Seth Freedman, The Guardian

In sharp contrast to last week’s Independence Day celebrations on the streets of West Jerusalem, the east side of the city took on an air of mourning Thursday, as the 60th anniversary of the Nakba (“catastrophe”) was marked. All over Gaza and the West Bank, demonstrations took place to commemorate the fate that befell the Palestinian people in 1948, and — despite their residing inside Israel proper — East Jerusalem residents were just as eager to make their voices of protest heard.

I headed to Damascus Gate on Thursday morning, to see for myself how high emotions were running amongst the demonstrators — yet before I’d even arrived I was already knee-deep in discussion about the conflict. Upon learning my reasons for crossing the divide into East Jerusalem, my Arab cab driver poured out a stream of invective against the Israeli authorities, bemoaning the situation he and his people had been forced to endure for 60 years.

Beginning with a scathing attack on George Bush — “He only cares about the Israelis; he’s not done a single thing for the Arabs in all his time as president” — he grew steadily angrier and more bitter as we circumvented the Old City walls en route to the protest. “We have no rights in our own land,” he muttered, “and even then the Israelis aren’t satisfied. It’s not enough for them to control us and humiliate us in our homes; now they want to drive us out of Jerusalem completely.”

“It’s a systematic program to get rid of us”, he assured me, sucking furiously on his cigarette. “They make our lives hell — they give us no (municipal services); they don’t let us build in our own neighborhoods, so people are forced to move out as the population grows; and they make us feel as though we don’t belong.” As I got out of the cab, next to a phalanx of border policemen fanning out to encircle the protesters, he beckoned me back to deliver his parting thoughts: “If you think I sound angry now, wait till the 70th anniversary of the Nakba. As long as Israel carries on behaving like this, our rage is only going to get worse.”

His words rang in my ears as I watched nine- and ten-year-old children stand defiantly alongside their parents at the protest. Several of them clutched cheap plastic poles with the UN flag flying atop them in the breeze; the words “Right of Return — 194” emblazoned across them in bold black letters. The children were under no illusion about what measures had to be taken to redress the injustices suffered by their forebears, and demanding the right of return suggested the time for talk of two states had been and gone.

A local shopkeeper told me just as much, asking me not to attach his name to his words, “since this country isn’t quite as democratic as they’d like you to think”. The right of return for Palestinian refugees was, he said, “something we can never give up on, not whilst every Jew on earth is allowed to move here without hindrance. Maybe if they said ‘no more Jewish immigrants — we’re full up’, then I’d consider it, but that’s not going to happen. They let people from Europe and Africa move here, yet refuse to discuss the issue of refugees (who came from here originally).”

“Any agreement with the Palestinian Authority must include the right of return, or at least significant compensation for those expelled. I know that Jews were kicked out of Arab lands too, and they should also be compensated, but on a much smaller scale. After all, they might have lost property, but we lost an entire country.”

At this point, his eyes glazed over and his tone took a marked shift away from the here and now and into the realms of fantasy born out of years of frustration with the status quo. “The truth is, my friend, that Nasser was right. He said that ‘What’s taken by force can only be returned by force’. We’re never going to get what we deserve from the Israelis. The only way we’ll have our dignity restored is when the Arab world stands up and fights for us and our rights.”

“And it will happen”, he declared forcefully, his eyes blazing as he spoke. “It might not happen in my lifetime, but it will happen in the next 50 years. I am one of the most moderate men around here, but — believe me — if an Arab army rises up to fight the Israelis, I’d join them myself. Not the groups carrying out suicide bombings, mind you, but a real army that had the power to take on the Israelis.”

“My son gets so furious when he is humiliated at checkpoints”, he went on. “He asks me ‘why should we deal with these kind of people at all? Better to live under the occupation, sign no agreements whatsoever, and wait for the Arab world to come to our aid’”.

His sentiments were distressingly similar to those of the embattled Jews in the shtetls of Eastern Europe, who bore their oppression at the hands of the Cossacks and others by falling back on waiting for messianic redemption. By retreating into an otherworldly shell, they were able to block out the injustice and iniquities that they were dealt, and focus on a time when they would be delivered salvation by a higher power.

For the shopkeeper, the “Arab world” is the messiah; the white knight who will ride in on his trusty steed to right all the wrongs and restore to the Palestinians their dignity and honor. Despite the last 60 years of history suggesting otherwise — that the Arab world is neither powerful nor interested enough to take serious action on the Palestinians’ behalf — he clings to this belief like a shipwreck survivor to a narrow plank of wood.

As each year passes, and the Palestinians feel ever more scorned by Israel and her allies, it’s no wonder that they seek comfort in droves in the arms of the extremists. Dogmatism and fundamentalism can promise them the moon, whilst the facts on the ground remain the same, and the longer the status quo persists, the stronger groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad grow. For them not to achieve utter domination amongst their people before the 70th anniversary of Israel’s creation, much must be done to convince the Palestinians that there is an alternative — but no one on the Palestinian side is holding their breath.

McCain criticises Carter’s meeting with Hamas, calling it ‘a grave and dangerous mistake for an American leader.’ (Photo: Reuters)

By Stuart Littlewood

I don’t know about you, but Hillary Rodham Clinton scares the pants off me.

“I want the Iranians to know that if I am president, we will attack Iran,” she ranted when asked what she’d do if Iran launched a nuclear attack on Israel. Not only that, she’ll “totally obliterate them”… 70 million people.

Jeepers… what kind of lunatic would drag us all into World War 3 to defend a lawless, racist regime like Israel?
I see the Council on Foreign Relations helps keep tabs on the stooge-for-Israel inclinations of each presidential candidate, so how’s Hillary doing? “Clinton co-sponsored the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006,” says the CFR. “She also sponsored a Senate resolution in 2007 calling for the immediate and unconditional release of soldiers of Israel held captive by Hamas and Hezbollah.”

Was she concerned about the 9,000 Palestinians, including women and children, abducted from their homes and held in Israeli jails? Apparently not.

Since taking office in 2000, Clinton has regularly supported military and financial aid packages to Israel. In a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) she spouted the now-compulsory mantra: Hamas should not be recognised “until it renounces violence and terror and recognises Israel’s right to exist.”

She supports Israel’s ‘security wall’ and its declared purpose of preventing terrorist attacks. Does she support the wall’s undeclared purpose - which has nothing to do with security - and the way it bites deep into Palestinian territory?

Barack Obama has said the United States must isolate Hamas. He also co-sponsored the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006 and called on the Palestinian leadership to “recognise Israel, to renounce violence, and to get serious about negotiating peace and security for the region”. OK, why don’t America and Israel get serious about implementing the dozens of UN resolutions on the subject? He doesn’t say.

He called Carter’s meeting with Hamas leaders “a bad idea”, so what’s his pledge to talk with US adversaries without preconditions worth? If elected, Obama will insist on fully funding military assistance to Israel. Does this mean paying them even more billions of US tax dollars so that they can fire even more high-tech munitions at Gaza, vaporize more women and kids and knock out more infrastructure that Britain and the EU paid for?

John Sidney McCain the Third says he’s “proudly pro-Israel” and argues that there can be no peace process “until the Palestinians recognise Israel, forswear forever the use of violence, recognise their previous agreements…” Has he asked Israel to do the same? No.

He criticises Carter’s meeting with Hamas, calling it “a grave and dangerous mistake for an American leader”. And he wants the United States to continue providing Israel with whatever military equipment and technology it needs. If elected McCain would “work to further isolate the enemies of Israel”. Surely his time would be better spent worrying about why half the world hates the US.

McCain even thinks Israel’s military action in Lebanon in 2006 was justified. He’s willing to use military force against Iran if it acquires a nuclear weapon and poses a “real threat” to Israel. Well, we know from past experience what “real threats” boil down to. And guess what: he too co-sponsored the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006.

What is this Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act they all so desperately wanted? It doesn’t make nice reading. The idea is to heap misery on any Palestinian government in which Hamas has a hand, ignoring the fact that the resistance movement is democratically elected and shows no sign of running away. The Act demands everything from the Palestinians and nothing from Israel, which can do no wrong in Washington’s eyes but, as everyone outside America knows, is the biggest terror organisation and law-breaker in the region.

Palestinians are perfectly entitled to put up armed resistance against illegal military occupation. Nevertheless the US requires them to end their struggle, get on their knees and publicly kiss their tormentors’ ass. They must re-commit to the Road Map and the two-state solution even though the ‘irreversible facts on the ground’ Israel is hurrying to establish and the impoverished, fragmented leftovers of land the Palestinians will be left with (less than 20% of what was originally theirs) are not a recipe for peace.

The plan is plainly to support Israel’s lust for prime land and strategic resources and end all hope of Palestinian viability and self-determination.

So the three main presidential candidates are singing off the same hymn-sheet and running neck-and-neck for the job of Stooge-in-Chief. Whichever finally makes it into the White House can count on us Brits being equally well prepped, thanks to the Israel lobby’s energetic string-pulling on this side of the Atlantic too.
Israel’s prime minister Olmert says AIPAC is “the greatest supporter and friend that we have in the whole world”. It is certainly busy, claiming that “through more than 2,000 meetings with members of Congress… AIPAC activists help pass more than 100 pro-Israel legislative initiatives a year… procuring nearly $3 billion in aid critical to Israel’s security.” Lobbyists meet every member of Congress and cover every hearing on Capitol Hill that touches on the US-Israel relationship.

Ariel Sharon is famously quoted as saying: “We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it.” (1) Had he been available for comment today he’d probably be saying the same about the UK where AIPAC’s little brother, Friends of Israel, has succeeded in embedding itself deep inside British politics and at the heart of government. Its stated aim is to promote Israel’s interests in Parliament and sway policy.

Conservative Friends of Israel, for example, claims 80 percent of Conservative MPs and provides a programme of weekly briefings, events with speakers, and delegations to Israel. It also operates a ‘Fast Track’ for parliamentary candidates fighting target marginals at the next election.

According to senior Conservatives Israel is “a force for good in the world… In the battle for the values that we stand for, for democracy against theocracy, for democratic liberal values against repression - Israel’s enemies are our enemies and this is a battle in which we all stand together”.
Are they mad? We’re talking here about a ruthless ethnocracy with racist policies, an apartheid agenda, advanced skills in state-terrorism and contempt for the UN Charter and international law.

Nevertheless MPs of all parties, and ministers, are basking in Israel’s hospitality, absorbing the propaganda and allowing themselves to be persuaded to push the interest of this foreign military power sometimes at the expense of our own. Such conduct is at odds with the second of the Seven Principles of Public Life, namely Integrity – “Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organisations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their official duties.”

Efforts are being made to have the influence of the Israel lobby investigated, but the people’s watchdog - the Committee on Standards in Public Life - is itself infiltrated and refuses to act.

This week former Serb officers went on trial at The Hague for ethnic cleansing. They face life sentences for murder, persecution, forced deportations and inhuman acts during the 1991-95 Balkan wars. Many people feel it’s time Israelis faced charges for similar crimes during the 60 years of occupation and catastrophe they have inflicted on the Holy Land. The list includes

• torture
• collective punishment
• targeted assassinations
• house demolitions
• wholesale slaughter
• use of indiscriminate and prohibited weapons against civilians
• land theft
• engineering humanitarian disasters
• creating medical and public health crises
• the wanton destruction of key infrastructure and public & private property
• restrictions on movement and trade
• illegal detention
• suppression of education
• denial of basic human rights
• denial of the right of refugees to return
• illegal settlements
• violation of every convention and code of conduct.

Speaking of the Holy Land, are the three stooges aware that Christian communities under Israeli occupation are being oppressed and crushed along with their Muslim neighbours?

It was heartening to read in The Guardian this week a letter signed by more than 100 prominent Jews saying they cannot celebrate the 60th birthday of a state “founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land… and that even now engages in ethnic cleansing.” They’ll celebrate when Arab and Jew live as equals in a peaceful Middle East.

So there you have it. Hillary/Barack/John the Third, you would do well to steer a different course in the Arab-Israel conflict. Quit stooging, kick AIPAC into touch, back off and re-think US foreign policy.

How much support do you think you’d get for annihilating 70 million Iranians?

-Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation.

Seth Freedman

Though my detractors often claim otherwise, I see myself as anything but a “self-hating Jew”, and the more vocal I am in my criticism of the Israeli government’s crimes, the more credence I give that claim. I passionately love my religion, and just as fervently defend its teachings to the hilt when it comes to how to treat our fellow man. That Zionism has come along, hijacked Jewish doctrines, and twisted them to form part of an all-out supremacist movement is not something I can swallow if I want to stay loyal to the true values of Judaism.

Unfortunately, by demanding that the world sees Zionism as a philosophy essentially based on Jewish principles, Zionists have managed to unforgivably drag the religion’s name through the mud for over 60 years. However, I drew some comfort from an unlikely source after talking to a boy in the Deheisha refugee camp in Bethlehem.

I was there as part of a marathon tour that took in Hebron, the village of Al-Nueman, the Machpelah Mosque, the Church of the Nativity and various other stops along the way — including the pitiful, crumbling buildings of Deheisha. Half-way through the trip, my eyes began to glaze over, as I sought to put a barrier between myself and the relentless barrage of proof we were shown of how cruelly the authorities deal with the Palestinians.

Sneering soldiers manning checkpoints, freshly-demolished family homes, welded-shut shop fronts, blood-thirsty settler graffiti crudely daubed on Palestinian houses … the list was endless, and the evidence was overwhelming. While it was clearly an invaluable experience for those on the tour who’d never seen the awful truth of the occupation up close and personal, I’d seen it all before — not that it gets any easier to take, however many times I am exposed to the reality.

But that was before I met Jihad, a young man charged with showing us round the garbage-strewn streets and decrepit homes of Deheisha. The first thing I noticed about him were his eyes, which were as dead as any I’ve seen in all my four years living here. As he sat on a chair facing our 10-man semicircle, his face was utterly devoid of emotion, and he simply went through the motions as he reeled out his clearly well-polished introduction to life in the camp.

I could hardly begrudge him his lack of enthusiasm; we were probably the hundredth group he’d spoken to about his community’s plight, and what difference had all the lip-service made to their situation? He and his people were still here, still caged in their concrete prison, still at the mercy of the Israelis, and still no nearer to achieving their dreams of independence and freedom from the shackles of their overseers.

“I just want to be like you,” he said tiredly as he gazed into the middle distance, and with those seven words summed up the eternal plight of the downtrodden and discriminated against. “I’ve got two arms, two hands … why am I any different from other people?” he went on — and, of course, the answer was staring us in the face from the gun turrets of the guard towers overlooking the camp.

As we wended our way up the narrow alleys where skinny children clad in ill-fitting clothes played among the refuse, I asked Jihad to elaborate on how he could be “like us”. His answer was simple, and — he said — representative of the views of the majority of Palestine’s millions of refugees. “We want to go home”, he said flatly. “There is no other way (that will suffice). A two-state solution will not bring peace — the fight will go on.” He told me that although he’d chosen to use pen rather than sword to get his message across, he had no truck with those who chose to join the armed resistance.

He was vicious in his condemnation of those at the helm of the Israeli government, castigating them for their decades spent keeping his people down and subjugating them with brute force and bloodshed — however, he was adamant that he did not view their actions as emanating from Jewish sources. “Zionism is far, far removed from the Jewish religion,” he assured me. “I have no issue with Jews — just as I have no problem with Christians or Buddhists. I don’t mind Jews living here, just so long as they do it peacefully.”

He echoed the words of another local I’d met earlier, who had asked why Zionists had felt the only way to emigrate to the region was via conquest and control, rather than “the way my brother moved to the United States. He went there not to kill, not to occupy, but just to live there in peace and be a citizen like anyone else.” Both his and Jihad’s ability to clearly distinguish between Zionism and Judaism is a chink of light in an otherwise pitch black situation — and must be capitalized on by those with an interest in bringing this 60-year-old conflict to an end.

The window of opportunity won’t stay open forever. Islamic radicals and fundamentalists are highly adept at conflating the Zionist philosophy with the Jewish faith, and Israel’s hiding behind a façade of acting on behalf of World Jewry only plays into their hands. Which is why it’s essential that those Jews who recoil at the criminal actions of the Israeli government make it quite clear that this is not being done in their names.

The dominant form of Zionism might be a racist, supremacist ideology — but Judaism is most definitely not. And the more Jews who make this distinction, the better — both for the security of their fellow Jews, as well as to prove to the Israeli authorities that they most definitely do not have carte blanche to crush the Palestinians for ever more under the guise of religious values.