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Report: 100 Israeli attacks during June

Palestine Information Center – 01/07/2013

RAMALLAH — In its monthly report, the Information Center of the Wall and Settlement documented an escalation in Israeli attacks during June including demolition notices and settlement expansion.

The report issued on Sunday monitored 98 Israeli assaults during June including 23 demolition operations mostly in Jordan alley and Jenin.

The report also pointed out 57 demolition orders in al-Khalil, 11 demolition notifications in Jerusalem, and 6 others in Bethlehem.

During June, the Israeli authorities declared the establishment of 3,341 housing units in West Bank settlements, and approved the construction of a huge building in Wadi al-Hilweh, known as Giv’ati parking, as part of the Israeli Judaization schemes in occupied Jerusalem.

Israel’s Jerusalem District Committee for Planning and Building has prepared an outline to connect the Jewish quarter in the Old Town Square with Al-Buraq Square through building underground elevators and corridors, the report added.

For its part, the Israeli Municipality has established a new road to link between the occupied city of Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim settlement.

The monthly report referred to Israeli settlers’ escalated attacks where 14 Palestinian citizens were assaulted, and 30 cars were burned, in addition to stealing Palestinian monuments in Bethlehem and closing main streets that connect Palestinian villages and cities.

The Information Center also documented several Israeli break-ins into al-Aqsa mosque during June.

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July 1, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinians dubious of Kerry’s “real progress” in peace plan

Al-Akhbar | June 30, 2013

A top Palestinian official said on Sunday that there had been no breakthrough in marathon American-led efforts to revive direct peace talks, but US Secretary of State John Kerry said there had been “real progress.”

The statements come just as Israel announced that it might implement monetary incentives to encourage people to move to an illegal settlement in the West Bank.

“It was a positive and profound meeting with [Palestinian] President (Mahmoud)Abbas but there has been no breakthrough so far and there is still a gap between the Palestinian and Israeli positions,” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told reporters after Kerry finished talks in Ramallah with Abbas, his third meeting in as many days.

But Kerry, however, insisted he had held “very positive” discussions with both sides since starting his intense shuttle diplomacy in Jerusalem on Thursday evening, in a high-profile bid to draw the two sides back into direct negotiations after a gap of nearly three years.

And he said that with “a little more work” the start of final status talks “could be within reach.”

“I am pleased to tell you that we have made real progress on this trip and I believe that with a little more work, the start of final status negotiations could be within reach,” Kerry told reporters at Ben Gurion airport just before leaving for Brunei.

“We started out with very wide gaps and we have narrowed those considerably,” he said, describing them as “very narrow.”

“We have some specific details and work to pursue but I am absolutely confident that we are on the right track and that all the parties are working in very good faith in order to get to the right place.”

Asked if Israel’s settlement building had hampered efforts to achieve a breakthrough, he said: “The answer is no, there are any number of obstacles, but we are working through them.”

“We have to have the courage to stay at this and to make some tough decisions,” he said.

Kerry, who has over the last four days spent a total 13 hours in talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and another six with Abbas, said he would return to the region without saying when.

“I’m going to come back because both leaders have asked me to,” he said.

Speaking at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu insisted that Israel was not blocking a return to negotiations.

“We are not putting up any impediments on the resumption of the permanent talks for a peace agreement between us and the Palestinians,” he said in remarks communicated by his office.

He also pledged to put any agreement to a referendum, saying it will be “submitted to the people for a decision.”

But Israel’s army radio said Kerry’s marathon efforts had so far failed to coax the sides back into direct negotiations after a gap of nearly three years.

Abbas is pushing Israel to free the longest-serving Palestinian prisoners, to remove roadblocks in the West Bank and to publicly agree to make the lines that existed before the 1967 Middle East war the baseline for negotiations.

Army radio said that Netanyahu was willing to consider just the first two conditions — but only after talks were under way.

So far, Israel has flatly refused to countenance any return to the 1967 lines.

Palestinian officials appeared pessimistic about Kerry’s chances of achieving a breakthrough.

“Netanyahu and his government are not serious about establishing a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders, they speak of a state without clear borders, and we need clarity according to international resolutions,” said Azzam al-Ahmad, a senior official of Abbas’s ruling Fatah party.

“We are ready to resume negotiations according to our clear guidelines,” he told Voice of Palestine.

“Even with regards to the prisoners’ issue, Israel did not provide any clear answer. We want a serious process to be launched,” he said.

In another move likely to spark tension, army radio said an Israeli committee was poised to push through a big discount for buyers of nearly 1,000 new homes which are due to be built in annexed east Jerusalem.

The plan, which will offer prospective buyers a huge discount on 930 new homes to be built in Har Homa, will be discussed by Jerusalem municipality’s finance committee on Monday, army radio and Maariv newspaper reported.

If approved, the plan will lower the price of each new home by $27,500 in a move which will be funded by the housing ministry.

Har Homa is located on east Jerusalem’s southern outskirts, and construction there is likely to have a serious impact on the sector’s boundary with the rest of the West Bank, analysts say.

Jerusalem councilor Elisha Peleg, a member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, made no effort to hide his delight.

“The temporary suspension of construction in east Jerusalem is over, despite the visit of Secretary of State Kerry,” he told army radio.

“There is no reason to halt construction any more, because it is now proved that stopping construction in east Jerusalem has not brought about a renewal of negotiations with the Palestinians but has caused a severe shortage of housing,” he said.

Last week, on the eve of Kerry’s arrival, another local committee gave final approval to build some 70 homes in the same area.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said it showed which side was blocking a return to the negotiating table.

“This is Netanyahu’s response to everything Kerry said, to his ideas and to all his efforts,” Erakat told AFP.

“We on the Palestinian side tried every possible effort to help Kerry succeed but it is obvious today … that Netanyahu is putting an obstacle in front of Secretary Kerry’s efforts.”

“Netanyahu alone is responsible for ruining Kerry’s efforts and trying to abort his mission and destroying the two-state solution which is supported by the entire international community.”

Palestinians have said they will not return to direct talks unless Israel completely halts settlement construction and accepts the 1967 lines as the basis for negotiations.

Although Israel has expressed a willingness to talk, it has insisted it would only do so if there were no such “preconditions”.

Kerry, who has made the elusive goal of Middle East peace a top priority, was on his fifth visit to the region since taking over the State Department in February.

“Kerry is willing to put in the legwork necessary to move this process forward in a meaningful way,” a US official said on condition of anonymity.

US officials have been tight-lipped about the substance of Kerry’s meetings, fearing that any public statements could put at risk his efforts.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

June 30, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Maximum Land with Minimum Palestinians: The Annexation of Area C

In the vast majority of Area C Israel denies Palestinians any opportunity to build or develop.

In the vast majority of Area C Israel denies Palestinians any opportunity to build or develop.
By Sam Gilbert | Palestine Chronicle | June 29 2013

Early this month Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem published a report on Israel’s policy in Area C and its implications for the population of the West Bank. Less then a week later Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, in the midst of Kerry’s attempts to start the stalled peace talks, reiterated his plan to annex all of Area C to the Israeli state, bringing with it the 350,000 some od settlers as well as 62% of land of the West Bank.

In a conference held by the settler Yesha Council Bennett said “the attempt to establish a Palestinian state in our land has ended … That we need to Annex area C of the West Bank now because the idea of creating a Palestinian state there is over.”

Bennett’s comments were met with international condemnation, the timing of his words seen as purposefully undermining Kerry’s attempt to restart the stalled peace negotiations. These comments, along with others from the Israeli right, have been presented as marginal within the mainstream Israeli political discourse. However the substance of Israeli policy and practice in the West Bank requires that these ideas been taken seriously.

Bennett’s Israel Stability Initiative published in 2012 lays out his plan for annexation, while B’tselem’s Report on Area C outlines the application and effect of Israeli Policy in Area C from 1995 till today.  Each report has fundamentally different political objectives yet both provide a window into Israeli politics and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (oPt).

The Israel Stability Initiative

In 2012 Naftali Bennett presented a 7-point plan for managing the Arab-Israeli Conflict in Judea and Samaria, the biblical term for the West Bank.  The Israel Stability Initiative outlines a plan whereby Area C, the territory that Israel maintains full security and planning control after the Oslo agreement, would be annexed to Israel and the Palestinian State would be created in the disconnected cannons of areas B and C. Bennett’s plan would naturalize the 50,000 Arab residents (official number at 180,000), along with the 350,000 Israeli settlers. No Palestine refugee would be allowed to return to the west bank or Israel, and Gaza would be left to fend for itself.

The PA would be granted, “Full autonomy in areas A and B” while Israel would maintain a “full security umbrella for all of Judea and Samara.” The IDF would maintain a strong presence and complete security control over all of Judea and Samaria.”

While this proposal might seem especially partial to Israeli interests, B’tselem’s recent report on Area C shows how Bennet’s plan is in essence the institution of permanence for something has already become the de-facto reality in the west bank today.

B’Tselem Report

Earlier this month B’Tselem published a 111 page report titled “Acting the Landlord: Israeli Policy in Area C, the West Bank. The report presents Israel’s policy in Area C and explores its implications for the population of the West Bank as a Whole.

Area C is a product of the Oslo accords, an interim agreement that was supposed to lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel.  In 1995 the interim agreement went into effect in West Bank and the region was divided into three administrative categories A, B and C. “Area A: Under full control of the Palestinian Authority, comprising 18 percent of west bank including most Palestinians cities and population center. Area B, 22%: Israel retains military control while PA controls civil matters. Area C, 60 percent: Israel controls security and land related matters, including land allocation, planning and construction, and infrastructure.”

These divisions were based on demography not geography, with A and B subdivided into 165 disconnected cantons with no territorial continuity and surrounded by area C.  Area C on the other hand is territorially contiguous, and comprises all the settlement and settlers in the west bank (350,000) along with some 180,000 Palestinians.

Area C contains the vast majority of the West Bank’s natural resources (water, agricultural, mineral) and nearly all of the development potential for a future Palestinian state. Area C lands surround all areas of A and B stifling growth in these already built up areas, and disconnecting the regions from one another

Legalizing the Norm

Claim to the greater land of Israel (Eretz Israel), has been a common thread in Israeli politics since the state’s inception and before. Bennet’s proposed plan to annex all of Area C (a modified two state solution) is interesting in that it simply cements the reality on the ground today, extending it to a final solution to the conflict.

B’Tselem’s report underscores how Israel’s policy in area C is anchored in the perception of the area as meant above all to serve Israel’s Own Needs in favor to those of the Palestinians by restricting Palestinian construction and development throughout.

In the vast majority of Area C Israel denies Palestinians any opportunity to build or develop. In fact since 1967 only .6 percent of the entire area C has been allocated to Palestinians by the Civil Administration, while 31 percent has been allocated to pseudo governmental World Zionist Organization (which develops settlement), 8 percent to Settlement Authorities, 12% to government ministries with an additional 30 percent designated as Military Firing Zones.

According to international law, planning and construction policy for Area C should rely on Jordanian planning law, but this has been altered by order of the Israeli military to serve the state’s purposes. One outcome has been the refusal of Civil Administration to plan villages, approving Mandatory Plans for only 16 of 180 villages in Area C. Since all construction in Area C requires approval of Civil Administration, the prospect for receiving a building permit without a master plan is negligible. In fact between 2000-2010 of the 3050 application for permits only 6.5% were approved. Many are forced to build without permits, at constant risk of demolition (660 a year since 2000).

Yet “in contrast to the restrictive planning policy followed for Palestinian communities, the Israeli settlements, also in Area C, enjoy expansive allocation of land, detailed planning, connections to advanced infrastructure and a blind eye regarding illegal construction.”

In 75% of the settlements, building was carried out without the appropriate permits, legalized retroactively by government and military. Between 2000-2007, 91 building permits were issued for Palestinians, same period 17,000 residential units were built in settlements. While Palestinians in area C are isolated from areas A and B, Jewish settlements are connected to one another and to Israel proper by Jewish only bypass roads.

The international community has time and again confirmed the illegality these actions under International Humanitarian Law. Yet insufficient international pressure (particularly from the U.S.) has led to a situation where Israel strengthens it hold on Area C and “preserves a de-facto annexation of area C and creates circumstance that will help perpetuate this state and influence the final status of the Area.”

The Party Line

Bennet’s Ideas about area C reflect a broader hostility within the Knesset about Palestinian statehood and the need to annex all or most of West Bank. In a Times of Israel interview, Deputy minister of Defense Danny Dannon spoke about the sentiment within the coalition government: “there was never a government discussion, resolution or vote about the two-state solution… and nobody will bring it to a vote, it’s not smart to do it — but if you bring it to a vote, you will see the majority of Likud ministers, along with the Jewish Home [party], will be against it.”

Numerous quotes from current cabinet minsters confirm this position:

 “The essence of Zionist existence in Israeli settlements across the country.” – Moshe Ya’allon:  Defense Minister.

“The real solution is to extend Israeli sovereignty over the settlements in Judea and Samaria.” — Danny Dannon, Deputy Defense Minister.

“We will try to apply sovereignty over as much as we can at any given moment.” — Ze’ev Elkin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.

“Israel should announce the annexation of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria.” — Gilad Erdan, Minister of Communication and Home Front Defense.

 “Israel will need to take unilateral steps to extend Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria.” — Yisreal Katz Minister of Transportation.

Annexation: The Final Solution

The vocal support of annexation has been attributed to the right wing shift in the government in Israel, yet its mainstream credentials are exposed with even a cursory glance at policy and practice in the west bank through Israeli history.

Every Israeli president since Menachem Begin in the 70’s has publicly espoused a two state solution based on Bilateral U.S. brokered negotiations, while simultaneously doing everything in their power to undermine its physical viability on the ground.

Netanyahu’s most recent statements, considered “moderate” in comparison to Bennet’s, nonetheless betray the administration’s position to undermine the two state solution, as noted in Peace Now’s report on settlement construction under the current administration. In response to the proposed peace talks Netanyahu said that Israel would continue to build and that “construction in major settlement blocks does not substantially affect Israel’s ability to come to an agreement.” He went on to say that “We will continue to live and build in Jerusalem, which will always remain united under Israeli sovereignty,” as published by the Israeli daily, Isreal Hayom and Haaretz.

Considering East Jerusalem is the internationally recognized future capital for the Palestinian state, and that settlement expansion is the number one obstacle to peace, these comments say much about the prospects for a future agreement. Furthermore, the proposed state Netanyahu supports is one that according to him “would have to be demilitarized and with arrangements that rely fully on the Israel Defense Forces for security.” A state that doesn’t control its borders or security and whose army is the occupying power is not an autonomous state, but the “state” of Palestine today.

Netanyahu’s position toward the Palestinians in consistent with the low ceiling allowed for Palestinian aspirations since the onset of the peace processes. Oslo, the basis of the most current arguments about annexing area C, provides a telling example. As scholar Rashid Khalidi, one of Yassar Arafat’s key advisers during the Oslo negotiations, states, “It (the Oslo agreement) was never designed to achieve independent Palestinian statehood.  It was never designed to end the occupation. It was really designed, of all people, by Menachem Begin, to make permanent Israeli control over the occupied territories. And that is what has succeeded until now.” Indeed it has. Since the signing of the Oslo agreement settlement population in West Bank (not including East Jerusalem) has tripled from 110,900 to nearly 350,000, according to B’Tselem.

Palestinian author Naseer Aruri notes the occupation was never designed to be temporary, but has been used to create the illusion of a two-state solution when that option has never been on the real agenda. Madrid, Oslo, Camp David all have been used as diplomatic cover as Israel has consolidated and even extended its illegal occupation.

B’Tselem’s report exposes the fact that Israeli policy gives every indication of permanence. “Israel preserves a de-facto annexation of area C and creates circumstance that will help perpetuate this state and influence the final status of the Area.” If we acknowledge Israeli policy in tandem with territorial usurpation, then comments like Bennet’s need not be viewed as extreme. It is time the International community, the U.S. and those moderates in the Israeli Knesset acknowledge that what Bennett’s is arguing for is not on the margins of Israeli political thought but the ideological underpinning of Zionism as practiced in the oPt. And in area C the Zionist goal of maximum land with minimum Palestinians is on full display.

– Sam Gilbert is a journalist living in Ramallah.

June 30, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘They have two roads on our land already, why do they need a third…?’

International Solidarity Movement | June 27, 2013

Hebron, Occupied Palestine – In the Wadi al-Hussein area of Hebron, Israeli occupation forces have started to build a new road ‘for military purposes’. The route of the road is from the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba towards the city centre, directly across Palestinian-owned land.

A military order has decreed the construction of this road, four metres wide and more than two hundred metres long, cutting through fields of olive and fruit trees owned by the Palestinian families living there. The stipulation on the width of the road has already been broken, with the route that has been cut by bulldozers being six metres wide in places.

In contrast to the military order to build a road, Palestinian landowners have been denied the right to build on their own land. Despite gaining approval from the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli authorities (who have the final say on civil matters in area H2 of Hebron) have refused permission to build a new house. Landowners also point out that there are two existing roads from Kiryat Arba built on Palestinian land for Israeli-use only, and ask why a third is required.

When occupation forces attempted to build this road initially, landowners and others tried to stop construction by sitting down in front of bulldozers, but this non-violent protest was met with arrests, fines and imprisonment, and by the bulldozer dumping a load of earth on top of them.

Landowners complain that Israel insists on applying those aspects of the Hebron accords that benefit settlers, while ignoring those aspects covering the rights of the majority Palestinian population. Using military orders to steal land is a tactic long-used by Israel. Land seized this way then later typically becomes part of the ever-expanding settlement project. All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, which bans the transfer of the occupier’s population into the land under occupation.

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June 27, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Gates Foundation and its unethical investments in G4S

By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | June 20, 2013

While three Dutch charities have announced that they will no longer accept donations by G4S due to the company’s support for the Israeli occupation, the Gates Foundation has deemed it ethical to invest in G4S, effectively exposing the often ignored link between philanthropy and human rights violations.

The Gates Foundation, renowned for its philanthropy, is allegedly ‘inspired by passion and compassion for the well-being of people’. Focusing on issues such as health, education, poverty, the Foundation now seems to be seeking a share in security affairs, effectively aligning itself with the conspiracy behind the fable of safeguarding human rights. Philanthropy should be viewed within a wider image – a surplus of funds derived from a capitalist enterprise channelled into appropriate projects which bestow a continuous temporary relief in order to avoid challenging the exploitation which has rendered communities around the world dependent upon charity. With the Gates Foundation aligning its interests with a service provider of oppression, profits will continue to fund approved projects at the expense of violating international human rights law, which is acceptable within the cycle of capitalist dependency.

G4S has been targeted by the BDS movement for its role in providing security and surveillance equipment, rendering the company complicit in war crimes with Israel’s security service, Shin Bet. Torture during interrogations is routine treatment in Israeli jails, often resulting in severe physical and metal degeneration or, as in the case of Arafat Jaradat, death. G4S endorses identical security concern rhetoric as that used by Israel, manipulating the foundations of human rights and security into a territory which encompasses nothing but the alleged rights of the oppressor.

In their 2012 Corporate Social Responsibility Report, G4S states that the company recognises it can ‘play a positive and negative role in respecting human rights around the world’. The company declares that its policy is based upon the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1947), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) and the international Labour Organisation Declaration on Fundamental Rights at Work (1998). ‘Mapping the human rights landscape’, as stated in the report, and becoming a signatory to the UN Global Compact, are portrayed as a pledge to safeguard human rights, disregarding the UN’s significant faults and unapologetic stances when it comes to selectively bestowing human rights in order to promote and consolidate the impunity of powerful states and allies. In other words, G4S are emulating their provision of security services and basing their legitimacy upon an international organisation which thrives upon illegality.

Dependency has created a spectator society. While activist campaigns have created a far reaching resonance, leaders within the international community are too comfortably ensconced in their glorified positions to challenge a partnership which fuels the Israeli occupation’s crimes against Palestinians. As long as the interpretation of the social world is shaped by dominant allies, it is difficult to fragment the bond between society and economic power, effectively allowing an amalgamation of a ruling power to distort the power of intellectuals into a subservient role abetting international complicity in human rights violations.

June 24, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US officials arrive in Qatar for peace talks with Taliban

Press TV – June 22, 2013

The US special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan has arrived in Qatari capital city of Doha to hold controversial peace talks with the Taliban militants.

James Dobbins, the US envoy in charge of nascent dialogue with the group, arrived in Doha on Saturday after the militants opened an office in the Persian Gulf Arab monarchy.

The US officials said Dobbins will also take part in meetings between Secretary of State John Kerry and Qatari leaders scheduled for later Saturday. The discussions will lay the ground for a full-scale dialogue with the militant group.

President Barack Obama’s administration has supported peace talks with the Taliban after the US-led forces lost ground against the militants in recent months across Afghanistan.

Senior Pakistani officials have welcomed the dialogue between Taliban and the United States in Doha, but the Afghan government has expressed serious concerns about the ongoing US-led peace process with Taliban militants in Qatar.

On Thursday, Afghan Foreign Ministry released a statement expressing Kabul’s anger and frustration at the opening of Taliban office in Qatar.

“The manner in which the office was established was in clear breach of the principles and terms of references agreed with us by the US government,” the statement read.

Senior officials in Kabul say the move contradicts the US security guarantees, noting that the Taliban militants will be able to use the office to raise funds for their campaign in Afghanistan.

The Kabul government has suspended strategic talks with Washington to discuss the nature of US presence after foreign troops withdraw in 2014.

President Hamid Karzai has also announced that his government will not join any US negotiations with the Taliban unless the talks are led by the Afghans.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s High Peace Council stated that none of its members will travel to Qatar to sit at talks with the Taliban.

The council has been making efforts to initiate dialogue with discontented Afghans and militants who have engaged in warfare with the US-led forces and Kabul’s Western-backed government.

The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but after more than 11 years, insecurity remains across the country.

June 22, 2013 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

UN statement on Israeli plan to relocate Palestinians to build houses for settlers

MEMO | June 17, 2013

A UN organisation has highlighted the plight of small Palestinian farming communities in the hills to the east of Jerusalem which are at risk of forced displacement due to a “relocation” plan advanced by the Israeli authorities. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Occupied Palestinian Territory (UNOCHA) said that the Israelis try to justify their plan on the grounds that the residents do not “possess title over the land”. Around 80 per cent of the people affected are refugees who were forced from their original lands in the south of the country in the early 1950s.

“A combination of measures adopted by the Israeli authorities has created a coercive environment for the communities,” said OCHA. They have restricted access to grazing land and markets to sell their produce. “These acts have undermined their livelihoods and increased their dependency on humanitarian assistance.”

In addition to demolition and the threat of demolition of homes, schools and animal shelters, as well as corresponding restrictions on obtaining building permits, the authorities have also failed to protect the communities from intimidation and attacks by Israeli settlers, alleges OCHA. “The communities have been told that they have ‘no choice’ but to leave.”

The UN organisation stated that the Israeli authorities have allocated public (state) land in two sites designated for the relocation, and prepared planning schemes, which are at final stages of approval. It added that this step raises cultural concerns as it threatens the traditional way of life for these people.

Israel’s plan includes the construction of thousands of housing units for illegal settlers in the E1 area, which creates a continuous built-up area between the Ma’ale Adumim settlement and Jerusalem. OCHA said that this plan has been frozen since the late 1990s, but the Israel government has recently reactivated it.

“The affected area is also planned to be surrounded by the Barrier [West Bank Separation Wall],” said OCHA. “If implemented, these plans will undermine Palestinian presence in the area, further disconnect East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, and disrupt the territorial contiguity of the occupied territory.”

According to the OCHA report, “The UN Secretary General has stated that the implementation of the proposed ‘relocation’ would amount to individual and mass forcible transfers and forced evictions, prohibited under international humanitarian law and human rights law.”

The Secretary General based his statements on the following grounds:

  • As an occupying power, Israel has an obligation to protect the Palestinian civilian population and to administer the territory for the benefit of that population.
  • The destruction or confiscation of private property, including homes, as well as the transfer of settlers into occupied territory, is also prohibited.

OCHA pointed out that these residents are “calling for the international community to protect them and assist them in their current location and to afford adequate planning and permits for their homes and livelihood-related properties.”

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June 18, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli occupation police close streets, confiscate lands in Jerusalem

Palestine Information Center – 13/06/2013

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli occupation police closed main streets leading to the Old City in occupied Jerusalem on Thursday, local sources said.

The Israeli decision to close the streets came due to the preparations for the organization of the Formula 1 race, which will take place on Thursday and Friday in the occupied city of Jerusalem with the participation of the Ferrari World team, under the sponsorship Kaspersky Company specialized in computer protection programs.

The police declared, in a statement, their intention to close the streets leading to al-Khalil, Asbat, and Al Magharibah Gates in the Old City on Thursday and Friday, according to Jerusalemite sources.

The race will be launched from the neighborhoods in the western part of Jerusalem towards the eastern part, in the vicinity of the Old City wall.

For its part; the Jerusalem Sports Federations Group asserted that the Ferrari race comes within the framework of the Judaization plans implemented by the occupation in the city of Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, the Israeli police, accompanied with bulldozers and trucks, evacuated on Wednesday Wadi Joz car park east of Jerusalem claiming that it belongs to Israel Lands Administration (ILA).

Siyam, Abu Ta’a, and Farhan families confirmed that the car park was established on their own lands, declaring their intention to prosecute the ILA for its racial policy.

The families confirmed that the Israeli authorities have notified them since 6 months to evacuate the car park.

The park owners affirmed that they have official documents confirming their ownership of the land, where they appealed to the Israeli Municipal Authorities which permitted them to rehabilitate the park to be used as a car park, however they were surprised yesterday by the ILA breaking into the park.

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June 14, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Settlers from Bracha attack and harass farmer on his land

International Solidarity Movement | June 13, 2013

Al Rujeib, Occupied Palestine – On Friday 7th June five settlers from the illegal settlement of Bracha attacked a farmer on his land, using sling shots to throw stones at him near Huwwara checkpoint. The same settlers continued to harass the farmer in the following days as he tried to graze his sheep and gather his crops, unprotected by the Israeli authorities.

Salah Sukamel Deweket (Photo by ISM)

Salah Sukamel Deweket (Photo by ISM)

Salah Sukamel Deweket rents 70 dunums of land between his home in Al Rujeib and the occupation forces’ checkpoint at Huwwara. The land is mainly used to plant crops for his sheep to graze upon.

On Friday 7th June Salah was working hard to enable his sheep to feed when he was surprised by five settlers, thought to be an old man and his four sons who brought their own sheep to eat Salah’s wheat. The settlers threw rocks using slingshots at Salah and his flock. Salah had no one who could help him as he had no number for the District Coordination Office (DCO) – the Palestinian liasion with Israeli authorities or other organisations. Unable to get the number, he returned to his land to find that the settlers had ripped apart his bales of wheat.

The settlers resumed throwing stones at him in full view of soldiers stationed at the Israeli occupation forces checkpoint at Huwwara. The soldiers did nothing but watch as the Palestinian farmer was attacked. As an occupying power the Israeli military are meant to protect all citizens in the territory.

Salah asked the older settler why he had destroyed his wheat. “People who stay in Israeli land have to be good Israeli people”, the settler replied. “If this is Israeli land, where’s Palestinian land?” Salah asked. “There is no Palestinian land” the settler shouted back. The settlers continued to graze their sheep on Salah’s land and then encouraged their sheep to eat the olive trees of another Palestinian farmer who came to protect his land. It was only then that army jeeps came to intervene – asking why the Palestinian farmers were there. Salah tried to explain the problem with the settlers to the army, who told him to take photos and go to DCO. Salah then asked the soldiers if they were going to arrest the settlers, to which they said, ” we don’t know, it’s up to the judge.” When the soldiers were asked why they did not come earlier, they replied that it wasn’t their problem. The next day Salah tried to fix his wheat bales but the settlers kept coming and causing problems. Soldiers eventually came and told both Salah and the settlers to leave but said that the Palestinians must leave first.

Palestinians face many attacks by settlers of varying severity. Religious extremists living in illegal settlements attack Palestinian people, lands and crops. Palestinians have almost no means of legal recourse or protection from settler attacks but are routinely targeted by the army in mass arrests in the alleged defence of the Israeli occupation and settlements. Even when Palestinians can contact the DCO, the coordination office can often not solve issues with settlers who generally are treated with impunity under Israeli law. Settlements are illegal under international law under the fourth Geneva convention.

Wheat fields (Photo by ISM)

Salah Sukamel Deweket’s wheat fields (Photo by ISM)

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June 13, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel bans guards from entering Aqsa compound

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Ma’an – 08/06/2013

JERUSALEM – Israel on Friday banned 25 Al-Aqsa compound guards from the vicinity of the mosque for varying periods of time.

Samer Qweider was banned from entering Al-Aqsa until the end of Ramadan for allegedly verbally abusing rightists who tried to get into the compound.

Qweider told Ma’an that on May 28 he was banned from entering the compound for six days, and accordingly he returned to his job on Monday. After two days of working regularly he was told by Israeli police he was not allowed to enter the compound until Ramadan ends in mid-August.

Another guard, Fadi Bakeer, said that Israel wanted to “silence” the guards, and added that any guard who tried to stop rightists from entering the holy compound would be banned.

A religious department worker said that guards are pressured, arrested, beaten, banned, and fined. He added that his department has pleaded for King Abdullah II of Jordan for help.

Israeli authorities have allowed the Jordanian leadership a degree of control over the holy Muslim site as well as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher due to its historical connections to Jerusalem.

Israel seized the West Bank including East Jerusalem from Jordan in the Six-Day War of 1967.

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June 8, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How the Pentagon Removes Entire Peoples

By David Swanson | Dissident Voice | June 5th, 2013

If we think at all about our government’s military depopulating territory that it desires, we usually think of the long-ago replacement of native Americans with new settlements during the continental expansion of the United States westward.

Here in Virginia some of us are vaguely aware that back during the Great Depression poor people were evicted from their homes and their land where national parks were desired.  But we distract and comfort ourselves with the notion that such matters are deep in the past.

Occasionally we notice that environmental disasters are displacing people, often poor people or marginalized people, from their homes.  But these incidents seem like collateral damage rather than intentional ethnic cleansing.

If we’re aware of the 1,000 or so U.S. military bases standing today in some 175 foreign countries, we must realize that the land they occupy could serve some other purpose in the lives of those countries’ peoples.  But surely those countries’ peoples are still there, still living — if perhaps slightly inconvenienced — in their countries.

Yet the fact is that the U.S. military has displaced and continues to displace for the construction of its bases the entire populations of villages and islands, in blatant violation of international law, basic human decency, and principles we like to tell each other we stand for.  The United States also continues to deny displaced populations the right to return to their homelands.

At issue here are not the bombings or burnings of entire villages, which of course the United States engages in during its wars and its non-wars.  Nor are we dealing here with the millions of refugees created by wars like those in Iraq and Afghanistan or by drone wars like the one in Pakistan.  Rather, the following are cases of the intentional displacement of particular populations moved out of the way of base construction and left alive to struggle as refugees in exile.

In the Philippines, the United States built bases on land belonging to the indigenous Aetas people, who “ended up combing military trash to survive.”

During World War II the U.S. Navy seized the small Hawaiian island of Koho’alawe for a weapons testing range and ordered its inhabitants to leave.  The island has been devastated.

In 1942, the Navy displaced Aleutian Islanders.

President Harry Truman made up his mind that the 170 native inhabitants of Bikini Atoll had no right to their island.  He had them evicted in February and March of 1946, and dumped as refugees on other islands without means of support or a social structure in place.  In the coming years, the United States would remove 147 people from Enewetak Atoll and all the people on Lib Island.  U.S. atomic and hydrogen bomb testing rendered various depopulated and still-populated islands uninhabitable, leading to further displacements.  Up through the 1960s, the U.S. military displaced hundreds of people from Kwajalein Atoll.  A super-densely populated ghetto was created on Ebeye.

On Vieques, off Puerto Rico, the Navy displaced thousands of inhabitants between 1941 and 1947, announced plans to evict the remaining 8,000 in 1961, but was forced to back off and — in 2003 — to stop bombing the island.

On nearby Culebra, the Navy displaced thousands between 1948 and 1950 and attempted to remove those remaining up through the 1970s.

The Navy is right now looking at the island of Pagan as a possible replacement for Vieques, the population already having been removed by a volcanic eruption.  Of course, any possibility of return would be greatly diminished.

Beginning during World War II and continuing through the 1950s, the U.S. military displaced a quarter million Okinawans, or half the population, from their land, forcing people into refugee camps and shipping thousands of them off to Bolivia — where land and money were promised but not delivered.

In 1953, the United States made a deal with Denmark to remove 150 Inughuit people from Thule, Greenland, giving them four days to get out or face bulldozers.  They are being denied the right to return.

DIEGO GARCIA

The story of Diego Garcia is superbly told in David Vine’s book, Island of Shame.  Between 1968 and 1973, the United States and Great Britain exiled all 1,500 to 2,000 inhabitants from this island in the Indian Ocean.  On orders from, and with funding from, the United States, the British forced the people onto overcrowded ships and dumped them on docks in Mauritius and the Seychelles — foreign and distant and unwelcoming lands for this indigenous population that had been part of Diego Garcia for centuries.  U.S. documents described this as “sweeping” and “sanitizing” the island.

Those responsible for the displacement of the people of Diego Garcia knew that what they were doing was widely considered barbaric and illegal.  They devised ways of creating “logical cover” for the process.  They persuaded the ever-compliant Washington Post to bury the story.  The Queen of England and her Privy Council bypassed Parliament.  The Pentagon lied to Congress and hid its payments to the British from Congress.  The planners even lied to themselves.  Having originally envisioned a communications station, they concluded that advances in technology had rendered that unhelpful.  So, Navy schemers decided that a fueling station for ships might offer a “suitable justification” for building a base that was actually a purposeless end in itself.  But the Pentagon ended up telling a reluctant Congress that the base would be a communications station, because that was something Congress would approve.

Those plotting the eviction of the island’s people created the fiction that the inhabitants were migrant workers not actually native to Diego Garcia.  Sir Paul Gore-Booth, Permanent Under Secretary in the Foreign Office of the U.K., dismissed the island’s people as “some few Tarzans or Men Fridays whose origins are obscure.”  This stood in contrast to the respect and protection given to some other islands not chosen for bases because of the rare plants, birds, and animals resident there.

On January 24, 1971, remaining inhabitants of Diego Garcia were told they’d need to leave or be shot.  They were allowed to take a small box of possessions, but had to leave their homes, their gardens, their animals, their land, and their society.  Their dogs were rounded up and killed in a gas chamber as they watched, waiting  themselves to be loaded on ships for departure.  Arriving in Mauritius, they were housed in a prison.  Their fate has not much improved in the decades since.  David Vine describes them as very forgiving, wishing nothing but to be permitted to return.

Diego Garcia is purely a military base and in some ways more of a lawless zone than Guantanamo.  The United States has kept and may be keeping prisoners there, on the island or on ships in the harbor.  The Red Cross and journalists do not visit.  The United States has de facto control of Diego Garcia, while the U.K. has technical ownership.  The Pentagon is not interested in allowing the island’s people to return.

JEJU ISLAND

The South Korean government, at the behest of the U.S. Navy, is in the process of devastating a village, its coast, and 130 acres of farmland on Jeju Island with a massive military base.  This story is best told in Regis Tremblay’s new film The Ghosts of Jeju.  This is not a tragedy from the past to be remedied but a tragedy of this moment to be halted in its tracks.  You can help.  Tremblay’s film examines the history of decades of abuse of the people of Jeju, and the resistance movement that is currently inspiring other anti-base efforts around the globe.  The film begins somber and ends joyful.  I highly recommend creating an event around a screening of it.

PALESTINE

We should not neglect to note here that the United States funds and arms and protects the Israeli government’s ongoing displacement of Palestinians and denial of the right to return.

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” wrote William Faulkner.

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June 6, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Farming in Khuza’a, Gaza Strip

Gal.la | June 5, 2013

Gaza, Occupied Palestine – Farmers are working in Gaza buffer zone under threat of Israeli soldiers, tanks, bullets, etc. This video shows the difficulty of daily life for farmers in Khuza’a, south of Gaza Strip.

Spanish captions

June 6, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, Video | , , | Leave a comment

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