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Zionism’s Violent Legacy

By Donald Neff | Washington Report On Middle East Affairs | January 1996

On January 4, 1948, Jewish terrorists drove a truck loaded with explosives into the center of the all Arab city of Jaffa and detonated it, killing 26 and wounding around 100 Palestinian men, women and children.[1] The attack was the work of the Irgun Zvai Leumi – the “National Military Organization,” also known by the Hebrew letters Etzel – the largest Jewish terrorist group in Palestine. The Irgun was headed by Revisionist Zionist Menachem Begin and had been killing and maiming Arabs, Britons and even Jews for the previous ten years in its efforts to establish a Jewish state.

This terror campaign meant that at the core of Revisionist Zionism there existed a philosophical embrace of violence. It was this legacy of violence that contributed to the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on November 4, 1995.

The Irgun was not the only Jewish terrorist group but it was the most active in causing indiscriminate terror in pre-Israel Palestine. Up to the time of the Jaffa attack, its most spectacular feat had been the July 22, 1946, blowing up of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, with the killing of 91 people – 41 Arabs, 28 Britons and 17 Jews.[2]

The other major Jewish terrorist group operating in Palestine in the 1940s was the Lohamei Herut Israel – “Fighters for the Freedom of Israel,” Lehi in the Hebrew acronym – also known as the Stern Gang after its fanatical founder Avraham Stern. Two of its more spectacular outrages included the assassination of British Colonial Secretary Lord Moyne in Cairo on November 6, 1944, and the assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden in Jerusalem on September 17, 1948.[3]

Both groups collaborated in the massacre at Deir Yassin, in which some 254 Palestinian men, women and children were slain on April 9, 1948. Palestinian survivors were driven like ancient slaves through the streets of Jerusalem by the celebrating terrorists.[4]

Yitzhak Shamir was one of the three leaders of Lehi who made the decision to assassinate Moyne and Bernadotte. Both he and Begin later became prime ministers and ruled Israel for a total of 13 years between 1977 and 1992. They were both leaders of Revisionist Zionism, that messianic group of ultranationalists founded by Vladimir Zeev Jabotinsky in the 1920s. He prophesied that it would take an “iron wall of Jewish bayonets” to gain a homeland among the Arabs in Palestine.[5] His followers took his slogan literally.

Begin and the Revisionists were heartily hated by the mainline Zionists led by David Ben-Gurion. He routinely referred to Begin as a Nazi and compared him to Hitler. In a famous letter to The New York Times in 1948, Albert Einstein called the Irgun “a terrorist, rightwing, chauvinist organization” that stood for “ultranationalism, religious mysticism and racial superiority.”[6] He opposed Begin’s visit to the United States in 1949 because Begin and his movement amounted to “a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a ‘leader state’ is the goal,” adding:

The IZL [Irgun] and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window smashing, and widespread robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute.

Ben-Gurion considered the Revisionists so threatening that shortly after he proclaimed establishment of Israel on May 14, 1948, he demanded that the Jewish terrorist organizations disband. In defiance, Begin sought to import a huge shipment of weapons aboard a ship named Altalena, Jabotinsky’s nom de plume.[7]

The ship was a war surplus US tank landing craft and had been donated to the Irgun by Hillel Kook’s Hebrew Committee for National Liberation, an American organization made up of Jewish-American supporters of the Irgun.[8] Even in those days it was Jewish Americans who were the main source of funds for Zionism. While few of them emigrated to Israel, Jewish Americans were generous in financing the Zionist enterprise. As in Israel, they were split between mainstream Zionism and Revisionism. One of the best known Revisionists was Ben Hecht, the American newsman and playwright. After one of the Irgun’s terrorist acts, he wrote:[9]

The Jews of America are for you. You are their champions … Every time you blow up a British arsenal, or wreck a British jail, or send a British railroad train sky high, or rob a British bank, or let go with your guns and bombs at British betrayers and invaders of your homeland, the Jews of America make a little holiday in their hearts.

The Altalena was loaded with $5 million worth of arms, including 5,000 British Lee Enfield rifles, more than three million rounds of ammunition, 250 Bren guns, 250 Sten guns, 150 German Spandau machine guns, 50 mortars and 5,000 shells as well as 940 Jewish volunteers. Ben-Gurion reacted with fury, ordering the ship sunk in Tel Aviv harbor. Shell fire by the new nation’s armed forces set the Altalena afire, killing 14 Jews and wounding 69. Two regular army men were killed and six wounded during the fighting.[10] Begin had been aboard but escaped injury. Later that night he railed against Ben-Gurion as “a crazy dictator” and the cabinet as “a government of criminal tyrants, traitors and fratricides.”[11]

Ben-Gurion’s deputy commander in the Altalena affair was Yitzhak Rabin, the same man who as prime minister was assassinated by one of the spiritual heirs of Menachem Begin’s Irgun terrorist group. All his life, and especially in his last years, Rabin had opposed Jewish-Americans and their radical allies in Israel who continued to embrace the philosophy of the Irgun and who fought against the peace process, thereby earning their enduring hatred.

Thus at the heart of the Jewish state there has been a long and violent struggle between mainline Zionists and Revisionists that continues today. Despite cries after Rabin’s assassination that it was unknown for Jew to kill Jew, intramural hatred and occasional violence have marked relations between Zionism’s competing groups.

The core of that conflict, one that continues to divide Israel and its American supporters as well, lies in the different philosophies of David Ben-Gurion and Vladimir Jabotinsky. Both were from Eastern Europe, born in the 1880s, and both sought an exclusivist Jewish state. But while Ben-Gurion was pragmatic and secular, Jabotinsky was impatient and messianic, a leader who glorified in the heroic trappings of fascism. Ben-Gurion was usually willing to take less now to get more later, and thus he was content to accept partition of Palestine as a necessary stepping stone toward a larger Jewish state. Jabotinsky, on the other hand, impatiently preached the right of Jews not only to all of Palestine but to “both sides of the Jordan,” meaning the combined area of Jordan and Palestine, or as he called it, Eretz Yisrael, the ancient land of Israel.[12]

Ben-Gurion was a gruff realist who carefully calculated his moves with a wary eye toward the interests of the great European powers and the United States. Time magazine, in a profile of Ben-Gurion in August 1948, described him as “premier and defense minister, labor leader and philosopher, hardheaded, unsociable and abrupt politician, a prophet who carries a gun.[13] Wrote his biographer, Michael Bar-Zohar: “Obstinacy and total dedication to a single objective were the most characteristic traits of David Ben-Gurion.”[14]

Jabotinsky, by contrast, was flamboyant and a devoted admirer of Italy’s fascist leader Benito Mussolini. His disciple, Menachem Begin, described him as “a speaker, a writer, a philosopher, a statesman, a soldier, a linguist … But to those of us who were his pupils, he was not only their teacher, but also the bearer of their hope.” Begin’s biographer, Eric Silver, added: “There was a darker side to [Jabotinsky’s] philosophy: blood, fire and steel, the supremacy of the leader, discipline and ceremony, the manipulation of the masses, racial exclusivity as the heart of the nation.[15] One of Jabotinsky’s slogans was: “We shall create, with sweat and blood, a race of men, strong, brave and cruel.”[16]

Jabotinsky died in 1940, and it was Menachem Begin who refined his wild nationalism into practical political action. Begin concluded: “The world does not pity the slaughtered. It only respects those who fight.” He turned Descartes’ famous dictum around, saying: “We fight, therefore we exist.”[17] Central to Begin’s outlook was the concept of the “fighting Jew.” As he wrote:[18]

Out of blood and fire and tears and ashes, a new specimen of human being was born, a specimen completely unknown to the world for over 1,800 years, the “FIGHTING JEW.” It is axiomatic that those who fight have to hate …. We had to hate first and foremost, the horrifying, age-old, inexcusable utter defenselessness of our Jewish people, wandering through millennia, through a cruel world, to the majority of whose inhabitants the defenselessness of the Jews was a standing invitation to massacre them.

From these early leaders of Zionism (Ben-Gurion died in 1973 and Begin in 1992) have emerged their direct descendants in the Israeli political spectrum. Rabin and his successor, Shimon Peres, were both protégés of Ben-Gurion, and have carried on his mainstream secular Zionism. On Jabotinsky’s and Begin’s side, the followers have been Yitzhak Shamir, Ariel Sharon and, now, Benjamin Netanyahu, the current leader of the Likud.

Rabin’s Strategy

While the two major factions of Zionism disagree on tactics, their ultimate aim of maintaining a Jewish state free of non-Jews was the same. Rabin explained his strategy shortly before his death during an interview with Rowland Evans and Robert Novak:[19]

I believe that dreams of Jews for two thousand years to return to Zion were to build a Jewish state and not a binational state. Therefore I don’t want to annex the 2.2 million Palestinians who are a different entity from us – politically, religiously, nationally – against their will to become Israelis. Therefore I see peaceful coexistence between Israel as a Jewish state – not all over the land of Israel, on most of it, its capital the united Jerusalem, its security border the Jordan River – next to it a Palestinian entity, less than a state, that runs the life of the Palestinians. It is not ruled by Israel. It is ruled by the Palestinians. This is my goal not to return to the pre-Six-Day-War lines, but to create two entities. I want a separation between Israel and the Palestinians who reside in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and they will be a different entity that rules itself.

In the Revisionist’s vocabulary, the goal was the same, if more expansionist and expressed in more direct and pugnacious words. Former Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, a leading spokesman of Zionism’s right wing, commented in 1993: “Our forefathers did not come here in order to build a democracy but to build a Jewish state.”[20]

The occupation of all of Palestine, including Jerusalem, in the 1967 war and the coming to power a decade later of Menachem Begin gave a profound boost to Revisionism and its radical philosophy. During this period there arose the firebrand Meir Kahane, a Brooklyn-born rabbi who openly espoused the removal of the Palestinians from all of Palestine. Under the influence of his fiery rhetoric, thousands of Orthodox Jewish Americans were encouraged to emigrate to Israel as settlers on occupied Palestinian land, adding to the radicalization of Israeli politics. After Kahane’s assassination in New York in 1990 by an Arab, New York Times correspondent John Kifner reported that Kahane had been successful in the sense that many of his ideas “had crept into the mainstream” in Israel.

Dr. Ehud Sprinzak, an Israeli expert on the far right in Israel, observed: “Where [Kahane] has succeeded is in changing the thinking of many Israelis toward anti-Arab feelings and violence. He forced the more respectable parties to change. In the 1970s Kahane was in the political wilderness, but in the 1980s the center had moved toward Kahane.” Observed the Jewish Telegraph Agency : “Rabbi Kahane could die satisfied that his message has impacted deeply and widely throughout Israeli society.”[21]

By the mid-1990s, even Kahane’s violent ideas seemed somewhat mild in the context of the radicalized politics of Israel. A new strain of religious extremism has been added to the Revisionist ranks. This became obvious on February 25, 1994, when Brooklyn-born Dr. Baruch Goldstein, a Kahane disciple, walked into the Ibrahim mosque, called the Cave of Machpela by Jews, in Hebron and killed 29 and wounded upwards of 150 Palestinian worshippers.[22] While Rabin and labor Zionists condemned him, Goldstein became a hero for Revisionist Zionists. A shrine was made of his grave and a group of Revisionists grew up called “Goldsteiners.” They are dedicated to the “sublime ideals of Goldstein” and urge “all true Jews to follow his footsteps.”[23]

Baruch Goldstein wore a yellow Star of David with the German word for “Jew” to show his ardent concern for the “lessons of the Holocaust” and its meaning for all Jews. Today many hardline Zionists revere this mass murderer of Palestinians as a Jewish hero and martyr.

While the Revisionists had always had an element of religious messianism, the most radical of their current heirs come from ultrareligious Orthodox Jews who are less consumed by politics than religion.[24] They believe they are God’s messengers. Thus Rabin’s assassin, Yigal Amir, cited the authority of God to explain the murder.

This is a sea change in the mindset – if not the violence – of the traditional Revisionists. For instance, in 1943 Yitzhak Shamir ordered the assassination of one of his closest Sternist friends, but offered an entirely different rationale that had nothing to do with God. Mainly the motive stemmed from political and tactical reasons. Shamir wrote in his memoirs, In the Final Analysis, that Stern commander Eliyahu Giladi had become “strange and wild” and had wanted to shoot at crowds of Jews and urged the assassination of David Ben-Gurion, acts that would have been highly unpopular. Wrote Shamir: “I was afraid that he had gone completely crazy. I knew that I had to take a fateful decision, and I didn’t evade it.”[25] Giladi was fatally shot in the back on a beach south of Tel Aviv and his killer was never found.[26]

The new Revisionists have now expanded the right to kill claimed by the early Revisionists in the name of nationalism to include a divine right. In the end, they are less interested in foreign and domestic affairs than in justifying man’s acts to God. It is a powerful and inflammatory mix of nationalism and religion that is almost certain to lead to more violence unless Israel is able to look into its own soul.

Recommended Reading

  • Bar-Zohar, Michael, Ben-Gurion: A Biography, New York: Delacorte, 1978. Begin, Menachem, The Revolt, Los Angeles: Nash, 1972. Bell, J. Bowyer, ‘/error Out of Zion, New York: St. Martin’s, 1977. Ben-Gurion, David, Israel: A Personal History, New York: Funk & Wagnalls, Inc., 1971.
  • Bethell, Nicholas, The Palestine Triangle: The Struggle for the Holy Land, 1935-48, New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1979.
  • Brenner, Lenni, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, Westport, Conn.: Lawrence Hill, 1983.
  • Brenner, Lenni, The Iron Wall: Zionist Revisionism from Jabotinsky to Shamir, London: Zed Books, 1984.
  • Halsell, Grace, Prophesy and Politics: Militant Evangelists on the Road to Nuclear War, Westport, Conn.: Lawrence Hill, 1986.
  • Khalidi, Walid (ed.), Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of the Palestinians 1876-1948, Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1984.
  • Khalidi, Walid, From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem until 1948, Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, second printing, 1987.
  • Marion, Kati, A Death in Jerusalem, New York: Pantheon, 1994.
  • Nakhleh, Issa, Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem (2 vols.), New York: Intercontinental, 1991.
  • Palumbo, Michael, The Palestinian Catastrophe: The 1948 Expulsion of a People from their Homeland, Boston: Faber and Faber, 1987.
  • Rubinstein, Ammon, The Zionist Dream Revisited, New York: Schocken, 1984.
  • Sachar, Howard M., A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, Tel Aviv: Steimatzky’s Agency, 1976.
  • Silver, Eric, Begin: The Haunted Prophet, New York: Random House, 1984.
  • Tillman, Seth, The United States in the Middle East: Interests and Obstacles, Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1982.

Notes

[1] Sam Pope Brewer, New York Times, Jan. 5, 1948, and Khalidi, Before Their Diaspora, p. 316. Also see Palumbo, The Palestinian Catastrophe, pp. 83-4. Initial reports put the death toll at 34.
[2] Bethell, The Palestine Triangle, p. 263; Sachar, A History of Israel, p. 267. Details on the bombing and reaction of British officials are in Nakhleh, Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem, pp. 269-70.
[3] Bethell, Palestine Triangle, pp. 181-87, 263; Sachar, A History of Israel, p. 267; Marion, A Death in Jerusalem, p. 208.
[4] Khalidi, From Haven to Conquest, pp. 761-78; Silver, Begin, pp. 88-96; Nakhleh, Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem, pp. 271-72.
[5] Silver, Begin, p. 12.
[6] New York Times, Nov. 27, 1948.
[7] Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion, p. 175.
[8] Silver, Begin, p. 98.
[9] Bethell, The Palestine Triangle, pp. 308-9. An interview reflecting Hecht’s views appeared in The New York Times, May 28, 1947.
[10] Silver, Begin, p. 108.
[11] Silver, Begin, p. 108.
[12] In Hebrew, Eretz Yisrael means the “Land of Israel,” a phrase invested with strong nationalist feelings.
[13] Time, August 16, 1948.
[14] Bar-Zohar, Ben Gurian, pp. 77, xvii.
[15] Silver, Begin, p. 11.
[16] Elfi Pallis, “The Likud Party: A Primer,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Winter 1992, p. 45.
[17] Begin, The Revolt, pp. 36, 46. Also see Tillman, The United States in the Middle East, p. 20.
[18] Begin, The Revolt, pp. xi-xii. Also see Elfi Pallis, “The Likud Party: A Primer,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Winter 1992, p. 45.
[19] Evans and Novak, CNN, Oct. 1, 1995.
[20] Menachem Shalev, Forward, May 21, 1339.
[21] John Kifner, New York Times, Nov. 11, 1990.
[22] David Hoffman, Washington Post, Feb. 28, 1994.
[23] Khalid M. Amayreh, “Six Months On,” Middle East International, Sept. 9, 1994.
[24] Halsell, Prophecy and Politics, p. 75, provides an excellent analysis of the extremist beliefs of Jabotinsky and his followers and their alliance with American fundamentalist Christians such as Jerry Falwell, leader of the Moral Ml\iority.
[25] Clyde Haberman, New York Times, Jan. 15, 1994.
[26] Glenn Frankel, Washington Post, Nov. 6, 1995.

From The Journal of Historical Review, Jan.-Feb. 1996 (Vol. 16, No. 1), pages 42-45. This item is reprinted from the January 1996 issue of The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (Washington, DC).

About the Author

Donald Neff is an American journalist and author. For 16 years he worked for Time magazine, including a period as its Bureau Chief in Israel. He also worked for the Washington Star daily newspaper. He is the author of Fallen Pillars: U.S. Policy Towards Palestine and Israel Since 1945 (1995), as well as of the 1988 trilogy, Warriors at Suez: Eisenhower Takes America Into the Middle East in 1956, Warriors for Jerusalem: The Six Days that Changed the Middle East, and Warriors Against Israel: America Comes to the Rescue.

November 19, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

5th Baltimore cop cleared of all charges relating to death of Freddie Gray

RT | November 17, 2017

Another police officer has been cleared of all administrative charges connected to the 2015 arrest and death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland. Protests over the death escalated into a riot and prompted questions about racist policing.

Lieutenant Brian Rice was found not guilty by a three-member panel of law enforcement officers on Friday, the Baltimore Sun reports. Rice, who placed Gray in the back of a police van following his arrest, faced 10 administrative charges. He had previously been acquitted of manslaughter.

Gray was arrested on April 12, 2015 for possession of an illegal switchblade. He was placed in a van with handcuffs and leg shackles on, but was not restrained by a seat belt. According to police, when officers checked on the 25-year-old, he was unconscious and had suffered severe spinal cord injuries, which led to his death a week later. Gray’s death was ruled a homicide by a medical examiner and caused a wave of violent protests in Baltimore.

Six officers involved in the arrest later faced charges including manslaughter and second-degree murder. After one mistrial and two acquittals, state attorney Marilyn Mosby dropped all the charges. Five of the officers then faced an internal disciplinary hearing, which began on October 30.

Rice’s acquittal comes just one week after Baltimore PD Officer Caesar Goodson Jr., who drove the van, was acquitted of 21 administrative charges.

Two of the officers chose not to fight the charges and are now back at work with Baltimore Police Department. The rest have been acquitted, so far. Sergeant Alicia White is still facing a disciplinary hearing, scheduled for December 5.

A 2015 investigation of the Baltimore PD by the Department of Justice found the police were conducting unconstitutional stops, searches and arrests disproportionately targeting African-Americans, using excessive force, and retaliating against individuals for engaging in constitutionally protected expression. The city and the DOJ reached a settlement on police reform in January this year.

Read more:

No charges for police officers in Freddie Gray case – Justice Department

November 18, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

Palestine: Saudi Arabia, Egypt using Rafah crossing to pressure us

MEMO | November 17, 2017

The Rafah crossing between the besieged Gaza Strip and Egypt is being used a tool to pressure Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to enter into US-backed peace talks with Israel, a Palestinian Authority official has said.

“The Rafah crossing has become a tool that Egypt and Saudi Arabia use to pressure Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to accept the entry into a new round of US-backed negotiations with Israel,” the PA official said, warning that “the negotiations could reach results that may affect the rights of the Palestinians.”

According to the Cairo agreement which was signed on 12 October, Egypt agreed with Fatah and Hamas to reopen the Rafah border crossing last Tuesday, but the official said that “Saudi Arabia seemed to have pressured Egypt to retreat until the PA approves the two-state solution deal.”

The official described the exploiting of the only humanitarian crossing for Gaza’s residents as “suspicious”.

“They [Arab countries] are using the crossing to strengthen their ties with the US and Israel” he added.

Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza for a decade, with tight restrictions in place on the movement of people and goods at its crossings, citing the need to control Hamas and stop Islamic groups from obtaining weapons or materials that could be used against Tel Aviv. Egypt has supported the blockade by closing the Rafah crossing, leaving Palestinian in Gaza no access to the outside world.

Gaza’s two million residents suffer from worsening humanitarian conditions, with only a few hours of power a day and a lack of clean water. Control of the Rafah crossing at Gaza’s southern border has long been a sticking point between the two Palestinian factions, and between Egypt and the Palestinians in Gaza for whom the crossing represents a vital gateway to the outside world.

November 17, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Saudi-led coalition air raid puts Yemen’s Sana’a airport out of service

MEMO | November 14, 2017

An air raid by the Saudi-led military coalition put the Ansarullah-controlled Yemeni airport in the capital Sana’a out of service today, jeopardising relief shipments to a country on the brink of famine, the state news agency SABA reported.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Ansarullah movement said last week it had closed all air, land and seaports in Yemen to stem what it said was the flow of arms to the Ansarullah from Iran.

Air raids destroyed radio navigation station for aircraft, civil aviation authorities told SABA, which is controlled by Ansarullah.

Air traffic in Sana’a’s airport is currently restricted to flights carrying humanitarian aid sent by the United Nations and other international organisations.

The Ansarullah control most of the north, including Sana’a and its international airport, while the Saudi-led coalition dominates the airspace. Any reopening would need an agreement between the two sides, which blame each other for Yemen’s humanitarian disaster.

The top UN aid official in Yemen called on the Saudi-led coalition today to open all Yemen’s sea ports urgently, saying it risked damaging the fight against cholera and hunger, with seven million already in “famine-like conditions”.

Millions of lives were at risk because of the blockade, UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick, said to reporters in Geneva by telephone from Amman. The Saudi-led coalition was not immediately available for comment.

November 15, 2017 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

The innocence of those who fear and the guilt of those who hate

Israeli security forces brutally arrest Palestinian protesters in West Bank [Issam Rimawi – Anadolu Agency]
Dr Samah Jabr| MEMO | November 14, 2017

In our stressful state of occupation, there is, among other ills, an essentialist view of Israeli and Palestinian characteristics. In the many public talks that I have given to Westerners about the violation of the rights of Palestinians, one question almost invariably comes up: “What about the fears of the Israelis?” Similarly, how many times have we heard Western media and even the President of the United States speak of “Palestinian hatred”? These words take for granted the guilt of those who “hate” and the innocence of those who “fear”. However, the reality is that we cannot understand concerns regarding the fears of the Israelis without dissecting the accusations of “Palestinian hatred”.

One problem in this dichotomy is its assumption of a fixed, static state, as if the fears of the Israelis and the hatred of the Palestinians are inborn, permanent traits with no variation among group members. The presumption of eternal and unanimous characteristics serves to maintain the oppressive relationship between the occupier and the occupied and to obstruct political change. To find a way out, the essentialism must be contextualised and deconstructed.

Let us begin by clarifying the disproportionality of the fears of the Israelis with regard to the realistic harm that Palestinians have brought upon them. Israel has long had one of the most powerful armies in the world; it gives “lessons in security” to other nations and exports arms to them for the purpose of oppressing others. Moreover, in order to foster its violent occupation and suppress the natural reflexive resistance on the part of the natives of Palestine, Israel has caged unarmed Palestinians behind walls and appointed colluding Palestinians to maintain order and silence within these cages. By means of long-term and sophisticated strategies to damage Palestinian collective identity, Israel has infiltrated every Palestinian neighbourhood with spies and collaborators. In every previous confrontation, the number of Palestinian casualties has been 100 times the number of Israeli casualties. Thousands of Palestinians are in Israeli prisons, not the other way around; thousands of Palestinian, not Israeli, homes have been demolished by Israeli bulldozers; and yet it is the unarmed and stateless Palestinians who are asked to be considerate of Israeli fears.

In view of these facts, it is unjust and insulting when the question of “Israeli fears” is addressed to a Palestinian, insofar as the question itself reveals deep denial of the longstanding history of Israeli violence. The plea for empathy and understanding, when addressed to the victims of Israeli occupation, is absurd, yet the expectation is that Palestinians must demonstrate understanding and offer reassurance for their oppressors’ fears. The failure to do so is taken as further evidence of “Palestinian hatred” and confirmation that the Israelis are right to fear them.

I understand very well the traumatic fears caused by the history of the Jews in Europe during the 20th and previous centuries, but why should I, a Palestinian, be called upon to soothe these past fears when I am busy with the traumatic present of occupied Palestine? How can I experience deep empathy for this historical European tragedy when the Israeli threats to my existence and security continue to upstage past events in demanding my urgent attention?

Furthermore, the fear of the Israelis is not simply innocent traumatic heritage; it is a suspect political instrument; a wicked manipulation justifying their cruel treatment of the Palestinians. The invocation of Israeli fears silences protest against the occupation, insisting that all Israelis are implicated in the occupation regardless of their individual hesitations about it. And more evil yet is the fact that this manipulated fear cannot be soothed until the Palestinians disappear completely.

The pretence of fear provides an excuse for crime and absolves “frightened” criminals of responsibility; it falsely attributes the responsibility to the “frightening” victims of the crime instead. Is this not what is implied by the misnomer “Islamophobia?” Why is prejudice and crime directed at Jews called anti-Semitism when prejudice and crime against Muslims — many of whom are also Semites — is not called anti-Muslim hate and a crime? It is called instead the minimising term “Islamophobia”, implying that the hate, racism and criminality of the perpetrator is justified because he or she suffers from anxiety and irrational fears about Islam.

To be fair, a degree of fear on the part of Israelis is appropriate; it’s the fear that a tiny proportion of their violence might come back to haunt them, rarely as rockets or a bombing, more often as a Palestinian youth may attempt to punish the Israelis by throwing a stone or pursuing an Israeli soldier with a screwdriver. These things may happen as long as the United Nations and the Palestinian leadership fail to hold the Israelis to account for their crimes.

Attributing fear to the Israelis recruits empathic identification with them, whereas attributing the degrading trait of hatred to the Palestinians provokes repulsion and aversion to them. While there is hatred for the state of Israel among Palestinians, this does not go beyond the adaptive and inevitable hatred that any oppressed and colonised group holds for the collective group that has perpetrated endless crimes against them. Palestinians do not hate Israelis as Jews but as participants in the system responsible for their political oppression. Palestinians are not born with hate in their hearts; hate develops as an appropriate reaction to the totality of the heinous experiences of life under occupation. The people of Palestine are not known for their anti-Semitism; they have welcomed pilgrims from Africa and refugees from Armenia. Many Muslim and Christian Palestinians were married to Jews living in Palestine before the occupation. Like any nation, though, the people of Palestine hate the theft of their land, the pain and the humiliation that the occupation has inflicted upon them. This is, surely, legitimate hate, serving the function of distinguishing harm from safety and motivating resistance to oppression rather than submission to despair.

To expect Palestinians to be free of hate or other negative feelings towards Israel is like expecting a raped woman to have empathy towards her rapist. This would be an example of Stockholm syndrome — a dissociation at best — and more psychologically dangerous than hate itself. This syndrome will eventually result in an internalisation of that hate which would then express itself destructively within the oppressed community.

What Israel actually fears is its own dark “Shadow,” its enormous but disowned and projected violence and hatred for the Palestinians.

It was not fear, but hatred that permitted Israel to commit massacres which evacuated Palestinian villages and towns by force, and which motivates soldiers to kill handcuffed prisoners and unconscious, wounded Palestinians. It is hatred that incites Jewish settlers to burn Palestinians alive and uproot the ancient olive trees of Palestine. Hate speech is articulated by Israeli soldiers who call Palestinians, “beasts on two legs”, “drugged cockroaches” and “crocodiles who want more meat.” This is hate speech which not only encourages hateful acts committed in the name of the occupation but also legitimises ethnic cleansing. Isn’t that what we must do with cockroaches; get rid of them?

Instead of blaming the Palestinians for their hatred and excusing the Israelis for their fear, a constructive move forward would be to help Israel to distinguish reality from fantasy. This would mean admitting Israeli’s own hatred, as well as its greed, and acknowledging that ending the heinous occupation is the only remedy for its fears.

November 14, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

The resumption of PA security coordination with Israel is no surprise

By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | November 14, 2017

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas is not one to miss an opportunity to collaborate with Israel. At sporadic intervals, the suspension of security coordination with Israel was implemented temporarily only when Palestinians were protesting over Israeli violence or, for example, surveillance at Al-Aqsa Mosque. Despite congratulatory statements regarding Abbas’s decision to suspend what he has called “sacred” coordination with the occupation authorities, there was still doubt over its implementation; there were even occasional comments that security coordination had resumed even as the PA was still congratulating itself over the “suspension”.

Last week, all doubts were dissipated as the PA confirmed that it had resumed security coordination with Israel two weeks earlier. In terms of accuracy, the time frame can be contested, given that reports as early as August had already confirmed such collaboration. In light of the reconciliation agreement between the PA and Hamas, it is thus ever more pertinent to question the underlying motives behind such a deal, which has the potential to open up Gaza to Israel.

According to comments on Press TV, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum declared the movement’s “surprise” at the announcement. Security coordination “is the equivalent of the greatest danger to the Palestinian people, its unity and its legitimate rights, including the right to resist the occupation,” he said. Barhoum also described the move as distorting “the reputation” of the Palestinian people, their struggles and history.

While Barhoum’s comments show an understanding of the implications, claiming to be surprised was surely an exaggeration. Had Gaza not been forced to seek a compromise with Fatah, it is possible that the current political scenario would not be defined by a reconciliation agreement, particularly one which so far is seeking to overturn the resistance with which Hamas has been identified and which sets the movement apart from other political factions due to being forced into situations necessitating defence in the enclave.

Within the same time frame of the security coordination announcement, senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzook also stated that responsibility for Palestinians in Gaza now rests entirely with the PA as a sign of credibility to eliminate internal division. The problem is that the emphasis on internal division is being isolated from the repercussions upon Palestinians. If the current trend continues, Palestinian leaders will be making the same mistakes as the international community by separating the political from the humanitarian, thus creating different levels of responsibility, visibility and accountability.

If the PA determines the course of the reconciliation agreement, security coordination will ultimately provide Israel with access to the Gaza Strip unless Hamas decides on an alternative course of action, which is to refute the entire facade of “unity” that has been shaped by Mahmoud Abbas. Coercion has been a primary factor influencing the reconciliation agreement, compounded with the international isolation of Gaza, its people and Hamas. Security coordination is another form of coercion which will determine additional levels of oppression for Palestinians, including those in Gaza.

For many years, Abbas has sought to maintain different forms of violence in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, using deprivation and security coordination respectively. Under such circumstances, Hamas will be in dire need of further evaluation and a different strategy.

Read Also: What prisoners mean to the Palestinian Authority

PA’s security coordination with Israel greatest threat to unity

November 14, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli occupation forces seize former prisoner, raid village

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – November 14, 2107

Israeli occupation forces seized at least 14 Palestinians throughout occupied Palestine in pre-dawn raids on Monday, 13 November, including former prisoner and long-term hunger striker Tareq Qa’adan, a prominent leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement.

Qa’adan, 45, was seized after a 1:30 am raid on his home in the town of Arrabeh, south of Jenin. Occupation forces ransacked his home and interrogated him on the spot before seizing him. He has spent over 10 years in Israeli prions in previous detentions – mostly imprisoned without charge or trial – and is related to many other current and former prisoners; his sister, Mona Qa’adan, is also a freed prisoner and prominent activist.

Khader Adnan, prominent former prisoner and long-term hunger striker, said that evidence indicates that the Israeli occupation intends to transfer Qa’adan to administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. He said that he is confident that imprisonment will not break Qa’adan’s will, and that “he adheres firmly to the defense of the Palestinian cause and homeland, even when the price is his freedom.”

The Islamic Jihad movement issued a statement on the detention of Qa’adan, saying that “this unjust detention…comes amid a wave of targeting and escalation by the occupation against the movement and our steadfast people…Our people have known him as a solid national leader who defends the rights of his people and the fundamentals of his cause. He is known for his positive and strong relationships with all political and national forces and their leaders, who has spent long years in detention in the occupation prisons and a hero of the battles of the open hunger strike.”

This was followed on Tuesday morning, 14 November, by raids across the occupied Palestinian West Bank in which Israeli occupation forces seized 18 Palestinians. In Deir Abu Mashaal village west of Ramallah, occupation fores once again engaged in collective punishment of Palestinian families. They stormed the home of the family of Baraa Saleh Atta, killed by occupation forces after he participated in an armed action in which several Israeli police were killed. They confiscated tens of thousands of shekels from the village and arrested Baraa’s brother Nidal. The stolen funds are those that were raised to help support the families of the three young men, whose homes were sealed off and demolished by occupation forces; the Israeli occupation accused that these funds were “supporting terrorism.”

They also raided the towns of Qabatiya, Zababdeh and Maysaloon near Jenin, while in Tulkarem, they seized former prisoner Muath Jaroun, ransacking his home. They also stationed themselves once again at Kadoorie University, where the presence of armed Israeli occupation forces has become a regular threat and barrier to education for Palestinian students.

November 14, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Congressional Progressive Caucus Seeks Ban On US Financing Child Torture By Israel

U.S. lawmakers seek to prohibit taxpayer funds from supporting human rights violations against Palestinian minors in Israeli military detention system

No Way to Treat a Child campaign – November 14, 2017

Washington, D.C. – Members of Congress on Tuesday introduced a bill prohibiting U.S. financial support of abuses against Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system, putting violations under the magnifying glass of U.S. taxpayers.

The Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act requires the Secretary of State to certify annually that no funds obligated or expended in the previous year by the United States for assistance to Israel have been used to support the ill-treatment of Palestinian children detained by Israeli forces from the occupied West Bank.

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) brought the bill to the floor, with eight original co-sponsors, including Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) and Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI), co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

An estimated 10,000 Palestinians between the ages of 12 and 17 in the West Bank have been subject to arrest, detention, interrogation, and/or imprisonment under the jurisdiction of Israeli military courts since 2000. This bill was drafted in response to widely documented rights violations carried out by Israeli military and police against children within the military detention system, including torture or cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment.

“Despite ongoing engagement with UN bodies and repeated calls to abide by international law, Israeli military and police continue night arrests, physical violence, coercion, and threats against Palestinian children,” said Khaled Quzmar, general director of Defense for Children International – Palestine. “These practices remain institutionalized and systemic rather than last resort measures, and we call on the U.S. to halt its support of these violations.”

The bill aims to establish, as a minimum safeguard, a U.S. demand for basic due process rights for and an absolute prohibition against torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian children arrested and prosecuted within the Israeli military court system.

Israel has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes an estimated 500 to 700 children each year in military courts that lack fundamental fair trial rights and protections.

In every annual report on Israel and the occupied territories released since 2007, U.S. authorities have openly acknowledged the prevalence of torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian children and the denial of fair trials rights in the Israeli military detention system.

In 2013, UNICEF released a report titled Children in Israeli Military Detention: Observations and Recommendations. The report concluded that “ill-treatment of children who come in contact with the military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized throughout the process.”

Despite sustained engagement by UNICEF and repeated calls to end night arrests and ill-treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli military detention, Israeli authorities have persistently failed to implement substantive reforms to end violence against child detainees.

November 14, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Guantánamo Bay victim sues Ottawa for $50 million

Rehmat’s World | November 13, 2017

Djamel Ameziane, an Algerian-born technician, who took refuge in Canada in 1995, has sued the Canadian government for $50 million as compensation for the detention, and physical abuse he suffered during his eleven years imprisonment (2002-2013) at the Guantánamo Bay Zionist torture camp.

Djamel Ameziane was deported to his native country by US authorities in 2013. Ameziane, 50, was never charged or prosecuted for the alleged terrorist activities by US authorities during his eleven years at Guantánamo Bay.

Nate Whitling, an Edmonton lawyer filed the petition in Ontario Superior Court on Monday last week – claiming $50 million in damages, alleging the Canadian government co-operated with the United States while his client was being arbitrarily detained without cause in the notorious American military prison in [occupied] Cuba.

The lawsuit alleges that after being tortured and detained in Kandahar, he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay in February 2002, and that the Americans’ decision to transfer Ameziane was based on information and intelligence obtained in part from the Canadian government.

The lawsuit also alleges that while being held at Guantanamo Bay, Ameziane was subjected to horrific physical and psychological abuses.

It also alleges that Canadian officials arrived at Guantanamo and interrogated Ameziane multiple times, despite being aware of reports of abuse and mistreatment of detainees, and being aware that Ameziane was being held with no charges and no access to legal counsel.

Whitling has said that Ameziane’s case calls for a full-scale public inquiry into Canada’s alleged role in the treatment of innocent detainees held in Guantanamo Bay.

Earlier Whitling represented Omar Khadr, Canadian teenage prisoner at Guantanamo Bay for 15 years, who was paid Canadian $10 million out-of-court by the Canadian government and given a written apology earlier this year.

Listen below to the experiences of three British Muslims kept at Guantanamo Bay for years without prosecution in court for alleged terrorist activities.

November 13, 2017 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

October 2017 report: 483 Palestinians seized by Israeli forces

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – November 7, 2017

Four Palestinian institutions that work on prisoners’ rights, the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, and the Prisoners’ Affairs Commission, issued the below report on the arrests of 483 Palestinians by Israeli occupation forces in October 2017. English translation by Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.

International law provides special protections to civilian populations under occupation. One aspect of such protection includes safeguards against arbitrary detention and other measures aimed at preserving and maintaining the human dignity of people inside and outside detention centers.

In violation of its most basic obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law, Israeli occupation forces continued their policy of arbitrary detention of hundreds of civilians from the occupied Palestinian territory in October 2017.

Arbitrary arrests and detention are serious phenomena that continue to be carried out by occupation authorities in various Palestinian governorates and affect all sectors of society, especially children and women.

Part 1: Statistics of arrests

(Note: the figures in this report are based on the monitoring and documentation by the institutions involved in its preparation.)

In October 2017, Israeli occupation forces arrested 483 Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT), including 125 children, eight women and four journalists.

According to the monitoring and documentation conducted by the four Palestinian institutions, the Israeli occupation authorities arrested 137 Palestinians from Jerusalem governorate, 80 from al-Khalil, 82 from Jenin, 52 from Ramallah and El-Bireh, 32 from Bethlehem, 28 from Qalqilya, 20 from Nablus, 15 from Tubas, 15 from Tulkarem, eight from Jericho, seven from Salfit and seven from the Gaza Strip.

In the context of the policy of administrative detention – imprisonment without charge or trial – the occupation authorities issued 86 administrative detention orders, including 35 new orders. Thus, the total number of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails reached 6300, including 59 women, among them 11 minor girls. There are approximately 250 Palestinian children in Israeli jails and 450 Palestinians held without charge or trial under administrative detention.

Part 2: Detention of Children

The Israeli occupation courts in Jerusalem continue to issue sentences of house arrest againt Jerusalemite children, which deprives these children of their right to education. A child who has been sentenced to house imprisonment is forbidden from leaving the home, except for approved medical visits with their guardian and after informing the authorities. This forces parents to become jailers of their children, causing them deep pain.

Even more, the Israeli courts do not hesitate to issue sentences of imprisonment for children under 15 in the “sheltering center,” where eight Palestinian children are currently held. (Shadi Farrah, Adam Mohammed Sub Laban, Burhan Mohammed Abu Shaker, Ahmed al-Zaatari, Ali Ehab Alqam, Mohammed Ayman Abdel-Razaq, Yazan Mohammed al-Husseini and Mahmoud Naim Ashayer.)

Isolated Childhood

The mother of the child Shadi Farrah, 14, from Kufr Aqab in Jerusalem, said that he has been held in what the authorities call a “sheltering center” since his abdution by occupation forces along with fellow child prisoner Ahmad al-Zaatari about two years ago as they returned from school. The Israeli court later claimed that they were found to have a knife when searched. The occupation court held over 20 sessions in the trial of her son and he was considered the youngest prisoner in Israeli prisons.

She added that her son suffers from very difficult and complex psychological conditions in prison at his young age and needs psychological and moral support in particular as he is held in a “reform” institution accompanied by “criminal” prisoners.

Part 3: Arrests and allegations of “incitement” on Facebook

The phenomenon of the arrest of Palestinians for posting on Facebook under the pretet of “incitement” constitutes a new, punitive policy of the occupation authorities to bring as many children and young people as possible in prisons. Since the beginning of 2017, 220 Palestinians have been arrested and imprisoned on charges of publication of articles and opinions on Facebook and social media pages.

The Israeli military courts in the West Bank base these charges of “incitement” on Article 85 (1)(f) and (g) of the Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945, which forbids the authorship or possession of any illegal book, account, journal, publication or advertisement.

In the event that Palestinians from Jerusalem are convicted of incitement, the occupation bases its charges on Article 144, section (d)(2) of the Penal Code of 1977, where paragraph (a) stipulates that:

Publishing publications for the commission of an act of violence or terrorism, or in sympathy or encouragement for acts of violence or terrorism, or displaying support for such acts, and in accordance with the contents and circumstances of the publication, being that there is a real possibility that this publication would lead to acts of violence or terrorism, can result in imprisonment for 5 years.

During October 2017, the prisoner Abdel-Salam Jihad al-Masri, 23, from the village of Aqaba near Tubas, was transferred to administrative detention for four months after serving a sentence of three months imprisonment. Al-Masri was seized by Israeli forces on 1 August 2017 and accused of incitement for posting on his Facebook page. He was sentenced to 3 months imprisonment and a fine of 2,000 NIS ($500 USD) for incitement. On 17 October 2017, he was taken once more to the Israeli military court, sent back to prison and told that he was transferred to administrative detention for four more months, on the grounds that he is a threat to the security of the occupation state, ostensibly because of his writings on Facebook.

The occupation authorities claim that the imprisonment of activists on the basis of writing on social media is the only means to prevent a danger to the security of the occupation, but it seems to have become a clear means by the occupation of silencing voices and violating the right of expression, and to create new policies to serve as a tool of arrests and repression in order to deny Palestinian freedom of expression. Facebook is an electronic space that does not reflect factual acts. It is a space where writers express themselves poetically and emotionally. It is not acceptable for this to be used as an excuse to restrict freedom of expression or muzzle Palestinian voices. It is not an acceptable or reasonable conclusion for occupation courts to interpret Facebook posts as actual acts rather than writing on screens; it is a wrongful and unfair comparison.

Section 4: Legal Analysis

This report presents the legal protections under international humanitarian and human rights law to detainees, related to the types of Israeli violations during the reporting period and the legal rules that prohibit such violations, as follows:

1 – The arbitrary detention of Palestinian citizens violates the legal guarantees related to the prohibition of arbitrary detention in international human rights law, including article 9 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and articles 9 and 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976).

2 – The policy of administrative detention by the occupation state, in which detention is carried out on the basis of secret evidence and without any charge against the detainee, constitutes a direct violation of fair trial guarantees under the following legal principles:

a) It is contrary to Article 11 (1) of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that: “Everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense.”

b) It constitutes a grave violation of articles 9 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1976, which guarantees everyone the right to a fair trial, to be informed of the charges against them and to be able to defend themselves. (Note: The Occupying Power acceded to the ICCPR in October 1991, and shall be bound by it.)

c) The failure to disclose any charges against the person detained under the administrative detention order precludes every possibility of verifying the compliance of the occupying state with Article 78 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which states that “If the Occupying Power considers it necessary, for imperative reasons of security, to take safety measures concerning protected persons, it may, at the most, subject them to assigned residence or to internment.” It is impossible to verify whether this detention is permitted without knowing what the reasons have been and are.

d) Failure to inform the detained person of the charges against them constitutes a violation of Article 71 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which obliges the occupying power to report charges without delay. They also constitute a violation of article 10 of the Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons in Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment of 1988, which requires the same.

3. The use of home imprisonment against children deprives them of going to school, which is harmful to their right to education, guaranteed under article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social of Cultural Rights of 1976. Denial of that right violates article 28 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1990.

4. The arrest of Palestinians for posting on social media is a violation of their freedom of expression under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Politicl Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Conclusions:

This report sustains a number of findings, through our analysis of the practices of occupation authorities and the reality of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, as follows:

1) The occupying forces are continuing their gross and systematic violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

2) These Israeli violations have resulted in severe suffering for Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons.

3) The silence of the international community has encouraged the occupying power to increase their violations against Palestinian detainees.

4) The High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions have failed to fulfill their duties and have in fact encouraged the occupation authorities to escalate their violations.

Recommendations:

At the conclusion of the report, this series of recommendations is based on the above-mentioned facts and the systematic and gross violations of international humanitarian and human rights law by the occupying power, as follows:

Recommendations at the international level:

1) Formation of a fact-finding committee by the UN Human Rights Council on Israeli violations against detainees.

2) Activate the mechanisms of accountability by the international community towards the perpetrators of violations in fulfillment of its legal and ethical obligations.

3) The High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions must uphold their responsibilities and pressure the occupying power to respect international humanitarian law.

4) International contracting committees of the Conventions must activate their role to pressure the occupying state to respect the standards for prisoners’ rights.

Recommendations at the local level:

1) Activating local solidarity campaigns with Palestinian prisoners.

2) Media support for detainees through intensified media campaigns.

November 9, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian Kids ‘Terrified’ in Israeli Kindergarten Raid

teleSUR | November 7, 2017

Israeli forces raided a kindergarten and primary school in occupied East Jerusalem Monday, terrifying children who witnessed the assault and prompting outrage among Palestinians.

Police officers barged into Zahwa al-Quds kindergarten and primary school in the neighborhood of Beit Hanina, arresting the school’s deputy principal and three teachers for refusing to teach the Israeli curriculum.

“Israel is attempting to force our school to adopt the Israeli education curriculum,” Ziad al-Shamali, head of the school’s parent committee, told Al Jazeera Tuesday. “We are refusing this, so they decided to raid our school and scare our children.

“They don’t want anything Palestinian left. They want all of our schools to be for Israelis, so they will keep making it difficult for our children to learn. These raids make the children scared to go to school.”

One teacher, Ola Nini, said the Israeli officers searched every classroom, demanding teachers’ IDs which they then photocopied. They also deleted surveillance footage of the raid after forcing their way into the principal’s office to confiscate school papers.

Rachel Greenspan, a spokesman for the local government, has since denied the raid ever took place.

Nini also said authorities had conducted a previous raid in September, just months after the school’s Israeli permit was taken away. The move forced the school to seek a Palestinian permit from the al-Waqf Islamic Trust instead.

Tahseen Elayyan, from Palestinian human-rights NGO al-Haq, said Israel wants “to suppress the Palestinian narrative, especially since the curriculum does not mention the atrocities committed against Palestinians in 1948 and other historical facts that are linked to Palestinian history on this land.”

November 8, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Gitmo War Court Orders US General Jailed For Supporting Detainee’s Legal Rights

Sputnik – 02.11.2017

On Wednesday, a judge in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, sentenced a US Marine in charge of a military court’s legal representation to three weeks of confinement and ordered him to pay $1,000 for failure to follow orders concerning a case that involved the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000.

Brig. Gen. John Baker, 50, chief defense counsel for military commissions, received the sentence from US Air Force Judge Col. Vance Spath.

Spath said Baker failed to follow orders when he excused three Defense Department-paid attorneys — Rosia Eliades, Mary Spears, and Rick Kammen — from a military court case involving the USS Cole, something he did not have the authority to do, the Miami Herald reported. Spath said the decision to excuse them had been declared “null and void.”

The attorneys sought to leave the case on the basis that they should be able to represent and defend clients without government surveillance — the Daily Beast reports that the attorneys believed the government was listening in on what should be privileged communications. Baker, supported their exit, and in standing up for this principle, was found in contempt of the court — a court, he argued, that had no proper jurisdiction over his actions in the first place.

The ruling was the first time the military tribunal in Cuba issued a ruling since 2008.

Appearing in the war court Wednesday, Baker argued that the court was set up to prosecute foreign terrorists and lacked jurisdiction to punish him since he was a US citizen. Baker was apparently denied the ability to defend himself after he made this assertion and was ordered to sit down.

“There are things I want to say, and you are not allowing me to say them,” Baker told the judge, according to the Herald. “This is not a pleasant decision,” the judge replied, adding that the legal proceedings were neither “fun” nor “lighthearted.” Without the judge’s ruling, though, he said there would be “havoc” in the justice system.

The particular case concerns Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a 52-year-old Saudi Arabian national who has been detained at Guantanamo for the past 11 years, two months. In 2008, CIA Dir. Michael Hayden confirmed al-Nashiri was among the al-Qaeda operatives the agency tortured.

Speaking at Georgetown University’s 2016 NATSECDEF conference, Baker said that “put simply, the military commissions in their current state are a farce or as Rick Kammen — lead counsel for Mr. al-Nashiri — stated on the record last week, these commissions are ‘hopelessly flawed.'”

November 2, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

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