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OCHA Report: “370 Injured During Nakba Commemoration”

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC News | May 19, 2012

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recently issued its weekly report on Israeli violations in the occupied territory for the period between 9- 15 of May, revealing that Israeli soldiers shot at least 370 Palestinians during the Nakba commemoration, and continued their violations in the West bank and the Gaza Strip.

The report indicated that the number of Palestinians injured by Israeli fire since the beginning of this year has reached 1,339, adding that the rate of injuries is 69 a week, comparing to 28 a week last year.

Most of the injuries took place when the soldiers attacked Nakba protests on May 15, especially the protests that were held near the Qalandia terminal, north of Jerusalem, and the Ofer prison terminal near Ramallah.

OCHA further stated that Israel demolished seven Palestinian buildings under the claim that they were built without construction permits.

It said that 27 Palestinians were also injured during a weekly protest against Israeli restrictions preventing Palestinian farmers from reaching their lands near the Qadumim settlement, built on lands that belong to residents of Qalqilia, in the northern part of the West Bank.

OCHA also said that Israeli settlers carried out several attacks against the residents and their lands, leading to several injuries while Israeli settlers cut more than 430 trees, including at least 280 olive trees near Nablus, Salfit and Bethlehem.

The Office said that Israeli settlers cut at least 3,070 trees since the beginning of 2012 (most of them are olive trees), and injured 50 residents.

As for the destruction of property, OCHA stated that, during the reported period, Israel demolished seven Palestinian-owned livelihood structures affecting 40 Palestinians. The buildings are in Burqa in the Nablus district, Al-Jalama near Jenin, and Husan near Bethlehem, in addition to the destruction of a water cistern and the foundations of a house under construction in Beit Hanina neighborhood in East Jerusalem; Israel also issued demolition orders against Palestinian houses in Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem.

According to OCHA, Israel demolished 285 Palestinian buildings displacing 477 Palestinians, which is a %25 increase comparing structures demolished in 2011.

Israeli soldiers also shot and wounded more than eight Palestinians near the border with Israel, in the Gaza Strip during the reported week. The residents were treated for the effects to teargas inhalation when the soldiers targeted them for “approaching the security fence”; the residents were working in their own lands.

OCHA said that 29 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip and 155 were injured since the beginning of this year.

The Israeli Navy also continued its restrictions and attacks against Palestinian fishermen, as Israel continued to limit the fishing area allotted to Gaza fishermen for only three nautical miles. During the period of this weekly report, the Navy detained fishermen and confiscated their boats; the fishermen were released but the fishing boats remained with Israel.

Fuel shortages and power outages in Gaza continued to hinder the lives of 1.6 million Palestinians in Gaza, while the Gaza Power Plant is only producing 25 megawatts of the needed 80 megawatts.

Fuel smuggling into Gaza via siege-busting tunnels this week was less that %15 of the 800,000 – one million liters of diesel and benzene that used to enter Gaza regularly each day prior the onset of fuel crisis in 2011.

The Palestinian Fishermen Syndicate said that the number of fishing trips conducted in recent months witnessed a sharp decrease (less than four trips a month for each fishing boat) compared to 15 trips a month.

It is worth mentioning that more than 65,000 Palestinians depend on fishing as their only source of livelihood in the Gaza Strip but are suffering due to increased Israeli restrictions. In April, Gaza fishermen fished 99.6 Tons.

Please follow the link for the comprehensive report issued by OCHA in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

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May 19, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis likely to visit West Bank site after court decision

Al Akhbar | May 17, 2012

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis are likely to visit a West Bank tomb in the coming year, after a Jerusalem court awarded two rabbis legal and administrative control over it in contravention of international law.

Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus is in the part of the West Bank that the Oslo Accords assigned to full Palestinian control.

Consequently, the Israel Defense Forces officially have no jurisdiction in the area and any Israeli involvement there is illegal.

However Israeli court judge Rabbi Haim Rosenthal ruled that rabbis Shlomo Ben-Shimon and Mordechai Gross, who head the settler organization Shechem Ehad (One Nablus), are the “representatives entitled to appear, legally and publicly, before any court or institution on matters connected to” the tomb, according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

The court granted the two rabbis sole control over the area for the next 18 months, after which it will review the decision.

Currently over 20,000 Jews visit the tomb a year, as it is open from midnight to 4am once a month, but the decision could see that number increase to hundreds of thousands.

In their application, the two rabbis argued that the 20,000 limit “doesn’t at all satisfy the enormous demand.”

The court had previously refused the request, and the decision will be seen as yet another abuse of Palestinian autonomy.

The decision is likely to enrage Palestinians who already suffer an ongoing occupation of the West Bank.

Netanel Shnir, another key figure in Shechem Ehad, was quoted in November 2010 as saying that the ultimate goal of the group was to get Jews to return to Nablus “to settle there and inherit the land.”

Israel continues to encourage the development of illegal Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank, despite condemnation from the United Nations, the European Union, and rights groups.

The Jewish state refuses to accept Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank, maintaining an illegal occupation in the area while upholding a siege on Gaza.

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May 17, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

Nakba Day 2012: Revolution On Hold

By Linah Alsaafin | Al Akhbar | May 16, 2012

The week leading up to the 64th commemoration of Nakba Day, the city of Ramallah witnessed a blitz of protests which were echoed in other Palestinian cities such as Gaza, Nablus, and Jerusalem. The deal to end the hunger strike on the eve of Nakba led to a more subdued commemoration then was expected.

The mass hunger strike that began on April 17, with an estimated 2,500 Palestinian prisoners participating, was the largest of its kind and had entered its fourth week. Eight of the hunger strikers had entered their third consecutive month without food.

Small protests at the Israeli prison of Ofer in west Ramallah took place daily, with the Israeli army typically responding with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Every day, the city center witnessed multiple marches, with marchers calling on shopkeepers to close their stores and join them as they headed back to the point they started from: the prisoners’ solidarity tent at Clock Square.

On some occasions, huge traffic jams were caused by the protesters who blocked the main streets as they sat on the ground, chanting and holding up posters and pictures of prisoners.

Other creative ways of demonstrating to raise awareness about the prisoners’ struggle included offering water and salt to people, as a reminder that these two elements were all that the prisoners were surviving on during their hunger strike.

Frustration was vented at the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership as well. Protesters almost managed to enter the PA compound of al-Muqata, calling out against the leadership’s compliant silence.

During a Europe Day celebration, a small of group of protesters and mothers of prisoners expressed their wishes to have their sons back home and their disappointment in the PA’s lack of action to Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who responded in the well-rehearsed manner of any politician paying lip service to a cause.

During PA president Mahmoud Abbas’ brief visit to the prisoners’ solidarity tent in al-Bireh last Thursday, protesters who had unfurled posters exposing Abbas’ silence on the hunger strikes were attacked by undercover policemen both physically and verbally. Despite an array of media cameras in the tent, only one outlet covered the incident.Last Wednesday, the UN building in Ramallah was effectively shut down by protesters for the whole day. Protesters, who were barred from entering the building, called on secretary general Ban Ki Moon to take a more assertive stance regarding the Palestinian prisoners, in accordance with the third and fourth Geneva Conventions that Israel regularly violates.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) buildings in Gaza and Ramallah were both shut down, and a protest took place in front of the office of the Quartet on the Middle East in Jerusalem.

For the first time in a long time, Palestinians were united on the street, regardless of their political factions, and perhaps disregarding them. The prisoners proved they had the potential to unite the people and overstep the PA regime’s political normalization with Israel. Chants of “Why the security coordination while your people are getting shot at by the Israeli army” and “Oslo is long gone! We have returned to the struggle!” referring to the signing of the disastrous Oslo Accords in 1993, reverberated through the streets.

Nakba Eve

On the eve of Nakba Day, the mood was electric in anticipation of the commemoration events. It seemed like it wasn’t clear who most feared the potential explosive zenith the hunger strikers had managed to bring out – the PA (with Abbas begging Israel to allow the PA to have more weapons to maintain ‘security’) or Israel, who had taken extreme measures in preparation for suppressing the Nakba protests.

In the early morning hours of May 15, confirmation of a deal between the hunger strikers and the Israeli Prison Authorities (IPA) was heard. The mass hunger strikers, who had gone 28 days without food, succeeded in achieving almost all of their demands, which included three main calls: an end to administrative detention, an end to solitary confinement (19 prisoners have spent years living in a tiny cell by themselves), and the right to family visits.

All administrative detainees, held without charge or trial, are to be released once their detention expires without having their detention renewed. Family visits will be reinstated within a month, a great relief for families from Gaza, who haven’t seen their sons, brothers, and fathers since 2007.

The longest hunger strikers in the history of Palestine, Bilal Thiab and Thaer Halahleh (77 days), as well as Hasan Safadi (71 days) and Omar Abu Shalal (69 days) all agreed to end their strike on the basis of the same agreement the administrative detainees agreed to.

Diffusing Hunger

The hunger strikers had triumphed. Yet the role of the PA and its frantic collusion with Israel to reach a deal ahead of Nakba Day is certainly questionable. The charged atmosphere was effectively diffused.

As a result, Nakba Day in the West Bank lost its unique potential to spark an uprising and instead panned out like any other commemoration. In Nablus, a branch of the International Solidarity Movement for Palestinians (ISM) went to the Huwarra checkpoint to demonstrate, catching the Israeli soldiers there off-guard. The demonstration wasn’t announced because when they did that last year, the PA was quick to suppress them.One protester, identified only as Beesan, told Al-Akhbar that “the group of around 30 protesters was forced to retreat by the army. Huwarra checkpoint was sealed shut, meaning no one could go in or out of Nablus. As the protesters made their way back to Nablus, PA security forces followed them in their cars, and kept calling the director of the ISM branch Wael al-Faqih to disband the protest.”

One of the villages in the Ramallah governate, Ni’lin, tasted a small victory before being suppressed by the Israeli army. Protesters went to the village early in the morning and managed to cross through the checkpoint to the other side where the town of Ramleh, ethnically cleansed in 1948, lies. Ramleh, which used to be home to thousands of Palestinians, now has a Jewish majority and is part of Israel. Israeli occupation forces dispersed the protesters with tear gas and arrested Naji Tamimi from Nabi Saleh, who has only just been released after a year in Israeli jail on March 1st.

In Ramallah, thousands of people marched from Yasser Arafat’s grave in Muqata to Clock Square, where singers sang nationalistic songs and politicians congratulated the hunger strikers on their victory.

Another Day of Protests

Hundreds made their way to Ofer prison, in the largest demonstration there yet. The Israeli army surrounded the protesters from three sides and fired large amounts of tear gas canisters, which forced the majority of protesters to remain at a distance from the jail.

Persistent protesters managed to get close to the soldiers and were chanting against the occupation, but had to scatter on more than one occasion when the soldiers brought out the skunk truck and began firing plastic covered steel bullets.

At Qalandiya checkpoint, a smaller protest was quickly quelled by the Israeli army, and one man was taken immediately to hospital after being shot at with live ammunition.

In essence, it was just another protest at Ofer or Qalandiya, disconnected from the heavy inference that May 15 holds for Palestinians. The right of return assertions and chants were eclipsed by the general chants against the occupation, and occasionally for the prisoners whose cause is still not over yet.

The prospective spark for an uprising on Nakba Day did not happen, but the struggle remains. 4,600 prisoners still languish in Israeli jails, the right of return has not yet been achieved, and that the stage is still set for an uprising against the occupation.

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May 16, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

Voices from the Occupation: Hammam and Odai S. – Settler violence

Defense for Children International | May 9, 2012

Names: Hammam and Odai S.
Date of incident: 21 April 2012
Age: 3 and 12
Location: Hebron, West Bank
Nature of incident: Settler violence

On 21 April 2012, a 12-year-old boy and his three-year-old brother go with their father to their land south of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, where they are attacked by a group of settlers.

“On 21 April 2012, at around 9:00 am, I went with my father and my three-year-old brother, Hammam, to our  land in Khirbet  Shuweika, about seven kilometres from where we live,” explains 12-year-old Odai. “My father started clearing the land; I helped him for a while and then I went to play with Hammam,” he continues.

“At around 1:00 pm, I saw six men approaching us. They were carrying sticks and their faces were covered. I stayed where I was and didn’t feel scared because I didn’t know they were settlers. When they were about 20 metres away, they started throwing stones at us. Four of them attacked my father, and the other two attacked me and my brother. I felt terrified. Hammam started screaming and shivering. He was also terrified.”

Odai’s father tried to defend his children and was hit by stones several times. “A stone also hit me in the left leg and it hurt a lot,” says Odai. “Luckily, Hammam was not hit.” While they were being attacked, Odai’s father called his brothers to come and help them. “When the settlers noticed that two cars had arrived, they fled.”

Odai and his father were taken to the nearest medical centre for treatment. “I was told the settlers were from the settlement of Shim’a, located about one and a half kilometres from Khirbet  Shuweika,” explains Odai. “What happened terrified me and my brother. This is the first time I have had such a terrifying experience,” he adds.

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May 10, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

10 years on from Nativity Church siege, deportees ‘forgotten’

By Jenny Baboun | Ma’an | May 10, 2012

BETHLEHEM – Ten years after Israel exiled 39 Palestinians taking refuge in Bethlehem’s Nativity Church, deportees say they have been forgotten by Palestinian leaders.

On May 10, 2002, Israeli forces ended a 39-day siege on the church after striking a deal with Palestinian leaders to send 39 people given sanctuary in the church to Gaza and Europe.

When Israeli tanks surrounded Bethlehem on April 2, 2002, around 220 locals — including around 40 priests and nuns — took shelter in the church. Over the next 39 days, eight Palestinians were killed inside the church and 27 others injured.

The siege on the site believed to be Jesus’ birthplace sparked outrage in the Vatican as monks sheltering inside pleaded for international assistance.

Former Bethlehem Governor Salah Tamari headed the negotiations team to end the siege, and told Ma’an TV the deportation deal was reached without his knowledge.

He recalled his shock when Israeli officials told him Palestinians would be exiled, and said he called the office of President Yasser Arafat to resign as chief negotiator.

Israeli officials had demanded a list of names of everyone in the church, Tamari said.

“Since the first moment, we refused to give any names. We told [the Israelis] if you have anyone who’s wanted, give us their names and we’ll see if their charges affect the Palestinian law, we’ll hold them accountable.”

Rafat Obayyat was one of 27 Palestinians injured by Israeli attacks on the church. He is in a wheelchair due to his injuries.

He told Ma’an the grotto was the safest place in the church during the siege. Food was scarce and small amounts of pasta would be rationed between everyone, he added.

After a decade in exile, deportees say they have been abandoned by the Palestinian Authority and all political factions. They have not been allowed to return to their families in the West Bank.

Deportees had planned to demonstrate on Thursday but canceled the protest to stand beside prisoners on hunger strike, spokesman for the group Fahmi Kanan said at a press conference on Monday.

Instead, deportees will go on a 3-day hunger strike on Thursday in solidarity with detainees in Israeli jails, Kanan said.

‘A dangerous precedent’

Former detainee and researcher Abdul Nasser Farwaneh said the deportation deal was a clear violation of international law and human rights.

The Palestinian leadership’s acceptance of the deal to send Palestinians into exile set a dangerous precedent and over the last decade Israel has deported hundreds more Palestinians, Farwaneh said in a statement.

He urged the international community to send a commission of inquiry into Israel’s siege on one of the world’s holiest sites.

He also called for greater efforts to bring the deportees home and said the ongoing failure to bring them back from exile reflected Palestinian indifference to the issue.

May 9, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Time for the Palestinian Oslo Team to Leave!

By Hasan Afif El-Hasan | Palestine Chronicle | May 7, 2012

The current leaders of the West Bank Palestinians are physically, politically and financially taken hostages by the Oslo agreements that they negotiated, signed and promoted. Oslo City was the venue of the secret Israeli-Palestinian ‘peace agreement.’ Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat signed the agreement’s ‘Declaration of Principles’ on the lawns of the White House, hosted by US President Clinton on Sep 13, 1993. Arafat who sold Oslo to his people as ‘the peace of the brave’ was jailed in his Ramallah headquarters and he allegedly was executed by his Israeli Oslo partners after fulfilling his role in recognizing the State of Israel.

The Palestinian Oslo negotiators promised their people that Oslo was a plan to create an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza while some senior PLO members rejected the agreements and many Palestinian intellectuals and foreign observers concluded that Oslo would lead the Palestinians to nowhere. Edward Said, Palestine’s most prominent intellectual, criticized the agreement because it had not addressed the refugees and Jerusalem questions. Edward Said was ridiculed by members of the Oslo team and his books were banned in the West Bank and Gaza by orders from Arafat as a retaliation measure.

It was a common knowledge that Israel had absolutely no intention of conceding Jerusalem or the Palestinian refugee right of return, but the two issues were shelved by Oslo agreements until the so-called “final status talks” which was nothing but a fig leaf to surrender to Israel the most important issues. The UN Resolution 194 of December 11, 1948 affirmed the right of Palestinian refugees who had fled or had been expelled during the war to return to their homes. Resolution 194, a direct application of Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, was adopted by the United Nations unanimously in 1948. After signing Oslo agreements, the US Administration under President Clinton that was the main sponsor of Oslo argued at the UN, that past UN resolutions on Palestine were “obsolete and anachronistic” after the signing of Oslo.

The American journalist Tomas Friedman who is known for his pro-Israel writings described Arafat’s letter to Rabin recognizing Israel as a humiliation for Arafat and the PLO and an Israeli decisive victory over the Palestinian national movement. He wrote that the letter was “not a statement of recognition. It is a letter of surrender, a type-written white flag in which the PLO chairman renounced every political position on Israel he has held since the PLO’s foundation in 1964.” Arafat’s letter to Rabin promised to assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance with Oslo agreements; prevent violations and discipline violators; and declared inoperative all the articles in the Palestinian Covenant which denied Israel’s right to exist.

The Israeli journalist Danny Rubenstein predicted at the time of Oslo signing and the establishment of the Palestine Authority (PA) that the “autonomy” which the Israelis accepted for the Palestinians was the autonomy “of a POW camp, where the prisoners are autonomous to cook their meals without interference and to organize cultural events.”

On August 8, 1995, the Financial Times was dismayed that the unfair pattern of water seizure by Israel had not been changed years after Oslo agreements: “Nothing symbolizes the inequality of water consumption more than the fresh green lawns, irrigated flower beds, blooming gardens and swimming pools of Jewish settlements in the West Bank”, while nearby Palestinian villages were denied the right to drill wells.

After giving Oslo team the benefit of the doubt, the Palestinian leader, Haidar Abdel-Shafi concluded that Oslo agreements and the PA would fail the Palestinian national cause. For those who do not know, Haidar Abdel-Shafi was the head of the Palestinian negotiating team in Washington that was boycotted by Israel for insisting on having a commitment by Israel to withdraw from East Jerusalem and dismantling the settlements as part of any acceptable interim agreements. Israel chose to negotiate with Oslo team which agreed to Israel’s demand to leave Jerusalem, the refugees and the settlements issues until the “final status talk” of the negotiations.

The Oslo agreements partitioned the occupied lands into zones where the Palestinian Authority is allowed to have different administrative and security powers. Besides the towns and malls and highways built on Palestinian lands in the West Bank and Jerusalem for Jews only, there are many other visible failures of Oslo agreements. Oslo gave Israel the power to divide the Palestinians into groups with different gradation of legal statuses and different security regimes depending on where they live. There are the Israeli Palestinians, Jerusalem Palestinians, Palestinians who reside between the apartheid wall and the green line, Palestinians in zone A or B or C, Gaza Strip Palestinians, the 1948 refugees, the 1967 refugees and the Palestinians who came with Arafat from Tunisia.

The Oslo team in the West Bank still believes the Palestinian issue is a border dispute between two states, but the facts on the ground suggest the Palestinians’ struggle today is existential. The Israelis including the left have adopted the theology of the rabbis that calls for Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians to be based on “Jewish history”, Jewish ethnicity and Jewish religion. The Israelis perceive the settlements, especially in Jerusalem, as an integral part of their national heritage closely tied to the Jews “glorious past.” Some Israelis liken the Palestinians to the biblical Philistines or Amalek, a nation that, in the Torah, “God Commands” the Israelites to “expunge!!” Rabbi Dov Lior, the chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba settlement wrote in 2009: “We must cleanse the country of Arabs and resettle them where they came from, if necessary by paying.” Due to the military training indoctrination and religious beliefs, the attitude of the Israeli young generation toward the Palestinians is more radical than their parents.

The news from Israel suggests the right-wing government is popular and if a new parliamentary election takes place today, Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party will be a winner. As long as the majority of the Israeli people support the ethno-security regime and do not pay the cost of occupation, the status quo in the occupied lands will continue. Due to its success in ruling the West Bank Palestinian population through the proxy of the Palestinian Authority that is financed by the donor countries and the siege of Gaza, Israel does not feel a need for making any concession to the Palestinians as long as the Oslo team controls the Palestinian population. The Israelis believe they can manage the conflict until the Palestinians are ready to settle the conflict on Israel’s own terms.

The Israeli architect of Oslo, Yossi Beilin, wrote a letter dated April 4, 2012 to his Palestinian Oslo partner, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), the president of the Palestinian Authority. The letter stated that the Oslo agreements were based on “the Beilin-Abu Mazen talks” and described the agreements as “a process that promised to lead to a partition of the land in a few years [not the withdrawal from the occupied lands] ……and a fitting symbolic and economic resolution to the problem of the Palestinian refugees [not according to the UN resolution 194].” Beilin reminded Abbas that the PA was an interim phase of the agreement and “One simply cannot continue with an interim agreement for more than 20 years.” Beilin’s letter suggests that if the PA is not dissolved after two decades of signing the Oslo agreements the territory administered by the PA will become the de facto Palestinian state.

The Oslo team has failed to deliver on its promises to establish an independent Palestinian state. Under Oslo team leadership, the vast majority of the Palestinians in the occupied lands are poor, living on donors’ handouts, fearing the confiscation of their land, subjected to ethnic cleansing, family separation and home demolition. They experience daily humiliation creeping for hours along the pocked, blockaded roads assigned to them by the Israelis. The Palestinians are living under military rule in disconnected enclaves, surrounded by sprawling massive Jewish settlements, Jewish only roads, and the separation wall; or they are living in the besieged Gaza and millions are left homeless without citizenship in refugee camps.

Due to their failed policies, the Oslo team has disqualified themselves politically and legally from leading their people. Time has come to declare the Oslo “peace process” over and allow a new leadership that thinks differently to step in. The new team should reject imposing Jewish hegemonic conceptions on the millions of Palestinians as individuals or groups. They should demand equality within the framework of one state over all historical Palestine.

– Hasan Afif El-Hasan is a political analyst. His latest book, Is The Two-State Solution Already Dead? (Algora Publishing, New York), now available on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

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May 8, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Popular Committee Offices Raided by Israeli Military Forces, Ramallah

PNN | May 8, 2012

At 1.30 a.m. on Tuesday morning, 8th May, ten armored jeeps of the Israeli Occupation Forces surrounded and raided the offices of Stop the Wall in Ramallah. Israeli military stole 2 laptops, 3 hard drives and 10 memory cards containing files and photos as well as archive material relating to the work that the organisation does in opposition to Israel’s apartheid wall and the attack on Palestinian human rights that the wall and the settlements represent. This is yet another attack upon Palestinian civil society and their struggle against the physical and psychological oppression, land confiscation and ethnic cleansing policies of Israel.

Stop the Wall is one of the most vibrant organizations of human rights defenders in Palestine, and has been promoting, for almost ten years, civil resistance and advocacy campaigns against the Wall and in defense of Palestinian rights to self determination. Human Rights Defenders are internationally recognized as an essential element in political processes and their repression further underlines Israeli unwillingness to achieve a just peace.

Jamal Juma’, coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign, comments:

“It is not surprising that the Israeli authorities have chosen this moment to escalate their repression against the Stop the Wall grassroots network of civil resistance against the Wall and the settlements, choosing to act on the same day that the Israeli High Court rejected the appeals of Palestinian hunger strikers Bilal Diab and Tha”ir Halahleh, imprisoned without charge and without trial, effectively condemning them to death.

The courageous steadfastness of the more than 2000 hunger strikers in Israeli jails is underlining once more the power of civil resistance as part of the Palestinian struggle. Almost daily people are out in the streets to protest in solidarity with the Palestinian political prisoners, and the discontent with the fruitless and completely stalled diplomatic processes is growing stronger. At the same time, the Israeli authorities announced in 2011 to UN agencies that throughout 2012 year they will systematically displace the Palestinian population in area C. While the displacement drive is underway in the Jordan Valley, home demolitions are rising and the settlement construction is accelerated, the people across the West Bank are always more constraint behind the cantons of the wall.

This raid on the Stop the Wall offices is a clear message that the Israeli authorities are fearing widespread nonviolent action will challenge their policies effectively. Israel is preparing for confrontation and more repression, clearly showing that it is not ready to relinquish any of the international sanctioned rights the Palestinian people are struggling for.”

This is not the first time Stop the Wall has been the target of Israeli repression. In September 2009 Stop the Wall youth coordinator was arrested and the Stop the Wall coordinator, Jamal Juma’, was arrested a few months later, in December 2009. The Israeli authorities were not able to formulate any accusations against either of them and after a sustained international campaign, that saw the active involvement of the diplomatic missions in Palestine and European foreign ministries as well as countless human rights organizations around the world, both had to be freed in January 2010. This attack was followed only a few months later by an extensive office raid by the Israeli military on February 8 2010 and mass arrests of grassroots human rights defenders in the villages most actively protesting against the Wall.

For photos see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stopthewall/sets/72157629631856082/

Background:

Stop the Wall is one of the most vibrant organizations of human rights defenders in Palestine, and has been promoting, for almost ten years, civil resistance and advocacy campaigns against the Wall and in defense of Palestinian rights to self determination. Human Rights Defenders are internationally recognized as an essential element in political processes and their repression further underlines Israeli unwillingness to achieve a just peace.

This raid on the Stop the Wall offices is a clear message that the Israeli authorities are fearing widespread nonviolent action will challenge their policies effectively.

The courageous steadfastness of the more than 2000 hunger strikers in Israeli jails is underlining once more the power of civil resistance as part of the Palestinian struggle. Almost daily people are out in the streets to protest in solidarity with the Palestinian political prisoners, and the discontent with the fruitless and completely stalled diplomatic processes is growing stronger. At the same time, the Israeli authorities announced in 2011 to UN agencies that throughout 2012 year they will systematically displace the Palestinian population in area C. While the displacement drive is underway in the Jordan Valley, home demolitions are rising and the settlement construction is accelerated, the people across the West Bank are always more constraint behind the cantons of the wall. Israel is preparing for confrontation and more repression, clearly showing that it is not ready to relinquish any of the international sanctioned rights the Palestinian people are struggling for.

This is not the first time Stop the Wall has been the target of Israeli repression. In September 2009 Stop the Wall youth coordinator was arrested and the Stop the Wall coordinator, Jamal Juma’, was arrested a few months later, in December 2009. The Israeli authorities were not able to formulate any accusations against either of them and after a sustained international campaign, that saw the active involvement of the diplomatic missions in Palestine and European foreign ministries as well as countless human rights organizations around the world, both had to be freed in January 2010. This attack was followed only a few months later by an extensive office raid by the Israeli military on February 8 2010 and mass arrests of grassroots human rights defenders in the villages most actively protesting against the Wall.

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May 8, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Hawkademia in Australian Universities

By Vacy Vlazna | Palestine Chronicle | May 2, 2012

The Israeli ‘defense’ industry is embedded in Israeli universities and in universities around the world including Australia. It plunders overseas intellectual property for Israel’s military research-and-development (R&D) programs while strategic bi-lateral research and exchange missions deliberately whitewash or ‘normalize’ the Zionist military occupation of Palestine and her people.

In Israel, Zionism and the military are undifferentiated. The IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces), the world’s fourth most powerful (nuclear) army, since the inception of the state of Israel, is duty bound to secure the fanatical Zionist goal of Eretz Yisrael or Greater Israel, which incorporates the whole of historic Palestine and beyond (from the Nile to the Euphrates).

The 1948 Nakba, the Catastrophe, which accounted for the destruction of 500 Palestinian villages and the forceful expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians by Israeli terrorist militia (Irgun, Lehi, and Haganah) that metamorphosed into the Israeli army, has never ended with Israel’s relentless policies of ethnic cleansing through the expansion of its illegal colonies and the illegal Annexation Wall on stolen Palestinian land perforated moreover by hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks manned by belligerent IOF.

Under international law, Israel’s military occupation of Palestine is illegal and yet it has impunity to defy UN Resolutions and to daily commit war crimes because of US, EU, Canadian and Australian support as well as the $3.1 billion in Israeli military assistance granted annually from the US State Department budget.

“Israeli defense sales in 2010 totaled 7.2 billion U.S. dollars, making the small nation the world’s fourth largest exporter…Most of the sales are from four leading companies: Elbit Systems, Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI), Rafael, and Israel Military Industries ..Strong points of Israel’s arms industry include unmanned aerial vehicles, armoured vehicles, smart munitions, military and civilian aircraft avionics, weapons platforms and structural upgrades for foreign governments and private clients.”

It is Palestinian men, women, teenagers and children who are the guinea pigs of Israel’s ‘battle-tested’ weaponry.

Israeli defense companies as well as their joint venture US/UK defense partners have subsidiaries in Australia- Elbit Australia, Oracle Australia, Thales Australia, Raytheon Australia and have footholds in and associations with Australian universities.

In November 2011, Elbit Systems joined the Australian Defense Department’s Rapid Prototyping, Development and Evaluation Program. The University of Western Australia and Edith Cowan University also joined. “Elbit Systems and its subsidiaries contribute directly to two of the most insidious facets of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory: the indiscriminate assaults on civilian populations, through the provision of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s or ‘drones’) and other military equipment to Occupation forces; and the ever-tightening ghettoization of the West Bank, through the provision of surveillance and electronics systems along the Apartheid Wall and settlements. During Israel’s 23-day assault in Gaza in 2008-09, missiles fired from drones were directly attributed to the killing of 78 Palestinians, including 29 children. Like all Israeli firms operating the military technology sector, endless war and occupation create valuable marketing opportunities. Elbit UAVs, for example, can be sold on the global market as ‘battle tested’ devices, significantly increasing their appeal and leading to their adoption by a number of militaries.”

The ZEN Entrepreneurs’ Challenge is a student business planning competition run by the Entrepreneurship, Commercialization and Innovation Centre at the University of Adelaide. ‘Participants work with dedicated mentors to cultivate their entrepreneurial plans including marketing thanks to Dr. Ben-Ari who joined Elbit Systems in 1978 and is, since 2001, Managing Director of Elbit Systems Singapore.

The Edith Cowan University’s Security Management program is offering academic credit to delegates on completion of the 2013 “Security Fundamentals Tour of Israel designed to provide a select group of security specialists and professionals with an insight into Israel’s critical infrastructure security and what continues to drive Israel to be one of the leading security technology providers.” The tour includes the euphemistically named ‘Separation’ Wall which is in fact an Apartheid/Annexation Wall deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004 and also includes the security, passenger screening and deterrence applications of Ben Gurion Airport which last month detained and deported volunteers invited to Palestine to help build a school for blind children. Last year, Australians Vivienne Porzsolt and Sylvia Hale were also arrested and detained at Ben Gurion for having the temerity of wanting to visit Marrickville’s sister city, Bethlehem.

In February, a guest speaker at Deakin University’s 7th Annual International Electromaterials Science Symposium was A/Prof. Yair Ein – Eli, He had been Director of Research and Battery Technology at Electric Fuel Ltd before joining the Department of Materials Engineering at the Technion. Electric Fuel Ltd is a subsidiary of the Arotech Corporation which has facilities in Israel and “operates through three major business divisions: High-level armoring for military and nonmilitary air and ground vehicles; interactive simulation for military, law enforcement and commercial markets, and batteries and charging systems for the military’.

Each Israeli university has societies worldwide that encourage and facilitate academic and scientific exchanges and collaboration. ‘Recent exchanges organized by The Technion Society of Australia have included Technion staff at Sydney University, University of NSW, University of Newcastle, Victoria University, University of Adelaide and Australian National University.’ On staff at the University of Western Sydney is a professor with Technion associations and experience in military and civilian R&D. Both Elbit and Rafael Advanced Systems (run by the Israeli Ministry for Defence)have long-standing partnerships with the hawkish Technion.

In May 2008 was the launch of the AICC s inaugural WA Innovation and Business Development Mission to Israel, supported by the WA State Governments Department of Industry and Resources and coordinated by the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce (WA) Inc. (AICC). Among delegates were representatives from the University of Western Australia and Murdoch University. Mr R McCulloch representing Murdoch University’s interest in water research and renewable energy institutes praised Israel’s “immediate interest and openness to finding partners” though, of course this excludes Palestinians whose critical water resources are stolen, controlled and/or demolished by Israel.

The University of Johannesburg which had a joint water project with Ben Gurion University severed links in 2011 because it found “detailed, factual evidence and information regarding Ben Gurion’s direct and indirect role in further entrenching the violations of human rights and international law by the Israeli state”.

Innocuous academic interchange can promote normalization whereby Israeli oppression, racism and apartheid is accepted as the ‘normal’ status quo.

The Yachad Accelerated Learning Project designed to improve outcomes and address inequalities in Indigenous and Remote education was set up with the support of Melbourne and Monash Universities and The Hebrew University (Michael Federmann, the Chairman of Elbit Systems is a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Governors of Hebrew University). In 2007 an Australian Yachad delegation enthusiastically visited the Bedouin village of Kseyfeh aware or unaware that the per capita spending per Bedouin student is less than half Israel’s average and that 40% of indigenous Bedouins are threatened by forced transfer policies and live in Unrecognized Villages systematically deprived of water, electricity, health care, education yet not deprived of incessant home demolitions.

The information presented here about the relationship between Australian universities and the Israeli occupation of Palestine is merely the tip of a very grubby iceberg. Australian universities by their degrading prostration to funding donors associated with Zionist Israel have lost their moral equilibrium and the purpose and ideals of academia. Dissenting academics are rare. Few emulate Professor Jake Lynch’s protest of the 2011 Israel Research Forum at the University of Sydney with guest experts from the The Weizmann Institute of Science, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and Tel Aviv University, all of which collaborate with the Israeli military industry.

Academics and students, concerned for the human rights of the people of Palestine, must investigate their university finances and demand divestment from and boycott of companies and Israeli universities that are implicated in the war crimes and crimes against humanity that Palestinians suffer daily.

– Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters. She was Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round of the Acheh peace talks, Helsinki, February 2005.

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May 3, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Illegal Settlements Bonanza: Israel Plots an Endgame

By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle | May 2, 2012

Israel’s colonization policies are entering an alarming new phase, comparable in historic magnitude to the original plans to colonize Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem following the war of 1967.

On April 24, an Israeli ministerial committee approved three settlement outposts – Bruchin and Rechelim in the northern part of the West Bank, and Sansana in the south. Although all settlement activities in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are considered illegal by international law, Israeli law differentiates between sanctioned settlements and ‘illegal’ ones. This distinction has actually proved to be no more than a disingenuous attempt at conflating international law, which is applicable to occupied lands, and Israeli law, which is in no way relevant.

Since 1967, Israel placed occupied Palestinian land, privately owned or otherwise, into various categories. One of these categories is ‘state-owned’, as in obtained by virtue of military occupation. For many years, the ‘state-owned’ occupied land was allotted to various purposes. Since 1990, however, the Israeli government refrained from establishing settlements, at least formally. Now, according to the Israeli anti-settlement group, Peace Now, “instead of going to peace the government is announcing the establishment of three new settlements… this announcement is against the Israeli interest of achieving peace and a two states solution”

Although the group argues that the four-man committee did not have the authority to make such a decision, it actually matters little. Every physical space in the occupied territories – whether privately owned or ‘state owned’, ‘legally’ obtained or ‘illegally’ obtained – is free game. The extremist Jewish settlers, whose tentacles are reaching far and wide, chasing out Palestinians at every corner, haven’t received such empowering news since the heyday of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The move regarding settlements is not an isolated one. The Israeli government is now challenging the very decisions made by the Israeli Supreme Court, which has been used as a legitimization platform for many illegal settlements that drove Palestinians from their land.

On April 27, the Israeli government reportedly asked the high court to delay the demolition of an ‘unauthorized’ West Bank outpost in the Beit El settlement which was scheduled to take place on May 1st. The land, even by Israeli legal standards, is considered private Palestinian land, and the Israeli government had committed to the court to take down the illegal outposts – again, per Israeli definition – on the specified date.

Now the rightwing Netanyahu government is having another change of heart. In its request to the court, the government argued: “The evacuation of the buildings could carry social, political and operational ramifications for construction in Beit El and other settlements.” Such an argument, if applied in the larger context of the occupied territories, could easily justify why no outposts should be taken down. It could eradicate, once and for all, such politically inconvenient terms such as ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’.

“Previous Israeli governments have pledged to demolish the unauthorized settler outposts in the West Bank, but only a handful have been removed,” according to CNN online. In fact, that ‘handful’ are likely to be rebuilt, amongst many more new outposts, now that the new legal precedence is underway.

Michael Sfard, an attorney with Yesh Din, which reportedly advocates Palestinian rights, described the request as “an announcement of war by the Israeli government against the rule of law.” More specifically, “they said clearly that they have reached a decision not to evacuate illegal construction on private Palestinian property.”

Some analysts suggested that Netanyahu was bowing down to the more rightwing elements in his cabinet – as if the man had, till now, been a peacemaker. The bottom line is that Israel has decided embark on a new and dangerous phase, one that violates not only international law, but Israel’s own self-tailored laws that were designed to colonize the occupied territories. It appears that even those precarious ‘laws’ are no longer capable of meeting the colonial appetite of Israeli settlers and the ruling class.

Israeli settlements have been contextualized through Israeli legal and political references, as opposed to references commonly accepted in international law. The emphasis on differences between Israeli governments, political parties and religious/ultra-nationalist settlement movements is distracting and misleading; colonizing the rest of historic Palestine has been and remains a national Israeli project.

An article in the rightwing Israeli Jerusalem Post agrees. “Support for settlement is not simply a program of right-of-center Likud. Its history has firm roots in Labor party activity during the periods of its governments, and activities by predecessors of the Labor party going back before the creation of the Israeli state” (April 27).

The only variable that might be worth examining is the purpose of the settlement, not the settlement itself. Following the war of 1967, the Allon plan sought to annex more than 30 percent of the West Bank and all of Gaza for security purposes. It stipulated the establishment of a “security corridor” along the Jordan River, as well outside the “Green Line”, a one-sided Israeli demarcation of its borders with the West Bank. Then, there was no Likud party to demonize, for that was the Labor party’s vision for the newly occupied territories.

While the Israeli settlement drive since then has swallowed much of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, populating them with over half a million Israelis, the international community’s response was as moot in 1967 as it is now in 2012. Responding to the latest sanctioning of illegal outposts, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon declared that he was “deeply troubled” by the news. Meanwhile, Russia was ‘deeply concerned’ and so was the EU’s Catherine Ashton. As for the US, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland insisted that the Israeli measure is not “helpful to the process.” What process?

While Israel has now showed all of its cards, and the international community declared its complacency or impotence, the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah continues to plan some kind of UN censure of the settlements. Even if a watered-down version of some UN draft managed to survive the US veto, what are the chances of Israel heeding the call of international community?

There is no doubt that Israel is plotting its version of the endgame in Palestine, which sees Palestinians continuing to subsist in physical fragmentation and permanent occupation. Unless a popular Palestinian uprising takes hold, no one is likely to challenge what is actually an Israeli declaration of war against the Palestinian people.

– Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).

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May 3, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel To Demolish Buildings In East Jerusalem To Build “King David” Park

By Regina Qumsieh | IMEMC & Agencies | May 02, 2012

The Jerusalem City Council has decided to demolish seven buildings in the Silwan neighborhood, south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Old City in Occupied East Jerusalem, as part of its plan to build the “King David Park” in this Palestinian area.

The Israeli army has posted eviction and demolition notices on several homes and buildings in Silwan, granting the residents 30 days to file appeals and grievances according to Fakhri Abu Diab, member of the Popular Committee for Defending Silwan, in East Jerusalem,

The “King David Park” Plan was announced by Jerusalem Mayor, Nir Barkat, two years ago after the City Council decided to demolish 22 Arab homes under the pretext that they were built without construction permits.

The Israeli plan led to Palestinian, Arab and international condemnation, but Israel disregarded the outrage and said that the project will serve the city.

The “King David” Park plan is part of ongoing Israeli violations targeting the Palestinians, their property and their lands in Occupied East Jerusalem. These violations include the demolition of dozens of Arab homes, forcing the Palestinians out of their homes to replace them with settlers, and the ongoing construction and expansion of Israeli settlement in and around the city.

In other news, Israeli soldiers destroyed agricultural dwellings, barns and wells southeast of the West Bank city of Hebron at dawn on Wednesday. The Israeli Army claimed that the structures were built without construction permits. A member of the Al-Rajabi family stated that the Army has twice invaded his land and demolished his property in the past three years.

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May 2, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli occupation authorities demolish well near Hebron

Ma’an – 02/05/2012

HEBRON – Israeli authorities demolished a water well in a village east of Hebron on Wednesday, locals said.

Officials accompanied by soldiers tore down the well belonging to Saeed Jaber in Baqaa village, residents said.

Palestinian Water Authority chief Shaddad Attili warned earlier this year that Israel was systemically destroying well and rainwater harvesting cisterns to forcibly displace Palestinian communities who depend on them for their basic water needs.

At least 25 Palestinian wells and 32 Palestinian cisterns were demolished in 2011, he said.

Last week local director of the UN’s humanitarian agency Ramesh Rajasingham said that more than 1,500 Palestinians have lost their homes as a result of demolitions and evictions since the beginning of 2011.

Palestinians can only build on one percent of the Israeli-controlled zone Area C in the West Bank, most of which is already built up, while settlements continue to expand in the same zone, the UN says.

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May 2, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Report: “Five Killed, 285 Kidnapped In April”

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | May 01, 2012
File Photo

The International Solidarity Foundation for Human Rights (Tadamon) reported that Israeli soldiers shot and killed five Palestinians, including a 4 year old child, and kidnapped more than 285 Palestinians in April.

The child, Aseel Ara’ra, 4, from Anata, near the central west Bank city of Ramallah, was shot in the neck on October 25, 2011, and was left in a quadriplegic state before dying of her injuries last month.

Also in April, the army shot and killed Hashem Misbah Sa’ad, 17, after claiming that he approached the border fence. Sa’ad is from ash-Shujaeyya neighbourhood, east of Gaza city.

Soldiers also shot and killed Bilal Yousef As-Sa’ayda, 20, also after claiming the he approached the border fence.

Two more Palestinians were killed in the West Bank. One of the deceased, identified as Rashad Shoukha, 28, was seriously wounded after the under-cover forces of the Israeli army broke into his home in Rammoun town, near Ramallah, and died of his wounds a week after he was injured.

Resident Fadi Zeitoun, from Beta village, near Nablus, was killed after a group of extremist settlers of the Yitzhar illegal settlement, south of Nablus, chased him with their guns while he was driving his tractor.

Israeli soldiers conducted dozens of invasions into the occupied territories in April, and kidnapped more than 285 residents, including dozens of women and children, and a number of former political prisoners who previously spent years in Israeli prisons and detention centers.

In the West Bank, soldiers kidnapped 45 children, and three female university students from the southern West Bank city of Hebron.

Tadamon attorney, researcher Ahmad Tubassy, slammed the ongoing and escalating Israeli violations against the Palestinian people, especially the ongoing violations against the political prisoners currently holding an open-ended hunger-strike demanding their legitimate rights guaranteed under international Law.

He stated that targeting civilians, especially women and children, violates all international regulations, and the Fourth Geneva Conventions to which Israel is a signatory.

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May 1, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

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