Thursday, March 29, 2007

UN Committee Urges Israel to Revoke the Citizenship Law, Dismantle the Wall,

UN Committee Urges Israel to Revoke the Citizenship Law, Dismantle the Wall, Bind
the Jewish National Fund to Anti-Discrimination Principles, and
Recognize the Unrecognized Villages

Adalah: “The UN Committee, which is composed of legal experts, reached these concluding observations based on the principles of anti-discrimination. Therefore the concluding observations constitute an official statement that institutionalized discrimination exists in Israel.”*

On 9 March 2007, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (“the Committee”) issued its Concluding Observations, following its review last month of Israel’s implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (“ICERD” or “the Convention”). In its Concluding Observations, the Committee emphasized 25 areas of concern and recommendations regarding Israel’s compliance with the Convention concerning the rights of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Representatives of Adalah, Attorney Sawsan Zaher and Rina Rosenberg, Esq., and other Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organizations participated in the UN sessions held on 22-23 February 2007 in Geneva.

The Concluding Observations reflected numerous issues highlighted by Adalah in its reports to the Committee noting Israel’s violations of the ICERD.

A high-level delegation of 13 state representatives, headed by Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Yitzhak Levanon, also participated in the Committee’s sessions. Nevertheless, many of the questions sent in advance to Israel remained unanswered, as the Committee noted at the outset.

The main concerns and recommendations adopted by the Committee, which is composed of eighteen independent experts including law professors, lawyers and former judges, included:

1) The right to equality and a prohibition on racial discrimination should be explicitly included in the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty.

2) Israel should ensure that the definition of the state as a Jewish state does not result in any systemic distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin in the enjoyment of human rights.

3) Israel should ensure “equality in the right to return to one’s country and in the possession of property”.

4) Israel should ensure that the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund, which manage land, housing and services exclusively for the Jewish population, are “bound by the principle of non-discrimination in the exercise of their functions.”

5) Israel should revoke the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order) – 2003, and “ensure that restrictions on family reunification are strictly necessary and limited in scope, and are not applied on the basis of nationality, residency or membership of a particular community.”

6) Israel’s policy of affording highly advantageous benefits, particularly for housing and education, to those who perform military service is incompatible with the Convention, bearing in mind that most Arab citizens do not perform national service.

7) Israel should assess the significance and impact of Israel Land Administration’s “social suitability” admission criterion to small communities, as it may allow in practice for the exclusion of Arab citizens from some State-controlled land. The Committee recommended that Israel take all measures to ensure that State land is allocated without discrimination, direct or indirect, based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.

8) Israel should assess the extent to which discriminatory attitudes by employers against Arabs, scarcity of jobs near Arab communities, and lack of daycare centers in Arab villages are a cause of high unemployment rates, particularly for Arab women.

9) Israel should enquire into possible alternatives to the relocation of inhabitants of unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev/Naqab to planned towns, in particular through the recognition of these villages and the recognition of the rights of the Bedouin to own, develop, control and use their communal lands, territories and resources traditionally owned or otherwise inhabited or used by them.

10) Israel should address concerns that the psychometric examinations used to test aptitudes, ability and personality indirectly discriminates against Arab citizens in accessing higher education.

11) Israel should ensure that laws and programmes be equally devoted to the promotion of cultural institutions and the protection of holy sites of both Jewish and other religious communities.

12) Israel should increase its efforts to prevent racially motivated offences and hate speech, and ensure that relevant criminal law provisions are effectively implemented by prosecuting politicians, government officials and other public figures for hate speech against the Arab minority.

13) “A high number of complaints filed by Arab citizens against law enforcement officers are not properly and effectively investigated and that the Ministry of Justice’s Police Investigations Unit (Mahash) lacks independence.” The Committee regretted that Israel provided no comments in this regard as requested or information as to whether the persons responsible for the October 2000 killings have been prosecuted and sentenced.

14) Israel’s position that the ICERD does not apply in the OPT “cannot be sustained under the letter and spirit of the Convention, or under international law as also affirmed by the International Court of Justice.” Moreover “the Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.”

15) Israel should cease the construction of the Wall in the OPT, including in and around East Jerusalem, dismantle the structure, and make reparation for all damage. Israel should also “give full effect” to the 2004 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice.

16) Severe restrictions on the freedom of movement in the OPT targeting a particular national or ethnic group, especially through the wall, checkpoints, restricted roads and permit system, have created hardship and have had a highly detrimental impact on the enjoyment of human rights by Palestinians, in particular their rights to freedom of movement, family life, work, education and health.

17) Different laws and practices apply to Palestinians and to Israelis in the OPT, in particular the unequal distribution of water resources to the detriment of Palestinians, the disproportionate targeting of Palestinians in house demolitions, and different criminal laws leading to prolonged detention and harsher punishments for Palestinians for the same offences.

18) While stressing that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is an important cultural and religious site for people living in the OPT, the Committee urged Israel to ensure that the excavations in no way endanger the Mosque and impede access to it.

19) Israel should increase its efforts to protect Palestinians against violence perpetuated by Jewish settlers, particularly in Hebron, and ensure that such incidents are investigated in a prompt, transparent and independent manner, are prosecuted and sentenced, and that avenues for redress are offered to the victims.

The Committee also recommended that Israel make its reports and the Committee’s concluding observations readily available to the public in both Hebrew and Arabic.

Israel should submit answers to questions not provided in its submission and representations within one year, together with information on any first steps taken towards implementing the Committee’s recommendations. Israel should submit its next periodic reports and address all points raised in the concluding observations in February 2010.

* For more information, see Adalah’s Special Report on UN CERD available at: http://www.adalah.org/eng/cerd.php

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

‘Marriage to an Arab is national treason’

Roee Nahmias
Published: 03.27.07, 19:55 / Israel News

'Over half of the Jewish population in Israel believes the marriage of a Jewish woman to an Arab man is equal to national treason, according to a recent survey by the Geocartography Institute.

The survey, which was conducted for the Center Against Racism, also found that over 75 percent of participants did not approve of apartment buildings being shared between Arabs and Jews. Sixty percent of participants said they would not allow an Arab to visit their home.

Five hundred Jewish men and women participated in the poll, which was published Tuesday.

According to the survey, racism against Arabs in Israel has seen a sharp rise since a similar survey was conducted two years ago.

In 2006, 247 racist acts against Arabs were reported, as opposed to 225 one year prior.

About 40 percent of participants agreed that “Arabs should have their right to vote for Knesset revoked”. The number was 55 percent lower in the previous survey. Also, over half of the participants agreed that Israel should encourage its Arab citizens to immigrate from the country.

Over half of the participants said they would not want to work under the direct management of an Arab, and 55 percent said “Arabs and Jews should be separated at entertainment sites”.

‘Arab culture inferior’

Participants were asked what they felt when they overheard someone speaking Arabic. Thirty-one percent said they felt hatred, while 50 percent said they felt fear.

Over 56 percent of participants said they believed that Israel’s Arab citizens posed both a security and a demographic threat to the country.

When asked what they thought of Arab culture, over 37 percent replied, “The Arab culture is inferior.”

“The Center Against Racism has set itself a goal to monitor all racial incidents against Arab citizens, and to fight racism as much as possible under the law through public action,” the center’s annual report said.

Bachar Ouda, the center's director, said the survey’s findings were worrisome, and urged the government to intervene in the situation.


“We call on the education minister to take the gloves off and deal with the issue seriously, because it is dangerous to coexistence. We call on the state prosecutions office, and the attorney general to take action,” Ouda said.'

Song Only Obama Hears, Vision Only Obama

Mr. Obama is often depicted as a politician who cancommunicate a message of hope to his listeners. But amessage of false hope is destructive and shows adisregard for the suffering of the victims.

By Ira Glunts
PalestineChronicle.com

In an otherwise unremarkable recent speech to members
of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC), Senator and Presidential candidate Barack
Obama concluded his talk by making a startling
reference to his brief January 2006 visit to the
village of Fassuta [1] in northern Israel. The Senator
spoke of “the signs of life and hope and promise” he
witnessed there. Toward the end of his speech Mr.
Obama stated,

Peace with security. That is the Israeli people's
overriding wish. It [emphases mine] is what I saw in
the town of Fassouta on the border with Lebanon. There
are 3,000 residents of different faiths and histories.
There is a community center supported by Chicago’s own
Roman Catholic Archdiocese and the Jewish Federation
of Metro Chicago. It is where the education of the
next generation has begun: in a small village, all
faiths and nationalities living together with mutual
respect. [2]

The reality is that the village of Fassuta [3] is not
an integrated community as Senator Obama claims, but
one that is comprised almost solely of Melkite
Christian, Palestinian Arabs. The Melkites, who are
Roman Catholics, are part of a greater Christian Arab
community, who are themselves a minority among
Palestinians living within the pre-1967 Israeli
borders. Of course the vast majority of Arabs in both
the Israel delineated by the pre-1967 borders and the
Israel delineated by the post-1967 borders, are
Muslims.

According to official Israeli government statistics
for 2005, there were no Jewish residents in Fassuta.
In a January 11, 2006 article entitled, “Obama Visits
Remote Israeli Town with Chicago Ties,” Chuck Goudie,
a reporter at the local Chicago ABC television
station, states that “[a]ll 3,000 residents of
Fassouta are Israeli, Palestinian and Catholic.”
(Earlier in the article Goudie incorrectly states that
a majority of Arabs in Israel are Christian.) This
article, amazingly, is posted on Senator Obama’s
official Senate web site [4].

The support that the Catholic Archdiocese and Jewish
Federation have given the villagers of Fassuta is
commendable. It is only appropriate that Mr. Obama
would want to acknowledge the good works of his
constituents. But implying that what he saw there
fourteen months ago is an example of present progress
toward peace in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict when
the region has witnessed so much strife and hardship
subsequent to his visit is disingenuous.

Fassuta, like other Palestinian villages, suffers from
a lack of services and infrastructure as a direct
result of Israeli government policy. According to the
Israeli Central Department of Statistics figures, the
average income in Fassuta is 3748 NIS (New Israeli
shekels) per wage earner as compared with 6835 NIS for
the entire country. The village is rated as average
in a government devised socio-economic scale (5 of a
possible 10). A past resident whose family still
live there told me that he “wouldn't describe Fassuta
as a ‘poor’ village, although the authorities treat it
the way they treat all other Arab villages - with
total neglect and dismissiveness.”

The government of Israel views its Palestinian
population as second class citizens at best, and
officially sanctioned discrimination against its
minority communities is openly acknowledged. To the
vast majority of Palestinians, who are Sunni Muslims,
the small gesture of outside support given to a
Christian village would not be viewed as evidence of
new signs of progress. But it would be a reminder of
the Israeli policy of favoring smaller sectarian
groups over the larger Muslim population, in a policy
known in Israel as “divide and conquer.” This policy
has been most effectively employed with the Druze
community.

In American foreign policy discussions, the above
internal state of affairs tends to go unrecognized.
Sometime this is because we choose to ignore it,
sometimes it is because of lack of knowledge. Often
it is because we focus on what many think is the
greater, more pressing and more soluble problem – the
disposition of territory Israel acquired as a result
of the 1967 War and the possible creation of a
Palestinian state. Obama’s speech conflates both
discussions with equal measures of falsehoods and
flights of fancy.

I would never expect Senator Obama to champion the
cause of the Palestinian citizens of Israel during his
campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
In the current US political climate, if he were to do
so in front of AIPAC, the least of his problems would
be alienating his immediate audience. However, I do
expect a Presidential candidate to not draw completely
irrelevant and erroneous conclusions about what a town
like Fassuta signifies in relation to the “[p]eace
with security… [t]hat is the Israeli people’s
overriding wish.”

I wonder if Obama even knows that some seven months
after his visit, during the last Lebanese/Israeli war,
Fassuta sustained heavy damage from Hezbollah
shelling. I wonder if Obama knows that the Israeli
government does not build bomb shelters in Palestinian
villages, as they do in Jewish settlements. This was
a particularly egregious oversight in Fassuta since
during the last war “Israeli artillery units were
stationed in fields near …[the village]…, from where
they exchanged shell and rocket fire with H[e]zbollah
units.” [5] I wonder if Senator Obama knows that the
residents of Fassuta had to bring the Israeli
government to court in order to receive equal
compensation to that received by those living in
neighboring Jewish towns for damage caused by the
shelling. Although the residents won their case, it is
not clear if they will actually receive compensation
equal to that of their Jewish neighbors. [6]

Fassuta’s two most famous natives are Sabri Jiryis and
Anton Shammas. Jiryis is a founding member of Al-Ard,
a writer, lawyer and political activist. He is a
prominent, long-time member of Fatah, who returned to
Israel in 1994 after 24 years in exile. His classic
1966 book, The Arabs In Israel, was updated and
translated into English in 1976. [7] Jiryis
presently divides his time between Ramallah in the
West Bank and Fassuta. Anton Shammas, wrote the
highly regarded Hebrew autobiographical novel
Arabesques, and has been living in a self-imposed
exile in Ann, Arbor, Michigan where he is a university
professor. Shammas has written about his own
difficulties living as a Palestinian in his native
land. [8] I do not imagine that Mr. Obama knows about
or has met either of these two men, although I
remember reading that Mr. Shammas once lived in
Chicago . Maybe if Obama had spoken to them, he would
not be so quick to point to Fassuta as “[p]roof, that
in the heart of so much peril, there were signs of
life and hope and promise-that the universal song for
peace plays on.”

American politicians are famous for making outrageous
statements which demonstrate that they are totally
unaware of the cultural and political realities in the
foreign nations they visit. It is disappointing that
Mr. Obama could be so deaf to the song that he heard,
since according to Chicago writer and activist Ali
Abunimah, [9] the Senator had attended numerous
Arab-American events when he was an Illinois state
politician. To describe an atypical village in
northern Israel as a sign of hope and promise, and a
kind of paradise of dancing children, is to sing a
tune which will grate on the ears of those who are
familiar with the region.

Mr. Obama is often depicted as a politician who can
communicate a message of hope to his listeners. But a
message of false hope is destructive and shows a
disregard for the suffering of the victims. I do not
know what Mr. Obama wanted to communicate to his
listeners at AIPAC. However, what he communicated to
those who are knowledgeable about the
Palestinian/Israeli conflict is that he is not at this
time prepared to seriously discuss Middle Eastern
policy.

Notes

1. The name of the village is generally
transliterated as “Fassuta,” and alternately “Fasuta,”
or “Fassouta” The latter spelling is used in the
text of Obama’s AIPAC speech and in the cited Goudie
article.
2. The full text of the speech is available at
Senator Obama’s US Senate web site
http://obama.senate.gov/speech/070302-aipac_policy_forum_remarks/index.html
3. Some pictures of Fassuta can be found at:
http://www.pbase.com/pb975/fasuta
4. Goudie, Chuck, “ Obama Visits Remote Israeli
Village With Chicago Ties,” January 11, 2006 .
http://obama.senate.gov/news/060111-obama_visits_remote_israeli_town_with_chicago_ties/index.html
5. de Quetteville, Harry, “Israel Is Accused Of
Racism Over Its War-Payouts,” Telegraph, September
24, 2006 .
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/09/24/wmid24.xml
6. See above.
7. Ettinger, Yair, “The PLO Is His Life’s Work,”
Ha’aretz, November 17, 2004 .
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=502532
Also see Wikipedia entry for “Jiryis, Sabri.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabri_Jiryis
8. See Kahlil Sakakini Cultural Centre web site entry
for “Shammas, Anton.”
http://www.sakakini.org/literature/anton.htm
9. Abunimah, Ali, “How Barack Obama Learned To Loved
Israel ,” March 4, 2007.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6619.shtml

-Ira Glunts first visited the Middle East in 1972,
where he taught English and physical education in a
small rural community in Israel. He was a volunteer
in the Israeli Defense Forces in 1992. Mr. Glunts
lives in Madison, New York where he writes and
operates a used and rare book business. He can be
contacted at gluntsi@morrisville.edu

Monday, March 26, 2007

Palestinian Medical and Health Institutions Call for Imposing Measures against the Israel Medical Association

February 2007

Occupied Palestinian Territory

Whereas the Israel Medical Association’s (IMA) medical ethics record on torture has been well documented, and the institution has never denounced or seriously confronted the Israeli government on its shameless use of torture;

Whereas the IMA has shown blatant disregard for the ethical issue of medical neutrality, with the IMA unconditionally defending the violations of medical neutrality by the Israeli army in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT);

Whereas the IMA is charged with being the executive arm of the Israeli establishment working to support political imperatives rather than serving universal medical ethics;

Whereas the IMA violates it own Physicians’ Code of Ethics, which stipulates that the goal of the IMA is to: “… maintain a suitable professional and ethical level in the medical profession”;

Whereas the IMA has either contributed directly to maintaining, defending, or justifying oppression and wars, or has stood silently in the face of civilian deaths in the OPT and Lebanon; the killing, harassment and wounding of Palestinian and Lebanese health professionals on duty; and the destruction of the Palestinian and Lebanese health systems -- in the OPT as a result of destruction of the infrastructure, the apartheid Wall, and in Lebanon as a result of the massive destruction of infrastructure, roads, bridges and petrol outlets-- all systematic violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention;

Given that all forms of international intervention have failed to force Israel to comply with international law or to end its repression of Palestinians and the unjust war in Lebanon;

Given that direct appeals to the IMA have been unavailing, including those from both local and international health and human rights organisations over many years, and despite a mass of incriminating documentation;

Given that the World Medical Association, responsible for monitoring medical ethics worldwide, and which has as its current Chair of Council the IMA president, has repeatedly declined to take action as it is mandated to do;

Given that people of conscience in the international community of medical and health professionals and workers shoulder the moral responsibility to fight injustice, as exemplified in their struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa through various forms of boycott and sanctions;

In the spirit of international solidarity, moral consistency and resistance to injustice and oppression,


We, the undersigned, Palestinian Medical and Health institutions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, call on world medical and health institutions to:

1. Immediately end cooperation with, and refrain from participation in, any form of collaboration or joint activities with the IMA.
2. Advocate for the condemnation of the IMA.
3. Support Palestinian medical and health institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as a condition for such support.


The undersigned:

1. The Medical Association -Jerusalem (Palestinian Physician’s Union).
2. Maqassed Hospital - Jerusalem
3. Red Crescent Society –Gaza
4. The Gaza Community Mental Health Program
5. Arab Women’s Union Hospital – Nablus
6. Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees – West Bank and Gaza (Palestinian Medical Relief Society)
7. Health Work Committees
8. Union of Health Work Committees - Gaza
9. Union of Health Care Committees
10. The National Society for Rehabilitation – Gaza
11. Near East Council of Churches Committee for Refugees - Gaza
12. Union of Agricultural Work Committees
13. Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for the Victims of Torture (TRC)
14. Patients Friends Society -Jenin
15. Union of Palestinian Handicapped
16. Palestinian Family Planning and Protection Association
17. Health Policy Forum
18. Project Loving Care-Jerusalem
19. Palestinian National Institute for NGO’s

Joint Letter of Palestinian Human Rights Organisations

Submitted to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the Occasion of his Visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territory

JOINT OPEN LETTER
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
REF.: 6.2007E

24 March 2007

Dear Secretary-General Ban,

As Palestinian organisations dedicated to the protection and promotion of human rights, we welcome your decision to visit the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) at this early stage in your tenure as UN Secretary-General. After 40 years of belligerent occupation, the current reality in the OPT is one of systematic violations of international human rights law, as well as serious breaches of international humanitarian law, which in many instances amount to war crimes. This situation gives your visit great importance.

We welcome your stated intention to hear first-hand from the people in the region about the problems and challenges they face. In this regard, we invite you to take the opportunity to speak with Palestinian civil society in order to better comprehend the ways in which the Israeli occupation has severe and long-term repercussions on the human rights of every Palestinian, and by extension contributes to an escalation of the conflict with repercussions on the prospects for regional peace and security.


We trust that witnessing the situation on the ground will bolster your expressed commitment to bring about a “just and lasting peace in the Middle East, based on an end to the 1967 occupation and the creation of an independent Palestinian State living side-by-side in peace with Israel.” In this context, it is critical that any political agreement between Israel and the Palestinians be in conformity with fundamental principles of international law, most notably the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes of origin. Fundamental rights must not be ignored for the sake of political expediency or false compromises. Ignoring such rights only serves to obscure the reality of the Israeli occupation, creating an environment where injustice persists and progress towards meaningful peace cannot be achieved.


As you have correctly noted, Israeli military operations, severe movement restrictions, the withholding of Palestinian revenues and the socio-economic decline precipitated by these measures have resulted in a humanitarian crisis in the OPT, exacting a heavy toll on the Palestinian population. Continued settlement activity, particularly around East Jerusalem, further erodes the quality of Palestinian life. In this regard, we call upon you to reiterate that Israel must fulfill its obligations as the Occupying Power in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Importantly, Israel must immediately desist from all policies and practices that violate international human rights and humanitarian law or that alter the physical character or demographic composition of the OPT.


Insofar as the construction of the Annexation Wall in the West Bank is concerned, we request that you raise the legal obligations incumbent upon Israel regarding its construction, as outlined in the 2004 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice, with Israeli officials. In particular, Israel’s obligation to cease construction of the Wall, to dismantle those sections built to date and to provide reparation for the damages caused by such construction. Considering that the Register of Damage for the Wall operates under your administrative authority, we urge you to ensure that the Register, despite its inherent limits, is used to record damages in the most effective manner possible.


It is clear that without the respect for and implementation of international law by the international community, Israeli violations will continue with impunity, as they have for decades. Numerous UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions pertaining to the OPT, and a proliferation of special committees, sessions and Secretariat divisions and units, have had little meaningful effect on Israeli policies and have failed to ensure the fundamental rights of Palestinians. Accordingly, we call upon the UN, as an organisation whose Charter has amongst its primary purposes the protection and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms, to take effective steps to protect the rights of the Palestinian people. To do otherwise is to undermine the UN’s own commitment to human rights and rule of law and to condone governmental violations of international law.


As UN Secretary-General, you act as a spokesperson for the interests of the world’s peoples, particularly the vulnerable among them. We urge you to use your visit to Israel and the OPT as an opportunity to uphold the values and moral authority of the UN. Given the UN’s long-term commitment to the question of Palestine, we believe that it is time for it to take clear and effective actions that are commensurate with the challenge of ensuring a peace built on the respect for international law. As UN Secretary-General, you must use your unique position to clearly condemn the ever increasing breaches of international law in the OPT, regardless of the perpetrator. To fail to do so would be to betray the hope your visit holds, and render further distant the end of the occupation and a just and durable solution to the conflict.


Respectfully yours,


Al-Haq
Addameer
Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights Gaza
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights
Badil – Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights
Defence for Children International – Palestine Section
Ensan Center for Democracy and Human rights
Jerusalem Center for Legal Aid and Human Rights
Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens’ Rights
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counselling
Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Israel's right to be racist

The matter-of-factness with which the state of Israel claims the right to treat non-Jews as lesser animals is shocking and annuls any move towards peace, writes Joseph Massad*


Israel's struggle for peace is a sincere one. In fact, Israel desires to live at peace not only with its neighbours, but also and especially with its own Palestinian population, and with Palestinians whose lands its military occupies by force. Israel's desire for peace is not only rhetorical but also substantive and deeply psychological. With few exceptions, prominent Zionist leaders since the inception of colonial Zionism have desired to establish peace with the Palestinians and other Arabs whose lands they slated for colonisation and settlement. The only thing Israel has asked for, and continues to ask for in order to end the state of war with the Palestinians and its Arab neighbours, is that all recognise its right to be a racist state that discriminates by law against Palestinians and other Arabs and grants differential legal rights and privileges to its own Jewish citizens and to all other Jews anywhere. The resistance that the Palestinian people and other Arabs have launched against Israel's right to be a racist state is what continues to stand between Israel and the peace for which it has struggled and to which it has been committed for decades. Indeed, this resistance is nothing less than the "New anti- Semitism".

Israel is willing to do anything to convince Palestinians and other Arabs of why it needs and deserves to have the right to be racist. Even at the level of theory, and before it began to realise itself on the ground, the Zionist colonial project sought different means by which it could convince the people whose lands it wanted to steal and against whom it wanted to discriminate to accept as understandable its need to be racist. All it required was that the Palestinians "recognise its right to exist" as a racist state. Military methods were by no means the only persuasive tools available; there were others, including economic and cultural incentives. Zionism from the start offered some Palestinians financial benefits if they would accede to its demand that it should have the right to be racist. Indeed, the State of Israel still does. Many Palestinian officials in the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organisation have been offered and have accepted numerous financial incentives to recognise this crucial Israeli need. Those among the Palestinians who regrettably continue to resist are being penalised for their intransigence by economic choking and starvation, supplemented by regular bombardment and raids, as well as international isolation. These persuasive methods, Israel hopes, will finally convince a recalcitrant population to recognise the dire need of Israel to be a racist state. After all, Israeli racism only manifests in its flag, its national anthem, and a bunch of laws that are necessary to safeguard Jewish privilege, including the Law of Return (1950), the Law of Absentee Property (1950), the Law of the State's Property (1951), the Law of Citizenship (1952), the Status Law (1952), the Israel Lands Administration Law (1960), the Construction and Building Law (1965), and the 2002 temporary law banning marriage between Israelis and Palestinians of the occupied territories.

Let us start with why Israel and Zionism need to ensure that Israel remains a racist state by law and why it deserves to have that right. The rationale is primarily threefold and is based on the following claims.

Jews are always in danger out in the wide world; only in a state that privileges them racially and religiously can they be safe from gentile oppression and can prosper. If Israel removed its racist laws and symbols and became a non-racist democratic state, Jews would cease to be a majority and would be like Diaspora Jews, a minority in a non-Jewish state. These concerns are stated clearly by Israeli leaders individually and collectively. Shimon Peres, for example, the dove of official Israel, has been worried for some time about the Palestinian demographic "danger", as the Green Line, which separates Israel from the West Bank, is beginning to "disappear ... which may lead to the linking of the futures of West Bank Palestinians with Israeli Arabs". He hoped that the arrival of 100,000 Jews in Israel would postpone this demographic "danger" for 10 more years, as ultimately, he stressed, "demography will defeat geography".

In December 2000, the Institute of Policy and Strategy at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Centre in Israel held its first of a projected series of annual conferences dealing with the strength and security of Israel, especially with regards to maintaining Jewish demographic majority. Israel's president and current and former prime ministers and cabinet ministers were all in attendance. One of the "Main Points" identified in the 52-page conference report is concern over the numbers needed to maintain Jewish demographic and political supremacy of Israel: "The high birth rate [of 'Israeli Arabs'] brings into question the future of Israel as a Jewish state ... The present demographic trends, should they continue, challenge the future of Israel as a Jewish state. Israel has two alternative strategies: adaptation or containment. The latter requires a long-term energetic Zionist demographic policy whose political, economic, and educational effects would guarantee the Jewish character of Israel."

The report adds affirmatively that, "those who support the preservation of Israel's character as ... a Jewish state for the Jewish nation ... constitute a majority among the Jewish population in Israel." Of course, this means the maintenance of all the racist laws that guarantee the Jewish character of the state. Subsequent annual meetings have confirmed this commitment.

Jews are carriers of Western civilisation and constitute an Asian station defending both Western civilisation and economic and political interests against Oriental terrorism and barbarism. If Israel transformed itself into a non-racist state, then its Arab population would undermine the commitment to Western civilisation and its defence of the West's economic and political interests, and might perhaps transform Jews themselves into a Levantine barbaric population. Here is how Ben Gurion once put it: "We do not want Israelis to become Arabs. We are in duty bound to fight against the spirit of the Levant, which corrupts individuals and societies, and preserve the authentic Jewish values as they crystallised in the [European] Diaspora." Indeed Ben Gurion was clear on the Zionist role of defending these principles: "We are not Arabs, and others measure us by a different standard ... our instruments of war are different from those of the Arabs, and only our instruments can guarantee our victory." More recently, Israel's ambassador to Australia, Naftali Tamir, stressed that: "We are in Asia without the characteristics of Asians. We don't have yellow skin and slanted eyes. Asia is basically the yellow race. Australia and Israel are not -- we are basically the white race."

God has given this land to the Jews and told them to safeguard themselves against gentiles who hate them. To make Israel a non-Jewish state then would run the risk of challenging God Himself. This position is not only upheld by Jewish and Christian fundamentalists, but even by erstwhile secular Zionists (Jews and Christians alike). Ben Gurion himself understood, as does Bill Clinton and George W Bush, that: "God promised it to us."

It is important to stress that this Zionist rationale is correct on all counts if one accepts the proposition of Jewish exceptionalism. Remember that Zionism and Israel are very careful not to generalise the principles that justify Israel's need to be racist but are rather vehement in upholding it as an exceptional principle. It is not that no other people has been oppressed historically, it is that Jews have been oppressed more. It is not that no other people's cultural and physical existence has been threatened; it is that the Jews' cultural and physical existence is threatened more. This quantitative equation is key to why the world, and especially Palestinians, should recognise that Israel needs and deserves to have the right to be a racist state. If the Palestinians, or anyone else, reject this, then they must be committed to the annihilation of the Jewish people physically and culturally, not to mention that they would be standing against the Judeo- Christian God.

It is true that Palestinian and Arab leaders were not easily persuaded of these special needs that Israel has; that it took decades of assiduous efforts on the part of Israel to convince them, especially through "military" means. In the last three decades they have shown signs of coming around. Though Anwar El-Sadat inaugurated that shift in 1977, it would take Yasser Arafat longer to recognise Israel's needs. But Israel remained patient and became more innovative in its persuasive instruments, especially its military ones. When Arafat came to his senses and signed the Oslo Accords in 1993, he finally recognised Israel's right to be racist and to legally discriminate against its own Palestinian citizens. For that belated recognition, a magnanimous Israel, still eager for peace, decided to negotiate with him. He, however, continued to resist on some issues. For Arafat had hoped that his recognition of Israel's need to be racist inside Israel was in exchange for Israel ending its racist apartheid system in the occupied territories. That was clearly a misunderstanding on his part. Israeli leaders explained to him and to his senior peace negotiator Mahmoud Abbas in marathon discussions that lasted seven years, that Israel's needs are not limited to imposing its racist laws inside Israel but must extend to the occupied territories as well. Surprisingly, Arafat was not content with the Bantustans the Israelis offered to carve up for the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza around the Jewish colonial settlements that God had granted the Jews. The United States was brought in to persuade the malleable leader that the Bantustan solution was not a bad one. Indeed, equally honourable collaborators as Arafat had enjoyed its benefits, such as Mangosutho Gatcha Buthelezi in Apartheid South Africa. It was no shame to accept it, President Clinton insisted to Arafat at Camp David in the summer of 2000. While Abbas was convinced, Arafat remained unsure.

It is true that in 2002 Arafat came around some more and reaffirmed his recognition of Israel's need for racist laws inside the country when he gave up the right of return of the six million exiled Palestinians who, by virtue of Israel's racist law of return, are barred from returning to the homeland from which Israel had expelled them while Jewish citizens of any other countries obtain automatic citizenship in an Israel most of them have never before seen. In an op-ed piece in The New York Times, Arafat declared: "We understand Israel's demographic concerns and understand that the right of return of Palestinian refugees, a right guaranteed under international law and United Nations Resolution 194, must be implemented in a way that takes into account such concerns." He proceeded to state that he was looking to negotiate with Israel on "creative solutions to the plight of the refugees while respecting Israel's demographic concerns". This however, was not sufficient, as Arafat remained unpersuaded of Israel's need to set up its racist apartheid in the occupied territories. Israel had no choice but to isolate him, keep him under house arrest, and possibly poison him at the end.

President Abbas, however, learned well from the mistakes of his predecessor and has shown more openness to Israeli arguments about its dire need to have a racist apartheid system set up in the West Bank and Gaza and that the legitimacy of this apartheid must also be recognised by the Palestinians as a precondition for peace. Abbas was not the only Palestinian leader to be beguiled. Several other Palestinian leaders were so convinced that they offered to help build the infrastructure of Israeli apartheid by providing Israel with most of the cement it needed to build its Jews-only colonies and the apartheid wall.

The problem now was Hamas, who, while willing to recognise Israel, still refused to recognise its special needs to be racist inside the Green Line and to set up an apartheid system inside the occupied territories. This is where Saudi Arabia was brought in last month in the holy city of Mecca. Where else, pondered the Saudis, could one broker an agreement where the leadership of the victims of Israeli racism and oppression can be brought to solemnly swear that they recognise their oppressor's special need to oppress them? Well, Hamas has been resisting the formula, which Fatah has upheld for five years, namely to "commit" to this crucial recognition. Hamas said that all it could do was "respect" past agreements that the PA had signed with Israel and which recognised its need to be racist. This, Israel and the United States insist, is insufficient and the Palestinians will continue to be isolated despite Hamas's "respect" for Israel's right to be racist. The condition for peace as far as Israel and the US are concerned is that both Hamas and Fatah recognise and be committed to Israel's right to be an apartheid state inside the Green Line as well as its imposition of apartheid in the West Bank and Gaza. Short of this, there will be no deal. The ensuing summit between Condie Rice, Ehud Olmert and the exalted PA President Abbas was spent with Olmert interrogating Abbas on how much he remains committed to Israel's need for apartheid in the occupied territories. A minor replay summit was concluded on the same basis a few days ago. Abbas had hoped that the two summits could coax Israel to finalise arrangements for the Bantustans over which he wants to rule, but Israel, understandably, felt insecure and had to ensure that Abbas himself was still committed to its right to impose apartheid first. Meanwhile, ongoing "secret" Israeli-Saudi talks have filled Israel with the hope and expectation that the Arab League's upcoming summit in Riyadh might very well cancel the Palestinian right of return that is guaranteed by international law and affirm the inviolability of Israel's right to be a racist state as guaranteed by international diplomacy. All of Israel's efforts to achieve peace might finally bear fruit if the Arabs finally concede to what international mediation had already conceded to Israel before them.

It should be clear then that in this international context, all existing solutions to what is called the Palestinian-Israeli "conflict" guarantee Israel's need to maintain its racist laws and its racist character and ensure its right to impose apartheid in the West Bank and Gaza. What Abbas and the Palestinians are allowed to negotiate on, and what the Palestinian people and other Arabs are being invited to partake of, in these projected negotiations is the political and economic (but not the geographic) character of the Bantustans that Israel is carving up for them in the West Bank, and the conditions of the siege around the Big Prison called Gaza and the smaller ones in the West Bank. Make no mistake about it, Israel will not negotiate about anything else, as to do so would be tantamount to giving up its racist rule.

As for those among us who insist that no resolution will ever be possible before Israel revokes all its racist laws and does away with all its racist symbols, thus opening the way for a non-racist future for Palestinians and Jews in a decolonised bi-national state, Israel and its apologists have a ready-made response that has redefined the meaning of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is no longer the hatred of and discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group; in the age of Zionism, we are told, anti-Semitism has metamorphosed into something that is more insidious. Today, Israel and its Western defenders insist, genocidal anti-Semitism consists mainly of any attempt to take away and to refuse to uphold the absolute right of Israel to be a racist Jewish state.

* The writer is associate professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University. His latest book is The Persistence of the Palestinian Question; Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians .

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Why Zionism Is Racism--from a Palestinian's viewpoint

Zionism is a racist and irredeemable movement, like Bolshevism, Nazism, and Apartheid.

By Rabee' Sahyoun

(Note: This article is a direct response, using the same format, on a line by line basis, to an editorial that appeared in the Montreal Gazette on April 26, 2001, written by Gil Troy, a Professor of History at McGill University.)

On this, the 53rd anniversary of the Nakbe' (the Catastrophe of the Palestinian people), it is all too tempting for friend and foe alike to define Israel, and zionism, solely by the Americans' proclamations of its enlightened democracy. To do so is to miss the normal atrocities that occur in Israel daily, the millions who are under curfew and blockade, starving and brutalized, in the Middle East's only colonized state. To do so is to feign the reality of zionism, a racist and irredeemable movement, that survived the twentieth centuries' other genocidal and seemingly passing revolutions such as Bolshevism, Nazism, and Apartheid.

A century ago, zionism extended Western colonialism to Palestine.

The sad truth is that over a century after its founding, zionism seems to be grander and more honorable than
its reality. Arabs have suffered from Zionism's belligerence and exclusivity, and many have blamed the United States, and the West, for this because of their unshakeable support of zionism. Israeli aggression over the past seven months has finally renewed international recognition that zionism is racism.

On this anniversary of the Nabke', it is now up to all Jews to follow in the footsteps of the brave few, and denounce the racist and separatist nature of zionism, while the world should encourage them to do so. The world should not allow the torchbearers of zionism to silence and quell the idealism of these few. No nationalism is pure, no movement is perfect, no state is ideal, but today, Zionism persists as a menace, a militaristic and dictatory movement to me and to most Palestinians. A century ago, zionism extended Western colonialism to Palestine; today, as in the rest of the world, colonialism must be ideologically purged from Palestine.

I believe that zionism is racism, because 53 years after being exiled from their homeland, in defiance of the four Geneva Conventions, UN Resolutions 181, 194, 242, 338, and others, and other multilateral and international human rights conventions, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the disinherited refugees of Palestine, continue to endure merciless punishment from the Zionist entity, most recently in the bulldozing of makeshift homes in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza.

I believe that zionism is racism, because I am a Palestinian, and without recognizing the colonialist component in zionism, I cannot explain its racist character, a western movement uprooting the native peoples of Palestine, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Samaritan alike, a people bound to their land, through centuries of raising orange groves, and herding sheep, lending grace to the Hills of God, historically, religiously and culturally.

I believe that zionism is racism, because it fails to appreciate or acknowledge the Palestinians' ties to their homeland, their love for their historical capital, Jerusalem, and the 53-yar plight they have endured as refugees worldwide, in Europe, in North America, in camps Dheishe, Shatila, Wehdaat and others, never giving up hope or struggle in yearning to return home.

I believe that zionism is racism, because it fails to admit the reality that the minority indigenous Jewish community in Palestine, that lived there for the last two thousand years, was an undistinguishable people from its Christian and Muslim Palestinian brethren, and that the leader of the Jewish community of the Jewish quarter of Old Jerusalem, Rabbi Lamram Blau, stood on the side of his Palestinian brothers and sisters being exiled in 1948.

I believe that zionism is racism because in modern times, the promise of liberal democracy and justice is a double-edged sword, preached by the Western powers, yet only paid lip-service to in the case of Israel, where Palestinian are continuously expelled, ethnically cleansed, and subjugated, and in the cases where they are assimilated, they are granted, limited, if any, civil rights.

I believe that zionism is racism, because in establishing the racially exclusive state of Israel, in 1948, and expelling the indigenous Palestinians from the land, the zionists severed a relationship that people had to the land for over 4,000 years, uninterrupted, since before Abraham.

I believe that zionism is racism, because in building Israel, the zionists were revising history, embracing the notion of racial superiority, an ideology that has empowered them to discriminate, with all of its associated social ills, injustices, and moral bankruptcy.

I believe that zionism is racism because it fails to distinguish between the nationalism of the American, based on multi-cultural harmony, and the racial exclusivity, separatism, ethnic cleansing, and brutality of zionism, that stands in clear violation of the most basic elements of international law and human rights practices, as most recently highlighted by reports issued by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

I believe that zionism is racism because in our world of post-modern identities, I know that we do not have to be "either-ors", we can be "ands and buts" – a zionist and a settler, an American citizen of Polish heritage but a soldier in the Israeli army.

I believe that zionism is racism because it self-propagates itself as a democratic movement. However, a democracy, cannot, by definition, only be representative of one community in a bi-national and tri-religious contiguous geographic area. A democracy cannot exist for one people and not for another. This as called Apartheid in South Africa, and is now called zionism in Palestine.

I believe that zionism is racism, because it espouses an independent and sovereign Jewish state, in a land where there is no Jewish majority. It espouses that such a sovereign state be at peace and harmony with its neighbors without allowing the Palestinian refugees dwelling within their borders, who were expelled from their homes in Palestine by zionist militias, as is clearly documented by numerous sources including the memoirs of David-Ben Gurion himself, to return to their homes, which is a basic human right guaranteed by Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I believe that zionism is racism because it is presented by its champions, from Gil Troy to Elie Wiesel, as a romantic movement, which allowed zionists to reclaim the desert and build a model nation-state. This is racism at its most acute, since there was no desert in Palestine, other than the Negev in the South. This is simply a myth that has been propagated by racists who have supported Israel for the last 53 years, and economic data on agricultural exports to Europe from Palestine dating to medieval times easily rejects and exposes this as a blasphemous claim.

Yes, it sounds far-fetched today. But as Vladamir Jabotinsky, father of revisionist zionism said in a racist boast in 1923, "There can be no discussion of a voluntary reconciliation between us and the Arabs… Any native people…view their country as their national home… They will not voluntarily allow, not only a new master, but even a new partner… Colonization can have only one goal. For the Palestinian Arabs this goal is inadmissible. This is in the nature of things. To change that nature is impossible… colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population - an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is, in toto, our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy."

And thus, Gil Troy and zionists abound are exposed as nothing more than unabashed racists.

[Mr. Rabee' Sahyoun is a economic development policy researcher, human rights activist, and columnist residing in Beirut, Lebanon. He is affiliated with the global grassroots Palestine Right To Return Coalition.]

Monday, March 19, 2007

Hugo Chavez steps up for Native Americans and the poor

While those who know me well know that I am no fan of militant socialism (Communism) I do respect some of the things I've read about Chavez. He is a Christian Communist which is an interesting concept to me as I consider myself a Christian Communitarian. This action of Chavez helping my Oglala Sioux friends is praiseworthy so I publish news of it here.


"Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji) 3/19/2007

Native American journalist Jodi Lee Rave of Lee Enterprise Newspapers was recently lambasted in a letter to the editor to our local daily for having the temerity to laud the donation of funds for heating fuel for the very poor Indian nations of the Northern Plains.

The criticism was initiated by the fact that the donor was the Citgo Petroleum Corporation based in Houston, Texas and headed by the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, the man reviled by many Americans for referring to President George W. Bush on the floor of the United Nations as the “Devil.”

How did it happen that the President of Venezuela reached out to help the poor and the indigenous people of the United States? After two major hurricanes devastated the Southern U. S., a group of U. S. Senators sent out a plea to the major oil companies to help low-income families with energy assistance. Most major oil companies were coming off of scandalous profits because of the sharp rise in fuel costs. Only one company heeded the plea of the senators and that was Citgo Petroleum Corporation headed by Chavez.

Federal and state funding for low-income energy assistance programs has dropped dramatically in the past few years. A late winter blast in the Northern Plains hit at a time when most of the federal dollars for low-income energy assistance had run out. The late winter freeze left many indigenous people in dire straits. When it comes to a matter of surviving, Indians and other impoverished people reach out to any assistance available. Olympic Gold Medallist Billy Mills, an Oglala Lakota, used his non-profit Running Strong Foundation to raise energy funds for some low-income households, but even his generosity could not fill the need.

Many tribes in Montana and North and South Dakota were advised to attend a meeting in Polson, Montana on December 13, 2006 to listen and discuss how they could avail themselves of the money for heating assistance. Rafael Gomez, Vice President of Citgo, and Brian O’Connor of the Citizens Energy Corporation of Boston attended the meeting. O’Connor’s non-profit organization administered the program last year and would be charged with administering the program for the Indian tribes.

Although major oil corporations like Exxon had reaped more profit last year than at any time in their history, they declined the invitation to lend a helping hand to the poor people of America. Hugo Chavez stepped in to fill the gap. What motives would prompt him to do this? Certainly it would not help him politically, at least not in America where one of this Nation’s top religious figures, Pat Robertson, called for his assassination.

Some of the very poor Indian tribes like the Chippewa Cree of the Rocky Boy Reservation in Montana, the Cheyenne River and the Oglala Sioux Tribes in South Dakota needed the funds in order to keep their people from freezing to death and accepted the donation from Mr. Chavez willingly. Where was the rich casino owning tribes? Busy counting their money I would guess.
There is an old saying out here that goes, “You will know me better when you walk a mile in my moccasins.” Hugo Chavez is a member of an indigenous tribe in Venezuela. He has been called “Indio” and worse while growing up as the child of very poor parents. He has walked in the moccasins of the indigenous people.

In America it is very easy to hate someone who verbally attacks the president of the United States. Chavez has never held his tongue even amongst his own people or in criticizing other nations in South America. I am told that he was appalled when the major oil companies in America did not step forward to help their own poor and low-income people when called upon to do so. He saw this as the kind of colonialism he has grown to despise.

Chavez is not alone in his mistrust of America. In fact, America’s status is at an all-time low in many Central and South American countries. Chavez did not create this situation and he is not above using it as a tool to annoy Bush and his administration.

Hugo Chavez is a controversial figure to America, especially amongst its politicians. But he has done much to improve the living conditions, the health care and the educational opportunities for his own people in Venezuela, especially for the very poor and the indigenous. As a matter of record Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani’s law firm lobbies for Citgo Petroleum Corporation. Does he keep his fingers crossed behind his back when he attacks Chavez?
However, if the profit mongering oil companies of this Nation had stepped forward when called upon, there would have been no reason for Chavez and Citgo to step up.

There is a lot of respect for President Chavez among the Indian nations of this country. He didn’t make promises that he couldn’t or wouldn’t keep, but instead put his money where his mouth is. American Indians appreciate that form of directness.

Go to some of the blogs so prevalent in America and you will find all sorts of names for President Bush and most of them are considerably worse than “Devil.” Chimp and Chimpy are two that come to mind. But, I suppose most Americans feel it is their inherent right to speak out against their president, but they would damn to hell any outsider that does likewise.

Jodi Lee Rave didn’t think of the politics of the low-income energy assistance offered by Chavez. Instead, she thought of the people that would have suffered unnecessarily if Citgo had not been willing to do what the American petroleum companies and the United States government refused to do. She didn’t have to read about the plight of the indigenous people of America to understand it because like Hugo Chavez and me, she has lived it.

© 2007 Native American Journalists Foundation, Inc.

(McClatchy News Service in Washington, DC distributes Tim Giago’s weekly column. He can be reached at najournalists@rushmore.com. Giago was also the founder and former editor and publisher of the Lakota Times and Indian Country Today newspapers and the founder and first president of the Native American Journalists Association. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard in the class of 1990 - 1991. Clear Light Books of Santa Fe, NM (harmon@clearlightbooks.com) published his latest book, “Children Left Behind”)

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Chateau Marmoset

A Communitarian Castle concept



Park Guell by Antoni Gaudi, at Montana Pelada, Barcelona, Spain

Situated high on the ridge overlooking the hills and valleys below, Chateau Marmoset is a visible landmark for miles around yet it remains indivisible with the rocky prominence on which the organic castle has been built. Massive redwood timbers supported by "shelf" walls of ferro-cement that have become plant-boxes so that all the wall surfaces of Chateau Marmoset are alive and green with plants and ivy and profusely rainbow colored as the flowers bloom in their scheduled times to keep the castle a spectacularly gorgeous sight to behold inside and out all through the year.

With one road in and one road out the Chateau Marmoset community keeps the hills free of human development yet several hundred people live in close proximity to the natural world. Chateau Marmoset shows how human communities, clustered for all around resource use efficiency and well educated in ecological principles, can live in harmony with the life of the land.

Chateau Marmoset is a design concept for a cooperatively owned and managed eco-friendly Castle. The premise is that of all human architectural designs for multiple family dwellings throughout history there stands one common large structure design concept that never seems to offend human sensibilities- this is the Castle design. Apartment buildings come and go. Mansions come and go. But wherever castles are built they are usually cherished and kept for generations and generations, usually only falling to ruin by ancient warfare.

Castles are an integral part of our imaginary lives. They show up time and time again in our cultural traditions. Often communities will battle construction of new multiple apartment complexes citing offensive designs. But how many times have you heard people complaining about any castle on earth being out of place, an eyesore, etc.? For whatever reasons, castle designs are the most universally acceptable of large building designs in the world.

What we are changing is the ownership and occupancy of castle living. Instead of hereditary rulers or super wealthy ownership of castles we are promoting cooperative condominium-type ownership, perhaps along the lines of the Co-Housing ownership model. Of course, the whole idea of cooperative castle living is to share the expenses equally. Our Chateau Marmoset will have no kings or dukes or Mr. Bigs with servants and underlings to do their bidding. No, each one shares in the ownership and management of the whole place on an democratic egalitarian basis. But instead of the royal family living in the upper rooms we have all residents living in the upper rooms which are equally divided among them into family or individual suites. There would be a common main community kitchen where residents could rotate cooking shifts to relieve the individual of cooking every meal. There would a common library, a computer center, work studios, and all the accessories commonly found in large apartment complexes. Perhaps even cooperative transportation as well. The level of cooperative living would be determined by each cooperative castle resident association.

As for the actual eco-design of Chateau Marmoset, I haven't one, only elements that I would like to see incorporated into the castle design such as low-cost building techniques using ferro-cement and other alternative building materials. One aspect I am intrigued with is interior landscaping using vegetation not only for aesthetic appeal but also for air cleansing and food production. Chateau Marmoset would have its own ecological system with animals and plants living in cooperative symbiosis with human beings. There are many, many innovations one can consider within the large scope of cooperative castle living.

* * *

Friday, March 16, 2007

In memory of Rachel Corrie

Rafah: Children commemorate the fourth anniversary for the loss of
solidarity member Rachel Corrie by opening a permanent exhibit for her
memorabilia

By Mohamad AlJamal

Children from the young Palestinian Parliament commemorated the 4th
anniversary of the loss of the American Solidarity member Rachel Corrie by
enacting a permanent exhibit for her that included pictures and personal
belongings at the parliament site in the center of Rafah governorate. The
exhibit which was attended by a large number of children and others
concerned, included pictures of Rachel and statements and other documents
released upon her loss as well as some personal belongings, a symbolic
coffin covered by the Palestinian flag. The exhibit was opened by reading
commemorative poems two girls wrote in English: Nadeem AlMahaydeh (11 y o)
and Islam abuSharkh (12 y o). The two girls spoke about Rachel’s heroic
stand in front of an Israeli bulldozer in an attempt to stop the demolition
of a Palestinian home, a stand that cost her life.

The two girls emphasized in their poems that the Children of Rafah in
particular and all Children of Palestine will never forget Rachel and she
will be in their memories as long as they live. The children then hung
placards with slogans that commemorate Corrie and wishing that she was with
them, among the signs: “Rachel we will not forget you”, Rachel we need you”,
Rachel Corrie died as a Palestinian, we welcome here in the highest esteem
and honor”. Children then put wreaths and olive branches on her symbolic
coffin. They sent their wishes and honor to Rachels’ parents who live in
the US and who joined the children in the third anniversary commemorations
last year.

After posting a large picture of Rachel on the wall of the exhibit, the
child Ameer Barakeh (14 years) took a few steps to Rachel’s symbolic coffin,
placed some flowers and then looked for a long time at her picture and his
eyes got misty and tears rolled down his cheeks. Baraka said “even though a
long time has passed, she is still in my mind and every day I remember her
wide smile when she used to come to this parliament, sit with us, talk to
us, and give us gifts of toys and cloths”.. He added that he and other young
parliamentarians plan to hold commemorations regularly for Rachel Corrie,
Tom Hurndall, James Muller and all members of the solidarity movement who
lost their lives .. AbdelRaouf Barbakh, the supervisor for the young
parliament emphasized that the idea for the exhibit came from the children
themselves who brought possessions and gifts Corrie gave them and began
collecting all statements … Barbakh invited all civil and other groups to
come visit the exhibit. It is to be noted that Corrie (23 yo) lost her
life under an Israeli army bulldozer on March 16, 2003 while attempting to
stop the bulldozer from demolishing a home belonging to a Palestinian
citizen near the Brazil neighborhood southeast of Rafah city.

[To read Rachel’s emails to her family and friends, visit
http://www.rachelswords.org/]

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Climax Civilization

Discovering the Human Climax social evolutionary pattern in 1975 was the philosophical climax of my social activist's desire to have a unifying theory behind my work attempting to create a working model for radical transformation of society. I was then and still am a communitarian socialist by preference. However, the militant socialism of Marx, Lenin, and Mao dominating the Socialist world then, held no appeal for me.

I knew they were very wrong to try to convert the Capitalist world by force. True socialist society cannot be dominated by militarists. Militarists are always willing to sacrifice naive young men and women and their own society's economic support system to do battle with the enemy whatever it is.

It was clear to me that capitalists would not only win the wars against militant socialist societies but would make money doing so. War is a very lucrative capitalist enterprise. The various communitarian experiments in the last century and in the 1960's communes didn't have any answers either as their experiments in social change either died within a few years or lasted only through totalitarian-like commitment to the group's leader or leaders and the group or cult lifestyle, e.g. the Mennonites, Hutterites, Amish, and the farther out cults today.

Actually, Marx had already co-opted the communitarian movement in the 1800's when he labeled his state socialist system "Communism" and proceeded to ridicule communitarian social theories and groups as "unscientific". But one thing I did admire in Marxist-Leninism was the commitment to practice what you preach and then learn from your mistakes: Theory-Praxis-Theory.

In 1968 I had proposed a new intentional cooperative community model--the Communiversity, (see the Communiversities page), which combined a new type of community college-government-economic production center as the main organizing and administrative system for a surrounding cooperative community of diverse communes. In the early '70's I and my wife and another communitarian organized a small commune with a primary goal of organizing a larger cooperative community.

We were an activist commune, really a collective, unlike the more numerous spiritual and flat-out hippie communes. We worked hard and built our own small cabins surrounding a main communal farm house. We became proficient in the French Intensive-Biodynamic organic gardening technique and produced abundant crops using very little water, very little arable land, and no machines.

We started a nationwide communal information magazine that is still going today--Communities magazine. We held communal information living conferences, we had communal enterprises, we authored the Communitarian Village proposal, (See the Communitarian Village Proposal page), which though written in 1973 is still relevant today as if focuses on forming an ecologically sound and democratically run cooperative community, a model of human community harmoniously interfacing the natural world.

But like most all the communal experiments in the 1960's and '70's, we were all haunted by our childhood conditioning learning how to be individualistic in a society where money and/or power rule. Communitarian ideals or not, we couldn't cope with the reality of sharing everything, including our emotional baggage and ego trips, and we bailed out of the communal movement one by one. Theory-Praxis-Theory.

Back to the drawing board..

In 1975 I discovered the Climax Civilization social evolutionary pattern. Such a simple concept really- plant and animal species survive and evolve in natural interspecies balancing acts biologists have labeled "Climax Communities" because these balancing acts go through a series of configurations and re-alignments before stabilizing in a final formation.

Well, human beings are animals, so the Climax succession pattern must somehow apply to our species as well. Sure enough, the anthropological record shows that prehistoric and the few remaining wild tribal societies today live a universally similar lifestyle, the hunting and gathering lifestyle, that physically and psychologically connects each member of these human groups directly to the supporting natural environment. What then of human civilization since the advent of agriculture some 10,000 years ago? This is where the Human Climax evolutionary succession pattern comes into the picture.

"Climax Civilization 101" was a treatise I first published in 1977. The treatise was presented as a lecture to students enrolled in the then fantasy Mateel University which later briefly actually existed as the Mateel Communiversity. In the treatise I give a generalized overall view of the basic idea of human history following an unseen biological succession pattern with a definite goal: the re-establishment of a new human Climax lifestyle which will give human communities survival capacity while carrying the best fruits of civilization forward into the only future possible- one where human civilization and the supporting natural environment co-exist in lasting harmony.


Climax Civilization 101
(1977)

Welcome to the birth of the New Earth. In this first of an indefinite series we will be discussing a new universal social and environmental perspective which may at some point be of major significance. We will be using the phrase "Climax Social Evolution Theory" to describe this new worldview.

Before going further, however, let's take a look at some handy Climax terms: From the American College Dictionary we note the ecological definition of "Climax": "that stage in the ecological succession or evolution of a plant-animal community which is stable and self-perpetuating". From Hanson's Dictionary of Ecology:

"Climax: the kind of community capable of perpetuation under prevailing climatic and edaphic (soil) conditions. The terminal stage of a sere under prevailing conditions.

Sere: the series of stages that follow one another in ecological succession.

Succession: the replacement of one kind of community by another. The progressive changes in vegetation and in animal life which may culminate in the Climax.

Climax Community: See Climax."

Besides having at least some acquaintance with these dictionary definitions of the ecological Climax, most of us living here in the Mateel have a continuous firsthand experience with the pattern as we live in the midst of ravaged forests struggling to re-establish themselves. Most of us have some awareness of the succession pattern on logged-over land.

First, the various types of brush establish themselves on the open ground along with young hardwood trees such as tanoaks and madrones. These trees in turn grow up and give needed shade for the young softwood trees. Finally, the forest climax is re-established with redwoods dominating the lower elevations and douglas firs and mixed hardwoods dominant in the hills above them. This is a comparatively short term Climax sequence.

For a longer term perspective let's consider a late Pleistocene plant-animal community experiencing the transition from an Ice Age environment to a warmer, drier one. What happens to those plants and animals in their previously stable climax? The ones that can will evolve in whatever ways and forms that are naturally selected over the transition period which allow for survival in the changed environment.

Some species will lose most of their dense fur or thick bark which has become a hindrance to temperature regulation in the new warmer climate. Some species will simply switch diets to survive while others will miss out altogether by not evolving any necessary changes in structure or lifestyle or by evolving some new form suitable for, let's say, the first stage of the transition period but not for later stages. In any event, after a lot of evolutionary trial and error, a whole new improved set of plants and animals will have established themselves in a new climax succession pattern which matches the new environmental conditions.

Now we're ready for the main hypothesis of the Climax Social Evolution Theory. Of course it's obvious that human beings as an evolving species have successfully adjusted to changes in the environment during the past geological epochs, otherwise we wouldn't be here today. But now watch what happens when we consider human history and the rise of civilization during the past 10,000 years as the logical social extension of the ecological Climax pattern. A previously well hidden pattern emerges:

What we refer to as the "history of civilization" may in biological reality be an evolutionary succession pattern of human community lifestyle changes that progress, each one conditioning the development of the next as in any proper sere sequence, towards the re-establishment of a stable and self-perpetuating, a human community dominant Climax. Perhaps we have become so removed from our own biological past by this journey in technological and social development which is "history" that to consider it in these simple biological terms may at first seem foreign. But let's continue with the argument and see where it leads.

From a Climax Social Evolutionary Theory perspective, what has happened through history is that our species has paid and is still paying an enormous price for technological breakthroughs and subsequent social re-organizations beginning with the discovery of agriculture. These discoveries during the past 10,000 years or so have progressively pushed human communities out of balance with one another and with the surrounding life-supporting environment. Before the advent of agriculture human communities had managed fairly well to live and evolve in ecological harmony with the natural communities of life.

The hunting and gathering lifestyle humans led was a successful Climax lifestyle for several million years. But then it happened, although not overnight by any means, that gradually the seeds of discontent with the natural food delivery system were sown and human society has never been the same since. The nearly universal myth of a previous Golden Age and the subsequent Fall of humanity may refer directly to the passage of most human communities from the relatively stable and therefore secure hunting and gathering lifestyle into the progressively estrangement and alienation from the natural world which parallels the rise of civilization.
The rise and fall of successive civilizations and the changing lifestyle patterns with each civilization's lifespan mark our species unconscious homeostatic mechanisms at work: human beings as biological creatures attempting to stabilize each new disruptive technological or social innovation and never quite succeeding because of the irreversible chain reaction effect each new innovation sets in motion- (i.e., the Chaos Theory factor which means every climax community, even though stabilized for years or millennia, is still subject to radical transformation because our planetary climate systems are not permanently stable, especially these days.

"Why work for stability then if it may be disrupted at any time by unforeseen events?" Because we humans, as a living species, follow the Climax pattern, which is probably embedded in our genes and hardwired into our brains directing us to stabilize the human relationship with the environment regardless of potential radical changes disrupting that effort.)

So there's the heart of the matter according to Climax Social Evolution Theory. To survive as a species human beings need a stable relationship with their environment. We know the hunting and gathering lifestyle has been a proven winner for the greater part of our species existence in the natural ecology of the Biosphere. And we know that thus far we haven't had much luck finding the answer to civilization and its discontents with still more civilization alienated from the rest of Nature. Are we to follow the Mayan example and solve the problem of civilization by giving it up and fading back into the forest for a return to the original Climax lifestyle? What is to be done?

Well, not to worry! As someone once said, "It's inevitable! Climax Social Evolution Consciousness or Climax Consciousness for short, is coming and in more ways than two. Not Marxism's "economic necessity", although economics plays a big part, but the Biosphere's reaction to human overpopulation and over-production of environmentally toxic substances is the irresistible force behind the coming universalization of Climax Consciousness. Nothing short of this type of perspective on human development will allow us to discover holistic ecology patterns and lifestyles now vitally necessary for our species' continued survival.

One way or another, we are all going to return to a Climax relationship with the rest of Nature. It is just our choice at this point whether that return is to the previous hunting and gathering lifestyle falling on the heels of the collapse of civilization by one or more of the Big Boogies or to a new human-plant-animal Climax, a new Climax Civilization. Climax Social Evolution Theory optimistically predicts the latter and acts to facilitate its development.

Climax Consciousness facilitates the development of a new Climax Civilization. A simple aim on the face of it but one that is infinitely complex in scope. This is because this perspective must necessarily be a holistic ecological consciousness concerned with just about everything having to do with human communities and lifestyles, their relationships with each other and with the biological life-support systems of the planet. Environmental, social, political, economic, cultural, technological, spiritual, and personal factors must all be taken in consideration to bring about a new ecologically balanced human society. Climax Consciousness is nothing if not full of wholes.

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The Amazing Threefold Utility of Climax Consciousness: (Written for the Mateel Greens in 1986)
Climax Consciousness is above all a useful tool for describing what we need in terms of ecological analysis of social structuring and necessary social change.

The first utility of Climax Consciousness is that it describes the dominant social change process underlying all major social transformations during the past 10,000 years. In the grand march of History, civilizations rise and fall in a complex sequential pattern leading to a final goal of establishing a new universal human Climax lifestyle to replace the old one of hunting and gathering.

This human Climax goal isn't the establishment of a glorious worker's paradise or a free enterprise Monopoly game world. It is basic biology in action. It is simply the manner by which human communities will evolve into stable and self-perpetuating Climax Communities that "fit" into the biological networks that give lasting support to these communities of human animals.
"Progress" in past usage referred to expanding human power to impact the natural and social environments human beings dominated at the expense of weaker or silent elements within these societies and natural habitats. "Progress" then was a term for human aggression turned inward and outward in transitory or unsustainable cycles of conquest that usually could only temporarily benefit a very small portion of the "progressive" societies involved.

"Progress" in Climax Consciousness becomes an ecological definition describing the manner in which human communities evolve into Climax Communities and into a worldwide cooperative network of such communities which will constitute Climax Civilization. This brings us to the second utility of Climax Consciousness- its automatic imposition of an "ecological wisdom" value system.

If the now conscious social goal is participating in the development of human Climax Communities linked together in a worldwide Climax Civilization, then all major social structures, social activities, and technology will be analyzed, valued, used or discarded depending whether they work for or against Climax Community building. One can now use Climax Consciousness a synonym for the highest stage of ecological wisdom in reference to human social activity, social structuring, and technology.

As we saw with the difference in definitions of "progress" in light of Climax Community values, so too can we apply "Climax" as a means of instantly conveying an ecological wisdom system to a broad range of categories, e.g., "Climax technology" describing ecologically wise techniques and tools as opposed to "modern technology" which signifies no positive or negative value or real worth to the long range survival needs of human communities.

We can continue to use "Climax" to focus in on specific areas of Climax technology, e.g., development of a Climax Silvaculture that promotes both human community and bioregional stability as opposed to anti-Climax forestry practices such as massive clearcutting and herbicide spraying which wreaks havoc on all involved ecological systems. Still focusing in we can even consider Climax tools like the hammer, the axe, and the shovel.

Most Climax tools are easy to spot: They are simple efficient designs that have been around for centuries and that will always be needed. How long will the gas powered chainsaw, car, or Bic lighter be around before these eco-destructive products of our present "modern" technological myopia are replaced forever by Climax alternative technology?

The third aspect of utility for the Climax Consciousness concept is its inherent holistic unification capability. Just as the Biosphere is a unity of diversity composed of countless communities of plants and animals, each uniquely adapted to its particular environment yet harmoniously interacting with the biodynamic ecology of surrounding biological communities (extinction being the ultimate price of non-harmony), so too with Human Climax Communities.

Regions differ producing differing sets of plants and animal species. Human Climax Communities will adapt to their local environments producing endless variety within a universal Climax Civilization pattern of cooperative integration.

After (now 30) years I still know of no other social evolution paradigm that can surpass the Climax Social Evolution Theory in clarifying human social evolution or for providing an ecological value system for guidance in these critical times.

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Prophesy bearer for four religious traditions, revealer of Christ's Sword, revealer of Josephine bearing the Spirit of Christ, revealer of the identity of God, revealer of the Celestial Torah astro-theological code within the Bible. Celestial Torah Christian Theologian, Climax Civilization theorist and activist, Eco-Village Organizer, Master Psychedelic Artist, Inventor of the Next Big Thing in wearable tech, and always your Prophet-At-Large.