Palestine « Aletho News

New wall construction to surround Azzun Atma

International Solidarity Movement | June 20, 2013

Azzun Atma, Occupied Palestine – On the 18^th 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.

Israeli settlers threaten to occupy Palestinian village of Azzun (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)
West Bank Barrier creates hardship for Palestinian villagers (euronews.com)

June 20, 2013 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video | Azzun Atma, Human rights, Israeli settlement, Palestine, West Bank, Zionism | Leave a comment

In Palestine, Peace is Not Just Absence of Violence, But Presence of Justice

By Hasan Afif El-Hasan | Palestine Chronicle | June 19, 2013

Members of the messianic Jewish settler groups Gush Emunim explain the 1967 Israeli victory as the work of ‘God’. They insist that they were rectifying a world-historical wrong by uniting the two halves of the ‘land of Israel’ which represents the necessary first stage for the redemption of the Jewish people and ultimately, for universal redemption. To give up the ‘land of Israel’, they argue, would be to reject the mandate of ‘God’. They seem to mistake unrestrained Israeli planning to expand, corruption of Arab regimes and inter-Arab quarrels for ‘God’s will’.

To support their plans to expand and annex Arab lands, Israel’s policy has been to maintain a qualitative military edge over all potential adversaries and guaranteed access to US technology. It is highly unlikely that Israel’s influence in Washington will diminish or that the US military and political support would not be provided when needed. In its ‘offensive-minded defense posture’, Israel has demonstrated preparedness to use its military strength and willingness to advance its Zionist obligations and live with the tensions in the wider region that such actions may cause. When considering the declared policies of the Israeli governments since 1967, it is hard not to wonder if Israel today is still fighting the 1948 war. Is Israel planning to hunker down behind walls and live at war with the Palestinians forever?

What have been taking place in the occupied lands after the 1967 war are not actions by pietistic settlers with intimacy to the ‘ancient land’ whom successive governments somewhat naively tolerated. To focus only on the settlers’ post 1967 fanaticism is to evade the implications of Israel’s most enduring consensus of colonizing Palestine, Zionism. Settlers’ ideals and the settlements energy did not grow out of thin air. It emerged inexorably from the Zionist ideology, Zionist financial institutions and the powerful Zionist bureaucracy. The Israelis, young and old, religious and secular have been drawn to the newly occupied lands, roamed freely and planned for settlements, following the footsteps of the first generations of Zionist colonialists. Moshe Dayan, the 1967 secular Israeli minister of defense said among other things, ‘We know that to give life to Jerusalem we must station the soldiers and armor of the IDF [Israel Defense Force] on the Shechem [City of Nablus] mountains, and on the bridges over the Jordan.’

The 1967 occupation provided a new and enlarged geography for the Zionist course that had been set almost a century ago after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, to redraw a new frontier. The Zionist movement had many sources of power even before Israel was recognized by the United Nations: a land bank (the Jewish National Fund) for settling collective farms; dozens of exclusively union-owned industrial enterprises; competing Zionist parties; the Jewish Agency, a world organization to represent and raise funds for Palestinian Jews; a Jewish defense force; and Labor Zionist schools, newspaper, cultural institutions, and much more.

The settlements have been established so effortlessly after 1967 because the Zionist institutions that built them, and the laws and culture that drove them, had been going full throttle long time before the 1967 war within the Green Line. Zionism created institutions, mechanism, laws and different forms of violence against the Palestinians to implement the projects articulated by the regime. The labor federation (Histadrut) public corporations built and serviced settlements and brought their produce into distribution channels. State-owned banks and other enabling institutions provided credit and tax breaks for settlers. They were flush with money, owing to hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of American Jewish philanthropy especially after the Six-Day War. There are the Law of Return that encourages World-wide Jews to settle in Palestine, the regulations supporting the abiding conception of Jewish national rights and the mechanisms for appropriating and distributing Palestinian lands.

Settlements and Jerusalem take-over are part of a grand premeditated national project. It was due to decisions made in Zionist offices to continue putting families formally defined as Jewish in and around where Arabs lived. Soon after 1967, boundaries simply disappeared and there were new settlements everywhere. The key was to establish facts on the ground, so that, again, a provisional border would harden into an international border. The former president of Israel, Yitzhak Navon, said in a speech: “Territorial compromise means ‘as much land as possible, and as few Arabs as possible’.” Who knew how many more Palestinians would have to be displaced to make room for Jews; and who knows exactly how big Israel would have to be while the Zionist project continues? The Palestinians have been struggling against enormous odds since Zionist settlers came to Palestine at the start of the last century under the auspices of Britain, an imperial power.

The Israeli political scientist Meron Benvenisti asserts that the Arab-Israeli conflict that was a region-wide interstate conflict at one time has shrunk to its original core of Israeli-Palestinian inter-communal strife. Yes! The Palestinians today are on their own. They should give up on the notion of pan-Arab confrontation with Israel in support of their cause. The commitment of the Arab leaders in support of the Palestinians has never been wholehearted anyway. They demonstrated their reluctance to aid the Palestinians during the intifada or the confinement of Arafat in his head-quarters or the annexing, Judaization and ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem, or the building and expanding of settlements in the West Bank or the siege and destruction of Gaza. Arab states have taken a low profile on the subject of Israel, attaching higher priority to their dealings with their own problems before and after the ‘Arab Spring’. The Palestinian cause has not upset an increasingly stable equilibrium between Israel and the Arab states. Israel’s military superiority and the abundant political and moral support by the US deter Arab states from attempting to compel Israel to withdraw from the West Bank or Jerusalem. The Israelis are not prepared to compromise on the issues of sovereignty over Jerusalem or the right of return for the Palestinians dispossessed in 1948 and 1967.

Peace is not just the absence of violence; it is the presence of justice. The Palestinian people are unlikely to be reconciled to the prospect of peace within an inherently unjust and unequal relationship with Israel. The imbalance has produced impediments to reach peace with justice. In the absence of justice, Israel will remain an enemy state in Palestinian eyes simply because ‘the moment you take a man out of his home, he doesn’t care about history where Abraham walked or what the prophets said. It is his home! He will want to come back to his home!’

– Hasan Afif El-Hasan is a political analyst. His latest book, Is The Two-State Solution Already Dead?

June 20, 2013 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Israel, Israeli settlement, Jerusalem, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

An Insight Into Palestinian Resilience in Gaza

Cold Nights in an Indifferent World

By SARAH MARUSEK | CounterPunch | June 17, 2013

In the eyes of many Westerners, Gaza is a dangerous and war torn place. Even activists, including myself, often imagine Gaza primarily as a place of suffering, and one that has unfairly come to eclipse the affliction of all of Palestine. But while Israel’s wars of aggression against the people of Gaza, as well as its brutal siege, have cost many lives and inflicted countless casualties, Gaza today is a remarkably calm, protected and beautiful place where everyday lives go on, despite the continued suffering of its people. Indeed, Gaza is a place where the heart and soul flourish even if the body is ailing; where people and community are so alive and resilient that it rekindles one’s hope in humanity.

I only know this now because I traveled to Gaza earlier this month to participate in the second annual Global March to Jerusalem (GMJ) on Friday, 7th June 2013, when thousands of Palestinians and international activists mobilized in peaceful demonstrations around the world to draw attention to Israel’s continued violations against Jerusalem and its people. Although Israeli police violently suppressed GMJ demonstrations in Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank, peaceful mass demonstrations did successfully take place in Gaza and the neighboring countries of Jordan and Egypt, as well as in Tunisia, Mauritania, Morocco, Yemen, Malaysia, and Turkey. In addition, there were demonstrations in solidarity with the GMJ all around the world, including several major cities across Europe and North America.

On Friday, 7th June I was fortunate enough to join Palestinians and a group of international activists in a peaceful mass rally in Beit Hanoun, the nearest point possible to Jerusalem in Gaza. Many thousands attended the rally, and during my address I promised to carry their voices back home with me to the US in order to communicate their struggle to live under the footprint of a racist occupying power that my government funds and arms. Of course, the few days I spent in Gaza are hardly enough to fulfill this promise. There are too many voices that I was not able to hear, both because there was not enough time and because of my identity as an American woman. But I am hoping that what I can offer begins to communicate the complex life stories of a people resisting against horrific injustices, while at the same time encouraging other Westerners to travel to Gaza in order to do the same.

My entry into Gaza was made possible by the Miles of Smiles convoy organized by the International Committee for Breaking the Siege on Gaza (ICBSG). While there have been many international convoys entering Gaza in recent years, all of which bring much needed aid to the besieged people of Gaza, the Miles of Smiles convoy offers something unique by focusing on development aid. The first Miles of Smiles convoy reached Gaza in November 2009, and since then the ICBSG has successfully organized twenty additional convoys into Gaza. Our convoy included activists from Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Malaysia, South Africa, the UK, and the USA.

Miles of Smiles works closely with Partners for Peace and Development for Palestinians (PPDP) to sponsor projects that empower Palestinians to develop the means to live dignified lives on their own terms. The PPDP is a UK-based organization that works with a dedicated team of Palestinian employees and volunteers in Gaza to offer interest-free loans and small grants to Palestinians, helping them to establish family businesses and development projects. One example of this is a small bakery that we visited during the first night we spent in Gaza, which thanks to a PPDP loan generates employment for an entire family.

PPDP’s Palestinian employees and volunteers in Gaza coordinated our program, which included many different activities that allowed us access to a diverse array of Palestinian voices and experiences. For example, our second day in Gaza we met with the children and spouses of Palestinians who are currently imprisoned by the occupation authorities, often without any formal charges ever being brought against them. And even when Palestinians are tried, it is in military courts – an apartheid system of justice that separates Palestinian children from their fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters.

Earlier that day we also visited a government hospital that specializes in caring for children. We asked one of the doctors there what the needs of the hospital are, and his answer was a lack of resources – a problem that more international activists could easily help alleviate if the US and Europe did not impose such draconian penalties for working with Hamas, the ruling party of the government in Gaza that Israel and its Western allies label as a terrorist organization because of its resistance activities against the occupation. The doctor explained to us that they have many doctors, in fact too many to employ. Even during Israel’s recent war against Gaza in November of last year they had a sea of volunteers to help. However the hospital still needed equipment and medication to meet the needs of their patients. Indeed according to the human rights organization B’Tselem, Israeli forces killed 167 Palestinians during last November’s military operation, at least 87 of them civilians and more than one third under the age of 18. As we visited some of the sick children I felt so helpless and angry because as an American I am unable to contribute anything to the important work of this hospital, which saves innocent children’s lives. Fortunately, those in Arab countries are able to donate without fear of prosecution, and their contributions help keep the hospital running.

On our fourth day we visited Islamic University, the best university in Gaza (there are seven in total) and ranked among the top 250 universities around the world. Founded in 1978, the university’s campus is modern and beautiful, servicing around 20,000 students each year. The university offers many degrees across the arts and sciences, with Islamic values guiding the behavior of the students as well as the curriculum, which is in line with international scientific standards. But even this university has suffered unjustly under the occupation. During Israel’s December 2008 war against Gaza, occupation forces destroyed 74 of the university’s laboratories, as well as a library, a collective punishment against the entire population. Lest anybody think that this was collateral damage, Israel deliberately bombed the university in six separate air strikes. When I think of violent acts that would terrorize me as a teacher and a scholar, this ranks among the worst. And yet this terrorism is exactly what my government is uncritically supporting.

During our time in Gaza, we also met with Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh, and distributed aid to orphans as well as to needy families thanks to the generosity of our Libyan delegation (as well as my own friends and colleagues who kindly donated money so that I could distribute toys to children). But most of us will never really know what it is like to live under a violent occupation. What it is like to be cruelly besieged by your neighbor and demonized by Western countries for fighting back. We spoke to some graduates of Islamic University who are involved in the Gaza student community, to try and learn more about their own experiences.

One member of the convoy, an American filmmaker of Pakistani origin, remarked how surprising it was that the Palestinians working with us were not more angry. One young man responded that, in fact, they are very angry, but that they still have to live. He explained that he holds his pain and suffering deep inside himself, as do other Palestinians in Gaza. It has to be contained for fear that if expressed it could destroy their lives. And even though he spoke these words calmly and quietly, the inner anguish distorted his face and the grief filled his wide eyes. He told us that he lost seven friends in the last war against his people. On his way to sit his university exams he also saw bombs destroy the buildings around him. His exams were postponed. But what really made the suffering intolerable was getting through the cold nights during that war.

I can only conclude that this coldness is symbolic of a world where an occupying power can terrorize and ethnically cleanse a native population with impunity. Because if there were any warmth left in our hearts, then we would all be doing everything that we possibly could do to stop Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people. Convoys like Miles for Smiles help, as do solidarity activities like the GMJ, but considering the extent of their suffering, the Palestinians deserve more from all of us.

Sarah Marusek is a member of the International Executive Committee of the Global March to Jerusalem.

Palestinian farmer injured by Israeli army fire (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Mass protest aims to focus attention on Jerusalem (palsolidarity.org)

June 17, 2013 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | Gaza, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

Israeli man assaults 2 Palestinian women in Jerusalem

Ma’an – 17/06/2013

JERUSALEM – Two Palestinian women are pressing charges against an Israeli man after being assaulted in Jerusalem on Friday.

Layali al-Sayyad, 23, and Anwar Abu Rmooz, 21, told Ma’an that they were attacked by an Israeli man in his twenties while buying a ticket for the Jerusalem Light Rail near the central bus station in West Jerusalem.

The man reportedly asked the women in both Arabic and Hebrew whether he could help them, before swearing at them and punching al-Sayyad in the face, causing her to pass out.

The man then attacked Abu Rmooz and assaulted a member of the light rail security staff before Israeli police arrived at the scene and arrested him, al-Sayyad said.

Both women, who are from the al-Tur neighborhood, suffered a broken nose and bruising to their eyes and face.

An Israeli police spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

In February, a group of Jewish women attacked a Palestinian woman while she was waiting at a light rail station in Jerusalem, beating her severely.

The women asked if she was Arab before spitting on her and physically attacking her.

Weeks later, a group of Jewish youths in Tel Aviv assaulted a Palestinian cleaner after asking whether he was Arab. A co-worker of the man said it was a “lynching, plain and simple,” according to Israeli media.

Settlers burn 300 olive trees near Nablus, Israeli army obstructs firefighters (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)

June 17, 2013 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Jerusalem, Jerusalem Light Rail, Ma'an, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

Apartheid State or Criminal Project? BDS or Resistance?

Compiled by Niqnaq | June 10, 2013

Partial List of NGOs Involved in BDS and Their Funders

NGO Monitor, Jul 14 2011

(Originally produced Apr 7 2010, updated Jul 14 2011)

NGO	Primary Funders	Funding Amount	Central Involvement
Addameer	Sweden	€207,000 (2009)	Signatory to 2005 BDS call (http://www.bdsmovement.net/)
Addameer	NDC*	$127,000 (2010-12)	Signatory to 2005 BDS call (http://www.bdsmovement.net/)
Al Haq	Holland	$426,201 (funding ceased in 2008)	Signatory to 2005 BDS call (http://www.bdsmovement.net/)
	Ireland	$88,928 (2009)
	Norway	$156,163 (2009, funding ceased)
	Ford Foundation	$600,000 (2009-10)
	Diakonia	$120,490 (2009)
	NDC*	$134,000 (2010-12)
Al Mezan	Sweden	€105,000 (2007-9)	Signatory to 2005 BDS call (http://www.bdsmovement.net/)
	NDC*	$425,000 (2010-12)
	Norway, EU	funding not transparent
Alternative Information Center	Belgium	funding not transparent	”Yes to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Against Israel “
	ICCO	434,024NIS (2009)
	Sweden (via Diakonia)	164,225NIS (2009)
	Spain and the Basque gov’t (via MUNDUBAT)	711,182NIS (2009)
	Catalan gov’t (via Sodepau)	173,271NIS (2009)
Alternatives (Montreal)	Canada	$2,000,000CAN (2008-10) (unclear if ceased)	Signatory to 2005 BDS call (http://www.bdsmovement.net/)
Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (PA)	EU	€374,174 (2009-11)	Signatory to 2005 BDS call (http://www.bdsmovement.net/)
	Spain	€98,347 (2009)
	Switzerland	funding not transparent
Badil (PA)	NDC*	$575,000 (2010-12)	Leader of BDS movement
Christian Aid	Ireland, EU	24,521,692£ (2009-10)	“Partner supporting” calling for BDS and “pursuing parastata Zionist orgs”
Coalition of Women for Peace	EU	€247,954 (2005-7)	Runs “Who profits?” website, which is central in the Norwegian BDS campaign
Coalition of Women for Peace	NIF	$294,129 (2006-9)(funding ceased 2011)
Defence of Children International – Palestine Section	Sweden (via Save the Children)	459,000SEK (2009-11)	Signatory to 2005 BDS call (http://www.bdsmovement.net/)
	European Union	600,000€ (2009-12)
	NDC*	$639,000 (2010-12)
	England	£12,500
Diakonia	Sweden	$52.7 million (2009)	Advocates for divestment strategy against Israel, lobbies against EU-Israel upgrade
Diakonia	EU	10,500,000SEK
Human Rights Watch	Soros’ Open Society Institute	$2,353,895 (2007-8)$100,000,000 (2010-20)	Supported Caterpillar boycott, Call for cuts in U.S. foreign aid to Israel
	Ford Foundation	$445,000 (2009-11)
	Netherlands via Oxfam-NOVIB	$987,818 (2007-8)
Israel Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)	Spain	€105,000 (2009)	Leader in BDS activism
Israel Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)	NDC*EU	$76,000 (2010-12)€169,661 (2010-12)	Leader in BDS activism
KAIROS	Canada – funding was halted in 2009	$1,575,966 (2008)	Main supporter of church divestment campaign
Machsom Watch	EU	€251,650 (2007-2010)	Norwegian Pension Fund divestment campaign
Machsom Watch	NIF	$204,698(2006-9)	Norwegian Pension Fund divestment campaign
Miftah	EU	$79,906 (2010)	Signatory to 2005 BDS call (http://www.bdsmovement.net/)
	Denmark	$28,077 (2010)
	AustriaNDC*	$60,624 (2010)$110,000 (2010-12)
Mossawa	NIF	$517,642 (2006-8)	Norwegian Pension Fund divestment campaign
	EU	€298,660 (2006-8)
	UK	funding not transparent
Norwegian Association of NGOs for Palestine (incl. Norwegian People’s Aid)	Norway	€57,000 (2008)	Coordinates Norwegian Boycott Israel Campaign
	USA	€8,000 (2008)
	Sweden, Netherlands	funding not transparent
Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO)	NDC*	$130,000	Leader of BDS movement
Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO)	Received France’s Human Rights Prize		Leader of BDS movement
Sabeel	Sweden	€76,000 (2006-8)	Leader of global church divestment movement
Trocaire	Ireland	€23,499,837 (2008)	Supports BDS movement, lobbies against EU-Israel upgrade, calls for review of arms export licenses
	UK	€640,682 (2008)
	EU	€1,698,692 (2008)
War on Want	UK	€256,000 (2008)	Advocates for sanctions, including arms boycott
	Ireland	€77,000 (2008)
	EU	€266,000 (2008)
Palestinian Center for Human Rights (Gaza)	NDC*	$425,000 (2010-12)	Leader of BDS movement
Palestinian Center for Human Rights (Gaza)	EU, Holland, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden	funding not transparent	Leader of BDS movement

*The NDC mechanism is the Human Rights and Good Governance Secretariat, established and funded by Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, and managed by the NGO Development Center in Ramallah. Governmental funding provided in 2008-2013.

BDS, For Whose Sake?

Daniel Mabsout, Deliberation, Mar 2 2013

Our concerns with organizations like BDS is not mainly because of what they say or what they do or the kind of affiliations they have. Our concern is that BDS and EI and other organizations as well are speaking in the name of the cause and acting on behalf of Palestinians to the point of preventing others from having a say in the matter. In other words, BDS wants to solve the Palestinian problem in its own way and has embraced for this reason anti Apartheid policies under the attractive label of Boycott, Divest and Sanction, trying to suggest that these policies that were presumably successful regarding the Apartheid state of South Africa could also reap the same success on the Palestinian front. We will not discuss the success of these policies in South Africa and whether the goals of the revolution were attained, but we will shed a light on the implications of such endeavor on behalf of BDS on the Palestinian Cause itself in terms of internationalization and globalization of the cause, something that Arabs and Palestinians always feared. This is due to the involvement of such NGOs like BDS and its like in global policies and World Order agendas, due to the financing they get from European governments and other institutes, which make them serve the World Order at the expense of Palestinians. Our conclusion is that because of its financial affiliations BDS does not qualify to solve the Palestinian problem, because one cannot serve the World Order and Palestine at the same time. This, not to speak of the fact that Israel is not an Apartheid and Palestinians do not suffer from segregation alone. Palestinians need to go back to their homes and retrieve their land, they need to get in possession of what is theirs and whoever thinks that this thing can be achieved by economic pressures and anti racist policies alone must be an ignorant or a fool. This is Israel, my friend, this is not Apartheid and there is nothing like it. This is not some elephant that has gone mad, this is madness itself. This is the usurping state of Israel, the most advanced military base of the criminal World Order, this is all predator countries joined together from Europe to the New continent, this is a state that orders the United Nations and many other Nations as well, the country that kills and slaughters and never fears sanctions, that commits genocides without hesitation, that wants to kill each and every Palestinian and each and every Arab who will not normalize or recognize. This is Ariel Sharon and Golda Meir and Tsipi Livni, this is not Apartheid. This has no other label in all seasons and instances other than that of criminal. This is the criminal state of Israel and is supported by the whole world order and will outwit and outsmart Barghouthi and Abunimah and all NGOs joined together.

Let us assume that BDS is working earnestly for Palestinians and conducting these activities for the sake of the cause, at the exclusion of others, and in order to solve the Palestinian issue as it pretends, what has it achieved on the ground for Palestinians since its foundation in 2005? Has it stopped the expansion of Israel in any way? Has it stopped the colonization and the proliferation of settlements? Has it stopped the eviction of Palestinians and demolition of their houses? Has it freed the prisoners from their prisons? Has it relieved Gaza from its siege? Has it done away with the wall of segregation? Has it stopped the flow of weapons and money destined to Israel? Has it worked against normalization? Has it retrieved any of Palestinian rights? Has it protected Jerusalem? Has it improved in any way the lives of Palestinians? The answer to all this is NO. BDS has not achieved anything of this and has not harmed in the least Israel’s economy or welfare. This is what speaks volumes for BDS. If one wants to rejoice over the boycott of such and such company or of such singer and dancer, or over boycotting West Bank dates, one can do that and one can boycott if one wants and this does not need BDS, this needs personal commitment on one’s behalf. Boycott is good but Boycott cannot retrieve Palestine, nor defeat Israel, nor bring back the people to their land and to pretend otherwise is to cheat people. BDS should be exposed for what it is: A World Order Organization financed by the World Order and working under the banner of Palestine, pretending to be in charge of the cause while achieving nothing for Palestinians. The merit of such organization, and other NGOs as well in the eyes of the World Order, lies in giving up the armed Resistance as a choice and a means for liberation and in alienating the Arab masses and people from the victories achieved by this Resistance. This attitude of shunning the victorious Resistance that defeated Israel benefits Israel in the first place and sheds a light on whom BDS really serves. Meanwhile Israel is given enough time to recover from its two consecutive defeats and to figure out and plan its next scheme of occupation expansion and extermination. THANK YOU BDS!

BDS AMBIVALENCE

Daniel Mabsout, Deliberation, Mar 7 2013

People following BDS activities and functions should be informed about the latest innovation of the BDS movement (BOYCOTT DIVEST SANCTION) whereby the BDS has adopted two different versions of its amendment, one in English and one in Arabic, and the funny thing is that they say two different things: the one in English calls for ending occupation of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, and the one in Arabic calls for ending occupation of the Palestinian territories full stop. It is important to say that BDS boasts about grouping 170 organizations and Palestinian movements and is supposed to be accountable before them. Instead, it has adopted a different English version from the original one, in which it recognizes the legitimacy of Israel within the 67 borders and asks Israel to withdraw only from the land occupied in 1967 and this without informing the organizations that work with it about this change. The original text in Arabic though that asks for ending the occupation of all Palestinian territories remained unchanged for some mysterious reason. BDS is required on the spot to explain this duplicity and why it has adopted two versions of the same thing in two different languages and two radically different stands? Why is it addressing the Arab public in one way and foreigners in another recognizing Israel in one instance and calling for ending occupation in the other? What is the goal behind this misleading policy of adopting two antagonistic stands and whom is this supposed to serve? Or are they both fake and meant to mislead people? Either BDS is betting on the ignorance and the stupidity of people which is stupid and ignorant or it is working on a separate agenda that does not give importance to these “Palestinian” details?

http://bdsarabic.net/نداء-2005/

http://www.bdsmovement.net/bdsintro

BDS, Boycott The Armed Struggle

Daniel Mabsout, Deliberation, Mar 9 2013

The birth of the Boycott movement that started the PCACBI happened at a crucial moment in year 2002, after Israel has been defeated and its vulnerability exposed due to losing the first war since its foundation. The Resistance had triumphed and succeeded in liberating Lebanon and called Palestinians to get inspired from the Lebanese victory and resume the struggle in Palestine to achieve a similar result. It is around this time some strange hybrid started taking birth in the West Bank under the name PCACBI, which is a boycott campaign following the South African model. Not only PCACBI never related to this victory over Israel, but broke suddenly with a whole tradition of armed resistance that marked the Palestinian struggle. Recognizing the right of Israel to exist, the PCACBI asks for withdrawal to the 67 borders and dismantling of settlements and for the right of return of refugees, and calls for application of boycott policies, namely cultural and academic, against the Apartheid state of Israel. Mind you, this boycott called for by the PCACBI never followed the usual channels of Boycott as prescribed and carried on by the Arab League and applied by Arab governments. Who ever wants to consider the birth of such a movement, that took place in the West Bank, as a natural birth must check himself and ask himself why this movement has broken with the Palestinian armed struggle in general and why, instead of getting inspired from the first military victory achieved over Israel, endorsing it, investing in it and identifying with it, chose to travel to South Africa and draw parallels with the previous Apartheid state and project this Apartheid on the Palestinian condition. Founded by a handful of Palestinian academicians and intellectuals, some of them living abroad, the boycott movement does not seem to represent Palestinians in general, but seems to be removed from the Palestinian social and cultural reality and connected to foreign groups instead, mostly located outside. The public addressed by this movements is not native Palestinian, and no refugee living in camps can identify with this anti Apartheid trip. This has a foreign audience, no doubt, that includes Jews as well. The actual BDS movement that is a product of the PCACBI is oriented the same way towards foreigners, and even if it is endorsed by Palestinian societies, these societies are mostly NGOs with foreign affiliations. So we are at the same point we started from. BDS came to add more confusion to the whole thing and while the PCACBI was clear in its objectives regarding the recognition of Israel within the 67 borders, the BDS remains indecisive as to what territories Israel is supposed to withdraw from, whether the 67 or the whole Arab land, sometimes being specific sometimes not. This fluctuation may be due to a fluctuating agenda that wants to cater to all tendencies and affiliations. As for the refugee issue, it is being stated in confusing terms, whereby the issue is to be promoted, protected and respected instead of being enforced on Israel. In what way this whole boycott trip is beneficial to the cause we don’t know. Certainly it is beneficial to Israel to become recognized so broadly as a legal state. Because of this, the whole Apartheid story seemed to be one of the designs of the enemy as a means to acquire recognition and as an alternative to the military option that has failed drastically in Lebanon and, finally, what is left to be known is whether this boycott is as harmful to Israel as is to Palestinians the forsaking of the armed struggle. What BDS wants to boycott, finally, under the attractive label of boycott, is the armed struggle itself.

Is Palestinian Solidarity An Occupied Zone?

Daniel Mabsout, Deliberate, Mar 10 2013

BDS OR RESISTANCE / THE LESSON THAT WAS OMITTED

The BDS was born in a hybrid womb, that is not an Arab womb but an Israeli foreign womb, after Sayyed Hassan Nasrullah celebrating the liberation of the South in year 2000 stood in Bint Jbeil in south Lebanon in the proximity of occupied Palestine and addressed the Palestinians thus, offering them the victory over Israelis, saying: “People of Palestine, your way to Palestine and to liberty is the path of resistance and insurrection, which means a serious resistance and a real insurrection rather than the insurrection in the shadow of Oslo or in the service of the concessive negotiation in Stockholm. You should take the path of the insurrection and the resistance that only accept the perfect right, as Lebanon has done, whereby the whole Lebanese people refuse to keep a small part of their land occupied. Hence, we offer this noble Lebanese model to our people in Palestine.” This happened in Year 2000, in the glorious victory over the Israelis after 18 years of occupation. Sayyed Hassan Nasrullah added, addressing Palestinians: “To free your land, you don’t need tanks, a strategic balance, rockets, and cannons; you need to follow the way of the past self-sacrifice martyrs who disrupted and horrified the coercive Zionist entity. You, the oppressed, unarmed, and restricted Palestinians, can force the Zionist invaders to return to the places they came from. Let the Falasha go to Ethiopia, and let the Russian Jews return to Russia. The choice is yours, and the model lies right in front of your eyes. An honest and serious resistance can make the freedom dawn arise. Our brothers and beloved Palestinians, I tell you, ‘Israel’, which owns nuclear weapons and the strongest war aircraft in the region, is feebler than a spider’s web. I swear to God.” Two years after this fiery speech was born the Boycott movement in the West Bank, where the whole achievement of the Lebanese Resistance was overlooked and their addressing on behalf of Sayyed Hassan totally ignored and his invitation to copy the successful model of the Resistance totally discarded. The answer to Sayyed Hassan invitation was the Boycott movement whereby, instead of turning to Lebanon and getting inspired from the Lebanese victory, the Boycott turned to South Africa to copy the anti Apartheid model replacing the real with the unreal and the resistance by surrender, If this is not an Israeli scheme, then what is it? The whole speech of Sayyid Hassan in English:

http://www.english.moqawama.org/essaydetails.php?eid=14178&cid=231

Partial List Of Endorsers And Financers Of BDS

Daniel Mabsout, Deliberation, Mar 11 2013

BEFORE YOU EMBARK ON AN ENDEAVOR SEE WHO SITS IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT

The enemy nowadays is coming dressed in many garbs. He has been acquainted with our ways and learned about our tastes. This whole Arab spring was possible because the enemy knew how to cater to our tastes. He knew about our longings and he addressed them. Thus, the whole Arab Spring was a deceit. It turned into a shabby winter, into instability and chaos and social unrest. In Syria it turned bloody and destructive and is still going on causing more bloodshed and more destruction. The enemy knows how to cater to our tastes, and we should not fall an easy prey to its schemes and designs. Look at the international solidarity movement around Palestine and the role of internationally affiliated NGOs. Look at how the cause is being slowly and surely liquidated in a process of total globalization. Look at the attractive labels used by these NGOs of Boycott and Protests and Dismantle of the wall and Freedom for prisoners and Jerusalem and Apartheid and you name it. What is happening in Palestine is NGO work and supporters of the cause are falling for them. The Palestinian Organizations and factions whose emblem is armed struggle have lost their role in favor of NGOs and are losing slowly their say in many matters related to Palestinians. What can NGOs do to the cause? What are NGOs doing? Are they progressing with the cause? Are they improving the living conditions of Palestinians? What are their achievements on the ground? Do they carry exclusively a Palestinian agenda or they carry different ones? In order to answer this question about NGOs and whether they qualify to lead the Palestinian cause, as they claim, there is but one way and it is to look at how they are financed. Tell me who funds you and I will tell you who are, the money one gets will decide for the orientation of the whole endeavor, I think we all agree on that. Please find in this partial list the financers of the endorsers of the Boycott movement called BDS which is waging for anti Apartheid policies, see if the financers are real supporters of the cause or whether they support something else, like Israel for example, and decide for yourself whether BDS and other NGOs qualify to lead the cause.

Come Join The Apartheid Show My Friend!

Daniel Mabsout, Deliberation, Mar 12 2013

Palestine has become an entertainment, if you are not aware. The plight of the people, the suffering, the homelessness, the abuse, the violations, the massacres and the incarcerations, the shelling, the siege and the occupation have become source of entertainment funded by Soros and company. And this has acquired a new name and is no more Palestine. It has become Apartheid, if you know what Apartheid is. So now when you think Palestine you ought to think Apartheid. Thus you have to remove yourself from the Arab and Palestinian Reality to the magic land of Apartheid, the fictitious place called Apartheid where you are no more yourself but a magic character in one of Soros’ fairy tales. Apartheid is the Disneyland Soros has especially designed for Palestinians with its full show of BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) conducted by Palestinian NGO Omar Barghouthi who refuses to apply the rules of Boycott himself since he is a registered student at Tel Aviv University. The circus is then running and the show designed for Palestine is the Apartheid Show. And it is Soros who is funding the show so that, when you boycott, it is on behalf of Soros that you are boycotting, and when you divest or sanction it is on behalf of Master Soros that you are doing so. This is how Palestinians can at last make a living, by handing their cause to Master NGO. From One city to another the Apartheid Show seems flourishing and is organizing a week in Beirut, and Soros will be speaking and performing and exhibiting through many people, artists and poets and speakers some of them notorious fighters for the cause like Leila Khaled herself. Bravo Apartheid! And it sounds so well, “Apartheid”, especially when one has grown tired of repeating uselessly the same old words of occupation and violation and massacres and extermination. Apartheid comes in handy; one can figure oneself in some Hollywood production, in an altogether different story and setting that will appeal to many people.

And the foreigners can now join in and jump in the Apartheid boat, as they jumped previously in great numbers in the Flotilla boats, without succeeding in lifting the siege from Gaza. Now, in the Apartheid boat, they can show their solidarity to the Palestinian Cause, which they could never show to the successful armed Resistance or to the victorious Hizbullah of Lebanon who defeated Israel and liberated the land without concession. But it is too costly to salute the Armed Resistance and to embark on a strange trip to a strange land, a Muslim land. And who knows if one will not end up in Iran, for example, in “theocracy” land with hateful Mullahs all over the place, or in HAMAS land. This Apartheid thing is much safer and not too costly for Israel. With Apartheid one can identify, and see in it the continuation of the premises of peace as introduced by Gandhi and his likes and embraced by most westerners worried more about Israel’s safety than about Palestinians’ rights. Apartheid is the Model and the parallel that the World Order has projected on the Palestinian Cause, not in order to solve it according to the South African model, but in order to leave it pending with no solution, because Israel is not an Apartheid. All this turbulence of boycotting dancers and singers and musicians and boycotting companies and academicians and students is but a maze that will lead to nowhere and definitely not to the liberation of Palestine or to the restitution of any of the Palestinian rights. This is nothing but blurring the vision and giving Israel more time to continue its scheme of occupation and domination. By the time Palestinians finish their performance in the West Bank streets and finish coloring and dancing in front of the wall of separation, Israel would have finished carrying on its evil schemes of hegemony and expansion. This is the Apartheid show, nourished by the World Order, after the Arafat show nourished by oil money, and it will bear the same bitter fruits in terms of recognition and normalization with the enemy and liquidating the cause itself.

The Undefined Purpose Of BDS

Daniel Mabsout, Deliberation, Mar 13 2013

Let’s read thoroughly the Arabic BDS text which is the original text as it was written in year 2005. The text says literally that Israel should submit to the International Law and this in:

Ending the occupation and colonization of ALL Arab land and dismantling the wall.
Recognizing the fundamental right of Arab Palestinian citizens to full equality.
Respecting, protecting and promoting the right of the Palestinian Refugees to return home as stipulated in UN resolutions.

This is the original version, which is a confusing version, because it gives the impression that Israel is to withdraw from all Arab land, and if it were to withdraw from all Arab land, to where would it withdraw? To the sea? To Europe? While in fact what is meant is that it will withdraw from certain Arab territories, probably those that will be decided upon by the world order or the peace talks. The territories to be evacuated turned out to be the lands occupied in 67, but if withdrawing from all Arab land was meant in the first place, then also the 2nd and 3rd amendment would be irrelevant. This means that the BDS is not a serious movement with precise goals and objectives, and the Recognition of Israel within its 1948 borders goes back to the foundation of the BDS movement in 2005, because the withdrawal from the 67 occupied land that showed up 8 years later in the English version was already implicit in the original version even if not clearly expressed. What remains to be known is why BDS has chosen to be explicit about this matter in the version addressed to its foreign audience at this time precisely, while the Arabic text retained its original confusing statement of ending occupation of all Arab land. BDS had nothing precise in its mind, no position and no ideology, which is quite surprising for a liberating movement that wants to retrieve Palestinians’ rights. BDS is waiting for others to determine their position and then take a stand accordingly. For this BDS cannot lead nor speak for the Palestinian Cause because it has no authority or independent position.

June 16, 2013 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | BDS, Boycott Divestment and Sanctions, Coalition of Women for Peace, Divestment, European Union, Non-governmental organization, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

The Israeli Lab and the Palestinian Guinea Pigs

By Gilad Atzmon | June 15, 2013

The Lab is a new groundbreaking Israeli documentary film that redefines our entire understanding of the Jewish State, its aims, its identity and its global destructive role. I honestly believe that this film is the deepest and most important commentary on Israel.

In The Lab, Director Yotam Feldman exposes the Israeli military industry and its operation, he interviews some major protagonists within Israel’s ‘security’ trade. He elaborates on the role of the industry within the Israeli society and economy; in the last few years Israeli security exports reached an unprecedented level of $7 billion a year. A full 20% of Israeli exports are military or military related. Approximately 150,000 families in Israel are dependent on that industry. Israel is now the fourth biggest military exporter.

In the last decade, every Israeli military operation led to an immediate sharp increase in sales of Israeli military export around the world: weaponry, systems, intelligence, strategies, doctrines, knowledge, and experience.

Feldman provides us with a glimpse into a very organized universe. We visit Israeli weapon fairs around the world but we also see arenas filled to capacity with foreign generals, public officials and diplomats. They are all shopping for Israeli military products. The message is clear, the 7 billion dollars is just part of the story. Israeli military elite is now deeply interwoven with the political and military elite of every country around the globe. This emerging Israeli business buys the Jewish state influence and support.¹

The Lab makes it evidently clear that the Palestinian civilian population in the West Bank and Gaza have become test subjects for Israeli tactics, weaponry and fighting philosophy (‘Fighting Torah’, Torat Lechima — as the Israelis call it). The destruction of the Palestinians has now been transformed into a very profitable industry. We are dealing here with nothing short of highly calculated murder.

Through a set of fascinating interviews, Feldman conveys a very genuine picture of the Israeli death merchants. Feldman lets them talk, he hardly interferes. They are sharp, they are genuine, they are even funny at times, occasionally witty, and a few of them, might even be charming if you did not know who they are. But make no mistake, they are sinister, some of them are clearly psychotic, they are mass murderers and they are free. They sell destruction and havoc and do it very successfully.²

Being myself an Israeli-born and raised successful musician and writer, I think I can recognize Israeli dedication, perseverance and creativity when I see it, no matter into what service it is pressed. (Perhaps I was lucky to be rescued by bebop.) Those Israeli death angels’ talent is driven into the amplification of human misery. The consequences are tragic.

Game Changer

It is far from being a secret that a century of Palestinian struggle led to practically nothing. The state of the Palestinian solidarity movement is even more embarrassing. The Lab is a game changer, for it can explain decades of impotence.

We are immersed in flawed terminology — ‘colonialism’, ‘apartheid’, ‘conflict’, ‘solution’, ‘Zionism’ are just few examples. Gaza is now a vast Laboratory — the Israelis are the ‘scientists’ and the ‘technicians’, the Palestinians are the ‘guinea pigs’. Watching The Lab must lead all of us to fundamentally question our notions. We are dealing with a premeditated war crime. The notion of resolution (as in ‘two-state solution’), for instance, is not applicable. It is clear beyond doubt that in the real world the ‘scientist’ does not negotiate with the ‘guinea pig’. The ‘scientist’ also doesn’t consider sharing reality with his ‘guinea pig’ in a ‘one democratic state.’ “The Lab” is a glimpse into the Israeli mind: you clearly do not find much compassion there.

For decades we were foolish to examine the success and failure of Israeli military operations in reference to Israeli military and political ‘objectives,’ as we surmised them. We were clearly wrong.

As we learn from Feldman’s film, the real objective of Israeli operations may as well be examining new doctrines and operational systems in order to distribute them around the world soon after. Ehud Barak, for instance, wasn’t exactly the most sophisticated Israeli minister of defense, he clearly failed to defend his people or even make them feel secure. However, he was very successful in selling Israeli weapons and doctrines.

Tel Aviv being subject to a barrage of Qassam rockets may be seen by Israelis as devastating news, but from a military industrial point of view, it was a golden opportunity to examine and promote the Israeli anti-missile system Iron Dome. If I am correct here, it becomes clear that like the Palestinians, more and more Israelis are also becoming ‘guinea pigs’ in this ever growing military laboratory.

One may wonder how and when “the Zionist dream” transformed itself into a military business. Only a few of us, writers and scholars, have attempted to answer this question. The transformation of the Jewish State into an oppression factory is apparently a direct outcome of Israel’s supremacist ideology. If we want to understand what is happening in the Jewish State, we must first grasp the notions of choseness, Jewishness and Jewish identity politics.

I guess that enough Palestinians in Gaza do realise by now that they have been part of an Israeli experiment. Every too often we learn from Palestinian doctors that while treating casualties of Israeli aggression they encounter new types of wounds. The Lab explains it but it isn’t Palestine alone. We also witness a growing similarity between the operational mode of police forces around the world and the IDF treatment of the Palestinians.

Watching Yotam Feldman’s The Lab explains it all. We are all Palestinians. We are either occupied by Israel or by its proxy forces around the world — those who are trained in Israel and implement Israeli weaponry and tactics.

Watch Foreign Generals shopping around.
Watch IDF Yoav Galant, the planner and executioner of Operation Cast Lead, discussing ‘proportions.’

June 15, 2013 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Economics, Militarism, Subjugation - Torture, Supremacism, Social Darwinism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Jewish State, Palestine | Leave a comment

The Painted Frog of Palestine

Lake Huleh. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

By Jeremy Salt | Palestine Chronicle | June 14 2013

The good news from Palestine is that the ‘painted frog’ of the Huleh valley is not extinct after all. Recently it turned up again after not having been seen for the past half century. Behind the disappearance of the painted frog stands a much bigger story, the fate of the Huleh valley after the conquest of Palestine by the Zionists and behind that story is the reality behind one of the foundation myths of the Zionists, that of a barren, stagnant and empty land awaiting redemption in the hands of the Jewish people.

In the 19th century the Huleh wetlands were one of Palestine’s prize natural assets. They were formed over millennia by three rivers flowing south into the Huleh valley from their headwaters in Syria, the Hasbani, the Banias and the Liddan. The valley stretched for a distance of about 25 kilometers in length and six in width. Its centerpiece was Lake Huleh and its adjoining wetlands, covering an area of about 60 square kilometers, expanding and contracting in tune with the seasons. The lake itself was more than five kilometers long and more than four wide at its broadest point. The river flow continued southwards into Lake Tiberias and then the Jordan River. The fertile land around the lake provided the surrounding villages and beduin cultivators with a good living from cereal crops, maize, rice and honey. The lake and wetlands were a nesting and feeding spot for masses of migratory birds. The life beneath the water was just as rich as on the outside.

Here are descriptions of the Huleh wetlands by the Rev. W.M. Thomson, an American missionary who visited Palestine in the 1850s to follow in the footsteps of the master but still took detailed notes of everything he saw, the food people ate, the clothes they wore, the crops they cultivated, the glassware and soap they produced in their worships as well as the flora, the fauna, the valleys, hills, plains and rivers. (1):

“There lies the Huleh like a vast carpet with patterns of every shade and shape and size, thrown down In Nature’s most bewitching negligence and laced all over with countless streams of liquid light …. The plain is clothed with flocks and herds of black buffalo bathe in the pools. The lake is alive with fowls, the trees with birds and the air with bees.” (‘Unrivalled beauty of the Huleh’, p. 225)

“The soil of this plain is a water deposit like that of the Mississipi Valley about New Orleans and extremely fertile. The whole country around it depends mainly upon the harvests of the Huleh for wheat and barley. Large crops of Indian corn, rice and sesamun (simsum) are also grown by the Arabs of the Huleh, who are all of the Ghawareneh tribe. They are permanent residents although dwelling in tents. All the cultivation is done by them. They also make large quantities of butter from their herds of buffalo and gather honey in abundance from their bees. The Huleh is, in fact, a perpetual pasture field for cattle and flowery paradise for bees. At Mansura and Sheikh Hazeib I saw hundreds of cylindrical hives of basket work, pitched, inside and outside, with a composition of mud and cow dung. They are piled tier above tier, pyramid fashion, and roofed over with thatch or covered with a mat. The bees were very busy and the whole region rang as though a score of hives were swarming at once. Thus this plain still flows with milk and honey and well deserves the report which the Danite spies carried back to their brethren: ‘A place where there is no lack of anything that is in the earth.” (‘Produce of the land of Huleh’, p. 253).

“This Huleh – plain, marsh, lake and surrounding mountains – is the finest hunting ground in Syria and mainly so because it is very rarely visited. Panthers and leopards, bears and wolves, jackals and hyenas and foxes and many other animals are found, great and small, while it is the very paradise of the wild boar and the fleet gazelle. As to waterfowl, it is scarcely an exaggeration to affirm that the lower end of the lake is absolutely covered with them in the winter and spring.” (‘Wild animals of the Huleh’, p. 260).

Dr. Thomson does not mention the painted frogs of Huleh but they must have been there in abundance, breeding in the protection of the rushes, hunted by the pelicans and storks that stopped at the lake on their flights from the north. He noted the presence of the ‘lilies of the valley’ growing amongst the rushes, which in places were so densely entangled with bamboo as to make approaches to the water impenetrable. The Huleh valley was one part of a rich environmental and agricultural mosaic stretching across Palestine. Of course part of it was barren. It still is but one would not say Australia is a barren land because of the Simpson desert or the United States because of the Mojave desert in California. It was not just the fertility of the Huleh valley that took Dr. Thomson’s attention. He was equally fulsome in his praise of the groves of citrus fruits, the extensive fields of wheat and barley grown along the seaboard right down to Gaza and the grapes and olives of the interior. His descriptions are corroborated in numerous other contemporary accounts, which stand as the most effective rebuttal of the central myth of the barren land.

Indeed, the central problem for the Zionists was that all the fertile land was already being cultivated, by people who were not prepared to part with it. Like all native peoples the land for them was an integral part of the cycle of life. That was the way it had always been and not until the Zionists arrived had they had to face life without it. It was the latifundistas living outside Palestine and the middlemen who negotiated the deals who gave the Zionists their foothold. Once the contracts were signed they drove the tenant cultivators away. There was no remorse: where these uprooted people went was none of their business. The British, in charge of this supposedly ‘sacred trust of civilisation’, as the mandate was described in article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, were complicit in this ruthless process, providing an umbrella of armed and pseudo-legal protection.

Through legal purchase the Zionists were never going to get what they wanted. By 1945 they had acquired less than six per cent of Palestine and remained a one-third minority of the population despite the massive immigration of the 1930s. David Ben-Gurion and other Zionist leaders knew that only war would give them what they wanted. They played a crafty game, dumping the British when they were no longer of any use and turning to the United States. Partition was a complete violation of the natural rights of the indigenous people but was welcomed by the Zionists, naturally, as they were being given what they did not possess and had no right to possess. At the same time as pretending to be satisfied with partition, they regarded it only as the first step. It was not just that the Americans had concluded by early 1948 that Palestine could not be partitioned peacefully. The Zionists would never allow it to be partitioned peacefully as this would leave the Palestinians on their land. There could be no Jewish state as long as they stayed, and if there is a regret in the Benny Morris school of historical reflection it is only that the opportunity was lost to get rid of them all.

In the meantime land hunger focused settler eyes on possibilities in the rich, fertile and well watered Huleh valley. Draining what were called the swamps of Huleh would create more room for colonization but for the time being remained beyond their technical and financial means. When it happened it was inscribed as one of the founding myths of Zionists: the redemption of the land, making the desert bloom, and all the rest of it, when in fact the settlers ruined in the Huleh valley what was an ecologically rich wetland with few parallels in the Middle East.

From the beginning control of water was essential to the Zionist project. Weizmann fought hard at the Paris peace conference in 1919 for the Syrian headlands of Palestine’s water to be included in the British mandate and therefore within the borders of the Zionist state Lloyd-George, Balfour and Churchill wanted to establish in the heart of the Middle East while talking endlessly about nothing more than a ‘national homeland’ for the Jewish people. Weizmann’s scheming and lobbying broke against the rock of French strategic interest but seizing and controlling water resources in and around Palestine remained a prime target of the Zionist leadership, with their diversion of these waters creating one of the many crises that preceded the 1967 war.

The Huleh valley stood out from the beginning of Zionist settlement. The first colony in the valley was established in the 1880s but because of the ravages of malaria no further settlements were established for half a century. In the 1930s Steinmatsky’s Palestine Guide (2) noted the drainage of ‘swamps and marshes’ since the First World War, ending the scourge of malaria and restoring ‘fertile tracts of land to cultivation thus increasing the tillable area of Palestine’. Unique amongst Palestine’s network of rivers, lakes and subterranean aquifers, the Huleh wetlands ‘which are now marshy tracts offer untold opportunities for agricultural development. Thorough drainage is the first need to be followed by systematic irrigation. This land has been granted for use under a concession to a group which did not avail itself of the concession. The concession has now passed to a Jewish group which will soon start on the preliminary work.’ (p. xii).

In his collection of essays on land acquisition and development in Palestine, Arthur Ruppin, a German lawyer who settled in Jaffa as the chief land purchasing and development officer for the Palestine Office of the World Zionist Organization, lists the Huleh wetlands as land which might be uncultivable for the Palestinian settled and nomad population but would be cultivable for incoming Jewish colons, given their access to credit and use of modern farm machinery. (3) The fertile land around the lake was either state land from Ottoman times or already owned and cultivated, with only one Zionist settlement having been established up to the outbreak of the Second World War. Ruppin wanted to open up land for settlement by draining the wetlands, which for him were no more than marsh and swamp waiting to be reclaimed.

In a memorandum handed to Sir John Hope Simpson, sent to Palestine in 1930 to investigate immigration, land development and settlement, the three major causes of rising distress amongst the Palestinians, Ruppin attempted to show that ‘if the farming of the fellaheen were to be a little bit intensified – in the coastal zone, Beisan, Huleh and the lower Jordan Valley – the Jews would be able to buy 1,300,000 dunums without displacing the people who have so far [sic.] worked the land. Fifty-five thousand [Jewish] families could be settled on this land.’(4) Hope-Simpson demurred on various grounds, one of them being that the Jewish National Fund (JNF) would not let ‘Arabs’ work on its land and that ‘increasing land purchase will displace the Arabs from many parts of Palestine’. This in fact is what happened as part of a process Hope-Simpson described as the ‘extra territorialisation’ of land once purchased by the JNF and put beyond the purchase or rental by non-Jews forever. Zionist colonists who still used the Palestinians on the land or in workshops and factories were violating the Jewish-only labor ‘principles’ that were the corollary of the ‘principles’ governing land purchase.

At the age of 50 Ruppin and others founded the Brit Shalom movement. It was committed to ‘Jewish-Arab’ friendship but the refusal of the Palestinians to give up their rights and their land eventually forced him to conclude that negotiations would achieve nothing and that if the Zionist project was to succeed, ‘we must increase our strength and our numbers until we reach parity with the Arabs. The life or death of the Zionist movement will depend on this …. Perhaps a bitter truth but it is the truth with a capital T’. Writing in 1936 he expected this point to be reached in five to ten years. (5) Ruppin died in 1943 so was not around when not just parity but numerical superiority was achieved by expelling the bulk of the indigenous Palestinian population in 1948. In the language of the occupier, there were 12 ‘Jewish’ and 23 ‘Arab’ ‘settlements’ in the Huleh valley by 1948. ‘Following the establishment of the State of Israel and during the 1948 War of Independence the Arab inhabitants left the valley, moving to neighboring Arab countries’. (6)

Meron Benvenisti has put the number of villages in the region at 60 but this includes semi-permanent beduin encampments built from rushes or mud bricks. (7) Walid Khalidi has documented how they ‘left’ and what happened to their ‘settlements’. Village after village was depopulated and destroyed before being built over by Zionist settlements. (8) All that remained after the Zionist assault through the Huleh valley was one Beduin settlement,(9) with the Zionist settlers now free to take the land left behind and harvest the crops planted by those they had expelled.

With the Palestinians gone and the state of Israel established over their heads and on their land there were no barriers to the exploitation of the Huleh valley. Beginning in 1951 it was subjected to ‘redevelopment’ that amounted to ecological vandalism on a grand scale by blundering land-hungry settler administrators. The wetlands were drained and turned into arable land, shrinking the lake to perhaps one tenth of its original size. At the time the drainage and irrigation works were seen as a brilliant engineering achievement, of which the most significant benefits were regarded as the creation of thousands of dunums of cultivable land and the eradication of malaria. Yet it was not long before disappointment and an understanding of the damage that had been done set in. As summarized by Zohary and Hambright, while the drained peat soil proved suitable for agriculture, ‘the anticipated exceptional yields were never obtained’. (10)

Furthermore, ‘as the level of groundwater fell, air penetrated into the dried peat, enhancing microbial decomposition of organic matter. Often these processes led to uncontrollable underground fires and the formation of dangerous caverns within the peat. The weathered peat soils turned into infertile black dust. Strong winds sweeping the valley produced dust storms that caused major damage to agricultural crops. Consequently, the ground surface subsided by up to three meters in some regions and inundation of these areas during winter rains restricted cultivation in many areas. An indirect problem associated with the drying of the soils was the proliferation of field mice populations which soared and wreaked havoc on agricultural crops in the valley. Over time, farmers abandoned more and more of the valley where cultivation was no longer profitable, thereby further enhancing the rate at which these soils deteriorated’.

By 1958 this was the state of the valley described in such glowing terms by Dr. Thomson only a century before. A unique wetlands region which had been part of the landscape for thousands of years had been mostly destroyed within the space of nine. Elsewhere in Palestine olive groves, pomegranates and citrus orchards were uprooted as part of a dual process of settlement building and the removal from the land of all traces and symbols of the Palestinian presence. The olive and pomegranate were preeminent symbols of the ‘primitive’ Palestinian village and so had to go along with the houses. (11) Through the vindictive destruction of olive trees by settlers on the West Bank this process continues to the present day.

Along with the shrinking of Lake Huleh and the drying of the land came the destruction of flora and fauna. The lake had been a rich source of aquatic life, with researchers listing ‘260 species of insects, 95 crustaceans, 30 snails and claims, 21 fishes, seven amphibians and reptiles, 131 birds and three mammals’. (12) After the drainage ‘119 animal species were lost to the region of which 37 were totally lost from Israel [sic]. Similarly, many freshwater plant species became extinct and many of the massive flocks of migratory birds that used to land in the valley found alternative feeding sites on their routes between Europe and Asia.’ Only in the 1980s was it decided to take steps to repair the damage, by flooding part of the valley in the hope of renewing something of the original bio-diversity but only a ‘small fragment of an extinct eco-system’ has been revived.’ The painted frog with its mottled back and belly speckled with white spots belongs to an amphibian family thought to have died out 10,000 years ago until spotted in the Huleh wetlands in the 1940s. This ‘living fossil’ was believed to have been one of the species that were ‘lost’ when the wetlands were drained in the 1950s but two years ago a ranger saw one and now it is thought that there is a colony of hundreds.

The Huleh eco-system did not die of natural causes. It did not become ‘extinct’ because of sudden climate change or any of the other natural catastrophes that have killed off species and reshaped the surface of the planet for millennia. It was another casualty of the nakba. The Zionist colons had none of the skills that come with husbanding the land generation after generation over countless centuries. They had to learn and their vandalism in the Huleh valley was born of their ignorance and their haste to settle and cover all traces of where the people they drove out had lived, prayed, studied and farmed and where their ancestors were buried.

Where the painted frog went as the Huleh wetlands were drained only the frog knows. Most probably, it burrowed deeper into what remained of the mud and rushes until it was safe to come out, a period of time that spanned more than 50 years. The parallel with the people is unmistakable: driven towards extinction as a people, they have survived and are waiting for the time when they also will be able to return.

– Jeremy Salt is an associate professor of Middle Eastern history and politics at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

Notes:

(1) Rev. W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book (Nelson and Sons: London, 1879).
(2) Steimatsky’s Palestine Guide (Jerusalem: Steinmatsky Publishing Company, n.d. , 1930s?).
(3) Arthur Ruppin, Three Decades of Palestine (Jerusalem: Schocken, 1936), pp. 207-8
(4) Alex Bein., ed., Arthur Ruppin: Memoirs, Diaries, Letters (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971)
(5) Ibid., p.320
(6) Tamar Zohary and K.David Hambright, ‘Lake Hula-Lake Agmon’, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org
(7) Meron Benvenisti, Sacred Landscapes. The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), p.127.
(8) Walid Khalidi ed., All That Remains. The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 (Washington: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992), pp. 428-509 passim for the fate of Palestinian villages on the Huleh plain.
(9) Ibid, p. 131
(10) Zohary and Hambright, op. cit.
(11) Benvenisti, p.216.
(12) Ibid.

June 15, 2013 Posted by aletho | Environmentalism, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | Jews, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

Israeli army detains a 10-year-old during the weekly demonstration in Kafr Qaddum

A young Palestinian protester runs away from Israeli soldiers during a demonstration against the expropriation of Palestinian land by Israel in the village of Kafr Qaddum, near the West Bank city of Ramallah on June 22, 2012. – Source

International Women’s Peace Service | June 14, 2013

Kafr Qaddum, Occupied Palestine – On Friday 14 June, the Israeli army arrested a 10-year-old child during the weekly protest in Kafr Qaddum. Israeli soldiers fired tear gas canisters and sound bombs at the villagers; many local residents suffered from tear gas inhalation.

At approximately 12:00, when residents and international solidarity activists started gathering for the demonstration before the Friday prayers, nearly 30 foot soldiers stormed the village from the main road leading toward the illegal Israeli settlement Qedumim. As they entered the village, they fired tear gas canisters directly at the group before the demonstration even began. Local youth resisted the incursion, chasing the soldiers back from the bystanders toward a hill overlooking the village.

Over the next two and a half hours, soldiers shot tear gas and threw sound bombs at demonstrators in the olive groves next to the main road of the village. At approximately 12:30, soldiers detained a 10-year-old boy. While in their custody, soldiers tied his hands, grabbed him by the neck, beat him and threatened to “drop [him] from this rock.”

Nearly one and a half hours later, the boy was released and residents of Kafr Qaddum celebrated his return. Soldiers continued to fire tear gas at local youth protesting at the edge of the village close to the illegal settler colony of Qedumim. No further arrests were made and the demonstration ended at around 15:00.

Kafr Qaddum is a 3,000-year-old agricultural village that sits on 24,000 dunams of land. The village was occupied by the Israeli army in 1967; in 1978, the illegal settler-colony of Qedumim was established nearby on the remains of a former Jordanian army camp, occupying 4,000 dunams of land stolen from Kafr Qaddum.

The villagers are currently unable to access an additional 11,000 dunams of land due to the closure by the Israeli army of the village’s main and only road leading to Nablus in 2003. The road was closed in three stages, ultimately restricting access for farmers to the 11,000 dunams of land that lie along either side to one or two times a year. Since the road closure, the people of Kafr Qaddum have been forced to rely on an animal trail to access this area; the road is narrow and, according to the locals, intended only for animals. In 2004 and 2006, three villagers died when they were unable to reach the hospital in time. The ambulances carrying them were prohibited from using the main road and were forced to take a 13 km detour. These deaths provoked even greater resentment in Kafr Qaddum and, on 1 July 2011, the villagers decided to unite in protest in order to re-open the road and protect the land in danger of settlement expansion along it.

Kafr Qaddum is home to 4,000 people; some 500 residents attend the weekly demonstrations. The villagers’ resilience, determination and organization have been met with extreme repression. More than 120 village residents have been arrested; most spend 3-8 months in prison; collectively they have paid over NIS 100,000 to the Israeli courts. Around 2,000 residents have suffocated from tear-gas inhalation, many in their own homes. Over 100 residents have been shot directly with tear-gas canisters. On 27 April 2012, one man was shot in the head by a tear-gas canister that fractured his skull in three places; the injury cost him his ability to speak. In another incident, on 16 March 2012 an Israeli soldier released his dog into the crowded demonstration, where it attacked a young man, biting him for nearly 15 minutes whilst the army watched. When other residents tried to assist him, some were pushed away while others were pepper-sprayed directly in the face.

The events of the past week are part of a continuous campaign by the Israeli military to harass and intimidate the people of Kafr Qaddum into passively accepting the human rights violations the Israeli occupation, military and the illegal settlers inflict upon them.

Kafr Qaddum – Blocked from life’s basics; pushed back when doing something about it (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Palestinians demonstrate across West Bank (altahrir.wordpress.com)
“We are the army…we will catch you or we will come to your house” – Soldiers threaten children of Kafr Qaddum (palsolidarity.org)
Violent repression continues by the Israeli Army against protesters in Kufr Qaddum (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)

June 14, 2013 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Israeli settlement, Kafr Qaddum, Nablus, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

Israeli occupation police close streets, confiscate lands in Jerusalem

Palestine Information Center – 13/06/2013

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli occupation police closed main streets leading to the Old City in occupied Jerusalem on Thursday, local sources said.

The Israeli decision to close the streets came due to the preparations for the organization of the Formula 1 race, which will take place on Thursday and Friday in the occupied city of Jerusalem with the participation of the Ferrari World team, under the sponsorship Kaspersky Company specialized in computer protection programs.

The police declared, in a statement, their intention to close the streets leading to al-Khalil, Asbat, and Al Magharibah Gates in the Old City on Thursday and Friday, according to Jerusalemite sources.

The race will be launched from the neighborhoods in the western part of Jerusalem towards the eastern part, in the vicinity of the Old City wall.

For its part; the Jerusalem Sports Federations Group asserted that the Ferrari race comes within the framework of the Judaization plans implemented by the occupation in the city of Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, the Israeli police, accompanied with bulldozers and trucks, evacuated on Wednesday Wadi Joz car park east of Jerusalem claiming that it belongs to Israel Lands Administration (ILA).

Siyam, Abu Ta’a, and Farhan families confirmed that the car park was established on their own lands, declaring their intention to prosecute the ILA for its racial policy.

The families confirmed that the Israeli authorities have notified them since 6 months to evacuate the car park.

The park owners affirmed that they have official documents confirming their ownership of the land, where they appealed to the Israeli Municipal Authorities which permitted them to rehabilitate the park to be used as a car park, however they were surprised yesterday by the ILA breaking into the park.

Settlers Burn Two Cars In Jerusalem (imemc.org)

June 14, 2013 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | Israel Land Administration, Israeli occupation police, Jerusalem, Judaization, Palestine, West Bank, Zionism | Leave a comment

Settlers from Bracha attack and harass farmer on his land

International Solidarity Movement | June 13, 2013

Al Rujeib, Occupied Palestine – On Friday 7th June five settlers from the illegal settlement of Bracha attacked a farmer on his land, using sling shots to throw stones at him near Huwwara checkpoint. The same settlers continued to harass the farmer in the following days as he tried to graze his sheep and gather his crops, unprotected by the Israeli authorities.

Salah Sukamel Deweket (Photo by ISM)

Salah Sukamel Deweket rents 70 dunums of land between his home in Al Rujeib and the occupation forces’ checkpoint at Huwwara. The land is mainly used to plant crops for his sheep to graze upon.

On Friday 7th June Salah was working hard to enable his sheep to feed when he was surprised by five settlers, thought to be an old man and his four sons who brought their own sheep to eat Salah’s wheat. The settlers threw rocks using slingshots at Salah and his flock. Salah had no one who could help him as he had no number for the District Coordination Office (DCO) – the Palestinian liasion with Israeli authorities or other organisations. Unable to get the number, he returned to his land to find that the settlers had ripped apart his bales of wheat.

The settlers resumed throwing stones at him in full view of soldiers stationed at the Israeli occupation forces checkpoint at Huwwara. The soldiers did nothing but watch as the Palestinian farmer was attacked. As an occupying power the Israeli military are meant to protect all citizens in the territory.

Salah asked the older settler why he had destroyed his wheat. “People who stay in Israeli land have to be good Israeli people”, the settler replied. “If this is Israeli land, where’s Palestinian land?” Salah asked. “There is no Palestinian land” the settler shouted back. The settlers continued to graze their sheep on Salah’s land and then encouraged their sheep to eat the olive trees of another Palestinian farmer who came to protect his land. It was only then that army jeeps came to intervene – asking why the Palestinian farmers were there. Salah tried to explain the problem with the settlers to the army, who told him to take photos and go to DCO. Salah then asked the soldiers if they were going to arrest the settlers, to which they said, ” we don’t know, it’s up to the judge.” When the soldiers were asked why they did not come earlier, they replied that it wasn’t their problem. The next day Salah tried to fix his wheat bales but the settlers kept coming and causing problems. Soldiers eventually came and told both Salah and the settlers to leave but said that the Palestinians must leave first.

Palestinians face many attacks by settlers of varying severity. Religious extremists living in illegal settlements attack Palestinian people, lands and crops. Palestinians have almost no means of legal recourse or protection from settler attacks but are routinely targeted by the army in mass arrests in the alleged defence of the Israeli occupation and settlements. Even when Palestinians can contact the DCO, the coordination office can often not solve issues with settlers who generally are treated with impunity under Israeli law. Settlements are illegal under international law under the fourth Geneva convention.

Salah Sukamel Deweket’s wheat fields (Photo by ISM)

Jewish settlers setting up tent and planning road on Palestinian owned land in Al Khalil (alethonews.wordpress.com)
After the flames, only determination remains in Burin and Madama (alethonews.wordpress.com)
VIDEO | 82-year-old Hebron woman Umm Salah challenges Israeli settlers, troops. Alone. (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)
Jewish settler fires at Palestinian workers wounding one of them (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)

June 13, 2013 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Human rights, International Solidarity Movement, Israeli settlement, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

Israeli “Anti-Terror Bill” to Legalize Administrative Detention

File – moheet.com

IMEMC & Agencies | June 11, 2013

The Israeli Government passed Sunday [June 9, 2013] the “Anti-Terror Bill”, authorizing harsher punishment against individuals suspected or convicted of aiding armed groups in the country, and anywhere in the world.

Several human rights groups in Israel and around the world voiced serious concerns regarding direct human rights violations, especially since this law strengthens and “legalizes” Administrative Detention orders confining hundreds, and even thousands, behind bars for extended periods without charges or trial.

The bill passed during a vote at the Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislation, headed by Israeli Justice Minister, Tzipi Livni.

It not only targets those “convicted of terror attacks”, but also those who express support, emphasize and “incite terror activities” in addition to those believed to be engaged in preparations to carrying out violent acts.

Part of the penalties that this bill proposed include sentencing individuals for a life term without the possibility of parole, and allows the Police, the Security Services and all related agencies to confine “suspects” up to 30 days without granting them the right to any legal representation.

The passed bill also allows Israel to seize property of armed groups and individuals, in addition to preventing them from traveling abroad when there are no arrest warrants against them.

Israeli daily Haaretz has reported that the new legislation, would replace the “national state of emergency regulations” that Israel enforced after its establishment in the historic land of Palestine in 1948. Those regulations affect civil, security and economic issues.

The law particularly targets Palestinians and the indigenous Arab population in Israel, as those facing charges of “security or criminal violations”, whether in civil or military courts, would be facing very harsh sentences.

Head of the Meretz opposition party, Zahava Gal-On, said that Israel is denying human rights under the guise of combating terror.

She said that the emergency law applied in the country since the British occupation of Palestine, “cannot just be replaced with legislation that is anti-democratic”.

Also, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) slammed the bill, described it as anti-democratic, and warned that its provisions could turn legal organizations and law-abiding persons into terrorists just because they are suspected of aiding or practicing terror.

The Arabs48 news website reported that, under the new law, persons who even express support for groups labeled by Israel as “hostile” or “terrorist” could be imprisoned up to three years. It also considers financial support to these organizations as an “act of terror”.

Arabs48 added that the new bill increases the years of life-terms from 30 to 40 years.

It stated that the Israeli Prosecutors Office said that Price Tag attacks have not been labeled as acts of terror, as the Office believes that boosting intelligence activity and adequate training to police officers dealing with those attacks could put an end to those attacks.

The Israeli Government Legal Advisor stated that, legally, there is nothing stopping the government from describing and declaring Price Tag attacks as acts of terror.

In an Editorial Published on June 9, Haaretz said that the core of this bill has serious and extremely wide definitions for a terrorist organization, or terrorist acts, and added that once an organization, including a charity group, is labeled as a terrorist group, the moral base and all legal measures are destroyed.

June 11, 2013 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, International Middle East Media Center, Israel, Palestine, Tzipi Livni, Zionism | Leave a comment

Jewish settlers defile Aqsa Mosque courtyard this morning

Palestine Information Center – 09/06/2013

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Extremist Jewish settlers escorted by policemen desecrated the Aqsa Mosque courtyard on Sunday morning coming from Al-Maghariba Gate.

A female eyewitness told Safa news agency that three groups of settlers walked around the Aqsa Mosque courtyard and some of them performed Talmudic rituals.

She said that a large number of female and male religious students are also present in the courtyard protecting against any attempt by the settlers to enter the Mosque’s buildings.

She added that the Israeli police imposed restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers to their Aqsa Mosque, checked their IDs and took photos of the Muslim religious sessions in the courtyard.

She noted that many Palestinian worshipers inside the Mosque are on alert as many extremist Jewish groups have declared their intentions to enter the Mosque, expecting that the next few hours could see the coming of more settlers and tourists.

Repeated storming of Aqsa mosque meant to impose new de facto situation

Independent MP Dr. Jamal Al-Khudari has warned of the seriousness of the Israeli systematic storming of the Aqsa mosque.

He said in a press statement on Sunday that Israel wants to ease the reactions to the “seemingly ordinary” repeated storming of the Aqsa and to impose a new de facto situation.

The MP underlined that such storming is a flagrant violation and constitutes big dangers to the Aqsa mosque and to holy shrines.

Khudari hailed the Aqsa guards and all those who frequent the holy site to defend it in face of repeated storming attempts despite the difficult circumstances.

He pointed out that the Israeli occupation authority was continuing its excavations in and around the Aqsa mosque and is wantonly razing Jerusalemite houses on daily basis and at various pretexts with the main target of forcing Jerusalemites to abandon their homes and native hometown.

Khudari regretted that such conditions were prevailing at a time the Palestinian people are still divided.

Palestine: Zionist conference on dividing Aqsa,1518 children were killed since 2nd intifada & more land confiscated (realisticbird.wordpress.com)
Jewish extremists call for storming al-Aqsa (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)

June 9, 2013 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Al-Aqsa Mosque, Human rights, Jerusalem, Palestine, West Bank, Zionism | Leave a comment

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