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Americans are waking up to Israel’s brutal and discriminatory tactics

With opinion now evenly split between those who favour a one or two-state solution, many in the US are turning their attention to the systemic inequities faced by Palestinians

By Jonathon Cook | The National | December 17, 2018

Two years of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu as a Middle East peacemaking team appear to be having a transformative effect – and in ways that will please neither of them.

The American public is now evenly split between those who want a two-state solution and those who prefer a single state, shared by Israelis and Palestinians, according to a survey published last week by the University of Maryland.

And if a Palestinian state is off the table – as a growing number of analysts of the region conclude, given Israel’s intransigence and the endless postponement of Mr Trump’s peace plan – then support for one state rises steeply, to nearly two-thirds of Americans.

But Mr Netanyahu cannot take comfort from the thought that ordinary Americans share his vision of a single state of Greater Israel. Respondents demand a one-state solution guaranteeing Israelis and Palestinians equal rights.

By contrast, only 17 per cent of Americans expressing a view – presumably Christian evangelicals and hardline Jewish advocates for Israel – prefer the approach of Israel’s governing parties: either to continue the occupation or annex Palestinian areas without offering the inhabitants citizenship.

All of this is occurring even though US politicians and the media express no support for a one-state solution. In fact, quite the reverse.

The movement to boycott Israel, known as BDS, is growing on US campuses, but vilified by Washington officials, who claim its goal is to end Israel as a Jewish state by bringing about a single state, in which all inhabitants would be equal. The US Congress is even considering legislation to outlaw boycott activism.

And last month CNN sacked its commentator Marc Lamont Hill for using a speech at the United Nations to advocate a one-state solution – a position endorsed by 35 per cent of the US public.

There is every reason to assume that, over time, these figures will swing even more sharply against Mr Netanyahu’s Greater Israel plans and against Washington’s claims to be an honest broker.

Among younger Americans, support for one state climbs to 42 per cent. That makes it easily the most popular outcome among this age group for a Middle East peace deal.

In another sign of how far removed Washington is from the American public, 40 per cent of respondents want the US to impose sanctions to stop Israel expanding its settlements on Palestinian territory. In short, they support the most severe penalty on the BDS platform.

And who is chiefly to blame for Washington’s unresponsiveness? Some 38 per cent say that Israel has “too much influence” on US politics.

That is a view almost reflexively cited by Israel lobbyists as evidence of anti-semitism. And yet a similar proportion of US Jews share concerns about Israel’s meddling.

In part, the survey’s findings should be understood as a logical reaction to the Oslo peace process. Backed by the US for the past quarter-century, it has failed to produce any benefits for the Palestinians.

But the findings signify more. Oslo’s interminable talks over two states have provided Israel with an alibi to seize more Palestinian land for its illegal settlements.

Under cover of an Oslo “consensus”, Israel has transferred ever-larger numbers of Jews into the occupied territories, thereby making a peaceful resolution of the conflict near impossible. According to the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, that is a war crime.

Fatou Bensouda, the chief prosecutor of the court in The Hague, warned this month that she was close to finishing a preliminary inquiry needed before she can decide whether to investigate Israel for war crimes, including the settlements.

The reality, however, is that the ICC has been dragging out the inquiry to avoid arriving at a decision that would inevitably provoke a backlash from the White House. Nonetheless, the facts are staring the court in the face.

Israel’s logic – and proof that it is in gross violation of international law – were fully on display this week. The Israeli army locked down the Ramallah, the effective and supposedly self-governing capital of occupied Palestine, as “punishment” after two Israeli soldiers were shot dead outside the city.

The Netanyahu government also approved yet another splurge of settlement-building, again supposedly in “retaliation” for a recent upsurge in Palestinian attacks.

But Israel and its western allies know only too well that settlements and Palestinian violence are intrinsically linked. One leads to the other.

Palestinians directly experience the settlements’ land grabs as Israeli state-sanctioned violence. Their communities are ever more tightly ghettoised, their movements more narrowly policed to maintain the settlers’ privileges.

If Palestinians resist such restrictions or their own displacement, if they assert their rights and their dignity, clashes with soldiers or settlers are inescapable. Violence is inbuilt into Israel’s settlement project.

Israel has constructed a perfect, self-rationalising system in the occupied territories. It inflicts war crimes on Palestinians, who then weakly lash out, justifying yet more Israeli war crimes as Israel flaunts its victimhood, all to a soundtrack of western consolation.

The hypocrisy is becoming ever harder to hide, and the cognitive dissonance ever harder for western publics to stomach.

In Israel itself, institutionalised racism against the country’s large minority of Palestinian citizens – a fifth of the population – is being entrenched in full view.

Last week Natalie Portman, an American-Israeli actor, voiced her disgust at what she termed the “racist” nation-state basic law, legislation passed in the summer that formally classifies Israel’s Palestinian population as inferior.

Yair Netanyahu, the prime minister’s grown-up son, voiced a sentiment widely popular in Israel last week when he wrote on Facebook that he wished “All the Muslims [sic] leave the land of Israel”. He was referring to Greater Israel – a territorial area that does not distinguish between Israel and the occupied territories.

In fact, Israel’s Jim Crow-style policies – segregation of the type once inflicted on African-Americans in the US – is becoming ever more overt.

Last month the Jewish city of Afula banned Palestinian citizens from entering its main public park while vowing it wanted to “preserve its Jewish character”. A court case last week showed that a major Israeli construction firm has systematically blocked Palestinian citizens from buying houses near Jews. And the parliament is expanding a law to prevent Palestinian citizens from living on most of Israel’s land.

A bill to reverse this trend, committing Israel instead to “equal political rights amongst all its citizens”, was drummed out of the parliament last week by an overwhelming majority of legislators.

Americans, like other westerners, are waking up to this ugly reality. A growing number understand that it is time for a new, single state model, one that ends Israel’s treatment of Jews as separate from and superior to Palestinians, and instead offers freedom and equality for all.

December 17, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

New Israeli bill banning Palestine flag in protests

Palestine Information Center – December 16, 2018

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – Israel’s Ministerial Committee for Legislation is scheduled to discuss a new bill imposing a one-year prison sentence on individuals who raise Palestinian flags during demonstrations, according to Haaretz.

Drafted by MK Anat Berko, the bill stipulates that any gathering of at least of three people raising the flag of a state or an entity that is not friend with Israel or that prevents the raising of the flag of Israel will be considered illegal. Anyone who participates in a prohibited gathering would be subjected to up to a year in prison.

The bill defines the states that are not friends with Israel as the “states who do not recognize Israel as a Jewish and democratic state”.

Berko, in her justification, wrote that Israel is a democratic state which allows its citizens to protest against different issues; however, the new bill draws a red line between the legal protest and the protest where the flags of the countries that do not recognize Israel are raised.

December 16, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Palestine: Two schools evacuated as Israeli gunman open fires outside

MEMO | December 16, 2018

An Israeli settler opened fire on Sunday outside two schools in the West Bank, as other settlers rampaged through the street under the protection of Israeli forces, reports Wafa News Agency. The schools are at the entrance to the village of al-Lubban al-Sharqiya, to the south of Nablus in the West Bank.

The shooting terrified the students and teachers of the two schools, and were forced to leave the schools to a safe haven.

Ibrahim Emran, the principal at one of the schools, told Wafa that settlers from the illegal Israeli settlement of Yitzhar attacked the school under the protection of the Israeli military, and that one of the settlers shot a bullet in the air to terrify the students. Emran said the school was forced to evacuate its students to keep them safe.

He added that the settlers also attacked civilian homes near the school, while soldiers fired rubber-coated bullets and gas bombs, prompting clashes between soldiers and local citizens.

Israeli sources claimed that the firing came in a response to a stoning attack on settlers’ vehicles passing at route 60, just near the entrance to the village where the schools are located.

December 16, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Fanning the Flames of Dissent: The Ruling Class Is Having Trouble with Its Israel-Palestine Narrative

By Jason Hirthler | American Herald Tribune | December 15, 2018

Recently, the White House hosted two Hanukkah celebrations attended by the president, first lady, and vice president. One can imagine the general bonhomie as the Trumps rubbed elbows with fellow billionaire Sheldon Adelson and other luminaries of the ‘special relationship’. Trump was cheered for his provocative move of the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, something many observers call a sea change in U.S. foreign policy. Of course, almost every recent president has publicly stated that Jerusalem is Israel’s proper capital. Trump was simply the first president to actually follow through on the implications of that position.

In its coverage of the events, Trump was assailed by the Times of Israel for telling American Jews that Israel was “your country”, as if they were not American citizens. The paper noted that if Barack Obama had made such a rhetorical misstep, he would’ve been savaged by conservative media. As it was, Trump’s language was generally passed over in silence in the mainstream press. Despite that, the president and his coterie of Zionist comrades are likely becoming an ever more isolated pack of wolves on the American scene, their inflexible ideology and its brutal manifestations alienating them from popular opinion in the U.S.

The Scourge of Self-Deception

In his excellent book The Folly of Fools, evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers expounded his theory of deceit and self-deception among humans, including his concept of false historical narratives. A false historical narrative is essentially when a nation or tribe or people collectively believe a false version of their history. Trivers’ particular example? Israel. The author unpacks the country’s long-standing denial of Palestinian agency in its zealous Zionist pursuit of Greater Israel as a form of collective self-delusion. One that has had considerable influence in the United States where AIPAC wields outsized influence on Capitol Hill.

One wonders if false historical narratives are more likely to befall colonial settler nations. After all, the United States itself is beholden to any number of false historical narratives: the belief that America promotes and defends freedom around the world; the belief that it won World War Two; the lack of acknowledgement of the Native American genocide in its historical narrative; and that it has served as an impartial mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This latter belief has been lately exploded by several excellent books, among them Rashid Khalidi’s Brokers of Deceit. Thanks in large part to such works, the rise of social media, and the militancy and visibility of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, the general tenor of debate in the United States, at least, has changed. This is deeply troubling for Tel Aviv and Washington, which have long depended on a tightly controlled, top-down narrative to control opinion on Palestinian issues, a storyline dutifully disseminated by sycophantic corporate media. But a false narrative cannot survive or thrive amid a digital space of unbridled debate, much of it agitated unmediated wrangling with a tendency to devolve into ad hominem attacks, but also plenty of powerful non-mainstream journalism bringing fresh perspectives to the topic.

Damming the Flood

Only heavy-handed censorship can hope to stem the tide of dissident voices from chopping the legs out from beneath the mainstream fairy tale of Israeli rectitude and Arab savagery. And that is, of course, precisely what is happening in the social space.

Facebook has purged some 400 pro-Palestinian voices from its platform for violating “community standards,” an ironic phrase given that real community standards would necessarily have to be created by the community, rather than its ‘owner’, presently being advised by the neoliberal, neocon Atlantic Council. Facebook labeled the banned commentary as “hate speech”, a term unsupported by the Supreme Court but happily flung about by the Israeli lobby–alongside the stalwart ‘anti-Semitism’–in efforts to shutter dissent. Twitter, too, has fallen in line with the pro-Israel position of both the government and its mainstream media lapdogs. It has shuttered attempts to out IDF commando unit soldiers who raided Gaza last month. The censorship aligns with Israeli military censors in Tel Aviv.

CNN wasted no time firing Marc Lamont Hill after a fairly normal speech at the United Nations during its commemoration of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Board members at Temple University, where he teaches, rumbled about punitive measures. The treatment of Hill falls in line with a long history of attacks on African-Americans who disagree with American foreign policy, from Paul Robeson during the McCarthy era, the many victims of the FBI’s COINTELPRO effort to destroy black solidarity movements. Even Andrew Young, serving as Jimmy Carter’s UN Ambassador, was forced to resign when he took the bold step of actually talking to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). An alliance of oppressed peoples across national borders is a true existential nightmare for imperialists, explaining in part why so many African-American leftists have been swift and energetically besieged by establishment agencies.

A Leaky Vessel

But it may be too little too late. Holes are being ripped in the Zionist false narrative, and it is leaking hard truths like a sieve. At last, Americans are beginning to recognize the cruelty of the Israeli occupation. For years the international community has angrily brandished UN resolutions against the occupation, about the right of return, and others declaring Zionism as a form of racism. To little avail. Some sixty resolutions have been widely ignored in the west. With this occupation more than any other conflict in the geopolitical arena, it is as if international law does not exist.

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt punctured a gaping hole in the side of stealthy Zionist influence with their landmark work The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. But the social media response to the brutal Israeli siege of Gaza in 2014 was likely the watershed moment. Progressives like Max Blumenthal assiduously documented the assault, while the glib Obama administration’s willingness to sell arms to Israel in the midst of its crushing attack struck many Americans as almost unconscionably blasé. So too the international response to the recently passed Basic Law, in which Israel is confirmed as a Jewish-ethnic state, with all mention of democracy stripped from the language. In one recent step by a major company, Airbnb recused itself from doing business in occupied territories, a move lauded by Palestinian supporters and naturally deplored by Zionists.

The perceptual gap between the views of the American populace and the Israeli citizenry appears to be widening. A recent polling result in Israel uncovered widespread racism targeting Arabs and Palestinians. Israelis were uncomfortable in large numbers to a variety of hypothetical interactions with Palestinians: if their children made friends with Palestinian children, if their neighbors were Palestinian, if people near them spoke in Arabic, and so on. Likewise, many said they’d be unlikely to rent to Palestinians and felt Israelis deserved job placement consideration over Arabs. As a comparison with a comparable European poll showed, Israeli discomfort with Arabs was more widespread than European discomfort with Jews, undermining the MSM discussion of rising anti-Semitism, a phenomenon that Foreign Policy argued was not tied to rising criticism of Israel.

A University of Maryland poll of Americans showed growing support for a one-state solution, as more observers have come to believe that rampant Israeli settlement-building in occupied territory have made a two-state solution completely unrealistic apart from some construction that posited a Palestinian state composed of tiny isolated cantons vigilantly policed by the IDF on the least arable land available (the rest having been annexed by entitled settlers).

A one-state solution is an anathema to Zionists. Israel has long harbored a fear of one day being outnumbered by Arabs in its own ‘homeland’. One hears the occasional trumpeting of a demographic ‘time bomb’ (and sometimes arguments that give lie to the concept). Israelis have cited the ‘security situation’ as an incentive to reproduce. In any event, settlements continue apace. It is instructive to note that inside Israel, there is vigorous debate on this issue: not about the validity of settlements, but the pace at which they are constructed.

Americans also increasingly support sanctions on Israel for its continued settlement activity. This undoubtedly partly owing to the aforementioned thaw in the commentary, particularly of the non-professional variety, but also perhaps has to do with the fact that Washington has leveled sanctions against so many perceived foes in recent years: Venezuela, Nicaragua, Russia, China, Syria, Iran, and on and on. Why, the public must wonder, is Israel left out of this seemingly indiscriminate use of economic leverage?

Zionists have mounted vigorous resistance to BDS, and have persuaded Congress to put forward the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, which would criminalize any kind of voluntary boycotting of Israel and its settlements. This last argument reflects the threadbare smear that pro-Israeli hawks like Alan Dershowitz and other informally appointed paladins of the cause have long used to defend criticism of Israel: that any criticism of Israel or Zionism is a de facto attack on Jews and therefore anti-Semitic. This attempt to conflate Israel with all Jewry is not unlike the facile use of the “hate speech” to encompass all varieties of criticism.

The Race to Narrative Hegemony

Yet dire reports surface almost daily, as Israel clamors to bar and ban and liquidate resistance. Among the recent stories that must have Israeli PR groups a furor: the expelling of Human Rights Watch officials from the country, the shooting of unarmed protestors during the ‘Great March of Return’ border protests, remorseless extrajudicial killings, the expansion of “admissions committees” to restrict Palestinian access to housing, the rationing of electricity and medicines to desperate Gazans, the forcible exile of Bedouins from historic villages. The list is interminable.

Perhaps for these reasons rather in spite of them, some 38 percent of Americans, including 37 percent of Jewish Americans polled, think Israel has too much influence in the American political system. Democrats in particular are increasingly favorable to actually neutral policies toward Israelis and Palestinians, not least because of Obama’s chilly relationship with Tel Aviv, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s undermining of the former president’s JCPOA with Iran.

It is critical to note the yawning abyss between the corporate state and corporate media positions on Israeli-Palestinian issues and those of the American public. While the MSM continues its pro-Israel stance, the ideological ground beneath it is shifting like sand, as Americans have engaged in online debates that have in some cases broadened their perspectives and in others deepened their partisanship. It is forever ironic that efforts to suppress a particular viewpoint tend to exacerbate it. As the mainstream become ever more strident in their response to heterodox opinions, the objections only grow louder. As one might expect, the historical narrative around Israel is now freighted with heretical objections, its propositions subject to relentless dissection in the digital sphere.

It is no surprise then, that Trump’s friends at those White House Hanukkah parties have grown shrill and heavy-handed in their attempts to shout down a rising chorus of resistance to the party line. The question is, can they push Washington and America’s social media giants hard enough to foreclose the numberless avenues of dissent fast enough to salvage what’s left of a tawdry argument for apartheid.

December 16, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Four-year-old dies of shrapnel wounds from Israeli forces’ fire

Ahmad Abu Abed, 4, was fatally wounded by shrapnel on December 7, 2018. (Photo: Courtesy of Abu Abed family)
Defense for Children International, Palestine | December 15, 2018

Ramallah, December 15, 2018— A four-year-old old Palestinian boy succumbed to his wounds on December 11, four days after bullet fragments fired by Israeli forces struck him during “Great March of Return” protests near the perimeter fence in the southern Gaza Strip.

Ahmad Yasser Sabri Abu Abed, 4, was in his father’s arms around 3:30 p.m. when he was struck by shrapnel as Israeli forces opened fire on protestors in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, on December 7. Ahmad sustained injuries to his head, chest and abdomen which caused his death.

“Suddenly, I heard the sound of a gunshot fired by one of the soldiers and I heard the sound of something exploding in front of me,” said the child’s father. “At this moment, Ahmad screamed. I looked at Ahmad and found blood coming down from his right eye and chest and his shirt was torn.”

Ahmad was treated at the European hopital in Khan Younis, according to the child’s family. An MRI revealed that shrapnel had entered Ahmad’s brain through his eye. He was held in the intensive care unit until Tuesday, when doctors pronounced him dead.

Since November 3, Israeli forces shot dead Abdel-Rahman Ali Ahmad Abu Jamal, 17, and likely killed a further child, Emad Khalil Ibrahim Shahin, also 17.

On November 21, Abdel-Rahman from the Jabal Mukaber neighborhood of East Jerusalem, died from a serious live ammunition wound sustained on November 14. According to Israeli media, Abdel-Rahman attacked and “lightly injured” three Israeli police officers at the entrance to Oz police station before Israeli forces shot him. The child’s family told Defense for Children International – Palestine that they were unable to visit him in the hospital before his death as he was under arrest.

Israeli forces shot Emad Shahin, 17, on November 3, 2018. (Photo: Courtesy of Shahin family.)

Around 2 p.m. on November 3, Israeli forces shot Emad while he was attempting to cut the perimeter fence in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. An eyewitness who was also shot told DCIP that he heard a gunshot and saw Emad collapse. The witness said that shortly after, Israeli forces carried Emad away on a stretcher and a helicopter arrived.

The boy’s family saw Israeli media Defense for Children Palestine reports that their son died in an Israeli hospital on Sunday. On November 11, the Palestinian liaison office reported Emad’s death and said Israeli forces were withholding his body, according to the boy’s family. The family also told DCIP that despite continuous communication, the Red Cross was unable to provide official confirmation of Emad’s death, saying that the Israeli military had not provide them information.

This year has proved one of the bloodiest for Palestinian children, with at least 53 confirmed child deaths as the result of Israeli forces or settlers actions documented by DCIP since the start of 2018. Two further child fatalities, including Emad, are awaiting official confirmation. The majority of these deaths, were caused by live ammunition, often in the context of weekly protests and related activities taking place in the Gaza Strip.

In a number of cases, DCIP found strong evidence suggesting that children did not pose a direct threat at the time they were killed.

The “Great March of Return” demonstrations have taken place on a weekly basis in the Gaza Strip since March 30, 2018. The demonstrations are in protest of Palestinian refugees’ inability to return to properties lost during events surrounding the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Protestors are also demanding an end to Israel’s lengthy blockade over the Gaza Strip which is one of the main drivers of the current humanitarian crisis.

December 15, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Dahlan slams US ‘deal of the century’, prefers one-state solution

MEMO | December 13, 2018

The Palestinian Authority (PA)’s ex-Security Chief Mohammed Dahlan has criticised the US’ “deal of the century” claiming he would prefer to see a one-state solution prevail in Israel-Palestine.

In an interview yesterday with Russian state TV channel Russia Today, Dahlan argued that “the ‘deal of the century’ that the Americans speak of as a solution to the Palestinian problem is a total disaster,” Ynet reported. Dahlan added: “I [also] do not see the two-state solution happening. That is why I come with a new proposal: to establish one state, where Palestinians can run their lives without being dependent on Israel.”

While acknowledging that “our [Palestinians’] bigger dream is, of course, an independent Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza,” Dahlan argued this option was unlikely to be accepted by Israel or its main ally the United States. “Instead of nurturing illusions that will never be fulfilled,” he explained,

We should start internalising the notion of one-state for two nations, and demand full rights for the Palestinians.

Dahlan also criticised PA President Mahmoud Abbas, with whom he has been engaged in a feud since resigning as the PA’s Security Chief in 2007 and going into exile in the UAE. Dahlan told Russia Today that: “[Yasser] Arafat’s death marked the end of the era of great leaders in the Palestinian Authority. Abbas is nothing but a manager of a civilian authority in Ramallah. Nothing more. I suggest he pays a visit to the Gaza Strip, to pacify and encourage the people there, because the Gaza citizens are paying a very heavy price.”

This is not the first time Dahlan has called for Abbas to visit Gaza. Addressing an event in the besieged Strip via video link in November, Dahlan said: “I am calling for Abbas to visit Gaza and announce a national unity government,” referring to the split between Hamas – which governs the Gaza Strip – and Fatah – which dominates the PA in the occupied West Bank – that has been ongoing since Hamas won the last Palestinian elections in 2006.

Though Abbas has also criticised the so-called “deal of the century” – touted by US President Donald Trump as a solution to the situation in Israel-Palestine – his response has been meek. This has drawn condemnation from numerous parties and claims that the PA president has “lost his legitimacy”. Abbas has also seemed unable to counter the US’ repeated measures against Palestinians, from halting UNRWA funding to closing the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Washington.

This inaction has heightened tensions with Dahlan, who is often mentioned in discussions of who will succeed Abbas as PA president. Yet Dahlan is not without controversy, having grown close to the Emirati establishment and formed ties with Israel and Saudi Arabia. In October it emerged that Dahlan had arranged for US mercenaries to carry out targeted assassinations in Yemen on behalf of the UAE, meeting with an Israeli security contractor to arrange the deal. In November, Dahlan’s security team was revealed to have helped cover up the brutal murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, using fake passports to travel to Istanbul carrying tools and chemicals to hide any traces of the killing.

See also:

Israel settlers call for Abbas’ assassination

Dahlan: Bin Salman will remain in power for the next 50 years

December 13, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s Executions Can’t Kill Palestinian Resistance

Remembering Ashraf Na’alwa, Saleh Barghouthi, Majd Matir and Hasan Arda

Ashraf Na’alwa, Saleh Barghouthi, Majd Mteir (l-r). Graphic: Quds News
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network | December 13, 2018

On 13 December 2018, Israeli occupation forces shot down four Palestinians, including several resistance fighters who had evaded their pursuit for months. Ashraf Na’alwa, 23, was killed by occupation forces who attacked the home where he was staying in Askar refugee camp near Nablus. He had been pursued by occupation forces since he carried out an armed resistance operation on 7 October in the illegal colonial settlement of Barkan in the northern West Bank of occupied Palestine in which two settlers were killed.

Na’alwa, a Palestinian worker at a factory in the colonial settlement, evaded occupation forces for months. During that time, his entire family was repeatedly harassed and attacked by occupation forces. His mother, sister, brother and father were all repeatedly detained and interrogated, while his home village of Shweika near Tulkarem was subjected to ongoing attacks, raids and intensive surveillance. Many of his family members remain behind bars as we remember him today. Occupation forces ordered his family home demolished, a tactic of collective punishment that the Israeli occupation continued from the former British colonial mandate over Palestine.

Israeli sources reported that Na’alwa’s location was finally revealed under “harsh interrogation,” usually a euphemism for torture under interrogation. The occupation forces deliberately aimed to kill Na’alwa, who resisted until the last moment; indeed, Israeli headlines bragged about “eliminating” the “terrorist.” Occupation forces reportedly chased Na’alwa through the camp for hours before surrounding him in the building. Around the bloody scene, occupation forces seized more Palestinians, accusing them of “providing aid” to the “wanted” resistance fighter.

The extrajudicial execution of Ashraf Na’alwa did not come alone today. Saleh Omar Barghouthi, 29, the son of former Palestinian prisoner Omar Barghouthi, who served 25 years in Israeli prisons, was shot dead near the village of Sarda near Ramallah. Barghouthi, from Kobar village, carried out an armed resistance action at Ofra illegal colonial settlement on Sunday, 9 December, wounding seven settlers. Occupation forces attacked the taxi he drove, seized him and shot him dead, according to Palestinian witnesses at the scene.

Barghouthi is also the nephew of Nael Barghouthi, one of the longest serving Palestinian prisoners, with 39 years in Israeli prison. Saleh’s brother, Asem, has spent 10 years in Israeli occupation prisons, while another uncle, Jacir, was deported to Gaza when released from Israeli prison.

Also on Thursday morning, Israeli occupation forces in Jerusalem shot Majd Mteir, 26, a Palestinian refugee from Qalandiya camp, ten to twelve times in a row. Witnesses said that Mteir was left lying on the ground bleeding for 40 minutes before his death. Occupation forces accused him of attempting to stab Israeli armed “border police” in Jerusalem.

These killings were carried out in a coordinated fashion, alongside the arrest of dozens of Palestinians on the same night. Clearly, these were intended to be a deadly blow not only against these strugglers, but also the Palestinian resistance as a whole.

Nevertheless, ensuing events made clear that the military power of the occupation and its extrajudicial executions would only inflame Palestinian resistance further. Three Israeli soldiers at the illegal colonial settlement of Givat Asaf were shot dead by unknown Palestinian resistance fighters, who left the scene, withdrawing from the area, later on Thursday morning. This response indicated that Palestinian resistance forces did not accept that the blood of these young strugglers should be spilled casually and without cost to the colonial occupier.

The assassination raids recall previous attacks, like those on Basil al-Araj and Moataz Washaha, Palestinian strugglers targeted for Israeli “elimination.” The policy of extrajudicial killings and assassinations by the Israeli state stretches back years and beyond borders, targeting resistance strugglers, local organizers and national leaders: Ghassan Kanafani, Abu Ali Mustafa, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, Khaled Nazzal, Fathi Shiqaqi, Abu Jihad, Abdel-Aziz Rantisi and many others, including some of the Palestinian people’s brightest writers, poets and emissaries to the world. Despite decades of assassinations and killings, the Palestinian resistance has not been crushed. Instead, it has continued to adapt, survive and grow, resisting a brutal, colonial occupation and its imperialist sponsors despite vast disparities in wealth and resources.

Photo: Hamdan Arda. Credit: Raya News

Israeli occupation forces have imposed a harsh siege on Ramallah and the surrounding villages. They shot dead 60-year-old Hamdan Arda, originally from the village of Arraba near Jenin, in his vehicle near el-Bireh, accusing him of attempting to run over soldiers. Arda was returning home from his aluminum factory when he was shot. As he lay inside his car, the soldiers refused to allow the Red Crescent ambulance to reach him and provide treatment. The killing of Arda came alongside attacks by soldiers and settlers on Palestinian cities and villages. Six Palestinians were wounded in el-Bireh, shot by live ammunition and rubber-coated metal bullets. Illegal colonial settlers attacked Palestinians and their vehicles in cities and towns throughout the West Bank of occupied Palestine, while Palestinians took to the streets in protest.

Palestinian political parties, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and even Fateh called for mobilization inside and outside Palestine to confront the escalating occupation attacks. Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority President Abu Mazen attempted to distance himself from “violence,” while leaving the PA’s security coordination with the Israeli occupation intact.

These events come only a week after the latest effort by Israel and the United States at the United Nations to attack and criminalize Palestinian resistance. An attempt to pass a General Assembly resolution against Palestinian resistance actions in Gaza failed. This was only the latest attempt to redefine international principles in the interests of imperialism, seeking to undermine the position expressed in UN General Assembly resolution 34/43 (1982). This document supporting Palestinian rights as well as those of African peoples fighting colonization and apartheid “Reaffirm[ed] the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle… Strongly condemn[ed] those Governments that do not recognize the right to self-determination and independence of all peoples still under colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation, notably the peoples of Africa and the Palestinian people.”

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network highlights the importance of global solidarity with the Palestinian people, their liberation movement and their resistance. We remember and honor Ashraf Na’alwa, Saleh Barghouthi, Majd Mteir and Hasan Arda, as we remember the over 200 martyrs of today’s intifada, the Great March of Return in Gaza.

As we look back on 31 years of the First Intifada and see its spirit reflected today throughout occupied Palestine, we urge people of conscience around the world to organize protests and actions to stand with Palestinians confronting occupation, colonization and imperialism. We also urge communities, municipalities, university groups and trade unions to escalate the boycott of Israel, including economic, academic and cultural boycott – and especially a military embargo of the occupation state.

The lives of these strugglers shall not be lost in vain, but will live on as symbols of resistance and the ability of an indigenous people to struggle by all means despite the most challenging odds and the most disadvantageous balance of power. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

December 13, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Shocking testimonies released about Israeli crimes at Gaza border

Palestine Information Center – December 12, 2018

On the 70th anniversary of UN resolution 194, the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) issued a new report entitled “Voices of Return: Documenting Israel’s Repression of the Great March of Return.”

The new report is based on a PRC submission to the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the 2018 protests that began on March 30th in the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip. The series of demonstrations named the “Great March of Return” called on Israel to end the ongoing siege and implement the refugees’ collective right of return to the lands from which they were displaced in 1948.

The demonstrations have been widely covered in the mainstream media, in particular around May 14th, when the Israeli military killed 52 Palestinians and injured over 2,400 in one single day. Yet, beneath the headlines and numbers of casualties, detailed witness accounts of the events remain underreported. PRC’s investigation seeks to fill this gap by bringing to light the voices of Palestinian protesters and victims injured during the demonstrations.

The testimonies and other information gathered in the report show in detail how Israeli soldiers shot unarmed protesters, bystanders, journalists and medical staff approximately 100-400m from the fence, constituting extrajudicial executions and deliberate maiming of civilians. Prima facie evidence and testimonies show that none of the Palestinians victim included in this report were endangering Israeli forces, who remained located on the other side of the fence.

PRC interviewed two journalists who were both shot in their legs while wearing a “press” vest. Khalil was shot in the upper left thigh while standing approximately 200 meters away from the fence and was wounded while taking a “selfie” with friends. Khalil said that the Israeli military shot him from the back as he was not facing the barrier separating the Gaza Strip from Israel.

The other journalist interviewed, Duaa, was hit by a sniper shot as she was filming another protester being treated by paramedics after being injured. Both journalists were hit with a particular type of bullet, which expands and mushrooms inside the body, that indicates the military’s intention to cause maximum harm and greater possibility to inflict life-changing injuries.

Amnesty International has reported Israel’s use of US-manufactured M24 Remington sniper rifles shooting 7.62mm hunting ammunition, which have the “mushrooming” effects described by the victims we interviewed.

Jihad, a young Palestinian woman in her twenties was standing on Jakar street, a road roughly parallel to the fence separating the Gaza Strip from Israel, at approximately 100 meters from the barrier when she was first hit with hunting ammunition in her left leg below the knee. Jihad was further hit two times, in her right hand and shoulder, with regular bullets by gunshots seemingly targeting the medical staff that was attending to her.

PRC interviewed a child that lost a leg after being targeted for merely raising the Palestinian flag during one of the demonstrations. Muhannad was also tending to a fellow protester injured at the time he was shot. He was hit with hunting ammunition above the knee in the thigh which caused him to undergo arterial amputation.

“The bullet came in from my ear and out from my head.” said Adelmalek, an 18-year old who was shot while standing 300 meters from the fence near the Awda refugee camp, east of Jabalia.

Another young Palestinian, Ouni, was hopeful that the peaceful demonstration will be effective as he explained “We wanted to push for lifting the siege, unblock border crossings . . . we simply wanted to live a normal life!” He was also shot with hunting ammunition that caused bone fragmentation in his leg.

Contrary to claims of Israeli authorities, a grassroots network of activists led the creation and organization of this series of mass demonstrations. The report argues that driving the open-fire policy of the Israeli government against protesters is a longstanding criminalization of Palestinian refugees attempting to cross the armistice lines. Palestinian refugees are criminalized by the Israeli state and media as “infiltrators” and prevented to return to the lands from which they were displaced through a series of state laws and policies.

PRC concluded that the Israeli army’s response to Palestinians protesting against a colonial siege along the 1949 armistice line clearly violates a number of core principles of international humanitarian law. The killing and maiming of protesters, journalists, paramedics and children not engaged in any military activity amounts to a violation of the international legal principles of distinction, proportionality and of precautions in attack.

December 12, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

U.S. Muslim Leaders Headline UAE Conference at Expense of American Muslim and Palestinian Rights

American Muslims for Palestine | December 12, 2018

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Last Wednesday, a group of prominent and select American Muslim leaders traveled to the United Arab Emirates to participate in the fifth annual conference of the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies (FPPMS), which is sponsored by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdullah bin Zayed, and headed by Mauritanian Islamic scholar, Abdullah bin Bayyah. Despite the country’s appalling human rights record, U.S. Muslim leaders present praised  the country for being “committed to tolerance […] and civil society.”

During the conference, the same Muslim figures were photographed in a meeting with several leading members of the Zionist-Jewish American community including representatives of the American Jewish Committee  (AJC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a powerful pro-Israel lobby organization whose dark history of domestic spying and investment of millions of dollars to extinguish all criticism of Israel is documented in a 2014 report  by AMP. The photo, which was widely tweeted  on Friday by ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, features Sh. Hamza Yusuf, a California-based scholar who has been described by the Guardian as “arguably the West’s most influential Islamic scholar,” and Imam Mohamed Magid, the former president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), who serves as the Executive Imam of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) Center in Virginia.

It is worth noting that the UAE “Promoting Peace Forum” was founded in 2014, the same year that the UAE government designated  CAIR, the largest Muslim civil rights organization in America, a terrorist organization. Several critics have denounced this forum as part of a series of counter-revolutionary measures carried out in the wake of the Arab Spring to crush pro-democracy efforts in the region and promote obedience toward autocratic rulers. It’s been previously exposed  that conferences such as these are part of a sophisticated PR campaign by the Emirati government to pursue its own political agenda in the name of “moderate Islam”. AMP is disturbed by the continuous participation of some American Muslim leaders in these propaganda conferences that whitewash the nefarious agenda of the UAE government.

“Given the UAE’s dismal record on human rights and its catastrophic policies in the region, as in Yemen and the staging of counter-revolutions, it is the last country to allege the promotion of peace in Muslim societies. The American Muslim leaders and scholars who participated in the conference should not have lent their names to an event aimed at legitimizing a regime that has brought much harm to their own communities and other nations,” said AMP National Policy Director Osama Abuirshaid. If “promoting peace” in Muslim societies is the purported objective of this forum then it should have called for the immediate ceasefire and end to the armed intervention in Yemen, and expressed solidarity with the Palestinians living under Apartheid conditions and occupation.

Not only has the UAE labeled the most prominent American Muslim civic group as a terrorist organization, it also has elevated virulently Islamophobic and pro-Israel organizations such as the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), whose senior researcher Jonathan Schanzer has waged a longstanding smear campaign against AMP and was recently captured maligning Palestine activists in the censored Al Jazeera documentary on the Israel Lobby . The film sheds light on the operations directed at demonizing Muslims and Palestine activists in the U.S. The hosting of the ADL at this year’s conference is especially disconcerting given the group’s sinister history of instigating political prosecutions against prominent American Muslim and Palestinian leaders and institutions, as detailed in Israeli author Miko Peled’s recent book Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five. Peled recently commented to AMP that the ADL “is an organization dedicated to protecting Israel from criticism. They conflate anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism. The ADL supports the racism, ethnic cleansing, genocide and apartheid regime to which Israel has subjected the Palestinians. ADL does not represent Jewish people and must be shunned by people of conscience.” Rather than invite the ADL and AJC to the stage, the primary purveyors of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian discourses, the “Peace Forum” should have expressed support for the peaceful and nonviolent BDS movement and highlight the global success of the Palestinian struggle.

Since the Arab Spring, the UAE government has exposed itself as an enemy of human rights and democracy. From intervening in Libya and Egypt to aiding and abetting Saudi crimes in Yemen, supporting its blockade of Qatar, and helping cover up its recent murder of dissident Jamal Khashoggi, it is clear that the country is willing to secure its regional strategic interests at all costs and on the backs of millions of Muslims and Arabs. Meanwhile, it continues to openly tighten its relationship with Israel, working with lobby groups in the U.S. and purchasing Israeli spyware  to target civil society both locally and abroad. No conference or publicity stunt can change these critical facts or boost this country’s corrupt image.

“This was a conference to normalize Islamophobia, bigotry against Muslims in the West, in addition to normalizing relations and engagement with apologists for Israel’s aggression against the Palestinian people. The participation of these Muslim leaders and scholars make us wonder whether they are involved in last year’s revealed attempts of UAE’s ambassador in Washington to hijack the representation of Islam in the U.S. under the pretext of promoting ‘moderate’ Islam which is in essence a distorted complacent form of Islam that aligns itself with Zionists and Islamophobes in the U.S. through trojan horses within the American Muslim community,” Abuirshaid added.

The active participation of some American Muslim leaders in these dubious initiatives with a deeply troubling agenda demands serious and urgent accountability.

December 12, 2018 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Kushner: ‘Peace plan to provide safety to Israelis, hope to Palestinians’

Ma’an – December 12, 2018

BETHLEHEM – The much-anticipated Middle East peace plan, also known as “Deal of the Century,” will be released in the next couple of months, according to Jared Kushner, a senior White House adviser and son-in-law of the United States President Donald Trump.

Kushner spoke to Fox News, on late Monday, mentioning that the deal includes serious concessions from both sides, however, would protect Israeli security, while improving the living conditions of Palestinian Authority (PA) residents.

Kushner said, “We’re hopeful in the next couple of months we’ll put out our plan which not every side is going to love, but there’s enough in it and enough reasons why people should take it and move forward.”

He emphasized that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “has gone on for way too long” and that the living conditions in the occupied West Bank and Gaza were “not acceptable,” adding “there’s a lot that we can be doing to improve their quality of life.”

“We’re focused now on the broader region, which is figuring out how to hopefully bring a deal together between the Israelis and Palestinians.”

Kushner also stressed that Israeli security concerns were a top consideration during the drafting of the peace plan and that it will provide safety to the Israeli people, as well as “a real opportunity and hope” to the Palestinians to live better lives.

“You shouldn’t be hijacking your children’s future because of your grandparent’s conflict,” Kushner noted.

December 12, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

As Israel crimes on Gaza border hit zenith, US backs bill targeting Palestinian anti-occupation leaders

Palestine Information Center – December 12, 2018

RAMALLAH – The US House of Representatives on Tuesday approved a bill that would target for sanctions Hamas resistance movement and Hezbollah over allegations of using civilians as human shields, guaranteeing that it will become law, JTA reported.

The bill describes Hamas and Hezbollah groups as “repeated” practitioners of an action that violates international law, claiming that Hamas routinely launches missiles at Israel from densely populated areas.

The US Senate unanimously passed the bipartisan bill in October.

The bill was authored by Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Joe Donnelly (D-IN) and was co-sponsored by 50 other senators. It was first introduced this past summer.

“This critical and timely legislation mandates new sanctions against Hamas, Hezbollah and foreign state agencies that use civilians as human shields or provide support to those doing so,” the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) said in a statement Tuesday after the House passed the bill, which now goes to President Donald Trump for his signature.

Last February, the House of Representatives unanimously passed the Hamas Human Shields Prevention Act which condemns Hamas for the alleged use of civilians, including children, as human shields, sanctioning those who use them.

The act, however, emphasizes the efforts made by the Israeli occupation military to avoid civilian casualties, a claim that analysts said amounts to an attempt to whitewash Israeli crimes and terrorism against Palestinian civilians and unarmed protesters, including on the Gaza border.

December 12, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel to build ‘Embassy Quarter’ in occupied Jerusalem

MEMO | December 12, 2018

Israel is to build an embassy complex in occupied Jerusalem, a year after US President Donald Trump announced his plans to relocate the American Embassy to the city. Israel’s Construction and Housing Ministry announced today that it plans to build a complex with space for nine separate embassies in occupied East Jerusalem, in the belief that more countries will follow the US lead and move their diplomatic missions from Tel Aviv, Arutz Sheva reported.

The complex is to be built on a 25-acre plot of land in East Talpiot, a southern neighbourhood of Jerusalem. Following the Nakba of 1948, East Talpiot became part of no man’s land, next to the 1949 Armistice Line – sometimes known as the Green Line – observed by Israel and Jordan. During the Six Day War of 1967 Israel occupied the neighbourhood, establishing an illegal settlement there in 1973.

The plan to build the complex in East Talpiot is therefore in contravention of international law. As such, any country which chooses to move its embassy into the complex upon its completion would also be violating international law.

The intended construction is being pushed by Israel’s Construction and Housing Minister, Yoav Galant, who said of the plan: “I am convinced that many more countries will relocate their embassies to Jerusalem, which is why I instructed experts in the ministry to come up with an appropriate solution for the embassies in the future, including construction of a special ‘Embassy Quarter’.”

Galant urged the international community to relocate their embassies to Jerusalem. “It is our eternal capital. It is the right thing to do. Make the move quickly; the best places are going to be taken quickly.”

US embassy moved to Jerusalem – Cartoon [Chappatte/Twitter]

Since Trump announced that he would move the US embassy to Jerusalem last December, only Guatemala and Paraguay have followed suit. However, within months of relocating its mission, Paraguay reversed the decision and moved the embassy back to Tel Aviv, citing a desire to support “broad, lasting and just peace” among Israelis and Palestinians.

Other countries have toyed with the idea of moving their embassies to Jerusalem but have been hesitant to follow through with the move. In October, it emerged that Australia was contemplating relocating its embassy, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison saying that he was “open-minded” about it. “No decision has been made regarding the recognition of a capital or the movement of an embassy […] but at the same time, what we are simply doing is being open to that suggestion,” he explained.

This prompted a furious backlash from Malaysia and Indonesia, two countries that have historically been supportive of the Palestinian cause. Australia has not yet acted on any such plans, with reports emerging yesterday that a decision is “still pending”.

December 12, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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