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Journalists blast Israeli government cartoon mocking Gaza news coverage

RT | June 17, 2015

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has produced a 50-second cartoon mocking foreign reporting on Gaza, urging people to see that “terrorism rules” there. Apart from arguably lacking comedic value, the clip was slammed as being in poor taste by international media.

The animated short shows a blond, presumably American reporter in Gaza talking about how it’s a modern society where “ordinary people” are just trying to live their lives – “no terrorists here.” As the reporter’s praise for the locals continues, Hamas member can be seen in the back launching rockets.

The underground tunnels Hamas is building are seen by the reporter as “a fascinating attempt by Hamas to build a subway system… which will bring Gaza’s transportation system into the 21st century.”

This continues until a female reporter places a pair of glasses on the male reporter’s face so he could “see the reality of life under Hamas rule,” causing him to faint in shock.

The cartoon culminates with the woman’s upbeat, receptionist-like tone as she declares: “Open your eyes. Terrorism rules Gaza.”

The Foreign Press Association (FPA) has struck out at the decision to produce the cartoon in a statement, insisting that this is not what Israel needs if it wants to be taken seriously by the international community.

“The Foreign Press Association is surprised and alarmed by the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s decision to produce a cartoon mocking the foreign media’s coverage of last year’s war in Gaza,” the statement reads.

“At a time when Israel has serious issues to deal with in Iran and Syria, it is disconcerting that the ministry would spend its time producing a 50-second video that attempts to ridicule journalists reporting on a conflict in which 2,100 Palestinians and 72 Israelis were killed.

“Israel’s diplomatic corps wants to be taken seriously in the world. Posting misleading and poorly conceived videos on YouTube is inappropriate, unhelpful and undermines the ministry, which says it respects the foreign press and its freedom to work in Gaza,” the FPA said.

Israel’s Foreign Press Association is a nonprofit representing about 500 international journalists reporting from Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government has denied UN human rights envoy Makarim Wibisono entry into Gaza for a second year in a row, just as a UN report on the war last year is about to be made public.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon believes Israel is within its rights to deny entry, as it “cooperates with all the international commissions and all rapporteurs, except when the mandate handed to them is anti-Israeli and Israel has no chance to make itself heard.”

Wibisono is attached to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which is about to release its findings from an investigation into alleged war crimes Israel may have committed during last year’s war in Gaza.

June 17, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian Poverty, Israeli Affluence: Deciphering The NY Times

By Barbara Erickson | TimesWarp | June 15, 2015

It takes some attention and a bit of math, but readers of The New York Times now have the means to discover just how great the chasm is between Israelis and Palestinians—not just in politics but in hard cash.

In an article and follow-up editorial concerning a report by the RAND Corporation, an establishment think tank, the Times informs us that if the adversaries negotiated a two-state peace deal, both Palestinians and Israelis would gain financially. Over 10 years, RAND says, Israel would gain $123 billion and Palestine $50 billion.

We learn that in terms of annual per capita income this breaks down to a 5 percent increase, or $2,200, for Israelis and a 36 percent increase, or $1,000, for Palestinians.

Readers are apt to take that in with little pause, but if we do the calculations, this tells us that current incomes average $44,000 for Israelis and $2,778 for Palestinians. This puts Israel far above the World Bank standard of $12,746 for high-income countries. It places Palestine barely over the low-income level.

This means Palestinians make less than their neighbors in Egypt, Jordan or Iraq. It places Palestine in the same World Bank grouping as Guatemala, South Sudan and others with per capita incomes from $1,046 to $4,125.

Israel rates with the economic stars, not only in the high-income category but in the elite of that group. On average, its citizens earn yearly incomes very near those in Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. [The World Bank lists Israel’s per capita income as $32,030, but this includes occupied Palestine, which is given no separate economic status. The RAND report distinguishes between Israel and Palestine.]

The Times would have done its readers a favor by untangling the data and revealing the stark difference between Israeli and Palestinian earnings, but the story and editorial give a sense that the two sides are on an even playing field. A two-state solution, the Times editorial states, “makes both sides winners.”

The article, by Jodi Rudoren, puts emphasis on how much the occupation costs Israel in support for settlements and security. It is seen, she writes, as a “self-imposed economic burden.” There is no mention of the burden on the Palestinian side.

The think tank, however, does better than the Times by stating outright that “A singular feature of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship is the power imbalance between the two parties: Israel dominates the region both militarily and economically.”

The report makes clear that Israeli policy has harmed Palestinian commerce with regulations favoring Israeli companies, restrictions on movement and the confiscation of water and land. It also points up the devastating impact of Israel’s policy of demolishing housing and infrastructure in Gaza and the West Bank.

None of this appears in the Times, which sticks to the dry numbers of the RAND report, but this data has provided clues to a reality the Times obscures—the scandalous inequality between Israelis and Palestinians.

This disparity should inform the paper’s reporting on relations between the two sides, yet we read of the peace talks as if they involve two equal parties, both asked to make concessions. Likewise, in reports on Gaza, we read of the threat of rockets but learn almost nothing about the overwhelming military might of Israel’s arsenal and army.

Readers should not have to take to their calculators to discover the huge imbalance that underlies every aspect of Israeli-Palestinian relations. Our newspaper of record should have revealed that reality long before now and not in hidden ciphers.

June 16, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Male and killed in Gaza – you’re a combatant

By Jonathon Cook | The Blog From Nazareth | June 16, 2015

Experience should have proved that one has to be credulous in the extreme – or brainwashed by Zionism – to take seriously “rebuttals” by the Israeli army of evidence of its abuses and war crimes. But for any who still harbour suspicions that claims by the Israeli army aren’t simply self-serving deceptions, take a look at its latest report into last year’s attack on Gaza.

The number of Palestinian civilians killed during Operation Protective Edge, says the Israeli army, was 761 – or 36 per cent of the total of 2,125 fatalities it registered. The UN has recorded 95 more Palestinian deaths and has twice as many civilians killed by Israel: 1,483, or 67 per cent of the total. Both can’t be right.

Let’s break down the Israeli numbers. According to the army, of those killed, 369 were children under the age of 15 (Israel’s redefinition of childhood for Palestinians) and 284 were women. That’s a total of 653.

That means of the 1,364 boys and men aged between 15 and 100 who were killed according to Israel’s estimates, only 108 are accorded the status of “civilian”. In other words, only 8 per cent of all males over the age of 15 who were killed in Israeli attacks were not suspected by Israel of being actively engaged in combat at the time of their death.

Comfortingly for Israelis, that means that, if you were Palestinian and male and a missile or bomb hit you, or a targeted building collapsed on you, you were almost certainly a combatant.

And if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.661359

June 16, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s Race to Economic (and Moral) Bankruptcy

By Jonathan Cook | Dissident Voice | June 16, 2015

Two recent reports suggest that Israel could face catastrophic consequences if it fails to end the mistreatment of Palestinians under its rule, whether in the occupied territories or in Israel itself.

The Rand Corporation’s research shows that Israel could lose $250 billion over the next decade if it fails to make peace with the Palestinians and violence escalates. Ending the occupation, on the other hand, could bring a dividend of more than $120 billion to the nation’s coffers.

Meanwhile, the Israeli finance ministry predicts an even more dismal future unless Israel reinvents itself. It is likely to be bankrupt within a few decades, the finance ministry report says, because of the rapid growth of two groups who are not productive.

By 2059, half the population will be either ultra-Orthodox Jews, who prefer prayer to work, or members of Israel’s Palestinian minority, most of whom are failed by their separate education system and then excluded from much of the economy.

Both reports should be generating a tidal wave of concern in Israel but have caused barely a ripple. The status quo – of occupation and endemic racism – still seems preferable to most Israelis.

The explanation requires a much deeper analysis than either the Rand Corporation or Israel’s finance ministry appears capable of.

The finance ministry report points out that with a growing population not properly prepared for a modern, global economy, the tax burden is falling increasingly heavily on a shrinking middle class.

The fear is that this will rapidly create a vicious cycle. Wealthier Israelis tend to have second passports. Overwhelmed by the need to make up the revenue shortfall, they will leave, plunging Israel into irreversible debt.

Despite this doomsday scenario, Israel seems far from ready to undertake the urgent restructuring needed to salvage its economy. Zionism, Israel’s official ideology, is predicated on core principles of ethnic separation, Judaisation of territory and Hebrew labour. It has always depended on the marginalisation at best, exclusion at worst, of non-Jews.

Any effort to dismantle the scaffolding of a Jewish state would create a political crisis. Reforms may happen, but they are likely to take place too slowly and incrementally to make much difference.

The Rand report also raises the alarm. It notes that both peoples would benefit from peace, though the incentive is stronger for Palestinians. Integration into the Middle East would see average wages rise by only 5 per cent for Israelis, compared to 36 per cent for Palestinians.

But, while its economists may have found it easy to quantify the benefits of ending the occupation, it is much harder to assess the costs in shekels and dollars.

Over the past six decades, an economic elite has emerged in Israel whose prestige, power and wealth depends on the occupation. Career military officers earn large salaries and retire in their early forties on generous pensions. Nowadays many of these officers live in the settlements.

The army top brass are the ultimate pressure group and will not release their grip on the occupied territories without a fight, one they are well placed to win.

Backing them will be those in the hi-tech sector who have become the engine of the Israeli economy. Many are former soldiers who realised the occupied territories were the ideal laboratory for developing and testing military hardware and software.

Israel’s excellence in weaponry, surveillance systems, containment strategies, biometric data collection, crowd control, and psychological warfare are all marketable. Israeli know-how has become indispensable to the global appetite for “homeland security”.

That expertise was on show this month at a Tel Aviv armaments expo that attracted thousands of security officials from around the world, drawn by the selling point that the systems on offer were “combat proven”.

To end the occupation would be to sacrifice all this and revert to the status of a tiny anonymous state with no resources or notable exports.

And finally the settlers are among the most ideologically committed and entitled sector of Israel’s population. Were they moved out, they would bring their group cohesion and profound resentments back into Israel.

No Israeli leader wants to unleash a civil war that could rip apart the already-fragile sense of unity among the Jewish population.

The reality is that most Israelis’ perception of their national interests, both as a Jewish state and as military superpower, are intimately tied to a permanent occupation and the exclusion of Israel’s Palestinian minority from true citizenship.

If there is a conclusion to be drawn from these two reports it may be a pessimistic one.

Israel’s internal economy is likely to grow gradually weaker, as the ultra-Orthodox and Palestinian labour forces are under-utilised. As a result, the focus of Israel’s economic interests and activity is likely to shift even more towards the occupied territories.

Far from Israelis rethinking their oppressive policies towards the Palestinians, the ideological blinkers imposed by Zionism could push them to pursue the benefits of the occupation even more aggressively.

If the watching world really wants peace, economic wishful thinking will not suffice. It is past the time simply for carrots. Sticks are needed too.

June 16, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

The Deep Rabbit Hole of Israel Spying on America

By Naji Dahi | ANTIMEDIA | June 15, 2015

In 2014, it was revealed that Israel was spying on the secret negotiations between Iran and the five permanent UN Security Council members (China, France, Russia, the U.K., and the United States plus Germany—together known as P5+1) regarding Iran’s nuclear program. More recently, it was revealed that Swiss and Austrian authorities are investigating the extent of said spying. Israel has denied any involvement in the matter, but a spying virus linked to the Israelis was found on the computers of three hotels where the negotiations are hosted.

It may come as a shock to some Americans, but Israel has a long history of spying on the U.S. government, its military, and private sector corporations. While it is common for allies to spy on each other, Israel’s spying is unprecedented in its depth and intensity. According to Newsweek,

Israel’s espionage activities in America are unrivaled and unseemly, counterspies have told members of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees, going far beyond activities by other close allies, such as Germany, France, the U.K. and Japan. A congressional staffer familiar with a briefing last January called the testimony ‘very sobering… alarming… even terrifying.’

Another staffer called it ‘damaging.’

The spying is even more shocking given the extent of America’s generosity towards Israel. By all accounts, Israel has received $233.7 billion in direct military aid (among many other benefits) from the U.S. over the last six decades. According to If Americans Knew, an independent research institute, since the early 1970s,

The US has given more aid to Israel than it has to all the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean combined—which have a total population of over a billion people… In all, direct US disbursements to Israel are higher than to any other country, even though Israelis only make up 0.1% of the world’s population. On average, Israelis receive 7,000 times more US foreign aid per capita than other people throughout the world, despite the fact that Israel is one of the world’s more affluent nations.

So how far back does Israeli spying go? According to one source, Israeli surveillance of the United States dates back to 1954 when “the U.S. Ambassador in Tel Aviv discovered in his office a hidden microphone ‘planted by the Israelis.’”

In 1965, it was revealed that 100 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium was missing from a U.S. research facility. Israel was suspected of stealing the material for its nuclear weapons program. The Bulletin wrote that “The evidence available for our 2010 Bulletin article persuaded us that Israel did steal uranium from the Apollo, Pennsylvania, plant of the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC).”

Closely related to the smuggling of uranium was the most infamous case of Israeli spying—that of U.S. naval intelligence officer, Jonathan Pollard, and his wife. On November 21, 1985, Jonathan Pollard was arrested for espionage while trying to seek asylum at the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C. Thus began one of the most damaging thefts of American national security documents. According to one source, Pollard stole “an estimated 800,000 code-word protected documents from inside the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and numerous other U.S. agencies.” Pollard and his wife pleaded guilty. She was sentenced to two five-year prison terms but was released early because of her illness. She has since left for Israel and campaigns on behalf of an early release of her husband. Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to life in prison but is eligible for parole in 2015. Israel granted Pollard citizenship and has pressured presidents Bush, Clinton, and Obama for his early release. The damage to U.S. national security was such that whenever the subject was brought up, a number of high-ranking national security officials threatened to resign. Pollard has yet to be released.

Another spy that also helped Israel in its quest for nuclear weapons was the 84-year-old Ben-Ami Kadish. After two decades of providing an unnamed Israeli official with sensitive information about the U.S.’ nuclear secrets and weapons programs, Kadish was arrested. He plead guilty and paid a $50,000 fine, but did not serve time due to old age and infirmity. One wonders why the FBI took so long to find and arrest the spy. Curiously, both Pollard and Kadish allegedly had the same Israeli handler. Even the sentencing judge wondered “[why] it took the government 23 years to charge Mr. Kadish.”

Finally, there is the case of Lawrence Franklin, who was arrested in 2005 and charged under the Espionage Act. In January 2006, he was convicted and sent to jail for 12 years for passing secret Department of Defense documents to two high-ranking AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) officials. The two AIPAC officials were also indicted in 2005 as co-conspirators, but the charges against them were dropped four years later after a court required a “higher level of proof of intent to spy. The court said the prosecution would have to prove not only that the accused pair had passed classified information but that they intended to harm the US in doing so.” One wonders why the court all of a sudden required a higher burden of proof. Justin Raimondo suggests that the dropping of charges is indicative of the power of AIPAC.

As can be seen from the few cases highlighted here (there are more), there is a long history of Israeli spying on the U.S. What is new about the spying on the nuclear negotiations is the involvement of other actors (Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany). Unlike the United States, which has tolerated and condoned Israeli spying (Israel apologized and promised not to do it again after the Pollard case), these other actors may not take kindly to Israeli spying and might inflict punitive diplomatic and/or criminal sanctions against Israel. That remains to be seen, pending the results of the Austrian and Swiss investigation. This story is far from over given Israel’s intense opposition to the P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran.

June 15, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

As war report looms, UN envoy blocked from Gaza

Press TV – June 15, 2015

As the prospect of a UN report on Israel’s 2014 bloodletting in Gaza draws nearer, the world body’s point man on human rights situation in the occupied territories is kept outside the Palestinian territory by Israel.

Tel Aviv once again prevented Makarim Wibisono from visiting the coastal enclave last week, with Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon saying outright on Monday, “We didn’t allow this visit.”

“Israel cooperates with all the international commissions and all (UN) rapporteurs, except when the mandate handed to them is anti-Israeli and Israel has no chance to make itself heard,” the official said, despite the age-old and unflinching US-led support for the Israeli regime on the international arena, most visibly at the United Nations.

Wibisono reports to the UN Human Rights Council. The council has been investigating the war and whose relevant report is expected to be published in the coming days.

Israel had also barred Wibisono from entering last year for a similar visit.

Nearly 2,200 Palestinians lost their lives and some 11,000 were injured in the July-August 2014 assaults. Gaza Health officials say the victims included 578 children and nearly 260 women with more than 3,100 children injured in the offensive.

The UN has said Israel was responsible for the deadly bombing of several UN institutions, including schools, in which displaced Palestinian civilians were sheltering.

In a report released Sunday, Israel defended its conduct in the war, calling it both “lawful” and “legitimate.”

The regime has been invariably justifying its incessant attacks on the impoverished sliver by alleging it has a duty to defend itself against the rockets fired from Gaza. The projectiles are seldom known to have caused injury or damage.

June 15, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces try to violently suppress protest in Jalazone

International Solidarity Movement | June 14, 2015

Jalazone, Occupied Palestine – On Friday, June 12, the youth of Jalazone were protesting against settlements, soldiers started shooting rubber bullets, tear gas, stun grenades and live ammunition.

The Israeli military were using the cars as shields by taking the keys and leaving the people inside. They detained more than 20 cars during the protest in different time periods.

Israeli forces attacked a man and hit him with their guns before they arrested him. He was bleeding from his head.

At least three people were shot with live ammunition during the demonstration.

Below is a video recorded by ISM of the violence from the Israeli soldiers in Jalazone:

Photos below

Israeli soldier pointing his gun in the face of a Palestinian man

Israeli soldier hitting a Palestinian man

Soldiers beating a Palestinian man

Soldiers crushing a Palestinians head

Soldiers forcing a Palestinian on the ground

An injured Palestinian man being taken away by soldiers

An Israeli soldier using a taxi full of people as a shield

Israeli soldiers using a truck with passengers as a shield

Soldier taking the keys of a Palestinian's car

Palestinian throwing

Israeli soldier with sniper rifle

Israeli soldiers abusing Palestinian press

June 15, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Attacks on fishermen continue in Gaza

By Valeria Cortés | International Solidarity Movement | June 13, 2015

Gaza, Occupied Palestine – During the last weeks, the Israeli military has been shooting at the fishermen of Gaza almost daily with rubber coated steel-bullets and live ammunition. They also kidnapped 15 fishermen. Three of the injured and seven of the kidnapped belong to the Baker family, who are also the family of the 4 boys who were murdered by the Israeli military while they were playing football on the beach during the last massacre in Gaza. Yesterday, in Deir el Balah, the army stole 37 fishing nets and today the shooting went on all along the Strip.

ISM met some of the recently released fishermen from Baker family.

Baker family
One of members of the family is Ziad Fahed Baker, 21 years old. Three weeks ago, he left the port on his small boat along with four other fishermen. As they were fishing at less than three miles away, the Israeli navy approached and ordered them to leave without taking the nets with them. They answered that they would leave but not without the nets. Ziad knew that abandoning the nets would leave his family without any income, so they ignored the soldiers and started collecting them. At this point the soldiers shot Ziad in the leg, and the 5 fishermen decided to flee to the port. Unfortunately the Israeli gunboat followed them and when they were just a mile and a half from the shore shot the engine of Ziad’s boat. With the boat stopped they ordered Ziad and the other four fishermen, two of whom were also injured, to swim towards their ship. Once in the gunboat they were blindfolded and handcuffed to a metal bar, “What are they afraid of? That we would leave flying?”

Baker family

They were then taken to Ashdod, where Israeli forces subjected them to the usual routine of insults and humiliations before sending them back to Gaza.

They also explain how the Israeli military bombs the waters where they are working in order to scare away the fish and how the blockade prevents the entrance of all the tools needed for their activity, engines, fiber glass, hooks…

From the 1500 boats that laboured in the past, just 150 are still working today. This year the income of the fishing sector has decreased an 80% regarding the past year.

Ziad’s cousin, Mohamed Zied Baker, 30 years old, was also attacked last week while labouring in Sudania, north of Gaza. They ordered him to stop, shot him with rubber-coated steel bullets, kidnapped him and once in the Israeli boat they handcuffed him and stepped on his head with their boots.

Ziad, Mohamed, Fahed, Walid and Emad – this one, just 16 years old, also got shot with live ammunition and kidnapped – have similar stories to tell.

“They are now targeting the youngest fishermen, almost children”. “They want to scare us, but they can’t, we are Palestinians”.

Photos by Valeria Cortés

June 13, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

On returning from Palestine

By Omar Robert Hamilton | Mada Masr | 2015-06-12

At the border it is always the same questions. Do you have another name? Do you have another passport? What is your father’s name? What is his father’s name? Have you ever been to Syria? Lebanon? Morocco? What are you doing here?

I used to feel sick for days before coming to Palestine. Would rehearse my answers, shut down my Twitter page, print off hotel reservations, eject SIM cards. I spent four years’ worth of interrogations claiming to be making a film about the restoration of a church in Nazareth. This time, I would think each time, they will Google me. This time, the Israelis will turn me away.

For eight years, we’ve been bringing people to the Palestine Festival of Literature. International authors, artists, publishers arrive in late spring, put on a festival in English and Arabic with their Palestinian counterparts, and leave having understood what decades of spin and lies and obfuscation have worked so hard to hide. They leave understanding how simple it is, what’s happening here.

For eight years, the visiting authors’ first experience of apartheid is at the border. White faces and Northern names cruise through with welcomes and visas, strange Southern names and un-white faces sit and wait and answer questions about their lineage, are led through interrogations probing for an inconsistency, a nervousness, a reason to turn you away. Every year, without exception. You can call it security if it makes you feel better, but I won’t.

Eight years I’ve been doing it, and it is always the same. So much has happened in the world, but the border stays the same. When they ask what I have come to do, I say words like “arts,” “culture” and “workshop” in a variety of floral combinations. Words that sound harmless to these men with guns.

Are they, in fact, harmless?

Maybe they are Googling me. Maybe they know the whole truth. I wish, sometimes, that they would turn me away.

They want to disappear Palestine. Keep people away. The old will die and the young will forget. And they think it is working, this disappearing of Palestine. There is no airport to fly to, no arrival stamp in your passport, no website with travel tips you can trust. Google Maps does not know the names of the streets in Ramallah or how to drive to Nablus, it will only direct you toward the settlement-cities and military prisons. Where is Palestine? How do you get there?

In this age of nation-states and easyjets, Israel works to fracture both the land and the idea. Palestine is the West Bank, Palestine is Area A, Palestine is not Gaza, Palestine never existed, Palestine is a confusion. You cannot understand it. You must forget it.

But it is the idea that is strongest. Palestine is every breath from the Galilee to the Naqab, Palestine is every child born in a refugee camp, Palestine is Ferguson, Baltimore, Tibet and Western Sahara. Is that a strength — being strongest in idea? Or is it the last breath before death?

The idea of the Apache, Inca, Arawak were strong once, too. Are strong today.

“Just go to Israel,” I could say, when people ask me how to get to Palestine. “Just go and talk to a Palestinian and you’ll be in Palestine.” But what would they see? If you drive north from Jerusalem to Haifa, you will see a rolling grassy hillock to your right. You would not know that the Wall runs underneath it. You would not know what it looks like from the other side.

Israel is a colonist’s exercise in landscaping on a national, messianic scale. And so the landscape has to be translated for the visitor. This, I would tell you, is a road that only settlers can drive on, these are rooftops from which Palestinian flags are banned, this is an olive grove burned by settlers, this is a well that has been filled with cement, this is my friend who cannot come with us for dinner in Jerusalem and these trees hide the ruins of a village taken in 1948, and there, on that hill, is an apricot farm and there, on the other side of the Wall, is where the farmer lives.

Driving through the West Bank I look up at the settlements, small cities coiled around the top of the hills, watching, waiting. Palestine is the topography of war, the exodus of people up the mountain, the valley a tank can’t cross, the coastal plain to flood people down. The land is defined by war and Israel shapes the land for the war to come. The settlements wait for the signal from their higher ground.

The watchful visitor will soon understand that every inch of the land is monitored, controlled, prepared for. Every dimension of life is mapped and manipulated. Air, water, electricity, money, food, movement, education, ideas, love — none are free. The occupation of both the present and the past is a complex operation.

But it is more complex to hide a simple truth: that one people are trying to wipe out another.

That, in the end, is all there is to it.

When you cross Qalandia checkpoint, all becomes clear. The first time for me was in 2008. I was stunned by its brutality, the explicitly dystopian design, the razor wire and metal runnels and video cameras. By the inescapability of it. Four tight metal corridors offer themselves to you, each leading to a revolving steel gate. The metal is close, pushes up to your shoulders. Two people cannot fit in this animal run. There’s no way back, no way sideways, no way to talk, just wait your turn, wait to see what lies beyond that steel gate. There is only you in the metal corral and your own existence between the bars that strip you of pride or philosophy and leave you only as a body, a body facing forward and being herded in toward a reckoning.

In an abattoir they don’t let the cows see what’s waiting for them. They don’t want to scare them. It’s bad for the meat. Not here. Here your humiliation is laid bare. You must all stand and watch each other, grow weaker through each other’s weakness. The metal gate at the end stays locked. You wait together for permission to move, for the green light to buzz, to step forward into the deeper bowels of this slaughterhouse of dignity.

I cried the first time I got through. I came out into the sunlight and broke into tears.

Qalandia hasn’t changed in eight years. But other things have. Gaza, BDS, Netanyahu, Obama. Years of Palestinian deaths and Israeli words and American excuses. Enough has changed to fill a book with words. And yet nothing has. One people are still trying to drive another out of existence.

Twitter: @ORHamilton

June 13, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Activists stop Israeli-Palestinian conference in East Jerusalem

Ma’an – June 12, 2015

JERUSALEM – A group of activists on Friday stopped a conference in occupied East Jerusalem from going ahead that they accused of contributing to the “normalization” of the Israeli occupation.

The conference had been organized by the “Creativity for Peace” group and was set to take place in the Legacy Hotel.

However, the hotel reportedly cancelled the event after they were contacted by the activists.

The hotel management had apparently been unaware of the conference, believing instead that a tourism company had booked the hall.

Creativity for Peace is a non-profit organization that works with young Israeli and Palestinian women on “collaborative leadership and peacemaking,” according to the organization’s website.

Some activists allege that organizations aiming to facilitate dialogue and understanding between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians without addressing political realities “normalize” the Israeli occupation.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel argues that partnership and dialogue groups often ignore the stark inequalities between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians living under occupation.

They claim that this approach normalizes the Israeli occupation by promoting co-existence at the expense of acknowledging the right of Palestinians to resist oppressive policies of the Israeli government.

June 13, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Cell No. 40

نساء من أجل فلسطين Women For Palestine

نساء من أجل فلسطين Women For Palestine

June 13, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

5 injured, 2 critically as Israeli forces fire on Kafr Qaddum march

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Ma’an – June 12, 2015

QALQILIYA – Five Palestinians were injured, two critically, when Israelis forces opened live fire on the Kafr Qaddum weekly march Friday.

A coordinator for the village’s popular resistance committee, Murad Shtewi, said that Muhammad Majid, 20, had been shot in the stomach and chest with live rounds and is in critical condition.

Ibrahim Mousa, 35, is also in critical condition after he was shot in the abdomen while in his house.

Shtewi also said that Muhammad Nidal, 20, and Mouiz Khader had been shot in the leg, and Ayman Farouq, 38, in the hand.

Dozens others suffered from excessive tear gas inhalation.

Israeli forces had closed down the village’s entrance since the early morning after they declared it a closed military zone. As a result, those injured had to be evacuated from the village in private cars using dirt roads.

An Israeli army spokeswoman contacted by Ma’an said she would look into it.

Israeli forces routinely suppress weekly marches by violent means.

In Kafr Qaddum, they also regularly declare the village a closed military zone in order to prevent the weekly march from taking place.

The march is carried out to protest the Israeli separation wall and Israeli settlement activity, both illegal under international law.

The internationally recognized Palestinian territories of which the West Bank and East Jerusalem form a part have been occupied by the Israeli military since 1967.

June 12, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment