Israels ungelöste Probleme
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Die Revolution in Ägypten bringt Israel in ein Dilemma: Freude über den Umsturz und Angst vor politischem Chaos halten sich die Waage. Wer würde einen Marsch zehntausender Palästinenser Richtung Israel aufhalten können?
Kairos Palästina – Die Stunde der Wahrheit
Eines der gegenwärtig wichtigsten Dokumente zum israelisch-palästinensischen Konflikt trägt den Titel "Kairos Palästina – Die Stunde der Wahrheit". Es ist zugleich ein für die ökumenische Bewegung insgesamt wichtiger Text. Die Autoren sind palästinensische Christen und Christinnen. Hintergründe des Krieges im Gazastreifen
Israel’s defense industry: Dr. Jeff Halper on exporting the occupation
Hazel Kahan writes on her blog:
At the end of January, I interviewed Jeff Halper of ICAHD while he was in New York researching his new book on the Israeli defense industry. Here are some of the key points in this very important interview which is also available as a podcast.
- “I don’t think Americans are really aware of the degree to which both their monies and their presence in the world is felt almost solely in a military sense...American troops are stationed in 174 of the 190 countries in the world...So the American story abroad is absolutely a military story, a negative presence, a military presence...a violent presence...The biggest export of the US to the world is military violence and technology and Israel is very much a part of tht because Israel is a surrogate for the US in many places...the strongest lobby for Israel in Washington isn’t AIPAC, it’s the defense contractors in the Pentagon.”
- “Referring to the “rising new hegemon of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China)”, Halper suggests “Israel would cut off the US especially if it felt it was being compromised or if it felt the United States was genuinely going to pressure it to give up the Occupation. Israel wants to keep the Occupation.. That’s the basis of its security politics. So it begins to play around--it doesn’t want all of its eggs in the American basket.”
- “Israel is trying to make itself indispensable to the big powers that be and plays them off against each other just like Egypt did in the Cold War...Israel has extremely close relationships to military contractors in Europe...it’s developing jet fighters with Holland and Sweden, nano-weaponry with Italy...Israel is the #1 arms exporter to India.”
- “(Since 9/11) You have a whole other complex emerging where the military is integrated with internal security within your country: airports, borders, immigration, prisons--Israel is the world’s #1 developer of drones...they also export the technology. Brazil has bought drones from Israel because it has to pacify the favelas (in preparation the 2014 World Cup Soccer finals and the 2016 Olympics).”
- Halper says Israel is exporting what they’ve learned in the West Bank: “how to control people...insurgent populations..a global Gaza...a laboratory...it exports out...instruments of domestic control...used y American police forces...smart fences and surveillance inside cities...Israel just signed a contract with Canadian prisons.”
- “With Israel there’s no such thing as civil liberties: there’s a real contradiction between this idea of security and democracy, civil rights, civil liberties... It’s called the securitization of policy, even the militarization of policy. Once you say security takes precedence over everything, you’re really on a slippery slope...The more you can scare people and get into the war on terror, the more security becomes acceptable.”
- Israel does a lot of business with Arab countries, with (powerful minorities in) Iran...the Christians in Lebanon, the Kurds in Iraq...In West Africa, Israelis, Al Qaeda and Hezbollah get together, dealing in arms, diamonds...A Hezbollah guy said: ‘There is the Middle East we’re at war with each other. Here (in West Africa) it’s all business.’”
- In conclusion, Halper tells us: “Security politics is something we should put much more of a light on than we do. If you did a security politics map of the world-budgets, military relationships, transfer of military technologies, control aspects...Israel would be a superpower...On the map, it would be bigger than France or Britain...Israel is the fourth largest nuclear power in the world and it never signed a nuclear nonproliferation treaty...”
More about Dr. Jeff Halper, his books and the Jerusalem-based ICAHD (Israeli Committee against House Demolitions) is available here.
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