Robert Sharp

A couple of years ago I was part of the team that produced The Unrecognized, a film highlighting the plight of the Bedouin population of the Negev (Naqab) desert in southern Israel. Despite having lived and worked on the land since the time of the British Mandate and before, their settlements and farms are not acknowledged by the state. Despite paying taxes, the residents are denied basic services such as water and healthcare, which their Jewish neighbours in the area take for granted.

Their story has been in the news again recently, due to a recent report by Human Rights Watch that renews the criticism of Israel’s discriminatory laws.

Highlighting the the terrible plight of the Bedouin is an important element in the campaign to end the discriminatory policies of the Israeli state. While campaigners in the West Bank and Gaza are undermined by the extremism of Hamas and its surrogates, no such counter exists for the Bedouin, who welcome their status as part of the Israeli state, and just want to be treated as equals within it. This gives the lie to the idea that Israeli discrimination is simply a response to Arab aggression in the region. Instead, it demonstrates the state’s drive towards ethnic purity, and the inevitable denial of human rights this entails.

For those of us who have visited the Naqab, some of the propaganda disseminated by Zionist groups is quite galling. The JNF extorts people to come and live in the Negev with pioneering slogans such as “You See a Desert, We See an Opportunity” which implies that the land is empty and uncultivated. In fact, as our film The Unrecognized shows, much of the land has already been farmed… by the Bedouin. Our film shows state authorities ploughing up crops that have been planted by Bedouin farmers, and that many kibbutzes were actually established not on new desert ground, but on land that was forcibly taken from its Bedouin owners. The JNF fails to acknowledge the existence of the Bedouin in its publicity material, which has an air of sinister idealism as a result. Gordon Brown, a patron of the charity, should insist that its activities do not discriminate against minority groups. Israel could be a beautiful place to settle, work and live, but only if all its peoples are treated equally.

Cross posted at the LiberalConspiracy, where all comments should be directed, I reckon.

In reporting the recent Gaza border break the BBC reffered to the security “wall”. Now, call me pedantic, but that looks more like a big fence to me, just like the other “security fence” currently under construction around the West Bank.

Oh, but wait! The fence in the West Bank is actually a wall. Now I’m confused. Why can’t we get nomenclature correct on this one?

That’s the problem with dehumanising people these days, you just run into a wall of political correctness. Or is that a fence?

Its very good news that Alan Johnston has been released from captivity in Gaza. Today would be a good day to remember that five Britons are still missing in Iraq (why do we not hear much talk about them) and that captured Israeli Gilad Shalit is still being used as a bargaining chip by Hamas - the same organisation which secured Johnston’s release.

I did notice a strange similarity between one of the frantic snaps of Alan arriving (or is he leaving) in a car, and the iconic image of nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu after his capture in Rome. Two balding men with their hands up against the glass - one man on his way to freedom, the other on his way to captivity.

With all this talk about Tony Blair taking on some role as a Middle-East envoy for the US, no-one seems to have remembered that he will still be a Labour MP after he steps down as Prime Minister on Wednesday. He won’t be able to go galavanting off to Palestine if Gordon Brown’s whips’ office needs him for a crucial division on housing reform.

The only way he will be able to take George Bush up on his offer is if he resigns as an MP, forcing a by-election… or if Prime Minister Brown calls an early election. Perhaps Tony knows something we don’t…

A month-old article on OpenDemocracy.net has got me thinking again about differing levels of citizenship and equality in Israel. Laurence Louër highlights the growing minority of Arab Israelis, and how an increase in their numbers means an increase in their political power. This, he says, “is a challenge to the country’s very self-definition.”

Louër cites the legal organisation Adalah (with whom I have worked), who deal with Arab minority rights in Israel. Their campaigns centre around the fact that Arab citizens of Israel, be their Muslim, Christian or Druze, are not afforded equal rights as their Jewish fellow citizens. The charge, at its most ferocious, is one of apartheid. As I have found, this is a contentious word for a contentious issue – a more benign accusation might be something like ‘discrimination on the basis of ethnicity’. Either way, the complaint is that people are not all equal in the eyes of the law or the state.

Some might say that the inequalities are surely the result of social frictions, of the kind that we see in the UK. This might have some truth. Adalah’s complaint, however, is that the state also enshrines an imbalance in law. Inequalities are therefore magnified, ethnic conflict is exacerbated, and the idea of democracy is compromised.

To my mind (and Louër’s too), the most pertinent example of this inequality is the ‘Law of Return’, whereby anyone of Jewish origin may ‘make aliyah’ and take Israeli citizenship. No similar right is granted to those who might be relatives of Arab citizens, or indeed those who did, just a generation ago, actually live within the borders of what is now Israel. The justifications for this (when they are not biblical) cite the necessity of such a law to maintain the Jewish character of the state. I have written before on why I think states should not have an official religion or ethnicity. I also acknowledge that many see Arab Israeli issues as just once facet of the wider Palestinian population (indeed, Louër reminds us that most Arab Israelis define themselves as ‘Palestinian citizens of Israel’). For now, then, one observation:

Isn’t the ‘Law of Return‘ an example of Affirmative Action? The state is, after all, performing a kind of social engineering, seeking to influence its social demography. Certain ethnic groups are awarded preferential treatment, gaining admission by jumping the queue. The justification for this policy is that past injustices have been done to that group, and the preferential treatment redresses the balance. If the ‘Law of Return’ is indeed Affirmative Action, then don’t the arguments against Affirmative Action apply to the ‘Law of Return’ too? How do those who have made aliyah feel about jumping the queue?

Two journalists find themselves without liberty, in two very different situations.

First, via Mash at the Dr Strangelove Blog, we hear that prominent journalist Tasneem Khalil arrested by military police in Bangladesh. Khalil is only 26, and works for the Dhaka-based Daily Star newspaper. He also campaigns for Human Rights Watch, who have issued a statement regarding his detention.

There are rumours that this detention will be shortlived, and that he might be released by the weekend. Regardless, the Internet is already being used to co-ordinate a campaign for his release: There is a possibility of a protest outside the Bangladeshi embassy in London, and campaigners will be raising awareness within the Bangladeshi community in the UK, at the Brick Lane Mela this weekend. Pickled Politics has more information.

Meanwhile, BBC reporter Alan Johnston has been missing for 60 days. In his case, his captors are a local militia group in Gaza.

An online petitions has been created for Alan Johnston, with another planned for Tasneem Khalil. However, I wonder whether this is as important as simply spreading awareness on a word-of-mouth (or word-of-blog) basis throughout the relevant communities. In neither case are the captors (The Bangladeshi ‘caretaker government’; and the Jaish al-Islam group in Gaza) directly accountable to the populations they pretend to serve. But one hopes that a rising wave of discontent coming from within those populations will eventually persuade those who make the decisions, that releasing their prisoners is the best course of action. By contrast, disapproval from outside these ‘constituencies’ - say, from the BBC or the British Government - might not be as persuasive.

Good luck Alan and Tasneem.

Tasneem Khalil has now been released. Worryingly, his detention was apparently “not due to his journalistic work and had nothing to do with his functions at The Daily Star … In fact, it was because of the contents of his personal blog and some SMSs he had sent recently…” Hmmm.

I see that another gay rights march in Jerusalem has been given the go ahead.

Earlier this year, a planned World Pride march in Jerusalem was cancelled, due to massive opposition from both Jewish and Muslim groups.

My feeling was that Jerusalem could be a beacon of multiculturalism, and a World Pride march there could be a positive example for the future. The Intifada Kid begged to differ:

I disagree that holding this in Jerusalem, the Eastern part of which has been occupied by Israel since 1967, should be a cause for celebration. There is a growing movement against this idea, supported by progressive and informed activists for sexual rights based locally and globally. See: boycottworldpride.org.

I can understand how a boycotting of the march would follow from the idea of boycotting Israeli goods and travel to Israel in general, as a means of peaceful protest against the illegal occupation of Palestine. However, I wonder if larger (or, at least different) ideas are at work here, and whether an exception could have been made.

The acceptance of homosexuality is an anathema to all the Abrahamic religions, and the fundamentalists who seek to impose their world-view on others. Surely, therefore, the World Pride March acts in opposition to these people.

So, in reply to the Intifada Kid: Is an acceptance of homosexuality compatible with Zionism? If not, then allowing gays into Jerusalem would radically undermine that Zionism, no? Would World Pride in Jerusalem not be a temporary ‘liberation’ of the city?

(I supposed this argument could be reversed for the other side of the argument. If Islamic fundamentalists were the cause of the impasse, then a gay pride march undermines them, too. Of course, all this depends on an analysis of the conflict in religious terms, which is not a given by any means).

Not that any of this matters, really. As mentioned, the World Pride march in August never went ahead, and was replaced by a protest instead. That, in turn, was drowned out by the nasty conflict in Lebanon.

Nevertheless, Gaarder’s essay is highly problematic. “We do not recognise the state of Israel” is not clarified in the way I attempted in my previous post, which invites the criticism slung at him by Andrew Sullivan and (no doubt) many others.

We do not believe in the notion of God’s chosen people. We laugh at this people’s fancies and weep at its misdeeds.

Crucially, his mockery of other people’s beliefs makes him look arrogant. Jews have a history of persecution we know all too well, and the exodus of the Torah is mirrored by countless diaspora in modern times. An attachment to (and a desire to live in) the Holy Land is genuine and heartfelt. In itself, it is not a reason for scorn.

We do not recognize the old Kingdom of David as a model for the 21st century map of the Middle East. The Jewish rabbi claimed two thousand years ago that the Kingdom of God is not a martial restoration of the Kingdom of David, but that the Kingdom of God is within us and among us. The Kingdom of God is compassion and forgiveness … Two thousand years have passed since the Jewish rabbi disarmed and humanized the old rhetoric of war. Even in his time, the first Zionist terrorists were operating … For two thousand years, we have rehearsed the syllabus of humanism, but Israel does not listen. It was not the Pharisee that helped the man who lay in the wayside, having fallen prey to robbers. It was a Samaritan

For most of the ‘two-thousand years’ in question, there was no ‘Israel,’ so he must be talking about The Jews. This looks like ‘classic’ anti-semitism: Jesus and the Christians had it right, while the Jews (that depraved bunch) had it wrong.

Finally:

Peace and free passage for the evacuating civilian population no longer protected by a state.

Gaarder does not consider the idea that the current Jewish residents of Israel might stay put after the anti-apartheid paradigm shift. Replacing one set of refugees with another solves nothing, it just reverses the problem. If he is saying that Jews are more suited to the refugee lifestyle than Palestinians, he is merely buying into the Old Testament tosh he refuted earlier.

Andrew Sullivan at Time Magazine’s Daily Dish says that the author Jostein Gaarder is an anti-semite, quoting an article by Gaarder in the Norweigan Aftenposten.

Sullivan claims that Gaarder is calling for the “obliteration of the state of Israel”, but on reading Gaardner in translation, I think that’s a serious misrepresentation of what he is trying to say. Gaardner repeatedly uses the word “apartheid” to describe Israel’s policies and structure. And if he, like many of us, sees an apartheid regime in Israel, then why should he not wish to call for its demise?

All too often “we do not recognize the state of Israel” is equated to mean “Jews into the sea”, or some variation thereof. When Hamas says it in their covenant, I think that’s a fair comparison… But there are many forms of non-recognition. A few months ago, I was chatting to a sixty-year old Palestinian woman, Ana, who used to live in West-Jerusalem. Her family was driven out of their house, without compensation. She fled to the Lebanon and then to Britain, and has no legal right to become a citizen of the state that currently surrounds her old house.

“Do you recognise the state of Israel?” I asked her.

“Why should I?” she replied, and I had no answer. If your house has been taken away in the name of a State, why should you then regard that State as legitimate? Of course Ana doesn’t recognise Israel, but that doesn’t mean she wants all the Jews out of the Middle-East, and she says as much.

She just wants her house back.

I think Gaarder uses the phrase in a similar manner. At each step, he declares the framework of the State of Israel to be immoral, and advocates a paradigm shift. The comparisons with South Africa are apt here. Why recognise and perpepuate the apartheid system, when you can have a Rainbow Nation? South Africa implemented a new constitution in 1994. We could therefore say that South Africa was destroyed and reborn when the change took place. But no-one was driven into the sea. The whites were considered ‘liberated’ as much as the blacks. They all stayed where they were, political equals with their neighbours.

Andrew Sullivan chooses to sneer at Gaarder’s (admittedly divisive) rhetoric. In doing so, he completely fails to address the key question: “Is there apartheid in Israel?”

From the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2003)

The Committee reiterates its concern that the “excessive emphasis upon the State as a ‘Jewish State’ encourages discrimination and accords second-class status to its not-Jewish citizens.

When the state denies Arab Bedouin access to water and healthcare, while their Jewish neighbours live in in luxury, then something is wrong. When American or British Citizens, born and bred in The West, can make alyia at a moments’ notice, but Ana cannot visit the town of her birth (let alone be recognized as a citizen of that town), then something is wrong. When universities favour Jewish students over Arab students of other faiths, then something is wrong. When the state builds walls through school playgrounds in the name of ’security’, and children are legitimate terrorist suspects, then something is wrong.

Should a country called ‘Israel’ exist? Sure thing - the millions of Jewish people who already live between the Mediterranean and the River Jordan should be allowed to live where their heart dicates. However, it must be achieved without recourse to an aparthied system. Otherwise, it is not worth the effort, and we would be right to shun it, as Jostein Gaarder advocates. It is inequality which defines the current status quo. Primacy should not awarded to one group over the other. If the current system does this, then it is unviable, and unworthy of support in its current form. This, I beleive, is the only genuinely pro-semitic position. Everything else is unwitting prejudice.

The religious idea that a group of people have a divine right to the Holy Land, can never be part of the philosophy of a state - be it Jewish or Islamic. The messy conflicts, and sticky diplomacy which will guarantee the safety of everyone in the region, can only begin once this central tenet has been agreed upon. We count the bangs as we wait.

I’ve made some more comments on Gaarder’s problematic essay

Jarndyce wonders if he has a “famous fan”. His point last year, asking when it is rational to kill yourself seems to be repeated by Timothy Garton-Ash at Comment Is Free. A fascinating point is that suicide bombings occur more frequently against democracies, rather than insurgencies against dictatorships who will deny them the oxygen of publicity. The fact that suicide bombers are not usually poor or uneducated is mentioned in both posts too.

A noticable phrase from the Garton-Ash redux:

Palestinian suicide bombers … preferred “sacred explosions”. “We do not have tanks or rockets,” said one, “but we have something superior - our exploding Islamic human bombs. In place of a nuclear arsenal, we are proud of our arsenal of believers.” That comment reflects another common feature: suicide missions are generally carried out by the weaker side, in conflicts marked by a sharp asymmetry of military force. They are a weapon of David against Goliath.

An ironic metaphor indeed: David was an Israeli, and Goliath a Philistine (in modern parlance, a Palestinian). Further irony in that a more common weapon employed by the intifada is the brick, thrown by teenagers at IDF vehicles. Not so different from the sling-shot David used to defeat Goliath. I’ve always thought that if modern Palestinians employed actual sling-shots, rather than suicide belts, against the occupation, they would gain far more sympathy from their Israeli neighbours, not to mention world-wide.