Paranoia ?

I was wrong, I really underestimated the tenacity of the Eda Haredit , an extreme anti-Zionist Haredi faction. Last week sure that the commotion over the bones discovered during the excavation work for the Ashkelon hospital's new emergency room had run its natural course. I wrote: "Well the Byzantine bones that concerned us so much have finally been laid to rest." On Thursday afternoon hundreds of members of this Haredi group gathered in Jerusalem for the purpose of enacting a strange ceremony. They had come to participate in an open ended funeral procession. There was a coffin, a hearse but no burial, simply a parade. That wasn't the only unusual aspect of this near-to macabre reality show. The hearse used for the ceremony was supplied by the Israeli Ministry of Religious Services, i.e. a Zionist hearse!. The assembly of black-garbed Haredim begged forgiveness of the holy bones, read psalms and recited Kadish. The other anomaly is that the final resting place of the pagan bones is unknown. None of the burial societies affiliated with the country's major cemeteries agreed to accept them. Maybe a non-Jewish cemetery will open its gates for them.

Meanwhile, the Ashkelon district Antiquities Authority announced that during the exhumation of the bones a pagan altar dating to the Roman period had been discovered. The district archeologist Dr. Yigal Israel said “The new discovery further corroborates the assertion that we are dealing with a pagan cemetery."

It has been a week full of embarrassing incidents. I would ignore them, if I could, but as long as they are considered newsworthy I can't sweep them under the proverbial carpet.

Painter, journalist, and peace activist Thea Paneth related to one of them in the Boston Globe.

"What does Israel have to fear?" asked Paneth and taunting further," Why is Israel, with one of the most powerful militaries in the world, so afraid of 81-year-old professor Noam Chomsky visiting Gaza?"

Admittedly, a slight inaccuracy Gaza wasn't in Chomksy’s itinerary, nevertheless she is right.

"Declaring war on the intellect" complained an editorial in Ha'aretz last Thursday.

"By stopping the illustrious American scholar Professor Noam Chomsky at the Allenby Bridge and barring his entry into Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the government's outrageous treatment of those with the audacity to criticize its policies has reached new heights. Israel looks like a bully who has been insulted by a superior intellect and is now trying to fight it, arrest it and expel it. In barring a renowned academic from Israel and the West Bank, the government's outrageous treatment of its critics has reached new heights."

The editorial explained the screening mechanism which blocked Chomsky's entry. "Now that the affair has come to light, Interior Ministry sources are claiming it was the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) that should have handled Chomsky, and that his detention was the result of a misunderstanding, whereas COGAT is claiming that it did not know of the scholar's arrival. This, at best, is blatant disingenuousness."

The futility of the exclusion was demonstrated the following day when Israel Channel 2 TV interviewer Dana Weiss went with a camera crew to Amman to interview Noam Chomsky. The aging intellectual is not a terrorist and presents absolutely no danger to Israel. Some of his arguments tend to annoy me. For example; his insistence that Israel is unnecessarily paranoid. . However trying to survive among neighbours who are poised and waiting for an opportunity to attack us, it's no wonder we tend to look over our shoulders a lot. Furthermore, a nation that rose out of the embers of the Holocaust is understandably a tad cautious. I wonder at Professor Chomsky's naiveté especially in the light of a personal incident he has mentioned. Recalling childhood memories in Philadelphia he says,

"We were the only Jewish family around. I grew up with a visceral fear of Catholics. They're the people who beat you up on your way to school. So I knew when they came out of that building down the street, which was the Jesuit school, they were raving anti-Semites. So childhood memories took a long time to overcome. “ Unlike Professor Chomsky we are not likely to overcome them so soon.

Barring Chomsky was not the action of an over-zealous clerk at the Allenby Bridge border crossing. It seems we have a deep-rooted fear of anyone that criticises us. In 2008—under the left-of-centre Olmert government—Israel barred two other “virulent enemies”, Richard Falk and Chomsky’s disciple Norman Finkelstein, from entering the country.

Maybe we should invite them all to visit along with Alan Dershowitz for a nice friendly debate.

Early last week the Kuwait news agency reported that a cargo ship named the 'Rachel Corrie' had left Dublin, Ireland, heading for Gaza, making it the first of a fleet of eight ships that have set sail to break the siege on the Gaza Strip.
The international flotilla aiming to break the Israeli siege on Gaza is carrying supporters from 40 countries. The flotilla's cargo includes 1200 tons of cement, paper, medical supplies, special devices for the disabled and other aid.
In the past, Israel has threatened, as it is doing now, to stop boats from reaching the Gaza port, then allowed them through the IDF-imposed sea blockade. Prime Minister Netanyahu has made no comment on the matter, remaining purposely vague to keep the organisers guessing as to Israel's true intentions. However, a breaking news report claims that the Israeli navy will indeed stop the flotilla. Preparations have been made at Ashdod sea port to receive, interrogate and if need be arrest the would be blockade breakers.

A government spokesman did however comment on the blockade breakers true purpose, "What interests the organisers is not human rights in Gaza, but rather bashing Israel."

The Foreign Ministry and office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories released a statement to the news media stressing that the supplies the ships are carrying are unnecessary and that Israel – together with various international organizations – already transfers these supplies to Gaza via land crossings.

"We know of no shortages in Gaza," the ministry spokesman stated," and we are permitting the import of goods and equipment into Gaza, as well as facilitating the export of produce from Gaza,"

Over the past year Israel has allowed 6,000 Palestinians to leave Gaza to receive medical treatment in Israel and Jordan. In addition, Israel does not limit the amount of medicines and food entering the Gaza Strip.

This week the Financial Times, referred to the relief flotilla and the blockade stating, "It comes at a time when 200 to 300 smuggling tunnels from Egypt into Gaza have become so efficient that shops all over Gaza are bursting with goods."
According to the FT report, "branded products such as Coca-Cola, Nescafé, Snickers and Heinz ketchup – long absent as a result of the Israeli blockade – are both cheap and widely available. However, the tunnel operators have also flooded Gaza with Korean refrigerators, German food mixers and Chinese air conditioning units. Tunnel operators and traders alike complain of a saturated market – and falling prices."

The flotilla was organised by the Turkish IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation as well as other left-wing European organisations.

At this juncture I want to add a personal comment. I'm not happy with the blockade on Gaza! It's ineffective and probably damages Israel more than it harms Hamas. Admittedly its purpose is to prevent arms and materials used for manufacturing explosives from reaching Hamas. The blockade is wrongly perceived as a total closure on the Gaza Strip, namely, collective punishment directed at the people living there.

So far it hasn't brought about the collapse of the Hamas regime and it hasn’t forced its leaders to release Gilad Shalit.. The sharp drop in the number of Qassam rockets and mortar shells fired at targets in the Gaza periphery zone is attributed mainly to the IDF's retaliation policy. Hamas has learnt that the IDF retaliates for every attack, even a single Qassam rocket landing in an open field without causing casualties and damage. The counter-attack is invariably directed at the smuggling tunnels. It's clear that that even a token rocket launching, which more often than not causes no damage to Israel triggers a damaging response Hamas can ill afford. Today the only attacks launched against Israeli targets are carried out by dissident groups. If this is the case why do we persist with a blockade that is only a perceived blockade?

Imposing closures when necessary would do less damage to our national image.

Protecting Israelis living in the Gaza periphery zone and along our border with Lebanon will be based on an active deterrent factor and a passive counter-rocket defence system, the Iron Dome.

The first two Iron Dome counter-rocket batteries will be operational some time next month. Each battery provides a protective umbrella for an area of 150 km. These batteries and others to follow will provide the lower tier of a comprehensive defence system being developed to counter all types of missile, rocket and mortar attacks. The upper tiers won't be operational till 2013.

Last week the United States Congress voted to approve $205 million in aid to Israel for the Iron Dome missile defense system. Explaining the reasons for the extra funding House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman said.

“With nearly every square inch of Israel at risk from rocket and missile attacks, we must ensure that our most important ally in the region has the tools to defend itself.”

While we blockade Gaza the Palestinian Authority has imposed its own embargo. It authorised a ban forbidding the sale of settlement goods in the West Bank. According to the decree, violators will be prosecuted and ordered to pay fines, go to jail or both. The new provision also targets those Palestinians willing to work in the settlements imposing sentences ranging from one to five years on offenders. The law does not encompass all Israeli goods, which Palestinians rely on heavily for their subsistence. The Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, promised that the PA government will continue to finance the National Dignity Fund , instituted to boost the availability of local products in the Palestinian market. The Palestinian Authority has also banned the sale of Israeli mobile SIMs and top-up cards, because the phone networks locate signal towers in Jewish settlements

It remains to be seen how effective these prohibitions will be.

Have a good weekend.

Beni 27^th of May, 2010.