{"id":72822,"date":"2016-05-02T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2016-05-02T11:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=72822"},"modified":"2016-04-29T16:25:07","modified_gmt":"2016-04-29T15:25:07","slug":"on-israels-recent-threats-of-civil-assassinations-of-bds-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/05\/on-israels-recent-threats-of-civil-assassinations-of-bds-activists\/","title":{"rendered":"On Israel\u2019s Recent Threats of \u201cCivil Assassinations\u201d of BDS Activists"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"omar<\/a>18 Apr 2016 – <\/em>Some, including journalists, have written to me inquiring about or voicing their concern at the recent Israeli government minister\u2019s threat of \u201ccivil targeted killing\u201d against BDS \u201cleaders\u201d and activists.<\/p>\n

There is of course a good reason to be seriously alarmed when government ministers anywhere make such threats against human rights defenders. So imagine the seriousness of the threats when made by an increasingly pariah and lawless regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid that practices extrajudicial killing against Palestinians with impunity and that considers even Zionist Israeli dissenters<\/a> who dare to reveal \u2014 self-censored and cherry-picked \u2014 Israeli war crimes as \u201ctraitors<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is worth remembering that in 1995 then hawkish <\/a>Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a fanatic Jewish-Israeli who was influenced by a campaign tainting Rabin as \u201ctraitor<\/a>.\u201d Current Israeli leaders were silent about or even involved in that incitement campaign.<\/p>\n

Rabin will always be remembered by Palestinians as the Israeli leader who ordered and orchestrated the ethnic cleansing<\/a> of Palestinian cities Lydda and Ramleh in 1948. He will also be remembered as the minister of \u201cdefense\u201d who in the first intifada (1987-1992)\u00a0ordered <\/a>his soldiers to \u201cbreak the bones<\/a>\u201d of captured Palestinian children and youth to prevent them from throwing stones at the occupation forces.<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ukXAFxI8Ix4<\/p>\n

Still, the atmosphere then was significantly more \u201ccivil\u201d than it is today! The Israeli \u201cjustice\u201d system was still pretending then to be independent and professional; settlers did not have the effective control<\/a> on government that they have today.<\/p>\n

The level of criminal impunity<\/a> that pervades the Israeli establishment today has triggered US Senator Patrick Leahy to ask Secretary of State John Kerry to investigate whether US tax money is helping Israel in committing \u201cextrajudicial killings<\/a>\u201d of Palestinians.<\/p>\n

It is not everyday that such a ranking senator courageouly asserts that he owes it to US taxpayers to have military aid to Israel reviewed in light of its \u201cgross human rights violations.\u201d Loyalty<\/a> to Israel\u2019s far-right regime of oppression is a considerably higher priority in the US Senate, after all, than it is to American taxpayers.<\/p>\n

Back to the veiled Israeli govenrment threat to harm BDS activists, here are the facts.<\/p>\n

As was\u00a0reported\u00a0<\/a>in the Israeli media, Israeli\u00a0Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz said (Hebrew<\/a>) at the largest Israeli anti-BDS conference, held\u00a0on March 28 in Jerusalem, that Israel should engage in \u201ctargeted civil eliminations<\/strong>\u201d of BDS \u201cleaders\u201d with the help of Israeli intelligence, intentionally using language that plays on the Hebrew term for \u201ctargeted assassinations.\u201d My name was mentioned in thiscontext<\/a>.<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=19-hmgaM1ZQ<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the\u00a0link\u00a0<\/a>to a\u00a0youtube for speeches by minister of interior Arieh Deri and minister of intelligence Yisrael Katz. It is professionally\u00a0and accurately translated and subtitled by\u00a0a Jewish-Israeli human rights activist (and colleague).<\/p>\n

Several of my colleagues (Palestinian, international as well as Jewish-Israeli\u00a0BDS leading activists) and I feel alarmed and seriously concerned for our\u00a0physical safety<\/em>\u00a0after this top-level threat.<\/p>\n

We are not panicking, needeless to say; neither will this remotely thwart our human rights work. But we do not take such threats lightly either.<\/p>\n

We are\u00a0still working on collecting the threats and attacks made by other\u00a0Israeli government ministers and political leaders\u00a0against the BDS movement (and against me by name), like Ayelet Shaked (minister of justice), Gilad Erdan (minister of strategic affairs and anti-BDS czar), etc.<\/p>\n

Minister Yisrael Katz in his statements plays on the official Israeli military term for assassination, \u201ctargeted thwarting,\u201d and adds \u201ccivil\u201d to it.<\/p>\n

As Israeli colleagues have pointed out, adding \u201ccivil\u201d to\u00a0a\u00a0term used for many years by Israeli\u00a0officials to indicate\u00a0assassination\u00a0<\/em>is ambiguous\u00a0at best.\u00a0BDS <\/a>is a global nonviolent human rights movement led by the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest <\/a>coalition in Palestinian civil society. Established in 2005, on the first anniversary of the ICJ advisory opinion against Israel\u2019s wall, BDS calls for fundamental Palestinian rights under international law.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0BDS movement is anchored in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and rejects, accordingly, all forms of racism and discrimination on the basis of identity, including anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n

In the last couple of years, Israel has been\u00a0desperately waging a legal warfare (lawfare) against BDS, after failing for 10 years to even slow down the impressive spread<\/a> of the movement. Israel is\u00a0fostering an environment\u00a0in France, the UK, the US, Canada, Germany, Australia and elsewhere \u00a0akin to McCarthyism, advocating for extreme suppression of<\/a>\u00a0civil liberties and freedom of speech. But\u00a0still, this is the first time that an Israeli government minister so violently\u00a0incites\u00a0<\/a>against Palestinian human rights defenders.<\/p>\n

As Katz has\u00a0openly alerted us in his statements, Israel\u2019s intelligence services plan to fabricate supposed connections between BDS \u201cleaders\u201d and \u201cterror organizations.\u201d Aside from sullying our names, this\u00a0mafia-like campaign of\u00a0intimidation\u00a0is\u00a0implicitly setting the ground for\u00a0physically harming us, especially in light of the toxic atmoshpere in Israel.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s Chief Rabbi for the Sephardic community is calling for the\u00a0ethnic cleansing<\/a>\u00a0of all \u201cnon-Jews\u201d from \u201cthe land of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Jewish settler leader has called Palestinian and other Christians \u201cblood sucking vampires<\/a>\u201d who should be \u201cexpelled\u201d from Israel. He called for torching even more of our churches, after many Palestinian churches and mosques have indeed been torched by far-right settlers, while protected, and therefore supported, by the Israeli military, security forces and judiciary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Settlers who have torched to death Palestinian toddler Ali Dawabsheh<\/a> and his parents last year and later celebrated their gruesome acts of terror have yet to be sentenced for the murders<\/a>. This has naturally encouraged other settlers to torch the house of the remaining eyewitness to the crime, Ali\u2019s uncle.<\/p>\n

Summing up a growing sentiment<\/a> among Israeli dissenters, the prominent Israeli journalist Gideon Levy<\/a> called 2015, \u201cthe year of blatant and unapologetic Israeli fascism.\u201d I wonder how Levy might describe 2016 when it ends.<\/p>\n

It is in this specific environment of rampant racism, criminality and utter impunity <\/a>that one needs to read minister Katz\u2019s threat of \u201ctargeted civil elimination.\u201d In Israeli society\u00a0today, as Senator Leahy rightly notes,\u00a0soldiers, security forces and armed\u00a0settlers\u00a0easily get away with murder of Palestinians, quite literally<\/p>\n

Indeed,\u00a0\u201ctargeted civil assassination\u201d\u00a0could well be\u00a0understood\u00a0by far-right settlers or other extremist elements in Israel as a license to kill by a \u201ccivilian,\u201d rather than by the military\/security apparatus.<\/p>\n

Although Katz goes around the bushes and avoids defining the term\u00a0in any accuracy, his\u00a0claim that some\u00a0BDS leaders and activists\u00a0are connected to \u201cterrorism\u201d and \u201cterrorist organizations\u201d<\/p>\n

further\u00a0amplifies this\u00a0between-the-lines license to kill.<\/p>\n

The US administration and the\u00a0EU <\/a>are also responsible, of course, for this criminal impunity. Other than providing the life-line for Israel\u2019s regime of apartheid and occupation, arming it to its teeth and protecting it from any serious international sanctions for decades, the US and the EU sent their Tel Aviv ambassadors to participate in this Israeli anti-BDS conference. They have yet to raise a peep in protest over the implicit threat to neutralize human rights defenders that were made there.<\/p>\n

This amounts to a tacit US and EU green light to Israel to go ahead with its mad and illegal war on the nonviolent BDS movement and its main activists, in Palestine and around the world.<\/p>\n

This is the reason why I am seriously concerned for my physical safety and that of my Palestinian, Israeli and international BDS colleagues. We hold the Israeli government responsible for any physical harm that may be inflicted on any of us as a result of this vile attempt to silence our voices.<\/p>\n

We also hold the US administration and the EU partially responsible for any such attacks.<\/p>\n

Regardless of their position on BDS, human rights organizations and citizens of the world who care about civil rights and human rights are called upon to\u00a0take a clear position defending our right to advocate for BDS<\/a>\u00a0as a matter of consience and free speech. They are also called upon to\u00a0condemn in unambiguous terms\u00a0this unprecedented<\/p>\n

Israeli government incitement to violence against Palestinian and other human rights defenders.<\/p>\n

Moshe Dayan once said <\/a>that\u00a0\u201cIsrael must be like a mad\u00a0dog, too dangerous to bother.\u201d The current Israeli regime is scrupulously heeding Dayan\u2019s advice. But \u201cmad dogs\u201d can be stopped. Indeed, mad dogs must be stopped, as there is no telling whom they may bite next.<\/p>\n

_______________________________<\/p>\n

Omar Barghouti,<\/em> born 1964, is a founding committee member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel<\/a> (PACBI) and a co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions<\/a> movement. Barghouti was born in Qatar, grew up in Egypt and later moved to Jaffa in Israel as an adult. He holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Columbia University. Although Barghouti actively lobbies for worldwide economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel, Barghouti himself is currently studying at Tel Aviv University (TAU). He holds a master’s degree in philosophy (ethics) from the university, and is pursuing a PhD.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 bdssouthafrica.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

18 Apr 2016 – Some, including journalists, have written to me inquiring about or voicing their concern at the recent Israeli government minister\u2019s threat of \u201ccivil targeted killing\u201d against BDS \u201cleaders\u201d and activists. Moshe Dayan once said that \u201cIsrael must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.\u201d The current Israeli regime is scrupulously heeding Dayan\u2019s advice. But \u201cmad dogs\u201d can be stopped. Indeed, mad dogs must be stopped, as there is no telling whom they may bite next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}