Palestinian student 19, sentenced to 16 years in Israeli prison
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – December 25, 2016
In another example of the lengthy sentencing practices especially targeting Palestinian youth and women in Jerusalem, Shorouq Dwayyat was sentenced to 16 years in Israeli prison by a Jerusalem court on Sunday, 25 December. Dwayyat, 19, from the village of Sur Baher, was also fined 80,000 NIS (approximately $21,000.) She was shot by an Israeli settler and seized by occupation forces on 7 October 2015 in eastern Jerusalem and accused of attempting to stab an Israeli settler. Witnesses reported that she was harassed by the settler prior to the alleged incident.
Dwayyat is a student at Bethlehem University who was studying history and geography. She graduated from high school, achieving a result of 90% in the national secondary Tawjihi examinations in 2015.
Classes at the university were cancelled for two days after her shooting and arrest in October 2015.
Dwayyat was severely injured by the four bullets lodged within her body, unlike the Israeli man she was accused of attempting to stab, who suffered no serious injuries. Following the court’s ruling, the Israeli Interior Ministry stripped the imprisoned Dwayyat of her Jerusalem residency, claiming “breach of trust,” using the case as a mechanism to further the Israeli state policy of attacking Palestinian existence in Jerusalem. Amjad Abu Assab of the Prisoners’ Committee in Jerusalem said that “this is a racist policy… with the aim of killing the spirit of challenge by Jerusalemites and preventing any manifestation of rejection of occupation in the occupied city of Jerusalem.”
She is one of 52 Palestinian women – including 12 minor girls – imprisoned in HaSharon and Damon Israeli prisons and now is serving one of the longest sentences. The longest-held Palestinian woman prisoner, Lena Jarbouni, is serving a 17-year sentence in Israeli prison. The recent trend of particularly elevated sentences include those against Maysoon Musa (15 years), Nurhan Awad (13.5 years) and Israa Jaabis (11 years).
Hanukkah wish: May Obama die from ‘mad cow disease’!
Rehmat’s World | December 24, 2016
![Obama-Israel-holocaustl[1]](https://rehmat1.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/obama-israel-holocaustl1.jpg)
On December 23, 2016, pro-Israel New York Daily News reported that New York politician Carl Pasquale Paladino, 70, wished president Barack Obama die from ‘mad cow’ disease, and US First Lady Michelle Obama return to pro-Iran Zimbabwe as a male.
Paladino said his 2017 year wish is that the outgoing president have sex with a cow and die from mad cow disease. He also said that he wish Obama to be buried next to his Jewish adviser Valerie Boman Jerrett, who he likes to be convicted of treason and decapitated in prison for negotiating with Iranian leaders by ISIS cell mate who mistook her being a nice person.
As far Michelle, Paladino said: “I would like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she live comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla.”
In case some readers don’t know who the hell is Carl Paladino? He is a White Christian Zionist, real-state millionaire, and former GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2010. He was co-chair of Donald Trump campaign fundraising. He recently met president-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower.
Paladino is an opportunist like Donald Trump. In the past, in order to seek support from conservative Christians, he touted his anti-Muslim, anti-gay and anti-abortion stances. For example, on April 6, 2010, the Daily News called Paladimo a clown.
Paladino’s wish reminds me Passover prayer by several Jewish groups in New York and Israel cursing former Iranian president Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the past. On February 26, 2007, the Jerusalem Post reported that Jewish extremists organized a mass prayer attended by 10,000 Jewish children to pray for the death of former President of Iran, Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
‘Neiman Marcus selling West Bank imports as products of Israel’
Ma’an – December 24, 2016
BETHLEHEM – A major American department store chain has been selling products imported from Bethlehem as products of Israel, despite Bethlehem being located in the occupied Palestinian territory, according to a report from a public radio station in Texas, US.
KETR reported last week that Bethlehem mayor Vera Baboun was “astonished” after she discovered that Neiman Marcus, which is based in the Texas city of Dallas, was selling nativity scenes that were crafted from olive wood in the occupied West Bank town, but labelled as products of Israel.
“This is illegal,” Baboun told KETR. “It’s not Israel. Bethlehem is Palestine.”
“It’s unacceptable … From our side, from the olive wood store and from their side,” she added. “God knows how much we are working in order to keep this a traditional and a national Bethlehemite product. And this is very important.”
PLO official Xavier Abu Eid viewed the case as an attempt to “normalize” Israel’s illegal annexation of Palestinian territory.
“To say that Bethlehem is part of Israel is not only an attempt to normalize the annexation of occupied territory. But it’s also an attempt at fooling the consumers. The consumers have the right to know from where the product is coming. And this product in particular is coming from Bethlehem, Palestine,” KETR quoted Abu Eid as saying.
A Neiman Marcus spokesperson did not directly respond to KETR’s request for comment, and only informed the radio station that their import division was “in charge of making sure all of our imported products, fashion, fur, home goods, etc. are properly labeled in accordance with all applicable laws.”
However, Katrina Skinner, a spokeswoman for the US Customs and Border Protection, told KETR that origin labels bearing the name “Bethlehem, Israel” would not in fact be in compliance with federal regulations.
“With respect to the specific inquiry concerning the use of the marking ‘Made in Bethlehem, Israel,’ the language would be considered not legally marked in accordance with the policy stated in T.D. 97-16 because Bethlehem is within the West Bank,” she said.
According to KETR’s report, Neiman Marcus could face fines for not complying with the regulations, which increase “for egregious violations like undermining foreign sanctions, or for mislabeling products to indicate they were from areas subject to less taxes.”
US policy mandates that products made in in the occupied West Bank cannot bear the label “Made in Israel” — guidelines established mainly to prevent Israeli settlers from using the label, as the US views Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem to be illegitimate.
However, the guidelines also apply to products made in the West Bank by Palestinians.
Regulations distinguishing Israel from the Palestinian territories date back to the 1990s. The Clinton administration issued the rules in 1995 and 1997 requiring unique origin labels for imports manufactured in Israel, as opposed to those produced in the West Bank or Gaza Strip.
According to the Palestinian Postal Services, demand from online shoppers for Palestinian products — specifically olive wood handicrafts — have noticeably increased during 2016.
Meanwhile, Palestinian policy network Al-Shabaka reported earlier this year that the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine has stifled Palestinian economic growth while producing billions of dollars in Israeli revenue.
Tel Aviv rejects ‘shameful & absurd anti-Israel’ UN resolution
RT | December 23, 2016
Israel will not abide by the UN Security Council’s demands for Tel Aviv to halt its settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian lands, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
“Israel rejects this shameful anti-Israel resolution at the UN and will not abide by its terms,” the statement from the PM’s office said, according to Reuters.
The Obama administration “failed to protect Israel against this gang-up at the UN,” and what is even worse, “colluded with it behind the scenes,” the statement added.
In order to “negate the harmful effects of this absurd resolution,” Israel is looking forward to working with President-elect Trump and with “all our friends in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike.”
Israel’s ambassadors to New Zealand and Senegal – countries who along with Malaysia and Venezuela tabled the draft resolution – were immediately ordered to return to Tel Aviv for consultations.
Earlier, the Israeli ambassador to the council, Danny Danon slammed the vote as a “victory for terror, a victory for hatred and violence.”
“Who gave you the right to issue such a decree, denying our eternal rights in Jerusalem?” he added.
The UN Security Council resolution, demanding an end to the construction of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territories, was adopted with 14 of 15 UNSC members voting in favor. The US was the only nation to abstain from voting.
The US defended its abstention from Israeli criticism by stating that one “cannot champion settlements and the two state solution” at the same time. The US Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, said the US did not veto the resolution as it “reflects the facts on the ground and is consistent with US policy.”
The main US pro-Israel lobby group, AIPAC, said it was “deeply disturbed” by the Obama administration’s reluctance to use its veto in what it described as a “destructive, one-sided, anti-Israel resolution.”
UNSC passes resolution demanding end to Israeli settlement building on occupied Palestinian land
RT | December 23, 2016
The UN Security Council has passed a resolution demanding an end to the construction of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territories after the US abstained from voting.
The resolution was introduced to the UNSC by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal on Friday, a day after Egypt withdrew reportedly under pressure from Israel and US President-elect Donald Trump.
Earlier, Trump and Israeli authorities also called on the US to veto the resolution. The document was eventually adopted with 14 of 15 UNSC members voting in favor. The US was the only nation to abstain from voting.
It is the first resolution passed by the UNSC on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in almost eight years.
The Israeli envoy to the UN Danny Danon criticized the US’ decision to abstain. However, he expressed his confidence that the new US president would “no doubt” usher in a new era in UN-Israeli ties, as well as the new UN Secretary General.
The US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power responded to the Israeli envoy’s criticism by stressing that one “cannot champion settlements and the two state solution” at the same time. She went on to say that the US did not veto the resolution as it “reflects the facts on the ground and is consistent with US policy.”
Power also stressed that continued settlement building “undermines” Israel’s own security.
Meanwhile, US House Speaker Paul Ryan denounced US abstention by calling it “absolutely shameful” and describing it as a “blow to peace.” The US Republican senator, John McCain, went further and said that the abstention in the UNSC vote made the US “complicit in this outrageous attack” against Israel, reported Reuters.
Danon earlier said that the resolution served as “the condemnation of the sole democracy in the Middle East [Israel].”
The UNSC was initially scheduled to vote on the resolution on Thursday but Egypt pulled its text at the last minute, postponing the vote until after the wrapup of the Arab League ministerial meeting in Cairo. According to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exerted heavy pressure on Egyptian President Abdel Sissi urging him to delay the vote.
Netanyahu also urged the US to veto the vote on the “anti-Israel resolution” on Wednesday night in a short tweet.
The current Obama administration previously expressed its disapproval of Israeli settlement policies, which Tel Aviv has pursued since 1967. However, in 2011, Washington vetoed a draft resolution condemning Israeli settlements.
Israel occupied Palestinian territories in 1967. Now, more than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements built on occupied territories. Meanwhile, Palestinians have been seeking full independence for the occupied territories for decades and demand full recognition as a sovereign state from both the UN and the international community.
Israeli High Court Allows Ghaith-Sub Laban Family to Stay in Their Home of Six Decades for 10 Years more, but without Their Children
American Herald Tribune | December 22, 2016
The Israeli High Court released late on Tuesday 20 December 2016 its decision regarding the Ghaith-Sub Laban eviction, in which the Court partially accepted the family’s appeal and stopping their eviction.
The decision keeps the family’s protected tenant status for 10 more years after which the family would be evicted and the house would be handed to the Israeli settler organization that requested their eviction.
The decision however limits the right to live in the house to Mrs. Nora Ghaith and her husband Mustafa Sub Laban without their children. The Court also excluded from its decision a small storage room for the family under the house which Israeli settlers can proceed in taking over.
The decision comes one day after the hearing held in front of the Israeli High Court yesterday in which the Court heard the family’s appeal against the eviction and the settler’s claims that the family abandoned their house years ago. During the hearing, the Court proposed a compromise to both parties under which the protected tenancy status would be limited to Nora and her husband and the family would be allowed to stay in the house as long as Nora and her husband live.
The settlers rejected the Court’s suggestion and instead proposed evicting the family and moving them to the small storage under the house which is no more than 20 squared meters in size.
The Court disregarded the settlers’ suggestion and ended the hearing only to come with this unjust decision the following day.
Nora Ghaith’s family rented the house located in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem in 1953 from the Jordanian Custodian of Public Property. She continued to live in the house after 1967 and currently lives in the house with her husband, her two sons Ahmad and Rafat, her daughter Lama as well as her daughter in law Ruba and two grandchildren Mustafa and Kenan aged 9 and 4.
Nora Ghaith-Sub Laban commented by saying that the Court simply acknowledged the settler’s claims that the house is abandoned and ruled to separate her family. As per the High Court’s decision, Nora will have to be separated from her grandchildren as well as her unmarried son and daughter.
In case the family refuses to comply with the Court’s decision, the settlers can file a new request to evict the family before the 10 years have passed.
Ahmad Sub Laban, journalist and human rights activist, further added that the Israeli High Court’s decision in fact evicts part of the family and keep another temporarily.
Israeli judiciary once again sustains the discrimination that Palestinians face, where Israeli settlers are allowed to reclaim property they allegedly owned pre 1948 whereas Palestinians are prohibited from the same.
Today we also witness how the Court ruled to separate a family by deciding who can live in the house and who cannot.
The Israeli High Court, as with all similar eviction or house demolition cases, have proved itself to be a partner to Israel’s settlement expansion policy and to settler’s ambition to take over as many houses in occupied East Jerusalem. This is simply legitimizing the Israeli occupation’s policies that violate international law and an endorsement of Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem after 1967.
Israel renews travel ban against Jerusalemite Palestinian woman
Ma’an – December 19, 2016
JERUSALEM – Israeli authorities renewed a travel ban against a Palestinian woman from occupied East Jerusalem on Sunday, after she has already been banned from the Old City’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound as well as from the occupied West Bank.
Khadija Khweis told a Ma’an that Israeli intelligence summoned her to Jerusalem’s Russian Compound police station, where she was handed a renewable one-month travel prohibition order signed by the Israeli Minister of Interior.
A previous one-month travel ban against Khweis had expired on Wednesday.
According to Khweis, the new order read that she was prevented from traveling for “security reasons.”
“They say I have connections with the Murabitat group and think I could travel on missions to promote them,” she said.
In addition to being banned from international travel, Khweis has been prohibited from traveling to the West Bank for six months, an order that she said was still effective.
Furthermore, Khweis is on Israel’s so-called “blacklist” created by Israeli police in August 2015 to deny dozens of Palestinians access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
Israeli authorities have also revoked Khweis and her family’s national insurance allowance.
In December last year, Khweis was banned from the entirety of the Old City as well as West Jerusalem.
She was also among a number of Palestinian women who were assaulted by Israeli forces when they were denied entry to Al-Aqsa for their affiliation with the Murabitat, a group of women who gather at the compound to demonstrate against what they see as increasing Israeli control over the holy site and provocative visits by Israeli rightists under armed guard.
In September last year, former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon outlawed the Murabitat and their male counterpart, the Murabitun.
The third holiest site in Islam, the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is also venerated as Judaism’s most holy place as it sits where Jews believe the First and Second Temples once stood.
The fate of Jerusalem has been a focal point of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades, with numerous tensions arising over Israeli threats regarding the status of non-Jewish religious sites in the city, and the “Judaization” of East Jerusalem through detention campaigns targeting Palestinians, Israeli settlement construction, and mass demolitions of Palestinian homes.
We are all Palestinians
By Gilad Atzmon | December 18, 2016
Theresa May and her prime Shabbos Goy, Eric Pickles, insisted this week that we don’t conflate between Israel and Jews. I wonder why? Is it because they actually admit that Israel equals modern day evil? Or is it because they actually know very well that Israel and the Jews are one?
The vast majority of Jews actually want to be conflated with Israel. World Jewry supports Israel institutionally. Pickles and May who are subject to constant Jewish lobbying know it very well. However, more troubling is the fact that the few Jews who openly oppose Israel also operate in ‘Jews only’ cells. So if Israel is wrong for being a racially exclusive society, the Jewish anti Zionists are at least as bad as the Jewish State.
But the real issue is slightly different. By now we, and I mean all of us, except a few oligarchs, are all Palestinians. We are subject to the dirty games inflicted on us by the likes of Goldman Sachs, Soros, Saban, Adelson, and a few others. By now we are all subject to the tyranny of correctness that stops us from shouting out, loudly, that troubling truth which we all see.
By now we are all Palestinians and this even includes the deprived Israelis. We are all Palestinians and this includes the Greek, the Syrians, and the peoples of Detroit and Glasgow. And if we are all Palestinians, we can’t not see the glaring continuum between Athens and Baltimore… between Aleppo and Detroit, as much as we can’t turned a blind eye to the bloody silk road between Wall Street and Tel Aviv.
When we look at it with open eyes, when we examine those ZioCon wars with no end, growing poverty worldwide, we can’t stop conflating between ourselves and the Palestinians for the simple reason that we are one.
Israeli Soldiers Abduct Palestinian Child In Silwad
IMEMC News – December 17, 2016
Israeli soldiers abducted a Palestinian child in Silwad town, east of the central West Bank city of Ramallah, on Friday evening.
The Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) said the child has been identified as Ward Abdul-Qader Hamed, 15, and that he was abducted after the soldiers stopped him at the western entrance of the town.
It is worth mentioning that the abducted child is the son of Qaddoura Fares, the head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.
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