Yair Lapid. The Israeli public feels that the status quo represent the preferable alternative on the Palestinian issue (photo: Yotam Ronen / Activestills.org)

Yair Lapid, the surprising star of the last elections and Israel’s current finance minister, gave an interview to the The New York Times in which he left only “a little daylight” between himself to Prime Minister Netanyahu on the Palestinian issue, as the Times’s Jodi Rudoren put it.

That was clearly an understatement. Except for paying lip service to the need to create a Palestinian state – now a precondition for every policy speech by a mainstream Israeli leader, intended to prevent accusations of Apartheid – Lapid didn’t even try to hide his rejectionism. He told Rudoren that a final status agreement with Mahmoud Abbas is probably impossible; he said that Israel “should not change its policy on Israeli settlements in the West Bank,” and he objected to territorial compromises on Jerusalem, as he has done in the past.

When it came to talking about what should be done, rather than what shouldn’t, Lapid had the following idea:

Mr. Lapid acknowledged that tens of thousands of Jews would someday be uprooted from what he described as “remote settlements” in the West Bank, something he called “heartbreaking.” But he said that problem should be set aside for now, advocating the immediate creation of an interim Palestinian state in parts of the West Bank where no Jews live, with final borders drawn in perhaps three, four or five years.

Lapid failed to offer a catchy name for his plan. I suggest the “Oslo Accords.”

______________

A favorite pastime among observers of Israeli politics and ‘The Conflict’ is searching for a new leader of the peace camp – someone who will finally end this foolishness with the settlements and lead the army out of the West Bank. Some thought that he or she would come from the Left, carrying with them the democratic traditions and pragmatic determination of the founding fathers. Others say it should be a centrist, or even better, a hawk-turned-dove, a general, an expansionist or a former-settler who, after decades of war, chose to live with the enemy rather than continue fighting him.

Lapid appeared to be somewhat of a hybrid – not exactly a lefty, certainly not a general, but popular enough with the Israeli mainstream. To top it off, he’s pragmatic and handsome. A new leader for a new age. In order to believe that he will end the occupation, one needs to engage in willful suspension of disbelief, to not listen to anything Lapid actually says and avoid reading his platform. But in a difficult moment, this is a small price to pay for the cause.

That illusion didn’t last very long though. After forbidding his party members from taking an educational tour of East Jerusalem, forming a political pact with the settlers, keeping intact tax breaks and other benefits for Jews who move to the West Bank, avoiding meeting any Palestinians and rejecting the notion of a final status agreement and even a settlement freeze – one needs to go very far out on a limb in order to still hold out hope that Lapid, or this government for that matter, will advance the cause of peace.

_______________

I don’t buy the new storyline about Lapid’s fall from grace. It’s no less absurd than “Lapid the peacemaker” or “Lapid the guardian of democracy.” Lapid is an excellent communicator with a good sense of the Israeli consensus and he has the rare ability to set and manipulate the national agenda. He is surrounded by powerful and experienced people and he is learning from his mistakes. Recent polls confirm that Lapid’s supporters are not leaving him just yet; Israeli politics are very forgiving, and Lapid has just begun his journey.

Still, even if Lapid’s descent is as fast as his astonishing rise was, I don’t think that we should hold our hopes for his successor. Contrary to popular belief, the problem at the heart of the occupation is not Israeli politicians or Israeli leaders: it’s the Israeli people. The public simply doesn’t want to deal with the Palestinian issue in any meaningful way. It doesn’t really matter what the Palestinians, Americans or Europeans do to appease Israel. There is an almost instinctive, little-spoken understanding that both alternatives – both one-state and two-state solution – are inferior to the status quo. Talks regarding the “unsustainability” of current trends seem very abstract. So far, the occupation seems to be the most sustainable thing this country has known.

Politicians understand this, and those who don’t lose elections (see: Livni). Lapid certainly understands. There is at least one demonstration every weekend outside his home over his new tax code and austerity measures. I don’t think he is about to see a single protester beneath his window over the NY Times interview, nor would his numbers drop.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and EU High Representative Cathrine Ashton can spend countless more hours in Jerusalem and burn many more miles between capitals; the problem they are facing is not Lapid or Netanyahu – not even Lieberman – but Israeli voters. Even if talks resume, they are bound to be meaningless (that’s why the Palestinians refuse them). Israelis will consider ending the occupation only when the current trend becomes less attractive. Until then, their leaders will offer negotiations for the sake of negotiations or repackage the status quo as “an interim solution.” It’s simply what their constituents want.

Related:
Will Europe take a leading role on Israel/Palestine?
Direct negotiations: Recipe for prolonging the occupation

EU High Representative Catherine Ashton (European Union / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

A top European think tank is urging the European Union to take concrete measures to keep open a window for the two-state solution. The report, published two weeks ago, urges European countries to exempt settlements goods from Israeli-European trade agreements, to refrain from contacts with the West Bank’s new university in Ariel and even impose visa requirements on settlers.

The report (PDF), published by the Middle East-North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations and written by Senior Policy Fellow Nick Witney, claims that European support for the Palestinian Authority has created “a culture of dependence,” while removing the occupation’s financial burden from Israel. Due to Israeli restrictions and past agreements which prevented real economic developments, “state building efforts have reached a dead end,” the paper states.

Similar suggestions were raised in April by former European leaders and negotiators in a letter to EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton. Both the letter and the ECFR paper recognize the diplomatic vacuum created by the U.S.’s inability to confront Israeli governments over the occupation, and urge EU action.

The ECFR paper has a couple of interesting observations. First, it recognizes that the political elites in Europe, and not the public, are at the heart of the problem. While the European public is more and more sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians under occupation, EU foreign policy is “on autopilot,” sticking to the Oslo paradigm and framework, even when it’s clear that it serves to maintain the status quo (one could claim that this is the opposite of the American problem, where popular support for Israeli policy remains high even as the elites are beginning to question it). The paper cites economic interests – Israel being an important trade partner of many states – and successful lobbying efforts by Jerusalem as possible explanations for the lack of coherent and unified action by the EU.

The paper also recognizes the failure of positive incentives vis-à-vis Jerusalem:

There is simply no appetite among European governments for anything that might look like sanctioning or punishing Israel. Yet finding positive incentives – carrots, as opposed to sticks – is difficult also. Israelis already enjoy the main things they want from Europe: commercial access to the world’s largest market, visa-free travel and a unique position in the EU’s research and innovation programs.

The ECFR doesn’t have a unified position and the new paper only represents the opinion of its authors, and not that of the entire think-tank. However, put together with the February report by EU diplomats regarding settlements, the decision by 13 member-states to proceed with labeling settlements products and the April letter (discussed above), one can point to a clear trend toward greater involvement in the diplomatic process.

Haaretz’s Barak Ravid reported Sunday morning that the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council was set to vote on directives for the labeling of settlements products this week (the principle decision on the matter already passed last year). However, following pressure from the U.S. – which, according to Ravid, was prompted by an Israeli request – the vote was postponed until June, after Secretary of State John Kerry plans to report on his efforts to renew direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

It seems that Israel’s effort to prevent labeling settlements products is likely to fail: the labeling directives for member states will eventually pass and might even be implemented. I doubt, however, if the impact of such a step will be more than symbolic in nature. The settlements’ share in Israel’s total exports is not that large, and much of their sales take place in the local market. Given the strong representation settlers enjoy in the current Israeli coalition, I believe they would be able to get at least some government compensation if European trade measures lead to financial losses.

The heart of the matter is that as a whole, the Israeli public views the status quo as the preferred alternative in its relations with the Palestinians – a notion that has only been strengthened by regional changes and the international community’s inability to mobilize on the issue. For years, critics of the occupation have been warning Israel of international isolation due to the country’s occupation and colonization of the West Bank, while the exact opposite has been taking place – Western support for Israel is at an all-time high. Under such circumstances, further statements or symbolic gestures are almost useless, if not outright harmful.

The settlements are an Israeli national policy and not just an initiative of the settlers themselves, so targeting them on their own will be a difficult, probably even impossible task (there are more people employed by the state in the OPT per capita than anywhere else in Israel; as such they are immune to outside pressure). Other recommendations in the ECFR report – like those concerning travel visas for settlers or allowing Palestinian legal action against the occupation – seem to have a greater potential for bringing results, but at the same time they are not likely to be adopted anytime soon.

Altogether, I think that one of the most important developments in the past few month has been the European recognition of the need to give up the Oslo framework. Yet the European Union’s complex consensus mechanisms prevent fast, radical measures, even when they are clearly viewed as necessary. If EU member states want to see change take place on the ground, they will have to adopt a more responsible and pro-active policy on Israel/Palestine, instead of just following the EU’s lead.

Related:
EU diplomats recommend sanctions against Israeli settlements
Former senior EU officials: ‘Oslo process has nothing more to offer’

The rally was a rare show of unity between different factions (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Around 30,000 ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) demonstrators, many more than anticipated, showed up for a mass rally against the planned induction of Yeshiva students outside the Israeli army’s recruiting offices in Jerusalem Thursday night. The government plans to revoke a special exemption given to these ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, part of plan to “equalize of the national burden” orchestrated by Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennet. Rabbis on stage declared the government’s plans as “decrees of destruction” and said they are part of a “religious war” being fought between the regime and “believers,” calling on all good men to join the struggle.

“There is no room for compromise,” said Rabbi Israeli Zikerman, “just like you cannot compromise by having one eye plucked out instead of two. No child of ours will go to the army. We would rather go to prison.” Another speaker said that the rally should have taken place inside an army base, as “soldiers know that we are the ones protecting them with our studies and prayer.” The rally was attended almost solely by men, while a few women stood in small groups on its outskirts.

Rabbis called the new draft initiative a “religious war.” (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

The rally was an unusual show of unity within otherwise rival sectors of the Ultra-Orthodox community: the extreme anti-statist and utterly anti-Zionist Ashkenazi faction of Edah HaChareidim was joined by one of the two larger and more mainstream Ashkenazi factions of the Misnagdim, who usually cooperate with the state, as well as by several prominent Sephardic rabbis and their pupils. An ultra-Orthodox journalist at the rally told me the new unity might have significant implications for the entire community, as draft laws could push moderates into extremists’ hands.

Dozens of youth set trash cans alight and confronted police. (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Throughout the rally, a group of several dozen youths heckled police and at times threw stones, concrete blocks, dirty diapers and metal bars at riot police, while also setting trash cans on fire. Whereas a Palestinian demonstration would have been attacked after the first stone, police stood idly by through three hours of speeches, with two of them getting injured.

Police arrest an ultra-Orthodox man at the mass demonstration against plans to draft haredim into the Israeli army. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

The second that a speaker on stage announced the rally was over, however riot and border police stormed in. Officers arrested ten people, beat up and pepper sprayed others, and used horses, batons and stun grenades to disperse the crowd. Protesters responded by torching more trash cans and throwing bottles, while speakers on stage attempted to send de-escalating messages to both sides.

Once the rally was over, police stormed in with horses and batons. (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Parallel to the central demonstration, a small group of thirty post-J14 activists affiliated with the more radical and anti-militarist faction of the social justice movement calling themselves ”Democracy or Rebellion,” demonstrated in support of the ultra-Orthodox. They decried “ongoing incitement (against the ultra-Orthodox) by the oppressive regime,” and the “divide and rule policies that are aimed to prevent the sons and daughters of the land from uniting as a civilian and multi-cultural society and fulfilling their rights,” as their leaflet stated. Police prevented the secular demonstrators from joining the religious rally.

“Citizens – not soldiers, Rights – not orders”. Post-J14 activists show support. (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

On the sidelines of the rally, the question of the occupation also led to minor confrontations. The social activists (and I myself) were asked by many why they were supportive of the ultra-Orthodox cause. While some were happy to hear the anti-militarist (and anti-Zionist) discourse, others were enraged, yelling that they want no help from “treacherous leftists who love Arabs.” They explained, “we need an army to fight our enemies and you have to serve in it while we support the cause through study and prayer.” Within the rally itself, small fist fights broke out between pro-Palestinian extreme factions and pro-state mainstream factions. These ended fairly quickly but served as a good indication of the unsolved tensions between the newly allied ultra-Orthodox camps. Their joint struggle is likely to continue in the coming weeks, and all parties announced they would hold more protests.

By Noa Yachot and Adi Lerner

The last year hasn’t been a good one for refugees and asylum seekers in Israel – or for those advocating on their behalf. Since an amendment to the Prevention of Infiltration Law was passed in January 2012, almost all change in the field of refugee rights has been for the worse, with the nascent asylum system in Israel making way for an unyielding detention regime. All asylum seekers arriving in Israel can now be detained for an unknown period, despite the fact that a vast majority of them cannot be deported. The law allows for a vague “humanitarian” exception – but despite the tireless work of refugee rights advocates, the state has adamantly refused to recognize the humanitarian grounds of even the most vulnerable of cases. When it comes to African refugees, the detention regime does not discriminate; as a result, small children are imprisoned, as are scores of survivors of unimaginably brutal torture at the hands of human smugglers in the Sinai Peninsula.

A view of the new section in Saharonim prison destined for imprisonment without trial of asylum seekers and refugees, August 31, 2012. (photo: Activestills)

The Supreme Court will hear a challenge to the law next month. But in the meanwhile, advocates have scored some important victories in lower courts in recent weeks. And while up to 2,000 bona fide refugees remain imprisoned, leaving much work to be done, these victories are worth both reporting and celebrating.

Release of imprisoned children

One particularly exciting win came in the case of a mother and her two daughters, 8 and 11, from Eritrea. The three had been imprisoned in the Saharonim detention center for about 10 months. In their case, brought by Raya Meiler of the Hotline for Migrant Workers, the Be’er Sheva District Court held that the children, by virtue of being minors, have “special humanitarian grounds” justifying their release. Since the passage of the amended Prevention of Infiltration Law, the state had allowed only for the release of unaccompanied minors, while children who arrived with a parent remained in the vast desert prison.

Judge Yosef Alon rejected this position, and stated that the release of all minors on humanitarian grounds should be subject to judicial discretion. In this particular case, he determined that the girls’ young age – in addition to the length of their imprisonment and the fact that they cannot be deported to Eritrea – constitute humanitarian grounds. (It is hard for us to imagine a child remaining in indefinite detention without triggering a humanitarian ground, so we’re thrilled that the judge seemed to agree.)

In light of the new precedent, the Hotline requested the reexamination of other cases of parents detained with their children, and last week, nine more woman and 10 children, all Eritrean, were released.

An Eritrean refugee hugs his wife and children, as they arrive to the central bus station in Tel Aviv on May 6, 2013, after they were released earlier today from the “Saharonim” Israeli prison. (photo: Activestills)

Torture as a humanitarian ground

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of another appeal submitted by Raya Meiler of the Hotline, regarding victims of torture. (We won’t go into detail here about the extensive network of torture camps to which refugees are subjected on route to Israel; for more on the issue check out this report.) Earlier this year, the Be’er Sheva District Court judge ruled that torture and abuse suffered by asylum seekers en route to Israel cannot constitute “special humanitarian grounds.” Thankfully, on April 18, the Supreme Court rejected this disgraceful position.

An asylum seeker shows the scars he acquired as a result of torture en route to Israel. (photo: Sigal Rozen)

The Supreme Court decision also grants discretion to the Detention Review Tribunal, a quasi-judicial body that carries out monthly reviews of the cases of all detained asylum seekers, to release rape and torture survivors, even if they are not considered victims of trafficking and slavery (a legal category that enjoys some protections in Israel).  Until that decision, the tribunal did not believe it had the authority to do so. The Hotline is now working to secure psychological evaluations for all the torture victims known to the organization.

Applying for asylum from jail

Israel is a signatory to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, but the state makes it notoriously difficult for people to access the asylum procedure – that difficultly is particularly pronounced for imprisoned asylum seekers, even more so since the implementation of the amended anti-infiltration law. The Hotline works to locate asylum seekers and convey their requests to the state – but the organization is not allowed access to all the prisoners, and without intervention, they can easily languish for months without being given the opportunity to state their refugee claim before a government authority. But a recent decision by the Be’er Sheva District Court might make things a bit easier on that front as well.

According to the law, if the Interior Ministry does not process asylum requests within three months of their submission, the asylum seeker may be released from detention. Until now, however, the Interior Ministry did not begin counting when it received requests from the Hotline on behalf of those in prison. The recent ruling, in a case brought by Asaf Weitzen, determined that the Interior Ministry must indeed start counting as soon as it is notified that a given asylum seeker claims refugee status. This is especially significant considering the detainees do not have any access to actual asylum application forms (which is clearly a grave problem in its own right).

Unfortunately, despite this principled success, the Hotline has not managed to help fulfill the monetary conditions set for the release of this particular asylum seeker, and he remains in prison, despite having applied for refugee status six months ago.

Tribunal authority regarding asylum seekers involved in criminal proceedings

As +972 has reported in the past, a government regulation instated last year empowers the state to strip the residence permits of asylum seekers who have been suspected of criminal involvement, and to indefinitely detain them under the Prevention of Infiltration Law – even if they were never actually convicted or even charged. While the Hotline requested the release of those asylum seekers on the grounds of the illegality of the regulation, tribunal judges have thus far rejected those requests, claiming they do not have the authority to rule on its legality. But a Be’er Sheva judge, in a case brought by the Hotline, ruled on May 5 that the tribunal can do just that, and also exercise discretion in considering a range of other circumstances justifying release. This means that all of those asylum seekers, many of whom had hired private attorneys in order to appeal to the district court, can now turn to the tribunal through the Hotline, in a simpler (and free) process.

Next step: Strike down the law

A mobile home unit is transported into the new prison facility under construction near the current Saharonim Prison in the Negev Desert, near Kadesh Barnea, October 10, 2012. Israel is building a new facility that could hold thousands of additional asylum seekers. (photo: Oren Ziv/ Activestills.org)

The State of Israel is actively pursuing a detention regime meant to snare as many asylum seekers as possible. Considering the nearly 2,000 who remain imprisoned, these victories might seem minor. But they provide some critical rays of light in what has been an increasingly dark reality for asylum seekers and refugees in Israel. And they could herald a much bigger victory: the Supreme Court, which is set to rule on a challenge to the amended law, has already indicated that the state has some explaining to do (the state, in response, continued to insist that the law is constitutional). The court should go much further, by striking the law and undoing the detention regime. Protecting refugees is not optional – not for Israel or any other country.

Adi Lerner is the Crisis Intervention Center Coordinator at the Hotline for Migrant Workers, whose activists visit detention centers regularly to provide paralegal aid to asylum seekers and other detainees. Noa Yachot is an editor at +972 Magazine. 

As Noam Sheizaf’s recent headline states, “the Nakba’s memory is more present than ever in Israel.”  The Nakba, literally, “the catastrophe,” is the name given to the massive deportation of more then 700,000 Palestinians from what became the State of Israel in 1948. Sheizaf goes on to point out how efforts, such as the “Nakba law,” which authorizes the finance minister to withdraw funds from organizations commemorating the day, have backfired and effectively injected Nakba consciousness into the global discourse.

From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank and Gaza, activists marched to assert a history which is no longer disputed by Israeli historians such as Benny Morris, who despite his shift to the right, still acknowledges that “in the case of Israel, the moment of its birth was also the moment of the destruction and wholesale displacement of Palestinian society.”

For more resources on Nakba history, visit the Zochrot (Israeli organization dedicated to raising awareness on the Nakba) website, or the website of the Palestinian NGO Badil.

Right-wing protesters wave Israeli flags as they demonstrate against a ceremony commemorating the Nakba that was held by Palestinian and Israeli students in the entrance to the Tel Aviv University. The event took place under heavy police presence, May 13, 2013. (Photo by: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Palestinians march with torches through the streets of Bethlehem to commemorate the Nakba, May 14, 2013. (Photo by: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)

Palestinian activists march on Road 60, the main north-south route through the West Bank, in a Nakba Day protest, May 15, 2013. (Photo by: Anne Paq/Activestills.org)

Palestinian activists commemorate Nakba Day by planting trees in the Ahfad Younis neighborhood of Bab Al-Shams protest village site in E1, May 15, 2013. The Israeli settlement Maale Adumim, illegal under international law, covers a nearby hilltop. (Photo by: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)

A Palestinian youth uses a slingshot during clashes with the Israeli army during a protest to commemorate the Nakba, outside the Ofer military prison, West Bank, May 15, 2013. (Photo by:Yotam Ronen/Activestills.org)

Israeli border policemen arrest a Palestinian man during protests commemorating Nakba Day at Damascus Gate, East Jerusalem, May 15, 2013. (Photo by: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)

A mounted Israeli policeman charges Palestinian crowds during protests commemorating Nakba Day at Damascus Gate, East Jerusalem, May 15, 2013. (Photo by guest photographer: Tali Mayer/Activestills.org)

An Israeli policeman kicks a fleeing Palestinian woman as riot forces charge into crowds during Nakba Day protests at Damascus Gate, East Jerusalem, May 15, 2013. The Nakba, literally, the “catastrophe”, names the massive deportation of more then 700,000 Palestinian, made refugees and driven out of what became the State of Israel in 1948. (Photo by: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)

An Israeli policeman bleeds from an injury sustained attempting to eject Palestinians commemorating Nakba Day at Damascus Gate, East Jerusalem, May 15, 2013. According to Haaretz, “In Jerusalem, two policemen were lightly injured when Palestinian protesters threw stones. Two ultra-Orthodox men were lightly injured when they were beaten by Palestinians.” (Photo by: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)

Members of the media take cover behind a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance targeted by Israeli water canons during Nakba Day protests near Damascus Gate, East Jerusalem, May 15, 2013. (Photo by: Anne Paq/Activestills.org)

Israeli police arrest a Palestinian man during protests commemorating Nakba Day at Damascus Gate, East Jerusalem, May 15, 2013. (Photo by: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)

Read more:
Remembering the Nakba, understanding this is a shared land
Report: Forced displacement on both sides of the Green Line
The Nakba: Addressing Israeli arrogance
The Palestinian Nakba: Are Israelis starting to get it?
Despite efforts to erase it, the Nakba’s memory is more present than ever in Israel

By Muhammad Jabali

Palestinians march through the streets of Bethlehem to commemorate the Nakba, May 14, 2013. (Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)

A friend and I visited Ramallah last Saturday. It was a sunny afternoon; we took a friend’s car and hit the road so we could arrive in time for last minute preparations for the first screening of the Tunisian Documentary Film Month at Ramallah’s Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center. We are helping to organize the screenings as members of the Palestinema Group, an unregistered group of cinematographers, writers and cinephiles who work toward breaking down the Iron Wall between Palestinians in Israel and the Arab World. We work to better organize the Palestinian film industry inside Israel, and to improve connections between Palestinians inside Israel and those in the West Bank, Gaza and the diaspora.

The film was Degage, a first-hand Tunisian documentary of the country’s revolution. We were fully aware of the meaning of the date we chose for the festival. Launching screenings in the historical Palestinian cities of Jaffa, Haifa, Jerusalem and Ramallah in the month of May, Nakba month, is our way of expressing which regime we are demanding should fall. In effect, it is demanding our full rights – as one Palestinian people – both to live in the coastal cities as Palestinians, as equal citizens with equal access to political participation and urban planning, and to do so without either compromising our Palestinian identity or our cultural and natural connections with the Arab World. Somehow, altering the Arab Spring’s best-known slogan (“the people demand the fall of the regime”) to “the people demand that the Nakba end,” represents a wish that our spring too will come.

We had already held screenings in Jaffa on Friday afternoon and in Haifa the same evening, and we were eager for our first-ever collaboration with such a respected cultural center in Ramallah. We were thrilled that immediately after publishing the program we were invited to bring the Film Month to Gaza. We can’t actually visit Gaza, but the thought of screening the films there brought out a childlike excitement. Just knowing that we could have brightened some peoples’ day there would have been priceless.

But we still fight and live in a very divided, sliced-up and segregated country and communities within it. This is the direct result of whoever – in Europe and the U.S. in the late 19^th and early 20^th century – thought it was logical to divide a land. A land, which back then was a normal extension of its Arab surroundings divided into two units, one Arab and the second Jewish.

The ironic tragedy is that this mindset of creating a “Jewish entity” on a land that was predominantly Arab didn’t seem to bother any of the European minds creating the project’s master plan 100 years ago. It didn’t even bother them that the plan inherently meant displacing hundreds of thousands of locals, or subjecting them to eternal foreign control. Because back in the beginning of the 20^th century, population transfer was “conflict resolution,” and foreign control was common.

The sad and not-so ironic part is that today, this same idea of separation and denying Palestinian rights in the coastal area is perpetuated in current peace talks, which turn the unbelievable situation created by the atrocities of 1948 into permanent facts. For Palestinians like me, who were teenagers in the 1990s, the Oslo peace process was about ending military rule over the West Bank and Gaza and a healing reconciliation process containing some transitional justice to redeem this conflicted land. It was about acknowledging the simple fact that there were people on the land that Israel claimed for so many years was “a land without a people for a people with a land.” But on the contrary, the peace process, as designed by Israel, is actually a direct continuation of the same old mentality. Through peace, the Israeli establishment just wants to achieve what the first Intifada prevented it from obtaining through war: when the Palestinian revolt threatened Israeli control, peace talks were supposed to help, but Israel gave no recognition and the settlement free-for-all continued.

Approaching the West Bank, driving with my friend who herself is a descendent of an internal displaced refugee family from the village of Ma’lul near Nazareth, we couldn’t help but notice the never-ending one-sided change in the landscape. Israel is building everywhere. Checkpoints move further and further into the West Bank, restricting the areas in which Palestinians can move through with relative freedom and pushing them into smaller and smaller ghettos. In addition to all that, we couldn’t get over the similarity between two Israeli policies: first, using the curtain of the peace process in order to prevent West Bank Palestinians from moving inside Israel through the creation of the permit system, in addition to pushing millions of Jewish immigrants into Israel and diverting many of them into the settlement creations; and second, between 1948 until the mid 1950s, when refugees were prevented from returning, were shot at when they tried to cross the borders and prevented from cultivating their lands. At the same time, the young Israeli state doubled its numbers by bringing more than half a million new immigrants and doubling the number of settlements, all while an Israeli regime of martial law imposed restrictions on the movement of our parents.

Same same, a copy-paste system. What was implemented back then is still being implemented now, not to mention the continued use of shared public space exclusively for settling Jews inside Israel.

That’s the main reason why it is important to acknowledge the Nakba: remembering it is the only way for both Jews and Palestinians to understand that this land is shared. It’s the only way to prevent the system from duplicating the same injustices over and over again. As long as the so called “left wing” in Israel sticks to the righteousness of “redeeming the land” and doesn’t acknowledge the basic injustice of 1948, it is only legitimizing a colonial project, and more and more directly legitimizes the same settlement of the land – both in the West Bank and inside Israel.

Repeating the mantra of a “Jewish homeland” will only keep this land hostage to world Jewry, without giving its residents the ability to enjoy it.

Read more:
PHOTOS: Palestinians commemorate Nakba Day with rallies and protests
The Nakba: Addressing Israeli arrogance
The Palestinian Nakba: Are Israelis starting to get it?
Despite efforts to erase it, the Nakba’s memory is more present than ever in Israel
Report: Forced displacement on both sides of the Green Line

Muhammad Jabali is a Palestinian Israeli activist and facilitator. He is a coordinator for the Ayam Association’s Jaffa Project-Autobiography of a City, which works to reconcile memory and space for a cosmopolitan Jaffa. He writes for Palestinian media and blogs within Israel, and has published poems in both Hebrew and Arabic. He is also a part of the Palestinema Group, which promotes films from the Arab world inside Israel-Palestine. He is also an occasional DJ.

Tel Aviv Municipality officials showing an asylum seeker out of his resturant (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

A group of municipal officials led an operation to close African asylum seekers’ illegal businesses in the south Tel Aviv neighborhoods of Neve Sha’anan and Shapira at around 7 p.m. Sunday night. The municipal officers were accompanied by Border Police officers, a photographer and several large moving trucks complete with African workers.

Splitting into groups, the law enforcers went to several bars, restaurants and grocery stores owned by asylum seekers. As their legal status in Israel forbids them from either working or owning a business, most Sudanese and Eritrean asylum seekers are forced to make a living illegally, which leads authorities to chase them down and either punish their employers or close down their shops.

A policeman and an attack dog watch over African workers emptying an asylum seeker’s store (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Such was the case Sunday evening. All the goods, furniture and other equipment in all the businesses were inventoried and confiscated, and the doors were welded shut. In none of the locations photographer Oren Ziv and I visited was there any resistance by the shop owners and the armed policemen (and one police attack dog) were left without much to do. Several Israeli bystanders cheered the officials for helping pushing foreigners out, while other muttered insults at them for enforcing racist policies.

Workers emptying a bar in south Tel Aviv’s Shapira neighborhood (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Estimates have it that asylum seekers are running hundreds of small businesses in south Tel Aviv, mostly serving their own communities and naturally, authorities cannot possibly close them all down. However, owners often complain about police brutality, as Border Police patrols force people out of bars at midnight, at times using batons and even pepper spray. The municipality, too, is working hard at combating this small world of business and leisure, but operations on today’s scale are not a common sight.

Welding a shop’s door shut (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

It is possible that Mayor Ron Huldai’s administration pushed the operation forward as part of preparations for the upcoming October municipal elections. Many Israeli residents of south Tel Aviv are likely to be supportive of such actions, as the feeling is that asylum seekers are burdening the already weak physical and social infrastructure and poor services provided to the mostly working or lower-middle class population in the neighborhoods. This feeling is strengthened as some asylum seekers are pushed into criminal activities and the press gives extensive coverage to the criminality. Tensions between the communities has already led to several individual and mob attacks on asylum seekers by Israelis.

Municipal officials and private movers take a fridge out of an asylum seeker’s resturant (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

UPDATE, May 13, 10:30 a.m.:

Aladin Abaker, a Sudanese refugee, published pictures from Sunday night’s raid showing municipal Ministry of Health inspectors pouring bleach into pots of food in a restaurant, allegedly because the establishment is “a danger to public health.” He writes the following:

Friends meet in this place, the most delicious restaurant with a smell of home, to eat and remember our families in Darfur. Suddenly health inspectors and police forces swarmed in and destroyed the food we had ordered and the food in the pots, with no sensitivity to the people whose culture sees food as a sacred thing to be treated with respect. We tried to tell them that this place has been open for four years now, it’s where we eat all our meals, and not once has anyone gone ill. Even whites come to eat here…

Everybody present was in tears. The waitress told us: “I’ve seen some horrible things in my life, including torture in Sinai, but this has humiliated me more than torture.” I told her they were doing it to make our lives miserable and try to encourage us to return to Africa “willingly.”

Offical pouring bleach into food as Sudanese restaurant (Photo: Aladin Abaker)

But just because two people are elegant and gifted orators doesn’t mean they can’t get into an old fashion, tit-for-tat Twitter battle — and that’s exactly what happened today. I’ve translated the entire back-and-forth below.

The heated 140-character-at-a-time quasi debate started when MK Tibi tweeted a picture of two Palestinians bound and blindfolded in a humiliating way by the IDF at the Hawarra checkpoint.

Tibi was quickly called out by others on Twitter, however, who pointed out that the picture was from 2011. Dayan, who is active on Twitter himself, replied with a picture of Jewish settlers mourning the the victim of a Palestinian shooting attack. He wrote: “This is from 2013″.

A few hours later, Tibi retorted: “The difference between me, you and [you all] is that I condemn and condemned the harming of Jewish children, see the murder in Itamar. And vastly different, you are participants in the suffering and harming of Palestinians.”

Dayan wasn’t having it. “Not true,” he retorted, “I condemn ‘price tag’ acts against Palestinians much more clearly and explicitly than you condemn acts of terror, [which are] 100-times more severe.”

Of course it couldn’t stop there. “Price tag?!”, Tibi virtually shouted, “What about the biggest land theft in history, which you are a part of? Let me put it this way: There’s no symmetry between an occupier and the occupied! None!”

History? He went to history? I’ll show him history,Dayan must have thought. He replied: “MK Tibi: There’s no symmetry between an aggressor and someone defending themselves. He who tries to take everything by force and loses, pays a price for his belligerence. There’s nothing more just than that.”

Here’s where it starts to heat up. Tibi replied: “The ‘right’ to self defense doesn’t exist for trespassers (*can also mean invaders) in occupied land. Settlers are invaders and they’re the aggressors, and a people under occupation is the victim. It’s very simple.”

“Simple indeed,” Dayan shot back. “You rejected [the Partition Plan]. You started a war “to liberate all of Palestine.” You lost. We liberated Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) in a defensive war. There’s a price for your belligerence. There’s no way back.”

Uh oh, did he say there’s no way back? Well then we better look forward, Tibi must have been thinking. “There’s no future for the State of Israel if a Palestinian state isn’t created alongside it, and if not, then one state for everyone,” Tibi tweeted. “If a Palestinian state isn’t established then there won’t be an Israel.”

Always the gentleman, Dayan wrote back: “Wishful thinking, Dr. Tibi. Together with that, I must point out that your concern for the future of Israel touches my heart.”