Israel/Palestine News

   

The former Israeli president and prime minister has been remembered as a
peacemaker, but his biography tells a different story, says Michel
Warschawski.

   

A panel discussion on the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement
with Dimitri Lascaris, Constantine Kristonis, and Lia Tarachansky.

   

Despite Trump being wrong on the Iran deal, the US congress is more
likely to derail it than his potential presidency, says Col. Larry
Wilkerson

  

In early June, during the month of Ramadan, the Israeli water company,
Mekorot, cut back water supply to several Palestinian communities in the
northern West Bank, including the village of Salem, which is located
east of Nablus and has a population of about 5,000. These communities
suffered from an acute water shortage throughout the summer, and
continue to suffer from it today. Israel has exclusive control over the
supply of water to the entire West Bank, and the amount of water it
supplies to Palestinians falls short of the minimum recommended by the
World Health Organization, and far short of the amount supplied to
Israelis. In this video, Rand ‘Awad, 43, married mother of three, speaks
about living with a water shortage and the many difficulties caused by
the recent cutback.

 

Kh. Humsah is one of dozens of small shepherding and farming communities
scattered throughout the Jordan Valley. It is comprised of about 20
families and located northeast of the Hamra checkpoint. Like other
communities in the Jordan Valley and throughout Area C, Kh. Humsah is
not recognized by the Israeli authorities, which repeatedly demolish
homes, prevent the community from connecting to the water network and
work toward expelling its residents. Community residents must subsist in
the extreme heat of the Jordan Valley, making a meager living off
farming and shepherding, while facing a constant water shortage. Dina
and Abdallah Abu Kabash, parents of four and residents of Kh. Humsah
speak about the difficulties of living with a water shortage, and
constant harassment from the Israeli authorities.

   

In early June, during the month of Ramadan, the Israeli water company,
Mekorot, cut back water supply to several Palestinian communities in the
northern West Bank, including the town of Salfit, which has a
population of about 15,000. These communities suffered from an acute
water shortage throughout the summer, and continue to suffer from it
today. Israel has exclusive control over the supply of water to the
entire West Bank, and the amount of water it supplies to Palestinians
falls short of the minimum recommended by the World Health Organization,
and far short of the amount supplied to Israelis. In this video, Jamal
Shahin, from Salfit, speaks about the severe damage the sudden water
cutback caused his cow farm and dairy factory.

 



Another demo in Ni'ilin.

 



Repost of video of activists & Palestinians confronting soldiers  who invaded house, this time with dialogue translated.

   



Obama & Netanyahu talk for the last time during a UN meeting.

Israel/Palestine News

 

Israel is likely to increase its arms exports now that it cannot use the
aid on its own weapons industry, says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson.

  

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now fighting to remove the
influence of the military and security elite from the political process
now that Israel can no longer finance its arms industry through US aid,
says political economist Shir Hever.

   

In recent months, Israel has stepped up its targeting of Palestinian
human rights defenders. One of those targets is Issa Amro, known for his
engagement in non-violent activism and civil disobedience. Amnesty
International has condemned these attacks, claiming that Issa and others
have been "arrested solely for exercising their rights to freedom of
expression."

Issa: "In our occupied city, we don't have any basic
rights...everyone is a target, every one single stone and tree here is a
target for the Israeli occupation."

 



Palestinians greet Israeli demonstrators outside of Susiya.

   

On 16 August 2016, a sniper seriously wounded Muhammad al-‘Amsi, while
he was standing on the roof of his home during the military raid on
al-Fawwar RC in mid-August. The sniper fired four Two-Two bullets at
al-‘Amsi, immediately after shouting to him, “Where do you want it”?.
Al-‘Amsi was posing no threat to anyone at the time. A photographer with
Palestinian news agency Ma’an, who was standing on a nearby roof,
caught part of the incident on video. Al-'Amsi was taken to al-Ahali
hospital in Hebron for initial treatment, and transferred to the
Ramallah Medical Center due to the severity of his injuries. He
underwent surgery on both legs and remained in hospital for ten days.
The video was edited and released by Ma’an, and B’Tselem has no access
to the raw material.

    

Ni'ilin Friday 16.9..2016 protest against the separation wall cutting
them off from their land, against the occupation and against apartheid

     

Ingrid Jaradat, a lobbyist and expert on Jerusalem affairs discusses
with alternativenews.org Israeli politics on Jerusalem and the problem
of a lack of specific solidarity strategies regarding the city.

Jaradat,
who is a former director of Badil, a civil society organization working
on Palestinian residency rights, states that it is not enough to speack
about occupation and settlements in general because “in the wider
public perception Jerusalem has a separate agenda.”

Speaking
about the Palestinian population in Jerusalem Jaradat says that its
daily concern is about protecting its existence as East Jerusalem is
transformed by the occupation and lose it Arab characteristics. The
Palestinian population is confined to live in enclaves.

Jaradat
also speaks with alternativenews.org about Palestinian resistance. “The
main form of resistance is the routine, a silent attempt to stay in
Jerusalem,” she says as she called for solidarity activities relevant
to Jerusalem and the lives of its Palestinain residents.

“We don’t lack oportunities and targets in Jerusalem,” she concludes.

Israel/Palestine News

     

Today, the Israeli Police forcibly evicted the Kirresh family, a family
of eight including two children, from their home in the Old City of
Occupied East Jerusalem, and transferred the property to an Israeli
settler organization. The Kirresh family has been living on this
property since the 1930s.

          

Phyllis Bennis and Rania Khalek say this will cement Obama's legacy as the most pro-Israel president

     

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Palestinian Authority of seeking to ethnically cleanse the West Bank.
Palestinian and human rights organizations document Israel's ongoing displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
From January to April 2016 Israeli authorities demolished 598 Palestinian structures in the West Bank and displaced 858 people.
In 2015, Israeli authorities demolished 548 Palestinian structures and displaced 787 people.
According
to OCHA, the vast majority of demolitions took place in small
agricultural communities in Area C that are especially vulnerable to
forcible transfer.

  

 



Akram Hasson says  Israel is supporting the al Nusra Front in Syria.

      





Demo in Nil'in.

.

Facing
a travel ban after their permits to leave Gaza through the
Israeli-controlled Erez crossing were denied, on August 6th the musical
group Dawaween performed a protest concert on the strip’s border with a
windswept demilitarized buffer zone in the background.

Israel/Palestine News

 

Yossi Melman reports on the Knesset meeting in Maariv. Key points translated by Ofer Neiman:
Defamation, harassment and threats - the risk in "special operations" against BDS

Israel
is formulating a policy for fighting the boycott movement via the
Ministry of Strategic Affairs. According to concerned officials in the
Ministry of Justice, in view of past experience, it would be better not
to get dragged into adventurous operations.
Netanyahu's statement
that BDS has been defeated was an embarrassment to Minister Gilad Erdan,
whose Ministry of Strategic Affairs is now based on fighting BDS, with a
new staff and a large budget. If Netanyahu is right, the Ministry is
not needed.
In Israel, whose military language, imagery world and
culture pervade all walks of civil society, Erdan's ministry prepares to
face the boycott challenge as if it were a military threat. Sima Vaknin
Gil, the director of the ministry, wants to establish a "community of
combatants".

Iran - out, BDS - in
Gilad Erdan has decided to
focus on BDS because the agreement with Iran is a done deal, and for now
Mossad can only collect data on possible Iranian violations.
Sima
Vaknin Gil told MK Stav Shafir at the Knesset Transparency Committee:
"We want most of the ministry's work to be classified. There are many
sensitivities, and I can't even explain in an open forum why there are
such sensitivities... A major part of what we do stays under the radar".
A scale of efforts

The ministry is divided into three sections: intelligence, awareness (media) and operations.
25
workers have been hired, whose names are classified. The intelligence
section is run by a former investigator/researcher for the "Security
System". The Ministry is assisted by a special unit in the IDF's
intelligence section, and Shabak assists as well.
The Ministry of
Strategic Affairs, via the Ministry of Tourism and Jewish and non-Jewish
groups abroad, has started to fund visits of "public opinion shapers":
journalists, bloggers, film actors, trade union leaders etc. The costs
are high.
At the same time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is
attempting to convince governments to ban boycotts of Israel. A senior
Ministry official says the Boycott Law from 2010, which requires the
plaintiff to prove they have incurred financial damage due to a boycott
call is merely a "defiant" law, and should be replaced by an "efficient"
one.
The Ministry also initiates "pressure" actions to convince
international companies not to boycott Israel. This involves the use of
AIPAC and Hillel in the US, or similar groups in other countries.

The
problem may arise when the operations section, as hinted by Erdan at
the YNET conference on BDS this year, will try to carry out, directly or
indirectly, attack "special ops", which may also be called "black ops".
These may have the form of defamation campaigns, harassment and threats
to the lives of activists in "the boycott movement and
de-legitimization" groups, infringing on, and violating, their privacy
etc.
Last March BDS accused Israeli intelligence of responsibility
for cyber attacks against its website. At the same time, an anonymous
speaker named "Abu Nabil" made threatening phone calls in Sweden to the
family of Palestinian Attorney Nada Kiswanson, active in the al-Hak NGO
in the Hague. Three weeks ago, Amira Hass published a report about this
in Haaretz.
Kiswanson and a Palestinian colleague, had filed, two
weeks prior to the call, a report and a demand that alleged war crimes
during the "Black Friday" events in Rafah, be investigated.
Of
course, no one has assumed responsibility for the "incident" against the
Palestinian lawyer, and no one addressed the BDS campaign's claims that
the Israeli intelligence is running a cyber war against it.

An
inter-ministerial team of Ministry of Justice officials is now examining
various ideas and proposals in order to come with a legal definition of
what de-legitimization is, and what are the dos and don'ts in the
fight.

 

The Jerusalem municipality is promoting a plan to build 2,500 new
housing units to the east of Gilo settlement. The plan encompasses 50
acres near Route 50, one third of which is absentee property -- meaning,
it belongs to Palestinian refugees. In July, the Israeli government also announced the construction of 240 housing units in settlements elsewhere in East Jerusalem.
Since
the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Israel has built more than a dozen
Jewish-only neighborhoods in East Jerusalem for the benefit of 200,000
Israelis settlers. The international community views Israeli settlement construction and expansion as a clear violation of international law.

 



In the South Hebron Hills, an Israeli policeman harasses a Palestinian for filming him.

 

In contradiction of extremely low conviction rates, settler violence
against Palestinians is at least a weekly occurrence in the West Bank
and East Jerusalem. In 2016, there have been an average of 2
incidents of settler violence per week in the West Bank and East
Jerusalem, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs. Incidents of settler violence are
notoriously under reported as victims often fear retaliation by the
Israeli police or their attackers. Moreover, there is little
hope that such complaints will be taken seriously: Israeli human rights
organization Yesh Din determined that a police complaint filed by a
Palestinian in the West Bank has a mere 1.9% chance of being effectively
investigated. Human rights groups say that such negligence on
the part of Israeli authorities constitutes yet another violation of
Israel’s legal obligation to protect the Palestinian population as an
occupying power.

 

On 10 Aug. 2016 there was a fight between Palestinian and settler
children in Hebron. After Israeli Border Police forces broke it up, they
brought in five Palestinian boys - at least two below the age of
criminal responsibility - for an improvised lineup by a settler boy.
This was partially captured on video by an ISM volunteer. The Border
Police also took an 8-year-old from his home in the middle of the night
and the police sought to interrogate him alone. The immense efforts to
locate Palestinians suspected of harming settlers contrast sharply with
the near absence of action to protect Palestinians from violence by
settlers, or to uphold the rights of Palestinian children.

 

The Arab American Institute Foundation hosted "The Untenable Status Quo:
Policy Options for Palestine/Israel in Philadelphia to coincide with
the Democratic National Convention. Delegates, attendees and the Philly
community heard from: Sam Bahour, Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian
Economy; Peter Beinart, columnist and author; Debra DeLee, Americans for
Peace Now and James Zogby, Arab American Institute.

Israel/Palestine News

 



English version of TV7 Israel News for Aug. 31.

 

Interrogated, detained and denied entry by Israel.

Last month,
five U.S. citizens were interrogated and detained by Israeli border
control before being deported and banned without clear explanation.
Israel routinely racially profiles visitors arriving at the borders they
control, which include the occupied Palestinian territories. Hear 3 of
the 5 speak

https://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2016/aug/24/palestinian-refugees-chant-thank-you-to-celtic-fans-for-donations-video

In a video filmed by the Lajee Center, children in Bethlehem thank fans of Celtic Football Club for their recent donations to charities based in Palestine. Celtic supporters have raised more than £130,000 for charities in the region in an attempt to match an impending Uefa fine for displaying Palestinian flags at a Champions League match against an Israeli team. The centre, located in the Aida refugee camp, supports displaced young people
Celtic fans raise more than £130,000 for Palestinian charities after flag protest

So-called liberal Zionists have been settlers in the Kibbutzim,
literally living on top of Palestinian villages, since the very
foundation of the State of Israel. A couple of decades later the settler
movement was initiated by the liberal Zionists of the Labor Party.
Nowadays
they seek to remove these West Bank settlers because of demographic
concerns which have absolutely nothing to do with Palestinians or the
respect for Palestinian rights. They are opposed to the settlements that
they themselves created due to their need to protect an
ethnic-supremacist entity inside '48 (aka "Israel proper").
But then, once in a while, comes some leftist settler in the West Bank and exposes the lie of liberal Zionism...

Filmed near the Sde Bar settlement, east of Bethlehem.
Oct 23rd, 2013.


video thanks to Guy Butavia.
translation thanks to Ofer Neiman.