Activism / Solidarity / Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions
Israeli soldiers forcibly dispersed a rally against settlement expansion
in Beit Ummar village in the southern West Bank district of Hebron,
participants said ... [Awwad] said a 21-year-old British national
sustained bruises to the head and back after being hit by a tear-gas
canister and stun grenade, adding that she was taken to hospital for
treatment. The spokesman added that Palestinian journalist Najih
Hashlamoun fainted after being hit in the back with a tear-gas canister
and that several suffered tear-gas inhalation. Khader Zeidan, 65, was
hospitalized after inhaling tear gas, Awwad added.
23 July - Israeli soldiers detained the former Vice President of the
European Parliament, Luisa Morgantini, in Bil’in this afternoon, injured
one Israeli activist., and arrested another. Sixty nine-year-old
Morgantini, an Italian Member of the Euopean Parliament (MEP) has long
been an outspoken supporter of Palestinians ... The demonstration called
for the release of prisoners Adeeb Abu Rahma, Abdullah Abu Rahme,
Ibrahim al-Bornat, and Ahmed al-Bornat – all Bil’in residents jailed by
Israel for resisting the occupation.
Israeli forces detained two young Palestinian men at a flying checkpoint
installed outside a village south of Nablus on Saturday, in what
witnesses called an attempt to prevent demonstrators from entering the
area. The village, Iraq Burin, hosts weekly anti wall protests, and
locals said the checkpoint was set up to prevent Palestinian and
international supporters joining the rally. One woman, Muyassar Atiyani,
planning to attend the protest, said the checkpoint was erected at 8am
at the entrance to the village and said soldiers held a booklet with a
list of names. She said she believed that the booklet held the names and
photos of activists who frequent the protest.
"European Solidarity" was the theme of Friday’s anti-wall protest in
Al-Ma’sara village south of Bethlehem, which saw one person injured and
two detained. The popular committee against the wall reported more than
100 demonstrators, including a six piece drumming band, and a strong
French contingent at the weekly rally ... A French woman was taken to
hospital to have shrapnel removed from her ear after a sound bomb
exploded by her head. The injury required four stitches, and she will be
kept overnight to test for hearing problems, the committee
said. Soldiers detained, and later released, a journalist and a
photographer in what the committee described as an "unwarranted attack
on freedom of the press."
Bogus
charges - As part of Israel’s increased attempt at hindering the work
of Palestine solidarity activists, an Israeli court yesterday dealt a
further blow. Marcus Rednander, a 26-year-old activist and nursing
student from Sweden, was arrested by Israeli forces on the night of
Tues. July 20. He was initially accused of assaulting an Israeli soldier
during a demonstration in Hebron earlier this month. Rednander first
saw a judge at the Court of Peace in the Russian Compound in Jerusalem
on Wed. July 21. Although there was no proof of the accusations against
him, Rednander was escorted away in handcuffs and shackles.
Transformation. Fabulous video of the strong young artist Emily
Henochowicz singing an anthem to Palestine she wrote for her friend. A
lot of great rage here, toward the state that destroyed her eye during a
demonstration on May 31. Some of the lyrics, about 2-1/2 minutes in: In
Palestine, oh I miss you Palestine. And you know I think back to the
memory of my grandparents in Poland And I think of what they suffered
through in Europe. It makes me sad I think they would be sad how all
those Jews who died in the Holocaust would be so very sad If they knew
that this is how their memory was being used....
On July 11, 2010, members of Adalah-NY, the New York Campaign for the
Boycott of Israel, and other members of the New York community
participated in a tour of companies profiting from and financially
enabling the Israeli occupation and repression of the West Bank and Gaza
Strip. The stores visited include Aroma, Ricky’s, Max Brenner, and Best
Buy (Motorola).
Aid ships / Flotilla aftermath
Official in Jerusalem says Human Right Council's decision to look into
May 31 raid on Gaza-bound Turkish ship shows body 'obsessed with
Israel.' Kadima MK: Investigate Shalit's captivity
...HRW has been mostly silent on the horrific attack. When they have
spoken out, they have been notably timid, essentially sharing the same
positions as the US government, Israel's closest ally. According to a
search of the group's website, the flotilla attack has only been
addressed four times. By contrast, Amnesty International (the
organization's closest peer) has tackled the issue 17 times, issuing
much stronger statements of condemnation than those released by HRW. The
jarring difference in how these two human rights organizations have
responded to the flotilla attack raises important questions about the
functioning of the largest and most reputed human rights organization in
the United States.
After
Israel says it 'reserves the right' to prevent Lebanese ships from
accessing Hamas-ruled enclave, Ban's spokesman says world body's stated
preference remains that aid to Strip should be delivered by established
routes
Under the Law of Maritime Navigation, Israel has no right to intercept
aid ships bound for Gaza, head of the Popular Committee against the
siege Jamal Al-Khoudari said Friday. Speaking most immediately about
the Lebanese aid ships The Mariam and The Naji Al-Ali, both scheduled to
lift anchor and sail toward Gaza within the week, Al-Khudari said it
was the right and the duty of nations to ensure the laws of the sea were
properly applied, and to embark toward Gaza shores ...
Protesters use Palestinian flags to pound police shields while carrying
posters of activists killed during Israel's raid on a Gaza aid flotilla.
Siege (Gaza & West Bank) / Restriction on movement
Palestinian officials facilitated the passage of travelers to Jordan who
had been delayed by Israeli authorities on Thursday. Eight buses of
mostly women and children were turned back from the Allenby Bridge on
Thursday evening and sent back to Jericho by Israeli soldiers. Crossings
director Nathmi Muhana said the Palestinian Red Crescent were on hand
for passengers spending Thursday night at the terminal, and reported
that all travelers had been able to leave the West Bank on Friday. [End]
A second group of Umrah pilgrims from the Gaza Strip were set to depart
for Egypt on Saturday via Rafah, the crossings monitoring department in
the coastal enclave reported. Approximately 650 pilgrims were given the
okay to travel by Gaza officials, and were lined onto buses ready to
depart Saturday, and an additional 450 were scheduled to leave on
Sunday, officials said. Setting a promising precedent, the first group
of 177 Umrah pilgrims left Gaza for Egypt on Monday, after a deal was
reached between the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and the Hamas-run
government in Gaza.
Ten children returned to Gaza from Slovenia on Friday, fitted with
prosthetic limbs thanks to a rehabilitation project initiated by
Slovenia’s president, Danilo Turk. The children, who lost limbs in
Israel’s attack on the Strip in December 2008, were treated at
Ljubljana’s Institute for Rehabilitation ... Child amputees constantly
outgrow their prosthetic limbs, and need regular re-fittings. The
ongoing campaign, co-sponsored by the US, Sweden, and South Korea, has
also brought physiotherapists and doctors from Gaza to Slovenia to
receive advanced specialist training.
Detainees
A
57-year-old woman from Tulkarem was tortured by Israeli detectives
while detained in Al-Jalama military prison, the Ahrar Center for
prisoners in Tulkarem alleged. Fouad Al-Khafsh, director of the Center,
said the woman, Fathia Sweis, was detained on 19 July, and has since
been forced to stand for many hours with her eyes closed and suffered
sleep deprivation under questioning.
Israeli authorities on Wednesday released three detainees who have
completed their sentences. Foad Al-Khafsh of the Detainees Society said
As-Sumu village mayor Musa Abu Al-Hadayel was released after spending 19
months in an Israeli prison. It was not clear why he was
jailed. Al-Khafsh added that father-of-eight Al-Hadayel, 45, had
previously spent six years in Israeli jail, and has a degree in physics.
The reason for his detention was not specified. Ahmad Hmeidan, 27, from
Hebron, and Isam Def Allah, 24, from Ramallah, were released from Negev
prison, Al-Khafsh said, without mentioning charges. Both men had been
detained for 30 months.
War crimes and criminals
For
a whole year Judge Goldstone was attacked ... The Goldstone Report was
continually denounced as a collection of lies and vicious
propaganda. Still, now the Israel Defense Forces officially informed the
UN that in future wars it will take greater care not to use White
Phosphorus bombs in civilian areas. It is no coincidence that this was
one of the main points in the much-maligned Goldstone Report. This came
too late for the residents of Gaza who got Israeli White Phosphorus
burning deep into their living flesh, in a fire which cannot be
extinguished. But those who will in the future get visited by the most
moral army in the world can give heartfelt thanks to Judge Richard
Goldstone.
Israelis wanted for war crimes can sleep easier thanks to their friends
and admirers in the British Establishment. Yes, our brand-new coalition
government intends providing a safe haven for the vilest of
criminals. When Israel’s ex-foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, and other
architects of the terror campaign against Palestinian civilians,
recently cancelled trips to the UK for fear of being arrested under
universal jurisdiction laws on charges of war crimes, it sparked a
diplomatic row.
Politics / Diplomacy
Palestinian diplomatic missions enjoyed upgrades to their statuses in
France and the US this week, Israeli press reported. The French
government officially upgraded the Palestinian general commission in
Paris to the status of Palestine Mission on Thursday, Israeli daily
Haaretz said Friday. The head of the mission, as an ambassador, will
present his credentials to the French president. The move supports Prime
Minister Salam Fayyad’s plan to establish a Palestinian state by 2012.
Israel's Arab helpers
Egyptian forces took control of three smuggling tunnels along the Gaza
border, Egyptian security sources said Friday. The seizures were part of
a new campaign underway to expose tunnels used by Palestinians to
smuggle goods into Gaza
Egyptian authorities seized 20 cars which were to be smuggled into Gaza,
security sources said. The cars, without plates, were found in a
warehouse in Ad-Duhneyeh near the Rafah crossing on the Egypt-Gaza
border. The sources added that the cars were stolen from citizens in the
Egyptian city Al-Arish. [though the cars in the photo look brand new]
Other news
The
Islamist movement Hizb Ut-Tahrir held dozens of marches and rallies
across the West Bank after Friday prayers, a party statement said. The
organization claimed that Palestinian Authority security forces arrested
thousands of its members en route to the party's annual meeting one
week ago, adding that further arrests were made at an event to mark the
89th anniversary of the fall of the last caliphate on Saturday. The
group, which promotes the re-establishment of an Islamic Caliphate in
the Middle East, said Friday's rallies were to "confirm to the PA that
their repressive measures will not prevent us from carrying out our
message and goals." [End]
While unemployment in Gaza remains as high as 70 percent, women have
become breadwinners for families as traditional jobs in factories and
construction disappear in the thick of Israel's siege ... Aminah Abu
Maghasib, 37, is one of a growing number of women who has started
digging small water reservoirs for Gaza homes. She is proud of her work,
and says it not only helps families access water when they need it, but
also provides some income for herself and others ... Aminah has seven
children. She sat down with Ma'an and explained why she, and not her
husband, was working as a laborer.
Factions in the Gaza Strip united Thursday to congratulate students for
their scores on the annual high school exit tests ... Usually with a
near 50 percent pass rate, the 2010 results had 85 percent achieve a
pass in the Scientific Stream while 60.6 percent passed in the Literary
Stream and 63 percent in the Professional Branches.
Two high school girls were rushed to Qalqiliya hospitals on Thursday
after medics said they overdosed on medication in what were believed to
be suicide attempts. Locals said the girls did not see their names of
the lists of successful candidates in the 2010 national Tawjihi exams,
and told Ma'an that they believed their failure in the high school exit
exam lead them to make the attempts on their lives.
De facto government detectives in the Gaza Strip seized inventory from
several shops and vendors on Saturday, which a police report said
displayed "immoral words." The clothing, manufactured in Gaza City, was
mostly cotton shirts with the words "Porn Man Clothing" written on them
in bold letters ... Investigators said charges would likely be laid.
The seizure on grounds of immorality is the latest in a string of small
measures being taken by the Gaza government to enforce what critics
call inappropriate laws on personal status.
Visit to Holocaust museum in Jerusalem arranged by 28-year-old Ramallah
area resident who seeks to learn about Shoah ... "I believe that the
pain is the same pain when it comes to people," A. said. "Most
Palestinians and Arabs don't even believe there was a Holocaust. Most
Palestinians know Israelis as occupiers and nothing beyond that.
Israelis don't know Palestinians and their suffering. I hope this visit
will help both our peoples to think ahead. We need to build a common
future." Despite these statements, A. claims he wasn't surprised by the
tough images he saw in the museum. "I saw the tough pictures from
Auschwitz, but I'm used to images of violence from our reality here," he
said.
The government on Thursday reached a deal to suspend planned legislation
that would hand the Chief Rabbinate a monopoly on overseeing
conversions to Judaism in Israel. Acting on instructions from Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser reached an
agreement with Israel Reform and Masorti (traditional) Jewish movements,
persuading them to drop a petition to the High Court in exchange for a
six-month freeze on enacting the law in the Knesset.
Official
at Interior Minister Yishai's office says decision to delay vote on
controversial bill by six month was not coordinated with haredi party
Immigrants applying for marriage licenses are being asked by local
rabbinical courts to produce ritual wedding contracts from their
parents, grandparents and great-grandparents or other often unattainable
documents to prove their Jewishness, Anglo File has learned. One rabbi
close to the affair called the new process "unprecedented humiliation,"
and said it was the direct consequence of new guidelines to prove
Jewishness the Chief Rabbinate recently implemented.
Activists
of all parts of political spectrum rally near defense minister's house
against law exempting yeshiva students from IDF service. MK Nitzan
Horowitz: Law discriminates between citizens
Analysis / Opinion / Human interest
Since I witnessed the rise of the Nazis during my childhood in Germany,
my nose always tickles when it smells something fascist, even when the
odor is still faint. When the debate about the “one-state solution”
began, my nose tickled ... This is not the first time that a kosher
leftist plan leads towards extreme rightist consequences. That happened,
for example, to the ugliest symbol of the occupation: the separation
wall. It was invented by the Left ... Ethnic cleansing can be carried
out dramatically (as in this country in 1948 and in Kosovo in 1998) or
in a quiet and systematic way, by dozens of sophisticated methods, as is
happening now in East Jerusalem. But there cannot be the slightest
doubt that this is the final stage of the one-state vision of the
rightists. The first stage will be an effort to fill the entire country
with settlements, and to demolish any chance of implementing the
two-state solution, which is the only realistic basis for peace.
Every June, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) releases
its Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights. According to a
press release that accompanied the 2010 publication (which reports on
events in 2009), "the Middle East remains among the regions of the world
where union rights are least protected." The report describes
repression meted out to Palestinian workers and trade unionists by both
the Israeli authorities and the Palestinian factions. But ITUC's
omissions and brevity both disguise the complexity of life for
Palestinian workers, and reveal some of the union confederation's own
biases.
In
April 2003 the British peace activist Tom Hurndall was fatally wounded
at Rafah in the Gaza Strip ... Sergeant Taysir Hayb, who killed Tom
Hurndall, was a member of the Desert Patrol Battalion of the Israeli
Defense Forces - the official name of the unit in which are concentrated
most of the Bedouins who join the army, hoping (usually in vain) to
come nearer to a situation of equality in the country of which they are
citizens ... the IDF is no longer in Rafah. But it is still stationed in
many other locations on the border of the Gaza Strip. And it still
declares "red lines" the passing of which causes one to enter a "fire
zone", to be suspected of being terrorist and to be liable to be shot on
the spot. But the army has advanced, and the task is no longer given to
the Bedouins of the Desert Patrol Battalion.
...I
examined Chomsky’s history in some detail in an article that I wrote
for Left Curve in 2005 that called attention to the destructive role he
has played regarding the Palestinian-based boycott, divestment and
sanctions (BDS) campaign targeting Israel and the equally destructive
impact of his dismissal of the pro-Israel lobby as an influential force
in shaping US Middle East policy. That he is still at it, and that his
influence among what are considered “progressives” has lessened only
imperceptibly, requires another look at the professor’s fierce and
unyielding opposition to the BDS campaign launched by the leading
organizations of Palestinian civil society. [See
Rejoinder to this controversial article - by Jeremy R. Hammond -
here ]
Imagine
this, imagine that Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress
negotiated a deal with the South African Apartheid regime and settled
for a “two-state solution.” Imagine Mandela negotiating with the
Apartheid regime a land deal in which less than 15% of current day South
Africa went to the black South Africans, the remaining 85% to the
inherently racist Apartheid government and its people. With that in
mind, I ask, is there any real difference between that scenario and the
idea of a “two-state solution” today?
Every
once in a while, I return to Henry Labouchère's poem, 'The Brown Man's
Burden.' It was written in 1899 and a response to another, much more
famous poem. To read it with the conflict of the last seventy or eighty
years in mind (and for that matter, the Second Iraq War) is an
interesting experience. An anti-colonial piece, it is eerily prophetic
of the shape that arguments and justifications put forth by Zionists
have taken ... And it was not even written about the Arab-Israeli
conflict. Which makes the anti-colonial critique of the Zionist
enterprise and the discourse it has spawned to justify its behavior all
the more fitting and appropriate. Written 111 years ago, it might
easily have been written today.
I
like the Liberty story because it's so grotesque: 34 Americans killed
and dozens wounded in daylight on the Mediterranean during the Six-Day
War in a savage and repeated attack on an intelligence vessel.
Officially described as a mistake, but few of the survivors believe it.
Didn't the Israelis know what they were doing? But if it was deliberate,
what was the motive? Lately
I've been reading The Passionate Attachment, by the late former under
secretary of State George W. Ball and his son Douglas Ball, and it
argues that the Israelis were fearful that the U.S. would report on
continued Israeli hostilities at a time when the U.N. had voted for a
ceasefire.
The State of Israel has just passed a 'loyalty oath' required of all
prospective citizens living in Israel illegally to swear allegiance to a
“Jewish democratic state.” Concurrently, “an academic backlash has
erupted in Israel over proposed new laws, backed by the government of
Binyamin Netanyahu, to criminalise a handful of Israeli professors who
openly support a campaign against the continuing occupation of the West
Bank.1 It would appear that Israel is in need of a lesson on the virtues
of democracy as they are anathema to tyrannical rule. Harry S. Truman
vetoed the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950 with this observation:
"In a free country, we punish men for the crimes they commit, but never
for the opinions they have."
Boney M asked to skip hit in West Bank gig (AP)When
the iconic 1970s disco group Boney M rocked Ramallah this week, the
local music festival prevented the band from performing one of its
biggest hits. Lead singer Maizie Williams said Palestinian concert
organizers told her not to sing [their cover of the Melodians']
"Rivers of Babylon".The
song's chorus quotes from the Book of Psalms [#137], referring to the
exiled Jewish people's yearning to return to the biblical land of
Israel.
[what a conundrum -- for African-Americans the song is a
metaphor for their captivity in the Americas and their longing for their
African homeland. This song could perhaps also have been used for
Palestinian exiles' longing for their own lost homes, if it were not for
the fact that the Jews' longing for Zion was the cause of the
Palestinians' exile. Perhaps it is fitting, given the current situation,
that the last lines of this psalm are about revenge: "Happy shall he
be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."]
Ramallah
is in fashion, it's clear. For anyone who's had his fill of the Berlin
scene and is sick of India already, Ramallah is waiting. On Tuesday
toward evening you could see them - the trend-hunters from Tel Aviv,
promenading in the streets of Ramallah, speaking English just to be on
the safe side, without realizing that their Israeliness sticks out a
mile, in the way they walk, in their body language. They came for a
performance by Boney M which was due to start at 8:30 P.M. in the plaza
of the Ramallah Cultural Palace.
The
genius of [Sayed Kashua's] "Arab Labor" is its ability to use sitcom
set-ups to pinpoint both the most banal and torturous dilemmas facing
Israel's Palestinian citizens ... The genius of "Arab Labor" is its
ability to use sitcom set-ups to pinpoint both the most banal and
torturous dilemmas facing Israel's Palestinian citizens. In Saturday
night's episode, Amjad's desire to have sufficient water pressure to
allow a decent shower leads him to pop naked into a stranger's bathroom
while apartment-hunting - a classic sitcom situation. But when Amjad
tries some "Jewish" assertiveness at the Water Authority, instead of
improved pressure he gets a demolition order.
Two
years ago, this magazine exposed a dark chapter in the life of Nahi
Alon, a clinical psychologist who ordered the killing of Palestinians in
the Six-Day War. Now he describes the personal journey that resulted,
which included emotional encounters with Arab friends and a new approach
to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Iraq
Excerpt: Only one Iraqi death was reported today, but 33 Iraqis were
wounded in new attacks. Three U.S. soldiers who were wounded at their
base in Nasariya as well. Meanwhile, Iraq trudged on another day without
a new government, but the United States continued pressure on the
leading contenders for prime minister.
Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the
Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004,
exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study ... Of
particular significance was the finding that the sex ratio between
newborn boys and girls had changed. In a normal population this is 1,050
boys born to 1,000 girls, but for those born from 2005 there was an 18
per cent drop in male births, so the ratio was 850 males to 1,000
females. The sex-ratio is an indicator of genetic damage that affects
boys more than girls.
In
March 2006, four US soldiers, strung out after months in the deadly
battleground south of Baghdad, hatched a plan: to carry out one of the
worst war crimes ever committed in Iraq
Other Mideast
The head of Hezbollah has said that some of its members will be among
those charged with the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister
Rafik Hariri in 2005.
...No
reason for the cancellation was given, with state media saying only
that Mr Mubarak had delegated the prime minister to represent Egypt in
Kampala. Egyptian officials said earlier that Mr Mubarak's planned trip
would show that he was in good health.
Is Hosni Mubarak dying? Ill? The panic in Egypt surrounding the health
of the president, in power for 29 years, is less about the fact that he
will die at some point and more about his legacy and his successor -
most likely his son Gamal.
Former Iran navy chief says U.S. ships would be 'morsels for Iran to
target'; finance official says Tehran will halt trade with countries
that impose recent UN sanctions.
U.S. and other world news
Efforts to censor websites considered pro-terror, even tenuously so, are
hardly restricted to Britain and an increasing number of Western
nations have sought to dramatically expand control over the internet in
the name of targeting them.
France's
National Assembly last week passed the "burka law," which bans wearing
the full-body veil in public. Although the law passed with an
overwhelming majority, other Western countries are hesitant to join the
campaign. Their hesitation is understandable. The burka law touches a
sensitive junction in the Western conscience, in which classic feminism
meets radical postmodernism, also known as cultural relativism.
