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Israel Lobbying for $900Mln in US Financial Aid – Document

CC BY 2.0 / zeevveez / Unites States of Israel
Sputnik – 29.09.2018

WASHINGTON – The Israeli government is lobbying in Washington, DC for $900 million in US financial aid, a lobbying registration form revealed.

“We will lobby the United States federal government, including the White House, the United States Senate, the United States House of Representatives, the United States Department of State, the United States Department of the Treasury, the United States Department of Commerce and the USAID to provide more than $900 million in financial aid to Israel,” the registration form by the Israeli government said on Friday.

The Israeli government said it has hired the American Federal Lobbying Firm to lobby on its behalf and protect its interests in Washington DC, according to the form.

US President Donald Trump during his address to the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday said the United States will be reviewing all of its foreign assistance programs and will only be contributing aid to countries that are respectful and friendly.

September 29, 2018 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli troops abduct 11 & 12 year old children from Nabi Saleh village

IMEMC News – September 29, 2018

On Friday afternoon, Israeli troops invaded the village of Nabi Saleh, known as one of the centers of non-violent resistance in the West Bank, and arrested three children – two of them age 11, and the other age 12.

Samer Tamimi, 11 years old, the son of local non-violent activist Manal Tamimi, was kidnapped by Israeli soldiers along with two other children: Mohammad Abdul Lateef Tamimi, 11, and Ahmad Tamimi, 12, years old.

The children were abducted by the soldiers and taken to an unknown destination without any attempt by the soldiers to communicate with the parents of the three boys.

The abduction of children by Israeli soldiers is a common practice of the Israeli soldiers, with children as young as six years old grabbed and brutalized by the soldiers, taken to military bases, and interrogated for hours with no adult or advocate present.

According to the group Defense for Children International, around 500-700 Palestinian children are arrested, detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system each year. The majority of Palestinian child detainees are charged with throwing stones, and three out of four experience physical violence during arrest, transfer or interrogation. No Israeli child comes into contact with the military court system.

The majority of children are detained from their West Bank homes during the middle of the night by heavily armed Israeli soldiers. Several hours after their arrest, children arrive at an interrogation and detention center alone, sleep deprived and often bruised and scared. Interrogations tend to be coercive, including a variety of verbal abuse, threats and physical violence that ultimately result in a confession.

Unlike Israeli children living in illegal settlements in the West Bank, Palestinian children are not accompanied by a parent and are generally interrogated without the benefit of legal advice, or being informed of their right to silence. They are overwhelmingly accused of throwing stones, an offense that can lead to a potential maximum sentence of 10 to 20 years depending on a child’s age.

Samer has two older brothers, Mohammad, 19, and Osama, 22, who have been incarcerated for months in Israeli military prisons under so-called ‘administrative detention’, with no charges filed against them.

In a 2015 documentary by Al Jazeera, the mother of Samer, Manal Tamimi, told reporters, “I don’t want my children to be afraid – I try to hide my fear, as a mother, because I want them to be strong. Being afraid [while living] under occupation – you won’t be able to do anything. You will lose your life. But at the same time, I see how they are losing their childhood. I don’t want to have to talk to them about knowing their rights if they are arrested, about the tear gas – I want to talk with them about their future, about normal things. It’s kind of…. Refusing to die in silence…..My resistance is about life, about hope, about dreams, about a beautiful future.”

In the video, Manal also addresses those who would criticize her and other mothers in her village for allowing their children to participate in the non-violent weekly protests in their village. She says, “People who criticize us by saying that we are putting our children in danger – it’s not us who are putting our children in danger. It doesn’t matter what I do, they will be in danger all the time. There is a fear that the army will invade the house in the middle of the night, that they will shoot tear gas in the house, that my children will be abducted or even killed. This is life under occupation.”

September 29, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas: We will remain adherent to option of resistance

Palestine Information Center – September 28, 2018

GAZA – On the 18th anniversary of the Aqsa Intifada (uprising), the Hamas Movement has reiterated its adherence to the option of resistance against the occupation and its support for the March of Return until its intended goals are achieved.

“The reasons for the outbreak of the Aqsa Intifada still exist and escalate as the enemy persists in its crimes under the protection of imperialist powers,” Hamas stated on Friday.

Hamas also expressed its confidence that the Palestinian people would continue defending the Aqsa Mosque and remain vigilant about the dangers threatening it.

The Movement underlined that resisting the occupation is a legitimate right guaranteed by all divine laws and international conventions as a mean to restore the usurped national rights.

It pointed out that “the Aqsa Intifada proved the failure of the settlement process and that the Israeli occupation state only understands the language of force.”

Hamas also highlighted in its statement the issue of the stalled inter-Palestinian reconciliation, calling on the Palestinian Authority leadership to end its sanctions on Gaza and honor the 2011 Cairo agreement and the 2017 Beirut agreement in order to heal the rift in the Palestinian arena.

September 29, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Hamas: Abbas’ UN speech stab in Palestinians’ back

Palestine Information Center – September 28, 2018

GAZA – Hamas dubbed Mahmoud Abbas’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly delivered on Thursday evening a redundant reverberation of his unproductive policies regarding the Palestinian cause and anti-occupation struggle.

In his speech, Abbas just repeated his demands to the international community, complained about the negligence of the U.S. administration and its bias, and expressed his disappointment over the refusal of the Israeli occupation to fulfill its due commitments pledged in PA-Israel agreements that led to catastrophic consequences on the Palestinian cause, Hamas said in a statement.

The movement said Abbas’ speech is an explicit announcement of the failure of his policies and a straightforward confession that settlement path will never bring about just solutions or any other accomplishment for the Palestinian people.

Regarding his question about the borders of the Israeli occupation, Abbas would have posed the same question before entering into Oslo Accords and recognizing the Israeli Occupation, added Hamas.

According to the resistance movement, Abbas overlooked the Great Return March in his speech and the great sacrifices the Palestinian people has made to resist the occupation. He also turned his back on the Gaza Strip and its people in his words before the General Assembly.

Abbas deepens the Palestinian rift, paves the way for the Israeli occupation to perpetrate more crimes and killings, and facilitates the implementation of the deal of the century, the movement warned.

The confirmation of Mahmoud Abbas that he is committed to the negotiations with the Israeli occupation after hundreds of rounds and conferences held to that end is just a reverberation of failure and an out-of-charge chance of which the occupation will always take advantage to expand its illegal settlements, judaize Islamic holy sites, and infringe the Palestinian right of return by dismantling UNRWA, the statement read.

Hamas noted that while all of the above violations are currently in place, Mahmoud Abbas maintains security collaboration with the Israeli occupation and steps up crackdowns both the Palestinian resistance and people.

Hamas strongly condemned Abbas’ designation of the Palestinian resistance as “terrorist militias” while standing before the UNGA, saying it is a “sharp stab” to the Palestinian people.

Hamas said Abbas used a UN platform to announce his isolation of the Gaza Strip and the launch of new punitive measures. Such threats endanger the Palestinian reconciliation. Abbas should have rather announced a decision to lift the sanctions imposed on the Gaza Strip. We do hold Abbas responsible for the upshots of his measures against the besieged enclave.

In light of the aforementioned challenges, Hamas said it believes that it is necessary for Abbas to repudiate the Oslo Accord which has inflicted overwhelming repercussions on the Palestinian people. In addition, Abbas should reconsider the unilateral policy he is pursuing and listen to the Palestinian people and factions.

Hamas added that Abbas should work on reuniting the Palestinian people and rearranging the internal political scene on the basis of a real partnership aiming to retrieve Palestinian rights. To those ends, Hamas maintained, all forms of security cooperation with the Israeli occupations should be immediately brought to a halt.

September 28, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian groups to UN: Abbas has lost his legitimacy

MEMO | September 28, 2018

More than 60 Palestinian civil society organisations yesterday sent a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stating that the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s President Mahmoud Abbas “had lost his legitimacy”.

According to Safa news agency, the Palestinian organisations attributed their claims to article 36 of the Palestinian Basic Law of 2003 and its amendments in 2005.

The law’s article states that “a president’s term in office lasts for four years and the president has the right to run for a second term.”

Based on the Palestinian Basic Law, the rights institutions stressed, Abbas has to run for another presidential election to be able to renew his legitimacy or hand over the leadership to his successor.

“Abbas has continued to hold the leadership on an illegal basis and with the support of the international community and the Arab states,” the letter read, adding that Abbas was now “powerless”.

Abbas should have left office a decade ago however he had returned on a “de facto” basis, they said.

“This has contributed to deepening the division between Palestinians and strengthening the constitutional and legal crisis that has raged on the Palestinian political scene,” the civil organisations explained.

September 28, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

NDP will be judged by the friends they keep in Israel

By Yves Engler · September 28, 2018

Who exactly is the NDP making friends with in Israel?

In refusing to heed a call from 200 well-known musicians, academics, trade unionists and NDP members to withdraw from the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group (CIIG) the party leadership cites the need for “dialogue”. But, when Jagmeet Singh, Hélène Laverdière, Murray Rankin and others call for “dialogue” they don’t specify who they are talking to.

A quick Google search of CIIG’s Israeli partner — the Israel-Canada Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group — shows that all 13 of its members have expressed views or proposed laws that most NDP members would consider odious. Below is a snapshot of the Israel-Canada Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group members — none of whom are from parties that represent Palestinian citizens of Israel — that Canadian MPs are creating relationships with:

Robert Ilatov proposed a bill in May to stop “harassment by left-wing operatives of Israeli soldiers” by criminalizing those who film Israeli troops repressing Palestinians. The bill states: “Anyone who filmed, photographed, and/or recorded soldiers in the course of their duties, with the intention of undermining the spirit of IDF soldiers and residents of Israel, shall be liable to five years imprisonment.” Born and raised in the former Soviet Union, Ilatov also sponsored a bill to strictly limit the call to prayer from mosques and, in another attack against the 20-25% of Muslim and Christian Israelis, said it should be mandatory for judges to sing Israel’s national anthem and adhere to “the idea of the State of Israel as a Jewish state.”

Yisrael Eichler called the assimilation of US Jews a “quiet Holocaust” and labelled criticism of men who refuse to sit next to women on El Al flights “anti-Semitic” and a form of “terrorism”. In 2009 Eichler demanded a “stop [to] this wave that is turning Israel into a refuge for Russian and African non-Jews as well as criminals who flee from their native countries.” In an anti-Jewish outburst, Eichler called a fellow Knesset member “a Jewboy who tattles on his fellow Jews.”

Yoav Ben Tzur told the Knesset in 2017: “it is time to stop being afraid. It is time to apply the law to Judea and Samaria [illegally occupied Palestinian West Bank] as an inseparable part of the state of Israel.” In a stunt that required a major military mobilization and led to a Palestinian being killed, Tzur was part of a mass prayer at Joseph’s Tomb near the occupied Palestinian city of Nablus.

Yitzchak Vaknin told the Centre for Israel and Jewish affairs in 2013: “I do not support negotiations on Jerusalem at all. Jerusalem is our capital and of course we are forbidden to speak on Jerusalem because if we speak about Jerusalem then we can discuss any other city in Israel.” In 2011 Vaknin co-sponsored a bill to annex the illegal Jewish settlements of Beitar Illit, Ma’ale Adumim, Giv’at Ze’ev, Gush Etzion and Efrat to the municipality of Jerusalem. Vaknin also co-sponsored two bills  to forbid gay pride parades and in 2014 Vaknin called South Africa’s Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein “erev rav”, a derogatory term translated as “mixed multitude” or “mixed mob” of non-Jews who followed the Biblical Hebrews from Egypt and made their lives miserable.

Elazar Stern told Belgian newspaper L’Echo in January that “all embassies should be” in Jerusalem and that Europe should “stop supporting Palestinian terrorism.” Stern co-sponsored a recent bill calling on Israel to withhold some Palestinian customs duties it gathers as the occupying power.

Nachman Shai repeatedly justified the killing of Palestinians during his time as the Israeli military’s chief spokesman between 1988 and 1991. In 2015 he ran to chair the explicitly racist Jewish National Fund/Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael and called the term leftist “a stain.”

Tali Ploskov proposed a bill to deter Israeli human rights groups that give tours detailing the mistreatment of Palestinians by increasing the penalty on unlicensed tour guides. She also co-sponsored a bill designed to fight the “legal intifada” by raising the fees for Palestinians to petition Israel’s top court and another law empowering the Minister of the Interior to revoke the residency status of Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem for “Breach of Allegiance”.

Mickey Levy, then commander of the Jerusalem police, ordered the 2002 execution of a Palestinian who had been captured and disarmed before he could detonate a suicide vest. Levy said Israel should stop returning the bodies of Palestinians they kill in acts of resistance and that their families should be expelled to Gaza “if they have relatives there.” When Arab Knesset member Hanin Zoabi called Israeli soldiers “murderers” in 2016, reports the Jerusalem Post, Levy “rushed at Zoabi, nearly reaching her before he was stopped by Knesset ushers, shouting ‘You are filth!’ several times.”

Oded Forer initiated the April impeachment of Haneen Zoabi from the Knesset and legislation to disqualify Arab Knesset candidates for “calling Israel racist and calling upon countries to boycott and sanction it.” Saying “the [Arab] Joint List continues to prove that its MKs do not belong in the Knesset,” Forer claimed “the Knesset has become a place for terrorists and their supporters to sit in without fear.” Forer also submitted a bill — largely targeting tenured professors — that could impose up to 10 years in prison for those who incite violence against the state.Forer said: “the expansion of incitement to public events has become a real danger. Calls for incitement and for harm to be caused to the State of Israel should not be heard among the masses and certainly not in events and places financed with the money of Israeli taxpayers.”

Meirav Ben-Ari said the government should “help” Jews living in a Tel Aviv neighbourhood with many Africans. “You go to the south of Tel Aviv, it’s a different state,” Ben-Ari said. “It’s like Sudan mixed with Eritrea mixed with Darfur.” Ben-Ari added that she doesn’t go there because it’s too dangerous. In 2015 she called for the prosecution of an Arab member of the Knesset. “A member of Knesset who acts against the Knesset and the State of Israel, his immunity should be reconsidered.”

Sharren Haskel wrote recently about “Palestinians’ desire to obliterate the Jewish future in the Middle East” and told CBC she “would love to see Canada move its embassy” to Jerusalem. In July Haskel initiated a government program “to prevent miscegenation” (romantic relationships between Jews and non-Jews). Using a Hebrew word that literally translates as “assimilation,” but is commonly used as a euphemism for miscegenation, she told Israel Hayom paper: “Young [Jewish] men and women from all over the world will arrive and form relationships with local young men and women, in order to prevent assimilation and strengthen the connection to Judaism.”

In this article I detail some of the views of the two chairs of the Israel-Canada Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group. The more openly racist and anti-Palestinian of the two, Anat Berko just put forward a bill to jail individuals who display Palestinian flags at demonstrations and expressed support for a former soldier who shot and killed a wounded Palestinian in Hebron in 2016.

Which is the best way for the NDP to promote justice and peace? To accept and normalize such views and policies by making friends with these politicians? Or to withdraw from the CIIG to send a message that the State of Israel is currently on a path that is unacceptable to the NDP and its members?

Please ask Randall.Garrison@parl.gc.ca,murray. rankin@parl.gc.ca, cheryl.hardcastle@parl.gc.ca, gord.johns@parl.gc.ca and peter.julian@parl.gc.ca to withdraw from the Canada–Israel Interparliamentary Group.

September 28, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Real Reasons behind Washington’s War on UNRWA

By Ramzy Baroud | Dissident Voice | September 27, 2018

The US government’s decision to slash funds provided to the United Nations agency that cares for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, is part of a new American-Israeli strategy aimed at redefining the rules of the game altogether.

As a result, UNRWA is experiencing its worst financial crisis. The gap in its budget is estimated at around $217 million, and is rapidly increasing. Aside from future catastrophic events that would result in discontinuing services and urgent humanitarian aid to five million refugees registered with UNRWA, the impact of the US callous decision is already reverberating in many refugee camps across the region. Currently, UNRWA has downgraded many of its services: laying off many teachers, reducing staff and working hours at various clinics.

Nearly 40 percent of all Palestinian refugees live in Jordan, a country that is already overwhelmed by a million Syrian refugees who sought shelter there because of the grinding and deadly war in their own country.

Aware of Jordan’s vulnerability, American emissaries attempted to barter with the country to heed the US demand of revoking the status of the two million Palestinian refugees. Instead of funding UNRWA, Washington offered to re-channel the funds directly to the Jordanian government. Thus, the US hopes that the Palestinian refugee status would no longer be applicable. Unsurprisingly, Jordan refused the American offer.

News of this failed barter resurfaced last August. It was reported that US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Jared Kushner, tried to sway the Jordanian government during his visit to Amman in June.

Washington and Israel are seeking to simply remove the ‘Right of Return’ for Palestinian refugees, as enshrined in international law, from the political agenda altogether.

Coupled with Washington’s strategy to “remove Jerusalem from the table,” the American strategy is neither random nor impulsive.

“It is important to have an honest and sincere effort to disrupt UNRWA,” Kushner wrote to the US Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, in an email last January. The email, among others, was later leaked to Foreign Policy magazine. “This (agency) perpetuates a status quo,” he also wrote, referring to UNRWA as “corrupt, inefficient and doesn’t help peace.”

This notion that UNRWA sustains the status quo – meaning the political rights of Palestinians refugees – is the main reason behind the American war on the Organization, a fact that is confirmed through statements made by top Israeli officials, too.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, echoed the American sentiment. UNRWA “has proven itself an impediment to resolving the conflict by keeping the Palestinians in perpetual refugee status,” he said.

Certainly, the US cutting of funds to UNRWA coincides with the defunding of all programs that provide any kind of aid to the Palestinian people. But the targeting of UNRWA is mostly concerned with the status of Palestinian refugees, a status that has irked Tel Aviv for 70 years.

Why does Israel want to place Palestinian refugees in a status-less category?

The refugee status is already a precarious one. To be a Palestinian refugee means living perpetually in limbo – unable to reclaim what has been lost, and unable to fashion an alternative future and a life of freedom and dignity.

How are Palestinians to reconstruct their identity that has been shattered by decades of exile, when Israel has constantly hinged its own existence as a ‘Jewish state’ on opposing the return and repatriation of Palestinian refugees? Per Israel’s logic, the mere Palestinian demand for the implementation of the internationally-sanctioned Right of Return is equivalent to a call for “genocide”. According to that same faulty logic, the fact that the Palestinian people live and multiply is a “demographic threat” to Israel.

Much can be said about the circumstances behind the creation of UNRWA by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1949 – its operations, efficiency and the effectiveness of its work. But for most Palestinians, UNRWA is not a relief organization, per se; being registered as a refugee with UNRWA provides Palestinians with a temporary identity, the same identity that allowed four generations of refugees to navigate decades of exile.

UNRWA’s stamp of “refugee” on every certificate that millions of Palestinians possess – birth, death and everything else in between – has served as a compass, pointing back to the places those refugees come from – not the refugee camps scattered in Palestine and across the region, but the 600 towns and villages that were destroyed during the Zionist assault on Palestine.

These villages may have been erased, as a whole new country was established upon their ruins, but the Palestinian refugee remained – subsisted, resisted and plotted her return home. The UNRWA refugee status is the international recognition of this inalienable right.

Therefore, the current US-Israeli war does not target UNRWA as a UN body, but as an organization that allows millions of Palestinians to maintain their identity as refugees with non-negotiable rights until their return to their ancestral homeland. Nearly 70 years after its founding, UNRWA remains essential and irreplaceable.

The founders of Israel envisioned a future where Palestinian refugees would eventually disappear into the larger population of the Middle East. Seventy years on, the Israelis still entertain that same illusion.

Now, with the help of the Trump administration, they are orchestrating yet more sinister campaigns to make Palestinian refugees vanish, wished away through the destruction of UNRWA and the redefining of the refugee status of millions of Palestinians.

The fate of Palestinian refugees seems to be of no relevance to Trump, Kushner and other US officials. The Americans are now hoping that their strategy will finally bring Palestinians to their knees so that they will ultimately submit to the Israeli government’s dictates.

The latest US-Israeli folly will prove futile. Successive US administrations have done everything in their power to support Israel and to punish the supposedly intransigent Palestinians. The Right of Return, however, remained the driving force behind Palestinian resistance, as the Gaza Great March of Return, ongoing since March, continues to demonstrate.

The truth is that all the money in Washington’s coffers will not reverse what is now a deeply embedded belief in the hearts and minds of millions of refugees throughout Palestine, the Middle East and the world.


Dr. Ramzy Baroud is an author and a journalist. He is athor of The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle and his latest My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story. He can be reached at ramzybaroud@hotmail.com.

September 27, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Spectacular Zionist Boomerang

By Gilad Atzmon | September 27, 2018

All that is left for us to do is to thank British Zionist institutions, the BOD, the CAA, the Jewish Chronicle and the Zionist stooges within British media for making the British Labour party not only the biggest and most united political party in Europe but also a party united behind its leader Jeremy Corbyn and unequivocally opposed to Israeli criminality.

Christians United for Israel, an ultra Zionist outlet, complained that  “hundreds of Palestinian flags were flown on the main floor of Labour’s Party conference yesterday despite the British flag not being allowed. The flags, which were flown with approval of the Labour leadership, were handed out to delegates by activists before the Conference passed a motion demanding a freeze on arms sales to Israel and an investigation into the deaths of Palestinians on the Gaza border.”

It is worth mentioning that Israel doesn’t actually need  obsolete British weapons. Likely the British army would also benefit by avoiding the use of locally manufactured lethal toys. But what is crucial is that despite the relentless Zionist campaign against Corbyn and the British media’s shameless compliance with the Zionist call, the Labour party has prevailed magnificently. It is more focused and united than it has been in the past five shameful decades.

Noticeable of late is that Israel firsters are changing their strategy. Tossing antisemitsm accusations against Corbyn and the Labour party was counterproductive, the accusations only ended up contributing to the popularity of Corbyn and the party. So now the Zionist clan is trying to mobilize new opposition by accusing the Labour party and its many supporters of being ‘unpatriotic.’ “Shockingly, earlier in the week Labour constituencies chose to debate ‘Palestine’ with more than 188,000 votes – making it the only international issue to receive a dedicated debate in Liverpool and thousands more votes than for concerns such as the NHS, the welfare system, or Brexit.”

Labour party members waved the Palestinian flag en masse grasping that by now -We Are All Palestinians-like the Palestinians we aren’t even allowed to utter the name of our oppressor. I suspect that blaming Labour for holding a meeting that Israel’s supporters claim failed to pay sufficient attention to the NHS or welfare is not going to work, but obviously, I welcome the new Zionist strategy. As we have seen, each and every one of their acts boomerangs spectacularly.

September 27, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

Britain’s Labor Party Passes Motion for ‘Arms Embargo’ on Israel

Palestinian flags waved during the Labor party conference in Liverpool. (Photo: Via Twitter)
Palestine Chronicle | September 26, 2018

The British Labor Party conference passed a motion to support an embargo on arms sales to Israel, a first in the country’s history.

As the proposal was put forward, hundreds of pro-Palestinian Labor delegates stood and waved their flags inside the conference hall in Liverpool, chanting “Free Palestine!” and turning the hall into a sea of Palestinian flags.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) Ben Jamal, which has been a key force behind the proposal, said:

“This incredible show of support and this historic motion demonstrate the strength of feeling at the grassroots of the party.”

He added:

“Labour members want to show real solidarity with Palestinians… Given Israel’s continuing use of live fire to kill unarmed Palestinian demonstrators, it is no surprise that there’s clear support for an immediate freeze of arms sales to Israel.”

The motion – moved by Harlow Constituency Labour Party (CLP) and seconded by Wolverhampton South West CLP – is the first on Palestine to be heard at the party’s conference in many years.

Palestine was put forward as the fourth-most important issue by CLPs in the priorities ballot, after housing, the school system and “justice for the Windrush generation” – and above Brexit, the NHS, climate change and social care.

The motion comes amid ongoing protests along Gaza’s border with Israel dubbed the Great March of Return.

Despite the largely peaceful nature of the protests, Israeli snipers have killed more than 170 Palestinians since they began on March 30, with more than 17,500 injured.

More than 68 Palestinians injured by Israeli forces have required amputations of either lower or upper limbs since the protests began.

Palestinians have been calling to return to the homes their families were forced from in 1948, during the military campaign surrounding the creation of Israel.

They are also calling for an end to the decade-long Israel-Egypt blockade that the UN says will make Gaza “unlivable” by 2020.

Tuesday’s motion at the Labour Party conference called for an “independent international investigation into Israel’s use of force against Palestinian demonstrators”, an “immediate and unconditional end to the illegal blockade and closure of Gaza” and “a freeze of UK government arms sales to Israel”.

September 26, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli violations against Palestinian journalists stand at nearly 640: Committee

Press TV – September 25, 2018

The Committee to Support Palestinian Journalists says the Israeli military’s violations against Palestinian journalists since the beginning of the current year stands at 637 as the Tel Aviv regime continues its repressive measures against members of the press in the occupied territories.

The New York-based committee, in a statement released on Tuesday, said Palestinian journalists Ahmed Abu Hussein and Yasser Murtaja succumbed to Israeli-inflicted gunshot wounds earlier this year, while covering anti-occupation protests along the border between the besieged Gaza Strip and occupied lands.

The committee further noted that the month of August witnessed the highest number of Israeli violations against Palestinian journalists, and the number hit 129.

It added that most of last month’s violations were recorded in the Gaza Strip, where reporters were targeted by live bullets and tear gas canisters as they were reporting on “The Great March of Return” protests.

The committee stated that it has recorded 82 cases of arrests and summonses since the beginning of the current year, besides 53 cases of extension of detention, adjournment and trial of Palestinian journalists being held in Israeli jails.

It highlighted that it has documented more than 83 cases of denial of coverage and obstruction of information, 31 cases of confiscation of media equipment, cameras and press cards plus six travel ban cases.

The committee also recorded 7 cases of incitement, and 35 cases of closure of media institutions and news websites.

It later expressed deep regret and condemnation of the Israeli forces’ targeting of Palestinian reporters, who conduct their “noble” mission by conveying the truth and exposing the ugliness of crimes being committed against the Palestinian nation.

The Committee to Support Palestinian Journalists also censured the Israeli regime’s bans on the broadcast of Arabic-language Palestinian al-Quds television network.

Israeli authorities have on occasion accused al-Quds television channel of being a “propaganda tool” for the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas.

The committee finally warned against the rising number of Israeli crimes against Palestinian journalists, calling on the International Federation of Journalists and the Union of Arab Journalists in addition to all human rights organizations to voice solidarity with Palestinian journalists, condemn Israel’s barbaric practices against members of the press and devise measures to stop the deliberate Israeli violations against them.

September 26, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

The blocking of Palestinian rights at an international level is endorsed by the PA

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas led by French President Emmanuel Macron departing the Elysee Palace in Paris, France on 21 September, 2018 [Mustafa Yalçın/Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | September 25, 2018

As the UN General Assembly meeting approaches, the entire international community is engaged in a collective spectacle discussing the obsolete two-state compromise as the only way forward for Palestinians. There is no debate about how the facts on the ground contradict the diplomatic hyperbole.

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas is reportedly holding a side meeting with officials, excluding the US and Israel, to seek ways in which negotiations about the two-state paradigm can be restarted; Israel’s illegal settlement expansion can be countered; and UN agencies that protect the rights of Palestinian refugees can be safeguarded.

The illusion of two camps – Israel and the US purportedly opposing the Palestinian Authority and the international community – is being promoted by Abbas, and none of the political actors are averse to the gimmick. As US President Donald Trump surpasses the pro-Israel approach of previous US presidents, it has become easier to focus on the current contempt for international law and ignore the subtle manoeuvres which paved the way for the Zionist colonisation of Palestine. Yet it is impossible to ignore one main fact: Trump and Israel are holding themselves beyond any accountability whatsoever and are wilfully eliminating Palestinian rights, while the international community and the PA hold conferences and meetings, and give meaningless speeches, in which support is professed but action is withheld.

While in Paris last week for a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, Abbas declared his willingness to resume negotiations with Israel sponsored by the Middle East Quartet. The previous illusion of opposing camps blurs even more with the inclusion of the US in such a scenario. Despite Trump closing down the PLO office in Washington and unilaterally recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the PA is still dependent upon the US for its survival and the continuation of security coordination with the Israeli occupation authorities. Its refusal of Trump’s so-called “deal of the century” is only one facet of its dealings with Washington and is weakened by the PA’s own structure, which needs the power of stronger entities to survive while creating collateral damage out of the Palestinian people.

Abbas is merely ambling around in the international community’s deconstruction of Palestine, attempting to highlight favourable endeavours where there are none. Following his meeting with Macron, he declared that France is “increasingly studying the possibility of recognising a Palestinian state.” Apart from the fact that recognition of a Palestinian state without defining both the concept and what remains of Palestinian land available for a state is vague, to say the least, such recognition by more than 130 countries has rendered nothing tangible for Palestinians on the diplomatic front. France, like other countries claiming to support Palestine, is engaging in isolating facets to weaken the Palestinian cause, and the PA is playing along with the charade.

In all likelihood, the forthcoming meeting will reap a tacit acceptance of stripping Palestinians of their rights. The two-state compromise is obsolete, but its rhetoric still hasn’t been extinguished. The blocking of Palestinian rights at an international level is endorsed by the PA, and as long as the entire world community and the Ramallah-based authority are able to delay the inclusion of Palestinians into the political process, Israel stands to gain regardless of any outcome. The meeting is superfluous in comparison to what Palestinians need; it is now common knowledge that Palestinian needs and the deprivation of such needs have become fodder for sustaining the international community’s duplicitous agenda.

READ: Palestine ready to enter peace talks with Israel

September 25, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Autopsy shows detained Palestinian was beaten by Israeli forces

MEMO | September 24, 2018

A Palestinian who died after Israeli occupation forces arrested him at his home was indeed assaulted, autopsy results have revealed, reported AFP on Sunday.

Mohammed Khatib, 24, died after being taken into custody during a pre-dawn raid on Beit Rima village in the occupied West Bank last Tuesday.

At the time, the family said occupation forces had “beaten [Mohammed] into an unconscious state” while still in the house; two hours after he was taken, his family was informed of their son’s death.

The latest findings, published by the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs, contradict claims made by Israeli authorities that there had been no violence by soldiers during or after the arrest.

The committee stated that “preliminary results of the autopsy clearly indicate the martyr was assaulted and beaten”, adding that the body “had bruises on the torso and the right thigh, as well as on other (body) parts”.

“The brutal manner of his arrest had affected the functioning of his organs, which was the main cause of his death”, the statement added.

“The autopsy was carried out at Abu Kabir forensic institute near Tel Aviv in the presence of the head of the Palestinian Institute of Forensic Medicine, Rayan al-Ali”, noted AFP.

September 24, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment