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Hebron: Seven weeks after the murder of Wael Fatah Ja’aberi by Israeli Forces, family still awaits his body for burial.

International Solidarity Movement | October 28, 2018

Hebron, occupied Palestine – On Monday October 22, the family of Wael Fatah Ja’aberi gathered in Ibn Rush square in downtown Hebron to protest the murder of their son and the decision of Israeli forces not to return his body to their family for more than a month. In September, Ja’aberi was killed in a combined settler and soldier ambush. His body has still not been returned to his family, who have erected an information/communication tent in the main square of downtown Hebron in protest.

A week after the Ja’aberi family erected their protest tent downtown, fathers who lost their sons in similar incidents, gathered in the tent and showed their solidarity.

The Ja’aberi family demanded the body of slain Wael, but is waiting in vain for any answer since September 9, 2018 – the day of the brutal incident.

On Monday evening 9/9/2018, Wael Fatah Ja’aberi, a 37 year old father of two children, was shot down close to his home, near the intersection of the Hebron H1/H2 area division, from the entrance of the illegal settlement Givat Ha’avot, by a settler and a soldier.

According to witnesses, Wael and his 9 year old son were walking from their home to a nearby shop, for which they had to pass the road close to a the entrance of the illegal Israeli settlement Givat Ha’avot .

When they approached the location of the entrance, still 20 meters away from it, a settler together with a soldier ambushed and killed the 37 year old father.

His 9 year old son was lucky to escape and could run back home, in shock of the cruelty he went trough. As it seems, the armed settler fired at Wael and his son, after which a soldier, present at the checkpoint, continued the shooting with several live bullets.

Israeli forces left Ja’abari bleeding to death, without giving or allowing him any kind of medical assistance.

No health care was given or allowed. The Israeli ambulance belongs to Ofer, a paramilitary settler of Kyriat Arba – not a medic.

Video recordings of this fatal incident were posted on the internet. (here, here and here)

The Israeli military claimed afterwards, that it was self defense against a stabbing attack, and did not contact the family. This claim is disputed, however, given Israeli forces’ history of planting knives on murdered Palestinians and given the fact that Ja’abari was walking with his 9 year old child. No footage of the many security cameras on that location has ever been released.

Stealing corpses in the aftermath of a unlawful execution, is a standard procedure of the Occupation. Between 2008 and 2018 Israel held back more then 280 corpses.

October 31, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Inside God’s Bunker (extracts)

Hebron, 1994.

October 31, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Thoughts on One Democratic State

By Nahida Exiled Palestinian | Poetry for Palestine | May 18, 2018

Some activists are worried that my passion for justice and my advocacy for full restoration of Palestinians’ inalienable rights might “alienate” some Jewish supporters. They claim Palestinians desperately need Jewish support.

To them I have this to say:

Palestine has now been under the heel of violent foreign rulers since a full Century. Palestinians have always been eager to get international support, including from Jews. Since a full century, the naturally trustful Palestinians were grateful and delighted to give a platform to whomever showed the slightest interest in their cause. Tragically, this resulted in our authentic Palestinian narrative being gradually silenced. Genocidal atrocities since a century are ongoing. Our will to self-determination is untamed. Our Right to be sovereign inside our own land, is intact. Our historic, cultural and national identity, is as strong as ever. Yet all is more or less silenced.

Today we have the terribly dangerous situation where the authentic Palestinian narrative is so absent, that it has never been truly heard or appreciated in the West.

Every time an uncompromising authentic Palestinian voice steps up assertive and strong, it is quickly muffled and tucked away, as to not offend Jewish supporters or to not scratch their sensitivities.

Unconditionally and almost religiously pro-Palestinian organizations have sought Jewish approval in every event, every talk, ever letter, every petition, every motion and every campaign. This went on for decades. I know it from first hand experience, and also from the many Palestinians who echo this same disturbing experience almost globally.

Whenever an authentic Palestinian voice steps out of the narrow confinement of such censored discourse, they are immediately reprimanded and told in no uncertain terms that they have crossed the lines defined by Jewish “supporters”. When a Palestinian refuses to be terrorized by such Thought Police, he or she faces defamation, blacklisting, ostracism, and even threats.

On the day of signing of Oslo agreement, I remember sitting on the staircase in shock, sobbing for the rest of the day, for I knew what is to come. Yet the pro Palestinian camp with all its Jewish “supporters” in control, embraced the move. Palestinians were deceived into believing that a Palestinian state will come into being within five years. They were led to believe the Palestinian problem is on the verge of being resolved once and for all, and closure was eminent, nothing could have been further from truth. And the genocidal slaughter continued, worse then ever. And it continues today.

For the twenty five years that followed, “israel” used the “peace process” to proceed with it’s undeclared aims of total colonisation of West Bank and Gaza. The number of settlers sky rocketed and settlements have multiplied many folds over, making it impossible for any Palestinian state to exist on a land infested with and totally disconnected by Jewish only settlements and Jewish only roads.

In the present, “israel” has managed to totally conquer Palestine by war and terror. It has created a new reality on the ground, by annexing most of the land of historic Palestine, reducing Palestinian areas into fragmented open prisons where Jewish “israelis” can kill-at-will. “israel” together with its international Jewish support network has reduced and degraded the Palestinian population from a formerly radiant, self-sufficient, productive, cohesive, cooperative affluent society into an aid-dependent, traumatized, unproductive, poverty stricken population. The degradation is even practiced by distributing free narcotics to the Palestinian youth!

Despite having achieved their Jewish Zionist goals of total dominance over land and population, the geo-political circumstances are rapidly changing.

Increasingly, the strategists and think tanks of the Jewish state realise that they have passed the highest moment of success, and that the world community in spite of some coerced puppet governments, is very rapidly turning against the Jewish state. They began to feel the heat, of growing isolation, of world disdain. In this context, the next logical step from the perspective of their think tanks and strategists, is to seek the total finalization of their Zionist project, by seeking legitimacy from the rightful natives, through legalization, and through mass campaigns to gain “the hearts and minds” from world community by any artifice necessary.

Such step would guarantee their permanent presence in Palestine while securing themselves with “peace treaties’. And while the And while the Arab Muslims remain majority in greater region, the Jewish-“isrseli” total hegemony and dominance; financial, economical, militaristic, technological, administrative, educational, would be guaranteed.

Their next strategic move would be to offer a luring “solution” which would lure Palestinian support by nominally less oppression, by feigning “equality” while knowing that in reality their hegemony will remain de-facto, due to the huge economical, technological, industrial, and of course military gap between the two groups. Nothing, absolutely nothing in the Jewish state exhibits a willingness to relinquish any part of their control over all apparatus of power in the region. And it is an irrefutable fact, demonstrated by a century of nefarious “facts on the ground” that the Jewish Zionists who invaded Palestine and their aggravated offspring, will never voluntarily relinquish their weaponry, military, and aggressive violence.

Add to this unsettling scenario the most horrific component of ideological supremacy which would no doubt manifest in an explosion of settler violence against Palestinians who are seen as mere slaves created only to serve Jews.

That horrific deception is a strategic move already has a name. “One Democratic State”, “with Equal Rights to All its Citizens”. Very easy to be deceived by such a lofty romantic title, except that it is a cruel misnomer, a sirens’ song to fool and victimise, one last lethal time.

“It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled” as goes the adage sometimes attributed to Mark Twain

Leading Palestinians by the nose​, dangling the carrot of “One Democratic State” and ​promising them of a “bright” ​joined ​future​ with their persecutors,​ while knowing fair well that the promised crumbs will never come to fruition, exactly as the crumbs of Oslo, due to the fact-on-the-ground dominance coupled with lethal ideological supremacy​.

“ODS-Equal Rights”,​ is not only an act of egregious deception, it is designed to perpetuate wars and genocide, by rewarding sadistic terrorists, thus it is an act of betrayal to humanity.

October 28, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Oman rejects mediating between Israelis, Palestinians

Press TV – October 27, 2018

Oman says it will not act as a “mediator” between Israelis and Palestinians, playing down an earlier visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The sultanate was only offering ideas to help Israel and Palestinians to come together, Omani Foreign Minister Yousuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah told a security summit in Bahrain’s capital Manama on Saturday.

The remarks came a day after Netanyahu visited Oman in a rare visit, while accompanied by other senior Israeli officials, including the head of the Israeli spy agency Mossad.

“We are not saying road is now easy and paved with flowers, but our priority is to put an end to the conflict and move to a new world,” Reuters cited Abdullah as saying.

Despite apparently trying to sound impartial, Abdullah said Oman relied on the United States and efforts by US President Donald Trump in working towards the “deal of the century.”

The Trump administration has targeted the plan at the situation in the Palestinian territories.

Details are yet to emerge, but reports say it envisages a Palestinian state with limited sovereignty across about half of Israel-occupied West Bank and all the Gaza Strip. The deal also reportedly foresees potential disarming of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, and does not find Palestinians entitled to the eastern part of Jerusalem al-Quds as their capital.

This is while Abbas, who visited Oman before Netanyahu for three days, has renounced the plan, saying it has been devised without consulting the Palestinians. He also spurned any intermediary role by the US late last year after Washington recognized Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s “capital.”

In June, however, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Jordan assured the US of their support for the plan during visits to those countries by Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Jason Greenblatt, the US envoy to the region.

Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told the Manama gathering on Saturday that the kingdom believed the key to “normalizing” relations with Israel was the “peace process.”

The Omani minister also claimed Israel was “present in the region, and we all understand this, the world is also aware of this fact and maybe it is time for Israel to be treated the same and also bear the same obligations.”

Observers say Muscat has come to accommodate the US plan under pressure from Washington and Riyadh, the strongest US ally in the Persian Gulf region, which has been inching towards Tel Aviv over the past years.

Palestinian groups, however, condemned the Israeli prime minister’s visit to Oman, urging Arab countries to support the oppressed people of Palestine, instead.

Hamas warned about the dangerous consequences of Netanyahu’s visit for the people of Palestine. The Islamic Jihad movement also censured the visit, saying Oman acquitted Netanyahu of the crimes committed against innocent Palestinians by welcoming him to the country.

Commenting on Netanyahu’s visit, Paul Larudee, with the Free Palestine Movement, told PressTV, “What in the world would Netanyahu know about peace and stability, when his objectives and objectives of Israel have always been war and instability?”

“The importance is what their objectives are not. They are not about Arab unity, not about solidarity with Arabs who are suffering namely the Palestinians,” he said.

“These other countries realize that sooner or later they are potential targets of Israel… that they can be in the same place that the Palestinians are now,” Larudee said.

October 27, 2018 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel Culture Minister arrives in UAE

MEMO | October 26, 2018

In first, Israel’s Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev today arrived in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to attend the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam Judo tournament.

Regev was invited to attend the event earlier this month to accompany Israel’s national judo team as they compete in the Emirati capital. President of the International Judo Federation (IJF), Marius Vizer, wrote to Regev on 2 October to invite her to the tournament and promised to “make all the necessary arrangements for [her] visit”.

The invitation came after the IJF demanded that the UAE allow the Israeli team to play its national anthem and fly its flag during the tournament. The event had previously been threatened with cancellation after the IJF stripped the UAE of the right to host the tournament due to its failure to guarantee “equal treatment” for Israeli athletes. In September, the UAE accepted the IJF’s conditions and allowed the Israeli judoists to sport their national insignia.

Regev’s attendance at the event – which is taking place from 25-27 October – will be seen as controversial in light of the lack of official relations between Israel and the UAE. In addition, Israeli passports are not valid for travel to the UAE.

However, the UAE has recently been pursuing a policy of normalisation with Israel. In September, it hosted secret backchannel talks between Israel and Turkey in an attempt to mend strained Israeli-Turkish relations. Envoys from the two countries flew into Abu Dhabi via Amman, Jordan, though neither government would confirm the purpose of the talks.

In August, an Israeli journalist claimed that an Emirati pilot participated in the bombing of Palestinian targets in the Gaza Strip during his training on Israeli Air Force F-35 fighters. Cohen, the journalist who made the claims, also accused Dubai’s Deputy Chairman of Police and Public Security, General Dhahi Khalfan, of being complicit in assassinating Hamas leader Mahmoud Mabhouh in Dubai in 2010.

In June, an exposé by the New Yorker revealed that Israel and the UAE have been engaged in secret normalisation talks since the 1990s. The report disclosed that “the secret relationship between Israel and the UAE can be traced back to a series of meetings in a nondescript office in Washington D.C. after the signing of the Oslo Accords”. These meetings discussed the possibility of the UAE purchasing F-16 fighter jets from the US which are known to be comprised of Israeli technology. The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed Bin Zayed, also gave his blessing for delegations of influential American Jews to be brought to Abu Dhabi to meet with Emirati officials and establish an intelligence-sharing relationship.

READ: Israel, UAE envoys share dinner date

October 26, 2018 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces assault priests, detain one in Jerusalem

The arrest of Monk Macarius Orshalemy. © Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate Jerusalem
Ma’an – October 24, 2018

JERUSALEM – Israeli forces and police assaulted several Coptic Orthodox priests in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem, and forcefully detained one of them on Wednesday morning.

Prior to the assault, the Coptic Orthodox Church organized a peaceful protest near Deir al-Sultan Monastery, located on the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, against an Israeli decision denying the church the right to conduct the needed renovation work inside the holy site.

It is noteworthy that the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem continues to conduct unauthorized renovation work for the Ethiopian Coptic Church section without the approval of the Coptic Orthodox Church.

Eyewitnesses said that Israeli soldiers and police officers surrounded the priests who were protesting, before assaulting and pushing them with excessive use of force, causing them several injuries.

Witnesses added that the Israeli police forcibly removed the priests and detained one of them, before allowing the Israeli municipality workers into the holy site.

The Islamic Christian Committee to Defend Jerusalem and Holy Sites condemned the assault on the Coptic Orthodox priests and denounced the intervention of Israeli authorities in the renovation works of the holy site.

The committee pointed out that it is not within its jurisdiction to intervene in issues of occupied East Jerusalem, considering the area is subjected to the rules of international humanitarian law (IHL).

The committee called upon the Egyptian government and the Christian world to immediately intervene to stop Israeli authorities from these attacks and not to enter the holy site under the pretext of restoration, since the Coptic Orthodox Church is the only authorized body to do so.

The committee also called on the world to stand by the Palestinian right to sovereignty over its land in the holy city and the rest of its other occupied territories, and to stop the measures carried out by the Israeli occupation in violation of the resolutions of international law and international humanitarian law.

October 24, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Revealed: Israel tax funded group gives loans to build illegal settlements

MEMO | October 23, 2018

The World Zionist Organisation (WZO) gave dozens of loans to aid the establishment of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, a new investigation has revealed.

The investigation, conducted by Israeli newspaper Haaretz, uncovered documents which “show a pattern in which settlers have established farms and unauthorised outposts over the past 20 years with loans from the [World Zionist Organisation’s] Settlement Division — financed entirely through taxpayers’ money and frequently secured by liens on agricultural equipment or livestock”.

Haaretz obtained “dozens of documents relating to mortgages pertaining to 26 outposts across the West Bank” including Amona, which Israel evacuated in 2017 after deeming it had been established illegally on Palestinian land. The illegal settlers were then relocated to Amichai, the first brand new settlement to be built since the Oslo Accords. Although Israel differentiates between settlements and outposts – which do not have official government recognition – both are deemed illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits the transferring of civilian populations into occupied territory.

The investigation then cross-referenced maps with the names of those who obtained mortgages, their place of residence and the year in which the loan was granted. In doing so, it found that the WZO “repeatedly gave loans to people who were establishing unauthorided outpost, and did so during the period when the outposts were being set up”.

The first of these loans dates back to the mid-1990s, one of which was given to extremist Avri Ran – the founder of the notorious “hilltop youth” movement – who established a number of illegal outposts at Gva’ot Olam, south east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. This policy of providing financial assistance to illegal settlements has continued up to the present day, with the WZO granting a loan to the Yitzhar settlement in 2014, even though it was subject to three demolition orders.

Haaretz adds that “mortgage financing was also provided for illegal structures in [Israeli government] authorised settlements such as Yitzhar,” located south of Nablus. Finance was also provided for the “Havat Har Sinai, Einot Kedem and Shkedim farms,” also scattered across the West Bank.

Significantly, Haaretz explains that though the World Zionist Organisation operates without the Israeli government’s direct authority, “all of its funding comes from the Israeli taxpayer”. The WZO in fact pre-dates the state of Israel, having been founded by the ideological-father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, in the 19th century as an organisation dedicated to the promotion of Jewish settlement in Palestine.

Since Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, it has consistently pursued a policy of illegal settlement. Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem states that, as of the end of 2015, there were 127 Israeli government-sanctioned settlements in the West Bank (not including occupied East Jerusalem and Hebron). This was in addition to 100 non-recognised outposts and 15 Israeli neighbourhoods inside the Jerusalem Municipality.

October 23, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

‘A cruel choice’: Why Israel targets Palestinian schools

By Ramzy Baroud | Ma’an | October 23, 2018

Several Palestinian students, along with teachers and officials, were wounded in the Israeli army attack on a school south of Nablus in the West Bank on October 15. The students of al-Sawiya al-Lubban Mixed School were challenging an Israeli military order to shut down their school based on the ever-versatile accusation of the school being a “site of popular terror and rioting.”

“Popular terror,” is an Israeli army code for protests. The students, of course, have every right to protest, not just the Israeli military Occupation but also the encroaching colonization of the settlements of Alie and Ma’ale Levona. These two illegal Jewish settlements have unlawfully confiscated thousands of dunums of land belonging to the villages of al-Sawiya and al-Lubban.

“The Israeli citizens,” that the Occupation army is set to protect by shutting down the school, are, in fact, the very armed Jewish settlers who have been terrorizing this West Bank region for years.

According to a 2016 study commissioned by the United Nations, at least 2,500 Palestinian students from 35 West Bank communities must cross through Israeli military checkpoints to reach their schools every day. About half of these students have reported army harassment and violence for merely attempting to get to their classes or back home.

However, this is only half of the story, as violent Jewish settlers are always on the lookout for Palestinian kids. These settlers, who “also set up their own checkpoints,” engage in regular violence as well, by “throwing stones” at children, or “physically pushing (Palestinian children) around.”

“UNICEF’s protective presence teams have reported that their volunteers have been subjected to physical attacks, harassment, arrest and detention and death threats,” according to the same UN report.

In other words, even the “protectors” themselves often fall victim to the army and Jewish settler terror tactics.

Add to this that Area C – a major part of the West Bank that is under full Israeli military control – represents the pinnacle of Palestinian suffering. An estimated 50,000 children face numerous hurdles, including the lack of facilities, access, violence, closure and unjustified demolition orders.

The school of al-Sawiya al-Lubban located in Area C is, therefore, under the total mercy of the Israeli military, which has no tolerance for any form of resistance, including non-violent popular protests by school children.

What is truly uplifting, however, is that, despite the Israeli military Occupation and ongoing restrictions on Palestinian freedom, the Palestinian population remains one of the most educated in the Middle East.

According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the literacy rate in Palestine (estimated at 96.3%) is one of the highest in the Middle East and the illiteracy rate (3.7% among individuals over the age of 15) is one of the lowest in the world.

If these statistics are not heartening enough, bearing in mind the ongoing Israeli war on Palestinian school and curricula, consider this: the besieged and war-stricken Gaza Strip has an even higher literacy rate than the West Bank, as they both stand at 96.6% and 96% respectively.

In truth, this should not come as a total surprise. The first wave of Palestinian refugees that were ethnically-cleansed from historic Palestine were so keen on ensuring their children strive to continue their education, they established school tents, operated by volunteer teachers as early as 1948.

Palestinians understand well that education is their greatest weapon to obtain their long-denied freedom. Israel, too, is aware of this dichotomy, knowing that an empowered Palestinian population is far more capable of challenging Israeli dominance than a subdued one, thus the relentless and systematic targeting of the Palestinian educational system.

Israel’s strategy in destroying the infrastructure of Palestinian schooling system is centered on the allegation of “terror”: that is, Palestinians teach “terror” in their schools; Palestinian school books celebrate “terrorists”; schools are sites for “popular terror” and various other accusations that, per Israeli logic, compels the army to seal off schools, demolish facilities, arrest and shoot students.

Take for example, the recent comments made by the Israeli mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, who is now leading a government campaign aimed at shutting down operations by the UN organization that caters for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

“It is time to remove UNRWA from Jerusalem,” Barkat announced early October.

Without any evidence whatsoever, Barkat claimed that “UNRWA is strengthening terror,” and that “the children of Jerusalem are taught under their auspices, terror, and this must be stopped.”

Of course, Barkat is being dishonest. The jibe at UNRWA in Jerusalem is part of a larger Israeli-US campaign aimed at shutting down an organization that proved central to the status and welfare of Palestinian refugees.

According to this skewed thinking, without UNRWA, Palestinian refugees would have no legal platform, thus closing down UNRWA is closing down the chapter of Palestinian refugees and their Right of Return altogether.

The link between the shutting down of al-Sawiya al-Lubban, the targeting of UNRWA by Israel and the US, the numerous checkpoints separating students from their schools in the West Bank and more, have more in common than Israel’s false allegation of “terror.”

Israeli writer, Orly Noy, summed up the Israeli logic in one sentence. “By destroying schools in Palestinian villages in Area C and elsewhere, Israel is forcing Palestinians to make a cruel choice — between their land and their children’s futures,” she wrote earlier this year.

It is this brutal logic that has guided the Israeli government strategy regarding Palestinian education for 70 years. It is a war that cannot be discussed or understood outside the larger war on Palestinian identity, freedom, and, in fact, the very existence of the Palestinian people.

The students’ fight for their right to education in al-Sawiya al-Lubban Mixed School is by no means an isolated skirmish involving Palestinian school kids and trigger-happy Israeli soldiers. Rather, it is at the heart of the Palestinian people’s fight for their freedom.

October 23, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel revokes work permits for family of killed Palestinian mother

Ma’an – October 22, 2018

BETHLEHEM – The Israel Security Service, the Shin Bet, cancelled Israeli work permits for the husband and brothers of a Palestinian mother who was killed after Israeli settlers hurled rocks at her vehicle, on Monday.

Aisha Muhammad Talal al-Rabi, 47, a mother of eight children, from the Bidya village near Salfit in the northern West Bank, was killed on October 12th after Israeli settlers hurled rocks at her vehicle as she was passing by near the Zaatara checkpoint in southern Nablus.

Hebrew-language news sites reported that al-Rabi’s husband and brothers were surprised to find out that they were the ones who were punished by having their work permits revoked, instead of holding the Israeli settlers responsible for the attack.

Sources added that the Shin Bet claimed the ban was temporary.

The Shin Bet also mentioned that no one has been detained as the investigation continues.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) condemned the killing of al-Rabi and called for international protection for the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation.

Additionally, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nikolay Mladenov, condemned the attack and called on the Israeli authorities “to ensure that those responsible are swiftly brought to justice.”

October 22, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Lieberman: ‘We exhausted all options with Hamas’

Palestine Information Center – October 22, 2018

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – Israel’s war Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beytenu) threatened to wage a bloody war against Gaza at the start of a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

“Wars are only conducted when there is no choice, and now there is no choice,” the minister claimed on Monday. “Anything less than the toughest response won’t help anymore. We have exhausted the other options.”

Lieberman alleged that Hamas was behind recent violence from the blockaded Gaza Strip and pays large sums to protesters.

“There is no popular uprising,” Lieberman said. “There is violence organized by Hamas. Fifteen thousand people don’t come by foot to the border at their own will. They come by bus and are paid.”

“I don’t believe in reaching an arrangement with Hamas,” he said. “It hasn’t worked, doesn’t work and won’t work in the future.”

Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Avi Dichter (Likud) also accused Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas of inflaming tensions in the Gaza Strip by preventing supplies and funding from reaching the people there.

“It is intolerable, unacceptable and unreasonable that Abbas closes the faucet for Gaza and Israel has to pay the price,” Dichter said.

October 22, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Real hate taught inside Toronto school, not scrawled outside

By Yves Engler · October 20, 2018

Supporters of a private Toronto school that publicly promotes racism against Palestinians, flies an Israeli flag and then complains of “anti-Semitism” when pro-Palestinian graffiti is scrawled on its walls should give their heads a shake.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center and B’nai Brith labeled messages scrawled on Leo Baeck Day School “hateful” and “anti-Semitic”, but fair-minded individuals should be more concerned with the hatred taught inside the school.

Recently someone wrote “Free Palestine” and“Long Live Palestine” on the school’s sign and flagpole. On a picture of a rally with Israeli flags at or near Leo Baeck (reports differ) someone wrote “Long Life [sic] to the Hamas.”

Saying it received a call to its “Anti-Hate Hotline”, B’nai Brith claimed the school was “defaced  with antisemitic epithets”. FSWC and CIJA also put out statements denouncing “hatred”. A number of city councillors and MPs repeated their message with Mayor John Tory writing, “there is no place for hate” in Toronto.

But none of these groups or politicians mentioned the hate taught inside the school itself.

Leo Baeck is a bastion indoctrination and activism that meets most of the criteria of anti-Palestinian racism, as defined by the UK’s Jewish Voice for Labour.

An Israeli flag flies in front of the school and its publicity says it “instills” a “love of Israel” and  “a deep and meaningful connection to … the State of Israel” among students. The school has an Israel Engagement Committee and in 2012 it received United Jewish Appeal Toronto’s inaugural Israel Engagement Community Award. That same year the Israeli Consul General in Toronto, DJ Schneiweiss, attended the launch of a new campus at Leo Baeck.

A 2012 Canadian Jewish News article titled “Leo Baeck adopts  more Israel-centric curriculum” quoted the head of the school saying “one of the reasons people choose our school is a commitment to the State of Israel.” But, principal Eric Petersie told the paper, graduates felt unprepared to respond to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement on university campuses so the school increased its Israeli teachings.

Leo Baeck was the first school to join UJA Federation Toronto’s shinshinim (emissary) program, which began in 2007. Partly funded by the Jewish Agency for Israel, the program sends young Israelis to interact with Canadian students and staff. Last year the school hosted Idan Aharon and Roni Alkalay for three days a week. According to the Canadian Jewish News, “one of the ways Leo Baeck and the Young Emissary Program ensure that students understand the realities of Israel is by re-introducing the previous year’s shinshinim to students by way of live video chat from their Israel Defence Forces barracks dressed in their military uniforms.”

The school promotes the Israeli military in other ways. Last year’s Grade 8 class organized a school-wide fundraiser to support Beit Halochem Canada/Aid to Disabled Veterans of Israel and a choir “paid tribute  to Israel’s fallen heroes.”

In another crude form of anti-Palestinianism, Leo Baeck works with the explicitly racist  Jewish National Fund, which excludes the 20-25% of non-Jewish Israelis from its vast landholdings mostly stolen from Palestinians in 1948. Some “students took  virtual walk across Israel in school thanks to JNF map and guidance”, noted a 2015 tweet.  But, the JNF map  shown to the nine and ten-year-olds encompasses the illegally occupied West Bank and Gaza, effectively denying Palestinians the right to a state on even 22 percent of their historic homeland. In all likelihood, Leo Baeck works with JNF Canada’s Education Department, which has produced puzzles and board games to convince young minds of its colonialist worldview, and organizes celebrations of JNF day  at Jewish schools.

While B’nai Brith, FSWC and CIJA’s statements on the graffiti present the school as sacrosanct, apolitical, terrain, they didn’t object when a politician used it as a backdrop to express his anti-Palestinian bonafides. During a 2012 tour of Leo Baeck then Liberal Liberal party leadership contender Justin Trudeau criticized Iran, celebrated Israel and distanced himself from his brother Alexandre’s support for Palestinians.

Over the past year the Canadian Jewish News has published at least three stories about the growing attention devoted to Israel education at Jewish schools. A 2017 cover story titled “What to teach Jewish students about Israel?” detailed the growing importance given to classes on Israel at Jewish day schools. While students have long been “taught from a young age to see Israel as the land of milk and honey”, in recent years Jewish day schools have ramped up their indoctrination in reaction to “anti-Israel student groups on campuses throughout North America.”

When a school engages in partisan political activity in support of a foreign country, when it supports racism and intolerance against an oppressed people, when it indoctrinates children in these views, surely it cannot be surprised that some would be upset, and might illustrate their displeasure.

One can debate the merits of writing political graffiti on school grounds, but what news reports described was certainly not anti-Semitic.

October 21, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Belgian official: Israel steals organs of Palestinian kids

Robrecht Vanderbeeken, the cultural secretary of Belgium’s ACOD trade union
Press TV – October 21, 2018

A Belgian official’s remarks that Israel steals the organs of Palestinian children, whom it kills, have made headlines again after the news website which published them decided to stick to the story.

Robrecht Vanderbeeken, the cultural secretary of Belgium’s ACOD trade union and a philosophy of science scholar, had made the comments back in August in a column published by Belgian website De Wereld Morgen.

The population of the Gaza Strip is being “starved to death, poisoned, and children are kidnapped and murdered for their organs,” he wrote then.

The website recently received a complaint by Belgian watchdog, the Interfederal Center for Equal Opportunities, over the story.

De Wereld Morgen, however, stuck to the assertion that Israel “kidnapped” and “murdered” Palestinian children and used organs belonging to the Palestinians its forces killed.

In November 2015, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations said Israel harvested the organs of the Palestinians it killed.

In a letter to the UN secretary general, Riyad Mansour said the bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces “were returned with missing corneas and other organs, further confirming past reports about organ harvesting by the occupying power.”

The New York Times also said in an August 2014 report that transplant brokers in Israel had pocketed enormous sums of money. Based on the newspaper’s analysis of major organ trafficking cases since 2000, Israelis had played a “disproportionate role” in organ trafficking.

The issue of organ theft by Israel was first brought to the fore in a report published by Sweden’s most highly-circulated daily Aftonbladet in 2009.

Back in 2000, Dr. Yehuda Hiss, the former head of Israel’s forensic institute, divulged that Israeli pathologists at the institute would harvest skin, corneas, heart valves, and bones from the bodies of Palestinians and others often without permission from relatives.

The interview was, however, released no later than 2009 by Nancy Scheper-Hughes, a professor of anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley, who had conducted it as part of her investigation into the institute, in response to a row created between Israel and Sweden over Aftonbladet’s report.

October 21, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

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