Boycott Israel drive gains strength, raising alarm

Image Credit: The Washington Times

JERUSALEM (AP) — Ten years ago, a small group of Palestinian activists had a novel idea: Inspired by the anti-apartheid movement, they called for a global boycott movement against Israel as a nonviolent method to promote the Palestinian struggle for independence.

Long confined to the sidelines, the so-called BDS movement appears to be gaining momentum — so much so that Israel has identified it as a strategic threat on a par with Palestinian militant groups and the Iranian nuclear program. While Israel says the movement is rooted in anti-Semitism, its decentralized organization and language calling for universal human rights have proven difficult to counter, resulting in a string of recent victories that have alarmed Israeli leaders.

“We are now beginning to harvest the fruits of 10 years of strategic, morally consistent and undeniably effective BDS campaigning,” said Omar Barghouti, one of the group’s co-founders. “BDS is winning the battles for hearts and minds across the world, despite Israel’s still hegemonic influence among governments in the U.S. and Europe.”

The BDS movement — named for its call for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel — began as an idea by 170 Palestinian civil society groups worldwide in 2005. It has grown into a global network of thousands of volunteers lobbying corporations, artists and academic institutions to sever ties with Israel.

Its members include campus activists, church groups and even liberal American Jews disillusioned by Israeli policies.

Most worrying for Israel, some of the group’s core positions toward products made in West Bank settlements are starting to be embraced by European governments. Although the EU says it opposes boycotts of Israel, it is exploring guidelines for labeling settlement products, which many in Israel fear could be a precursor to a full-fledged ban. Settlement products, which make up a tiny percentage of Israeli exports, include wines, dates and cosmetics.

At a time when peace efforts are frozen and show no sign of getting back on track under a new hard-line government, Israelis fear such sentiment will increase.

“The concern is that there will be a spillover to a much wider phenomenon that will become mainstream and erode support for Israel,” said Emmanuel Nahshon of Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

The BDS movement has three goals: to end Israel’s occupation of territories captured in the 1967 Mideast war, to end discrimination suffered by Arab citizens of Israel, and to promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to family properties lost in the war surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948.

For Israel, this last position is nothing less than a call for its destruction. Israel opposes the Palestinian “right of return,” saying a massive influx of refugees would mean the end of the country as a Jewish state. The international community favors a “two-state solution” creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has indicated willingness to compromise on the refugee issue under a final peace deal.

Barghouti, a U.S.-educated engineer who also holds a graduate degree at Israel’s Tel Aviv University, said the BDS movement is “completely neutral” on the political solution to the conflict. But he said he represents the Palestinian “consensus,” and any deal that “undermines our basic rights under international law and perpetuates the colonial oppression” is unacceptable.

As for his attendance at a university he asks others to boycott, he said Palestinians “cannot possibly observe the same boycott guidelines as asked of internationals,” adding that the “indigenous population” is entitled to all services they can get from the system.

Israeli leaders consider the movement to be the latest in a history of antagonists out to destroy the Jewish people.

“We are in the midst of a great struggle being waged against the state of Israel, an international campaign to blacken its name,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said recently. “It is not connected to our actions. It is connected to our very existence.”

The BDS movement is led by a West Bank-based national committee with representatives from around the world, which sets guidelines but allows local branches to decide their own strategy. It focuses on battles with a reasonable chance of success. So some of the biggest companies active in Israel, such as Microsoft and Intel, have not been targeted.

Battles have taken place in U.S. food co-ops and city councils. The movement has helped organize several boycotts by U.S. and British academic unions and has made inroads on American campuses. Roughly a dozen student governments have approved divestment proposals.

Entertainers, including Roger Waters, Elvis Costello and Lauryn Hill have refused to perform in Israel. The BDS movement also claims responsibility for pressuring some large companies to stop or alter operations in Israel, including carbonated drink maker SodaStream, French construction company Veolia and international security firm G4S.

Last month, Britain’s national student union joined the movement. Last week, the top legislative body of the United Church of Christ voted to divest from companies with business in the Israeli-occupied territories, following a similar move by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) last year. The Episcopal Church and Mennonite Church USA also considered divestment proposals recently, with the Episcopals rejecting it and the Mennonites deferring action for two years.

Perhaps the biggest blow was last month’s announcement by the chief executive of French mobile phone giant Orange that he wanted to end his partnership with Israeli carrier Partner Communications. He cited his desire to improve business in the Arab world. Although CEO Stephane Richard later traveled to Israel to apologize, Orange and Partner announced plans to unwind their deal.

The idea of boycotts is extremely sensitive in Israel. The Nazis launched a nationwide boycott of Jewish businesses and artists — often accompanied by acts of violence and anti-Semitic slogans — in the 1930s Germany ahead of the Holocaust. In the 1970s and 1980s, Arab countries pressured companies doing business with them to shun Israel. Currently, Israel is fending off attempts by the boycotters to compare Israeli policies in the West Bank to South African apartheid.

“The attacks on the Jews were always preceded by the slander of the Jews,” Netanyahu recently said.

BDS activists deny being fueled by anti-Semitism, saying their battle is against Israel, not Jews. They point to a small but growing number of Jewish supporters, including the “Jewish Voice for Peace,” whose 9,000 dues-paying members support a boycott of Israel.

Naomi Dann, JVP’s media coordinator, said the stance stems from frustration over failed U.S.-backed peace efforts. She said that while the group recognizes the Jewish attachment to Israel, it can’t come at the expense of Palestinians.

“It’s not about destroying Israel,” she said. “But full equal rights and a democratic society are more important than preserving the Jewish character of the state.”

It remains difficult to quantify the BDS movement’s actual achievements.

Leading global companies, including Microsoft, Google, Apple and Intel, maintain operations in Israel. Major entertainers, including Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga, Madonna and Rihanna, have performed in Israel in recent years.

A February report by Israel’s Finance Ministry concluded the BDS movement has had a negligible economic impact. But it outlined some worst-case scenarios, including EU government-led boycotts or cancellation of free-trade agreements. Likewise, a recent study by the Rand Corp. said that while the BDS movement “has not yet had a significant negative effect” on Israel, it is growing. It noted Israeli leaders’ fears it could have “substantial detrimental effects” on the economy.

Last month, Jewish billionaires Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban led a Las Vegas fundraiser to fight the BDS movement at U.S. universities. Israel’s justice minister, Ayeled Shaked, instructed her ministry to prepare “legal steps” against the movement. This week, Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton said she opposed the BDS movement.

David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Policy for Near East Policy and former member of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace team, said Israel must show it is serious about the creation of a Palestinian state to slow the momentum.

Read Full Article: AP

Vatican signs treaty with “State of Palestine”

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VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican signed a treaty with the “State of Palestine” on Friday, saying it hoped its legal recognition of the state would help stimulate peace with Israel and that the treaty itself would serve as a model for other Mideast countries.

Vatican Foreign Minister Paul Gallagher and his Palestinian counterpart, Riad al-Malki, signed the treaty at a ceremony inside the Vatican.

Israel expressed disappointment when the Vatican announced last month that it had reached final agreement with the “State of Palestine” on the treaty regulating the life of the Catholic Church in the Palestinian territories.

It repeated that regret in a Foreign Ministry statement Friday, saying the move hurt peace prospects and would discourage the Palestinians from returning to direct negotiations. It warned that it would study the agreement “and its implications for future cooperation between Israel and the Vatican.”

Gallagher, though, said he hoped the Vatican’s recognition “may in some way be a stimulus to bringing a definitive end to the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which continues to cause suffering for both parties.”

He said that he hoped the treaty could serve as a model for the church in other Mideast countries, where Christians are a minority and often persecuted.

The Vatican had welcomed the decision by the U.N. General Assembly in 2012 to recognize a Palestinian state and had referred to the Palestine state since. But the treaty marked its first legal recognition of the Palestinian territory as a state.

Al-Malki called the treaty an “historic agreement” and said it marked “a recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, freedom and dignity in an independent state of their own, free from the shackles of occupation.”

The United States and Israel oppose recognizing the Palestinian state, arguing that it undermines U.S.-led efforts to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian deal on the terms of Palestinian statehood. Most countries in Western Europe have held off on recognition, but some have hinted that their position could change if peace efforts remain deadlocked.

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EU moves ahead on labeling of Israeli settlement products

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JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel would be required to label products that are made in West Bank settlements and exported to Europe, according to guidelines being prepared by the European Union.

The move is the latest sign of international discontent with Israeli construction of settlements on occupied lands claimed by the Palestinians, as well as frustration over the bleak state of Mideast peace efforts.

It also comes as a grassroots movement promoting boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel appears to be gaining steam.

Israeli officials reject the European labeling plan, saying it would amount to a type of boycott and help discourage Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas from returning to negotiations.

“Why should he talk? He can get by without talking. He can get by with an international community that blames Israel for not having talks,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Herzliya Conference, an annual gathering of the country’s political and security elite.

An EU official said Tuesday the 28-nation bloc’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, told European foreign ministers May 18 that work is underway and that a set of guidelines will be “finalized in the near future.”

The Palestinians claim the West Bank and east Jerusalem — territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — as parts of a future independent state. The international community opposes Israeli settlements in the two areas, saying they undermine the goal of dividing the land between two countries. More than 550,000 Jewish settlers live on occupied land.

EU opposition to the settlements is not new. A free trade agreement with Israel already excludes settlement goods, even if they say they were made in Israel. Likewise, Israel is barred from spending money it receives under a landmark technology-sharing pact in the West Bank or east Jerusalem. Several European countries have approved voluntary labeling guidelines for settlement products.

The new guidelines would take things further by requiring Israeli exporters to explicitly label products as being made in the settlements — a potential stigma that could deter consumers from buying them. The EU began work on labeling guidelines in 2012, but appears to have decided to revive that effort following the formation of Israel’s new hard-line government.

The EU official said it would likely be months before the guidelines are complete. A second official said much would depend on the policies of the new government. If peace talks with the Palestinians are restarted, the effort could once again be shelved. But if talks remain frozen and Israel steps up settlement construction, the EU will move forward, he said. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal EU deliberations with the media.

For now, the odds of Israel and the Palestinians relaunching peace talks appear extremely slim.

Netanyahu’s new government is dominated by pro-settlement hard-liners who oppose the creation of a Palestinian state. Netanyahu himself spoke out against Palestinian independence in the recent election campaign. Although he has backpedaled and called for a resumption of peace talks, the Palestinians and Israel’s Western allies are skeptical in the absence of a firm proposal from him.

Instead, the Palestinians have been moving forward with a campaign against Israel in international organizations like the United Nations and the International Criminal Court. Two weeks ago, Israel fended off a Palestinian attempt to expel Israel from FIFA, the global soccer federation.

At the same time, the grassroots pro-Palestinian boycott movement, known by its initials BDS, appears to be gaining strength. Last week, Britain’s national student union endorsed the BDS movement, while the chief executive of French telecom giant Orange said he wanted to cut business ties with Israel to help gain favor with the Arab world.

Orange CEO Stephane Richard subsequently backtracked, telling France’s BFM television station Monday that his decision was only a business move and he is “radically opposed to all forms of discrimination.”

The station said Richard planned to go to Israel soon to speak to the nation’s leaders. But the uproar in Israel has not subsided.

Politicians across Israel’s political spectrum have blasted the BDS movement, and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said Thursday she had ordered experts to plan legal steps against it. “In this arena, we will move from the defense to the offense,” she said.

In his speech Tuesday, Netanyahu said the global pressure on Israel was undermining hopes of resuming talks.

“The Palestinians have a nifty trick up their sleeve, they refuse to negotiate and then get international pressure, sanctions, boycotts on Israel for there not being negotiations,” he said. “It’s the perfect Catch-22.”

An EU labeling effort would deliver an especially tough diplomatic blow. In contrast to the BDS movement, whose leaders often voice hatred of Israel, Western European countries are among Israel’s closest allies.

Europe also is Israel’s largest trade market, importing about $14.7 billion in goods last year, according to EU figures. Products from the settlements, including wines, honey, cosmetics and agricultural produce, make up just 1.5 percent of that total, according to Israel’s Finance Ministry.

But while the economic impact of a labeling campaign might be minimal, it would be a symbolic setback to Israel.

“If Europe begins labeling settlement products, then this will mean that they have put their political position into effect in the sense that there will be a real and true boycott of settlement goods,” said Mohammed Shtayyeh, the Palestinian Cabinet minister in charge of economic development.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said Israel fears that consumers will not differentiate between settlement products and Israeli products. “It will be a de facto boycott against Israel,” he said.

Nahshon said Israel is in “close contact and dialogue” with the EU on the matter. “We have been conveying our positions, and we hope they will be accepted by the EU,” he said.

Israel has traditionally used its closest allies in Europe, such as Britain and Germany, to blunt EU decisions, which require a consensus.

Regardless of what the EU’s executive arm decides on labeling, its member states remain divided about what to do, said Pierre Vimont, a former top EU official who is a senior associate at Carnegie Europe, a Brussels-based think tank.

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Israeli PM denounces France’s Orange for plan to cut ties

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JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday denounced the French telecom giant Orange SA for announcing it will sever business ties with the Jewish state, highlighting a wave of public anger over the Palestinian movement to boycott Israel.

Netanyahu spoke a day after Orange’s CEO, Stephane Richard, said in Cairo that he would end his company’s relationship with Partner Communications Ltd. “tomorrow” if he could, but that he was bound by a contract for the time being. He cited the company’s sensitivity to Arab countries. Partner licenses the Orange brand name in Israel.

The announcement set off an uproar in Israel.

An angry Netanyahu called on the French government to “distance itself publicly from the miserable statement and the miserable action of a company that is partially owned by the government of France.”

“The absurd drama in which the democracy that observes human rights — the state of Israel — and which defends itself from barrages of missiles and terrorist tunnels, and then absorbs automatic condemnations and attempted boycotts, this absurd drama will not be forgiven,” Netanyahu said.

“At the same time, I call on our friends to unconditionally declare, in a loud and clear voice, that they oppose any kind of boycott of the state of the Jews,” he added.

French human rights groups and Palestinian activists have been pushing for Orange to end the relationship over Partner’s activities in Israeli settlements. The settlements, built on land the Palestinians want for a future state, are seen as illegitimate by the international community.

Earlier Thursday, Culture Minister Miri Regev called on the French government to “show zero tolerance for anti-Semitism.” She also urged Jewish customers of Orange in France and around the world to drop their service and switch carriers.

In a statement issued in Paris, Orange sought to clarify that it wants to pull out of Israel for business reasons, not political ones.

The company said it doesn’t want to maintain a presence in countries where Orange itself is not a phone provider, and that the move is “in conformity with its brand policy.” Orange said it “has no reason to take part … in a debate of a political nature.”

With Richard’s comments, Orange appeared to becoming the largest and best-known company to yield to pressure from a global movement calling for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, the so-called BDS movement.

Israeli officials say the BDS movement is not out to promote peace, but instead aims to “delegitimize” the country’s very existence as a Jewish state.

Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Tzippi Hotovely, sent a letter to Richard asking him to clarify his comments. “I appeal to you to refrain from being party to the industry of lies which unfairly targets Israel and eagerly await your response,” she wrote.

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Obama raises possibility of allowing U.N. vote on Palestinian statehood

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President Obama took a step toward a tougher line with Israel in an interview released Tuesday, raising the possibility that the U.S. will allow a United Nations vote on issues related to the Palestinians if the two sides make no meaningful movement toward peace.

In an interview with an Israeli television station, Obama noted that his administration has “up until this point” quashed such efforts at the U.N. while insisting that the Israelis and Palestinians must negotiate a resolution. But he said it is a challenge for the U.S. to keep demanding that the Palestinians negotiate in good faith if no one believes the Israelis are doing the same.

“How do we move off what appears right now to be a hopeless situation and move it back towards a hopeful situation?” Obama asked in the interview. “That will require more than just words. That will require some actions. And that’s going to be hard work, though, because right now I think there’s not a lot of confidence in the process.”

The comment was the latest sign that Obama has concluded that the U.S. must rethink its stance on the Mideast peace process if it is to maintain credibility in the world.

His thinking on the matter was clearly spurred this spring by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stand against Palestinian statehood during his election campaign. Even though Netanyahu has since publicly reversed his position, Obama said in the interview that Israel “as a whole loses credibility” on the point.

“If, in fact, there’s no prospect of an actual peace process, if nobody believes there’s a peace process, then it becomes more difficult to argue with those who are concerned about settlement construction, those who are concerned about the current situation,” Obama said. “It’s more difficult for me to say to them, ‘Be patient and wait because we have a process here’ — because all they need to do is to point to the statements that have been made saying there is no process.”

Obama’s critical tone toward Netanyahu, describing him as someone who is “predisposed” to “think perhaps that peace is naive,” appeared to return to the tough language that marked administration statements earlier this spring, around the time of the Israeli election. More recently, the White House had seemed to be trying to mend fences.

The apparent shift in tone seems “hard to understand,” said a Democratic strategist with close ties to the White House. Previous White House criticisms of the prime minister clearly strengthened Netanyahu electorally, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid alienating White House officials. “These kind of attacks don’t really hurt him. They help him.”

Obama’s veiled threat about Palestinian statehood lands hard at a time when the U.S. and other world powers are in high-stakes negotiations with Iranian officials to limit their country’s nuclear program. Israel deeply opposes the deal on the grounds that it will bolster Iran’s nuclear efforts and its economy and boost its aggression in the Middle East; some of Iran’s leaders have said Israel does not have the right to exist. The deadline for a deal, a major foreign-policy priority for Obama, is at the end of the month, and the president is already gearing up for the difficult sales job ahead of him if an agreement is reached. Congress has demanded a chance to review the deal, a point Obama has ceded, but the deep opposition from Israel could complicate his attempts to gain approval from U.S. lawmakers who ardently support Israel.

Read Full Article: The Los Angeles Times

Aided by the Sea, Israel Overcomes an Old Foe: Drought

Image Credit: Uriel Sinai for The New York Times

JERUSALEM — At the peak of the drought, Shabi Zvieli, an Israeli gardener, feared for his livelihood.

A hefty tax was placed on excessive household water consumption, penalizing families with lawns, swimming pools or leaky pipes. So many of Mr. Zvieli’s clients went over to synthetic grass and swapped their seasonal blooms for hardy, indigenous plants more suited to a semiarid climate. “I worried about where gardening was going,” said Mr. Zvieli, 56, who has tended people’s yards for about 25 years.

Across the country, Israelis were told to cut their shower time by two minutes. Washing cars with hoses was outlawed and those few wealthy enough to absorb the cost of maintaining a lawn were permitted to water it only at night.

“We were in a situation where we were very, very close to someone opening a tap somewhere in the country and no water would come out,” said Uri Schor, the spokesman and public education director of the government’s Water Authority.

But that was about six years ago. Today, there is plenty of water in Israel. A lighter version of an old “Israel is drying up” campaign has been dusted off to advertise baby diapers. “The fear has gone,” said Mr. Zvieli, whose customers have gone back to planting flowers.

United States grapple with an extreme drought, a revolution has taken place here. A major national effort to desalinate Mediterranean seawater and to recycle wastewater has provided the country with enough water for all its needs, even during severe droughts. More than 50 percent of the water for Israeli households, agriculture and industry is now artificially produced.

During the drought years, farmers at Ramat Rachel, a kibbutz on the southern outskirts of Jerusalem, took water-economizing measures like uprooting old apple orchards a few years before their time. With the new plenty, water allocations for Israeli farmers that had been slashed have been raised again, though the price has also gone up.

“Now there is no problem of water,” said Shaul Ben-Dov, an agronomist at Ramat Rachel. “The price is higher, but we can live a normal life in a country that is half desert.”

With its part-Mediterranean, part-desert climate, Israel had suffered from chronic shortages and exploitation of its natural water resources for decades.

The natural fresh water at Israel’s disposal in an average year does not cover its total use of roughly 525 billion gallons. The demand for potable water is projected to rise to 515 billion gallons by 2030, from 317 billion gallons this year.

The turnaround came with a seven-year drought, one of the most severe to hit modern Israel, that began in 2005 and peaked in the winter of 2008 to 2009. The country’s main natural water sources — the Sea of Galilee in the north and the mountain and coastal aquifers — were severely depleted, threatening a potentially irreversible deterioration of the water quality.

Measures to increase the supply and reduce the demand were accelerated, overseen by the Water Authority, a powerful interministerial agency established in 2007.

Desalination emerged as one focus of the government’s efforts, with four major plants going into operation over the past decade. A fifth one should be ready to operate within months. Together, they will produce a total of more than 130 billion gallons of potable water a year, with a goal of 200 billion gallons by 2020.

Israel has, in the meantime, become the world leader in recycling and reusing wastewater for agriculture. It treats 86 percent of its domestic wastewater and recycles it for agricultural use — about 55 percent of the total water used for agriculture. Spain is second to Israel, recycling 17 percent of its effluent, while the United States recycles just 1 percent, according to Water Authority data.

Before the establishment of the Water Authority, various ministries were responsible for different aspects of the water issue, each with its own interests and lobbies.

“There was a lot of hydro-politics,” said Eli Feinerman of the faculty of agriculture, food and environment at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who served for years as a public representative on the authority’s council. “The right hand did not know what the left was doing.”

The Israeli government began by making huge cuts in the annual water quotas for farmers, ending decades of extravagant overuse of heavily subsidized water for agriculture.

The tax for surplus household use was dropped at the end of 2009 and a two-tiered tariff system was introduced. Regular household water use is now subsidized by a slightly higher rate paid by those who consume more than the basic allotment.

Read Full Article: The New York Times

Wrongfully treating academic debate as anti-Semitism

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The principle of academic freedom at our universities is under attack by those seeking to shield Israel from criticism by silencing dissent, shutting down discussion and imposing a stifling atmosphere of intimidation at the University of California, in particular.

A coordinated set of petitions, including a letter signed by 57 rabbis, asks UC administrators to adopt the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism as a means to “accurately identify” and “publicly condemn” it in campus debate, protest and discussion. That problematic definition conflates principled criticism of Israeli policies with genuine anti-Semitism; if the university accedes to this demand, such criticism — and academic freedom — could be suppressed by administrative fiat.

The State Department definition explicitly draws on a formulation provisionally adopted by a European Union body but long since discarded. It stretches the concept of anti-Semitism to include “demonizing” Israel, comparing Israeli policy to that of the Nazis and “denying Israel the right to exist.”

Such emotionally charged language attempts to preempt criticism of Israeli policies. It codifies the kind of rhetorical jujitsu in defense of Israel we already see on campus: When a speaker or a writer calls into question any of a range of Israeli policies (for example, maintaining a perpetual military occupation in the West Bank, segregating housing along racial lines, systematically bulldozing Palestinian homes, bombing civilians in Gaza), the response is not an attempt to produce a rational counter-argument by mustering facts or data, but rather an immediate descent into shrill accusations of “demonization” and “delegitimization” followed, inevitably, by character assassination.

According to the State Department definition, a Palestinian student claiming the right to return to her homeland could be considered to be “denying Israel’s right to exist,” given the demographic implications of the Palestinian right of return for the Jewish state. A professor daring to suggest that Israel should be, like the U.S., the state of all its citizens — liberal, secular and multicultural — rather than that of just one ethnicity could be similarly censured. And anyone calling for a boycott of Israel could be accused of “demonizing” it by singling it out (as though all the world’s problems have to be addressed before we can focus on Israel). Rather than constituting positions with which one might agree or disagree, these ideas could be marked for censorship and punishment.

In fact, the defenders of Israel on campus are in deep trouble, not because student well-being is at risk but because the rickety assemblage of distortions and myths used to justify support for Israeli policies can’t withstand scholarly scrutiny. Having lost the actual arguments, Israel’s defenders have now declared war on argument itself.

What we witness in campus debates over Israel and the Palestinians is an increasingly lopsided affair. While one side draws on historical evidence, international law and United Nations documentation, the other complains that all this makes them feel “threatened” and “uncomfortable.”

Scholarship is not validated by how it makes us feel, however, but by the extent to which it stands up to reason and evidence. To prioritize feelings over arguments — and to police arguments to safeguard feelings — constitutes a dire threat to academic and intellectual freedom, not least because of the mobilization of outside political forces to intervene in on-campus discussions.

To date, the campaign to tarnish criticism of Israeli policy as “anti-Semitism” has failed. A 2011 lawsuit brought against UC Berkeley, which claimed that activities of groups including Students for Justice in Palestine “threaten and endanger the health and safety of the University of California’s Jewish students,” was dismissed out of hand by a federal judge.

Similar earlier complaints against Berkeley, UC Irvine and UC Santa Cruz were filed with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights; all were dismissed after an examination of the allegations. The government, in response to the complaint against Berkeley, concluded that “exposure to such robust and discordant expressions, even when personally offensive and hurtful, is a circumstance that a reasonable student in higher education may experience.”

Indeed, removing students from their intellectual comfort zones — rather than merely reinforcing prior beliefs — is one reason universities exist.

Read Full Article: The Los Angeles Times

Israeli president says Ethiopian protest exposes ‘wound’

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JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s ceremonial president said Monday that an outbreak of violent protests by Ethiopian Jews has “exposed an open, bleeding wound in the heart of Israeli society” and that the country must respond to their grievances.

Reuven Rivlin spoke a day after thousands of Ethiopian protesters clashed with police in Tel Aviv in an unprecedented scene of unrest and anger. The clashes reflected widespread frustration in the Ethiopian community, which three decades after it first arrived in Israel, has become an underclass plagued by poverty, crime and unemployment.

While Ethiopian Israelis have held demonstrations in the past, the protests have rarely turned violent, and never on the scale of Sunday’s unrest. The protesters shut down a major highway in Tel Aviv, hurled stones and bottles at police officers and overturned a squad car. They were dispersed with tear gas, water cannons and stun grenades. More than 60 people were wounded and 40 arrested.

The violence caught much of the country, including the government, off guard. Rivlin said Israel was seeing “the pain of a community crying out over a sense of discrimination, racism, and of being unanswered.”

“We must look directly at this open wound. We have erred. We did not look, and we did not listen enough,” he said. “We are not strangers to one another, we are brothers, and we must not deteriorate into a place we will all regret.”

Later Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to meet with community leaders.

Ethiopian Jews begin migrating to Israel three decades ago and struggled greatly as they made the transition from an impoverished and developing country into high-tech Israel. Over time they have integrated more into Israeli society, serving in the military and making inroads in politics, sports and entertainment. However, many complain of racism, lack of opportunity, endemic poverty and routine police harassment.

These simmering frustrations boiled over after footage emerged last week of an Ethiopian Israeli in an army uniform being beaten by police. Sunday night’s violence was the second such grassroots protest in recent days, and demonstrations are expected to continue.

About 120,000 Ethiopian Jews live in Israel today, a small minority in a country of 8 million. Their absorption has been problematic, with many arriving without a modern education and then falling into unemployment and poverty as their family structures disintegrate.

Many of the older generation work menial jobs — men as security guards and women as cleaners — have low literacy rates and suffer from high rates of domestic violence. Their children speak fluent Hebrew, study in universities and serve in the army alongside native Israelis. But despite such gains, the younger generation is still struggling compared to other Israelis.

Ethiopian Israelis also allege repeated discriminatory slights and, at times, outright racism. In the late 1990s, it was discovered that Israel’s health services were throwing out Ethiopian Israeli blood donations over fears of diseases contracted in Africa. Some landlords have also refused them as tenants, and accusations have been raised that Israel has deliberately tried to curb birth rates among Ethiopian immigrants.

“Anyone who attended the protest yesterday experienced at one point in their life humiliation based on nothing but skin color,” said Mehereta Baruch-Ron, a Tel Aviv deputy mayor of Ethiopian descent. “We have had enough. It is time to do something.”

Ethiopian Jews trace their ancestors to the ancient Israelite tribe of Dan. The community was cut off from the rest of the Jewish world for more than 1,000 years.

Israeli clandestine operations rescued large groups of Ethiopian Jews from war and famine in the 1980s and early 1990s. Later waves of immigration also included the Falash Mura, members of a community that converted to Christianity under duress more than a century ago but have reverted to Judaism. They have faced even more problems assimilating because of vast cultural differences.

Shlomo Molla, a former lawmaker of Ethiopian origin, said his generation failed to make a change and that hope lies with the younger generation who were born in Israel and are less intimidated by the establishment.

“I call upon these young people to continue resolutely, so that perhaps they might succeed where my generation failed,” he wrote in the Maariv daily. “The next stage of this battle should be civil disobedience. We should stop enlisting in the army, not join the police, and stop paying taxes, because if the state doesn’t take its citizens into account, the citizens are also permitted not to take the state into account.”

The images of black Israelis clashing with police have drawn comparisons to the unrest in the U.S. city of Baltimore.

But Fentahun Assefa-Dawit, executive director of Tebeka, an advocacy group for equality and justice for Ethiopian Israelis, said there were few similarities. While both protests were sparked by police brutality, he said Ethiopian-Israelis have a different set of issues related to integration into Israel’s modern, fast-paced society.

Read Full Article: AP

Israeli team finds two proteins that can suppress cancer

Image Credit: Keren Freeman/Flash90

A team of Israeli researchers at the Technion has discovered two proteins that can suppress cancer and control the cells’ growth and development.

The study was conducted in the laboratory of Prof. Aaron Ciechanover, an Israeli Nobel-prize winner in chemistry, and led by Dr. Yelena Kravtsova-Ivantsiv. The team included research students and physicians from the Rambam, Carmel and Hadassah Medical Centers.

In a paper published in the journal Cell last week, the researchers showed how the proteins could repress cancerous tissues and detailed how a high concentration of a protein called KPC1 and another called p50 in the tissue can protect it from cancerous tumors.

The research also detailed how the ubiquitin process — a cell system responsible for breaking down damaged proteins that can harm cells and tissues and co-discovered by Ciechanover, for which he won the Nobel — has a role in the mechanism.

The study was done on human tumors grown in mice, and samples of human tumors.

Ciechanover told PR Newswire that many more years of research are needed “to establish the research and gain a solid understanding of the mechanisms behind the suppression of the tumors.

Read Full Article: The Times of Israel

Hackers hit Israeli websites after Anonymous threats

Image Credit: The Huffington Post

JERUSALEM (AP) – Pro-Palestinian hackers disrupted Israeli websites on Tuesday, following threats from the Anonymous hacking collective that it would carry out an “electronic Holocaust,” though Israeli cyber experts said the coordinated attacks caused little damage.

The hacking campaign, which has taken place every April 7 since 2013, is meant to be in protest of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. In 2013, the hackers first waged the coordinated campaign, dubbed OpIsrael, on the eve of Israel’s annual Holocaust remembrance day.

Israel’s Computer Emergency Response Team, a civilian cyber security group, said Anonymous attacked a few dozen websites belonging to Israeli musicians and non-profit organizations on Tuesday. Anonymous had vowed it would topple Israeli government websites, banks and public institutions, though no major disruptions were reported.

The hackers replaced website home pages with photos of a Muslim holy site in Jerusalem and of militants holding the Islamic State militant flag, and posted a message signed by “AnonGhost.”

“We are always here to punish you! Because we are the voice of Palestine and we will not remain silent!” the message read.

A video message by Anonymous said its campaign was responding to “crimes in the Palestinian territories,” including last summer’s Gaza war.

Read Full Article: AP

‘Love is the only God!’ Music producer & activist cries on air talking about Palestinian kids

Image Credit: Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Producer and peace activist Steve Robertson explains why he is campaigning for Palestine and talks about his latest project – a benefit album for Gaza relief involving Grammy award winning musicians, and the message of peace it promotes.

Support for the Palestinian cause comes in many forms. A group of world famous Grammy award-winning musicians have united to make an album in support of the Palestinian people called ‘2 Unite All’. Among the musicians who took part were Peter Gabriel from Genesis, Rick Allen from Def Leppard, System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian, and opera singer Sasha Cooke.

The man behind the album, Steve Robertson who is also CEO and founder of Project Peace on Earth, spoke to RT’s In the Now.

Project Peace on Earth, he explained, has been involved in several Middle East peace initiatives.

“In 2011 we brought a thousand Palestinian refugee children to the base of the Mount of Temptation in Jericho and had them form the image of the Picasso Peace dove. This was followed up by a live concert in Bethlehem,” said Robertson.

In 2012, they organized another event called “Free All” where several hundred Palestinian boy and girl scouts went to the dividing wall in Bethlehem and placed their paint-covered hands on it to create a visual plea to tear it down.

Choking back tears, Steve explained that when he heard about a little girl in Gaza in a coma in hospital, who if she woke up would learn that all her family had been killed by Israeli bombs, he realized he had to do something. This was the impetus behind the album ‘2 Unite All’.

Israel killed more Palestinians in 2014 than any other year since occupation began in 1967. According to UN figures, 2,314 Palestinians were killed in 2014 and 17,125 were injured. In 2013, less than 40 were killed and around 4,000 injured.

Steve explained he had issues with a couple of musicians in Hollywood, which has a powerful Jewish lobby, but by far the majority freely and honestly stood up for the Palestinian cause.

“All the musicians took a really bold and powerful stand on this. Peter [Gabriel] really fell on the sword and no-one else could have done this without his sort of stature in the music community,” he said.

Steve then drew attention to the wall that the Israelis have built around Palestine.

“People don’t really understand that there’s a 40-foot high wall built around Palestine and that Gaza is solitary confinement around this prison wall system,” he said.

Robertson said the Israelis are just as deserving of love and protection too.

Read Full Article: RT

International court welcomes Palestinians as 123rd member

Image Credit: WHIO

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) – The Palestinian Authority became a member of the International Criminal Court on Wednesday, saying it wanted “justice not vengeance” for alleged Israeli war crimes.

Joining the court is part of a broader effort by the Palestinians to put international pressure on Israel and comes at a time when the chances of resuming negotiations on Palestinian statehood are seen as slim following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent election victory and tough campaign rhetoric.

“In the face of the great injustice our people are enduring and the repeated crimes committed against it, Palestine has decided to seek justice, not vengeance,” Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said after a brief welcome ceremony.

Palestinians signed the court’s founding treaty in January and Palestinian membership came into force Wednesday. International justice activists hailed the occasion as an opportunity to bring accountability to years of conflict between Palestinians and Israel.

Israel is not a member of the ICC, but the country’s military and civilian leaders could now face charges if they are believed to have committed crimes on Palestinian territory. Israel had no immediate comment Wednesday.

The court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, opened a preliminary investigation in mid-January after the Palestinians formally accepted the court’s jurisdiction dating back to just before last year’s Gaza conflict.

Malki said the Palestinian Authority was waiting to see the result of the preliminary probe. However, he stressed the Palestinians were ready to call for a formal investigation if the initial examination of evidence took too long, though he did not say how long that would be.

Some preliminary examinations have taken months, others are continuing after years.

Human Rights Watch welcomed the Palestinian Authority as the court’s 123rd member and stressed it is now up to Bensouda to weigh whether there is strong enough evidence to merit a full-scale investigation.

“Any decision whether to pursue an investigation and against whom is not in the hands of the Palestinians or the Israelis,” said Balkees Jarrah, international justice counsel at Human Rights Watch.

The review will likely focus initially on last year’s Gaza conflict. The Palestinians suffered heavy civilian casualties, prompting allegations by some rights groups that Israel committed war crimes. Leaders of Hamas, which rules Gaza, could also face charges because the militant group fired rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilian areas.

In a statement, Hamas official Ismail Radwan called Wednesday’s move “a step in the right direction.” He said Palestinian leaders must use the opportunity “to pursue the (Israeli) occupation and fight it until it’s punished for its crimes against the Palestinian people.”

Read Full Article: AP