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Palestinian Security Forces Capture Two Undercover Israeli Soldiers, Hand Them Back To Israel

Ma’an – April 15, 2017

BETHLEHEM – Palestinian security forces briefly detained two undercover Israeli army soldiers who were conducting a military raid in the Rafidiya area of the northern occupied West Bank city of Nablus on Saturday evening, according to official Palestinian and Israeli sources.

The two were taken to a Palestinian police station in Nablus. An Israeli army spokesperson confirmed the incident to Ma’an, saying that during an Israeli army “activity,” the officers were “briefly questioned by Palestinian security forces,” adding that in coordination with the Israeli Civil Administration, the soldiers were returned to Israeli custody.

According to Israeli daily Haaretz, the two soldiers — members of an Arabic-speaking unit of the Israeli army known as the “Mustarabeen” in Arabic, who are responsible for infiltrating and carrying out detentions in Palestinian communities — “scuffled” with Palestinian police officers for some time before they were returned to Israeli forces.

Their gear and weapons, as well as the car they were driving in, was also also reportedly returned.

The incident represented a rare standoff between Palestinian and Israeli forces, as the Palestinian Authority (PA) regularly allows Israeli forces to enter PA-controlled areas in the West Bank to conduct daily detention raids and other military operations, in contravention of the Oslo Accords.

April 16, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Badee Dwaik of the #AlKhalil4 on the “daily torture” of Israeli imprisonment

Photo via Badee Dwaik
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – April 15, 2017

Palestinian organizer Badee Dwaik, co-founder of the Human Rights Defenders group that has been coordinating actions and popular organizing to confront settlements and occupation in al-Khalil, was recently seized by Israeli occupation forces with three of his colleagues in the #DismantleTheGhetto movement, Anan Odeh, Ishaq al-Khateeb and Younis Arar.

The four organizers, swiftly known as the #alKhalil4, were participating in a Land Day protest on Thursday 30 March when they were attacked by occupation forces. Following his release, Dwaik spoke with Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network about his experience under arrest and interrogation. He noted that he had previously been arrested, interrogated and jailed on multiple occasions, but that this experience highlighted intensified repression. In fact, only one month prior, on 24 February 2017, Israeli occupation forces had invaded Dwaik’s home and threatened him with arrest.

The four organizers were part of an action that involved planting olive trees, where they were attacked by settlers. Despite the attack, they continued marching to the center of their city of al-Khalil, which has been subject to forcible closure by the Israeli occupation and its settlers. As the demonstration continued, occupation forces declared the area a closed military zone and picked Dwaik, Dana, Arar and Khateeb out of the crowd of about 50, accusing them of participating in an “illegal demonstration.”

Dwaik noted the presence among the harassing settlers of the notorious Ofer Ohana, who was also present for the extrajudicial execution of Abdel-Fattah Al-Sharif by Israeli occupation soldier Elor Azariya. The murder of al-Sharif came to light as it was videotaped by Imad Abu Shamsiya, co-founder of Human Rights Defenders. Ohana was videotaped kicking a knife near the body of Sharif and referring to Sharif and his fellow slain Palestinian, Ramzi al-Qasrawi, as “the trash.”  Dwaik noted that Ohana has threatened Abu Shamsiya and Dwaik and repeatedly harasses them as they carry out tours of al-Khalil with internationals.

The four were arrested under false pretenses, Dwaik said. They were accused of being in the street, said Dwaik, even though three of the four were standing on a grassy hill and one of the four, Anan Odeh, was off to the side of the road. At the present time, while the four were released on bail, they continue to face allegations in Israeli military court – where Palestinians are convicted at a rate of over 99 percent – of “disturbing the public peace of the area,” organizing an “illegal action,” attempting to escape from the army, and “blocking the street.”

Dwaik noted that he denied all allegations under interrogation and refused to sign any paperwork or confessions. He and his fellow organizers were taken by occupation forces to the Kharsina military camp near Kiryat Arba settlement. Dwaik, who has diabetes, was sent to a medical worker; he stated that he needed medicine for his diabetes, but that the medical worker gave him two cold tablets but nothing to address his actual medical condition.

Later, Dwaik reported, he was taken to Shaare Tzedek hospital from 11:00 pm to 3:30 am, during which he received medical tests. He was told that he would receive insulin, but when Dwaik explained that his diabetes is treated with medication, they told him they would sell him a tablet. However, they still did not provide his medication and he was instead told that he would receive medication in jail.

Dwaik was then sent to the Etzion detention center (jail), where he reported that he was subject to an experience seemingly designed for humiliation and subjugation. The jail officers demanded Dwaik strip down, including removing his underwear. As he refused to remove his underwear, the jail officers demanded him to repeatedly move about and stand up and sit down in an attempt to humiliate him. He was then told that he would be left there until the morning without clothes. However, when he still refused to remove his underwear, he was finally given his clothes and put in the room with his fellow detainees.

The conditions at Etzion and other detention centers, where Palestinians are often held under interrogation and prior to being transferred to the major prisons, have been repeatedly highlighted by former prisoners for their unsuitability for human life. Palestinian prisoners have even launched hunger strikes to demand to be moved to regular prisons and have repeatedly reported beatings and assaults in the Etzion jail.

When he arrived in Etzion, he was told that his belongings would be registered; however, the jailers refused to register his belt and instead confiscated it; Dwaik noted, “I have been arrested many times before, but was never ordered to remove underwear or had my belt confiscated.” Among his belongings was also 42 NIS ($11.50 USD), which was registered at the time. Dwaik noted that he was denied cigarettes despite being registered as a smoker; when he questioned this, he was told that he was “being punished” because he refused to remove his underwear the night before.

Dwaik particularly highlighted the unlivable conditions in Etzion. The room where he was sent contained five or six bunk beds, but the beds were blank and had no mattresses; instead, Dwaik said, prisoners are forced to fold blankets beneath them to serve as makeshift mattresses. These blankets, Dwaik noted, are unclean and pose a danger to health; they are used by many prisoners and are rarely washed. The Palestinians detained in Etzion are served leftover food from the army’s meals, often significantly later when the food is sparse and cold. The cells themselves are in a very poor condition and insects are visible inside the room, as well as mice and other vermin. “Some people get stuck in the detention centers for long periods of time, even 2 months, and it is a form of daily torture,” Dwaik said.

Photo via Badee Dwaik

Dwaik noted that there are no books or recreation time for detainees held in Etzion, and that some other prisoners had reported the shower areas being closed for four or five days at a time. Despite the earlier interactions with medical staff, he still did not receive diabetes medication. Instead, he was told that he would be sent to Ofer prison in the afternoon.

He noted that Palestinian prisoners are often left without food because they are transported to the military court or from jail to jail during mealtimes; no replacement meals are provided. This is such a common problem that it is even included among the demands of Palestinian prisoners in the large hunger strike planned to begin on 17 April, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day.

Ofer is a large Israeli prison and the only major Israeli occupation prison (rather than detention centers and interrogation centers) inside the West Bank. The prison has 10 sections of about 120 people each, for a total of approximately 1,200 prisoners, Dwaik reported. Most are political prisoners, but Palestinians arrested for “non-political” charges by the Israeli occupation – such as, for example, Palestinian workers seized for working inside Palestine ’48 without a permit – are also held in the prison. During his short time in Ofer, he was repeatedly transferred from one section to another. While in the prison, he saw a number of fellow Palestinian prisoners, including imprisoned BDS campaigner Salah Khawaja and youth organizer Hassan Karajah, both of whom greeted the international activists working for their freedom and that of their fellow prisoners.

The case of the four was brought before the military court in Ofer on Sunday, 2 April. While Dwaik and Dana were brought to the military court, he noted that their fellow #alKhalil4 detainees, al-Khateeb and Arar, weren’t even brought before the military court. During the hearing, the military prosecutor urged that the four be held for five additional days for further interrogation, stating that there is a “secret file against” Dwaik, the framework that is used to order Palestinians to imprisonment without charge or trial under administrative detention. Dwaik noted that this was also the first time that a “secret file” had been raised against him despite numerous arrests. While the military court judge refused to release the four – as demanded by their lawyer – he ordered them held only one more day and a new military court hearing the following day, Monday, 3 April.

He noted the degrading experience of waiting for a military court hearing to begin. “You are moving from room to room all the time and you are shackled hand and foot all the time. We had to wait on Monday from 8 am to 3 pm as we are handcuffed. They only take off the handcuffs when you’re in the military court, then they handcuff you again and shackle your feet. It is a system that is meant to humiliate,” Dwaik said.

Dwaik noted that on Monday, as he entered the military court in Ofer, he saw Palestinian student Kifah Quzmar, who was exiting the military court, having been ordered to six months in administrative detention. Quzmar told Dwaik of his sentence and expressed his greetings to the organizations and people around the world engaged in the campaign for his release.

In addition, Dwaik noted, some international observers in Palestine attempted to attend the military court hearing for the four, but were barred from entering. Journalist Amira Hass attended the hearing along with the representative of Defence for Children International in al-Khalil. In the military court hearing on Monday, the alleged “secret file” went unmentioned; instead, the military prosecutor now demanded 7,000 NIS ($1912 USD) from each of the four as bail. Dwaik stated that he does not have the money for such a high bail and that he would stay in jail instead; negotiations then ensued and a bail of 3,500 NIS ($956 USD) was set for each of the four. He noted that #DismantleTheGhetto campaigners and supporters donated to cover the bail, which was paid around 3:00 pm; however, the four were not released until 10:30 pm.

During their release, Dwaik noted, “they push you with their guns and don’t let you check that you even have your belongings.” He lost his belt, and the 42 NIS ($11.50) he had when entering prison was stolen. Throughout his time in Israeli jail, he never received any medicine for his diabetes.

Dwaik noted that “all of the Palestinian political organizations support the #DismantleTheGhetto campaign, and all of the NGOs that support human rights. This is why we were targeted, because this is a unified Palestinian campaign with many actions.”

“We need more work for the Palestinian cause and people to keep building support for Palestine. The #DismantleTheGhetto campaign in al-Khalil is part of these efforts,” Dwaik said. He stated that Palestinian prisoners need international support and that many will be launching a strike on 17 April, noting that Samidoun and other groups have an important role to play in building solidarity with the prisoners. “Palestinian prisoners are struggling for their dignity and freedom every day,” Dwaik said, “from the 13-year-old children like Shadi Farrah to the veterans who have spent 30 years behind bars.”

April 15, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Chile Must Reciprocate Israel’s Travel Ban says Barred Activist

Anuar Majluf, head of the Palestinian Federation of Chile, during a visit last year to Jerusalem. Nov. 2016

Anuar Majluf, head of the Palestinian Federation of Chile, during a visit last year to Jerusalem. Nov. 2016 | Foto: Facebook
teleSUR | April 12, 2017

On Tuesday activists throughout Latin America called on Chile to reciprocate after Israel denied entry to a Chilean citizen leading an annual Easter pilgrimage to Palestine.

The head of the Palestinian Federation of Chile, Anuar Majluf, said Israeli officials denied him entry to the occupied West Bank on Monday based on a controversial new law which bans anyone publicly supporting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign against the illegal occupation of Palestine.

“I feel terrible pain because I’m now unable to visit my family’s homeland, as a Chilean citizen with a Palestinian lineage,” Majluf said in a statement.

“On the other hand, I know that what I suffer is nothing compared to the suffering of the many Palestinians who, if they dare to defy Israel’s policies, often end up dead, tortured or in the prisons of the occupation,” Majluf added.

“The Chilean government should act reciprocally and refuse entry to Israeli citizens who come as tourists to Chile. If Israel knew that its repressive actions and laws have consequences, it would be much less likely to enact them,” he continued.

“The international community, and the Chilean government specifically, should at least demand an explanation from the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, and demand that Israel stop illegitimately denying entry to international supporters of Palestinian rights,” Majluf concluded.

Majluf’s call for a firm response was echoed by Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, in a letter to Chile’s Foreign Minister Heraldo Muñoz.

“I respectfully ask that you take concrete measures to protect the right of your citizens to visit, work, invest and live in Palestine,” wrote Erekat on Tuesday.

Erekat warned that if Chileans traveling to Palestine continue to be “threatened and treated like criminals” it would be “a tragedy not only for the community but for the future potential of relations between both countries.”

The PLO letter came one day after 16 organizations representing the Palestinian diaspora throughout Latin America and the Caribbean called on Chile to “repair this affront against a Chilean citizen and exercise the principle of reciprocity against a country that breaks all the rules and places itself above the law of all nations.”

Several prominent Chilean politicians echoed the call, asking Chilean President Michelle Bachelet to respond in kind.

“As Chile allows the free entry and passage of Israeli citizens, it is unacceptable that Israel openly violates the rights of Chilean citizens,” said Chilean Senator Eugenio Tuma Zedán on Tuesday.

Chile has one of the largest and oldest Palestinian diaspora populations outside of the Middle East, and in November of this year the nation’s capital, Santiago, will host the first ever Latin American Palestinian diaspora conference

Majluf is the fourth person denied entry into Israel or occupied Palestine in the past week based on the 6-month old anti-BDS law.

Over the weekend, three Swedish citizens and members of a World Congress of Churches delegation were turned back upon arrival at Ben Gurion International Airport, and on Friday Israel refused entry to a U.K. citizen and member of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.

However, the Palestinian BDS National Committee noted that the timing of Israel’s banning of Majluf was particularly egregious.

Denying entry to “a Christian who was on a delegation to visit the Holy Land this Easter, is another low for Israel,” said Mahmoud Nawajaa, a spokesperson for the committee.

April 12, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

About “antisemitism”- Truth and Falsehood

Nahida Exiled Palestinian | Poetry for Palestine | April 8, 2017

So, let me get this straight,

“Amalek hated Jews and wanted to annihilate ALL of them”

“Pharaoh of Egypt enslaved Jews and wanted to kill them ALL”

“Haman of Persia planned to kill ALL Jews”

“Hitler of Germany wanted to exterminate ALL Jews”

“Two Billion Muslims hate Jews and want to kill them ALL”

So, the entire world since the dawn of time has this inexplicable intrinsic “hatred” against Jews, for no particular reason ?

I.e the entire world is nothing but a bunch of hateful criminals, who are intrinsically evil, and only Jews are good who have always been the pure innocent victims of a mad world?

Oh HELL NO

The claim that gentiles are innately “hateful antisemites” is not only wrong. It is OUTRAGEOUSLY RACIST, and OUTRAGEOUSLY ANTI-HUMAN.

The level of “anti-human RACISM” is surpassed by none.

They dare to accuse entire peoples and cultures and even mankind as whole, with being GENETICALLY “antisemites” by propagating such enormous FALSE accusation, rather than having an honest look at themselves.

Anti-Semitism is part of Europe’s DNA”, they dare to say!

I, an exiled SEMITE Palestinian, am no longer willing to hear a word about “antisemitism”, for we have been at the receiving end of vehement antisemitism for over a century. Jewish Zionists and their global network of supporters are the most antisemitic group humanity have ever seen. period

No longer should we tolerate being subjected to, or falling for the vacuous accusation of so called “antisemitism”.

Moreover, we are now demanding an exposure of the SUPREMACY and RACISM within Jewish IDEOLOGY.

We demand an END to the anti-gentilism within that ideology.

It is about time that supremacists are brought before mankind to answer for their anti-human, anti-gentile ideology, attitude and behaviour

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 9, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

69 years ago today – The Deir Yassin Massacre Israel Forces Murder over 100 Palestinians Including Women and Children

By Dina Elmuti | American Herald Tribune | April 9, 2017

I grew up in a country far removed from the horrors of Deir Yassin, but I’ve lived with the snapshots of the massacre my entire life. My grandmother’s Nakba trauma has permeated my inner life, and I’ve known the world of acute agony and the mockery of what human life has been reduced to for the Palestinian people. Every massacre and assault carried out in Zionism’s calculated desire for control adds another layer to the trans-generational transmission of trauma of Palestinians everywhere. Like the bombs that Israel drops on civilian populations, dispersing their incendiary fallout in distant places long after the initial explosion, the psychological trauma continues.

When they said that there would come a time when the old would die and the young would forget, they didn’t realize that Palestinians who grow up fluent in a language of trauma and resistance could never forget. But more importantly, they refuse to.

The significance of the need to preserve the memory of what happened at Deir Yassin remains woven into our DNA. It’s a name that flickers at the edge of our consciousness, resonating in the Palestinian collective memory with chilling significance. My grandmother’s story has taken up residence in my soul. It became the blood coursing through my veins, reverberating in my heart and graven in my memories.

The collective Palestinian narrative is written in indelible link and though it’s a story of unimaginable terror and devastation, shattered dreams and decimated hopes, it’s also one of extraordinary sumud (steadfastness) and resistance. It’s a story that remains unfinished and determined, standing with hope defiant.

Operation Nahshon

My grandmother was nine years-old on the morning of Friday, April 9th 1948 when the Zionist terrorist organizations – the Irgun and Lehi, with the agreement of the Haganah in Jerusalem, carried out Operation Nahshon and opened fire on the villagers of Deir Yassin. By evening, nearly 110 villagers were executed and the village was cleared. But the evidence of the Zionist criminality lay in the rivers of blood and the disemboweled, dismembered, and disfigured bodies of men, women and children.

The villagers endured barbarity at the hands, boot heels, and the edge of bloodied knives of Zionist terrorists who rounded up villagers executing them in decimation for crimes they had never committed. Men were paraded around on trucks before being taken to the village quarry and shot execution style.

Menachem Begin, the leader of the Irgun at the time, consciously inflated the death toll of the massacre from just over 100 to 254 to instill a sense of incoherent terror within people in hopes of eliminating and erasing the Palestinian people from the landscape and from human consciousness – root and branch, bone and blood. News of the massacre triggered the mass, forced exile that emptied Palestine of 80% of its native Arab population. Over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from the only homes they had ever known. Today, displaced Palestinians remain the largest and longest-standing refugee population in the world.

The beginning of the Nakba was more than an atrocity; it was completely and intentionally genocidal.

It’s been 69 years since the Deir Yassin massacre and the world has moved past it, but its selective amnesia remains present. Its survivors, however, have never forgotten that Palestine continues to be left with human devastation on an unimaginable scale by Israel in its successive operations and assaults. In the litany of Israel’s gruesome crimes and indiscriminate massacres, Deir Yassin was not the most massive in scale but it’s the one that reduced the Palestinian people to ungrievable, dehumanized convenient objects of hatred and violent retribution whenever convenient. It became the precondition for the calculative, prolonged violence and subhuman slaughter of Palestinians. This became the operative philosophy of the Zionist regime that exists today.

“Man’s inhumanity to man” – A poignant irony

Deir Yassin is one of the few Palestinian villages where the Zionist state attempted to erase its inhabitants, but kept its homes and buildings completely intact. Behind the security cameras, guard posts and fence where my family’s village and home once stood now exists a closed psychiatric facility – Kfar Shaul – which houses people with severe mental illness. The irony is not lost on me: The birth of a state predicated on the wholesale slaughter of innocent people on command, a state that has attempted to anesthetize itself to death and depravity, would surely drive anyone of conscience insane. Another breathtaking irony chills my bones every time I stand on the stolen land of my ancestors. Israel’s official Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, is built in panoramic view of Deir Yassin, standing as a haunting, insidious testament to “never forget man’s inhumanity to man” in absolute denial of the souls of martyrs buried deep beneath.

Zionist vindictiveness created a deeply-rooted psychological transference onto a people who had nothing to do with the Nazi Holocaust. Prior to 1948, Deir Yassin was a relatively prosperous and peaceful village, and its residents lived in peace with their Jewish neighbors in nearby villages, especially those in Givat Shaul whom they had signed a peace pact with. My grandmother recalls a different time when Arabs and Jews lived as neighbors attending each other’s weddings and celebrations, smoking arghila, eating dried watermelon seeds, sharing news, and going to the cinema together with their Jewish friends. The Orthodox community of Givat Shaul was one of the first to help the survivors of Deir Yassin following the Irgun-Lehi assault. This was never a conflict that has existed for thousands of years. The Palestinians have never had a problem with Judaism; it’s with injustice.

But here’s the thing about stories of survival: They affirm an inescapable truth that reacquaints both victims and perpetrators with memory, with history, with life, and with justice. Aggressors cannot seem to live with the inconvenient truth of their guilty history but survivors refuse to live without it. The people of the world continue to demonstrate that they are so capable of conveniently forgetting the murderous atrocities in which their fellow peers have participated, so it becomes morally imperative and essential, at the very least, to regularly remind them of it.

Palestine has never been a land without a people. It has always been home to a rich landscape filled with a beautiful people, with their own native land, language, and holy sites at the center of their religions. The Zionists tried to expel a people and attempt to scatter a people into oblivion, for they learned from colonizers before them that there is no precedent for a scattered people’s remaining a people. Their dispersion meant their disappearance. Or so they thought.

Tell the stories

The late Dr. Edward Said once said, “To recall Deir Yassin is not just to dwell on past disasters, but to understand who we are and where we are going. Without it we are simply lost.”

My grandmother’s face aches with despair as she narrates the horror and trauma of Deir Yassin.  Her body has kept score for the past sixty-nine years. She has been acutely aware of the sense of displacement dully throbbing with determination inside the dark spaces between her organs and bones, haunted by a history that has sat uncomfortably out of joint for a lifetime. The emotional pain of displacement and dislocation hurts like no other.

The collective inventory of the Palestinian people rests on our shoulders. To never forget the incomprehensible violence and intolerable pain, the extraordinary valor and the steadfastness that have defined Palestinians. It is our duty to record of every life lived, every sentence spoken, every word transmitted still reverberating within it. As the story of the massacre moves on in memory, the aim of remembering the atrocity and bearing witness takes on new meaning. The words of our parents and grandparents remain a talisman that will continue to be passed down for generations.  These are the stories that teach us resilience, joy, hope and incarnation.

The Nakba continues

What drove the exterminatory impulses of the Zionists was not only the contempt that branded millions of Palestinians as dispensable and sub-human, but also the ideologically pervasive mixture of terror and hatred that continues to blame the Palestinians for all of Israel’s ills and seeks their destruction as a matter of life and death in the interests of the Jewish people’s survival. This is the politics and colonial neurosis of Zionism. Israel justifies its policy of mass eradication through its demagogic abuse of portraying itself the perpetual victim. And for those who don’t understand the sadistic nature of the Israeli settler colonialist violence, the only mention of Israel will continue through the perpetual victim narrative, nothing more than a kind of ersatz victory every time. No matter what Israel has ever done, it’s because they’re always defending themselves – armed with bombs and artillery that unearth entire societies – against the Palestinians. Everything Israel ever does is painted as reactionary under the normalization of Zionist brutality.

Israel has a very finely-tuned feel for how many atrocities it can get away with before the world reacts with revulsion. But when entire families are butchered, immolated[DE1], bombed to oblivion upon breaking their fasts[DE2], when mass murder has become an annual event, when the reprise of internment camps and the reinstitution of torture become acts of policy, where were the cries of “Never again”?

The truth is that for the Palestinian people, the truer shout is not “Never again” but “Again and again and again.”

The post-Holocaust vow that genocide would never again be tolerated has long been hollow. The Palestinian people are living proof that murder looks on its victims with a casual eye. The extraordinary and soul-crushing pain that the Palestinian people have endured, for nearly seventy years now, has been perceived as just and mutable.

The Nakba did not penetrate the world consciousness in the same manner as the Holocaust. Slaughtering people, village by village, didn’t seem too high a price to pay, nor did it appear inhumane. These origins contain the historical seeds of genocide. The silence absorbed the lack of noise with a lack of sound so potent that it blackened this world with something so much richer than Zionist hate. Since Deir Yassin, we’ve known what man is capable of: the silent acquiescence in genocide of another people.

The Nakba never ended. It is an ongoing catastrophe. 

Justice and only justice

From its inception, Israel has had an insatiable addiction to blood, pouring more bodies into pits of slaughter never allowing the dead to rest in peace. But peace can never be built on the blood and bone of others. The robotic mass annihilation of the Palestinians had brought human bloodlust to a climax which nobody had considered possible by the victims of the Nazi genocide. Zionists have relied on decades of distortion and deceit, but what they always forget is that the millions of bodies have buried them more than anyone else. With each assault on the most vulnerable, disenfranchised, and traumatized people in which Israel pours endless young bodies into pits of death, they follow it. With every massacre, entire generations are revolutionized and filled with more conviction and sumud.

A truly “free” state can never exist when it’s enslaved to the organized aggression it has chained itself to. One day, Israelis will realize the ceaseless turmoil disrupting their peace has nothing to do with opposition to a Jewish state but is rooted in the fact that no human beings anywhere are created to accept injustice so casually. There will come a time when the world will stop asking the Palestinian people to stop resisting their oppression when the boots of the oppressor remains on their throats. The Palestinian people remain the only colonized and oppressed people who are constantly told to guarantee the security and rights of their occupiers and oppressors, who continue to be held responsible for nothing.

While Israeli expansion, expulsion, colonization, and the indefinite justification for violent retaliation under apocalyptic conditions continue, Palestinians are asked to concede and give more. Each year, their beloved homeland and rights wither away, like a diseased heart, speckled, clotted, and hollowed out. A homeland annulled. No two-state delusion will ever be a viable solution. There will be no peace in Israel and Palestinian until a modicum of justice is achieved for the Palestinians.

Our voices will not be muted by dispossession, expulsion, trauma, and denial. In attempting to erase us, the reality created by the Zionists became a fertile soil for the expression of steadfast resistance and perseverance. No matter how many innocent Palestinians are rounded up and executed, disappeared and silenced, there will always be more of us out there: living, excelling, falling in love, getting married, having children to pass on our narrative to. That resistance is what continues to ensure that ‘never again’ is not hollow.

Dina is a first-generation Palestinian-American living in Chicago. She works in the States and overseas with an NGO for victims of torture in the Occupied Territories of Palestine (Ramallah).

April 9, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

24 Palestinian journalists imprisoned; freed journalist Omar Nazzal barred from Jerusalem, travel and banking

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – April 6, 2017

Palestinian journalist and former prisoner Omar Nazzal recently reported on his Facebook page about a series of restrictions that have been issued by Israeli occupation forces against him through military orders. Nazzal was released from administrative detention on 20 February after 10 months of imprisonment without charge or trial; since that time, he has been slapped with a two-year travel ban preventing him from leaving occupied Palestine; banned from Jerusalem and Palestine ’48 for 99 years; and forbidden from opening bank accounts until further notice.

Nazzal was seized by Israeli occupation forces in April 2016 as he attempted to enter Jordan through the Karameh/Allenby crossing en route to the European Federation of Journalists conference in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is a member of the Secretariat of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate and president of the Assembly of Democratic Journalists. His detention was internationally condemned by the EFJ, the International Federation of Journalists and other international associations.

There are currently 24 Palestinian journalists imprisoned in Israeli jails, the Palestinian Media Assembly reported on 2 April on March violations of the rights of journalists by the Israeli occupation. They include the five journalists of Sanabel Radio, who have been imprisoned since August 2016, when occupation forces invaded the radio station, abducting all of the staff present. Nine journalists were arrested in March, including Samah Dweik, Hassan Sawan, Mohammed Abed Rabbo, Khaleda Ghosheh, Raed Abu Remaileh (since released) and Mohammed Batrakh, Ayoub Sawan, Asim Mustafa and Musab al-Said (all still detained.)

Palestine TV correspondent Ahmed Shawar was injured by rubber-coated metal bullets as he covered a demonstration against settlements and the apartheid wall in Kufr Qaddoum. In addition, multiple photographers were injured in Nabi Saleh by Israeli occupation forces, including Rasha Herzallah, Hamza Shalash, Essam Rimawi, Mohammed Turkman, Majdi Shtayyeh, Abbas Momani and Saleh Hamad. In Kafr Malek, Nasser Shyoukhi and Abdel-Kader Bilbeisi were injured after inhaling tear gas. In addition, Israeli occupation forces attacked and confiscated several print shops, including Nahda in Tulkarem, Ibn Khaldoun in Tulkarem and Dozan in Bethlehem.

Israeli occupation forces stormed the home of Palestinian cartoonist Osama Nazzal on 27 March, smashing his paintings on the wall and drawing tools as well as confiscating other artwork.

April 8, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli settler attempts to run over Palestinians near Hebron

Ma’an – April 7, 2017

HEBRON – Two Palestinians from the Hebron-area village of Beit Ummar were lightly injured Friday after an Israeli settler attempted to run them over on a main road connecting the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron to Jerusalem.

Local activist Muhammad Awad told Ma’an that an Israeli settler was driving on the road, located near Beit Ummar, when the settler attempted to to run over Palestinians Muhammad Basem Khader al-Alami, 25, and Saed Samir Hassan al-Salibi, 20.

“The Israeli settler drove very fast with his car towards the two, who noticed the settler’s car rushing towards them at the last moment, causing them to fall on the side of the street, while the Israeli settler escaped,” Awad said, describing the scene to Ma’an.

An Israeli army spokesperson said they were looking into reports.

The incident came a day after Israeli settlers from the illegal settlement of Yitzhar in the northern West Bank closed a Nablus-area road in protest, calling for “revenge” on Palestinians after an alleged car-ramming attack was carried out earlier in the day near the illegal Israeli Ofra settlement in Ramallah, which killed an Israeli soldier and wounded another moderately.

Incidents involving Israeli settlers hitting Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory are a relatively regular occurrence, and are usually treated by Israeli security forces as accidents, even in cases when witnesses claim the car rammings were deliberate.

Many Palestinian activists and rights groups have accused Israel of fostering a “culture of impunity” for Israeli settlers and soldiers committing violent acts against Palestinians.

Between 500,000 and 600,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law, with announcements of settlement expansion earlier this year sparking condemnation from the international community.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), there were a total of 107 reported settler attacks against Palestinians and their properties in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem in 2016.

April 8, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Silwan Palestinians receive evacuation orders due to damage caused by Israeli tunnels

Ma’an – April 6, 2017

JERUSALEM – The Israeli municipality of Jerusalem issued evacuation orders for three housing apartments in the Wadi Hilweh area of the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan on Wednesday evening, due to fractures and cracks formed at the base of the houses, as Israeli authorities continued work on a tunnel network expected to be used to provide services to Israeli settlers.

According to the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, the houses belong to Hamed Oweida, Abed Oweida, and Suleiman Oweida.

Sixteen family members, including ten children, reside in the houses.

The Oweida family said that Israeli tunnel-digging under their homes has increased over the past three days, adding that loud noises from the digging would last for several hours, while the family could feel their houses shaking during the construction.

They said that the digging had caused severe damage of fractures and cracks in the walls and the bases of the houses.

The family added that they had called the Israeli police, who had then summoned a municipality team to inspect the houses. After taking photographs and inspecting the damage, an architect for the municipality decided to issue an emergency order for the families to evacuate and seal the houses, saying that it was dangerous to remain inside.

Suleiman Oweida had left his house several days ago after fractures in the walls had become more severe.

The information center said that Israeli authorities were creating a tunnel network for Israeli settlers directly under the Oweida family’s house.

Member of the Wadi Hilweh neighborhood committee Ahmad Qarrain said that the Israeli authorities began work under the neighborhood in 2007.

The residents at the time appealed to Israeli courts and were able to halt the construction under their homes for 14 months. However, Israeli courts later issued another order allowing the work to continue on the condition that the digging not endanger the lives of residents.

However, Qarrain said that the digging and work under the houses continued “without any consideration for the safety of residents,” and pointed out that the streets, walls, structures, and houses of the neighborhood have also been fractured and collapsed owing to the tunnel work.

A spokesperson for the Israeli Jerusalem municipality told Ma’an that the municipality had informed the residents that their properties were “unsound and dangerous” out of “concern for their own welfare,” while also being built “without regard for building codes or safety standards.”

The spokesperson added that “claims that the city is attempting to construct underneath this family’s structure are patently false.”

April 6, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Dangerous Liaisons of French Banks with the Israeli Occupation

CounterPunch News Service | April 6, 2017

Executive Summary

While the year 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the Israeli occupation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the Israeli government’s colonization project in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has accelerated dramatically.

The very existence of Israeli settlements is illegal under international law. It is accompanied by numerous restrictions imposed on the Palestinian population, restrictions that violate their most fundamental rights and deprive them of the conditions that make a decent life possible.

The UN(1), the European Union(2) and the French government(3) have affirmed on numerous occasions and, most recently, in the major resolution of the UN Security Council of 23 December 2016: the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are not part of Israel as defined by the 1967 frontiers and are illegal under international law.

These settlements, “which do not cease to undermine a two state solution and to impose on the ground the reality of one state”(5), remain a major obstacle to any resolution of the conflict. The same Security Council resolution also requires [par. 5] that all states, ‘in their relevant dealings’, make a distinction between the territory of the state of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.

The Israeli banking system constitutes an essential tool of the colonization project, and Israeli businesses contribute to the maintenance and development of the settlements. In this context, the principal French financial institutions, in continuing to support Israeli banks and businesses involved in the settlements, contribute indirectly to the maintenance and development of this illegal situation with respect to international law.

Five major French financial groups – BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, Société Générale, [the state-owned] Banque Populaire Caisse d’Epargne, AXA – manage financial holdings or hold shares in Israeli banks or businesses involved in financing settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and which furnish services vital to the maintenance and development of the settlements – such as housing or factory construction, the provision of telecommunications connections or of surveillance equipment.

Added to that financial involvement, the four largest French banks – in this instance BNP Paribas, Société Générale, LCL (subsidiary of Crédit Agricole) and Natixis (investment bank subsidiary of BPCE) – have granted loans to the total of €288 million for the period 2004-2020 to the state enterprise Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) for a project for two gas-fired power plants(6), while IEC is providing electricity to the illegal settlements in the Occupied West Bank.

The French government is responsible at three levels:

1) Obligations under international law (the UN’s ‘protect, respect and remedy’ framework of its Guiding Principles, to not recognize as legitimate a situation created by a grave violation of international law, nor to aid or assist in the maintenance of this situation, and to cooperate to dismantle such situations).(7)

2) An obligation to protect against human rights violations by third parties, including businesses and banks.(8)

3) A particular obligation, as 20 per cent shareholder in Alstom [2004-06, 2014-], to apply rigorous controls when a business is state-owned or state-controlled, even when the state is a minority shareholder.(9) Alstom is the contractor for one of the two gas-fired power plants [partly financed by French banks], as noted above. [Siemens is the contractor for the other plant.]

The signatory organizations of this report have exhorted the French banks and insurance companies to conform to international principles in ceasing all financing of the Israeli colonization project. Numerous financial institutions, public and private, European and American, and pension funds(10) have already taken this step and have disengaged from Israeli entities which support the settlements, in contrast to the French financial institutions targeted in this report. To this day, no French bank has committed itself to cease financing entities which contribute to the development of settlements on Palestinian territory, despite unmistakable infringements on human rights, and in spite of undertakings with respect to human rights of the banks mentioned in this report and their adhesion to one or more directives on a voluntary basis.

The risks of new financing linked notably to the extension of the East Jerusalem light rail by Alstom(11), 20 per cent owned by the state itself, reinforces the urgency of strong commitments. It is not too late to act: the French banks must make commitments in conformity with international law and announce publicly the end of all financial support to entities that facilitate the maintenance and development of the illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The signatory organizations request:

To the French banks to:

* withdraw all financing, direct or indirect, from banks and Israeli businesses involved in the development of the settlements;

* commit themselves publicly to no longer finance such entities;

* develop a credible policy aiming to exclude from their operations all businesses involved with the settlements.

To the French state to:

* respect its international obligations, notably those resulting from violations of the imperatives of international law by Israel and those pertaining to the UN’s ‘protect, respect and remedy’ human rights framework.

* pursue all means to prevent any participation or investment of French businesses which contribute to Israeli colonization(12);

* implement the UN’s Guiding Principles with respect to businesses and human rights and to ensure that the corporations under its jurisdiction, including banks, do not prejudice the full realization of fundamental rights in France and abroad;

* supervise respect for the law relative to the duty of vigilance of parent and contracting companies.

* support, at the UN, the process for the elaboration of an international treaty on human rights and transnational corporations and other businesses.

Notes.

(1) Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 11 December 2013: 68/82. Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the occupied Syrian Golan.

(2) Council of the European Union, Council Conclusions on the Middle East Peace Process, 18 January 2016.

(3) France Diplomatie, Israël/Territoires Palestiniens, Securité, 2 December 2016.

(4) UN Security Council, Resolution 2334, 23 December 2016.

(5) See Resolution 2334 preamble.

(6) Global Trade Review, Germans Back Israel Electric [Corporation], 23 February 2004.

(7) The document here cites Trading Away Peace: How Europe helps sustain illegal Israeli settlements, October 2012.

(8) According to the Guiding Principles 11 to 24 of the United Nations. Moreover, note Principle no.7: “Because the risk of gross human rights abuses is heightened in conflict-affected areas, States should help ensure that business enterprises operating in those contexts are not involved with such abuses, including by:(a) Engaging at the earliest stage possible with business enterprises to help them identify, prevent and mitigate the human rights-related risks of their activities and business relationships; [etc.]”.

(9) The Guiding Principles of the UN, and notably Principle no.4, regarding state-owned enterprises: “States should take additional steps to protect against human rights abuses by business enterprises that are owned or controlled by the State, or that receive substantial support and services from State agencies such as export credit agencies and official investment insurance or guarantee agencies, including, where appropriate, by requiring human rights due diligence. … Moreover, the closer a business enterprise is to the State, or the more it relies on statutory authority or taxpayer support, the stronger the State’s policy rationale becomes for ensuring that the enterprise respects human rights.” The UN’s ‘Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises’ had its mandate extended in June 2014. The Working Group has equally highlighted the responsibility of states to take additional measures to guard against infringement on human rights by state-owned or state-controlled businesses.

(10) This is notably the case for the Norwegian government pension funds (2010), the Netherlands’ PGGM pension fund (2013), the Luxembourg FDC pension funds (2014), the Danish Danske Bank (2014) and German Deutsche Bank (2014) and the pension funds of the US Methodist Church (2016).

(11) Pertinent information became publicly available in June 2016, indicating that a commercial agreement had been signed between the Israeli government and the Israeli consortium Citypass and Alstom to extend the Jerusalem light rail network. Alstom and the French government have been contacted and advised by one of our organizations in June and September 2016, and have not denied the existence of this agreement. One might reasonably infer that this contract, of the order of €350 million, will require bank finance. [Resistance against French corporate involvement in this project has a long history.]

(12) In complementing the advice of the French Foreign Affairs Ministry, as per fn. (3).

§ From Le Liaison Dangereuses de Banques Françaises avec La Colonisation Israélienne, March 2017. The report was compiled under the auspices of the following NGOs: Al-Haq, AFPS, CCFD -Terre Solidaire, CGT, FIDH, Fair Finance France, LDH, and Union Syndicale Solidaires.

Translated by Evan Jones.

April 6, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel proposes railroad to Saudi Arabia via Jordan

Press TV – April 5, 2017

The Israeli regime has proposed construction of a railroad connecting the occupied territories to Saudi Arabia via Jordan.

Transport Minister Yisrael Katz said on Wednesday that Washington had also welcomed the plan, but he declined to say whether Riyadh and Amman had supported the proposal.

The link is designed to connect the Saudi port of Daman in the Persian Gulf via Jordan to the Mediterranean port of Haifa in northern Israel, according to the Israeli minister.

Katz, who has declared himself as a candidate to succeed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when the premier steps down, said the rail line would notably cut the distance needed to move goods.

The minister also elaborated on the plan, saying only a small distance of track was needed to link the current Israeli network in the north with the occupied West Bank near the city of Jenin and Jordan at Sheikh Hussein crossing.

Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab governments that have official diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv and host Israeli missions. The rest of the Arab governments have no diplomatic relations with the Israeli regime, and seek to portray themselves as Tel Aviv’s traditional adversaries and upholders of the Palestinian cause.

Even so, reports have indicated that some of the governments, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have had secret relations with Tel Aviv, covertly appeasing the regime.

April 5, 2017 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Wadi Qana’s Palestinian farmers endure another mass tree uprooting

International Solidarity Movement | April 5, 2017

Hebron, occupied Palestine – Just days after Palestinians commemorated Land Day, a day which marks the struggle against the Israeli government’s expropriation of Palestinian land, farmers of Wadi Qana endured another mass uprooting and theft of their trees.

Speaking from his home in the Salfit district village of Deir Istiya, Palestinian activist Rezeq Abu Nasser cited the frustrating chronology, “This is the third time they took my trees. They stole them in 2013 and 2015 as well.” He then handed ISM volunteers the Arabic/Hebrew notice that he found posted on a fence he erected at a cost of over 1,000 NIS to protect his trees. Abu Nasser’s fence was also dismantled and seized along with 25 of his trees.

The notice received by four Palestinian farmers demands that they uproot their own trees or face arrest and/or fines to cover the cost of Israeli occupation forces uprooting the trees for them. Soon after, 135 trees were uprooted and stolen during the small hours of morning. Several bulldozers entered the valley, hauled large stones into the road to block the entryway and rammed through part of a 40 meter stone wall to access the trees.

Citing environmental justifications for these aggressive acts of theft, an Israeli government spokesperson for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territory was quoted as saying that the trees were uprooted due to their “damaging the natural view and value of the nature resort.” Claiming the act to be one of protection of the view of a lush valley from the sight of trees is even more absurd, given that the Israeli forces left a partially demolished stone wall and broken tree limbs scattered atop a small field of holes where the trees once took root.

While speaking to the Mayor of Deir Istiya, his office produced copies of the issued warrants for the threatened trees and the generations old British land deeds affirming the farmers’ rights to their ancestral land. The Mayor of Deir Istiya described arriving at the Wadi Qana immediately after being alerted to the uprootings in progress, only to find the road blockage Israeli forces left to keep farmers and residents from defending their land. As for the stone wall, he claimed,”This is a new experience for us that they demolished the stones.”

The farmers who lost their trees, tantamount to their livelihood, plan to continue their struggle against these incursions by furthering their cases with the local municipality. As for Abu Nasser, “I’m going to replant them again.”

April 5, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment