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ContentsVOLUME 10 NUMBER 1 AUTUMN 2007RAMADAN 1428

Editorial 3

Divide and rule, Israeli style 5JONATHAN COOK

Boycott Israel 9RAJNAARA AKHTAR

Armageddon Now 13STEPHEN SIZER

Sewage Tsunami and Economic, Physical andPolitical Strangulation in Gaza 17ANNA BALTZER

Islamic Libraries in Jerusalem 21MAZEN NUSSIEBEH

BOOK REVIEWS 27

Checkpoint Watch, Testimonies fromOccupied Palestineby Yehudit Kirstein KeshetREVIEWED BY RAJNAARA AKHTAR

Overcoming Zionism: Creating a SingleDemocratic State in Israel/Palestineby Joel KovelREVIEWED BY SAMUEL J. KURUVILLA

Occupied Territories, The Untold Story ofIsrael�s Settlementsby Gershom GorenbergREVIEWED BY ALAN HART

American Policy Toward Israel: The powerand limits of beliefsby Michael ThomasREVIEWED BY RUQAIYYAH AHMED

Al-AqsaPublished ByFriends of Al-AqsaPO Box 5127Leicester LE2 0WU, UKTel: ++ 44 (0)116 2125441Mobile: 07711823524e-mail: info@aqsa.org.ukWebsite: www.aqsa.org.uk

ISSN 1463-3930

EDITOR

Ismail Adam Patel

SUB-EDITOR

Rajnaara Akhtar

PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS

Azizul Hoque

PRINTERS

Impress Printers, Batley.

© 2007 Friend of Al-Aqsa

WE WELCOME

Papers, articles andcomments on any issuerelating to Palestine andthe Middle East conflict.We especially encouragewritings relating to theHistory, Politics,Architecture, Religion,International Law andHuman Rights violations.The word count shouldnot exceed 2,000 words.Reviews of Books relatingto the issue of Palestineare also welcome andshould not exceed 1,000words. Letters on anyrelated topics can also besent and the Editorreserves the right to editletters for the purpose ofclarity. All contributionsshould be in Word format,Times New Roman fontsize 12 and sent to theEditor either via emailor on a disc at the aboveaddress. It must includethe author’s full name,address and a briefcurriculum vitae.

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OE D I T O R I A L

Those who reject the Signs of Allah and the Meeting withHim (in the Hereafter), it is they who shall despair of MyMercy: it is they who will (suffer) a most grievous Penalty.

May Allahs blessings be upon all His Prophets from Adam toHis final Messenger Muhammad (saw).

On 12 June 2007, weeks, months and years of oppressivemeasures and deliberately divisive policies culminated intoa catastrophic seismic split in Palestinian society. For thefirst time in almost 60 years, the occupation was forgottenand Palestinian turned on Palestinian.

This dire situation was altogether predictable for thesimple reason that it was the direct result of Israeli andWestern policy in the occupied territories, especiallyfollowing the Hamas election victory of January 2006. Theeconomic siege coupled with the favouring of one sideagainst the other, was intended to sew seeds of division.Unfortunately, Fatah under Mr Abbas, aligned themselveswith the occupiers and their supporters to undermine thelegitimately elected government of Hamas. This left littlechoice but for Hamas to reinstall law and order which wasseverely fractured by Mohammed Dahlan along the politicallines of Fatah.

Israel sold the boycott of the Palestinians as a legitimateand necessary move in opposition to their support for aterrorist organisation. Thus, they achieved internationalbacking to starve the Palestinians and break down theirsociety. When the Unity government was formed, thesanctions did not ease at all, even though Hamas had madespectacular moves to accommodate Israel�s wishes. Thismade it clear that Israel�s actions were opportunistic ratherthan a direct response to a perceived threat.

Since the Hamas/Fatah - Gaza/West Bank split,Mahmoud Abbas has formed his own government (almostunanimously accepted as being illegal by the impartialobserver), and has began �peace� talks with Prime MinisterOlmert. This has led commentators to conclude that hehas, in true Fatah style, sold out the Palestinian people andtheir struggle for justice, in favour of personal gain, powerand glory. The US and Israeli response was open armedwelcome, and a clear stamp of approval for the movefrom democracy to dictatorship in the PalestinianTerritories.

Reports which emerged in Mid-August suggested thatAbbas was taking it upon himself to ensure that hisPalestinian brethren in Gaza were being denied access tothe outside world with the closing of the Rafah bordercrossing. While publicly Abbas continues to call for theborders to be opened immediately to avert further suffering

in what has become a humanitarian catastrophe, in privateit is reported that he wants the border to remain firmlyclosed with the sole purpose of choking Hamas. While theeffects on Hamas are still not clear, what is clear is thatGaza�s 1.4 million Palestinians are all suffering and are allbut a few reliant on international aid for survival. Gaza�sindustries have all collapsed as there are no more rawmaterials to sustain them. The fishing industry continuesto suffer from bars on entering Gaza�s militarily monitoredwaters. No Palestinian in Gaza has been left unaffected bythis man-made tragedy.

Calls have been made by aid agencies, including theUnited Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA)for a besieged Gaza�s borders to be re-opened in order toprevent 100% reliance on aid. These calls have gone largelyunheard.

Further to the misery inside the Gaza Strip, hundredsof Palestinians remained trapped outside the border onthe Egyptian or Israeli side waiting desperately to get home.31 of these Palestinians have died in these inhumaneconditions, and many are ill as their travel to Egypt orIsrael was for medical treatment. Those who have diedinclude 27 year old Wael Abu Warda who died on August4 from Kidney failure while waiting at Erez crossing,separating Gaza from Israel,

A twist of events at the UN clearly reflects theseriousness of this split, where the Palestinian Ambassadorto the UN himself opposed a draft Resolution proposedby Qatar and seconded by Indonesia, which expressedconcern over the humanitarian disaster intensifying in theGaza Strip. This resolution was intended to embarrass Israelinto lifting its siege on Gaza, and the Abbas governmentworked in collusion with Israel and the US Zionist lobbyto kill the draft. They were successful, and PalestinianAmbassador Riyad Mansour justified this disgustingbehaviour on the grounds that �it is unacceptable foranyone, including friends, to act on our behalf withoutour knowledge and no one should take such initiativeswithout consulting us.�

Thus, Gaza�s Palestinians remain imprisoned, with allnecessities in scarce supply including medicine, food,electricity, fuel, and clean water.

The suffering continues in Gaza, while Abbas winesand dines with Olmert in the West Bank. This divisionbetween the Palestinians is historic, as for the first time,there has emerged a group of people who have forgottenthat their fight is against their occupiers, not each otherfor a seat of power.

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A YOUTH EXCHANGE PROGRAMME WITHAN NAJAH NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, NABLUS, PALESTINE

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Jonathan Cook1

Divide and rule, Israeli style

The boycott by Israel and the internationalcommunity of the Palestinian Authorityfinally blew up in their faces with Hamas�

bloody takeover of Gaza in June 2007. Or soargued Gideon Levy, one of the saner voicesstill found in Israel. �Starving, drying up andblocking aid do not sear the consciousness anddo not weaken political movements. On thecontrary ... Reality has refuted the chorus ofexperts and commentators who preached [on]behalf of the boycott policy. This daft notionthat it is possible to topple an electedgovernment by applying pressure on a helplesspopulation suffered a complete failure.�

But did Levy get it wrong? The faces ofIsraeli and American politicians, including EhudOlmert and George W. Bush, appeared soot-free. On the contrary, during the Gaza violencethey were looking and sounding even more smugthan usual.

The problem with Levy�s analysis was that itassumes that Israel and the US wanted sanctionsto bring about the fall of Hamas, either by givingFatah the upper hand so that it could deal aknockout blow to the Palestinian government,or by inciting ordinary Palestinians to rise upand demand that their earlier electoral decisionbe reversed and Fatah reinstalled. In short, Levy,like most observers, assumes that the policy wasdesigned to enforce regime change.

But what if that was not the point of thesanctions? And if so, what goals were Israel andthe US pursuing?

The parallels between Iraq and Gaza maybe instructive. After all, Iraq is the West�s onlyother recent experiment in imposing sanctionsto starve a nation. And we all know where itled: to an even deeper entrenchment of SaddamHussein�s rule.

True, the circumstances in Iraq and Gazaare different: most Iraqis wanted Saddam outbut had no way to effect change, while most

Gazans wanted Hamas in and made ithappen by voting for them in last year�selections. Nevertheless, it may be that theUS and Israel drew a different lesson fromthe sanctions experience in Iraq.

Whether intended or not, sanctionsproved a very effective tool for destroyingthe internal bonds that held Iraqi societytogether. Destitution and hunger arepowerful incentives to turn on one�s neighboras well as one�s enemy. A society whereresources - food, medicines, water andelectricity - are in short supply is also a societywhere everyone looks out for himself. It isa society that, with a little prompting, caneasily be made to tear itself apart.

And that is precisely what the Americansbegan to engineer after their �shock and awe�invasion of 2003. Contrary to previous USinterventions abroad, Saddam was nottoppled and replaced with another strongman- one more to the West�s liking. Instead ofregime change, we were given regimeoverthrow. Or as Daniel Pipes, one of theneoconservative ideologues of the attack onIraq, expressed it, the goal was �limited todestroying tyranny, not sponsoring itsreplacement ... Fixing Iraq is neither thecoalition�s responsibility nor its burden.�

In place of Saddam, the Americanscreated a safe haven known as the GreenZone from which its occupation regimecould loosely police the country and overseethe theft of Iraq�s oil, while also sitting backand watching a sectarian civil war betweenthe Sunni and Shia populations spiral out ofcontrol and decimate the Iraqi population.

What did Washington hope to achieve?Pipes offers a clue: �When Sunni terroriststarget Shiites and vice-versa, non-Muslims[that is, US occupation forces and their allies]are less likely to be hurt. Civil war in Iraq, in

1. JONATHAN COOK is a freelance journalist based in the Palestinian city of Nazareth. He is a regular contributorto the English-language Arab media, including Al-Ahram Weekly in Cairo, the Daily Star in Beirut and the websiteal-Jazeera.net. His book Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State (Pluto Press, London,2006) examines Israel�s treatment of its Arab citizens during the second intifada.

This daft notionthat it is possibleto topple anelectedgovernment byapplying pressureon a helplesspopulationsuffered acomplete failure

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short, would be a humanitarian tragedy but nota strategic one.� In other words, enabling a civilwar in Iraq was far preferable to allowing Iraqisto unite and mount an effective resistance tothe US occupation. After all, Iraqi deaths - atleast 650,000 of them, according to the lastrealistic count - are as good as worthless, whileUS soldiers� lives cost votes back home.

For the neocon cabal behind the Iraqinvasion, civil war was seen to have twobeneficial outcomes.

First, it eroded the solidarity of ordinaryIraqis, depleting their energies and making themless likely to join or support the resistance tothe occupation. The insurgency has remained aterrible irritation to US forces but not the fatalblow it might have been were the Sunni andShia to fight side by side. As a result, the theftof Iraq�s resources has been made easier.

And second, in the longer term, civil war ismaking inevitable a slow process of communalpartition and ethnic cleansing. Four million Iraqisare reported to have been forced either to leavethe country or flee their homes. Iraq is beingbroken up into small ethnic and religious fiefdomsthat will be easier to manage and manipulate.

Is this the model for Gaza now and theWest Bank later?

It is worth recalling that neither Israel nor theUS pushed for an easing of the sanctions onthe Palestinian Authority after the national unitygovernment of Hamas and Fatah was formedearlier this year. In fact, the US and Israel couldbarely conceal their panic at the development.The moment the Mecca agreement was signed,reports of US efforts to train and arm Fatahforces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbasbecame a newspaper staple.

The cumulative effect of US support forFatah, as well as Israel�s continuing arrests ofHamas legislators in the West Bank, was to strainalready tense relations between Hamas andFatah to breaking point. When Hamas learnedthat Abbas� security chief, Mohammed Dahlan,with US encouragement, was preparing to carryout a coup against them in Gaza, they got thefirst shot in.

Did Fatah really believe it could pull off acoup in Gaza, given the evident weakness ofits forces there, or was the rumour little morethan American and Israeli spin, designed toundermine Hamas� faith in Fatah and doomthe unity government? Were Abbas and Dahlanreally hoping to topple Hamas, or were theythe useful idiots needed by the US and Israel?These are questions that may have to be settledby the historians.

But with the fingerprints of Elliott Abrams,one of the more durable neocons in the Bush

administration, to be found all over thisepisode, we can surmise that what Washingtonand Israel are intending for the Palestinianswill have strong echoes of what has unfoldedin Iraq.

By engineering the destruction of theunity government, Israel and the US haveensured that there is no danger of a newPalestinian consensus emerging, one thatmight have cornered Israel into peace talks.A unity government might have found aformula offering Israel:

 limited recognition inside the pre-1967borders in return for recognition of aPalestinian state and the territorialintegrity of the West Bank and Gaza;

 a long-term ceasefire in return forIsrael ending its campaign of constantviolence and violations of Palestiniansovereignty;

 and a commitment to honor pastagreements in return for Israel�sabiding by UN resolutions andaccepting a just solution for thePalestinian refugees.

After decades of Israeli bad faith, andthe growing rancor between Fatah andHamas, the chances of them findingcommon ground on which to make such anoffer, it must be admitted, would have beenslight. But now they are non-existent.

That is exactly how Israel wants it,because it has no interest in meaningfulpeace talks with the Palestinians or in a finalagreement. It wants only to impose solutionsthat suit Israel�s interests, which are securingthe maximum amount of land for anexclusive Jewish state and leaving thePalestinians so weak and divided that theywill never be able to mount a seriouschallenge to Israel�s dictates.

Instead, Hamas� dismal authority overthe prison camp called Gaza and Fatah�sbastard governance of the ghettoes calledthe West Bank offer a model more satisfyingfor Israel and the US - and one not unlikeIraq. A sort of sheriff �s divide and rule inthe Wild West.

Just as in Iraq, Israel and the US havemade sure that no Palestinian strongmanarises to replace Yasser Arafat. Just as inIraq, they are encouraging civil war as analternative to resistance to occupation; whilePalestine�s resources - land, not oil - arestolen. Just as in Iraq, they are causing apermanent and irreversible partition, in thiscase between the West Bank and Gaza, tocreate more easily managed territorialghettoes. And just as in Iraq, the likely

The cumulativeeffect of US

support for Fatah,as well as Israel’s

continuing arrestsof Hamas

legislators in theWest Bank, was to

strain alreadytense relations

between Hamasand Fatah to

breaking point

Just as in Iraq,they are

encouraging civilwar as an

alternative toresistance to

occupation; whilePalestine’s

resources – land,not oil – are

stolen

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reaction is an even greater extremism from thePalestinians that will undermine their cause inthe eyes of the international community.

Where will this lead the Palestiniansnext?

Israel is already pulling the strings of Fatahwith a new adeptness since the latter�shumiliation in Gaza. Abbas is currently baskingin Israeli munificence for his rogue West Bankregime, including the decision to release asubstantial chunk of the $700 million taxmonies owed to the Palestinians (includingthose of Gaza, of course) and withheld formonths by Israel. The price, according to theIsraeli media, was a commitment from Abbasnot to contemplate re-entering a unitygovernment with Hamas.

The goal will be to increase the strainsbetween Hamas and Fatah to breaking point inthe West Bank, but ensure that Fatah wins theconfrontation there. Fatah is already militarilystronger and with generous patronage fromIsrael and the US � including arms and training,and possibly the return of the Badr Brigadecurrently holed up in Jordan - it should be ableto rout Hamas. The difference in status betweenGaza and the West Bank that has been longdesired by Israel will be complete.

The Palestinian people have already beencarved up into a multitude of constituencies.There are the Palestinians under occupation,those living as second-class citizens of Israel,those allowed to remain �residents� of Jerusalem,and those dispersed to camps across the MiddleEast. Even within these groups, there are a hostof sub-identities: refugees and non-refugees;refugees included as citizens in their host stateand those excluded; occupied Palestinians livingunder the control of the Palestinian Authorityand those under Israel�s military government;and so on.

Now, Israel has entrenched maybe the mostsignificant division of all: the absolute andirreversible separation of Gaza and the WestBank. What applies to one will no longer be truefor the other. Each will be a separate case; theirfates will no longer be tied. One will be, as Israelislike to call it, Hamastan, and other Fatahland,with separate governments and differenttreatment from Israel and the internationalcommunity.

The reasons why Israel prefers thisarrangement are manifold

First, Gaza can now be written off by theinternational community as a basket case. TheIsraeli media is currently awash with patronizingcommentary from the political and security

establishments about how to help avoid ahumanitarian crisis in Gaza, including thepossibility of air drops of aid over the Gaza�security fence� - as though Gaza werePakistan after an earthquake. From pastexperience, and the current menacing soundsfrom Israel�s new Defence Minister, EhudBarak, those food packages will quickly turninto bombs if Gaza does not keep quiet.

As Israeli and US officials have beenphrasing it, there is a new �clarity� in thesituation. In a Hamastan, Gaza�s militantsand civilians can be targeted by Israel withlittle discrimination and no outcry from theinternational community. Israel will hope thatmessage from Gaza will not be lost on WestBank Palestinians as they decide who to givetheir support to, Fatah or Hamas.

Second, Olmert and Bush have revivedtalk of Palestinian statehood. According toOlmert, Bush �wants to realize, while he isin office, the dream of creating a Palestinianstate.� Both are keen to make quick progress,a sure sign of mischief in the making.Certainly, they know they are now under nopressure to create the single viable Palestinianstate in the West Bank and Gaza oncepromised by President Bush. An embattledAbbas will not be calling for the inclusionof Gaza in his ghetto-fiefdom.

Third, the separation of Gaza from theWest Bank may be used to inject new lifeinto Olmert�s shopworn convergence plan -if he can dress it up in new clothes.Convergence, which required a very limitedwithdrawal from those areas of the WestBank heavily populated with Palestinianswhile Israel annexed most of its illegalcolonies and kept the Jordan Valley, wasofficially ditched last summer after Israel�shumiliation by Hizballah.

Why seek to revive convergence? Becauseit is the key to Israel securing the expandedJewish fortress state that is its only sureprotection from the rapid demographicgrowth of the Palestinians, soon tooutnumber Jews in the Holy Land, andIsrael�s fears that it may then be comparedto apartheid South Africa.

If the occupation continues unchanged,Israel�s security establishment has long beenwarning, the Palestinians will eventually wakeup to the only practical response: to dissolvethe Palestinian Authority, Israel�s clever ruseto make the Palestinian leadershipresponsible for suppressing Palestinianresistance to the occupation, thereby forcingIsrael to pick up the bill for the occupationrather than Europe. The next stage wouldbe an anti-apartheid struggle for one statein historic Palestine.

Israel is alreadypulling the stringsof Fatah with anew adeptnesssince the latter’shumiliation inGaza

In a Hamastan,Gaza’s militantsand civilians canbe targeted byIsrael with littlediscriminationand no outcryfrom theinternationalcommunity

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For this reason, demographic separation fromthe Palestinians has been the logic of every majorIsraeli policy initiative since - and including -Oslo. Convergence requires no loss of Israel�scontrol over Palestinian lives, ensured throughthe all but finished grid of walls, settlements,bypass roads and checkpoints, only arepackaging of their occupation as statehood.

The biggest objection in Israel to Olmert�splan - as well as to the related Gazadisengagement - was the concern that, once thearmy had unilaterally withdrawn from thePalestinian ghettoes, the Palestinians would befree to launch terror attacks, including sendingrockets out of their prisons into Israel. MostIsraelis, of course, never consider the role ofthe occupation in prompting such attacks.

But Olmert may believe he has found a wayto silence his domestic critics. For the first timehe seems genuinely keen to get his Arabneighbours involved in the establishment of aPalestinian �state�. As he headed off to theSharm al-Sheikh summit with Egypt, Jordan andAbbas, Olmert said he wanted to �jointly workto create the platform that may lead to a newbeginning between us and the Palestinians.�

Did he mean partnership? A source in thePrime Minister�s Office explained to TheJerusalem Post why the three nations and Abbaswere meeting. �These are the four parties directlyimpacted by what is happening right now, andwhat is needed is a different level of cooperationbetween them.� Another spokesman bewailedthe failure so far to get the Saudis on board.

This appears to mark a sea change in Israelithinking. Until now Tel Aviv has regarded thePalestinians as a domestic problem. After all,they are sitting on land that rightfully, at least ifthe Bible is to be believed, belongs to the Jews.Any attempt at internationalizing the conflict hastherefore been strenuously resisted.

But now the Israeli Prime Minister�s Officeis talking openly about getting the Arab world

more directly involved, not only in its usualrole as a mediator with the Palestinians, noreven in simply securing the borders againstsmuggling, but also in policing the territories.Israel hopes that Egypt, in particular, is asconcerned as Tel Aviv by the emergence ofa Hamastan on its borders, and may beenticed to use the same repressive policiesagainst Gaza�s Islamists as it does against itsown.

Similarly, Olmert�s chief political rival,Binyamin Netanyahu of Likud, hasmentioned not only Egyptian involvementin Gaza but even a Jordanian militarypresence in the West Bank. The �moderate�Arab regimes, as Washington likes to callthem, are being seen as the key to developingnew ideas about Palestinian �autonomy� andregional �confederation.� As long as Israelhas a quisling in the West Bank and a beyond-the-pale government in Gaza, it may believeit can corner the Arab world into backingsuch a �peace plan.�

What will it mean in practice? Possibly,as Zvi Barel of Haaretz speculates, we willsee the emergence of half a dozenPalestinian governments in charge of theghettoes of Gaza, Ramallah, Jenin, Jericho,and Hebron. Each may be encouraged tocompete for patronage and aid from the�moderate� Arab regimes but on conditionthat Israel and the US are satisfied with thesePalestinian governments� performance.

In other words, Israel looks as if it isdusting off yet another blueprint for how tomanage the Palestinians and their irritatingobsession with sovereignty. Last time, underOslo, the Palestinians were put in charge ofpolicing the occupation on Israel�s behalf. Thistime, as the Palestinians are sealed into theirseparate prisons masquerading as a state,Israel may believe that it can find a new jailerfor the Palestinians - the Arab world.

�

Israel looks as if itis dusting off yet

another blueprintfor how to

manage thePalestinians and

their irritatingobsession with

sovereignty

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Boycott Israel

Rajnaara Akhtar1

Boycott as a tool for fighting statesponsored oppression and repressionhas been used successfully in the past

against states such as South Africa at the heightof apartheid. Such moves towards boycott arethe response of civil society where governmentsthemselves fail to act. This is the medium usedby individuals and groups to make clear theirposition and force a change in policies fromtheir governments. Since 2002, Israel has founditself at the end of a concerted and sustainedcampaign calling for economic, cultural,academic and sporting boycotts.

The call for boycotting Israel has becomenecessary after decades of illegal occupation anddenial of basic human rights to an occupiedpeople and the commission of innumerable warcrimes by the state of Israel. The PalestinianCampaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycottof Israel (PACBI), a coalition of more than 50Palestinian civil society organisations; first madea call for boycott in 2004. During the last 3 yearsthe momentum has grown significantly, especiallyin Britain and also in countries such as Canada,South Africa and the USA.

The call to boycott Israel is being made atmany levels with the aim of enforcing an endto its illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.The occupation of the West Bank and GazaStrip began following the 6 Day War in 1967.Since then, Israel has been responsible forcommitting innumerable war crimes against thePalestinian people which have been documentedby various human rights organisations.2

Moves towards boycott, or in the very least,discussions about boycott or some form ofcondemnation has emanated from a number ofprofessional bodies, unions and otherorganisations. These include teachers, doctors,architects, trade unions and sports tournaments.

Education

In May 2007, the University and College Union(UCU) supported motions endorsing the logic

of academic boycott against Israel, inresponse to what was termed the �complicityof the Israeli academy�3 in perpetuatingIsrael�s illegal military occupation of thePalestinian territories and the Israeliapartheid system. The Jewish Chronicle ranan article on June 15, 2007, naming the�boycott ringleaders�. It stated unequivocallythat the boycott was being driven mainly byJewish or Israeli activists who had taken thisposition in support of the rights ofPalestinian people and because they wantedto see an end to Israel�s occupation of thePalestinian territories.

This was a surprising revelation as thepopular portrayal of the move to boycottwas that it was being spearheaded by a �racist�few who were verging on the border of anti-Semitism, and most probably a mix of thefar-left activists and Islamic organisations.The organisations actually backing theboycott drive include Jews for the Boycottingof Israeli Goods, Bricup, Friewos of Al-Aqsaand the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, mostof whom have a significant Jewish presence.

Professor Bresheeth from the Universityof East London has been quoted as sayingthe boycott movement was a �civil actionagainst a military occupation�. He is one ofthe supporters of the academic boycottcampaign. Other Jewish academics whosupport the boycott move do so because theyfeel outrage at Israel�s �brutal and illegal�policies, carried out in their name.

While to many the move to boycottmakes perfect sense, the voices of dissentagainst the boycott have been ringing loadand wide. Political figures were joined byacademics, journalists and others, eager tocombat such a move, arguing it was directlyand diametrically opposed to the true natureof universities. Chief Rabbi Sir JonathanSacks wrote: �It betrays a misunderstandingof the academic mission which is foundedsquarely on academic freedom of enquiry

1. RAJNAARA AKHTAR is a researcher at Friends of Al-Aqsa. She is a law graduate with a Masters in HumanRights Law from the University of Nottingham. She is also a freelance writer and commentator, and the Chairof the campaign group Protect-Hijab.

the boycott wasbeing drivenmainly by Jewishor Israeli activistswho had takenthis position insupport of therights ofPalestinian people

10 Al-Aqsa

and freedom of speech. Any institution worthyof the title of university has the responsibilityto protect these values, and it is particularlydisturbing to find an academic union attackingacademic freedom in this way.�4

What Sir Jonathan Sacks and others who putforward similar arguments fail to recognise, isthat this move to boycott Israeli academicinstitutions has materialised because of the verysame failure to afford the academic freedomwhich they describe, to Palestinians. While manyindividuals have responded robustly to the threatof an academic boycott and its resultantrestrictions on Israeli academia, these restrictionsare merely a possibility. For Palestinians on theother hand, such restrictions and discriminationis part the parcel of life under Israelioccupation, yet Israeli academia has neverobjected to this treatment of their neighbours.The late Tania Reinhart, who was an academicin Tel-Aviv, said: �Never in its history did thesenate of a any Israeli university pass aresolution protesting the frequent closure ofPalestinian universities, let alone voice protestover the devastation sowed there [in the OT]....Itis not that a motion in that direction failed togather a majority, there was no such motionanywhere in Israeli academia.�5

There are numerous examples ofPalestinian student being denied the right toeducation and to free movement to facilitatesuch education. Closures across the West Bankand Gaza Strip have led to the loss of hundredsof school days. School children and studentshave experienced great trauma while in classrooms and lecture halls, including the killingand injury of pupils as they sat at their desks,by Israeli snipers.6

While some opportunities become availablefor study in Israeli and other universities, theoccupation policies means that few students areallowed to take up these positions. One exampleis that of Wisam Madhoon from Gaza who hasa Masters degree in environmental engineeringand was offered a place at Tel Aviv Universityto study environmental science at PhD level.However, the Israeli army refused to granttravel permission without explanation and thushe was unable to leave the occupied territoriesto enter Israel. There was no redress for Wisamand many like him suffer the same restrictions.Even when this restriction was challenged in theIsraeli High Court, the ban on students fromGaza was upheld.7 Any Palestinian wishing tostudy for a PhD must go abroad as no Palestinianuniversity is able to offer this programme.

Thus, even Israel�s judiciary has in effectupheld a boycott of Palestinian students by thestate of Israel and limited the academic freedomof Palestinians without question. Since October2006, there has been in effect a blanket ban on

Palestinian students being allowed access toIsrael and even Jerusalem in order to study.8Bearing this in mind, it is clear why manyhave accused the Israeli academia and thosein Britain who oppose the boycott on suchterms; of hypocrisy and duplicity.

It is not only Palestinian students whoface discrimination, as the occupation policiesalso effect academics who are limited in theirpotential and purpose by the restrictionsplaced on their movement. Checkpoints andclosure policies have meant that on somedays, it has been impossible for academicsto even reach their places of work. Duringthe al-Aqsa intifada period, hundreds of schooldays were lost due to closures imposed onthe occupied territories.9 Palestinianacademics have also faced discrimination inaccess to libraries and other facilities.10

In Britain, the chairman of theParliamentary Committee Against Anti-Semitism, Labour MP John Mann, promisedto make approaches to every university inBritain in opposition to the move by the UCUto debate the issue of boycotting IsraeliUniversities. This exemplifies the responseof many politicians to the boycott calls fromvarious sectors, however, the persistence ofthe boycott movement seems a clearreflection of the mood of people on theground. Professionals on many fronts, fromacademics, to architects and the medics areall becoming increasingly aware of Israel�sbreaches of international law and itsinhumane policies towards the occupiedPalestinians.

The excuses for Israel peddled by itssupporters are typified by remarks fromDenis Macshane who said in Parliament:�There is not a call for a boycott againstpeople from universities in other countrieswhere state practices are infinitely moreodious that those undertaken by some agentsof the government of Israel.� The fallaciesof this argument are clear � while there isno doubt that regimes such as that inZimbabwe and other African states are guiltyof oppressing their people, these regimes donot claim to be beacons of democracy; theseregimes are not being propped up by billionsin aide from the Western world, and theseregimes are not occupying the land ofanother people with impunity and denyingthem their basic rights while usurping ourtax-payers� money in the process. Israelclaims to be a democratic country parallelto Western democracies. And right now, Israelis being judged according to these democraticstandards. Therefore the move to boycottIsrael is not only to be expected, but necessaryin order to force an end to the occupation,

It is not onlyPalestinian

students who facediscrimination, as

the occupationpolicies also effect

academics whoare limited in

their potentialand purpose bythe restrictionsplaced on their

movement

Al-Aqsa 11

as such an occupation is not acceptable from ademocracy.

Baroness Jenny Tonge has commented onthe political situation in Britain, and stated thatthe �Pro-Israeli lobby has got its financial gripson the Western World� and added that her party,the Liberal Democrats were effected by this.While some MPs responded to this statementas being anti-Semitic, clearly Ms Tonge madeno mention of Jewish people but rather targetedZionists who are both Jewish and Christian. Itis this deliberate confusion of the terms that isallowing calls of anti-Semitism to be madeagainst those in favour of the boycott. However,as explained previously, this argument is falseand frankly insulting, as many pro-boycottcampaigners are themselves Jewish and it is theiniquity of Zionism that they oppose. ProfessorSteven Rose, himself Jewish, stated: �It reallyisn�t good enough to attack the Messenger asanti-Semitic or a self-hating Jew rather than dealwith the message that Israel�s conduct isunacceptable.�11

Clearly, the British public does not owe adebt to pro-Israeli supporters and therefore isfree to criticise the actions of the state of Israel.It is doing just that with the move to boycott,saying that academic freedom must apply to bothIsrael and Palestinians.

While many have argued that Israeliacademics cannot be held responsible for theactions of their government, PACBI takes theposition that Israeli academic institutions (mostlystate controlled) and the vast majority of Israeliintellectuals and academics have eithercontributed directly to the Israeli occupation orat the very least have been complicit throughtheir silence. However, some Palestinians whohave tried to gain access to higher degrees inIsrael have praised members of individualinstitutions for their support of theirapplications to study.12

The move to boycott Israel is by no meanslimited to the UK alone. In France, an appealto the European Union not to renew its 1995Association Agreement with Israel was issuedby the University of Paris-VI (Pierre-et-Marie-Curie) in December 2002 and was endorsed byseveral other French universities. Similar callswere published in Italy and Australia, while inthe United States, student and faculty groups atseveral universities including New YorkUniversity, The Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology and Princeton launched divestmentfrom Israel campaigns. Most recently theChurch of Sweden has called for a boycott ofgoods produced by Israeli colonies in the WestBank and Gaza Strip and the PresbyterianChurch in the United States has decided todivest from Israel.13

Unions

In mid-2007, the National Union ofJournalists (NUJ) voted to boycott Israeligoods, but was forced down by a �rebellion�thought to have been led primarily by BBCjournalists. Doubts over the ethics of boycotthave been splashed about by many Israelisympathisers and for many, the pressure hasbeen too much to with-stand.

On the other hand, in Northern Ireland,the biggest Union, the 46,000 memberNorthern Ireland Public Service Alliance haspressed ahead with 5 unanimous boycottresolutions. These included boycotts ofIsraeli produce and investments incompanies which support Israel.

In Britain, the UNISON NationalDelegate Conference of 2007 stated that it�continues to consider that a just solution tothe Palestine-Israel conflict must be basedupon international law and Israel should:

1. withdraw to its 1949-67 borders;2. allow the refugees of 1948 to return

home;3. remove all of its settlements from the

Occupied Palestinian Territories andOccupied Syrian Al-Joulan;

4. take down the Apartheid Wall; and5. respect the Palestinian people�s right

to national self-determination and toestablish a state in the West bank andthe Gaza Strip with its capital inJerusalem.�

The conference went on to state thatending the occupation demands concertedand sustained pressure upon Israel includingan economic, cultural, academic andsporting boycott.

Following this, Britain�s Transport andGeneral Workers� Union went on to call onits 800,000 members to boycott Israeli-madeproducts based on what they term �Israel�scriminal policies in Palestinian territories.�14

While this was merely declarative in natureand no concrete steps were taken to facilitateimplementation, the resounding sentiment isclear.

British politicians have responded sternlyagainst such boycott calls, however, this doesnot seem to have abated the rush towardsboycott.

Sports

Israel�s inclusion in the EURO 2008 footballtournament is being opposed by manysolidarity organisations. The �Kick IsraeliApartheid Out of Football� petition organized

The conferencewent on to statethat ending theoccupation de-mands concertedand sustainedpressure uponIsrael including aneconomic, cul-tural, academicand sportingboycott

12 Al-Aqsa

by the PSC has received over 1,000 signatures.In response to calls to exclude Israel, an FASpokesman said the �FA would not be part ofanything which discriminates against teams ofplayers�. The Israeli FA has stated that it assistsPalestinian players travel between the West Bankand Gaza and those traveling abroad toparticipate in matches. However, Palestinians tella different story of restrictions and policieswhich are perceived to be deliberate to excludethem from international games. In August 2007,the Under 19 national football team was deniedtravel visas for a planned tour of the UK. Whilethis was a move made by the British Consulatein Jerusalem, one of the reason given was thatIsrael had suggested it would deny the playersthe right to re-enter Gaza after the tour, thusthe British government was trying to avert arefugee crisis. This is unacceptable behaviorfrom both Israel and the British government.

There is an anti-boycott campaign now beingrun, led by a web-site called �Engage�, and somesupporters have been accusing the boycottcampaigners of inciting hatred and being anti-Semitic. But given the fact that many Jews areleading the campaign, such accusations appearto be nothing short of defamatory and onceagain, show a refusal of Israel�s supporters tolook at the real reasons for such action � theoccupation.

The move to boycott has become necessaryas Western governments are failing to holdIsrael accountable for its breaches ofinternational law, just as they did with ApartheidSouth Africa. It is time for individuals andorganisations to force governments to changetheir policies in the Middle East, and boycottssend strong signals of the people�s will. The

Palestinians have faced every form ofoppression in the decades of the occupation,and those who support the boycott do sobecause they feel it is time to say enough tothis inhumanity.

Notes1. See reports, see for example The Israeli

Information Centre for Human Rights in theOccupied Territories http://www.btselem.org/English/, or The Palestinian Centre for HumanRights http://pchrgaza.org/

2. Pacbi Press Release: �Boycotting Israeli ApartheidBack on the Agenda�, 30 May 2007, http://www.pacb i .or g/announcements_mor e .php?id=504_0_5_0_M (last visited 3 March 2007)

3. Sacks, J, �Boycott? This is a With Hunt�, in TheJewish Chronicle 15 June 2007.

4. As quoted by Davidson, Lawrence, �Why theAcademic Boycott is Necessary�, MESENovember 2006.

5. For example, 9 year old Ghadeer JaberMokheimer, who was shot in October 2004 asshe was sat at a UN run school in the Gaza Strip.

6. Details about Wisam�s case can be found at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/868538.html

7. See for example a BBC news report onPalestinian student Sawsan Salameh availableat: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6087968.stm (Last visited 8 August 2007)

8.9.10. Rose, Steven, �Why pick on Israel? Because its

actions are wrong�, in The Independent 4 June2007.

11. For example, Sawsan Salameh, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6087968.stm(Last visited 8 August 2007)

12. Facts from http://www.pacbi.org/about.htm13. For further details, see http://www.haaretz.com/

hasen/spages/879531.html

Information on Palestine

www.aqsa.org.ukJournal � Referenced articles from previous issues of Al Aqsa.Newsletter � Quarterly printed by Friends of Al Aqsa.Publications � History of al Masjidul Aqsa and Guide to al Masjidul Aqsa.Flyers � On Jerusalem, Refugees, al Masjidul Aqsa, UN Resolutions and Much More.News From Palestine � Important news and views from Palestine.Photographic Gallery � Photos from the ground in Palestine.Book Reviews � Reviews on books related to Palestinian issues.

PLUS * CAMPAIGNS * ACTIVITIES * EVENTS AND * MUCH, MUCH MORE

The move toboycott has be-

come necessary asWestern govern-ments are failing

to hold Israelaccountable for

its breaches ofinternational law

Al-Aqsa 13

Armageddon Now

Stephen Sizer1

The video game taking Christian Americaby storm, aptly titled �Left Behind:Eternal Forces�, encourages its players

to kill anyone who resists conversion toChristianity. As Nintendo, Sony and Microsoftbattle it out for domination of the electronicgame world, the games� creator anticipates aready market among those who have alreadybought 63 million copies of the Left Behindnovels.

The game is set in New York City, a ratherunusual venue for Armageddon you might thinksince New York doesn�t actually get a mentionin the Bible. It is, however, the location of theUnited Nations headquarters and that is the clue.Never popular among conservative evangelicals,in Left Behind: Eternal Forces, the bad guys arethe Global Community Peacekeepers, who areon a search and destroy mission in Manhattan.Their target is the remnant of newly convertedBible-believers, left behind when Christians wereapparently raptured secretly to heaven. Thesenew believers, left on earth, form a Christianarmy called the Tribulation Force.

Under the heading �Turn or Burn?� a reviewby Focus on the Family suggests the game couldwell be an evangelistic tool for teenagers � �thekind of game that Mom and Dad can actuallyplay with Junior�and use to raise someinteresting questions along the way.� Perhapsanticipating a degree of incredulity on the partof some readers, the review asks, �How dopeace and prayer go hand in hand with tanks,attack choppers and street battles?�� Yes, youare offered sniper rifles, gun turrets, even tanksand helicopters. And there are points at which agun battle is necessary to avoid a massacre.(When this happens, there�s no gore. Units fallto the ground and fade away.) But if you go inguns blazing, nine times out of 10 you fail. Itquickly becomes clear that the strongestweapons in your arsenal are your top-levelmissionaries and worship leaders. It�s easier to

convert a group of enemies than it is toshoot them. Still, post-Rapture warfare isintegral to the game, as it is in the Left Behindbooks and movies.

In an interview with Tim LaHaye, theauthor of the Left Behind books on whichthe video game is based, Focus on the Familyasked whether Christians will really beexpected to militarize in the future?

He told Plug ged In Online that thisfictionalized depiction in the books, moviesand now video games is a representation �ofthe self preservation instinct of the much-persecuted saints during the Tribulation.�2

What a relief. It�s all right then apparentlyas long as it is �faith-based� killing. Playerspray for their adversaries �and try to do goodspiritual things for them�. But at a certainpoint, it becomes acceptable to kill them. Sokilling is OK as long as it is done in the nameof Jesus. A rather more sceptical review byJews on First observes that, �The goals of thegame are simple: Spread the gospel, and stayalive. But staying alive may sometimes leadto the taking of life � �fighting hellfire withhellfire�. And that raises a knotty moralconundrum for any game designer whoworships Jesus, the Prince of Peace.�3

Sadly, the mistaken idea of a secretrapture on which the Left Behind empire isbased, and the belief that some will come tofaith after Jesus returns, has generated a lotof bad theology and galvanised a belligerentUS foreign policy in the Middle East.

Confident that Christians will escape andwitness the events from the grandstands ofheaven, exponents detach themselves fromthe Christian responsibility to work for peaceand reconciliation in the Middle East. Insteadthey describe in graphic detail the sufferingthat will soon take place there. Charles Ryrie,for example predicts this will be, �the timeof Israel�s greatest bloodbath.�4 John

1. STEPHEN SIZER is the vicar of Christ Church, Virginia Water. He is a founding member of the Institute for theStudy of Christian Zionism (ISCZ), a member of the Advisory Council of Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding,a Trustee of the Amos Trust and the UK Board of Reference for the Mar Elias Educational Institutions, in Ibillin,Galilee, founded by Bishop Elias Chacour.

Confident thatChristians willescape andwitness the eventsfrom thegrandstands ofheaven, exponentsdetach themselvesfrom theChristianresponsibility towork for peaceand reconciliationin the Middle East

14 Al-Aqsa

Walvoord similarly predicts a holocaust in whichat least 750 million people will perish.5 TimLaHaye, author of Left Behind, warns that�Jacob�s trouble�, prophesied by Jeremiah 30:7,will certainly be far worse than the SpanishInquisition � or even the Holocaust of AdolfHitler.�6 Not to be outdone, in The Final Battle,Hal Lindsey claims, �Israel is in for a very roughtime. The Jewish State will be brought to thebrink of destruction.�7 In a later chapter heclarifies what this will mean for the Jews:

�The land of Israel and the surroundingarea will certainly be targeted for nuclearattack. Iran and all the Muslim nations aroundIsrael have already been targeted with Israelinukes � All of Europe, the seat of power ofthe Antichrist, would surely be a nuclearbattlefield, as would the United States ...Zechariah gives an unusual, detailed accountof how hundreds of thousands of soldiers inthe Israel battle zone will die. Their flesh willbe consumed from their bones, their eyes fromtheir sockets, and their tongues from theirmouths while they stand on their feet(Zechariah 14:12). This is exactly the sort ofthing that happens from the intense radiationof a neutron type bomb.�8

John Hagee takes an even more aggressiveapproach towards Iran. At the July 19th, 2006Washington DC inaugural event for ChristiansUnited for Israel, after recorded greeting fromGeorge W. Bush, and in the presence of fourUS Senators as well as the Israeli ambassadorto the US, John Hagee stated:

�The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfillGod�s plan for both Israel and the West... abiblically prophesied end-time confrontationwith Iran, which will lead to the Rapture,Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ.�9

The highly speculative and imaginativeinterpretation of ancient prophecies that undergirds the Left Behind books, films and nowcomputer game; has a fatalistic view of thefuture. With its prewritten script, it is inherentlysuspicious of anything international, anythingecumenical, and anything involving theEuropean Community or the United Nations.

Efforts to achieve a lasting peace in theMiddle East are spurned as counterfeit and asatanic ploy to beguile Israel. Such paranoiamight be deemed a sick joke were it not sopervasive and influential, not least in galvanisingUS foreign policy with its perpetual war againstthe �Axis of Evil�. Its greatest danger, however,must surely be that it is becoming a self-fulfillingprophecy.

In the Middle East, this kind of apocalyptictheology, which is invariably pro-Zionist andhostile to Islam; is having a devastating effecton relations between the faith communities, and

on the viability of the indigenous Christiancommunity.

Munib Younan is Bishop of theEvangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan andthe Holy Land, and a Vice President of theLutheran World Federation. He describeshow this theology has impacted him and hisfamily.

�My father was one of the 6,500 refugeesdriven out of Beersheba in 1948, and mymother was from West Jerusalem. Sheremembers fleeing her home after theHaganah told her family to go and it wouldbe safe for them to return soon, only to lookback and see they had bombed her houseand it was engulfed in flames. Their familiesbecame part of the 800,000 Palestinianrefugees that were driven from their homes,more than 200,000 of whom left beforeMay 1948 or before any of the moreorganized neighboring Arab armies came in. Igrew up in the Old City of Jerusalem,through the 1967 war which led to theoccupation of the West Bank, including EastJerusalem, and Gaza, which has dominatedour lives since then. Occupation continuesto violate basic human rights. The worst partfor me, however, was that some of my ownChristian sisters and brothers from all overthe world began justifying what happened asa part of God�s plan. I still remember myfirst encounters with what I would now calla Christian Zionist who came to tell me thatI should be thanking God because thescriptures were being fulfilled in the Six DayWar� It is painful to me that in this HolyLand, scriptures and religion have beenterribly used, abused and twisted to justifyviolence, injustice and hate...�10

The Right Reverend Riah Abu El Assal,the retired Episcopal Bishop in Jerusalem,also said recently:

�Nearly a thousand years ago, EuropeanCrusaders tried to colonise Palestine, fuellingreligious hatred and bringing the indigenousChristian community close to extinction. Itis tragic, if ironic, that misguided WesternChristian Zionists, by their one-sided politicalsupport for Israel, are today succeedingwhere the Crusaders failed� It isheartbreaking to see misguided Christiansidentifying more with Ahab and Jezebel thanwith Naboth. On a daily basis we are seeingour land confiscated, our vineyardsdestroyed, our homes demolished, ourchildren traumatised and our future negatedfor the sake of an earthly kingdom whichthe Lord Jesus has plainly repudiated. I [call]Evangelical Christians, in particular, to breakthe spiral of violence and hatred. Insteadwe must obey the teachings of the Prince

Efforts to achievea lasting peace in

the Middle Eastare spurned as

counterfeit and asatanic ploy to

beguile Israel

It is painful to methat in this HolyLand, scriptures

and religion havebeen terribly

used, abused andtwisted to justify

violence, injusticeand hate

Al-Aqsa 15

of Peace who has called us to a ministry ofreconciliation.�

In the Summer of 2006, members of theEMEU Executive were invited to assist theheads of the local churches in Jerusalem to draftthe �Jerusalem Declaration on ChristianZionism� rejecting the tenets of this movement.The Jerusalem Declaration included thisstatement:

�We categorically reject Christian Zionistdoctrines as false teaching that corrupts thebiblical message of love, justice andreconciliation.

We further reject the contemporary allianceof Christian Zionist leaders and organizationswith elements in the governments of Israel andthe United States that are presently imposingtheir unilateral pre-emptive borders anddomination over Palestine. This inevitably leadsto unending cycles of violence that underminethe security of all peoples of the Middle Eastand the rest of the world.

We reject the teachings of Christian Zionismthat facilitate and support these policies as theyadvance racial exclusivity and perpetual warrather than the gospel of universal love,redemption and reconciliation taught by JesusChrist. Rather than condemn the world to thedoom of Armageddon we call upon everyoneto liberate themselves from the ideologies of

militarism and occupation. Instead, let thempursue the healing of the nations!�11

The new Left Behind video game seemsa very long way from the simple teaching ofJesus who promised �Blessed are thepeacemakers for they shall be called childrenof God� (Matthew 5:9).

Notes1. Focus on the Family. Left Behind now an �End

Times� game. http://www.plug gedinonline.com/thisweekonly/a0002989.cfm

2. Ibid3. Charles Ryrie, The Living End, (Old Tappan,

Revell, 1976), p81. The title of chapter 8 isentitled �A Bloodbath for Israel.�

4. John Walvoord, Israel in Prophecy, (Grand Rapids,Zondervan, 1962), p108.

5. Tim LaHaye, Are We Living in the End Times?(Wheaton, Tyndale House, 1999), p146.

6. Hal Lindsey, The Final Battle, (Palos Verdes,Western Front, 1995), p184

7. Ibid., pp. 255-7.8. Sarah Posner, �Pastor Strangelove� The

American Prospect Online, http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=11541 <Accessed March 2007>

9. Munib Younan, �An Ethical Critique of ChristianZionism�, Journal of Lutheran Ethics (JLE) May2007, Volume 7, Issue 5 http://www.elca.org/jle/article.asp?k=717

10. h t t p : / / w w w. s i z e r s . o r g / a r t i c l e s / j e r u s a l e mdeclaration.htm

�

Al-Aqsa

EditorThe Articles published in this journal do not necessarily reflect the views of

the Editorial Board or of Friends of Al-aqsa

16 Al-Aqsa

Al-Aqsa 17

Sewage Tsunami and Economic, Physicaland Political Strangulation in Gaza

Anna Baltzer1

1. ANNA BALTZER is a volunteer with the International Women�s Peace Service in the West Bank and authorof the book, Witness in Palestine: Journal of a Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories. For informationabout her writing, photography, DVD, and speaking tours, visit her website at www.annainthemiddleeast.com

In April 2007, an overused cesspool innorthern Gaza collapsed, flooding a nearbyBedouin village with up to two meters of

raw sewage. At least five people drowned todeath, with dozens more left sick, injured, ormissing.

Predictably, the international community�sfingers pointed at the Palestinian Authority,which was warned of the danger of Beit Lahiatreatment plant�s flooding but did not take thenecessary steps to ensure the villagers� safety.To many, it�s just another example of how thePalestinians are incapable of ruling overthemselves. But the PA is only part of theproblem.

In fact, funds were secured long ago fortransferring the dangerous sewage pools, butaccording to the Palestinian Centre for HumanRights (PCHR), the project �was delayed formore than two years due to delays in importingpipes and pumps from abroad as a result ofthe closure imposed by IOF (Israeli OccupationForces) on the Gaza Strip. In addition, IOFmilitary operations in the project areaprevented workers from free and safe accessto the area to conduct their work. It is notedthat this project is funded by the World Bank,European Commission, Sweden, and otherdonors.�2

Almost two years ago, Israel claimed to bewithdrawing from Gaza, yet according to theHuman Rights Council report commissioned bythe UN last year and released earlier this year,�Even before the commencement of�Operation Summer Rains�, following thecapture of Corporal Gilad Shalit, Gaza remainedunder the effective control of Israel. [...] Israelretained control of Gaza�s air space, sea spaceand external borders, and the border crossingsof Rafah (for persons) and Karni (for goods)were ultimately under Israeli control andremained closed for lengthy periods.� Rafah hasonly been open for an average of 14% ofscheduled times, so Gazans (including sick

people needing treatment in Egypt, andstudents) have had to wait sometimes forweeks on end to get through either way.

In December 2006, Israel promised toallow 400 trucks a day to pass through theKarni crossing, delivering among other thingsdesperately needed food and medical supplies,and allowing produce out to support thelargely agriculture- based economy. Thispromise remains yet to be implemented with�disastrous� consequences for the localeconomy. The report continues, �In effect,following Israel�s withdrawal, Gaza became asealed off, imprisoned and occupiedterritory�.3

Fishermen face arrest if they try to gofishing as Israel controls Gaza�s waters, notPalestinians. The Army regularly opens fireon small fishing boats4. Israeli soldiers alsofrequently shoot through the cage aroundGaza from sniper positions if not conductingall-out ground invasions. Israel has killedmore than 700 Gazans (including hundredsof women and children) since the celebrated�withdrawal�, which is still used by Israeliapologists to show that Palestinians are unableto take advantage of a good opportunityeven if it falls into their laps.

Recently, perhaps the most paralyzingfeatures of Israel�s continued control overGaza - as well as the West Bank - is the USand Israeli-led economic embargo against thePalestinian government since Hamas� victorylast year. Doctors, teachers, elected officials,and other civil servants have not been fullypaid in more than one year, pushing thepopulation into a humanitarian crisis asabout quarter of the population is financiallydependent on these salaries. Over 80% ofGazans are living below the official povertyline, and even issues as serious asoverburdened cesspools are often leftunaddressed. It is tempting to wonder whythe international community should be held

the project “wasdelayed for morethan two yearsdue to delays inimporting pipesand pumps fromabroad as a resultof the closureimposed by IOF

18 Al-Aqsa

responsible for financially supporting thePalestinian population to begin with.

The late Tanya Reinhart articulated heranswer to this question during her last lecturein France. She explained that Europe, like theUS, had no right to cut off food and medicinefrom the Palestinians:

�It was not an act of generosity whichEurope could either carry on or not,� she said.�It was a choice which had been made to takeon the obligations imposed by international lawon the Israeli occupier to see to the well-beingof the occupied populations. Europe chose notto oblige Israel to respect its obligations, andpreferred to pay money to the Palestinians.When it put an end to this, it breachedinternational law.�5

The United States, Europe, and Israel (whichhas withheld $55 million per month in taxescollected from Palestinians on behalf of thePA) say they will only return the Palestinians�lifelines if Hamas agrees to three conditions:(1) renouncing violence, (2) accepting previousagreements, and (3) recognizing Israel. Theseconditions sound reasonable enough, but arepainfully ironic for anyone living on the groundhere.

True, Hamas has not sworn off violenceonce and for all, but neither has Israel! In thepast year, Palestinians have killed 27 Israelis,most of them soldiers. During that same periodof time, Israelis have killed 583 Palestiniancivilians (suicide bombers, fighters, or otherstargeted for assassinations are not included).Hamas has held fairly consistently to a unilateralceasefire since January 2005, when theyannounced their transition from an armedstruggle to a political struggle. Actions speaklouder than words. Hamas says it reserves theright to resist violently, but has stopped attackingIsraelis. Israel claims that all it wants is peace,yet the daily invasions and assassinationscontinue.

The second condition involving previousagreements is hard to take seriously given Israel�sconsistent violations. In one of her last speechesin New York at St Mary�s Church, Tanya citedan early 2006 interview in the Washington Postin which �Hamas Prime Minister Haniyehexplained that according to the Oslo Accords in1993, five years later in �98, there should havebeen already a Palestinian state. Instead, whatIsrael did during this whole period wasappropriate more land, continue to colonize, tobuild settlements, and it did not keep a singleclause of the Oslo Agreements.�6 When will theUS demand that Israel adhere to previousagreements in order to receive the billions thatwe hand over every year?

And finally, the last and crucial condition isthat Hamas must recognize Israel. The question

is, what exactly is meant by �Israel�? Does�Israel� mean a place where Jewish peopleare respected and secure, or is it somethingelse? Israel defines itself as �the state of theJewish people.� It is not the state of itscitizens; Israel is the state of a group ofpeople who aren�t its citizens.

Palestinian citizens of Israel do not haveequal rights to Jews (for specific examples,read my recent �Existence is Resistance�report), because so many laws are aimed atcondensing or chasing away Palestiniancommunities in order to fully �Judaize� thecountry. Israel has an artificial Jewishmajority that was created and is maintainedthrough various forms of ethnic cleansing.Israel�s very existence as a Jewish state isconditional upon the dispossession and eitherexpulsion or bantustanization of theindigenous Palestinian population. If you askone of these Palestinians if he recognizesthe right of such an Israel to exist, a countrybuilt on his land that explicitly excludes himand discriminates against him, and thatPalestinian says �no,� is he being racist oranti-Semitic? Or is he himself defendingagainst racism and anti-Semitism?(Remember that Arabs are Semites too.)

Israel cannot specify what exactly it wantsPalestinians to recognize because Israel doesnot actually recognize itself. Israel hasrefused to clarify its own borders, becausethey keep expanding as the Jewish stateestablishes more settlement �facts on theground.� In spite of all of these things, thePLO actually agreed to recognize Israel,renounce terror, and sign agreements withIsrael almost twenty years ago. Israelresponded with continued colonization andresource confiscation in the occupiedterritories and bombardment of Lebanon toroot out the PLO, which was becomingdangerously moderate.7 Hamas too hasindicated that it would consider peace ifIsrael withdrew to its internationallyrecognized 1967 borders leaving Palestinianswith just 22% of their historic homeland,but Israel says full withdrawal is out of thequestion. It is Israel who has yet to recognizePalestine�s right to exist, not the other wayaround.

One more point of irony is that Israeljustifies the ongoing siege of Gaza as aresponse to the capture of Corporal GiladShalit even though such collectivepunishment is cruel, illegal, and hugelyhypocritical. Week after week, the IsraeliArmy abducts and imprisons dozens ofPalestinians, including children. Israel has�captured� (�kidnapped� would be a moreappropriate word for many since most of

Europe chose notto oblige Israel to

respect itsobligations, and

preferred to paymoney to the

Palestinians.When it put an

end to this, itbreached

international law

Actions speaklouder than

words. Hamas saysit reserves theright to resist

violently, but hasstopped attacking

Israelis. Israelclaims that all it

wants is peace, yetthe daily invasionsand assassinations

continue

Al-Aqsa 19

the abductees were civilians) at least 860Palestinians this year.8

While Palestinians are illegally holding oneIsraeli; Israel is illegally holding more than 11,000Palestinians9, including about 40 elected officialsand almost 500 women and children. If theIsraeli Army is justified in collectively starvingand bombarding 1.3 million Gazans to avengethe capture of one of their fighters, what couldthe families of 11,000 Palestinians claim isjustified?

In reality, Israel is holding more than 1.3million Palestinians prisoner with its ongoingsiege of Gaza. Most of them are refugees,encaged in one of the most densely populatedplaces in the world and many still see their historicland around them, but are forbidden from everreturning because they are not Jewish. I, on theother hand, could go and live there next monthif I wanted to.

The Beit Lahia sewage treatment plant wasdesigned in the 1970�s to serve up to 50,000people, but the local population has since risento 200,000. The �sewage tsunami� is as much aresult of population density as anything else. Incomparison, the land-rich West Bank feels likeparadise, but perhaps not for long. As the Wallcontinues to snake around West Bank towns andvillages, cutting inhabitants off from their land,jobs, schools, hospitals, and each other, Israel�sintention seems clear: those Palestinians whowon�t leave the West Bank altogether will besqueezed into bantustans, each of them a newGaza. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority,civilians, and popular resistance will continue

�

to be demonized with claims of �anti-Semitism� even though the worst crimes arenot their own. The guilt and responsibility isnot just Israel�s, but we all share in it.

The sun is gleaming through silvery olivetrees into our office window as I look outacross Palestinian land and homes that stillremain intact in spite of the Occupation andall its crimes. There is still hope for the WestBank, but only if people speak out and actnow. There are so many ways. Visit Palestine.Support the non-violent boycott, divestment,and sanctions movement called for byPalestinian civil society. Join a local solidaritygroup and educate your community. Writeto your representatives. Anything but stayingsilent.

Notes

2. http://www.pchrgaza.ps/files/PressR/English/2007/20-2007.htm

3. ht t p ://www.ohchr.or g/engl i sh/bodi e s/hrcouncil/docs/4session/A.HRC.4.17.pdf

4. http://bbsnews.net/article.php/20070326104022273

5. h t t p ://www.zmag . o r g/ c on t en t/pr in t_article.cfm?itemID=12385&sectionID=1

6. ht t p ://www.democra c ynow.or g/ar t i c l e .pl?sid=07/03/19/1354224

7. See Chomsky, N. The Fateful Triangle8. For week by week statistics, visit http://

www.pchrgaza.ps/9. http://www.mandela-palestine.org/

Books Available For Review

1. Broken Promises, Broken Dreams, Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma andResilience, by Alice Rothchild

2. Hollow Land, Israel�s Architecture of Occupation, by Eyal Weizman

If you would like to review one of these titles, please email info@aqsa.org.uk

While Palestiniansare illegallyholding oneIsraeli; Israel isillegally holdingmore than 11,000Palestinians

20 Al-Aqsa

Al-Aqsa 21

Islamic Libraries in Jerusalem

Mazen Nussiebeh1

Introduction

During the last 14 centuries, Jerusalemhas not been a political capital.However, under Islamic rule it has

been a spiritual and a cultural capital to millionsof Muslims, Jews and Christians throughout thistime.

This was clearly demonstrated by thebuilding works Muslims undertook inJerusalem since the second caliph Omar bin alKhatab liberated the city in 635 AD. Therewere mosques, schools, and zawaya of whichthe most important are the Aqsa Masjid andthe Dome of the Rock built by the Umayyads.Building in Jerusalem, showing Muslim interestin the city, continued in the Abbasid periodalso. But in the 5th Hijri century came thecrusade wars which were known for theirbrutality against both human beings andbuilding structures, and in particular against anyindication of Jerusalem�s Islamic history orheritage, in an attempt to erase it.

After Salaheddin�s liberation of Jerusalemin 1187 AD, rebuilding and restoration workbegan. Today, any visitor of Jerusalem and theAqsa Sanctuary will find in every corner andevery meter - a building, a dome, a school, afountain, a gate that was built by a prince, anarmy leader, a sultan or even a sultan�s wifefrom the Ayoubi , Mamluk or the Othmaniperiod. This reflected the love felt for Jerusalemand the Muslims� spiritual connection with it.

But once again Jerusalem has fallen underanother occupation, 780 years after beingliberated from the Crusaders. This is a morevigorous occupation, filled with more hatred butwith the same old intention, to change the identityof the city and remove its Islamic identity.

To counter this, the revitalizing and renewingof the libraries in Jerusalem with treasuredbooks and manuscripts has formed a crucialpart of the efforts to keep the Islamic face andidentity of Jerusalem.

What an Islamic library looked like

Libraries carried the name of Khazana(cupboard), as books were kept in closedcupboards and not on open shelves.

Books were arranged inside the cupboardhorizontally and not perpendicularly, withthe small ones at the top and the big ones atthe bottom. So anyone looking for aparticular book must move the ones aboveuntil they reach their desired title.

The cupboards were made of wood, andlocked with keys. Therefore access was onlygained via a librarian.

Books were arranged in the libraryaccording to subject matter beginning withQur�an, then Tafseer (Qur�aniccommentary), Hadith (sayings of the ProphetMuhammad, peace be upon him), HadithSciences, Seerah (the story of the life ofthe Prophet Muhammad peace be uponhim), Fiqh (Islamic laws), Tawheed (theattributes of God), Tasawuf (spirituality);then language and literature with othersciences like arithmetic. Catalogues were puttogether in a single book and reading wasonly allowed inside the library, as there wasno lending service.

Historical preview

Libraries were formed in the early Islamiccenturies in Jerusalem inside mosques andmainly within the Al-Aqsa compound. Therewere many Qur�an manuscripts written indifferent styles. Ibn Abedrabo wrote (in328AH) that there were 70 copies of theQur�an in Al-Aqsa. While Ibn Faqihmentioned in his book �Al Buldan� (902AD)that there were 16 boxes of Qur�an copiesin Al-Aqsa. Books of Hadith, Tafseer andothers were added later by men likeAlzouhary and Alaouza�i. But unfortunately,most of these were burned or lost during

1. MAZEN NESSIEBEH lives in Jerusalem in the Occupied Territories. He has a BSc in Biology from JordanUniversity, a BA in Islamic Education from Al-Quds University, and an MA in Islamic Studies.

This is a morevigorous occupa-tion, filled withmore hatred butwith the same oldintention, tochange the iden-tity of the cityand remove itsIslamic identity

22 Al-Aqsa

the crusade wars as Mohammad bin Ali binMayser mentions in his book of history.

After the sixth century AH, the building ofschools, zawayas (halls of the Sufi sheikhs) andkhankas (buildings built for poor worshippers/students) flourished under Salaheddin and thosewho came after him in the Ayoubi and Mamlukperiods. As a result libraries began to form dueto the large number of scholars and religiousscience students present in the city and theirneed for books. Examples of such libraries andschools included:

È Al Nassirya library after Sheikh NasserIbrahim al Maqdisi

È Al Khanka al Fakhriya School and libraryafter Qadi Fakhereddin ibn Fadelallah

È Mohammed Khalidi, Mufti al Shafia sect,library

È Bukhari Naqshabandi, Sufi way, library(still existing)

È Khazanet kutub (library) Ashrafya SchoolÈ Khazanet kutub Ghadria SchoolÈ Burhaneddin bin Jamaa library

The library at Al-Aqsa was the richest interms of content. This was due to theabundance of writers and copiers in the area,and to the will and insistence of writers to keepa copy of what they wrote in the Al-Aqsalibrary.

In the late 18th century and the early 19thcentury, personal libraries began to appear,possessed by those who occupied formal rankslike judges or governors or sufi sheikhs.Examples of these libraries included:

È Sunallah Khalidi (d.1727) library.È Ahmad bin Mahmud al Mouaqet, Hanafi

Mufti (d.1776) library.È Sheikh Ahmad bin Budair al Qudsi

(d.1805) library.È Amat Kalifa bin Ibrahim library.È Sheikh Mohammed Effendi Zade library.È Hassan bin Abedlatif Husseini library.

These libraries were normally financed bythe owners or from the awqaf (community fund).There would only be a single copy of each bookin the library thus the use was restricted to asmall number of individuals. These personallibraries evolved into family libraries or justvanished for one reason or another.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries,Christian missionaries started to settle in andaround Jerusalem and formed their ownlibraries in the churches and monasteries. Thesegroups brought with them their printingmachines and thus facilitated increased bookmaking. This also had an impact on Islamiclibraries in Jerusalem as it aided the growth of

these libraries and led to an increase in theformation of family libraries.

On the downside, some of Palestine�sprecious books and manuscripts were lostas the missionaries purchased them andshipped them to museums and universitiesin Europe. As a result, we find a number ofvaluable Islamic manuscripts throughoutEurope that originally came from Palestine.

Another factor that affected librarygrowth was the appearance of a newgeneration of Palestinian youth who traveledto Europe to study and came back with newideas to enhance the libraries.

In this period the following personallibraries appeared:

È Hassan Sidki al Dajani libraryÈ Abdullah Mukhles libraryÈ Isaaf al Nashashibi libraryÈ Khalil al SakakiniÈ Aref al Aref

Some of the family libraries whichappeared in the same period were:

ÈÈÈÈÈ Mouaqet library: Established byMufti of Jerusalem Sheikh Ahmad binMuhammad Yahya, known as alMouaqet. His library was made waqfin 1776 but nothing of it exists today.

ÈÈÈÈÈ Qutteinah library: Known as theHanbali library since the family werefollowers of the Hanbali school ofthought. The library used to have abig number of manuscripts and it waslocated near the Damascus gate.Nothing is known about the librarytoday.

ÈÈÈÈÈ Sheikh Hussam Jarallah library:This library used to have 2000 booksand manuscripts in Islamic subjectsand Arabic language. However, thebooks were stolen in the year 1948during the Palestinian Nakba.

ÈÈÈÈÈ Abu Saud library: collected bySheikh Taher Abu Saud Shaafi whowas Mufti of Jerusalem in the early20th century. The library books arenow kept in boxes in the family house.

These were the known Islamic familylibraries in Jerusalem, most of which donot exist any more and therefore do notplay an active role in the cultural life ofJerusalem.

As well as the Al-Aqsa library, a smallnumber of personal and family librarieshave undergone repair and still play animportant role in the Islamic cultural lifeof Jerusalem.

The library atAl-Aqsa was therichest in terms

of content

some of Palestine’sprecious books

and manuscriptswere lost as the

missionariespurchased them

and shipped themto museums and

universities inEurope

Al-Aqsa 23

Al-Aqsa library:This is considered to be the most importantlibrary in Jerusalem. The Al-Aqsa was a centerfor intellectual debate and a school for teachingIslamic sciences. Therefore a good library wasessential to serve its purposes.

In many cases, the books in the library wereactually dictated by their writers while they wereinside the mosque. Examples of such booksincluded:

È Mutheer al gharam illa ziaret al Quds waAsham� by Ibn Hilal al Maqdisi (d.765h).

È Ba�ath al nufus ila ziaret al Quds almahrous� by Sheikh Burhaneddin binIshaaq al Fizari (d.729h).

È Eljamr al mustafa fi fada�al al masjed alAqsa� by Bahaaeddin bin Assaker (d.600h).

In the past, the Books within the Al-Aqsamosque compound were not kept in a singlebuilding but were distributed all over thecompound. They were mainly kept in the Aqsamosque building and in the Dome of the Rockbuilding and each had a librarian. These werealso government assignees overlooking thelibrary. Al Sakhawi mentions the name ofShamseddin Muhammad bin Ahmad al Ghanimial Maqdsi in the 9th Hijri century and SheikhBashir al Khalili in the Dome of the Rockmosque in the 11th Hijri century.

The Mamluk sultans used to send copies ofthe Quran as gifts to the Al-Aqsa library andwith them there would come someone to readand recite the Quran inside the mosque. Anexample was King Al Ashraf Barsbi who sent alarge Musshaf (Arabic text Qur�an) and with it,Sheikh Shamseddin al Ramli who was to reciteit in the mosque. Other sultans sent similar gifts,including al Malek al Taher Jakmak, al Malekal Ashraf Yanaal, al Malek al TaherKhashakdum. This was a habit that the Othmansultans also followed.

In addition to the libraries in the two mosquebuildings, there were also libraries in the schoolswhich existed in and around the yards of theAqsa compound. These differed in size andnumber according to the specific subjects, andexamples included:

È �Al Nassirya School� to whichSalaheddin`s nephew al Malek alMuaatham sent a number of books.

È �Al Khanka al Fakhrya School�established by Qadi Fakhereddin binFadelallah, which contained 10,000 books.

È �Al Ameenya School� to which SheikhYahiya Sharafeddin donated his personallibrary as a waqf. This was thought to bea huge collection of books.

In 1923 AD, the High Islamic Committeein Jerusalem with Mufti Hajj Amin Husseiniat its helm decided to collect all the booksfrom the different buildings in the Al-Aqsacompound and established the modern Aqsamosque library housing them all. The librarybuilding was at first in al Quba al Nahawea.Since that time it moved again before finallysettling in what was known as the women�smosque in the southern western corner ofthe Aqsa compound next to the Islamicmuseum.

Women�s mosque, the presentlibrary�s site

The library now contains more than14,000 books. The libraries of Sheikh Khalilal Khalidi and Sheikh Muhammad al Khalili,as well as other smaller collections, have alsobeen added. These manuscripts date backto between the 3rd to the 13th Hijricenturies, and some of which survived thecrusader era. One of these manuscripts isfrom an earlier period - an incomplete copyof the Qur�an hand written by Muhammadbin al Hassan bin al Hussein, the grandsonof Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). Anothermanuscript is a copy of the Quran whichwas written in the handwriting of Moroccanking Sultan Abusaid Othman al Marini inthe 8th Hijri century.

Personal and family libraries:

The number of personal and family librariesthat still exist today in Jerusalem are few. Thisdoes not mean there is a complete absenceof such libraries however. There are a goodnumber of modern libraries which wereestablished through the efforts of Jerusalem�syouth. These include the �Al Quds University�library and �Arabic Studies Center� library,and other similar institutions� libraries.

The remaining old libraries include:

ISAAF NASHASHIBI LIBRARYIsaaf Nashashibi was born in Jerusalem in1885 AD, into a rich and well educated family.His father was a prominent figure during

One of thesemanuscripts isfrom an earlierperiod – anincomplete copyof the Qur’anhand written byMuhammad bin alHassan bin alHussein, thegrandson ofProphetMuhammad(pbuh)

24 Al-Aqsa

the Turkish rule and was also a member ofparliament.

During his youth, Isaaf witnessed manymeetings in his home between men of literaturelike Assad al Imam and Ragheb al Khalidi andothers. Discussions at these meeting were wideincluding poetry, literature, fiqh and othersubjects.

While he was young he learned to recite theentire Quran by heart, and then went to Dar alHikma School in Beirut. During his life hetraveled a lot which enabled him to meet manywell known poets and writers in the Arab worldsuch as Ahmad Shawki (Ameer al Shuraa) thewell known Egyptian poet. He also met ShakibArsalan and Khalil Sakakini. His knowledge ofthe French language also enabled him to studyFrench literature.

Isaaf worked as a teacher then headmasterof Al Rashidya School in Jerusalem. He wasknown for his enthusiastic speeches and his callsfor respect of religious teaching and for defendingthe Arabic Language. Isaaf Nashashibi was alsoa writer and wrote a number of books andessays. He died in 1948.

THE LIBRARY BUILDING:The building is called Isaaf Nashashibi�s Palaceand was built in 1922 AD by Isaaf himself. Itconsists of two floors each with an area of 296square meters. It still stands in all its beauty inthe Sheikh - Jarrah neighborhood, with its oldgate and two palm trees at the entrance whichhave guarded it since it was first built.

The palace has 4 beautiful ceramic terraces;two on each floor over looking the old city fromthe north. During Isaaf �s life, many well knowncharacters visited the palace including Ibrahimal Mazini, Maarof al Rasafi, Khalil Mardam andBishara al Khoury.

Isaaf collected many books and manuscriptsduring his life using his personal funds. Afterhis death the palace was used as the Frenchconsulate (the first floor was burned during ademonstration in 1956 AD), and then it wasused as the Saudi consulate. After 1967 itaccommodated the German School ofArchaeology.

In 1982 it was considered a part of Dar alTiffel Institute and was made a library and acultural center by Dr Isshaq Husseini.

THE LIBRARY:The library contains about 8000 books, with anadditional 2000 more donated from the libraryof Aref al Aref (the well known historian) byhis family, and another 2000 books donated byFawzi Yousef ( a publisher). Smaller collectionswere also donated by Isshaq Darwish,

Muhammad Younes Husseini and the writerNaserddin Nashashibi.

The main titles in the library are: Islamiccivilization, Palestinian history, Arabiclanguage, Arabic literature, Arabic hand-writing, fiqh and hadith. Despite such a greatbreadth of literature, the librariancomplains of the scarcity of visitors to itsince the isolation of Jerusalem from theWest Bank.

The number of manuscripts totals 294and a catalogue was compiled by librarianMr.Bashir Barakat. The number of titles inthese manuscripts is 780.

In addition to complete manuscripts,there are a large number of papers or partsof manuscripts that date back to theMamluk period. Indexes of the books andmanuscripts were complied according toauthors, subjects and dates.

In order to face modern challenges, themanuscripts were filmed digitally. Thisenables scholars and researchers to consultmanuscripts without needing to reach thelibrary itself; a task that the Israelis havemade impossible for Palestinians outside ofJerusalem. The resources of the library cannow be accessed over the internet.

THE CULTURAL CENTER:Beside the library, a cultural center wasestablished at the Isaaf Nashashibi Palace.Different cultural activities are run includingmusical evenings, poetry Readings, lectures,and exhibitions: photography, oil Drawings,books, and other activities.

THE KHALIDI LIBRARYThe Khalidi Family is one of the oldestfamilies in Jerusalem. It is said that they werenamed after Prophet Muhammad�s (pbuh)companion and army leader Khalid bin alWaleed. Others also suggest that the nameappeared more recently as they werepreviously named Al Dayri after the DayerOthman village near Nablus. The family tookrefuge in this village during the crusade wars.This was mentioned in one of themanuscripts written by a family memberAbdil Aziz Khalidi in 1214 AD.

Many Khalidi family members haveoccupied important political and religiouspositions, as judges, Mufties and religiousscholars. Family member Yousef Dia Pashaalso undertook the role of council of theOttoman Empire in a Russian city. He thenbecame the Mayor of Jerusalem after thatin 1867-1873.

Al-Aqsa 25

The Khalidi library gate

THE BUILDING:The library building is 100 meters from theChain Gate (Bab al Silseleh) of the Al-Aqsacompound. The building was originally a burialsite built by an army leader Hussameddin BarakaKhan who was brought by King NajmeddinAyoub to fight in Jerusalem when it was restoredfrom the crusades for the last time. He died inHums, in Syria, but according to his will he wasburied in Jerusalem. Two of his sons were alsoburied beside him according to Mujeereddin alHanbali in his history book �Al Uns al Jalil�.

ESTABLISHMENT:The library was established in 1899 AD by HajjRagheb al Khalidi as a public trust, using anamount of money donated by his motherKhadije, the daughter of Musa effendi al Khalidi.It contained the family holdings of books andmanuscripts which were collected over the yearsby generations of the family beginning withMuhammad Sunallah, Muhammad Ali, YousefDia, Musa Shafiq and others.

The formal announcement of its publicopening was made in 1900. The announcementclarified that the spread of knowledge was thebase for progress and prosperity. It added thatthe library was an asset to the holy land. TheKhalidi library was intended to restore to theArabs prosperity by fostering knowledge and toenable them to match the cultural establishmentscreated by foreign powers through out theregion. The opening ceremony was attended bya well known Syrian Sheikh, Taher al Jazairi.

PERIODS IN THE LIFE OF THE LIBRARY:1900-1917 AD: 4000 books were collected

from family members.1917-1948 AD: members of the family took

care of the library but the main librarian in thisperiod was Muhammad al Danaf al Ansari. Acustom was created whereby whenever a familymember passed away, his books would be addedto the library collection.

Following 1967 AD: This was considered tobe the most difficult period as the Israelis triedto confiscate the building claiming that its ownerswere absentees. Usually, when this was evoked,

the Israelis would confiscate the property,however, the family challenged the army andtheir property was restored to them in court.

Then came the settlers. Since the buildingoverlooked the Wailing Wall area, Israelstationed a number of soldiers on the secondfloor to guard the place. When the soldierslater left the site, settlers took over andestablished a religious school and tried toprevent the Khalidi family from repairingand renewing parts of the library. Once again,the family overcame this difficulty.

Other challenges included financing therevitalizing of the building and preservingthe manuscripts in addition to updating thelibrary so that it servs its users as any modernlibrary does. This was achieved through greatefforts from family members inside andoutside Palestine and many well wishersfrom the Arab and Islamic worlds.

CONTENTS OF THE LIBRARY:The first collections of books, about 560manuscripts, were gathered by MuhammadSunallah in 1726 and were made waqf tothe family. His son, Muhammad Sunallahadded another 260 manuscripts to thecollection. More were added to these laterbut some were lost between that period and1900 when Hajj Ragheb opened the library.

The library today has 1029 Arabicmanuscripts, 18 Persian manuscripts, and36 Turkish manuscripts. Most of the manu-scripts are in average condition.

About 100 of these manuscripts havebeen repaired, cleaned, steamed andpreserved in special non acidic boxes withthe required humidity and temperature. Plansare in place to also preserve the remainingmanuscripts in this way. Microfilming themanuscripts is an ongoing process, inaddition to classifying single papers.

The collection reflects the great interestof the family in owning books covering awide spectrum of subjects including religion,literature, language and science. Since a goodnumber of the Khalidi family were graduatesof the Al Azhar University, and many haveor had formal jobs all over the Islamic Worldas mentioned earlier, this is clearly reflectedby the diversity of the texts in the library.

There are 288 manuscripts that exist inonly one single copy in the Al Khalidi library.This fact distinguishes the Khalidi libraryfrom many other libraries. Out of thesemanuscripts, 112 are the originals as writtenby the author, including:

È Prophets� Stories� by Ibn Adsa al Qudsi.È Jalaa� al Afkar fi Sirat al Mukhtar� by Al

Bilbesi (986 AH)

26 Al-Aqsa

È Al Ashbah wa al Natha�ar� by Ibn Nujem alMasri (969 AH)

È Bust al Maqaal�by Shirniblali (1029 AH).

BUDEIRI LIBRARYSheikh Muhammad bin Budeir bin Muhammadbin Hubaish Alshafii al Maqdisi was born in 1160AH (1747AD). He traveled to Egypt to studyfiqh at Al Azhar University and remained therefor 30 years. He then returned to Jerusalem andsettled at the home he bought next to the Babal Nather gate of the Al-Aqsa mosque. Thishome accommodates the library on its firstfloor. Sheikh Budeir wrote poetry and bookletsabout some fiqh problems.

MANUSCRIPTS:The Budeiri library has about 1200 manuscripts,some of which were collected by Sheikh Budeirihimself in1790, while establishing the library.More were added by family members later.

The manuscripts are in bad condition ingeneral due to inadequate storage in humidrooms. As a result, many pages have beendestroyed. However, a small number of themanuscripts are still in good condition and workis being carried out to restore them.

CATALOGUE:The first catalogue for the library was made in1987 by Mr Khader Salameh. Within thecatalogue, the subjects were arranged accordingto the Hijri century in which it was written.

The library has a small number of printedbooks in the Arabic language and some inTurkish. The Turkish are mostly on legislationduring the Othman Empire. Printed books arefrom the late 19th century and early 20th century.

The library has a good number of newspapersand magazines from the early 20th century likethe �Palestine� newspaper from 1920, printed inJaffa. �Al Hakika� newspaper and �Al Balaghah�newspaper printed in Beirut in 1923. And �AlLata�if � newspaper from Cairo in 1916.

MANUSCRIPT THEFT:Scholars estimate the number of manuscripts thatwere in Jerusalem during the Ottoman rule to be

more than 50,000. Of these, only 8,000remain today. This was the result ofdestruction during war time or theft duringthe British mandate and the Israeli occupation.

A large number of lost manuscripts arefound today on the shelves of the HebrewUniversity library or the Jewish Nationallibrary. Most of these were stolen fromhouses with their owners inside or fromabandoned houses, during war time. Namesof the original owners are still found on someof these books and manuscripts. Such booksinclude some owned by:

È Khalil Baides who died in 1949;È Sheikh Muhammad al Khalili, whose

family lost 90 manuscripts during the1967 war;

È Abdullah Mukhles who used to have alibrary of more than 3000 books and 120manuscripts. Fearing the war, in 1948 hemoved the library to a nearby monasteryfor safekeeping. However, Israelisdemolished the building with dynamiteand before doing so, an eye witness saidthat she saw Israeli gang memberscarrying boxes out of the building; and

È Sheikh Hussam Jarallah�s entire librarywas lost in 1948 war.

Conclusion

Writing recorded the history of manycultures and civilizations all over the worldincluding Palestine. But unluckily forPalestine, occupiers through out its history,like the Israelis at present, have tried to erasethis written heritage and claim that they cameto an empty land. The theft of this writtenheritage has helped the Israeli occupierspeddle their myths.

Libraries in Palestine in general and inJerusalem in particular, would be one of thefactors that undermine these claims asstudying the history of these libraries, withthe people and efforts behind them, wouldbe like studying a summary of Jerusalem�shistory. A fact that I discovered while writingthis paper.

�

Al-Aqsa 27

B O O K R E V I E W

Checkpoint Watch, Testimonies fromOccupied PalestineBY YEHUDIT KIRSTEIN KESHET, Zed Books (2006),ISBN 184277719, 182pp, £14.95

CheckpointWatch (MachsomWatch) is an organisation ofIsraeli women who have come together to monitor humanrights abuses being perpetrated by the Israeli occupationforces against the Palestinians. The author of this book,Keshet is a co-founder of the group and thus in a positionto provide a first hand analysis of the conflicts and turmoilfaced by these women in undertaking a task that questionstheir very loyalty to the state of Israel. Keshet, herself thedaughter of refugees from Nazi Germany, is now retiredand dedicates all her time to opposing her countriesoccupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

The book begins with a Foreword by Amira Hass whosets out that since the establishment of CheckpointWatchin 2001, not one single checkpoint has been removedfrom the West Bank. As the movement grew in size, sotoo did the number of checkpoints. She explains in nouncertain terms the reality of a checkpoint: �Watchersare witnesses to, and recorders of, the permanence ofsupposedly temporary major checkpoints allegedly erectedin response to security needs, and have recorded theirmetamorphosis into well-fortified gates between walls andfences that create Palestinian enclaves, isolated from oneanother.�

The author explains that while checkpoints continue tobe sold to the world as a military and security necessity forIsrael, their impact on Palestinians is to bring every daylife to a grinding halt. The frustration surrounding thebureaucratic procedures that Palestinians are subject towhen seeking travel permits exemplifies the imposition ofpractices which by their very nature deny Palestinians theright to basic freedoms.

The women of CheckpointWatch have gone behindthe half-truths that surround the security arguments, to

discover the reality of the conditions imposed by theircountry on their neighbours. Keshet describes herawakening to the Palestinian side of the story during ameeting with a dialogue group in Beit Sahour. Here, thePalestinians set out that their desire was exactly the sameas that of Israeli�s, to oppose annihilation and have theirnational aspirations recognised. The issues, she states, werethe Palestinian political, cultural and economic liberation.This challenged the prevalent and inbred notion carriedby the vast majority of Israeli�s � that Palestinians didnot want to live in peace.

The book is divided into three parts, titled 1) the context,2) the checkpoints, and 3) the observers. These 3 partsare also further subdivided into seven chapters dealing withparticular aspects of the checkpoints and their aims andimpact. Keshet begins her analysis on the checkpoints fromthe 1967 imposition of permits for Palestinian entry intoIsrael. While the traditional checkpoints did not materialiseuntil some years later, the idea of humiliating checks wasalready taking form.

Keshet explains how military checkpoints began to beimplemented during the outbreak of the first Gulf Warof 1991. A series of events following this, including thestabbing of some Israelis by individual Palestinians, tighterrestrictions and the opening of the tunnels under the Al-Aqsa compound; resulted in wide scale unrest which wasdealt with by restricting the movement of Palestinians anddividing the occupied territories. Checkpoints have onlyincreased in numbers since then, and now disrupt everyaspect of life.

Keshet does not consider checkpoints in isolation butalso discusses other measures that are used to restrictPalestinian movement including curfews and closures,which all have the same aim of disabling the society in itsentirety. Thus the checkpoints facilitate a wider aim ofemptying Palestinian territories of Palestinians, by makinglife there unbearable.

This book gives in depth and personal accounts ofincidents at checkpoints; reflecting the resilience ofPalestinians and their determination to persevere, and thefact that the Israeli Occupation Forces have some humanfaces. There are a small number of images and maps tohelp decipher the situation on the ground. But at the cruxof this book is an analysis that is often lacking in thisconflict, as it is one side truly understanding the plight ofthe other � a position often absent between Israelis andPalestinians. The personal accounts themselves make it agripping read.

In conclusion, what CheckpointWatch has witnessed andpropagates is the unjust denial to many and freedom ofmovement to only a few.

Leicester Rajnaara Akhtar

28 Al-Aqsa

Overcoming Zionism: Creating aSingle Democratic State in Israel/PalestineBY JOEL KOVEL, London, Pluto Press, 2007, ISBN: 0-7453-2569-6, pp. 299, £15.99

The author is a famous left-wing writer and CollegeProfessor in Social Studies, and a major critic of US andIsraeli governmental policies in the Middle East, and

Western policies in general in the rest of the so-called �developing�world. He worked as a doctor and a psychiatrist in variousAmerican hospitals and research establishments for over twentyfour years, but eventually quit the system over dissatisfactionwith the direction that the US public health service was headed.Kovel is a well-known anti-racism activist and social ecologist, aswell as a member and former Presidential candidate for the GreenParty in the US. His previous best work was �White Racism�(1972) which won him a National Book Award. His work is socontroversial in America that the Library of Congress, one ofthe world�s largest libraries and a compulsory repository ofalmost all published material in the US, does not have a copy.Nor does Kovel�s own institution � the Bard College inAnnandale, New York.

�Overcoming Zionism� is Kovel�s first book about the Arab-Israeli conflict, which has appeared rather late considering his longhistory of left-wing activism and publishing in the US. The bookis a compilation of the many essays written by the author regardingthe state of Israel and the Israel-Palestine conflict. These weremainly published in the progressive Jewish magazine Tikkun, towhich the Author has been a major contributor since its inception.

He details his early life as the child of East Europeanimmigrants to New York and being brought up as a ZionistAmerican Jew, coupled with the later adolescent rebellion againstthe religious-cultural traditions of his ancestors. Kovel seeshimself as a non-Jewish Jew, in that he no longer believes in theparticularistic Jewish traditions that separate Jews from otherpeople. In that sense, Joel is a universalist-humanist in the �liberal�Western tradition.

Joel Kovel identifies with those Jewish people who have lefttheir tribal origins and constricted backgrounds and haveembraced the whole world as their pasture and area of action.The Author sees himself as being part of the post-enlightenmenttradition of Jewish intellectuals, such as Spinoza, Marx, Freud,Proust, Eistein, Kafka, Wittgenstein and Rosa Luxembourg.

Kovel proposes �the true glory of being Jewish is to live on themargin and across boundaries� (Prologue, p. 8). For Kovel,Zionism is nothing but �Jewish tribalism at its worst� (p.8). Inthis book, the Author essentially advocates the singulartransformation of the state of Israel to accommodate all segmentsof the population of the Holy Land. Like Israeli leftist critic,Michael Warschawski (author, On the Border), Kovel toorecommends and exhorts Israel to be de-Zionised and integratedinto the rest of the Middle East (p. 220).

The Author is a self confessed angry man in this book. He istruly furious at the �racist-apartheid� attitude of the Zionistpeople of the state of Israel in their treatment of the PalestinianArabs in their own homeland. Kovel states that the only solutionto the Israel-Palestine problem is to have a bi-national seculardemocratic state in the territory of the former British mandatoryPalestine. In this sense, this book joins the increasing body ofliterature that points towards such an option as a solution to theIsrael-Palestine problem.

Kovel is unanimous in his condemnation of the Jewishstate as racist in the mode of the former �apartheid� South Africanminority-ruled state. Kovel feels that more than ending theoccupation in Palestine, well-meaning people in the world shouldfocus on ending Zionism, which is the pathological-sociologicalcondition that produces the ongoing Israeli �occupation� of theArab inhabited areas of Israel-Palestine. Indeed, he advocates arelentless critique of Zionism as a movement that has caused somuch uprooting and misery in the 20th century and given thepresent circumstances, looks likely to continue well into thepresent century.

Kovel deals in great detail with the kind of racism affectingIsraeli society at large. This is not only directed against the Arabminority, but also intra-Jewish racism as manifested by theEuropean (Ashkenazi) elite against Jews of North African andAsian origin (Sephardim). As a Jewish American, from Ukrainianimmigrant stock, he is well-aware of the impact of racism on thesocial and political fabric of society, especially following his ownspecial study of white-black racism in the US.

While many modern Israelis may deny this, to quote famousNew York Jewish Attorney and Human Rights activist, MichaelSteven Smith, �Racism is in the nature of a colonial settler state.�Kovel refers to the widespread denial among Israelis that theyare a racist society and people; despite numerous poll resultspointing towards the inability of the majority of Israelis to co-habit with Palestinian Arabs. As Kovel states, �for Israel to admitracism would be to put it in the same category as the apartheidSouth African state and would be an obvious reason for the de-legitimisation of the state� (p.164).

As he mentions in the autobiographical prologue to the book,Zionism today is nothing but a re-incarnation of historic Europeancolonialism, or a kind of virulent tribalism linked with the extremelydangerous poison of majoritarian nationalism, which has createdso much havoc in the West and in the modern world over the lastone millennia (p.6). Kovel details how difficult it is to mentionthe question of Israeli racism or apartheid in the US, given theextent of support for the Zionist state in America. He quotesfrom Theodore Herzl, seen as the founder of modern Zionism,to show that it was the earliest desire of the earliest Zionistideologues to evacuate and dispel the native Arabs from Palestine(p.48). Kovel is very cynical about the future of Zionism in Israel,as is evident from the recorded introductory talks about the presentbook under review, available on his website (www.joelkovel.org).He quotes from Thomas Jefferson saying that all states in theworld are illegitimate to a certain degree or other (p.202). In thissense he believes that the state of Israel is also illegitimate.

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Kovel deals with the common accusation against him asbeing essentially �anti-Semitic,� stating that criticising Israel isalmost always considered �anti-Semitic� in the West. He makesthe point that racism in all its forms has been the worst form ofhuman behaviour known to man. The excuse of anti-Semitismhas often been used to justify counter-racism on the part of theJewish people. Kovel chronicles the much concealed fact thatmost Jewish people, at least in the West, are brought up on thenotion that they are ethically superior. Such �Zionist logicengenders a racist resolution� according to Kovel.

Kovel relates how one of the contradictions about the stateof Israel is the fact that it insists on regarding itself as a democraticstate in the Western liberal perspective, while actually much theopposite is true. The Author is quite clear that the modern Israelistate is an ethnocracy, a state meant for the welfare of the rulingdominant white Westernised Ashkenazi Jewish group in Israel.

Kovel�s book is not the first that breaks new ground overthe allegation that Israel is an �apartheid� society. Jimmy Carter�slatest book (Palestine: Peace not Apartheid) has already stolen thematch on this issue. Issues dealing with the impact and powerof the �Jewish Lobby� on Capitol Hill have already beenacademically exposed with the publication of Professors StephenWalt and John Mearsheimer�s article in the London Times.

Another aspect of this book is that the author painstakinglyreveals some of the inner thought processes of the leaders ofthe Zionist movement such as Chaim Arlosoff, VladimirJabotinsky and David Ben-Gurion who privately, if not publicly,advocated the need to evacuate and disperse most of the Arabpeople of Palestine. He writes in the mode of many of the �new�revisionist historians of Israel like Benny Morris, Avi Schalimand Ilan Pappe. Kovel is no supporter of Morris whose hard-headed �realist-racist� attitude towards the native Arab people ofPalestine is out right condemned in this book. The authorrepeatedly makes the comparison between the present Zioniststate of Israel and the former �Apartheid� state of South Africa.

Kovel does not spare any of the former premiers of Israelsuch as Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir and Ariel Sharon whomhe freely castigates as being members of terrorist organisations,etc. In his book, Kovel also reveals the extent of collaborationbetween the pre-independence Yishuv and the Hitlerite regime inGermany over the status of German-Jewish property. He alsonarrates the �Deir Yassin� incident in which over a hundredPalestinian villagers were murdered in cold blood in one singlemassacre. Kovel believes, in accordance with most standardhistorians, that the incident at Deir Yassin along with many othersimilar massacres, most of which have been successfully concealedand are still to be researched in detail, were ultimately responsiblefor the mass flight of Palestinians from the state of Israel.

This book also reveals details of big-town America�s dealingswith Zionist Israeli businessmen and the activities of right-wingAmericans in support of the state of Israel. This is throughvarious large-scale �Zionist� donations to both major Americanpolitical parties as well as to establishing various �centres ofexcellence� in Israeli academia. Kovel relates how every USPresident since Eisenhower has tried to control Israel�s nuclearpolicy without success, given the power of Israel�s US Jewishand Christian support lobby.

Kovel clearly believes in the right of the state of Israel toexist, but not in its current mode. He postulates about a futuresecular democratic one-state solution, termed in his wordsPalesreal-a state that would support the rights of the �white�Jewish population as well.

He ends the book with the story of a Palestinian man whohe names Ahmad, a native of East Jerusalem who has spent 17years in Israeli jails. Through Ahmad, Kovel defines ideology of

the Palestinian people in the face of overwhelming odds asmanifested in the form of the Israeli state, which he correctlydefines as �Sumud� (Arabic for steadfastness).

Kovel correctly analyses, again along the lines of MichaelWarschawski that the gargantuan struggle being played out inIsrael today is between the reactionary forces of Zionism, in analbeit aged spectrum, and the desires and aspirations of an entiregeneration of young Israelis brought up in a post-Zionist�Capitalist-Globalist� climate, wishing to be classified as normalhuman beings without the trauma of any inherited �holocaust-rightist� baggage attached to them. To quote from Kovel�sappropriation of the language of Warschawski, �for them (the�new Israelis�), solidarity with Palestinians is evidence of theirengagement with a broader solidarity with all who sufferoppression.�

Kovel is quite clear that the problem with the state of Israelis not the �illegal� occupation of the West Bank, but the wholeissue of the ideology of Zionism and the question of the Jewishnature of the state. In this context, he advocates that the newwatchword of the leftist-liberal struggle should not be �post-Zionism� but �anti-Zionism,� which can again be defined as �anovercoming of Zionism through active struggle.�(p. 221)

Kovel is quite clear that the two-state solution is no longeran option. Palestinians effectively control only 8% of the WestBank state, mainly the city limit areas of major Palestinian urbanareas that are subject to invasion by Israeli troops at anytime.Palestinians are today isolated from each other and cut offeconomically and socially from each other. Their presenthabitations are economically unviable and they are completelydependent on foreign aid to survive.

Kovel is uncompromising when it comes to the way thatwell-meaning people should respond to Zionism and the stateof Israel. He advocates an open fight against the state, using allmeans, except open violence. In short, like the army of non-violent activists working in Palestine-Israel, Kovel also advocatesa kind of �pro-active non-violent� approach to actively resist theZionists and their supporters, mainly in the West.

Kovel recommends campaigning against and boycottingWestern multi-national corporations that actively fund and supportthe state of Israel through the transfer of sensitive technologiesand military and industrial hardware. In essence, Kovel advocatesputting into place the entire machinery of the anti-Apartheidstruggle against the former South African state into the struggleagainst the Zionist state of Israel. While Kovel does not call forthe end of the state of Israel, he supports the right of return of allthe Palestinian refugees to the state of Israel. He feels that the bestmethod to undo the �Jewish-ness� of the state of Israel is toencourage the return of the Arab migrants and refugees from theHoly Land. Already, the population of the entire Israel-Palestine,west of the Jordan River, is roughly equal.

Kovel�s book is written sensitively, using a simple style, andincorporates many different stories within its pages withoutoverwhelming the reader. The all-embracing bibliography availableat the end contains an unusually wide-ranging website list.

The crux of the book is the argument that the ideologycalled Zionism and Western liberal democracy are highlyincompatible. A two-state solution is not the solution to theconflict at all as this envisages the division of the Holy Land onthe basis of 20th century nationalism which was the essentialreason for the outbreak of the Zionist-Arab / Israel-Palestineconflict in the first place.

Department of Politics, Samuel J. KuruvillaUniversity of Exeter

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Occupied Territories, The UntoldStory of Israel’s SettlementsBY GERSHOM GORENBERG, I.B.Tauris, 2007, ISBN1845114302, 480pp, £14.99

This book was first published as The Accidental Empire,Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977 byTimes Books, Henry Holt and Company.

If this wonderfully readable book is re-published inupdated form at some point in the foreseeable future, itcould have the following subtitle � How the Zionist Stateof Israel (With American Assistance) Dug Its Own Grave.

Born in the U.S. and living in Jerusalem, GershomGorenberg, journalist and author, is what could be calledan associate member of that small, brave band of �new�or �revisionist� (for which read honest) Israeli historians.

This band of truth-tellers includes Professors AviShlaim and Ilan Pappe. Shortly after the publication of hislatest book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Ilan decided totake his leave of Israel because its intelligence servicesand other agencies were making it impossible for him towork at Haifa University. He has now taken up a post atExeter University. The Zionised Board of Deputies ofBritish Jews tried and failed to block the appointment. (Ilantold me that hardcore Zionists were not too worried abouthis latest book because they could rubbish it and him intheir usual way. But they were, he said, �very worried�about my book because of its title. Ilan agrees with methat Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews is a profoundlyimportant summary statement of a great if uncomfortabletruth for our time).

Occupied Ter ritories is two things in one. It is thedocumented story of who said what to whom, at Israeliand American leadership level, as Israel�s colonisation ofArab land grabbed in 1967 was proceeding. It is also thestory, reading between the lines, of the struggle within anauthor�s soul as he comes to grips with painful facts, whichsadly, most Jews are not yet ready to hear.

My only disagreement with Gorenberg�s interpretationof events is over the important question of why it wasthat Israel ended the Six Days war in occupation of thewhole of the West Bank as well as Eygpt�s Sinai including

the Gaza Strip and Syria�s Golan Heights. His judgementis that �Accidentally, Israel had acquired an empire.� Inthis interpretation of events, which echoes Avi Shlaim�s,Israel did not go to war to take territory. Military advancessimply �outpaced plans�, or, as Avi put it, Israeli militarycommanders simply took advantage of opportunities totake land as they opened up.

The other version, mine, recognises that Prime MinisterLevi Eshkol and Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin did notwant to go to war. Like all of Israel�s leaders, they knew,contrary to what they told their people, that Egypt�sPresident Nasser was not intending to attack Israel. Butwhat Eshkol wanted was actually a very limited militaryoperation to put pressure on President Johnson to obligeNasser to end his closure of the Straits of Tiran. However,this was of no consequence by 5th June. In the finalcountdown to war on the Israeli side, there was somethingclose to a coup (more political than military), which resultedin Eshkol being forced to handover the defence portfolioto Israel�s one-eyed warlord, General Moshe Dayan. Andthe very first thing Defence Minister Dayan did when hewas appointed on 1st June was to tear up Eshkol�s plan andreplace it with one for total war. In my assessment, there ismore than enough evidence to support the conclusion thatIsrael�s military and political hawks went to war to createGreater Israel, and that for them it was the unfinishedbusiness of 1948/49.

The central theme of the bulk of Occupied Territories ishow and why Israel�s leaders decided not to decide howmuch land to give back in exchange for peace. AsGorenberg notes, the first proposals for withdrawal wereborn in the midst of the fighting.

�At Military Intelligence�s research department,Colonel Shlomo Gazit and his staff completed adocument that called for a near-complete pullbackto the pre-war lines in return for full, formal peaceagreements. Gazit�s paper also proposedestablishing a Palestinian state in the West Bankand Gaza Strip. The paper was sent to Dayan, Rabinand other top military figures on June 9th Noneresponded.�

After the 1973 war, General Shlomo Gazit wasprevailed upon to become Director of Military Intelligencewith a brief to ensure there could never again be anintelligence failure as there was on the eve of that war. Inconversation with him some years later I took a deepbreath and said: �Shlomo, I�ve come to the conclusion thatit�s all a myth. Israel�s existence has never, ever been indanger.� Through a sad smile he replied, �The trouble withus Israelis is that we�ve become the victims of our ownpropaganda.�

After the Creation of Greater Israel, the actualoccupation policy, as brilliantly illuminated by Gorenberg,was �speaking softly and �creating facts�; using faits accomplisto determine the political future of disputed land� A newpolicy, neither articulated nor admitted.� As Eshkol put it,it was �better to be criticised after the fact (when nobodycould do anything about it) than to do something Israelhad been told in advance not to do.� And it was as

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Gaza will be recorded as the intermezzo. In my view theprospects for a just and therefore peaceful resolution ofthe conflict in and over Palestine have never been as badas they are today. Sharon did not withdraw from Gaza togive peace a chance but to defuse the demographic time-bomb of Israeli occupation which, on the West Bank, heintended to consolidate.

And the answer to the question of how the story willend might not be in the future. We might already know it.

When Eshkol and his cabinet colleagues first discussedwhether they wanted to keep only some of the newlyconquered territory, or all of it, four ministers said theytotally rejected annexation. The one Gorenberg quotes wasjustice minister Yaakov Shapira. He said that annexationmeant turning Israel into one binational state, in whichJews would eventually become a minority. He added thatthe necessary alternative was to return almost all of theWest Bank to Jordan, �because otherwise we�re done withthe Zionist enterprise.�

Shapira meant that if Israel remained in occupation ofthe Palestinians who lived beyond Israel�s borders as theywere on the eve of the 1967 war, there would come atime when the Palestinians in all of Greater Israel wouldbe able to vote the Zionist state out of existence (if Israelremained a democracy).

In theory and unless Israel does end its occupation andwithdraw to its pre-1967 borders, to make the space for agenuine two-state solution, one possible end of the story isthe creation of a secular, democratic state for all in whichJews and Arabs would have equal rights. That would amountto the de-Zionisation of Palestine (as foreseen by Shapira).

If it can be assumed that hardcore Zionists will neverlet that happen, what is a possible alternative ending to thestory?

Most of Israel�s political and military leaders still believethat by means of brute force and reducing them to abjectpoverty, they can break the will of the Palestinians tocontinue the struggle for their rights. The assumption beingthat, at a point, and out of total despair, the Palestinianswill be prepared to accept crumbs from Zionism�s table inthe shape of two or three bantustans, or, better still, willabandon their homeland and seek a new life in othercountries.

The question that�s almost too awful to think about issomething like this: What will the Zionists do when itbecomes apparent even to them that they can�t destroyPalestinian nationalism with bombs and bullets and brutalrepressive measures of all kinds?

My guess is that they, the Zionists, will go for a finalround of ethnic cleansing - to drive the Palestinians offthe West Bank and into Jordan and beyond. That, I fear,will be Zionism�s final solution to the Palestine problem.If that happens, the West Bank will be turned red withblood, mostly Palestinian blood. And honest reporters willdescribe it as a Zionist holocaust.

I find myself wondering if Gershom Gorenberg sharesmy fear on this account. I know Ilan Pappe does.

Alan HartZionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews (2 vols.)

Gorenberg notes, quoting Israeli political scientist EhudSprinzak, the �ethic of illegalism.�

Gorenberg�s most important revelation is that in amemorandum marked Top Secret, dated 18th September1967, Theodor Meron, legal counsel to the foreign ministry,informed Prime Minister Eshkol that �civilian settlementin the administered territories contravenes the explicitprovisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.� AsGorenberg put it, from then on �Eshkol (and at least someother Israeli cabinet ministers) knew that settling civiliansin occupied land, including the West Bank, violatedinternational law.�

Gorenberg also reveals that �Israel�s leaders expectedto be pressured by the United States to pull out.� But ashe goes on to say, Israeli policymakers �actually had less tofear than they thought.� The U.S. was not going to pressIsrael to withdraw. And the reason for this was explainedby Harold Saunders, an NSC (National Security Council)staffer. �We were convinced that we just could not moveIsrael against its will.�

Some readers, perhaps many, and possibly all, will ask� Why, really, was the U.S. not prepared to require Israelto act in accordance with international law? The shortanswer was, and still is, the power of the Zionist lobby onCapitol Hill. That, plus the fact that the criminal Zioniststate has nuclear weapons.

In a conversation that took place in the living room ofJohnson�s ranch, �first Rusk (secretary of state) and thenJohnson asked Eshkol to describe �what kind of Israel wewould be expected to support.�� Eshkol evaded answering.�Johnson posed the question yet again � �What kind ofIsrael do you want?� � in a one-on-one conversation withEshkol. Afterward, Eshkol told Allon he had replied, �Mygovernment has decided not to decide.��

So Israel�s illegal settlement activity, the obstacle topeace, continued and was speeded up when MenachemBegin, the most successful terrorist leader of modern times,became Israel�s prime minister in 1977. This is whereGorenberg�s main story ends.

In an Epilogue titled Ephemeral for the Fourth Decade,Gorenberg briefly touches upon some of the maindevelopments from 1977 to Prime Minister Sharon�sunilateral withdrawal of settlers from the Gaza Strip in2005. And he ends his book with this paragraph:

�The meaning of the denouement in Gaza would bedetermined only by its yet-to-be-written sequel. It couldlater be interpreted as the moment showing that the costin tears and fury of dismantling settlements was too highto be paid again, on a grander scale, for evacuating thelarger Israeli communities in the West Bank � or as theproof that settlements are indeed potentially temporary,and that the settlers had lost the support of the Israelimainstream. It may be recorded as the act that revivedpeace efforts, or as the intermezzo before a new battleover the torn land. It did not yet answer the question posedto Israelis when the unexpected conquests of 1967 werefresh: What kind of Israel do you want? The answer stilllay in the future�

At the time of writing this review (late August 2007)events cry out in suggestion to me that the denouement in

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profound effects on the belief system of the American people(both Jewish and non-Jewish) and eventually on policy. Themedia is also mentioned as a tool which has aided the strongsupport for the existence of Israel since the end of WWII. Jewishpeople are usually portrayed as positive images whereas Arabsare depicted as racists associated with terrorism. Another factoris the lack of opposition to these ideas, and so there is ultimatelyno reason for politicians and Americans not to support the pro-Israeli ideas that were being pumped through various channels.

In this book, there is a particular focus on the presidencies ofRonald Reagan and George Bush senior. Chapter 4 explores theway in which Reagan�s personality and beliefs shaped the specialrelationship. Thomas looks at how Reagan dealt with the specificissue of the E-3A Airborne Warning and Control System(AWACS) sale to Saudi Arabia and the fight against the AmericanJewish Community who were against the sale. This provides aninsight into the process of negotiation and conflict involved,thus shedding light into the establishment of powerrelationships. The issues which arose went further than justconsiderations about the security of Israel in the sale. This chaptertakes the reader on a journey through the mind of Reagan duringthe events and decisions which took place during his presidency.

Within this overview of the relationship, the authormentions some of the key organisations which hugely impacton the policy making process. One such organisation is theAmerican Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which hasinfluences in Congress. Together with the Zionist Organizationof America and the Anti-Defamation League, this group aimsto �reinforce the image of Israel as America�s cultural, religiousand democratic sibling� (p. 13).

In Chapter 8 we read about George H W Bush and JamesBaker and their close relationship. Personal relationships alsoshape how policies are dealt with and made, and hence America�srelationship with Israel. Financial investment (and increases inaid) made by America at significant historic moments illustrateAmerica�s commitment to Israel. The author also describes howIsrael�s primary interest for America shifted from the security ofIsrael to western access to Gulf oil.

An interesting event which forms the topic of Chapter 9 wasthe US promise to guarantee Israeli loans if Israel stopped thebuilding of new settlements. America�s support was nowbecoming conditional and many accused George Bush junior ofbeing an anti-Semite. Although Yitzhak Shamir rejected thiscondition (as he valued the settlements more than the loanguarantees), once Rabin took office in Israel, Bush authorised$10 billion in loan guarantees without a settlement freeze. Thisprovides a fine example of how beliefs influence policy as the USreached a stage where it could no longer afford to have anythingbut a special relationship with Israel unconditionally.

In this book, Thomas gives the reader a deep insight intothe complexities of this special relationship. It provides a differentlens through which one can view developments between Americaand Israel; where beliefs, establishment of power andorganisations such as AIPAC have the greatest influence indetermining policy. No matter what issues or obstacles the twocountries are faced with, the conclusions remain the same andhave not altered the bond that exists between them. As Thomassuccinctly puts it - �the more things change, the more they arelikely to stay the same�(p 192).

Oxford Ruqaiyyah Ahmed

American Policy Toward Israel: Thepower and limits of beliefsBY MICHAEL THOMAS, Routledge, 2007, ISBN 978-0415771467 (HB), Pp 272, £65

In �American Policy Toward Israel: The power and limits ofbeliefs�, Michael Thomas looks at how the American-Israelirelationship has influenced American policy toward Israel

and the Palestinians. He describes how policy decisions areconstrained and defined as a result of this relationship. Beliefsdetermine how we view the world and hence influence thedecisions we make, and thus policies can be defined based onthese beliefs rather than based on evidence.

By introducing the book with these ideas and mindset,Thomas goes deep in to the underlying causes which led to thedevelopment of this relationship as it now stands. This preparesthe reader for what is to come in the following chapters, and,rather like a jigsaw puzzle, historical events in this relationshipfit neatly together.

In chapter 1, Thomas refers to the American-Israelirelationship as �special� � it exceeds beyond religious and moralboundaries to economic, political and military assistance. Bydrawing on historical facts and evidences Thomas provides astrong and convincing expose on American bias towards Israel.Using specific examples, he peels off the layers to uncover thetrue extent and depth of this special relationship.

Thomas explains how Israel achieves American supportthrough its penetration of the policy-making process. This beganat the time of Reagan with the Evangelical Christian communityand has persisted to the second Bush administration whereChristian Zionists have access to the White House.

The relationship is not just about the two countries as theJewish community in America also plays a significant role, asdiscussed in Chapter 2. Thomas brings the reader�s attention tothe strength of this community, and their organised activities/campaigns in the fields of politics, civil rights, fair employmentand democracy. Digging deeper reveals how even the demographyof the Jewish population in America was organised to impactupon key elections.

This book provides the reader with an insight into an intricatematrix of issues which affect American policy towards Israel.These issues are not always readily apparent, yet they have such