Monthly Archives: October 2012

How would you like your ODS cooked?

28 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in Jews in Palestine, ODS, Palestine, Right of Return

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Excerpts from discussion between ODS supporters

Discussion of the One Democratic State (ODS) for Palestine, like many other political discussions, tends sometimes to stay abstract, Utopian, even dull. When there is some sort of controversy it may sharpen minds. So please tune to the following fast exchange of ideas about ODS and how to get there.

(It was a private discussion between friends… I enjoyed it so much that I thought the public may benefit. I omitted the names and some practical details. If you happen to find yourself between the contributors you may (a) hate me, (b) ask for your section to be omitted or modified, or (c) ask for your name to be specified.)

It all started with an interview by Rami Almeghari from “The Electronic Intifada” with Noam Chomsky (while on a welcomed visit to Gaza).

Rami Almeghazi:

Some call for a two-state solution between Palestine and Israel, while others call for a one democratic state solution. Which is more workable for you?

Noam Chomsky:

It is not a choice. I have been in favor of the what’s called a one-state-solution or binational state solution for seventy years and, so ok, I’m in favor of it. I am also in favor of peace in the world and … getting rid of poverty. There’s a lot of things I’m in favor of.

But if you are serious, you say, “how do we get from here to there?” That’s the question. We can all say it’s a wonderful idea. In fact I don’t think one state is a good idea, I think there should be a no-state solution that should erode the imperial borders. There’s no reason to worship French and British decisions on where to draw borders. A no-state solution would be much better, but again we ask, how do we get there?

Over the past seventy years I have been involved, there have been different ways in which you could move to that direction. Circumstances change, so your tactics change and under current circumstances, in fact since 1975, there is only one way that has ever been proposed, and that is in stages, through a two-state solution as the first stage. If there’s another way, nobody’s told us. They can say “I like this outcome,” but they don’t tell us how we get there. Now that’s as interesting as someone [who] says I’d like to have peace in the world.

Prosecutor:

Chomsky needs to be completely thrashed, exposed and cut down to size. His “anarchism” is just a cover for clinging to the Jewish state, and for blatant shoring-up of racism: would he have said to Rosa Parks “why bother to ride on the white folks’ buses, let’s just get our own black buses”? Saying that one state is a non-starter because there’s so much hatred is just pandering to race hate, accepting it as an unchanging fact of life, as a natural phenomenon.

I’m not sure a debate would really expose him, because he would throw his “anarchist” smokescreen up to create confusion. If you could put him in the dock facing some sharp questions you might get somewhere. But how significant is he anyway?

Defense:

To suggest that Noam Chomsky panders to race hate and accepts it as “an unchanging fact of life, as a natural phenomenon” is, in my opinion, absurd. And for you to ask how significant Chomsky is only seems to reveal to me how little weight your argument has. All those Palestinians in Gaza, who filled halls for three nights to listen to Chomsky speak, let alone all the others in many parts of the world who take the time to listen to him, realize how significant he is. I do not and need not agree with his every position including ODS, but I certainly greatly respect him and can say with thanks that I have learned a great deal from him. Many other people in many parts of the world correctly share my view of Chomsky. I do not think that Chomsky
deserves to be “thrashed, exposed and cut down to size (sic),” and I am not at all convinced that you could accomplish that feat.

More evidence:

Here’s an interview Chomsky gave to Israel’s Channel 2 in May 2010 from Amman: At about 4 minutes into the interview he supports ODS, but later several times ‘supports Israel’. I reckon a linguist should see that there is some ambiguity here and immediately clear it up! Many Old timers like Chomsky have an emotional bias towards Israel/Zionism; even the great Tony Judt didn’t rid himself of all the baggage. [The interviewer is almost in tears towards the end.]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25571.htm

The simple question to Chomsky is, ‘How do you get to one democratic state after there are two states?’ Or: ‘How would having a Palestinian ‘state’ [joke] help in getting to ODS?’ Until that case is made at least in outline why don’t we just stick to working for what’s right and let time tell what’s possible? [Remember universal suffrage, remember abolition of slavery, remember South Africa, remember smoking bans – they were all ‘impossible’.]

Challenger:

Quoting Chomsky on one v. two states is a bit like quoting the Bible: you pays your money and you takes your choice. Take just one thing: this man is supposed to be the arch anti-imperialist yet a major reason he gives for two states is that it is “the international consensus”, i.e. the choice of the international military-economic-political powers. He should choke on words like “international consensus”.

It may be tactically worth debating with him but he will not debate with any degree of intellectual honesty or consistency, and will never be pinned down. It actually makes me quite sick to hear him say that he is against supporting Palestinian right of return because he has their best interests at heart and doesn’t want to see them disappointed. Again, always carefully phrased: yes, he says, there is legally and morally the right of return, but no, we shouldn’t campaign for it or take it seriously.

This sort of sophistry comes easily to some of the (“major”) big beasts of the intellectual jungle, whereas a simple person would simply say:  if one state is the right way, I’ll put my back into it and do what I can to win it.

Defense:

I think that you do not understand Chomsky’s positions regarding opposition to a Jewish state and support for Israel’s becoming a better state than it is. In actuality, our desire for ODS is for this present state to become a better state than it is, regardless of the name applied to the state. There is in reality no difference between Chomsky’s position on this point and the position that Israel Shahak advocated. I wonder if you would have argued against Shahak in the same way that you are arguing against Chomsky.

Chomsky believes, as do many others, that two states could and would lead ultimately to one state. You, I and other ODS advocates believe otherwise. There nevertheless is a rationale for the Chomsky et. al. position.

Countrapunkt:

Chomsky not an ‘enemy’? I don’t know, he certainly gets personal in the electronic intifada interview. He impugns the motives of those arguing for academic & cultural boycott, saying we don’t care about the victims (Palestinians) and do it just to feel good; he talks down to us, saying we should ‘think about the consequences for the Palestinians’. Really? Wow! Who would have thought?

He then goes on to ridicule ODS rather than argue against it: it’s great, like mom and apple pie and peace. And we’re ‘not serious’ because we allegedly haven’t asked how to get to ODS. I’m sorry, this is arrogance. And he’s serious about preferring the no-state solution. Who is less realistic?

And: he says Abbas’ new effort to get status allowing access to the International Criminal Court is good and proof that it’s good is that Usrael is so vehemently against it. Hmm. What is the criterion here? Isn’t Usrael also against ODemocraticS? And isn’t Usrael vehemently against boycott, which therefore must be good? I’m sorry, this is not coherent.

Free Haifa:

1) The main issue is the Right of Return – because the refugees are the people that suffer most from Zionism. Noam Chomsky, as far as I know, is not for the return of the refugees, and the main reason is that the Israelis don’t want them to return. He actually campaign politically against the ROR, so he serves Israeli propaganda on this single most important issue.

2) No – ODS is NOT democratization of Israel. ODS is liberation of Palestine from Zionism and the establishment of a democratic state that will open the way for Israelis to be assimilated as equal citizens. This is not the same thing and not even similar. If it is about democratization of Israel, NC may be right that the limit of our dreams is what Israelis are ready to allow. But if you think so – just take care to hear the real Israelis and not invent your favorite virtual Israelis. As far as the Israelis set the rules of the game, not only ODS and ROR are not on the cards, neither do TS (Two States), HR (Human Rights) – or whatever decent idea you may have in mind.

Voice of Reason:

1)        It seems to me that the most important ODS advocates are clearly
the Palestinians and Israeli Jews who presently live in
Palestine-Israel (my terminology) and those who have been displaced
and live elsewhere. They are the insiders, and they are the ones who
need to lead the ODS movement for what I consider to be obvious
reasons. I and other outsiders can offer ideas and agree or disagree
on issues that arise, but we need to realize that the activist
leadership must come from the insiders. I and those like me, who are
outsiders, of course retain the right to accept or reject to follow
the leadership. Palestinians, including Palestinian leaders, are the
most important people to take leadership roles. Palestinians-first and
foremost-must be able to show and to demonstrate that they are in
favor of ODS.

2)        Understanding the proposition that the Right of Return is the primary issue for some, I suggest, as I and others have for a long time, that this principle requires definition and specificity whenever advocated or argued. This point is far too important, far too broad in possible meaning to be advocated
solely, most of the time or even some of the time merely by stating
the three words and arguing in terms of an invoked principle. Is the
argument for the Right of Return to mean that all Palestinians who
have been displaced since 1948 and their children and grandchildren
have the right to return, reclaim and occupy the land from which they
were displaced? If the answer to this question is “no” or “not
necessarily,” then what are the parameters of another answer? I
realize that many answers and approaches to answers to this question
have been offered orally and in writing by numerous individuals, but I
nevertheless say that some guidelines of definition and specificity
need to be stated whenever the call for the Right of Return is made.
Otherwise, this advocacy is inadequate and incomplete from a rational
perspective. Otherwise, there is almost no hope in convincing the
great majority of Israeli Jews and their supporters to accept either
the Right of Return for displaced Palestinians and/or ODS, based upon
the Right of Return.

3) The difference that FH draws between advocating the “democratization of Israel” and the “liberation of Palestine” must be carefully and more completely explained. I am not sure that I understand the difference from what FH has written. The democratization of Israel, if fairly and fully achieved, could from my perspective mean that the exclusive, Zionist state would be changed into one democratic state. I, and probably others as well, would like to be able to consider a more complete comparative explanation.

Free Haifa:

I think this is a very important discussion. It involves (a) moral position, (b) analysis of the dynamics of developments and (c) political strategy.

For me it starts with the moral position of taking the side of the oppressed. Our struggle, in order to correct some of the injustice that was done, and create the base for more just order (and hence more stable one) can’t pretend to have artificial symmetry between two “rights”. Ethnic cleansing, specifically, is wrong, and its reversal will be at the expense of the acquired “rights” (spoils) of those who benefited from it.

Then we should ask ourselves what are the possible scenarios on the ground and in what conditions we may achieve our goals. I think you may all agree that now Israelis have the land and all the privileges because they have the physical power (i.e. military superiority). You can also agree that this military superiority is possible only because of massive military, economic and political support from the Western powers. Now, to put it all very simply, there are two distinct options for change: (1) Power (superiority) will stay with the Israelis, but they will somehow be convinced to give rights to the Palestinians. OR (2) There will be a major shift in the regional balance of power and the Palestinians will be able to decide their own fate.

These two scenarios are both predicting major change, and none of them is clear to come at any specific time. In my humble view, the second is much more probable and may happen much earlier.

Of course people may work on the two scenarios – to see which will come first. There is no essential contradiction – but… Naturally, the people that try to convince the Israelis to give some rights to the Palestinians from a position of power tend to (1) try to press the Palestinians to lessen their demands so as to fit the Israelis comfort, (2) Object to specific steps that will dent Israeli superiority as it may impede the expected Israeli “generosity”… So, actually, they tend to work against real change on behalf of an illusionary one.

What are the processes that may bring real change?

1) Crumbling US-EU dominance of the world as a whole and the Middle East in particular.

2) Strengthening of 300 Million Arabs, in alliance with the Turks and Iranians, as a result of the Arab Spring, to become the natural rulers of the region.

3) Palestinian unity, end to all illusions in imperialist sponsored solutions and reliance on the real – mostly regional – allies.

These are not theories and no abstract speaking on “no state solution” – it is the real geopolitical processes that take place just in front of our eyes.

In this sense I speak of “liberating Palestine” – when the relationship of forces will be such that Palestinians will be able to decide their own fate.

It is time to tell the Israelis that the game is over – as the signs were raised for their allies in Tunisia and Egypt. They will be lucky if they will grasp it fast enough in order not to fight it to the bitter end. If you maintain the illusion that Israeli superiority can last for ever – you actually prevent them from preparing for the future change.

While South Africa was liberated as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union, when imperialism was at its highest point of world dominance, Palestine will be liberated as a result of the collapse of imperialist control of the Middle East. The world is changing – don’t say that the bastards changed the rules and forgot to tell you.

I hope this looks like optimistic to you…

Voice of Reason:

I disagree in numerous ways with your description of the two possible scenarios you described. I point out that you are wrong in charging that all those people, including myself, whom you obviously fit into your first scenario, object to “steps that will dent Israeli superiority.” Simply put, that allegation is unfair and untrue. It seems to me that in your argument you construct and use your first scenario to act as a mere prelude to advocacy of your second scenario. I, for one, object to such argumentation.

In regard to your second scenario you assume the ideological position that imperial control of the Middle East is an obvious proposition, which must be seen in your indicated manner and which has created and maintains the problematic and tragic situation for Palestinians. Imperialism, I suggest, is a far more complex phenomenon than you indicate and is actually only one of the factors responsible for oppression of Palestinians. There is much more to be said and discussed here. The bottom line is that, in my opinion and in the opinion of numerous other observers and commentators, including both Palestinians and Israeli Jews, your two stated scenarios are from my perspective incorrectly stated. There are other  and better ways to view and to oppose Zionist oppression of Palestinians and to advocate a one democratic state approach.

Finally, you previously emphasized the importance of the principle of the Right of Return. You, however, did not answer my comment in response to your lack of definition of what the Right of Return should mean in practical terms and what ODS supporters should advocate specifically in regard to this principle.

I suppose that our discussion will continue.

Free Haifa:

Of course the world is too complex to be covered by any two simple scenarios, And most good ODS supporters, like you and me, work on both fronts: Struggle to empower the Palestinians and cut the power of Israel, while trying to convince the Israelis to change their ways.

But sometimes things should be sharply analyzed, and adopting any future perspective projects on our daily activity. In this sense the Palestinians, and their supporters, should decide whether their main hope is for change in the balance of power, or should they hope only to get whatever the Israelis will be ready to give from their position of superiority.

It is this assumption of perpetual Israeli superiority that drives Chomsky and others to “advise” the Palestinians to give up their right of return “for their own sake”.

According to my reading of the development on the ground, the balance of force is SURE to change in historic perspective, and is LIKELY to change very much as a result of the current Arab Spring.

I don’t think that we have to deal now with all the technical details of the Right of Return, as with many other practical aspects of building the ODS (or the Free Palestine). What should be clear is that the implementation of this right will be one of the top priorities of the state. It is also clear that the returning refugees, through their parties and organizations, will be one of the major forces that will achieve this state and lead it when it comes. So they should know best what they need, and we all should help as much as we can.

As for the integration of the Jewish population in the future Palestine – it is the common interest to prevent chaos and help them be integrated and participate in all aspects of building the political system, the economy and society. But they will have to completely change their state of mind in order to build their future through integration in the region instead of controlling or terrorizing it. This is another reason why we should state it clearly now and in every occasion that Israeli superiority is doomed.

Weam Amasha: Fighting Occupation and Tyranny

26 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by in Arab Revolution, Syrian Revolution

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Amasha’s message to resistance activists who insist on siding with the Syrian regime against what he describes as the “popular revolution in Syria” is clear: “You cannot oppose a foreign occupier but accept the oppression of a local tyrant. Freedom cannot be compromised and divided.”

via Weam Amasha: Fighting Occupation and Tyranny.

Donald Trump Playing the Israeli Trick

24 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Racism, Zionism

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Seeing Donald Trump asking president Obama to show his papers, I can’t avoid the association with my long experience in Apartheid Israel. Whether a policeman will stop you as you walk home from the center of Haifa to your neighborhood – or soldiers will stop your car on a roadblock – if your skin is dark enough or you look poor or Arab, they will ask you for your papers.

It is a test of your nerves and stoicism – if you don’t smile politely, if you show stress because you might miss your train or date, if you are simply fed up of being stopped and humiliated – it might be a fateful encounter.

This issue of asking for papers has become much more than a “security” routine. It is the essence of relations between the master and the slave. See who is checking whom and you know who is the danger and whose security and well being the system is designed to keep.

This behavior has so much penetrated the Israeli mentality that for many Israelis this is their natural instinct when they see Arabs. Sometime you meet a very nice Israeli guy in pleasant social circumstances and he tries to be nice and friendly. So, when he reveals that you speak Arabic, he wants to make a step toward you. He says, “Well, I know some Arabic… Hat el-Hawiya (Give me your ID)”.

Some pretty Arab female student even swore to me that somebody even tried this opening sentence on her in a date…

So don’t blame Mr. Trump that, when he sees a black guy trying to enter the white house, the responsible concerned citizen within him is overcoming his lonely dog instincts and he feels obliged to ask “Show me your papers, Nigger!”

No wonder that many Americans feel such a strong empathy toward Israel, until blind support to Israel is at the center of their view of the outside world. Israel is a live proof that you can be a “bright democracy” that serves exactly the “right people” and keeps an iron lid on everybody else. Could you believe that there are still such places in the world?

If your papers are not all right, you might be in trouble. Even if they are perfectly right, you might be accused of insulting a policeman, or trying to attack or run away. If the policeman is overwhelmed by his hard life, he might simply take your papers and tell you to come and look for them in the station or at the military governor’s.

As for Obama, he has no chance. He is suspected of being black and he has no way to disprove it.

Palestinian Approach to the Jewish Community

19 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by in Jews in Palestine, Palestine, Zionism

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The Crisis of Zionism

And a Perspective for Palestinian Approach

To the Jewish Community in Palestine

First Published: August 27, 2008

This presentation was prepared for the August 2008 seminar of the Anti Imperialist Camp in Italy.

Introduction

This paper is written as a contribution to the discussion in the Anti Imperialist Camp about perspectives for work within the imperialist countries. The situation in Palestine is very different from that of Europe or the US. Since the beginning of the Zionist colonization of Palestine, some 130 years ago, Jews in Palestine were a small enclave of settler population in the midst of the Arab homeland. Colonialism is not external expansionism of some imaginary “western-capitalist Israel”, but the essence of Israel’s existence. Palestine is an occupied colonized country, where the real center of political life is the struggle against the occupation. Any progressive struggle within the Jewish community in Palestine should be part of the perspective of Palestinian liberation.

From many aspects, the democratic struggle in Israel, as a remote outpost of imperialism, may differ from the general perspective for revolutionary struggle in the imperialist centers. Anyway, I tried to keep my analysis strictly committed to the facts on the Palestinian ground, and let the audience treat it critically to decide what lessons may be drawn for other fronts.

Part 1: How the Zionist system works

Zionism and Imperialism

A lot was written about the evils of Zionism as a colonialist movement and Israel as a racist regime, but the role of Zionism in the Imperialist Hegemony over the Arab East is much less known and understood. Still the main role of Zionism is not the exploitation of the Palestinian people, of which they prefer to get rid by continuing ethnic cleansing, neither the building of a Jewish society in Palestine (and the subsequent exploitation of the Jewish working class). The main role of Israel is as an advanced military outpost in the middle of the Arab East to prevent Arab independence, Arab unity and the building of a national economy and democratic society.

The military character of the Israeli project is enshrined in many strategic agreements between Israel and the imperialist powers, guaranteeing the “strategic superiority” of Israel in the region.

The current imperialist hysteria against Iran’s nuclear program has only one meaning – imperialist determination to keep Israel as the only power with nuclear weapon in the area, so as to enable it to use it on need. In many recent writings by Zionist leaders they tell openly how close they were to using nuclear weapons in some of their past conflicts…

For their role in keeping imperialist hegemony over this strategically important region, the Zionist military-capitalist elites receive a wide range of economic and political privileges, which are a small fraction of the imperialists’ profits from the subjection of the Arab nation and the robbery of its natural and human resources.

Colonialism and Class

In order to be able to expel and oppress the Palestinian people, and in order to be able to militarily terrorize the whole region, the Zionists need the best of all imperialist weaponry, but they also need soldiers to fight their wars. The state of Israel uses those Jewish masses it succeeded to tempt to come to Palestine as its base of support and as the foot soldiers for its colonization, oppression and aggressive wars. It needs this immigrant community to be satisfied, to prevent it from re-immigrating to safer places, and to keep its loyalty as a fighting force.

Fear is one major force behind the intense control of Zionism over the Jews in Palestine. In this sense, Zionism is the main beneficiary of anti-Semitism and it shares its conviction that Jews can’t assimilate in the societies where they live. It also benefits, to some degree, from terrifying Jews in Palestine from the possible consequences in case Israel will loose it military dominance.

In order to provide replacement to the expelled Palestinians, the Zionist movement is bringing in Jews from all over the world. At a process of internal colonization, Jews from Arab and other third world countries are deprived of their culture and social structure, which are declared by the state as “inferior”, and their society is crashed to provide defenseless “human raw material” for the Zionist manipulation and exploitation.

But the main mean used by Israel to keep the loyalty of the Jewish masses is to make their daily way of living depend of a complex system of privileges as against the native Palestinians. This system of privileges includes every aspect of daily lives in Israel: Health and Education, Housing, Welfare, Acceptance and promotion at work, just everything. Much effort is done to involve as many Jews (from all classes) as possible in actively expropriating Arab land, in the ’48 occupied territories as well as in the West Bank and the Syrian Golan heights.

This system allows only one way for effective struggle for sections of the Jewish masses that aspire to improve their daily lives: To struggle to enhance their privileges and distance themselves from the much more oppressed and exploited Arab masses. It is not a coincidence that the most successful struggle of Oriental Jews in the last years was a campaign for more equal distribution of expropriated Arab land, waged under the slogan “this land is also mine”.

The Alternative can’t come from within the Jewish Community

Capitalist exploitation in Israel, like anywhere else, creates its contradictions and class struggle. But the acute polarization of society under colonialism prevents the class struggle from naturally evolving to a political conflict over power. Arab workers are marginalized by systematic discrimination, many of them working in unofficial or semi-official sectors of the economy where class organization is almost impossible. The most organized and combative workers are those in the more privileged, almost fully segregated, sectors. As much as struggle and local organization develops, it is put to vain by the Histadrut, the all powerful tool of the Zionist movement that is responsible to assure that trade unionist struggle is subjected to the interest of the colonialist system.

The so-called “Israeli Left” is not left at all. Sometimes it is taken to include the Israeli Labor Party, which was the central instrument of Zionist colonialism, directly responsible for both the ethnic cleansing of 1948 and the occupation of 1967. “The Labor” is till this day a full partner in all of Israel’s aggressive and racist policies and is a partner in most of its governments’ coalitions. Economically the Israeli Labor Party is as tightly connected to big business as its openly Right wing twins and it promotes neo liberal policies like privatization.

Labor’s shadow in the Zionist “left”, the small “Merez” party, which is now in opposition, is only a shade more moderate, and don’t hesitate to take part in Zionist governments of occupation and war when it gets a chance to do so. It claims to be more moderate in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, but its main political activity is to try to engage the Palestinians in virtual negotiations and to blackmail them to give up the right of return of the refugees in order to make them more acceptable to Israeli public opinion… Merez is also well known to rely on the well to do elite, which might be a bit less aggressive than other flanks of Zionism as it sees its interest well defended in any possible settlement.

There are anti war movements, of which Peace Now was the most famous and numerous. While it expressed some popular tendency to distrust the military-political leadership and pressed the government to be less aggressive, it mostly remained under the political wings of Labor and Merez. Its logic was that Israel might allow itself some concession from a point of strength, thus denying the Palestinian refugees right of return and clinging to Jewish domination.

For a long period, the Israeli communist party tried to build an Israeli Patriotic non-Zionist left. They thought this left could cooperate with the mainstream Zionist “left” and influence it toward peace with the “external” Palestinians and to reduce discrimination against “internal” Palestinians. For this purpose they tried to limit the Palestinian struggle inside the 48 occupied territories to an agenda of civil rights, equality and peace. While they tried to heal some of the symptoms of Zionism, they accepted its main proposition of the establishment of a Jewish state. This experiment came to its futile climax when the Communist (and other Arab) votes in the Knesset were crucial to sustain the Labor government led by Rabin at the time of the Oslo agreement. Even than, Labor refused to include the Israeli Communist Party, or any other party representing Arab voters, in its governing coalition, thus stressing the exclusive Jewish character of the Zionist state and the de-legitimization of those Palestinian Arabs who are formally citizens of Israel.

As an echo of the international radicalism of the sixties of the previous century, several radical movements were formed between Jewish youth, best known by the name “Matzpen” – Compass in Hebrew. In spite of some important principled positions against Israeli colonialism and the dedicated struggle and sacrifices of some militants, those groups failed to integrate as a significant component in the Palestinian Liberation movement even while it was at its leftist radical heights. Finally those groups dried and died out within the walls of the reactionary Jewish Ghetto.


Part 2: Zionism doesn’t work any more

The limitations and reversal of Zionist military superiority

As the mainstay of Zionism is military dominance, as part of imperialist Hegemony, the crisis of Zionism came with the proof of the limitations of Israel’s military power and intensified as the imbalance of power lost its irreversible look. The top moment of Israel’s dominance was the 67 war and its occupation of the whole of Palestine and vast other Arab lands. The Arab awakening came fast: Within a few years came the insurgence of the Palestinian resistance, the “war of attrition” and the October 1973 war – in which Israel badly needed direct American airlift to escape defeat. But than the ruling bourgeois in Egypt, the main frontline Arab state, decided to capitalize on the changing balance of forces for its selfish interests by jumping on the American wagon, and made the Camp David peace agreement with Israel.

For Israel “peace” with Egypt was an opportunity to try to crash the Palestinian resistance by launching a war on Lebanon, which lasted from 1982 till 2000. Israel occupied Beirut, massacred Palestinians by the thousands, and for a short period forced a collaborators government. But the resistance continued and prevailed – and it proved that bare military force can destroy and occupy a country, but can’t force its own political order.

The first Palestinian Intifada (1987-1993) made chunks of occupied Palestine ungovernable. It forced Israel to make the Oslo agreement with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), bringing its exiled leadership from Tunis to be its partner in providing some self rule under the occupation. The PLO leadership was cheated to believe that Israel is interested to give up the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza strip, and officially renounced armed resistance while Israel continued creeping ethnic cleansing and colonization.

The disappointment from Oslo brought the second Palestinian Intifada in 2000. After heroic and bloody struggle the Palestinians succeeded for the first time to force Israel to give up a small chunk of Palestine, the Gaza strip, which Israel evacuated from settlers and direct military occupation in 2005. Still Israel, with imperialist and Egyptian collaboration, put Gaza under severe siege and converted it to an open air prison and the scene of daily massacres. Meanwhile the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, won the 2006 elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council. In 2007 Hamas succeeded to establish effective rule over the Gaza strip, and in 2008 it succeeded to force Israel to accept the first bilateral truce.

In July 2006 Israel tried to redraw the balance of forces by attacking Lebanon again. For 33 days its air force kept bombing civilian infrastructures in Lebanon, causing ethnic cleansing of the population in the south and destroying parts of Beirut. For 33 days its elite ground forces and its most advanced tanks failed battle after battle against the resistance of the Hisbullah militia. For 33 days the northern part of Israel was paralyzed by Hisballah artillery and rockets. Lebanon’s grand victory in that war established Hizbollah’s leader Hassan Nassrallah as the most popular leader in the Arab world and Hisballah as the main party in deciding the future of Lebanon.

Meanwhile, while the Zionists’ only “achievements” are more suffering and bloodshed, they called in direct American intervention in Iraq, to prevent any real or imaginary threat of Arab oil money being used to build independent Arab national entity. But the invasion of Iraq proved to be the one extra war too much, even for the superpower. The Iraqi resistance dealt a massive blow to the ability of the Unite States to force its way over the oppressed and exploited people all over the world.

Like they did all along the way, the Zionists only perspective is to try to “correct” the damage of the last war by plotting the next war. Now they are trying to make the United States fight another disastrous war against much larger and stronger Iran, what might prove their most bloody and costly adventure still. It seems that the US, after its bloody experience in Iraq, is now at last resisting the temptation to follow Israel’s war mongering against Iran.

The Internal Crisis of the Israeli Regime

The lost of direction in its external and internal permanent wars is the main reason for the internal crisis that is engulfing the Israeli regime. For many years no Israeli government succeeded to spend its whole period, and the different organs of government are in constant strife. Corruption is everywhere: Israel’s honorary president had to resign for charges of rape; its previous Finance Minister is now sentenced for theft; Its head of Police had to resign for allowing local criminals to influence the police; its War Minister and the army’s Chief of Stuff had to resign for their clumsy handling of the war on Lebanon and Prime Minister Olmart is now obliged to give up his job after endless charges of corruption.

Neo Liberalism and privatization where adopted by Israel more vigorously than in most western states, and damaged the welfare state and social solidarity that used to be the glue of the Jewish society. A small group of local and external oligarchs is strengthening its grip over the economy, and the gap between the poor, many of them ordinary working people, and the super reach is ever wider.

As an immigrant community, Israel is more sensitive to the evils of capitalism. From the Zionist point of view unemployment and poverty between the Jews are threatening its constant effort to bring more Jews to live in Palestine. On the other side of the social spectrum, the prospering high-tech industry is creating globalized educated elite that find it easier to leave Israel and relocate to the imperialist centers of power. It is a main indicator of the crisis that there is now more outward immigration from Israel than inward immigration.

Echoes of the second intifada in the Jewish community

The first intifada (1987 – 1993) was led by the PLO, and very much directed by its leadership’s prospect of establishing a Palestinian state in the 1967 occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. It didn’t require any re-alignment in the Jewish street, as it fitted with the perspective of the Israeli peace movement, to be a moderating force on the side of the Israeli government. It all came up to the Oslo agreement and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority under the occupation and not as a replacement to it.

The second intifada (2000 – ?) came as a result of Palestinian disillusion from the Oslo “peace process”. It erupted just as the Israeli side, including much of the so called “Israeli Left”, believed that the Barak Labor government went as much as it could toward the Palestinians. The second intifada challenged the Israelis’ concepts on the conflict for several reasons:

  • Hamas and Islamic Jihad took major part in leading the intifada, and were not part of the imperialist controlled “peace process”.
  • There were more Israeli military and civilian casualties.
  • For the first 10 days there was also intifada of Palestinians inside the 48 occupied territories. Even after their direct mass struggle was suppressed by the systematic killing of demonstrators, it remained clear were “internal” Palestinians stand.
  • Israel intensified its destructive oppression toward the Palestinians.

The initial response was a loud convergence around the Zionist consensus, with many luminary figures of the Israeli “peace camp” accusing the Palestinians of ingratitude in so violently uprising just as peace was at a hand’s reach. But than a different kind of response came out, which broke the dead end perspective of the traditional peace process.

Within a short time after the breaking of the second intifada, some elements around the Communist Party, as well as independent minded leftists, established “Ta’ayush”, a movement that stressed the common struggle of Jews and Arabs against the occupation and against discrimination, and avoided posing a political program. The very selection of the movement’s name, the Arabic word for “living together”, was a refreshing break with the previous dominance of Hebrew and the Israeli narrative even in left circles. In the first years of the intifada Ta’ayush succeeded to mobilize thousands of Jewish militants to join Palestinian struggles both in the West Bank and inside the green line. The avoidance of the till than “natural” perspective of the two states solution allowed active participation of more radical elements. Under the pressure of partners in the refugee camps in the West Bank, as well as the committee of internally displace Palestinians, Ta’ayush was forced to take a clear stand on one issue – the right of return of the Palestinian refugees. After some productive years, activism for itself was not enough to keep Ta’ayush as a major force, and it is now confined to some local activity groups.

The main organizers of participation of Jews in the daily mass struggle against the occupation are now “Anarchists Against The Wall”. They take part alongside Palestinians and international volunteers in daily demonstrations against Israel’s building of the so called “separation wall” in the West Bank, a wall that separates Palestinians from their lands and from each other in order to enhance Jewish settlements. This partnership in struggle converted the Anarchists to the flag bearers for all the opponents of the occupation, and many people of different views take part in the demonstrations. Yet, concerning political perspective, it seems that in Tel Aviv it is sometimes easier to be “against all states” than to single out Israeli Apartheid as an evil regime that should be confronted for very simple democratic reasons.

As compulsory draft is forced on all Jews (and Druze, an Islamic tendency) in Palestine, resistance of army service is a constant component of the democratic struggle. Here again the center of activity is changing. In the past the main trend of political “refuseniks” was to be good soldiers in the Israeli army, as defenders of “legitimate Israel”, and to selectively refuse either serving in Lebanon or policing the 67 occupied West Bank and Gaza. Now the center of the movement is refusal to take any part in the Israeli army, recognizing that there is no way to distinguish between a legitimate “defensive” role and the occupation. The open political refuseniks movement is now much more in coherence with widely spread disillusion and alienation toward the state’s institutions that lead thousands of youth to dodge military service without openly declaring refusal.

One aspect of the ideological control of Zionism over the Jewish community is the denial of the existence and the history of the Arab people of Palestine, and especially denial of the Palestinian Naqba – the ethnic cleansing against most of the population of Palestine in 1948. Palestinian insistence on their rights, especially the yearly commemoration of the Naqba by mass demonstrations for the right of returned, succeeded to break this self serving ignorance, to the level that the word Naqba is now very much used even in Hebrew. There is also systematic work by democratic activists within the Jewish community to raise consciousness to the Naqba, most significantly by the “Zochrot” (feminine for remembering) association.

Another challenge to the level of cooperation of Jewish militants with the Palestinian intifada was posed by Tali Fahima, which offered herself as human shield to disrupt the constant attempts by the Israeli army to kill Palestinian militants. In 2004 she was arrested and accused of “collaborating with the enemy”. A lively campaign in here defense succeeded to expose the political nature of the accusations, until the prosecution was forced to compromise on lesser accusations and two and a half years imprisonment. Her name became a symbol of victimization of democratic anti occupation activists.

The anti war movement against the second invasion of Lebanon (summer 2006) was another example of the shifting balance from Zionist fake left to radical pro Palestinian opposition. As Labor was part of the government, and its “left wing” leader Perez was the minister of “Defence” that initiated the war, the organized Zionist “left” was completely in collaboration with the war propaganda until the last days of the war. On the other hands, the Arab and Jewish left in Haifa led the opposition to the war by daily demonstrations from the first day of the war, even as the city was partly evacuated due to rocket attacks. In several mass anti war demonstration in Tel Aviv, Palestinian flags were raised and the mixed Jewish and Arab public was led by a mix of Communists, Arab nationalists, Anarchists, Gays and Lesbians’ militants, etc.

Part 3: Building the Alternative

The Official Palestinian Position

The struggle against Zionism is led by its main victims – the Palestinians – but victory requires Arab anti-imperialist unity, international solidarity and also breaking the Zionist monopole over the Jewish community in Palestine.

The traditional program of the Palestinian liberation movement, The Secular Democratic state in Palestine, posed a positive and progressive alternative. Some Jews were active in the PLO and were handled important positions.

Soon the PLO’s Fatah leadership’s perspective shifted to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the ‘67 occupied territories (some 20% of Palestine), through an agreement with a still dominant Israel. Respectively, its interest in the Jewish community shifted to building relation with the “peace movement” within the Zionist camp as a bridge to the establishment.

Now, as the Islamic resistance movement Hamas is competing with Fatah for the leadership of the Palestinian struggle, it is cooperating with all sorts of peace activists on the ground, but still has to develop a consistent approach toward the Jewish community.

Abnaa elBalad

The Abnaa elBalad movement, as a progressive Palestinian movement that is active within the 1948 occupied territories, declares in its basic principles that it represents that historic interest of all the people of Palestine, including the historic interest of Jews in Palestine to get rid of their role as canon powder for imperialist and Zionist wars.

For more than twenty years, Abnaa elBalad incorporates comrades from Jewish origin, but it concentrates on its main task to organize the Arab Palestinian masses for defense of their daily rights against Zionist racism. It has only sporadic intervention in democratic struggles within the Jewish community or in organizing among the Jewish masses.

The Haifa Conference – June 2008

In 2007 the central committee of Abnaa elBalad adopted an initiative to raise the perspective of the Secular Democratic state in Palestine as the framework for the realization of the return of Palestinian refugees and as a solution to the continuing bloody conflict. The timing of the initiative was decided by the obvious collapse of the imperialist sponsored “peace process” and the crisis of the Zionist and Imperialist Hegemony, which cause Palestinians and Jews alike to look for more profound solutions.

In order to open the doors wide for people of different convictions and from different organizations, movements and parties, the framework that was adopted is an open conference, organized by an independent initiating committee.

The conference succeeded to promote the discussion of the secular democratic alternative and was attended by many activists from different Palestinian movements, parties and NGOs, mostly from the 48 territories, but also from the West Bank and the Palestinian diaspora. The list of speakers in the conference, more than 50 of them, constitutes a parade of support for the conference’s cause. There was a very significant presence of Jewish activists as well, probably the widest participation in a Palestinian political event ever (except, of course, mass demonstration, where everybody comes but there’s not much interaction). There was also a significant presence from international solidarity movements. All in all between 300 and 400 people took part in different workshops, with lively discussion about many aspects of the problem, the struggle and the solution.

The Haifa conference is part of a wider movement for re-assessment of Palestinian strategy. Other conferences were held before in Europe, and different groups are working for the same goals in the West Bank, Gaza and refugee camps in different Arab countries.

View to the future

As Zionist racism and its role as a military outpost for imperialism bring more bloody conflict, as Arab resistance is starting to break imperialist Hegemony, Jews in Palestine have no other alternative but to look for a future for themselves that will not be based on constant wars but on integration in a future democratic Palestine as part of a democratic Arab East.

To separate Jews in Palestine from Zionism, we need an active approach from the Palestinian liberation movement toward the Jewish masses and the active role of revolutionaries from within the Jewish community in the anti Zionist and anti-imperialist struggle. This approach can help to dismantle the Zionist time bomb and prevent the conflict from declining into a quagmire of communal killings or exploding in a nuclear final war.

A socialist alternative is the natural continuation and the best way for implementing of the democratic alternative for Palestine, as is the state for all liberation movements. Only a socialist regime can mobilize all the economic and human resources of Palestine for the huge task of reconstructing the life of millions of destitute Palestinians returning refugees, and preventing economic apartheid from replacing the military apartheid that is now implemented by Zionism. Only a socialist regime can in an orderly way deprive Jews in Palestine of their immorally acquired privileges and yet provide the conditions for their integration in a future Democratic Palestine to the benefit of the whole liberated society.

(*) The writer is a member of the political bureau of Abnaa elBalad, a Palestinian movement active inside the 1948 occupied Palestine, and one of the initiators of the Haifa Conference for the Right of Return and the Secular Democratic State in Palestine.

www.Abnaa-elbalad.org

www.ror1state.org

Abna elBalad on imperialist Road Map – 2003

14 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in Abna elBalad Movement, Anti Imperialist, Palestine

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The Road Map of US Imperialism for the Middle East Means a Return to the Darkest Days of Colonialism and the Perpetuation of Israeli Occupation and Apartheid

Declaration of Abnaa elBalad (“Sons of the Land”) movement

6 July 2003

Initial Lessons from Iraq

Almost 3 months after the occupation of Iraq by the US and British Imperialists, the real face of the new Master Robbers becomes more and more clear. They came to steal Iraq’s oil riches, and are not ready to take responsibility even for the elementary obligations of an occupying force as defined by the international law, such as taking care for the health and personal security of the occupied population. No wonder: The invasion of Iraq was launched by the same ultra-reactionary US administration that made the smashing of pensions, the health system and other basic rights the battle cry of its internal economic policy, and made immunity from prosecution for war crimes for US soldiers a basic axis of its foreign policy.

The arrogance of the occupiers, their total disregard for the lives of Iraqi citizens, the terrorizing of Iraqi cities by their tanks, helicopters and guns, the shooting and killing of civilians for the slightest suspicion, all this leaves to the Iraqi people no other way but to resist the occupation with all available means. The occupiers try to make fast profit from their occupation, selling Iraq to American and British companies, many of them with direct links to those politicians that gave the orders to invade Iraq. They even invite their Israeli cronies to take part in the loot. At the same time, all the talk about establishing democracy in Iraq fades away. The alleged “threat from Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction,” was no more than thin camouflage for the greed of the invaders, used for the consumption of the willingly gullible, hypocritical Western media.

With the new wave of threats, mostly against Syria and Iran, the current direction of US imperialist policy is clear. Without the international balancing effect of the Soviet Union, and after the big lie of prosperity for all under globalization has blown and the reality of world capitalist crisis emerged, Imperialism turns to a savage attack on the narrow margins of independence allowed to Third World countries under neo-colonialism. It tries to use its military might to force exploitation without borders and without limits. Any kind of resistance to this world dictatorship is defined as terrorism, and any people or regime that tries to defend a country’s resources or dignity is a target.

Bush turns on the Palestinian people

In the almost 3 years of the second heroic Intifada, the Palestinian people in their struggle proved again that the power of the people that fight for their rights is stronger than all the means of oppression. The racist Israeli occupiers didn’t spare any means in their attempt to crush the Palestinian people: from assassinations of political and religious leaders to indiscriminate mass killing of civilians, from long curfews and endless blocking of movement between Palestinian villages and towns to the demolition of thousands of houses and the mass destruction of trees and fields. With all these barbaric means they could impose on the Palestinian people hunger, but no surrender.

At the same time the Intifada brought about a severe crisis on the Israeli colonialist outpost. All sectors of the Israeli economy are in deep crisis. Less Jews around the world are tempted to take part in the Zionist adventure, and hundreds of thousands of Israelis look for their future abroad. Thousands of Israeli youth refuse or evade the military service in order to avoid taking part in the crimes of the regime.

Now US imperialism tries to use all its political might, and the humiliation of Arab nationalism due to its occupation of Iraq, in order to defeat the Palestinian Intifada and ensure the perpetuation of Israeli occupation. The first step in this imperialist plot is to define resistance to occupation as “terror” that should be rejected by the international community. In this outrageous distortion of morality, depicting the aggressor as the victim and the victim as a villain, US imperialism is finding the support not only of European imperialism, but also of some of its puppet Arab regimes, and, worst of all, of the new government that it forced on the “Palestinian Authority.”

The solution that Bush tries to force on the Palestinian people is a local version of the Bantustan plan that tried (and failed) to perpetuate Apartheid in South Africa. The main goal of Imperialism is to rob the Palestinian refugees of the right of return, and to achieve recognition for the right of Israel to carry out ethnic cleansing in order to create and preserve a Jewish majority, i.e. to provide legitimacy for a racist Jewish state. The naming of the “Palestinian Authority” as a state is designed to give it a permanent and legitimate status, as the Israeli occupiers preserve effective control of the whole of Palestine, including the settlements and the whole of Jerusalem.

In order to crush the Palestinian resistance to the occupation, what the mighty Israeli army failed to do in 35 years since it occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, Israel and US are trying to ignite a bloody civil war between the Palestinians. In order to achieve this goal, they finance and arm those Palestinians that care only for their short-term self interests in the framework of the occupation. They try to push the likes of Mahmood ‘Abbas and Dahlan to fight against their own people as defenders of the occupying army and the settlements.

In this most dangerous occasion the Palestinian people must invest all their efforts in avoiding the internal conflict that is forced upon them and in forging the widest unity in struggle for their just national rights. All the democratic and progressive forces around the world are called upon to support the just Palestinian liberation struggle and to boycott the murderous Israeli Apartheid regime.

  • For the right of return of all Palestinian refugees!
  • Free all Palestinian prisoners!
  • For a free democratic Palestine!

(Abnaa elBalad is a Palestinian movement, active in the part of Palestine occupied since 1948, and calling for the return of Palestinian refugees and the creation of a secular democratic Palestine. For more information see: www.abnaa-elbalad.org)

Why We Boycott the Knesset Elections?

11 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by in Boycott the Knesset, Palestine, Right of Return, Zionism

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The Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, after failing to burn the whole region by dragging the imperialist powers into his “War On Iran”, has just called for a snap Knesset elections to be held on January 22, 2013. Nobody in Israel expects any good from these elections, except for Netanyahu himself that expects to ease his coalition’s internal problems. The issue of “peace” that used to be the great lie of Israeli politics will not even be mentioned.

The glorious Social “Tents” Movement that drew hundreds of thousands of Israelis to its demonstrations just a year ago will reveal that it didn’t only failed to gain any improvement in the government social policies, but it also failed to make any impact on the Israeli political map. Its youthful leader will have the dire choice between admitting the futility of the movement or joining as junior partners in the corrupt, anti-social Zionist faked “left”.

For the real left, which means the Palestinian Anti-Zionist left, the futility of the Knesset elections is no surprise.

In Palestine there are some 10 million people, living under the rule of Israeli Apartheid. About half of them are Palestinians. The real numbers are not available, as the distortion of statistics is part of the demographic war. Most of the Palestinians are denied the right to vote. There are more that 5 million Palestinians in the Diaspora. They were expelled from their homes in order to create the “Jewish Majority” that will give the Israeli state the false credentials as democracy. By denying their right of return the elected Israeli government decides their fate even more than it influences the current residents of Palestine.

We will not take part in this farce.  We will not participate with the Zionist occupiers in “democratically” deciding the fate of the occupied and expelled Palestinians. In the last Knesset elections, the majority of those Palestinians that have the right to vote boycotted the elections. For the Anti Zionist Jews in Palestine this is the call of consciousness – don’t participate with the people of Kiryat Arba with “democratically” deciding the fate of Al-Halil.

We will not be part of the elections until it will be based on the simple democratic principle: “One Man – One Vote”, until this principle will include all the women and men of Palestine, including all of its refugees.

The 2009 Boycott Call – In Arabic

The 2009 Boycott Call – In Hebrew

28 movements, parties and activists issue common declaration supporting the Syrian people and calling for the release of political prisoners in the Arab Homeland

04 Thursday Oct 2012

Posted by in Arab Revolution, Human Rights, Prisoners, Syrian Revolution

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From the Arab Gulf to Syria, the Nile Valley and the Arab Maghreb – The People Unite in Solidarity!

At the time that the Arab states turn toward legal, political and economic reforms, pushed by the popular anger against the legal and economic situation that was afflicted on our Arab countries during the past periods by autocratic and repressive regimes, which acted to weaken the Arab peoples, keep them in ignorance and kill all their creative energies in an orderly and systematic way, we find that some states didn’t stop practicing some violations against the Arab activists in their different countries, in spite of the arrival (to the government) of some of the political parties that suffered a lot from the authoritative practices.

This happens while there is still Arab refusal to adopt a decisive stand against the regime of Bashar Al-Assad and his armed gangs, which commit daily massacres against the Syrian people and against the youth, who come out every day in peaceful demonstrations against the regime of Bashar Al-Assad.

In Morocco nearly 80 activists from the youth groups, and at their foremost activists from “The 20th of February Movement”, are still held in detention. In Jordan the authorities arrested nearly 18 activists from “The Jordanian Popular Movement” and referred them to the State Security Court, which is a military unconstitutional court. All the activists in Jordan and Morocco are detained for their political views and their demands for reform programs.

In Cairo the Egyptian authorities still use some illegitimate practices against the Egyptian activists who demand some economic reforms and putting an end to the use of military courts against civilians, including demonstrators (Khaled Mekdad, Ahmad Al-Dakroury and Ahmad Manna) and children (Islam Harby and Mohammad Ihab) and the release of the revolution’s officers, which are detained on the order of the former Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi.

In Bahrain the authorities did not stop practicing continuous violations that are incompatible with human rights principles. The military’s influence still costs the lives of civilians. The last case was the killing of a demonstrator, aged 17, in his village South West of the Bahraini capital Manama. He was shot by the security forces and died as a consequence. The security forces also arrested dozens and keep them in detention without bringing them to trial. Dozens of prisoners of conscience and people detained for their political views are still languishing in Bahraini prisons, including Human Rights and political activists, which were arrested because of their demands for political, constitutional and legal reforms.

In Algeria many Human Rights, trade unionist and political activists are subject to detention and judicial harassment.

In Sudan the number of detainees held by the authorities exceeded 1700. The situation was aggravated by the detention of more than 15 Sudanese women. Some of them were released and others are still held under detention in Sudan’s prisons.

We, the undersigned groups, declare our full solidarity with the Syrian people, their right to self determination and their demand for Bashar Al-Assad giving up power. We affirm our support for the initiatives of peaceful struggle in Syria.

We also demand from the authorities in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Sudan and Bahrain to respect Human Rights and the freedom of opinion and expression, to act quickly for the immediate release of all the detained activists and to put an end to all the extraordinary actions taken against them. We also call for the implementation of all the legitimate demands raised by those activists, including legitimate economic, legal and constitutional reforms.

Signatories

Arab movements and parties

6 April Youth Movement – Egypt

The Constitution Party – Egypt

The Egyptian Current Party – Egypt

No to Military Trials – Egypt

The Jordanian Youth Movement – Jordan

I Deserve A Civil Trial – IDACT – Jordan

Girifna Movement – Sudan

The 20th of February Movement – Morocco

ATTAC Morocco association against capitalist globalization

Association of Moroccan Workers in France – France

Independent Youth Movement for Change – Algeria

Syrian Peaceful Movement Group – Syria

“One People One Destiny” Campaign – Syria

Syrian Week – Syria

Demonstration Team – Syria

“Waw Al-Wasel” Group – Syria

The Syrian Democratic Forum – Syria

Youth Against the Settlements – Palestine

Palestinians with the Syrian Revolution – Palestine

Youth and Students sector in The Democratic Progressive Forum Association – Bahrain

Youth Bureau in The Patriotic Democratic Action Association (Wa’ad) – Bahrain

Libya Youth Movement – Libya

The Libyan Association for Humanitarian Relief – Libya

Arab National Figures

Human Rights activist – Khaled Ali – former candidate for the presidency – Egypt

Engineer Ahmad Maher – member of the Constituent Assembly for the Constitution

MP Ziyad Al-Alimi –member of the former People’s Assembly – Egypt

Khalaf Ali Al-Khalaf – Syrian writer

Rabab Al-Bouti – Syria

Ahmad Lanki – member of the Libyan National Congress

Mohammad Al-Aouni – head of “freedoms of media and change” organization – Morocco

(Free Haifa Note: I made the effort to translate and publish this important declaration within hours after it was published. If you know Arabic, see the original text in Arabic. If there are any suggestions for improved translation please leave a comment or send an email.)