Jewish and pro-Israel students, the news item failed to include comments from Columbia’s Jewish students. The omission, however, was no accident: the Times reporter reached an agreement with the university to suppress comments from Jewish students in exchange for an advance copy of the Columbia report.
The reporter, however, included comments from Joseph Massad, the only professor Columbia’s special committee found to have “exceeded commonly accepted bounds.” The committee chided Massad for allegedly telling a student to leave his class if she insisted on defending Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.
Otherwise, the report denied Columbia professors intimidated pro-Israel students in their classes. “We found no evidence of any statements made by the faculty that could reasonably be construed as anti-Semitic,” the report said. “Many of the matters brought before us did not, in our opinion, constitute the basis for formal grievances.”
The Time’s arrangement with Columbia, first reported by the New York Sun, was confirmed in an Editor’s Note in the New York Times on Wednesday. The editor acknowledged that the arrangement was a violation of New York Times policy. “Without a response from the complainants, the article was incomplete; it should not have appeared in that form,†the note concluded.
“Under The Times’ policy on unidentified sources, writers are not permitted to forgo follow-up reporting in exchange for information,†the editor’s note said. “In this case, editors and the writer did not recall the policy and agreed to delay additional reporting until the document had become public. The Times insisted, however, on getting a response from the professor accused of unacceptable behavior, and Columbia agreed.â€
According to the Sun, Columbia administrators provided a copy of the report exclusively to the Times and the university’s student newspaper one day before releasing it to the public. In exchange, The Times agreed to run its report the same day without additional reporting – other than to contact Massad – before Jewish students, even those directly involved in the issue, would have a chance to read the report.
The paper then ran a follow-up article the next day that included comments from Jewish students. To lodge a complaint with the Times public editor, Daniel Okrent, send mail to public@nytimes.com.
by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Tuesday, April 5th, 2005
Israeli academics who refuse to condemn their government’s actions in the Palestinian territories may face a boycott by the Association of University Teachers, Britain’s largest lecturers union, according to the British Guardian newspaper.
The union is expected to debate the proposed boycott at its next meeting, scheduled for April 20. According to the text of the proposal, the boycott excludes “conscientious Israeli academics and intellectuals opposed to their state’s colonial and racist policies.”
The association voted down a similar measure two years ago, but according to Birmingham University lecturer Sue Blackwell, who co-wrote the current proposal, the boycott has gained support with the union. “We are now better organized,†she said. “One of the reasons we didn’t win last time was that there was no clear public call from Palestinians for the boycott. Now we have that, in writing.”
The Guardian report states that many British academics already maintain an unofficial boycott against Israeli academic institutions, refusing offers to work on major Israeli research projects as a protest to Israeli policies in the Palestinian territories.
But according to Hebrew University Professor Nachman Ben-Yehuda, a boycott against Israeli academics would merely serve as another barrier to peace in the region. “To say we won’t talk any more goes against something very, very basic. We solve problems through dialogue,” he said.
by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Sunday, April 3rd, 2005
The Israeli human rights organization, B’Tselem, released a report on conditions in Gaza last week, accusing the Israeli government of turning the Gaza Strip into “one big prison.â€
According to the report, Israeli security closures across Gaza have increased Palestinian poverty. The closures also limit movement to such an extent, the report states, that Israeli Arabs have an easier time seeing their relatives in Israeli prisons than seeing their relatives living in the Gaza Strip.
The report also states that the upcoming evacuation of Jews from Gaza represents a “severe blow” to the Jews’ rights, including “severe loss of property: they will be forced to give up their homes, and some will lose their means of livelihood. A fear also exists that in coping with protests against disengagement, the state will arbitrarily violate the opponents’ right to liberty,†the report states.
“Since the beginning of the intifada, settlers have been a regular target of attacks by Palestinian organizations,†the report continues. “The attacks consist of shootings and the firing of Kassam rockets and mortar shells. During this period of time, thirty-seven settlers have been killed, four of them minors, and dozens were seriously wounded.
“These attacks are grave breaches of human rights and are considered war crimes according to international humanitarian law. Israel is obligated to use all available legal measures to prevent attacks against settlers,†the report states.
by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Sunday, March 20th, 2005
While Palestinian leaders complain about rampant poverty and insufficient government funds to meet the public payroll, ministers and lawmakers decided they deserve more luxury.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the PA has ordered more than 100 luxury cars for the Palestinian government. The PA’s 24 cabinet ministers will each receive a new Audi A-6, priced at $76,000 each, and the 86 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council are in line to receive the slightly less luxurious Audi A-4 models, which cost $45,000.
The government expenditure, however, has not gone unnoticed in the Palestinian press. Columnist Yahya Rabah slammed the members of government for choosing to spend the PA’s meager funds for their own personal benefit.
“The PA is hardly able to pay the civil servants or cover running expenses, members of the security forces are struggling to get a 20 percent rise in their wages, and we still haven’t solved the problem of unemployment,” he wrote.
He also noted that a group of unemployed Palestinians stormed the PLC building last week demanding the lawmakers help them with their plight. “What will happen when these workers see the new cars parked outside the Palestinian Legislative Council offices?” Rabah asked.
by Kalman Rushdie [➚] · Wednesday, March 16th, 2005
It is acceptable to criticize Israel’s policies, according to Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt. But when people deny Israel’s right to exist, they have moved into anti-Semitism, he said.
Verhofstadt, who spoke at yesterday’s opening ceremony of the new Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem, said he did not consider the EU’s policies toward Israel anti-Semitic even though the EU often critizes Israeli policy. But “when you’re tackling and directly criticizing Israel or the Jewish community, that’s anti-Semitism,” he said.
Verhofstadt also defended Israel’s Law of Return, which applies only to Jews, because it forms “the basic idea of the foundation of the State of Israel.†He added that other countries have similar policies. “It’s not the monopoly of Israel,” he said.
With the new reality in the Middle East following Arafat’s death, Verhofstadt said, Belgium and the EU would try to advance the peace process by pressuring Israel as well as the Palestinians. Such pressure, he said, should not be seen as a threat to Israel’s security.
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