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Israelis unaware of the abuses in their name
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ANTICIPATING the usual complaints, generated, one assumes, from a department or outpost of the Israeli Embassy, to the welcome article by Sir Geoffrey Bindman (Forum, July 5), I hope you may publish another eyewitness observation.
I learned from Sir Geoffrey’s account of the provisions of the 1948 Israeli constitution, in particular the assurance of rights “irrespective of race, religion or sex”.
He quite rightly contrasts this with the effects of Israel’s brutal military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza but also refers to abuses of the rights of Israeli citizens.
In March 2005 I was taken on a “tour” of a disappeared village in Gallilee (Israel).
Its houses and land had been taken over to make way for a new development and its inhabitants told to move into two neighbouring Palestinian villages.
Our guide knew something of the location and eventually found an elderly couple looking after a goat and its new-born kid on a hillside where their new home had been roughly built.
To find them took many minutes of searching alongside roads and lanes, as all the signposts had been removed. They invited us to sit with them and pressed us with unfailing Palestinian hospitality to stay and eat with them. We managed to make our excuse that we were expected for lunch nearby.
In this case there was no military ‘security’ involved: the civil administration had carried out the clearance.
‘Security’ was also plainly not the reason for the St Valentine’s Day attack this year on the boys’ school in Abu Dis in the West Bank, where Israeli military control is an everyday part of Palestinian life. In that case a military vehicle entered the school grounds, soldiers piled out and set about beating the boys.
Protecting their heads with their arms resulted in broken bones in hands and arms. The Camden Abu Dis Friendship Association (CADFA) has pursued this case, resulting recently in the cancellation by the Israeli military of a full investigation.
Most citizens of Israel are unaware of the abuses carried out in their names. Indeed, even the Israeli Embassy in London, to whom this brutal incident was reported by members of CADFA, at first brought forward the absence of any report in the Israeli media to throw doubt on news of the attack.
News blackouts are perhaps the first line of oppression and human rights abuse. Thank you CNJ for inviting Sir Geoffrey to write in your open Forum.
NICOLA SEYD
WC1
• GEOFFREY Bindman ends his incisive and thoughtful article (Forum, July 5) with the question “Will Tony Blair be the knight in shining armour who will rescue the Palestinians? We need a miracle.”
I suspect that no one, apart from Tony Blair himself, believes that a prime minister who led his country to a bloody war against Iraq, and was happy to impose economic and financial sanctions on the Palestinian people, will ever enjoy the trust of the Palestinians and the Arab world. What is needed is not a “miracle” but a grassroots direct action which will exercise genuine pressure on the state of Israel.
Recently, a UNISON motion followed in the steps of the National Union of Journalists and the University and College Union’s motions which called for a debate concerning the imposition of economic and academic boycotts on Israel. A letter, signed by 99 Israelis (including myself), was sent to UNISON in support of its conference motion. It stated that “as Israelis, we stress that divestment and boycott actions taken by individuals or organisations against the occupation are neither Anti-Semitic nor Anti-Israel.
We also recognise that boycott, divestment and sanctions constitute one of the few effective methods left to civil society in the absence of intervention by governments and official policy makers.
A newly established British body – Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods – holds the same conviction.
I hope that a concerted campaign against Israel’s defiant violation of UN resolutions and human rights law will help end a long occupation, making way for a viable and independent Palestinian state
RUTH TENNE
Goldhurst Terrace, NW6
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