Greens Engage

Israelis and Palestinians have a common enemy.

And like many other shared problems in the region, fighting it requires links, not boycotts supported by a far-away Green Party.

The Cairo Speech full text.

On  the Israel-Palestine conflict:

“The second major source of tension that we need to discuss is the situation between Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab world.

America’s strong bonds with Israel are well known.  This bond is unbreakable.  It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.

Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust.  Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich.  Six million Jews were killed — more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today.  Denying that fact is baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful.  Threatening Israel with destruction — or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews — is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.  For more than 60 years they’ve endured the pain of dislocation.  Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead.  They endure the daily humiliations — large and small — that come with occupation.  So let there be no doubt:  The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable.  And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.  (Applause.)

For decades then, there has been a stalemate:  two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive.  It’s easy to point fingers — for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought about by Israel’s founding, and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within its borders as well as beyond.  But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth:  The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.  (Applause.)

That is in Israel’s interest, Palestine’s interest, America’s interest, and the world’s interest.  And that is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience and dedication that the task requires.  (Applause.)  The obligations — the obligations that the parties have agreed to under the road map are clear.  For peace to come, it is time for them — and all of us — to live up to our responsibilities.

Palestinians must abandon violence.  Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed.  For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation.  But it was not violence that won full and equal rights.  It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding.  This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia.  It’s a story with a simple truth:  that violence is a dead end.  It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus.  That’s not how moral authority is claimed; that’s how it is surrendered.

Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build.  The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people. Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have to recognize they have responsibilities.  To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel’s right to exist.

At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s.  The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.  (Applause.)  This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace.  It is time for these settlements to stop.  (Applause.)

And Israel must also live up to its obligation to ensure that Palestinians can live and work and develop their society.  Just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel’s security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be a critical part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress.

And finally, the Arab states must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities.  The Arab-Israeli conflict should no longer be used to distract the people of Arab nations from other problems.  Instead, it must be a cause for action to help the Palestinian people develop the institutions that will sustain their state, to recognize Israel’s legitimacy, and to choose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past.

America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and we will say in public what we say in private to Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs.  (Applause.)  We cannot impose peace.  But privately, many Muslims recognize that Israel will not go away.  Likewise, many Israelis recognize the need for a Palestinian state.  It is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true.

Too many tears have been shed.  Too much blood has been shed.  All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra — (applause) — as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer.  (Applause.)”

Tweets about the Cairo Speech – simple responses and observations, many links out to more developed thoughts.

• “Obama uses “Muslim Communities” rather than the “Muslim World”. Smart.”
• “The section on Woman was written by Obama himself”
• “O called Israeli occupation by name, schooled people on historical FACT of Holocaust http://tinyurl.com/p8pf3x“
• “Reactions to #CairoSpeech from Palestine: some impressed, some not. “Actions matter more than words”"
• “Great to hear a President understand we are part of the world and not the center of it.”

Ibn ad Dunya welcomes the words and hopes for implementation.

Winston Pickett on Obama’s stand against negative stereotyping.

On OpenDemocracy, Keith Kahn-Harris and David Hayes worry that “the shrillness and point-scoring of much internet-based discussion – on topics as diverse as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and chronic fatigue syndrome – is narrowing the space where a larger political dialogue should be”. They note the growth of solipsistic micropolitics.

Some excerpts, but it’s worth reading in full – to take the edge of some of the online arguments (although there are reasons for the edge on arguments about Israel and Jews within the Greens other than the solipsism the authors rightly protest).

“This is not just a question of people with too much time on their hands beavering away at the keyboard on controversies that affect nothing – if it were “only” this, there would be little to worry about. The problem goes deeper. It is partly that so much of this activity is harmful and wasteful, in a context where intelligent citizens working in a spirit of constructive dialogue could in principle perform a useful role in clarifying issues and arguments and offering usable ideas to those seeking solutions to the conflicts concerned.

Even worse, this kind of internet politics is also engaged in by opinion-formers, major institutions and “the brightest and best” more generally. In the Jewish community - a world with which one of us is very familiar – those who are most committed and influential in what they view as the defence of Israel have, over the last few years, increasingly come to adopt the same style of politics and mode of address. They include (in the United States) high-profile intellectuals such as Alan Dershowitz and lobbying organisations such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) and (in Britain) organisations such as Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre (Bicom). Pro-Palestinian activists, while usually less organised, also engage in these struggles with just as much fervid and driven commitment.

Both sides, all sides, have become tied up in intricate micropolitical struggles. At the moment these include: who exactly broke the ceasefire first; what the word “civilian” means; whether civilian casualties are simply “human shields”; what a “humanitarian crisis” consists of. In the recent past they have included long-running sagas such as whether Jimmy Carter is an anti-semite; whether settlements are illegal under international law; whether a particular BBC report is biased.

At root, these struggles can involve vital issues, but in the hothouse of the internet, they so often disintegrate into thousands of fragments – from the interpretation of an ambiguous phrase to the reliability of a single news item. The result is an internet war of attrition that produces an impenetrable fog of confusion – and must reinforce the indifference and alienation of the non-involved.”

They go on to introduce the example of internet combat over chronic fatigue syndrome, finding:

“The politics of ME – the illness – demonstrates that the insular internet-driven combat that influences so many arguments over the middle east are now replicated in other fields.

People equipped with the requisite background or expertise – for example, those few who (like one of us) are both committed Jews and persons with ME – might have the knowledge necessary to understand the political contours of these two particular controversies. But in the huge number of other controversies where an individual’s knowledge is more limited, the possibility of understanding, being persuaded by, or much less participating in them is much reduced if and when they descend into internet-driven cliquishness and circular backbiting. The day may be fast approaching when all politics will look like the middle east – and the only responses available will be either to join in the maelstrom of bickering or (more likely) to shrug one’s shoulders and switch off.

The democratising possibilities of the internet are in the process of speeding the degeneration of the public sphere into a proliferation of insular nodes, each fighting a war that can never be won. Battles cannot be won on the net nor can they be lost. What remains is a solipsistic politics of ME, ME, ME: my views, my truths, my facts, my pain, my anger. Convincing others and changing the world is forgotten in favour of the perpetuation of one’s own perspective.”

Internet combat about anthropogenic climate change would be another example. This is a very worthwhile article – although I think that it is often a sense of threat and helplessness, rather than solipsism, that fuels the arguments.

Shunted unjustly to the bottom of this post, this recorded interview (MP3 – scroll down to 11am on Sunday 2nd March) of Arnold Wesker talking to Daniel Gavron about his book Holy Land Mosaic introduces some the many peace and cooperation initiatives between Israelis and Palestinians. Gavron is very good at explaining the challenges and achievements, and making critique of the general situation in ways which avoid inflaming. If you listen to him you may have some of your assumptions about Zionists challenged. There are questions and answers too.

He particularly notes the value of environmental initiatives.

The other day Harry’s Place noticed that a group calling itself Friends of the Earth Middle East (Eco Peace) England had signed something calling itself the Final Declaration of the Beirut Resistance Forum, which among things called for “Restoring UN Resolution 3379 which classifies Zionism as racism, and ousting Israel from the UN”.

Since we link to Friends of the Earth Middle East, this was a bit of a problem. We don’t accept that Zionism in general is racism, or that referring to Zionism as racism will bring an end to any kind racism. We feel that, like any nationalism, there are many facets to Zionism. Some aspects of Zionism are racist, some are based on an untenable religious claim; but all are preoccupied with self-determination in what is perceived, quite fairly, as a region hostile to Jews. We support FoEME’s primary objective: “the promotion of cooperative efforts to protect our shared environmental heritage”. We feel that it would be counter-productive to designate the majority of one state racist simply because they want to live securely in that state. So I sent an email requesting clarification. The reply:

“Dear Ms. Vogel,

Thank you for your email and for wanting to clear up this matter with us
directly.  We highly appreciate that.

Our organization is “EcoPeace / Friends of the Earth Middle East” and our
website is www.foeme.org.  We are indeed a regional organization of Israeli,
Jordanian and Palestinian environmentalists working towards protection of
our shared environmental heritage.  And we are indeed promoting a Jordan
River Peace park.

We are NOT however, “Friends of the Earth Middle East (Eco Peace) England”.
We do not know who they are, and they are using our name, illegally, I might
add. Notice that there is no web link to that organization in the “Harry’s
Place” site.  No wonder…

And of course we do NOT support the ‘Final Declaration of the Beirut
Resistance Forum’, or any such document related to its message.

We are happy to be linked to your Greens Engage blogroll, and do hope that
you keep us on.  We certainly have similar views.

I hope I have cleared up this unfortunate misuse of our name, and again, I
thank you for writing to us directly.

Sincerely,
Mira Edelstein
Resource Development
Friends of the Earth Middle East”

Then Mira Edelstein wasted quite a lot of her time trying without success to track down the impostor. We’d hope that the person who posted the Beirut declaration on Socialist Unity would help with this, but we doubt it. Signatory 35 remains in place. You have to wonder how many other of those signatories are made up.

ADDITION 1st Feb – something we missed from a fortnight ago.

Friends of the Earth Media Release for 15th January 2009

Amman / Bethlehem / Tel Aviv
15 January 2009

EcoPeace / Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) is deeply alarmed by
the humanitarian crisis and the widespread destruction of civil
infrastructure. The ongoing Israeli – Palestinian conflict has had
dangerous repercussions for the Gaza Strip’s already dilapidated water
supply network and sewage systems. UN reports indicate that more than
500,000 Palestinians in Gaza remain without safe drinking water and
sewerage collection systems and treatment facilities have ceased
functioning resulting in sewage in the streets. Furthermore, these
sewerage systems are in danger of overflowing leading to raw sewage
floods into the surrounding communities and the Mediterranean Sea.
Sewage contamination will lead to long-term consequences for both
Palestinians and Israelis including the outbreak of infectious diseases
and the loss of important groundwater sources through pollution.

Friends of the Earth Middle East appeals to the United Nations
Environmental Programme to send a team from its Post-Conflict Assessment
Unit to Gaza and Israel in order to undertake an independent assessment
of the environmental impacts of the recent escalation of fighting. The
appeal comes in advance of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s arrival in
Israel on January 15.

Nader Al Khateeb, Palestinian Director of Friends of the Earth Middle
East said, “Allegations are currently widespread that the Israeli Army
is utilizing white phosphorous and other chemical weapons in densely
populated urban centres of the Gaza Strip. We join other peacemaking
organizations in calling for an immediate cessation of the ongoing war
that would also enable experts to investigate these allegations in order
to properly assess the public health and environmental impacts of the
conflict.”

Friends of the Earth Middle East calls on the UN Secretary-General to
announce that the Post-Conflict Branch of the United Nations
Environmental Programme will send a team to Gaza and Israel so that the
environmental damage caused by the conflict can be independently
assessed and recommendations made for reconstruction efforts.

Gidon Bromberg, Israeli Director of Friends of the Earth Middle East,
said that documenting the consequences of war on the shared environment
of Israel and Palestine highlights the loss to both nations and must be
followed up by actions that will help avoid another round of violence
and destruction. “As soon as the ceasefire comes into effect,
reconstruction efforts, beyond urgent humanitarian assistance, should
focus on working with communities on both sides of the border. The
reconstruction effort should involve grassroots peace-building efforts
so that the ceasefire has a better chance of survival and that
infrastructure rebuilt will not again be destroyed by the next round of
violence.”

For more information on cross-border community based peacemaking efforts
visit FoEME’s Good Water Neighbor’s project at http://www.foeme.org and
contact:

Nader Al Khateeb, Palestinian Director of Friends of the Earth Middle East
T: 972 522875022, nader@foeme.org (spoken languages: English and Arabic)

Gidon Bromberg, Israeli Director of Friends of the Earth Middle East
T: 972 52 4532597, gidon@foeme.org (spoken languages: English and Hebrew)

Mira Edelstein, Foreign Media Officer, Friends of the Earth Middle East
T: 972 54 6392937, mira@foeme.org (spoken languages: English and Hebrew)

Gershon Baskin is the CEO of the Israel-Palestine Centre for Research and Information, and is also running as a candidate on the Israel Green Movement’s list for the Knesset in the upcoming elections.

In the Jerusalem Post, he writes firmly of the need for the Israeli water negotiators to depart from an “occupation mindset” and cooperate with the more enlightened head of the Palestinian Water Authority:

“The water negotiations between the sides are still controlled by Israelis who are stuck in a mind-set of continued occupation. Uri Shani, the head of the Water Authority, is a professional, non-politician who was appointed by Tzipi Livni to head the water negotiations with the Palestinians. In reality, the talks are controlled by Noah Kinarti and Baruch Nagar. Kinarti is an old-time kibbutznik, a friend of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who holds fast to the old Zionist ideology of control and occupation. He is stuck in the Zionist ethos of making the desert bloom (which everyone now knows is no magic – all you need is to waste huge quantities of water) and for him every drop of water in Israel is Jewish water, Zionist water and if we compromise, we are compromising on our very existence. Nagar is essentially the water commissioner of the West Bank – he is in charge of protecting the interests of the settlers in the West Bank who enjoy about seven times per capita more water than the Palestinian majority who live there. Kinarti and Nagar are the commissars who make sure that the liberal minded Shani does not give in to the logical and reasonable approach taken by the Palestinian water negotiators.

THE HEAD of the Palestinian Water Authority, Dr. Shaddad Attili, presents an approach to water that diverts from the traditional Palestinian approach of demanding that Israel recognizes Palestinian water rights, which usually translates into the entire mountain aquifer – or all of the water underneath the West Bank. Attili speaks about the need to develop joint water management that takes responsibility for supply, demand, conservation, planning and development. He makes the logical claim that in this small piece of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, all of the water resources are shared. The water flows underground in the aquifers without any regard for political borders. There is no Green Line on the aquifers. How can anyone justify that Israelis and Palestinians should have such extremely different amounts of water available to them.

It is true that in this joint water pool that we share, there is a zero-sum game. Whatever one side gets is at the expense of the other. Today when the water deficit is more than one full year of rainfall, division of the water resources or it reallocation is a reallocation of the deficit. If we fight over water, everyone loses. Instead, if we cooperate, everyone can benefit.

Cooperation means changing the “hard disk” in our minds regarding the Palestinians. The occupation mind-set that guides the talks on water led by Kinarti and Nagar can only lead to bad agreements or to conflicts. It simple terms – “it’s the occupation – stupid!” There can be no agreement with the Palestinians with that attitude, not on water, and not on any other issue on the negotiating table.”

Read it all.

On Engage.

“A delegation of British trade unionists has returned from Israel and the Palestinian territories with a commitment to develop links and co-operation between their Israeli and Palestinian counterparts. This comes at a time of increased co-operation between the Histadrut (Israeli TUC) and the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) following from their historic agreement signed in June 2008.”

Read it all.

Hat tip Green Prophet.

From Friends of the Earth Middle East (who would suffer badly from any Green Israel boycott) via Green Prophet:

Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian Mayors meet to discuss the Regional Water Crisis

The meeting will take place in Baka Gharbia, at Al Kasemi College, in the framework of the “Good Water Neighbors” project and the “Pro-Aquifer” project.

November 25-26, 2008

“The Water Crisis – Community Leadership”

Nov. 23, 2008

Against the backdrop of the severe water crisis in our region, Friends of the Earth Middle East is convening its fifth annual conference of Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian mayors. The purpose of this year’s meeting and panel discussion is to deepen understanding of the different implications of the crisis on the three peoples. The mayors will share their different experiences and the efforts undertaken in their local community to address the crisis.

“While in Israel they are reducing agricultural water quotas, in the Palestinian village of Auja , the entire agricultural sector has come to a complete halt, due to the drying of the Auja Stream. As a result, residents are left without any source of income,” states Nader Khateeb, Palestinian Director of Friends of the Earth Middle East.

In light of the failures in water management on the national level, the ability of the mayors and local leaders to find solutions to the water crisis takes on a greater sense of urgency.

Gidon Bromberg, Israeli Director of Friends of the Earth Middle East, says that “while the national leadership seeks supply-side solutions such as desalination of sea water and various canals, the local leadership which experiences the impact directly, is focused on demand-side management; conservation and wise water use.”

The conference is being organized by Friends of the Earth Middle East, with the participation of the Ambassador of the EU delegation to the State of Israel, the Director of the United States Agency for International Development, diplomats, mayors, community leaders and residents from the participating communities of the “Good Water Neighbors” project.

The conference will present creative ideas for community empowerment, including the use of the latest GIS technology and will release a publication on ways to alleviate groundwater pollution to the shared Israeli and Palestinian water resource of the Mountain Aquifer.

Participating Communities:

• Israeli GWN communities: Jordan Valley RC, Beit She’an City & Beit She’an Valley RC, Tamar RC,
• Emek Hefer RC, Eshkol RC, Tsur Hadassah, Baka el Gharbiya – Jat
• Palestinian GWN communities: Auja, Jericho , Wadi Fukin, Tulkarm, Baka el Sharkiya, Abassan
• Jordanian GWN communities: Muaz bin Jabal, Tabket Fahel, Deir Allah, South Ghors

The conference is being supported by USAID, the EU Life Third Countries program, Green Cross France and the Goldman Fund.

For more information: Mira Edelstein, FoEME foreign media officer, 054-6392937

It’s been a while since I posted news of Israeli and Palestinian collaboration on solving a shared environmental problem – here’s news of high level work amongst international water experts on one of the critical outstanding issues for Israelis and Palestinians – a joint redefinition of water needs. (The ‘Peres’ in the ‘Peres Centre for Peace‘ is the Israeli President, Shimon Peres). The consensus is:

• There is a basic human need for water resources of approximately 60 m3 per capita per year for human health, hygiene and running a water efficient economy that permits sufficient social and economic development to allow progress towards providing all people with a high quality of life.
• After this basic human need has been met, priority must be given to providing water for base flows in rivers and streams to prevent ecosystem collapse, and water for livelihoods for vulnerable groups that lack any alternative economic opportunities.
• Water surplus to these basic needs must be allocated between nations on an equitable basis, and subsequently allocated to economic uses relating to such production activities as those nations choose through their own internal processes, while taking into consideration principles of economic efficiency, social equity, environmental sustainability and international water law.

More work is needed on the principles of allocation, and this is related to the still-awaited final status agreement:

Oren Blonder from The Peres Center for Peace summarized:“ The purpose of the Water Needs in Middle East Initiative is to identify and agree upon possible definitions of water needs. Once these definitions will be elucidated, they will be used by Israeli and Palestinian experts, assembled by Green Cross and the Peres Center for Peace, together with the Jerusalem Institute and Palestinian Hydrology Group, to formulate water need scenarios for Israel/Palestine“. Upon completion of the research, a final conference will be held in Paris and the potential outcomes resulting from the project will be examined, as will the potential effects of the project on the revival of the Palestinian and Israeli water sectors. The results of this research will play an instrumental role in the final status negotiations.

The Israeli daily Ha’aretz reports on a joint initiative between a group of 17 Israeli Arab women and the Israeli Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel to establish an educational institute in the Galilee region that will teach environmental conservation, recycling and ecology:

The women, aged 30 to 35, come from varied backgrounds – Druze, Moslem and Christian. They are being instructed by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel.

“This is the first group of Arab women to learn about environmental issues,” said Muadi. Explaining that in her neighborhood, environmental awareness is still in its infancy, she added: “We therefore decided to start with activities in the schools, because change has to begin with the students.”

After completing an SPNI course on environmental education, the women joined the staff of SPNI’s field school, which runs the environmental program in the village’s elementary school. The women gave several lessons to every grade, covering environmental topics such as nature, water, recycling, air pollution and ecology. Last week, the women and students went on a field trip that included a clean-up operation.

“The women’s involvement as part of SPNI’s teaching staff,” said Vasil Hazima, director of SPNI’s field school in Maghar”

The Green Party’s boycott Resolution C05 – part of a wider boycott and divestment initiative – currently acts against these types of partnerships. It is an entirely negative force that promotes hostility and inevitably contributes to pressure on Israel’s Arab (or Palestinian – depending on how they self-define) to turn their backs on such initiatives.

This pressure is evidenced in the experience of a delegation of philanthropists who were visiting Israeli Arab villages and institutions to research how best they might contribute to the kind of inclusive, equal society which is prerequisite of any kind of conflict resolution. There was a small but loud call to boycott the delegation. Here’s what Ami Nahshon, one of its members, had to say:

While the call to boycott fell on deaf ears among the vast majority of Arab public and civil society leaders, it taught all of us an important lesson: that the lines of conflict in Israel are not between the Arab and Jewish communities, but rather between those Jews and Arabs who embrace a vision of an inclusive and just society, and those who seem intent on pursuing an agenda of separatism and alienation. Our visit convinced us that it is our duty, as diaspora leaders, to embrace and support those who share this inclusive vision, and not to allow ourselves to be distracted by the separatist voices at the political fringes of both communities.

There is also the experience of peace activist Mohamad Darawshe part of an Israeli Jewish and Arab fact-finding mission to Northern Ireland who was boycotted by a Northern Irish International Relations academic for being Israeli.

And the experience of the Palestinian and Israeli workers and promoters of the Peace Oil initiative, a charity which was subject to a Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) sabotage attempt.

“Anything that the Zionist Federation could get excited about would be bound to inflame the PSC. Pro-boycotters tend to act jealous when Palestinians cooperate with Israelis and frequently attempt to break things up. Targetting Israeli-Arab-Palestinian cooperation and making an issue out of the only product in the Good Gifts catalogue with an Israel connection is a wedge-driving tactic and part of the general boycott strategy. It’s of a piece with their hard work to stop OneVoice dual peace concerts in Tel Aviv and Jericho, and their condemnation of Israeli academics for apathy while simultaneously encouraging and pressurising Palestinian academics to have nothing to do with them.”

OneVoice is a citizens’ Israeli-Palestinian peace movement which was sabotaged by boycotters when they attempted to stage joint peace concerts in Tel Aviv and Jericho.

What contribution has the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement had on improving Palestinian lives and advancing towards a just resolution to the conflict? None. It’s logic is to polarise, not reconcile. And meanwhile Israel’s reprehensible settlement activity in Har Homa and Givat Ze’ev continues, in the face of the Annapolis agreement to freeze activity, and despite the long-overdue evacuation of 18 ‘outposts’. The security barrier’s mission creep endures, causing it to bite deep into Palestinian territory. Hamas consolidates power in Gaza, tolerating or promoting the persecution of Christians, journalists and Trade Unionists. Gazan women take up the veil to avoid negative attention. Fatah, the secular political force in the West Bank weakens as the clerical, anti-democratic parties of Hamas and Hizb ut Tahrir gain ground. Iran funds weapons for Hamas and Hesbollah.

The Green boycott is the opposite of helpful. Any green activist should understand that it has no place in a movement which purports to support ecological and environmental activism. Its logic is conflict, separatism and alienation, and we should get rid of it as soon as possible.

The Green Party should turn its back on anything that contributes to this pressure by rescinding Resolution C05. If we care about a peace beween Palestinians and Israelis, we should work on an alternative vision. And we will.

Cooperation along the lines of the Stream Restoration Project undertaken by Israel’s Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, Ben Gurion’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, Palestinian NGO Water and Environmental Development Organization (WEDO), and Tel Aviv University’s Institute for Conservation and Nature Research.

Background in last December’s Haaretz.

The ultimate aim of this research is to lay the foundations for an effective river restoration strategy for Israel and Palestine. This research is funded by the Middle East Regional Cooperation (MERC) Program of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

MERC projects must include at least one Israeli and one Arab partner. It’s obvious that the “broad” boycott, divestment and sanctions “similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era” as called for by the BDS campaign and supported by the Green Party in Resolution C05, would harm this project, its developing partnerships, the state of the water, and the plants and animals living in it.

BDS looks less and less like good Green policy.

Hat tip: Hamish Q Cumber.