American lawyers request investigation into the Jewish National Fund status
PNN/Bethlehem – March 31, 2016
The U.S. National Lawyers Guild (NLG) on Wednesday submitted a regulatory challenge to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requesting an investigation into the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) on grounds of discrimination and contravention of U.S. policy.
According to the NLG, the JNF enjoys tax-exempt status as a charitable organization in the United States even though the reality of its work- supporting Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine – is anything but charitable.
The JNF’s mandate is to promote racist and discriminatory policies such as forcibly displacing Palestinians from their lands to make way for Jewish-only housing developments, including inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
The JNF’s support for illegal settlement activity in the occupied West Bank and in occupied East Jerusalem also means its activities violate longstanding official U.S. policies against settlements, as well as international law.
“The IRS has an obligation to revoke the JNF’s status because of its involvement in displacing Palestinian Bedouins from the Negev Desert and elsewhere, and because of its support for illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank,” said Andrew Dalack, one of the co-chairs of the NLGIC’s Palestine Subcommittee. “How can the IRS certify with a straight face that the JNF is organized for a charitable purpose when it engages in conduct that violates international law and well-established U.S. foreign policy?”
The regulatory challenge is part of a larger international Stop the JNF Campaign that seeks to end the JNF’s role in Israel’s continuing displacement of Palestinians.
Efforts targeting the JNF are part of a growing boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement in support of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice, and equality.
The campaign is calling for people to take part in Days of Action from March 30-April 18 (Tax Day) to pressure the IRS to respond to the regulatory challenge and launch an investigation into the JNF.
“The JNF is complicit in Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and it is completely unacceptable that an organization engaging in war crimes is considered to be a charity in the United States,“ said Ramah Kudaimi of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. “It is also confusing how U.S. policy is clear about settlements being a primary obstacle to peace but Americans are allowed to give money to an organization that supports these very same settlements.”
Founded in 1901, the JNF is a quasi-governmental Israeli agency that has played a major role in the dispossession of the Palestinians people, planting forests to help cover the reality of the more than 400 Palestinian towns and villages destroyed when Israel was created in 1948.
Today the JNF continues to play an important role in the dispossession of Palestinians in both in the 48 territories -Israel– and the in the occupied West Bank.
The complaint was filed on Land Day because on this day Palestinians commemorate the day in 1976 when the IOF killed six Palestinians who were peacefully protesting the appropriation of their land.
“For nearly 70 years Palestinians have been resisting Israel’s continued theft of our land,” said Nick Sous of the US Palestinian Community Network. “So many Palestinians have been directly impacted by Israel’s stealing their land with the support of the JNF and it is shameful that the IRS actually awards people who donate to support these illegal actions by allowing them to get a tax write-off.”
Hamas slams Twitter for closing of accounts
Press TV – April 1, 2016
Hamas has slammed Twitter for closing several accounts linked to the Palestinian resistance movement, saying the company is biased in favor of the Israeli regime.
The Hamas military wing, Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement on Friday that its English- and Arabic-language accounts had been shut down for the third time in a fortnight.
Twitter is showing a “clear bias to the Israeli occupation where it should (adopt a) neutral position toward both sides,” the statement added.
It said that the closure comes while Twitter allows Israeli officials to encourage “racism, extremism and terrorism” on the social networking site.
Qassam also urged Twitter to reopen its accounts, saying one of those closed accounts had been followed by over 140,000 followers.
Twitter declined to comment, saying in a statement that the company does not comment on individual accounts citing “privacy and security reasons.”
Since its establishment in December 1987, Hamas has refused to recognize Israel and adopted resistance against the Israeli occupation, which it believes is the sole way of bringing about the liberation of occupied Palestinian territories. The movement says its goal is to liberate the entire Palestine.
The Palestinian resistance movement scored a landslide victory in Palestinian elections in 2006. Hamas has ruled the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, while Fatah has set up headquarters in the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank.
Israel has waged three large-scale aerial and ground wars on Gaza in the past seven years. In its latest act of aggression in the summer of 2014, which lasted for 50 days, the regime killed about 2,200 Palestinians and inflicted heavy damage on Gaza’s infrastructure and economy. In that latest Israeli aggression, Twitter shut down most of Hamas’ accounts.
Why do Palestinians commemorate Land Day?
Palestinian Information Center – April 1, 2016
Palestinians commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Land Day on Wednesday, March 30 with various events. To understand the importance of that Day and why it is observed each year we should go back a little bit in history.
In 1976, the Israeli authorities confiscated large areas of Palestinian lands in the Galilee triggering large-scale protests that ended with killing 6 Palestinians and the injury of more than 100 others.
Palestinians all over the world commemorate the Day in marches and rallies to reflect their resilience in facing the Israeli occupation.
The events actually date back to the establishment of Israel in 1948, also known as the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe), when around 150,000 Palestinians remained in their homes in historical Palestine.
Israel granted them the Israeli nationality, but it kept confiscating their lands and restricting their rights to encourage their migration out of their homeland.
In 1976, the Israeli authorities confiscated vast areas of the lands of these Palestinians in regions with Palestinian majority in the Galilee, a region in northern Palestine.
Israel reacted to the nonviolent protests of Palestinians by gunfire and brutal force. Six Palestinians were slaughtered, more than a hundred injured, and many more arrested.
Resistance Day
Dr. Ghassan Wishah, head of the Department of History and Archeology at the Islamic University of Gaza, stressed the need of informing the world about the importance of this Day, saying, “When Zionists declared the establishment of their state in 1948, they expelled two thirds of the Palestinian people and took over 78% of the their land.”
He added that a significant number of Palestinians persisted in their homes, and Israel started attempts to brainwash them so they would forget about Palestine.
Wishah pointed out, “This Day shows the world that Palestinians insist on their demands, that Israel has failed, and that the new generation is stronger than the older one.”
Demands
Ghassan al-Shami, a political analyst and a specialist in the Palestinian history, said, “We can never forget our land especially with the Israeli occupation stealing thousands of acres and building settlements on a daily basis.”
He stated that hard work is required so that Palestinians would devote more time and effort toward their lands through events on the ground and on social media to put pressure on Israel to stop the Judaization attempts of the Palestinian lands.
Al-Shami stressed the importance of delivering the Palestinian message to the world in all possible ways to win international support for regaining the Palestinian lands and rights.
Israeli forces demolish walls in home of slain Palestinian attacker
Israeli forces demolish the home of Ihab Maswada in Hebron on March 31, 2016. (Photo: Israeli army)
Ma’an – March 31, 2016
HEBRON – Israeli forces late Wednesday demolished part of the home belonging to the family of a Palestinian who was shot dead after stabbing an Israeli settler in December.
Locals said that Israeli forces closed all the entrances of the Jabal al-Sharif area in the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron, and deployed heavily around the home of Ihab Fathi Maswada, as well as the house of Abd al-Rahman Yusri Maswada.
Ihab Maswada was killed on Dec. 7 after carrying out a stabbing attack against a settler near the Abu al-Rish checkpoint in southern Hebron. The Israeli settler succumbed to his wounds weeks later.
Maswada’s cousin, Abd al-Rahman, was killed on site on Dec. 9 after stabbing two Israelis on al-Shuhada Street.
Ihab Maswada’s brother said Israeli soldiers only gave the family ten minutes to evacuate the house, forcing them to go on the house’s second floor while they demolished the internal walls of the home.
Maswada’s mother said that Israeli soldiers then “fired a stun grenade inside the house and left the house laughing.”
Israeli authorities first issued a demolition order for Maswada’s home in early February, but had already threatened to destroy the house days after his death. His father said the demolition order was issued three days ago and that soldiers told them the demolition would be carried out in a week.
“We were surprised when they showed up after midnight,” he said.
Punitive home demolitions were expedited at the request of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in mid-October, and many have been carried out since.
The move came despite past recommendations by an Israeli military committee that the practice does not deter attacks.While families who receive demolition orders are given the opportunity to appeal the measures, Israel’s High Court of Justice typically rejects such appeals, according to Israeli watchdog Hamoked.
Israeli rights group B’Tselem condemned the practice in October as “court sanctioned revenge,” carried out on family members who have not committed crimes, amounting to collective punishment.
Israeli forces demolish the home of Ihab Maswada on March 31, 2016 in Hebron. (Photo: Israeli army)
Israeli forces demolish the home of Ihab Maswada on March 31, 2016 in Hebron. (Photo: Israeli army)
Land Day: Palestinian anti-colonial struggle against land confiscation, for freedom and liberation
samidoun – Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network | March 30, 2016
30 March 2016 marks the 40th Land Day, a day of Palestinian struggle against settler colonialism and celebration of the connection of the Palestinian people to the land that continues despite expropriation and dispossession. The day marks the anniversary of the mass upsurge inside Occupied Palestine ’48 on 30 March 1976, in response to an Israeli state attempt to confiscate over 20,000 dunums of land from Palestinians in the Galilee; like today, Israeli “citizenship” has never spared Palestinians from land confiscation and dispossession on their soil.
Thousands of Palestinians in ’48, those with Israeli citizenship imposed upon them by the state, who remained on the land after 80% of Palestinians were expelled in the Nakba, rose up with a general strike and mass popular protests in the most visible resistance to the Israeli state and its policies of dispossession since the Nakba. They were met with massive state violence, and the killing of six Palestinians – Kheir Mohammad Salim Yasin, Khadija Qasem Shawahneh, Raja Hussein Abu Rayya, Khader Eid Mahmoud Khalayleh, Muhsin Hasan Said Taha and Raafat Ali Al-Zheiri – by the Israeli army as they marched to defend their land.
Just as Palestinians in ’48 face state violence, land confiscation, and the racist policies of Zionism, they also confront imprisonment, arrests and repression. There are currently 75 Palestinian “security” prisoners from Occupied Palestine ’48, housed with fellow Palestinians and facing the same restrictions and denial of rights. Karim Younis, the longest-imprisoned Palestinian prisoner, is from Occupied Palestine ’48 as is his cousin Maher; indeed, six of the seven Palestinian prisoners imprisoned over 30 years for their role in the Palestinian resistance are from Occupied Palestine ’48: Karim and Maher Younis, Walid Daqqa, Rushdi Abu Mukh, Ibrahim Abu Mukh and Ibrahim Bayadseh. Palestinian theater Al-Midan in Haifa was subjected to state scrutiny, repression and denial of funds for its exhibition of Palestinian culture, which included the theatrical performace of a short story by Daqqa.
They have been consistently denied release in both prisoner exchanges with the Palestinian resistance and in Oslo-negotiations-based prisoner releases, as the Israeli state attempts to separate them as “Israeli citizens” from their fellow Palestinian prisoners in releases and labels them a “domestic matter“. At the same time, they are housed with fellow Palestinian prisoners, denied family visits, forced to see family only through glass, and held in solitary confinement while Israeli “criminal” prisoners – and even the rare Israeli Jewish prisoner held as a “security” prisoner for extreme-right violence – are granted temporary releases, their sentences limited and lowered, and allowed lengthy family visits, furloughs, and conjugal visits.
Palestinian prisoners from Occupied Palestine ’48 include the long-time prisoners held since the 1980s as well as Lena Jarbouni, the longest-serving woman Palestinian prisoner; Ameer Makhoul, the imprisoned director of Ittijah, the Union of Arab Community-Based Associations; and Asmaa Hamdan, the 19-year-old Palestinian woman ordered to administrative detention without charge or trial for sending a text message to her family.
The roots of the Israeli military system currently imposed upon Palestinians in the West Bank were derived from British colonial military orders imposed on Palestine – and then on the martial law imposed on Palestinians in occupied Palestine ’48 until 1966, used to undermine all attempts of Palestinians organizing inside their occupied homeland to organize and defend their land.
For example, the Al-Ard movement, which was composed of Palestinians in ’48, founded in 1958, was outlawed in 1964; its very name highlighted the centrality of the land and the struggle to preserve of its Palestinian and Arab identity. The criminalization of the movement only reinforced the defense of the land as central to a movement of indigenous people struggling to defend “the imprisoned land” from colonization.
Cultural resistance was critical for the Palestinians of ’48. Describing the growth of resistance poetry, Ghassan Kanafani wrote, “Many popular poets were put in prison or confined under severe restrictions. And as the trend of popular poetry grew and expanded, the occupying forces extended their tyrannical, measures, killed some poets and prohibited all Arab gatherings. Such measures could not anyhow uproot this trend of resistance but rather kept it dormant for almost five years to burst anew with intense force and vitality.” Poets like Samih al-Qasim and Mahmoud Darwish were imprisoned; the resistance poetry of the prison became a major contribution of the Palestinians of ’48 to Palestinian culture.
Palestinian organizations were outlawed while Palestinians were denied freedom of movement, speech and association; at the same time, the confiscation of Palestinian land continued in an ongoing Nakba; by 1993, over 80% of lands under the control of Palestinians after the Nakba in Israel were confiscated. Palestinians in ’48 were, and are, an integral part of the modern Palestinian revolution as well as fellow victims of Israel’s repression and racist violence.
Palestinians in ’48 are at the center of organizing Palestinian support for all prisoners; as most Palestinian prisoners are held within the 1948 occupied areas, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Palestinian political leaders and activists engage in visits, demonstrations outside prisons, and campaigns of support. The Palestinian movement in ’48 has played a critical role in supporting, publicizing and defending Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli hospitals, including Mohammed al-Qeeq, Khader Adnan, Mohammed Allan and many others.
Today, 40 years later, Palestinians throughout occupied Palestine continue to resist and confront settlement expansion, land confiscation, racism, Zionism and apartheid. From the expansion of settlements, to the destruction of villages and the confiscation of land, to the ban on Palestinian agricultural products entering Jerusalem, to new racist laws proposed daily atop a racist foundation, the Israeli state continues – and is intensifying – its policy of attempting to sever the Palestinian people from the land of Palestine.
Land Day is a day of anti-colonial struggle for all Palestinians: for Palestinian prisoners, struggling for freedom in their homeland; for Palestinians in ’48, struggling against apartheid, racism, and dispossession; for Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank, struggling against ethnic cleansing, occupation, home demolitions, land confiscation and settlement construction; for Palestinians in Gaza, struggling against siege and the occupation of the skies, seas and borders; for Palestinians in exile and diaspora everywhere, struggling for the right of return and the liberation of the land of Palestine. It is also an international day of anti-colonial struggle that salutes the struggles of indigenous people in North America, Australia, New Zealand and everywhere confronting settler colonialism, genocide and racism, and the liberation movements everywhere confronting imperialism and exploitation of land, people and resources.
As the extreme-right Zionist government of Netanyahu, Ayelet Shaked, Naftali Bennet, Miri Regev, Moshe Ya’alon, Gilad Erdan, Uri Ariel and their compatriots intensify the repression of Palestinians in ’48 and throughout Palestine, it is critical more than ever to intensify our efforts to defend the Palestinian people and Palestinian land, including the campaign to free all Palestinian prisoners. The international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions, and the Palestinian call that has inspired and led that campaign, highlights the struggle of Palestinians in ’48 for justice and equality as central to Palestinian freedom and justice in Palestine. On the 40th Land Day, we must escalate global boycott and BDS campaigns and the international isolation of Israel – and the corporations, like G4S, that profit from its oppression and racism.
The occupation of Palestinian land is the central facet of the settler colonial Zionist project in Palestine; Land Day marks the unity of the Palestinian land, people, and cause, everywhere inside and outside Palestine, for defending and liberating the land and people of Palestine.
Historical References:
Less than 5% of new flats built in Arab areas in Israel last year
MEMO | March 30, 2016
Arab residents in Israel received only 4.6 per cent of the newly built apartments during 2015, a reported issued yesterday revealed. The report, which was issued by the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel Adalah, said that it monitored government bidding for building new apartments in 2015 and found that Israel is adopting “racial” policies in this regard and it resulted in a “severe residential crisis” in Arab villages and cities in Israel.
According to the report, which was prepared by the Lawyer Mohamed Bassam from Adalah, the overwhelming majority of land and houses marketed during the year were specified for Jewish communities.
Statistics showed that the Arab residents in Israel only had 4.6 per cent of the marketed houses during 2015; however, Arabs make up 20 per cent of the Israeli population.
Only 2.5 per cent of the apartments marketed with discounted prices were available to Arabs.
Regarding the number of bids for industrial zones, the report showed that the Arab cities and villages received only two of 20, and five out of 42 bids to establish commercial zones.
Adalah warned in its report that a solution for the residential crisis of the Palestinian community in Israel will never be achieved unless Israel reforms the historical “deep racial” plans adopted against Arabs.
Israeli forces ‘assault’ Palestinians detained for Facebook posts
Ma’an – March 30, 2016
RAMALLAH – Four Palestinians arrested this week for Facebook posts have spoken of physical assault during their detention and interrogation, in the latest evidence to emerge of abuse that rights groups say is systemic in Israel’s jails.
The testimonies were collected by the Palestinian Committee for Prisoners’ Affairs and relate to four Palestinian youths, including at least two teenagers detained overnight Tuesday.
Hussein al-Sheikh, a lawyer with the committee, said 19-year-old Sameh Abu Sel was “seriously assaulted” when Israeli forces stormed his home in al-Arrub refugee camp north of Hebron on Tuesday.
The youth was tied up and left outdoors in cold weather for more than 10 hours, al-Sheikh said, noting that the mistreatment left him sick.
Meanwhile, al-Sheikh said that 18-year-old Ahmad Raed Jadallah, from Beit Ur at-Tahta in Ramallah district, was physically assaulted by Israeli forces during the four-hour drive to the Etzion detention center after he too was detained Tuesday.
The lawyer also cited two other recently detained Palestinians — Muhammad Mahmoud Othman and Muhammad Samer Othman — who also spoke of being physically assaulted in the Etzion detention center, although no further details were provided.
All four detainees were charged with “inciting violence” against Israel in posts made Facebook, al-Sheikh said.
In recent months, Israeli has detained scores of Palestinians for social media activity, alleging that a wave of unrest that swept the occupied Palestinian territory last October was encouraged largely by “incitement.”
Palestinians have instead pointed chiefly to the frustration and despair brought on by Israel’s nearly 50-year military occupation of the Palestinian territory and the absence of a political horizon.
Those detained for Facebook posts join an estimated 7,000 Palestinians currently inside Israeli prisons, where reports of mistreatment and torture is common.
Earlier this year, Israeli rights group B’Tselem released a report documenting “systemic” torture in Israel’s Shkima prison, which they said was taking place with total impunity.
Israeli Minster Calls for “Civil Targeted Killings” of BDS Leaders
By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | March 30, 2016
The Yediot Achronot conference attacking BDS has become a veritable carnival of hate. Everyone from delusional Hollywood celebrities (Roseanne Barr) to cabinet ministers, to the leader of the Opposition have pledged fealty to the cause.
But the apogee came yesterday when Transportation Minister Israel Katz called for the “civil targeted killing” of BDS leaders like Omar Barghouti. The phrase he used (sikul ezrahi memukad) derives from the euphemistic Hebrew phrase for the targeted killing of a terrorist (the literal meaning is “targeted thwarting”). But the added word “civil” makes it something different. Katz is saying that we won’t physically murder BDS opponents, but we will do everything short of that.
One may rightly ask what business a transportation minister has conducting targeted killings, physical or otherwise, against anyone. Though everything in Israel is in service to the national security state, has transportation fallen under that bailiwick as well?
We are entering dangerous territory when an Israeli cabinet minister engages in wordplay that verges on putting a bull’s-eye on the backs of non-violent activists. If there are Israel apologists out there who dismiss the significance of such rhetoric they are sadly mistaken. In this torrid political environment in which Israeli leftists have become criminals and wounded Palestinian youth may be summarily executed in the street, it is only too easy to foresee Palestinian activists like Barghouti having a bounty on their heads.
Does anyone doubt there are scores of Yigal Amirs out there who’d be pleased to strike a blow for their hateful cause by putting a bullet in the head of a Palestinian?
Not to be outdone, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri called for stripping BDS founder Omar Barghouti of his Israeli residency, which he gained in 1994 when he married an Israeli citizen. Deri claimed that Barghouti is employing a scam against Israel because his main residence is Ramallah and not Israel (though he’s pursuing, or has completed, an MA at Tel Aviv University). Given Katz’s ever so veiled threat against him it would be no wonder if Barghouti did choose to value his safety and live where he’s not under threat of death.
In this context, it’s ironic Facebook activists have posted a gag order involving a potential criminal case against Deri himself. It seems that the Israeli Attorney General has been investigating criminal charges of an unspecified nature. It’s important to recall that Deri has been charged with corruption in the past, been convicted, and spent time in prison. However, when his sentence was served, he was reappointed to the leadership of the Shas party, won a seat in the Knesset, and became interior minister. It appears this recycled thief may be up to the same old tricks once more.
Deri’s spiritual boss, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, told an audience of the faithful a few weeks ago that under Jewish law, no Palestinian should be allowed to live in the land of Israel. In other words, he was espousing the ethnic cleansing of Israel, and the expulsion of 20% of its population. Only later did the rabbi explain that he wasn’t, God forbid, proposing that Palestinians be expelled now, but that this would only happen after the Messiah came and Israel was a proper halachic state. Is it any surprise that Deri himself would jump on the band wagon and commence the expulsion by stripping Barghouti of his legal rights to residency?
Israel’s major concert promoter, Shuki Weiss, who plays a major role in combating the cultural boycott against Israel, complained at the Yediot conference that Deri’s interior ministry was demanding that international artists wishing to perform in Israel sign a loyalty oath in order to obtain a visa. The ministry immediately denied the claim. And concert promoters aren’t known for being fonts of truth. So it’s hard to know what’s the truth in this context. But given how extreme this government is and how petty its leadership, it’s not hard to believe a ministry official would think it was a terrific idea to pressure Elton John to sign a loyalty oath before permitting him to step foot in the Holy Land.
Knesset passes first reading of bill to suspend Palestinian MKs
Ma’an – March 29, 2016
BETHLEHEM – Israel’s Knesset on Monday night passed the first reading of a bill that would allow MKs to expel lawmakers, in what has been roundly condemned as a political campaign launched against the parliament’s Palestinian members.
The law could see lawmakers suspended from their duties if voted for by 90 MKs — three-quarters of Israel’s lawmakers — for behavior deemed inappropriate.
The bill — an amendment to an existing law — could see an MK suspended for “negating” the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, incitement to racism, or supporting an armed struggle against Israel, according to the Association for Civil Rights (ACRI) in Israel.
It stipulates that grounds for suspension can be proved solely by a statement provided by MKs, the group said.
A draft of the bill was submitted and approved upon the urging of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who last month called for the suspension of three Palestinian MKs when they visited the families of Palestinians killed while allegedly carrying out attacks on Israelis.
The three MKs — all members of the Joint Arab List, which represents Palestinians with Israeli citizenship — were later suspended by the Knesset’s Ethics Committee.
During Monday’s Knesset meeting, the Joint List slammed the bill as “racist and unconstitutional.”
“The suspension law has only one aim, to strike against the political existence of Palestinians in Israel,” the coalition of four Palestinian parties said in a statement following Monday’s vote.
It condemned the bill as a “continuation of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians” by Israel, which it said was carried out through incitement and threats.
“What Netanyahu does not understand is that just as ethnic cleansing failed to strain our (Palestinian) existence, political cleansing will not succeed in stopping our political movement and resistance,” the Joint List went on.
“We reject that a radical and racist occupation government draws limits on our political capability by setting conditions on our parliamentary membership,” the group added.
Ahead of Monday’s meeting, Joint List head Ayman Odeh warned last month that he and other Palestinian members of the Israeli Knesset may resign if the bill was passed.
The first reading was passed despite efforts by ACRI to urge MKs to vote against the bill, saying that “freedom of expression is expressed precisely through respecting and being inclusive of positions that are considered extreme.”
“This law is being promoted to harm the Arab MKs, whose statements and actions do not find favor with the political majority,” ACRI said.
Netanyahu’s championing of the bill has exacerbated longstanding frustrations from members of the Joint List who say they have faced staunch resistance from the Israeli government since they came together.
The coalition was formed ahead of the last round of Israeli elections to fight for the rights of Israel’s Palestinian minority, which rights groups say has faced systematic discrimination for decades.
Israeli bill on prison sentences for minors ‘targets Palestinian children’
By Chloe Benoist – Ma’an – March 29, 2016
BETHLEHEM – The Israeli Knesset on Tuesday approved the first reading of a bill which would allow Israeli courts to hand down prison sentences to minors under the age of 14 — legislation critics say is targeted at Palestinian children.
A recent amendment to the bill, which would apply to children convicted of murder, attempted murder, and homicide, reportedly declared that the prison terms would be postponed until the accused minors turn 18.
If passed into law after two more successful readings in the Knesset, the legislation would apply to residents of Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, whereas Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are tried in military courts.
According to prisoners’ rights group Addameer, at least 108 Palestinian minors under the age of 16 were being held by Israel as of February.
“Unfortunately, terrorism does not have an age, and today there are no punishments matching the cruel reality we face,” The Jerusalem Post quoted Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked as saying on Sunday. “In order to create deterrence and change the situation around us, we must adopt the suggested new amendments to the law.”
Shaked first proposed the bill in November, after two Palestinian children ages 12 and 13 allegedly stabbed and injured an Israeli security guard on Jerusalem’s light rail near the illegal Israeli settlement of Pisgat Zeev.
An increase in violence in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel has led to the death of more than 200 Palestinians and nearly 30 Israelis since October, with a wave of small-scale attacks and attempted attacks, the majority carried out by Palestinian individuals on Israeli military targets.
Knesset member Yousef Jabareen of the Joint Arab List has criticized the bill as an affront to international law.
“Israel is a party to the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, and this change contradicts Israel’s obligation to this convention,” the politician, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, told Ma’an.
The convention states that “the arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.”
According to Jabareen, Shaked’s statements regarding the bill leave little doubt as to who will be the main targets of such legislation.
“This bill targets Palestinian children,” he said. “Of course the bill is written in objective terms, but everyone knows the context in which it is being presented, and I doubt it will be used in other contexts.”
“This is an integrant part of a wave of bills introduced in the past few months which are harshening punishments for Palestinian children and families, especially in East Jerusalem,” Jabareen added.
The MK notably mentioned a law passed by the Knesset in July which made penalties for stone-throwing more severe, allowing for stone-throwers to receive a 20-year prison sentence where intent to harm could be proven, and 10 years where it could not.
Jabareen said he believed the bill would likely pass into law.
“Unfortunately, in the current atmosphere, there is a good chance the bill will pass,” he said. “Even some opposition MKs support the bill.”
However, he expressed doubts that the legislation would effectively act as a deterrent.
“The (Israeli) government is attempting to oppress and suppress the Palestinian resistance, but everybody knows that without a serious proposal for advancing the political process, they are doomed to fail.”
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The Crusades – colliding narratives
Ashes of Pompeii | June 13, 2026
They say history is written by the victors, but the Crusades offer an interesting historical contrast: a two-century collision that produced not one history, but two parallel, irreconcilable realities. The dates and the battles are identical in both accounts, but the moral axis is entirely flipped.
In the traditional Western narrative, the Crusades are framed as a heroic, if tragic, epic. The First Crusade is a pious pilgrimage; the knights are romanticized figures of chivalry in shining armor, bravely holding the line in a hostile, exotic land. The eventual loss of the Holy Land is mourned as the “fall of Outremer,” a tragic retreat of European civilization. In this telling, the East is often reduced to a passive backdrop, its inhabitants viewed through a lens of mystique or backwardness, mere obstacles to a divine mandate.
But cross the Mediterranean, and the exact same timeline reads like a chronicle of foreign invasion and eventual, hard-won restoration against the barbarous northerners. The dates do not change, but the adjectives do. Here is the history as it is remembered in the Levant… continue
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