In Israel normalising violence takes precedence over targeted assassinations
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | March 14, 2019
One outcome is certain when it comes to the forthcoming Israeli elections – Gaza will remain a top target for the new government. Amid the sparring between contenders for the elections, former IDF chief Benny Gantz declared he would implement Israel’s policy of targeted assassinations against Hamas leaders if elected, and if necessary.
His comments sought to counter Education Minister Naftali Bennett’s remarks over “Operation Protective Edge” in 2014, in which the latter used derogatory language to criticise Gantz’s decisions which, according to Bennett, endangered the lives of Israeli soldiers. Bennett alleged that Gantz would be Hamas’ preferable leadership option. This claim is also being supported by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has stated that Gantz’s party would make “significant concessions to the Palestinians.”
Both Gantz and Netanyahu have increasingly focused on Gaza in their electoral campaigns, with “Operation Protective Edge” and the Great March of Return providing premises for their arguments. Gantz, who was in charge of the aggression against the enclave, has compared the 2014 aftermath to the ongoing protests and Netanyahu’s response, which was to order snipers positioned at the border to kill and injure Palestinians participating in the demonstration.
Gantz described Netanyahu’s strategy as a “tired policy”. The alternative in such a scenario, according to the former army chief, is to “return to a policy of targeted killings.”
In June 2018, Israel’s Security Minister Gilad Erdan advocated for the targeted assassinations of Hamas leaders and Palestinians launching the “incendiary kites” from Gaza’s border.
A return to targeted killings, however, is not accurate. Israel has a long history of assassinating Palestinian leaders from Hamas and other Palestinian political factions. Only last year, a Palestinian scientist affiliated to Hamas was gunned down in Malaysia, in an operation which raised speculation about Mossad’s role even in Israeli media, although there was no forthright confirmation of the agency’s involvement.
Gantz, therefore, will not be “returning” to a policy of targeted assassinations but embarking upon a continuation of Israel’s policy. Yet, speculation on targeted assassinations alone is just a deviation from the damage which both Netanyahu and Gantz have the power to inflict on the enclave in terms of political and humanitarian related violence.
Following “Operation Protective Edge”, Netanyahu adopted a strategy that prolongs violence for Israel’s benefit. The Great March of Return is one such example. Extrajudicial killings by Israel’s snipers raised international scrutiny which, with time, mellowed down to the usual expressions of concerns regarding what is deemed as routine violence. Distancing Israel from targeted assassinations in Gaza during this period provided Israel with the opportunity to normalise its ongoing violence on the border.
Gantz is no stranger to strategy. Targeted assassinations cannot be attributed to one single leader but to the existence of the colonial state and its policies of elimination. What Gaza will face under the new Israeli government is more likely to be a continuation of measures which maintains Palestinians’ deprivation in the enclave. Electoral campaign rhetoric aside, an outright endorsement and implementation of targeted assassinations contradict the intentional ambiguity which Israel has employed against leaders or individuals who have the potential to challenge its existence.
Palestine cuts staff pay over Israeli tax deductions
MEMO | March 10, 2019
The Palestinian government will pay civil servants half of their salaries after Israel withheld tax money collected on its behalf, according to the Palestinian finance minister.
“The government will pay 50 per cent of the salaries,” Shukri Bishara told a press conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday.
He said the government has also applied a host of austerity measures, including halting the appointment of new civil servants, promotions and additional allowances.
“The government needs to borrow around $50-60 million a month from the local market to meet its obligations towards its employees and state institutions,” he said.
Last month, the Ramallah-based government refused to accept deducted tax revenues collected by Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The move came after the Israeli government decided to deduct some 502 million Israeli shekels (roughly $138 million) from the Palestinian tax money, citing that the amount was being paid by Ramallah to the families of Palestinians involved in attacks against Israeli targets.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has decried by the Israeli measure, saying his government would continue to pay monthly stipends to the families of Palestinian prisoners and martyrs.
Israel collects around $175 million each month in taxes on Palestinian imports and exports on behalf of the PA, for which tax revenue represents the main source of income.
French ophthalmologists demand Macron ban rubber bullets as eye injuries spread like ‘EPIDEMIC’
RT | March 10, 2019
France is experiencing an “epidemic” of eye injuries as police repeatedly deploy golf-ball-sized rubber bullets, France’s top ophthalmologists say, urging President Macron to halt use of the projectiles.
As the Yellow Vest protests enter their 17th consecutive week, the debate around the government’s alleged use of excessive force continues to gain momentum. On Saturday, the French newspaper Journal du Dimanche published a letter to President Macron written by the country’s 35 leading ophthalmologists, in which they asserted that the police’s use of rubber bullets has led to an “epidemic of serious eye injuries.”
Many people risk losing their vision, doctors say, hinting that the current dismal developments are no coincidence as rubber balls fly with great force and are often directed inaccurately. The letter, which demands “a moratorium” on using rubber bullets, was actually written in early February but only made public a month later to make sure the recipient gets the message, according the newspaper.
French riot police have become notorious for using hand-held guns, locally known as defence-ball launchers or Flash-Balls, during the protests that been ongoing since November.
The currently deployed model – named LBD 40 – fires 40mm foam projectiles, roughly the size of a golf ball. Rubber bullets have apparently become the police’s primary means of combating unruly crowds, and have been deployed more than 13,000 times, according to local officials.
The controversial weapon has landed the French government in hot water as reports of people losing their eyes in skirmishes with police began to surface. More than 20 protesters have lost eyes, five hands have been partially or entirely torn off, and one person lost their hearing as a result of a TNT-stuffed GLI F4 stun grenade.
The legal status of rubber-ball guns has been repeatedly questioned by human rights associations and politicians in France and abroad. In early February, France’s top administrative court, however, refused to ban the police from using the hand-held launchers.
Meanwhile, the country’s interior security code allows police to use force to dispel violent crowds but only when no other means suffice.
On Wednesday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet called for a “full investigation” of France’s excessive use of force towards the Yellow Vests who, according to her words, demand a “respectful dialogue.”
Government figures show that over 2,000 protesters and over 1,000 police officers have been injured since protests broke out in November.
Did Israel Just Lie About a Car Ramming to Kill Two Palestinian Teens?
By Robert Inlakesh | 21st Century Wire | March 5, 2019
On Sunday, two Palestinian teenagers were shot dead by Israeli soldiers following, what the Israeli military called, an attempted car ramming ‘terrorist’ attack in the West Bank village of Kufr N’ima.
The Israeli, as well as Western press that covered it, framed the incident as if it was a closed case terrorist attack. The two soldiers injured during the collision of a civilian car and Israeli military vehicle, were described as heroes and their recovery was welcomed. Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, even weighed in on the incident, calling for the immediate demolitions of the homes of the “terrorists”.
But what really happened and was this a complete cover up, simply justifying the murder of innocent Palestinians?
Firstly we have to establish as clearly as possible what actually transpired, out of the details available.
The incident occurred late on Sunday night, during/following illegal Israeli military raids on civilian villages. The weather was reportedly bad and caused for dangerous driving conditions, especially on the underdeveloped roads of West Bank villages.Three boys, Amir Darraj, Yousef Anqawi and Haitham Alqam were driving and approached a quick corner turn, before colliding with the soldiers.
According to eyewitnesses, the Israeli jeep had no lights on and was not identifiable, a very typical thing for the soldiers to do during late night raids.
The corner was a slippery surface in the rain according to witnesses. I can also personally testify, as someone who has been in cars that have almost lost control at this very spot, to the validity of this claim. However we will never see an investigation as the Israeli occupation soldiers destroyed cameras, refuses to release its own videos and quickly took away the vehicles involved.
The Israeli claim is that they acted quickly and killed the “terrorists”, however, eye witnesses claim that there was a 5 minute gap between the crash and the shooting, this would mean that arrests could have been resorted to instead of executions. Israeli troops also refused to allow medical assistance to the teens they shot, firing tear gas at those that attempted to approach them.
A point made by a local journalist and photographer from the nearby village of Bil’in, Hamde Abu Rahmah, was that the three boys – two of which he knew very well – were not from Kufr N’ima and most likely would have had no idea that the soldiers were there. Hamde Abu Rahmah also verified in a Facebook post yesterday, that the two boys have no direct connection to any political groups or resistance factions.
Another point made by Hamde Abu Rahmah, was that car rammings almost never involve more than one operative, let alone three. Hamas and Islamic Jihad would normally announce instantly their involvement in these acts, but didn’t.
An article published in the Israeli newspaper ‘Haaretz’, repeated the Israeli claim of the boys possessing molotov cocktails, despite the fact that Israel has provided no evidence of this. Any journalist who covers the West Bank is familiar with Israel displaying all evidence it claims to have immediately, so why not in this case?
Let’s take a deeper look at this argument of the molotov cocktails. Would this be the rational weapon of choice following a car ramming? If they did have them in the car, as the Israeli military claims, but didn’t attempt to use them, does this justify the usage of live ammunition against the teens? The Israelis don’t claim the molotov cocktails were used against them following the car collision and couldn’t possibly have discovered them until after the incident occurred, so why does the media include the molotov cocktails in their accounts of what happened?
Then we have the other issue of international law and who was in the wrong. According to the 4th Geneva convention and more specifically UNGA Resolution 37/43, Palestinians have the full legal right, under international law, to armed resistance. The only legal right those Israeli soldiers had during this Sunday nights incident, was to pack up and leave.
Even if this was somehow a car ramming attack on Occupation Soldiers, the attack is not classed as terrorism under international law. If you are arguing that Israeli soldiers, illegally raiding villages, on illegally occupied territory are in the right for shooting dead two teenagers and believe this to be a terrorist attack, you are quite literally on the side of the Israelis over International Law.
The result of all this, is that Amir Darraj and Yousef Anqawi were both shot dead, their bodies have been taken by Israel’s soldiers and now the Israeli policy of collective punishment, demolishing “terrorist” homes, will now be enforced.
So not only will the families of these two dead teenagers mourn, but will mourn on the ruins of their demolished homes and will be seen all over the world as the family members of terrorists.
Author Robert Inlakesh is a special contributor to 21WIRE and European correspondent for Press TV. He has reported from on the ground in occupied Palestine. See more of his work here.
From Qana to Gaza, Israel issues denials and smears investigations of its crimes
By Professor Kamel Hawwash | MEMO | March 5, 2019
I wrote recently about an EU report on the growth of illegal Israeli settlements and argued that the EU was diligent in documenting Israel’s-breaches of international law but that it has singularly failed to bring it to account, even when it has demolished EU-funded projects.
A more recent report commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) investigated the actions of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) at the nominal border with Gaza since 30 March last year, which marked the beginning of the Great March of Return protests. For almost 50 weeks, Israeli snipers have gunned down, with deliberate, chilling precision, Palestinian men, women and children.
The “Report of the independent international commission of inquiry on the protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory – A/HRC/40/74” acknowledges that the peaceful protests “were civilian in nature, with clearly stated political aims.” The protesters asked to be allowed to return to the homes from which they have been expelled from 1948 onwards, and for a lifting of the siege on Gaza. Instead of meeting their peaceful and legitimate demands from the outset, Israel has killed over 200 Palestinians, including journalists and medics, and maimed dozens of young men, who now have to face life as amputees, rather than sportsmen.
![An injured Palestinian kid is carried away after Israeli forces' clashed with protestors during a "Great March of Return" demonstration near Israel-Gaza border, in Khan Yunis, Gaza on March 01, 2019 [Mustafa Hassona / Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/20190301_2_35206126_42166513.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&ssl=1 "KHAN YUNIS, GAZA - MARCH 01: An injured Palestinian kid is carried away after Israeli forces' intervention during \"Great March of Return\" demonstration near Israel-Gaza border, in Khan Yunis, Gaza on March 01, 2019. ( Mustafa Hassona - Anadolu Agency )")
![Mohammad Jasser Barbakh, not yet 14 years old, was shot on 26 October by an Israeli sniper while taking part in the Great March of Return protests [File photo]](https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Kid-Gaza.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&ssl=1 "Kid Gaza")
The irony here is that Israel complained about Malaysia’s decision to ban the Israeli Paralympics team from competing in the country, while the IDF was making its own sickening contribution to future Palestinian Paralympics teams.
The UNHRC’s report makes for gruesome reading. Israeli soldiers are accused of “intentionally firing on civilians, who were neither directly participating in hostilities, nor posing an imminent threat.” The report warns that, “These serious human rights and humanitarian law violations may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity.”
Israel’s reaction was predictable and follows a long line of denial and smearing of any report which accuses it of wrongdoing. According to a Foreign Ministry spokesman, “This report was born in sin, in a politically biased, one-sided resolution that determined the outcome before the investigation even started.” He went on to lay the blame on Hamas: “[Hamas] has declared war on Israel and calls to kill Jews. Hamas is orchestrating the attacks and using civilians in Gaza as human weapons to assault Israel and Israeli civilians. Hamas exploits the civilians in Gaza as human shields for terrorists.” As usual when such allegations are made, no evidence is produced to back them up, nor is the legitimate right to resist military occupation ever mentioned.
The spokesman went on to smear the UNHRC and the report’s three authors: “The HRC becomes an accomplice of a terrorist organisation, supporting Hamas’s aggression against Israel and the oppression of the people of Gaza.” The three individuals, he alleged, lack any understanding in security matters, without a relevant professional background.
Israel’s apologists came out in force to condemn the report, including US President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy Jason Greenblatt. “This COI report is another manifestation of the UNHRC’s clear bias against Israel,” he tweeted, “which remains the only country that the Council dedicates an entire standing agenda item to targeting.”
Such condemnation of investigations into Israel’s crimes and smearing of investigation teams and the bodies that form them is not new. The UNHRC set up an investigation into Israel’s 2014 military offensive against the Gaza Strip which lasted for 50 days, resulting in over 2,000 Palestinians being killed and causing extensive destruction.
The Report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict – A/HRC/29/52 accused both Hamas and Israel of committing war crimes. “Israel does not commit war crimes,” claimed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he rejected the report. “Israel defends itself against a terrorist organisation that calls for its destruction and carries out many war crimes.” He accused the commission of being “notoriously biased” against Israel.
Following an escalation of violence in November 2012, a UN report criticised armed Palestinian groups and the IDF. The latter, it insisted, “did not consistently uphold the basic principles of conduct of hostilities, namely, the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions.” The report documented a number of cases, including one which took place on 18 November, in which an Israeli air strike targeted without prior warning a three-storey house belonging to the Al-Dalou family in Al-Nasser neighbourhood, in central Gaza City. The strike killed 12 people, including five children and four women. Again, Israel brushed aside criticism and no individual Israeli was held accountable.
Following the 2008/9 Israeli military offensive on Gaza, the UN published the Goldstone Report on the devastating events which took place between 27 December 2008 and 17 January 2009 and which resulted in over 1,300 Palestinians being killed. The report accused both Israel and Palestinian armed groups of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Israel’s reaction was predictable. The Foreign Ministry said that, “Israel rejects the one-sided resolution adopted in Geneva by the UN human rights council and calls upon all responsible states to reject it as well… [The resolution] provides encouragement for terrorist organisations worldwide and undermines global peace.” It also accused the UNHRC of anti-Israel bias.
Israel’s siege and attack on the Jenin refugee camp in April 2002, which lasted for 10 days and killed dozens if not hundreds of Palestinians (the figures are disputed) again brought accusations of war crimes against Israel. The Israeli government refused to allow a UN team to carry out a field investigation, resulting in the UN producing a report based on available evidence. “In sum, the Israeli occupying forces have, without a doubt, committed serious violations of international humanitarian law,” the report concluded. “Also, without a doubt, war crimes, including grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention, have been committed by Israel, the occupying Power, in several Palestinian cities, including in the Jenin refugee camp.” However, the report disputed the Palestinian claim of a massacre, a decision which was welcomed by the Israeli government. Furthermore, the report was judged as “seriously flawed” by human rights organisations and Britain’s Independent newspaper, which were able to corroborate many of the allegations against the occupation state. No Israeli has ever been held accountable for any violations.
It is possible to go back further in time to another Israeli atrocity to demonstrate the lack of accountability for crimes committed by the IDF. On 18 April 1996, Israeli forces shelled a UN compound in Qana, in Southern Lebanon, where 800 Lebanese civilians had taken refuge; 106 people were killed in the attack. Israel claimed that this was due to technical issues rather than deliberate targeting of a UN facility. However, the subsequent UN investigation concluded, “While the possibility cannot be ruled out completely, it is unlikely that the shelling of the United Nations compound was the result of gross technical and/or procedural errors.” The UN also found that “Contrary to repeated denials, two Israeli helicopters and a remotely piloted vehicle were present in the Qana area at the time of the shelling.” Amnesty International called for an independent investigation arguing, “It is not enough that the Israeli army investigates themselves. Israel has a history of either not investigating civilian deaths, or conducting similarly flawed inquiries.”
Now here we are, 23 years on and the UN’s most recent report again calls on Israel to investigate its own crimes, even though everyone knows that Israel never finds its own people guilty; always dismisses reports carried out by independent investigators as biased and one-sided; denies entry to the investigation teams; and refuses to cooperate. It claims to apply the highest standards of self-regulation but no one has ever been held fully accountable for any crimes, despite the thousands of deaths, the tens of thousands of injuries and the tens of thousands of homes that have been destroyed by Israelis since Qana, never mind the other massacres which have occurred since 1948.
It is time for Israel to be held to account for its actions, for the sake of those who have suffered at its hands. If international law is to have any credibility at all, we need to ensure that all UN member states pay due respect to human rights and the quest for justice through due legal process.
Four Young Palestinian Lives Snuffed Out Every Month for The Past Year at The Hands of Israeli Soldiers
By CJ Werleman | American Herald Tribune | February 28, 2019
Last Friday, Yousef a-Dava, a 15-year old Palestinian boy was shot and killed by Israeli snipers, becoming the 48th child slain in Gaza by Israeli security forces since the Great Return March began nearly 12 months ago.
“He was peacefully protesting for a better future, raising the Palestinian flag, is the Palestinian flag a weapon?” asked his grief-stricken sister, Nariman al-Daya, in an interview with Middle East Eye.
His death was every bit as gruesome as it was unjustifiably atrocious, with eyewitnesses explaining how he “tried to stand up, walk a couple more steps” before falling to the ground again, after the bullet fired by an Israeli sniper “entered Yousef’s body, exploded hear his heart, exited from his back” and injured another man who was standing behind him.
Less than one hour later he was pronounced dead at al-Shifa Hospital after an emergency operation failed to revive him.
What other democratic ally do we allow 48 unarmed children to be shot and killed for flying a flag or kite in an open field, one that is ring-fenced by high-voltage electric currents, spot-and-strike machine gun posts, armored tanks and dozens of the world’s most lethal military marksmen?
If this were happening in Poland, Spain, or Portugal, both the United States and United Nations would’ve moved quickly to impose economic sanctions, while calls to invade and bomb would be heard far louder than a mere whisper, but this is Israel, the “Middle East’s only democracy,” so the entirely erroneous propaganda tagline goes.
48 murdered children equates to four young lives snuffed out every month for the past year at the hands of Israeli soldiers, who in no way felt threatened by these now slain youngsters. Unless, of course, you think children throwing rocks from inside a cage at armored vehicles positioned hundreds of meters away on the other side fortified fences and barricades is a threat to anyone or anything, which it clearly it isn’t!
Thus these deaths are to be identified for what they truly are: the cold-blooded murder of innocent and non-threatening children.
Of course, nowhere in the Western media is this reality framed in this accurate way. Instead we are fed headlines, or rather footnotes from the likes of The New York Times that read, “15-year-old boy killed in Gaza today,” without identifying the benign circumstances that led to his death, with newspaper editors doing their very best to falsely portray flag waving and rock-throwing protesters to be on equal footing to the most sophisticated military force in the Middle East.
It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, that if a population of 2 million predominately Jews or Christians were held in an open-air prison, which is precisely what Gaza is, and then bombed, strafed, droned, and shelled periodically, with children shot dead by snipers wearing the flag of a Muslim majority country, then there’d be no other issue the Western media would be talking about.
On Thursday, the United Nations published a report concluding, “Israeli soldiers committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law,” adding that “some of those violations may constitute war crimes of crimes against humanity.”
“Many young person’s lives have been altered forever,” contends the United Nations Human Rights Council. “122 people have had a limb amputated since March 30 last year. Twenty of these amputees are children.”
Moreover, these deaths scratch only the surface of Israel’s savage war on Palestinian children. When Israel invaded Gaza in the summer of 2014, Palestinian children represented 25% of all civilians killed, with human rights groups documenting the deaths of 504 are under the age of 18.
Then there are the 500-700 Palestinian children who are detained each year in the Israeli military court system, some indefinitely, with most held and prosecuted on the charge of stone throwing.
It is in these Israeli military detention centers where some of the most egregious crimes against Palestinian children take place, with two-thirds reporting Israeli soldiers subjected them to violence and physical abuse.
Several years ago, UNICEF published a report that documented Israel’s systematic and systemic abuse of detained Palestinian children, concluding that “the ill-treatment of children who come in contact with the military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized throughout the process, from the moment of arrest to indictment of the child, the conviction and issuing of the verdict.”
The authors of the report also observed how child detainees were often arrested in the middle of the night, denied access to a lawyer or parents prior or during interrogation, denied right to remain silent, alongside credible claims Palestinian children were raped or threatened with rape or execution.
Ultimately Israel gets away with these atrocities because its violence and crimes against the Palestinian people takes place inside a media vacuum, with mainstream networks and publications giving a head glance towards the occupation and conflict only in moments where Palestinians, who are denied the right to resist Israel’s violence and illegalities peacefully, respond with violence of their own.
Until such time the world’s media and international community holds Israel accountable for its violations of international law and denial of human rights to the Palestinian people, it’ll continue to murder children as young as 2 years of age with total and complete impunity.
Samidoun calls for the freedom of political prisoners in Egyptian jails
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – February 22, 2019
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network condemned the executions carried out by the Egyptian regime against 9 Egyptian youths, calling for an end to the “systematic and continuous repression and killings by the fascist regime of General Abdel-Fattah Sisi.”
“What is happening in Egyptian prisons is systematic and documented torture. While this is widely known, it does not receive sufficient attention from international human rights bodies and legal institutions,” said Mohammed Khatib, the Europe coordinator of Samidoun. He referred to the “disgraceful collaboration between the so-called international community and the generals in Cairo.”
Khatib launched a scathing attack on the Egyptian regime and what he called “the silence of the Egyptian and Arab parties who describe themselves as standing with the people. They say with words that they oppose the Camp David regime, but remain silent on the daily violations of the rights of tens of thousands of Egyptian prisoners in Egyptian jails by that same Camp David regime.”
He pointed out “the perpetrators of torture and killings that took place in the prison known as ‘Scorpio’ (the Tora prison complex) and other jails and prisons have not been held accountable for their crimes. As a result, this only encouraged further repression and organized state terror on the part of the generals.”
The steadfastness of political prisoners in the jails of the Arab reactionary, dictatorial regimes stems from the deep and absolute conviction and reality in the interdependence and linking of the struggle of the national and social movements in the Arab world with the struggle of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian prisoners, which is the spearhead of the liberation cause,” said Khatib. “The crimes perpetrated by the Camp David regime against the poor and the oppressed in Egypt cannot be separated from the crimes of the Zionist enemy and imperialist powers in the world, because of the Egyptian state’s dependence on these same imperialist forces. These powers see these regimes as a tool to destroy popular movements in order to further plunder and steal the resources of the Arab peoples.”
He called on activists and friends of the Samidoun Network internationally to stand with political prisoners in Egyptian jails and advocate and organize against the executions while working for the release of all Egyptian prisoners.
In Hebron, Israel Removes the Last Restraint on Its Settlers’ Reign of Terror
By Jonathan Cook | The National | February 13, 2019
You might imagine that a report by a multinational observer force documenting a 20-year reign of terror by Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers against Palestinians, in a city under occupation, would provoke condemnation from European and US politicians.
But you would be wrong. The leaking in December of the report on conditions in the city of Hebron, home to 200,000 Palestinians, barely caused a ripple.
About 40,000 separate cases of abuse had been quietly recorded since 1997 by dozens of monitors from Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Italy and Turkey. Some incidents constituted war crimes.
Exposure of the confidential report has now provided the pretext for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to expel the international observers. He shuttered their mission in Hebron this month, in apparent violation of Israel’s obligations under the 25-year-old Oslo peace accords.
Israel hopes once again to draw a veil over its violent colonisation of the heart of the West Bank’s largest Palestinian city. The process of clearing tens of thousands of inhabitants from central Hebron is already well advanced.
Any chance of rousing the international community into even minimal protest was stamped out by the US last week. It blocked a draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council expressing “regret” at Israel’s decision, and on Friday added that ending the mandate of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) was an “internal matter” for Israel.
The TIPH was established in 1997 after a diplomatic protocol split the city into two zones, controlled separately by Israel and a Palestinian Authority created by the Oslo accords.
The “temporary” in its name was a reference to the expected five-year duration of the Oslo process. The need for TIPH, most assumed, would vanish when Israel ended the occupation and a Palestinian state was built in its place.
While Oslo put the PA formally in charge of densely populated regions of the occupied territories, Israel was effectively given a free hand in Hebron to entrench its belligerent hold on Palestinian life.
Several hundred extremist Jewish settlers have gradually expanded their illegal enclave in the city centre, backed by more than 1,000 Israeli soldiers. Many Palestinian residents have been forced out while the rest are all but imprisoned in their homes.
TIPH faced an impossible task from the outset: to “maintain normal life” for Hebron’s Palestinians in the face of Israel’s structural violence.
Until the report was leaked, its documentation of Israel’s takeover of Hebron and the settlers’ violent attacks had remained private, shared only among the states participating in the task force.
However, the presence of observers did curb the settlers’ worst excesses, helping Palestinian children get to school unharmed and allowing their parents to venture out to work and shop. That assistance is now at an end.
Hebron has been a magnet for extremist settlers because it includes a site revered in Judaism: the reputed burial plot of Abraham, father to the three main monotheistic religions.
But to the settlers’ disgruntlement, Hebron became central to Muslim worship centuries ago, with the Ibrahimi mosque established at the site.
Israel’s policy has been gradually to prise away the Palestinians’ hold on the mosque, as well the urban space around it. Half of the building has been restricted to Jewish prayer, but in practice the entire site is under Israeli military control.
As the TIPH report notes, Palestinian Muslims must now pass through several checkpoints to reach the mosque and are subjected to invasive body searches. The muezzin’s call to prayer is regularly silenced to avoid disturbing Jews.
Faced with these pressures, according to TIPH, the number of Palestinians praying there has dropped by half over the past 15 years.
In Hebron, as at Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, a Muslim holy site is treated solely as an obstacle – one that must be removed so that Israel can assert exclusive sovereignty over all of the Palestinians’ former homeland.
A forerunner of TIPH was set up in 1994, shortly after Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli army doctor, entered the Ibrahimi mosque and shot more than 150 Muslims at prayer, killing 29. Israeli soldiers aided Goldstein, inadvertently or otherwise, by barring the worshippers’ escape while they were being sprayed with bullets.
The massacre should have provided the opportunity for Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s prime minister of the time, to banish Hebron’s settlers and ensure the Oslo process remained on track. Instead he put the Palestinian population under prolonged curfew.
That curfew never really ended. It became the basis of an apartheid policy that has endlessly indulged Jewish settlers as they harass and abuse their Palestinian neighbours.
Israel’s hope is that most will get the message and leave.
With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in power for a decade, more settlers are moving in, driving out Palestinians. Today Hebron’s old market, once the commercial hub of the southern West Bank, is a ghost town, and Palestinians are too terrified to enter large sections of their own city.
TIPH’s report concluded that, far from guaranteeing “normal life”, Israel had made Hebron more divided and dangerous for Palestinians than ever before.
In 2016 another army medic, Elor Azaria, used his rifle to shoot in the head a prone and badly wounded Palestinian youth. Unlike Goldstein’s massacre, the incident was caught on video.
Israelis barely cared until Azaria was arrested. Then large sections of the public, joined by politicians, rallied to his cause, hailing him a hero.
Despite doing very little publicly, TIPH’s presence in Hebron had served as some kind of restraint on the settlers and soldiers. Now the fear is that there will be more Azarias.
Palestinians rightly suspect that the expulsion of the observer force is the latest move in efforts by Israel and the US to weaken mechanisms for protecting Palestinian human rights.
Mr Netanyahu has incited against local and international human rights organisations constantly, accusing them of being foreign agents and making it ever harder for them to operate effectively.
And last year US President Donald Trump cut all aid to UNRWA, the United Nations’ refugee agency, which plays a vital role in caring for Palestinians and upholding their right to return to their former lands.
Not only are the institutions Palestinians rely on for support being dismembered but so now are the organisations that record the crimes Israel has been committing.
That, Israel hopes, will ensure that an international observer post which has long had no teeth will soon will soon lose its sight too as Israel begins a process of annexing the most prized areas of the West Bank – with Hebron top of the list.
15 Years in Prison for Clicking on Terrorist Propaganda Even Once – New UK Law
Sputnik – February 13, 2019
Upon the adoption of a new legislation, Home Secretary Sajid Javid said that the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act “gives the police the powers they need to disrupt plots and punish those who seek to do us harm.”
The Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 has received Royal Assent on 12 February, making the bill an Act of Parliament.
The act makes provision in relation to terrorism, enabling persons at ports and borders to be questioned for national security and updating the offence of obtaining information likely to be useful to a terrorist to cover material that is only viewed or streamed, rather than downloaded to form a permanent record.
The act sees to an increase to the maximum penalty for certain preparatory terrorism offences to 15 years’ imprisonment.
The UK government has been criticized by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy, Joe Cannataci, back in 2018. The inspector argued following his visit in the UK, that it was concerning that accessing propaganda “on three or more different ccasions” was viewed as an offence. Cannataci called the approach straying towards “thought crime.”
The three-click benchmark has been removed in the new bill and now even a single tap on ‘terrorist material’ could lead to years in prison. Exemption is provided for journalists, academic researchers or people who had “no reason to believe” they were accessing terrorist propaganda.
The Bill has also provided for a launch of an independent review of Prevent, the much criticized government’s strategy that aims to support persons vulnerable to radicalisation.
British intelligence services were condemned in 2018 for failing to properly monitor individuals of interest — later to be involved in terrorist activity — not under active investigation at the moment but in the peripheries of more than one investigation.
In 2017, the United Kingdom suffered five terrorist attacks in Westminster, the Manchester Arena, London Bridge, Finsbury Park and Parsons Green, with 36 people losing their lives and dozens injured.
Israeli Army Admits the Palestinian Motorcyclist They Killed Had No Explosives
IMEMC News – February 11, 2019
Following an investigation by the Israeli military into the killing of a Palestinian motorcycle rider on February 5th, and the severe wounding of his passenger, the military was forced to admit that their initial claim that the young man had explosives was a false claim.
Abdullah Faisal Omar Tawalba, 19, was shot and killed by Israeli forces on February 5th, 2019, at an Israeli military checkpoint in Jenin, in the northern part of the West Bank.
His passenger, Omar Ahmad Hanana, 15, was also shot by the Israeli military and badly injured, but is in stable condition at the Jenin Governmental Hospital run by the Palestinian Authority.
Initially, the Israeli military reported to the media that the young men had approached the checkpoint and “tried to plant explosives”.
An investigation by Israeli military police found no evidence whatsoever of any explosives of any kind.
The soldiers claimed that they “heard an explosion,” and were sure “an explosive was thrown at the roadblock, before they opened fire.”
The checkpoint where Abdullah was killed by the soldiers is located near the entrance of the al-Jalama village, northeast of Jenin in northern West Bank. The army’s initial statement claimed that Palestinians were riding a motor cycle and “hurled an explosive at the soldiers”.
There were no injuries of any soldiers.
Mahmoud Sa’adi, the director of the Emergency Department of the Palestinian Red Crescent in Jenin, said the slain Palestinian has been identified as Abdullah Faisal Omar Tawalba, 19, from the al-Jalama village, and added that Omar Ahmad Hanana, 15, was injured but is in a stable condition.
Palestinian medical sources said the medics moved the slain Palestinian, and the wounded teen, to Jenin Governmental Hospital.
They added that Tawalba was shot with several live rounds in the head and legs.
Man’s testicles tasered during horrific police arrest
RT | February 10, 2019
Disturbing bodycam video shows Arizona cops tasering a man 11 times, including on the testicles, as his horrified family scream for them to stop. The police are now being sued for “excessive force and torture.”
The nightmare tasering began when Glendale police officers approached a vehicle for a signal turn violation in July 2017. Johnny Wheatcroft was in the front passenger seat, while his wife Anya Chapman and their 11 and six-year-old sons sat in the back. A friend of the family was driving.
Officers Matt Schneider and Mark Lindsey asked Wheatcroft for his ID and he inquired why he had to show it, as he was not driving the vehicle. Police allege he went to stuff something in his backpack, and, after pressing the taser against his arm and telling him to “relax,” Schneider twisted Wheatcroft’s arm behind his back and pulled him from the car while still restrained by his seat belt.
The officer began tasering him when he was half out of the vehicle, before they pulled him to the ground and continued to tase him. Even after Wheatcroft was dragged on the ground towards the back of the car, his feet remained entangled in the seat belt. His older son leaned into the front seat to open the belt to free his father, prompting Schneider to shout at him, causing the boy to burst into tears.
Glendale police said in a statement that Wheatcroft “exhibited verbal non-compliance by refusing to identify himself and failed to obey the officer’s instructions.” Chapman reportedly swung a bag of bottles at Lindsey’s head during the incident, although this can’t be seen clearly in the video.
Horrifyingly, Schneider is next seen pulling Wheatcroft’s shorts down and placing the taser on the handcuffed man’s testicles. The lawsuit filed by the couple reports Schneider tased his testicles and perineum. He then placed the taser on his penis and said, “You want it again? Shut your mouth. I’m done f*cking around with you.”
Another officer held a handgun to his head and Wheatcroft was kicked in the groin.
According to the suit and the police’s own admission, the officers used a “drive stun” method, in which the taser is pressed against a person before being fired. Glendale police also released a 30 second CCTV video of the incident taken from a distance.
The pair were arrested and charged with aggravated assault and physically resisting arrest. They were both in jail for months as they couldn’t afford bail before Chapman pled guilty to a lesser charge so she could be released to look after her children.
Wheatcroft’s charges were dismissed by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office after prosecutors saw the bodycam video, which his lawyers released to media outlets.
Schneider was suspended for three days after the incident, Glendale police said.
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Panama: A Grieving People Recalls 30 Years of the US Invasion
teleSUR | December 20, 2019
For the first time over the last 30 years, Panamanian authorities agreed to declare “National Day of Mourning” on December 20, which is the date on which the United States invaded Panama in 1989.
“The government acknowledges declaring December 20 as a day of national mourning to honor Panamanians and all the innocents who lost their lives and defended our territory’s integrity,” President Laurentino Cortizo tweeted on Wednesday.
On Dec. 20, 1989, President George H.W. Bush ordered “Operation Just Cause” and deployed some 26,000 soldiers to overthrow General Manuel Antonio Noriega.
Until then, he had been one of the most faithful collaborators of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Noriega fueled the Bush administration’s hostility when he requested the closure of “The School of the Americas,” where the U.S. had trained thousands of Latin American military since 1946. Upon losing Washington’s support, however, the U.S. Department of Justice accused him of drug trafficking. … continue
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