Appropriation of Jerusalem
Photo by Kristoffer Trolle | CC BY 2.0
By Liaquat Ali Khan | CounterPunch | December 14, 2017
In recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a state formed by native Jews and Jewish settlers from Europe and America, President Trump and the U.S. Congress have validated the Jewish appropriation of a disputed city. This commentary explains the foul dynamics of settlements. It also illuminates the “sacred” justifications offered to legitimize settler colonialism. In addition to Israel, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and many other states, owe their origin to settler colonialism, another name for forcibly taking land from indigenous inhabitants. The criticism of settler colonialism is highly sophisticated in academic circles, college colonialism courses, this year mystifyingly trickling down in high school debates.
An unholy alliance of Zionists, evangelical Christians, politicians fearful of the revengeful Israeli lobbies, radio and TV commentators, Neocon opinion-writers, and self-aggrandizing academics refuses to see Israel as a settler state. In fact, calling Israel a settler state is condemned as anti-Semitic, a handy label swiftly invoked to stop honest conversations about the grinding appropriation of Palestinian occupied territories.
Given the successful drive to criminalize holocaust denials across Europe, efforts are underway to find pathways to criminalize the criticisms of Israel. The prospective criminalization of the BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement is a shameful suppression of legitimate free speech in no other country but the United States where the First Amendment reigns as the first principle of coexistence. Muffling free speech is unlikely to suppress the fact that Israel is primarily a state of settlers who have brutally suffocated and dislocated the native population of Palestinians.
Immigrants and Settlers
Ordinarily, immigrants are distinguishable from settlers. But the distinction is not valid in Israel. Under the 1950 Law of Return, Israel invites “the child or grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child and grandchild of a Jew to settle in Israel.” Non-Jews or even Jews who have converted to another religion are ineligible to return and settle. Jews mostly from Europe and America and some from the Middle East and East Africa have “returned” to Israel. The prevailing racism prefers white Jews over Jews with darker pigments.
Under international law, immigration is relocating from one country to another. Individuals and families may migrate for economic and existential reasons. Every year, millions of people migrate to foreign countries for economic betterment or to avoid starvation, discrimination, tyranny, torture, and death. Refugees migrate from war-torn countries where the probability of death and starvation escalates. In the 15th century, Jews migrated from Spain to Turkey as the defeat of Moors opened the doors of persecution and death. More recently, Palestinians, Syrians, Libyans, Yemenis, and Afghans have been forced to leave their homes and seek shelter as refugees in neighboring countries.
Settlement too is relocating from one country to another. Unlike immigrants, however, settlers dispossess native inhabitants for ideological or predatory reasons. Immigrants do not forcibly take away the land and homes that belong to the natives. Settlers do. Immigrants live in the mortal fear of deportation. Settlers do not. Immigrants may face discrimination, racism, and hostility in employment, education, and housing. Settlers are welcome and receive affirmative state assistance and grants. The state may offer jobs, housing, and other facilities to settlers willing to live on the land that once belonged to the natives.
Unlike immigrants, the settlers develop an aggressive relationship with the natives. The purpose of settlements is to make it highly unpleasant and oppressive for the natives to continue to live side by side with the settlers. Apartheid-like conditions are built to show to the natives that they need to relocate themselves to foreign countries. Thus, settlers not only take over the land that belongs to the natives but they also force natives, economically, socially, psychologically, and physically to leave their lands and homes. Other tactics, such as buying homes and lands from helpless natives is defended on the market theory that the real estate ought to be purchasable for a price. The art of tyranny is perfect: first, push the natives to the ground; then, offer to buy their homes.
In Israel, the state-sponsored settlements are ideological and not merely predacious. Predacious settlements may be disorganized, intermittent, and privately sponsored. Ideological settlements are highly coordinated in terms of degrading the local communities economically, morally, and socially. Stereotypes may be promoted to paint the natives as savages and terrorists. Any reactive violence by the natives may be used as a pretext to demolish their homes, issue eviction orders for entire families, arrest men, and dishonor women. The natives may be employed in menial jobs at businesses started by the settlers. In fact, the natives may have no choice but to seek employment in constructing the settlements that the natives detest in their hearts.
In Jerusalem, all distinctions between native Jews and Jewish settlers disappear for ideological purposes since most of them share the common goal of driving the Palestinians out of Jerusalem so that Israel can reclaim this historic city all for itself. Orthodox Jews who oppose the existence of Israel as an anti-Biblical entity, a fast diminishing minority, share no such platform. For Trump, the realtor, a city, any city, belongs to money merchants and any “encroachments “by the have-nots should be forcibly cleared.
Terra Irredenta
Appropriation perpetrated with moral justifications acquires a new meaning. Stealing a loaf of bread seems morally justified if the thief is starving. Land appropriation is palatable if a credible moral excuse can be crafted. Settlers know this moral trick. When settlers are highly educated, their moral justifications for the appropriation of land are crafted in more persuasive (Latin) terms. Over the centuries, settlers in various countries and continents have used moral imperatives to justify the dispossession of native populations and stealing away their lands, hills, rivers, sacred places, olive trees, playgrounds where the native children played, and the cemeteries where native elders were buried. Everything can be stolen if the moral justification is mounted at the barrel of the gun.
In the 15th century, the Catholic Church used two distinct theological edicts to support conquests and colonization. The concept of “terra irredenta” empowered Christian rulers to take away the Iberian lands from the Muslims. The concept of “terra nullius” empowered the European colonizers to take away the land from the native owners in Americas and Africa. In both cases, Christianity, presented as the one and the only one true religion, was invoked as the ultimate justification to legitimize the appropriation of land. Heathens, pagans, and the deniers of Jesus as God could be lawfully converted, enslaved, dispossessed, and even killed if they resisted the Christian Europeans, the true owners of God’s land.
In the 20th century, the European Jews invoked a complex fusion of the two edicts to lay claim to what has been Palestine for centuries under the Ottoman Empire and before. Invoking terra nullius, the Zionists argued that “a people without a land (Jews) are claiming a land without a people.” This argument derived from terra nullius denies the existence of local populations, be they Africans, Native Americans, or Palestinians.
The terra nullius concept, however, is less powerful than terra irredenta under which the land is restored to “legitimate owners.” The Right to Return is conceived in the womb of terra irredenta rather than terra nullius. Terra irredenta creates a mighty distinction between current and original owners. It reverses the logic of ownership. The current owners are deemed illegal intruders whereas the original owners are considered the lawful owners. In the Iberian Peninsula, the Moors were the actual but illegal owners. The Spaniards and the Portuguese were the lawful owners. Therefore, the Moors must be dispossessed and expelled and the land restored to the original owners.
Invoking a similar logic, the European Jews claimed to be the original owners of Palestine since the Palestinians were the illegal occupiers of the sacred land that belonged only to the Jews. Accordingly, Zionist morality dictates that the Palestinians, particularly if they resist the Right to Return, be expelled, detained, killed, and their homes demolished.
Soon after Trump, the realtor, recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu argued that it is “absurd” to deny the “millennial connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem. You can read it in a very fine book – it’s called the Bible. The sooner the Palestinians come to grips with this reality, the sooner we will move towards peace.”
Much like Netanyahu, President Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) declared that “The Bible is the rock on which this Republic (U.S.) rests.” The Bible-lover Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, under which 25 million acres of land was donated to white settlers. This land had belonged to Cherokees, Chickasaw, Creek, Choctaw, and Seminole nations, the “unlawful owners” forced to yield their land rights to Jesus-loving Christians.
Trump adores Andrew Jackson. Netanyahu adores Donald Trump. The Christian removal of Native Americans created reservations. The Jewish removal of Palestinians created refugee camps. The Native American Trail of Tears caused tears and death. The Palestinian Trail of Tears caused tears and massacres at Sabra and Shatila.
Conclusion
Invoking the Bible to appropriate land is a Judeo-Christian colonial tradition. First Christians, now Jews, are invoking the concepts of terra irredenta and terra nullius to justify the taking of land from the native owners. The appropriation of Jerusalem as a Jewish city runs counter to historical facts. It simplifies the complex history of a city that experienced the pre-Christ rule of Egyptians, Syrians, and Persians, and post-Christ rule of Arabs, Turks, and the British. Jews had not owned Jerusalem for centuries. Now, they have deadly weapons to do so. The Bible is a sacred book (different parts and versions) for Jews and Christians, even for the Palestinians, but does it justify the terra irredenta appropriation of territories and cities?
Khamenei: Palestine will at last be freed
Press TV – December 6, 2017
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says the Muslim world will stand against a US plot to declare Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s “capital,” stressing that Palestine will eventually be freed from occupation.
Speaking on Wednesday on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon Him), Ayatollah Khamenei stated, “Palestine today tops the political issues facing the Islamic Ummah and everyone is duty-bound to make endeavors towards its freedom and salvage.”
The Leader made the remarks in an address to state officials, ambassadors of Muslim countries and participants at the 31st International Islamic Unity Conference underway in Tehran.
Ayatollah Khamenei said that the enemies’ plan to recognize Jerusalem al-Quds as the “capital” of the Israeli regime stems from their “incompetence and despair.”
“The Muslim world would undoubtedly stand against this conspiracy and the Zionists will be dealt a heavy blow with this move and dear Palestine will at last be liberated without doubt,” he added.
US President Donald Trump is expected to announce the recognition of Jerusalem al-Quds as the Israeli “capital” and move Washington’s embassy from Tel Aviv to the occupied city.
The US bid has drawn a wave of condemnations from various countries and international bodies, which are warning of the repercussions of such a measure across the region.
Elsewhere in his comments, Ayatollah Khamenei described the US, the Zionist regime and the reactionary elements as well as those tied to big powers as “today’s Pharaohs,” noting that they are trying to sow divisions and pit Muslim nations against each other.
“Some US politicians have wittingly or unwittingly acknowledged that a war should start in the Western Asia region in order to provide the Zionist regime with a margin of safety,” the Leader said.
He also expressed deep regret over some regional rulers’ adherence to US demands, warning those serving the oppressors that their stance would be to their own detriment.
The Leader referred to “resilience” as the key to counter vicious Takfiris, who are the proxies of the US and Zionism.
The enemies’ ultimate goal of creating Takfiri groups was to spark a war between the Shia and Sunni Muslims, Ayatollah Khamenei stated.
‘Quds belongs to Islam’
Prior to the leader’s address, President Hassan Rouhani said in a speech, “Quds belongs to Islam, Muslims and the Palestinians, and there is no room for new adventurism by global arrogance.”
He also emphasized that Muslims, including Palestinians, should stand up against the conspiracy to declare Quds as the Israeli “capital,” saying Muslim states and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) have a great responsibility in that regard.
Kushner hid his leadership of foundation that funds illegal settlements
US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff/Flickr]
MEMO | December 5, 2017
US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner failed to disclose on government records his position as co-director of a foundation that funds illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, the Jerusalem Post reported today.
Kushner headed the family-run Charles and Seryl Kushner Foundation from 2006 to 2015, during which the organisation donated at least $38,000 to the building of a Jewish seminary in the West Bank settlement of Beit El and an additional $20,000 to Jewish and educational institutions in other settlements.
However, he did not reveal his history with the foundation to the Office of Government Ethics in March, despite having amended his financial records with the office several times and made three revisions to his security clearance application.
The US has previously called illegal settlement building as “unhelpful” in bringing together Israel and Palestine for a peace deal; Kushner is currently charged with leading that process.
According to the researchers at communications organisation American Bridge who made the discovery, Kushner may have avoided disclosing the information in order to prevent it being considered a conflict of interest with his government role.
The news of Kushner aiding settlement funding comes amid official investigations into his contact with senior Israeli officials in an attempt to block a UN resolution condemning Israel’s occupation during the transition between former US President Barack Obama and Trump. If true, the cooperation would be one of many allegations of conversations between Kushner and foreign leaders, including Russia.
Although being charged with spearheading the Middle East peace process, a recent report in Politico also found that despite carrying information on and conducting some of the country’s most sensitive diplomatic talks, Kushner does not have sufficient security clearance.
The Trump administration’s backing for Israel is thought to have been bolstered by the strong Zionist stance of many senior US officials, Kushner primary among them. The president’s son-in-law is a faithful advocate of Israel and his support for the country, say critics, is odd even by American standards. He counts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a close family friend and has regularly visited the country even before being assigned his role as peace negotiator.
How Israel is ‘cleansing’ Palestinians from Greater Jewish Jerusalem
Measures aim to annex settlements to city and turn Palestinian areas into no-man’s land, warn rights groups
By Jonathon Cook | Middle East Eye | November 23, 2017
Israel is putting in place the final pieces of a Greater Jewish Jerusalem that will require “ethnically cleansing” tens of thousands of Palestinians from a city their families have lived and worked in for generations, human rights groups have warned.
The pace of physical and demographic changes in the city has accelerated dramatically since Israel began building a steel and concrete barrier through the city’s Palestinian neighbourhoods more than decade ago, according to the rights groups and Palestinian researchers.
Israel is preparing to cement these changes in law, they note. Two parliamentary bills with widespread backing among government ministers indicate the contours of Jerusalem’s future.
One bill intends to annex to Jerusalem some 150,000 Jews in illegal West Bank settlements surrounding the city. As well as bolstering the city’s Jewish population, the move will give these additional settlers a vote in Jerusalem’s municipal elections, pushing it politically even further to the right.
Another bill will deny more than 100,000 Palestinians on the “wrong” side of the barrier rights in the city. They will be assigned to a separate local council for Palestinians only, in what observers fear will be a prelude to stripping them of residency and barring them from Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, a web of harsh Israeli policies, including late-night arrests, land shortages, home demolitions and a denial of basic services, are intensifying the pressure on Palestinian inside the wall to move out.
These measures are designed to pre-empt any future peace efforts, and effectively nullify Palestinian ambitions for a state with East Jerusalem as its capital, said Aviv Tartasky, a field researcher with Ir Amim, an Israeli group advocating fair treatment for Palestinians in Jerusalem.
“What is going on is ethnic cleansing, without guns,” Tartasky told Middle East Eye. “Israel hopes to get rid of a third of Jerusalem’s Palestinian population through legislative moves alone.”
Demographic fears
Israel’s demographic concerns in Jerusalem date back to 1967, when it occupied and annexed East Jerusalem, combining the large Palestinian population there with West Jerusalem’s Jewish population. It also expanded the city’s municipal borders as a way to covertly annex West Bank land.
Israel initially set an upper limit of 30 per cent Palestinians to 70 per cent Jews in what it called its new “united, eternal capital”, but has been losing the battle to maintain that ratio ever since. Higher Palestinian birth rates mean that today there are more than 315,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem, comprising nearly 40 per cent of the city’s total population. Projections suggest Palestinians could be a majority within a decade.
Although few Palestinians in Jerusalem have taken or been allowed Israeli citizenship, and almost none vote in municipal elections, Israel fears their growing numerical weight will increasingly make its rule in the city untenable.
“What we have in Jerusalem is an apartheid system in the making,” Mahdi Abd al-Hadi, a Palestinian academic in Jerusalem, told MEE.
“Israeli policies are dictated by demographic considerations and that has created a huge gulf between the two societies. Palestinians are being choked.”
‘Save Jewish Jerusalem’
Fear of the demographic loss of Jerusalem provoked the launch of a high-profile campaign by political and security leaders last year: “Save Jewish Jerusalem”. Fearful that Palestinians will soon be a majority and might start voting in municipal elections, the campaign warned Jewish residents they would “wake up to a Palestinian mayor in Jerusalem”.
Over the past year government ministers, including education minister Naftali Bennett, have aggressively pushed for the annexation of Maale Adumim, a large settlement outside Jerusalem, in the West Bank. Gradually, they appear to be winning the argument.
Late last month a ministerial committee was set to approve a Greater Jerusalem Bill, legislation intended to expand Jerusalem’s municipal borders to include Maale Adumim and several other large settlements in the West Bank. It won Netanyahu’s backing.
The settlements would have been annexed in all but name, and their 150,000 residents become eligible to vote in municipal elections.
De facto annexation
Yisrael Katz, the minister of transport and intelligence who helped introduce the bill, has said its purpose is to “safeguard a Jewish majority” in the city. A recent poll showed 58 per cent of Israeli Jews support the plan.
Under pressure from the administration of US President Donald Trump, Netanyahu has temporarily put the bill on the back burner. Washington is reportedly worried that the legislation will stymie a peace initiative it is reportedly about to unveil.
Ir Amim fears the legislation is likely to be revived when pressure dissipates. A position paper it published last week warned that the legislation was the “first practical move since the annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967 to implement the de facto annexation of areas in the West Bank to Israel”.
After decades of implanting Jewish settlers in the midst of Palestinian areas to prevent their development and growth, Israel is beginning the difficult process of disentangling the two populations, said Tartasky.
Eviction notices
The effects are being felt keenly on the ground.
Last Friday, Israeli forces stormed the Bedouin village of Jabal al-Baba and issued “eviction” notices to its 300 residents. In August the Israeli army demolished the village’s kindergarten school.
Jabal al-Baba stands between East Jerusalem and Maale Adumim.
“These Palestinian communities outside Jerusalem are like a bone in the throat for Israel,” said Tartasky. “Israel is trying to make their life as hard as possible to force them to leave, and so create a territorial continuity between Jerusalem and the settlements.”
The latest raid on Jabal al-Baba came immediately after Israel notified the hundreds of residents of Walaja that a military checkpoint would be relocated close to the entrance to their village. That will cut them off from ancient agricultural terraces on Jerusalem’s uplands their families have farmed for generations.
Although many of Walaja’s residents have Jerusalem identity papers issued by Israel, the new move will effectively seal them off from the city, as well as their lands. The terraces and a nearby spring, where the villagers water livestock, will become “attractions” in an expanded Jerusalem metropolitan park.
Chokehold tightening
Meanwhile, Israel is tightening its chokehold on Palestinians in East Jerusalem’s built-up areas.
Those on the far side of the concrete wall have been effectively abandoned by the Jerusalem municipality, and are finding it ever harder to access the rest of the city, said Daoud Alg’ol, a Palestinian researcher on Jerusalem.
A bill by Zeev Elkin, the Jerusalem affairs minister, is designed to disconnect from the Jerusalem municipality Palestinian neighbourhoods such as Walaja, Kafr Aqab, Shuafat refugee camp and Anata, which lie beyond the separation wall.
They would be hived off into a separate local council for Palestinians, instantly reducing the city’s Palestinian population by a third.
“Once Palestinians are in a separate local council, Israel will say the centre of their life is no longer in Jerusalem and their Jerusalem residency papers will be revoked,” said Alg’ol. “This already happens, but now it will be on a much larger scale.”
Since 1967, Israel has revoked the residency permits of more than 14,000 Palestinians, forcing them to leave Jerusalem.
Twilight zones of neglect
Even though their residents pay taxes to the Jerusalem municipality, Palestinian areas outside the barrier are already “twilight zones” of neglect and lawlessness.
In Kafr Aqab, for example, which is sealed off from the rest of East Jerusalem behind the wall and a military checkpoint, residents receive few services. Israel, however, has also denied the Palestinian Authority access.
“They are living in a no-man’s land,” said Alg’ol.
These areas have become a destination both for criminals and for Palestinian families caught out by Israel’s intricate web of strict residency regulations. Palestinians in the West Bank are denied access inside Jerusalem’s wall, while Palestinians in Jerusalem risk being stripped of their residency papers if they move out of the city.
Couples who have married across that residency divide have found a refuge in Kfar Aqab as Israel slowly disconnects the neighbourhood off from East Jerusalem. Residents say the population there has rocketed from a few thousand to tens of thousands in the past few years.
As a result, a building boom has taken place beyond the wall as Palestinians take advantage of a lack of enforcement by Israel of its building regulations. That has offered demographic gains for Israel too, said Alg’ol.
Housing crisis
“Planning restrictions and land shortages inside the wall have created a housing crisis for Palestinians, making it too expensive for them to live there,” he said. “They have been forced to move to areas outside the wall to find more affordable housing. Economic pressure is creating a silent transfer.”
Palestinians in neighbourhoods inside the wall are being driven out in other ways, noted Tartasky.
Traditionally, Israel has used a range of policies to strip Palestinians of land and prevent development in Jerusalem and justify house demolitions.
Those have included declaring Palestinian areas “national parks”, thereby criminalising the homes in them; confiscating the last green areas to build Jewish settlements; and allowing settlers to take over Palestinian properties in the Old City and surrounding neighbourhoods as israel seek to strengthen its hold over the city’s holy sites, especially al-Aqsa mosque.
There are now some 200,000 Jewish settlers living in East Jerusalem.
“Palestinians are never part of the planning in Jerusalem, and their interests are never taken into account – they are always an obstacle to be removed,” Alg’ol told MEE. “Israel wants the land but not the Palestinians on it.”
Late-night raids
Pressure has mounted on Palestinians in Jerusalem, noted Tartasky, as their communities have been denied schools and basic municipal services. More than 80 per cent of Palestinian children live below the poverty line.
The Jerusalem municipality and police have also begun stepping up “law enforcement” operations against Palestinians – or what residents term “collective punishment”. Under claims of “restoring order”, there has been a wave of recent late-night raids in areas like A-Tur and Issawiya. Large numbers of Palestinians have been arrested, demolition orders issued and businesses closed.
“Israel is using the same militarised methods as in the West Bank,” said Tartasky. “The assumption is these pressures will encourage them to move to areas outside the barrier, where sooner or later they will lose their residency rights.
“Israel has realised that is an opportunity it can exploit.”
The office of Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat, issued a statement to MEE denying that the situation of Palestinians in East Jerusalem was deteriorating. It said that there had been dramatic improvements in Palestinian areas in the provision of schools, community centres, sports fields, new roads, postal services and welfare.
It added that Barkat had “developed a plan unprecedented in scope and budget allocation to reduce gaps in East Jerusalem in order to address the 50 years of neglect he inherited from his municipal predecessors and successive Israeli governments.”
Alg’ol said the municipal claims were a denial of reality. “Israel wants to create a make-believe city free of Palestinians,” he said. “Where it can, it is ethnically cleansing them from the city. And where it can’t, it simply hides them from view.”
UN blacklists 130 Israeli firms & 60 multinationals for working in occupied Palestinian territories
RT | October 26, 2017
The United Nations (UN) has included some of the biggest Israeli and international firms operating in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights in a blacklist for those violating “international law and UN resolutions.”
According to Israeli Ynet News which has gained access to part of the list, 130 Israeli companies and 60 international corporations received warning letters from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid bin Ra’ad al-Hussein about their impending inclusion on the blacklist.
The list, which reportedly will be published in late December includes Israel Aerospace Industries, telecom giants, international tech firms, banks, and even cafes.
Israel Aerospace Industries, Hewlett-Packard, the Israeli branches of Motorola and HP, the Dead Sea cosmetics firm Ahava, the Cellcom and Partner telecommunications companies are among those listed. Israel’s two largest banks, Hapoalim and Leumi, are also said to be on the list.
Israeli Channel 2 News has reported that among the American firms that received letters were Coca-Cola, TripAdvisor, Airbnb, and Caterpillar.
The US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley condemned the blacklist as “the latest in this long line of shameful actions” taken by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). In June Haley warned the US could withdraw from the 47-member body.
“It may cause large investment firms or pension funds carrying stocks of various Israeli companies to divest in them because they, in turn, operate in the settlements,” an unnamed senior Israeli official told Ynet, adding “it may lead to a snowball effect that will greatly harm the Israeli economy eventually.”
The companies say the list’s creation was politically motivated and their inclusion may cause them financial harm and tarnish their brand. They are reportedly looking into filing lawsuits against the Commissioner and the UNHRC.
In September, the UN Commissioner warned over 150 companies that their activities in the “occupied Palestinian territories” may see them added to a blacklist of companies as “they operate in opposition to international law and in opposition of UN resolutions.”
The UN Human Rights Commission voted in March for the resolution being pushed by the Palestinian Authority and Arab nations, according to which the commission would formulate a database of Israeli and international firms directly or indirectly doing business in the West Bank, East Jerusalem or the Golan Heights. The decision passed despite pressure and criticism from the US.
Israel offers privileges to settlement companies affected by Boycott
Palestine Information Center – October 2, 2017
NAZARETH – Israeli Economy Minister Eli Cohen decided to offer special privileges to Israeli companies working in settlements in defiance to international boycott resolutions.
Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom reported that the decision stipulates offering aid in form of tax privileges in the exportation field for the factories affected by the boycott in order to guarantee continuing work in settlements.
The UN Human Rights Council decided to publish a blacklist including the names of factories and companies working in settlements in order to support the boycott and pressure these firms to stop working in the settlements as well as to urge international companies to stop dealing with Israel.
Israel To Commit War Crime Against West Bank Villagers
“No sanctimonious language… can erase the disgrace or hide the facts: the destruction of Khan al-Ahmar means the forcible transfer of protected persons,
and forcible transfer is a war crime.”
[If Americans Knew notes: Twelve Palestinian communities in an area near Jerusalem are at risk of expulsion. These villages have been living for years without basic health, education, and welfare services, and without proper electricity or sewage systems. They are under constant surveillance for “illegal” construction—structures built without a permit from the Israeli government (permits are impossible to obtain in this region). These structures, many built of necessity to house growing families, are then quickly demolished by Israel’s Civil Administration.
Israel makes life almost unbearable for these Palestinians. Demolishing homes is just the beginning: grazing and farming land is confiscated, making it harder and harder for the residents to feed themselves and make a living; roads are nearly impassable; settlers and Israeli authorities harass them daily.
This is taking place not in Israel, but in the West Bank, on Palestinian land under full control of Israel.
One community that is at risk of imminent expulsion is Khan al-Ahmar. The Bedouin tribe has already been expelled twice since the 1950s.]
IMEMC News | September 26, 2017
Israeli rights group B’Tselem said, on Monday afternoon, that Israeli government is to commit war crimes against Palestinian villagers in Khan al-Ahmar.
B’Tselem Executive Director Hagai el-Ad said, according to Days of Palestine: “Following the state’s response submitted earlier today to the [Israeli] High Court of Justice, that the state was asking the court to authorize a war crime.”
He explained: “No sanctimonious language about a ‘planning, proprietary and realistic’ alternate, or ‘time to prepare’ can erase the disgrace or hide the facts: the destruction of Khan al-Ahmar means the forcible transfer of protected persons, and forcible transfer is a war crime.”
El-Ad added: “Those responsible for it will bear personal criminal liability – exactly as B’Tselem stated two weeks ago, in a letter addressed to the prime minister, defence minister, justice minister, chief of staff and the head of the Civil Administration.”
According to updated data, Khan al-Ahmar community, which lives on land Israel has earmarked for settlement expansion in the area, is home to 32 families numbering 173 persons, including 92 minors.
It has a mosque and a school, which was established in 2009 and serves more than 150 children between the ages of six and fifteen – some of them from neighbouring communities.
Khan al-Ahmar is located around the illegal Israeli settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim, in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.
The Israeli occupation considers it strategic for building and expanding illegal settlements and establishing a territorial link between Ma’aleh Adumim and Jerusalem.
More background on Khan al-Ahmar and the other communities can be found here.
Jewish settlers hold provocative evening march in Silwan
Palestine Information Center – August 25, 2017
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – Dozens of Jewish settlers along with officials on Thursday staged a provocative evening march in the Palestinian Silwan district of Occupied Jerusalem and entered a house that had been already sized and turned into a synagogue in Baten al-Hawa neighborhood.
A reporter for the Palestinian Information Center said the settlers were carrying Torah scrolls and Israeli flags as they were marching to the house that was appropriated a few years ago at the pretext that it was once a synagogue.
Member of the Silwan Land Defense Committee Fakhri Abu Diyab said that scores of Israeli police forces were deployed throughout the area and on rooftops of homes to protect the participants in the march.
Abu Diyab affirmed that Israeli agriculture minister Uri Ariel, right-wing Knesset members, and officials from the Jewish Home Party, and Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Jerusalem Aryeh Stern were among the participants.
He pointed out that it was the first time for the settlers to hold a march in Silwan district.
Silwan and its neighborhoods have always been a target of Judaization projects. The Israeli occupation authority still seeks to demolish several Palestinian homes in the district in order to build a park for its settlers.
In 2005, it started to notify local residents of its intent to raze their homes for the park project, but it had to delay its step several times after home owners managed to extract court verdicts freezing demolition orders.
However, the Israeli municipality in Jerusalem now threatens again to demolish the homes in Silwan after it rejected all the structural blueprints they submitted for their neighborhoods.
Israeli settlers torch cars, vandalize property during attack on Ramallah-area village
Ma’an – August 9, 2017
BETHLEHEM – Israeli settlers set fire to two Palestinian-owned vehicles on Wednesday in the village of Umm Safa in the central occupied West Bank district of Ramallah in an alleged revenge attack for three Israeli settlers who were killed by a Palestinian in the nearby Halamish settlement last month.
Palestinian news agency Wafa received testimony from Marwan Sabah, the village council head, who said that Israeli settlers had set fire to the vehicles around 2:30 a.m.
While Israeli soldiers were reportedly stationed at the entrance of the village at night, the settlers attacked homes on the outskirts of the village after the soldiers had left, Sabah said.
However, Israeli soldiers are rarely able to control Israeli settlers, and reports often emerge of Israeli soldiers watching settler attacks on Palestinians without intervening. If any action is taken by Israeli soldiers, it is typically in the form of shooting “crowd control measures,” such as tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets, and often live ammunition, at Palestinians.
The settlers had also reportedly graffitied hate slogans on walls in the village, calling for revenge attacks on Palestinians in response to a deadly attack last month when a Palestinian from the Ramallah-area village of Kobar entered the Halamish settlement and stabbed three Israeli settlers to death.
According to the Israeli army, the incident would be under the jurisdiction of the Israeli police. However, an Israeli police spokesperson was not immediately available to comment.
According to Sabah, Israeli forces arrived in the village in the morning following the attack “to examine the area.” An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an she would look into any follow-up reports on the incident.
Israeli forces raided Kobar village in the predawn hours of Wednesday, detaining the father and uncle of the Halamish attacker, 19-year-old Omar al-Abed. Three others from the village were also detained during clashes that left 15 injured, some with live fire.
Last week, some 200 settlers from the Halamish settlement attacked the Kobar village. Israeli forces responded by violently suppressing clashes that had broken out between the settlers and Palestinian locals, which resulted in one Palestinian being injured by live ammunition shot by the Israeli army.
An upwards of some 600,000 Israeli settlers reside in occupied Palestinian territory in violation of international law. The international community has repeatedly called their presence and rising population the main impediment to potential peace in the region.
The UN reported on Saturday that after a three-year decline of settler attacks on Palestinians, the first half of 2017 showed a major increase in such attacks, with 89 incidents being documented so far this year.
“On a monthly average, this represents an increase of 88 percent compared with 2016,” the UN said. The attacks during this time period have led to the deaths of three Palestinians.
Israeli media has reported that the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, has also warned the Israeli government over the alarming trend and has “called on the government to adopt urgent measures to prevent further deterioration,” according to the UN.
Palestinian activists and rights groups have long accused Israel of fostering a “culture of impunity” for Israeli settlers and soldiers committing violent acts against Palestinians.
Israeli authorities served indictments in only 8.2 percent of cases of Israeli settlers committing anti-Palestinian crimes in the occupied West Bank in the past three years, according to Israeli NGO Yesh Din.
Meanwhile, Palestinians allegedly or actually committing any attacks on Israelis are often shot dead at the scene, in what rights groups have deemed “extrajudicial executions,” or face long prison sentences.
Israeli forces shoot, injure Palestinian in Salfit tending to his land near separation wall
Ma’an – July 29, 2017
SALFIT – Israeli forces shot and injured a Palestinian on Friday while he was tending to his land near Israel’s separation wall in the village of Deir Ballut in the western part of Salfit district in the occupied West Bank.
Medical sources at the Palestinian Red Crescent told Ma’an that Faed Saleh Odeh Moussa, 33, was injured with a live bullet in his left hand after Israeli forces opened fire on him while he was on his land watering trees.
The sources added that he was transferred to the Yasser Arafat Hospital in Salfit, where doctors reported his injury as moderate.
Saed, Moussa’s brother, told Ma’an that they were caring for their land near Israel’s separation wall, like every Friday, when Israeli forces arrived in the area at 7:30 p.m. and randomly opened live ammunition on them.
Saed said that they quickly hid behind rocks before his brother was injured. He added that their children were also with them at the time and two men from Qalqiliya city in the northern West Bank who were en route to Israel.
Israeli forces remained in the area for some time before leaving following the incident, Saed noted. He added that he had called the Deir Ballut municipality to inform them of the incident, who said that they would notify the Palestinian liaison of the incident.
An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an she would look into reports on the incident.
According to the Bethlehem-based Applied Research Institute — Jerusalem, the village of Deir Ballut has had thousands of dunams of land confiscated for the purpose of illegal Israeli settlement building, while Israel’s separation wall — deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004 — is expected to swallow up at least 35 percent of the village’s lands.
Such Israeli activities in Palestinian villages coincide with upticks of Israeli violence against Palestinians — both by Israeli forces and settlers, as Palestinians are stripped of their lands and often barred from entering Israel’s so-called security “buffer zones” on the Palestinian side of the separation wall.
The UN has reported that at least 92 Palestinians are injured by Israeli forces every two weeks, while 1,444 Palestinians were injured by Israeli forces this year, as of July 17. However, this data does not include the hundreds of Palestinians who were injured during Al-Aqsa protests post-July 17.
Featured Video
Houthis Keep Advancing as the Red Sea Crisis Deepens
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Clash of Civilization, Iran Part II
By Jamal Kanj – Intifada-Palestine.com – January 14, 2011
Israel’s survival kit is: perpetuate conflict, insecurity to rationalize collective hate and finally playing victim.
Devoid of conflict, Israel implodes internally; without hate, Zionism loses its justification; and playing eternal victim to continue blackmailing the West. Absence of this holy trinity, Israel ceases to exist. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- ‘We are not like everyone else’ laws that bind other nations do not apply to Israel, says Likud lawmaker
- Report: Saudi Arabia seeks allies’ assistance as missiles deplete amid war on Yemen
- Fuel Crisis Deepens: Pakistan Warns Tanker Attack in Red Sea Would Be an ‘Act of War’
- ‘Bucha massacre’ a false flag orchestrated by UK – Moscow
- China Rejects Outside Pressure on Trade Ties After New US Russia Sanctions Bill
- Houthis Keep Advancing as the Red Sea Crisis Deepens
- Iran spent $1 million to wipe out $30 billion in data center plans, and take down Amazon in the ME
- Zionist billionaire pressure to silence Macklemore sparks exodus from Ed Sheeran tour
- House Votes to End Iran War for Third Time
- North Korea Slams US Plan for ‘AUKUS 2.0’ with South Korea and Japan
- If Americans Knew
- Biden’s Genocide Accomplices Targeted by New Accountability Campaign
- AIPAC’s Network Has Already Spent $67.2 Million to Shape the Midterm Elections
- Jewish Supremacist Manufacturing a Civilizational Threat to License Bigotry
- US bans Palestinian president from speaking at the UN
- Israeli Forces Detain Journalist Alaa al-Rimawi amid Widespread West Bank Raids
- Even a pro-Israel Congress member has put a hold on 40,000 one-ton bombs to Israel
- As Gaza crumbles, Israel preps new ground invasion – Daily Update
- ‘We are not like everyone else’ laws that bind other nations do not apply to Israel, says Likud lawmaker
- Trump’s govt makes ‘treasonous’ claim of weapons shortages
- Palestinian-American Journalist Naqaa Hamed Imprisoned by Israeli Forces After Settlers Targeted Her
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
- Fear Of Debate: Alarmist German Climate Scientist Calls On Mainstream Media To Discredit Skeptic Voices
- End-Of-August Arctic Sea Ice Extent Hasn’t Fallen In 20 Years, Official Data Show!
Aletho News 