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Renegade Jewish Settlers

| July 2, 2012

Jewish settlers in Palestine: the most notorious squatters in the world.


Part 1

Israeli settlers have been slowly nibbling away at Palestine’s West Bank territory for four decades. 300,000 setllers now occupy outposts that range in size from plywood shacks to full-blown suburban housing complexes. Their abundance has grounded the much-ballyhooed two-state solution to a halt. VICE correspondent Simon Ostrovsky travels from Tel Aviv to the remote West Bank outposts where young Israelis squat for the sake of their heritage. But first, Simon pops in for some quick counter-terrorism training with a member of Israel’s Special Forces, just in case.

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Part 2

Israeli settlers justify their expansion into the West Bank by digging up ancient artifacts that supposedly prove that they’ve occupied that patch of land for longer than the Palestinians. The twist is that the settlers have the Palestinians do the actual digging under the “supervision” of the Israeli army. Simon stumbles upon one of these infamous archaeological digs and finds that the Israelis are less than eager for their operation to be caught on camera.

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Part 3

Meet Simcha and Yosef, a pair of teenage settlers at the Havat Gilad outpost in the West Bank doing what Israeli settlers do best: building and re-building houses without a permit.

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Part 4

Simon gets mixed up in the West Bank Land Day protests, where Palestinians annually clash with the Israeli army.

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Part 5

Simon travels to Asira al-Qibliya, a Palestinian town that is learning how to defend itself against attacks from the Israeli settlers one hill away.

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July 4, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Primer on Settler Colonialism

Five Dunams Confiscated in al-Khader

By JIMMY JOHNSON | CounterPunch | July 4, 2012

The Alternative Information Center on 12 June published a seventy word notice that five dunams of land belonging to Rana Talbieh were being confiscated in al-Khader, a village west of Bethlehem. It was something of a banal announcement expressing some expected difficulties for a few nearby farmers, but it is exemplary of the fundamental process beneath what is often misnomered the Israeli-Palestinian ‘conflict’. We can identify this process by distinguishing between two of the many ways that people relocate: immigration and settlement.

We discuss the arrival of Zionists to Palestine with the Hebrew term aliyah (ascend; plural: aliyot ). Aliyot are nearly always described as “waves of immigration”. This mischaracterizes things. When you immigrate someplace, you join or articulate to the sovereignty (the organized society; nation, tribe, kingdom, etc.) you find upon arrival. Settlers do not. Settlers carry their own sovereignty with them which challenges the indigenous sovereignty. Successful settler colonies displace or exterminate the indigenous sovereignty. Alternately put, when the British built colonies on Turtle Island*, they ‘brought Britain with them’, creating settler colonies and displacing the Powhatan sovereignty and Powhatan people they encountered in what the settler society calls Virginia. This simultaneous increase of British—later American—and decrease of indigenous sovereignty is how Turtle Island is transformed into ‘North America’ through the past 500 years. The processes of establishing, perpetuating and extending settler colonies is called settler colonialism.

Zionists did things differently than Britain but still established a settler colony. Unique amongst settler colonies, Israel did not have a primary nation-state from which it drew settler population and logistical support (this relatively minor detail is the traditional explanation for why Zionism is supposedly not colonial). Instead Zionists brought European capital and class privilege with them and established settler sovereignty on site, displacing the indigenous Palestinian sovereignty they encountered. Tel Aviv is not an outgrowth of Shayk Muwannis and the other Palestinian villages buried beneath it nor was it a suburb of neighboring Jaffa. Tel Aviv is the sovereignty that eliminated those villages and with them, Palestinian sovereignty there. Building Tel Aviv and the other Zionist settlements—’collectivish’ kibbutzim included—is settler colonialism, the process of creating Israel where Palestine was and is. Five more dunams of Israel are created now from al-Khader as five more dunams of Palestine are eliminated. This is the settler colonial equation.

The question of sovereignty not only distinguishes settlers from immigrants, but settler colonialism from more widely discussed and studied forms of colonialism. The British in India and Nigeria co-opted, exploited and reorganized the sovereignties and societies they encountered. The British in Turtle Island and Zionists in Palestine eliminated them. Settler displacement of indigenous sovereignty is a primary function of what Australian scholar Patrick Wolfe calls settler colonialism’s “logic of elimination.” There was and is elimination too by the British in India and Nigeria and co-optation, exploitation and reorganization by Zionists in Palestine, but not as the defining process. Wolfe’s seminal 2006 article “Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native” focuses primarily on settler elimination of indigenous people but the eliminationist logic he describes is equally applicable to the erasure of sovereignty.

Palestine and Palestinians are eliminated through death, displacement and stripping of identity. Hundreds of thousands were expelled in 1948 as the settler society became the State of Israel and again in 1967 when Israel expanded its control to all of historic Palestine. From 1967 to date, Israel has revoked residency rights of another 240,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip condemning them to be ‘illegal’ in their homeland or to exile. The numerous Israeli massacres perpetrated between 1947-49 demonstrate this ‘logic of elimination’ in a most horribly clear manner. Another way to eliminate the indigenous population is to remove their indigeneity. Israel attempts to do this with the category of ‘Israeli Arabs’. Calling Palestinian citizens of Israel ‘Israeli Arabs’ removes their indigenous Palestinian identity and instead articulates them through the settler society. This is never more clear than in the Naqab (what the settler society calls the Negev) where Israel is trying to eliminate the Bedouin population not through killing them, but through preventing them from living as indigenous people. The Naqab Bedouins are not allowed to be pastoralists or otherwise define their relationship with their historical lands. When Naqab Bedouins try, the Israeli government demolishes their houses and fines and arrests them. This is also why the Naqab has to be called the Negev and Palestine must be called Israel. Indigenous peoples and sovereignties have no place inside settler societies.

There is of course, much more to the narrative. The particulars of Zionist colonization and Palestinian resistance are shaped, abetted and contested by numerous factors. These include: European anti-Semitism (including pogroms and the shoah), Ottoman land policies, British and French colonialism, capitalism, ‘Third World nationalism’, Islamism, U.S. and Soviet interventions and the Cold War, U.S. empire, the Egyptian, Iraqi, Libyan, Israeli, Saudi and Iranian quests for regional hegemony and the particulars of Zionist and Palestinian narratives and ideologies. All of these are direly important but we very often lose sight of the fundamental process of settler colonialism while discussing them. Five more dunams of Israel, five less dunams of Palestine.

The settler colonial process has been the same since the Second Aliya (1904-1914) when new Jewish arrivals definitively decided not to articulate to Palestinian society but to create their own, separate sovereignty in Palestine (see Gershon Shafir’s Land, Labor and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1882-1914 for an in depth examination). Settler colonialism is the transformation of Palestine into Israel, the process of the settler eliminating the indigenous, and it is why Palestinians resist—as they have since the beginning—continued Israeli settlement construction. Israeli settlement construction is literally Palestinian destruction (see Walid Khalidi’s All That Remains and Raja Shehadeh’s Palestinian Walks, amongst other works for this narrative). This is why the confiscation of five more dunams, just one and one-quarter acre, in al-Khader tells us more about the fundamental process at work than 99% of all the discussion about the Israeli-Palestinian ‘conflict’.

* Turtle Island is one of numerous indigenous terms for what the settler society calls North America. I use it only as an example and not to privilege the term, used primarily by northeastern tribes, over others.

Jimmy Johnson can be reached at johnson [dot] jimmy [at] gmail [dot] com.

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July 4, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel Planning A Military College In Mount Olive

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | July 03, 2012

The Israeli Regional Planning and Construction Committee in Jerusalem approved, Monday, a plan to build a Military College near the Augusta Victoria Hospital in Mount Olive, in occupied East Jerusalem.

Palestinian researcher specialized in Israeli settlement affairs, Ahmad Sob-Laban, issued a press release revealing, that under this plan, Israel will be constructing a military college on nearly 14 Dunams (3.459 Acres) north east of the Old city.

He added that the college will be able to accommodate nearly 400 students and 130 academics, and aims at moving more government and military facilities into the eastern part of Jerusalem, as part of Israel’s plans and illegal settlement activities in the occupied city.

Sob-Laban further stated that the settler-led government of Benjamin Netanyahu, and several settlement organizations, heavily supported by Israel lobbies and some Jewish millionaires in the United States, is trying to create facts on the ground by creating this chain of settlements and military bases in and around the Old City, starting in Ath-Thoury neighborhood and Silwan in the south, going through Ras Al-Amoud and At-Tour areas, and ending in Sheikh Jarrah in the north.

The official said that constructing the new military college will be the beginning of a new settlement outpost in the area, adding that At-Tour neighborhood already has two illegal settlement outposts, and that the planned college is only a few dozen meters away from these outposts.

He said that the new plan was discussed by the regional committee in mid-April, and was approved less than three months after submission, an issue that indicates that the Israeli government is rushing to approve and construct more settlement and military facilities in occupied East Jerusalem.

Last week, Israel approved the construction of 180 units for Jewish settlers in east Talpiot settlement, and issued bids for the construction of 171 units in Abu Ghneim (Har Homa) illegal settlement, in addition to putting 24 units in Beit Orot illegal settlement for sale.

In the same time-frame, Israel demolished and evicted several Arab-owned stores in the Old City, and approved a plan to install a lift and a tunnel linking between the Jewish Quarter in the Old City with the Al-Boraq Wall (The Western Wall).

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Susiya: Another Casualty of Israeli Occupation?

By Patrick O. Strickland | Palestine Chronicle | June 18, 2012

Last week Israeli military forces delivered demolition orders to the residents of Susiya, a small village in the South Hebron Hills. The villagers were told that they have illegally erected over fifty buildings without the permission of the Israeli Defense Force.

The demolition order came a few short days after Regavim, a right-wing NGO dominated by Israeli settlers, filed a petition in Israel’s High Court, requesting that a building freeze be imposed on Susiya.

The village is situated, much to the dismay of its inhabitants, in Area C of the West Bank, the land which was designated for full Israeli administration after the Oslo Accords. It is nearly against the fence of a particularly hostile Israeli settlement, which is also named Susiya. Yatta, a much larger Palestinian village, is less than a kilometer, though there are several Israeli military outposts on the path there.

Allotted only three days to appeal, it appears that Susiya will be destroyed. The village’s legal representative intends to take the matter to Israel’s High Court.

The “illegal buildings” they have erected, in actuality, are tents which were hastily constructed from cinderblocks and rain tarps. For, this will be the sixth–not the first–time that Susiya will be demolished by the IDF. The village–which consists of Bedouins, cave-dwellers, and Palestinians who were displaced from the Negev Desert in the 1948 war–was razed in 1985, 1991, 1997, and twice in 2001.

Each time Susiya is destroyed, the neighboring settlement further usurps the land that legally belongs to its Palestinian owners. The villagers refuse to leave, and each time the village is crumbled, they resurrect it.

The villagers have been regular targets of attacks from the settlers next door. Their water wells have been poisoned on several occasions. Their sheep, on which they depend for butter and milk as their sole source of income, have frequently been slaughtered by their zealous neighbors. Settler attacks are generally treated with legal impunity, and this is to say nothing of the Israeli military’s repeated destruction of Susiya’s caves, in which Susiya’s residents have historically lived.

When I visited the village last fall, Nasser Nawajeh, a resident of Susiya and longtime activist, spoke of one occasion in which the IDF used a bulldozer to collapse his family’s water well. Under Israeli martial law, Palestinians in Area C of the West Bank are not allowed to dig deeper than three feet without a permit. After the well was destroyed, he recalled, they stuffed mangled car parts into its base in order to discourage them from rebuilding it.

In recent years, international activists and left-wing Israeli NGOs have helped draw attention to Susiya’s abysmal situation. Breaking the Silence, an organization of former IDF soldiers who have decided to speak out against the occupation, brings a regular tour of internationals to meet with the Nawajeh family in Susiya. Rabbis for Human Rights has also tried to raise awareness inside Israel of the struggle that Susiya faces at the hands of military occupation and continued settlement expansion.

Nonetheless, many international efforts to aid the residents of Susiya have been shortsighted and concerned more with the appearance of having helped, rather than fixing the roots of the problems. Little has been done, for instance, to help the villagers obtain water for their sheep. The Nawajeh family, because their wells are repeatedly destroyed, are expected to buy water from Yatta, which costs three times the price of water inside Israel, not including transportation fees.

The plight of Susiya is indicative of the larger dialectic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli officials will continue to accuse the Palestinians of being unprepared for peace negotiations, while its military and settlement enterprise employ the force of arms to wrangle the West Bank from its native inhabitants. Western governments and the international community will continue to portray the situation in an absurd light: a fragile democracy attempting to quell restive “terrorists.”

However, Susiya’s struggle is of another stripe. The villagers, possessing none of the violent and fanatical traits of the settlers that so often attack them, are committed to living on their land. None of the colonial arguments to the contrary will persuade them otherwise.

Susiya, though facing another impeding annihilation, refuses to be the next casualty of Israel’s suffocating 45-year military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

“We’ve been kicked displaced and kicked off our land five times,” Nasser Nawajeh told me. “We’re not leaving again.”

– Patrick O. Strickland is a freelance writer living and traveling on both sides of the ‘Green Line’ in Israel and the Palestinian territories. He is a weekly Israel-Palestine correspondent for Bikya Masr and writes regular dispatches on his blog, http://www.patrickostrickland.com.

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June 19, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian target practice for US tourists in the West Bank

albawabaNEWS | June 19th, 2012

Stay in a kibbutz, go out clubbing in Tel Aviv, say a prayer at the Western Wall and then go to a settlement to practice killing Palestinians.

This is the new summer camp for American tourists keen to get shooting at ‘terrorists’ in illegal settlements in the West Bank. At Gush Etzion, Israeli residents, who run activities, offer the chance to hear tales of ‘battles’, watch simulated assassinations and fire guns.

At the end of the thrill-filled day, tourists get a certificate to record that they “completed a basic shooting course in Israel.”

“Suppose that the terrorist in front of me has an automatic weapon,” Shay, one of the guides, told Ynet. “He can spray a cartridge within 2.8 seconds, which means I have less than three seconds to take him down. And that is what I will do.”

The location of the course – over the green line and in Palestinian territory – is the main draw for the danger-seeking tourists. Although guides are clear that there is no actual threat.

Just outside the settlement, Palestinians who live in and around Bethlehem must go through checkpoints manned by Israeli soldiers. The security presence means gun-toting tourists would be unlikely to meet a ‘terrorist’.

Conversely, attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians are on the increase. According to The Jerusalem Fund: “Israeli settler violence is growing and is a consistent threat to Palestinian livelihoods.” The attacks span from burning olive trees to breaking into Palestinian homes, carrying automatic weapons.

And it’s not just adult tourists who are taking part in the shooting practice course. According to an investigation by Ynet, children as young as five were allowed to shoot at the range:

Michel Brown, 40, a Miami banker, chose to take his wife and three children to the range with the purpose of “teaching them values.”

Upon entering the range, his five-year-old daughter, Tamara, bursts into tears. A half hour later, she is holding a gun and shooting clay bullets like a pro.

“This is part of their education,” Michel says as he proudly watches his daughter. “They should know where they come from and also feel some action.”

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Isolation brought to Alramaden

June 19, 2012 by

June 19, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces order Hebron village demolished after settler case

Ma’an – 12/06/2012

HEBRON – Israeli forces on Tuesday handed a southern West Bank village demolition orders for each of its 50 buildings, a week after Israeli authorities agreed to halt all construction in the area in response to a petition filed by a settler group.

Susiya village, in the south Hebron hills, has three days to appeal the decision before their village is demolished, resident Nasser Nawaja told Ma’an.

The community’s lawyer Quamar Mishirqi said she will file an objection to Israel’s High Court.

The mass demolition notices come days after an Israeli court heard Susiya’s case to remain in their homes. The village is fighting a petition by the neighboring Jewish-only settlement also called Susiya, and an Israeli group pushing to demolish Palestinian buildings called Regavim.

Last Wednesday, the court decided to implement a total freeze on building in the village, and the state agreed to inform the court of its plans for the village within 90 days, as requested in the Regavim petition.

While Regavim is registered as a non-governmental organization and says it is interested in equal application of the law, a Ma’an report last month showed it is run by residents of Israeli settlements and illegal outposts, with political connections to local government and the Likud and National Union parties.

Further, according to Israeli experts who reviewed the group’s official reports, the NGO is financed by publicly funded local councils of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The United Nations humanitarian affairs office has warned that Susiya, a hamlet of 350 people, including 120 children, is at immediate risk of forced displacement as a result of Regavim’s petition.

Nawaja told Ma’an the demolition orders intend to clear the village of its inhabitants in order to use the land for Israeli settlements. All settlements are illegal under international law.

The village lies in an area called Masafer Yatta, long besieged by settlements and their outpost offshoots, as well as a steady stream of demolition orders.

Residents of the area are a mixture of pre-1948 communities squeezed by their proximity to the ceasefire line with the new Israeli state, agricultural lands farmed by Yatta residents who moved out to live on their fields, and Bedouin encampments set up by those displaced from the Negev desert in the war to establish Israel.

When Israel began building settlements in the area in the early 1980s, villagers say the army started putting pressure on them to move from Masafer Yatta.

In 1999, the entire population was evacuated by the Israeli army. After a battle in Israel’s High Court, residents were granted ‘temporary’ permission to return.

“The court agreed this is our land, but they will not give us permission to build on it,” says Susiya council chief Muhammad Ahmed Nawaja.

International law experts say that under the Fourth Geneva Convention Israel must provide for the needs of the occupied Palestinian population, and are prohibited from demolishing any structure that has a civilian purpose.

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June 12, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Can Zionism Fool All of the People All of the Time?

By Tariq Shadid | Palestine Chronicle | June 10, 2012

The Israeli colonization of Palestine continues unabated, and the political show that protects and enables it has become a boring and repetitive charade. At the same time, it serves to feed the agendas, wallets and speeches of politicians and others who like to pretend that they believe in a ‘negotiated solution’. It doesn’t take a genius to see how this deceptive game works, but it may be helpful to those whose eyes are filled with the sand that routinely gets sprinkled into them by Zionist spin doctors and their supporters around the world, to have the scenario spelled out in a clear and unambiguous way.

First of all, let us have a look at the cast, as well as the audience, in this theater of deceit. Of course, first of all there are Israelis and Palestinians; then there is the Arab world, the United States, the so-called ‘Quartet’ and the International Community. Each play their own role in making sure that the charade continues, effectively resulting in the continuing theft and colonization of more and more Palestinian land. This is what we have seen, and this is what we will continue to see if nothing changes. Nowadays, the ‘debate’ centers around ‘settlements’ and ‘settlers’. Let’s have a look at what this is really about.

‘Settlers’: Trained and Armed Terrorist Militia

The first deception that needs to be exposed for what it is, is the fake distinction between ‘Israelis’ on the one hand, and ‘settlers’ on the other. If you follow mainstream media, you would be tempted to believe that Israelis are ordinary citizens in a democracy that is similar to the democracies of Europe or the American continent, while settlers are religious extremist fanatics who often are at odds with the Israeli establishment.

If you believe this, you are actually wrong twice, since the Israelis are not ordinary citizens but themselves settlers or their offspring, who all – men and women – have served their mandatory time in the military for training. Those who are called ‘settlers’ are Israelis from that same population, who are further armed, financed and trained by that same Israeli establishment, and showered in luxury in order to tempt them to populate the new Zionist colonies on stolen Palestinian land.

Those they call ‘Israeli citizens’ live in the older Zionist colonies, that were established by the expulsion of the indigenous Palestinians and the destruction of their villages and cities in 1948. The so-called ‘settlers’ live in the newer colonies, established in a similar way on lands occupied in 1967. If you wish to be confused and misled, go ahead and fall for that deceptive distinction, and you will fail to see that the settlements are the outposts of the Israeli colonization of Palestine, populated by their armed terrorist militia that works closely with the Israeli army. This cooperation is illustrated most clearly by the way that the Israeli army protects the settlers when they conduct their destructive rampages through Palestinian villages and farmlands.

Financing Disunity

As for the Palestinians, they are tied down by the harsh circumstances of the occupation, as well as by their own flaws. One of the reasons for the complexity of their situation is of their own doing, namely their faction-inspired disunity. It lays the perfect groundwork for the Israelis to practice ‘divide and conquer’.

Being dependent on money from the West is the main factor that keeps the Palestinian Authority toeing the line in this sordid game. It is to be hoped that they realize what staying in the game means for the future of the Palestinians, but their lamenting ritual usually steers away from criticizing the most essential deceptions of the charade. On June 8th, the PA complained about Israel’s settlement policies with the following words: “This Israeli government’s priority is to appease the settlers, not to resolve the conflict.”

Keeping what was commented on previously in mind, they have it all wrong; Israel’s priority is to tighten their grip on Palestinian land which they plan to never return. The ‘settlers’ are the armed terrorist militia that they have deployed for this goal. Settlement debates, even in Israeli parliament, are just part of the show.

Good Cop, Bad Cop

This leads us to one of the main actors that enable this show to keep its Palestinian-land-devouring momentum: the United States of America. Under the deceptive layers of theatrical grime and costumes, it basically boils down to a ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine, with the USA posing as the ‘good cop’. A quick overview of almost two decades of ‘Oslo’ negotiations clearly displays that the United States support Israel’s settlement policies as much as they support the Israeli occupation itself, in spite of their efforts at claiming the opposite. The USA ‘condemns’ Israeli settlement expansion in words, while at the same time funding it with millions of American taxpayers’ dollars. Even in this ‘era of communication’, action still speaks louder than words.

On June 7th, Ariel Attias, Israeli Housing Minister, summed up the US-Israeli charade on settlement expansion.”They need to condemn. We need to build.” Does it come any clearer than that?

Crocodile Tears

No show is any good without an audience, and even that is something that has been well-provided for. Since the beginning of this century, the world has been introduced to a new player at the table, namely the ‘Quartet’. This basically non-existent entity is said to be comprised of the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, and supposedly plays the role of a more objective force that has the capability of representing the International Community. In fact, what it truly serves as is a neutralizing chip that is meant to create a semblance of this representation, with as its main objective to render the International Community passive and inactive. This is why this so-called Quartet is barely ever mentioned, unless there is an issue that seems to require the opinion of the ‘outside world’. When the ‘Quartet’ does speak, all it does is shed a few crocodile tears about the ‘tragedy of the ongoing conflict’.

This should be no surprise, since at least 50 % of this group entails two main pro-Israeli forces: Europe, birthplace, trading partner and moral hostage of ‘Israel’, and the United States, the big bulldog that is sworn to protect Israel’s interests at whatever financial, military or strategic cost. If the idea was to have this balanced into impartiality by the presence of the United Nations (which has both these forces strongly represented in it as well, including American veto power) and by Russia, which has lost all interest in the Israeli question ever since it threw off Communism, we only deserve the title of gullible fools if we buy into this. You would think no one would, but the sad fact is that many in the International Community do, even while knowing better than to do so.

Arabs: No Fingers to Make a Fist

Motivated by selfishness, lack of principle, and a cocktail of moral, economical and strategic weakness, this last group is most visibly represented by the Arab nations. We can’t even blame the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ for this, since all these factors have been rendering the Arab voice – and even more so the Arab fist – impotent in the face of Zionism at least since the 70’s.

What we do see however, is how ‘Israel’ plays its cards comfortably to the backdrop of increased Arab disarray in this period of revolution. At times it appeals to the West for sympathy when it depicts potentially successful Arab revolutions as a threat to its existence. At other times it uses human rights violations in Arab states in revolutionary turmoil as an excuse to boost its own deceitful image as ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’, while making gestures of benevolence (like its fake utterances of sympathy for Syrian civilian victims) that attempt to mask its deeply and inherently racist anti-Arab ideology.

Will We Be Fooled All of the Time?

Having seen all of this, the question remains: isn’t there anyone who sees through this ridiculously dirty setup? Why has this deceitful theater show been allowed to continue for two decades, resulting in nothing but a tightened Israeli grip on territories it occupies in violation of International Law and United Nations resolutions? The answer to this question is not as far-fetched as it may seem at first sight.

In a world run by governments that manage to confuse their citizens by instigating as much bickering as possible over domestic issues, while drawing unwarranted mandates from these populations to manage their foreign policies in any way they please to, it is not to be marveled at that governments and main stream media are doing everything they can to keep up appearances. In other words, it is not because they themselves fail to see through the charade, but because they have a stake in it.

And the rest of us? Ordinary citizens, with an inquisitive mind of our own, who do not enjoy being taken for fools? We see through it, and we search for tools to unmask it, to oppose it, and to defuse it. Keeping in mind that many Palestinian family incomes depend directly upon the existence of a Palestinian Authority, there are not many Palestinians who truly believe that the words used in those charades actually have any meaning. The same goes for many of those who inhabit the Arab World and other ex-colonies of the West, many of them recognizing the patterns of these deceptive political games. As for the populations of the United States and Europe, awareness of the situation is on a steady increase thanks to the courageous efforts of pro-Palestinian activists and writers, despite desperate attempts by Zionist ‘sayanim’ and other (often paid) protagonists of Zionism to flood social media with their propaganda.

The words of Abraham Lincoln spring to mind: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” Two decades is quite a lot of time, and the hour is nearing when we must prove that Lincoln was right. Soon enough, the curtain on this political charade must fall, and the show must be over.

– Tariq Shadid is a Palestinian surgeon living in the Middle East, and has written numerous essays about the Palestinian issue over the years.

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June 11, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel approved more than 4,300 new illegal settlement units last month

MEMO | June 4, 2012

IDF soldiers and Israeli settlersThe monthly report issued by the PLO’s Department of International Relations has revealed that Israel approved the construction of more than 4,300 new illegal settlement units in May.

“A people under occupation” also gives details of Israeli violations against the Palestinian people and their property, which are ongoing. It says that the occupation army and illegal Jewish settlers uprooted 1,024 olive trees; demolished 37 houses and buildings belonging to Palestinians; and arrested 240 citizens during the month.

The DoIR told Quds Press that Israel has renewed or imposed administrative detention on more than 40 prisoners, including five detained MPs. A further 25 prisoners who were freed under the prisoner exchange deal eight months ago have been rearrested. “This,” claimed the Department, “is another violation of the agreement brokered by the Egyptians last year.”

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June 5, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Settlers set fire to ancient tree in Hebron

Ma’an – 02/06/2012

HEBRON – Israeli settlers set fire to an 1,000-year-old olive tree in central Hebron overnight Friday, witnesses said.

Local activist Issa Amro said the group then hurled stones at a community center in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood on Saturday morning.

Settlers tried to remove the Palestinian flag from the ‘steadfastness and challenge’ center, while Israeli soldiers looked on, he said.

Several days ago a group of Israeli settlers stole the building’s flag, which activists had since replaced with a new one, Amro added.

Tel Rumeida lies in the Israeli-military controlled H2 zone of the southern West Bank city, after a 1997 agreement split Hebron into areas of Palestinian and Israeli control. The zone includes the ancient Old City, home of the revered Ibrahimi Mosque — also split into a synagogue referred to as the Tomb of the Patriarchs.

Around 800 Jewish settlers live in Hebron’s Old City, among 30,000 Palestinians in the parts of the city that are under Israeli control.

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June 2, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

Hebron: Israeli settlers occupy Palestinian home

May 30, 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

On Wednesday, May 23, a group of Israeli settlers forcefully occupied the home of a Palestinian family near the illegal Tel Rumeida colony in the Palestinian city of Hebron. In an incident that lasted 3 hours, settlers forced their way into the house and began physically and verbally abusing the family. The family was evacuated by Israeli soldiers. The settlers then blocked the entrance, preventing the family from entering the premises.

At 6p.m., Muhammed Toma Aburmeli was working in his shop in Tel Rumeida when he received a call from his distressed wife requesting that he come home immediately. As he returned home he saw his wife and young children standing near checkpoint Gilbert, with his home surrounded by Israeli soldiers. Looking closer at the entrance of his home, Muhammed saw a large group of young Israeli settlers standing outside his doorstep and preventing the family from entering.

At approximately 5:30 p.m., Muhammed’s wife, Merfat Muhammed Aburmeli, and 4 children, the eldest only 8 years old, were inside their new home located on the same road as the illegal Tel Rumeida settlement. The family was preparing to move furniture into the house. As the preparations were underway a group of 15 to 20 settlers no older than the age of 16 stormed into the house.

The settlers immediately confronted the frightened family, insulting them and demanding that they leave the home. The young settlers repeatedly claimed that the land is theirs and that the Palestinian family has no right to live here. As well as the verbal barrage, the settlers began to violently push Muhammed’s wife and her children.

The harassment lasted 10 minutes before Israeli soldiers intervened. Checkpoint Gilbert is only 3 metres from the house so this can be considered a slow response on behalf of the soldiers.

Israeli military arrived and the settlers continued to abuse the family. The first thing the soldiers did was evacuate the Aburmeli family, rather than force the settlers to leave. The family was then ordered by the military not to return to their house until the settlers were gone.

The Israeli soldiers requested that the settlers leave. The young Israeli settlers ignored the request and ran through the house causing damage. Ten minutes passed before soldiers resorted to physical means to force them out of the home. The settlers showed resistance, shoving soldiers as they dragged them out.

After evacuating the premises, soldiers locked the house’s door. The young settlers then blocked the entrance to the home from the outside. The Israeli military made no effort to disperse the group and instead soldiers surrounded the house.

When Muhammed arrived at the scene he asked the soldiers what was happening. The soldiers shrugged off his question and instead demanded that he show identification. After handing back his ID card, he too was told to go stand with his family and wait for the soldiers to diffuse the situation.

Soldiers made no efforts to remove the settlers, and Muhammed and his family were left standing outside and waiting for almost 3 hours before the settlers began to leave by themselves at 8:30 p.m.

Muhammed, Merfat, and their young children returned to their home. They say that what is upsetting is not only the behaviour of the illegal Israeli settlers, but the incompetent reaction of the Israeli army. This harassment, however, is not a new ordeal for the Aburmeli family. Only one day before, settlers damaged a window of their home by hitting it with sticks. In their last home, located nearby, settlers similarly blocked the entrance on more than one occasion.

Families living near the illegal Tel Rumeida settlement, which occupied a section of houses and roads in downtown Hebron, have long been the subject of abuse and discrimination coming from both the settlers and Israeli policies. Currently, only 2 Palestinian families remain living in what is now the Israeli settlement.

These 2 families are not permitted visitors, even family members, because all other Palestinians are prevented by Israeli soldiers from entering. These families in particular face abuse by the Israeli settlers on a regular basis. It can be difficult for the families even just to walk without being pelted by stones or being subject to insults.

Muhammed fears that incidents such as these will continue to occur, but says that no matter what happens he will never leave his home because he, as well as other Palestinians, has a right to live in freedom, peace, and dignity in his own land, and illegal settlers can not force them to leave. He finishes by saying, “if they wish to do worse, then let them, because we will not leave. As the olive tree will continue to live here, we Palestinians will continue to live here.”

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May 30, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Popular Commitee Leader Bassem Tamimi Sentenced

By Circarre Parrhesia | IMEMC & Agencies | May 29, 2012

Bassem Tamimi, a leading member of the grass roots movement against the Israeli Annexation Wall and settlement construction in the village of an-Nabi Saleh, has on Tuesday been sentenced at the Israeli Ofer Military Court in the West Bank.

Mr. Tamimi was sentenced to 13 months imprisonment and a further 17 months suspended sentence. Tamimi was released following the judgement, due to having already served 13 months imprisonment waiting for his case to come to trial.

The ruling means that if Tamimi participates in any of the village’s weekly non-violent protest activities he will be forced to serve out the remainder of the suspended sentence in prison.

Bassem Tamimi has been described as a human rights defender by Catherine Ashton, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union. Ashton has been critical of the trial against Tamimi, as she was of the trial against Abdullah Abu Rahme, a similar figure in the non-violent protest movement in the village of Bil’in.

The trial of Bassem Tamimi came under fire following allegations of coerced testimony from children of Nabi Saleh who, contravening international law, were interrogated by the Israeli military with neither legal representation or a parent or guardian present.

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May 29, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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