A Jewish Intifada?

It goes without saying that the hardline Jewish settlers of the West Bank (and specifically Hebron) are a continuing menace toward any prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

This blog has exhausted tireless posts highlighting the the ongoing actions by the Hebron settler community against their Palestinian neighbors. Visiting Hebron in early October, the following video gives you a feeling of the iron-fisted control and intimidation wrought by the settlers and their IDF counterparts on the Palestinian community:

http://www.vimeo.com/vimeo.com/1910175

The latest news overnight is even more bleak. Following the illegal occupation of hardline settlers in a Palestinian home in Hebron - and subsequent eviction by the IDF this week (as decided in a long and protracted court battle), the West Bank settler community have unleashed nothing short of their own Initifada - against both the Palestinians and the authority of the State of Israel.

The West Bank is now on high alert, with further violence expected as settlers continue to abuse and antagonize any Palestinians standing in their way.  Reports are already amassing of shootings, rock throwing, and house burning in and around Hebron by small bands of (armed) settlers. Over the next few days, the violence is expected to spread throughout the North of the West Bank and perhaps beyond (with Israeli authorities even fearing attempts by the settlers to infiltrate the Temple Mount in Jerusalem).

What is this ‘Jewish Intifada’ and why is the Israeli government powerless to unify their own people? The answer lies in the closely guarded truth behind the ‘myth’ of a unified Jewish Israel. With such a diaspora of differing cultures and ideologies (many peaceful, some extreme) the Jewish ‘community’ in Israel is nothing more than a forced collection of religious and political factions.

Many people have posited (and perhaps correctly) that the ongoing brutalization and subsequent demonization of the Palestinians as the ‘other’ is perhaps the only unifying feature of Israeli society. That without this ‘common enemy’ Israel itself would fall victim to a kind of religious civil war - with multiple factions vying for the ‘true heart’ of Israel.

As we watch the violence unfold in the West Bank over the weekend - it is important to keep this viewpoint in mind.

Israel is far from a unified, religious, cohesive collection of diaspora Jews from multiple countries throughout the world. The actions of the extremist settlers threaten to not only inflame the violence between Jews and Palestinians - but also threatens the very fabric of Israeli society.

From this vantage point, we can once again see how the Palestinians are merely pawns in the greater struggle for perhaps the impossible - a peaceful, democratic, and viable State of Israel.

I encourage you to follow the news from the West Bank closely this weekend - it speaks much more than the ‘obvious’ about what is really happening in Israel.

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Finding ‘Real News’ on Palestine & Beyond

If you find yourself having a hard time escaping the spit & polish of the major news networks (BBC, CNN, etc.), help is available. Beyond some excellent major news sources (Al Jazeera, ei, etc.), the Real News Network is an excellent antidote to the constant barrage of mediated, sanitized, and edited breaking news on the Middle East and beyond.

With high quality video dispatches, excellent journalists, and fair and even handling of contentious issues, the Real News Network represents one of the few organizations retaining true journalistic integrity in today’s increasingly censored/news bite-focused information marketplace. For a taste of some of Real News’ most recent work on Gaza, please check out the excellent summary of the situation below:

Obama & Illegal Israeli Settlements

Short of Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain uncovering a torrid love affair between Senator Barack Obama and a gay terrorist, by this time next week we will be discussing the impending Obama Administration and the plans for improving America’s International standing both in the Middle East and throughout the globe.

Desperate to shore up the Jewish vote in the United States, Obama supporters have purchased significant airtime in Israel to convince their American expats that Obama is ‘good’ for Israel. The following ‘infomercial’ is therefore worth watching (if only to see the radical methods being employed to reassure Israelis - and their supporters in the U.S. - that an Obama Presidency is not a threat to Israel’s status quo):

The bigger issue facing the next American President, however, is the plan for establishing peace throughout the region and reviving the now almost totally defunct ‘2-State Solution’ - a plan that realistically seems preposterous given the non-contiguous situation in the West Bank where settlements, bypass roads, and checkpoints continue to expand.

Look - we all have high hopes for an Obama-led ‘global change management’ initiative, but its worth remembering what it has taken to get Obama into this position in the first place (and who he will have to appease accordingly). We all know the unfortunate speech he was ‘forced’ to make to AIPAC on the day following his securing of the Democratic Nomination (and from the video above, the price that will need to be paid to the Israel Lobbyists).

More importantly, looking back through history, how successful have U.S. Presidents ever been in attempting to halt the settlement situation in the West Bank (and thus enable any form of lasting peace or a viable Palestinian State)? For an excellent overview of what Obama faces, and what his predecessors have faced, take a look at this brief video from Al Jazeera:

Writing this with the greatest desire to see Obama lead America from next January, it is important to remain realistic - and all the more crucial to realize that the true fight for ‘change’ is only just beginning.

Live From The West Bank

This is a ‘rough cut’ selection of videos shot throughout Hebron and the West Bank this week (October 6/7) as bruisedearth continues through Palestine. Continue to follow us on the Web and on twitter. Today we journey to Nablus - stay tuned!

http://www.vimeo.com/vimeo.com/1910175

Disgusting Settler Violence in Hebron

Yet again, the Jewish settlers of Hebron raise the bar in the ongoing abuse and humiliation of their Palestinian neighbors in full view and with complete support of the IDF. On this occasion - during a wedding on Saturday night, settlers pushed a 15-year old boy off the roof of his home - breaking his back in the fall. He is currently listed in ’serious condition’.

Worse, five other Palestinians were injured on Friday night when settlers attacked another wedding party. The following is taken from the Maan News Agency:

Settlers occupying a house belonging to Ar-Rajabi family pelted the wedding party with stones and empty bottles, injuring Ramzi Al-Ja’bari, Fadi Al-Ja’bari and a woman from Al-Ja’bari family, according to Bassam Al-Jabir, an eyewitness who lives near the Israeli settlement Kiryat Arba. Al-Jabir also reported that the settlers attacked the home of Palestinian magistrate judge Munthir Da’na with stones.

These racist and thoroughly disgusting assaults are an everyday occurence in Hebron. I could easily update this blog solely with news of ongoing incidents on a daily (if not hourly) basis. It is one thing to claim these settlers do or do not have the right to live on Palestinian land in the West Bank. Let’s just ‘park’ that line of debate for the moment.

What is not under debate - and cannot be excused - is the fundamental denial of Human Rights that these settlers perpetrate. The ideological abuse heaped upon the Palestinian families of Hebron (actively by the settlers and passively by the Israeli Army) is only getting worse by the day.

To get a feel for the anger and racist attitudes of these settlers - check out the abuse on British Journalists in Hebron:

These blog posts are not only identical, they are utterly pointless if more people do not speak out. Hebron is a microcosm of Palestinian life in the West Bank at it’s most extreme.

And these extremists must be stopped.

More from Occupation 101

I have blogged about this in the past, but have recently come across more online clips of the fantastic film, Occupation 101, an urgent introduction to the Israel-Palestine conflict that many people need to see. The following clip is taken from the segment on Gaza - and the true reality on the ground:

For more information, and to find out how to see the film in its entirety, please visit Occupation 101 online.

Wolf Blitzer & AIPAC

How well do you know your favorite CNN on-air “personality” - Wolf Blitzer? As former member and Editor of the AIPAC in-house publication the Near-East Report,  Blitzer has done his share of lobbying, both in the public and academic spheres. The following is an excellent video of a debate in November 1989 at the University of Pennsylvania - with excerpts from Blitzer and Norman Finkelstein.

This should certainly put to rest any doubts concerning Blitzer’s personal loyalties - and should instead raise those of CNN in acting as an ‘unbiased’ news source:

Chomsky vs. Dershowitz

There have been several celebrated debates between Alan Dershowitz and Noam Chomsky over the years, and if you do a quick search in YouTube you’ll find quite a few segments.

Following the publication of his (now famous) The Case for Israel, Dershowitz began a massive book tour to try and ‘correct’ anti-Israel views by writers such as Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein. Taken from one of these tours, the following clip shows a classic exchange between the two scholars - focusing on settlements in the West Bank, the separation barrier, and the realities of peace in the near future:

Ongoing Land Demolition (Read This)

As this post is being written, Palestinian homes are being flattened in many parts of the West Bank. The ongoing demolition policy in the occupied territories is a strange a complicated Web of policy, politics, and Zionist vision - one which is intentionally obtuse for casual observers from the West to fully comprehend.

Among other figures - one that jumps out is the fact that 85% of the water in the West Bank is used by Israeli settlements - a staggering figure if one remembers that water in this area of the world is the absolute key to life and community. With this kind of control, Israelis and settlers are free to expand, and to take the best and most fertile pieces of land for themselves. The result - evacuation of the native Palestinians from their land, and in it’s most visible and perverse sense - the annihilation of homes, crops, and livelihoods.

Jeff Halper, Coordinator for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) states that:

Tens of thousands of Palestinian families live with demolition orders on their homes, some 22,000 in East Jerusalem alone, where fully a third of Palestinian homes face demolition at any time…With 18,000 homes demolished in the Occupied Territories since 1967 and thousands more targeted, we will do our best to resist those demolitions we can reach.

The tangled political process involved with ‘legally keeping’ one’s home in the West Bank is a mesh of red tape that is almost unimaginable by Western standards. In many cases, families must petition the Israeli government (a process that can last 6 months to 6 years) to claim rightful ownership and thus protect their homes. Given the long process, the government has full legal right to destroy homes that have ‘not complied’ with these legalisation measures (simply because the applications and process have been caught in adminstration during this time!).

It is truly shocking this is allowed to continue unabated - and under the noses of the West, whose light condemnation will never reign in Israel’s clear long-term goals in the region. It is thanks to groups like ICAHD that Israelis themselves are standing against this ongoing terror; standing up for the Palestinians and at the same time, their own humanity.

An excellent short video by ICAHD discusses the realities on the ground:

Breaking the Silence

The past few months has seen a vast number of current and former Isreaeli soldiers speaking out about their experiences in the occupied territories - experiences that have had a profound effect on both sides of the green line. In particular, one recent and extremely influential organization, Breaking the Silence has made a huge impact collaborating testimonies of soldiers who served in the Occupied Territories during the Second Intifadah.

As their site states:

These soldiers who serve in the Territories are witness to, and participate in military actions which change them immensely. Cases of abuse towards Palestinians, looting, and destruction of property have been the norm for years, but are still excused as military necessities, or explained as extreme and unique cases. Our testimonies portray a different and grim picture of questionable orders in many areas regarding Palestinian civilians. These demonstrate the depth of corruption which is spreading in the Israeli military.

Interviewing hundreds of soldiers who have served in the territories, Breaking the Silence is helping to shatter some of the myths of the Israeli soldier, and expose (perhaps for the first time) the toll occupation takes on both Israelis and Palestinians - occupiers and the occupied.

Some of these moving interviews can be viewed below, and for more information we encourage you to visit Breaking the Silence on the Web:

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