Reading the press coverage of Jewish Voice for Peace’s fabulous campaign in support of the Israeli theater artists boycotting settlements, I was struck by an item in Arutz Sheva, the settler’s news service, which ends with this paragraph..

The liberation of Israeli territory in the War of Independence in 1948 was accompanied by a massive exodus of Arabs, and dozens of Jewish communities were then built atop the ruins of Arab villages whose inhabitants had fled, as opposed to the Six-Day War in 1967, when the return of Judea and Samaria [Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza] to Israel was less violent and was not accompanied by an Arab exodus. Paradoxically, leftists in Israel consider communities built on the ruins of Arab villages taken in 1948 legitimate, but view communities built beside Arab villages taken in 1967 as illegitimate.

First of all, over 200,000 Palestinians were displaced by the Six Day War. and no doubt more would have been if the memory of the Nakba had not been so recent. Many people died as well, so I am not sure about where Arutz Sheva gets “less violent” from. But nonetheless I am fascinated that the settlers’ news service is arguing the dispossession they are responsible is not so bad as the Nakba, Israel’s founding. Is this is further sign of potential right wing support for a one state solution?

The picture above was taken a few weeks ago, when Ikhlas visited the Mediterranean Sea for the second time in her life. The sea is only 47km from her home (measured via Google Maps), but the Occupation regime – especially its prisonlike nature during the past decade – prevents most West Bank Palestinians from visiting it. Both of Ikhlas’ beach visits were initiated by the Villages Group. On the first time, Ikhlas and her brother Mohammed were taken to Tel Aviv to meet an Israeli eye specialist, who unfortunately confirmed that their blindness is incurable.

The second time came about after repeated appeals to military authorities, to allow the Jebara family a visit to Israel in order to breath some fresh air of freedom. The family was automatically blacklisted by the Shin Bet after the father Sa’el was murdered by a settler in fall 2004.

The cruelty of the Occupation regime is perhaps most directly illustrated via this story. The settler, a German convert with troubled history, was nonetheless given – like most settlers – an M16 automatic assault rifle by the military for his “self defense”. He then used it to murder an innocent civilian, who happened to be Ikhlas’ dad, in broad daylight. The lengthy legal proceedings end with his conviction of manslaughter. But the judge inexplicably allows the murderer a home leave before his sentence is set. He disappears without a trace, and to this day no one has found him (has anyone even looked for him?). If you find this hard to believe, here’s an account from the Israeli mainstream news site Ynet.

Meanwhile, the victim’s family having lost its father and provider without recourse to justice, is automatically labeled as a “security threat” because now they have a reason to revenge! Therefore, they are placed under even tighter confinement than other Occupied Palestinians.

This year Villages Group activists petitioned the authorities, arguing that 6 years after the murder perhaps the victims should be allowed a reprieve from their punishment, due to their good behavior. The plea was rejected. Knowing how mindless and arbitrary the Occupation system is, the activists did not give up and submitted the exact same petition again. This time it was accepted. The Jebara family was treated to a day of fun, visiting the homes of their Villages Group friends for the first time ever, and seeing the Mediterranean Sea – second time for Ikhlas and Mohammed, first time ever for their siblings.

This fall, Ikhlas will begin her M.A. studies in English literature at the Nablus University.

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It is perhaps appropriate that unlike the personal tone of Ikhlas’ first offering of songs posted last week, the songs below carry a more political message.

Ikhlas will be happy to communicate with any of the readers. Being in touch with people from faraway places does a great deal to alleviate the depression and suffocation of living under the Occupation regime. Ikhlas’s email address is ikhlas_soh@hotmail.com.

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Believe me we can not dare

Believe me we can not dare
to say that occupation is something that we can not bear
But even if we said it
they will our bodies like pieces of cloth tear
Not by human butchers
rather it has become the machine butcher’s career
Be silent my friend
and do not say whether it is cruel or fair
Because if you said this
you will be thrown in fire

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If you tried to turn your face

If you tried to turn your face
In a moment you will be in the hospital as a critical case
Occupation is willing to chase
Every person who is from the Arabic race
And the steps of history trace
Occupation has no conscience

when it the bodies of Gazan children dismember
in the last December
I am torn by pain when I remember

the bodies of children trampled under the feet
of an unworthy Israeli soldier member

Dying words on their tomb door
saying war is every where

On the heads of the poor
Palestinian life will become sore
You will live in pain more and more
Let it be forever let it be forever

When will facts chant?
When will Justice on her feet stand?
When will we together
in the face of cruelty stand?
When will we our rights defend?
When will we like a bomb explode?
When will we our rights defend ?
Or shall we wait for someone to rescue us?

—————————

Do you know

Do you know what your life is like?
Your life is a play
if you wonder I will say
what role in this life I play

a good person I may be
as a fruitful tree
slave people I can free
if they appreciate they will agree

a source of evil I contribute to life
by carrying my sharp sword and knife
I can steal a husband from his wife
And deprive a person of his life

To me you can describe
What type you want your self to ascribe
No matter you are from this or that tribe
But what really matters is you are mature and ripe

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 .

Or at least in Foreign Policy magazine. Dimi Reider has a great article about far-right and far-left members of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. See if you can guess which person quoted is Likud speaker Reven Rivlin and which is Palestinian Israeli Member Ahmed Tibi.

mending the gaps within Israel should happen in the context of moving toward a one-state solution across the Green Line. ‘Barak, Livni, Peres and recently Netanyahu are not even talking about a real state for the Palestinians,; he sneers. ‘They’re talking about an autonomy with no army, borders, control over airspace or telecommunications.’

‘On the other hand, you have the basic fact that contrary to Barak’s slogan — ‘We’re here and they’re there’ — Jews and Arabs today live both here and there, on both sides of the Green line, especially in Jerusalem. Partitioning Jerusalem would lead to continuous bloodshed between segregated enclaves, like in Belfast some years ago. If there’s a threat to Jewish statehood, its less in a bi-national solution than in partitioning the land.’

and

I live in the same country with a people that have experienced a terrible tragedy, the worst crime of all history. . S”o I have every amount of empathy for Holocaust survivors.

Left: Reuven Rivlin; Right: Ahmed Tibi

If you haven’t guessed, the first quote critiquing the two state solution as it has been designed is Rivlin. And the real empathy with Holocaust survivors is Tibi, who is threatened with sanctions elsewhere in the article.

Reider also  documents the slide away from Israeli democracy,

A survey held in March found 56 percent of Jewish youths under 18 believe Arabs citizens should not be allowed to vote. Charges of treason are routinely hurled about both in the Knesset podium and in the parliamentary committees; a report by the Coalition against Racism in Israel found the current assembly of the Knesset to be the most racist in the parliament’s history, with a record number of bills directly targeting Arab citizens of Israel.

but sounds cautiously hopefully at the end of his article.

It appears that just as hostility and suspicion between Jews and Arabs is becoming unbearable, a radically different process is beginning to feel its way forward — but the question of which process will prevail in the short and long term remains wide open.

After the murders of four settlers as hopeless and diversionary direct talks begin, it’s nice to imagine a process that actually treats Israelis and Palestinians lives and voices as equals however longshot it seems now.

Max Blumenthal exposes some religious leaders calling for the actual killing of babies and other Palestinians, a far worse rehtorical offense then “failing to condemn terrorism.”

According to the book’s author, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, ‘Non-Jews are “uncompassionate by nature’ and should be killed in order to ‘curb their evil inclinations. If we kill a gentile who has has violated one of the seven commandments… there is nothing wrong with the murder,’ Shapira insisted. Citing Jewish law as his source (or at least a very selective interpretation of it) he declared: ‘There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.’

But because the religious leaders in question are Jewish, the Israeli government seems powerless to do much. When the spirtual leader of Shas, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef made similar statements about killing Palestinians. “God should strike them with a plague, them [leaders like Mahmoud Abbas] and these Palestinians,” Yosef’s son had endorsed the book mentioned above.  Netanyahu responded witha  disclaimer that the views of his own coalition member, the fifth largest party in Parliament, are not the views of his government. Blumenthal calls this statement, “not only weak. It was false.”  To paraphrase Dante Atkins’ Daily Kos post which asked the same question about General “My god was bigger than his god” Boykin, who would you rather have build a community center in your neighborhood, Shapira or Park51 Imam Rauf? And whose views sound closer to those of Al-Qaeeda? And while Rauf is well-connected and even serves as a government envoy, he is far from the spirtual leader of a major political party.And yet Hamas is excluded from the direct talks, while Shas is able to participate, an imbalance that is just one of the many reasons these talks are doomed.

Blumenthal reports on the following thought experiment,

Palestinian Israeli member of Knesset Jamal Zehalka subsequently demanded that the Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein put Yosef on trial for incitement. ‘If, heaven forbid, a Muslim spiritual leader were to make anti-Jewish comments of this sort,’ Zehalka said, “he would be arrested immediately.’

Stanley Fish describes the double standard well in the New York Times.

The formula is simple and foolproof (although those who deploy it so facilely seem to think we are all fools): If the bad act is committed by a member of a group you wish to demonize, attribute it to a community or a religion and not to the individual. But if the bad act is committed by someone whose profile, interests and agendas are uncomfortably close to your own, detach the malefactor from everything that is going on or is in the air (he came from nowhere) and characterize him as a one-off, non-generalizable, sui generis phenomenon.

Finally, James D. Besser blogs in New York’s Jewish week about the need for Jewish American leaders to condemn Yosef’s remarks.  And wonder of wonders, the Anti Defamation League was the first to do so. Now if they would just condemn the abusive actions of the Israeli Governments, not just the abusive words of its members.

Ever since then, we have been in touch with Muna, the widow, and her children. Ikhlas, the second of six Jebara children, is blind from birth and has last year graduated college with an English literature major. She also writes poetry in English.

Following is a first sampling of her poems; a second group will be posted later. Feel free to contact Ikhlas directly at ikhlas_soh@hotmail.com.

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To say or not to say

I wonder whether to say or not to say
To be enthusiastic
to revolve
or to obey
For God or for people to pray
Or like a refugee without home to stay
Or like a child in the streets to play
Or to pass through a narrow or wide way
Or our hopes for future to delay
Or to sit under the red x-ray
Here we are my friend
with no decision
Whether to be or not to be
we do not know
Whether to say or not to say

————————–
In our narrow street

In our calm narrow street
I followed the traces of his feet
I heard the echo of hope
when she said you should meet
you should meet
Darkness bitterness of days you should defeat

My tongue had also said no blame no blame
Forget the past and live for your dream
For hope in your eyes would gleam

No one but echo answered me
No he is not free
With him we can not be
Until the masters of the fates agree

In a dark cloudy atmosphere
Moon, sun, stars seem to be very clear
Safety… bravery… oh grasped fear
In the eyes of the sky there is no tear
Just the glimmer of hope that is so near
From them you can not flee

I bitterly answered ‘what do you claim?’
She laughed and said I will achieve my aim
Until the end of my game
I trust myself and I do not feel shame

Hope -she is so strong and stout
And she is able my fears to wipe out
She laughed with her echo-voice so loud
One day in the hands of you will be found

———————————-
Gift for those whose parents are lost

Here on that street my dad died
Death attacked him from an unknown side
What did his death for us hide ?
Grief and pain did for us decide
His death the hearts of our family did divide
Loss and departure were emphasized
While happiness at that moment seized

Here on that street my father drove
On the same street he was shot
By a settler who was provoked
From an innocent person his revenge he got

From an unknown origin he is derived
Responsible that in my family’s life

grief, pain and anger reside
But there are people of his religion who have tried
For us a new beginning to provide
They really appreciate the size of grief in our hearts

Monday in the afternoon was the opening of our wound
And it caused the broken hearts of our catastrophe to moan
At that moment the stagnant grief in our souls was grown
We lived in darkness with no fraction of dawn
A black tragedy for me was drawn
Like a nic in the neck… it is in the heart a wound

————————–
To be a graduate

Have you ever felt like a person who will graduate
Who is standing on the edge of the university and life’s gate
People are coming to say ‘we congratulate’
They within me a glimmer of hope create
I am like a king who won the state
I am a person who is loved by fate
For this day I am willing to wait

All love from my heart is sent
To my parents my sisters my brothers my doctors and friends

For you I say ‘happy new year’
I wish we will the dress of happiness wear
No matter how the last days were
The principles of a new life in this modest party we declare
The black papers of our last tragedies in our lives we will tear
The bitterness of days we no longer bear
We in the eyes of future stare
Happiness and hope we can see there

But we also notice some sort of fear
I hope that peace is near
for those whom to me are so dear
You are to me my jewels
In the siege of my heart you fell
I rang my tongue’s bell
good words for you to tell
Let us together say grief farewell
grief farewell grief farewell

Several of Israel’s leading theater companies have agreed to perform in the new cultural center in the settlement of Ariel, due to open on November 8. The companies include the Habima National Theater, the Cameri Theater, the Be’er Sheva Theater and Jerusalem’s Khan Theater.

Ariel lies 20km inside the West Bank, deeper than any other sizable settlement. The divided highway leading to it – the best road in the West Bank – is open to Israelis only, *and* lacks any signs naming the numerous Palestinian towns and villages flanking the road. According to Peace Now’s 2006 settlement land report, 35% of Ariel’s area was confiscated from private Palestinian owners by military fiat. The rest is public land. No patch of Ariel’s lands was rightfully purchased. Occupied Palestinians are allowed into Ariel only with special permits.

And to this settlement, on that highway, Israel’s highest-profile theater troupes will now travel.

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0. Hat-tips, crossrefs, etc.

A big h/t to Ofri Ilani of the influential Ha-Emori blog (Hebrew link), who first covered the story from an Israeli anti-Occupation perspective. A special kudos to Ofri for dwelling upon “Irony #2″ to be described below. Noam Sheizaf from the Promised Land blog later posted a brief summary in English.

This text itself is cross-posted on Daily Kos.

1. Something’s Fishy Here…

Major Israeli theater groups do most of their shows in Tel Aviv and other large towns, hopping to the periphery only for one-off shows once interest in the center begins to wane. It’s a combination of simple economic calculus, and a mutual cultural bias (people in small towns might hesitate to go to a theater show, unless the price is far lower than the hefty ones paid in Tel Aviv). So how on Earth does a settlement of 18,000 people, not particularly known for its high-culture afficionados, manage to land so many big-ticket shows on the very first year it opens a theater?

My guess is that there has been a lot of lobbying – read, arm-twisting – behind the scenes. All theaters receive part of their budgets from the state. The Israeli state is right now, essentially, in settler hands – right up to settler and foreign minister Yvet Lieberman, widely considered the most powerful politician in the country. Add to that a witch-hunt atmosphere against “self-hating” academics and NGOs in the Israeli street, and theater managers – always scrambling to make ends meet – need little convincing to accept this cordial invitation to baptize Ariel’s new cultural gem.

Here is a telling quote from Yossi Graber, a veteran actor of the national theater HaBima:

“I have my own reservations about the Territories, but since I act at a play receiving state funds I am not going to stage a rebellion.”

(btw, this quote somehow fell out of the English Haaretz translation. It’s only found in the Hebrew original)

In plain terms: the power of the state is now used by the right wing to nudge Israeli theaters into accepting the settlements as a normal reality. Although (see immediately below) some of them apparently don’t require much nudging.

Well, when it comes to settlements “nudging” is the name of the game anyway. There is no economic viability in an Israeli exurb that plants itself a good 40+ minutes away from most employment sources, surrounded by traditional farming communities with hostile and resentful residents. What makes Ariel even possible at all, is massive, consistent and ongoing government subsidy. Would-be residents receive generous loans and grants to buy houses on the robbed land (which, being robbed, is cheap to begin with). Then they enjoy an inflated level of public services which can only be dreamed of inside “Israel proper”, free bus passes for their kids and personal tax breaks for the virtue of living in a settlement. Businesses, too, receive immense grants and breaks if they set up shop in the settlements. Students who agree to go to Ariel’s college (now rechristened as “the Judea and Samaria University Center” in order to thumb Israel’s collective nose at would-be boycotters) are practically certain to receive a scholarship. Take all these away – or offset them via external economic sanctions – and Ariel’s mostly non-ideological residents will drift back into Israel. In fact, the town’s population has been largely stagnant in the past five years.

2. Irony, Part I

Kudos to Haaretz for bringing this story, and even more so for writing down the theaters’ official responses to the question, how come they’re hopping onto the Ariel bandwagon so fast. Here goes:

HaBima: “Habima is a national theater, and its repertoire is supposed to suit the entire population. We perform our plays wherever it is feasible to do so.”

Cameri (Tel Aviv’s city theater): “The Cameri, like all Israeli theaters, plays at any venue where there are subscribers who are lovers of Hebrew theater, including all of the country’s theaters.”

Beersheva Theater: “We play anywhere all around the country.”

Khan Theater’s general manager (Jerusalem): “There are plays that are products on one hand, and possess a universal cultural value on the other hand. Anyone who wants to watch them is invited. We do not make a stand on the political matter.”

That last response, again, was dropped from the translated article. Don’t you just love it? As if a major theater booking a play in a settlement whose mayor has turned it into a flagship for the entire project’s legitimacy, is anything but a political statement.

But the major irony here is that no theater spokesperson excluded Ariel from “the country”. Thus, they pull the rug from under a major argument against artists like Elvis Costello, who decided to skip Israel altogether until things get better there. The argument against Costello et al. is that they are engaging in “a blanket boycott” without distinguishing between “the Good Israel” inside the 1967 lines, full of peace-loving people, and the problematic settlements.

Well, it turns out that according to Israel’s leading theaters, a classic component of the “Brand Israel” project to hide our ugly underside using our pretty high culture – the pre-1967 Green Line simply does not exist. It is all “The Country”. And this comes from the bohemian theater lefties. The rest of Israel’s institutions – the bus company, the electric company, the phone companies, the water company, the national parks system, the local-government system, etc. etc. – have integrated the settlements into “The Country” decades ago.

3. Irony, Part II

And as blogger Ofri Ilani sharply noted, one of the very first plays to be staged at Ariel by the Cameri theater this fall, is Bertolt Brecht‘s “Caucasian Chalk Circle”.

Brecht himself, widely revered in Israel, was a dissident German thinker who didn’t mince words about the fascism that took over his country, and continued railing against violence and injustice from his exile. “Chalk Circle” itself is a variation on one of the stories about Solomon, with two mothers quarreling over a child. Brecht changed it into a wealthy distant mother who disappeared from the child’s life, and the poor nanny who actually took care of him all these years. The background is a corrupt failed state, where a drunk lowlife is appointed judge but surprises everyone with his just, Solomonic verdict which hands the child over to the nanny.

Indeed, a classic play to show in Israel in general and in a settlement in particular. While Israelis might claim (as our propaganda has argued for years) that the Palestinian “nanny” hasn’t taken good care of the country in the long centuries of near-total Jewish absence, it is pretty clear what Brecht would think on the matter. Ofri Ilani actually went to see the play, and reports that the present Cameri interpretation is watered down, morphed and dumbed down to the point of totally distorting the main moral-political message.

To round up the irony: for decades the Cameri had built its reputation as the home theater of the late Hanoch Levin. Levin’s plays, presenting searing criticism of brutality and oppression in general, and of Israeli militarism and Occupation in particular, had time and again placed him at odds with the Israeli street. However, he is without question considered to be Israel’s most prominent playwright. Now, the Cameri succeeds in turning both Brecht and Levin in their graves with one fell swoop, while its spokescritters cheerily chirp that they “play at any venue where there are subscribers who are lovers of Hebrew theater, including all of the country’s theaters.”.

4. Irony, Part III

The cultural center’s manager, Ariel Turgeman, told Haaretz that he fully believes the venue will be ready for opening within three months. In recent weeks, construction has been going on by night, to allow the Muslim construction workers to fast during the Ramadan month.

Yes, believe it or not: the new venue is being built by Occupied Palestinians toiling at night. It seems that Salam Fayyad’s much-trumpeted campaign to have Palestinian laborers quit their settlement jobs, is toothless. Just like the man himself, who reserves all his biting power for oppressing his own subjects. But he cannot even promise them compensation, so that they will be able to stop serving settlers for a living.

American politicians and journalists can continue falling over each other praising The Unelected Wonder from Ramallah as Palestine’s great hope. Meanwhile, Fayyad’s main contribution so far has been to make the Occupation even more convenient for Bibi and the settlers, who are now laughing all the way to the box office.

5. A glimmer of hope

Well, not everyone in the said theaters is playing along. The news were only one day old, and already two of Israel’s hottest acting stars announced they will not go to Ariel.

Yusuf Sweid, who is currently appearing in “A Railway to Damascus” at Habima, told a Channel 1 television talk show yesterday that “I would be glad to perform in settlements in several shows that have messages I’d like to deliver in many communities. But settlers and settlements are not something that entertains me, and I don’t want to entertain them.”

Well said. Sweid, a Palestinian-Israeli, is willing to engage settlers in a serious debate over the country’s future. But unlike the theater managers, he will not roll over for fear of settler power.

The other actor is Jewish-Israeli Rami Heuberger, who does not have a specific Ariel show on his schedule yet, but already stated that

“if I am asked, I believe I would have a problem with performing there. As a stage actor it is a very, very problematic issue, and I think that so long as settlements are a controversial issue that will be discussed in any negotiations [with the Palestinians], I should not be there.”

Additionally, judging by angry talkbacks on the Hebrew Haaretz story, quite a few subscribers of these theaters are considering cancellation. The typical Israeli theater-going crowd is famously left-of-center, and has a special enmity towards the settlements. Have the theater managers miscalculated by placing their fear of government power above their core audience’s sensitivities? Time will tell.

10AM PDT UPDATE: —————

This just in from Israel (Hebrew link)

Dozens of Actors and Theater Professionals Refuse to Appear in Ariel

We would like to express our disgust with theater managements’ intention of staging shows at Ariel’s new hall…

This is the opening of a protest letter sent today by dozens of actors and theater professionals to all theater management…

…The actors among us declare they will refuse to play in Ariel, or any other settlement. We call upon managements to carry on their rich cultural activities, within the sovereign borders of the State of Israel, inside the Green Line.

Besides many leading actresses and actors, signed are also leading playwrights (Sobol, Gov, Librecht) and directors.

The settlers’ Yesha council has changed its celebratory tone. Yesterday they still laughed at the 2 actors who first spoke out. Now they say:

Our response… will be very harsh. This hate letter railing against Israel’s best sons who protect [theaters] while they play on stage, requires a direct, sharp and clear response from theater managements, and we expect that. We will announce our next steps over the coming days.

So, what’s the theaters’ “sharp” response? Cameri repeats its previous mantra, while HaBima seems to start backpedalling:

This is the first time that staging acts beyond the Green Line comes up in the Israeli debate… the subject requires an in-depth inspection of all the issues it raises…

An in-depth inspection which you, in your haste to put yourselves in Lieberman et al.’s good books, kinda skipped. Thank God so many in your theater crew have some spine.

So… yes, theater managements have miscalculated. Of all professionals, Israeli theater people are perhaps the most identified with the left in general and with anti-Occupation causes in particular. There is no way they would have taken this lying down, and been able to look themselves in the mirror afterwards.

This is probably a good place to stop; the next diary will probably be about the miscalculations of the settler lobby itself – this one being just the most recent in a rather impressive string of them.

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

From the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee.

Protest organizer Abdallah Abu Rahmah from Bil’in was convicted of incitement and organizing illegal demonstrations today, after an eight months long military trial, during which he was kept behind bars. He was acquitted of a stone-throwing charge and a vindictive arms-possession charge.

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.