New Poster for ‘The World, My Life and I’

The more conservative Siemens wouldn’t approve the first version of the poster – too much skin though the self portrait I used wouldn’t even show anything else than legs, arms and belly. I think they would have a real problem with Boticelli’s Venus…

Well, as I had to change the poster I took the opportunity to feature the Gilad Shalit picture on it. In the end he needs the public more than I will ever do. I hope he will soon be free and reunited with his family.

New poster for my art exhibition now featuring the picture for Gilad Shalit

RueckenWind Bears Designs

These will be the designs I propose to the client who gave me my next commission. The bear – its design is given and property of the Buddy Bear Society – will be two meters high approx. The RueckenWind project is a program of the Health Insurance for its clients with and without back problems to learn more about a healthy life style for their body. As the curved tree at a stick is the symbol of orthopedia, the tree in general a symbol for knowledge and a four seasons tree a symbol for the circle of life I put it all together and this is what I got:

The RueckenWind Bear from the front

RueckenWind Bear design from the back

The RueckenWind Bear design in color

EU – Israel argument about taxation and a US Court of Appeals decision in a controversial passport matter

This is a follow up to my latest article: EU, Israel and the Argument about Taxes on Home Carbonating Systems Produced in Ma’ale Adumim even though the case I am talking about today may on first sight not show any links to the EU tax case one. Yet, in the end the US Court of Appeals in Washington and the German tax court in Hamburg have to decide on the same question before they ever get down to the subject of the arguments pending. 

The Case of the US Court of Appeals:

A boy was born in 2002 in Jerusalem. His parents, an American couple living in Israel, applied for an American passport for their son. They stated as place of birth Jerusalem, Israel. However, in the passport the listing of Israel as state of birth was omitted. The parents filed a case on behalf of their son, demanding to name the state of Israel next to the city of Jerusalem in the passport. 

The decision of the US court of appeals:

On July 10, 2009 the case was dismissed. The court upheld a lower court’s decision that the courts lack jurisdiction in the matter. In a system of separation of powers and of checks and balances questions of foreign policy belong exclusively in the domain of the executive branch and not in a court room. And according the State Department, US passports for those born in Jerusalem do not list a country because doing so would interfere with and pre-judge Israeli – Palestinian negotiations and would therefore interfere with another state’s sovereignty. 

Background:

The status of Jerusalem in any final agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is still highly disputed. The question is source of even more argument and emotions on both sides than the question of how to deal with the large Jewish settlements in Samaria and Judea/ the West Bank like Ma’ale Adumim. There it is most likely – and about the only working solution considering the number of people living in the large settlements – that in the framework of a land swap deal these few settlements will become integral part of the Israeli territory. 

Yet, just as the question of Jerusalem, the question of the settlements, all settlements is still a question of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Whether or not Jerusalem or any settlement belong to Israel or a future Palestinian state, will be divided, swapped, shared, internationalized or handled in any other way is a political question and only up to the Israeli government in Jerusalem and the Palestinians. These are questions to be dealt with in any other state by the executive branch and in their foreign policy departments but not in any EU or US American courtroom. 

By the way, I just checked and both my Israeli and my German passport state as my place of birth Berlin, Germany. But technically, this is not the truth as I was born in East-Berlin, capital of the former GDR. Though, the legality of the claim of the East Bloc of East Berlin as capital of East Germany was disputed by the western Allies as the entire city of Berlin was formally considered an occupied territory governed by martial law through the Allied Control Council. Well, some disputes are solved by time.

EU, Israel and the Argument about Taxes on Home Carbonating Systems Produced in Ma’ale Adumim

The law suit pending with the tax court at Hamburg is about 19,155 Euros and 46 Cents. On the bottom line however, the question the German court has to decide on is much more important and explosive. Moreover, it is rather a political question than a legal one: Does Ma’ale Adumim belong to Israel? And I want to add: Is a German court or the EU or anyone else but Israelis and Palestinians able and allowed to rule on this question? 

The Case 

The German company Brita GmbH imported Soda-Club home carbonation systems and concentrates to create flavored beverages. It labeled the goods “Made in Israel” and claimed for them exemption from import duties as granted for Israeli industrial products under Title II, Chapter 2, Article 8 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. The main customs office at Hamburg-Hafen took offense at the labeling and asked their Israeli counterparts where exactly the goods had been produced. They were told that the production took place in an area under Israeli tax responsibility. As the Germans concluded – rightly – that the home carbonation systems and syrups had been produced in Ma’ale Adumim, an Israeli settlement in Samaria and Judea/ the West Bank, they decided that Brita were not right to label the products “Made in Israel” and therefore the products were not eligible for freedom of taxation. Consequentially, they claimed 19,155 Euros and 46 Cents of tax for the shipment. Brita appealed the decision and took the matter to court. 

Background 

The EU is Israel’s largest market for exports and its second largest source of imports after the US. On the other hand, Israel is one of the EU’s most established trading partners in the Euromed (Europe Mediterranean) area ranking as the EU’s 25th major trade partner. Israel’s total trade with the EU amounted in 2007 to more than €25 billion (EU exported goods worth €14 billion and imported goods worth €11.3 billion, adding up to a trade surplus of the EU of about €3 billion a year). The EU has provided Israel with €14 million of aid under the terms of its European neighborhood policy between 2007 and 2010 to bring its company and commercial laws into line with the EU’s.

In 1995 Israel and the EU signed an Association Agreement that entered into force in 2000 and that is today the legal basis for the EU’s relations with Israel. According to Article 1.2 the aims of the agreement are to promote political dialogue, political and economic relations, to encourage regional cooperation and to promote cooperation in other areas which are of reciprocal interest. The agreement incorporates free trade arrangements for industrial goods (Title II, Chapter 2). According to Article 7 the provisions of Chapter 2 shall apply to products originating in the Community and in Israel. 

Ma’ale Adumim and Soda-Club 

Ma’ale Adumim is a city located East of Jerusalem on the edge of the Judean Desert. Established in 1976 on territory captured in the 1967 Six Day War, it is today a city of roughly 35,000. Many of the inhabitants, 99.8% of them are Jewish, commute to Jerusalem for work every day. 

Ma’ale Adumim is the second largest Israeli town in Samaria and Judea/ the West Bank. It is one of the large settlement blocs that are expected to remain under Israeli control in future agreements with the Palestinian Authority, even though Palestinians claim that this settlement in particular exposes a threat to the territorial integrity of a future Palestinian state due to its strategic location between the southern and northern parts of the West Bank. Yet, this is disputable as the city can easily be circled to the east. 

Soda Club is an Israeli company founded in 1991. In 1998 Soda Club bought the English original SodaStream to become the world largest home carbonation supplier. While the company’s gas cylinder refilling and refurbishment department is located in Germany, the main factory of the company Soda-Club, producing the home carbonating systems and syrups, is located at the edge of the industrial area of Ma’ale Adumim. 

So, here is the problem: When the free trade provisions of Chapter 2 only apply to goods originating in Israel and the goods of Soda-Club are produced in Ma’ale Adumim, can they rightly be labeled “Made in Israel”? How about goods produced in smaller settlements that are not expected to remain under Israeli control in future agreements? What are the implications of a decision pro or against tax exemption on goods produced in settlements? And last but not least, may a foreign court or a foreign entity like the EU anticipate a decision on one of the major questions of a future peace accord between Israel and the PA without infringing on Israel’s state sovereignty? 

Formally, the EU never accepted Israel’s claim of Ma’ale adumim or other settlements as her own state territory. In practice, the EU has never done much against it. Approximately, one third of the €11 billion worth of goods imported into the EU by Israeli companies are produced in Judea and Samaria. Most of them are labeled “Made in Israel” and are therefore exempted from taxation. 

Indeed, the German government replied in the German Bundestag to a minor interpellation of the Green party fraction that goods from the occupied territories are certainly not covered by the EU-Israel Association Agreement. But the Brita case is the only case pending at German courts right now. 

Up to lately, words and actions emitted by the EU were rather undetermined with much wiggle room. Most recently however, the wind has changed and the sounds coming from Brussels are harsh on Israel. The previously planned “upgrade” in EU-Israel relations has been put on hold. On this matter Luxembourg foreign minister Jean Asselborn said “We must say quite clearly today there can only be talk of an upgrade when the peace process is on its way and for that we need a few steps more.” 

In particular the EU foreign ministers said on occasion of the June visit of Israeli FM Lieberman at an EU Council of Ministers summit that an offer by Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to create a demilitarized Palestinian state was welcome but insufficient to warrant any significant advance in bilateral relations. They further reminded Israel that it must stop building Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land, describing the activity as illegal under international law. 

Even more recently outgoing EU chief diplomat Javier Solana has called for the United Nations Security Council to push forward and recognize a Palestinian state even without a final-status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. During a lecture in London, he said that if agreement between the two sides could not be reached, the UN should proffer its own solution to the conflict. He went on to lecture on how the Jewish settlements are an obstacle for peace, though he stressed before the importance of the Clinton parameters and the Geneva Initiative (ups, then-president Clinton called exactly for the incorporation of settlement blocs into Israel and land-swap where necessary). 

In the light of these statements the Brita case gains importance. It would be the perfect example to create precedence and to underline the EU’s new line of policy towards Israel. Therefore, the EU Commission has already asked all member states for support in an internal note. 

But, in the end it comes down to this:

1.)             The problem of settlements is a painful but not a new one. Especially some of the large settlements have been founded decades ago and house tens of thousands who work for a living and certainly produce goods sold on the markets. It was an option for the partners of the treaty to include a regulation on goods of settlement origin into the framework of the Association Agreement. It was not done.

2.)             The Agreement has entered into force in 2000 – 9 years ago. Why has the problem never been addressed before? Could it be that the Brita case now is not about the enforcement of law but about politics, something not belonging into a court room but on a round table?! A foreign court can’t evaluate all the aspects that need to be considered like the distinction between settlements and which will most likely once properly belong to Israel and which will be needed to give up. A territory now deemed not Israel can be Israel and vice versa.

3.)             Israel is a sovereign state and must not be pressured by other states or a supranational organization towards an agreement in a foreign court room. Other states and organizations might put forward their proposals and approaches on the diplomatic parquet and they might use economic pressure if bi- or multinational treaties are not preventing them from doing so to guide negotiating partners on their way, yet they are not allowed to dictate terms of a peace agreement on sovereign states. This is basics of International Law.

4.)             And another basic Mr. Solana must have forgotten: A state is not created by dubbing it a state. Under international law a new state comes only into existence if there is state territory, state authority and a people creating a nation. Even though one might become impatient during the long process of negotiations and apparent setbacks it’s in the end the only way to lasting achievements. It’s not happening in a court room and not under one sided pressure, it’s only happening through inner growth and inner conviction of both sides of a conflict.

Me, Waiting for Godot, Citizen Duties and the Case of Yaniv David Harel

Estragon: Come on, we leave!
Vladimir: We can’t.
Estragon: Why not?
Vladimir: We are waiting for Godot.
Estragon: Oh yeah.

Estragon (a little later): But we might interrupt the wait?
Vladimir: Can we dare it?
Estragon: Yes, we can.
Vladimir: But Godot stays our first objective?
Estragon: Sure, he does.

Vladimir: Didn’t you have the feeling too, Godot tried to call yesterday?
Estragon: Uhhmmm, well, maybe.
Vladimir (mocking Estragon): “Uhhmmm, well, maybe”???? Can’t you express yourself a little bit clearer?
Estragon: Maybe means just that – it is possible. I admit that we had an unanswered call during work.
Vladimir: And what about the number?
Estragon: We didn’t recognize it. But admittedly again, it looks quite similar to one of Godot’s. Yet…
Vladimir: Yet? What is it?
Estragon: You tried to phone back, didn’t you?
Vladimir: Yes, sure I did. After all, we are waiting for Godot, aren’t we?
Estragon: And?
Vladimir: Well, the voice in the phone said that the number I called was temporarily unavailable…
Estragon: Hence, Godot is still unavailable, isn’t he? And we are still waiting.

Estragon (very depressed looking): I really set my hope into yesterday’s letter, didn’t you too?
Vladimir (walking up and down, wringing his hands): Sure I did! Who thought, they – who are so close (stopping in his steps and pointing out a tiny distance between his thumb and finger), so close to Godot – wouldn’t at least deliver a short message of him.
Estragon: I would have been satisfied with a single word…
Vladimir (talking himself into a rage): Just a little note so that we now they know we are waiting.
Estragon (absent minded): What are we waiting for again?
Vladimir (looking worried at his companion): For Godot. We are waiting for Godot.
Estragon (mumbling): Oh yeah, Godot.

Vladimir: You know, I didn’t like this stare into infinity you indulged yourself in lately. So, guess what I did?
Estragon (sighs): Well? I hear.
Vladimir: I called Godot.
Estragon (if he were a cat his ears would stand at point): Oi, YOU did WHAT?
Vladimir: I was weary of waiting, sick of being drained of my energy by our limbo existence, I was bored with filling my days counting daisies while my sheer existence might have not even been acknowledged by the Great Zampadu, less the effort we put in our long fight for patience; I… -
Estragon (impatiently exploding): Get to the point!
Vladimir: Godot has now the amiableness to take notice of us.
Estragon: Is it improving our situation?
Vladimir: It has a dualism to it.
Estragon: How is this?
Vladimir: Once Godot approaches finally, he might reject us…
Estragon: Well, then we better leave before he comes.
Vladimir: No, we mustn’t.
Estragon: Why not?
Vladimir: Because we are still waiting for Godot. It’s has become part of our lives.
Estragon: Oh yeah, sure.

Vladimir: Estragon?
Estragon (polishes the display of his cell phone): Vladimir?
Vladimir: Estragon? What is it? What’s wrong?
Estragon: How many installments of Dr. House did we watch since your call?
Vladimir (swallows a handful of pain reliever and limbs with a stiff leg to the TV to switch it off): Not that many, really.
Estragon (looks at Vladimir now leaning at a non-existing cane in an impossible angle in disbelief): Might have been one too many. – Anyway, are we still waiting?
Vladimir: patiently, uncomplaining, longanimous, tenacious, persistently, perseveringly, doggedly, adamantine, obstinately, pertinaciously, stubbornly, enduringly, stiff-necked…
Estragon:…stiff-legged, and this might only be from watching too much Dr. House…
Vladimir: …unfalteringly, unyieldingly, unbendingly, brassboundly…
Estragon: Who do you want to impress – the editorial department of the Thesaurus? Honestly, why can’t we just leave?
Vladimir: Because we are waiting – for Godot. Just today, when I called again Godot’s friends told me to call back next week as Godot hasn’t yet decided what to do concerning our request.
Estragon (exasperated): And why didn’t you tell me this earlier? Talking to you is sometimes like getting blood out of a stone!
Vladimir: The question is, is the blood you got from the stone any good?
Estragon: I would say, Godot didn’t reject us straight away. He didn’t take the easy way out.
Vladimir: Hence, you deem it good news, right? Well, then we wait on.
Estragon: It seems like it, doesn’t it?

Vladimir (is down on his knees and knocks his head hard onto the floor): No, no, no, no!
Estragon: Eh … Vladimir? Will you be alright?
Vladimir (throws his cell phone against the next wall where it smashes): Arrrghhhhhhhh!
Estragon: Vladimir, my friend, remember – breathe in, breathe out, in, out, in, out and ohmmmmmmmmmmmmm. And now, tell me what is wrong – ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Vladimir: ‘What’s wrong?’ you ask me! (clenches his teeth and presses the next words through them) Godot! Godot is wrong!
Estragon: Remember, in and out, in and out and ohmmmmmmmmm. What has he done this time? – in and out, in and out, this is right.
Vladimir (speaks in between breaths of air): He must suffer of amnesia! After all the time spent waiting, after all the calls and promises of a decision – he didn’t reject us or accepted our request. (the breathing becomes gasping, the eye bulge, the voice becomes gradually louder until he shouts) He couldn’t remember us and so, asked us to start the process all over again, to jump to start but don’t get the 2000 Euro, to send our request again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Estragon (voiceless and pale looking): You’re kidding?
Vladimir: When I tell you! I wrote a complain already criticizing the internal flow of information and the handling of client contact. But would you believe it!? Others try to avoid Godot at any cost and are forced by courts to associate with him. And we try to keep his company and are ignored. (shakes his head)
Estragon: It’s a strange, strange world after all… Well, taking all this into consideration I would say we leave, come on.
Vladimir: No, we can’t.
Estragon: You don’t say we are still waiting for Godot, do you?
Vladimir: Yes, we do. Now more than ever!

I warn you. I am not a good company right now. For one thing my voice sounds like a rasp if I can get a sound out of my mouth at all that sounds like speech. And I cough like a 90 year old chain smoker though his coughing might be a little more productive than mine. And for another thing I would love to bang my head on every wall I see as I had never imagined how hard it can be to get into an organization other people try to avoid at all cost.

Just today I read an article on Haaretz  about a young man called Yaniv David Harel who takes all legal actions possible to get an exemption from the army for just a few more years until he finishes medical school. Well, to be more precise he takes the legal action to regain a passport so that he can continue his studies abroad and the issuing is denied to him on reasons of draft-dodging.

The latest decision in this case was handed down last week by Jerusalem District Court Judge Noam Sohlberg. Sohlberg said that the linkage of the right to obtain a passport and the fulfillment of military duty as mandated by law is both logical and reasonable because “individual existence is not separate from public [life]; rather, they are intertwined. This relationship is one of give-and-take, which we cannot do without.” Further, the judge wrote that “the discourse about rights and the constant striving to optimize them sometimes overshadows the fact that no society can be established without individuals carrying out their responsibilities to public institutions.”

I once already published here an article about citizenship, rights and duties and deprivation of citizenship. And just as judge Sohlberg I am of the opinion that one mustn’t only fight for the rights coming with a citizenship but must fulfill the duties as well as this is the only way a society can work (though I think the duties have to be spread on all shoulders belonging to the society as far as they can carry them). I deviate with the people responsible for the decision not to allow him to finish his studies before he starts his service as they could easily have done a deal with him whose service could be even more valuable for his comrades as soon as he has finished his school.

What really rankles me however is the inequality of handling of cases in a way. Harel and I can’t be compared as far as Harel seems to be of sole Israeli citizenship while I hold a dual citizenship. Yet, when I once applied for my first passport I wasn’t even asked if I would be willing to serve. With my passport I got a sheet of paper in Hebrew with a post it glued to it saying ‘This is your exemption from the army.’

At that time I was just a bit younger than Harel now and had started with law school. I might have reacted like Harel though I wouldn’t have depended on a passport as much as he does right now. One will never know as I wasn’t asked. But what has grown over the time since then in me is the feeling that I failed a duty. I have accumulated skills over the time I now want to apply in service for my country. And funnily enough just as Harel has the hardest time to get (temporarily) out of the service I have the hardest time to get in as I am getting the runaround.

The latest? After being told two weeks ago that my request had finally reached them I was told to call back for a decision a week from then. I did it and was told that they regret that they are not able yet to tell me a decision in my case and that I need to call back a week later again. I did so again. On Tuesday nobody cared to answer the phone though I called all of the three main phone numbers the consulate in Berlin gave me as they didn’t see themselves fit to help me on. On Wednesday I reached yet another female soldier who apparently looked my file up in her computer, asked her supervisor and returned to tell me that she doesn’t know my case at all but that her supervisor had told her that she thinks I need to return to the consulate in Berlin to formally apply again. *bangs her head at the wall just remembering the call*

Sorry? Isn’t this the place I started from? Hadn’t we yet proceeded to a point in all the calls and emails I always started where we were talking about a decision? Hadn’t the last time I called the girl answering the phone even remembered me when I just said my name? Does the right hand know what the left hand does? Hadn’t I asked right in the beginning if I would need to do or write anything else and was told my stuff sent in so far was sufficient? Can it really be so hard to be granted the right to be taken serious and talked to in a proper way? Can it really be so hard to get into an army while others who are almost in the same situation fight for some kind of only temporary exemption?

Sorry, but I can’t understand it. But now I am in a ‘now more than ever’ mood.