By Dr David Morrison* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

19/01/10 - OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría and Israeli President, Shimon Peres.

The Roadmap for the Accession of Israel to the OECD Convention, adopted by the OECD Council in November 2007, states:

"The Council reaffirms that OECD Membership is committed to fundamental values, which candidate countries are expected to share. These fundamental values serve as the foundation of the likemindedness of OECD Members and have been expressed in various OECD Ministerial Communiqués.

"Accepting these values, along with the established body of OECD instruments, standards and benchmarks, is a requirement for membership.

"These fundamental values include a commitment to pluralist democracy based on the rule of law and the respect of human rights, adherence to open and transparent market economy principles and a shared goal of sustainable development." ^[2]

Since the Government intends to support Israel's accession, we assume that the Government is of the opinion that Israel accepts the fundamental values that are a requirement for OECD membership, in particular, that it has "a commitment to pluralist democracy based on the rule of law and the respect of human rights".

Does Israel respect human rights?

In the light of Government statements over recent years, we find it difficult to understand how this could be. For example, following Minister Martin's recent visit to Gaza, he wrote in the New York Times on 5 March 2010:

"I view the current conditions prevailing for the ordinary population as inhumane and utterly unacceptable, in terms of accepted international standards of human rights. ... I genuinely believe that the medieval siege conditions being imposed on the people of Gaza are unacceptable." ^[3]

In December last year, Minister Martin described Gaza as "an open prison" ^[4]. A year earlier, on 5 November 2008, he told the Dáil:

"The Government agrees with those who state that the effective isolation of Gaza constitutes collective punishment and is illegal under international humanitarian law." ^[5]

In stating that view, he was reiterating the view expressed by his predecessor, Dermot Ahern, earlier in the year on 11 March 2008 ^[6]. Presumably, they had in mind Article 33 of the 4th Geneva Convention that forbids an Occupying Power from applying "collective penalties" to people under occupation ^[7].

Given that Israel has tightened its blockade of Gaza in the interim, the Government can hardly have modified its view that Israel is guilty of collective punishment in breach of international humanitarian law.

In the light of this, we are at a loss to understand how the Government can be of the opinion that Israel is committed to "the respect of human rights", which is a requirement for membership of the OECD.

Other human rights violations

It is not as if this is the only Israeli action that casts doubt on Israel's commitment to "the respect of human rights".

Its plantation of nearly half a million Jewish settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is in breach of international humanitarian law, in this case, Article 49(6) of the 4th Geneva Convention – and there is no sign whatsoever that Israel intends to desist, despite continual demands from the international community, including Ireland, that it do so.

Its destruction of Arab property to make way for these settlements and the roads that service them (and the Wall) is in breach of Article 53 of the 4th Geneva Convention.

And on top of all this, which has been going on for more than 40 years, there is the myriad of human rights violations that took place in Gaza from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009, as attested to by the UN Fact Finding Mission headed by Justice Goldstone ^[8].

Discrimination against Israeli Arabs

In addition, Arab citizens of Israel are systematically discriminated against in a variety of ways. A European Commission report on Israel dated May 2004 says so:

"The Arab minority, Muslim, Christian and Druze, makes up almost 20% of the Israeli population. Although the Declaration of Independence proclaims equality for citizens, Israeli legislation contains laws and regulations that favour the Jewish majority. ... As highlighted by an Israeli Commission report presented in 2003 ("Or Commission"), the Arab minority also suffers from discrimination in many areas including budget allocations, official planning, employment, education and health." ^[9]

Four years later, in April 2008, a Commission report on Israel's implementation of the European Neighbourhood Policy noted little progress in this area, saying that "the promotion and protection of the Israeli Arab minority did not advance significantly during the reporting period" ^[10].

In education, for example, a recent OECD report Israeli Child Policy and Outcomes states:

"... government spending per child is much lower in the Arab sector than in the Jewish sector. This financial gap is reflected in different ways: First and most directly, average spending per child in the Arab localities is estimated to be 36.8% lower than in Jewish localities." ^[11]

In employment, former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert told a parliamentary commission of inquiry on 11 November 2008:

"We have not yet overcome the barrier of discrimination, which is a deliberate discrimination and the gap is insufferable". ^[12]

He continued:

"... there are government agencies who employ a miniscule number of Israeli Arabs, among them the Bank of Israel and Israel Electric Company. There is no argument that there were ministries and offices that did not accept Arabs. It's terrible that there is not even one Arab employee at the Bank of Israel and at the Electric Company Arab workers represent less than one percent of all employees."

The overwhelming evidence is that Israel has little respect for the human rights of Palestinians either in the Occupied Territories or in Israel itself, yet the Government is apparently satisfied that Israel has fulfilled the requirement for OECD membership that it is committed to respect human rights.

Israel a pluralist democracy?

The other requirement for OECD membership is that Israel be committed to a pluralist democracy. While it is often said that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, we do not believe that this proposition is sustainable. How can a state that has ruled over millions of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories since 1967, without according them any say in the institutions that govern them, be described as a democracy? Only Jewish settlers in the Occupied Territories can vote in Knesset elections. Surely, that demonstrates a 40-year record of contempt for democracy rather than a commitment to it and is akin to the voting system that operated in apartheid South Africa.

No other OECD state rules over millions of people who are excluded from the franchise. Israel should not be admitted under these circumstances.

Israel's accounts cover more than Israel

Another point: Israel's accession is set to go ahead even though Israel is in breach of the rules that the OECD applies for the presentation of national statistics – since its statistics cover, not just the territory west of the Green Line that is internationally recognised as belonging to Israel, but also the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The OECD Committee on Statistics has acknowledged the breach, but is nevertheless recommending that Israel be admitted to membership.

This is revealed in a leaked OECD report, titled Accession of Israel to the Organisation: Draft formal opinion of the Committee on Statistics ^[13]. The OECD normally insists that members adhere to the UN-approved standard for the presentation of national accounts, 1993 System of National Accounts (SNA), but the leaked report states plainly that "to the extent that economic activity is measured according to a criterion of nationality, Israel's data is at variance with one of the basic concepts of the SNA" (paragraph 19).

Israel should not be admitted while it is unwilling to present statistics in respect of economic activity within the territory that is internationally recognised as belonging to Israel. To admit Israel while its national statistics include the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and the Jewish settlements in the West Bank would give an international seal of approval to Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem and its colonisation of the West Bank. That should not be done.

(*)

For all of these reasons, and others, we believe the Government should reconsider its decision to support Israel's admission to the OECD.

References:
[1] http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20100421.XML&Page=1&Ex=2099#N2099
[2] http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2007doc.nsf/LinkTo/NT00004872/$FILE/JT03237381.PDF
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/opinion/05iht-edmartin.html
[4] http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1221/mideast.html
[5] http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20081105.xml&Page=1&Ex=738#N738
[6] http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20080311.xml&Page=1&Ex=147#N147
[7] http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/7c4d08d9b287a42141256739003e636b/6756482d86146898c125641e004aa3c5
[8] http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf
[9] http://ec.europa.eu/world/enp/pdf/country/israel_enp_country_report_2004_en.pdf
[10] http://ec.europa.eu/world/enp/pdf/progress2008/sec08_394_en.pdf
[11] http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2010doc.nsf/LinkTo/NT00000EBE/$FILE/JT03280340.PDF
[12] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1036798.html
[13] http://cryptome.org/israel-oecd.zip

* Dr David Morrison is is a writer on international affairs, specialising in Middle Eastern affairs. David is currently (2010) involved with Sadaka - Ireland Palestine Alliance (www.sadaka.ie). David is the former political officer of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

After Sami Salameh's house was destroyed (l) his 14-member family moved to an illegally built three-room house (r)

By Katya Adler

After Israel's housing minister called on Jews to move to the north of the country to stop what he described as "the spread of Arabs" there, the BBC's Katya Adler reports on the struggle for land in the area.

Sami Salameh has taken me to what used to be his home before the Israeli authorities flattened it.

Metal rods and slices of skirting board are all that's left, among an expanse of sun-scorched wild grass.

He has brought along some photographs and kicks the earth as he shows them to me. The wiry 65-year-old man is angry and emotional.

"When the house collapsed so did my dreams," he says.

He insists this plot of earth belonged to his family dating back to Ottoman times. But Israel has claimed it as state land. He is not allowed to build here now.

Mr Salameh's new home is in the Arab town of Majdal Krum, in northern Israel. It's illegally built, as is the whole neighbourhood.

His family of 14 lives in three rooms. The sewage system is poor.

Mr Salameh's wife, Ashi, tells me the atmosphere in the house is listless and depressed.

He blames their birthright - living as Arabs in the Jewish state of Israel, he says.

"I lost everything when they demolished my house. If I had equal rights, I wouldn't be in this mess. Jewish communities get building permits easily. They have electricity, water, sewage, street lights and parks. How come they live like that and we don't?"

Just outside Mr Salameh's home, a group of boys plays football in the street. Their identity, like his, is complex.

They are Israeli but also Arab. Their families stayed put in Israel after its war of independence 60 years ago.

Israel's Basic Law says all its citizens are equal, but Israeli Arabs say some Israelis are more equal than others.

Neighbouring the town is the leafy, affluent, self-proclaimed Zionist village of Manof.

It is one of the growing predominantly Jewish communities encouraged in the north by Israeli governments since the late 1970s.

'No discrimination'

Northern Israel is home to the highest concentration of Israeli Arabs.

They complain they are being squeezed. Intentionally.

But Ron Shani, the head of the Regional Council, insists there is no discrimination here.

Ron Shani - Head of Misgav regional council

"Zionism is not racism. Not for me. Not for most people who live in Israel. Northern Israel is Arab, it's Jewish, it's Druze. We have to value and admire each other.

"We have a few Bedouin villages in my council. And it's not true that Israeli Arabs are barred from our Zionist Jewish villages - as long as they understand and accept this is a village under the Jewish Israeli ethos.

"Of course I came to live in the north with Zionist ideals in mind but Misgav villages were formed on government-owned land. No confiscation was done from Arab-owned land."

But a lot of Arab land was turned into Israeli state property in the years following Israel's independence.

The majority of Arab land expropriated was labelled "deserted property" by Israel's authorities before its acquisition by the state.

Towns 'restricted'

Hanan Swaid is an Israeli-Arab member of Israel's parliament, the Knesset.

He takes me to a vantage point overlooking the Israeli-Arab town of Sakhnin.

An Israeli government commission found many Israeli-Arab towns are effectively blocked from expanding

He points out the problems Israeli Arabs face - overcrowding, poverty and the ways, he says, Israel's authorities strangle Arab towns, restricting construction, progress and growth.

"You can see surrounding Sakhnin this military base - which of course prevents Sakhnin and the people from using these lands which they used to own," he says.

"You can see there are only tens of metres between the houses of Sakhnin and the industrial zone.

"Of course all the benefits of this industrial zone go to Misgav - which is the Jewish regional council."

An Israeli government commission came to the same conclusions.

The Orr Commission published a report on the status of Israeli Arabs in 2003.

It says Israel has effectively blocked the expansion of its Israeli Arab towns by surrounding them with highways, nature reserves, Jewish councils, military zones or other entities.

'Cultural, not political'

The Israeli-Arab population has roughly increased sevenfold since Israel's independence.

Bearing in mind loss of land and building restrictions, human rights groups say the land available to Israeli Arabs has actually shrunk over the years.

The Orr Commission concluded that "the Israeli government's handling of the Arab sector has been primarily neglectful and discriminatory".

Hanan Swaid says it is not that the rights of Israeli Arabs are ignored, but they are given low priority.

"Israel is Jewish and democratic in theory but on the ground the two things don't mix.

"The definition of Israel as a Jewish state leads to giving the best to Jewish citizens. We Arabs are therefore discriminated against."

In Jerusalem I put the complaints and concerns of Israeli Arabs to Israel's Housing Minister Ariel Atias.

He dismissed them. He has caused quite a storm here, suggesting what he called the "spread of the Arabs" in northern Israel should be curbed and urging Jews and Arabs in Israel to live separately.

"We believe that the land of Israel was given to us Jews by the Lord. Eighty percent of Israelis are Jewish," he says.

"Having said that, there are citizens of Israel who are Arab. We want them to identify with the goals of the state of Israel. We don't intend to put them in ghettos, or limit their growth, they receive all the rights.

"They work for us, with us in factories, in all the restaurants. But each one wants to live with his own culture. It's not that, God forbid, we have anything against Muslims. We want to prevent friction. You may not like what I'm saying, but it's cultural. Not political."

One in five Israelis is Arab.

But academic studies, such as those completed by Oren Yiftachel, a professor at Israel's Ben Gurion University, suggest this 20% of Israel's population lives on around 3% of Israel's lands.

Living separately is one thing, but Israeli Arabs say no new Arab town has been built for them since 1948, when the state of Israel was created.

Story from BBC NEWS

Get out of MY land - By Carlos Latuff

by Susan Abulhawa*

Following Netanyahu's much anticipated policy speech, politicians and journalists, like mindless automatons, have set about repeating Israel's tired mantra that Palestinians should recognize Israel's right to exist. Never mind the fact that the PLO and Palestine Authority have obliged this ludicrous call, not once, but four times. And never mind that Israel has always denied Palestine's right to exist, not only as a nation, but as individuals seeking a dignified life in our own homeland.

Does anyone find it interesting that Israel is the only country on the planet going around with this incessant insistence that everyone recognize her right to exist? Given that we Palestinians are the ones who have been dispossessed, occupied, and oppressed, one might expect that we should be the ones making such a demand. But t hat isn't the case. Why? Because our right to exist as a nation is self-evident. We are the natives of that land! We know we have that right. The world knows it. That's why Palestine doesn't need Israel or any other country to recognize her right to exist. We are the rightful heirs to that land and this can be verified legally, historically, culturally, and even genetically. And as such, the only true legitimacy Israel will ever have must come from us abdicating our inheritance, our history, and our culture to Israel. That's why Israel insists we declare she had a right to take everything we ever had - from home and property, cemeteries, churches and mosques, to culture and history and hope.

Israel is a country that was founded by Europeans who came to Palestine, formed terrorist gangs who set about a systematic ethnic cleansing of the native Palestinians from their homes on 78% of Historic Palestine in 1948. Those Palestinians and their descendants still languish in refugee camps. Israel attempted a similar scenario in 1967 when they conquered the remainder of Palestine, but Palestinians then couldn't be dislodged from their homes as easily. This remains true, despite 40 years of Israel's violent and oppressive military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Despite home demolitions, land confiscations, rapacious building of Jewish-only colonies, endless checkpoints, targeted assassinations, bombings of schools, hospitals, municipal buildings and malls, closures and denials; despite the massive human rights abuses, the imprisonment and torture of men women and children alike, the separation of families, the daily humiliations; despite the massive killings - Palestinians remain. We still resist. We still live, love, and have babies. As much as we can, we rebuild what Israel destroys. Such are rights!
Rights are inherent and inherently just, like the right to live with dignity and to be masters of one's own fate. It is a human right not be persecuted and oppressed because you happen to belong to one religion and not another.

That Israelis simply take property belonging to Palestinians is not a right. That is theft. That Israel cut off the movement of food, medicine and other basic goods to the Gaza strip, causing massive malnutrition, economic collapse and misery because Palestinians elected particular leaders is not a right. That is an affront to humanity. That Israel rain death from the skies on an already battered and starved Gaza, murdering over 3000 human beings and maiming thousands more in a single month is not a right. It's a war crime. That Israel has employed every imperialistic tactic to subjugate, humiliate, break, and expel an entire nation of principally unarmed civilians because of their religion is not a right. It is a moral obscenity. That every Jew from Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Australia be entitled to dual citizenship, one in their native country and one in Israel, while the rightful heirs to the land linger as refugees without citizenship anywhere is not a right. It is an outrage.

I'm sure my words will be twisted in some way to imply that I'm advocating pushing Israelis "into the sea" or some other asinine claim. So let me be explicit: We all have the right to exist, to live, to be masters of our own destiny. We all have the right not to be oppressed by others. Such rights are inherent to every individual living in that land: Jew, Muslim, or Christian. But Israelis do not have the right to create particular religious demographics by causing the demise of the natives. To be a Jewish [or Muslim or Christian] state, where privilege is accorded to those belonging to a particular religion at the expense of those who do not is not a right.

A nation that discriminates against and oppresses those who do not belong to a particular religious, racial, or ethnic group is not a light onto nations. It is a blight. And to recognize such racism as a human or national right goes against every tenet of international law. It defies the basic sense that the worth of a human being should not be measured by their religion, any more than it should be measured by the color of their skin or the language they speak.

* Susan Abulhawa is the author of The Scar of David, a work of historic fiction. She is also the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, http://www.PlaygroundsforPalestine.org and Board Member of Deir Yassin Remembered. She can be reached at: sjabulhawa@yahoo.com.

A racist Jewish state
By Haaretz Editorial

Every day the Knesset has the option of passing laws that will advance Israel as a democratic Jewish state or turn it into a racist Jewish state. There is a very thin line between the two. This week, the line was crossed. If the Knesset legal counselor did not consider the bill entitled "the Jewish National Fund Law" as sufficiently racist to keep it off the agenda, it is hard to imagine what legislation she will consider racist.

In 1995 the Supreme Court rescued the state from callously discriminating against its Arab citizens through the Ka'adan case, which prohibited the Israel Lands Administration from discriminating against non-Jews by leasing land through the Jewish Agency. Since then the attorney general has stated that such discrimination is unacceptable - also when it is carried out through the Jewish National Fund. The MKs were unable to accept this egalitarian ruling, and on Wednesday a large majority of 65 voted in favor of a preliminary reading permitting such discrimination. The bill is also backed by the head of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, MK Menahem Ben-Sasson.

Read the whole article...