Family of 12 faces eviction in East Jerusalem
Nadia Walid Somrein | The Electronic Intifada| 23 November 2011
In the Silwan neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem, another house is about to bite the dust. The odds are certainly stacked against the Somrein family, which has received eviction orders and a series of bills amounting to more than two million shekels (over $500,000) worth of “back rent.” Back rent for what? For living in the family house, on family land, in Silwan.
The house and land in question is located in Wadi Hilweh, Silwan, just two hundred yards from al-Aqsa Mosque on the southern side of the Old City walls. The property belonged to Musa Abdullah Somrein, a Jerusalem ID holder. Hajj Musa, as he was known, passed away in 1983 and was buried in Jerusalem, while his burial certificate was issued by the Israeli Ministry of Interior.
Today, Hajj Musa’s nephew, Mohammed Somrein, lives there with 11 other members of the Somrein family. Mohammed has lived in this house, with his uncle while he was alive, since he was five years old. The years since have not been kind to Mohammed. He is diabetic and requires dialysis treatment on a regular basis. He is also unemployed. And now, he has been hit with an eviction order and a huge fine he cannot possibly pay.
“Absentee property”
Somehow, despite Mohammed’s 48 years of residence in this house, and despite the fact there are legal documents clearly stating that the land is owned by the Somrein family, the land has been declared absentee property and thus subject to confiscation. The property has been defined as such because Hajj Musa’s direct descendants — his children and grandchildren — live in the United States, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. Mohammed’s status as Hajj Musa’s nephew has been completely overlooked, and his lifetime residence on the property, with the consent of the children of Hajj Musa, disregarded.
Though this could never happen in any normal country, under Israeli rule, all absurd things seem possible for Palestinians. After Hajj Musa’s death, the land was transferred to the Custodian of Absentee Property. He went on to transfer custody of the land to the Israel Development Authority, which transferred the land to the Jewish National Fund (JNF).
The JNF, in turn, transferred the property to a subsidiary company called Himnuta. While this bizarre series of events was unfolding, Mohammed and his family continued to live in the house, unaware that they were about to receive a very distressing shock (“Palestinian family given two weeks to vacate East Jerusalem home,” Haaretz, 15 November 2011).
In 1991, Himnuta lodged a complaint against the Somrein family in Israeli courts, demanding their eviction. They also started “billing” Mohammed for living on the property. Mohammed fought the order, arguing that Hajj Musa was a Jerusalem resident, who died in Jerusalem, was never “absent” from his property, and that his family continue to reside there.
Himnuta, according to the Somrein family lawyer, is just another of the many faces of Elad, an extreme right-wing Jewish settler organization. Also known as the Ir David Foundation, Elad has the backing of the Israeli prime minister’s office, the Israeli-controlled Jerusalem municipality, and the Israel Antiquities Authority (which Elad helps finance). Elad’s aim was best expressed in a 2007 interview with then Elad development director Doron Speilman. During the interview, he gestured toward Silwan and said: “Our goal is to turn all this land you see behind you into Jewish hands” (Tim McGirk, “Archaeology in Jerusalem: Digging Up Trouble,” Time Magazine, 8 February 2010).
Indeed, most of the 30 dunums (about 7.4 acres) included in the land swap were apparently leased to settlers without tender (“Palestinian family at immediate risk of eviction in Silwan,” Settlement Watch East Jerusalem, 16 November 2011).
The question remains, how will Mohammed Somrein and his family fight a well-financed and invidious organization such as Elad in an Israeli court already biased in Elad’s favor? For that matter, how do the many other families in Silwan succeed in regaining the land and homes that have been snatched by Elad? How do others protect themselves from similar fates?
Since the Wadi Hilweh Information Center came into being in 2009, it has reported that 15 eviction notices have been issued to families in Silwan alone. Meanwhile, according to a study by the Jerusalem-based human rights organization Al-Maqdese for Society Development, Silwan has had 36 buildings housing 245 people demolished by Israeli authorities between 2000 and 2010 (“House demolitions in Silwan,” Al-Maqdese for Society Development, July 2010 [PDF]). Furthermore, plans announced by the Jerusalem municipality in 2009 to demolish 88 homes in the Bustan area of Silwan have not been cancelled (“An update on Bustan,” Wadi Hilweh Information Center, 25 May 2011) .
And just last week, the Committee for the Defense of Silwan issued a statement announcing that the Jerusalem municipality seized a piece of land belonging to a Palestinian Orthodox monastery in the neighborhood of al-Thawri in west Silwan. According to the statement, these 850 square meters of land are to be turned into a Talmudic garden (for students of Jewish law and ethics) and a parking lot (“Israeli municipality seizes land in Silwan,” Wafa, 16 November 2011).
Of immediate concern, however, are the twelve Somreins who are to be evicted next week, unless a court order declares that the case has not yet reached its conclusion. If the family is evicted, they will have nowhere else to go.
Nadia Somrein lives and works in East Jerusalem and is a relation of the family about to be evicted.
Veolia dumps Israel’s waste in Jordan Valley and wins Israeli army contract
By Adri Nieuwhof – The Electronic Intifada – 11/22/2011
Who Profits, a project of the Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace, has uncovered evidence that Veolia is involved in dumping Israeli waste at the company’s site in Tovlan in the occupied Jordan Valley. The Israeli Civil Administration confirmed this in response to an application by Who Profits under the Freedom of Information Law.
In a newsletter of 21 November 2011, Who Profits writes that, according to the Civil Administration, eight Israeli companies hold permits to transfer waste to Tovlan landfill, including Veolia subsidiaries TMM Integrated Recycling Services and YRAV Sherutei Noy 1985.
The information provided by the Civil Administration shows that waste from recycling factories in Israel and from the Hiriya site (southeast of Tel Aviv) is transported to Tovlan landfill. The recycling factories are located in the areas of HaSharon, Sgula, Haifa and Afula. Who Profits writes:
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The waste transferred to the landfill consists of municipal solid waste, construction waste, sterilized medical waste and electronic waste. The Civil Administration mentioned that there is no permit for bringing hazardous waste into the site.
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The average amount of waste that originates inside Israel and is permitted to be buried in the site is 19,000 tons a month.
Tovlan landfill is built on stolen Palestinian land. The landfill serves the needs of the Israeli population. Under international law, Israel is prohibited from using occupied land for the sole benefit of its own civilian population. In Resolution 63/201 of 28 January 2009, the UN General Assembly explicitly addressed the issue. It called :
upon Israel, the occupying Power, to cease the dumping of all kinds of waste materials in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan, which gravely threaten their natural resources, namely water and land resources, and pose an environmental hazard and health threat to the civilian populations.
Meanwhile, Veolia digs its heels deeper into the Israeli occupation by offering services to the Israeli army. In mid-August of this year, according to the Who Profits newsletter, Veolia subsidiary YRAV Sherutei Noy 1985 won a contract for waste collection services from the Israeli army bases in the Jordan Valley. … Full article
Israeli police shut down Jewish-Palestinian radio station
By Yossi Gurvitz | +972 | November 19 2011
A small radio station, “Kol Hashalom,” unique in that it was directed jointly by a Palestinian and a Jew, was abruptly shut down by the Israeli police on Thursday.
Kol Hashalom, which roughly means “All for Peace,” had been active for the last seven years. It was a joint venture of the Palestinian NGO Biladi and the Israeli NGO Jewish-Arab Center for Peace, and was directed by former Meretz MK Mossi Raz and Meissa Bransie-Senyura. The station broadcast from Ramallah, under a license granted by the Palestinian Authority to the Biladi company. (Full disclosure: I participated as a co-host in a Kol Hashalom broadcasts about a year ago).
Naturally, the very idea of a Jewish-Palestinian radio was anathema to the Jewish right (can you seriously call it “Israeli” anymore, when its essence is the eradication of Israeli identity?). So, in September, one of the leaders of the campaign for the destruction of Israeli democracy, Likud MK and Sarah Palin fan Danny Danon, demanded (Hebrew) that the station be shut down. Danon claimed the station was “inciting against Israel,” specifically that it was calling upon people “to reject political decisions arrived at democratically.” To wit, to support Palestinian statehood.
On November 4th, the Ministry of Communication sent a letter to Kol Hashalom, saying it is acting illegally and must close down immediately. The managers, having consulted their legal counsel, sent a letter last week denying all those claims. On Thursday, a day later – unheard-of speed for the Israeli police – Raz was summoned for a police interrogation, where he was informed that he was suspected of managing an illegal radio station, and that if he does not order it to shut down immediately, he would be arrested and the police would raid the station’s Jerusalem offices.
In a phone conversation with Raz today, he noted that a threat of detainment over the claim of running an illegal radio station is unprecedented. As far as I recall, in all of the years of the saga surrounding settler radio Channel 7, never were any of its managers arrested – even though its broadcasting interfered with the radio frequencies of the Ben Gurion Airport, and even though it never even claimed to be legal or licensed.
Kol Hashalom, again, is based in Ramallah (the Jerusalem offices serve for its internet broadcast) and has a Palestinian license. Raz says the interrogators presented him with two arguments. One, that the station broadcasts in Hebrew, for a Hebrew-speaking public, which means it is an Israeli station which bypasses the law. Really? I guess the police don’t know that bypassing the law is, by definition, not breaking it. Raz, sarcastically, suggests the police should immediately arrest the anchors of the Persian Voice of Israel: According to the logic of the police, it is an Iranian radio station and the anchors are obviously Iranian spies.
Mossi Raz, who is sure that the closing of the station is part of an assault on the media. (Photo: Yossi Gurvitz)
The second argument of the police was dubbed by Raz as the “I’ve murdered my parents, have pity on an orphan” argument: They said that Israel has never granted the Palestinian Authority any frequencies, even though it was obligated to do so in the Oslo Accords. This argument suffers from two problems: Raz noted that the Accords grant the PA the right to grab their own frequencies if Israel doesn’t allocate them within a certain time frame. Secondly, and more importantly, this argument basically says that ALL Palestinians radio stations are, without exception, illegal – yet strangely enough the Israeli police only bother itself with the Jewish-Palestinian one. This can be seen as even more proof of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank: Israel claims the right to shut down a radio station licensed by the so-called autonomous PA.
This stinks to high heaven, and looks suspiciously like – as Raz says openly – a part of the continuing effort of Netanyahu and his right-wing allies to overtake the media and silence their political rivals. Raz, fearing a raid on the Jerusalem offices, ordered the broadcasts to be shut down on Thursday, and now Kol Hashalom is preparing an appeal to the High Court of Justice. Developing.
Israeli army steps up attacks on Palestinian water
By Ben Lorber | Alternative Information Center | 15 November 2011
Speaking to the American Congress in May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remarked that Israel would maintain a long-term presence in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley. In the months that followed, the Israeli army stepped up its attacks on the water wells of the Palestinians who live there.
The last two months have seen a steady stream of Israeli army attacks on Palestinian Bedouin water wells in the West Bank and the Jordan Valley.
On October 13, farmers received demolition orders on several water wells in Kufr al-Deek, a village in the town of Salfit near Nablus. On the 8th of September, 50 military jeeps, trucks and bulldozers sealed off Al Nasarayah as a closed military zone, and proceeded to illegally destroy 3 water wells and confiscate the attached water systems, the pumps of which cost $40,000 each to install. Five days later, the IOF returned to Al Nasarayah to demolish 2 more wells, stopping along the way to destroy another well east of Tamoun. The next day, IDF soldiers entered the village of Al- Fa’ara, near Nablus, to photograph and record the GPS coordinates of 6 more wells intended for demolition.
These water wells had permits from the Palestinian Authority, and were operating in the 5% of the Jordan Valley designated after the 1993 Oslo Accords Area A, under full Palestinian civil and military control.
Since the beginning of Israel’s colonization of the Jordan Valley in 1967, local Bedouin have seen the steady drying-up of the once-flowing springs around which they built their villages. They are unable to dig sufficient wells of their own because of crippling Israeli regulations, and have become dependent on the Israelis for access to a basic human right.
According to Ma’an Development Center’s 2010 report ‘Draining Away- the Water and Sanitation Crisis in the Jordan Valley’, 40% of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley consume less water than the minimum global standard set by the World Health Organization, which is set at 100 liters cubed per day. In a striking disparity, 56,000 Palestinians in the Jordan Valley consume an average of 37 Million Cubic Meters (MCM) of water per year, as compared to an average of 41 MCM for only 9,400 settlers.
According to Ma’an Development Center’s 2010 report ‘Draining Away- the Water and Sanitation Crisis in the Jordan Valley’, 40% of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley consume less water than the minimum global standard set by the World Health Organization, which is set at 100 liters cubed per day. In a striking disparity, 56,000 Palestinians in the Jordan Valley consume an average of 37 Million Cubic Meters (MCM) of water per year, as compared to an average of 41 MCM for only 9,400 settlers.
Because of post-Oslo Accords regulations, Jordan Valley Bedouins living in Area C (95% of the Valley) cannot build, or improve, the smallest animal pen, much less a water well, without a permit, which is almost impossible to obtain. The Oslo Accords set up a Joint Water Committee (JWC), composed of Israelis and Palestinians, to grant construction permits.
However, ‘Draining Away’ reports that “around 150 Palestinian water and sanitation projects are still pending JWC approval for ‘technical and security reasons’, while only one new Palestinian well project for the [West Bank] Western aquifer has been approved since 1993. In contrast, Israel is able to construct pipelines to its illegal settlements without going through the mechanism of the JWC. Thus Israel effectively has full control of water resources in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”
Even if a project is approved by the JWC, it must then be approved by the Israeli Civil Administration, where, according to Deeb Abdelghafar, Director of Water Resources for the Palestinian Water Authority, “there are more than 14 departments, and each department must approve on the project. So we can never get a project through”.
The 2009 World Bank report ‘Assessment of Restrictions on Palestinian Water Development: West Bank and Gaza’ quotes an anonymous NGO donor: “the first thing we request is a letter from PWA approving the project. Then we go to the JWC. But then we have to go to the Civil Administration – and there delays of 2-3 years are normal. In fact, we have no positive outcomes for Area C.”
Because of the impossibility of laying infrastructure, NGOs focus, says Abdelghafar, on “civil emergency intervention- by delivering small water tankers, by supplying them with water tanks, by constructing rainwater cisterns- it’s emergency humanitarian relief.” While important, this aid is temporary, able only to alleviate the symptoms, not cure the disease.
The Israelis, Abdhelgafar makes clear, “are trying to establish control over the Valley, by preventing or destroying permanent water infrastructure…they want to clear Area C of Palestinians”.
Israeli forces demolish homes in Jericho
Ma’an – 15/11/2011
JERICHO — Israeli forces on Tuesday demolished four homes west of Jericho in the central West Bank.
Palestinian security officials said over 30 army vehicles and 100 soldiers deployed in the Ein al-Duyuk al-Tahta area early Tuesday morning and declared a closed military zone, before bulldozers started demolishing homes.
Families did not have a chance to remove their furniture and belongings, security officials added.
Majed al-Atawneh said Israeli civil administration officers ordered him to leave his home but he refused and sat on the roof with his family. He told Ma’an he preferred that the army demolished his home “over his head” than to become homeless.
Israeli forces demolished homes belonging to Musbah Ali Mutur, Amar al-Fakhory, Mohammad Ali al-Haaj and Ali al-Dallam.
Two of the families were forced to evacuate their homes and the other two were not at home. One of the homeowners is in Saudi Arabia after performing the Muslim Hajj pilgrimage, a Ma’an reporter said.
A spokesman for Israeli authorities in the West Bank told Reuters the homes were razed because they were built without proper permits.
Palestinian security officials told Ma’an that 30 homes in the area were under threat of demolition because they lacked Israeli permits.
The homes are in Area C, a zone encompassing 62 percent of the West Bank which is under full Israeli military and civil control.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA notes that under Israel’s zoning policy, Palestinians can only build in 1 percent of Area C, on land which is already heavily built up. Meanwhile, more than 94 percent of Palestinian permit applications have been rejected in recent years.
“Sadly, the number of people affected by demolition continues to grow. The UN estimates that between 28 and 46 per cent of Palestinian homes could be at risk of demolition, leaving people living under a cloud of anxiety,” UNRWA says.
After the demolitions on Tuesday, Israeli soldiers fired stun grenades to stop residents from returning to the rubble, witnesses said.
Palestinian-UN Bid Rejected By White Nations
Russia, sole European nation favoring application
By Alaa Ashkar | IMEMC & Agencies | November 11, 2011
UN Admission Committee, specialized for recognizing new states’ applications, submitted its report to the UN Security Council on Friday, reading that the Palestinian-UN full membership has been rejected after discussions regarding the Palestinian bid.
The committee’s secretary, the Portuguese ambassador to the UN Gabriel Jose Blaba said that “The UNSC member states would continue their discussions regarding the upcoming Palestinian steps of the Palestinian application at the UN.”
Eight members voted in favor of the Palestinian-UN bid, which are Russia, China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Niger, Gabon and Lebanon while 7 other members voted against the bid including the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Columbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Portugal has abstained.
It is worth mentioning that the committee’s stand has been leaked out few days ago which cause the Palestinian Minister Foreign Affairs, Riyad Al-Maliki, confirming the Palestinian bid for full membership at the UN. He further stated that the Palestinians would continue their attempts in order for Palestine to be a full member at the international body.
How Ireland helps Israel’s war industry
By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | November 10, 2011
Mainly due to our long experience of colonisation, many Irish have been staunch supporters of the dispossessed and oppressed Palestinians. In 2009, Ambassador Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations, singled out Ireland as one of the few Western nations to vote for the UN resolution supporting the Goldstone Report detailing Israeli war crimes in Gaza. In June this year, the Irish Ship to Gaza (ISG) campaign claimed that their vessel, the Saoirse (Freedom), was sabotaged by Israel while berthed in the Turkish port of Gocek. And only last Friday, Israeli commandos boarded the Saoirse in international waters off Gaza and detained an Irish Member of the European Parliament on board.
Sadly, some of Ireland’s most prominent institutions appear to be less principled. David Cronin, the author of Europe’s Alliance with Israel: Aiding the Occupation, has written an important piece in Politico.ie detailing the complicity of one of Ireland’s EU Commissioners, many Irish universities, and Ireland’s “newspaper of record” with Israel’s war industry:
Ensconced in Brussels, the only controversy Máire Geoghegan-Quinn has been embroiled in over the past few years related to her bloated income. While she has displayed remarkable chutzpah in seeking to draw down both a European commissioner’s salary and Oireachtas and ministerial pensions, her personal greed is of little consequence compared to her abetting of Israel’s crimes against humanity.
Israel is the most active non-European participant in the EU’s multi-annual scientific research programme, which Geoghegan-Quinn administers. According to the European Commission’s own data, Israel is currently involved in 800 EU-financed research activities with a total value of €4.3 billion. What the Commission is less eager to spell out is that the beneficiaries of this largesse include weapons manufacturers and technology firms that supply Israel with the tools of repression and occupation.
The Irish Times regularly publishes columns on the EU’s research activities by Conor O’Carroll from the Irish Universities Association. Because the seven universities O’Carroll represents receive funding from the EU’s science programme, he has a direct interest in presenting that programme in a positive light. Although the Irish Times is nominally committed to informed debate, its editors have told me on several occasions that they would not have space on their pages for an article explaining how Irish academics cooperate with Israel’s war industry.
Trinity College Dublin, for example, is taking part in a €14.5 million EU-financed project called Total Airport Security System (TASS), under which new surveillance equipment will be installed in Heathrow Airport ahead of next year’s Olympic Games in London. Among the other participants in the TASS consortium are Elbit, a company that has helped install surveillance equipment in the apartheid wall that Israel is building in the West Bank. Elbit was also one of two makers of the pilotless drones (or unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs) with which Israel attacked Gaza in 2008 and 2009.
When ruling that the West Bank wall was illegal, the International Court of Justice stated in 2004 that public authorities throughout the world had an obligation not to render any aid or assistance to its construction. Norway – a country outside the EU – has taken that verdict sufficiently seriously to order that its state-owned pension scheme divest from Elbit. Yet Geoghegan-Quinn and her officials continue to subsidise that same company.
The University of Limerick is involved in a €70 million project called Maaximus for developing “more affordable” aircraft than those currently in use. Other participants in this project include Israel Aerospace Industries, another firm that has worked on the West Bank wall and provided warplanes used to kill civilians in Gaza.
University College Cork, meanwhile, is trying to give credence to the Israeli myth that it is saving the world from terrorist attacks. UCC is the official coordinator of an EU-funded project called CommonSense, which is focused on developing sensors for detecting bombs containing radioactive materials. This project also involves the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Israeli Institute for Technology in Haifa. Better known as the Technion, that institute has been responsible for such innovations as a remote-controlled bulldozer, explicitly intended for use in demolishing Palestinian homes.
Zionist plan to build 60,000 settlement units in Jerusalem
Palestine Information Center – 06/11/2011
NAZARETH — Hebrew media sources revealed a strategic plan of the occupation municipality in Jerusalem which aims to build more than 60,000 new settler residential units in Jerusalem over the next 20 years.
Maariv said on Sunday that a Jerusalem municipality document shows that of 60,718 new residential units, most (53,000) will be built in settlements in East Jerusalem.
24,000 units have already been approved by the planning committee, only 3,500 of them will be built in West Jerusalem. Planning applications have been submitted for another 13,500 more units awaiting approval. Plans for another 23,266 more units are being prepared.
According to data in the document the land on which these units will be built lies in north eastern Jerusalem, such as Besgat Zeiv settlement, Nevieh Yacub settlement and Arab suburbs: Beit Hanian and Shefat. The building of more than 10,000 units will start straight away, planning permissions for half of them have already been obtained and the other half still awaiting permission.
According to municipality data, 10,934 units will be built, half of them approved and they will be built in Silwan and in the old city.
Anata falls victim to militarized, illegal settlement once again
By Jenna Bereld | International Solidarity Movement | 26 October 2011
West Bank – When Mohammad woke up on Tuesday, he still did not know about the Israeli forces or the bulldozers that were on their way to uproot his trees and demolish his entire farm. But before the day was over, all of his property was erased and one could hardly guess that there had ever been a building there.
“I’m very sad because of the farm”, Mohammad said.
The soldiers claimed that the buildings were illegal, referring to the Israeli Civil Administration. ”This is the land from my grandfather, and I have no other land,” Mohammad says.
Mohammad lives in Anata in the West Bank with his wife and twelve children. The village is trapped by the Separation Wall around Jerusalem to the west, and Area C and the planned expansion of the settlement Ma’ale Adumim to the east. The village has no possibility to expand without building permits from the Israeli Civil Administration. The process is expensive, and for Palestinians, the application is rejected in 95% of the cases. From 2000 to 2007 almost 5,000 demolition orders against Palestinian buildings were issued.
In a separate incident, a four year old Palestinian child from Anata was shot in the neck around noon. Asil Arara’s wounds have left her in serious condition and may cause paralysis. The illegal Israeli settlement of Anatot, also home to settlers who recently violently attacked Israeli peace activists, is home to a military training camp from where it is said the shot that struck Arara was fired.
Cambridge students vote to break contract with Veolia
By Ben White – The Electronic Intifada – 10/25/2011
From the Cambridge Bin Veolia campaign:
58% of students vote to break contract with company implicated in Israeli human rights abuses
Students at Cambridge have voted to call on the University to cut ties with a company implicated in Israeli human rights abuses.
The vote calls on CUSU (Cambridge University Students Union) to campaign to have the University cut ties with Veolia, a company involved in infrastructure projects in Israeli settlements, and employed by the University on a waste disposal contract. The referendum, which closed yesterday, passed with a majority of 58% to 41%: there were 898 votes yes, 637 votes no, and 21 ballots spoilt. While a strong majority was in support, the referendum was inquorate: 7.2% of the student body voted, short of the 10% required.
Students involved in the campaign pledged to continue the campaign to ensure that Veolia’s contract, which expires in September 2012, is not renewed.
As previously reported on the blog, student campaigners had been boosted in the lead up to the referendum with letters of support from Palestinian trade unionists and students, as well as a list of Cambridge academics.
While voter participation was too low to make the motion automatically become CUSU policy, the students behind the push to cut the University’s ties with Veolia are encouraged:
Daniel Benjamin, a student involved in the campaign, said: “With this vote, Cambridge students make a strong statement against Veolia’s criminal actions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We won’t stop fighting until Veolia is off campus, but this vote itself is a fantastic show of support in the broader campaign for Palestinian human rights through boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israeli companies and institutions.”
Owen Holland, a student involved in the campaign, said: “The impressive turnout shows significant student support for the campaign. We are concerned with a number of irregularities in the vote, such as lies in the ‘no’ flysheet that went uncorrected, a lack of ballot boxes in colleges, and a number of students who found themselves unable to vote online. Though the referendum did not meet the threshold to become CUSU policy, we will be campaigning to have CUSU adopt it anyway and push the University to drop its contract with Veolia.
The “lies” of the ‘No’ campaign, referred to by Owen Holland, can be read here (and they are rebutted here). The ‘No’ flysheet prepared by members of the Cambridge University Jewish Society described “the wider BDS movement” as “antisemitic”, even if the motion in question “is not explicitly” so. Despite such smear tactics, the majority of Cambridge students who voted backed the call for the University to cancel its contract with Veolia, and the campaign continues.
Erekat: Freeze on govt settlements ‘false distinction’
Ma’an – October 22, 2011
BETHLEHEM — PLO official Saeb Erekat has rejected the distinction between government and private construction in Israeli settlements, the premise of Israel’s “offer” for a partial building freeze reported by Israeli media on Friday.
As all settlement building on Palestinian lands is illegal under international law, differentiating public and private-led expansion is a “false distinction,” a statement from the former chief negotiator said on Friday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed to freeze government settlement construction in an offer put to President Mahmoud Abbas by Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin on Wednesday, the Israeli daily Haaretz and a Palestinian official said.
Private construction constitutes around 80 percent of settlement activity, according to recent studies.
“Looting is not made legal under any circumstance,” Erekat said. “Attempting to draw such false distinctions exposes the true intentions of the Israeli government.”
Diplomats are trying to renew direct talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials as the UN Security Council considers Palestine’s application for full membership of the global body, which Israel and the US have vowed to scupper.
A Quartet proposal aired on Sept. 23 — as Abbas handed the bid to UN officials — has faltered as the deadline it set for a preliminary meeting within one month passed without an appointment.
Days later, Netanyahu told Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post that Palestinian insistence on a settlement halt was a “pretext” to avoid talks, and implied that a new settlement freeze was unlikely.
“We already gave at the office,” Netanyahu told the Post, referring to a 10-month partial settlement freeze that Israel refused to renew in late September 2010, leading to the breakdown of direct talks launched weeks earlier.
Palestinian officials say they cannot negotiate with Israel while it builds on lands needed for the viability of a future Palestinian state.
On Sept. 27, Israel approved the construction of 1,100 new homes in Gilo settlement, and in early October started building 11 units as part of a 300-home project in Pisgat Zeev settlement, both in East Jerusalem.
An Israeli peace group also revealed in October that Israel has formally submitted plans to build 2,610 homes near Gilo, including new neighborhood Givat Hamotos, which will cut off Bethlehem and the West Bank from East Jerusalem’s southern sector.
East Jerusalem was annexed by Israeli in a 1967 war, in a move never recognized by the international community. Israel claims Jerusalem as its undivided capital, while Palestinians say the occupied east must be the capital of a future Palestinian state.
“Might does not make right. We will not compromise our positions based on the power politics of the day,” Erekat said Friday. “International law has been, and will continue to be, the basis for our positions on this and all other issues.”
Cambridge students to begin vote on company with Israeli settlement ties
Palestinian academics and Cambridge lecturers join call for boycott
Press Release – 10/20/2011
Students at Cambridge will start voting Friday in a referendum calling on the University to cut ties with a company implicated in Israeli human rights abuses.
The referendum, scheduled for 21-24 October, calls on CUSU (Cambridge University Students Union) to campaign to have the University cut ties with Veolia, a company involved in infrastructure projects in Israeli settlements, and employed by the University on a waste disposal contract.
This week, the campaign received letters of support from the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees, and from a group of more than 25 Cambridge academics.
The letter from Palestinian academics said:
“As Palestinian academics, we are aware that universities are never separable from their political circumstances. Palestinian universities are regularly attacked by the IDF. Israeli universities directly contribute to the occupation through military research and development. By retaining a contract with Veolia, Cambridge is also implicated in Israel’s crimes. Dropping the contract would not be an inappropriate political intervention, but a rectification of one. Cambridge can live up to its reputation as an internationally leading institution by refusing ties with Veolia, leading the way against Israeli organizations that trample Palestinian human rights.”
The letter from Cambridge academics said:
“In choosing to employ Veolia for its waste management, the University poses a serious ‘reputational risk’ to itself. The University’s employment of Veolia for waste management makes dubious its claims of being committed to ethical conduct.”
Veolia’s activities in the West Bank include bus and light rail services and the Tovlan Landfill site, all serving illegal Israeli settlements. In recent years, the international community has targeted Veolia as a company profiting from the Israeli occupation. Veolia has lost contracts worth more than €10 billion since 2005,2 including, just a few months ago, a £300 million contract in Ealing, London. The actions against Veolia are part of a broader international campaign following the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israeli companies and institutions.
The Cambridge Campaign has detailed information on its website, including a point-by-point rebuttal to the No Campaign’s “falsehoods, insinuations made in bad faith, and sleights of hand.”
For more information, see: http://cambridgebinveolia.wordpress.com/
Contact: cambridgebds@hotmail.co.uk
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New Book
New Book: No Autoimmunity The Body Doesn’t Attack Itself
Lies are Unbekoming | September 24, 2026
The label for Humira, once the best-selling drug in the world, lists its risks in plain print. One of them, in the label’s own words, is new “autoimmune” disease.
A drug prescribed for a condition labelled autoimmune carries a warning that it can cause a condition labelled autoimmune. That contradiction sits in every box, on a folded paper almost nobody reads.
My new book starts there.
No Autoimmunity: The Body Doesn’t Attack Itself
For seventy years, “your body is attacking itself, and we don’t know why” has ended the conversation for people diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto’s, Type 1 diabetes, Crohn’s and psoriasis. More than eighty conditions now carry the autoimmune label. The diagnosis comes with a prescription for life. It almost never comes with a question about cause.
This book asks the question and answers it from the framework’s own records: its drug labels, its journals, its regulatory filings, and its own experiments. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Turkish parliament to review Saudi-Pakistan defense pact next month
- DEATH SPIKES & RISING CANCER IN OUR YOUTH EXPLAINED
- Iran offers Trump deal before US election
- Merz regime wants ‘secret police’ – opposition
- Israeli settlers terrorize West Bank Palestinians with state-provided drones: Report
- They see them, then kill them: Israeli quadcopters track, deliberately target civilians in Gaza
- Debunked: Trump’s egregious UNGA claims on war against Iran crumble under scrutiny
- Europe was part of the infrastructure of US aggression against Iran: Deputy FM
- New evidence on the Bucha Massacre
- Italy and France debunk reports CIA issued ‘Russian drone threat’ warning
- If Americans Knew
- Trump betrayed voters with his campaign lies and prioritized a foreign country once he took office
- Netanyahu calls Israel’s war in Gaza ‘opposite of genocide’ in UN speech to near-empty hall
- Settler Kidnappings: Torture, Sexual Abuse and Terrorisation of Palestinian Abductees as Israel Deepens Annexation of West Bank
- Gaza winter nears as 162,000 tents become unusable, raising fears of humanitarian crisis
- Netanyahu says, “It’s the opposite of genocide”; UN says Gaza economy is world’s ‘most severe crisis on record’ – Daily Update
- Israel’s US-Backed Assault on Gaza Has Created the ‘World’s Most Severe Economic Crisis on Record’: UN
- ‘Protecting U.S. Citizens’… From Israel
- ‘This is where I live now, the back of a truck’: a day in the life of a grandmother in Gaza
- In UN Speech, Iran’s President Displays Pictures of Children Killed by US, Brings Attention to Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal
- Israel displaces hundreds of Palestinians amid wave of demolitions in West Bank
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
