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Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories

By Jim Miles | Palestine Chronicle | October 1, 2018

(The Biggest Prison on Earth – A History of the Occupied Territories.  Ilan Pappe.  Oneworld Publications, London, 2018)

The history of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine is continued with Ilan Pappe’s recent work, The Biggest Prison on Earth. For those who have read Pappe’s earlier histories, it is clear the original Zionists recognized the existence of the Palestinian population and the resistance most likely to rise from it. Also recognized are the actions taken throughout the occupation and settlement that the Jewish settlers were intent on marginalizing, displacing, and cleaning as much of Palestine as they could of its residents.

The revelation in this continuation of the history is the high degree to which these policies were officially planned and ready for action starting up to four years before the 1967 six day pre-emptive war against the Arab states. The details of control, the laws, and institutions necessary to contain the Palestinian population and to try and force it into exile were developed before the war started – and implemented immediately afterward. These rules and regulations essentially made all occupied areas into large open-air prisons.

Pappe argues that the term “occupation” is invalid for two main reasons: first, it is not a temporary situation; and it denies 80 percent of the Palestinian Mandate. I understood the latter to recognize that in reality all of the British controlled Mandate is occupied by Jewish settlers. Israel is in its entirety a colonial settler society and not an occupying power: it is permanent and it practices ethnic cleansing.

Demographics above all plays a major role in Palestine. With the 1967 war about to start, the Israeli’s recognized they were absorbing an even larger demographic deficit by acquiring the new territories. The means to control the situation domestically and with foreign countries was important, and most importantly was the support of the U.S. politically, militarily, and financially. The goal, apart from completely eliminating the Palestinians, was to hold territory without annexing it and preventing any contiguous Palestinian control. The book works through the political discussions before and after the war, and then through the different periods leading up to the Oslo Accords.

The Oslo Accords fit perfectly into the Israeli plans of never intending to create a Palestinian state. Domestically, the PLO and Fatah were not only sidelined but with the creation of the Palestinian Authority and the three zones of control in the West Bank, essentially became partners in crime. Internationally, the politicians talked, and talked some more while more and more settlements were established in the newly occupied zones…and the international community accepted the ploy.

Pappe also takes the reader through the two Intifadas and the various onslaughts/punishments handed out to Gaza. In sum, Gaza has served as a maximum security prison, without recourse to any international recognition except for a few moments when the assaults killed large numbers of women and children. It has served in some respects as a training ground and munitions testing site for the Israeli army highlighting mostly what the world should know about Israel’s complete lack of morality and its general lack of on ground fighting efficiency.

Israel never intended from the start to do more than nod their collective heads and continue on with their well-planned zones of military control. The Biggest Prison on Earth – A History of the Occupied Territories is essential reading in order to help complete the overall picture of Israeli intransigence in regards to international law and international human rights standards and their callous subjugation of the Palestinian people.

– Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of opinion pieces and book reviews to Palestine Chronicles.  His interest in this topic stems originally from an environmental perspective, which encompasses the militarization and economic subjugation of the global community and its commodification by corporate governance and by the American government.

October 1, 2018 Posted by | Book Review, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

New Israel report exposes role of NGO Monitor in defaming rights activists

MEMO | October 1, 2018

A new Israeli report has accused right-wing pressure group NGO Monitor of “spearheading the shrinking of space for Israeli and Palestinian human rights NGOs”.

The “Shrinking Space” report – “NGO Monitor: Defaming human rights organisations that criticize the Israeli occupation” – is the work of a collective of Israeli ex-diplomats, academics and others, known as the Policy Working Group (PWG), that supports a two-state solution.

NGO Monitor was established in 2002 under the auspices of right-wing think tank the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, and has been independent since 2007.

Its declared goal of promoting “transparency and accountability of NGOs claiming human rights agendas” is described by the PWG report as “disingenuous”.

“In fact,” the report claims, “years of experience show that NGO Monitor’s overarching objective is to defend and sustain government policies that help uphold Israel’s occupation of, and control over, the Palestinian territories.”

The new, in-depth report “concludes and argues that NGO Monitor is a government-affiliated organisation that selectively targets human rights organisations, relies almost entirely on funding from donors in the US, shirks the transparency it demands of others and disseminates misleading and tendentious information, which it presents as factual in-depth research.”

“As an organisation whose purpose is to scrutinise others, NGO Monitor itself has so far received little scrutiny of its own. After years of evasion, it is time to monitor NGO Monitor,” PWG adds.

Among the areas of critique found in the PWG report, NGO Monitor is accused of a selective focus, a right-wing political agenda, and of “close ties with the [Israeli] government”.

NGO Monitor plays a key role in providing Israeli ministries and diplomatic missions with misleading information to defame Israeli and Palestinian human rights organisations

PWG states, “and mobilises the government to pressure European counterparts to stop funding them”.

“In Israel,” meanwhile, “it acts as a catalyst for anti-democratic legislation that selectively targets such NGOs.”

The PWG report also accuses of NGO Monitor of publishing articles and reports containing “baseless claims and factual inaccuracies”, while also “fram[ing] the occupation of the Palestinian territories as an internal Israeli affair in which other countries must not interfere”.

October 1, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli snipers continue to target unarmed Palestinians

Ma’an – October 1, 2018

BETHLEHEM – The Israeli army continues killing unarmed Palestinian civilian protesters with snipers and live ammunition in the besieged Gaza Strip, with the approval of Israel’s Supreme Court, according to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

More than 18 years since October 2000, when the Israeli police killed 13 unarmed Palestinian protesters in Israel and since the findings of the Or Commission of Inquiry, that was nominated by the Israeli government to investigate the events, concluded that “It should be unequivocally clear that live fire, including by snipers, is not a means for the police to disperse crowds.”

Adalah said that this past Friday, Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians, including two children aged 12 and 14, and injured at least 257 others in Gaza, of whom 163 were shot with Israeli live ammunition.

Adalah released a statement demanding Israel to immediately halt the shooting of civilian protesters with live ammunition and to allow Palestinians to exercise their right to protest and to freedom of political expression.

In October 2000, Israeli police and special sniper units killed 13 unarmed Palestinians, including 12 citizens of Israel and one Gaza resident, and wounded hundreds more when Palestinian citizens of Israel participated in mass demonstrations throughout the country to protest Israel’s oppressive policies against Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) at the beginning of the Second Intifada.

However, 18 years later not a single Israeli police officer, commander or politician responsible for the October 2000 killings has been held responsible for their actions.

Adalah along with the families of the 13 killed civilians continue to demand that those responsible for the crimes of October 2000 be prosecuted.

Adalah said “Eighteen years have passed and despite the clear recommendations of the Or Commission, the Israeli armed forces have not changed their practices but continue to use excessive force and fire live ammunition at unarmed Palestinians in contradiction of both Israeli and international law, this time at protesters in Gaza.”

Since the start of “The Great March of Return” protests in Gaza on 30 March, “Israeli troops have killed 151 people – including 30 children, one woman, two journalists, three paramedics, and three persons with disabilities, according to figures from Al Mezan Center for Human Rights. Israeli troops also wounded 10,234 persons, including 5,814 – among them 939 children and 114 women – with live fire.”

Additionally, in April, Adalah and Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to order the Israeli military to immediately halt its use of snipers and other live weapons against unarmed protesters.

The petition emphasized the absolute ban on opening fire on demonstrators with live ammunition and noted that the norms applicable to confronting civilian demonstrations are based in international law governing “law enforcement and order.” These same norms have also been adopted into Israeli law, including via Or Commission report.

“These universal norms apply equally and without discrimination to citizens and non-citizens alike, regardless of the content of the protest, their slogans, their location, their organizational affiliation, and the ethnic and national affiliation of the participants.”

The Israeli Supreme Court rejected the petition by Adalah and Al Mezan, who responded by saying “This ruling, which justifies the shooting of protesters, contradicts the conclusions and preliminary results of international human rights organizations and United Nations bodies documenting and evaluating the events in Gaza. The Supreme Court’s ruling gives full legitimacy to the illegal actions of the Israeli military, which has led to the killing of more than 100 people and the wounding of thousands of protesters, including women, children, journalists, and paramedics. Of those killed, 94 percent were shot by Israeli troops in the upper body.”

The casualties figures mentioned above were from May 25th 2018.

Adalah added “Israeli armed forces backed up by the Supreme Court’s ruling, continue to target unarmed Palestinian demonstrators with snipers and live ammunition today in Gaza just as they killed Palestinian citizens of Israel protesting in October 2000.”

The statement added that the center “will continue to defend Palestinians’ right to protest, to support the struggle against racism and occupation, and to demand accountability for the victims of these gross human rights violations.”

Adalah also urged the international community to take strong measures to ensure respect for international law, to provide protection for demonstrators and all civilians in Gaza, and to support the work of the independent UN Commission of Inquiry into the 2018 Protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

October 1, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

As Gaza’s economy collapses, so does any hope of peace

By Jonathan Cook – The National – September 30, 2018

The moment long feared is fast approaching in Gaza, according to a new report by the World Bank. After a decade-long Israeli blockade and a series of large-scale military assaults, the economy of the tiny coastal enclave is in “freefall”.

At a meeting of international donors in New York on Thursday, coinciding with the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, the World Bank painted an alarming picture of Gaza’s crisis. Unemployment now stands at close to 70 per cent and the economy is contracting at an ever faster rate.

While the West Bank’s plight is not yet as severe, it is not far behind. Countries attending the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee were told. Gaza’s collapse could bring down the entire Palestinian banking sector.

In response, Europe hurriedly put together a €40 million aid package, but that will chiefly address Gaza’s separate humanitarian crisis – not the economic one – by improving supplies of electricity and potable water.

No one doubts the inevitable fallout from the economic and humanitarian crises gripping Gaza. The four parties to the Quartet charged with overseeing negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians – the United States, Russia, the European Union and the UN – issued a statement warning that it was vital to prevent what they termed “further escalation” in Gaza.

The Israeli military shares these concerns. It has reported growing unrest among the enclave’s two million inhabitants and believes Hamas will be forced into a confrontation to break out of the straight jacket imposed by the blockade.

In recent weeks, mass protests along Gaza’s perimeter fence have been revived and expanded after a summer lull. On Friday, seven Palestinian demonstrators, including two children, were killed by Israeli sniper fire. Hundreds more were wounded.

Nonetheless, the political will to remedy the situation looks as atrophied as ever. No one is prepared to take meaningful responsibility for the time-bomb that is Gaza.

In fact, the main parties that could make a difference appear intent on allowing the deterioration to continue.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ignored repeated warnings of a threatened explosion in Gaza from his own military.

Instead, Israel is upholding the blockade as tightly as ever, preventing the flow of goods in and out of the enclave. Fishing is limited to three miles off the coast rather than the 20-mile zone agreed in the Oslo accords. Hundreds of companies are reported to have folded over the summer.

Intensifying the enclave’s troubles is the Trump administration’s recent decision to cut aid to the Palestinians, including to the United Nation’s refugee agency, UNRWA. It plays a critical role in Gaza, providing food, education and health services to nearly two-thirds of the population.

The food budget is due to run out in December, and the schools budget by the end of October. Hundreds of thousands of hungry children with nowhere to spend their days can only fuel the protests – and the deaths.

The Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas, headquartered in the West Bank, has no incentive to help. Gaza’s slowly unfolding catastrophe is his leverage to make Hamas submit to his rule. That is why the Palestinian Authority has cut transfers to Gaza by $30 million a month.

But even if Mr Abbas wished to help, he largely lacks the means. The US cuts were imposed primarily to punish him for refusing to play ball with US President Donald Trump’s supposed “deal of the century” peace plan.

Israel, the World Bank notes, has added to Mr Abbas’s difficulties by refusing to transfer taxes and customs duties it collects on the PA’s behalf.

And the final implicated party, Egypt, is reticent to loosen its own chokehold on its short border with Gaza. President Abdel Fattah El Sisi opposes giving any succour either to his domestic Islamist opponents or to Hamas.

The impasse is possible only because none of the parties is prepared to make a priority of Gaza’s welfare.

That was starkly illustrated earlier in the summer when Cairo, supported by the UN, opened a back channel between Israel and Hamas in the hope of ending their mounting friction.

Hamas wanted the blockade lifted to reverse Gaza’s economic decline, while Israel wanted an end to the weekly protests and the damaging images of snipers killing unarmed demonstrators.

In addition, Mr Netanyahu has an interest in keeping Hamas in power in Gaza, if barely, as a way to cement the geographic split with the West Bank and an ideological one with Mr Abbas.

The talks, however, collapsed quietly in early September after Mr Abbas objected to the Egyptians. He insisted that the Palestinian Authority be the only address for discussions of Gaza’s future. So, Cairo is yet again channelling its energies into a futile attempt at reconciling Mr Abbas and Hamas.

At the UN General Assembly, Mr Trump promised his peace plan would be unveiled in the next two to three months, and made explicit for the first time his support for a two-state solution, saying it would “work best”.

Mr Netanyahu vaguely concurred, while pointing out: “Everyone defines the term ‘state’ differently.” His definition, he added, required that not one of the illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank be removed and that any future Palestinian state be under complete Israeli security control.

Mr Abbas is widely reported to have conceded over the summer that a Palestinian state – should it ever come into being – would be demilitarised. In other words, it would not be recognisable as a sovereign state.

Hamas has made notable compromises to its original doctrine of military resistance to secure all of historic Palestine. But it is hard to imagine it agreeing to peace on those terms. This makes a reconciliation between Hamas and Mr Abbas currently inconceivable – and respite for the people of Gaza as far off as ever.

October 1, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

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