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THE ABSURD TIMES
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Illustration: The Mosque under Israeli Attack
Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said
Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University and author of several books,
appears below and he is not as well-known as he should be. He used to take breaks while teaching at
Chicago and meet with Barak Obama. He
helped him find a house next to his near the lake and considered him a
friend. At the time, Obama was a
purported supporter of the Palestinian cause and ate many meals at Arab
homes. They helped him get to the White
House and Dr. Khalidi was not even invited to the inauguration.
The significance of the Edward Said
[Sigh Eed] Chair is also not well-known.
Edward Said was a well-known scholar and Professor of Comparative
Literature at Columbia University and is most well-known for his book Orientalism.
He was also known as a nearly concert-level pianist, especially with
Beethoven's late sonatas. He
collaborated with a close friend, Daniel Barenboim in establishing a program to
bring together Israeli and Palestinian youngsters through music. The program may still survive, but could
never even be contemplated today, so deep Israel has sunk into the sewer of the
intellect.
Barenboim was an Israeli citizen,
but recently took Palestinian citizenship:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/israeli-pianist-daniel-barenboim-takes-palestinian-citizenship-1.237152 Citizenship
Everyone has been bombarded lately
by the attack in the Synagogue in which four Rabbis and one Druze Policeman
were killed, Derschowitz wept on TV with Wolf Blitzer or someone of his ilk,
but the full story has not been told.
Here is an attempt to correct that problem:
Credence Sheik Fritz
WEDNESDAY,
NOVEMBER 19, 2014
Jerusalem Unrest Threatens Wider Flare-Up After Deadliest Attack on Israeli Civilians in 3 Years
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The unrest that has gripped Jerusalem has
escalated after a deadly attack on five Israeli civilians. The victims were
killed when armed Palestinians stormed a synagogue during morning prayers. It
was the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians in more than three years and the
worst in Jerusalem since 2008. The dead included three U.S.-born rabbis, a
British-born rabbi and a Druze police officer. Seven worshipers were injured.
The assailants were shot dead by police. The attack came after weeks of unrest
fueled in part by a dispute over Jerusalem’s holiest site, known to Muslims as
the Noble Sanctuary and known to Jews as the Temple Mount, as well as the
continued expansion of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem. After the
synagogue killings, Israeli settlers launched reprisal attacks in the occupied
West Bank, targeting a school near Nablus and Palestinian motorists on a road
near Hebron. At least five Palestinians were wounded after Israeli forces fired
rubber-coated bullets. We are joined from Jerusalem by Ha’aretz correspondent
Amira Hass, the only Israeli journalist to have spent several years living in and
reporting from Gaza and the West Bank.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in
its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to Jerusalem, where five Israelis died Tuesday
when a pair of Palestinians armed with meat cleavers and a gun stormed a
synagogue during morning prayers. It was the deadliest attack on Israeli
civilians in more than three years and the worst in Jerusalem since 2008. The
dead included three U.S.-born rabbis, a British-born rabbi and a Druze police
officer. One of the slain rabbis, Mosheh Twersky, was from two of the most
prominent families in Orthodox Judaism. Seven worshipers were injured. The
assailants were shot dead by police. The Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack, which came after months of
mounting tension in Jerusalam.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of inciting violence in the city
and said the killings were part of a "battle over Jerusalem."
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] As a nation, we will settle the score with
every terrorist and their dispatchers, and we have proved we will do so. But no
one must take the law into their own hands, even if spirits are riled and blood
is boiling. We are in a long campaign in a war against terrorism that hasn’t
started today. It accompanies us throughout the Zionism. We always overcame it,
and we will this time, as well. There are some who want to uproot us from our
state and capital. They will not succeed. We are in a battle over Jerusalem,
our eternal capital.
AMY GOODMAN: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack,
which came after weeks of unrest, fueled in part by a dispute over Jerusalem’s
holiest site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, containing the Al-Aqsa
Mosque, and known to Jews as the Temple Mount, because the two Biblical temples
once stood there.
PRESIDENT MAHMOUD ABBAS: [translated] We strongly condemn this incident and do not
accept under any circumstances attacks on civilians. At the same time we
condemn these actions, we also condemn the attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, holy
places.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The director of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security
service, Yoram Cohen, dismissed Netanyahu’s claim that Abbas incited the
attack. Cohen said a number of events led to the synagogue massacre, including
the murder of Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir, who was found burned to
death in Jerusalem in July, and the discussions in the Knesset to permit Jewish
prayer on the Temple Mount.
AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Jerusalem, where we’re joined by Amira Hass.
She’s the Ha’aretz correspondent for the occupied
Palestinian territories, the only Israeli Jewish journalist to have spent years
living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank.
Amira, why don’t you
lay out the scene for us in Jerusalem right now?
AMIRA HASS: Hi, Amy. I just came from the neighborhood, Har Nof, where
the murder took place. And before that, I haven’t been able yet to go to the
neighborhood where the two perpetrators lived, but I went to—I was in some
other Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem. Both Palestinian and Israeli
neighborhoods seemed to be very, very reserved. There is fear in both parts.
The fear was very clear in the Palestinian part. I saw many, many
police—policemen, border police—scattered. I even saw them when they were
launching up a big balloon, spying balloon, with a camera, I guess, over the
neighborhood. The streets were almost empty.
While in the
neighborhood in the Jewish neighborhood, things were normal, but very reserved,
very restrained. I didn’t enter—I could not enter inside the synagogue, because
I’m not allowed as a woman to be there. I did talk to some people. It turns—it
seems that the two men who did the killing used to work in the neighborhood in
some shops. That’s what I was told, though I didn’t check it yet, didn’t verify
it yet.
I did speak to some
Palestinians in Jerusalem. And what was remarkable is that they do not approve
of it. They do not approve of it, of this murder. But they share with those who
perpetrated—they share the sense of despair and anger that Palestinians live
with all the time, all the time. I felt that people do not dare to condemn,
even though some people feel uncomfortable about such a killing, such an operation.
By the way, I don’t think that the Popular Front adopted it officially. People
say that the two youngsters are members or fans of the Popular Front, not
necessarily members or not necessarily that they got an order from the Popular
Front, but this is still to be seen.
Yeah, it is very, very
tense. And I was making the comparison between the neighborhood where they
lived, the two men, two Abu Jamal—very crowded, very—no investment in the
livelihood, in the welfare of the people—while this neighborhood is—the Har Nof
neighborhood is a relatively new neighborhood on the land of the village, of
the destroyed Palestinian village, Deir Yassin—very spacious, many newcomers,
many new immigrants from mostly Anglo-Saxon countries. If they worked there
indeed, if the two guys worked there indeed, I think that they faced every
morning—they were facing—every day they were facing the Israeli apartheid, very
clearly.
And they don’t
have—there is no leadership in Jerusalem to—or, at all, any leadership to offer
them a struggle with hope, a struggle that yields fruits which give hope for a
change. Everything, somebody told me also from the Popular Front today—somebody
told me, "We’ve tried everything. We’ve tried negotiations. We’ve tried
demonstrations. We’ve tried nice relations with Jews. We’ve tried so many
things. And nothing—nothing—brings a change and stops this reality of
apartheid."
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Amira Hass, how would you characterize the tensions
in the recent weeks in Jerusalem compared to previous years and the ongoing
conflicts between Jews and Palestinians in Jerusalem?
AMIRA HASS: Look, there are daily confrontations with the police.
There is more police, or there are more confrontations. There are many, many
racist manifestations on the part of Israeli Jews in the streets of Jerusalem
against Palestinians. So there is fear among Palestinians to go and spend time
in the west side of the city, where most of them also have—many of them have
work, as well. There is, as I said, more—more police everywhere, especially in
the Old City and entrance to Al-Aqsa—has become—as somebody told me, "It
is like we are going to a theater, and we have to take a ticket from the police
in order to enter Al-Aqsa or to enter even the Old City." A guy who lives
in the Old City told me, "I cannot go in to my own house. The police is
there. There are checkpoints. They don’t let me get in from this place. They
don’t get in people who do not live in the Old City." So, you feel that
the Israeli measures, to remind Palestinians in Jerusalem that they are not
natural residents of the place, natural natives of the place, but they are
actually there on probation. They live in Jerusalem on probation, provided they
behave nicely or behave according to Israeli regulations. This is the sense
that you get. You get a sense—Palestinians get a sense, more than ever, that
they are here in this—in their city, natives of this city, as a gesture, not
because it’s their native right.
AMY GOODMAN: In October, Israel shut down the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound
in the Old City of Jerusalem for the first time in 14 years, following the
shooting of an Israeli far-right activist named Yehudah Glick. Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the temporary closure as a declaration of war
on the Palestinian people. The site, again, known to Jews as the Temple Mount,
houses both the mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Jamal Tawfiq, a resident of
Jerusalem, said he was turned away after arriving for his morning prayers.
JAMAL TAWFIQ: [translated] This is a collective punishment for something
we had nothing to do with. This is injustice. There is no fair government here.
Justice should be the basis for governance. But there is no justice here. A
problem happens with a person over there, they close the mosque here. Why is it
OK to allow Jews to go pray at the Wailing Wall without any harassment, while a
Palestinian is killed every day? Every day, a Palestinian is killed. Every day,
holy olive trees are burned and pulled out because they belong to Arab
Palestinians. Why are we the ones being punished?
AMY GOODMAN: So that was Jamal Tawfiq, a resident of Jerusalem. So,
Amira Hass, now five Israeli Jews have been killed, three of them American
citizens born in the United States. Where do you see this going from here?
AMIRA HASS: That’s always the most difficult question. I mean, the two
sides are giving signs that they are ready for escalation. And there are more
Israeli measures. The house of one of the perpetrators of a running-over
attack, his house was demolished this night. Probably the houses of the two Abu
Jamal nephews or cousins, they will be demolished also soon. So, Israelis
claimed officially that they are going to use more collective measures against
the entire Palestinian population in Jerusalem. Also what they declared is that
they had—they planned some gestures in the West Bank, like opening roads that
were closed down to Palestinian traffic, and now they decided not to have this
gesture. So, there is—on this part, there is clearly an intention to escalate.
And it’s never—as usual, in the past so many years, Israel does not listen to
the message of Palestinian protest. It only improves and perfects its tools to
repress those demonstrations and expressions of protest.
On the Palestinian
side, there is a lot of confusion, because the Palestinians in Jerusalem can
revolt, but there is no leadership, Palestinian leadership, that works now
to—or able to lead an uprising, in all levels. And also in the West Bank,
people, the great majority of people, I believe—and we’ve seen people—the great
majority of Palestinians are not really keen on entering now a new phase of
repression, of terrible Israeli repression. Gaza is far away. They can
sacrifice again, again and again their lives, their houses. But it’s not in a
position to lead an uprising against the Israeli occupation, especially now
that again Hamas and Fatah are not in the best terms and the reconciliation is
not really working. So, it is—there is a lot of confusion. And Jerusalemers are
left now, left—in a way, they are left quite alone in a desperate attempt to
explain to the Israelis that they have had enough. This is quite heroic, but
also not strategized.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you very much, Amira Hass, for joining us
from Jerusalem. Amira is the Ha’aretz correspondent for the occupied
Palestinian territories, the only Israeli Jewish journalist to have spent many
years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank. A few years ago, she
was awarded the International Women’s Media Foundation Award for Lifetime
Achievement. It was awarded by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. And a slight
correction: Five Israelis have died, four Jews and one Druze. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’ll be joined by
a Palestinian professor and a former Israeli soldier. Stay with us.
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WEDNESDAY,
NOVEMBER 19, 2014
"Palestinians Always Live in Fear": Jerusalem Killings Follow Months of Tensions, Settlement Growth
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In the aftermath of Tuesday’s attack that
killed five Israeli civilians in a Jerusalem synagogue, Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of inciting
violence in the city and said the killings were part of a "battle over
Jerusalem." Abbas has condemned the attack, which came after weeks of
unrest fueled by a dispute over Jerusalem’s holiest site, known to Muslims as the
Noble Sanctuary and known to Jews as the Temple Mount, as well as the continued
expansion of Israeli settlements. We discuss the worsening tensions in Israel
and the Occupied Territories with two guests: Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said
Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University and author of several books,
and Eran Efrati, a former Israeli combat soldier turned anti-occupation
activist and investigative researcher.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in
its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We’re continuing our coverage of the crisis in Jerusalem,
where five Israelis died Tuesday when a pair of Palestinians armed with meat
cleavers and a gun stormed a synagogue during morning prayers. It was the
deadliest attack on Israeli civilians in more than three years and the worst in
Jerusalem since 2008.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by two guests here in New York. Rashid
Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University.
He’s the author of a number of books, including his latest, Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S.
Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East.
Eran Efrati is also with us, a former Israeli
combat soldier turned occupation—anti-occupation activist and investigative
researcher. His family has lived in Jerusalem for seven generations.
Let’s start with Professor Khalidi. Your
response to what has taken place, not only yesterday, the killing of the four
Israeli Jews and one Druze at the synagogue, but in the lead-up to that, as
well?
RASHID KHALIDI: Well, tensions have been growing since the summer, and
Jerusalem is the flashpoint. When, on top of the pressure that Palestinians are
all under because of this occupation that’s now in its fifth decade, you have
the issue of the Haram al-Sharif, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and you have calls by
senior ministers in the Israeli government, like Naftali Bennett, to completely
change the status quo, to in effect take over a Muslim holy place that’s been
the center of devotion for 1,400 years and, essentially, do to it what was done
to the mosque in Hebron—turn it into a Jewish holy place where Muslims are
occasionally allowed—you are throwing fuel on the fire. And so, ever since the
last couple of months, there’s just been an escalation in tension all over the
city.
You have increased
settlement activity that just is penetrating neighborhood after neighborhood.
Arab neighborhoods that have never seen armed settlers, with a heavy military
and police presence to guard them, are now slowly, but surely, being colonized
one by one. And so, you’re basically turning up the heat on a very, very hot
situation, and that’s been going on now for many months.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And given the inability of the leaders to be able to
negotiate a settlement to the ongoing occupation, do you think that there’s a
possibility that we’re under the brink of a Third Intifada, with the young
people just saying, "Hey, our leaders can’t deliver anything"?
RASHID KHALIDI: Well, I think that what Amira Hass earlier said is
correct. In Jerusalem, in particular, there’s an absence of leadership, but
there’s an absence of leadership for the Palestinians as a whole. And that has
been, I think, signaled over the Gaza crisis. It’s been signaled over the
inability of the Palestinians to actually put together a reconciliation, a
unity government, and to define a strategy.
I mean, Israel has a
clear strategy. It is that they will negotiate forever, but they will not give
up control of the Occupied Territories. The most important statement made by an
Israeli politician was made by Netanyahu this summer. He said, "We will
keep permanent, perpetual security control of these territories." So he’s
basically said, "No state, no sovereignty, no independence. You can talk
as long as you want. I will meet with you. But you will never get an end to occupation."
Well, that’s—something
has to give here. I don’t think—I agree with Amira: I think that people in the
West Bank are afraid. They’re both afraid of Israeli retaliation and they’re
afraid of the security cooperation between the Palestinian Authority, which
helps the Israelis to hold them down, and Israel. So, I’m not sure that that’s
where we’re going. We may be going to more—sadly, to more horrible random acts
of violence and more eruptions of kids, without leadership, in various parts of
the West Bank, perhaps, and Jerusalem.
AMY GOODMAN: Is there something shifting here, from an
Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a Israeli, perhaps, Jewish-Muslim conflict,
which certainly involves many more people than just in that area?
RASHID KHALIDI: Well, I mean, this is certainly grist for the mill of
people who want to turn it into a religious conflict. There are certainly
people on the Israeli side and people on the Palestinian side, but in the
broader Arab and Muslim world. I mean, this group in Sinai, which announced its
adherence to the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, is called Ansar Beit
al-Maqdis, a support—
AMY GOODMAN: The Egyptians.
RASHID KHALIDI: The Egyptian Sinai group that announced its adherence to
the Islamic State off in Mosul and Baghdad, al-Baghdadi’s group, is called
Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, supporters of Jerusalem. This is a card that these people
will play. So, yes, this is not just tinder in the Palestinian-Israeli arena,
religious tinder; this is religious tinder all over the region. I don’t know
what—I’m not suggesting that’s necessarily going to—something is necessarily
going to happen, but the Israeli government is playing with fire. They have a
senior minister—Naftali Bennett is one of the three most important people in
the Israeli Cabinet. He is making incendiary statements. His party and
Lieberman’s party are saying and doing things that Palestinians watch. They
know who these people are. They know how important they are in Israeli
politics. They know the kind of support they have. And people are quite afraid,
I think.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And Eran Efrati, as a former soldier now turned
anti-occupation activist, your reaction as you’re seeing this latest flare-up
over this terrible attack yesterday?
ERAN EFRATI: All right. So I think when we’re really trying to
understand what happened in Jerusalem the last few months, we’ll need to
understand it in a broader context—the broader context of maybe 70 years of
ethnic cleansing all over Palestine, but definitely in the last 40 years in
East Jerusalem and around specifically the holy sites, trying to bring more and
more Jews into this area instead of Palestinians and determine a new history,
if you want, a new history when you cannot divide Jerusalem, because Jews were
always there in the Old City and around these holy sites. So, from this
situation, the angle is to make Palestinians leave Jerusalem. And we’re trying
to oppress them so much. And this our goal—when I was in the army—in the police
in Jerusalem, the goal is to make people’s life miserable. When we were in the
army, they’re trying to tell us that to do that, we’re doing it for the fact
that they will not act in terror attacks. So, we need to make their life
miserable, so they will be afraid all the time, and they will not have time to
plan terror attacks. It’s, of course, ridiculous. The end goal in the end to
make them want to leave also made them want to do crazy things, like attacks on
Jews and on Israelis.
The second context I
will talk about—I think it’s important to talk about—is the last 10 years.
Since the last—since the Second Intifada, the end of the Second Intifada, that
was very bloody for both sides, the Palestinian society decided to act in
nonviolent acts, trying to go to the U.N., like Amira Hass has mentioned, going
to the U.N. promoting BDS—boycott, divestment and sanction movement—on Israel.
All of that was countered in a very, very harsh oppression by Israel. People in
Israel, officials in Israel are calling them terrorists. If you’re going to the
U.N., you’re a political terrorist. If you’re promoting BDS, you’re an
economic terrorist. People are arrested for that. You know, institute like
[inaudible] Institute, a right-wing institute in Jerusalem, is calling the
Parliament, telling them that it will help them expose BDSactivists
to stop them and arrest them and destroy their homes. You know, when we’re—
AMY GOODMAN: BDS being boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
ERAN EFRATI: Right, Amy. When we’re reacting to nonviolence in such a
violent way and oppression, and we explain to the Palestinians, "There is
no legit way to resist the occupation, there’s no legal way to resist us,"
it will always end up with violence. Oppression with violence will counter
resistance with violence. And in the last four months, Jerusalem is burning.
I’m there. I’m from there. I’m a seventh generation in Jerusalem, and I was
there in the last few months. Jerusalem is burning since the beginning of the
summer, and of course since the killing of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, that, by the
way, one of his killers that burned him to death in July was from Har Nof
neighborhood.
So, the tension is
always there. But the media was not always there, and the attention was not
always there. For 40 years, East Jerusalem is in this situation, but nobody
seemed to be noticing, because in the last 10 years, for Israelis, since the
end of the Second Intifada, it was quiet years. For us, it was peaceful years,
because we weren’t living in fear. But Palestinians never had those quiet
years. They always lived in fear. They didn’t stop being attacked by the
police, by the army—and now, since the summer, by civilians, by mobs on the
streets going there and looking to lynch people. And they do, like Mohammed Abu
Khdeir, like two days ago when they found in East Jerusalem a bus driver, a
Palestinian bus driver, a father to two girls, hanged in the middle of his bus
after a violent attack on him, lynching him and hanging him up in the middle of
the bus. But it doesn’t seem like nobody is talking about it.
AMY GOODMAN: Wait, explain that, because it was said that he committed
suicide.
ERAN EFRATI: Yes, the police came out—exactly like in the Mohammed Abu
Khdeir story, by the way, when they came out and said that his family found out
that he’s—their son is gay, and this is why they killed him, some homophobic
and racism combined together. And, of course, in the end, they have to admit
that he was actually lynched to death. The same here. The police came out
immediately and said that he committed suicide. His picture, by the way, is going
around online, and you can see the violent signs on his body and the rope
around his neck. It’s completely crazy, but nobody is talking about it. I’m
hearing Barack Obama coming out and condemning this story. I think it’s
important to understand that he’s—it’s important to condemn violence against
civilians, but where was he when violence against Palestinian civilians are
happening every day?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you about the role of Americans, here,
financing and helping to support settlement expansion in Israel. The impact
that that has?
ERAN EFRATI: Definitely, so much money is being transferred mostly from
the evangelicals, but not only. Weapon companies that fuel this government,
lobbyists of weapon companies that fuel this government and a lot of right-wing
Zionist movements in this country is actually being fueled to the settlement
movement in East Jerusalem, all over the West Bank, and to the right-wing
parties in Israel. In a lot of ways, the U.S. control completely the political
situation in Israel. Like Professor Khalidi just mentioned, the political
atmosphere is extremely violent and fascist. And the United States not only
enabled that, it’s backing it up with money and with support.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to comments President Obama made following
the attacks on the synagogue yesterday.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Tragically, this is not the first loss of life that we
have seen in recent months. Too many Israelis have died. Too many Palestinians
have died. And at this difficult time, I think it’s important for both
Palestinians and Israelis to try to work together to lower tensions and to
reject violence. The murderers for today’s outrageous acts represent the kind
of extremism that threatens to bring all of the Middle East into the kind of
spiral from which it’s very difficult to emerge, and we know how this violence
can get worse over time. But we have to remind ourselves that the majority of
Palestinians and Israelis overwhelmingly want peace and to be able to raise
their families knowing they’re safe and secure. The United States wants to work
with all parties involved to make that a reality and to isolate the kinds of
extremists that are bringing about this terrible carnage.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s President Obama speaking yesterday in response to
the attacks on the Jerusalem synagogue. Professor Khalidi, your response and
how you feel the U.S. should respond?
RASHID KHALIDI: Well, the United States is precisely the enabler of all of
this. The United States, by its diplomatic support, prevents any real pressure
on Israel to stop it from occupation, settlement and repression.
AMY GOODMAN: And the tension reportedly between Netanyahu and Obama?
RASHID KHALIDI: I mean, that and five cents won’t get you a cup of coffee.
The president can vent and have his acolytes and his flacks and his hacks say
nasty things about the Israeli prime minister. As long as American money is
going to support the repression of Palestinians, as long as 501(c)(3)
supposedly "charitable" organizations in this country are not stopped
by the Justice Department, are not stopped by the Treasury, from funneling tens
and hundreds of millions of dollars to settlement activities and to the
repression of Palestinians, what the president says is meaningless. This is an
American-Israeli enterprise, in fact. The money is largely from the United
States. The weapons are from the United States. We are implicated.
And we are running
interference for Israel. Whenever anybody tries to do anything—British
Parliament, the Spanish Parliament, the Irish Parliament, the Swedish
government—the United States objects. Whenever anybody tries to do anything
diplomatically or in a nonviolent manner, such as boycott, divestment and
sanctions, we’re told that these are anti-Semitic actions. So, presumably, the
Palestinians are supposed to lie down and let the bulldozers and the settlement
enterprise and the repression run over them and go back to negotiations, which
Netanyahu has already told us can never lead to an end to occupation. That’s
the doing of the United States, to a very large extent, I’m afraid.
AMY GOODMAN: Your family background, Professor Khalidi? I mentioned
that Eran’s family goes back, what, seven generations in Jerusalem. Yours?
RASHID KHALIDI: Our family—my family is a Jerusalem family. My uncle was
the last elected Arab mayor of Jerusalem. He was elected in 1934. He was
deported to the Seychelles by the British in 1937, but he served as mayor for
three years before British colonialism dealt with him. So, we’re an old
Jerusalem family. I have cousins living there, and I’ve talked to them. It’s
scary. What Amira reported is true. There is an enormous amount of fear. People
who have families, people who have kids, are really worried about what will
happen to their kids. They’re worried about what will—you know, my cousin has a
garden. Israeli undercover agents leap over the wall and chase people through
their garden. It’s terrifying. And there’s nothing you can do about it.
Palestinians have no share in the governance of the city. It is ruled by
others, for others, for a project that is designed to dispossess them and make
them into third-class citizens and, ultimately, if possible, get as many of
them out. They’re 38 percent of the population of Jerusalem, Palestinian Arabs,
and yet they are treated as if they have absolutely no rights.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And given the worldwide condemnation of the occupation and
the continuing refusal of the Israeli government to negotiate some kind of just
settlement, what do you see in terms of potential hope for any kind of progress
in the conflict?
RASHID KHALIDI: Well, one thing that is happening is that in this country
there is an awakening among younger people, the kind of people who watch this
show or listen to this show, people who do not consume the mainstream media,
people on campuses. There is an enormous change in public opinion below the
level of the mainstream media. The second thing is, in Europe, there is an
enormous shift. Four major European countries have had parliaments or
governments actually take a stand. Now, that has yet to be translated into
effective pressure to stop these acts of oppression, but we’re getting there.
AMY GOODMAN: Sweden just recognized Palestine.
RASHID KHALIDI: Sweden has recognized Palestine. The Spanish Parliament
voted yesterday. The Irish Parliament has voted, and the British Parliament has
voted. So we have four of the most important countries in the world, have come
around or are beginning to come around in an official fashion on this. This is
only going to increase. Everybody in Europe knows what’s going on. What the
American media doesn’t tell the Americans, the European media does tell
Europeans. And so, I think that you’re going to see increasing pressure on
Israel, at least from Europe and the rest of the world. The problem is here.
The problem is in this country.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Netanyahu saying that the occupation will remain
forever because the borders are indefensible, your response?
RASHID KHALIDI: Well, he claimed that what has happened with the erection
of this supposed Islamic caliphate shows why Israel has to maintain permanent
security control over the Jordan River Valley and the entirety of the Occupied
Territories. I mean, he has been finding excuses for the longest time why
Israel has to continue settling, has to continue occupying, has to continue
oppressing. It’s a pretty transparent maneuver. Obviously, you do not control a
region by oppressing the people and turning them into your enemies, which is
what Israel has been doing for 47 years.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there. We thank you both
very much for being with us. Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of
Arab Studies at Columbia University, author of a number of books, including,
most recently,Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the
Middle East. And Eran Efrati is former Israeli combat soldier turned
anti-occupation activist and investigative researcher.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, a very close vote
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