Greece’s center-left government seeks stronger ties with Israel, calls Jerusalem “historic capital” of Israel
teleSUR – November 26, 2015
Greece is looking to work with Israel on developing the latter’s energy industry and transporting natural gas across Europe, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told reporters after a meeting with his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu.
“One of the main issues in our talks were the opportunities arising in the fields of energy, the fields of energy in the East Mediterranean,” said Tsipras. “We are considering ways on cooperation in research, drilling and transportation of gas from Israel to Europe,.”
The recent discovery of a large offshore gas reserves close to the city of Haifa could turn Israel from a consumer into a supplier of natural energy.
Tsipras also met with President Reuven Rivlin during his first trip to Israel, with the two discussing the threat of terrorism.
“ISIS is not only in Syria and Iraq, but spreading to the whole western world, who must take responsibility and say that we cannot live in a world in which ISIS exists,” Rivlin said at a joint press conference.
While in Jerusalem for the meeting with Rivlin, Tsipras wrote in the president’s guest book that it was a “great honor to be in your historic capital and to meet your excellencies.” The comment was significant given that most countries do not recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. A former Israeli diplomat called the move “unprecedented, especially for a European leader.”
Leaving an ashtray inside a store results in a 5,000 NIS fine
SILWANIC | November 25, 2015
Silwan, Jerusalem — The occupation municipality issued a ticket to s Jerusalemite merchant under the pretext of finding an ashtray inside his store in the neighborhood of Ras Al-Amoud in Silwan.
Wadi Hilweh Information Center was informed that the occupation municipality raided several commercial stores in Silwan especially in the neighborhoods of Ras Al-Amoud, Bi’er Ayoub and Ein Al-Lozeh and checked stores’ and establishments’’ permits and asked the owners to follow-up with the competent departments.
The center added that municipality crews raided a fruits’ store in Ras Al-Amoud owned by Izz Eddin Abdelrahim Barbar and issued him a 5-thousand NIS ticket under the pretext of the presence of an ashtray on the stores’ table. They also issued another person a 1,000-NIS fine for smoking inside the store.
Barbar explained that he tax authority crew raided his store on Tuesday while he was buying merchandise for his store and issued a 5-thousand NIS ticket under his name and a 1,000-NIS fine for another man for smoking.
Barbar said: “The daily harassment against Jerusalemite merchants including raiding stores and randomly issuing tickets falls within the “strict” policy practiced against merchants”.
The center also added that the occupation forces raided several residential houses in the neighborhood of Ein Al-Lozeh under the pretext of looking for stone-throwers. They ascended some roofs and randomly fired rubber bullets in the area; they also took pictures of several houses.
Locals of Silwan complained about the police deployment in the streets of the village, random establishments of checkpoints, searching vehicles and checking young men’s IDs which create heavy traffic jams.
Israeli officer gets community service for brutal assault on US teen
Ma’an – November 19, 2015
BETHLEHEM – An Israeli border policeman responsible for brutally assaulting a Palestinian-American teenager last year has escaped a jail sentence,Israeli media reported Wednesday,instead receiving six weeks of community service.
Tarek Abu Khdeir, 15, was severely beaten by masked Israeli police officers last summer in the Shufat neighborhood of East Jerusalem amid clashesfollowing news that his cousin, Muhammad Abu Khdeir, was kidnapped and burned alive by Jewish extremists.
Video footage capturing the beating emerged later that evening and went viral as word spread that Tarek was an American citizen.
Muhammad, 16, had been kidnapped and burned alive by suspected Jewish extremists two days prior.
The Israeli policeman who repeatedly beat and kicked Tarek in his head, face, shoulders, and upper body was given the six-week verdict Tuesday despite the prosecution’s request for a seven-month sentence in prison, Israeli daily Haaretz reported.
Israeli Judge Dana Cohen-Lekac considered “mitigating circumstances such as the policeman’s lack of a criminal record, positive character references and the fact that the policeman lost his job after the incident,” when making the decision.
Israeli police said at the time of Tarek’s detention that he was wearing a mask and carrying a slingshot. Tarek denied he was involved in the demonstration.
The teen required medical treatment following the severe force used by the policeman, and was later sentenced to nine days under house arrest.
Prisoners’ rights group Addameer at the time called on international rights organizations and the US consulate to attend Tarek’s court hearing following his detention.
“State-sanctioned violence against children is unlawful and unacceptable,” Addameer said, urging the bodies to “investigate the intensified aggression against Palestinian children.”
The policeman — whose name remains under a gag order — was initially indicted on Sept. 2014 in an investigation the family and rights groups said was only carried out due to Tarek’s US citizenship.
Palestinian Women from Occupied East Jerusalem Call for Protection
A Statement by the JERUSALEMITE WOMEN’S COALITION | Kafila | October 26, 2015
We women of occupied East Jerusalem call for immediate protection as we witness and suffer the widespread and serious violations of Palestinian human rights, including physical attacks and injuries, severe psychological threats, and persecution by the Israeli settler-colonial state and settler entities.
We urge the international community to act and defend the rights of Palestinian children, women, and men, including the right to a safe life amidst the constant attacks, excessive and indiscriminate use of force used by the Israeli oppressive apparatus, acts of violence and daily terror committed by Israeli Jewish civilians, including settlers. This brutality is intimidating our lives, provoking our youth, willfully causing death and bodily and psychological harm, and disabling and injuring of our community members.
We, a group of Palestinian women, mothers, sisters, daughters and youth—and in the name of the “Jerusalemite Women’s Coalition”—call upon the international community to protect our families, community, and children. We are calling for the protection of our bodily safety and security when in our homes, walking in our neighborhood, reaching schools, clinics, work places, and worships venues.
We are calling for protection, for we feel displaced even at home, as the Israeli soldiers, armed settlers, border patrol, and police invade our homes, attack our
families, strip-search our bodies, and terrorize us all.
We women of occupied East Jerusalem feel as if we are orphans, without any protection from the Palestinian Authority or the international community, as the Israeli state terrorizes our homes, educational institutions, and public spaces. The state’s imposition of collective punishment and sanctions invade not only our physical spaces and bodies, but also our psyches. We live in a state of fear and horror, not knowing how to face the omnipotent power of the highly technologized settler colonial entity, and militarized Israeli state that regularly executes Palestinians in the streets. Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem have been abandoned, subject to the discriminatory policies of a violent state and its security and police apparatus.
The current political violence and the lack of any protection, as the Israeli security apparatus is protecting Jews only, jeopardizes women’s safety and her economic, social, psychological, and bodily rights, as well as children’s and men’s safety and security. We call for protection, and the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security, and urge human rights defenders to protect our community from the Israeli machinery of oppression. Our children must be allowed to reach their schools in peace, and our parents and elderly must be able to reach their work places, health institutions and welfare services with safety. We request that we are able to walk in the streets without fearing the attacks of the Israeli security apparatus and its armed settlers.
We are calling to protect women and girls, who are particularly vulnerable to various forms of state violence and mass atrocities. The economic strangulation of Palestinians by the Israeli settler-colonial powers, that have thus far resulted in the total dependency on the Israeli entity, further traps the lives of Palestinians. The feminization of poverty and the economic strangulation of Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem enslave Palestinians. The feminization of slavery in the colony is apparent when watching Palestinian women turn into domestic workers humiliated, controlled, and oppressed in Israeli public and private entities.
We are aware that humanitarian law attempts to challenge the inherent inhumanity of wars and colonial criminality by requiring international actors to protect civilians. International humanitarian law suggests moral boundaries of the exercise of power in situations of mass violence. International humanitarian law’s main object is primarily to protect and aid victims of violence.
We, the women of occupied East Jerusalem, are politically orphaned. We are victims without protection, as the Palestinian Authority has no right to protect us in our city, and the Israeli state treats us as terrorists that should be humiliated, attacked, violated, and controlled. The guerrilla state style tactics used in occupied East Jerusalem, be it the attacks on Palestinians in the streets, the beating of the young and old, the attacks on children going to and from school, the invasion of violent settlers to our neighborhoods and homes, the control of our life, water, cell phones, internet, mobility, health, economy, and accessibility to other resources, have situated us in human cages—segregated, restrained by Israeli laws and security theology, unable to know what to anticipate and what will come next.
Having to endure all the above difficulties, which have been escalated by Israeli cabinet resolutions and otherwise ignored due to global amnesia, WE ARE CALLING FOR PROTECTION AND URGENT ACTIONS TO PREVENT FURTHER AGONIES, UPROOTING, DEMONIZATION, AND SUFFERING.
Signed by Jerusalemite Women ’s Coalition /Al-tajamo’ Al-nasawiy Almaqdasy.
The Coalition includes a group of Women NGOs and Jerusalemite feminists from all segments of society
Jerusalem 24.10.2015
US and Israel’s Insulting Solution to Restore Calm in Palestine
By Stephen Lendman | The Peoples Voice | November 1st, 2015
During his Senate years, no congressional member was more one-sidedly pro-Israeli than John Kerry. It shows in his current capacity, blaming Palestinian victims for Netanyahu’s high crimes.
It’s hard believing his latest scheme, concocted in cahoots with Israeli officials, their absurd way to restore calm in East Jerusalem – supposedly to show Israel won’t change its holy site status, a smokescreen showing nothing.
The proposed idea calls for installing round-the-clock security cameras on what Arabs call al-Haram al-Sarif, the Noble Sanctuary – what Jews call the Temple Mount. Longtime Israeli collaborator Mahmoud Abbas approved. So did Jordanian King Abdullah, both part of the problem, not the solution.
Israel will maintain full control over recorded footage, revealing or concealing whatever it wishes – easily able to produce fake footage to show what it wants, claiming it’s legitimate.
This scheme fools no one. Over the weekend, Kerry sounded buffoon-like, saying: “I am pleased that Prime Minister Netanyahu has reaffirmed Israel’s commitment to upholding the unchanged status quo of the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, both in word and in practice.”
He absurdly called installing cameras “a game-changer in discouraging anybody from disturbing the sanctity of this holy site. Netanyahu “reaffirmed” nothing, not now, earlier or ahead. Kerry’s remarks were willful deception.
Netanyahu and Abbas “expressed their strong commitment to ending violence and restoring calm as soon as possible,” he added – code language for wanting Palestinians to continue agreeing to be treated like dogs, leaving the deplorable status quo unchanged, victimizing an entire population, letting Israel continue stomping on it at its discretion.
PA Prime Minister Riyad al-Maliki blasted the camera-installing scheme, saying: “We are falling into the same trap once again. Netanyahu cannot be trusted. Who will monitor the screens of these cameras?”
“Who will record the movements of those worshipers wishing to enter? How will these cameras be employed, and will the recordings later be used to arrest young men and worshipers under the pretext of incitement?”
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said “(t)his is a despicable attempt by Netanyahu, with American collusion, to entrench the Zionist control of Al-Aqsa Mosque by granting the occupation the right to authorize and prohibit Muslims to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
He called Kerry’s statement “pathetic” – an attempt “to beautify the Zionist Judaizing project and rescue Netanyahu from the crisis he is in as a result of his racist, extremist policy.”
Maliki failed to explain the issue for Palestinians goes way beyond assuring the sanctity of Islam’s third holiest site. Longstanding occupation harshness is the root cause of justifiable popular anger – led by a new generation of youths, wanting fundamental freedoms everyone deserves.
The only way to stop daily violence and persecution in Palestine is by ending occupation and effectively challenging US imperial lawlessness.
Washington arms and funds Israel’s killing machine. Without its support, real change is possible. With it, longstanding state terrorism persists, Palestinians blamed for Israeli high crimes, on their own with no outside help against a ruthless occupier.
Kerry, Netanyahu, Abbas, and Abdullah changed the subject, ignored the fundamental issue vital to address equitably to change the destructive dynamic on the ground.
Courageous, justifiable Palestinian resistance won’t end until long abused people are free from repressive occupation.
The only solution is revolutionary change, justice for a long-suffering population too intolerable to accept any longer.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III”.
71 Palestinians, Including 12 Children, 2 Infants And A Pregnant Woman, Killed This Month
By Celine Hagbard | IMEMC News | October 31, 2015
Three Palestinians were killed Friday, including a baby who suffocated to death from tear gas in Bethlehem a day after Israeli forces tore through a Bethlehem neighborhood shouting “We will gas you all to death”.
The Palestinian Health Ministry has reported that 921 Palestinians have been shot and injured with live Israeli army rounds, since the beginning of this month, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, while 855 were shot with rubber-coated steel bullets, and 208 suffered fractures and bruises after being assaulted and beaten by soldiers and fanatic settlers.
Palestinians Killed On Friday:
Baby Suffocates to Death from Tear Gas near Bethlehem
Palestinian killed near light rail station in Jerusalem following alleged stabbing of soldier
One Palestinian Killed, Another Seriously Injured, Near Nablus
The names of those killed by the army in October:
West Bank and Jerusalem:
1. Mohannad Halabi, 19, al-Biereh – Ramallah. Shot after allegedly grabbing gun and killing two Israelis. 10/3
2. Fadi Alloun, 19, Jerusalem. Israeli claim of ‘attack’ contradicted by eyewitnesses and video. 10/4
3. Amjad Hatem al-Jundi, 17, Hebron.
4. Thaer Abu Ghazala, 19, Jerusalem.
5. Abdul-Rahma Obeidallah, 11, Bethlehem.
6. Hotheifa Suleiman, 18, Tulkarem.
7. Wisam Jamal Faraj, 20, Jerusalem. Shot by an exploding bullet during protest. 10/8
8. Mohammad al-Ja’bari, 19, Hebron.
9. Ahmad Jamal Salah, 20, Jerusalem.
10. Ishaq Badran, 19, Jerusalem. Israeli claim of ‘attack’ contradicted by eyewitnesses. 10/10
11. Mohammad Said Ali, 19, Jerusalem.
12. Ibrahim Ahmad Mustafa Awad, 28, Hebron. Shot at protest by rubber-coated steel bullet in his forehead. 10/11
13. Ahmad Abdullah Sharaka, 13, Al Jalazoun Refugee camp-Ramallah.
14. Mostafa Al Khateeb, 18, Sur-Baher – Jerusalem.
15. Hassan Khalid Manassra, 15, Jerusalem.
16. Mohammad Nathmie Shamassnah, 22, Kutneh-Jerusalem.
17. Baha’ Elian, 22, Jabal Al Mokaber-Jerusalem.
18. Mutaz Ibrahim Zawahra, 27, Bethlehem. Hit with a live bullet in the chest during a demonstration.
19. Ala’ Abu Jammal, 33, Jerusalem.
20. Bassem Bassam Sidr, 17, Hebron.
21. Ahmad Abu Sh’aban, 23, Jerusalem.
22. Riyadh Ibraheem Dar-Yousif, 46, Al Janyia village Ramallah( Killed while harvesting olives)
23. Fadi Al-Darbi , 30, Jenin – died in Israeli detention camp.
24. Eyad Khalil Al Awawdah, Hebron.
25. Ihab Hannani, 19, Nablus.
26. Fadel al-Qawasmi, 18, Hebron. Shot by paramilitary settler, Israeli soldier caught on film planting knife near his body.
27. Mo’taz Ahmad ‘Oweisat, 16, Jerusalem. Military claimed he ‘had a knife’. 10/17
28. Bayan Abdul-Wahab al-‘Oseyli, 16, Hebron. Military claimed she ‘had a knife’, but video evidence contradicts that claim. 10/17
29. Tariq Ziad an-Natsha, 22, Hebron. 10/17
30. Omar Mohammad al-Faqeeh, 22, Qalandia. Military claimed he ‘had a knife’. 10/17
31. Mohannad al-‘Oqabi, 21, Negev. Allegedly killed soldier in bus station in Beer Sheba.
32. Hoda Mohammad Darweesh, 65, Jerusalem.
33. Hamza Mousa Al Amllah, 25, from Hebron, killed near Gush Etzion settlement.
34. Odai Hashem al-Masalma, 24, Beit ‘Awwa town near Hebron.
35. Hussam Isma’el Al Ja’bari, 18, Hebron.
36. Bashaar Nidal Al Ja’bari, 15, Hebron.
37. Hashem al-‘Azza, 54, Hebron.
38. Moa’taz Attalah Qassem, 22, Eezariyya town near Jerusalem. 10/21
39. Mahmoud Khalid Eghneimat, 20, Hebron.
40. Ahmad Mohammad Said Kamil, Jenin.
41. Dania Jihad Irshied, 17, Hebron.
42. Sa’id Mohamed Yousif Al-Atrash, 20, Hebron.
43. Raed Sakit Abed Al Raheem Thalji Jaradat, 22, Sa’er – Hebron.
44. Eyad Rouhi Ihjazi Jaradat, 19, Sa’er – Hebron.
45. Ezzeddin Nadi Sha’ban Abu Shakhdam, 17, Hebron. Shot by Israeli military after allegedly wounding soldier, then left to bleed to death.
46. Shadi Nabil Dweik, 22, Hebron. Shot by Israeli military after allegedly wounding the same soldier, then left to bleed to death.
47. Homam Adnan Sa’id, 23,Tel Rumeida, Hebron. Shot by Israeli soldiers claiming ‘he had a knife’, but eyewitnesses report seeing soldiers throwing a knife next to his dead body. 10/27
48. Islam Rafiq Obeid, 23, Tel Rumeida, Hebron. 10/28
49. Nadim Eshqeirat, 52, Jerusalem. 10/29 – Died when Israeli soldiers delayed his ambulance.
50. Mahdi Mohammad Ramadan al-Mohtasib, 23, Hebron. 10/29
51. Farouq Abdul-Qader Seder, 19, Hebron. 10/29
52. Qassem Saba’na, 20, shot on motorcycle near Zaatara checkpoint. 10/30
53. Ahmad Hamada Qneibi, 23, Jerusalem. Soldiers claimed ‘he had a knife’.
54. Ramadan Mohammad Faisal Thawabta, 8 month old baby, Bethlehem. Died of tear gas inhalation.
Gaza Strip:
55. Shadi Hussam Doula, 20.
56. Ahmad Abdul-Rahman al-Harbawi, 20.
57. Abed al-Wahidi, 20.
58. Mohammad Hisham al-Roqab, 15.
59. Adnan Mousa Abu ‘Oleyyan, 22.
60. Ziad Nabil Sharaf, 20.
61. Jihad al-‘Obeid, 22.
62. Marwan Hisham Barbakh, 13.
63. Khalil Omar Othman, 15.
64. Nour Rasmie Hassan, 30. Killed along with her child in an Israeli airstrike. 10/11
65. Rahaf Yihiya Hassan, two years old. Killed along with her mother in an Israeli airstrike. 10/11
66. Yihya Abdel-Qader Farahat, 23.
67. Shawqie Jamal Jaber Obed, 37.
68. Mahmoud Hatem Hameeda, 22. Northern Gaza. 69. Ahmad al-Sarhi, 27, al-Boreij.
70. Yihya Hashem Kreira.
71. Khalil Hassan Abu Obeid, 25. Khan Younis. Died from wounds sustained in protest earlier in the week.
Non-Palestinian killed by Israeli mob:
Eritrean asylum-seeker Haftom Zarhum killed in Beer Sheva bus station by angry mob who mistook him for a Palestinian- 10/18
Names of known Israeli casualties during the same time period:
1 & 2. 10/1 – Eitam and Na’ama Henkin, both aged around 30 years old, killed in drive-by shooting near Itamar settlement.
3. 10/3 – Nahmia Lavi, 41 – Rabbi for Israeli military. Killed in Jerusalem stabbing attack near Lion’s Gate when he tried to shoot the attacker but had his weapon taken.
4. 10/3 – Aaron Bennet, 24. Killed in Jerusalem stabbing attack near Lion’s Gate.
5. 10/13 – Yeshayahu Kirshavski, 60, bus shooting in East Jerusalem
6. 10/13 – Haviv Haim, 78, bus shooting in East Jerusalem
7. 10/13 – Richard Lakin, 76, bus shooting in East Jerusalem (died of wounds several days after the attack)
8. 10/18 – Omri Levy, 19, Israeli soldier with the Golani Brigade who had his weapon grabbed and turned against him by an Israeli resident.
An additional 2 Israelis that were initially claimed to have been killed in attacks were actually killed in car accidents.
Israel Redefines Terrorism
By Stephen Lendman | October 25, 2015
Rogue states make their own rules, mindless of inviolable international laws, norms and standards. On October 19, Israel’s repressive counter-terrorism bill passed its 2nd and 3rd readings – criminalizing legitimate resistance as terrorism, expanding regime authority to counter it extrajudicially.
Any activity can now be called terrorism or terrorist-related, innocent Palestinians subject to possible longterm imprisonment. Charity officials providing aid to anyone linked to or associated with Hamas or legitimate resistance groups can be arrested, charged and prosecuted.
Children wearing clothing bearing the Hamas name face arrest, detention, and grueling interrogations amounting to torture. The law authorizes Big Brother surveillance, more intrusive than already, replicating how the NSA operates, monitoring all phone and online communications.
Israeli Law Professor Yael Berda called the measure “scary and undemocratic…criminalizing an entire population for identifying with an organization that Israel considers terrorist (true or false)” – first introduced in 2011, redrafted several times, never brought to 2nd and 3rd readings until now, required for passage.
It expands the definition of terrorism to virtually anything considered a (real or invented) threat to public safety, well-being, property, infrastructure, the economy, religious sites or the environment.
It makes no distinction between alleged attacks against civilians, soldiers or police. Vandalism against (Israeli) religious sites is now terrorism.
Terrorist organizations are any authorities say so for any reason or none at all. Members or supporters face harsh punishment.
Any alleged terrorist crime incurs “double the penalty set for the same crimes, but no more than 30 years” imprisonment. Administrative detentions (without charges levied or trials) can be ordered more easily than before, subjecting victims to indefinite imprisonment.
Punishment for allegedly intending to conduct a terrorist act is equivalent to committing it. Noted Israeli lawyer, human rights champion Leah Tsemel calls the new law “not…about terrorism. It…remove(s) restrictions from everything to do with opposition to occupation,” criminalizing legitimate resistance.
“When it comes to the occupation, there is no rule of law,” she explained. Israel always operated extrajudicially – now with more police state authority than before.
A passage in the 100-page measure reads as follows:
“The law substantially strengthens and widens the powers of the police and the General Security Services (Shabak or Shin Bet) to suppress any legitimate protest activities against Israeli policies.”
“It also enables the use of ‘secret evidence’ in order to take preventative measures against these activities, which impedes the possibility of objecting to these repressive decisions based on their merits before the judiciary.”
According to Yael Berda, “(y)ou don’t have to do anything to be considered a terrorist. You can publish an article or make a comment in cyberspace, and you will be criminalized.”
“If you are located in the physical environment of terrorist activities, you are guilty.” The measure applies specifically for Palestinians and Arab Israeli citizens – Jews as well for opposing regime authority.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) denounced the new measure, saying “in its current form, (it) seeks to perpetuate and normalise problematic arrangements that are currently set out in emergency legislation and regulations from the time of the British mandate.”
“(D)efinitions included in the bill are very broad and could apply to people and organizations who are not engaged in terrorism. Such broad definitions give excessive discretion to law enforcement authorities to determine ‘who is a terrorist,’ with potentially serious implications.”
“For example, the definition of ‘terrorist act’ may apply to protests, including ‘disturbances.’ The definition of ‘member of a terrorist organization’ includes people who did not take any active part in the organization. The broad definitions contained in the bill and the draconian powers that it gives to authorities could potentially lead to serious human rights violations.”
The Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel condemned the measure, saying it “substantially strengthens and widens the powers of the police and the Shabak to suppress any legitimate protest activities against Israeli policies.”
It’s specifically designed to criminalize legitimate resistance – “to further suppress the struggle of Palestinian citizens of Israel and the pursuit of their political activities in support of Palestinians living under Occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.”
Humanitarian and cultural activities are vulnerable. So is independent journalism, legitimately criticizing repressive state policies. Its passage assures greater collective punishment – all the more urgency to resist this vile, freedom-destroying regime.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book as editor and contributor is titled Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.
Netanyahu Proposes Cutting Off 80,000 Palestinians from Jerusalem
By Celine Hagbard | IMEMC News | October 26, 2015
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, in a recent Cabinet meeting, proposed revoking the residency rights of 80,000 Jerusalemites, which would mean that the people of Sho’afat refugee camp and Kafr Aqab, as well as other neighborhoods, would be cut off from the rest of Jerusalem.
The proposal was considered by the Israeli Cabinet in their recent meeting, but no decision was made.
Already, the 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank have been severed from Jerusalem due to the Israeli construction of a massive Wall over the past 13 years. The Wall has annexed large sections of Palestinian land and made them a de facto part of the state of Israel, in direct violation of the responsibilities of an occupier under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Israel’s government signed the Convention in 1957, requiring it to provide for the needs of civilian populations under occupation. The Convention also requires that an Occupying Power must not transfer any civilians into the land it has militarily occupied. But Israel has transferred over half a million people into settlements constructed on Palestinian land that was militarily occupied, then illegally seized, since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights began in 1967.
In Jerusalem, the Israeli Annexation Wall has been constructed in such a way as to annex as much of Jerusalem as possible for the Israeli state, while forcing the Palestinian population into smaller and smaller enclaves. Now, under the Israeli Prime Minister’s proposal, residents of those enclaves would lose their residency rights altogether.
Israel has an identity card system for the residents of Jerusalem that is completely unique in the world. Jewish Israelis who live in Jerusalem or in paramilitary colonies in the West Bank are afforded full Israeli citizenship. But Palestinians who live on their ancestral land in Jerusalem are given a different kind of identity card, which ensures that they have far fewer rights than Jewish residents of the city.
If a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem, for example, were to travel abroad for more than a year, Israel would consider that person to be an ‘absentee property owner’, and would seize their land and home and annex it to Israel, denying the Palestinian owner the right to return to their home. The rule only applies to Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, and not to Jewish residents of the city.
According to the Israeli paper Yedioth Ahranoth, following the construction of new walls and barricades in recent weeks to further separate and segregate Palestinian residents of Jerusalem from Jewish residents, the Israeli Prime Minister told his Cabinet ministers, “We need to examine the possibility of canceling their [Palestinian Jerusalemites] residency. There needs to be a discussion about it.”
Some Israeli ministers voiced opposition to the plan, not because they were concerned about the Palestinian Jerusalemites losing their residency rights, but because they believe such a division would “give up territory” that some Israelis believe should belong to Israel.
That claim is based on a military takeover of the land by Israeli forces. Neither international law nor signed agreements recognize military takeover of land as a legitimate way of expanding state territory.
Hamas: Kerry’s statements boost Israeli hegemony over al-Aqsa
Palestine Information Center – October 25, 2015
GAZA – Hamas has deemed remarks by U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, an attempt to quell the ongoing Palestinian intifada and consolidate Israeli domination over the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque.
On Saturday, the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, slammed Kerry’s remarks in which he signaled Netanyahu’s commitment to allow Muslims to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque while granting non-Muslims the right to visit the holy site.
The group said Kerry’s remarks come as an attempt on part of the United States to help the Israeli occupation find a way out of the crisis it faces as a result of the Palestinian uprising.
The Movement noted that the declaration equates Muslim prayer rights with visitation rights for non-Muslims and could be used to justify provocative and sacrilegious break-ins by Israeli extremist settlers.
Hamas added that the vague language of the declaration gives Netanyahu the opportunity to maneuver and renege on any commitments in an attempt to pave the way for grabbing hold of the holy Mosque.
Hamas urged the PA president Mahmoud Abbas and the Jordanian authorities to turn down any compromise that gives the occupation the opportunity to violate Palestinian rights at Al-Aqsa or that limits Palestinians’ ability to protect the Mosque.
Hamas called on all Palestinians to watch out for attempts to abort the Jerusalem Intifada and to protect Al-Aqsa Mosque no matter the prices that might have to be paid.
Jerusalem Palestinian loses eye after indiscriminate Israeli fire
Ma’an – October 24, 2015
JERUSALEM – Thirty-six year old Palestinian Luay Faisal Ubeid lost his left eye after an Israeli soldier shot him with a rubber-coated steel bullet in al -Issawiya neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem earlier this week.
“Minutes after I arrived home on Wednesday evening, I heard bangs, so I opened the door of my balcony land looked down on the street,” Ubeid told Ma’an while receiving treatment at Hadassah hospital in Ein Karem in West Jerusalem.
“Seconds after opening the door an Israeli soldier fired a rubber-coated bullet directly at me, hitting my left eye,” Ubeid said.
He received first aid at home before being evacuated to Shaare Zedek medical center. He was later transferred to Hadassah hospital.
Doctors discovered that Ubeid had skull fractures and his left eye had been gouged out.
Ubeid told Ma’an he planned to bring suit against the Israeli forces, saying that “there hadn’t been clashes in the area” when he was shot. Israeli police have carried out an initial investigation, he added.
Ubeid is a father of five children, aged 4 to 13 and works as a bus driver for tourists in the area.
Member of a local committee, Muhammad Abu al-Hummus, told Ma’an that Israeli forces entering al-Issawiya on a near-daily basis are increasingly using indiscriminate force on the neigbhorhood’s residents.
“Israeli soldiers and police officers fire rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades, and hose houses indiscriminately with foul-smelling liquids,” al-Hummus told Ma’an.
Several people — including children — have been hit with rubber-coated steel bullets over the past month while sitting in their homes.
Ubeid is one of thousands of Palestinans in the occupied Palestinian territory to sustain injuries this month, according to Palestinian Red Crescent documentation.
As clashes mar the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have come under unprecedented restrictions following calls by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu for increased measures against the population, in the wake of attacks that have left nine Israelis dead since Oct. 1.
Since the call, Israeli authorities have demolished homes of alleged attackers, sealed entrances to Palestinian neighborhoods, and detained several, in what Amnesty Intenational earlier this week termed the “collective punishment of thousands of people.”
Misunderstandings About Jerusalem’s Temple Mount
By George Wesley Buchanan | Washington Report on Middle East Affairs | August 2011
While it has not been widely published, it assuredly has been known for more than 40 years that the 45-acre, well-fortified place that has been mistakenly called the “Temple Mount” was really the Roman fortress—the Antonia—that Herod built. The Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque are contained within these walls. The area is called the Haram Al-Sharif in Arabic.
The discovery that this area had once been the great Roman fortress came as a shock to the scholarly community, which had believed for many years that this ancient fortress was the place where the temple had been. This news was preceded by another shock, when the English archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon discovered in 1962 that the entire City of David in the past had been only that little rock ridge on the western bank of the Kidron Valley. Less than 10 years later the historian Benjamin Mazar learned that the Haram had undoubtedly been the Roman fortress.
In biblical times the Haram was not a sacred place. Instead it was the place that Orthodox Jews considered defiled and the most despised place in the world. Within these walls were found no remnants of any of the earlier temples but rather an image of Mars, the Roman god of war. The 1st century Jewish Roman historian Titus Flavius Josephus said the Romans always kept a whole legion of soldiers (5,000-6,000) there, and that there were stones in its walls that were 30 feet long, 15 feet thick, and 71/2 feet high. While excavating the area, Mazar found these very stones there in the Haram—not in the temple.
He and the local Muslims also discovered there three inscriptions, honoring the Roman leaders in the war of A.D. 66-72—Vespasian, Titus, and Silva—and Hadrian in the war of A.D. 132-135, for their success in defeating the Jews in the wars. Appropriate inscriptions for a Roman fortress, but impossible for a temple that had been destroyed in A.D. 70—65 years before the inscriptions had been made. Mazar shared these insights freely with other participants in the excavation, such as Herbert Armstrong and Ernest Martin.
Mazar also knew at once that the temple instead was stationed 600 feet farther south and 200 feet lower in altitude, on Mount Ophel, where the Spring of Siloam poured tons of water under the threshold of the temple every minute (Ezek 47:1), after which the water was distributed wherever it was needed. This marvelous little City of David was unique in having running water 3,000 years ago. Aristeas, Tacitus and 1 Enoch tell of the inexhaustible spring water system that was indescribably well developed, gushing tons of water into the temple area for sacrifices. Hezekiah’s tunnel directed water under Mount Ophel to the Pool of Siloam.
Herod’s fortress, on the other hand, was unequipped for sacrifices, because it had only 37 cisterns to provide water in the Haram.
After two violent wars with Rome, the City of David was so completely destroyed that it could not be recognized as a city. The Roman emperor Hadrian decreed that it would be used as an area where the Upper City could dump trash and garbage. It continued in that condition for hundreds of years. The Upper City developed, and people forgot what a marvelous little city this had once been. They simply guessed where strategic locations in the City of David must have been in the Upper City. Of course, this was a normal mistake.
Now, 50 years after Kenyon’s discovery, scholars like Leen Ritmeyer, Eilat Mazar and Hershel Shanks have recently written books as if no one knew that the Haram was the Roman Fortress and that Solomon’s, Zechariah’s and Herod’s temples all were located near the Spring of Siloam. Tourists are still mistakenly told that the Haram is the Temple Mount, that David’s citadel is near the Jaffa Gate, and that Mount Zion and the place where the Last Supper was held are all in the Upper City.
Israel’s antiquities authority has been digging a tunnel from under homes in the Arab East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan to the Western Wall Plaza. According to a recent “60 Minutes” interview, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat wants to create King’s Garden, a Bible-themed tourist park “adjacent to the City of David,” which requires demolishing 22 Arab homes in Silwan. The purpose of archeology is to provide archeological insights, of course, but excavations between the City of David and the old Roman fortress (the Haram) also have an anti-Arab political agenda.
It is not likely that a fourth temple will ever be constructed, either in the City of David or in the Haram. Israel already has diverted the water formerly used for sacrifices away from the former temple area and is making the City of David into a park. Orthodox Jews would oppose having a temple in Herod’s hated fortress. Jews had no interest in the Haram until after the Crusades, when they misunderstood that it was the Temple Mount. If the temple were ever built, it would have to be placed somewhere in the Upper City or a suburb of Jerusalem—not in its former site or in the old Roman Fortress.
Because innocent Evangelical Christians in America, under the guidance of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and John Hagee, have not been informed of these facts, they have thought there was some biblical or religious reason why it was necessary to destroy Islam’s third most sacred building in the world, together with the al-Aqsa mosque. It is my hope that, once Christians learn of this mistake, they will stop following Mars and Phineas (Num 25; Ps 106:30-31) and work as zealously for peace, following the teachings of Abraham, the 8th century prophets (Mica 6:8), Jesus, and Paul, as they once worked to promote war in the Middle East. This would make a tremendous difference to Jerusalem—and to the world.
George Wesley Buchanan has been a United Methodist minister since 1944 and a professor at a theological seminary since 1960, emeritus since he retired in 1991.
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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
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