Mark Weiss, The Telegraph, April 8 2011

On Islam, March 29 2011

Thirty seven Knesset Members voted in favor of the bill while only 11 opposed.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – A new law passed by the Israeli Knesset enabling the court system to revoke citizenship of anyone convicted of espionage or helping the enemy has triggered uproar among Israeli rights activists as targeting Israeli-Arab minority.

“It is very clearly aimed at Israel’s Arab citizens, and sends them a message that their citizenship is not guaranteed,” Ronit Sela, spokeswoman of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Tuesday, March 29.

“MKs [Knesset members] have made it clear that even though the wording of the bill is broad,” she added blasting the bill as ‘racist’.

The bill was initiated by two MKs David Rotem and Robert Ilatov from the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party of Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Thirty seven Knesset Members voted in favor of the bill while only 11 opposed.

The new legislation empowers the Israeli court system to revoke the citizenship of anyone convicted on charges of “terrorism,” espionage, helping the enemy during time of war or any other act which harms national sovereignty.

A similar procedure for revoking citizenship already exists under the 1952 Nationality Law that could only be done through the interior ministry.

Sela added that the move would mainly affect the Palestinian residents in occupied East Jerusalem (Al-Quds), making it easier for Israeli authorities to kick them out from their homes.

“Before, it was a separate process handled by the interior ministry, but now, if the court has convicted someone, they can revoke citizenship at the same time as handing down sentence,” she said.

The new law is a part of Lieberman’s “no loyalty, no citizenship” campaign which he pushed during the run up to the 2009 elections, regarded as targeting Israel’s Arab minority.

“Without loyalty, there can be no citizenship,” Lieberman said just minutes after the bill was passed, in comments reported by the Jerusalem Post.

“Any person who harms the country cannot enjoy the benefits of citizenship and its fruit.”

“Fascism”

The new amendment to Citizenship Act was also blasted by Arab MKs as leading Israel towards fascism.

“It is possible that the overuse of the word leaves people unaffected. There is a kind of acceptance, Hadash Chairman MK Mohammad Barakeh said, Yediot Ahronot reported late on Monday, March 28.

“All of the offenses that appear in the amendment already have penalties set by law.”

MK Hanin Zoabi for Balad party agreed.

“There is a clear fascist trend. What is happening today shouldn’t surprise any of us. Someone has already constructed the political, mental and ideological infrastructure for revoking citizenship,” she said.

“Someone thinks that you can jump from democracy to fascism in one go?”

MK Jamal Zahalka (Balad) also attacked what he called “racial effrontery” offered by the Knesset.

“Who do you see as a loyal citizen? A loyal citizen is someone who gives up their rights. As soon as I demand my rights I’m no longer a loyal citizen,” Zahalka said.

“International law states that a man cannot be left without citizenship. Even when a person is executed in the US – his citizenship is not revoked.

“Now a party comes along that re-invents the racist wheel and puts revoking citizenships in the law book.”

Israeli Arabs, who make up nearly a fifth of the population, are descendants of those who stayed when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes by Zionist gangs in1948, when Israel was founded on the rubble of Palestine.

Relations between Israel’s Jews and Arabs have long been difficult, with Arabs complaining of discrimination.

A recent Israel Democracy Institute poll found that nearly half of Jewish Israelis don’t want to live next door to Arabs, foreigners or mentally ill.

Last December, dozens of Jewish rabbis issued an edict against renting or selling real estate to non-Jews, particularly Arab citizens.

Earlier on October, the Israeli government approved an amendment to Israel’s Citizenship Act that would require all non-Jews taking Israeli citizenship to pledge loyalty to the “Jewish and democratic state of Israel”.

A Palestinian activist holds Israeli bread products being sold in a shop in the West Bank town of Ramallah [EPA]

It was Egypt that got me thinking about the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement in a serious way. I was already conducting a quiet targeted boycott of settlement goods – silently reading labels at the grocery store to make sure I was not buying anything that came from over the Green Line.

I had been doing this for a long time. But, at some point, I realised that my private targeted boycott was a bit naïve. And I understood that it was not enough.

It is not just the settlements and the occupation, two sides of the same coin, which pose a serious obstacle to peace and infringe on the Palestinians’ human rights. It is everything that supports them – the government and its institutions. It is the bubble that many Israelis live in, the illusion of normality. It is the Israeli feeling that the status quo is sustainable.

And the settlements are a bit of a red herring, a convenient target for anger. Israelis must also face one of the major injustices that have resulted from their state – the nakba, the dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

While BDS addresses that, among other concerns – the three principles of the movement are respect for the Palestinians’ right of return, as outlined in UN resolution 194, an end to the occupation and equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel – I remained reluctant to get involved.

I have to admit that I was frightened by the movement. I did not think it would help. I was sure that BDS would only encourage Israel to dig its heels in deeper. It will only make things worse for everyone, I reasoned.

Egypt was the tipping point for me. I was exhilarated by the images of people taking to the streets to demand change. And while the Palestine Papers prove that the government seems intent on maintaining the status quo, I know plenty of Israelis who are fed up with it.

There are mothers who do not want to send their children to the army; soldiers who resent guarding settlers. I recently spoke with a 44-year-old man – a normal guy, a father of two – who told me he wants to burn something he is so frustrated with the government and so worried about the future.

And Egypt is on many Israeli lips right now. So, what can be done to help bring it to Israeli feet? What can be done to encourage Israelis to fight for change, to fight for peace, to liberate themselves from a conflict that undermines their self-determination, their freedom?

BDS has stacked up a number of successes, which is one reason the Israeli Knesset is trying to pass a bill, known as the Boycott Law, that would effectively criminalise Israelis who join the movement, subjecting them to huge fines.

And some of those involved with BDS are already feeling an immense amount of pressure from the state.

‘Israel’s mask of democracy’

Leehee Rothschild, 26, is one of the scores of Israelis who have answered the 2005 Palestinian call for BDS. Recently her Tel Aviv apartment was raided. While the police did this under the pretense of searching for drugs, she was taken to the station for a brief interrogation that focused entirely on politics.

“The person who came to release me [from interrogation] was an intelligence officer who said that he is in charge of monitoring political activity in the Tel Aviv area,” Rothschild says. It was this officer who had requested the search warrant.

Since Operation Cast Lead, Israeli activists have reported increasing pressure from the police as well as General Security Services – known by their Hebrew acronym, Shabak.

The latter’s mandate includes, among other things, the goal of maintaining Israel as a Jewish state, making those who advocate for democracy a target.

House raids, such as the one Rothschild was subjected to, are not uncommon, nor are phone calls from the Shabak.

“Obviously [the pressure] is nothing compared to what Palestinians are going through,” Rothschild says. “But I think we’re touching a nerve.”

When asked about the proposed Boycott Law, Rothschild comments: “If the bill goes through, it will peel off, a little more, Israel’s mask of democracy.”

Tough love

As for her involvement in BDS, Rothschild remarks that she was not aware of the movement until it became a serious topic of discussion within Israel’s radical left, which she was already active in. And even after she heard about it, she did not jump onboard right away.

“I had reservations about [BDS],” Rothschild recalls. “I thought about it for a very long time and I debated it with myself and my friends.

“The main reservation I had was that the economic [aspects] would first harm the weak people in the society – the poor people – the people who have the least effect on what’s going on. But I think that the occupation is harming these people much more than the divestments can.”

Rothschild points out that state funds that are poured into “security and defence and oppressing the Palestinian people” could be better used in Israel to help those in the low socioeconomic strata.

“Another reservation I have had is that it might make the Israeli public more extremist, more fundamentalist,” Rothschild adds. “But I have to say that the road it has to go to be more extreme is very short right now.”

As an Israeli, Rothschild considers joining the BDS movement to be an act of caring. It is tough love for the country she was born and raised in.

“I hope that, for some people, it will be a slap in their face and they will wake up and see what’s going on,” Rothschild says, adding that the oppressor is oppressed, as well.

“The Israeli people are also oppressed by the occupation – they are living inside a society that is militant; that is violent; that is racist.”

‘Renouncing my privileges’

Ronnie Barkan, 34, explains that he took his first step towards the boycott 15 years ago, when he refused to complete his mandatory military service.

“There’s a lot of social pressure [in Israel],” Barkan says. “We’re raised to be soldiers from kindergarten. We’re taught that it’s our duty [to serve in the army] and you’re a parasite or traitor if you don’t want to serve.”

“What is even worse is that people are raised to be deeply racist,” he adds. “Everything is targeted at supporting [Jewish] privilege as the masters of the land. Supporting BDS means renouncing my privileges in this land and insisting on equality for all.”

Barkan likens his joining of the boycott movement to the “whites who denounced their apartheid privileges and joined the black struggle in South Africa”.

When I cringe at the “a-word,” apartheid, Barkan counters: “Israel clearly falls under the legal definition of the ‘crime of apartheid’ as defined in the Rome Statute.”

‘Never again to anybody’

Some oppose BDS because it includes recognition of the Palestinian right of return. These critics say that the demographic shift would impinge on Jewish self-determination. But Barkan argues that “the underlying foundation [of the movement] is universally recognised human rights and international law”.

He emphasises that BDS respects human rights for both Palestinians and Jews and includes proponents of a bi-national, democratic state as well as those who believe a two-state solution is the best answer to the conflict.

He also stresses that BDS is not anti-Semitic. Nor is it anti-Israeli.

“The boycott campaign is not targeting Israelis; it is targeting the criminal policies of Israel and the institutions that are complicit, not individuals,” he says.

“So let’s say an Israeli academic or musician goes abroad and he is turned away from a conference or a venue just because he’s Israeli … ” I begin to ask.

“No, no, this doesn’t fall under the [boycott guidelines],” Barkan says.

“Because that’s not a boycott. It’s racism,” I say.

“Exactly,” Barkan responds, adding that the Palestinian call for BDS is “a very responsible call” that “makes a differentiation between institutions and individuals and it is clearly a boycott of criminal institutions and their representatives”.

“Whenever there is a grey area,” he adds, “we take the gentler approach.”

Still, Barkan has faced criticism for his role in the boycott movement.

“My grandmother who went to Auschwitz tells me, ‘You can think whatever you want but don’t speak up about your politics because it’s not nice,’ I tell her, ‘You know who didn’t speak up 70 years ago.’”

Barkan adds: “I think that the main lesson to be learned from the Holocaust is ‘never again to anybody’ not ‘never again to the Jews.’”

Mya Guarnieri is a Tel Aviv-based journalist and writer.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

Victims include children and armed fighters, as raids continue in the Gaza Strip.

The raid comes after increased cross-border violence, raising fears of another Israeli invasion of Gaza [Reuters]

At least eight Palestinians, including children, have been killed in mortar attacks and airstrikes in the Gaza Strip.

The deaths occurred in two separate attacks on the eastern part of Gaza City on Tuesday, witnesses said.

Two of the dead were aged 11 and 16, and four of them were from the al-Quds Brigade, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, a spokesman for the group said.

Four people died when a shell slammed into a family home  in Shejaiya, medical sources told AFP news agency. Several hours later, another four were killed – all of them fighters - in an air raid in the nearby Zeitun neighbourhood.

On Tuesday, the military said it was responding to rocket attacks from Gaza. It also confirmed it had fired mortar rounds towards the eastern outskirts of Gaza City on Tuesday, shortly after four rockets hit Israel, and expressed “regret” over reports that civilians had been hurt.

It was the third time Shejaiya had been targeted on Tuesday, following an earlier one which wounded one fighter and a burst of tank fire, which left two civilians wounded shortly after dawn.

Al Jazeera’s Bernard Smith, reporting from Gaza, said that more tit-for-tat attacks could be expected.

“Tensions look to be rising here, and violence could increase,” he said.

The latest incident also comes after at least 19 people were wounded in a series of raids on Monday, in the northern town of Beit Lahiya and Gaza City.

Witnesses said a security compound for Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, a training camp north of the city and a brickworks and metal foundry in northern Gaza were among the targets.

Rising cross-border violence has occurred, also increasing tensions between Israel and Hamas and once again raising fears of another large-scale Israeli invasion.

Barak Ravid, Haaretz, March 21 2011

Military Intelligence is collecting information about left-wing organizations abroad that the army sees as aiming to delegitimize Israel, according to senior Israeli officials and Israel Defense Forces officers.

The sources said MI’s research division created a department several months ago that is dedicated to monitoring left-wing groups and will work closely with government ministries. In recent weeks, the head of the new unit has been taking part in discussions in the Prime Minister’s Office about how to prepare for the possible arrival of a Gaza-bound flotilla in May.

	Left-wing demonstration against loyalty oath bill in Tel Aviv on October 16, 2010.
	Photo by: Tal Cohen

The undefined and potentially broad scope of such a venture, which IDF sources say is focusing on how to respond to maritime convoys aimed at breaching Israel’s Gaza blockade, has some Foreign Ministry officials concerned that the army is overreaching.

“We ourselves don’t know exactly how to define delegitimization,” said one ministry official. “This is a very abstract definition. Are flotillas to Gaza delegitimization? Is criticism of settlements delegitimization? It’s not clear how Military Intelligence’s involvement in this will provide added value.”

Military Intelligence officials said the initiative reflects an upsurge in worldwide efforts to delegitimize Israel and question its right to exist.

“The enemy changes, as does the nature of the struggle, and we have to boost activity in this sphere,” an MI official said. “Work on this topic proceeds on the basis of a clear distinction between legitimate criticism of the State of Israel on the one hand, and efforts to harm it and undermine its right to exist on the other.”

The new MI unit will monitor Western groups involved in boycotting Israel, divesting from it or imposing sanctions on it. The unit will also collect information about groups that attempt to bring war crime or other charges against high-ranking Israeli officials, and examine possible links between such organizations and terror groups.

MI decided to create the unit in the wake of investigations of Israel’s deadly takeover in May 2010 of a maritime convoy aimed at breaking the Gaza blockade, which found that the country’s intelligence agencies failed to provide information that could have helped Israel adequately prepare for the violent resistance that naval commandos encountered aboard the Mavi Marmara.

The unit’s other spheres of responsibility have yet to be clearly defined, but are expected to involve pinpointing the subjects that Israel’s other intelligence agencies should investigate, sources said.

The quality of intelligence information about groups aimed at delegitimizing Israel has improved and the quantity has increased in recent months, said an official in the Prime Minister’s Office.

“There is a demand for such information,” he said. “Officials need information on such topics, and it hasn’t always been available in the past, because there was a lack of awareness pertaining to this topic in the intelligence community. The new unit’s orientation will be to collect information and carry out intelligence research for the Foreign Ministry and other government ministries.

The unit has the support of Brig. Gen. (res. ) Yossi Kuperwasser, the director general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry and a previous head of MI’s research division. During the second intifada, he pushed for the intelligence community’s large-scale involvement in public advocacy and diplomatic matters, a stance that was criticized by other MI officers.

Delegates and envoys of member nations have been invited to view the debut of Miral, a film based on Palestinian writer Rula Jebreal’s novel about an orphan girl growing up in East Jerusalem during the Intifada.

Palestinian writer Rula Jebreal A pro-Palestinian film will be screened at the United Nations General Assembly Hall on Monday night, despite Israel’s vehement opposition. Delegates and envoys of member nations have been invited to view the debut of Miral, a film based on Palestinian writer Rula Jebreal’s novel about an orphan girl growing up in East Jerusalem during the Intifada. The movie includes a number of scenes depicting Israel Defense Forces acting cruelly against the Palestinian population. Swiss diplomat Joseph Deiss, the current president of the GA, had initiated the event and approved the screening in the plenum hall. Israeli diplomats had approached him and demanded that he rescind the plans, but Deiss denied their request on the grounds that the film was a story about peace. In an interview with Haaretz, the deputy chief of Israel’s delegation to the UN, Haim Waxman, called the whole matter a “scandal”. “This is a clearly political and one-sided film, which advances the Palestinian agenda,” Waxman told Haaretz. “It is difficult to understand the intolerable ease with which the decision was made to screen a commercial film in the GA hall – something which it itself is unusual and unacceptable.” Waxman, who sent a letter of complaint to Deiss over the matter, called the matter a “severe incident” undertaken by “a very senior member of the organization’s echelon, who by nature of his position is obligated to clarify irascibly and without bias the content which he chooses to present to the United Nations.” Waxman added that over the course of efforts to prevent the screening of the film, senior UN officials were asked whether they could remember any previous times when a political film was screened in the GA hall – and none could. “We respect the filmmakers’ freedom of expression, but it clear that this is an attempt to advance the Palestinian agenda,” he said. The fact that the film was being debuted in the GA hall meant that it would be given “central stage, again, to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which already receives too much attention at the UN,” added Waxman. Jubreal and the Jewish American director Julian Schnabel will take part in a panel discussion following the screening of the film.

Palestinian activist Abdullah Abu Rahma, 39, the coordinator of the Popular
Committee against the Wall and Settlements in Bilin, is seen after his release
from Israel’s Ofer prison. [AFP/Abbas Momani]

OFER MILITARY PRISON, RAMALLAH (AFP) – A Palestinian activist jailed for organizing weekly demonstrations against Israel’s separation wall was freed on Monday after 15 months behind bars.

Abdullah Abu Rahma was one of the chief organizers of weekly demonstrations in Bil’in that have come to symbolize the Palestinian fight against the vast separation wall Israel is building across the West Bank.

Abu Rahma was met by scores of family members, friends and supporters as he walked out of Ofer military prison near the West Bank town of Ramallah, an AFP correspondent said.

He was arrested in December 2009 and convicted eight months later of incitement and organizing and participating in the protests in Bil’in village, west of Ramallah, that are regularly attended by scores of Palestinian, Israeli and foreign activists.

But he was acquitted on charges of stone-throwing and weapons possession for exhibiting spent tear-gas canisters fired by Israeli troops.

He was released after serving more than 15 months and still has several weeks of remand time, meaning he risks going back to jail if he participates in or organizes any demonstrations, or says anything considered as incitement.

“All these arrests and the killing will not prevent us from continuing our struggle against the occupation and against the wall,” Abu Rahma told AFP shortly after his release.

“Whatever they do, we will continue,” he said, while bringing “a message” from the Palestinian prisoners: “Continue the public struggle against the occupation and the struggle to reach national unity. Our first and only enemy is the occupation.”

His conviction in 2009 prompted human rights groups and officials including European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to express concern.

Abu Rahma’s lawyer, Gaby Laskey, described him as “an important part of the non-violent movement against the occupation,” and said she was happy to see his release.

“I believe that the charges against Abu Rahma and his sentence were of a political nature to try and put an end to the non-violent demonstrations in Bilin,” she told AFP.

“His being in jail did not stop the demonstrations, it actually encouraged people to go out and demonstrate more for their cause.”

The protests are billed as non-violent though Palestinian youths often hurl stones at Israeli troops, who respond with tear gas and rubber bullets.

A relative of Abu Rahma, Jawaher Abu Rahma, died early on New Year’s Day after reportedly inhaling massive amounts of tear gas at a protest in Bil’in a day earlier, although the Israeli military denied tear gas was the cause.

Israel says the wall is needed to prevent attacks, but the Palestinians see it as a land grab aimed at stealing chunks of their future state.

The route of the wall is 709 kilometers long, more than twice the length of the Green Line between Israel and the West Bank, the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs says.

When completed, only 15 percent of the wall will be on the Green Line, while 85 percent will run inside the West Bank, UNOCHA says.

500 more homes to be built in West Bank in response to the murder of five members of a Jewish settler family