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158 pages

English

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This is an account of the Jewish state's motives behind building the West Bank wall, arguing that at the heart of the issue is demography. Israel fears the moment when the region’s Palestinians become a majority.

The book charts Israel’s increasingly desperate responses to its predicament including military repression of Palestinian dissent on both sides of the Green Line; accusations that Israel's Palestinian citizens and the Palestinian Authority are secretly conspiring to subvert the Jewish state from within; a ban on marriages between Israel’s Palestinian population and Palestinians living under occupation to prevent a right of return ‘through the back door’; the redrawing of the Green Line to create an expanded, fortress state where only Jewish blood and Jewish religion count.
Preface

Introduction: The Glass Wall

1. Israel’s Fifth Column

2. A False Reckoning

3. The Battle of Numbers

4. Redrawing the Green Line

5. Conclusion: Zionism and the Glass Wall

Appendix: ‘We’re like visitors in our own country’

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

Religion

History

Theory

Histoire

Political Science

Informations

Publié par	Pluto Press
Date de parution	20 avril 2006
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781783715893
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0000€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Blood and Religion
Blood and Religion
The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State
Jonathan Cook
First published 2006 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Jonathan Cook 2006
The right of Jonathan Cook to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 2555 2 paperback
ISBN 978 1 7837 1589 3 ePub
ISBN 978 1 7837 1590 9 Mobi
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by
Chase Publishing Services Ltd, Fortescue, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Printed on demand in the European Union by CPI Antony Rowe, UK
For Sally, Ziad, Maha and all the other “Israeli Arabs” who fight for the right to identify themselves as Palestinians
Contents
Preface
Map
Introduction: The Glass Wall
A preference for deceptive borders – Two philosophies: the Iron Wall vs the Glass Wall – Behind the ‘benevolent’ Glass Wall – Decades of silent oppression – A history of Arab quiescence – The threat of a state of all its citizens – Separate nationalities, unequal citizens – The Jewish state defined – Israel’s pact between the religious and secular – The empty symbolism of the Arab vote – Democratisation as sedition – Barak: protests were ‘on behalf of Arafat’ – The missing key to understanding the conflict – Creating a new image of benevolence
1 Israel’s Fifth Column
The Camp David stalemate over Jerusalem – Gen. Malka exposes Israel’s intifada myths – Parallel wars by Israel’s army and police – A culture of racism in the security forces – Jewish protests handled differently – Cover-up over Wissam Yazbak’s death – Incitement by the Hebrew media builds – Evidence of police brutality overlooked – Barak refines his ‘second front’ theory – A desperate attempt to win back voters
2 A False Reckoning
Bereaved families seek a fair hearing – Murder in an olive grove remains a mystery – ‘Unified response’ to explain Arab deaths – Commander Alik Ron’s security obsessions – Shin Bet identifies the ‘enemy within’ – Operation Magic Tune sets the stage – Barak and Ben Ami’s roles clarified – Inquiry fails to find the culprits – Justice Ministry stalls new investigation – The ‘fifth column’ libel stands
3 The Battle of Numbers
The need for ‘a massive Jewish majority’ – Gaza and fear of the apartheid comparison – A Jewish consensus emerges – The birth of a new Benny Morris – The Israeli Arab time bomb – Zionism’s long demographic nightmare – Heroine mothers of the Jewish state – Rethinking the idea of citizenship – Political tide turns towards transfer – Policies seek to cut the number of non-Jews – Israel changes its Nationality Law – Amnon Rubinstein comes to the rescue
4 Redrawing the Green Line
The goal of Greater Israel – Deceptions of the Oslo peace process – Barak’s two-state map at Camp David – A unilateral border for the Jewish state – Panic as the US unveils the Road Map – Sharon becomes a convert to disengagement – Disciples of Gen. Yigal Allon – Possible goals of disengagement – Israel’s vision is of ethnic separation – Justifying ethnic cleansing
Conclusion: Zionism and the Glass Wall
A Jewish terrorist is not a real terrorist – An Arab Israeli is not a real Israeli – Secular–religious divide replaces political divide – Moves to avoid civil war among Jews – The ‘family’ against the Arab intruder
Appendix: “We’re like visitors in our own country”
A short conversation with Nazareth students
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
Preface
Few tasks are more challenging than writing about Israel. For those trying to report or comment intelligently on events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the effort can sometimes seem futile. Israel’s apologists have succeeded in excising from the debate about the Jewish state the language of universal human rights and justice, values by which we judge other problematic conflicts. In the case of Israel, the culture of apology is now deeply rooted in the West, particularly among European and American Jewry.
The apologist has a well-tested strategy. Whenever a critic of Israel makes his case by citing an incident or example, the apologist will provide a counter-example or counter-incident, however irrelevant, to suggest either his “opponent” is unfamiliar with the material or that his motives are suspect, the anti-Semitism canard. Challenges of this kind may do nothing to blunt the thrust of the original argument but they are a very successful ploy. The critic’s credibility can be dented with readers and, more damagingly, with commissioning editors, the media’s gatekeepers, who decide whether a news report or comment article will be published. Critical writers who wish to contribute to the mainstream media must either accept a bland, diluted terminology acceptable to the apologists or devote endless amounts of time, energy and valuable space trying to second-guess how the information they include will be distorted. As a consequence, much of the debate about Israel is weighed down with trivia, pedantry and obscurantism.
I have tried to avoid these pitfalls. In doing so, I am sure to antagonise some readers. Doubtless I also risk accusations of anti-Semitism. Wherever possible, therefore, I have cited senior Israeli politicians and officials to support my arguments and quoted from Israeli publications, even if they are simply confirming my own observations and experiences as a reporter. A majority of my endnotes refer to articles and interviews in the Ha’aretz and Jerusalem Post newspapers. I have largely neglected non-Israeli and Arab sources not because I doubt their credibility but because they will be less convincing to those who seek to reject my argument.
Choice of language is problematic too when writing about Israel: certain words are deemed to signify where you stand in a debate. For example, I could have described the barrier built around the West Bank as a “wall”, seen as the pro-Palestinian label, or a “fence”, viewed as the pro-Israeli one, or as a “barrier”, the anaemic language of neutrality. I have chosen to vary the terminology, not least because I do not think there is a correct answer in this semantic debate. Both fences and walls aim to demarcate boundaries and to prevent movement, but walls are usually preferred over fences to shield from view unwanted or troublesome things. The West Bank barrier achieves all three goals. In the places where most Palestinians experience their physical separation from Israel and other Palestinians, in cities like Jerusalem, Qalqilya and Tulkaram, the barrier is most definitely a wall rather than a fence.
As for the members of the population group that this study mainly concerns, I have variously called them Israeli Arabs, Palestinian or Arab citizens of Israel, and the Palestinian or Arab minority. Language difficulties arise here too. The Israeli Arabs are often seen as having an identity crisis, because they belong to the Israeli state but identify with the Palestinian people; or, put another way, they have Israeli citizenship but Palestinian nationality. I have not taken a rigidly ideological view. I do not believe most Arab citizens of Israel have a cut-and-dried identity, either as Israelis or as Palestinians. They manoeuvre between these two identities – and others, including ethnic, religious, tribal, social and class affiliations – attracted more to one or the other in some respects and at certain times.
The elasticity of the Palestinian citizens’ identity was illustrated to me in stark fashion during a conversation with a middle-aged Druze shopkeeper in the mixed Arab town of Shafa’amr. We spoke in August 2005, shortly after a 19-year-old Jewish soldier, Eden Natan Zada, had shot dead four local residents – Muslims and Christians – on a bus close by his shop. Impassively my Druze interviewee said he had witnessed Zada being beaten to death by the crowds who stormed the bus when Zada ran out of ammo. The shopkeeper then announced proudly that he too was a soldier, a member of the Golani Brigade, an elite military unit with a notorious record of using violence against Palestinians in the occupied territories. (Druze men, uniquely among the Palestinian minority, are drafted into the Israeli army, serving alongside Jews.) Next, he denounced Zada as a terrorist. “Soldiers don’t kill other soldiers,” he said, presumably referring to the fact that Zada had opened fire in a Druze neighbourhood, even if no Druze had been killed in the attack. Finally, he added that, although he had just received his call-up for reserve duty in Gaza helping with the disengagement, he had torn up the papers. He was refusing to go in protest at Zada’s “racist attack”.
In other words, Arab identity in Israel is rarely a straightforward matter, even for citizens like the Druze who are seen as unwaveringly loyal. A proportion of Arab citizens prefer the label “Israeli Arab”, the term the state of Israel uses whenever referring to them and wants them to use when they refer to themselves. Israel has its reasons, which this book explores: not least its interest in severing the Arab citizens’ ideological and historical ties to the land of Palestine-Israel. The Israeli Arabs are the sole remnants of the expelled indigenous Palestinian people living on their land inside Israel, and as such the state has worked tirelessly over many decades since its establishment to “de-Palestinianise” them. It has wanted the question of their rights separated from those of the Palestinians of the occupied territories and the millions of refugees. It has striven to eradicate the Arab minority’s national a