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Samir Abed-Rabbo: Zionism – The Role of the United States in Israel

Dr. Gabi Weber — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:34:08 +0000

Introduction:

Israeli apologists would like us to believe that Zionism, the political ideology guiding Israeli policies and practices since its establishment of Israel in Palestine in 1948, is God’s chosen national movement for the re-establishment and maintenance of a “Jewish homeland” in “biblical lands”. Moreover, they want us to accept that Zionism is Judaism and that present-day Israel is the Jewish “promised land”. As a religion, Judaism considers the return of Jews to Palestine before the coming of the Messiah a sacrilege.

God has never been involved in real estate transactions; neither has the Bible ever been considered a source of International Law governing relations between modern states nor a reliable source of human history or archeology. If the world were to be reestablished according to the Bible, the United States, Europe and most modern states would not exist. Furthermore, there are no eyewitness accounts or scientific evidence linking current Israeli Jews to the ancient Hebrews. Some historians and archeologists even dispute that Jews ever had a significant presence in the area.

A Brief Analysis:

Israel was established by a European racist and settler colonial ideology through the use of carefully and deliberately fabricated myths. Unlike classical settler colonialism, Zionism and Zionists do not maintain an umbilical cord to a mother European country nor plans to exploit local natives and resources. Zionism and Zionists argue for close cooperation with disposable surrogate superpower(s), complete control of resources, and the expulsion of the indigenous population, the Palestinians. Zionism and Zionists claim that Palestine was desolate and the Palestinians never existed. The clear motive behind the myths is to justify the establishment of Israel in Palestine as a Jewish state and the gathering of Jews therein. Myths that are often repeated give ways to delusional mindset. Zionism and Zionists concluded that Palestine will become a home for the Jewish state regardless of the wishes of the Palestinians and in order to achieve this objective, the inhabitants will be ethnically cleansed. There are two main lies that the Zionists regurgitate: Palestine was desolate and there is no such a thing as Palestinians. Was Palestine desolate? Did the Palestinians exist in history?

Zionism, as practiced by Israel since 1948, is a racist ideology manifested in several ways. It is an archaic political ideology that holds and promotes Jewish racial purity and divine entitlement to Palestine. It is a military occupation enabling and supporting colonialist settlers. It practices ethnic cleansing through the confiscation of land and the expulsion of indigenous Palestinians. It exercises political domination and exploitation through the denial of basic human rights under the guise of divine entitlement and the spread of Western values. In short, Zionism in Israel today practices political, economic, cultural domination and persecution through control, systematic destruction, ethnic cleansing and genocide against the indigenous presence and heritage.
In Israel, the historical record shows that:

1. Zionism is a segregationist movement founded on the premise that all Jews, regardless of cultural differences and religious observance, are one nation, and cannot be secure except in a state of their own, because the non-Jewish world is inherently hostile to Jews. Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, argued that the key to establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine was to harness European anti-Semitism for the realization of the Jewish State by encouraging European governments to rid their countries of Jews. “Herzl regarded Zionism's triumph as inevitable, not only because life in Europe was ever more untenable for Jews, but also because it was in Europe's interests to [get] rid [of] the Jews and [be] relieved of anti-Semitism: The European political establishment would eventually be persuaded to promote Zionism. Herzl recognized that anti-Semitism would be HARNESSED to his own–Zionist-purposes.”(1) Many years later in Rome, Ariel Sharon as prime minister of Israel, stated: "If Israel is weakened … the Jews worldwide will not be able to live the lives they live today … We are witness to a great wave of anti-Semitism, and apart from the usual anti-Semitism against Jews, there is today the added hate of the collective Jew, which is Israel… The best solution to anti-Semitism is immigration to Israel. It is the only place on Earth where Jews can live as Jews."(2)

2. Zionism practices a racist colonial-settler ideology which claims that historical Palestine was desolate and uninhabited and that the Palestinian people never existed. Before Palestine had been selected by the Zionists to be the site of their new state, Theodor Herzl himself acknowledged in his 1896 book, “The Jewish State”, that both Palestine and Argentina were populated, saying that “[i]f the Powers show themselves willing to grant the Jewish people sovereignty over a neutral territory, the Society [of Jews] will negotiate for the land to be taken. Two regions are possibilities: Palestine and Argentina. Noteworthy experiments in colonization have been made in both places, although they have been based on the mistaken principle of a gradual infiltration of Jews. Infiltration is always bound to end badly. For there invariably comes a moment when the government, under pressure of the native population–which feels itself threatened–bars any further influx of Jews. Consequently, emigration will be pointless unless it is based upon our guaranteed sovereignty.”

Leo Motzkin, another Zionist leader, wrote of his disappointment upon visiting Palestine and, finding the country densely inhabited and its fertile land utilized by its Arab natives, wrote: “One has to admit that the density of population does not exactly put the visitor to Palestine in a joyful mood. In large stretches of land, one constantly comes across big Arab villages, and it is a well-established fact that the most fertile regions of our land are occupied by Arabs.”

The fact that Palestine was inhabited and fertile did not deter the Zionists from perpetuating the big lie that it was desolate and uninhabited. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Zionists, as an integral part of their scheme to colonize Palestine, began using the slogan “A land without a people for a people without a land' referring to Palestine.

The British Zionist Israel Zangwill, who visited Palestine in 1897, became so obsessed with this slogan that he consequently authored several versions of it to the point where it is often attributed to him. In using this slogan, the Zionists were deliberately trying to convince themselves and the world that Palestine was desolate and uninhabited and thus it was permissible to colonize it. This myth continued to be repeated to deceive the world, such that in 1969 Prime Minister Golda Meir stated in public that “There was no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.”

In the few instances where Zionists conceded the existence of the indigenous population, they were labeled as “savages”, “barbarians” or “terrorists”. Zangwill wrote: “…the people living in Palestine were not a people with a history, culture, and legitimate claim to national self-determination of their own; to the extent than any of this existed, it was regarded as inferior in value to the history, culture, and claim of the Jewish people. Put differently, Palestine contained ‘people’, but not a people’. There were people who (possibly) had their homeland there, but they lacked a national identity and thus had no claim to national self-determination, let alone a state.”

The denial of the very existence of the Palestinian people and the process employed to demonize them enables Israel to this day to justify its brutal practices against them. Even when one finds some ‘humane’ Zionists who advocate some rights for the Palestinians, their advocacy never amounts to granting Palestinians the same rights enjoyed by Jews. This fact was not missed by David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, who ridiculed ‘humane’ Zionists when he said; “You cannot have humane Zionism, it is a contradiction in terms.”
According to Israel’s Basic Law, Jews, regardless of their country of origin or ethnicity, can settle in Israel on land that was confiscated by force after the expulsion of the majority of the indigenous Palestinians. In an essay titled “Judea and Galilee,” Ben Gurion describes the Zionist settlers in Palestine as “conquering, conquering a land. We were a company of conquistadors.”

Such ideological discourse prompted the late professor Israel Shahak to conclude: “It is my considered opinion that the State of Israel is a racist state in the full meaning of this term: In this state people are discriminated against, in the most permanent and legal way and in the most important areas of life, only because of their origin. This racist discrimination began in Zionism and is carried out today mainly in co-operation with the institutions of the Zionist movement.”(11)

3. Zionism distinguishes between Jews and Palestinians on various levels and its laws and practices are designed to keep them apart. All Jews in the world are considered ‘nationals’ of Israel, whereas a mere portion of Palestinians are considered citizens. Through the enactment of several laws, including but not limited to the Absentee Property Law 1950, the Land Acquisition Law 1953, and the Basic Law: Israel Lands 1960, Israel has confiscated lands belonging to those Palestinians who were uprooted and expelled from their properties and later declared as absentees and prevented by Israel from returning to it and from Palestinians who remained under its control. Israel established various schemes to keep, manage, and utilize Palestinian confiscated land for the benefit of Jews only.

According to the Israel Land Administration Authority (ILA), the Israeli government agency responsible for managing this land, Israel owns approximately 93% of the total land “… that is, either property of the state, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) or the development Authority.”(12) The land is comprised of 4,820,500 acres. Ownership of land according to ILA means leasing rights for 49-98 years. Palestinians, therefore, are treated merely as tillers and tenants on Jewish land and it is only a matter of time before they are completely expelled as were their predecessors. After expelling the majority of the Palestinians from Palestine in 1948-49, Israel concentrated on cleansing the Galilee of its indigenous people.(13)

4. Zionism is, in its campaign to segregate the Jews and to establish an exclusive Jewish state, derived from the narrow tribal understanding of Judaism that the cosmos is divided into five parts: plants, vegetables, animals, human beings and Jews – Jews being the noblest and the closest to God. This fanatic religious view is clearly reflected by Rabbi Yosef Ovadia, former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, who advocates the annihilation of the Palestinians on the basis that they are not Jews. "It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable."(14) Unfortunately, the views of the Chief Rabbi on non-Jews are not only shared by some Jews, but it is becoming a central belief of American Christian-Zionists. "Gentiles were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel."(15)

5. In addition to annihilating the Palestinians, the Zionist advocacy regarding the indigenous population is centered on four options:

a. A systematic attempt at purchasing the land of Palestine from the Palestinians and colonizing it through Jewish immigration for the benefit of Jews only. The Israeli historian Benny Morris described this thinking when he said: "The early Zionists had been aware of the Arab presence in the country–there were just under half a million around 1882, the year the first Zionists came ashore in Jaffa. And there were, at the time, some twenty-five thousand Jews in the country."(16) Writing in 1882 Eliezer Ben-Yehuda wrote: "The thing we must do now is to become as strong as we can, to conquer the country, covertly, bit by bit . . . buy, buy, buy [the land from the Arabs]."(17) Writing decades before the holocaust in Europe, Ben-Yehuda and many other Zionist leaders believed that the country’s demographics would be changed through Jewish immigration which would ultimately alter its future to favor the Zionist scheme to colonize Palestine. Early Zionist leaders were not fully convinced that the Palestinians would sell their land and cooperate in their own colonization. Accurately predicting the swift and predictable reaction of the Palestinian Arabs to the Zionist colonial scheme through immigration, Herzl warned in 1896 that their objection and resistance could bring Jewish immigration to an end. Vladimir Jabotinsky, writing in 1923, argued that the consent of and agreements with Palestinian Arabs to hand over their country to the Zionists was not necessary: “There can be no voluntary agreement between ourselves and the Palestine Arabs. Not now, nor in the prospective future. I say this with such conviction, not because I want to hurt the moderate Zionists. I do not believe that they will be hurt. Except for those who were born blind, they realised long ago that it is utterly impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting ‘Palestine’ from an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority.” (18) He continued: “We cannot offer any adequate compensation to the Palestinian Arabs in return for Palestine. And therefore, there is no likelihood of any voluntary agreement being reached. So that all those who regard such an agreement as a condition sine qua non for Zionism may as well say ‘non’ and withdraw from Zionism. Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population.”(19)

b. “[B]eing crushed like grasshoppers,” as Israel’s former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir wrote in Hehazit: “We have before us the command of the Torah, whose morality surpasses that of any other body of laws in the world: ‘Ye shall blot them out to the last man’.”(20) This genocidal view has been shared by many in Israel including several Prime Ministers such as Begin, Sharon, and Netanyahu.

c. There is no room for non-Jews in the Jewish state. Rehavam Zeevi, then Israel‘s Minister of Tourism, described Palestinians as living “illegally” in Israel. He is quoted as saying: “We should get rid of the ones who are not Israeli citizens the same way you get rid of lice. We have to stop this cancer from spreading within us.” In 1983, Raphael Eitan, then Israel's military chief of staff, speaking of plans to increase Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, said: “When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be scurry around like drugged roaches in a bottle.” This racist ideological view in Israeli governing Zionist circles is widespread and determines Israel’s policies and practices toward the Palestinians.

Israel’s bases for apartness and discrimination:

Israel is a state of Jews, by Jews, and for Jews. Its practices against non-Jews are racially motivated and designed to keep citizens apart, the meaning of ‘apartheid’ in Afrikaans.
Israel has laws but it does not have a constitution. Specifically, it has a Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel and a Law of Return. Said Declaration was signed on May 14, 1948, by thirty-seven colonists, none born in Palestine and only some who were recent colonial settlers. It consists of two pages which clearly define Israel as a ‘Jewish state’, although to this day Israel has failed to define who is a Jew. The document stresses that sovereign authority in Israel belongs to the Jewish people only: “This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign state.” It repeatedly uses phrases to emphasize this point such as: “Jewish people…in its own country,” “Jewish people to rebuild its national home,” “Jewish state,” “right of the Jewish people to establish their state,” “Jewish people in the up building of its state,” and “sovereign Jewish people”

In contrast, the American Declaration of Independence does not establish the United States as a Christian state, nor as a republic for whites only; neither does it appoint Christians or whites as the builders of the state and sovereign in the republic, nor does it expropriate property for the exclusive use of and benefit to Christians or whites. Furthermore, even though the United States adopted and enforced racist laws for many decades, it eventually and democratically dismantled such practices and institutions, giving life to the words of its own Declaration:
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.

Before, during and after the establishment of Israel as a ‘Jewish state by European Jewish colonial settlers, a substantial majority of the indigenous people of Palestine were not Jews. The Israeli Declaration makes a clear distinction between Jews, who are to be the sovereign authority in Israel, and non-Jewish citizens of the state. Although Palestinians who remained in their homeland in 1948 are not necessarily denied certain privileges such as citizenship or the right to vote and hold office, the laws upholding said privileges are such that they do not dilute the character of the Jewish state and the bias toward Jews. Whatever is accorded to the non-Jewish citizens of Israel is done so with the explicit recognition and understanding that Israel is a country for the “Jewish people to rebuild its national home.” No democratic processes or alternatives are possible under Israel’s existing basic laws.

Israel’s Law of Return was adopted in 1950 and states that: “Every Jew has the right to immigrate to the country.” The indigenous Palestinians who were and continue to be deliberately uprooted and expelled are denied their right to return to their homes and properties and declared as ‘present absentees’ or ‘absentees’, their properties seized by Israel and in the possession of Israel’s Custodian of Absentee Property, who puts the property at the disposal of and for the benefit of Jews only.
Prior to and after the establishment of Israel, certain Israeli private organizations (non-governmental or non-profit) with quasi-governmental authority were created and empowered to formulate policies and oversee the affairs of non-Jews. The Jewish Agency is one of the major organizations in this category. The Jewish Agency shares many jurisdictions and overlapping functions with the Israeli government. It describes itself as “the agency for Jewish interests in Eretz [”the land of’] Israel … [it’s] role is defined…as a voluntary, philanthropic organization with responsibility for immigration, settlement and development, and coordination of the unity of the Jewish people.”(21)

The Israeli Citizenship Law aims to separate Jews and Arabs on a personal level. For example, a Jew and an Arab cannot legally marry in Israel and such marriages, if performed outside the country, are not recognized under Israeli law. The Citizenship Law even restricts the ‘family reunification’ of Israeli citizens with certain foreign partners. It denies entry or residential permits to Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, and citizens of enemy countries or from areas involved in long-term conflict with Israel. The law affects mainly Israeli Arab citizens and their families from the West Bank and Gaza. In January 2012 Israel’s Supreme Court upheld this law banning Palestinians who marry Israel Arabs from gaining Israeli citizenship. (22)

Section 7A (I) of the Basic Law of Israel explicitly prevents Israeli citizens – both Arab and Jewish – from using the ‘democratic’ system of Israeli elections to challenge the inferior status of Arabs under the law or the exclusive Jewish character of Israel and restricts who can run for political office. This law states that: “A candidate’s list shall not participate in elections to the Knesset if among its goals or deeds, either expressed or implied, are one of the following: (1) the negation of the existence of the State of Israel as the State of the Jewish People…”. In 1989 Justice Levine of the Israeli Supreme Court, speaking for the majority, ruled that this law meant that a political party could not run candidates if it intended to achieve the cancellation of one of the fundamental tenets of the State — namely “the existence of a Jewish majority, the granting of preference to Jews in matters of immigration, and the existence of close and reciprocal relations between the State and the Jews of the Diaspora.” (23)

According to ADALLAH, Israel has more than 30 laws that discriminate against its non-Jewish citizens. (24) It is easy to lose track of the exact number of laws and regulations pertaining to the Palestinians who remain under Israel’s military occupation, siege, and control. For the purpose of this paper, I deal with seven basic Israeli laws that discriminate against non-Israeli-Jews who are supposedly citizens of Israel:

(1) Law of Return 5710-1950- Right of aliyah – a term that means to ‘go up’ as opposed to ‘go down’ implying that immigration to Israel is the right thing to do. This law states in part:

1. Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh (M) olah (F) — terms in the Hebrew language that mean someone who immigrates to Israel. This law states:

2.      (a) Aliyah shall be by oleh’s visa.
   (b) An oleh’s visa shall be granted to every Jew who has expressed his desire to settle in Israel, unless the Minister of Immigration is satisfied that the applicant
1)          is engaged in an activity directed against the Jewish people; or
2)          is likely to endanger public health or the security of the State.

3. (a) A Jew who has come to Israel and subsequent to his arrival has expressed his desire to settle in Israel may, while still in Israel, receive an oleh’s certificate.
(b) The restrictions specified in section 2(b) shall apply also to the grant of an oleh’s certificate, but a person shall not be regarded as endangering public health on account of an illness contracted after his arrival in Israel.

4. Every Jew who has immigrated into this country before the coming into force of this Law, and every Jew who was born in this country, whether before or after the coming into force of this Law, shall be deemed to be a person who has come to this country as an oleh under this Law.

(2) The 1949 Discharged Soldiers (Reinstatement in Employment) Law, amended in 1970 [Laws of the State of Israel, vol. 3, p. 10 (1949) and art. 1, Laws of the State of Israel, vol. 24, p. 126 (1970)]:
This Law makes an additional child support payment to ‘soldiers’. The amendment defines ‘soldier’ as “a person who is serving or has served in the Defense Army of Israel, the Police or the Prison Service”, or who served in one of the Zionist military formations (Haganah, Irgun, or LEHI) prior to the establishment of Israel. Since Israeli citizens who are not Jewish or Druze do not get called to serve in qualifying organizations, and since the qualifying organizations from the past were clearly selected so as to exclude non-Jews, this law gives to Jewish citizens of Israel rights that it denies to non-Jewish and non-Druze citizens of Israel.

(3) State Education Law, arts 2, 4, Laws of the State of Israel, vol. 7, p. 113 (1953),
This law states that the purpose of elementary education is to teach “the values of Jewish culture’ and “loyalty to the State and the Jewish people”. This covers even “non-Jewish educational institutions”, whose curriculum is prescribed by the Minister of Education. The state funds an Orthodox Jewish private school system but does not fund schools for other religions, according to Izhak Englard’s “Law and Religion in Israel,” in the American Journal of Comparative Law, vol. 35, p. 201 (1987). This law gives Jewish citizens of Israel the right to have their children educated in conformity with their religion, and denies this right to non-Jewish citizens of Israel.

(4) The Jewish Religious Services Budgets Law of 1949 arts. 1-2, Laws of the State of Israel, vol. 3, p. 66 (1949)] and the Jewish Religious Services [consolidated version] Law of 1971 [Laws of the State of Israel, vol. 25, p. 125 (1971)].
These laws call for local religious councils to submit budgets to the Minister of Religious Affairs. The budgets are financed one-third by the central government and two-thirds by the local government. There are no such statutes for other religions. Although funds are allocated for Muslim and Christian religious services, they are at a level far less than their proportion in the population, and without a legislative mandate.

(5) Chief Rabbinate of Israel Law arts 2(2), Laws of the State of Israel, vol. 34, p. 97 (1980)],
This law gives legal status to the chief rabbinate and empowers and obligates it to undertake “activities aimed at bringing the public closer to the values of [Jewish religious learning] and mitzvot [Jewish religious duties]”. No other religion has a body with similar legal status, empowerment, or obligations.

(6) Specified Goods Tax and Luxury Tax Law [art 26, Laws of the State of Israel, vol. 6, p. 150 (1952)],
This law authorized the minister of finance to designate classes of persons for favorable treatment when they bring goods into Israel after residence abroad. Under this authorization, the minister issued the Purchase Tax Order (Exemption) 1975, [Definition 15 (returning resident), Definition 20 (returning national), Collected Regulations] which calls for a lower import duty to be collected from a returning national than from a returning resident. The order defines ‘returning national’ to include only a person who, ‘if the person were not an Israeli national the Law of Return would apply to him.’ Thus, only a Jewish person is a returning national with the right to favorable treatment when bringing goods into Israel after residence abroad.

(7) Nationality and Entry into Israel Law 5763 (Also known as the Citizenship Law) passed in 2003 and prevents non-Jews in the Occupied Territory from entering Israel to be with their Israeli citizen spouse. As noted above, this law was upheld by Israel’s Supreme Court in January 2012.

American Support for Israel:

The Constitution of the United States clearly declares that “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…” The opening phrase, “We the people”, is universal and encompasses men and women, white and black, Christians and Muslims, rich and poor, etc. Although the interpretation of the phrase was not put into practice in the early stages of the Republic, the intent and hope of some of the founding fathers was that the US would evolve and keep changing in order to achieve that more “perfect union” by providing ways and means in the Constitution to encourage and achieve such transformation. The Israeli Basic Laws do not allow for such transformation to be achieved.

The Constitution further states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” This prohibition is iron-clad and prohibits the US government from establishing or aiding in the establishment of a state religion. In addition, the Constitution allows for a process to change, amend, or challenge the political system. What was permissible in the past can therefore be changed, allowing for the unthinkable fifty years ago to become a reality, such as the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. The Israeli system on the other hand does not allow for such change. It would not permit a Samir Abed-Rabbo who was born in Jerusalem but who is not Jewish to become the President or the Prime Minister of Israel. In order for equality to prevail, the Israeli system must be dismantled as in the case of the institution of slavery in America or Apartheid in South Africa.

George Washington, in his Farewell Address, referred to the “passionate attachment” of one country to another, in which the national interest of the one is betrayed by a "virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption or infatuation." Those who dare to work against such an attachment "are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests."(25) This explains why in America today the supporters of a U.S./Israel relationship hypocritically acclaim a "democratic Israel" in which Israel’s victims become the “terrorists” while Israel itself, the violator of domestic and international laws and obligations, is rewarded with billions of our tax dollars and the military tools to maintain its racist policies and practices.

American recognition of and support for Israel occurred minutes after Israel declared itself independent. Initially, this support derived from a desire to settle Jewish refugees, displaced persons and survivors of the Nazi Holocaust, but rather than settling such persons in a vast and population-starved America, the United States succumbed to the Zionist political plan of settling Jews in Palestine and to establishing Israel on its ruins. The Holocaust was one of the rationales, if not the [delete the first comma here] rationale, for a shift in Jewish support for the establishment of Israel, which began to grow particularly among the American Jewish community. The motivation for the support by a significant segment of the American Christian community was based on, once again, biblical convictions: some Evangelical Christians see the establishment of a Greater Israel as a sign for the Second Coming of Christ and the harbinger of Armageddon when approximately 86,000 people will survive and the blood of those who do not consent to their version of theology (including Jews) will be condemned. This significant American support has been augmented by a general identification with Israel as being a “democratic” society as well as “shared strategic goals” in the Middle East, the latter effecting nothing but the continual aiding and maintaining of ineffectual, tyrannical, corrupt, and inept Arab regimes. Another reason for American unconditional support of Israel is the US government’s contempt for Arab national aspirations for unity, freedom, independence, accountability and transparency.

US military support for Israel has transformed its military into one of the most technologically sophisticated militaries in the world and enabled Israel to develop its own military technological base and to retain the balance of power in the Middle East. US aid has subsidized and helped Israel develop and build an advanced arms industry that is equipped with chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and is ranked among the world’s top ten exporters of weapons and. Economic aid has served a similar purpose. Up to the early 1990’s, US economic aid has stimulated and subsidized the lackluster Israeli economy. Starting in the 1990’s the US and Israel entered into scientific cooperation to build Israel’s hi-tech sector. As a result, Israel is now considered a fully industrialized state with an economy on a par with Western European countries.
American aid to Israel is channeled through various means, but two are of importance to us as taxpayers. First is direct aid offered by the United States Government and, second is indirect aid emanating from American institutions, organizations, companies and individuals. Israel is an advanced, industrialized and technologically developed state. The World Bank places Israel among the top fifty richest states in terms of per capita income. It enjoys one of the world's highest per capita incomes of $32,351 in 2011.

The U.S. Government is the largest donor to Israel. All aid provided to Israel in recent years comes in the form of grants and subsidies, that is, money that need not be paid back. The term “aid” is not accurate, however, but is used to mean the same. Since 1948 the United States has provided Israel with a largess of approximately $115 billion in direct military and economic aid. Economic aid alone from 1949-2013 totals approximately $48 billion and military aid $67,423.4 billion. (Table 1) Unlike other recipients of American aid, Israel receives its share within 30 days from the enactment of the bill. Additionally, from 2006-2008 the US provided Israel with $426 million to develop its missile systems and $420 million for the settlement of Jewish refugees. Between 2003-2010 the US made guaranteed loans for economic recovery available to Israel in the amount of $11 billion. U.S. indirect aid to Israel, for the same period [delete the s], is estimated at more than $60 billion. In recent years, annual direct aid exceeds $3 billion and indirect aid totals $1.5 billion, of which $1 billion comes through tax-deductible donations and $500 million from the sale of Israeli bonds. Israel is the only government in the world that receives American tax-deductible donations. In addition, Israel obtains an estimated $1 billion annually in short- and long-term commercial loans from American banks.

Writing on March 20, 2013 in Haaretz, one of Israel’s leading newspapers, Ora Coren and Nadan Feldman estimated American aid to Israel to be $233.7 billion. Others, including this author, think that American aid to Israel is higher than the published figures taking into account many obvious factors including fluctuation in the rate of inflation and the interest paid by the US on money given to Israel. From 1949-2013 American subsidy of Israel ranged from 1.2-14.2% of Israel’s GDP. (Table 2)
In one of his last acts as president of the United States, G.W. Bush, oblivious to the looming economic crisis, proposed a military aid package for Israel in the amount of $30 billion over a 10-year period. Not to be outdone and without consideration to sequestration and record national deficits and even though Netanyahu treats the President of the United States as the head of a Banana Republic, President Obama is considering a $40 billion military aid package to Israel over ten years.

Israel’s lobby and its domestic supporters make certain that American aid to Israel keeps flowing. American domestic supporters consist of an amalgam of strange bedfellows: professional politicians who need the organizational and financial backing of Israel’s supporters; a potent Israeli lobby, AIPAC, that understands, manipulates and influences the American political system on behalf of Israel; the potent and valuable support of the established, well-organized and well-positioned American Jewish community and its unconditional commitment to maintaining an exclusive “Jewish state” in Palestine; and the ever-increasing power of the Christian evangelical right on the American political scene. The evangelical right opposes any peaceful arrangement for fear of delaying the Second Coming of Christ and ferociously believes in establishing Israel in all of Palestine and in-gathering all Jews into Israel. Each group, for its own reasons, pours in their resources to keep and increase levels of American support for Israel. Evidence exists, moreover, that the collaboration between Israel, AIPAC, the established American Jewish community and the Christian evangelical right is giving rise to anti-Islamic frenzy in the United States. Is this the beginning of a war between civilizations?

Since 1948, the US has been the main supplier of Israel’s military equipment and its main diplomatic and economic backer. Without American support, Israel would not have been able to maintain its Apartheid system, current economic advancement and military development and posture. Israel possesses approximately 500 nuclear warheads, in addition to an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. It is ranked as the 4th military power in the world. By law, the 1952 US Mutual Defense Agreement and subsequent arms agreement between the US and Israel limit the use of American supplied equipment to “legitimate self-defense”. Also, the US Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, section 116, states: “No assistance may be provided under this part to the government of any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges, causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction and clandestine detention of those persons or other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, and the security of persons, unless such assistance will directly benefit the needy people in such country.”

US money is enabling Israel to maintain its occupation of Arab lands, violating the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, killing innocent civilians, destroying their property and ignoring all United Nations Resolutions that call on Israel to abide by International Law. American financial support subsidizes and enables Israel to build colonies and settle its citizens in Arab occupied lands–activities that are considered war crimes. American support maintains an archaic racist governmental structure and funds its brutal practices. Certainly, US aid to Israel is not used for legitimate self-defense or for benefiting the needy in that country or in the service of the American national interest and its democratic values.
Three examples to illustrate the brutality of Israel practices:

Between September 29, 2000 and December 26, 2008, Israel, under Prime Ministers Sharon, Olmert, and Netanyahu has been waging a relentless war against the civilian population of Palestine and the so-called peace process. During this period Israel killed 4,904 (26); between September 29, 2000 and April 29, 2003, 41,000 Palestinians were injured with 2,500 made permanently disabled (27); destroyed and damaged 12,273 homes (including twelve churches and thirty mosques); uprooted 34,606 olive and fruit trees; bulldozed, razed or burned 7,585 acres of cultivated land; and confiscated 291 acres of Palestinian land for the exclusive use by Jewish colonial settlers. In addition, Israel attacked hospitals, clinics, ambulances and medical staff; hindered and attacked journalists; imposed partial and total curfews on Palestinian towns and cities as a form of collective punishment; detained approximately 15,000 Palestinians without charge; disrupted, raided and closed Palestinian colleges and schools; and disrupted and damaged the economic infrastructure of Palestine causing the loss of approximately $3.2-10 billion.

On July 13, 2006 Israel, under the leadership of Olmert, Livni and Barak, attacked Lebanon, with the Israeli Air Force launching more than 12,000 attack missions. The Israeli Navy fired more than 2,500 shells and the Army more than 100,000. As a result, large parts of the civilian infrastructure of Lebanon was destroyed, including more than 400 miles of roads, 73 bridges, and 31 other civilian targets as well as Beirut’s International Airport, ports, water and sewage treatment plants, electrical grids and facilities, 25 fuel stations, 900 commercial structures, more than 350 schools, and two hospitals. Fifteen thousand homes were destroyed and more than 130,000 more damaged. On July 15, 2006 the Israeli Air Force bombed the Jiyeh power station, resulting in the largest-ever oil spill in the Mediterranean Sea. The plant's damaged storage tanks leaked more than 4 million gallons of oil into the eastern Mediterranean. Israeli bombing also caused significant damage to the world heritage sites of Tyre and Byblos. In Tyre, a Roman tomb was damaged and a fresco near the center of the site collapsed. In Byblos, a medieval tower was damaged and Venetian-period remains near the harbor were dramatically stained by the oil slick. Damage was also caused to historic ruins at Bint Jbeil and Chamaa and to the Temple of Bacchus in Baalbek.

The attack resulted in a huge financial setback for Lebanon to the amount of $5 billion or approximately 22% of its GDP. The Lebanese top police office and the Lebanon Ministry of Health, citing hospitals, death certificates, local authorities, and eyewitnesses, put the death toll at 1,123 of whom 37 were soldiers and police officers; 894 were identified as civilians, 192 were unidentified. The Lebanon Higher Relief Council estimated the numbers of Lebanese injured to be 4,409 of whom 15% were permanently disabled. The death toll does not include Lebanese killed since the end of fighting by land mines or unexploded Israeli cluster bombs.

On December 27, 2008 Israel under the same leadership waged a criminal war against the civilian population of Gaza. The total areas of 360 square kilometers and with a population of 1,500,202 were subjected to sustained ground, sea, and air Israeli military attack. No safe haven or bomb shelters existed for the civilian population of Gaza. The Israeli air force carried 2,360 air sorties dropping bunker buster bombs and white phosphorus bombs in densely populated civilian areas. Before the ground invasion began, Israeli artillery bombarded the coastal strip which is considered the most densely populated area in the world. More than 400,000 Palestinians were left without running water; 1,370 Palestinians were killed and thousands more injured; and 4,000 buildings were ruined. Damage to Palestinian economic infrastructure is still being tallied.
The above three examples are just the tip of the iceberg of Israel’s brutality and criminality since its inception in 1948.

Even if the US were to move, on moral grounds, to end Israeli racial policies and curtail Israeli brutal practices, Israeli politicians have taken certain measures to resist by blackmailing the US. As early as 1956 Francis Perrin, the father of the French nuclear bomb and a major collaborator in establishing Israel's nuclear program, wrote: "We thought the Israeli Bomb was aimed at the Americans, not to launch it at the Americans, but to say: 'if you don't want to help us in a critical situation we will require you to help us. Otherwise, we will use our nuclear bombs"'. Simha Dinitz, Israel's Ambassador to Washington during the Middle Eastern war of 1973, said, "If a massive airlift to Israel does not start immediately, then I will know that the U.S. is reneging on its promises and… we will draw very serious conclusions. . ." The ambassador's veiled threat to use weapons of mass destruction to reverse Israel's misfortunes on the battlefield did not fall on deaf ears. President Nixon and Secretary of State Kissinger ordered a massive airlift to aid Israel in the war. But who should we hold responsible for allowing America to be held hostage?

During the last three years, Israel has escalated its genocidal war against the civilian people of Palestine and Lebanon, their properties and economic infrastructure. Entire refugee camps, towns and sections of cities have been destroyed by American-supplied weapons systems. Hundreds of civilians have been killed in the most gruesome and despicable ways; entire families have been buried under the rubble of their homes by Israeli army bulldozers that are manufactured by Caterpillar and paid for by American taxpayers; civilian residents have been shelled by Israeli missiles and tank fire; Palestinian leaders and prisoners have been assassinated; and 15,000 civilians have been detained without charge. In return, the US announced a military aid package for Israel totaling $30 billion for ten years to be followed by another more generous one in the amount of $40 billion. Are these actions conducive to achieving peaceful and structural changes in Israel/Palestine or a recipe for prolonged conflict?

The US government is making sure that Israel’s war machine is well financed by our tax money and equipped with the best of US military weapons while Americans are left to face the consequences of the piling national debt with devastating impact on the elderly and the prospects of American children going to bed hungry and lacking health care and insurance.

Conclusion:

This passionate attachment is an affront, a burden and a liability on America. Israel’s structure, laws, policies, and practices are in violation of the American Constitution, laws and mores. The continuation of this relationship is a harbinger for more Israeli brutality and oppression. Working for the ending of racism and brutality will usher in justice, peace and tranquility for the region and the world. This is the choice that the US and the world should pursue.

Whatever the rationale for American aid to Israel, American support helps Israel maintain its racist character and practices, military aggressive posture and its violations of international law. The amount and intensity of American assistance signify an active American partnership with Israel against the aspirations of the people in the region for self-determination, justice, peace, and development. By alienating the Arab and Muslim peoples, America is exacerbating and fermenting conditions that are ripe for social upheaval–the intensity of which threatens to engulf the region and impact US interests worldwide.

Israel’s supporters in the US should not be permitted to achieve their goal of igniting a clash of civilizations emanating from the region. Continuous war will not provide a tranquil place for the Second Coming of Christ, nor for justice, hope, and peace for the people of the region. The region needs a vision that values human dignity, equality, and justice for all, instead of aircraft, bombs, and bullets.

America can no longer hide its involvement in the region under the guise of worn-out ideas. People in the region are watching and weighing America’s every move. If history is a guide, Americans should not underestimate the damage that disenfranchised and alienated individuals, groups, and countries could bring to bear.

Table 1

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mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>Notes:

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>1. Quoted in Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2001, p.21

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>2. BBC website of Monday, 17 November, 2003, please consult the following link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3275979.stm

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>3. Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State (New York: Herzl Press, 1970), p. 51.

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>4. Quoted in Gudrun Kramer, A History of Palestine from the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding of the State of Israel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 113.

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>5. Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881-1948 (Studies in Jewish History)/ Anita Shapira ; translated by William Templer. Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 41

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>6. Israel Zangwill, "The Commercial Future of Palestine," November 20, 1901 (London: Greenberg and Co., 1901), p. 15 and also in Joseph H. Udelson's Dreamer of the Ghetto: The Life and Works of Israel Zangwill (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1990), p. 165.

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>7. Quoted in Sunday Times (15 June 1969), also in The Washington Post (16 June 1969)

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>8. Kramer, A History of Palestine, p. 166.

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>9. Quoted in An Interview with Israel Shahak in Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. IV, No. 3 (1975), p. 3.

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>10. Quoted in http://morallowground.com/2011/03/22/top-u-n-investigator-accuses-israel-of-ethnic-cleansing/

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>11. Quoted in Israel Shahak, The Racist Nature of Zionism and of the Zionist State of Israel, in the student newspaper of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Pi-Ha'aton, November 5, 1975.

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>12. For this and more details please consult the following link: http://www.mmi.gov.il/envelope/indexeng.asp?page=/static/eng/f_general.html

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>13. For a detailed account of Israel’s policies and practices against its Palestinian citizens of Israel, please consult: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3010906?uid=3739920&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102138447681

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>14. On the Air, Palestinians Soften Tone on Israelis New York Times, December 15, 2004

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>15. Haaretz, Oct. 20, 2010

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>16. Morris, One State, Two States, p. 23

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>17. Quoted in Benny Morris, One State, Two States (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 35-36.

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>18. Shlaim, The Iron Wall, p. 598.

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>19. Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky, "The Iron Wall," available at the following link:

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>http://www.jabotinsky. org/multimedia/upl_doc/doc_191207_49117.pdf

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>20. He Khazit (underground publication of Lehi), Issue 2, August 1943. No author is stated, as was usual for this publication. Translated from original. For a discussion of this article, Heller, J. (1995). The Stern Gang. Frank Cass. ISBN 0-7146-4558-3, p. 115)

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>21. For more details on the Jewish Agency, Israel Pocket Library (IPL), "Zionism". Keter, 1973. ISBN 0-7065-1326-6. pp. 141-4

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>22. BBC News. 12 January 2012. Retrieved January 24, 2012, link:

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16526469

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>23. Reported in the 1991 Israel Law Review, Vol. 25, p. 219, published by the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>24. For details, please see: http://adalah.org/upfiles/2011/Adalah_The_Inequality_Report_March_2011.pdf

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>25. For details, please see:

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”> http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/farewell/transcript.html

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>26. For details please see:

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>http://www.btselem.org/statistics/fatalities/before-cast-lead/by-date-of-event

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>27. For details please see: http://asp.alhaq.org/zalhaq/site/eDocs/txtDocs/Presentations/pres_randa_290403.htm

mso-hansi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi”>

Dr. Samir Abed-Rabbo is a Palestinian-American who was born in a refugee camp in Jerusalem.Completed college and university studies in the US where he obtained a Ph.D. in International Law from the University of Miami. Dr. Samir Abed-Rabbo is the author/editor of several books and articles on US Aid to Israel, Palestine, Zionism, International Law and Islam. From 1995-8 he served as the Dean of The Jerusalem School of Economics and Diplomacy.

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Jeremy Salt: The Syrian Crisis – The Option

Jeremy Salt — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:22:43 +0000

Obama is now under pressure at home to ‘do more’.

While all options are said to be still on the table, Barack Obama is clearly backing away from any deeper involvement in Syria now it is clear that nothing but direct intervention is going to bring down the government in Damascus. In the past few months alone the armed groups have lost thousands of men. Although the conflict will grind on for some time yet, the Syrian military is steadily closing down the insurgency.

The sponsors of this adventure are in complete disarray. Like the Syrian National Council before it, the Syrian National Coalition has imploded. Muadh al Khatib is now a voice from the margins. Ghassan Hittu is the only person in the world who is the prime minister of a committee. These people are a completely lost cause.

In the real world and not the world of delusions there is horror at the video showing a ‘rebel’ commander cutting the heart out of the body of a dead soldier and biting into it. Perhaps it was the lungs or the liver. The media seems to be uncertain but somehow getting the organ right seems to be important. Far from denying this gory act, its perpetrator owned up to it before boasting of how he had sawn the bodies of captured shabiha into pieces.

Cannibalism appears to be a first but otherwise there is not much that the psychopaths inside the armed groups have not done in Syria. Or are people who can do such things not to be called psychopaths? They are the best people, after all, to fight such a vicious conflict. The self-styled Free Syrian Army says it will hunt down the man who cut out the soldier’s heart. Good. It can also hunt down the throat-cutters and the ‘rebels’ who have cut people’s heads off. It can hunt down the men who killed public servants before flinging their bodies from the top of the post office building in Al Bab. It can hunt down their comrades in arms who deliberately target civilians with car bombs. It can hunt down the murderers of the imam and 50 worshippers in the Damascus mosque and it can hunt down all the rapists and kidnappers, including the Chechens who abducted the two bishops still being held in Aleppo while the Christian leaders of western governments look the other way. In its hunting for all the individuals who have tainted its glorious reputation, the FSA won’t have to look far because many come from its own ranks. There is no shortage of evidence. The media is awash with gory mobile phone and video footage of the handiwork of these men because they take pride in their bravery and want the world to see. These are the people Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been arming and funding to take over Syria.

This is the reality behind the false narrative spun by the media for the past two years. It has regurgitated every lie and exaggeration of ‘activists’ and the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, according to which the Syrian ‘regime’ was about to fall any minute and every atrocity was actually the work of the Syrian military. With the exception of a few reports filed recently by Robert Fisk, virtually no one in the media mainstream has reported the fighting from the perspective of the Syrian government and army. Reporters were moved across borders by the armed groups and reported only their version of events. This is like relying on reporters embedded with the US army for an accurate account of what was happening in Iraq. And, again like Iraq, the same propaganda is being repeated about chemical weapons.

Finally, reality has had to take hold. It is not the ‘regime’ or the army which is on the point of collapse but the insurgency. Only direct armed intervention is going to save it and against the successes of the Syrian army and solid Russian support for the Syrian government this is extremely unlikely. Obama is being pushed to ‘do more’ but is showing no inclination to be sucked any deeper into this mess. The others will do nothing without the US taking the lead. Germany is against involvement and Austria has said that supplying arms to the ‘rebels’, which Britain has wanted to do, when the EU embargo ends on May 31 would be a violation of international law.

This week the spotlight has been on Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his trip to Washington to discuss Syria with Barack Obama. Turkey’s role in the unfolding of the Syrian conflict has been central. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Libya supplied the money and arms but it was Turkey whose territory was opened up to the mobilization of armed men crossing the border to bring down the ‘regime.’ Erdogan has not stepped back an inch from the position he took against Bashar al Assad more than two years ago. The only clear case of a chemical weapons attack has been the chlorine-based compound packed into a warhead and fired at a Syrian army checkpoint at Khan al Assal, killing a number of soldiers and civilians. Erdogan, however, is maintaining that it is the Syrian army that has used chemical weapons and by doing so has crossed Obama’s ‘red line. ’ Asked shortly before he left for Washington whether he would support a no-fly zone he replied: ‘Right from the beginning we would say yes.’

Last week cars packed with more than one ton of C4 and TNT were exploded in the Hatay province border town of Reyhanli. At least 51 people were killed. The destruction was massive. The municipality building and dozens of shops were obliterated. In the aftermath, cars with Syrian number plates were smashed and Syrian refugees attacked by enraged local people. As they milled around the destruction they cursed Erdogan. The atrocity followed a pattern that is familiar to Syrians: one bomb going off and then others exploding after people had gathered around the site of the first one, maximizing the death toll.

Notwithstanding the accusations of the Turkish government that this was the work of a terrorist group collaborating with the Syrian mukhabarat (intelligence), only the armed groups or one of the governments backing them would have a clear reason for setting up this outrage. The Syrian army is rolling up the insurgency, the ‘traitors’ council’ based in Doha has imploded and the Americans and Russians are sitting down to talk. The attack was very clearly designed to pull Turkey directly into the conflict across the border.

The attack on Reyhanli came a week after Israel launched a series of savage air attacks on Syria. This was not a one-off missile strike. Two attacks in three days, lasting for hours and with massive ordinance being dropped around Damascus, suggest that the aim was to provoke a Syrian response, opening the door to a general war in which Iran could be attacked. Israel claimed that the target was a shipment of missiles bound for Hizbullah but while a research station and a military food production plant were hit there was no evidence of any missiles being destroyed. The attacks appear to have been a strategic and political failure. In the aftermath Putin gave Netanyahu a dressing down and punished him either by supplying or threatening to supply Syria with advanced S300 anti-aircraft missiles. It is a measure of Israel’s arrogance that it insisted that it would launch further attacks if necessary and would destroy the Syrian government if it dared to retaliate.

Obama is now under pressure at home to ‘do more’. In Washington the same people who called for war on Iraq are now calling for widening the conflict in Syria. Senator Bob Menendez, a strong supporter of Israel, like virtually all congressmen and women, has introduced a bill calling on the administration to supply the ‘rebels’ with arms (as if it were not already doing that covertly or through support for arms being supplied by Saudi Arabia and Qatar). Former New York Times editor Bill Keller supported the war on Iraq and also wants the US to arm the ‘rebels’ and ‘defend the civilians being slaughtered in their homes’ in Syria. He is not talking about the civilians who have been slaughtered by the armed groups, of course.

The Washington Post has been forced to admit that the Syrian army is winning this conflict but is still nonplussed at the unfavorable turns of events. ‘What if the US doesn’t intervene in Syria?’ it asks, before providing the answers. Syria will fracture along sectarian lines, with Jabhat al Nusra taking over the north and ‘remnants of the regime’ taking strips of the west. Sectarian warfare will spread to Iraq – as if it has not already as a consequence of US intervention – and Lebanon. Chemical weapons would be up for grabs, ‘probably forcing further interventions by Israel in order to prevent their acquisition by Hizbullah or Al Qaida’. If the US does not intervene to prevent all of this Turkey and Saudi Arabia ‘could conclude that the United States is no longer a reliable ally.’

There are other more likely answers to ‘what will happen’. This is that the Syrian army will eventually drive the surviving ‘rebels’ out of the country and Bashar will come out of this more popular than ever because he saw off the greatest challenge to the Syrian state in its history. Elections will be held in 2014 and he will be elected president with 75 per cent of the vote. This at least is what the CIA is predicting.

Erdogan came to Washington also wanting Obama to ‘do more’, but clearly the US president does not want to do much if anything more. The Turkish media reported that Obama said Assad ‘must’ go but this was not what he said. He chose his words carefully. In his press conference with Erdogan he did not say that said Assad ‘must’ go but that he ‘needs’ to go and ‘needs’ to transfer power to a transitional body. The difference is all-important. Personally, Obama will not want to end his presidency stuck in an unwinnable and unpopular war, one, furthermore, that could quickly shift from regional to global crisis. A recent Pew poll shows that the American people have had enough of wars in the Middle East and the talks between Kerry and Lavrov indicate that this time, having allowed the Geneva agreement of July, 2012, to fall flat, the US is serious about reaching a negotiated end to this crisis even if others aren’t. If there is any danger of the US position being derailed, it will mostly likely arise within the ranks of its friends and allies.

- Jeremy Salt is an associate professor of Middle Eastern history and politics at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

Source: Palestine Chronicle

Afsane Bahar: Article Collection Syria, May 20, 2013

Dr. Gabi Weber — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:57:09 +0000

Bashar al-Assad Interview: Israel Supports Al Qaeda Terrorists

By Global Research News, May 19, 2013

http://www.globalresearch.ca/bashar-al-assad-interview-israel-supports-al-qaeda-terrorists/5335664

Syrian Forces Inflict Heavy Losses on US Sponsored Terrorists

By Global Research News, May 19, 2013

http://www.globalresearch.ca/bashar-al-assad-interview-israel-supports-al-qaeda-terrorists/5335664

Israeli Special Forces in Syria

Fox News Video

Fox News has published a video allegedly showing Israeli special forces on a mission inside Syria.

Posted May 18/19, 2013

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34999.htm

Russia Sends at Least 12 Warships to Syria

Deployment presumably a warning to Israeli and Western officials regarding military intervention against Assad

By Times of Israel staff; May 19, 2013

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35000.htm

Syria Ready to Unleash Missiles on Israel

By Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv; May 19, 2013

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35005.htm

6a)

Syria's Inglorious Basterd

May 17 2013 by Audrey Ann Lavallée-Bélanger

http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/11764/syrias-inglorious-basterd

http://monthlyreview.org/2013/05/01/violence-usa

6b)

Violence, USA

The Warfare State and the Hardening of Everyday Life

Henry A. Giroux

http://monthlyreview.org/2013/05/01/violence-usa

Paul Larudee: Reports – Peace Delegation to Syria – May 2-10, 2013

Paul Larudee — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:28:51 +0000

Initial Report: Peace Delegation to Syria, May 2-10, 2013

April 30, 2013

Dear supporters of Palestine and Syria,

I will leave in a few hours to join the delegation. We will gather at the Greek Catholic Patriarchate in Lebanon just north of Beirut. During the first day and a half, we will meet with dignitaries and representatives in Lebanon, and with Syrian refugees. We will then go to Damascus for four days of meetings with members of a variety of communities in Syria, and to view as much as we are able. We then return to Lebanon for additional meetings and a final press conference, which I will unfortunately have to miss because I must return a day early.

Below is a list of participants, whose bios will soon be posted at the FPM website. Not listed there is Dennis Kucinich, who has said that he will come, but apparently has not confirmed. If any of you are in touch with him, please encourage him join us. I have also been trying to reach Ashley Judd, who has excellent humanitarian credentials, but I have been unsuccessful. If any of you has a means of contacting her, please do. I don't know her position on any of this, but if she advocates against U.S. support for either side, she needs to be a part of this team, and it may boost her credentials if she plans to run for office.

Peace Delegation to Syria:

Francesco CANDELARI (Italy) His current role is International Coordinator of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and he has held previous positions at the United Nations and as journalist covering the Arab Spring. He has been in close touch with people from Syria and interested in looking for possible nonviolent solutions to the conflict in Syria.

Marinella COREGGIA (Italy) Italian journalist and writer in the field of ecological justice; and an ecological farmer, Marinella Correggia, has been active for peace since 1991. Associated with the No War Network, she co-organised many demonstrations in Rome, petitions to the UN, sending information to some Un missions in Geneva, writing articles and conferences.

Susan Anne Day DIRGHAM (Australia) has organized and helped lead tour of Syria for students from La Trobe University, Melbourne. She organised accommodation, transport, interviewees in Damascus (through Ministry of Information) for Australian film-maker Bruce Petty.

Mel DUNCAN (USA) is Director of Advocacy and Outreach, Nonviolent Peaceforce. Mel Duncan is the founding Executive Director and current Advocacy and Outreach Director of Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP). Modeled on the Gandhian concept of Shanti Sena, Nonviolent Peaceforce is composed of trained citizens from around the world. Mr. Duncan has 40 years of experience organizing and advocating nonviolently for peace, justice, and the environment. He currently focuses on advancing the recognition, policy and funding support for nonviolent peacekeeping at the UN.

Tiffany EASTHOM (Canada) She is Country Director for South Sudan for Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP) which is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) engaged in the creation of a large-scale unarmed peacekeeping force, composed of specially trained civilians. Prior to becoming NP's Country Director in South Sudan, Tiffany served as Country Director at NP's Sri Lanka project as well as Country Director for Peace Brigades International in Indonesia.

Denning ISLES (Australia) is a graduate of Welsey Institute, majoring in Audio Technology (2008). He currently works for Fr. David Smith with Fighting Fathers Ministries, in which he supports various youth and community organisations such as Dulwich Hill's Holy Trinity Youth Center, Binacrombi Camp Site and the Dulwich Hill Gym.

Tim KING (USA) is the Editior of Salem-News in the USA (based in Salem, Oregon). Tim is well traveled in the Middle East and known for his efforts to change American policy toward Palesitne and the region. Has written widely about the criminal US war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Franklin LAMB (USA) is an international lawyer based in Beirut-Washington, DC. A former Assistant Counsel of the House Judiciary Committee of the US Congress, Lamb has written widely on Middle East issues as part of his commitment to the cause of Palestine.

Paul LARUDEE (USA)is a former Ford foundation project supervisor, and Fulbright-Hays lecturer in Lebanon, and a U.S. government advisor to Saudi Arabia. He has been a faculty member at several universities in the San Francisco Bay Area,an organizer with the International Solidarity Movement in Palestine and co-founder of the movement to break the Israeli siege of Gaza by sea, and was aboard the boats that succeeded in doing so in 2008 as well as the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which was attacked by Israeli forces on May 31, 2010. He is a cofounder of the Global March to Jerusalem.

Alan LONERGAN (Ireland) has for many years been involved in campaigning for Palestine. He is a founding member of Sadaka the Ireland Palestine Alliance and currently serves on the board of Sadaka as their Church Liaisons Officer.

Amir M. MAASOUMI (Canada) is a sociologist, specialist of contemporary Islam, intercultural and interfaith relations, dialogue among cultures and civilizations. He is also a peace, social justice and human rights activist.

Mairead MAGUIRE (Northern Ireland) is Nobel Peace Laureate (l976) Hon. President, Co-Founder Peace People, Northern Ireland. Mairead (Corrigan) Maguire is a Nobel Peace Laureate (l976) Hon. President and Co-founder of the Peace People, Northern Ireland. Mairead was responsible for co-founding the Peace People. She has received many honours and awards, including an honorary doctorate from Yale University, the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation's Distinguished Peace Leadership Award and the Nobel Peace Prize Award (l976).

Michael MALOOF (USA) is a senior writer for WND (WND.com), or World Net Daily, specializing in international political and economic reporting and analysis. He also writes a weekly column for subscribers only for WND's G2Bulletin providing analysis in these areas. As part of his reporting, Maloof travels many times a year to Lebanon where he is expected to set up a bureau there for WND.

Alyssar MIDANI (France) founded and managed Arabesque (international intercultural association head quartered in Paris) She organised cultural activities (concerts, exhibitions, Syrian and Arab movie promotion, cultural days: Passeport pour la Syrie 2003), Support for Palestinian & Iraqi people. She is founding Member and member of the Board of trustees of NOSSTIA (Network of Syrian Scientists and innovators in Technology abroad) and was instrumental in ICTTA 04 Conference – Damascus Syria (organization & scientific committee) Open Source Software workshop – Damascus Syria)

Ann PATTERSON (Ireland) is a family therapist at the Quaker Centre in Belfast, she works to provide counseling support for families from the divided communities. During the peace process in Northern Ireland, she worked with imprisoned paramilitaries from both sides, preparing them to enter into peace talks. She is founder member of the Peace People, a pacifist movement that played a critical role in promoting the Good Friday Agreement and advancing the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Gianmarco PISA (Italy) is Secretary in IPRI – CPC NET (Civil Peace Corps) and President of "Operatori di Pace – Campania" [Peace-Workers - Campania], active in the National Program "Civilian Peace Intervention" and Regional Program "Scuole Aperte" about peace-education, Project Coord. in Peace Class: A.C.H.I.E.V.E. (Alternative Conflict Handling to Inhibit Emergencies and Violence Eradicate) and Program Coord. for Civilian Peace Service and Civilian Social Defence in Castelvolturno (S.C.P.C. Program). He is Founder of "IRA Mauritania Ð Italian Bureau" (IRA Mauritania Ð Bureau Italia) against slavery and for human-rights and Researcher in IRES (Training and Research) and RESET (Economy, Society and Territory) – Naples, for social inclusion and social rights.

Antonio Carlos da Silva ROSA (Brasil) is the editor of TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS since its inception in 2008, he is also the Secretary of the Board of Conveners of TRANSCEND International-A Network for Peace, Development and Environment, founded by Johan Galtung in 1993.

David B. SMITH (Australia)started Fighting Fathers Ministries in 2002 – a company that aims to offer an alternative culture to young people, based on values of courage, integrity and teamwork. This work has been the subject of numerous TV documentaries and one short film. Particularly well-known for our use of boxing-training as a means to help young men overcome anger-management issues. He was twice nominated for Australian of the Year on the basis of this work. He is known for his friendship with Mordechai Vanunu (the Israeli 'nuclear whistle-blower'), which started in Sydney in 1986, started my involvement in social justice work in the Middle East and has subsequently developed a strong profile in Australia as a Palestinian human rights activist.

Luke WATERS (Australia) is an award winning senior journalist, with experience filing reports for television, radio, print and on-line news services throughout Australia and overseas. Luke has anchored state and national news bulletins for the Ten Network as well as news and current affairs programs for the ABC. He has worked as a print, radio, on-line and television journalist, video journalist, presenter, producer and / or chief of staff on a range of programs. Luke's journalism has been recognized with selection as a finalist or winner of several media awards including the United Nations Media Peace Awards, The Australian Sports Commission Media Awards and the National Drug And Alcohol Awards for excellence in media reporting.

In solidarity,

Paul Larudee for the FPM Team

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Dispatch #1 from the Mussalaha Delegation to Syria: "When can we go back?"

by Paul Larudee Sunday, May 5th, 2013

"When can we go back?"

This plaintive question of refugees since time immemorial was asked again of Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire at the United Nations High Commission on Refugees intake center in Zahleh, Lebanon, overlooking the vast Beqaa valley, now dotted with refugee camps wherever we look. The Mussalaha Delegation is spending longer than expected in Lebanon because of visa delays to Syria. However, if we wanted to find the effects of the war, Lebanon has plenty to show. There are one million Syrian refugees in Lebanon, which itself has a population of only 4.3 million. Many are from Syrian minorities, drawn to Lebanon by its large Christian and Shiite communities.

Children gather in front of their makeshift home at a camp in the Beqaa valley

Most of the camps fail to meet the minimum standards for hygiene and housing. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) claims it cannot keep up with the numbers, but there is reason to think that it may be dragging its feet in order to pressure its donors for more funds and supplies. Similarly, the Lebanese government does not want to encourage a greater influx, and is therefore slow to accommodate arrivals. They have their reasons, but the refugees are pawns in these bureaucratic and power games, which only increase their suffering.

At the UNHCR registration center in Zahleh, overlooking the valley, the backlog is as much as four months. One man told me that he and his family, including a newborn, had been living for more than two months in the space between two cars with whatever canopy they could manage and a few chairs. Others were living twenty to a room in warehouse space with mattresses taking up most of the floor space at night. To a very great extent, refugees are on their own, negotiating their accommodation wherever they can with whatever resources they have.

A young Syrian mother with newborn speaks to an interpreter at the UNHCR intake center in Zahleh, Lebanon

Most of the men and some of the women do not want to be photographed, but the children don't mind. Several people from Qusayr, a town on the Lebanese border said that when the demonstrations first began two years ago, they were nonviolent and the local officials would even clear the roads for them. However, as they became more violent, the central government failed to act and the town was eventually overrun by armed local elements and foreign fighters from Chechnya, Azerbaijan and other places. It was only after the population fled that Syrian troops finally came to quell the rebellion, which has apparently not yet been fully accomplished.

I have no way to assess the accuracy of these stories, nor to generalize them, but at least my modest Arabic skills allow me to strike up conversations with whomever I want, and there are no government minders in Lebanon. Nevertheless, we all want to meet with groups that have a very different story to tell, and Mother Agns-Maryam has included such opportunities in our schedule, even Jabhat al-Nusrah, the al-Qaeda affiliate, with whom none of us expected to be able to speak.

Mother Agns-Mariam of the Cross with delegation members

I have to say that Mussalaha exceeds our expectations, and that this is largely due to the leadership of Mother Agns, as tough a nun as you could ever want to meet. She is fearless, tireless and relentless. Patience is not her forte, but compassion is, and without regard to the identity of the person in need. For this reason, Mussalaha has earned the respect Ð sometimes grudgingly Ð of a very wide range of communities in and outside Syria. Although Mussalaha has strong Christian orientation, its president is Dr. Hassan Yaacoub, a Shiite politician who belongs to the mostly Christian party of General Michel Aoun, who is allied with the Hezbollah party. You may be forgiven for finding that none of this agrees with whatever assumptions you may have held until now.

We have also had numerous meetings with religious leaders of the various faith communities in Lebanon, including the major Christian denominations, as well as the Shiite and Druze spiritual leadership. They are all in touch with the Syrian members of their faith, and had much to say. The message: first stop the fighting, then sit down together, push your agenda by peaceful means, and be ready to compromise. Regrettably, the grand mufti of the Sunni community in Lebanon had to reverse plans to meet with us. We have reason to believe that he might have conveyed the same message, but his community is divided on some of these issues, which makes it difficult for him to say anything at this time.

Mussalaha President Dr. Hassan Yaacoub and the delegation meet with Sheikh Hussain Qabalan, Vice Chairman of the Higher Shiite Council

It is regrettable that former Congressman Dennis Kucinich did not join us. However, the presence of Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire Ð another fearless and compassionate woman Ð provides inspirational strength and prominence to our group and brings us the exposure that we need. The rest of the group brings an excellent balance of skills and experience, and for such a diverse group we find ourselves working remarkably well together.

Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire and the Mussalaha delegation meet with clerical leaders in Lebanon

The next dispatch will be from Damascus, but I won't say when, and I will have another after I return to the U.S. Syria needs a miracle, but these folks believe in such things.

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Dispatch #2 from the Mussalaha delegation to Syria

by Paul Larudee
Friday, May 10th, 2013

As I begin to compose this, I hear what sounds like artillery and rocket fire in the distance, mixed with occasional small arms and possible explosions. Most of their targets must be far away, because I don't hear them hit. The explosions may or may not be something else.

I guess that after two years of fighting it is not surprising that the Syrians take it in stride, and life is surprisingly normal, if hard, for the slightly more than half of Syrians that have not been killed or displaced. It's a terrible statistic, equal to almost 10 million out of a total population of 23 million.

The delegation has been disrupted several times by changes of plan. Our visas were delayed, so our time was lengthened in Lebanon and shortened in Syria, with additional days added at the end. Then, on our first day in Syria, our appointment with Dr. Kinda Shammat, Minister of Social Affairs, was canceled by a cabinet meeting called by President Assad, leaving us with only an improvised outing to an affected neighborhood, which I missed because of a faulty telephone in my hotel room.

That evening was a large meeting of Mussalaha members from all over Syria talking about their war experiences and the intervention of Mussalaha to turn tragedy into reconciliation. One of them was the celebrated case of a nine-year-old Christian boy named Sari Saoud, killed by rebels in Homs. His body was taken by the rebels, but his mother, Georgina al-Jammal caught up with them, and her embrace of her dead son was captured on video by the rebels, who then falsified the account to make it appear that the boy had been killed by government forces.

Sari's mother with his body and two of the rebels after they allowed her to take the body.

I talked with Georgina, who supports the government, but blames it for leaving the area without protection. She told me that she recognized some of the rebels from the neighborhood, but that others were strangers. Part of the story can be found here, by Syrian Arab Television. It has a strong dose of propaganda but the important parts are factual and sincere. Another account is available here. It is cruder and more amateurish, and only party subtitled, but it includes some of the footage shot by the rebels and their clumsy attempt to disguise the killing. It is also quite graphic and captures the terrible moment of the Georgina's attempt to revive her dead son.

Shaikha Asya al-Mashi

I also met a woman by the name of Shaikha Asya al-Mashi, part of a prominent Muslim family in Raqqa. Her brother-in-law was offered an enormous sum of money to leave and turn over his properties to the rebels. When he refused, he was killed outside his home, where the family listened to him die. I offered to suppress her name and photo, but she defiantly insisted that I publish them.

I do not wish to dwell on these stories, but several things impressed me about them and the Mussalaha gathering:

The witnesses and attendees represented a wide range of communities, both geographically and in terms of confession. Mussalaha is a diverse and accessible organization that reaches many Syrians.
There are varying degrees of support for the regime itself, but there are clearly many Syrians that support the regime's attempt to restore order.
Part of the evening's program consisted of an open mike where anyone who wanted could tell their story and ask for Mussalaha's intervention in their community.
Much of the evening was lost on the delegates because it was all in Arabic and interpretation was inconsistent and hard to hear. My Arabic was of some help, but I missed a lot.
We did not hear from the other side.

To elaborate on point number 5, there are Lebanese allies of the armed opposition and opposition fighters in Lebanon. I don't think it is impossible to meet them, but I'm not sure it is possible for Mussalaha to make such arrangements. Mussalaha has contacts with such parties for the purpose of prisoner exchanges and reconciliation. However, offering us the chance to confer with such parties could possibly put them in jeopardy with the regime. Mussalaha tries to develop trust with everyone, but I suspect that there is a line that they dare not cross for fear of losing their mandate to operate.

Having said that, my experience with the nonviolent opposition is that they, too, are intolerant of the point of view of Syrians that support the regime in any way, and do not want this rather large segment of Syrian society to have a voice in Syria's future, because that voice is necessarily the regime's. As long as some Syrians refuse to respect the views of other Syrians, I fear for Syria's future.

Early the next morning I began to feel the effects of stomach poisoning, so I spent the day in bed until we met briefly as a delegation. We then received a visit from Dr. Jihad Lahham, President of the Parliament. He made a point of the fact that he is from the opposition, but the "loyal" opposition, saying that he would like very much for Assad to find himself in the opposition for a few years. I left later that evening, still on an empty stomach.

Altogether, we had too many meetings with too many dignitaries, all of whom had essentially the same message. After one interview upon arrival, I stopped giving them for fear that I would appear to be part of a propaganda machine. Mairead and most of the others were careful to speak of our solidarity with the Syrian people, not the regime or any other party, but Syrian News kept filming us with dignitaries of the same general stripe.

Perhaps it was too much to expect anything different. For security reasons we were housed at the Dama Rose Hotel, the most secure hotel in Damascus, because there is no doubt that we were a potential rebel target and an opportunity to embarrass the government. However, the reason it is the most secure is that it is also the plushest and most expensive hotel, and therefore the hangout of all sorts of government VIPs. Even hosted by Mussalaha, which has built trust with a wide spectrum of elements in Syria, it is exceedingly difficult to get as full a picture as we wanted and needed.

Nevertheless, we learned a lot, and I had to leave before the end of the visit, because the schedule had migrated beyond my original departure date, which I could not change because of personal obligations. I am eager to know what happened after my departure, and may yet have some more hopeful news in a later report. I also helped to draft two declarations for the delegation and want to share them with you, but only after they have been approved by the group, with amendments. I may also have further news about initiatives that were developed as a result of the visit.

Thank you for continuing to support peace.

Paul Larudee for the FPM Team

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Syria Dispatch #3: prisoner release; attack on M. Agnes; Homs project

by Paul Larudee Tuesday, May 14th, 2013

In my previous dispatches I withheld some information from you. Over the last four months I have been in touch with Dr. Mohja Kahf, who is active in the Syrian Nonviolence Movement. Dr. Kahf has produced some excellent background material. It is not unbiased, in my opinion, but very informative nonetheless, and I have great respect for her work.

As early as January, she also began to compile a list of prisoners of conscience held by the Assad regime. By the end of April, the list had 72 names on it, and I took it with me with the intention to petition for their release. Dr. Kahf assured me that the list had been carefully vetted so that it contained only political prisoners that had engaged in nonviolent activity, sometimes including civil disobedience, sometimes not even that.

9 May, 2013 – Damascus – the delegation meets with the Minister of Justice and presents a petition for the release of 72 non-violent activists

I did not inform you previously because protocol dictates that the delegation must first agree to present the petition, and then consider whether public disclosure is in the interest of the prisoners and at what point in the negotiations for their release. I am now free to disclose this news because the Minister of Justice, Dr. Najm al-Ahmad, announced in his meeting with the Mussalaha delegation on Thursday, May 9, that the government had in principle approved the release of all the prisoners on the list, pending review of their cases.

The only reason I did not put this information in screaming headlines is that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we are awaiting word of the review. If the government wants to make a strong impression of its good will, it will release all 72 at one time before the end of the week, in which case it will be big news. If it decides not to release all of them, it will probably do so in stages, without a lot of fanfare. Let us hope.

Mother Agnes-Mariam of the Cross

In a second bit of news, a vehicle carrying our primary host and delegation organizer, Mother Agnes-Mariam of the Cross, was attacked by gunmen on the road just outside Damascus. Three bullets penetrated the vehicle but thankfully hit no one. It happened just outside the "secure" areas. I wish I had more information, but will forward it as available. Was it a random attack that could have happened to any vehicle in that area or is there any reason to think that Mother Agnes was a target? I don't know, but I would be inclined to think that the attackers did not know who passengers were. Additional information may shed light on this question.

Finally, delegation members Mel Duncan and Tiffany Easthom of Nonviolent Peaceforce confided with me before my return home that they had been having private meetings in order to arrange an unarmed peacekeeper accompaniment program in and near Homs. That program is now approaching implementation, with possible sponsorship from Mussalaha and participation of members of the delegation that extended their stay for that purpose. I have few details at this time, but I spoke to Mother Agnes earlier today, and she is thinking in terms of a semi-permanent international peace delegation.

The developments remind me a little of the beginnings of the International Solidarity Movement, when the third international delegation became a permanent volunteer presence starting in March, 2002. Exciting times. Exciting possibilities.

For additional news see the excellent report of delegation member Father Dave Smith on his website.

Paul Larudee for the FPM Team

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Syria Dispatch #4: Declarations of the delegation; prisoner release

by Paul Larudee
Friday, May 17th, 2013

After all the delays and rescheduling of the Syria visit, most of my fellow delegates have now returned to their home countries, and are compiling their thoughts, film and photos.

Further to the sniper firing at the car transporting Mother Agnes, it apparently happened twice, both coming and going, and as far as she knows, the attack was not directed specifically at her, but rather towards all vehicles, with a view toward making the route impassable. The car was damaged but Mother Agnes is fine.

The government has decided not to release all of the 72 prisoners whose names we presented to the Minister of Justice. According to them, some of the prisoners are charged with crimes and will have to stand trial. They have said that they will announce on 20 May which prisoners will be released and when.

Obviously, any release is a good thing, but this is not a bold move to show good faith. A bold move would be the dropping of spurious charges against all 72 prisoners and their immediate release. The decision could mean several things:

The regime feels that it is in a strong enough position that it does not need to make concessions.
The regime considers our delegation too unimportant for such a request and that a more prominent one might have been more successful.
The regime considers the detention and imprisonment of leaders of the nonviolent movement to be strategically more to their advantage than their release for the sake of national unity.
Of course, it could mean all of these and more. If on Monday we see that twenty or more of the prisoners are being released immediately, we will know that our request had some effect. If all that we see is a list with a lot of future release dates, we most probably had no effect and these dates had already been previously determined.

In the fifth and probably last dispatch in this series, I will report to you on the prisoners and other developments, and offer some closing observations. During the visit, I and Canadian delegate Amir Massoumi were tasked with composing two declarations. The first was initially drafted in Lebanon just before leaving for Syria. I drafted the second before leaving, and my colleague Amir completed it later, at the conclusion of the delegation.

Declaration of the Mussalaha Delegation to Syria on the Refugee Situation in Lebanon Ð Friday, May 5th, 2013

The summary conclusion of the Mussalaha delegtion is that Syrian refugees in Lebanon are forced to rely mainly on their own resources and Lebanese hospitality, both of which are strained to the limit and portend a humanitarian tragedy when they are exhausted. Lebanon hosts a disproportionate share of refugees in both absolute terms and relative to its population (4.3 million). Reliable numbers are unavailable, but the most commonly quoted refugee figure is one million persons.

Since the cause of this crisis is the widespread violence in Syria, we call for an immediate end of all aid Ð lethal and nonlethal Ð to all combatants, an immediate and mutual ceasefire, and immediate negotiations among all the parties without preconditions.

With respect to the existing refugees, the lack of aid and support is disgraceful. The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) claims that normal processing is 31 days, while in fact refugees wait up to four months, often without even tents for shelter. UNHCR also charges a registration fee of $100.

UNHCR says that it is overwhelmed and has insufficient resources. It should have facilities ready and waiting for new arrivals, and money should be flowing to the refugees, not from them to UNHCR. In order to make this possible, donor nations should immediately live up to their obligations. However, UNHCR also needs to be fully transparent, including an audit on the use and allocation of resources.

A lot of refugee care is happening at the individual level, as generous Lebanese and even Palestinian refugees in their camps open their doors with compassion to accommodate their Syrian brothers and sisters. However, this support is often untenable over the long term and insufficient for the numbers of refugees, leading to makeshift camps that do not meet minimum international standards. These camps often receive no supervision by UNHCR or any other agency for eight months or more.

In addition, the refugees become increasingly vulnerable to exploitation, including prostitution and human trafficking. These conditions bring shame to the agencies and committees and their sponsors charged with refugee rights and support. All refugees have a right to the basics of life and safety. They must have immediate access to support services and adequate protection from abuse.

Lebanese citizens, Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon, Lebanese charitable institutions and other Lebanese civil society institutions deserve much credit for providing support that the international society has not done. However, a refugee influx of this magnitude is more than any society the size of Lebanon can accommodate without massive aid from the United Nations and its constituent members. It is a matter of urgency for them to make their actions match their words of sympathy and compassion.

Mussalaha team members at Baalbek preparing to cross into Syria

The Concluding Declaration of the Mussalaha Delegation to Syria Ð Friday, May 10th 2013

Syria exhibits a massive and terrible breakdown of human decency and respect. There are millions of innocent victims and many individual acts of heroism, but amongst the powerful we see an appalling degree of violence, hypocrisy and corruption. Tens of thousands have died, millions have been displaced, and nearly the entire population of 23 million lives in fear. The international community has stated and we confirm that the Syrian tragedy is possibly the worst since World War II.

States, political organisations and combatants are the primary causes of the misery, which they pursue for their own advantage, sewing terror and manipulating the suffering to reflect badly on their opponents while all too often refusing to compromise or even talk to each other.

These are the findings of our delegation, consisting of 16 human rights activists from seven countries. Over the course of nine days we visited refugee camps, affected communities, religious leaders, combatants, government representatives and many others Ð perpetrators and victims Ð in Syria and Lebanon.

We were already horrified by what we knew before coming, but what we have learned as a delegation brings shame to almost everyone involved.

We call on the international community to protect the territorial integrity of Syria and to respect the fundamental rights of Syria as a sovereign state. We deplore any intent to breach the integrity of SyriaÕs frontiers or to damage the unity and rich diversity of the Syrian people.

We recognise the legitimacy of the aspirations of the Syrian citizens for change, reforms, the eradication of State corruption and the implementation of a democratic life that respects and protects the fundamental rights of all citizens and minorities but we believe that effective and lasting reforms an only be achieved through non-violent means.

Our primary appeal is that all countries stop their interference in Syrian affairs Ð more specifically, that they halt the supply of arms and foreign combatants to both sides of the conflict. If foreign countries agree to eliminate the influx of arms and fighters, we are confident that Syrians can find their own solutions to their problems and achieve reconciliation.

We unequivocally oppose all aggression and foreign intervention against Syria under any justification. At the same time we appeal to all parties, including the government, to show restraint in response to the provocations that aim to escalate the violence and broaden the conflict.

We consider it beyond debate that the Syrian people have the right to determine their own government and their own future. Foreign interference is currently preventing the Syrian people from exercising their right to self-determination. We are concerned that such pernicious intervention is tearing apart the fabric of the country itself, with long-term consequences that can only be imagined.

The cautionary example of Iraq serves to remind us of the dire consequences of such international folly. This humanitarian crisis is already spilling into neighbouring countries. A collapse of Syrian society though will destabilise the entire region. We appeal to the international community to show that it can learn from history and make better choices in the case of Syria, which will spare further tragedy for the courageous Syrian people.

Secondly, we appeal to the international media to stop the flow of misinformation regarding the Syrian conflict. We believe that every Syrian, both in and outside the country, should be given the right to be heard and we do not see this reflected in the international coverage of this crisis.

Thirdly, while we entirely support the embargo on arms, we ask the international community to review and reconsider the crippling sanctions that are taking such a heavy toll on ordinary Syrian people.

Fourthly, we urge the international community to take seriously the vast number of refugees and persons who have been internally displaced by this conflict.

We look towards the cessation of all violence when these people might be allowed to return to their homes. In the meantime, however, humanitarian aid efforts must be expanded to meet the basic needs of such persons.

Our earlier report, the ÒDeclaration of the Mussalaha Delegation to Syria on the Refugee Situation in LebanonÓ, outlines the inadequacies of current refugee programmes. We appreciate that various government authorities have attempted to respond to the refugee crisis. We recognise though that the International Committee of the Red Cross and its affiliates, as well as other humanitarian agencies, must be allowed to set up centres inside Syria to care for internally displaced persons, so as to prevent these displaced persons from fleeing to foreign countries.

This work requires immediate and significant funding by the international community. While this will be a costly undertaking, we believe that the costs will in fact be only a fraction of the amount currently being spent on destroying Syria.

Finally, we appeal to all parties involved to put an end to all forms of violence and human rights violations Ð actions that target and terrorise innocent civilians and prisoners, indiscriminate terrorist attacks on the civilian population, the unjustified systematic targeting of vital state infrastructures, civilian installations, industrial zones, factories, communication facilities, agriculture reserves, health centres and hospitals, schools and universities, and religious and cultural landmarks Ð all of which results in the transformation of the residential areas into war zones, resulting in the flight of the civilian population.

We likewise oppose the use of religious decrees that encourage, trivialise and justify barbarity, rape and terrorism. We appeal to the entire religious community to call the faithful to nonviolence and peacemaking, and to reject all forms of violence and discrimination. We express our admiration and respect for the many Syrian religious leaders who have refused to endorse the use of violence and have dedicated their lives to working for a peaceful solution to this conflict, and we appeal specifically for the immediate release of the two abducted Christian bishops, both of whom were dedicated to the work of peace and reconciliations, as we appeal for the release of all Christian and Muslim clerics and other abducted Syrian citizens.

We conclude by commending the work of Mother Agnes Mariam and the Musalaha initiative. We have witnessed their work inside diverse communities across Syria. We offer our unequivocal and ongoing support to these brave people, and we commit ourselves to continue to work alongside them until Syria is truly at peace.

We thank the Patriarch, Gregorios III Laham, for his kind invitation and his ongoing support for Mussalaha. We likewise thank Mr. Jadallah Kaddour for his generosity that made our visit possible, and we express our gratitude to all those who have facilitated our path, most especially the Organization Committee of the delegationÕs visit and the Popular Council for the National Reconciliation.

Damascus, the 10/5/2013

Mairead Corrigan Maguire in the name of the International Delegation to Syria for Mussalaha and Peace.

Signatories from the Mussalaha Delegation to Syria:

Tiffany EASTHOM (Canada) She is Country Director for South Sudan for Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP) which is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) engaged in the creation of a large-scale unarmed peacekeeping force, composed of specially trained civilians. Prior to becoming NPÕs Country Director in South Sudan, Tiffany served as Country Director at NPÕs Sri Lanka project as well as Country Director for Peace Brigades International in Indonesia.

Denning ISLES (Australia) is a graduate of Welsey Institute, majoring in Audio Technology (2008). He currently works for Fr. David Smith with Fighting Fathers Ministries, in which he supports various youth and community organisations such as Dulwich HillÕs Holy Trinity Youth Center, Binacrombi Camp Site and the Dulwich Hill Gym.

Alistair LAMB (USA)

Paul LARUDEE (USA) is a former Ford foundation project supervisor, and Fulbright-Hays lecturer in Lebanon, and a U.S. government advisor to Saudi Arabia. He has been a faculty member at several universities in the San Francisco Bay Area,an organizer with the International Solidarity Movement in Palestine and co-founder of the movement to break the Israeli siege of Gaza by sea, and was aboard the boats that succeeded in doing so in 2008 as well as the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which was attacked by Israeli forces on May 31, 2010. He is a cofounder of the Global March to Jerusalem.

Mairead MAGUIRE (Northern Ireland) is Nobel Peace Laureate (l976) Hon. President, Co-Founder Peace People, Northern Ireland. Mairead (Corrigan) Maguire is a Nobel Peace Laureate (l976) Hon. President and Co-founder of the Peace People, Northern Ireland. Mairead was responsible for co-founding the Peace People. She has received many honours and awards, including an honorary doctorate from Yale University, the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award, the Nuclear Age Peace FoundationÕs Distinguished Peace Leadership Award and the Nobel Peace Prize Award (l976).

Michael MALOOF (USA) is a senior writer for WND (WND.com), or World Net Daily, specializing in international political and economic reporting and analysis. He also writes a weekly column for subscribers only for WNDÕs G2Bulletin providing analysis in these areas. As part of his reporting, Maloof travels many times a year to Lebanon where he is expected to set up a bureau there for WND.

Father Dave SMITH (Australia) started Fighting Fathers Ministries in 2002 Ð a company that aims to offer an alternative culture to young people, based on values of courage, integrity and teamwork. This work has been the subject of numerous TV documentaries and one short film. Particularly well-known for our use of boxing-training as a means to help young men overcome anger-management issues. He was twice nominated for Australian of the Year on the basis of this work. He is known for his friendship with Mordechai Vanunu (the Israeli Ônuclear whistle-blowerÕ), which started in Sydney in 1986, started my involvement in social justice work in the Middle East and has subsequently developed a strong profile in Australia as a Palestinian human rights activist.

Professor William Stanley (USA)

Source: Free Palestine Movement

Rinaldo Francesca: Syria – Selective Condemnation (Video)

Dr. Gabi Weber — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:19:49 +0000

Visualizing Palestine: An Ongoing Displacement – The Forced Exile of the Palestinians

Visualizing Palestine — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:22:04 +0000

Source: Visualizing Palestine

Rolf Verleger: Vortrag ausgefallen – Erfolg für einen “Privatmann” oder sein Eigentor?

Dr. Gabi Weber — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:59:33 +0000

Für den 15. Mai 2013 war ich zu einem Vortrag an der deutschsprachigen Andrássy-Universität in Budapest eingeladen. Der Titel: "Weltkrieg um Palästina: Von Lord Balfour bis John Kerry". Dabei ging es um die Entstehung der Balfour-Deklaration aus britischen Weltmachtinteressen und um die Diskussionslinien im Judentum zur damaligen Zeit. Dies geschah im Rahmen einer Kolloquiumsreihe der Fakultät für Internationale Beziehungen.

Am 10. Mai 2013 meldete sich ein Herr Ilan Mor telefonisch beim Rektor der Universität. Er sprach sich scharf gegen meine Person aus: Ich wolle die Vernichtung Israels, mit mir könne man nicht diskutieren etc. Daher möge der Rektor bitte diesen Vortrag absagen. Ansonsten könnte er, der Herr Ilan Mor, ernsthaft verstimmt sein. Aber er rufe hier nur als Privatmann an.

ILAN MOR (Quelle)

In seinem Berufsleben ist Herr Ilan Mor der Botschafter Israels in Ungarn. (In dieser Eigenschaft hatte ihn übrigens die Universität vor einigen Wochen zu einem Vortrag im Rahmen der Kolloquiumsreihe eingeladen.)

Die Andrássy-Univesität wird unter anderem mit Geldern aus Deutschland finanziert. Der Rektor liest deutsche Zeitungen und weiß, wie sie über Ungarn berichten. Er wollte nicht eine weitere Vorlage für den Vorwurf liefern, in Ungarn herrsche der Antisemitismus. Daher hielt er es für opportun, den Vortrag abzusagen.

Was ist der Effekt dieser Intervention des Privatmanns Herrn Ilan Mor?

A) Mein Vortragstext wurde an die interessierten Lehrenden und die studentischen Teilnehmer verschickt. Sie haben ihn jetzt und können sich ein eigenes Bild machen.

B) Der Rektor verbrachte die ausgefallene Vortragszeit mit mir, dem Dekan der Fakultät und einigen Kollegen beim Abendessen. Wir hatten angeregte Gespräche. Ich schenkte ihm mein Buch "Israels Irrweg. Eine jüdische Sicht."

C) Alle Beteiligten haben einen nachhaltigen Eindruck davon erhalten, wie es manche israelischen Privatmänner mit der Meinungsfreiheit halten.

Ich möchte noch an zwei gleichartige Ereignisse erinnern:

1) Anfang Februar 2012 sollte am Brooklyn College (New York City) eine Diskussionsveranstaltung zu BDS (Boykott, Kapitalabzug und Sanktionen) gegen Israel stattfinden, mit Omar Barghouti und Judith Butler.

Es meldeten sich "Israelfreunde" und forderten, die Veranstaltung solle abgesagt werden oder zumindest "ausgewogen" sein. Die Collegepräsidentin hielt dem Druck stand und verteidigte das Recht auf freie Rede und Debatte. Unterstützt wurde sie durch den New Yorker Bürgermeister Michael Bloomberg. Er sagte den Kritikern "If you want to go to a university where the government decides what kind of subjects are fit for discussion, I suggest you apply to a school in North Korea."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/nyregion/bloomberg-defends-brooklyn-colleges-right-to-bds-talk.html?_r=0

2) Zwei Tage vor meinem Vortrag erklärte es das Verwaltungsgericht Freiburg für rechtswidrig, dass die Universität Freiburg im Dezember 2012 ihre Räume einer Veranstaltung über die medizinische Versorgung der Einwohner Gasas nicht zur Verfügung gestellt hatte. Laut Urteil stelle eine Universität schon nach ihrem Selbstverständnis eine Stätte der geistigen Auseinandersetzung und somit auch ein Forum für kritische und parteiliche Stellungnahmen dar.

http://vgfreiburg.de/servlet/PB/menu/1284217/index.html?ROOT=1192792

Übrigens schrieb mir am 10. Mai – als der "Privatmann" den Rektor anrief – aus heiterem Himmel jemand:

"I can only pity you for your bullshit opinions and beliefs. … Get lost, asshole"

und dann nochmal (da ich Wiederworte gab) am 11. Mai:

"you are nothing but a self-hating Jew who cannot understand that Jews are just like every other people who have a state. … Lick the every Germans' assholes, but it won't help you."

Als ich diese Person dann auf die Widersprüche Ihrer Argumentation hinwies, da konnte sie am 12. Mai plötzlich deutsch ("Deine Meinungen sind zum kotzen" etc.)

Die e-mail – Adresse dieses anonymus ist dapper98@hotmail.com. Für Hinweise auf seine Identität wäre ich dankbar. Er kommt vermutlich aus dem Umfeld des Vereins "honestly concerned e.V.", dessen Vorsitzender in einem Brief an den Rektor der Andrássy-Universität über mich herumpöbelte, am 10. Mai, im Gleichklang mit dem Anruf des Privatmanns Mor.

Mit besten Grüßen

Rolf Verleger

P.S. Wen es interessiert, auch zur Überprüfung des Antisemitismus-Vorwurfs: Meinen nicht gehaltenen Vortragstext stelle ich gerne zur Verfügung.

Prof. Dr. Rolf Verleger, *1951 in Ravensburg, Psychologe an der Klinik für Neurologie der Universität Lübeck. 2001-2005 im Vorstand der Jüdischen Gemeinde Lübeck, 2005-2006 Vorsitzender des Landesverbands "Jüdische Gemeinschaft Schleswig-Holstein", 2006-2009 Delegierter des Landesverbands im Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland; Buchautor "Israels Irrweg. Eine jüdische Sicht " (3. Aufl. 2010).

Text des nicht gehaltenen Vortrags:

"Weltkrieg um Palästina – Von Lord Balfour bis John Kerry"

Spiegelsaal der deutschsprachigen Gyula-Andrássy Universität, Pollack-Mihály tér 3, Budapest, 15. Mai 2013, 18 Uhr

… (Begrüßung und Dank für die Einladung)

15. Mai 2013 / Schawuot

Der heutige Abend fällt auf einen besonderen Tag für das Judentum, und auf einen besonderen Tag für die Palästinenser.

Für das Judentum ist heute abend der zweite Abend des Schawuot-Fests. Schawuot heißt „Wochen“, denn auf dieses Fest soll man sieben Wochen warten. Jeden Tag soll man zählen, bis das Fest endlich kommt: Am zweiten Abend von Pessach fängt man an und sagt „Heute ist der erste Tag im Omer“, am nächsten Abend sagt man „Heute ist der zweite Tag im Omer“ und so fort bis zum „49. Tag im Omer“. Der 50. Tag ist dann Schawuot.
Ein einfacher Grund für dieses Sieben-Wochen-Zählen ist, dass man sich für Schawuot nicht so einfach nach dem Mond richten kann wie bei den meisten anderen Festen: Pessach, Sukkot, auch Purim beginnen an Vollmond, Rosch HaSchana beginnt an Neumond. Aber Schawuot ist ein paar Tage nach Neumond, mittendrin, daher muss man genau zählen, damit man das Datum nicht verpasst.

Der wesentliche Grund aber ist, dass mit diesem Zählen jedes Jahr das Warten symbolisiert und wiederholt werden soll: Das Warten auf das Gesetz, das die Kinder Israels sieben Wochen nach ihrem Auszug aus Ägypten erhielten und das sie seit dieser Zeit manchmal freudig, manchmal widerwillig anerkannten als das Besondere, das das Judentum ausmacht: An Schawuot, sieben Wochen nach Pessach, dem dramatischen, befreienden Auszug aus dem Land der Knechtschaft, erhielt das Volk in der Wüste am Berg Sinai das Gesetz, die 10 Gebote.

Es gibt einen „Midrasch“, eine Erzählung, dass Gott seine Gebote unter den Völkern der Welt anbot. „Was steht denn drin?“ fragte Edom, die Nachkommenschaft Esaus. „Zum Beispiel ‚Morde nicht!‘“. „Nein, tut uns leid, können wir nicht befolgen, unserem Stammvater Esau wurde ja prophezeit, er müsse mit Hilfe seines Schwerts leben.“ Und so ging es bei anderen Völkern, jedem passte etwas nicht, mal „Du sollst nicht ehebrechen“, mal „Du sollst nicht stehlen“. Nur das Volk Israel sagte: „Wir werden hören und es befolgen“.

Das heißt, Israel wählte sich Gottes Gesetz und Moral, und dadurch wurde es zum „auserwählten Volk“ – eine Wahl auf Gegenseitigkeit. Das jüdische Volk war über Jahrtausende stolz darauf, Träger von Gottesfurcht und Moral zu sein: Auserwählt von Gott, weil es sich seinerseits Gottes universell gültige Moral auserwählt hatte.
Übrigens ist es kein Zufall, dass das christliche Fest Pfingsten um die gleiche Zeit ist wie Schawuot. Aber das ist eine andere Geschichte.

Zum anderen ist heute abend der Tag, an dem die Palästinenser des 65. Jahrestags der "Naqba" gedenken, ihrer Vertreibung aus ihrer Heimat, ihrer Enteignung, eben der Geschehnisse der Jahre 1947-1948, die in der Gründung des Staates Israels endeten.

Wie lassen sich diese zwei Fest- und Gedenktage miteinander vereinbaren? Was ist das für ein Judentum, das solches Unrecht an anderen zulässt, rechtfertigt, schönredet und sogar feiert? Das ist eine Frage, die im Judentum – und darüber hinaus – für heftige Kontroversen sorgt.

Ich möchte hier, an der Andrássy-Universität mit ihrer europäischen Geschichte aber auch über einen anderen Aspekt reden, nämlich über die Verantwortung Europas für dieses Problem: Israel ist ein Kind Europas, Europa hat sein Problem mit seiner großen jüdischen Minderheit in eine andere Weltgegend exportiert: Der dortige Konflikt ist unsere europäische Verantwortung.

Der Nahe Osten und der erste Weltkrieg

Im Jahr 1917 schrieb der britische Außenminister Lord Balfour seine historische Deklaration, dass die Regierung Seiner Majestät die Einrichtung einer jüdischen Heimstätte in Palästina mit Wohlwollen betrachte.

Wieso gab mitten im Ersten Weltkrieg die britische Regierung eine solche Erklärung heraus? Wieso ausgerechnet in diesen aufgewühlten Zeiten? Wieso erfolgte die romantisch anmutende Ansiedlung einer "Heimstätte" kurz nach dem Attentat von Sarajewo, dem Massensterben von Verdun, den österreich-italienischen Gebirgsjägermetzeleien, den russischen Revolutionen?

Dieses zeitliche Zusammentreffen wirkt zunächst ganz zufällig. Allenfalls könnte man sich einen Zusammenhang mit den russischen Revolutionen von 1917 vorstellen: Großbritannien sorgte sich vielleicht, dass die russischen Wirren zu viele Juden nach England treiben würden, und suchte prophylaktisch eine Möglichkeit, diese loszuwerden, eben nach Palästina.

Es war aber kein Zufall.

Vielmehr wurde der Erste Weltkrieg wesentlich um den Nahen Osten geführt. Es ging dabei um die Weltmachtinteressen Großbritanniens und die Gefährdung dieser Interessen durch das aufstrebende Deutsche Kaiserreich.

Um 1850 hatte Großbritannien ganz Indien erobert. Die Sicherung des Handelswegs nach Indien wurde nun oberstes Gebot britischer Politik. Dieser Handelsweg führte über das Osmanische Reich, das sich von Bosnien bis Basra ausdehnte, von Europa bis zum Indischen Ozean. Das russische Zarenreich wollte das Osmanische Reich zerlegen, um ans Mittelmeer vorzudringen. Dies empfand Großbritannien als Bedrohung seines Handelswegs und stützte daher das Osmanische Reich gegen das Zarenreich.

Die Handelswege änderten sich durch den Bau des Suezkanals. Auch der Kanal war eine Bedrohung der britischen Vorherrschaft, denn ihn baute und besaß Frankreich, die Konkurrenzmacht Großbritanniens. In einem gelungenen Coup sicherte aber der britische Premierminister Disraeli die Aktienmehrheit am Suezkanal für Großbritannien, das fortan mit Frankreich kooperierte. Durch den Kanal verlagerte sich das britische Interesse am indischen Handelsweg südlicher, fort vom Kerngebiet des Osmanischen Reichs. Daher mussten nun die Fahrt durchs Mittelmeer und die Landflanken des Suezkanals geschützt werden. Folgerichtig besetzte Großbritannien nach Gibraltar und Malta auch Zypern, um den Meerweg zu sichern, sowie Ägypten, um die Westflanke des Kanals zu kontrollieren. Beides gehörte aber zum Osmanischen Reich, ebenso wie die Ostflanke des Kanals. Das Interesse Großbritanniens an der Integrität des Osmanischen Reiches sank.

Das deutsche Kaiserreich, das lange neutral gegenüber diesen Konflikten geblieben war (Bismarck konnte noch als "ehrlicher Makler" zu einer Friedenskonferenz nach Berlin laden), betrieb unter Wilhelm II. eine Politik des Einflusses im Osmanischen Reich. Sichtbarer Ausdruck dieser Politik war die Bagdad-Bahn: Diese Eisenbahn von Istanbul bis Basra konnte Truppentransporte an den Indischen Ozean ermöglichen. Außerdem rüstete Wilhelm die deutsche Marine auf. Durch diese beiden Faktoren erschien ein Angriff auf das imperiale Herz Großbritanniens – den Seeweg nach Indien – möglich.

Es war dieser Konflikt um den Nahen Osten zwischen Großbritannien und Frankreich auf der einen Seite und Deutschland und Osmanischem Reich auf der anderen Seite, der Großbritannien zur Teilnahme am Ersten Weltkrieg brachte. Erstes Kriegsziel für Großbritannien war die Zerschlagung des Osmanischen Reiches, um dadurch Deutschland diese Einflussmöglichkeiten zu nehmen. Großbritannien schickte seine Marine zur Eroberung Istanbuls. Die osmanische Armee wehrte den Angriff ab. In den Schlachten bei Gallipoli starben Zehntausende. Bei uns ist das nicht sehr bekannt, aber der ANZAC day zur Erinnerung an die Teilnehmer dieses Feldzugs ist noch heute höchster Nationalfeiertag in Australien und Neuseeland, woher ein großer Teil der britischen Truppen stammte.

Das Osmanische Reich wehrte zwar diese und folgende Interventionen Englands und Frankreichs ab, blieb aber dadurch so geschwächt, dass es die Kontrolle über die Länder außerhalb der heutigen Türkei nicht behalten konnte. Um auch die Gebiete rechts des Suezkanals unter seine Kontrolle bringen, musste das Britische Empire eine Vereinbarung mit der verbündeten Kolonialmacht Frankreich treffen; diese erfolgte in der Tat 1916 durch das geheime Sykes-Picot – Abkommen, in dem die Einflussgebiete in Arabien abgesteckt wurden. Zum anderen – und das war erheblich komplizierter – musste auf den aufstrebenden neuen Kriegsverbündeten USA Rücksicht genommen werden, deren Präsident Wilson in seiner 14-Punkte-Charta das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Völker einforderte: Die Zeit des hemmungslosen Kolonialismus ging vorbei. Was sollte Großbritannien in dieser Lage tun, um den Suezkanal abzusichern?

In dieser Lage ging es nicht darum, dass Dr. Chaim Weizmann – das führende Mitglied der Zionisten, der damals in London lebte – Balfour zu irgendetwas hätte überreden können oder müssen. Sondern: Wenn es den Zionismus nicht gegeben hätte, Großbritannien hätte ihn erfinden müssen. Darum wurde die Balfour-Deklaration 1917, mitten im Krieg, ausgesprochen. Denn Großbritannien passte seine imperialen Interessen geschmeidig dem von den USA ausgehenden Zeitgeist an. Es ließ sich nach Kriegsende vom Völkerbund, also den USA, Frankreich und den anderen Siegermächten des Ersten Weltkriegs, ein Mandat geben, um einer zivilisatorischen Aufgabe von Jahrtausendrang nachzugehen: dem jüdischen Volk eine nationale Heimstätte in Palästina zu schaffen. Dass die Durchsetzung dieses Mandats an der rechten Flanke des Suezkanals stattfand, war dabei nicht eine willkommene Zufälligkeit, sondern Zweck des Unternehmens. [1]

Zionismus: eine Strömung im Judentum

Im Folgenden möchte ich näher darauf eingehen, wie damals, um das Jahr 1917, sich der Zionismus innerhalb des Judentums darstellte, und im Weiteren darauf, welche Diskussionen es innerhalb der zionistischen Bewegung gab.[2]

Zionismus, entstanden im Zarenreich des 19. Jahrhunderts, verfolgte das Ziel, dem in Europa vielfach diskriminierten und verfolgten Judentum durch die Gründung eines eigenen Staates zu Selbstbestimmung, „Normalität“ und moderner Kultur zu verhelfen.

Der Name „Zionismus“ sollte die Kontinuität zur jüdischen Tradition ausdrücken: Die alte religiöse Sehnsucht nach Gottes Rückkehr zum Berg Zion in Jerusalem sollte durch diese Bewegung ihre reale Erfüllung finden. Dessen ungeachtet verstand die große Mehrheit der Zionisten sich damals als unreligiös oder sogar anti-religiös und als modernisierendes Element innerhalb des Judentums. Denn die traditionelle jüdische Kultur und Mentalität traf bei vielen Zionisten auf Verachtung. So wandten sie sich gegen die jiddische Sprache, die sie als „Jargon“ und Sklavensprache der Diaspora ansahen, und belebten stattdessen das Hebräisch der heiligen Bücher zu einer im Alltag gesprochenen Sprache wieder – gegen den heftigen Widerstand religiöser Juden.

Als Anti-Zionisten kann man solche Leute bezeichnen, die diese Bewegung ablehnen. Viele Juden taten dies – aus ganz unterschiedlichen Gründen.

1) So argumentierten religiöse traditionelle Juden – so wie die meisten aus der Familie meines Vaters –, das Judentum sei mitnichten eine politische Bewegung eines „Volkes“, sondern vielmehr eine Religion, deren Gebote und Verbote zu befolgen sind: Die Zionisten profanierten eine spirituelle Frage; Emanzipation und Selbstbestimmung lägen allein in Gottes Hand.

2) Der damals modernen Kultur offener gegenüberstehende Juden – so wie die meisten aus der Familie meiner Mutter – wandten hingegen ein, das Judentum sei eine Religion wie jede andere auch. Man könne nicht loyaler Bürger zweier Staaten sein. Emanzipation sei daher individuell im Rahmen des jeweiligen Staates zu erreichen, in dem man als Bürger lebe. Diese Ansicht war nicht auf "assimilierte" deutsche Juden beschränkt. Ihr individuelles Glück zu suchen war offensichtlich auch das Lebensmotto der Hundertausende von Juden aus dem Zarenreich, die sich auf die Auswandererschiffe nach Übersee zwängten.

3) Ähnlich, aber weniger individualistisch, argumentierten jüdische Sozialisten, vor allem im „Bund“ („Allgemeiner Jüdischer Arbeiterbund in Litauen, Polen und Russland“), dass die Emanzipation der Juden im jeweils eigenen Land erfolgen müsse – als nationale Gruppe mit einer eigenen Kultur und der eigenen gesprochenen Sprache, dem Jiddischen. (Der Bund wurde nach der Oktoberrevolution von den herrschenden Bolschewisten als "rechtsabweichende" Sozialdemokratie zerschlagen.)

4) Andere jüdische Sozialisten sahen die Herkunft als weniger wichtig an: Die Unterdrückung der Juden sollte als ein "Nebenwiderspruch" durch eine Gesellschaft freier und gleicher Menschen automatisch beendet werden. Für eine solche Lösung arbeiteten zum Beispiel Karl Marx, Ferdinand Lassalle, Eduard Bernstein, Rosa Luxemburg, Trotzki, Kaganowitsch, Simonjew, Kamenew, Ernest Mandel, Bruno Kreisky und viele andere.

In meinen Augen sind alle diese Ansichten – Religiosität, Zionismus, individuelle Emanzipation, Emanzipation als Gruppe, Emanzipation der ganzen Welt – richtig und falsch zugleich. Jede dieser Ansichten habe ich geteilt, jeder dieser Ansichten habe ich widersprochen und beides tue ich immer noch. Irgendeine dieser Ansichten in eine Schublade namens „Anti-Zionismus“ zu stecken, ist nur möglich, wenn man die Welt in Schwarz und Weiß, Gut und Böse, Freund und Feind einteilt – kurzum: wenn man nur bis zwei zählen kann.

STRÖMUNGEN IM ZIONISMUS

Zionismus hat, wie vorhin gesagt, das Ziel, den Juden durch einen eigenen Staat zu Selbstbestimmung, "Normalität", eigener Kultur und Sprache zu verhelfen. Die Geschichte des Zionismus ist eine Geschichte der Auseinandersetzung über dieses Ziel. Es mag überraschen: Leute, die den Jüdischen Staat als Ziel ablehnten, bildeten Führung und Rückgrat der Zionistischen Bewegung.

Dieser Konflikt wurde auch in Berlin ausgetragen. Ein Hinweis darauf befindet sich nicht weit vom Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten, in der mit schönen Berliner Gründerzeithäusern bebauten Meinekestraße, quer zum Kurfürstendamm. Das Haus mit der Nummer 10 gehörte seit 1925 der „Jüdischen Rundschau“, dem Zentralorgan der Zionistischen Vereinigung für Deutschland. Die Gedenktafel am Haus weist darauf hin, dass diese Vereinigung rund 50 000 Menschen zur Auswanderung verhalf. Die meisten dieser Menschen werden wohl nach Palästina gegangen sein, in die „Jüdische Heimstätte“ unter britischer Herrschaft.

Chefredakteur der „Jüdischen Rundschau“ war von 1919 bis 1938 Robert Weltsch. Er emigrierte 1938 nach Palästina, lebte und arbeitete nach dem Krieg in England und starb 1982 in Israel.

Interessant ist, was dieser überzeugte Zionist Weltsch vom jüdischen Staat hielt. Er lehnte ihn ab! In seinem Essay von 1951 „A Tragedy of Leadership“[3] schildert er, dass dies 1917-1948 die entscheidende Streitfrage in der zionistischen Bewegung war, und insbesondere zwischen großen Teilen der Bewegung und ihrem Führer, Dr. Chaim Weizmann.

Bei diesen Auseinandersetzungen zwischen der Führung und der aktiven Mitgliedschaft der zionistischen Bewegung ging es um das Verhältnis zwischen den nach Palästina einwandernden Juden und den dort ansässigen Arabern. Weizmann und die anderen offiziellen Vertreter der zionistischen Bewegung betonten immer wieder, „dass die Juden nicht nach Palästina kämen, um die Araber zu dominieren; und sie erklärten feierlichst zu vielen Anlässen, dass kein Araber aus dem Land vertrieben werden sollte“. „Weizmanns Formel in den Jahren des scharfen Konflikts in der Folge des arabischen Aufstands von 1929 war …, dass ‚die Juden nicht dominieren wollen und nicht dominiert werden wollen’. Praktisch, wenn nicht sogar wörtlich, bedeutete dies […] [das] Programm eines bi-nationalen Staats, wo beide Gemeinschaften gleiche Rechte und innere Autonomie haben würden.“

Dies war bis 1942 die offizielle zionistische Position, unterstützt insbesondere von den Aktivisten des „Friedensbundes“ (Brit Schalom) um Martin Buber, dem auch Weltsch angehörte. Tatsächlich teilten viele Zionisten diesen Standpunkt nicht aus vollem Herzen – ohne dies jedoch laut auszusprechen. Dafür bedurfte es des mutigen und begabten Ultra-Nationalisten Wladimir Se'ev Jabotinsky, der das aussprach, was andere nicht zu denken wagten: „Nur Jabotinsky sagte offen schon auf dem Kongress von 1921, dass Palästina nicht mit dem Einverständnis der Araber zu besiedeln sei und dass Amerika eine Wildnis geblieben wäre, wenn die weiße Besiedlung vom Einverständnis der Indianer abhängig gewesen wäre.“ Tatsächlich war dies so sensationell nicht. Die vom US-Präsidenten Wilson 1919 eingesetzte King-Crane-Kommission zu Palästina hatte klipp und klar erklärt, dass das Ziel eines jüdischen Staats nur mit massiver Gewalt gegen die ansässige Bevölkerung zu erreichen sei – sie schätzte, dafür sei eine Truppenstärke von 50.000 Mann erforderlich –, und hatte deswegen davon abgeraten, das zionistische Projekt zu unterstützen. Jedoch wollte sich die Mehrheit der zionistischen Bewegung 1921 nicht mit solchen unangenehmen grundsätzlichen Fragen befassen. Vielmehr zeigte sich der Zionistenkongress über diesen Vergleich entsetzt: „Niemand akzeptierte Jabotinskys Argumentation, dass das ganze Unternehmen letztlich militärisch sein würde.“ Innerhalb der zionistischen Bewegung wurden Wladimir Jabotinsky und seine Anhänger fortan als „Revisionisten“ tituliert.

Die Frage nach dem Umgang mit den Arabern wurde dann allerdings doch von dem ansonsten stets diplomatisch auftretenden Weizmann zur Entscheidung gebracht, und zwar in Berlin: „Die Sache kulminierte auf dem schicksalhaften Treffen des zionistischen Generalrats in Berlin im August 1930 […] Weizmann, provoziert durch die Tiraden der Revisionisten, erklärte unverblümt, dass die Umwandlung Palästinas in einen Jüdischen Staat […] unmöglich sei, da wir die Araber nicht vertreiben könnten und wollten. […] Die Araber, sagte er, seien ‚so gute Zionisten wie wir’: auch sie liebten ihr Land und könnten nicht überredet werden, es jemand anderem zu überlassen. […] Weizmanns Rede in Berlin wirkte als Bombe, obwohl diese Dinge schon lange debattiert worden waren. Niemals zuvor war dieser Aufruf zum Realismus mit solcher Autorität und so klar formuliert worden; es gab kein logisches Argument dagegen […] [Trotzdem] protestierten die meisten Diskussionsteilnehmer sofort gegen Weizmanns Worte.“

Vermutlich speiste sich dieser Protest aus der gleichen Quelle wie das Unbehagen über den radikalen Jabotinsky im Jahr 1921: Man wünschte sich nicht mit dem unangenehmen moralischen Dilemma auseinanderzusetzen, dass die Zionisten – in ihrem Selbstverständnis die emanzipatorische Vorhut eines diskriminierten Volkes – ihre Ziele am besten mit aggressiver Landnahme und Vertreibung eines anderen Volkes durchsetzen könnten.

Weltsch schildert dann die Ereignisse, die 1931 zur Abwahl Weizmanns führten. (Weizmann selbst schweigt sich in seiner Autobiografie dazu weitgehend aus): "Am Vorabend des 17. Kongresses in Basel 1931 gab Weizmann der Jüdischen Telegraphen-Agentur (JTA) ein Interview, in dem er sich offen gegen die Idee wandte, einen Jüdischen Staat als das Ziel des Zionismus zu proklamieren. Laut JTA sagte er, 'die Welt wird diese Forderung nur in eine Richtung deuten: dass wir eine Mehrheit erlangen wollen, um die Araber zu vertreiben.' Das Interview löste einen Sturm der Entrüstung aus, und ein Misstrauensantrag wurde gestellt. Kurioserweise waren die zionistischen Parteien auf zweifache und widersprüchliche Weise schockiert. Zum einen lehnten sie Weizmanns Implikation ab; zum anderen sprachen sie jedoch zugleich strikt gegen jede Politik aus, die Restriktionen gleich welcher Art beinhalten würde, die eine Vertreibung der Araber von vornerein ausgeschlossen hätte."

Die Argumentation des ehrlichen Ultra-Nationalisten Jabotinsky erschien den meisten zionistischen Aktivisten zu Recht als zu radikal, und so wurde Weizmann vier Jahre später, 1935, wieder zum Vorsitzenden gewählt. Jabotinskys Programm aber wurde vom Vorsitzenden der jüdischen Vertretungskörperschaft im britischen Mandatsgebiet Palästina durchgeführt – auch wenn dieser der gemäßigten sozialdemokratischen Mehrheitslinie angehörte: „Nun tauchte ein neuer Gegner aus den Reihen der Partei auf“, so Weltsch, „die immer Weizmanns loyalste Unterstützer war, in der Person von Herrn David Ben-Gurion, der offen Weizmann während des Krieges 1939-1945 und auf dem Kongress 1946 bekämpfte und der seine eigene politische Agenda und den sogenannten ‚Aktivismus’ organisierte, […] den Dr. Weizmann niemals guthieß. Bereits 1940 hatte Weizmann praktisch allen Einfluss auf das Geschehen in Palästina verloren und wurde über die Ereignisse nicht einmal mehr informiert.“ Als Chaim Weizmann 1944 nach Palästina zurückkehrte, musste er erkennen, dass sich die nationalistische Bewegung von seinem humanistischen Zionismus weit entfernt hatte.

Weltsch kommt zu dem bitteren Schluss: „Die Wahrheit war, dass ein Kapitel zionistischer Geschichte zu Ende war. Neue Kräfte waren an die Oberfläche gekommen, und alle außer einer kleinen Gruppe von Old-Timern waren überzeugt, dass eine neue Zeit – das barbarische Post-Hitler-Zeitalter des 20. Jahrhunderts – neue Methoden benötigte, sehr verschieden von dem, was Dr. Weizmann und seine Freunde befürwortet hatten.“

Was Robert Weltsch resigniert als „Old-Timer“ bezeichnete, waren meiner Meinung nach die besten Köpfe des Judentums innerhalb der zionistischen Bewegung, zu denen Chaim Weizmann, sein Mentor Ascher Ginsberg (Achad ha'Am), Martin Buber und Hannah Arendt zählten. Später gehörten unter anderen Mosche Scharett, Nachum Goldmann und Uri Avnery dazu. Ihre Zahl war nicht gering, aber sie bildeten fortwährend die Minderheit.

Diese Minderheit hatte das Pech, den agilen David Ben-Gurion als Gegner zu haben. Ben-Gurion war seit 1935 als Gegenspieler Weizmanns aufgetreten. Er hatte Jabotinskys gewalttätiges Programm übernommen und bereitete bereits 1938 die Pläne zur Vertreibung und Enteignung der Araber vor, die er dann ab 1947 umsetzte. In der von ihm verfassten Unabhängigkeitserklärung proklamierte Ben-Gurion einen demokratischen Rechtsstaat mit gleichen Rechten für jedermann – tatsächlich aber beraubten die Zionisten unter seiner Führung die arabischen Vertriebenen ihres Besitzes, verhinderten gewaltsam deren Rückkehr und stellten die Verbliebenen obendrein unter Militärrecht.

Am dunkelsten ist es kurz vor dem neuen morgen

Man muss sich heute fragen: Wo sind diese kontroversen Positionen im Judentum geblieben? Wo wächst denn im Judentum das rettende Kräutlein, um dieses Weltproblem Nr.1 – Palästina & Israel – zu entschärfen?

Ich kenne die Diskussion in Ungarn leider überhaupt nicht. Was ich weiß, ist wie es in meiner deutschen Heimat ist: Dort, in Deutschland, wächst das rettende Kräutlein sicher nicht am kräftigsten. Denn das deutsche Judentum ist tot: ausgerottet und vertrieben. Was wir zur Zeit erleben, ist der Versuch, dieses Judentum durch die Ansiedlung von Juden aus der Ex-Sowjetunion neu zu beleben. Diese Menschen sind damit beschäftigt, ihre Identität zwischen den drei Polen neue Heimat, alte Heimat und Judentum zu definieren; bei der Erstellung dieses neuen Lebensentwurfs erscheint Kritik an Israels Haltung nicht als vordringlich.

Am kräftigsten wächst dieses rettende Kräutlein in den USA. Diese Meinung mag überraschen, denn allgemein redet man ja davon, dass die jüdische Lobby die Haltung der USA zu Israel bestimmt. Dies ist aber keine jüdische Lobby, sondern eine zionistische Lobby.

Denn: 1) Weder bestimmen Juden entscheidend die US-Politik, noch ist 2) die jüdische Bevölkerung der USA mehrheitlich auf der rechts-nationalistischen Linie des AIPAC ("American-Israeli-Public-Affairs-Committee").

Zu 1): Es ist doch sehr naiv anzunehmen, dass der großbürgerliche Südstaatenspross G.W. Bush vor allem auf jüdische Berater hörte. Das waren doch nicht "seine" Leute! Die Wirklichkeit ist möglicherweise wesentlich schlimmer. Dieser Mann schien doch entscheidend von fundamentalistisch-christlichen Predigern beeinflusst gewesen zu sein – von Leuten, die die Evolution der Tier- und Pflanzenwelt bezweifeln und für die stattdessen eine unumstößliche Wahrheit ist, dass das Volk Israel seine Herrschaft über seine Feinde errichten müsse, dann werde der Gottessohn Jesus erneut zur Erde niederfahren, alle Juden würden sich zu ihm bekehren und das Königreich Gottes auf Erden werde anbrechen. In seinen besseren Stunden mögen George Bush Zweifel gekommen sein, ob Arik Sharon und Ehud Olmert wirklich Gottes Werkzeuge auf dem Weg zum Königreich Gottes waren, und manchmal mögen sich ja auch rational denkende Leute in den Ministerien durchgesetzt haben. In diesem Gewirr aus Irrsinn und ökonomisch-politisch definiertem nationalem Interesse agierte dann auch noch das AIPAC – durchaus erfolgreich.

Die Ersetzung Bushs durch die Obama-Administration ist daher jedenfalls ein Fortschritt. Obama schien zunächst zu versuchen, alle jüdischen Lobbygruppen abwechselnd zufriedenzustellen, und davon gibt es durchaus mehrere, die sich widersprechen, wie folgt. Danach hielt er sich einfach raus und wartet vielleicht auf die richtige Gelegenheit.

Zu 2) Viele Umfragen besagen, dass die Mehrheit der jüdischen US-Amerikaner gegen die rechts-nationalistischen Ziele ist, die das AIPAC vertritt: Die Mehrheit war von Anfang an gegen die US-Invasion im Irak, und die Mehrheit wünscht eine für beide Seiten befriedigende Zweistaatenlösung für Israel und Palästina. Das AIPAC vertritt mithin nicht die Mehrheit der US-amerikanischen Juden, sondern lediglich deren nationalistische Fraktion. In Gegnerschaft zum AIPAC hat sich schon lange eine Reihe von Basisorganisationen für ein Umdenken eingesetzt. Die größte dieser Gruppen ist Jewish Voice for Peace, mit ca. 100.000 Empfängern ihrer e-mail-Rundbriefe. In den letzten Jahren dazugekommen ist J-Street, eine Gruppe, die sich als direkte Konkurrenz zum AIPAC versteht, nämlich als Lobby-Organisation in Washington für die schweigende Mehrheit des US-amerikanischen Judentums, für eine Zweistaatenlösung. J-Street hat 150.000 Unterstützer. Kennzeichnend für das Klima unter jüdischen jungen US-Amerikanern ist, dass es gerade auch jüdische Aktivisten waren, die an Kaliforniens Spitzenuniversität Berkeley im März 2010 eine Mehrheit (leider keine 2/3-Mehrheit) in der studentischen Vertretung dafür gewannen, dass die Universität keinen Aktienbesitz mehr von US-Firmen haben sollte (General Electric und United Technologies), die an der israelischen Besatzung des Westjordanlands profitieren. Dies war keine Eintagsfliege: Das Votum wurde vor drei Wochen, im April 2013, wiederholt und wird wahrscheinlich praktische Konsequenzen haben. Jüdische Aktivisten dieser Art sind in Deutschland rar, aber nicht in den USA. Die U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation ist ein Zusammenschluss von 400 großen und kleinen Organisationen (u.a. Jewish Voice for Peace), hat vier vollbezahlte Funktionäre in der Zentrale (das sind meines Wissens mehr als bei uns pax christi!), darunter die Jüdin Anna Baltzer und die Muslimin Ramah Kudaimi, und macht mit kreativen Aktionen Öffentlichkeitsarbeit.

Es sind auch nicht nur jüdische "Graswurzel"-Organisationen, die die Politik der AIPAC-Lobby ablehnen, es sind genauso einige bekannte jüdische Mächtige der US-amerikanischen Finanzwelt und Hollywoods (aus denen nach einem beliebten antisemitischen Vorurteil wir Juden ausschließlich bestehen). Zum Beispiel Ihr ungarischer Landsmann, der Finanzspekulant George Soros hat erhebliches Geld investiert, um einer Friedenslösung näherzukommen: Er war wichtigster Finanzier der "Genfer Initiative", in der 2005 Israelis und Palästinenser einen kompletten Friedensplan aushandelten: Soros bezahlte unter anderem die Zusendung des Verhandlungsergebnisses an jeden israelischen Haushalt. Zum Beispiel James Wolfensohn, Vorgänger des unseligen Bush-Beraters Paul Wolfowitz als Weltbankpräsident: Wolfensohn investierte 2005, als er Bushs Sonderbeauftragter für Israels Abzug aus Gasa war, persönlich 500.000 $ in den Ausbau der Gewächshäuser in Gasa, um dort den landwirtschaftlichen Export anzukurbeln. Dies war für ihn ein finanzielles Desaster; denn nach Israels Abzug aus Gasa, der bewusst nicht mit der palästinensischen Seite koordiniert wurde ("wir haben keine Partner für Verhandlungen" war das Mantra der israelischen Seite), wurden ca. 30% der Gewächshäuser von Palästinensern geplündert und der Rest durch Israels Blockade von Exporten und Importen seit 2006 ruiniert. Noch im September 2009 sagte Wolfensohn in einem Interview mit dem britischen "Jewish Chronicle", die einzige Lösung des Problems, die er sich vorstellen könne, sei ein vereinter palästinensischer Staat. Solche klaren Worte aus prominentem Munde mögen in Deutschland rar sein, aber nicht in den USA. Schließlich sei auch noch Hollywood erwähnt: "Mister Hollywood" ist Steven Spielberg. Alle liebten Spielberg für seine fantasievollen Filme wie "Der weiße Hai", "E.T.", "Jurassic Park". Dass er auch etwas zur Zeitgeschichte zu sagen hat, zeigte er mit "Schindlers Liste"; dafür liebten wir Juden ihn. Dass der Weg Israels, sich mit immer neuer Gewalt gegen Gewalt zu wehren, ein Irrweg sein könnte, das zeigte er mit "München"; dafür hassen ihn die jüdischen Rechts-Nationalisten.

AUSKLANG

Kürzlich brachte die FAZ einen Bericht darüber, dass Schüler in Israel sich zum Gedenktag an die Hitler'sche Judenvernichtung mit aufklebbaren Auschwitz-Tätowierungen schmücken können. Ich schrieb dazu einen kleinen Leserbrief, der das Wesentliche zusammenfasst, was ich sagen möchte, und mit dem ich daher hier enden möchte:

Mein Vater hatte die Auschwitz-Nummer am Arm. Er war ein Opfer der Nazis. Seine Frau und Kinder waren ermordet worden. Aber er wollte sein Leben nicht als Opfer führen: Er heiratete eine überlebende junge jüdische Frau – meine Mutter – und setzte neue Kinder in die Welt. Ich bin kein Opfer, sondern ein Kind der Hoffnung. Als ich ihn als kleines Kind fragte, was das für eine Nummer an seinem Arm sei, sagte er "das ist meine Autonummer". Daraus habe ich mitgenommen: Unser Auftrag als Nachkommen ist, eine bessere Welt aufzubauen, und nicht, uns einen Opferstatus in Erbpacht aufrechtzuerhalten.  Das ist keine Frage von geschmackvollem oder geschmacklosem Gedenken, sondern eine grundsätzliche Frage. Erinnerung an die Vergangenheit ist wichtig. Aber es kommt nichts Gutes dabei heraus, wenn man Vergangenheit und Gegenwart verwechselt. Das Judentum und vor allem Israel muss seine heutigen Probleme anpacken, mit Nächstenliebe und Großmut anstatt mit einem fantasierten Opferstatus.

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mso-bidi-language:AR-SA”>[1] Literatur zur Geschichte der Balfour-Deklaration:

Erstklassig, in seiner Analyse wie auch als Zeitzeugnis eines begeisterten Anhänger Weizmanns:
Josef Cohn: England und Palästina: Ein Beitrag zur britischen Empire-Politik. Kurt Vowinckel Verlag, Berlin, 1931. (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, No.8).

In großem Zusammenhang: Eugene Rogan: Die Araber: Eine Geschichte von Unterdrückung und Aufbruch. Propyläen 2012, insbesondere Kap.6 Teile und herrsche: Der Erste Weltkrieg und die Nachkriegsordnung

Prägnant: Daniel Cil Brecher: normal”>Der David – Der Westen und sein Traum von Israel. PapyRossa, Köln, 2011

Originell: Shlomo Sand:Von der Wallfahrt zum christlichen Zionismus: Balfour verheißt das Land

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mso-ansi-language:DE;mso-fareast-language:JA;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA”>[2] Gekürzte Version meines Artikels "Der humanistische Zionismus", Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik Oktober 2011

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mso-ansi-language:DE;mso-fareast-language:JA;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA”>[3] Robert Weltsch, A Tragedy of Leadership. In: Jewish Social Studies, Bd. 13 (3). Juli 1951.
Daraus auch die folgenden Zitate, in meiner Übersetzung.

Saed Bannoura: Israeli Archive File Shows That Israel’s Founder Tried to Erase Palestinian Nakba

Saed Bannoura — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:31:35 +0000

A new report published in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz describes the information found in a newly-uncovered document in the government archives, which reveals that the first Israeli government, including the first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, worked to re-write the history of Israel's founding in 1948 to deny the fact that over 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly expelled.

Palestinian refugees in tents 1948 (image by sabbah.biz)

The file, number GL-18/17028, was apparently missed by the Israeli military censor, who has sealed all other historical documents related to Israel's creation in 1948. With the advent of historians like Benny Morris, who went through previously de-classified documents in detail and found strong evidence of massacres of Palestinians by Israeli armed militias as well as the forced expulsion of most of the indigenous population of Palestine in 1948, documents that had been de-classified were sealed again and remain so until today.

There are currently no guidelines or timeline as to when the documents will be unsealed. However, the one file that the government censor missed has a great deal within it on the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe), the 65th anniversary of which was marked by Palestinians and their supporters just this past Wednesday.

According to the Ha'aretz expose, “what has been uncovered provides enough information to establish that in many cases senior commanders of the Israel Defense Forces ordered Palestinians to be expelled and their homes blown up. The Israeli military not only updated Ben-Gurion about these events but also apparently received his prior authorization, in written or oral form, notably in Lod and Ramle, and in several villages in the north.”

The file also contains information on the Israeli hasbara (propaganda) campaign that was launched after the expulsion of the Palestinians, to try to re-write what happened and deny that the Palestinian people were forcibly expelled. The Ha'aretz expose says that in the early 1960s, under pressure from the Kennedy administration in the U.S. to address the crisis of the Palestinian refugees, Ben Gurion held a special meeting at the U.N.

According to the authors, “Ben-Gurion was convinced that the refugee problem was primarily one of public image ‏(hasbara‏). Israel, he believed, would be able to persuade the international community that the refugees had not been expelled, but had fled.”

One of the lies promoted in the propaganda campaign of the early 1960s was a claim that Arab and Palestinian leaders encouraged the Palestinian people to flee during the 1948 Nakba. But the evidence contained in the one unclassified file does not support that claim. Instead, it was the massacres by Israeli militias in places like Deir Yassin, in which over one hundred men, women and children were lined up and shot, that made so many Palestinians fear for their lives and flee.

The rest of the documents on the subject, including government reports and military narratives, remain classified. Many of the original documents have also been destroyed by the Israeli government, some of which (according to researchers who read them) contained accounts of massacres, rapes, brutality and excessive violence that would have been embarrassing to the Israeli state, as well as calling into question the narrative that the Israeli government promotes and the history it teaches its children.

Source: IMEMC

Elias Akleh: 65 Years of Palestinian Nakba

Dr. Gabi Weber — Mon, 20 May 2013 11:47:56 +0000

Every 15^th of May Palestinians; old and young, all over the world, within Zionist occupied Palestine, in every Palestinian refugee camp, and in every exile country, commemorate the Palestinian Nakba; Arabic for national catastrophe. Palestinians contemplate their stolen homeland, the genocide of hundreds of thousands of their Palestinian and Arab brothers and sisters, the total destruction of hundreds of their towns, the wiping off Palestine of the map and the sub-planting to the terrorist state of Israel in its place.

National catastrophe is the proper description of the Palestinian plight caused by the Zionist Jewish occupation of Palestine and the creation of a terrorist state called Israel. Israel is the invention of Zionism, which is a colonial expansionist terrorist movement based on an extremist ethnocentric supremacist Judaic religious discriminative concept of God’s chosen people in God’s promised land. Its primary objective is the establishment of a Jewish only super power state in the heart of the Arab World to control its most needed natural resource of oil in order to control the economy of the whole world and to become the masters of the world as prescribed by their own Judaic religion. To accomplish this Zionist Jews sought to annihilate Palestinians, raze their towns, wipe off their homeland of the map, and erase their culture from history, for an independent Palestinian state negates Israel’s so-called right of existence.

The Zionist occupation of Palestine is a historically unprecedented unique form of occupation. While traditional military occupations take place when a colonial military power occupies another country to control its people, their natural resources, and their government, the Zionist Jewish occupation, on the other hand, is a religiously-racist genocidal obliterating occupation, whose primary goal is the complete annihilation of all indigenous Palestinian inhabitants, the complete destruction of their towns, the wiping off of their culture and history, the creation of an alien state, and the sub-planting of aggressive terrorist alien groups, with different citizenships of various countries, in the area.

Zionist Jewish leaders had openly and shamelessly declared this genocidal goal as their policy. Ardent Zionist Ukrainian Jew Yosef Weitz, the director of Land and Afforestation Department of the Jewish National Fund, had formed the “Transfer Committee”, whose primary function was the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the destruction of their villages and the forestation of these villages to cover the Israeli crimes. He confined to his diary on December 20^th 1940:

“It must be clear that there is no room in the country for both people … the only solution is a Land of Israel, at least a western Land of Israel without Arabs. There is no room here for compromise … There is no way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries … Not one village must be left, not even one Bedouin tribe.”

On June 22^nd, 1941 he also wrote:

“The land of Israel is not small at all, if only the Arabs were removed, and its frontiers enlarged a little, to the north up to the Litani (river in Lebanon), and to the east including the Golan Heights … with the Arabs transferred to northern Syria and Iraq … Today we have no other alternative … We will not live here with Arabs.” (Benny Morris “Birth of Palestinian Refugee Problem”)

Russian Jew Chaim Weizmann, born in Belarus; part of Russian Empire at the time, who was president of the Zionist Organization and the first president of Israel, saw no room for Palestinians in Palestine. He wrote in his autobiography “Trial and Error”:

“Palestine will become as Jewish as England is English.”

The Polish born David Ben-Gurion, the first Israeli Prime Minister and chief architect of the state of Israel declared openly:

“We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population … Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they (the Palestinians) defend themselves … The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.”

Moshe Dayan, the Israeli Defense Minister during the 1950’s, gave a lecture at the Technion University in Haifa in March 19^th, 1969. The Israeli daily Haaratz of April 4^th 1969 quoted him saying:

“We came here to a country that was populated by Arabs and we are building here a Hebrew, a Jewish state. Instead of the Arab villages, Jewish villages were established. You even do not know the names of the Arab villages, and I do not blame you because these villages no longer exist. There is not a single Jewish settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab village. You do not know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist also the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul, Kibbutz Gv’at in the place of Jobta, Kibbutz Sared in the place of Huneifis, and Kfar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”

Zionist Jewish Israeli leaders had always tried to negate, falsify and wipe off every aspect of Palestinian existence to a point where their ex Prime Minister Russian Golda Meir, born Golda Mabovitz, stated in 1969: “There is no such thing as Palestinians; they never existed.” Golda Meir was echoing the lie created by Jewish British Lord Shaftesbury and the originally Russian Jewish writer Israel Zangwill. In July 1853 Shaftesbury wrote to Foreign Minister Aberdeen that Greater Syria was:

“… a country without a nation in need of a nation without a country … Is there such a thing? To be sure there is; the ancient and rightful lords of the soil, the Jews!”

Shaftesbury also wrote in his diary:

“… these vast and fertile regions will soon be without a ruler, without a known and acknowledged power to claim dominion. The territory must be assigned to someone or to another … There is a country without a nation; and God now in his wisdom and mercy, directs us to a nation without a country.”

Israel Zangwill, a Jewish writer, whose nickname was “the Dickens of the Ghetto”, had also claimed in 1901 that Palestine had no nation. In his book “Land of Israel” he described the Zionist colonial plan in Palestine by using the slogan of “Palestine is a land without a people for a people without a land.”

Today, after 65 years of brutal genocidal Zionist Jewish Israeli colonization of Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, the Polish born Israeli President Shimon Peres, despite the steadfastness of about 4 million Palestinians still living in occupied Palestine, continues the myth of “land without people” and keeps on denying the existence of Palestinians by flagrantly stating:

“I remember how it all began. The whole state of Israel is a millimeter of the whole Middle East. A statistical error, barren and disappointing land, swamps in the north, desert in the south, two lakes, one dead sea and an overrated river. No natural resource apart from malaria. There was nothing here. And we now have the best agriculture in the world. This is a miracle: a land built by people.” (Maariv, 14 April 2013)

Even before the end of WWII Zionist leaders formed terrorist groups from the same Jewish elements trained by the British army in North Africa, who were an adjunct to the British WWII effort against the Nazis. These Jewish terrorist groups became known as the Hagana, the Lehi (Stern) and the Irgun (Etzel), later joined to form the Israeli army. These Jewish terrorist groups were the first to introduce terrorist attacks in Palestine. They attacked British as well as Palestinian targets; the bombing of King David Hotel, the assassination of Lord Folke Bernadotte, attacks against British troops, and bombing of Palestinian buses and markets.

In March 1948, before the end of the British Mandate, David Ben-Gurion launched extensive military genocidal campaigns to cleanse Palestine from its indigenous inhabitants and to destroy as much of their towns as possible. Within 6 months, Zionist terrorist organizations, not just Irgun and Lehi as Israelis want to blame but also the Hagana, went on a rampage massacring and expelling Palestinians and destroying their homes and villages. According to the archives of the history of the Palmach (the assassinating striking force of the Hagana) released in full in 1972, more than 13 underground military operations were carried out by Jewish terrorist organizations against Palestinian targets. Some have heard of the infamous plan Dalet, yet there are also the less publicized other terrorist plans such as Hiram, Kadish, Nachson, Gideon, Barak, Yoram, Ben Ami, Ben Nun, Qilshon, Dani, Lot, and Assaf.

These Jewish terrorist attacks caused the Nakba, the Palestinian Catastrophe; 78% of Palestine was occupied, a total of 530 Palestinian villages and towns were depopulated and razed off the ground (Walid Khalidi’s “All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948”), almost 800 thousand Palestinians became refugees (now more than 8 millions), and 70 confirmed and documented massacres were perpetrated against Palestinian civilians. The Deir Yassin massacre is very well known because it was intentionally publicized by Jewish terrorist groups to scare Palestinians into flight. Other savage massacres also include Al-Qastal, Beit Mahsir, Deir al-Hawa, Beit Jibrin, Burqa, Kafr Saba, Kafr Qasim, Ein Ghazal, Abu Shusha, and many more other massacres where Palestinians; men, women, and children, were savagely murdered in cold blood.

The Israelis did not halt their atrocities at the end of 1948 war, but adopted aggressive policies of wiping off everything Palestinian. The Israeli Transfer Committee hastened to supervise the destruction of all abandoned Arab villages and repopulating them with recent Jewish immigrants. Ben-Gurion formed a special committee of experts in history, geology, and Torah study, and assigned them the task of distorting Palestinian culture and substituting the name of Palestinian cities with Jewish names. Thus Tel al-Rabi’ became Tel Aviv, Al-Quds became Yerushalayim, Um-Rashrash became Eilat, Shu’fat became Nevi Yacub, Beit-Jala became Gilo, Beit Mahsir became Beit Ma’ir, Qualandia became Atarot, and so on. Even the names of the streets were changed from Palestinian to Jewish names.

Successive Israeli governments adopted the harshest oppressive policies against the Palestinians in an attempt to push them out of the country. They deprived Palestinians from the simplest human rights, denied them education, health, and work opportunities, imposed special heavy taxes on them, confiscated their land and homes, jailed and tortured many of them, and forcefully transferred many of them to the neighboring Arab countries. To legalize their oppressive measures the Israeli governments did not hesitate to use the oppressive old Ottoman laws, the Jordanian laws, their own Israeli laws, and many time they would improvise new laws to be used on the spot against Palestinians.

The illegal creation of terrorist Zionist state of Israel is the primary cause for the Palestinian catastrophe and the cause for all the wars and conflicts that is tearing apart the Middle Eastern region. To sustain and to expand the Zionist Israeli project Israeli Jews needed to avoid all peace agreements that would designate fixed borders for Israel, and to wage many wars against steadfast internal Palestinians and against its Arab neighboring countries. This was expressed by Aron Soffer, head of research and lecturer at the Israeli Forces National Defense College addressing the issue of Palestinians in Gaza strip, where he said on May 21^st, 2004:

“When 2.5 million people live in a closed off Gaza, it’s going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war. So if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day … every day.” (Jerusalem Post; 10/10/2007)

Thus, successive Israeli governments had rejected, and still reject, all peace agreements including the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative that could have ended Arab/Israel conflict. Their rude belligerent response to Arab Peace Initiative came from “bulldozer” Ariel Sharon, then Israeli Prime Minister, who drove Israeli tanks into every major Palestinian city murdering civilians, destroying infrastructures, and besieging Yasser Arafat in his Ramallah’s headquarter.

Since the 1948 Palestinian Nakba Israeli governments continued their terrorist expansionist wars in the region not just against Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza Strip, but also against Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, and their terrorist attacks reached Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, Qatar, Syria, Iraq and Iran. All of Israel’s wars were waged on the expense of European and American tax money, military technology and weapons, and political support. After exhausting their Israeli army the Zionist leaders were successful in getting NATO and American troops to fight their wars in proxy; the Lebanon war, wars against Iraq (once very closed friend to US), wars against Afghanistan, the division of Sudan, the war against Libya (close friend to Italy and France), arming and supporting Syrian terrorists, and economic sanctions against Iran with the future plan of pushing an alliance of US/Gulf states to wage war on Iran.

Zionism is just the latest Judaic façade based on Jewish ethnocentric divine superiority complex and the complete denial of the humanity and rights of all other nations; Goyims without any exception. This leaves no room for peace with such an ideology, not just with the Zionist terrorist state of Israel in Palestine but in any other place in this world. Supremacist Jews keep on planting more seeds of hatred among nations, and as in the past they will reap only hatred. Jewish history repeats itself.

Jeremy R. Hammond: The Myth of the UN Creation of Israel

Jeremy R. Hammond — Mon, 20 May 2013 10:00:35 +0000

This essay is available for download in PDF format at the author’s website.

There is a widely accepted belief that United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 “created” Israel, based upon an understanding that this resolution partitioned Palestine or otherwise conferred legal authority or legitimacy to the declaration of the existence of the state of Israel. However, despite its popularity, this belief has no basis in fact, as a review of the resolution’s history and examination of legal principles demonstrates incontrovertibly.

Great Britain had occupied Palestine during the First World War, and in July 1922, the League of Nations issued its mandate for Palestine, which recognized the British government as the occupying power and effectively conferred to it the color of legal authority to temporarily administrate the territory.[1] On April 2, 1947, seeking to extract itself from the conflict that had arisen in Palestine between Jews and Arabs as a result of the Zionist movement to establish in Palestine a “national home for the Jewish people”,[2] the United Kingdom submitted a letter to the U.N. requesting the Secretary General “to place the question of Palestine on the Agenda of the General Assembly at its next regular Annual Session”, and requesting the Assembly “to make recommendations, under Article 10 of the Charter, concerning the future government of Palestine.”[3] To that end, on May 15, the General Assembly adopted Resolution 106, which established the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) to investigate “the question of Palestine”, to “prepare a report to the General Assembly” based upon its findings, and to “submit such proposals as it may consider appropriate for the solution of the problem of Palestine”.[4]

On September 3, UNSCOP issued its report to the General Assembly declaring its majority recommendation that Palestine be partitioned into separate Jewish and Arab states. It noted that the population of Palestine at the end of 1946 was estimated to be almost 1,846,000, with 1,203,000 Arabs (65 percent) and 608,000 Jews (33 percent). Growth of the Jewish population had been mainly the result of immigration, while growth of the Arab population had been “almost entirely” due to natural increase. It observed that there was “no clear territorial separation of Jews and Arabs by large contiguous areas”, and even in the Jaffa district, which included Tel Aviv, Arabs constituted a majority.[5] Land ownership statistics from 1945 showed that Arabs owned more land than Jews in every single district in Palestine. The district with the highest percentage of Jewish ownership was Jaffa, where 39 percent of the land was owned by Jews, compared to 47 percent owned by Arabs.[6] In the whole of Palestine at the time UNSCOP issued its report, Arabs owned 85 percent of the land,[7] while Jews owned less than 7 percent.[8]

Despite these facts, the UNSCOP proposal was that the Arab state be constituted from only 45.5 percent of the whole of Palestine, while the Jews would be awarded 55.5 percent of the total area for their state.[9] The UNSCOP report acknowledged that

With regard to the principle of self-determination, although international recognition was extended to this principle at the end of the First World War and it was adhered to with regard to the other Arab territories, at the time of the creation of the ‘A’ Mandates, it was not applied to Palestine, obviously because of the intention to make possible the creation of the Jewish National Home there. Actually, it may well be said that the Jewish National Home and the sui generis Mandate for Palestine run counter to that principle.[10]

In other words, the report explicitly recognized that the denial of Palestinian independence in order to pursue the goal of establishing a Jewish state constituted a rejection of the right of the Arab majority to self-determination. And yet, despite this recognition, UNSCOP had accepted this rejection of Arab rights as being within the bounds of a legitimate and reasonable framework for a solution.

Following the issuance of the UNSCOP report, the U.K. issued a statement declaring its agreement with the report’s recommendations, but adding that “if the Assembly should recommend a policy which is not acceptable to both Jews and Arabs, the United Kingdom Government would not feel able to implement it.”[11] The position of the Arabs had been clear from the beginning, but the Arab Higher Committee issued a statement on September 29 reiterating that “the Arabs of Palestine were determined to oppose with all the means at their disposal, any scheme that provided for segregation or partition, or that would give to a minority special and preferential status”. It instead

advocated freedom and independence for an Arab State in the whole of Palestine which would respect human rights, fundamental freedoms and equality of all persons before the law, and would protect the legitimate rights and interests of all minorities whilst guaranteeing freedom of worship and access to the Holy Places.[12]

The U.K. followed with a statement reiterating “that His Majesty’s Government could not play a major part in the implementation of a scheme that was not acceptable to both Arabs and Jews”, but adding “that they would, however, not wish to impede the implementation of a recommendation approved by the General Assembly.”[13]

The Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question was established by the General Assembly shortly after the issuance of the UNSCOP report in order to continue to study the problem and make recommendations. A sub-committee was established in turn that was tasked with examining the legal issues pertaining to the situation in Palestine, and it released the report of its findings on November 11. It observed that the UNSCOP report had accepted a basic premise “that the claims to Palestine of the Arabs and Jews both possess validity”, which was “not supported by any cogent reasons and is demonstrably against the weight of all available evidence.” With an end to the Mandate and with British withdrawal, “there is no further obstacle to the conversion of Palestine into an independent state”, which “would be the logical culmination of the objectives of the Mandate” and the Covenant of the League of Nations. It found that “the General Assembly is not competent to recommend, still less to enforce, any solution other than the recognition of the independence of Palestine, and that the settlement of the future government of Palestine is a matter solely for the people of Palestine.” It concluded that “no further discussion of the Palestine problem seems to be necessary or appropriate, and this item should be struck off the agenda of the General Assembly”, but that if there was a dispute on that point, “it would be essential to obtain the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on this issue”, as had already been requested by several of the Arab states. It concluded further that the partition plan was “contrary to the principles of the Charter, and the United Nations have no power to give effect to it.” The U.N. could not

deprive the majority of the people of Palestine of their territory and transfer it to the exclusive use of a minority in the country…. The United Nations Organization has no power to create a new State. Such a decision can only be taken by the free will of the people of the territories in question. That condition is not fulfilled in the case of the majority proposal, as it involves the establishment of a Jewish State in complete disregard of the wishes and interests of the Arabs of Palestine.[14]

Nevertheless, the General Assembly passed Resolution 181 on November 29, with 33 votes in favor to 13 votes against, and 10 abstentions.[15] The relevant text of the resolution stated:

The General Assembly….

Recommends to the United Kingdom, as the mandatory Power for Palestine, and to all other Members of the United Nations the adoption and implementation, with regard to the future government of Palestine, of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union set out below;

Requests that

(a) The Security Council take the necessary measure as provided for in the plan for its implementation;

(b) The Security Council consider, if circumstances during the transitional period require such consideration, whether the situation in Palestine constitutes a threat to the peace. If it decides that such a threat exists, and in order to maintain international peace and security, the Security Council should supplement the authorization of the General Assembly by taking measure, under Articles 39 and 41 of the Charter, to empower the United Nations Commission, as provided in this resolution, to exercise in Palestine the functions which are assigned to it by this resolution;

(c) The Security Council determine as a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression, in accordance with Article 39 of the Charter, any attempt to alter by force the settlement envisaged by this resolution;

(d) The Trusteeship Council be informed of the responsibilities envisaged for it in this plan;

Calls upon the inhabitants of Palestine to take such steps as may be necessary on their part to put this plan into effect;

Appeals to all Governments and all peoples to refrain from taking action which might hamper or delay the carrying out of these recommendations….[16]

A simple reading of the text is enough to show that the resolution did not partition Palestine or offer any legal basis for doing so. It merely recommended that the partition plan be implemented and requested the Security Council to take up the matter from there. It called upon the inhabitants of Palestine to accept the plan, but they were certainly under no obligation to do so.

A Plan Never Implemented

The matter was thus taken up by the Security Council, where, on December 9, the Syrian representative to the U.N., Faris El-Khouri, observed that “the General Assembly is not a world government which can dictate orders, partition countries or impose constitutions, rules, regulations and treaties on people without their consent.” When the Soviet representative Andrei Gromyko stated his government’s opposing view that “The resolution of the General Assembly should be implemented” by the Security Council, El-Khouri replied by noting further that

Certain paragraphs of the resolution of the General Assembly which concern the Security Council are referred to the Council, namely, paragraphs (a), (b) and (c), outlining the functions of the Security Council in respect of the Palestinian question. All of the members of the Security Council are familiar with the Council’s functions, which are well defined and clearly stated in the Charter of the United Nations. I do not believe that the resolution of the General Assembly can add to or delete from these functions. The recommendations of the General Assembly are well known to be recommendations, and Member States are not required by force to accept them. Member States may or may not accept them, and the same applies to the Security Council. [17]

On February 6, 1948, the Arab Higher Committee again communicated to the U.N. Secretary General its position that the partition plan was “contrary to the letter and spirit of the United Nations Charter”. The U.N. “has no jurisdiction to order or recommend the partition of Palestine. There is nothing in the Charter to warrant such authority, consequently the recommendation of partition is ultra vires and therefore null and void.” Additionally, the Arab Higher Committee noted that

The Arab Delegations submitted proposals in the Ad Hoc Committee in order to refer the whole legal issue raised for a ruling by the International Court of Justice. The said proposals were never put to vote by the president in the Assembly. The United Nations is an International body entrusted with the task of enforcing peace and justice in international affairs. How would there be any confidence in such a body if it bluntly and unreasonably refuses to refer such a dispute to the International Court of Justice?

“The Arabs of Palestine will never recognize the validity of the extorted partition recommendations or the authority of the United Nations to make them”, the Arab Higher Committee declared, and they would “consider that any attempt by the Jews or any power or group of powers to establish a Jewish State in Arab territory is an act of aggression which will be resisted in self-defense by force.”[18]

On February 16, the U.N. Palestine Commission, tasked by the General Assembly to prepare for the transfer of authority from the Mandatory Power to the successor governments under the partition plan, issued its first report to the Security Council. It concluded on the basis of the Arab rejection that it “finds itself confronted with an attempt to defect its purposes, and to nullify the resolution of the General Assembly”, and calling upon the Security Council to provide an armed force “which alone would enable the Commission to discharge its responsibilities on the termination of the Mandate”. In effect, the Palestine Commission had determined that the partition plan should be implemented against the will of the majority population of Palestine by force.[19]

In response to that suggestion, Colombia submitted a draft Security Council resolution noting that the U.N. Charter did “not authorize the Security Council to create special forces for the purposes indicated by the United Nations Palestine Commission”.[20] The U.S. delegate, Warren Austin, similarly stated at the 253rd meeting of the Security Council on February 24 that

The Security Council is authorized to take forceful measures with respect to Palestine to remove a threat to international peace. The Charter of the United Nations does not empower the Security Council to enforce a political settlement whether it is pursuant to a recommendation of the General Assembly or of the Security Council itself. What this means is this: The Security Council, under the Charter, can take action to prevent aggression against Palestine from outside. The Security Council, by these same powers, can take action to prevent a threat to international peace and security from inside Palestine. But this action must be directed solely to the maintenance of international peace. The Security Council’s action, in other words, is directed to keeping the peace and not to enforcing partition.[21]

The United States nevertheless submitted its own draft text more ambiguously accepting the requests of the Palestine Commission “subject to the authority of the Security Council under the Charter”.[22] Faris El-Khouri objected to the U.S. draft on the grounds that “before accepting these three requests, it is our duty to ascertain whether they are or are not within the framework of the Security Council as limited by the Charter. If it is found that they are not, we should decline to accept them.” He recalled Austin’s own statement on the lack of authority of the Security Council, saying, “It would follow from this undeniable fact that any recommendation on a political settlement can be implemented only if the parties concerned willingly accept and complement it.” Furthermore, “the partition plan itself constitutes a threat to the peace, being openly rejected by all those at whose expense it was to be executed.”[23] Austin in turn explained the intent of the U.S. draft that its acceptance of Resolution 181 is

subject to the limitation that armed force cannot be used for implementation of the plan, because the Charter limits the use of United Nations force expressly to threats to and breaches of the peace and aggression affecting international peace. Therefore, we must interpret the General Assembly resolution as meaning that the United Nations measures to implement this resolution are peaceful measures.

Moreover, explained Austin, the U.S. draft

does not authorize use of enforcement under Articles 39 and 41 of the Charter to empower the United Nations Commission to exercise in Palestine the functions which are assigned to it by the resolution, because the Charter does not authorize either the General Assembly or the Security Council to do any such thing.[24]

When the Security Council did finally adopt a resolution on March 5, it merely made a note of “Having received General Assembly resolution 181″ and the first monthly Palestine Commission report, and resolved

to call on the permanent members of the Council to consult and to inform the Security Council regarding the situation with respect to Palestine and to make, as the result of such consultations, recommendations to it regarding the guidance and instructions which the Council might usefully give to the Palestine Commission with a view to implementing the resolution of the General Assembly.[25]

During further debates at the Security Council over how to proceed, Austin observed that it had become “clear that the Security Council is not prepared to go ahead with efforts to implement this plan in the existing situation.” At the same time, it was clear that the U.K.’s announced termination of the Mandate on May 15 “would result, in the light of information now available, in chaos, heavy fighting and much loss of life in Palestine.” The U.N. could not permit this, he said, and the Security Council had the responsibility and authority under the Charter to act to prevent such a threat to the peace. The U.S. also proposed establishing a Trusteeship over Palestine to give further opportunity to the Jews and Arabs to reach a mutual agreement. Pending the convening of a special session of the General Assembly to that end, “we believe that the Security Council should instruct the Palestine Commission to suspend its efforts to implement the proposed partition plan.”[26]

The Security Council President, speaking as the representative from China, responded: “The United Nations was created mainly for the maintenance of international peace. It would be tragic indeed if the United Nations, by attempting a political settlement, should be the cause of war. For these reasons, my delegation supports the general principles of the proposal of the United States delegation.”[27] At a further meeting of the Security Council, the Canadian delegate stated that the partition plan “is based on a number of important assumptions”, the first of which was that “it was assumed that the two communities in Palestine would co-operate in putting into effect the solution to the Palestine problem which was recommended by the General Assembly.”[28] The French delegate, while declining to extend either approval for or disapproval of the U.S. proposal, observed that it would allow for any number of alternative solutions from the partition plan, including “a single State with sufficient guarantees for minorities”.[29] The representative from the Jewish Agency for Palestine read a statement categorically rejecting “any plan to set up a trusteeship regime for Palestine”, which “would necessarily entail a denial of the Jewish right to national independence.”[30]

Mindful of the worsening situation in Palestine, and wishing to avoid further debate, the U.S. proposed another draft resolution calling for a truce between Jewish and Arab armed groups that Austin noted “would not prejudice the claims of either group” and which “does not mention trusteeship.”[31] It was adopted as Resolution 43 on April 1.[32] Resolution 44 was also passed the same day requesting “the Secretary-General, in accordance with Article 20 of the United Nations Charter, to convoke a special session of the General Assembly to consider further the question of the future government of Palestine.”[33] Resolution 46 reiterated the Security Council’s call for the cessation of hostilities in Palestine,[34] and Resolution 48 established a “Truce Commission” to further the goal of implementing its resolutions calling for an end to the violence.[35]

On May 14, the Zionist leadership unilaterally declared the existence of the State of Israel, citing Resolution 181 as constituting “recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State”.[36] As anticipated, war ensued.

The Authority of the U.N. with Regard to Partition

Chapter 1, Article 1 of the U.N. Charter defines its purposes and principles, which are to “maintain international peace and security”, to “develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples”, and to “achieve international co-operation” on various issues and “promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all”.

The functions and powers of the General Assembly are listed under Chapter IV, Articles 10 through 17. It is tasked to initiate studies and make recommendations to promote international cooperation and the development of international law, to receive reports from the Security Council and other organs of the U.N., and to consider and approve the organization’s budget. It is also tasked with performing functions under the international trusteeship system. Its authority is otherwise limited to considering and discussing matters within the scope of the Charter, making recommendations to Member States or the Security Council, or calling attention of matters to the Security Council.

Chapter V, Articles 24 through 26, states the functions and powers of the Security Council. It is tasked with maintaining peace and security in accordance with the purposes and principles of the U.N. The specific powers granted to the Security Council are stated in Chapters VI, VII, VIII, and XII. Under Chapter VI, the Security Council may call upon parties to settle disputes by peaceful means, investigate, and make a determination as to whether a dispute or situation constitutes a threat to peace and security. It may recommend appropriate procedures to resolve disputes, taking into consideration that “legal disputes should as a general rule be referred by the parties to the International Court of Justice”. Under Chapter VII, the Security Council may determine the existence of a threat to peace and make recommendations or decide what measures are to be taken to maintain or restore peace and security. It may call upon concerned parties to take provisional measures “without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of the parties concerned.” It may call upon member states to employ “measures not involving the use of armed force” to apply such measures. Should such measures be inadequate, it may authorize the use of armed forces “to maintain or restore international peace and security”. Chapter VIII states that the Security Council “shall encourage the development of pacific settlements of local disputes” through regional arrangements or agencies, and utilize such to enforce actions under its authority.

The functions and powers of the International Trusteeship System are listed under Chapter XII, Articles 75 through 85. The purpose of the system is to administer and supervise territories placed therein by agreement with the goal of “development towards self-government or independence as may be appropriate to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned”. The system is to operate in accordance with the purposes of the U.N. stated in Article 1, including respect for the right of self-determination. The General Assembly is tasked with all functions “not designated as strategic”, which are designated to the Security Council. A Trusteeship Council is established to assist the General Assembly and the Security Council to perform their functions under the system.

Chapter XIII, Article 87 states the functions and powers of the Trusteeship Council, which are shared by the General Assembly. Authority is granted to consider reports, accept and examine petitions, provide for visits to trust territories, and “take these and other actions in conformity with the terms of the trusteeship agreements.”

Another relevant section is Chapter XI, entitled the “Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories”, which states that

Members of the United Nations which have or assume responsibilities for the administration of territories whose peoples have not yet attained a full measure of self-government recognize the principle that the interests of the inhabitants of these territories are paramount, and accept as a sacred trust the obligation to promote to the utmost, within the system of international peace and security established by the present Charter, the well-being of the inhabitants of these territories…

To that end, Member states are “to develop self-government, to take due account of the political aspirations of the peoples, and to assist them in the progressive development of their free political institutions”.

Conclusion

The partition plan put forth by UNSCOP sought to create within Palestine a Jewish state contrary to the express will of the majority of its inhabitants. Despite constituting only a third of the population and owning less than 7 percent of the land, it sought to grant to the Jews more than half of Palestine for purpose of creating that Jewish state. It would, in other words, take land from the Arabs and give it to the Jews. The inherent injustice of the partition plan stands in stark contrast to alternative plan proposed by the Arabs, of an independent state of Palestine in which the rights of the Jewish minority would be recognized and respected, and which would afford the Jewish population representation in a democratic government. The partition plan was blatantly prejudicial to the rights of the majority Arab population, and was premised on the rejection of their right to self-determination. This is all the more uncontroversial inasmuch as the UNSCOP report itself explicitly acknowledged that the proposal to create a Jewish state in Palestine was contrary to the principle of self-determination. The plan was also premised upon the erroneous assumption that the Arabs would simply acquiesce to having their land taken from them and voluntarily surrender their majority rights, including their right to self-determination.

U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181 neither legally partitioned Palestine nor conferred upon the Zionist leadership any legal authority to unilaterally declare the existence of the Jewish state of Israel. It merely recommended that the UNSCOP partition plan be accepted and implemented by the concerned parties. Naturally, to have any weight of law, the plan, like any contract, would have to have been formally agreed upon by both parties, which it was not. Nor could the General Assembly have legally partitioned Palestine or otherwise conferred legal authority for the creation of Israel to the Zionist leadership, as it simply had no such authority to confer. When the Security Council took up the matter referred to it by the General Assembly, it could come to no consensus on how to proceed with implementing the partition plan. It being apparent that the plan could not be implemented by peaceful means, the suggestion that it be implemented by force was rejected by members of the Security Council. The simple fact of the matter is that the plan was never implemented. Numerous delegates from member states, including the U.S., arrived at the conclusion that the plan was impracticable, and, furthermore, that the Security Council had no authority to implement such a plan except by mutual consent by concerned parties, which was absent in this case.

The U.S., Syria, and other member nations were correct in their observations that, while the Security Council did have authority to declare a threat to the peace and authorize the use of force to deal with that and maintain or restore peace and security, it did not have any authority to implement by force a plan to partition Palestine contrary to the will of most of its inhabitants. Any attempt to usurp such authority by either the General Assembly or the Security Council would have been a prima facie violation of the Charter’s founding principle of respect for the right to self-determination of all peoples, and thus null and void under international law.

In sum, the popular claim that the U.N. “created” Israel is a myth, and Israel’s own claim in its founding document that U.N. Resolution 181 constituted legal authority for Israel’s creation, or otherwise constituted “recognition” by the U.N. of the “right” of the Zionist Jews to expropriate for themselves Arab land and deny to the majority Arab population of that land their own right to self-determination, is a patent fraud.

Further corollaries may be drawn. The disaster inflicted upon Palestine was not inevitable. The U.N. was created for the purpose of preventing such catastrophes. Yet it failed miserably to do so, on numerous counts. It failed in its duty to refer the legal questions of the claims to Palestine to the International Court of Justice, despite requests from member states to do so. It failed to use all means within its authority, including the use of armed forces, to maintain peace and prevent the war that was predicted would occur upon the termination of the Mandate. And most importantly, far from upholding its founding principles, the U.N. effectively acted to prevent the establishment of an independent and democratic state of Palestine, in direct violation of the principles of its own Charter. The consequences of these and other failures are still witnessed by the world today on a daily basis. Recognition of the grave injustice perpetrated against the Palestinian people in this regard and dispelling such historical myths is essential if a way forward towards peace and reconciliation is to be found.

Notes

[1] The Palestine Mandate of the Council of the League of Nations, July 24, 1922, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/palmanda.asp.

[2] Great Britain had contributed to the conflict by making contradictory promises to both Jews and Arabs, including a declaration approved by the British Cabinet that read, “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” This declaration was delivered by Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to representative of the Zionist movement Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild in a letter on November 2, 1917, and thus came to be known as “The Balfour Declaration”, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/balfour.asp.

[3] Letter from the United Kingdom Delegation to the United Nations to the U.N. Secretary-General, April 2, 1947, http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/87aaa6be8a3a7015802564ad0037ef57?OpenDocument.

[4] U.N. General Assembly Resolution 106, May 15, 1947, http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/f5a49e57095c35b685256bcf0075d9c2?OpenDocument.

[5] United Nations Special Committee on Palestine Report to the General Assembly, September 3, 1947, http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/07175de9fa2de563852568d3006e10f3?OpenDocument.

[6] “Palestine Land Ownership by Sub-Districts (1945)”, United Nations, August 1950, http://domino.un.org/maps/m0094.jpg. The map was prepared on the instructions of Sub-Committee 2 of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian question and presented as Map No. 94(b). Statistics were as follows (Arab/Jewish land ownership in percentages): Safad: 68/18; Acre: 87/3; Tiberias: 51/38; Haifa: 42/35; Nazareth: 52/28; Beisan: 44/34; Jenin: 84/1, Tulkarm: 78/17; Nablus: 87/1; Jaffa: 47/39; Ramle: 77/14; Ramallah: 99/less than 1; Jerusalem: 84/2; Gaza: 75/4; Hebron: 96/less than 1; Beersheeba: 15/less than 1.

[7] UNSCOP Report.

[8] Walid Khalidi, “Revisiting the UNGA Partition Resolution”, Journal of Palestine Studies XXVII, no. 1 (Autumn 1997), p. 11, http://www.palestine-studies.org/enakba/diplomacy/Khalidi,%20Revisiting%20the%201947%20UN%20Partition%20Resolution.pdf. Edward W. Said, The Question of Palestine (New York: Vintage Books Edition, 1992), pp. 23, 98.

[9] Khalidi, p. 11.

[10] UNSCOP Report.

[11] “U.K. Accepts UNSCOP General Recommendations; Will Not Implement Policy Unacceptable by Both Arabs and Jews”, Press Release, Ad Hoc Committee on Palestinian Question 2nd Meeting, September 26, 1947, http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/ecb5eae2e1d29ed08525686d00529256?OpenDocument.

[12] “The Arab Case Stated by Mr. Jamal Husseini”, Press Release, Ad Hoc Committee on Palestinian Question 3rd Meeting, United Nations, September 29, 1947, http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/a8c17fca1b8cf5338525691b0063f769?OpenDocument.

[13] “Palestine Committee Hears U.K. Stand and Adjourns; Sub-Committees Meet”, Press Release, Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine 24th Meeting, United Nations, November 20, 1947, http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/12966c9f443583e085256a7200661aab?OpenDocument.

[14] “Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question Report of Sub-Committee 2″, United Nations, November 11 1947, http://unispal.un.org/pdfs/AAC1432.pdf.

[15] United Nations General Assembly 128th Plenary Meeting, United Nations, November 29, 1947, http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/46815f76b9d9270085256ce600522c9e?OpenDocument.

[16] United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, November 29, 1947, http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/7f0af2bd897689b785256c330061d253?OpenDocument.

[17] United Nations Security Council 222nd Meeting, December 9, 1947, http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/ce37bc968122a33985256e6900649bf6?OpenDocument.

[18] “First Special Report to the Security Council: The Problem of Security in Palestine”, United Nations Palestine Commission, February 16, 1948, http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/5ba47a5c6cef541b802563e000493b8c/fdf734eb76c39d6385256c4c004cdba7?OpenDocument.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Draft Resolution on the Palestinian Question Submitted by the Representative of Colombia at the 254th Meeting of the Security Council, February 24, 1948, http://unispal.un.org/pdfs/S684.pdf.

[21] U.N. Security Council 253rd Meeting (S/PV.253), February 24, 1948, http://documents.un.org.

[22] Draft Resolution on the Palestinian Question Submitted by the Representative of the United States at the Two Hundred and Fifty Fifth Meeting of the Security Council, February 25, 1948, http://unispal.un.org/pdfs/S685.pdf.

[23] United Nations Security Council 260th Meeting, March 2, 1948, http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/fcbe849f43cbb7158525764f00537dcb?OpenDocument.

[24] Ibid.

[25] United Nations Security Council Resolution 42, March 5, 1948, http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/d0f3291a30a2bc30852560ba006cfb88?OpenDocument.

[26] U.N. Security Council 271st Meeting, March 19, 1948, http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/5072db486adf13d0802564ad00394160?OpenDocument.

[27] Ibid.

[28] United Nations Security Council 274th Meeting, March 24, 1948, http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/NL4/812/32/PDF/NL481232.pdf?OpenElement.

[29] Ibid.

[30] Ibid.

[31] United Nations Security Council 275th Meeting, March 30, 1948, http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/NL4/812/32/PDF/NL481232.pdf?OpenElement.

[32] United Nations Security Council Resolution 43, April 1, 1948, http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/676bb71de92db89b852560ba006748d4?OpenDocument.

[33] United Nations Security Council Resolution 44, April 1, 1948, http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/1b13eb4af9118629852560ba0067c5ad?OpenDocument.

[34] United Nations Security Council Resolution 46, April 17, 1948, http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/9612b691fc54f280852560ba006da8c8?OpenDocument.