Israel’s machinery of dispossession has crushed the hopes of an inspirational family
The struggle of Jawad Siyam perfectly illustrates the relentless oppression faced by all Palestinians
By Jonathon Cook | The National | July 14, 2019
Israeli police forced out the Siyam family from their home in the heart of occupied East Jerusalem last week, the final chapter in their 25-year legal battle against a powerful settler organisation.
The family’s defeat represented much more than just another eviction. It was intended to land a crushing blow against the hopes of some 20,000 Palestinians living in the shadow of the Old City walls and Al Aqsa mosque.
Dozens of families in the Silwan neighbourhood have endured the same fate as the Siyams, and the Israeli courts have approved the imminent eviction of many hundreds more Palestinians from the area.
But, unlike those families, the Siyams’ predicament briefly caught public attention. That was because one of them, Jawad Siyam, has become a figurehead of Silwan’s resistance efforts.
Mr Siyam, a social worker, has led the fight against Elad, a wealthy settler group that since the early 1990s has been slowly erasing Silwan’s Palestinian identity, in order to remake it as the City of David archeological park.
Mr Siyam has served as a spokesman, drawing attention to Silwan’s plight. He has also helped to organise the community, setting up youth and cultural centres to fortify Silwan’s identity and sense of purpose in the face of Israel’s relentless oppression.
However, the settlers of Elad want Silwan dismembered, not strengthened.
Elad’s mission is to strip away the Palestinian community to reveal crumbling relics beneath, which it claims are proof that King David founded his Israelite kingdom there 3,000 years ago.
The history and archeological rationalisations may be murky, but the political vision is clear. The Palestinians of Silwan are to be forced out like unwelcome squatters.
An Israeli human rights group, Peace Now, refers to plans for the City of David as “the transformation of Silwan into a Disneyland of the messianic extreme right wing”.
It is the most unequal fight imaginable – a story of David and Goliath, in which the giant fools the world into believing he is the underdog.
It has pitted Mr Siyam and other residents against not only the settlers, but the US and Israeli governments, the police and courts, archaeologists, planning authorities, national parks officials and unwitting tourists.
And, adding to their woes, Silwan’s residents are being forced to fight both above and below ground at the same time.
The walls and foundations of dozens of houses are cracking and sinking because the Israeli authorities have licensed Elad to flout normal safety regulations and excavate immediately below the community’s homes. Several families have had to be evacuated.
Late last month Elad flexed its muscles again, this time as it put the finishing touches to its latest touristic project: a tunnel under Silwan that reaches to the foot of Al Aqsa.
On Elad’s behalf, the US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, and Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, wielded a sledgehammer to smash down a symbolic wall inaugurating the tunnel, which has been renamed the Pilgrimage Road.
Elad claims – though many archaeologists doubt it – that in Roman times the tunnel was a street used by Jews to ascend to a temple on the site where today stands the Islamic holy site of Al Aqsa.
The participation of the two US envoys in the ceremony offered further proof that Washington is tearing up the peacemaking rulebook, destroying any hope the Palestinians might once have had of an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Mr Friedman called the City of David complex – at the core of occupied Palestinian Jerusalem – “an essential component of the national heritage of the State of Israel”. Ending the occupation there would be “akin to America returning the Statue of Liberty”.
While Israel, backed by the US, smashes Silwan’s foundations, it is also dominating the sky above it.
Last month Israel’s highest planning body approved a cable car from Israeli territory in West Jerusalem into the centre of Silwan.
It will connect with the City of David and a network of boardwalks, coffee shops and touristic tunnels, such as like the Pilgrimage Road, all run by Elad settlers, to slice apart Silwan.
And to signal how the neighbourhood is being reinvented, the Israeli municipality enforcing the occupation in East Jerusalem recently named several of Silwan’s main streets after famous Jewish rabbis.
Former mayor Nir Barkat has said the goal of all this development is to bring 10 million tourists a year to Silwan, so that they “understand who is really the landlord in this city”.
Few outsiders appear to object. This month, the tourism website TripAdvisor was taken to task by Amnesty International for recommending the City of David as a top attraction in Jerusalem.
And now, Elad has felled the family of Jawad Siyam in a bid to crush the community’s spirits and remaining sense of defiance.
As it has with so many of Silwan’s homeowners, Elad waged a decades-long legal battle against the family to drain them of funds and stamina.
The Siyams’ fate was finally sealed last month when the Israeli courts extended the use of a 70-year-old, draconian piece of legislation, the Absentee Property Law, to Silwan.
The law was crafted specifically to steal the lands and homes of 750,000 Palestinian refugees expelled in 1948 by the new state of Israel.
Ownership of the Siyams’ home is shared between Jawad’s uncles and aunts, some of them classified by Israel as “absentees” because they now live abroad.
As a result, an Israeli official with the title Custodian of Absentee Property claimed ownership of sections of the house belonging to these relatives, and then, in violation of his obligations under international law, sold them on to Elad. Police strong-armed the family out last week.
To add insult to injury, the court also approved Elad seizing money raised via crowdfunding by more than 200 Israeli peace activists, with the aim of helping the Siyams with their legal costs.
Palestinians such as Jawad Siyam exist all over the occupied territories – men and women who have given Palestinians a sense of hope, commitment and steadfastness in the face of Israel’s machinery of dispossession.
When Israel targets Jawad Siyam, crushes his spirits, it sends an unmistakeable message not only to other Palestinians, but to the international community itself, that peace is not on its agenda.
Why The BBC acts as a Propaganda Outlet for Israel– An Insider View
By Gilad Atzmom | July 14, 2019
The BBC’s Panorama channel ‘investigation’ into Labour’s ‘anti-Semitism’ was so blatantly one sided its broadcast as ‘news’ demanded an explanation. In an attempt to grasp why the British national broadcaster fails to fulfil its core mission to report the news in as unbiased a manner as possible, I interviewed a former senior editor for the BBC. The editor, a 35 year veteran of the BBC, reveals the culture that has steered the BBC into its present position as a Zionist mouthpiece.
In acting as a whistle blower, the former editor risks severe consequences. In Britain leading journalists have been locked behind bars and under threat of extradition for reporting information whose truthfulness has not even been challenged.
Sadly, this danger is heightened under the present toxic political atmosphere in Britain, as demonstrated by its purging of a major political party and its tolerance for abuse of its judicial system to deter and punish anyone who dares to question the Zionist narrative.
Q: When did the BBC become openly biased?
A: The BBC has always been biased towards Israel, and its bias has been well documented. The reasons for this bias have long been the subject of serious academic studies, the best known of which is Greg Philo’s and Mike Berry’s More Bad News from Israel. In fact, in 2006 an independent report commissioned by the BBC’s own governing body concluded that the BBC’s coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “does not consistently constitute a full and fair account of the conflict but rather, in important respects, presents an incomplete and in that sense misleading picture.”
Q: Who and what drove this cultural and political direction within the corporation?
A: There are a number of drivers behind this biased BBC culture. The most important is the fact that a small number of hardline Zionists occupy key positions at the top and middle levels of the corporation, as well as at the shop-floor level, by which I mean the people who select what to publish or broadcast on a daily basis and who provide editorial steer to journalists. This has been widely publicised and has been in the public domain for some time — see, for example, this http://tinyurl.com/ydhjzeek, these (a) http://tinyurl.com/y7mjtkc6, (b) http://tinyurl.com/y7k39vsh, and (c) http://tinyurl.com/y3x9nktl. Also see this http://tinyurl.com/y6ne4apn and this http://tinyurl.com/y7l88zwl.
Q: What about political impartiality, supposedly a core BBC value?
A: Unfortunately, there are many examples of such pro- Israel hype, some blatant and others who slant the news by use of emphasis and/or omission. For instance, there was Sarah Montague’s interview with Israel’s defence minister, Moshe Ya’alon, in March 2015, Head of Statistics’ Anthony Reuben’s reflection on fatalities in Gaza (http://tinyurl.com/ycc9p8d4), and the utilization of Gil Hoffman, an Israeli army reservist and chief political correspondent for the Jerusalem Post to write for the BBC News website (http://tinyurl.com/yanppk93) to mention but a few.
Q: Does the broadcaster have the means or inclination to fix itself ?
A: In my opinion, the chances of the BBC fixing itself is about zero. Apart from what I have said above, it is a cowardly, spineless organisation. Not only does it always pursue the path of least resistance by selecting to broadcast what is least likely to upset the Zionist lobby, but it is also deadly afraid of what the Daily Mail might say about its output. Very often, and by that I mean almost on a daily basis, one would hear senior managers ask at the morning agenda-setting editorial meetings, “What would the Daily Mail say about that?” Invariably, they would choose what is least likely to be picked up and criticised by the Daily Mail. Please remember, this is a public broadcaster that is funded by taxpayers (yes, the License Fee is a tax) and is supposed to “Educate, Inform and Entertain”, not propagandise on behalf of Israel.
Q: Some of the so-called Labour ‘Whistleblowers’ were exposed by Al Jazeera as Israeli Lobby assets. Is it possible that the BBC was so bold as to interview these characters hoping that no one would notice or was it simply a matter of a clumsy decision making? Can the BBC match the journalistic dedication of organisations such as RT or Al Jazeera?
A: There is no chance whatsoever that the BBC would do anything approximating Al Jazeera TV’s programme on Israeli infiltration of the Labour Party (http://tinyurl.com/yad6fslm). The BBC is institutionally pro-Zionist and institutionally spineless.
Q: You worked in the corporation for 35 years, did you notice a deterioration in the quality of people hired? Was there a change in employees’ attitudes and their willingness to express themselves freely and critically?
A: I worked for the BBC’s English-language outlets as an editor and senior editor for 35 years. Since the early 1990s there has been growing intolerance of criticism of editorial management decisions, even in internal forums which internal BBC propaganda claims are meant for staff to speak freely. This applies across the board on all matters. But certainly with regard to Israel and Zionism, any questioning of BBC impartiality would attract accusations of anti-Semitism and would certainly spell the end of one’s career, no matter how privately and confidentially such criticism is conveyed.
Egypt Rejects Hamas’ Request for Haniyeh to Travel
Palestine Chronicle | July 12, 2019
Egypt has rejected a request by Hamas to allow the head of its political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, to travel to a number of countries including Iran, Turkey, Qatar, and Russia.
Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported Egyptian sources as saying that after postponing its response, Cairo finally rejected it saying that regional and security conditions do not allow for Haniyeh to travel.
The news site quoted a Hamas source as saying:
“It is clear that Egypt completely objects to Haniyeh’s foreign tour, in protest against the countries which he will visit.”
The source pointed out that Hamas has decided that Mousa Abu Marzouk will head the movement’s delegation to Moscow next week to discuss the Palestinian reconciliation file among other issues.
The source added that the visit has been postponed more than once in the hope that Egypt would allow Haniyeh to travel.
Israeli Forces Seize Palestinian Garbage Trucks, Detain Drivers
IMEMC News – July 10, 2019
A group of Israeli soldiers on Wednesday detained Palestinian municipal employees in the village of Beit Fourik, in the northern West Bank, and seized several vehicles used for trash collection.
According to local sources, the vehicles that were seized include a garbage truck, a tractor used for hauling garbage and a third vehicle used in trash collection.
The vehicles were loaded with garbage and were headed to a landfill site east of the village, located near Nablus in the northern West Bank, when they were detained by Israeli soldiers in military vehicles.
The soldiers approached with weapons drawn and ordered the municipal employees out of their vehicles, then held them for several hours in the hot sun, and took the vehicles away to an unknown location.
The Palestinian Wafa News Agency spoke with Ata Samara, a health inspector with the Beit Fourik village council, who told them that this trash collection by the municipality is a daily collection, and this is the first time they have been harassed by Israeli occupation forces.
Samara added that the trash dump is located in Area B of the West Bank, which is administered by the Palestinian Authority but falls under Israeli military rule, adding that the village council was not informed by the army that it would no longer be allowed to dump there. He said the seizure of the truck and car is part of an effort by the Israeli army to make life difficult for the Palestinians in that village.
Without a trash truck or a place to put garbage, the Palestinians of the village will be forced to fend for themselves, which will likely result in a buildup of trash at homes in the village, and unsanitary conditions will result.
Israeli authorities have created multiple landfill sites for Israeli garbage on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank, and frequently haul and dump Israeli garbage onto Palestinian village land. However, in recent years the Israeli authorities have made it harder and harder for Palestinians in the West Bank to dump their garbage, instead closing off the Palestinian landfills and dumps or putting roadblocks to prevent the Palestinians from reaching them.
Israeli forces have targeted the village of Beit Fourik for collective punishment, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, since March, when an Israeli settler was killed in a settlement nearby.
A Child Under Administrative Detention
Defence for Children Palestine | July 9, 2019
On September 20, 2017, Laith K., 17, was arrested by Israeli forces. He was held in administrative detention for nearly 46 weeks. Administrative detention is a form of imprisonment without charge or trial. Learn more: https://nwttac.dci-palestine.org/
The Only Strategic Rationale for America’s Involvement in Syria Finally Revealed
By Elias Samo | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 6, 2019
“Washington lacks a clear strategy in Syria “; those were the recent words of Robert Ford, the last American ambassador to Syria who served prior to and during the first few years of the Syrian uprising from 2010 to 2014. A man of Ford’s intricate knowledge of the Syrian/American political dynamic is surly knowledgeable enough to assess America’s policy towards Syria. He goes on to say, “It is hard to explain the fundamental American mission in Syria… Is it to fight Daesh? Or is it to help promote a Kurdish autonomous district in Northeastern Syria… Or is it to resist Iranian encouragement?” It is partially all three; however, oddly enough, Mr. Ford avoids the obvious top priority and strategic rationale for America’s involvement in Syria: The Protection of Israel.
To alleviate this dereliction by the executive branch for not presenting a clear strategy in Syria, as the former ambassador asserts, the Congress took it upon itself to identify American strategic interests in Syria and make recommendations to Trump. However, it is legitimate to ask: what do American congressmen know about Syria to qualify them to determine American strategic interests in the country? It is very unlikely for American congressmen to know much about Syria; they are dictated the Israeli narrative and that is all they need to know.
Irrespective of who or what motivated the congressmen to seek information to develop a framework for American strategic interests in Syria and eventually send a letter signed by nearly four hundred congressmen- roughly seventy five percent of the total number of congressmen from both chambers and both parties- to the president about their findings and their recommendations, the congressmen called upon United States Institute of Peace (USIP) to establish a Syria Study Group (SSG) to provide them information about Syria to comprehend the situation and formulate recommendations to Trump.
The SSG was established in February 2019 and gave its interim report to Congress May 1, 2019; the report consists of detailed seven single-spaced typewritten pages.
Subsequent to the SSG submitting of its interim report to Congress on May 1, the four hundred congressmen Letter was sent to the president on May 20. It would be natural to assume that the Letter is a condensed reflection of what the interim report contained and recommended; that was not the case. The elaborate and detailed interim report dealt with a multitude of issues centered around American national security. Ironically, the Letter to the President focused on the sources of threats to Israeli security: terrorism, Syria, Lebanon (Hezbollah), Iran, Turkey and Russia. Just a note regarding the difference in emphasis in the two documents. In the seven – page single spaced interim report Israel is mentioned nine times, it is mentioned twenty one times in the two page Letter.
The first paragraph of the Letter states “[…] we recommend several specific steps to advance our regional security priorities, including assisting our ally, Israel, in defending itself in the face of growing threats, including on its northern border.” The reference to northern border is Syria and Lebanon. As for Syria, it suffices to note that Israel occupied the Syrian Golan for fifty two years and annexed it recently with Trump’s blessings. Syria has not fired a shot at Israel in decades while Israel has fired hundreds of shots at Syria just recently; there are no Syrian boots on the ground in Israel, while there are Israeli boots on the ground in Syria. So much for the threat to Israel emanating from Syria. As for the Lebanese scenario, it is similar to that of Syria, albeit on a smaller scale, with one addition: Hezbollah which Israel views as a source of imminent threat. However, it suffices to note that it is Israel which has been the source of violent onslaughts against Hezbollah. The Letter, in the succeeding paragraphs, elaborates further on the acquisition by Syria and Hezbollah of large and more threatening sophisticated weapons to threaten the security of the regional, nuclear super power: Israel. Need one point out the ridicule?
In the third paragraph, the Letter asserts: “While our nation has encouraged more stable and inclusive political systems in the Middle East, the regime in Tehran has spread its influence and destabilized its neighbors for its own gain.” To say this is an outrageous distortion of the truth would be an understatement. There is not a sane Iraqi, Syrian, Lybian, Yemeni and most Muslim Arabs who would vouch to such a distortion. In fact, internationally, the US and Israel are viewed as sources of threat to international peace and security; both have boots on foreign ground but no foreign boots on their ground.
Russia receives a jab at the fourth paragraph for its role “[…] to ensure the survival of the Assad regime.” It adds “Furthermore, in providing Damascus with advanced weapons like the S-300 anti-aircraft, Moscow is complicating Israel’s ability to defend itself from hostile action emanating from Syria.”
The last part of the Letter contains three recommendations which are interrelated and converge on the core of the Letter; the security of Israel:
- Underscore Israel’s right to self-defense.
- Increase pressure on Iran and Russia with respect to activities in Syria.
- Increase pressure on Hezbollah.
Beyond any conceivable doubts, the Letter was dictated by Israelis or their advocates in Washington, signed and submitted by the 400 congressmen to Trump; the height of hypocrisy. What is dismaying is that hardly any voices of protest were raised in American society at large or the political or intellectual segments about the fact that four hundred congressmen, who are elected by Americans to serve American interests, at a time when the US is bogged down in the Arab region, sign and submit a letter to the US President concerned almost exclusively with Israel’s Security.
These congressmen had an opportunity to make a coherent recommendation on US policy in the Arab region in the interest of American National Interest, but instead chose to make recommendations to safeguard the wellbeing and security of a foreign state: Israel.
A Secret Meeting to Plot War?
Who is representing the American people in this secret conclave with pro-Israel groups?
By Philip Giraldi | American Free Press | July 6, 2019
On June 5, 16 heads of Jewish organizations joined 25 Democratic senators in a private meeting, which, according to the Times of Israel, is an annual event. All of the Jewish organizations but one were openly declared advocates for Israel and are supportive of its policies. Key groups present included the Council of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, the Anti-Defamation League, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. A number of the groups have lobbied Congress and the White House in support of the use of force against Iran, a position that is basically identical to the demands being made by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The senatorial delegation was headed by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), currently Senate minority leader who has described himself as the “shomer” or guardian of Israel in the Senate. The 25 senators in attendance constitute one-quarter of the entire deliberative body and more than half of all Democrats serving in it. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who has emphatically linked her campaign to become the Democratic presidential nominee in 2020 to Jewish and Israeli interests, chaired the gathering.
After the meeting, Jewish Insider provided a complete list of the participants and also a diagram of how they were positioned in the Capitol Hill conference room. The senators were placed on one side of a rectangle with the Jewish leaders in front of them filling the seats on the other three sides. Who exactly provided the agenda that Klobuchar was presumably following is not known, but one suspects that it may have been a joint effort by Schumer and several of the more prominent Jewish organization participants.
The meeting was by design not a public event, and, to a certain extent, it was a secret. Its time, place, and participants were not announced, and it was only reported at all in the Israeli and Jewish media. According to after-the-fact coverage of the event by Alison Weir of the “If Americans Knew” website, even staffers in the congressional offices were not aware that the meeting was taking place. No statement was issued afterwards, but it is believed that the principal topic under discussion was how to contain and reverse pro- Palestinian sentiment among progressive Democratic voters, who, to the horror of the participants, actually have been embracing the possibility that Palestinians are human beings with plausibly the same rights as Israelis. A particular focus would have been the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), which has become a growing force on college campuses and in progressive circles.
Other issues raised were mentioned in passing afterwards on the email service “The Tell” by Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) news service. They included supporting Israel and also more federal-level legislation to combat “anti-Semitism.” And, of course, there was the issue of money. Several groups want funding from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) increased to pay for more security at Jewish facilities. Current legislation is considering allocating $70 million per year and there were demands that it be increased to $90 million. A 2014 article in the Jewish Forward reported that Jewish institutions received 94% of DHS discretionary funding.
One might reasonably argue that the private meeting with the Democratic senators reflects a singular urgency in that the party base is becoming notably less pro-Israel, suggesting that something had to be done to stop the rot. That may be true enough, but the reality is that the federal government’s pandering to Israel is both bi-partisan and global in its reach. The United States uniquely has a special envoy to combat anti-Semitism, and his writ extends to proposing sanctions against countries that are critics of Israel.
And even as the Democrats were meeting with Jewish leaders, the Republicans were doing much the same thing. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with probably some of those very same leaders as the Democrats and expressed concern about the possibility that British Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn might become prime minister. Corbyn has been targeted by British Jews because he is the first UK senior politician to speak sympathetically about the plight of the Palestinians.
Pompeo was asked, if Corbyn “is elected, would you be willing to work with us to take action if life becomes very difficult for Jews in the UK?” He replied: “It could be that Mr. Corbyn manages to run the gauntlet and get elected. It’s possible. You should know, we won’t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best. It’s too risky and too important and too hard once it’s already happened.”
So American Jews want to join with their British counterparts to either bring down or contain a top-level elected politician just because he recognizes the suffering of the Palestinians. The American secretary of state meets with those same activists and agrees with them that something must be done, to include quite possibly taking steps to ensure that he does not become prime minister in the first place. Recall for the moment that Britain is America’s closest ally and is what passes for a democracy these days. Jews obviously occupy a rather special space, politically speaking, in the United States. One might reasonably ask, where are the private meetings with representatives of Italian, German, Irish, or Polish organizations, each of which represents a far greater portion of America’s ethnic mix than do Jews? The obvious answer is that those groups do not operate in a cohesive, tribal fashion and they do not possess the financial resources that the 600 or so Jewish groups that advocate for Israel have. In America, unfortunately, money buys access to power and, if there is enough money on the table, it can also buy politicians.
Nor are America’s other white ethnic groups as grievance-driven.
And there is one other significant difference: While other ethnic groups in the United States are protective of their respective cultures and languages, there is no sense that any of them actually seek to advocate policies damaging to the United States to benefit the foreign nations that they identify with. The Jewish advocacy for Israel is something quite different, costing the American taxpayer billions of dollars every year and involving Washington in a sequence of wars of choice driven by Israel itself aided by its powerful domestic lobby.
Israel also comes with a price tag in terms of the constitutional rights enjoyed by Americans. Before too long, legislation currently working its way through Congress will criminalize any criticism of Israel. No other national or ethnic group in the United States seeks to dismantle the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in quite that fashion.
Israel is no friend and never has been. Recent media reports detail how Jewish-American oligarch Paul Singer has been working with the Israeli government to transfer thousands of high-paying American IT jobs to Israel. Is he guilty of dual loyalty? No, he is only really loyal to Israel, as are many of the Jewish leaders who met with Pompeo and the senators. It is a disgrace.
And it is also a disgrace that Pompeo and 25 Democratic Party senators should be meeting privately with Jewish organizations to do things for Israel and the Jewish community that do not serve the interests of all Americans, up to and including meddling in the politics of a genuine close ally to respond to the paranoia of British Jews.
Yes, there is a Jewish international conspiracy in place directed by some Jews like those who met with the senators and Pompeo, and it has no off switch. Never before in history has a great power been so dominated by a puny client state and its domestic fifth column, and it is time that the private meetings whereby a government “of the people, by the people and for the people” panders to one group alone should end forever.
Philip Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer and a columnist and television commentator. He is also the executive director of the Council for the Interest.
In landmark decision, Israel court rules PA ‘liable’ for Second Intifada attacks
MEMO | July 8, 2019
The Palestinian Authority (PA) could be forced to pay up to 1 billion shekels ($280 million) in damages after an Israeli court ruled that it was liable for attacks during the Second Intifada.
In an unprecedented decision, the Jerusalem District Court today ruled that the PA is “liable” for attacks which took place during the Second Intifada, the popular Palestinian uprising which took place between 2000 and 2005.
The ruling cited the PA’s “financial and practical support” for the attacks, claiming that, along with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the authority provided “ideological encouragement” for the incidents. It also referenced the PA’s policy of paying stipends to the families of Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli prisons, and the naming of streets and city squares after Palestinians killed by Israeli forces as evidence of the authority’s “liability”.
The amount of damages the PA must pay was not stated in the ruling, but could reach a maximum of 1 billion shekels. For an authority reportedly on the verge of financial collapse, the sums could prove crippling.
The PA has not yet issued a statement on the court proceedings, nor is it clear if it has any recourse to appeal the decision.
The case was filed by infamous legal advocacy group Shurat HaDin, which regularly fights court battles on Israel’s behalf. Shurat HaDin has been responsible for a pushing holiday rental giant Airbnb to renege on its decision to delist properties located in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, closing fundraising accounts associated with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and intervening to halt an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into Israel’s 2010 assault on the Mavi Marmara.
President of Shurat HaDin, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, called today’s court ruling a “historic” decision, claiming it “proves the Intifada was a war waged against citizens of Israel”.
This is not the first case Shurat HaDin has filed in a bid to hold the PA and PLO accountable for Second Intifada attacks. In 2004, the group filed “Sokolow v. Palestine Liberation Organization” in a US court, attempting to sue the PLO and PA under the US Antiterrorism Act of 1991. However, in 2016 the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, New York, dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that US courts did not have the jurisdiction to rule against international bodies in civil cases.
When the US Supreme Court upheld the ruling, this prompted the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act of 2018 (ACTA), which was signed into law by US President Donald Trump. ACTA gave US courts the jurisdiction to hear terrorism-related lawsuits against any foreign entity receiving financial assistance from the US government. Since the PA has historically received millions of dollars in US aid and support for its security services, this meant that it could face lawsuits in the US asking for hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation.
Following the imposition of ACTA, then-Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah sent a letter to US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, refusing all future financial assistance from the US. The letter stated that though the PA “is, and always will be, grateful for the past economic support of the American people […] US economic aid to Palestine now has become a dividing force due to the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act of 2018 (ACTA)”.
The move left the US and Israel scrambling to preserve security coordination with the PA, believing the lack of funding could leave the authority unable to administer the occupied West Bank. Last month this was brought to the fore when the Israeli army fired at PA security forces in Nablus, injuring one. Israel claimed it had not realised the men were PA security forces, while Governor of Nablus Ibrahim Ramadan told the PA’s Wafa news agency that the “dangerous part [of] this incident is that a Palestinian military headquarters was targeted”.
Israel students forced to pass government propaganda course before overseas school trips
MEMO | July 8, 2019
The Israeli government is compelling high school students to pass an online propaganda course before being allowed to participate in overseas class trips, a course promoting “racist ideology”.
Legal rights centre Adalah has written to the Education Ministry demanding an immediate halt to the online courses, after a school in Nazareth cancelled an exchange programme to Sweden, rather than have its students sit the course.
According to Adalah, the “mandatory online course” created by Israeli education authorities “requires students to watch a series of videos after which they must take a multiple-choice exam, the correct answers of which promote racist ideology”.
One question, for example, asks: “How do Palestinian organisations use digital social networks?” The correct answer is: “encouraging violence”.
Another question asks students to identify the origins of modern anti-Semitism, with the correct answer being “Muslim organisations” and the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
The online course tells students that “anti-Semitism in Europe increased with the immigration of Muslims to Europe… from the Middle East, Africa, Pakistan, Afghanistan.”
“The course presents a racist ideological perspective that creates an equivalence between Palestinian, Arab, or Muslim identities and violence and terrorism,” said Adalah.
“Palestinian Arab high school students in the Israeli school system are being asked by this exam to assimilate its racist values.”
Adalah attorney Nareman Shehadeh-Zoabi has now sent a letter to the Education Ministry on behalf of the Masar Association and the parents of children studying at the association’s Nazareth school.
According to Adalah, “the school cancelled its annual student exchange mission to Sweden during the academic year, after the ministry’s regulations went into effect, as it refused to allow its students to sit for such an exam which promotes racist propaganda.”
In the letter, Adalah demands that the ministry “immediately cancel the mandatory course and exam and allow students to freely participate in overseas school trips with the start of the 2019-2020 school year.”
“[Palestinian Arab teenagers] are being forced to internalise humiliating statements about themselves and their families”, said Attorney Shehadeh-Zoabi. “This is outrageous and illegal.”
“Adalah will take all necessary steps to abolish this course that is repugnantly offensive to Arab citizens and students,” she added.
US Sanctions Hezbollah Elected Parliamentarians
Al-Manar | July 9, 2019
The US Treasury placed two Hezbollah members of Lebanon’s parliament on its sanctions blacklist on Tuesday — the first time Washington has taken aim at the party’s elected politicians.
The Treasury named the head of the Loyalty to Resistance parliamentary bloc Hajj Mohammad Raad and MP Amin Sherri to a ‘terror-related’ blacklist, claiming that Hezbollah uses its parliamentary power to advance its alleged ‘violent’ activities.
Also placed on the blacklist was Hajj Wafiq Safa, Hezbollah top security official.
Hezbollah is a Lebanese resistance group that defends the nation against the Israeli and takfiri enemies. Because of its huge popular representation, it managed to have a 13-member parliamentary bloc, mainly tasked with securing the socioeconomic rights of the citizens and advocating the resistance political principles.
The US administration, which supports the Zionist entity and the Arab dictators against the will of most of the Muslims and Arabs, has always viewed Hezbollah resistance as an enemy, blacklisting both its military and political wings.
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Is America behind the massive surge in Kiev regime’s child trafficking?
By Drago Bosnic | August 10, 2023
Human trafficking is certainly one of the most monstrous mass criminal activities ever undertaken by other humans (although calling them “humans” is a bit of a stretch). And yet, there’s a special kind of this deeply repulsive crime that pushes it to diabolical proportions – child trafficking. Underage kids, particularly those who were abandoned, sold or have very poor/abusive family backgrounds, are by far the most vulnerable group. The depraved criminals who engage in such illicit activities specifically target unfortunate children and given there are millions of them all around the globe, particularly in war-torn areas, the “recruitment pool” is effectively endless. Unfortunately, the demand on the black market also seems to be constant and growing, making it a very lucrative and appealing prospect for criminals. … continue
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