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Fadi Abu Zeitoun, killed as settlers attacked farmers

By Rana H. – International Solidarity Movement – April 9, 2012

Israeli settlers attacked and chased a group of Palestinian farmers last Thursday, causing a tractor to flip over during the chase, causing the death of the Palestinian driver.

On Thursday, April 5th, armed settlers from the illegal Israeli colony of Itamar attacked a group of Palestinians en-masse. In haste and in fear for his life, twenty-eight year old Fadi Abu Zeitoun’s tractor tipped and crushed him as he fled from the pursuing settlers.

The villagers who own olive groves near Itamar rarely get “permission” from the Israeli District Coordination Office to access their own land. During the harvest season, they are permitted a few days, but in the spring when the land needs to be tended they have more difficulty acquiring permission. During this spring harvest, the villages of Hawarta, Yanoun, Aqraba, and Beita were told they had only four hours to access their land. The area to be tended is approximately 1000 dunums so the villagers collected forty tractors to work as much land as possible in the shortest possible time. Israeli activists from the movement Peace Now, and a group of international activists were present in solidarity. Prime Minister Salam Fayad joined them to make a statement re-affirming their right to utilize the stolen land that they were standing upon.

During the Prime-minister’s visit, Israeli authorities were positioned nearby and prevented the settlers from passing. However, shortly after Fayad left the area, Israeli soldiers permitted a mob of settlers to converge upon the Palestinian farmers tending to their land. They began by throwing stones, causing the group to separate and begin descending the hill. The settlers then proceeded to fire M-16 assault rifles in the direction of the unarmed farmers before releasing dogs. In the ensuing chaos, and as Fadi desperately attempted to escape, his tractor flipped over and fell on him, mortally wounding the young man.

Palestinians witnessing the incident ran back towards the scene to offer assistance. The settlers promptly dispersed as they rushed him down the hill to the road, unfortunately he was already dead.

Fadi is of the village of Beita . With a population of only 12,000, this death resonates among all the residents. As Fadi’s father-in-law, Isam Bani Shams says, “This is not our first martyr nor our last, we have been in this situation for sixty-four years. Our village has lost some seventy martyrs.”

On the same date, twenty-four years ago, two men from the village of Beita were also murdered by settlers from Itamar.

In the gathering following the funeral, Fadi’s father, Sleman Abu Zeitoun, sat with his head down. Beside him sat three other men who have had a son murdered by Israeli soldiers or settlers.

Fadi was newly married to nineteen year-old Fida’ Bani Shams who is left widowed and six months pregnant. Her brother was killed at the age of sixteen by Israeli soldiers during the second intifada, and as her father says, “She has lost a brother and a husband so what can I say of her emotions? She is in grief. She is exhausted.” Fida’ sat slouched in a corner of the room, her eyes closed and blankets covering her feet.

Fadi’s sister has had a nervous breakdown since the death of her brother. She does not recognize her husband or her daughters. Their mother, Mona Fihmeh says, “in terms of how I feel, I have patience, but my back has been broken from the burden.” Mona spent last night praying over her feverish body, and today she sent her daughter to the hospital. Her husband was on the way back from a funeral in Jordan when the accident occurred. He returned to Beita to find that his son had been killed.

Throughout the funeral, political talk arose about the various results of Israeli occupation and apartheid on Palestine. At first, the unemployment rate among Palestinians does not seem relevant to the death of Fadi Abu Zeitoun, but one soon realizes that Israel’s apartheid policies are to blame for both the impunity with which settlers are treated, and the numerous other negative consequences on livelihood.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory reported that over 90% of complaints regarding settler violence filed by Palestinians to the Israeli police in recent years have been closed without indictment. OCHA’s report on settler violence notes that “the root cause of the settler violence phenomenon is Israel’s decades-long policy of illegally facilitating the settling of its citizens inside occupied Palestinian territory. This activity has resulted in the progressive takeover of Palestinian land, resources and transportation routes and has created two separate systems of rights and privileges, favouring Israeli citizens at the expense of the over 2.5 million Palestinian residents of the West Bank. Recent official efforts to retroactively legalize settler takeover of privately-owned Palestinian land actively promotes a culture of impunity that contributes to continued violence.”

Rana H. is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.

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April 9, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Detained journalist boycotts Israeli military court

Palestine Information Center – 09/04/2012

AL-KHALIL — Detained journalist Amir Abdul Halim Abu Arafeh, 28, who is held in administrative detention at the Negev Desert prison, refused to appear before the Zionist military court last Thursday in accordance with the administrative detainees’ decision to boycott these courts which try to give legitimacy to administrative detention.

The court session, that was supposed to take place last Thursday to hear the prosecution, was held to renew the prisoner’s administrative detention for six more months, according to sources at Negev prison.

The same sources confirmed that the prison administration tried by force to make Abu Arafeh attend the court but he refused describing it “arbitrary and illegal”. The prisoner added that his arrest was political insisting on his commitment to the decision taken by administrative detainees to boycott military courts.

Abu Arafeh was arrested by the occupation forces on 21 August 2011 from his home in Al-Khalil in the southern West Bank, and turned him to administrative detention because of his work as a reporter for Shihab News agency after his release from the PA prisons where he was arrested 3 times.

Palestinian captives declared in early March 2012 the boycott of the Zionist military courts that deal with administrative detention cases, demanding an end to administrative detention and the release of all administrative detainees.

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April 8, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Foxman & Friends: ADL Head Lambastes NYC High School Trip to Israel/Palestine for Insufficient Hasbara

By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep In America | April 7, 2012

The Anti-Defamation League‘s Abe Foxman is annoyed that a group of seventeen high school students and six faculty members from New York City’s prestigious Friends Seminary recently visited Israel and Palestine (which he terms the “West Bank region”), but didn’t spend nearly enough time being force-fed ADL-approved hasbara.

Writing in The Jerusalem Post in late March, Foxman expressed his clear frustration that “the participants will be spending most of their time in the West Bank meeting with Palestinians,” during which time students “will have overnight stays with Palestinian families” and “will be developing oral histories of those families.” While Foxman states that “[t]here is, of course, nothing intrinsically wrong in doing these things,” he worries that “because of the intensely personal nature of the home visits in the West Bank, which will expose the group only to a Palestinian perspective, these visits should be balanced by similar experiences with Israelis within Israel,” including “meeting with Israeli families” and “visiting important venues like the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem.”

Foxman is irked about what he calls the school’s “distorted, anti-Israel version of historical and current events in the Middle East” and worries that its administrators and students won’t “recognize how easily what seems like criticisms of Israel can veer into anti-Semitism.”

What Foxman deftly omitted from his criticism of the Friends trip is that, at the time his piece was published, students had already visited Jerusalem’s Western Wall, explored a number of synagogues, St. Anne’s Church and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, spent time at The Israel Museum, where they met with the director of a program that conducts workshops in which Palestinian and Israeli children create art together, and visited the Jordan River Valley with Mira Edelstein of the Tel-Aviv-based organization EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME). The day after Foxman’s piece appeared in the Jerusalem Post, the group traveled to Jaffa where they met with Dr. Edward Rettig, Director of the Israel/Middle East Office of the American Jewish Committee as well as a representative of The Abraham Fund Initiatives, a non-profit organization dedicated to “promote coexistence and equality among Israel’s Jewish and Arab citizens.”

Nevertheless, Foxman criticizes Friends for “taking high school kids to the Middle East and devising such a pro-Palestinian schedule,” especially because “Israel is America’s main ally in the region, a number of the students are Jewish, and balance is one of the school’s valued and oft-stated educational goals.”

It is unsurprising that Foxman’s disingenuous yearning for “balance” is driven by his desire to see the “impressionable high school students” exposed to Israeli narratives that reinforce the eternal victimhood of not only Israel but all Jews worldwide and which equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Learning about the personal experiences of Palestinians and experiencing the infrastructure, discrimination and oppression of the occupation does not fit with Foxman’s agenda.

This past November, an ADL sponsored “group of senior Latino and Latin American journalists, editors and producers completed an eight-day mission to Israel” in an effort “to counter what it sees as Latinos’ less favorable attitudes toward Israel.” The Jerusalem Post reported that “Stops on the tour included the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, Sderot, Nazareth, Safed, Lake Kinneret and the Golan.”

What balance!

These Latino journalists, who hailed from the United States, Bolivia, Chile and Venezuela, went to multiple areas under Israeli occupation and probably met with numerous local colonists in their illegal settlements on stolen land! Imagine how “intensely personal” these “visits in the West Bank” were for the journalists. One has to assume that, due to Foxman’s apparent commitment to a “balanced” narrative presenting “similar experiences” of both Israelis and Palestinians, when visiting Christian holy sites on the ADL’s dime and with their own guides, the Latino journalists were able to spend ample time speaking with Palestinians, both Christian and Muslim. Oh, wait, that didn’t happen? Shocking!

In early 2004, the ADL took “[s]enior law enforcement personnel from across America, including “sixteen police chiefs and FBI terrorism task force representatives,” to Israel to meet “with their Israeli counterparts and learned how to better predict, prevent and respond to terrorism.” By Foxman’s standards of “balance,” the officials must have been told about the rampant Israeli arrests of Palestinian children and toddlers, who suffer abuse – mental, physical and sexual – and who are tortured during and traumatized by their imprisonment.  They surely learned about Israel’s use of administrative detention to hold Palestinians indefinitely without charge or trial, a direct violation of universal human rights and international law.

Did the group visit Palestinian communities victimized by housing demolitions, a particularly vindictive form of collective punishment favored by the Israeli government, examine the illegality of Israel’s Apartheid Annexation Wall and U.S.-supplied weaponry, or study the implications of surveillance state built upon domestic spying and racial profiling? Of course not.

University of Florida student Virlany Taboada was sent to Israel in 2010 by the ADL and “visited key sites related to Israel’s history,” “learned the country’s significance to the Jewish people,” and heard “different perspectives… from a variety of people while in Israel including military and a family that the group had a Shabbat dinner with one night.” Balance! No wonder that upon her return, Taboada said,

“For people who say that the Holocaust didn’t exist or that God doesn’t exist, you know the moment you go to the Jewish home and see a Jewish city that something happened. You know something took place that has completely transformed the way Israel is and the way people talk about it and I think that is what I saw there — that there is something special and something unique that you can’t find in a lot of places.“

That “special” and “unique something” is actually called Apartheid, Virlany.

In fact, the ADL’s annual Campus Leader Study Mission is so nauseatingly balanced, the non-propaganda just drips from the following description of last year’s trip:

Each year, the ADL brings leaders from colleges across the country to Israel. In August, 17 campus leaders joined the latest of these annual trips.

The eight-day trip, designed for students who have never visited the country, included visits to the Dead Sea, the Golan Heights, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, the Jordan River and Christian and Jewish holy sites.

Students also learned about Israel’s diverse culture. They had Shabbat dinner with a family in Jerusalem and met with members of the Druze community as well as Ethiopian immigrants. They met Israeli Defense Force soldiers, students, and young citizens at the forefront of the summer’s tent city protests.

The mission also sought to further the students’ understanding about the conflict by bringing speakers with varying opinions such as a West Bank settler and a Palestinian journalist.

Whoa, one whole Palestinian journalist, eh? What perspective. Assuredly, Foxman didn’t raise any qualms about “balance” when AIPAC brought over 80 members of the U.S. House of Representatives to Israel in a move that was assailed by Palestinian Knesset member Ahmad Tibi as a “propaganda tour” designed to whitewash and obfuscate “the discrimination and occupation that the state of Israel imposes on the Palestinian people in its midst.
”

But Foxman is right: how are New York students supposed to internalize hasbara when they’re actually meeting with Palestinians in Palestine and staying in their homes under Israeli occupation?  And all without a visit to Yad Vashem?  I mean, when exactly was the emotional blackmail supposed to occur?  And how are they supposed to suck face with IDF soldiers if they’re busy learning Palestinian oral histories?

But that’s not all.

Foxman attacks not only the “imbalanced structure of the trip” but also one of its chaperones, a history teacher at Friends, who he describes as having “well-known anti-Israel views, which he promotes at the school” and who “he presents the students a completely biased and one-sided version of events in the Middle East.”  Here, the ADL chief seems to be taking his cues from the eminent liar, warmonger, plagiarist, torture–advocate, and outspoken terrorist supporter Alan Dershowitz, who recently also took to the pages of The Jerusalem Post to declare Friends Seminary a haven for anti-Semitism and condemn the same teacher as “rabidly anti-Israel… who propagandizes his students against Israel in the classroom, and who has a picture of Anne Frank wearing a Palestinian headdress on his website.”

“In his World History class, when he devotes one day to Israel, his two primary sources have been reported to be a speech by former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and a paper by the American Friends Service Committee,” reveals Foxman, adding that the AFSC “has a long history of one-sided advocacy against the State of Israel.” Readers are supposed to gasp with horror at this. But Foxman’s selective and sensationalistic suggestion is not supported by facts and deliberately seeks to elicit shrieks of shock and condemnation.

The speech assigned to students is not just “a speech by former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat,” it is the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence, written by renowned poet Mahmoud Darwish.  Students are also assigned to read both the 1917 Balfour Declaration and Israeli’s own 1948 Declaration of Independence. Furthermore, that a Friends school would include a paper by the American Friends Service Committee is hardly newsworthy.

Foxman also misunderstands the “oral history” component of the Friends trip.  The project consists not of Friends students doing oral histories of Palestinian families, but rather sharing their own oral histories about Friends Seminary and Meetinghouse in Manhattan with Palestinian students from the Ramallah Friends school who developed oral histories of their own families.

The fact that the picture of Anne Frank in a kaffiyeh – used to spooky effect by Dershowitz – was actually this photograph of New York City street art posted on Flickr by someone else and merely “liked” by the history teacher in question hardly merits any attention, but perhaps demonstrates just how absurd these charges are.

Perhaps most telling is the inconvenient fact which Foxman and Dershowitz both deliberately leave out of their libelous descriptions of the Friends history teacher: he’s Jewish.

While Foxman claims to have spoken to “a number of parents” who seem to question the “balanced” nature of Middle East curricula at Friends, Joel Cohen, a current Friends parent, responded to both Foxman and Dershowitz’s attack on the school.  In a letter written to and published by The Jerusalem Post the day after Foxman’s article appeared, Cohen condemns the “unjustified and unsupported attack on a New York private school, Friends Seminary, that Alan Dershowitz began last month,” stating that “Foxman, like Dershowitz, criticizes this respected school, its administration and faculty based on assertions he fails to support.” Cohen writes that Foxman “cites no evidence for his accusation about the history teacher, much like Dershowitz failed to offer when he began the attacks against Friends and this teacher. Like Dershowitz, Foxman also fails to provide evidence that he in fact knows anything meaningful about the Friends visit.” An even more detailed rebuttal of Dershowitz’s claims was posted on the Friends Seminary Facebook page in late February.

But the best counter to the attacks on Friends and its faculty lies with the students themselves. During the trip to Israel and Palestine, the students kept an incredible, publicly-accessible blog, entitled “Friends Visiting Friends in the Middle East.” It features posts written by the students themselves about their experiences and feelings.

Reading through the posts (written by the students themselves about their experiences and feelings during the trip), understanding the trip’s itinerary and looking at the gorgeous pictures, one can easily see why Foxman and friends are terrified of Friends students traveling to Israel and Palestine without the requisite hasbara pit stops.  Truth and knowledge are directly anathema to Zionism’s stranglehold on emotional blackmail, ethnocratic exclusivity, and perennially exploited victimization.

In one entry, a Friends student named Eliza wrote about her conflicted feelings:

When I reflect on the experiences of this trip, the criticisms of it, and the larger conflicts within this region, I have found it really easy to lose sight of the human element in all of this. When I think about my host mother and the way she treated me with love and warmth despite my personal religion and political views, I find it a little bit easier to see the human side and I am incredibly grateful and thankful for that. I am more appreciative that I feel I am coming away from this experience with more of a human connection absent of all politics.

Jacob, who is in his senior year at Friends, wrote the following after spending time with Palestinian students and his host family in Ramallah:

I was amazed at how much these students like me, and also fascinated by the cultural differences… I never want to forget my experiences here, nor do I want to forget the lessons that I drew from them even though we are from different cultures and hold different beliefs. We are the same where it matters most: we both want peace, we both want to laugh, we both value passion, and we both enjoy a good felafel.

Another senior, Will, described painting messages on the separation wall as “one of the most ‘Friends’-like experiences I’ve ever had,” elaborating

We were all painting messages of hope and peace, and beyond that I was moved by how much we were supporting each other, both metaphorical and literally: Not only did we cheer each other on and applaud each other’s handiwork, but I actually lifted Rose up on my shoulders so she could find space to write. I also wrote my own message; after much internal debate, I decided to write the phrase that kept coming to my head: “WE ARE FRIENDS.” And walking away in the sunlight, with empty spray-paints cans in hand and classmates at my side, I really felt that these words were true.

Shortly after arriving in Israel and traveling to the West Bank, Rose summarized her feelings about what she had experienced so far:

We’re simply not staying here long enough.  It’s a relief.  A dream come true.

It is no surprise that experiences like those described by the inspiring and courageous students of Friends Seminary and which humanize Palestinians represent a dangerous threat to the hegemony of narrative so desperately promoted by career Zionist apologists like Foxman and Dershowitz.

For them, Rose’s “dream come true” is an absolute nightmare.

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April 8, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Amani al Khandaqja released following hunger strike

6 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Amani al Khandaqja with her father, pose following her release

“You are a very clever woman Amani, you are the first free woman from Ashkalan, this brings me great frustration.”

These are the words of the Chief of Intelligence at Huwarra Camp where Amani al Khandaqja was forced to go during her first Sunday of freedom after her 10 days of imprisonment. On the 20th of March, al Khandaqja was taken from her home, Nablus City, in a 2AM night raid, shackled, handcuffed and blindfolded, her 10 days of imprisonment were as follows:

On entering the Ashkelon interrogation prison, al Khandaqja made the decision to begin an open ended hunger strike, bringing her to the immediate decision of the military to be held in solitary confinement. Her days started with fierce determination to show that she is not and will not be intimidated by the interrogators or the prison.

When taken for the routine strip search, al Khandaqja simply but vehemently refused anything of the sort. She spent her days in a room too small for any comfort, the light was on day and night, and food was used as a constant temptation out of her hunger strike.

The military used low, pathetic tactics including sitting her in front of a table with chicken, burgers, chips and rice. On refusal of the food soldiers asked al Khandaqja , “Why do you not like food?” al Khandaqja was quick to reassure them that she is in fact very fond of food but she “like [her] mother’s food, [her] sisters’ food, even [her] brother’s food, but [she] will not eat [their] food.”

Tactics quickly became even more personal by offering Amani an opportunity to see her brother Bassam. Bassam is a political prisoner in Ashkelon’s mixed sex prison, who is 9 years into his life sentence. The terms of the negotiation were to stop the hunger strike for a short visit. The negotiation was rejected by al Khandaqja.

As the days and nights passed and interrogation continued, the military became weaker and weaker. “All they had to say was that I was too active on Facebook.” Amani explained how the interrogator informed her, “I know your words have power” but this simply was not enough to keep Amani captured.

The Israeli military often offers monetary rewards for those it convinces to become collaborators against the Palestinian people, and with Amani the offers came thick and fast. Having studied psychology at university, and one who has traveled to Europe working with women groups in campaigns addressing issues such as domestic violence, she is a woman who is not easily scared or intimidated. This was evident to the Israeli military.

It is true that al Khandaqja is a threat to Israel’s apartheid, but not because of their usual rhetoric of her being a “violent Palestinian,” but because Amani is a clever, determined, educated, and passionate young woman who, it seems, will stop at nothing in her struggle for human rights. When asked if and when she will return back to work, Amani replied “I am always working. I will not stop. I write everyday about the conditions of the prisoners. I am only writing for peace, and I do not want to see anymore violence”

Amani, who is from Nablus City was releasd at Turkoomia checkpoint in Al Khalil (Hebron), 77 kilometer from Nablus. She was left with no phone or money. Fortunately she was able track down her father and have a car sent to her, not before visiting friends in Al Khalil as word had gotten out about her release. That night, the 30th March, Amani returned home split with emotion. The prospect of seeing her family filled her with happiness but to have left her brother Bassam and personal friend Masser Halabi behind brought an overwhelming sadness, a sadness that is sure to inspire and motivate Amani to continue the struggle with more passion and determination than ever before.

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April 6, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

20 Palestinians, Including 2 Officers, Kidnapped In Qalqilia

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | April 05, 2012

Israeli soldiers invaded Kufr Qaddoum town, east of the northern West Bank city of Qalqilia, on Thursday at dawn, broke into and searched dozens of homes, and kidnapped 20 Palestinians, including two Palestinian Police officers.

Eyewitnesses told the Maan News Agency that dozens of armored military vehicles invaded the town before the soldiers violently broke into dozens of homes and ransacked them; one resident also accused the soldiers of stealing gold from his home.

Resident Ata Shteiwy said that the soldiers stole gold, worth 8.000 Jordanian Dinars (Approximately $11,315).

All kidnapped residents were roughed up before they were cuffed, blindfolded and taken to an unknown destination, eyewitnesses reported.

The kidnapped residents were identified as; police officers Thaer Shteiwy, 38, Riyadh Shteiwy, 38, in addition to Ibrahim Amer, 25, Hikmat Shteiwy, 35, his brother Nasfat, 26, Harb Mashour Jom’a, 18, Iqlima Jom’a, 23, Mohammad Majed Abdul-Mon’em, 17, Mojahid Abbas, 34, Ahmad Abdul-Qader Abdullah, 17, Salaam Taiseer Barham, 20, Yousef Mustafa Shteiwy, 17, Qais Shaher Jom’a, 16, Raslan Jom’a, 25, Waseem Shteiwy, 23, Wawis Amer, 24, Mojahid Barham, 22, Sabri Shteiwy, 22, Tareq Mohammad Taha, 19, Mohammad Mansour Shteiwy, 19.

The invasion and arrests are part of repeated Israeli violations against the Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories, including in and around occupied East Jerusalem, as soldiers conduct invasions and arrests nearly on a daily basis.

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April 5, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Thirty Palestinians killed by Israel in March, 300 imprisoned

MEMO | April 2, 2012

A human rights organisation has reported that the Israeli occupation forces have stepped up what it calls their “racist and aggressive practices” against the Palestinian people over the past month, during which Israel carried out dozens of operations and military incursions in the occupied Palestinian territories. “Thirty Palestinians were killed by Israel in March,” said the International Solidarity Foundation for Human Rights, “most of them in the besieged Gaza Strip.”

The Foundation said that three children under the age of eighteen were martyred in the West Bank. Two of the children – named as Hamza Zayed Jaradat and Zayed Jomah Jaradat, both age 12 ‑ from the area of Wadi Al Reem, near Hebron, were killed when a suspicious object left in the area by the Israeli occupation army exploded. The third minor was Zakaria Jamal Abu Arram, age 17 from the town of Yatta, near Hebron, who was killed during a confrontation with Israeli soldiers when local Palestinians tried to stop the security forces from re-arresting one of the detainees released in the last prisoner exchange deal.

According to the Foundation, Israel’s arrests of Palestinians have also increased in the past month. “More than 300 Palestinians, including 56 children and seven women, and many ex-detainees who have already spent many years in prison, were taken into detention by the Israelis,” it said in its statement.

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April 4, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Israeli occupation forces arrest journalist, MP’s son

Palestine Information Center – 03/04/2012

NABLUS — Israeli occupation forces (IOF) stormed the city of Nablus at dawn Tuesday and arrested Fadl Beitawi, the son of MP Hamed Beitawi, from his home, sources told the PIC.

They said that journalist Mohammed Anwar, 29, who works with Quds Press, was also taken from his home in the pre-dawn raid.

The sources said that the soldiers encircled the homes of both men, who are in the same suburb to the east of the city, and ordered them to get out of their homes because they are under arrest.

This is the third time Beitawi is detained and has served a total of four years in Israeli jails while it is the fourth time for the journalist who served four and a half years in the occupation jails.

Sources told the PIC that the soldiers also stormed a number of houses in the same suburb including that of MP Hamed Beitawi, which was thoroughly searched. They said that the soldiers might have taken other persons from the suburb.

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April 3, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Qaryut: 8 year old injured by bomb planted by Israelis

2 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Yemams father did not have time to respond to his son before the bomb exploded. Ripping through three layers of clothes and even more layers of skin, his father had to watch the tragedy unfold before his eyes. Yemam Mohammad Fatah Azam is just eight years old. He was enjoying a Friday afternoon with his father in the olive groves.

Situated between the illegal Israeli settlements of Shilo, Eli, and Suvat Rachel, Qaryut is not new to military and settler violence. Yamam’s story however is the first incident of its kind and has shaken the community. As floods of school children come to visit Yamam in his home, it is clear that all the parents are aware that the bomb could have been in their loved one’s hands. The children show they are upset with a handshake and sit next to Yamam in silence.

Bashar, a member of the Popular Commitee explains that the planting of un-exploded ordinance (UXO)  ”… is an act to intimidate us from going to our land.”

Efforts by violent Zionist settlers have been well underway to intimidate farmers from visiting their land, and recently the village has joined the popular resistance with a Friday demonstration in protest of the closure of their road by Israeli military. The road runs through the land in which many farmers reside. One farmer explained, “It brings us much comfort to have cars passing through the road, we know if anything was to happen a car would stop and support us.”

As Yamam lays in bed, not able to move much due to the wound constantly re-opening, causing pain beyond comprehension, four more bombs lay on the land near by. This case has reached The United Nations group, OCHA, who has reported this in their “Protection of Civilians Weekly Report, 21-27 March 2012.” The Palestinian Authority is also addressing the issue as well. Both have been informed of the bombs which still reside on the land of the farmers, but have not been able to make the area safe. Due to the olive groves being in Area C, the Palestinian Authority has no permission to enter the land.

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

Israeli Brutality: Violent arrests of Palestinians in Hebron and disappearance of Dutch volunteer

1 April 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

A Dutch woman and several Palestinians were violently arrested today during an attempt to reclaim a Palestinian house at the entrance of the old city in occupied Al Khalil (Hebron).

About 30 Palestinians and international ISM activists from Canada, Finland, United States and the Netherlands entered a Palestinian house that was taken over by the Israeli army around eight years ago. The re-occupation of the house was an attempt to return the house it’s rightful owner and a response to the takeover of a Palestinian house on Shuhada street by settlers under the protection of the Israeli army and border police.

The windows of the house had been broken and the house was filled with trashed furniture, reminders of the families who had lived there. Stars of David and other graffiti covered the walls, and the floor was littered with the casings of rubber coated steel bullets and a tear gas canister. From the front window the watchtower of the settlement Beit Romano is visible.

As activists started cleaning the house and preparing to spend the night there, the Israeli army prepared to invade the house with sound bombs, skunk water and soldiers in full riot gear. Over 50 soldiers and 5 border police blocked the road and cleared the surrounding area before entering the house that was being reoccupied, claiming that the house was now Jewish property.

The soldiers then entered the house and began to forcefully remove the non-violent protesters by punching, hitting with batons, kicking, pulling people by their hair and grabbing them by their throat before pulling them out of the house.

“I was dragged out down a flight of stairs by my ankle by a soldier” said an ISM activist from Canada. “The soldier had his boot on my face,” said an ISMer from Finland.

One Palestinian was beaten until he became unconscious. He was taken to hospital in an ambulance with another injured person. When internationals and Palestinians attempted to help the unconscious man, the Israeli army threw sound bombs near his head and then dragged him away by his feet.

The Israeli army threw sound bombs and sprayed skunk water at the crowd that had gathered to support the Palestinians and internationals.

The Dutch activist and Youth Against Settlements leader Issa Amro are still being held by police. The whereabouts of the Dutch activist is unknown currently, and an emergency hotline for the Dutch Embassy only suggested that an email be sent to detail the event.

The embassy employee commented that, “We can see to it that she is fed, bathed, and if she needs medicine.” When asked if he can attempt to locate her, he mumbled a comment about her attending a demonstration, and stated “Israel is a friend of the Netherlands, and we respect the law of the land.” He then suggested to call the Dutch Consulate during its working hours and to send information about the woman to its email address.

ISM is working vigorously to determine the whereabouts of its volunteer, yet is fearful that while the Israelis deny that she is held in one of their imprisonment facilities despite dozens seeing her physically taken away by Israelis, that they may be attempting to deport her without fair trial or an accusation as they did with a British volunteer in July 2011.

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April 2, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Israel Casually Bars UN Fact Finding Team

By Sami Zaatari | Palestine Chronicle | March 31, 2012

Imagine if Iran had recently denied allowing a UN fact-finding team from entering their country to inspect and investigate their atomic energy program. What kind of reaction would most likely come out? With no doubt, the United States, as well as Israel would begin to sound the drums of condemnation, and would point to this act as further proof of how sinister Iran is. Yet this is precisely what has recently happened, although it was not the dreaded Iran that barred a UN fact-finding team, rather it was none other than Israel.

There has hardly been any negative reaction or condemnation for Israel’s act. I waited for almost a week to write this article just to see if there would be any negative reaction towards Israel for this act. None. The US said nothing of the matter in terms of condemnation, and Israel has yet again proven it’s complete double standards to the world.

The UN fact finding team that was barred from Israel was part of the UN’s human rights council. Their mission was to go into Israel, and the West Bank to be able to investigate the illegal settlements that Israel has built and continues to build in the West Bank. Once again, contrast this with Iran, what would have happened if Iran did this? Coincidently, Iran has often opened up its atomic energy program for the UN and international inspectors to come in and investigate. Furthermore Iran hasn’t even breached any international law by their atomic energy program for anything to be inspected or investigated in the first place. On the other hand Israel is breaching international law in regard to their settlement building, therefore the UN has a full right to come and investigate the matter, yet Israel has barred them from doing so. Just think about that for a second, Iran is not breaching any law by their atomic energy program, yet they allow investigators in. Israel is breaching international law, yet doesn’t allow any investigators to come in and investigate.

As mentioned, this yet again exposes Israel’s double standards, and once again lays waste to their claims that they supposedly care for international law or respecting UN resolutions. What makes this all the more ironic is not that Israel simply pretends to care about international law or UN resolutions, but rather that they use such concepts/institutions when they seek to drum up pressure against Iran. Whenever Israel seeks to condemn Iran, Israeli politicians enjoy referring to international law, UN resolutions, but when it comes to Israel itself it openly disrespects and defies the very same concepts and institutions.

And where is the US in all of this? Nowhere to be seen, America yet again demonstrates why no level headed Middle Easterner (let alone dissatisfied American citizens) can take them seriously, or can lend them their trust. How can the US on one hand condemn Iran and refer to international law, the UN etc, but when it comes to Israel’s flagrant disregard for such institutions, it stands by quietly? Not to mention that Israel is actually in breach of international law by the very settlements themselves. So one would think that the US would be more than happy for such illegal settlements to be investigated, and would be incensed by Israel’s act of barring such an investigation. If the US wants to be a serious peace broker within the region, and if it actually wants to gain the trust and respect of you’re average Arab on the street, then it is time for America to get rid of it’s open bias in regard to Israel and do what is right in order for peace to be achieved within the region.

Let us end with these words of Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman who said the following in regards to the UN fact finding team: “It means that we’re not going to work with them. We’re not going to let them carry out any kind of mission for the Human Rights Council, including this probe.”

– Sami Zaatari is an American of Palestinian-Iranian descent. Zaatari is a writer, and a public speaker who has taken part in public events of inter-faith and inter-community discussions. Zaatari also holds an MSc in the field of Middle East Politics.

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April 1, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

One Killed, 37 Injured, by Israeli troops Gunfire in Gaza Land Day Protests

By Ghassan Bannoura | IMEMC News | March 30, 2012

(Reuters/Ammar Awad and Ronen Zvulun)

A Palestinian 20 year old youth was killed, 37 injured, among them a journalist when Israeli troops opened fire at Palestinian protesters marking land day in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian sources reported that soldiers opened fire at protesters who marched up to the borders with Israel near Gaza city killing Mohamed Zakout, 20, and injuring 37 others. Among those injured were 3 in critical conditions and a local journalist.

In the West Bank Israeli troops injured 100 civilians including an American activist who marked land day in different parts of the West Bank today.

Marking the 36th anniversary of land day today Palestinians and their supporters marched for Jerusalem demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of the city. Protests were organized near the Israeli Lebanese borders as well as the borders with Jordan.

The Land day commemoration started in 1976, when Palestinian residents of the Galilee to the Negev protested Israel’s plan to expropriate thousands of dunams of land for security and settlement purposes. Israeli military and police attacked the protests leaving 6 killed, hundreds injured.

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March 31, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli police water-cannon, tear-gas Palestinians on Land Day

| March 30, 2012

A Gaza youth has reportedly been killed while over 200 people have been wounded throughout the West Bank.

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March 30, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

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