Israel to launch media campaign to boost settlers’ image
MEMO | October 17, 2012
The Israeli government is to launch a wide-ranging campaign to boost the global image of Jewish settlers and bolster its illegal settlement policy in the occupied Palestinian territories. The move was announced by the Minister of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs, Yulu Edelstein.
The campaign will include direct and indirect media activities which target social networks across the world. The main aim is to create some degree of legitimacy to Israeli settlement activity in areas considered by Tel Aviv to be “disputed”, and counter anti-settlement activities which oppose settlers’ attacks on Palestinian lands carried out with open and tacit support from the Israeli government.
Edelstein claimed that the proactive campaign will cost around $250,000. He wants to “expose opinion-makers to the complex Israeli reality, thus improving Israel’s global image.”
In response, Israel’s Peace Now movement said that the government is wasting public funds.
“The government has turned into the Settler Council’s public relations firm, and is financing these endeavours with money from the pockets of Israeli taxpayers,” said Peace Now director Yariv Oppenheimer. “Even when the time comes to cut budgets in other fields, there is always money to be spent on the settlers’ image.”
Related articles
- Jewish settlers stage anti-Arab march in Sheikh Jarrah, harass natives (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)
AP again skews the story, this time about Israeli attacks on Palestinian farmers
By Alison Weir | October 15, 2012
It’s interesting to examine how the Associated Press reported on a recent statement by the UN envoy to Israel-Palestine demanding that Israel protect Palestinian farmers from daily attacks by Israeli settlers.
The situation is dire for Palestinian farmers. In the first weeks of the olive harvest, a critical period for sustaining their families, Palestinian farmers have suffered daily attacks by Israelis (often armed) living in nearby settlements.
Settlements are illegal colonies on confiscated Palestinian land that not only bar the Palestinians from whom the land has been confiscated, they also bar citizens of Israel who are Christian and Muslim from living in them.
In its lead paragraph AP reported, “The U.N. Middle East envoy says he’s alarmed by attacks blamed on Israeli settlers against Palestinian farmers and their olive trees.”
The AP headline said: “UN envoy alarmed by attacks on Palestinian trees.”
Somehow the word “farmers” didn’t make the cut, implying that the UN envoy was alarmed about what could seem a minimal concern and playing into Israeli claims that the UN is unduly picking on Israel.
While the headline might sound like the UN envoy is quibbling over Palestinian trees while people (Israelis) are suffering, the true situation is lost entirely: that these trees are the livelihood for entire village communities whose subsistence is at stake.
Also, AP’s paraphrase of the envoy’s statement is far milder than his actual words: “I am alarmed at recent reports that Israeli settlers in the West Bank have repeatedly attacked Palestinian farmers and destroyed hundreds of their olive trees at the height of the harvest season.”
The envoy, Robert Serry, also said:
“These acts are reprehensible and I call on the Government of Israel to bring those responsible to justice.”
AP left that out.
Serry also said:
“Israel must live up to its commitments under international law to protect Palestinians and their property in the occupied territory so that the olive harvest – a crucial component of Palestinian livelihoods and the Palestinian economy – can proceed unhindered and in peace.”
AP also left that out.
Two Israeli human rights groups had released reports on the Israeli attacks a few days earlier.
One, B’Tselem, said that it had documented five such settler attacks on Palestinian farmers in the previous four days, and called on the Israeli army and police “to investigate each incident,” as well as complaints that Israeli soldiers, who are legally required to protect the civilian population under their control, “did not intervene to prevent attacks.”
AP also left that out.
The report by the other Israeli human rights group, Yesh Din, stated that of 162 attacks on Palestinian trees since 2005, only one case had led to charges.
AP also left that out.
The Yesh Din report also stated that the Israeli failure to investigate the attacks is “only one aspect of its continuous and broad failure to enforce the law against ideological crimes by Israeli citizens against Palestinians in the occupied territories.”
AP also left that out.
A recent story in Ma’an News reports that over 7,500 Palestinian olive trees were destroyed by Israelis throughout 2011, according to The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs.
AP also left that out.
Below is the AP story found on US newspaper websites in its entirety. Below that is the AP story in an Israeli newspaper.
Note that there are two significant paragraphs in the middle of the Israeli story that are not in the US version. I am placing them in boldface.
AP sends different versions of its articles to its different wires and in my experience generally sends milder articles on this topic to its US wire than to other wires.
Whether AP omitted those significant paragraphs from its US version of the story or the Israeli editors added them, we know that AP had easy access to that important context – and chose not to include it in its report to American audiences.
AP story for US news media:
UN envoy alarmed by attacks on Palestinian trees
The U.N. Middle East envoy says he’s alarmed by attacks blamed on Israeli settlers against Palestinian farmers and their olive trees.
Robert Serry says Israel must do more to protect Palestinians and their property in the West Bank, in a statement sent to reporters Sunday. Israel’s military had no immediate comment. The West Bank, claimed by the Palestinians for a state, is under Israeli military rule.
An Israeli rights organization, B’Tselem, counts 450 Palestinian-owned trees either damaged or uprooted since the harvest season began on October 10.
Every year a small number of extremist Jewish settlers carry out attacks during harvest season. Most attacks occur close to Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Olive groves provide crucial income for Palestinian farmers.
AP story in Israeli newspaper:
UN envoy alarmed by attacks on Palestinian trees
The UN’s Middle East envoy said on Sunday that he’s alarmed by attacks blamed on Israeli settlers against Palestinian farmers and their olive trees.
Robert Serry, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, said that Israel must do more to protect Palestinians and their property in the West Bank in a statement sent to reporters.
Israel’s military had no immediate comment. The West Bank, claimed by the Palestinians for a state, is under Israeli military rule.
“I am alarmed at recent reports that Israeli settlers in the West Bank have repeatedly attacked Palestinian farmers and destroyed hundreds of their olive trees at the height of the harvest season,” Serry wrote. “These acts are reprehensible and I call on the Government of Israel to bring those responsible to justice.”
He continued: “Israel must live up to its commitments under international law to protect Palestinians and their property in the occupied territory so that the olive harvest – a crucial component of Palestinian livelihoods and the Palestinian economy – can proceed unhindered and in peace.”
An Israeli rights organization, B’Tselem, counts 450 Palestinian-owned trees either damaged or uprooted since the harvest season began on October 10.
Every year a small number of extremist Jewish settlers carry out attacks during harvest season. Most attacks occur close to Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Olive groves provide crucial income for Palestinian farmers.
A 2006 study of AP’s coverage of Israel-Palestine found that AP covered Israeli children’s deaths at a rate over seven times greater than it reported on Palestinian children’s deaths.
* * *
Related articles
- Arson Attack on Olive Trees in Qaryut (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Weekly report on Israeli human rights violations in the OPT (4-10 Oct) (gazasolidarity.blogspot.com)
Arson Attack on Olive Trees in Qaryut
October 14, 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Latif Ali with one of her trees that were destroyed
Last night in the West Bank village of Qaryut, 12 Palestinian owned olive trees were irreparably destroyed in a late night arson attack by Israelis from the illegal West Bank settlement of Eli.
The attack follows an incident last week, on the night of October 8th, in which settlers cut the branches from 130 trees with chainsaws. The branches will take some ten years to regrow, during which time the eight farmers who owned the trees will be without this crucial source of income.
The attacks seem to have been carried out so as to maximize economic impact. Many Palestinian olive farmers are financially dependent on the olive harvest, which begun earlier this week. In last night’s attack, the settlers seem to have targeted the oldest and most fruitful trees. They set fire to hollows in their trunks, which kills the tree. Growing a new one to their size takes hundreds of years.
The timing, too, maximized the impact of the attack. For the last two years, the Israeli government has run a permissions system for Palestinians harvesting olives in areas near to West Bank settlements: although the farmers own both the land and the trees, they have to apply for Israeli permission to access the land. Permission is usually granted for impossibly short periods of time: in this case, the Qaryut farmers were able to harvest for either two or three days (traditionally harvest lasts between four and six weeks). The first attack came the night before the first permissions began in the area, thereby devastating the harvest the night before it started.
Such incidents are not uncommon. During the last two harvests, a reported 300 trees were destroyed in Quryat alone. In 2009, the village suffered violent attacks by settlers from Eli and another nearby illegal settlement Shilo (more here and here). Such attacks are commonplace across the West Bank during olive harvest, when the symbolic and economic importance of the crop make their farmers frequent targets for settler violence.
Related articles
- Rights groups raise alarm over settler attacks on olive trees (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Zionist settlers chainsaw Palestinians olive trees (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)
- Two Palestinians Injured After Being Attacked By Settlers Near Nablus (imemc.org)
- Jewish extremists cut down over 120 olive trees (altahrir.wordpress.com)
- Settlers uproot 300 olive trees near Ramallah (gazasolidarity.blogspot.com)
- Settlers destroy 18 olive trees Burin (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Rights groups raise alarm over settler attacks on olive trees
Ma’an – 12/10/2012
BETHLEHEM – As the West Bank olive harvest season begins, two Israeli rights groups released reports this week criticizing Israeli authorities for failing to protect Palestinians from settler violence, or investigate attacks.
Over the past week, Palestinian farmers have reported almost daily attacks on harvesters and olive groves in the West Bank.
Israeli rights group B’Tselem said on Thursday it had documented five of the attacks since Sunday.
That day, the Abu Fahaida family found 25 ancient olive trees destroyed in al-Janiya, west of Ramallah.
B’Tselem said Israeli forces had been called to the same olive grove the day before after a group of settlers confronted the family, noting that the army’s presence did not prevent the vandalism.
Jumaah Abu Fahaida examines the damage to his olive trees. (Iyad Hadad, B’Tselem)
Also Sunday, farmers from nearby Beitillu village going to harvest were attacked with stones by ten masked settlers, who are also suspected of setting fire to the field.
B’Tselem said Israeli soldiers faced difficulties controlling the settler group and removed the Palestinian harvesters while firing in the air.
On Tuesday, Palestinian farmers from Nablus villages Farata and Amatin found thieves had already harvested olives from around 220 trees on their land near the illegal Havat Gilad outpost.
In nearby Qaryut village the same day, farmers found more than 80 of their olive trees had been severely damaged.
One of the damaged trees at Qaryut. (Salma a-Debi, B’Tselem)
On Wednesday, Israeli authorities notified Ratib Naasan, from Ramallah village al-Mughayir, that his olive trees had been damaged. Naasan found around 140 olive trees stripped and vandalized.
B’Tselem noted that the farmer had olive trees vandalized in 2008, 2009 and 2010, but charges were only brought in one case, when the rights group provided video documentation.
It called on the army and police to investigate each incident and complaints that soldiers did not intervene to prevent attacks.
Meanwhile, rights group Yesh Din said on Thursday that of 162 attacks on Palestinian trees since 2005, only one case had led to charges.
The group said 124 files were closed on grounds of “perpetrator unknown,” 16 because of “insufficient evidence” and two on ground of “absence of criminal culpability.” Others are still under investigation, or information was not provided, while case files were lost for two incidents.
The failure of Israeli police to investigate the attacks is “only one aspect of its continuous and broad failure to enforce the law against ideological crimes by Israeli citizens against Palestinians in the occupied territories,” the group said.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs reported that over 2,500 olive trees were destroyed in September 2011, and 7,500 throughout 2011. The attacks cost Palestinian farmers over $500,000 that year, according to an estimate by Oxfam and local agricultural organizations.
Related articles
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- Settlers uproot 300 olive trees near Ramallah (gazasolidarity.blogspot.com)
- Caught On Tape: “Settlers Harvest Palestinian Olive Trees” (imemc.org)
- Zionist settlers chainsaw Palestinians olive trees (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)
- Olive Harvest Palestine 2012: And Israel’s Settlers destroy 250 olive trees near Ramallah (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)
- Settlers Uproot 300 Olive Trees Near Ramallah (imemc.org)
Israeli army turns Palestinian homes in Hebron into military barracks
MEMO | October 4, 2012
The Israeli occupation forces have turned the roofs of Palestinian homes in the ancient city of Hebron, south of the West Bank, into military barracks and control points under the pretext of providing security for Jewish settlers during the Hebrew celebrations of the Sukkot Feast.
Human rights sources in the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee reported that a large number of Israeli forces took over the roofs of several Palestinian homes along the lanes of the old town. These houses, including the family home of the Islam Al-Fakhouri in Al-Sahla area, have been turned into military barracks and control towers while the families have been forced to leave.
Israeli soldiers also commandeered the roofs of the Abdulmutallab Abu Sunaina, Imran Abu Rumaila, Daoud Jaber, Nader Salaymeh and AliAl-Rajabi households turning them into control points.
Sources also point out that the regions extending between the settlement of Kiryat Arba, the Cave of the Patriarchs, Tel Rumeida, Al-Shuhada, Al-Ras, and Wadi El-H’aseen streets; and the areas of Al-Masharqa Al-Fawqa and Tahta, are subjected to a blanket Israeli police and army presence.
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- Jewish Settlers Invade Palestinian Home In Hebron, Attack Family Members (alethonews.wordpress.com)
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Interfaith dialogue is no answer to Israel’s racist bullying
By Stuart Littlewood | My Catbird Seat | October 3, 2012
So the Albuquerque Episcopalians got jumpy and ‘disinvited’ the Friends of Sabeel who had booked their cathedral for a conference.
Sabeel is an international peace movement which calls itself the Voice of Palestinian Christians.
Why would one Christian group snub another? The excuse for turning away the conference was concocted by the Dean of the Cathedral, the Very Rev. J. Mark Goodman. “We said our prayers and deliberated thoughtfully and purposefully,” he explained.
It seems he and his Episcopalian colleagues didn’t like the way the conference would be dealing with “a political issue that has polarized people in ways that we felt were unhelpful. We did not want to introduce a polarized issue into the life of the Cathedral that would have the potential to divide rather than unite. Our decision was not based upon anti-Palestinian positions. In fact, many on the Vestry [i.e. the church directors] are very sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinian people, yet they were concerned about the rhetoric of the literature from Sabeel.”
He denied they were put under pressure from Zionists. Nevertheless they had invited a local rabbi to come and speak to the Vestry, a rather odd thing to do when, presumably, they were all acquainted with the endless crimes committed by the Jewish State against the Christian communities in the Holy Land. Do they usually turn to rabbis for advice?
Goodman also said Vestry members had attended his recent Forum classes, after which they had misgivings about serving as conference hosts.
“This summer at General Convention, I served on a committee that dealt in a focused way with resolutions about the conflict between Israel and Palestinians,” he went on. “It was my personal prayer that we would craft resolutions that were balanced and offered a way forward with positive engagement with each side, seeking a way forward that would bring security, dignity and peace to a region that has known strife for too long. I believe we succeeded.”
Note the reliance on “positive engagement”. What exactly does that mean – more interfaith dialogue? “We succeeded”, he says. But how does he measure success? And why is he not pressing for the enforcement of international and humanitarian law and the implementation of UN resolutions, the only route to justice? The Episcopalian approach implies that some sort of equivalence, or level playing field, already exists between the powerful aggressor and the weak victim, the robber and the robbed, the armed occupier and his unarmed dispossessed prisoner.
How did these churchmen, far removed from the rotten reality, become experts on “security, dignity and peace” in the Palestinians’ struggle for freedom? Have they been there, rolled up their sleeves and immersed themselves in the snake pit that the Holy Land has been allowed to become? What makes him and his mates think they’ve found a way forward while Palestine remains under brutal occupation?
The mission statement provided by Goodman’s church says: “The Cathedral continues to honor its responsibility to be a good steward and shepherd in the community and the world.” A huge and worthy commitment indeed. However, the cathedral’s own relatively peaceful community and inconsequential little world have been rudely rocked by scandal following claims that it was headed for bankruptcy and members were deserting. The cathedral accountant blew the whistle and allegations were made about the misuse of collection money, liberal imbibing of expensive wine and Vestry members “trashing the cathedral’s endowment by $2 million through complacency, and of not disciplining the dean”.
The regional bishop moved quickly to hush it up in an operation that local church workers said was “like a quiet version of the Spanish Inquisition”. There’s more about it here.
If only this sort of tomfoolery were all that Christian churches in the Holy Land had to worry about. Unfortunately the Episcopalians seem pretty confused, or downright ignorant, about the depths of evil to which the Israeli occupation has sunk. This is from their official report Israel-Palestine: Convention supports positive investment – Bishops agree to postpone indefinitely debate on corporate engagement ….
Bishop John Tarrant of South Dakota urged opposition to Resolution C060 [which calls on the church to engage “in corporate social responsibility by more vigorous and public corporate engagement with companies in the church’s investment portfolio that contribute to the infrastructure of the Occupation”]. He spoke about the town of Rawabi, currently under construction north of Ramallah in the West Bank, that will provide opportunities for affordable home ownership, employment and education. Tarrant said that the project, envisioned by a group of Palestinian businessmen, would inject about $80 million into the Israeli economy.
“It gave me the sense that there are Palestinians that understand the importance of mutuality if the two states are going to exist side by side,” he said.
He reminded the house of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s charge for Episcopalians ‘to go as emissaries…to go into the world of God’s dream’. “I believe there are Palestinians and Israelis now that are going into the world with God’s dream.”
Has Bishop Schori been to the world of God’s dream and seen what’s there?
And why would Bishop Tarrant want to inject all those $millions into the Israeli economy when Israel has been strangling the Palestinian economy to death, seizing its land and water and withholding Palestine’s tax revenues?
Bishop Charles Bennison of Pennsylvania said the movement to support boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel was unwise. “We need more, not fewer, economic ties to Israel. The more isolated Israel becomes the more dangerous the situation becomes.”
It turns out that Episcopalians are against boycott and divestment. Instead the bishops have supported a resolution on positive investment in the Palestinian Territories, as if that will do the slightest good while the illegal occupation and blockade continue. Meanwhile they agreed to postpone indefinitely the conversation on corporate engagement.
To them, it seems, going as emissaries into God’s dream involves kicking the can down the road like the rest of wretched Christendom (with a few honourable exceptions). Was anybody at the Convention truly concerned with right versus wrong, good versus evil, the rule of international law versus the rule of the gun-butt, the F-16, the helicopter gun-ship, the tank shell, illegal detention and the hard-to-get permit to go anywhere.
Their own Bishop is a victim of Israel’s apartheid policies
The Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem himself is a classic victim of the machinations of the cruel occupation. Suheil Dawani is Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem, which is a part of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and The Middle East. This covers Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. He was installed in April 2007, but in March 2011 Israel cancelled his residency permit making it well nigh impossible for him to carry out his duties. As a non-Israeli he needs a temporary residence permit. The Israelis played fast and loose, granting a permit initially then turning him down.
Here’s the explanation. “The bishop is a native of the Holy Land and has spent most of his life and ministry there, but cannot obtain either citizenship or legal residence in Israel, since he was born in Nablus, in the West Bank, which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967, but has not been annexed to Israel. East Jerusalem, on the other hand, where the Anglican Cathedral and Diocesan offices are situated, was also occupied at the same time, but Israel annexed it and considers it part of its national territory (although no other country in the world recognizes this annexation). Therefore, Bishop Dawani is considered by Israel to be a foreigner who can only visit – let alone live in – East Jerusalem with a special permit, which the Israeli authorities can either grant or deny at their sole discretion.”
Get it?
There’s a religious war going on in the Holy Land and Dawani was wide open to this sort of dirty trick. After six months of aggravation and international pressure, during which Israel’s Interior Ministry accused him of “improper” land dealings on behalf of the church and the Palestinian Authority, the illegal occupiers granted residency permits to the bishop and his family.
But here’s the catch… those permits will have to be renewed when they expire, whenever that may be or whenever the Israelis choose.
So the Israelis have the bishop’s balls in a vice. Keep quiet Dawani and all you Anglicans/Episcopalians while we carry on with our ethnic cleansing. Keep quiet while we trash the Palestinian economy, confiscate their lands and water resources, continue the blockade, erase their culture and humiliate their families, drive out the Christians and Muslims and disrupt the religious life of those who stubbornly remain.
Keep quiet or we’ll revoke your permit again.
The Catholics similarly walk on eggshells and are mercilessly bullied in their homeland. Their priests are harassed and obstructed and often prevented from going about their pastoral duties. Many are ‘imprisoned’ in their parish – if they leave it to visit relatives or holiday in another part of the Occupied Territories or in neighbouring countries like Jordan and Lebanon, the Israelis may not let them back in.
So imagine what it’s like for the Muslims.
The simple truth is that the Jewish State is the world leader in rampant lawlessness and interfaith bullying, while the wet and wimpish Anglicans respond with their clapped-out formula of interfaith dialogue and other verbal diarrhoea. For 64 years it has got us and our Palestinian brothers and sisters precisely nowhere.
The good folks of Sabeel must now be wondering what they’ve done to deserve same-faith friends like the Albuquerque Episcopalians.
Stuart Littlewood’s book Radio Free Palestine, with Foreword by Jeff Halper, can now be read on the internet by visiting www.radiofreepalestine.org.uk.
Israeli occupation forces arrest Palestinian Football player in West Bank, deport him to Gaza
Palestine Information Center – 30/09/2012
BETHLEHEM — The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested at dawn on Saturday, a Palestinian football player from the Gaza Strip, who plays with Jerusalem’s Mount Scopus.
The occupation arrested the football player Ibrahim Wadi at Container checkpoint near Bethlehem in the southern West Bank while returning from a Football match in the city of Jenin northern West Bank, Amjad Jaffal, an official in the Mount Scopus club told Quds Press.
Jaffal stated that the Israeli soldiers detained a number of Football players and administrators, early Saturday morning, before being released and arrested the player Wadi, informing him that he will be deported to the Gaza Strip, noting that it was not known yet if he is already deported or still detained.
It is noted that the occupation prevents Palestinian players from the Gaza Strip from joining sports teams in the West Bank, where many of them were arrested and deported to Gaza, such as Mahmoud Sarsak, who tried to travel to the West Bank to join the national football team, and was detained administratively without charge or trial, and fought a hunger strike which lasted more than three months to be released to the Gaza Strip.
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OCHA: Israeli occupation destroys 13 houses weekly in West Bank
Palestine Information Center – 24/09/2012
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — A UN report said that the occupation authority is continuing their attacks on Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank since the beginning of the current year.
The report issued by UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Palestinian territories OCHA revealed that the occupation has razed 465 Palestinian structures in the West Bank, including 136 houses, since the beginning of 2012, at the rate of 13 buildings per week compared to 12 buildings per week during the previous year.
According to the report, 676 Palestinians were displaced and rendered homeless as a result of these demolitions.
OCHA also reported that the occupation forces issued an order to seize six dunums of land in the village of Khader in the city of Bethlehem, South of the West Bank under the pretext that the land belongs to the occupation, and confiscated also 200 square meters of Palestinian land located near the Ibrahimi Mosque in al-Khalil city.
The UN organization’s weekly report added that the Israeli occupation forces handed over a new military order to confiscate 647 dunums of land belonging to eighty Palestinian families in the villages of Awarta and Burin in Nablus.
The Israeli army has ordered two weeks ago a halt to construction and repair works on 17 Palestinian structures in Khirbet Irza, located near a closed military zone in Tubas.
According to OCHA’s report, since 1967 the occupation army announced the allocation of nearly1 8 per cent of the occupied West Bank’s land for the establishment of closed military zones used for training its troops, which resulted in dramatically reducing the area of land available for housing for Palestinians.
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Palestinian Authority curbs freedom of expression in the West Bank
MEMO | September 20, 2012
Palestinian Authority curbs freedom of expression in the West BankThe security services in the occupied West Bank have detained more than 60 Palestinians with political backgrounds, including writers, journalists and activists, Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights (DAHR) said on Thursday. At least 35 of those held are former prisoners who served long sentences in Israeli jails; most are affiliated to the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
Sources said that the security services started detention campaigns against citizens who took part in the recent demonstrations against price rises in the West Bank. Demonstrators called for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to resign.
Prisoner Hisham al-Shirbati, who spent 14 years in prison in Israel, was reportedly in a serious health condition after being admitted to Al-Khalil Hospital. He was tortured severely by Palestinian security services in Hebron, writer Lama Khater alleged.
However, a spokesman for the security services in the West Bank, Adnan al-Dameeri, said that all the people arrested recently are “arm dealers” who tried to hijack peaceful protests. According to DAHR, though, most of those detained are journalists, writers and activists, including the prisoners who were freed by the Israelis just a few months ago.
Ahrar Society for Studies and Human Rights said that its manager, Fuad al-Kefish, also a former Israeli prisoner, is among the detained, as is Waleed Khalid, a journalist who spent two years in solitary administrative detention in Israel and was released just two weeks ago.
DAHR condemned the detentions as a severe violation of human rights and a threat to Palestinian civil society. It called for the PA in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to stop all political detentions and press ahead with the reconciliation process. It also called on both to respect freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
The West Bank witnessed large scale demonstrations against the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority’s policies of security collaboration with the Israelis, political detention and the economic crisis. The demonstrations were triggered by a protest against price hikes in which protesters called for the resignation of Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad.
Jewish Settlers Invade Palestinian Home In Hebron, Attack Family Members
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | September 20, 2012
A group of armed extremist Israeli settlers of the Avraham Avino illegal Israeli settlement, invaded a Palestinian home in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, and attacked two family members including an eight years old child on Wednesday.
The settlers initially hurled stones and empty bottles at the home of Nidal Al-Oweiwy, and climbed on its rooftop before invading the home through it roof door, the Arabs48 news website reported.
The extremist settlers then proceeded to attack Sally, Nidal’s 8-year-old daughter, and his son Sa’id, leading to various cuts and bruises.
They also destroyed the homes’ furniture and shattered the glass of several doors and windows in addition to damaging the water tanks on its rooftop.
Local sources reported that, Israeli soldiers deployed in the area, did not attempt to stop the settlers.
This is not the first attack against the home, and a number of nearby homes, as the settlers are trying to occupy them.
It is worth mentioning that, several days ago, another son of Nidal, identified as Tha’er, 20, who was kidnapped by the army, was released and forced under house arrest after the army forced his father to pay a 4000 NIS fine.
The family of Al-Oweiwy said that despite all attacks and violations practiced against them by the army and the extremist settlers, they will never leave their home and will never sell it to the settlers.
Settler groups repeatedly tried to force the family into selling their home to them, and when the family refused, the settlers started attacking their home in an attempt to scare them away, local sources said.
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On Herd Mentality
By Jeb Smith | April 14, 2026
I no longer trust “we the people,” because of the powers influencing them. Media and government schooling form their general ideas on reality and governance. Therefore, it’s not a case of the voter choosing the politicians. Instead, the system is conditioning and conforming the voter to the authorities’ desires.
In democracies, the people are kept occupied working and paying taxes, too busy to acquire information outside the approved sources. You will find they know and care far more about the next iPhone than political philosophy. Of those who hold some interest, 95% just toe the party line, holding the same opinion as the primary media source they listen to. They lack both the desire and time to expand their horizons.
Media’s purpose is to conform people’s thought to a preferred goal, which is why Republican and Democratic voters both firmly hold their parties’ general stances, reciting the same talking points. The people do not originate ideas; their thoughts are fed to them by the media so they can consume, digest, and parrot back whatever they are served. When it comes to politics, we rarely think for ourselves. We are told what to think.
Watch PBS, MSNBC and read your local newspaper for six months, and you will receive a particular view and understanding of the world. Then listen to The Mike Church Show, The Blaze, and The Daily Wire, and you will get not just another perspective but a whole different world of facts and events. The world people believe they live in can be entirely different depending on their news sources.
We enjoy seeing the enemy humiliated, which describes why those engulfed in politics love their preferred media sources; they keep returning for more like a drug addict. Networks ensure their “experts” align with the worldview they and their audience desire. The people who watch PBS, BBC, and so forth expect a specific perspective to be presented. Fox News watchers demand the same. In doing this, we both encourage and assure we are misled.
In their book Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government, professors Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels argue, based on substantial research, that voters do not decide the party platform and agenda. Instead, the parties control the “ideologies” of the voters. When the party the voter identifies with changes its position, the individuals also change theirs. They discovered the individual would quickly adopt the views of their group; they will ignore or change their own opinions over time to fit in with the collective they identify with. Achen and Bartels wrote “group memberships largely drove policy views, not vice versa.” … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Villains of Judea: Charles Bronfman
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- The new assault of the Zionist lobby in Brazil
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- Indonesia Agrees to Receive Oil, Gas Supplies From Russia – Indonesian Energy Ministry
- Saudi Arabia Urges US Back to Iran Talks as Other Oil Routes Face Risk
- Iran demands reparations from Arab states
- Tankers transit Strait of Hormuz amid US attempt to impose blockade, data shows
- US Strikes Kill Five in Alleged Pacific Anti-drug Campaign
- EU Defense Agency head says compulsory military service could be necessary
- If Americans Knew
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- We Are the Barbarians
- Netanyahu Says the Trump Administration Gives Him Reports on Iran Talks Every Day
- Second Contractor Steps Forward to Blow the Whistle on Israeli Attacks at Gaza Aid Site
- Mighty Israel wants all of its neighbors to be defenseless – Daily Update
- Emergency waivers move arms for Israel, UAE to speed lane
- Caitlin Johnstone: Nobody’s “Obsessed” With Israel — It’s Just A Uniquely Horrible Country
- Israel’s Ben Gvir says he feels like the ‘owner’ of Al-Aqsa Mosque
- History of flotilla campaigns to end Israel’s siege of Gaza
- Humanitarian Scorecard: Six Months In, Gaza Ceasefire is Failing
- No Tricks Zone
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- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
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- An Inconvenient Tree: Uncovered In Alps… Europe Much Warmer Than Today 6000 Years Ago
- New Study Reports A 60% Slowdown In Greenland’s Ice Loss Rate In The Last Decade
- Low Intensity Tornado Wrecks Major Solar Farm, Creating A Potential Toxic Dump
- New Study Finds Warming Saves Lives…Cold Temperatures 12 Times More Deadly Than Excess Heat
- German Science Blog Accuses PIK Climate Institute Of Hallucinating Climate Tipping Points
- Devastating Assessment Of Comirnaty Vaccine By Former Senior Pfizer Europe Toxicologist
- New Study: CO2 Is ‘Effectively Negligible’ As An Explanatory Climate Change Factor Since 2000
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