Jefferson Corner

As someone who travels through Tel-Aviv and have seen young, disrespectful, cocky and racist security officers in actions. The article by Musa Budeiri is most interesting and enjoyable to read.Please enjoy.
Sami Jamil Jadallah

Musa Budeiri wrote
Mac Books, Zaa’tar & the Everlasting State of ExceptionTraveling from Jerusalem to Lod airport I am reflecting that come summer, it will be forty years since the conquest of those parts of mandated Palestine (now termed the West Bank & Gaza Strip) which had escaped Israeli control in 1948, in addition to the Syrian Heights. I calculate that if I have traveled an average four times a year from Lod and back that would make one hundred and sixty times that I have been through the various security regimes instituted by the Shin Bit at the airport. And I am still a threat.Arriving early there is only a couple of people in the line ahead of me waiting to go through the security check. I can not help overhearing the conversation taking place right in front of me between a fellow passenger who is holding a European community passport, and who, like me, is obviously a “non ethnic” European, and the young woman whose job it is to usher people to the bulky X-ray machine through which everybody has to have their luggage examined. Trying to ascertain the passenger’s ethnic origins, the “usherette” is fielding the usual indirect questions which presumably are designed to avoid giving offence to “innocent” travelers. This of course requires some measure of cooperation on the part of the traveler being questioned. In this case, my fellow passenger is either oblivious of this rite, or is not in a mood to cooperate. The conversation is taking place in English, and suddenly the “usherette” asks what language the passenger speaks at home. The reply is English. Unable to accept this as it does not fit the stereotype she has already established for the person being questioned, she offers a list of languages and asks if she perhaps speaks “Indian” or some such language. The passenger seems to catch on. She makes it clear that she does not speak “Indian”, but that she does speak Gujarati. This seems to mystify the questioner. So she tries a different tack. She asks what religious festivals the passenger celebrates at home. But it appears her world view is restricted to the three monotheistic creeds, because when the woman replies “Divali“, there is a vacant look on her face. She then excuses herself and is replaced by another, presumably “more experienced” questioner. This is entertaining, but being an experienced “answerer” I do not anticipate much trouble navigating my way into the X-ray machine and further along the “safe to fly” process. I usually immediately confess my national/ethnic origins and point out that the European community passport I travel on is merely that, a travel document. Increasingly since September 11, I also make a declaration of a non existent religious affiliation. I always feel that perhaps coming clean, like admitting that one is an ex murderer, a past inmate of a lunatic asylum, or a reformed habitual sexual offender, would put the questioners at ease. Additionally, I am only carrying a small shoulder bag with next to nothing in it and my brand new ten days old Mac book.Not having to pretend that I celebrate Divali, or that I am in the habit of having a Hanukah Bush in my home at some date in December, I soon find myself waiting for my two items to return to my safe keeping after having journeyed through the all knowing and all seeing large X ray contraption, a rite of passage which is supposed to make me feel that air travel is safe and secure, even from myself. Once I have retrieved my luggage I proceed to the search area and two pleasant and seemingly user friendly girls begin to shower me with the VIP treatment. Not having much to examine does not stop them from doing their job thoroughly, methodically and painstakingly slowly. I am carrying one pair of trousers, one pair of pants, training shorts, digital camera, cellular, heart monitor watch & accompanying exercise strap, a bag of thyme, a book on mizrahi Jews by S‡mi Shetrit, all sorts of medical reports, and the usual assortment of pills which constitute my daily intake for a couple of weeks. Obviously, now that I think about it in retrospect, not very “convincing” luggage for a seemingly innocent passenger who already fits a suspicious “profile”. Once this process is well under way, I am informed that I will not be allowed to travel with the Mac book. I am further told that it will not be possible for the Mac book to travel on the same flight. When I ask the reason for this, I am referred to another person, who abruptly tells me that she cannot divulge the reason, but that as a result of the security procedure in operation, the Mac book is not allowed to travel on the same flight as me. I ask for a written statement to this effect, and for her name. She declines both, but informs me that I can of course lodge a complaint if I so desire, and to address it to the airport authority. I ask for a receipt, but she again says she cannot give me one. I ask how the Mac book will be delivered to me when she does not know my address or even where I am traveling to. She replies that it is not her job to arrange delivery. She directs me to approach the lost and found at Heathrow airport in London and to inquire about my laptop there. When I try to protest further, she tells me that she cannot waste any more time and leaves while I am in mid sentence. I address the two women who are still leisurely entertaining themselves with the empty shoulder bag that I want to talk to the person in charge, and they inform me that I have just talked to their supervisor. By now I am getting angrier and my voice is getting louder, probably slightly hysterical, whereupon one of the women tells me not to shout at her as it is not her decision and that she is only doing her job. Then the other one volunteers that there is another supervisor and she will call him for me, which she does. A man appears and mid way through my protests to him, the woman supervisor makes another appearance, and this time they both leave together after telling me that I have a choice. Either I don’t fly, or I can leave the laptop behind! They further tell me that I cannot fly with the computer cable, the thyme, and the heart monitor band in my shoulder bag, and that these will be put in a box and stored in the hold of the plane but that I can retrieve them when the plane arrives at Heathrow. They also think that the pills I am carrying are suspicious though they do not think it necessary to ask me what they are for or why I am carrying them. Shortly, two boxes appear. One with red markings and one with blue. They are both entitled Israel Airports Authority - Ben Gurion International Airport…Security. The Mac book goes into the box with red markings, the monitor strap, cable and thyme go into the blue marked box. They are then taken away by a non uniformed person who presumably is a security officer. There is still the body search of course. I am escorted by a young man to another room who while doing a thorough body search, keeps telling me that he is very sorry he has to do this and that he understands my objections (not that I am making any. By then I have entered the resignation phase). My half hearted attempt to illicit some follow up to his apologies only elicits the response that he is doing his job. I am escorted to the checking-in desk and later taken straight through to the police cubicles to have my passport stamped for exit. For about five minutes the policewoman stares in silence at her computer and at my passport, then she asks me for my ID card. I dutifully present it, whereupon she asks me for my father’s name. I point out that it is written in my passport, in my ID card and presumably on the computer screen. She insists that she wants me to tell her, so I do. By then I have no more fight, having already failed to save the Mac book. I reflect how one defeat makes it easier to succumb to succeeding defeats. It is already two hours since I have joined the queue behind the Divali celebrating traveler. After some reflection she asks for my grandfather’s name. After more staring at the monitor, she calls a colleague in another booth. Another uniformed policewoman joins her and now they are both staring at the monitor screen. After a few minutes and the exchange of a few comments the guest policewoman goes back to her booth. We are now back into staring at the screen, then she picks up the phone and speaks to somebody. I decide that I have been patient enough and that it is time I am a bit more interventionist. After all I keep hearing and reading that I have “agency”. So I ask what the problem is. She ignores me. I am simply not there, and obviously not relevant. A non uniformed person appears. They confer; the new arrival collects my passport, ID card, ticket and boarding pass and commands me to follow her. I do. We approach another larger cubicle with a uniformed officer inside. She motions for me to sit down outside the cubicle, hands in my documents and leaves. I sit. Fifteen minutes later, a middle aged police woman comes out of the cubicle. I feel relief. It must be the age. She hands me back my documents. Inside my passport she has found my latest ECG test. She asks me what that is. For my part I half heartedly inquire what the problem is. She informs me that it is to do with a “similar” name. She tells me that she has penned a note that I am/was not the “other” person! I wonder how she knows? Two and half hours after arriving at the airport, I enter the departure lounge. I wish I was still a smoker. I arrive at Heathrow and wait at the baggage carousel. Eventually I notice the blue marked box, not at the main carousel but at a small conveyer belt to the side. I explain to the attendant that this is mine and after examining my ticket he allows me to take it. Success. I now have the cable, the thyme and the exercise belt. I allow myself a delusion. Perhaps “they” placed the Mac Book on the same flight! I approach the British Airways desk and tell them I am looking for the “lost and found”. They want to know why. I explain. They cannot grasp the story. They tell me that BA will not carry unaccompanied luggage. So perhaps the Mac Book will be put on al EL AL flight. They direct me to an office outside the arrival hall. It is the left luggage office and it deals with lost property. I talk to the attendant and he confirms that lost luggage eventually finds its way there. He is of course rather incredulous, and thinks that if the box is eventually sent from Lod airport, it will arrive at the luggage carousel, and of course will not be collected, so it will go round and round and round. Eventually it will be taken of the carousel and dispatched to his counter, as by then it will be classified as lost or abandoned property. But he has no idea if and when it will arrive. British Airways have two daily flights from Lod to Heathrow, and then of course there is El AL. As far as he is concerned there is no procedure for what I have narrated. My Mac Book will just be another piece of lost luggage. For the next couple of days I harass the left luggage counter at Heathrow with constant phone calls. It is a different attendant every time; some find the story hard to comprehend, others do not even bother. I start thinking that there must be tens of thousands of lost pieces of luggage floating around the airports of the world, and that mine is just a matter of financial loss, no different from the loss of people who have actually “lost” their luggage. But this is not satisfactory. I feel my many sojourns at the airport are the price I have paid and continue to pay for the Mac Book. I reason with myself that I need to make one last effort, which is to go to the airport and do an “on the spot “search. If this fails I can resign myself to the fact, and if my attorney is agreeable launch a complaint and perhaps demand financial compensation. But this has to await my return to Jerusalem. I choose a Sunday, as the traffic will not be so bad. I do the hour and a half drive to the airport in an hour. Already I am feeling buoyed. I approach the lost and found. No success. I ask to be allowed into the arrival hall. Not seriously of course. Perhaps the box with the red markings is lying around along with other hundreds of unclaimed pieces of luggage. I do not think that I will be allowed to of course. I am given a number and directed to a free phone. I find myself talking to an airport authority official. I explain, as well as I could. By now I have explained the story so many times I am no longer sure of the facts. He directs me to a small door which will lead me to the arrival hall. I go through a door, take of my shoes, undergo a security check, put my belongings through the x-ray machine, and eventually find myself with the arriving passengers and the carousels doing their merry go rounds. To my astonishment I find myself talking to a BA clerk who actually understands the story. He has been to Tel Aviv and knows how things are done there. After a few minutes searching through the computer, he directs me to a lost and found office inside the arrival hall. I make my way there with no expectations. At the last minute I had decided to bring the box with blue markings with me. I thought this would make it easier to explain what I am looking for. I approach the desk and place the box on the counter. I explain to the attendant that I am looking for a similar box but with red markings instead of blue. I can see part of the store room behind him through the open door. Racks and racks of “lost” luggage, Suddenly I see a similar box. I point it out. He goes to retrieve it. Yes it has red markings. Yes it has Ben Gurion airport on it, and yes it has my name. Success. What a feeling. The attendant is more experienced at this sort of thing. He asks me to open it and to check and see that the computer is there and that it is in working order. I do as he instructs.In a couple of days, I will be taking a British Airways flight to Lod. I tell myself that I am racking up “security miles” in preparation for the 40th anniversary of the June 1967 occupation, and the 59th anniversary for the establishment of the state. There is little consolation in the fact that we are all living in “a state of exception”.

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Dear Readers. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict could have been solved some years ago, if there wasa will power and there was no abstacle to peace from the Jewish Lobby in the US and from members of Congress whose bloodline to re-election comes through Tel-Aviv and the Jewish lobby. Too bad the majority of the American Jewish community do not support a two state solution, preferring to keep the conflict going for their own “mental being”. Every one in the world knows that the solution lies in a two state solution with Jerusalem at the shared capital, and with a proper and fair solution to the hundreds of thousands and now millions of Palestinians exiled by Israel in 48. Of course the ideal solution that makes lots of sense is a one state solution where Jews and Arabs can live side by side, equal in rights and equal to commitments to the state. Enjoy the following article.
Sami Jamil Jadallah

From time to time, the Palestine Center distributes articles it believes will enhance understanding of the Palestinian political reality. The article below by Leila Farsakh appeared in the Le Monde Diplomatique on 15 March 2007. To view this article online please go to: http://mondediplo.com/2007/03/07binational.
“Time for a bi-national state”By Leila FarsakhView This Report Online
Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas may have affirmed that they want a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, but it may be more promising to return to a much older idea.
There is talk once again of a one-state bi-national solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Oslo peace process failed to bring Palestinians their independence and the withdrawal from Gaza has not created a basis for a democratic Palestinian state as President George Bush had imagined: the Palestinians are watching their territory being fragmented into South African-style bantustans with poverty levels of over 75 percent. The area is heading to the abyss of an apartheid state system rather than to a viable two-state solution, let alone peace (1).
There have been a number of recent publications proposing a one-state solution as the only alternative to the current impasse. Three years ago Meron Benvenisti, Jerusalem’s deputy mayor in the 1970s, wrote that the question is “no longer whether there is to be a bi-national state in Palestine-Israel, but which model to choose” (2). Respected intellectuals on all sides, including the late Edward Said; the Arab Israeli member of the Knesset, Azmi Bishara; the Israeli historian Illan Pape; scholars Tanya Reinhart and Virginia Tilley; and journalists Amira Haas and Ali Abunimeh, have all stressed the inevitability of such a solution.
The idea of a single, bi-national state is not new. Its appeal lies in its attempt to provide an equitable and inclusive solution to the struggle of two peoples for the same piece of land. It was first suggested in the 1920s by Zionist leftwing intellectuals led by philosopher Martin Buber, Judah Magnes (the first rector of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Haïm Kalvarisky (a member of Brit-Shalom and later of the National Union). The group followed in the footsteps of Ahad Ha’am (Asher Hirsch Ginsberg, one of the great pre-state Zionist thinkers).
Underlying their Zionism was a quest for a Jewish renaissance, both cultural and spiritual, with a determination to avoid injustice in its achievement. It was essential to found a new nation, although not necessarily a separate Jewish state and certainly not at the expense of the existing population. Magnes argued that the Jewish people did not “need a Jewish state to maintain its very existence” (3).
No to partition
Although supporters of the bi-national state remained a marginal group in Zionist politics under the British mandate, they made sure they were heard both in official Zionist circles and the international arena. They also pleaded before the 1947 United Nations special committee on Palestine. When the commission finally recommended partition, they strongly opposed it, calling for a bi-national state in Palestine, forming part of an Arab federation. They campaigned for a federal state that would respect the rights of all citizens, while guaranteeing the national aspirations of the Jewish people to cultural and linguistic autonomy. They proposed, in line with the British, the creation of a legislative council based on proportional representation, safeguarding the rights of its nationals but also assuring equal political rights for all citizens of the state.
But with the UN’s partition plan and the Arab-Israeli war that broke out in 1948, a one-state solution was shelved. It came to light again in 1969 with the call by Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement for the creation of a “secular and democratic state” in Palestine. The new state was based on the right of return — while accepting a Jewish presence in Palestine — and it was to end the injustices stemming from the creation of Israel and the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinian villagers. Although it called for the destruction of Israel as a colonial entity, it upheld the principle of a single state for all, Muslim, Christian or Jew. This was the first official attempt by the Palestinians to address the relationship between national and individual rights of citizenry. The idea met with no enthusiasm in Israel, and none internationally, and again lost momentum.
The failure of the one-state option has often been attributed to the idealism of its cause and its failure to come to terms with local realities. Nevertheless, as Magnes pointed out, the option offered significant advantages in demographic and territorial terms in 1947 to the Jewish cause (4).
In fact, the idea failed because the political actors of the time rejected it: the Zionist organisations were not interested, the British were unsupportive and the Arabs too suspicious. Between 1948 and 1993 the only significant change in these positions came from the Arabs, who finally came to terms with the existence of Israel.
Despite the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s calls for a secular, democratic state, Arafat prepared Palestinians for partition as the only available option. The PLO’s national council accepted the position in 1974, and confirmed it with its declaration of Palestinian independence in 1988 and the acceptance of the UN partition plan. A separate, independent Palestinian state was the best hope, even if it had to be on only 22 percent of the territory. The long Palestinian struggle for statehood culminated in 1993 with the Oslo accords.
From dream to nightmare
The tragedy of Oslo is that it turned the dream of two states into the nightmare of a single new state of apartheid. Israel’s prime minister Yitzhak Rabin declared that the great success of the accords, perhaps their only success, was to recognise that Israelis and Palestinians were “destined to live together, on the same soil in the same land” (5).
Since 1994 the Palestinians have not been liberated; they have been imprisoned by the Israeli system of permits and the installation of 50 permanent checkpoints and terminals fragmenting the territory into eight bantustans (6). Since 2002 the Palestinian Authority has seen its territory further eroded by the 700km-long wall being built with the aim of severing the West Bank from the remaining 46 percent of the territory.
What is the attraction of a bi-national state in these circumstances? For a start, a two-state plan appears to be less of a solution to the nationalist aspirations of either Zionists or Palestinians. Before 1947 partition had not been tried; since then it has taken root in circumstances of total Israeli domination. Despite the historic compromise of 1993, the Palestinians have not obtained the independent, viable state they sought. Palestinian nationalism has also met its limits: its leaders have failed to guide their people to independence and are now reduced to tearing themselves apart.
But partition has also failed to give Jews the security the state of Israel promised. About 400 Israelis were killed in suicide attacks in the 1990s, and 1,000 more have died since the second intifada of 2000. Antisemitic feelings are worsening around the world.
Demographic changes will continue to undermine any plans for partition. In 2005 there were 5.2 million Israelis living between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river, and 5.6 million Palestinians. Despite Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and its plans to demarcate the West Bank frontier, a separate Israeli state will have to deal with the much more rapid demographic growth of the Palestinian population within its own frontiers. This will have not only economic but political consequences, given the Palestinian population’s current lack of basic rights.
There is another factor that argues against a two-state solution: the idea of citizenship founded on justice and equality. History has shown that, in this region as elsewhere, partition cannot be achieved without the expulsion and transfer of populations. This raises ethnic issues. There can be no peace, from a moral point of view, without an equitable solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, based on the right of return or compensation, as required as early as 1948 by resolution 194 of the UN General Assembly.
But this right of return, and the expansion of the Palestinian population, endangers Israel’s Jewish identity. This has always been a major problem for Israelis.
Essential anachronism
According to historian Tony Judt, this is where Israel reaches its limits. No state can claim democratic credentials whilst practising ethnic exclusion; not after the crimes of the last century (7). Virginia Tilley says that partition, and the very existence of Israel, are “flawed from the start, resting on the discredited idea, on which political Zionism stakes all its moral authority, that any ethnic group can legitimately claim permanent formal dominion over a territorial state” (8).
The establishment of a bi-national state would redefine the identity of the state; it would favour democracy over nationalism. For Ali Abunimeh it would allow “all the people to live in and enjoy the entire country while preserving their distinctive communities and addressing their particular needs. It offers the potential to deterritorialise the conflict and neutralise demography and ethnicity as a source of political power and legitimacy” (9). At the heart of this conflict there remains a persistent territorial issue. Ethnicity (and, even more, religion) continues to be the main source of legitimacy and the quest for power.
Those arguing for a single democratic state now detect growing popular support for this solution, inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement. Boycott campaigns are being organised in Europe and the United States against what is often now called Israeli apartheid (10).
Groups in Israel and in Palestine are working together against the construction of the separation wall and are inventing new forms of resistance. The struggle has been redirected, against Israel’s policies rather than its people, and for rights for all rather than separate states for each.
True, the three political protagonists seem far from convinced. Israel’s politicians and the majority of its population insist on separation, as their wholehearted support for the wall seems to prove. The international community seems intent on a two-state solution, but does little to bring it about or influence progress. The Palestinian leadership is at a loss for a strategy, and the differences between Hamas and Fatah continue to generate conflict. But the present deadlock has created new conditions. Perhaps the time is ripe for original ideas and untried solutions.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Jerusalem Fund. This article may be used without permission but with proper attribution to the author.
(1) Leila Farsakh “Israel: an apartheid state?”, Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, November 2003.(2) Meron Benvenisti, “Which Kind of Bi-national State?”, Haaretz, Tel Aviv, 20 November 2003.(3) See www.one-democratic-state.org(4) Judah Magnes, Like All Nations, Weiss, Jerusalem, 1930.(5) Yitzhak Rabin’s statement at the signing of the Declaration of Principles, Washington, 13 September 1993.(6) www.btselem.org/english/statis tics/. See Dominique Vidal, “Jerusalem’s apartheid tramway”, Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, February 2007.(7) Toni Judt, “Israel: the Alternative”, New York Review of Books, 23 October 2003.(8) Virginia Tilley, The One-State Solution, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2005.(9) Ali Abunimah, One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, Henry Holt, New York, 2006.(10) See the calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions against http://www.bds-palestine.net/

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