SodaStream to shut down West Bank factory, new factory near planned township where Bedouins are being forcefully transferred
IMEMC News & Agencies | September 6, 2015
SodaStream announced, today, that it will finalize the closure of its West Bank factory in two weeks.
SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum commented, earlier, that the boycott only had a “marginal” effect on their business and accused the movement of “antisemitism”, PNN reports.
Mahmoud Nawajaa, The Palestine Boycott National Committee (BNC) General Coordinator, said:
“Coming just as French multinational Veolia has abandoned the Israeli market following a 7-year campaign against its support for settlements that cost it billions of dollars, SodaStream’s announcement today provides further proof that the BDS movement is increasingly able to hold corporate criminals to account for their role in Israeli apartheid and colonialism.
“SodaStream may wish to try and smear our movement, but it is clear that BDS campaigning and the Scarlett Johansson controversy has persuaded retailers across Europe and North America to drop SodaStream and contributed to SodaStream’s share price to tumble by half in the space of a year.
“Even when this closure goes ahead, SodaStream will remain implicated in the displacement of Palestinians. Its new Lehavim factory is close to Rahat, a planned township in the Naqab (Negev) desert, where Palestinian Bedouins are being forcefully transferred against their will. Sodastream, as a beneficiary of this plan, is complicit with this violation of human rights.
“Israel willfully destroys the Palestinian economy in the West Bank, leading to unemployment and economic crisis. The way to tackle this is to challenge Israel’s system of colonialism and apartheid.
“The BDS movement is opposed to all forms of racism, including anti-semitism and Islamaphobia.”
The BNC is the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), the broad coalition of Palestinian civil society organisations that works to support the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
Israel Slammed Over Plans to Demolish 17,000 Palestinian Buildings
Sputnik – 07.09.2015
Israel has plans to demolish 17,000 Palestinian-owned buildings located on mostly occupied land of the West Bank, a UN report has revealed, with concerns the demolitions will cause poverty and leave many families in a “state of chronic uncertainty”.
A report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) concluded that as a result of new and outstanding demolition orders, up to 17,000 structures, including houses, sheds and animal shelters could be knocked down, despite the fact that 77 percent of the buildings are located on privately owned Palestinian land.
The structures under the threat of demolition are located in Area C, a zone in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank where the state of Israel retains full security and administrative control.
Around 300,000 Palestinians live in Area C, which covers 60 percent of the West Bank, and is also the location of many Israeli settlements with a population of around 360,000 — which are deemed illegal under international law.
Close to 4,500 demolition orders are to affect the land of Palestinian Bedouins, who human rights activists say are under threat of losing their homes in exchange for more Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
The UN report raised concerns about the impacts such proposed demolitions might have on Palestinians living in affected areas.
“These orders heighten the vulnerability of thousands of poor Palestinian households, some of whom are at imminent risk of forcible displacement.”
It also pointed out that the manner in which demolition orders are handled adds to the suffering of locals.
“Structures built without permits are regularly served with demolition orders. While only a minority of the orders issued are executed, these orders do not expire and leave affected households in a state of chronic uncertainty and threat,” the report found.
“Where the orders have been implemented, they have resulted in displacement and disruption of livelihoods, the entrenchment of poverty and increased aid dependency.”
‘Nearly Impossible’ Permits
While Israeli officials claim that the buildings are under threat as a result of not having the correct planning permission, others point out the extreme difficulty many face in trying to secure proper construction permits.
According to data from the governing body in charge of affairs in the West Bank — the Israeli Civil Administration — Palestinians submitted 2,020 applications for building permits in Area C between 2010 and 2014, while only 33 were approved.
The report said that planning and zoning rules made “it is nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain building permits in most of Area C.”
Israeli officials have been accused of widespread discrimination over their treatment of Palestinians in Area C, with only one percent of the zone legally earmarked for Palestinian development.
This is contrasted to the 235 illegal Jewish settlements and outposts that have been constructed in the area in recent years. Many critics have argued that while authorities are harshly critical of Palestinian constructions, they turn a blind eye to any potential breaches in Jewish settlements.
The report follows international outrage over Israeli plans to demolish the West Bank village of Khirbet Susiya in July, with EU officials specifically asking Israel to stop the “forced transfer of population and demolition of Palestinian housing” in the area.
Israel building separation wall to keep refugees out
Press TV – September 6, 2015
Amid what is being referred to as the worst refugee crisis since WWII, the Israeli regime has announced construction of a separation wall to keep them out.
During a weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that a 30-kilometer fence is being constructed along Israel’s border with Jordan to stop “migrants,” he associated with terrorists, to enter Israel.
Israel finished the construction of a 230-kilometer wall along the Egyptian border in 2013; it also has set up fences along the border with Lebanon and along the line between Syria and Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Most of the West Bank has also been split by a barrier.
According to Bibi, the wall would connect with the Egyptian barrier and that construction has started along Israel’s eastern border between the city of Eilat and near the site of a new airport in Timna Valley.
“We will continue the fence up to the Golan Heights,” said the Israeli premier. “We will not allow Israel to be submerged by a wave of illegal migrants and terrorist activists.”
Golan Heights has been under the Israeli occupation since the 1960s. The Tel Aviv regime captured 1,200 square kilometers of the Golan Heights during the Six-Day War of 1967 and annexed the region in 1981.
Netanyahu cited Israeli’s “very small” size and lack of “geographic depth or demographic depth” as the reasons behind the measures.
His comments came amid a refugee crisis in Europe due to influx of asylum seekers from conflict-ridden countries in Africa and the Middle East.
The United Nations estimates that 300,000 people have left the Middle East and North Africa for Europe this year, but 2,500 have died in their attempt, mainly through dangerous voyages across the Mediterranean in rickety boats. Media reports, however, say 350,000 have crossed into Europe this year.
Many of the world’s asylum seekers are ill-fated Syrians, fleeing the violence perpetrated by the Daesh Takfiri group.
According to documents from Israeli hospitals, the regime’s army has paid millions of dollars for the costs of treatment to the foreign-sponsored militants, injured during battles with Syrian government forces since 2011.
Gaza water shortage catastrophic: ‘We can’t drink, cook or wash with it’
RT | September 6, 2015
More than 90 percent of the Gaza Strip’s water is undrinkable. The rest is quickly running out. A combination of factors is rapidly depriving the population of this most basic of needs. RT investigated day-to-day life under these conditions.
Just one fresh water source exists today, according to the locals – a coastal aquifer beneath the ground that is shared with Israel and Egypt. But Gaza is situated downstream from Israel, and Palestinians accuse the Jewish state of using the situation to its advantage, employing water deprivation as a tactic against the civilian population.
The grim water statistics are part of a recent UN report on Gaza, which says the strip will become uninhabitable by 2020. A number of reasons compound the problems, according to the document by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
The Gaza Strip’s GDP dropped 15 percent in 2014, with 72 percent of households suffering extremely low food security and unemployment at a record high of 44 percent. Further stress was added by relentless Israeli assaults. With three military operations in the last six years, coupled with eight years of economic blockade, prospects for recovery are looking very bleak.
The UN says that 500,000 people have been displaced in Gaza as a result of last year’s Israeli operation alone. More than 20,000 Palestinian homes were destroyed, and 148 schools and 15 hospitals and 45 primary health-care centers were severely damaged. Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
But worse still is when the populace is deprived of the prime source of life – water. Without it, no reconstruction and no rebuilding of lives can take place. Medicine, sanitation, hygiene and crucial facilities that depend on water all suffer.
RT investigated the extent of the hardship under these conditions.
“We can’t drink it, cook with it, or wash in the kitchen with it… we are forced to buy all the clean water separately,” said Umm Ibrahim Amna Abdel’al, as she stood in her kitchen, little more four bare cement walls and a sink.
A delivery pickup truck trundled through the streets outside with a water tank sitting in the back.
“The last war on Gaza, of course, resulted in the destruction of some of the infrastructure, the water holes and the pumping stations were [heavily hit.] More than 50 percent of the water infrastructure could not be accessed,” said Mahmoud Elkhafif, UNCTAD’s special coordinator for assistance to the Palestinian people.
“Part, of course, vanished,” he added.
RT’s Lizzie Phelan tasted what remains of the Strip’s water for herself: “This coffee tastes like it has salt not sugar in it. That’s because the water that’s used to wash it – like much of Gaza’s water – is contaminated with sea water.”
The woman went on to describe how “tiny kids suffer from cramps and colic” – a syndrome commonly associated with stomach infections.
“See my hand?” she pointed to the irritated skin on her palm. “It is because of the salty water. I have a skin infection. The water is full of salt. It is like sewage.”
And salt isn’t the only problem. The water coming into homes is also full of nitrate – a carcinogen. The levels rose even higher last year, during Israel’s bombardment of sewage pipes and clean water pipes. Now, the two chemicals have mixed.
But even though the water is filthy, Gazans pay exorbitantly for it.
Elkhafif put it bluntly: “Gaza suffers a catastrophic issue with water quality and water supply. And it’s a shame on the world that they are still watching this.”
Unless the situation is resolved, the Strip stands on the brink of a full-scale humanitarian catastrophe much greater than any airstrikes can cause.
Labeling Israeli Settlement Products Not Good Enough
By Stephen Lendman | September 6, 2015
Last spring, 16 European foreign ministers urged EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini to require labeling of all Israeli settlement products – so consumers can buy or avoid them at their discretion.
Labeling is “an important step in the full implementation of EU longstanding policy,” they said. At best, it’s symbolic. At worst, a weak-kneed gesture with no meaningful effect on Israel’s economy.
By year-end or sooner, the EU is expected to decide up or down on labeling. Mogherini said “(t)he work is close to being finished but it is still ongoing.” If implemented, it’ll only be a guideline, not mandated policy. Individual EU states can do what they please – showing what’s being considered is a sham, an insult to long-suffering Palestinians.
Some EU nations already intend to require labeling – regardless of what the European Commission decides. “We have to make sure that consumers can distinguish products that come from the territories occupied by Israel,” Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said.
Over 600,000 Israelis live on stolen Palestinian land – in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Numbers keep increasing exponentially – Palestinians forcibly displaced from their land for exclusive Jewish development.
Palestinian human rights groups justifiably demand a total boycott of all Israeli settlement products. In 2013, Al Haq prepared a report titled “Feasting on the Occupation: Illegality of Settlement Produce and the Responsibility of EU Member States under International Law.”
“Given that trading in settlement goods amounts to a form of recognition and supports the sustainability of entities that violate peremptory norms of international law, a ban on settlement products… is to be considered amongst those actions that Third Party States should undertake to comply with their customary international law obligations,” it states.
Al Haq director Shawan Jabarin said products from settlements “help to sustain their very existence.”
“As things stand, the EU is doing little more than ticking a box by acknowledging that settlements are illegal. Until they support this rhetoric with action and ensure that no assistance or recognition are provided to settlements, even indirectly, any such criticism will continue to be meaningless.”
The EU is Israel’s largest trading partner. Settlement products represent a minuscule percent of Israeli exports. At the same time, they’re important “for the economic viability of many settlements,” the report said.
Economist Shir Hever said “(t)he significance of ending the import of colony products is much larger than the direct financial effect.”
“It (would be) a strong statement reminding Israel of the illegality of the colonization of the West Bank, and a blow to many Israeli and international companies who have turned the occupation into a source of profit.”
It would be a shot across the bow against all Israeli enterprises – a hopeful first step toward greater boycott and divestment from an apartheid state, aiming for total isolation.
Currently, nothing indicates business as usual changing. The 2000 EU/Israel Association Agreement governs relations between the Parties, including strengthening economic cooperation and trade.
Human rights groups blasted the enhanced partnership – showing EU officials say one thing and do another, effectively supporting Israeli high crimes.
After decades of mass slaughter and destruction, ethnic cleansing, illegal occupation and oppression, as well as international complicity with Israeli ruthlessness, mandated boycott, divestment and sanctions more than ever are essential – continued until Israel:
- recognizes Palestinian self-determination unconditionally;
- strictly observes international laws, norms and standards;
- ends its illegal occupation and Gaza blockade unconditionally;
- ends illegal aggression and all other hostile acts;
- dismantles its Separation Wall;
- frees all Palestinian political prisoners unconditionally;
- grants Israeli Arabs equal rights as Jews;
- ends apartheid racism;
- complies with UN resolution 194, affirming the right of diaspora Palestinians to return to their homes and property or be fully compensated for loss or damage if they prefer;
- recognizes East Jerusalem as Palestine’s exclusive capital within June 1967 borders; and
- gives Palestinians control over their land, borders, air space, coastal waters and resources.
Ending Israeli high crimes against defenseless Palestinians is long overdue. Nothing less than its full observance of international law is tolerable.
Hunger strikes continue: Protests across Palestine demand freedom, end of administrative detention
Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network | September 5, 2015
Nidal Abu Aker, Munir Abu Sharar, Badr al-Ruzza, Ghassan Zawahreh, and Shadi Ma’ali are engaged in the “Battle of Breaking the Chains” for the seventeenth day, continuing in their hunger strike to demand the end of administrative detention. All five are imprisoned by the Israeli military without charge or trial on the basis of “secret evidence” and have launched a hunger strike to demand not only their freedom personally, but an end to the policy that has been used against them.
Several more Palestinian prisoners have joined in the hunger strike and its demands: Bilal Daoud Saifi, who like Abu Aker, Zawahreh and Ma’ali is a Palestinian refugee who lives in Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem, who started his strike on 30 August; Suleiman Eskafi of Al-Khalil, an administrative detainee on strike since 1 September; and Amir Shammas of Al-Khalil, an administrative detainee who previoulsy engaged in a hunger strike, had been promised that his detention would not be renewed, but since has had his detention renewed. In addition, Noor Shoukri Jaber, a Palestinian prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment, began a hunger strike on 2 September in protest of lack of medical care and his arbitrary transfer.
All of the striking prisoners have been thrown into isolation in an attempt to pressure them to end their strike and to stop other prisoners from joining the strike.
The “Battle of Breaking the Chains” is sparking actions of support in various cities in Palestine. A permanent tent of support has been set up at the main entrance of Dheisheh refugee camp, where four of the strikers – and three of its leaders – live, and demonstrations of support have been organized in Nablus, Al-Khalil, Bethlehem city, and Ramallah, among other cities.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses its strongest solidarity with the striking prisoners, and calls for international actions, mobilizations and events to demand their freedom. We cannot wait until these brave strugglers are facing death to act and demand not only their freedom as individuals, but the abolition of administrative detention – on the road to freeing every Palestinian prisoner held in Israeli occupation jails. It is not the case that Israeli military courts are any more legitimate, fair or acceptable than administrative detention – they are just as arbitrary, racist and illegitimate. But administrative detention is a weapon of mass terror used against the Palestinian people, and it is critical to bring this practice to an end. These Palestinian prisoners have put their bodies on the line in order to end administrative detention – and it is imperative that we act to support them. These prisoners’ struggle is not only about their individual freedom – it is part of their struggle for return and liberation for Palestine.
Take Action!
1. Sign on to this statement in support of the prisoners’ demand to End Administrative Detention. Organizational and individual endorsements are welcome – and organizational endorsements particularly critical – in support of the prisoners’ demands and their actions. Click here to sign or sign below:http://bit.ly/EndAdministrativeDetention
2. Send a solidarity statement. The support of people around the world helps to inform people about the struggle of Palestinian prisoners. It is a morale booster and helps to build political solidarity. Please send your solidarity statements to samidoun@samidoun.net. They will be published and sent directly to the prisoners.
3. Hold a solidarity one-day hunger strike in your area. Gather in a tent or central area, bring materials about Palestinian prisoners and hold a one-day solidarity strike to raise awareness and provide support for the struggle of the prisoners and the Palestinian cause. Please email us at samidoun@samidoun.net to inform us of your action – we will publicize and share news with the prisoners.
4. Protest at the Israeli consulate or embassy in your area. Bring posters and flyers about administrative detention and Palestinian hunger strikers and hold a protest, or join a protest with this important information. Hold a community event or discussion, or include this issue in your next event about Palestine and social justice. Please email us at samidoun@samidoun.net to inform us of your action – we will publicize and share news with the prisoners.
5. Contact political officials in your country – members of Parliament or Congress, or the Ministry/Department of Foreign Affairs or State – and demand that they cut aid and relations with Israel on the basis of its apartheid practices, its practice of colonialism, and its numerous violations of Palestinian rights including the systematic practice of administrative detention. Demand they pressure Israel to free the hunger strikers and end administrative detention.
6. Boycott, Divest and Sanction. Hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law. Don’t buy Israeli goods, and campaign to end investments in corporations that profit from the occupation. G4S, a global security corporation, is heavily involved in providing services to Israeli prisons that jail Palestinian political prisoners – there is a global call to boycott it. Palestinian political prisoners have issued a specific call urging action on G4S.
Israeli settlers pepper spraying Palestinians in Hebron attacks
Ma’an – September 5, 2015
HEBRON – Israeli settlers from the illegal settlement of Beit Hadasa in Hebron on Saturday attacked a young Palestinian man with pepper spray, witnesses said.
A Ma’an reporter identified the Palestinian man as Ayman al-Fakhori, and said that he had been transferred to Hebron hospital for medical treatment.
An activist group, Youth Against Settlement in Hebron, released video footage of the incident that appears to show the Palestinian scuffling with masked men and one Israeli soldier.
The masked men, identified by the activist group as settlers, then beat the Palestinian, before one of them sprays pepper spray directly into his face.
The masked men then run from the scene along with the Israeli soldier.
Earlier on Saturday, the official Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa reported another incident of a Palestinian being attacked and pepper-sprayed by Israeli settlers in Hebron.
Wafa identified the Palestinian as Jadawi Hani Abu Haykal, 21.
Abu Hakyal’s family reportedly told Wafa that he was attacked near the illegal Israeli settlement of Tel Rumeida and that his body was left severely bruised.
He was reportedly taken to hospital following the incident.
Settler attacks are a routine occurrence in Hebron, where 700 settlers live in 80 homes in the city center, surrounded by nearly 200,000 Palestinians.
Over 100k sign UK online petition calling for Israeli PM’s arrest
Press TV – September 5, 2015
More than 100,000 people in the United Kingdom have now signed a petition demanding the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes against Palestinians when he visits London later this month.
The petition, which was published on the website of the British Parliament on August 7, calls upon the British government to apprehend the 65-year-old chairman of Israel’s Likud party upon arrival in London next Wednesday for the massacre of thousands of Palestinians during the Israeli military’s 50-day onslaught against the blockaded Gaza Strip last year.
The petition garnered 100,021 signatures as of Saturday morning.
“Under international law, he should be arrested for war crimes upon arrival in the UK for the massacre of over 2,000 civilians in 2014,” the petition says, referring to the Israeli prime minister’s scheduled September visit.
After 10,000 signatures, the British government must respond to the petition, and after 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in the parliament.
The British government has, in return, stated that “under UK and international law, visiting heads of foreign governments, such as Prime Minister Netanyahu, have immunity from legal process, and cannot be arrested or detained.”
Israel started its military campaign against the impoverished Gaza Strip in early July 2014. The offensive ended on August 26, 2014. Nearly 2,200 Palestinians, including 577 children, lost their lives in Israel’s war. Over 11,100 others – including 3,374 children, 2,088 women and 410 elderly people – also sustained injuries.
Syrian Suffering vs. Palestinian Suffering
By Robert Fantina | Aletho News | September 4, 2015
The tragic photo of the body of a three-year old Syrian boy, Aylan Kurdi, drowned in the sea when attempting to flee that war-torn nation with his family, is seared on the minds of all but the most heartless of people who have seen it. Still wearing his little sneakers, he would seem to be only asleep, where he not lying alone, face down, on a Turkish beach, having been washed ashore by the tide. The unspeakable horrors that his desperate family fled, at great and, as it turned out, tragic risk, can only be imagined by anyone who has not experienced them. The entire world is crying out for a resolution to the problems that led to the death of this child, his brother, mother and countless other desperate refugees.
But the Syrian refugee crisis is not the only one that is leaving children dead and dying. Such publicity was not granted to Palestinian children, bombed to bits by apartheid Israel, using United States-provided weaponry. Over 500 innocent children were killed in a 51-day period last summer; some of them asleep in their own beds, others huddled in United Nations refugee centers, both places where any child should feel, and should be, safe and secure. Their mangled and bloody bodies were shown on social media, but somehow the corporate-owned media did not find them worthy of reporting.
It is impossible to imagine the horror of Aylan’s family, in the water in the black of night, when Aylan and his brother slipped from their father’s desperate grasp. How the children must have suffered! The feelings of panic and desperation experienced by their parents is nothing Hollywood’s best actors could ever mimic.
Why, then, were not the stories of any Palestinian children told? Their parents too struggled desperately to save them, and the photographs of those parents holding the battered, mangled, bloody bodies of toddlers and infants are no less moving than pictures of Mr. Kurdi, as he speaks of his tragic loss.
In April of this year, a devastating earthquake struck Nepal, killing over 8,000 people, and causing millions of dollars of damage. In response, local stores requested that their customers donate to relief programs. Fundraisers were held, donations solicited, and the world did what it could to help these beleaguered people.
In the summer of 2014, more than 2,000 people were killed in the Gaza Strip, with tens of thousands left homeless. Today, most of them are still homeless, some of them living with friends or relatives fortunate enough to have something left to live in, others living in makeshift shelters, built from the ruins of their homes. Children are attending classes in bullet-ridden schools, with some classrooms having huge holes in the walls or ceilings, evidence of the cruel and barbaric bombing of last summer. Yet there has been little news of this. This writer is not familiar with any local relief activities, or any such activities at all. The only donation solicitations that he has seen have been by Palestinian relief agencies with which he is familiar because he has sought for them.
Relief donations increase when people around the world, especially those in First World nations, see the suffering that the relief is designed to alleviate. Why, one wonders, is the acute suffering of the Palestinian people ignored? Even the unspeakable burning alive of a Palestinian toddler, the killing of his mother and the extremely serious burns experienced by his brother had only a brief moment in the public media.
The corporate-owned media, unfortunately, determines what it wants the world to know, and what it would prefer not to reveal. Zionism dictates that Palestinian suffering is not worth showing to the world. After all, Zionists with prominent cabinet positions in the Israeli government have stated that Palestinians are ‘beasts’, and all of them should be destroyed. Having a fundraiser to assist them is not in the plan.
In May of 2014, two Palestinian teens were videotaped being shot in the back by Israeli Defense Force (IDF) terrorists. Is that not newsworthy? One can only imagine how newsworthy the corporate elite who control the media would consider it if two Israeli teens were shot in the back by Palestinians. Yet the reverse is not true.
It is an age-old truism in the U.S. that the ‘enemy’ is less than human. From ‘gooks’ in Vietnam to ‘sand jockeys’ in the various Gulf wars, the U.S. teaches its own terrorists to view their victims as less than human. Since Israeli lobbies own the U.S. Congress, seeing Palestinians as ‘beasts’, whose suffering is not worthy of cluttering up the vacant minds of the typical U.S. news audience, is completely acceptable. A three-year-old Syrian boy washing up on a beach is tragic; a three-year old Palestinian boy, whose body was destroyed beyond recognition by bombs dropped by Israel, isn’t worth anyone’s notice.
This writer wonders what goes through the mind of a Palestinian parent who has lost one or more children to Israeli bombs, as he or she reads about little Aylan, and sees those heart-rending pictures. Certainly, empathy and sympathy for Mr. Kurdi is foremost in their mind. But do they also wonder why the tragic death of their own child or children was ignored? As they see the world demanding help for Syrian refugees, do they wonder why no one seems to be demanding help for them?
It is long past time for the nation of Palestine to be internationally-recognized by the remaining countries, most notably the United States and, to its great shame, Canada, that thus far do not. It is also long past time for the world to rush in with aid to Gaza, and to demand that Israel adhere to international law, or suffer the sanctions and other consequences that any other nation, violating law and abusing human rights, would experience. The trend is moving in the direction of human rights for Palestinians; their suffering at the hands of Israel and the United States must end.
Six Palestinian Journalists Kidnapped in August
IMEMC News & Agencies | September 3, 2015
The Union of Palestinian Radio and Television documented about 20 Israeli violations regarding the rights of Palestinian journalists and media staff working in Palestine this August.
The Union stated, in the monthly report issued on Thursday, that Israeli forces detained six Palestinian journalists and two photojournalists, including Hazem Obaid, who works for Al-Quds TV.
According to Al Ray, Obaid was detained while he was en route to travel via Al-Karama crossing. Authorities later extended his detention.
The number of journalists, writers and media activists detained in the Israeli jails was up to19 prisoners, by this time, to include Nidal Abu Aker, the director of Bethlehem’s Al-Wehda Radio and presenter of “In Their Cells” programs. Abu Aker has staged a continued hunger strike since August 20th, in protest against the administrative detention policy.
Palestinians, this past month, have witnessed an escalation in the organized attack against Jerusalemite journalists during their coverage of the continued incursions of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the daily events in the city, in general.
During Israel’s latest military offensive on the Gaza Strip, 17 journalists were reported killed by Israeli forces. According to the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA), over 80 percent of Palestinian journalists were engaged in self-censorship by late October of 2014. In a dangerous precedent, Israeli police recently fined Palestine TV photojournalists and crew members of Russia Today TV, under the pretext of “obstruction” caused during their coverage to prevent the entry of worshipers to the Al-Aqsa Mosque from Al-Silsila gate.
Israeli Minister of Culture says Soldiers Should Have Shot Nabi Saleh Women
Al Ray/ World Bulletin | September 3, 2015
Israeli Minister of Culture, Miri Regev, has said that the Israeli army should have shot the Palestinian women who saved Mohammad al-Tamimi from abuse by an Israeli soldier. The incident took place during the Nabi Saleh village’s weekly demonstration against the illegal confiscation of their land, according to a report in Midde East Monitor.
In a Facebook statement, she said that the unarmed protesters should have been shot. Regev called on Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to change the army’s policy on the use of live-fire because of the “humiliation” the soldier endured.
“We need to decide immediately that a soldier that is attacked is permitted to return fire. Period. I call on the minister of security to put an end to the humiliation and change the open fire regulations immediately!”
“Anyone who tries to harm Israeli civilians and soldiers needs to know his blood is in his head,” Regev continued, using a Hebrew expression to convey that the Palestinians who assaulted the soldier are fair game for shooting.
Israeli forces took the parents of the boy into custody on Tuesday.
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“Democratic Institutions?” – 10 Lessons from history that will destroy your trust in the CIA
By Kit | OffGuardian | July 20, 2018
… At every corner, we are urged to simply believe what we are told. Whether it is about believing Porton Down and MI6 about “novichok”, or believing the White Helmets about Sarin, or believing the FBI about “collusion”, we are presented with no facts, just assertions from authority. Those who question those assertions are deemed “bots” at best or “traitors” at worst.
Well here, fellow traitors, are the Top Ten reasons to question anything and everything the CIA – or any intelligence agency – has ever told you. … Read full article
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