Renouncing Jewishness: Shlomo Sand and Gilad Atzmon
By Eric Walberg | July 30, 2016
For years now, I’ve known there was something wrong when my well-meaning anti-Zionist Jewish friends found it necessary to join Jewish anti-Zionist groups opposing Israel. In the US, Jewish Voice for Peace, in Canada, Not in Our Name; in Britain, Jews Against Zionism — every country has its group, usually more than one. “I am a Jewish witness against Israel,” I would be told. Sounds good, even brave. Sand’s latest deconstruction of Jewishness and Israel, How I Stopped Being a Jew (2014), makes it clear why my suspicions were well founded.
Barely 100 pages, it is a page-turner, a precis of his earlier more scholarly works, arguing that the romantic, heroic age of Jewish nationalism, as embodied in the creation of a Jewish state, is coming to an end. Israel will not disappear, but it is an anachronism, an embarrassment in the postmodern age. A reminder of the horrors of Nazism, but not as the Zionist crafters of the “holocaust industry”, or “holocaust religion”, would have it. The Zionist project is exposed by Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, Gilad Atzmon, Israel Shamir and many more Jewish critics as reenacting the same policies of yesteryear. A flawed answer that is doomed, “an insidious form of racism“.
For the Israeli Sand, the Jewish “national” identity is a fraud (an Israeli identity is fine); the only viable Jewish identity is a religious one, and as a nonbeliever, he logically concludes, “Cogito, ergo non sum.”
Gilad Atzmon takes Sand’s logic further. He tore up his Israeli passport, becoming an ex-Israeli as well as an ex-Jew.
What’s so wrong with a secular, ethnic Jewish identity? Well, it can be based on only one of two things: persecution (being “forced” into being a Jew whether one likes it or not, as in the Nazi’s racial laws) or being “born” into the Jewish people. The former is no longer an issue and the latter is full of holes, and based on a dangerous myth.
When was the Jewish People invented?
Sand’s answer is simple: “At a certain stage in the 19th century, intellectuals of Jewish origin in Germany, influenced by the folk character of German nationalism, took upon themselves the task of inventing a people ‘retrospectively’, out of a thirst to create a modern Jewish people.” For Jews, this required a homeland, and the westernized Jewish elite were able to provide this. As the West suffered one mortal blow after another (WWI&II), Zionism took on a new meaning. Voila! Israel.
But the exile legend is a myth. Sand is a historian and couldn’t find any texts supporting it. The Romans did not exile peoples. “Judaic society was not dispersed and was not exiled.” Jews continued to live in the Holy Land through thick and thin, freer under Muslim rule than Christian, but even the latter never “ethnically cleansed” them. Most converted to Christianity or Islam. Voila! The (Christian, Muslim) Palestinians. However, a tiny core stuck stubbornly to the original monotheism, nurtured by the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BC (the only bona fide exile–from which they returned, the earlier Egyptian exile legend being crafted much later, when the Torah was written down and collected in the 3rd century BC).
Jews are not a race but rather a collective of many ethnic groups who were hijacked by a late 19th century ‘national’ movement. There is no racial or ethnic basis for being Jewish any more than there is for being Christian or Muslim. The great majority of those who today consider themselves Jewish are descended from converts in Central Asia, eastern Europe and north Africa, not from ancient Hebrews expelled from the Holy Land by the Romans. They are not ethnic “Semites”, of near eastern origin, or ethnic anything else.
Atzmon is a noted jazz musician, and deconstructs a popular 1970s Israeli pop song by Shlomo Artzi: All of a sudden a man wakes up in the morning. He feels he is people and to
everyone he comes across he says shalom. Artzi’s youth suggests Jews suddenly became “people” thanks to the state of Israel, conflating being Jewish with being Israeli, suggesting only Israelis can really feel free as Jews. What Artzi ignores is that feeling proud to be an Israeli is only for those Israelis who have “Jew” stamped in their passport, and, among them, only those who are blind to the bloody colonial basis for this privilege. Hardly a recipe for a healthy feeling.
Can a liar tell the truth?
Israel is a “democratic and Jewish state” according to Israeli law. The “Jewish” nature was first defined in the Declaration of Independence of 1948. The “democratic” character was added by the Knesset in 1985. This is a contradiction in terms, as Jewish by definition determines the state according to race, making it undemocratic for those in the state not Jewish. In cartesian lingo, both ‘A’ and ‘not A’ are true.
This flawed logic now lies at the heart of what it means to call oneself a secular Jew, either Israeli or ‘diaspora’. Sand joins other ex-Jews, Gilad Atzmon, Israel Shamir, and Will Self, who have renounced Jewishness, either as secularists, or as converts to Christianity, shedding a contradictory, now empty, signifier. Given what Israel has become, “democratic” and “Jewish” are no longer compatible. Sand rejects the faux Jewish nationalism served up by Zionism, which excludes non-Jews from the narrative, and is left with nothing except himself, his books, his sense of right and wrong. A lonely world.
Atzmon takes Sand’s attack on identity politics a step further, arguing in The Wandering Who that secular Jewish anti-Zionism feeds into the Zionist narrative, the do-gooder counterpoint to the more sinister role of the diaspora, taking Sand’s concerns to an even more uncomfortable conclusion: The Jewish Diaspora is there to mobilize lobbies by recruiting international support. The Neocons transform the American army into an Israeli mission force. Anti-Zionists of Jewish descent (and this may even include proud self-haters such as myself) are there to portray an image of ideological plurality and ethical concern.*
Sand dismisses both religion and nationalism as the basis for his identity. Atzmon argues both are legitimate, though they both are perverted in the case of the Israeli state. Nationalism is an authentic “bond with one’s soil, heritage, culture, language”, a cathartic experience, not at all “empty” as a signifier. Though nationalism may well be an invention, it is still “an intrinsically authentic fulfilling experience”. It can be misused, is often suicidal, but nonetheless, “it sometimes manages to integrate man, soil and sacrifice into a state of spiritual unification.”
What is especially moving about ex-Jews like Sand, and ex-Israel ex-Jews like Atzmon, is that they are trapped by their own Israeli heritage, whether or not they emigrate. Reading Sand’s book in Hebrew, writes Atzmon, “is for me, an ex-Jew and ex-Israeli, a truly authentic experience that brings me closer to my roots, my forgotten homeland and its fading landscape, my mother tongue or shall I simply say my Being.” He is confronted not by some “‘identity’ or politics but rather the Israeliness, that concrete nationalist discourse that matured into Hebraic poetry, patriotism, ideology, jargon, a dream and a tragedy to follow.” Israel’s present state has “robbed him of that Israeliness which was once to him a home.”
Hollow identity
Most still yearn to keep a diaspora Jewish identity alive. Judith Butler’s Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism (2013) is by a liberal-leaning Jew who feels she must salvage her Jewishness from Israel’s nationalism and occupation policies. “A new Jewish identity might emerge that connects Tel Aviv with New York’s Upper West Side, Berlin, Paris, London and Buenos Aires — and all of them on an equal footing,” writes Carlo Strener in his review.
For Sand and Atzmon, there is no “new Jewish identity” possible, because there is no diaspora. French Jews are French. Canadian ones are Canadian. It’s fine to be a believing ‘person of the Book’, and even an Israeli, speaking Israeli (really a new language) and being a citizen of a well-behaved multi-ethnic nation state, based on universal norms, like France or Canada. But everyone eats matzo balls already.
Assimilation is not like extermination, despite Golda Meir’s cries of “Wolf!” Non-religious Jewishness will continue to evaporate, along with Christian and Muslim identities for those who abandon their faith. There is no shame in calling oneself an ex-Christian or ex-Muslim.
Occam’s Razor: less is more
Anti-Zionists “rightly see [Zionist] policies as threatening the renewal of Judeophobia” that identifies all Jews as a “certain race-people, and confuses them with Zionists.”** Yes, but, as Atzmon argues, this “confusion” is part of the agenda, pushing Jews outside of Israel to support Israel unthinkingly and accept the resultant resentment they experience as “anti-Semitism”.
And even if they protest–as Jews–they inadvertently support the “Zionist world conspiracy”:
If those who call themselves anti-Zionist Jews without having lived in Israel, and without knowing its language or having experienced its culture, claim a particular right, different from that of non-Jews, to make accusations against Israel, how can one criticize overt pro-Zionists for granting themselves the privilege of actively intervening in decisions regarding the future and fate of Israel?*
The Jewish signifier undermines the anti-Zionist one. Slots muddy things. Medea Benjamin, a “one percenter, a nice little Jewish girl” founded the now legendary peace group Codepink. QAIA (Queers against Israeli apartheid) folded when its organizers realized by highlighting their ‘gay’ signifier, they were doing more harm than good. The queers don’t have the luxury of renouncing their queerness, but thoughtful Jews like Benjamin similarly downplay their own tribalism, and Sand and Atzmon have renounced it, as the honorable way out of their Catch-22.
* Gilad Atzmon, The Wandering Who?, Zero Books, 2011, p70.
** Shlomo Sand, How I Stopped being a Jew, Verso, 2014, p94–95.
Israeli forces hunt for Palestinian children in Hebron market
International Solidarity Movement | August 1, 2016
Hebron, Occupied Palestine – On Sunday, 31st July 2016, Israeli forces in the Old City souq, the Palestinian market, of occupied al-Khalil (Hebron), were searching for a group of three Palestinian boys. Claiming they were throwing stones, Israeli forces were searching for them in order to arrest and incarcerate them.
A group of Israeli soldiers went into the Palestinian market in search for the children they claimed were throwing stones, stopping any child they encountered on their way, that more or less fit the age-group of around 10-14 years old. They stopped and questioned a 12-year old boy at Bab al-Baladiyya, one of the entrance and exit-points for the soldiers to enter from the illegal settlements located on Shuhada Street into the Palestinian market. Without any family or a lawyer present, the soldiers questioned the boy, first claiming that he was throwing stones and threatening to arrest him and take him to the police station. Only because of the intervention of a local, the boy wasn’t kidnapped by the Israeli forces, which eventually admitted that the video-evidence they have does not even show him. Still, they claimed that he was there and thus were attempting to force him into giving information.
After they finally allowed the boy to leave, they arbitrarily stopped any child that fit their age group to question them about their whereabouts and where they were going, even entering a Palestinian shop to interrogate a child. After about half an hour, they gave up their search, but approached human rights observers to ‘justify’ their behaviour, showing them a video on a phone that showed a boy throwing small stones, at a securely fenced military tower, without any possibility of the pebbles even hurting anyone. Despite only one boy throwing these small stones, Israeli forces were out looking for all the three children in the video. Israeli forces ‘justified’ their search for the children to the human rights observers, stating that because of what can be seen in the video, they went out to look for ‘a boy in a white T-Shirt’ – despite the boy in the video clearly wearing a green T-Shirt. In spite of both these facts, they stopped and interrogated any child loosely fitting the age-group of around 10-14.
Israeli forces cornering children in the street for interrogation
In the evening, Israeli forces again entered the market, to stop, harass and question children fitting this age-group, and another arrest of an arbitrarily picked child could only be prevented by the intervention of a local.
The fact that the arrest of any children under the age of 12 is illegal even under Israeli military law that applies to all Palestinians in the West Bank, did not bother the Israeli forces. Despite the boy in the video clearly being less than 12 years old, they went out to hunt down children that are below the legal age for arrest even under the apartheid military law, the orders in clear violation of not only international law, but even the racist and apartheid Israeli military law.
Palestinian children subject to solitary confinement, administrative detention
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – July 29, 2016
An escalating number of Palestinian children are being held in solitary confinement or detained without charge or trial under administrative detention. 16 Palestinian children have been detained without charge or trial under administrative detention since October 2015, reported Defense for Children International on 28 July.
DCI highlighted the case of Abdel-Rahman Kamil, 15, of Qabatiya in Jenin, arrested in February of this year. He was interrogated in the Salem military camp near Jenin without being allowed to consult a lawyer, and asked about alleged intentions to stab a soldier, throwing stones at invading Israeli occupation forces, or knowing young men from his town who participated in Palestinian resistance activities. Despite denying all of this, he was ordered to a six month administrative detention order without charge or trial on the basis of secret evidence. Despite a court reducing the order to four months, his administrative detention was then again renewed for an additional four months in June. He was one of seven children whose administrative detention orders were renewed in the month of June.
DCI also reported that “from January through June, Israeli authorities held at least 13 Palestinian children in solitary confinement for two or more days, compared to a total of 15 cases during 2015.” One 16-year-old boy from Yabad near Jenin spent 22 days in isolation. DCI noted that “the use of isolation for Palestinian child detainees is solely for interrogation purposes to obtain a confession and/or gather intelligence or information on other individuals.”
They highlighted the case of Rami K., 18, who was held in solitary confinement for 16 days for interrogation purposes. He reported that he was interrogated for 45 hours over a period of days, and that his hands and feet were bound to a metal chair during interrogation in stress positions. Rami is currently serving a 10 month prison sentence and a 3000 NIS fine ($780). He will spend another three months in prison if his family cannot pay.
The Israeli occupation prosecutes nearly 700 Palestinian children each year in military courts, alongside its use of administrative detention against Palestinian child prisoners. Two debates have been held in the British parliament on Palestinian children in Israeli military custody in 2016, while 20 members of the U.S. Congress urged President Obama to appoint a “special envoy for Palestinian youth,” to address issues relating to the human rights of Palestinian children and youth. Meanwhile, the Israeli state is escalating laws used to punish and imprison Palestinian children.
As DCI notes:
“The amendments to the Israeli penal code in 2015 included stricter penalties in mandatory sentencing laws such as a maximum 10 year sentence for throwing a stone, or other object, at traffic, without intent to cause injury, and 20 years for throwing a stone, or other object, at traffic with intent to cause injury. While the 20-year maximum sentencing existed prior to 2015, the word “stone” was added to specifically target Palestinian society.
Minimum penalties for stone-throwing offenses, one-fifth of the maximum penalty, were also added to the penal code. In a controversial decision, the Knesset, or Israeli parliament, added to the scope of punishment the denial of National Insurance benefits to families whose members have been convicted of throwing stones.
According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), proposals are also in the works to impose life sentencing for children under the age of 14.”
“They destroyed the houses, they destroyed our dreams”
International Solidarity Movement | July 28, 2016
Qalandia village, Occupied Palestine – Late Monday evening, Israeli forces entered the village of Qalandia with 15 bulldozers and around 150 soldiers. In the village the Israeli military destroyed 11 new built houses, attacking the residents of the village with stun grenades, tear gas, rubber coated steel bullets and sponge bullets. 7 persons had to seek medical care for their injuries after the assaults from the military.
In 7 of the demolished houses, families had already moved in according to Yosef Awdalla, mayor of Qalandia. The demolition notices, claiming the houses had no permits, were left outside the houses on the ground only 24 hours before the army entered the village.
One of the homeowners, Fadi Awadallah describes how his friend was walking around the house the day before the demolitions, and found a piece of paper written in Hebrew on the ground. One hour after they had figured out what the document said and talked to their lawyer, the army was already entering the village to demolish their home. Fadi, who had applied and paid for an Israeli issued licence to build in area C, did not expect the demolition order since the Israeli authorities had accepted the money and the application. When he tried to explain this to the soldiers they answered him that “they were not there to talk, they were there to demolish the houses.”
The soldiers then pointed their guns to his head and told him that if he didn’t move away from the house they would shoot him.
“They didn’t deal with us as humans, they pushed us back with violence and force” says Fadi whose family had planned to move into their dream house the following week.
“Three years ago we started to build the houses. Why didn’t they come three years ago before we spent all our money on these houses? They destroyed the houses, they destroyed our dreams” says Fadi, explaining that most of the families not only spent all their savings on the buildings but now they are also left with loans that will take them years to pay.
“We came up with the idea about building a house here because we are not allowed to use our house on the other side of the wall.” says Fadi, whose father lives in a house on the other side of the apartheid wall surrounding the village. Without obtaining a permit every month from the Israeli occupation authorities, the family are not allowed to cross the wall that separates the West Bank from Jerusalem.
Since the signing of the Oslo agreement in 1995 most of Qalandia village was classified as Area C, where israel has full control over security and civil administration. Only 2% of Qalandia is constituted as area B, where construction is permitted. Palestinian building in area C has to be permitted by the Israeli Civil Administration and since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank 1967, Israeli authorities regularly demolishe houses in area C, thus breaking international humanitarian law. According to a report released this Wednesday from Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, Israeli authorities have demolished more Palestinian homes in the West Bank in the first six months of 2016 than they did in any year over the past decade .
The Israeli demolition policies systematically implemented by the government and the lack of possibilities to build legally in the area constitutes the ethnic cleansing and forcible transfer of Palestinians.
As Fadi Awadallah points out, “Where are we supposed to be? In the sky? In the space? No, we are staying here.”
Sameeh Huseen holding a picture of his home that was ruined by the Israeli army.
“How are we going to explain this to the next generation? How can we teach our kids about peace when this is what they see?” says Fadi Awadallah.
Leaked EU report reveals indirect approval of colonial Israel
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO |July 27, 2016
Once again, Israel is exerting a great deal of effort in order to prevent discussion of an EU paper among European institutions. The internal report, which was drafted in December 2015 and then endorsed by all EU member states, attributes the development of the Jerusalem Intifada (Uprising) to “Israel’s occupation”. It included reference to the living conditions of Palestinian citizens and the failure to implement the two-state paradigm.
The EU Observer, which has seen the 39-page report, has stated that the document is intended as a reference for EU foreign ministers and “for proposals put forward by the EU Foreign Service.”
While having a dearth of facts, the report is not lacking in the kind of contradictions that mark the constant cycle of condemnation and appeasement of Israel at the expense of withholding Palestinian narratives. The Jerusalem Post has deemed the EU document to be veering away from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that Israel and the rest of the world are facing the same terror threats. Rhetorically, the EU has distanced itself from Netanyahu’s sweeping statements that generalise every terrorist incident in order to normalise state violence against Palestinian resistance. Nevertheless, as on other occasions, the EU has devised its own strategies which uphold Israel’s narrative at a regional and international level.
The report is ambiguous in the extreme. “Some Palestinian perpetrators of individual attacks,” it explains, “have apparently been shot and killed in situations where they no longer pose a threat.” Despite Netanyahu himself publicly endorsing such extrajudicial killings, the EU has preferred to subjugate the facts to hypotheses through the use of terminology like “apparently”, “appeared” and “possibly amounting in certain cases to unlawful killings.” By not condemning such unlawful killing explicitly, the discourse suggests the EU’s tacit approval of Israeli state and settler violence. This is illustrated further in the report’s standard equivalence clause that “both sides” have indulged in “inflammatory rhetoric”, thus negating the fact that Palestinian resistance is a legitimate response to illegal Israeli colonial violence.
EU Foreign Relations chief Federica Mogherini has opposed the proposal that “known violent settlers and those calling for acts of violence” should be placed under EU visa bans. According to Mogherini: “There’s currently no question of sanctioning anybody. The question is rather how to motivate people to… restart peace talks.” Such leniency works in concordance with Israeli policy towards settler terrorists who are mostly shielded by the colonial state, enabling them to act with impunity.
Perhaps the most incriminating evidence of support for Israeli colonisation is the recommendation that the EU develops “further guidelines that differentiate between Israel and its illegal settlements,” according to the EU Observer. This distinction has been of interminable benefit to Israel and its implications are many, including the refusal to recognise the fact that Israel is a colonial entity and that its manifestation is contrary to the principles enshrined in international law. Referring to Israel as the “occupying power” without any reference to colonisation in effect absolves both Israel and the international community of accountability when it comes to recognising the Palestinian right to resistance and liberation. Unless this anomaly is rectified, all reports issued by the EU will be inherently biased towards Israel, regardless of the content. To treat colonial expansion as a recent phenomenon is a transgression of truth and an impediment to Palestinian struggle, although that is, after all, the apparent international intent behind such blatant deception.
Israel announces new resettlement plan for Negev Bedouins
Ma’an – July 26, 2016
BETHLEHEM – Israeli authorities Monday announced the approval of plans to build a new township for Israel’s Bedouin community in the Negev desert, according to Israeli media, in a continuation of what rights groups have said is Israel’s discriminatory policy of forcibly transferring Bedouins to Israeli-zoned townships to make room for Jewish communities.
The planned township is expected to be built just south of Segev Shalom, another Bedouin township, and would transfer at least 7,000 Bedouins from the unrecognized village of Wadi al-Naam, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
The approved village would comprise of an area of approximately 9,000 dunams (2,224 acres), while providing housing to some 9,000 residents, The Times of Israel reported.
The proposal to expand the area of Segev Shalom was challenged in Israel’s Supreme Court last year, as the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), who assisted in the court proceedings, argued that any expansion of the town would be followed by the forcible removal of Bedouins from unrecognized villages, particularly from Wadi al-Naam.
Wadi al-Naam residents and Israeli human rights groups presented an alternative planning proposal to the Supreme Court in April last year, which presented 15,000 dunams of land for a town separate from the densely populated neighborhoods of Segev Shalom.
According to Haaretz, Israel’s National Planning and Building Council recommended to the court the construction of the township in January in cooperation with village residents. However, residents of Wadi al-Naam have reportedly not been consulted about the approved plans.
Wadi al-Naam is one of 35 Bedouin villages considered “unrecognized” by the Israeli state. According to ACRI, more than half of the approximately 160,000 Negev Bedouins reside in unrecognized villages.
While Bedouins of the Negev are Israeli citizens, the villages unrecognized by the government have faced relentless efforts by the Israeli authorities to expel them from their lands in order to make room for Jewish Israeli homes.
The classification of their villages as “unrecognized” prevents Bedouins from developing or expanding their communities, as their villages are considered illegal by Israeli authorities. According to ACRI, entire Bedouin communities have been issued demolition orders in the past, while the village of al-Araqib has been demolished at least 100 times by Israeli forces in the past six years.
Israeli authorities have also refused to connect unrecognized Bedouin villages to the national water and electricity grids, while excluding the communities from access to health and educational services, and basic infrastructure.
Bedouins are considered a semi-nomadic group, as their way of life is dependent on access to wide areas of grazing land for their animals. Rights groups have argued that the relocation of Bedouins to permanent Israeli townships, oftentimes located in already stressed environments, severely disrupts their traditional lifestyles.
The Wadi al-Naam village was established in the 1950s soon after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that established the state of Israel. Military officials forcibly transferred the Negev Bedouins to the site during the 17 year period when Palestinians inside Israel were governed under Israeli military law, which ended shortly before Israel’s military takeover of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 1967.
Now more than 60 years later, the village has yet to be recognized by Israel.
According to Israeli human rights group Bimkom, Wadi al-Naam, much like other unrecognized villages in the Negev, are “not connected to the water, electricity, sewage, telephone or road networks, and its inhabitants suffer from a severe lack of education, welfare and sanitation services.”
The group also pointed out that Israeli authorities have created hazardous conditions in the villages by establishing industrial zones near their vicinities. The Ramat Hovav Industrial Zone, for instance, was established near Wadi al-Naam, which residents have said releases bad odors into the air and pollutes the air, soil, and water, while a site purposed with burying explosive materials was also established near the village.
However, rather than working to remove the source of pollution from their communities, Israeli authorities have instead pushed for their eviction from the area.
Meanwhile, Israeli Jewish settlements in the Negev continuously expand, with five new settlements approved last year. According to an investigation undertaken by ACRI and Bimkom, two of the approved settlements are located in areas where unrecognized Bedouin villages already exist.
The plan would see the displacement of at least 7,500 Bedouins from the unrecognized villages of Katamat and Beer Hadaj.
Imprisoned Palestinian women and girls: Teen detained over Facebook posts, injured woman denied medical care
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – July 25, 2016
Palestinian teen Qamar Manasra, 16, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, remains detained after she was arrested by Israeli forces who invaded her home in Reineh village on Tuesday, 19 July. Her home was ransacked and her father and two brothers assaulted. Qamar is allegedly being investigated for “incitement” for her posts on social media, specifically Facebook. Facebook “incitement” charges have been cited as the reason for arrests of hundreds of Palestinians.
Among those accused of “incitement” for social media posts is fellow Reineh resident and Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour, accused of “incitement” for posting her poetry on YouTube. Tatour has been supported by hundreds of writers around the world, including Pulitzer Prize winners and other world-renowned novelists, poets, and artists. She was imprisoned for three months and has since been held in house arrest for nine months; part of the original conditions of her house arrest included exile from her village of Reineh. Instead, her brother was forced to rent a separate apartment in Tel Aviv and her brother and sister-and-law forced to lose work in order to “guard” her 24/7. Finally, the prosecution dropped its objection to Tatour serving out her house arrest in Reineh last week; today, 25 July, her return to Reineh – still under house arrest – is expected to be approved, following significant international pressure on the case.
Israeli military courts ordered the continued detention of Taghreed Jabara al-Faqih, 43, for 11 days at the request of the military occupation prosecutor. Her family home was stormed and invaded by occupation forces on 12 July, who smashed and ransacked the contents of the home, including the cabinets and furniture.
Taghreed’s husband, Khaled al-Faqih, said that he was shocked at the arrest of his wife, and that he and their young son, Muath, had been forbidden from seeing her since her arrest on the grounds that she is still under interrogation. Taghreed’s brother is accused of firing on Israeli occupation soldiers on 3 July.
Asra Media also reported that wounded Palestinian prisoner Abla al-Adam, 45, from the village of Beit Ula, continues to face medical neglect that endangers her life. She cannot turn her head without severe pain, yet receives only painkillers and sedatives, rather than treatment for the causes of her pain. Al-Adam was arrested on 20 December 2015 when she was shot in the head by Israeli occupation soldiers in al-Khalil, losing her right eye and sustaining serious injury to her head and face.
She was hospitalized but moved before the completion of her treatment to HaSharon prison. Much of her care comes from her fellow women prisoners rather than from any kind of medical personnel. She was accused of having a knife at a checkpoint in al-Khalil. Al-Adam has nine children; only her minor children have been allowed to visit her, not those over the age of 18, due to “security” denials.
They are among approximately 60 Palestinian women held prisoner or under house arrest by Israeli occupation forces, mostly in HaSharon and Damon prisons.
France Respects ‘Existing, True’ Right of Israel to Jerusalem – PM
Sputnik — 25.07.2016
France would never deny Israel’s right to Jerusalem, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said in a letter sent to Shmuel Rabinovitch, the Rabbi of the Western Wall and the Holy Sites of Israel on Monday.
In April, UNESCO’s executive board released and then adopted a resolution, calling Israel “the Occupying Power” and urging it to “stop all violations against Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif [the Arabic name of a holy site in East Jerusalem].”
At the same time the resolution did not include the Israeli name of the site, known as Temple Mount, nor did it reference its role in Jewish culture. France is among the 33 countries that voted for the resolution. Jerusalem protested the resolution and the French vote on it.
France will never deny the “existing, true” Jewish historical right to Jerusalem, Valls was quoted as saying by The Jerusalem Post. “Unfortunate and clumsy formulations befell the language of UNESCO’s decision to the point of insult. I believe that this should have been avoided and that the vote should not have happened.”
On May 11, Valls condemned the UNESCO resolution.
In the letter to Rabinovitch, he added that Jerusalem “symbolizes the unification of the three major monotheistic religions.”
Palestinians have been vying for the recognition of their independent state, proclaimed in 1988, in the territories of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. The Israeli government refuses to recognize Palestine as an independent political and diplomatic entity, and continues to build settlements on the occupied land, despite objections from the United Nations.
Gary Spedding – Sabbos Goy or Israeli Agent?
By Gilad Atzmon | July 24, 2016
“We in the Palestinian Solidarity Movement Have a Problem With anti-Semitism,” writes Gary Spedding, a pro Palestinian ‘lobbyist’ in the Israeli outlet Haaretz. Spedding claims to be a Palestinian solidarity activist but his activism is better described as that of an ‘Israeli agent.’ Spedding’s article provides us with an extraordinary view of Left duplicity and its disastrous role in the solidarity movement.
“For me,” writes Spedding, “being equipped to recognize and call out anti-Semitism can only strengthen my Palestine advocacy.” And why? Because“having a clear definition of anti-Semitism helps to reassure the Jewish community.” The first question that comes to mind is why a ‘pro’ Palestinian wants to ‘reassure the Jewish community?’ If Spedding really wants to appease the Jews he should join AIPAC or enlist in the IDF’s Unit 300.
Pro Palestinian pretender Spedding doesn’t want us to use “anti-Semitic Jewish power tropes” he doesn’t want us to ‘vilify’ those “Jews who do identify with Zionism.” The obvious next question is, ‘what in hell makes Spedding think that he is a Palestinian solidarity activist?’ This guy is a text book ultra Zionist merchant, probably an Hasbara agent.
Spedding’s criticism of the solidarity movement is identical to the British Jewish Lobby’s campaign against Corbyn. “Some activists have tried to hide their intentions, again playing semantics, by replacing the word ‘Jew’ with ‘Zionist.’ It’s now ‘Zionists control the media’ or ‘Zionists already decided who the next US president will be’ instead of ‘the Jews.” For once, I completely agree with Spedding. Instead of referring to ‘Zionist power’ and ‘Zionist control,’ which are, in fact, misleading terms, we must be honest and straightforward and refer more properly to the ‘Jewish lobby’, ‘Jewish power’ and ‘Jewish interests.’
In total congruence with ardent Zionist Alan Dershowitz, Spedding argues that“Anti-Zionist Jews are also not immune from being complicit in, and promoting, anti-Semitism. If a Jewish person is repeating an anti-Semitic trope it doesn’t suddenly make it kosher for others to repeat.”
Spedding confesses, “when people like me raise concerns about anti-Semitism we are often told that we are ‘useful idiots’ for the Zionists and their agenda.” Well, yes, Spedding is an idiot and a very useful one. He tells us everything we need to know about the dysfunctional Palestinian solidarity movement and the deceitful Left. He helps us to spot the enemy within.
Spedding meticulously repeats the Hasbara guidelines: “We must also stop using the Israel – Nazi Germany analogy.” He support his inane call by quoting Israeli Zionist political commentator, Noam Sheizaf: “Saying someone is a Nazi means he represents the ultimate evil – something that shouldn’t be negotiated or compromised with, but only fought.”
Spedding needs to understand that for many of us Israel, its Lobby, the Neocons and their Zionist interventionist wars do represent the ultimate evil.
Spedding continues, “Activists should walk away from rhetoric that encourages the conflation of right-wing Zionism/Israel’s policies with Judaism and Jewish identity.” Spedding forgot to mention my name here. I claim some of the credit for this ‘conflation’ and I am proud of it. Israel defines itself as the Jewish State, its tanks are decorated with Jewish symbols. Accordingly, each of Israel’s crimes and its Lobby must be interpreted in light of Jewish culture, Jewish identity, Judaism and Jewish heritage!
Spedding insists that “Palestine activists should stop obsessing over identifying whether someone is Jewish or not, with the assumption that Jews must be given a litmus test on whether they’re pro-Israel, and thus assumed to be untrustworthy.” I wonder if Spedding would communicate the same advice to an anti Nazi group in the 1930’s. Would he advise the group not to be suspicious of supporters who, for some peculiar reason, identify politically as ‘Aryans?’
“We on the left” says the presumptive Israeli agent, “must stop procrastinating about anti-Semitism.” And the reason: “The Jewish community is an oppressed group.” I couldn’t agree more. Jews are amongst the poorest people, despite the fact that they are amongst the hardest working people. Jews make up 99% of the West’s population; but their representation in the media, politics, banking and academia is imperceptible. The Left must bring this discrimination to an immediate end. Jews must be proportionally represented once and for all.
Spedding continues, “by tackling anti-Jewish oppression on the left we actually strengthen our movement and allow it to grow.” Corbyn tried to do just that and saw his party reduced to dust. Instead of fighting Jewish power and emancipating his Party from it, Corbyn tried to appease Labour’s Jewish paymasters and the Jewish Lobby. The outcome was disastrous. The British Left is now a nostalgic interest.
Spedding ends his horrendous rant by addressing his comrades: “I urge my fellow activists to be sensitive to the concerns of Jewish individuals and communal groups whenever concerns about anti-Semitism are raised.” I recommend the complete opposite approach. Those who air the concerns of anti-Semitism, people like Spedding, Max Blumenthal, JVP and others, should be presumed to be tribal activists, Israeli agents and/or controlled opposition operatives.
Gary Spedding comes just short of admitting to being guilty of all the above.
Palestinians Lose Hope That Turkey Will Help to Solve Gaza’s Power Crisis
Sputnik | July 23, 2016
Ankara has pledged to help the Gaza Strip to tackle its decade-long electricity crisis as part of a deal to normalize ties with Israel that were severed six years ago, but Palestinians told Sputnik that they doubt that Turkish authorities will deliver on the promise.
Mustapha Al-Agha who lives in Gaza said that locals have lost their hope in Turkey after Ankara decided not to pressure Israel to lift the blockade which has been in place since 2007. Turkey’s “help is limited to humanitarian aid,” he said. “All promises given to the Gaza Strip have turned out to be a ‘downer pill’ meant to receive support for the agreement between Turkey and Israel.”
Itaf Mukhanna, a mother of seven, maintained that lifting the blockade was a priority, urging Arab nations to do something about it.
“Situation here is unbearable. Youth unemployment has worsened. Electricity, water and gas have become an everyday dream that each local is trying to fulfil,” she said.
On June 28, Turkey and Israel announced that they would restore diplomatic ties. Ankara has agreed to provide humanitarian aid to and build a power plant in Gaza as part of this deal. Two weeks later a Turkish delegation visited the region to discuss ways to resolve the crisis with Israeli and Hamas officials.
The delegation is expected to prepare a report that will be directed to Turkey’s Energy and Natural Resources Minister Berat Albayrak, the cabinet and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The government will then work on a roadmap to implement measures outlined in the report.
Last week Turkey delivered 11,000 tons of humanitarian aid meant for Gaza. The cargo was offloaded in the Israeli port city of Ashdod.
The Gaza Strip’s electricity crisis is acute. The region has a single power plant that has operated at less than 50 percent capacity since 2006 when Israel bombed the facility.
Gaza needs at least 450 megawatts per day, but it receives no more than 185 megawatts in the summer and 200 megawatts during the winter, Tare Lubbad, communications director at a Gazan electric company, told Sputnik.
“The energy crisis in the Gaza Strip has become worse since one of [four] generators at the power plant has not been working due to the lack of fuel,” he said.
The plant needs at least 500 tons of fuel per day to operate at its current full capacity, but the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has imposed a tax on fuel purchased in Israel.
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From the Archives
Britain’s secret role in the brutal US war in Vietnam
By Mark Curtis | MintPress News | November 16, 2022
There is a myth the UK did not support Washington’s war against Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, Labour and Conservative governments backed every phase of US military escalation and played secret roles in the conflict, declassified files show.
- UK sent SAS team to Vietnam in 1962, flew secret RAF missions to deliver arms, and provided intelligence to US
- UK governments lied to parliament they were not providing military advice to South Vietnam’s brutal regime
- Labour government secretly gave arms to US for use in Vietnam, stressing need for “no publicity”
- It also connived with Washington to deceive UK public over its support for US
- UK governments knew of atrocities against civilians but backed US war aims
- Whitehall only started to advocate a peaceful solution, on US terms, once the war became unwinnable
During its war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s the US dropped more bombs than in the whole of World War Two, in a conflict that killed over two million people. The wholesale destruction of villages and killing of innocent people was a permanent feature of the US war from the beginning, along with widespread indiscriminate bombing.
Britain’s role in the war has been largely buried and must be almost completely unknown to the public. When the UK media mentions the war now, reports often simply reference the refusal by Harold Wilson’s government to agree to US requests to openly deploy British troops.
Although this was certainly a public rebuff to Washington, Britain did virtually everything else to back the US war over more than a decade, the declassified documents show. … continue
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