Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 1997, Pages 53-54

From the Hebrew Press

Current Translations and Commentary From Israel’s Hebrew-Language Newspapers

By Dr. Israel Shahak

Political and Economic Relations Between the EU and Israel

Globe , Aug. 13, 1997

Leading article by Ora Koren

The European Union (EU) has removed diplomatic gloves in its relations with Israel and has made unambiguously clear that the future of economic negotiations between the EU and Israel will depend on advances in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

By taking this step, the EU has put back the clock of its relations with Israel by many years. The top officials of the Israeli Foreign, Finance and Trade and Industry Ministries have been surprised by this step, since it was taken only two days after Foreign Minister David Levy returned from Brussels and reported about the sympathetic meetings he had there. However, in addition to the clarification of EU attitudes made in an official letter signed by Manuel Madin, head of the EU's department for relations with Middle Eastern states, there were also clear hints that the EU may reconsider the existing agreement of economic relations between it and Israel if Israel inflicts greater hardships on the Palestinians.

The EU is the most important Israeli market and thus the EU's politicization of its economic relations with Israel is not a cheering prospect. It is true that the EU has been considered as supporting the Palestinians for a long time, although after the Oslo accords were signed it made some efforts to take a slightly more balanced attitude, but, so far, the EU political position did not interfere too much with Israel's trade relations with the EU, as evidenced by the agreement on economic association. Now there is a danger that Israel's trade relations with the EU will retrogress to their level of the 1980s and the better relations established lately would be lost.

The conclusions which should be drawn by Israel are, first, that the EU did not change its hostile attitudes to Israel as some in the Israeli government tended to assume, especially during the Rabin and Peres era. That estimate, now proven to be mistaken, was based on the EU's readiness to sign the agreement of economic association and to enter into a dialogue conducted on a high level with Israel. Second, Israeli positions might yet cause greater hardening of the EU's attitudes and cause damage, not only to the government, but to Israeli private business. The EU is notorious for employing the weapon of delay against business leaders in states it dislikes, and the EU's displeasure may thus cause great harm to Israel's private sector by subjecting its deals to troublesome delays.

By now the Israeli government takes the EU attitudes seriously. "The EU took arrogant positions since the time that its representative, Moratinos, began traveling between Middle Eastern capitals, seeking to lower U.S. influence," say senior sources in Jerusalem. The sources express apprehension that the EU might even inflict economic sanctions on Israel, giving for its reason the Israeli sanctions on the Palestinians.

Because of this, it would be well if Israel would test the possibility of increasing its economic relations with the U.S., which are anyhow more in its favor, and decrease its economic relations with the EU, which anyhow are causing Israel a trade deficit of many billions of dollars.¹

NOTES:

1. The last published statistical data, for 1994, show that the EU and the U.S. are the largest trade partners of Israel. Out of a total of $23,701 billion in Israeli imports for that year, $14,901 billion were imported from the EU and $4,271 billion from the U.S. Out of a total of $17,006 billion in Israeli exports for that year, $4,789 billion were exported to the EU and $5,277 billion to the U.S. Hence, while Israel has a large positive balance of trade with the U.S., its trade with the EU results in a negative balance of about $10 billion a year, earned by the EU. It may be suspected that this situation is not without its influence on EU politics. Let me add that if Israeli exports to Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore and Switzerland are added to the U.S. and the EU, it would be found that 74 percent of all Israeli exports goes to those seven rich trading partners.

The Revoking of Residency Rights in Jerusalem Has Caused about 22,000 Palestinians to Return to the City

Kol Ha'ir, Aug. 22, 1997

By Gidi Weiz

In the meeting of the "Management Committee for Jerusalem Affairs"¹ held this week and chaired by Avigdor Kahalani, the Internal Security minister, representatives of the Israeli police and Shabak strongly criticized the policy of the Interior Ministry to revoke the residency rights of Palestinians in Jerusalem if they have not actually lived in the city for seven years. In the discussion that has ensued, security representatives claimed that this policy is mistaken since it has caused 22,000 Palestinians who had left the city before it has been initiated to return hurriedly to Jerusalem, being afraid that their valuable residency rights, allowing them to move around in Israel and work in it,² would be revoked.

The director of the census department in the Interior Ministry reported that, since the policy of revoking residency rights in Jerusalem was initiated, about 1,300 persons have had their rights revoked. Out of this number about 1,100 live permanently abroad and 200³ in Jerusalem's periphery. Kahalani and the security representatives responded that the numbers are unimportant, since the rumors about the extent of this policy, spread among the Palestinians in the territories, had caused so many of them to return to Jerusalem, when the former policy had successfully encouraged their emigration. In addition, the return of so many Palestinians to Jerusalem has caused a great scarcity of housing and increased crime. The Interior Ministry promised to take this criticism into consideration and initiate changes in the existing policy.⁴

NOTES:

1. This committee consists of representatives of government ministries and institutions and decides on long-term Israeli policies in Jerusalem.

2. And giving them some protection against the arbitrary manner of Arafat's regime and its secret or uniformed police.

3. I doubt the accuracy of those figures, especially the first. I suspect that many Palestinians described as "living permanently abroad" have only made some trips abroad and actually live in Jerusalem.

4. Needless to say, both sides want to remove as many Palestinians as possible from Jerusalem without causing Israel too great a damage in international public opinion. Nevertheless, the difference between the policies advocated by the security factors, which represent more or less those which were carried out by Labor, and the new policy of the Netanyahu government is very significant in my view. Labor pays attention to the effectiveness only and tries to avoid noisy and merely demonstrative acts, liable to be counterproductive. Likud is interested, first of all, in making a lot of noise in order to impress its supporters, but the apartheid policies carried out by it are liable to be less efficient than Labor's. It is important to note that Palestinian leadership protested very little against Labor's policies of a "quiet removal" of Palestinians from Jerusalem, even when they involved great numbers of people, and only protests Likud's noisy ones.

The Battle for Land in Israel

Ha'aretz, Aug. 20, 1997

By Josef Algazy

The battle for land is not limited to the occupied territories. Last month, the "Green Patrol"¹ in the Negev, escorted by police, entered the Bedouin village of Al Wakili and delivered to each of its inhabitants a court order, following the demand of the Israel Land Administration (ILA), to evacuate the area on which they had lived for generations. On the request of the Israel Land Authority, the Magistrate Court in Beersheva had ordered the Bedouin of the Al Azazma tribe to evacuate, within six months, the land in the Ramat Hovav area, where the Israeli military government had ordered them to settle in 1953 after evicting them from their former habitation. The Bedouin have resisted forcible attempts to transfer them to the town of Segev Shalom² because they want a piece of land where they can live as farmers.³

The inhabitants of the Arab village of Tarshiha in the Galilee (annexed years ago to the Jewish town of Ma'alot) erected a protest tent for 10 days against implementation of the third stage of the Kfar Veradim project on 1,800 dunums [450 acres] intended only for Jews, the only land reserve possessed by their village. "We fight against the renewal of our strangulation," said Fadil Khoury, a "Sons of Tarshiha Committee" member. "We are surrounded from the north by the settlement of Me'ona, south by Kfar Veradim, east by Ma'alot and now Kfar Veradim, and its patron Steff Wertheimer, wants to close us off from the west."⁴

The Yanuah and Jatt villages also fight against a scheme to transfer 1,700 dunums, about a third of the area under jurisdiction of their local councils, to Kfar Veradim. Wertheimer says, "The complaints against Kfar Veradim originate from a continuous chauvinistic incitement. Ma'alot-Tarshiha council has to provide land for Arab inhabitants. As far as Yanuah and Jatt are concerned, we have received back plots that ILA gave the Arabs illegally when it was controlled by former Interior Minister Der'i."⁵

Basically, the conflict with the Druze inhabitants of the villages of Beit-Jann and Horfeish about the transit road in the Nature Reserve near their villages is about the control of land. Leaders in both villages made it clear, more than once, that the proclamation of these areas as Nature Reserves is one of the ways to expropriate their land.⁶

The battle for the land has an additional aspect, the demolition of houses built without permits. Illegal building of houses by the Arabs is a necessity because of natural growth and the severe difficulties in obtaining a permit. The last demolition of houses was last month, when 13 structures were destroyed in Abu Kaidar in the Negev and the house of Munib Najib was demolished in Bayna in the Galilee. The local committee of the Jewish settlements in the Beit Hakerem valley has decided to carry out 23 demolition orders of Arab houses. There is a real danger that their implementation will lead to violent clashes.

As in the past, evacuation of Arabs from land and demolition of their houses was preceded by declarations on the dangers of "Bedouin taking over national land in the Negev" and that "in 2020 there will be an Arab majority in the north," or that "Arabs sit on Jewish water reserves." All these declarations were inspired by the Ministries of Building and Housing, Agriculture and Infrastructures, headed by Deputy Minister Porush,⁷ and Ministers Eitan and Sharon respectively. The territory of Israel contains 22.17 million dunums. Of this, 19.5 million, 92 percent of the total area, is managed by the ILA. The status of 0.8 million dunam is not yet clear, and the rest is private land. Most of the land with an unclear legal status is in the Negev and is a subject of controversy with the Bedouin, politically the weakest group in Israel by far. Their chances to succeed are nil. They feel that Israel is pushing them into a corner.

In a meeting held in June by the Haifa University Jewish-Arab center on the theme, "Israel as a Jewish and/or democratic state?", one of the participants, Dr. Ramsey Suleiman, said that the Arabs (nearly 19 percent of the population) possess only about 4 percent of the land in Israel. The continuation of the policy of their expropriation is justly conceived by Arab citizens of Israel as a hostile move against them, and already today some of them believe that a new "Land Day" is necessary.

NOTES:

1. The "Green Patrol" is one of the most racist and brutal Israeli institutions, almost unknown abroad because it is a "left" body, associated with such holy cows as the kibbutz movement. It was founded by the first Rabin government, in 1976, in order "to keep the national [i.e. devoted only to the benefit of the Jews] land from being taken over by the Arabs [that is Arab Israeli citizens]." In addition, using the most arbitrary and brutal methods, it prevents Bedouin from pasturing their herds on "state land." Most of the "Green Patrol" membership comes either from kibbutz members or the supervisors of the Nature Reserve who usually belong to the "left."

2. All the towns which the (Labor) Israeli governments have built for the Bedouin were given Hebrew names. The Bedouin (most of whom serve in the Israeli army) were strictly forbidden to name their own towns.

3. Most of the Negev Bedouin are becoming farmers. It is a process which began more than 100 years ago, under the Ottoman Empire, and is occurring throughout the entire Middle East.

4. All localities mentioned are intended for Jews only and are supported by Labor. Steff Wertheimer is a "peace-loving" and racist industrialist.

5. Der'i belongs to the non-Zionist (and in some ways anti-Zionist) party Shas. When he was interior minister he was more just to the Israeli Arabs than any interior minister in Israel's history. It is possible that he also acquired political influence among the Israeli Arabs (which he did), but in my view the chief reason for his better behavior was that he is not a Zionist. In my view the political attack on him, led chiefly by the "left," was caused mainly by his good attitude to Israeli Arabs.

6. I fully agree, but would add that for most of the Zionist "left" what they call "nature preservation" (including care for animals) is a good way of expelling the Arabs.

7. Because the rabbis of the Ashkenazi Haredi party "Yahadut Hatora" (formerly Agudat Yisrael) have forbidden its MKs to become ministers, Netanyahu is formally building and housing minister and Porush is only his deputy. In reality the latter, an Arab-hater, has all the power.

Poll: A Majority of Israeli Jews Oppose Israeli Arab Voting Rights

Ma'ariv, Aug. 21, 1997

By a Ma'ariv correspondent

A majority of Israeli Jewish citizens of Israel want to deprive Israeli Arabs of their voting rights. This was shown by a special poll taken for the Israeli radio program "Yinyan Aher" ["Another problem"]. Of those asked, 56.4 percent disagreed with Arab participation in elections for prime minister. In the poll, which addressed itself to the problem of attitudes toward Israeli Arab citizens, 500 people were asked for their views.

Other findings of the poll are: The majority of Israeli Jews who agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state do it with the aim of transferring the Arab citizens of Israel to the new state. A majority of Israeli Jews opposes participation of Arabs in referenda of a political nature. In answer to the question whether Israeli Arab citizens of Israel frighten them, 51.7 percent answered positively and 48.3 percent negatively. However, 54.4 percent said that Arab citizens of Israel contribute positively to the society.¹ >>

NOTES:

1. Many other and better polls give more or less the same picture, which also points to the polarization of Israeli Jewish society. Let me add that the situation in this respect has considerably worsened since Oslo, as could only be expected. The worst deterioration has taken place among the youth (ages 16-29, approximately). Dogmatic supporters of Oslo simply refuse to see the evidence lying before their eyes.