It's three months since the last FFIPP-UK Newsletter. It's not that things haven't happened, just that it is more of the same as has been reported in newsletter after newsletter, and most of what is happening in an academic context is subsumed under the conflict and the occupation in general anyway.
Summary
1. Another humanitarian crisis approaches in Gaza with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warning - yet again - of a looming disaster. As does Oxfam. As does Gisha... Amidst the general reports of power generation cut to the bone, water contamination, the virtual collapse of sewage disposal systems in much of the territory, and acute shortage of foodstuff Gisha has continued to highlight issues of freedom of movement for Palestinian students.
2. The Independent Jewish Voices collection A Time to speak out: Independent Jewish Voices on Israel, Zionism and Jewish Identity, eds Anne Karpf, Brian Klug, Jacqueline Rose and Barbara Rosenbaum, was published in October 2008 by Verso Books. It contains much of relevance to FFIPP, but particularly noteworthy is an essay by Prof Stan Cohen, 'The Virtual Reality of Israeli Universities' (pp.36-46).
3. The October FFIPP (US) bulletin is available, covering the FFIPP Winter Educational Tour to Palestine/Israel, December 28, 2008 - January 8, 2009 and the Alternative Winter Break for College students in Palestine/Israel, December 28, 2008 - January 6, 2009, with one week of volunteer work on a community project in Nablus, the occupied Palestinian territories, and 3 days of intensive orientation, at the beginning of the program, that includes visits to Jerusalem, Haifa, Tel-Aviv, and the Galilee.
4. The debate about the academic boycott and whether it is antisemitic or not rumbles on with some very powerful contributions by Martin Shaw, engaged in debate with both David Hirsh and Norman Geras. Shaw defends the position which seemed to be the majority one in FFIPP when it was debated more than once at International conferences in the past viz, that while a call for academic boycott was probably ill-advised, it was certainly not antisemitic.
5. There was an attempted political assassination of Israeli historian and left-wing Zionist, Prof Ze’ev Sternhell in September.
6. And finally, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem threatened disciplinary action against the Chair of the Palestinian Student Union, Ali Bahar, who refused to shake Shimon Peres' hand when he was on a walkabout at the university, accusing him of being a "child killer" (a reference to the Israeli shelling of a UN compound in Qana, Lebanon, in 1996, while Peres was Prime Minister). All disciplinary action against Bahar was subsequently dropped.
1. On the situation in Gaza generally see, for example:
BBC Report 14th November, "Blockaded Gaza 'faces disaster'"
and
OCHA (the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs)'s updated Gaza Humanitarian Situation Report, 17 November
KEY POINTS
Between 5 and 16 November, • Israel has blocked all commercial and humanitarian goods from entering into the Gaza Strip with the exception of two days when some industrial fuel was allowed in. Civilians continue to pay the price of conflict and violence and their access to humanitarian assistance is at stake.
• Today, 17 November , Israel allowed 33 truckloads including 21 for humanitarian aid agencies to enter Gaza. UNRWA, which was allowed to enter eight trucks, announced that as of Tuesday,18 November , it will resume its food distribution. The Agency needs a minimal of 15 trucks/day to sustain normal humanitarian operations.
• While this is a positive step, the amount entered is insufficient to meet the needs of all the civilians dependant on humanitarian assistance. Efforts need to be redoubled to ensure that humanitarian organizations have unimpeded access to enter and deliver assistance to all those in need in the Gaza Strip. Whatever the political or security consideration behind these measures, there is an obligation by all parties to preserve human dignity and to ensure the basic well-being of the Gazan civilian population, of which more than half are children.
• The average daily number of truckloads entering Gaza hit a new low in November - 30 trucks/day - compared to 123 truckloads/day during October 2008. The October average was already low (constituting only 37% of the amount imported in May 2007) and was almost the same daily average before the 19 June 2008 “calm” had been implemented.
• Because of the ongoing blockade and the shortages of stock, these thirteen days of total closures have already caused severe shortages, especially in fuel and electricity supply. The closure shut down the delivery of essential humanitarian assistance to hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries- mainly the most vulnerable- who are dependent on this critical source of aid.
• Israel’s closing came in response to the firing of more than 100 Qassam rockets and mortars into Israel injuring one Israeli civilian and causing property damage, by Palestinian militants. This was following an IDF military search operation which killed six Hamas operatives and demolished a house east of Deir al Balah and Khan Younis on 4 November.
Full report
Gisha continues its work monitoring Palestinian students' inability to move out of Gaza to study
Gisha press release, 2nd November: 'Guess which students won't be able to reach their university classes today?'
"Today, as tens of thousands of Israeli university students report for the first day of the academic year – hundreds of students in Gaza are being prevented from reaching their university classes abroad by an Israeli policy banning students from leaving Gaza. Many of these talented young people have been waiting for over a year for permission to reach their classes. Since June 2007, Israel's policy of closure of the Gaza Strip has prevented students and 1.5 million other civilians from entering or leaving Gaza to fulfill their professional, academic, and personal goals.
Gisha sought to inform the Israeli public of the policy banning students from leaving Gaza through paid radio advertisements in which Israeli celebrities recounted their personal stories of university study and noted the importance of access to education for everyone, Israelis and Palestinians – but Israel's Broadcast Authority refused to air the advertisements, claiming that they are "politically and ideologically controversial". Censored from the air waves, Gisha has turned to the Internet. Today we launched a Hebrew-language Internet campaign to coincide with the beginning of the academic year, reminding the Israeli public and Israeli decision-makers of the talented Palestinian students whose right to freedom of movement and to access education is being violated by the continued closure of the Gaza Strip. The banners will appear on the Israeli news websites "Haaretz" and "Ynet" for the next three days, and those who click on them will hear the censored radio ad.
Please follow this link for an English-language voice-over of the radio ads, courtesy of Oxfam-GB.
...
Please follow this link for answers to Frequently Asked Questions (English) about students trapped in Gaza.
We congratulate Israeli students on the start of their university classes – and ask Israel's government to allow Palestinian students in Gaza to reach their university classes too."
2. A Time to speak out: Independent Jewish Voices on Israel, Zionism and Jewish Identity
eds Anne Karpf, Brian Klug, Jacqueline Rose and Barbara Rosenbaum, London: Verso Books, October 2008.
This collection contains much of interest and relevance to FFIPP, but particularly noteworthy is an essay by Prof Stan Cohen, 'The Virtual Reality of Israeli Universities' (pp.36-46).
Stan Cohen had gone to Israel on a one-year sabbatical to Jerusalem in 1979 and stayed on, working in the Institute of Criminology at the Hebrew University, until 1995. While there he was involved in the founding of B'tselem and subsequently wrote the book States of Denial: knowing about atrocities and suffering, which won the Division of International Criminology, American Society of Criminology award for outstanding publication 2001 and the British Academy Book Prize 2002.
This short essay lays bear some of the realities of universities in Israel as Cohen struggles with the reality that most of his colleagues were largely indifferent to developments in the occupied territories. There was simply no collective action even when quintessentially liberal issues of academic freedom and the like were concerned: 'Visitors and newcomers would also sometimes get the feeling that these were virtual universities; that they were on a Hollywood set and would wake up the next morning to find everything removed, the whole place empty. It felt like an elaborately crafted movie in which there was no occupation, no intifada and the university was set in New Zealand. I remember a law faculty graduation ceremony. The invited Minister of Justice was speaking on the absolute value of the rule of law. Just outside, you could smell the tear-gas in the air and see spirals of smoke coming form the nearby village of Isawiya, now under siege from the border police...
The short essay looks at the close relationship of academia and the powerful - characterised by, for example, the appointment of Carmi Gillon former head of the israeli General Security Service at the high point of its torture of Palestinian prisoners, as the Hebrew University's new Vice-President for External Relations in November 2007; and the encroachment of military and security interests into the university.
How do the academics cope? Some by becoming dissidents, some by returning into the "safe arms of the consensus. You publicly deny what you privately know and recycle the clichés of neutralization: 'it's worse elsewhere', 'they started it', 'purity of arm's; yet others adopt inner exile, some genuinely but others, as in apartheid South Africa where 'underneath the feigned indifference, there really was indifference."Cohen draws no easy conclusions but leaves much to ponder.
The book is worth getting hold of - and the Cohen essay can be downloaded here.
3. Faculty For Israeli-Palestinian Peace, FFIPP, Bulletin, Fall 2008
Dear friends of FFIPP,
We would like to inform you about our upcoming winter programs and the successful programs we have organized last summer.
Please invite your students and colleagues to join our winter programs and be part of the FFIPP community of activists for freedom, justice and peace. Thank you.
FFIPP Winter Educational Tour to Palestine/Israel, December 28, 2008 - January 8, 2009
For faculty, educators, students and peace activists
The program will be similar to the 2008 summer educational tour, it will likely includes: Meetings with Palestinian and Israeli Peace activists, community leaders, local faculty and students, a tour of settlements around Jerusalem, a tour of Jafa, visits to Ramallah and Bilin, to the Applied, Research Institute of Jerusalem, the Alternative Information Center, Dheisheh refugee camp and the Ibdaa center, a meeting with the Arab Association for Human Rights in Nazareth, visit to Kibbutz Lohamei HaGetaot and to the remains of the 48 village al-Ghabisiyya.
Price: Program fee: $1000. The program fee does not cover airfare, accommodations and food. FFIPP will arrange transportation in Israel/Palestine, meetings, and assist in making hotel reservations. To reserve your space in the tour, a non-refundable deposit of $200 is required – this deposit will be applied to your program fee. Please pay by check, paid to ffipp-usa, P.O.Box 2091, Amherst MA 01004 or via the Donate button. For more information, call FFIPP-USA, 413-256-0349 or email us at: info@ffipp.org
More information at http://www.ffipp.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=18453&qid=10468
New: Alternative Winter Break for College students in Palestine/Israel, December 28, 2008 - January 6, 2009
Make a week last a lifetime by involving yourself in service for human rights and social justice.
This winter FFIPP is organizing a 10 days educational program that includes one week of volunteer work on a community project in Nablus, the occupied Palestinian territories, and 3 days of intensive orientation, at the beginning of the program, that includes visits to Jerusalem, Haifa, Tel-Aviv, and the Galilee.
Program fee: $2050 = 1494 EUR.
What's not included in the program fee?
* International airfare and airport taxes
* Domestic and international phone calls.
FFIPP can help in organizing fund raising activities for interested participants.
More information at http://www.ffipp.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=18453&qid=10468
FFIPP's Programs in Palestine/Israel, Summer 2008
* Educational tour for faculty and high school teachers.
* Internship program for 61 students form 16 countries. Students worked as volunteers in places such as: Freedom Theatre, Jenin; The Center for Humanistic Education, The Ghetto Fighters' House, Kibbutz Lohamei HaGetaot; Ibdaa Center, Dheisheh Refugee Camp; The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Jerusalem; Kayan Feminist Organization, Haifa; Rabbis for Human Rights, Jerusalem; The Latin patriarchate society of St Yves Catholic Human Rights Center for Resources and Development, Jerusalem; The Palestinian Initiative for the promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH), Ramallah; Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), Jerusalem; Al Quds University Human Rights Clinic, Jerusalem; Isha L'Isha, Feminist Organization, Haifa; Kav LaOved, an organization committed to the defense of foreign workers rights, Tel-Aviv; Project Hope, Nablus.
* An international conference in Al-Quds University in Abu-Dis, speakers included:
Eyad el-Sarraj, President of FFIPP-International, Founder and Director of Gaza Community Mental Health Program.
Eyal Weizman, University of London.
Saleh Abdel Jawad, Professor of Political Science, Birzeit University.
Salim Tamari, director of the Institute for Jerusalem Studies, Board Member of FFIPP, Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, Birzeit University.
Phyllis Bennis, Institute of Policy Studies.
Sari Bashi, Director of Gisha.
Eric Rouleau, former bureau editor of Middle East for Le Monde, former France Ambassador to Morocco, and Tunisia.
Richard Falk, FFIPP Advisory Board, Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California.
More information at http://www.ffipp.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=18453&qid=10468
4. Is the call for an academic boycott of Israel antisemitic?
There has just been an interesting debate on the issue of antisemitism, where Martin Shaw engages with David Hirsh in the online magazine Demokratiya. The full debate - three letters from Hirsh and two responses by Shaw are at http://www.democratiya.com/review.asp?reviews_id=195
It’s not easy to sum it all up briefly. Martin Shaw, like David Hirsh is an advisory editor of the online journal Demokratiya. The issue the exchange hinges around is not whether an academic boycott of Israel is advised - both writers are against it - but whether it is antisemitic. Hirsh restates the arguments long since rehearsed on the Engage website. Shaw dissents.
Norman Geras, disappointed at the exchange (‘The two of them give us a general tour of the issues in a way unlikely to enlighten anyone unless they are quite new to the debate.’) weighs in against Shaw on what he believes are firmer grounds at at - to which Shaw provides a robust response.
Two contributions by Antony Lerman touch on issues that arise in this debate. In an article in Jewish Quarterly ‘Jewish Self-Hatred: Myth or Reality’ Lerman questions the very concept of Jewish self-hatred.:
‘The concept of the self-hating Jew strengthens a narrow, ethnocentric view of the Jewish people. It exerts a monopoly over patriotism. It promotes a definition of Jewish identity which relies on the notion of an external enemy, and how much more dangerous when that enemy is a fifth column within the group. It plays on real fears of antisemitism and at the same time exaggerates the problem by claiming that critical Jews are ‘infected’ by it too. And it posits an essentialist notion of Jewish identity.’
And in ‘Jews Attacking Jews’, (Ha’aretz 12 September) Leman writes that in the past ‘We Jews knew who the enemy was. Since Jews do not cause anti-Semitism, we fought those who peddled theories of the world Jewish conspiracy, Holocaust denial, blood libels. Except at the very margins, we didn't fight Jews.
How things have changed. Today, bitter arguments rage about what constitutes anti-Semitism. When Jew-hatred is identified, it’s mostly in the form of what many call the "new anti-Semitism" - essentially, anti-Zionism. Others (this writer included) fundamentally dispute that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are synonymous.’
If you are up for it, you can read the continuation of the Shaw-Hirsh discussion on the Engage website where it seems to have exhausted itself after 93 comments.
5. There was an attempted assassination of Israeli historian and left-wing Zionist, Prof Ze’ev Sternhell in September.
Here are some comments on it
(a) The Magnes Zionist’s headline to his blog on the topic captures it well: ‘The Attempted Assassination of Professor Sternhell - So Why am I Not Surprised?
He writes: ‘The pipe-bomb that was set to kill Prof. Zeev Sternhell, Israel prize winner and authority on fascism in Europe and in Israel, was most likely set by a rightwing terrorist. That is simply because in Israel there are no leftwing terrorists. Not only does all the Jewish terrorism come from the right, so too all the hate mail, the threatening letters, the physical violence. When was the last time one of the Hebron settlers was awaken in the middle of the night by an angry leftwinger? When was the last time a rightwinger was struck or harrassed by a leftwinger?
He goes on to reflect on ‘why actual acts of terrorism, not to mention harrassment, threatening letters, eggs thrown, etc., is virtually the exclusive territory of the rightwingers.’
See the full posting.
(b) Uri Avnery makes this the topic of his 27 September essay “It Can Happen Here!”
‘THE GERMAN name Sternhell means bright as the stars. The name fits: the positions of Professor Ze'ev Sternhell indeed stand out sharply against the darkness of the sky. He warns against Israeli fascism. This week, Israeli fascists laid a pipe-bomb at the entrance of his apartment and he was lightly injured...
[T]heir main purpose is to influence public opinion. That is the main battlefield, and there the man of letters has an important part to play.
On this battlefield, two visions confront each other, two visions that are as far apart as the West is from the East. On the one side: An enlightened Israel, modern, secular, liberal and democratic, living in peace and partnership with Palestine as an integral part of the region. On the other side: a fanatical Israel, religious, fascist, cut off from the region and civilized humanity, a people that "dwells alone and shall not be reckoned among the nations" (Numbers, 23:9), where "the sword will devour for ever" (2 Samuel 2:26).
Ze'ev Sternhell is one of the outstanding guides of the enlightened vision. His positions are bright as the stars, resolute and incisive. Not a surprising target for the Neo-Nazi pipe-dreamers and pipe-bombers.’
Full article.
(c) And Ha’aretz carried the powerful ‘I Accuse’ by Prof Carlo Strenger, philosopher and psychoanalyst, lecturer in the psychology department of Tel Aviv University:
‘I accuse those Jews, inside Israel and outside, who run websites that track "dangerous left-wing intellectuals" in Israel. They call people like Zeev Sternhell "anti-Semitic," "self-hating Jews" and "enemies of Israel."
‘I accuse those in the Israeli right who turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to those among them who say that the law does not apply to them; to the settlers who break Israeli and international law and moral values on a daily basis, who harass Palestinians, beat them and sometimes murder them. The right-wing establishment is forgiving toward them. "Aren't they idealists? Don't they do what they do because of lofty ideals, because of the holiness of the Land of Israel?"
‘I accuse not only those who performed religious rituals condemning Yitzhak Rabin to death; not only those who carried posters of Rabin clad in SS uniform at demonstrations. I also accuse those who created the atmosphere that allowed for it, continued to speak at the demonstrations, and after Rabin was killed said they hadn't seen the posters...
Full article.
(d) And finally, Prof Sternhell himself speaks out in an interview with Akiva Eldar (Haaretz 29 September).
In response to the question: ‘Will you use the bombing to increase your influence?’ Sternhell replied:
‘My job is to criticize. I have no intention of returning to politics. I'm glad my injury shocked the cabinet and Knesset. But what remains of [prime minister Yitzhak] Rabin's murder, which caused a much greater shock? A one-day annual festival.
‘ The politicians must declare war on the extreme right and occupation - that’s the swamp where those mosquitoes breed. Otherwise they won't even be a footnote in history.’
7. Arab student chair apprehended for refusing to shake Peres' hand
According to a Ha'aretz report (2nd November), 'The chairman of Hebrew University's Arab student body was apprehended by university security personnel on Sunday after he refused to shake the hand of visiting President Shimon Peres' hand.
His student ID card was confiscated until a disciplinary committee convenes to review his conduct.
"I have a right to not shake hands with those I do not want to shake hand with," Baher told Haaretz on Sunday.'
A petition in his defence was drafted and signed by many hundreds of people. It read, in part:
'In early November, Ali Baher, Chairman of the Arab Students Committee at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, was detained for three hours, questioned, summoned to a hearing pending suspension, and evicted from his dorm room - all for refusing to shake hands with Israeli President Shimon Peres.
Ali was studying in the university library when the president walked in and began shaking hands with the students. Ali refused to shake Peres's hand, accusing him of being a "child killer". Ali also reminded the president of the infamous Israeli shelling of a UN compound in Qana, Lebanon, in 1996, under Peres's premiership.
Immediately upon the president's departure, Ali was detained by security guards and questioned for three hours. The next day, his dormitory room on was broken into. After he filed a complaint with the university authorities, he was told that his dorm contract was terminated, and that he was to evict his room by Tuesday, November 11th.
We believe that while Ali's behavior may have been unpleasant, it falls firmly within the idea of free speech and free expression. We believe that the shameful treatment is first and foremost a political persecution, stemming from a desire to silence the leading advocate for the rights of Arab students on campus...'
A week later the University returned Ali’s student card, cancelled all disciplinary charges (claiming that there never were any), and reinstated him to the dorms...
See the Ha'aretz report and the petition.
|
FFIPP-UK