Es gibt zwei Narrative, aber nur eine Realität: die palästinensische Enteignung - Joseh Levine - 24. 1.  2018 - Zum hundertsten Geburtstag der Balfour Deklaration kam ein längst vergessenes, auch früher kaum beachtetes Buch neu heraus: "Palestine The Reality: The Inside Story of the Balfour Declaration1917-1938" von von J.F.M. Jeffries, einem britischen Journalisten bei der Daily Mail zur Zeit der in Frage stehenden Ereignisse.

Es ist keine "objektive", unparteiliche Behandlung der Geschichte. Jeffries macht gleich zu Beginn klar, dass er ein polemisches Ziel verfolgt: "die arabische Sache". Er macht das mit Leidenschaft, er schreibt gekonnt, achtet sorgfältig auf Details, ist erstaunlich scharfsinnig, analysiert einsichtsvoll. Es ist besonders interessant mit den Augen eines Zeitgenossen zu sehen, wie die Ereignisse zum Britischen Mandat und dessen erste zwei Jahrzehnte führten, ohne das Wissen, was noch kommen würde - der Zweite Weltkrieg, der Holocaust und dann die Nakba und die Gründung Israels 1948. Er war kein Gegner des europäischen Kolonialismus im allgemeinen, aber er findet die Behandlung der einheimischen Bevölkerung in Palästina durch die Briten und die Zionisten als eine Beleidigung der Gerechtigkeit und der Ehre von Großbritannien. Seine berechtigte Empörung trübt sein Urteil nicht, sie ist durchgehend rasiermesserscharf, und sie verschleiert auch nicht das Narrativ, das er zu erzählen hat. Da das Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs von den Briten ins Auge gefasst wurde und Beratungen darüber, was mit den früheren osmanischen Kolonien zu tun wäre, auf höchster Ebene der Regierung geführt wurden, hatten sowohl britische als auch amerikanische zionistische Führer einen besonderen Zugang zu und Einfluss auf diese Beratungen. Arabische Stimmen wurden fast vollständig ignoriert. Diese Situation herrschte während der ganzen Periode, über die das Buch berichtet, vor. Es scheint, dass Palästina von Anfang an in der Klemme war.  - 
übersetzt von Karin Nebauer   -  mehr im englischen Text >>>

16 year-old Ahed Tamimi is a Palestinian child who hit world news after a video went viral showing her slapping and pushing two armed Israeli soldiers in her home's front yard. She was clearly no threat, as they lightly swat her away.

She has now been detained for over a month, aggressively interrogated and is looking at a prison sentence that could be up to 10 years.

Act now for Ahed – tell Israeli Prime Minister to release her.

There is nothing that can justify Ahed Tamimi’s continued detention. The video of the incident clearly showed that she posed little threat to the soldier she slapped.

Ahed confronted the soldiers during a demonstration against US President Donald Trump’s recent decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The detention of a child should be a last resort - Call on Israeli Prime Minister to release her immediately.

Ahed can face up to 10 years of her life in prison. Her trial before a military court starts in a few days. We need to act quickly. - Magdalena Mughrabi - Deputy Director - MENA Regional Office Amnesty International

Anti-Semitism declines, while Dislike of Israel rises. - Dr. Ludwig Watzal - Reports on Anti-Semitism are booming. Most of these stories are produced by Zionist organizations, the Israeli government or close affiliates to both of them pretending, however, non-partisanship. Just recently the Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs released the 2017 Anti-Semitism Report that showed an increase in racist incidents against Jews, especially in Western Europe such as France, the UK, and Germany. The full report is not yet available.

There are real Anti-Semitic incidents in many countries, also in Germany. Most of them have to do with the policy of the State of Israel and not with Jews because they are Jews. The only meaningful definition of Anti-Semitism is the hatred or prejudice against Jews because they are Jews. And here starts the problem. In many countries, the so-called Anti-Semitism is a just mere critic of Israel’s brutal oppression of the Palestinian People. To call such a critic „anti-Semitic“ distorts the truth and tries to distract from Israel’s immoral behavior and its human rights violations. The whole staged discussion about the „new“ anti-Semitism serves only one purpose to criminalize criticism of Israel’s political behavior.

For example, the BDS movement is a case in point. The protest of this civil rights movement and its call for a boycott of Israeli goods produced in illegal settlements is stigmatized as „Anti-Semitism.“ Such an accusation is preposterous, but some governments have already passed anti-BDS laws stifling free speech. The Israeli government and the Zionist Lobby around the world exert huge pressure on governments to outlaw any critic of Israel by labeling it „anti-Semitic.“ In fact, BDS just wants to liberate Palestine from Zionist occupation.

This anti-Semitic witch hunt produces strange effects. Apparently, the US hit hardest due to the all-powerful Zionist Israel lobby. They exert not only enormous pressure on Congress but also on universities by threatening to withdraw funds. In Germany, for example, the Zionist lobby has a firm hold on the German political class. Their subservient behavior results from the Holocaust and Chancellor >>>

This review of the book “Ten Myths About Israel’ by Ilan Pappe will appear in the Winter 2018 ISSUES, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism. The book is published by Verso.

The Middle East remains a subject of increasing examination and debate. The prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians seem to be receding. Early in 2018, Israel’s ruling Likud Party unanimously endorsed a resolution calling for the annexation of West Bank settlements. This decision marked the latest step by Likud to distance itself from the internationally backed idea of establishing an independent Palestinian state as part of a future peace agreement. Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan declared: “We are telling the world that it doesn’t matter what the nations of the world say. The time has come to express our biblical right to the land.”

Much of the world’s understanding of the conflicting claims to historic Palestine is confused. We have heard over the years of “an Israeli narrative” and a “Palestinian narrative.” There have been too few efforts to understand what really has happened in this region, and to arrive at some agreement about where myth ends and facts begin. In this book, written on the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Professor Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian now teaching at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, examines the most contested ideas concerning the origins and identity of the contemporary state of Israel.

The “ten myths” that Pappe explores reinforce the regional status quo. He explores the claim that Palestine was an empty land at the time of the Balfour Declaration, as well as the formation of Zionism and its role in the early decades of nation building. He asks whether the Palestinians voluntarily left their homeland in 1948, and whether June 1967 was a war of “no choice.” Turning to the myths surrounding the failures of the Camp David Accords and the official reasons for the attacks on Gaza, he explains why the two state solution, in his view, is no longer viable.

Historical Disinformation - “As the example of the Israel-Palestine conflict shows,” writes Pappe, “historical disinformation, even of the most recent past, can do tremendous harm. This willful misunderstanding of history can promote oppression and protect a regime of colonization and occupation. It is not surprising, therefore, that policies of disinformation continue to the present and play an important part in perpetuating the conflict…The Zionist historical   >>>

Fearing breakup of Israel lobby, liberal Zionists stress the power of Jewish unity - Philip Weiss - 24. 1. 2018 - The partisan divide over Israel has never been greater (as Pew documented this week). Republicans love Israel, while Democrats are ambivalent. The difference represents a fundamental political divide: Democratic liberals know about the occupation and they don’t like it, and that’s driving them to have far greater solidarity with Palestinians than Israelis, by nearly two to one.

You might think that the liberal Democratic shift would hearten liberal Zionists who are trying to end the occupation. Finally, U.S. politicians will criticize Israel, and force change. But no; there is panic among liberal Zionists writing in the Forward. More than they hate the occupation, they hate the possibility of Israel turning into a political football. For that could lead to Israel ultimately losing its protection by the U.S. from all international criticism.

They warn that Jews must stick together, because that is how we exercise power, by speaking in one voice to the U.S. establishment.

Jane Eisner, the editor of the Forward, wrote last week, “Trump Has Handed The Israel Lobby To Evangelicals. That’s Terrifying.” What’s terrifying to Eisner is the possibility that a powerful institution Jews built, the lobby, will be undermined: “as ‘pro-Israel’ becomes synonymous with conservative Republicans, American Jews — still largely identified with the Democratic party — will move away,” she says. >>>