Palestinian youth activist and former prisoner Hassan Karajah was arrested this evening, 12 July, by Israeli occupation forces at Beit Ur checkpoint west of Ramallah, reported family sources to Samidoun. They are concerned about his situation, especially because he spent 22 months in Israeli prisons after being targeted for his work as a human rights defender.
He was arrested on 23 January 2013 and freed on 19 October 2014, facing an Israeli military court on allegations of participation in a prohibited organization (all Palestinian political parties are prohibited organizations) and contact with an enemy state (frequently used to target Palestinians who travel to Lebanon for conferences and other events.)
Karajah, well known for his work in a number of civil society organizations, including the Stop the Wall Campaign and the Partnership for Development Project, and his advocacy for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, was the subject of an international campaign for his release, which highlighted the Israeli targeting of Palestinian human rights defenders.
A letter Karajah wrote from prison was widely distributed: “Here, we draw our energy to continue from you. We, the newly detained prisoners, our hearts are full of happiness when, while being transported from prisons to court, we meet prisoners we have heard about for decades, whose photos and posters we have carried in the streets, prisoners from whom we learned our readiness to struggle since childhood.
In conclusion, I affirm to you that they will never be able to bring about our end. We are stronger than they are able to weaken us. We are higher than they are able to lower us. We are deeper than they are able to reach us. We continue.
I say to you at the end of this message – I will see you soon. I will come out as you have known me and better, and I will greet you with the single word, ‘Freedom.’”
Rabbi Colonel Eyal Karim, a former special forces commander who once landed in hot water over a “mistinterpreted” statement implying that Israeli soldiers could commit rape in wartime “for the sake of joint success,” is set to become IDF’s new chief rabbi.
Answering a question from one reader who asked whether IDF soldiers were permitted “to rape girls during a fight, or is such a thing forbidden?” according to +972 web magazine, Rabbi Karim responded, “Since, essentially, a war is not an individual matter, but rather nations wage war as a whole, there are cases in which the personality of the individual is ‘erased’ for the benefit of the whole. And vice versa: sometimes you risk a large unit for the saving of an individual, when it is essential for purposes of morale. One of the important and critical values during war is maintaining the army’s fighting ability […]
“War removes some of the prohibitions on sexual relations, and even though fraternizing with a gentile woman is a very serious matter, it was permitted during wartime (under the specific terms) out of understanding for the hardship endured by the warriors. And since the success of the whole at war is our goal, the Torah permitted the individual to satisfy the evil urge, under the conditions mentioned, for the purpose of the success of the whole,” he added.
The quote caused a furor when it emerged ten years later in 2012, and Rabbi Karim was pushed to publish a clarification stating that his comments had been taken out of context, The Times of Israel reported.
“Colonel Karim wishes to clarify that his words were only uttered in response to a theoretical hermeneutical question, certainly not to a practical halachic question,” the army said in a new statement on Monday. “Rabbi Karim never wrote, said, or even thought that an IDF soldier is permitted to sexually harm a woman during wartime.”
Karim’s “moral approach is evidenced by his years of activity in command, fighting and rabbinical posts, in which he displayed utter loyalty to the values and spirit of the IDF, and especially as regards peoples’ dignity, no matter who they are.”
Karim was drafted into the IDF back in 1975 and volunteered for the paratroopers before becoming an officer in the 202 Battalion, the Arutz Sheva reported. He later took an unpaid leave to study in a yeshiva in Jerusalem, but agreed to return to the paratroopers in 1981 to take part in operations in Lebanon, and later as a commander in the first Lebanon war. His new position as the IDF’s chief rabbi will come with a promotion to Brigadier-General.
In the past, he has also been one of the leaders of a religious-Zionist struggle against the recruitment of women for combat roles in the army, the Haaretz reported.
As United States police officers continue their policy of shooting Americans for such heinous violations of the law as having a burned-out bulb in the taillight of their car, the nation seems to have decided that enough is enough. Thousands have protested across the country since the murders of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling last week in response to those crimes, and, also in response, a U.S. army veteran used his training to kill five police officers in Dallas, Texas.
As political leaders of all stripes call for calm, which is standard procedure after any white officers assassinate an unarmed black man, occasionally one of them states what is really at the core of the issue. This week, it was Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, who uttered one sentence that seems to sum up government policy:
“It is critically important that you follow the directions of law enforcement.”
One wonders if this was a statement, or a thinly-veiled threat. It appears that, in the view of Mr. Edwards, the ‘directions of law enforcement’ must be followed to the letter, with the violation of that being capital punishment, administered instantly by the police.
In Baton Rouge, police officers at various protests, there to ‘serve and protect’, were armed with military equipment, and a widely published photograph showed one officer aiming her machine gun at protesters. It seems that ‘law enforcement’ in Louisiana will be accomplished, regardless of the means required to do so.
Now, perhaps we can look for a moment at the First Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits government interference with the right to peaceful assembly. One must suppose that ‘peaceful’ would need to be further defined, but it appears that the police in Baton Rouge would have all protestors marching slowly in lockstep down the street, chanting softly, and behaving in a way as to attract very little attention. Being loud, boisterous, slightly disorganized and even obnoxious will simply not do. Such behavior, or the shocking action of the press to document it, will cause the protestors to look down the barrel of a police-officer wielded machine gun. Huffington Post Senior Crime Reporter David Lohr found himself in just that position.
In another iconic picture, Leshia Evans, a 28-year-old, unarmed black woman wearing a flowing dress, stands calmly as two white police officers in full riot gear arrest her. Behind them are dozens of additional police officers, also arrayed in full riot gear. She obviously did not heed Mr. Edwards injunction to ‘follow the directions of law enforcement’. Her crime, apparently, was to stand in the street, looking at the police.
Fortunately for the citizens of Baton Rouge, there were numerous police officers there with tear gas, automatic weapons, and all the hardware required in any war zone to deal with Ms. Evans. The good residents of that city can rest easy tonight, knowing that the threat of an unarmed woman standing in the street has been eliminated.
On Friday, as news of the deaths of five police officers in Dallas screamed across computer and television screens, statements from political pundits and government officials indicated their shock, horror and revulsion at such a crime. Corporate-owned entertainment media, generally referred to as news programs, highlighted the crime, reported on each of the victims, and interviewed family and friends. Their alleged heroism, service to the city and the nation, and all their saintly qualities as husbands, fathers and citizens were presented to a citizenry that is instructed in who it must grieve for; whom it must be angry with; whom it must condemn and with whom it must sympathize. Philando Castile and Alton Sterling? Ho-hum. Five Dallas police officers? Shock, sorrow, grief, sympathy, anger at the perpetrator(s), fear of a coming race war, etc., etc.
Now, this writer does not condone the killing of these police officers, and sympathizes with their families. Neither does he condone the killing of Messrs. Castile and Sterling, or of Michael Brown, Eric Garner or the hundreds of other unarmed, innocent and disproportionately black men routinely killed by mostly white police officers in the U.S., usually with complete impunity, and he sympathizes with their families. Yet he recognizes a basic fact that seems to escape the media, and those who, for inexplicable reasons, take their cue on how to react from it. And that is simply this: An authority figure has no more or less intrinsic value as a human being than a common citizen.
There; it has been said. Shocking? Possibly, but it is what this writer believes. When an police officer shoots an unarmed, innocent and defenseless member of the public, this writer believes the officer should be charged with murder. This, of course, goes against the conventional wisdom that police officers can do no wrong, and that people must ‘follow the directions of law enforcement’, but there you have it.
But why is there so much violence and brutality demonstrated by the U.S. police? One commentator, John Miranda, suggests a reason:
“As for the increase in police brutality within the United States, I think this definitely can be pointed towards the Israeli training that the Department of Homeland Security is giving all of American police officers.”
Journalist Rania Khalek, in December of 2015, said that “U.S. police officers are being tutored by Israel on how to employ the tactics that have brought death and serious injury to huge numbers of Palestinians in the past few months.”
This writer has suggested that all people are equal. He will go even further: an Israeli terrorist is not innocent of killing defenseless Palestinians, simply because he or she is Israeli, and his/her victim is Palestinian.
What? Can this writer actually believe these things? Are not Israeli’s God’s chosen people? Some naive people may say that the Bible is a scriptural record, written for the spiritual guidance of individuals and religions that choose to so use it. But enlightened people know it is actually a document to be used to govern nations. Yes, that is why we stone adulterers and non-believers, and shun any and all who tell lies.
Oh, wait. We don’t actually do those things. This writer will get it right yet. Passages in the Bible are to be cherry-picked to support the arguments of the people in power, who represent the 1% and have the money. There, now he thinks he understands.
As of this writing, several hundred people have been arrested in protests against the latest police murders of two innocent black men. Increased resistance to state crimes will bring increased repression; this is yet another model used by Israel that the U.S. follows.
Where will it end? At what point in the future will young black men be able to wear hoodies without the police seeing them as instant targets? When will all Americans be able to drive their cars through any city street, or stroll along any city boulevard, without fearing for their lives? This writer is not optimistic that it will be any time soon.
The administrative detention of two Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails was renewed on Sunday, 11 July; they are among nearly 750 Palestinians imprisoned without charge or trial under indefinitely renewable administrative detention orders. Both former prisoners who have spent years in Israeli prison, their detentions without charge or trial were extended by military order.
Shadi Jarrar, 37, was ordered to four additional months in administrative detention; a former prisoner released in 2014 who has spent 13 years in Israeli prisons, he was arrested by Israeli occupation forces at a military roadblock near Nablus on 19 March and ordered to four months administrative detention without charge or trial.
Mohammed Al-Tabeesh of Dura, near al-Khalil, was also ordered to four additional months of administrative detention, the third renewal of the detention order against him. He has been jailed since 11 November 2015, also arrested by Israeli occupation forces at a military roadblock in Nablus.
Atabah is a student of Information Technology at An-Najah University in Nablus; he has spent seven years in Israeli prisons over various arrests. He is the brother of Ayman al-Tabeesh, former administrative detainee and long-term hunger striker who has spent 11 years in Israeli prisons, and participated in a previous hunger strike alongside his brother.
Administrative detention orders are issued for one to six months at a time without charge or trial, based on secret evidence. They are indefinitely renewable. Currently, Palestinian prisoner Bilal Kayed is on hunger strike to demand his freedom from administrative detention. Kayed finished his 14.5 year sentence in Israeli prisons on 13 June; instead of being released, he was ordered to administrative detention. Kayed, striking since 15 June, is being supported by hundreds of fellow prisoners, who fear that his case represents a new precedent of indefinite detention of Palestinians who complete their sentences in Israeli prison.
Indian officials have updated the death toll from the ongoing unrest in the Himalayan state of Jammu and Kashmir, saying that 16 people are now confirmed dead following the clashes between protesters and riot police over the killing of a popular rebel leader.
One protester was shot dead on Sunday after riot police fired on infuriated and stone-hurling demonstrators, who defied a curfew aimed at suppressing the public uproar in the southern area of Pulwama, and six others succumbed to their wounds overnight, AP quoted an unnamed security official as saying.
A police officer also lost his life in the southern area of Anantnag, where angry demonstrators pushed his armored vehicle into a river.
Indian authorities have for the second day extended the curfew to the whole Kashmir valley, including the major city of Srinagar.
The clashes came after residents of Kashmir held a funeral for separatist Burhan Wani, the young leader of Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), who was killed on July 8 along with two other people during a brief gun battle with government forces.
During the past five years, Wani had become the iconic face of militancy in Kashmir, using social media to reach out to young people in the region.
Wani’s body was handed over to his family earlier on Saturday and the locals, who see the slain 22-year old as a hero, turned the mass funeral into a full-scale protest.
According to Indian police, anti-riot troops used live ammunition, pellet guns and tear gas to disperse the crowds and calm down the outrage. Authorities have also suspended mobile networks and the internet to prevent massive demonstrations.
Reports say that at least 200 people, including 90 government forces, were injured during the clashes.
The death of Wani sparked street protests across Kashmir throughout the night Friday. In a rare incident, mosques’ loudspeakers blared with “Azadi” (freedom from Indian rule) in most areas, including Srinagar, where people were ordered to remain indoors.
Major groups known for their resistance against Indian rule have declared three days of mourning.
Kashmir, a Himalayan region known for its beautiful landscapes, lies at the heart of more than 69 years of hostility between India and Pakistan. Both neighbors claim the region in full but have partial control over it. India controls two thirds of Kashmir while the remaining one third is under the Pakistani rule.
The neighbors agreed on a ceasefire in 2003, and launched a peace process the following year. Since then, there have been sporadic clashes, with both sides accusing the other of violating the ceasefire.
Thousands of people have been killed in the violence in Kashmir over the past two decades.
A handful of U.S. think tanks are ranked among the least transparent in terms of financial disclosure.
Human Rights Watch is ranked among one of the least transparent research groups in the United States, according to Transparify’s 2016 think tank transparency report, which details the levels of financial disclosure of 200 think tanks located in 47 countries worldwide.
The survey, conducted by a small nonprofit group gave the Human Rights Watch group a two-star rating—a score that means that all or many donors are listed, but little or no financial information is included—for the third year in year in a row.
“The number of organizations who still consider it acceptable to take money from hidden hands behind closed doors is rapidly dwindling. They are running out of excuses,” said Dr. Hans Gutbrod, executive director of Transparify.
Transparify’s researchers found that only 102 of the think tanks assessed remain opaque, down from 144 four years ago.
Nevertheless, many major groups in the United States received low scores including American Enterprise Institute along with the Hoover Institution, which both received a one-star grade, meaning “that some donors are listed, but not exhaustive or systematic.”
In the United States, think tanks have come to occupy a prominent place in the development of public policy, with their reports being widely distributed among lawmakers in order to support legislative initiatives, according Transparify’s annotated bibliography.
“Government representatives are reportedly utilizing think tanks’ research outputs more often than they use the Congressional Research Service,” Transparify noted.
BETHLEHEM – Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett advocated on Thursday for Israel to kidnap Palestinians to be used as leverage to obtain the release of two Israeli civilians and the bodies of two soldiers held in the besieged Gaza Strip, Israeli media reported.
In an interview with Radio Darom, Bennett — who leads the far-right Jewish Home party — discussed the issue of releasing Palestinian prisoners as part of a deal to obtain the return of Israeli citizens Avraham Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, as well as the bodies of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, two soldiers killed during Israel’s 2014 offensive on Gaza.
“My policies are consistent over the years: complete opposition to disproportionate deals to free terrorists, and certainly in exchange for bodies,” The Times of Israel quoted Bennett as saying.
According to Israeli news outlet The Jerusalem Post, Bennett then advocated for the kidnapping of Palestinians to pressure for the release of the slain soldiers and missing Israelis.
“We should do what the State of Israel once did,” he said. “What we once did in such situations was we would go and kidnap from the other side, and create new leverage against the other side, rather than releasing more and more terrorists.”
The Jerusalem Post quoted Bennett’s spokesperson as specifying that the far-right political leader was suggesting kidnapping “terrorists,” not Palestinian civilians.
It remained unclear from Bennett’s statement whether he advocated the kidnapping of Palestinians to use as a bargaining chip to exchange with Israelis, in contradiction of his earlier statement, or as an intimidation tactic to coerce those holding the Israelis in Gaza into releasing them.
It was also unclear whether Bennett was pushing for Israel should detain more Palestinians in addition to the 7,000 currently held in Israeli prisons, or hold them completely extrajudicially.
Spokespeople for the Education Ministry and Bennett’s office were unavailable for comment on Friday, the weekend in Israel, to clarify the minister’s statements.
Bennett is well known for his incendiary rhetoric vis-a-vis Palestinians.
In the wake of several attacks last week which killed two Israelis, including a 13-year-old girl, and three Palestinians, Bennett advocated for a number of measures which have been denounced by rights groups as constituting collective punishment.
These proposed measures, many of which have been implemented, included increased settlement construction; stepping up Israel’s policy of demolition of Palestinian property built without permits; full Israeli military control over the entirety of the occupied West Bank; military closures of suspected attackers’ hometowns; the detention of suspected attackers’ family members; and cutting off internet and cellular access to the southern West Bank district of Hebron.
Qalandia Refugee Camp, Occupied Palestine – The holy month of Ramadan has come to an end. But in Palestine, as in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and too many other places, Muslim families are not able to enjoy this special time of the year in peace and comfort. On Sunday night at 11pm, more than 1000 Israeli soldiers, according to locals’ estimations, entered Qalandia Refugee Camp in the Occupied West Bank. The huge military incursion sparked clashes in which 15 Palestinians were shot. Occupation Forces used live ammunition and rubber coated steel bullets on civilians while firing tear gas and stun grenades at approaching ambulances, preventing Palestinian Red Crescent medics from reaching the wounded.
Red Crescent ambulance damaged by Israeli forces
Among the injured was a 19 year old girl and a 15 year old boy, each shot with live ammunition and brought to the hospital in serious condition. The army entered the camp to demolish the homes of the families of two young men, Anan Habsah and Issa Asaaf, both 21, who carried out knife attacks and killed one soldier in East Jerusalem on December 23rd last year. Both were killed by soldiers while carrying out the attacks, so the demolition of the homes comes only as a form of collective punishment to terrorize the families and the people in Qalandia, who repeatedly suffer from night raids and house demolitions as well as beatings and arrests by the Israeli occupation forces.
Anan’s family first evacuated their home in January when the Israeli high court announced their decision to demolish the houses. The displaced family members lived spread across the area, staying at friends’ and family’s homes in Ramallah and elsewhere in Qalandia for two months until the lawyer suggested they could move back in in March. The father, Abu Saleh, refused to leave his home during the two month period however, staying in a tent outside the building. Three weeks ago the two families were yet again told to evacuate their homes and were informed that the demolition would take place within five days. However, the exact date of the demolition was not disclosed. Sunday night it finally happened without advance notice, and only two days before the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Eid celebrations.
In the ruins of his family home
Issa and his family have experienced severe trauma at the hands of occupation forces before, when he and his two younger sisters were brutally assaulted by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint near East Jerusalem. The incident left one of Issa’s sisters unable to speak for three months, and caused the Assaf family significant distress and anguish.
Both Issa and Anan were imprisoned for significant periods of time; Anan at age fifteen for a period of eight months, and Issa for seven months in the year before his death.The families’ suffering did not end there, however. In the week following Issa’s release from prison, he was again assaulted at his home in Qalandia when soldiers dragged him from his home in the middle of the night and beat him in the street without justification.
The Habsah family also bears the long lasting scars of pain and trauma. Anan’s imprisonment as a child devastated the family, and they say their boy was never the same afterwards. “I know he did not want to die … but when a boy is put in jail, deprived of sleep, and deprived of his childhood, something in him changes,” said Anan’s uncle.
Inside the Asaaf family home
When we arrived on Monday morning, neighbors and relatives had already begun to gather in support of the families. Anan’s aunt explained to us that this is the third time her family had been forcibly displaced; first in 1948, when the family was expelled from their home in West Jerusalem, and later again in 1975 when their modest home in the refugee camp was destroyed for the first time.
UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness condemned the demolitions on Monday, stating that punitive home demolitions “inflict distress and suffering on those who have not committed the action which led to the demolition, and they often endanger people and property in the vicinity.” A 2005 study by the Israeli army itself concluded that home demolitions are not effective as a deterrent or punitive measure, but the practice still continues. According to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, about fifty thousand residential structures have been destroyed by Israel since 1967.
“This is psychological warfare. In the whole camp of more than ten thousand people, no one slept [last night], and they did not go to work today,” Adnan Habsah, the uncle of Anan said. Qalandia Refugee Camp has long been subjected to various forms of collective punishment by Israeli forces, and is severely affected by all aspects of the Illegal Occupation. The camp is located within area “C” and greater (East) Jerusalem, near the main checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem and beside the apartheid wall. According to the UNRWA, the construction and expansion of the Wall in the early 2000s has drastically affected the economic situation in the camp by isolating it from the Israeli job market and Jerusalem. According to the most recent data, Qalandia’s unemployment rate is as high as 40 percent, compared to Occupied Palestine’s overall rate of 26.6 percent.
The Camp was originally established to house some 5,000 Palestinians who were displaced by the 1948 Nakba. Today, according to Afaq Environmental Magazine, the population of Qalandia Refugee Camp has reached about 14,000. Under the 1993 Oslo Agreement, the whole territory of Qalandia Refugee Camp is classified as area “C,” where Israel retains full control over security and administration related to the territory; however, Qalandia camp, like other Palestinian refugee camps, is under the administrative control of UNRWA.
As the uncle of Anan said when we spoke to him on Monday, “This is a UN refugee camp. The whole world owns this place. You cannot destroy it.”
Israeli occupation forces and the Palestinian Authority carried out 34 violations against Palestinian journalists in June, Quds Press reported an NGO saying.
Palestinian Youth Congress for Journalists said in a statement that the Israeli violations included direct assaults, firing rubber bullets at journalists and cameramen, arbitrary arrests and the closure of media offices.
The group said the attacks happened while the journalists were documenting Israeli aggression at Al-Aqsa Mosque. Photographer Rami Al-Khatib and journalists Osaid Amarneh and Ahmed Jaradat were wounded during the violence.
Moreover, the statement noted that the Israeli policy of arbitrary detention of Palestinian journalists continued as several journalists, including 25-year-old Nasser Al-Khatib from Ramallah, 27-year-old Iyad Al-Taweel and 43-year-old Bassam Al-Safadi from the Golan Heights were arrested.
There are currently 20 journalists being held in Israeli jails, the statement said.
The group added that Israel had closed Musawat TV which broadcasts from occupied Palestinian territories under the pretext that it incites hatred.
The Youth Congress reported 17 violations against journalists at the hands of the Palestinian Authority.
On Sunday the Israeli Cabinet approved the expansion of several Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, adding an additional 800 new units to the existing thousands of units constructed in Jewish-only settlements in direct contravention of international law.
Israeli officials say that the approval of 800 new housing units is meant to somehow ‘balance’ the implementation of a court ruling that 600 construction permits be approved for Palestinian families in Beit Safafa.
But while the Israeli officials may have political reasons for making such a claim, Palestinian analysts point out that there is no legal justification or comparison between the court decision about Beit Safafa and the announcement Sunday of the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements constructed on illegally-seized Palestinian land.
In the case involving Beit Safafa, an Israeli court ruled last month that the Israeli government had provided no sufficient evidence to back its claim that the Palestinian residents’ building permit applications should be denied, and ordered that construction could begin. But the Israeli government has, for the past month, prevented the court decision from being implemented.
The announcement Sunday that 800 new settlement units would be constructed in East Jerusalem and in the West Bank colonial settlement of Ma’ale Adumim came just two days after Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu approved the expansion of another colonial settlement in Hebron by 42 additional units.
All Israeli settlements constructed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are considered illegal under international law, as they involve the direct transfer of Israel’s civilian population into areas seized by military force.
But the Israeli government considers many of these colonial settlements to be ‘legal’ under Israeli law, and provides infrastructure including water, sewage, electricity, policing and fire services to the majority of the hundreds of settlements that have been constructed on Palestinian land in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
In the case of Beit Safafa, the Israeli government had put together a plan to completely encircle the Palestinian town with several Jewish-only settlements, thus cutting off the town from the rest of the West Bank and Jerusalem.
The plan had involved the expansion of a small trailer park currently housing Ethiopian immigrants to Israel, on a hilltop in Beit Safafa. The trailer park, dubbed ‘Givat HaMatos’, was slated for massive expansion by the Israeli government until Palestinian residents of Beit Safafa took the government to court to challenge the expansion.
In a surprise victory a month ago, the Palestinian residents of Beit Safafa won their court battle. but the Israeli government failed to implement the decision before now.
Upon the announcement that the court’s decision would be carried out, the Israeli Minister for Jerusalem, Ze’ev Elkin, stated, “Anyone who is concerned about the Jewish majority in Israel’s capital cannot push a building plan just for Arabs [in Givat HaMatos]… You cannot just approve construction for Arabs in Givat HaMatos without also approving at the same time building for Jews in the same planned neighborhood.”
The plan to encircle Beit Safafa, while currently under scrutiny by international media and bodies, is just one part of the larger E1 Jerusalem plan, which would encircle East Jerusalem, kick out most of its Palestinian residents, and claim all the ‘conquered’ territory for the state of Israel. The plan was first introduced in the early 2000s, and has expanded since then.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was called on to retract his statement made on Canada Day calling the country “one nation”, as it insults Québécois.
Parti Québecois leader candidate Martine Ouellet said in a video posted her Facebook page Saturday that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent statement calling Canada “one nation” is “reinventing history”.
“It’s a direct insult to the Quebec nation, an insult to everything our heritage represents,” Ouellet wrote on Facebook.
On Canada Day, July 1st, Justin Trudeau said “today, we celebrate the day, exactly 149 years ago, when the people of this great land came together, and forged one nation, one country — Canada.”
Ouellet called for Trudeau to retract his statement and recognize Quebec as a nation.
Quebec, the largest and second most populated province of Canada, has a long record of struggle for independence that can be traced at least to 1960, when several diverse political groups coalesced in the formation of the Parti Québécois, which is now a primary mainstream political vehicle for the Quebec sovereignty movement.
Quebec’s current status allows it a high degree of autonomy, including its own property legislation, civil legislation, justice, healthcare and education regulation.
Justin Trudeau is known for his anti-separatism position. In 2006, then prime minister Stephen Harper introduced a motion calling on the House of Commons to recognize that “Québécois form a nation within a united Canada.” Trudeau, who was not an MP at the time of events, backed Gerard Michael Kennedy, a Liberal Party leader candidate who opposed the motion.
Trudeau had reportedly claimed that his father, the late prime minister, would never have supported recognition of Quebec as a nation.
By Tony Cartalucci – New Eastern Outlook – 29.11.2017
The United States Air Force’s 59th Medical Wing’s molecular biology branch recently was revealed to have been collecting specifically Russian RNA and synovial (connective) tissue samples, prompting fears in Russia of a possible US directed ethnic-specific bioweapons program. … continue
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The administrative detention of two Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails was renewed on Sunday, 11 July; they are among nearly 750 Palestinians imprisoned without charge or trial under indefinitely renewable administrative detention orders. Both former prisoners who have spent years in Israeli prison, their detentions without charge or trial were extended by military order.
Mohammed Al-Tabeesh of Dura, near al-Khalil, was also ordered to four additional months of administrative detention, the third renewal of the detention order against him. He has been jailed since 
