Edinburgh Council boycotts Veolia

Edinburgh Council has rejected Veolia's attempt to take over public services in the city!

A Council report published on 10th Dec 2010 indicates that Veolia is no longer being considered for any contracts in the city, despite having been seen as the leading contender for its environmental services bid.

Veolia works with Israeli authorities in Occupied Palestine to provide waste and transport services to Israel's illegal settlements. The French multinational has already lost contracts across Europe due to sustained protest over its complicity in Israel's war crimes.

This comes on top of similar losses throughout Europe and beyond as it becomes ever more clear that it no longer pays to profit from Israel's Occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people.

Read SPSC media release

R2H: Bristol Boys come home

After a very long journey indeed, and adventures that no one could have anticipated, the two remaining representatives from Bristol made it all the way to Gaza. Keith Darkin had plenty of time to see for himself the effects of the ongoing UK/US backed siege, and to meet survivors. Shahid Iqbal, leading Bristol graffitist, was able to make his mark in a big way - at one point a policeman helped him do a giant version of his famous 'toff'. After a Welcome Home at the Farm pub, St Werburgh's on Tuesday 7th, there was a party at the same venue on Thursday, also hosting an art show/ fund-raiser for Gaza.

NOW: See short film report here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndwZWVGUBNg

Israel's racist rabbis: "Hate the gentile"

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef: 'Goyim [non-Jews] were born only to serve us.'

By Jonathan Cook - Nazareth

Jews must not rent homes to 'gentiles'. That was the religious decree issued this week by at least 50 of Israel’s leading rabbis, many of them employed by the state as municipal religious leaders. Jews should first warn, then “ostracise” fellow Jews who fail to heed the directive, the rabbis declared.

The decree is the latest in a wave of racist pronouncements from some of Israel’s most influential rabbis.

In October, Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of Safed, delivered a ruling, signed by 17 other rabbis in the city, telling Jewish residents not to sell or rent property to members of the country’s Palestinian Arab minority, who make up a fifth of the population.

His followers turned words into deeds by attacking Arab students in the city and threatening to burn down the homes of Jewish landlords renting to the students.

Similar edicts have recently been backed by dozens of rabbis in Tel Aviv and nearby Bnei Brak, a suburb of 150,000 mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews. They have threatened to “expose” any Jews who rent to “foreigners” -- in this case, a reference to migrant workers and African refugees who are crowded into neglected neighbourhoods in the centre of the country.

After many weeks of silence on these declarations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was finally forced to issue a condemnation yesterday, describing the rabbis’ call as undemocratic and contradicting the bible, which, he said, called for Jews to “love the stranger”.

Nonetheless, racism in Israel is increasingly enjoying high-level sanction among the most influential sectors of the religious establishment.

The latest ruling was signed by Shlomo Aviner, a spiritual leader of Israel’s national-religious camp; Yosef Elyashiv, a senior ultra-Orthodox rabbi; and Avigdor Neventzal, rabbi of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Its sentiments have also been echoed by Ovadia Yosef, a former chief rabbi of Israel and the spiritual leader of Shas, an important political and religious party in Mr Netanyahu’s government. “Selling to [non-Jews], even for a lot of money, is not allowed. We won’t let them take control of us here,” Mr Yosef said recently.

Two months ago, Mr Yosef explained the logic behind his views and those of like-minded rabbis.

“Goyim [non-Jews] were born only to serve us.” Explaining why God allowed non-Jews long lives, he added: “Imagine that your donkey would die, you’d lose your income. [The donkey] is your servant. ... That’s why he [the gentile] gets a long life, to work well for the Jew.”

Mr Yosef’s remarks against “gentiles” were greeted with respectful silence by Israeli officials and most of the media. It was left to the United States government and the New York-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to issue rebukes. Abraham Foxman, the ADL’s head, accused the rabbi of advancing “hateful and divisive ideas”.

The rabbis’ use of theology to support racial discrimination is being applied to more than just housing.

This summer, Yosef Elitzur and Yitzhak Shapira, who head an influential seminary in the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar, published The King’s Torah, a 230-page guide to how Jews should treat non-Jews.

The two rabbis concluded that Jews were obligated to kill anyone who posed a danger, immediate or potential, to the Jewish people, and implied that all Palestinians were to be considered a threat. On these grounds, the pair justified killing Palestinian civilians and even their babies.

Last month Mr Shapira also backed the use of Palestinians as human shields, a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention, and a practice that Israel’s supreme court has outlawed.

The King’s Torah, far from being condemned by moderate rabbis, has been greeted with a general silence and enthusiastic support from a number of notable religious leaders.

Arik Ascherman, head of Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel, said the growing extremism of the the Orthodox religious establishment in Israel reflected the increasingly right-wing atmosphere in Israel that made the expression of ultra-nationalist views permissible.

In the current climate, he said, moderate rabbis were reluctant to speak out against their colleagues. Many of these rabbis belong to the Conservative or Reform streams of Judaism, which are not officially recognised in Israel.

“The religious sanction being given to the political right by these rabbis is dangerous. It makes their opinions seem more acceptable,” he said.

That is being reflected in public surveys, in which many Israeli Jews express support for anti-Arab views. A poll by the Israeli Democracy Institute published last week showed that 46 per cent of the country’s Jews did not want to live near Arab citizens, and 39 per cent felt the same about foreign workers.

Even more, 53 per cent, wanted Arab citizens to be encouraged to leave Israel and half believed Arabs should not have equal rights with Jews. Among the religious public, racist sentiments were more popular.

Israeli prosecutors, meanwhile, have turned a blind eye to the refusal of several prominent endorsers of The King’s Torah to obey a summons calling them for investigation. “Our holy Torah is not a subject for investigation or trial by flesh and blood,” the rabbis said.

In all, the rabbinical establishment is growing increasingly bold in promoting its vision of a Jewish state run according to holy law, according to Zvi Barel, a commentator with the daily newspaper Haaretz.

“They and their supporters are transforming zealous fundamentalism and the shameful The King’s Torah into the mainstream,” Mr Barel wrote recently.

The general trend towards extremism has not happened by chance, said Sefi Rachelevsky, a prominent Israeli writer critical of the Orthodox rabbinate. Israel’s public coffers pay the salaries of some of the most extremist rabbis, and the education system regularly falls under the political control of religious parties like Shas.

Mr Shapira, who advocates killing non-Jewish babies, receives large sums from the education ministry for his yeshiva -- a seminary where he spreads his message of hate. Religious students also receive extra subsidies unavailable to normal students to encourage their attendance at such yeshivas.

The rabbis exert their influence on the youngest and most impressionable too. When the new school year started in September, 52 per cent of Jewish children in first grade attended a strictly religious school.

Pupils in some of the most religious schools, Mr Rachlevsky pointed out, are taught that Jews sit above nature, which comprises four categories: “inanimate”, “vegetable”, “animal” and “speakers” -- or non-Jews, who are considered no more than talking animals.


- Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Visit: www.jkcook.net. (A version of this article originally appeared in The National - www.thenational.ae - published in Abu Dhabi.)

If you like this article, please consider making a contribution to the Palestine Chronicle (http://palestinechronicle.com/contribution.php).

Army razes 12 West Bank homes, 1 school; airstrikes on Gaza

8th December: The Israeli army has today demolished 12 Palestinian houses and a school in the village of Kherbet Tana, near the West Bank city of Nablus - claiming as usual that all structures were illegally built. A Red Cross building, which reportedly served the impoverished residents of the village, was also severely damaged in the bulldozing, witnesses said.
Based on figures revealed by the Israeli NGO Bimkom, almost 95% of applications filed by Palestinians for construction permits are rejected. Bimkom also noted that Israel's Civil Administration only grants around 12 permits per year.

The residents said that the demolition on Wednesday is the third of its kind, where around 45 houses were demolished in the village this year. Tana has a population of 180.
Meanwhile, Palestinian security sources said that the Israeli army arrested overnight nine Palestinian activists in the cities of Nablus, Tulkarem and Hebron, saying they are wanted by the Israeli security forces.

The Palestinian Authority did not condemn the demolitions. 


In the Gaza Strip, Israeli warplanes struck before dawn on Wednesday two targets in response, the Israelis claim, to earlier homemade rocket attacks carried out by Gaza militants.
Witnesses said that the Israeli F16 warplanes struck a poultry farm (a weapons depot, according to Israeli radio) near the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, injuring one Palestinian civilian and causing severe damage.
The warplanes also struck a tunnel used for smuggling under the borderline between southern Gaza Strip and Egypt. The tunnel was destroyed, but no injuries were reported.

Photo: www.life.com

Argentina recognises Palestinian state

Argentina has become the second Latin American state after Brazil to recognize Palestine as an independent state.

AFP reports that in a letter to Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, Argentine President Cristina Kirchner (right) wrote that her country recognizes Palestine as a "free and independent state" as defined by the 1967 borders.

On Friday 3rd, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry announced that Brasilia recognizes the Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

The Brazilian announcement came in a public letter in response to a personal request by Abbas on November 24.

The Brazilian letter expressed support for the Palestinians' quest for a homeland as a "legitimate aspiration of the Palestinian people for a secure, united, democratic and economically viable state."

The authorities in Tel Aviv are reportedly infuriated.

True to form, US Congressman Eliot Engel criticized the Brazilian move and said, "Brazil's decision to recognize Palestine is severely misguided and represents a last gasp by a Lula-led foreign policy which was already substantially off track."

There is no legitimate reason why the international community should not back Palestinian demands for a state in most of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem), all territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Late news: Uruguay has joined these countries in 'recognising' Palestine, announcing it will recognize a Palestinian state next year.

"Uruguay will surely follow the same path as Argentina in 2011," deputy foreign minister Roberto Conde told AFP. "We are working toward opening a diplomatic representation in Palestine, most likely in Ramallah."

More than 100 states, mostly from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, have recognised Palestinian statehood, and Brazil becomes the last of the BRIC group of emerging powers – Brazil, Russia, India and China – to do so.

Other South American countries could now follow suit, and there has been speculation that Peru could be next.

$150m aid for Palestinian Authority

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced $150m in new aid for the Palestinian Authority

The ‘Peace Process’ is at a standstill, but Washington is trying to keep the two sides - Israel and the PA - engaged - and it is working especially hard to stop the Palestinians from walking away from the process: even Mahmoud Abbas has cried ‘enough’ in the face of continued Israeli dishonesty in maintaining new colonial building and forced demolitions during the so-called freeze. He even threatened, on Friday 3rd December, to end autonomy in the Palestinian territories if Israel insists on going ahead with settlement construction on lands that should be a Palestinian state.

Interviewed by Palestine TV, Abbas said he would not "afford to remain the president of a nonexistent Palestinian Authority" if the Israeli occupation of the West Bank continued, and along with that settlement construction .

When asked if the comment meant that he could actually disband the Palestinian Authority, he answered, “I am telling the Israelis that they can continue as occupiers, but as for me, I will not accept the status quo.”

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced new aid of $150m (£93m) for the Palestinian Authority on Wednesday 1st December - part sweetener, part support for Palestinian institution-building, a track running parallel to the “negotiations”. She announced this at the State Department with a fine balloon-full of hot air:
"We have to move forward together, simultaneously and mutually reinforcing on two tracks, the hard work of negotiations and the hard work of building institutions and capacities."
Mrs Clinton was joined via video link to Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in Ramallah.
"Progress on this second track gives confidence to negotiators, removes excuses for delays and underscores that the Palestinian Authority has become a credible partner for peace," she added, and we can see once again that the PA’s ‘credibility’ only extends as far as its resemblance to the Vichy government of Occupied France will allow.
Not to be outdone in the hot-air stakes, Ziad Asali, from the American Task Force for Palestine in Washington, responded, "The announcement is a sign of confidence and commitment, commitment to the two-state solution and confidence in the integrity of the Palestinian Authority and its finance ministry,"

The new US money will help the P. A. close a budget gap before the end of the year.
The US and the EU are two of the largest single donors to the Palestinians. During the 2010 financial year, the US gave a total of $739.9m (£458.9m).
Some of it goes directly to budget assistance, including the payment of bills - freeing up money for the Palestinian Authority to pay salaries.

Some of the aid from the US and EU goes to training for Palestinian Authority military personnel.
The EU gives an average of $700m per year, but has been notoriously unenthusiastic about giving aid to Gaza since Hamas was elected. A coalition of major humanitarian, human rights and development organizations called on the European Union back in January 2009 to immediately suspend any further enhancement of its relations with Israel, known as an ‘upgrade’, until it agreed to a comprehensive ceasefire and provided unimpeded access to the Strip.
The call followed Israel’s rejection of European attempts to secure an immediate ceasefire during a visit of the EU’s most senior representatives to the region.
“Israel has shunned diplomatic efforts by the EU and the delegation has returned empty-handed. The EU’s credibility is now at stake. It is inconceivable that we should extend further benefits of European partnership to a government that violates international humanitarian law and refuses negotiation in favour of continued violence. It is time for robust EU action to bring about an immediate ceasefire and end the violence on all sides,” said Daleep Mukarji, Director of Christian Aid UK and Ireland.

No quid pro quo
This latest influx of cash comes after the US has been similarly, and repeatedly, insulted by Israel, which knows it is in a position of strength as the US foothold in the Mid-east, and continues to accept all handouts of military and financial aid while dragging its feet over following Uncle Sam’s wishes.
The most recent session of the Peace Negotiations, given a big launch by President Barack Obama in early September, hardly took off and ran aground after just two meetings.

Obama believes in fairies

As the rational world everywhere accepts that the so-called ‘Peace Process’ is nothing but a smoke-screen for Zionist expansion with or without the ‘freeze’, an ex-CIA official states that US President Obama’s only peace process is to ‘hope for a miracle’ - as MondoWeiss’ writer Adam Horowitz put it on DECEMBER 3:

Robert Grenier, CIA's chief of station in Islamabad, Pakistan, from 1999 to 2002 and director of the CIA's counter-terrorism center, writes in disbelief at the current Obama administration strategy with the peace process (which he considers long dead). He comments on the Al Jazeera English website about the rumoured bundle of incentives the White House is offering Israel for a 90-day extension of the partial settlement freeze:
"After witnessing US policy toward Israel and the Palestinians for over 30 years, I had thought I was beyond shock. This development, however, is breathtaking. In effect, along with a whole string of additional commitments, including some potentially far-reaching security guarantees which it is apparently afraid to reveal publicly, the Obama administration is willing to permanently cast aside a policy of some 40 years' duration, under which the US has at least nominally labelled Israeli settlements on occupied territory as "obstacles to peace,". All this in return for a highly conditional settlement pause which will permit Netanyahu to pocket what the US has given him, simply wait three months without making any good-faith effort at compromise, and know in the end that Israel will never again have to suffer the US' annoying complaints about illegal settlements.
Leave aside the fact that as of this writing, the Israeli cabinet may yet reject this agreement - which seems even more breathtaking, until one stops to consider that virtually everything the Americans have offered the Israelis they could easily obtain in due course without the moratorium. No, what is telling here is that the American attempt to win this agreement, lopsided as it is, is an act of sheer desperation.
What gives rise to the desperation, whether it is fear of political embarrassment at a high-profile diplomatic failure or genuine concern for US security interests in the region, I cannot say. It seems crystal clear, however, that the administration sees the next three months as a last chance. Their stated hope is that if they can get the parties to the table for this brief additional period, during which they focus solely on reaching agreement on borders, success in this endeavour will obviate concerns about settlements and give both sides sufficient stake in an outcome that they will not abandon the effort.
No one familiar with the substance of the process believes agreement on borders can be reached in 90 days on the merits; consider additionally that negotiators will be attempting to reach such a pact without reference to Jerusalem, and seeking compromise on territory without recourse to off-setting concessions on other issues, and success becomes virtually impossible to contemplate."

Meanwhile, the Zionists argue among themselves over just how much of Palestine they will allow the Palestinians to keep, although it is only a matter of nothing versus next-to-nothing:

Jordan Valley

After almost half a century of Israeli occupation, its Palestinian population has shrunk from over 200,000 to fewer than 60,000. ... A fortnight ago 15 young Israelis in T-shirts came down from Maskiyot, a hilltop settlement, took possession of a Bedouin tent, put up a fence to keep out the family and its goats, and sang Hebrew chants.

An Israeli army jeep idled by, briefly surveyed the rumpus, and drove on. The local Palestinian governor, whose headquarters is in the Arab town of Tubas, paid a call, before also hurrying away.

“From experience, we’ve learnt that, if we protest, the settlers will resort to violence and demand that the state confiscate the land to protect them,” explains a Palestinian activist who advises the Bedouin.

On a nearby wall, someone had daubed in Hebrew: “Bless God for not making me a gentile".

http://www4.economist.com/node/17581571