NPK-info 29-07-2006


______________________________________________________________________ NPK-info 29-07-2006 - Nederlands Palestina Komitee / www.palestina-komitee.nl Today in Palestine! http://www.theheadlines.org ______________________________________________________________________ Soemoed http://www.xs4all.nl/~npk/Soemoed/Soemoed.344.htm () Proefabonnement (3 nrs 10 Euro): meld naam en adres bij soemoed@xs4all.nl Demonstratie van 22-7 nogmaals (en vervolg is op komst) http://anjameulenbelt.sp.nl/weblog/2006/07/23/luid-de-noodklok-2 Israël voert ook Amerika's oorlog, M. Aouragh en P. Brandon, Trouw 24 juli 2006 http://www.trouw.nl/deverdieping/podium/article395409.ece/Israel_voert_ook_Amerika_s_oorlog Who are the real terrorists in the Middle East? 26 July 2006, Oren Ben-Dor () http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article1197235.ece Israel's "New Middle East", Tanya Reinhart, 26 July 2006 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5248.shtml The lies Israel tells itself (and we tell on its behalf), Jonathan Cook, 28 July 2006 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5299.shtml Look who’s been kidnapped! http://www.labournet.net/world/0607/look1.html Stop War on Lebanon http://lebanon.squatdeluxe.com/ Palestinians in Gaza Worry about Becoming the 'Forgotten War', July 28, 2006; Joshua Mitnick http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=10964&CategoryId=5 NABLUS, Palestine http://www.thecornerreport.com/index.php?p=644&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1#more644 The Human Shields of Nazareth, Jonathan Cook, July 19, 2006 http://www.counterpunch.org/Cook07192006.html EN ZIE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA () NPK/WL, 29-7-2006 () in bijlagen ______________________________________________________________________ Soemoed, jaargang 34, nummer 4 (juli - augustus 2006) http://www.xs4all.nl/~npk/Soemoed/Soemoed.344.htm Inhoud: # Gegijzeld in Gaza (pp. 4-5). # NPK- en VPK-protestacties in Den Haag en Brussel (p. 6). # Gaza in het donker (hou ze arm!) (pp. 7-9). http://www.xs4all.nl/~npk/Soemoed/artikelen/jaargang34/Donker.344.htm # Privatisering van de apartheid in Israel (pp. 10-12). # Oost-Jeruzalems verboden families (over stille deportatie) (pp. 13-14). # Desinvesteren in Israel - het verhitte debat in de Verenigde Staten tussen joden en protestanten (pp. 23-27). http://www.xs4all.nl/~npk/Soemoed/artikelen/jaargang34/desinves.344.htm # In de Palestijnse getto's van Libanon (pp. 28-31). middenkatern: De Israel-lobby (Deel II) (pp. 15-22). quotes http://www.xs4all.nl/~npk/Soemoed/artikelen/jaargang34/quotes.344.htm Proefabonnement op Soemoed: 3 nummers voor 10 Euro. Aanmelden via soemoed@xs4all.nl met adresgegevens. ______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________ UPDATE FROM THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA http://electronicIntifada.net _______________________________ GETTING THE WORD OUT The Electronic Intifada's Lebanon and Gaza coverage continues. The site has seen more than 483,000 visits and over 2,074,000 page views since the start of Israel's invasion of Gaza on June 27th, including 313,000 visits, and 1,427,000 page views since Israel launched its war against Lebanon on July 12th. Read more about the work of the EI team in alternative media projects from the Middle East at: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/7/prweb413616.htm Recent media coverage, much of it focused on the voices from the ground in Lebanon and Gaza, includes the Washington Post, The Times (London), CBC, NRC Handelsblad (Netherlands), Pioneer Press (MN), The Nation, and several radio programs on both coasts of the United States and in Canada. Read more at: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/eiinthepress.shtml SPECIAL LEBANON BY TOPIC SECTION Our special section in BY TOPIC, "Israel attacks Lebanon (12 July 2006-)" has been expanded and now offers a variety of organized lists of all the content on Electronic Lebanon and key resources from beyond. The main page can be found at: http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/electronic-lebanon.shtml Subsections include: Lebanon for Beginners http://electronicIntifada.net/bytopic/445.shtml "Live from Lebanon" Diaries http://electronicIntifada.net/bytopic/454.shtml Blogs & Views from Lebanon http://electronicIntifada.net/bytopic/459.shtml Opinion, Editorial and Commentary http://electronicIntifada.net/bytopic/451.shtml Audio, Podcasts & Multimedia http://electronicIntifada.net/bytopic/452.shtml Human Rights and Development http://electronicIntifada.net/bytopic/455.shtml International Reaction & Protest http://electronicIntifada.net/bytopic/456.shtml Media Analysis and Freedom of the Press http://electronicIntifada.net/bytopic/458.shtml GENERAL LINKS For the main site, visit Electronic Lebanon at: http://electronicLebanon.net As always, our regular coverage of events in Palestine continues at: http://electronicIntifada.net and events in Iraq at http://electronicIraq.net ______________________________________________________________________ ******************************* A Terrorist State like no Other** Oren Ben-Dor* As its own citizens are being killed, Israel is, yet again, inflicting death and destruction on Lebanon. It tries to portray this horror as necessary for its self-defence. Indeed, the casual observer might regard the rocket attacks on Israeli cities such as Haifa and my own home town, Nahariya, as justifying this claim. While states should defend their citizens, states which fail this duty should be questioned and, if necessary, reconfigured. Israel is a state which, instead of defending its citizens, puts all of them, Jews as well as non-Jews, in danger. What exactly is being defended by the violence in Gaze and Lebanon? Is it the citizens of Israel or the nature of the Israeli state? I suggest the latter. Israel's statehood is based on a fundamentally unjust ideology which causes indignity and suffering for those who are classified as non-Jewish by either a religious or ethnic test. To hide this primordial immorality, Israel fosters an image of victimhood. Provoking violence, consciously or unconsciously, against which one must defend oneself is a key feature of the victim-mentality. By perpetuating such a tragic cycle, Israel is a terrorist state like no other. Many who wish to hide the immorality of the Israeli state do so by restricting attention to the horrors of the post-1967 occupation and talking about a two-state solution, since endorsing a Palestinian state implicitly endorses the ideology behind a Jewish one. The very creation of Israel required an act of terror. In 1948, following years of creeping dispossession coupled to total lack of empathy, most of the non-Jewish indigenous people were ethnically cleansed from the part of Palestine which became Israel. This action was carefully planned. Without it, no state with a Jewish majority and character would have been possible. Since 1948, the "Israeli Arabs", those Palestinians who avoided expulsion, have suffered continuous discrimination. Indeed, many have been internally displaced, ostensibly for "security reasons", but really to acquire their lands for Jews. The ideology of the Jewish state means that all existing and future descendants of the Jewish people worldwide have more rights in Palestine than the indigenous Arabs. This makes Israel unique. What other state decrees that many of its own citizens have less stake than millions of potential immigrants? The colonization of Palestine is also unique: discussion of this past injustice is inadmissable lest it expose the current immoral statehood. Israel is hailed as a paragon of democracy in the Middle East. How does Israel get away with its ethnocratic statehood despite its moral resemblance to apartheid-era South Africa? Surely Holocaust memory and Jewish longing for Eretz Israel would not be sufficient to justify ethnic cleansing and ethnocracy? To avoid the destabilisation that would result from ethical inquiry, the Israeli state must hide the core problem, by nourishing a victim mentality among Israeli Jews. Further, the narrative of Jewish victimhood must be fostered around the world. Many non-Israeli Jews, most of whom are perfectly happy as minorities in their respective states, willingly volunteer as missionaries of this narrative. When they are perceived as apologists for Israeli actions that are justified in the Jewish name, and encounter hostility, this reaction again helps to reinforce their victim narrative. To sustain a victim mentality among its Jewish citizens, and to preserve an impression of victimhood among outsiders, Israel must breed conditions for violence. Whenever prospects of violence against it subside, Israel must do its utmost to regenerate them: the myth that it is a peace-seeking victim which has "no partner for peace" is a key panel in the screen with which Israel hides its primordial and continuing immorality. Israel's successful campaign to silence criticism of its initial and continuing dispossession of the indigenous Palestinians leaves the latter no option but to resort to violent resistance. In the wake of electing Hamas - the only party which, in the eyes of Palestinians, has not yet given up their cause - the Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank were subjected to an Israeli campaign of starvation, humiliation and violence. The insincere "withdrawal" from Gaza, and the subsequent blockade, ensured a chronicle of violence which, so far, includes Palestinian firing of Kasem rockets, the capture of an Israeli soldier and the Israeli near re-occupation of Gaza. What we witness is more hatred, more violence from Palestinians, more humiliation and collective punishments from Israelis - all useful reinforcement for the Israeli victim mentality and for the sacred cow status of Israeli statehood. The truth is that there never could have been a partition of Palestine by ethically acceptable means. Israel was created through terror and it needs terror to cover-up its core immorality. Whenever there is a glimmer of stability, the state orders a targeted assassination, such as that in Sidon which preceded the current Lebanon crisis, knowing well that this brings not security but more violence. Israel's unilateralism and the cycle of violence nourish one another. Amidst the violence and despite the conventional discourse which hides the root of this violence, actuality calls upon us to think. The more we silence its voice, the more violently actuality is sure to speak. In Hebrew, the word ELEM (a stunned silence resulting from oppression or shock) is etymologically linked to the word ALIMUT (violence). Silence about the immoral core of Israeli statehood makes us all complicit in breeding the terrorism that threatens a catastrophe which could tear the world apart. * Dr. Oren Ben-Dor grew up in Israel. He teaches the philosophy of law and political philosophy at the School of Law, University of Southampton. okbendor@yahoo.com ______________________________________________________________________