Haneyya: We will confront deal of the century
Palestine Information Center – November 24, 2018
GAZA – Head of Hamas’s political bureau Ismail Haneyya has affirmed that his Movement will not allow the deal of the century to be implemented and will use armed resistance to prevent it.
Haneyya made his remarks in a televised speech during the 32nd Islamic Unity Conference that kicked off on Saturday in Tehran.
“We want to build a strong and strategic alliance that brings together all the forces to face the challenges surrounding the Palestinian cause,” Haneyya said.
He stressed that the Palestinian people have open options to defend their holy sites and stand like “an impenetrable dam” against any attempt to liquidate the Palestinian cause.
The Hamas official also underlined that all forms of resistance would remain his Movement’s strategic choice.
“We have one compass pointing towards the liberation of the land and the establishment of the Palestinian state, and every party sharing this goal with us is our ally,” he added.
He called on the organizers of the conference to adopt an Islamic strategy to confront Israeli schemes, strengthen the Palestinians’ steadfastness in Jerusalem and protect the Aqsa Mosque against Judaization.
Israel army arrests Palestinian MP from West Bank home
MEMO | November 21, 2018
The Israeli army this morning arrested a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council from the occupied West Bank city of Al-Bireh, according to local witnesses.
Witnesses told the Anadolu Agency that an Israeli military force raided and searched the home of Palestinian MP Ahmad Attoun before arresting him.
The army, they added, also confiscated computers and mobile phones from Attoun’s residence.
The last time Palestinian legislative elections were held in 2006, Attoun – who represents Hamas – was elected for the city of Jerusalem.
Five years later in 2011, Israeli authorities deported him to the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.
Israeli forces detained nine Palestinians in overnight raids carried out across the West Bank, according to an Israeli army statement.
The individuals were arrested for “suspected involvement in popular terrorist activities”, the statement reads, without elaborating on the nature of said “activities”.
According to Palestinian figures, some 6,500 Palestinians are currently languishing in Israeli detention facilities, including scores of women and hundreds of minors.
UNRWA reduces deficit from $446m to $21m
MEMO | November 20, 2018
The Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said on Monday that its budget deficit for 2018 has been reduced from $446m to $21m. Pierre Krähenbühl made the announcement during a conference in Jordan, at which he thanked donor countries including Japan, EU members, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, as well as the agency’s Advisory Committee, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and the Republic of Turkey.
Krähenbühl told the conference that this year was “very difficult” due to the US government’s decision to stop its donations to UNRWA. Apart from a relatively small amount of core funding from the UN’s main budget, UNRWA relies entirely on voluntary donations from UN member states.
According to the Jordanian newspaper Al-Sabeel, the Commissioner General noted that the budget deficit caused much “tension and suffering” for Palestinian refugees. An end to American support, he pointed out, had “repercussions” for the essential basic services provided by UNRWA to the refugees.
He called for those countries which have pledged support for the agency to “turn their pledges into funds in UNRWA’s bank accounts” in order to cover the remaining deficit.
Airbnb pledges to remove occupied West Bank settlement listings, Israel hits back
RT | November 20, 2018
Global home-rental company Airbnb says it will remove listings of homes located in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Israeli officials have predictably called the move anti-Semitic and a surrender to terrorism.
Human Rights Watch applauded Airbnb’s move, which came a day before the group’s publication of a (presumably damning) report on the human rights impact of tourist rental listings in settlements. Waleed Assraf, who runs an anti-settlement group for the Palestinian Liberation Organization, was hopeful other companies would follow Airbnb’s example, noting “this will contribute to achieving peace.”
Israeli Tourism Minister Yariv Levin called Airbnb’s move “discriminatory” and ordered his ministry to formulate a retaliatory plan to “limit the company’s activities” in Israel, adding that the country would back settlement listers’ lawsuits in both Israeli and US courts.
Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the US and current deputy minister in PM Netanyahu’s office, called for a revenge boycott, deeming AirBnB’s policy “the very definition of anti-Semitism.” Settler council Yesha agreed that the company’s actions “can only be a result of anti-Semitism or surrendering to terrorism – or both.”
A statement on Airbnb’s website read “We concluded that we should remove listings in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank that are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians,” explaining that their policy for contested territories like the West Bank, Tibet, and Western Sahara involves “evaluat[ing] whether the existence of listings is contributing to existing human suffering” and “determin[ing] whether the existence of listings in the occupied territory has a direct connection to the larger dispute in the region.” About 200 listings are affected, though they have not yet been taken down.
Palestinian official Saab Erekat wrote to Airbnb’s CEO in January 2016 asking the company to end its relationship with Israeli settlements, and Human Rights Watch called on all businesses to cut ties with companies operating in West Bank settlements in its “Occupation, Inc.,” report shortly thereafter, explaining that the income from such companies relieves the Israeli government of the economic burden of sustaining the illegal settlements. The international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement has also called for travelers to avoid the home-rental service.
The Israeli settlements, constructed on land captured during the 1967 war, are illegal under international law, but Israel has long disputed this. Settlements have been gradually encroaching on Palestinian land ever since the end of the conflict, accompanied by a heavy military presence and the violence that accompanies it.
UN Special Rapporteurs give Israel 60 days to respond to ‘deep concerns’ regarding Jewish Nation-State Law
Adalah – 15/11/2018
Four Special Rapporteurs express ‘deep concern’ that Nation-State Law is ‘discriminatory in nature and in practice against non-Jewish citizens and other minorities and does not apply the principle of equality between citizens, which is one of the key principles for democratic political systems.’
Following a special request for action issued by Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, four United Nations special rapporteurs have given Israel a 60-day deadline to respond to their grave concerns regarding the Jewish Nation-State Law, adopted by the Knesset on 19 July 2018.
The 60-day period began on 2 November 2018 when UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights Karima Bennoune, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 Michael Lynk, Special Rapporteur on minority issues Fernand de Varennes, and Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance E. Tendayi Achiume sent a communique to Israeli authorities expressing their deep concerns regarding the impact of the new law.
In their letter, the special rapporteurs expressed “deep concern” that the Israeli Basic Law appears “to be discriminatory in nature and in practice against non-Jewish citizens and other minorities and does not apply the principle of equality between citizens, which is one of the key principles for democratic political systems.”
Adalah, representing all of the Arab political leadership in Israel – The High Follow-up Committee for Arab Citizens in Israel, the Joint List (Arab members of the Knesset), and the National Committee for Arab Mayors, filed a petition against the Jewish Nation-State Basic Law on 7 August 2018 to the Israeli Supreme Court. The petition demands that the Court cancel the law as it contradicts fundamental international human rights norms in place since the end of World War II; negates almost 20 years of Supreme Court caselaw concerning the right to equality and land rights; and constitutes an abuse of power by the majority in the Knesset.
The special rapporteurs emphasize that they fear that “the law as adopted offers a legal basis for the pre-eminence of Jewish people over non-Jewish citizens who are members of other ethno-religious and linguistic minority groups, and creates a legal order and an environment that could potentially lead to further discriminatory legislative and/or policy actions, which contravene the international human rights obligations of Israel.”
The special rapporteurs further expressed concern, in light of the Nation-State Law, regarding Israel’s commitments to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which both stipulate the right of all peoples to self-determination.
Amongst a more extensive series of requests, the special rapporteurs call on Israel to:
- “Indicate the impact of Article 5 of the Law on the current immigration procedures in Israel, on how Jewish and non-Jewish immigrants are dealt with under current procedures, and how such provision may affect the immigration status determination of non-Jews”;
- “Provide further information on Article 7, and particularly whether it will or not contribute to potential segregation on the basis of ethnicity or religion, and whether it is an endorsement to develop Jewish settlements, including in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in direct violation of international law”;
- “Clarify the consequences of the new status of the Arabic language, and the impact if any on its use for official purposes, including on public signs, in public institutions including social and health services and in the education system.”
The special rapporteurs note that the State of Israel failed to respond to an earlier query sent 21 June 2017 by the UN special rapporteurs concerning a draft bill of what was to eventually be adopted as the Jewish Nation-State Law.
Any response Israeli authorities may send to the special rapporteurs will be provided to the United Nations Human Rights Council for consideration.
‘Zionism is a narrative based on fabricated ideas’
MEMO | November 18, 2018
The Palestinian case is a narrative as is Zionism, but the latter is made up “mostly if not entirely of fabricated ideas”, Palestinian author Ramzy Baroud told an international audience in Istanbul, Turkey, today.
Zionism, which is the basis of the state of Israel, “has been communicated to the Western world to be truth,” Baroud continued, but “it has so little to do with the truth or is the complete opposite of the truth. The Palestinian narrative is the truth.”
However, Palestinians “are losing” because “for 25 years we have been distracted by the narrative that is the peace process and anyone who deviates from this narrative is classed as either a radical, a terrorist or a terrorist sympathiser,” he said during a discussion on the “Global discourse of the Palestinian narrative”.
But Palestinians and those working to attain their rights “should not buy in to this nonsensical narrative that paints Palestinians as terrorists.”
Why should we feel any way accountable to prove that we are not terrorists? We should not apologise for it.
It is for this reason that “the Palestinian victim” was created, to spread another image of the cause in the media. Journalists, Baroud said, “are part of our resistance” and they “can resurrect once more the Palestinian unity … so we as Palestinian people can become whole again”.
Israel not only uses the Zionist narrative to serve its aims, the panel said, it also employs policies that create “a civilised us and an uncivilised them”, which “serve only one purpose and one purpose only: the apartheid state of Israel”, Palestinian historian and writer Johnny Mansour added.
“It is not sufficient for us to say it’s a racist state but that it’s an apartheid state which practices fascism,” former minister of the Bureau of Prisoners’ Affairs Issa Qaraqe told the audience.
As part of its fascist policies, he explained, is the fact that “since 2015 Israel has passed more than 185 laws which are against Palestinians including 15 against Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Which protects the ill treatment of Palestinian prisoners by law.”
The point of these laws is to place all activities by Palestinians as terrorist acts and make Israel an innocent bystander but Israel supports with wages and funding Jewish criminals while it bans support for Palestinian prisoners.
The occupation’s policies have emptied Jerusalem of its citizens, Deputy Director-General of Al Quds International Institution Ayman Zeidan said. “Jerusalem is emptying out of a main part of its identity; Christians. They are spreading all over the world.”
“This city will remain in conflict as long as it remains occupied,” he warned.
US warns of ‘consequences’ as Palestine joins international bodies
Press TV – November 18, 2018
The United States has threatened “consequences” as Palestinians step up efforts for statehood demanding accession to almost a dozen international bodies and conventions.
The threat came after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed the documents on Thursday to join the Universal Postal Union, a UN agency that coordinates international postage, and 10 international protocols and conventions.
The move infuriated the US, Israel’s staunch ally, with a State Department official claiming that the Palestinian efforts to join international institutions were “premature” and “counterproductive.”
“We are currently reviewing possible consequences of the Palestinians’ recent actions,” the official said in a statement published by the Times of Israel on Sunday.
In November 2012, the UN General Assembly upgraded Palestine’s status from “non-member observer entity” to “non-member observer state” despite strong opposition from Israel.
Since then, the Palestinians have joined dozens of international organizations and agreements, among them the International Criminal Court, as part of a campaign to garner support for the recognition of their homeland as a sovereign state.
Washington has asked the Palestinians not to join international agencies, citing laws dating to the early 1990s that require the US government to cut off funding to any UN organization that grants the Palestinians full membership.
Abbas, however, said a Palestinian agreement with the US not to join international bodies was conditioned on the US not ending aid payments, not moving its embassy to Jerusalem al-Quds and not changing the status of the Palestine Liberation Organization mission in Washington.
The US withdrew some funding for UNESCO after the Palestinians joined the cultural and education organization back in 2011. It also pulled out of the agency altogether in 2017.
Most recently, Washington cut funds to the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA.
The US-Palestine ties deteriorated last December when President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem al-Quds as the “capital” of Israel.
The American embassy was also relocated from Tel Aviv to the ancient city in May, sparking angry reactions from Palestinians and severe criticism from the international community.
At that time, Abbas formally declared that Palestinians would no longer accept the US as a mediator to resolve the conflict because Washington was “completely biased” towards Tel Aviv.
Israeli Government Targets Educational Institutions, Escalate Settlements Activities
Israeli settler violence – with IDF complicity – is becoming more and more commonplace, even targeting elementary schools. The government has also approved extensive Israeli settlement expansions and Jewish-only roads to be built on Palestinian land, which will result in isolation of Palestinian communities and loss of olive trees.
In addition, Jerusalem has seen an increase in extremist Jewish visits to the Al-Aqsa mosque.
By Madeeha Araj, The National Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Settlements
Translation by If Americans Knew | November 14, 2018
School attacks and demolitions
In a clear violation of all laws and human rights principles, including the right to education and access to educational institutions, many Palestinian schools in the countryside and Bedouin communities were attacked by Israeli soldiers and settlers.
The Oref and Luban Sharqeia schools south of Nablus were attacked. 7 students were injured during the attack.
There were also shooting attacks by settlers and the Israeli occupation forces in the yard of Al-Tahadi 5 Elementary School in the village of Beit Ta’mir, east of Bethlehem, and the Tahadi 10 School in the Ibzik area in the occupied Northern Valleys. A number of caravans used as classrooms were destroyed.
The Israeli occupation forces handed down notices to demolish the Dabba Elementary school in Mafasser Yatta, south of Hebron, and to expel its teachers and students. They also hindered access to a school on Ramallah’s main Nablus Street.
Within the context, the racist “Rajavim Institution” filed a case in an Israeli court to demolish the Tahadi school in the area of Beit Ta’mir, east of Bethlehem, which has been subjected to demolition since it was demolished on the first day of the scholastic year of 2016-2017. This racist institution is responsible for monitoring Palestinian homes in Area C, and it is always directing the Israeli Civil Administration to demolish houses and stop construction there.
Settlement expansions
At the same time, the Israeli occupation government escalated the open war against the Palestinian people. The Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee approved the construction of 640 new settlement units in the Ramat Shlomo settlement on Palestinian land in Shufat. It is located between Ramat Shlomo and Beit Hanina in Jerusalem.
Some of these lands were expropriated from the Palestinians under the pretext of using them as public areas.
The construction of those new settlement units will lead to the encirclement of the Palestinian neighborhoods adjacent to the settlement and their isolation from any natural demographic expansion or growth.
The administrative committee of the settlement of Ramat Shlomo said that the decision to establish 1,500 settlement units includes two entrances to the south and east of the settlement, in addition to expanding the northern road with St. 443, and the tendering of 640 settlement units,
The so-called Appeals Committee of the Israeli Planning Council in Jerusalem rejected projects submitted by Palestinian Human Rights organizations aimed at stopping excavations and digging tunnels in Silwan, while approving settlement projects that penetrate Palestinian neighborhoods.
During a closed discussion and without prior announcement, the committee responded to the Silwan “alternative project” As an alternative structural plan for the municipality of the occupation after an objection by the Alad settlement association. Alad oversees the so-called King’s Garden, and rejected the request to reveal the level of excavations under the town of Silwan – Wadi Hilweh and Al-Ain area, and considered that as out of its jurisdiction.
The committee also approved the linking of the settlement of Ramat Shlomo with bypass road 443 Modi’in – Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, on Route 21, which runs through the village of Shu’fat and isolates it from the thousands of dunums between St. 21 and 443 on the Jerusalem – Tel Aviv road.
Land seizure
In the Ramallah Governorate, the Israeli occupation forces seized 155 dunums of land in the western village of Laban to expand the settlement of Beit Aryeh, and open settlement roads to connect the settlements northwest of Ramallah into the settlement of Ariel in the West Bank Occupied West Bank.
There was also a decision to seize 2 dunum from Khallet al-Shamiya, 141 dunums from the village of Al Asfoura and 12 dunums from Masodiya area, with the aim of constructing the aforementioned bypass road to the settlement of Beit Aryeh.
In the Jordan Valley, the Israeli occupation forces seized 356 dunums of land near the village of Makhoul in the northern Jordan Valley, where one of the shepherds found the notification when he had his livestock in the area. Hr poinyrf out that the occupation placed the notification days ago at an electric columns feeding the army camps. The lands are located in four numbered basins 223, 224, 221 and 226.
The Israeli occupation forces have also put a number of notices at the olive farms that stated the uprooting trees within 45 days.
The lands belong to citizens Izat Ahmed Rashaida – 40 trees, Amer Hamil – 45 trees, Hassan Mahmoud Humil – 25 trees, Omar and Mah’d Saleh Sawafta – 150 trees. The trees are between 2-20 years old.
Settlers and Knesset members in Al-Aqsa mosque
Part of the occupation policy is aimed at providing personal security to the religious settler groups, who have been recently roaming the Old City, especially the roads leading to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Moreover, the Israeli authorities have begun to expand the monitoring network around Al-Aqsa Mosque and the surrounding areas.
The agreement includes the planting of more than 500 smart monitoring cameras in a project called the “Kikra 2000.” Meanwhile the Israeli police allowed a number of Knesset members to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Police in Jerusalem, Major General Yoram Halevy, have quoted as saying: “If the situation continues the same in Al-Aqsa, restrictions on visits by members of the Knesset will be removed”.
In an attempt to legitimize the daily incursions of settlers by the Israeli government’s into the Al-Aqsa Mosque, PM Netanyahu allows Israeli right-wing members to break into the Aqsa once a month instead of one per 3 months. Thus Netanyahu allowed MK Shuli Maallem Raafaili of the far-right Jewish party to storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which the Israeli-Yemeni parties call it the Temple Mount.
This decision reflects the adoption of the recommendation of the Jerusalem District Commander, Yoram Halevy, to allow Knesset members to visit the area without any restrictions. For his part, Shuli Maalem, a member of the Israeli Knesset led a provocative incursion into the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and toured it. It is said that a similar storm led by the extremist rabbi, MK, Yehuda Glick of the blessed mosque and carried out tours throughout the mosque.
The National Bureau said that “the continued violation of the sanctity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque requires the intervention of the international community to pressure the occupation authorities to stop such acts and to abide by the provisions of international humanitarian law.”
In first, US endorses Israeli occupation of Golan, votes against 9 anti-Israel resolutions
Press TV – November 16, 2018
The US has, for the first time, endorsed the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights by voting against an annual UN resolution that condemned the occupation and was unanimously approved along with several other resolutions against Tel Aviv.
The resolution titled “The occupied Syrian Golan,” adopted on Friday with 151 votes in favor, two against (Israel and the US), and 14 abstentions, condemns Israel for “repressive measures” against Syrian citizens in the Golan Heights.
The resolution, which was adopted during the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly’s Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee), expresses deep concern that the Syrian Golan, occupied since 1967, has been under continued Israeli military occupation.
The non-binding annual resolution takes issue with the “illegality of the decision” taken by Israel “to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the occupied Syrian Golan,” which is illegal under international law.
The US’ vote against the annual resolution signaled a dramatic shift in Washington’s policy toward the territory, as it used to abstain in previous cases. The administration of Donald Trump had announced its changed policy ahead of the vote.
“If this resolution ever made sense, it surely does not today. The resolution is plainly biased against Israel,” outgoing US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said in a statement.
During the debate, Syrian envoy Bashar al-Jafari vowed that Damascus would recapture the heights by peace or by war.
Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and has continued to occupy two-thirds of the strategically-important territory ever since, in a move that has never been recognized by the international community.
The Tel Aviv regime has built dozens of illegal settlements in the area since its occupation and has used the region to carry out a number of military operations against the Syrian government
Tel Aviv has also been pressing the US administration under Israel-friendly President Trump to recognize its claim to sovereignty over the occupied territory in defiance of international law.
Syria has repeatedly reaffirmed its sovereignty over the Golan Heights, saying the territory must be completely restored to its control.
Eight other resolutions against Israel
The resolution on the occupied Syrian Golan was one of the nine separate resolutions which condemned the Israeli regime.
Through these resolutions, the UN reinforced the mandate of its Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), and renewed the mandate of its “special committee to investigate Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the Occupied Territories.”
Other resolutions included “Palestine refugees’ properties and their revenues”, “Persons displaced as a result of the June 1967 and subsequent hostilities”, “Applicability of the Geneva Convention… to the Occupied Palestinian Territory…”, and “Operations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East”.
The member states also unanimously voted for a resolution titled “Assistance to Palestine refugees”.
Apart from the US, which voted against all the nine resolutions, only a few member states – including Canada and Australia – cast nay votes. The majority of member states voted for the resolutions.
View the resolutions and voting results here: https://t.co/WlLL5EBZ4q
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) November 16, 2018
Israeli NGO Threatens to Sue Facebook for Hamas TV Station Account
Sputnik – 16.11.2018
Shurat Hadin, an Israeli nongovernmental organization (NGO) modeled off the US Southern Poverty Law Center, has threatened Facebook with a lawsuit if the social media giant continues to permit Hamas to run the Al-Aqsa TV page.
The group sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the head of its Israeli branch, Adi Soffer-Teeri, in which it claimed that, because Al-Aqsa TV in Gaza is run by Hamas, the governing party of the territory, and the US government considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization, the social media site is violating US law by continuing to allow the station’s Facebook account to function, the Jerusalem Post reported Thursday.
Like many news pages on social media, Al-Aqsa TV’s Facebook page carries video clips previously broadcast and links to news articles.
“This conduct is particularly egregious in light of the barrages of deadly missile and mortar attacks the Hamas has launched against Israeli civilians and residential centres in the last 24 hours,” writes Shurat Hadin President Nitsana Darshan-Leitner.
“Please be advised that, in the event Facebook continues to provide accounts or services to Al-Aqsa TV, we intend to notify the appropriate governmental authorities of Facebook’s willful violation of US and Israeli law,” Darshan-Leitner wrote. “In addition, we reserve the right to pursue all legal avenues, including civil litigation, against Facebook on behalf of the victims of Hamas’ terrorist attacks.”
The NGO claims that by allowing the account to operate, Facebook is violating the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1992, which prohibits American businesses from providing any material support, including services, to designated terrorist groups and their leaders.
Hamas started the TV station, which is named after the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, in 2006 after it won elections in the territory of Gaza, which it has governed ever since.
Shurat Hadin was founded in 2003 and modeled after the Southern Poverty Law Center, a US NGO that brings financially crippling litigation against ‘racist’ groups, politicians and public figures. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair took over as social media coordinator for the NGO earlier this year, the Jerusalem Post noted.
The group has gone after Facebook before for allowing Hamas to post on its social media site. In July 2016, Shurat Hadin sued Facebook for $1 billion on behalf of several families of victims of Hamas attacks. All the victims were either US nationals or US-Israelis with dual citizenship who died in Israel between 2014 and 2016. The suit alleged that Palestinian social media posts had fanned the flames of an explosion of violence since October 2015.
Filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, a judge threw out the case in 2017, but not before Shurat Hadin tried to raise $30,000 to place billboards near Zuckerberg’s house in support of the suit.
Israel and the international community are normalising the forced displacement of Palestinians
The remains of a building smoulders and smokes in the aftermath of Israel’s air strike on Gaza on 12 November 2018 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | November 15, 2018
A Washington Post editorial sums up the mainstream aftermath of Israeli aggression against Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is credited with purportedly “choosing peace” in the enclave: “The ceasefire and humanitarian respite that Mr Netanyahu has accepted are far better than another war.” The Post is wrong. Netanyahu has not chosen peace; he has opted for opportunistic political engagement to safeguard his interests while knowing that whatever decision is taken, Palestinians will remain at a political and humanitarian disadvantage.
Despite claims to the contrary, there is no indication of any humanitarian respite through Netanyahu’s decision. EuroMed Monitor’s analysis of the recent bombing of Gaza shows that nine residential buildings were destroyed and 80 other houses were affected directly, resulting in the displacement of 100 Palestinian families in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Last April, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories revealed that more than 22,000 civilians in Gaza remained displaced following Israel’s military offensive Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Every act of Israeli aggression against the enclave has contributed to the forced internal displacement of Palestinian families.
There is no humanitarian relief in any form of displacement. In this case, while the ceasefire obviously postponed even more destruction, it also contributed to the normalisation of forced displacement. The families displaced by Israel within just 24 hours this week have no visibility in terms of humanitarian relief, not least because their plight is shared by almost the entire population, if one takes into consideration the fact that most Palestinians in Gaza are long-term refugees from the 1948 Nakba. Despite this, contemporary discourse about forced displacement is always tied to latest events. The historical forced displacement that altered Gaza has long since been forgotten by the international community which speaks of the enclave as an aberration. It is only within the Palestinian narrative that refugees are at the forefront due to shared experiences and memory.
Once the definitions depart from the source, there is ongoing fragmentation of the displaced population depending upon the aggression. Conversely, Palestinian refugees are also marginalised collectively in terms of visibility. Four years ago, the UN was speaking about meeting the needs of the displaced Palestinians in Gaza and setting up mechanisms which shifted control back to Israel to determine the pace of building new dwellings.
This time, however, the perpetual exposure and exploitation of Gaza’s humanitarian situation will take precedence. The recently displaced families will be woven into a discourse of “additional hardships” and their plight, like that of other Palestinians, paraded as one of the reasons why control of the enclave should be entrusted to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Such an agreement would not solve the political and humanitarian problem of the displaced families but it would provide the foundations to constrain any possible solution within the so-called international efforts at peace building.
There is a major problem with relying upon international organisations, in particular the UN, to determine the parameters of Gaza’s situation. Israel is blatantly pushing those parameters and the international community acquiesces to its violations. In doing so, global bodies lower their human rights standards while simultaneously being complicit in the abuses of the very rights which they claim to uphold.
Israel court rules state not liable for killing 15-year-old in Gaza
MEMO | November 15, 2018
An Israeli court has ruled that the state is not liable for damages for killing a 15-year-old Palestinian in Gaza, setting a precedent which means Israel will be immune from further legal action.
Fifteen-year-old Attiya Fathi Al-Nabaheen was shot by Israeli forces on 11 November 2014 in the wake of the 2014 war on Gaza. He was standing on his family’s property near Al-Bureij, in the centre of the besieged Gaza Strip and close to the fence with Israel, when he was shot at close range.
Attiya’s case was brought to Israel’s Beersheba District Court by two NGOs – Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights and the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (known as Adalah) – in an attempt to achieve justice for his shooting and injuries.
Yet the court ruled against Attiya and his family, citing Article 5/B-1 of Amendment 8 of the Civil Wrongs Law (State Responsibility) of 1952. The article in question states that “residents of a territory declared by the Israeli government as “enemy territory”—as Gaza was declared in 2007—are not eligible to seek compensation from Israel,” Wafa reported.
Citing a press release by Adalah, Wafa added: “By upholding the constitutionality of this new law, enacted in 2012, all Gaza residents are now banned from redress and remedy in Israel, regardless of the circumstances and the severity of the injury or damages claimed.”
Adalah explains that Israel has repeatedly used this law to dismiss hundreds of cases similar to that of Attiya, often setting criteria which are impossible for Palestinians from Gaza to meet. These criteria include declaring Gazans who suffer wounds during Israeli military operations ineligible to seek compensation, requiring thousands of dollars in court guarantees and needing to give power of attorney in person – a feat which is virtually impossible given Israel’s control over Gazan’s freedom of movement and closing of all pedestrian crossings into Israel.
Even though Attiya’s case could not be blocked by the first criteria – since his injuries were not sustained during an Israeli military operation – and the two NGOs assisting his family were able to overcome the other obstacles, the court ruled that his status as a resident of Gaza was sufficient to deny him compensation or damages.
Israel regularly kills and maims Palestinians in Gaza with impunity. This weekend Israel killed seven Palestinians and wounded scores more during a botched operation near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. The operation sparked two nights of intense bombardment, with the level of destruction compared to the 2014 Gaza war.
This year has also seen thousands of Gazans wounded by Israeli live fire for participating in the “Great March of Return” protests. As of 4 October, 205 Palestinians have been killed and 21,288 more have been wounded by Israel, according to statistics from the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHAoPt). Many of these were subsequently denied permission to travel to the occupied West Bank or abroad for medical treatment.
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The toxic legacy of nuclear weapons testing serves as a stark warning of the danger these weapons pose
By Scott Ritter | RT | March 11, 2021
Millions of people suffer and die from the effects of radiation exposure from decades of nuclear weapons testing. Their experience should give serious pause to those who continue to embrace the viability of a nuclear deterrent.
A dust storm originating in the Sahara Desert swept across parts of Spain, France, the UK, and Ireland last month. In addition to bringing a red tinge to the sky, the dust caused a slight, yet noticeable, spike in radiation in the areas it reached. This radiation spike was caused by the presence of cesium-137, a radioactive isotope produced through the nuclear fission of uranium-235 in nuclear weapons. A legacy of French nuclear weapons testing that occurred in Algeria during the 1960s, the cesium-137 contamination is a reminder that while the testing of nuclear weapons may have been halted for the time being, the consequences of these tests live on through the poisoning of the planet mankind calls home.
The Saharan radioactive dust cloud is but the most recent visible phenomenon of a plague that has infected much of the world. … continue
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- Archbishop of Canterbury vows to help Palestinians achieve ‘freedom you deserve,’ calls for end to Israeli occupation
- The scars left behind by Israel’s white phosphorus in Lebanon
- Drones and decomposing babies: What’s in UN report on Israel’s genocide of Palestinian children
- Crimson Thread: The new Israeli separation wall that cuts through the ‘breadbasket of Palestine’
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- The NDAA Proposed Merger of the U.S. and Israeli Military is Strategically Unwise and Inherently Unconstitutional
- Victories by Pro-Palestinian Democrats Show the Party’s Shift on Israel
- Massie moves to strike $3.3B in Israel military aid from the budget
- How Jeffrey Epstein’s Israeli Network Shaped Congo’s Deadly Mineral Trade
- No Tricks Zone
- 2025 Study: Cloud Effects Reduce Downwelling Longwave Radiation, Overriding The CO2 Impact
- 3 New Studies Find Increasing Trends In Solar Radiation Since The 1980s – Easily Explaining Warming
- THE TRANSCEIVER PARADOX: Why Organoid Intelligence (OI) Could Become Our Ultimate Alien Predator
- German Wind Turbines Face Regulatory Shutdown Due To Excessive Noise
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
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