A critical look at Zionist education and racism

Ramona Wadi

Thursday, 04 April 2013 17:00

 

“Israeli war crimes, meanwhile, are justified within Zionist discourse as a means of “security”.

 

Zionist narrative expects Israeli children to be imbued with a false sense of nationalism which is instrumental to the preservation of its illegally-acquired land. This abstract narrative, incorporating the unification of Jewish identity contrasted with the orientalist image of Palestinians, forms the basis of a culture based upon indoctrination and violence. The misrepresentation stems from the exclusion of the discourse of peace discourse to divert attention from any possible discussion of Israel’s colonial occupation.

 

Racist discourse is an essential component of Zionist education, creating a dissonance in the social, biological, cultural and demographic representation of Palestinians. The concept of exclusion is ingrained within Israeli collective memory at an early age in order to ascertain a smooth transition into a military philosophy which deems Palestinians as “issues” rather than a population massacred by apartheid laws.

 

Visually, the enforced elimination of Palestinians from their own history has resulted in a cultural and social vacuum, degenerating into the stereotype of violent, submissive and primitive Arabs. This projection has been expounded upon by the West, whose caricatures, especially within the corporate media, have become a kind of warped justification for ignoring the fundamental problem Palestinians have faced for many decades. Palestinian violence is thus isolated from the narrative of occupation and necessity of resistance. Israeli war crimes, meanwhile, are justified within Zionist discourse as a means of “security” which its citizens and Western governments and international organisations, including the UN, hail as legitimate intervention against a people deemed invisible by Zionism prior to the onset of Israel’s neo-colonialism.

 

Nurit Peled Elhanan, Professor of Language and Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem insists that “the orientalising imagery of the Arab citizen of Israel” fails to correspond to any immediate reality, “except in the imagination of the 19th century painter”. Israeli children fail to associate “the Arab” with Arab citizens of Israel, let alone a collective identity of Palestinians under occupation. In their formative years, children are bequeathed with an imaginary Jewish homeland in order to uphold the Palestinians’ dispossession. The notion of a suffering people is gleaned through Biblical references allowing for an interpretation of nationhood beyond the existence of the Palestinian state. The impediment to full recognition of Palestinians is restricted further by the imagery of Jews enduring trials and tribulations across many centuries, the recent history of the Holocaust and the “Jewish state” defending itself against Palestinian “terrorism”. Palestinians become ephemeral in Zionist narrative; they are either obliterated to suit Israel’s public sphere, or else are a tangible threat to security. The concept of Palestinians dispersed by the occupation and rendered as refugees in their own land are “issues” serving the permanent division of society. Furthermore, it reinforces a false projection of misery pertaining to Jewish identity with regard to its hold upon the fictitious homeland.

 

Elhanan declares the visual dramatisation of history without a concrete foundation as vital to sustaining the Zionist ideological stereotype. Since the education system is based upon the imparting of superiority, racism “functions as part of the ideological and the repressive apparatus of the state”. Failure to recognise that racism is actually far more deeply embedded than its manifestation in human rights violations suggests can only strengthen the racist indoctrination of the younger generations of Israelis.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

A TOILET PROBLEM

Daniel Mabsout,

When the law of Apartheid was promulgated in South Africa the goal was to organize a state of things on the ground whereby the country gathered two inimical groups which are the occupier and the occupied who have to be separated like two wrestlers in a ring . The colonizers had to organize the relations between the two groups since this occupation was to last . This is why they established the Apartheid law to consecrate this state of things . No doubt that this tension and hatred -created by the occupation, genocide and absence of treatment of the matter- resulted -in addition to the lot of bodies buried under the ground- in an amount of hatred driven under the rag of civilization and in the aberration of calling it racial rather than colonial whereby those who committed genocide were labeled as white rather than colonialists driven by greed .
The colonizers did not know then that the Apartheid policies will inspire their allies in the western world to apparently solve the problem of racism caused by the colonialists everywhere .This happened by creating what is called the anti Apartheid policy . This policy- instead of eradicating colonialism that is responsible for racism – chose to deal with the outer manifestations of racism by inciting colored people to ask for equal rights with the colonizer who originally had no rights at all . By this the colonizer -who is the usurper and violator- became a par to the native who is the victim . By this two goals were attained : the colonizer was given a legal status and a legal right to the land and the victim was dispossessed of his right to chase the colonizer out and retrieve- therefore- his right over his land . The USA made great use of these policies that sought to erase the differences between the two parties- defined as two races – regarding the law which did not change so much the living conditions of Black people as it relieved the US from the burden of the African American issue.
This so called racial hatred as it was denoted between the two races was then pushed back again and buried under deep layers and would wait for another opportunity to break out . This negative energy has found an outlet in the several wars launched by US over other poor countries where black and white people together let their anger out and directed it to others . The coexistence between the two races required such wars!
We require that the wounds be opened and treated and things be given their true names so as not to create more injustice and wars .

 LIFT THE ANTI APARTHEID LAWS LET THE PEOPLE REALIZE THEIR TRUE CONDITION AND STOP HIDING THE AILMENT AND COVERING THE LIE WITH A WORSE LIE

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Racism in jewish terror state’s universities “escalating out-of-control”

By Adam Whittock – March 26, 2013

 

 

On March 6, three Palestinian students at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem were arrested after they demonstrated in support of Palestinian prisoners. 

 

They were arrested by Israeli police several minutes after the protest was over whilst chatting to fellow students on the street.

 

“We were protesting against Israel’s detainment of Palestinian prisoners and against police prosecution of Arab students,” said Majd Hamdan, one of the students who were arrested.

 

“At no point did the police say the protest was illegal…they did not tell us anything about the protest actually. But they still arrested us.”

 

The demonstration was also a partial response to the treatment of Khalil Gharra, also studying at Hebrew University, who was taken into police custody in the middle of the night on February 24 by four armed security personnel in civilian clothing. The men searched his room, traced his hard-drive, confiscated laptops and temporarily jailed him inside Jerusalem’s Russian Compound prison.

 

Majd was released the next day, after spending a night in Israeli prison, but Khalil Gharra went through a court hearing the morning after his arrest. According to +972 magazine, the pretext for his arrest was a Facebook status in which Gharra criticised Palestinians from his village who serve in the police. Despite confiscating his laptop, they found no evidence of this. They then agreed to release him if he paid NIS 5,000 ($1,500) of his own money. 

 

Despite refusing, he was sent home in the afternoon of the same day.  

 

Recently, discrimination against Palestinian students has gained much media attention, and reached a peak with the case of Imad Shaqqour.

We get accustomed to certain racist situations especially when it comes to political activities in college, but this incident is just outrageous, [as] we are being denied our native language

Shaqqour was denied advice from Haifa University’s Counselling Center because he spoke Arabic. The counsellor reportedly stated “I’m sorry, Arabic is not allowed in here, I hope this is fine with you, but this is how we do it here.”

 

“We get accustomed to certain racist situations especially when it comes to political activities in college, but this incident is just outrageous, [as] we are being denied our native language,” said Shaqqour in an interview with the Arabs48 website.

 

The Arab Culture Association runs a youth empowerment program that reports and exposes incidents of university discrimination, and documents them in an ‘Academic Watch’ report. The most recent reports details over 60 cases in which Arab-Palestinian students have been actively discriminated against in the past year alone.

 

This indicates, of course, that each incident is not isolated. However media coverage has focused on direct assaults on Palestinian students and has given little attention to the day-to-day and long-standing racism in Israeli institutions.
 

Institutionalized racism: “I’m sorry, I just don’t like Arabs”

 

“Even if you speak Arabic too loudly or say something they don’t like, you will get a glaring look or somebody will mutter something towards you,” explains Basma, a student studying at Tel Aviv University.

 

Basma had recently organized a demonstration in support of Palestinian prisoners at the entrance to Tel Aviv University, which was met by a counter-demonstration of Israeli students and a bloc of police between the two sides. The event was entirely peaceful, with no arrests.

 

Despite the action, the climate of prejudice and alienation, especially towards use of the Arabic language, is generally shrugged off by many Arab students. This is simply because they cannot react to such entrenched forms of racism. 

 

Basma and Dr. Ran HaCohen, a professor at Tel Aviv University, discussed an interesting comparison between the treatment of Ethiopian-Jewish and Palestinian students.

 

They explain how the Dean of Students at the university offers student services, like advice on studies, help with dormitories and aids to career development with a special emphasis for prospective students from minority groups. Dr. HaCohen details how the Ethiopian-Jewish division is very helpful and empowering, with new students using it to form networks of assistance for each other.

However, Basma describes the Palestinian-Arab section of the Dean of Students as “an extension of the Deanship” and merely an institutional requirement that offers little help to Palestinian students.

In Haifa, the Dean was involved in the protests during the latest Gaza War. Palestinian student Maria Zahran was targeted by Israeli online counter-protestors, who shared her facebook profile and incited violence towards her in various messages. When she contacted the Dean to hold a Disciplinary Committee they offered little response and closed the case at the earliest opportunity.

 

Yet the Dean at Haifa, and at other Israeli universities, has repeatedly taken disciplinary action against Palestinian students without hesitation.

 

As if university-based discrimination is not enough, Palestinian students also have to adjust to a life in an environment away from Arab-majority populations. 

 

Haifa University gained a lot of media attention when it was found to be giving out its dormitories to students who had served in the military rather to those who deserved the places from a socio-economic basis. The dorms are relatively cheap, but as Palestinian citizens of Israel cannot serve in the military, they would be forced to look for the more expensive privately owned apartments.

Yet, and without de-valuating the above example, there is a wider struggle for Palestinian students searching for accommodation. Students at Tel Aviv University have to find accommodation in the city, rather than on the campus, as they enter their third year. 

 

As Basma explains, “In one occasion I call up a person letting out a flat, and she is interested until she asks my name. I call back a few days later, on my friend’s phone, and she says ‘oh right, yes you, oh I’m sorry I just don’t like Arabs.’ This is what we have to go through. It is escalating out-of-control.”

 

Militarisation and control on subject majors

 

Students on study leave whilst part of the armed forces regularly carry their weapons around campus. 

 

The militaristic nature of Israeli universities is plainly evident and has been analyzed by many. The Middle East Department of Tel Aviv University has become notorious among Palestinian students for its racist dictum, and for its effective grooming of future Shabak (Israel’s security agency) members. 

The preference given to students who have served in the Israeli military have severely affected the choices Palestinian students have to study at university.

Those who choose to attend university and are enticed towards studying science-based subjects as Israeli universities offer humanities courses that Palestinian students do not readily identify with.

The majority of university courses do not accept anybody younger than 21 years of age. Yet high school in Israel finishes when the pupil reaches 18. This system is designed around the use of conscription into the army for the three years in between high school and university. As Palestinian students are not allowed to serve in the military, they have three years in which they must find employment before joining university. 

 

The reality is most Palestinians students with aspirations for studying rarely follow through with their plans. The pressures of living in a comparatively low socio-economic environment compel most prospective students to continue their employment without study. 

 

What’s more, those who do choose to attend university are enticed towards studying science-based subjects as Israeli universities offer humanities courses that Palestinian students do not readily identify with.

 

Yet even in science-based subjects there are doors closing for Palestinians, as they compete with Israeli society. The military is heavily involved with medical academia, allowing conscripts to delay their service whilst studying medicine, and ensuring grants and scholarships are readily available to future soldiers, with the desire that they become army medics. 

 

Pharmacology is one of the increasingly rare subjects that allow high school graduates at age 18 to apply for study, and is not in competition with another strata of Israeli society whilst at the same time, it provides a good opportunity for employment afterwards.

 

For this reason, the pharmaceutical industry in Israel is dominated by Palestinian post-graduates. 

Yet there are rumours in the Jerusalem municipality that the age restriction on the study of pharmacology may be raised to 21 years of age quite soon.

 

“The message seems to be they would rather have a university without any Arabs at all,” says Mohammed Awadi, a Tel Aviv student leader.

 

The disturbing control over intellectual property by the Israeli state system is clearly visible through the eyes of Palestinians. 

 

With two conflicting moves, Israel is attempting to absorb and co-opt its Palestinian population into its ideological apparatus, whilst closing off the universities and thus opportunities for Palestinians, thereby removing any internal non-Jewish intellectual threat to the existence of the Zionist state.

 

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

ISRAELI HATE REACHES NEW HEIGHTS ON FACEBOOK

“May you die garbage Arabs, amen!”

This is only a small selection of therepresentative and typical comments posted under the picture of the three boys in the tent.

• “Disgusting. Burn the tent” - Oriel Diller
• “Eliminate” - Zevika Gvirz
• “Artillery training ‘mistake’ ” - Igor Gonopolskiy
• “Burn them” - Yaron Gringauz
• “May you die garbage Arabs, amen!” - Shahar Dayan
• “Run them over and shoot them. It’s not complicated!” - Elad Sender
• “Take the tent with the people in it, put it on a trailer and dump them back where they came from” - Sharon Carmi
• “A hand grenade inside the tent!” - Dvir Dagan
• “Put a couple of bullets in their heads and we’re done” - Adi Maman
• “Set them on fire” - Yosef Porotzky
• “Fuck them” - Aria Yehudai

*“Castrate them!” “Burn them!” “Bullet in the head!”: Facebook Israelis react to photo of Palestinian kids -  Ali Abunimah 

*

An image of three Palestinian boys sparked an outpouring of violent and sadistic fantasies after it was reposted to an Israeli Facebook page (Original source and screenshot of context).  (Shadi Hatem)
 

Having regularly documented the horrifying racism and violent fantasies frequently expressed by Israelis on Facebook or Instagram, I thought I had seen everything.
But this may be the worst yet. On Wednesday, the picture above of three Palestinian boys in a tent was posted on a popular Facebook page titled in Hebrew “We are all in favor of death to terrorists.” Under the picture is the following caption:

Arab boys in the illegal Arab outpost established near Maale Adumim. What should the Israeli army do to them?

This is an apparent reference to the peaceful “Bab al-Shams” encampment established by Palestinians near Jerusalem to protest Israel’s plans to seize more land for settlements. The protest was timed to coincide with the visit of US President Barack Obama.

“Run the tent over with a truck/Merkava tank/a bus/ whatever it takes to crush and kill these children,” suggested Facebook user Lidor Swisa.

As of Friday there were almost 200 comments under the post offering suggestions of what the Israeli army should do – the vast majority fantasizing extreme sadistic violence and murder.
What makes this even more than usually disturbing is many of the Israeli commentators appear to be high school students themselves – perhaps only a year or two from mandatory army service when they will be empowered to carry out their fantasies.

Soldiers and adults join in the virtual pogrom

Kfir Brigade sergeant Ohad Halevy believes Palestinian children peacefully protesting should be “slaughtered” (Source).

But others, such as Shlomo Levi, are clearly already army-age adults. His suggestion?

“I’d have thrown nerve gas into the tent and closed it and made them breath it until the end”

Kfir Infantry Brigade member David Kozolovski justifies violence against Palestinian children (Source).
 

David Kozolovski wrote, “To all those comparing Jews to Nazis, Jews did not try to kill German civilians,” thereby justifying the orgy of violent fantasies against the children.
Kozolovski’s profile pictures on Facebook include images of him in his Israeli army uniform bearing the insignia of the Kfir Infantry Brigade.
Ohad Halevy, another soldier in the Kfir Brigade simply wrote “Slaughter them!” of the three children in the photo.

“May you die garbage Arabs, amen!”

This is only a small selection of therepresentative and typical comments posted under the picture of the three boys in the tent.

• “Disgusting. Burn the tent” - Oriel Diller
• “Eliminate” - Zevika Gvirz
• “Artillery training ‘mistake’ ” - Igor Gonopolskiy
• “Burn them” - Yaron Gringauz
• “May you die garbage Arabs, amen!” - Shahar Dayan
• “Run them over and shoot them. It’s not complicated!” - Elad Sender
• “Take the tent with the people in it, put it on a trailer and dump them back where they came from” - Sharon Carmi
• “A hand grenade inside the tent!” - Dvir Dagan
• “Put a couple of bullets in their heads and we’re done” - Adi Maman
• “Set them on fire” - Yosef Porotzky
• “Fuck them” - Aria Yehudai

A minority of users objected to these pervasive comments. Lilach Lilush, said, “Excuse me … I disagree… what do you mean ‘eliminate?’ What are we, an arm of Hamas or Hizballah? We are more enlightened. We should just return them safely where they came from.”
Even in her objection Lilush could not but stereotype Arabs as monsters compared to “enlightened” Israelis. But still, hers was a very rare sentiment amid the frenzy of bloodlust that sees the three Palestinian boys in the picture as legitimate targets for extreme violence.

Widespread incitement and racism

Again, I stress as in my previous posts, that this horrifying racism and sadism towards Arabs seems to be pervasive among Israelis who use social media and reflects the much broader phenomenon of escalating racism in Israel against Palestinians and Africans.
Haaretz noted, for instance, in a recent article that racist incitement by Israeli public figures doubled in 2012. It also reported on how the kind of crude and shocking racism seen in these comments is common among Israeli schoolchildren in Jerusalem.
Nurit Peled-Elhanan has also documented in her recent book the pervasive anti-Arab racism and stereotypes that Israeli children are exposed to at school which may contribute to this horrifying phenomenon.
It is also notable that the “We are all in favor of death to terrorists” Facebook group has more than 41,000 “Likes” and images of Palestinians, Arabs and Israelis deemed traitorous “leftists” are frequently posted attracting similarly vile comments.
In his speech in Jerusalem this week, President Obama also observed that “Israelis are so active on social media that every day seemed to bring a different Facebook campaign about where I should give this speech.”

The violence is not just virtual

In at least one case we know of, an Israeli soldier, Maxim Vinogradov, announced on Facebook his intention to assist in the “annihilation” of Arabs just days before he went out and shot father of two Ziad Jilani at a checkpoint in Jerusalem for no known reason in 2010.
An example of the Israeli army’s routine brutality against children was on display on the very day Obama landed when dozens of children as young as eight were abused and kidnapped by Israeli soldiers as they were on their way to school in Hebron  a harrowing scene caught on video.
 

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Genocidal Jews on Facebook

“May all Arabs die!” Israelis on Facebook express joy at Jordan bus crash that killed Palestinian pilgrims

Source

electronicintifada.net

Israelis, including at least one person identifying himself as a soldier, reacted with genocidal joy on Facebook to the horrifying news this morning that 17 Palestinians returning from a pilgrimage had been killed in a bus accident in Jordan and dozens more injured. Early reports had put the number of dead at 14.

According to The Jordan Times, the accident occurred as the bus descended toward the Jordan Valley “and slammed into a passenger vehicle causing it to overturn. The bus then slammed into a truck and the two vehicles crashed resulting in the deaths and the high number of injuries.”

Israelis overjoyed at horrifying deaths

“I couldn’t ask for a better morning than this,” wrote Facebook user Kobi Yaacov Saroussiunder an item about the accident on the Facebook page of Israel’s Channel 2, “Shame there isn’t another zero at the end [of the number of victims].”

kobi_saroussi.jpg

Kobi Yaacov Saroussi is disappointed there weren’t ten times as many deaths.

There were dozens more similar comments. Facebook user Demri Alice wrote “Finally it’s possible to ‘Like’ something,” to which she added a smiley face.

demri_alice.jpg

In horrifying deaths of Palestinians, Demri Alice finally find something to “Like” on Facebook.

Many were brief. Tomer Reuven simply commented “Very good.”

“Great! Let’s hope everyone on the bus was an Arab!” said Eitan Wolfer Eifergan.

eitan_eifergan.jpg

“I’ve never tolerated Arabs,” wrote Kobi Noga, “I’m an extreme rightist. We should kill them all.”

kobi_noga.jpg

Kobi Noga, self-described “extreme rightist,” thinks all Arabs should be killed.

Shenhav Sharbit, using the perjorative term “arboushim” – roughly the equivalent of the N-word – said Arabs could “all die” and that was “all good.”

shenhav_sharbit.jpg

Shenhav Sharbit uses a racist epithet for Arabs to express her joy at their deaths.

Golani Brigade soldier: “May all Arabs die … I am a proud racist.”

chen_shaptiban_golani.jpg

In a screenshot from his Facebook page, Chen Shaptiban is seen in a uniform bearing the tree symbol indicating that he is a member of the Israeli army’s Golani Brigade.
 

Among the most horrifying of the many horrifying comments were those of Chen Shaptiban who, based on a photo on his Facebook page, appears to be a member of the Israeli army’s notorious “Golani brigade” which was recently in the news because some of its members have posted shocking photographs on Instagram. One of Shaptiban’s reactions to the road accident was this:

May all Arabs die. There is no place for Arabs in the land of Israel. Maybe it sounds terrible to some people in north Tel Aviv, but they too do not deserve to live in this state, and yes, I am a proud racist, proud of my state and the soldiers guarding it!

chen_shaptiban.jpg

Objections to racism shut down with more racist abuse

Some Palestinian citizens of Israel and Israeli Jews objected to the pervasive racism. Facebook user Marwan Momo, for example, wrote, “You keep crying Holocaust Holocaust but look how you talk!”

 

Gilad Kapeliuk wrote, “The sickening racism does not surprise me …. I’m ashamed to be part of this nation.”

 

But Avigail Mishaiv replied to Kapeliuk, “Gaza is waiting for you with open arms. You can go and be proud over there.

 

Golani soldier Shaptiban also retorted, “Gilad, you leftists are the cancer in the state, traitors to the state, the garbage of Israeli society.”

 

Regev Cohen, responding to another Facebook user, whom he addressed with a homophobic epithet, wrote, “All the terrorists in the world, all the fucking martyrs, who are they? Arabs and Muslims” before referring to Arabs as “barbarians” and “human waste.”

 

Ori Avraham reacted to criticism of the racist statements from a user called “Irit” by telling her, “Do you know what the biggest dream of the Muslims is? To exterminate all the Jews by any means, so be quiet.”

Not an isolated incident

It is important to emphasize that the racist comments in this incident were not rare or exceptional, but numerous and pervasive.

While the comments above were collected from the Facebook page of Israel’s Channel 2, many similar racist comments could be seen just as frequently under the news item about the crash on the Facebook page of Walla! News, another major Israeli media outlet.

At Walla! for example, Elior Mizrahi commented, “Sabbath morning, a beautiful day!” and added a smiley face. Shai Hadad expressed the sentiment, “14 is too few, shame it wasn’t more.”

shai_hadad.jpg

Nor is this an isolated incident. The Electronic Intifada has previously documented numerous examples of Israelis expressing shocking racism and calls for racist and genocidal violence on Facebook.

 

Today’s disgusting comments are also reminiscent of what happened when some Israelis expressed delight after a number of Palestinian children were killed in a bus accident in February last year.

 

It is also notable that while the habitual expressions of joy by Israelis at the deaths and suffering of Palestinians go largely unremarked, an Egyptian activist, Samira Ibrahim, was the focus of worldwide condemnation recently after her nomination for a White House award was withdrawn when it came to light that she had expressed joy on Twitter at the deaths of Israelis in the July 2012 bombing of a bus in the Bulgarian resort town of Burgas among other objectionable and racist comments.

Words lead to killing

This shocking and pervasive racism is not harmless. Many of those expressing it are members of Israeli occupation forces who hold immense power over the Palestinian population.

In at least one case we know about, an Israeli occupation “border policeman,” Maxim Vinogradov, had expressed a desire on Facebook to assist in “annihilating” Arabs just one week before he shot dead Palestinian father Ziad Jilani at a checkpoint in eastern occupied Jerusalem, a killing for which Jilani’s family continues to seek justice.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

‘Transport-Apartheid’: Palestinians Only buses are ….OK!

 

Posted by G, M, Z, or B at 10:36 AM

 

Is Palestinian Solidarity an Occupied Zone?

By GILAD ATZMON

http://www.counterpunch.org/

Once involved with Palestinian Solidarity you have to accept that Jews are special and so is their suffering; Jews are like no other people, their Holocaust is like no other genocide and anti Semitism, is the most vile form of racism the world has ever known and so on and so forth.

But when it comes to the Palestinians, the exact opposite is the case. For some reason we are expected to believe that the Palestinians are not special at all -  they are just like everyone else. Palestinians have not been subject to a unique, racist, nationalist and expansionist Jewish nationalist movement, instead, we must all agree that, just like the Indians and the Africans, the Palestinian ordeal results from run-of-the-mill 19^th century colonialism – just more of the same old boring Apartheid.

So, Jews, Zionists and Israelis are exceptional, like no one else, while Palestinians are always somehow, ordinary, always part of some greater political narrative, always just like everyone else. Their suffering is never due to the particularity of Jewish nationalism, or Jewish racism, or even AIPAC dominating USA foreign policy no, the Palestinian is always a victim of a dull, banal dynamic – general, abstract and totally lacking in particularity.

This raises some serious questions.

Can you think of any other liberation or solidarity movement that prides itself in being boring, ordinary and dull? Can you think of any other solidarity movement that downgrades its subject into just one more meaningless exhibit in a museum of materialist historical happenings? I don’t think so! Did the black South Africans see themselves as being like everyone else? Did Martin Luther King believe his brothers and sisters to be inherently undistinguishable?

I don’t think so. So how come Palestinian solidarity has managed to sink so low that their spokespersons and supporters compete against each other to see who can best eliminate the uniqueness of the Palestinian struggle into just part of a general historical trend such as colonialism or Apartheid?

The answer is simple. Palestinian Solidarity is an occupied zone and, like all such occupied zones must dedicate itself to the fight against ‘anti Semitism’. Dutifully united against racism, fully engaged with LGBT issues in Palestine and in the movement itself, but for one reason or another, the movement is almost indifferent towards the fate of millions of Palestinians living in refugee camps and their Right of Return to their homeland.

But all this can change. Palestinians and their supporters could begin to see their cause for what it is, unique and distinctive. Nor need this be all that difficult.  After all, if Jewish nationalism is inherently exceptional as Zionists proclaim, is it not only natural that the victims of such a distinctive racist endeavor are at least, themselves, just as distinctive.

So far, Palestine solidarity has failed to liberate Palestine, but it has succeeded beyond its wildest dreams in creating a Palestine Solidarity Industry, and one largely funded by liberal Zionists. We have been very productive in schlepping activists around the world promoting ‘boycotts’ and ‘sanctions’ meanwhile Israel trade with Britain is booming  and Hummus Tzabar is clearly apparent in every British grocery store.

All those attempts to reduce Palestinian ordeal into a dated, dull, generalised materialist narrative should be exposed for what they are – an attempt to appease liberal Zionists. Palestinian suffering is actually unique in history at least as unique as the Zionist project.

Yesterday I came across this from South African minister Ronnie Kasrils. In a comment on Israeli Apartheid he said : “This is much worse than Apartheid..Israeli measures, the brutality, make apartheid look like a picnic. We never had Jets attacking our townships; we never had sieges that lasted months after months. We never had tanks destroying houses.”

Kasrils is dead right. It is much worse than Apartheid and far more sophisticated than colonialism. And why? Because what the Zionists did and are doing is neither Apartheid nor is it colonialism. Apartheid wanted to exploit the African, Israel wants the Palestinian gone. Colonialism is an exchange between a mother and a settler state. Israel never had a mother State, though it may well have had a few ‘surrogate mothers’.

Now is the time to look at the unique ordeal of the Palestinian people. Similarly, now is the time to look at the Zionist crime in the light of Jewish culture and identity politics.
Can the solidarity movement meet this challenge? Probably, but like Palestine, it must first, itself, be liberated.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Israel runs ‘Palestinian-only’ buses

Israel runs ‘Palestinian-only’ buses

Israel has launched ‘Palestinian-only buses.’ (File photo)

Sun Mar 3, 2013 8:7AM GMT

Israeli transport authorities claim that Palestinians entering “mixed buses” with Israelis will not be thrown off. However, several bus drivers say Palestinians will be only allowed to travel on the ‘Palestinian-only buses.’

The Israeli transportation ministry says it has launched ‘Palestinian-only buses’ as the Tel Aviv regime continues with its apartheid policies.

The ministry said the bus lines, which were launched on Sunday, would only give service to Palestinian passengers commuting from the West Bank to central Tel Aviv. The buses only stop in Palestinian villages.

Israeli transport authorities claim that Palestinians entering “mixed buses” with Israelis will not be thrown off. However, several bus drivers say Palestinians will be only allowed to travel on the ‘Palestinian-only buses.’

“We are not allowed to refuse service and we will not order anyone to get off the bus, but from what we were told, starting next week, there will be checks at the checkpoint, and Palestinians will be asked to board their own buses,” said an Israeli bus driver.

“It was the result of reports and complaints saying that the buses traveling in the area were overcrowded and rife with tensions between the Jewish and Arab passengers,” Israeli media quoted the transportation ministry as saying in defense of the plan.

Israeli security forces have been put on high alert to counter possible protests by Palestinians in the region over the racist move.

DB/HSN/MA

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

Instagram Scandal Highlights Racism Among Israeli Youth

Israeli youths dance under a huge national flag during a parade marking Jerusalem Day in Jerusalem, May 20, 2012.

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An image of a Palestinian child in the crosshairs of a gun posted on an Israeli soldier’s Instagram account went viral in February after being published by the Electronic Intifada, the US-based blog on Palestinian issues, attracting widespread negative attention in international media. Israeli authorities were quick to assure that this was not a typical case and that the photo did not accurately portray the Israeli military. A few days later, more disturbing pictures of soldiers, including Rambo-like posing and hailing the killing of Arabs, went viral.

According to Rebecca Stein, a professor at Duke University, the use of social media by the soldier on the ground to capture his or her everyday life is nothing new. In a phone interview with Al-Monitor, Stein explained that what makes the Instagram images interesting is the way of aestheticizing the military and thereby normalizing warfare and the occupation of the Palestinian territories.

“It becomes clear the extent to which the occupation as a reigning paradigm in Israel is now so banal that it can be rendered in an aestheticized form and circulated like a souvenir,” said Stein.

Yehuda Shaul is a former Israeli soldier and cofounder of Breaking the Silence, an Israeli organization that gathers testimonies of veteran combatants to reveal the reality of everyday life as soldiers in the occupied territories. He was not surprised to see the Instagram photo, which he said was almost identical to an image from the second intifada.

“It’s just a fact that in 2013 there is Instagram. It’s not like the disrespect for Palestinian life wasn’t there before Facebook, for instance. It just gives another window into the mindset of what it means being a soldier and how you see Palestinians when you serve in the Palestinian territories — and the answer to that is, not as equal human beings to you,” said Shaul in a phone interview with Al-Monitor. ”[As a soldier] you stand at your post for eight hours, bored to death, and you look for ways to pass some time. Taking pictures through your scope is just something you do.”

Israel authorities aestheticize military culture

The Israeli army guaranteed that the recent case attracting so much attention would be “examined and properly handled,” referring to investigations into whether any criminal acts had taken place. Shaul finds this reaction nonsensical.

“The army is trying to dampen the PR damage while not giving any concern to the real problem this photo is portraying,” said Yehuda. ”It’s not about whether we commit crimes according to the criminal law, but about whether we commit crimes to the moral laws we want to stand up to.”

Stein has been researching new media technologies in connection with the Israeli occupation since Operation Cast Lead in 2008–2009. According to her, the army as well as the state and its different branches of government have since that time been fully aware of the importance of new media and have tried to catch up with the highly digital young soldiers both on and off the battlefield.

Stein also points to the fact that social media tools are not only used by soldiers, but also by Israeli authorities, who have incorporated these tools into their “toolbox of military occupation and war.” While Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have been a part of the army’s PR strategy for years, Instagram was added to the list prior to the Pillar of Defense campaign against Gaza in November 2012.

“The operation mission in 2012 made it abundantly clear to anyone who had any doubts about the central role of new media, both in the hands of Israelis and Palestinians on the ground, but also in the hands of the state. Instagram was being used as a platform to celebrate military culture and the targeting of Palestinians,” said Stein.

While it seems that the Israel Defense Forces has taken down its Instagram platform, posting only a select few images on its blog, more can be viewed in a November feature in the New Inquiry, an independent online magazine.

Racism is nothing new

The message of racism and targeting of Palestinians expressed in Israeli soldiers’ Instagram images is apparently not confined to social media. In recent weeks, Israeli media have featured cases of young Israeli Jews who attacked Arab Israelis. During the Jewish holiday of Purim, 40-year-old Hassan Ausruf was severely beaten in Tel Aviv by a group of Israeli youths who, according to Ausruf, shouted racist incitements. On Feb. 26 in Jerusalem, an eyewitness took pictures of an alleged hate crime in which a Jewish woman attacked a Muslim woman, tearing off her head scarf, at a light rail stop.

Hebrew University professor Moshe Zimmerman, a historian specializing in anti-Semitism in Europe and the role of the Holocaust in Israel and postwar Germany, warned some 20 years ago about the growing issue of racism among Israeli youth.

“What is happening now is just a demonstration of what has already been going on for a long time. There is a feeling that Jews are superior to others, and there is a lot of hate to[ward] ‘the other.’ All the racism that we know from European and American history is also found in the Israeli society,” said Zimmerman in a phone interview with Al-Monitor.

Zimmerman attributes the culture of racism to a process of socialization in formal and informal education, which is also reflected among young Israeli soldiers. “The military is the outcome. You educate the Israeli youth to believe in a racist ideology, and the first place where they can practice this is in the army when being confronted by Palestinians in the Palestinian territories,” said Zimmerman.

According to Zimmerman, there is little being done to tackle the issue of racism. He would like to see a bigger effort, especially in the education system, to confront this racist trend.

Lena Odgaard is a Danish journalist reporting from around the Middle East, mainly on Israel and Palestine. She tweets @l_odgaard.

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Racist BDS منظمة مقاطعة اسرائيل وتسويق فكرة العنصري

By Daniel Mabsout,

Omar Barghouti – on “White People”

The Use of the terms white race on behalf of Barghouthi is because BDS has a racist agenda. This agenda is expressed in describing the Arab/ Israeli struggle as a Jewish/ non Jewish struggle between Jews and non Jews . THis has for goal to shift the struggle from its real identity towards an assumed religious identity in conformity with the original scheme of the colonizers. According to this new identity Muslims and Arabs are supposed to act as a race or a religion facing another one , on par with their racist enemy . Thus , thanks to the racial nature of the struggle, Israel can acquire the legal status of an Apartheid state that will require anti racist policies , and Arabs can remain confined within a certain religion and lose the human, national and universal dimension of their cause and become alienated from it . The one that benefits from this whole set up is Israel of course . Arabs and Palestinians are at their disadvantage in the racial conlict where they have been drawn and to which they have no clue . This racial attitude displayed by BDS is accompanied by another sectarian attitude that promotes a certain religious sect at the expense of another . What happened with George Galloway was a set up – as he describes it himself – and just the beginning , BDS will slowly reveal more of its racist sectarian designs in the future .

ان استخدام عبارة “العرق الأبيض” من قبل عمر البرغوثي الناشط في منظمة مقاطعة إسرائيل هو بسبب كون المنظمة تحمل أجندة عنصرية . تتجلى هذه الأجندة في توصيف الصراع العربي الإسرائيلي على أنه صراع يهودي\لا يهودي بين اليهود و غير اليهود. هذا من شأنه أن ينقل الصراع مع إسرائيل من أرضيته الحقيقية نحو أرضية دينية إفتراضية تنسجم مع المشروع الإستيطاني البريطاني الأساس…ي . بحسب هذه الهوية الإفتراضية، فإن العرب و المسلمين سيواجهون عدوهم بصفتهم ينتمون إلى دين معين بالتساوي مع الأعداء اللذين يواجهونهم . هكذا ، و بسبب طبيعة الصراع العنصري الديني المفترض، فإن إسرائيل ستكتسب الصفة القانونية الخاصة بالدولة العنصرية التي تتطلب محاربتها اعتماد سياسات مناهضة للعنصرية من قبل العرب و الفلسطينيين. هكذا يبقى العرب محصورين في إطار ديانة محددة و يفقدون البعد الإنساني و الوطني و الكوني لقضيتهم كما يفقدون الصلة المباشرة بهذه القضية

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إن المستفيد الأول من هذا الإخراج هو إسرائيل دون أدنى شك. أما العرب و الفلسطينيون، فإنهم في ذلك الصراع العنصري خارج إطارهم الطيبعي و لا يملكون مفاتيحه. إن هذا الموقف العنصري الذي تتبناه منظمة مقاطعة إسرائيل بشخص الناشط عمر البرغوثي تترافق مع موقف اخر يتبنى هذه المرة أجندة مذهبية لصالح مذهب معين على حساب اخر. إن ما حدث للسيد جورج غالاواي في حرم جامعة أوكسفورد كان أمرا مدبرا كما وصفه غالاواي نفسه. و ما تلك الحادثة إلا البداية حيث أن منظمة مقاطعة إسرائيل سوف تظهر تدريجيا في المستقبل كافة سياساتها التي تنطلق من مبدأ عنصري يليه موقف مذهبي من القضية العربية و الفلسطينية.

 http://www.deliberation.info/omar-barghouti-on-white-people/#comment-21033

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