Israeli democracy 'shackling freedoms' says FT

“In recent weeks, the country has been consumed by an anguished debate over a series of new laws and proposals that many fear are designed to stifle dissent, weaken minority rights, restrict freedom of speech and emasculate the judiciary. They include a law that in effect allows Israeli communities to exclude Arab families; another that imposes penalties on Israelis advocating a boycott of products made in West Bank Jewish settlements; and proposals that would subject the supreme court to greater political oversight.”

so writes Tobias Buck, Jerusalem correspondent for the Financial Times.  He adds that, despite the coarsening of domestic political discourse that has unleashed fury and dismay inside the Jewish state, 
"the chances of Israel turning into a dictatorship are about as high as those of Saudi Arabia turning into a liberal democracy."

Faint praise, indeed. When rightwing Israeli extremists attack the IDF troops who are pledged to protect them in the West Bank, as happened yesterday, the mind boggles at their warped vigilante notion of "price tag." The entire country pays the coast of their shortsighted actions.

 Israelity bites.

Rachel shops for a home in Judea

Rachel Shabi, a British-Israeli and daughter of Iraqi Jews, disclosed to the Guardian how easy it is for ordinary secular Israelis to become settlers in a "national priority zone". And her undercover revelations about shopping for a new house in one of the 200 developments for Israelis in occupied territory were shortlisted for the prestigious Orwell Prize for political writing. As her friends quip: not too shabby! Here are some excerpts:

The incentives still offered to Israelis to live on Palestinian land are so considerable that, leaving politics aside, it would be silly not to take advantage of them...Almon offers enticingly priced, spacious family homes with a garden and a view. The surrounding neighbourhood, also known as Anatot, sits on a ridge overlooking the Judean hills, near Jerusalem, a blaze of cultivated greenery in the parched landscape. Residents have a relaxed air, and newcomers who have recently relocated from Jerusalem wish they'd made the move years ago...It's a short drive east of Jerusalem, and I've had to cross an Israeli checkpoint, but it's specifically for settler use – a nod, the "right" appearance and Israeli number plates get me waved through...
The separation barrier that cuts into the West Bank for around 80% of its path. The barrier route runs, in some places, up to 12 miles deep into the West Bank, but settlements on the Israeli side of it are, broadly speaking, "consensus settlements" – ones that Israelis assume will be conceded to the Jewish state in peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Zionist Construction Zone: Settlements in West Bank Sextuple in 2011

Construction Freeze? Not any more. In the aftermath of learning that the IDF is training and arming settlers, here's the latest. Construction in Judea and Samaria Rises a Whopping 660%! And the light railway is up and running and connecting them to Israel proper. Nearly 75,000 new homes are under construction in all of Israel right now, according to an Israeli government agency. Hat tip to Angela for the link and to reporter David Lev.

With the end of the building freeze, construction has started up in Judea and Samaria (Yesha) communities. In fact, said the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), building jumped 660% in Judea and Samaria during the first half of 2011, as compared to the previous year.

While the statistic was certainly breathtaking, the actual numbers on the ground were less impressive: Construction started on 546 new homes in Yesha communities during the period. Still, it was a sharp improvement over the number of housing starts in the first half of 2010, when only 72 housing starts were announced.

Officials of the Yesha Council said they were pleased with the increase, but that clearly many more new homes were needed. "We need at least 500 new homes a month, not just in half a year, in order to accomodate all the families who want to live in Yesha." Last week, Arutz Sheva reported on how dozens of American families who sought to buy or rent homes in Efrat were unable to do so because of the lack of housing there.

The jump in Yesha construction this year was part of a general trend in all of Israel. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, housing starts rose 14.4% overall during the first half of 2011. But certain parts of the country are set to grow far more than that number implies; for example, there are now 7,950 homes under construction in southern Israel, a 55% increase over the 2,495 home starts in the first half of 2010.

In Asheklon alone, 1,576 new homes are currently under construction – the highest number for any city in Israel. Other cities where building jumped in the first half of 2011 included Kiryat Gat (a 607% increase in housing construction starts), Ramle (252%), Ganei Tikvah (451%), Rehovot (203%), and Yavne (165%).

Even in the already ultra-expensive Tel Aviv and Jerusalem regions, construction was up 28% and 8% respectively. In the north, housing construction starts were up 11.2% during the period.

Altogether, construction began on some 22,000 new homes. The CBS said that by the end of 2011, taking into consideration construction that was started in 2010, there will be some 75,000 new apartments under construction. Those apartments are expected to come “on-line” between the end of 2012 and during 2013, helping to satisfy the high demand for housing, hopefully at more reasonable prices.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Housing Minister Ariel Attias both expressed great satisfaction at the CBS announcement.

“The increasing trend in housing starts reflects the increased successful activity by the government, which we began undertaking as soon as we took power,” Netanyahu said. “The steps we took in the real estate market, including the institution of the Housing Committees Law and the reforms we recently instituted in the Israel Lands Administration, have contributed, and will continue to contribute, to the increased availability of housing – and, as a result, a lowering of prices.”

Social Justice advocates - What about the Occupation?

Writes Joseph Dana in the LRB blog:

Largely shielded from the European and American financial crises, the Israeli economy has been growing at an astonishing rate over the past five years: 4.7 per cent in 2010 alone. But the wealth isn’t evenly distributed: most Israelis living inside the 1967 borders struggle to make ends meet because of the high cost of living and relatively high taxes, which are largely spent on security and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Last month, a group of Tel Aviv residents in their twenties set up camp in the centre of Rothschild Boulevard to protest against housing costs in the city. They didn’t have a serious plan for political change, but the protest tapped into nationwide discontent. Within a few days, hundreds more people had joined them. The momentum spread quickly through the country, with camps appearing everywhere from Eilat on the Red Sea to Kiryat Shmona on the Lebanese border.

On Saturday, 250,000 Israelis marched in Tel Aviv and 10,000 marched to the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem, demanding ‘social justice’. Netanyahu, the main target of the demonstrators’ placards, was quick to paint the protests as a misdirected reincarnation of the ‘radical left’. But this stale tactic didn’t stop an overwhelming majority of Israelis supporting the protests. According to recent opinion polls, 87 per cent see the demands for economic reform as legitimate.

The protester’s working definition of ‘social justice’, however, is unclear and full of contradictions. Most glaringly, they have yet to address the question of the Occupied Territories. From the start, organisers maintained that their protests were a rare instance of ‘apolitical’ social organising. The Palestinian issue was understood to be too divisive to be included under the umbrella of Israel’s social justice revolution, and there’s no doubt that, had protesters connected their struggle for social justice to the occupation, many fewer Israelis would have joined the protests.

The rights of Israelis, however, are inextricably tied with the rights of Palestinians, both inside the 1967 borders and in the Occupied Territories. The protesters, like most of Israeli society, are operating under the assumption that they are disconnected from the Palestinians who live under Israeli military occupation. But the fact is that one regime rules the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and any discussion of the allocation of resources here, not to mention social justice, must take into account the rights of everyone who lives under the regime.

Despite the attempt to ignore the occupation, dozens of Jewish settlers from the West Bank descended on the protest camp in Tel Aviv last week. Carrying banners that say the solution to the housing problem lies in the West Bank, settlers have been shouting slogans against homosexuals and (non-Jewish) African refugees in Tel Aviv. At the other end of the camp, Jewish and Arab protesters have set up ‘Tent 1948’ to commemorate the dispossession of 750,000 Palestinians when Israel was created.

The protest as a whole will soon be forced to confront the question of the occupation. Last week the military announced that it will initiate a massive call up of reserves ahead of the United Nations vote on Palestinian statehood in September. Most of the protesters, young men and woman with reserve duty obligations, will have to decide whether to increase the pressure on the government by refusing to serve, or abandon their protest without having made any concrete gains. At the moment, the latter course seems more likely.

Hat tip to Angela for the link to this thought-provoking piece

Pop goes the Wiesel - 'letter to Obama' disputed by 100 Jerusalemites

Not all Jerusalemites agree with the confrontational tactics of settlers and have come out against the sentiments of Elie Wiesel, expressed in a full page ad "letter to Obama" that extolled a united Jerusalem. A hundred well-heeled Israeli Jews published their own open letter. An excerpt:

"Our Jerusalem is populated with people, young and old, women and men, who wish their city to be a symbol of dignity – not of hubris, inequality and discrimination. You speak of the celestial Jerusalem; we live in the earthly one."

Veteran correspondent Chris McGreal of the Guardian reports here. Renowned for comparing Israeli policies to Apartheid in South Africa, where he was formerly based, the journalist takes an even-handed look at the latest Jerusalem controversy.
Hat tip to the Beeb for the photo of a Jerusalem Day matron who is so mistrustful that she hides her face during a gathering in the eastern part of the city.

Israeli settler sect: Messiah is coming (thanks to 'skeezy' brothers of Onan)

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Scores of settlers settling scores

Burn baby burn. Settlers on horseback torched thousands of trees around Nablus yesterday, after setting Palestinian fields alight and stoning passing vehicles. Israeli occupation forces had urged the group to obey the law and shut down their illegal outpost. Most of the western press just yawned.
However, International Crisis Group warns against underestimating the effect of 280,000 rightwing Jewish settlers grabbing land and inserting themselves inside Biblical Judea and Samaria. If ignored, this burgeoning political and social phenomenon could undermine a sustainable Israeli-Palestinian peace, they say.

Israel is facing arguably unprecedented pressure to halt all settlement activity, led by a new and surprisingly determined U.S. administration. But the settlement issue has been transformed in recent years by shifting domestic dynamics, as national-religious and ultra-orthodox Israelis have gained influence and leverage. Entrenched in many West Bank settlements, they benefit from demographic trends: Israel’s army is increasingly dependent on their manpower and politicians on their votes.

“The religious right has assumed an ever more prominent role in opposing territorial compromise”, says Nicolas Pelham, a Crisis Group Senior Consultant based in Jerusalem. “It is banking on its support within state institutions to discourage the government from taking action and on its own rank-and-file to ensure that every attempt to evict an outpost or destroy a structure, however insignificant, comes at a heavy price”.

The ultra-orthodox and national-religious camps account for the lion’s share of the 37 per cent increase in the settler population in the past six years. Although not a united bloc, their politicians hold over a fifth of Knesset seats, some 40 per cent of the ruling coalition. In Israel proper, their numbers are growing steadily, and they carry weight far in excess of their numbers. They occupy key positions in the military, government and legal and education sectors, as well as the bureaucracy, and are seeking to strengthen their ability to resist future territorial withdrawals by building up their influence within and without state institutions. Their role and concerns need to be understood if the obstacle settlements pose to a two-state solution is to be removed.

An agreed Israeli-Palestinian border would make clear which settlers could remain in place and which could not. Several long-overdue steps should be taken in the interim, however. Legislative enactment of an early evacuation compensation package could help persuade some settlers to leave voluntarily. For those who value their attachment to the land over their attachment to the state, efforts could be made to examine how and under what conditions they might live under Palestinian rule and the extent to which Palestinians might accept them. Foreign actors, the U.S. included, should examine ways of making religious parties feel part of the diplomatic process. A clear offer by the Palestinian leadership to guarantee and protect Jewish access to Jewish holy sites under its control could send religious sectors a positive signal of its vision for post-conflict relations.

At the same time, the government should apply its laws more consistently, whether on settlement and outpost construction in the West Bank or acts of violence and incitement against Palestinians.

“The 2005 disengagement from Gaza went remarkably smoothly, but it would be wrong to assume that what happened in Gaza automatically will be replicated in the West Bank”, explains Robert Malley, Crisis Group’s Middle East Program Director. “The differences in numbers, background and militancy of the respective settler populations should serve as a warning of the need to give more attention to this issue as talks with Palestinians proceed”.

Venerable olive trees like this one bore the brunt of the protest. If this is politics as usual, perhaps the actions may pset some green activists.

50 Israeli cops hurt during riot drill

About 50 Israeli police officers have been injured by fellow officers during a training exercise in riot control, the BBC is reporting, and it's not a keystone cops scenario

The police suffered the minor injuries in a drill in which officers played militant Jewish settlers and Palestinians throwing stones.

The officers used tennis balls rather than real stones. Reports that some suffered broken bones were denied.

Seven-thousand police were involved in the exercise, which took place at an army base in southern Israel.

Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police, described it as "a huge police training exercise to prepare for riot control and to deal with different scenarios".

Mr Rosenfeld said that the injuries were sustained during scuffling, and were mostly bruising. No-one had needed hospital treatment, he said.

A further five policemen were injured in a traffic accident en route to the training exercise, when a police van overturned, he added.

Professor Zeev Sternhell not silenced by doorstep bomb

Despite a recent attempt by a suspected neo-facist backlash hoping to silence professor Zeev Sternhell, Peace Now activist, by putting a pipe bomb on his front stoop, the man is still talking to the press. (One of his bookjackets is pictured above.) The London Independent published an in-depth interview in which the scholar expounds on his position to correspondent Don Macintyre "What I want to do is change the situation," he says and outlines some ways to go about it.
"I personally have reached the conclusion we cannot do it on our own, due to the weaknesses of the Israeli democracy, the weakness of the Palestinian Authority." It's worth clicking here to read more from the Israeli scholar. Some highlights:

On Tony Blair, the Middle East envoy on behalf of the US, the EU, the UN and Russia, the so-called Quartet:

"Tony Blair is transforming himself from a ten-year successful Prime Minister into a ridiculous figure, a clown. He is now in charge of negotiations, so what is he doing exactly. Where is he?"

On Ehud Olmert, outgoing Prime Minister of Israel and a recent convert to the idea of handing back "almost all" of the West Bank:

"He's just 30 years late. It's unbelievable. This is what [we on the left] have been saying for 30 years."

On Ehud Barak, Israeli Defence Minister:

"It's funny – well, not funny buttragic – to see a man like Ehud Barak, a real war hero, someone who was scared of nothing, who didn't know what it meant to be scared. [Yet] politically, a confrontation with the settlers is beyond his capacity. It's very sad."

Settler rocket lands beside an Arab at prayer

On the Yeshiva Od Yosef Hai, an extremist religious school about 3 km outside Nablus, the students in knitted skullcaps aren't exactly rocket scientists. But they can consult the Internet and tinker with explosives. Two weeks back, rowdy theological students fired a homemade steel rocket at the Palestinian village nearby. Virtually identical to the Hamas militants' Qassams, the rocket was of basic design and wildly inaccurate. Who would have guessed that during the leadup to the this week's agreed "lull" in the hostilities in Gaza, the West Bank would get peppered by an improvised 'Kosher' Kassam or two?

Maariv, a Hebrew language daily, headlined their piece "Yeshiva Student from Yitzhar Built Kassam Rocket and Fired it on Arab Village", as if it were a one-off incident. But according to the AP wires, plenty of weapons are stashed in the settlement and radical settlers fire at Arab villages nearby. These aggressive moves somehow are seen as pre-emptive self-defense in the Promised Land. Unlike in Sderot, no Red Dawn warning sounds a few moments before these rockets explode.

A Kassam of One’s Own

A Blue and White Kassam Rocket
Ma’ariv (p. 4) by Roi Sharon -- The settlement Yitzhar in Samaria has been in an uproar in the wake of an unprecedented affair. A pupil who attends the Od Yosef Hai Yeshiva in the settlement fired a home-made Kassam rocket from a hilltop near the settlement in the direction of a Palestinian village. The first person to be questioned in the incident was Rabbi Itzik Shapira, the yeshiva principal, who was arrested yesterday.
Shortly before the incident, members of the launching crew informed people on the settlement that an experiment was about to be held and that an explosion would sound. The launching crew members said that the explosion in question would be controlled and ought to be ignored by residents of the settlement. The rocket, which was comprised of a launching construct, a pipe and explosives, landed in farmland between Yitzhar and the Palestinian village. The rocket exploded. Breslau Hassid happened to be standing in the field and praying a few meters away from where the rocket exploded. He was not injured.
After the rocket exploded, which created a very loud report throughout the sector, large numbers of military troops were sent to the area. The security forces were inclined to believe at first that this had been a terror attack, but a preliminary examination established that the rocket had been fired from the settlement at the village and not the other way around. As soon as Central Command officials understood that they were dealing with Jewish rocket fire, the investigation was turned over to the GSS and to the Samaria and Judea District Police.
The detectives believe that the student who assembled the rocket, and who has yet to be arrested, obtained the know-how from the internet. The detectives are now trying to establish who supplied the boy with the explosives and who were his partners to the launching.
The yeshiva administration, which understood immediately that this was a red line that had been crossed, immediately expelled the student who was responsible for the rocket fire.
Residents of the settlement, where the incident is commonly referred to as the ‘rocket incident,’ also disassociated themselves vehemently from the people responsible. The Od Yosef Hai Yeshiva is identified with the extreme right wing, and many of the 20 people who were banned from entering Judea and Samaria a year and a half ago are students at that yeshiva.
Incidentally, the president of the yeshiva is Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg, the author of a book that praises Baruch Goldstein [who perpetrated the 1994 massacre in the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron].
The GSS recently provided the police with information that might lead to a few additional suspects in the incident and asked the police to carry out a number of arrests and searches. Yesterday morning dozens of police officers arrived at the yeshiva in Yitzhar, conducted a search of the premises and confiscated a number of computers. The search provided the police with no new information. The police also detained Rabbi Itzik Shapira and another two people, who were turned over to the GSS for questioning in a nearby military base.
All three were released after a three-hour interrogation. The three are not suspected of being involved in the incident but were questioned with the purpose of obtaining information that might facilitate the investigation.
A central figure in Yitzhar said in response: “As opposed to the incidents surrounding the destruction of the trailer, in the rocket affair the settlement completely disassociates itself from the behavior of the yeshiva students. The settlement places full responsibility on the yeshiva administration for the acts of its students and refuses to back up the yeshiva on this affair.”
The security forces view the incident with extreme gravity since it is the first time that right wing elements have tried their hand at high trajectory fire.
The Samaria and Judea District Police said that “the incident is still under investigation.” A GSS spokesman said that the General Security Service would not discuss the incident.

After the loud explosion, continued the Jerusalem Post, a large number of IDF soldiers arrived at the scene, concerned that a terror attack had been perpetrated. However, the troops discovered that the rocket had been fired from the Yitzhar area and not from Palestinian territory.

When the IDF Central Command was informed that the rocket had been fired by Jews, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and the Judea and Samaria Police opened an investigation.

Police spokesman Danny Poleg said Friday that detectives searched Yitzhar and questioned residents but made no arrests.

Ma'ariv said that the student allegedly learned how to make the rocket on the Internet. Detectives were trying to find out who provided the explosives and who else was involved in the incident.Yeshiva heads immediately expelled the student responsible.

The yeshiva is strongly affiliated with the extreme Right and some of its students were among the 20 people police banned from Judea and Samaria--aka Occupied Palestinian Territory-- about a year ago. The yeshiva's president, Yitzhak Ginsberg, has written a book in praise of Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein, who in 1994 massacred Muslims at prayer in Hebron.

Shin Bet's snoop blog & cybergeography

Approved official blogging arouses Izzy's suspicions. When the intelligence corps enters into the cybersphere so openly, is the goal recruitment or disinformation? If you log on or register, will your computer get tapped? Paranoid, some would brand me, but this cyber-spy enterprise, with its glamourous mock silhouettes, feels bogus. Shin Bet is the Israeli equivalent of the FBI or MI5. Its motto is "מגן ולא יראה", which translates as "Defender (Shield) who shall not be seen". But apparently it wants to be heard in cyberspace, a place where screams are routine. The BBC blogger, Tim Franks, is quite intrigued with Agent Aleph's Hebrew-blogging quartet.

Shin Bet says Israelis are keen to learn more about their life.
The Israeli secret service has launched a new venture: it has started to carry an internet diary, or blog, written by four of its agents.

The agents discuss how they were recruited, and what sort of work they perform; they also answer questions sent in by members of the public.

The tone of the blog is chatty, at times even facetious.
The agents from Israel's internal security service, the Shin Bet, are shown in silhouette.

Agent Chet is the sole woman among them. She works in hi-tech.
She says she went to the agency because it offered her a better "work-life balance" than her previous job in the private sector.

There are parts of her job, she says, which she can't discuss even with her husband - but then again, at home, they don't much like talking about work.
Agent Aleph, dubbed "the expert" on the blog, attempts to debunk a few myths.

"We don't work in a basement," he says. "We don't spend the day wearing earpieces."
"And we don't get to have flashing blue lights for our cars. We have to sit in traffic jams like everyone else."

The blogs are intended to draw members of the public into other areas of the Shin Bet website - in particular the recruitment section.Some of the positions are advertised with a red star and the slogan "hot job".There is the opportunity to work on what are described as "irregular missions"; to work on one's own; and to acquire a variety of "special skills".

A Shin Bet official told the BBC that the idea was to inform the public that the agency offers work beyond just stopping Palestinian paramilitary attacks.

The official said that the agency had been cheered by the feedback from members of the Israeli public - keen to find out more about the jobs within Shin Bet, the pay and even the food.

Meanwhile, over on Facebook, Israeli settlers have questioned and expanded the computer's automatic listing program. Their demands that the social networking website list them as residents of Israel, even though they might physically be deep in the West Bank, have been met. There is no such country as Palestine, the settlers pointed out in a coordinated email campaign. Previously, Facebook automatically tagged all Jerusalem residents as living in Israel; now, alerted to political sensitivities, Facebook friends have the option of listing Israel or Palestine as the homeland in cyberspace. Online battles over cyber-turf have been underway for quite awhile. Advocacy websites routinely orchestrate corrective comments campaigns and many target Jihadist or anti-Semitic websites and blogs. And vice versa.

Here's a sample of this cyber-groundwork from the Israel Project:

The glorification of terrorists and terror activity is rampant throughout the World Wide Web. All major terrorist organizations maintain modern Web sites, where they proudly communicate the details of their attacks against civilians. Facebook groups are dedicated to lauding the mass murderers of Yeshiva students or glorifying Hassan Nasrallah. The leader of Iran-backed Hezbollah, which fought a war in July 2006, has 3,315 members in his Facebook group.

Iran-backed terrorist groups such Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah publish their own sites, many of which link back to the Islamic Republic of Iran, which provides hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to the groups, as well as weapons and terrorist training.

The terrorist groups’ Web sites are: Hamas’s Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades,Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah

The Israel Project Founder and President Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi insists, “Facebook should be a safe space for people to network, not a recruitment and glorification tool for terrorists. It is sad and cynical that there are those who are using a site geared to connecting young people around the world to celebrate the murder of young people in a school.”

Interestingly, Israel Project has its own Facebook group as "part of its efforts to work for peace." They also provide chopper tours of eretz Israel for incoming foreign correspondents.

Hardy har har Har Homa? - it's no joke

Plans for building 500 new homes for Jewish settlers in Har Homa, suburban East Jerusalem, has raised diplomatic hackles internationally after the purported peace moves at Annapolis. But today the Israeli government confirmed that construction is going ahead, according to the BBC.

Israel plans to build 740 new homes in settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, a minister said, despite its commitment to freeze all settlement activity.

Rafi Eitan, minister for Jerusalem affairs, said Israel had never promised to stop building within Jerusalem and had a duty to house its citizens.

It is budgeting to build 500 new homes in Har Homa and 240 in Maaleh Adumim.

A Palestinian spokesman condemned the plans, accusing Israel of seeking to destroy renewed peace talks.

The two sides agreed at a peace conference in Annapolis in the US in late November to revive the 2003 peace plan known as the roadmap.

According to the plan, Israel must halt all settlement activity and the Palestinians must rein in militants.

But soon after the conference, Israel announced a tender for 300 homes in Har Homa.


Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 Middle East War, a move not recognised internationally.


News that the construction ministry was budgeting for 740 new settlement homes was reported by the Israeli settlement watchdog, Peace Now.

Though Har Homa stands on disputed land, the Israeli government has argued that the new homes in Har Homa are part of plans drawn up seven years ago, and that the area - known in Arabic as Abu Ghneim - was in any case not covered by the roadmap.

Thousands of people live in Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem which are expected to remain in Israeli hands under any final peace settlement.

Critics argue that the network of settlements will disrupt any future attempt to make East Jerusalem capital of a Palestinian state.

"Har Homa is an integral part of Jerusalem and Israel will not stop building there," Mr Eitan said on Israeli Army Radio on Sunday.

"It is Israel's duty to provide its citizens with a place to live."

Maaleh Adumim stands further out of the city but Mr Eitan insisted it was "an integral part of Jerusalem in any peace accord".

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Israel was undermining efforts to renew peacemaking.

"This is a totally destructive policy," he said.

"Every day we hear a new settlement expansion plan - this cannot be tolerated."

Hebron hijinks, when push comes to shove

Hebron is a city like no other. It’s part ghost town, part bustling downtown, flanked by jittery no-go zones. Izzy Bee arrived on Tuesday and accompanied five bright teenagers on a late afternoon walk around the historic heart of their hometown. (Note- last spring I’d joined a coach load of rabbis from Russia and New Jersey for a Jewish perspective.)

Hebron feels menacing, and is wedged between Jewish settlements such as Kiryat Arba, which appear to be inhabited mostly by extremists with American accents. Many tote pistols and stoke a powerful mood of spite and paranoia. Ugly racist grafitti desecrates the Star of David on deserted streets where Muslim families have their front doors welded shut and must scuttle out their back entrances. Israeli soldiers are under orders to protect settlers and must prevent the local Palestinians from crossing their paths. Animosity festers here.

On the way to the holy sites-- Ibrahimi Mosque (Mosque of Abraham, adjacent to the Jewish Cave of the Patriarchs, venerated by both Jews and Muslims) -- we passed through an airport-style screening, and got delayed because an American with us had rivets on his Levis which kept setting off the alarm. By the time we got through the bars, it was dusk, the call to prayer had sounded, and three of us non-Muslims were not allowed inside. We were told politely by soldiers to come back in 30 minutes. Just to pass the time, without wasting time to renegotiate the security check, we all wandered down the road, where Jewish settlers were blasting some polka music over loudspeakers as a counterpoint to the prayers. Again, there was a military checkpoint, and all nine of our incongruous group were turned back. We chatted with a buff soldier from Tel Aviv, who appeared with a machine gun after a young Israeli guard summoned for help.

“I am a patriot and it’s my duty to serve my country,” he replied when asked why he was pulling a gun on unarmed kids his same age. This sandy-haired 19-year-old admitted that there is no hope inhabitants of Hebron would ever be able to live in harmony. “I am just being realistic,” he shrugged.
This was a dire prediction for a place where Arabs and Sephardic Jews coexisted in peace for centuries. Separate lifestyles were not put into place until the arrival of an Ashkenazi Yeshiva. The community diverged. A massacre in 1929, when 67 Jews were brutally killed during three days of violence, was a terrible turning point for all communities. Things fell apart. And a splattershoot in the Ibrahimi Mosque by a Brooklyn-born settler called Baruch Goldstein, who murdered 29 praying Muslims and wounded scores more, branded the violence into the international conscience.

After a half hour elapsed, our group mounted the steep stairs, only to be turned back by a guardian of the mosque, a power-crazed chap from the Ministry of Religion. He insisted that after sundown, non-Islamic visitors were unwelcome. Then he shoved the Muslim peace activist from Jenin, who had organized our trip. He started cursing and shouting at us outside this holy shrine, and whacked the peace activist on the shoulder. Soldiers came scrambling to break up the clash before it became a brawl.
Another one came with a platter of doughnuts to distribute to the young draftees, this being Hanukkah. An old man in a woolen watch cap hustled over, ready to see some action. Nudged by the locals, we decided to quietly disperse, and even though I was tempted by the fresh pastries, managed to resist the urge to help myself to doughnuts and share them with the hungry Hebron boys beside me, and risk fueling more violence. The boys are used to such scuffles. One told me that the last time he was beat up on the way to school, the soldiers videoed it on their mobile phones for entertainment viewing while on guard duty.
Israelity bites.

(top photo courtesy of Christian Peacemaker Teams)

No Settling down, no cooling the rhetoric

So finally the settlers do agree with the Palestinians about one thing:
the separation barrier is about ethnic cleansing.

The outgoing leader of settler zealotry, the Binyamin Regional Council head, Pinchas Wallerstein, says: "As far as Olmert and Ramon are concerned, it has a political meaning – no Jews beyond the fence. If this is not ethnic cleansing, what is?"

Click here for full report on why the retiring orange honcho is so frosty about the freeze on settlements in Judea and Samaria. "The public in the Judea and Samaria feels that its status is lower than that of the Bedouins in the Negev, in spite of its contribution to the society and the IDF," he says."An evacuation is in fact harassment which will be perceived as evil."

(Hat-tip to Ozzy Bee for this pre-Annapolis guest post.)

Pistol-pack the groceries, roll in the aisles

At a busy supermarket the other afternoon in Talpiot, a fellow customer left Izzy Bee reeling. This guy really put gross into grocery shopping for me.

At first, the man simply was nowhere to be seen, but an anonymous shopping cart heaped with soda pop, potato chips, canned goods, packaged fish and meats, laundry detergent, diapers, and toilet paper was blocking the checkout counter. With just four items in hand-- eggs, milk, tomato paste, and matches -- I made a beeline for the only cashier who was idle, and scooted around this abandoned cart. Not exactly chutzpah, but maybe this was a bit brazen. Within three seconds, a beefy fellow came hurtling back from the frozen food section and shoved me aside, gesturing wildly at his shopping cart.

Then came the coup de grace: he patted the pistol strapped in a holster on his hip. He wore an orange silicone band around his wrist, but I don't think it was a Lance Armstrong solidarity bracelet somehow. Better to grin and slink to the end of a line far, far away from him. Checkout rage is not worth bloodshed.

I got his point at gunpoint.
Now my neighbors tell me that this was an aberration--not a typical Israeli experience. "We don't behave like that here. Maybe it's a stereotype, but that boor sounds like some newly-arrived settler from America," Reena sniffed. "Most of them need to learn some manners. Oy vey." Well, it's one more reason to consider online grocery shopping. Israelity bites.

R.I.P. Dubak - Jewish settler

The Time magazine blog is running an admiring obituary for Dov Vineshtok, aka Dubak, called 'Requiem for a Jewish settler'. This hard core Zionist befriended the desert Bedouin and delivered secondhand clothes to their remote families, helped out troubled settler teens, and once voluntarily gave water to a thirsty Arab laborer. The piece caught my attention because this frontiersman belied typical knee-jerk stereotypes. Izzy Bee twice met this gruff guy, whose wife was a Jewish American Princess from Beverly Hills and, under his influence, had transformed herself into a Mother Earth figure for their sprawling family. Dubak preferred the outdoors. Together, we'd contemplated the beauty of the dunes, the camel trains and the tenacity of fig trees; When pressed, Izzy Bee admitted that the wilderness seemed blighted by too many red-roofed settlements erected on distant hills. He laughed and coughed. What I admired about Dubak is that he was so open to talking with people who were not like-minded; he will be sorely missed.
Dubak's beloved desert cliffs above the Dead Sea.

Settlers divert water supply from thirsty villagers to their own splash pool

Settlers cut Palestinian water supply to fill up a swimming pool for summer holidays. Ozzy Bee pointed out this instance of hot weather selfishness, which Ronny Shaked filed on ynet news:

Elon Moreh reroutes a pipe carrying drinking water to neighboring Palestinian village to a small pool; water drains back to village's pipe system

Residents of the settlement of Elon Moreh in the West Bank have cut a pipe carrying drinking water to a nearby Palestinian village, and are using it to fill a small swimming pool located at a picnic site, which was itself built on land owned by the village.

The pipe, which carries water to the village of Dir al-Khatab, was rerouted in order to fill the pool. The pipe channels fresh drinking water into the pool and drains dirty water back into the village's water system.

"They not only use water that doesn't belong to them, but they also pollute the drinking water of some of the village residents," said Yoel Marshak, head of the Kibbutz Movement's Special Assignments Branch. "The little kids pee in the water, which flows straight to the taps of the Palestinian school."

The small swimming pool was built at the settlement's picnic site, which is located less than a mile from Dir al-Khatab and on the village's lands.

"The settlers of Elon Moreh behave like landlords on our private land," said Jafar Shatai, deputy chairman of the neighboring village of Salem.

The Civil Administration has issued a demolition order for the picnic site following complains by the Palestinian residents, and stated that the order would be carried out in the coming days.

Benny Katzover, one of the community leaders in Elon Moreh, said in response that the pool in question was merely a small hole dug near an archeological site where travelers visit. He claimed that the water came from a small fountain near Elon Moreh which streams to the village.

"The fountain's water does not constitute the village's main water supply, because the village has been connected to Mekorot (the national water company) for many years. The fountain's water is used as drinking water for the sheep and goats, and as backup in case the water supply is interrupted. No one has blocked the channeling of water to the village," he stated.

Remember that old song? "Summertime & the livin' is easy...so hush,little baby, don't you cry." There are hot tears of frustration all around. This weekend, in the southern town of Ofakim, a Bedouin family was refused entry to an Israeli public swimming pool because the traditional mother refused to unveil as she watched her three kids frolic. Her garb was not dissimilar to what's routinely worn by ultra-Orthodox Jewish women at pools across the country. The children left in tears.

Bloodshed inside Jerusalem's Walled City

Reuters reports:

at least six people were shot or stabbed in an apparent attack in Jerusalem's Old City on Friday, rescue services said.

The Israeli emergency service Zaka said one person, whom they described as the attacker, was killed.

It was not immediately clear whether the incident was a militant attack. The police had no immediate comment.

Izzy Bee's own sources inside the walled city indicated that most of the victims were Arabs. More news will be posted as soon as possible. Watch this space.

Update: This file from Haaretz indicates how complex life within the Old City has become. The bloody incident happened in the Christian Quarter, near Jaffa Gate, at an ultra-nationalist Jewish seminary, the Ateret Cohanim Yeshiva. There now are nine times as many Jewish residents in East Jerusalem and they outnumber Palestinians-- Christians and Muslims alike.
An angry teenager apparently wrested a pistol out of the holster of a security guard, and then wounded him in the shoulder. As he started to bound away, a second armed guard gave chase and they exchanged fire. Eventually the attacker was shot dead. Two bystanders were wounded as a scuffle ensued. At least another seven were injured. Police issued alerts and security tightened before Friday prayers. In order to keep a lid on secular violence within these hallowed walls, close to the Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock, the religions of the victims or attacker have not been listed on official reports. Sifting rumour from fact takes time, and there are conflicting accounts even from eye witnesses.
According to the Guardian, this shooting incident

comes at a time when some Israeli and Palestinian leaders have talked optimistically about the prospect of a new round of peace negotiations. However, yesterday the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth carried a report quoting the Israeli defence minister and Labour party leader, Ehud Barak, saying suggestions of a forthcoming peace deal were "fantasies".

He said Israel would not withdraw from the occupied West Bank for at least five years because of the threat of rockets and missiles. He also said he would not remove any of the several hundred checkpoints and barriers across the West Bank.

One witnessed told radio reporters that the second guard continued to pump bullets into the attacker, who looked like a young Palestinian, even though he was 'already neutralized'. Sirens shriek as the injured are ferried to first aid clinics and the cobblestones are awash with blood. Israelity bites.

Hebron showdown - teenage foodfight does not halt eviction of settlers from market

Even though a dozen soldiers refused to follow orders and take on the young Jewish settlers, this morning's planned eviction of two families who were illegally occupying apartments in Hebron concluded well before noon.
A piece by Efrat Weiss on Ynetnews describes the morning confrontation, which was quite mild when compared to the violent resistance triggered in the past when police forcibly shut down other settlements. It resulted in arrests and injuries. Police took the brunt of the action; in the contested City of the Patriarchs, the IDF traditionally protects the settlers from the Arab residents. Brace yourself for more fallout in this volatile historic city.

Police evacuate Hebron settlers

Large police and Border Guard forces completed Tuesday morning the evacuation of two families and hundreds of right-wing settlers, mostly teenagers, who have taken over two houses in the Hebron marketplace.

Fifteen policemen and 14 rightists who barricaded themselves inside the buildings were injured in the course of the evacuation. Nine people were evacuated to hospital for treatment and 13 rioters were arrested.

The evacuation began at 6:20 am, after the forces broke in through the doors that have been welded and started to forcefully evacuate the people inside. Each of the settlers was carried out by four policemen, while rightists standing on the rooftops threw stones, oil and eggs at the forces.

Hebron District police commander Avshalom Peled said that "there were no significant displays of violence. We are working slowly and are following specific orders… we instructed the policemen to be attentive and exhibit restraint and sensitivity, and also determination where needed."
The security forces plan to remove the doors and windows at the two occupied houses, in order to render them unfit for living.
At about 4:30 am, the teen activists at the place were called to wake up and prepare for the evacuation. At the same time, IDF forces and Magen David Adom ambulances began arriving at the place. Some of the youths hurled stones at the policeman from one of the roofs, but no injuries or damage were reported.
Earlier, the settlers welded the entrance to one of the houses and the structure's windows in order to prevent security forces from entering.
The members of the settlers community in Hebron convened the youths that have arrived in the place to protest the evacuation Monday evening, and stressed to them that violence must be avoided during the operation. However, they were instructed to "hold on firmly to the houses."

Zionism up against the Wall: the NYer interviews Avraham Burg

The Israeli government has to confront its own crazies and create a national consensus on democratic ideals, enact a secular constitution, and really confront the settlers. So far, the government is only willing to say that it is making ‘painful’ moves. We are told that we have to grieve with the settlers, think about making deals, but quietly let on that we actually think these are the real Israeli pioneers. Bullshit

Thus concludes "The Apostate", David Remnick's rumination on the state of Zionism in the current New Yorker magazine. After the aggressive and moralistic interviewer, Ari Shavit, took on Avraham Burg, a former Speaker of the Knesset and author of "Defeating Hitler" in the liberal Haaretz newspaper, Israelis were appalled by the vitriol. 450 comments were posted on the paper's website. When Burg described Israel as a perpetually “frightened society,” things grew tense:

SHAVIT: You are patronizing and supercilious, Avrum. You have no empathy for Israelis. You treat the Israeli Jew as a paranoid. But, as the cliché goes, some paranoids really are persecuted. On the day we are speaking, Ahmadinejad is saying that our days are numbered. He promises to eradicate us. No, he is not Hitler. But he is also not a mirage. He is a true threat. He is the real world—a world you ignore.

BURG: I say that as of this moment Israel is a state of trauma in nearly every one of its dimensions. And it’s not just a theoretical question. Would our ability to cope with Iran not be much better if we renewed in Israel the ability to trust the world? Would it not be more right if we didn’t deal with the problem on our own but, rather, as part of a world alignment beginning with the Christian churches, going on to the governments and finally the armies? Instead, we say we do not trust the world, they will abandon us, and here’s Chamberlain returning from Munich with the black umbrella and we will bomb them alone.

Now that Israel will receive a $30m weapons package from America, Burg seems rather out of touch with reality when he says Israel would be better off to spurn financial aid from the United States: “I don’t like it. A state like mine should live on its own means,” he told Remnick. What Israel does need from its superpower ally is the impetus to move forward on peace negotiations.