CALL UPON ISRAELI ACADEMICS
EJJP letter to EU-kommission chairman Barroso Dear President Barroso European Jews for a Just Peace (EJJP) welcomes the mission of Mr Leffler to Israel later this month. But we are gravely concerned that the EU will offer Israel economic benefits in exchange for minor humanitarian gestures. Our concerns are twofold: Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement states that the relationship between the EU and Israel shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guide their internal and international policy as an essential element of the Agreement. Israel has been and remains in violation of this and we believe the agreement should be suspended until Israel shows respect for its terms. Instead, we are alarmed to read reports that the EU, under the new European Neighbourhood Policy Israel is currently negotiating increased economic benefits to Israel in return for what look like minor removal of restrictions on Palestinians - which should not exist in the first place. Furthermore, as a recent report from B’tselem confirms, Israel has not lifted the restrictions on movement that it agreed would be necessary when Ariel Sharon met Mahmoud Abbas in Sharm el Sheikh in January 2005. With Israel controlling borders and airspace, they warn that Palestinians from the West Bank find it easier to visit relatives in prison than to get to Gaza. If the mission of Mr Leffler is to be substantive rather than cosmetic, it must demand more from the Israeli state than the opening of a few roadblocks. Restrictions are placed on Palestinians collectively and according to arbitrary criteria. The separation barrier has not been removed, as demanded according to international law, but is currently being extended around Jerusalem. Land continues to be expropriated. Settlements continue to expand, illegally – and with the knowledge of the Israeli State. The Sasson Report has revealed that Israeli state bodies have been secretly diverting millions of dollars to build illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank. It identified 105 illegal outposts – all supplied by Israeli agencies with electricity and water. Nowhere are Palestinian rights - and future hopes for a nation state - more clearly violated than in the recent Israeli approval for building 3,500 new houses along route E-1 which links Jerusalem to the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, deep in the West Bank. If completed will drive a wedge through the West Bank, effectively dividing it in two and making a coherent, viable, contiguous Palestinian state well nigh impossible. There are plans to demolish 20,000 Palestinian homes around Jerusalem. There are almost daily reports of attacks by settlers on Palestinian workers and farmers. The continued construction of the Wall/separation fence – condemned by the ICJ - looms large over West Bank life. We call on the EU to use its economic clout wisely. If Israel seeks economic co-operation with the EU, then it must agree first to serious and significant steps towards peace and improving the lot of the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Such steps would include dismantling all internal checkpoints within the West Bank, releasing a substantial number of political prisoners, freezing all new building work in the settlements and East Jerusalem, ending all threatened Palestinian house demolitions and suspending all work on the Wall as a prelude to its dismantlement where it is built beyond the green line. These demands are entirely in accordance the principles and ethos of the European Union. Nothing less should be acceptable to the EU. We in EJJP await your response with much interest. Yours sincerely
Declaration
On the death of President Arafat Such an achievement did not prevent his vilification by political opponents. Like any leader, Arafat was far from flawless. Yet those who criticised most readily were those who most feared his ability to represent the yearning of his people on the world political and diplomatic stage. Since his journey to Paris, the world has been confronted with Israeli politicians and their apologists in the West engaging in a hideous competition to outdo one another in their demonisation of Yasser Arafat. The Western world has been too ready to accept this skewed vision. In truth, the Israeli government has for years attempted to demonise the entire Palestinian population and to deny the opportunity for Israelis and Palestinians to encounter one another except in a lopsided cycle of violence in which the Israelis always have greater weaponry and resources and in which a far greater number of Palestinians lose their lives. Only in the quality of loss, for death is a wicked leveller, is there any similarlity. Arafat renounced violence in favour of peace negotiations. He recognised Israel and he recognised that a two state solution was the only way forward. There has always been a partner for peace: the Palestinian people are that partner. There has not always been a willingness on the part of the Israeli government to engage with the elected leader, Yasser Arafat. They failed the test of statesmanship that their militasry victories set them. We can only hope now that Yasser Arafat's victory in the battle for recognition of the Palestinians' right to a viable nation state is crowned by the establishment of that nationj state before thousands more die. Executive Committee, EJJP
The Mazel Affair EJJP statement on the affair of the Israeli ambassador in Stockholm, 16 January 2004 The attack by Zvi Mazel, Israel's ambassador to Sweden, on the work of art 'Snow White and the madness of truth' by Dror Feiler and Gunilla Sköld Feiler was not about art. It is incomprehensible and unacceptable that an official representative for a country calling itself a democracy should behave like a football hooligan. It turns out that this was not an expression of spontaneous fury on the part of the ambassador. In a number of subsequent interviews Mazel made it clear that the attack was premeditated, decided upon before he had arrived at the exhibition and seen the work of art. The ambassador's act of vandalism has received fulsome support, indeed wholehearted endorsement, from the Israeli government, Ariel Sharon himself affirming that 'the phenomenon is so serious that it would have been forbidden not to have acted on the spot'! Thus the ambassador's action is fully in line with current Israeli policy. This is revealed, yet again, as one of trampling on laws and rules for civilised relations between individuals and nations, resorting instead to preemptive intervention and violence. A similar pattern unfolds, a contempt for international law and for opponents of the policies of the Israeli government. In this context we should not forget the ambassador's statement on Swedish TV news on the night of the opening of the exhibition, screaming that there is no Israeli Occupation and claiming all Palestinians and Arabs to be terrorists. It is statements like these that his government has no difficulty in endorsing. The ambassador's actions are an attack on freedom of expression in Sweden and in Europe, and are in line with the wider Israeli government approach of increasingly branding any criticism of its policies as antisemitic. We Jews of Europe who are striving for peaceful co-existence and mutual respect between Israelis and Palestinians and for a peaceful resolution of the Middle-East conflict, condemn Ambassador Mazel's attack on freedom of expression and his attempt to silence criticism of the illegal occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. European Jews for a Just Peace Executive Committee |
