Volunteer in Gaza with the ISM
International Solidarity Movement, Gaza | December 9, 2011
The International Solidarity Movement is appealing for activists to join our team in the besieged Gaza Strip. After being barred from Gaza in 2003 following the murders of Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall, ISM Gaza was reinstated in August 2008 when ISM and other volunteers traveled aboard the historic, siege-breaking voyage of the first Free Gaza Movement boat. ISM has maintained a constant presence in Gaza since that time, for over three years of Israel’s crippling siege.
ISM volunteers refused to leave when Israel began bombing Gaza in December 2008. During the devastating 23-day assault, activists accompanied ambulances and provided vital testimony to the international media.
Daily life in Gaza is a harrowing struggle. In stark violation of international law, Israel enforces a three-nautical-mile fishing blockade. The Israeli-imposed ‘buffer zone’ swallows up a third of Gaza’s farmland, which lies along the Israeli border. Farmers are routinely shot and killed simply for working their land well inside Gaza’s borders.
ISM Gaza volunteers accompany farmers and demonstrators in the ‘buffer zone’, as well as fishermen routinely harassed by the Israeli navy. Visit http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/category/gaza/ to watch videos and read reports by ISM Gaza.
Those interested in joining the ISM Gaza team are required to attend a preliminary training in their home country and must communicate with the volunteers in Gaza prior to arrival. Entering Gaza is an arduous process that may require some time to be spent in Egypt. All ISM volunteers in Gaza must agree to ISM principles as delineated on www.palsolidarity.org.
Also recommended:
- Previous experience in the West Bank with the ISM strongly encouraged; if not, experience with nonviolent direct action, preferably elsewhere in the Middle East
- A historical understanding of Palestine and some knowledge of the current political situation
- Arabic language skills highly recommended; if not English is necessary
- Cultural sensitivity
- Ability to stay in Gaza for an extended period of time (over a month)
- High degree of independence and self-sufficiency
- Ability to do deal with protracted stressful situations
- Experience with consensus-based decision-making
For more information about where to attend a preliminary training or other questions, please email gazaism@gmail.com.
Gaza Attack: “My Uncle Died in my Arms”
By Ruqaya Izzidien | Al Akhbar | December 9, 2011
“My uncle was breathing when I found him under the rubble,” said Migdad Elzalaan. “He told me, ‘Look after our family, look after the children. Look after them,’ and then he died, right in my arms.”
At around 2am on Thursday night, Israeli forces bombed the area beside the Elzalaan household in northern Gaza City, injuring thirteen members of his family and killing his uncle. Migdad’s 12-year-old cousin, Ramadan, died in hospital from his injuries less than a day after the attack.
As 20-year-old Elzalaan stood recalling the night’s attack, he dislodged blocks of rubble poking through large holes in the roof, fearing that they might fall on our heads. He stumbled through the remains of his home while rubble cracked and snapped underfoot, small pieces of house falling occasionally while a drone buzzed heavily, circling above the ruins of the house.
Elzalaan was sitting at the computer before the first bomb hit.
“I brought my younger sisters, Samaa and Samar into the living room, with my grandmother. I tried to shield them and as the first bomb hit, I was injured in my back and leg by pieces of falling rubble. Afterwards, I took my family out of the house to safety.”
After the second bomb struck, Elzalaan headed to his uncle’s house, which shares a wall with his own. “My uncle, his wife and their baby were under the rubble. My aunt told me to leave her, just to take her baby, Ahmed, to safety. I picked him out of the rubble and handed him to someone.”
As soon the 6-month-old was taken to safety, Israeli forces dropped a third bomb. “I shielded my aunt during the third bomb, and then afterwards helped her out of the house.” Elzalaan then returned for his uncle, Bahjat, who was buried underneath the rubble.
The 33-year-old father-of-five told Migdad to look after his family before dying in his nephew’s arms.
“I carried my uncle out of the building and then we brought a jeep to take everyone to hospital, because no ambulances came. By the dawn call to prayer, we were on our way to hospital.”
“During the bombing I was yelling and pulling my hair out,” Elzalaan explained, “Absolutely everyone was injured – thirteen members of my family. My two cousins are still in hospital, they are critically wounded. They are ten and twelve years old.” Hours later, Ramadan, the elder of Elzalaan’s cousins, died of his injuries.
Elzalaan’s neighbor passed through the house, pointed to the rubble and yelled, “This is what Israel does. There were no fighters here, just children and a family. This isn’t a home anymore.”
Migdad Elzalaan’s home was also badly damaged in an Israeli airstrike during the 2008-2009 war and repaired by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
New Pappe book highlights plight of forgotten Palestinians
Asa Winstanley | The Electronic Intifada | 7 December 2011
After the Nakba, Israel’s 1948 ethnic cleansing operations, only approximately 160,000 Palestinians were left within the borders of what became Israel. Their numbers grew to 600,000 by the mid-1980s (152), and to about 1.2 million today. They struggled for Israeli citizenship, and won the right to vote in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), but were kept under the thumb of strict military rule until 1966.
Thanks partly to the growing international notoriety of their representatives and activists (such as current and former members of the Knesset Haneen Zoabi and the exiled Azmi Bishara) in recent years there has been more attention paid to the situation of these Palestinians. But in the western solidarity movement, there is still a learning process to be had of understanding that “the Palestinians” includes more than the people of the West Bank and Gaza. As such The Forgotten Palestinians, Ilan Pappe’s latest work of popular history, is a welcome contribution.
Pappe contextualizes the book as almost a sequel to his most celebrated work: “this book continues my research on Palestine and Israel, which I began in The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006). It is only through a history of the Palestinian minority in Israel that one can imagine the extent to which the long-lived Zionist and Israeli desire for ethnic supremacy and exclusivity has brought about the current reality on the ground” (11). This approach very much pays off. Through the prism of the Palestinian citizens of Israel, Pappe explores the general Palestinian condition.
The Forgotten Palestinians ably displays Pappe’s main strength: his ability to relate a strong historical narrative. He ties many threads together, giving some much-needed perspective.
The Nakba, continued
Pappe addresses the plight of Palestinians who remained in the new State of Israel following the Nakba. In urban areas, “cordoned off with wire and fences,” Pappe writes that there were Israeli “attempts to concentrate Palestinians who had lost their homes but remained within the boundaries of the hometown … supervised by Israeli officers, who called these confinement areas ‘ghettos.’” These “ghettos” would not disappear until 1950 (18).
Like the rest of the scattered Palestinian community at large, this was a deeply traumatized people. “If they lived in rural areas, they belonged to a hundred and so villages left intact out of more than five hundred whose inhabitants were evicted and in 1949 were wiped out by the Israeli tractors, turning them into either recreation parks or Jewish settlements,” Pappe states (19). The ethnic cleansing operations went on into the 1950s.
Characteristic of Pappe, there are plenty of challenges here to the idea of “left wing” Zionism, including: “the [Palestinian] people of Khirbet Jalami, who were evicted following a demand by the newly founded left-wing kibbutz of Lehavot Haviva in March 1950” (34).
In this early phase (1948-57), even the presence of the Palestinians in Israel was under threat: “the very existence of the community was in question. Their presence was regarded by important figures in the Israeli regime as ‘unfinished business,’ and quite a few of the politicians and heads of the security services still contemplated the removal of the Palestinian citizens from the Jewish state” (47).
This threat later receded somewhat, but it never truly went away, and has very much been revived during the rise of Avigdor Lieberman, arch-racist and current foreign minister of Israel, whose party Yisrael Beiteinu made electoral gains by calling for Palestinians citizens to be made to swear oaths committing to a Jewish state, with the slogan “no loyalty – no citizenship.”
In October 2010, Pappe records, “Israeli police simulated a scenario whereby parts of Israel in which Palestinians lived were appended to the West Bank — while the illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank were incorporated into the Jewish state” (5).
Pappe says it was only in 1958 that the first Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion “conceded in an official document that the option of transfer was not applicable any more” (31).
By 1955, Ben-Gurion’s second “advisor on Arab affairs” Shemuel Divon would have to concede that “There is no way the Arabs of Israel will be loyal to the state. It would have been advantageous if the state could either expel them or convert them to Judaism, but these are not realistic options” (31). Ben-Gurion seemed to agree (33). It is very interesting that Zionist leaders still entertained the delusion that Palestinians could be converted to Judaism late into the 1950s. This is also quite a challenge to the narrative of “secular” Israel.
All this goes some way to explain why the community’s struggle in this first phase was not for national or cultural rights as Palestinians, but simply to stay in their homes and to win citizenship.
The struggle for citizenship
In its propaganda, Israel likes to boast that it benevolently gave its “Arab Israelis” citizenship. But something that comes across strongly in this book is the extent to which this is not true: many had to struggle for even this basic right.
In 1953, the new Israeli citizenship law cynically declared that only those registered in the November 1948 census would be automatically given citizenship. Partly because Israel did not yet have full military control, “out of 160,000 Palestinians, 100,000 were not registered by November 1948.”
This was a racist law, because it did not apply to Jews (from anywhere in the world) who are still automatically granted citizenship under the “Law of Return.” The upshot of this was that a majority of the “Arab Israelis” were not benevolently “granted” citizenship as Israel likes to claim, but in fact had to struggle for it, often in the courts (35-7).
The military regime in the 1948 areas
Another key challenge to the Israeli narrative of democracy is that, until 1966 it kept its Arab citizens under a military rule similar to that now in effect in the West Bank. This is still a traumatic memory for people in the community until this day.
Making use of British Mandate laws, “the [military] governor had the right to arrest people without a warrant and detain them without trial for long periods; he could ban their entrance to a place or expel them from their homes; he could also confine them under house arrest. He could close schools, businesses, newspapers and journals, and prohibit demonstrations or protests” (49).
Amazingly, many of these laws are still on the books, and the army still has the power to declare parts of the country “closed military zones.” Since 1996 a legal change has required an annual renewal of the laws (264).
In the 1950s, a special committee met to coordinate military rule. At its first meeting, the Palestinian citizens were defined as a “hostile community” that needed to be closely watched, a “fifth column.” Members of the committee included agents of the Shin Bet (Shabak), the Israeli General Security Service; the prime minister’s advisor on Arab affairs; officials from the military rule unit and, interestingly, representatives from the Histadrut — Israel’s general trade union (which until 1953 banned Arabs from membership (69). This committee met until the end of military rule in 1966 (48-9).
The Palestinian citizens of Israel today
The book spans the complete historical narrative of the Palestinians of 1948, bringing things right into the present day. Pappe concludes that, although the 1950s threat to expel the remaining Palestinians from Israel was later backed away from, this thinking has returned. The head of the regional council of lower Galilee, Motti Dotan (from the “left-wing” Zionist Labor party) in 2008 said, “If we lose the Jewish majority in the Galilee this is the end of the Jewish state … I would like to imagine a Galilee without Arabs: no thefts, no crimes … we will have a normal life” (257).
If the book has a weakness, it is something about which I have criticized Pappe’s work previously: sometimes there is lack of direct quotes. One is left to trust in the historian’s judgment. This does make for a more readable, flowing narrative, but I would have liked more specifics at times. For example, he says that the Israeli novelist A.B. Yehoshua “famously invited [Palestinian novelist Anton] Shammas to leave the country if he was unhappy with the Zionist regime and the success of Jews in dispossessing the Palestinians” (190). I would have liked to have read the exact words of Yehoshua here.
Apart from this and a few other very minor quibbles, I have no hesitation in recommending this book. It’s a great read, especially for those new to the topic. Those more familiar with the situation will still learn new things, and gain some important perspectives on the situation and history of this neglected, but key part of the Palestinian people.
Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist who writes about Palestine. He edited the new book Corporate Complicity in Israel’s Occupation and regularly contributes to The Electronic Intifada, where he also has a blog. His general website is www.winstanleys.org.
Venezuela Responds to “Slanderous” Accusations Made by Israel’s Vice Prime Minister
MINCI | December 8, 2011
Caracas – The Venezuelan Government released an official communication yesterday denouncing accusations made against Venezuela by Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon as “slanderous” and “abusive”.
Yaalon accused Venezuela of working with Iran to create a “terrorist infrastructure” in Latin America that could “attack the interests of the United States or in the United States,” during his visit to Uruguay this week.
The Venezuelan Government published the below statement regarding the comments.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez further explained yesterday that “all of that forms part of the attempt to place Venezuela on the list of countries called “rogues” by them [the US and its allies], in order to later justify any aggression against us, that’s what it’s about”.
Statement:
Venezuela Rejects Statements by Israel’s Vice Prime Minister
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela rejects the statements issued by Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon in an interview during his visit to the sister Oriental Republic of Uruguay, in which he openly accused Venezuela of participating in plots to commit terrorist attacks.
Such abusive and tendentious statements, which come from the representative of a government that itself participates in terrorist attacks against the Arab peoples, are part of a continuous campaign of aggression against our people aimed at spreading these slanderous rumors in international media outlets, mainly in the U.S.
Additionally, these rumors are against a people, the Venezuelan people, who are playing a leading role in a peaceful, democratic and humanist revolution, and who have never used weapons to attack any people, neither create death and destruction.
On the contrary, the Bolivarian Government of President Hugo Chávez maintains and fosters deep relations of cooperation, solidarity and fraternity with all the peoples of the continent and the world, which is widely recognized by Latin America and the international community, as was demonstrated once again during the historic foundational Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).
As a consequence, Venezuela denounces and rejects these plans of manipulation that serve dark interests through lies and calumnies, and ratifies that its relations with the generous government and people of Iran are based on the pursuit of peace and development.
Ministry of People’s Power for Foreign Affairs
Lawsuit fights hotel’s decision to bar Muslim employee from serving Israeli officials
By Alex Kane | Mondoweiss | December 9, 2011
Mohamed Arafi is suing his employer for barring him from servicing an Israeli delegation staying at a Washington, D.C. hotel
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was in town to address the Brookings Institution’s Saban Forum, and Mohamed Arafi, a Moroccan-born U.S. citizen, was ready to work. An entire Israeli delegation, including Barak, was staying at Washington, D.C.’s high-end Mandarin Oriental Hotel, where Arafi has been a valet dry cleaner since late 2009. But when he showed up to work on December 10, 2010, he was told that he was barred from working the two floors where the Israelis were staying. The reason given, according to Arafi, was because he is Muslim, and the Israeli delegation did not want to be served by Muslims.
Now, Arafi and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) are fighting back in the form of legal action alleging employment discrimination by the hotel against Arafi. The recently filed case is currently in district court in Washington, D.C, and comes on the heels of an inconclusive Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruling on the case.
The hotel is not backing down, and responded in a Nov. 28 filing (pdf) that they were following a national security directive from the State Department that barred Arafi and 11 other employees from serving the Israeli delegation.
Arafi says that the hotel has also punished him for speaking out by cutting his workweek from five days to two days, and that his work colleagues said demeaning things about Muslims to him after the incident became known to them.
“What they want me to do is just quit,” Arafi said in a phone interview. “I don’t want to run away…I want to stay there until I have my rights.” The company has denied Arafi’s charges.
The case could also be seen as a stark illustration of the consequences of Israeli-style “war on terror” attitudes towards Muslims.
The lawsuit describes what happened (pdf), according to Arafi, when the Israeli delegation came to the hotel:
Ms. Escander, [Arafi’s supervisor], stated to Boris [another employee], “Boris, Israel is here. You go up and get the dry cleaning for Mohamed.” Mr. Arafi was confused and asked for an explanation. Ms. Escander stated to Plaintiff, “You know the Israeli delegation is here. You cannot go on the 8th and 9th floor (to pick up or deliver laundry).” Plaintiff asked for further explanation. Ms. Escander stated, “You know how the Israelis are with Arabs and Muslims. It’s better if you just let Boris go.”
The lawsuit alleges that the hotel first claimed to be complying with an Israeli government request not to have Muslims serve them. Arafi said that after he went to the Washington Post with his story, the hotel’s reasoning changed to saying they had no choice in the matter because of the State Department directive. The hotel says the directive came as a result of the department finding “irregularities” in Arafi’s and the other employees’ background checks.
A Mandarin Hotel spokesman repeated that reasoning in a phone interview, and said the lawsuit was “all sizzle and no steak.” The State Department press office did not respond to two phone calls requesting comment.
But Nadhira Al-Khalili, the CAIR attorney working on Arafi’s case, says that neither of the reasons the hotel has given excuse their actions.
“Even if [the State Department] did [issue a national security directive], we say that it was unlawful and the hotel cannot use this national security exemption to discriminate against Mr. Arafi,” said Al-Khalili. She noted that “this is an untested area of the law” and that a ruling could set a precedent.
The specific law the Mandarin Oriental Hotel says the State Department used is a provision in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The law prohibits employment discrimination but also states that a national security interest provides an exemption to the law’s requirements. But Arafi and Al-Khalili say that it makes little sense that Arafi would have “irregularities” in his background check or be considered a security threat. Arafi has routine access to government officials and he says that he personally serviced former President George W. Bush just days before the Israeli delegation came through.
The case “really does have the appearance of racial discrimination of the rawest kind,” Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and a national security expert, told CNN. “But the hotel is able to use the State Department to say, any complaint you have, you should take up with the State Department.”
Regardless of whether it was a State Department directive or an Israeli request that the hotel complied with, important questions need to be asked about the case. Is the State Department ordering private businesses to discriminate because of Israeli attitudes? Or is a private employer being cowed by an Israeli government demand?
If nothing else, the case illustrates how pervasive anti-Muslim sentiment is in some workplaces in the U.S.
“Since I’ve worked at CAIR, employment discrimination has been the number 2, and sometimes number 1, complaint,” said Al-Khalili. “It’s disturbing that one additional aspect of the law is being used to discriminate against Muslims. We’re going to try and challenge it and try to say it does not apply in this particular case.”
Al-Khalili has a lawsuit filing due in the coming weeks, and vowed to appeal even if Arafi’s case is ruled against. The entire process, she acknowledged, could take years.
I’ll Never Do It Again
kenny’s sideshow | December 8, 2011
Like a little kid who just got caught stealing and begs his mama not to spank him, Eric Holder stated in the House Judicial Hearing that “the tactics used during operation Fast and Furious would never be used again by the Justice Department” and that on the distinction between lying and misleading Congress, Holder said it was a matter of a person’s “state of mind.”
That’s reassuring.
Holder earned his stripes as a cover up agent in the Clinton administration working under Janet Reno to stifle the truth about the Oklahoma City bombing and the related murder of Kenneth Trentadue. Holder’s role in Clinton’s pardon of Mossad asset billionaire criminal Marc Rich shows how eagerly he will bow to Israeli lobbying and bribery.
Holder was one of many to be interviewed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and as Attorney General continues the coverup of that event to this day. Commentary from this video:
Eric Holder was chosen because they planned to rape justice and Eric is the right kind of criminal. The person in charge of the Justice system in America is the same person that runs {aids} Al-CIAeda planning to attack Americans on Christmas in Portland or Detroit. The reason you will never see justice for the real crimes being committed against Americans is because Eric represents another form of “justice.” Obama runs Al-CIAeda, and Eric Holder is Al-CIAeda’s lawyer. Eric Holder protected the Mumbai mastermind with a fake trial in Chicago. Eric Holder staged a fake spy swap for the media, using the justice system as a game for a show. Eric Holder was part of the Lockerbie bombers legal paperwork “release.” Eric Holder is a top “inside job” suspect, for 9/11, The USS Cole, and the Bombings at the US Embassy’s in Africa, front and center starring in the whole Bin Laden show.
What is pathetic about the house ‘furious’ hearing is that some are using it as an agenda for more gun regulations against honest Americans in the name of stemming the flow of weapons to Mexico. Although Holder said he will pursue prosecutions of those under his watch if laws were broken, the administration’s ultimate policy is to disarm citizens out of fear that one day they may feel the need to take a stand against the police state’s disregard of the constitution and Bill of Rights and overall government criminality.
As serious as this ‘gunwalker’ issue is, and make no mistake – this was not a sting operation but deliberate trafficking for reasons yet not clear, the house hearing was a sham. We will not be seeing hearings about the money draining scam of the ‘War on Drugs,’ the ever expanding drug running of the CIA and other governmental agencies with protection of Afghan opium crops and heroin producing facilities, drug money laundering by all of the big banks and the kickbacks to politicians who allow it all to happen. We won’t be hearing a word from Congress about Obama and Holder’s promise to end the Bush-era attacks on sellers of medicinal marijuana and the patients who use it which turned into nothing but lies.
Holder and cronies make Rod Blagojevich look like an amateur. Few of the top criminals are even investigated much less go to jail. ‘Walking’ is what those do who are so entrenched in the corrupt system that they are above the law. The ‘gunwalking’ is minor compared to wall street and war crimes in terms of both lives and theft.
Another crime boss, Jon Corzine, also testified before Congress today on the MF Global ‘failure.’ Not being under indictment he didn’t exactly say he would never do it again but did blame it on his his predecessors’ bad financial decisions, said that he never intended to break rules requiring to safeguard client funds and that he doesn’t know what happened to an estimated $1.2 billion that went missing.
I think his testimony qualifies him to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.
There’s one guy who will not say “I’ll never do it again.” That would be the Newt. He will do it again and again, especially when it comes to his subservience to Israel and Jewish money.
He’s working to free Jonathan Pollard, would relocate the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and promised to reappoint war whore John Bolton. Newt is falling all over himself to outdo Romney for more of the Jewish pot of gold.
As with so many who have sold out and are Israel firsters, Newt has his 9/11 connection.
From Michael Collins Piper:
Gingrich has an unusual connection to Larry Silverstein, a controversial figure whose name has been in the forefront of the circumstances surrounding the cover-up of 9-11.
While in Congress, Gingrich benefited from the lucrative Israeli-connected activities of his then-second wife, Marianne, who was on the payroll of the Israel Export Development Company (IEDCO), which promoted the importation into the United States of Israeli products—even as Gingrich was using his influence as a member of Congress to advance U.S.-Israeli trade.
The aforementioned IEDCO was an operation run by mob-connected Silverstein, the billionaire owner of the World Trade Center towers at the time of the 9-11 tragedy.
IEDCO’s Silverstein once even admitted to The Wall Street Journal that Gingrich was one of a number of members of Congress who was lobbied to support Silverstein’s company’s proposals—when his wife was on Silverstein’s payroll. more {Marianne Gingrich Denies Israel Job Is a “Political Payoff” 1995}
Please … someone reassure me that the primaries won’t be rigged to give Gingrich the nomination, that Corzine won’t walk free to steal again and that Holder and Obama and Congress will be held in check and not allowed to sabotage what’s left of this country.
I know, you can’t. The whole political system is a crime scene and for lack of a better answer … it’s our fault.
Palestinian protester severely injured in Nabi Saleh
By Jonathan Pollack | December 9, 2011 | Popular Struggle Coordination Committee
Mustafa Tamimi, a 28 year old resident of Nabi Saleh, was shot in the face today, during the weekly protest in the village of Nabi Saleh. He sustained a severe injury to his head, under his right eye, and was evacuated to the Belinson hospital in Petah Tikwa. He is currently anesthetized, breathing through tubes, and his condition is described as serious. Tamimi is undergoing treatment in the trauma ward of the hospital, and is expected to undergo surgery later tonight.
A photo of the incident shows Tamimi at a distance of less than 10 meters behind the semi-open door of an army jeep with the gun aimed directly at him. Clearly visible in the photo is also the tear-gas projectile flying in his direction.
Mustafa Tamimi (left) a moment before his injury. Circled in red are the barrel of the gun and the projectile that hit him. Picture credit: Haim Scwarczenberg
The incident took place in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh today, when dozens gathered for the weekly demonstration in the village, protesting the theft of village lands by the adjacent Jewish-only settlement of Nabi Saleh. After the army dispersed the peaceful march, minor clashes erupted followed by a severe response by Israeli forces. Several people were hit with rubber-coated bullets and directly shot tear gas projectiles. Three were evacuated to the Ramallah hospital for further treatment. One protester was arrested.
The demonstrations, which have been held regularly for the past two years have seen hundreds of injuries to protesters by Israeli forces as well as dozens of arrests carried out with the aim of suppressing dissent.
Background
Late in 2009, settlers began gradually taking over Ein al-Qaws (the Bow Spring), which personally belongs to Bashir Tamimi, the head of the Nabi Saleh village council. The settlers, abetted by the army, erected a shed over the spring, renamed it Maayan Meir, after a late settler, and began driving away Palestinians who came to use the spring by force – at times throwing stones or even pointing guns at them, threatening to shoot.
While residents of Nabi Saleh have already endured decades of continuous land grab and expulsion to allow for the ever continuing expansion of the Halamish settlement, the takeover of the spring served as the last straw that lead to the beginning of the village’s grassroots protest campaign of weekly demonstrations in demand for the return of their lands.
While the model of regularly held protests around the construction of Israel’s Separation Barrier became a common one in recent years, the protests in Nabi Saleh mark a significant break from that tradition, in that protest there is entirely unrelated to the Barrier. This expansion of the popular resistance model symbolizes the growing support the model enjoys among Palestinians, and the growing positive discourse around it across the Palestinian political spectrum.
Protest in the tiny village enjoys the regular support of International and Israeli activists, as well as that of Palestinians from the surrounding areas. Demonstrations in Nabi Saleh are also unique in the level of women participation in them, and the role they hold in all their aspects, including organizing. Such participation, which often also includes the participation of children mirrors the village’s commitment to a truly popular grassroots mobilization, encompassing all segments of the community.
The Israeli military’s response to the protests has been especially brutal and includes regularly laying complete siege on village every Friday, accompanied by the declaration of the entire village, including the built up area, as a closed military zone. Prior and during the demonstrations themselves, the army often completely occupies the village, in effect enforcing an undeclared curfew of sort. Military nighttime raids and arrest operations are also a common tactic in the army’s strategy of intimidation, often targeting minors.
In order to prevent the villagers and their supporters from exercising their fundamental right to demonstrate and march to their lands, soldiers regularly use disproportional force against the unarmed protesters. The means utilized by the army to hinder demonstrations include, but are not limited to, the use of tear-gas projectiles, banned high-velocity tear-gas projectiles, rubber-coated bullets and, at times, even live ammunition.
The use of such practices have already caused countless injuries, several of them serious, including those of children – the most serious of which is that of 14 year-old Ehab Barghouthi, who was shot in the head with a rubber-coated bullet from short range on March 5th, 2010 and laid comatose in the hospital for three weeks.
In complete disregard to the army’s own open fire regulations, soldiers often shoot tear-gas projectiles directly at groups of protesters or individuals and rubber bullets are indiscriminately shot at protesters from short distances. The army has also resumed using high velocity tear-gas projectiles in Nabi Saleh, despite the fact that they have been declared banned for use after causing the death of Bassem Abu Rahmah in Bil’in in April 2009, and the critical injury of American protester Tristan Anderson in Ni’ilin in March of the same year.
Tear-gas, as well as a foul liquid called “The Skunk”, which is shot from a water cannon, is often used inside the built up area of the village, or even directly pointed into houses, in a way that allows no refuge for the uninvolved residents of the village, including children and the elderly. The interior of at least one house caught fire and was severely damaged after soldiers shot a tear-gas projectile through its windows.
Since December 2009, when protest in the village was sparked, hundreds of demonstration-related injuries caused by disproportionate military violence have been recorded in Nabi Saleh.
Between January 2010 and June 2011, the Israeli Army has carried 76 arrests of people detained for 24 hours or more on suspicions related to protest in the village of Nabi Saleh, including those of women and of children as young as 11 years old. Of the 76, 18 were minors. Dozens more were detained for shorter periods.
Israel deputy FM: UNRWA ‘morally, politically unacceptable’
Ma’an – 09/12/2011
TEL AVIV, Israel – Israel’s deputy foreign minister accused the UN agency for Palestinian refugees of perpetuating Palestine’s conflict with Israel, in a speech at the UN refugee headquarters in Geneva on Thursday, Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post reported.
Calling UNRWA “morally and politically unacceptable,” Danny Ayalon said the UN applied double standards by not resettling Palestinian refugees through its central body for refugees, UNCHR, and creating the separate Palestinian refugee agency.
“This has meant that a peaceful solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians remains further away,” the report quoted Ayalon saying at the 60th anniversary celebration of the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.
The UN Relief and Works Agency was set up in the wake of the 1948 war and founding of the Israeli state, when estimated 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from or fled their homes.
It provides services to some 5 million refugees, with the UN General Assembly renewing its mandate until a political solution is reached.
UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness says that questioning the longevity of the organization “serve(s) only to distract from the need to address the real reasons for the protracted Palestinian refugee situation, namely the absence of negotiated solution to the underlying political issues.
“Palestine refugees are entitled to a just and lasting solution to their plight,” he told Ma’an in an interview in June.
“In the absence of — and pending the realization of — such a solution, it stands to reason that their status as refugees will remain.”
Protester seriously hurt by gas canister
Ma’an – 09/12/2011
BETHLEHEM – A tear-gas canister fired by Israeli forces struck and seriously injured a Palestinian demonstrator in the occupied West Bank, protesters said Friday.
Onlookers said Mustafa Tamimi, 28, suffered a critical head wound after being struck in the face by the canister in Nabi Saleh.
The village hosts weekly protests against land confiscation for an illegal settlement, and Israel has cracked down on its residents, carrying out night raids and arresting accused stone-throwers.
“Tamimi is in very critical condition. Half his face is gone,” said Linah Alsaafin, a Ramallah-based blogger. She was reporting from the scene in Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah.
He “was throwing rocks at the (Israeli army) jeep, the door opened and the canister was fired with precision and intent straight in his face,” Alsaafin recounted on Twitter.
“To use their term, ‘surgical precision’,” she added.
Activists distributed photographs purporting to show Tamimi, his face covered in blood, being lifted off the ground after his injury. He was later taken to hospital.
Mustafa Tamimi, 28, is lifted up shortly after the injury in Nabi Saleh.
The activists said the Israeli army had initially prevented an ambulance from arriving at the village. A military spokeswoman said the man was evacuated to an Israeli hospital.
The official told Ma’an said the injury occurred during “a violent and illegal riot” in which protesters threw stones. Forces responded with “riot-dispersal means,” she said.
“The incident is currently being investigated,” she added.
A teenage boy suffered a leg fracture after being struck by a rubber-coated bullet, onlookers added. A young woman’s arm was also broken during the demonstration, they said.
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Pierre Omidyar: A Dangerous Billionaire-Backer of the “Resistance”
By Daniel Haiphong | American Herald Tribune | November 27, 2018
One of the most disturbing trends in the era of Trump has been the flock of billionaires that have come rushing into the Democratic Party to pose as leaders of an opposition movement to the “fascist” predations of the real estate mogul. These billionaires, which include capitalists such as George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, and Tom Steyer are the architects of a “Big Tent” strategy first outlined by Black Agenda Report Editor Glen Ford. This strategy was devised by the Hillary Clinton Presidential campaign of 2016. The strategy has two components. The first component is the promotion of “diversity” to distract from the fact that the Democratic Party can no longer appeal to the interests of the poor or working-class, especially Black people who have been held in electoral captivity for a generation. Second, “Big Tent” Democrats actively seek an alliance of Wall Street, the military and intelligence apparatus, and Republicans to provide the financial and political strength behind the strategy.
The “Big Tent” strategy is called the “Resistance.” One of the chief billionaire-backers of the “Resistance” is Pierre Omidyar. Omidyar is the founder of the eBay corporation. His surplus profits have been used over the years to exert “soft power” influence over the U.S. state. … continue
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