Speculation has run wild on the as-yet-unreleased updated New Israel Fund funding guidelines. Here’s Richard Silverstein,

“My source tells me the proposed guidelines will include a provision acknowledging Israel as a Jewish homeland. But the language will also affirm that Israel is:
‘…A democracy dedicated to the full equality of all its citizens and communities.’”

Silverstein argues that “full equality” juxtaposed with the “provision acknowledging… a Jewish homeland” sustains a system of inequality. His explanation: “If…you’ve conceded to Jews that their nation is their homeland, but refuse to concede this to Palestinian citizens, then they still aren’t equal to Jews.”

Not mentioning a Palestinian homeland perpetuates ignoring that right. But on the other hand, no mention is made of Israel as an exclusively Jewish homeland.

The wording leaves open the possibility of a homeland for all citizens of Israel, regardless of religion. Silverstein gives this as a necessary precondition for peace but apparently does not see its potential in the new guidelines. In his words, “there is absolutely no reason that Israel cannot be a single state in which two separate ethnic groups see it as their respective homelands.” I agree, you agree, and even the NIF agrees. “The New Israel Fund (NIF) works to strengthen Israel’s democracy and to promote freedom, justice and equality for all Israel’s citizens.”

The problem is in the language: previous coverage of this controversy conflated the ideas of homeland and state. In an earlier post , Silverstein quotes The Forward:

The New Israel Fund, the target of attacks by right-wing organizations accusing it of supporting anti-Zionist groups, is discussing the possibility of specifying in its guidelines that grants will be given only to groups that accept the idea of Israel as a Jewish homeland.

… Board members and major donors are grappling with whether to require that grantees accept the idea of a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, thus agreeing to the principle of Israel as a Jewish state.’ ”

Semantically, we must differentiate between a homeland and a state. Agreeing to the idea of Israel as a Jewish homeland is not the same as agreeing to the idea of Israel as a Jewish state. Homeland connotes sanctuary and safety. State connotes power and government. You cannot have a Palestinian homeland in a Jewish state, but you can have both a Palestinian and a Jewish homeland within a secular and democratic state. If the new guidelines are simply rewording this old idea, then frankly, this doesn’t constitute a huge overhaul.

The NIF has remained silent about what the guidelines say, and I don’t blame them given the amount of outrage and “scandal” it has produced thus far without any official word. But a statement from NIF’s website posted on July 16 (, just after their bi-annual board meeting, puts forth the following:

“The New Israel Fund is dedicated to the vision of the State of Israel as the sovereign expression of the right of self-determination of the Jewish people, and as a democracy dedicated to the full equality of all its citizens and communities. We are committed to advancing the values of human dignity ensconced in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which we view as the key to its long-term security and survival.” [Emphasis mine.]

Do we read this as Israel as a Jewish state? If so, there is cause for alarm. This would inherently contradict to their commitment to true democracy, and provides evidence that their detractors have gained traction and influence. If indeed this rewrite is coming as a result of criticism and pressure from groups whose agendas scorn the principles of democracy, equality, and freedom, then we have on our hands a disaster.

Conflating these two ideas when implementing the new guidelines would constitute reneging on everything NIF stands for. If they conflate homeland and state, the new guidelines will indeed cause organizations to lose significant funds, as The Forward warns might happen. And we’re talking about more than just one or two renegade organizations; a large number of NIF’s grantees are committed to a truly democratic State of Israel, but one that does not recognize the Jewish nature of the state. If the NIF can differentiate between Jewish homeland and state, then technically it is upholding is decades-long commitment to democracy and equality within Israel. It is this commitment which should be preserved, and which I – perhaps naively – have faith in NIF’s leadership to uphold in spite semantic changes to their guidelines.

Semantics aside, the NIF is in a tough position. They constantly face an immense amount of criticism from all sides, and they cannot fund every worthy non-profit in Israel. That would be politically and financially impossible. As a foundation they need to listen to their stakeholders and investors, but they also need to respect their own commitment to their principles, to set a good example for governments and other foundations.

NIF has a long history of supporting projects which hold Israel accountable for upholding the democratic principles it claims to embrace. If NIF’s new guidelines cause it to cease funding such groups, that would constitute a catastrophe. But as of now, it is too early to tell.

If cuts happen, NIF joins the growing list of benefactors who have recently allowed themselves to be swayed by the loud voices of an intolerant few and are jeopardizing any true chance for democracy Israel has left.

I should certainly hope that NIF is well-respected and self-respecting enough not to back down from its own principles in the face of a gang of school-yard bullies. We would ask NIF to hold strong in the face of these and in support of the democratic principles it has until now succeeded in promoting.

Audrey Farber did her undergrad at UPenn majoring in – after much angst and indecision – Modern Middle East Studies. Her activism has involved resettling Somali, Iraqi, and Burmese refugees in Maine, researching forced migration issues in Amman, and rejecting the “path” by being a ski bum and bakery assistant at regular intervals. She is currently interning at Mada al-Carmel – Arab Center for Applied Social Research, in Haifa.  Audrey wants to fix the world and is actively trying to do so through photos and writing in her blog(s). She appreciates your support. The views expressed herein are her own .

Not only did the ‘easements’ Israel declared not help us, they have even harmed us. Exports are still banned, and that is a problem because the Gaza market is very small, and a large amount of ready made clothes have been brought in from Israel and China. The Gaza market was flooded with products, there is a lot of supply and less demand, and because of the stiff competition, we are forced to lower prices. As long as there is no export, it is hard for workers in the clothing and textile sector to profit and produce. After three years of closure, we lost the contacts we had developed with clients from Israel, and they went elsewhere”.

Mohammad Abu Dan and Co. Textile and Clothes Company. These days the factory operates at only about 10% of its production capacity.’

Before the closure, we worked at our full manufacturing capacity, producing 2000-3000 pieces a day. We did not manufacture for the local market; all of our products were for export to Israel and abroad. Back then, we imported between one and one and a half trucks of raw materials a day through the Karni Crossing, three days a week, and we exported between one and one and a half trucks of goods a day, two or three days a week”.

Right before the closure began, we received an order from an Israeli client, who asked for 100,000 items, which we had to make in three months. We managed to send him 30% of the order before Israel closed the crossings, and the rest of the goods remained in Gaza; he did not benefit from them, nor did we. Because clothing on the local market is sold more cheaply, we had to lower prices in order to sell the goods, and we lost money”.

Today we employ 25 workers. There is not much work. The Gaza market is very small, and profits are minute. We mostly just cover manufacturing costs, but we continue to operate out of a desire to maintain the factory my father built. Out of 180 sewing machines, these days we are working with just 20. More than half of the machines broke down, partly due to remaining idle for a long period of time. These days we manufacture about 300 pieces a day, 10% of our capacity and our actual production before the closure. For many hours a day we have no electricity, and during that time we don’t work. We adjust our daily schedule to the power supply – Sometimes we work from 6 in the morning until 1 pm, we then stop working, because there is no electricity, and go back to work when the power returns, sometimes from 10 at night to 5 in the morning.”

‘Out of 200 workers prior to the closure, only 25 are employed today, and 20 sewing machines out of 180 are operational.’

The sewing and textile industry in Gaza – general information
In 2005, prior to the closure, the production value of the sewing and textile industry in the Gaza Strip was estimated at $39 million, and approximately 70% of the manufactured goods were designed for sale to Israel and West Bank. In 2000, 37,000 people worked in this industry, whereas today the number of workers is estimated at 1,500. In the past there were 600 textile and sewing companies in the Gaza Strip, however it is estimated that only 10% are active today.
Source: Paltrade and the Textile Industry Association

Evidence is mounting that the Institute for Zionist Strategies (IZS) — an Israeli NGO at the forefront of an ongoing campaign to purge Israeli Universities of faculty and programs deemed “left-wing” — is a creature of  The Hudson Institute, a major Washington based neoconservative think-tank, which played an active role in shaping the Bush administration’s Middle East policies.

Hudson is the primary financial backer of the IZS, providing at least half of the organization’s total reported multi-year funding, but the connection does not end there.

Max Singer, co-founder of the Hudson Institute, its former President and current Senior Fellow, is also the IZS’s Research Director. At least according to his bio on the Hudson website: The IZS site only identifies him as a member of the Advisory Committee. Its 2006 brochure (page 8), however, states that he is a member of the International Board of Governors and as one of the ex-officio members of the Projects Committee, which “as such, are invited to all deliberative sessions and events.” According to the IZS’s verbal report to the Israeli Registrar of Associations for 2008 (the last one filed), Singer’s wife, Suzanne, is one of three members of the NGO’s “Council”, the sovereign decision-making body under Israeli law.

Max Singer

As the IZS’s Research Director, Singer would presumably be responsible for the research that pressured the President of Tel-Aviv University

to take the extraordinary step of examining the syllabi of his institution’s Sociology Department for “left-wing bias”. The introduction to the IZS’s 2006 brochure (page 1), which Singer co-signed, indicates that he saw this type of activity as part of the organization’s strategic purpose:

The IZS will help liberate the public discourse in Israeli society from the self-imposed constraints of the prevalent dogma and internalized notions of the politically correct. Israeli society needs to be freed from the acceptance of double standards so that we can become comfortable asserting our own national purpose as a sovereign Jewish community.

This goal would fit well within the stated purpose of a Hudson Institute project, which was launched at the same time as funding of the IZS began (emphasis in the original):

IZS Brochure 2006

The Future of Zionism. The Center for Middle East Policy is launching a multi-year project to examine the future of Zionism and its implications for the State of Israel. Israel faces an ideological crisis: As the recent Gaza pullout showed, societal divisions between secular and religious Israelis and between left and right wing camps have become so pronounced that they threaten to overpower the Zionist consensus that traditionally unified the nation. [Hudson Institute Form 990 Report to the IRS for 2005, page 23].

For a generation, Singer has been involved in designing and promoting aggressive US foreign policy. In the early 1980′s he was on the board of Friends of the Democratic Center in Central America (PRODEMCA), a controversial organization involved in the Iran-Contras scandal. In 2002, he published The Many Compelling Reasons for War with Iraq.

A Democratic administration is in power in Washington and Singer has moved to Jerusalem, so he has found a new instrument for beltway influence: The government of Israel. From a July 17 policy note published by the Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University (emphasis mine):

To prevent Obama from bringing America behind his different view of the world, Israel needs to help Americans appreciate the way that Obama sees things differently than they do. The views of most Americans, and of most of the American political world, are much closer to Israel’s understanding of Middle Eastern realities than to Obama’s perceptions. Israeli actions can help Americans to recognize the conflicts between what they believe and the premises of Obama’s proposed policies. The critical element in Israel’s policy concerning the US is the degree to which Israel is able to recognize, stimulate, and get the benefit of the parts of the American policy-making system that do not share President Obama’s radically different ideas about the world. Israel does not have to act as if Obama’s views will necessarily determine the policy of the US, and it certainly does not have to assume that Obama’s current views will dominate US policy-making for many years. Israel has the power, if it has the fortitude, to influence the degree to which Obama is able to make the tectonic change in American policy that he would like to make.

Netanyahu’s Senior Diplomatic Adviser, Ron Dermer, seems to have acted on this advice, incurring the wrath of Rahm Emanuel. From Ben Caspit’s August 19 column in Maariv:

Emanuel was angry, he claimed, because Dermer briefed certain Americans, Jewish and non-Jewish, against the President and Emanuel himself.

August 8, 2010.

On the ground report from Daniel who was previously interviewed here, reposted from Tikkun Olam.

Uprooting the olive trees of Al-Araqeeb

Yesterday, Daniel Dukarevich posted an eyewitness account (Hebrew) of the eradication of the Bedouin Negev village of Al-Araqeeb by the Israeli police and military.  It is disturbing and moving and worth reading to learn how this evil decree was implemented:

Translation: Dena Shunra

I don’t have a fully congruent recollection of this night and this morning at Al Araqeeb. It’s probably better this way. All that is left is the images of the village being razed. An evil tale. Like watching a kaleidoscope where every image depicts horror.

Night. We arrive at Al Araqeeb, a village somewhat north of Beer Sheva. People and animals are running around among the tents and the houses. The air his heavy with tension, and the unspoken question in the face of every one of our hosts is: Are they coming? Or maybe not?

Another image

Residents of Al Araqeeb erect burning barricade to impede those seeking to destroy village. Resistance was futile

We are deep into the night. Eight or nine village youngsters are dancing and singing by a bonfire. Other bonfires are aflame on all the surrounding hills, casting the black smoke of burning tires into the already-black sky. They warn us, cast up a warning of some danger. Are they coming? Or maybe not?

And more

Convoys of lights draw nearer, from every direction. A convoy, and a convoy, and a convoy. The first rays of the rising sun shed their light on black-clad soldiers, faces covered, among the hundreds of vehicles. Marching. Weapons at the ready. Surrounding the village. They came.

And more

The valleys all around are strewn with military vehicles. Helicopters and unmanned planes are up in the air. The sun has risen. We count soldiers, then cars, then buses. There are thousands. Despair begins to run through us.

And more

Soldiers – facers covered – run into the village. Several residents and activists who were standing in their way are beaten, pushed back, thrown to the ground. A young woman pushes her way in, trips, falls onto the rocks, and cries out in pain. A soldiers stands over her, covered in black, face veiled, and laughs a laugh that I will never forget.

And more

Bulldozers are razing the village now. They crush the tin shanties, uproot everything that stands in their path. The villagers watch, too tired even to shout. One of them cries out in pain when the bulldozer pulls the olive trees out of the ground. “Leave the trees, at least, what have they done wrong? We’ve been growing them for ten years now.” “You shouldn’t even have shade,” murmurs one of the policemen.

And more

A little Bedouin boy ambles around the ruins of what had been his home. I don’t know how he got through the cordon of policemen. A colorful shred of cloth from among the piles of dirt gets his attention.

All of a sudden, a policeman appears. He sees the child. He makes the kind of gesture you’d make to swat away a fly, to make the kid go away.

The kid goes, but after taking a few steps he can’t help himself: he stops, looks over his shoulder.

The policeman gestures again. The kid goes away.

And more

The village has been destroyed. Crushed water tanks drip onto parched earth. A chicken hides under the branches of a felled olive tree. The Special Patrol Unit squadron stops for a souvenir photo near a large pile that had been, until an hour ago, a family’s home.

The warriors laugh. They stand there, arms over each other’s shoulders. They seem to be happy.

And more

One of our activists is weeping. He stands there, leans on the car, and cries quietly. I want to give him a hug, to tell him it will be all right, but I cannot. I cannot find inside myself even a drop of ability to help. There is nothing inside me.

And one that is yet to happen

I hated you today, villains, as I have never hated before. But this won’t work for you.

In the last image, you will see people who’ll rebuild their home, out of the sand and out of the desert. Aided by those citizens here who still have a drop of humanity inside them.

In the last image, you will see olive trees planted and growing, tended and houses being rebuilt.

In the last image, you will see Al Araqeeb coming to life again.

You will not erase it.

The Sheikh Jarrah solidarity activists who took part in the resistance to the razing of the village of Al Araqeeb call on everyone to bring aid for the Al Araqeeb refugees to Friday’s demonstration. You can bring blankets, toys, clothes, large tents, and money. There will be a table dedicated to collecting the donations and bringing them to Al Araqeeb, to help with the rebuilding and rehabilitation.

Here is a video of the destruction, accompanying a Guardian article by Neve Gordon.

For Hebrew readers, another terrific post on the devastation, Law in Service to Thievery, by Niv Eyal.

On July 19, 2010 Bil’in was subjected to yet another Israeli Occupation Forces night raid when an unusually heavy number of Israeli soldiers entered the outskirts of the village to arrest a local youth; 17 year old Ahmad Abed Al-Fatah Burnat – who unfortunately was arrested.

It is not often that we ask for such help, but we turn to you today asking for a donation, large or small, to help in securing his release.

A picture of Ahmad Burnat from the movie Interrupted Streams

Last Sunday, a military judge ruled Ahmad could be released, but only on the condition that a sum of 10,000 NIS (2,600 USD) be deposited as bail.

Ahmad’s family has lost most of its land to the construction of the Wall, and have paid dearly for their role in the struggle – Ahmad’s eldest brother, Rani, is paralyzed from the neck down after being shot in the neck by a sniper during a demonstration in the year 2000. Following the injury, Israel also revoked Ahmad’s father’s work permit. Another of Ahmad’s brothers, Ibrahim Burnat, was also arrested six months ago and has been in jail since.

Ahmad’s family cannot afford the money to pay Ahmad’s bail. Unless we are able to raise that sum, he will remain languishing at the Ofer Military Prison for the duration of his trial, which could last one year.

Raids such as the one Ahmad was arrested in are not exceptional in Bil’in, or in any of the other villages in which grassroots protest against the occupation takes place on a regular basis. In Bil’in alone, ninety people have been arrested in connection to demonstrations in the village.

The West Bank village of Bil’in, among numerous other villages, has been targeted by Israeli authorities for their commitment to grassroots organizing. Hundreds more have been arrested in the past two years in Ni’ilin, Nabi Saleh, Budrus, Jayyous, alMa’asara and the other villages who take part in the popular struggle against the occupation.

The popular committee has seen hundreds of Bil’in residents being arrested over the years, and have been forced to pay a total of more than 300,000 NIS for bail. In addition, the costs for the trials are estimated to lie at around 2,800 NIS per person, per court appearance. Thus, we urgently need your support now, to release Ahmad. If we together can raise 10 000 shekels as soon as possible Ahmad will be released after the 37 hours have passed. The popular committee is kindly asking for donations so that we can pay for Ahmad’s bail:

Every such arrest is a threat to our ability to sustain this new vital wave of grassroots resistance. Lawyers fees, bails and prisoner support are an obstacle that we will be able to overcome, but to do so, we need your support today more than we have ever needed it before.

Please click here to make a donation and encourage the work being done in these villages. Your contributions can help us stand up for a true justice in Palestine.

Exceprt from the film featuring Ahmad, Interrupted Streams

Trailer for the film Bil’in Habibti

Ilana Hammerman

The trip to the Betar crossing point passed in almost complete silence. When we approached the checkpoint, the red sign, the metal tower, the speed bumps, the concrete barriers, the soldiers’ position, I felt my legs shaking – and not because of the bumpy road. I took a deep breath, slowed down but didn’t stop, rolled down the window, gave the soldier a causal wave and he indifferently motioned for me to keep going. ‘We made it!’” (Ilana Hammerman, “If There Is a Heaven,” Ha’aretz, 7 May 2010)

One spring morning, not so long ago, four women crossed the Betar Checkpoint: Ilana Hammerman, an Israeli translator and editor, and three Palestinian girls from a village in the West Bank. The girls, Aya, Lin and Yasmin – who because of their young age have not lived one day free of occupation – went with Ilana for a fun day in Tel Aviv. They visited the museum, the mall and the market, dipped in the sea, ate ice cream on a bench in the boulevard and when the evening came they crossed the checkpoint again to return to their homes. Hammerman tells this optimistic tale in her article, “If There Is a Heaven.”

The original article by Hammerman in Hebrew

But these simple and optimistic activities have turned the four women into criminals according to Israeli law. An organization called “The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel” asked the Attorney General to open a criminal investigation against Hammerman for violating the “Law of Entry to Israel”  – which states that anyone who drives, hosts or in any other way assists a Palestinian’s entry to Israel shall be sentenced to two years in prison or fined.

In a public act of civil disobedience, Ilana Hammerman has pointed to one of the basic components of the Israeli occupation regime: the law. Dozens of laws and regulations, civil and military, define and dictate every detail in the lives of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories: Where they go and how they will get there, how they will work, where they will live and with whom they can share their lives. Most of these rules and regulations violate international law, Israeli basic laws, as well as human empathy and logic, and Ilana was right in choosing to violate them. Ilana’s actions undermine the legitimacy of the ongoing control of millions of people by a “democratic” rule they have no part in, and rejects the separation between Jews and Palestinians, which is one of the foundations of the occupation regime. It is an act of necessary defiance in the face of an unbearable reality.

What is the red line beyond which we can no longer continue to respect its laws and regulations without betraying our conscience, which requires us, just as the Basic Law of our country says, ‘to defend human dignity and liberty’ – that is, the human dignity and liberty of every person, and not just the Jewish or Israeli person?” (Ilana Hammerman, “In Defense of Dignity and Freedom,” Ha’aretz, June 10 2010)

If and when she is put on trial, Ilana will refuse her right to an attorney. She wants to raise awareness and to generate a public discourse in Israel and abroad – on questions of the occupation, blind obedience and situations where obeying the law constitutes betraying one’s conscience and the human spirit. “I did not do this in rash defiance,” she writes, “but rather after much thought. Out of a need, that has become ever more pressing in the last years, to raise certain essential issues for in-depth public discussion in Israeli society.”

“The end was wonderful. The last photos show them about two hours after the trip to the flea market, running in the darkness on Tel Aviv’s Banana Beach. They didn’t want to stop for even a minute at the restaurant there to have a bite to eat or something to drink, or even to just relax a bit. Instead they immediately removed their sandals again, rolled up their pants and ran into the water. And ran and ran, back and forth, in zig-zags, along the huge beach, ponytails flying in the wind. From time to time, they knelt down in the sand or crowded together in the shallow water to have their picture taken. The final photo shows two of them standing in the water, arms around each others’ waists, their backs to the camera. Only the bright color of their shirts contrasting with the dark water and the sky reveals that the two are Yasmin and Aya, because Lin was wearing a black shirt.” (Ilana Hammerman, “If There Is a Heaven”).

——————-

Join the Facebook page in support of Hammerman’s civil disobedience

Coalition of Women for Peace website

• Video: Daniel Machover, Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, summary of analysis of international law applicable to flotilla attack.

• Downlaodable Documents: Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights document analyzing international law applicable to flotilla attack

and a Diakonia analysis on the law of sea applicable to flotilla attack:

Link concerning the criminalization of the four Palestinian citizens of Israel who were on the Flotilla (and are now under house arrest and travel ban):

• Adalah press release on the criminalization of four Palestinian citizens of Israel on the Flotilla, their house arrest and travel ban

Two excellent links on the aim of the Freedom Flotilla, particularly it’s position vis-a-vis humanitarian aid:

• Our own previous interview with Huwaida Arraf, one of the organizers, who was badly beaten during the attacks, explaining the motivation and background of the Flotilla.

• Article by Ewa Jasiewicz, one of the organizers, explaining the Freedom Flotilla’s purpose and motivation last month:

Articles concerning the actual and verbal attacks “Arab” Knesset Members following the attack:

• Jonathan Cook in the National: “Israel’s ‘mad dog’ diplomacy doesn’t make it more secure”
• Cook again: “Israeli Member of Parliament tells of terror on her aid ship
• IMEMC: Fundamentalist Israeli Legislators interrupt Arab Legislator’s speech, call for deporting her to Gaza

If we were not Israeli Jews, if the nine ships bringing 800 peace-makers from 40 countries would be sailing with humanitarian aid to an imprisoned population of a million and a half to, say, Haiti, the flotilla now on its way to Gaza would be hailed as a monumental event. The government of Israel would donate another 50 tons of food and materials and a brigade of army volunteers from the “rescue corps.” But we are Israelis, and the fact that such an operation is being launched against a siege we imposed on a civilian population three years ago – actually, the blockade goes back to the late 1980s – should cause us all to reflect upon how we and our country have arrived at this sorry state – how the “light unto the nations” has become one of the most oppressive states on earth, subject to international protests like this one.

The flotilla is sailing with a number of messages. First and foremost, to the government of Israel: “Lift the siege on Gaza!” The siege is absolutely illegal in international law, and for those of us who believe that the rule of law and human rights is the only recipe for a better world, it is incumbent upon us to join the flotilla’s call to lift the siege. Civilians cannot be the object of military and political attacks, as is the case in Gaza (which the Goldstone Report roundly criticized), nor can they be collectively punished for the policies of their political leaders. The very idea that people can be brought to their knees and forced to accept being permanently controlled and dominated, which is the thrust of Israeli policy, is both unconscionable and counter-productive. As the situation in Gaza shows, it has only stiffened resistance to the Occupation.

And then there is the urgency of  the flotilla’s second message, “Addressing the humanitarian situation in Gaza!” In a policy frightening reminiscent of other dark regimes in which Jews suffered from controlled malnutrition, our government has imposed a regime of “counting calories” on the Gaza population – imposing a “minimal dietary regime” on a million and a half people who receive as little as 850 calories a day, less than half the recommended daily intake. (Dov Weisglass, Sharon’s Chief of Staff, made a joke out of this. “It’s like a meeting with a dietitian,” he said. “We need to make the Palestinians lose weight, but not to starve to death.”) Instant coffee, fresh meat, rice, beans, spices, honey, chocolate, jam, bananas, coriander and pasta, among many others, are considered by Israel “luxury foods” for Palestinians. All this might be funny if it weren’t for the fact that, according to the World Health Organization, more than 10% of Gazan children suffer from chronic malnutrition. Two-thirds of the Gazan population face hunger on a daily basis.

Gaza is today an unreconstructed war-zone. Israel long ago destroyed the sewage system, so that people have drowned in periodic floods of sewage that have engulfed whole communities. Raw sewage flowing into the Mediterranean has polluted the only waters in which Palestinians are allowed to fish – the Israeli navy fires on fishermen who attempt to reach cleaner waters more than three miles out. Having destroyed Gaza’s only power station, much of the area suffers from blackouts, and Israel prevents adequate amounts of fuel from entering, with severe effects on hospitals. Gazans also have nowhere to live. More than 2,400 homes were destroyed in the invasion of last year and Israel, by prohibiting the import of raw materials, has prevented their being rebuilt. Thus the flotilla is bringing to Gaza 10,000 tons of humanitarian materials: temporary shelters, playgrounds for children, cement, steel and other construction materials, medical equipment and medicines and school supplies – a drop in the bucket of which is actually needed. The list alone is an indictment of our policies.

We Israeli Jews live in a managed information environment in which reality is carefully framed for us. Our government’s explanation for everything it does is “security,” and we accept that almost without question. But we have to understand a basic fact of life: four million Palestinians live under a cruel Occupation that we have nurtured for the past 43 years and which has deprived them of their fundamental rights (such as electing their own political leaders), robbed them of their land and homes (Israeli governments have demolished some 24,000 Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories since 1967), reduced them to impoverishment and has led, in the case of Gaza, to their literal imprisonment.

Why do I have to repeat facts that seem so self-evident, that everyone knows? Because, though every informed person abroad knows these things, we Israeli Jews don’t – and we don’t care. Most Israelis know far less about what our government is doing in our name, in Gaza and elsewhere in the Occupied Territories, than the activists on the Free Gaza ships. We seldom if ever use the term “occupation” in our everyday speech (in fact, our government denied the very existence of an occupation), and we minimize the impact that our settlements, our separate roads, the Wall, hundreds of checkpoints and other facets of the Occupation have upon the political process, which we no longer believe in. Living in a prosperous “bubble,” we do not see Palestinian suffering, only ourselves as “victims.” (And so our Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman characterizes the Gaza flotillas as “violent propaganda” against Israel, as if we have nothing to do with conditions of life in Gaza or the very fact of occupation.)  But this is not reality. For the Palestinians there is no minimizing their suffering or their yearning for freedom. Why, with our history, is it so difficult for us to understand resistance to oppression?

And so the third message of the flotilla is directed towards us: “Take responsibility for your government’s policies!” When I entered Gaza on the first Free Gaza boats in August, 2008, I issued an appeal to the Israeli public to stand in solidarity with us. I argued that ordinary people have often played key roles in history, particularly in situations like this where world governments, who should end the siege, shirk their responsibilities. We must resist the self-serving and disempowering statements of our political leaders who would have us believe that there is no solution to the conflict with the Palestinians, that there is “no partner for peace,” that we are doomed to perpetual war and, therefore, we must become permanent oppressors. The Palestinians are not our enemies; our own political leaders are. The very fact that I, an Israeli Jew, was welcomed by the people of Gaza makes that very point, and it is the message they asked me to convey to you. But they also insist on their rights: self-determination.

We of the Israeli peace camp refuse to be enemies with our Palestinian neighbors. We recognize that as the infinitely stronger party in the conflict, we Israelis must accept responsibility for our failed and oppressive policies.

In the meantime, the flotilla to Gaza has already succeeded. If the Israeli government allows the ships into Gaza, the power of the will have prevailed once more. If it chooses to stop the flotilla, it will only highlight the existence of the illegal and inhumane siege and bolster international efforts to end it. In both cases Israel loses the battle for legitimacy in the international community. This is the beauty of non-violent direct action. It is only a matter of time before it will be forced to relinquish control over the Palestinians and their lands.

Let us, Israeli Jews who aspire to become an integral part of this region rather than a foreign implant at war with its inhabitants, begin to take our fate in our own hands. We must side with the people of Gaza and the activists on the boats against the unjust and immoral policies of our own government. This is what the good people of the flotilla are trying to tell us, what people all over the world are trying to tell us: unless we take responsibility for our actions and end this terrible conflict with the Palestinians, we will not remain here. And unless we find a way to a just peace rather than stand on the side of occupation, oppression and injustice, we may delay that day by force, but our society will not survive. For our sakes as well as the people of Gaza, let us, the Israeli Jewish public, board the boats to end the siege of Gaza.