Greens Engage

The issue of borders, on Bitter Lemons.

Cross-posted on Engage.

After reading Gene’s reminder “Equally, boycott opponents have a right, and a duty, to express themselves as well”, I just sent this (which I’ve tweaked a bit since sending) to BBC and Cadogan Hall addresses listed on PACBI’s ‘call to action against the Jerusalem Quartet’s Proms Appearance’. I hope the links make it through their spam filter.

***

info at cadoganhall dot com
proms at bbc dot co dot uk
and the Quartet.

Hello,

I understand you are coming under pressure from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel to cancel the performance of the Jerusalem Quartet on August 29th.

Hopefully cancellation is out of the question, but given the intensity of PACBI’s campaign, I thought I should contact you with some reasons to go ahead.

If you look at the boycott, divestment and sanction calls PACBI references, it is clear that PACBI and other boycott campaigners such as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign are not interested in establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Rather, they are interested in eliminating Israel. This was made clear when PACBI successfully cancelled joint simultaneous peace concerts in Israel and the West Bank. PACBI and the PSC cannot tolerate peace work and move to sabotage it.

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1479
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1547

Some Israeli political groups and human rights and peace-making NGOs draw a distinction between boycotting the occupation on the one hand, which they view as appropriate, and boycotting Israel in its entirety on the other hand, which they recognise as eliminationist. PACBI and other groups pursue the latter – the entire social, cultural and economic exclusion of Israel. PACBI seeks, indiscriminately, to break links between medical institutions and cultural ones alike. Nothing less than the total pariahdom of Israel will suffice. PACBI is attempting to end Israel’s existence.

Unlike the boycott of South Africa, to which the boycott of Israel is frequently compared, hardly any Israelis call for a boycott. Those who oppose boycott include the Israeli socialist party Hadash and peace-making NGOs such as Gisha (legal centre for freedom of movement), the Abraham Fund for coexistence, and Peace Now (for an end to the occupation). The boycott is widely seen by peace-makers on the ground as counterproductive to peace. It is inarticulate, it causes more of the difference and division which are exascerbating the conflict, and it abandons Israeli peace activists.

http://links.org.au/node/968
http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/peace.asp?pi=69&docid=3303&pos=0
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1715
http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/a-cringe-making-boycott-letter/

Israeli authorities have attempted to disrupt Palestinian cultural and academic affairs; I and other anti-boycotters have spoken out against these politically-motivated acts, as I do here.

http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/protesting-the-israeli-security-forces-disruption-of-palfest/
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1940
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1029
http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/student-protester-arrested-on-israeli-campus/

Meanwhile even joint anti-war Jewish and Palestinian Israeli productions such as Plonter are prevented from staging performances in Israel’s neighbouring states; performances are held to ransom as if they could lever peace. And even joint Israeli and Palestinian Israeli relationships are the focus of PACBI’s ongoing attempts to drive a wedge into co-existence between Israel’s Jewish and non-Jewish citizens. Wafa Younis’s life was in danger after she took her youth orchestra, Strings of Freedom, to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day.

http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/pacbi-drives-a-wedge-into-coexistence-inside-israel/
http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/03/28/good-things/

This is the nature of the cultural boycott.

Israel is unlike South Africa in a crucial way: its neighbours have only recently formally accepted its existence, this acceptance cannot be taken for granted, and there are enduring armed movements which hope to eliminate Israel. In South Africa anti-apartheid activists sought majority rule. In Israel there is majority rule. Israel is the world’s sole Jewish state, which came into existence after the attempted genocide of the world’s Jews. Hamas, Hesbollah and other factions continually preach hatred of Jews, and call this resistance to Israel. Beyond Israel antisemitism is a regional norm.

A total boycott of Israel – the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions of which PACBI’s cultural boycott is part – assists Hamas and other eliminationists by posing an obstacle to peace-making. In short, Israel is not and never has been the sole aggressor in this conflict, nor does it act capriciously or sadistically, as you might think if you were to read only PACBI’s, or only the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s, narrative of the conflict. The settlers must leave the occupied land, reparations must be made to refugees, occupation must end, resources must be equitably distributed, infrastructure must not be used to control and subdue, and Israel’s neighbours must permit Israel to live in peace. In Israel and the occupied territories violence feeds on violence, extremism on extremism. The reason the conflict is intractable is because the causes endure, not because Israel is a brutal state.

Anti-Israel politics are frequently expressed as hostility to Jews. PACBI has been complicit in this, and seeks to diminish concerns about this.

http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/hamas-threatens-to-kill-jewish-children-anywhere-in-the-world/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/04/gaza-jewish-community

Boycotters will insist otherwise, but hosting an Israeli orchestra does not amount to acceptance of the decisions and actions of the Israeli government. Nor does it amount to a solution to the conflict.

But societies in conflict are vulnerable to the prejudice, demonisation, dehumanisation and despair which haunts conflicts, and without cultural and social exchange there can be no coexistence. And yet cultural exchanges are under attack not from peace-makers but from those who wish to prolong division.

The last time the Jerusalem Quartet was targeted in the name of Palestine solidarity, the protesters were charged with a racially aggravated offence. Separately, protest leader Mick Napier of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign uses far right antisemitic materials in his arguments on behalf of Palestinians. He is part of a current of thinking that perceives anti-Jewish words and acts as a legitimate part of Palestine solidarity.

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1752

The attempt he led to disrupt the concert was met with boos from the large audience at the Queens Hall in Edinburgh.

http://www.edinburghguide.com/festival/2008/edinburghinternationalfestival/jerusalemquartet

I could think of many more reasons not to cancel the Jerusalem Quartet. Some of them would be to do with cultural exchange and some of them would be to do with art. None of them would be to do with discrediting solidarity with Palestinians under occupation. Israel is engaged in a violent occupation and ongoing settlement of Palestinian lands beyond its own borders. Israel has demonstrated it is willing to turn large parts of Gaza to rubble and make security for ordinary Gazans meaningless in the name of protecting its own security. But the cultural boycott of Israel will not help end the occupation nor the violence – if anything it will exacerbate the division. Additionally I think (unlike boycotters) that the best way for international community to end the occupation is to learn about the conflict, represent it accurately, and demand and take action which addresses the causes of the conflict. The best way for artistic bodies in Britain to reach out to Palestinians living under occupation is to invite Palestinian artists and performers to this country and pursue their travel permits with the Israeli authorities. I would be more than happy to play a part here, should such an initiative arise.

Thanks for reading and best wishes,

Mira

PS.
http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/tali-shalom-ezer-won’t-do-ken-loach’s-work-for-him/
http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/msu-jewish-studies-welcomes-honour-to-tutu-but-calls-on-him-to-renounce-israel-boycott/
http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/boycotters-target-leonard-cohen-as-a-bhuddist-jonathan-freedland/

The latest Environmental Peacemaking bulletin and cheap politics on the Dead Sea.

“FoEME is calling for the reform/replacement of the Joint Water Committee with a new body where Palestinians and Israelis are true partners in both water supply and management responsibilities.  FoEME is producing a new report on the issue of Israeli / Palestinian official water cooperation that will review the different reports of the Water Authorities and the World Bank.

~

FoEME continued to promote cross border peace building efforts, focusing on the tourism sector, by inviting Israeli and Palestinian tour guides and tour operators, as well as active adults from several participating “Good Water Neighbors” communities to visit the project’s Neighbors Paths in Southern Jordan.

~~~

At the annual EU Green Week conference, on June 23-26, an important session on Climate Change took place in Brussels, with FoEME’s Jordanian Director, Munqeth Mehyar speaking under the title “The Mediterranean Region, a Climate Change Hot Spot”.

~~~

Friends of the Earth Middle East organized 2 events on June 4, one in Ramallah and one in Tel Aviv, for the launching of a new report “Rising Temperatures, Rising Tensions” written by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), an independent Canadian environment and development research institute.

~~~

There’s more to read. The bulletin (should be available on the site in the next few days):

And cheap politics:

Dead Sea Subject to Cheap Politics

June 30, 2009
Tel Aviv

Statements made this past weekend by Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Regional Development Mr. Silvan Shalom, that the World Bank has approved a $1.25 Billion pilot plan of the proposed Red-Dead Canal, and the response yesterday of the World Bank citing that no agreement on funding has been reached, highlights that politicians are using the Red Dead Canal project for their own political image and not out of concern for the Dead Sea.

FoEME deplores the cheap politics that the Red-Dead project seems to attract.

Gidon Bromberg, Israeli Director of Friends of the Earth Middle East, says “the actions of these last days emphasize the need for greater integrity to be shown by all sides. Commitments previously made must be kept, such as the commitment of the Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian parties, together with the World Bank, to undertake a study of alternatives to the Red-Dead Canal as a means to saving the Dead Sea.”

Despite this pledge made over a year ago, the parties have failed to launch the Alternative Study, nor have they been able to agree on its Terms of Reference. Additionally, the public was assured that the World Bank would create a high-level panel of experts that would oversee the integrity of all studies being implemented by the World Bank. These obligations have not been met.

FoEME is calling on the World Bank to declare to the parties that either an Independent Alternative Study be launched and a high-level panel created immediately, or that the World Bank withdraws from the project.

For more information, please contact:

Gidon Bromberg – Israeli Director, FoEME; gidon@foeme.org +972-52-4532597
Mira Edelstein – Foreign Media Officer; mira@foeme.org; +972-54-6392937

Update: I wrote up the presentation on Engage – I think you will enjoy reading it.

Via the unofficial blog of the UK Friend of The Abraham Fund:

POST GAZA & ISRAEL’S ELECTIONS – CAN THERE BE COEXISTENCE IN ISRAEL?

Speaker: Mohammad Darawshe, Co-Executive Director of The Abraham Fund Initiatives.

Date: Tuesday 2nd June, 7.45pm (doors open 7.30pm)

Entry: Free, but we suggest a donation to cover our costs: £5 / £4 concessions

Hosted by the UK Friends of The Abraham Fund Initiatives and St Ethelburga’s, at 78 Bishopsgate, EC2N 4AG.

Download flyer [PDF]

Good Water Neighbours and a Model Water Agreement – see FoEME’s May 09 newsletter.

Details on Engage.

Um Al Fahm is a primarily Arab village in Israel, and a place of anti-Zionism. Some far right Zionists organised a march there this week – which the Israeli Supreme Court permitted according to the right to free expression.

Alex Stein took a bus there with members of Peace Now, Meretz and Hadash (two parties on the Israeli left) to demonstrate in solidarity with the residents of Umm Al Fahm, and describes what happened.

“As we came down the hill with our banners and our sloganeering (“Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies”, “Fascism won’t pass”), I became aware of a clear division among the protesters already in place. On one side Israeli-Arab men, some with Palestinian flags, many in keffiyehs, pastiches of their counterparts in the territories or abroad. On the other side Jews and Arabs, Zionists and anti-Zionists and non-Zionists, earnestly shouting the shouts of peace, holding banners up high. This was the welcome the 100 far-rightists could expect.

If fascists marched through my parents’ neighbourhood in London, I’d expect that non-Jews would oppose them. This is why I came to Umm-el-Fahm. I try to be a libertarian, and I think the Supreme Court took the correct decision in permitting the march, but in doing so it also implicitly gave people the right to stand in opposition, and this is the reason I came. Baruch Marzel thinks he’s oh-so-clever, asking what’s wrong with him marching through sovereign Israeli territory with the sovereign Israeli flag. Needless to say, he won’t be taking a similar march through Mea Sharim, another place known for its ambivalence bordering on antipathy for Zionism.

I have little time for the Balad-style nationalism or Islamism that some people suggest is dominant in Umm-el-Fahm. But I’m aware of the context. Having visited the city I found that our government has done precious little to win hearts and minds in places like this, and that only when I am confident we are doing everything we can to fully integrate Israeli-Arabs into the broader polity will I feel comfortable chastising Israeli-Arabs when they demonstrate hostility against the state. By standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the people of Umm-el-Fahm, then, I hoped to show Marzel and his clique that they were hopelessly outnumbered and that Israeli-Arabs could count on Jewish support when threatened by fascism.”

So, they waited. Needless to say, it started to rain. Read on.

The Jerusalem International Oud Festival, of which Jazz news wrote in 2008:

Like previous Festivals, the 2008 Jerusalem International Oud Festival serves as a meeting place between Middle Eastern and other cultures, emphasizing the similarities and differences between them. This year’s Festival travels to Egypt and Iraq, Turkey, Greece and Italy, and for the first time, to Rajasthan in northern India.

It even penetrates the depths of history-to the ancient music of several Jewish communities, from the traditions of Aleppo to those of Persia, nearly forgotten and here given new life on stage; to the days of the Golden Age of Spain and to the meeting between the Christian, Muslim and Jewish cultures, which contributed so extensively to large parts of modern culture; to the forgotten traditions of the troubadours of Anatolia; and to the mysticism of Sufism.

The 2008 Jerusalem International Oud Festival continues many of the important traditions of past Festivals: a series of concerts in tribute to the great artists and composers of the Arab world that this year includes a tribute to Abd al-Halim Hafez; and the songs of beloved artists from around the Arab world, from Fairuz and Um Kalthum to Abd al-Wahab and Nazim al-Ghazali. The opening concert of the Festival also continues a tradition: a tribute to Rabbi Yehuda Halevi sung and composed by Etti Ankri, part of a series of performances that will continue in the future, constituting a tribute by contemporary Israeli rock artists to the poets of the Golden Age.

A special emphasis at this year’s Festival will be placed on female artists. Together with a tribute to the three great female vocalists Layla Mourad, Asmahan and Um Kalthum, the Festival will present an assortment of fine contemporary performers: Etti Ankri, Charlette Shulamit Ottolenghi, Maureen Nehedar, Dalal Abu Amneh and Violet Salameh. There will also be a special evening marking the publication of an anthology dealing with the tremendous revolution underway in recent years, affecting the status, the roles and the public voice of women in the Arab world.”

See Coventry Green Voice for details of an interfaith event on the evening of Thursday 19th March 2009.

“This is on Thursday night (refreshments from 630pm, event from 7pm to 915pm) at the Methodist Central Hall here in Coventry. It will be a talk and discussion by the co-directors of Jerusalem Peacemakers … on the impact of the Gaza war on the region, renewed efforts for peace building, and what we can do to help.”

By email from OneVoice:

“2009 opened with a variety of new opportunities and unforeseen challenges which have dramatically altered the political landscape in the Middle East – elections and a war, new administrations and more violence. In some ways, the greatest challenge facing us this year is not what has changed, but what has stubbornly persisted: Palestinians still live under occupation, without freedom or independence; Israelis still live under threat from rocket attacks, without security or safety. The dream of two states for two peoples has not been realized.

The tragedy of the Gaza war widened the rift between Israelis and Palestinians – a schism that was acutely felt by OneVoice’s Israeli and Palestinian teams on the ground, threatening the very fabric of the Movement. None were more affected than our Gaza staff, who had to be evacuated following the war, and who have been temporarily relocated to the West Bank. But across all staff and members, there was an enormous amount of trust lost, which needed to be rebuilt.

To confront the situation, over the past two months, OneVoice has been engaged in a deep process of introspection, self-evaluation, political assessment, and strategic consultation to address the current situation and devise a way forward – we came together as a team, Israelis, Palestinians, and internationals, and in so doing were able to reach some conclusions about how we can strengthen the Movement, address the changing realities on the ground, and effect real change this year. After conferring with the OVI and OVP Youth Councils, the International Steering Committee, the International and Regional Boards, and staff from across the offices, OneVoice’s global leadership met together in Jerusalem in late February, and agreed on the following:

OneVoice can play a key role in the process – offering a concrete way forward to both peoples. We have built an unparalleled infrastructure and youth movement based on a unique premise: each side working in its own national self-interest to achieve freedom, independence, security, dignity, viability, and international recognition for both peoples.

But nothing will ever change if we don’t have the courage to say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done. Beneath the surface of the phrase “two state solution” there is a great deal of consensus that is yet to be forged within and between both societies – a great deal of understanding that is still missing. Even with our signatories and team members, we have recognized that Palestinians and Israelis have yet to acknowledge the legitimate concerns and perspectives of the other side. OneVoice has a critical role to play in civic education: in tackling the reality of the historic compromise that will be required of both Israelis and Palestinians in order to end the occupation of Palestine, to guarantee the security of Israel, and to resolve the conflict once and for all based on a formula of mutual recognition between two independent and viable states: Israel and Palestine.

Our programs for 2009 will be focused exclusively on the need to take courageous steps and break taboos on each side in order to make progress. It will certainly not be easy – but we simply have no time to lose. The window for a two state solution is closing, and this must be the year we make the critical difference.

We look forward to updating you with more detail in the coming weeks.”