Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Russell Tribunal on Palestine, held in Barcelona.

The Russell Tribunal was created in order to judge American (among others) involvement and attitudes in Vietnam. It also judged some Latin American dictatorships, the Irak War and, more recently, alleged Israeli violations of human rights and European Union's complicity with Israel. Those responsible for the Tribunal's activities always claimed that it was based on international law.
The Tribunal finally found Israel guilty of apartheid and war crimes against Palestinians during military operations and while occupying the Palestinian territories, and European Union was found guilty of complicity, because it sold weapons to Israel, while legitimizing the occupation of the Palestinian territories and assisting Israel in it.
Was this Tribunal actually able to judge somebody or something? No. Why? The primary reason for it is that this Tribunal is not a real one. It has no authority to judge neither anybody nor anything. It's a symbolic Tribunal, not a real one appointed by a governmental department in order to judge and punish according to laws.
But more interesting is the nature of the Tribunal itself. This is just a part of the response (translated as accurate as possible, between quotation marks) of the Israeli Embassy in Spain:

"Without credibility nor moral weight. The self-denominated tribunal is exclusively constituted by people with a long anti-Israeli trajectory, like the payroll of people and institutions that support it. There's no a single independent voice, it's simply a lynching tribune which will stage the reading of a condemnatory sentence against Israel, whose script was decided since the same moment of its announcement. A condemnatory sentence as predictable as that which would be passed by a jury exclusively composed by Ku Klux Klan's members in a process against a coloured man."

Following this and other statements by the Israeli Embassy in Spain, we can find a link to the same statement with an interesting cartoon. Pay attention to it, please.
Also interesting are those statements made by Pilar Rahola and Jorge Marirrodriga. Pilar Rahola is a Spanish journalist from Catalonia, and a former leftist and nationalist politician, who considers herself pro-Israeli. She has her own website. We can find her statements about the Tribunal here.
She argues that it uses Bertrand Russell's name in vane, simplifies the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by reducing it to a dispute of good Palestinians and bad Israelis and is constituted by people with a long history of anti-Israeli attitudes, finally explaining that the Tribunal was financed by the Catalonian autonomous government and Barcelona's municipal council: "I claim for the returning of the money which, in my name, they've used to criminalize Israel."
Jorge Marirrodriga is also a Spanish journalist. He has a blog of his own entitled Sobre Israel Opinamos Todos (which could be translated as About Israel All of Us Think or About Israel All of Us Give an Opinion), where he criticizes anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic attitudes. The article in which he criticized the Tribunal can be found here.
He denounces the lack of morality of the Tribunal, claiming that it's an act of manipulation of the public opinion within the process of demonization of Israel. He also claims that the Russell Tribunal was used to revive the spirit of the movement against the United States' involvement in Vietnam, and that its members are delegitimizing Israel's right to exist while having failed to dennounce what is happening with enslaved societies. He finally exhorts the members of the Tribunal to ask Mosab Hassan Yousef "who is responsible for war crimes, what is Hamas and why it's worth to save lives even by facing his own father."
But this is not the first time this Tribunal is criticized due to its perceived political bias. Staughton Lynd, a self-declared social democrat pacifist, claimed in his book The War Crimes Tribunal: A Dissent (1967), that he was requested by Bertrand Russell to participate in the Tribunal, and that he rejected the invitation arguing that the Tribunal was biased against just one party involved in the Vietnam conflict.
Lynd wrote that "in conversation to the emissary who proffered the invitation, I argued that the alleged war crimes of any party to the conflict should come before the Tribunal. After all, I argued, a 'crime' is an action that is wrong no matter who does it. Pressing my case, I asked, 'What if it were shown that the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam tortures unarmed prisoners?' The answer, as I understood it, was, 'Anything is justified that drives the imperialist aggressor into the sea.' I declined the invitation to be a member of the Tribunal."
Please notice that driving the "aggressor" into the sea is what the Arabs and muslims want to do with the Israeli Jews.

34 comments:

  1. The so called Russell Tribunal is no more than a kangoroo court and was created by a Belgian, Pierre Galand. One of its supporters is another Belgian, Professor François Rigaux, Catholic University of Louvain. It has just been revealed that he supported the genocidal Red Khmer regime... and has never recanted. What is particularly galling is that the man has been showered with honours and is considered to be a human rights expert ...
    http://belgiqueisrael.blogspot.com/2010/03/francois-rigaux-soutien-des-khmers.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Another evidence leading to an irrefutable fact: the Russell Tribunal is strongly biased against the United States and Israel, and in favour of anti-Western regimes and movements. It's like they're living in the Cold War...
    By the way, I see you're Belgian. I was in Belgium last november; you have a very beautiful country. I was in Brussels, Brugges, Ghent, Dinant and Durbuy. Splendid country, without any doubt!
    Greetings from Spain.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wa, wa, wait a minute! Too many conclusions in such a short time! Now, there is this Pierre Galand, who "La Belgique" considers was a supporter of Pol Pot's regime. We should first see if that accusation is true in the first place.

    We should then see what relation would that have with the Russell Tribunal, an event not attended by him but by many Israelis.

    About the article, quoting the Spanish Israeli Embassy or two journalists does not credit any opinion about the Tribunal. We have not seen in none of the sources cited anything related to what actually and objectively happened in the Tribunal. Not very fair to do, especially bearing in mind that none of the ones criticising it attended it or read any of the conclusions that came out of it. They just seem to be afraid of questioning things that Israelis themselves question everyday (like the occupation, like the attacks in Gaza, etc...), and they're Europeans!!! And they think they're supporting Israel! Which Israel are they supporting? The Israel of its citizens, or the Israel of Bibi?

    About Rahola, by the way, my Catalan friends tell me she has a space every morning in the Catalan public television. Should they also claim their money back for these Catalan-funded Likud propaganda spaces?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Interesting questions, Judah Magnes, which I'll answer now.
    It's not necessary to attend an event to criticize it. For example, I didn't attend post-WWII trials, but I know that crimes commited by the Allies such as the Dresden bombings or the rapes of Berlin females weren't judged.
    My article not only cites those two journalists and the Israeli Embassy in Madrid, but also a self-declared social-democratic pacifist who was invited to the Tribunal during the 1960s, what he proposed and the subsequent response by one of the organizers of the Tribunal.
    Just pay attention to what is said on their website:

    "It is important to mobilize the international public opinion so that the United Nations and Member States adopt the necessary measures to end the impunity of the Israeli State, and to reach a just and durable solution to this conflict."

    The logical conclusion is that the Russell Tribunal didn't judge the facts fairly, because it's politically biased.
    Pilar Rahola is a journalist who supports Israel, but supporting Israel doesn't necessarily mean supporting the Likud; and as a journalist, she has to be paid for doing her job (I think so).
    What's the difference between Rahola and the Russell Tribunal? That Rahola just says what she thinks, while the Tribunal pretends to be neutral when in fact it has dedicated itself to demonize Israel.
    Nobody here is trying to tell that Israeli authorities didn't commit any crime during the conflict, and here nobody is trying to show that the Israelis fully support their Government; just read my articles, please. The majority of the Israelis want peace through a two-State solution.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Midskogen, could you name the members that attended the Tribunal and why you think they're biased (especially the Israeli ones)? Could you tell me their conclusions and why they are anti-Israeli (i.e. biased against Israel without any apparent reason)?

    Rahola has exactly the same message as the "official" version of facts in Israel now, that is, the Likud version. Of course the Israeli nation is much more than that.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Rahola has exactly not the same official version of the Likud. Rahola has been defending Israel for years, but the Likud has been being the main party governing Israel since 2009 only.
    Why I think the Tribunal is biased against Israel was mentioned before: its website was "teaching" about Israel's "guilt" before a "legal" conclusion was released.
    But you gave me an idea: I'll write about the members of the Tribunal and their bias against Israel, providing reliable sources.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'll give you a few names of members of the tribunal to start: Jeff Halper, Meir Margalit, Michael Sfard, Tamar Pelleg-Sryck, Neve Gordon, Nurit Peled, Ilan Pappé... (all of them Jews and Israeli-born, by the way). Of course, if you look hard you'll find strong right-wing opinions against them (calling them anti-semites, self-hating Jews and things of the sort). But there's where it comes your judgement about what is a "reliable source".

    About Likud: Israel was run by Likud during almost all the 80's. Likud was the main party in the Knesset again in 2003 (until Sharon's split with Kadima in 2005), and finally they won again in 2009, as you correctly state. However, this does not mean, that Kadima, Shas and all the other hard right-wing parties (Yisrael Beitenu) that have been in power in the last years do not share with Likud main positions regarding Israel and the settlements, Jerusalem, indiscriminate war against the Palestinians, etc... exactly the same way your beloved (and everything but unbiased) Rahola does.

    Israel is more than all that bunch of ultraconservative parties. And defending Israel does not mean defending just what their main guys say.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I forgot to say, of course the Russell Tribunal was only a symbolic event, without no legal consequences. It was a symbolic event in response to an illegal situation which has been judged by the ICJ (http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/131/1671.pdf) without any real consequences from it, i.e. legality seems to be different when it comes to Israel and a few more countries in the world. That's the reason why we need symbolical (and probably useless) Tribunals like the Russell Tribunal.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The names of the members of the Tribunal can be found on its website; but I told you I'll wright about them soon.

    Rahola is a defender of Israel itself, not a defender of an Israeli political party specifically.

    You say that "legality seems to be different when it comes to Israel and a few more countries in the world", but I can tell you that it occures in the other way: there are countries much more dangerous for the respect of the human rights than Israel (something I can demostrate), but Israel alone accumulates much more accusations from the U.N. and N.G.O.'s such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch than all of those countries together.

    Did you know that among the United Nations Human Rights Council's members we can find countries like Pakistan, Malaysia, Bahrain, Egypt, Cuba, Russia or Saudi Arabia?

    ReplyDelete
  10. What is in your opinion “a defender of Israel”? Can I be a defender of Israel if I support Shalom Achrav, Gush Shalom or Hadash and am a Post-Zionist? Why is this position regarded as of a anti-semitic person, a self-hating Jew or a stupid European Leftist in any instance of your beloved Rahola “literature”? Why does she never show any other opinion but that of the right-wing Israeli parties (which I enumerated before)? Can you consider that being fair to the reality, or neutral?

    You say that there are countries much more dangerous than Israel. This might be true, and every country should have their criticism. But why cannot we openly criticize Israel, a country that has maintained an illegal occupation for 60 years and makes no movement to change its position (therefore the accusations of AI, HRW, and all the other Israeli organizations, including BT’Selem). What makes you doubt the legitimacy of criticism in an unbiased organization like AI? Have you been to Israel or the occupied territories yourself in order to know more than they do about the topic?

    It is true that in the UN there are countries of dubious legitimacy. However, if we accept UN resolutions in reference to other matters or countries, we must take them into account for Israel too. Do you think occupying Palestine gives Israel any legitimacy in front of the international community? Why cannot we condemn this if we condemn, for example, China as an illegitimate country for occupying Tibet (between other reasons)?

    Furthermore, the International Court of Justice is no UN, as it is constituted by professional jurists and is nonetheless completely ignored by Israel and its so-called “supporters”, like Rahola or yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I don't think that A.I. could be referred to as "unbiased" when it has been created in order to monitor the human rights abuses worldwide but puts much more attention on Israel; the same could be applied to H.R.W.
    In my blog "Midtskogen con Israel" you'll find information about how unbiased these organizations are, along with the U.N. Just read here:

    http://midtskogen-israel.blogspot.com/2009/08/por-que-la-onu-critica-y-condena-tanto.html

    http://midtskogen-israel.blogspot.com/2009/09/suma-y-sigue.html

    http://midtskogen-israel.blogspot.com/2009/10/human-rights-watch-objeto-de-criticas.html

    http://midtskogen-israel.blogspot.com/2009/10/continuan-los-ataques-de-ongs-contra.html

    http://midtskogen-israel.blogspot.com/2009/12/asi-funciona-la-onu.html

    http://midtskogen-israel.blogspot.com/2009/12/asi-funciona-la-onu-ii.html

    http://midtskogen-israel.blogspot.com/2010/03/asi-funciona-la-onu-iii.html

    This has been stated by Professor Don Habibi, of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington:

    "This obsession would make sense if Israel was among the worst human rights offenders in the world. But by any objective measure this is not the case. Even with the harshest interpretation of Israel's policies, which takes no account of cause and effect, and Israel’s predicament of facing existential war, there can be no comparison to the civil wars in Sudan, Algeria, or Congo. Like the U.N., the policies of A.I. and H.R.W. have more to do with politics than human rights."

    I'm not trying to tell that Israelis are completely innocent victims. Of course there has been violations of human rights by Israel, but these kind of accusations are extremely exaggerated and often they're false.
    Furthermore, we see that is very frequent to delegitimize Israel's inherent right to exist using these accusations as an excuse. Why does nobody do the same with China, a country which kills more people annually through the death penalty than Israel at war? Why is it told that Israel must be abolished because it's in "other people's" land but it's not told the same about the U.S.A., Canada, Australia or New Zealand?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thanks for your answer.

    What about BT'Selem? Even Israeli officials accept BT'Selem as an unbiased source, or are the Israeli members of it also conspirating against Israel and its "right to exist"?

    You seem not to be very updated about accusations to other countries like China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Cuba, etc... They receive criticism from the UN, the International Court of Justice (which as usual you ignored again), AI, HRW, etc...

    Who says Israel must be abolished???? Of course Israel legitimacy can be the same that the US, Canada or New Zealand have. But I don't think any of the aforementioned organizations do any reference to abolishing Israel so please have your facts right. In fact, it was thanks to the UN, with all those dictatorships within it(including the USSR) that Israel was created.

    Probably you confused the right to exist of the state of Israel with the occupation of territories, where Israel is, in fact, in "other people's land" for more than 40 years, according to any instance of international law.

    My last question: Why would AI, HRW want to exaggerate any fact in order to demonize Israel? What interests, in your opinion, do they have for doing it?

    ReplyDelete
  13. I have nothing against B'Tselem.

    About the U.N., H.R.W., A.I. and others, I've supplied information enough in my last post, verifiable sources included.

    Of course other countries are being accused of human rights abuses, but Israel is subjected to this kind of accusations in a higher degree, even taking into account that Israel is less abusive.

    One example is the United Nations Human Rights Council. Between 2006 and 2009, they held twelve special sessions. Five out of those twelve sessions treated Israel-related issues, while the violence and the human rights abuses in Darfur and the Democratic Republic of Congo (extremely worst than those related to the Arab-Israeli conflict) only deserved one special session each.

    You can find this information at the U.N.H.R.C.'s website.

    Why is this happening? Well, there are several anti-Israeli regimes represented in the Council. Does it make any sense to be party and judge at the same time?

    All of this (U.N., H.R.W., A.I. and others) are biased against Israel just for their political views.

    And most of those who criticize Israel are against its existence, it's obvious.

    ReplyDelete
  14. So, if you have nothing against BT'Selem, why did you never talk about them in your posts? Isn't hiding information also being biased about a situation?

    I'll tell you another thing. This argument of "don't blame me, there are people that do worse things" really does not have much weight in terms of International Law, Human Rights, or respect for others in general. Turks diminish their Armenian Genocide saying it was nothing compared to Nazi Holocaust, Stalinists can do the same (even if the USSR killed many more people than the Nazis), etc... We cannot accept such an argument if we want to be serious, objective and resolutive. What we want to do is see the facts, and try to solve the conflicts. Now, if you have a look at BT'Selem, Ir Amim, Shalom Achrav, Gush Shalom webpages you will see tons of objective data that contradict the benevolence you bestow on the current Israeli government and the data you usually post here. If you really want to be unbiased about the conflict and you really want to support Israel, I think it would be your duty to post this information in your blog too.

    Curiously, AI and other International Organizations use BT'Selem's data for their research and their final reports about the Middle East.

    Let's accept, for argument's sake, that all these International Groups are biased against Israel. What are, in your opinion, these political views that make them anti-israeli? What is their interest (gain) in hurting Israel?

    Time ago I had a hard discussion with a Turk about the Kurds in Turkey and she really believed the Kurdish problem was complete fabrication of AI, the EU, the UN and HRW as "weapons" controlled by the American government to hurt Turkey (it actually makes sense, remember Kurds are strong American allies in Iraq). Should we accept that too and just consider all these organizations biased? Should we accept the same from the Chinese (etern competitor of the USA) or the Iranians, then?

    ReplyDelete
  15. As I said before, Judah, nobody here is trying to make the Israelis appear like they're completely innocent. In every war there are people in both sides who commit human rights abuses.
    Currently I'm reading "Band of Brothers, E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne: From Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest", by Stephen Edward Ambrose, and Allied soldiers also committed abuses. Do you remember that film about Israeli soldiers who occupy a Palestinian home whose inhabitants have to live with them? 101st Airborne Division's soldiers also did it during the war, specially in Germany.
    Do you remember the 1,400 people supposedly killed in the Gaza Strip during the three-week Operation Cast Lead? During the three-day Allied bombings against Dresden, 40,000 Germans were killed.
    And this is my question now: what would you say to an individual if he had told you that those Allied crimes made the nazis to have the right on their side? You'd try to put those Allied crimes into context (which probably would be exaggerated by that guy), and you'd also try to convince him that, even taking those Allied abuses into account, those who mostly had the right on their side were the Allies and not the nazis.
    Well, in my point of view, Israel has much more in common with the Allies than the Palestinians, even taking into account abuses supposedly committed by Israel, which are exaggerated by the U.N., H.R.W., A.I. and many others.

    Why are these organizations biased against Israel? It's just a political goal. If you don't like Israel, you'll attack it, and if, for example, you take part in human rights abuses or support regimes which commit those abuses, you'll divert attention from your own faults through accusing Israel.

    It's just that. And most of the data used to accuse Israel is based on unverifiable sources and is often proven wrong, like Muhammad al-Durrah's case, the alleged mass expulsion of Arabs and the ban against the Arabs to build homes for them in East Jerusalem. You have many examples in my blog "Midtskogen con Israel".

    I also said that I'm not trying to support this or that Israeli cabinet specifically.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Look, the problem here is you are still talking about "Israelis appearing innocent" and "Palestinians", as though this was an ethnic problem of this people against this other. For me, this is just a political strategy of the Israeli right-wing to remain in power and control the situation, the same way the Global War on Terrorism was for George Bush in the USA. Israelis are just victims of this manipulation, the same way Palestinians are. A proof of this is the difference in the attitudes we find in the real Israelis and their government or the things you and Rahola usually post in their name.

    "Why are these organizations biased against Israel? It's just a political goal. If you don't like Israel, you'll attack it, and if, for example,"

    Yeah, but why are they all against Israel as a political goal or why don't they like Israel? What is their (political, economical, anything...) gain in criticizing Israel? Do they have branches in Israel? Do Israelis also join them? And I insist you still have BT'Selem with an extense list of human rights violations by Israel.

    The alleged mass expulsion of Arabs has been proved by many historians, starting from Benny Morris, but I won't try to blame Israelis now for what happened 60 years ago. Now it's about looking forward not backwards. About East Jerusalem, they're taken out of their houses, given an economic compensation and must move to the other territories, that's what happens to them. No lies in that.

    As I said, your omission of many points of view present in the Israeli daily political sphere, of certain reports and facts (demonstrations, etc...) really portrays you as a fervent supporter of the current government and thus a right-wing supporter. At least for the usual reader of your blog.

    ReplyDelete
  17. The alleged mass expulsion of Arabs has been carried out by both sides during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, as Benny Morris has stated. This has been proven by both Israeli declassified documents (regarding to Israel's role in the expulsions) and statements made by past and current Arab leaders (regarding to Arabs' role in the events).

    About East Jerusalem, and as I explained before, Arab population has increased under Israeli rule in a higher degree than under non-Israeli rule. Contrary to popular belief, Israeli authorities have allowed Arab homes to be built, and most of the Arabs expelled from their homes are relocated inside East Jerusalem.

    I remember to have explained before that I'm not a full supporter of right-wing Zionism. I clearly prefer leaders from the Zionist left such as Abba Eban, Levi Eshkol, Yitzhak Rabin or David Ben-Gurion instead of Binyamin Netanyahu or Menachem Begin, maybe because those Zionist leftists saved the country in a much more dangerous period (1948-1973).

    Members of both the Zionist right and the Zionist left did it well and committed faults. But my intention here is to put into question Spanish treatment against Israel and the Jews, that's what I want to denounce here.

    The gain you're asking for can be strictly ideological, a way to divert attention from your own faults or to achieve popularity, and also a way to being funded by a Government if you are the leader of an N.G.O.

    ReplyDelete
  18. You write about those omissions by supporters of Israel. What about the omissions by supporters of anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, a Palestinian State or even Palestinian terrorism?

    ReplyDelete
  19. About your last paragraph. You misunderstood. I did not talk about omissions by supporters of Israel. I talked about the "so-called" supporters of Israel and the omission of information that other supporters of Israel provide. I don't think BT'Selem is against Israel, I don't think Gush Shalom is against Israel, I don't think Shalom Achrav is against Israel, etc... Do you think they are against Israel? Then, why don't you ever talk about them and their say about the conflict and only quote hard right-wing versions of the facts, like the Spanish embassy, Bibi Netanyahu or Pilar Rahola.

    ReplyDelete
  20. “Contrary to popular belief, Israeli authorities have allowed Arab homes to be built, and most of the Arabs expelled from their homes are relocated inside East Jerusalem.”

    To me, this “popular belief” is completely irrelevant. The important issues about East Jerusalem are: its role in the peace process (where is building more settlements recommended in any peace process or roadmap), the effect that building more settlements has in the Palestinian population and its attitude against Israel, the legitimacy of the current Israeli rule over this region, and the future of the current inhabitants of the area, who are currently expelled from their so-called “illegal” homes.

    About the role in the peace process, I consider East Jerusalem a crucial element to be taken into account, as it would form part of any of the so far proposed Two-State solutions. Therefore, building more and more Israeli neighbourhoods goes against any peace process.

    About the effect that building more settlements in this area we have seen reactions both in the Palestinian attitudes against Israel (now they feel more beligerant than three months ago) and their leaders too (you state how the PA refuses to talk directly to an Israeli government they don’t consider trustable).

    About the legitimacy of the current Israeli rule over the region, I definitely consider it unclear and subject to further Peace negotiations. Furthermore, no international institution, Government or tribunal accepts Israel’s rule over the settlements or East Jerusalem and current evictions are being based on Ottoman or British Mandate property orders, which have obviously prescribed.

    About the future of the current inhabitants of the area, they are definitely expelled and (you’re wrong on this fact) offered no house in exchange but a good quantity of money to buy another house. The matter is they usually must move to another neighbourhood, find another place, etc… and accepting the money Israel gives them is seen as betrayal to their Palestinian desires of self-rule.

    More info about the legal status of Palestinian inhabitants in East Jerusalem (which is not by any means the same as the Israeli citizenship): http://www.ir-amim.org.il/Eng/?CategoryID=242

    As you see, Ir Amim is a non-profit Israeli organization that wants a future fair and peaceful city of Jerusalem and usually contradicts the “popular belief” you usually quote in your posts.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I never wrote that B'Tselem, Ir Amim and others are biased against or in favour of Israel, because I never wrote about them. Are they right in their judgements? I don't know. Maybe sometimes they are, and sometimes they're not.
    I didn't even write about them here; I wrote about the Russell Tribunal on Palestine.
    About human rights abuses by Israel, I repeat: I don't deny Israeli authorities have committed them. I'm just trying to put those abuses into a proper context, to tell the full story and not just part of it and to denounce exaggerations on this matter and the delegitimation of Israel's existence on this ground.
    By the way, the article you've linked explains clearly that East Jerusalem's Arabs were granted the option of Israeli citizenship. If many of them didn't accept, it was their decision; a decision which wasn't taken into account by the Israeli Supreme Court when it sentenced that those Arabs must be granted full access to Israel's social security and sanitary services.

    ReplyDelete
  22. That Israeli Supreme Court's decision was taken in 1988. Jews and Arabs benefiting themselves from the same social security and sanitary services? I don't think that it could be called apartheid.

    ReplyDelete
  23. By the way, what I told about East Jerusalem's Arab's relocation inside East Jerusalem was information published by El País.

    ReplyDelete
  24. I wrote an e-mail to Ir Amim two days ago and they answered that Palestinian expelled from their houses are given nothing in exchange, as they are considered illegal inhabitants in illegaly appropriated property. You can also ask them if you have doubts about this. I have more confidence in them than in El Pais, dont you?

    ReplyDelete
  25. “I never wrote that B'Tselem, Ir Amim and others are biased against or in favour of Israel, because I never wrote about them. Are they right in their judgements? I don't know. Maybe sometimes they are, and sometimes they're not.”
    Well, man, if you haven’t noticed yet, this is my point. Why do you never mention any Israeli organization apart from the Israeli government or the so-called foreign “supporters”? Choosing the information you want to show and omitting another is also creating a biased piece of information. And the sources you quote are definitely to the right of the Israeli political spectrum.

    “I didn't even write about them here; I wrote about the Russell Tribunal on Palestine.”
    Ok, I will ask you then. Why did you never write about them here? Do you know some of their leaders were present in the Russell Tribunal on Palestine? Are they in your opinion not supporters of Israel? Why not?

    About human rights abuses by Israel, I repeat: I don't deny Israeli authorities have committed them. I'm just trying to put those abuses into a proper context, to tell the full story and not just part of it and to denounce exaggerations on this matter and the delegitimation of Israel's existence on this ground.

    By the way, the article you've linked explains clearly that East Jerusalem's Arabs were granted the option of Israeli citizenship. If many of them didn't accept, it was their decision; a decision which wasn't taken into account by the Israeli Supreme Court when it sentenced that those Arabs must be granted full access to Israel's social security and sanitary services.
    Would you accept changing your Spanish (or Galician) nationality to Portuguese? Do you think it is reasonable to say this is fair?
    That Israeli Supreme Court's decision was taken in 1988. Jews and Arabs benefiting themselves from the same social security and sanitary services? I don't think that it could be called apartheid.
    I won’t start the discussion about naming it Apartheid or not. As Chomsky says, it is not Apartheid at all, many things were worse in South Africa, but some things are worse in the occupied territories.

    ReplyDelete
  26. About evictions in East Jerusalem:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/06/israel-eviction-palestinian-east-jerusalem

    "And the sources you quote are definitely to the right of the Israeli political spectrum."
    I think you should revise my posts again...

    "Why did you never write about them here?"
    Because they don't make their statements in Spain. My intention here is to denounce what I consider a biased and unjust portrayal of Israel and the Jews when performed here in Spain. So, for example, if Ir Amim's representatives are interviewed by El Mundo, ABC, La Voz de Galicia or La Vanguardia and they show a biased and unjust portrayal of Israel and the Jews, I'll denounce them here for their statements.
    But to denounce what is unbiased and just doesn't make sense. Did I write, for example, against the theory of Israel's role in the 1948 Palestinian exodus?

    "Would you accept changing your Spanish (or Galician) nationality to Portuguese? Do you think it is reasonable to say this is fair?"
    I don't think that rejecting Israeli citizenship is inmoral, but I consider it logical. If I were living in Portugal, I'd apply for Portuguese citizenship, even considering myself a Spaniard.

    "I won’t start the discussion about naming it Apartheid or not."
    I compared Israeli laws with those of South Africa during apartheid in my blog "Midtskogen con Israel", and it's not comparable.

    ReplyDelete
  27. "I don't think that rejecting Israeli citizenship is inmoral, but I consider it logical. If I were living in Portugal, I'd apply for Portuguese citizenship, even considering myself a Spaniard."

    Palestinians living in East Jerusalem are not Israeli citizens. You wouldn't apply for Portuguese citizenship if that meant giving away your Spanish citizenship and becoming a Portuguese citizen with Spanish nationality (as I said before, there is NO Israeli nationality) in a country (imagine) where Spaniards were extremely stigmatized. Would you still wanna try?

    ReplyDelete
  28. Blacks were extremely stigmatized in the U.S. in a higher degree. Their fight for emancipation consisted of becoming American citizens. Why those Arabs don't do the same? And I repeat: they have the option of becoming Israeli citizens, and even as non-Israelis, they were granted access to Israel's social security and health service.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Black people are still stigmatized in the USA. I don't wish the same future black people have nowadays in the US to any other community in the world. Palestinians have no interest in having access to Israel's security and health service. They want to have access to Palestinian social and health service.

    I still don't get you on this one or on the comparison with American blacks. The American government did not invade a country of blacks and they had to fight for the same rights of Americans (this happened in South Africa, for example, but not in the USA). They were fighting for the rights of a citizenship of the country they considered as theirs as the white Americans. This is completely different to the situation in the Middle East, as no Palestinian accepts Israel as its state or wishes to be ruled by what they see as a foreign government.

    ReplyDelete
  30. “About evictions in East Jerusalem:”

    I rely on Israeli organizations, not on international press opinion articles. Why if you don’t rely on EL PAIS should you rely on THE GUARDIAN to contradict what Israelis say? Why instead of looking for world press op-ed’s that support your thesis don’t you try to read the reports by Ir Amim, an organization actually based in Jerusalem and based on the real facts happening in the city?

    "And the sources you quote are definitely to the right of the Israeli political spectrum."
    I think you should revise my posts again...

    "Why did you never write about them here?"

    Because they don't make their statements in Spain. My intention here is to denounce what I consider a biased and unjust portrayal of Israel and the Jews when performed here in Spain. So, for example, if Ir Amim's representatives are interviewed by El Mundo, ABC, La Voz de Galicia or La Vanguardia and they show a biased and unjust portrayal of Israel and the Jews, I'll denounce them here for their statements.
    But to denounce what is unbiased and just doesn't make sense. Did I write, for example, against the theory of Israel's role in the 1948 Palestinian exodus?

    But what you still have not realized (or want to hide, I am not sure about this) is the fact that the opinion of this press is also present within Israel. And I have been trying to explain this to you in all my last posts.

    ReplyDelete
  31. "Black people are still stigmatized in the USA."
    Yes, of course. But you can't compare what is happening to them now with what they had to suffer in the past.

    "I still don't get you on this one or on the comparison with American blacks."
    In your analysis you omitted some facts. One of them is that the blacks were not native Americans. They were kidnapped in their places of origin, sold as cheap merchandise and used as slaves in a country they never had seen before.
    After that, they were freed, but they had to suffer severe discrimination. They were victimized by racists who acted alone or in terrorist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. And the blacks also suffered from the authorities, which during many years imposed apartheid-like measures such as segregation inside universities and within the armed forces.
    In fact, I think blacks under American rule suffered in a higher degree than the Palestinians under Israeli rule. But they fought for their rights in the land of their former rulers and became equal citizens under the law, and they're as loyals to their country as the whites themselves, even realizing their African ancestry and what they had to suffer.
    My point here is that African-Americans are an example for Israeli Arabs. If American blacks were able to become American citizens while realizing their African ancestry, why Israeli Arabs wouldn't be able to do the same, taking into account that their suffering is not comparable to that of the African-Americans?

    ReplyDelete
  32. "I rely on Israeli organizations, not on international press opinion articles."
    Israeli daily Haaretz is also based in Jerusalem, and has a long history of criticism against Israeli authorities. It reported on those evictions as follows:


    "The two families were evicted before dawn on Sunday by hundreds of policemen, after the Jerusalem District Court ordered their departure. Jewish families have already entered in their stead, with the consent of the owner, the Sephardic Community Committee, which has owned both houses since before the establishment of the state.

    The evicted families, Palestinians who fled West Jerusalem during the War of Independence in 1948, were settled in these houses by the United Nations and the Jordanian government, which captured East Jerusalem during that war. When Israel captured East Jerusalem in 1967, the courts awarded the families protected tenant status. However, the district court ruled, even protected tenants must abide by the terms of their rental contracts, and these tenants failed to do so."

    http://www.haaretz.com/news/clinton-slams-israel-for-evicting-arab-families-from-east-jerusalem-1.281313

    The author of The Guardian's aforementioned article is Robert Broch, who works for Just Journalism. See here:

    http://www.justjournalism.com/our-work

    "But what you still have not realized (or want to hide, I am not sure about this) is the fact that the opinion of this press is also present within Israel. And I have been trying to explain this to you in all my last posts."
    Yes, as I said before, Israelis also criticize their Government. But in this blog, I monitor Spanish attitudes towards Israel and the Jews, and not Israeli attitudes towards Israel and the Jews.
    For a wider range of information concerning Israel, I think we should discuss in "Midtskogen con Israel".

    ReplyDelete
  33. "My point here is that African-Americans are an example for Israeli Arabs. If American blacks were able to become American citizens while realizing their African ancestry, why Israeli Arabs wouldn't be able to do the same, taking into account that their suffering is not comparable to that of the African-Americans?"

    Look, every single community on the earth must have a right for self-determination as long as this decision is taken democratically. You can consider it reasonable or not, but their right is untouchable. Palestinians do not want to be Israelis. If you want to know why, you can have a look at what the real situation is for Arab Palestinians in Israel and why the Arabs in the West bank might prefer to have a self government (which not necessarily should be that of Hamas) instead of living with the presence of a foreign army who checks them every time they want to visit their relatives, go to work or even go to hospital. I can't even understand how you can say they should want to become Israeli when they are being invaded militarily by the Israeli Army.

    About the Arabs under Israeli rule, you could have a look at the distribution of land only for Jews by the JNF and the Jewish National Fund Law, the discrimination many Arab families suffer when they want to move into a new flat (or job), etc...

    About the families in Sheikh Jarrah, first of all this piece of news is from August 2009, so the situation might have changed from this time, and the information we have about them. I don't quite understand what Haaretz meant with "failed to do so" (abide which terms of their rental contracts?). However, I can tell you that the decision of the Israeli Supreme Court to send the IDF to East Jerusalem and evict Palestinian families is based on documents provided by the Sephardic Community that are from Ottoman times!!! (therefore it says "before the creation of the state"). You will perfectly understand that if we grant Jews the right to re-take property that belonged to them before 1948 (even from the 19th century), we should grant the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that fled current Israeli territories the same right, and I, you, and Israel do NOT want to do that. Furthermore, East Jerusalem is no Israeli territory under any law in the world. Therefore, sending there the IDF is invading foreign or disputed territories and this is, of course, illegal. I do not know if you would accept the Moroccan army to be sent to Melilla to recover houses "taken" by the Spaniards from "them".

    It seems you'll have to look harder to find evidence that Israel is doing the right thing there. Furthermore, you will have to challenge the opinion and facts that lead the thousands of Israelis demonstrating every friday in this neighbourhood against these evictions. My question, however, would still be why you would like to work so hard to do this instead of accepting that this time the Israeli protesters and the Spanish press might be right.

    I think in your blog you are not only "monitoring" Spanish attitudes but also giving your opinion. In this case you give your opinion about what happens in Israel and your opinion about what Spanish should think or say that happens in Israel. But I'm sorry to say that objectivity is far from here as long as you do not post or report a lot of information that you usually omit, even if it is comes from Israeli sources.

    ReplyDelete
  34. "Palestinians do not want to be Israelis."
    Fistly, I was talking about Israeli Arabs, not Palestinian Arabs; secondly, I'm favourable to an Arab Palestinian State; and thirdly, and as I said before, if those East Jeruslem's Arabs don't want to accept Israeli citizenship, they have the right to do so. It's just a suggestion by Israeli authorities, not an order.

    "... as long as you do not post or report a lot of information that you usually omit,..."
    Holy mother of God... Well, I'll try to make it clear to you one more time.
    I'm here to denounce biased and unjust Spanish attitudes against Israel and the Jews. When, for example, in Spanish media appears an article which is biased and unjust towards Israel and the Jews, I denounce it.
    There are many ways to treat Israel and the Jews in that way. You can lie, and in that case, I tell the truth. Or you can tell only a part of the truth, that one which shows the bad side of Israel and the Jews only, and then I tell the other part of the story, without denying the bad side.
    One example is what I explained in those articles relating to Nabil Shaath's and Ilan Pappé's statements about the Nakba. They wrote about Israel's involvement in the events. Did I suggest that it's historically incorrect? No. What I did was to write about the other side of the story, the one which is deliberately hidden by Shaath and Pappé.
    With Israel's treatment towards Arabs in East Jerusalem, this is the same. One side of the story is told: evictions and demolitions. But the other side of the story is not told: Arab homes being allowed to be built inside East Jerusalem, Jewish homes being sealed in order to be demolished, Jewish families being evicted, too,...
    Do you understand now what I'm trying to do here?
    If the Spanish press begins to tell all the sides of the story, and not just one, telling it in a just and unbiased way, this blog will come to an end.

    ReplyDelete