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Israel Has Banned Renowned Doctor and Human Rights Activist Mads Gilbert from Entering Gaza for Life

By Ben Norton | Dissident Voice | November 14, 2014

Israel has banned Norwegian doctor and human rights activist Mads Gilbert from entering Gaza for life.

Gilbert, a professor at the University Hospital of North Norway, where he has worked since 1976, earned international renown for his philanthropic work in late 2008, during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, an attack that, according to Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, killed roughly 1,400 Gazans, including almost 800 civilians, 350 of whom were children.

The aid worker, along with fellow Norwegian doctor Erik Fosse, decided to volunteer in Gaza as soon as he heard that bombing had started, on 27 December 2008. Thanks to diplomatic and economic support (in the sum of $1 million dollar of emergency funding from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs), the two physicians managed to arrive in the strip by 30 December.

The Israeli government prevented all international press from entering Gaza during Cast Lead (a documentary, The War Around Us, was made about the only two foreign reporters in the strip at the time), in what Gilbert called Israel’s insidious “PR plan.” The doctor, as one of the only international aid workers in Gaza, thus devoted considerable time to speaking with local Palestinian news outlets, some of whom were reporting on behalf of foreign networks including BBC, CNN, ABC, and Al Jazeera.

BBC aired an interview with Gilbert, conducted in the hospital. The questions asked, and the answers garnered, were eerily similar to those he would give just five years later, during Operation Protective Edge. The interviewer began asking him to respond to Israel’s claims that it was not targeting civilians, that it was only attacking Hamas militants. Gilbert called the claim “an absolutely stupid statement” and explained that, among the hundreds of patients he had seen at that point, only two had been fighters. The “large majority” were women, children, and men civilians. “These numbers are contradictory to everything Israel says,” he reported.

Gilbert drew attention to the fact that the overflowing hospital did not have enough supplies to treat all of its patients, and censured the international community for doing nothing to assist them. Israel would not let in foreign doctors, and yet Palestinians were “dying waiting for surgery.” “This is a complete disaster,” he remarked, calling it “the worst man-made disaster” he could think of. “There are injuries you just don’t want to see in this world.”

Operation Protective Edge

In 2008 and 2009, Gilbert treated Palestinians who had been grievously wounded by Israel’s use of experimental and illegal chemical weapons, including white phosphorous, dense inert metal explosives (DIME) munitions, and flechette shells. In July 2014, in the midst of Israel’s most recent attack on Gaza, Gilbert spoke with Electronic Intifada, revealing that he saw indications of renewed use of DIME weapons and flechettes.

While volunteering in Shifa hospital, Gaza’s principal medical facility, Gilbert penned an open letter, lamenting the unspeakable horrors the Israeli military was instigating.

[Israel’s] “ground invasion” of Gaza resulted in scores and carloads with maimed, torn apart, bleeding, shivering, dying… All sorts of injured Palestinians, all ages, all civilians, all innocent.

The heroes in the ambulances and in all of Gaza’s hospitals are working 12 to 24‑hour shifts, grey from fatigue and inhuman workloads (without payment in Shifa for the last four months). They care, triage, try to understand the incomprehensible chaos of bodies, sizes, limbs, walking, not walking, breathing, not breathing, bleeding, not bleeding humans. Humans!
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Ashy grey faces – Oh no! not one more load of tens of maimed and bleeding. We still have lakes of blood on the floor in the emergency room, piles of dripping, blood-soaked bandages to clear out – oh – the cleaners, everywhere, swiftly shovelling the blood and discarded tissues, hair, clothes, cannulas – the leftovers from death – all taken away… to be prepared again, to be repeated all over.

More than 100 cases came to Shifa in the last 24 hours. Enough for a large well-trained hospital with everything, but here – almost nothing: electricity, water, disposables, drugs, operating-room tables, instruments, monitors – all rusted and as if taken from museums of yesterday’s hospitals. But they do not complain, these heroes.

Now, once more treated like animals by “the most moral army in the world.”

The doctor directed one heart-wrenching passage to President Obama, writing “Mr Obama – do you have a heart? I invite you – spend one night – just one night – with us in Shifa. I am convinced, 100 per cent, it would change history. Nobody with a heart and power could ever walk away from a night in Shifa without being determined to end the slaughter of the Palestinian people.”

Israel later attacked Shifa hospital. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) “strongly condemn[ed]” the incursion, saying it “demonstrate[d] how civilians in Gaza have nowhere safe to go.” MSF director Marie-Noëlle Rodrigue stated, in an official statement, “When the Israeli army orders civilians to evacuate their houses and their neighborhoods, where is there for them to go? Gazans have no freedom of movement and cannot take refuge outside Gaza. They are effectively trapped.” Shifa was one of the over 10 medical facilities Israel bombed in its 50-day offensive.

Human Rights Work

In 2000, Gilbert made headlines for saving the life of a skier who had been trapped in sub-zero water. She had been pronounced clinically dead, with a body temperature of 57 °F, but Gilbert managed to revive her. For his service, Gilbert was awarded the Northern Norwegian of the Year award.

Before Operation Protective Edge commenced in early July 2014, Gilbert toured medical and health facilities and individual homes in Gaza, researching for a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) report on the dire state of the strip’s health sector. He wrote of “overstretched” health facilities, widespread physical and psychological trauma, “a deep financial crisis,” a lack of needed medical supplies, and a “severe energy crisis.” He also noted the “devastating results of the blockade imposed by the Government of Israel,” with rampant poverty, a 38.5% unemployment rate, food insecurity in at least 57% of households, and inadequate access to clean water. All of these already extreme ills were only exacerbated by the July-August Israeli assault on Gaza, an onslaught that left roughly 2,200 Palestinians dead, including over 1,500 civilians, more than 500 of whom were children.

Gilbert is not the only one Israel has recently prevented from entering Gaza. In August, just after the end of its military assault, Israel refused to allow Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the world’s leading human rights organizations, from entering the strip, impeding them from conducting war crimes investigations. The organizations had been requesting access for over a month, before Israel had even begun its ground invasion of Gaza, yet were continuously prevented from doing so, Israeli journalist Amira Hass reported in Haaretz, “using various bureaucratic excuses.”

Israel has banned Human Right Watch investigators from entering Gaza since 2006; Amnesty International has been refused access since 2012. Dr. Mads Gilbert is the latest esteemed persona non grata to be added to this growing list.

Solidarity, Not Pity

Other aid workers and medical professionals have faced even worse consequences for volunteering to help Palestinians. In August, Israeli occupation forces killed a social worker. In the same month, as the Israeli military engaged in a campaign to target and openly murder Palestinian civilians who spoke Hebrew, Israeli forces assassinated volunteers working with the Palestine Red Crescent, a non-profit humanitarian organization, part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

A common myth suggests that Israel ended its occupation of Gaza with its 2005 disengagement. The state’s ability to ban, and even kill, internationally recognized human rights organizations and doctors—not to mention food, construction equipment, and medical supplies—from entering Palestinian territory, however, demonstrates that Gaza is by no means autonomous. Israel’s siege of the strip is clearly a continuation of its 47-year-long illegal military occupation.

As legal scholar Noura Erakat explains

Despite removing 8,000 settlers and the military infrastructure that protected their illegal presence, Israel maintained effective control of the Gaza Strip and thus remains the occupying power as defined by Article 47 of the Hague Regulations. To date, Israel maintains control of the territory’s air space, territorial waters, electromagnetic sphere, population registry and the movement of all goods and people.
…
Palestinians have yet to experience a day of self-governance. Israel immediately imposed a siege upon the Gaza Strip when Hamas won parliamentary elections in January 2006 and tightened it severely when Hamas routed Fatah in June 2007. The siege has created a “humanitarian catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip. Inhabitants will not be able to access clean water, electricity or tend to even the most urgent medical needs. The World Health Organization explains that the Gaza Strip will be unlivable by 2020. Not only did Israel not end its occupation, it has created a situation in which Palestinians cannot survive in the long-term.

In his July interview with Electronic Intifada, Gilbert made it clear that his work as a medical professional cannot be done—the Palestinian people cannot live healthy, yet alone free, lives—while Israel continues its illegal siege and occupation. “As a doctor, my prescription is very clear. Number one, stop the bombing, and that means stop Israel from bombing civilians and indiscriminately hitting families. Number two, lift the siege. And number three, find a political solution,” he stated.

In a late October discussion with the Daily Targum, Gilbert encouraged Americans to do what they can to speak out against Israel’s illegal occupation and blockade of the Palestinian territories, and to pressure their government to stop its indefatigable support for Israeli crimes.

At present, the US provides Israel with over 3.1$ billion of military aid per year. In the past 52 years, over $100 billion US tax dollars have been given to the country in military aid alone.

“You are the change-makers,” Gilbert told American readers. “The key to the change when it comes to the occupation of Palestine lies in the United States.” “Solidarity, not pity,” he said, is the solution.

Ben Norton is an activist, artist, and freelance writer. He can be found on Twitter at @HeartsMindsEars.

November 14, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel won’t cooperate with UN as it continues to violate Gaza ceasefire

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Al-Akhbar | November 13, 2014

The Israeli authorities decided not to cooperate with a United Nations Human Rights Council investigation into this year’s Israeli aggression on Gaza, an Israeli spokesman said Wednesday.

“Since the Schabas commission is not an inquiry but a commission that gives its conclusions in advance, Israel will not cooperate with the UN Commission on Human Rights over the last conflict with Hamas,” Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said in a statement.

The UN panel, due to make its first report by March, is meant to look into the conduct of both the Israeli Occupation Forces and the Hamas resistance movement during the 50-day assault.

But the Israeli government has already dismissed the investigation as a “kangaroo court,” accusing its chairman, Canadian academic William Schabas, of anti-Israeli bias.

In August, Canadian lawyer William Schabas was named as the head of the UN commission, angering Israel, where he is widely regarded as hostile to Israel over reported calls to bring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the International Criminal Court.

“In view of the fact that the Schabas committee is not a fact-finding panel but an investigation whose results are predetermined … Israel will not cooperate with the committee,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

It added that the decision was also taken due to what it called the Geneva-based council’s “obsessive hostility to Israel.”

On October 30, the UN Human Rights Committee, chaired by British expert Sir Nigel Rodley, said Israel’s latest land and aerial attacks on the Gaza Strip in July-August caused a “disproportionate number of casualties among civilians, including children.”

For 51 days this summer, Israel pounded the Gaza Strip by air, land and sea.

More than 2,180 Palestinians, at least 70 percent of whom were civilians, were killed and 11,000 injured during seven weeks of unrelenting Israeli attacks in July and August.

According to UN figures, at least 505 Palestinian children were killed during the offensive.

UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said 138 of its students were killed during the assault, and the organization’s spokesperson Christopher Gunness said an additional 814 UNRWA students were injured and 560 have become orphans due to the Israeli onslaught.

The offensive ended on August 26 with an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire deal.

Gaza’s attack this summer was the third major conflagration in just seven years.

“(Israel) should ensure that all human rights violations committed during its military operations in the Gaza Strip in 2008-2009, 2012 and 2014 are thoroughly, effectively, independently and impartially investigated, that perpetrators, including, in particular, persons in positions of command are prosecuted and sanctioned,” the committee of 18 experts said.

Moreover, Amnesty International said in a report last week that the Israeli military displayed “shocking disregard” for civilian lives in Gaza and documented eight instances in which Israeli forces attacked homes in Gaza “without warning,” killing “at least 104 civilians including 62 children.”

“The report reveals a pattern of frequent Israeli attacks using large aerial bombs to level civilian homes, sometimes killing entire families,” Amnesty added.

Leftover Israeli shells

On Wednesday, a Palestinian man in Gaza was injured after an Israeli ordnance exploded in Khan Younis, medics said.

The man, identified only as M.A. and said to be in his 20s, was moderately injured.

Witnesses said he was removing rubble from a building destroyed during Israel’s summer assault when the explosion occurred.

The Gaza Strip is still littered with a large number of unexploded Israeli shells, one of which recently killed 4-year-old Mohammed Sami Abu-Jrad from the northern Gaza city of Beit Hanoun.

Although Gaza police explosives teams have been working across the territory to destroy unexploded ordnance and prevent safety threats to locals, lack of proper equipment due to the seven-year Israeli siege as well as a general lack of resources have hindered efforts.

Even before the most recent Israeli assault, unexploded ordnance from the 2008-9 and 2012 offensives were a major threat to Gazans.

A 2012 report published by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that 111 civilians, 64 of them children, were casualties to unexploded ordnance between 2009 and 2012, reaching an average of four every month in 2012.

Watch groups have warned that the ordinance can be a particular threat to children, who often think the bombs are toys.

Gaza fishermen continue to suffer

Meanwhile, Israeli naval boats fired at and sank a Palestinian fishing boat in the sea off the coast of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday evening.

Witnesses said that the Israeli navy fired shells at a boat belonging to the al-Bardaweel family and completely destroyed it.

Fishermen on board jumped into the water before the shell exploded.

On Monday, the Israeli navy shot and injured three Palestinian fishermen off the coast of the southern Gaza Strip.

Witnesses said Israeli forces shot at the boat until it caught fire, and that fishermen in a nearby boat managed to pull the injured aboard and escape under heavy fire.

The injured fishermen were taken to the Abu Yousef al-Najjar hospital in Rafah.

The Egypt-brokered ceasefire agreement stipulated that Israel would immediately expand the fishing zone off Gaza’s coast, allowing fishermen to sail as far as six nautical miles from shore, and would continue to expand the area gradually.

However, since the ceasefire was signed, Israeli forces have fired at several fishermen who they claim have ventured beyond the newly-imposed limit of six nautical miles.

There have also been widespread reports of the Israeli navy opening fire at fishermen within those limits.

In October, the head of the Gaza fishermen syndicate accused Israel of constantly violating the terms of the agreement.

“Since signing the truce, the Israeli army has violated (the agreement) many times, arresting fishermen and destroying a giant fishing boat, in addition to firing at fishermen on a daily basis,” he said.

There are an estimated 4,000 fishermen in Gaza. According to a 2011 report by the International Committee of the Red Cross, 90 percent are poor, a 40 percent increase from 2008. This change is believed to be a direct result of Israeli limits on the fishing industry.

The eight-year Israeli blockade has severely crippled Gaza’s economy and contributed to the frequent humanitarian crises and hardship for Gaza residents.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces detained two Palestinians who allegedly crossed the Gaza Strip border into Israeli-occupied territories, a military official claimed Wednesday.

The two unarmed Palestinians were taken for questioning, an Israeli army spokeswoman said.

Goods and reconstruction material to enter Gaza

On Thursday, the Israeli authorities opened the Kerem Shalom crossing in the southeastern Gaza Strip to allow aid and goods into the enclave.

Raed Fattouh, a Palestinian official responsible for the entry of goods into Gaza, said that the Israeli authorities will allow 350 truckloads of goods for the trade, agricultural, transportation and aid sectors.

Fattouh added that Israel will also allow five trucks of cement for international construction projects.

Meanwhile, Ann-Sofie Nilsson, from the Swedish Consul General, on Wednesday signed an agreement with Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah to fund a project led by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to step up financial support for the reconstruction of the war-torn Gaza Strip.

“The situation in Gaza is alarming after the devastating war this summer, especially with winter approaching. There is a need for rapid support to the Government of National Consensus in its efforts to kick-start the reconstruction. We are pleased to contribute to alleviate somewhat the difficult situation,” Nilsson said.

Sweden, the first Western European Union country to recognize Palestine as a state, also announced last week a five-year strategy for developing cooperation with Palestine which entails a 50 percent increase in development support.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon said last month during a visit to the Gaza Strip that the devastation he had seen was “beyond description.”

According to UN estimates based on preliminary information, as many as 80,000 Palestinians homes were damaged or destroyed during the days of hostilities, and over 106,000 of Gaza’s 1.8 million residents have been displaced to UN shelters and host families.

Israel routinely bars the entry of building materials into the embattled coastal enclave on grounds that Palestinian resistance faction Hamas could use them to build underground tunnels or fortifications.

For years, the Gaza Strip has depended on construction materials smuggled into the territory through a network of tunnels linking it to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

However, a recent crackdown on the tunnels by the Egyptian army has effectively neutralized hundreds of tunnels, severely affecting Gaza’s construction sector.

(Al-Akhbar, Ma’an)

November 13, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Dozens injured during Aqsa clashes, several detained

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Ma’an – November 5, 2014

JERUSALEM – Dozens of Palestinians suffered tear-gas inhalation and several others were injured by stun grenades, shrapnel and rubber-coated steel bullets during clashes in the Al-Aqsa mosque compound area on Wednesday, an official said.

Palestinian Red Crescent official Amin Abu Ghazaleh told Ma’an that Red Crescent ambulances moved nine injured to the Al-Maqased Hospital where their injuries were reported as moderate.

Two were injured in the eye, and 32 with stun grenades, shrapnel and rubber-coated steel bullets in addition to many who suffered severe gas inhalation.

Three Palestinian members of Israel’s Knesset, Hanin Zoabi, Talab Abu Arrar and Ibrahim Sarsour, were able to enter the mosque during the closure and clashes.

Israeli soldiers neared the Al-Qabali mosque inside the compound as they fired stun grenades and tear-gas bombs inside, the director of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Omar al-Kiswani, said.

He said that a fire erupted inside the muezzin’s hall and cables and speakers were also burned and damaged.

Soldiers “deliberately” threw holy books on the floor, he alleged.

Israeli forces detained Tareq al-Hashlamon, an employee of the Islamic endowment department, after assaulting him inside Al-Aqsa, along with another endowment employee identified as Hussam Seder and three Palestinians.

Four Palestinians were also detained, one of them a minor. Two others were identified as Omar al-Kilani and Amin Qirsh.

Meanwhile, Jordan recalled its ambassador to Israel over the violence.

Jordanian Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur asked the foreign minister to “recall the Jordanian ambassador from Tel Aviv in protest at Israel’s escalation on the Al-Aqsa mosque compound,” the Petra news agency reported.

The clashes came amid continued tensions over right-wing Jewish demands to be able to pray inside the compound despite being off-limits in mainstream Judaism, in addition to the expansion of Israeli settlement building in Palestinian East Jerusalem.

Earlier, a police spokeswoman said that “Dozens of masked protesters threw stones and firecrackers at security forces who then entered the Temple Mount and pushed the demonstrators back inside the mosque.”

November 5, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Girl Who Stole My Holocaust

Review by Jessica Purkiss

The Girl Who Stole my Holocaust is essentially about an epiphany. Noam Chayut’s memoir charts his journey from a battle hardened soldier protecting an illegal occupation into a conscientious man who relentlessly confronts the injustice of that occupation. As the novel progresses through its 36 chapters the reader bears witness to the unravelling of Noam the Zionist, the enthusiastic IDF recruit and the military fundraiser.

The catalyst to this unravelling is a young girl who he encounters during a raid on a Palestinian village while he is still a soldier. The pure terror he sees in her face makes Noam realise that he is “playing the role of absolute evil in the play of her life”. The absolute evil that has governed his life, in the shadow of which he has grown up under- the Holocaust, begins to disintegrate.

The association of the Holocaust and the occupation is a daring one. It is also insightful – it demonstrates the role the historical victimhood of the Jewish people plays in the Israeli psyche. While the book is about Noam’s personal journey, it also tells us much about the hegemonic Israeli narrative.

Noam does not shy away from confronting his own racism and his actions as an Israeli soldier in a painfully honest manner. As he exposes the actions of others via testimonies collected as a member of Breaking the Silence, a group of ex-soldiers who seek to make people aware of the conduct of the Israeli military, he uncovers a sustained pattern of behaviour which makes up a whole system of abuse.

Noam ends his memoir with a letter to the young girl he encountered. It reads: “That’s probably why you think that my horror is inferior to yours. But know that my idea of absolute evil stretches beyond anything your wildest imagination could conceive.” The letter reads almost like a lecture to the wronged and an attempt to minimise the “absolute evil” she perceives. This cannot be Noam’s intention, for the rest of the book is deeply self-aware. In this one paragraph he has marred the memoir. This should, however, not deter anyone from reading what is a startling and brutally honest account of one Israeli soldier’s journey of questioning.

November 3, 2014 Posted by | Book Review, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

SodaStream closes illegal settlement factory but remains actively complicit in the displacement of Palestinians

Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel | October 30, 2014

Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activists today welcomed the news that SodaStream has announced it is to close its factory in the illegal Israeli settlement of Mishor Adumim following a high profile boycott campaign against the company.

“SodaStream’s announcement today shows that the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is increasingly capable of holding corporate criminals to account for their participation in Israeli apartheid and colonialism,” said Rafeef Ziadah, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), the broad coalition of Palestinian civil society organisations that leads and supports the BDS movement.

“BDS campaign pressure has forced retailers across Europe and North America to drop SodaStream, and the company’s share price has tumbled in recent months as our movement has caused increasing reputational damage to the SodaStream brand,” she added.

The news of this major success against a company famed for its role in illegal Israeli settlements broke amidst intensifying demonstrations against Israel’s policies of colonisation in Jerusalem.

Grassroots boycott activism saw SodaStream dropped by major retailers across North America and Europe including Macy’s in the US and John Lewis in the UK.

SodaStream was forced to close its flagship store in Brighton in the UK as a result of regular pickets of the store.

Soros Fund Management, the family office of the billionaire investor George Soros, sold its stake in SodaStream following BDS pressure.

SodaStream’s share price fell dramatically in recent months as sales dried up, particularly in North America.

After reaching a high of $64 per share in October 2013, the stock fell to around $20 per share this month. SodaStream has estimated its third quarter revenue will be $125 million, down almost 14 percent from the same period last year.

But Ziadah warned that SodaStream will still remain actively complicit in the displacement of Palestinians and will remain a focus of boycott campaigning.

“Even if this announced closure goes ahead, SodaStream will remain implicated in the displacement of Palestinians. Its new Lehavim factory is close to Rahat, a planned township in the Naqab (Negev) desert, where Palestinian Bedouins are being forcefully transferred against their will. Sodastream, as a beneficiary of this plan, is complicit with this violation of human rights,” she said.

SodaStream’s participation in Israel’s forced displacement of Palestinians gained international notoriety when A-list celebrity Scarlett Johansson signed up to be a brand ambassador for the company. Following an international campaign urging Oxfam end its relationship with Johansson for endorsing SodaStream, the actor decided to quit Oxfam.

SodaStream has also come under fire for its treatment of Palestinian workers in its West Bank factory, as Ziadah explains:

“Any suggestion that SodaStream is employing Palestinians in an illegal Israeli settlement on stolen Palestinian land out of the kindness of its heart is ludicrous.”

“Palestinian workers are paid far less than their Israeli counterparts and SodaStream recently fired 60 Palestinians following a dispute over food for the breaking of the Ramadan fast. Workers have previously said they are treated ‘like slaves’”.

“Palestinians are forced to work inside settlements in sub-standard conditions because of Israel’s deliberate destruction of the Palestinian economy. There’s an urgent need for the creation of decent and dignified jobs within the Palestinian economy.”

SodaStream have said all workers will be offered jobs at its new plant, although Israel’s apartheid wall and severe restrictions on movement will make the commute to the new plant difficult for its Palestinian workers.

All of the main Palestinian trade unions have called for boycott and are members of the Palestinian BDS National Committee, the civil society coalition that leads the BDS movement and helped to initiate the campaign against SodaStream.

The BNC quotes included in this release can be found in the following coverage of this story:

New York Times : http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/world/middleeast/sodastream-to-close-factory-in-west-bank.html?_r=0

Guardian : http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/29/sodastream-move-factory-west-bank-israel-slash-forecast

Daily Mail : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2813830/SodaStream-factory-West-Bank-Scarlett-Johansson-hot-water-close-operations-Israel-company-says.html

Bloomberg : http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-10-29/sodastream-to-close-factory-at-center-of-israelpalestinian-spat

International Business Times : http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/israel-bds-movement-scores-victory-sodastream-close-controversial-factory-west-bank-settlement-1472320

– See more at: http://www.bdsmovement.net/2014/sodastream-closes-illegal-settlement-factory-in-response-growing-boycott-campaign-12782#sthash.4cXIOA4n.dpuf

October 30, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

The American Resistance to Israel

By Paul Larudee | Dissident Voice | October 29, 2014

The movement to prevent Israeli cargo ships from being unloaded or loaded is potentially one of the greatest challenges that Israel faces from ordinary citizens around the world. Amazingly, it doesn’t even require huge numbers or even very much unity of organization, only of purpose.

The August, 2014 picket of the Zim Piraeus in Oakland, California, is a case in point. It began with a massive demonstration of thousands that responded to a call from the Block the Boat coalition to picket the port on August 16 and 17. During that time, the ship chose to remain in a stationary position more than 100 miles away. The organizers then declared victory on the basis that the ship had been delayed more than 24 hours, and the ship came into port.

For some of the picketers, however, this was not enough. They chose to continue the picket after the ship had docked and was ready to be worked. This required maintaining the picket line on a sustained basis and eliciting the cooperation of the workers in not crossing the line. Because of these efforts, there was no one to work the ship for another three days.

Finally, the employer, Ports America, tried to trick both the picketers and the workers by reassigning workers from another ship (an illegal practice). This was only partly successful, and the ship left on August 20 for Russia with most of its Oakland-bound cargo still on board and without taking on any of the cargo that it was to pick up.

One of the volunteers did follow-up research, even calling Zim’s clients. What she discovered was that the extra cargo on board created problems for the loading operations in Russia and had to be off loaded without a clear picture of when it would reach Oakland. At least two of the clients also decided to stop using Zim because of uncertain delivery. The cost of delays, fuel, berthing fees and additional transport must have been staggering.

The following month brought even worse news to Zim.  This time, a group calling itself the Stop Zim Action Committee succeeded in completely blocking the Zim Shanghai from unloading or loading any cargo at all in the port of Oakland. After trying for only 24 hours, it left for Los Angeles, where it had apparently made alternate arrangements for the cargo to be offloaded and transported to Oakland by other carriers (possibly by truck). Again, the result was extra cost and delay.

Unfortunately for Zim, Los Angeles and other cities decided to follow the Oakland example. On August 26, Block the Boat – LA held its first protest against the Zim Haifa.  Then, on October 18, the Zim Savannah remained at anchor for two days while picketers stayed at the port, calling on workers not to work the ship. In the end the workers agreed to cross the picket lines with police herding the protesters away, and the ship came in.

Protests and pickets were also held against Zim ships in Seattle/Tacoma, Washington and Tampa, Florida, but officials claimed that there were no delays. In Vancouver, Canada, an informational picket was held in order to initiate a dialog with the workers.

Indeed, workers were the key to the degree of success or failure at each port. Oakland has an activist union tradition with a keen socio-political conscience. In 1984 ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) Local 10 refused to unload a South African ship for eleven days, and in 2010 it refused to cross 24 hours of picket lines set up to block another Zim ship from unloading. That tradition may be less strong in other ports, but it argues for a partnership that may empower both labor and activist communities in ways that we have not seen in decades.

But what about other countries?  Palestinians and others were quite frankly astonished that the first successful denial of service to an Israeli ship would happen in a U.S. city, to say nothing of demonstrations in at least five different North American ports. The American resistance surprised everyone. Why, then, do we not see similar actions in other parts of the world?

Part of the reason is that Zim doesn’t operate everywhere. It has no ports of call on the west coast of South America, for example, or in Scandinavia. Nevertheless, its ships sail to Barcelona, whose dockworkers union sent a message of congratulations and solidarity to the Oakland workers. Why are no Zim ships being turned away in Barcelona?

South Africa also seems a likely location.  COSATU, the giant South African union, has repeatedly declared its solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. Why is it not participating? What about Cuba and Venezuela? Other possibilities might be Malaysia, Brazil, Greece and even Liverpool in the UK.

Until now, Zim and the Israeli government have been very cool about the potential impact of a movement that ought to terrify them to the depths of their souls. It takes only a small amount of disruption to cause shipping customers to take their business elsewhere.  As noted, this has already happened, starting with the first picket in August. We can only guess at the effect when a second Zim ship had to leave Oakland untouched.

In October, a third Zim ship, the Zim Beijing, was scheduled to arrive in Oakland, and another picket was planned. This time, however, the ship kept delaying its arrival date until it was de-listed from the port arrival schedule. There are no Zim ships currently scheduled to arrive in Oakland for the foreseeable future, although Zim bravely refuses to declare this as a policy.

Zim and the Israeli government dare not reveal how vulnerable they are. It will take only a few major ports around the world to sound the death knell for an Israeli shipping giant that is the tenth largest cargo carrier in the world (more than $3 billion in annual revenue). The loss of a few million in Oakland may not seem like much to them, but uncertain and unreliable delivery can put them at a huge disadvantage – perhaps even out of business. This is why we saw no counter-demonstrators at the port (actually one): they have to pretend it means nothing to them.

On the other hand, the Oakland victory cannot be sustained alone.  If it does not spread to other countries, it will wither. Israel knows that, but all their power and influence may be insufficient to prevent the movement from happening.  We have been looking for a way to strike a blow for Palestine. Now is our chance.

Paul Larudee is one of the founders of the Free Gaza and Free Palestine Movements and an organizer in the International Solidarity Movement.

October 30, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel closes al-Aqsa to all visitors after the shooting of a right-wing rabbi

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Al-Akhbar | October 30, 2014

Israeli Occupation Forces on Thursday closed the al-Aqsa Mosque compound to all visitors after an overnight shooting incident in which a man on a motorbike tried to gun down an Israeli hardliner.

“This dangerous Israeli escalation is a declaration of war on the Palestinian people and its sacred places and on the Arab and Islamic nation,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina quoted him as saying on Thursday.

“We hold the Israeli government responsible for this dangerous escalation in Jerusalem that has reached its peak through the closure of the al-Aqsa mosque this morning,” he told AFP.

“The state of Palestine will take all legal measures to hold Israel accountable and to stop these ongoing attacks,” he added.

Earlier on Thursday, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man suspected of the shooting attack on the Israeli hardliner, a spokesman said.

“The Palestinian, who was the main suspect in the Wednesday night attack, was eliminated at his home in Jerusalem’s Abu Tor neighborhood by special police forces,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.

Abu Tor straddles the seam line between west Jerusalem and the occupied eastern sector, which was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War.

The suspect’s death took place just hours after a gunman on a motorcycle had opened fire at a right-wing Zionist Rabbi called Yehuda Glick at a rally in Jerusalem, leaving him critically wounded.

Glick was reportedly shot in his upper body at “close range” at an event outside the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, where a number of Israeli members of Knesset and right-wing activists were in attendance, Israeli news site Ynet said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday ordered a “significant increase” in police deployments in Jerusalem following the shooting.

“I have ordered a significant increase in forces as well as in means (available to them) so we can both ensure security in Jerusalem and also maintain the status quo in the holy places,” he said in a statement released by his office.

The attack was reported after a conference focused on the reconstruction of a Jewish temple on top of the al-Aqsa mosque was concluded at the center, with top right-wing Zionist officials and activists in attendance.

The incident comes amid increasing tension in Jerusalem over an expected Knesset vote to potentially divide the al-Aqsa mosque compound — the third-holiest site in Islam — between Muslims and Jews, or else restrict Muslim worship at the site.

The Israeli army radio announced early October that the ministry of tourism was working on a plan to allow Jews to enter the al-Aqsa compound through the Cotton Merchants Gate, in addition to the Moroccan Gate which is already used as an entrance for non-Muslims.

Although mainstream Jewish leaders consider it forbidden for Jews to enter the area, right-wing nationalist activists have increasingly called for Jewish prayer to be allowed on the site.

Since Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, an agreement with Jordan has maintained that Jewish prayer be allowed at the Western Wall plaza — built on the site of a Palestinian neighborhood of 800 that was destroyed immediately following the conquest — but not inside the al-Aqsa mosque compound itself.

Yehuda Glick is an American-born Israeli and the chairman of the Temple Mount Heritage Fund, a Zionist organization focused on “strengthening the relationship between Israel and the Temple Mount.”

Critics charge that the Fund actually leads Jewish tours to the site with the intention of leading Jewish prayer there — currently banned under Israeli agreements — and encouraging Jews to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque and build a Jewish temple there.

He has been previously banned by Israeli authorities from entering the compound due to provocations while on the site.

For Muslims, al-Aqsa represents the world’s third holiest site.

Al-Aqsa restrictions, violations

Israel continues to restrict the entry of Palestinian worshipers into al-Aqsa for the fifth week in a row.

In an urgent message to the US administration on Sunday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas warned that Israel’s continued provocations at the mosque complex would lead to a “wide-reaching explosion.”

Israeli authorities have imposed restrictions on Palestinians seeking to enter the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, denying Muslim men under 40 access to the holy site while facilitating the entry of Zionist settlers of all ages.

In recent months, hundreds of extremist Zionist settlers – often accompanied by Israeli security forces – have repeatedly forced their way into East Jerusalem’s flashpoint al-Aqsa Mosque complex.

The frequent violations anger Palestinians who fear Zionist presence on the al-Aqsa is aimed at usurping the site.

Abbas said Saturday legal measures would be taken to prevent Zionist settlers from attacking Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound.

“The Palestinian leadership will be taking the necessary legal measures, at the international level, regarding the aggression of settlers on the Al-Aqsa mosque,” Abbas said in a speech to the Revolutionary Council of his Fatah party.

“We will not allow settlers to attack the mosque,” he added, referring to the entire compound, which is the third holiest site in Islam.

A Palestinian official last week called for holding an emergency Arab and Islamic summit to discuss Israeli plans to divide the al-Aqsa Mosque compound between Palestinians and Israelis.

“Israel is racing against time to legitimize storming of the al-Aqsa Mosque compound by herds of extremist settlers,” Ahmed Qurei, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said in a statement.

Earlier this month, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said he was “deeply concerned by repeated provocations at the holy sites in Jerusalem,” saying that such actions “only inflame tensions and must stop.”

Meanwhile, Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement condemned the “Israeli aggressions within the al-Aqsa Mosque compound” and slammed “Arab silence” and “international complicity.”

The resistance group called on “directing all efforts to protect al-Aqsa and the Islamic and Christian holy sites.”

Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state – a move never recognized by the international community.

In September 2000, a visit to the site by controversial Israeli leader Ariel Sharon sparked what later became known as the “Second Intifada” – a popular uprising against the Israeli occupation in which thousands of Palestinians were killed.

(Ma’an, AFP, Al-Akhbar)

October 30, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

Sweden recognizes Palestinian state as UN fails to condemn Israeli settlements

Al-Akhbar | October 30, 2014

Sweden on Thursday officially recognized the state of Palestine, Stockholm’s foreign minister said, less than a month after the government announced its intention to make the move and one day after UN Security Council failed to condemn Israeli settlement plans.

“Our decision comes at a critical time because over the last year we have seen how the peace talks have stalled, how decisions over new settlements on occupied Palestinian land have complicated a two-state solution and how violence has returned to Gaza,” Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom told reporters.

“By making our decision we want to bring a new dynamic to the stalled peace process.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas hailed the decision, his spokesman told AFP.

“President Abbas welcomes Sweden’s decision,” Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP, saying the Palestinian leader described the move as “brave and historic.”

Sweden is the first EU member state in western Europe to recognize Palestine.

European countries are stepping up the pressure on Israel to seek a peace deal, with the British and Irish parliament recently holding a non-binding vote on recognizing statehood.

Abu Rudeina claimed that Sweden’s recognition was linked to months of soaring tensions in occupied East Jerusalem, where Palestinians have clashed almost daily with Israeli Occupation Forces and where Israel has recently pushed ahead with plans to build another 3,600 settler homes.

“This decision comes as a response to Israeli measures in Jerusalem,” he said.

Meanwhile, Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Thursday denounced the Swedish government’s recognition of a Palestinian state as “deplorable”, saying it would undermine efforts to resolve the conflict.

“The decision of the Swedish government to recognize a Palestinian state is a deplorable decision which only strengthens extremist elements,” he claimed in a statement.

“It is a shame that the Swedish government chose to take this declarative step which causes a lot of harm and offers no advantage,” he said.

“The Swedish government must understand that relations in the Middle East are a lot more complex than the self-assembly furniture of IKEA and that they have to act with responsibility and sensitivity.”

Wallstrom rejected accusations that Sweden was taking sides and she hoped other EU countries would follow Sweden’s lead.

No Security Council statement condemning Israel

The Palestinians urged the UN Security Council on Wednesday to demand that Israel immediately reverse plans to build more Zionist settlements, at an emergency meeting called to address tensions in occupied East Jerusalem.

The 15-nation council met for urgent talks at Jordan’s and Palestine’s request after Israel announced plans on Monday to build 1,000 new settler homes in East Jerusalem.

However, no resolution was adopted and there was no Security Council statement condemning Israel.

“Israel, the occupying power, must be demanded to cease immediately and completely its illegal settlement activities throughout the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem,” Palestinian ambassador Riyad Mansour told the council.

Mansour said he was disappointed that the council had failed to issue a statement but praised members for speaking forcefully against Israeli settlements.

Speaking to the council, top UN official Jeffrey Feltman said the Israeli practice of moving settlers to Palestinian territories was “in violation of international law” and runs counter to a two-state solution of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is “alarmed” by the latest plans for new Israeli settlements which “once again raise grave doubts about Israel’s commitment to achieving durable peace,” Feltman told the council.

Israel’s ambassador Ron Prosor shot back, rejecting suggestions that settlement building jeopardized peace and accusing the UN of “playing second fiddle” to a Palestinian “campaign to vilify” his country.

“There are many threats in the Middle East, but the presence of Jewish homes is not one of them,” Prosor told the council.

Speaking to reporters outside council chambers, Prosor insisted the settlements were “not illegal” and that “building housing units in Jerusalem for children in places where there are Jewish neighborhoods is something that we will continue to do.”

Besides the 1,000 new settler homes, Israel has recently approved the construction of more than 2,600 settler homes in East Jerusalem.

More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live in settlements across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Six-Day War. It later annexed the city of Jerusalem in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state – a move never recognized by the international community.

US, European countries “condemn” Israeli settlements

Even though there was no Security Council statement condemning the Israeli violations, Israel came under strong criticism from several countries, which called for an end to unilateral actions including settlement expansions.

The US representative David Pressman told the council “settlement activity will only further escalate tensions at a time that is already tense enough.”

British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant warned that ongoing construction of Zionist settlements in Palestinian territories “makes it much more difficult for Israel’s friends to defend it against accusations that it is not serious about peace.”

French Ambassador Francois Delattre said “the risk of an explosion of uncontrolled violence in Jerusalem and the West Bank cannot be ignored” and called on Israel to drop the planned settlement.

Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said the plan should be “frozen” and urged the council to play a more pro-active role to jump-start Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

On Wednesday, the Spanish government expressed its regret at the settlements plan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the decision “does not reflect the formally accepted target of negotiating with the Palestinians to seek a peaceful, global and lasting solution based on two states.”

The ministry also reiterated its position, shared by the international community, that all forms of Israeli settlement construction in occupied Palestinian territories are illegal.

Israel’s latest push for settlements followed weeks of clashes between Palestinian youths and police in East Jerusalem over fears that Israel wanted to restrict access to the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest site.

Feltman called for a de-escalation, saying that both sides “can ill-afford” to inflame tensions so soon after the devastating Gaza war, which left more than 2,000 Palestinians dead.

In a draft resolution circulated, the Palestinian Authority set November 2016 as the deadline for ending the Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967 and establishing a two-state solution.

It is worth noting that numerous pro-Palestine activists argue in favor of a one-state solution, arguing that the creation of a Palestinian state beside Israel would not be sustainable. They add that the two-state solution, which is the only option considered by international actors, won’t solve existing discrimination, nor erase economic and military tensions.

(AFP, Ma’an, Al-Akhbar)

October 30, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestine, Israel and the ADL

By Robert Fantina | CounterPunch | October 29, 2014

On October 24 of this year, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) which, according to its website, “…was founded in 1913 ‘to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all’,” printed an overview of what it called ‘Anti-Israel Activity on Campus After Operation Protective Edge: A Preview of the 2014-2015 Academic Year’. This article provides information about student groups that were appalled at Israeli cruelty during that country’s so-called ‘Operation Protective Edge’, the ridiculous name of the most recent invasion and carpet bombing of the Gaza Strip. It discusses the increase in student activity opposing Israeli policies, and projects that it will probably only continue to grow.

It is certainly true that opposition to Israel’s decades-long, brutal occupation of Palestine is growing. But the ADL made some statements in the article that belie belief. A look at one sentence suffices: “Student groups that constitute today’s anti-Israel movement hurl a multitude of hateful accusations against Israel, falsely claiming that Israel is guilty of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and a number of other war crimes in an effort to demonize Israel.”

Let us break this amazing sentence down into its component parts, and see what we can learn from it.

‘Student groups that constitute today’s anti-Israel movement’. Certainly, it can’t be denied that college campuses not only in the United States, but also throughout the world are seeing more opposition to Israeli practices. But such groups do not constitute this movement; they are simply a part of greater, ad-hoc organizations around the world that are finally waking up to Israel’s unspeakable cruelties.

‘Hurl a multitude of hateful accusations against Israel’. It would not be difficult to diffuse these ‘hateful’ accusations. If Israel is indeed innocent of these charges, all it would need to have done would be to have cooperated with any of the international investigations of the last few years, or that are currently ongoing, into its practices. If Israel has nothing to hide, why not show the facts to the world? On the other hand, if the facts are already there for all the world to see, why not try calling them ‘hateful accusations’ and see if that accomplishes anything?

“Falsely claiming that Israel is guilty of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and a number of other war crimes”. Are these false claims? A quick Internet search shows this definition for apartheid: ‘any system or practice that separates people according to race, caste, etc.’. Palestinians in the West Bank cannot drive on the same roads that Israeli’s use. They are hindered in their daily activities by countless checkpoints that Israelis establish and man arbitrarily. A Palestinian arrested in the West Bank may spend months incarcerated without charge, and without access to legal representation. An Israeli arrested in the West Bank is either charged or released within hours, and has access to legal representation immediately. Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank need to ask permission from Israel to farm their own lands, and to harvest their own crops. No such restrictions or requirements are placed on Israelis.

Is Israel guilty of ethnic cleansing? Going to the same Internet source, this is how ‘ethnic cleansing’ is defined: “The elimination of an unwanted ethnic group or groups from a society, as by genocide or forced migration.” Israel was established in 1948 only after the forced removal (‘migration’) of 750,000 Palestinians from their ancestral homes. In the decades since that time, Palestinian homes have been, and continue to be, routinely demolished to make room for illegal Israeli settlements, in which only Israelis can live.

Now let us look at the charge of genocide. Returning again to the same dictionary site, genocide is defined thusly: “The deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political or cultural group.” When three-quarters of a million Palestinians were forcibly removed from their homes in 1947 and 1948, at least 10,000 of them were killed. Hundreds of Palestinian villages were completely destroyed, leaving no trace of mosques, museums, schools, cemeteries or other signs of Palestinian culture. Since then, countless mosques, schools and other vital structures of Palestinian culture have been obliterated by Israel, in order to make room for more, Israeli-only, illegal settlements. Ironically, in June of 2011, Israel bulldozed the ancient Muslim cemetery, Ma’man Allah, in order to build a ‘Museum of Tolerance’ on the site.

During Israel’s recent horrific bombing of the Gaza Strip, many more ancient mosques were destroyed, further decimating Palestinian culture.

These student groups accuse Israel of ‘a number of other war crimes’, says the ADL article. According to International Law, an occupying force (Israel) cannot move permanent settlers into the occupied territory. Israeli Prime Murderer Benjamin Netanyahu has stated flatly that he has no intention of giving up the West Bank, where over 500,000 settlers live illegally. It is also in violation of international law to remove residents from their property, something Israel does routinely, and has done for decades, causing the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, many who had to leave their homes for refugee camps.

International law also says that in war time, schools, hospitals, residences, places of worship and press and media facilities cannot be bombed. During the recent bombing of the Gaza Strip, Israel bombed all of these, as well as clearly-defined United Nations refugee centers, with apparent impunity.

All possible care, according to international law, must be taken to prevent civilian casualties. Yet IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) soldiers (read: terrorists) blatantly targeted children playing a beach, killing them in front of international reporters.

The protection of the occupied people is also a requirement of international law. Yet in the West Bank, IDF soldiers and illegal settlers constantly harass Palestinians, and routinely shoot and kill Palestinians, including children. When this happens, if there is any international outcry at all, Israel says it is ‘investigating’. Yet nothing substantive ever comes of these ‘investigations’.

Like many other organizations that exist ostensibly to protect poor, vulnerable little Israel from the non-existent power of its enemies, the ADL attempts to defend the indefensible. The many crimes that Israel commits on a daily basis may once have been hidden behind a wall of secrecy. But that was before Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media enabled everyone with a cell phone and an internet connection to broadcast facts to the world. People around the globe see the horrors that Israel perpetrates, and understand it as all the things the ADL denies: apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and a number of other war crimes.

That students are waking up and taking action is another positive sign for Palestine. That Israel is becoming more and more isolated in the world community, with more and more countries recognizing Palestine and sanctioning Israel, is also very positive. That the ADL and other similar organizations are in panic mode, no longer able to defend a cruel, racist, apartheid regime, bodes well for a better future for Palestine.

Perhaps Israel felt it could once again bomb the Gaza Strip, and kill youths in the West Bank who have no weapons other than stones, with complete impunity. It must not be blamed for believing so; that was the model that was followed for years, and Israel can’t be faulted for not paying attention to sea changes that were occurring. Now that those changes have hit it in the face, full force, it can’t avoid seeing them. This new knowledge makes Israel all the more dangerous; any wild animal cornered will lash out, however erratically, in instinctive defense. Yet like the cornered animal that is eventually captured and controlled, this is what Israel can realistically expect. It will take time, but the process has begun, and it cannot be stopped now. Despite all Israel’s efforts to obliterate Palestine, it will fail; Palestine will be free.

Robert Fantina’s latest book is Empire, Racism and Genocide: a History of US Foreign Policy (Red Pill Press).

October 29, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Denied land access, Palestinians miss olive harvest

Ma’an – 29/10/2014

AL-JANIYA (AFP) — Abbas Yousef points wistfully towards his olive trees, which are bearing their annual fruit. Yet again, the 70-year-old Palestinian farmer will be unable to make the autumn harvest.

Yousef’s olive groves lie on land either side of an Israeli settlement in the northern occupied West Bank. For years, he has been denied access by the army, and the settlers have plowed it, uprooting many of his trees.

For the 1,400 residents of al-Janiya — Yousef’s village — attacks by settlers who have uprooted trees and burnt Palestinian farmland have become a daily occurrence, he says.

“Each time I try to get to my olive groves, an Israeli soldier tells me I can’t go, because it’s been designated a ‘closed military zone,'” Yousef says.

“My father planted those trees, seed by seed, and I toiled over the land,” he sighs, pointing to one section of his land, now farmed by settlers.

This year, for the first time since 2000, Yousef was allowed access to his land, but only for two days — not nearly enough time to gather all the olives during the harvest that begins in early October.

When he got there, he found 400 of his trees had been uprooted.

UN figures show that since the start of the year, around 7,500 trees have been damaged or uprooted across the West Bank.

‘Now it’s my land’

Arik Ascherman, president of Israeli rights group Rabbis for Human Rights, says Yousef’s experience is common and in danger of becoming the norm in the West Bank.

“They start by preventing Palestinians from accessing their land, then they cultivate it themselves, and then they say ‘Now it’s my land,'” he explains.

Since Israel took over the West Bank in 1967, 135 Jewish settlements have been built there as well as around 100 unauthorized outposts, which are considered illegal even under Israeli law, UN figures show.

All settlements built on occupied territory are illegal under international law.

Figures compiled by the Yesha Settlers Council show there are some 380,000 Israelis living in the West Bank — a number which has more than tripled in the two decades since the Oslo peace accords were signed in 1993.

The attacks against olive groves, which make up half of all cultivated Palestinian farmland, threaten a crucial source of livelihood.

Olive farming and olive oil production bring in around a quarter of Palestinian agricultural revenue, according to the UN’s top humanitarian official for the occupied territories, James Rawley.

The harvest is increasingly threatened by both settlement building and by Israel’s vast separation barrier — in some parts an eight-meter-high (25 foot) concrete wall — whose construction began in 2002.

Some 85 percent of the barrier’s route runs inside the West Bank, rather than along the internationally recognized Green Line, cutting off Palestinians from 30 percent of their land, according to a UN spokeswoman.

For Ahmed Diwan, a farmer who lives in Biddu village east of Ramallah, the problem is not limited to olives.

He says he has also missed the grape harvest, the almonds, the apples, and vine leaves — “a symbol of Palestinian cuisine” — due to a lack of access to his land.

Diwan holds out little hope for this year’s olive harvest as he packs his farming equipment into his car.

“We’re only allowed access to our olive groves two days this year. We can’t maintain the trees or harvest in that time!”

End of an era?

Israel has granted access to farmers for a total of 37 days so far this year, the UN says.

Even those who do have limited access to their farmland are subjected to violent attacks by settlers, who are often armed.

So far this year, 88 attacks have been recorded and 142 farmers injured, according to the UN.

The elderly Yousef was one of the victims.

“About 50 settlers turned up. We were four farmers, people of around my age. We were no match for them,” he recalls.

“In the end it was the Israeli soldiers who got us out to protect us from the settlers.”

The violence is making “entire villages” which had been self-sufficient for decades dependent on international aid, the UN says.

A disillusioned younger generation is turning away from the age-old family tradition.

“Farming is finished. The young people don’t want to work on the land. They’re scared of being killed by settlers,” Yousef says.

Settler violence against Palestinians and their property is a regular occurrence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but settlers are rarely held accountable by Israeli law enforcement.

Ma’an staff contributed to this report.

October 29, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Natural resource exploitation in the Dead Sea area – The case of Ahava

Alhaqhr | October 28, 2014

This is the first in a series of new Virtual Field Visits focusing on the topic of business and human rights. This video will highlight corporate complicity in the exploitation of natural resources in the Dead Sea area of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

October 28, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Video | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Middle East borders bound to change: Israel minister

Press TV – October 24, 2014

Israeli Minister for Military Affairs Moshe Ya’alon says the borders of many Middle Eastern countries are bound to change in the future as a result of recent developments in the region.

The Israeli minister said in a recent interview with the US-based National Public Radio (NPR) that the current borders would change in the coming years, as some have “been changed already.”

The Israeli minister added that the borders of some countries in the region were artificially drawn by the West.

“Libya was a new creation, a Western creation as a result of World War I. Syria, Iraq, the same — artificial nation-states — and what we see now is a collapse of this Western idea,” he stated.

However, Ya’alon said the borders of some nations, including the Egyptian border with Israel, would remain unchanged.

“We have to distinguish between countries like Egypt, with their history. Egypt will stay Egypt,” said Ya’alon.

The minister did not say whether the borders of Israel, also drawn by Western powers after World War I, would change or not.

Regarding the right to return for Palestinian refugees, Ya’alon said Tel Aviv could not allow such a move, as it would keep the Israeli-Palestinian conflict alive “forever.”

He also said that the insistence to remove Israeli settlers from the West Bank amounts to ethnic cleansing.

The Israeli regime expelled more than 700,000 people from their homeland after it occupied Palestine in 1948.

Israeli forces have wiped nearly 500 Palestinian villages and towns off the map, leaving an estimated total of 4.7 million Palestinian refugees hoping for an eventual return to their homeland more than six decades later.

Since 1948, the Israeli regime has denied Palestinian refugees the right of return, despite United Nations’ resolutions and international laws that uphold the people’s right to return to their homeland.

Tel Aviv has built over 120 illegal settlements built since the occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

October 24, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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