Israel ‘bars lawmaker from travel’
Ma’an – 30/11/2011
RAMALLAH – A Palestinian lawmaker says Israeli authorities barred him from leaving the West Bank on Tuesday evening.
Qays Abdul-Karim, a senior member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, told Ma’an he was at the Allenby Bridge crossing to Jordan with a delegation of parliamentarians heading to a conference in Panama.
“An Israeli officer approached me and asked about my destination. When I told him I was going to Panama to partake in a parliamentarian conference, the officer asked about the content of the speech I will deliver during the conference,” Abdul-Karim said.
“I told him I would call upon the Latin American Parliament to support the Palestinian demand to end Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory, then he left and came back in a few minutes to inform me I was barred from traveling.”
Abdul-Karim was due to participate in the 27th session of the Latin American parliament which takes place on Thursday.
Indefinite Domestic Military Detentions
By Stephen Lendman | The People’s Voice | November 28th, 2011
Congress is now considering legislative language to mandate indefinite military detentions of US citizens suspected of present or past associations with alleged terrorist groups, with or without evidence to prove it. More on that below.
The 2006 Military Commissions Act authorized torture and sweeping unconstitutional powers to detain, interrogate, and prosecute alleged suspects and collaborators (including US citizens), hold them (without evidence) indefinitely in military prisons, and deny them habeas and other constitutional protections.
Section 1031 of the FY 2010 Defense Authorization Act contained the 2009 Military Commissions Act (MCA). The phrase “unprivileged enemy belligerent” replaced “unlawful enemy combatant.”
Language changed but not intent or lawlessness. Obama embraces the same Bush agenda, including keeping Guantanamo open after promising to close it, allowing torture there and abroad, and treating US citizens as lawlessly as foreign nationals.
MCA grants sweeping police state powers, including that “no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause for action whatsoever….relating to the prosecution, trial, or judgment of a military commission (including) challenges to the lawfulness of (its) procedures….”
MCA scraped habeas protection (dating back to the 1215 Magna Carta) for domestic and foreign state enemies, citizens and non-citizens alike.
It says “Any person is punishable… who….aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures,” and in so doing helps a foreign enemy, provide “material support” to alleged terrorist groups, engages in spying, or commits other offenses previously handled in civil courts. No evidence is needed. Those charged are guilty by accusation.
Other key provisions include:
- legalizing torture against anyone, letting the president decide what procedures can be used on his own authority;
- denying detainees international law protection;
- letting the executive interpret or ignore international and US law;
- letting the president convene “military commissions” at his discretion to try anyone he designates an “unprivileged enemy belligerent,” detaining them indefinitely in secret;
- denying speedy trials or none at all;
- letting torture coerced confessions be used as evidence in trial proceedings, despite US and international law prohibiting cruel and inhuman treatment at all times, under all conditions, with no allowed exceptions;
- letting hearsay and secret evidence be used; and
- denying due process and judicial fairness overall.
On May 21, 2009, Obama addressed national security and civil liberties issues, including Guantanamo detainees, military commissions, and torture.
Saying his “single most important responsibility as president is to keep the American people safe,” he bogusly claimed Al Qaeda “is actively planning to attack us again (and) this threat will be with us for a long time….”
He added that uncharged detainees “who cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people” (with or without evidence to prove it) will be held indefinitely without trial.
Obama’s March 7, 2011 Executive Order authorized military commission trials for Guantanamo detainees with revamped procedures, despite pledging to close the prison.
Congress Considers New Freedom-Stripping Legislation
On October 17, 2011, the ACLU addressed Section 1031 of S. 1253: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, saying it “significantly curtails existing protections against indefinite detention without charge or trial.”
It goes beyond previous laws by hardening them extrajudicially.
The last time Congress authorized indefinite detentions for uncharged US citizens without trial was in 1950. The Emergency Detention Act provision of the Internal Security Act authorized incarceration for those considered likely to commit espionage or sabotage.
It was never used, then repealed by the 1971 Non-Detenton Act, stating:
“No citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained by the United States except pursuant to an Act of Congress.”
At issue was never again subjecting US citizens to lawless internment the way Japanese Americans were treated in 1942, forcing loyal citizens into War Relocation Camps.
Section 1031 of S. 1253 “would be the first exception to the statute’s protections.” Subsection (d) provides US citizens “little or no” indefinite detention protections domestically or abroad.
The provision refers solely to “citizens or lawful resident aliens of the United States.” However, the Constitution fully protects them.
“Section 1031 could cause cleared naturalized United States citizens and cleared immigrants to be sent to a foreign country, even in the absence of any wrongdoing.”
Subsection (c) provides four options:
- indefinite detention without charge;
- military commission trials;
- trial by another tribunal; or
- transfer “to the custody or control of the person’s country of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity.”
Even someone erroneously arrested and cleared of wrongdoing could be held indefinitely without charge, given non-civil trials, or sent abroad.
Post-9/11, Arab and/or Muslim Americans lawlessly experienced “roundups” because of their faith and ethnicity. Latino immigrants face similar abuse.
Section 1031 would authorize similar practices. Military forces could be used. US citizens would be terrorized, detained and held indefinitely without charge or trial, based solely on suspicions, baseless allegations or none at all.
No reasonable proof is required, just suspicions that those detained pose threats. Under subsection (b)(1), indefinite detentions can follow mere membership or support for suspect organizations.
US citizens at home and abroad could be detained. Presidents would have unchecked authority to arrest, interrogate and indefinitely detain law-abiding citizens if accused of potentially posing a threat.
Constitutional, statute and international law won’t apply. Martial law will replace it. As a result, anyone for any reason or none at all could be indefinitely detained for life without charges or trial.
Section 1031 exceeds the laws of war. Its ambiguities and excesses would institute extrajudicial national security state terror. No one anywhere would be safe.
It calls “covered persons” anyone captured or detained, even unconnected to hostilities. In other words, the executive could order anyone indefinitely incarcerated on his say alone. The provision would exceed current presidential authority.
Like the companion House bill, detention would be authorized based on alleged prior associations with suspect groups. US military personnel anywhere in the world would be able to seize US citizens and others.
Anyone could be incarcerated for life with no possibility for redress. Section 1032 requires suspects held in military custody, outside constitutionally mandated civil protections.
Due process and judicial review won’t apply. Police state lawlessness could terrorize anyone suspected of terrorist group ties without proof.
In other words, presidents could order anyone imprisoned for life without cause. Despotic regimes operate this way. So would America more extrajudicially than ever.
Tyranny will replace constitutional law. Middle of the night arrests could become common. No one anywhere would be safe, including unjustly accused citizens.
The ACLU calls indefinite detention without judicial review “an appalling abuse of power. We know that our government has already mistakenly detained hundreds of people on suspicion of terrorism over the past 10 years.”
“Many have languished in custody for years with no way to even assert their innocence or address the evidence against them. All people are entitled to due process.”
Imagine new likely power abuses, including claiming OWS protesters threaten America.
Imagine human and civil rights workers, as well as anti-war activists targeted.
Imagine anyone challenging wealth and power interests at risk.
Imagine an America more than ever not fit to live in, and nowhere to hide.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
Israel Passes Bill To Increase “Libel” Compensation
Peace Now Slams The Bill As Anti-Free speech Legislation
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | November 24, 2011
Israeli sources reported, that the Israeli Knesset passed, in the first reading, a controversial bill dubbed as “libel law” aiming at increasing compensation paid for “libel violations” to NIS 300,000. Israeli Peace Now Movement stated that the bill is a legislation targeting Free Speech in Israel.
The bill is considered an amendment to the Israeli Libel Law, and was passed in the first reading, by 42 to 31 votes by the Israeli Knesset, Israeli Ynet News reported.
Ynet added that Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, Member of Knesset (MK), Meir Sheetrit of Kadima party, Trade and Labor Minister, Shalom Simhon, MK Yariv Levin (Likud) and Zevulun Orlev of the Jewish Home Party, voted for the bill.
The Ynet stated that the law calls for increasing the maximum amount of compensation paid by those convicted of “libel violations” by paying the subject of “slander” 300,000 New Israeli Shekels, which at current conversion rates amounts to approximately $80,000. The amount is six times the current amount of libel compensation allowed by current libel laws in Israel.
Also, the bill states that when it comes to statements that are considered libel, released internationally, without giving the subject/s of the claims the chance to defend themselves and to be able to respond to the claims, the offenders can be sued and could be ordered to pay damages that can be as high as 1.5 Million New Israeli Shekels, or approximately $400,000.
MK Zevulun Orlev of the Jewish Home Party, one of the initiators of this bill, stated that he might vote against it in the second reading if it was not revised, explaining that people convicted of murder in Israel are not subject to such high fines.
Orlev said that the way the bill is worded shows a lack of balance when it comes to the protection of free speech and independent media agencies.
Meanwhile, MK Uri Orbach, also from the Jewish Home Party, opposed the bill and stated that it will be an issue of personal profit to MK’s, ministers and officials.
He added that with the high fines, this bill is calling for a person to “prefer to kill than to slander”.
Furthermore, Hadash Party member, MK Dov Hanin, strongly denounced the bill for being “an extreme punishment for publishing a statement that did no harm”.
Hanin added that “this law is suggesting that Israel does what regimes that are barbaric do to punish libel by cutting the tongue of the offender”, the Ynet reported.
Israeli Peace Now Movement stated that the bill is “another crazy anti free speech legislation passed by the Israeli Knesset”.
Peace Now added that “This time the ‘Libel Law’ will completely destroy investigative reporting and exposure of wrong doings by those in power and those with powerful means in Israel”.
Israeli Soldiers Arrest Eight PFLP Members In Jenin
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | November 22, 2011
Israeli soldiers invaded the northern West Bank city of Jenin and the surrounding areas at dawn on Tuesday, and arrested eight members of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Local sources reported that the army invaded the city and Jenin refugee camp, before breaking into and searching several homes. Sofian Esteity – who only just recently had heart surgery one month ago- Moayyad Al Amer, Jamal Az Zobeidy, Ja’far Abu Salah, Fadi Daoud, Joseph Eseeed, and Majed Noeirat were all arrested. Jenin City Council member, Mohammad Mansour, was also taken during the early morning raid.
Palestinian security sources stated that Israeli soldiers detonated small explosives on the doors during the incursion, causing damage to the properties, and spreading panic among the local residents.
Furthermore, troops also launched operations in the nearby towns and villages of Ya’bod, Sanour, Jaba’, Mothallath Al Shuada’ and Beer Al Basha.
Dozens of soldiers were deployed in the area and at the entrances to the villages and towns, and also installed a number of temporary roadblocks.
Hamas: Israel arrested 64 Palestinians over the past week
Palestine Information Center – 20/11/2011
RAMALLAH — The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested 64 Palestinian citizens in the West Bank over the past week including 14 children, a press release by Hamas issued on Saturday said.
It pointed out that the largest number (17) were arrested in Al-Khalil followed by (12) in Bethlehem, (10) in Qalqilia, (6) in each of Nablus and Ramallah, (4) in each of Jenin and Salfit, (3) in occupied Jerusalem and one in each of Jericho and Tulkarem.
The report said that three of those arrested were journalists while five were recently released from PA security prisons.
Israeli police shut down Jewish-Palestinian radio station
By Yossi Gurvitz | +972 | November 19 2011
A small radio station, “Kol Hashalom,” unique in that it was directed jointly by a Palestinian and a Jew, was abruptly shut down by the Israeli police on Thursday.
Kol Hashalom, which roughly means “All for Peace,” had been active for the last seven years. It was a joint venture of the Palestinian NGO Biladi and the Israeli NGO Jewish-Arab Center for Peace, and was directed by former Meretz MK Mossi Raz and Meissa Bransie-Senyura. The station broadcast from Ramallah, under a license granted by the Palestinian Authority to the Biladi company. (Full disclosure: I participated as a co-host in a Kol Hashalom broadcasts about a year ago).
Naturally, the very idea of a Jewish-Palestinian radio was anathema to the Jewish right (can you seriously call it “Israeli” anymore, when its essence is the eradication of Israeli identity?). So, in September, one of the leaders of the campaign for the destruction of Israeli democracy, Likud MK and Sarah Palin fan Danny Danon, demanded (Hebrew) that the station be shut down. Danon claimed the station was “inciting against Israel,” specifically that it was calling upon people “to reject political decisions arrived at democratically.” To wit, to support Palestinian statehood.
On November 4th, the Ministry of Communication sent a letter to Kol Hashalom, saying it is acting illegally and must close down immediately. The managers, having consulted their legal counsel, sent a letter last week denying all those claims. On Thursday, a day later – unheard-of speed for the Israeli police – Raz was summoned for a police interrogation, where he was informed that he was suspected of managing an illegal radio station, and that if he does not order it to shut down immediately, he would be arrested and the police would raid the station’s Jerusalem offices.
In a phone conversation with Raz today, he noted that a threat of detainment over the claim of running an illegal radio station is unprecedented. As far as I recall, in all of the years of the saga surrounding settler radio Channel 7, never were any of its managers arrested – even though its broadcasting interfered with the radio frequencies of the Ben Gurion Airport, and even though it never even claimed to be legal or licensed.
Kol Hashalom, again, is based in Ramallah (the Jerusalem offices serve for its internet broadcast) and has a Palestinian license. Raz says the interrogators presented him with two arguments. One, that the station broadcasts in Hebrew, for a Hebrew-speaking public, which means it is an Israeli station which bypasses the law. Really? I guess the police don’t know that bypassing the law is, by definition, not breaking it. Raz, sarcastically, suggests the police should immediately arrest the anchors of the Persian Voice of Israel: According to the logic of the police, it is an Iranian radio station and the anchors are obviously Iranian spies.
Mossi Raz, who is sure that the closing of the station is part of an assault on the media. (Photo: Yossi Gurvitz)
The second argument of the police was dubbed by Raz as the “I’ve murdered my parents, have pity on an orphan” argument: They said that Israel has never granted the Palestinian Authority any frequencies, even though it was obligated to do so in the Oslo Accords. This argument suffers from two problems: Raz noted that the Accords grant the PA the right to grab their own frequencies if Israel doesn’t allocate them within a certain time frame. Secondly, and more importantly, this argument basically says that ALL Palestinians radio stations are, without exception, illegal – yet strangely enough the Israeli police only bother itself with the Jewish-Palestinian one. This can be seen as even more proof of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank: Israel claims the right to shut down a radio station licensed by the so-called autonomous PA.
This stinks to high heaven, and looks suspiciously like – as Raz says openly – a part of the continuing effort of Netanyahu and his right-wing allies to overtake the media and silence their political rivals. Raz, fearing a raid on the Jerusalem offices, ordered the broadcasts to be shut down on Thursday, and now Kol Hashalom is preparing an appeal to the High Court of Justice. Developing.
Israel shuts down Palestinian groups in Jerusalem
By Maureen Clare Murphy | The Electronic Intifada | 18 November 2011
The recent forced closures of Palestinian nonprofit organizations in Jerusalem are an example of the Israeli authorities’ continued attacks on the city’s Palestinian identity and their attempts to maintain control over occupied East Jerusalem, according to local human rights groups.
“The purpose is to control and undermine the role of Palestinian civil society and [its] efforts in Jerusalem,” Rashad Shtayyeh, the activities coordinator at the Civic Coalition to Defend Palestinians’ Rights in Jerusalem (CCDPRJ), told The Electronic Intifada by email.
“Also, [this Israeli policy] tries to restrict anything that might help in protecting the Palestinian identity in Jerusalem, as a part of the Israeli Judiazation project in occupied Jerusalem,” Shtayyeh explained.
On 25 October, Israeli police presented closure notices to four Jerusalem-based organizations — Shua’a Women’s Association, al-Quds Development Foundation, Saeed Education Center and Work Without Borders — for a one-month period.
Given thirty minutes to leave
Dr. Nufuz Maslamani is the director of the Shua’a Women’s Association, a group that was founded in 2008 with the goal of empowering women in Jerusalem to achieve their social, political and economic rights. She told The Electronic Intifada that Israeli police gave volunteers at the association thirty minutes to leave their office before they locked the door.
“I said, ‘Why do you want to close it?’ I said that we are a women’s association and that we are working with women, with gender issues. [The police officer] said, ‘No, you are doing activities for the Popular Front [for the Liberation of Palestine, PFLP],” Maslamani explained.
“As always, they have a lot of reasons to close any association, to stop anyone who is working in Jerusalem. They continue their policy to make Jerusalem empty of the Palestinian people. This is their policy. That’s why they closed the association,” she said.
Maslamani said that the closure has already had a negative impact on the Palestinian women and children who take courses through the association.
“This is really a problem because we now have women who are taking computer courses, and other courses. These women feel that they have a purpose and that they can do anything,” she said, adding that she feared the one-month closure order would be arbitrarily extended.
“The most dangerous thing is that the Palestinian people can’t live or do what is right for them. This is our right, to continue our lives in Jerusalem, as all women and people in the world.”
History of closures in Jerusalem
According to the Civic Coalition for Defending Palestinians’ Rights in Jerusalem (CCDPRJ), since August 2001, the Israeli authorities have closed approximately 28 organizations serving the Palestinian community in Jerusalem, including the Orient House, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) former headquarters in the city, the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce and the Arab Studies Society.
In 2009, the Israeli authorities also banned numerous Palestinian cultural and educational events scheduled to celebrate the declaration of Jerusalem as the “Capital of Arab Culture” for that year.
“The closure of these and other Palestinian institutions are part of a broader policy through which the Israeli authorities seek to stifle Palestinian development in Jerusalem and increase the strength of Israel’s occupation over East Jerusalem,” explained Shtayyeh. “These closures relate to the overarching policy that includes violations of housing rights, revocation of residency, and ultimately results in the forced displacement of Palestinians from Jerusalem.”
Most Palestinians living in East Jerusalem have residency rights, not full Israeli citizenship, since they refused to take Israeli passports on principle shortly after Israel began occupying the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967.
As such, Palestinian Jerusalemites have the right to live and work in Israel yet are denied other provisions that come with full Israeli citizenship. For instance, unlike citizenship, permanent residency is only passed on to a person’s children if certain conditions are met, including most notably proving that one’s “center of life” is in Jerusalem.
Since 1967, it is estimated that more than 14,000 identification cards have been revoked from Palestinian Jerusalemites, who have thereby lost their residency rights and the ability to live in the city.
Widespread attack on human rights groups
The Jerusalem-area closures come as the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, is expected to pass two new bills that would make it harder for human rights groups in the country to receive funding from foreign governments.
On 13 November, the Israeli Ministerial Committee on Legislation voted in favor of two new bills. The first, officially known as the Associations Law (Amendment — Banning Foreign Diplomatic Entities’ Support of Political Associations in Israel), would bar human rights groups from receiving donations of more than 20,000 NIS (roughly $5,400) from foreign state entities.
The second bill, an amendment to the Israeli Income Tax Order, would make funding from foreign state entities to Israeli nongovernmental organizations subject to a 45 percent taxation rate. This is more than three times more than the taxation rate incurred by private organizations.
On 10 November, 18 human rights groups in Israel, including Adalah — the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Arab Association for Human rights, released a statement condemning the bills.
“This is not the first time Knesset members target foreign funding as a way to silence civil society and human rights organizations. The bills are a part of a calculated policy to silence voices of dissent and criticism and go hand in hand with attempts to restrict Israel’s judicial system, media outlets and activists,” the statement reads (“NGOs in Israel: Urgent call regarding severely restrictive funding bills,” 10 November 2011).
“A vibrant civil society is an essential part of a healthy democracy,” the statement adds. “These organizations promote transparency, public debate and accountability regarding government policy, and ensure essential protection of more vulnerable communities.”
According to the Mossawa Center, a group representing Palestinians in Israel, the bills would have the biggest impact on organizations working for the rights of Israel’s Palestinian citizens.
“Many Israeli NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] do not receive funding from the Israeli government because of their work with the Palestinian Arab minority. They are forced to rely on foreign state entities, like the EU and European government-sponsored organizations, for a majority of their funding,” Mossawa explained in a statement (“The Mossawa Center calls on the international community to condemn bills that restrict funding for human rights organizations in Israel,” 16 November 2011 [PDF]).
“While the NGO bills directly hinder the ability of Arab and human rights NGOs to operate independently within Israel, right-wing organizations that violate international law by supporting settlements in the West Bank are not limited in the proposed legislation,” Mossawa adds. “Most right-wing organizations are funded by the state and/or foreign private donations, which the bills’ sponsors do not consider foreign interference. It is clear that the proposed legislation would conceal the state’s human rights violations and advance the government’s right-wing agenda without impediment.”
Protected under international law
In Jerusalem, CCDPRJ’s Rashad Shtayyeh explained that “East Jerusalem is incontrovertibly recognized under international law as an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territory over which the Palestinian people are entitled to exercise their right to self-determination.”
Indeed, the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “Protected persons are entitled, in all circumstances, to respect for their persons, their honor, their family rights, their religious convictions and practices, and their manners and customs.”
Article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights also stipulates that “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”
In his email to The Electronic Intifada, Shtayyeh explained that these protected rights — as well as freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly — are regularly denied to Palestinians in East Jerusalem.
“We call upon the international Community, the United Nations and the European Union to take responsibility to uphold their obligations towards the protected persons under occupation in Jerusalem,” he said. “We demand that the international community obliges the Israeli government to refrain from closing the Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem.”
Police cracking down on media at OWS?
RTAmerica on November 17, 2011
Not only are police cracking down on the Occupy movement protesters but also on journalist. According to some reporters police have denied them access to cover the Occupy movement. In New York reporters with NYPD press passes are being physically removed from the scene and some even arrested.
More racist laws are on the way in Israel
Mohammed Mohsen Watad | MEMO | 15 November 2011
Israel’s Knesset (parliament) is set to discuss a number of bills in its winter session which Palestinians regard as racist, continuing a policy of “unprecedented racist legislation in 1948 Palestine” aimed at undermining the very existence of Palestinians in their own land.
As part of the “Judaisation” process, a proposed law calls for the end of Arabic as an official language of the state of Israel, a move which would marginalise ever further one-fifth of the population for whom Arabic is the mother-tongue. Indeed, Arabic was the official language of Palestine during the British Mandate period before the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe). The former head of Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, has drafted the proposed law. Avi Dichter, MK for the Kadima Party, has included the language stipulation in a bill headed “Israel as the national state of the Jewish people” in collaboration with the Strategic Institute for Zionism, and supported by one-third of the Jewish members of the Knesset.
Dichter’s law would force every citizen to pledge allegiance to “Israel as a Jewish and democratic state”; anyone refusing to do so would be “liable to punishment”. His vision of the democratic system in Israel is linked to the Jewish religion.
Massoud Ghanayem MK accused the main Israeli political parties of vying with each other to see which one can be the most “nationalist” to capture the Zionist vote. Speaking to Aljazeera, Ghanayem said, “The challenges facing Israel and the failure of the road map for peace are behind this racist legislation, especially since the Palestinians [in Israel] have exposed, through their struggle, the myth of Israeli democracy and the Jewish character of the state.”
According to Mr Ghanayem, Israel and its political parties have adopted policies for the marginalisation of the Palestinians, narrowing the scope of democracy to impose what he called “the new rules of the game” in which Israel’s Arab citizens are supposed to embrace the concept of Zionism and Jewish citizenship. Dichter’s law, Ghanyem explained, will also have an impact on the education system. “While the Education Ministry claims that it is teaching young people to respect pluralism, recognition and respect for others,” he said, “the message from the legislators tells them the opposite.”
If passed, Dichter’s law would follow a series of “racist laws”, including one which prohibits commemoration of the Nakba, pushing the Israeli narrative as the official version of what happened in 1948. Another law allows Jewish towns to vet those wishing to live there. This is to stop Palestinians from moving in, even if they have historical roots in the district. Any land which has been confiscated by the state for more than 25 years will not, according to yet another law deemed to be racist by the Palestinians, be returned to its original and lawful owners. This, of course, has a major impact on Palestinians trying to recover their family property and land.
Jamal Zahalka MK has accused Israeli politicians of inciting racism against the Palestinians in an effort to gain the trust of the wider public in Israel. He told Aljazeera that laws such as that proposed by Dichter are “like a declaration of war” on Palestinian civilians, “pouring oil on the fire of Israeli racism”. Zahalka pointed out that the parties may use different terminology to justify their case, but they all agree on the basic essence and principles behind such laws.
A Professor of Arabic who resigned his post believes that the new laws are intended to marginalise the Arabic language and its speakers. Professor Ziad Shelyot said that the latest attack on Arabic is part of a strategy to deprive Israeli-Palestinians of their identity, heritage and, ultimately, citizenship. Prof. Shelyot warned of the effect that this law will have emerging Palestinian generations and students, pointing out that if it makes it onto the statute books it will lead to the teaching of Arabic to be banned in Israel. “This,” he added, “will create a generation with no personal or national identity; one that is defeated and lives in internal conflict as a curious blend of races and cultures which have lost their uniqueness.”
Police State Tactics: Signs Point to a Coordinated National Program to Try and Unoccupy Wall Street and Other Cities
Dave Lindorff – 11/15/2011
The ugly hand of the federal government is becoming increasingly suspected behind what appears to be a nationwide attempt to repress and evict the Occupation Movement.
Across the country in recent days, ultimatums have been issues to groups occupying Portland, OR, Chicago, IL, San Francisco, Dallas, TX, Atlanta, GA, and most recently New York, NY, where the Occupation Movement began on September 17. The two most recent eviction efforts, in Oakland and New York, have been the worst.
The police attacks have had a lot in common. They have been “justified” based upon trumped up pre-textural claims that the occupiers are creating a health hazard, or a fire hazard, or a crime problem, generally on little or no evidence, or there has been a digging up of obscure and constitutionally questionable statutes, for example laws outlawing the homeless. Then the police come in, usually in dead of night, dressed in riot gear and heavily armed with mace weapons, batons, plastic cuffs and tear gas, or even assault rifles in some cases and so-called flash-bang stun grenades–all weapons to be used against peaceful demonstrators.
So violent has been the response that some returned veterans have condemned the police for using weapons and tactics that are not even permitted by occupying troops in war-torn countries.
“We definitely feel, especially in a movement like this that has arisen so quickly in a number of cities, that there will be a coordinated national effort to try and shut it down,” says Heidi Bogosian, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, which has been playing a key role providing legal services to the new movement.
“We see the scapegoating of these movements, the attacks at night, and in general tactics designed to terrorize and to scare protesters away. I can’t see this as anything other than centrally coordinated.”
One indication of that coordination may have been a conference call among 18 city mayors which was confirmed by Oakland Mayor Jean Quan in a radio interview on San Francisco station KALW. Dan Siegel, an Oakland attorney who worked as an advisor to Quan, but who resigned in disgust after Oakland police and law enforcement personnel from a number of surrounding jurisdictions brutally drove occupiers there out of their park using tear gas, supposedly non-lethal ammunition (bean bags and rubber bullets) and flash-bang grenades in a night-time raid in the early hours of November 14, says that phone conference call took place, significantly, while Quan was in Washington, DC.
Remember this image: it’s the national police state on the march
Shortly afterwards, on Oct. 25, Quan authorized the first brutal police assault on Occupy Oakland. It led, among other things, to the critical wounding of Scott Olsen, an Iraq War veteran who was among the protesters, and was hit in the forehead by a police tear gas cannister fired at close range.
Who organized that critical conference call? Was it Quan or one of the other mayors, or was it someone in the federal government? Siegel says he doesn’t know, and Quan isn’t saying.
But both Siegel and Boghosian say they strongly suspect federal involvement in the planning of the recent spate of police violence against occupiers. Says Siegel, “It’s only logical to assume that the ‘Fusion Centers’ are involved, especially after the Oakland occupiers shut down the port in Oakland.”
Some 72 Fusion Centers, located around the US and funded by the US at a cost of half a billion dollars, are a post 9-11creation of the new Homeland Security Department. Bringing the FBI together with local law enforcement departments, they both collect and share domestic intelligence, and can serve as command centers to direct local law enforcement in helping implement national law enforcement goals. There are also many Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which directly link the FBI with urban police departments.
Says Boghosian, “What we are seeing here is the Miami model, with various levels of law enforcement, local, state and federal, all at work. It would be shocking if federal law enforcement were not seeing this occupy movement now as a national security threat.”
Mara Veheyden-Hilliard, co-chair of the National Lawyers Guild’s National Mass Defense Committee, based in Washington, agrees. “These crackdowns on the occupation movement certainly appear to be part of a national strategy to crush them,” she says. “We haven’t yet found overt evidence of federal involvement, but the fact that in rapid succession local authorities have taken action raises the specter of coordination.”
She adds, “There is absolutely no legal justification for the involvement of the Joint Terrorism Task Forces in this movement. These demonstrations are not terrorist activities, and police should not be treating them as such, yet all over the country the police are treating the protesters as if they are criminals. The similarity of the response everywhere to the movement makes it appear that there is a coordinated strategy.”
Meanwhile, Siegel, now back in private practice, says that since the riots that followed the killing of Oscar Grant by a BART transit cop, who shot Grant fatally in the head after he had been arrested, subdued and handcuffed for a turnstile jumping violation, federal law enforcement officials have been observed actively involved in police activities in the Oakland area.
Some Oakland residents have reported seeing federal vehicles and possibly also National Guard equipment during the police actions against occupation demonstrators, too, though National Guardsmen can only be legally activated by a governor, and California Gov. Jerry Brown, a former mayor of Oakland, has not publicly issued any such order.
Rick Ellis, a journalist with the Minneapolis office of the news outlet Examiner.com, is reporting that an unidentified US Justice Department official has confirmed what Boghosian, Siegel and Veheyden-Hilliard say they suspect is the case: that each of the recent brutal police evictions and attacks on occupation groups “was coordinated with help from Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal police agencies.”
Ellis writes, “According to this official, in several recent conference calls and briefings, local police agencies were advised to seek a legal reason to evict residents of tent cities, focusing on zoning laws and existing curfew rules. Agencies were also advised to demonstrate a massive show of police force, including large numbers in riot gear. In particular, the FBI reportedly advised on press relations, with one presentation suggesting that any moves to evict protesters be coordinated for a time when the press was the least likely to be present.”
According to an AP story published early Wednesday, mayors and city leaders in as many as 40 cities were communicating about coordinating an attack on the occupy movement. Again, this hardly seems like it was on their own initiative.
Given how things have played out, it certainly looks like the suspicions were correct, and that Ellis’s source is telling the truth.
President Obama has a lot to answer for. So do the mayors who have been overseeing the repressive operations locally.
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From the Archives
Newly Released FBI Docs Shed Light on Apparent Mossad Foreknowledge of 9/11 Attacks
By Whitney Webb | MintPress News | May 17, 2019
NEW YORK — For nearly two decades, one of the most overlooked and little known arrests made in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks was that of the so-called “High Fivers,” or the “Dancing Israelis.” However, new information released by the FBI on May 7 has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the “Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center. … continue
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