Report: 100 Israeli attacks during June
Palestine Information Center – 01/07/2013
RAMALLAH — In its monthly report, the Information Center of the Wall and Settlement documented an escalation in Israeli attacks during June including demolition notices and settlement expansion.
The report issued on Sunday monitored 98 Israeli assaults during June including 23 demolition operations mostly in Jordan alley and Jenin.
The report also pointed out 57 demolition orders in al-Khalil, 11 demolition notifications in Jerusalem, and 6 others in Bethlehem.
During June, the Israeli authorities declared the establishment of 3,341 housing units in West Bank settlements, and approved the construction of a huge building in Wadi al-Hilweh, known as Giv’ati parking, as part of the Israeli Judaization schemes in occupied Jerusalem.
Israel’s Jerusalem District Committee for Planning and Building has prepared an outline to connect the Jewish quarter in the Old Town Square with Al-Buraq Square through building underground elevators and corridors, the report added.
For its part, the Israeli Municipality has established a new road to link between the occupied city of Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim settlement.
The monthly report referred to Israeli settlers’ escalated attacks where 14 Palestinian citizens were assaulted, and 30 cars were burned, in addition to stealing Palestinian monuments in Bethlehem and closing main streets that connect Palestinian villages and cities.
The Information Center also documented several Israeli break-ins into al-Aqsa mosque during June.
Related articles
- Jewish settlers attack buses filled with children in Jerusalem (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- UN statement on Israeli plan to relocate Palestinians to build houses for settlers (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Maximum Land with Minimum Palestinians: The Annexation of Area C (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- More Israeli settler-terrorism: Settlers attack two Palestinian buses in Jerusalem (altahrir.wordpress.com)
- Report: “1790 Palestinians Kidnapped, 16 Killed, In First Half of 2013” (imemc.org)
- Palestine: Al Aqsa mosque stormed, demolition orders & more lands confiscated (realisticbird.wordpress.com)
Maximum Land with Minimum Palestinians: The Annexation of Area C
In the vast majority of Area C Israel denies Palestinians any opportunity to build or develop.
By Sam Gilbert | Palestine Chronicle | June 29 2013
Early this month Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem published a report on Israel’s policy in Area C and its implications for the population of the West Bank. Less then a week later Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, in the midst of Kerry’s attempts to start the stalled peace talks, reiterated his plan to annex all of Area C to the Israeli state, bringing with it the 350,000 some od settlers as well as 62% of land of the West Bank.
In a conference held by the settler Yesha Council Bennett said “the attempt to establish a Palestinian state in our land has ended … That we need to Annex area C of the West Bank now because the idea of creating a Palestinian state there is over.”
Bennett’s comments were met with international condemnation, the timing of his words seen as purposefully undermining Kerry’s attempt to restart the stalled peace negotiations. These comments, along with others from the Israeli right, have been presented as marginal within the mainstream Israeli political discourse. However the substance of Israeli policy and practice in the West Bank requires that these ideas been taken seriously.
Bennett’s Israel Stability Initiative published in 2012 lays out his plan for annexation, while B’tselem’s Report on Area C outlines the application and effect of Israeli Policy in Area C from 1995 till today. Each report has fundamentally different political objectives yet both provide a window into Israeli politics and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (oPt).
The Israel Stability Initiative
In 2012 Naftali Bennett presented a 7-point plan for managing the Arab-Israeli Conflict in Judea and Samaria, the biblical term for the West Bank. The Israel Stability Initiative outlines a plan whereby Area C, the territory that Israel maintains full security and planning control after the Oslo agreement, would be annexed to Israel and the Palestinian State would be created in the disconnected cannons of areas B and C. Bennett’s plan would naturalize the 50,000 Arab residents (official number at 180,000), along with the 350,000 Israeli settlers. No Palestine refugee would be allowed to return to the west bank or Israel, and Gaza would be left to fend for itself.
The PA would be granted, “Full autonomy in areas A and B” while Israel would maintain a “full security umbrella for all of Judea and Samara.” The IDF would maintain a strong presence and complete security control over all of Judea and Samaria.”
While this proposal might seem especially partial to Israeli interests, B’tselem’s recent report on Area C shows how Bennet’s plan is in essence the institution of permanence for something has already become the de-facto reality in the west bank today.
B’Tselem Report
Earlier this month B’Tselem published a 111 page report titled “Acting the Landlord: Israeli Policy in Area C, the West Bank. The report presents Israel’s policy in Area C and explores its implications for the population of the West Bank as a Whole.
Area C is a product of the Oslo accords, an interim agreement that was supposed to lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state next to Israel. In 1995 the interim agreement went into effect in West Bank and the region was divided into three administrative categories A, B and C. “Area A: Under full control of the Palestinian Authority, comprising 18 percent of west bank including most Palestinians cities and population center. Area B, 22%: Israel retains military control while PA controls civil matters. Area C, 60 percent: Israel controls security and land related matters, including land allocation, planning and construction, and infrastructure.”
These divisions were based on demography not geography, with A and B subdivided into 165 disconnected cantons with no territorial continuity and surrounded by area C. Area C on the other hand is territorially contiguous, and comprises all the settlement and settlers in the west bank (350,000) along with some 180,000 Palestinians.
Area C contains the vast majority of the West Bank’s natural resources (water, agricultural, mineral) and nearly all of the development potential for a future Palestinian state. Area C lands surround all areas of A and B stifling growth in these already built up areas, and disconnecting the regions from one another
Legalizing the Norm
Claim to the greater land of Israel (Eretz Israel), has been a common thread in Israeli politics since the state’s inception and before. Bennet’s proposed plan to annex all of Area C (a modified two state solution) is interesting in that it simply cements the reality on the ground today, extending it to a final solution to the conflict.
B’Tselem’s report underscores how Israel’s policy in area C is anchored in the perception of the area as meant above all to serve Israel’s Own Needs in favor to those of the Palestinians by restricting Palestinian construction and development throughout.
In the vast majority of Area C Israel denies Palestinians any opportunity to build or develop. In fact since 1967 only .6 percent of the entire area C has been allocated to Palestinians by the Civil Administration, while 31 percent has been allocated to pseudo governmental World Zionist Organization (which develops settlement), 8 percent to Settlement Authorities, 12% to government ministries with an additional 30 percent designated as Military Firing Zones.
According to international law, planning and construction policy for Area C should rely on Jordanian planning law, but this has been altered by order of the Israeli military to serve the state’s purposes. One outcome has been the refusal of Civil Administration to plan villages, approving Mandatory Plans for only 16 of 180 villages in Area C. Since all construction in Area C requires approval of Civil Administration, the prospect for receiving a building permit without a master plan is negligible. In fact between 2000-2010 of the 3050 application for permits only 6.5% were approved. Many are forced to build without permits, at constant risk of demolition (660 a year since 2000).
Yet “in contrast to the restrictive planning policy followed for Palestinian communities, the Israeli settlements, also in Area C, enjoy expansive allocation of land, detailed planning, connections to advanced infrastructure and a blind eye regarding illegal construction.”
In 75% of the settlements, building was carried out without the appropriate permits, legalized retroactively by government and military. Between 2000-2007, 91 building permits were issued for Palestinians, same period 17,000 residential units were built in settlements. While Palestinians in area C are isolated from areas A and B, Jewish settlements are connected to one another and to Israel proper by Jewish only bypass roads.
The international community has time and again confirmed the illegality these actions under International Humanitarian Law. Yet insufficient international pressure (particularly from the U.S.) has led to a situation where Israel strengthens it hold on Area C and “preserves a de-facto annexation of area C and creates circumstance that will help perpetuate this state and influence the final status of the Area.”
The Party Line
Bennet’s Ideas about area C reflect a broader hostility within the Knesset about Palestinian statehood and the need to annex all or most of West Bank. In a Times of Israel interview, Deputy minister of Defense Danny Dannon spoke about the sentiment within the coalition government: “there was never a government discussion, resolution or vote about the two-state solution… and nobody will bring it to a vote, it’s not smart to do it — but if you bring it to a vote, you will see the majority of Likud ministers, along with the Jewish Home [party], will be against it.”
Numerous quotes from current cabinet minsters confirm this position:
“The essence of Zionist existence in Israeli settlements across the country.” – Moshe Ya’allon: Defense Minister.
“The real solution is to extend Israeli sovereignty over the settlements in Judea and Samaria.” — Danny Dannon, Deputy Defense Minister.
“We will try to apply sovereignty over as much as we can at any given moment.” — Ze’ev Elkin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.
“Israel should announce the annexation of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria.” — Gilad Erdan, Minister of Communication and Home Front Defense.
“Israel will need to take unilateral steps to extend Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria.” — Yisreal Katz Minister of Transportation.
Annexation: The Final Solution
The vocal support of annexation has been attributed to the right wing shift in the government in Israel, yet its mainstream credentials are exposed with even a cursory glance at policy and practice in the west bank through Israeli history.
Every Israeli president since Menachem Begin in the 70’s has publicly espoused a two state solution based on Bilateral U.S. brokered negotiations, while simultaneously doing everything in their power to undermine its physical viability on the ground.
Netanyahu’s most recent statements, considered “moderate” in comparison to Bennet’s, nonetheless betray the administration’s position to undermine the two state solution, as noted in Peace Now’s report on settlement construction under the current administration. In response to the proposed peace talks Netanyahu said that Israel would continue to build and that “construction in major settlement blocks does not substantially affect Israel’s ability to come to an agreement.” He went on to say that “We will continue to live and build in Jerusalem, which will always remain united under Israeli sovereignty,” as published by the Israeli daily, Isreal Hayom and Haaretz.
Considering East Jerusalem is the internationally recognized future capital for the Palestinian state, and that settlement expansion is the number one obstacle to peace, these comments say much about the prospects for a future agreement. Furthermore, the proposed state Netanyahu supports is one that according to him “would have to be demilitarized and with arrangements that rely fully on the Israel Defense Forces for security.” A state that doesn’t control its borders or security and whose army is the occupying power is not an autonomous state, but the “state” of Palestine today.
Netanyahu’s position toward the Palestinians in consistent with the low ceiling allowed for Palestinian aspirations since the onset of the peace processes. Oslo, the basis of the most current arguments about annexing area C, provides a telling example. As scholar Rashid Khalidi, one of Yassar Arafat’s key advisers during the Oslo negotiations, states, “It (the Oslo agreement) was never designed to achieve independent Palestinian statehood. It was never designed to end the occupation. It was really designed, of all people, by Menachem Begin, to make permanent Israeli control over the occupied territories. And that is what has succeeded until now.” Indeed it has. Since the signing of the Oslo agreement settlement population in West Bank (not including East Jerusalem) has tripled from 110,900 to nearly 350,000, according to B’Tselem.
Palestinian author Naseer Aruri notes the occupation was never designed to be temporary, but has been used to create the illusion of a two-state solution when that option has never been on the real agenda. Madrid, Oslo, Camp David all have been used as diplomatic cover as Israel has consolidated and even extended its illegal occupation.
B’Tselem’s report exposes the fact that Israeli policy gives every indication of permanence. “Israel preserves a de-facto annexation of area C and creates circumstance that will help perpetuate this state and influence the final status of the Area.” If we acknowledge Israeli policy in tandem with territorial usurpation, then comments like Bennet’s need not be viewed as extreme. It is time the International community, the U.S. and those moderates in the Israeli Knesset acknowledge that what Bennett’s is arguing for is not on the margins of Israeli political thought but the ideological underpinning of Zionism as practiced in the oPt. And in area C the Zionist goal of maximum land with minimum Palestinians is on full display.
– Sam Gilbert is a journalist living in Ramallah.
Jewish settlers attack buses filled with children in Jerusalem
Palestine Information Center – 29/06/2013
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Palestinian sources in Jerusalem said Jewish settlers on Friday night attacked buses carrying 100 Palestinian children participating in a summer camp organized by Health Work Committees in Silwan in occupied Jerusalem.
Health Work Committees pointed in a press release on Saturday that the camp includes a group of children between 7 and 12 years old, a number of them had been previously arrested in the occupations jails.
The settlers threw stones at the buses, breaking their windows and terrorizing the children.
The committees condemned the attack and called for “providing protection for the Palestinian people and children from settlers’ violence in occupied Palestine, committed under the protection of the occupation army.”
In al-Khalil, another group of Israeli settlers attacked on Thursday evening a Palestinian civilian near Yatta, and fled the scene in the absence of the occupation forces, locals reported.
They added that the citizen sustained wounds as the settlers threw stones at him and was taken to hospital for treatment.
Jewish settlers set on Thursday fire to agricultural lands in the archaeological area of Sebastia near the city of Nablus in the north of the West Bank.
Na’el Shaer, Sebastia’s mayor, said that groups of settlers from the settlement of Shavei Shomron built on the town’s land set fire to agricultural land, damaging large stretches of land, including land planted with olives and almond trees.
He added that the settlers have been continuously targeting the town as it represents an archaeological and historical area, noting that they had previously destroyed crops after pumping wastewater into the cultivated lands.
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- Jewish settlers injure children in two separate vehicular assaults (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- When Cars Become Weapons: Israeli settler runs over 4 year old Palestinian child in al-Khalil (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)
What will Obama do?
President Obama’s actions are unlikely to stray outside the parameters the Israel lobby is willing to accept. But there is a growing movement that is challenging the lobby’s stronghold on U.S. politics.
By Alison Weir | Palestine News | Spring 2013
Whenever a US president begins a term of office many people round the world are curious about what policies he may pursue on Israel-Palestine. They wonder if he will once again call on Israel to reduce its settlement activities as almost every president has done at least once.
Will he condemn Israeli aggression, or only Palestinian rockets? Will he push a “peace process” in which virtually all the American mediators are Israel partisans[1] or will a few non-Zionists be permitted to play a role?
As Barack Obama began his second term as president, these questions came up again. But these are the wrong questions. Instead, to predict what he will do, one only needs to ask what the Israel lobby is likely to require.
The president won’t always do what the lobby demands – on rare occasions he may deviate a bit from its dictates– but a large percentage of the time he will dutifully do what the lobbyists command.
In other words, in order accurately to analyse American policies in the Middle East, to predict how they will change or not and to develop effective ways to revamp them in the directions that are so urgently needed for humanitarian relief and real peace, it is essential to understand the decisive role the Israel lobby plays in the United States.
Presidents and politicians from both major parties have long been extremely aware of this lobby. It may greatly improve or impede their chances of winning an election, of passing legislation, of receiving positive press coverage, of, quite simply, going on to bigger and better things.
Through the years the lobby for Israel has been a decisive factor in the defeat of Republicans Paul Findley, Pete McCloskey (at one time a Presidential contender) and Charles Percy (another Presidential contender) and Democrats Adlai Stevenson, William Fulbright, Earl Hilliard, Cynthia McKinney and quite likely many more.[2]
Politicians from both parties attend the annual convention of its major lobbying arm, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and pledge their loyalty to this foreign country. President Barack Obama, whose early and major backing came from members of the Israel lobby[3], gave his first post-nomination speech at the AIPAC convention.
Yet, despite the lobby’s inordinate power, most Americans are only minimally aware of it. For decades surveys have shown that the large majority of Americans don’t wish to take sides on Israel-Palestine, a reflection of a public that is uninformed about how much of our tax money goes to Israel and how decisively our government is, indeed, taking a side.
This widespread lack of awareness about the role of the Israel lobby in determining American policies is particularly startling given that the movement on behalf of Israel has been active in the United States for over 100 years and that it played a significant role in Israel’s creation.[4]
By the 1920s it was able successfully to promote its policies over those recommended by the US State Department; by the 1940s it had added Pentagon policies to those it could overrule and both presidential candidates Harry Truman and Thomas Dewey were currying its favour[5]; by 1967 it was able to push its cover story on Israel’s lethal attack on the US naval ship Liberty over opposition by high ranking admirals, the director of the CIA and the Secretary of State[6]; and by 1977 the head of AIPAC could state with accuracy: “We have never lost on a major issue.”[7]
Half a century ago the Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigating lobbying activities found an illicit cycle in which the Israel lobby succeeded in procuring money for Israel, some of this was then secretly funneled back into these groups, which then used this money to lobby for still more American tax dollars to Israel.
The hearings concluded that Israel operated “one of the most effective networks of foreign influence” in the United States.[8] Yet, since the media reported on this so little, most Americans are unaware of these extremely grave findings.
The term “Israel lobby” fails to do justice to the extraordinary scope and composition of this special interest group. Below is a small sampling of the American organisations that work on behalf of Israel. Virtually all have multi-million dollar budgets; a few have endowments in the hundreds of million dollars and most of them are funded by tax-deductible donations:
- The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC): $100 million endowment, [9] $60 million annual revenues.[10]
- The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP): $23.5 million net assets. $9.4 million annual revenues.
- International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (aka Stand for Israel): $100 million annual revenues.[14]
- Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces (FIDF): $80 million net assets,[16] $60 million annual revenues.[17]
- Hadassah (Women’s Zionist Organization of America): $400 million net assets, $100 million annual revenues.
- Jewish Community Relations Councils, in cities all over U.S.: Boston annual revenues $2.5 million; Louisville annual revenues $7-10 million; Detroit $734,000, New York $4.5 million, etc.[23]
- JINSA Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs: $3 million annual revenues.
In addition to these nonprofit organisations, there are dozens of political action committees (PACs) that donate to political candidates on the basis of their positions on Israel. Most of these disguise their purpose by using such deceptive names as “Northern Californians for Good Government,” “National Action Committee,” “American Principles,” etc.
While other issue-based PACs almost always announce their focus publicly[31], in 2012 only two of the pro-Israel PACs made any reference to Israel in their names.[32] While US media frequently discuss the gun rights lobby, the largely uncovered pro-Israel PACs gave almost twice as much money to candidates – and the donations went to both parties.[33]
In addition, there are numerous individuals who play an extremely important role in the Israel lobbying effort. Two examples are political campaign mega-donors Haim Saban and Sheldon Adelson. Saban donated $12.3 million to the Democratic Party in 2002 alone and has contributed millions more to pro-Israel organisations.
Adelson, a billionaire casino magnate, set a new record in political donations by giving $70 million in the 2012 elections, nearly triple the previous highest amount. He also funds such pro-Israel organisations as Birthright Israel which takes thousands of young Jewish Americans on recruiting visits to Israel.
In other cases, it is individuals with a different kind of power – the power to affect which information reaches the American public and which does not. One example is Eric Weider, whose Weider History Group publishes eleven history magazines in the United States, the largest history magazine publisher in America (and, according to its website, the world).[34]
Given this reality, President Obama’s actions are unlikely to stray outside the parameters the Israel lobby is willing to accept. While the media are making a great deal over the very mild apology Israel made to Turkey for having murdered nine of its citizens, crediting Obama with this alleged break-through, none of the news reports seem to mention that Israel has largely failed to apologise to the US for the death of 19-year-old dual American Turkish citizen, Furgan Dogan, who was killed with five bullets, one to his face at point blank range.[35]
It is also relevant to note that an AIPAC-drafted letter signed by 76 out of 100 Senators was sent to President Obama on the eve of his visit to Israel in March.[36]
Congressional actions can also be expected to remain within what the Israel lobby directs, though here, too, there may be rare occasions where the lobby seems to have lost – such as the confirmation of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defence.
However, the alleged triumph that some pro-Palestinian writers are proclaiming for Hagel’s appointment is a bit overblown. Before he was allowed to take his position, he was made to grovel humiliatingly before his Congressional interrogators, retract acceptable statements he had made earlier in his life and all but swear devotion to Israel (like all top government officials seemingly must do).
This degrading spectacle surely made it clear to Hagel that he better watch his step in the future and made it even clearer to ambitious Americans of all ages that they must be extremely careful about any statements they make about Israel and its lobby if they are to achieve their political ambitions.
Despite the power of the lobby, however, the situation is not as bleak as the above may suggest. There is a highly diverse movement in the US that opposes this lobby and it is steadily growing.
The Left, which for decades was largely silent on Israeli abuses of human rights, has finally become active on the issue. Similarly, both traditional conservatives and libertarians frequently oppose aid to Israel and this opposition is becoming more outspoken. While this stance is often motivated by fiscal considerations, in many cases it is also fuelled by outrage at Israeli cruelty and by genuine empathy with Palestinians.
The money being mobilised on this side is only a small fraction of the other and some of the groups within this movement could arguably be considered simply a more reasonable and compassionate arm of the Israel lobby in that their advocacy is often framed according to what “is good for Israel” while failing to address the inherent injustice of an ethnic state imposed on a multicultural region.
Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the opposition to current US policies is growing increasingly important. The tide may not yet have turned but it is certainly in the slowing phase that must come first.
To use another oft-quoted and particularly apt metaphor, lobbies thrive in the dark. More and more people in the US and elsewhere are shining light on this one, steadily reducing its power.
While there are numerous deeply significant issues, an increasing number of individuals are deciding to focus on this one, the core issue of the Middle East and the cause of war after war, including the current “war on terror” and demonisation of Muslims.
To use the framing posed by journalist Glenn Greenwald, an expanding number of people are refusing to prioritise domestic issues over the killing of Arab and Muslim children on the other side of the world.
Therefore, despite the enormous power of the Israel lobby in the US, this growing movement is quite likely to overcome the obstacles confronting it and to join history’s other successful movements against oppression.
The main question is how long this will take, and how many more massacres, and possibly wars, will occur in the interim.
[1] Even Aaron David Miller admitted they acted as “Israel’s lawyer” – Miller, Aaron David. “Israel’s Lawyer.” Washington Post 23 May 2005, posted by Matt Miller Opinion Writer. Online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/22/AR2005052200883.html
[2] Findley, Paul. They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby. Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill, 1985. Online at http://archive.org/stream/They-Dare-To-Speak-Out-Paul-Findley/They_Dare_to_Speak_Out_Paul_Findley_djvu.txt and Mearsheimer, John J., and Stephen M. Walt. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.
[3] Yearwood, Pauline Dubkin. “Obama and the Jews.” Chicago Jewish News 24 Oct. 2008.
Online at http://www.chicagojewishnews.com/story.htm?sid=212226&id=252218
[4] Weir, Alison. “Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the United States Was Used to Create Israel.” IfAmericansKnew.org. 2012. Web. http://ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/history.html
[5] Weir, “Against Our Better Judgment”
[6] http://www.ussliberty.org/supporters.htm
[7] The Power Peddlers, by Russell Warren Howe and Sarah Hays Trott, Doubleday, p. 292.
http://ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/history.html
[8] Smith, Grant. “Where Did AIPAC Come From?” Antiwar.com. N.p., 09 Oct. 2007. Web. http://antiwar.com/orig/gsmith.php?articleid=11727 and Neff, Donald. “Ulbright Called for U.S. Defense Pact With Israel But Was Labeled Anti-Semite.” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs August-September (1997): 96. Online at http://www.wrmea.org/wrmea-archives/188-washington-report-archives-1994-1999/august-september-1997/2677-middle-east-history-it-happened-in-august-.html
[9] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/25/washington/25lobby.html?_r=1
In 2009, the Economist reported: “AIPAC has an annual budget of around $60m, more than 275 employees, an endowment of over $130m and a new $80m headquarters building on Capitol Hill.” http://www.economist.com/node/14753768
[10] http://firststreetresearch.cqpress.com/2012/03/08/aipac-still-commands-attention-among-movers-and-shakers/
[11] http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3265
[12] http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=10657
[13] http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=10657
[14] http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3889
[15] http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=ewJXKcOUJlIaG&b=7717007&ct=11735981#.UbKK4uuhU0o
[16] http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3734
[17] http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3734
[18] http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=7699
[19] http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=7699
[20] http://www.faqs.org/tax-exempt/CA/Shimon-Ben-Joseph-Foundation-Dba-Jim-Joseph-Foundation.html
[21] http://207.153.189.83/EINS/133252800/133252800_2010_07b9bf0d.PDF
[22] http://www.jewishfederations.org/about-us.aspx
[23] http://www.jewishlouisville.org/images/JCL/Financials/annual_report_2011-12.pdf
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=10095
http://jcrcny.org/images/00_media/about/jcrc-ny2011form990.pdf
[24] http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=4540
[25] http://www.politico.com/static/PPM152_100828_centerforsecuritypolicy.html
[26] https://bulk.resource.org/irs.gov/eo/2011_09_EO/26-4392915_990_201012.pdf
[27] http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=8188
[28] http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=11247
[29] https://bulk.resource.org/irs.gov/eo/2011_02_EO/16-1616489_990_200912.pdf
[30] http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=5429
[31] http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/industry.php?txt=Q11&cycle=2012 and http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/industry.php?txt=Q13&cycle=2012
[32] http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/industry.php?txt=Q05&cycle=2012
[33] http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/sector.php?cycle=2012&txt=Q05
[34] Weir, Alison. “The Empire Behind World’s Largest History Magazine Chain: How American History Magazine Censored Palestine.” CounterPunch Dec. 6, 2012. Online at http://ifamericansknew.org/media/weider.html
[35] Lynch, Colum. “U.N. Panel Endorses Report Accusing Israel of Executions aboard Aid Flotilla.” Washington Post 30 Sept. 2010, A Section. Online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/29/AR2010092907110.html?wprss=rss_print/asection
[36] “Did Your Favorite Progressive Senator Sign AIPAC Letter To Obama Telling Him To Stand Up For Occupation? Here Is The List.” MJ Rosenberg, Mar. 2013. Online at http://mjayrosenberg.com/2013/03/19/did-your-favorite-progressive-senator-sign-aipac-letter-to-obama-telling-him-to-stand-up-for-occupation-here-is-the-list/
Alison Weir is the President of the Council for the National Interest (CNI) and Executive Director of If Americans Knew.
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‘They have two roads on our land already, why do they need a third…?’
International Solidarity Movement | June 27, 2013
Hebron, Occupied Palestine – In the Wadi al-Hussein area of Hebron, Israeli occupation forces have started to build a new road ‘for military purposes’. The route of the road is from the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba towards the city centre, directly across Palestinian-owned land.
A military order has decreed the construction of this road, four metres wide and more than two hundred metres long, cutting through fields of olive and fruit trees owned by the Palestinian families living there. The stipulation on the width of the road has already been broken, with the route that has been cut by bulldozers being six metres wide in places.
In contrast to the military order to build a road, Palestinian landowners have been denied the right to build on their own land. Despite gaining approval from the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli authorities (who have the final say on civil matters in area H2 of Hebron) have refused permission to build a new house. Landowners also point out that there are two existing roads from Kiryat Arba built on Palestinian land for Israeli-use only, and ask why a third is required.
When occupation forces attempted to build this road initially, landowners and others tried to stop construction by sitting down in front of bulldozers, but this non-violent protest was met with arrests, fines and imprisonment, and by the bulldozer dumping a load of earth on top of them.
Landowners complain that Israel insists on applying those aspects of the Hebron accords that benefit settlers, while ignoring those aspects covering the rights of the majority Palestinian population. Using military orders to steal land is a tactic long-used by Israel. Land seized this way then later typically becomes part of the ever-expanding settlement project. All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, which bans the transfer of the occupier’s population into the land under occupation.
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- Jewish settlers setting up tent and planning road on Palestinian owned land in Al Khalil (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Settlers building illegal road on Palestinian land in Hebron (palsolidarity.org)
- Susiya resists mass demolition orders (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Settlers Attack Palestinians In Hebron (imemc.org)
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Stamping Impunity on Israel’s War Crimes
By Vacy Vlazna | Palestine Chronicle | June 25 2013
Australia Post and Israel Post collaboratively issued two stamps.
Israel and Australia’s joint projects normalizing Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity has sunk deeper in the degenerate mire of hasbara (propaganda & lies);
“So projects that constitute normalization are not about freedom, justice or liberation, but about numbing our minds to the horror of the occupation, so we accept it as normal, as permanent, as an unchangeable fixed reality”! (1)
In May, Australia Post and Israel Post collaboratively issued two stamps commemorating the Australian Light Horse and the WWI Battle of Beersheba in Palestine. The $2.60 stamp features contemporary images of Australian Light Horsemen. The 60c stamp features the statue of an Australian Light Horseman in the Park of the Australian Soldier, funded by the Pratt Foundation, at Beersheba.
ANZAC heroic courage and endurance warrants commemoration but the issue of the stamps entailed a cynical rewriting of Australian war history that deflects ANZAC honor to deodorize Israel’s stinking reputation around the world; the recent BBC’s 2013 Country Rating Poll places Israel squarely amongst North Korea and Pakistan as the world’s most negatively viewed nations
The stamps’ description on the Australia Post shop site states:
“The capture of Beersheba allowed British Empire forces to break the Ottoman line near Gaza and then advance into Palestine, a chain of events which eventually culminated in the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.”
Connecting the ‘capture of Beersheba’ to ‘the establishment of the state of Israel’ is an outright lie. Australian Communications minister, Steven Conroy, showing off his ready dexterity to bend over backwards for Israel, shamelessly repeated the lie:
“I don’t have any role in choosing what’s on stamps, but I do support this – it’s a wonderful tribute to the 4th Light Horse Brigade and recognizes a chain of events that eventually culminated in the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.”
The real chain of events began in 1895 with the Zionist ambition to take over the whole of Palestine for a Jewish homeland which was accelerated in 1947 by Plan Dalet’s systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestine that destroyed over 500 villages, slaughtered thousands of villagers and forcefully deported over 700,000 indigenous Palestinians. Israel then unilaterally declared an independent state in breach of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, still binding, that guaranteed independence for Palestine.
The Australian Zionist lobby has inflated the ANZAC lies. The Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce announcing the special boardroom lunch to celebrate the launch piled on the hasbara:
“During WWI, Australian troops fought alongside the British army to conquer Israel from under ottoman rule…. The friendly Australian soldiers were remembered fondly by residents of the Jewish colonies of Israel. Warm ties were also formed with the Australian soldiers who were stationed in Israel during WWII.”
Fact: In 1917 (and during WWII) Israel did not exist. World War I and II were fought on Palestinian soil.
The claim by Australia Post managing director, Ahmed Fahour is highly questionable, “The Battle of Beersheba is something close to the hearts of both Israelis and Australians” when it was Palestinian fighters who helped the ANZACs …
“Defending the west and south west of the town, the 27th Division’s 67th and 81st Infantry Regiments, were deployed in the fortified semicircular line of deep trenches and redoubts strengthened by barbed wire. These regiments consisted mainly, of “Arab farmers from the surrounding region, and although inexperienced fighters they were defending their own fields.”(Massey, Graeme (2007). Beersheba: The men of the 4th Light Horse Regiment who charged on the 31st October 1917. Warracknabeal, Victoria: Warracknabeal Secondary College History Department.
… while Palestinian villagers struggled to survive the dire economic impact on their land and livelihoods of the mounted armies of the Imperial and Ottoman forces. The Turks had demolished orchards and all the cavalries ‘drank out wells and grazed their horses on standing crops’. Palestinian foodstuffs and livestock were requisitioned by the British military and consequently there was a shortage of basic food and commodities with awful disruptions to daily life.
One generation later, the same villagers were forcefully routed by Jewish terrorist militias to Gaza where they remain in desolate refugee camps under the illegal and inhumane Israeli siege.
The decision to include the image of the statue of an Australian Light Horseman in the Park of the Australian Soldier was Machiavellian sleight of hand. The Park professes to be “a permanent memorial to those who died in battle for the Jewish state.”
The Park funded by the Pratt Foundation was set up by Zionist Richard Pratt, the Australian Visy Industries billionaire who ripped off Australian customers by fixing prices and market sharing with the rival Amcor group. Visy’s underbelly has been linked to the Hells Angels reputed to have ties to criminal organizations in Australia and overseas.
Nevertheless, Australian political luminaries like Ex-PMs Kevin Rudd and John Howard have attended fundraisers at Pratt’s Melbourne mansion, Raheen; Bill Shorten- now a Minister in the Gillard government- was married there, and others such as exPM Bob Hawke, exPM Gough Whitlam, exPM Malcolm Fraser, ex state premier Nick Grieiner, former police commissioner Mick Miller have been on the Zionist’s lucrative payroll as consultants. Anthony Pratt, Richard’s successor hosted in July 2011, an Australian speaking tour of Israel’s darling, Tony Blair, the supposedly neutral envoy for the Middle East Quartet.
The Park of the Australian Soldier is included in ‘The Anzac Trail from the Be’eri Badlands to Be’er Sheva’ which is a project of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) which seizes Palestinian properties in East Jerusalem and razes, over and over, villages on the ancestral lands of impoverished Bedouins.
If you think that the hijacking of the rising sun’s glory is a preposterous fancy you may change your mind when you scratch the surface of the key-players, to find the web of corporate affiliations to Israel’s military and illegal occupation.
Ahmed Fahour Australia’s highest paid public servant, $2.78 million pa, prior to Australia Post, had a long executive career with Citigroup and its website ‘boasts the largest presence of any foreign financial institution in Israel and offers corporate and investment banking services to leading Israeli corporations and institutions, and global corporations operating in Israel’ including equity offerings for Delek.
Haim Elmoznino, CEO of Israel Post was deputy CEO of Delek Israel Fuel Corporation which supplies Israel’s military-industrial complex. Delek also fuels US warplanes. Delek was the exclusive distributer of Ford in Israel and according to Who Profits, “Ford F550 trucks were retrofitted by Hatehof for the Israeli army to armored personnel carriers for use by the IDF in the West Bank….and its vehicles are used by the ‘Caracal’ military … a combat unit which patrols the occupied section of the Jordan Valley, in the West Bank areas close to the Separation Wall and on the Israeli-Egyptian border.’
Sasi Shilo, Chairman of Israel Post, was, CEO of Netivei Hayovel in which Danya Cebus, a construction firm has a stake. Danya Cebus is a subsidiary of Africa Israel Investments Ltd:
“Africa Israel Chairman and founder Lev Leviev and his brother are responsible for the settlements of Zufim (Tsufim) and Zufim North on land belonging to the village of Jayyous in the northern West Bank. They are being built by a Leviev company called Leader Management & Development. The villageës water wells, greenhouses, and most of its agricultural land have been confiscated for these settlements. Among the largest investors in Africa Israel are Barclayës Global Investors (which has been purchased by BlackRock), and the Vanguard Group. In August 2009, Blackrock made a decision to divest from Africa Israel due to its involvement in the occupation.” (2)
Attending the stamp launch was Yaron Razon, Director of Israel Philatelic Service. who in a past life was CEO of Ma’ariv Magazines. Ma’ariv, according to The political line of Israeli papers (a reader’s guide) in +972, 2010, “ is extremely hostile to the Arab population and to human rights organizations, and recently, it shows a hospitable attitude to the settlement project (a recent double spread all but invited people to live in Tapuach, a settlement formally known as the stronghold of Kahane supporters). Among Israeli papers, Maariv is the most supportive of Avigdor Lieberman’s policies”
Also attending was Australia’s Attorney General Mark Dreyfus whose Zionist colors are for all to see in his 2012 speech (3) to the Zionist Council of Victoria where he reiterated the Australian governments ‘enduring support for Israel’ and pointed out how PM Gillard supported Israel’s wearisome mantra of its right to defend itself by perpetrating war crimes against Gaza in 2008/9 and by voting against the UN Goldstone Report which Dreyfus falsely declared was discredited.
Concerned Australians have bombarded the Postal Ombusdman, Australia Post and Minister Conroy with protests against the government’s commandeering of ANZAC and Palestinian history for the whitewashing of Israel state terrorism and demanding the withdrawal of the stamps because young ANZAC soldiers did not sacrifice their lives to give the stamp of approval to Israel’s impunity to daily violate international law and wreak inhuman suffering on Palestinian men, women, children and the elderly.
– Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters. She was Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round of the Acheh peace talks, Helsinki, February 2005 then withdrew on principle. Vacy was coordinator of the East Timor Justice Lobby as well as serving in East Timor with UNAMET and UNTAET from 1999-2001.
Notes:
(1) Samah Sabawi, Colonization of the Mind: Normalize This!
(2) Interfaith Peace Initiative.
(3) Mark Dreyfus Speech to Zionist Council of Victoria.
The Gates Foundation and its unethical investments in G4S
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | June 20, 2013
While three Dutch charities have announced that they will no longer accept donations by G4S due to the company’s support for the Israeli occupation, the Gates Foundation has deemed it ethical to invest in G4S, effectively exposing the often ignored link between philanthropy and human rights violations.
The Gates Foundation, renowned for its philanthropy, is allegedly ‘inspired by passion and compassion for the well-being of people’. Focusing on issues such as health, education, poverty, the Foundation now seems to be seeking a share in security affairs, effectively aligning itself with the conspiracy behind the fable of safeguarding human rights. Philanthropy should be viewed within a wider image – a surplus of funds derived from a capitalist enterprise channelled into appropriate projects which bestow a continuous temporary relief in order to avoid challenging the exploitation which has rendered communities around the world dependent upon charity. With the Gates Foundation aligning its interests with a service provider of oppression, profits will continue to fund approved projects at the expense of violating international human rights law, which is acceptable within the cycle of capitalist dependency.
G4S has been targeted by the BDS movement for its role in providing security and surveillance equipment, rendering the company complicit in war crimes with Israel’s security service, Shin Bet. Torture during interrogations is routine treatment in Israeli jails, often resulting in severe physical and metal degeneration or, as in the case of Arafat Jaradat, death. G4S endorses identical security concern rhetoric as that used by Israel, manipulating the foundations of human rights and security into a territory which encompasses nothing but the alleged rights of the oppressor.
In their 2012 Corporate Social Responsibility Report, G4S states that the company recognises it can ‘play a positive and negative role in respecting human rights around the world’. The company declares that its policy is based upon the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1947), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) and the international Labour Organisation Declaration on Fundamental Rights at Work (1998). ‘Mapping the human rights landscape’, as stated in the report, and becoming a signatory to the UN Global Compact, are portrayed as a pledge to safeguard human rights, disregarding the UN’s significant faults and unapologetic stances when it comes to selectively bestowing human rights in order to promote and consolidate the impunity of powerful states and allies. In other words, G4S are emulating their provision of security services and basing their legitimacy upon an international organisation which thrives upon illegality.
Dependency has created a spectator society. While activist campaigns have created a far reaching resonance, leaders within the international community are too comfortably ensconced in their glorified positions to challenge a partnership which fuels the Israeli occupation’s crimes against Palestinians. As long as the interpretation of the social world is shaped by dominant allies, it is difficult to fragment the bond between society and economic power, effectively allowing an amalgamation of a ruling power to distort the power of intellectuals into a subservient role abetting international complicity in human rights violations.
Four Injured, Palestine TV Reporters Kidnapped In Kufur Qaddoum
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC | June 22, 2013
The Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Kufur Qaddoum village, near the northern West Bank city of Qalqilia, reported Friday that dozens of Israeli soldiers attacked the weekly nonviolent protest, wounding four residents, and kidnapped reporters of the official Palestine TV.
The Committee said that the soldiers violently attacked and beat reporter Ahmad Shawar and cameraman Bashar Nazzal, working for the Palestinian TV, confiscated their cameras, and threw the rest of their equipment in the trash.
An Israeli army spokesperson claimed that the kidnapped journalists “attacked the soldiers”, and that they have been transferred to an interrogation facility.
Morad Shteiwy, coordinator of the Popular Committee in the village, has reported that the army surrounded the village since early morning hours Friday, and invaded it in an attempt to prevent the residents from holding their weekly protest against the illegal Annexation Wall and settlements.
“The large number of soldiers deployed in the village could not prevent the determined residents from holding their protest”, Shteiwy said, “the soldiers violently attacked the protesters and fired dozens of gas bombs, concussion grenades, and rubber-coated metal bullets”.
He further said that resident Aqel Mahmoud Shteiwy, 25, was shot with a rubber-coated bullet in his hand, and that one of his fingers was amputated, and added that resident Yousef Mustafa Shteiwy, 21, was shot in the chest, Bassam Ayyoub Shteiwy, 26, was shot in the back and Bashar Mahmoud Shteiwy, 22, was shot in the abdomen.
Also on Friday, soldiers used tear gas, chemical water and rubber-coated steel bullets to attack the weekly protests at the villages of Bil’in and Ni’lin, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah, where residents and their international and Israeli supporters, managed to reach the wall; two protesters were injured and many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation.
In Bil’in, gas bombs fired by Israeli troops caused a fire that damaged olive trees owned by local farmers. Soldiers also fired tear gas at residents who tried to put out the fire.
At the nearby village of al Nabi Saleh, Israeli soldiers attacked the villagers and their supporters before leaving the village.
Dozens of soldiers stormed the village and fired gas bombs into resident’s homes. Many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation.
In al Ma’sara village, near Bethlehem, dozens of soldiers stopped the villagers and their supporters at the village entrance and then forced them back, using rifle-buts and batons to push people back, no injuries were reported.
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UN committee slams Israeli forces’ torture of Palestinian children
A child sits in front of a destroyed home in Rafah. (Photo: European Commission DG ECHO/cc/flickr)
Al-Akhbar | June 20, 2013
A United Nations human rights body accused Israel on Thursday of mistreating Palestinian children, including by torturing those in custody and using others as human shields.
Palestinian children in the Gaza and the West Bank, captured by Israeli forces in the 1967 war, are routinely denied registration of their birth and access to health care, decent schools and clean water, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said.
“Palestinian children arrested by (Israeli) military and police are systematically subject to degrading treatment, and often to acts of torture, are interrogated in Hebrew, a language they did not understand, and sign confessions in Hebrew in order to be released,” it said in a report.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry said it had responded to a report by the UN children’s agency UNICEF in March on ill-treatment of Palestinian minors and questioned whether the UN committee’s investigation covered new ground.
“If someone simply wants to magnify their political bias and political bashing of Israel not based on a new report, on work on the ground, but simply recycling old stuff, there is no importance in that,” spokesman Yigal Palmor said.
The report by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child noted that, while both Israeli and Palestinian children end up killed and wounded, Palestinians constitute a much larger proportion of these casualties.
Most Palestinian children arrested are accused of having thrown stones, an offense which can carry a penalty of up to 20 years in prison, the committee said. Israeli soldiers had testified to the often arbitrary nature of the arrests, it said.
The watchdog’s 18 independent experts examined Israel’s record of compliance with a 1990 treaty as part of its regular review of a pact signed by all nations except Somalia and the United States. An Israeli delegation attended the session.
The UN committee regretted Israel’s “persistent refusal” to respond to requests for information on children in the Palestinian territories and occupied Syrian Golan Heights since the last review in 2002.
“Hundreds of Palestinian children have been killed and thousands injured over the reporting period as a result of the state party military operations, especially in Gaza where the state party proceeded to (conduct) air and naval strikes on densely populated areas with a significant presence of children, thus disregarding the principles of proportionality and distinction,” the report said.
The 10-year period examined by the committee included the second Intifada, which took place between 2000 and 2005.
Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005, but maintains a heavy blockade on the Hamas-run enclave.
During the 10-year period, an estimated 7,000 Palestinian children aged 12 to 17, but some as young as nine, had been arrested, interrogated and detained, the UN report said.
Many are brought in leg chains and shackles before military courts, while youths are held in solitary confinement, sometimes for months, the report said.
It voiced deep concern at the “continuous use of Palestinian children as human shields and informants”, saying 14 such cases had been reported between January 2010 and March 2013 alone.
Israeli soldiers had used Palestinian children to enter potentially dangerous buildings before them and to stand in front of military vehicles to deter stone-throwing, it said.
“Almost all those using children as human shields and informants have remained unpunished and the soldiers convicted for having forced at gunpoint a nine-year-old child to search bags suspected of containing explosives only received a suspended sentence of three months and were demoted,” it said.
Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and the Syrian Golan Heights, continued expansion of Jewish settlements, construction of the apartheid wall into the West Bank, land confiscation and destruction of homes and livelihoods “constitute severe and continuous violations of the rights of Palestinian children and their families,” it said.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank are deemed illegal by international law, a charge the Zionist state disputes.
The UNICEF report in March showed that Israel was the only country in the world where children were “systematically tried” in military courts.
Over the past decade, Israeli forces have arrested, interrogated and prosecuted around 7,000 children between between 12 and 17, mostly boys, UNICEF found, noting the rate was equivalent to “an average of two children each day.”
Figures from the end of January show that 233 children are currently being held in custody, 31 of them under the age of 16.
(Reuters, Al-Akhbar)
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Israeli security guard kills Jew in Jerusalem, mistaking him for a Palestinian
Al-Akhbar | June 21, 2013
An Israeli security guard shot dead a Jewish visitor at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray, on Friday. The visitor was shot after being mistaken for a Palestinian militant.
“There was a Jewish guy, an Israeli guy, who was in the bathroom area,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.
“He for some reason shouted ‘Allahu Akbar,'” Rosenfeld said. “A security guard drew his weapon and fired several shots at the suspect… He died from his wounds a few moments ago.”
The shooting took place shortly before 8am as the plaza in front of the Wall filled with worshipers for morning prayers ahead of the start of the Jewish Sabbath at sundown.
The site was closed to the public for at least an hour afterwards.
Paramedic Zeevi Hessed told news website NRG that his team rushed to the scene as reports of a shooting came in.
“When we reached the place, we saw him lying at the Western Wall plaza,” he said. “He had been shot in several parts of his body… Sadly there was nothing we could do but declare him dead.”
Rosenfeld said that an investigation had been opened into the shooting.
Public radio quoted the private security guard as telling police investigators that he thought the man, 46, was pulling something from his pocket as he shouted, and was about to attack him.
It said that police found nothing suspicious on the man’s person.
Privately-owned Channel 10 TV cited witnesses as saying that the guard fired between seven and 10 bullets and that the fire was unjustified and that the man appeared to be a harmless eccentric.
Rosenfeld said the circumstances were still unclear.
“We’re looking into the background: why the security officer opened fire and what the motives were of the guy, the 46-year-old – it’s very strange behavior.”
The Western Wall is venerated by Jews as the last remnant of the wall supporting the Second Temple.
Above it is the compound housing the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.
The compound is a deeply sensitive location where clashes frequently break out between Israeli forces and Palestinian worshipers. Muslims under 50 are regularly denied access to the mosque.
Jews are not allowed to pray inside the al-Aqsa mosque compound, but settlers have stormed the compound on several occasions, with support from the Israeli army.
(AFP, Al-Akhbar)
New wall construction to surround Azzun Atma
International Solidarity Movement | June 20, 2013
Azzun Atma, Occupied Palestine – On the 18th of June, two bulldozers arrived with Israeli forces in the village of Azzun Atma, southeast of Qalqilya, and began to work on the land behind the village’s school, to what is believed to be the construction of the new wall.
Accompanying the bulldozers to the village was the Israeli army and border police, including the local Israeli army commander who said the action was based on a High Court decision by the Israeli government. He said it was in order to protect their citizens, and if anybody tried to stop the construction, they would then close the gate to the village, the only way in and out.
Two weeks prior to this, the Israeli army put up signs stating that this is where the construction of the new wall would begin. The villagers fear that this new construction is being done in order to replace the current two metre barbed mesh fence that surrounds the village from all sides and separates it from the settlements nearby, with the concrete wall. The wall’s existence and constant deviation from the Green Line is justified by the Israeli authorities by citing security concerns for its citizens, in this case the illegal settler colonisers in the area.
Azzun Atma is located two kilometres east of the Green Line and encompassed on three sides by the current wall, constructed in 2002, which leaves the village within a settlement block and separates it from the rest of the West Bank. The only way in and out of the village is through a military checkpoint with a small gate. The village is thus stranded in the “seam zone” between the Green Line and the wall, surrounded by settlements, placing it under full Israeli military control. Access to the village, therefore, is dictated by the Israeli military and the checkpoint is regularly closed, denying the villagers their right to freedom of movement. The villagers thus live under the constant threat of the gate being closed and work permits for the other side of the Green Line being denied.
Palestinians living in the “seam zone” require permanent resident permits from the Israeli authorities to live in their own homes and work on their land. There are often few health and education services available in the “seam zone”, and those living inside it have to rely on checkpoints being open to reach workplaces and essential services.
The school where the construction is taking place has provided education for 300 children in Azzun Atma and a neighbouring village since 1966. Every day, the current wall and checkpoint restricts the freedom of movement of teachers and students. The school has so far lost one dunum of land to the wall and the septic system faces demolition orders.
When the second wall is constructed, Azzun Atma will be isolated from the rest of the West Bank by the already existing wall (see the red line on the map) and the new wall which will further close off the village from the settlement block and the rest of the West Bank (see the black line on the map).
Azzun Atma (Map by OCHA)
In 1982, the Israeli authorities established two illegal settlements: Oranit to the northwest and Sha’are Tiqva to the northeast of Azzun Atma. The settlements have expanded over the years, and more than 2500 dunums of the village’s land have been stolen by them. Sha’are Tiqva now comes within metres of Azzun Atma, and since 2005, villagers have been subject to verbal harassment from settlers. The wall, though purported to be a security measure, is essentially another way for the Israeli government to steal land from their Palestinian owners and isolate villages and cities from each other, turning them into easily controllable cantons.
Isolating people and making daily life as hard as possible under occupation is a tactic used by the Israeli authorities to force villagers to leave their land and homes. However, residents of Azzun Atma remain steadfast in their land and will continue to resist the land theft, isolation and deprivation of their lives by organising protests.
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Confronting the Threat of Ethnic Bioweapons
By Tony Cartalucci – New Eastern Outlook – 29.11.2017
The United States Air Force’s 59th Medical Wing’s molecular biology branch recently was revealed to have been collecting specifically Russian RNA and synovial (connective) tissue samples, prompting fears in Russia of a possible US directed ethnic-specific bioweapons program. … continue
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