Category Archives: Viva!

Incarceration of Left-wing Japanese Newspaper Editor Sparks Fears of Threat to Free Speech

Japan Jinmin Shimbun Peoples News

Police raid the offices of Jimmin Shimbun (The Peoples News) on November 24. Photo sourced from Jimmin Shimbun’s Twitter account.

On November 21, in the Hyogo prefecture of Kansai region of Japan’s main island, Honshu, police raided the office of Jimmin Shimbun (The People’s News), one of Japan’s most established left-wing newspapers, and arrested Yamada Yoichi, the editor-in-chief, on suspicion of fraud. He was then formally indicted on December 12. As of December 28, Yamada remains detained by Hyogo police.

The raid has stoked fears that a contentious, vaguely-defined new ‘conspiracy law’ is being used to stifle freedom of expression, and also highlights a still-vibrant left-wing political scene in Japan with links to radical groups from the 1960s and 1970s.

In an official statement published on its website, the newspaper said that the raid involved over twenty officers who refused to show a warrant and questioned residents in the building where the newspaper operates. Jimmin Shimbun reported that all of its computers were seized, along with other documents, and that the editor’s residence along with two other locations in Tokyo were also raided.

Supporters of Jimmin Shimbun also claim that police who spoke with tenants in the building attempted to create an impression of the newspaper as a dangerous or illegal organization.

Jimmin Shimbun has protested the police raids and the detainment of its chief editor and has initiated various online campaigns to highlight what happened. It also issued a call for police officers who participated in the raid to be identified online.

【拡散】これが人民新聞を家宅捜索、編集長を逮捕、住民を検問した兵庫県警公安三課です。顔を覚えて抗議の集中を http://pic.twitter.com/H6Bh0gsR78

— 人民新聞(編集長不当逮捕許さない) (@jimminshimbun) November 22, 2017

[Share this] Jimmin Shimbun premises searched, editor arrested, citizens questioned by members of the Hyogo prefectural public safety division. Remember these faces, and let’s fight back against (this group).

Is Japan’s new “conspiracy law” being used to crack down on freedom of speech?

Following Yamada’s arrest, a petition was quickly launched on Change.org calling on the National Police Agency to release the editor. Aside from calling for Yamada’s release, the petition highlights the perceived threat posed by Japan’s recently enacted and highly contentiousconspiracy law” (known in Japan as 共謀罪, or kyogizai) and a “crackdown” on anti-government voices.

The petition notes:

We are very concerned that these types of suppression against citizens by the police will expand. The whole purpose of [the conspiracy law] is to repress citizen movement and the press. We consider that the police has now begun to apply this conspiracy law on innocent citizens.

Yamada’s arrest was reported in some mainstream Japanese sources, although coverage of events since the raid in late November has mostly been limited to left-leaning and sympathetic media publications, and by the Jimmin Shimbun itself. Despite the loss of its equipment in the police raid, Jimmin Shimbun has continued to publish three editions of the newspaper a month.

Founded in Osaka in 1968 as Shinsayoku (The New Left), Jimmin Shimbun adopted its current name in 1976. The various Marxist factions that once wreaked havoc around Japan’s university campuses are now a mere shadow of their former selves as membership declines.

Over the course of its history, the newspaper’s pages have carried announcements and statements from the Japanese Red Army (JRA), a Marxist militant group formed in 1971, and it even published an anthology of the JRA’s propaganda texts in 1979.

Though independent and unaffiliated with a specific leftist faction, the newspaper’s historical and present links to the JRA have meant police regard it as a hub for sympathizers.

In fact, Jimmin Shimbun is just one example of a vibrant subculture of gazettes, newsletters, journals and newspapers published by an array of political groups in Japan sold at specialist bookstores and distributed among activists.

The scholar Wesley Sasaki-Uemura has described these as “micro-publics” that started to emerge after the failure of the 1960 protests against the US-Japan security treaty. However, the existence of publications like Jimmin Shimbun is proof that there is still a small but active left-wing community in Japan.

Raid linked to funds used to support former Japanese Red Army member now living in Lebanon

The allegations against Yamada that justified the raid involve a bank account he opened under his own name in February 2012. Yamada was provided with two bank cards for the account, and authorities allege Yamada used the account to receive funds donated by a network devoted to supporting Okamoto Kozo, a 70-year-old former Japanese Red Army member who now lives in Beirut, Lebanon.

Police say that almost all of the approximately 10 million yen (about $88,000 USD) placed in the account since it was opened was withdrawn in Lebanon with one of the bank cards, and used by people caring for Okamoto in Lebanon. While Okamoto is still wanted by police in Japan, he was granted legal asylum by the Lebanese government in 2000.

現在も逃亡中のメンバー

■佐々木規夫、奥平純三

佐々木隊として活動中。

■坂東國男、大道寺あや子

坂東隊として活動中。

■岡本公三

レバノンに亡命中。

■松田久

重信房子の側近だったが、重信逮捕後の動向は不明。

■仁平映

消息不明。 http://pic.twitter.com/vt5bhCrB6n

— 日本赤軍bot (@JapanRedArmyBot) July 5, 2017

A typical “most-wanted” poster of Japanese Red Army members; some are still at large, while the whereabouts of others is unknown or may have deceased. Okamoto is pictured bottom-right.

Okamoto went to Lebanon in the early 1970s to join up with the nascent Japanese Red Army, then a loose circle of volunteers under the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He is the sole living member of the Japanese group who attacked Lod Airport (Ben Gurion Airport) in Israel in May 1972. The attack killed 28 people, including his two Japanese comrades.

Okamoto was captured by the Israeli armed forces and kept in solitary confinement for several years, during which he had a nervous breakdown. He was released in a prisoner exchange in the 1980s and was later arrested in Beirut in 1997 and put on trial with several peers for visa violations.

Ultimately Okamoto was allowed to stay in Lebanon as a political exile after his fellow defendants were extradited to Japan in 2000. Orion no Kai (Orion Group) was then formed by supporters in Japan to fund his living costs.

In addition to Okamoto, a handful of ex-members of the now-disbanded JRA remain at large, presumably overseas, and their faces are a common sight on wanted posters at police substations around Japan. For the JRA’s various associates residing domestically, surveillance is an accepted fact of life.

However, the arrest of the Jimmin Shimbum editor and the raid on its office indicates that the police will now exploit opportunities to crack down on left-wing press publications and prevent them from disseminating information.

Fraudulent charges mask freedom of speech crackdowns

Critics of the raid and Yamada’s arrest believe Yamada was targeted as a supporter of former JRA affiliate Okamoto. They that the fraud charge was a convenient excuse to raid the newspaper and steal its list of subscribers.

Police looking ahead to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics intend to keep tabs on past leftists, much as they did in the run-up to the G7 summit in 2016.

人民新聞の編集長が不当逮捕され、起訴されました。詐欺罪で。でも被害者はいません。これは言論弾圧です。暖房のない寒い拘置所へ移送されるそうです。何もしてないのに何ヶ月も出れない。嘘ばかりの詐欺軍団の安倍政権やレイプ犯山口を逮捕したらどうなんだ!#人民新聞#ヤバすぎる緊急事態条項

— marumaru (@marumaruzun) December 12, 2017

The chief editor of Jimmin Shimbun has been unjustly arrested and indicted for fraud. However, there is no victim at all. Instead, (Yamada’s arrest) is suppression of speech. Yamada has been taken to a cold cell with no heater. He hasn’t done anything wrong, and yet will be detained for several months. Instead it’s the lying Abe clique […] that should be arrested!

As of December 29, Yamada remains detained by Japanese police as prosecutors build a case against him. Jimmin Shimbun supporters have held events and protests outside the police station in Hyogo where Yamada is confined.

While some might say the left-wing newspaper is a relic from another era, Jimmin Shimbun epitomizes the feisty voice of veteran left-wing activism in Japan that is accustomed to confronting the state.

Written by William Andrews, Nevin Thompson · comments (0)
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What Russian Journalists Uncovered About Russian Election Meddling

thanks – aleksey godin

Much of 2017 was consumed with untangling the political mess that was 2016 and Russia’s role in it. Much of what we learned came from  American journalists, who brought us revelation after revelation about how the Kremlin meddled in the presidential election. Through these reporters’ domestic sources—in the White House, Congress, and the intelligence community—we learned how Russians bought Facebook ads aimed at sowing division; how Russian government agencies hacked the Democratic National Committee and congressional races; how Russians loosely affiliated with the Kremlin reached out to the Trump campaign; and how the Kremlin turned the popular Kaspersky Labs anti-virus software into a spying tool.

Very little information came from the other side—from Russian journalists. Arguably, we learned far more from their stories about Russian campaign interference than from American news stories. Yet you can count on one hand the stories about it published in Russian media.

Here’s a rundown of what we learned from the Russian press this year:

  • In an updated edition of their book, The Red Web, Russian journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan—veteran reporters on the Russian secret services—revealed how and when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the attack on the American election. It happened, according to Soldatov and Borogan, at a meeting in April between Putin and a small inner circle of his national security advisors, most of them former KGB officers. Putin’s decision was also reportedly an emotional, knee-jerk one, in retaliation to the release of the Panama Papers, which implicated him. Because of Putin’s highly conspirological mindset, he apparently blamed Goldman Sachs and Hillary Clinton for the release of the embarrassing information, Soldatov and Borogan reported.
  • An October report from the Russian business media outlet RBC explained in great detail how the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, also known as the “troll factory,” operated during the 2016 election. The report, authored by two Russian journalists, detailed the funding, budget, operating methods, and tactics, of the 100 trolls who spent 2016 populating American social media sites with divisive commentary and imitating civil rights groups. The report showed how the Agency was financed through its owner, Putin’s court caterer Yevgeny Prigozhin. It also detailed the reach of various politically inflammatory posts. It showed, for example, how the Agency produced over 20 Facebook posts that gathered over a million unique views each.
  • That same month, TVRain, Russia’s last independent television network, interviewed “Maxim,” a man who had worked as a troll at this factory. He revealed that the factory was largely staffed by college students from the prestigious St. Petersburg State University, Russia’s university; their majors included international relations, linguistics, and journalism. They were, in other words, young, educated, worldly, and urban—the very cohort Americans imagine would rise up against someone like Putin. Instead, they worked in the factory, making nearly double the average Russian’s salary, sowing discord on Twitter, Facebook, and in the comments sections of various websites. They were instructed not to mention Russia, but instead to focus on issues that divided Americans, like guns and race. They learned their subject matter by reading Americans’ social media posts and by watching House of Cards, effectively weaponizing American culture and openness.
  • Last week, TVRain ran a written interview with Konstantin Kozlovsky, who is currently in a Russian prison for hacking into various Russian banks. He confessed to hacking the DNC and to creating the viruses Lurk and Wanna Cry, the latter of which is responsible for a ransomware attack that paralyzed computer networks across the world. Kozlovsky told the journalists how he had been entrapped and blackmailed into working for the FSB, the main Russian security agency, nearly a decade ago. He said that when he hacked into the servers of the DNC, he purposely left behind a calling card: a data file with the number of his visa to the Caribbean Island of St. Martin, as well as his passport number. Kozlovsky also said that he was arrested now because the FSB wanted “to hide the digital traces” of what he did. (It’s worth noting that many of these claims are unverified.)
  • Earlier this month, the Bell, a scrappy upstart website based outside of Russia, published a detailed exposé by the legendary Russian investigative journalist Svetlana Reiter about the four Russian men—two of them high-ranking FSB cyber warriors—arrested in Moscow last December in connection with the 2016 election hack. Reiter delved into the mystery of why the men were charged with, of all things, passing information to the CIA about the Russian cyber-attack. According to Reiter, they had been set up by a rival faction in Russian military intelligence, the GRU. The rivalry, which Soldatov and Borogan had also reported on, centered on securing both the prestige and budgetary funds that came with penetrating U.S. government cyber-defenses. This had previously been the exclusive domain of the FSB—once run by Putin—and the GRU was trying to muscle in on the FSB’s territory and money. A side effect of this internal rivalry, Reiter concluded, was how the Americans discovered the hack.

Why has there been so little reporting on Russian election interference coming out of the place that perpetrated it? For one thing, the Russian security services and the Kremlin do not leak, at least not nearly as much as their American counterparts, and they are suspicious of Western journalists, of whom there are fewer and fewer these days. Russian government officials also “don’t like talking to independent journalists, but they’re still better to talk to than to American journalists,” said Liza Osetinskaya, a legendary Russian editor who now runs The Bell.

The problem is that independent journalism in Russia has been decimated. Even if those on the inside are willing to talk to a local journalist, there are fewer and fewer of them around. After returning to the Kremlin for a third term, Putin cracked down on the independent press. The Kremlin put pressure on the businessmen who owned these media outlets, as well as on advertisers and cable and satellite networks to squeeze the space in which independent media had flourished during Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency. Several outlets were shut down, and people like Osetinskaya were pushed out by business owners wary of Kremlin pressure, in favor of more loyal, and less enterprising, editorial teams.

Osetinskaya, who oversaw investigations of Putin’s family’s wealth, was pushed out of the more mainstream RBC, and now runs The Bell from the Bay Area with a skeleton crew of reporters and editors scattered all over the world. It’s no coincidence that it was this outlet that produced such a detailed and explosive report. TVRain, which broke two of the stories summarized above, was nearly shuttered under Kremlin pressure in 2014. Instead, it was left for dead as an online-only channel. Its reach, along with its advertising revenue, and, consequently, its salaries, are a fraction of what they were just five years ago.

Facing this kind of political and economic pressure, many of Russia’s journalists—many of them among the country’s best—either left home or abandoned the profession altogether. This is apparently the case with the journalists who published the RBC report on the troll factory: After receiving threats, they left journalism. What we are witnessing “is the last phase of the death of independent Russian media,” Galina Timchenko said at last summer’s Aspen Ideas Festival. She is another well-known Russian editor forced out under Kremlin pressure. She now runs the independent Meduza from Latvia. It has a fraction of the reach of the outlet she ran for a decade, Lenta.ru.

The squelching of press freedom and the shuttering of independent media abroad is, in other words, not an academic matter. As 2017 has shown, when these voices are silenced, we know far less than we need about vital national security interests. If the violation of an abstract principle doesn’t bother you, its very concrete repercussions should.

Australian air force put on alert after Russian long-range bombers headed south

ROTFLMAO

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Russia thought to be extending its Pacific influence after nuclear-capable aircraft carry out military exercises in Indonesia

An Australian air force base was put on alert while Russian strategic bombers conducted exercises in neutral waters off Indonesia, a move experts said showed Moscow was looking to extend its influence in the Pacific.

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Dozens of Israeli teens: ‘We refuse to enlist out of a commitment to peace’

‘Testimonies of former soldiers teach us that the reality of occupation does not allow one to make a difference from within. The power to change reality does not lay with the single soldier — but with the system as a whole.’

Solidarity protesters and family members protest for Israeli conscientious objector Tair Kaminer, Prison 400, central Israel, January 23, 2016. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Solidarity protesters and family members protest for Israeli conscientious objector Tair Kaminer, Prison 400, central Israel, January 23, 2016. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Sixty-three Israeli teenagers have published an open letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu on Thursday, declaring their refusal to join the Israeli army due to their opposition to the occupation.

[tmwinpost]

“The army carries out a racist government policy that enforces one legal system for Israelis and another for Palestinian in the same territory,” they write. “Therefore, we have decided not to take any part in the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people… for as long as people live under an occupation that denies their human rights and national rights – we cannot have peace.”

The group calls itself the “2017 Seniors’ Letter,” continuing a long tradition of similar letters sent by high school seniors announcing their refusal to join the army, dating back to 1970 (the writer of this text was a signatory of the 2001 letter). Members of the group have stated they are willing to be imprisoned for their conscientious objection; one of them, Matan Helman, is already serving a prison sentence. The teens have also stated they will be traveling the country, speaking to others their age, challenging them to rethink their positions on military service and inviting them to join the movement.

The Israeli army does not recognize the right to conscientiously object to the draft based on rejection of the occupation. It does, however, allow for objection based solely on pacifism and the rejection of all forms of violence. These young refusers, therefore, are likely to be denied exemptions, and sent to repeated prison sentences of two to four weeks each, as has been the case with other conscientious objectors in recent years.

In their letter, the young refusers list the occupation, the siege on Gaza, settlements, and violence toward Palestinians as the main reasons for the decision. However, they also mention the ongoing effects of militarism on the Israeli society, enshrining violent solutions instead of peace as a central value, and the effect the occupation has on strengthening Israeli capitalism and dependence on American military aid.

“Testimonies of former soldiers and heads of the security establishment teach us that the reality of occupation does not allow one to make a difference from within,” they write. “The power to change reality does not lay with the single soldier but with the system as a whole. Similarly, the blame for this reality does not lie with the soldier, but with the army and government. This is the system we wish to change.”

Israel arrests three leading Palestinian activists in West Bank

Israeli forces arrest Manal Tamimi, Jamil Barghouti, and Mundar Amira, three prominent activists in the nonviolent struggle against the occupation.

By Yael Marom

Israeli forces arrest Mundar Amira during a demonstration in support of the Tamimi women, Bethlehem, West Bank, December 27, 2017.

Israeli forces arrest Mundar Amira during a demonstration in support of the Tamimi women, Bethlehem, West Bank, December 27, 2017.

The Israeli army arrested a number of prominent activists in the Palestinian popular struggle over the past few days, during protests against President Trump’s declaration on Jerusalem, and the arrests of members of the Tamimi family.

[tmwinpost]

On Thursday, an Israeli military court decided to extend Ahed and her mother Nariman Tamimi’s detention by five more days. The court also called to release their family member, Nur, on condition, though it then called to delay the release by 48 hours. Ahed was arrested in a night raid after a video of her slapping and striking an Israeli soldier outside her home in Nabi Saleh was published. Her mother was arrested for “incitement” for publishing the video.

Throughout the hearing at Ofer Military Court on Thursday, the military prosecutor demanded that Ahed, Nur, and Nariman’s remand be extended by a week. The court partially accepted the demand, after first extending their detention on Monday. The three are suspected of disturbing the peace, assault, and insulting a civil servant.

On Thursday Israeli forces arrested Manal Tamimi, a central figure in Nabi Saleh’s popular struggle, during a solidarity protest outside Ofer. Manal is suspected of disturbing the peace and will be kept in detention until Sunday, when she is expected to be brought before a judge. Israeli forces also arrested Jamil Barghouti, another prominent activist of the popular committees, at the same demonstration.

WATCH: Manal Tamimi’s arrest outside Ofer Military Court

On Wednesday morning, Israeli forces also arrested Mundar Amira during a demonstration in Bethlehem. He will be brought before a judge on Sunday. The IDF Spokesperson claims that Amira “was arrested after taking part in a violent riot that included stone throwing at security forces in the area.”

Meanwhile, Ahed Tamimi’s Twitter account has allegedly disappeared; the company is not responding to inquiries on the matter. Amira’s Facebook account also reportedly vanished. When previously asked whether Israel is involved in blocking websites, former IDF Censor Sima Vaknin-Gil, who today serves as the director general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry, responded: “The ways of God are wonderful. Some things happen by chance, some things do not.”

Israeli soldiers arrest Jamil Barghouti while protesting outside Ofer Military Court in support of the Tamimi women, December 28, 2017. (Courtesy of PSCC)

Israeli soldiers arrest Jamil Barghouti while protesting outside Ofer Military Court in support of the Tamimi women, December 28, 2017. (Courtesy of PSCC)

Members of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee say that Israel has harshened its measures toward Palestinians since Trump’s declaration, with 15 Palestinians killed and thousands wounded in clashes with security forces. At least 610 Palestinians have been arrested during protests, ambushes, and night raids. Over 170 of those arrested have been children, along with 10 women.

The Popular Struggle Coordination Committee published a message calling to strengthen the protesters across the West Bank, Gaza, and inside Israel, as well as to continue organizing and broadening the struggle against the occupation. In addition, the Committee is calling on the international community and civil society organizations across the world to intervene to protect the rights of the Palestinian people, and support the BDS movement.

We requested a response from the Border Police Spokesperson vis-a-vis the arrest of Manal Tamimi and Jamil Barghouti. Their response will be published here as soon as it is received.

Yael Marom is Just Vision’s public engagement manager in Israel and a co-editor of Local Call, where this article was originally published in Hebrew.

Andrew Adonis quits as Theresa May’s infrastructure tsar over Brexit

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Labour peer says prime minister has become ‘voice of Ukip’ as he resigns as chair of National Infrastructure Commission

Andrew Adonis, the former Labour minister, has resigned as chair of the government-backed National Infrastructure Commission in protest at Theresa May’s management of Brexit, describing the process as “a dangerous populist and nationalist spasm worthy of Donald Trump”.

The former transport secretary headed the body that makes recommendations to the government on projects such as the high-speed rail link HS2. Most recently he recommended that 1m new homes be built in the “brain belt” spanning Oxford, Cambridge and Milton Keynes.

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todayinhistory: May 29th 1953: Hillary and Norgay reach Everest…

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todayinhistory:

May 29th 1953: Hillary and Norgay reach Everest summit

On
this day in 1953, Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay become the
first people to reach the summit of the world’s highest mountain: Mount
Everest. Many previous attempts to scale the peak had failed, but New
Zealander Hillary and Nepalese Norgay reached the top (29,028 feet) at
11.30am local time on May 29th 1953. Norgay later revealed that Hillary
had been the first to step onto the summit. The pair spent only 15
minutes taking pictures at the summit before they began their descent.
Norgay left chocolates in the snow as an offering and Hillary left a
cross that he had been given by John Hunt, leader of the expedition.
News of their success reached London on the morning of Queen Elizabeth
II’s coronation on June 2nd, and upon arrival in Kathmandu, Hillary and
Hunt discovered they had been knighted.

The Mizrahi communities destroyed by the Israeli establishment

Since its founding, Israel has systematically erased hundreds of Palestinian villages from the map. But Palestinians were never the only victims of Israeli expansion. This is the story of the Mizrahi communities erased before and after Israel’s founding.

By Eitan Bronstein Aparicio

A woman confronts a policeman during the eviction of families in the Givat Amal neighborhood, Tel Aviv, December 29, 2014. The Cozihanoff family, with the assistance of the Israeli police, evicted eight families in Givat Amal, in the northern part of Tel Aviv, without proper compensation after a long legal battle.

A woman confronts a policeman during the eviction of families in the Givat Amal neighborhood, Tel Aviv, December 29, 2014. The Cozihanoff family, with the assistance of the Israeli police, evicted eight families in Givat Amal, in the northern part of Tel Aviv, without proper compensation after a long legal battle.

It is well known that since the early days of Zionist immigration to Palestine, the Israeli establishment and its various branches have destroyed hundreds of Palestinian and Syrian villages and towns, which were deemed enemies of the state. The new “Colonial Destruction” map, published by De-Colonizer, an alternative research center on Palestine/Israel, includes the Jewish Mizrahi communities — around half of them Yemenite — which were destroyed by the Zionist authorities before Israel’s founding and by the Israeli state after 1948.

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The term “destru(A)ction” refers to communities that were pushed out against their will — often through physical violence, and always with the help of legal and economic violence. Other towns and neighborhoods, such as the Mahlul and Nordia neighborhoods in Tel Aviv, or the Neve Amal ma’abara in Herzliya, were also destroyed, although its residents were eventually offered compensation.

On the other hand, there were Israeli communities that were demolished despite the will of the residents — in the Sinai Peninsula, for instance — though these demolitions went against the grain of Israel’s colonial expansion, as they occurred in the framework of a peace agreement with Egypt, and thus are not included in the map. The destruction of these communities can be viewed as a form of de-colonization.

The destruction of these Jewish communities should not come to us as a surprise, especially when considering the way in which the Zionist establishment has always viewed and treated those from the East, be they Jewish, Muslim, or Christian — all of them Arab.

LARGE CAMPAIGN BANNER

Remember the names

Since Israel’s founding, there has been a hierarchy of oppression. Palestinians endure the most discrimination, yet Jewish Mizrahim, who enjoy the privileges of being Jewish, are discriminated against by Ashkenazim. In the early days of Zionist immigration to Palestine, the discriminatory attitude by the Ashkenazi elite toward Mizrahim was openly racist — the Zionist establishment was Ashkenazi-European, and worked to protect the interests of the state’s founding fathers. They worked diligently in those years, and after the state’s founding, they enshrined those same mechanisms in order to ensure their supremacy.

These are the names of the 12 Jewish Mizrahi communities and neighborhoods that the state or the pre-state Zionist establishment destroyed: the Yemenite colony in Ben Shemen, the Yemenite community in the Sea of Galilee, Tohelet, the Kfar Saba ma’abara, Yamin Moshe, Mamila, Manshiyye, Summayl, Kfar Shalem, Givat Amal, Ha’argazim neighborhood, Emek Ha’teimanim in Ein Kerem. Two of them were demolished years before the state was established, while the remaining 10 were destroyed after 1948. Some of them are still facing the threat of demolition. Most of these communities were established on top of Palestinian villages depopulated during the 1948 War.

Mizrahim walk around the Mamila neighborhood in West Jerusalem, 1957. Mamila, like countless other neighborhoods and communities, was empied of its Palestinian residents in the 1948 war. (GPO)

Mizrahim walk around the Mamila neighborhood in West Jerusalem, 1957. Mamila, like countless other neighborhoods and communities, was empied of its Palestinian residents in the 1948 war. (GPO)

The difference between the treatment of Ashkenazi Jews and the Mizrahim who settled in recently-emptied Palestinian homes is clear. While the Ashkenazim in West Jerusalem and the kibbutzim were granted ownership over the stolen homes, Mizrahim were denied that very same privilege.

A clear example of the state’s discriminatory policies can be found in the story of Tohelet. Yemenite Jews who settled in the homes of the Palestinian village al-Safiriyya were forcible removed, while members belonging to Chabad, who had strong political backing, were able to remain and expand at the expense of Tohelet.

Another example is Givat Amal. Menashe Kalif — who was forcibly removed from his home in 2015 so that it could be demolished — described how his parents were asked by the state to take over the homes of the Arabs of Al-Jammasin al-Gharbi, in order to prevent their return. The land was bought by tycoons who are now attempting to evict the Mizrahi residents without fair compensation.

The Kadoori, Hamias, and Ashram families sit near an improvised Shabat dinner table set near their demolished houses in Givat Amal neighbourhood, Tel Aviv, Israel, September 19, 2014. Two days passed since the third eviction of families in the neighbourhood which left 20 residents homeless without proper compensation or alternative housing solution. By: Shiraz Grinbaum/Activestills.org

The Kadoori, Hamias, and Ashram families sit near an improvised dinner table near their demolished houses in Givat Amal neighborhood, Tel Aviv, Israel, September 19, 2014. (Shiraz Grinbaum/Activestills.org)

After years of right-wing rule by Likud, we can no longer only talk about Mapai — the party that historically discriminated against non-Ashkenazim — as the perpetrator of anti-Mizrahi racism. The Israeli regime, including the pre-state establishment, created the structural, socio-economic conditions that eventually led to the destruction of neighborhoods such as Givat Amal and Kfar Shalem. The condescension toward disenfranchised Mizrahim has become an essential, legal, and economic tenet of the Israeli state, regardless of which political party rules.

Between refugees and new immigrants

The infrastructure of the Palestinian villages settled by Mizrahim was neglected. This was done to force the Mizrahim to agree to evacuate the villages, so that new neighborhoods could be built to bring in massive profits for the state and real estate moguls. At once, the residents who were brought in to live in Palestinian homes were deemed a nuisance invaders. The racism inherent in this process was never openly on display, as it was in the years leading up to Israel’s establishment — but the ethnic identity of its victims is clear: they are all Mizrahim.

Jewish workers demolish homes in Jaffa following the 1948 battle that cleared the city almost all its Palestinian residents, October 6, 1949. (Fritz Cohen/GPO)

Jewish workers demolish homes in Jaffa following the 1948 battle that cleared the city almost all its Palestinian residents, October 6, 1949. (Fritz Cohen/GPO)

A prime example of this racism can be found in the Carmel news log from the 60s, which describes the Tel Aviv municipality’s attempt to remove the Jewish residents of Manshiyye, Jaffa’s most northern neighborhood, whose Palestinian residents were expelled in 1948. The following is a transcript of one of the logs, taken from Anat Even’s film “Yizkor L’Mansiyye”:

This is Manshiyye in Tel Aviv. Over 3,000 families have been evicted from the area in order to allow changes to be made. Although some of the residents have remained for now, construction has already begun. For years, these homes have become piles of ruins… yet people still live among them. It is true that some of the immigrants in Manshiyye refuse to leave as a means of applying pressure… This is the face of Manshiyye, whose few residents and their children refuse to recognize the fact that, according to the official map, the place has been erased and no longer exists. Manshiyye is a breeding grounds for agitation, feelings of discrimination, and Pantherism.

The treatment of Mizrahim is very different from that of Palestinians who used to live in those very same homes. The uprooted Palestinians have no legal redress. The Absentee Property Law, along with a set of other laws passed in the first years of the state, turned Palestinians into a class that lacked all protection under the new regime. Jews who were uprooted from Lifta — a Palestinian village near Jerusalem whose original inhabitants were evacuated in 1948 — were granted compensation from the state. Meanwhile, the Palestinian refugees of the village, some of whom live in Jerusalem, face a brick wall when it comes to their property rights.

In an article published in 2014 by Roni Harel in the Israeli business newspaper Calcalist, Osi Tajer, one of the Jewish evictees of Summayl in central Tel Aviv, gives a surprising response when asked whether he will accept an apartment in the new building — which is to be built on the site of his demolished home — as compensation:

“Nothing, I want to give it to the Arabs as a gift.”

“And where will you live?” asks the reporter.

“I’ll live with them.”

Tajer’s ambitions to live alongside the Palestinians who will return is a reminder of the period before and during the early days of Zionism, in which Jews, Muslims, and Christians lived together in this country. Zionism did not view this shared living in a positive light, and succeeded in putting an end to it. The destruction of Mizrahi communities is an expansion of this tendency.

Eitan Bronstein Aparicio is the co-director and co-founder of De-Colonizer, and the founder of Zochrot. This post was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.