Contents

Introduction page2

An interview with Sabah Abu Hudeid, head of Baqa’a Women’s Cooperative in the Palestinian Refugee Camp of al-Baqa’a, near Amman, Jordan page 3

Security - "The War is With the Arabs" By Hannah Mermelstein page 6

Dividing War Spoils: 's Robbery of Palestinian Property. By Dr. Salman Abu Sitta page 8

The end of Israel? By Hannah Mermelstein page 12

The Real Roots of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict By Julian Kunnie page 15

Arno J. Mayer, Plowshares into Swords By Sam Ayache page 19

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Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 1 Introduction

This latest issue of Dialogue comes out a to poverty. After recognizing the Israelis as few days before the opening of the annual “neighbours”, the Palestinian Authority is session of the UN and just after the accelerating the transformation of the publishing of the Goldstone Report on the territories that it is in charge of into “special extortion committed by the Israeli army economic zones”, deregulated and during last winter’s “Operation Cast Lead”. controlled by an internal army of prison Isn’t there a connection between these guards and flouting the Right of Return. This two events? The US president Barack is what the future of the claimed Obama is to deliver a speech and offer “Palestinian State” looks like. new proposals in order to re-launch the sacrosanct “peace process”. The US, Can there be no other perspective for the which is out of its depth in Iraq, losing Palestinian people ? After 60 years of ground in Afghanistan and becoming refusing a division, expressed by the hated by an increasing majority of the inalienable claim to a Right of Return, will it Pakistani people, considers that a settling of have to be accepted? what it has been agreed to call the Palestinian question is urgent. Can there be no democratic perspective ? Amongst the Zionist leaders and their allies, But what can be expected of this new there are many who consider that the peace plan? Can peace be spoken of creating of two states has become urgent without the recognition of the equal rights in order to save the essential of what exists. of all the populations who live between the In a recent interview, Shimon Peres Mediterranean and Jordan? Is peace, as expressed his alarm over the fact that if the has been queried in several contributions to state of Israel “doesn’t advance quickly in this revue, compatible with predatory this direction, a time will come where the Zionism? Can we speak of peace without perspective of a two-state solution will the implementing of the Right of Return for topple into a single state for Israelis and all refugees, no matter where they come in which Jews will no longer from, and the reconstruction of the villages dominate, (a perspective) which will destroyed in 1948? effectively mean the end of the state of Israel” (AP, September 4). In an article For 20 years, from new peace plan to new published by the Washington Post, Jimmy peace plan, the « process » has never Carter has stated as worrisome the fact come to anything but a worsening of the that “many Palestinian leaders are seriously situation. Worsening of the situation of the considering accepting the solution of a populations, acceleration of the stealing of single-state between Jordan and the land, of massacres, of the suffering of the Mediterranean Sea”. Palestinian people and worsening in the degradation of the institutions of the But isn’t there another perspective, a Palestinian Authority, as of the state of democratic one? Don’t the articles that Israel, deep in corruption, in rising militarism, are published here, meant by their writers pushing a majority of the Jewish as a contribution to the discussion, indicate populations – especially the eastern ones – that the debate needs to be pursued?

The editors

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 2 An interview with Sabah Abu Hudeid, head of Baqa’a Women’s Cooperative in the Palestinian Refugee Camp of al-Baqa’a, near Amman, Jordan.

Baqa’a camp, which is 22 kilometres from members of Palestinian political Amman, is the largest in Jordan. It was organisations. These elements must have founded in 1968 during the second wave of stirred the fear of the Hashemite expulsions of Palestinians from the West governments who saw them as a threat to Bank, the first having been in 1948. After their power. Still, it can be said that the war of 1967, many of those who had Palestinians were making the Jordanian been expelled in 1948 had to flee a second economy work. time, this time to Jordan. In 1950, After Black September and the massacres Palestinians from Transjordan had acquired of refugees organised by King Hussein, the Jordanian citizenship, the object of that Palestinian leaders left for Lebanon. decision being to bottle the Palestinian Restrictions were imposed on Palestinians; question and to quell the conflict. It was police checks became more serious. The also a way of providing cheap labour in University of Jordan was still essentially order to help construct the Hashemite made up of Palestinian students, but Kingdom. political and union activities were forbidden. During this period the policy of Most jobs and administrative positions were replacing Palestinians by native Jordanians occupied by Palestinians. The prime was launched and Palestinian quotas were minister of Jordan, Ibrahim Hashem, was a set up. “Jordanization” was established at Palestinian from Nablus. There were any price, even with slackers and Palestinians everywhere at that time: civil incompetents. This is the policy that is still servants, workers, teachers; many of them applied today, whereby Palestinians, on were leftist activists. top of these restrictions, are hard hit by unemployment. Very early on, there were Palestinians all over Jordan. They enabled the It is in this context that the place of women development of the kingdom, while the holds all its importance. When the expelled Hashemite tribe were essentially stock Palestinians first arrived, the women were breeders, as was their tradition. This, particularly oriented towards jobs in consequently, caused a separation of roles education and teaching. Schools were early on, Palestinians being in free, everyone attended them. From the administration and Hashemites in the beginning, it was the only occupation, but military. also the only way to evolve, to establish cohesion amongst ourselves. In 1950, the Before the Sykes-Picot agreement and up goal of the power in place was that all the until 1967, there was only one single region resources of the country take part in the in which people felt close. It was not economic expansion and thus women difficult for Palestinians to get and to keep were to benefit from it. With their high positions of responsibility. Real fraternity school bachelor degree diploma, women existed between the original native tribes could work in hospitals, find jobs in some of and the Palestinians. Jordanians were the Gulf countries and especially in Saudi

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 3 Arabia as teachers. In my case, I got my women volunteers who in the beginning “bac” in 1967 with high marks and so I, too, concentrated on social activities, but little could have gone to Saudi Arabia but by little became more political, and to instead I preferred to stay with my father, a further the emancipation of women, political activist, who was under house- through the setting up of “workshops on arrest. In 1967, I was one of the first history”, equally open to youth and to men, Palestinian women to enrol in university in order to help the refugees learn again (studies often ended for women after the and retrieve their own history. bachelor degree). This activity began in closed places but its In the camps, networking was significant expansion was quickly stopped by the and taking shape, but nothing specific yet Jordanian authorities. existed for women because of Jordanian refusal. The first organisation devoted to The Palestinians who lived in the camp women’s rights was made up of volunteers managed to keep up a very strong link with from the camps. their past. They are still highly conscious of their situation as refugees and very At the time of the mobilisations, especially attached to their Right of Return. before Black September, the situation of women was exemplary. Most of the Before Black September, all the women activists came out of this period. organisations were mobilised towards The situation worsened from 1970-1971 preparing the Return. The Right of Return, onwards. originally a real and compelling right, has turned into a question of principle, as the Among the activities that developed, it Palestinian organisations have had to take became necessary to fight in order to have clandestine refuge. But once the raids and the right to play sports and to use the same the incursions began, there were always infrastructures as men, and to provide a demonstrations in the camps. Today, the library for girls so that they, too, had access Palestinian awareness of the Right of Return to culture. And after just one week, the is very much alive. Resistance can only be authorities refused to maintain the library. built on education, on dawning awareness, even though all Palestinians are ready and The women of the time came back from willing to fight for it if necessary. My father, Saudi Arabia with money but in general who was part of the Popular Front for the brought nothing to the Palestinians in the Liberation of Palestine, took part in a camps. military operation in the West Bank in 1983. At 70 years of age, he was still ready to It would be necessary to wait until 1989 to take arms. After the reforms of 1989, several finally have the official authorisation to Palestinian organisations were create a real association. A women’s trade institutionalised into Jordanian political union was founded in 1974 but its scope of organisations. There was a lot of theorising. action was very limited. An association of We actually saw an integration of these Arab women also worked in the camps, organisations into a reform that is called but essentially to teach embroidery and “democratic”. sewing. Your magazine defends the “one state” The 1989 reform did away with the ban on solution. The question of a single state independent associations, the objective should also remind us that the majority of being to create a network of associations in Jordanians actually are Palestinians. There Jordan for economic improvement. It was are two movements in Jordan, one is then possible to set up an association of democratic and for Palestinians being able

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 4 to have Jordanian citizenship while still shambles. The question of education has keeping their Right of Return, and the other become the first step of resistance. a police state that refuses Palestinians the Palestinians need to re-learn and recapture rights there are given to native Jordanians. their history in order to keep their demands alive. Today, the situation in the camps is better than that in Lebanon, but still in terrible

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 5 Security - "The War is With the Arabs" By Hannah Mermelstein

I saw this sign as I was entering Nablus last Jabotinsky, and other Zionist leaders. None week, again on my way to Ramallah, and of the old Arabic street names remain. again near Bethlehem. The phrase is Even large cities with considerable printed in Hebrew, presumably by Israeli Palestinian populations are now seeing settlers, on huge signs throughout the West Arabic names officially erased from signs. Bank. Israeli racism rarely shocks me In Arabic script, “Yaffa” will become anymore, but its blatant display still makes “Yafo,” “Nasra” will become “Natzeret,” me stop and catch my breath as I translate and “Al Quds” will become “Yerushalayim.” it into other contexts. Imagine driving through the middle of a predominantly Lack of security goes beyond denial of black neighborhood in a US city or town identity and history as visually expressed and seeing a enormous sign that says, “The through signs. A Palestinian friend with war is with the Blacks.” Israeli citizenship told me he has heard a rumor that a huge piece of land in Jordan I think about security. Israel’s abuse of the is being cleared and built up for the word has rendered the concept almost eventual arrival of the Palestinian meaningless in the region, but the population of Israel after they are importance of security on individual and transferred from their homes. “It may be communal levels cannot be conspiracy theory,” he said, “but I don’t underestimated. However, most discussions know.” I see in the media about security ignore the Palestinian people’s right to security. “The “I’d like to think that Israel couldn’t get war is with the Arabs” is a new sign, as far as away with that,” I responded. I know, but for years in the West Bank I have seen stars of David scrawled on Palestinian “Of course they can,” another friend from shops and homes, and signs like “Death to Lyd said, “and if the conditions are right, Arabs” and “Kahane was right” (Kahane they will.” was an extremist political leader who promoted ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Imagine living day to day thinking you people; this sign is essentially equivalent to might be expelled from your country in the “Hitler was right” in the middle of a Jewish near future. Or in Gaza, wondering if you neighborhood). will be killed tomorrow, or if you will ever be able to come in and out of your country at But signs are not only created; they are also will. Or in the West Bank, if your son will be destroyed. Since 1948, Palestinian people arrested, or if you will be able to get inside Israel have experienced erasure and through the checkpoint in the morning to denial of their identities that is perhaps get to work. Or in , if your stronger than that of any other group of residency will be stripped or your house Palestinian people. I visited a friend in Lyd destroyed. last week who lives on Giborai Yisrael (“Heroes of Israel”) Street. Driving around Imagine little correlation between choice the Palestinian neighborhoods in Lyd, we and consequence, an arbitrary relationship passed roads bearing the names of Herzl, between cause and effect. If you are just

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 6 as likely to get shot and killed sipping tea in is perhaps the height of insecurity, yet Um your doorway, or sitting in your fourth grade Kamel stays strong and determined. Many classroom, or participating in a in Palestine would call it sumoud, or demonstration, or joining the armed steadfastness. resistance, is it any surprise that some This kind of strength is seen remarkably choose each? often in Palestine, and indicates a deeper security that comes in part from faith. Faith A friend of mine from the West Bank once in God, sometimes, but also faith in each told me that she never feels safe, so safety other, in the justice of one’s cause, in the is not a consideration for her in making tide of history that has shown that no single decisions. As much as I may try, I cannot occupation in Palestine lasts forever. This, truly imagine this lack of control. of course, is also Israel’s deepest fear. That no matter how many walls they build, how I met a woman in Jerusalem who was many people they imprison, how many displaced from her home by settlers, homes they destroy, how many signs they physically removed from her house by erase, and how many people they expel, dozens of Israeli soldiers in the middle of the true security will remain elusive, and night. Twice a refugee (1948 and 2008), Um eventually, Zionism will fail. As many older Kamel currently lives in a tent near her Palestinian people have said to me, with house that has been destroyed and re- security, “We have lived through many pitched six times in the past six months. This occupations. This too shall pass.”

Hannah Mermelstein is co-founder of Birthright Unplugged and Students Boycott Apartheid. She lives in Brooklyn, NY and works with the New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel and the Palestine Education Project. She can be reached at [email protected]

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 7 Dividing War Spoils: Israel's Robbery of Palestinian Property. By Dr. Salman Abu Sitta

While the news headlines were occupied line defined in the Armistice Agreements with the freeze or suspension of Jewish signed with four Arab countries in 1949. settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories or with the competition for At the time, Israel contrived all kinds of positions in the sixth Fateh conference in intricate legal frameworks to make use of Bethlehem, Israel is putting into effect the the absentee ' land most devastating operation since the short of outright legal ownership of the land ethnic cleansing of Palestine in al Nakba of out of fear of international condemnation 1948. This new operation aims to eliminate and accountability before international irrevocably Palestinian rights and historical courts. roots in Palestine. With the exception of 1,429,000 donums Ironically, Arab and Palestinian leaderships (one donum=1000 sq. meters or 24.7 acres) remain oblivious to these cataclysmic of Jewish land according to the British developments. In particular, the Palestinian Mandate records, representing a mere 7% leadership, whose main duty is to defend of Israel's area, the remainder of the land, Palestinian rights, is bogged down with the amounting to 18, 826,000 donums, or 93% assignment of internal political posts and of Israel, is Palestinian land. This Palestinian fighting what it sees as its primary enemy, ownership includes private and public land, Hamas. land for common use or usufruct and The Zionist leadership in Israel felt bold natural resources in, above or below enough to transform the ideological slogan ground. of 'Jewish Israel' into a reality on the ground. The Knesset, the Israel Parliament, Israel reverted, after 1948, to premeditated passed a law on August 3rd, 2009, after its acts of systematic destruction of Palestinian second and third readings, which allowed villages to the ground; burning of the sale of "Absentees" Palestinian refugees' agricultural crops; and the poisoning of land to Jewish individuals and Jewish water wells; all with the intention that such institutions exclusively anywhere in the acts would deter the Palestinian refugees world. Thus, the legal right of the original from returning home. Palestinian owner to his land would be severed through creating a barrier On the political front, and following the first between the owner and his property. The month after the expulsion of the Palestinian passing of the new law represents an refugees in 1948, Israel declared that it audacious initiative by the current Israeli would not allow the return of any government that no previous Israeli Palestinian refugee back to his home on government dared contemplate or venture the pretext that refugees return would pose into. a security threat to Israel. However, for the Israelis, the remaining question was how to It will be recalled that the State of Israel was make use of the conquered vast Palestinian founded on the land it occupied in land and valuable Palestinian property in Palestine in 1948/49. The conquered area is 14 different cities without invoking 20,255 sq. km which represents 78% of the international condemnation that could Mandatory Palestine. The land Israel lead to the return of the Palestinian occupied was delineated by the armistice

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 8 refugees and the reclaiming of their land with JNF which wanted the Palestinian land and properties? to be registered in the name of "the Jewish people" in perpetuity, while Israel wanted it David Ben Gurion, Prime minister of Israel at in the name of the state. the time, fearing that UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte would make In 1960, Israel put an end to all the legal recommendations, in the report he was quarrel over confiscated property of preparing for the UN General Assembly, for Absentee Palestinians when the law of the return of the Palestinian refugees to Israel Land Administration- ILA (which their homes, resorted to a trick; he should have properly read: Israel engineered a fictitious sale agreement with Administration of the Lands) was passed. the Jewish National Fund, a tax-exempt This law combines all lands under the world organization, of 2.5 million donums of control of JNF and the state of Israel under the most fertile and best absentee one management, ILA, and under the rules Palestinian land situated along the of JNF which stipulate that these lands are delineated Armistice Line. This way, Ben not to be used, rented, lived in or sold Gurion would be able to claim that the except to Jewish entities. Accordingly, 19 absentees' Palestinian land was no longer million dunums fell under the authority of in the possession of the state of Israel and ILA to this day. that Israel cannot be obliged to return it to the Palestinian refugees, the rightful owners The new law that just recently been passed of the land. by the Knesset on August 3rd, 2009, gives the authority for ILA to sell the absentee Count Bernadotte was assassinated by an Palestinian refugees' land to Jewish persons Israeli zealot, and as Ben Gurion had that are currently leasing them and other predicted, the UN passed Resolution 194 Jews anywhere in the world. (…) that called for the return of the Palestinian Concurrent with the enactment of the new refugees. Israel aborted the talks with Arab law in the Knesset, negotiations are under countries in Lausanne during 1949/1950 that way between the Jewish National Fund were held to discuss the implementation of and ILA to swap lands. ILA is in need of UN Resolution 194. With the failure of lands owned by JNF in the central area of implementation of UN Resolution 194, Israel the country for the purpose of constructing felt bold to dispose of the absentee new residential complexes. In return, JNF Palestinian refugees' land. would receive land in the Galilee in the Meanwhile, Israel issued the law of the Naqab for the settlement of future Jewish Absentees' Property in 1950 that applied as immigrants. Clearly, neither of the two well to the properties of the remaining organizations possesses the unquestioned Palestinians inside Israel who were given the legal ownership rights of these lands. oxymoron expression of Present Absentees. Once the Fund acquires the lands in the The law assigned the state as the bona fide Galilee and Naqab areas, the laws of the Custodian in charge of all the absentee Fund restrict the use of the land to Jews Palestinian land without the right of outright and to the exclusion of the Palestinian ownership. citizens of Israel; a clear discriminatory ruling In the same year, 1950, another law was against the lawful owners of the land. The enacted establishing the "Development first outcome of the successful Authority," with the mandate to take over consummation of the land swap between from the Custodian. This authority has the the two organizations after the sanction of power to use, rent and sell the land to the Knesset will be the transfer to complete Jewish entities only. rightful ownership of 90,000 housing units to It took the Israelis the first ten years since the the current Jewish tenants occupying founding of the state to sort out the conflict them.

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 9 Naturally, the usurpation of the absentee 2009, the Judge of the Ramlah Court has Palestinian land and its sale is in flagrant issued a ruling that stipulates the violation of the international law. application of the Absentees' Property Law Furthermore, it is in strict violation of The in the West Bank as well, i.e. the Hague's Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth confiscation by Israel of the possessions of Geneva Convention (Article 147) that Palestinian absentees. This ruling is in forbids the "extensive appropriation of complete violation of UN Security property". In addition, these acts are in Resolutions and the legal opinion of the contravention with the rulings of the International Court of Justice of July, 2004 Nuremberg Tribunal after the Second World that unequivocally states that the West War with regard to Case number 10 that Bank is an Occupied Territory that should prohibited the confiscation of private neither be annexed nor usurped. property. Besides, the United Nation issued a number How disturbing that despite all these of resolutions in 1996, 1997 and 1998, for dramatic developments, not a single Arab example resolution 52/62 entitled "Palestine or foreign body condemned Israel's new refugees property and their revenues" , flagrant violations. Israel even went further which obliges Israel to protect the refugees' by publishing an announcement in a properties, properly document them and Palestinian Jerusalemite daily ("Al-Quds") on provide regular information about them. June 28, 2009 declaring its intention to UN Resolution 52/62 further stipulates that register 139,000 donums north and west of all income accruing to these properties the Dead Sea area to its name provided no since 1948 is the sole right of these refugees. one contests this registration by providing acceptable proof of ownership rights. With Israel is persisting in its defiance of the such an announcement, Israel would international law and even its American deprive the future New Palestinian State of and European allies who are not taking any its sovereign rights over the waters of the measures to deter Israel from the continued Dead Sea, its beaches, mineral wealth and violations of the international law and borders with neighboring Jordan. In short, human rights. Israel's defiance is reaching Israel's confiscation of these lands is unprecedented proportions as tantamount to Israel's official acquisition of demonstrated three weeks ago in the most of the area of the Jordan Valley. eviction of Arabs residents of Jerusalem from their homes before the very eyes of All this with every one acting the deaf- the whole world. This world did nothing mute, not knowing anything and if one other than whisper words of protest. knows, one keeps silent and if one speaks one does nothing. What this signifies is that What's really stupefying is for Israel to the whole Palestinian question has been flagrantly declare the annexation of the reduced to the Palestinian people living in occupied West Bank without the awareness exile, and their land is open for sale or or opposition by any party. The transfer to any Jew around the world. significance of this move by Israel shadows the continuous expropriation of lands here That said, however, the rightful claims on and there to construct Jewish settlements the land remain valid regardless of the on the top of the hills of the West Bank. occupiers' laws or the passage of time. But it is incumbent on those defending those Unannounced, a new ruling stated that rights to stand up and do what is needed. the Absentees Property Law of 1950 First to ring the alarm of this ominous applies to any one in the West Bank who is development was "Adalah," (Justice), the defined as "Absentee" according to this Nazareth-based Legal Center for The Arab law. According to Haaretz of August 2nd, Minority Rights in Israel. Adalah served the

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 10 Israeli General Attorney with a letter dated lands expert Jarvis, in 1964). The draft June 22nd, 2009 challenging the legality of resolution must further call for the placing of the sale of the Palestinian possessions under the Palestinian refugees' possessions under international law and Israeli law. In its turn, international trusteeship. "Itijah," another Palestinian organization based in Haifa, issued a general It is the obligation of the Palestinian declaration condemning Israel's initiative to Authority, as it finishes from attending to the distribute, what Itijah termed "spoils of war" marginal issues of allocation of posts, to of 1948 on the World Jewry. Itijah called for take the urgent diplomatic and the Arab and international support to stop this practical steps to addressing this problem, most flagrant theft. for, otherwise, it would find itself, in no time, without land on which it could one day However, a great deal yet has to be done found its new state. that has not really started. Foremost, it is As for the Palestinian people whose census incumbent upon the Arab League to draft has reached the 11 million count, scattered a resolution for the next meeting in in all the Arab and foreign countries, they September of the UN General Assembly would never abandon their rights to their that would call for the condemnation, the homes despite the fact that they have not annulment and immediate halt and been allowed to elect their own reversal of the sale of Palestinian absentees' representatives to a truly new possessions. The draft resolution should call representative Palestinian National on the Secretary General of the United Council. Doubtless, the Palestinian people Nations to appoint a fact finding mission to will ultimately create its true representative visit Israel to collect information on bodies that will defend its interests and put absentee Palestinian refugees' possessions, an end to the plundering of its legitimate ensure their proper due registration of titles property. to the rightful Palestinian owners, and establish estimates of the accrued In the end, justice shall prevail with the revenues for 62 years from these possessions eclipse of Zionism and the ultimate that are due the rightful owners (the subject redemption of Arab Palestine. that was called for by Palestinian refugees'

- Dr. Salman Abu Sitta is the Founder and President of Palestine Land Society in London. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. This article was orgininally published in Arabic and was translated for PalestineChronicle.com by Rajai Masri. Full Report is available in English with maps and tables is available at the link : http://www.hic-mena.org/documents/SellingRefugeesLand2009.pdf.

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 11 The end of Israel? By Hannah Mermelstein

I am feeling optimistic about Palestine. "because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy I know it sounds crazy. How can I use and equal voting rights for all its residents." "optimistic" and "Palestine" in the same sentence when conditions on the ground Perhaps Olmert is giving American Jews too only seem to get worse? Israeli settlements much credit here, but he does expose a continue to expand on a daily basis, the basic contradiction in the minds of most checkpoints and segregated road system American people, Jewish and not: most of are becoming more and more us -- at least in theory -- support equal rights institutionalized, more than 10,000 for all residents of a country. Most of us do Palestinian political prisoners are being held not support rights given on the basis of in Israeli jails, Gaza is under heavy attack ethnicity and religion, especially when the and the borders are entirely controlled by ethnicity/religion being prioritized is one Israel, preventing people from getting their that excludes the vast majority of the most basic human needs met. country's indigenous population. We cannot, of course, forget the history of We can never forget these things and the ethnic cleansing of indigenous people on daily suffering of the people, and yet I dare the American continent. But we must not to say that I am optimistic. Why? Ehud use the existence of past atrocities to justify Olmert. Let me clarify. Better yet, let's let present ones. him clarify: I am optimistic not because I think the "The day will come when the two-state process of ethnic cleansing and apartheid solution collapses, and we face a South in Israel/Palestine is going to end tomorrow, African-style struggle for equal voting rights. but because I can feel the ideology behind As soon as that happens, the state of Israel these policies beginning to collapse. For is finished." years the true meaning of political Zionism has been as ignored as its effects on That's right, the Prime Minister of Israel is Palestinian daily life. And suddenly it is currently trying to negotiate a "two-state beginning to break open. Olmert's solution" specifically because he realizes comments last week are reminiscent of that if he doesn't, Palestinians might begin those of early Zionist leaders who talked to demand, en masse, equal rights to openly of transfer and ethnic cleansing in Israelis. Furthermore, he worries, the world order to create an artificial Jewish majority might begin to see Israel as an apartheid in historic Palestine. state. In actuality, most of the world already sees Israel this way, but Olmert is worried We must expel the Arabs and take their that even Israel's most ardent supporters will places and if we have to use force to begin to catch up with the rest of the guarantee our own right to settle in those world. places -- then we have force at our disposal. - David Ben-Gurion, Israel's "The Jewish organizations, which were our "founding father" and first prime minister, power base in America, will be the first to 1937 come out against us," he told Haaretz,

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 12

So this idea of a "two-state solution" a la In the US, I have been traveling around Olmert -- which I would argue provides speaking to groups about Palestine, and neither a "state" nor a "solution" for the they get it. Even those whose prior Palestinian people -- is the new transfer. It is information has come only from US no longer popular in the world to openly mainstream media, when they hear what is discuss expulsion (though there are political actually happening, they get it. When we parties in Israel that advocate this), but explain the difference between being Olmert hopes that by creating a Palestinian Jewish (a religion or ethnicity), Israeli (a "state" on a tiny portion of historic Palestine, citizenship), and Zionist (an ideology), he can accomplish the same goal: people understand. maintaining an ethno-religious state exclusively for the Jewish people in most of "Does Israel have a right to exist?" people historic Palestine. His plan, as all other plans ask. What does that mean? Do countries Israeli leaders have tried to "negotiate," really have rights, or do people have rights? ignores the basic rights of the two-thirds of The Jewish people have a right to exist, the the Palestinian population who are Israeli people have a right to exist, but what refugees. They, like all other refugees in the does "Israel" mean? Israel defines itself as world, have the internationally recognized the state of the Jewish people. It is not a right to return to their lands and receive state of its citizens. It is a state of many compensation for loss and damages. This people who are not its citizens, like myself, should not be up for negotiation. and is not the state of many people who are its citizens, like the 20 percent of its So why am I optimistic? Why do I think population that is Palestinian. So if we ask a Olmert will fail, if not in the short term, at Palestinian person, "Do you recognize the least in the long term? There are many right for there to be a country on your signs. historic homeland that explicitly excludes you?" what kind of response should we The first and most important is that expect? Palestinian people are holding on. Sometimes by a thread, but holding on So when Olmert warns that we will "face a nonetheless. Despite the hope of many in South African-style struggle for equal voting Israel, Palestinians will not disappear. They rights" and that "the state of Israel [will be] engage in daily acts of nonviolent finished," I get a little flutter of excitement. I resistance, from demonstrations against the think of the 171 Palestinian organizations wall and land confiscation, to simply who have called on the international remaining in their homes against all odds. community to begin campaigns of Young people are joining organizations boycott, divestment, and sanctions against designed to preserve their culture and Israel until Israel complies with international identity. Older Palestinians have said to me, law. This is already a South African-style "We lived through the Ottoman Empire, we struggle, and we outside of Palestine need lived through the British Mandate, we lived to do our part. Especially those of us who through Jordanian rule, and we will live live in the US, the country that gives Israel through Israeli occupation." This too shall more than $10 million every single day, must pass. take responsibility for the atrocities committed in our name and with our In Israel, it seems that within the traditional money. "Zionist left," Jewish Israelis are beginning to have open conversations about the Ultimately, this is our role as Americans. It is exclusivity of Zionism as a political ideology, to begin campaigns in our churches, and are questioning it more and more. synagogues, mosques, universities, cities,

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 13 unions, etc. It is not to broker false the beginning of democracy, human rights, negotiations between occupier and and some semblance of justice in a land occupied, and it is not to muse over that has almost forgotten what that means. solutions the way I have above. But one can dream. And as a Jewish-American, I know that while it might be scary to some, while it will require a lot of imagination, the (first publication in The Electronic Intifada, end of Israel as a Jewish state could mean 19 December 2007).

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 14 The Real Roots of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict By Julian Kunnie

There is no question that the current being stripped and humiliated in front of Palestinian-Israeli conflict is now the most youngsters, and ambulances prevented explosive in the world today. The violent from attending to the injured and incursions by the Israeli army into the wounded. U. S. supplied “Apache” occupied territories and the invasion of helicopters deliberately targeted civilians Lebanon in 2006 that resulted in over 240 according to numerous Palestinian deaths and 50,000 people fleeing their witnesses. Ramallah and Jenin resembled homes in south Lebanon, is yet another places devastated by an earthquake, the indication of the grossly violent nature of stench of dead bodies rising under the the Israeli regime, akin to the militaristic rubble serving as a terrifying reminder of the intransigent apartheid regime of South carnage, all under the pretext of Africa of the 1970s and 1980s that terrorized “combating terrorism.” The bombing of the neighboring African states of Angola, offices of the late Yasser Arafat and the Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. Palestinian Authority and the sadistic and Factually, Israel is a full-fledged apartheid indiscriminate violence of the Israeli military state, a settler-colonial outpost that against Palestinian civilians and the denial essentially serves the designs of United of food and water to thousands of people, States imperialist hegemony in that part of triggered protests around the world, in the world, home to the largest oil reserves places as far away as Indonesia. The U. S. on the planet. Israel is currently repeating government which supplied the helicopters its bellicose behavior of 1982 when it and fighter bombers to Israel then tacitly illegally invaded Lebanon to force out the endorsed support of the Israeli regime to Palestine Liberation Organization, killing protect itself against “terrorist Palestinians,” close to 20,000 civilians in the process. In asserting that Yasser Arafat had invited 1982, it laid siege to the Palestinian refugee such reprisals because of his inability to camps of Sabra and Chatilla, and under curb suicide bombers. As with most the watchful eyes of then Israeli defense colonial situations, the U. S. arrogated to minister, Ariel Sharon, gave sanction to the one person among the colonized to be South Lebanese army that massacred over chiefly responsible for the actions of all who 900 Palestinian women, men, and children. are colonized. In 2004, former U.S. president George W. Bush referred to Israeli In 2004, once again, Israeli military forces Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as “a man of pummeled the Palestinian refugee camps peace,” the same man who supervised the of Jenin and Balata resulting in the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian massacre of hundreds of women, men, and refugees at Sabra and Chatilla in 1982. children. All of these acts are war crimes Today, Israeli leader Benjamim Netanyahu and constitute acts of genocide, given the continues to defy the international intentional nature of the assassination of community and even U.S. president Barrack unarmed civilians. In Jenin, houses were Obama’s call for a dismantling of all Israeli razed to the ground by Israeli tanks with no settlements in the occupied territories, prior warning. Accounts by journalists and indications of the refusal to recognize the Palestinians who survived described horrific legitimacy of Palestinian statehood. accounts of executions of unarmed civilians, mothers shot as they attempted to In July, 2006, the world witnessed the rescue wounded children, elderly men outrageous criminal acts of the Israeli

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 15 apartheid-like regime against the excruciating poverty and hunger for Palestinian people, who are surrounded by Palestinian families in the West Bank and a towering wall around the West Bank and Gaza, insisting that Hamas remained a hemmed in by barbed-wire fences, with terrorist organization. Such is the character 10,000 people being held in detention in of U.S. support for democracy among Israeli jails where torture and humiliation are oppressed and colonized people like the widespread. Lebanon has borne time and Palestinians! This is precisely the reason that again the brunt of Israeli military aggression, Palestinian women burnt Israeli, U.S., and with the Israeli regime claiming that it’s European flags in an angry anti-Israeli invasion of Lebanon is essential to the protest in Gaza City on July 18—because ousting of “militants” from Hezbollah, and in Israel is viewed as an extension of U.S. and retaliation for the killing of eight Israeli European Union imperialism and takes soldiers and the abduction of two others. comfort in protection by these Israel’s response is not mere overkill where superpowers. hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian lives are equated with those of two Israelis; it is The pro-Zionist media establishment in the also criminal in its intent and effect. Why is it U.S. that exerts a stranglehold on news that most of those killed in Lebanon are networks around the world continues to overwhelmingly civilian, including villagers portray the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a with women and children, such as the eight tit-for-tat historical feud in which both sides in the village of Aitaroun on July 16 and are apportioned equal culpability in the families huddled in the basement of a supposed “endless cycle of violence,” building in Tyre on the same day? Why where Palestinian “suicide bombers” are does the world stand by idly, observing viewed as the essential problem, provoking daily pictures in newspapers of women and legitimate aggressive Israeli aerial children standing outside the ruins of homes bombings of civilian areas and targeted pulverized by Israeli bombs, as we did of a assassinations of Palestinian political woman and her children in Beit Hanoun in leaders. Certainly, the killing of Israeli the northern Gaza Strip on July 19? civilians is regrettable and tragic. Yet, what has gone largely unmentioned is the fact In line with its overt support and that over 2,000 Palestinian civilians were maintenance of Israeli aggression, the U. S. killed by the Israeli military between 2002 government continues to threaten a veto and 2004, most under the age of 15 years. of any resolution that condemns Israel’s Are youth under 15 the real terrorists who genocidal attacks on Palestinian and pose a threat to Israeli civilians? Over 25,000 Lebanese civilians at the UN Security Palestinian civilians have been wounded Council since the U.S. views the Israeli since the beginning of the second Intifada. attacks as legitimate actions against “terrorists.” How can one equate the Owing to its ownership generally by actions of a small militia like Hezbollah or mammoth corporations, including military Hamas gunmen with that of a regime industrial giants (the National Broadcasting armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons Corporation in the U.S. is owned by General that employs its massive airpower and Electric, for instance), the press generally military might to decimate and annihilate regurgitates the ideological position held defenseless civilian populations? Following by the White House, which justifies the huge Hamas’ victory in free and fair elections in infusions of military and economic aid to the occupied Palestinian territories, the U. S. Israel, up to $3 billion per year, for a joined Israel earlier this year in punishing the population of just over 3 million people. Palestinians. It froze the funding of Israel has the fourth most powerful military in Palestinian civil service sectors through the world, built with the technical and international donor agencies, causing financial assistance of the U. S. over the

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 16 past 50 years. It possesses nuclear “violent terrorists” and demonized, weapons, assisting the apartheid regime of principally because they have never South Africa to explode an atomic device agreed to surrender their national identity in 1979. and right to their homeland in Palestine, even though they are the only people in It is critical that for any lasting solution to the world living under direct military the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that the real occupation for over 50 years. To depict roots of the situation be told. First, the roots Palestinians as an essential barbaric, of the conflict are not millennia old as we savage and violent people by nature and have been led to believe, but actually culture is racist, and ought not be began with the rise of the modern Zionist permitted in any information coverage movement in the late 19th century. After because it distorts the existence of a World War I, Jewish immigration to Palestine people and perpetuates hatred and lies intensified through the 1920s and 1930s, about them irrationally. During the prompting fears by the indigenous presence of Moorish Arabs in Spain from Palestinian Arab population of becoming a the 8th century, it was in Andalusia where minority in their own land and resulting in Arabs, Jews, and Christians thrived outbreaks of attacks on Jewish settlers. By peacefully for centuries. It was Averroes, 1939, as World War I was launched, Arabs the Muslim scholar of the 12th century, who constituted 69% of the Palestinian preserved the works of Aristotle in Arabic population, and Jews were 31%. and subsequently made these available to Notwithstanding this population disparity, the Latin speaking world, even though the UN partitioned Palestine, allocating 55% Christian emperors strictly prohibited such of the land to the minority Jews who owned works. It was the Muslim intellectuals of only 7% of the land. This action Cordova and Granada to whom many precipitated the opposition by Palestinians Jewish intellectuals turned to for inspiration, to what was perceived as an unjust all of which was stamped out, not by distribution of land that significantly Muslim intolerance in the late 15th century, disadvantaged them and made them but by Christian totalitarianism under the pariahs in the land of their birth. The Catholic sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella. establishment of the Israeli state The Muslim world then provided refuge to subsequently in 1948 caused 700,000 Jewish communities seeking protection Palestinians to flee from the war raging against Christian fundamentalist violence. around them. Thousands saw their homes bulldozed and erased, forcing them to The prejudice against Palestinians and become refugees in occupied Palestine Arabs must stop. Today, in the land of and exiles in other parts of the Arab world. Jesus’ birth, shortly after the The Palestinians did not leave Palestine commemoration of the passion and death volitionally because they were ordered to of a Palestinian Jewish rabbi over 2,000 by Arab military commanders who wanted years ago, the war rages, predicated on to “push the Jews into the sea” as is the colonial violence and the politics of popularly held view. Even noted Israeli occupation. Since the Oslo agreement of historians like Avi Shlaim and Han Pappe 1993, the construction of Israeli settlements confirm this fact of Palestinian dispossession in the occupied territories has intensified, and forced expulsion. It was not hatred of igniting anger among the Palestinians who Jews that provoked Palestinian attacks on view such well-provided and resourced Jewish settlers, but the fact of losing homes settlements as pockets of Israeli affluence and possessions, family, and land. amidst widescale Palestinian poverty. Just like the attempts to place arm bands with It is not the Arabs who generated hatred of numbers on the arms of Palestinian youth, Jews. The Palestinians are portrayed as kindling pictures of Nazi Germany

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 17 (denounced even by an Israeli military such in an apartheid-free South Africa? Is general) these settlements are viewed as this too much for the Western world to humiliating of an oppressed people. accept? Must blood continue to be spilled, Young suicide bombers reflect the deep of a people whose only crime is that they sense of hopelessness and despair of a are Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim, living in people who have been refugees for over an area surrounded by massive oil 50 years, and who view all negotiations as resources needed for Western futile because their dream of a homeland consumption? Is the real reason that the U. fades daily. S. fears a Palestinian state because it could be a democratic and progressive state The Palestinians need a homeland unlike most regimes in the region, and unconditionally, and have agreed to co- which could inspire the Arab masses to also exist with an Israeli state so long as they agitate for true democracy and justice, have a portion of their homeland returned where the billions of dollars of oil sale and can once more live as a sovereign revenues could be used to fund the people. Alternatively, why could not development of Arab peoples and not be Palestinians and Israelis live in a secular re-invested in the West, as is currently the democratic state where everyone’s case? The truth cannot be suppressed counted equally? Is it because the Israeli’s forever. The occupation of Palestine must fear the power of democracy where they end now for a lasting peace to prevail in would be a minority, just as whites feared the region.

Julian Kunnie is Director and Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, in the USA and the author most recently of Indigenous Peoples’ Wisdom and Power: Affirming our Legacy Through Narratives (Ashgate, 2006). His forthcoming work is Globalization and Its Victims: Wars Against Mother Earth and the Poor of the World (Palgrave-Macmillan).

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 18 Arno J. Mayer, Plowshares into Swords By Sam Ayache

Like Ilan Pappe or Shlomo Sand, Arno sovereign nation-state – are neither Joseph Mayer belongs to a recent school demarcated nor recognized internationall”. of historians of Jewish origin who call into As a consequence, the State of Israel was question the founding myths of Zionism and established “as Joshua did in his days, with the state of Israel. Arno J.Mayer is currently fire and sword” and that is why plowshares Professor of History, Emeritus, at Princeton were turned into swords and not the University. He recognizes himself in “Isaac contrary. Deutscher’s profile as a non-Jewish Jew”. He was born (Luxembourg, 1926) into a The Arab Question Zionist family, his father “having embraced a left-humanist Zionism” while studying at One of the founding myths of Israel is the the University of Heidelberg. In 1940, his slogan: “A land without a people for a family fled Luxembourg and “landed” in people without a land”, denying the very New York City in 1941. Mayer became a US existence of Palestinian Arabs in the eyes of citizen in 1944. western public opinion. Contrary to this slogan, Mayer explains that the “Arab Violence as an instrument of sovereignty Question” was at the heart of the debates within the Zionist movement: “By the mid In his first controversial book– published in 1920s, the Zionist stance vis-à-vis the Arabs 1999 - “The Furies – Violence and terror in became a public political issue. In the fall the French and Russian Revolutions”, Mayer of 1925, David Ben-Gurion, speaking for the argues that violence is an objective fast-growing labor movement, declared historical necessity, indispensable to every that, whereas Zionists had “completely “founding act” in history. Following the ignored” the Arab community and same research, “Plowshares into Swords”, proceeded “as if Palestine were his latest book, is a reflection on violence, uninhabited…the time for such naïveté had terror, sovereignty, religion and resistance in long since passed, never to return”. the Middle East since the foundation of Zionism. The title comes from the Book of But whereas Vladimir Jabotinsky and the Isaiah 2.4: “and they shall beat their swords Revisionists – so-called because they into plowshares”. But whereas Isaiah had a wanted to revise the mandatory borders peaceful vision of the settlement of the and include the east bank of the Jordan ancient Jews in the Promised Land, Mayer into Palestine - proposed to rely on the shows that Joshua prevailed over Isaiah in force of arms to secure Jewish dominance the founding of modern Israel. in Palestine, Ben-Gurion trusted in the force of economics and asserted that Zionism He writes: “Like most other nation-builders would realize “the immigration of masses of before them, between 1945 and 1949, the Jews to establish a new economy… Zionists used both violence and force to designed to absorb a large Jewish establish the state of Israel. Warranted by majority”. And since the Arabs were the U.N. General Assembly, its government economically unfit, Ben-Gurion warned: claimed and exercised the monopoly of “They must not be allowed to interfere with the legitimate use of physical violence us”. following the 1948 war. But Israel did not so “within a given territory”: to this day its Mayer is one of the first historians to borders – an essential criterion of the understand the crucial role of the

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 19 Palestinian refugees in the Middle East: “The Embracing Buber’s views on the ordeal of the Palestinian refugees became establishment of a “Jewish spiritual and the original sin of Israel’s foundation and cultural home” – and not a Jewish State - in the curse of Middle Eastern politics and Palestine, Mayer comments Magnes’s diplomacy… As a matter of course, the statement: “The last thing the Israelites refugees have become the prime social needed, he insisted, was a “normal nation carriers and moving spirits of the Palestinian like any other” in Palestine - Herzl’s notion - resistance”, he writes. one that could not be born or survive except by the use of force, at inordinate A terror or rogue State human cost, for want of an agreement with the Arab peoples beyond its borders. That Mayer’s views are directly connected to fall [1929] Magnes set about developing those of Martin Buber and Judah Magnes, the idea of binationalism for a pluralistic the first chancellor of the Hebrew University civil and political society”. In Magnes and (Mont Scorpus, Jerusalem), who were in Mayer’s views, the creation of a Jewish favor of a single bi-national state within the State in May 1948 inevitably led to endless territory of Mandatory Palestine. Clearly, violence and war against the Arabs “at Mayer shows that the crucial opposition inordinate human cost”. between Vladimir Jabotinsky (the modern Joshua) and Martin Buber (the modern Mayer writes: “One hundred years after the Isaiah) led to the creation of the State of founding Zionist congress in Basel, and Israel as a military state. The question is some sixty years after the Judeocide and raised: How did Zionism give birth to a Independence, Israel is arguably a terror or political entity that became “a garrison rogue state – no longer a beacon unto the state run by generals and imbued with a world”. fortress mentality”? The Israeli armed forces According to Mayer, the creation of this “garrison state” began in the 1920s, when A major part of Mayer’s study deals with Jabotinsky’s Revisionists started to gain the Israeli armed forces as “a pivotal ascendance within the Zionist movement. institution of Israeli civil and political Jabotinsky and his partisans proposed to society”. He writes: “The military build “an iron wall” of overwhelming military establishment has also become closely strength to break the Arabs and conquer intertwined with the universities, especially Greater Palestine, including the east bank the faculties of physical, natural and of the Jordan. Mayer reports that in computer sciences. The weapons industry September 1929, in the immediate in particular, is a large sector in the national aftermath of the first Intifada, Magnes economy, given its phenomenal budget; wrote a letter to Weizmann, the leader of and the armed services, including the the Zionist Congress, warning him against intelligence services Mossad and Shin Bet, this “imperialist, military, and political are regular customers of nearly all other policy… based upon mass major sectors. Unsurprisingly, two-thirds of immigration…and the creation (forcibly if the aid the military receives from the U.S. necessary) of a Jewish majority, no matter must be spent on made-in-America how much this oppresses the Arabs… or ordnance. Naturally this proviso invites deprives them of their rights”. Magnes steady collaboration between Israeli and noted that the “Jewish National Home” of American arms firms, with active and the 1917 Balfour Declaration was “built on retired senior officers on both sides trading bayonets and oppression”. on their access to the military and political corridors of powers”.

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 20 As Israelis come to realize “the Religious Zionism indispensability of America for the survival of the country”, Israeli governments rely on Very few historians deal with the ultra- Zionist lobbies in the U.S.: “The American Orthodox community in Israel and their Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is close links with U.S. Christian Zionists and one of America’s most powerful lobbies… It Evangelicals, “an outreach publicly has a multi-million-dollar yearly budget and encouraged by Israel” Mayer says, adding: a large staff. Although not registered as an “…in 2004 Benny Elon, Israel’s Minister of agent of the Israeli government, AIPAC is in Tourism, presented televangelist Pat lockstep with it”. Robertson of the Christian Broadcasting Network with Israel’s Ambassador Award”. Mayer notes that the Israeli military establishment is “barely subject to civilian Mayer reports that the Jewish ultra- control”. It is a state within the state. Orthodox community makes up some Although Israel has free presidential and 800,000 of a Jewish population of 5.4 parliamentary elections, the electorate is million. With an average of close to seven always asked to choose between children per family, “their offspring make up alternative military options: “High-ranking some 23 per cent of Israel’s first-grade officers hold key political positions, from pupils, all of them in parochial schools”. As prime minister to the ministries of war, for their religious leaders and chief rabbis, intelligence, and foreign affairs… Active, “they exert considerable power in society, retired, and reserve officers form a cohesive culture and policy…The public exchequer and immensely influential corps with a substantially subsidizes the 60 per cent of shared temper and a way of thinking. The ultra-Orthodox men who do not work in military’s influence is all the greater order to devote themselves to full-time because of the fundamental consensus of Torah study. As a consequence, over 50 per the political parties on major diplomatic cent live below the poverty line, yet they and military issues”. receive disproportionate welfare subsidies as well as grants from the yeshivas”. As for And Mayer reports that Israel ranks first in the laws exempting them from military the world in terms of per capita military service, Mayer notes: “Between 1975 and spending with 10 per cent of GNP, ahead 2007, the deferment of draft-age men for of the U.S. which ranks third. The outsized reasons of religious faith rose from 2.5 per military outlays “squeeze social spending”. cent to about 11 per cent, or 50,000, the In 2005, for instance, “roughly 34 per cent of equivalent of some four divisions – a striking Israelis, including Palestinian Israelis, earned increase given the hardline settlement and the minimum wage or less”. Moreover, the occupation policy championed during armed forces serve mainly as protector of these same years by most ultra-Orthodox the 450,000 settlers - nearly 10 per cent of and religious Zionists”. Israel’s Jewish population – in over 140 settlements in East Jerusalem and the West In the same manner, Mayer also examines Bank, in addition to the 17,000 settlers on the emergence of Muslim fundamentalism, the Golan Heights. “With compulsory Islamism and the Iranian issues. He says: military service for both men and women, “The defensive Islamism is not of a piece; and long-term reserve duty for men, hardly relatively few of its votaries are a family has not had a member or close fundamentalists or terrorists… To the extent friend helping to man roadblocks and that Islamism, in whatever guise, involves border crossings, tear down houses…in the resistance, it is a product of pent-up anger name of law and order” amid a population and mortification…Not unlike President of irate and defiant Arabs. Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, who, sworn to secular anti-Western nationalism, had

Dialogue Review – september 2009 – number 24 Page 21 reached for hydroelectric power and political inconsistency in Israel”. His last threatened to close the Suez Canal, chapter titled “The Wages of Hubris” is the Ahmadinejad, wrapped in the mantle of narrative of a long series of daily violence Islam, reaches for nuclear power and between Israelis and Palestinians which threatens to block the Strait of Hormuz”. calls into question the “two-State-solution”. Mayer’s implicit conclusion is: “why not go Mayer concludes: “The religionization of back to Buber’s solution of bi-nationalism in politics and the politicization of religion a single state?” foster growing social dissension and

“Plowshares into Swords” – Verso 2008 – London-New-York

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