The Russell Tribunal on Palestine recently found the state of Israel to be guilty of apartheid (EPA)

I firmly believe that the Russell Tribunal has credibility as a venue for truth-telling despite being established and funded by ordinary citizens concerned about the denial of Palestinian rights and Israeli defiance of international law. RToP makes no pretense of being "a court" with enforcement powers, but it does deny allegations of "cooking the books" because it knows in advance that there will be a finding of guilt. Indeed it is this knowledge in advance, based on abundant and non-contested evidence, that explains the motivations for mounting the extraordinary effort to raise the funds and handle the logistics required to organise a proceeding of this type. Such a tribunal makes no real effort made to discover the truth, although representatives of those accused were formally invited to present their defence, but rather its calling is to document the truth. Israel has made no secret of the policies, laws and practices that were presented in Cape Town, although it describes them differently, hides and obscures their application, and draws a different set of conclusions.

Russell's historic initiative

It was the celebrated British philosopher, Bertrand Russell who suggests in his autobiography that he felt that the world needed to know about the Vietnam War in a manner free from self-serving slant and Cold War propaganda, and so he invited leading moral authority figures in the world to take part in an unrestricted inquiry into the alleged criminality associated with the American role in Vietnam.

In Russell's opening statement at the International War Crimes Tribunal convened in 1966 to investigate the atrocities by the US in Vietnam, he declared that the initiative had no clear precedent but that such openness was helpful as it allowed the tribunal "to conduct a solemn and historic investigation, uncompelled by reasons of State or other such obligations". He ended his remarks by making clear the distinctive objective of the undertaking: "May this Tribunal prevent the crime of silence".

In effect, the narration of the criminality is undertaken not primarily to speak truth to power, which is generally deaf to voices from below, but to speak truth to people, awakening public opinion from its apathy to the responsibilities of being human (concern for the victimised other) and duties as citizens of free society to ensure that a government acting in its name upholds the law. Russell expressed this orientation as embodying very grand, some would say grandiose, expectations: "our task is to make mankind bear witness to these crimes and to unite humanity on the side of justice in Vietnam".

Actually, the outcome of the Russell Tribunal was virtually unreported at the time (except derisively), and later its work was known only to small coteries of anti-war activists and intellectuals, and even they were often confused at the time about whether such a one-sided unauthorised event was helpful to the general cause of peace and justice in the world. With the passage of time, the Russell experience has gained in influence and reputation, but it remains a large exaggeration to claim, as Marvyn Bennum does in an otherwise excellent article, "Understanding the rational, logic and procedures of the Russell Tribunal", [Cape Argus, October 31, 2011] that the Russell tribunals had "a profound impact on world opinion", although this historic initiative did set the standard in most respects for subsequent enactments of such an approach, including the RToP.

Unfortunately, although Russell's words are often invoked as the core justifying claim, the reality after some 45 years is that such undertakings, and there have been many since this first one, are rendered almost mute by a media that thinks and feels like a state, which is especially so when the allegations are directed at the lead constitutional democracy that sits firmly at the pinnacle of geopolitical power and influence. The wall of silence does not crumble easily if sustained by the combined corporate and military muscle at the disposal of Washington.

As Russell said in 1967 at the second session of the Vietnam Tribunal, "[w]e are not judges. We are witnesses". This witnessing is meant to be politically effective than mere pronouncements of injustice and criminality, and it has gradually in recent years become more so. As the state system has moved to criminalise certain forms of conduct, and even to establish an International Criminal Court, it seems more plausible to demand that the law should be applied to the strong as well as the weak, and less of a usurpation of governmental functions for persons acting on their own to do what institutions of the state are failing to do, that is, assess charges of guilt.

It may seem to be the case that the Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal gave the game away at the outset by putting the words "investigate the atrocities by the United States in Vietnam". Such provocative language makes us think about the nature of the game, and how it should be played. To deal with the impunity of the powerful in abusing the weak, the supposed uncertainty of outcome in a governmental trial (where some version of the myth of "innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" is in force) is not present in this kind of setting. The very premise of the Russell Tribunal, and the many subsequent replicas, is that there is such certainty present as to generate moral outrage sufficient to give rise to the inquiry.

Frank Barat, the main organiser of RToP put the issue slightly differently, by observing "[o]ur intention has never been to find out if Israel were guilty or not, nor to start a debate about it. This work has already been done by UN bodies, human rights organisations, aid organisations and countless violated UN Security Council resolutions". And further, "[i]t is our duty to stand with the oppressed in its quest for justice".

In this respect, those civil society tribunals that try to imitate to the extent a judicial model of inquiry and decision risk generating confusion. They make it more reasonable for critics to point out that if the tribunal purports to be trying to ascertain guilt rather than denounce it on the basis of a preexisting legal consensus, then a pretense of "judicial process" does make itself subject to criticism as a hypocritical fraud. To some extent, the recently concluded Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, while impressive in many respects, fell into this trap by emphasising the legal credentials of its "judges" who were almost all exclusively jurists who were only locally known and by putting forward a kind of token defence on behalf of Bush and Blair who were charged with crimes in connection with the Iraq War. The Russell Vietnam Tribunal, in contrast, had clearly signalled its rejection of this vocational law model by using such a loaded word as "atrocities" in naming itself, by not seeking to appoint individuals with a law background to serve on its panel of judges, and by not mounting any defence on behalf of those accused (although a ritualised invitation was issued to the American president, Lyndon B Johnson, to do so).

Obviously, this issue raises a question for the future. Is it better to mimic the state-centric model of judicial process in a criminal case to the extent possible or is it preferable to produce a morality pageant in which a true story is told with as much passion, reasoning, and proof as possible? Of course, international law can be invoked in the pageant model as explained by Barat when he writes that the RToP "by using international law as its basis, proposes a no-nonsense way forward. The law is on the side of the Palestinians, so let's make good use of it. The Tribunal intends to assist the people working on a just peace for all with the legal means they have crucially been lacking for too long". [Frank Barat, "What is the point of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine?"] The pro-Palestinian claim here seems to correspond with a fair reading of relevant international law on all crucial dividing issues: settlements, Jerusalem, refugees, occupation, land, water, and the utmost issue, self-determination. So stacked it reinforces the moral condemnation.

Goldstone's charm

Realising that the objective is to overcome "silence", the RToP was greatly helped by the publication of a slanderous attack on the prospective undertaking in the pages of the New York Times by the notable South African public figure Richard Goldstone. [Goldstone, "Israel and the Apartheid Slander", NY Times, October 31, 2011] Never before in the more than four decades of such proceedings had an influential media venue in the West stooped to take notice of such happenings prior to their occurrence. Not only did Goldstone call global attention to RToP, but he created a platform for response that was used by John Dugard, another South African of global stature with special expert credentials as to conditions in Palestine as well as to the experience of apartheid in South Africa. The Goldstone attack suggests that it sometimes better to have enemies than friends!

In the article almost ludicrously Goldstone wrote, "In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute. 'Inhumane acts... committed in the context of an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and discrimination'..." Really! The list of discriminatory laws, the dual administration of settlements and Palestinians, the checkpoint treatment of Palestinians, the settler only roads, the non-protection of Palestinians living under occupation, the midnight abusive arrests of children certainly suggest a pattern of inhuman acts even to an uninformed mind!

Without naming the participants, among whom were a death camp survivor, Stephane Hessel, a former member of Mandela's cabinet - Ronnie Kasrils, a world renowned author - Alice Walker, a distinguished English barrister - Michael Mansfield, QC, and a former American congresswoman - Cynthia McKinney, Goldstone calls them "critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known". The question, of course, is not whether these outstanding personalities have strong opinions on the matter at issue, but whether they have credibility based on their reputation for bearing witness truthfully and effectively. [For insightful interviews by Hanan Chehata with these leading RToP participants see the Middle East Monitor website].

RToP in South Africa

The RToP chose South Africa as the site for this session on apartheid quite obviously to claim continuity with the universally condemned racist regime that governed the country until 1994. This continuity was reinforced by having Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, renowned opponent of apartheid in South Africa and someone who early drew the analogy to Israeli treatment of Palestinians, deliver an opening address at the session in Cape Town.

This lineage was further reinforced by the presence of Ronnie Kastrils, a Jewish member of the RToP panel, as well as receiving testimony from the world respected South African jurist, John Dugard, who was prominent both for his opposition at home to apartheid and because in his role as UN HRC Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine he called the occupation as an instance of the international crime of apartheid.

But there was also some cost paid for emphasising this link to South Africa, which was the only real basis for Goldstone's rant directed at RToP. Goldstone called the comparison "an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel, calculated to retard rather than advance peace negotiations". In effect, it allows the misleading argument to be made that since there are significant dissimilarities between Israeli treatment of the Palestinians and the South African racist regime the allegation would seem to rest on the credibility of the comparison.

As should be understood by people of good will by now, the apartheid experience in South Africa gave rise to the formulation of an international crime of apartheid as specified in the 1973 International Convention and included in the 2002 Rome Treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, but it does not delimit future occurrences of the crime of apartheid. In this latter legal instrument, apartheid is set forth as one of eleven types of "crimes against humanity" in Article 7(1)(j) of the treaty.

The crime of apartheid

The most controversial, and at the same time far reaching feature, of the RToP finding was to conclude that Israeli responsibility for establishing an apartheid regime applied not only to Palestinians living under occupation, but also to the Palestinians minority living with discriminatory regulations in Israel and to the Palestinian diaspora consisting of 4-5 million refugees and exiles.

Seen in isolation, it seems like an unconvincing extension of the meaning of apartheid, even if separated from its South African connection, to consider Palestinian citizens of Israel, even if victims of severe and humbling discrimination, as living under an apartheid regime or even more so to view diaspora Palestinians in this manner. But there is moral and psycho-political weight to the unanimous view of the RToP jurors that the core right of self-determination applies to the Palestinian people as a whole, including not living under direct Israeli military control.

The RToP divides its rationale for finding guilty of committing the crime of apartheid into three main parts: (1) race as defining identity in Israel/Palestine relations (tribunal agrees that race in the international definition of the crime should be interpreted broadly to include ethnic and national character); (2) inhuman acts (specified in relation to Israeli treatment of Palestinians, as integral to the crime, particularly "colonisation and appropriation of Palestinian land" and coercive fragmentation of the Palestinian community in "different physical spaces"; (3) a systematic and institutionalised regime as pervading the subjugation of the Palestinian people (preferential treatment of Jews, dual legal arrangements, restrictions on residence and mobility, deportations and house demolitions are elements in what the tribunal calls "Israel's institutionalised regime of domination". [See Victor Kattan's excellent detailed analysis of the RToP finding of apartheid in his "The Russell Tribunal on Palestine and the Question of Apartheid", al-shabaka brief, November 23, 2011].

Assessing RToP

The importance of the RToP session is to strengthen the civil society case against the Israeli treatment of the Palestinian people. As such, it adds a certain quality of gravitas to such international initiatives as the Freedom Flotilla and the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaign. Thanks to Goldstone, and to the organisational skills of the tribunal, there has also been a certain media visibility for RToP that has been absent in most comparable undertakings, including the recent Kuala Lumpur proceedings against George W. Bush and Tony Blair. In this sense, the crime of silence that disturbed Bertrand Russell during the Vietnam War is still being committed, but it has been to a degree mitigated by the legacy he continues to inspire.

Indirectly, also, the very existence of RToP should encourage states to be more active in exerting their own authority to implement individual accountability under international criminal law via reliance on universal jurisdiction. At present, the impulse to reassert such national agency to supplement weak international enforcement mechanisms has been set back by a geopolitical backlash led by the US in the aftermath of the Spanish indictment and British detention of Augusto Pinochet a little more than a decade ago. This struggle between the vitalisation of international criminal law and geopolitical actors demanding impunity will help determine whether global governance is primarily a regime of power or a regime of just law.

Finally, we notice that the jurisprudence of conscience, that is, applications of law without punitive capacity in relation to alleged violators, is maturing in two parallel directions. The first illustrated by the Russell legacy, including at this recently concluded inquiry into Israeli apartheid, rests its methodology on law established by testimony of legal experts and findings of individuals whose credibility depends primarily on their moral authority and cultural stature, a jury of conscience. The second illustrated to a degree by the Kuala Lumpur proceedings, seeking to replicate the behaviour of courts under the informal auspices of civil society, and seeks to base its credibility on a pervasive legal framework, including the makeup of the panel making findings and recommendations and extending to providing a defence on behalf of the government and individuals charged with criminal behavior. Hopefully, the fourth and final session of RToP, to be held in 2012 in the US, will in addition to providing an overview of the allegations against Israel, will also offer guidance to those who see a continuing need for a jurisprudence of conscience as a critical arena of struggle in the ongoing quest for humane global governance.

* Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has authored and edited numerous publications spanning a period of five decades, most recently editing the volume, International Law and the Third World: Reshaping Justice (Routledge, 2008).

He is currently serving his third year of a six year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.

Related posts:

• “Peace or Apartheid” are not the only options for Israel
• Israel 2007: worse than apartheid
• Olmert insists on racist, Apartheid-style Israel as “state of the Jewish people”

Behind The Iron Wall

'The plan that never changed'

The UN Cultural organisation (UNESCO) voted strongly in favour of membership for the Palestinians. A vote opposed by Israel. There were 173 countries that voted, 107 in favour, 14 opposing and 52 abstaining. Great Britain was one of those in the latter category, thus bringing further disrepute to the word 'Great'. Well done the 107! Shame on the 66. The fact is, the truth is, UNESCO's vote in favour of Palestinian membership is, as the Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad said, "a historic moment that gives Palestine back some of its rights."

The Israeli Ambassador to UNESCO called the vote a "tragedy" and "a political subject that was out of its Competence." The Palestinian admission to UNESCO is no "tragedy". The citizens of the world, 'We The People' are 'satisfied,' legally and morally, as is the Russell Tribunal, that Israel practices Colonialism and Apartheid in the illegally Occupied Palestinian Territories, so the real tragedy Ambassador is that our so-called leaders do nothing to address the situation even though the law is clear. As William Blake put it, "When I tell the truth it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do."

Occupation, Apartheid, and Colonialism

In its 2009 Democracy and Governance Programme, Middle East Project, Executive Summary, Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid? the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) of South Africa found "International law prohibits the unilateral annexation or permanent acquisition of territory as a result of the threat or use of force: should this occur, no State may recognise or support the resulting unlawful situation." If we further recognise Israel's actions in the OPT as illegal, then it is paramount that we focus on "the question of the responsibility of States [and their lack of response] as a result of internationally wrongful acts" in this case Israel and its continued violence in pursuit of its, and America's, strategic aims. Apartheid and Colonialism are two such acts.

Apartheid: Apartheid and colonialism are particularly egregious crimes. An examination by the HSRC of South Africa of Article 2(a) of the Apartheid Convention found "the denial of the right to life and liberty of person is satisfied by Israeli measures to repress Palestinian dissent against the occupation and its system of domination. Israel's policies and practices include murder, in the form of extrajudicial killings; torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of punishment of detainees; a military court system that falls far short of international standards for fair trial: and arbitrary arrest and detention of Palestinians, [to include children], including administrative detention imposed without charge or trial and lacking adequate judicial review. All of these practises are discriminatory in that the Palestinians are subject to legal systems and courts which apply standards of evidence and procedure that are different from those applied to Jewish settlers living in the OPT and that result in harsher penalties for Palestinians."

An occupying power, in this case the State of Israel, must recognise in the harsh but penetrating light of universal condemnation that to engage in 'unlawful' Apartheid, is to engage in, according to, The Apartheid Convention, "an aggravated form of racial discrimination because it is a state-sanctioned regime of law and institutions that have 'the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.' " (HSRC, 2009). This is a grave crime.

Colonialism: According to the Executive Summary of the HSRC, "The prohibitions on colonialism and apartheid are rooted principally in the field of international human rights law" and in regard to Palestine and Colonialism, "Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem is manifestly an act based on colonial intent. It is unlawful in itself, as annexation breaches the principle underpinning the law of occupation: that occupation is only a temporary situation that does not vest sovereignty in the Occupying Power." Furthermore, "By thus portioning contiguous blocs of Palestinian areas into cantons, Israel has violated the territorial integrity of the OPT in violation of the Declaration on Colonialism."

Moreover, "The Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (1960, hereafter 'the Declaration on Colonialism'), condemns 'colonialism in all its forms and manifestations' which includes 'settler colonialism' " (HSRC). All this takes place behind a "Wall that separates Jewish and Palestinian populations, as well as dividing Palestinian communities from each other, with passage between Palestinian areas controlled by Israel" (HSRC), a clear violation of the Declaration on Colonialism.

Kathleen and Bill Christison write in Palestine In Pieces, "Settlements are a clear attempt to assert dominion over Palestine." They quote Henry Siegman, former director of the American Jewish Congress who found, "every part of Israeli society advancing the settler enterprise is in clear and deliberate violation not only of international law but of Israel's own laws." In a clear "theft of Palestinian lands" Israel has since 1948 actively "ethnically cleansed" and stolen from the people of Palestine. Stealing land, stealing property, stealing water, stealing lives, and stealing time by creating the illusion that it, Israel, works for peace behind the smoke and mirrors of its propaganda whilst perpetuating the 'grand hoax' that it negotiates for peace, that it dreams and longs for peace as it relentlessly and systematically tightens a noose around lawfull Palestinian aspirations.

Through its actions and policies of Apartheid and Colonialism, Israel constantly and wilfully breaches international law. It is permitted unchecked to brutalise the men, women and most damningly the children of Palestine under the 'plan that never changed', in an occupied territory that does not belong to it, behind an Iron Wall built by Zionism maintained by naked aggression and symbolising Israel's Occupation, Colonialism and Apartheid. "Every State owes a legal duty to the international community as a whole not to engage in practices of colonialism or apartheid. Conversely, all States have an interest in ensuring that these rules are respected because they enshrine fundamental values of international public order. Faced with a violation of the prohibitions of colonialism and apartheid, all states have three duties: to cooperate to end the violence; not to recognise the illegal situation arising from it; and not to render aid or assistance to the state committing It." (HSRC). The international community has failed, is failing and continues to fail Palestinians on all three counts.

Righting the Failure of the International Community

One critical way for the international community to right "wrongful acts", as asserted by the UNHRC, Twelfth session Agenda item 7 of 2009, 3, on Universal Jurisdiction, is "In the context of increasing unwillingness on the part of Israel to open criminal investigations that comply with international standards, the mission support the reliance on Universal Jurisdiction as an avenue for states to investigate violations of the grave breach provisions of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, prevent impunity and promote international accountability (Chap XXVIII)."

Noam Chomsky in his book Pirates and Emperors describes the magnitude of the problem, "There is no doubt about the seriousness of the issues arising in the Middle East, particularly the Arab-Israeli conflict, which is commonly- and plausibly- judged the most likely "tinderbox" that might set off a terminal nuclear war as regional conflict engages the superpowers, as has come too close for comfort in the past." It is clear then, is it not, how dangerous Israel's Occupation, Colonialism, and Apartheid are? It is worth repeating, "Every state owes a legal duty to the international community as a whole not to engage in practices of colonialism or apartheid. Conversely, all States have an interest in ensuring that theses rules are respected because they enshrine fundamental values of international public order."

However, Chomsky recognises a change or an international shift, "The problem is that Israel's plans, which never changed, to take over and integrate the occupied territories, are running into some objective problems. They always hoped that in the long run they would be able to reduce the Palestinian population." Their plans, 'which never changed,' have run into the brick wall of international activism, and the lines of Palestinians standing shoulder to shoulder as history's tide turns in their favour and whose brilliant light is undimmed by the obtuse planning of Israel.

Israel breaches international law on a daily basis and violates Palestinian rights hourly. Israel's violations to include, "Depriving the population of occupied territory of the capacity for self-governance; integrating the economy of the occupied into that of the occupant; breaching the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources in relation to the occupied territory; and denying the population of occupied territory the right freely to express, develop and practice its culture." (HSRC). Those who suffer the most from Israel's policies and the international community's continued failures are the children.

The Fight for Palestinian Children

The "Protected Citizens" of the Occupied Palestinian Territories are in a fight not only for their legitimate rights but also for their children's lives. In an address to the General Assembly, Professor Richard Falk, Special Rapporteur to the Palestinian Territories, said, "Prolonged occupation deforms the development of children through pervasive deprivations affecting health, education and overall security."

The Children of Palestine are 'protected persons.' Under the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention, "they are persons who find themselves, in the case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a party [Israel] to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals." What protection are the precious children of Palestine afforded? For some it is too late, far too late. According to Al-Jazeera, in an article published 15^th January 2009 titled 'Child Victims of Gaza', after Israel began to bomb the Gaza Strip on December 27^th 2008, of the 210 children, who lost their lives 44, were under the age of 5.

Some of their names are here lovingly recorded: Ahmed Riad Mohammed Al-Sinwar Boy 3. Tamer Hassan Al-Akhrass Boy 5. Hassan Ali Al-Akhrass Boy 3. Odai Hakeem Al-Mansi Boy 4. Camelia Al-Bardini Girl 10. Lama Talal Hamdan Girl 10. Jawaher Anwar Baaloosha Girl 8. Samar Anwar Baaloosha Girl 6. Halima Nizar Rayyan Girl 5. Aicha Nizar Rayyan Girl 3. And, Al-Adham Boy 1, who died needlessly and in innocence for lack of protection and breach of his human rights, and, damningly because of the lack of coordinated resolve by the international community to uphold in a consistent manner the very laws that they have enshrined. These children, as well as all others, have lost their lives in complete innocence by the bloodied hands of an unbridled Israel. Take these children into your hearts and minds, repeat their names, remember their names and carry them tenderly into your activism. Reflect on the mothers and fathers who mourn their loss and on the laws that should have protected their precious little ones.

Our leaders continue to fail the children of Palestine, and deny the ramifications of Article 21(3) of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights by blatantly ignoring Palestinian human rights. The Human Rights Council's Twelfth Session Agenda Item 7 in 2009 stated, "The Mission recommends that States involved in peace negotiations between Israel and representatives of the Palestinian people, especially the Quartet, should ensure that respect for the rule of law, international law and human rights assumes a central role in international sponsored initiatives." In spite of this, British and other western leaders continue to ignore and thwart these recommendations and international law. Because of this the children of Palestine are dying.

Conclusion

In the words of Malcolm X, "if you're not careful, the news papers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." Palestinians are not 'yelling rabble dressed up in gaudy savage rags' as described by Ze'ev Jabotinsky. And because now international public opinion is with them and not against them, that solidified international opinion pushes hard, weighing in full measure against the illegal policies of Occupation, Colonialism and Apartheid.

In solidarity, Palestinians, international activists, and world leaders of conscience that dare to defend humanity must put a stop to Israel's intentions, 'which never changed,' to bring the Palestinians to their knees. Let us then stand and be glad, as Palestine takes another sure step toward Statehood and freedom from tyranny, as the world votes in common sense and common purpose. In the words of Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erakat, "This is a victory for peace and a victory for the human race". God speed Palestine.

* Clive Hambidge is Human Development Director at Facilitate Global. He can be contacted at: clive.hambidge@facilitateglobal.org

Related posts:

• One-State, Two-State and the American Task Force on Palestine – By Antoine Raffoul
• Israel and Palestine: A true one-state solution
• The boycott of Israel is “gaining speed”

By Dr. Alan Sabrosky * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Far too often, what is not said, or cannot be said, publicly is more significant than the platitudes bandied about by assorted political leaders and pundits. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli matrix of death and disinformation.

President Obama in particular acts as if he were mesmerized by all this. He has all the power, but acts as if he were powerless. He can make things happen if he chooses to exert himself, yet has ended up positioning himself as a supplicant to Israel and pretending ignorance of Palestinian realities. He thinks and speaks, but does nothing of substance that Israel does not want him to do.

The Indictment

So let us look at those uncomfortable truths, politically unspeakable at least in the US but not necessarily elsewhere, and frequently discussed openly in many non-governmental forums, just so we all appreciate where we stand:

1. Gaza, Mr. Obama, Gaza. It holds three-fourths of the Palestinians under a government that electorally beat the faction that supports that Israeli puppet you call the Palestinian Authority. Deal with Gaza, deal with Hamas who governs there, or forget it: you are not dealing with Palestinians. You have got to know this. Why be in denial?

2. There is no two-state solution, and never has been one, so long as Israel held US support in its political palm. Look at the maps of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, look at the Israeli settlements and Israeli military protection for them in place, and the Wall – the Wall, Mr. President, longer & higher than the now-defunct Berlin Wall – and embattled Gaza. Just where and how do you think you will find a Palestinian state acceptable to Israel that has even a shred of the trappings of legitimacy and sovereignty that the now-defunct Bantustans had in apartheid-era South Africa?

3. The settlements are critical, and you, Mr. Obama, come across as a failure or a Zionist tool, or both together. Does projecting this image please you? And if you did not have the balls to force a halt to Israeli settlement expansion, much less the creation of new settlements, how do you expect to find the courage to dictate the removal of those settlements, without which there is no Palestinian entity of any kind in the West Bank, alone or not?

4. You can be pro-peace or pro-Israel, but not both together, and all of the rhetoric to the contrary, all of the money AIPAC and its confederates spend on Capitol Hill and elsewhere, all of the media attention Israel commands, cannot alter this essential reality. Why do you persist in playing to AIPAC, J Street, and the rest of the Hasbara crew, avowed or not?

5. Just why do you feel obliged to let your Administration's foreign policy staffing look like it was arranged by the Israeli Government? There are many experts in foreign policy, and in the Middle East, with US citizenship and no loyalty to a foreign government. Why are they not in your Administration? You have many Israeli partisans in your Administration, but where are your American partisans?

The Conundrum

And you, Mr. President, few of your predecessors have come into office with such high expectations and high hopes, and seen them squandered in such a short time. None of your predecessors since Carter signaled a willingness to view the Middle East through something other than an Israeli prism, and even Carter lacked John Kennedy's willingness to stand up to Israel. Your speech in Cairo signaled a stance on this issue in the tradition of Kennedy and Carter, and it went nowhere at all.

I understand the constraints, dealing with a Congress that does not now seem to contain a single person in either party in either House willing to stand up to the Jewish lobby. But are you so blind, so ignorant, so lacking in courage that you cannot and will not go directly to the American people? Do you like being cast as a laughing-stock and a weakling in public by Israel and its supporters? Do you like being an "Uncle Tom" to the Zionists?

Now, I do not care greatly for Obama as a person, nor anything at all for his domestic political agenda, but appearances notwithstanding, it would be wrong to dismiss him as simply a fool or a puppet. A fool or a puppet would never have made the Cairo speech two years ago in the first place. No politician anywhere enjoys taking the lead, and then looking behind, finding no one in support and clouds of criticism, and then having to back down from so public a stance. The egos of the breed cry out against such exercises in futility.

The same applies in part to some in his Administration, and to others, I suspect, in the Congress. Those who are Jewish, especially with dual Israeli citizenship, need no prompting to follow the Zionist agenda; that agenda is their agenda, heart and mind. The so-called Christian Zionists, mostly evangelical Protestants, are much the same, although for very different theological reasons, some of which ought to make Jewish Zionists more than a little nervous. And there are those in this and previous Administrations who have made their own Faustian bargain with AIPAC and its cohorts in the service of their own ambition.

But there are many in both houses of the Congress, and more within the armed services and the bureaucracy, who do not fit comfortably into any of these categories. Those in the Congress in particular have been bribed, blackmailed or bullied into submission, servility or silence, and few if any can be happy with their situation. Most simply make the best of an uncomfortable bargain, trading their own continuation or advancement in office for their support of Israeli ambitions, and their silence when confronted by Israeli crimes.

Yet this is a potential weakness in the edifice of Zionist influence and control in the US, and it should and must be our task to focus on that political battlefield, and not simply shuttle trucks and ships toward Gaza in the hope that some will get through the Israeli blockade. The remainder of the series that follows, Palestine and the United States: A Battle Lost, A War to Win, which has been completed and will be published in the coming weeks, is one attempt to define the parameters of a strategy to do precisely that. Executed properly, it and others like it may be a first step toward the saving of both the United States and Palestine.

* Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D, University of Michigan) is a ten-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College. He can be contacted at docbrosk@comcast.net

Related posts:

• Ten Self-Evident Truths
• Prof. John J. Mearsheimer – The Future of Palestine: Righteous Jews vs. the New Afrikaners
• What, really, is the Obama-Clinton game plan for Israel/Palestine?

By Anthony Lawson *, Sabbah Report: http://sabbah.biz/

Recently, political pressure has been brought to bear against a trades unionist KEVIN BRACKEN, for attempting to express his views about the events of 9/11, on Australia's publicly funded broadcaster, the ABC. This video redresses the balance, and makes it clear that Australia’s prime minister is either ignorant, beyond belief, or she is putting the interests of nuclear, Apartheid Israel ahead of Australia's. (My Catbird Seat)

Friends of Israel - Enemies Inside the Gates:

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UntixeRiEK8

* Anthony Lawson (known professionally as Tony Lawson) is a retired international-prize-winning commercials director, cameraman, ad agency creative director and voice over. He used to be known for shooting humorous commercials, but doesn’t find much to laugh about, with the way the world is going, these days.

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• Jeff Gates- When Will Israel Attack the U.S. – Again?
• Jeff Gates – America’s Terrorist Ally: A Closer Look at Israel’s Role in Terrorism

By Lawrence Davidson* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

A letter from Gaza appeared on the Web dated September 24, 2010. It was from a group of Gaza academics and students and sought to publicize the fact that eight American universities have recently signed agreements with various Israeli universities to offer U.S. students free semester long programs in Israel. Among the American universities participating in this venture are Harvard, Columbia and Michigan.

The Gaza academics and students expressed shock at this turn of events. And so they might given the fact that they are sitting in an outdoor prison of Israeli making and have seen their educational institutions both starved of resources by an Israeli blockade and literally bombed to rubble by Israeli warplanes. The situation in Gaza is but the worst of a bad situation for all Palestinians, including those in the West Bank and Israel proper. When it comes to education in all of these locales apartheid policies are in place to interfere with Palestinian students and teachers and minimize the educational experience. Actually, this is part of an unspoken strategy of cultural genocide. Such policies are directly or indirectly supported by the Israeli academic institutions to which the participating American universities now want to send their students.

How can these U.S. universities do this? This is certainly a legitimate question in an age when discrimination and racism are, supposedly, no longer socially or politically acceptable. After all Harvard, Columbia, Michigan, etc. are institutions of higher learning housed in a country that prides itself on broad civil rights laws and all of them adhere to social equity rules. Yet here they are climbing into academic bed, so to speak, with a state that practices apartheid against its non-Jewish minority and is attempting to ethnically cleanse the indigenous population of the Occupied Territories.

Well, there are any number of scenarios that might lead them to this sort of hellish arrangement and here I offer only one possibility. It assumes an "Adolf Eichmann context."

1. The realm of the bureaucrat

The people in control of American universities (and perhaps all universities) are mostly bureaucrats. Some of them are trained in the specialty field of higher education administration, some are professors who have crossed over to an administrative career line, and some are just folks hired from the general population pool to run sub-departments such as public relations and accounting. They are all trained to pay lip service to various sorts of mission statements and assessment markers, however their lives are really very insular and their goals narrow and short term. For instance, even at the highest level, say the office of the university president, there are usually but a few major goals, and the main one in this case is to raise money.

Somewhere in the organizational chart is an office of overseas programs (or some similar title). It is usually a small operation with a director and a secretary. Their job is to set up exchange programs. What they are looking for are programs at overseas schools that are roughly similar in quality to the courses their own institution offers. That way the credits can be legitimately transferred back home and stand in for some of their student's degree requirements. The people who are arranging these exchanges usually know little or nothing of the social or political situation in the overseas institution's country. And, they are not likely to educate themselves on these subjects beyond some assurance that the place is relatively safe for the students that will be participating in the exchange. It may be hard for those of us who are so focused on Israeli apartheid to accept this, but for most of the folks in these little offices, Israel has about the same cachet as the Czech Republic or maybe Ireland. There is a lot of ignorance at his level.

2. What else is going on?

Of course, that is not the end of the story. There are other folks out there, most of whom are indirectly associated with the university in question. These people know that there is a war going on against apartheid Israel, and they are not on our side. They want to counter the increasingly effective process of "chipping away at Israel's legitimacy." They also have deep pockets and lots of influence. These folks may be big donors to these universities and some of them may well sit on the institution's board of governors/regents.

When the president or his representative goes out to raise money these donors have what appears to be innocuous conditions for their gifts. So they say to president x or y, "sure we will give you half a million dollars for that new sports complex you so covet, but in return we want you to create this exchange program with Hebrew and Haifa U." The president thinks that this is little enough to ask for such a generous gift, and his friend on the board of governors/regents seconds the motion. A telephone call is made to the director of overseas programs who is given a contact name and number at the Israeli embassy to get things rolling. And that is how it happens.

3. What comes next?

Soon enough this arrangement becomes public. You have to figure if they know about it in Gaza, they know about in Cambridge, Ann Arbor and upper Manhattan. Given the times there will probably be some sort of public protest, but the ensuing struggle will not be easy for the following reasons:

a. The university position will almost certainly be that to shun Israel is a violation of academic freedom, free inquiry, and the essential non-political status of learning. This sort of argument is age old. The U.S. universities were making it when they were asked to divest from apartheid South Africa and stop research funded by the "Defense" Department during the Vietnam war. One can never lay this argument to rest in any final way because it represents a cherished, if somewhat unreal, ideal.

So you point out for the one thousandth time that there is an inherent contradiction when you take this position relative to Israeli universities just because they do not promote these academic ideals. They are destroyers of free thought and free inquiry as far as Palestinian rights (and particularly the right of education) are concerned. And so if the ideal of a non-political status for learning exists anywhere in the real world, it ain't in Israel. The whole Zionist academic setup has been criticized by international as well as Israeli human rights organizations for these anti-educational activities. And finally, you try to tell the university decision makers that there is precedent for universities taking a stand against apartheid practices. At this point you notice that they have, figuratively, clicked on their I-pods and are no longer listening.

b. Next you go to the professors of the institution and try to explain the same thing. That is when you come to the stomach wrenching realization that most of them do not care. Most academics are as specialized as the bureaucrats, and live their lives in just as insular a world. They know a lot about their sub-field and very little beyond it. They are dedicated to their families and their local communities and are, on the whole, decent people, but they are not interested, nor are they going to hit the street, for oppressed people far away. This is particularly true when their local news sources have been systematically libeling those people for sixty plus years. They too will hide behind the idea of academic freedom.

It should be noted that this is not quite the same thing as Julien Benda's "treason of the intellectuals." There is very little spouting of national chauvinism or the racism of Islamophobia (except for the Zionists professors among them). No, it is just co-option into the system. It is just natural localism-I really just want to live my life and work in my lab or library cubicle, etc. I am reluctant to get too annoyed at my fellow academics for this attitude, because theirs is the immemorial stance of all ordinary folks everywhere.

c. So that leaves the students, and here there is a much better chance to gather a crowd and take a stand. There is always a socially conscious group among the youth who are willing to fight for a good cause and risk defying the powers that be. This is because they have yet to become ensconced in the system, bogged down with career, family, mortgage and the like. In other words, some of them have not yet shrunk into an insular world of very local interests and goals. And those are the people who will protest, if anyone will, at the ivy towers of Harvard, Columbia, Michigan and the five other schools which have willed their own corruption.

4. What are the odds of victory?

Whether anyone will listen to the protesters depends on how many there are, how loud they protest and how far they are willing to go with it. Are they willing to go into the dormitories and spread the word? Are they willing to picket not only the ordinary centers of power on campus, but also the admissions office when prospective students come to visit, or demonstrate on home-coming day and at all the football games? Are they willing to hunt for donors who might say they will not give if their institution partners with Israel? Are they willing to occupy the president's office and thereby risk arrest? Are they willing to keep all of this up for weeks on end? It might take all of these sorts of activities to even have a chance at winning this contest.

And even so the odds are not good. Essentially, you have to create such a cost to the institution in trouble and bad publicity that it outweighs that donor's half a million dollars and/or the anger of the fellow on the board/regents. If in the end you do not win, you have to understand that it is not wholly a defeat. After all, you have certainly raised consciousness. In other words, you have set the stage for the next battle and made that one a little easier to win. So you have to have the energy to fight again and again. It is a scenario wherein youth is a definite plus.

There is another way in which the mounting a serious protest at any of these schools must constitute a victory. And that is the fact that such a protest will demonstrate to the academics and students in Gaza and the rest of Palestine that the world has not abandoned them, that they have allies and their struggle is now a worldwide one. In the short run, that might be the most important victory of all.

In Conclusion

Here is quote from the American academic Richard Hofstadter, "A university's essential character is that of being a center of free inquiry and criticism-a thing not to be sacrificed for anything else." If this so (and all the leaders of the institutions involved in these exchanges will undoubtedly agree) then why are these eight universities sending their students off to Israeli schools that cooperate with state policies that deny just these sacrosanct pursuits to persecuted Palestinians? Why are they sending their students to a country that seeks to silence, at all levels of society, any free inquiry and criticism of its racist and oppressive national ideology? Why are they cooperating with institutions that have state dictated policies (for instance, admissions policies) that would be illegal in the United States? Do they condone such behaviors? If they go through with these exchange programs the answer is, for all intents and purposes, yes, they do. Essentially, they now lend themselves to the destruction of the very educational virtues they claim to cherish.

* Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.

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By Terry Crawford-Browne* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Illustration By Pete Pasho: www.dollopsofirony.com

If international civil society is serious about urgently ending Israel's violations of Palestinian rights, including ending the occupation, then suspension of SWIFT transactions to and from Israeli banks offers an instrument to help bring about a peaceful resolution of an intractable conflict. With computerization, international banking technology has advanced dramatically in the subsequent 20 years since the South African anti-apartheid campaign.

Although access to New York banks remains essential for foreign exchange transactions because of the role of the dollar, interbank transfer instructions are conducted through the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), which is based in Belgium. So, instead of New York -- as in the period when sanctions were applied on South Africa-- Belgium is now the pressure point.

SWIFT links 8,740 financial institutions in 209 countries. Without access to SWIFT and its interbank payment network, countries are unable either to pay for imports or to receive payment for exports. In short, no payment -- no trade. Should it come to a point where trade sanctions are imposed on Israel, it may be able to evade them. Instead of chasing trade sanctions-busters and plugging loopholes, it is both faster and much more effective to suspend the payment system.

The Israeli government may consider itself to be militarily and diplomatically invincible, given support from the United States, and other governments, but Israel's economy is exceptionally dependent upon international trade. It is thus very vulnerable to financial retaliation. South Africa's apartheid government had also believed itself to be immune from foreign pressure.

Without SWIFT, Israel's access to the international banking system would be crippled. Banking is the lifeblood of any economy. Without payment for imports or exports, the Israeli economy would quickly collapse. The matter has gained additional urgency with the bill now before the Knesset, Israel's parliament, to penalize any person who promotes the imposition of boycotts against Israel. Another important political factor is that SWIFT is not only outside American jurisdiction, it is also beyond the reach of Israeli military retaliation.

Israel has long experience in sanctions-busting since the 1948 Arab boycotts. Apartheid South Africa was also well experienced in sanctions-busting -- breaking oil embargoes was almost a "national sport." Trade sanctions are invariably full of loopholes. Profiteering opportunities abound, as illustrated by Iraq, Cuba and numerous countries against which for many years the United States unsuccessfully has applied trade sanctions. Iran conducts its trade through Dubai, which happily profits from the political impasse.

Suspension of bank payments plugs such loopholes, and also alters the balance of power so that meaningful negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians become even possible. This is because banking sanctions impact quickly upon financial elites who have the clout to pressure governments to concede political change. Trade sanctions, by contrast, impact hardest on the poor or lower-paid workers, who have virtually no political influence.

SWIFT will, however, only take action against Israeli banks if ordered to do so by a Belgian court, and then only in very exceptional circumstances. Such very exceptional circumstances are now well-documented by the UN-commissioned Goldstone report into Israel's winter 2008-09 invasion and massacre in Gaza and by the attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on 31 May 2010. There is also a huge body of literature from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other organizations detailing Israeli war crimes and violations of humanitarian law.

The Israeli government, like that of apartheid South Africa, has become a menace to the international community. Corruption and abuses of human rights are invariably interconnected. Israel's long military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, for example, has corrupted almost every aspect of Israeli society, most especially its economy. The Organization For Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported in December 2009 that the Israeli government lacks commitment in tackling international corruption and money laundering.

The international financial system is exceedingly sensitive about allegations of money laundering, but also to any associations with human rights abuses. Organized crime and money laundering are major international security threats, as illustrated by the United States subpoena after the 11 September 2001 attacks of SWIFT data to track terrorist financing. The website Who Profits? (www.whoprofits.org) lists hundreds of international and Israeli companies that illegally profiteer from the occupation.

Their operations range from construction of the "apartheid wall" and settlements to agricultural produce grown on confiscated Palestinian land. As examples, Caterpillar, Volvo and Hyundai supply bulldozing equipment to demolish Palestinian homes. British supermarkets sell fresh produce grown in the West Bank, but illegally labelled as Israeli. Ahava markets Dead Sea mud and cosmetics.

The notorious Lev Leviev claims in Dubai that Leviev diamonds are of African origin, and are cut and polished in the United States rather than Israel. They are sourced from Angola, Namibia and also allegedly Zimbabwe, and can rightly be described as "blood diamonds." Israeli diamond exports in 2008 were worth $19.4 billion, and accounted for almost 35 percent of Israeli exports. Industrial grade diamonds are essential to Israel's armaments industry, and its provision of surveillance equipment to the world's most unsavory dictatorships. Such profiteering depends on foreign exchange and access to the international payments system. Hence interbank transfers are essential, and SWIFT -- willingly or unwillingly -- has become complicit, as were the New York banks with apartheid South Africa.

Accordingly, a credible civil society organization amongst the Palestinian diaspora should lead the SWIFT sanctions campaign against Israeli banks. And, per the South African experience, it should be led by civil society rather than rely on governments.

Each bank has an eight letter SWIFT code that identifies both the bank and its country of domicile. "IL" are the fifth and sixth letters in SWIFT codes that identify Israel. The four major Israeli banks and their SWIFT codes are Israel Discount Bank (IDBILIT), Bank Hapoalim (POALILIT), Bank Leumi (LUMIILIT) and Bank of Israel (ISRAILIJ).

Such a suspension would not affect domestic banking transactions within Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip -- or international transfers to Palestinian banks that have separate "PS" identities. The campaign can be reversed as soon as the objectives have been achieved, and without long-term economic damage.

What is required is an urgent application in a Belgian court ordering SWIFT to reprogram its computers to suspend all transactions to and from Israeli banks until the Israeli government agrees to end the occupation of the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and that it will dismantle the "apartheid wall;" the Israeli government recognizes the fundamental rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and Israel recognizes, respects and promotes the rights of Palestinian refugees.

* The writer is a retired banker, who advised the South African Council of Churches on the banking sanctions campaign against apartheid South Africa. He spent October 2009 to January 2010 in East Jerusalem monitoring checkpoints, house demolitions and evictions, and liaising with Israeli peace groups. He lives in Cape Town.

Source: EI

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By Gordon Duff* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

To millions of Americans, the "end times" seem to be on us. The BP disaster in the Gulf may leave 25% of America virtually uninhabitable, eco-systems destroyed for sure but maybe much more, a destroyed sea floor, toxic gas clouds moving inland and warnings of something worse, a geological disaster of biblical proportions sitting offshore like a ticking time bomb. Millions of American believe the president is a foreign born Muslim, a puppet of the terrorists while millions believe he is working for Israel. Every speech, every state visit, everything done is seen to support one side or another, sometimes both. The destruction of the American presidency is only part of it, part of a program of racial division, fear, hate and a descent into class warfare and violence.

The end result of the disasters, political infighting, religious extremism, the total collapse of trust in America's system of government and the infiltration of terrorist elements into every institution, America's military and political core, financial terrorists working to destroy America's standard of living, its industrial base, its currency and, eventually the last of its freedoms will be the division of America, starting with an apartheid state and ending in "Balkanization" and the world's largest nuclear arsenal being unleashed on the world. This has been heard before, it is a story that faith based broadcasting has been sending out to the American people for the past thirty years. The biblical flood began when the money disappeared.

ECONOMIC APOCALYPSE

The serious side is the economic meltdown. Even with the hundreds of billions Americans borrowed to give to our "banksters" who our "congress critters" decided were too big to allow to fail, we have no banks, simply depositories for stolen money while it waits to be shipped overseas. Money is taken in, none loaned out, not for jobs in America anyway. All the government did was to push the burgeoning debt left us by the Bush/Cheney failures even higher, topping $13 trillion dollars this month, money we owe to pay back money we never got from people who had no right to print it in the first place.

More and more Americans are becoming aware of the fact that our system, the Federal Reserve, is nothing but a racket where foreign bankers, all thinly disguised Rothschilds, sell us our own money while maneuvering us into debt, really a massive mortgage on America's future, we can never keep up the payments on. America has been systematically destabilized, the most powerful nation in the history of the earth, living on borrowed money and, frankly, borrowed time.

TOO MUCH TO STOMACH, BP BUYING OUR GOVERNMENT AND LIEBERMAN CONTROLLING THE INTERNET

When Americans look at television and see half their politicians crying about BP, a company that laid waste to more of the planet than any in history, they see a world upside down. They know their politicians take money, everyone knows this, but to think they would be brazen enough to scream out "yes, we are crooks, what are you going to do about it?" is more than that. It is an announcement that anyone in government can do anything they want, anything, and never answer for it, not even face reelection problems. The more crooked a politician, the more favorable press he gets, the more the Israel lobby supports him, the more the Tea Baggers support him, the more "heroic" he is portrayed by the pundits and fear mongers.

Things have gotten so bad that Senator Josef Liebermann (I-srael) has introduced a bill that would allow the internet to be closed down in case of "emergency." Liberman talks about terrorism or espionage but the real problem was that the "corporate press" got caught lying over the Freedom Flotilla massacre and millions of Americans have turned to the internet for the news, news sometimes bizarre, conspiratorial and fringe, often however, much more accurate and truthful than the newspapers and TV networks. His bill, written in Tel Aviv, is designed to make Americans who depend on the internet for news and communication feel helpless, isolated and ready to turn to violence.

Picture yourself going to the computer. Your email is blocked, nothing in, nothing out. You are looking at one screen, the same thing on every computer in the country. The logo, a simply, DHS, Department of Homeland Security. In the middle of the screen is a new search engine, "Safety Friendly Family Approved Searches." Below that are approved news stories, linking you to ABC, CNN, FOX, CBS, MSNBC, the WSJ, NYT, WP and Family Security Matters.org. Below that is a warning:

"Your microphone and webcam are in active mode. Do not attempt to mute, shield or disable under penalty of law."

Senator Lieberman is trying to start a civil war, more than just planting the seeds, this is a provocation, a clear and present danger to American freedom.

BUILDING THE MECHANISM OF APOCALYPSE, THE MOVE TO APARTHEID

Let's talk about "social cohesion." Israel has shipped their five million Palestinians to Jordan, Lebanon or Gaza to have social cohesion, one country, one race, one religion, no room for outsiders, no matter how long they have been around. America did the same thing with the Indians (Native Americans), eventually wiping most of them out in a series of wars, treaties and resettlement programs. However, America's problems with social cohesion are far greater than Israel's or even those of America during the pioneering years. Today, we are a society divided on, not only race and ethnicity but region, religion and, worst of all, extremist political views. The government that is supposed to join us together and the constitution that is meant to guarantee our belief in equal justice for all have been ground into the dust, twisted, bought, obliterated and disfigured.

America is heading for a meltdown. Another civil war is possible, even likely. 40% of states are bankrupt. This means they can't pay police or teachers or fix roads except with borrowed federal money. It also means their pension plans, all that is meant to keep millions of Americans out of dire poverty in retirement, are gone. The states lost their pension plans in the 2007 collapse. Only federal bail outs, which aren't going to happen, will cover this massive shortfall. Eventually, workers, hundreds of thousands of families who worked and saved for financial security will be told it isn't there anymore. This isn't the future, it happened, its real and it can't be hidden very long.

There is no federal government to step in and carry the load. Wars have left it drowning and political corruption has crippled America to where it is no more stable than many of the nations of Africa. Hiding behind years of scare tactics, terrorism, tiny countries with nuclear weapons, or the real problem of Mexico's collapse under the rule of drug lords and the millions flooding into our country, financial criminals have looted America and a worldwide criminal conspiracy of financial criminals, headquartered in Tel Aviv and New York, protected by congress and Mossad death squads traveling the world with German passports. The press, something we generously call either the "mainstream media" or "corporate controlled press" isn't just a mechanism for censorship, its part of a long term effort to destroy the faith Americans have in their own ability as people to rule themselves and trust, not the criminals presented to vote for in elections, but their own ability to reject the lot of them.

THE MANY FACES OF THE AMERICAN TALIBAN

Radicalization of America has been the goal all along. Who would have ever believed that internet conspiracy theory would end up being, not only more believable, but more fair and certainly more balanced than traditional media sources that have been discredited to such a degree in recent months. A key area of division in America has been religion. For awhile, financed by the Israeli lobby and the "bankster" criminal elements, the "neo-cons" were able to build a bridge uniting Evangelical Christians with Christian Zionists, groups that are, from a scriptural standpoint light years apart. To this, the abortion/women's rights issue drew many Catholics to abandon their traditional values and join with these groups which had shared little in common with them. Catholics are urban, typically well educated with a Euro-centric culture, while Evangelicals shun higher education for religious instruction.

The first American Taliban may have been the Puritans but they have been eclipsed in American history by the atavism of the Mormon Church, whose beliefs deeply parallel the most frightening and profound heresies of Islam, church over state, no rights for women and an undercurrent of violence unrivaled by any sect seen in a western society since the Albigensians. Mormons, chased across America, seized much of the Southwest and set up a defacto government, one with little in common with the rest of America. As the Mormon regions of America come into conflict with the massive Hispanic Catholic population, the roots of dissolution, border wars, draconian race laws and eventually full apartheid will take hold. It will start in Arizona and spread through the American West.

Perhaps the largest threat is the religious theory of Zionism. Originally a race theory based on Jewish racial superiority and political supremacy, offshoots of Zionism have entered Evangelical Christian belief systems creating the heresy known as Christian Zionism. Original Zionism, a violent and radical offshoot of Judaism is more racial than religious or political in nature. Though a minority of American Jews practice Zionistic beliefs, most are coerced into either financial support or even into sending children into military servitude in Israel in order to avoid social ostracism.

As the result of the founding of Israel in Judea or Palestine, a slow decline in social,cultural and intellectual traditions has infected the Jewish community in America, one known for the advancement of social causes and broad advocacy of American freedoms. With the increased radicalization of America and her economic decline, many Jews have looked to Israel as an anchor, failing to take into account the role Israel has played in the onset of the entropy they fear. This situation could be equated with burning down your home to save your garage.

Christian Zionists have only anecdotal similarities with the Judaic variety. They tend to be rural, poorly educated, envious and resentful, not only of what they call "elites" but many other groups as well but primarily African Americans. The basis of Christian Zionism is hatred of African Americans. All other monikers or descriptions are a subterfuge to escape the labels these same groups had been associated with in the past, Klan, racist or bigot.

Hiding behind tortured and obscure biblical references and using bizarre stories of disaster and apocalypse, stories oddly well supported by current times, these simple rural people unable to grasp much of the complex modern world. They have been melded into a political front serving the interests of Israel, a state they understand poorly, and the class of economic criminals, many associated with Israel but also with the movement in America called "conservatism." Their political role has been to serve as a vocal and sometimes violent front for the economic oligarchy, a very real monied elite, that has assumed broad control over America's policitcal and social life.

THE DOOM SO MANY PRAYED SO HARD FOR IS HERE

America's security has been tied, for 65 years, to NATO. Today, our newspaper and TV gurus are telling us to dissolve NATO. With the breakdown of the alliance between Israel and Turkey, Israel, who controls 444 members of congress and 50% of America's wealth has demanded that America either throw Turkey out of NATO or leave herself. As yet, Israel is allowing the United States to remain in the United Nations because America's security council veto, used hundreds of times to save Israel from sanctions for war crimes or nuclear proliferation violations, is vital to the welare of Israel.

This week, Israel was discovered on the verge of bombing Iran. Little real damage would have been done. Iran has no nuclear infrastructure tied to weapons manufacture. The intent would be, as Israel had planned it, to enter Iran from the north where there are few defenses, bomb useless and remote targets, safe targets so all planes could return and claim a major victory, destroying that which did not exist. As Saudi Arabia has already been set up as the fall guy, said to have allowed the attack in advance, something the Saudis deny, they would become hated among Muslim nations.

Israel's plan is to force Iran to attack Saudi Arabia, close the Straits of Hormuz and push America and Western Europe into total collapse. With 60% of the world's oil supply eliminated, world financial and currency markets would collapse and the world's armaments industry would explode with orders. Israel is the third largest exporter of weapons. Israel prides itself as the inventor of "game theory," the method of strategic planning making use of deception, manipulation, "false flag attacks," assassinations, bribery and blackmail in a complex chess match meant to bring the world to a chaotic state subject to their mathematical models. Israel is filled with Nobel Prize winners. This is what they work on.

The apolcalypse that Christian Zionists prayed for, the "end times" though to begin with a series of natural disasters has been hurried along. Pushing for a nuclear war has always been a part of it but the possiblity, not yet proven, that the BP disaster in the Gulf could eventually turn the Gulf Stream and leave Europe uninhabitable is a continual subject of discussion with America's religious broadcast community.

HOW DESTABILIZATION BECOMES APARTHEID

With collapse in the trust in America's institutions, a Supreme Court with five neo-Fascist judges, congress with 444 "Israeli-firsters," and millions of Americans believing the president is the Anti-Christ, one more economic disaster, the one Israel is attempting to stage right now, would make the 2007 collapse seem like a joke. With the broadcast media having worked the country into fear, distrust and ready to pick up weapons to use against their neighbors, all carefully staged, the scripts have been passed out.

You will know when you see the face of Sarah Palin on every network, perhaps in a pantsuit with a miltiary cut. Do you think she will be wearing a beret? There will be a flag behind her and the Star Spangled Banker will fade to silence as she makes the announcements.

Nuclear arsenals will be seized by patriotic groups from within our military, led by Israeli commandos and helped by our armies of private defense contractors. Those secret "FEMA/UN" prisons will suddenly turn out to be real, with local police in riot gear, American flags on their cars and uniforms, hunting down journalists, activists and, eventually, the educated.

Senator Lieberman will pull the plug on the internet. Private logins will carry arrest lists.

After the educated classes and politially progressive groups are rounded up, then the African Americans and Hispanics will be cataloged, given travel restrictions. Pass laws will be enacted.

Then, surprise of surprises, they will start rounding up Jews.

Welcome to the hell of your own making.

* Gordon Duff is senior editor of Veterans Today.

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Two-State Solution Dead

Professor John J. Mearsheimer* delivered the Hisham B. Sharabi Memorial Lecture at the Palestine Center yesterday. Undoubtedly the most extensive talk on this issue ever made by the renowned scholar and bestselling author (The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy), Mearsheimer discusses the inevitability of full-fledged apartheid in Israel-Palestine.

A brief excerpt from the sobering and thought provoking speech appears below:

"Regrettably, the two-state solution is now a fantasy. Instead, those territories will be incorporated into a Greater Israel,which will be an apartheid state bearing a marked resemblance to white-ruled South Africa. Nevertheless, a Jewish apartheid state is not politically viable over the long term. In the end, it will become a democratic bi-national state, whose politics will be dominated by its Palestinian citizens. In other words, it will cease being a Jewish state, which will mean the end of the Zionist dream."

Following video is his full lecture:

Following is the entire transcript of Mearsheimer lecture:

The Palestine Center
Washington, D.C.
29 April 2010

Professor John Mearsheimer:

It is a great honor to be here at the Palestine Center to give the Sharabi Memorial Lecture. I would like to thank Yousef Munnayer, the executive director of the Jerusalem Fund, for inviting me, and all of you for coming out to hear me speak this afternoon.

My topic is the future of Palestine, and by that I mean the future of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, or what was long ago called Mandatory Palestine. As you all know, that land is now broken into two parts: Israel proper or what is sometime called "Green Line" Israel and the Occupied Territories, which include the West Bank and Gaza. In essence, my talk is about the future relationship between Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Of course, I am not just talking about the fate of those lands; I am also talking about the future of the people who live there. I am talking about the future of the Jews and the Palestinians who are Israeli citizens, as well as the Palestinians who live in the Occupied Territories.

The story I will tell is straightforward. Contrary to the wishes of the Obama administration and most Americans – to include many American Jews – Israel is not going to allow the Palestinians to have a viable state of their own in Gaza and the West Bank. Regrettably, the two-state solution is now a fantasy. Instead, those territories will be incorporated into a "Greater Israel," which will be an apartheid state bearing a marked resemblance to white-ruled South Africa. Nevertheless, a Jewish apartheid state is not politically viable over the long term. In the end, it will become a democratic bi-national state, whose politics will be dominated by its Palestinian citizens. In other words, it will cease being a Jewish state, which will mean the end of the Zionist dream.

Let me explain how I reached these conclusions.

Given present circumstances there are four possible futures for Palestine.

The outcome that gets the most attention these days is the two-state solution, which was described in broad outline by President Clinton in late December 2000. It would obviously involve creating a Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel. To be viable, that Palestine state would have to control 95 percent or more of the West Bank and all of Gaza. There would also have to be territorial swaps to compensate the Palestinians for those small pieces of West Bank territory that Israel got to keep in the final agreement. East Jerusalem would be the capital of the new Palestinian state. The Clinton Parameters envisioned certain restrictions on the new state's military capabilities, but it would control the water beneath it, the air space above it, and its own borders – to include the Jordan River Valley.

There are three possible alternatives to a two-state solution, all of which involve creating a Greater Israel – an Israel that effectively controls the West Bank and Gaza.

In the first scenario, Greater Israel would become a democratic bi-national state in which Palestinians and Jews enjoy equal political rights. This solution has been suggested by a handful of Jews and a growing number of Palestinians. However, it would mean abandoning the original Zionist vision of a Jewish state, since the Palestinians would eventually outnumber the Jews in Greater Israel.

Second, Israel could expel most of the Palestinians from Greater Israel, thereby preserving its Jewish character through an overt act of ethnic cleansing. This is what happened in 1948 when the Zionists drove roughly 700,000 Palestinians out of the territory that became the new state of Israel, and then prevented them from returning to their homes. Following the Six Day War in 1967, Israel expelled between 100,000 and 260,000 Palestinians from the newly conquered West Bank and drove 80,000 Syrians from the Golan Heights. The scale of the expulsion, however, would have to be even greater this time, because there are about 5.5 million Palestinians living between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.

The final alternative to a two-state solution is some form of apartheid, whereby Israel increases its control over the Occupied Territories, but allows the Palestinians to exercise limited autonomy in a set of disconnected and economically crippled enclaves.

It seems clear to me that the two-state solution is the best of these alternative futures. This is not to say that it is an ideal solution, because it is not; but it is by far the best outcome for both the Israelis and the Palestinians, as well as the United States. That is why the Obama administration is intensely committed to pushing it.

Nevertheless, the Palestinians are not going to get their own state anytime soon. They are instead going to end up living in an apartheid state dominated by Israeli Jews.

The main reason that a two-state solution is no longer a serious option is that most Israelis are opposed to making the sacrifices that would be necessary to create a viable Palestinian state, and there is little reason to expect them to have an epiphany on this issue. For starters, there are now about 480,000 settlers in the Occupied Territories and a huge infrastructure of connector and bypass roads, not to mention settlements. Much of that infrastructure and large numbers of those settlers would have to be removed to create a Palestinian state. Many of those settlers however, would fiercely resist any attempt to rollback the settlement enterprise. Earlier this month, Ha'aretz reported that a Hebrew University poll found that 21 percent of the settlers believe that "all means must be employed to resist the evacuation of most West Bank settlements, including the use of arms." In addition, the study found that 54 percent of those 480,000 settlers "do not recognize the government's authority to evacuate settlements"; and even if there was a referendum sanctioning a withdrawal, 36 percent of the settlers said they would not accept it.

Those settlers, however, do not have to worry about the present government trying to remove them. Prime Minister Netanyahu is committed to expanding the settlements in East Jerusalem and indeed throughout the West Bank. Of course, he and virtually everyone in his cabinet are opposed to giving the Palestinians a viable state of their own. Larry Derfner, a columnist for the Jerusalem Post, succinctly summed up Netanyahu's thinking about these matters in a recent column: "For him to divide the land, to divide Jerusalem, to give up Hebron, to send 100,000 settlers packing – that would be treason in his eyes. That would be moral suicide. His heart isn't in it; everything in him rebels at the idea. Our prime minister is constitutionally incapable of leading the nation out of the Palestinians' midst, of fighting the settlers and the Right in a virtual or literal civil war, of persuading Israelis to admit that on the crucial endeavor of their national life for the past 43 years, they were wrong and the world was right."

One might argue that there are prominent Israelis like former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert who openly disagree with Netanyahu and advocate a two-state solution. While this is true, it is by no means clear that either of them would be willing or able to make the concessions that would be necessary to create a legitimate Palestinian state. Certainly Olmert did not do so when he was prime minister.

But even if they were, it is unlikely that either of those leaders, or anyone else for that matter, could get enough of their fellow citizens to back an effective two-state solution. The political center of gravity in Israel has shifted sharply to the right over the past decade and there is no sizable pro-peace political party or movement that they could turn to for help. Probably the best single indicator of how far to the right Israel has moved in recent years is the shocking fact that Avigdor Lieberman is employed as its foreign minister. Even Martin Peretz of the New Republic, who is well known for his unyielding support for Israel, describes Lieberman as "a neo-fascist," and equates him with the late Austrian fascist Jorg Haider. And there are other individuals in Netanyahu's cabinet who share many of Lieberman's views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; they just happen to be less outspoken than the foreign minister.

But even if someone like Livni or Olmert was able to cobble together a coalition of interest groups and political parties that favored giving the Palestinians a real state of their own, they would still face fierce resistance from the sizeable forces that stand behind Netanyahu today. It is even possible, which is not to say likely, that Israel would be engulfed by civil war if some future leader made a serious attempt to implement a two-state solution. An individual with the stature of David Ben-Gurion or Ariel Sharon – or even Yitzhak Rabin – might be able to stand up to those naysayers and push forward a two-state solution, but there is nobody with that kind of standing in Israeli politics today.

In addition to these practical political obstacles to creating a Palestinian state, there is an important ideological barrier. From the start, Zionism envisioned an Israeli state that controlled all of Mandatory Palestine. There was no place for a Palestinian state in the original Zionist vision of Israel. Even Yitzhak Rabin, who was determined to make the Oslo peace process work, never spoke about creating a Palestinian state. He was merely interested in granting the Palestinians some form of limited autonomy, what he called "an entity which is less than a state." Plus, he insisted that Israel should maintain control over the Jordan River Valley and that a united Jerusalem should be the capital of Israel. Also remember that in the spring of 1998 when Hillary Clinton was First Lady, she was sharply criticized for saying that "it would be in the long-term interests of peace in the Middle East for there to be a state of Palestine, a functioning modern state on the same footing as other states."

It was not until after Ehud Barak became prime minister in 1999 that Israeli leaders began to speak openly about the possibility of a Palestinian state. But even then, not all of them thought it was a good idea and hardly any of them were enthusiastic about it. Even Barak, who seriously flirted with the idea of creating a Palestinian state at Camp David in July 2000, initially opposed the Oslo Accords. Furthermore, he has been willing to serve as Netanyahu's defense minister, knowing full well that the prime minister and his allies are opposed to creating an independent Palestine. All of this is to say that Zionism's core beliefs are deeply hostile to the very notion of a Palestinian state, and this makes it difficult for many Israelis to embrace the two-state solution.

In short, it is difficult to imagine any Israeli government having the political will, much less the ability, to dismantle a substantial portion of its vast settlement enterprise and create a Palestinian state in virtually all of the Occupied Territories, including East Jerusalem.

Many advocates of a two-state solution recognize this problem, but think that there is a way to solve it: the Obama administration can put significant pressure on Israel to allow the Palestinians to have their own state. The United States, after all, is the most powerful country in the world and it should have great leverage over Israel because it gives the Jewish state so much diplomatic and material support. Furthermore, President Obama and all of his principal foreign policy advisors are dedicated to establishing a viable Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel.

But this is not going to happen, because no American president can put meaningful pressure on Israel to force it to change its policies toward the Palestinians. The main reason is the Israel lobby, a remarkably powerful interest group that has a profound influence on U.S. Middle East policy. Alan Dershowitz was spot on when he said, "My generation of Jews ... became part of what is perhaps the most effective lobbying and fund-raising effort in the history of democracy." That lobby, of course, makes it impossible for any president to play hardball with Israel, especially on the issue of settlements.

Let's look at the historical record. Every American president since 1967 has opposed settlement building in the Occupied Territories. Yet no president has been able to put serious pressure on Israel to stop building settlements, much less dismantle them. Perhaps the best evidence of America's impotence is what happened in the 1990s during the Oslo peace process. Between 1993 and 2000, Israel confiscated 40,000 acres of Palestinian land, constructed 250 miles of connector and bypass roads, doubled the number of settlers, and built 30 new settlements. President Clinton did hardly anything to halt this expansion. Indeed, the United States continued to give Israel billions of dollars in foreign aid each year and to protect it at every turn on the diplomatic front.

One might think that Obama is different from his predecessors, but there is little evidence to support that belief. Consider that during the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama responded to charges that he was "soft" on Israel by pandering to the lobby and repeatedly praising the special relationship. In the month before he took office, he was silent during the Gaza massacre – when Israel was being criticized around the world for its brutal assault on that densely populated enclave.

After taking office in January 2009, President Obama and his principal foreign policy advisors began demanding that Israel stop all settlement building in the Occupied Territories, to include East Jerusalem, so that serious peace negotiations with the Palestinians could begin. After calling for "two states for two peoples" in his Cairo speech in June 2009, President Obama declared, "it is time for these settlements to stop." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had made the same point one month earlier when she said, "We want to see a stop to settlement construction, additions, natural growth – any kind of settlement activity. That is what the President has called for." George Mitchell, the president's special envoy for the Middle East, conveyed this straightforward message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his lieutenants on numerous occasions.

In response, Netanyahu made it equally clear that Israel intended to continue building settlements and that he and almost everyone in his ruling coalition opposed a two-state solution. He made but a single reference to "two states" in his own speech at Bar Ilan University in June 2009, and the conditions he attached to it made it clear that he was talking about giving the Palestinians a handful of disconnected, apartheid-style Bantustans, not a fully sovereign state.
Netanyahu, of course, won this fight. The Israeli prime minister not only refused to stop building the 2500 housing units that were under construction in the West Bank, but just to make it clear to Obama who was boss, in late June 2009, he authorized the building of 300 new homes in the West Bank. Netanyahu refused to even countenance any limits on settlement building in East Jerusalem, which is supposed to be the capital of a Palestinian state. By the end of September 2009, Obama publicly conceded that Netanyahu had beaten him in their fight over the settlements. The president falsely denied that freezing settlement construction had ever been a precondition for resuming the peace process, and instead he meekly asked Israel to please exercise restraint while it continued colonizing the West Bank. Fully aware of his triumph, Netanyahu said on September 23, "I am pleased that President Obama has accepted my approach that there should be no preconditions."

Indeed, his victory was so complete that the Israeli media was full of stories describing how their prime minister had bested Obama and greatly improved his shaky political position at home. For example, Gideon Samet wrote in Ma'ariv: "In the past weeks, it has become clear with what ease an Israeli prime minister can succeed in thwarting an American initiative."

Perhaps the best American response to Netanyahu's victory came from the widely read author and blogger, Andrew Sullivan, who wrote that this sad episode should "remind Obama of a cardinal rule of American politics: no pressure on Israel ever. Just keep giving them money and they will give the US the finger in return. The only permitted position is to say you oppose settlements in the West Bank, while doing everything you can to keep them growing and advancing."

The Obama administration was engaged in a second round of fighting over settlements last month, when the Netanyahu government embarrassed Vice President Biden during his visit to Israel by announcing plans to build 1600 new housing units in East Jerusalem. While that crisis was important because it clearly revealed that Israel's brutal policies toward the Palestinians are seriously damaging American interests in the Middle East, Netanyahu rejected President Obama's request to stop building settlements in East Jerusalem. "As far as we are concerned," he said on March 21, "building in Jerusalem is like building in Tel Aviv. Our policy on Jerusalem is like the policy in the past 42 years." One day later at the annual AIPAC Conference he said: "The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 years ago, and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today. Jerusalem is not a settlement; it's our capital." And just last week, he said "there will be no freeze in Jerusalem," although it does appear that Israel is not building in East Jerusalem for the moment. Meanwhile, back in the United States, AIPAC got 333 congressmen and 76 senators to sign letters to Secretary of State Clinton reaffirming their unyielding support for Israel and urging the administration to keep future disagreements behind closed doors.

In short President Obama is no match for the lobby. The best he can hope for is to re-start the so-called peace process, but most people understand that these negotiations are a charade. The two sides engage in endless talks while Israel continues to colonize Palestinian lands. Henry Siegman got it right when he called these fruitless talks "The Greater Middle East Peace Process Scam."

There are two other reasons why there is not going to be a two-state solution. The Palestinians are badly divided among themselves and not in a good position to make a deal with Israel and then stick to it. That problem is fixable with time and help from Israel and the United States. But time has run out and neither Jerusalem nor Washington is likely to provide a helping hand. Then there are the Christian Zionists, who are a powerful political force in the United States, especially on Capitol Hill. They are adamantly opposed to a two-state solution because they want Israel to control every square millimeter of Palestine, a situation they believe heralds the "Second Coming" of Christ.

What this all means is that there is going to be a Greater Israel between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. In fact, I would argue that it already exists. But who will live there and what kind of political system will it have?

It is not going to be a democratic bi-national state, at least in the near future. An overwhelming majority of Israel's Jews have no interest in living in a state that would be dominated by the Palestinians. And that includes young Israeli Jews, many of whom hold clearly racist views toward the Palestinians in their midst. Furthermore, few of Israel's supporters in the United States are interested in this outcome, at least at this point in time. Most Palestinians, of course, would accept a democratic bi-national state without hesitation if it could be achieved quickly. But that is not going to happen, although as I will argue shortly, it is likely to come to pass down the road.

Then there is ethnic cleansing, which would certainly mean that Greater Israel would have a Jewish majority. But that murderous strategy seems unlikely, because it would do enormous damage to Israel's moral fabric, its relationship with Jews in the Diaspora, and to its international standing. Israel and its supporters would be treated harshly by history, and it would poison relations with Israel's neighbors for years to come. No genuine friend of Israel could support this policy, which would clearly be a crime against humanity. It also seems unlikely, because most of the 5.5 million Palestinians living between the Jordan and the Mediterranean would put up fierce resistance if Israel tried to expel them from their homes.

Nevertheless, there is reason to worry that Israelis might adopt this solution as the demographic balance shifts against them and they fear for the survival of the Jewish state. Given the right circumstances – say a war involving Israel that is accompanied by serious Palestinian unrest – Israeli leaders might conclude that they can expel massive numbers of Palestinians from Greater Israel and depend on the lobby to protect them from international criticism and especially from sanctions.

We should not underestimate Israel's willingness to employ such a horrific strategy if the opportunity presents itself. It is apparent from public opinion surveys and everyday discourse that many Israelis hold racist views of Palestinians and the Gaza massacre makes clear that they have few qualms about killing Palestinian civilians. It is difficult to disagree with Jimmy Carter's comment earlier this year that "the citizens of Palestine are treated more like animals than like human beings." A century of conflict and four decades of occupation will do that to a people.

Furthermore, a substantial number of Israeli Jews – some 40 percent or more – believe that the Arab citizens of Israel should be "encouraged" to leave by the government. Indeed, former foreign minister Tzipi Livni has said that if there is a two-state solution, she expected Israel's Palestinian citizens to leave and settle in the new Palestinian state. And then there is the recent military order issued by the IDF that is aimed at "preventing infiltration" into the West Bank. In fact, it enables Israel to deport tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank should it choose to do so. And, of course, the Israelis engaged in a massive cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948 and again in 1967. Still, I do not believe Israel will resort to this horrible course of action.

The most likely outcome in the absence of a two-state solution is that Greater Israel will become a full-fledged apartheid state. As anyone who has spent time in the Occupied Territories knows, it is already an incipient apartheid state with separate laws, separate roads, and separate housing for Israelis and Palestinians, who are essentially confined to impoverished enclaves that they can leave and enter only with great difficulty.

Israelis and their American supporters invariably bristle at the comparison to white rule in South Africa, but that is their future if they create a Greater Israel while denying full political rights to an Arab population that will soon outnumber the Jewish population in the entirety of the land. Indeed, two former Israeli prime ministers have made this very point. Ehud Olmert, who was Netanyahu's predecessor, said in late November 2007 that if "the two-state solution collapses," Israel will "face a South-African-style struggle." He went so far as to argue that, "as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished." Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who is now Israel's defense minister, said in early February of this year that, "As long as in this territory west of the Jordan River there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic. If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state."

Other Israelis, as well as Jimmy Carter and Bishop Desmond Tutu, have warned that if Israel does not pull out of the Occupied Territories it will become an apartheid state like white-ruled South Africa. But if I am right, the occupation is not going to end and there will not be a two-state solution. That means Israel will complete its transformation into a full-blown apartheid state over the next decade.

In the long run, however, Israel will not be able to maintain itself as an apartheid state. Like racist South Africa, it will eventually evolve into a democratic bi-national state whose politics will be dominated by the more numerous Palestinians. Of course, this means that Israel faces a bleak future as a Jewish state. Let me explain why.

For starters, the discrimination and repression that is the essence of apartheid will be increasingly visible to people all around the world. Israel and its supporters have been able to do a good job of keeping the mainstream media in the United States from telling the truth about what Israel is doing to the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. But the Internet is a game changer. It not only makes it easy for the opponents of apartheid to get the real story out to the world, but it also allows Americans to learn the story that the New York Times and the Washington Post have been hiding from them. Over time, this situation may even force these two media institutions to cover the story more accurately themselves.

The growing visibility of this issue is not just a function of the Internet. It is also due to the fact that the plight of the Palestinians matters greatly to people all across the Arab and Islamic world, and they constantly raise the issue with Westerners. It also matters very much to the influential human rights community, which is naturally going to be critical of Israel's harsh treatment of the Palestinians. It is not surprising that hardline Israelis and their American supporters are now waging a vicious smear campaign against those human rights organizations that criticize Israel.

The main problem that Israel's defenders face, however, is that it is impossible to defend apartheid, because it is antithetical to core Western values. How does one make a moral case for apartheid, especially in the United States, where democracy is venerated and segregation and racism are routinely condemned? It is hard to imagine the United States having a special relationship with an apartheid state. Indeed, it is hard to imagine the United States having much sympathy for one. It is much easier to imagine the United States strongly opposing that racist state's political system and working hard to change it. Of course, many other countries around the globe would follow suit. This is surely why former Prime Minister Olmert said that going down the apartheid road would be suicidal for Israel.

Apartheid is not only morally reprehensible, but it also guarantees that Israel will remain a strategic liability for the United States. The recent comments of President Obama, Vice President Biden and General David Petraeus make clear that Israel's colonization of the Occupied Territories is doing serious damage to American interests in the Middle East and surrounding areas. As Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March, "This is starting to get dangerous for us. What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us, and it endangers regional peace." This situation will only get worse as Israel becomes a full-fledged apartheid state. And as that becomes clear to more and more Americans, there is likely to be a serious erosion of support for the Jewish state on strategic grounds alone.

Hardline Israelis and their American supporters are aware of these problems, but they are betting that the lobby will defend Israel no matter what, and that its support will be sufficient to allow apartheid Israel to survive. It might seem like a safe bet, since the lobby has played a key role in shielding Israel from American pressure up to now. In fact, one could argue that Israel could not have gotten as far down the apartheid road as it has without the help of organizations like AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League. But that strategy is not likely to work over the long run.

The problem with depending on the lobby for protection is that most American Jews will not back Israel if it becomes a full-fledged apartheid state. Indeed, many of them are likely to criticize Israel and support calls for making Greater Israel a legitimate democracy. That is obviously not the case now, but there are good reasons to think that a marked shift in the American Jewish community's thinking about Israel is in the offing. This is not to deny that there will be some diehards who defend apartheid Israel; but their ranks will be thin and it will be widely apparent that they are out of step with core American values.

Let me elaborate.

American Jews who care deeply about Israel can be divided into three broad categories. The first two are what I call "righteous Jews" and the "new Afrikaners," which are clearly definable groups that think about Israel and where it is headed in fundamentally different ways. The third and largest group is comprised of those Jews who care a lot about Israel, but do not have clear-cut views on how to think about Greater Israel and apartheid. Let us call this group the "great ambivalent middle."

Righteous Jews have a powerful attachment to core liberal values. They believe that individual rights matter greatly and that they are universal, which means they apply equally to Jews and Palestinians. They could never support an apartheid Israel. They also understand that the Palestinians paid an enormous price to make it possible to create Israel in 1948. Moreover, they recognize the pain and suffering that Israel has inflicted on the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories since 1967. Finally, most righteous Jews believe that the Palestinians deserve a viable state of their own, just as the Jews deserve their own state. In essence, they believe that self-determination applies to Palestinians as well as Jews, and that the two-state solution is the best way to achieve that end. Some righteous Jews, however, favor a democratic bi-national state over the two-state solution.

To give you a better sense of what I mean when I use the term righteous Jews, let me give you some names of people and organizations that I would put in this category. The list would include Noam Chomsky, Roger Cohen, Richard Falk, Norman Finkelstein, Tony Judt, Tony Karon, Naomi Klein, MJ Rosenberg, Sara Roy, and Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss fame, just to name a few. I would also include many of the individuals associated with J Street and everyone associated with Jewish Voice for Peace, as well as distinguished international figures such as Judge Richard Goldstone. Furthermore, I would apply the label to the many American Jews who work for different human rights organizations, such as Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch.

On the other side we have the new Afrikaners, who will support Israel even if it is an apartheid state. These are individuals who will back Israel no matter what it does, because they have blind loyalty to the Jewish state. This is not to say that the new Afrikaners think that apartheid is an attractive or desirable political system, because I am sure that many of them do not. Surely some of them favor a two-state solution and some of them probably have a serious commitment to liberal values. The key point, however, is that they have an even deeper commitment to supporting Israel unreservedly. The new Afrikaners will of course try to come up with clever arguments to convince themselves and others that Israel is really not an apartheid state, and that those who say it is are anti-Semites. We are all familiar with this strategy.

I would classify most of the individuals who head the Israel lobby's major organizations as new Afrikaners. That list would include Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, David Harris of the American Jewish Committee, Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Ronald Lauder of the World Jewish Congress, and Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America, just to name some of the more prominent ones. I would also include businessmen like Sheldon Adelson, Lester Crown, and Mortimer Zuckerman as well as media personalities like Fred Hiatt and Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post, Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal, and Martin Peretz of the New Republic. It would be easy to add more names to this list.

The key to determining whether the lobby can protect apartheid Israel over the long run is whether the great ambivalent middle sides with the new Afrikaners or the righteous Jews. The new Afrikaners have to win that fight decisively for Greater Israel to survive as a racist state.

There is no question that the present balance of power favors the new Afrikaners. When push comes to shove on issues relating to Israel, the hardliners invariably get most of those American Jews who care a lot about Israel to side with them. The righteous Jews, on the other hand, hold considerably less sway with the great ambivalent middle, at least at this point in time. This situation is due in good part to the fact that most American Jews – especially the elders in the community – have little understanding of how far down the apartheid road Israel has travelled and where it is ultimately headed. They think that the two-state solution is still a viable option and that Israel remains committed to allowing the Palestinians to have their own state. These false beliefs allow them to act as if there is little danger of Israel becoming South Africa, which makes it easy for them to side with the new Afrikaners.

This situation, however, is unsustainable over time. Once it is widely recognized that the two-state solution is dead and Greater Israel is a reality, the righteous Jews will have two choices: support apartheid or work to help create a democratic bi-national state. I believe that almost all of them will opt for the latter option, in large part because of their deep-seated commitment to liberal values, which renders any apartheid state abhorrent to them. Of course, the new Afrikaners will fiercely defend apartheid Israel, because their commitment to Israel is so unconditional that it overrides any commitment they might have to liberal values.

The critical question, however, is: what will happen to those Jews who comprise the great ambivalent middle once it is clear to them that Israel is a full-fledged apartheid state and that facts on the ground have made a two state solution impossible? Will they side with the new Afrikaners and defend apartheid Israel, or will they ally with the righteous Jews and call for making Greater Israel a true democracy? Or will they sit silently on the sidelines?

I believe that most of the Jews in the great ambivalent middle will not defend apartheid Israel but will either keep quiet or side with the righteous Jews against the new Afrikaners, who will become increasingly marginalized over time. And once that happens, the lobby will be unable to provide cover for Israel's racist policies toward the Palestinians in the way it has in the past.

There are a number of reasons why there is not likely to be much support for Israel inside the American Jewish community as it looks more and more like white-ruled South Africa. For starters, apartheid is a despicable political system and it is fundamentally at odds with basic American values as well as core Jewish values. This is why the new Afrikaners will defend Israel on the grounds that it is not an apartheid state, and that security concerns explain why Israel has to discriminate against and oppress the Palestinians. But again, we are rapidly reaching the point where it will be hard to miss the fact that Greater Israel is becoming a full-fledged apartheid state and that those who claim otherwise are either delusional or disingenuous. Simply put, not many American Jews are likely to be fooled by the new Afrikaners' arguments.

Furthermore, survey data shows that younger American Jews feel less attachment to Israel than their elders. This is surely due to the fact that the younger generations were born after the Holocaust and after anti-Semitism had largely been eliminated from American life. Also, Jews have been seamlessly integrated into the American mainstream, to the point where many community leaders worry that rampant inter-marriage will lead to the disappearance of American Jewry over time. Not surprisingly, younger Jews are less disposed to see Israel as a safe haven should the goyim go on another anti-Semitic rampage, because they recognize that this is simply not going to happen here in the United States. That perspective makes them less inclined than their elders to defend Israel no matter what it does.

There is another reason why American Jews are likely to feel less connected to Israel in the years ahead. Important changes are taking place in the demographic make-up of Israel that will make it more difficult for many of them to identify closely with the Jewish state. When Israel was created in 1948, few ultra-orthodox Jews lived there. In fact, ultra-orthodox Jews were deeply hostile to Zionism, which they viewed as an affront to Judaism. Secular Jews dominated Israeli life at its founding and they still do, but their influence has been waning and is likely to decline much more in the decades ahead. The main reason is that the ultra-orthodox are a rapidly growing percentage of the population, because of their stunningly high birthrates. It is estimated that the average ultra-orthodox woman has 7.8 babies. As many of you know, the Jewish areas of Jerusalem are increasingly dominated by the ultra-orthodox. In fact, in the 2008 mayoral election in Jerusalem, an ultra-orthodox candidate boasted, "In another 15 years there will not be a secular mayor in any city in Israel." Of course, he was exaggerating, but his boast is indicative of the growing power of the ultra-orthodox in Israel. One final piece of data: about one half of Israeli school children in first grade this year are either Palestinian or ultra-orthodox. Given the high birthrates of the ultra-orthodox and the Palestinians, their percentage of the first-graders – and ultimately the population at large – will grow steadily with time.

Varying birthrates among Israel's different communities are not the only factor that is changing the makeup of Israeli society. There is another dynamic at play: large numbers of Israelis have left the country to live abroad and most of them are not expected to return home. Several recent estimates suggest that between 750,000 and one million Israelis reside in other countries, and most of them are secular. On top of that, public opinion surveys indicate that many Israelis would like to move to another country. This situation is likely to get worse over time, because many secular Jews will not want to live in an apartheid state whose politics and daily life are increasingly shaped by the ultra-orthodox.

All of this is to say that Israel's secular Jewish identity – which has been so powerful from the start – is slowly eroding and promises to continue eroding over time as the ultra-orthodox grow in number and influence. That important development will make it more difficult in the years ahead for secular American Jews – who make up the bulk of the Jewish community here in the United States – to identify closely with Israel and be willing to defend it when it becomes a full-blown apartheid state. Of course, that reluctance to back Israel will be further strengthened by the fact that American Jews are among the staunchest defenders of traditional liberal values.

The bottom line is that Israel will not be able to maintain itself as an apartheid state over the long term, because it will not be able to depend on the American Jewish community to defend its loathsome policies toward the Palestinians. And without that protection, Israel is doomed, because public opinion in the West will turn decisively against Israel, as it turns itself into a full-fledged apartheid state.

Thus, I believe that Greater Israel will eventually become a democratic bi-national state, and the Palestinians will dominate its politics, because they will outnumber the Jews in the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean.

What is truly remarkable about this situation is that the Israel lobby is effectively helping Israel commit national suicide. Israel, after all, is turning itself into an apartheid state, which, as Ehud Olmert has pointed out, is not sustainable in the modern era. What makes this situation even more astonishing is that there is an alternative outcome which would be relatively easy to achieve and is clearly in Israel's best interests: the two-state solution. It is hard to understand why Israel and its American supporters are not working overtime to create a viable Palestinian state in the Occupied Territories and why instead they are moving full-speed ahead to build Greater Israel, which will be an apartheid state. It makes no sense from either a moral or a strategic perspective. Indeed, it is an exceptionally foolish policy.

What about the Palestinians? I believe that the two-state solution is the best outcome for them as well as the Israelis. However, the Palestinians have little say in whether there will be two states living side-by-side, because they are presently at the mercy of the Israelis, who are the lords of the land. This means that the Palestinians are going to end up living in Greater Israel, which will be an apartheid state. Again, one might even argue that they have already reached that point. Regardless, the Palestinians will obviously have a vested interest in moving away from apartheid and toward democracy as quickly and painlessly as possible. Of course, that will not be easy, but there are better and worse ways to achieve that end.

Let me conclude with a few words of advice to the Palestinians about how they should go about turning Greater Israel into a democratic bi-national state.

First, it is essential to recognize that the Palestinians and the Israelis are engaged in a war of ideas. To be more specific, this is a war about two competing visions of the Middle East: a Greater Israel that is an apartheid state and one that is a democracy. There is no question that the Palestinians have the easier case to make, as it is impossible to sell apartheid in the modern world.

Second, to win this war the Palestinians will have to adopt the South Africa strategy, which is to say that they will have to get world opinion on their side and use it to put enormous pressure on Israel to abandon apartheid and adopt democracy. This task will not be easy because the new Afrikaners will re-double their efforts to defend Israel's heinous policies. Fortunately, their ability to do this is likely to diminish over time.

Third, the Palestinians most formidable weapon in this war of ideas will be the Internet, which will make it easy for them to document what Israel is doing and to get their message out to the wider world.

Fourth, the Palestinians will need to build a stable of articulate spokespersons who can connect with Western audiences and make a compelling case against apartheid. In other words, they will need more Mustafa Barghoutis. The Palestinians will also need allies, and not only from the Arab and Islamic world, but from countries in the West as well. Many of the Palestinians best allies will surely be righteous Jews, who will play a key role in the fight against apartheid in Israel as they did in South Africa.

Fifth, it is essential that the Palestinians make clear that they do not intend to seek revenge against the Israeli Jews for their past crimes, but instead are deeply committed to creating a bi-national democracy in which Jews and Palestinians can live together peacefully. The Palestinians do not want to treat the Jews the way the Jews have treated them.

Finally, the Palestinians should definitely not employ violence to defeat apartheid. They should resist mightily for sure, but their strategy should privilege non-violent resistance. The appropriate model is Gandhi not Mao. Violence is counter-productive because if it gets intense enough, the Israelis might think that they can expel large numbers of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinians must never underestimate the danger of mass expulsion. Furthermore, a violent new Intifada would undermine support for the Palestinian cause in the West, which is essential for winning the war of ideas, which is ultimately the battleground on which Palestine's future will be determined.

In sum, there are great dangers ahead for the Palestinians, who will continue to suffer terribly at the hands of the Israelis for some years to come. But it does look like the Palestinians will eventually get their own state, mainly because Israel seems bent on self-destruction. Thank you.

* Professor John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago.

This transcript may be used without permission but with proper attribution to The Palestine Center. The speaker's views do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jerusalem Fund.

Related posts:

• John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt: pro-Israel Lobby influence over U.S. foreign policy on the recent Israel-Lebanon war
• John Mearsheimer – Invoking the Holocaust to Defend the Occupation
• What future for ‘Greater Israel’? [Video]

Friday, 17 April 2009: Basem Abu Rahme, 29 years of age, was shot by IOF in the stomach with a high-velocity tear gas projectile.

To date, twenty Palestinians, ten of them minors, were killed while protesting the Wall.

20. 5 June 2009:
Yousef 'Akil' Tsadik Srour, 36
Shot in the chest with 0.22 calibre live ammunition during a demonstration against the Wall in Ni'lin.

19.  April 17, 2009:
Basem Abu Rahme, age 29
Shot in the chest with a high-velocity tear gas projectile during a demonstration against the Wall in Bil'in.

18. December 28, 2008:
Mohammad Khawaja, age 20
Shot in the head with live ammunition during a demonstration in Ni'lin against Israel's assault on Gaza. Mohammad died in the hospital on December 31, 2009.

17. December 28, 2008:
Arafat Khawaja, age 22
Shot in the back with live ammunition in Ni'lin during a demonstration against Israel's assault on Gaza.

16. July 30, 2008:
Youssef Ahmed Younes Amirah, age 17
Shot in the head with rubber coated bullets during a demonstration against the Wall in Ni'lin. Youssef died of his wounds on August 4, 2008.

15. July 29, 2008:
Ahmed Husan Youssef Mousa, age 10
Shot dead while he and several friends tried to remove coils of razor wire from land belonging to the village in Ni'lin.

14. March 2, 2008:
Mahmoud Muhammad Ahmad Masalmeh, age 15
Shot dead when trying to cut the razor wire portion of the Wall in Beit Awwa.

13. March 28, 2007:
Muhammad Elias Mahmoud 'Aweideh, age 15
Shot dead during a demonstration against the Wall in Um a-Sharayet - Samiramis.

12. February 2, 2007:
Taha Muhammad Subhi al-Quljawi, age 16
Shot dead when he and two friends tried to cut the razor wire portion of the Wall in the Qalandiya Refugee Camp. He was wounded in the thigh and died from blood loss after remaining in the field for a long time without treatment.

11. March 15, 2006:
Khaled 'Issa Khaled 'Attiyah, age 18
Killed by gunfire while hiding with three friends, waiting to throw stones at passing army jeeps during a demonstration in the village of Karbatha al-Misbah.

10. May 4, 2005:
Jamal Jaber Ibrahim 'Asi, age 15
Shot dead during a demonstration against the Wall in Beit Liqya.

9. May 4, 2005:
U'dai Mufid Mahmoud 'Asi, age 14
Shot dead during a demonstration against the Wall in Beit Liqya.

8. February 15, 2005:
'Alaa' Muhammad 'Abd a-Rahman Khalil, age 14
Shot dead while throwing stones at an Israeli vehicle driven by private security guards near the Wall in Betunya.

7. April 18, 2004:
Islam Hashem Rizik Zhahran, age 14
Shot during a demonstration against the Wall in Deir Abu Mash'al. Islam died of his wounds April 28, 2004.

6. April 18, 2004:
Diaa' A-Din 'Abd al-Karim Ibrahim Abu 'Eid, age 23
Shot dead during a demonstration against the Wall in Biddu.

5. April 16, 2004:
Hussein Mahmoud 'Awad 'Alian, age 17
Shot dead during a demonstration against the Wall in Betunya.

4. February 26, 2004:
Muhammad Da'ud Saleh Badwan, age 21
Shot during a demonstration against the Wall in Biddu. Muhammad died of his wounds on March 3, 2004.

3. February 26, 2004:
Abdal Rahman Abu 'Eid, age 17
Died of a heart attack after teargas projectiles were shot into his home during a demonstration against the Wall in Biddu.

2. February 26, 2004:
Muhammad Fadel Hashem Rian, age 25
Shot dead during a demonstration against the Wall in Biddu.

1. February 26, 2004:
Zakaria Mahmoud 'Eid Salem, age 28
Shot dead during a demonstration against the Wall in Biddu.

Three others, all minors or mentally disabled were killed just for being in proximity of the Wall:

December 19, 2006:
Du'aa Naser Saleh 'Abd al-Qader, age 14
Killed by gunfire in Far'un when she approached the Wall with her friend.

July 8, 2005:
Mahyoub Ahmad Nemer 'Asi, age 15
Was shot by a private security guard while he was in his family's plot, about 200 meters away from the path of the Wall.

January 22, 2005:
Fatah a-Deen Muhammad 'Ali al-Khuli, age 20
Killed by gunfire near Habla (Qalqilya district) when he approached the Wall. al-Khuli was mentally disabled.

Source: ISM

Related posts:

• Take action against Israeli war crimes in Gaza and the Apartheid Wall
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• Palestinian Villagers Destroy Wall at Jayyous; Five Internationals Detained

Sent from Emily Schaeffer, human right lawyer in Israel/Palestine, who asked Archbishop Tutu to write the letter.

Related posts:

• Archbishop Tutu banned in a USA University, tagged as Anti-Semitic
• From Tutu to Goldstone
• St. Thomas University president reverses ban on Tutu

Besieged Gaza,
Palestine
April.4.2010

Dear Ms. Atwood,

We are students from Gaza representing more than 10 academic institutions therein. Our grandparents are refugees who were expelled from their homes in the 1948 Nakba. They still have their keys locked up in their closets and will pass them on to their children, our parents. Many of us have lost our fathers, some of us have lost our mothers, and some of us lost both in the last Israeli aggression against civilians in Gaza. Others still lost a body part from the flesh-burning white phosphorous that Israel used, and are now permanently physically challenged. Most of us lost our homes, and are now living in tents, as Israel refuses to allow basic construction materials into Gaza. And most of all, we are all still living in what has come to be a festering sore on humanity's conscience-the brutal, hermetic, medieval siege that Israel is perpetrating against us, the 1.5 million Palestinians of the Gaza Strip.

Many of us have encountered your writing during our university studies. Although your books are not available in Gaza-because Israel does not allow books, paper, and other stationary in-we are familiar with your leftist, feminist, overtly political writing. And most of all, we are aware of your strong stance against apartheid. You admirably supported sanctions against apartheid South Africa and called for resistance against all forms of oppression.

Now, we have heard that you are to receive a prize this spring at Tel Aviv University. We, the students of besieged Gaza, urge you not to go. As our professors, teachers and anti-apartheid comrades used to tell us, there was no negotiation with the brutal racist regime of South Africa. Nor was there much communication. Just one word: BOYCOTT. You must be aware that Israel was a sister state to the apartheid regime before 1994. Many South African anti-apartheid heroes, including Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have described Israel's oppression as apartheid. Some describe Israeli settler-colonialism and occupation as surpassing apartheid's evil. F-16s, F-15s, F-35s, Apache helicopters, Merkava tanks, and white phosphorous were not used against black townships.

Ms. Atwood, in the Gaza concentration camp, students who have been awarded scholarships to universities abroad are prevented, every year, from pursuing their hard-earned opportunity for academic achievement. Within the Gaza Strip, those seeking an education are limited by increasing poverty rates and a scarcity of fuel for transportation, both of which are direct results of Israel's medieval siege. What is TAU's position vis-à-vis this form of illegal collective punishment, described by Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, as a "prelude to genocide?" Not a single word of condemnation has been heard from any Israeli academic institution!

Participating in normal relations with Tel Aviv University is giving tacit approval to its racially exclusive policy towards Palestinian citizens of Israel. We are certain you would hate to support an institution that upholds so faithfully the apartheid system of its state.

Tel Aviv University has a long and well-documented history of collaboration with the Israeli military and intelligence services. This is particularly shameful after Israel's bloody military assault against the occupied Gaza Strip, which, according to leading international and local human rights organizations, left over 1,440 Palestinians dead and 5380 injured. We are certain you would hate to support an institution that supports a military apparatus that murdered over 430 children.

By accepting the prize at Tel Aviv University, you will be indirectly giving a slight and inadvertent nod to Israel's policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide. This university has refused to commemorate the destroyed Palestinian village on which it was built. That village is called Sheikh Muwanis, and it no longer exists as a result of Israel's confiscation. Its people have been expelled.

Let us remember the words of Archbishop Desmund Tutu: "if you choose to be neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." As such, we call upon you to say no to neutrality, no to being on the fence, no to normalization with apartheid Israel, not after the blood of more than 400 children has been spilt! No to occupation, repression, settler colonialism, settlement expansion, home demolition, land expropriation and the system of discrimination against the indigenous population of Palestine, and no to the formation of Bantustans in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip!

Just as every citizen knew that s/he had a moral responsibility to boycott apartheid in South Africa after the Sharpeville massacre, Gaza 2009 was the world's wake-up call. All of Israel's academic institutions are state-run and state-funded. To partake of any of their prizes or to accept any of their blandishments is to uphold their heinous political actions. Israel has continually violated international law in defiance of the world. It is illegally occupying Palestinian land. It continues its aggression against the Palestinian people. Israel denies Palestinians all of the democratic liberties it so proudly, fictitiously flaunts. Israel is an apartheid regime that denies Palestinian refugees their right of return as sanctioned by UN resolution 194.

Attending the symposium would violate the unanimously endorsed Palestinian civil society call for Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. This call is also directed towards international activists, artists, and academics of conscience, such as you. We are certain that you would love to be a part of the noble struggle against the apartheid, colonization and occupation that the Palestinian people have been subjected to for the past 61 years, a struggle that is ongoing.

Ms. Atwood, we consider you to be what the late Edward Said called an "oppositional intellectual." As such, and given our veneration of your work, we would be both emotionally and psychologically wounded to see you attend the symposium. You are a great woman of words, of that we have no doubt. But we think you would agree, too, that actions speak louder than words. We all await your decision.

Besieged Gaza
The Palestinian Students' Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel (PSCABI)

Endorsed by The University Teachers' Association in Palestine

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By Paul J. Balles* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

We all know what Illegitimate children have been called, Illegitimate countries have not; especially if the foetus grew out of a media that ignores the illegitimate conception.

There are illegitimate governments. A few years ago, a blogger who didn't use his own name asked the question: "How Do We View Illegitimate Governments That Do Not Have the Consent of the Governed?"

His answer: "Well it depends."

"When they serve our purposes, we are quick to recognize them and open diplomatic relations. Even when the changeover in power is by military coup."

We Americans tried to bastardize Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez. On the other hand, we supported General Musharraf's overthrow of the government in Pakistan. Military coups actually do a job of delegitimizing the government in power.

The difficult term delegitimize, which seems to be the best way to describe the event, has been said, "To revoke the legal or legitimate status of a government."

Webster says it means "to diminish or destroy the legitimacy, prestige, or authority of a government."

Oscar Arias Sanchez defined it: "To revoke the legal or legitimate status of: 'Out of poverty sprout social instability and desperation, which delegitimize governments that declare themselves democratic'."

The example is particularly relevant to Israel and their treatment of the Palestinians. The Israeli Palestinians have been kept in poverty, even in Israel where the pretence that they are part of a democratic society is a ruse.

"Strangely ironic, the Israeli treatment of Palestinians as illegitimate under the occupation is coming around to the realization, by increasing numbers, that the illegitimate party is Israel."

What will be done to delegitimize Israel?

"The campaign, involving boycotts, protests and calls for divestment..." said the Israeli Reut Institute. The Institute predicted where and who would be involved.

In a summary of their report, the Reut Institute said the international effort--dominated by left-wing activists and non-governmental organizations in London, Toronto, Brussels, Madrid and the San Francisco-Oakland area--seeks to "turn Israel into a pariah state by undermining its moral legitimacy and ultimately aspiring towards eliminating the 'Zionist entity..."

Several novel events, apart from the campaigns to delegitimize Israel have taken place recently, forcing media attention. Two top military men--Centcom head General David Petraeus and Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen have both questioned Israel's usefulness to the United States.

In the past, the Zionist controlled US media was able to ignore critical statements about Israel by retired generals and admirals. However, both Petraeus and Mullen are frontline commanders. When they say that the American relationship with Israel harms American interests, the media has to listen and report it.

Second, leading figures in the US administration--the President, Vice President and Secretary of State finally stood up briefly to Israel when Israel flaunted settlement expansion in American faces. The settlements have been considered the most illegitimate activity of the Israeli government. The media couldn't avoid reporting Israel's insulting behaviour.

Third, while the American public has resisted calls for war with Iran, the Israeli hawks and American Zionists have continued their propaganda campaigns for preemptive bombing. The public has grown tired of the Israeli self-serving propaganda that could drag America, with the consent of a Zionist controlled Congress, into another Mideast war.

Last, a number of respected leaders and scholars have spoken out against Israel's misadventures. Former President Jimmy Carter has persuaded a number of Americans that Israel is an apartheid state, whether he intended that result or not.

In addition to Carter, two leading scholars, political science professor John Mearshimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt, Professor of International Affairs at Harvard University have decried The Israeli Lobby (AIPAC) and US Foreign Policy.

The Goldstone report, by a South African Jewish judge, on the responsibility of Israel for the carnage in Gaza has, as Richard Falk noted, "...challenged the UN to impose accountability on the Israeli political and military leadership for their alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity."

Thus the ground for delegitimization is fertile. What can be done? Richard Falk has observed, "by boycotting cultural and academic activities, by disrupting trade relations through divestment moves or through refusals to load and unload ships and planes carrying cargo to or from Israel, and by pressuring governments to impose economic sanctions."

Meanwhile, the Reut report in Israel is preparing the Israelis for a counter campaign, something that Zionist organizations in both Israel and America have mastered. They start with a warning that implies the old anti-Semitism label.

Their report says these "Hubs of delegitimization...are places that combine an internal dynamic of strong fundamental anti-Israeli activity that stretches far beyond legitimate criticism of Israeli policies, with a strong global impact..."

The reasoning for the choices of venues? The Institute says, "These hubs are usually global metropolises that concentrate international media, leading judicial institutions, major academic centres, international NGOs and human rights organizations."

What will the Zionists do to counter the delegitimization efforts? Remember, they are the greatest distorters of truth ever to subjugate the world's media.

They will create comparisons designed to mislead: Reut said there is a "coalescence" between "two parallel processes" - the so-called delegitimization forces, such as NGOs and leftist organizations, and the militant Islamist efforts led by groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Since they have already portrayed Hamas and Hezbollah as scoundrels and terrorists, this ploy will transfer those negative images to the organizations involved in delegitimization efforts.

They have already recommended that Mossad, Israel's spy agency, become involved. The Reut Think Tank recommends that Mossad "intelligence agents should, in addition to passing on information to decision-makers on crucial issues like global terrorism and the Iranian nuclear program also pay closer attention to perceived attacks on Israel's legitimacy."

What will Zionists do to try to defeat the efforts to delegitimize Israel? As usual, they will ignore or deny any criticism of Israel. They will repeat every slogan or line that has ever conjured up sympathy for Israel.

They will advise Israeli spokespersons on what to say against any of the measures questioning the legitimacy of Israel. They have been at this for decades. The spokespersons will advise political commentators and members of Congress so they all take the same lines.

Israeli spokespeople will dismiss the assumption that Israel is like South Africa as inherently anti-Zionist and racist. They will claim it assumes that the Jewish people have no right to self-determination.

Zionists will insist that initiatives that single out Israel assume that the entire fault for the conflict is on one side, and ignores terrorism. They will argue that those who sponsor these initiatives admit that their goal is the destruction of Israel.

Israel supporters repeatedly argue that no other state is singled out for this treatment despite flagrant violations of human rights in China, Sudan, Iran, Libya and elsewhere.

They will condemn those who subscribe to delegitimizing activities, using ad hominem attacks instead of arguments against the issues. Zionists will accuse critics of ant-Semitism or of being self-hating Jews if the critics are Jewish.

The best result of delegitimizing Israel will be the attention that the media will be forced to pay to it. They will be hard pressed to give coverage to Israel's critics and to avoid the one-sided defences of Israeli misdeeds and illegitimacy.

* Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. For more information, see http://www.pballes.com.

Related posts:

• The Palestinians are Winning the Legitimacy War: Will it Matter?
• Richard Falk: Goldstone is historic blow in the war Israel is losing- the ‘Legitimacy War’
• Americans – Are you with Gen. Petraeus and Adm. Mullen or with Israel ?

By Anthony Lawson* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

There can be absolutely no doubt that Israel has created an inhuman, illegal and utterly disgraceful Apartheid state, and the international community will never be able to excuse itself if it takes no action against this blatant, ongoing and in-plain-sight crime against humanity.

Please join the millions of decent people around the world who are crying out against Israel's ongoing persecution of the Palestinians. Send the link to this video to your elected representative and make sure he or she does something about it. You have to ask yourself: If I keep quiet , will it ever end?

This video started life being loosely based on the YouTube video: 'Press TV- Epilogue -Zionist Israel and Apartheid South Africa -02-24-2010', and uses some of its imagery, and wording. It was expanded into its present form to take into account the U.S. vice president's recent visit to Israel and the announcement that Israel was to build yet more structures on the illegally occupied settlement of Beitar Illit. I wrote to Press TV to tell them what I was doing, but received no reply. In any event, I think that the issues are too important for anyone to be concerned about drawing from research done by others, and anyone who would like to use extracts from this video is welcome to do so.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxxYTJNEZJo

* Anthony Lawson is a retired international-prize-winning commercials director, cameraman, ad-agency creative director and voice over. He used to be known for shooting humorous commercials, but doesn't find much to laugh about, with the way the world is going, these days.

Related posts:

• Take action against Israeli war crimes in Gaza and the Apartheid Wall
• Israeli apartheid week
• Int’l study: Israeli control in occupied territories ‘is a breach of the prohibition of apartheid’

Illustration by Carlos Latuff

And is Israel now on the PR offensive to fight back?

By Dr. Alan Sabrosky* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz
Four observations:

First, no country has a "right to exist," and that includes Israel or the United States or even (heavens forbid!) China. The concept is a neat "sound bite" that is historical nonsense, and anyone who has even the slightest grasp of the interplay of international affairs over time understands that elemental truth. Anyone who doesn't might consult the ghosts of the elders of ancient Carthage and Troy, or the leaders of modern USSR and South Vietnam, for their insights.

Second, if a country's or regime's specific policies are sufficiently noxious, then everyone else has both the right and the duty to criticize those policies, and if the result is regime change in that country or its dissolution, so be it, either or both would be morally and legally justified. Hitler's policies justified the removal of his regime, and so, for that matter, did (e.g.) those of Stalin; one lost, the other won for a while, but deserved to go. If the Israelis treated both the Palestinians and their neighbors better, and were less militarist and racist in their overall approach, they wouldn't be in such a situation.

Third, comparisons of apartheid in South Africa before and in Israel forever are only superficially justified. In reality (having seen both on the ground), the South African variant at its worst was a pale shadow of what Palestinians suffer under Israeli hegemony. Whites in South Africa never hated and brutalized blacks there a fraction as badly as Israelis brutalize Palestinians. No Jenin or Gaza City in the old South Africa, for instance. Blacks in the old South Africa could and did serve in the armed forces and police, for instance, and not encounter white civilians with assault rifles swaggering around and randomly shooting them up. Not so with the Palestinians. If apartheid in South Africa justified the BDS (Boycott, Disinvestment, Sanctions) campaign of the day, embargoes and the removal of that regime, then its even nastier cousin in "Greater Israel" more than justifies the same, and if that entails some form of merger into a single state and the disappearance of Israel as it now exists, so be it.

Finally, while Israel has a perpetual motion PR campaign in operation, especially in the US, it isn't so much a matter of it "fighting back" as it is of Israel trying to create a new propaganda reality in public opinion like the geopolitical one it has created on the ground in the West Bank with its settlements. Remember that because of its virtual monopoly on the mainstream media, very few people will hear much of the case against Israel, especially in the Anglo-American countries. Besides, the first battle for Palestine has already been fought and lost in the US, and it is in the US that the real war for Palestine can be won. Israel and its partisans abroad understand this perfectly, and their current PR campaign reflects that understanding. Sadly, the partisans of Palestine largely do not share that understanding, and tend to focus on more of the flea-bitten tactics and street theater that has failed to derail the Israeli juggernaut.

My guess is that we are entering the end game of this conflict, and need to change the dynamics or a few years from now this whole matter will be moot -- and the outcome will not be one Palestine's supporters will appreciate.

*Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D, University of Michigan) is a ten-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College. He can be contacted at docbrosk@comcast.net

Related posts:

• Does Israel Really Have a Right to Exist?
• Max Kantar – Robert Bernstein: Human Shield for Criticism of Israel
• Paul J. Balles – Zionism Unmasked: “Anti-Semitic” – the label that stops criticism

A controversial campaign in the Western world links Israel's treatment of Palestinians to the treatment of blacks in apartheid South Africa.

It is called Israeli apartheid week.

University campuses in more than 40 cities around the world are marking the week with lectures, films, multimedia events, cultural performances and demonstrations.

Since it was first launched in 2005, the week has become one of the most important global events in the Palestine solidarity calendar, according to its organizers.

The organization says its goals are:

• Ending the Israeli occupation of Arab lands
• The recognition of Palestinians' right to return to their homes in Israel
• They also want Arab citizens of Israel to be treated equally
• And the separation wall to be torn down

Several Israeli officials have criticized it and condemned the participation of senior Israeli academics and artists.

Is criticism of specific Israeli policies raising doubts about Israel's right to exist? And is Israel now on the PR offensive to fight back?

Inside Story presenter Imran Garda is joined by Gidi Grinstein, the president and founder of the Reut Institute, Hazem Jamjoum, one of the organisers of the Israel Apartheid Week, and Eyal Sivan, a filmmaker and research professor in media production at the University of East London (UEL).

Watch the riveting debate here on Al Jazeera - "INSIDE STORY"

Israel is an apartheid state and that is why they are losing legitimacy.
by Judy Rebick

Before Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) even began members of the Ontario Legislature and the Canadian Parliament are falling all over each other to denounce it. I can't remember another time when elected legislators formally denounced a student activity like this. Perhaps during the 1950's when McCarthyism was rampant but that was before my time.

Last week the Ontario Legislature unanimously passed a resolution denouncing Israel Apartheid Week submitted by PC Peter Shure who said calling Israel an apartheid state was "close to hate speech." While there were only 30 MPP's in the Legislature at the time, NDP MPP Cheri di Novo was one of them and spoke in favour of the resolution. This week a Conservative MP is introducing a resolution calling IAW anti-Semitic.

Before I deal with why these unprecedented attacks are taking place, I'd like to share with you a great talk I heard last night at Ryerson from Na'eem Jeena: , a leading activist and academic from South Africa who works for Palestinian solidarity. He told us that South African apartheid had three pillars of apartheid and Israel shares all three.

1. Different rights for different races In the case of Israel, it is different rights for Jews and for non-Jews. For example the law of return of 1950 says Jews can return to Israel and be given citizenship even if they have no links to the country other than mythical biblical ones; whereas Palestinians cannot return even if their parents or grandparents lived there.

2. Separation of so-called racial groups into different geographical areas. Even within the borders of Israel, 93 percent of land is reserved as a national land trust or Jewish National Fund land is for the exclusive use of Jews. The 20 percent of the population that is Palestinians living in Israel have to share access to the 7 percent of private land that is left. The Israeli Supreme Court has made a number of decisions that Palestinians cannot live on Jewish lands. There are not only residential areas that are banned to Palestinians but there are separate roads for Jews and Palestinians. That was never true in South Africa even in times of crisis. Moreover Palestinians have less access to water than Jews living nearby

Finally the movement of Palestinians is severely restricted much more so than were blacks in South Africa. The famous pass laws in South Africa meant that Blacks had to show government issued passes to move around but Palestinians are even more restricted by walls and checkpoints and if they live in the Gaza Strip can't leave at all.

3. Security and Repression Matrix of Laws and Security. There was serious repression in the Black townships but there were never tanks or planes buzzing overhead like there is in West Bank. Israeli military violence against Palestinian communities. says Jena, is far worse than anything suffered by Blacks in South Africa during apartheid.

If Israel is becoming a pariah in the world it is not because of anti-Semitism, it is because they are practicing a form of apartheid even more egregious than that practiced in South Africa. Others have compiled comments from some of the most respected leaders of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa who see what Israel is doing as apartheid. There is a reason why the BDS is strongest in South African. People there recognize apartheid when they see it.

Finally the UN Convention on Apartheid condemns the crime of apartheid that refers to a series of inhuman acts—including murder, torture, arbitrary arrest, illegal imprisonment, exploitation, marginalization, and persecution—committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining the domination of one racial group by another. If the shoe fits.

So why are politicians including some from the NDP setting a student activity like IAW in their sites? An all party coalition of parliamentarians has been holding hearings on what they call the "new anti-semitism," by which they mean criticism of Israel. They heard from every University President who appeared before them that there is no rise of anti-semitism on their campuses and yet the false rumours of such a rise persist because of the equation of criticism of Israel with anti-semitism. "Israel is beginning to see that the non-violent anti-apartheid and BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement is a greater threat to their power than the any military threat. In Israel and Palestine, they are moving to arrest non-violent activists who are leading the movement there. And they are using all their economic and political power to push friendly governments to move against these protests. But there is a problem. It's called democracy and freedom of speech. However much you might disagree that Israel practices apartheid, you cannot shut down a discussion of the issue or a demonstration or disinvestment campaign against Israel because freedom of speech is a fundamental democratic right in most Western countries. In Canada, the only way to shut down the movement is to vilify it as hateful or anti-semitic. That is what our parliamentarians are now trying to do.

I am Jewish and have been working one and off for Palestinian rights for many years, as have many other Jews who feel a special responsibility to speak out against injustices committed by Israel. During that time, I have rarely experienced any anti-semitism. In the IAW organizing, I have experienced none. If Israel is losing legitimacy in the world, it is because of what their government is doing to the Palestinians, not because of anti-semitism. This attempt to shut down criticism of Israel is the most frightening assault on freedom of speech I have ever seen in this country. Whether or not you think Israel Apartheid Week is the best name for this week of discussion supporting Palestinian rights, please write your MP and your MPP and tell them you think it is wrong for Parliamentarians to denounce this kind of educational activity.

Source: Transforming Power

Related posts:

• ‘Apartheid Israel’ week at Oxford and ‘Freedom of Speech’
• Take action against Israeli war crimes in Gaza and the Apartheid Wall
• Int’l study: Israeli control in occupied territories ‘is a breach of the prohibition of apartheid’